Horror

[Gamblour.]

So, I've started this month off quite well. In the past, I've tried to find movies that I think I would like, rather than ones that are supposed to be good, which has led me to some poor choices. This time I'm going to try something different.

I went with Les Diaboliques after seeing Le Corbeau just the other day. I was impressed by Clouzot, having never seen any of his films prior, and I didn't realize he had directed Les Diaboliques. Obviously, I remember the original coming on Cinemax when I was a kid, thinking how awful it looked. But it's funny, because the mistress in Clouzot's film looks a LOT like Sharon Stone. But anyway.

The suspense in this film is wonderful, and there's almost no music in the entire film (at least, I think there isn't). This is an interesting contrast to Hitchcock's films, where music is hugely important. The shots of the husband in the bathtub are really fucking creepy and great, and he's such a bastard you sort of love how he 'dies'. Unfortunately, I guessed the ending about halfway through (maybe I even remembered it from knowing about the remake, who knows?), but that didn't ruin things too much. The wife is so naive, it's still painful to watch her be wrecked by her guilt and faint by the pool and everything.

The old man detective was a bit too deus ex machina, but that ending is so tense, it's really great. Clouzot's becoming one of my favorite directors (and I still have Quai des Orfevres here at home to watch, plus I've never even seen Wages of Fear, which I've wanted to see forever now).

[03]

re: mac
the virgin spring being close to my favorite film i will probaly not see this.

[MacGuffin]

Day 2





Tony Scott's debut film, so it looks like a slick perfume commercial. Style over substance? Yes, but the substance is still there. Especially using vampirism as metaphor for lesbianism; the homo vs hetero subtext. The seduction scene is nicely done, using a wonderful bit of dialogue about the song "Lakme" (better made famous by Scott's own eggplant scene in True Romance), carrying over to an erotic lovemaking/biting scene. Denueve is just a timeless beauty. I liked how they never use the term "vampire" and most of the rules that go along with it are set aside (day walkers; no fangs, they just drink; etc.) for a story more about love eternal. Bonus points for featuring Bauhaus' Bela Lugosi's Dead.

[Gamblour.]

Good call, I will have to check that out this month.

[I Love a Magician]

I watched Trick 'R Treat last night and wasn't impressed. I'd heard so many things about it and how it was getting shafted, etc, that I really couldn't wait to see it.

It's a mess. The story makes no sense. It has some cool parts but overall, it's just not a very good movie.

Judging it in context, it's a great direct to video flick, but not a very good movie, otherwise.

yeah this was pretty much terrible.

[MacGuffin]

Day 3





The Passion of Joan of Arc is my favorite silent film of all time. So when I saw that Dreyer utilized his eye to a horror film, I was immediately intrigued. Based on the novel, Carmilla, that was a precursor to Bram Stoker's Dracula, Dreyer uses other stories from the novella it appeared in for this film. Foregoing the lesbian undertones of the book, he widens the story to includes spirits, visions and, yes, vampires. While he doesn't necessarily use what made Joan so compelling (close-ups, a breathtaking performance by his lead), he does parlay his skill of the camera to set a eerie mood throughout the film, and even using sound to make a mostly silent, yet creepy film.




Day 4





A case where the concept is far greater than the execution. Sometimes mesmerizing and connecting; sometimes laughable and unbelievable. But it was entirely attention holding. You will witness what lengths a mother will go to nurse her stillborn child to life. And it was disturbing. I'm on the fence about it. I wanted to like it more, and I do appreciate what it was going for, and Jordan Ladd was great as the lead; giving it her all. But I think that it suffers from low-budget-i-tis and teetering on what tone it wanted, hence some unintended laughs.

[MacGuffin]

Day 5





As beautiful as Rhona Mitra is, she is no Kate Beckensale. Which is to say, she doesn't have the ass-kickin', wearing-leather-like-a-second-skin aspects down as Kate did. As most know, Underworld is a fave flick of mine. What's missing is the Matrix, gun-toting, slick action. Understandable because it's a story set far before guns existed. Instead, we are given a Gladiator/Braveheart story. So while this prequel never touches what made that first film so eye-catching, it does present a better and more believable love story between werewolf and vampire than the Selene/Michael one did, and it is more enjoyable than Evolution was.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

I've been doing a similar trend, renting only Horror movies on Netflix and watching them on Watch Instantly.  My plan is to revisit some from my childhood that I never bothered to watch again for an update.

Sadly, I brought myself to rewatch this:



It wasn't even so bad it was funny.  It is just downright awful.

[squints]

Leprechaun: Back 2 Da Hood
is much better. funnier. 

[Gamblour.]

I was kind of blown away by how bad and good this was. The bumbling cops are so bad, the music is terrible, but then the acting is alright, it's at least impassioned, and the ending is really good. Not bad for a first attempt by Craven, I haven't seen many of his films, so I'll look forward to checking more of them out.

The special feature was pretty depressing, as mostly everyone looked like they had dressed to go to the grocery store.

[MacGuffin]

Day 6





I was intrigued by this movie because I always thought this was a kick-ass poster. Unfortunately, this poster is the only memorable part of this movie. Some stiff acting and poorly staged scenes contributed. Even the cliched scares (you know, the ones where a musical stinger makes you jump more than the scare itself) aren't even handled well. More like tickles than frights since they would cut away from any hint of gore or horror.

[modage]

The Stepfather (1986)

Terry O'Quinn (Locke!) stars as "Jerry Blake", a man searching for the perfect family who will murder them when they don't live up to his expectations.  The opening of the film is surprising because you see him leaving the aftermath of an entire murdered household casually leaving no room for the "IS HE or ISN'T HE?" questions that usually linger in these types of films.  The film also avoids the "slow burn" about a third of the way in when Blake's new suspicious daughter finds him FREAKING OUT in the basement.  O'Quinn's performance and some unexpected nudity towards the end of the film (she's supposed to be 16, right?), save the film from complete obscurity.

[Gamblour.]

I haven't seen this movie probably since it came out, so rewatching it, I was pretty fresh to the material. I found a few things fairly remarkable. First of all, there's an incredible contrast between the quality of the filmmaking and the crappiness of the story, which itself even is good at times. The score is very beautiful, the sound work is great, and Deakins' cinematography renders every tree branch and wisp of red stunning. Bryce Dallas Howard, William Hurt, Brendan Gleeson, and even Joaquin give really incredible performances. Not sure if I liked Brody's performance, because he goes a bit too full-retard. The wide variety of great actors here either says a lot about Shyamalan's appeal (circa 2003) or his casting director.

(obviously if you haven't seen it at this point, there are spoilers below)

But despite these great things that make the movie very enjoyable to watch, you have the plot of the film organizing a veritable mutiny of all of these elements. First, the dialogue. In the context of a village in the late 1800s, it sounds alright. At worst, it's just a bad ear on Shyamalan's part. But these people live in modern times, so why would they bother to do this? Applying logic to this film (such as why the gravestone at the beginning actually says 1890 whatever) completely unspools it, which makes me wonder why he would try so hard to have so many twists. There's the twist of the fake monsters, then discovering that it's actually the present. But if he had just dropped any of the revelations, I feel like the film would have been so much stronger. Make the monsters real, and set it in the 1800s. That would be a fascinating story. Take away the monsters, but just make it about a cult-like, Yearning for Zion styled compound, that would be even more fascinating. Or even making the monsters fake, but keeping it in the 1800s and making the reason for their refusal anything but the fact that it's the present, it would probably have been better.

Even still, I think the story is a good idea with a lot of promise, but he just can't fulfill it. By the end of the film, he made very bad decisions in terms of story-telling. There are so many instances of scenes cutting away waaaaay too early, to where the audience doesn't even hear the beginnings of a conversation that would have led to more development of characters and backstory, but simply asks us to fill in the blanks. He plays a lot of scenes in wide shots, or from behind the actors, so wide that you can't see anything that's actually going on, and it takes away from a lot of crucial scenes. This might've been better in a more capable director, but he kind of botches things that many people might not notice, but contribute to the film being annoying to watch. However, when it's good, it's pretty good, and at the end of the day, his ego is so enormous that he even has that stupid reflection of himself in the medicine refrigerator. You have to earn Hitchcock-type homages to yourself.

But as far as being scary, I think the creatures look terrifying, and if they had been real, that would have been great. The scares are very few and far between, but still good (the sequence of her waiting hand [a motif throughout the film, because Shyamalan thinks he's good enough to make these things matter] and Joaquin grabbing it is pretty damn suspenseful). And Brody dying at the end is more gut-wrenching tragedy than anything (which Shyamalan doesn't really capitalize on as far as the elders being complete hypocrites. In fact, I remember the scene where Jesse Eisenberg tells them the 'monster' has been killed, it got a big laugh in the audience, because we don't feel like they've been punished. It was more like, "oh shit, they fucked up and that is that"). I think everyone participating in the film did an amazing job, but Shyamalan's script and at times poor directorial choices make the film laughable and mark the beginning (if Signs wasn't) of crappy ideas on his part.

[modage]

[REC] (2007)

This Spanish premake to Quarantine ("that was pretty good, but wouldn't it be REALLY good if they were speaking English!") features a reporter and her cameraman for a late-night show following a group of fireman who are called into a building to investigate a women screaming in her apartment.  The building is quarantined with the firemen, reporter and cameraman inside when zombie hell starts breaking loose inside.  The movie hits a lot of your typical zombie beats but the handheld camera POV is effective here and pre-Cloverfield, so I'll give it credit.  The film is short, tight, I'm imagining a shoestring budget, and the Silence of the Lambs style nightvision climax gives the film a nice way to up the ante for the ending. Recommended.

[modage]

Rob Zombie's Halloween (2007)

One of the worst remakes I have ever seen.  Rob Zombie positioned himself as a guy who "gets it" with horror movies and I've given him several chances to prove it but this movie proves beyond argument that he absolutely does not get it.  He has the cinematic maturity level of Kevin Smith.  His writing is beyond repair: his characters all speak with the same voice, the film avoids scares and makes the biggest mistake in giving you an extended look at Michael Myers childhood to explain why he might be driven to do such things.  Remember the Phantom Menace?  This is the Phantom Menace of horror movies.

I'll never watch another Rob Zombie film again unless he promises:

1. Not to write the script.
2. Not to remake another movie.
3. Not to cast his wife.

I'm done.