31 Days of Halloween: Azrael

2024, EL Katz (Channel Zero) -- download

Still not sure about this movie. At first blush, a post-apocalyptic post-Rapture survival movie with a gimmick where speaking draws The Monsters thusly a movie with little dialogue, would be right down my alley. And it should have been, if they had just fucking done something in the movie. Instead what we have delivered is just chase scene leading to chase scene leading to chase scene. I don't require a "Ending Explained" type movie, and I know without even looking there will be at least half a dozen genre movie blogs writing such articles, but I do hope for at least a bit of world building.

OK, so via sectional leader cards, we are told The Rapture happened. Starting in media res, a Woman (Samara Weaving, Babylon) and a Man (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Misfits) in love are escaping pursuers. She is caught and tied to a chair, and cut open so as to bleed. The remaining captors stand with their backs to her while she struggles to escape, as weird burned zombie creatures emerge from the wood. One of them sees she is escaping and tries to prevent it, only to be struck in the neck, and subsequently taken down by the monsters. She escapes into the wood.

Despite IMDB and Wikipedia having names for the characters, and the latter having a detailed explanation as to what is happening, none of this information is present in the movie. Nothing is explained and almost nobody is named. Seems silly to fill in blanks you don't have info on, unless they are taking headcanon as truth.

The Woman finds the encampment of her captors, surrounded by a ramshackle fence that makes lots of noise, and she sneaks in. Why did she come here? We don't know, but it is an opportunity for the movie to show us the church with the pregnant woman in white, someone they are obviously following. Why? Who knows. But the Woman is discovered and has to escape.

Later she comes across a road and a man in a brightly lit truck, who is not under the imposed "no speaking" rule and seems ... less PA ? He is confused as to why she is bloody and offers to take her somewhere for food and safety. He even plays her some music that briefly calms her before he is shot by one of her captors. She survives the crash, they struggle, she shoots him.

Back into the woods for pretty much more aimless fleeing. But she does her her Man, nailed to a tree, trying to gesture she should not come closer because... sproing... rope trap. While she dangles by one foot (fool pose) another of the captors appears, as well as more monsters. She scrambles up the rope, higher into the tree while the monsters take her Man as well as ripping the head off the captor. So much for his devious plan. One monster does climb the tree but she nags it in her rope and kills it by hanging, and ... back into the woods for more escaping.

Back to the encampment where The Woman goes into the church to kill the woman in white but barely scratches her before she is caught. The captors toss her into a recently dug grave and coffin, covering it up and tossing a few perfunctory shovels of earth on top. The foot of the grave is open to tunnels but they are full of the monsters, which as she scrambles back, they smell the blood of the woman in white on her finger nails and back off, giving The Woman time to dig her way out of the grave.

Back to the encampment where the Woman breaks in and starts killing willy nilly. The camp is on fire, people are dying left and right, and the monsters are coming out of the wood drawn by blood and noise.  She goes into the church to confront the woman in white again, and they fight. The Woman bites her in the neck and the woman in white is driven back, going into the throes of childbirth. The leader of the captors appears but is mortally wounded by The Woman. The woman in white has given birth but recoils from  the terrible crying sounds of the baby, and cuts her own throat. The Woman, who we are now realizing is likely the titular Azrael, aka The Angel of Death, picks up the baby, a cutie patootie goat thing with multiple eyes, aka The AntiChrist, as more of the monsters appear crying out to the skies.

The End.

To quote the peanut gallery, aka Marmy, "A Big Ol Meh!"

Sure, we got lots of cool PA imagery but we have no world at all. Are these just looney cultists hiding in the woods, cutting out their own voice boxes for fun? The lone guy in the bright truck implies that could be the case. What are the monsters? They look like full body burn victims and act like zombies, or vampires, ripping people open and drinking their blood. Perhaps Hell has broken open and they are sinners burned by the flames of the pit? The movie doesn't seem to care to even hint at an explanation... And if the movie doesn't care, why should I ?

20/20: #14 The Leftovers Season 2

[Like the "10 for 10" series but a little longer.  It's my endeavor to clean the backlog slate (with some things watched well over a year ago now) "this" month with 20 reviews written in 20 minutes (each) over 20 days...
...ahahahahahaaaa. Ahem]
 

Kevin drowning plays into much of Season 2

Where season 1 of The Leftovers was rather blatantly a metaphorical exploration of loss and depression, season 2 is a lot harder to peg.  The tonal shift is pretty immediate, starting with the opening theme, which you would almost think that you've started watching a compltely different show.  Moments later things kick in during prehistoric times, following a primitive human woman as she gives birth, forages for food, and defends her baby from a snake, ultimately succumbing to its poison.  Helpless, the baby is found by another primitive woman and the season begins.  It's a new town - Jardin, Texas - and a new family to follow -the Murphys, leaving the audience to wonder if each season is going to explore the aftereffects of the departure from a wholly unique perspective.

Jarden itself is wholly unique in this universe.  It's now "Miracle National Park" because it's the only place in the world where none of its residents departed.  As such it's become a place of legend and faith, where people believe all manner of spiritual and superstitious rhetoric... the city's tourism thrives on it.

Soon, we see remnants of the past season.  Father Matt Jamison is taking over the local parish for a time, his comatose wife Mary in tow.  We follow John Murphy as he makes his rounds, ignoring some of the superstitious actions of the townsfolk (like a man slaughtering goats in random establishments) while violently rejecting others (John throws his childhood friend - who does palm readings on visitors - out a window and run him out of town).  John, doesn't believe in the miracle of Miracle.

Season 1 and 2 collide by the end of the episode when the Garveys move next door.  Kevin and Nora obviously together, with Holy Wayne's baby (which they found on Kevin's porch in the final minuest of season 1) and Jill as a decidedly different nuclear family.  Episode 2 catches us up on Kevin and Nora's journey from Mapleton to Jarden, and throws us deeper into Kevin's troubles.  Still sleepwalking, and still haunted by Patti, Kevin awakes from the mud at the bottom of a newly-drained reservoire with a cinder block tied around his ankles after an earthquake.   Up at the top of the reservoire John and his son search frantically for John's daughter and her two friends, who appear to have departed, a bold rejection of Jardin's miracle.

These events shape the rest of the season, but are by no means the only focal moments or curious incidents.  Season two is far more upbeat, far more curious, and far more bizarre than season one.  Less grounded in emotions, season 2 takes wild stabs at the characters lives, upending them in surreal ways, just to see how they react.  Kevin's trying to be a good, honest man for Nora, but he questions his own sanity (despite Patti telling him otherwise), and he knows his nightwalking can lead to sever trouble.  It's a season where the characters are looking for security and normalcy and belonging in a world where surreal and supreme upheaval can happen in an instant. 

Strange things happen in Jarden, and keep happening, but are they metaphysical in origin, or man-made?  A trick of the mind, or a trick on the mind?  The reality in this show is all of the above, it's determining which is which that's both fun and frustrating.

In my write-up of season 1, I noted that I was drawn to the show because of the critical reception, the label of "best show on TV".  The truth is it is very engrossing, somewhat frustrating, but quite enjoyable. There's a lot of absurdity in this show and the twists get so wild and broad that they defy "good/bad" labels.  It's really a show where "your mileage may vary" truly applies.

20/20: #11 The Leftovers, Season 1

[Like the "10 for 10" series but a little longer.  It's my endeavor to clean the backlog slate (with some things watched well over a year ago now) this month with 20 reviews written in 20 minutes (each) over 20 days...
...Well...
After a 20 day break, I'm back to fulfil the last 10 of this failed 20/20 run.] 

I don't remember where I read it (probably the AV Club), but there was a poll of prominent TV critics, reviewing the 2016/2017 television season, and listing out the best/favourite of the bunch.  The Leftovers made the top of the list for its third and final season.

I had heard about The Leftovers from a bunch of different people and sources, but David's review had always influenced my impression of it.  Heavy and depressing were most often the terms I heard referencing this show, set in a world where 3% of the population one day just disappears, and what follows after.  I was expecting some Rabbit Hole or Manchester By The Sea-type heaviness, but finally launching into it I was instead faced with a weird sci-fi-esque alt-reality, where there's two very different kinds of cults (one which follows a sort of faith healer, the other a group that take a vow of silence and poverty and absolution from all feeling) and numerous people just trying to figure out how to cope in this world, including the sheriff of Mapleton, NY, his daughter, his stepson, his wife, the town reverend, a woman who lost her entire family and a few others.  I found it far more intriguing than depressing.  There's some world building at play, things that would or could only happen in a reality like this, but also things that are logical extensions of how our world operates today.

Symbolism abounds, much of which makes more sense emotionally than logically.  Religious symbolism particularly has a strange place in the show, as it's quite clear this wasn't "the Rapture" but some other phenomenon.  There's no easy answers, to be sure, and certainly traditional religion tries to help but it can't ease troubled minds.  Psychology fares no better.  The show strives for you to understand all the main characters' viewpoints, to empathize with them if not always maintaining your sympathy as a result of their actions.  There's a lot of lashing out, a lot of displaced anger, confusion, hurt, and especially guilt. 

If anything, it seems remarkably clear that the show is a metaphor for depression, in its many different manifestations.  Everyone in the show is afflicted with it in some form or another, manifesting in different ways, dealt with (or not dealt with) in different ways.  As David said in his review, the show just provides a trigger for it, but not necessarily a cause.  If the flashback episode 9 shows anything, it's that the melancholy was there even prior to the event.  The Leftovers provides an outlet for the purveying sense of existential dread, and doesn't seek to provide answers for getting past it.  If anything, season one shows that it's always a struggle, there are no short cuts, no easy answers, but that the possibility that it can get better does exist.

This is a fascinating show, amazingly acted (Ann Dowd is the MVP as Patti, leader of the local Guilty Remnant), clever and complex.  Season one leaves a few threads dangling, but I hear that the first episode of season 2 is where the show goes from being fascinating to essential viewing by taking off into drastically divergent terrain.  I'm looking forward to it.

I'm just hoping we don't get a flashback episode explaining where Chief Garvey's big back tattoo came from (this being a show co-created by Lost's Damon Lindleof, afterall)

What I Am Watching: The Leftovers, The Strain, Witches of East End

From level of intensity, lightest to heaviest, I am watching all three of these in chunks as downloading tends to lend itself to, one episode here, another couple there.

Witches of East End is something we knew about but never even attempted to see. Who needs another CW level show, young beautiful people mixed up in magic and myth. Surprisingly its not related to the The Witches of East Wick, which I keep on forgetting and having to edit out. It actually borrows more from Practical Magic (book and movie with Sandra Bullock) than it does the movie with three witches and and roguish Devil, which became its own terrible TV show back in 2009. It is about familial magic and the bonds between people. And love triangles. And sex. And some tenuous connection to Norse mythos.

Based on a popular novel by someone more attuned to YA fiction, the first episode actually is pretty decent. Love triangles, quirky dialogue, and fun magic. The dialogue was actually charming, no not Charmed charming more Buffy charming. OK, that was a lame attempt at a segue but, BUT, there is a reason we call this show "the next boobie show". You see, in our household, we refer to TV shows that I mostly watch for ... certain features, as "boobie shows".  First there was Charmed and then there was Ghost Whisperer and now there is this one. Yes, Jenna Dewan-Tatum (Mrs. Magic Mike) has such lovely eyes; no really! They really are gorgeous. But where was I? Oh yeah, dialogue. They go for quirky, amusing quips and comments that are actually meant as dialogue between characters, not just for the audience. And I love that. So, it actually made me perk up while watching it (shaddup you) and interested enough to watch the coming episodes.

And that is where things begin to flop. Plot holes, terrible story lines, truncated time (meet someone, fall in love, watch him die, get over him -- all in three days), randomalia and emotional yoyo-s make me cringe and/or giggle almost every episode. This has become a wander-out-of-the-room type of show for me, as "plots" lose me and those eyes are not enough to keep me interested. We have had them told about their mystical powers, broken the love triangle for a new hate triangle, met new lovers, watched said lovers die, talked about long lost family members, have said family members instantly show up, etc. Basically all the attributes of a show that is dependent on a room full of writers trying to contribute something, anything. It ends up being all so random.

And let's not talk about the weird hentai tentacle porn/rape sub-plot.

Meanwhile, I knew I was going to enjoy The Strain.

Not only am I a fan of Guillermo del Toro but I have read and enjoyed the book series (show is adaptation) he wrote with Chuck Hogan. I never really get how co-writing works, but I usually assume one person has the bulk of the plot in mind and the other does the majority of the heavy lifting, the actual work of writing. Either way, it still felt like something del Toro would write. Its a vampire story but in the three novels, it goes from plague story (infection spreading) to zombie (a few survivors surrounded by the walking dead) to post-apocalypse (a world now changed for the worse) story. Its down all of my alleys. Which sounds dirtier than it is.

The show is being shot here in Toronto so I am a little ashamed with myself for not trying to be an extra. But you know, that whole lose job-looking for work-new job dominated my life this year. But it is still fun watching last winter's footage appear everywhere in the show, even when they are a bit obvious wandering into a building with ROM banners behind them. Toronto has a feel to it, that lends itself well to Manhattan and the surrounding boroughs that play heavily in the story.

I am enjoying it, but I am also a bit perturbed. It is following the book pretty damn well, but adapting to TV as well. But, it is not doing the serial story very well. Unless you intend on making a "mini series" (do they exist anymore?) you have to establish some sort of self-contained episodic story telling. This, well, it just plays one episode into the next. Each episode, for better for worse, is just leading to something big and each episode only gives us a bit more of what is going to happen. That can be a bit annoying, but for the fact that each episode is still pretty well done, with the gore and the monsters and the balance of the varied cast.

And this is how I like my vampires, horrific and monstrous.

Now, speaking of horrific, we have the deep seated pain and grief of The Leftovers. In this series, a Rapture style event has happened and 2% of the world just ... disappeared. Men, women, children and infants were there one moment and gone the next. No explanation, none ever found. It is three years later and the world is still recovering, the world still with its open wound, its loss and the ramifications of such a wide affecting event.

I found the show very heavy and difficult in the first few episodes. Everyone is living with some aspect of the event, whether they lost someone or they are involved in dealing with the messes left behind. Chief Garvey is our main character, who lost a wife to one of the cults that emerged after the event. His daughter suffers the loss of her mother, the change in the world around her and an awareness of how damaged her father has become. Everyone is just so much in pain, sometimes the show is almost unbearable. Grief, heavy and palpable as I have never seen it depicted before.

But the show expands, with intertwining stories about the cults, the infrastructure that has emerged in the aftermath (everyone can make a buck), the way everyone is dealing or not dealing and the pregnant anticipation that this cannot be the only event. What do the cults hope to accomplish? Who is the Dog Hunter? Why does Garvey black out? Can Holy Wayne actually hug the pain out of you? It is Lost comparable in often giving more mysteries then it ever hopes to answer.

But for me, its a story tellers tangible way of depicting unexplainable upset. Everyone seems to be left in this unending state of disarray, never completely understanding why they are the way they are. Some have good reasons, such as losing their entire families, while others are just absorbing the peripheral grief of the event. But everyone is affected, everyone is dealing. I often feel our entire world exhibits this now, all the time, with so much intangible stress around us, from world events, from the guilt of plenty, from family, from just living. This takes this feeling many people have and wraps it around an inexplicable event.

3 Short Paragraphs: This is the End

2013, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg -- cinema

I was nervous about this movie for pretty much the same reasons as Graig was, with one additional nag -- while the crowd of "Apatow Kids" are good in their own right, often the people they surround themselves with (as actors and creators) are far away from the type of comedy I like. I like Rogen when he is reigned in, I like James Franco in his non-comedy roles, I tolerate Jonah Hill and I outright cannot stand Danny McBride. While I loved the premise and the trailers made me giggle, I worried it would quickly degrade into fart and dick jokes. It did but it also surprised me with some of the depth it had. So excuse me while I do a weighing the scales thing with my hands while making a whiney, "Ehhh uhhhh ehhhh," sound when asked if I liked it.

The premise is The End of the World. From the trailers, we couldn't tell if it was ecological or aliens or an asteroid or all of the above. But, no, its Biblical -- The Rapture. Yes, we are taking a bunch of narcissistic amoral comedians, playing extreme versions of themselves, and presenting them with Christian salvation or ... doom. The movie works around a surprising main plot of Jay Baruchel coming to see Seth in Hollywood, as Seth is the guy who moved there and Jay still lives in Canada. Jay doesn't like the Hollywood lifestyle or Seth's Hollywood friends and feels they are drifting. So, he is not fond of being dragged to the party at James Franco's new house. He is even less fond of being trapped in the house when things fall apart around them.

Its kind of funny but the characters are pretty much played as guys like me believe these actors to be. Franco wants everyone to love him but is a bit of a stoner dick, with delusions of how great his "art" is. Seth is losing the war between embracing Hollywood while maintaining his Canadian stable outlook. Jonah Hill is a conniving little weasel and Danny McBride is just an all around terrible person. Baruchel sees himself as the even tempered fair guy but how long can you maintain that with giant swing-dick demons walking the earth? I know very little about Craig Robinson so no comments. The movie was able to give humor in these exaggerations (which I was not always fond of) but maintained a decent plot of how these people deal with a Christian End of the World scenario. I laughed but I also rolled my eyes a lot.

3 Short Paragraphs: This Is The End

d. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, 2013 -- in theatre

I was nervous about This Is The End, nervous that it would be a film too "inside baseball" as they say, a film for the fans of the "Apatow Kids" from Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, 40-Year-Old Virgin onward.  I don't think Apatow has inspired the frothing fandom of a Kevin Smith, or even the more erudite geek fandom of Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg, and so I was worried that a film like this, which appeared to be banking on a general audience being fans of the actors, rather than their acting ability, would be a later-day Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, a movie solely reliant on in jokes and understanding fourth-wall-breaking references.  I don't know why I was so worried, after all, I genuinely loved the Rogen and Goldberg scripted Superbad, and Pineapple Express was a blast, so why shouldn't I have faith that they could pull another great comedy out?  *cough*Green Hornet*cough*.  Oh, right.

But it was a concern easily dismissed.  The film begins with Rogen picking his friend and fellow Canadian Jay Baruschel up from LAX for a solid week of catch up, and bonding over weed, snacks and video games.  Rogen drags a highly reluctant Baruschel along to a party at James Franco's new place, where Rogen's new, non-Canadian friends will be, friends whom Baruschel can't really tolerate.  During the party, the rapture happens (nobody at the party notices) and the apocalypse begins.  Chaos and mayhem and dead celebrities abound as the grounds open up and the sky rains fire.  It's all very Biblical, with a lot of blaspheming coming out of the actors mouths.  The party and the subsequent dissolving of the party is epic satire, with a clever bit of celebrity lampooning and piss-taking of Hollywood egos, but for all the hype it's remarkably short.  It's a judicious cutting, keeping the movie at a reasonable time, but I'm looking forward to DVD extras of all the deleted scenes that there must be nonetheless.

Left alive in Franco's fortified bunker of a home are Franco, Baruschel, Rogen, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson and Danny McBride.  The sextet, largely appearing as friends, are quite clearly realizing that "Hollywood friends" are not quite the same as real friends.  The film is about them relating to one another as people as much as it's about them surviving the apocalypse and the numerous dick and fart jokes that you can draw out of such a scenario (and it's a remarkable amount).  Rogen and Goldberg seem to (generally) excel at drafting these kind of male-bonding experiences and doing so in an entertaining way.  The film succeeds in establishing these men as people and not just relying on their celebrity status to do the heavy lifting, and it's effective in getting you to care for them. or at least their relationships with each other, even if you dislike them.  The film takes aspects of the primary actors and exaggerates them for its own comedic purpose  - such as Rogen's cowardice, Hill's duplicity, and McBride's selfishness - and gets a lot of mileage from it.  It's not necessarily against type for any of them, but it plays with what's expected and pushes them to extremes.  Ultimately, This Is The End succeeds because it's damn funny, it can be silly, honest, scary, gross, bizarre and touching all at once.  The "inside baseball" jokes are there, but it's not the focus of the characters, the story or the humour, it's just one small facet of a surprisingly robust apocalyptic comedy.

31 Days of Horror: Vanishing on 7th St

2010, Brad Anderson (The Machinist and a bunch of Fringe episodes) -- download

You are on your way to work, in the wee hours of the morning when it is still dark, when suddenly the power goes out. Lights flicker and systems shut down and when it all comes back on, you are alone. All around you where there should be commuters there are sacks of clothing. I mean, everywhere.  Cars have crashed, planes have fallen from the sky but the most amazing thing is the deathly silence. Amazing how quiet it can get when you remove all those people.

But in the returning dark, just out of the edge of your lights, are shadows.  The shadows creep and reach and moan and whine.  They are reaching out to you, trying to grab hold. You don't know what they can do or what they want but you know it's not good.  But as long as you have a light on, you are safe.  Somewhat.

That is the world we are introduced to almost immediately after the title sequence rolls. John Leguizamo, Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton and a few kids are the only people there when the lights come back on. The trouble is that the lights are flickering and the daylight hours are reducing, dramatically.  The shadows are everywhere and they are getting bolder and louder.  Our protagonists gather in a bar downtown where a resourceful survivalist had set up a generator and tons of gas.  If only gas was what was needed to keep the physics of the world working as they should.

This is paranoid post-apocalypse horror, where you have little clue of what is going on and no clue on how to survive it.  Seriously, if daylight is diminishing and even glow sticks are losing their ability to light up, what chance of survival is there?  Things are damn grim.

I know what you are thinking; this is a Rapture, right?  If it is a Rapture then it doesn't seem to be about saving the faithful at all.  The people "left behind" are not all that bad, just average people with crappy lives. And if they are left behind while the faithful went Up There then why are they now being taken?  If this is a Rapture movie then there is no resolution about it.  We don't know the actual rules of the event and in the end, we are only left with two kids alive.  Oh no, did I just think they are the new Adam & Eve for this dark world?  Please, no, not that. That will reduce a stylish, well played out creepy movie into something where Hayden is the new Kirk Cameron.