2017 Horror Part Twelve

SUPER DARK TIMES

Dir - Kevin Phillips

Overall: MEH

 

The full-length debut from director Kevin Phillips, Super Dark Times sets up some intriguing ideas with a disturbed scenario before unraveling wildly in a finale that comes off as more awkwardly arbitrary than satisfying.  That may have been intended though as Phillips teases that a sinister aura is hovering over the film's setting, even opening things with a never explained, mortally-wounded animal found inside of a school.  This heavy atmosphere of, (possibly spontaneous), dread runs throughout, which makes it a gripping experience until it is revealed that screenwriters Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski, (who have continued to have a career penning screenplays exclusively in the horror genre), have nowhere substantial to go with their story.  It could all be saying something about how traumatic experiences cast a permeating cloud of unease over us that certain people are likely to violently spiral out of.  Yet instead of having that unfold naturally while focused on characters who are believably struggling with a profound loss of innocence over an extended period of time, the movie goes for a shocking finale that warrants a would-be false sense of paranoia.  Some audiences may be intrigued by such an outcome while others may be scratching their head in disapproval, but the sloppy conclusion seems unwarranted and its final, uplifting tag undeserved.

 

NOVEMBER

Dir - Rainer Sarnet

Overall: GOOD

A highly evocative and occasionally funny fantasy art film, November, (Rehepapp), sees Estonian writer/director Rainer Sarnet delivering a singular genre work full of grime, spells, spirits, romance, and all things otherworldly.  An adaptation of Andrus Kivirähk's novel of the same name, the story is set sometime in the 19th century where the people in a desperately impoverished village community scheme to survive the impending winter, stealing from each other while trying to trick both the plague and the devil by various means.  In this universe, the supernatural is completely commonplace where kratt servants are made from snow and household items, witches perform magic as a dutiful courtesy, the dead sit and visit with their loved ones, disease is personified as a beautiful woman, then a goat, a wild boar, and one of the lead characters can turn herself into a wolf.  A tragic love story first and foremost, the mystical, folklore elements are so prevalent that the entire thing has a highly surreal vibe, emphasized by its haunting soundtrack and excellent, black and white cinematography from Mart Taniel.  While it is certainly gritty and never portrays its fantastical landscape romantically, the film is persistently spell-binding to look at and many humorous, sometimes even off-color moments are dashed about which make all of the inherent strangeness go down with an odd chuckle or two.

 

SATAN'S SLAVES

Dir - Joko Anwar

Overall: MEH

The first horror remake as part of Rapi Films resurgence with the genre was Joko Anwar's take on Satan's Slaves, (Pengabdi Setan).  Loosely connected to the original 1980 movie and serving as a soft redo/prequel, it is a mostly formulaic, slow burn affair.  While the mood setting is expertly handled with minimal comedic beats, (treating every time that night falls as an anxiety-fest for the audience to witness some spooky stuff), unfortunately said horror-tinged set pieces are almost entirely made up of predictable, loud jump scares.  Even during the more drawn-out bits, the soundtrack department never once resists the urge to bust out the screechy noises and conventional scary music to redundantly slam home the point and ruin the otherwise naturalistic and intensely creepy atmosphere.  Even with this contemporary, stylistic detriment in tow, the actual story is quite silly when one sits back to contemplate it.  Elements such as arbitrary ghost activity and a massage-loving occult expert telling people to read his magazine articles instead of just properly explaining things to them are impossible to take seriously, despite what the eerie and ominous tone otherwise dictates.   Rapi's next re-imagining of one of their beloved, 1980s exploitation film's in 2019's The Queen of Black Magic is far superior, (as is said film that it is based on), but this one almost impresses with its dedication to giving you goosebumps.

2017 Horror Part Eleven

BEAST

Dir - Michael Pearce

Overall: GOOD

An excellent full-length debut from filmmaker Michael Pearce, Beast offers up challenging ideas involving the deep-seeded need for troubled people to find unconditional acceptance and love amongst those who have similarly succumbed to less than admirable, impassioned outbursts.  Led primarily by Jessie Buckley and Johnny Flynn, both deliver multi-layered performances that showcase a perpetual, internal struggle to come to terms with their own tendencies towards impulsive rage and overall recklessness, finding each other in an environment that puts them at odds with nearly everyone else besides each other.  Buckley's character's tendency towards violent fantasy provides the movie with its only psychologically nightmarish moments, but even those are presented in the most realistic of manners.  This fits with the general agenda to stay grounded in unflinching, emotional vulnerability and Pearce creates a series of moments where the very dirt and grime of the earth covers the people on screen.  As far as setting the appropriate, somber mood, Benjamin Kračun's cinematography and Jim Williams score goes a long way as well.

 

DAVE MADE A MAZE

Dir - Bill Waterson

Overall: MEH

 

A purposely absurdist, hipster friendly fantasy film, Dave Made a Maze takes a ridiculous premise to mostly inventive places while meandering a bit along the way.  The debut from Ohio-born writer/director Bill Waterson, (who co-authored the film with Steven Sears, also a relative newcomer), the story generates some automatic laughs when the preposterous situation is first established.  As things prod along and our series of quirky characters react in mostly nonchalant ways to what is happening, the plotting goes in circles that rather appropriately mirror the on screen plight.  As the title would suggest, everyone gets lost in a maze that has no business actually existing in the real world, (or in this case, isolated to a single living room of an apartment), and about half of the dialog is people stopping to say "We need to get out of here", and then the inevitable wacky surprise to keep things moving interrupts them until the next time such a series of events is repeated.  This monotony is a shame since the movie is full of clever, mildly to adequately amusing ideas and it also has a relatable, not too heavy theme of accomplishing something in lieu of lingering in slacker meaninglessness, though this is hardly explored in much depth.  Probably silly enough in an idiosyncratic way to please those looking for something unique to sit through, but it also misses the mark in a handful of ways.

MUSE

Dir - Jaume Balagueró 

Overall: GOOD

A return to by-the-books supernatural horror for filmmaker Jaume Balagueró, Muse, (Musa), is a highly formulaic one that mostly gets by due to the complex and intriguing nature of its source material.  José Carlos Somoza's novel The Lady Number Thirteen offers up an interesting variation of occult witchery which for genre fans will likely remind them of Dario Argento's Three Mothers, here expanded to seven immortal women who each go by the moniker "She who...".  In addition to this, the use of poetic expression itself holds a sort of open ended power where many legendary works by several authors over the centuries have been guided by their wicked influence and when recited, can raise people from the dead.  There is much to unpack with a multitude of rules at play, some of which are only vaguely alluded to instead of properly divulged for the audience.  In any event, Balagueró generic, muted-color pallet presentation which uses a persistent musical score unfortunately creates a mildly campy tone that makes some of the plot points seem more contrived and goofy than they deserve.  There is plenty of heavy, emotional weight to the proceedings though with characters struggling with their own promises of undying love and deep seeded grief, plus for the most part, the movie keeps these elements in proper check.

2017 Horror Part Ten

IT

Dir - Andy Muschietti

Overall: MEH

Several years in development to somewhat redeem the rather flawed 1990 miniseries, the first inevitable remake of Stephen King's It plays all of its cards as safety as possible with predictably derivative results.  Argentine-born Andy Muschietti was the last in a handful of directors to land the gig, but this has all of the feel of a major budgeted, big studio production as opposed to a filmmaker's vision because the former is exactly what it is.  A criminal amount of jump scares are utilized that emerge literally every single time that the incessant music shuts up for a second or two, plus all would-be frightening set pieces are made ridiculous by atrocious CGI and hackey sound design.  So stylistically, this is pure, relentless popcorn schlock that renders the entire production laughable instead of even remotely scary.  The script, (which likewise numerous screenwriters took a stab at), updates King's source material understandably enough and wisely omits that whole underage orgy plot point, but even at over two hours in length, the film feels rushed in trying to establish its array of characters and the family dysfunction that motivates their bonding experience.  Because both the novel and the Tim Curry-led miniseries are seeped in popular culture at this point, this adaptation gets by on the familiarity of its bullet points as opposed to deeply exploring or enhancing them.  Speaking of Curry, at least Bill Skarsgård does not make a bad Pennywise for his select few moments on screen where he is not reduced to a pointy-mouthed cartoon.  Plus Finn Wolfhard steels the show as the wise-cracking Richie Tozier, the only character thankfully allowed to not take such nonsense seriously.

HOUSEWIFE

Dir - Can Evrenol

Overall: GOOD

Once again basking in the Satanic, Euro-horror sleaze of yesteryear like a gleeful kid in a candy store, Turkish filmmaker Can Evrenol delivers another nightmare logic bit of absurdity with Housewife, his English-speaking follow-up to 2015's equally grotesque and bananas Baskin.  Perhaps the best aspect of Evrenol's growing aesthetic is that he manages to create spiritual homages to the work of Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, Paul Nashcy, and any other European cult movie trailblazer from the 1970s without stylistically copycatting old school cinematic tactics.  Instead, his vision is his own and something wholly seeped in the contemporary, even if this sometimes means that hacky dialog and annoying jump scares rear their ugly head to appease the James Wan fan who may come across his stuff.  The old school nods are unmistakable for those who share Evrenol's exploitation tastes but of course, this would be merely a derivative throwback for the sake of it if he did not up the ante with some gasp-worthy moves of his own.  Exploring repressed, childhood trauma and the fear of motherhood in a delightfully ridiculous manner that pulls out all of the occult stops in an off-the-rails finale, the story here will probably never hold up under a microscope, but if one is down for the hellish ride, you cannot help but applaud its absurdity.

THE BABYSITTER

Dir - McG

Overall: MEH

Far too in on its own self referential, meta joke, The Babysitter is another horror comedy that tries way too hard to be clever while making fun of genre tropes left and right.  Brian Duffield's script was picked up from 2014's Black List by director McG who had previous done those stupid Charlie's Angels movies and Terminator: Salvation, oye.  Going in blind which is essential for something like this, there sure is one hellova rug pull that happens in the second act, but everything surrounding that rug pull is a combination of idiotic and obnoxious character traits for everyone on screen, plus plot points that are nowhere near funny enough to justify how nonsensical they are.  Samantha Weaving's title character and Judah Lewis' "afraid of everything who of course is going to overcome all of his set-up fears by film's end" protagonist assuredly make the most unrealistic babysitter/babysittee duo in the history of recorded fiction.  Having adorable science-fiction nerd-out conversations, sharing in-jokes, reciting lines to old movies, and, (most nauseating of all), actually performing a choreographed dance with each other, it is all enough to bail on the movie before it even gets going.  Once it does, the blood-drenched, foul-mouthed gags solely rely on everyone behaving in a preposterous manner, but the movie goes for heart-warming, coming-of-age cuteness at the same time which makes for a misguided, annoying tone that never formulates itself successfully.  By the time "We Are the Champions" plays while Lewis inexplicably drives a retro car into his own house, flips over several times, and walks away without a scratch, it is also about time to ask for your eight-five minutes back.

2018 Horror Part Fourteen

THE POOL

Dir - Ping Lumpraploeng

Overall: WOOF

 

Pushing Hitchcockian, minor-detail suspense into ridiculous, miserable, nail-biting annoyance, Thai filmmaker Ping Lumpraploeng's The Pool is an unintentionally silly bit of survival horror.  The first and most glaringly obvious faux pas on Lumpraploeng's part is opening the film six days after the rest of the main story takes place, with a scene that replays later in the movie anyway.  By doing so, the next ninety-minutes of our lone, functional character trying to escape are rendered completely tension-less as we know good and well that he remains in his predicament until the flashback catches up to the beginning.  Granted, it is a movie and one would assume that every time that the people on screen are mere centimeters and milliseconds away from freedom, such a thing would of course result in more torment, yet thus lies the fundamental problem with such a premise.  It would work far better as a short than as a full-length movie and with various elements veering into torture porn, neglected common sense to drag out the running time, far-fetched plot points, killing the dog, Thai swimming pools apparently not believing in built-in ladders, and one of the worst CGI animals in recent memory, yeah, just forget this one.

 

THE TOKOLOSHE

Dir - Jerome Pikwane

Overall: MEH

An incoherent cliche fest and the debut from director/co-writer Jerome Pikwane, The Tokoloshe is a South African boogeyman story and a messy one at that.  The biggest problem is the editing which seems to bypass necessary scenes and makes every character on screen underwritten to a fault.  It has the look and feel of a straight-to-video 90s horror film, with lame, loud, manipulative music playing through every scene and busy camera work capturing laughably grimey scenery and awful, (though thankfully only occasional), CGI in an attempt to be creepy.  The performances are on the straight and narrow and there is some semblance of heavy subject matter involving child abuse, (subject matter which is poorly conveyed in such a choppy form), but it comes off like a bombastic schlock-fest, just minus the schlock.  When the audience is never clear on what the actual folkloric menace is supposed to be or why it is doing what it is doing, on top of unintelligible plotting driving the whole thing to an anti-climax that leaves a frustrating amount of questions dangling in the air, there are sadly no chills to be had, as well as a feeling that there may be a better, actually intelligible movie hiding in here somewhere.

 

ANNA AND THE APOCALYPSE

Dir - John McPhail

Overall: MEH

 

A full-length reworking of Ryan McHenry's short Zombie Musical, Anna and the Apocalypse has its heart in the right place but fails to achieve the type of quirky uniqueness of the films that is is deliberately tailored after.  Clear nods to High School Musical, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Shaun of the Dead, and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Once More with Feeling", to name but a few all co-mingle in a standard manner that is not likely to turn any viewer's heads in amazement.  Tonally it is a bit all over the place, but the characters are likeable, (save for an obnoxious principal whose eccentric douchebaggery is never explained), and several of the inevitable death-by-zombie-bite moments are touching due to the solid performances.  Being a burst into song musical, said songs are obviously important and Robby Hart and Tommy Reily give all of the numbers a contemporary pop sheen that is equal parts cringy and loaded with hooks.  The movie ultimately makes the same mistakes that most modern comedies do in that it exchanges cleverness for jokes and there is nothing here that is laugh out loud funny, yet some of its coming-of-age, rated-R spoofiness and violence is at least worth an adorable chuckle or two.

2018 Horror Part Thirteen

DON'T LEAVE HOME

Dir - Michael Tully

Overall: MEH

 

The first horror venture for independent filmmaker Michael Tully, Don't Leave Home is heavy on subdued atmosphere though this is somewhat at the expense of a properly fleshed-out narrative.  While hooded supernatural figures, nightmares within nightmares, a lead protagonist who keeps the weird things that she keeps seeing to herself, and some comically creepy behavior from old people fulfill the standard horror movie prerequisites, the story itself is quite unique as it involves a former priest with a sort of undisclosed supernatural curse/gift that somehow through the years has led him into the hands of a clandestine group of weirdos that auction off his paintings.  This only scratches the surface of course, but Tully and co-screenwriter Francis Uzoma seem to hit a wall in the third act that lets the remainder of the film meander in its ethereal mood, only to wrap-up in a vague manner that may frustrate more viewers than not.  The whole thing is a bit too nebulous to have any sort of emotional point, despite a solid performance from Lalor Roddy whose guilt seems to have long been taxing on his psyche for quite awhile by the time that we meet him.

 

THE NIGHT EATS THE WORLD

Dir - Dominique Rocher

Overall: GOOD

In order for a zombie film to have any sort of singular relevance nowadays, (post the boom where every country was delivering their own derivative take in the genre, one after the other), it must offer up something more than a ragtag group of survivors arguing amongst each other while they struggle to put a bullet in the head of their loved ones.  Thankfully in this regard, director Dominique Rocher's adaptation of Pit Agarman's novel La nuit a dévoré le monde, (The Night Eats the World), does an adequate job of justifying its existence, taking almost all of the action, gore, and societal critique out of such movies with a totally intimate look at but one person's pragmatic method of being the only one presumably left who does not want to bite other humans to death.  Anders Danielsen Lie spends nearly the entire movie on his lonesome, yet such solitude takes a psychological strain that allows him to justify keeping an infected person almost as a pet, thinking out loud to him from behind a locked elevator shaft.  The story empathizes the monotony of survival as Lie begins his endeavor rather level-headed, (gathering up supplies and fortifying his city apartment complex), only succumbing to the isolation after an undisclosed amount of time.  There are few surprises to be found here, but spending the entire movie as a mere fly on the wall to the emotional devastation of total seclusion is a refreshing take and one that would be repeated to an extent in the 2020 South Korean film Alive.

 

DRAUG

Dir - Klas Persson/Karin Engman

Overall: MEH

 

The debut from Swedish writer/director team Klas Persson and Karin Engman Draug goes for a grimy and literally dark aesthetic to its pagan tale of supernatural vengeance.  Sadly though, it is a frustrating view for this very reason.  Save for a couple of lackluster digital effects sequences and some beautiful drone footage of the desolate Hälsingland forests, the camera work is almost exclusively hand-held which coupled with the copious amounts of weathered dirt and blood on the crop of warrior characters, makes for an intimate and stark presentation.  All of this sounds great on paper, yet the editing is annoyingly spastic and the color pallet brings out the barely decipherable tones of rock, mud, water, timber, and foliage which makes the whole thing more of an ugly mess where the viewer regularly cannot get their proper footing as to what they are even looking at.  While Persson's musical score is evocative, it also plays through far too much of the movie, clashing with the more naturalistic atmosphere that the visuals are trying to convey.  Further problems arise as far as the hacky horror elements are concerned, with screechy jump scares, slow zooms, inconsistently persistent ghosts, and a scene where a gross old lady trips balls and screams cryptic nonsense at the camera.  It certainly does not treat the miserable period setting with any glamor, but the simplistic story alone cannot carry what is essentially a B-movie drenched in grit.

2018 Horror Part Twelve

THE FIELD GUIDE TO EVIL

Dir - Ashim Ahluwalia/Can Evrenol/Severin Fiala/Veronika Franz/Katrin Gebbe/Calvin Reeder/Agnieszka Smoczyńska/Peter Strickland/Yannis Veslemes

Overall: MEH

Uneven yet admirable for its culturally rich aesthetics, The Field Guide to Evil is an ambitious folk horror anthology from the Legion M production company that brings together filmmakers from eight different countries, each contributing their own entry.  Opening with three acceptable ones from Austria's Veronika Franze and Severin Fiala, Turkey's Can Evrenol, and Poland's Aginieszka Smoczyńska, the forth from American Calvin Reeder is easily the weakest out of the whole and seems distractedly amatuerish compared to everything else presented.  Yannis Veslemes' "Whatever Happened to Panagas the Pagan" and Peter Strickland's "Cobbler's Lot" are the most fairy tale-esque, with the latter taking a highly stylized, quasi-silent film approach to its material.  Katrin Gebbe's "A Nocturnal Breath" blends in a bit too much with some of the others to make a satisfying impression, though Ashim Ahluwalia's "The Palace of Horrors" takes a Lovecraftian cue and is the most effectively creepy out of the bunch.  Still, each story presented here could probably benefit from a more full-length approach as the folkloric details are quite intriguing yet often times barely touched upon, resulting in some rushed endings along the way. 

WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE

Dir - Stacie Passon

Overall: MEH

The first cinematic adaptation of Shirley Jackson's final novel We Have Always Lived in the Castle is muddled with bizarre characterizations that make any kind of coherent through-line difficult to decipher.  When each central character seems to be afflicted with eccentric mannerisms to say the least, yet the story is not presented in a fantastical manner, the audience is left with a conundrum to get their proper footing.  As her sophomore, full-length effort behind the lens, Stacie Passon never quite establishes the type of story that she is telling which is primarily a problem for those unfamiliar with Jackson's source material.  The only mystery seems to be why the highly aloof Blackwood family behaves the way that they do with the youngest member casting makeshift spells in a constant state of paranoia, the elder sister cheerily smiling and making light of every situation that transpires, and the handicapped uncle talking over people in an alzheimers daze.  Sebastian Stan showing up only complicates things more as he is either equally as crazy while annoyed yet also manipulative as to what is going on or he could actually be the lone voice of reason in all of this.  By the film's conclusion, it just seems to be one frustrating showcase for mental illness in a period setting with romantic music playing throughout the whole thing.  Whether or not that is a good or bad thing depends on if the viewer can find something, (anything), to latch onto.

 

BORDER

Dir - Ali Abbasi

Overall: GOOD

Iranian-born filmmaker Ali Abbasi and Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist join forces on Border, (Gräns); an adaptation of the latter's short story of the same name which originally appeared in his anthology collection Let the Old Dreams Die.  The film can obviously be seen as a metaphor for the loss of one's culture and the upheaval suffered by orphans, (since as the title would suggest), it deals with the personal and emotional "border" between humans and creatures of Nordic folklore, whose mythology is fascinatingly tweaked in a real world, modern day setting.  Struggling with the traumatic reveal of her true heritage, Eva Melander's biologically artificial humanity is called into question by Eero Milonoff who represents a type of retaliation against the gross mistreatment and obliteration of their species, (i.e race).  Both Melander and Milonoff turn in very impressive performances under largely unrecognizable, heavy prosthetic makeup which is startling to behold, purposely challenging the audience to project their own sympathy towards their plight.  Sticking to a similarly tranquil yet grounded tone as he also did on his debut Shelley, Abbassi presents a number of shocking, even grotesque images yet he does so in a tender, beautiful way that is centered on a heartfelt romance no less.  It is all richly complex in this manner and a thoroughly unique genre experience, treated with a type of sincerity that is wholly appreciated.

2018 Horror Part Eleven

THE HATRED

Dir - John Adams

Overall: MEH

 

An ultra moody period piece set relatively soon after the American Civil War, The Hatred is another modest genre movie from independent filmmaker John Adams.  Clocking in at just under an hour and starring his daughter and occasional collaborator Zelda, Adams handles the writing and directing solo here and exceeds at one of them while failing miserably at the other.  On the plus side, this is extraordinarily photographed with the rural, rugged, cold, outdoor landscape captured in a picturesque manner in every last shot.  A handful of dreamlike moments are just as gorgeous, combining with the mostly naturalistic scenery to create an eerie, bleak atmosphere where supernatural revenge runs rampant.  Sadly, Adam's dialog is absolutely atrocious though, with all of the lines, (particularly those monologued by Zelda's emotionless orphan), coming off as cliche-ridden, vapid nonsense that can only exists on the pages of pretentious, faux-poetic screenplays which completely do not resemble the way that human beings ever naturally talk.  Such was most likely the point to enhance the abnormal narrative, but it comes off much more like the desperate scribblings of a social outcast Goth kid instead of the ethereal Western profoundness that it was likely intended to be.

 

THE WOLF HOUSE

Dir - Cristóbal León/Joaquín Cociña

Overall: GOOD

To date the only feature-length film from stop-motion animators Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña, The Wolf House, (La casa lobo), is an unsettling part fairy tale/part faux-cautionary propaganda film.  Shot over the course of five years and based in part on the infamous, fanatically religious, isolated German Colonia Dignidad cult in Chile which operated for decades, it tells the story of Maria; a young woman who flees the sect and ends up living for an undisclosed amount of time in a strange house with two pigs and the narration of a wolf to keep her company.  From there, things follow a type of surreal non-logic where Maria's thoughts and imaginations come manifest by the house itself, morphing into a strange co-existence with her animal-turned-human children roommates.  The animation style of León and Cociña is persistently fluid; not a single shot is stagnant as both the background and foreground are continually morphing into ever changing images and textures that run the gamut from merely grotesque to bizarro-world disturbing.  Even if it had no narrative or sound design, the movie would still be a visual feast of strangeness and a technical triumph.  As is though, it makes for a memorable and singular quasi-nightmare.

IT COMES

Dir - Tetsuya Nakashima

Overall: MEH

Japanese filmmaker Tetsuya Nakashima's first foray into supernatural horror It Comes, (Kuru), is a mostly bloated and messy adaptation of Ichi Sawamura's novel Bogiwan Ga, Kuru.  Forgoing subtlety and spooky atmosphere for ADD-ridden editing, continuous music that is tonally all over the place, and a new protagonist shift every thirty minutes, it certainly feels its running time while playing out more like an over two hour movie trailer than a proper, immersive cinematic experience.  The style is mostly what undoes it and though Nakashima utilized a similar one for his excellent, 2010 psychological thriller Confessions, it makes for a difficult to follow/difficult to take seriously experience here with a story concerning mystical powers and kid-hungry demons.  Usually for an otherworldly story such as this to work, some semblance of rules need to be established let alone maintained, but everything here is bulldozed through with underwritten character and half-baked ideas that culminate in a cartoony CGI-fest finale that is about as frightening as Bob Hoskin's musical number in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.  Since we never get our footing even for a second, the stakes are only vaguely presented and this lack of patience makes the film a big, loud, and boring slog when it is actually presenting itself as just being big and loud.

2018 Horror Part Ten

DACHRA

Dir - Abdelhamid Bouchnak

Overall: GOOD

 

A rare horror film out of Tunisia, Dachra serves as the feature-length debut from writer/director Abdelhamid Bouchnak and it is an effective, (and relentlessly), unsettling one at that.  Many of the narrative motifs here have been bedrocks in the genre for some time; the secret, psychotic lady in a lunatic asylum who refuses to speak, the eager/doomed college students playing detective, the priest, (or in this case imam), to the rescue, an extremely creepy kid, psych-out nightmare/hallucinations, figures in black robes standing around at night, an isolated community where everyone is weird, getting stranded with no cell phone service after a series of "friendly" people lead characters to spend the night in a less than ideal location, etc.  On paper, these might be enough egregious cliches to sink the ship, but Bouchnak's commitment to an incredibly dreadful and sombre tone goes a long way, plus the lead, emotionally demanding performance by Yasmine Dimassi is excellent.  She and her cohorts endless bickering does get a bit annoying after awhile, but it simultaneously comes off as natural, providing the movie with its only source of humor, be it minimally.  The film also pulls of the nifty trick of going a foreseeable route as far as things escalating from concerning to extremely bad, yet still with a few surprises regarding the plot specifics that leave things off in an uncompromisingly frightening place.

 

BUTTERFLY KISSES

Dir - Erik Kristopher Myers

Overall: MEH

 

An ambitious, meta take on the found footage sub-genre, Eric Kristopher Myers' first horror film Butterfly Kisses takes a noble attempt at cracking the code, yet it ultimately stumbles down the stairs in the process.  The concept is simple and convoluted at the same time; an unknown would-be-hot-shot independent filmmaker "discovers" a box of footage in his in-laws basement, footage that just so happens to be from another aspiring filmmaker from a decade and a half earlier.  Yet another filmmaking crew then begins to film him assembling and trying to get verifiable cred for his discovery, turning the whole thing into an essay on how far someone is willing to go to receive legitimacy amongst their peers.  The problem is in the melding of spooky, faux-urban legend concepts ala The Blair Witch Project, (plus countless others), with the struggling frustration of a rather unlikable protagonist who is persistently thwarted in his attempts to try and get both paranormal experts, other mockumentarians, and the general public to take his work seriously.  Myer's supernatural fable may not be the most unique out there, but it is far more interesting for the average horror enthusiast than all of the behind the scenes/on screen drama that gradually overtakes the proceedings.  In its documentary within a documentary within a documentary format, (where the scary bits are ideally placed for maximum popcorn munching value), it just comes off as being silly.

TAU

Dir - Federico D'Alessandro

Overall: MEH

Art director Federico D'Alessandro's full-length debut that sits him properly behind the lens is the mildly entertaining though ultimately hokey A.I. thriller Tau.  The film's problems pretty much all come down to the script by Noga Landau which gets a jogging start with some bog-standard ideas in the first place and then messily runs through a number of convenient, poorly established plot points to get to the finish line.  Certain rules are established concerning the Gary Oldman-voiced, sentient title-computer, but such rules are routinely broken in an attempt to humanize him and bring forth a connection between he/it and Maika Monroe's down on her luck thief who is held captive by Ed Skrein's heavily underwritten, one-note villain.  The interaction between Monroe and Oldman is at times touching and provides the movie with its humane core, but the loosey-goosey chain of events that brings them together breaks verisimilitude and will have audience members chuckling while having a difficult time buying into everything.  Not surprisingly coming from D'Alessandro and his major budgeted, CGI-heavy resume, the movie is visually pristine and creates a solid, near-futuristic, high-tech atmosphere.  Still, there is very little if anything unique being brought to the table here and though it steers shy of being insultingly derivative, it only ends up being a pretty yet forgettable/mildly suspense-laden techno-yarn.

2018 Horror Part Nine

THE DARK

Dir - Justin P. Lange

Overall: GOOD

 

A promising, somber, yet oddly uplifting debut from filmmaker Justin P. Lange, The Dark transcends its almost problematically generic title.  In large parts, what actually lies in the movie itself is refreshing genre-bypassing.  There is no conventional, incidental music and when any musical motifs do arrive, they are not only very few and far between, yet also provide a fitting, narrative role.  Lange's script is at once simple yet arguably overly-stuffed as certain side arcs are deliberately glossed over while simultaneously being too disturbing to warrant such negligence.  Still, the most important element is the core, simple theme of overcoming extreme trauma after it has effectively monsterized you.  This gives the movie a potent, emotional core and the serious tone is kept entirely in check throughout.  Lange finds little to no use with nonsense like jump scares or exaggerated, muted color pallets, though there is still a fair amount of grime and nastiness.  Again though, the end result is less bombastic and more introspective as is appropriate for the material.  The fact that it surprisingly ends up not being a completely dour experience is novel in its own right as well.

 

IN FABRIC

Dir - Peter Strickland

Overall: MEH

 

British filmmaker Peter Strickland delivers another utterly perplexing genre workout with In Fabric, a movie whose humor stems from the increasingly ridiculous presentation that goes nowhere.  Strickland seems to delight in such eccentricities where every last scene dares instead of challenges the viewer; challenges them not only to make heads or tails out of the peculiar goings on, (which is utterly futile), but also to simply come to terms with their own visceral reaction to what is on screen.  In the most bare bones sense, there is some sort of hypnotic, supernatural tomfoolery afoot regarding a particular red wrap dress and a department store made up of funny-accented foreigners who speak in unintelligible riddles, cast synchronized beckoning spells on their patrons, and masturbate to a menstruating mannequin.  Long story.  As visually intoxicating as it is, the demented pretentiousness is only tolerable to the most forgiving of viewers.  In this regard it is a popcorn movie for arthouse cinephiles; something with zero substance and instead just a never-ending stream of flashy, preposterous nonsense that leaves nothing beneath its surface to uncover.

THE PERFECTION

Dir - Richard Shepard

Overall: MEH

Flashy both in its twisty plot and backtracking structure, Richard Shepard's The Perfection ultimately bites off more than it can stomach.  Following up her memorable turn as a manipulative psycho in Get Out, Allison Williams is once again, well, a manipulative psycho here.  Yet the script by Shepard, Eric Charmelo, and Nicole Snyder has a lot of fun flipping everything around more than several times to the point where the movie becomes overblown and a bit ridiculous.  Several details are present that are not for the squeamish and when the story reveals its truly unwholesome nature, it comes off as more cartoonishly vile than properly disturbing.  It is not so much that the movie botches its tone; it is more that it asks a bit too much of the viewer to take it as seriously as the subject matter may or may not deserve.  For those that can appreciate the "WTF" revelations and the somewhat quirky presentation while taking them merely at face value, the film may be a bizarre enough ride to endure.  For others that are easily insulted by any sort of about-face that veers into schlock territory though, this may prove a frustrating experience.

2019 Horror Part Sixteen

BLOOD QUANTUM

Dir - Jeff Barnaby

Overall: MEH

Unfortunately, what ended up being the final feature from Mi'kmaq filmmaker Jeff Barnaby Blood Quantum hinges its Indigenous metaphor via a zombie outbreak concept on schlocky, macho-aggression and characters that range from dour to unnecessarily unlikable.  The movie was shot at both Kahnawake and Listuguj reserves in Quebec, Canada and features an almost entirely Indigenous cast with a subject matter that tries desperately to squeeze some relevance out of the horrendously over-saturated zombie genre.  Here, the historical context of European settlers wiping out large portions of Native people from centuries past being parallel to a corpse-raising plague that said contemporary Natives are immune to is both a weighty and interesting one, but the cliche pandering is still front and center.  Though the perpetual rage and desperation of everyone on screen is understandable in such a context, the narrative grows increasingly muddled with their unnatural dialog and pointlessly idiotic behavior.  It all creates a miserable, confused tone to say the least, one that is gritty and stylized yet punctuated by unintentional absurdity and potent, sociopolitical themes that are in messy contrast with each other.

DIABLO ROJO PTY

Dir - Sol Charlotte/J. Oskura Nájera

Overall: MEH

A colorful, quasi, Euro-horror throwback from writer/director team Sol Charlotte and J. Oskura Nájera, Diablo Rojo PTY seems to be a purposely messy affair that basks in some of the more campy, gore-ridden genre tropes of yesteryear.  Focusing on a Panama buss driver who veers off into a logic defying nightmare world on one particularly unfortunate evening, the movie has various elements of Lucio Fulci's Hell Trilogy and Zombi, along with Italian cannibal films and some of the more contemporary comedic horror elements of Álex de la Iglesia's The Day of the Beast.  While much of it sounds delightful on paper and does provide a few gory chuckles on screen, the story has half-baked character moments and does a weak job of establishing the supernatural rules at play.  Granted, this is probably on purpose to lock it into the old school philosophy of just having a bunch of wacky, weird, and violent things happen with narrative cohesion being an afterthought at best.  Fair enough, but it seems aggressively backwards thinking in this regard and other elements like the incessant, inappropriate musical score, (another foreign, B-movie hallmark largely abandoned in recent decades), wretched digital effects, great practical effects, and inconsistent humor makes for a mangled affair that is merely enjoyable in parts while just kind of outdated and curious in others.

ATLANTICS

(2019)

Dir - Mati Diop

Overall: GOOD

Serving as the non-fiction, full-length debut from French-born, actor-turned-director Mati Diop, Atlantics, (Atlantique), adopts a rarely seen perspective for a genre film, being the worker corruption and class dynamics found in Dakar, Senegal.  The "ghosts with unfinished business returning from the sea" tale is an age old one, given a unique, contemporary backdrop here and handled in a subdued manner by Diop.  While supernatural elements are undoubtedly present, they are downplayed in a manner that makes them startling without having the agenda of being bone-chilling.  In other words, the uncanny bits solely serve the story where wronged laborers were denied several months wages, only to take desperate measures from beyond the grave.  The focus is particularly on Mame Bineta Sane's protagonist who is caught up in an unwilling, arranged marriage while struggling with her lost love's visits that ultimate serve as a positive, life-affirming awakening.  This makes the film poetic and beautiful in its sincere themes and Diop creates many visually intimate sequences as well as an inviting yet haunting atmosphere.  It could afford to trim about twenty minutes here or there along its slow-boil trek, but that is a minor and not at all universal complaint, and certainly not one that tarnishes what is a ultimately a compelling work.

2019 Horror Part Fifteen

I SEE YOU

Dir - Adam Randall

Overall: MEH

 

Proving that mere expectation subverting is not inherently a good thing, I See You manages a genuine rug pull half-way through as well as a random twist in the finale, yet both of these leave an unsatisfying aftertaste.  As the screenwriting debut for actor Devon Graye, the bold choices he makes certainly achieve their initial gasps from the audience and the structural shift which allows for the entire narrative to replay from the perspective of different characters gets by only to a point on its cleverness.  The fact that both these new characters and the initially established ones lean heavy on the unlikable side is part of the problem and the final result oozes cynicism where nobody is without moderate to significant flaws.  Director Adam Randall keeps the humor to the barest possible minimum and though it is probably more of the script's fault than not, but the performances seem stiff , especially in Helen Hunt and Jon Tenney's case.  That said, it is refreshing to see a Hollywood couple that were actually born within two years of each other instead of the usual elder gentleman with a wrinkle-free wife that is half his age.  For those who like their thrillers perpetually dark and will gladly partake of home invasion chills, (as well as also still finding creepy masks to be, well, creepy), this should be most agreeable though.

DEMENTER

Dir - Chad Crawford Kinkle

Overall: MEH

 

Writer/director Chad Crawford Kinkle's follow-up to his independent debut Jug Face is the even smaller scale Dementer, which once again reunites him with Larry Fessenden, be it in a minor, infrequent role.  Featuring Kinkle's actual sister Stephanie who has Down Syndrome, the story has a unique premise for a genre film involving a benevolent, ex-cult member who takes a new job as a caregiver for special needs adults while suffering psychologically combative trauma from her occult-fueled past.  Though the presentation is wholly respectful towards the real life, disabled cast members and Katie Groshong turns in a naturalistic performance in the lead, the actual narrative is meandering and frustrating.  Nearly the entire movie simply bounces between Groshong trying to go about her business while disjointed flashback sequences aggressively not only interrupt her day, but also the flow of the movie.  Said sequences are nothing more than Fessenden repeating goofy things and counting a lot, disturbing, out of focus images being edited in rapid-fire succession, and non-melodic, ominous music incessantly overlapping everything.  None of the occult tomfoolery is explained which is not a problem in and of itself, but it leads to a confused, anticlimactic finale that fails to crescendo the intended, malevolent tone.

THE VIGIL

Dir - Keith Thomas

Overall: MEH

A combination of genre familiarity and potent, Semitic traditionalism, filmmaker Keith Thomas' full-length debut The Vigil is occasionally impactful in its intense mood-setting and guilt-consuming metaphors.  Set almost entirely in a two-story, Brooklyn home and focusing on a highly troubled, down on his luck, former Orthodox community member who is reluctantly tasked with keeping vigil over a deceased Holocaust survivor with an equally traumatic past, it uses the Jewish, mythological Mazzik demon as a tool to feed off of the internal suffering of others, who it then maliciously attaches itself to.  While there are a couple of light touches of humor stemming from Dave Davis' awkwardness with women and newfound adjustment troubles to contemporary, civilian life, Thomas predominantly upholds a thick, brooding, and ultra-creepy atmosphere.  Unfortunately, the scare tactics that he utilizes do eventually become predictable and even occasionally grating with jump scares and lots of loud, ambient screechy noises on the soundtrack.  Still, Davis is fantastically vulnerable in the lead and at least the first act is very gripping as it teases the inevitable supernatural shenanigans in a "can't look away" manner.  It steers clear of having an insultingly simplistic, emotional backbone and the Jewish folklore subject matter is refreshing in and of itself, but it slightly misses the mark to break as much new ground as it deserves to.

2019 Horror Part Fourteen

SKYMAN

Dir - Daniel Myrick
Overall: MEH

 

After an eleven year break, Daniel Myrick, (half of The Blair Witch Project's creative team), returns with Skyman; a mockumentary styled UFO film that takes a sincere approach to its subject matter while only particularly justifying its found footage style.  On the one hand, it is difficult to image the movie as being presented conventionally since the story revolves around a man who has a film crew follow him around as he attempts to reunite with extraterrestrial beings that he met thirty years earlier on his birthday.  Remove the documentarians and much of the information would have to be explained via distracting expository dialog, though the fly on the wall intimacy could probably still be maintained with standard, handheld camera work.  In either event, the casting of unknowns brings a level of authenticity to everything and the performances are fittingly natural.  This helps make each character likeable and the inherent theme far more compelling of a startling childhood episode and troubled family dynamic shaping one's adulthood in an obsessive was.  The alien encounter specifics are not very important, but that is also a problem since the entire movie then builds to an unsatisfying climax that leaves too little on the viewer's plate to truly dive into.

AFTER MIDNIGHT

Dir - Jeremy Gardner/Christian Stella

Overall: GOOD

 

The second collaboration between filmmaking duo Jeremy Gardner and Christian Stella, (with another such duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead serving as producers), After Midnight hits its themes rather on the head; themes of a troubled, well-meaning man struggling with his own relationship "monsters".  Thankfully though, there is a lot of emotional weight that is both genuine and amusing.  Taking place in a backwoods Florida town and dealing with two likeable people hitting a wall in their ten-year romance, it has various hallmarks of a typical breakup movie where half of the couple takes a sabbatical and the other half is left to relive happier days via flashbacks while wallowing in self pity and alcohol.  Gardner's script throws a strange, otherworldly curve ball into the formula though which would serve as a bit too obvious of a metaphor if not for the fact that it is all grounded by excellent performances and a quirky tone that sprinkles its humor around without becoming overbearing.  Stylistic choices such as a barrage of indie pop/folk/country songs and incidental music do become somewhat annoying to a point, yet the most important moments are given room to breathe, including a fantastic, very long take of Gardner's protagonist patiently taking in Brea Grant's grievances.

 

SADAKO

Dir - Hideo Nakata

Overall: MEH

Returning to the franchise that put him on the J-horror map, Sadako is director Hideo Nakata's first entry in the Ring franchise since 2005's American remake The Ring Two.  Stepping away from the cursed video tape angle and ushering the story line into the modern, YouTube personality age, one could see the obvious narrative aspects that are bypassed as either a clever subversion of expectations or a missed opportunity.  So no, the long-haired, title ghost does not come out of laptop screens or cellular devices after her cursed video goes viral, but what does transpire still manages to come off as a mangled mess that rehashes some of the same information without delivering any unique scares.  A big thing that is missing this far into the series is any source of mystery, yet the story still plays out as if the characters need to get the the bottom of something.  Such a tactic would be fine if there was a less conventionally chilling atmosphere maintained, genuine surprises, or engaging characters to root for.  None of these things are the case though which makes it all a slog to sit through.  Worse yet, when Nakata does bust out the spook-show set pieces, they not only seem to abandon most of the previous rules that were established, but also come off as silly since they rely largely on wide-eyed jolts and revved-up scary music that recalls dozens upon dozens of similar movies that were directly inspired by the initial Ring movies in the first place.

2019 Horror Part Thirteen

SATOR

Dir - Jordan Grahm

Overall: MEH

Shot in Yosemite National Park and Santa Cruz, Jordan Grahm's Sator is the type of incredibly slow-boiled, minimalist, independent genre film that is impressive in a DIY cinematic sense.  Grahm handled every level of production with a small cast of unknowns, including his actual grandmother who not only delivers the only naturalistic performance in the entire film, but also served as the inspiration for the quite spooky premise of an unknown entity keeping watch over a family.  There is some utterly gorgeous cinematography here from the woodland setting to picturesque, haunting images of lurking creepiness in every frame.  Unfortunately though, the narrative is handled frustratingly as the characters never answer anyone's questions and persistently stare off into the distance, making the lack of narrative information more obnoxious than it is worth.  Grahm is clearly working the "less is more" angle and relying on the power of suggestion as an endless stream of moments occur where people sit quietly, hear a faint noise, then look around still quietly for several minutes until the next scene starts with virtually the same modus operandi.  There is a lot of promise here to be bone-chilling, it is just at the cost of humanity, humor, or anything else that could hold the audience's attention.

THE DEEPER YOU DIG

Dir - John Adams/Zelda Adams/Toby Poser
Overall: GOOD

A wicked, funny, and interesting supernatural horror work all around, The Deeper You Dig comes from the husband/wife/daughter filmmaking team of John Adams, Toby Poser, and Zelda Adams, the latter who makes her full-length, co-directing debut along with her folks.  The entire family also appear as the main characters and in a round about, supernaturally trippy manner, they end up fulfilling an on screen family dynamic through ghostly possession means.  By utilizing its occult high-jinks more for oddity's sake than mere spookiness, there are a number of moments designed to bring out head-scratching chuckles, particularly when age-old cliches like psychic medium gobbledygook and mischievous hauntings end up having a camp quality that is hardly ever seen in other contemporary, somber-toned, independent genre films.  Since this also kind of qualifies as the latter, such elements could have easily made it a messy affair, but the consistent quirkiness gives it an unnatural feel that is ideal to its otherworldly subject matter.  Some less than ideal CGI notwithstanding, it makes the most out of its simple, cold, late autumn setting where dead leaves, dead trees, dead animals, and wacky hallucinations create an earthy yet macabre aesthetic.

THE SOUL COLLECTOR

Dir - Harold Hölscher

Overall: GOOD

 

The full-length, non-television debut from South African filmmaker Harold Hölscher The Soul Collector, (8: A South African Horror Story, 8), has some genuinely creepy moments along its sincere, folkloric trek.  The set up has been done a trillion times where a family moves into an old, remote house, but it does not adhere to a boatload of thematic cliches and instead offers up a simple yet increasingly touching story involving curses, revenge demons, mystical tribal ceremonies, reincarnation, and realms between life and death  The dialog is occasionally lazy, the score which liberally borrows the famous, key melody from Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" becomes a bit too whimsical at times, and Hölscher utilizes a number of fades between scenes that come off more like they are signifying a commercial break than anything else, but these are thankfully just minor qualms.  Tshamano Sebe delivers the stand-out performance as the tortured, supernaturally doomed title character, yet newcomer Keita Luna is an atypical horror movie kid who has a more mature sweetness to her that is a refreshing break from the usual scaredy-cat that simply annoys their parents with imaginary friends that no one else can see.

2019 Horror Part Twelve

LVX ÆTERNA

Dir - Gaspar Noé

Overall: MEH

 

As one would expect from a filmmaker who is always eager to find new angles to make his viewers uncomfortable, Gasper Noé's Lux Æterna, (stylized as LVX ÆTERNA), is equally frustrating and pretentious as it offers up a contemporary take on Federico Fellini's movie about movie-making 8 1/2.  Conceived of as a short film yet ultimately stretched out to fifty-one minutes, a brief intro montage of witch torture utensils over narration, (ala 1922's Häxan), gives way to various single take/"fly on the wall"/split-screen/on set documentary-styled footage of a faux production of a film called God's Craft which follows various actors, producers, extras, cameramen, and other personnel around.  Chaos increasingly erupts which is probably difficult to follow by design and it all culminates with a seizure-inducing barrage of strobing lights while quotes from famous directors about maintaining control over one's art are shown on the screen.  It could be saying something about women's objectification in cinema, the enormous struggle of getting a movie made, the desire to create something profound in an often shallow medium, or just random religious stuff, but good luck trying to come to any profound revelations upon viewing.  It is bold, silly, often gorgeously shot, hurts your eyes afterwards, and is definitely something that only Noé would have the gall to unleash in the first place.

RED 11

Dir - Robert Rodriguez

Overall: WOOF

For more noble reasons than its end product is worth, Robert Rodriguez decided to make his own solo version of a bottom-barrel Redbox movie with Red 11.  Meant to be an inspiring experiment done with no crew, virtually no money, and shot on real locations within a remarkably small filming schedule, Rodriguez' independent spirit is in the right place at least.  Yet the lesson here turns out to be an unintended one in that producing something with such a DIY trajectory is not nearly enough to warrant it as watchable let alone not alarmingly terrible.  As one could guess, it looks as cheap as it actually is, more like a mid-tier YouTube video than something from the guy who made visually exciting, cinematic delights such as Sin City, Planet Terror, and From Dusk Till Dawn.  Every other aspect is equally as underwhelming though, from uncomfortably amateur performances, wretched plotting, cricket-chirping attempts at meta-comedy, accidentally hilarious/bizarre schlock, and an overall story that is astonishingly convoluted and lame.  It is impossible throughout to properly gauge what in the hell Rodriguez was going for here as it joins the ranks of Francis Ford Coppola's Twixt as a perplexingly embarrassing time-waster from a filmmaker that has long proven to be far, far, far better than this.

VILLAINS

Dir - Dan Berk/Robert Olsen

Overall: GOOD

Filmmaking team Dan Berk and Robert Olsen's Villains hits a handful of familiar home invasion/wackadoo Jesus-loving couple beats along its route, but it is also a mostly successful pairing of comedic and suspense laden sensibilities.  The script was on 2016's Black List with production beginning two years later after Bill Skarsgård and Maika Monroe signed on as the two cocaine-snorting, Bonnie and Clyde leads who eventually square off against Kyra Sedgwick and Jeff Donovan's significantly more dubious bad guy couple, hence the movie's title which applies to all parties involved.  The cast's overall likeability goes a long way as we root for the two love-struck bank robbers who are up to no good while feeling a certain level of pity for the love-struck psychopaths who are also up to no good.  Berk and Olsen make some stylistic visual choices that are fun and build up a handful of nerve-wracking set pieces that still manage to have a few well-placed, outrageous chuckles thrown in for good measure.  The grand finale somewhat suffers from a noticeable tonal shift that sends the whole thing off on a more heartwarming-via-tragedy angle, but the performances, complex characterizations, and occasional trope tweaks make it darkly entertaining for all of the intended reasons.