6 Weeks of Halloween Archives - Page 18 of 20

6WH: Week 4 – Wes Craven

6 Weeks of Halloween, Movies / Mark / October 16, 2011

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?

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.

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!

6WH: Week 3.5 – Fear Itself

6 Weeks of Halloween / Mark / October 12, 2011

Fear Itself is a horror anthology TV series that ran on NBC in 2008. It’s sort of the unofficial third season of the Masters of Horror series which aired on Showtime, but this time it’s on network television, so the episodes are shorter and feature less gore, nudity and profanity. Like MoH, each episode is essentially an independent story made by different writers and directors, usually folks famous for their horror chops. And like MoH, the series so far appears to be very uneven. So far, none of the episodes really approaches MoH‘s best stuff, though one or two are mildly diverting enough to be worth watching for genre fans. It’s available on Netflix streaming (and I feel ok saying that now that they’ve reversed the whole Qwikster debacle), so I’ve hit up a few of them this past week (note: apparently the series was aired out of the originally proposed order, which is how Netflix has it ordered):

Eater: Director Stuart Gordon was the man behind two of the better episodes of the MoH series (not to mention Re-Animator), and from what I’ve seen so far, this is the best of the Fear Itself episodes. As you’ll see below, that’s sort of damning with faint praise, but this was actually reasonably well done. The story concerns a serial killer’s layover in a small town police station. He’s a cannibal, and of course, he knows some obscure form of Cajun magic. Our heroine is officer Danny Bannerman, played by Elisabeth Moss (she of The West Wing), and there’s a nice supporting turn by Stephen Lee as well. The Cajun Cannibal is played by Stephen R. Hart and he’s certainly an imposing presence. There’s some nice creepy moments and stingers in the episode, but the ending is ultimately a bit weird. Still, the most satisfying of the Fear Itself episodes I’ve seen so far.
Spooked: This is director Brad Anderson’s (of Session 9 fame) contribution, and it’s a middling episode at best. There’s an interesting idea at the heart of the episode, but it’s executed somewhat poorly, and there’s a little too much… melodrama? Also, it stars Eric Roberts. I’m not normally like this when it comes to actors, but I just take anything this guy does seriously. The mere fact that he’s in it is a big strike against it for me, even though he was probably no worse than the other actors in an objective sense. I don’t know, maybe he wronged me in a previous life or something. Anyway, he’s a private detective and he’s been hired to sit in a haunted house whilst staking out the house across the street. But, you know, all is not what it seems. As the episode started, my mind was racing, as there were many interesting directions the episode could have gone. And yet, it doesn’t really do any of that. Fleh.
Community: Mary Harron, who directed American Psycho, did her best with this, but damn, it’s derivative and kinda boring. It actually reminded me of an old X-Files episode. Unfortunately, that episode was much better than this one. It’s basically a story about the horrors of the suburbs, gated communities, and homeowners associations. It stars Brandon Routh, who’s a charismatic actor and does his best, but again, this is a hard episode to elevate. Not recommended.
The Sacrifice: Once again, we’ve got an interesting premise that’s been executed rather poorly. The setting is rather interesting. A few criminals (though it’s never really established what they’re doing) have car trouble (that’s original!) and seek to take refuge in a nearby… almost Amish-like compound. There’s a preacher and three beautiful women living there… along with a pesky vampire. Again, there’s some interesting stuff going on here, but the main characters are kinda hackneyed and dumb here, and well, I almost fell asleep watching this. Oh, and Breck Eisner? This is a director who has never had much in the way of success and even if he did, he’s not exactly known for horror (which may be a bit of a problem on a series premised on showcasing horror directors). This has been the worst episode yet!
In Sickness and in Health: Wow, an actual decent episode. On the day of her wedding, Samantha the Bride gets a note with some rather disturbing information about her husband-to-be. It’s one of those stories where you’re constantly wondering why the hell no one actually wants to talk to each other, but it works well enough, and in the end, there might be a reason for it (even if it’s a rather thin reason). Directed by John Landis, it’s got some well constructed atmosphere going for it, and the script isn’t absolutely awful. Worth a watch…

Well, things haven’t been particularly encouraging so far. I doubt I’ll get much farther into the series this year, especially seeing as though I still haven’t seen all the Masters of Horror episodes (which are also mostly available on Netflix streaming)… See you Sunday for some Wes Craven awesomeness.

6 Weeks of Halloween: Week 3 – Val Lewton Horror

2 Comments / 6 Weeks of Halloween, Movies / Mark / October 9, 2011

In 1939, RKO-Radio Pictures was the smallest of the major studios. Its first ten years had been tumultuous, but things were looking up. They had just offered the talented youngster Orson Welles a multimillion dollar contract, hoping to capitalize on his success in their radio division. Welles’ first film was Citizen Kane, which opened to critical praise and has gone on to be frequently cited as the greatest film ever, but which also lost money for the studio at the time. In addition, Charles Foster Kane was obviously based on newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who took the film none too kindly. In response to Welles’ hubris, Hearst’s media outlets boycotted the film, intimidated theaters into following suit, and threatened RKO exects with exposing fifteen years of suppressed Hollywood scandals. Welles’ second film, The Magnificent Ambersons was even less successful.

After some leadership shakeups, one of the ways RKO sought to reverse their fortunes was to focus on B movies, and specifical B horror movies. Enter Val Lewton, who was offered “artistic freedom” if he accepted a few conditions:

He had to produce “horror programmers” with runtimes under 75 minutes.
Each film had to come in under a $150,000 budget.
Each film’s title would be determined by marketing research.
Lewton’s salary would be $250 a week.

Lewton readily agreed, famously noting that “They may think I’m going to do the usual chiller stuff which’ll make a quick profit, be laughed at, and be forgotten, but I’m going to fool them . . . I’m going to do the kind of suspense movie I like.” And he certainly seemed to do so. There were no classical monsters in Lewton’s movies (the closest he came was with zombies, but those aren’t the Romero zombies we’re all too familiar with these days). They seemed unique and rather restrained. In today’s gore-happy world of Human Centipedes and Saws, they seem downright quaint, but they’re still very interesting.

Cat People: RKO studio head Charles Koerner was apparently of the opinion that vampires, werewolves, and man-made monsters had been over-exploited and that “nobody has done much with cats.” Before Lewton even went to work, the title was chosen: Cat People. Lewton was apparently terrified of cats and drew on folk tales from his native Russia to make this film. The story concerns a Serbian girl, Irena (played by Simone Simon), who is convinced that she is cursed to turn into a panther and kill the man she loves. In theory, very similar to The Wolf Man (and other “enemy within” type stories), but in practice, a very strange yet well executed film.

There a number of effective sequences, including a nighttime chase sequence where the audible footsteps quickly dissapate, replaced by the quieter patter of a stalking cat. There’s also a tense sequence in a pool, and another in an office (where our heroic architect brandishes a T-square, which looks very much like a cross). There are some panthers in the film, but the action is usually shown in shadow – an effective choice. I don’t want to give the film too much credit, but it does prefigure a lot of what became known as the hallmarks of film noir. Many of the techniques in this film were used ad nauseam in the decade to follow. For instance, many of the scenes are framed in such a way that Irena is confined by shadows or other such shapes (for instance, at the zoo, the shadows of the zoo’s cages surround her), indicating that she is trapped by the curse of her people. This was replicated numerous times in film noir, using things like venetian shades to indicate the bars of confinement. Much of this is due to cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, who was heavily influenced by German Expressionism and who helped refine the various noir techniques throughout the 1940s. Indeed, after launching Lewton’s first three films for RKO, director Jacques Tourneur moved out on his own, eventually teaming up with Masuraca again to produce one of the classic films noir, Out of the Past. Cat People is restrained, yet filled with lurid love triangles, repression, and vanity, all exacerbated by the supernatural folk tales of Serbia. The film was a big success, some saying that Cat People saved RKO, which was nearly bankrupted by Welles’ shenanigans at the time. It’s a tame film by today’s standards, but quite interesting nonetheless. ***
Silver Bullet (Robot Chicken)
The Leopard Man (trailer)
Cat People (1982) (trailer)
The Curse of the Cat People: The most intriguing thing about this sequel? There are no cats or panthers or pumas. Well, in the opening shot, there is a black house cat that scampers across the screen, but other than that, nothing. The title had been handed down from the studio’s marketing department, but Lewton, unphased, wrote a “very delicate story of a child who is on the verge of insanity because she lives in a fantasy world.” The film features much of the cast of the first film, including the… ghost?… of a cat woman. Despite the lack of cats, it turns out to be a very poetic and personal film about the fears and dangers of childhood. By 1944, RKO had moved Jacques Tourneur on to other things (their thinking being that splitting Lewton and Tourneur, they would get twice the output for the same price), so Lewton hired Gunther von Fritsch, whom he fired almost immediately because he was so slow (remember, these movies were made quickly and on a tight budget). In came a young Robert Wise, who would go on to direct classics like The Haunting and The Andromeda Strain (among many others). Once again, audiences were quite taken with the poetic and humane story presented in the film. It’s a very different film, practically unrelated to the original, but still quite effective in its own right. ***
Full Moon Tonight (Robot Chicken)
Isle of the Dead (trailer)
The Seventh Victim (trailer)
I Walked With a Zombie: I actually watched these films a bit out of order, as this was the second of Lewton’s productions, also directed by Jacques Tourneur. A recurring theme of Lewton’s work seemed to be his exasperation at the titles he was handed from the marketing department. In this case, he was quite distraught until he came up with the idea to simply adapt one of his favorite books. He described this movie as “Jane Eyre in the West Indies.” With zombies. (Note, this was 60-70 years before Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and the numerous mashups that followed). Not being that familiar with Jane Eyre, I can’t say as to how successful Lewton was in terms of adaptation, but the film itself is pretty damn good. There are several standout sequences, my favorite being when two women, dressed in white, navigate through a dark field towards the distant drums of a voodoo ceremony (which are, in themselves, a wonderfully atmospheric touch). Ultimately, I didn’t find this as enjoyable as the two Cat People movies, but it was an interesting watch nonetheless. **1/2
The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror III: Dial “Z” for Zombies (sorry, no clips online)
Ghost Ship (trailer)
I Sell the Dead (trailer)
The Body Snatcher: Another Robert Wise film, this time based on the short story The Body Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson. Here Lewton was relieved by the good title and the classic source material (which also happened to be in the public domain), though exasperation came later when the initial script, which had introduced much more mayhem than Stevenson’s original story called for. Lewton himself rewrote the script at the last moment, making sure that the film still appealed to stars Boris Karloff and even the ailing Bela Legosi. Well, whatever his worries, the film turned out fantastic. Wise and Lewton relished being able to create a period piece that could still be filmed cheaply. Legosi was very ill at the time, so he was not quite up to speed, but luckily, he played a rather small part as the mad scientist’s half-wit assistant, so his infirmities were actually appropriate for the role. Karloff was at the top of his game though, delivering the sharp dialogue with gusto.

The story concerns a doctor (played by Henry Daniell) who requires fresh cadavers in order to continue his studies and teach his students. The law being somewhat in opposition to this practice, he had to hire an insolent cab-man (Karloff) to rob the graves of the recently deceased. When there are not enough bodies to meet the doctor’s needs, the cab-man resorts to murder! It’s all very well done, the relationship between the doctor and the cabby gradually escalates with tension, and Karloff and Daniell clearly got under each other’s skin. The film reaches its climax with Karloff delivering a wonderful monologue: “I am a small man, a humble man, and, being poor, I have had to do much that I did not want to do. But so long as the great Dr. MacFarlane jumps at my whistle, that long am I a man. And if I have not that, I have nothing.” Karloff’s performance is something to behold. Having spent most of his career playing various monsters, Karloff clearly relished playing a human being, even if the character was a manipulative villain. In today’s parlance, he’s just chewing the scenery. Playing opposite Karloff was the capable Henry Daniell, who certainly holds his own as the conflicted and guilty doctor, ashamed of his past and perhaps even his future. Once again, while perhaps a bit grisly for its time, this is tame by today’s standards… but it’s definitely worth watching for Karloff’s performance alone. ***

Ah, it’s good to be back in the flow of traditional 6WH posts. Stay tuned for some quick reviews of the Fear Itself anthology series and I think I’ll end up covering three Wes Craven movies next week. Recommendations are always welcome, though I can’t guarantee I’ll get to it (but if it’s available on Netflix streaming or Amazon Prime’s free streaming, I’ll probably give it a shot).

Fantastic Fest Dispatch #3

2011 Fantastic Fest, 6 Weeks of Halloween, Movies / Mark / October 5, 2011

Coming down the homestretch, only a few movies/events left to go over. See also: Dispatch #1 and Dispatch #2.

Extraterrestrial – So. Nacho Vigalondo. Best director name ever? Probably. But he’s an institution at Fantastic Fest. You see him all over the place, and later in the night, he’s usually drunk and very animated. Here at Kaedrin, we’re big fans of his work. His 2007 film Timecrimes made my best of the year list, and is an entertaining and intricate time-travel story. He’s also the director of numerous short films, including 7:35 in the Morning, which was nominated for an academy award (note to self: seek more of these out!)

As a followup to Timecrimes, Vigalondo started working on an even bigger, even more intricate script. Knowing that it would take a few years to get that going, he set about doing a film in the meantime, which brings us to Extraterrestrial. Julio wakes up in Julia’s apartment with quite a hangover. After some awkward pleasantries, he seeks to depart… and that’s when they notice. Cell phones, land lines, television, and the internet are down. And there’s something, something massive, in the sky, sitting above Madrid.

It’s a setup we’ve seen a million times before, but it doesn’t play out like any other similar film. In a very real sense, this is similar to Melancholia in that the SF premise is only a catalyst for the human story. It is almost literally window-dressing. But unlike Melancholia, this movie remains awesome. It’s twisted and funny. Really funny, actually. It’s Nacho Vigalondo’s take on the romantic comedy, and probably best of it’s ilk that I’ve seen in a long time. It’s perhaps a bit silly (it is a comedy, after all), but I think it works very well. It doesn’t hit all of my personal buttons in quite the way that Timecrimes did, but in a big way, this is a more assured film, and I’m glad that Vigalondo has avoided the dreaded “sophomore slump”. Highly recommended – if you get a chance, give it a watch. ***1/2
The Day – I don’t like post-apocalyptic movies. There are a few exceptions, but a filmmaker has to do a lot to make me overcome my disdain. In this film, we follow a group of 5 survivors as they attempt to make it past cannibal-infested land. They’re carrying two jars of hope and faith (i.e. seeds), with which they hope to establish a semblance of civilization again. Of course, they get cornered and have to fight, and there are revelations and twists and turns and badass action sequences. In particular Ashley Bell was impressive as the female lead. Not quite Ripley, but clearly a conflicted badass. It’s ultimately a fun film, but I always have nagging questions about post-apocalyptic worlds that are never quite explained. Fortunately, this film wisely chooses to completely ignore whatever caused the apocalypse, instead focusing on the struggle for survival. This mitigates the nagging question problem, though those issues still arise after the film ends. This sort of thing might hold it back from true greatness, but I’m also willing to go with it, and the film manages wring tension out of its premise. Good ending too. If you’re a fan of post-apocalyptic movies, give it a try. **1/2
100 Greatest Kills – So I was sitting next to a guy during The Day whose name was Tron (apparently not named after the movie – he was born before it came out). Very nice fella, and he told me that I would LOVE this 100 Greatest Kills event. I didn’t realize it, but apparently they take submissions for the best onscreen kills, and if you submit it, they’ll play it during the event. That being said, they try to keep things obscure, though they do give the classics their due. When I first got in the theater, the lights dimmed, and they started playing Stairway to Heaven while showing all of the most famous death scenes. Great selections here, but this isn’t really why you attend. They immediately started playing some truly obscure stuff (quite frankly, I don’t remember any of these), including a series of kills from 80s VHS movies. Some of the kills were also quite disgusting. For example, in one of the video movies, a guy cuts open a pregnant woman, grabs the baby, screams, and throws it against the wall. This actually sounds a little more horrifying than it looks, as it’s quite low budget and very poorly acted, so it comes off as being a little comical. But still disgusting. Some of the others were also pretty gross. Not helping was the little digital gizmo they had that let them play and replay death scenes, sometimes in excruciating slow motion. Examining the Scanners head explosion frame by frame was pretty darn fun. We also watched the Brad Pitt death from Meet Joe Black many times. The final clip was a 15 minute gorefest from another of those video movies from the 80s (seriously, how do people find these things?) and it was quite disturbing. But they gave out free copies of Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive, so look for a capsule review of that during the 6WH… Overall, it’s a really fun event. If you’re not squeamish, it’s highly recommended…
Master Pancake Presents: Highlander – So this wasn’t actually part of Fantastic Fest, but my Austin friends got me a ticket to see it and I cleared my schedule that night to see it. For the uninitiated, Master Pancake is basically like MST3K, but it’s performed live. The three guys that do it are very funny, and it’s actually quite a production. They start off with a simple introduction and banter, set up a drinking game (in this case, you have to drink anytime sparks appear on screen – and if you’ve ever seen Highlander, you know that anytime a sword strikes something, it emits sparks, so there was a lot of drinking), and then launch into the film, with a brief intermission and skit performed live onstage in the middle of the film. Lots of mocking, especially of Sean Conner’s unbelievable performance as Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez (seriously, he plays this Egyptian Spaniard without even attempting to maks his Scottish accent). Very funny, and a great time. If you’re ever in Austin, it’s well worth trying to get yourself a ticket for Master Pancake! Thanks again to Kaedrin reader and friend Spencer!

And that about covers what I saw at Fantastic Fest. I saw 19 movies, went to 4 events, and of course, Master Pancake too. I won’t go through the pomp and circumstance of a full awards post, but here are a few:

Favorite Film: Extraterrestrial
Least Favorite Film: The Squad
Biggest Surprise: Elite Squad: The Enemy Within and Karate Robo Zaborgar
Favorite Event: Fantastic Debates
Wish I got to see: A Boy and His Samurai (both showings sold out) and Clown (I just didn’t have the good sense to schedule). Oh, and You’re Next too.

All in all, quite a successful festival. Will I go again next year? It would certainly be really nice, but I’ll have to see what my schedule is like (not to mention money, vacation time, and so on). I definitely want to go to the festival again sometime, as I did have a blast… And that concludes my Fantastic Fest posting. Regular 6WH posts to resume this weekend (this week’s theme: Val Lewton horror!)

Fantastic Fest Dispatch #2

2011 Fantastic Fest, 6 Weeks of Halloween, Movies / Mark / October 2, 2011

As mentioned in the first dispatch, Fantastic Fest was quite a hectic but fun week for me. I don’t really have much to say in terms of an introduction, but there are some thoughts on the festival itself interspersed with the movie reviews below. Also, just to mention that this technically represents the second week in my annual 6 Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon. It doesn’t take the general form of most 6WH posts, but there’s plenty of horror and weirdness below, so enjoy! See also: Dispatch #1 and Dispatch #3.

Fantastic Arcade Story In Videogames – One of the neat things about Fantastic Fest is that it’s not all movies all the time. Over at the Highball, they set up something called the “Fantastic Arcade”. Filled with Free-Play arcade cabinets and various PC/PS3/X360 machines, you could just wander around and play games all day if you wanted. There was a nice indie-game competition as well. And there was even a series of panels surrounding various issues in gaming. This particular panel was all about how to work story into video games, and it featured a team from Lightbox Interactive (makers of the forthcoming Starhawk) and a couple of filmmakers, including best-director-name-ever (and apparently a Fantastic Fest institution) Nacho Vigalondo. The panel started off a bit like an advertisement for Starhawk, but as with any panel featuring Nacho Vigalondo, things derailed pretty quickly and thus became much more interesting. They discussed the preponderance of cut-scenes and the inherent challenges of video games, especially how video games tend to put players “on rails” and the ways around that. Then Nacho started talking about how the Angry Birds are actually the villains in that game (terrorists?), thus kicking off a 15 minute digression into the various incongruities of Angry Birds, including the architectural style of the pigs (their structures often seem pretty impressive at first, but then you realize that they’ve sometimes just completely surrounded a pig in the structure, essentially burying it alive!) All in good fun. I had to leave a little early to catch my next movie, but it was definitely a lot of fun.
Melancholia – The best part of this movie was the 15-20 minute interview with director Lars von Trier that preceded the film (he was not there in person as he apparently does not fly, but had participated in a Skype interview earlier in the day). He was very open and honest and even quite funny. The film, on the other hand, was a bit of a mess. I shouldn’t say that, as von Trier certainly knows his way around the camera, and the film is, as always, immaculately composed and shot. The story, on the other hand, is quite unfulfilling.

The opening of the film is actually brilliant. It’s very arty and experimental and whatnot, but also compelling and visually spectacular (it also doesn’t appear to fit in with the timeline of the rest of the film). From there, the movie rewinds, focusing on a wedding between Justine (Kirstin Dunst, apparently recommended to Von Trier by PT Anderson!) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård, True Blood fame). At first, it seems like a typical rich folks wedding reception at a huge country club, but it soon becomes clear that there are deep problems in the family, and Dunst’s character is suffering from chronic depression. This part of the film is somewhat insufferable. After the wedding, we find out that there’s another planet (unironically called planet Melancholia) that is on a collision course (or perhaps just a close flyby) with Earth. That is quite an interesting concept, but the film only really uses it as window dressing – something that sets off the depression amongst the family. I’d be curious about the actual physics of all this. For a time it does come off as being plausible, though there is one event towards the end that I couldn’t come up with a feasible explanation for… but again, this isn’t really the film’s main point.

At one point, I thought maybe there would be a twist that the characters were actually on Melancholia, and that it was the Earth that was appearing in the sky, but that doesn’t pan out. However, the film does seem to be set in an other-worldly location. They mention a nearby town, but for the most part, the entire movie is set on the grounds of a golf course/country club, and after the wedding, there really aren’t any other characters that show up. It’s a really bizarre setting for the film, which could have been fine, but I don’t think it was really in service of anything. The final sequence of the film is also pretty great, but not enough to make up for all the stuff that happens in between. Again, very well made, but didn’t really do much for me. **
Beyond the Black Rainbow – Very experimental and trippy, like a slower version of the end of 2001, drawn out over 110 minutes. The story, inasmuch as there is a story, is about a young girl who is seemingly trapped in an institute that bills itself as a technological cure for various mental maladies (or something). Who is she? Why doesn’t she talk? Why can’t she leave? What’s going on at this institute? What’s with the girl’s doctor? These questions aren’t really answered, but you do get a series of dreamlike vignettes that are visually interesting, if not really spectacular. As if the film wasn’t trippy enough, at one point, we get a flashback where one character does acid, after which we’re treated to a 10 minute scene where he’s submerged in black liquid and his face melts (Spoiler? Not really.) Things get more interesting towards the end of the film. We see that the girl (and her doctor) seems to have some sort of mental powers, and the film becomes something of an escape film. But that’s probably giving it too much credit for plot. There is a narrative, but it seems more appropriate for a 15 minute short than an almost 2 hour film. I don’t hate this film. It’s got some merits and I’m glad I got to watch it, but it’s also not a particularly good film either. **
Knuckle – There were only two documentaries playing at Fantastic Fest, and this was one of them. It follows 12 years of a violent feud between two (or maybe three) Irish Traveler clans. Most of this is accomplished via bare-knuckle fighting (officiated by third party clans). Interestingly, the documentary seems to have come about by accident. Director Ian Palmer was hired to videotape a wedding, and from there, the various Traveler families (especially the Quinn McDonaghs) allowed him to tag along at the various fights and tape them for their own records. It seems that the feuding families often produced video tapes taunting the opposing family and sending for representatives at the next fight. After 12 years of this, Palmer compiled everything together, did some additional interviews, and made this movie. Videotape isn’t exactly a high-quality medium, but in this case, it’s an accurate representation of what was happening and everything was very well documented. Ultimately, the film plays out like a microcosm of all human conflict. The two main families in the film are actually blood related, but their feud goes back decades, and few are interested in ending the conflict. Listening to various family members talk about it is almost heartbreaking, not just because these two families seem to be locked in a circle of violence, but because we can so easily recognize the pattern. You can see this sort of needless conflict all throughout history and even in present day conflicts. It might be too presumptuous to apply it to something as controversial as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but like I said, the movie is a microcosm. It’s a much smaller conflict, but it still seems hopeless, especially when Palmer cuts to young children playing in the street, pretending to fight. It is not a perfect movie, but it was one of the more interesting and thought provoking films of the festival. ***
Fantastic Debates! – After Knuckle came the Fantastic Debates, an annual tradition wherein two folks participate in a traditional verbal debate, then box for two rounds. This year’s debates featured two hobbits debating the benefits of World of Warcraft, two comedians debating whether robots were better than humans, an astrophysicist debating the “fuck Nasa” guy (I’m not generally a violent guy, but I enjoyed seeming him get an ass whooping), and finally, the main event, Alamo Drafthouse mogul and FF organizer Tim League fighting James Quinn (the undefeated bare knuckle brawler from Knuckle) over the topic “Texans are tougher than the Irish” (I particularly enjoyed the way League was able to argue his point while at the same time kissing Quinn’s ass). It was all great fun, and there are numerous vids covering the event on youtube. This is the sort of event I’d love to go back in time and watch from previous years. The only drawback to the event was that an apparently great movie was scheduled at the same time, and didn’t have any other showings during the festival. Dammit.
The Corridor – Four lifelong friends go camping in a remote area and discover an impossible hallway in the woods. They’ve been the best of friends, but things are changing. They’re getting older, balder, crazier, and so on. It hits the two main tropes pretty hard. I mean, how many movies about old friends camping do we really need to see? The early-mid-life crisis stuff is a little less trodden, but still a pretty common thing, and the film is a bit too on the nose with some of its commentary on that subject. That being said, the actual corridor piece is pretty interesting, and there are quite a few creepy sequences that result from that. It was actually well made and acted, and I did enjoy watching it, but I think I would have appreciated a little less cliche in the script. **
Elite Squad: The Enemy Within – One of the frustrating things about film festivals in general is that you don’t always get into the popular screenings. But at Fantastic Fest, this can be a blessing in disguise. I had originally planned to see the “Secret Screening” at this time, but it was sold out. I later learned that the secret screenings are generally not very interesting (I was expecting some crazy movie I never heard of, but it was apparently Paranormal Activity 3, which will be out in wide release in less than a month). So I had to “settle” for this film: a most excellent Brazilian film about police corruption. It would actually make a nice companion to City of God. That film was told from the perspective of children growing up in a violent neighborhood. This film is told from the perspective of the police.

At first, I was a little worried about the political posturing of the film. For example, early in the film, the voiceover decries the political left. It’s a seemingly typical sentiment among law enforcement: liberals make it hard to do their job. Later in the film, you start to see the corruption on the police side of things. And finally, the film reaches an equilibrium, not endorsing either side, but rather, emphasizing that both sides must work together in order to succeed. It’s an interesting, well considered position, and films that can pull off that balancing act are few and far between. Oh, and there are also good characters and even some decent action sequences. I really enjoyed this film, one of my favorites of the festival. This is apparently the second film in a series, so I’ll have to seek out the first film, because this was really fantastic. ***
Karate Robo Zaborgar – Another film that wasn’t my first choice, but which wound up being one of my favorites of the festival. It’s apparently a loving remake/parody of a 70s Japanese television show about robots, karate, and, of course, sexy lady cyborgs. I don’t think I can sufficiently explain the pure insanity on screen here, but it’s got everything you want out of a Japanese comedy film. You’ve got motorcycles transforming into robots (apparently the original series was part of the inspiration for Transformers), a ludicrous love story, a group of down-on-their-luck former police officers called “The League of Smiles”, and, of course, someone lights their fart as a form of propulsion. Again, difficult to describe, but I was laughing the entire time. Well worth a watch, especially for fans of Japanese robot cinema! ***
Borderline – A French film following a beaten down family man and lawyer who stumbles on a bag of drugs, and decides to start selling it to make ends meet. Of course, the original owner of the bag eventually tracks him down, and things go downhill from there. It may not sound like the setup for a pure comedy, but it’s quite funny, though it gets a bit dark later in the film. Still, a very solid movie. Not quite as uproariously funny as Zaborgar, and actually quite tame for a festival like this, but it’s a fun film. **1/2
Juan of the Dead – One of the most popular films of the festival, this Cuban zombie film is quite funny. Unfortunately, just by virtue of its title, it forces comparison to the nearly perfect Shaun of the Dead, a film that’s better than this one. That being said, there’s a lot to like here, and it was definitely one of the funnier films of the festival. Like most zombie films, it doesn’t really have much direction, but it’s actually got some well drawn characters and some decent arcs that elevate this movie above a lot of other zombie movies. I’m not typically a big fan of zombie movies, but I really enjoyed this and it’s definitely worth seeking out. Also of note, director Alejandro Brugués has challenged Fantastic Fest mainstay Nacho Vigalondo to a Fantastic Debate next year (with the topic of “What the fuck is Timecrimes about?”. I guess this means I’ll need to go back next year! ***
Cost of Living (short) – I didn’t go to any of the film shorts programs that Fantastic Fest had, but they do show some shorts in front of movies, and this one was so good that I had to call it out. It’s about two security guards who work at some sort of science institute. Basically one of those places that only exist in video games that create mosters, which of course get loose and start wreaking havoc.

Anyway, Brandon Routh is absolutely hysterical here, and if you ever get a chance to watch this short, go for it (a quick search did not yield any videos, but perhaps it will be available someday). ***
The Squad – A squad of Columbian soldiers comes upon an outpost suspected of being attacked by guerrillas. What they find is less than clear. A cryptic outpost log sheds no light, and then someone discovers a lone, traumatized survivor in a room that has been sealed off by bricks. Rumors quickly abound that she’s a witch that caused the destruction of the outpost. It’s actually a somewhat interesting premise. Unfortunately, the entire thing is bungled. I never got a sense for any of the characters, the layout of the outpost and surrounding environs was very poorly established, the squad does not act like any military unit I’ve ever seen, and everyone actions like an idiot. This is a movie that relies heavily on character interactions, but I feel like we were missing a lot. I didn’t care about or like any of the characters, yet the dialogue assumes that we do. All throughout the movie, people keep talking to this one character, Ponce, as if we know who he is or care about him in any way, but of course, we don’t. The entire film is framed in medium shots and closeups, and most of the camerawork is handheld and shaky. It’s also got some weird depth-of-field issues. All of these things can be effective if used for a specific reason in specific situations. They can emphasize the isolation of the characters or the chaos of battle, but when they’re used this often, they yield diminishing returns and only serve as a distraction. The story is almost non-existent. There’s clearly some traumatic history for this squad, and the film references it numerous times, but I ultimately found that I could really care less. It wasn’t scary, there’s no real plot, and its atmosphere suffers because of it. There is actually quite a nice final shot in the film that I really liked, but it was too little too late. My least favorite film of the festival. *
Let the Bullets Fly – I know a lot of critics say this, and it seems absurd, but watching 4-5 movies a day can be exhausting. By the time I got to this movie on the fifth day of the festival, I was starting to flag. It’s a lighthearted action comedy starring Chow Yun Fat and featuring an intricate, Yojimbo-like plot. I have to say, it seemed like it was a ton of fun, and I did enjoy myself, but I was clearly fatigued. Maybe it was just that The Squad sucked so bad, or maybe it was because I’d just seen, like, 5 subtitled movies in a row and this one had really quick dialogue, or perhaps I had too many late nights and early wakeups. I was exhausted at this point. I watched the whole movie and managed to enjoy it, but it’s something I want to revisit at some point when I’m more refreshed. I’ll refrain from rating it at this point, but it did seem like a good film, so check it out.
Fantastic Fest Awards – So I was very tired, but this sort of event re-energized me a bit, or perhaps I just got my second wind. There were lots of various awards handed out, including awards for bumpers, which takes some explaining. Most film festivals feature a short promo for the festival itself at the beginning of each screening. That short film is called a bumper. It’s usually the same short film, over and over again, but Fantastic Fest is different. They select a theme (this year’s was Altered States, which most people took to mean drugs), then accept submissions from local filmmakers, and we wind up seeing a different bumper before each showing. Some are funny, some are disgusting, some are just plain bizarre. The winning bumper was one of the disgusting ones which basically depicted a vasectomy. It was certainly shocking, but quite frankly, it was rather stupid and didn’t demonstrate any talent on the filmmaker’s part (the way most of the other ones do). Anyway, they also gave out awards for a bunch of films and short films, and it seems that You’re Next was a big winner, much to the chagrin of its producer, who had to accept all the awards. At this point, I should note that the awards were basically big beer mugs, and in order to accept the award, you have to chug it… so this guy basically had to chug 5 mugs of beer within about 15 minutes. It was all pretty funny. This was a fun event, but I’m not sure it’d be something I’d want to go to every year (if I went to the festival every year). On the other hand, it was exactly what I needed at this point in the festival.
The Fantastic Feud – So every year, they do this horror trivia challenge, pitting international filmmakers and critics against American filmmakers and critics. The whole thing takes the format of family feud, and it’s quite fun. The only real drawback was that it was really short this year, like only 40 minutes long (apparently previous years were much longer and even more fun). I had a great time, but as previously mentioned, I was exhausted, so I was almost glad to be finished for the day… Still, it was one of my favorite events, and definitely something I’d do again (if I ever go again!)

Whew, I still have a bunch of other things to write about (including a review of Nacho Vigalondo’s excellent Extraterrestrial), but this entry has already grown to mammoth proportions, so I’ll save that for Wednesday, perhaps along with some other thoughts about the festival. After that, the 6 Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon will resume as normal.

Update 10/5/11: Added some images to this post. Fixed some typos. Added links to other FF dispatches.

Fantastic Fest Dispatch #1

2 Comments / 2011 Fantastic Fest, 6 Weeks of Halloween, Movies / Mark / September 25, 2011

So things have been quite busy so far. Not much time to really record detailed thoughts, but since it’s Sunday, I’ll list out a few of the movies I’ve seen earlier in the week. Tons of fun stuff going on, but quite frankly, not much time to discuss. I’ll probably have more time to cover movies next weekend (and since I’m traveling on Wednesday, probably no post then either)… Also, this is technically the first week of the 6 Weeks of Halloween Marathon. Not all of the below movies are horror and thus aren’t necessarily Halloween movies, but they’re all pretty weird and at least a few are pretty horror-focused. See also: Dispatch #2 and Dispatch #3.

Blind – I missed the beginning of this movie by about 15 minutes, so I missed out on some of the establishing scenes. Near as I can tell, a blind former police officer becomes a witness to a crime. Naturally, this presents a bit of a problem, and the serial killer starts playing cat-and-mouse games with her. The description initially reminded me of Kaedrin fave Mute Witness, but while this film is well done and engaging, it never manages the suspense of Mute Witness. That being said, it does feature some excellent set pieces (most notably the one on the subway) and some effective relationships. Very solidly constructed thriller, but not something that will blow you away either. **1/2
Boys on the Run – Bizarre movie about… I honestly don’t know how to describe it. It’s an exaggerated romantic comedy, in a way, but one with Japanese perverts, inopportune boners and sex workers and the like. Lots of embarrassment humor, a nice taxi driver homage, and one of the best slow-clap sequences I’ve seen in a while. I really liked the performance from the female lead’s roommate – very funny. The ending was somewhat disappointing though, making me wonder why I bothered watching it. It’s got its moments, and it did make me laugh, but I never really connected with it either. **
The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) – Human Centipede 2 has all the disgusting, graphic scenes I was dreading in the first film. Not exactly a good thing, but it represents an interesting commentary on the fans of the original film. Devin Faraci has probably the best take on this I’ve seen so far:

This time it’s meta. Martin is a bug of a man, round like a beetle with huge, bulging eyes. He’s Peter Lorre working the dead shift at a parking garage, where he spends his hours obsessing over the movie Human Centipede. Finally he begins to create the ultimate fan fiction – a human centipede of his own, except this one is 12 people long. …

Martin is a direct parody of the fans. He’s fat and sweaty and awkward and possibly mentally disabled. He’s also a parody of how the detractors see the fans. He’s malleable and unable to tell reality from fantasy. …

Six is attempting a level of critique that’s impressive, and the film feels like a response to every single review and editorial written about the first Centipede.

As Devin says, it’s a big “Fuck You” movie. I don’t think I’d use the word “restraint” to describe the first film, but it actually was pretty cold and clinical and you really don’t see that much (it’s graphic, but not as much as you fear), while this sequel is dirty, grimy, and explicit. The film doesn’t hold back at all, breaking every taboo it can, and then some, leaving me wondering just what Tom Six has planned for the third (and hopefully final) film in the series. In the Q&A after the movie, Six says the third one will be “really sick”. Given how grotesque this movie is, I don’t know if I really want to take Six up on that third film. One last thing – I’m a little disappointed. I counted, and there were only, like, 40 legs on the creature that Martin creates. While a big improvement over the first movie, that’s still, like, 60 limbs short of an actual centipede. Perhaps this is what Six plans for the next film. Anyway, the film is surprisingly well directed and acted, and it does make an interesting comment on the nature of fandom and critics, but I still can’t really recommend it in any fashion. You were warned. (this one kinda defies rating, but I’ll say **)
The Yellow Sea – Gritty Korean crime picture featuring more knife and hatchet fights than any movie I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, some of that is obscured by shaky-cam action, a trend I wish would just go away at this point. The movie tells the story of a poor cab driver in China who goes to South Korea to find his wife. She’s gone earlier to make money, but has now disappeared. In order to fund the whole venture, the cab driver must take on a job – assassinate one of the Korean crime lords. It’s probably not a spoiler to say that the cab driver is betrayed at nearly every turn. There’s a lot of resilience in the face of adversity going on here, and some nice touches in terms of the nuts and bolts of things. It’s a little long, but very complex and never boring. ***
Retreat – Interesting and twisty single-location film. A troubled couple travels to an isolated island for quiet time, but when a bloody stranger turns up at their doorstep, things start to get weird. The twists aren’t quite mind-blowing, but they always keep things interesting. The remoteness of the cottage they’re staying at certainly increases the tension a bit, as the only person within radio distance is not answering. On the other hand, there are some stupid horror movie character moments when you want to yell at the characters for doing something so stupid. Thematically, there are some interesting reversals, but ultimately it doesn’t really gel. Well shot and well acted, it can be a bit of a downer, but it’s worth a watch if you’re into this sort of thing. **

And that covers it for now. Again, probably no entry on Wednesday. Maybe I’ll get to something on Thursday, but probably more likely to see posting resume next Sunday. There are still about 3 or 4 movies I’m really looking forward to, so let’s hope I can actually get into those shows!

Update: Dispatch #2 and Dispatch #3 have been posted.

Mute

6 Weeks of Halloween, Arts & Letters, Culture / Mark / November 10, 2010

Earlier in the year, I had noticed a pile of books building up on the shelf and have made a concerted effort to get through them. This has gone smoothly at times, and at other times it’s ground to a halt. Then there’s the fact that I can’t seem to stop buying new books to read. Case in point, during the Six Weeks of Halloween, I thought it might be nice to read some horror, and realized that most of what I had on my shelf was science fiction, fantasy, detective fiction, or non-fiction (history, technology, biography, etc…) So I went out and picked up a collection of Richard Matheson short stories called Button, Button (the title story was the source material for a very loose film adaptation, The Box).

It was a very interesting collection of stories, many of which play on variations of the moral dilemma most famous in the title story, Button, Button:

“If you push the button,” Mr Steward told him, “somewhere in the world, someone you don’t know will die. In return for which you will receive fifty thousand dollars.”

In the film adaptation, the “reward” was raised to a million dollars, but then, they also added a ton of other stuff to what really amounts for a tight, 12 page story. Anyway, there are lots of other stories, most containing some sort of moral dilemma along those lines (or someone exploiting such a dilemma). In particular, I enjoyed A Flourish of Strumpets and No Such Thing as a Vampire, but I found myself most intrigued by one of the longer stories, titled Mute. I suppose mild spoilers ahead, if this is something you think you might want to read.

The story concerns a child named Paal. His parents were recent immigrants and he was homeschooled, but his parents died in a fire, leaving Paal to the care of the local Sheriff and his wife. Paal is a mute, and the community is quite upset by this. Paal ends up being sent to school, but his seeming lack of communication skills cause issues, and the adults continually attempt to get Paal to talk.

I will leave it at that for now, but if you’re at all familiar with Matheson, you can kinda see where this was going. What struck me most was how much a sign of the times this story was. Of course, all art is a product of its cultural and historical context, but for horror stories, that must be doubly so. Most of the stories in this collection were written and published in the 1950s and early 1960s, which I find interesting. With respect to this story, it’s primarily about the crushing pressure of conformity, something that was surely on Matheson’s mind after having just finished of the uniformity of the 1950s. The cultural norms of the 50s were perhaps overly traditional, but after having witnessed the deadliest conflict in human history in the 1940s, you can hardly blame people for wanting some semblance of tradition and stability in their lives. Of course, that sort of uniformity isn’t really natural evil, and like a pendulum, things swing from one extreme to the other, until eventually things settle down. Or not.

Anyway, writing in the early 60s (or maybe even the late 50s), Matheson was clearly disturbed by the impulse to force conformity, and Mute is a clear expression of this anxiety. Interestingly, the story is almost as horrific in today’s context, but for different reasons. Matheson was writing in response to a society that had been emphasizing conformity and had no doubt witness such abuses himself. Interestingly, the end of the story is somewhat bittersweet. It’s not entirely tragic, and it’s almost an acknowledgement that conformity isn’t necessarily evil.

It was not something easily judged, he was thinking. There was no right or wrong of it. Definitely, it was not a case of evil versus good. Mrs. Wheeler, the sheriff, the boy’s teacher, the people of German Corners – they had, probably, all meant well. Understandably, they had been outraged at the idea of a seven-year-old boy not having been taught to speak by his parents. Their actions were, in light of that, justifiable and good.

It was simply that, so often, evil could come of misguided good.

In today’s world, we see the opposite of the 1950s in many ways. Emphasis is no longer placed on conformity (well, perhaps it still is in some places), but rather a rugged individuality. There are no one-size fits all pieces of culture anymore. We’ve got hundreds of varieties of spaghetti sauce, thousands of music choices that can fit on a device the size of a business card, movies that are designed to appeal to small demographics, and so on. We deal with problems like the paradox of choice, and the internet has given rise to the niche and concepts like the Long Tail. Of course, rigid non-conformity is, in itself, a form of conformity, but I can’t imagine a story like Mute being written in this day and age. A comparable story would be about how lost someone becomes when they don’t conform to societal norms…

Halloween

6 Weeks of Halloween / Mark / October 31, 2010

It’s the big day! This year’s Six Weeks of Halloween horror movie marathon concludes with a few quick awards (Note, I’m excluding movies I’ve seen before, so no Halloween or Ghost Busters (they’d win all the awards!)):

Best Movie: Blood and Black Lace.
Best Performance (actor): Joe Spinell as Frank Zito in Maniac
Best Performance (actress): Deborah Kerr as Miss Giddens in The Innocents
Best Supporting Performance (actor): Tom Atkins as Detective Ray Cameron in Night of the Creeps. “Thrill me!”
Best Supporting Performance (actress): Lynda Day George as Detective Mary Riggs in Pieces. “Bastard!” (See clip below)
Best Fight Sequence: Zombie vs Shark, in Zombie (aka Zombi 2). I mean, come on, it’s a zombie fighting a shark.
Most Cring-Inducing Death Sequence: Splinter vs eyeball, in Zombie (aka Zombi 2). Disgusting, and shown in gratuitous detail.
The Proximity to Jason Vorhees Award for Heroic Stupidity: Well, the dumbest people in the marathon are certainly the meth-addled heroes in Cookers, but that movie doesn’t quite fit. As such, Pieces would probably be the best fit. Both films feature really dumb characters, after all.
Best Comedic Film: It doesn’t look like I watched any films that were technically comedies this year (Zombieland would be a shoe-in if I hadn’t already seen it last year), so it looks like it will go to Night of the Creeps. More of a loving homage than a parody, but there are lots of comedic elements there.
Scariest Movie: It’s a bit strange to say this, but most horror movies aren’t really all that scary. They may be disgusting or suspenseful, but when I’m laying in bed at night, I’m not usually haunted by what I’ve seen. A couple of movies did that this year, and I’ll have to go with Dead Birds. Paranormal Activity 2 also has its merits, though I think the creepiness factor is largely a residual effect of the first film…
Worst Movie: Cookers

Well, there you have it. Another successful Halloween horror movie marathon. I’ll leave you with the single greatest scene I saw this year, referenced above under the best supporting actress award:

See you next year!

6WH: Week 6.5 – Speed Round!

6 Weeks of Halloween / Mark / October 27, 2010

It’s time to cover some movies that I’ve seen recently, but that haven’t been discussed in the Six Weeks of Halloween marathon so far. Some of them just didn’t fit with a given week’s theme and some of them are just things I’ve seen already (and have maybe even written about). So here goes:

Paranormal Activity 2: Ultimately a repetitive and pretty unnecessary venture, it still manages a few well executed “Boo” moments and they actually manage to retcon a semi-interesting link between the two films (sure, it doesn’t make a ton of sense, but it’s much better than I was expecting). It’s a little too slick and redundant for its own good, but it’s not devoid of value and there’s something about the premise that just gets under my skin. I’ll give this one a pass, but I expect the third installment will finally wear out its welcome… **1/2
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon: It’s not really as clever as it wants to be, but it’s an interesting, self-aware neo-slasher parody and worth a watch for fans of the sub-genre (as I am). It tries to put a name to the many conventions of the genre, though the only really new terminology that’s coined is the concept of an “Ahab” (basically, in the context of slashers, the primary example of an Ahab would be Dr. Loomis from the Halloween films). **1/2
Alice, Sweet Alice: This 1976 movie, on the other hand, is a proto-slasher and prefigures some of the conventions. The Catholic themes and one of the more interesting masks make this a step above most of the sub-genre, though I don’t think of it as one of the greatest examples. ***
The Roost: If you’ve seen any of Ti West’s other movies, this one won’t really come as a surprise. It’s a very deliberately paced tale of… something that lives in a farmhouse and seems to be turning people into zombies. It’s obviously low-budget and it’s not exactly a great film, but it’s clear that West’s less-is-more approach works well, even on a small budget. **
Piranha Part Two: The Spawning: I’ve noted several times that the Piranha series has a surprisingly good pedigree, and for this one, we get James Cameron’s second effort as director (apparently he was fired from this film though, so it’s not all his fault). It’s a surprisingly fun schlock-fest, and while there was a small reprise of the silliness at the end of the most recent Piranha installment, I would have liked to have seen more flying Piranha… **1/2
Zombieland: Revisted this movie and had a blast with it. It’s just as funny as it was the first time, it’s got the best cameo ever, and in the end, it’s a big ball of fun. ***
Ghost Busters: After seeing it mentioned in Zombieland, I had to throw my blu-ray in and watch it. Not much to say about it though – it’s a classic! ****
The Hills Have Eyes II: A pretty tiresome retread of a tiresome premise. The big twist this time around is that the victims are in the National Guard. ZOMG! It’s still a boring, paint by numbers, gory horror film. I had trouble staying awake. **
Masters of Horror: “The V Word”: The MoH series has been wildly inconsistent, and this tale of teens accidentally becoming vampires comes in somewhere around the middle of the pack. It’s always nice to see Michael Ironside getting work, but it’s otherwise unremarkable. **
Masters of Horror: “The Black Cat”: How did Edgar Allen Poe come to write his story “The Black Cat”? Do we care? Not really. I think what I learned in this episode is that Poe was a douche. **
Masters of Horror: “The Washingtonians”: A quite intriguing premise, but the episode doesn’t quite deliver on the potential. It’s one of the more entertaining episodes in the series, and it features the most absurd ending of any of the episodes I’ve seen. **1/2
Session 9: Haven’t seen it yet, but it’s on Netflix Watch Instantly, so I’ll probably take a gander before Halloween…
Martyrs: Just came in the mail from Netflix. I’ve heard a lot about this one, and figured it was time to check it out.
The Brood: I’ve inexplicably neglected Cronenberg’s early filmography, and this one just came in the mail too.
Grindhouse: They’ve finally released the theatrical cut of this movie, complete with fake trailers and missing reels, and I went and bought me the blu-ray as soon as I found out. Now I just need to carve out 3 hours to watch it!

That’s all for now. See you on the big day, when I’ll probably do some awards (any categories beyond the traditional that I should consider? Let’s see, best picture, best director, best performances (actor, actress, supporting, etc…), scariest movie, best kill, and of course, “The Proximity to Jason Vorhees Award for Heroic Stupidity”. Anything else?

6WH: Week 6 – No Discernable Theme Week

6 Weeks of Halloween, Movies / Mark / October 24, 2010

These six weeks have absolutely flown by, but lucky for me, Halloween falls on a Sunday this year, which is basically giving me an extra week of horror watching.

Pinhead’s New Look (Robot Chicken)
Werewolf Women of the S.S. (fake trailer)
The Thing (trailer)
The Fog: I really wasn’t trying to have a Jamie Lee Curtis movie every week this year, it just seems to have worked out that way (I swears!). This one was on my list for the more mundane (and inexplicable) reason that I never saw this follow-up to John Carpenter’s classic, genre-codifying Halloween. The film starts off with an old man (played by the excellent John Houseman) telling a campfire story of tragedy and revenge. Legend has it that an unearthly fog will descend upon the hundred year old fishing town, and the ghosts of murdered sailors will return to take their revenge. The film starts out great, following numerous unexplained occurrences throughout the normally sleepy town and digging into the checkered history of the town’s founding. A series of payphones ring, cars in a parking lot start honking and flashing lights, a priest finds an old journal hidden in the walls of the church, and so on. Carpenter captures it all and infuses it with dread. You know nothing terrible is going to happen just yet, but you know this foreshadows a coming menace. The first two thirds of the film do a great job of establishing that atmosphere of dread, and even manage to instill some fear in the blank, featureless fog. The last third becomes a bit more conventional and maybe a bit too convenient, but it’s still eminently watchable. The ensemble cast does a reasonable job here. You’ll recognize a lot of the smaller folks from Halloween making a reappearance here, as well as some bigger hitters like Janet Leigh, Hal Holbrook, and Adrienne Barbeau (though I think that Barbeau’s radio broadcasting schtick kinda wore out its welcome at that same two thirds point of the movie.) It doesn’t really approach Carpenter’s masterful Halloween or The Thing, but it stands on its own as one of a long string of successful Carpenter flicks in the early 80s. ***
Shining (fake trailer)
The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror V: The Shinning
The Shining (trailer)
Cookers: Ultra-low budget tale of meth cookers and their paranoia as they use too much of their product and slowly go crazy in the abandoned hose they’ve chosen to hide-out in. I hated this movie. I think my biggest issue is that I really hate watching people on drugs just for the sake of doing so. If there’s a larger purpose to the drug use or a coherent storyline, then it’s usually fine, but in this movie, watching meth take its toll on three pretty unlikeable characters is just a torturous experience and I hated almost every second of it. There were occasional respites in the misery, such as when Merle (he wears a John Dear baseball cap and a hillbilly mustache, just in case you didn’t understand that he’s white trash) recounts an urban legend of a young girl who disappeared mysteriously and the ghost that supposedly abducted her, but even those aren’t that great and the way the film attempts to tie that in with the rest of the “story” doesn’t really work too well. The film looks like it was shot on a crappy, consumer-grade video camera from the mid-90s. Normally this wouldn’t bother me, and to be honest, they did a reasonably good job with what they had… but given that I really fucking hated watching these characters tweaking out, it was just adding to the frustration. I know some folks find this movie entertaining, and I suppose if the concept of watching people tweaking out on meth sounds fun to you, give it a shot, but I really hate this movie. To me, the best part was watching what happens to the character of Hector. The problem was that it took 90 minutes to get there. I wanted it to happen approximately 87 minutes earlier. Not recommended! *
Jack Chop (short)
Just Take One (short)
Vampire Chase (Robot Chicken)
Dead Birds: Another low budget haunted house film, this one turned out, oh, about a million times better than Cookers. It actually takes place during the Civil War era, and it follows some bank robbers who take refuge in an abandoned plantation house after one of their heists (naturally, said heist had gone wrong and lots of people ended up dead). Of course, the house is haunted in the extreme and has no intention of letting the wayward robbers leave. It’s an effective setup and it’s executed really well. Despite the extreme nature of the characters, they are actually able to induce some empathy, thanks primarily to some excellent casting. Most horror these days tends to cast young and pretty teenagers, but the filmmakers here went for a more seasoned bunch, and the film is better for the choice. Henry Thomas plays the leader of the crew and does an admirable job. Patrick Fugit plays his injured brother, and manages to make a lot out of very little. Nicki Aycox and Isaiah Washington also do quite a good job, despite little in the way of screen time. But the real surprise were the two smallest characters, played by Michael Shannon and Mark Boone Junior (both of whom are guys you’d recognize from other stuff, but not necessarily know all that well – they are “that guy” actors). They’re total mercenaries, ruthless and cold (Shannon gets to unleash some pretty unrestrained racist rants, even)… yet, you can’t help but enjoy watching them. Ultimately, they get what’s coming to them and then some, which is where this movie really surprises. It’s very restrained and deliberately paced, and it has an almost Japanese flavor to it, though the setting is distinctly American. In this age of hackneyed remakes and sequels, this makes for a great, refreshing mixture, and while I’m sure some would crave more action, I thought it was pretty well balanced. While I’m sure this had a higher budget than Cookers, it was obviously still quite low, and yet this film looks really good. All of the practical effects are great and the film is photographed really well.

The only real complaint from a visual perspective is the CGI, but that is used quite sparingly and it worked well enough for me The one thing I’m not entirely in love with is the ending. It’s not terrible, but it feels like they kinda wrote themselves into a corner. There’s no real satisfaction there, and that might have been the point, but there’s still something a little off about the ending. Nevertheless, it’s well worth the watch. ***

Well, that covers what will unfortunately be the last week of full-time horror movie watching, but stay tuned on Wednesday for the typical Speed Round, feating short capsules of a whole slew of other stuff I’ve watched during the season. Not sure what I’ll be posting on Halloween proper, but I plan to celebrate by rewatching Halloween (natch) and maybe checking out the new Walking Dead series…