Horror, Not Horror (Part 5): maternal horrors

mother! - 2017, d. Darren Aronofsky - netflix
The Eyes of My Mother - 2016, d. Nicolas Pesce - netflix
Mom and Dad - 2017, d. Brian Taylor - netflix

There's virtually no connective thread here.  mother! is all about metaphor and the "maternal horror" is equally metaphorical. In The Eyes of My Mother, the "maternal horror" is parental influence (both the impact of the mother and the absence of her).  In Mom and Dad the horror is the fact that parents are all going psycho trying to kill their kids.  So yeah, can't really thread these together in any form of critical narrative, so I won't try.

I should also note I had 2013's Mama (starring Jessica Chastain and Jamie Lannister) queued up in netflix for this grouping, but I ran out of time to watch it.

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So, mother!
Wow.  This film is ...well, it's a slog.  Darren Aronofsky is an incredible filmmaker who makes, at the very least, interesting films.  This one is definitely interesting, in concept at least.  In actually watching, it's pretty brutal.

If you don't know about mother!, what it's conceit is, what metaphors it's playing with, then it's probably more enticing, but if you do know what its conceit is, the metaphors at play, then it's quite a tedious slog, as you're constantly unpacking the metaphors.  If you know that Javier Bardem's character is supposed to represent God, and Jennifer Lawrence's character is Mother Nature, and their house, the only setting in the film is the Earth, then you literally cannot invest in the story.  These are not characters, they're metaphors, and the events happening don't mean anything to them really, because they are also metaphors.

God revels in his love for humanity and humanity's love for him, at the expense of nature.  The Testaments teach about respect and forgiveness for fellow man, but don't teach respect for the Earth and nature.  So we, as humanity abuse mother nature, we disregard and disrespect her.  We destroy what she gives us, we poison her and ourselves, we overstay our welcome, we battle each other in front of her, and scar her land, leaving irreparable wounds.  We overpopulate and ravage this small land recklessly, while holding belief in a higher being as reason to do so, our God-given land to do with as we please.

It's pretty obvious within the first 20 minutes how this will shake out (well, all of it isn't obvious, particularly what happens in the final 10 minutes) and the intention is clear from the get-go.  Exploring religious and ecological themes in tandem is honestly not something that happens often enough.  What is religion's responsibility to the Earth?  Yet, there's a ham-fisted nature to the way Aronofsky explores the ideas here.  It's a kind of cudgel that just beats it into you, and is exhausting in its abuse.  I had to watch the film in fits and starts because I would get so fatigued after watching 20 minutes (sometimes less).

Everything in mother! is very deliberate, but that's part of what makes it so challenging to watch. The almost constant up-close, center-frame focus on Lawrence (and occasionally Bardem) is challenging.  I remember my art teacher in high school explaining that placing a figure at center frame is off-putting, too perfect, commands too much of your attention.  Placing them a little askew, to one side or the other, lets your eye wander.  At center frame you feel held captive by the image.  You would think being held captive by J-Law wouldn't be that bad a thing, but there's a otherworldliness to her, a natural uncanny valley that makes her difficult to look at for long stretches (and the same can be said for Bardem, which makes casting seem very deliberate).

It's a film I definitely cannot recommend, as I can't even think of anyone who would enjoy this, and yet, I'm still glad I saw it.  It does leave more than a little lingering something to think about.

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The Eyes of My Mother (a name I kept getting confused with the not-so-classic John Carpenter-written The Eyes of Laura Mars) is an examination of how an isolated and traumatized child grows into a confused and murderous adult.  It's a twisted concept piece, shot in black and white, with long (and I mean loooooong) takes establishing mood and isolation.

Let's just stop there and talk about these dragged out scenes.   I get the intention, which is to really set the mood here.  The soundtrack is sparse (but not completely absent as it was in Under the Shadow), with the chilly ambiance of a remote farmhouse really grinding the lonely, isolated edge.  It reminded me greatly of David Lynch and his tendency to do long takes as characters walk towards or away from the camera, or even the highway tracking shot out front of the windshield, but director Nicolas Pesce takes it to an extreme degree, real patience tests.  If this film cut out all of it's scenes with someone walking away from the camera or moving towards the camera, it would be half the length.  I know this because I fast forwarded through all of these scenes and watched the film completely in about 40 minutes without missing a moment of dialogue.  You may say I cheated myself out of immersing in this film, and you may be right, but I also saved myself 45 minutes of watching people just walk (at regular speed) so what did I really miss?

I'm going to tell you pretty much the whole movie in one paragraph...I'm leaving out a few nuances but otherwise, this is the film:

Francisca mother was a surgeon in Portugal, and is taught about biology (as her mother butchers the cows from the farmland) at a very young age.  Still a child, she witnesses her mother murdered by a cheerful stranger, and her father, returning home, bludgeons the grinning psychopath and chains him up in the barn.  Francisca converses with the killer, to find out why he did it... "Because it feels amazing" he tells her.  To silence their captive's late-night wailing Francisca removes the man's vocal chords and eyes (a particularly fascinating piece of anatomy to her mother).  Calling him her best friend, she feeds and grooms him like a pet, and years later, now a grown woman, she seeks solace in him after her father dies.  Lonely, she picks up a woman at a bar and confidently tells her about her disturbing history and thoughts, and murders the woman.  Later, she confesses to him that he was right, and thinking that she's found kinship, she unchains him, feeds him, bathes him and lays in bed with him.   But tries clumsily to flee her, so she kills him too.  Her loneliness overbearing she kidnaps a baby and its mother, treating the mother like her former hostage (eyes and vocal cords removed), and raises the boy as her own.  Years later, the boy discovers the stranger in the barn, and sets her free, and it's only a matter of time before the police arrive.

It's not a particularly crafty film, but it's very assured in its creation.  The director knows exactly what kind of tone he wants from the story and ultimately is trying to find understanding in why Francisca is the way she is.  She's not a malevolent being, not a violent psychopath, just an isolated woman who was never taught properly how the world works or how to have a proper relationship.  Her father is such a numb, inanimate object, that her relationship isn't much different with him even after he's dead (yep, she still watches TV, dines, and sleeps next to his corpse).  Her relationship with her captives are pretty much the same, she takes care of them.  We don't see much of her relationship with her stolen son, but it's clear she has emotions, the capability of love and caring, and her son seems well-adjusted in a way she isn't.  Also, I suppose the film intones that she treats her victims like her mother treats cattle...as food, since there are plenty of shots of her packaging up the butchered meat and putting it in the refrigerator.  She's a cannibal but doesn't see humans as any different than animals grown for food.

One of the most interesting aspects of this, as a horror film, is that it cuts over the violence.  All of Francisca's misdeeds happen off screen.  We see the lead into them, and the clean-up after them, but not the actual acts, save one.  It's actually far creepier that way, leading the imagination to picture horrors and gruesomeness probably far in excess of what they would have managed to show on screen.  There is real precision here, but it's essentially an hour-long tv-show type production stretched out to feature length.

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Then there's Mom and Dad.  This one was stupid retro fun.  It's very much like an 80's soft R sci-fi horror film, the kind where something unusual just happens and suddenly people are going crazy.  In this case, suddenly parents have an uncontrollable urge to kill their kids.  Not all kids, however, only their own kids.  Actually it seemed most tonally akin to Maximum Overdrive for some reason, probably for the coked-up nature of Brian Taylor's filmmaking resembling Steven King's solitary, coked-up directorial effort. The film even opens with a sliding-panels credits sequence like a 70's cop drama.  It's totally fun, but it's a tone the film doesn't even attempt to carry through past the credits, which is unfortunate.
 

While Talyor was one half of the team that put out the Crank movies, Gamer and Ghost Rider 2, without Mark Neveldine as creative partner, Mom and Dad seems downright reserved comparatively.  In fact, unlike any of those previous movies, it actually feels like Taylor has something to say here, in this case about parenthood and middle age.

While the a teen (Anne Winters) and a precocious 8-year-old (Zackary Arthur) are the ostensible heroes of this film, the focus is more on the sure-to-go-crazy parents played by Nic Cage and Selma Blair.  Cage is in full-on Cage mode here, and it's hard to really tell if he's in tune with the character and the story or if he's just doing that Nic Cage thing that he always seems to do now.  Blair's character gets a bit of a softer touch, as she's fighting with her teen constantly and can't seem to figure out how not to be at odds with her.  Cage meanwhile is in full-on mid-life crisis.  He can't believe the man he's become and fantasizes waaaay too much about the carefree asshole pussy magnate he used to be.  Taylor gives Cage a rather sad montage of assembling and obsessing over a pool table, only to follow it up with another quick-cut Cage-rage as he destroys it with a sledgehammer when Blair questions it.  Taylor's clearly working through some things.

For the first half of the movie, the adults-attacking-of-kids percolates in the background, mentions on the radio, on tv, sirens and other small things in the distance that just are askew.  When things do happen, they're more comedic than horrifying, and in general Taylor guides this more as a romp than a scare-fest.  The focus here is on establishing the family dynamic, the relationships between the parents and children and between the parents themselves.  I don't buy Cage and Blair as a happy couple, but that's mainly because we're not supposed to.  They're not happy with their lives and not terribly happy with each other.  That doesn't come through right away because they spend so much time apart.  But once they become kill-kid happy, they're brought together in a way that unifies them once again.  Unfortunately it's because they're wanting to kill their kids.

It's a bit gross at times, but the violence here is mostly slapstick.  It's pratfalls and clumsiness, and it's genuinely quite fun... mostly.  The pacing is erratic as hell though.  As noted, it's not anywhere near as ADD as the Crank films but Taylor still seems to have difficulty resting, and sitting with a character or moment, or really letting the emotion sink in.  He's striving to get emotional performances (Blair is really great), but he's just too quick to pull away or make a cut to a different angle, distracting from a performance or building drama.  In fact the rhythms are way off everywhere in this film.  I think the script is tremendous fun and a lot of the physical comedy is well executed, but Taylor doesn't seem to be aware of how to really mess with the genres he's playing in.  The way things are revealed, not just, say, gore, but attackers jumping out from places or character backgrounds or sudden rescuers...there's no surprise, shock or jumps in them.  He telegraphs things too much for any real surprises, and even the grossest moment, where a character gets a coathanger through his cheek, seems non-committal on Taylor's part.  He doesn't sit with the characters horrified reactions, or even play into how uneasy a concept it is.  He doesn't know how to milk a moment, for dramatic or comedic or horrifying tension.

I really wish this came from a more assured director.  It's still quite enjoyable as is, but it would be a downright classic in the hands of someone who really knew what they wanted out of each scene and create a unifying sensibility for the film.  Also, it's totally like the counter-punch to Cooties (which David reviewed here and I reviewed here).

31 Days of Halloween 2018: Marrowbone

2017, Sergio G. Sánchez (writer, The Orphanage) - download

This is Sánchez's directorial debut after writing a couple of others that I have seen: a memorable horror movie (The Orphanage) and a contemporary drama-tragedy (The Impossible). I did not see his last movie (Palm Trees in the Snow) but I like that he is exercising his pen writing many different styles, not becoming a genre guy or a drama guy. I just wished I liked his debut more.

Again, like The Orphanage, this smacked of early Guillermo del Toro in that its more than just a scary movie, but a proper story with characters and a nicely set period location. He takes a lot of cues from the former movie, in tone and style, well establishing the players before its ... creepy.

Jack takes care of his family by hiding the fact of their mother's death (not a spoiler) from the authorities. As long as she lives, they can live off what little money her estate has. In their well lit but haunting house, the real secret of Marrowbone (the name of the home) slowly comes out as misfortune snakes its way into the lives of the isolated inhabitants.

There are some great performances here from Anya Taylor-Joy (The VVitch) and Mia Goth (Suspiria), George McKay (How I Live Now) and Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things). But despite them and a compelling plot, the horror just never settled, never really thrilled. Perhaps it got mired in the details around the house and the children instead of the , perhaps it was just morose when it should have been more tragic.

Horror, Not Horror (Part 4) - Under The Shadow

2015, d.Babak Anvari  - Netflix

As a North American-raised viewer, the idea of living in a war-torn city is not only unfamiliar, but inconceivable, which is what makes Under the Shadow such a potent movie. The setting of the film is mid-1980's Tehran in the midst of the lengthy Iran-Iraq war offers sights, sounds, drama and tension that Western cinema just can't offer without delving into additional levels of fantasy.

But this setting isn't just the backdrop, it's the point, highlighting the psychological impact of the war, the toll it takes on every aspect of someone's life.

Shideh (the compelling Narges Rashidi) is denied her return to school, crushing her hopes of being a doctor, because of her leftist activism years earlier. Immediately we understand that Shideh is living in a world she is unhappy with, but this blow is dealt shortly after her mother passed away, mortality obviously on her mind.

The war looms large as her husband is conscripted into service, placed into one of the heaviest battle zones, leaving Shideh (and their daughter Dorsa) even more alone. Tensions were high when he was home, as they attempted normalcy even as the air raid sirens would send the to the basement on an almost daily basis, but with him gone there is no normal.

The film deftly uses the basement shelter during the air raid drills as a benchmark for Shideh's isolation, going from the building's full tenentcy to just Shideh and Dorsa, the isolation and quiet of the building making every sound and movement more prominent.

Warned to get out of town, Shideh holds steadfast, underestimating the threat, until an Iraqi missile hits their building, but doesn't explode. The impact causes the upstairs neighbor to have a heart attack and Shideh can't save him. Her feelings of inadequacy and ineffectiveness as a result only worsens her anxiety and are doubled when Dorsa starts running a fever that won't break. Is it the fever causing the child to talk to thin air? Or is there truly malevolent forces at play in their building. It gets to a point where Shideh's anxiety is at such height that she can't even did even between her own nightmares and reality.

This film acts as mood piece, cultural document, and metaphor, and does so brilliantly all around. It's scoreless, so it doesn't have the all too typical (and frankly cheap) way of generating tension or scares, it relies on clever editing and outstanding direction (plus great performances) to build up it's suspense and create it's unsettling atmosphere. The sound design is key, placing explosions, creaks, wind, rustling, knocks and so many other atmospheric components, some sudden, some omnipresent, throughout. At the film's apex, the rustling of a tarp ingeniously becomes the manic soundtrack to a struggle.

There are cultural aspects that could be easily overlooked but serve well in informing Shideh's character, including her use of a VHS player is something that needs to be hidden, her Jane Fonda workout (I see both this and the unexploded ordinance as two different impacts of America influence on her life), and her arrest for being outside without a hajib (for a law which she's obviously against, given her activist history). Life in Iran is foreign, but not alien, so it's easy to empathize with Shideh, and to understand why her situation is having such a traumatic impact.

This came as a recommendation from April Wolfe from the Who Shot Ya Podcast, an always fantastic listen with insight from a diverse and delightful cast of reviewers, not just the all too common straight white guy opinion.

Horror, Not Horror (part 3) - The Final Girls / Final Girl

The Final Girls - 2015, d. Todd Strauss-Schulson -- netflix
Final Girl - 2015, d. Tyler Shields -- the movie network

All original content here for G&DSD, as I can't remember exactly when I watched these and thus logging them into Letterboxd is a bit of a cheat.  Plus, I watched them both before I was on Letterboxd.  I know this because I watched them both on the same day, back-to-back, in a weird fit of day-off-at-home experimentation (much) earlier this year.

It is very curious (and I'm assuming rare) for two films to come out in the same year with extremely similar titles, in effect referencing the same horror movie trope.  Doubly curious is that they both share a prominent cast member in actor Alexander Ludwig...we're talking a significant role in both movies.  And yet, that's pretty much where the similarities end.  One is a PG-13, fun and fanciful, bloodless homage to 80's horror tropes, while the other is more of a dumbass action-suspense that's so stupid dumb and pains me to admit I even watched it.

The Good One

The Final Girls, with the "the" article and pluralization, is a playful film in which the daughter (Tessa Farmiga) of a former scream queen (Malin Akerman) who tragically died in real life gets sucked into her mother's famous slasher movie alongside a few friend who coax her to the screening at a horror filmfest.  The film toys with the idea that living inside a film means so much is fixed.  The characters can only traverse within the confines of a scene.  If they wish to leave the scene they have to move through it as the characters would do.  It also plays with the logic of trying to manipulate events that are supposed to happen repeatedly, such that no matter what you do, you can't change them.  Max, upon meeting her mother's character in the film, seeks to connect with her, even though logically she knows it's not her.

The film obviously embraces and messes with horror conventions, but really exists more on the side of humour and fantasy rather than horror.  The lighting, the framing, the score all undersell the idea that this is in anyway a true horror movie.  Where it could easily have been a Scream-style copycat, self aware but full of jump-scares, it instead tries for its own path where there's virtually no tension outside of the personal angst of Max and what to do about her not-mom.  It's a mostly fun deviation, but it felt just a little too small and a little too rough to have me earnestly enthused.  The humour is somewhat stale and the script just doesn't have enough punch, it's a clever idea, but it needed more clever ideas piled on top of it to really sell it.  The visuals are generally adequate but with one nice eyepopping side-scrolling fight scene at the end.  With a little more investment into playing with film textures (ala Grindhouse) once they enter the movie, and goofing around with meta-text a bit more, it would had a little extra something.  This movie should really look better and be funnier.  I could see the Wet Hot American Summer team doing something like this and really molding it into a cult classic.

The Final Girls is worth a watch at least, if playing with horror tropes is your thing.  It's infinitely better than Final Girl, which hurts my brain and makes me a little sick to my stomach when I think about it.  It's not any gore or anything in the film that does it, but just the fact that it exists at all.  Final Girl is easily one of the worst ideas for a movie and one of the biggest wastes of time I've ever experienced.

please, just don't even...

The idea here is (and I'll try to recall with accuracy, but don't hold my feet to the fire because I would rather not think about it at all) there's this group of frat boys who take girls out on dates then murder them, but they're untouchable, somehow.  So this maybe secret maybe government organization, or this guy from this organization, or just this guy... frick...ok, so Wes Bentley (what the hell are you doing in this movie Wes?) finds this young girl, and trains her to be a deadly weapon.  Shades of Hanna here (ugh, I love Hanna, and it hurts me to even compare this excrement to it), but instead of staying a young girl, she becomes a "hot teen" (Abigail Breslin, looking like she's CGI enhanced into the uncanny valley, but she's not) who's tasked with going on a date with one of these guys and then killing the entire group of them.

Oh my god, my brain hurts with all of this.  Like, how long have these frat boys been in the game if we see the girl as a little girl grow up into a hot teen? And why do they need to train a girl to date one of these guys in order to kill them?  Bentley takes her right to their hangout, and we see the frat boys exit, so clearly Bentley's organization knows where they are and there's opportunity to take them out all the damn time.  But instead they let these murderous a-holes keep killing girls FOR YEARS while they train a little girl to become a deadly hot teen?  What the hell.

And not only have they trained Breslin in the arts of seriously killing a motherfucker, but also in the art of punchy repartee, which she shows in spades while chatting up her creepy, murderous date (that Alexander Ludwig guy who played the Shaggy character The Final Girls).  They have their diner date and then he brings her out to the woods to "party" with his friends.  They play a stupid truth or dare type game (may actually have been truth or dare, I'm not tracking this that closely), and they drug her.  She wakes up restrained and they proceed to taunt and torment her, telling her all the awful things they're going to do to her, all the awful things they always do to girls, because they're huge fans of A Clockwork Orange or something. I don't know, don't care.  Anyway, confession got, great, time to arrest them, because that's the whole point, right, catch them on tape and bring them to justice?

Nope. That would make sense. Breslin's been trained for this shit, she escapes her bindings and she flips the table, hunting these guys through the woods (woods with a weird-as-shit backlight source), one by one, setting up little traps and shit for them, until they're all dead and her mission is done.

Dear fucking Gob, this movie is stupid.  Why does it exist?  What purpose is there to it?  It doesn't even play into the "final girl" horror movie trope at all! What is the point?  Why that title? I hate that I spent any amount of time on this movie (I think I fast forwarded much of the second half), I hate that good actors had to be desperate enough for a paycheck to take part in this dumb, dumb, dumb movie, and I hate that more people may confuse this with a better movie called The Final Girls and accidentally watch this instead.

(David reviewed The Final Girls in his 31 Days of Halloween 2015)

31 Days of Halloween 2018: Creep 2

2017, Patrick Brice (Creep) -- Netflix

The first one creeped me out, pun entirely intended, but was so disturbing that it just clung to me like cobwebs in a emotionally haunted house. Mr Creep was just so entirely unpleasant, that he just kept on coming back to me. But I was not sure I really wanted another dose of that, despite how utterly staring-at-a-car-crash the movie was. But the sequel has not stuck with me, in any fond memory way, as the first did. I think it was just that knowing that he is out there, ready to be in another movie wigs the shit out of me.

Josef is now Aaron, having taken the name of the main character he killed in the first movie. The begins with a prologue to remind us of whom Aaron is, a serial killer who befriends people but eventually kills them.

In traditional Found Footage manner, we pick up with the new main character, aside from Aaron, Sara (Desiree Akhavan, Girls) telling us why she is going to meet Aaron. She is a videographer, or maybe just a vblogger, who focuses on socially challenged guys she connects with via Craigs List. She seems to have no fear of what she could run into, and despite even her own misgivings she drives up to the middle of nowhere to shoot a tale of Aaron.

To top things off, Aaron tells her exactly who he is and his desire to document what he has been doing. She gets one day "amnesty" and then.... well, you know what would be next. For some fucking reason, she agrees, likely because she doesn't quite believe him. She soon loses that doubt.

Aaron is about constant misdirection, but I found myself just annoyed at her .... naivete ? ambition? She sees a great vlog post out of this, but continues to ignore the signs of danger until its too late. While intrigued with the way Aaron was portrayed, and Duplass is as incredibly believable as he was the first time round, I was just annoyed at we just knew where it was going. Even if you accept a slight not-twist of her getting away, we always know he is going to come back and ... well, make a third movie?

Horror, Not Horror (part 2) - The Apostle

2018, d. Gareth Evans  - Netflix

There's a tonal imbalance in The Raid director Gareth Evans attempt at a horror movie.  At the outset, it seems he clearly has in mind a modern horror spin on The Wicker Man and other such secret cult stories, but loses the thread about halfway through.

The first half builds a crawling tension as Thomas (Dan Stevens, bringing ultimate Dan Stevens-style glowering and brooding to the role), infiltrates a mysterious cult on their secluded island in search of his sister, whom the cult's leadership is holding for ransom. The cult worships a mother figure of the island, a provider to whom they sacrifice blood for a fruitful harvest, and follow their leader preachings of an ideal community free of taxes and money and armies and war. The hypocrisy​ screams loudly - doors have locks, there's a police force, weapons abound - and the people, while devoted, are definitely under strict rule. Their leaders, outcasts, fugitives, traitors to the king cannot be good men.

Glimpses of the mother figure skulking around the island (who is at once free to roam and yet bound?), coupled with the sacrifices to her and the severe rule of law on the island all present an atmosphere of definite unease. Thomas' infiltration is a dicey one, as he doesn't know the rites and rituals and songs and tenets of the church, and it's only a matter of time before he gives himself away. The leadership, resources running low, community on the verge of collapse, need the ransom he brings but most assuredly will not allow Thomas and his sister their freedom should he present it, but they know he's among them and need to draw him out before he starts sewing unrest.

It's to the midway point that Evans has tension drawn extremely high, but he lets go of the ropes and can't seem to draw them back. He becomes far too interested in the humanity of the characters, exploring their pasts and families, and there's no contribution to the central tension in those stories. Had Evans's established a much different tone (with a subtler, less scratching​-at-the-walls kind of score) from the outset, making more of a drama with moments of horror or suspense, it would all work a little different, but the tone of the second half is all revelations...including the mother figure, who is clearly metaphysical (though her creepy, basket-headed caretaker is a real conundrum...who is he? Why is he doing what he's doing? why the basket head? How does he know how to use a gun? Why can't he speak? What's his entire deal?).

The second half brings a lot more gore and uneasy visuals, which belong in the horror movie of the first half but feel out of place in the far more dramatic second half. Evans also can't help but make his short fight sequences inherently kinetic - his sensibilities from The Raid perhaps a little too ingrained - and the camera motions feel way out of place in the production.

It's not altogether an unfulfilling movie but it's not consistent, and unsure of what it wants to be. Too bloated by at least half an hour for standard horror, and far too invested in it's characters and setup to fit comfortably in the genre.  At the same time it's too gross, and too interested in presenting a new horror mythology to be drama, and the mixed bag nature means it spoils any parable it may have been reaching for.

31 Days of Halloween 2018: Satan's Slaves

2017, Joko Anwar (Ritual) -- Shudder

OK, this is weird. I did not know that this movie was a remake of a 1980 movie of the same name, but it explained why the movie decided to take place in the 80s. What do you mean, Toasty? Lots of horror movies choose to be set in other periods. What I mean is that usually a current movie chooses a previous time period in order to reflect something of that time period. Some want to draw upon something that era held dear, such as television psychics. Some are just period, as haunted Victorian houses are just a thing. And some like the lack of ubiquitous technology. This one, unless I am lacking in my understanding of culture in Indonesia in the 80s, just chose to be retro, with no real tie to the past beyond the origin movie. No matter, it worked.

This is a complicated movie about a dying matron and the family losing everything in their care of her. It begins with the death of said matron, and how the family deals with her death, in both the release of the burden of taking care of her and the additional financial difficulty it adds. But everyone is dedicated as family should be. But things start getting weirder, with apparitions and poltergeist attacks. Rini, the daughter, starts digging into the family's past to discover a connection to a strange cult of Satanic worshippers.

I imagine much of the impact of this movie depends on remembering its originator, but to the foreign eye and it all being new, it still held up mostly to me. It was eerie and mixed the ghost and cult aspects well, dispensing with many of the tropes I expected. It reminded me of many of the horror movies from this blog's heyday (do we have one?) which were drawing upon the styles of horror movies in the 80s, but only thinly so. It did not depend on them but remembered them fondly.

Horror, Not Horror (part 1) - Hold the Dark

Hello folks, Graig here.  Meesa back!  I've been doing most of my reviews over in the Letterboxd app this year.  I had intended to port the reviews over into ye olde blogge once Toast started posting regularly again, alas, time, energy and remembering to do so have all been obstacles.  The reviews I'm posting here will be a little different than whats in the Letterboxd app...cleaned up at minimum, perhaps rebuilt entirely.  Who knows.  

My return will be the October-relevant theme of "Horror, Not Horror" in which I watch movies that toe the line of being horror movies but aren't quite there.  And maybe the odd one will actually be horror.  Who knows...

and now, the Netflix original Hold The Dark
2018, d. Jeremy (Green Room, Blue Ruin) Saulnier -- Netflix

I quite liked Saulnier's Blue Ruin (at least I recall liking it) and I've only realized recently that Green Room is his as well (long has it been sitting in my netflix queue, it's been bumped up the list).  The combo of Saulnier and Jeffrey Wright immediately caught my interest when I spied the trailer on YouTube a few months, despite the fact that it looked like a possible variant of The Grey.

The film opens with yet another disappearance of a child in a remote Alaskan community, believed to have been taken by a wolf.  The mother (Riley Keough) petitions Wright - an author whose biography was largely about his taking revenge on a wolf - to help track the animal and kill it.  Wright takes the call, ventures North, but with the dual purpose of reconnecting with his estranged daughter nearby.  Very quickly Wright suspects things are awry with the woman's story, and her homestead, confirmed when he returns to find her missing herself after his first day's hunt.  Which is when her husband (Alexander Skarsgard) returns injured from war in the middle east.  The hunting of wolves turns more metaphorical from herein, as Skarsgard begins tracking his wife, and Wright can't help but pick at the scab of mystery.

I'll put it out there, anything with Jeffrey Wright is worth watching, at least for Jeffrey Wright. A brooding intensity simmering over an inherent warmth, a voice that's calculated but reassuring, a look of curiousity and of wisdom. The man is a treasure, and he doesn't get enough spotlight features like Hold The Dark.

This film is, I put it bluntly, very watchable but utterly unsatisfying in it's finale.  In the end, what is it trying to say? I tried to hazard a few guesses but they fell apart immediately. It's curiously constructed, with aspects that shouldn't work (like a gut wrenching 20 minute standoff/massacre about halfway through) and yet it all works somehow, pulling the viewer through it's obtuse metaphor in fits and starts.

I was fascinated by the film, what it was doing, and why, my brain working overtime trying to understand why I was seeing what I was seeing, and yet I never quite got there. When my brain would want to give up, the gorgeous cinematography would distract it long enough to give it a break, the the story would draw it back in and put it back to work.

The cast is pretty great, Wright, obviously, Keough, Skarsgard, Julian Black Antelope, James Badge Dale and even the minor supporting cast, all deliver in the desolation of Alaska where everyone seems to be sleepwalking, but some more accustomed to it than others.

I enjoyed the film tremendously, it engaged me right up until it's last moments when I realized that I had no clue what it was trying to say.  It's not necessarily about human nature, or about hunting, or man's relationship with the environment.  It touches on our treatment of each other, class and racial conflict, but it does not assume these are simple topics and does not choose to address them simply. The relationship between Keough and Skarsgard is particularly troublesome in trying to comprehend, the film insinuation they're more animals in some regards, but it's not clear on what it means against everything else going on.  I'm not sure if a rewatch is going to help. Perhaps I need to read the book.

31 Days of Halloween 2018: Ghost Stories

2017, Jeremy Dyson, Andy Nyman (mainly writers) -- download

A British horror triptych based on an earlier stage play by the same people, starring Martin Freeman and one of the writer/directors Andy Nyman. The movie has a skeptic challenged by his idol to disprove three ghost stories, and I say that is an inspiring and enigmatic elevator pitch for a horror movie. But, and yeah with opening sentences like that, there is always a but. But, it fell flat for me.

Perhaps in a stage play, where the viewer gets to fill in more gaps, the stories which are built around conversations are creepier and more provocative. One tale is about a night watchman at an asylum, which when told as a tale could be creepy but is a mainstay of horror movies, so just felt typical if somewhat well done. Another is about a weird kid who apparently hit the Devil with his car; but really, its just about how fucking creepy the kid is. And the final one, the one starring Martin Freeman is about a wealthy man haunted by the wife who died giving birth to his unnatural son.

I wanted more compelling dialogue, if this was to be based on a stage play. I wanted words that pulled something from the campfire tales soldering them to the mainstream tropes of horror film. Instead, it went from the above premise down a rabbit hole of oddity and a failed attempt at a Shyamalan style twist at the end.

Good posters though...

31 Days of Halloween 2018: Terrified

2017, Demián Rugna (The Last Gateway) - Shudder

This one, known as Aterrados in native Argentina, did all the horror blogs with rave reviews. It was no where to be found on the pirate sites, so I was glad that horror-Netflix-analog Shudder had it listed once October started. These small, special purposes coattail riders are starting to remind me of those small, specialty video stores every moderate sized city had. As long as I don't have too many of them, they can represent a typical Friday night spending $20 on three movies and snacks.

Unfortunately, I was severely disappointed with this.

We begin with a family haunted by noises from the drain which escalates instantly into the death of the wife and the police interrogating the husband. Enter three characters claiming the roles of supernatural experts, but how and why, we are never told. But they are drawn to the neighbourhood where things have been going wrong, and only the latest is the unfortunate young couple.

The primary "haunting" is the neighbour of the couple. He has been hearing and see things for ages. And in the only real win of the movie, that creepy thin guy is enough to make most people wet their pants. If not for anything, the movie gained accolades from this scary element. Alas the movie investigates other things, other creepy factors and ends up diluting its mythology with... well, inexplicable mysteries from other dimensions.

If the movie wanted to go down that path, it needed to step back and explore it wholly. But it got mired in the jump scares and setup creepiness without actually tying them into the story or the explanations. It was like the creepy pictures on so many horror movie walls, of rough sketches Scotch taped in horrific mosaics of monster faces and symbols. Sure, they are cool to look at, but only  the artist really knows what it all means.

So, if you don't care if a horror movie is tied together, and just want to see some incredibly creepy set pieces, by all means watch this one. It will make you lift your feet off the floor and turn on some lights.

31 Days of Halloween 2018: Constantine

2014, David S Goyer, NBC -- download

Cheat !!

Yeah mutherfucking cheat. Not really horror, but definitely something seated in the horror genre world.

...

Wait, I never reviewed Constantine during its original run? WTF, dude! I was one of the few people who liked the Keanu Reeves movie, and definitely liked the NBC TV show run, while also being somewhat disappointed they dismissed the lead actress after the first ep. Anywayz, Kent covered it way back then and I guess I will now.

Ed Note: I didn't actually re-watch the entire series again; it sputtered out as much as the whole month did. P.S. Who is Ed anyway?

Anywayz, I needed something in the genre wheelhouse but a little less heavy. Again, fucking again, work weighed its ugly chains across me, and I was emotionally spent before I could finish the season of actual good movies. One thing about watching, every night, movies that are based around increasing your stress reactors, is that if you stress reactors are already in overtime, it begins to get to you. Thus, I needed something lighter, something that just made me smile. And, as we had caught a few of the Arrow-verse episodes with Johnny Boy, I reminded me how much I liked Matt Ryan in the role.

The series is meant to be John Constantine, seasoned practitioner of  the dark arts, transplanted from the UK to the US, escaping all the bad deeds he committed across the pond. He is trying to avoid getting mixed up in things that make him a buck, but is drawn back into an epic situation by a snobby angel who basically blackmails John into helping him. Something big is coming and only John can help. Its always that.

Despite the epic setup, which stumbles because they didn't keep the main actor/character from the pilot, the show quickly drops into a Supernatural Encounter of the Week show. Which was entirely fine by me. It was John Constantine Light, with the utter ridiculous aspect of having him not smoke (smoking on TV is bad) but constantly fidgeting with his lighter. But it was also John Constantine Light, in that nothing really horrific happens. But Matt Ryan's smarmy charm more than makes up for all of that. And his supporting cast is solid. And the stories are fun, occasionally reminding us of characters from the comic, as all good adaptations should.

Where the show ultimately failed is because it wanted to embrace its source material but keep it PG rating. DC Legends of Tomorrow did it better, because they basically transplanted the newly envisioned comic book John, where he is much more integrated into the superhero side of DC, and added him into their mix of magic related stories. Its not close to source material, but the characters and stories were fun and better told.

John Constantine would benefit more as a byproduct of Deadpool's fame -- R Rated. Really scare us, really shock us, cloud us in nicotine smoke and embrace his bi-sexuality, or at the very least, sexuality.

31 Days of Halloween 2018: The Haunting of Hill House (the rest)

2018, Mike Flanagan (Absentia) -- Netflix

I make no qualms about my love of Mike Flanagan's work and my inability to articulate exactly why. I covered that confusion in the last post about this series, something that I absolutely, unabashedly and loudly loved. It was both what I expected from him (depth & expansion on horror tropes) and so much MUCH more.

The first episode ended with a revelation and a jump scare. From there it gathered the family to deal with Nell's death, their own estrangements and the looming terror of that house they fled so long ago. And then it ends on a surprising, incredibly touching tragic note.

I was floored.

Despite this series being one of those that tried to be memetically popular (telling us that people would be too scared to watch the next episode...) I never actually got wrapped up in the jump scares and the ghostly nightmare. What I tethered to was the damaged family and how despite their trauma, and their desperate attempts to avoid admitting what had happened to them, they were still so very strongly tied to each other. Love is hate, and hate is love.

The Man on the Bicycle stares at the screen-memory-hologram. It won't matter how much he pedals right now, as this image is fading. There are some bright colours, some scents emerging from the screen, but the rest is foggy and dissipating. With a sigh, he pedals a bit faster to allow him to watch what he can, while he can.

With the initial scare out of the way, Flanagan can ease us into the stories of the Crains. We start with Shirley, tense and strict, who runs a funeral house with her hesitant husband. Of course, Nell's funeral is held there. Flashbacks provide us more background, to the kids and to the house itself.  Theo is emotionally distant, living in Shirley's shed/guest house and hiding intimacy behind a pair of gloves. Luke, well poor lost Luke is an addict. And nobody likes to talk about dear old Dad, except with the greatest of venom.

The show spends a lot of time filling in the blanks, but hesitates in telling us exactly why the family had to run away from the house but refuses to tell us what happened and why mom never came with them. But it left them all severely damaged. And now, in the current day, it seems that with the death of Nell, the house wants them to come back. And that is where the real terror comes from -- the impending doom.

There were a couple of stand out episodes, the primary being the "all one take" episode. Of course, its not entirely a single take, but the continuity of the story telling, as the family gathers at the funeral home, is utterly stunning. The increase of emotional tension, the furtherance of the Crains being actually, truly haunted (by ghosts and by tragedy) all lends itself to a perfect episode. The frosting on this cake is how Flanagan takes the familiarity of a "one take" episode and, when it dives into the flashbacks in the house, uses its motif to accurately represent the geometry bending attributes of the haunted house itself.

Another was the introduction of how exactly the house traumatized small, meek Luke. In an episode that contrasts adult Luke trying to get sobre, we get younger Luke haunted by one of the scariest ghosts in the whole series! Sure, we are in an age of tall, thin, slender men but Luke is so tiny and that fucking thing is so tall ! Does he even need to float inches above the ground? Of course, the ghosts of the Hill House are its victims, so the real man who died is not as nearly scary as the image seared into Luke's young mind, one that obviously alters him forever.

The Bicycle squeaks to a slow pace, needing oil but only finding the blood and sweat running down the Man's legs. He looks over his shoulder. The door is there, the one his bicycle extends from. Beyond is supposed to be the haven he will get when he finally gets to stop pedaling, but right now, all he sees is the silhouette in the doorway, a tall, slender man, and The Man begins pedaling ever more frantically. Not that he can get away... ever.

In the end, I found myself rather impressed by the show. But not by the scares, but by the emotions it left in me. It doesn't take much for me to get in touch with sadness, and maybe that is why I can so easily connect to Flanagan's work. Maybe he knows sadness and let's me touch someone else's for a brief time, so I can let go my own. We are all haunted by something, I guess.

31 Days of Halloween 2018: Apostle

2018, Gareth Evans (The Raid) -- Netflix

Full disclosure. After a discombobulation of That Month and complete abandoning of the blog (not hiatus; i just ran away) I am going to try and find my way again by finishing off these posts. And then we will see where I go from there.

Remember, I am not one of the novitiates of Evans' greatness that is The Raid. It was a fine movie, but didn't draw out any great praise from me. Solid it was, as was this, but that is about it. But I am a great fan of post-Downton Dan Stevens, and it was October, so here we were.

This movie is a period piece where a drug addict goes to an island controlled by a cult in order to free his beloved sister, the only person who cares for him. Michael Sheen leads this religious group, which we find out pretty quickly, are a bunch of thugs escaping prosecution, and surviving by seeking hostage payments from the parents of illustrious members. But there is something else going on, something about who the cult worships alongside their pseudo-Christianity god.

I kept on seeing hints of the movie I wanted to see here. It looked great, as the cult had been active long enough to have a town filled with a good number of familiar supporting British cast. And the whole dichotomy of Old Testament Religion meets Elder Gods was curious and grand. Tension is high, with Stevens doing his best bent-out-of-shape addict who may get caught by the islanders at any moment. And once we head into the explanations, it becomes visually stunning but full of "huh? what is that about?" moments.

This reveals why I may not really like this guy as a director. He gives me wonderful pieces, that if you see them as clips, or as right now, as snippets of memory, they seem quite wonderful on their own. But as a whole, as a contiguous entity, they don't pull together. His fight scenes in The Raid looked incredible, but after a while became rote. The monster at the core of the island is spectacular in its depiction, but is not fully thought through and not fulfilling by the time the credits roll.

31 Days of Halloween 2018: The Haunting of Hill House S1E1

2018, Mike Flanagan (Occulus) -- Netflix

If you are going to write reviews (?!?!) about things you should never admit you might not be the best at articulating why you like something, or do not like, for that matter. As I have mentioned before, in one of my never-ending inward looking paragraphs as to why I do this thing, I mentioned that I find it hard to consider these posts are reviews and just more as blog posts. That excuse allows me to ramble on about nothing in particular and be forgiven. You forgive me, right?

Also, I never claimed to be good at this, but I continue to do it as much or more for me, than for you Random Anonymous Reader. Reader? OK, fine just me. And occasionally Kent.

So, I like Mike Flanagan. We have enjoyed almost all of his movies. But when I think about why I like what he does, nothing concrete comes to mind. I like the way he builds characters -- in that it reminds me to lofi Stephen King from the 70s & 80s when his books were as much, or more, about characters than they were about the scary situations they were in. And yet, in paradox, I cannot say that his characters stand out. He does not intend them to be flamboyant or have characteristics beyond their role in the movie, as King did, and thus they don't exactly stay in the memory. But I do remember that as he establishes them, I am attentive and interested. Which is more than most horror movies ever accomplish with backstory.

The Haunting of Hill House is a horror staple. There was the novella from 1959 and the two movie adaptations, one faithful one not so much. Flanagan does not attempt to be faithful to the exact plot (people investigating a so-called haunted house) but re-works the story and characters in two time periods: a family being haunted by the house, and the family's return due to tragic circumstances, many years later. He takes the names and makes the family his own.

The Crain family, with dad Hugh (Henry Thomas / Timothy Hutton) have moved into infamous Hill House. He and his wife are house flippers, renovating difficult spaces and re-selling them. His wife Liv (Carla Gugino) has the architectural eye and Hugh manages the reconstruction with a convincing, "I can fix it..." The five kids tag along. But, as expected, Hugh cannot fix what is wrong with this house.

At first things are fun, as the house is massive with all kinds of rooms and stuff for the kids to explore. But then we jump to That Last Night, where Hugh is waking his kids and demanding son Steven get them to the car, now !! We get a car full of kids screaming, "Where's mom?!?!?" but we get no answer as he speeds away.

Flip to the future. Steven is a writer, who made a hit off a novel about That Night. Shirley runs a funeral home, Luke is an addict, Theodora wears elbow length gloves and picks up strangers in bars (always short hand for trauma on TV), Dad is estranged. What about Mom? Nell ? Steven returns home after a long day, home to an apartment, not his wife's house, and finds Nell there, quiet and in the corner. And then dad calls, "I am at the house, Nell is here, she is dead." Jump scare.

Flanagan does a wonderful job establishing something horrible has happened in their past, and it left an imprint. And it was centred around mom. Immediately the house is a villain, which is obviously from the gothic depiction and details. Immediately we see the events have imprinted themselves on the family forever. The tension builds, and the jump scare is almost a release. I knew I was in for a good ride.

31 Days of Halloween 2018: Malevolent

2018, Olaf de Fleur Johannesson (The Higher Force) -- Netflix

Debunking the ghost hunter. Suffering retribution on the fake ghost hunter. Acknowledging that which the fake ghost hunter seeks out may turn out to be very very real. Its common enough to almost be a trope, so if you are going to explore it again, be sure to do something very well or at least originally. Alas, again with the just OK. If not for a very focused and intense portrayal by Florence Pugh, I don't think this movie would have even crept into that range.

Angela (Pugh) and Jackson (Ben Lloyd-Hughes) are Americans in Scotland making a rough living pretending to be ghost hunters, hinged around Angela's sensitivity to the dead. Jackson owes money to his drug dealers and Angela is having one too many actually spooky encounter (accompanied by nose bleeds) that she wants to quit the scam. But she gives into her brother for one last gig -- the foster house haunted by murdered children, children killed by the son of the owner Mrs Green. She can still hear their screams and wants the spirits acknowledged and driven away.

This movie is not the house nor creepy Mrs Green nor even the dead little girls walking the unused corridors. This movie should have been all Angela and since the jump scares and dead girls are already fading from my memory, I wish it had been even more about her. We got hints of backstory, drops of a strength behind her quiet demeanour. But that is all pushed aside so we can add to her trauma.

Also, why was this movie set in the 80s? And why were they Americans? There seemed to be plot choices that were made, but then never followed through on.

31 Days of Halloween 2018: Resolution

2012, Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead (The Endless) -- download

NOTE: You should watch this movie before you watch the previous (my previous viewing, not the chronological previous) one. Why? Because the second movie references the first (this movie). Is it important? Turns out, no. Both can be enjoyed independently.

OK, so these guys are going on my list of favourite directors based on our earlier viewing of Spring and my immense enjoyment of these two. They are using the immediate tropes of horror & tension, but attaching the story to a very out-there scifi aspect. In The Endless they had expanded on the world they laid the groundwork for, in this movie.

At its heart, this is a buddy movie. Mike has tracked his highschool friend Chris to a remote cabin in the woods. Chris is an unrepentant junkie, and he did not send the video that inspired Mike to come save his friend. Nonetheless, Mike will do his best.

What begins is more an exploration of a setting, than a traditional plot. Something is going on in these hills. Whatever it is, the local hippy cult is involved. So are the local drug dealers that also went to high school with Mike and Chris. The local tribal police own the building that Chris is squatting in, or so they say. And the scientist in the crappy trailer. And the lost dog. They are all being tossed together to make an interesting story that Chris and Mike are getting mixed up in. Whenever Mike seems ready to complete Chris's rehab, or give up and move on, more mysterious and compelling clues show up. Something or someone wants these guys to stick around.

The horror elements are intense. They may be slow burning, but they burn steadily. Something is going on, something definitely Not of this World. The manipulations go from subtle to shocking, but what really drew me in was that they hinted at a bigger thing going on. Old Ones? Alien intervention? Powerful magics? We never get an explanation... Even when the movie comes to a conclusion, both for the pair of guys and for us the viewers, we get little in the way of explanation, but another question that keeps us (and them) around.

I am now hoping for a trilogy.

31 Days of Halloween 2018: The Endless

2017, Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead (Spring) -- Netflix

Gawddamn it, Steve said watch Resolution first !!  So, if you are reading this, do that.

Finally; fucking finally. A great movie !!

We loved Spring so I so glad we like their follow-up. And again, they go with a twisting of expectations while along along the trails of movies familiar to the genre in which it is based.

Aaron and Justin are brothers, brothers who escaped/left a cult many years ago. Aaron, the older, controls  his brother and their shitty lives. Justin resents the control, and the fact he never really wanted to leave the cult. Justin convinces Aaron to return to the mountain in the desert one last time, so he can get closure, so he can see through the eyes of an adult that these people were who his brother defined them as, and not the happy place of good memories he recalls.

And yup, its cult-y. Happy people acting weird, spouting off metaphor filled dialogue about trust and perseverance. And tons of ambiguity. Almost immediately Aaron starts catching weird things that are beyond just weird hippy beer making cultists (they can't be all bad, if they make craft beer) -- such as the tall narrow piles of... clay? They look like geological formations but are too narrow and delicate to survive. And there are some classic bumps in the night, until he bumps into the angry guy whose body also is hanged in the shed.

The movie twists and turns and runs down the path from creepy, horror into nervous science fiction. Something is going on in those woods and all Aaron wants to do is find his brother and convince him to leave with him. Meanwhile the hippies are waiting for something, something to do with three full moons and ascension but more likely related to the otherworldly It they keep on talking about.

Much of this season has been about decent attempts but failed execution or flat climax. Pyewacket just plodded along until it reached the expected fiery end, but without much heat. The Lodgers ended with nary a ripple in the mood & tone. Mandy just ended, everyone but Red. But this movie ends with satisfaction and enough openness that I can fill in what I want.

31 Days of Halloween 2018: Jug Face

2013, Chad Crawford Kinkle (pretty much just this) -- download

OK, WTF. A movie starts out with a hillbilly brother fucking his sister, the main character, and we are supposed to find these characters sympathetic? Yeah, whatever out of the ordinary vibe (hillbilly occult) they were going for was lost on me almost immediately.

The movie begins with an opening segment, cryptic drawings of a child depicting a backwoods family who sacrifice the local preacher to a pit full of blood. There are hints at demons or spirits implying some sort of pact. We then fall into the story, a potter possessed by something, probably The Pit, making these disturbing moonshine jugs with people's faces. Ada (above sister) finds the newly made jug with her face on it, and hides it. What does that bode? Nuttin' good.

This family / these families have lived in these woods forever -- dirty, poverty stricken and adhering to strange rituals. Ada is to be "joined" with the neighbour's ugly son but only if she is "pure", i.e. virginal. We know she isn't as was just fucking her brother, and she has to hide it or her dad will whup her. And then she finds out she is pregnant.

So, to hide her incestual promiscuity and pregnancy, she begins a conspiracy involving the potter -- a half-baked young man who obviously dotes on her, and her dottering grandfather. Oh, and the rather lucid, talkative spirit who follows her grampa around. But The Pit won't have any of that and eats one of her neighbours. Her Pa knows that this shouldn't happen and that they have upset The Pit -- so a sacrifice has to happen. The jug face was supposed to depict who would need to be sacrificed, and since the potter Dawai doesn't remember who he fired, he makes another one and just blames it on Ada's beau to be. The Pit gets its sacrifice.

It doesn't work.

Again, we are supposed to sympathize with Ada? Not only is she fucking her brother but she just got the neighbour kid killed AND Dawai the potter is being blamed. And since she pissed off The Pit, she also got her neighbour killed. And it just continues !! More blame, more death and more hungry Pit until finally the truth comes out. But w.... t.... f..... no climax, no resolution, just an ending to this current drama and the movie.

You see, you can do a peek into a seedy and despicable slice of life. But either they have to be particularly shocking or spectacularly well depicted. This was neither. Its a not a badly done movie, as the acting is decent, but nothing compelling or interesting happens in the least. And yes, I just couldn't get past the main character fucking her brother !!

31 Days of Halloween 2018: Unfriended

2014, Levan Gabriadze (Lucky Trouble) -- download

Well, that was clever.

Am I wrong, but shouldn't every horror movie about friends who did something wrong (i.e. I Know What You Did Last Summer) have one nice girl/guy survivor? Or are we, in this age of the social media based judge & jury state, everyone is guilty and worthy of punishment? I suppose that since this entire movie is around social media based interaction, its appropriate?

You saw that episode of Modern Family where the mom tries to track down the daughter, and we see it all through the "eyes" of her macbook screen? This movie is like that, all in the evening social "gathering" of a group of of highschoolers on iChat. Is that what Apple calls its PC based video chatting? Or is Facetime transparent in this post-iPhone movie? I can't keep up with what you kids do.

OK, that is out -- Old Man View. Sure, the movie is clever but do kids actually just hang out in video chat? Sure, its 2014 but weren't phones the focal point back then? Sure, there are the technical challenges of presenting an entire movie through a phone screen, but do kids actually ever just hang out in front of their laptop screens? Cybering (what is the current 2018 term for cyber-sex?) I can believe but general social chatting? Well, whatever the reality of the situation, that is where the kids are when a mysterious third party shows up, one they cannot kick from the chat, one that slowly unravels their lives.

This group was at the centre of a social media lynching that posted a video of a un/popular girl who crapped her pants at a party. In response, the girl shot herself. Now, a year later, it appears she is back and (the real horror here) hacking their social media accounts. Over the course of the movie, the ghost in the machine reveals details of how each participated in the cyber-bullying of the girl, from posting videos to leading "kill yourself" tirades in anonymous comments to just generally messing with her. But not just that, as the spirit reveals that each and every one of them is just a soulless bully even against each other. And to backup the bullying, the spirit has the ability to force them to commit suicide in gruesome manners.

Its all rather well done, quick and frenetic, jumping from app to Facebook to personal chat. There was a bit of stick handling done, as the conversation of the others seems to quiet down (i.e. they don't do anything) while we focus on conversation private to two, but beyond that, it all was displayed really well. It still amused me that a ghost, revenge spirit or whatever became tech savvy enough to play with software, removing buttons and hacking accounts. The afterlife has some good malware.

In the end, there is no Final Girl. All the kids are horrible, to each other and to others. All the kids deserve to die. Deserve to die? Ghost girl is obviously as bad as they were, if that's where her revenge takes her.

31 Days of Halloween 2018: The Lodgers

2017, Brian O'Malley (Let Us Prey) -- Netflix

At what point in recent pop culture did we decide that decrepit, old but still lived in manor houses of the UK were ripe to be haunted? I am assuming, that as the regency era came to a close and fewer of those old moneyed families had the coin to keep the estates in a state of full repair, they became more attuned to the "haunted house" vibe of America's Victorian mansions? Creaking, cracked, moldering and falling down. But something in only more recent memory has had more of them attract spirits and other creatures of the night.

The Lodgers takes us to early 20th century Ireland and the house of the twins Rachel and Edward. Their house shares a state akin to Crimson Peak, with no servants and no funds to keep it repaired. Barely enough to feed the young adults.

Unlike most of these movies, we wade into the sinister quite immediately as Rachel, who has fallen asleep while reading, has to rush home before the last bell of midnight. As she reaches her bedroom door, we see the trapdoor at the base of the staircase bubble up with fetid water. Something wants out of ... the basement ? The next morning the twins sing the nursery rhyme that defines their lives:

"Girl child, boy child, listen well. Be in bed by midnight's bell. Never let a stranger through your door. Never leave each other all alone. Good sister, good brother be, follow well these cautions three. Long as your blood be ours alone, we'll see you ever from below."

Rachel is of an age, past puberty but isolated by her obsessive brother and the supernatural circumstances. The funds are finally running far too low for them to ignore, and Rachel tries to scheme her escape. Her brother won't have any of it, as he knows the true danger. He saw what 'the lodgers' in the water did to their parents. He is afraid of what will happen should they break the pact.

This is a lovely looking, artful movie. Rachel is fey and sultry and her brother is just... pale & creepy. There is an unsettling connection between the two the belies the tie to the watery creatures beneath the house. Rachel wants to run away from it and is helped by a local boy, recently returned from war with his own bonds. But can she escape with no cost? No, no she cannot.

I just wish the sodden weight of the end of the movie had felt heavier. There is no great reveal, not that there needs to be, but we never really felt the menace of these other worldly creatures. What was the pact? What would happen if they just left? There had to be more danger than just death? Alas, we get nothing.

31 Days of Halloween 2018: Pyewacket

2017, Adam MacDonald (mainly a TV actor) -- download

I have a feeling that this year is going to be mostly just-OK movies, a few Stinkers but even fewer Good. Every year we do it -- we see the best of the year's horror offering before the month even starts. Its inevitable, as Good Movies need to be watched no matter what genre they are. And these days, Good Movie translates as something easily digested and in my wheelhouse. I just don't have the mental energy for properly Good Movies, i.e. dramas and impactful stuff.

But no, that doesn't mean we have already seen Anabelle -- I doubt that sequel will be in our lists for years to come, maybe just as some completist drive. But A Quiet Place was already seen and... was there anything else really critically acclaimed this year? Hmmmm...

Anywayz, this was OK, on the edge of Good.

Leah and her mom are dealing with the death of father & husband. Leah's your typical metal highschooler, dressed in black and a bit too interested in books on the occult. Mom hates it, Leah's friends and the bottle of wine a night is not helping her coping skills nor her relationship with her daughter. Her last resort is to sell the house full of memories and movie Leah to the wooded countryside just out of town. Leah can still attend school but it involves long drives back and forth. Leah's not happy but really is just your typical pouty, combative teen.

If the movie did anything REALLY well it was portraying this relationship. They don't really get along but they definitely don't hate each other. Until things come to a head one night and mom screams some really hateful things, that she instantly regrets. But too late, Leah has run off into the woods with her book of spells and conjuring items. Yep, she casts a spell to summon a real demon to kill her mom. You can almost hear her mind ticking, as she doesn't quite believe what she is doing but it works as an outlet for the anger boiling up from inside. And a real demon won't appear, anyway, right?

Her mom recovers and is desperate to make it up to Leah. It doesn't help that Leah cut herself to cement the ritual and, well, mom sees that as Leah hurting herself in response. They try to repair the relationship, but then things start going bump in the night. Pyewacket the demon (not Kim Novak's cat) has come and he has come for Leah's mom.

The paranoia, the desperation, the anguish at what she has done -- this is well portrayed. Too bad the inevitable ending was not so telegraphed. While Marmy and I are quite adept at predicting how typical plotlines go, we like it when we are surprised, even a little. But demon summoning always has a cost, and they are predictable little buggers. I was hoping for at least something to raise this movie out of the depths of mundanity, just a little bit more on top of the solid performances.

31 Days of Halloween 2018: Cold Skin

2017, Xavier Gens (The Divide) -- download

We first met Xavier Gens in the inaugural year of this horror movie binge-ing, where I also began my foray into "is it horror, or is it not?" I decided then, that The Divide was not. I remember liking that movie more than I wrote, but that is probably more due to the viewing which was Toronto After Dark and involved the cast and director. But my thoughts of it being focused mainly around "does the viewer and the participants get to share in the fear?". If not, then no.

This time we get a period movie on a small, frozen island near Antarctica with Cthulhu-ian overtones. Sounds like the perfect storm (pun intended) for me. Monsters, miserable setting and isolation -- all horror aspects in my book. And yet, it didn't work. Not as horror, not as adventure. Not as a fishy love story?

A pair of desperate men are assigned to a weather station and a lighthouse. They have to fend off hordes of merfolk each night, while also dealing with the isolation and diminishing resources. I liked the setup. David Oakes is the new arrival, taking the place of the previous weather man who ... disappeared. Ray Stevenson is Gruner, the madman in the lighthouse. Almost immediately they are at odds with each other which is not helped when the island reveals its true nature; Gruner and the new man (only called Friend) are attacked by seemingly endless hordes of Cthulhu-style Deep Ones, mermen with a definite homicidal desire. And not just that, but Gruner has taken captive a very obviously female one, whom he rescued as a child and has raised as his slave, pet and ... (ick)... lover.

Yes, Gruner fucks rapes his fishy slavegirl. Despite a few rather feeble attempts, this movie is no The Shape of Water. There is no beauty to the connections, just a general ickyness. The domination of Gruner over the morality of Friend is considered acceptable because of the setting, both in year and in isolation. But at least it allows that situation to evolve.

Eventually the two men are in a place where the true horror can be revealed. They are stuck with each other, with dwindling supplies and the hordes never lessen, no matter how many they kill. If only the movie had dwelled entirely on this aspect instead of veering into the moral morasses both men have created for themselves. This just wasn't the movie to explore that. Once that becomes the focus, then we are no longer rooting for the men, but for the mermen. And when things end, you are not really sure how you got there but that he had to write "Fin" at some point. Pun intended.

31 Days of Halloween 2018: Mandy

2018, Panos Cosmatos (Beyond the Black Rainbow) -- download

Wow, just wow. Yes, the director precedes himself with quite the reputation, but wow, this movie.

Don't take me the wrong way, I am not wow-ing out of being impressed, but more by "wow, what an experience". This movie was incredible to watch, but I am not quite sure that made it good.

As I said, Cosmatos is already known for his previous movie (Beyond the Black Rainbow), some calling it comparable to Lynch and Cronenburg, or others less forgiving and saying it "has a doomy, dreamy, druggy, draggy feel that's impressively sustained - until it becomes oppressive, then pointless, then laughable." I haven't seen it, but if Mandy did anything, it makes me want to even more.

At its core, Mandy's story is a pretty straight forward revenge flick. Its 1983, Red (Nic Cage) and Mandy (Andrea Riseborough) live together in the woods. By day Nic is a lumberjack and Mandy works a convenience store. By night they make love in the woods, fish on the lake and frolic in the green. Mandy wears metal shirts, has a strange scar and reads 70s fantasy novels as if deep philosophy. And then the hippie cult shows up.

Jeremiah, the cult leader, wants Mandy for himself and summons four ATV riding demons to capture the couple. Yup, ATVs and motorcycles. Things don't go as the cultist planned and Mandy scoffs at his overtures. She is rewarded with death by fire, while Red watches on, bound in wire, but is left alive. That was a mistake.

This movie is all colour and sound, seen through the lense of mind altering substances. And rage. Red's vision is well ... red, of fury and blood. At one point he forges (literally) a massive battle axe straight from the covers of heavy metal albums and D&D games. Or vans. You could see this entire movie through the lense of an 80s metal head D&D player, kind of like Joe Manganiello's new business venture Death Saves. As long as said D&D player is deeply steeped in LSD.

I was rather disappointed that the demon bikers turned out to be basic LSD addicts, instead of true demons, but they were portrayed in a manner that out did Hellraiser or Silent Hill in horrific natures. Too bad, this is as far as the real horror of the movie went. The rest just degrades into bland death scenes, finally petering out with the (inevitable) craven death of Jeremiah.

I am still challenged about whether the trippy imagery and sound barrage actually contributes to the movie, or just pulls you from the centre of revenge. I think if Cosmatos had delved more deeply into the anguish and fury of Red, as he did when Red self-medicates with vodka. That imagery of Nic Cage dialed to 11 was what I wanted more of, and less of the animated Riseborough scenes. But, still... quite the experience.