Saturday, October 1, 2011
Creep (2007)
Creep is a tired, cliche film. It is hard to follow and does little to inspire one to bother trying to follow it. Where is the vision of today's genre film makers?
The Legend of Hell House (1973)
A bunch of psychics are hired to "exorcise" (for lack of a better term) a house of its "ghosts." Two of the psychics are mediums, a spiritual medium and physical medium. The third psychic is a paranormal physicist who doesn't believe in spirits, just electromagnetic influence. Along for the ride is the physicist's wife. In classic haunted house fashion, things start going wrong and the house starts to fight back. Fun fact: the malevolent spirit Belasco who haunts Hell House shares his name with the demon who kidnapped Illyana Rasputin in 1980s Uncanny X-Men! Thanks, Chris Claremont!
The Omen (1976)
The Omen is another horror classic.
A couple's child is switched at birth with the antichrist. Its a really good satanic thriller and, much like the Shining, though obviously to a lesser extent, deserves its spot in not only horror and genre canon but american filmic canon itself.
A couple's child is switched at birth with the antichrist. Its a really good satanic thriller and, much like the Shining, though obviously to a lesser extent, deserves its spot in not only horror and genre canon but american filmic canon itself.
Them (2006)
First of all, this movie doesn't have any giant ants.
Second of all, this movie is pretty solid. A couple is terrorized in their house by a terrifying unseen force and there is a twist at the end. It sure is a French horror film from the mid-00s. Better than Haute Tension, worse than Irreversible. Definitely worth watching, maybe not a must-see. In a phrase, "tense but shallow."
Third of all, French is probably my favorite romance language.
Second of all, this movie is pretty solid. A couple is terrorized in their house by a terrifying unseen force and there is a twist at the end. It sure is a French horror film from the mid-00s. Better than Haute Tension, worse than Irreversible. Definitely worth watching, maybe not a must-see. In a phrase, "tense but shallow."
Third of all, French is probably my favorite romance language.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Frozen (2010)
Some 20-somethings go skiing and get stuck on a lift. They are trapped there for days. How ever will they survive?
The concept was cool, but in order to be a full length film, it has to have a writer who can back it up. Frozen lacked anything even vaguely resembling competant scriptwritng and that combined with mediocre direction left me feeling really disappointed by it.
There was one neat scene where a character gets their hand frozen to the lift rail and then rips their skin off. That was easily the neatest part of the movie, for whatever that's worth.
The concept was cool, but in order to be a full length film, it has to have a writer who can back it up. Frozen lacked anything even vaguely resembling competant scriptwritng and that combined with mediocre direction left me feeling really disappointed by it.
There was one neat scene where a character gets their hand frozen to the lift rail and then rips their skin off. That was easily the neatest part of the movie, for whatever that's worth.
Hellraiser (1987)
OWNAGE MOVIE
Old house, dead body, puzzle box that is the key to dimensions of unimaginable pleasure and pain, human sacrifice, and torture.
Jesus wept.
Old house, dead body, puzzle box that is the key to dimensions of unimaginable pleasure and pain, human sacrifice, and torture.
Jesus wept.
Monsters (2010)
A photographer and the heiress he was hired to escort back to America are trapped in Mexico with no passport and no money. And also there are a ton of monsters along the border and its about to be Monster season. They hire on with a group of smugglers, sneaking people across the Contaminated Zone.
It was shot with a barebones crew, on-location non-professional supporting actors/extras, and essentially homemade special effects. Its a gorgeous film with really above average acting, writing, pacing, etc. Its just a really good, really fun movie. I liked it.
It was shot with a barebones crew, on-location non-professional supporting actors/extras, and essentially homemade special effects. Its a gorgeous film with really above average acting, writing, pacing, etc. Its just a really good, really fun movie. I liked it.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Masters of Horror: Imprint (2006)
Takashi Miike can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. Imprint is a graphic short feature about abortion and torture and the eponymous imprints that sins leave. There are some actual stomach churning bits in this. Y'all know me, I'm not one to turn away from torture in film, but there's a scene where this girl is being torture that made me close my eyes. This is extremely violent and extremely captivating. Way better than An Incident On and Off a Mountain Road.
The Shining (1980)
What can I say about this film that hasn't already been said?
Its beautiful, haunting, scary, disturbing, fascinating, engrossing, heartfelt, heartbreaking, heart-racing, and hilarious. Kubrick is one of the greatest directors of all time, Jack Nicholson plays a lunatic better than almost anyone else, Shelley Duvall captures the strength and fear of a mother, and the hotel itself is as overbearing and powerful as any building in cinema history. The Shining is an absolute classic in every way.
Its beautiful, haunting, scary, disturbing, fascinating, engrossing, heartfelt, heartbreaking, heart-racing, and hilarious. Kubrick is one of the greatest directors of all time, Jack Nicholson plays a lunatic better than almost anyone else, Shelley Duvall captures the strength and fear of a mother, and the hotel itself is as overbearing and powerful as any building in cinema history. The Shining is an absolute classic in every way.
Exam (2010)
Eight people are locked in a room, given three simple rules, and told that the "winner" would be hired by the faceless corporation that brought them there. These eight people then turn on each other and fight tooth-and-nail for the open position. The qualifications for "winning" are never told to the participants and they slowly start to eliminate themselves.
In the end, this film is just interesting enough to sustain itself, no more, no less. There's nothing earth-shattering about the premise or the execution and the acting is average enough to be completely unremarkable. This is easily one of the most mediocre movies I've ever seen. But then again I went into it expecting Cube so maybe I'm biased.
In the end, this film is just interesting enough to sustain itself, no more, no less. There's nothing earth-shattering about the premise or the execution and the acting is average enough to be completely unremarkable. This is easily one of the most mediocre movies I've ever seen. But then again I went into it expecting Cube so maybe I'm biased.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Paranormal Entity (2009)
Welp I sure havent done this in a long time. I hope I can remember how. Step one, type as fast as possible. Step two, miss important plot developments because you are trying to think of a joke. Step three, type so fast jokes no longer exist. I want everyone to know that when I do these, and I type in something ludicrous that happens, I am still watching the movie. I am also pounding on the keyboard and literally yelling "WHAT" at my screen. This is why the write ups are actually incomprehensible.
Once more into the brink.
What I Knew: Asylum. Mockbuster of one of my least favorite movies of all time. Either going to be completely unwatchable or stellar in an unironic way. But which one??? There's only one way to find out.
What I Got:
A 911 Call. Thomas Finley. His family is dead and they killed her. Cinema Verite owns but it doesnt own if you have Parkinsons. Thomas Finley has Parkinsons apparently. He is introducing us to his family, his mom and sister. He put cameras in his mom and sister's room. Because a psychic told him to. Oh, text box. Thomas was charged with the rape and murder of his sister Samantha and a psychic and then killed himself in prison. This film is billed as found footage from his attic. Mirror shot of Finley and he looks like a douchenozzle. His room is a mess. His house is even HENRY-er than the Paranormal Activity house. His sister has a crucifix over her bed and a camera pointing toward it. His mom is catatonic at this point, stroking a sock.
NIGHT ONE. The sister's room. This movie is already making me uncomfortable. I don't want to watch these women peacefully sleep. The fireplace in the living room is also peacefully sleeping. A phone rings. Answering machine picks up. I hope its not the Dead Tone guy! There's no message left. Come morning, sister is making breakfast while Thomas annoys her. 'Especially when you say my food looks like vomit. That makes me happy. That makes me great.' There is some great verbal sparring here. Tommy thinks the house is haunted by their dead dad I guess. Maybe thats why the mom was stroking a sock. She freaks out when he confronts her about it and she makes him turn the camera off.
Cut to a confessional. The dad, David, was killed a car accident. The mom now pretends to talk to him. At a "wacky store," an old woman told her she could talk to the dead via writing to them. So she did. So far the acting isn't nearly as terrible as the other Asylum pictures I've seen. After the mom did the writing experiment, weird things started happening! Bad stuff! To Samantha! Oh man, I just realized why this is called Paranormal Entity. That's kind of genius. Sick double mockbuster. The mom is adamant that her husband's ghost did not rape Samantha.
Living room. A weird sound occurs. Everyone dizzily rushes off to check it out. A glass flew out of the cabinet and broke itself on the ground. Ghosts are foot, dear readers, supernatural happenings are a must. Tommy assures Samantha he'll protect her.
NIGHT TWO. THE TV TURNED ITSELF ON. THE TV TURNED ITSELF ON. Samantha's crucifix gets knocked off the wall.
In the morning, Thomas and Samantha look incredulously at the crucifix. Thomas gruffly hangs it back up while nearly knocking the camera against the wall. Thomas is trying to rationalize the cross falling by itself. Samantha responds to this with, and I quote, 'Square things don't roll.' The mom gets mad at Thomas for rationalizing. Just because a cross fell down doesn't mean a ghost did it! Thomas swears. The mom gets mad at him for swearing. A phone rings. Thomas finally picks it up. Its a phonecall for someone who doesn't live there anymore! Eery. The mom storms off, I don't know why. If she didn't storm off when Thomas swore why would she storm off when Thomas was on the phone?
Later on Thomas goes looking for his sister and finds her underwear drawer instead. Inside the drawer he finds her diary, which is written in gigantic print. "PLEASE HELP GOD! WHERE ARE YOU???" there's also a scary drawing of a demon with an inverted cross for eyebrows. Thomas then tracks his sister down in the bathroom where he confronts her with a camera. They have a weird relationship. I'm starting to think he did rape and murder his sister. He apologizes for yelling at her earlier. Things are just getting too crazy for Thomas to handle! They make up. His sister looks like a young, bustier Jennifer Carpenter.
NIGHT FIVE. A LAMP TURNS ITSELF ON. The mom calls out for her dead husband. She gets out of bed and wanders into the dark hallway and down to the living room. Remember, at night there are only three cameras: Samantha's room, Mom's room, and Living's room. The mom starts writing to contact David. In the morning, Samantha starts screaming out for Thomas. Someone wrote "UC" on the table in the middle of the night! What could it mean?
Mom is on her laptop. I wonder if she is also watching a terrible movie and summarizing it for her blog. Haha, oh she actually is. She's watching herself the night before, writing in the living room. She doesn't remember doing it at all. Doesn't remember getting up, writing on the table, writing additional things on a paper, or going back to bed. It's 'pretty freaky, mom!' Mom is afraid she's going crazy. Thomas thinks the house is sick. A doctor is coming over as soon as he gets back from vacation.
Samantha confessional time. At first, she felt a presence while she was sleeping but it quickly escalated into sleep paralysis. And then something hit her in the chest like a ton of bricks to pin her down. So she was magically paralyzed and also being pinned down by a ghost. But then she got up and walked over to the light switch to find an empty room. She's got a lot of PTSD symptoms going on.
NIGHT SIX. Samantha's bedroom door opens. $20 says its Thomas. Something nudges the camera and then covers the lens. Samantha gets attacked and screams for Thomas but the door is locked. I guess he tries really hard and it opens to find Samantha alone in her room.
In the morning, the mom is on the phone with the aforementioned doctor. She gives him an eight digit phone number. Mom and Sam then go out while Thomas reviews the footage from the last night on his IBM ThinkPad from 2001. Samantha knocks and yells Thomas but when Thomas opens his door, she's still gone. Her voice keeps calling for Thomas from her room. He opens her closet and is startled by the camera. He starts his inspection and finds something weird under her pillow. The weird thing he finds is the piece of paper his mom was writing on on night five. The paper, combined with the writing on the table, reads "MARON." I don't know.
NIGHT SEVEN presumably, I missed the card. A phone rings out. Answering machine picks up. It sounds like whispers but I'm sincerely not sure there were any. I think my mind is playing tricks on me. The mom hears loud banging noises and starts screaming. The noises are coming from the attic. None of the lights in the house are working and everyone is really scared. A cabinet door shuts. 'There's something in the room with us,' Thomas screams as the television roars to life. Thomas hears footsteps and looks at the ceiling. There are footprints on the ceiling. He follows them. They lead him to a room but the door slams right as he's about to enter. The tv turns on and the phone starts ringing. Samantha bursts into tears.
Morning time, the footprints are still there on the ceiling. They are made of ash, or so Thomas tells us. The footprints lead into Samantha's room where the crucifix was torn from the wall yet again. The footprints lead to her door but don't continue in. Except on her bed. Thomas finds the crucifix on the otherside of the room. Square things don't roll. Thomas puts the camera down in what I feel like is supposed to be an allusion to the assassination of jesse james by the coward robert ford, except Thomas is entirely out of frame. Thomas starts tracing the footprints backwards from her room. He is trying to find their point of origin. They head downstairs to a like industrial looking door. Behind that door is a dumped out urn with foot prints in it. It's his dad's ashes!! He drops the camera again.
Later, Thomas starts trying to clean the footprints off the ceiling. Ah now here comes the famous blender shot. Yes folks, its a two minute shot, one take, of a blender. Meanwhile, off screen, Thomas listens to the answering machine message from last night. It's just static. I still think I hear voices in it. Oh no, something moved the camera to capture both the blender and the coffee machine. Fade to black.
That night, Thomas finds his mom and his sister scared and sleepless in the living room. Thomas suggests they go to a motel to sleep until the doctor gets there. His mom says that she's going to stand up to the ghost and refuses to let it push her out of her own home! Thomas offers to stay there alone and tape the house by himself until they come back. The mom then backs down and takes Samantha to a hotel. Thomas promises to leave if something really bad happens to him. I'm still boggled about how they managed to make a sequel to Entity while still making a mockbuster. They leave and thomas is now alone. He goes through his tool box which is apparently stuff you make traps out of. Seriously, there's just like duct tape and lead pipes and fishing line and bells in there. So, Thomas makes some tripwires with bells attached and strings them across important doorways. He turns the cameras on for the night and checks the doors and windows. It would be much nicer if this film was better lit. I understand the limitations of their budget and the aesthetic they're trying to achieve/recreate but really this one thing would vastly improve my enjoyment of the movie. Thomas has been setting the cameras and checking the doors for minutes now, its been longer than the Blender Shot.
NIGHT EIGHT. Thomas' foot is in front of his handicam that he has pointed towards the hallway. He hears a noise, picks up the camera, and investigates. The hallway bell didn't get set off. He checks Sam's room and a chair slides into the bell. He scampers down the hallway and the hallway bell snaps off its fishing line and flies toward him. He scampers further into what I can only assume is a bathroom while something chases and bangs on the door. The phone rings and Thomas, the idiot he is, opens the door with some kind of monster outside of it to pick it up. Mom is calling Thomas. She says it followed her! Thomas tells her to come home as fast as she can.
They get home soon and Thomas lets them in. The mom repeats, 'it followed us to the hotel.' It was in the room with them, in the bed, and it attacked Samantha. Samantha looks exhausted and in a deal of pain, physically and emotionally. Mom and Samantha crawl into bed while Mom tells Thomas and the camera what happened. She felt something was breathing in her ear. She looked at Samantha and it looked like something was pinning her down again and then that something dragged Sam off the bed. The mom feels hopeless and powerless in the face of their enemy.
NIGHT THIRTEEN. Thomas goes to check on Samantha before she goes to sleep. As she drifts off, her blankets are slipped off, revealing her in her underwear. Thomas is sitting out side of her bedroom keeping guard, I guess. He hears her call his name and he heads out into her room to find her missing. He starts to hear banging again as he starts to hunt for her. She's nowhere to be found in the house but the front door is open. Thomas heads outside, calling her name. He creeps around a big boulder that is apparently just chilling in his front yard. This scene is pretty effective. It feels like we are lost in a forest. Really getting a Blair Witchy vibe from this maroon wandering around his front yard. He decides to head back inside. Once there, he finds that the attic door is open and the ladder is extended. Thomas has only one choice, go into the scariest room in the house. He starts to climb the ladder and gets immediately out of breath. This dude is completely gassed by the fifth step. The attic seems empty. The central air unit looks like a cyberpunk octopus. What is a cinderblock doing in the attic? Thomas finds Samantha standing in the corner of the attic, staring into space with her back to him. Thomas turns her aroudn and her eyes are wide open. Thomas jerks her and she blinks, waking up. She has no idea how she got up in the attic.
That afternoon, Samantha is sleeping on the couch when Thomas comes to check on her. She is non-respondant. Thomas calls a Mrs. McKenzie, the previous owner of the house. He asks her if anyone named "MARON" died in the house. She doesn't know what he's talking about. Samantha starts screaming. She's taking a bath and screaming. I guess a ghost attacked her. Entity was really a great movie. Thanks for reminding me, Paranormal Entity.
Mom is on the phone with someone, trying to get help for Samantha. She's asking whoever she's on the phone with for a medication. I have no idea what the medication would be for or who would take it. Meanwhile, Thomas checks up on Sam again but she's sleeping. You'd think after getting attacked by ghosts like thirteen times, you could stop sleeping alone. Thomas goes to tuck her in and notices bruises on her thighs. He then hears his mom crying. She's lying on the floor by her bed nursing a tumbler of whiskey. She blames herself for Samantha's condition.
NIGHT SIXTEEN. Mom passed out fully dressed. A bunch of loud bangs rouse her from sleep. She sits up, her door spookily opens, and she makes her way from her room to the living room again. Just like night five. Except this time, instead of going into the living room, she just stands in the hallway way too long for it to remain interesting. Somewhere between the hallway and the living room she picked up a knife. Her bedroom door slams. This wakes Thomas up and he finds his mom standing in front of him, having slit her wrists.
NIGHT TWENTY THREE. Thomas is silhouetted like a criminal in one of those exposes on Dateline. His mom is in the hospital on suicide watch. Thomas feels guilty about neglecting his mom in favor of ghost hunting, so he's shooting her a monologue as an apology. Cut to Samantha sitting on the couch and Thomas filming her. The door knocks and the lights flicker. At the door is the doctor the mom had been calling. If he could have, he would have been there sooner. The doctor wants to investigate Samantha's room. The doctor is just wandering around looking 'mystical.' I wish he was looking 'Mystikal' because this movie needs a rap number and what better than Shake That Ass imo.
The doctor comes to some conclusions and lets them know the thing haunting them will follow the two of them. There is a powerful negative presence in the house and its attracted to Samantha. The doctor thinks that the mom, in trying to contact the dead dad, invited in an evil entity who possessed the spirit of the dead dad in order to rape and murder Sam. Thomas shows the doctor the writing on the paper and the table. MARON is germanic for nightmare. A nightmare is an evil spirit who attacks women while they sleep and it is similar to the incubus who rapes women while they sleep. Fade to black.
Samantha is screaming, screaming, screaming. Thomas is screaming. The doctor is lying dead on the ground. Samantha is still screaming and Thomas has gone hunting for her. Samantha is being tortured in her room. She gags and something goes thud. More and more things keep going thud. Thomas picks up the camera and Samantha is dead. Some text scrolls. Sam is dead, the mom killed herself for good, Thomas got arrested, etc. This is the longest pre-credits black screen I have ever seen. Haha, there are no credits. Just the THIS IS FICTIONAL warning and (c) Asylum.
How I Felt:
I sincerely liked this movie much better than Paranormal Activity. The addition of sexuality to the film did not harm it. Its been a long time since I last watched The Entity, the 1982 Sidney J. Furie film about ghost rape, but I remember liking it a lot too. A lot more happened in this movie than in Paranormal Activity too. It was a lot more "ghosts doing spooky stuff" and a lot less "lifestyles of the HENRY and boring." The acting was bad but not lifeless like the other Asylum films I've seen and the handicam gimmick played heavily in the film's favor. I'm predisposed to love cinema verite and found footage movies and that style of film making can be used effectively to hide a lot of flaws in filmmaking, acting, directing, continuity, etc.
I was wrong about it being GREAT or TERRIBLE as it was squarely in between, but it definitely was not bad. Further more, watching it and typing about it was really fun. I forgot how much I enjoyed that bit.
Sequel:
Its not necessary but I'd watch one if it was on Netflix Instant.
Once more into the brink.
What I Knew: Asylum. Mockbuster of one of my least favorite movies of all time. Either going to be completely unwatchable or stellar in an unironic way. But which one??? There's only one way to find out.
What I Got:
A 911 Call. Thomas Finley. His family is dead and they killed her. Cinema Verite owns but it doesnt own if you have Parkinsons. Thomas Finley has Parkinsons apparently. He is introducing us to his family, his mom and sister. He put cameras in his mom and sister's room. Because a psychic told him to. Oh, text box. Thomas was charged with the rape and murder of his sister Samantha and a psychic and then killed himself in prison. This film is billed as found footage from his attic. Mirror shot of Finley and he looks like a douchenozzle. His room is a mess. His house is even HENRY-er than the Paranormal Activity house. His sister has a crucifix over her bed and a camera pointing toward it. His mom is catatonic at this point, stroking a sock.
NIGHT ONE. The sister's room. This movie is already making me uncomfortable. I don't want to watch these women peacefully sleep. The fireplace in the living room is also peacefully sleeping. A phone rings. Answering machine picks up. I hope its not the Dead Tone guy! There's no message left. Come morning, sister is making breakfast while Thomas annoys her. 'Especially when you say my food looks like vomit. That makes me happy. That makes me great.' There is some great verbal sparring here. Tommy thinks the house is haunted by their dead dad I guess. Maybe thats why the mom was stroking a sock. She freaks out when he confronts her about it and she makes him turn the camera off.
Cut to a confessional. The dad, David, was killed a car accident. The mom now pretends to talk to him. At a "wacky store," an old woman told her she could talk to the dead via writing to them. So she did. So far the acting isn't nearly as terrible as the other Asylum pictures I've seen. After the mom did the writing experiment, weird things started happening! Bad stuff! To Samantha! Oh man, I just realized why this is called Paranormal Entity. That's kind of genius. Sick double mockbuster. The mom is adamant that her husband's ghost did not rape Samantha.
Living room. A weird sound occurs. Everyone dizzily rushes off to check it out. A glass flew out of the cabinet and broke itself on the ground. Ghosts are foot, dear readers, supernatural happenings are a must. Tommy assures Samantha he'll protect her.
NIGHT TWO. THE TV TURNED ITSELF ON. THE TV TURNED ITSELF ON. Samantha's crucifix gets knocked off the wall.
In the morning, Thomas and Samantha look incredulously at the crucifix. Thomas gruffly hangs it back up while nearly knocking the camera against the wall. Thomas is trying to rationalize the cross falling by itself. Samantha responds to this with, and I quote, 'Square things don't roll.' The mom gets mad at Thomas for rationalizing. Just because a cross fell down doesn't mean a ghost did it! Thomas swears. The mom gets mad at him for swearing. A phone rings. Thomas finally picks it up. Its a phonecall for someone who doesn't live there anymore! Eery. The mom storms off, I don't know why. If she didn't storm off when Thomas swore why would she storm off when Thomas was on the phone?
Later on Thomas goes looking for his sister and finds her underwear drawer instead. Inside the drawer he finds her diary, which is written in gigantic print. "PLEASE HELP GOD! WHERE ARE YOU???" there's also a scary drawing of a demon with an inverted cross for eyebrows. Thomas then tracks his sister down in the bathroom where he confronts her with a camera. They have a weird relationship. I'm starting to think he did rape and murder his sister. He apologizes for yelling at her earlier. Things are just getting too crazy for Thomas to handle! They make up. His sister looks like a young, bustier Jennifer Carpenter.
NIGHT FIVE. A LAMP TURNS ITSELF ON. The mom calls out for her dead husband. She gets out of bed and wanders into the dark hallway and down to the living room. Remember, at night there are only three cameras: Samantha's room, Mom's room, and Living's room. The mom starts writing to contact David. In the morning, Samantha starts screaming out for Thomas. Someone wrote "UC" on the table in the middle of the night! What could it mean?
Mom is on her laptop. I wonder if she is also watching a terrible movie and summarizing it for her blog. Haha, oh she actually is. She's watching herself the night before, writing in the living room. She doesn't remember doing it at all. Doesn't remember getting up, writing on the table, writing additional things on a paper, or going back to bed. It's 'pretty freaky, mom!' Mom is afraid she's going crazy. Thomas thinks the house is sick. A doctor is coming over as soon as he gets back from vacation.
Samantha confessional time. At first, she felt a presence while she was sleeping but it quickly escalated into sleep paralysis. And then something hit her in the chest like a ton of bricks to pin her down. So she was magically paralyzed and also being pinned down by a ghost. But then she got up and walked over to the light switch to find an empty room. She's got a lot of PTSD symptoms going on.
NIGHT SIX. Samantha's bedroom door opens. $20 says its Thomas. Something nudges the camera and then covers the lens. Samantha gets attacked and screams for Thomas but the door is locked. I guess he tries really hard and it opens to find Samantha alone in her room.
In the morning, the mom is on the phone with the aforementioned doctor. She gives him an eight digit phone number. Mom and Sam then go out while Thomas reviews the footage from the last night on his IBM ThinkPad from 2001. Samantha knocks and yells Thomas but when Thomas opens his door, she's still gone. Her voice keeps calling for Thomas from her room. He opens her closet and is startled by the camera. He starts his inspection and finds something weird under her pillow. The weird thing he finds is the piece of paper his mom was writing on on night five. The paper, combined with the writing on the table, reads "MARON." I don't know.
NIGHT SEVEN presumably, I missed the card. A phone rings out. Answering machine picks up. It sounds like whispers but I'm sincerely not sure there were any. I think my mind is playing tricks on me. The mom hears loud banging noises and starts screaming. The noises are coming from the attic. None of the lights in the house are working and everyone is really scared. A cabinet door shuts. 'There's something in the room with us,' Thomas screams as the television roars to life. Thomas hears footsteps and looks at the ceiling. There are footprints on the ceiling. He follows them. They lead him to a room but the door slams right as he's about to enter. The tv turns on and the phone starts ringing. Samantha bursts into tears.
Morning time, the footprints are still there on the ceiling. They are made of ash, or so Thomas tells us. The footprints lead into Samantha's room where the crucifix was torn from the wall yet again. The footprints lead to her door but don't continue in. Except on her bed. Thomas finds the crucifix on the otherside of the room. Square things don't roll. Thomas puts the camera down in what I feel like is supposed to be an allusion to the assassination of jesse james by the coward robert ford, except Thomas is entirely out of frame. Thomas starts tracing the footprints backwards from her room. He is trying to find their point of origin. They head downstairs to a like industrial looking door. Behind that door is a dumped out urn with foot prints in it. It's his dad's ashes!! He drops the camera again.
Later, Thomas starts trying to clean the footprints off the ceiling. Ah now here comes the famous blender shot. Yes folks, its a two minute shot, one take, of a blender. Meanwhile, off screen, Thomas listens to the answering machine message from last night. It's just static. I still think I hear voices in it. Oh no, something moved the camera to capture both the blender and the coffee machine. Fade to black.
That night, Thomas finds his mom and his sister scared and sleepless in the living room. Thomas suggests they go to a motel to sleep until the doctor gets there. His mom says that she's going to stand up to the ghost and refuses to let it push her out of her own home! Thomas offers to stay there alone and tape the house by himself until they come back. The mom then backs down and takes Samantha to a hotel. Thomas promises to leave if something really bad happens to him. I'm still boggled about how they managed to make a sequel to Entity while still making a mockbuster. They leave and thomas is now alone. He goes through his tool box which is apparently stuff you make traps out of. Seriously, there's just like duct tape and lead pipes and fishing line and bells in there. So, Thomas makes some tripwires with bells attached and strings them across important doorways. He turns the cameras on for the night and checks the doors and windows. It would be much nicer if this film was better lit. I understand the limitations of their budget and the aesthetic they're trying to achieve/recreate but really this one thing would vastly improve my enjoyment of the movie. Thomas has been setting the cameras and checking the doors for minutes now, its been longer than the Blender Shot.
NIGHT EIGHT. Thomas' foot is in front of his handicam that he has pointed towards the hallway. He hears a noise, picks up the camera, and investigates. The hallway bell didn't get set off. He checks Sam's room and a chair slides into the bell. He scampers down the hallway and the hallway bell snaps off its fishing line and flies toward him. He scampers further into what I can only assume is a bathroom while something chases and bangs on the door. The phone rings and Thomas, the idiot he is, opens the door with some kind of monster outside of it to pick it up. Mom is calling Thomas. She says it followed her! Thomas tells her to come home as fast as she can.
They get home soon and Thomas lets them in. The mom repeats, 'it followed us to the hotel.' It was in the room with them, in the bed, and it attacked Samantha. Samantha looks exhausted and in a deal of pain, physically and emotionally. Mom and Samantha crawl into bed while Mom tells Thomas and the camera what happened. She felt something was breathing in her ear. She looked at Samantha and it looked like something was pinning her down again and then that something dragged Sam off the bed. The mom feels hopeless and powerless in the face of their enemy.
NIGHT THIRTEEN. Thomas goes to check on Samantha before she goes to sleep. As she drifts off, her blankets are slipped off, revealing her in her underwear. Thomas is sitting out side of her bedroom keeping guard, I guess. He hears her call his name and he heads out into her room to find her missing. He starts to hear banging again as he starts to hunt for her. She's nowhere to be found in the house but the front door is open. Thomas heads outside, calling her name. He creeps around a big boulder that is apparently just chilling in his front yard. This scene is pretty effective. It feels like we are lost in a forest. Really getting a Blair Witchy vibe from this maroon wandering around his front yard. He decides to head back inside. Once there, he finds that the attic door is open and the ladder is extended. Thomas has only one choice, go into the scariest room in the house. He starts to climb the ladder and gets immediately out of breath. This dude is completely gassed by the fifth step. The attic seems empty. The central air unit looks like a cyberpunk octopus. What is a cinderblock doing in the attic? Thomas finds Samantha standing in the corner of the attic, staring into space with her back to him. Thomas turns her aroudn and her eyes are wide open. Thomas jerks her and she blinks, waking up. She has no idea how she got up in the attic.
That afternoon, Samantha is sleeping on the couch when Thomas comes to check on her. She is non-respondant. Thomas calls a Mrs. McKenzie, the previous owner of the house. He asks her if anyone named "MARON" died in the house. She doesn't know what he's talking about. Samantha starts screaming. She's taking a bath and screaming. I guess a ghost attacked her. Entity was really a great movie. Thanks for reminding me, Paranormal Entity.
Mom is on the phone with someone, trying to get help for Samantha. She's asking whoever she's on the phone with for a medication. I have no idea what the medication would be for or who would take it. Meanwhile, Thomas checks up on Sam again but she's sleeping. You'd think after getting attacked by ghosts like thirteen times, you could stop sleeping alone. Thomas goes to tuck her in and notices bruises on her thighs. He then hears his mom crying. She's lying on the floor by her bed nursing a tumbler of whiskey. She blames herself for Samantha's condition.
NIGHT SIXTEEN. Mom passed out fully dressed. A bunch of loud bangs rouse her from sleep. She sits up, her door spookily opens, and she makes her way from her room to the living room again. Just like night five. Except this time, instead of going into the living room, she just stands in the hallway way too long for it to remain interesting. Somewhere between the hallway and the living room she picked up a knife. Her bedroom door slams. This wakes Thomas up and he finds his mom standing in front of him, having slit her wrists.
NIGHT TWENTY THREE. Thomas is silhouetted like a criminal in one of those exposes on Dateline. His mom is in the hospital on suicide watch. Thomas feels guilty about neglecting his mom in favor of ghost hunting, so he's shooting her a monologue as an apology. Cut to Samantha sitting on the couch and Thomas filming her. The door knocks and the lights flicker. At the door is the doctor the mom had been calling. If he could have, he would have been there sooner. The doctor wants to investigate Samantha's room. The doctor is just wandering around looking 'mystical.' I wish he was looking 'Mystikal' because this movie needs a rap number and what better than Shake That Ass imo.
The doctor comes to some conclusions and lets them know the thing haunting them will follow the two of them. There is a powerful negative presence in the house and its attracted to Samantha. The doctor thinks that the mom, in trying to contact the dead dad, invited in an evil entity who possessed the spirit of the dead dad in order to rape and murder Sam. Thomas shows the doctor the writing on the paper and the table. MARON is germanic for nightmare. A nightmare is an evil spirit who attacks women while they sleep and it is similar to the incubus who rapes women while they sleep. Fade to black.
Samantha is screaming, screaming, screaming. Thomas is screaming. The doctor is lying dead on the ground. Samantha is still screaming and Thomas has gone hunting for her. Samantha is being tortured in her room. She gags and something goes thud. More and more things keep going thud. Thomas picks up the camera and Samantha is dead. Some text scrolls. Sam is dead, the mom killed herself for good, Thomas got arrested, etc. This is the longest pre-credits black screen I have ever seen. Haha, there are no credits. Just the THIS IS FICTIONAL warning and (c) Asylum.
How I Felt:
I sincerely liked this movie much better than Paranormal Activity. The addition of sexuality to the film did not harm it. Its been a long time since I last watched The Entity, the 1982 Sidney J. Furie film about ghost rape, but I remember liking it a lot too. A lot more happened in this movie than in Paranormal Activity too. It was a lot more "ghosts doing spooky stuff" and a lot less "lifestyles of the HENRY and boring." The acting was bad but not lifeless like the other Asylum films I've seen and the handicam gimmick played heavily in the film's favor. I'm predisposed to love cinema verite and found footage movies and that style of film making can be used effectively to hide a lot of flaws in filmmaking, acting, directing, continuity, etc.
I was wrong about it being GREAT or TERRIBLE as it was squarely in between, but it definitely was not bad. Further more, watching it and typing about it was really fun. I forgot how much I enjoyed that bit.
Sequel:
Its not necessary but I'd watch one if it was on Netflix Instant.
[REC]2 (2009)
I don't know how they managed to wreck such a simple concept but they did. Just stick to the formula. That's all that had to happen to make this just as good as the first [REC] film. But no, multiple cameras, multiple protagonists, weapons, very little sense of dread, very little fear of the unknown, surprise cameo, all of this added together to create a very unfulfilling experience.
It was trying very hard to be the Aliens to [REC]'s Alien. In [REC], you had Ellen Ripley (Angela and Pablo) get caught in a rescue mission (the planet and the building respectively) that sees her as the last survivor, strongly soldiering on. Except Balaguero and Plaza killed their Ripley. So now you have a team of soldiers that get sent to investigate a downed receiver at a distant colony (dead policeman in a quarantined building), get told that there are monsters in there, get destroyed by the monsters after a pitched battle, the plucky survivor who Knows Better faces down with the Queen at the end and blows her out the airlock. Except Ripley is still dead. The plucky survivor is a side-character that everyone hates. The plucky survivor in [REC]2 is literally the Paul Reiser in Aliens. The character who is actually the villain in Aliens is the hero in [REC]2. Paul Reiser faces down with Queen and gets himself blown out the airlock, with no mechanical loader, no equalizer, nothing. There are some serious storytelling issues with this film, issues that make it boring.
Now there are some serious spoilers in this paragraph and this movie is pretty much dependent on its big reveal so beware or whatever.
How do you fix this? How do you make [REC]2 watchable while still keeping the ending from [REC]? You don't set it in the same building. You don't make the priest the protagonist while he is constantly and obviously lying to the viewer insert character and putting his life in danger. I'm okay with Angela being the host for some weird Jason Goes to Hell-esque demon parasite, I'm okay with the soldiers being on the hunt rather than the other way around, I'm even okay with all the religious biology or whatever they keep trying to tack on to rationalize the monsters. Just give me this movie set in a monastery or something, with a single camera, and with a strong, likable protagonist. Please give me that.
I'll still be checking in for the sequels. Please don't disappoint again.
It was trying very hard to be the Aliens to [REC]'s Alien. In [REC], you had Ellen Ripley (Angela and Pablo) get caught in a rescue mission (the planet and the building respectively) that sees her as the last survivor, strongly soldiering on. Except Balaguero and Plaza killed their Ripley. So now you have a team of soldiers that get sent to investigate a downed receiver at a distant colony (dead policeman in a quarantined building), get told that there are monsters in there, get destroyed by the monsters after a pitched battle, the plucky survivor who Knows Better faces down with the Queen at the end and blows her out the airlock. Except Ripley is still dead. The plucky survivor is a side-character that everyone hates. The plucky survivor in [REC]2 is literally the Paul Reiser in Aliens. The character who is actually the villain in Aliens is the hero in [REC]2. Paul Reiser faces down with Queen and gets himself blown out the airlock, with no mechanical loader, no equalizer, nothing. There are some serious storytelling issues with this film, issues that make it boring.
Now there are some serious spoilers in this paragraph and this movie is pretty much dependent on its big reveal so beware or whatever.
How do you fix this? How do you make [REC]2 watchable while still keeping the ending from [REC]? You don't set it in the same building. You don't make the priest the protagonist while he is constantly and obviously lying to the viewer insert character and putting his life in danger. I'm okay with Angela being the host for some weird Jason Goes to Hell-esque demon parasite, I'm okay with the soldiers being on the hunt rather than the other way around, I'm even okay with all the religious biology or whatever they keep trying to tack on to rationalize the monsters. Just give me this movie set in a monastery or something, with a single camera, and with a strong, likable protagonist. Please give me that.
I'll still be checking in for the sequels. Please don't disappoint again.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
High Tension (2003)
This movie is so bad. This movie is absolute garbage. I regret almost every second of the 90 minutes I spent watching this horrible movie.
Let me save you the effort of ever seeing it:
The first rule of High Tension is you don't talk about High Tension. The second rule of High Tension is you don't talk about High Tension.
Let me save you the effort of ever seeing it:
The first rule of High Tension is you don't talk about High Tension. The second rule of High Tension is you don't talk about High Tension.
Burnt Offerings (1976)
Okay, so the only reason I watched this was because John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats wrote on his website that his new record conveyed the same feeling as the scene on the train at sunrise at the end of The Warriors and this movie. That scene at the end of The Warriors is one of my favorite scenes in film and that album is the best Mountain Goats album in years so I figured this would be worth a shot.
I sincerely regret watching House of the Devil before this.
This was the movie House of the Devil was trying to be and for every ounce of love i felt towards House of the Devil, it was a full ton of love towards Burnt Offerings.
A family (Oliver Reed, Karen Black, Bette Davis, and the kid from Ben) move into an old, beat-up house for very little rent in exchange for taking care of an old reclusive woman in the attic. As their stay in the house goes on, a lot of accidents start happening, endangering the life of the entire family with the exception of Karen Black's character, who is developing a connection with the old attic woman. In the end, the house itself is using the family's life force in order to regenerate and return to an earlier state.
There is a level of just absolutely crushing fear that exists through out the movie. The idea that "Something is wrong here and we all need to get the hell out" is conveyed so well, I wanted to run away. But at the same time there's the idea of, "Well, maybe one more night," that seeps in when the going is maybe at its worst.
Definitely needing highlighting are the acting chops of Oliver Reed and Karen Black. Reed plays his character so perfectly: A man with no control over himself or his surroundings, trying to hold on to something, anything, that would make the way he feels make sense. A way to reject the violence and fear he's felt since moving in. For him, those things happen to manifest as the chauffeur from his mother's funeral, smiling crazily at him when he feels the influence of the house, the insanity of his situation, the most. The influence on Nicholson's Jack Torrance is unmistakable.
Karen Black, on the other hand, is absolutely terrifying. As tense as Oliver Reed's character is, and as unsettling as The Chauffeur is, Black's acceptance of the house's evil influence manages to be scary on an extremely personal level. She shifts from the caring mother to the deranged murderer so subtly, the last scene in the film is actually shocking. Even with me telling you exactly what is happening, its still shocking.
This movie manages to so completely inundate the atmosphere with dread, so completely fill you with an almost existential fear, you become accustomed to it. You begin to welcome it. And when you finally embrace it and try to make the best of the horror you've lived for the last two hours, the film pulls out all the stops and leaves you face first in an unforgettable climax. This is a horror film for the ages.
I sincerely regret watching House of the Devil before this.
This was the movie House of the Devil was trying to be and for every ounce of love i felt towards House of the Devil, it was a full ton of love towards Burnt Offerings.
A family (Oliver Reed, Karen Black, Bette Davis, and the kid from Ben) move into an old, beat-up house for very little rent in exchange for taking care of an old reclusive woman in the attic. As their stay in the house goes on, a lot of accidents start happening, endangering the life of the entire family with the exception of Karen Black's character, who is developing a connection with the old attic woman. In the end, the house itself is using the family's life force in order to regenerate and return to an earlier state.
There is a level of just absolutely crushing fear that exists through out the movie. The idea that "Something is wrong here and we all need to get the hell out" is conveyed so well, I wanted to run away. But at the same time there's the idea of, "Well, maybe one more night," that seeps in when the going is maybe at its worst.
Definitely needing highlighting are the acting chops of Oliver Reed and Karen Black. Reed plays his character so perfectly: A man with no control over himself or his surroundings, trying to hold on to something, anything, that would make the way he feels make sense. A way to reject the violence and fear he's felt since moving in. For him, those things happen to manifest as the chauffeur from his mother's funeral, smiling crazily at him when he feels the influence of the house, the insanity of his situation, the most. The influence on Nicholson's Jack Torrance is unmistakable.
Karen Black, on the other hand, is absolutely terrifying. As tense as Oliver Reed's character is, and as unsettling as The Chauffeur is, Black's acceptance of the house's evil influence manages to be scary on an extremely personal level. She shifts from the caring mother to the deranged murderer so subtly, the last scene in the film is actually shocking. Even with me telling you exactly what is happening, its still shocking.
This movie manages to so completely inundate the atmosphere with dread, so completely fill you with an almost existential fear, you become accustomed to it. You begin to welcome it. And when you finally embrace it and try to make the best of the horror you've lived for the last two hours, the film pulls out all the stops and leaves you face first in an unforgettable climax. This is a horror film for the ages.
Night Watch (2004)
The best thing about this movie was the subtitles. They are honestly amazing in literally every way. I've never seen a subbed film that managed to convey so much emotion and acting through the way the words were presented before. It made the experience of watching it so much better.
Basically, there are two armies of monsters hidden to humans. Half of the monsters control the day (the titular Night Watch) and half of the monsters control the night (Day Watch). One of the Night Watch guys is tasked with protecting a boy from a vampire and breaking a woman's curse that threatens to end the world while managing his relationship with his vampire landlord and his new partner who used to be a bird. Its a bleak, eastern bloc movie crossed with a sleek hollywood action-horror in the vein of Underworld which gives me very mixed emotions re: it. On the one hand i like the Russian styling of it and really all of the style that it manages to wrangle is cool as heck (see the subtitles), but on the other its still a shallow, kind of boring, movie about vampires. There's things in it that remind me of Ghostbusters 2 and not in a good way. But, man, its worth seeing for the subtitles alone.
Basically, there are two armies of monsters hidden to humans. Half of the monsters control the day (the titular Night Watch) and half of the monsters control the night (Day Watch). One of the Night Watch guys is tasked with protecting a boy from a vampire and breaking a woman's curse that threatens to end the world while managing his relationship with his vampire landlord and his new partner who used to be a bird. Its a bleak, eastern bloc movie crossed with a sleek hollywood action-horror in the vein of Underworld which gives me very mixed emotions re: it. On the one hand i like the Russian styling of it and really all of the style that it manages to wrangle is cool as heck (see the subtitles), but on the other its still a shallow, kind of boring, movie about vampires. There's things in it that remind me of Ghostbusters 2 and not in a good way. But, man, its worth seeing for the subtitles alone.
House (1977)
So awesome. A bunch of school girls go to an aunt's house in the Japanese countryside where they are tortured and murdered by the house itself, controlled by the crazed aunt. The movie at no point makes sense or is un-bizarre but embodies this kind of 'child logic' I guess where everything that happens could work if it was a story being told by a literal child. Its a film that isnt tied down by notions of quality filmmaking or acting or storytelling conventions. and as much as that sounds like me being sarcastic and actually calling it stupid, its not. I think Mac, the fat girl, is my favorite character.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Frontier(s) (2007)
This is a movie about Nazis.
Judging from the Netflix blurb and the cover art and stuff, I assumed this was going to be a movie about trying to keep your unborn child alive during a revolution against a brutal authoritarian regime a la Children of Men. It's not; It's about Nazis.
The premise of the film is so promising. An ultra-conservative and white supremacist regime is elected in France. This sparks hugely violent riots across Paris. A bunch of kids steal a ton of money and try to make it to Luxembourg. One of these kids is three-months pregnant. So far, this film conceptually rules.
But then, they leave Paris. They just make it out of Paris fine and escape to a motel run by literal cannibal Nazis who decide that the pregnant woman is carrying the savior of the Aryan race which leads to a the Hills Have Eyes-esque escape.
Now the resulting film isn't bad, in fact it's great. Frontier(s) manages to be the perfect blend of The Hills Have Eyes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It's got character development rarely seen in a film like this and literally every character is at least interesting and not just "cannon fodder" like so many supporting roles in horror films. It is a superb film in every right and I want to make that clear.
However, come on, you're seriously going to take the revolution premise and use it as an establishing shot and a little bit of allegory during the plot of the film? The only points where the fact that an insane authoritarian regime was just elected into power are brought up after they leave Paris are when two of our leading men are watching TV and make a George Bush joke, when the Nazi patriarch implies that the extreme conservative party is made of literal cannibal Nazis, and at the extreme end when the protagonist is forced to surrender to them.
I want a political horror movie that isn't Red State.
Friday, February 11, 2011
The Human Centipede: First Sequence (2009)
This movie sure exists. I don't really know how address The Human Centipede. I guess it superficially fits the mold of the best horror films, and falls in line with body horror classics but it doesn't really do anything with it. It sets itself up almost like a post-9/11 Videodrome in a way and if you wanted to stretch the film to the point of breaking it could sort of make a salient point about media consumption but I don't want to stretch the film. I don't want to force irony into where it clearly does not belong. To be honest, I'm not sure Tom Six is physically capable of making a salient point about media consumption. I'm not sure Tom Six understands why Croenenberg is a genius or why body horror is an effective genre. I'm not sure Tom Six is actually a director, let alone a human being, and not some kind of physical manifestation of misogyny and xenophobia. In fact, I'm sure that Tom Six, if he does truly exist, just got kinda high and said "Wouldn't it be hilarious if you like shat into a chicks mouth? Oh, and she is sewn to your butt so she can't complain. We could make it a horror movie. I watched Scream, I can do that."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)