2019 Horror Part Nineteen

PARASITE

Dir - Bong Joon-ho

Overall: GOOD

 

An immediately renowned work from South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho, Parasite, (Gisaengchung), manages to morph away from its sly, comedic commentary on wealth and social iniquity by turning into something more potent and harrowing by its end.  Originally considered as a stage production, Bong and co-screenwriter Han Jin-won eventually worked it into the former's follow-up to his 2017, US/Korean co-production Ojka.  Fusing two different families together from polar opposite class structures, all of the characters are richly portrayed with both morally gray and sympathetic brush strokes.  In a story where everyone is a victim of sorts, the emphasis on economic inequality being the true antagonist is made unmistakable yet never rudimentary.  There are no science fiction ideas on display here to examine modern times through an exaggerated dystopia; instead, these are palpable issues based on feasible scenarios that are given a cinematic sheen and a suspenseful, calculated presentation from Bong.  The fact that the tone shifts between acts all seems natural and well-deserved as the bottom was tragically meant to fall out at some point and when it does, it hits that much harder while settling into a sense of melancholy that is cynical, (i.e. realistic), without being too down-trodden to endure.

BLOOD VESSEL

Dir - Justin Dix

Overall: MEH

 

Vampires, (eventually), run amuck on a boat in Justin Dix' sophomore effort Blood Vessel; a grimy cliche-fest that appears to take itself more seriously than any viewer should.  Life raft survivors who seek refuge on a mysterious ship in the middle of the ocean, (with presumably no one on board), is an age-old horror set-up, and further details like Nazi occultism, monsters easily duping and disguising themselves as their victim's loved ones, an innocent little kid who is not that innocent, and a character's gradual transformation into a creature of some kind are also cherry-picked from other genre fare.  While the combination of familiarity is not entirely egregious, the movie unfortunately has bigger issues.  Said grandiose, mugging undead do not arrive until fifty minutes in and once they do, the main baddie looks unintentionally ridiculous like a cross between Mickey Mouse and Max Schreck.  A schlocky tone starts to take over concurrently with the action revving up, plus the characters are either unlikable or just annoying bicker with each other, which seems intentional due to the World War II setting and everyone heralding from a different country as to make trusting each other exponentially more difficult.  The vampire's ability to telepathically control those who are bitten and feel the brunt of their infected blood-sucker's own injuries is at least an interesting tweak, but elsewhere, this is hum-drum stuff.

THE MORTUARY COLLECTION

Dir - Ryan Spindell

Overall: MEH

Released the same year as the abysmal Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark adaptation, writer/director Ryan Spindell's The Mortuary Collection serves as a comparatively not-terrible variation to a similar anthology framework where glossy, CGI-whimsy meets macabre scenarios and set pieces.  The fact that it is unrated will delight gore fans as there is plenty of gruesome nastiness on display here; everything from a guy's hand getting mutilated in a meat grinder, another guy hacking up his invalid wife into pieces, and most bizarrely, a douchebag frat boy having unprotected sex and getting himself inexplicably pregnant with a mutant monster baby that enters the world through "the way it got in".  Like any omnibus series of stories, some are more memorable than others, with "Unprotected" and "The Babysitter Murders", (the latter of which was released individually as a short film in 2015), being more fun than the pointless "Segment 1" and uninteresting "Till Death".  Unlike most films of this nature though, the framing narrative is actually the one that we wish to return to since Clancy Brown makes a delightful Crypt Keeper stand-in and the inevitable twist ending surrounding Caitlin Custer's eager, funeral home employee hopeful is predictable yet amusing.  Overlong and uneven, (plus too stylistically cartoonish to be even remotely creepy), its redeemable qualities render it far from a waste.

2019 Horror Part Eighteen

IN THE TALL GRASS

Dir - Vincenzo Natali

Overall: MEH

 

In development for several years and finally heading underway as part of a series of Stephen King works to be adapted for Netflix, In the Tall Grass is an adaptation of the short story of the same name, itself the second collaboration between King and his son Joe Hill.  A passion project for filmmaker Vincenzo Natali and his first full-length in six years, it is a faithful enough reworking of the source material that boasts one of the author's trademark, expertly unnerving premises based on something so simple as to seem obvious.  The topsy-turvy narrative is intriguing to a point as two groups of people find themselves supernaturally lost in a country field full of grass, but it all gradually succumbs to a big messy pile of convoluted schlock by the time that the credits hit, (and this is not just because the characters are literally rolling around in the wet mud whilst fighting with each other).  Performance wise, everyone does their best with the inconsistent material and Patrick Wilson is particularly enjoying the scenery-chewing that is afforded him.  Though it conceptually bites off too much with a loosey-goosey plot that purposely goes everywhere but in a straight line, Natali maintains an ominous tone and the otherworldly specifics are thankfully left ambiguous.

 

THE LONG WALK

Dir - Mattie Do

Overall: GOOD

 

The latest from the husband/wife, writer/director duo of Christopher Larsen and Mattie Do, The Long Walk is a solid yet obscured work.  Once again shot and taking place in Laos, the story is set in the undisclosed future where people have been equipped with data chips in their arms to trade digital currency, though this sci-fi angle is barely touched upon and arguably inconsequential to the rural setting that exists in a ghostly limbo which is far removed from technological advancement.  As the unnamed old man who has the ability to both communicate with the dead and to time travel, Yannawoutthi Chanthalungsy has a grief-weary demeanor that slowly unveils a type of selfish lifestyle brought on by his own traumatic past that he is unable to alter.  In this world, the dead may be comforted by the living and visa versa, yet neither are allowed to move on from either their physical or ethereal plane of existence.  Nearly two hours in length, some of the side arcs and ideas here could have been jettisoned to make the already deliberate pacing more agreeable, but the minimalist, low-key atmosphere and universally melancholic themes that it explores remain gripping.

HAUNT

Dir - Scott Beck/Bryan Woods

Overall: MEH

A flimsy yet inevitable premise HAUNTS, (har, har), Scott Beck and Bryan Woods' Halloween haunted house slasher Haunt, which is enough times in one sentence to use the word "haunt".  Throwing an obvious final girl and her mostly douchebag-adjacent friends into a scenario where maniacs in creepy masks deliberately play cat-and-mouse with them is all nothing new obviously, nor is setting it in a festive haunted house location as Bobby Roe's 2014 found footage film The House October Built likewise did.  Still, this is ideal material for a by-the-books horror movie and the predictable beats are all hit.  Obvious foreshadowing, inane dialog about "taking off" or "whats under" your mask, a laughably sketchy location that moronic characters willingly plow into, mortal wounds that people walk off, the ole "Oh no, I murdered my friend thinking it was one of the killers" gag, the ole "Someone is here to save us...oh never mind, he's dead" gag, and an ending that is meant to be badass yet comes off as schlocky audience pandering.  All of the complaints that one can launch at a movie like this are there by design, so it comes down to one's particular tastes and preference for everything following a not-at-all-challenging pattern.  So if your brain wants a break and nothing clever is needed for a night's ghoulish entertainment, this has you covered.

2019 Horror Part Seventeen

GIRL WITH NO MOUTH

Dir - Can Evrenol

Overall: GOOD

Frustratingly imprecise yet an interesting conglomerate of its influences, Girl with No Mouth follows up Turkish director/co-writer Can Evrenol's two absurdist, ultra-violent nightmares Baskin and Housewife with an entirely different agenda.  A coming-of-age, modern day fairy tale of sorts, it is equal parts Peter Pan, The Devil's Backbone, City of Lost Children, and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, fusing childlike whimsy with unflinching, post-apocalyptic violence.  Not the most unique genre mash-up on paper, but the young band of "pirate" protagonists are easy to root for due to the cast who turn in compelling performances even with physical deficiencies in tow, (the mouth-less girl of the title, a boy with no eyes, one with no nose, and one with no ears).  Likewise, Mehmet Yilmaz Ak makes for an odious villain who rightfully proclaims himself as being heartless in a dilapidated world where his militant obedience has cost him his soul.  Sadly, the specifics of what exactly is going on within the dystopian backdrop are left vague, which would not be a problem if they were not persistently teased at.  We are lead to believe that there is some deeper significance to what everyone is going through, but perhaps deliberately, the exuberance and survival instincts of the children always wins out as they propel forward to some unforeseen and unexplained destiny.

 

THE WRETCHED
Dir - Brett Pierce/Drew T. Pierce
Overall: MEH

The second full-length from the sibling writer/director team of Brett and Drew T. Pierce, The Wretched only delivers the creepy during a small handful of subtle moments and is otherwise formulaic and bogged down by a logically flimsy script.  Obnoxiously loud, screechy, crunchy monster noises, characters introspectively staring at photographs, pagan twig altars, an internet montage of paranormal investigation, a douchebag bully that serves no necessary purpose whatsoever, oodles of jump scares, and boatloads of alarming behavior that is never reported to parents or law enforcement, it has much to roll one's eyes at.  There are small blessings in the fact that the brothers Pierce use some restraint early on, (hiding freaky images in the background without any off-putting punctuation on the soundtrack), but this is unfortunately abandoned by the third act when it steamrolls into its a grimy, deafening horror-by-numbers finale.  Wisely, any origins attached to the movie's otherworldly, woodland villain are kept minimal and it has all of the markings of traditional folklore, yet it is also nondescript enough to be chilling on paper since it plays off of visceral fears such as child abduction and manipulation.  With no surprises and such a stock presentation though, it is easily forgettable.

SATSUJINKI O KAU ONNA

Dir - Hideo Nakata

Overall: GOOD

Based on the 2010 novel of the same name by Kei Ohishi, Satsujinki o kau onna, (The Woman Who Keeps a Murderer), is a modern day pinku thriller with a hackneyed plot device of a woman suffering from multiple personality disorder.  Two graphic lesbian sex scenes emerge before we even get the opening title card at twenty-six minutes in and director Hideo Nakatal keeps up the naked, squishy, and aggressive exploits throughout, all of which are depicted in as much of a crestfallen manner as an erotic one.  The laws of physics are routinely ignored for the sake of depicting five different women who take over the physique of our tragic protagonist; a protagonist who was sexually abused as a child and is now living out a traumatic existence in the type of melodramatic fashion that only works in fiction.  Besides Kei Ohishi whose cartoonish portrayal of such an awful character presents some tonal issues within Nakata's otherwise melancholic treatment of the material, the performances are universally strong, especially Rin Asuka in the lead and Kenji Mizuhashi as her eager love interest who represents the stereotype of the nice guy who has come to rescue the broken women from tragedy.  Sort of a J-horror Last Tango in Paris, its purposely cruel and nihilistic feminist agenda towards male encroachment may not pack many surprises beyond its willingness to tantalize, but its haunting style is well-executed.

2018 Horror Part Eighteen

TUMBBAD

Dir - Rahi Anil Barve/Adesh Prasad/Anand Gandhi

Overall: GOOD

 

Several years in the making, Rahi Anil's full-length debut Tumbbad is an ambitious Bollywood/Marathi genre offering that weaves a horrific tale of all-consuming greed in a fashion that is epic in scope and consistently sinister.  Barve initially wrote the script back in 1997 when he was a teenager, with numerous production companies jumping on board only to back out before shooting finally began in 2012 with producer/star Sohum Shah attached.  It was then re-written and re-shot yet again, being completed in 2015, at which point another three years of post-production commenced.  Such blood, sweat, and tears comes through in the final folk horror tale which utilizes unique mythology told in three different chapters that follow one man's arc of overcoming an ancient curse in order to gain exorbitant amounts of wealth around the time that India was working towards its independence during the first half of the 20th century.  Largely filmed in natural lighting with Anand Gandhi and Adesh Prasad serving as co-directors, it has a rich, earthy aesthetic where the location of the title is depicted in a constant state of monsoon season.  Some of the CGI work is less than acceptable, yet both the creature and set design of its lair are memorably fleshy and unsettling.  Touching on other cultural themes, (particularly both women's and children's places in a male-dominated hierarchy), it all feeds into a fundamental, "greed is bad" agenda that is clear-cut without being condescendingly infantile.

WEREWOLF

Dir - Adrian Panek

Overall: GOOD

Beginning where World War II was officially ending at least on the European front, the Polish/Dutch/German co-production and filmmaker Adrian Panek's sophomore effort Werewolf, (Wilkolak), is an unavoidably bleak viewing experience, putting its characters in the devastating seat of trying to survive after they have been "saved" by Allied forces.  A rag-tag group of concentration camp refugees manage to find transport to an ill-supplied, isolated mansion in the woods which besides having no electricity, running water, or enough food to eat, is also besieged by pillaging Russian troops and, (as the title would allude to), a pack of German guard dogs who trap everyone inside Cujo-style.  So as things go to catastrophically bad to also bad, the film depicts an all too real and all too harrowing moment in the 20th century where there are devastating effects of not just the Nazi takeover, but the aftermath of the party's collapse.  The cast of unknown youngsters look appropriately ravished and traumatized, plus Dominik Danilczyk's cinematography is naturalistic and bleak, creating more of a fly on the wall aesthetic despite some soaring musical accompaniment and suspenseful set pieces done in slow motion.  Grim and not to everyone's tastes of course, it is still a commendable work.

THE NIGHTINGALE

Dir - Jennifer Kent

Overall: MEH

Serving as writer/director Jennifer Kent's comparatively superior follow-up to her debut The Babadook, The Nightingale is a relentlessly unpleasant period piece that is meant for few tastes yet has a pivotal historical backdrop that is impossible to ignore.  Set at the on-set of the Black War on Van Diemen's Land, it depicts a brutal landscape where both immigrants and natives are hopelessly denied justice against British colonization.  There are no winners here and no good guys; just miserable individuals living out their miserable existences in an era that only temporarily favors those who rape, murder, and exploit.  Such unwholesome examples of this are both many and unflinching as Kent grants the audience the same mercy that she grants her characters, meaning none.  At the core of such atrocities lies Aisling Franciosi and Baykali Ganambarr's desperate partnership.  As the film's two most unequivocal victims, they find common ground through the oppressive mistrust and bitterness of their surroundings, ultimately achieving some meager sense of freedom at the cost of what little humanity and compassion that they can still hold onto.  Things end on as much of a downer as they begin, but the film is richly photographed and flawlessly acted.  Kent can be amended for her accurate depiction of a loathsome time in her native Australia's history, but it is also a fair critique that the results are too much to bare.

2018 Horror Part Seventeen

GONJIAM: HAUNTED ASYLUM

Dir - Jung Bum-shik

Overall: GOOD

A spiritual and ultimately superior cousin to the Viscous Brothers' 2011 film Grave Encounters, Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum stretches illogical human behavior and arbitrary ghost activity to a breaking point, yet it also simultaneously provides a bone-chilling roller-coaster bombardment.  One of a handful of works in the genre from co-writer/director Jung Bum-shik, there is a narrative through-line of a YouTube series hellbent on scoring a million views for their live stream inside of a notorious haunted establishment, thus serving as an explanation for why they embark, (and more to the point), continue to embark on a clearly unsafe and otherworldly journey.  The plausibility is eyeball-rollingly thin in this regard, but it serves its purpose just enough to get from one freaky set piece to the next.  Formulaic in structure to virtually all haunted house stories, everything gets gradually ramped-up instead of immediately dire, but Bum-shik maintains the appropriate tone and the amount of fun that he and the crew are clearly having in delivering such spookiness proves infectious.  Some could argue that the found footage framework is wearing thin by recycling age-old horror tropes is such a similar fashion to each other, but this example still has some creepy, popcorn-munching fuel left in the tank.

THE DOMESTICS

Dir - Mike P. Nelson

Overall: MEH

 

A nasty post-apocalyptic outing from writer/director Mike P. Nelson, The Domestics makes solid use out of its modest budget with a good amount of CGI-free bloodshed, yet its story line may be too dour for most tastes.  After a chemical warfare outbreak has been unleashed in order to mitigate population control, society collapses into a survival of the fittest landscape where both loners and gangs either roam the country-side or set up camps to engage in rape, murder, torture, or to just getthrough one more day intact.  A radio DJ provides some cynical humor that is hit or miss, as are other attempts at lightning up such a miserable affair such as Kate Bosworth headbanging to Goatsnake and a couple of other quirky musical cues that are scattered about.  Otherwise, scenes like a demented, (is there any other kind?), game of spousal Russian roulette, Lance Reddick nonchalantly feeding his family and new friends human meat, and David Dastmalchian chewing the scenery in an ultra-violent cameo are more icky than entertaining, making this one of the more down-trodden Mad Max rehashes out there.  Its barbaric outlook on humanity is anything but feel-good, yet the performances are solid, every deplorable character gets their gruesome comeuppance for those who are keeping count, and its gritty aesthetic is heightened by good ole practical effects work, stunt performers, and squibs.

 

WHY DON'T YOU JUST DIE!

Dir - Kirill Sokolov

Overall: GOOD

Russian writer/director Kirill Sokolov's full-length debut Why Don't You Just Die! is a wonderfully violent and convoluted comedy full of morally broken characters engaging in ill-intended shenanigans that spiral into absurdity.  Clearly inspired by the firmly established aesthetics of Quentin Tarantino, it is better than the plethora of Pulp Fiction clones that emerged in the 1990s.  This is possibly because enough time has gone by that this ultra-gory take on doomed individuals getting in over their heads with a topsy-turvy series of events gone awry seems more like a fresh homage than an uninspired knock-off.  Focusing on five characters, (most of which get a recent flashback to bring us up to date), the layers are dished-out in an engaging fashion that throws in one more complication after the other to not only jack up the tension, yet also make the whole thing more absurdly humorous.  Knowingly playing on Russian tough guy and gal stereotypes, everyone goes through enough physical and mental traumatic abuse to keep this far enough from reality to laugh at, even if there is a palpable emotional core that audience members may find themselves sympathizing with against their better judgement.  Even if Sokolov is hinging his stylistic temperament on another filmmaker's instead of carving out his own, it still delivers the mayhem in an entertaining fashion.

2018 Horror Part Sixteen

SEARCHING

Dir - Aneesh Chaganty

Overall: GOOD

 

An ambitious crime thriller in that it exclusively utilizes the newly emerging screenlife gimmick, filmmaker Aneesh Chaganty's full-length debut Searching equally, (and thankfully), boats a plot-twist heavy narrative that is infectious as it unfolds.  Though it was shot in less than two weeks, the finished project took an additional year and a half to edit all of the webcam, iPhone, GoPro, helicopter, drone, and mini dv camera footage together.  The results play out like a conventional cinematic mystery to some extents, with incidental music used and more twisty-turvy revelations than most true crime stories ever deliver.  Some of these gasp-worthy moments stretch plausibility to a certain extent, especially during the finale where the audience knows that there are twenty-odd more minutes left for another one-upping rug-pull or two to emerge.  Still, Chaganty and Sev Ohanian's script comes close to leaving no room for error and the exciting presentation as well as rock solid performances elevate what is already a heart-racing experience.

 

THE NIGHTSHIFTER

Dir - Dennison Ramalho

Overall: MEH

 

The first full-length from Brazilian filmmaker Dennison Ramalho, The Nightshifter, (Morto Não Fala), suffers from a bloated running time, yet it offers up some freaky ideas along the way.  Essentially a vengeful spirit story with a couple of familiar motifs thrown in, (supernatural activity that no one mentions to anybody else, everyone thinking that the protagonist who is suffering from most of said supernatural activity is just going crazy, etc), the tweak of Daniel de Oliveira's title character/morgue worker having always been able to communicate with the dead is an intriguing one.  The first act is the strongest, setting everything into motion where Oliveira breaks the rules apparently and uses a recently departed gang member's secrets for his own scheme to rid the world of his unfaithful wife's adulterer.  Things get more formulaic from there as the tone goes darker, even if there is a thin layer of camp permeating the proceedings.  The CGI effects are noticeably distracting and the film takes too long to deliver its message where both the haunted and the haunter are on morally disastrous paths, but the atmosphere, gore, and several of the set pieces are ideally unnerving.

MAY THE DEVIL TAKE YOU

Dir - Timo Tjahjanto

Overall: MEH

 

A diabolical cliche-fest that goes hard with the popcorn horror high-jinks, May the Devil Take You, (Sebelum Iblis Menjemput), is the first solo full-length from director Timo Tjahjanto, who had previously done segments in The ABCs of Death and the best one in V/H/S/2, as well as co-directing a number of films with Kimo Stamboel as the Mo Brothers duo.  Low on story yet nearly two hours in length, it is admirable on the one hand how unapologetically cranked-up the freakshow set pieces are as they only let up for the occasional, most bare-bones amount of character development.  The film becomes way more stupid than scary though, throwing loud, gory nonsense at the audience and more wide-mouthed demon baddies than should be legally allowed.  There is also old timey music played for chills, a stoic and largely unphased child, and some egregious "dumb people in horror movies" or just plain ole stupid plot maneuvers in the third, over-the-top act to keep things bulldozing along.  It is not enough to merely tolerate so much arbitrary mayhem in order to enjoy it; one has to crave an experience where your thinking cap is taken off from the get-go and then screaming, bloody, possessed hellspawn are allowed to bombard your eyes and ears.

2018 Horror Part Fifteen

THE BOAT

Dir - Winston Azzopardi

Overall: GOOD

 

Guy Can't Catch a Break - The Movie a.k.a. The Boat is the full-length debut from Maltese filmmaker Winston Azzopardi and utilizes a gimmick of only one actor on screen, said actor being his son Joe Azzopardi.  The stripped down presentation and elementary premise of a probably malevolent sea vessel hellbent on ruining one guy's life for a couple of days is a unique enough selling point.  With virtually no dialog, the story has no choice but to unfold through gripping plot developments, each one putting the protagonist in one unfortunate situation after the other.  All of these situations are given an intense aura of mystery; so much mystery in fact that some audience members may struggle to find any kind of point to it all, if indeed there was intended to be one besides simply chilling the viewer with a vague sense of nature's arbitrary, inherent danger.  The more things unfold though, it becomes clear that our lone character has a giant target painted on his back for some reason, yet those reasons are eerily never explained.  Frustrating to some extents maybe and largely a downer, but it is also wonderfully acted and suspenseful, as well as being something to make one question whether or not they ever want to go sailing the Mediterranean again.

 

GHOSTLAND 

Dir - Pascal Laugier
Overall: WOOF

More of note for permanently scarring actor Taylor Hickson due to alleged negligence on director Pascal Laugier and the production crew's part, (all of which logically resulted in a lawsuit), Ghostland, (Incident in a Ghostland), turns both the schlock and unpleasant meter up to eleven with insultingly miserable results.  Coming from the guy who brought us the abomination that is Martyrs, the mean-spirited ugliness here should hardly come as a surprise, but parading such brutality within an inept story that is loaded to the brim with inconsistencies and hackneyed details is more unforgiving than anything else.  Maybe the embarrassing dialog at least can be chalked up to this only being Laugier's second English-language feature since nobody speaks in a manner that is conducive to human behavior.  Incessant jump scares, an overall aggressive sound design, psychological twists that an eight year-old would think are stupid, an asshole teenager whose mom just "girls will be girls" tolerates it, creepy dolls all over the place, a crossdressing psycho, a dim-witted ogre psycho, and a guy in unfortunate prosthetics playing H.P. Lovecraft for a cameo, this is a crud rock that just makes one angry at the guy who made it and sorry for the people who are in it.

 

THE DEVIL'S DOORWAY

Dir -Aislinn Clarke

Overall: MEH

 

A frustrating film, Aislinn Clarke's The Devil's Doorway has an untapped, horrifically interesting real world backdrop, yet it is simultaneously derivative of many religious/possession/occult/creepy kids/found footage movies out there.  Set in 1960 in a Magdalene Laundry in Ireland where neglected women were sent to live out deplorable lives as slave labor for the Catholic church, this historical footing is both more compelling and terrifying than any of the hack-laden supernatural nonsense.  The more that the film goes on, the more that the agenda switches away from shining an unflinching light on organized religious atrocities that went on for numerous decades with complacent tolerance towards.  Going for authentic, 16mm graininess in keeping with the period setting, the structure jives poorly as it hits every last beat and lazy trope of contemporary shaky-cam popcorn horror, with white-out camera pops, flickering bulbs, giggling ghost children, scary music on the soundtrack, and an aggressive amount of jump scares.  Though his performance is excellent, Lalor Roddy's redemptive character arc is just as formulaic as every other plot point and detail, all resulting in a shame of a movie that wastes the majority of its running time, well, running away from what is actually scary about it.

2017 Horror Part Seventeen

HOUSE OF THE DISAPPEARED

Dir - Lim Dae-woong

Overall: MEH

 

A South Korean remake of Alejandro Hidalgo's The House at the End of Time, House of the Disappeared, (Siganwiui Jib), sticks close to its predecessor without adding anything of significant interest, ergo making it a redundant if still adequate watch.  The first work in supernatural horror from a top-billed Yunjin Kim, she looks more silly than convincing in an old lady wig for much of the proceedings, yet she also still turns in an impressive performance as a wrongly convicted mother who is under haunted house arrest after serving twenty-five years of a brutal prison sentence.  Jang Jae-hyun adds some unnecessary backstory into the location of the title and a more pseudo-science/metaphysical angle that is less captivating than the ambiguous and otherworldly route taken in Hidalgo's original.  Besides shutting up for the obligatory and annoying jump scare, Kim Woo-geun's swelling music plays uninterrupted, which further manipulates the viewer in what is already a harrowing story of grief and lost chances.  Its heart-string pulling is appreciated, but the sterile presentation and plot adherence to its superior predecessor makes it too forgettable to recommend.

MARROWBONE

Dir - Sergio G. Sánchez

Overall: MEH

 

Though it boats a top-tier young cast and has Universal backing it up on the distribution end, writer/director Sergio G. Sánchez' Marrowbone, (El secreto de Marrowbone), ends up being an unintentionally doofy thriller with a moronic plot twist in its finale act.  Shot almost entirely in a spacious country mansion in Asturias, Spain, it pits a family of traumatized outcasts against what is presumed to be supernatural forces, yet the few bump in the night moments that we witness are more aloof than nightmarish.  This angle is regularly bypassed anyway for a thinly constructed love triangle, before the most hackneyed psychological rug pull, (plus another just as stupid one), is delivered in a flashback exposition dump, one that throws logic to the wind and takes the audience out of the proceedings during what should be a heart-racing finale.  Such laughable revelations jive poorly with the already established, gritty tone, as well as some intense performances from all involved.  George MacKay and genre regulars Mia Goth, Charlie Heaton, and Anya Taylor-Joy all deserve better material that what they are given here, which is a shame since Sánchez has a solid knack for pacing and style that would be better suited in something with more plausible footing.

PHOENIX FORGOTTEN

Dir - Justin Barber

Overall: MEH

One of a small handful of horror films to utilize, (as its jumping off point), the now explained "Phoenix Lights" phenomenon that occurred over Arizona and Nevada on March 13, 1997, Phoenix Forgotten does not pack in any surprises, but it delivers a satisfying finale within its formulaic framework.  Broken up into two sections, the first and much longer one is a mockumentary that Florence Hartigan decides to make in uncovering the mystery of what happened to her brother and his two UFO-hunting friends twenty years earlier.  We get some backstory on our small crop of characters in the process, all of which is presented conventionally with talking head interviews, screen titles, music, and other standard ingredients that actual documentaries are inclined to have.  We know from the onset what happened to the missing kids and we also know that we are eventually going to be shown the "lost" footage which will explain such a fate, but it is to director Justin Barber and screenwriter T.S. Nowlin's, (of the Maze Runner franchise fame), credit that this reveal still remains compelling when it finally arrives.  It recalls too many other found footage movies to carve out its own unique niche amongst the saturated sub-genre, but fans of such movies still may enjoy where it ends up.

2017 Horror Part Sixteen

SCAREYCROWS

Dir - Lucy Townsend

Overall: MEH

A low-budget indie romp with a unique premise, actor-turned-director Lucy Townsend's full-length debut Scareycrows is far from being laugh-out-loud hilarious, but it is not without some charm.  Not to be confused with 2017's other killer scarecrows horror/comedy from Canada, this one centers around a made-up holiday celebrated by a seaside town and a now comatose asshole stuck in a wheelchair who utilizes supernatural means to reap her vindictive vengeance.  It plays out like a Shaun of the Dead/The Fog hybrid, with a combination of likeable and annoying characters, thankfully killing off the later in typical slasher movie fashion.  One of them is an unnecessarily bitchy salon owner, another a dipshit who constantly sings at the top of his lungs, and another just a condescending friend who refuses to take the diabolical threat as seriously as it deserves.  So, watching them all get violently stabbed by something is a deliberate hoot.  Likely due to budgetary reasons, the film is consistently lacking in atmosphere and Townsend keeps the gore and profanity at merely modest levels while utilizing no inventive camera tricks or stylistic flourishes  Still, she also keeps the pace brisk at only seventy-three minutes, which never gets tedious enough to outstay its welcome.

INNOCENT CURSE

Dir - Takashi Shimizu

Overall: MEH

Takashi Shimizu's Pied Piper legend retelling Innocent Curse, (Kodomo tsukai, Little Nightmares), suffers from a bloated running time and formulaic mannerisms, rendering it about as frightening as a pair of pink socks.  Fusing creepy dolls, unsettling circuses, child abuse, a curse that gets you after three days, kids singing a lullaby several hundred times, and a cartoonish, supernatural villain who looks like a cross between Cradle of Filth band member and steampunk ringleader, it has a lot of showy tropes on display that cross over into silliness.  Shimizu utilizes a soft purple color tint for the flashback/otherworldly sequences while rendering the modern day moments in green, which gives the whole thing an off-kilter feel that is no doubt intentional and stylized.  At nearly two hours in length, the rudimentary "race against time" plot meanders more than it propels, occasionally breaking its own mystical rules in the process and offering up a barrage of stale visuals such as little ones with white eyes who are simply standing there or tickling adults to death, zombied-out grown-ups caught in vengeance limbo, quirky camera angles, incessant "scary" music, and Hideaki Takizawa camping it up as the big, flamboyant baddie.  It plays itself seriously and its uncomfortable treatment of children jives awkwardly with the schlock elements, but it is a slick production that may please forgiving popcorn J-horror fans.

THE PROMISE

Dir - Sophon Sakdaphisit

Overall: MEH

Overlong and relentlessly hackneyed in all of its horror elements, Sophon Sakdaphisit's The Promise, (Puen..Tee Raluek, Phuean..Thi Raluek), delivers some heavy, supernatural heart string-pulling but is otherwise a slog.  It opens during the 1997 Asian financial crisis where two best friends, (possibly in a lesbian relationship which is not explicitly stated), make a suicide pact after their families go bankrupt and the physical abuse and emotional strain proves too much for them to bare.  This is more effective than the nearly ninety minutes that follow in the present day where the bestie that backed out of the killing-themselves-deal now has an upset ghost inhabiting her daughter's body to contend with.  This is because Sakdaphisit utilizes a never-ending slew of screechy violin noises literally every single time that something "scary" happens as the story goes through one day at a time leading up to a not surprising finale that seems more of a relief than anything else.  The dread never lets up and there is no room for any humor as Namthip Jongrachatawiboon's protagonist cries, screams, and cries a whole lot more during her harrowing ordeal.  Even with a quasi-syrupy ending, it is not a feelgood watch by design, plus genre fans will likely be disappointed by its lack of uniqueness.

2016 Horror Part Seventeen

BLESSED ARE THE CHILDREN

Dir - Christopher Wesley Moore

Overall: MEH

An aggressively awkard slasher comedy that tries hard not to be both at the same time, Blessed Are the Children is one of many amateur productions from indie filmmaker Christopher Wesley Moore who seems to enjoy 80s throwback posters to go along with his low-end genre offerings.  While there is a natural dynamic to the likeable enough characters who constantly joke around with each other as friends often do, the three female leads all exhibit oddball eccentricities that makes their interactions more absurd than relatable.  One of them is a sassy lesbian, the other is recently pregnant and constantly talks to herself, and the other is old enough that her non-religious-based virginity should raise a few eyebrows.  Most of the film sticks to a loose, goofy agenda where none of the actors are that good nor are they properly miked, but the low-rent, SOV presentation is forgivable to those who have seen this kind of production many times before.  What sets the whole thing apart, (and not in an agreeable way), is the gradual interjecting of weirdos in those creepy crying baby masks that you see at Spirit Halloween every season, who brutally murder people out of nowhere in a manner that is not at all played for schlocky laughs.  This makes for an absurd clashing of tones that is fascinating, yet also embarrassingly handled as it smashes two noticeably different lanes together instead of sticking to one of them in an attempt to do something fun, unique, or creepy that does not clumsily fall on its face in the process.

 

WEKUFE

Dir - Javier Attridge

Overall: MEH

Close in structure to Bobcat Goldthwait's 2013 film Willow Creek, (which itself was close in structure to The Blair Witch Project, as are countless other found footage movies), Javier Attridge's full-length debut Wekufe brings the sub-genre into Chiloe, Chile where yet another pair of foolish college kids are venturing into the woods in search of a malevolent entity that is local to the area.  On the plus side, Attridge leans into the redundancy of such a concept, making numerous meta jokes that poke fun at the found footage framework.  One of his characters is investigating the myth of the rapey, ogre gnome called a Trauco and interjecting her own political activism into the mix, (long story there), while her boyfriend cameraman thinks it will be fun to use whatever they shoot to make his own horror movie.  It is a lame premise that is played partially as a spoof, but problems arise in the fact that Attridge does not stick to this angle and makes it more and more clear that he is going for unsettling chills instead of laughs.  This is unfortunate since the movie paints itself into a corner from the onset and it then takes forever to get any kind of disturbing payoff.  Once the third act technically delivers on such a thing, it spirals into even more unoriginality, with dumb character behavior, creepy cabins, creepy caves, creepy noises, and occult nonsense that we have seem a bazillion times before.

 

GEHENNA: WHERE DEATH LIVES

Dir - Hiroshi Katagiri

Overall: WOOF

Loud, aggressive, hare-brained schlock, Gehenna: Where Death Lives is the debut from special effects man-turned-director Hiroshi Katagiri and is notable as one of the few full-length films to be shot in the Northern Mariana Islands of Saipan and Tinian.  Fusing Eastern folk horror with people trapped in a haunted location, it features a small crop of obnoxious characters who are given only the most simple-minded traits to distinguish them.  Simon Phillips, (no not the legendary drummer, sadly), may as well have "capitalist scumbag" tattooed on his forehead as he possesses zero redeeming qualities in his quest to sell some real estate while ignoring local customs and possible safety hazards, predictably becoming the first guy to scream and blame everybody else while trying to murder then when the supernatural rules dictate such a thing.  Everyone else on screen is equally one-note and the plot unfolds as a checklist of cliches, culminating in a "twist" that only a braindead rabbit would not see coming.  The practical make-up effects and gore are refreshing and better than most contemporary, low-budget B-movies would bother with, but Katagiri and his crop of ham-fisted actors are doing everything that they can to stupid-up an already derivative story and presentation.  At least Doug Jones and Lance Henriksen collected a paycheck on it though.

2016 Horror Part Sixteen

CARNAGE PARK

Dir - Mickey Keating

Overall: MEH

 

Deliberately constructed as a homage to the ultra-violent Westerns of Sam Peckinpah, Mickey Keating's Carnage Park more accurately presents itself as both one of countless second-rate Quintin Tarantino knock-offs as well as an American version of Greg McLean's wretchedly miserable Wolf Creek.  Thankfully, it is not as annoyingly gruesome as the aforementioned Ozzie torture porn romp, but it is still ripe with unoriginal ideas and a forgettable, one-note villain who is a psychotic douchebag just because the movie needed one of those.  Mac Fisken's rustic desert cinematography is intimately imposing and Ashley Bell continues her typecasting as a traumatized woman who cannot get a goddamn break to save her life, though shes had enough practice at this point to nail the assignment.  Opening with the "shot guy, covered in blood, screaming after a bank robbery gone awry" scene, bouncing back in forth in a non-linear fashion, quirky/retro pop songs on the soundtrack, the villain quoting bible verses, character's names flashed on the screen in bad-ass fashion, and plenty of F-bombs, the Tarantino adherence is embarrassingly on-the-nose.  In addition, Keating still has an insatiable jump scare itch to scratch and even manages to find room for one of those stock moments where instead of the killer, the heroine accidentally murders the person who has come to save her.

SHIN GODZILLA

Dir - Hideaki Anno/Shinji Higuchi

Overall: MEH

 

Two years after Legendary Pictures' Americanized reboot, Toho resurrected Godzilla themselves for the first time since 2004's Godzilla: Final Wars, the last of the franchise's "Millennium" era.  Dubbed Shin Godzilla, (Shin Gojira), with directors Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi brought on board, (both of whom had collaborated on a handful of Evangelion entries), this kicked off the "Reiwa" era as yet another straight-ahead remake of the original 1954 film, so an air of redundancy is unavoidable from the get go.  Having long abandoned the suitmation which both baby boomers and gen-xers had grown up with, the entirely CGI creation here is visually in-line with that aforementioned look, sans some fiery-red lava pulsating underneath the impenetrable hide.  Acceptable for the most part, a handful of cartoony effects shots creep their way in, but they steer just shy enough of being distracting.  This Godzilla was meant to be a more threatening presence than some of the sillier ones previously seen.  Decimating Tokyo with radiation blasts from its mouth, tail, and scaly back, the monster does make a formidable presence for the few moments that it is on screen.  Which brings us to the detrimental flaw of virtually every kaiju movie in that this is a giant monster film second and a bureaucratic board room meeting drama first and way foremost.  Though Anno keeps the pacing up with tight editing and everyone delivering mountains of boring dialog as quickly as possible, boring it unfortunately still is, rendering this as just one more nightmare of exposition that is all too sporadically interrupted by Godzilla destroying shit.

BETTER WATCH OUT
Dir - Chris Peckover
Overall: WOOF

A Christmas variation of Funny Games except with a twelve-year old brat antagonist, co-writer/director Chris Peckover's Better Watch Out is a tonally disastrous, borderline unwatchable mess.  Simultaneously going for dark comedy high jinks and vile disturbingness while hinging on the deranged exploits of easily one of the worst characters in any movie, it asks too much of the viewer while bombarding them with an insulting series of events.  As the spoiled, clever kid who assumes that he can get away with everything, (including reckless murder), Levi Miller exhibits an odious, cutesy charm minus the charm part because his actions are so deplorable that he simply makes for a miserable villain instead of an interesting one.  Equally as egregious is the sloppy plotting, which attempts to escalate things until they get out of control while audience members may find themselves screaming at the screen due to the illogical behavior of both the perpetrator and the victims who play a role in letting things get out of such control. If the movie stuck to its comedy angle exclusively, the same tale could have been told in a more ridiculous manner that would warrant its indented chuckles.  Instead, Peckover tries to make two different movies at once and drops the ball in his attempts.

2016 Horror Part Fifteen

TERRIFIER

Dir - Damien Leone

Overall: WOOF

 

Mislabeled as a slasher throwback since A) slasher movies have unfortunately never gone away and B) this one is even more derivative than the lot of them, Damien Leone's Terrifier has inexplicably managed to elevate itself in the horror zeitgeist over hoards of other identically forgettable movies.  Technically the forth in the Art the Clown franchise, (after two short films and the anthology offering All Hallows' Eve, all written and directed by Leone), this one was crowdfunded and focuses on one of the most boring cinematic serial killers in recent memory.  A lunatic who refuses to speak, defies the laws of physics, has superhuman healing abilities, and is dressed like a "creepy" clown, Art comes off like a parody instead of a remotely menacing presence.  The presentation looks its minuscule budget, shot digitally in a sparse amount of locations with front-to-back amateur performances, yet to be fair, the dialog is at least not as insultingly lame as it could have been.  Still, it is a waste of time while adhering to beat-for-beat slasher plotting, throwing in a crazy woman with a baby doll, yawn-inducing kill scenes, victims leaving the killer's body on the ground after hurting him without finishing the job, cheap jump scares, the killer literally blowing his brains out yet still being alive, and too many other wretchedly lazy tropes to bother pointing out.

 

SWISS ARMY MAN

Dir - Daniel Scheinert/Daniel Kwan

Overall: GOOD

 

The full-length debut from Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan, Swiss Army Man defies genre classification and gets by on its singular boldness in spite of having one of the most absurd premises humanly possible.  Pitched for years to various studios to no avail, (understandably so), it is a self proclaimed "fart drama" concerning a castaway on an island who comes across a dead body that gradually gains the ability to talk, emote, remember, and turn into an all-purpose tool that is propelled by flatulence and whose involuntary erections work as a compass.  How such a film even got made is probably the biggest question to ask and the shock of its ridiculousness never lets up, which is probably why the Daniels approach their head-scratching material the way that they do.  This is to say that it is presented as a quasi musical fairy tale with a strong emotional core that explores both social anxiety and norms, all in a gleefully demented and touching manner.  Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe are charming as two utterly bizarre characters whose entire arc is a psychological tour de force that may or may not be taking place on any tangible plane.  The movie knows that to give away too much would be to ruin the spell that it spends ninety-seven minutes casting, leaving behind a contemplative, inventive, hilarious, and surreal experience that pulls off a near impossible feat of being staggeringly unlike any other film yet made.

A MONSTER CALLS
Dir - J. A. Bayona
Overall: GOOD

For his third full-length, Spanish filmmaker J.A. Bayona teamed up with screenwriter Patrick Ness on an adaptation of the latter's 2011 novel A Monster Calls; a digital effects-heavy fantasy that serves as a coming of age tale for a boy that many would agree is much too young to have the weight of inevitability come crashing down upon him.  In a deliberate way, the plotting mirrors the audience's wishful thinking that the worst is not to come as both we and Lewis MacDougall's twelve year-old protagonist know full well where things are headed, yet find futile solace in the belief that fate will spare us insufferable tragedy.  It is a fundamental yet powerful statement that is anything but an easy watch and Bayona manages to systematically handle the material while balancing a smorgasbord of CGI set pieces that in a lesser director's hands could have distracted from the pivotal theme of succumbing to unavoidable grief.  While some of these spectacle-laced sequences look better than others and Liam Neeson's tree giant is simultaneously the least convincing and most important, the somber fairy tale tone never lets up.  This allows for the full-on, medieval-tinged animation, computer-enhanced backgrounds, and anger-fueled destruction sequences to properly service a story that is told from the perspective of a distraught, imaginative child who is undergoing the trauma of his life as only such a child can.

2016 Horror Part Fourteen

WITHOUT NAME

Dir - Lorcan Finnegan

Overall: MEH

 

The full-length debut Without Name from Irish filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan features occasional bouts of evocative dread, yet it fails to captivate as well as it should.  Most of these issues stem from the nebulous story line which alludes to a deeper, otherworldly mystery that it gradually abandons in place of merely watching our lead protagonist loose his mind on a steady combination of psychedelic mushrooms and the traumatic effects of a dysfunctional domestic life.  In fits and starts though, the psychologically ravaged journey is atmospheric.  The sound design is loaded with calming ambiance that is simultaneously unsettling, the cinematography by Piers McGrail is lovely, and large portions go by where technically nothing is happening yet could at any moment.  Alan McKenna turns in a solid performance as a doomed land surveyor who experiences strange occurrences where nature's very secrets seem to be pulling him in, yet his madness comes on more randomly than convincingly and the lackadaisical pacing ultimately gets in the way instead of serving the barren story properly.

THE GREASY STRANGLER

Dir - Jim Hosking

Overall: MEH

Channeling John Waters absurdism with unwatchable grossness, (though no actual dog shit was consumed), Jim Hosking's full-length debut The Greasy Strangler blatantly goes for midnight movie WTFness and can be applauded by those who can stomach it.  The type of film where everything "wrong" with it is intentional, the performances, dialog, plot, visuals, and a barrage of vomit-inducing, juvenile nyuck nyucks will make any sane viewer run to the hills within the first act since it only gets more combative from there.  Deliberately unflattering in every capacity, there are schulbs in tight underwear, grotesque fake penises, full-frontal nudity from both sexes, disgusting food being eaten, farts, cartoony gore, and of course puke-yellow grease and squishy sound effects to slam home its nauseating, trying-way-too-hard aesthetic.  At the same time though, any movie that is this aggressively quirky cannot help but to be laugh out loud hilarious at regular intervals and indeed it is.  Also impressive is that Hosking and co-screenwriter Toby Harvard have managed to concoct a touching father/son dynamic completely in spite of the presentation of course since everything that happens is far too on another planet to connect in any conventional sense.  One is just as likely to scratch their head as they are to lose their appetite for a week afterwards, but even if a single viewing is more than enough, it will stay with you as a thing that you have experienced alright.

 

THE DARK TAPES
Dir - Michael McQuown/Vincent J. Guastini
Overall: WOOF

Another example of a terrible film with a high Rotten Tomatoes score garnished from a mere seven reviews, The Dark Tapes rides the line between a humiliatingly inept, amateur filmmaking vanity project and a "real" movie that does a piss-poor job at every aspect of its construction.  Written, directed, edited, shot, and presumably catered by Michael McQuown, (whoever that is), plus some other guy, the film is acted as badly as it is written, which is to say like high school play badly acted.  People speak exclusively in sentences that no human at any time in the real world has ever spoken in and delivering them like they are doing so against their will.  As far as the visual aspects go, it is a logical assumption that the crew simply hit up a Spirit Halloween store, snagged a few scary clown masks and yard decorations, and then did the digital effects on some cheap software that they had no experience in using.  To check off one other misstep, this is in the found footage genre and could be the poster-boy for everything said genre can do to annoy people and consistently take them out of the movie.  "Who's filming this?", "Why are they filming this?", "Who's editing this?", "Why are there titles?", "Wait, there's scary music too?", etc.  In other words, proceed with caution.  In other other words, do not bother in the first place.

2015 Horror Part Fifteen

DARLING

Dir - Mickey Keating

Overall: MEH

Yet another deliberate homage of better, more famous horror movies from writer/director Mickey Keating, Darling is his attempt at something that could fit into Roman Polanski's "Apartment Trilogy", be it one that is ruined by its author's usual, ill-suited choices.  Keating has proven himself to be a fan of the genre that he exclusively works in, channeling other filmmaker's works while adhering to lazy stylistic inconsistencies that undermine some otherwise effective elements.  Lauren Ashley Carter makes for an alluringly quirky protagonist, who says little yet runs through the gamut of emotions as a new house-sitter for one of New York City's most allegedly haunted establishments.  Shot in black and white with many symmetrically pleasing shots as well as an abundance of ominous atmosphere, it is a goddamn shame that Keating interjects so many arbitrary, subliminal cuts set to ear-splitting screeching noises while relying on incidental music to tell the audience that something creepy is happening instead of just letting us soak in the reclusive setting's natural silence; something that would be a hundred times more suspenseful and eerie.  Also annoying is that Carter's character has no character; she is merely a mentally ill person, (or so we are desperately left to assume), who walks around, stares wildly while motionless, and breaks into spontaneous psychotic episodes until the whole thing ends on an undeserved ambiguous note.

EMELIE

Dir - Michael Thelin

Overall: MEH

 

An unpleasant and ergo annoying babysitter thriller, Emelie is the full-length debut from music documentary filmmaker Michael Thelin and screenwriter Richard Raymond Harry Herbeck.  The opening scene sets the viewer on edge so that we know from the onset that something is up with Sarah Bolger's antagonist, but while there is no mystery to the fact that she is not a good guy, her increasingly concerning behavior provides the first act with some icky set pieces and firmly establishes where the danger lies at least.  Unfortunately, everything unravels quickly from there, with glaring plausibility breaks that do not even take into account how the logistics of Bolger's end game are laughably shortsighted.  We are given a brief scene to explain WHY she went bonkers, but she seems more on a suicidal mission of self-destruction than anything else, begging the question of why she prologues such a charade in the first place.  Weak plotting and disturbing subject matter make poor bedfellows, but throw in an anticlimactic ending on top of the whole thing and this is a badly-executed mess.

THE DEAD ROOM

Dir - Jason Stutter

Overall: MEH

No better or worse, (OK maybe a little worse), than your average ghost hunting supernatural yarn that was allegedly inspired by an urban legend, The Dead Room is burdened by both its formulaic ingredients and merely passable production values.  Directed and co-scripted by Jason Stutter, it throws three paranormal investigators into a haunted house in the middle of the woods where the previous family left in a hurry, and they proceed to encounter poltergeist activity that is exclusively arbitrary.  At first, the ghost only does mild things at exactly 3 AM like make a banging noise, repeatedly opening the front door, or just triggering the crew's motion censor cameras.  Before too long though because the movie needs more things to happen, the invisible "tall man" gets more aggressive and goes after the unwanted human guests, which is both interpreted as a warning to leave and as something not at all dangerous so that they can stick around and document more.  Each character is a different type of lazy stereotype, (the practical and cynical scientist, the gothy spiritualist medium, and the family man tech nerd), and neither their stock dialog or illogical behavior comes off as plausible.  It also does not help that Laura Petersen is borderline awful as the sensitive psychic, though the material itself deserves the brunt of the blame.  The twist ending is as hacky as everything that came before it, but at least the movie is less than ninety minutes and Peter Jackson's main man Jed Brophy is in it.