2013 Horror Part Fifteen

EUROPA REPORT

Dir - Sebastián Cordero

Overall: MEH

 

This sci-fi thriller from Ecuadorian filmmaker Sebastián Cordero recalls virtually every other sci-fi thriller ever made, which is as much a detriment to it as the fact that it is also presented as a found footage mockumentary.  Neither of these elements work to Europa Report's favor, both being derivative and distracting despite the top-notch production design, refreshingly no-nonsense characters, and Cordero's masterful use of tension as it inches its way to the preordained and doomed conclusion.  In other words, it is a frustrating watch that gets a lot right, yet it also puts itself in all too familiar waters that leave little room for genre advancement.  In between increasingly sporadic talking head interview segments, we are given a barrage of recovered footage from a Jupiter moon spacecraft mission, capturing every angle of the vessel in pristine A-budgeted cameras that are edited together like a conventional horror movie, with consistent music no less.  As always, if the footage was instead presented in its bare-bones form without the added melodrama, it would be more unsettling and surprising.  Anamaria Marinca being the only astronaut who appears to be interviewed throughout ends up being a dopey twist, and it is also faulty because her commentary is ridiculously hyperbolic.  Still, the third act is well done for those who can forgive the overall issues.

 

RIGOR MORTIS

Dir - Juno Mak

Overall: GOOD

 

The first film from Hong Kong actor-turned-director Juno Mak, Rigor Mortis is a grimy, bloody, humorless, and updated homage to the Mr. Vampire series, featuring many of the same thespians in a tonally unrecognizable work that re-imagines the comedic jiangshi sub-genre.  Chin Siu-ho portrays a fictionalized version of himself, the now downtrodden actor who plans on committing suicide in a derelict apartment complex after his wife and son had left him some time earlier.  Instead, he is saved by some old school hoping vampire hunters in a blaze of slow motion, Matrix-styled CGI moves that reveal a set of vengeful twin spirits who inadvertently posses one of the tenants that has been resurrected as a jiangshi via black magic by his grieving widow.  We meet a barrage of other characters whose sagas intermingle with each other, never leaving the gray apartment setting and never allowing any slapstick hijinks into the proceedings.  It is an interesting concept to see what one of these films would look like if it was done in a completely different manner, and for the most part Mak succeeds in creating an oppressive atmosphere via a deliberately stylized approach that paints a harrowing picture of exhausted and now miserable people either facing off against or abiding supernatural evil as they come face to face with their own mortality.  The script by Mak, Philip Yung, and Jill Leung comes off more as an afterthought compared to the glossy and digitally extravagant set pieces, bordering on incoherent as it fails to establish any of the otherworldly rules that are so dire to the situation.  Still, it has enough redeeming qualities to interest any curious fans of the types of films that it is grittying up.

 

KNIGHTS OF BADASSDOM

Dir - Joe Lynch

Overall: MEH

 

Heavy metal horror comedies are inherently suicide inducing, and if one element could make them even worse, it would be throwing live action fantasy role playing into the mix.  The miraculous thing then about Knights of Badassdom is how it manages to not be the most obnoxious movie ever made, landing some of its easy layup humor with a cast that has enough charisma to forgive some overacting that should otherwise be considered criminal.  It all fits director Joe Lynch's tone, (though allegedly there is a more horror-tinged cut of the film that has yet to be released at this writing which suits Lynch's original intentions), where grown men and a handful of way-too-attractive-to-be-there-women partake of a Dungeons & Dragons version of Civil War reenactments where real otherworldly forces are haphazardly unleashed.  The specifics are not important, nor is the plausibility of such a setting where people talk in wacky renaissance fair vernacular while running into other cosplayers who pretend to engage in epic battle with each other.  Worse yet is Ryan Kwanten who graces us with two "please kill me" metal musical numbers that are the antithesis of both funny and authentic, automatically garnishing a severe warning for any viewers who cannot stomach such braindead cliches being played up to outlandish levels of schlock.  Still, it is difficult to hate Peter Dinklage eating copious amounts of mushrooms, Jimmi Simpson being his usual pompous and weasily dickbag, Summer Glau classing up the joint, and Brian Posehn popping in to correct someone's metal sub-genre grammar.

2011 Horror Part Twelve

THE THEATRE BIZARRE

Dir - Douglas Buck/Buddy Giovinazzo/David Gregory/Karim Hussain/Tom Savini/Richard Stanley/Jeremy Kasten

Overall: MEH

 

A cheap anthology extravaganza that is as inconsistent as the lot of em, The Theatre Bizarre brings together seven filmmakers, Richard Stanley and Tom Savini being the biggest names.  This was Stanley's first foray into horror in a decade and a half, (if one is to count his mangled The Island of Dr. Moreau which he was fired from only two weeks into filming), and he opens everything here with the Lovecraft-adjacent Clark Ashton Smith adaptation "The Mother of Toads".  A schlocky Euro-throwback of sorts, it is far from memorable, but considering that it may be the best segment here, that does not bare well for what follows.  Buddy Giovinazzo's "I Love You" is half-baked, Savini's "Wet Dreams" is merely squeamish, Douglas Buck's "The Accident" does not belong here at all, (it has nothing to do with horror), Karim Hussain's "Vision Stains" has an equally awkward presentation and premise, David Gregory's "Sweets" is nauseating and pointless, and Jeremy Kasten's wrap-round segment with Udo Kier playing a sentient marionette brings nothing of interest to the table.  Though tones vary, the entire production has a soft digital sheen to it that is poorly conducive to sinister atmosphere, but fans of gross-out gore, boobs, and squishy sound effects might not find it to be a complete waste.

 

THE SELLING

Dir - Emily Lou Wilbur

Overall: MEH

 

The only film thus far from director Emily Lou Wilbur, The Selling it typical of many contemporary comedies, namely in the fact that it refuses to allow a single character to air on the side of normal.  While it is less obnoxious than many other prime examples of this faux pas, (looking in your direction Josh Ruben), it is still a mediocre melding of haunted house tropes with wacky hijinks for the mere sake of them.  The movie's screenwriter Gabriel Danni plays a sheepish real estate agent named Richard Scarry, (that is not a typo), who tries to sell an aggressively haunted abode that is inhabited by the same demon/ghost/whatever that possessed a serial killer years back, as well as said serial killer's many victims who whisper "get out" in a Sizzler voice and arbitrarily cause mischief while other times laying dormant.  Taking liberties with supernatural behavior is nothing new to the genre, so it would be unfair to pick on Danni's screenplay for that, and he does make it a point to take the piss out of many genre motifs that have long become hackneyed.  The tone never stops being ridiculous even when Danni is dealing with his cancer-ridden mother, and some of the gags are silly enough without being grating, but it still tries harder than it succeeds, regularly teetering on announce. 

 

MIDNIGHT SON

Dir - Scott Leberecht

Overall: GOOD

 

This full-length indie debut Midnight Son from writer/director Scott Leberecht is one of many vampire films that leans into the addiction angle of such a fictional ailment, something that fits well within such a low budget and intimate framework.  Zak Kilberg portrays a young man that has a "skin condition" and works the night shift, eventually running into drug dealers who score him some crimson plasma to suck down by nefarious means, as well as Maya Parish's waitress with a nose powder problem who would otherwise be an ideal person to start a romance with.  Digitally shot, most of the film is presented in handheld sobering closeups, enhancing a type of claustrophobic atmosphere that plays into the character's trapped sense of isolation, both Kilberg and Parish finding it difficult to connect with each other as much as they would like to due to their substance dependency issues.  As things inevitably escalate, some of the dramatic plot points seem forced, springing up suddenly and coming off as less convincing than the more lingering moments of Kilberg and Parish merely dealing with their day to day struggles and inability to open up to each other.  For the most part though, the film plays to its strengths and suffices as a low-key tragedy that makes it a point to take the romanticism out of blood-sucking tropes.

2010 Horror Part Eleven

DANTE'S INFERNO: AN ANIMATED EPIC

Dir - Mike Disa/Shūkō Murase/Yasuomi Umetsu/Victor Cook/Jong-Sik Nam/Kim Sang-jin/Lee Seung-Gyu

Overall: MEH

 

A boatload of directors and a boatload of production companies join forces on the full-length adult animated adaptation of the same year's Dante's Inferno game from Visceral Game and Electronic Arts.  Dante's Inferno: An Animated Epic therefor shares an identical plot with its playable counterpart, making this both a redundant watch for fans of the game yet something that should suffice for people who would rather skip out on said game.  Though it only runs for just shy of ninety minutes, (and as the title would suggest), it is epic in scope where our Knights Templar title character returns from the Crusades only to venture into the nine circles of Hell with the poet Virgil at his side in a quest to rescue his beloved Beatrice from Satan's clutches.  Each director takes on a different layer of the underworld where Dante confronts his past sins and slices up some demons and/or condemned souls in overblown gory detail.  The animation style is consistent and impressive, plus the voice over work is appropriately grandiose, (Mark Hamill even collects a paycheck as Dante's gluttonous and abusive father), but the film still overstays its welcome.  This is due to its bare bones narrative which allows for a repetitive structure that is mind-numbingly bombastic from frame one to frame last.  The finale is oddly underwhelming, but at least it all looks great and may hit the spot for those who just want some loud, violent, and non-stop netherworld action.

 

LUNOPOLIS

Dir - Matthew Avant

Overall: MEH

 

An indie mockumentary project and debut from filmmaker Matthew Avant, Lunopolis weaves an absurd tale of UFOs, time travel, government conspiracies, cults, clandestine string-pulling organizations, and 2012 prophesies, all thrown into a blender and done within a format that hardly suits the material.  As always, the use of consistent music and cinematic editing comes off as laughable at best since we are witnessing wild phenomenon caught on camera, but this is actually one of the movie's lesser problems.  The main issue is the way in which Avant puts the footage together.  Large portions go by where we are following the exploits of an aspiring team of researchers as they film everything, follow some coordinates, and uncover a mysterious contraption in a subterranean bunker, all while a talking head in a French accents interjects with some commentary.  Eventually though, this format is abandoned and we get an extended sequence that comes off as your average Ancient Aliens episode or a pseudoscience equivalent thereof, bombarding the viewer with ridiculous conspiratorial information that is legit in such a scenario.  A clumsy finish that reinforces the amateur level performances does not help matters, but despite the film's multitude of faux pases, there is a better movie lurking in here that could have been compelling instead of just awkward and goofy if it had a heftier budget and acceptable production values.

 

SENNENTUNTSCHI

Dir - Michael Steiner

Overall: MEH

 

This live-action reinterpretation of the Swiss mountain legend of the same name is a rarity in the fact that Switzerland has never delivered much in the way of horror cinema, but the results are equal parts satisfying and disappointing.  Sennentuntschi, (Sennentuntschi: Curse of the Alps), it technically told in flashback since it bookends with modern day segments, the main narrative set in the mid 1970s when a mysterious feral woman arrives in a small village and also appears to three Alpine herdsman who seem to drunkenly summon and abuse her.  Timelines eventually converge, and director/co-writer Michael Steiner utilizes James Wan-style rapid cuts in the third act, just to catch up any viewers who are missing enough brain cells concerning the mind-blowing revelations being delivered.  Sadly, these quasi-twists are more convoluted than gasp-worthy, plus the characters all range from unsympathetic, to underwritten, to inconsistent, to downright idiotic.  Roxane Mesquida turns in an admirable performances as the mute title character who is both brutalized and frightening depending on the situation or how much her suffering has warped her.  The presentation borders on schlock here or there, plus the ambitious structure renders the entire affair about twenty minutes too long, but at least it goes for something bold and heavy within its bloody folk horror playground.

2000s American Horror Part Thirty-Eight

FREDDY VS. JASON

(2003)

Dir - Ronny Yu

Overall: MEH

 

Hot off his success with Bride of Chucky, Hong Kong director Ronny Yu breathes some more schlocky life into two additional and already schlocky horror properties with the inevitable crossover Freddy vs. Jason.  Coming after a near decade long wait each, this was the last entry into both the Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street franchises before the immediately forgettable reboots that came a few years later, so it is triple noteworthy for being Robert Englund's final foray as Freddy Krueger.  Englund hams it up as much as he ever did in a movie that has every business being as idiotic as it is, with Canadian stuntman Ken Kirzinger stepping in for Kane Hodder since all that is ultimately required for Jason Voorhees is to just be a big dumb walking meat sack with a machete.  Several years in the making with various script treatments being done before all of the legalities could be sussed out, it does what a Freddy versus Jason movie is supposed to do.  The bar was low enough considering the multitude of "making it up as they went along, because fuck it" sequels that came before, and this one is doubly obnoxious for adhering to the early 2000s trope of deplorably stupid teenage horror romps that insult the viewer with a nod and wink.  To be fair though, Yu knows what kind of product he is tasked with making here, delivering enough nonsensical cartoon mayhem between his two slasher icons to forgive stereotypical characters who only behave the way they do because the script needs to wrap itself up at some point.

 

IN MEMORIUM

(2005)

Dir - Amanda Gusack

Overall: MEH

 

It is a common thread amongst found footage movies to be presented in a framework that begs the question of why they were done as found footage movies in the first place.  The full-length debut In Memorium from indie filmmaker Amanda Gusack is just such a movie, since it opens with our lead character installing dozens upon dozens of cameras in a suburban house that him and his girlfriend are renting for a few months, just to make sure we get boatloads of conventional coverage to edit from.  Why they are renting one instead of just chilling at their own is never convincingly explained, but that is less of a problem compared to others.  The premise involves Erik McDowell being diagnosed with terminal cancer, so he decides to document the last few months of his life so that we can get a full-length movie out of it.  McDowell and his devoted girlfriend Johanna Watts hold their own with the material, but Levi Powell as McDowell's stoner dude brother turns in a horrendous performance, something that devalues the heavy subject matter which deals with mortality, guilt, and the struggles that adults face with the sins of their parents having affected them.  Gusack at least resists adding any scary music, but she is only able to muster the type of derivative plot points and scare tactics that have been seen countless times before and since.

 

DEAD AIR

(2009)

Dir - Corbin Bernsen

Overall: MEH

 

Actor-turned-director Corbin Bernsen has popped up in a number of horror movies throughout his career, with Dead Air serving as his only venture into the genre from behind the lens.  It is also a film that can be seen as the American Pontypool, being close enough of a carbon copy to warrant comparison.  Unfortunately. this is the cheaper and schlockier counterpart to Bruce McDonald's Canadian film from the previous year, which itself had its share of problems and was done on a meager budget.  Bernsen's work here has a low-rent, digital television sheen, one that looks like a pathetic dollar bin action movie that used to pop up in droves on Redbox.  The performances are of the same caliber, even genre mainstay Bill Moseley coming off like he is only mildly over-qualified for a high school drama production.  He is the best actor here though, which does not bode well for Kenny Yakkel's heavy-handed script that utilizes post-September 11th paranoia as its driving force.  The "zombie" outbreak is caused by terrorists, and the film almost becomes interesting in its third act when one of the culprits hijacks Moseley's radio broadcast and lays out all of the expository dialog and justifications.  Yet it just as quickly divulges into preachy platitudes, all the while the Hallmark movie aesthetics undermine any sense of tension, as well as making the rabid 28 Days Later-style zombie attacks come off as clumsy at best.

2000s Foreign Horror Part Nineteen

POLTERGAY

(2006)

Dir - Éric Lavaine

Overall: MEH

 

With a title like Poltergay, one can accurately deduce what they are in for, and the resulting film delivers lightweight and low stakes silliness, yet little else.  The debut from French filmmaker Éric Lavaine has a premise that is borderline ingenious; what if a house used to be a gay disco and it is now haunted by flaming queens who accidentally blew up in it when a foam machine short circuited?  Besides the goofy behavior of said queens and stereotypes being played up on how fashionable, good at cooking, and sharp they are as dancers, the rest of the humor resolves around straight Clovis Cornillac who seems to be the only one that can see them for awhile, losing his job, his girlfriend, and his mind in the process.  While none of the gags are obnoxious and the tone never becomes offensive, there is nothing here that is laugh out loud funny either.  It works more conceptually than anything, playing it tame the whole way through without going for any wild set pieces or trying to reinvent any haunted house motifs.  Not that it needs to be a game changer though, since for most viewers, the bare-bones set up will be enough as the film writes itself from there.

 

LONG PIGS

(2007)

Dir - Chris Power/Nathan Hynes

Overall: MEH

 

A redundant mockumentary about a cannibalistic serial killer, Long Pigs is the debut from the filmmaking duo of Chris Power and Nathan Hynes, their only co-directed full-length to date.  While there have only been a small handful of such movies where a documentary crew follows around somebody who nonchalantly murders people, the topic is so specific that yet another one coming down the pike with no differentiating qualities provides a superfluous viewing experience.  This particular reworking of The Last Horror Movie, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, and Man Bites Dog is noticeably lacking in production values, with a few unconvincing talking heads sharing screen time with Anthony Alviano's schlubby and chatty murderer that picks off anyone that looks tasty, as well as the two indie filmmakers who are following his exploits.  While the premise is inherently faulty and ridiculous from a logical standpoint, there is a moment in the final act that causes even more plausibility problems concerning how the finished product was edited together, with a tagged-on coda that the movie-within-a-movie directors could not have possibly added on.  To be fair, the film is played for dark chuckles and knows how far-fetched it is, but it still ends up being just a grisly and unnecessary entry into a niche sub-genre that has already made the same point several times over.

 

THE LOVELY BONES

(2009)

Dir - Peter Jackson

Overall: MEH

 

Hot off the monumental success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the also success of his blank check King Kong remake, Peter Jackson takes on the popular Alice Sebold novel The Lovely Bones, and he does so in a fashion that these later works adhere to.  This is to say that it is a bombastic film, loaded with artificial digital effects, tonal issues, a lack of subtly, and incessant music done by Brian Eno no less.  It is also a film about a fourteen year-old girl who gets murdered and probably raped by her seemingly mild-mannered, serial killer bachelor neighbor, and there lies the problem.  Jackson's fusing of CGI whimsy and having his central protagonist/victim narrate the film from an artificial nether realm where her mood switches it to either a Candy Land heaven or an Autumn-hued hell is not an egregious concept, and it easily seems like one which Jackson would gravitate towards.  What does not work is ill-placed comic relief, (stemming from Susan Sarandon's floozy and oddly insensitive grandma), underwritten characters, and a rushed plot that fails to delve into the harrowing ordeal that families suffer through when one of their children is taken from them.  Jackson is expert enough at his craft to stage some suspenseful moments, and his cast is A-list enough to deliver commendable performances with what they have to work with, but it feels like a bloated mess that is trying to be two different movies at once and not spending enough time delving into either of them.