Film Review : "Strangers - Prey at Night "

Jump scares are a dime a dozen. A horror movie can not live off those alone. Horror is most effective when there is a state of constant tension. This feeling of unease is what should be keeping you at the edge of your seat. The sequel to "the Strangers" succeeds at this. While it is based on true events. It is a compilation of true events as the director of the original film who wrote "Prey At Night"  Bryan Bertino claims the Tate Murders and the Caddie Cabin Murders as his inspiration. One of the most important elements the original and the sequel have in common is creating the feeling of isolation. Where the first film felt more like a remake of the French film "Them", this movies stands more on it's own two feet. The masked teen killers are really the only thing the two movies have in common aside from the premise.

This time around Johannes Roberts is directing. With the film set in a trailer park rather than the confines of a single house gives the killers a wider play ground to toy with their victims. The lighting and cinematography in this film is more interesting than the rather straight forward camera angles of the first film. While it is full of the "oh, my god how stupid can you be" style horror movies , with characters running into what you can easily see as dead ends, only one of these is that cut and dry. My only complaints about the film was how it asks how far do you have to pushed before you at at the breaking point and willing to fight back and how Christina Hendricks exits the film so soon.  This is not torture porn, as torture leaves more of a motive than the killers in this film. The just because attitude takes away the underlying sexual under current I prefer in these types of movies and wold have made for a more enjoyable casting of Hendricks. This leaves Bailee Madison to carry much of the film's weight. She shows a great deal of potential as a budding scream queen. At 19 she convincingly plays a little girl much younger and it's not until the films third act she really comes into her own and gives her character more shades than the typical rebellious brat.

The use of music and lighting in the story and in the production go hand in hand in giving the film enough of a quirky edge to bring art to what if left to less capable hands. Things like the neon pools lights with "Total Eclipse of the Heart" playing in the background, firmly sets the scene in your mind after you leave the theater. There were enough elements in play this time around to give this movie it's own feet and set it part from both the original film and "Them" which in someways makes it better than the first film. The first film might have benefited from Tyler's performance and a more intense and grim tone, this movie feels fresh in a time when on-screen horror seems to be content with Blum House inspired eye candy.

Film Review : "Haunters-the Art of the Scare"

Don't normally cover many documentaries on here , but I think this one is worthy. It tells the story of haunted attractions and the people who make them. The history of haunted houses is briefly touched on the main focus are the more DIY haunts with emphasis on the more extreme. Since I work in this industry I found it particularly interesting It had people I have worked with like John Murdy in it, so that was cool to see, but you do not have to be involved in the industry to enjoy this film. It made some interesting points about the rise of torture porn and how that is now reflected in the current state of haunts which are getting more intense as culture changes.

I have seen the parallels between bdsm and haunts before , in fact have purposefully worked them into the act. But with the craziness that is Mckamey Manor the concept of having a safe word for patrons had never really entered my mind. McKamey Manor was not the first haunt to have more immersive physical interaction with it's guests, but it does take things as far over the line as it can for the sake of filming patrons reactions. After seeing this movie I want to go work for Black Out, but McKamey Manor seems more like a smut film. Here they are in control with no safe words. In BDSM this would be called RACK or risk aware consensual kink. Given the present climate of the world today when the definition of what is consent is called into question by the #metoo generation, what goes down at the Manor could be called into question, in fact I am as open minded as one gets and adhere to the mantra...whatever works for you and there is no right or wrong only effective or ineffective. Is what happens there effective? I think the fact this made me feel anything about it or think on this after the movie is over says a lot about this film.

It did make we want to further explore bdsm in the context of  a haunt. It does touch on horror movies and has the big Blum from Blumhouse Films who is dominating horror as we know it for better or for worse these days in it. It looks at this from many different angles and doesn't really try to prove a point in how it is edited. After all it's the editor of a documentary who is really telling the story here. I highly recommend this movie it's on Netflix and came out last year, but release dates on movies have pretty much become arbitrary at this point.

The Top 10 Horror Movies of 2017

It is still a rough time for horror. I am not a fan of the horror lite Conjuring sequels and tired special effects blow outs and teen movies. Here there are plenty of psychopaths, cannibals, aliens and even mer-maids. So the formula has not be reinvented. Hyper realism worked well this year and I was looking for something different that drew me in. There are a few classic franchises that showed up strong. Some of these the release date on can be iffy in the case of Foreign horror movies. In the past few years foreign horror movies did better than the Hollywood fare , however the tide changed this year as only 3 of the top 10 are foreign . So here are the top 10 horror movies of 2017.





10-the Lure

Almost did not make it and had me in the same debate I was stuck on for "the Shape Of Water" while this one was more malevolent in it's intentions with these mer-maids, and "Shape of Water' could have stood for it's creature to have been more menacing. This was also a musical which complicated things.




9-Hounds of Love

This movie was inspired by true events and I liked how it made you dread seeing how bad things were going to go. It flirted with being trashy exploitative torture porn and I wish it had been more committed to really going there. It handled things almost too tastefully, but it made you feel uneasy about how this was all going down so it gets props for that.

8- The Cult of Chucky

When asked about this movie I found myself saying it is better than it has the right to be. Cult of Chucky in terms of cinematic quality or eye-candy is exceeds the previous film. There a moments of camera that are quite pretty, some slow motion scene and bright vibrant blood. Yet there is never a sense of menace. I am not sure if I just could not get invested in the characters. But the stakes never felt high enough to get scared. This was an entertaining movie


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7-Alien -Covenant

I liked this way better than "Prometheus". It was not as massive in scope , but a return to the feeling of the classic monster movies with all the sex and blood of the 80s. It kept Scott's mythos going, explained a few things and kept going. I am not tied to this franchise emotionally so I might be more excepting of somethings than people who need a more slavish canon, if that is you I understand I am that way with comics. This was fun , dark and bloody that what I need from these movies.

6- Raw

Horror needs to make you uncomfortable in some way. There is a tension to the movie. Sometimes they hyper realism, adds to this and makes you feel like you can't look and want to crawl out of your skin, that is success. As far as the French art house fare this can be it certainly succeeds when not being full of it self in the way you almost expect french films to be.

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5-It


This movie did not 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.

4-Mother !

This one was up for debate and I finally conceded that I a- liked this movie more than I would admit and b-it works off of the same kind of unease and tension that "Rosemary's Baby" does but in a more chaotic manner. I liked the middle finger it gives Christianity and as a movie think it was more layered and unnerving than "It" which played to a more mainstream lowest common denominator crowd.


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3-Life

This movie was a better Alien movie than Alien Covenant. Just a well made movie that also happens to be a horror movie rather than trying hard to be one. The horror hits you on many different levels. It is more of a bleak now you are fucked feeling that builds rather than playing off the same old tired tropes most movies resort to.

2-Split

Not too far removed from "Silence of the Lambs" in terms of the depth of horror. It is a much more intense character study than the Hannibal films. The intent is unclear where Hannibal is more calculated and some of this uncertainty is what makes the movie more unnerving.Pound for pound a better made film than the one occupying the number one spot , but more of a thriller and less horror than the movie taking the top.

1-Leatherface

It did give me what I expected and kept me watching.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. I think the endearing nature of how it respected the legacy of the character helped put it here.

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Film Review : the Shape of Water

Remake the Creature From the Black Lagoon with the same thoughtful quirk of "Amelie" and you are sure to win over the critics and win every award. Guillermo del Toro has made it no secret that he pulled inspiration from the Creature, but it is almost impossible to make a movie about a "mer-man" and not. While the Creature in this movie is as stunning visually as any of the things that go bump in the night, this is about as much of a horror movie as "Twilight", This time the forbidden love is not necrophilia, but bestiality.  I am sure it will be implied that this is making a deeper social commentary, about racism, what it really asks is ..."is it ok to have sex with animals?" The movie insists he is more human than his looks might suggest. Is he really more sentient than a chimpanzee? By he we are referring to the monster and not the director. While I am not opposed to human on monster sex the context here is a little more awkward as it's not just getting raped by tentacles.

The acting is great with Michael Shannon pretty much stealing the show with his fingers rotting black. The story is endearing, though the movie  gambles with your suspension of disbelief. Would the bathroom really fill up with water like that ?Who would have thought the cold war was really a race to send a mer-man into space? The movie is well paced. It keeps things tense when needed as the clock begins to tick. This is not the first time we have seen the role reversed and the audience was asked who is the monster and the answer has been the human. The most horrific thing the monster did was eat a cat and someone got scratched by mistake. I think he defended himself as needed in fact like the Hunchback he probably took too much shit and I do not think it was a coincidence he was chained on the dais like he was in the one scene. There are plenty of winks to the old classic monster movies . Like this movie most of which are not considered horror movies by today's standards.

The only mis-step was the musical fantasy. I am not sure if that was a wink to the Creature from the Black Lagoon musical that tanked or Jackson's King  Kong. It was silly and I was the only person laughing out loud in the theater at it. I went to an art theater so every one else was watching it like they were in an art gallery and trying to ponder the deeper racial issues before going homse to wank off into a PBR. So was it a good movie? Was it worth the wait? I can say unlike most movies I am glad I paid the $ 11.00 ticket, I think this is my new movie rating system how much was it worth. it's an endearing and cute $11.00, $15.00 might have given me buyers remorse. I have a friend who said it was one of the 20 twenty movies now , that is an exaggeration as I can think of at least 50 that are better.

Movie Review : "Blade Runner 2049 "

The fact this sequel came decades after the fact is weird. They are large shoes to fill. The first film is one of the best Sci-fi films ever made. That's an impossibly high bar for a film to live up to.It drags, ins some place so this film is far from flawless. It is Beautifully filmed. This time around there is a stark more post-apocalyptic feel, than the dark sleek landscape that was bleeding neon on the screen in the first film. There is a little of that urban landscape, but they wander much further from in this movie and it begins to feel more like an installment of Mad Max. What I liked the most about the first film is how it feels like a Phillip K Dick book reads. “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” was the first Dick novel I read so that factors into the nostalgia.

The acting was hit or miss. Harrison lived up to his legacy and steals the show. Ryan Gosling makes more sense as a robot. His action is just as stiff , but here it works. Jared Leto feels like he wants to be Robert De Niro from Angel Heart, and though I nodded off a few times his motives in regards to what he was going to do once he got this child, were unclear. It was a better performance than ‘Suicide Squad” , but he seems to have been on auto pilot since “Dallas Buyers Club”. The relationships with the a.i’s is strained at best. The synching of the two girls was a great spectacle that I wish I had been high for , but didn’t carry much emotionally. Perhaps that was the point, for cyborg relations to be detached.

This is not an action movie or space opera. The violence that does occur works best when it is on a smaller scale, like the murder in the police office. The larger scale the violence is the more hollywood it feels. The deliberate fake outs work into the overall story they are trying to tell and doesn’t feel contrived in it’s ah-ha reveal. It ends with hope rather than bleakness, which might not be what I prefer from my dystopias , but it works for the movie. Scott has said that the world of Alien ties into Blade Runner. He also said of the next Alien installment that will tie Covenant into the first film, that he wanted to focus more on the a.i’s so this is the perfect chance for him to blend those two worlds. But as far as how this movie stand on it’s own. Perhaps it is not worth the sting of 16 dollar tickets, but is certainly worth seeing for the cost of a matinee as it lends itself to a big screen, there are some scenes that would be worthy of IMAX. Not the best movie ever made, and the jury is still out on how it will fare against other movies 2017 still holds. If you are a fan of the first film then it is highly recommended, even if you are suffering from re-boot, re-make fatigue.

Movie Review : "mother !"

Though the trailers I saw in theaters for “Mother” tried to sell this as a horror movie  with lines like “You won’t forget where you were when you saw Mother” (of course not you were in the god damn movie theater) it is not a horror , though it plays on similar sensations as a horror movie. The buzz surrounded the film due to the fact it was directed by Darren Aronofsky , who also brought us “Requiem For A Dream” and “the Black Swan”. The latter being almost more of a horror movie than this film. It feels more like a Lars Von Trier film and has a similarly unsettling chaos in the surreal narrative as “Antichrist”. Funny enough the heavy handed religious layers make Jennifer Lawrence seem like the Anti-christ when she pretty fuck says “Fuck You” to the concept of forgiveness and burns it all down.

I am sure the Bible Thumpers who also double as hipsters will start trying to make the most out of a bad situation when they are sorting through the Biblical outline, that will have you going “Ok, there was Cain and Abel, now when is the flood coming?” But the the films real message is actually what makes it endearing to me. It gives Christianity the middle finger and asks the dumbfounded audience “Do you see how fucking crazy this concept of religion is?”  when you take those concepts and apply them literally rather than metaphorically, they whole things is beyond nuts and this film paints a picture of that. So in this rejection of the Christ concept it’s almost as satanic as “the Witch”, but is far from being as good as that movie.

So what of the horror elements? Well there is an element of the invasive neighbors from “Rosemary’s Baby”. Aronofsky even admitted that “Rosemary’s Baby” was an influence on this movue.  If the thought of having tons of uninvited guests makes you have an anxiety attack then this movie will terrify you. There is some psychological terror as Jennifer Lawrence’s character loses her shit. I did like the Madonna to whore descent, which was almost a rape scene, and there was a dynamic at times that reminded me of ‘Straw Dogs” until Javier  Bardem’s character begins much like the path the Church took to believe his own hype. Even though this was not a horror movie, it was not a bad film as it made me feel something, bad movies don’t make me feel anything. I support the fact this movie is a middle finger to Christianity and think more movies should have the balls to step out and do that. So it was a success in that regard. If you are looking for an art house horror movie , you will have to wait until Lars Von Trier releases  his serial killer film “the House that Jack Built”.

Movie Review : "Cult of Chucky"

I will be the first to admit the Chucky movies have not always been my favorite. The first Child’s Play was good for what it was, when I saw it. Bride of Chucky for all it’s cheese was still the only sequel of note up to this point. Now fast forward to current day where I have a 7 year old little girl who likes Chucky as of all the other slashers or as she called them as a child “trick tricks” he is the most digestible to her, though she does have a fascination with Ghostface from the Scream movies, yet another horror franchise that panders to people who might not normally like horror.  So I watched the Curse of Chucky with her and noticed it was well made and I would add scarier than Cult of Chucky.

Cult of Chucky in terms of cinematic quality or eye-candy is exceeds the previous film. There a moments of camera that are quite pretty, some slow motion scene and bright vibrant blood. Yet there is never a sense of menace. I am not sure if I just could not get invested in the characters. But the stakes never felt high enough to get scared. This was an entertaining movie. It falls quite short of another retro revival in “Leatherface”, but for what it is went above and beyond in terms of technical ability. The premise of the movie, I suppose if I did spoiler alerts this would be one, is that they supernatural element is dialed up as the Spirit of Chucky and inhabit humans or multiple dolls at once. The franchise winks at itself bringing Jennifer Tilly in to reprise her role as Tiffany, though she does more in her human form.

The movie is set in a mental institution which makes most of the characters ripe for the picking. The depictions of mental illness are pretty stereotyped and I think by taking a more clinical approach they could have given the movies more depth and had you more invested in the characters. The movie instead chose to run off of the novelty in the concept. When things take a turn in the films final act, there are somethings that are not totally resolved. If it sounds like I am being harsh on the film , the truth is this movie was better than it had any right to be considering the premise and the legacy of the other films. The door was of course left wide open for yet another sequel which I would be fine with considering how well they did with this one. I would be highly suspect of anyone who puts this at the top of their horror movie of the year list, but think it certainly holds it own against things like Insidious sequels.