Movie Review : "Leatherface"

It makes me happy that there is more worth writing about in horror over the course of the past month. This gives me hope that I might not be sitting here staring at a blank page when it comes to making an end of the year list. Reboots, and Prequels are normally not worth a shit. This movie however was fun, well-written and did not re-spin the same shit some of the other Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies have. We have even been done somewhat of an origin story before with the re-make. I think this movie falls in line with the established mythology of the character and doesn’t try to to give it any kind of a spin or shove some modern message down your throat. They gave just enough of the perverse twist this movie needed without trying to hard or playing it too Hollywood. It holds up to my no survivors rule when it comes to horror. Horror needs to be hopeless and the tension is waiting for the other shoe to drop. They fake you out in terms of who you think is going to become Leather Face until the film’s third act. The fake out is pretty heavy handed , but well done.

The gore is well done. Perhaps even more for gore hounds than not , as sometime in the original movie the violence was more implied where things get pretty graphic here. I think the ruthless nature of this film is what helps keeping this in perspective and helps with the story that they are trying to tell. While I like torture porn, I don’t feel this falls into that sub-genre, though it is firmly a slasher. The only obvious thing about the movie to me is that it feels a lot like “the Devil’s Rejects”. Granted those Rob Zombie movies were heavily influenced by the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films, it feels like those albums where Black Sabbath was trying to sound like Alice in Chains .Even to the point of having a bad ass demented female Anti- Hero like Baby.  This did not diminish my appreciation of the film.

The damsel in distress,who is the film’s by definition protagonist.Can be a mixed bag when you are sorting through how and when you want her to die. I think her fate could have held a little more impact in regards to the psychological journey of becoming Leatherface. I can always judge how effective the flow of a movie is based on how fast I get through it when watching it casually at home and I plowed through this in two sitting. I think some of the menace could have been increased in regards to what the protagonist endures and that she should have been broken down on more levels , but that is just my wishful thinking, the reality is I don’t have any major complaints with this movie and think it does what it set out to do very well.

Film Review : "Raw"

Here is the problem I run into when prospecting horror movies. I read something that says people are passing out at film festivals and being carted off in ambulances because it is so gruesome and then when I go to watch it the movie is border line horror more of a dark independent film. So what I have to remind myself is that the people who go to film festivals like Cannes to begin with would not know a horror movie unless it fucked them up the ass and are such goddamn pussies they could sit through the first Human Centipede. So needless to say my hopes and dreams in regards to “Raw” were very high. The French film was well made. The acting was above average even for art house fare. It would be hard to call this a horror movie if it were not for the subject matter . Cannibalism.

It is really more of a coming of age film. The liberal veterinary college they go to is filled with all of the people I detest in southern Europe. Lots of pretense. They make terrorism seem like a good way to thin the herd. So they are fodder fit to be eaten. I am not sure if this was the point of the movie, but it was one of my take aways. I need horror to be scary. Sometimes this comes by way of tension. There is a tension to the movie. Sometimes they hyper realism, adds to this and makes you feel a little uncomfortable at times. So it is hard for me to say this is a bad movie, though it does drag at points, but it does illict that feeling from you so it that way it certainly succeeds when not being full of it self in the way you almost expect french films to be.

With that French atmosphere comes a sexual element. Here the blood is almost a lubricant for the complicated social circles these two sisters have . There is a love hate relationship with these two sisters and the fight they eventually get it feels like a little bit of a release. We have seen cannibalism portrayed on screen in various ways, but not in this same way. To compare it to the Green Inferno, would be absurd though both movies have cannibals . so a movie like “We Are What We Are” might be more fitting though the latter is more of a horror film. 2017 has been more sparse in terms of horror. I was not able to even cobble together much of a top ten list last year, but might have more hope this year, so you take what you can get. It depends on how much you like French Films and what you want from horror when it comes to asking if this film will give you what you want. I am glad I did not pay 11 dollars to see if ,but it was not a bad movie, just not the kind of movie I was hoping for.

Movie Review : "It"

Friday night my daughter and were talking about what her mom was going to do I told her she was going to go see “It”.Because 7 year olds know everything My daughter replied “No she is going to see a movie about a scary clown. I then tried to explain to her what the title of said scary clown movie was . But if you are wanting to see a movie about scary clowns you might be better off with the current season of American Horror Story. As “it’ doesn’t limit itself to just being about a scary clown and the bigger more sinister picture is well painted . itself among the some of the better Stephen King adaptations to film, this movie falls short of the Shining or the Mist in terms of scares , but has a lot of heart.This is only the first chapter so if you go in wanting to for them to return to Derry as adults then you better stock up on pop-corn and wait for the next movie. Generally speaking I think the director nailed the personalities of kids. This was the studio putting a ton of faith in a director whose other work “Momma” was luke warm. This film does a better job than the Tim Curry tele-vision miniseries. The big question you are really going to ask here is how does Pennywise stack up?

So you are asking Bill Skarsgard to stuck up against Tim Curry. If you strip away any cgi that was augmenting Skarsgard’s performance and kept it do who delivered their lines better than Curry would win.This also outline’s one of the movie strengths that blows the nostalgia horror fans are known for hanging onto out of the water. That is no saying we need to re-make “The Exorcist” of “the Shining” with today’s effects. In fact since this was originally a made for television mini-series and not a full length theatrical release then technically it’s not a remake. So it’s 2017 and has a bigger budget than the televised version, so it looks better. This is not just from a effects perspective there are some well placed shots, most of these you have seen in the trailer. Though a few like right before Pennywise starts dancing in his lair, so effective.

Pennywise never goes full out bug in this version, just like we are once again not shown the kids giving it to Beverly in sewer, I think that is something you can only see in Second Life. The sexual tension was more present. Not just with the kids, but a few of the townspeople and her father. Much like the lesson Joss Whedon taught us in Buffy that highschool is a terrifying place. The early adolescent world of these kids is just as scary as anything they encounter in the sewers. So it is much truer to King’s vision in this regard. I think the maniacal head shaking charge we see repeated by Pennywise was the only part of the movie I did not like, though the inclusion of the Wolf-man the protagonist sees in the book would have been a nice touch but perhaps Universal had too tight a reins on those rights. I haven’t read the book since it’s release in 1986. But the impact the book had still made me able to weigh it against the film and able to chant”he thrusts his fist against the posts, and still insists he sees the ghosts” which could have been given a little more context. So even the overblown drama of the Hollywood moments was not able to diminish the films entertainment value. If you are a horror fan you might find it lacking in the scares department, but it’s still a fun ride for Stephen King Fans.