"Horror, Not Horror" movies are those that toe the line of being horror movies but don't quite comfortably fit the mold. I'm not a big horror fan (Toast is the horror buff here), but I do quite like these line-skirting type movies, as we'll see.
The VVitch - 2016, d. Robert Eggers
Midsommer - 2019, d. Ari Aster
The Lighthouse - 2019, d. Robert Eggers
The New Mutants - 2020, d. Josh Boone
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I became aware of Anya Taylor-Joy because of the VVitch, her breakout role, although I don't rightly think I'd seen her in anything until 5 years later with The Queen's Gambit. If The VVitch - a small, vvell-received horror film - broke her out, the Queen's Gambit - an ambitious Netflix mini-series about a young chess prodigy with a tumultuous personal life - thrust her into superstardom. A Saturday Night Live hosting gig was backed-up vvith the announcement of her taking the lead in Furiosa in George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road prequel, seeing her take over the role Charlize Theron made impeccably cool. And not long after a trailer dropped for Edgar VVright's much anticipated latest, Last Night In Soho, in vvhich she's the lead. And then all her old films - Emma., Thoroughbreds, Split and even The New Mutants - titles vvhich I was familiar with, but hadn't seen, became that much more intriguing. Such is the power of stardom.
But if I was going to do a dive, I figured I should dive back to the beginning, since The VVitch has long been on my "to vvatch" list. (Okay, I'll stop it with the "VV")
The film opens in the 1600's with the deep resonant voice of actor Ralph Ineson, who plays William, the patriarch of a puritan family agreeing wholeheartedly to being cast out of their New England settlement. He deems the settlement to have lost their way, to not being pure enough. They settle way off any beaten path, but just outside of the woods, near a creek.
Within a year the family have built a new home, with livestock (chickens, goats, and a horse), and a new baby, William and Katherine's fifth child. Thomasin (Taylor-Joy) is the eldest of the siblings, with the most responsibilities. One day, she's playing with the new infant close to the forest, playing peek-a-boo, and in a moment with her eyes cover the child disappears mysteriously. She has no explanation for her family and her mother is inconsolably grief stricken.
There's a quick-cut montage, about a minute long, of a witch processing (for lack of a better term) the baby for her own devices, gruesome in concept but restrained in imagery.
The family fractures, and William cannot seem to mend the wounds. He takes their pre-teen son, Caleb, out to search the woods for wolves, where Katherine doesn't want him to be. Meanwhile the precocious twins tease Thomasin, calling her a witch and saying she's responsible for the baby's disappearance. The twins also sing wicked songs of Black Peter, the black, horned goat that they chase around, and William has to constantly wrangle.
After Caleb and the dog disappear in the woods, Katherine starts to suspect Thomasin of wickedness, and William, despite his profound love for his daughter, does little to douse her suspicions though he has certain answers that would vindicate her. The twins' incessant taunting (and Thomasin's roleplay as a witch) doesn't help matters either.
Things go downhill even further, to a miserable yet inevitable denouement.
Robert Eggers debut is a very assured feature. It sports the greyest of grey colour palettes, using natural light and candlelight, just a hair's breadth away from being black and white, but it's striking in its composition. The Ontario-as-New England greyness feels cold, bleak and harsh (have you ever been camping in the rain in Ontario, it's basically the same mood as this film), and it's accentuated by a haunting, tense score from Mark Korvin. Eggers purportedly researched the time period intensely and pulled dialogue straight from records of the era. The odd nature of the dialect, plus extensive ambient noise required me to put the subtitles on the get the most out of what was being said. But the attention to detail is superb, and makes the film stand out dramatically against most modern interpretations of the 17th century.
I respect the hell out of Eggers craft, and the performances are all exceptional, however, a couple of choices in Eggers screenplay utterly ruined the experience as a whole.
That early scene showing the witch immediately takes away any possible suspicion that Thomasin might be a witch herself, as she is accused so often by the twins, and even her mother. The inbred tension of suspecting her innocence but not truly knowing would have added a whole other level to the film that isn't otherwise there in its present form.
Late-in-the film scenes utterly destroy the film's carefully crafted, era-specific mystique, by personifying Black Peter and then showing us a coven of flying witches, two effects that I laughed at because of their absurdity in the face of everything else we've been presented.
Totally maybe four or five minutes of screentime, these scenes just wreck the natural aesthetic the film had going for it, and lead to a goofy, unsatisfying resolution. Given the laborious care put into the production, I still can't believe Eggers would go so broad.
The VVitch was a moderate success, and it sent people looking for a new term for this kind of film that balances a persistent unease with moments of discomfort but never really any jump scares or extensive gruesomeness. The term they landed on is "elevated horror", which might as well just mean "horror for film snobs" or, as I call it, "horror, not horror"
But is it horror? I would say it's a moody, suspenseful period drama, but not horror.
[Toastypost on The VVitch - we disagree]
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This aforementioned term of "elevated horror" certainly suits this movie, perhaps even better than it suits The VVitch. Ignoring the reputation Ari Aster had earned as a result of the read-the-summary-on-wikipedia-and-I-shall-never-actually-watch-the-film mindfuck called Heredetary, this film opens with creeping unease, as psych major Dani (Pugh) frets over the well being of her bi-polar sister who hasn't responded to her in a couple days. A troubling message leaves her panicked. She calls her parents who aren't answering, and so she calls her boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor), who talks her down from her panic, but with a heavy sigh. After the call we see Christian is hanging with his friends who seem to be even more frustrated with Christian's relationship than he is. Back to Dani, she's talking with a friend, now paranoid that she's damaging her relationship with Christian. And then we learn before Dani that her sister has committed suicide and killed her parents in the process, and it's devastating. And then Dani finds out and it's heart wrenching (Pugh is a raw nerve of emotion).
Christian, who was thinking of dumping Dani now feels saddled with her and her grief. In the process he casually invites her to the "boys trip" to their friend Pelle's Swedish commune for the summer, much to some of the boys disdain.
It's a rough trip for Dani, who can't help but sob uncontrollably at times, and even broaching the subject of her family's death (as Pelle tries to a couple of times, himself having lost his parents at a young age) sends her into a stress spiral. Pelle's brother, who has also brought friends from his studies in London, offers the visitors psychedelic mushrooms which prove to be too much for pretty much all of them.
Their introduction to the commune is pleasant and welcoming, if a lot of what they see seems completely alien to them. There's a once-every-90-years ritual upcoming and the preparations are both lovely and odd. A communal sleeping area is intricately adorned with tiles of vivid imagery, telling some perhaps innocent, perhaps bothersome stories. Everyone is friendly to a point, unless insult is delivered upon them such as when Christian's friend Mark (Will Poulter) relieves himself on a sacred tree stump, or Josh (William Jackson Harper) asks too many questions about the nature of their beliefs. The impetus for the trip is largely Josh's interest in studying Pelle's commune for his thesis, but Christian heretofore unfocussed in his masters probgram, drives a wedge by also deciding it will be his thesis as well.
Dani, meanwhile, is just trying to cope. There's the unease of being a stranger in a strange place where strange practices make for stranger days. Sweden is in the midst of its solstice, the midnight sun blurring the Americans' sense of time, and creating a sense of disorientation. And then they experience one of the community's rituals that sends them recoiling in horror. As the British visitors completely freak out, one of the commune's leaders tries to explain their traditions and apologies for not forewarning them...it all seems very polite amidst the brightly lit terror.
Things just seem more upsetting from there, but Dani, getting her first real sense of solace over her parents' deaths can't seem to find the will to leave. Pelle, sweetly and gently, implores her to stay, to find the comfort in community that he found after his parents passed.
From moment one of this film, there's a creeping unease, and it never leaves. Unlike most horror movies, which live in the shadows and the dark, making effective use of the things you can't see, the natural intimidation of the sun's respite, here it's near-perpetual daylight, which is its own type of nightmare of never ending days. Sleep, already difficult for Dani, is only that much harder as a result of her surroundings.
The iconography and structures and tenets of the commune are all a little perplexing, hinting at something sinister under the surface that is otherwise overwhelmingly pleasant. While the film never goes into jump scares, there's something profoundly upsetting when you just know that the faces smiling at you, welcoming you, embracing you, also have something planned for you that they're not telling you about.
This film doesn't play with any of the conventional horror tropes, not even the usual remote cultish ones, the kind that go as far back as the Wicker Man to most recently HBO's The Third Day. Aster is keen on unveiling slowly the practices and rituals of the commune, almost more in cultural interest rather that as a point of terror, as if he's a documentarian, finding the goings on fascinating (yet keeping his sypathies with Dani).
So, is it horror?
I didn't find it scary, but I did find it very upsetting. It's like Requiem For A Dream or Irreversible, that deals with intense human emotions, coupled with some intense visual scenes that leave an indelible mark on your psyche, whether that's a scar or some form of perspective I can't say. I liked it, but I also had to ask why I did that to myself.
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Returning to Robert Eggers, his 2019 follow-up to The VVitch is a wild two-hander starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson called The Lighthouse.
It's a disarming movie from the outset, shot in black-and-white in a nearly square 1.19:1 aspect ratio, leaving thick black bars on either side of your widescreen TV. This at times gives the visuals an additional depth as the black of the borders sinks into the shadows of the shot on screen.
Like The VVitch, Eggers researched for accuracy in both aesthetic and dialogue (once again I required the use of the subtitles to ensure clarity) but unlike his inaugural film, here Eggers lets the film operate on a much broader keel from the start. I mean, Dafoe is playing with the most cliched sea captain brogue, which, accompanying his busy, bushy beard and his leathery made-up face, makes him an outrageous presence on screen. Pattinson, with his thick handlebar mustache and his glowering, quiet reserve, and his New England accents is an equally outrageous counterpoint.
The thrust of The Lighthouse finds Pattinson as "Ephraim Winslow", a new hire for on a month-long contract as the "wickie" to Dafoe's lighthouse keeper, Thomas Wake. Wake is exceptionally tough on the newbie, and the resentment builds almost instantaneously. Double that with the fact that Wake refuses to give Winslow a rotation as light keeper, which seems to be the only reward for an otherwise miserable existence.
Winslow suspects Wake is hiding something, and begins to have nightmares and hallucinations about mermaids, both the beauteous and demonic kind. The fatigue, work stress and isolation seem to be getting to him, and his boss seems to only be cordial to him when inebriated.
Wake's taunts and abuse aren't just motivating factors, but apparently a means of burning through his wickies, perhaps resulting in them not getting paid, but definitely pushing them so they don't come back. He's got some sort of romance going on up in the light tower, and whether it's just madness or something more metaphysical... well, who can really tell. The point being Wake doesn't seem to want others around, at least not for long. And he seems to get off on driving them to madness... he's a literal and figurative gaslighter.
As Winslow's term comes due, a storm rolls in and his transport away can't relieve him, so he's stuck for another month with rations dwindling, and the only potable liquid being alcohol. Winslow starts letting his guard down, and in the process both the men feel ever-threatened by an actual friendship blossoming, which leads them to blows. In their sober states, their acrimony exacerbates.
Paired with The VVitch, The Lighthouse provides a deeper sense of what Egger's calling card might be as an auteur director: deeply researched, era-specific stories featuring a small ensemble, with precise visual craftsmanship, and an aural buffet (the continual drone of the foghorn, so ominous) creating an experience unlike much else. Unlike The VVitch, with The Lighthouse Eggers seemed to have learned not to be so literal with his metaphysical elements, the sexy/creepy mermaids, though sometimes made plain visually, we're never truly convinced of their existence. Has Winslow gone mad? Has Wake? Or both? Or neither? Hard to say. It's the nuance that Eggers first film was missing.
Be it horror, though?
No, it's not horror. It's full of tension but it's also delightfully bizarre, with an ashy sense of humour. Dare I say it, it's an odd, fun film.
[Toastypost on The Lighthouse - we totally agree]
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But we start with Dani Moonstar (Blu Hunt) as she and her father run in terror from a mystical force destroying their community. She is left to hide while her father returns to help. She is the only survivor. She awakens in a medical facility with serious phsychiatric ward vibes that we're led to believe is there to help young mutants learn to control their burgeoning powers. There's an insinuation that this is where kids go before they head to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters/the X-Men, but we know almost instantly this is false by the fact there's a force field around the facility, and way too many locked doors. Unfortunately the film toys with this farm team idea a little too much as if there was any plausibility (the ultimate reveal of what it is will only make sense if you're an X-Men fan...or look it up online, another failing of the film's story).
Dani meets Rahne (Game of Thrones' Maisie Williams), a similarly aged Scottish mutant with lycanthropic (werewolf) powers and Catholic guilt. The two hit it off sweetly, and a romance blossoms.
There's also Roberto (Henry Zaga), the child of wealthy Brazilians who can radiate intense heat like a tiny sun, while Sam (Stranger Things' Charlie Heaton) is a poor Kentucky kid who has a nearly indescribable power which allows him to propel himself with exceptional force. Ilyana, for her part, can open up a portal to a pocket dimension, and manifest a magical sword.
Each of these kids (which, we're talking all late-teens here) has had a traumatic experience as a result of their burgeoning powers, although in the case of both Ilyana and Rahne, their powers were instrumental in allowing them to escape their abusers. But these traumas are likely a part of why they don't have full control over their abilities yet.
Though they're under the care of Dr. Reyes (Alice Braga) we don't really see a lot of care or treatment, more disciplining than anything (reinforcing the prison vibe). As Dani acclimates to her new surroundings, exploring her relationship with Rahne, and suffering the taunts of Ilyana, strange things start happening around the compound, with nightmares of each of the kids manifesting in real life.
The end result is the kids having to negotiate these nightmares as well as learn the truth about their surroundings, and the truth about each other.
Famously, this film was shelved for the better part of two years. There was talk of reworking the film with reshoots, but that idea seemed to have been lost amidst the Disney/Fox acquisition. There was a lot of early interference from the studio as it toyed with it's own inner ideas of building a superhero universe and tying this film to X-Men Apocalypse or Deadpool or the never-made Gambit film. Director Boone intended for The New Mutants to be a YA film using Marvel IP, but then the studio saw It making money and wanted it to lean more into the outright horror (promoting the film and cutting the first trailer to represent such). The reality is that a truly terrifying movie made from comic book superheroes is likely never going to be in the offing (there's more promise that Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness from Sam Raimi will actually go for it, but I don't believe it), and, it's not exactly what Boone was going for. As such you can inherently tell this film has been cut down. It's a trim 95 minutes, exceptionally slight for a modern superhero film.
It is, in fact, a nightmare of a movie... an editing nightmare. There's no real flow, scenes change abruptly, and the characters seem to bond more offscreen than on. Understanding the passage of time is impossible. The horror elements are still there, but they're scaled way, way back, cut down to defang them for a PG-13 crowd more on the "13" side of things. The film makes a choice to set up a big bad that doesn't appear in the film, and is never explained, in the form of Essex Corporation. I mean, a corporation taking an interest in imprisoning and weaponizing young mutants is a legit scary thought on its own, but it's never explored. Instead of the horror film we were promised, as Toasty postyed, "we ended up with a movie that was, at best, the pilot episode of a middling CW series".
While I gripe, I kind of disagree with Toast. I think that instead of a horror movie, what we wound up with was the pilot episode of a good CW series. Frankly, I kind of loved it.
Expectations were exceptionally low, and lowered expectations can yield surprises. I was expecting to put on this movie only to turn it off in 20 minutes for being, like Neil Marshall Hellboy-level bad, or Dark Pheonix-level boring. But I found it neither.
Yes, it was a muddily told story, but the story still comes through. I was intrigued and delighted by each of these characters, each performed very very well by the young talent in the roles. Heaton's full of appropriate nervous energy which compliments his explosive powers. Zaga is utterly cocksure until he's not, and he handles both facets very well. Williams is absolutely delightful as super-sweet Rahne, and I got tingles when she was in her "Wolfsbane" form and her vicious side came out...she nailed it (she seemed to be mostly over her catholic guilt, but not Catholicism altogether which I wish was explored more). Taylor-Joy is an utter ice queen, but when you get to the root of her trauma her lashing out is completely understood. She's fierce and her powers are so well handled. If anything it's Hunt's Dani Moonstar, while our gateway character into the world, that's least defined, but unlike the others who have been in the institution a while, Dani is new and still finding herself and finding out about herself which does make sense.
Frankly, I wish this WERE a pilot for a CW series (if anything it more felt like part of FX's Legion, Noah Hawley's interpretation/corner of the X-Men franchise...hell I thought the Demon Bear was a result of The Shadow King possessing Dani) I loved this cast together and I genuinely loved the characters so I want more (sadly Boone's planned trilogy is never happening). While the storytelling was a mess as a result of so many studio tweaks and edits, I still got a story out of it I quite enjoyed. I let go of any anticipation of a horror movie, and settled into the slow revealing YA character drama. Every use of superpowers gave me butterflies, because I was expecting it to be so toned down in the superhero department, and they use the powers quite often and quite effectively.
There's a 90's superhero movie vibe to this, you know the type where they take away the tights and capes and put the heroes in plainclothes, and then scale things way, way down? And yet it worked for me, it really did. It's not the disaster Fant4stic was, nor as utterly unruly as X-Men: Apocalypse. I mean, if we're putting this on the scale with other Fox superhero movies this is close to the top for me (that's really not saying much, but it's still a surprise).
Hey, horror?
It has aspects that indicate that's what the director was maybe going for at one time, but in this incarnation it ultimately doesn't play at all like a horror movie. It's a YA superhero drama.
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