Out Of Darkness (2022)

FEBRUARY 12, 2024

GENRE: SURVIVAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Having never seen the trailer*, I only knew two things about Out of Darkness when I sat down for it: 1. That it was, alas, not based on the book by Sidney Prescott, and 2. That friends who saw it described it as "boring." But that's not a particularly enlightening description, and it's subjective af to boot. I also know people who think Session 9 is boring, whereas I'm the guy sitting there wishing it was longer. And yet I have found the last couple Michael Bay movies interminable, even though they're certainly not lacking for action sequences. A slow paced movie can reel you in or turn you off depending on so many factors (your mood, the vibe of the crowd, even the presentation) that "boring" is about as useful as identifying the font in the end credits in determining if a movie will be for you.

At any rate, I didn't find it boring. Indeed I was really into it for the first hour, despite the fact that-yes-there weren't a lot of traditional action or scares in that chunk of the film. The plot concerns a group of six nomads in the year 45,000 BC, searching for a new land because the one they left was cursed. They arrive on the shores of this new world looking for strong shelter and game to hunt, only to find it suspiciously barren and the nearest caves a few days' walk away from the beach, a daunting task when they have no food (and one of the two women is pregnant to boot). Will they survive long enough to get there? Should we put too much thought into the fact that the main couple of the group is named Adem and Ave?

That alone could be a compelling tale, but before long it's clear that there's something out there watching them, and eventually it grabs the youngest member and vanishes into the darkness. Since he is the boy's father, Adem (who is also the group's leader, a position a couple others in the group are starting to doubt he deserves) wants to follow, but is convinced to wait until the daylight so that he isn't lost (or worse) as well. As the film proceeds, his role as "heroic leader" begins to diminish, becoming a borderline villain at one point, so again even without the (monster?) out there the movie could have a compelling thrust. The idea of an alpha male being broken down by the pressure of being the leader, his own ego, and his inability to protect that what matters most is certainly something that I could watch for 87 minutes.

(Side note: yes, that is the actual runtime. A glorious gift from the cinema gods. Even with trailers I was home two hours after the start time!)

But no, there is obviously something out there reducing their number, and the movie unfortunately lost me when it was revealed (spoilers ahead, though it's kind of obvious after the second attack scene). It is not an animal or a monster (or a demon, as one member of the group seems to think) but merely Neandrethal people who were there first, and they don't even mean harm. They took the boy, yes (and it's unexplained why they did it in the manner they did; why not wait until daytime and present yourself in a less terrifying fashion?), but not to kill him--they actually brought him back to their shelter and fed him. Our main group's paranoia and mistrust is what gives the movie its body count, so ultimately it's a MESSAGE MOVIE with the rather well-tread idea that maybe we shouldn't just assume "the other" means us harm, and that ultimately we're our own worst enemy. Not that that is an inherently bad idea, but even with the acknowledged/appreciated short length it retroactively makes the movie feel long when it all boils down to the same moral of any dozen Twilight Zone episodes that were an hour shorter.

Plus (still spoilers! Skip to the next paragraph if you want) it denies us prehistoric monsters (or even a badass sabretooth tiger or something along those lines)! I feel we've been really shortchanged over the past decade when it comes to normal sized monsters; we get plenty of Godzilla types but almost nothing when it comes to 10-12 foot long beasties, other than sharks which are way overused. The hints we got about the "creature"--the kidnapping of the kid, the discovery of some giant skeleton and what seems to be enough blood to cover a cliffside, a character's jaw torn straight off--don't really gel with what we learn about it later, so it feels like a cheat on top of a copout. And when it's in favor of a lesson we can get out of a few memes on Twitter (well, maybe not these days), I couldn't help but leave disappointed after such a promising first hour.

On the plus side it looks great even after the script takes a nose dive, and the cast does a fine job of quickly creating six distinct characters (when it's almost all dark and they're all wearing animal skins/furs, it could have been easy to get them mixed up, but I never did) while also speaking a made-up language called Tola, which is based on Arabic and Basque. Since it was on the same screen I saw Silent Night two months ago, I couldn't help but wonder if the movie would have worked just as well without any dialogue at all, leaving grunts and facial expressions as the sole mode of communication. Other than the story of how they got there and why, I can't think of a single moment that required dialogue to really grasp, especially when the dialogue is weirdly anachronistic (there's an F bomb!) or just clunkily spelling out its obvious message. Great score by Adam Janota Bzowski, who also composed Saint Maud (if memory serves the score was one of the few things I liked in that one).

So I get why people were bored, but I wasn't one of them. Instead I was just annoyed by the "twist", as it undid what was working about the movie while also giving me flashbacks to a certain sorta-horror movie from 20 years ago (you can probably guess the one, if not just go look at the box office for 2004 and you'll see it pretty quick), though the context was different (and that movie offered an even more annoying twist later). Still, it's always nice to have an original horror movie in theaters (a foreign one at that!), especially one that mostly delivers: it's nice to look at, has a couple of good jolts, etc. I just wish they hadn't tried to go all "elevated" in the home stretch, as if making a straightforward survival horror movie wasn't good enough and they were hoping to get picked up by A24 instead of a lowly major (Sony, in this instance). Felt weirdly insulting, honestly.

What say you?

*I had to laugh that I uncharacteristically went to the movies on a Monday, because for the past 3-4 months I have had to see the One Love and Madame Web trailers before every single movie I have gone to see, and therefore had to suffer through them again this one last time as both finally opened the following day. I was so close to never having to see them again!

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FTP: The Vault of Horror (1973)

OCTOBER 3, 2023

GENRE: ANTHOLOGY
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I could have sworn I actually saw The Vault of Horror before, but I apparently just got it mixed up with the half dozen other early ‘70s horror anthologies, which explains why I always get Vault questions wrong at horror trivia. To be fair even when I started watching it it seemed like I had already seen it, because the setup was so similar to Tales From The Crypt’s, with a bunch of dudes (well, Crypt had Joan Collins among them) finding themselves grouped together under mysterious circumstances and proceeding to tell their individual stories about how they might have gotten there. I mean it's technically a sequel as it's from the same producers and based on the same old comic series, so I can't fault it for taking a "if it ain't broke..." approach.

Luckily I found it to be just as enjoyable as Tales, so at least it’s worthy of the name. As I’ve said in the past, I tend to like few anthology films as a whole; the hit or miss ratio inherent to such things makes them hard for me to recommend when all is said and done, making me wish you could just extract a segment (say, "The Raft" from Creepshow II) and not deal with the rest. This also makes me less likely to revisit any of them, though since Vault is packaged together with Tales (via Scream Factory) I took another look at that one, and since it had been nearly 16 years since I last saw it (holy crap I’ve been here for a long time) it was basically like a first time watch, and I even enjoyed the story I didn’t like as much the first time around.

As for Vault, the protagonists are even bigger jerks than the ones in Tales, which at least had the good sense to introduce a few sympathetic characters (Peter Cushing’s, for example) to mix along with them. Here the closest we get to a decent person ends up murdering her jerk husband and cutting his corpse into pieces which she then stores in a bunch of labeled jars – hardly a role model. But I was in the right mood for all the crass behavior, so I had a good time cackling at how reprehensible these people were and then cheering for their demises; a movie with no heroes but plenty of crowd-pleasing moments. The first story exemplifies this attitude the best; it’s a pretty short/simple tale of a guy who wants to find his sister regarding the family inheritance, but not to split it – he kills her so he can have it all (he also kills the PI who tracked her down). Then he treats himself to a celebratory dinner, only to discover everyone in the restaurant is a vampire, all of whom proceed to place a valve in his neck and use him as a blood keg. And that’s it! I love it.

The next one is the one I mentioned, where the lady kills her husband – but he had it coming, as he was an insufferable ass who marries this younger woman only to make her miserable by being so obsessively neat and tidy, screaming at her for things like not buying more tomato sauce even though he has a (complicated) checkmark system in place to ensure that things are replaced when used. I was delighted by this one too, but it also made me feel a bit bad, because I’ve definitely scowled at my wife for not telling me we were out of this or that. Guess I won’t ever do that again, so thanks for setting me straight, fifty year old horror movie. (Still, I’m glad she didn’t watch it with me and point it out, as I’d feel worse!)

The next one was the seemingly obligatory weak link, about a jerk magician and his jerk wife going out of their way to show the audience how a rival magician was pulling off his tricks, then killing the man’s daughter in order to steal a “magic rope” trick that appeared to be the real deal. It felt drawn out compared to the others, and the ending was both abrupt and puzzling (a dead character resurfaces with no explanation – magic, I guess?). And the next one wasn’t exactly a slam dunk either, but was at least pretty short, involving a guy being buried alive as part of a scam only for his partner to leave him there to keep all the money. There’s another twist after that, resulting in what’s probably the most comical of the five stories, but it’s too slight to really register as a highlight.

The final one is pretty great though, focusing on an artist who has been told by the critics and dealers that he’s no good, only to discover that they were lying to him in order to sell his (apparently good!) paintings at high prices and not tell him about it. So he strikes a deal with a voodoo doctor that allows him to paint someone, then do something to the painting that will happen in reality to the person depicted in the painting (so if he paints a guy and then lights the painting on fire, the guy will be suddenly immolated). This leads to some amusing death scenes and a howler of an ending, when the guy leaves his own self-portrait out in the open (he can’t put it away or else he feels like he’s suffocating) and it’s destroyed by paint thinner, heh.

Alas, the disc has no real extras (same for Tales) except for an alternate version of the movie which, best I can tell, censors the gory ending of the vampire restaurant story, and also presents it at a different aspect ratio (it was shot open matte, so while the 1.78 image is the one preferred by the filmmakers, the open one actually has more information at the top and bottom). For reasons I can’t discern, one disc has Tales and Vault, with the other version of Vault on a second disc? Why not put both Vault versions together on one disc for easier comparison? Bizarre decision. But that’s it beyond trailers; no historian commentaries or anything like that, which is a shame as it was an interesting trend in the early ‘70s that basically died out, something a historian could have gone over in detail along with pointing out the original Gaines comics the stories came from and such. Oh well.

But hey, it’s the best time of the year for these sort of movies, as they’re fun but fiendish, and also if you’re like me and find yourself too busy to watch too many movies at home, it’s certainly easier to break up your viewing into chunks with an anthology than it is for a traditional feature. So it’s a bad "Pile" movie, because I’m going to keep it, but I’m glad I finally saw Vault (it’s been in said pile for several years, again because I thought I had seen it already and therefore it would be a rewatch) and gave Tales a second look. Plus, having recently seen an anthology where the segments were all over the place with regards to tone and quality, it was nice to watch one with a little more cohesion.

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Men (2022)

MAY 19, 2022

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I am a (straight) white man. I'm sure that's obvious to anyone who's read my nonsense for a while now, but just to be sure it's clear, since "guys like me" are the target of Men, which takes the idea of how we're "all the same" to its absolute extreme by (spoiler for anyone who hasn't seen the trailer, or just suffers from face blindness) writer/director Alex Garland's idea to have all but one man in the film be played by the same actor. It's a fascinating concept, and I could spend the entire review praising the performances of both Rory Kinnear as (well, the title character!) and Jessie Buckley as Harper, the woman who is terrorized, gaslit, menaced, etc by them all after the death of her husband.

Unfortunately, I can't do that. Yes, they are terrific and make the movie worth seeing; Kinnear is so adept at making different characters I suspect someone who hadn't seen the trailer (which makes it clear with a rapid cut montage of all his characters back to back) might not even realize they're all him until the one scene where split screen technology is employed to let a few of them interact, where it seems even a child should be able to pick up on it. One of them is a "m'lady" type with horrid teeth, one's an aggro cop, another is a child (I got real Clifford vibes from that one), one's a soft spoken vicar... they couldn't look/act more different, which is of course part of the point when, as it turns out, they are ultimately all the same. And Buckley (who I am unfamiliar with) has to walk a fine line; we're never sure if she doesn't realize the men are all the same, or simply doesn't care, and that particularly ambiguity is one of the movie's strengths. Similarly, she is playing a tough role of a woman who lost her husband to suicide (so she's grieving!) but said husband was an abusive jerk she was leaving (so she's... glad he's gone? Maybe?). Through Facetime calls with her bestie (or sister? I couldn't tell) we get a bit of her inner turmoil, but otherwise she plays most of the movie just reacting to the increasingly unsettling events around her while maintaining her composure, as if she allowed herself one outburst she might never stop. There's a scene where she does finally let go and it's downright gutwrenching, with Buckley totally selling the idea that this may in fact be the first time she fully broke down since the husband died.

But their performances are kind of all it ultimately has going for it, because it feels oddly stunted, as if they shot a first draft of the script. I wasn't annoyed that I was being targeted, I was annoyed I wasn't made to feel guiltier about my own actions over the years. Let us have it! Instead it's just... well, what I've already said. Men are all the same! Yes, and? It almost feels like Garland could have popped up in the corner like the "Toasties!" guy in Mortal Kombat every ten minutes or so to shout "You're all the same!" without digging deeper or doing much else with the idea. The lone surprise that the trailer didn't reveal is a bravura, rather disgusting trip into body horror territory that highlights most of the film's final ten minutes or so, but it feels like that should have been the midpoint, or at the very least the end of the second act, prompting further developments. Instead it just kind of ends a few minutes later without fanfare; granted the theatrical experience has been curtailed over the past two years, but not since The Turning have I felt an audience genuinely confused that a film ended when it did.

In fact, it prompted me to do something I never do for a movie I planned to review myself: I read other takes, assuming I missed something. Like, imagine how the ending of something like Inception would play if you missed the earlier explanation of the top spinning, or something to that effect. I specifically looked for women's takes on the film, figuring their experiences with us idiots over the years would allow for insight that would go over my head (and I consider myself to be fairly attuned to this sort of thing; I can think of a few male acquaintances who will watch the entire movie, particularly the Vicar scene, without realizing how much of a jerk the guys are) and "unlock" the movie for me. But amusingly, the female takes I read were, on average, less enthused than the males' own responses. So alas, it didn't help much, everyone seems to agree that it was a movie where the ideas were solid but the execution not so much. Even the most positive reviews note that the film is more of an experience than a narrative.

And that's fine! But I prefer the latter, so I couldn't help but feel disappointed, both as a fan of Garland's previous films (Ex Machina and Annihilation) and as a man who wanted the movie to really rake my gender over the coals. I mean really, I can go on Twitter and say something mildly misogynist (as a joke/experiment to be clear!), and get dressed down more effectively in half the time. Instead, I walked out thinking I just saw the first hour of what was a pretty great little old school Hammer-esque "the town is *off*" kind of film, and then an effective makeup FX reel (there's an arm injury that might top the one in Green Room for "THINGS I ABSOLUTELY NEVER WANT TO SEE AGAIN!"), without enough cohesion between the two to come out fully satisfied. In that regard, the film is perfectly successful as a metaphor for men: we have our strong points, but the whole package leaves you feeling underwhelmed and possibly even angry. Your mileage will of course vary, and I hope whatever gender you are, you are able to take more from it than I did.

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His House (2020)

NOVEMBER 6, 2020

GENRE: GHOST
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX)

A friend of mine said she had to stop watching His House one night because it was scaring her too much, which obviously piqued my interest since she was hardly a horror novice. If it was say, my sister, who can't even handle commercials for mainstream horror movies, it'd mean nothing, but a legit horror fan getting to the "had to stop it until later" point? That's something that demands my attention! So I dove in before the positive word of mouth left it with insurmountable expectations, and also before I had a chance to know much about it. I could assume from the title that a house was involved, but that's all I knew when I sat down.

Luckily, my friend wasn't being a dork - there are a couple of top-notch rattlers in the first half hour or so, particularly one that reminded me of the classic "angry stomping ghost is now inside the room" bit from the original Insidious. There aren't as many in the latter half of the film though, as the traditional scares are phased out in favor of some more true life horrors and an intriguing but not particularly frightening specter that ultimately serves as the antagonist. So if you're like my pal and feel that if the first 30 minutes are this scary the rest must be unbearable, relax! You've already cleared the scariest parts

The film centers on Rial (Wunmi Mosaku from Citadel, with which this shares some DNA) and Bol (Sope Dirisu), a pair of Sudanese refugees who have been granted temporary asylum in a rather rundown neighborhood outside of London. They are given meager means to live on and seemingly can't even blink wrong or they get tossed back to Sudan, but they seem relieved all the same. But it's hardly paradise; the house they are given is apparently bigger than normal (some of the case workers note that it's bigger than their own, though it seems like it'd get cramped with a few kids, at least to my eyes) but it's a dump - the front door falls off when they enter for the first time, and the previous tenants left them a maggot-filled pizza on the floor, for example. And worse: there's a ghost!

But it's clear that this isn't a coincidental haunting; the ghost is clearly after them specifically, and only a very dim person would fail to recognize that it has something to do with their daughter, who fell overboard as they made their way across the Mediterranean Sea (along with several other refugees). A series of flashbacks reveal some of the more unsettling parts of their journey, as well as what prompted their escape in the first place, which carries with it a rather shocking reveal that recontextualizes a lot of what we've seen and also why the couple seems to be estranged in the present. It doesn't help that Bol makes efforts to fit in (there's a bit where he buys a shirt he sees on a poster and wears it frequently throughout the film in an attempt to blend) while Rial wants to keep with their customs and remnants of their old life, which Bol thinks might be the source of the haunting.

Long story short there's a lot going on here beyond the usual haunted house stuff; it would actually be fairer to label the film as a drama with some supernatural elements, akin to something like The Eclipse (another one with a banger of a jump scare!) or the recent Relic than Poltergeist or whatever traditional horror movies Netflix will undoubtedly lump it in with. I don't say that as a knock, merely a heads up to adjust your expectations, because at first I found myself getting a bit bored waiting for the scary stuff to ramp up (armed with my friend's "too scary to watch in one sitting" reminder) until I realized that it wasn't really the point. Outside of the aforementioned jolts - which you may or may not even react to - the true scariest part of the movie isn't supernatural related at all. No, it's a flashback where armed militia types massacre a gathering where Rial was present, where she only survived by hiding among her dead friends. In one quick moment we realize that such occurrences aren't out of the ordinary there, hence why they needed to escape. The ghost was actually an improvement.

That said even on a dramatic level it sometimes feels a bit stretched out to hit the 90 minute mark. There are occasional instances of issues with their neighbors (Rial is even mocked and given a "go back where you came from," from a Black youth no less), and Bol seemingly makes a few friends when he goes to a bar to watch a soccer (well, football - it's a UK film!) game, but neither of these things are expanded beyond those respective scenes. Matt Smith pops up in a few scenes as their case worker, but each appearance just had me wondering why they weren't just immediately tossed out of the UK again. In an early scene we are given the impression that they are barely given more "freedom" than prisoners, akin to a parolee having to abide by certain restrictions or else they will be thrown back in jail, but despite tearing their house apart and acting totally crazy (Bol crushes a glass in his hand during one of his visits) they never seem to be in any danger of being removed. If these scenes were just removed, we could assume they hadn't had to check in or something, instead I kept wondering why they were being given so much leeway, which rings false. But hey, now Doctor Who is in the movie, which probably helps it get noticed.

So it's a bit uneven, but overall is definitely worth a watch, and an intriguing debut for director Remi Weekes (who wrote the script along with Felicity Evans and Toby Venables). He gets fantastic performances from his two leads, proves to be an ace with transitions (via a few of Bol's nightmares) and most importantly, doesn't settle for just the usual haunting tropes. I kept thinking that this would have been a perfect "Fantastic Fest movie", in that it took a standard premise and then made something more unique and daring with it, which is kind of a tradition with their selections. And it's probably something I'd enjoy even more a second time around, which is always a plus and truly rare for a genre film.

What say you?

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Unmasked Part 25 (1989)

NOVEMBER 8, 2019

GENRE: COMEDIC, SLASHER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I remember reading about Unmasked Part 25 (aka Hand Of Death) in Fangoria as a young teen, wanting very much to see it but not being able to find it at any of my video stores. So over the years I kind of forgot about it, until Vinegar Syndrome announced they would be releasing it on Blu-ray for the first time, accompanied by a DVD copy since it never hit that format either (at least not in the US). And it had been so long that I had forgotten everything that Fangoria article (or review?) said that made me want to see it, so it was a nice blend of "I really want to see this movie" and "I have no idea what this movie is" - a pretty rare feat.

Luckily it's not a "go in blind" type so I can tell you what it is: a satirical take on the masked slasher movies of the '80s, in particular Jason Voorhees. Our killer, "Jackson", wears a hockey mask that doesn't really resemble Jason's (it kind of looks like the one on the *poster* for New Beginning though) but it's quite obvious he and he alone is the chief inspiration for the character here. They even set the events of the climax on Friday the 13th to hammer it home, ignoring whatever potential jokes they could get out of taking the piss on Freddy or Leatherface. Anyway, he's a Jason-like guy doing his Jason-like thing, but he's getting bored with it - he feels like he's in a rut and only killing randos because that's what is expected of him. But during his latest murder spree he meets a blind woman named Shelly, and rather than kill her (since she can't see, she's not instantly frightened of him) he strikes up a conversation with her and the two fall in love.

From then on it's kind of like Red Dragon's scenes with Reba McClane, as you're left with the rather uneasy feeling of kind of wanting this guy to find peace at last while also constantly worrying that he's going to kill this innocent woman we've gotten to know as opposed to the all-but anonymous jerks he usually offs. But the key difference is that director Anders Palm and writer Mark Cutforth find the humor in the concept, such as when she asks him to engage in rough sex with her and he's quite prudish about it, or when they go to a costume shop and he gets insulted by the idea of her wearing a mask (liking it to how she'd feel if he was pretending to be blind). Eventually his murderous urges start coming back and he feels compelled to do his thing, but for the most part, it's like a weird rom-com bookended by gory slasher scenes.

And yes, GORY. This was notoriously when the MPAA was at their worst for the slasher movies, leaving the likes of New Blood and Jason Takes Manhattan virtually bloodless, and this one was edited for release as well, but the difference is, the producers/studio didn't lose everything like they did for those F13 flicks, allowing Vinegar Syndrome to restore/release the film completely uncut. It was almost kind of disorienting to see how bloody it got at times, because I'm so used to everything from this era being sanitized, and as a bonus the splatter is actually quite well done for the most part, with lots and lots of prosthetics and blood bags doing their heroic duty as Jackson lays waste to two separate groups, with the occasional isolated murder here and there for good measure.

To be fair, the comedy is a bit dated, but it's important to keep in mind that the whole "meta horror" thing hadn't taken off yet. It's not a "spoof" of the films - there are no sight gags or even direct references to the movies we love (even the name Shelly is probably a coincidence, since it was used for a male character in F13 3 - wouldn't they go with Alice or Ginny?), it's closer to a "What if?" kind of scenario, one that might have worked even better if they straight up licensed the Jason character and used him this way. One thing that didn't quite work is that it takes place in London, with Jackson stalking someone's flat in the opening sequence, as opposed to the woods or an isolated home (he does go to one of those at the end, however - though it's more like "we have a really big yard" as opposed to "no one is around for miles"). So it throws off the "let's imagine Jason is getting tired of doing his thing" when he's completely out of his element - he should be kind of excited about the change of pace!

Basically it's a sillier version of something like Behind the Mask, where your love of slashers - and familiarity with their tropes - plays a big part in how much you're enjoying the film. I mean if you absolutely hate "body count" movies (or worse, never saw one) you'd probably find this unbearable, unlike something like Scary Movie which can appeal to a wider audience - this is as niche as it gets. Even the lo-fi look (it was shot on Super 16, swoon!) and plentiful gore lend it credibility that even some straight slashers (especially modern ones) don't bother to earn, and yet it's all in service of a funny (if slightly worn thin by the end) joke. Vinegar's Blu looks fantastic and comes with a pair of commentaries, one with Palm and the other with Cutforth (both moderated by writers), plus the trailer that kind of misleads what the film is ("it's a movie, within a movie, within a movie!" - huh?) and also spoils the ending for some reason - below is a scene instead so you can get an idea of the humor without having the story spoiled. At any rate, it's a nice package for a film that fans - and the curious - would have been happy to finally have at all. No, it won't be for everyone, but if you're a fellow slasher enthusiast like me you'll certainly appreciate the effort.

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Scars Of Dracula (1970)

AUGUST 27, 2019

GENRE: HAMMER, VAMPIRE
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

At long last! I can't recall why I never got around to seeing Scars of Dracula back when this was a daily operated site, since the only other one I missed at the time was the offshoot 7 Golden Vampires (and even that I eventually got to, earlier this year), though I assume it had something to do with availability. But no matter - I can finally say I've seen this entire franchise, albeit completely out of order and spread across so many years that my memories of most entries consist solely of whatever my own review can muster up. I still long for a boxed set that will a. look nice on my shelf and b. ensure that I watch them in order for a second go around (I've only seen one or two of them a second time), but I'm sure the rights issues will keep that from ever happening.

Then again if anyone could pull it off it'd be Scream Factory, since they managed to get all of the Halloweens together and they were spread even further apart I think. Scars is the third of the Hammer Dracula series they've released (after 7 Golden Vampires and Dracula: Prince of Darkness), so they're clearly making efforts to inch us ever closer to some kind of release consistency. Now that they have a tie to Warner Bros (who controls several of the others, including the original Horror of Dracula) there's at least a decent chance they can nab them all eventually, even if they are - like my own viewing experience - released completely out of order.

However there's been an upside to this erratic order, in which I only once managed to watch two of the films in sequence (something unique to this franchise for me; I'm usually a stickler for going in order). Some of the films - in particular this one - are criticized by critics and Hammer faithful for betraying continuity in this or that way, but I was never quite sure where in the history I was, so I never noticed or even really cared much. Apparently at the end of the previous film Dracula was killed in a church, but here his bones are in his castle (where he is resurrected by a bat); no explanation is given for how they got there, but for all I knew there was nothing amiss, so I was able to watch the film by starting off on the right foot, whereas the die-hards were annoyed before the title even came up.

I'm not saying they're "wrong" to be angry - I've certainly gotten my own panties in a bunch about such things in the past (I've mellowed out a lot since). But for me personally, being blind to this kind of thing helped me enjoy the film much more than I might if I were a student of the series and knew exactly where his body should have been, and I can't help but wonder how much more I would have enjoyed something like H20 back in the day if it was the first sequel I had seen, without being grumpy that it was dismissing my beloved H4 and not resolving the cliffhanger in Curse of Michael Myers. There's a pretty believable theory that Hammer wrote the film in a vague way in case Christopher Lee didn't come back, thus making a break from the continuity to start anew with a different incarnation of the character, and then simply didn't care enough to adjust the script accordingly when Lee did in fact return for his fifth outing as the Count.

But I'm glad he did, because it's the most active he's been in one since the original. He talks more here than in the last few combined, I think, and does more Stoker-y things (like climbing on the walls), giving the character (and in turn, Lee himself) a better showcase than most of the other entries, despite whatever issues one might take with how it compares to the others. Yes, it's a bit odd to see him acting so violently here, but I'll take it over him barely appearing or speaking and let everyone else carry the movie. As for the others, it's yet another guy named Paul (the third, at least, in this series), his brother Simon, and some villagers, plus Simon's fiance who fills the obligatory "lady that Dracula is obsessed with" role. I particularly liked the priest (he's not given any name) played by Michael Gwynn, who (SPOILERS FOR 50 YEAR OLD MOVIE AHEAD!) kind of fills the Van Helsing role to some degree, making it a fun shock when he's killed off with 20 or so minutes to go.

It's also got a little more adventure-y action, with both Paul and Simon scaling the castle, a runaway coach scene, etc - it feels like part of Hammer's attempt to modernize the brand, and I bet the film would pair nicely with Captain Kronos (as opposed to House of Frankenstein, the film it was actually shown with upon release). With Lee doing more and all of this other stuff, it's easy to see why it played so well for me, and it's a shame that the Hammer gatekeepers couldn't have much fun with it. Indeed, the commentary by the usual historian, Constantine Nasr, is downright nasty at times as he lambasts the continuity, the violence, Roy Ward Baker's direction, etc. It'd be like me doing one for Freddy's Dead or F13: New Blood: presumably amusing to those who shared my less than glowing opinion of those films, but a bummer and even kind of obnoxious to those who enjoyed them. He does give it credit on occasion (such as the quite good matte painting for the long drop from the castle) and still provides the usual historical background and anecdotes (he even has Baker's copy of the script with him, with handwritten notes and such), so it's not a total waste of time, but I do wish one of the other Hammer folks could have been roped in, assuming at least one of them enjoyed the movie more.

The other commentary is an older one by Lee and Baker, moderated by Marcus Hearn (another Hammer expert). Hearn wasn't even really needed here; the two men rarely pause as they talk about the film, the state of Hammer at the time, etc., while Lee chimes in with other random observations like his favorite Benny Hill sketches (when that show's cast member Bob Todd shows up in a bit part here). As always these British gents are delightfully candid which makes some of their stories bluntly hilarious, and at the very end Lee admits he's never even seen the movie before, so it's just a treasure - I'm glad Scream Factory carried it over from whatever release it was recorded for (in 2001 or so, based on Lee's saying he hasn't made a Hammer film in 25 years as his last one at the time was 1976's To the Devil a Daughter). The transfer is also spectacular; as is often the case perhaps a bit TOO good as you can often see the wires holding the giant bat that frequently attacks our heroes.

I started this franchise in the early days of HMAD, with Brides of Dracula in 2007, and am just now finishing it up, just shy of a full twelve years later. Needless to say, my memories of the ones I watched more than a few years ago are practically non-existent, so I wouldn't begin to try to rank them or anything. That said, re-reading my reviews it seems I was often mildly charmed by the majority of them, with Dracula AD 1972 being the only one I seemed really "into" beyond appreciation for what it was doing at the time it was doing it. Maybe if I watched them all in order I'd feel differently? Who knows. All I know is I had a good time watching this one and was happy to end my Hammer Dracula viewing on a high note. Here's hoping you find it as enjoyable!

What say you?

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Possum (2018)

FEBRUARY 24, 2019

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

I haven't memorized it or anything (in fact I only saw it once) but I absolutely loved Garth Marenghi's Darkplace when I watched its all-too-brief run (six episodes) a few years back, and was thus excited to see what creator Matthew Holness would come up with for his first feature length film, assuming it would have a similar horror/comedy blend. But I quickly realized that Possum was nothing like Darkplace; it'd be like if you watched Elephant Man or The Fly expecting the usual Mel Brooks hijinks, and if anything the film might play better to those who have no idea who Holness is at all. The film has not one note of identifiable humor, and Holness (who also starred in Darkplace, for those uninitiated) remains behind the camera; the only time you'll see him is in the behind the scenes footage on the DVD.

Instead, the film puts Sean Harris in nearly every frame (and often by himself) as Philip, an ex-puppeteer who may or may not be a murderer. The title refers not to the animal, but the name he's given a puppet of a spider that he seems unhealthily attached to, carrying it around with him at all times (though thankfully concealed in a bag) even though he seems to be afraid of it. The nature of this puppet and his connection to it is one of the film's many mysteries, most of which aren't fully spelled out for the audience before the credits roll, so if you're an "I need answers" type this is most certainly not the film for you. It can occasionally be hard to tell what's a dream/hallucination and what is really happening, and there are repeated images that suggest the narrative isn't chronological to boot. Add in the long stretches of silence and other "arty" touches and you have a movie that makes something like The Witch look as simple as a slasher flick.

But that's the narrative. On a "this movie is freaking me out" level, it's a winner - the movie isn't even a full 90 minutes long but it's got enough nightmare fuel to last a week (indeed, it gave me a legit nightmare; a low-key one to be fair, but still). It probably didn't help his (clearly not high) budget, but Holness smartly shot on film, which goes a long way into helping evoke the 70s thrillers he was emulating. On one of the interviews on the DVD he says it's a movie that exists for late night viewing, something he'd want people to stumble upon and be unsettled by - he certainly pulled that off, and I don't think it would really work if it was shot digitally (the recent Ghost Stories was also aiming for this specific feel, but missed in part to its unmistakably modern digital photography). Even the titles recall films of that era; if not for Sean Harris starring and the very, very rare non-period detail (like a television, the odd car, or a day-player's outfit) I could see someone being fooled into thinking it really was some lost indie from 1977.

Harris is terrific, by the way. He's probably most famous as the chilling villain from the last couple of Mission Impossible films, and it's a huge departure from those - he's kind of pathetic and awkward, a far cry from his calculating Solomon Lane. I almost didn't even recognize him at first, and given his reported "method" acting ways I don't envy what he probably put himself through to achieve his performance. It's not a flattering role in any respect, and again he's pretty much the only person in the movie (besides his uncle, who he lives with), so it couldn't have been a fun or easy shoot for him (or anyone around him, depending on how strictly he followed the "rules" of this approach) if he had to remain in character for so much time. Familiar character actor Alun Armstrong is also quite good as his uncle, who seems to be responsible for some of Philip's timidness (to what extent, of course, is one of the film's mysteries), and is pretty much the only other person in the movie who appears more than once. If Holness were to beef up his role a bit, it could even work as a stage production since the uncle never leaves the house (and Philip never seems to stray too far from it).

So as you might have figured out for yourself by now, the movie requires some patience, perhaps a bit TOO much at times, as it's often fairly repetitive. Holness based it on one of his short stories, and the "expand to feature length" seams show, particularly in the middle of the film which seems to be stuck in a cycle of scenes where Philip decides to rid himself of the puppet by ditching it somewhere, only for it to come back (or even retrieve it himself). Since I was already creeped out early, this padded middle section ended up deflating some of that unsettled feeling as opposed to ramping it up, leaving me hoping for a big shock to the system that would send me out feeling - at the very least - as disturbed as I was at the 20-25 minute mark. Your mileage can/will vary of course, since everyone scares differently, but I couldn't help but think maybe taking a page from Audition or something like that and leaving horror out of it for a bit would have helped maintain that unnerved feeling throughout.

Otherwise, as these things go I'd put it up there with Soft For Digging and older fare like Haunts and Magic in the "what is UP with this person?" low-key, methodically-paced horror, and as Holness intended it gives off plenty of that late night syndicated viewing vibe that unfortunately doesn't really exist anymore. Movies like Let's Scare Jessica to Death or Malatesta's Carnival of Blood similarly seemed designed for that very specific audience, but in those cases the films might have actually been found that way by a number of their fans. The best chance something like this has of being "stumbled upon" would probably be if it ended up on Shudder and someone caught it thanks to their (very cool) "Shudder TV" option, which leaves out the scrolling around for something to choose and just has things running nonstop as a regular TV network would. And those people will get the most out of the film, I think, as they won't have any idea or preconceived notion of its content - everyone else, you need to keep your expectations in check (and your phone out of reach for when you might be tempted to grab it) so that its restrained approach can be allowed to deliver.

What say you?

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Tank 432 (2015)

APRIL 11, 2017

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

While I'm neither a scholar or even dedicated fan of Ben Wheatley (I've only seen two of his movies, but Free Fire is one of my most anticipated films of the year, if that makes up for it), the name means enough to me by now to know that whatever the project is, it will be an interesting one. To be fair, Tank 432 (formerly Belly of the Bulldog) is merely executive produced by him, which is often a ceremonial credit one lends to a pal in order to get the film a bit more attention (hey, it worked!), and writer Nick Gillespie is a frequent collaborator of Wheatley's, making his feature debut here. I can't speak as to whether or not that is definitely the case here, but if you thought Wheatley's own films were puzzling and cold, you should steer far clear of this one, as it makes something like Kill List look like the most formulaic studio release in ages.

I don't usually do plot summaries, but I'll break tradition here because, quite frankly, it's pretty much all I can say about the film with any certainty. A group of mercenary soldiers are trying to transport two hooded POWs (if this is even a war) on foot when they come across some corpses and a car that won't start. They make their way further and find a tank, but before they can fully check it out someone starts shooting at them so they dive inside and shut the door, inadvertently trapping themselves. Then they start going through the motions of single-location horror (trust and mental states break down in equal measures) and people start dying. Our lead (Rupert Evans from The Boy) is kind to the prisoners while the rest of the squad is not, and one soldier hates rookies - and now I've also told you everything I learned about the characters in 90 minutes.

To be fair, I am not now nor have I ever been much of a fan of these kind of aloof, "mood above coherence" horror or thriller movies, because I tend to prefer a narrative that I can get a grasp on and characters I can give a shit about (or at least tell apart, which I had trouble doing at first until two of the men were removed from the equation). Nothing wrong with a little mystery, and I don't need every question answered, but this is a movie that starts not unlike a segment in Memento, albeit without the "OK now we will flash back ten minutes so you can see how he ended up in this chase scene" explanations. I actually had to double check the runtime because it seemed like my Blu-ray skipped forward a few minutes, and it's far too late by the time we learn that not knowing what was going on in the first minute was part of the point. That I'm still unsure of what the point WAS is just the cherry on top, I guess. Gillespie based the film on his own short story "The Smith Hill Forest Incident", but I'm not sure if it was ever published, because the only evidence of its existence that I was able to find online was in reviews/press notes for this movie. Perhaps it will yield some clues if he ever releases it, though if it's not in the next few hours, I'll likely forget all about it.

That said, there's JUST enough here to give it a look as long as you're prepared for such rampant ambiguity. As you might expect given the "psychological" tagging, hallucinations are common, and the assorted visuals that accompany them - gas masked specters, flash-forwards of our characters covered in a mysterious orange powder, insects and the like - do their job in unsettling the audience just as the characters are. The claustrophobic setting is also inspired; when I heard the movie involved characters trapped in a tank I assumed that they were "trapped" as in pinned down and not able to get far from it, not literally trapped inside one. Gillespie cheats a bit to give his angles (i.e. the camera is aimed at the right side of Evans' face, but on the reverse shot we can see he's up against the side of the tank and therefore no camera could be there unless that side was removed), but apart from establishing shots used to show time passing he stays inside with everyone, rather than cut to other characters or a command center or anything like that. They're in the tank for a good 45-50 minutes before this approach is abandoned, enough time to be as sick of being in there as they are. The story may be incoherent, but the film as a whole sure allows us to feel the same way its characters do.

Also, I'm not sure if this is a compliment or not (complisult? h/t Community), but since we don't know what's going on or what these folks are all about, the movie is NOT the latest in the endless series of war-set horror films where our heroes are undone by the traumas of war, like Deathwatch, R Point, Below, The Squad, etc. Do these people deserve their fate? Are their pursuers actually the ghosts (real or imagined) of innocent victims of the war they're fighting? Couldn't tell you, so we can say they're NOT and this is different than 90% of horror films with war backdrops. Much like found footage movies about abandoned asylums, I think I've seen enough of those movies, so I was a bit relieved when I realized this was not the latest one. And even if it is, at least it's still different, because those I usually understood and here I was just frequently wondering if I perhaps fell asleep or somehow activated a "shuffle scenes" feature on my Blu-ray player.

But like I said, there are folks who really love those kinds of movies, and they're probably not being satisfied as of late, especially not on a professional level with recognizable actors and actual production value. The actors are fine, the score is quite good and it's never dull to watch, so it technically meets watchability requirements - it just lacked that element that makes some hard to follow movies compelling (see: most David Lynch), where I might want to rewatch a film to see if I could get the answers on a second go around. Here, they didn't give me enough to care to do that, but if I'm not in the target audience I guess it doesn't matter much what I think. You guys can keep making fun of me for liking Shocker or whatever, it's fine.

What say you?

*Yes, war + orange usually means Agent Orange, but if that's what it's supposed to be I think Gillespie looked at the wrong symptoms.

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Howl (2015)

FEBRUARY 1, 2016

GENRE: WEREWOLF
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I've said it plenty of times before, but I don't know if I have regular readers anymore so I'll repeat: if you stick a bunch of strangers together in one location and force them to band together to fight off a common enemy, chances are I'll like it (bonus points if the group includes cops/prisoners). And with The Descent being my favorite horror movie of the '00s (or second to Inside, depends on my mood), it's probably pointless to explain that I enjoyed Howl, which reunites Descent's star (Shauna MacDonald) with its FX creator for a story about, you guessed it, a bunch of strangers stuck in one spot (a disabled train) and forced to band together to fight off a common enemy, in this case werewolves. A B-movie to be sure, but a GOOD B-movie. A B+ movie, if you will.

The aforementioned FX guru, Paul Hyett, made his directorial debut on The Seasoning House, which wasn't really my cup of tea (it focused on a group of woman who were forced to be prostitutes for soldiers, some of them very awful people) but I admired that he went against tradition for his debut, making a movie that centered on character and narrative instead of creatures and other effects. For his followup, he split the difference, directing a story that allowed him to put his considerable FX backdrop (he did all of Neil Marshall's films, Attack the Block, etc.) to good use without losing sight of the characters. Over 90 rather fast-paced minutes, we get to care about the folks on board the doomed train (it hits a deer and they're unable to get it going again due to damage caused by...SOMETHING!), and by focusing more on the chase/evasion parts than the kills for the first 65-70 minutes, it's harder to peg who will live or die (or, at least, the order in which it will happen).

If anything I was kind of disappointed that (spoiler) just about everyone dies. For so much of the movie, Hyett seems more interested in letting the characters bounce off each other and prove their merit (or dickishness) than offing them one by one, with casualties being rare compared to "defend yourself against the monster and get away" types. Hell, even when they all get off the train and try to make it back to town only to get scared back, no one dies - and that's actually a perfectly good place to off someone! Nothing can keep someone from wanting to try to go back outside like seeing one of their fellow passengers get torn to shreds, so the fact that Hyett (and screenwriters Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler) lets them all survive that sequence was rather refreshing. Not to mention more suspenseful; I was so sure someone would die that when hero Ed Speleers was taking time to get back on the train, I wondered if they would pull a Psycho and let him be the first* to go to hammer home the "no one is safe" idea.

Well, they don't do that. Speleers gets back on the train, but one of the other passengers is injured in the scuffle and starts getting sick, so you can probably figure out what's going to happen there. Interestingly, the werewolves are much more man-like than I've usually seen - the injured passenger transforms but it's not the usual "look", with lots of hair and a wolf head and all that. No, it's almost exactly dead center between man and beast, almost like a hairy caveman more than anything else. It's... OK, it's kind of a silly looking design, if I'm being perfectly honest, but I love the attempt at doing something different (and of course, the fact that it's practical), so as long as you don't look too closely at the face (for some reason it made me think of Garbage Pail Kids) it should satisfy anyone looking for some basic creature action. Hyett doesn't blow his wad early - the first couple of attacks are POV-driven, or in one of the movie's best death scenes, from inside the train as the monster outside attempts to pull a passenger through the mostly closed door. Jaws it is not, but most of these things barely top Jaws: The Revenge, so keep your expectations grounded and you'll easily recognize that the movie is doing more right than wrong.

Same goes for the logic. We're told that the nearest station is only a couple miles away, but that might as well be a thousand to the ill-prepared passengers. They're all coming home from work, so it's late, they're tired, and most importantly they have no supplies or anything to defend themselves. Even making a run for it while the werewolf is distracted with bait (one of the elderly passengers; at least, that's what the resident dickhead character keeps suggesting) isn't a sound plan, as (spoiler, though revealed early) he's got buddies out there. So even though no one dies when they first try to make a run for it (before they even know there's anything out there beyond the dead deer), you get why they stay inside for the rest of the movie, and of course there's no cell signal in the spot they've stopped, because come on, it's a horror movie. At this point saying aloud that there isn't a signal where everyone is located is no more necessary than pointing out that a monster has claws. It's just understood.

The ensemble cast is pretty good; Speleers should probably be a bigger star but the failure of Eragon (his first movie, and the central point of the marketing due to his handsome looks) has kept him off the A-list, and now he's probably losing parts to the kid from Kingsman. But he's got the chops and is a notch or two above who we can usually expect from a Syfy-level movie like this (budget-wise, I mean, not quality). MacDonald is a lot of fun as a kind of bitchy career woman, and Elliot Cowan is a great asshole; you ALMOST like the guy at times, because he makes no apologies for his alpha male bullshit and philandering ways. Late in the movie we learn that MacDonald's character actually had an interview to work for him, but when he suggested continuing the application process at his apartment (the one he keeps separate from his wife and children), she left. Normally this would end the scene, with our asshole character put in his place, but instead he doubles down, explaining why he acts like this (in short, he's tired of female execs being trained/counted on and then leaving for months after they have a child, so he wants to know that a woman wants the job badly enough to stoop to his cutthroat level), and you can't help but respect his honesty. You know he'll get his just desserts eventually, so why not let him be as slimy as possible? It's kind of refreshing.

The Blu has about a half hour's worth of behind the scenes material, nothing too interesting or revealing, but I like that they spend time on the coloring/grading process, an oft-overlooked part of the movie's creation (and in some movies' case, a process that's never done at all). Hyett and his FX team also go into some basic detail about the creature design, going deeper into the "half-man" look and offering some amusing behind the scenes footage that shows the full creatures terrorizing the cast while wearing bright green boots (the design has some CGI embellishments). They're OK, basically; if you loved the movie you'll enjoy the extra look at its creation, for sure, but it's hardly essential viewing. Mostly, I'm just happy they offered that much, as the physical disc market continues to dwindle and even big movies have next to nothing included on them (the Poltergeist remake, for example, had not one bit of production-related material on it) it's actually something of a surprise to see anything but the trailer on the "bonus material" section of the Blu menu.

Hyett has another movie in the can already, a period piece that sounds like it's about witchcraft, so that will hopefully be another minor gem from this increasingly dependable filmmaker. There aren't a lot of FX guys who go on to make solid movies, but he's two for two (Seasoning House IS a good movie, but falls into that Serbian Film/Dear Zachary (not horror) category of movies that just bum me out way too much to want to see again), and I like that he's exploring different sub-genres each time out. Maybe he'll rope in ALL of the Descent cast (the cast's chemistry is an oft-underrated aspect of that movie) for a slasher someday! A man can dream...

What say you?

*Sean Pertwee is actually the first to die, as the train's conductor who goes out to investigate what he hit. But I don't think he even speaks an on-screen line before getting offed, so he barely counts as a character. Also, don't watch the movie if you're excited to see Pertwee take on werewolves again, because it's a very poor attempt at stunt casting. Obviously the nameless conductor is going to die. They needed to pull an "Eric Dane in Feast" move with Pertwee to really mess with the audience's expectations.

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The Woman In Black 2: Angel Of Death (2015)

JANUARY 1, 2015

GENRE: GHOST, HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I enjoyed the 2012 Woman In Black, but didn't think it needed a sequel; I certainly didn't think it needed one three years later when the film hasn't exactly remained at the top of our memories - when is the last time you talked about it prior to seeing a poster or trailer for The Woman In Black 2: Angel Of Death? But for what it's worth, it's a perfectly decent followup, offering up the same sort of old-school, fog machine drenched atmosphere and low key thrills that the original did, albeit without that film's primary selling point: Harry Potter as an adult! So what does it bring to the table?

Well, ironically, the proof that they can franchise this thing for quite a while if they want, as rather than make a direct followup (which would be difficult, given the original's ending) they have jumped ahead 40 years and introduced an entirely new set of characters heading to the house. Daniel Radcliffe's character isn't even given the usual "non returning cast member reference" of a story in a newspaper or whatever, and in fact they repeat enough of the backstory that you can watch this one on its own without being lost. I'm not sure if they do as good of a job explaining the current/tide that turns the area into an island every now and then, but otherwise it's as if it was the first film in a series, instead of a sequel (which makes the "2" in the title - a first for Hammer! - rather odd). And since it works, they have license to continue switching time periods for future installments if this one's a hit - the 70s, the present day, even a (sigh) prequel would be acceptable as they've wisely cemented the series as one about the title character instead of any particular hero.

This one's about a lovely schoolteacher named Eve (Phoebe Fox) who is tasked with taking a group of children (whose parents are either fighting in or killed because of World War II) up to the house, as it will serve as a makeshift shelter/school that will hopefully escape enemy bombs. The most recent addition to the group is Edward, whose parents were killed the night before and has become mute as a result, so of course he will be the one the evil ghost will fixate on once they all arrive. Eve takes a particular liking to him as well, for reasons that are obvious but still doled out over time throughout the movie. This is a plot machination that I never quite understood (and was demolished by Film Crit Hulk a couple years back), in that the screenwriters confusingly withhold information about the hero of their movie until the halfway point or so, even though it informs their actions. It's a perfectly good device for secondary characters; indeed, there's a nice scene later in the film where we learn why Eve's boss (the school's headmistress) is such a pain in the ass - Eve learns along with us, and thus it works perfectly. But why do we need a similar reveal for Eve, when she's our surrogate in the narrative? We should know this sort of stuff up front.

Anyway, with 7-8 children and a ghost who makes its victims kill themselves, it's not a spoiler to say that this gets into some rather grim territory, including one such death that's on-screen. Ryan Turek of Shock Till You Drop (well, formerly - he's got a new gig at Blumhouse!) had tipped me off before I saw it, so I found this stuff easier to digest than I would have assumed, as having a child of my own has made me more sensitive to such things (I probably won't even be able to watch Pet Sematary ever again). It helps that the first kid to be offed is a total asshole, and his target (the mute kid, of course) vaguely looked what I imagine my son will look like when he's 6 or 7 - serves you right, asshole kid! I do wish the movie had spent more time with the children instead of the older characters, as we've already covered similar territory with The Awakening, but it's hard to argue wanting to point the camera at Ms. Fox, and rounding out the kids might have made the movie too upsetting when they're put in peril.

But the other benefit is that it might have given the movie more of its own identity. The World War II stuff helps, of course, but once they're in the house (which doesn't appear to have been touched since Radcliffe's character left it) it's hard to remember it's supposed to be the 1940s anyway, which is probably why there's a late-game diversion to an airfield (and increased screentime for the male lead, a fighter pilot with his own reveal). But beyond that, it treads closer to remake than sequel at times, with Eve uncovering the same things about the Woman in Black's tragic past, and even a few of the same damn jump scares! Another bird whacks into a window (with accompanying exaggerated sound FX), and new director Tom Harper shares his predecessor's penchant for closeups of creepy, half broken toys. Again, you can go into this one blind and not get lost, but at times it almost seems like it might be beneficial to do so, as you wouldn't experience so much deja vu.

Then again, after a couple years' worth of found footage and CGI driven supernatural fare, it's refreshing to see a period, low-key piece like this. Hammer never made any haunting type films in its heyday (Night Creatures was a half-exception; the villains were flesh and blood guys posing as ghosts), but the atmosphere alone is very much at home with their older (read: best) stuff - the fog machines, the period setting (their 1950s and 60s films were usually set in the late 19th century; now in 2013 they make one for the 40s - again around 70 years prior), and (unlike the first) a lovely young lady in a major role. And while the neighboring town's presence has been greatly reduced, but they still find enough to do for a strong supporting cast, including actor Adrian Rawlins, who played the lead role in the original British TV production of the first story. There's no jump scare as good as the one in his version (ghost above the bed), but it's still a nice tip of the hat to have him around, and thankfully without any winks (at least, none that I detected).

I also liked that it didn't pull the usual sequel shit of retconning too much information. Especially with haunting movie sequels, there's almost always a character coming in to explain how part of what we learned before was wrong, or "There was ANOTHER child!" or whatever, because the first movie explained what needed to be done to save the day and now they need an excuse for the ghost to be up and about again. But no, it's pretty much as we remember it: the kid drowned, the mom grieved, and now she's a vengeful ghost. This is why changing time periods is helpful - it allows them to have it both ways: a clean slate for some things, but no worry about messing up existing continuity on the other. Hopefully, if the series continues (the theater had a good sized crowd, for what it's worth) they will continue using this approach, rather than dig themselves into a hole like the Paranormal Activity series has done. I get why true anthology films rarely catch on, but there should be nothing to stop them from making a series of mostly unconnected films about a particular house and the spirit that inhabits it, using whatever period they like to tell their otherwise original tale. Just try to cut back on the fake scares, yeah?

What say you?

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In Fear (2013)

MARCH 9, 2014

GENRE: THRILLER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

It's a good thing In Fear had a making of that explained that the bulk of the movie was improvised, because otherwise this entire review would be based on my belief that this had a lousy script. There are some terrific little set-pieces in the movie, but overall it's a repetitive rehash of a few other films (Dead End, The Hitcher, Ils...) with a dumb reveal I'll get into later. It's a fine technical exercise (the majority of the movie is in the car) and the two leads aren't as obnoxious as some folks tend to get in such things, but is that enough?

For me, no. I mean, I was engaged for the first 40 minutes or so, enjoying the simple but effective tale of a couple (Tom and Lucy) driving to a hotel that is off their GPS, with their map being useless and the signs pointing to the hotel seemingly sending them in circles. But after a while it became clear that there wasn't really much to it beyond what we already saw, and my interest kept dwindling. They also blow their "running low on gas" wad way too soon - the light comes on relatively early, and they keep driving and driving without it ever really being an issue. At one point they pull over because they're supposedly just about out, but then something comes up and they drive more! Later the killer actually puts a can of gas in the car for them (heh), but by then they had already strained credibility far too much for a movie that's borderline documentary.

See, as we learn on the making of, there was no real script, just a basic outline. The film was shot chronologically, and the actors didn't know when they'd be pulled out (sort of like Blair Witch, but thankfully without the POV aspect). Director/story-writer Jeremy Lovering even tells of an incident where they got a flat tire and stayed in character as they made an attempt to fix it, assuming it was something that was set up - but it was an honest, unplanned accident. That's kind of a fascinating way to make a horror movie, and perhaps with a bit more of a structure (or more characters) it would work better. Alas, this scene isn't even in the movie anyway - instead we mostly get the two of them driving in circles as we in the audience wait for the next legit scare scene.

The scares are of the Michael Myers' stalking variety - their tormentor plays tricks on them (setting off the car alarm when they get out for a bit - watching the movie late at night as I did, this one was a good jolt) and sticks to the background. In my favorite bit, Tom (played by Fitz from Agents of SHIELD) goes out to take a leak and the killer starts approaching him, only to turn and recede into the darkness when spotted by Lucy. And he makes an aggressive move much quicker than I expected, so that provided another good scare. Alas, it all falls apart soon after that - skip the next paragraph if you don't want anything about the villain spoiled!

A few minutes later, they hit a guy in the road, and he claims to have been previously attacked by the same guy who is after them. If you've ever seen a movie before (even like, Toy Story or something would suffice) you'll know that he's lying and is in fact the bad guy (a real twist would be that he was telling the truth). No more kind of creepy white mask, no more stalking - just the usual mind games that lack any real weight since there's not much to the movie or the characters he's tormenting anyway. There's some incident at a pub that keeps coming up, and the full explanation isn't worth the wait - though it's still an improvement over the reason that they kept going in circles: the bad guy was swapping the signs around! I'm sorry, but most people have an innate sense of direction that should prevent this kind of thing from happening more than once, so I don't buy it. Plus at one point they give up looking for the hotel and decide to drive back to town and STILL end up returning to the same spot multiple times! All signs point to a supernatural explanation, so this was a letdown (a rare occasion where I wish they were ripping off Carnival of Souls again).

It's a bummer. This is the sort of movie that could have been a classic if the third act had delivered, but it just crumbles at that crucial moment, and what Lucy finds at the hotel seems way too elaborate for anything less than a full team of rich geniuses (which this movie doesn't have). I don't know if their improv skills just weren't up to the task or if Lovering didn't have a good idea for the finale to begin with, but either way it just didn't work for me. The Halloween/Strangers fan in me really dug the idea of a stalker/home invasion type scenario in a car, but I can't walk away satisfied from a movie just because the first 40 minutes were hitting my sweet spot. I'd be open to seeing Lovering (or anyone) taking this approach to another film, however - and again, kudos to them for doing something in a documentary fashion but without resorting to found footage. There's hope yet!

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The Godsend (1980)

OCTOBER 10, 2013

GENRE: BRITISH, KILLER KID
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

A good rule of thumb is if Donald Pleasence shows up at your door, acting all Donald Pleasence-like, it's best to just phone the police and lock yourself in the bathroom until rescue (this is even more true since 1995, when he passed away). Well, since she looks a lot like him, the same rule applies to his daughter Angela, who moseys on into the home of the Marlowe family, gives birth, and then disappears, prompting the Marlowes to raise the child as their own alongside their four other children. Thus, she is The Godsend of the title, which of course is an ironic one as you can probably tell by glancing at the genre tagging - but the real surprise is how grim this movie is.

See, most killer kid movies have the little bastard take out a mailman or family friend or something, but usually leave the family unit intact. Someone might end up in a hospital, but instances where they kill one of their siblings or a parent are pretty rare - so I was kind of shocked when young Bonnie killed the youngest Marlowe child (they were sharing a crib!) 10 minutes or so into the movie. And then a few minutes later another one ends up dead (of course, we don't SEE these events and the parents believe them to be accidents, but we know better), which was a bit of a shock as I figured after the first one they'd flash forward a few years to when Bonnie was like 10 or something and would proceed to do the usual killer kid thing of going after randoms.

But no! I won't spoil specifics, but tragedy keeps striking the Marlowe family, and even when you think there's going to be a triumph, screenwriter Olaf Pooley (working off Bernard Taylor's novel) twists the knife one more time, ending the film on the downest of down notes. In fact, it's the insular nature of her vengeful acts that produce the one problem I had with the film - it's kind of slow and repetitive. It takes a while for anyone to suspect that maybe it's not all accidental, so it's death, grief, things get back to normal, death... repeat. And then there are weird jumps in time that give the film a bit of a clunky feel on top of it, something that's probably the result of adapting a full novel into an 86 minute film. But since they can't really show Bonnie doing anything, it's a pretty action-free movie until the final 20 minutes, so while I don't share the "it's boring" opinion I've heard from a few others, I can certainly see where they're coming from.

See - and if you're a longtime reader you know this - I love these kind of movies, and have always felt that there aren't enough of them (this is only the third this year, and one was a lame Children of the Corn sequel). So I'm kind of an easy mark here, and you'll have to take my praise with a grain (or two) of salt. Yes, it's kind of a bore, and the bland filmmaking doesn't help - it's shot rather much like a TV movie and primarily set inside bland locales. But, you know, our murderer is a young child who racks up her first victim when she's only a few months old, so I can forgive everything pretty easily. That said, there really isn't much to it; we never find out much more about Pleasence's character, and there isn't much of a supporting cast. Maybe it WAS a TV movie, I dunno.

The film is featured on Scream Factory's new release titled All Night Horror Marathon, which also features The Outing (which I actually SAW at an all night horror marathon), The Vagrant, which I saw and hated as a kid and am too busy to give it another chance, and finally What's The Matter With Helen?, a 1971 thriller from director Curtis Harrington. More melodrama than horror, it was too damn slow for my tastes, and it didn't help that the poster (and accompanying box art) spoils the film's twist conclusion, which would be akin to making an Empire Strikes Back poster showing a family tree with Vader above Luke and Leia. And it's too clearly a ripoff of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, with the two aging leading ladies (Shelley Winters and Debbie Reynolds in this case) trying to eat the others' scenery - it's even got a showbiz plot for good measure. The final 20 minutes or so are fun in melodramatic shocker kind of way, but getting there is a chore even if you DON'T know what's coming. Helen is the only of the four films that was previously released on DVD (and it was a late swap for another title that they had to pull due to some legal issues), so the set has some novelty if you're a fan of any of the others since you can finally ditch your inferior VHS version, and it's only 9.99 - a price worth paying for any movie you like, in my opinion.

Final note - if nothing else, The Godsend demonstrates the value of the word "The". There's another evil child movie simply called Godsend, and that one sucks. Let this be a lesson to all of you film titlers out there.

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