31 Days of Halloween: The Ugly Step Sister

2025, Emilie Blichfeldt (feature debut) -- download

Or stygge stesøsteren.

The elevator pitch is pretty much, "Cinderella but from the point of view of one of 'ugly' step sisters" and I can hear my coworkers now, decrying its "woke feminist agenda". The movie does have a strong message about altering one's appearance to fit into societal moulds, no matter what the cost personally. 

Rebekka (Ane Dahl Torp, The Quake) arrives at the opulent home of her new husband Otto, with her two daughters Elvira (Lea Myren, Kids in Crime) and Alma (Flo Fagerli, Kuppel 16), where they meet Otto's haughty and beautiful daughter Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss, La Palma). Otto obviously has money, from the grand stature of his home to the lavish design of Agnes' dresses. Plural. The family lives in the shadow of the Prince's castle, whom Elvira has constant fantasies about as she reads his poetry. It is a time when widows have to marry into money in order to survive, except they discover that Otto thought he was doing the same thing -- turns out they are both barely eking by. Barely, as in only a handful of servants.

Almost immediately after her arrival Otto dies and Rebekah sets her eyes on marrying off her daughters, Agnes as well, relying on the virginal nature every man desires. An invitation comes from the Prince, to attend a ball in four months time. That is plenty of time for Rebekah to have Elvira made into something more beautiful, partially through starvation, partially through reconstructive surgery on her already very normal, but not "slender" nose, and partially via a finishing school. But the cost is extravagant and Agnes challenges her spending the money there, while her father literally rots in the drawing room. Literally, with flies and maggots and bloating. This is not a faery tale from Perrault, but one by way of Grimm and David Cronenburg. Oh yeah, the starvation is helped along by swallowing the egg of a tapeworm.

Eventually Agnes, who is excelling at everything at the finishing school, while Elvira usually gets last place, is caught fucking the stable boy. How dare she sully her virgin status with the help?!? Rebekah drives the boy off, and shoves Agnes down onto the scullery floor, to assume her "cinderella" role. Meanwhile adolescent Alma, who disappears into the background, falls into the stable boy role, dressing in pants and mucking out stables.

Everything is leading to The Ball. As the tapeworm grows inside her, Elvira suffers horrible stomach pains and binges on treats from the pantry whenever she can hide it from her mother. Agnes shoulders her new role with aplomb but as time gets closer to the date, she still has a desire to attend. She even has the perfect dress and the perfect shoes, that is until Elvira sees them and tears them to shred. She is finally getting somewhere, having lost weight and the nose covering has been removed to show a slim & slender proboscis, and her braces are off revealing perfect teeth. She has even risen in the ranks at the finishing school because of Agnes's absence. She's also become a wee bit unhinged with the obsession impressed upon her by her mother. Agnes runs off in tears to her... ick... father's melting corpse, where the ghost of her mother appears. Oh yeah, Cinderella story so let's have some minor Magic Realism and the maggots become silk worms that repair her dress to its high glory.

The night of The Ball is all bloated with our, the viewer's, expectations on how things are going to go. Elvira is beautiful, even if her hair falling out had to be replaced by a wig, and she can dance well, but is kind of flatulent and her tummy growls and moans constantly. We know how its going to go. But this is not an American movie, so the climax is not at The Ball itself, but further in, once The Prince has become enamoured with Agnes/Cinderella who has to run from the dance before midnight. This movie is from Elvira's perspective, and her reaction to all her painful plans being dashed by Agnes (AGNES !!) 

So, we know there has to be a fallen shoe, and the step-sisters have to try them on, but in this movie its all happening off camera. There is no way Elvira's big feet will fit into that shoe, so why not just cut off some toes. That doesn't go so well, and the pain knocks her out. No matter, her mom finishes things off, even pointing out she did it to the wrong foot. So, five toes become ten. Buuuuut, again off camera, the Prince has already bumped into Agnes and... they have ridden off into the sunset, happily ever after. A drugged and in pain Elvira falls out of bed breaking her fragile nose and her shiny teeth. All the ugly on the inside is now on the outside. But her sister Alma, now more stable boy than potential virgin bride, still loves her and the two rob their mother and escape into the fog to have ... different lives.

The movie was somewhat painfully indie feeling. Its very rough around the edges but its strength lies in knowing exactly what tale its telling and the, yeah well "agenda" is very on point. And by very potent performances. Elvira is driven by what is expected of her, and nothing ever comes easy for the girl. I won't preach on its message, but its well told. The horror of the story comes in the consequences, the body horror, and the (even if it didn't happen at The Ball) inevitable extrication of the tape worm. That scene was all the more horrible for the reality of it all. Makes me squeamish just recalling, squick almighty!

31 Days of Halloween: The Substance

2024, Coralie Fargeat (Les Fées Cloches) -- download

What is it Kent says? Squick? Yeah, that. Very much that. But its also a movie with loads of style.

It begins with the creation of the Hollywood Walk of Fame star for Elizabeth Sparkle (but is it Hollywood as we do see snow cover it?) which almost immediately begins to fade, crack and be ignored. Metaphor on the megaphone, much? Yes, Elizabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore, Songbird) was once the talk of Hollywood but now she's relegated to a morning workout show (ala Jane Fonda) and then... she's fired. "Too old!" her sleazy Purple Suit (Dennis Quaid, Fortitude; no actual purple suits, but ohhh so many colourful ones) yells into the phone. She's gonna be replaced.

And then someone sends her an invite. Its an invite to The Substance, something that promises to make her the younger, more beautiful, more perfect version of herself. Elizabeth Sparkle is barely past 50 but she already feels invisible. After the briefest moment of hesitation, she orders it and picks it up from a pristine clean space hidden in the opposite of a pristine, clean neighborhood. There are instructions, very clear and loud instructions about a seven day on, seven day off, switching cycle. Elizabeth injects the drug, suffers debilitating pain, and then her spine splits open and ... Sue (Margaret Qualley, The Leftovers) emerges.

I have to interrupt myself and comment on the loads of style here. This is another horror movie set in an anachronistic mish mash time, with the bright colours and RGB rayon clothing of the 80s, but the sales pitch to Elizabeth comes in the form of a USB drive. Everything about the movie is from the male gaze, through the eyes of a woman who has to live with it. When Elizabeth is taking the drug, she is nude. She is not horrible but a normal woman, once Hollywood Perfect, but who has aged. Most would say she is still an ideal vision, but when Sue emerges, we see what the ideal really is. And in case you are wondering, the perfect body that Sue is depicted as having is mostly prostheses, make up and camera trickery because nobody not even the lovely Margaret Qualley is that perfect.

Sue gets Elizabeth's old job, which is now not just a morning workout show but a nigh porn show, more 20 Minute Workout than Jane Fonda, i.e. there are probably plenty of (not just adolescent boys and) men masturbating to it. Sue has exactly what sleazy old men want and want to sell, and does it with a wink and a giggle and a leer back into the gaze. But seven days later, she has to give it back to Elizabeth. You would think it could be an easy gig. Live as Elizabeth, do whatever you want for seven days and then let Sue do the paying work for seven days. But fame is not just about the money it garners, but the admiration afforded from it. Elizabeth is even more invisible now. Sue is not just on the billboard outside her penthouse, but everywhere leering down at her.

But its not just Elizabeth suffering neurotic anxiety over the situation, but Sue, as she becomes more powerful, more desired, more popular, she wants more -- more fame, more attention, more... time. But as she takes it from Elizabeth, Elizabeth suffers even worse, her body showing the ravages of time beyond what even a day's stolen time could do. It becomes a battle of wills between the two women who are, as the voice on the phone keeps on reminding them, still only one woman. 

I wondered if they remembered each other's seven days, but no, they don't, they just see the consequences of each other's actions, and Sue really gets the short end of that stick, as Elizabeth sinks into a wallowing hole of cooking, eating, eating and more eating. Neither gain weight but... the filth! 

And as expected, things eventually culminate towards doom. Sue is offered a Role of a Lifetime but needs more time. And boy, does she take it, which ends with her pretty much draining Elizabeth of all lifeforce, youth and beauty. Elizabeth has morphed into a monster while somehow still thinking Sue... deserves this? When the months of stolen time are visualized, Elizabeth is a literal monster, a stooped, ancient crone that is more fairy tale witch than anything. And the results of her reaction to THAT emergence is where the movie kind of falls down, to me. We go from stylish, outrageous farcical commentary on social injustice to ... Cronenburg-ian level, well, squick. Total gross-out, over the top, buckets of blood body horror, monster show.

I almost feel as if they weren't sure how the movie should climax. I mean, we knew it had to come to a final battle of wills and bodies, but, wow, did they let loose. There is no lesson learned, just pure unadulterated consequences.

This was a good movie, a well done movie, a movie that wasn't afraid to embrace the sheer lunacy of the situation and make a bold statement at the same time. It didn't blow my socks off though, as I would have preferred to have been completely, utterly, entirely horrified by an ending, instead of  them embracing the camp.

31 Days of Halloween: Huesera: The Bone Woman

2022,  Michelle Garza Cervera (feature debut) -- download

Perhaps if I was more connected to religion, motherhood and doubts about sexuality, I guess I would find more to relate to with this movie? But, that said, its not always about relating to a movie or its characters & situations, as long as you connect with the style, and in this case, the horror elements. The problem is that there was very few horror elements involved, and almost the entire movie is focused on the drama of a young woman becoming a mother, and it being the clincher of her doubting all of her life choices. Oh, the horror elements, when present are more than sufficiently creepy, but I found it was all just hand-waved away with no explanation seemingly required.

Valeria (Natalia Solián, Red Shoes) is happily married to Raúl (Alfonso Dosal, 3 Idiots) and are trying to get pregnant. At least they seem happy enough, rolling around on the floor, wrestling and laughing. Then it happens, Valeria gets pregnant. Its like a light goes on, and the doubt is seen on her face. Not long after, while looking out the window on a warm night, she sees a women across the street, get up and jump out the window. When Valeria tries to show her husband the broken body, it is not there.

From there she is haunted by this creaky, crawling apparition with no face and cracking bones. After a few encounters she goes to her "spinster" aunt, who is very obviously a lesbian, and I am not all that familiar with queer culture in Mexico, but it implies a tie to the supernatural as well, and her aunt's friend, a bruja of sorts tells Valeria that indeed she has a spirit attached to her, but she shouldn't worry, it will go away soon. I got the impression that perhaps, in Mexican culture, that doubts and worries can invite in the wrong sort of spirits, sort of like bad thinking can summon unseelie fey folk.

It gets worse. Not really the creepy-crawly bone woman, but more Valeria's disconnect with becoming a mother. Months are passing, she is having constant issues, and even returns to the punk life of her teen years, and reignites a relationship she had with a woman. She makes  passing attempt at babysitting her niece and nephew, but that is a disaster when the bone woman makes an appearance and Val freaks out, hurting the children in turn. Nobody trusts her, not her family, not her husband, not her ex-GF. 

And then she has the baby. She finds no connection whatsoever, not even wanting to look on the child, and in a state of post-partum delusion, she briefly becomes the bone woman herself, and hides the baby in the fridge, to find some peace. She realizes that if she doesn't do something drastic, she will lose everything so she turns to her aunt, and her friends, and a ritual is performed. It apparently drives off the bone woman but it doesn't change how Valeria feels, and the movie ends on her leaving the baby with her husband, as she departs that life.

In saying/writing it out loud, it sounds compelling and dramatic, but in execution, I was not captivated at all. I just found little to no connection with the characters and the situations. While the monsters was creepy, we don't know what or why it exists, and while I was able to forgive that missing element from The Grimcutty, I am not sure why I could not accept it here. And then there was the ritual that drove the spirit away -- the movie jumps suddenly from a tragic drama, to .... art school final project? Naked, writhing women in the forest, a macramé shawl wearing image of Valeria that catches on fire, all kinds of imagery which... just left me mystified. Again, I can only guess it had some meaning in Mexico? But I found none.

A bit of Googling will tell you there is a folk tale from Mexico, about The Bone Woman, attributing to it an old woman who wanders a desert collecting bones. Buuuuut, how does that connect to this movie? How does that connect to motherhood? Still not finding anything....

31 Days of Halloween: Appendage

2023, Anna Zlokovic (feature debut) -- Disney

When watching a very very indie flick with clunky characters and unbelievably low budget looking special effects, you have to wonder if its going to pay off. I guess I can say this one did, mostly, after it picked up some velocity in act three.

Hannah (Hadley Robinson, Little Women) and Esther (Kausar Mohammed, The Flash TV) live in NYC at a small fashion house for a mean diva boss. Hannah has an OK relationship with Kaelin (Brandon Mychal Smith, Four Weddings and a Funeral TV) after being setup together by Esther. And Hannah has a mean mom. The cardboard assembly of the characters and situations and strained over-acting by the characters as the movie began almost had me turn it off. Sometimes low-budget / indie shit just irritates me for that reason. Flesh out your character connections, think them through. If Hannah and Esther are best friends, and Esther was so connected to Kaelin that Hannah could possibly think the two have a thing, she should have known Kaelin before Esther set them up.

But it was too late to start something new, and this movie had some pretty good reviews, so I powered on. Powered on past the first sign that they really really needs a different practical effects team. The mean boss and mean mom and new relationship shit Hannah is going through literally manifests itself as a lump of flesh growing out of her birthmark, which then quickly separates itself from her, looking and talking like the effects person had seen 80s movie Ghoulies (one of the many Gremlins ripoffs) one too many times. Hannah locks it in the wardrobe but it continues to grow, taunting her from the confines. Hannah's internal asshole monologue has manifested. 

Is this movie a thinly veiled allegory? That suspicion is increased when Hannah does some shoddy "do your research" level Googling on DNA and comes up with chimera references, instantly finding the exact support group for people who also had lumps of flesh crawl off their body. Some exposition later and Hannah has the child-sized creature tied up in her basement, the basement she has key access to but nobody else ever goes, and makes friends with Claudia (Emily Hampshire, Schitt's Creek) from the support group.

Allegories and metaphors are tossed aside for a full-on creature feature with its own internal, weird logic that ... well, worked. It is helped by the committed involvement of Emily Hampshire, who brings a skilled portrayal to all the indie. While I was satisfied with the movie in the end, I would still end up saying it mostly falls into the category that Horror Fans (not just my usual use of Capitals) are usually jazzed about something new in their familiar buckets. And I am still not sure why, if I am doing this October thing again, I am not ascribing myself as a Horror Fan. I definitely am, but I will never be categorizing myself with the Fangoria reading, horror-con attending subculture that probably loved this movie more than I did.

31 Days of Halloween: X

2022, Ti West (In the Valley of Violence) -- download

Waitasec, we have been doing 31 Days of Halloween as long as we have been doing this blog? I wonder if starting a movie watching/writing blog influenced us to celebrate the season, really our favourite eventful season, by watching and writing about said movies. We also seemed to have started the tradition with the watching of Ti West flicks. 

For a while, after his western, he shifted into TV but returns with yet another harkening-back-to-the-70s movie not just reminiscing about the era, but actually taking place in it. X is an easy setup; a film crew piles into a van, on their way to rural Texas, to the spot of land they rented to shoot a porn movie. But not just any porn, as they have in mind to be a bit more artsy, a bit more accessible, paving the way for the popularity of adult VHS tapes. And its a good idea, considering all the video stores I worked at ended up with a seedy space behind the curtain that adolescent Toasty always wondered about. They rent said spot of land from the classic Creepy Old Man who has a decaying house on a wide, open farm that doesn't seem to actually grow anything. Creepy Old Man has a creepier old wife who has an instant fascination with all these free living young people staying in her "guest house".

Horror movies have always had a spot of the titillation in them, and I imagine the treatment for this movie commented on not just sporting some sex starved teenagers and showing boobies, but dispensing with the charade, and just being fully about the nudity and exploitative sex. And while it does, and frankly has to, focus on the eroticism of what they are doing, its not... overboard? In fact, its a bit dialed back? They are making a porn, so there are sample scenes, nudity from both sides of the fence, perky tits and swinging dicks, fake moaning and professed real moaning, but the real focus is on the Creepy Old Man, Howard (Stephen Ure, Deathgasm), and his Creepier Old Wife, Pearl.

Body horror, drawn from the debatable ick factor of old people's bodies, is also common in horror. One of the famous scenes in The Shining shifts from caretaker Jack Torrance making out with a sexy ghost, to being horrified when he sees that she is a disgusting, ancient, creature. The young and fearless are forever terrified of getting old, repulsed by the old. And West puts this out for all to see, exploring it more than most of these movies do.

Inevitably, the killing starts. Pearl (Mia Goth, Suspiria) is drawn to the porn purveyors, an aging woman who longs (literally) for the days when she was young & beautiful, terrible and horny, and her husband could satisfy her. When they won't relent to her advances, she slays them. Once it starts, her husband has to help, killing each off, one by one until only self actualizing Maxine (Mia Goth, High Life) is left. Maxine is a force of nature, the debatable star of the movie, and the fact that they have Goth playing both Maxine and Pearl, the other debatable main character of the movie, is the grand design that West has for this movie, and the others forthcoming.

Given the sub-genre of horror movies, the hillbilly slasher, or backwoods slasher, that this movie ascribes to, its not particularly scary. And we are not particularly attracted to these types, so on the most basic level, it was just OK. But I do like the exploration of the elderly as another horror sub-genre, making Pearl an actual character with agency, not just "I kill to kill", and how he doubles down on the nudity and sex, eliciting our negative responses by including Howard & Pearl in it. West does seem to like making horror movies that are meant to be discussed over drinks after the movie, instead of just giggling off the adrenaline.

The prequel Pearl is already out, and the sequel MaXXXine is being produced right now.

Double Dose of Frankenstein

 (Double Dose is two films from the same director, writer or star...or genre or theme...pretty simple.  Today: Continuing my re-dive into Universal's classic "dark universe", it's the first two entries in Universal's Frankenstein series....)

Frankenstein (1931) - dir. James Whale - CriterionChannel
Bride of Frankenstein (1935) - dir. James Whale - CriterionChannel

Having just watched two versions of Dracula which utilized the same sets, I was keenly aware that there was some sets reused from one Universal film to the next, especially factoring in the timing.  They're maybe redressed a little differently, lit a little differently or shot from a different angle, but there was certainly a economic efficiency to the Universal horror production line.

Likewise, there was some casting crossover, with Dracula's Renfield, Dwight Frye, here portraying Dr. Henry Frankenstein's assistant Fritz, and Drac's Van Helsing Edward Van Sloan is playing the not so different Professor Dr. Waldman (it would have been really interesting if he played Van Helsing in both shows, but they just weren't thinking of franchise building back then).

Dr. Frankenstein is going mad with his desire to play god and create life from death.  He and his assistant Fritz get busy graverobbing for the needs of his particular project.  We're supposed to read a lot into the fact that the brain that Fritz stole was from a murderous criminal...but we'll come back to that.  Meanwhile, Henry's fiance Elizabeth and best friend Victor are very worried about him and his state of mind.  Along with Henry's former professor, they ascend upon his spire just as a storm is brewing.  They're just in time to watch Henry's creation come to life.

The Monster is, immediately, treated as an abomination. Though his mannerisms are positively child-like, he's a bruiser of a giant unaware of his own strength (did the Monster inspire Lennie in Of Mice and Men?).  Fritz immediately starts whipping and tossing torches in the Monster's face.  I had just seen a part of a documentary about how "trained" elephants are effectively beaten and tortured into submission, experiencing intense trauma and PTSD as a result.  This seems almost exactly what is being done to the Monster.  It's no wonder he lashes out.

Henry and Elizabeth are off to get married, and the whole town is celebrating...or else it Oktoberfest.  Meanwhile the Professor drugs up the Monster and seeks to disassemble him.  The Monster awakens and kills him (it's self defense?) and escapes the Keep.  He encounters a lonely child, Maria, who isn't afraid of him.  They play a game of tossing flowers into the water and watching them float, but the confused, childlike Monster doesn't understand, and tosses the child in, and she doesn't float, nor know how to swim.  She drowns and he flees.  Eventually it leads to the town uniting with torches to hunt the creature down, and they corner him into a windmill, which they torch, thinking the creature will meet his demise.

The whole production, while certainly of its time, is still engaging viewing.  The sets, costuming and lighting are all pretty great.  There are a tremendous amount of outdoor scenes which I love seeing in old black and white films, escaping the sameyness of sets.  The Oktoberfest wedding celebration looks like a great time, but Maria's dad stumbling through the festivities with his dead daughter in his arms it's a genuinely upsetting sequence.  The performances aren't uniformly great, but generally solid (Frye certainly reins it in from his Renflied performance), but Boris Karloff as the Monster is striking, and he does a great job bringing the childlike naivete and innocence into the creature.  It's just unfortunate his particular stilted movements and grunting and groaning have been parodied so much in the past 90 years, but there's still more to his performance than just those.

Deviating greatly from Mary Shelley's text, the film does forge its own path but misses the most interesting aspects along the way.  When the senior Frankenstein is introduced, it's clear that Henry grew up with a difficult father.  It would have been wonderful to explore that relationship in partnership to Henry's "parenting" of the Monster, but it never even thinks to broach those relationships in any meaningful way.  Likewise the mix-up with the Monster's brain, from a "regular brain" to a "corrupt brain", could have led to a nature vs. nurture examination, but the film really doesn't want to examine much.  It seems to be in conflict with itself about whether the Monster should be sympathetic or Monstrous, and it never confidently picks a lane.  It's a problem that carries forward into the sequel.

The Bride of Frankenstein opens, bizarrely, with actors portraying Mary Woolstonecraft Shelley and her dandy husband Percey Bysshe Shelley and their dandier friend Lord Byron, all lounging in front of a fire.  Byron recounts the events of the first movie, and Mary decides to tell them what happened next.  It's the last we see of this trio (we could only have hoped for a Princess Bride-style series of interruptions).

Mary's story opens where we left off, with the windmill burning to the ground.  The burgomaster ( Burger Master!) has been recast, as has Elizabeth, and this film introduces Minnie as the loudmouth servant who is I guess comic relief?  Beneath the windmill the Monster has escaped into the underground stream.  He brutally murders poor lil' Maria's dad (also recast) and mother (heretofore unseen) and runs past Minnie leaving her unharmed and escaping into the woods.  

Meanwhile Henry, recovering from his encounter with his offspring, gets a visit from one Dr. Pretorius.  If Henry was a half-mad scientist, Dr. Pretorius is full-bore.  He shows Henry his own creations that he brought to life, a quintet of wee people he keeps in jars, which he said he grew from seed.  I assume the Anton Arkane from Swamp Thing comics was a riff off Dr. Pretorius.  

Pretorius is looking to Henry to teach him how to create big-people life, and he has a couple of assistant murderers who will acquire the raw materials for him.  The Monster meanwhile, after a couple of fateful encounters, meets a kindly blind hermit who takes him in, teaches him how to talk, drink and smoke, and a little bit of the difference between good and bad...all the things his own dad didn't.  The Monster made a friend, but a pair of fearful hunters break up the friendship and send the Monster running, straight to Dr. Pretorius who is very glad to meet him.  He promises the Monster not just a friend, but a girlfriend. Together they kidnap Elizabeth to force Henry to conduct his work.  

The Bride of Frankenstein is a success, except she recoils in fear when she meets her new friend.  Disheartened, the Monster destroys the lab, and presumably Dr. Pretorius, the Bride, and himself.  It's a tragedy.

But the real tragedy is how this film crafts a stunning looking creature in the Bride, but we only see her for a scant couple minutes at the very end of the film.  There's so much to mine with the Monster learning language and how to express himself, and to have another Monster who is even less wise in the world than he. 

The sequel is bigger in scope, and gunning for more entertainment.  There's more Monster rampaging, which means a lot of senseless killing that seems, once again, to conflict with the sensitivity of the Monster. It's not a better movie than the original, but it's more fun.  It tries for more comedy, more adventure, more action, more horror, more weirdness, and it succeeds, but at the cost of consistency.

With the same director, there's a definite consistency in its visual presentation, but there was a huge shift between 1931 and 1935 in that The Bride of Frankenstein has an actual score accompanying it.  It's not a great score, but it fills the empty spaces that seemed so vacant in both Frankenstein and Dracula.

BUT IS IT HORROR? 
I'm sure in the 1930's these were deemed maybe a little more intense, psychologically disturbing (the producer even introduces the film warning of its morbid themes), but 50 years after, when I was a young'un these were considered basically kids movies.

31 Days of Halloween: Hellraiser

2022, David Bruckner (The Night House) -- download

OK, back to movies. 

Research is not the main foray of this blog, but two things had to be done. One, remind myself as to WTF the original movie (9 sequels ?!?!) was about, and be surprised (and not surprised) it was directed by Clive Barker himself, as the entire series is based on his short stories. But beyond the Cenobites, I had no recollection of plot, which turns out to be an extreme hedonist using the puzzle box to fuel his own resurrection amid sacrifices. Two, the director of the new one did The Night House, which at its core, set a plot that lends his approach well to doing this one. Rituals, the Other Side, constructed magic are what he seems to be exploring, so naturally, the Hellraiser series suits.

So, why return to this movie franchise? Well, its not surprising in this current ecosystem that mines all the "classics" for a return from the dead bank. This one is mos def not a classic, but the Cenobites will always have a place in horror pop culture playlists. They are artful creations of a twisted mind and skilled practical effects creators. They make you cringe, fidget in your seat and feel uncomfortable. And I imagine, for quite a few beyond Barker himself, feel uncomfortable in your pants. Not me. No. Ew David, Ew.

This movie begins with a character not unlike the "main" from the original, a wealthy man seeking to surpass the depths of pleasure & pain, who reaches out into The Unknown via dark means. I was catching hints of 13 Ghosts... *ahem* Thir13en Ghosts, in that the house is constructed for the express purpose of supernatural rites. His final ritual completes, we move on to the story of recovering addict Riley (Odessa A'zion, Grand Army) who is roped into robbing a shipping container once owned by our previously mentioned rich weird guy Voight (Goran Visnjic, Timeless). You can easily guess what is in the container, and what Riley does immediately with it.

She loses her brother to the Evil Rubik's Cube, and spends the rest of the movie intent on getting him back. I was never quite sure how she intended on doing that, especially after she learns it requires further sacrifice. But things never go as planned and in the end... well, lots of people die.

The plot was never really the thing with this movie -- the return of the Cenobites was. But why? Recreate them, being faithful to the original (a new style of Pinhead) but create some more, and make the reimagined ones even creepier? No, not really. They had an opportunity to take a truly terrifying, disturbing approach to their design, but they ended up just being... alright. Which is not alright. And despite a little bit more fleshing out, pun intended, of their motivations and purpose (which, I supposed could have been lifted from any of the 9 sequels, but not that I am aware of) the story was quite pedestrian.

31 Days of Halloween: Possessor

2020, Brandon Cronenberg (Antiviral) -- Netflix

If your dad is David Cronenberg, are you just destined to direct weird fucking movies? Joe Hill followed in his own dad's footsteps (Stephen King) by writing horror stories, but is there any other path? How would David have felt if Brandon had become the king of Hallmarkies?

Anywayz, weird fucking movie. And about time. There used to be a time, when these were my thing. It all started with that copy of a copy VHS tape of Tetsuo: The Iron Man, and for a time I was clamouring for anything weird, which of course, led me to Cronenberg's (David, not Brandon) seminal films. They always begged the question, horror or just horrifying? This movie ends up giving me the same query. It was definitely horrifying, with some definitely look-away cringe moments (I am getting soft in my old age) and the plot goes down an expected terrible (for all characters involved) path. But at its core, it is more a scifi thriller than horror movie.

Vos (Andrea Riseborough, Oblivion) works for an organization as an assassin. Unless the company serves other purposes, with its brain implant technology that allows their agents to "possess" someone else (also implanted, obviously against their will and without knowing) and guide them like an avatar in a video game, Vos's job is to kill people. It has taken its toll on her -- she is separated from her husband & child, and has begun embracing the violence of the acts, getting a wee bit bloodier than her handler Girder (Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight) care for. But no matter Vos, get your killer head on straight, because we have to kill rich guy Sean Bean, because... Sean Bean.

Vos is lying to Girder about having her head on straight, and almost from the moment she steps into the life of her next host, Colin Tate (Christopher Abbott, The Sinner), things are strained. For one, Vos is a woman, and the man's body is... interesting. She is supposed to lay low, play the part, until a party in which she will violently kill Bean's John Parse, allowing the company Girder and Vos work for to take over his. Tate is also seeing Parse's daughter Ava (ay-va, not ah-va; Tuppence Middleton, Jupiter Ascending) and during the botched assassination, Tate/Vos kills her. Vos is unravelling, and Tate is coming to the surface more and more.

This movie was brutal, no not too brutal to watch, but the brutality was done as spectacle, and to be honest, I am not sure it worked. Right from the get go, the Vos we meet is losing herself to the violence of her chosen profession, losing more and more touch with humanity. The more effective aspect of this loss is the horrific imagery associated with Vos becoming intertwined (visually, literally) with Tate despite his best attempts to break free. The violence was almost exploitative, while the sex, less so. I am on a metaphorical fence, wondering what I got out of it, but even that, means I got more than I usually get from all those middling to low monster & slasher flicks we watch.

Final question: what do you think Tate's job was?

Kent's post here.

Horror, Not Horror: white millennial problems

 "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.

Malignant - 2021, d. James Wan - Crave
Daniel Isn't Real - 2019, d. Adam Egypt Mortimer - amazonprime
Titane - 2021, d. Julia Ducournau - amazonprime
Fresh - 2022, d. Mimi Cave - Disney+

---

I'm not a devoted follower of James Wan's career, but from what I've seen I do like him.  I'm not sure I've ever watched all of Saw, or if I've just read all about the Saw franchise.  I haven't watched any of the Insidious or The Conjuring series of films.  What I have seen are Furious 7 (though ask me to explain which one that is and I'm not sure I could tell you.  The Statham-as-villain one, I think?) and Aquaman.

As you might guess, given my proclivity towards superheroic things, it's the latter that really made me sit up and take notice of Wan as a director.  Aquaman is a delightfully bonkers movie and is a hundred times better than it had any right to be because the Warner/DC execs just let Wan's creativity explode and just jump through every type of genre.  That trust was his reward for having delivered an obscenely successful horror universe to Warner Bros.

And his reward for Aquaman being a billion dollar smash hit was a 40 million dollar+ blank check to make this, one of the most absurd yet entertaining pseudo-horror films in years.

Malignant is one of those movies that one doesn't want to say too much about as it might give too much away.  I can only imagine what it was like for someone unaware of the general premise of the film to sit through and discover what was really up.  And yet, after listening to the Malignant episode of How Did This Get Made, wherein Paul, June and Jason had no prior knowledge of what was about to be revealed, I think the movie plays better with a bit of that forehand info.  It's certainly a movie that was designed to be rewatched and to provide a little more upon second viewing.

There's a bit of setup that takes place up front using VHS video recordings of a psychiatric institute where something is brutally attacking the people in the facility.  The doctors seem completely aware of what is going on and have little concern for the lives being lost.  We never clearly see what being it is causing all this mayhem, but the last shot is of the feet of a child being dragged off.

Two and a half decades later, we meet Madison Lake (Annabelle Wallis, Peaky Blinders) a pregnant nurse and living with a real shitheel of a boyfriend.  After disrupting his important UFC-watching and cel-phone twittering, he cracks her head against the wall, knocking her unconscious.  When she wakes up she finds her dirtbag brutally murdered, his body twisted and cracked from inhuman force.

Madison is spooked, and she reconnects with her estranged sister, while working with the police to try and figure out who or what could have done what was done.  And then there are more murders, only Madison is having real-time visions of those murders (there's a neat effect of the world melting away around her when she starts having these visions).  Is she psychically connected to the murderer/entity.  And the ...thing is killing the doctors we saw on video 27 years earlier.  When the detective encounters the murderer, it's clear this thing is humanoid, but how it moves, how it speaks (via electronics, able to manipulate electricity), it's not quite human.

The fun of the film is how all these threads are connected, but I knew going in exactly how they were all connected and I could delight in what the film was holding back on, but also kind of plainly showing you. It's pulpy and purposefully schlocky.  There's very much a heightened sense to this reality, Wan really interested in making a big-budget homage to the low-budg direct-to-video horror of the 1980's.  It's violent, and gross, and wonderfully action heavy, but it's not especially scary.  Wan's inventive camera is constantly in play finding very inventive and impressive ways of navigating spaces and following action.  It's such a gonzo film, and a delight for it.  It's absurd in the best way, not caring if it's not realistic, it's just having fun with what it's doing.

But, is it horror?  
Yeah, it's totally residing in the genre despite not being particularly scary.  It's a cracking good time.

---

Playing in similar ground as Malignant, though getting a bit deeper in the psychological horror, Daniel Isn't Real starts incredibly strong with an opening moment that, when it transitions to the next moment seems utterly disconnected and random, only to quickly come back in play again.  Young Luke, his parents on the cusp of divorce, walking alone down the sidewalk, pushes his way through a crowd, only to be horrified to have a dead woman staring back at him.  The trauma seems to conjure up Daniel, and imaginary friend, who takes him away from the horror, and they become fast friends.   But Daniel pushes Luke to do things, nefarious things, and Luke's mom (Mary Stuart Masterson) forces him to lock Daniel away in a literal doll house (but a figurative mind prison).  Daniel pounds, pounds, pounds, screaming to be let out.  

The pounding is heard over the scene transition, as we join Luke (Miles Robbins) to a little over a decade later,  now a quiet, studious college student who is sharing a dorm room with a total he-bro.  But there's that noise in the back of his brain, that knocking that has never left him, and his therapist (Peacemaker's Chukwudi Iwuji) tells him that by locking Daniel away he's locked a part of himself away, that's holding him back from being more socially engaged and threatening his happiness.

When he returns home for a visit, he finds his mother deep in the throes of a manic episode, her schizophrenia serious enough to hospitalize her.  Luke, left to his own devices, unlocks the dollhouse and sets Daniel (now Patrick Schwartzenegger) free, immediately appearing, having seemingly aged along with Luke.  Their friendship immediately rekindles and Daniel starts pushing Luke into doing more in the world, engaging more with the world, being social, sleeping with girls.  But Daniel also starts pushing Luke to behave in ways that don't seem like his kind, sensitive self, and ultimately Daniel learns how to take control of Luke's body.

Throughout, the film expertly toys with the question "Is Daniel real, or does Luke have schizophrenia like his mother, or is he possessed by demon?"  There are possibilities.

Is this a creature feature, or a metaphor for mental illness? There's a definitive answer (which I'm avoiding spoiling) but I'm not sure if the film is any more satisfying as a result of being so definitive.

Good performances from Robbins,Schwartzenegger,  Masterson, and Sasha Lane, but could have used more of Peacemaker's Chukwudi Iwuji as Luke's therapist (both cause I like Iwuji and I also think that character should have played a larger part as a barometer for Luke's sanity). The electronic score from "Clark" is quite good, it stands out and you take notice.  Director Mortimer and Cinematographer Lyle Vincent have quite a few well composed shots that add a bit more artistic flare than the average horror.   

This apparently is part of a trilogy along with Mortimer's Archenemy, and a yet unproduced third film that the writer/director teases as crossing the two films.

Be it now horror? 
Yes, it's very squarely in the horror genre, and really seems to be positioning Daniel as an old school horror franchise creature.

---

I'm not sure what's going on in France but they're just not happy unless they're really, really, really pushing the limits of what a movie can be about.  I don't even go into French films that often, but even just using High Life and Annette as barometer, things are definitely getting weird over there.

Titane is by far the weirdest of them yet to come (though I've still to see Aline the bizarre quasi-Celine Dion bio-pic in which the writer/director/star plays an analog to the French-Canadian singer at every age!).  But clearly, with winning the Palm D'or at Cannes, this kind of madness is what French cinema wants, and celebrates.

AmazonPrime, the current rights holder in North America, classifies the film as "science fiction, suspense, horror".  I'm not sure that covers it.  It start with Alexia, a real shitheel of a kid, being really annoying while her father is trying to drive the car...first being really loud imitating the motor's hum, and then kicking the back of his seat, before disconnecting her seat belt and moving freely around the back.  This causes an accident, and Alexia gets a big chunk of metal in the side of her head.  20 or so years later Alexia is a dancer at car shows, where she wears trashy clothes and crawls all over cars for the pleasure of men around her.  Another dancer has taken an interest in her, hitting on her in the shower, while a fan tries to profess love to her in the parking lot.  What none of these people realize is Alexia is a killer.  And after a kill she likes to have sex with cars.

If you think you know what this film is based on that brief description, well, that's just the first act, and it definitely does not remain what you think.  

Now pregnant with a car baby, and a failed attempt at a self-performed abortion, Alexia's proclivities catch up with her, and she has to go on the run.  Where she hides, and with who, and how that relationship play out is the meat for the rest of the film, and given the set-up you never quite know where it's exactly going.

Agathe Rouselle, playing Alexia, delivers a very bold performance, spending much of the film naked (though rarely seeming vulnerable) and in prosthesis as well as heavy make-up on her head and body.  It can't have been a comfortable shoot, but she delivers a really off-putting but also compelling portrait that I don't think can ever be completely understood.  It's certainly a performance I wouldn't feel comfortable, at all, receiving from a male director (*cough* Blue is the Warmest Colour*cough*), but Ducournau's lens never ogles, somehow it's more belwildered.  I don't know if the body-binding, the body-oil, the metallic uterus, or even the metal plate are specific allegories at play (body binding is now very much trans-male coding but I don't sense that there's any specific trans commentary at play her), or if this is just the most bizarre story to show how far the desperate need for human connection will take us.

Boy howdy, that sounds horrifying, but is it?
It's not playing in any of the usual tropes of horror, it's simply by offering us a very disarming, potentially damaged personality in the opening that does horrific things that we can get a supremely intense tale about connectivity where you're on edge because anything could happen...even dancing.  A lot of dancing.  So, maybe?

---

And catching us up to one of the most recent releases that's just buzz-buzz-buzzing around the socials, it's Fresh, a not-entirely-successful allegory that, at the same time, is just too well made to ignore. 

I'm going to just spoil it, because there's no easy way to talk about it without doing so...but here's a stab at it with minor spoilers below.

Fresh relies on presenting the unexpected, but how many people are going to get the true unexpected experience of this? If you hear a review, or someone tells you about it, even just a little, even if they just mention it's basically in proximity of the horror genre, the whole first act loses its potency, and if you see a poster, you can kind of see what's coming.

But it's still a harrowing story, like the Human Centipede but with an actual emotional core and a bit more purpose.  And there's definitely influence from  Bryan Fuller's Hannibal series, though comparatively a little light on the gratuitous food porn. Mimi Cave works the hell out of her environments, covering the space beautifully. I liked her use of portraits and forced perspective, just a great looking film that visually guides us where words do not.

I was quite engaged, but did check the runtime at least twice. It could have used a little shave here and there, carve another 10 or 15 off, really tighten it up. The end and doesn't wholly satisfy, and you really gotta wonder what's next. As much as I'm saying trim it down, it also could have used a (different) coda.

BIGGER SPOILERS below

So the first half hour of Fresh is directed and performed like a romantic comedy. Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) coming off bad "swipe right" app dates, finally meets cute at the grocery store as very charming and handsome reconstructive surgeon named Steve (Sebastian Stan) gets her going with talk about grapes.  A couple dates later they're sleeping together and Steve invites Noa out to a weekend getaway, much to the chagrin of Noa's best (and seemingly only) friend, Mollie (Jonica T. Gibbs).

Their first night away, where there's no cel reception, Steve drugs Noa, and when she wakes up he informs her that he fully intends to carve her up and sell her to a cabal of the 1% of the 1% who get off on eating young women.  Noa gets the lay of the land, gathers her wits and, looks to survive what Steve says she most definitely will not.  Meanwhile, Mollie gets her amateur sleuth on and starts trying to track Steve down.  It's both easier, and harder than you would expect.

At play we have a commentary on rape culture and human trafficking, and while Steve isn't sexually abusing his victims, he's still assaulting them and using their bodies for his own pleasure and profit.  The commentary is pretty surface level and the resolution is very Grindhouse, yet still somewhat satisfying in the turnaround, but it's just in how the story closes that it feels like we should still know more.

The opening act fake-out, in hindsight, really only works if you don't have any clue at all as to what you're walking in to, and as such it's overlong when you know this "romcom" pretence is just masking the terror that's to come.  As much as I like that it plays out this way, and that the credits drop 30 minutes into the film, separating the two genres if you will, it's probably not all necessary.

Horror, or not horror?
It falls into the genre of chained up people having terrible things done to them, but it's more about head games than gore.  That said, like Titane before it, it's second and third acts are pretty low key but then tremendously intense because of how their set up.

31 Days of Halloween: Old

 2021, M Night Shyamalan (Unbreakable) -- download

Yeah yeah, Shyamalan apologist here. I like the way the guy builds a movie, so sue me.

Anywayz, his last horror movie The Visit was wonderful so I was looking forward to what he would do again in the genre. And its October, so, yay!

This is back to the atmospheric and exquisite direction ala Hitchcock, with a story just above a Twilight Zone level mystery but some pretty decent performances; and some terrible ones. It's not a great movie, but I really enjoyed it, as expected. Yes, I forgive the guy a lot, but he does things in a way that pleases me, so I get out of the movie what I want.

A family in distress is invited to a resort in Mexico, one of those all-inclusives that prides itself on anticipating your every whim. The first hint of discontent is the German host. Why is that a hint? Well do Germans run tropical resorts, or more precisely, do Germans in movies ever run resorts? Along with our primary family, who are doing one last family vacation before separating, there is also secondary family made up of the Older Doctor (Rufus Sewel, Dark City) and the too young, too skinny, too beautiful wife (Abbey Lee, Mad Max: Fury Road), their child and his disapproving elderly mother. Almost immediately, rather than being lumped in with all the other guests, creepy German Host (Gustaf Hammersten, Lords of Chaos) offers them an off-resort experience, a beach completed isolated, away from most of the guests. No amenities, no activities, just beach and sun. And Mr. Shyamalan, the resort shuttle driver, drops them off, the two mentioned families, with a lot of food. And quickly departs.

Primary Family Mom (Vicky Krieps, Beckett) has a tumor, something they also tell the kids, who are six and eleven, after the trip. Primary Dad (Gael Garcia Bernal, The Motorcycle Diaries) is a bit of a weaksauce, an actuary more focused on his numbers than the emotional distress his wife is suffering. Their kids are aware, and probably knows what is going to happen after the vacation. But they are a nice family; we like them.

Meanwhile Old Doctor is going through something himself, but is angry when anyone brings it up. Young Wife is uber-Karen, and doesn't mind when a lone Black Man -- rapper Mid-Sized Sedan (Aaron Pierce, Krypton; I love fake rapper names), who was already sitting on the beach when everyone else arrived, casually glances at her. Old Doctor is immediately jealous. And probably a little racist. And then more guests arrive. 

Much of the movie is dedicated to setting up the characters, before the Oldness is even noticed. There are slight hints that almost all are going through... something. Its made clear, but not in a pushy way, a deliberate action Shyamalan takes as we explore who we are working with. And then there is the beach itself, as creepy and brightly smiling as the German Host. It is enclosed by a mass of sheer cliffs, entered by a narrow crack. All the encroaching plant life seems to just end at a certain point, not dead, just ... gone. There is definitely something about this section of the beach that separates it from all else.

It doesn't take long for the aging process to be noticed, especially when the two smallest children sprout up over an hour. There are hints of everyone being constantly hungry, but the growing children just ... gorge. The process is (visibly) slower with the already older, of course. And anyone who suffers any sort of condition suddenly sees it progressing. Old Doctor's dementia gives him more paranoia and obsessive behaviour, his mother's heart gives out, Family Car's blood disorder just never stops bleeding. The second act is focused on understanding what is going on.

Of course, nobody can leave the beach. The horror is that everyone is trapped here, with about a day left to live. The youngest kids probably would get until the next day but it is all about that that day. Not a lot of pure horror (jump scares, gore, etc.) things happen, most are just minor shocks, and one utterly gruesome death, which is more comical than horror-filled. The horror has to come from being tied to the characters and knowing what becomes them, that dread filled anticipation...

But like the best Twilight Zone episodes, there is a resolution, not just a brooding end to all the lives. It was an unexpected "happy ending" if any such could be. I have always pondered on the endings of such horror movies where one or a few survivors make it through. What can their lives be like afterwards, how do they ever live normal lives. Do they write best selling memoirs? Do they do the talk show circuit? Do they hide themselves away never overcoming the trauma? Sometimes just being the survivor is not the best ... ending.

31 Days of Halloween: The Beach House

 2019, Jeffrey A Brown (location manager for a TON of movies) -- download

"OK" ... it might not be good writing, that I would start many a sentence with this, but as this blog was always supposed to be a reflection of Kent and I sitting at the back of a bus talking about movies, it would be appropriate for me to start a conversation this way... so it stands.

OK, at it's core, this was the body horror alien creature from the depths movie that I hoped Sea Fever would have been. In my head canon, they might have been set in the same world, as they were both about "alien" lifeforms (both bioluminescent jellyfish-life forms) emerging from the depths of the ocean to cause (possibly) catastrophic effects on the surface world.

Where is Aquaman when you need him.

The movie begins with Emily (Liana Liberato, If I Stay) and Randall (Noah le Gros, The Get Down) arriving at his father's beach house on some remote seasonal beachfront sand spit. The place is pretty empty. But the house is not. Mitch (Jake Weber, Dawn of the Dead), a friend of Randall's father is staying there, with his ailing wife Jane (Maryann Nagel). The two couples, one my own age, one much younger, are tense at first, but settle in, despite the two pairs already dealing with their own complications.

During a night where Randall breaks out some pretty strong edibles, the night is lit up with bioluminescent ... something. Its not just in the beach and in the water, but also floating through the air, and clinging to the plant life on the shore. I am sure if Emily wasn't so stone, she would have been more concerned, as she is studying organic chemistry and the origins of life. This is unnatural in the nth degree. Jane, also being rather stone, wanders out into the blue lit grove of trees, panicking her husband, and returning with an immense cough. Hackles are risen.

The next day, the beach shows no signs of the blue glow from the night before. Jane is decidedly not well, and Mitch is nowhere to be found. Randall and Emily go to the beach to relax, but we the viewer know there won't be much time for relaxation. Mitch reappears, but walks into the water, disoriented and seemingly still stoned. He just keeps walking. Randall feels ill and, well, its not just puke that comes from him. Emily steps on a jellyfish tentacle, and it does more than sting her, but finds its way under her flesh. The beach is suddenly saturated with giant gyoza jellies, and Jane has turned into a milky eyed zombie crawling towards the young couple. Randall is getting more ill by the moment.

The body horror of the movie was palpable. We know something alien has come from the water, and is .... changing the people. Alas, the movie never really goes anywhere with it. The escape is trying, but literally goes nowhere. There are eerie alerts on the TV, and on the ham radios, of how this is affecting not just the beach here, but the entire coast. And there are further encounters with other rare occupants of the beach front, all horrific and unsettling, but rather than focusing on the horror, the movie wanted to focus on the narcotic nature, the changing brain chemistry as the remaining people are changed... forever.

I enjoyed most of the movie, but while I understand, it was its intent, I didn't buy into the disconnection all the characters felt, as they changed. And the ending just seemed to dispense with much of the backstory it spent a lot of time building, for naught.