2000's Asian Horror Part Four

SAY YES
(2001)
Dir - Kim Sung-hong
Overall: MEH

There  are more miserable and predictable thrillers out there than Kim Sung-hong's Say Yes, but that does not make the miserable or predictable aspects of it any more tolerable.  It is certainly well acted and the protagonist couple is genuinely likeable, due to enough time being spent to engage with them before things get generically annoying.  Once their underwritten, by the books stalker emerges to play cat and mouse with them for no reason though, it is either just a nasty and aggravating experience.  Well-established tropes from Cape Fear, Se7en, and The Hitcher rear their heads, but so many other slasher elements as well, namely the fact that the killer cannot be killed, people do not kill him when they get the chance, people do not check to make sure he is killed, he constantly escapes, he constantly is twelve steps ahead of everyone, and there is absolutely no tension to be had by people thinking "It's all over" when you still have so much time left in your movie.  Of course everyone watching such films from the comfort of their living rooms can always think more logically than the people in them, but movies are made to be watched by people in their living rooms so is it too much to ask to try a little harder?

HANSEL AND GRETEL
(2007)
Dir - Yim Pil-sung
Overall: GOOD

This imaginative and earnest, modern fairytale takes a number of pages out of rather famous ones, not least of all the Hansel and Gretel story from which it derives its name. The title is actually a bit misleading in that the story here is wholly unique, but it certainly and strongly echoes the sentiment of wronged children getting the better of cruel elders who mean them tremendous harm.  A South Korean production with a substantial use of its budget, it features an abundance of CGI and highly decorative sets, reminiscent of the work of Guillermo del Toro, Tim Burton, Michael Dougherty, or any contemporary, live-action Disney fable.  There are some modern horror tropes like boo scares and screechy soundtrack noises that would have been preferable to avoid and some very unpleasant plot elements near the end that are at least not too graphically shown.  The film also bites off a bit more than it can chew, lingering in its second act way too long where nothing is really advanced, more characters are introduced that are probably unnecessary, and the story itself becomes monotonous.  It is a successfully emotional experience though, made so by fantastic performances from its three child actors and Chun Jung-myung in the lead. 

VAMPIRE GIRL VS. FRANKENSTEIN GIRL
(2009)
Dir - Yoshihiro Nishimura/Naoyuki Tomomatsu
Overall: GOOD

Pink film director Naoyuki Tomomatsu and Tokyo Gore Police director Yoshihiro Nishimura collaborated on the splat-tacularly gory and ridiculous Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl.  With a title like that, expecting anything besides what is ultimately presented would be impossible.  The film is absurdly Japanese and wonderfully so as it intentionally pokes fun at not only the type of insanely violent, manga-based silliness of many other ultra-violent movies of its kind, but also Japanese youth culture movements such as ganguro and Lolita.  Most of the movie's sheer oddity is highly distracting at first with a high school full of weirdos, (teachers and students alike), who do everything from energetically confiscating chocolate, to having a wrist-cutting extracurricular group, to wearing special effects make-up to school to look African, to dressing like a Kabuki priest and experimenting with body parts, etc.  There is also a horny nurse, a pervert teacher, and tons of people get killed which is practically glossed over to make room for more bloody-limbed monster battles.  Amazingly, the huge heaps of bizarre nonsense pay off dramatically and not laughing at all of the airborne appendages that spray red stuff everywhere is not possible.  It is J-Troma more or less, except more competently made, laughable special effects notwithstanding.

Paranormal Activity

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY
(2007)
Dir - Oren Peli
Overall: GREAT

For the last three years, (counting this one), I have been going down my 100 Favorite Horror Movie List that started this blog's inception from the top spot to analyze each film in it in more justifiable depth.  So does Paranormal Activity, the movie that for better or, (probably), worse rejuvenated the found footage trend that ran amok for a few years immediately following it deserve a deep dive into its artistic merit?

Well that depends on who you ask as the film is certainly polarizing.  Some may be irked that it got all the attention that it did, finding it to be as derivative of the sub-genre as any other post-Blair Witch Project vehicle, full of all the standard pratfalls that found footage horror movies have.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, others then may see it as perhaps the pinnacle of said horror movement and a movie that excelled at utilizing the self-induced hurtles that the hand-held camera genre imposes and furthermore, a horror movie that is, (gasp), actually ridiculously frightening.

Not as ridiculously frightening as some horror movies, but still.

As I ranked this movie number three on my list of the 100 horror ones that most did it for me, you can logically guess what camp I fall into.  I think it sucks, the end.  Wait, that is not it.  After several viewings now, I in fact find more to appreciate about Paranormal Activity than I did when I was simply giddy over how legitimately terrifying it was.  You watch as many horror movies as I have, (any look around this silly blog will demonstrate my credentials), and you stop being scared by them.  I in fact stopped being scared by horror movies plenty of years ago, hence my marveling at what Paranormal Activity was able to pull off for me upon my first viewing.

That viewing came somewhere around late October, early November of 2009 when it was given a wide-release after a number of smaller runs had proven successful.  Me and several friends went to a packed theater together that night and previous to that, I had only heard the obligatory, "scariest movie since fill in the blank" comment here or there on the internet and that it was compared to Blair Witch so, probably a found footage movie right?

Or judging by the title, maybe a movie with this walking dip-shit in it.

That was the extent of my intel.  At that time, Paranormal Activity pulled off a nifty trick where I bought into the " Record everything and who cares who is editing it" concept, becoming fully immersed in how expertly director/writer/editor/producer/photographer Oren Peli managed to make the inherent strengths in the found footage genre work.  A movie where virtually all of the scary stuff happens at night while a couple is sleeping in their bedroom, (where we can see and hear what is happening before they can, if at all), is usually enough to make the audience's skin crawl with hair-raising anticipation.  Throw into the mix the naturalistic presentation, (i.e. no scary music to trick us), and it connected even more.  Not a one of us that saw the movie together disagreed one bit that it was scary as shit and I would be lying if going to bed the next few nights was not legitimately and slightly less comfortable than normal.

Only watching the movie since then does the cynical, "Let's tear everything apart because I've seen too many of these" part of my brain kick in.  So delightfully, this is where one can actually discover what the film is in fact about.  You could easily and perhaps fairly come to the conclusion that Peri simply wanted to make a horror movie on the cheap and then had a solid enough premise and the support of some major studio backing, (and their hype machine), to propel it to be considered technically the most profitable movie ever made based off of the return on investments.  Yet there is additional merit in Paranormal Activity.  It is about a house haunted by a demon yes, but more to the point, it is about how detrimental toxic masculinity and chauvinism can cripple a heterosexual relationship.

Picture unrelated.

The couple in the film is Micah and Katie.  They have been together for three years and the house that they are living in, (at least according to one of Micah's proclamations), is his which would certainly seem plausible since he is the one in the relationship earning an income.  Micah's a day trader which is interesting in itself by the level of competitive machismo that such a profession requires and produces.  Katie is "merely", (at least through such a chauvinistic lens), a student.  Micah is rather immature, (another stereotype), and impulsive with his decisions and spending.  We begin the film with him having purchased a luxury camera which he makes a point to say only cost about half of what he made that day in trading, so bragging about his income being another not so subtle clue as to his own interpretation of his role in all of this.

Throughout the movie, Micah consistently underestimates the actual threat of what is happening to his girlfriend and ultimately, to him.  He makes light of it, goes out of his way to justify playing with his new, high-tech toy to try and "help" the situation, and basically has convinced himself since he is the man, he makes the money, and since this is all going down in his house, he gets to "handle" it any way he sees fit, be dammed of what his over-sensitive girlfriend thinks about it.  So in his own warped way, he is doing the right thing and means to protect his home and his woman.  He is therefor unaware that he is basically a giant dick, but we do and Katie certainly lets him know as things progress.

"I'm helping!" - Ralph Wiggum

On that note, Katie on the other hand is shown to be remarkably strong-willed, which is just as much a pro-feminist critique on their relationship as anything else.  Having been tormented by what she learns to be a demon since being a small child and now suffering more than ever, she miraculously keeps it together or keeps trying to keep it together as her clueless boyfriend does virtually everything in his power to fuck things up exponentially more.  In a pivotal scene that is both hilarious and heartbreaking, she flat out tells Micah that literally every single thing that he has been doing since the beginning of the movie has made everything worse.  This is extremely important.  Not only is it 100% accurate, but Micah's disregard for Katie's wishes and far more logical feelings towards what is happening instead allows him to persist in provoking the demonic entity every step of the way.  This of course ultimately leads to said entity getting exactly what it wants; Katie.

For the entire film, what the macho, money-making male does to insert his dominance over the situation and insure that he gets to keep his, (actually), immensely stronger female partner "safe" under his roof and under his conditions, propels every negative and horrifying detail of their experience.  Why does the demon who has comparatively laid dormant for a number of years decide to start getting a bit more frisky now?  Well it is not just because this is where the movie starts.  Living in this relationship with this guy for a handful of years, presumably with the demon keeping a close eye on them throughout, it has certainly picked up on Micah's more chauvinistic nature, which in effect has triggered him.  We can assume that this is the first serious relationship Katie has  been in or at the very least, the first time that she has moved in with a guy.  Being the guy that Micah is then, we can therefor assume that this demon thing is none too keen about any of that.

Which was made obvious once or twice.

The minimal amount of lore that we are given concerning this demonic presence very wisely suggest that it is of a chaotic and random nature.  This not only frees Peli up to have it do rather arbitrary things, (at least on surface level), but it also provides an acceptable context for its behavior.  Why just turn on a light one night, slightly move a door another, bang on some furniture another, and breath on the bed-sheets yet another night?  Because it is clearly toying with its prey.  As an entity of pure evil, it most likely delights in seeing how much it can further cause a wedge between Katie and Micah.  It knows how Micah is going to react to everything it does, just as it knows how Katie is going to react.  The one is going to become increasingly traumatized and pleading, the other more stubborn and agitated.  This is then the perfect, combative stew to pit both parties against each other.  You could surmise that only by doing this is the demon able to posses and finally consume Katie after all of these years, but a more logical explanation is probably that it could have done that at any time throughout her life.  Why wait until now?  Because it is having fun.  Like a cat torturing a mouse for a little bit before it consumes it, the demon wants to cause as much havoc and mayhem as it can because then the broken down, emotionally crippled meat of its prey tastes all the more satisfying.

As far as Micah's certifiably idiotic behavior goes, it works in the context of a horror movie where characters routinely and lazily do the dumbest thing possible, practically at all times.  In this instance, Micah's actions are an exaggeration of his machismo.  Who in their right goddamn mind would climb up into an attic with no light source in the middle of the night after being terrifying by a demonic presence that is most likely up there to retrieve something vague that he saw from a distance?  A stupid horror movie character would do that and that is what Micah is.  Yet Peri is saying something about that very cliched stereotype that perfectly fits along with the story that he is telling.  Blinded by his own self-bloated, exaggerated masculinity, Micah perpetually acts illogical, just as horror movie characters perpetually do.  Once again, the film manages to utilize one of the genre tropes to its dramatic advantage as opposed to using it out of sheer negligence.

Baby powder on the floor?  Yup, that'll learn 'em.

Having this outlook on the movie, the found footage aspects ultimately benefit Paranormal Activity instead of hindering it.  The hand-held camera is a complete extension of the male's ridiculous need to try and control his environment.  Which is something that from frame one of the film, was never possible and only becomes almost comically more apparent as it goes on.  Micah never once has any real idea what to do about any of this.  He is far too busy goofing around, playing with his gadgets, being condescending to Katie, and trying to convince her that she is dumb and unreasonable and that he is the one who is going to fix everything because nobody fucks with his girl.

Thankfully, (to not make his character a complete, unsympathetic buffoon), there are wonderful moments scattered throughout the movie that demonstrate that Micah's just as vulnerable as Katie is and most likely really does care for her beyond just a cave man need to protect the proposed human that is going to give birth to the fruit of his seed.  When he is not ignoring her, Katie's breakdowns occasionally make him drop the macho facade and realize how seriously distraught she is.  Sadly for both of them, (but not for the demon who is played each of them like a fiddle the whole time), he realizes this far too late.  By the last night, Micah has pretty much given up in frustration.  It is unclear if the weight of not only how ultimately helpless he has been has sunk in, but also if the realization that he is the one who has made their situation the tragic thing that it is has really registered with him.  The latter is most likely, but whether he knows this or was ever going to is left to ponder since well, things of course do not end all that great for him.

Not so great at all.

The theatrical ending to Paranormal Activity was one that was re-shot on the insistence of the producers who naturally wanted to maximize its box office potential.  This ending works well enough and does not reek of what it is thankfully, probably more so to with the fact that the initial one was a bit too long and complicated.  It had Katie sitting in a chair for several days, her sister showing up, cops showing up, a shoot out, and yeah, it rather sounds like at that point it was best to wrap it up while the tension of that last night was at peak level.  I could do without the stupid CGI demon face which is a bit clashing to the rest of how realistically the movie was presented, but at least it only pops up for about half a second.

There was one other moment where Katie Featherston was not pulling off the best improvised dialog during the initial visit with the ghost doctor guy.  These are really the only qualms I can find with the film though.  As far as who edited all of this footage and decided to put titles in the beginning and end, sadly there is no other explanation than the fact that nobody probably trusted that it could have been released in a more naked form.  I will swallow that pill though to enjoy everything else Paranormal Activity has to offer.  It may not be as terrifying as that first time that I saw it and it may have spawned a whole lot of garbage horror movies that took none of the fascinating subtext that came along with it, instead just thinking that shaking a camera around would do the trick, but this is a fair trade.  A fair trade for being able to appreciate the story it really tells as well its technical achievement at being a paramount work in the found footage camp that pretty much shows what can be exceptionally done within the medium.

Now who is going to clean up all that goddamn baby powder?

Marianne - Season One

MARIANNE
Season One
(2019)
Dir - Samuel Bodin
OVERALL: MEH

Arriving just in time to get a proper enough buzz going for it for the Fall/Halloween season, (the ideal period for most cinematic horror properties to get unleashed), Marianne is the latest foreign export to successfully and unabashedly cater to genre fanatics.  This is not a knock on the program right out of the gate by the way.  Yet it would be unmistakable to come to any conclusions that the creative parties involved were not going for the most balls-out horror tinged program they could possibly muster.  The genre is heavily seeped in the program's every pore.

Marianne is one of the eleven series that Netflix debuted this summer and the first French horror one to make a significant impression.  It was co-written and exclusively directed by Samuel Bodin, a television director who also happened to make the bizarre, short fan film Batman: Ashes to Ashes.  Ten years later, he has delivered an ambitious, original work that owes enough to dozens of other sources to stand on its own.  There are certainly things that do not come together in Marianne and its reliance on contemporary tropes is understandable from a commercial perspective, but a lot of the problems present are due to the nature of being a, (so far), single television season.

The way that such programs come into being is that a lone season is greenlit for x-amount of episodes and if all goes well, it will return for more.  Netflix generally has a "wrap-it up in three or four seasons, period" moto which is both good and bad.  It is good in the fact that by giving every property the potential to expand itself yet not take up a decade or so of everyone's time with a new batch of episodes every year, stories can be told much more compactly.  There is little worry about any series overstaying its welcome and prattling on with ultimately pointless episodes that do not further advance any overall arc.  There sure are lots of programs out there to choose from, more than ever in fact so it is a sufficient formula to get in, get out, and get on to the next whatever thing that you are going to watch because we all got shit to do.

I mean, these socks are not going to fold themselves amiright?

The negative aspect of this concept is that sometimes a show does not get picked up again and one batch of episodes is all that you are going to get.  So this presents the people making them with the hugely difficult task of trying to hook enough viewers to get those numbers up there to make more episodes while at the same time trying to make their world seem as vast and detailed as possible.  Marianne is a partial success in this respect.  It tells a point A to point B story in eight episodes and can essentially leave itself hanging where it leaves off, be it somewhat unfortunately.  Still, better to leave em wanting more right?  That said, it also throws in a whole lot of stuff that doesn't pay off in the allowed lifespan it has so far.  Worse yet, other plot points are downright bulldozed over, making room for its own frustrating problems.

Halfway through Marianne, we get a flashback episode that comes awfully close to crashing the entire series into a mountain.  Finally given an answer as to what set all of the unfortunate, spooky events in motion when most of the main characters were teenagers, it is insultingly stupid how Victoire Du Bois' lead character Emma Larsimon decides to become an unrelenting outcast and scumbag doing everything she can to make her parents, friends, and the entire town she lives in disown her just because a single priest who was already a giant asshole to her tells her she has no choice.  Also, the entire unearthing of the title character and how or why exactly she decides to emerge when she does after a few stupid teenagers perform the most generic seance they can is a bit flimsy.

There is a bigger issue in the fact that Marianne makes an all too common problem of giving their supernatural powerhouse completely arbitrary powers.  When the show kicks off, Marianne is currently possessing the mother of Emma's friend who led the initial seance when they were younger, but why now and why bother?  What does writing about her in Emma's books have to do with anything?  She speaks through Emma for a few seconds when originally summoned, but showed up in her dreams before and after that, as well as other peoples dreams.  She can also appear as the younger sister of her friend or pretty much anybody at any time as we later find out, as well as a stuffed animal or pretty much any object as we later find out.  Sometimes she needs to put people's teeth in human skin sacks to keep people from moving, (or something), sometimes her body is in a hole and sometimes it is in an open grave, sometimes a necklace temporarily stops her, sometimes she possesses people so successfully that they are powerless to regain control, sometimes she just casually possesses people, etc.  Basically, this Marianne broad has absolutely no problem doing whatever she wants to whoever she wants at any time unless the script wants to make it seem like she is not doing whatever she wants to whoever she wants for a specific amount of time.

I wonder if anyone in horror movies know that the Ouija board is actually trademarked by Hasbro.  So I guess this counts as product placement?

Now granted, some of this could be expanded upon if Marianne gets a chance to dig deeper into its mythology.  Yet it sure seems an awful, awful lot like the people who made the show simply wanted to put as much cool, horror movie shit in as they could because horror movies are cool and people like cool horror movie shit.  Again, this is because you better hook your audience quick or risk losing them and the network that gave the thumbs up for your series to begin with.  So essentially, the logical part of your brain that asks rather standard questions which the show has no proper opportunity to answer under the circumstances has to be turned off to fully embrace the experience.  Which falls into the very broad, general concept that the horror film, (or TV show), is in many ways broken as far as how the general public is conditioned and often forced to partake of it.

Is there potential to tell a captivating story with Marianne and have its horror movie cake as well?  Yes and no.  Despite eight episodes to play with, the format here does not particularly allow such a thing, at least not when you have to have all of those boo scares, freaky, bug-eyed monster faces, creepy music, muted color pallets, and more boo scares thrown into the mix.  You have to give the people what they want and what they want is the stuff that lets them know that they are watching a horror thing every single step of the way.  I applaud Bodin and his creative team here as well as the cast who are undoubtedly doing their absolute best and convincingly having a very fun time with the material.  You can certainly see where Marianne can excel more at, essentially meaning its story which is incredibly more interesting than the endless stream of visual and audio cliches it keeps pummeling you with.

Since ambiguity is not really allowed and that ship has already sailed, it would be nice to really flesh out the universe here and clean up some of the mess in future seasons.  Getting to the bottom of how Marianne can do the things that she does and why as opposed to just saying "because horror movies, who cares?", would be a very lovely endeavor to sign up for.  Time will have to tell though and if indeed everyone involved is just happy to go all creepy haunted house window dressing for subsequent seasons, it will definitely be enjoyable for many.  One could hold horror up to higher standards, perhaps impossible ones in this case, but it is still nice that people are trying and putting the content out there.  Marianne is by no means a failure and it would be great to enjoy it a lot more.  Maybe we should wait and see if we find out what in the goddamn hell all of those black, muck-covered, reaching hands in her grave in the last episode were all about.

If I had those many hands, I would never leave the house.  I would also probably want to clean them off first though.

Anime Horror - Devilman OVAs

DEVILMAN VOL. 1: THE BIRTH
(1987)
Dir - Umanosuke Iida
Overall: MEH

Visually fun with some bonkers creature designs and loads of hilarious profanity and gore, the first in the OVA adaptations of Yasutaka Nagai's novelization of his brother Go Nagai's Devilman manga, Devilman Vol. 1: The Birth is pretty asinine.  The entire concept of having to merge yourself with a demon in order to defeat one is pointless since two humans were rather easily able to stop one with a mere shotgun.  In addition, their grand scheme to turn a whole nightclub full of innocent people into demons, (after murdering several beforehand of course), so they can put themselves in a highly unnecessary predicament where they have to then destroy them once they have all turned is laughably stupid.  Even though it all ends up working out which is actually even more stupid.  Both the plotting and dialog are so appalling that it borders on parody, yet the series has long been beloved either in spite of or because of its silliness.

DEVILMAN VOL. 2: THE DEMON BIRD
(1990)
Dir - Umanosuke Iida
Overall: MEH

Following up the rather stupid Devilman Vol. 1: The Birth is the even more stupid Devilman Vol. 2: The Demon Bird.  Animator/filmmaker Umanosuke Iida returns once again, adapting the initial manga and novel material by Go Nagai and his brother Yasutaka.  While it is a plus that the rather ridiculous origin story is done and out of the way, all that is left is for a three long, boring fight scenes to go by without advancing hardly any type of story whatsoever.  The dialog is even more embarrassingly terrible this time, especially when profanity is used, ("If you ever say that again I'll rip off your fucking head and shit down your neck!", per example).  Likewise, at least the English version has comical line-readings throughout the entire thing so even if the script was not as moronic as it is, it still would come off that way.  Yet for those who find these qualities to be enduring, over the top anime hallmarks, it is jammed pack with enough of them to make for a mind-numbingly goofy experience.

AMON: THE APOCALYPSE OF DEVILMAN
(2000)
Dir - Kenichi Takeshita
Overall: MEH

Breaking away from being a straight adaptation of the Nagai brother's written source material, Amon: The Apocalypse of Devilman more specifically follows the previous OVAs made by Umanosuke Iida.  Arriving thirteen years after the original anime film and changing up the creative team, it is tonally far less absurd, bringing the barely scripted and hyper, ultra-violent nonsense of the first two installments much more down to earth.  The plus side of the trade-off is an actual story with at least some sort of emotional pay-off and still plenty of outrageous, gory battle scenes and inventive demon design elements.  Also, the dialog is sparse, (which is a good move in and of itself), and nowhere near as mortifying.  At a mere forty-four minutes and finally breaking the mold of a weak set-up followed by one uninteresting battle scene after the other, it feels like there is more that could have been explored here.  That said, it still does not necessary feel rushed either as the pacing is too lumbering.  It is a noticeable improvement for sure, but the franchise is still struggling all the same.

90's Anime Horror

MIDORI
(1992)
Dir - Hiroshi Harada
Overall: MEH

The story of Midori the animated film is positively fascinating and strange.  Based off of the ero guro graphic novel by Suehiro Maruo, (itself an adaptation of a kamishibai tale with varying origins), animator Hiroshi Harada sunk his life savings into the project and hand-drew every frame himself since the source material was so risque as to scare away all potential investors.  Then Harada insisted on showing it in his native Japan solely through a series of bizarre screenings which involved audience members having to go through specific instructions, following clues, and experiencing the movie in an interactive format that Rocky Horror Picture Show fanatics would appreciate.  It was also shown in legit freak show recreations as well.  As far as the rest of the world getting a chance to see it, a French DVD is the only means and whether or not it is in fact complete is still possibly a mystery as different print lengths exist according to different sources.  Finally getting to the movie itself, it is enormously unsettling and strange.  A twelve year old girl gets raped and tortured both physically and psychologically by a number of depraved and deformed circus freaks and reality itself is skewed where her short-lived moments of happiness seem to diminish in an endless loop.  The style is quite unique and of course the lengths that Harada went to make it and screen it are admirable, but it is a highly difficult work to ride out.

PERFECT BLUE
(1997)
Dir - Satoshi Kon
Overall: GOOD

A deliberate, well-executed psychological thriller that seems more than a little akin to the giallo sub-genre, Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue is nearly remarkably done.  An adaptation of Perfect Blue: Complete Metamorphosis, (a novel by Yoshikazu Takeuchi), the film works best when it is increasingly blurring the lines between reality.  The audience is left impossibly confused just as the lead protagonist is, but this never becomes frustrating due to how meticulously structured it is.  The more topsy-turvy it gets, the more compelling it gets.  The grand reveal may be slightly disappointing to some as well as the familiar stalker-killer elements.  Even still though, with a plot that so carefully distorts all realms as possibility, the twist at least seems appropriate.  Originally planned as a live-action film which it easily could have worked as, (and one would eventually get made in 2002 under the title Perfect Blue: Yume Nara Samete), 1995's Kobe earthquake ended up diminishing the budget.  This is only a problem in that some of the characters are impossible to tell apart at times due to the animation, but it is still only a minor qualm.  This easily stands as one of the more excellent contemporary-set, non-dark fantasy anime horror films out there.

NINJA RESURRECTION
(1997/1998)
Dir - Yasunori Urata
Overall: MEH

This flawed, two-part OVA based off of the novel Makai Tensho by Futaro Yamada was never finished, thus making it a frustrating adaptation.  Ninja Resurrection also bares many stylistic similarities to the wildly popular Ninja Scroll, down to the main character having the same name of Jubei and the logo baring a close resemblance.  The fact that it is not related to Ninja Scroll beyond just surface level and that this was possibly done to confuse audiences as a cash-in may certainly annoy some, but the problem is more simply that it is left incomplete.  Since it is rather pointless to become invested in a story that only sets up its premise, all that is really left to do is appreciate the squandered potential.  Brutally violent and featuring enough Christian blood-shed and blasphemy to make any well-respecting heathen giddy, it throws in some other unpleasant details such as rape and child murder just to up the nastiness even more.  It is difficult to tell what side of the holy or unholy fence one is supposed to root for, (which is an interesting idea to present), but again, unless you read and finish the actual source material, there are no answers or further development to be found here.

90's Foreign Horror Shorts

EXIT
(1990)
Dir - Stig Bergqvist/Martti Ekstrand/Jonas Odell/Lars Ohlson
Overall: GOOD

One of the many shorts produced by the Swedish animation company Filmtecknarna, (who also pump out commercials and music videos on the regular), Exit is a compelling and surreal dystopian nightmare lightly portrayed as a black comedy.  Taking place almost entirely in a hedonistic amusement park that seems to have virtually every unhealthy, cruel, or sinful vice you can think of, it is full of fascist, generational, and indulgent symbolism.  Some of the decadent imagery is uncomfortably cruel, (like the senseless butchering of animals exaggerated to look as Disney-esque adorable as possible), and the characters trapped in this strange universe that presumably consumes all who enter it are almost frightfully pathetic.  It is intentionally provoking though, made more strange and subtly unnerving by the traditionally cartoony animation.

VIBROBOY
(1994)
Dir - Jan Kounen
Overall: MEH

Eh, whatever.  Netherlands-born French filmmaker Jan Kounen's Vibroboy is a wildly obnoxious something that is jacked up to eleven for practically all of its twenty-eight minutes.  It is impossible to tell what on earth can be happening or at least any sort of reason for what on earth can be happening since all three characters and one in particular are screaming all of their dialog while the frantic camera work spends all of its time trying to disorient the viewer.  Who are these people, where are they, what previous relationship did the transvestite have with the other two, what is with the cat in the fridge, what is with the stuffed animal, and is the insane husband just the world's most unstable asshole or is a phallic, Aztec statue making him so?  None of this seems to be important and instead the movie appears to just want to pummel you with how loud and dirty it can be.

ELEVATED
(1996)
Dir - Vincenzo Natali
Overall: GOOD

A year before dropping his first full length Cube, Vincenzo Natali made the similarly-toned short Elevated, (which also stars David Hewlett).  Instead of people being trapped in, well, a cube, this time they are kind of trapped in, well, an elevator.  Wisely, Natali and Karen Walton, (who would go on to script Ginger Snaps), leave the real menace of the movie unexplained, instead offering up a couple of possible, disturbing scenarios.  As was a problem with Cube, the characters here get a little too screamy and excitable, but at least in the former they did not get so revved up while only a few minutes in.  There is also one scene that may or may not be unintentionally funny, but besides these minor flubs and annoyance, the fact that it is quite unclear what is going on again works to the film's benefit, making it a decent, heart-racing bit of horror movie-making.

HOW WINGS ARE ATTACHED TO THE BACKS OF ANGELS
(1996)
Dir - Craig Welch
Overall: GOOD

Mournful and rather mildly eerie, Craig Welch's How Wings Are Attached to the Backs of Angels takes an interesting look at control and possibly the suppression of longing.  Animated with a mixture of detailed, black and white sketch work, Terry Gilliam's cartoon style, and rotoscoping, it follows a linear yet surreal structure where a thin, lonely, and presumably wealthy man seeks to demonstrate what is posed by the film's title.  With mostly flowing camerawork where particular images within complex machinery and the rest of the setting seem to transform into each other, it all appears rather precise even as an ethereal woman emerges that emotionally effects the unnamed man.  The style is quite engaging and one can get a lot of mileage from pondering some of the meaning here, making it an alluring enough art film to applaud.

 

OUTER SPACE

(1999)

Dir - Peter Tscherkassky

Overall: MEH

Austrian avant-garde filmmaker Peter Tscherkassky's Outer Space reinterprets footage from Sidney J. Furie's The Entity into a scratchy, seizure-inducing cacophony of disorienting noise.  This was Tscherkassky's second experimental short to utilize material from other movies and anyone who is familiar with Furie's aforementioned original will be able to interpret a narrative here, even if it forgoes such conventions when looked at individually.  The spastic presentation is admirable to a point and Tscherkassky seems to be going for an expressive nightmare assault on the senses, but even at ten minutes, it becomes a tiring if not cumbersome watch.  Such cinematic deconstruction is deliberately aggressive which fits the context of Furie's film about a woman who is sexually assaulted by demonic forces, but it works better as a curiosity of editing than anything thematically profound.

90's British Horror Shorts

THE SANDMAN
(1991)
Dir - Paul Berry
Overall: GOOD

The only directorial effort from British stop-motion animator Paul Berry, (who died in 2001 at the mere age of forty), The Sandman is based off E.T.A. Hoffmann's version of the European legend and has little if anything to do with the sort of famous Metallica song that referenced him and was released the same year.  That or Neil Gaiman's brilliant graphic novels of the same name for that matter.  Berry would go on to work with Tim Burton on The Nightmare Before Christmas and the style here is nearly identical, meaning that it very deliberately channels German Expresionism.  The characters are highly stylized with pointy facial features and limbs, plus the set design is aggressively Gothic.  It wonderfully showcases the type of late night fear that any child can suffer when their entire surroundings seem enormously ominous.  Nine minutes long and void of dialog, it is a brief, stunningly dark little fairytale.

DRILLBIT
(1992)
Dir - Alex Chandon
Overall: WOOF

*Cue Georgia Hardstark's catchphrase "IIIIIIIIIIIIII'm sorry...!"*.  SOV movies are certainly not for everyone's tastes.  Unpopular opinion or not, one can fall into the logical camp that if you do not have the technical means, (or talent), to make a movie, then you should not make one or at least someone should stop you from making one.  Alex Chandon, (who also did a bunch of Cradle of Filth music videos by lying about who he was probably), made Drillbit presumably with his parent's camcorder plus his high school drop out friends and it is one of the biggest pieces of shit on earth.  No budget torture porn with less than no technical skill anywhere in frame, the worst part is that it is trying to be funny.  Well the jury may be out on that, but who knows for sure.  Kind of hard to tell when you are dealing with incompetence and annoying shock-garbage of this unwatchable magnitude.

THE MAN IN THE LOWER-LEFT HAND CORNER OF THE PHOTOGRAPH
(1997)
Dir - Robert Morgan
Overall: GOOD

This early work in the filmography of English stop-motion animator and short filmmaker Robert Morgan mostly succeeds on the details it presents us with.  There is even a clue given by the title The Man in the Lower-Left Hand Corner of the Photograph, as we see our unnamed, nonspeaking title character gazing at a picture of himself in that very potion presumably happier than he is currently portrayed.  We know this by the rotted surroundings of the settings which looks like some sort of rusted nest equipped with a bed, a desk, and a dresser.  Also a pet maggot in case you missed the rotted part.  Despite its bleakness, the film manages to be lovely in an odd way, offering a sort of solace within its final images.  With no musical score and very few sounds at all to go along with the striking imagery, it seems meant to be something pondered more than precisely made clear.  As a side, it is no coincidence that it is reminiscent of Tool's stop motion music videos as the band used segments of Morgan's The Separation in "Jambi".

ON EDGE
(1999)
Dir - Frazer Lee
Overall: MEH

The first of three shorts that to date act as the only such directorial efforts from Frazer Lee, (who commonly works as a writer, electrician, or cameraman depending), On Edge is a sufficient if predictable one.  Pinhead himself Doug Bradley gets to sink his teeth, (pun intended, as is made clear by those who have seen it), into what is essentially a monologue as he does some gruesome things to an impatient patient while remaining relatively calm and charming.  It all basically builds to a single moment of revolting gore which is adequate if again not all together shocking.  Bookending the film is an odd scene in a nightclub that is playing the same one minute loop of an industrial metal song over again.  This seems to only be there to fill up time as it hardly creates the proper mood or has anything to do with what else transpires.  The film is a pretty one-note effort overall, but fun enough for what it is.

EXPELLING THE DEMON
(1999)
Dir - Devlin Crow
Overall: GOOD

Scoring none other than Nick Cave to, well, score his film, Devlin Crow's Expelling the Demon is a comedic bit of extremity wrapped up in less than five minutes.  To date, Crow has exclusively made short films and his animation here is crude with blobby drawings over primitive backgrounds.  Steven Berkoff, (Rambo: First Blood Part II, Beverly Hills Cop, Octopussy), rambles and raves as an anthropomorphous tongue for just about the entire movie and by the time that he is expelled as the title spoils, it is quite a relief.  As intentionally annoying as said appendage is, it is nice that Crow gets in and gets out as quickly as he does, plus the minimalist animation helps hammer home the point that no further details are truly necessary.  Being a wacky, distorted joke on macho, male masculinity and embarrassment, it is kind of a hoot.

90's American Horror Shorts

MY SWEET SATAN
(1994)
Dir - Jim Van Bebber
Overall: WOOF

One of the most endlessly annoying cliches for any movie is that of loner, drug addict, douchebag losers who listen to heavy metal and think the Devil is just the bees knees.  My Sweet Satan takes this one-note premise and tries to do whatever with it for about nineteen minutes.  The result is skin-crawling in how unwatchably stupid it is.  Characters who we are barely even introduced to are narrating off screen, the movie begins with the lead character, (writer/director Jim Van Bebber looking like an asshat clown parody of a disturbed metalhead), hanging himself, and no attempt is made to make him or anyone else he ever encounters appear more than cartoon character scumbags.  So clearly having sympathy for anyone on screen was not the point.  If it was just to highlight a disturbed youth culture then it is an utter failure since things are exaggerated to the point of parody.  In this regard though, it is far from trying to be funny either and just bashes you over the head by being amateurish and brain dead.

MICHAEL JACKSON'S GHOSTS
(1997)
Dir - Stan Winston
Overall: WOOF

It is such a shame really that by 1997, (post molestation charges no less), Michael Jackson was certifiably out of touch with reality.  Layers of proof had come to light at that point and much more would follow, but the curious, thirty-nine minute music video, (a Guinness book record), for "Ghost" off the HIStory album/compilation is a solid timestamp of where the King of Pop's psyche was at.  A toddler could not miss the overt symbolism in having an angry mob storm a "weirdo's" mansion only to have one authority figure point the finger at him while all of the kids and nice parents go along with the batshit insane, supernatural shenanigans that Jackson's "weirdo" gets up to.  He at once seems to be taking out his frustrations with the media ripping his endless eccentricities, (and again, child molestation charges), apart while still indulging in his childish fascination with horror films and fairytale whimsy.  Sadly, the results here are not only uncomfortably on the nose, but awkwardly boring as hell.  It is almost entirely just people pretending to be amazed or scared at awful CGI, ghouls in not-Thriller costumes dancing around, and Jackson stretching out his hands and yelling at least nine-hundred and eleven times.  Even with Stan Winston behind the lens, Stephen King co-scripting it, and Jackson providing a solid enough soundtrack of course, it still comes off as an extreme vanity project that is downright sad to watch.

CUTTING MOMENTS
(1997)
Dir - Douglas Buck
Overall: MEH

This stark and very aloof short from Long Island filmmaker Douglas Black takes an enormously bleak look at family dysfunction.  It pushes into the horror genre by the mood of mounting dread that it builds to, (made possible by the a mostly non-existing musical score and deliberate pacing), which culminates with an excessively gory finale.  The mood is perhaps too depressing and uncomfortable at least from a state of enjoying the experience, but this can also be seen as a successful trait for such a somber movie to have.  How exactly this doomed couple got to the point of such an extreme emotional void in their and their child's lives is left a mystery which makes it less something to really connect with and more surreal instead.  Cutting Moments is pretty striking yes, but it sure is rather miserable as well so it kind of comes down to how bummed out you want to be in twenty-nine minutes.

ZOETROPE
(1999)
Dir - Charlie Deaux
Overall: MEH

Pretentious nonsense more or less, occasional music video director Charlie Deaux's Zoetrope is an adaptation of Franz Kafka's In the Penal Colony, but one that decides to meander pointlessly for eighteen minutes instead of maybe going somewhere with its subject matter.  For such a short film, it sure does repeat the same shots over and over again and it does not take long at all to get the gist of it and realize absolutely nothing else is going to happen.  This is one of those black and white, spastically-edited art films that you can probably just see a couple stills from and basically "get" the whole movie without having to watch it.  The industrial, bludgeoning sound design is interesting, but as it is mixed with senseless, philosophical hogwash that is monotonously uttered by one of the two "characters", it ultimately does not matter one tit what any of the dialog is as since it may as well just be mumbled gibberish.  A steampunk-esque, dystopian nightmare sure, but a very aimless and boring one all the same.

90's American Horror Part Sixteen

BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR
(1990)
Dir - Brian Yuzna
Overall: GOOD

In one respect, Bride of Re-Animator is rather an impossible, compatible follow-up to not only Stuart Gordon's superb original from five years prior, but also Society, the debut from Brian Yuzna who steps in for Gordon to helm this one.  Meeting the movie on its own turf, it is hit or miss with a story that just kind of goes through the motions while not being all that interesting.  Yet it is still mostly enjoyable in the same over the top way one would expect.  David Gale returning as the severed head of Dr. Hill does feel a bit shoehorned in there, but at least he gets bat wings attached to him so he can fly this time.  The whole thing pretty much adheres to such ridiculousness where random body parts both human and animal are mishmashed together with the help of Dr. Herbert West's trusty ole green, glowing goo.  Naturally, Jeffrey Combs is very Jeffrey Combsy once again and he is still a hoot even if he becomes more of a cartoon character with his dialog getting extra absurd at times.  That is kind of the name of the game though and Yuzna knows that he is making a full-fledged comedy here regardless of how much splat-tacular gore, zombie hordes, or creepy catacombs and cemeteries he throws into the mix.

RAISING CAIN
(1992)
Dir - Brian De Palma
Overall: WOOF

In what has to be the worst movie Brian De Palma ever made, Raising Cain is fascinatingly clashing and terrible.  A return to the psychological thriller for the rightfully lauded writer/director, (and also reuniting him with the concept of identical twins in some respects), things are uncomfortable and worrisome right out of the gate.  The dialog, plotting, editing, and performances are so asinine most of the time that one has to seriously ponder that a man of De Palma's proven talents and track record has to be pulling some kind of bizarro-world prank on his audience.  There are some highly elaborate, technically impressive long takes that are totally wasted on an otherwise absurd and clumsy presentation.  John Lithgow, (who is also usually amazing), is routinely over the top and gives one of the most textbook, "guy with a multi-personality disorder" performances you are likely to see.  Lolita Davidovich is awful in the opposite direction, often just sighing or staring off into space while her husband behaves like a maniac, her ultra-brief fling shows up out of nowhere and cries immediately, and her daughter is missing or presumed dead.  The whole thing has the feel of a Lifetime movie on drugs and from beginning to end it is thoroughly unclear how much of it is supposed to be as bafflingly bad as it is.

WOLF
(1994)
Dir - Mike Nichols
Overall: GOOD

Erroneous in a few spots, there is still enough top-notch talent on hand in Wolf that it kind of gets by.  The only horror film from Mike Nichols and once again reuniting him with Jack Nicholson, (who was also a personal friend of screenwriter Jim Harrison who allegedly quit Hollywood after clashing with Nichols over the tone here), it is in many ways a standard werewolf movie where someone is bitten, gradually begins to change in all mannerisms, does not believe at first what is happening to them, and then goes full lycanthope by the end.  The humor that is frequently scattered around keeps it enjoyable though, as does Nicholson's usual superb performance which balances his rather rational and passionless human persona with his more aggressive and playful wolf one.  James Spader is likewise great as the type of character he never is not, (a pervy scumbag), while Michelle Pfeiffer gets to be kind of a bitch, (pun intended).  The ending was actually re-shot and is a little unintentionally silly as is the final "twist" tag that leaves some of the early potential about the nature of animals positively or horrifyingly affecting their human, yuppy hosts unfulfilled.  It may feel a tad too long and be too lacking in overtly gnarly monster make-up as well, but all parties involved seem to be having fun with the material and it thankfully shows.

90's American Horror Part Fifteen

LEPRECHAUN
(1993)
Dir - Mark Jones
Overall: WOOF

If one were to be generous, you could say that there are about three amusing lines in what is otherwise as terribly obnoxious of a B-movie dumbfest as the 90s ever produced.  The first in the Leprechaun series, (how eight of these exist so far is a question only the gods can answer), certainly was not made to be a game changer.  Yet it would be fair to assume that the people behind it at the very least intended it to be entertaining.  You have to really be a glutton for stupidity though to think they pulled such a thing off.  There are false alarms/psyche outs/jump scares, cars not starting, phone lines being down, phone batteries dying, and the title villain can do any number of arbitrary, physics-defying things while ignoring his own would-be apparent rules.  Sometimes bullets stop him, sometimes they do not.  Sometimes four-leaf clovers stop him, sometimes they do not.  Sometimes he appears wherever he wants, other times he has to make toy cars run like real cars with magic to catch up to people.  Sometimes he easily gets the upper hand, sometimes he instead chooses to fuck around for no reason.   We could be here all night.  While English actor Warwick Davis is usually likeable, everything he does and says here grows more painfully annoying and less funny as the movie goes on, though you would think otherwise by how much he incessantly cackles after his every utterance.  It is not like people who even dig any of the Leprechauns would argue any of these points so who is there to convincing really?

THE ADDICTION
(1995)
Dir - Abel Ferrara
Overal: MEH

Overtly pretentious and only partially successful because of it, Abel Ferrara's The Addiction is another contemporary vampire allegory that as one could guess by the title, likens the fictitious undead affliction to severe drug dependence.  The pairing of the two concepts is not anything new and it is a bit on the nose here, but Ferrara still displays a level of control over his multitude of themes which also includes Catholic guilt and a whole lot of philosophical jargon.  The latter element is the one that becomes too much too fast.  Lili Taylor is rather good in the lead going from victim, to blood-sucking junky, to remorseful addict, but she does not have a single line of dialog that is readily decipherable.  By speaking solely in abstract and pompous declarations, the movie overplays its hand at being a bit too arty to really connect with its serious subject matter.  Christopher Walken ends up stealing the movie with his cameo and though his dialog is not really any less grandiose, his very Christopher Walkeny demeanor and delivery sells it better through sheer oddness and intensity.  The Addiction is a unique entry in vampire cinema to be fair, but it could probably come back down to earth a little more and maybe take advantage of its dingy, Manhattan setting in place of quoting Nietzsche and Sartre ad nauseam.

WISHMASTER
(1997)
Dir - Robert Kurtzman
Overall: MEH

Dozens upon dozens of stupid, ultra-violent, post-Nightmare on Elm Street schlocky-horror movies were unleashed primarily in the 1980s, but many other franchises still birthed as late as 1997.  Which brings us to the first of four Wishmasters.  Any of these movies as well as pick-your-favorite where a wisecracking villain keeps coming back and the scripts keep getting recycled with the target audience rarely complaining are just as dumb as the next and this one does not disappoint in its silliness.  Wes Craven threw his name on it which does not come off as random since special effects man turned director Robert Kurtzman is essentially just enhancing the same beats that Craven's directorial efforts indulge in.  The plot is dangerously full of holes, no performance comes within several hundred miles of subtle, the digital effects are utterly deplorable though the practical ones are splendid, and it is all gory, loud, and in on its own joke.  Shameless horror geek service is offered up in that practically everyone on screen is known from a previous, cherished B-movie or several in the genre.  In the lead villain role, Venezuelan-Russian actor Andrew Divoff savors his scenery like a true cornball boss.  In all honesty, this is just a big pile of fun garbage and rather hard to hate.

90's American Horror Part Fourteen

FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND
(1990)
Dir - Roger Corman
Overall: MEH

Returning from a near twenty year hiatus from at least officially directing films, Roger Corman was coaxed into making what would eventually end up being the adaptation of Brian Aldiss' novel of the same name Frankenstein Unbound.  Some of Corman's famed trademarks are present, particularly random and honestly unnecessary be they stylized dream sequences that are straight out of his Edgar Alan Poe/Vincent Price collaborations from the 60s.  It is also horrendously schlocky at times, falling perfectly in line with the type of B-movie camp that Corman was known for producing, let alone directing himself.  Some of this works to the film's benefit such as comical moments of gore, but, (very), ham-fisted dialog, hokey performances, and the logistical fact that the story itself is rather bull-dozed through to fit it into a compact eight-five minutes makes it a messy affair.  The themes of two men from two different eras toying with nature and the chaotic side effects of such meddling are bypassed quite a bit to make way for more and more laughable line-readings.  By the end of the movie, every character is speaking exclusively in cornball cliches, nearing the point of ruination.  Some of the set design is less convincing than others, but the technical aspects are generally better than would be expected, with Nick Brimble's pretty sub-par Monster at least having a unique creature design.  Michael Hutchence is also in it for about fifteen seconds so there is that.

PHANTASM III: LORD OF THE DEAD
(1994)
Dir - Don Coscarelli
Overall: WOOF

Three entries in and Phantasm is still the reigning champion of illogical storytelling in arguably the most frustratingly moronic horror franchise of all time, (which is saying all the somethings).  This time, a woman on foot ends up untold miles ahead of a car that left before she did, a kid is left out to sleep in that car while all of the whatever monsters are after them so a perpetually horny main character in a race against time can get laid, and there is still absolutely no rhyme or reason to anything the Tall Man is doing or can do.  He teleports to get someone to go with him yet still has to drive around a hearse to move dead bodies who come alive as zombies immediately anyway and his master plan this time seems to be capturing the horrible kid from the first movie who still cannot act so that he can drill one of those spheres in his head.  Which he has in his head too.  Also so does a character that died in the first movie.  Tall Man still captures, recaptures, and chases random characters while standing still or ignoring others that he has already captured or just chases later.  There is even a new obnoxious penis kid this time, Satan help us.  It is truly amazing how the more Don Coscarelli tries to flesh out this asinine universe, the more convoluted it gets.  Worse yet, the comic relief is jacked up the farthest yet while still trying to be strange, dark, and nightmarish, making Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead even more tonally askew than the previous two entries.  Just as the Tall Man says, it truly never ends.

THE NIGHT FLIER
(1997)
Dir - Mark Pavia
Overall: MEH

Falling somewhere in the lukewarm category of Stephen King adaptations, The Night Flier was based off of the author's short story of the same name that was initially published in the Prime Evil anthology collection, eventually finding its way in King's own Nightmares & Dreamscapes.  Done on a low budget and only having a limited theatrical release after debuting in the US on HBO, it has many B-movie hallmarks such as borderline cheap sets, unknown, subpar actors, and a kind of late night TV movie atmosphere.  None of these things really get in the way of the curious story which follows a tabloid reporter, (King's trusty author stand-in), and a tweak on the vampire mythos by having one that flies around in a black Cessna 336 Skymaster filled with his native soil.  Making the protagonist as unlikable as possible is a bit of a bold move, but having Twin Peaks' own Miguel Ferrer play him is a wise one as the actor can convincingly convey the asshole about as good as anyone.  The script follows a pretty linear path and only really gets into surreal territory near the end which is only slightly flawed by how somewhat out of place it feels thematically.  Even though it is also the creepiest set piece overall.  It is a shame that the dialog is mostly poor with too many characters repeating one-liners to themselves on the regular.  It is certainly not a bad piece of work, but a bit faulty all the same.