OCTOBER 30, 2013

GENRE: HERO KILLER, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Any hope that the remake of Carrie would overcome the odds and manage to convince me it had a creative reason to exist was erased literally the second the film began, as the first credit appeared and I recognized the "Trajan" font that has become synonymous with generic studio horror over the past decade. Sure, they used it in the ads as well, but the fact that they went all in and put it in the movie practically shouted at me, loud and clear, "This is another reason why people will hate on remakes, sorry." And you might think I'm being ridiculous to lose all hope in a movie because of its damn font, but since the next 90 minutes did nothing but confirm I was right, over and over again, maybe you can give me the benefit of the doubt, eh?

Indeed, the most fascinating thing about the movie was how bland and mechanical it was. Director Kimberly Peirce and screenwriter Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa repeatedly said over the past year or so (the movie was delayed 6 months for reasons still unknown, unless it was the obvious: "It's not very good so let's put it out at Halloween when people will see anything genre-related.") that they weren't remaking Brian De Palma's film but going back to the original text, which is all I can hope for with such things. As I've explained a million times before, I don't consider Carpenter's The Thing to be a remake any more than I do Coppola's Dracula - it's a new take on written material, with anything in common from a previous movie more coincidental than anything. But there's no way in hell you could believe that here; every single thing that De Palma and his screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen changed from Stephen King's novel has been magically changed again here - even the things that didn't quite work when they did it in 1976 (SPOILER: Mrs. White once again dies in a Christ-pose courtesy of a dozen or so telekinetically thrown knives). This is probably why Cohen once again has screenwriting credit even though he didn't work on the film - this is not common for remakes even of movies that AREN'T adapted from books or whatever (the only times I can recall it happening are The Hitcher and The Omen remakes), so the fact that he's still getting credited for HIS adaption is pretty telling.

In fact, the only things that I can see that were taken from the book and NOT in De Palma's (if they were in the 2002 TV movie, I don't know - still haven't seen it) are superfluous. One is the fact that Sue Snell is pregnant, a "plot point" that amounts to exactly one line of dialogue and one moment of morning sickness for which we are led to believe her guilt was to blame. Another I wouldn't even have noticed if not for the fact that De Palma's version "spoke" to me - the gym teacher's name has been reverted back to Desjardin after De Palma/Cohen switched it to the much cooler name of "Collins". And that's pretty much it - there isn't a single thing from the book that we didn't get to see in 1976. It truly baffles me that with the bigger budget and advances in FX that they couldn't think of anything of note to do differently during the TK sequences, especially with CGI at their disposal to pull off things that would have been impossible then. The non-destruction of the town is a huge puzzle - in the book, Carrie destroys the entire city, pretty much, but this movie, as with the original, limits her carnage to the school and a bit of the surrounding area (a few minor explosions from sewer holes and a sinkhole on one street), plus her house.

I also didn't get why they didn't use the book's framing device, which had it all in flashback. Not only would it have been proof that they were truly going from King's text, but it also would have been more modern - the "start at the end" thing is a pretty common trope these days (too common, if you ask me), but often it's not very justified; it just tells us who lives and spoils part of its own ending more often than not. But some random survivor (not difficult; apart from the people I've already mentioned, no one has much of a character here - there isn't even a "Norma" type standin among the girls) telling the tale, over shots of a completely decimated town - that would actually WORK. But no, apart from a scene of Mrs. White giving birth (the most significant "from the book!" element), the movie begins and ends exactly the same, failing to make use of its source material at every turn. Even when things seem like they might be a bit different, Peirce and Sacasa hold back - the girls are playing volleyball in the pool this time, and thus I thought they'd have Carrie have her period there, letting the blood mix with the blue water for a disturbing visual, but no. They go into the shower room (in 2013? That even still happen anywhere?) and things proceed as you'd expect.

So is it any good? Let's assume that I'm the target audience, i.e. teenagers who haven't seen the original (or read the book, but come on, does that need to be clarified in this day and age?). In that case, yeah, it's fine I guess. At the risk of sounding pervy, I don't understand the point of giving the role of Carrie to the most attractive girl in the cast, but Chloe Moretz does a fine job of earning our sympathies, while also fumbling about awkwardly enough for us to understand why the boys wouldn't at least give her a second look (she's less effective in the 3rd act; I don't think ANYONE can pull off moving their arms around REALLY HARD to show telekinesis - probably why they didn't have Sissy Spacek do it). And the rest of the girls are sufficiently horrible without going too overboard into cartoon villainy (though Chris' boyfriend, played by some guy with nowhere near the charisma of John Travolta, comes close), with bonus points for casting Hart "Ellis" Bochner as Chris' dad - a fine shorthand for an audience to understand she comes from an entitled upbringing. The less said about Julianne Moore, however, the better - her over-the-top scenery chewing most definitely will not earn her an Oscar nomination (a Razzie might not be out of the question), though it makes Judy Greer (as Desjardin) shine even brighter by comparison; if there's any reason for a fan of the original to see this, it might be her.

But a younger audience might be just as confused as I was as to how old-fashioned it was. Apart from the "plug it up!" scene being filmed with a camera phone, it's a bizarrely outdated film - the same character with the iPhone at one point even runs home to check her email, as if it wasn't something she can do with her portable device. And when Sue has to make her mad dash to the prom to stop Carrie from being humiliated, she does so by driving, looking around for a way to get into the school, etc - rather than just text her boyfriend the news. Fuck, I'm sick to death of found footage, but there's a way to do the finale that way that would have actually worked on a narrative level (and again, would have been a good way to update the novel's flashback structure), and yet it goes curiously unexplored. It's not uncommon to wonder why a not-great movie didn't do this or that when you're removed from it, but wondering AS IT'S HAPPENING is a sure sign of a film that has completely failed to engage the audience. Hell, I'm not exactly an expert on De Palma's film (I've only seen it twice) or the novel (read once, at least a decade ago), so considering my poor memory I should have been able to more or less "forget" how everything turned out, but the movie's insistence on sticking to the previous film just kept giving me deja vu. Hell even with The Omen (a closer copy) there were a couple of "re-surprise" moments, but I never once got that here. Only the occasional line (like a rather funny one about Tim Tebow) let me know that they HAD indeed written some semblance of a new script. So it's got one up on Psycho '98, I'll give it that much, but to me a good remake should interest viewers new and old - this one almost goes out of its way to alienate the latter.

And then they twist the knife one last time, offering up a ridiculous shot of a tombstone cracking (via not-very-good CGI) to close the film in place of one of the all time great final scares in horror history. But in a way it's kind of perfect; the film starts on something new and ends on something the same only worse, precisely mirroring the likely intentions of Peirce and her cast. It wouldn't surprise me if the studio demanded something "safer" (while still - admirably - R-rated), and certainly the recent (re)wave of school shootings probably didn't help the movie any, but I didn't pay 8 bucks (matinee!) for their initial ideas. With so many paths they could have chosen, they took the least effective one at every turn, and the film's less-than-stellar box office performance - without a single competitor in a year that horror has been doing quite well - proves that their non-risk didn't pay off. Next time do it right or don't do it at all.

What say you?

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OCTOBER 13, 2013

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL, WEIRD
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (SCREAMFEST)

I recently read an article about people who accidentally leave their babies in the car, how they're not bad people or whatever, but victims of a strange tic in the way that our brains work when working through a routine. One likened it to driving to work (it's the most easily identifiable example) - you can get in your car and get all the way to work without actively thinking about any of it, because you've done it so many times. And that's part of the problem I had with horror movies after a while and also part of why I quit doing this every day: there were too many of those "drive to work" movies, where I could watch the whole thing and retain absolutely nothing about the experience, making writing a review next to impossible. Happily, there are movies like The Demon's Rook that, while imperfect, at least know enough to make an impression.

The coolest thing about the movie is how damn WEIRD it is, and also how it seems to be that way by careful(ish) design and not just a bunch of dudes making shit up as they go along and throwing things in at random. On the surface, it's not particularly complicated or unique: a guy comes back to his hometown and must battle an evil demon that has been wiping out the town - could be any random Stephen King novel, right? But when you add in the specifics, it truly forges its own identity, and the script by Akom Tidwell and James Sizemore (who also directs, stars, and performs a half dozen other crew positions) adds flavor at every turn - a mouse running over a piano, a kid asking a demon for pancakes, a guy performing an impromptu hoe-down with his friends because he's so excited about getting married... all these things keep the movie from ever being the slightest bit boring, a HUGE achievement when you consider it runs 105 minutes (longest movie I saw at the festival) and is the first film from just about everyone involved.

But the weird thing is, it's not very funny. In fact, no matter how ostensibly goofy the narrative gets at times, everyone plays it straight, never going for laughs or (worse) campy "so bad it's good" attitude. They're all fully committed to this odd little tale, and that's what makes it work as well as it does - nothing can kill a low budget movie like this quicker than everyone thinking they're comic geniuses, or having the attitude that if they laugh at themselves on camera, the audience will too. This also allowed me to forgive some of its missteps, such as seemingly going out of their way to find a kid who looked absolutely nothing like Sizemore to play his younger self, or curiously having nearly every character be an artist of some sort (there's like 9 scenes of people drawing before being distracted by demon carnage in some form or another).

Another thing I really appreciated was the FX work (also by Sizemore, who taught himself). Not only is it all practical (I will never, ever, EVER get tired of seeing an actor get squirted with real blood - and in this day and age, it's even more admirable and awesome), but there's an impressive variety to all of the demons, including the tree-like head demon villain and the one sort-of good one, who looks a bit like the freak from The Funhouse. It's like an indie Nightbreed - every demon/monster gets its own unique design even if they're not featured very prominently.

In fact, my only real gripe was the ending, which was more of a downer than it needed to be, and abrupt to boot. I understand that this was one of those productions where cast members would constantly drop out and the movie was shot entirely on weekends over a long period, so perhaps something happened and they had to come up with a new ending or something, but either way it just feels tacked on and unnecessarily grim. At 105 minutes I don't think it needed to be LONGER, but if that's what they indeed wanted to go with, I wish it could have all ended at the big massacre that we know has been coming throughout the film (we keep seeing posters for a big concert - no horror movie has such an event unless something big and violent is going to happen there). That sequence ends and then we go to the next morning, with some shuffling about before the action kicks in again, briefly, before just ending like a Hammer movie. Throughout the movie I was impressed by the first-timer's better than average direction and editing, so it's a bummer that it gets kind of clunky in its final moments.

On the other hand, they did such a great job of telling their story visually that we (meaning me and the folks I watched it with) didn't even realize that the theater had fucked up and cropped out a small portion of the top and bottom of the frame - including the subtitles for the demon language. There's a 10 minute sequence at the halfway point, where hero Roscoe reveals how he was taken by the demons, taught their ways, and managed to escape - all of which told in the gibberish demon language. We could always tell what was happening, and assumed that it was a creative decision to keep the audience from understanding exactly what was being said the whole time. It wasn't until the end credits that we realized the framing was off, as there was a still frame credit for all of the executive producers and the title "executive producers" was missing. So we got to see a scope version of the movie thanks to the Laemmle Noho 7 staff not understanding how to frame things properly (this is why being a projectionist isn't something just anyone should be doing without proper training). Luckily, the film showed twice and they got it right the other time, so it was just our crowd that got this unusual version, one that just sort of added to the weirdness (thanks to one of the producers I got to see the subtitled version later - it was mostly gibberish even in English, so if you were also at that screening, it wasn't exactly a huge revelation).

In short, this is the sort of indie horror I wish I saw more often - it's not trying to fit into any particular hot sub-genre (it feels a bit zombie movie-ish at times, but it's a very small element), it's competently (and CONFIDENTLY) made, and doesn't try to make up for its shortcomings with horrible attempts at humor. It may run a little long, but ultimately I'd rather watch something like this for 9 straight hours before enduring another 80 minute Saw or Paranormal Activity wannabe.

What say you?

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OCTOBER 11, 2013

GENRE: SURVIVAL, THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (SCREAMFEST)

This morning I looked at BoxOfficeMojo and discovered that You're Next still hadn't even hit the 20m mark, which is so depressing since it was originally projected to make almost that much in its first weekend (and certainly deserved to). I still don't understand why the public rejected the movie, but I DO know that if it was a hit, movies like Torment would be able to get better deals for distribution than they might now, as it's in the same "home invasion" sub-genre and even has some similar elements (including killers wearing animal masks). Hopefully it will still find its way out there, as I found it to be a solid entry in the growing "folks terrorize people in their own home" series of films.

The first forty minutes or so work best; it's not long after our hero family (a man, his son, and his new wife Sarah, played by Katharine Isabelle) arrive at their vacation home that they realize someone has been in there: dirty dishes in the sink and in the bedrooms, a hole in the basement door, and - worst of all - one of the kid's stuffed animals has been taken. Assuming it to be burglars that have since moved on (and receiving no real help from the local police, embodied by Stephen McHattie, in case you weren't sure that this was a Canadian production), they go to bed... only to discover that their son is missing in the middle of the night.

From then on it's almost a realtime account of the two parents running around trying to find their son while dodging their attackers, who kill the cop, injure Sarah, and quite disturbingly have cut the heads off the kid's giant stuffed animals to make into masks. There are some terrific setpieces throughout this portion of the film, with director Jordan Barker (returning to Screamfest after his enjoyable ghost thriller The Marsh played there in 2006) doing Carpenter proud with some fine use of widescreen and background gags - I particularly loved when a barely visible light turned out in the background behind our hero, letting us (but not him) know the killers were still around. And he milks every second of the more suspense driven parts, with Isabelle or Robin Dunne (the husband) making their way down a hallway, not sure if the killer or killers are waiting to jump out of a room or from a closet behind them. And we know they're brutal killers from the opening scene where they kill a neighbor family (another thing that might bring You're Next to mind; I couldn't find if this was shot before or after YN began making its festival rounds), so there isn't much of a "safe" feeling for anyone but the kid - and he's MIA!

The Strangers may also come to mind, but here's where the film differs greatly from that one - the killers have a motive and explain why they are targeting this guy. It's not a terrible concept, but unfortunately the villain speaks with a voice not unlike Bane's from The Dark Knight Rises, and thus it's almost impossible to keep up that level of tension when I keep having the instinct to burst out laughing. I'm sure the thinking was that it would be creepy and unsettling, but it's just kind of goofy, and I'm of the opinion that these particular movies are scarier without any motive (YN being an exception since it was also more of a fun approach to such things), so the final 20 minutes or so aren't as strong as what came before. But it's got an appropriately grim ending and an admirably left-field twist (one that also registers as more goofy than creepy, to be fair), and it's only like 75 minutes without credits, and thus is never boring.

I also enjoyed seeing Isabelle in a likable, "normal" role, since her biggest genre turns so far have been Ginger Snaps and American Mary, both of which had her playing not particularly sympathetic characters. She's a lovely woman and a solid actress, and I was worried she'd only do horror movies that were in line with those, which would get tiresome. Good to see she's not "above" more traditional "final girl" type of roles, and also that she's playing her age instead of following the lead of some of her peers and trying to keep passing for college students when they're in their 30s (the irony being she'd have no trouble passing for someone ten years younger). And it's always good to see McHattie; he is used well in his two scenes and is pretty much the only other person in the movie besides the family and their pursuers, so it's good that they got an icon of sorts.

In short, it's not a game-changer, but it gets the job done and only has a few minor missteps. Sure, I'd rather a movie with a better 2nd half than the first, so you go out on a high note, but it's not like Mute Witness where you might as well shut the damn thing off once the truly suspenseful/scary part is over with and the movie has to get bogged down with its plot. And I liked it a lot more than any of the shorts in the following block, which only produced one I really enjoyed (Dembanger, about the drawbacks of accepting random friend requests on Facebook). There's this new trend where short films are just basically pitches for feature films, and are equally underdeveloped (as they are saving a lot of the narrative for the feature) and too damn long, and I'm getting kind of sick of it. I also tend to dislike guests of a short who are rude when the other ones are playing, such as the folks for Thirteen, which was also the weakest of the lot to boot. This is part of why I'd rather they didn't do a block and just attached them to the features, but oh well. I also enjoyed Woodland Heights, tho it too could have been a bit shorter. Hopefully the programmers just assumed Friday night would be tough and just sacrificed the weakest ones of the bunch in order to save the really good ones for the other nights, though that wasn't the case last year - Friday night's two short blocks in 2012 were among the all time best I've ever seen. Either way: MAKE SHORTER SHORTS. I didn't love ABCs of Death but at least I knew nothing would be more than 5-6 minutes; I saw one in the Screamfest program guide that runs just under a half hour - that's not a short film, that's an episode of a TV show!

What say you?

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OCTOBER 9, 2013

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (SCREAMFEST)

Taking a cue from George Romero, The Dead 2: India takes place in the same universe as its predecessor, but is in no real way related (we hear a radio broadcast about how Africa is besieged with reports of violence and cannibalism, and that's it) in front of the camera, and thus doesn't require a viewing of the original. Therefore, I would actually suggest starting with this one, because it makes improvements on what is basically the same movie (albeit in the new locale), so if you haven't seen the original it will all be fresh to you, whereas for me some of the novelty had worn off, resulting in an enjoyable experience but one I might have been more blown away by had I not seen the Ford brothers' first pass at this material.

Like the first film, the Fords avoid the two main proponents of most zombie films, the first being a single or primary location (mall, farmhouse, spaceship, whatever). Our heroes are constantly on the go; I don't think hero Nicholas (Joseph Millson) stays in any one place for more than 5 minutes - which does lead to some minor repetition as he's constantly stopping, poking around, running afoul of the undead, and then getting away in the nick of time, usually with a newly found vehicle. But the upside is the scenery is constantly changing, and the pace never lulls. As with the original this is a deadly serious look at a zombie apocalypse, so it's easy to think about The Walking Dead, which often lets long stretches go by without any zombie threat - not the case here. There are never more than maybe a dozen on-screen at once, but they're ALWAYS around and slowly lumbering toward Nicholas and Javed, the young orphan who is helping him navigate his way through the wilderness in order to reach Mumbai, where his pregnant girlfriend is locked in the presumed safety of her home.

But unlike Walking Dead - and this brings me to the second thing I was happy to not see - zombies are the ONLY threat. There are no evil humans to speak of, only a few brief encounters with scared fellow humans that do things to set our hero back (such as the guy who steals Nicholas' (found) motorcycle so he could get back to his OWN family). Fans love The Governor or whatever, and that's fine, but over the years I've grown tired of seeing the threat of zombies reduced as human villains take center stage. This is unique to this genre; some monster movies may have an evil scientist or whatever, but they usually get theirs long before the film's conclusion, keeping the threat on the monster. If Robert Kirkman were writing Jurassic Park, he'd have a few scenes with Raptors, no T-Rex, and the big showdown would be dino-free as Alan Grant faced off against Nedry or the asshole lawyer. So it's nice to see a more focused, straight-forward approach in a modern zombie film, albeit without humor and on a bigger scale.

And the kid's not annoying! Some of his deliveries are a bit clunky, but he's endearing and has a wonderful moment where he explains why he keeps risking his life for a tiny doll that he carries around with him; it's pretty heartbreaking but without any precociousness (as his the bulk of his performance), so for my money it's a step up from the original's pair, since the white guy was such a wooden actor and didn't have a particularly interesting arc (Dembele, on the other hand, could have carried the movie on his own, far as I'm concerned). Again, it's a bit similar - they have different goals and have to stick together to survive as they make their way from point A to point B, but with Millson being a more engaging performer and having a sweet bond with the kid, it's the superior take on this idea. And it's certainly better than any of the scenes with his girlfriend and her father, who disapproves of her dating a white man and seemingly can't figure out that locking his door is the best thing to do (nearly every time we cut to them, he's looking outside at zombie carnage, risking their lives to take another peek). Neither of them are particularly good actors, and even with the minor threat involved in their scenes (her mother has been bit), they just kill the momentum every time.

My only other concern was (and I'm sick of saying this) digital blood flying around during most of the impact shots. I'd actually rather they were just bloodlessly going down than see a bunch of distracting pixels flying around, reducing the impact of every gore moment. I understand the Fords had a difficult shoot and were probably rushed more often than not, but just skip the blood all together, or at least for standard "Hero runs across the room and dispatches a few random undead" shots - it's one thing when it's a big kill scene in closeup - do what you gotta do there - but I doubt anyone would wonder why there was no blood in a wide shot of a zombie with its back to us being gunned down. That said, the zombie makeup is pretty spooky; the whitened eyes alongside their lightly colored attire (no hero zombies; they're all rather anonymous) made for a nice visual.

Also, it means nothing, but I love how simple the title is. It'd be typical to call it something like "The Dead: Retribution" or whatever, but if the series goes on, and each entry got its own meaningless subtitle, fans would likely just say "The one in India" anyway, so it's great that they cut to the chase. Here's hoping The Dead 3: China (Howard Ford claims this is one idea) sticks to the proven formula while once again improving the characterization (perhaps a female lead?) while avoiding the cliches that have long since become stale.

What say you?

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SEPTEMBER 23, 2013

GENRE: CANNIBAL, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (FESTIVAL SCREENING)

During the Q&A for The Green Inferno, an audience member asked if the Peruvian government had given Eli Roth and his team any sort of grief over their portrayal in his newest film, and the filmmaker practically laughed. He then explained that their government doesn't care, that they understand that it's a fictional movie and that you'd basically have to be stupid to think it's a proper reflection of their country. It was a relief to hear, especially when you consider that Wrong Turn, a movie even more ridiculous than this one, caused some official from West Virginia to denounce the film at the time of its release, while assuring the rest of the world that folks wouldn't run afoul of mutant hillbillies when entering his state. It wasn't even shot there!

But it's a fair question, because Green Inferno is very much in line with films like Cannibal Holocaust and The Man From Deep River, both of which (and many others) the victim of much scrutiny and outrage - some of it even deserved. Those films have their fans (I enjoy most on my one viewing; I rarely have any desire to revisit them), but are largely considered to be trash thanks to some unfortunate storytelling decisions - i.e. a lot of rape and the on-screen murder of a few animals. Add in the usual approach to Italian genre filmmaking in that era (basically, rip off and top the guy who did it before you) and you can see why the sub-genre has been dormant for so long - who could possibly get away with such a thing in this day and age?

Eli Roth, of course. He's been MIA from the director's chair for far too long (six years, not counting the Hemlock Grove pilot), focusing mainly on acting and producing, and to his credit he didn't dip his toes in the shallow end for his comeback - he dove right in and has delivered what may be his most violent film yet. It's certainly got the biggest body count: our protagonists are a large group of activist college students who fly to the rain forest to prevent their destruction, only for their plane to crash (a horrific sequence that provides a few of the film's gory deaths) and to find themselves captives by a tribe of natives who look at a human being the same way we look at a cow or pig.

So in some ways it's directly in line with Roth's Hostel films - once again Americans go to another country and get killed by locals (you can even reduce it to "if you travel you will die" and include Cabin Fever in the group), and with the previously mentioned films (and the more extreme Cannibal Ferox) being an acknowledged influence, one could levy the complaint that there's no new ground being broken here. But that's not true - this film will be going out on just as many screens as his other movies, a luxury never afforded to Ruggero Deodato or Umberto Lenzi. This will be the gateway film for many audience members, and Roth is happy to introduce that subgenre to newcomers - the end credits even list the primary entries one should seek out in chronological order. I can honestly say this has to be a first - I don't see Scream or Hatchet's credits encouraging viewers to go back and see the original Halloween or Friday the 13th.

Also, it's the first I've seen that can be considered "fun". It can be grim at times, but there is thankfully no sexual violence of note (the head woman of the tribe checks to see if any of the girls are virgins, but it's not graphic and most certainly not misogynist in tone), and the local turtle population didn't have to worry about any of the actors chopping their heads off on camera. The cannibalism is in line with the others, but Roth's usual gonzo approach to kills (and the makeup FX by the similarly minded folks at KNB) keep it from being too unpleasant an affair, and there's even a damn poop joke to lift our spirits. Hell he even holds back at times; at least one major character's fate is left open ended, and another one is killed off-screen (with proof of her demise executed not unlike the "I never sliced anyone" bit in Rocky Horror Picture Show). I'm not saying "Bring the kids!" - this movie definitely earns its R rating* - but Roth clearly wants the audience to have a good time, something that is next to impossible for even a genre audience with something like Ferox.

This was a make or break film for Eli, as far as I am concerned at least. Hemlock was nearly unwatchable, as was his production of Last Exorcism II, and I wasn't overly thrilled with Aftershock (which showed at last year's FF). But this (and The Sacrament, which he also produced) has put him right back around the top of current genre heavyweights. And even better - he seems HUNGRY; I don't think we'll have to wait another six years for another film (though I was disappointed to hear he's working on a sequel to this already - I guess Thanksgiving is just never going to happen), and he is forming partnerships with other filmmakers like Nicholas Lopez and Aaron Burns (who was the 2nd unit director here and plays the film's most sympathetic character besides our heroine, the daring and lovely Lorenza Izzo) to keep those creative juices flowing. Welcome back, sir.

What say you?

*This was the R rated cut; not sure if there IS an unrated one but Eli claims that he had a very good experience with the MPAA on this one.

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SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

GENRE: THRILLER
SOURCE: STREAMING (ONLINE SCREENER)

If you've ever watched a zombie movie where the outbreak is caused by some sort of faulty medicine or experiment gone wrong and wanted a prequel to it, The Facility (previously Guinea Pigs) should hit the spot. It's not a full blown horror movie, but the afflicted characters DO exhibit symptoms not unlike the "rage" zombies of 28 Days Later, and the confined space/dwindling cast motif certainly gives it a bit of a John Carpenter flair (it's even widescreen!), so it won't be totally out of place in Fangoria (or Horror Movie A Day!) - I just hope none of its distributors attempt to pass it off as a full blown zombie flick.

Taking place only over a day or so, the film depicts the (supposedly true) tragic events that occurred during the testing for a new drug, with the willing participants exhibiting strange behavior a few hours after their dose. For various reasons, the group is locked off in a wing of the facility where no one will be able to see that anything is wrong, and for security reasons they're all without cell phones or any other means to contact the outside world - it's a pretty basic but still effective way to isolate everyone in an otherwise fully functioning facility (unlike say, Halloween II - were there NO OTHER patients at this hospital with a staff of 5?). And the setup allows for a reason for folks to offer up a lot of personal info - they're all strangers and thus are sort of obligated to give their names, a bit about their jobs, etc. This sort of material is usually shoehorned into a narrative in a clumsy manner (if they bother at all) because the "group" usually knows each other and thus has no reason to say what they do for a living or whatever; in short, it makes the characterization stronger than the average modern horror flick.

It also allows for a varied group; most of them are 25-30, but there's an older guy who apparently makes his living being a paid guinea pig for such things, and a young girl in the Juno Temple mode. Their occasional fights are understandable being that they're all stuck together in a shitty situation (as opposed to lifelong friends who inexplicably turn on each other instantly at the first sign of danger), and watching friendships form is always more interesting to me than watching them dissolve. I particularly enjoyed the friendship between Alex Reid (Beth from The Descent) and Aneurin Barnard (the dude from Citadel), which gave the film more of an emotional center than I was expecting.

And that leads me to a sort of puzzling notion about the screenplay - it tells us exactly the order in which the patients will turn. As they were injected in a certain order, an hour (or whatever) apart, they begin to turn crazy in the same order, so once that's figured out (before the halfway point!) it loses a crucial element in such movies: the "Who will be next to go?" idea. It'd be like if at the top of Scream 2 someone said "OK, CeCe goes next, then Randy, then Haley, then Derek...". We're even told about who WON'T turn (as they were the "control" and thus got a placebo), deflating the suspense even further. Sure, there's still the possibility that they get killed by one of the crazed fellow patients, but it still seems to me like the movie would be more fun/suspenseful if there was a chance anyone could turn at any moment.

Otherwise, it's a pretty enjoyable, small-scale thriller. I liked just about everyone (the only one I didn't went out early), and I LOVED that it wasn't overly complicated - no nefarious mad scientists watching them from behind a monitor, no reveal that they were developing some sort of new bio-weapon or whatever - it remained grounded and focuses on the characters' basic plight of being stuck and suffering from a potentially fatal injection. Also (sort of spoiler) the ending has a gutpunch of a twist that reminded me of a recent medical-horror movie that I also quite enjoyed (one that was more of a drama than a thriller), though I can't reveal the title without giving too much away for both. I actually wish they dragged it out a bit more; it happens quick and then we get on-screen text to wrap it up in full - I'd rather see the surviving character(s) hear that information, just to twist the knife a bit more.

Speaking of the on-screen text, the movie starts by telling us that it takes place a couple years ago and a final card saying "this is what happened". This led me to believe that the movie might be a goddamned found footage exercise, which would have resulted in a very fast closing of the tab. Luckily, it wasn't the case, but the irony is that if it WAS this would be the rare movie to justify it. Being that they were undergoing tests, it would make some sense to have monitors up all over the place, and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for the doctor to give them all video cameras so they could keep a running journal or whatever. But nope! It's filmed like a real movie, and quite well I might add. First timer Ian Clark can rely on shaki-cam a bit much for my tastes, and some obnoxious hyper-editing during the more action-packed scenes (especially when a body is thrown through a window - there's something like 20 cuts in 5 seconds), but the widescreen images are often well blocked without much wasted space, something I see quite often by budding Carpenter wannabes. And it moves along nicely, drawing us into the situation and getting to know our heroes before all hell breaks loose.

The limited "horror" elements (i.e. kills) and emphasis on character in the first half might turn off the gorehounds, but otherwise I found this to be a refreshingly stripped down and suspenseful flick, the sort of thing I'd catch at a festival and would walk away happy that it wasn't the same old crap but also wasn't aiming too far beyond its means. Worth a look!

What say you?

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JULY 14, 2013

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: ONLINE (SCREENER)

I've discussed my fear of fish a couple times before on this site, so it's probably not too surprising that I found Beneath to be scarier than the average Jaws ripoff. Not that I would laugh in the face of a shark, but with them I know where I stand, and since I can barely swim I probably wouldn't be going out into the ocean far enough for one to get me like that idiot Kintner boy. But a regular lake, like the one I went in hundreds of times growing up? Sure, I'd go in there, and according to this movie, I'd promptly be eaten by a giant (but not TOO giant) man-eating catfish. So my fear has only been restored, and will stick to well lit, very tiny swimming pools.

In fact, there's something in the movie that unsettled me more than any of the actual kill scenes - a long overhead shot of our heroes in their boat as the fish makes its way over to them, bumps the boat, and just sort of hangs out nearby for a bit before going under and swimming away again. It's a scene that was probably dictated partially by the limitations of the practical (YES, practical!) monster - it can't do much and was probably being operated by guys in the water swimming around and going as fast as they can, but that's what makes it work. It's so casual about its "attack" that it unnerved me more than any scene of it rapidly approaching on someone in the water - it's close, and it's posing a real threat at all times.

Indeed, the movie more or less takes place in real time, which is crucial to point out as the kids don't seem to be that far from the shore. They have no oars (and eventually the fish pops a hole in the side, forcing them to bale water as they cautiously paddle with their hands), which accounts for their slow progress, but a viewer not paying close attention will probably just get annoyed, thinking that they are going too slow only to make the movie work. I mean, I'm sure there is some license taken with the timeframe (not unlike a 30 second sequence in a movie about a bomb going down from 10), but it's something director Larry Fessenden and his writers clearly tried to explain away by only rarely skipping over a chunk of time. So the situation becomes more nerve-wracking, especially once the boat begins to sink and the fish keeps coming back for fresh blood.

See, of course they can't just be a group of close friends who would die to help the others - it's a modern horror film, so if anything they barely like each other. But it's the rare case where this actually pays off, unlike a slasher type where it's just something to add (fake) drama. Here, their tenuous friendships and inadvertently revealed secrets (yes, as always, a character's infidelity is an issue) are enough reason - when ALL of their lives are on the line - to "vote off" someone on the boat every now and then to distract the fish enough for them to risk dipping their hands into the water to paddle. It can be a bit silly - they definitely could have done without everyone defending why they shouldn't be killed, as two of them basically have the same excuse ("I'm going to be famous someday!"), and the movie has already done enough for us to not really like any of them that much - but it's a fun little wrinkle all the same, and adds some tension even when the fish isn't nearby. I actually had no idea who'd ever be next to go (the movie curiously kills off one of its two females first), so even though I wasn't particularly rooting for any of them, I still found myself caught up in the "who will be next" scenes since it was never an obvious choice.

Of course, if you're not afraid of fish, then there probably isn't enough here to make you forget that you're essentially watching a feature length version of "The Raft" segment from Creepshow 2. Even with the voting and real time element, it still feels padded and repetitive at times, so if you find the monster silly instead of THE MOST TERRIFYING THING EVER, I can see this being a bit of a chore for you. There's a hint at a baffling mythology (the fish isn't some new discovery - locals know about it?) that probably should have been saved as a reveal instead of something we learn right off the bat, as it automatically clues us in not only to the danger, but to one character's rather confusing plot arc - why did he bring the girl he loved out there when he knew there was a giant killer fish in the area? It's worth noting that this is the first feature Fessenden has directed that he didn't write himself; it's a shame he didn't bring a bit more of his style into the plotting. He can be hit or miss, but his movies at least never feel like traditional horror flicks, nor do they offer up cliches (there's even an idiotic "guy pretends to be taken by something in the water to scare his friends" scene - have these been amusing in the slightest in the past 30 years?). It's a full 90 minutes, so unless they had some sort of contractual minimum runtime (very possible since this is a Chiller production and will thus be airing on their channel someday, I'm sure), they could have trimmed some of this silly fat and had an even better film.

But it works as an old school, "late night" or "regional" monster movie, not unlike Glass Eye's recent Hypothermia (and superior to that one - better monster!). The lack of CGI is so refreshing that I'm willing to overlook some of its scripting issues, and I'm glad to see Fessenden directing again as it's been over 6 years since Last Winter (which I should revisit; my primary complaint seems to be that it was too slow, something that usually is less of an issue on a 2nd view). Maybe he was just getting into shape for something that fits more in his filmography - if so, as a "stretch" it's a pretty entertaining one, and given all the attention this weekend on Sharknado, I was mostly just happy to watch a monster movie that was taken seriously.

What say you?

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JUNE 22, 2013

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I normally don't read a book that's due to be a movie until I've seen the latter (I've explained why dozens of times; to sum up - I know the book will be better, so why ruin the enjoyment of a new movie by noticing what's "missing"?), but as it turns out, the only thing World War Z takes from Max Brooks' (terrific) novel is the title and the basic premise of a realistic, global account of a zombie epidemic. 99% of all zombie films focus on a small area and leave a few radio/TV broadcasts to fill in the details of how it's spreading (via "Just heard... New York is gone!" type dialogue), but WWZ takes place in the US, Israel, South Korea, and Canada (replacing the original Russian location; more on that soon), and features more airborne sequences than movies about pilots. It is truly an epic adventure that shares just as much DNA with a James Bond movie as a typical zombie flick.

So it's kind of ironic that it's best moments are the ones that are straight out of any Romero wannabe. I particularly enjoyed a bit where hero Brad Pitt and his family stop at a grocery store to find inhalers for one of the daughters (if there was no such thing as asthma or diabetes, a lot of movies would have trouble creating an easy obstacle for their heroes). It's a scene filled with little surprises; when Pitt goes to find the inhalers and a man steps from the shadows with a gun, he doesn't rob/loot Pitt, but helps him find what he's looking for, and when a cop arrives after a scary situation, we see that he's there not as an officer of the law, but as a man desperate to find baby food and supplies for his own family. The best parts of the book were the smaller, personal stories set against the larger backdrop, so while the movie fails to adapt anything specific from it, they at least got the general tone mostly right.

Same goes for the (rare) focused zombie scenes. Those swarms of anonymous (and 99% digital) zombies scaling walls or whatever may look impressive and provide the trailer with its needed money shots, but in the film itself they're nothing more than empty spectacle. I much preferred the scaled down bits, like when Pitt and co. are racing up some stairs to get to a rooftop rescue with a few undead in pursuit, or when he and the other passengers on a plane work together to quietly block their section of the plane off from the tail section, where the zombies have begun biting their way through the other passengers. The larger scenes, such as the siege on Israel (as massive as it gets, really) are fine on their own, but with Pitt being the only character around that we know or care about (and the movie not close to ending), they lack any sense of terror. The PG-13 rating keeps things from getting too violent or gory, and that's fine - but there's not much excuse for being just plain ol' unscary.

Unfortunately, the "Pitt and a bunch of randoms" is a problem that continues throughout the movie. His family is safely kept on a battleship by the end of the first act, and from then on he's always on the go, meeting folks (many of whom don't even have names; David Morse is merely "Ex-CIA Agent") who either die or stay behind as he moves on yet again. The entire third act involves an attempt to locate an important sample from a lab at an overrun CDC type place called the World Health Organization, and the four people on staff who are there are collectively billed as "WHO Doctors" - they are the main focus for a 30-35 minute chunk of the movie and don't even get identifying traits to credit them properly! And poor Matthew Fox ("Parajumper" - a funny name anyway, even funnier when you consider we never see him do that) saw nearly all of his role left on the cutting room floor when the movie was reshot - he was originally a sort of human antagonist but is now only briefly glimpsed in a few shots.

Ah yes, the 3rd act. You can look around for details on what it originally was, but suffice to say (with minor spoilers ahead, but keep in mind this IS a PG-13 summer blockbuster released by a major studio) it's now much different, and less sequel oriented. Not that everything is tied up by the end, but the other "ending" stopped short of ANYTHING that could be considered a proper climax; Pitt was basically still out there looking for his family AND the cure, where at least the new ending resolves one of those things. I can't say which is BETTER since I haven't seen it (it SOUNDS pretty interesting, at least), but I will say that we lost even MORE of the film's already loose ties to the novel as a result, and that the new ending, while enjoyable as its own mini-movie, definitely doesn't jive with the rest of the narrative. For over an hour we're watching this global, epic-scale adventure, and then suddenly we spend the final two reels focused on a few rooms and a basic fetch mission (it's also easy to see that they didn't want to blow much MORE money on their new ending; replace Pitt with some guy from the Syfy channel and you have any Saturday night movie with regards to how expensive it looks).

So it's not a perfect film by any means, and bears more than a couple telltale signs of a reworked production, but it's nowhere near the disaster some folks had feared. Despite the involvement of Damon Lindelof, the plot is refreshingly straightforward - no "vague for the sake of vague" plotting or twist shenanigans. I would have liked them to do a better job explaining why Pitt's character is roped back into the UN (he has retired to be a stay at home dad) when he doesn't seem to possess any special skills beyond the ability to listen while people explain their situation to him, but I guess it's just shorthand - he's Brad Pitt, so naturally we want him to save us all (George Clooney was presumably quickly located and brought to safety). And again, we've never really seen anything quite like this for a zombie movie, so we can forgive a few missteps; if the whole movie was set in an isolated farmhouse or underground bunker, then its low points would be much harder to swallow. Not sure if Paramount wants to pursue it as a franchise as they originally intended after all the problems they had getting this one together (reports say there are, but I can show you a few articles about when Brandon Routh will be suiting up for a Superman Returns sequel too), but at least it paid off - the movie secured a HUGE opening weekend gross (Pitt's highest ever, in fact) and will be the all time highest grossing zombie film by the end of the week. Not too shabby for a movie everyone wrote off as a disaster a couple months ago. And as a bonus, it's a pretty enjoyable blend of typical summer action movie and zombie flick.

What say you?

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JUNE 19, 2013

GENRE: SLASHER, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (FESTIVAL SCREENING)

I thought I had written at least a capsule review of You're Next when I saw at Fantastic Fest back in 2011, but apart from an article I wrote for BadassDigest bemoaning the fact that Lionsgate was sitting on it for too long (as it turns out, I was being optimistic!), I guess I never did. I assume it's for the same reason I'm about to put in words here as a full disclosure - I am friendly with a couple folks from the cast and crew, including the writer and director - but now that I've seen the trailer and marketing for the film, I thought I'd at least offer up my two cents as well as "spoil" a certain thing about the movie (not about its plot, don't worry!) that the advertising ignores. Also keep in mind this is the same team that made my least favorite segment of V/H/S/2, so if you want to claim I'm biased, there's some precedent to the contrary.

Anyway, I quite like the movie, and was happy to see it held up to my initial reaction from that long ago screening. Yes, it's unfortunate that LG sat on it for too long and now idiots will claim it's a ripoff of The Purge since both films deal with a family being terrorized in their own giant home by people with creepy masks, but trust me when I say that this is the superior film. Unlike the other film, it's always clear where the characters are in relation to another, and while the exterior of the house suggests potential for more chase/hide n' seek style scenes than we actually get, the location is utilized wonderfully. It's big enough to understand how something can happen (i.e. a murder) without the others hearing, but not so big that you feel "lost" and disoriented - because it's THEIR home and thus they should know every nook and cranny even if the lights are out (an ability the heroes in The Purge didn't seem to have). And speaking of locations, even though it's an isolated home in a remote area, there's an in-movie reason that the cell phones don't work (a jammer) instead of the usual "there's no service out here!" crap, which I appreciate.

Also, it's scary. Granted it's been a while, but I jumped TWICE, which is pretty rare anyway let alone for one I have already seen. And the crowd (men and women alike) were getting jolted much more often, of course (also if you're not familiar with the site, please don't take this as "I'm too tough to be scared" - it's just something that rarely happens that I chalk up to desensitization due to watching horror at a very young age). I've mentioned this before, but there's something that's more depressing/upsetting about seeing a family wiped out as opposed to the usual gang of teenagers, and even though they're dysfunctional and obviously don't get together too often, the movie is still able to take advantage of that inherent "Oh the boyfriend and the bitchy wife will die, sure, but the family unit will be safe" feeling we have sort of built into our subconscious after seeing so many other horror films that DON'T have the balls to say, let a daughter die right in front of her parents.

But while it works on that typical survival level, it's not without crowd-pleasing moments. A few of the kills are frustratingly off-screen or edited around (so we see a weapon swing in closeup and cut to said weapon already embedded into a person's head), but they often have a Friday the 13th sensibility - I particularly enjoyed the upside down blender attack. Even a couple of the good guy deaths carry that perverse sense of humor you see in the Final Destinations or whatever, like when someone makes a run for it in a big hero moment only to be killed almost instantly. The body count is pretty high by the end, and the movie effectively balances our need to care about the people being killed and our desire to see some splatter and cheer for it - it's a tough act to pull off, and kudos to director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett for getting it pretty close to exactly right.

And that leads me to what I mentioned earlier - the movie is a lot funnier than the ads would have you believe. Yes, it's scary and dark and thus not a "horror comedy", but there's definitely a sense of humor to the proceedings. The dinner scene is damned hilarious, with the brothers (AJ Bowen and Joe Swanberg) sniping at each other, the daughter's filmmaker new boyfriend (Ti West) trying to explain what an "underground" film festival is, etc. And their fights continue even when the killers start attacking; Swanberg can't help but say Bowen's character is too fat (he's not fat) to be of any use to run for help, leading to another fight that you can barely hear because the crowd is laughing so hard. And without spoiling the particulars, the main bad guy's final dialogue moment had this audience laughing just as hard as they were in Austin, where I could hear the reaction from the bathroom because I couldn't hold my bladder any longer and (stupidly) assumed I wasn't going to miss much for the next 60 seconds. I guess in a way it's a smart approach, as it can be a surprise bonus to intelligent viewers, but sadly any horror film will attract some folks that simply aren't that bright, and thus they'll mistakenly assume the movie is just being "retarded" (as the idiot behind me described a moment that was, yes, SUPPOSED to be funny). So I figure if I can just let a few people know that the humor is intentional so that they can appreciate it all the more when they see the movie in August, it's worth the "spoiler".

Really, there are only two things about it I'm not completely on board with, and the first is minor though SOMEWHAT spoiler-y (I'll be as vague as possible) - at the end we discover a certain character was not meant to be harmed, but someone was very definitely trying to kill her/him at one point only to be thwarted at the last second by an outside element. It's one of those things that no one will notice on a first view, but on a second it stuck out as a bit of a cheat, making a scene out of something that logically made no sense (its akin to all those bits on 24 where someone will save Jack Bauer from certain death by anonymous goons in an isolated firefight, only to be revealed as one of the terrorists 3 episodes later). The other, more problematic one is Wingard's obsession with shaki-cam, which is thankfully much improved since A Horrible Way To Die, but in a way just makes it more jarring when he does it. It's particularly obnoxious during the dining room attack, with the camera bobbing and swishing around at random to give a sense of the chaos, but they go way overboard with it. Thankfully most of the big scenes keep it in check, but it's almost like he was saving his strength to jerk it around even more during those other moments.

But those are both dwarfed by what the movie gets right, and again, I'm happy to say it holds up on a second view, something I worry about when I like a movie as much as I did this the first time (where I was also a bit inebriated, hence the bladder problem). Not sure if that's quote-worthy ("I enjoyed it even when I was sober!" - Brian Collins, Horror Movie A Day would look nice on a poster, no?), but it's worth noting all the same. August 23rd, folks - don't let the long delay trick you into thinking this was something they were trying to hide. I truly believe they wanted to make sure that they had time to market this one properly and build up a buzz (no one could have predicted The Purge; hell it wasn't even SHOT until after You're Next showed at those festivals that got it picked up by the Gate in the first place), so let's reward them by packing those theaters in two months.

What say you?

P.S. The film was preceded by the short "The Apocalypse", which I had seen before but only online - was great to see with a crowd. It was also great to see post-This Is The End, as Martin Starr (who stars in the short) was reduced to a background extra in that film, so this sort of makes up for it. "I made a puddle!". Highly recommended, I believe it's online as well.

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JUNE 18, 2013

GENRE: MOCKUMENTARY, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (FESTIVAL SCREENING)

I may be burned out on the "found footage" concept in general, but that's only because so many movies have done it wrong, and thus giving me a slight knee-jerk reaction to any such title that I stumble upon as of late. But IF they're done right, I can be won over, and thankfully Delivery (which premiered tonight at the LA Film Festival) mostly nails the approach, allowing me to forgive some of its missteps. Hell even if they got it totally wrong, the fact that it's not about a team of paranormal investigators automatically makes me like it more than the last 5-6 that I've suffered through.

To be clear, it's not a traditional found footage movie - our heroes Kyle and Rachel are actually starring in a reality show that depicts the ups and downs of their first pregnancy. To sell this idea, after a prologue that tells us that the mother is now dead and that this is something that happened in 2009, we are treated the the pilot episode of "Delivery", and director Brian Netto totally nails the tone/editing/style of a terrible TLC reality show. The constant establishing shots, the fly on the wall "personal moments" that are bookended by talking head interviews, cheesy music... it's all there, and you could easily strip out the occasional interruption of the horror angle and put it on one of those channels without anyone being aware that it was staged (well, more staged than an actual reality show, I mean).

Towards the end of the "pilot", Rachel suffers what seems like a miscarriage; she's bleeding and the doctors are unable to find a heartbeat. Faced with the choice of letting the miscarriage "run its course" or undergoing a procedure to remove it, they opt for the former - only for the fetus to suddenly come back to life the following morning. Everything points to it being a miracle, but then strange things begin to occur - the dog begins growling in Rachel's presence, and the cameras that are capturing their every move suddenly experience glitches whenever she is in their view. These audio/video glitches get mighty annoying as the film goes on and they occur more frequently - toward the end of her pregnancy I swear we hear the ZZZT! of a distorted audio track between every cut. Netta would have been wise to restrain himself with these things - at first they're actually good for a cheap scare, but they just get obnoxious and mildly headache inducing as the movie goes on, which is a big problem.

See, after the "pilot" ends, there's a lot of filler as we get to the night of the baby's birth (the obvious conclusion), and the attempts to mix things up a bit (like when a priest is brought in to bless the house) will mostly just remind viewers of Paranormal Activity. As it is, the couple is very similar to Katie and Micah, so anything else that might trigger some deja vu is unfortunate, and thus adding in a recurring irritant hurts the movie some - you might start wanting the movie to just get on with it. Some might also balk (spoiler!) that the supernatural element is never really explained - I personally didn't mind (better no explanation that a potentially stupid one that the movie can't recover from), but it's strange that they almost seem to be trying to suggest Rachel is just experiencing something psychological the whole time, but with the glitches and a few other "demonic" moments there's no question that it's something actually wrong with her pregnancy.

Otherwise, it works pretty damn well, and I'm super relieved that I didn't bring my wife along. I'm more excited about having kids than she is as it is (can you blame her? Look at me. She'll have to carry around another one that'll look like me for the better part of a year), and this probably would have scared her right off for good. The miscarriage stuff (which is gut-wrenching; it's the rare reality/mockumentary horror where I actually cared about the characters) is brutal by itself, but then you add in the "oh and your baby might be a demon or something and it'll make you break mirrors and stab the family dog and such" element? The movie should have a warning label for pregnant women - the physical harm of a roller coaster wouldn't match the psychological harm of seeing this stuff play out when you got your own bun in the oven. Even a movie like Rosemary's Baby (a superior film, don't get me wrong) doesn't get into the nitty-gritty of a pregnancy (Mia had too many other things to worry about, really) like this does, and playing on those fears and worries helps the movie clear the hurdle of all horror movies of this type: the "nothing is happening" factor. Kyle gets increasingly frustrated with the camera crew and they start to bicker a lot, but apart from the occasional freak out moment, we know that the movie will be action-lite until the very end. So toss in some real world problems (and avoid too many Rosemary flashbacks by glossing over whatever devilish element might be in play) and viola! The rare found footage horror that rarely bores.

Being that this was the movie's premiere at a festival, I doubt anyone will be able to see it for a while (though if you're in LA - it's playing again on Friday!), but since I've slowed down maybe this review will still be on the front page by the time we hear about distribution. But if not I'll remind you when it does - it's not a perfect film, but it's a step in the right direction for the found footage sub-genre, and I want to champion the films that apply that aesthetic to something besides Paranormal Activity sequels or a bunch of assholes poking around an abandoned building.

What say you?

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JUNE 6, 2013

GENRE: SURVIVAL, THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Even before I began making a living by creating them, I always stuck around to watch the end credits of a movie if possible; not only is there an increasing chance that there will be an extra scene, but you can gain some valuable insight on occasion. Such is the case in The Purge; buried deep down in the traditional crawl there's a break to allow for a full-screen credit for an "additional editor" - this is very unusual, and almost certainly a sign of a movie that was edited once and then heavily reworked by a fresh pair of eyes. Since the movie was shot well over a year ago and clocks in at a mere 85 minutes including credits, it's not too much of a stretch to suspect there's a different - and possibly superior - version of the movie buried on an Avid somewhere.

By now we all know the concept - in a near-future, the country's government (never seen, and only briefly described as the "New Founding Fathers") has implemented the titular Purge, where once a year (perhaps not too coincidentally on the first day of spring) for a period of 12 hours, all crime is legal and no emergency services will be available. There are some underexplained exceptions - no heavy weapons (i.e. you can't just go blow shit up, I guess), no attacks on government officials (duh), etc, though the movie curiously only focuses on murder/assault related crimes. Not that I need/want to see rape or torture, but the idea is that people can give into their urges without repercussion and thus be OK for the other 364 and a half days of the year, so what about those who just want to, I dunno, jerk off in public? As presented in the movie, The Purge is really just "Go ahead and kill people if you want".

As a result, once this rushed, only vaguely defined world is explained, the movie merely becomes another home invasion film, complete with masked, ahem, "strangers" and people being silently followed around their own home, albeit with more gunplay than usual (the killers brandish machetes and such, but at least 75% of the deaths in the film are by gunshot). At this point, it's no different than Straw Dogs or whatever - regardless of the "law" that says you can kill someone, Ethan Hawke and his family are merely defending themselves from attackers in their own home, which is legal anyway. The moral dilemma comes in the form of a homeless vet (and, while not explicitly brought up, a black man) who Hawke's son lets into their home after seeing that he needs help. His pursuers, led by a guy who stepped out of an American Psycho lookalike contest, find him quickly enough and offer Hawke a pretty easy deal - kick the guy out of the house and let them have their Purge fun, and they'll leave him and his family alone. Otherwise, they'll tear the doors down and kill everyone.

And this is where the movie's insurmountable problems really begin, and the underwhelming (and, despite what the ads play up, not as scary-leaning as you might expect) home invasion elements certainly can't save it. Yes, it's easier said than done to just hand a guy over to be killed, but he's hiding in the house (which now has no electricity; the security runs on a generator but not a single light, I guess), giving us an entire reel's worth of Hawke and wife Lena Headey (who doesn't get to do anything badass until the last 5 minutes - why hire someone who could mop the floor with everyone else in the movie? It would make more sense to hire a NON-asskicker so that when that moment arrives, it actually shocks as intended) looking around their own house for someone who inexplicably turns on them even before the strangers show up with a reason to do them harm. Worse, their idiot son has led him to a secret hiding spot that they seemingly don't know about, so now we have to believe that Hawke, who sells security systems for a living, doesn't know the layout of his own home.

But then again, neither does director James DeMonaco, apparently - throughout the entire movie I had trouble understanding where anyone was in relation to each other or even what floor they were on, or the passage of time. Yes, it's a big house, but how long could it take for Hawke and Headey to look around not only for the vet but their daughter, who has ALSO gone hiding for reasons that never quite make sense. See, the movie needs an obvious "protagonist" kill, so of course her boyfriend has snuck into the house before they locked it down for the Purge (and yes, despite having no reason to go outside or anything, they wait until the last minute to turn on their security system, for some reason). But how (spoiler!) he dies is completely ridiculous even for this movie, and you have to ask yourself - what exactly did the boyfriend plan to do if his original plan had worked out? Would have been a pretty awkward 12 hours.

Anyway, so it's "Hide and seek" the movie, where no one is hiding for a logical reason, and when they DO find him (via a completely botched attempt at what could have been a decent suspense piece - the daughter decides to go hide in the same spot), more time is wasted on the struggle to get him outside. It's as if DeMonaco thought traditional home invasion stuff was far more interesting than the fascinating sci-fi concept that the movie was supposedly about; every single thing that happens from the moment the strangers arrive until the last one has been dispatched could be cut and pasted into any other scenario. Every now and then someone will mention the Purge, but again - once a guy smashes through your window and tries to lop your head off with an axe, you are free to shoot him in the chest any day of the year. The final few minutes finally come back to the scenario and how it doesn't necessarily come down to a war between the haves and the have nots, but the explanation we get for certain characters' behavior is beyond idiotic - and that's with the clumsy foreshadowing that gave it away in the film's opening scenes.

In short, the movie botches pretty much every good idea it has, and while there are a handful of great moments (I love that one stranger terrorizes Headey by tickling her), it never adds up to anything fully satisfying as a think-piece OR a horror/thriller. Even if the characters WEREN'T idiots (SPOILER - Hawke decides NOT to turn the guy over and instead fight the attackers - but leaves the guy (a trained, able-bodied man) tied to a chair rather than hand him a gun to help), it's nearly impossible to get into the movie when they've left so much unexplained. I've said it a million times; I'll accept ANY movie's plot, no matter how ludicrous, as long as the movie takes the time to at least try to explain its interior logic within that idiotic scenario. Armageddon is the easiest example to use (and fitting, since this was co-produced by Bay's Platinum Dunes - their first film in over 3 years): everyone makes the joke about it being easier to train oil drillers to be astronauts than the other way around, but the movie gives it a "fair enough" explanation (drilling problems come up that you need to deal with quickly or else you'll die; the oil drillers didn't have to fly the damn shuttles, just sit there and do their thing once they landed, etc). So, fine. I'm sure it's still nonsense in the real world, but it's SOMETHING for *this* world - The Purge never even offers us that much. We're told that this thing happens and that's that; any questions you may have about how it WORKS (for example - no emergency services, but what if someone falls in their home and needs an ambulance? They just die?) are left to your imagination, because DeMonaco and his producers (including Jason Blum, so of course there's a goddamn video camera in there somewhere) never made the effort to dig deep into their intriguing scenario because they were too busy focusing on the stuff we've seen done better elsewhere. That, or they edited it out. Here's hoping the Blu-ray (or the already planned sequel) has some of that "fleshed out" feel the movie sorely lacked.

What say you?

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MAY 13, 2013

GENRE: ANTHOLOGY, MOCKUMENTARY
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

I liked but did not love V/H/S, having issues with pretty much every segment (some more damaging than others) and being disappointed with the total lack of payoff in the wraparound sequence. But happily, I can confirm what a lot of pals have told me (thanks to SXSW/Sundance screenings and such): the sequel, originally the much better S-VHS but now simply V/H/S/2, is superior in just about every way - hell, they even improved the (already awesome) VHS tracking ravaged/ugly font end credits that simulate a VCR's on screen display. It's not quite Creepshow or Trick R Treat, but any sequel that surpasses its original is always to be commended.

The wraparound segment is similar, and confusingly unrelated - it's about a sleazy PI and his partner hunting for a missing college student and tracking him to a house filled with VHS tapes, but it's not a. the same house from the first movie or b. even one of the same aged kids who disappeared in the first film. I thought it would be a fun way to build a mythology (a 3rd film is already planned) out of wraparounds, which would be unique for this genre (not that sequels are common to begin with), but it seems they just wanted to keep the idea of VHS tapes and disregard everything else. Nothing against it; it's not like I've been clamoring the IMDb boards to theories on what happened at the end of the first wraparound sequence, but as a fan of sequel mythology in general (see: my love of the Saw movies) I was a bit bummed. Luckily, as a whole it works better than the original's, with a terrific scare and a fun little resolution that suggests something a little more supernatural is at play - which may also explain how all this high tech camera stuff ends up on cruddy VHS tapes in the first place.

The first proper story has a great hook - there's a camera inside the experimental cybernetic eye that has been put into the victim of a car accident, which gives him a bit of a Terminator look at first (but seems to heal quickly). As with Maniac, this means we get not entirely convincing shots of the actor (Adam Wingard, who also directed) looking at a mirror more than seemingly necessary, but it's a great way around the "Why are they filming" thing (something that seems to have been a goal of every short's crew). The horror kicks in when he starts seeing ghosts with his new eye, and then a mysterious girl (and not very good actress) comes over to explain that she has an ear implant from the same people that allows her to hear ghosts talking to her, at which point all hell breaks loose as the ghosts begin their assault. I can't help but think this deserved a feature or at least a longer segment; not only do we know very little about the ghosts (kind of important in a ghost story) but it's never fully clear what the company can gain from doing this. Sadly the film's weakest installment, but the jolts work and the concept itself is intriguing.

Next up is a zombie tale from none other than Eduardo Sanchez, half of the writer/director team behind Blair Witch Project (who co-directs here with BW producer Gregg Hale). I loved the scenario behind this one - a bicyclist with a GoPro on his helmet is bitten by a zombie while racing through the woods, and then we see his transformation and resulting attack on innocent bystanders all from the POV of the camera that's still attached to his head. It's the most fully satisfying of them all in terms of closure - I didn't feel it was too short (or long), nor did I feel it deserved more explanations or backstory for anything that was going on - it was a simple story with a unique idea, done quite well save for a few unfortunate digital blood sprays mixed in with the practical ones.

The third will probably be everyone's favorite, and not just because it's from Gareth Evans - the director of The Raid, the current go-to movie to name check when you want to complain about Hollywood does everything wrong. As with the first story I can't help but feel this could have been longer, as our filmmakers (with a variety of cameras here, though at least one is in a shirt button to explain the "still filming" aspect when things go apeshit) seem to get easy access to this very disturbing cult sect on a day that is apparently very important to them - why'd they let them in in the first place? But otherwise it's an intense slice of WTFery, rivaling the first film's haunted house segment in terms of how insane it gets from where it began. At one point a room full of cult members shoot themselves in the head simultaneously, and that's not even in the top 5 moments that left my eyes widening and muttering "Holy shit..." I heard someone say the final shot was too much, and I won't spoil it, but I will say that I loved it - I'm all for things just going for broke and being as nutty as they like.

And that is why I was left SOMEWHAT disappointed with the final entry, directed by Jason Eisener (Hobo With A Shotgun). It starts off with kids playing elaborate pranks on the older sister of two of them (and her boyfriend), and then things go awry when aliens invade mid-prank. It's certainly intense, but kind of one note - the aliens (standard pale skinned/giant eyed things) just sort of swarm around as a giant white light explosion/loud noise out of a current movie trailer (BWWWARRRRRRRRRM) goes off over and over. It's so chaotic (and lo-fi - the camera is attached to a dog which suggests another GoPro, but it looks like mini DV at best) that it's often hard to tell what is happening and who has been taken (except for the poor dog - UNNECESSARY, JERKS!), so it gets a bit tiresome by the end as it's basically just one long attempt to run away from a not-very-well defined villain. I actually preferred the pranks part - the kids are kind of awesome and foul mouthed (making me wish Eisener would just redo Super 8 and give it a better 3rd act this time around), but since each segment was better than the one before it, I wanted the film to keep topping itself, and it doesn't QUITE get there.

But again, overall it worked better than the original, and each segment had its merits (something you couldn't say about the first movie thanks to that terrible one in the woods); the weakest spots here are as good as the best in the first film, which is commendable. Plus it's shorter, and there was more variety between each one - aliens, zombies, cults, mad scientists... - and I liked that they found ways to attach the cameras to something other than someone's hand as often as possible. Add in the improved wraparound and you just have an overall better experience; the biggest hurdle it has is that it's closer to spiritual remake than sequel, so the novelty has worn off some. Thankfully, since they're NOT related, if you haven't seen the first yet, feel free to just start with this.

What say you?

P.S. In the interest of full disclosure, I do know some of the folks behind the movie (and it was produced by my old boss from Bloody Disgusting), but I certainly don't know the Raid folks and that was my favorite part. Also, just an FYI, over time my opinions have shifted on the first one; I previously liked the Skype story the most but have come to like the haunted house one above all. And that 3rd story is my least favorite, not the 1st (the "bat girl") as my review states. Should I do a HMAD 2.0 and re-review every movie? (I don't care what you say, I won't actually DO that, but it'd be interesting to handpick a few others and see if my opinion has changed.)

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