In short: Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

There are some curious weaknesses to Michael Dougherty’s second Godzilla film that keep it rather behind Legendary’s until now best kaijuverse movie, the grand Kong: Skull Island. Most obviously it repeats the mistake of the first Legendary Godzilla movie and concentrates on the least interesting of its human characters, in this case portrayed by Kyle Chandler giving his sad sack character a particularly whiny note (which sure doesn’t help), while he’s surrounded by a bunch of much more interesting actors involved in much more interesting business (Ken Watanabe! Zhang Ziyi! Bradley Whitford! Vera Farmiga! Millie Bobby Brown! Aisha Hinds!), who all do get their moments to shine but are still not allowed to be a proper ensemble for reasons only known to Dougherty. In other regards, the film is actually much better than the first Godzilla at integrating that pesky human element into the plot.

Now, I could go the way of various mainstream film critics and complain about the mild silliness of that human business, but for an old kaiju hand, the mix of earnest eco monologues, mild action, and big fat McGuffins seems perfectly appropriate to the film, and provides quite a bit of entertainment to the friend of explosions, dimly lit corridors and terribly incompetent security forces too. Plus, while I’m no fan of Chandler’s character or Chandler’s acting here, I do appreciate how the film suggests that both he and his ex-wife have lost their respective marbles in very different ways after the kaiju-induced death of their son, turning both the protagonist and the antagonist of the film into characters who have turned to destructive views and ways of life after contact with something they can barely comprehend. It will need a member of the next generation to teach them better. Which, if you’re not a mainstream movie critic, you just might be able to identify as a couple of the film’s themes.


And, you know, then there’s the actual reason for anyone sane to go into a movie called “Godzilla: King of the Monsters”, and that’s enjoying the monster action as well gawking at the way King Gidorah, Rodan and Mothra have been Americanised. And wouldn’t you know it, the monster action is indeed properly great, usually emphasising the sheer size and mass of the creatures, the way they dwarf the human characters not just physically but conceptually. That last element is of course weakened by a modern Hollywood movie’s need to have its human protagonists actually do something that matters, and go through a character arc but that sort of thing is rather inevitable. On the positive side, the film does again and again provide a feeling of sheer awe and wonder at the kaijus that made all of its failings null and void to me while watching, and still looks pretty damn good weeks later.

Krampus (2015)

Warning: I’m going to spoil the Christmas spirit early in the year (well, and the ending)!

Sarah (Toni Collette) and Tom (Adam Scott) Engel, and their kids Max (Emjay Anthony) and Beth (Stefania LaVie Owen) don’t look forward to the best Christmas in memory. Not only do they expect the Christmas family guests from hell, but there are the usual pressures you get in these rich movie families – he’s working too much, and so on and son forth, you know the drill. Particularly Max has the Christmas blues, which does not improve when one of the kids of the Hated Guests steals and reads aloud his heartfelt letter to Santa Claus (that even contains cheer and goodwill towards them).

So he tears his letter and throws it in the wind, unwittingly summoning Krampus who’ll teach him and his family a lesson about the true Christmas spirit of sacrifice and suffering, hooray. So soon, the small town around the Engels’ home is hit by a freak (and wonderfully, darkly picturesque) snowstorm, all communications to the outside world are cut off, and Krampus and his army of helpers are working through neighbourhood and cast while everyone huddles around the fire in fear of the night like in the olden times. Omi (which is German for granny) Engel (Krista Stadler) understands what’s going on quite early because she herself survived a Krampus attack when she was a kid (as we will be told in an awesome animated sequence), but knowing what’s going on and actually winning a fight against it are different things. On the positive side, a Krampus attack like this is the ideal thing to rebuild a family structure, building bridges between working class and white collar folk, and bringing everyone closer together like in the Christmases of yore. Unfortunately, Krampus doesn’t really care about that sort of thing.

I think Michael Dougherty should just go and make all seasonal horror movies from now on, because going by this and house favourite Trick ‘r Treat, making films which turn pagan traditions surrounding holidays into the stuff of horror movies is his forte. I’d like an Easter werewolf film now, please. While he’s changing a lot about them, Dougherty does have a knack to take one or two of the core ideas of the pagan concepts he’s working from and truly sticking with them quite consequently, like in Trick ‘r Treat where many of the characters suffer horrible fates for somewhat minor rules infractions because they happen to do so on the wrong night. The same goes here, where everything seems set for the characters having learned their valuable lessons and therefore earned to survive through an act of contrition by Max, something that would be perfectly fitting if this were a film about an evil Santa Claus. This being Krampus, though, contrition isn’t worth anything, and punishment is meted out to the completely undeserving.

This leads to the curious (and wonderful) situation of a family-friendly horror comedy with an ending – that also doubles as that rarest of thing known as an effective and tonally consistent kicker ending – that isn’t particularly bloody or violent but that is as dark as they get, with a family that has learned its lesson yet is still doomed for their – again – minor infractions against rules that aren’t even their own. The universe as embodied in Krampus is an asshole. How Lovecraftian is that?

Dougherty packages this subtext in a slick, clever horror movie that works quite well without much blood and gore, full of at once funny and creepy special effects monsters (Krampus’s helpers) used in exceedingly clever and fun ways fighting a bunch of actors in a very good mood. It’s the best of (mostly) bloodless carnage you could ask for. Krampus is one of the exalted kind of horror comedy that takes itself and its audience very seriously, integrating the humour so well it doesn’t take away but enhances the scenes of suspense and horror without anything here feeling like a compromise between the two genres.

Trick 'r Treat (2008)

Oh look what Warner finally bothers to throw on the market. At least they are getting the season right.

Trick 'r Treat consists of four interconnected stories, all taking place at Halloween in a small American town where the holiday is even more dangerous than in Haddonfield. First, we make the acquaintance of Steven Wilcox (Dylan Baker), school principal and seasonal serial killer with a Halloween tic. When he is not busy killing children and hiding their bodies, he also takes care of his little son.

The second story concerns a group of children visiting a rock quarry that is supposedly haunted by the ghosts of a (small) school bus full of children. What starts out as mean way to make fun of a slightly weird girl soon turns a bit more ugly.

The third story tells of the adventures of Laurie (Anna Paquin), a virginal girl pressed into looking for her first time by her big sister. Whatever could go wrong. On Halloween. In this town. When she is dressed as Little Red Riding Hood?

The fourth and final story finds Steven Wilcox' neighbor Mr Kreeg (Brian Cox) confronted with an unwelcome intruder in form of a child (or is it?) with a potato sack mask on its rather pumpkin-shaped head, and let's just say that it is not a friendly visit.

Michael Dougherty's Trick 'r Treat is a fine example of a seasonal horror film. It does not do much that should come as news to anyone even slightly into horror films, but does it with such verve and style that it becomes something heartwarmingly special, in as much as you can call something inspired by the cruel humor of classic EC comics and episodic horror TV heartwarming.

Dougherty (who wrote the excellent second X-Men movie and the problematic Superman Returns for director Bryan Singer, among other big studio things) does a fine job at getting the spirit of the holiday as well as the colours of autumn into his film. Both does of course happen in an idealized way, but I wouldn't want to watch a film about the dreary reality of Halloween or a shitty, grey looking autumn if I could help it. The film is spending much of its energy on getting the feeling just right, and it shows.

Besides the film's merry and very enjoyable acceptance of, and very slight bending of, genre standbys, I did also enjoy the way the stories are interleaved, with small parts of one story drifting into the next and one episode's killer possibly the next one's victim. Excellently, Dougherty manages this without overdoing it to demonstrate his script's cleverness.

Of course, not all episodes in anthology films are created equal. In this case, the Little Red Riding Hood part is the weak one, and this even though Paquin knows how to wear a Little Red Riding Hood outfit and the episode's story is the one playing with genre conventions the most. The problem is the pacing, I think. It's the only part of the movie that takes a little longer than it should and contains some rather useless would-be titilating filler that could have been left on the cutting room floor without the film (or the audience) losing out on anything. It is enough to throw the film's near perfect rhythm off a little, but not enough to be a real problem.

On the acting side of the film, there is nothing truly memorable, but nothing to complain about either. Trick 'r Treat is not the type of film in need of actors deeply steeped in the Method or other semi-religious acting theories, yet it could well be ruined by actors adding too much camp. Since nobody does that here, I'm satisfied.

The same goes for the technical part. Nothing about the film (except for the photography that could be filed under autumn porn, and that's a compliment) is fancy, but everything is unassumingly accomplished and done with conviction.

Which fits perfectly into my view of the picture, because its beauty for me really lies in its simplicity. The plan was obviously to just make a very good Halloween horror film anthology without too much ironic distance to the material, yet with quite a bit of black humor, just like one would wish more horror anthology movies actually were. And by the Big Pumpkinhead, that's what the film delivers.

 

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