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Super Sci-Fi Review Selection 23: "The Machine" Is A Surprisingly Cool Little Sci-Fi Film

October 4, 2014, 12:33 pm
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The Machine (2013)

Well this was quite a surprise. I already knew from trailer to expect something pretty, but this is actually a very decent sci-fi story.



The central robot figure is designed to look like one of the human characters, but the distinction between the human and the AI is a little different from how you might expect. Rather than being cold and unemotional, instead the robot is childlike.



There's a theme of innocence and corruption. The AI is being designed for use in the military, but the central researcher in charge of the work on the AI hopes to use the research to help his daughter. The villain of the piece is a director in the military facility who is concerned that the AI isn't being pushed quickly enough towards combat.



It's a story which could so easily have been cliched. While the villain seems a little one-note and not everything feels entirely believable, the central performances really pulled me in.



Just one more thing though. From early on there are scenes of various test subjects with brain implants being conspiratorial and these scenes don't seem to have sufficient purpose within the story.

B+
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Hoop-Tober Horror Marathon - Entry 1: "Cabin Fever" (+ "It's A Wonderful Afterlife")

October 5, 2014, 2:32 pm
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On Letterboxd, this month of horror marathons are all getting labelled Hoop-Tober after one member, called "Cinemonster" decided that Tobe Hooper would be the main focus of their marathon. It's called "The Hoop-Tober Challenge"

The rules are:
1 - You must see 31 movies
2 - The movies must span at least 5 different decades
3 - There should be either:
... at least five films by one director, or...
... at least three films each from two different directors...
4 - Films from at last four different countries.
5 - They should all be reviewed.

So, I'm kicking off my Hoop-Tober challenge with Eli Roth's "Cabin Fever".


1. Cabin Fever (2002)
Kicking off Hoop-Tober with a film from director Eli Roth. I was very happily surprised by Hostel and decided that Eli Roth didn't deserve the bad mouthing he often receives. Sadly this movie has given me cause to reconsider my position.



There's a bit of a problem with the tone in this piece. On the one hand there are clear horror tropes and homages included in a playful way. For example, there's a blatant 'butt-shot' clearly referencing a similar shot from Texas Chainsaw Massacre followed quickly by a female protagonist entering a building announcing her presence with 'hello?' over and over. Characters encountered by our central cabin-dwelling holidaymakers are clearly intentionally larger than life, such as the young deputy who wishes he were partying and getting high with the holidaymakers himself.



Yet on the other hand, for all these quirky references and over the top elements, the film quite simply doesn't have many scenes that are funny.



When watching "The Conjuring" I was fairly sure that the film was not intended as horror comedy, yet often found parts of the film hilarious. Watching "Cabin Fever" I had the opposite problem. Even while I saw clear signs that the film was trying to be a horror comedy, nothing really seemed to have a comic tone. "Cabin Fever" ends up seeming more stupid than funny.

Eli Roth's cameo is awful.



I know that the film is trying to spoof horror classics where protagonists often make stupid decisions, but the choices made by the characters in Cabin Fever are just.ridiculously stupid. They don't act like real people at all. I can accept that when the female character continues to shave her legs even though she can tell it is tearing off her skin there is a certain amount of self-denial involved and it emphasises the horror. But the protagonists also make some bizarre choices. Like when one of them sees a man covered in blood in the woods and then doesn't think to tell his friends. Or when they comfort their friend who is ill and being kept separate in a shed that she'll be safe while they are gone because they are locking her in.



Okay so perhaps it's intentional that the characters act like idiots, but the problem is that it's difficult to get interested in a load of non-people. Where's the character to act as a way-in for the audience?



Cabin Fever seems to be attempting to do what Cabin In The Woods eventually did. Except while Cabin In The Woods rose above the tropes of the genre, Cabin Fever tries to lump on as many stupid tropes as it can. The result is that Cabin Fever is an unbearably stupid movie and a massive disappointment after Hostel.

E-



Additional horror catch-up review

This is another one I saw before. I cannot believe that I managed to miss out "It's A Wonderful Afterlife". What a scandal!


It's A Wonderful Afterlife (2010)

Another comedy based around the Punjabi Sikh community in London from the director of "Bend It Like Beckham". Perhaps it's because I'm not terribly fond of football, but I much preferred this film.



The cast doesn't do any harm either, with an excellent Indian cast including one recognisable cast member from "East Is East" (a film I didn't like, but contained excellent performances) and another from the tv sketch show Goodness Gracious Me. There's also a fantastic performance from Sally Hawkins as a white girl with a passion for Indian spirituality and a welcome turn from Zoe Wanamaker as the Jewish neighbour.



After an opening involving exaggerated deaths involving Indian foodstuffs and newspaper headlines featuring ridiculous puns ("Korma Blimey!" being a personal favourite), we finally get to meet the main characters.



Ghosts are involved here, but what is interesting about it is that according to Sikhism spirits of the dead ought to be reincarnated, not just hanging around. The setup with the ghosts is similar to in "An American Werewolf in London" where the dead spirits talk just as they would have when they were alive, but with clear indications of how they died still present on them (including one guy who can't speak well because he was suffocated in chapati dough).



The story here is essentially a romantic comedy and it's a fairly straightforward one. But the gags are funny enough, the characters are endearing enough and the backdrop of the ghosts is bizarre enough that I was consistently riveted. On top of that there are interesting observations on Indian traditions in a British context. Sure it's nothing we haven't seen highlighted in episodes of Goodness Gracious Me, but it's very well portrayed with excellent performances from the characters. Particularly from the mother.



Also the scene paying homage to Carrie was hilarious!

A+
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Hoop-Tober Horror Marathon - Entry 2: Raze, Slashers and Darkness

October 6, 2014, 4:14 pm
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HOOP-TOBER MOVIES 2-4


2. Raze (2013)
To think that if it weren't for Letterboxd this gem might have passed me by.



The story is that a bunch of women have been kidnapped and forced to fight each other to the death. That's pretty much the whole plot right there, but the characters are distinctive enough and the scenario is fleshed out enough that this simple story is extremely engaging.



And guess who is playing the announcer? None other than Doug Jones! (Master of costumes with roles including the creepy guy from that Buffy episode where both one can speak to Hellboy's amphibious sidekick Abe Sapien.



With a nicely twisted premise and some satisfyingly brutal fight scenes, this was a fantastic film far beyond anything I thought that premise could deliver.

A+



3. Slashers (2001)

This is essentially about a reality television show where contestants are trying to avoid being brutally murdered. However, it's not as far ahead of its time as you might think. The show is set up as Japanese because of the popularity of the show "Takeshi's Castle" which long predates Big Brother. It's also somewhat reminiscent of Gladiators, where people would choose to come on the show and compete against the regulars.



So "Slashers" is apeing the 90s competitive reality show (as opposed to the 21st century reality shows where people mostly just talk at one another).



The show actually has quite a 90s feel to it, making the introduction of live murders into the format quite amusing. Also I liked the idea of using shock collars to prevent contestants from moving away when the show stops at climactic moments for commercial breaks.



There's a bit of a cartoonish feel to the film and not just because the murdering regulars on the show have various silly evil personas, including evil priest, evil doctor and evil redneck hillbilly. The contestants also have somewhat cliched backstories or personality types. But these characters in the reality show setting makes for a really fun horror comedy. Even though Slashers has a low budget it just adds to the charm. It's also cool how the setting is very obviously a large tv studio. (Though actually a much larger one than the filmmakers are really using.)



Admittedly the way the lights blink to disguise cuts happens way too often and can be distracting. Also one character's backstory whereby he couldn't carry on boxing because he received a concussion in the army seemed a bit headscratching. (Why would concussion end your boxing career?) However, the film is so much fun and so well paced that I could forgive it all that.



In the end my only major criticism is some issues with the acting. While the performances are all pretty hammy anyway, but some of the crying from some of the female characters comes off a bit unconvincing.

Still Slashers is, though it sounds strange to say it, a delightful horror film.

A-




4. Darkness (2002)
Yet another obscure title from the co-director of Rec, Jaume Balaguero. Stars include Giancarlo Giannini (Casino Royale), Anna Paquin (X-Men, Margaret), Fele Martinez (Open Your Eyes) and Iain Glen (Resident Evil: Extinction).



Sadly this once again fails to live up to the promise of Balaguero's latest effort "Sleep Tight". While I like Balaguero's visual flourishes very much, his use of the supernatural in his stories generally seems to annoy me.



Essentially this turns into yet another ghost story. While there's some clear internal logic I had trouble taking it seriously, particularly when some ridiculous coincidences were required towards the end.



My qualms with the last two Balaguero films I watched are both somewhat present here. There's a kind of ghost story but it's not really as cliched as in "Fragile". There's also an attempt to summon pure evil connected with missing children which I found rather more convincing than in "The Nameless".



Yet strangely, in spite of actors I know are great, I wasn't convinced by the dialogue.



Also Iain Glen's American accent was a bit offputting. In actual fact accents are a real problem here. At the beginning Iain Glen's character, who apparently grew up in Spain, has an English accent. He is also speaking to a man who sounds like Patrick Stewart. So why is he American as an adult? Heck why does this American family.decide to move back to Spain in the middle of nowhere?



Despite hating the last three movies of his that I've seen, I still think Balaguero is a very capable filmmaker. His visuals are the best aspect of the film. The problem is that the story is complete nonsense.

D+
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Hoop-Tober Horror Marathon- Entry 3: Don Coscarelli's Phantasm, Beastmaster and Masters of Horror ep

October 8, 2014, 3:13 pm
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HOOP-TOBER MOVIES 5 & 6


5. Phantasm (1979)

While I want most films I watch for Hoop-Tober to be new to me, I had to include a rewatch of the original Phantasm.

Strangely I think a major reason why this has risen so much in my estimation is my new familiarity with the films of Lucio Fulci. Phantasm appears to have a similar dream-like quality to that kind of Italian horror.



That being said, there is a consistent plot for the most part here. Albeit a plot where bizarre things often happen. When we reach the end the situation is bizarrely flipped on its head in a way I found deeply frustrating the first time around. Admittedly it's still rather frustrating, but I'm now better able to accept it as a stylistic choice.



Another similarity to Italian horror is the music which reminds me very much of the music from "The Beyond". Very cool.



There's not the same level of blood as we'd expect in a Fulci movie, but we aren't exactly sold short either. The flying metallic orbs which play a big part in the Phantasm movies are able to cause some seriously awesome damage. Another example of horrifying spectacle comes from some exceptionally creepy monster effects, the nature of which I won't spoil.



Angus Scrimm is awesome as the enigmatic super-strong body-stealing Tall Man. His small role in "John Dies At The End" demonstrates that this is an actor with a very high level of ability. He is capable of delivering lines very eloquently, yet here his role requires him mostly to just say "Boy!"



With the film being set in a mortuary it should come as little surprise to hear that zombies are involved here. Phantasm involves some of the more inventive zombie mythologies.



Phantasm looks pretty dated and doesn't generally involve the best performances, however it is a very creative and unique horror premise and there's little surprise that it spawned a number of sequels.

B+

My original review for "Phantasm" is here. I have seriously changed my opinion on this film.




6. Incident On And Off A Mountain Road (Masters of Horror 2005)

Don Coscarelli's contribution to the Masters of Horror series of horror shorts is an attempt to subvert the 'helpless girl chased by killer' trope.

We initially see the female protagonist collide with another car on a mountain road at night, but I think the film goes a little too far to demonstrate what trope it is subverting when we see her shouting loudly "Hello?" and more annoyingly "My cell phone has no signal! I can't call for help!" What could possibly be the point in shouting that?



We are quickly introduced to a ridiculously huge deformed murderous guy with a big knife. But the encounter is interrupted with flashbacks showing why our protagonist isn't as helpless as you'd expect. Don Coscarelli apparently has a big interest in survivalism, not just in terms of the techniques, but also in terms of the ideology which seems to come with it. This interest also seems to have been explored in his movie "Survival Quest" with Lance Henricksen.



Angus Scrimm (who played the Tall Man in Phantasm) plays an eccentric captive of the deformed murderous guy. It's a wonderful performance and very different from his role in Phantasm. He's much more talkative and not the gruff deep-voiced behemoth we're used to him playing.



While the lead actress isn't exactly lacking in character, I never felt entirely convinced by her performance. When she's running for her life she seems a little too safe. I felt that even someone with clear self-defence and survival strategies should still be just a little more emotionally affected by her situation.



I should also warn those who are liable to be triggered. There is a rape at one point in the film. And I'm not entirely convinced they really needed to include it.

Yet in spite of that, this little film is still pretty fun overall. It's a very simple story and the tone is a bit inconsistent moving awkwardly from serious to daft. But I find this film quite appealing anyway.

B-


Additional review

The Beastmaster (1982)

This was a somewhat compromised work and Don Coscarelli.claims the end product is not really the film he intended to make.

Some parts involving animals are very cool, particularly some work done with the two weasels our animal-communicating protagonist befriends.



It's a pity about the black lion. I mean, he looks pretty cool, but the effects of the paint killed the lion not so long after filming ended.



Some parts are very definitely Coscarelli. There's a lot of inventiveness particularly in the design and concept behind some of the Beastmaster's unnatural antagonists.



Unfortunately, while the budgetary issues with some of the human settings might be forgiveable, the lead actor's performance is terribly under-par.



Beastmaster is very cheesy and doesn't really have a fast enough pace to justify it. Far from being a bad film, there are clear signs of how it could have been a lot better.



As for the witches with faces of hags and, when exposed, bodies of bikini models? I have no idea what that was all about.

C-
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Final Super Sci-Fi Review Selection (Entry Number 24)

October 10, 2014, 3:39 pm
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How I Live Now (2013)
Based on a novel, this is the story of an American girl who comes to England to live with relatives and finds herself in the middle of a war.



There are only subtle indications of the future setting, mostly found in the first five minutes. When entering the country, our protagonist, Daisy (played by Saoirse Ronan), goes through a number of security checks including a fingerprint and eye scan. As she comes into arrivals there's a breaking news report of an explosion in Paris.



While we're clearly entering a world with a heightened level of threat, the protagonist doesn't care much about the news. In fact she's very self-involved and rude. Her aggressively withdrawn character makes for an interesting contrast with her chaotic extroverted cousins.



While the premise of the film had me expecting it to be overwhelmingly miserable, the central characters are wonderful and the first half of the film is often hilarious as we follow their antics.



I was enchanted by this film and would strongly recommend it. The story is simple, but the characters ensured that I was fully invested in the scenario.



Complaints about the film have included the lack of detail about the nature of the war. But the main reason for this is that the characters never truly understand the nature of the war either.



The other big complaint is Daisy's rude standoffish personality. While the obnoxious spoilt American child is a common stereotype, I've heard that in America people are most often very open and hospitable. Ironically Daisy's personality type may actually be more common in the UK. Still Daisy is far from an implausible character and I liked the way she started off childish and had to grow up.



My only real complaint is that the characters don't really seem grubby or disheveled enough as the war goes on. Too much perfect hair. Still this is a common issue with films and not really a major gripe.



"How I Live Now" is a wonderful (moderately) sci-fi story of children stuck in the middle of a war within England. It's a really sweet character piece, albeit with a quite disturbing backdrop in which the story takes place.

A+




Transcendence (2014)

Initially I felt like perhaps this film had been unfairly maligned. Johnny Depp might be less expressive than his more typical manic characters but it didn't seem to me like he was being an unemotional AI figure. He just seemed like a fairly withdrawn and mildly socially awkward character to begin with and kept that that appearance as and kept that appearance as an AI.



The anti-technology terrorist group's motivations are confused and, after they've massacred huge numbers of innocent people it's bizarre how quickly and easily they recruit Paul Bettany's character (a friend of the central computer science expert) to their cause. Bettany delivers some cool lines explaining better than anyone why we might.fear the AI, but having him work alongside these murderers was difficult for me to accept.



There's a surprisingly bland performance from Rebecca Hall, which is unfortunate since she is really supposed to be the entry point for the audience. When the AI starts making some questionable ethical decisions she is never shown asking the important questions; even on occasions where she is clearly horrified. There's no indication that she is frightened of asking questions. She just seems to lack the curiosity to do so.



In spite of my various little misgivings throughout the film, the main problem is its lackluster final act. Things come to a head rather too quickly and the character motivations are unclear.

Also here's an important issue. We start the film at the end of the story in a world where apparently the internet no longer exists and computer parts are now being used as doorstops because they have no other use. If there was ever an explanation for this during the film, it wasn't terribly convincing.



Transcendence has the seeds of a good film. There are some interesting ideas in places. But unfortunately it ends up feeling like a bad book adaptation. It's like there are a set of plot points to get through in a limited time and the script writer has forgotten that we can't see the inner thoughts of the characters. So many characters, on top of the crazy terrorists, end up seeming reactionary and fail to ask important questions when they have the opportunity.



The main draw for this film was this is the directorial debut for , the cinematographer on most of Chris Nolan's films. Many have noted that the film actually looks rather bland for the most part. There are some cool visual effects in places, but otherwise this film generally has fairly unimpressive visuals.

D+




Coherence (2013)

I don't know when this will ever be released in the UK. Apparently it's been screened at a film festival, but that's it. It's a fairly small scale film with the same basic theme as the film "+1" which I reviewed recently: doppelgangers. However, this is a much more sophisticated take on the subject matter.



A group of people are having a dinner party when all the power goes out. They discover that one house in the neighbourhood still has its lights on and a few decide to go and check it out. But when they return, one of them has taken a box from the other house containing some curious items, including photos of all of them with numbers on the back.



It's good to see some neat, simple, down-to-earth sci-fi without the need for action. As much as I love my sci-fi action films, "Coherence" clearly shows that you don't need a lot of big spectacle to make a gripping sci-fi story. Just decent characters and ideas.



Also Nicolas Brendon (who played Xander in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer") is great in this. It's a pity we don't see him in more films or shows. He still has the same wonderfully expressive face and has a strong screen presence. He also has the best line from the film: "If there are a million different realities, I have slept with your wife in every one of them." (Bit of an unintentional sexual boast there...)

A+




Hackers (1995)

Does this count as sci-fi? Well it's definitely set in the future from when it was made. It also has that "3-dimensional display to represent a computer network" trope going on. It's funny watching it today because it's weird to see futuristic high-tech involving floppy disks and people impressed with 100MB of disk space.



For some reason people in the 90s seem to be portrayed as wearing blindingly bright coloured clothes and they do not skimp in that department here. Even though I don't think these are clothes anyone was ever wearing in real life, this film has its characters modelling the very epitome of the supposed 90s fashions.




Angelina Jolie's acting is frankly a bit on the bland side in this early performance and while she's sold as being ultra-hot, the clothes choices tend to be distinctly unflattering.



Fischer Stevens makes for an interesting villain as an adult computer expert who still seems to act like a bit of a child, but thinks he's really cool. But in the end, somehow he never seems charismatic enough.



Though really the problem for the film is that the plot comes secondary to the characters and the characters aren't really all that interesting. I didn't see this film until after I saw "Trainspotting" (which was actually released just a few months earlier than "Hackers" in the UK). Johnny Lee Miller's performance in "Trainspotting" felt distinctly more compelling in "Trainspotting" and I don't find him all that impressive in the lead role. We're supposed to be impressed when he is showing off, but he just seems like a bit of a dick to me. Angelina Jolie might not be dressed to kill, but she does play an important part in making this film work because she has the acting talent to do so. (Nice to see that, in spite of what the haters might say, even in her earliest roles Angelina Jolie was making her name through her acting talent rather than her looks.)

Hackers is a stupid film, but it's also a lot of fun. Even looking as absurdly dated as it does, and even with all it's out-dated technology, there is a lot of fun to be had here. Like a party animal time-travelled from the 90s to modern day, "Hackers" looks goofy and naff, but it sure knows how to have a good time.

B-

Super Sci-Fi Reviews - Links and Rankings

Here is a list of the movies reviewed in super sci-fi review selection, ranked from best to worst.

1. Edge of Tomorrow - A+

2. Coherence - A+

3. How I Live Now - A+

4. Leviathan - A+

5, Society - A-

6. Outland - B+

7. The Machine - B+

8. Killer Klowns From Outer Space - B-

9. Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes - B-

10. Soylent Green - B-

11. Hackers - B-

12. Machete Kills - B-

13. Robocop (remake) - B-

14. Elysium - B-

15. Demon Seed - C+

16. Melancholia - C+

17. The Hidden - C+

18. The Philadelphia Experiment - C+

19. +1 - C-

20. Fantasic Planet - C-

21. Transcendence - D+

22. Her - D+

23. Beyond The Black Rainbow - D+

24. Shadowzone - D-

25. The Zero Theorem - D-

26. Under The Skin - D-

27. Idiocracy - D-

28. Pandorum - E+

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Hoop-Tober Horror Marathon- Entry 4: All The Phantasm Sequels (So Far...)

October 13, 2014, 4:16 pm
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HOOP-TOBER MOVIES 7-9

7. Phantasm II (1988)

I was interested to see how this first sequel would deal with continuity. By the end of the last film it all had a distinctly dream-like quality and the final scene felt off-puttingly out of sorts with the rest of the story.



The explanation here seems to be that the surreal ending was real and that the rest of the events of the first movie were prophetic visions. We are also introduced to a female character who also receives visions like Mike does.



The new girl sadly isn't up to much. While Mike thinks she's important, her only real purpose seems to be helping Mike understand his powers. She has little personality to stand out from the rest of the cast.



The effects budget has taken a leap forward here. We get to see the short zombie slaves' faces clearly this time as they are running around. The extent of the Tall Man's powers has also been expanded.



Annoyingly, much of the content of this sequel is essentially a repeat of the first film, remixed and with better effects, but not with a better atmosphere. The 'visions' excuse helps to make the callbacks to the first film work better and it certainly feels like a clearer mythology this time around, but we could have done with pushing forward into new areas, though this was still absolutely great fun nonetheless.

B-



8. Phantasm III (1994)

Now that's more like it!



After a rocky start, the mythology does some serious expansion this time around. The Tall Man's progress across the country is quickly leaving towns deserted and full of zombies. Reggie is establishing himself as a flawed but endearing protagonist with Mike out of the picture. We also have some new information about the flying metal orbs. And the Tall Man seems more formidable and sinister than ever.



Sure, the scavengers in the town seem a little catoonish, as does the boy who is a perfect shot with a gun, not to mention the two kung fu fighting black girls. Not only is this all a lot of fun, but the action also pushes forward the mythology of Phantasm in an interesting way. Unlike in part 2, here we have a genuinely new story with its own unique twists and turns. Not a complex story, but highly enjoyable and visually inventive.



I finished part 2 happy, but a little apprehensive. At the end of Phantasm III I was genuinely excited to see what comes next.

B+



9. Phantasm: OblIVion (1998)

Bizarre but beautiful. Phantasm IV involves an interesting exploration of the rivalry between Mike and the Tall Man. There's a lot of cool dream-like imagery, but not really a plot.



On the other hand, mostly unrelated to Mike's section, Reggie is still getting into scrapes with the undead and making friends with survivors. The way that the film combines its more serious toned segments with Reggie's slapstick and one-liners, reminded me of Coscarelli's later film "Bubba Ho-Tep".



Angus Scrimm finally gets a little more opportunity to flex his acting muscles, with more lines than ever before. Still, the Tall Man remains just as enigmatic and if anything he becomes yet more mysterious.



We are now four films in and there have been no new instalments for 16 years, so the cliffhanger ending is frustrating. However, the bigger problem is that the whole film feels like it is bridging to a new chapter in the story rather than having a proper story by itself. That being said, as a bridge between entries, this dream-like exploration of the central themes of the Phantasm series is very cool.

B-


Having been so upset to see the series randomly stop having been such an entertaining franchise, it turns out that there is very good news in that regard....



There's already a trailer for a fifth Phantasm movie! "Phantasm: RaVager" will, apparently, be the very final instalment. It'll be the only Phantasm movie not to be directed by Don Coscarelli and the budget clearly isn't terribly high. However, it looks like it'll definitely be fun and it'll be really good to finally give fans the closure they deserve.


(video link for the "Phantasm: RaVager trailer")


Recap on Hoop-Tober entries so far...
1. Cabin Fever (2002)
2. Raze (2013)
3. Slashers (2001)
4. Darkness (2002)
5, Phantasm (1979)
6. Incident On And Off A Mountain Road (Masters of Horror 2005)
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Hoop-Tober Horror Marathon - Entry 5: "House", "Hatchet" and "Wolfcop"!

October 19, 2014, 5:10 pm
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HOOP-TOBER MOVIES 10-14


10. House (1977)

It's remarkable how little this film seems to have dated and the visual effects and shots are very inventive.

The group of girls all have nicknames. Like the Spice Girls 20 years early, each nickname indicates a character trait. For example there's Mac (derived from sto-mach) who is always shown eating something. There's Kung Fu who is tough, fast and does high kicks. Fantasy is constantly criticised for having an over-active imagination. Angel is careful with her looks, always putting on make-up. Melody plays the piano. And finally Prof um... wears glasses.



There are some very pretty and unique visuals. For example the appearance of Angel's stepmother early in the film shows her on the other side of sparkling and shiny glass conservatory windows.



Another unforgettable moment involves a character being eaten by the piano.



In spite of my hatred.for ghost story films, there's some very welcome silliness to get me on board. My bigger problem is that the characters are so thin. Outside of their nickname character traits, there's nothing to any member of this team of girls.



The end of the film is complete nonsense. Something about the story of love being eternal. In context, this was incoherent.



So with a nonsense story and no real characters, the effects work didn't have enough of a context to keep me fully invested.



Still, I'm not sad I watched this. The visual effects were very cool and there were some very fun moments.

D+



11. Hatchet (2006)

I wasn't really too interested in this franchise until I saw the trailer for the third movie in the series. But I figured that I probably ought to start by watching the prior two movies.



So imagine my joy to find this film, far from being populated by a bunch of cheap unknowns, is actually full of actors I recognise. There's some cameos from horror icons Tony Todd and Robert Englund. Mercedes McNab, who played Harmony in the Buffy series and Wednesday's rival 'Amanda' in The Addams Family movies. There's also Richard Riehle who I've seen in a whole bunch of stuff, but mainly know as the mayor from "Groundhog Day".



On top of that this is a horror comedy and one where the fun was pretty consistent. While Hatchet isn't terribly clever, isn't a laugh riot and doesn't boast a particularly intense horror atmosphere, it has respectable levels of comedy, scares and a well-paced coherent story to tell.



There's a bit of uncertainty about whether the villain is a ghost or a slasher killer, which may have been an intentional reference to Jason Vorhees. While not really subverting the slasher genre tropes, Hatchet is clearly a film playing to a genre-savvy audience and is playful if not original.



I consistently enjoyed myself all the way through Hatchet. It's a solid horror-comedy, a great slasher film and generally an all-round fun watch.

A-



12. Wolfcop (2014)

It was a fun idea. But unfortunately the visual gags, which were generally very funny, often felt secondary to the scripted lines, which weren't. For example, in the initial transformation sequence we see our protagonist beginning to grow a huge wolf penis. No it's not a very subtle gag, but so long as no one explicitly mentions it, it's funny. A lot of visual gags come from the violence, such as when a man has his face ripped off leaving just the skull, with the guy still running around alive. It's absurd and unrealistic, but that's why it's funny.



Sadly the verbal gags are just as lacking in subtlety. For example one visual gag is the wolfcop looking at a mechanics workshop and deciding to change his police car into a wolf-mobile. Without lines, that is funny, but with his pal saying "I know what you are thinking and I like it" the comedy was tainted somewhat. For one, I have no idea how his friend predicted this decision. It made no sense in the context of the story and part of what was funny about reworking the car was the randomness of it.



The script seemed to keep the audience way ahead of the characters, but I struggled to work out what the characters actually knew. They never seemed to react properly.



While the script did them no favours, I enjoyed the performances from Jesse Moss (Ginger Snaps) and Jonathan Cherry (Final Destination 2). I hope to see Jonathan Cherry in a lot more films in the future coz he was great here.



Unfortunately, the pacing and tone of Wolfcop was a real mess. There were some great moments, but the film seemed to hold back from just letting the central premise of a werewolf police officer play out. I couldn't help but think of "The Relevant" where the zombie ex-soldier premise leads into zombie vigilante and just gets crazier and funnier with every scene. While the creators of Wolfcop clearly had some good ideas, they weren't written nearly well enough to make them work in a full length movie.

D+
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Hoop-Tober Horror Marathon - Entry 6: "The Cottage", "Willow Creek" and the original "Carrie"

October 22, 2014, 4:12 pm
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HOOP-TOBER MOVIES 13-15


13. The Cottage (2008)

What starts as a very clever horror comedy set-up (or perhaps thriller comedy is more like it) goes downhill in the second half.



Two kidnappers are seemingly trying to collect a ransom from a gangster and things inevitably go very very wrong. The ways in which things go very wrong are very well scripted and very entertaining, including a kidnapping 'victim' who can hurt her captors pretty badly with her hands and feet firmly tied.



The comedy isn't always brilliant, but it's helped by some great performances, particularly Andy Serkis.



Unfortunately, around the second half the movie randomly introduces a rural slasher killer. One with a terrible uglifying make-up job and not very seriously set up in the story. What had begun as a rather clever kidnapping-gone-wrong caper, was now a rather lame Friday the 13th spoof.



I was enjoying this so much and to see it gradually go off the rails like this was really sad. Andy Serkis is consistently brilliant and even when the film is completely stupid he still sells it, but he isn't the central focus of the film. Reece Shearsmith is playing the real protagonist and while I have a lot of respect for him as a comic actor, he wasn't strong enough to rescue this flawed project.



I could imagine some being rather less upset by the genre shift and there's a consistent sense of fun, but all in all this isn't on the level I'd expect from Paul Andrew Williams, the director of "London To Brighton".

C-




14. Willow Creek (2013)

A found footage film about Bigfoot? I was up for that. Actually people seem mixed on whether they count faux documentaries as 'found footage' but that's definitely the style employed here.



I actually couldn't help but make the comparison with "Troll Hunter", and "Willow Creek" does not stack up at all favourably in relation to that film.



Most of the film is pretty much plain old documentary footage only not yet edited down. On the ones hand this allows us tp get to know the central couple, but on the other hand the commentary isn't all that deep and the documentary never looks all that great.



Once we actually get into the woods it's rather absurd when our protagonists decide to respond to the possible sounds of the sasquatch in the wild by cowering in their tent. Wouldn't it make more sense, whether you are a skeptic or a believer, to get put of the tent abduction get some proper footage? Isn't that why they are out there?



To make things worse, the man of the couple doesn't seem able to give a 'frightened' performance. Alexis Gilmore (from "World's Greatest Dad") is great, but when things get intense they are decidedly unconvincing. In fact, I find myself comparing this section unfavourably with "The Blair Witch Project". Especially since one of the few creepy plot elements of that movie is used during the third act when our couple start getting lost. But Blair Witch had some very convincing 'freak out' performances and the male lead here simply never really seems scared at all.



Basically we get a poor documentary for about the first three quarters of the film and then a poor Blair Witch copycat in the second half.



I've heard an interesting theory that the film may not feature Bigfoot at all, but in such a dull and lazily put together film I couldn't care less whether the theory encapsulates the intentions of the filmmakers or not. In fact I think it might be over-generous classing this as a 'film'.

U-



15. Carrie (1976)

When I reviewed the remake of Carrie, it'd been about 10 years since I last saw the original. But I quickly recognised that the remake featured better characterisation and, outside of the central file played by Sissy Spacek, better performances.



What I thought was missing, however, was the atmosphere. However, I now think I may have been unfair to the remake. The atmosphere in Carrie is partly due to the use of Psycho-esque background music. Every expression of Carrie's telekinetic powers is accompanied by sharp violin notes straight out of the Psycho shower scene. I think the filmmakers rightly noted that they couldn't replicate this in the remake.



Another thing I'd forgotten was how cheesy the original Carrie was. I'd remembered the mother being ridiculously hammy, but the silliness isn't limited to her by any means.



Actually it seems that many lines from the original movie are intact in the remake and are actually performed more effectively in that later version. For example, at one point Carrie begs her mother not to hurt herself, yet in the original there is no indication of the mother's self-harm outside of that line.



Also I'd remembered Carrie's pleas with her mother being more passive in the original film, yet she actually gets just as argumentative in both versions.



There are some cool filming techniques, for example I really like how the camera spins around Carrie and her date at the prom.



Not sure why Carrie's mum has a crucifix where, on top of the traditional wounds to hands, feet and side, also seems to have a few extra - including one to the chest. (Would the mother's demise at the end have been slightly different if she hadn't bought this ultra-violent version of Christ on the cross?



Anyway, the big confusion cleared up by the remake was the reason why Carrie has a date to the prom. In the original I always thought the girl who donated her date was in on the big plot against Carrie. It didn't seem to make sense any other way. This time around, I was able to recognise that she was the same girl who discovered the plot (but too late) at the dance. That makes pretty clear that she wasn't in on it, but I'd not previously been able to tell that it was the same character. She's such a quiet figure and so flatly written that I had barely understood her importance to the story before (which is unfortunate because we are clearly supposed to care about her in the final scene).



So not only do I think many scenes were improved in the remake, but the remake actually helped me understand the original better!



I'd also note that some have commented on the treatment of the main girl who bullies Carrie and the way that bully is treated by her boyfriend, but frankly Travolta's character slapping her didn't seem all that shocking considering that she gets the same treatment from her PE teacher. Both her and Carrie get slapped. Presumably teachers could get away with that sort of treatment of their students back then. Actually it's remarkable that she has any control over her class at all, the way she handles them.



This is still a classic, but it's always had its problems. The main strength is the central haunting performance from Sissy Spacek. The remake would have benefited from being able to use a similar violin-heavy Hitchcockian score since that also serves.to ramp up the creep factor and produce a more visceral reaction from the audience.

B+
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Hoop-Tober Horror Marathon - Entry 7: "Horns" Is A Fun Fantasy Film

October 24, 2014, 4:39 am
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16. Horns (2014)

Daniel Radcliffe seems to be following a similar path to Elijah  Wood, choosing small indie titles including horror in order to escape from typecasting. The Harry Potter star previously starred in the creepy ghost story "The Woman In Black" and now he stars in this story of a young man accused of killing his long-term girlfriend.



In actual fact this is not horror at all. It's very much a fantasy film. Albeit one with some fairly graphic violence in places.





While I expected the film to be about everyone demonising the protagonist for his new appearance, it turns out that the horns give him magic powers. I won't reveal exactly how the powers work, but it becomes quite interesting working out the rules on which the powers are based.



I'd have preferred a darker tone, but this probably has the widest appeal of all Alexandre Aja's films so far. (Alexandre Aja directed the remakes of The Hills Have Eyes and Piranha, and he also wrote the remake of Maniac. So far the only original movie of his I've seen is "Mirrors". "Horns" is not really original since it is adapted from a book.)



I had a great time with this film, with the exception of one scene involving a drug overdose. While I understand that the scene was symbolic and the visuals were excellent, there didn't seem to be harsh enough consequences, either physically or emotionally.



I found "Horns" to be well-made and thoroughly enjoyable despite being more of a fantasy film than the horror I was expecting. (At a push, you might argue that it was a monster movie.) It's not the best film of the year, by any means, but I would strongly recommend it all the same.

A+
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Hoop-Tober Horror Marathon - Entry 8: Exorcist 2, Candyman, The Sacrament, Proxy

October 29, 2014, 4:11 pm
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HOOP-TOBER MOVIES 17-20


17. Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

Not fantastic, but nothing like the disaster I'd been expecting. I guess if you think "The Exorcist" is the best horror film ever then this is going to be a pretty big disappointment. But frankly I prefer something creative like this to the bizarrely popular and wholly derivative "The Conjuring".



It was a pleasant surprise when the tribal figure turns out to actually be a well-dressed scientist, carrying on the contrast of faith and reason from the first movie. Prior to that point things looked a little racially insensitive.



Initially I was confused as to how Regan's mother had managed to become an expert in psychiatry when, last we saw, she was an actress. Turns out Louise Fletcher is not Ellen Burstyn. If Ellen Burstyn had returned, I'm sure telling them apart would have been easy. But with her character strangely absent, I couldn't help but feel confused.


Left: Louise Fletcher, Right: Ellen Burstyn

Not that this was the only confusing element. Louise Fletcher's psychiatrist character has a futuristic machine that is basically magic. By jointly hypnotising two people with a couple of strobe lights it can apparently allow them to see each other's memories. This device allows both Regan and the new priest to see visions from the demon that is dormant since the previous film. The bizarre section of the first movie in the middle east is explained. It seems the demon has a connection with locusts.



All this leaves the opportunity for a lot of cool imagery. It's a little muddled and the same slow pace from the first film is still present. And even while things get pretty trippy it's always too much of a straight narrative to boast the unreal nightmarish atmosphere of an Italian horror. (It's also missing the gore. Something the previous Exorcist movie also had in greater quantities.)



It's got to be said though, Linda Blair has certainly grown up since the last film. She's absolutely gorgeous here. Still not great as an actress, but beautiful all the same.



The final act is ludicrous, but sadly not in a way that follows neatly from the earlier craziness of the rest of the film. - Where did that house go?



But in the end this might actually have benefited from being even more ridiculous and more consistently dream-like. We continually seem to be promised a more down-to-earth narrative, while the film never actually settles down.



With a bit more craziness and a lot more gore, this could fit the bill as a fantastic Italian horror film. As it is, it's a wonderfully entertaining, yet appallingly daft, sequel finishing in the most preposterous way.

C-




18. Candyman (1992)

Candyman is a slasher film with a difference. While Candyman is essentially a ghost story and has some of the characteristics of a ghost story which normally have me rolling my eyes, there's an interesting twist on the genre. Candyman is not technically a ghost, he is an urban legend. That can be disorientating since he wears a big coat which seems to be anachronistic to the period from whence his story originates. His hook for a hand also appears unconnected to the original story. But this actually makes sense, since an urban legend is not fixed to the original story, but develops and evolves out of an initial context, updating itself for new listeners.



The acting is awesome with a great performance from the leading actress, Virginia Madsen, who at the time was trying to get beyond her role in "Dune" for which she was mainly known (and was probably not helped by a recent role in "Highlander II: The Quickening"). Tony Todd is, of course, brilliant in the iconic role with his fantastic stage presence and his deep distinctive haunting voice.



My main problem with Candyman is the magical realism. The film establishes a real life setting for the events but, as is often the case with ghost stories, the powers of the villain are inconsistent. There's an indication that we shouldn't take what we see at face value, yet the down-to-earth explanations for events are more than a little muddled. Also, the confusion of the protagonist about the reality surrounding them (which we in the audience share) means that some memorable moments aren't as immersive as they should be.



Candyman kissing the protagonist with a mouth full of bees is a visually impressive, but I was more interested in how the filmmakers pulled it off technically rather than experiencing a visceral emotional reaction. In spite of the great performances, the stakes for the characters were unclear. The magic in the story meant that there were no clear rules and so threats could not be easily considered. (Particularly threats from a super-powered manifestation of an urban legend.



This film probably deserves its status as a classic. It's solidly acted, has clever ideas and some very interesting and original elements. However, despite enjoying this, I felt somewhat frustrated by it too. The final act felt confusing to me. This is worth watching but it's not something I could highly recommend.

B-




19. The Sacrament (2013)

In spite of my disappointment with his entries in a couple of anthology movies, my enjoyment of "The Sacrament" now solidifies me as a Ti West fan. I found "House of the Devil" to be a very strong and interesting project despite the slightly underwhelming final shock. I absolutely adored "The Innkeepers" partly because of the sweet and hilarious central performance, but also because of the unique twist (which not all viewers appear to recognise).



This latest film from Ti West is mock documentary footage. With found footage being such a wearying trend for many horror fans, the format alone has been enough to foster scepticism. However, two actors from "You're Next" (Joe Swanberg and A.J. Bowen) turn out to be pretty strong in lead roles.



The documentary footage struck me as realistic, the various interviewees are plausible and the events are engrossing. Things get a bit over the top in the second half, but then again that's after the events based on genuine history have already upped the ante.



The whole film is well paced and never lost my interest. As a horror comedy fan, I still prefer "The Innkeepers", but this is my second favourite Ti West film so far.

A+




20. Proxy A+

After first seeing Joe Swanberg in "You're Next" and then again in "The Sacrament", he appears again here. He appears to have a certain comic flair which helps to give add to the sense of fun which most decent horror tends to possess.



I've not heard of director Zack Parker before, but he appears to be no stranger to shocking subject matter. Yet strangely this seems less horrible than it might have been had it been an ultra serious drama. As a horror film this doesn't shy away from the disturbing content, but on the other hand with the clear intention of shocking the audience rather than seriously exposing genuine real-life issues it's not relentlessly miserable like a serious drama might have become.



I found myself reminded of "Fight Club", not just because of the inclusion of self-help groups, but also because of the shared theme of characters lured towards self-destruction. There's the same twisted edge to both films and I could easily imagine fans overlapping between these two films.



Still, I must admit that during the earlier part of "Proxy" I began to wonder whether it really belonged in a horror marathon at all. While there's a horrifying event towards the very beginning, the scenes which follow it seem very down to earth, more like a serious drama. Yet as the film progresses, the film simply becomes crazier and crazier. At the half way point things seemed to be wrapping up in a less then satisfying way so I was actually very happy to see that neat package explode into something wonderfully bizarre. The finale was beautifully nuts and utterly twisted. I want more horror films like this please!

A+
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Hoop-Tober Horror Marathon - Entry 9: Five More Films, But We're Not Quite Finished Yet...

November 1, 2014, 1:08 pm
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HOOP-TOBER MOVIES 21-25

Halloween has arrived and I hope everyone had a great night. I didn't quite complete the 31 movie marathon, but I got pretty close. You'll have to bear with me a little longer to get the reviews written though...


21. Switchblade Romance (or "High Tension) (2003)

I'd been surprised by the very polarised reactions to Alexandre Aja's early horror film. While I felt there was something a little off about how it progressed, I cannot doubt how technically capable the film is.



So technically capable, in fact, that I think you'd need only to lop off the film's final fifteen minutes in order to make this highly recommendable. You see, the big problem lies in the ending. The film has an utterly ludicrous twist which completely ruins everything abduction it is such a pity because the film is so wonderfully put together from start to finish, but a bad ending can completely wreck a highly capable and otherwise well crafted production.



Some have also suggested that Switchblade Romance is homophobic, since the only way that the twist seems to make any sense is if lesbianism is at fault somehow. But Hanlon's Razor may apply here. It may just be that the director would have been just as likely to use this ridiculous twist with straight characters. It may just be a stupid twist, not betraying any malicious undertones. Just looking at the movie itself, it seems like there's room to give Aja the benefit of the doubt.



Still it's a real pity that such a promising home invasion flick was messed up by such an ill-conceived conclusion.

D-




21. Cherry Tree Lane (2010)

Jumayn Hunter, who plays a major role here, also featured in "Attack The Block", an alien invasion movie populated by teenage degenerates who began the story by mugging a nurse.



My biggest issue with "Attack The Block" was the way the main character's redemption was presented as heroism.



We have some similar degenerates here and no sign of redemption, never mind heroism. (Though actually Hunter's role was pretty unsympathetic in "Attack The Block" too.) The lead characters here are far less sympathetic than the lead characters in "Attack The Block" because of the somewhat unconvincing scenario. Not unconvincing as in space aliens, but unconvincing as in nonchalantly planning a murder. Still they possess the same basic personalities as the protagonists in "Attack The Block".



The film is somewhat akin to "Reservoir Dogs" in that the characters are involved in criminal activity, yet spend their time talking about rather more mundane matters. I wonder whether the failure of the characters to acknowledge the gravity of their actions is intended to be humorous. If so then the humour was way too black for me. Perhaps its because I've seen children in this kind of age group refuse to take responsibility for their actions just like the kids in the film, making it hard to laugh. Sure I've never encountered kids, to my knowledge, who would act as these children do. But that such children might exist is not so hard to believe. (And of course the flippant disregard for the terror they are causing to their victims here is what makes this horror rather than serious drama.)



All in all the film suffers from a slow pace. Sure, the fact that the movie is mostly waiting around and banal conversations is pretty much the point, but it doesn't make for a great viewing experience.



This was a very interesting and well put.together film, but it felt like a bit of a flawed project to some extent, despite being very well executed.

B+




23. Vampire Academy (2014)

I must begin by recommending a podcast called "The Village Voice Film Club". I find the hosts a little smug at times, but I have to give them credit for their unique and intelligent perspectives on films. They always try to highlight what the main media coverage may have missed, with a focus on character first and foremost. One regular presenter has an entire analysis of the world of "Planes" which goes above and beyond the normal analysis.



Anyway, this podcast was the only place where I heard a positive recommendation for "Vampire Academy". After they were rather sniffy about this years "Snowpiercer" I wondered whether I should trust them. However, I am so glad I did because "Vampire Academy" is brilliant.



The.story centres around two semi-vampiric figures. A member of the moroi, a vampiric aristocracy whose members hold magic powers, on the one hand. The other is a dhampir, a half-vampire whose duty is to protect her moroi counterpart. As we begin the story, the two of them have fled St. Vladimir's Academy (for vampires) for fear that it is not safe.



The banter between the two central characters is great. Sometimes it's a little hard to keep up with, but it's very entertaining all the same. Whether they are arguing about boys or quipping about their vampiric situation, it's always wonderfully amusing.



Oh and did I mention the martial arts fighting sequences are pretty cool too? I've heard some bitching about the CG effects, but frankly they seemed on a par with Harry Potter or Twilight. Speaking of which, I was never a big HP fan and, as an outsider to this book series too, I'd say this was easily on a par with HP and may actually be a lot more fun.



In the end the plot and it's various characters ties together nicely. While the plot may be a little cheesy in places, the central two girls ensured that I was consistently on board.



The final scene promises a sequel and while I think the film works just fine as a standalone, I think it would be a real shame if we didn't get to see what happens next.



With a kind of Buffy-esque charm, Vampire Academy is more than worth a look.

A-




24. Paranormal Activity (2007)

As someone who has never been a fan of cheap jump scares, this was unlikely to win me over. However, I was reminded of the simple charms of the "Blair Witch Project".



Admittedly it's not a favourable comparison. For all Blair Witch's problems it was a lot funnier and had characters with far more logical motivations.



The lead male character here seems confused as to whether he's a sceptic or a believer. On the one hand he seems to use the camera and powder on the floor to check for an intruder, yet the first thing he insists on doing is acquiring a Ouija board. He constantly insists that they not speak to an exorcist or a demonologist and he completely doubts the psychic they meet, so what is his plan? He's really hard to suss.



The most effective scene seemed to borrow from Spanish zombie movie "Rec". They have the same creepy moment where the camera is raised into the attic to check out what is up there. It's completely daft that they would use the camera in this situation considering that they weren't relying on the light of the camera to see, but it was admittedly a genuinely creepy moment.



Paranormal Activity is repetitive, a bit dull and anything the characters do seems to be simply setting up the next scare. There's no real consistent story. So yeah, it's rubbish. Still, not quite as rubbish as I'd feared.

D-




25. All Cheerleaders Die (2013)

I'd been looking forward to Lucky McKee's latest for a long while. A remake of his low budget debut, "All Cheerleaders Die" is a magical zombie film with the attention centred on the cheerleaders, albeit with the central character being initially an outsider to the cheerleading clique.



There's a great blend of horror and comedy. Some rather crazy occurrences as the story progresses, but the rules for the magical zombies remains pretty consistent.



At its heart, this is a revenge flick, so as you might expect, morality becomes blurred along the way. Some characters are quicker to accept zombie killings than others.



The ending is a bit of a cliffhanger. Not necessarily one that needs to be resolved, but with the clear announcement that this was only part one, I'm very keen to see the second instalment.



This was a lot of fun. My favourite McKee film is still "The Woman", but this is still up there as one of McKee's better works.

A+
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Hoop-Tober Horror Marathon - Entry 10: Final Entry, Including Final Rankings and Awards!

November 7, 2014, 4:18 pm
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HOOP-TOBER 26-29

It's taken me a further week to get the final four films reviewed, but now that's sorted here were the last few films I managed to watch before the deadline of October 31st. I finished just two films shy of the target. Meh! Still, I had a lot of fun.

Ranked Hoop-Tober movies list on Letterboxd
Original Hoop-Tober movies list on Letterboxd


26. Big Bad Wolves (2013)

Towards the end of the Hoop-Tober challenge I spent some a long weekend at my parents house. They aren't really horror fans. However, I did manage to persuade them to check out this Israeli comedy/crime thriller, with a definite horror bent. I actually wasn't expecting this much torture though.



My parents didn't think this was really their thing, but they at least found it interesting.



There's some neat horror-comedy here, though the comedy is a little mixed. You eventually realise that the film will regularly interrupt the horrific moments as a gag, so you come to expect it after a while. However, the out-of-place conversations in this unpleasant scenario are often very funny indeed.



I would have liked a cleverer climax to the film. The film knows how to build up tension, but when it all comes to a head, the conclusion isn't as surprising or shocking as I'd hoped. But this ending was far from a deal-breaker. It's actually pretty satisfying, just not outstanding.



Great atmosphere, great performances, great timing (both for tension and comedy) and very well constructed. Definitely a recommend from me.

A+




27. Hatchet 2 (2010)

I loved the first Hatchet film. Admittedly it was a little unpolished, but it was a lot of fun and it had a lot of charm.



Sadly the same is not true of the sequel. Despite giving a bigger role to Tony Todd (who is as brilliant as you'd expect) he cannot make up for a terrible script. The actress who played the last girl in the first movie, is here replaced by Danielle Harris. Harris has a long history with the horror genre mainly centred around the Halloween movies. She was a child actress in parts 4 and 5 and them.she returned in Rob Zombies movies rebooting the franchise.



Here Danielle Harris is, quite frankly, terrible. She only has a select few expressions and while her 'intense' look might work in a Rob Zombie film, it felt rather out of place here.



It's a pity that we have some poor writing and at least one poor performance, because the kills here are brilliant. If I'd been.able to get more sucked in, I would have enjoyed those sequences a lot more. As it was, I just found this dull. It was watchable, but only just, and it was a big step down from true first movie.

E+




28. The Bad Seed (1956)

My opinion went up and down on this one. In the initial scene.my response was "What in the hell am I watching?" It starts off so very 50s and I found it dated and weird.



One exchange between father and daughter had me particularly freaked out:
"Oh daddy, you're so big and strong!"
"You see my effect on women?"

What???



But even bizarre lines like this turn out to be part of a very careful structure. The central girl's mother also has daddy issues and there's an explicit discussion of Freud related to it. I still think the lines quoted above are dodgy, but at least there appears to be some deeper purpose to them.



There are many scenes which are very well handled indeed. There is fantastic tension as characters come to accept the homicidal psychopathy of the little girl at the centre of the film, or even as some continue to fail to recognise it.



I don't consider it a spoiler to talk about the very end of the film, because it has clearly been added to satisfy the Hay's code and is completely out of keeping with the rest of the film. Since the filmmakers feel unable either to have an adult murder the evil girl, nor to see that evil girl left unpunished, the film employs a deus ex machina. The girl is finished off by a direct explosive hit by a bolt of lightning. It was unintentionally hilarious. What I found rather more disturbing however, was when, having finished with a light-hearted theatre-style introduction to the cast for a final bow, we end with the mother figure quite violently and unrelentingly spanking the daughter figure. It's clearly supposed to be funny, but it's yet another very dated aspect of the film; clearly coming from an era which did not share our squeamishness about corporal punishment.



There were so many great moments and yet I regularly found the film far too strange and dated in both its content and writing style to fully lose myself in the drama. Others might be a little more forgiving.

C-




29. The Burrowers (2008)

I like the idea of period horror. While there were issues, the premise of "Exit Humanity" of zombies in the aftermath of the American civil war really impressed me.



Here the premise of American settlers facing some kind of underground monster and blaming it on the native Americans was pretty cool. Unfortunately none of the characters really had much charisma and, in spite of decent performances, never really captured my attention.



I had been inclined to view this as a case of 'your mileage may vary', but eventually had to admit to myself that the whole thing was incredibly boring. The presence of Clancy Brown in the cast could not make up for that.



There are some neat moments and the monsters are actually pretty cool. Sadly the pacing, plotting and characterization left a lot to be desired. I respect what the film was trying to achieve, but found the film never really reached its potential.

D+

Hoop-Tober Marathon Movies Ranked!
Top Ten

6.Big Bad Wolves (2013) A+

Other Recommended Titles
11.Phantasm (1979) B+
Not recommended
18.The Bad Seed (1956) C-
24.The Burrowers (2008) D+
27.Hatchet II (2010) E+


Awards!
Best film
Raze


Funniest horror-comedy
Hatchet
(with Slashers as a close second)

Best sci-fi horror:
Phantasm III


Most 'out there' discovery:
Proxy


Happiest Surprise:
Vampire Academy


Negative awards
Biggest disappointment:
Switchblade Romance


Worst film:
Willow Creek
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"The Babadook" Is Creepy And Intelligent, But Not Quite My Kind Of Film. (+ 2 more reviews...)

November 12, 2014, 4:08 pm
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The Babadook (2014)

Oooh that's intense! If it weren't for the positive buzz I'd have been more hesitant about seeing a film about a boy and his mother facing a monstrous apparition. But there is more going on here than that synopsis might suggest. Nevertheless there are still a few 'ghost story' tropes and anyone reading this review will need to bear my bias against those tropes in mind.



The central premise is that a single mother is bringing up a child while handling the grief over her dead husband. Reversing the more common trope of the mother who dies in childbirth, in this case the father died driving the mother to the hospital.



The mother is distraught from stress of taking care of her child with behavioural difficulties, the stress often keeping her up and the grief of her husband's death constantly lurking in the background. All this stress is brought to the surface in the form of the Babadook, a creature in a long coat with long fingers they discover in a disturbing children's book in the house.



On the one hand the real life terror which builds up as reality gets away from the disturbed mother and son pairing is fantastic. On the other hand, I'm not sure the Babadook adds much to this dynamic. There's a suggestion that the Babadook lurks in the basement, where the dead father's possessions are kept, but the Babadook actually seems to be able to appear wherever it wants, which fits the subject of the mother/son conflict, but makes the Babadook a rather less suitable metaphor. While there were some ways in which the Babadook worked quite well, all the running around and screaming became a little annoying for me.



The acting from both mother and son is fantastic, the imagery is brilliant and this is a highly thought-provoking piece and a tense horror film. Yet all the same, the ghost story tropes irritated me.

B+




Survival Quest (1988)

A Don Coscarelli movie starring Lance Henricksen, strangely unavailable on DVD. (I tracked down a reasonable VHS rip.) It's strange to me, because this film was pretty great. It's also strange to me because this is a lot more conventional than Coscarelli's other movies. It had a bit of a Spielberg feel to it, in fact. But on the down side, there's also a bit of a tv special feel sometimes too. Though a pretty damn good tv special all the same.



The central premise is that two groups are going on a survivalist trip. One group is run by an ex-soldier who emphasises the brutality of nature, while the other emphasises the importance of teamwork for survival.



But it's not as simplistic as that sounds. The bad guy doesn't ignore teamwork in his ideology and the good guy (Lance Henricksen) regularly reminds his group of the brutality of nature. He actually tells them that without him, they'll die in the wilderness.



We see a young Catherine Keener, but the whole cast gives a solid performance. I consistently found myself caught up with the characters and the heartfelt moments. Coscarelli uses every sentimental trick and makes me fall for it every time.



This lesser known Coscarelli film turned out to be a bit of a hidden gem!

A-



Toy Story of Terror (2013)

Despite being a made-for-tv feature, this was about as good as any of Pixar's movies. The meta stuff about the horror genre was very cool and it never felt like it was pulling punches even while it stayed at a child-friendly level.



The script is extremely well constructed. Existing characters were further developed. The animation was gorgeous as ever. And the Transformers-equivalent toy was extremely cool.



A top-notch horror-comedy for children. I approve!

A+
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Jake Gyllenhaal Gives An Incredible Hyperactive Psychopath Performance In "Nightcrawler"

November 13, 2014, 11:37 pm
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Nightcrawler (2014)

Jake Gyllenhaal shows his acting range with this unhinged and physically animated character. With some interesting uses of colour, some tense, graphic and even violent moments, and an intriguing anti-hero, I couldn't help but be reminded of "Drive". "Nightcrawler" is this year's 'twisted psychopath in a car' movie.



I've heard plenty of people making comparisons with the film "Network" because of the two films' satirical takes on the tv news industry. What I've not seen mentioned so often is how "Nightcrawler" satirises the job market in general. Jake Gyllenhaal's protagonist knows career advice so well that it defines how he relates to other people. He is business-minded at the expense of any interest in genuine human interaction. And the main irony is that this central anti-hero succeeds because being a cold calculating psychopath makes him ideally suited to the career path he chooses. (That career path being cameraman capturing news footage. Confused as to why being a psychopath would help? Just watch...)



A great deal of what Gyllenhaal says in the movie is perfectly reasonable, yet often with little appreciation of the context. And when you recognise how empty and soulless his character is, his parroting of career advice and sales talk becomes incredibly creepy. Gyllenhaal's performance is both hyperactive and intricate, emphasising his character's urgent yet efficient approach to everything he does.



It was a surprise to see Riz Ahmed appear in this film. He's built his career on roles in films commenting on the war on terror and is clearly passionate about that topic. From, "The Road to Guantanemo" to "Four Lions" to "The Reluctant Fundamentalist", it's always been clear that he's a talented actor. However, there's often been an issue of preachiness, contrived scenarios or even bad taste which put me off those other projects. Here Ahmed's character's race and religion are both entirely irrelevant to his role. What's more, while I can't reasonably appraise is American accent, I can certainly confirm that his own British accent was entirely buried.



With fantastic performances, biting satire, a deeply unsettling anti-hero and some very effective black humour, this is vying for best film of the year in my opinion.



One last thing I should mention is how well written the dialogue is. Jake Gyllenhaal's lines spewing business-speak have been carefully compiled, but there are also a number of excellent lines all the way through, such as "It looks more real on tv".Unusually, I found myself wishing I had a notepad to jot down some of the lines to share. I'm afraid you'll have to wait til you see the film to enjoy them. ;)

A+
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Tv Shows: What I've Been Watching...

November 19, 2014, 2:10 pm
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Tv series I've been checking out:


Agents of Shield - Season One
Some have suggested that season one picked up after it tied in with Captain America 2. Frankly that's when I completely gave up. There was one scene where a high ranking Shield agent tells an isolated protagonist to either join Hydra (the cartoonish baddies) or die. When she refuses, the high ranking Shield agent reveals that it was a trick. Um, yeah, nice trick. Isn't it a little dodgy to pretend to be a villain and threaten people with death, only to condemn those who do not instantly fall on their sword? Meh!

Oh and another thing. They introduce a villain who can control all men and yet they still have male characters taking centre stage. Morons!

(Did some people dislike this show because the cast are so pretty? I think if I took that criticism seriously I'd have to reject practically every show I'm about to talk about in this blog post!)

As far as I'm concerned the best episode was episode 4 with the guys in blue masks. The show felt like an American equivalent of Doctor Who back then and it was pretty fun.

Speaking of which...


Doctor Who
After the episode in the most secure bank in the universe, which bizarrely has no security cameras, I've not bothered keeping up any more. I've supported Moffat in spite of the bizarre levels of venom, but I think he's stretched himself too thin now. His first series  introducing Matt Smith is my favourite NuWho series, but the show is simply nowhere near that level any more.

It feels like they don't know what to do with the new characters. They didn't know what to do with Clara and they don't know what to do with the 13th Doctor. We seriously need some new blood in the writing room.


Bates Motel - Season One
Have now seen the whole first season. While I'm not keen on the whole 'stretched out to fill the time' feel to it, I've got to admit this was pretty fun. Vera Farmiga is great as Norma Bates. She gives a very strong performance and presents a very layered character. I was quite surprised to see Olivia Cooke as a highschool girl when it wasn't so long ago that I saw her playing a teacher in "The Secret Of Crickley Hall". (I feel she made a mistake taking a role in the recent movie "Ouija", but I'm sure she'll get her big movie role soon enough.) I hope the next season gets even better.


Hannibal - Seasons One and Two
It's been a long time, but I'm finally watching season two. Season one irritated me a little with all the navel gazing therapist talk. But season two has really upped the ante and with the stakes raised, the conversations never feel banal any more. It's a pity about some of the characters that have been killed off, but I'm still really enjoying this season so far.


Orphan Black - Season One
ZOMG! Just finished the first season and it's brilliant. I'm very impressed by the versatility of the lead actress. It's hard to believe that these roles are being played by the same actress sometimes.


Sherlock - Season Three
Watched two out of the three episodes in series three so far and I really don't understand all the naysaying. It's just as great as ever. Would I be less impressed if I'd read the original stories?


The Good Wife - Season One
Just seen six eps so far and loving it. Always wondered what happened to Nurse Hathaway from E.R. I still remember the special episode which entirely revolved around her and guest star Ewan Macgregor. Well, here she is. Alongside a British actress I recognised from "Bend It Like Beckham" too. Court dramas aren't always terribly exciting and can easily feel cheesy or clichéd. But "The Good Wife" doesn't have any such problems.


Unit One - Seasons One And Two
Now up to series two of Danish police drama "Unit One". Since the middle of series one it's been rather overly episodic, but the show is very sweet and a lot of fun. It's bizarre comparing Mads Mikkelsen's easygoing character in Unit One with his creepy reserved performance in Hannibal. Don't be misled by the dvd cover art though. Mads isn't the star of this one. Rather it's the female chief homicide detective, who is kind of awesome.


Orange Is The New Black
Only a few episodes in so far, but I'm really not sure I understand the appeal. Prison isn't a holiday, the bureaucracy of the prison doesn't make things easy for prisoners. Sure, tell me something I don't know. Am I supposed to be shocked? So far the flashbacks have shown the protagonist taking on ridiculous diets and fawning over homemade body lotions. I am finding it really hard to empathise with her. Is this supposed to be a comedy show? It doesn't seem funny enough. And that opening sequence is tooth-grindingly irritating, with its cheery cheesy music and its array of faceless bodies in prison attire. I just really do not get this show!
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Three New Reviews: "Blue Ruin", "Wadjda" and "Safe"

December 4, 2014, 3:43 pm
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Blue Ruin (2013)

On the one hand this was pretty slow paced and I never quite felt like I understood the protagonist. If you have a film where most of the running time features one guy sitting on his own without anyone else to bounce ideas off, then your whole understanding of the character depends on facial expression.

If the lead actor had pulled that off, I'd be touting him as one to watch for future stardom. Even if you look at Jake Gyllenhaal's performance in the recent film "Nightcrawler", he still has more scenes interacting with other people in order to establish his character's personality.

Nevertheless, it's undoubtedly a solid performance from the lead here. While "Blue Ruin" is a revenge film, the protagonist is unlike the ruthless badass trope. He's not fearless and ruthless. He's not even a capable killer. In fact, he can be pretty cowardly.

The point isn't to produce a "The Man Who Knew Too Little"-esque farce. Rather it's to show an ordinary person seeking revenge, relying on luck in the chaos of a real life confrontation. Our protagonist isn't elite and highly trained. He's just overcome with anger and grief.

It's not an overly thrilling film and it's not the deepest plots, but it's a solid engaging story which has such a refreshingly different approach to the revenge genre.

B+



Wadjda (2012)

On the one hand it's a film released by a female director from Saudi Arabia, which seems to be a pretty big deal. Apparently social and legal requirements for women are so extreme that the director had to direct from inside a van. But on the other hand the story is a very simple one. So it's very cool to find that this very down-to-earth drama is so engaging. The central performance in the role of a young girl called Wadjda holds the film together wonderfully.



The plot synopsis is a bit of a hard sell. A girl wants to buy a bike and decides to get the money by winning Qur'an recital competition. What was surprising to me, as an ignorant westerner, was that riding bicycles is considered inappropriate for respectable young girls in Saudi Arabia.



I feel like there's a comparison to be made with "Amelie" (a film I hold in very high regard) in how the two films approach innocence. In Amelie, our protagonist is an adult who filters the world through her imagination. While Wadjda is actually a very straight-thinking figure whose innocence prevents her from fully engaging with some aspects of the filter of social norms everyone else looks through. I say innocence, but there's no doubting she's a bit of a troublemaker. So when she sees boys out riding bikes, she's keen to break the rules to ride one too, even challenging the boys to a race.



I absolutely adored this film. The other year I was recommended the Iranian film "A Separation" which left me rather cold in spite of its technical merits and acting skills. But Wadjda is not the same. It's not just a worthy foreign film. It's an absolute joy.

A+



Safe (2012)

Midway between "Hummingbird", the movie which actually explores Jason Statham's acting skills (from Steven Knight, director of this year's "Locke" with Tom Hardy), and "Parker", a film which has been universally panned, there was "Safe". Safe is the middle ground mediocre film I was told it would be. Some cool Statham action scenes and showmanship in a bog-standard action film.



The real pity is that with this cast and this premise, the film had much greater potential. Jason Statham is protecting a girl whose skills in maths and photographic memory led her to be recruited by the triads against her will. She acts as a record keeper of all the gang's off the books transactions, remembering important figures perfectly.



But when her life is in danger, the plot which unfolds is utterly unconvincing. The action gets daft, but unfortunately it also gets boring.



For hardcore Statham fans only; yet so nearly a solid action flick.

C+

P.S. "Safe" contains a rather awesome appearance from Benedict Wong! :D

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"Six Shooter", "Don Jon" and "Injustice"

December 7, 2014, 5:04 pm
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Six Shooter (2004)

Martin McDonagh has only come out with a few films so far. Most recently there was "Seven Psychopaths", which received a somewhat mixed but mostly positive reaction and before that there was "In Bruges", which is widely recognised as fantastic.




Before all of these, however, Martin McDonagh made this short film. I had high expectations and I cannot say they were met. The comedy wasn't as funny. Also I was expected to feel sorry for an utterly obnoxious character by the end and naturally I couldn't have cared less about the obnoxious bastard.



Still it's a good little short film held together by a strong performance from Brendan Gleeson. The dialogue is great and, as the quieter character, Brendan Gleeson conveys a great deal with his facial expressions. A very simple story told well, but if there's some deeper point then I missed it.

A-



Don Jon (2013)

Regardless of how you feel about this movie, credit needs to be given to Joseph Gordon Levitt for his work here.



First of all, for a directorial debut this is pretty great work. Performances are consistently great with solid timing.




Also JGL shows his commitment, throwing himself into the role of a man who is addicted to porn, with his character going into embarrassing levels of detail about masturbation.



The problem is that he's clearly playing a pretty horrible character. He regularly goes to clubs, marks the women with a score out of 10, picks the best ones up simply so he can brag about it and then not call the women he sleeps with either.

In fact, since he claims porn is better than sex, it's pretty clear that bragging is the only reason he picks up all these women. Quite apart from the masturbation he is a complete and total wanker.



So is this an anti-hero or a redemption story? Well initially our protagonist seems like an anti-hero. Despite being a bit obnoxious, he's got his own kind of charm (JGL can't help it) and he speaks frankly to the audience about his experiences. It's impressive how JGL is able to pull me in to this story about such an obnoxious figure. But the bad side is that the film clearly expects this to be viewed as some kind of redemption story and apart from how much porn he watches, he still seems like the same old person. Admittedly he does seem to be prepared to treat at least one woman as a human being by the end, but the script seems to try to suggest that the protagonist is somehow hard done by rather than making him admit his own mistakes.



I liked some aspects of the film, but it seems like JGL's message here is a little mixed-up. I can understand avoiding a clear moral to avoid seeming preachy. But this film is even worse in that it seems distinctly preachy without really making clear what it is preaching. Stop masturbating and you'll be a bit less misogynistic? Was that the message?

C-



Injustice (2011)

The weird thing is, I was absolutely loving this film before the final act. I've never really thought of Michael Biehn as someone who could ruin a movie, but he gets some very unfortunate last-minute exposition lines here and sadly he's just not able to pull it off.




However, there's no question about Chris Evans' central performance. He really deserves to be a star in his own right rather than being simply known as 'that guy who plays Captain America'.



Here, Evans plays a drug-addicted lawyer who takes on a case other legal teams won't touch. Apparently this is based on a true story, but frankly the longer the film ran, the less I bought into it.



Despite good performances and often being highly watchable, I ended up finding the film pretty silly. Yet I was going along with it and really enjoying myself right until the third act popped up.

D+
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Three New Reviews: "Naked Gun", "Suspiria" and "Station Agent"

December 17, 2014, 2:58 pm
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The Naked Gun (1988)

I'd forgotten how brilliant this was. Absolutely hilarious from start to finish. Absolute comic genius.

A+



Suspiria (1977)

My first Argento was not at all what I'd expected. While I keep hearing that Argento's "Suspiria" is unique in its bright and colourful palette, it looked pretty similar to Mario Bava's much earlier film "Black Sabbath" (though admittedly that used colourful lighting to highlight objects and characters rather than to simply flood the background).



I was hoping for the gory nightmarish quality of Lucio Fulci's "The Beyond" and instead found something more akin to Lucky McKee's "The Woods", only with brighter colours and worse acting. Being essentially a high school drama (albeit in a dance academy) "Suspiria" was quite sweet. However, the characters were rather lacking in personality and were often completely interchangeable.



Also, the soundtrack didn't always fit the scenes terribly well. "Do you hear that noise?" Well I'm not sure, since I might be hearing it, or I might be hearing the weird noises of the soundtrack which are threatening to drown out even the lackluster dialogue.



That's not to say there aren't some great moments, but without decent characterisation I had trouble getting engaged in the plot. A more nightmarish dream-like feel such as is found in Fulci's films can help me forgive a lot, but this was just a bland straightforward story. Disappointing!

C+


The Station Agent (2003)

A fairly banal indie drama. Peter Dinklage gets to really show off his acting talent and express some of the issues of how people with dwarfism are treated, while surrounded by boring caricatures. There's a extrovert man-child who needs to grow up. A woman struggling to handle her divorce and a young librarian with an abusive boyfriend. There's some indication that the film is trying to insert comedy, but there's little that is very funny here.



It's not exactly a bad film. It's just that very little happens and everything outside of Peter Dinklage's performance just feels extraneous. But that central performance is so strong and that character is so much better written than the others that I cannot call this a complete waste of time.

C-
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Synthy Songs!

December 19, 2014, 2:51 am
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As it comes to the end of another week with Christmas just around the corner, here's some cool songs which clearly most of you won't have time to check out. But trust me, these are great songs. The first one is particularly toe-tappingly good. The second one comes from the movie "The Guest" which I am keen to watch soon.

It's weird how the obsession with that 80s throwback 'New Retro' style (such as found in the "Drive" soundtrack, still seems confined to the internet. Whenever I hear the radio is still sounds like the same old generic rubbish. Is there any mainstream music right now that is actually any good?




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Christmas Horror! A Selection of Christmas Horror Movie Reviews

December 22, 2014, 2:25 am
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Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

With controversy surrounding this film because of its "shocking" premise of a guy going around slaughtering people in a Father Christmas costume in the middle of the low budget slasher craze, the result is ,if anything, far better than you'd expect. The protests against the film did manage to get it banned, but not before it opened at the same time as "A Nightmare On Elm Street", initially out-grossing it.



There's quite a slow beginning to this film with a kid in the back of the car and the whole family going to meet grandpa at the old people's home. It seems that grandpa is suffering from some condition like dementia and is not really talking to anyone. But when the parents leave their little boy with grandpa while they talk to the doctor, suddenly grandpa becomes a lot more talkative.



Whether it's a second-childhood mischievousness or grandpa's own delusion is unclear, but he tells the boy that Santa Claus is going to get him, like some kind of boogeyman, because it's unlikely that he's been good enough. In fact the creepy tale of inevitable doom when Santa Claus arrives is probably one of the best moments in the whole film. It's a pity that the actor who delivers this piece isn't used more in the film as a whole.

Things get even worse when a robber in Santa Claus costume is stranded by the side of the road and decides to massacre the same young boy's family in order to get hold of a car in which to escape.



This is essentially the opening to the film. It's quite a long opening and even when it's over, the figure of Santa Claus brandishing an axe seen on the box art is still a long way off. However, the next part of the film is very important. As an orphan the central boy, who survived the attack on his parents, is now being brought up in a Catholic orphanage. His childhood trauma has clearly badly affected him and the Mother Superior is entirely unsympathetic. It is at this stage of the film the boy is taught about the sinfulness of sex and the goodness of punishment.



Punishments in the Catholic orphanage include being beaten with a belt and, when a night terror causes him to run out of his room, being tied to the bed by his wrists and ankles. It is now known that treatment of children in some Catholic institutions was a lot worse than this (and, asides from one couple of older children who decide to have sex, we don't see anyone else receive this harsh treatment within the film).

Still, it might have explained the protests at the time if they'd been reacting to what they viewed as "anti-Catholic" sentiment. However, it seems that the protests at the time were more linked to the idea of portraying Santa brandishing an axe. What's more the protests seemed to stem more from television adverts than anything else. The protests warned that the film might corrupt children, which is a pretty bizarre criticism to make regarding an R-rated movie and would seem to be better aimed at the television channels that aired the advert for the movie.

Even Siskel and Ebert got involved in the controversy, taking time in their show to denounce anyone who worked on the film, with Siskel even referring to the film's profits as "blood money". It's strange that "Silent Night Deadly Night" got this special attention. Both reviewers were familiar with the low budget slasher trend of the times, yet for some reason this movie gets put with "I Spit On Your Grave" as worthy of special condemnation. (While the portrayal of Santa seems to have been the sticking point at the time, Ebert gave the much more recent "Rare Exports" three and a half out of four stars, so portraying Santa in a negative way clearly isn't a problem for him these days.)



Siskel and Ebert's reviews from the 80s and 90s, in retrospect, look rather puritanical today. So it's interesting that they should have chosen to give special condemnation to this low budget slasher which makes a point of connecting the killer's mania with an unsympathetic and puritanical upbringing. There's a sense at the convent, that a boy's childhood trauma can be somehow cured by beating it out of him. That with enough punishment he'll become a good boy. This is a lot smarter than any of the motivations provided in "Friday the 13th" or in fact most slasher films. As cheesy and daft as "Silent Night, Deadly Night" may be, it feels like it actually has something to say in the first half.



That being said, there is a fun side to the movie too, albeit one that doesn't get started until well into the second half. When we finally get the rampaging killer in a Santa suit that we've been waiting for there are some quite inventive slasher movie kills. Anyone who is up and about when they should be tucked up in bed is a candidate for Santa's blade. The killer even has a rather ridiculous catchphrase when he kills, where he shouts "Punish!" as he slashes at his victims.



One potential victim is played by none other than Linnea Quigley, who is perhaps most well-known as the punk rocker who randomly gets naked in the graveyard in the horror comedy "Return Of The Living Dead" (though she's probably been seen by more people as the large-breasted 'soul' trying to escape from inside Freddy Kreuger in "A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master").


Left: Linnea Quigley in "Silent Night, Deadly Night". Right: Linnea Quigley in "Return Of The Living Dead".

By the end of the film I was well aware that this was a completely ridiculous film with some pretty poor acting. However, it was a very fun ridiculous film and a remarkably thoughtful ridiculous film. With some better talent behind the camera, I think I could be praising the hell out of this. I certainly recommend it as a better than average slasher flick.

C+

Update: A little extra. Siskel and Ebert saying "shame on you" to the filmmakers and calling their profits "blood money". Seriously, those guys seem like they were a bit on the puritanical side at times. (And I'm still annoyed that Ebert praised "Last House On The Left" while highly damning "I Spit On Your Grave". Seems massively inconsistent to me.)

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Black Christmas (1974)

This is often touted as the original slasher movie. The opening scene perhaps gives us a clear clue as to why, since we begin with first person camera footage looking in through the windows and I couldn't help but instantly call to mind the well-known slasher Michael Myers from the Halloween series whose perspective is often shown in first person like this, particularly at the beginning of the first "Halloween" movie.



Most of the film takes place in College Sorority House, so initially our main characters are the various girls who live in the house and the sorority's housemother (an older woman whose job seems to be to make sure that the girls in the sorority are okay - seriously I do not even remotely get the whole American sorority/fraternity thing).



The actresses aren't that bad and there's actually a pretty impressive performance from Margot Kidder, who would later play Lois Lane in the Superman movies. She gives a particularly strong performance here, convincingly portraying an emotionally-conflicted drunk a lot of the time. She's even shown quite insistently encouraging a young child to drink alcohol (in a delightfully light-hearted scene). Sadly it seems that, while she never seems to have stopped working, since being diagnosed with bi-polar disorder and having a manic episode in 1996 it seems like her most recognisable film is Rob Zombie's "Halloween II". However in this role, back before the Superman movies, her talent is undeniable.



Another great performance comes from Marian Waldman as the sorority housemother, a quirky character who is beloved by the sorority girls, but also has bottles of alcohol stashed all around the house. (The girls strangely believe that she does not drink in spite of the fact that in practically every scene she is in involves her retrieving a bottle from a variety of bizarre locations.) I could imagine some people being upset about this woman's alcoholism being played for laughs, but the character is so endearing that, not having any experience of the damage alcoholism can do in real life myself, I was able to fully enjoy the performance.



Black Christmas benefits a great deal from these two wonderful characters. There are also a couple of other actors who should be mentioned. First there's John Saxon who plays a police officer (who I know most for his role as the father, once again in the police force, in "A Nightmare On Elm Street"). Secondly there's Keir Dullea playing one of the sorority girl's boyfriend. It turns out that at the time he was a pretty big name to get hold of, since he has the largest role in Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" (as Commander Dave Bowman).



So with actual acting talent involved here, that already helped to elevate it above Silent Night, Deadly Night. There were also some remarkably cool horror moments towards the end of the film. A shot of the murderer's eyes in the dark particularly impressed me. The final ending is very well handled and left me appropriately shaken.



Black Christmas isn't perfect. I was surprised when it became clear which of the sorority girls was to be the main protagonist of the film because she certainly wasn't the strongest actress. However, this a very good quality slasher film (a rare beast) and it also benefits from not having to struggle against poor production values in the way most slasher movies tend to.



While technically you could say that "Psycho" was the first slasher movie and while "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" came out in the same year as "Black Christmas" and arguably belongs to the genre too, I think "Black Christmas" can really be said to have set up the conventions of the genre. Whether it's a good or bad thing, I think "Black Christmas" deserves to call itself the first of the slasher movies and whether or not you enjoy the genre as a whole, this is still a neat little horror classic in its own right.

B+






Christmas Evil (1980) (aka "You Better Watch Out")

It was all going so well. "Silent Night, Deadly Night" happily surprised me. "Black Christmas" happily surprised me. And finally "Christmas Evil" surprised me all over again when it turned out to be boring as hell. What is perhaps even more surprising is that there are some really good actors in this film who are often strangely misused or under-used.



When the "Now Playing" podcast decided to watch the whole series of "Silent Night, Deadly Night" they had some serious qualms with the first movie over what they viewed as a lack of kills. Now, I don't necessarily think a movie needs to be filled with kills to work. Not even in a slasher movie. After all, how many people actually die in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre"? There are only five potential victims in the film and far more people than that die in "Silent Night Deadly Night". But even so, I am going to say right now that the four deaths in "Christmas Evil" are not enough.



It's not that I want my horror movie to be full of kills. It's that the whole premise of "Christmas Evil" is that a disturbed central figure goes too far. As such, even if he doesn't kill many people, every death should be given a lot of attention. In "Christmas Evil" three of the victims are killed pretty much at once in less than three seconds. There's little explanation of who they are (though we can confidently guess regarding one of them). The later criticisms of the central character seem to be that he is going around killing people, but actually that doesn't really feel like it's true here.

Another problem I had with this film is that the central character is not just disturbing because of the kills that take place. It is also disturbing when we discover early on in the film that he is spying on young children with binoculars. He is then reporting on their good and bad behaviour in some books he has set up. It's not even clear whether we should be more upset by his anger with the young boy looking at pornographic material (who he puritanically records as having "negative hygiene) or the young girl who he records as "just a darling".



Though there's briefly some suggestion of a threat to the young boy, it is never carried out. Only adults seem to be genuinely in danger of being killed in this film. When we reach the end of the film, the suggestion seems to be that the murdering Father Christmas figure isn't really all that bad, that he's just a bit disturbed and that he cares more than other people about the real meaning of Christmas. It's quite worrying that anyone would seriously try to put a moral like that on a movie like this.



The one point which seems to be used to justify this is that the protagonist works in a toy factory, is upset that a new executive climbing the ranks might not be giving as many toys to local hospitals as the PR would suggest and then goes on to steal large quantities of toys from the factory to give to give to the children in the hospital (in his Santa Claus outfit). Even within the scene where the misguided protagonist is giving these toys out at the hospital he gives a worrying speech about how being bad will mean punishment from Santa. I recognise that wanting the toy factory to be more charitable is a nice thing, but it's the ONLY nice thing from this otherwise evil Santa figure.



The unwarranted suggestion that the central protagonist might actually be doing the right thing (as if!) comes at the expense of his brother who told him that Santa didn't exist when they were children. The grown up brother (who wishes his younger brother would grow the hell up too) is played by Jeffrey DeMunn, who many will recognise as "the older guy" from the first two seasons of "The Walking Dead". He's pretty good whenever he's on screen, but unfortunately the material he is trying to grapple with just doesn't work.



Another really good actor to appear in the film is Raymond J. Barry, who played the police captain (Robert Duvall's boss essentially) in "Falling Down". He's once again playing a police detective here and he actually comes across really well whenever he's on screen, but as it turns out, law enforcement doesn't really play a big part in this film. So while Barry gets to give a neat little cynical comment about how the Father Christmas story is really a way to get children to be good so they receive presents not coal, his character plays very little role in the plot as a whole.



Possibly the biggest surprise was the appearance of Mark Margolis, who I first saw in his role as a mathematician and mentor to the protagonist in Darren Aronofsky's debut movie "Pi". Margolis has a role somewhere in all of Aronofsky's films, but I don't really know him from anything else. It seems that this one scene in "Christmas Evil" was quite early in his career and he is given very little to do in the role. Just seeing him turn up out of the blue was quite a shock though, all the same.



Christmas Evil is a glacially-paced, morally-confused, dull as ditchwater slasher flick with not only very few kills, but very little set-up for any kills either. The characters are generally thinly written and there is no sense of fun. In spite of having a few good actors in the mix, the way their performances are worked into the story is a complete waste with most of our time spent with just the protagonist who has a very unimpressive screen presence.

I am really annoyed that any website recommended this as a good christmas-horror movie. About the only thing it has going for it is the title.

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