6WH: Week 4 – Wes Craven

The six weeks of Halloween continues with three as yet unseen Wes Craven horror films, including some of his most recent work. Craven’s an interesting director. He’s worked primarily in horror and he’s made at least two or three seminal films in that genre, but even his “lesser” works generally have something going for them. Even in films that don’t necessarily work, he always manages to strike a nerve or two, which is more than could be said for most other directors. This week, I watched three of his films:

  • Shocker (trailer)
  • It’s the Gifts That I Hate (Robot Chicken)
  • The Serpent and the Rainbow (trailer)
  • The People Under the Stairs – I was a little surprised at just how batshit insane this movie ended up being. It’s a really, really strange film. It begins with some poor folk, including young Fool and Ving Rhames, attempting to rob the slum lords that have been making life hard. There’s a persistent rumor of buried treasure in the rich folks’ house, but things are not what they appear. Once the man and woman of the house show up, things start to get really crazy, thanks in large part to gleefully manic performances by Everett McGill and Wendy Robie (both of whom were apparently in Twin Peaks as well). It turns out that they’re brother and sister and they’ve locked their kin in the basement and… holy shit, did he just get dressed up in a gimp costume and start shooting a shotgun at everyone?

    The People Under the Stairs

    Yeah, it’s that kinda movie. The other character worth noting is the house itself. Filled with trap doors and secret passages, it’s one of the best creepy houses out there. But aside from some well executed “Boo!” moments, it’s not really much of a scary movie. Indeed, given the antics, it’s actually rather funny. I can’t really tell if that’s intentional or not, but I had fun with it. It’s certainly not a perfect film, but as I mentioned earlier, it does scratch a certain itch. **1/2

  • The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror VI: Nightmare on Evergreen Terrace (sorry no vid online)
  • Freddy Krueger: Registered Offender (short)
  • A Nightmare on Elm Street (trailer)
  • My Soul to Take – So if The People Under the Stairs was insane, this movie goes ahead and increased the Batshit quotient by at least 4 or 5. It doesn’t make much in the way of sense, but it’s strangely compelling and watchable nonetheless. There’s something about a serial killer known as the Riverton Ripper and 7 kids born prematurely the night the Ripper was caught and disappeared (they never found the body, zomg!) Naturally, when the Riverton 7 turn 16, the Ripper comes back to kill them all. Or something. It doesn’t really matter. It’s just an excuse to do some slasher-esque horror, which isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but which I generally enjoy. I guess you could say there’s a bit of a whodunit as well, but in a movie this bizarre, it’s hard to say whether or not it was all that well executed. It’s not a particularly good movie, but like all of Craven’s films, there’s something that strikes a chord here. Sure, it’s filled with dreadful teenage dialogue and whatnot, but it all comes together reasonably well. I think the film is a bit unfairly disparaged, even if it isn’t particularly great. Perhaps because we know Craven is capable of more, but ultimately, I’d call this an interesting failure rather than an out-and-out failure. It’s got some interesting elements and at least he’s trying something strange and different, which is more than can be said about most other horror films these days. **1/2
  • Wet Nightmares (short)
  • Scream (trailer)
  • How Scream Should Have Ended (short)
  • Scream 4 – The first Scream film was a clever and self-aware slasher film, the culmination of two decades of horror films. The second film looked at slasher sequels, and like most of it’s target films, it’s not as good as the original. The third film tread that same familiar ground, and like most franchises that make it to a third film, that installment was pretty horrible too. So now we come to Scre4m (Screform?), where Craven teams up with the original writer, Kevin Williamson to take on the whole Remake/Reboot trend. The film opens with a familiar phone call sequence… with a twist. And it actually works really well. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie never quite lives up to the promise of those initial sequences. This isn’t to say that it’s bad, I actually quite enjoyed it. All the familiar faces are there, along with an all new teen cast that’s just ripe for stabbing. In particular, I enjoyed Hayden Panettiere and Alison Brie, though neither is given much to do in the movie.

    Scream 4

    Still, it’s all good fun. Some of the dialogue gets a bit too on-the-nose at times, and the premise is getting pretty tired by now, but it was certainly a big improvement over the third film and maybe even the second film (I haven’t seen either in a while, but that’s the impression I get). If you’re a fan of slashers and dislike the general trend of remakes/reboots, check it out. ***

And that just about covers it for this week. Not sure what I’m going to hit up next week, but perhaps some haunted houses are in order!