2015 Horror Part Nine

TAG

Dir - Sion Sono

Overall: GOOD

 

The relentlessly challenging headtrip Tag, (Real Onigokko), is filmmaker Sion Sono's adaptation of Yusuke Yamada's novel Riaru Onigokko which had also been cinematically made in 2008 as The Chasing World by Issei Shibata.  Set to ethereal shoegazing music from Glim Spanky, the film starts off with a bang and then patiently meanders around with a handful of other left-field endeavors thrown in to up the strangeness.  While it becomes increasingly difficult to put together in any conventional narrative sense, the film's themes about destiny and fate seen through a feminist lens seem to become that much more important.  Even the way that the movie uses visually amateurish CGI appears to somehow enhance its otherworldly nature as it endlessly flows into one more dream state after the other.  The culmination of events is not likely to spell anything out in plain English, (or Japanese in this case), but it leaves a lasting impact and is enticing enough to warrant repeated views to possibly grasp.  Even if comprehension is a futile endgame, it is a bold and beautiful work that if anything else is thoroughly unique.

HIDDEN

Dir - Matt Duffer/Russ Duffer

Overall: MEH

 

A year before launching Stranger Things, the Duffer brothers Matt and Russ made their halfway decent full-length debut Hidden.  Direct parallels can be drawn from this and John Krasinski's more mainstream accepted A Quiet Place, which is either a good or bad thing depending.  Some technical annoyances like an overly rusted color pallet, unnecessarily dark cinematography, shitty CGI, and a mumble-heavy dialog track do get in the way of a rather touching story of a traumatized family trying to protect themselves from a largely unseen menace.  The fact that said threat is kept off screen for the majority of the proceedings does achieve two things.  One, it lets the audience gain more sympathy for the desperate characters and two, it allows for an increasing amount of tension to be built up throughout a rather prolonged second half.  Things are broken up along the way by flashbacks that stir up one too many zombie outbreak motifs seen an abundance of times which unfortunately give it a bit of a derivative quality.  Similarly mixed feelings can be garnished from the finish as well which is both twisty and kind of sentimental-grabbing.

 

HELL HOUSE LLC

Dir - Stephen Cognetti

Overall: MEH

 

Another found footage outing ruined by justifiable criticisms often attributed to the sub-genre, Hell House LLC is the full-length debut from writer/director Stephen Cognetti who followed it up with two like minded sequels.  It would seem that the premise is well equipped enough to justify the plot holes and standard, "stupid people in horror movies doing stupid things because they're in a horror movie" motifs, but sadly this is not the case.  While arguing about how dangerous it is to be in the house of the title, numerous unexplained events are clearly caught on camera for the characters to review and they either never think to do so or seem completely unphased by them.  The finished documentary presentation which is exponentially more difficult to pull off is understandably a far bigger blunder though.  One of the benefits to the sub-genre is the naturalism with raw, unedited footage that is void of any post-production conventionalism.  So when you take that bare-bones footage and edit it to smithereens, throw creepy music on it, and add loud sound effects to jump scares, you may as well have just shot it as a normal movie.  Also, the interview segments are jarringly poor, not just because of the bad acting and weak dialog, but because even more unexplained things are captured there which still make it into the final cut for everyone to see.  It is worth a few freaky moments, but it is also heavy on the dumb.

2014 Horror Part Eleven

BACKCOUNTRY

Dir - Adam MacDonald

Overall: MEH

 

This full-length debut from Canadian actor-turned writer/filmmaker Adam MacDonald is survival/nature horror at its most textbook.  Everything that always happens with people in movies getting lost in the woods happens here; a guy is arrogantly sure that he can navigate the wilderness without a map or cell phone in case of emergencies, the person with him thought they had said items with them the whole time, they run into a shady character early on to get them and the audience on edge, they hear noises at night, and awaken to concerning things around their campsite in the morning.  While the script is rather barren on surprises then, MacDonald tests his abilities in creating a carefully controlled, suspenseful mood.  That is until the third act when the tension is exponentially revved up.  For the most part, the two leads in Missy Peregrym and Jeff Roop are decent and their dynamic as a couple is relatable enough to give the film some emotional weight when it is most needed.  With every little twig snap more heart-racing than the last, it does arrive at a rather intense place, but the crawl to get there just may be too gradual and pedestrian for some tastes.

SUBURBAN GOTHIC

Dir - Richard Bates Jr.

Overall: GOOD

 

Richard Bates Jr.'s follow-up to the uneven yet interesting Excison has a similar, fundamental theme of a young person hopelessly at odd with their parents, but other than that, it is a rather contrasting beast.  Most prominently, Suburban Gothic is a full-fledged comedy and it plays not one of its moments for anything besides laughs.  Thankfully it is pretty damn funny, yet in an aggressively quirky way that might annoy or even befuddle certain viewers while delighting others.  Every character is either an asshole or a smart-ass though usually both.  The two leads Matthew Gray Gubler and Kat Dennings make an amusingly non-charming couple and their lack of chemistry is played-up rather well.  Ray Wise probably brings the most to the proceedings though as a judgemental, racist, dirtbag dad who is a lot more likeable than his character sounds on paper.  As far as the humor specifically goes, it is part horror parody and part John Waters tastelessness.  This is no accident as Waters himself cameos as a blowjob-happy museum curator, which is the second hilarious fellatio joke to show up within about five minutes.

LAST SHIFT

Dir - Anthony DiBlasi

Overall: MEH

There is an abundance of problems with Anthony DiBlasi's Last Shift that squander its potential.  Set in a soon to be abandoned police station with a lone rookie cop on duty there, it features a rather relentless stream of supernatural set pieces.  Many of them would be positively skin-crawling if not for the stock sound design that robs them of all their impact.  Strip away the generic music and bangy noises every fifteen seconds and it would be quite creepy in a more natural context.  Making matters worse though, the plot points are horribly predictable and as generic as they come.  There is an emotional undercurrent to the story, but when everything around it is so big, loud, and above all else derivative, then it comes off as an eye-ball rolling schlock-fest played seriously.  Which is the worst kind of eye-ball rolling schlock-fest.  As a mere haunted house attraction then, those who still think bloody pentagrams, bloody masks, bloody writing on walls, bloody hillbilly ghosts doing random things on an anniversary of something affecting the woman they are terrorizing, (a woman who does not mention all the wadkadoo shit that she is seeing the first several times that she is given the opportunity to of course), then this movie has all of that plus several bloody jump scares more.

2013 Horror Part Eight

ESCAPE FROM TOMORROW

Dir - Randy Moore

Overall: MEH

This independent debut from Randy Moore is an odd, somewhat notorious offering in more ways than one.  From a production standpoint, it garnished a significant amount of attention from critics as the film was shot almost entirely at both Disney World and Disneyland, both parks of which fit in quite narratively as well.  Disney eventually acknowledged the movie without pursuing any serious legal action, but from such a sue-friendly company, the mere existence of Escape from Tomorrow is in and of itself remarkable.  As far as the actual film goes, it is strange though not exclusively for good reasons.  It was shot with inexpensive cameras that could remain hidden from Disney staff, then rendered in black and white.  While this gets around the issue of lack of lighting control, it still gives it a bit of an off-putting, amateur YouTube channel quality.  Embarrassing use of green screen in a few instances further emphasizes this.  Some of the story elements like a family dysfunctionally disintegrating while on a stressful vacation and the husband's sex-deprived marriage leading him to horndog hallucinations are interesting and occasionally amusing.  Things increasingly go into sloppy, surrealistic mode though with a nonsensical and pretentious third act and payoff. 

 

+ 1

Dir - Dennis Iliadis

Overall: MEH

 

Full of trippy, Twilight Zone-level aesthetics with plenty of psychological themes in place, Greek filmmaker Dennis Iliadis' follow up to the 2009 The Last House on the Left remake + 1, (Plus One, Shadow Walkers), is interesting though ultimately uneven.  A solid example of posing far more questions than providing answers, those questions sustain the film to a point.  The concept of reliving a regrettable moment with a near immediate level of hindsight gives the movie an emotional backbone that is more intriguing than the rather ill-defined, sinister bizarro-world stuff that becomes more prominent in the third act.  Iliadis goes for a tone of balancing humor with mounting doom, but it is a bit rushed in the violent, catastrophic finale where things seem to arrive there awkwardly.  Likewise, most of the character arcs resolve themselves clumsily and a kind of ugly feeling permeates after the credits role.  It is ambitious and deserves credit for what it may be trying to attempt though, plus the final showdown is visually impressive as far as how it was pulled off.

 

STOKER

Dir - Park Chan-wook

Overall: MEH

A knowing quasi-re-working of Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt by actor-turned-screenwriter Wentworth Miller and South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook in his English speaking debut, Stoker is a partially successful thriller.  The three leads in Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska, and Matthew Goode turn in quite different though equally strong performances, though Goode's incessant smirking does become a bit irksome after awhile.  Chan-wook does an impressive job with the material, maintaining a dreadful tone with no breaks for humor and his frequent collaborator Chun Chung-hoo photographs everything beautifully and stylishly from the cinematographer chair.  It is a shame that the material in question is rather sub-par.  Far fetched and melodramatic in parts with a somewhat foreseeable reveal opening up doors that are fumblingly gone through, the story becomes dull and almost ham-fisted when it should be oozing with tension.  With a lesser director or lesser actors, the movie could have been in far more serious trouble.  As it stands though, it is clearly flawed yet meritable in enough areas to elevate it out of being exclusively mediocre.

2012 Horror Part Eight

DEAD SUSHI

Dir - Noboru Iguchi

Overall: MEH

 

Essentially if Lloyd Kaufman and John De Bellow went to Japan and indulged in their natural, non-artistic artistic inclinations, Dead Sushi, (Deddo sushi), would most likely be the result.  Written and directed by former adult video filmmaker Noboru Iguchi, (Mutant Girls Squad, Zombie Ass), it is an indulgently silly, messy, juvenile-centered movie where just the title alone spells things out rather plainly.  A premise about killer sushi that also features zombies, a talking egg, some of the worst digital effects ever committed to celluloid, random kung-fu break outs, horny businessmen, and a guy who turns himself into a were-tuna is nothing to take serious and is nothing taken seriously by anyone involved.  Tone issues not even remotely being a problem then, the film gets to bask in its gross-out goofiness.  It is harmlessly dumb and for those looking for something with enough wacky and very exclusively Japanese ingredients on display, this is a logical pit stop to make.

 

THE PACT

Dir - Nicholas McCarthy

Overall: MEH

The first full-length from writer/director Nicholas McCarthy who is primarily stuck with the horror genre throughout his career thus far, The Pact is an adequately made outing that does not quite overcome its still highly derivative nature.  Too many conventional horror hallmarks are overused including but not limited to a blind spiritual medium, internet research, nightmare sequences, a makeshift Ouija board meant to be a very serious/no going back tool for communicating with the dead, faulty electricity, cameras catching supernatural phenomena, a woman that no one believes, and just about every single last frightening nuance being accompanied by a sudden and loud noise on the soundtrack.  While the comic relief is nil, the film's trite components get overwhelming enough that it dips its toes unintentionally into cornball terrain anyway.  McCarthy's clearly a fan of the genre as he pulls no punches in adhering so closely to it, though this is precisely the problem as the movie has not a solitary chance of rising above any other mediocre film so similar to it.

PARANORMAN

Dir - Sam Fell/Chris Buttler

Overall: GOOD

This collaboration between English filmmakers/animators Sam Fell and Chris Buttler is yet another generally fun horror film aimed at both parents and children in equal measures.  Starting off with a deliberate "Feature Presentation" ode to grindhouse cinema and going the stop-motion route instead of being exclusively constructed on computers, ParaNorman takes some retro approaches without succumbing to straight throwback nostalgics.  This is a plus.  Even though the computer and practical animation hybrid still feels too clean and has that unfortunate, over-digitized smoothness, it also has that grounded and weighty quality that shooting actual objects with actual cameras brings to stop-motion.  As far as the story goes, it is plenty moving and has a rather singular theme of unchecked fear resulting in regrettable actions with painful consequences.  This never becomes too heavy-handed though as the visual aesthetics remain engaging and the predictable yet effective narrative is highly user-friendly to follow.  The only downside is that much of the humor falls flat and certain scenes hit a brick wall because of it.  Things never stumble for too long though and there are enough redeemable qualities to enjoy.

2011 Horror Part Seven

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN

Dir - Lynne Ramsay

Overall: MEH

 

Lynne Ramsay's adaptation of Lionel Shriver's novel We Need to Talk About Kevin is a relentless nightmare that both works and is unsuccessful due to its overbearingness.  The one-hundred and twelve minute running time feels its length, but not because the film forgoes a linear narrative and painstakingly unveils its layers.  As far as structure goes, Ramsay exhibits a level of taut control that bombards us with highly concerning moments while deliberately dishing out their inevitably horrific outcome.  Tilda Swinton is her usual outstanding self, playing a woman who has made to feel that her entire motherhood is nothing more than the universe taking itself out on her and making her feel that she is the least sane person in it.  As her plight becomes more and more hopeless, Swinton becomes more and more numb as well as frustratingly empathetic.  Speaking of frustrating, that is where the movie ultimately falls apart as its subject matter is highly unpleasant to watch.  Any story is fighting an uphill battle to be relatable where a child is allowed to behave so appallingly as to set off incessant red flags while one of their parents thinks nothing is remotely amiss.  This may be the point to show the danger in such a dysfunctional family dynamic, but said danger is all too obvious and annoyingly disregarded for the audience to really stay with.

 

SUPER 8

Dir - J.J. Abrams

Overall: MEH

In between his two Star Trek reboots, J.J. Abrams got a chance to blatantly channel his inner Stephen Spielberg, (who also produces here, so the admiration seems to have been greenlit from the source), with Super 8.  Drenched in the type of nostalgia that has run rampant with horror throwbacks in a post Stranger Things cinematic landscape, Abrams' work here will unmistakably get compared to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., and The Goonies to name simply the most obvious ones.  Throw in lens fairs in nearly every frame, unnaturally smooth, cartoony CGI, and jump scares interrupting all moments that stop to breath and those are basically the only new things Abrams offers up to distract you from how much the movie is trying to beat you over the head with fond feelings of the good ole days of child-centric, mega blockbusters.  On the plus side, the performances from predominantly unknown child actors and no A-list major ones are universally solid and when it comes to compelling character arcs, at least the humans present are plenty well-written enough to care about.  The same cannot be said for the main alien monster though whose entire backstory and arc are resolved in a poorly rushed fashion.

GRAVE ENCOUNTERS

Dir - Colin Minihan/Stuart Oritz

Overall: MEH

Jumping on the found footage bandwagon for their debut Grave Encounters, the Vicious Brothers Colin Minihan and Stuart Oritz exhibit a level of unoriginality that borders on sheer plagiarism.  The idea here is not all together bad, though it is proven to be a monumentally difficult one to pull off.  The first act is an adequately amusing Ghost Adventures parody, equipped with their own version of the walking paranormal bro cartoon character Zak Bagans, here called Lance Rogerson.  There is also a pretentious psychic, a pretty, female "occult specialist" and a black cameraman who provides nearly all of the "Dude fuck this shit" comic relief.  Such things only scratch the surface as far as cliches though.  The location is a closed down mental hospital with its own physics-defying, labyrinth-like layout, supernatural entities merely toy with people for no logical reason and take their sweet time in doing so, every idea anyone suggests does not work exactly as the viewer can predict, there is screaming, bloody CGI ghost faces, said ghosts stand in corners, a laundry list of obvious foreshadowing is utilized, jump scares are every-which-a-way, sadistic surgeons perform experiments, and while we are at it, an occult alter makes an appearance too.  You could probably construct a boring and trite comedy at least out of what is here, but sadly they abandoned the comedy part early on so all that you are left with is the boring and trite part.

2000s Anime Horror

BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE

(2000)

Dir - Hiroyuki Kitakubo

Overall: MEH

 

Spawning manga sequels, a video game, three light novel adaptations, and two separate anime series in alternate timelines, the initial Blood: The Last Vampire is oddly uncompelling for something with such a rich franchise following in its wake.  Hiroyuki Kitakubo's direction is effectively stylish at times, creating artful transitions and maintaining a flowing enough pace, all things considered.  It is more the story itself that does not gain any interesting footing or follow through enough with the elements it offers up.  Acting more like a teaser than anything, the forty-eight minute length is ill-suited considering how little is done with it.  We are introduced to a mysterious, demon-hunting society and given a brief glimpse into but one of their missions before a character that was barely established takes over as narrator and the credits role just as quickly as we got in.  As the set pieces are nothing more than a brooding, enigmatic young woman being highly proficient with a katana against generic monsters and schoolgirls sporting sharp teeth, it is hardly offering up any wheel-inventing concepts.  Its fine, just barely warranting the deeper dive it was inevitably given.

VAMPIRE HUNTER D: BLOODLUST

(2000)

Dir - Yoshiaki Kawajiri

Overall: GOOD

Fifteen years later, a sequel was finally unveiled for 1985's rather landmark anime Vampire Hunter D in the form of Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust.  Based off of the third novel Demon Deathchase in Hideyuki Kikuchi's series for the character with a new creative team including director Yoshiaki Kawajiri, (Wicked City, Ninja Scroll), the story pits D not only against a more benevolent, vampiric foe, but also his bodyguards which include a werewolf with a mouth in his chest, a shapeshifter, and a shadow sorcerer.  On top of even that, a competing group of mercenaries with their own superhuman skills are after the same prize and it all ends up going down in a haunted castle so elaborately mammoth that it can only result in lifelong wet dreams for any Gothic undead fan.  The design work is exceptional here and the settings and numerous battle sequences are consistently inventive and beautifully done.  While most of the characters are present to merely showcase their individual quirks, the main ones are given plenty of backstory to raise the stakes and make for a more compelling ordeal than just a bunch of gory, over the top monster throw-downs.

KING OF THORN

(2009)

Dir - Kazuyoshi Katayama

Overall: MEH

 

An adaptation of Yūji Iwahara's manga series of the same name, the full-length, anime film King of Thorn, (Ibara no Ou), takes considerable narrative liberties with the plotline, including a different ending amongst other things.  Directed and co-written by Kazuyoshi Katayama, it carries quite an ambitious arc and is exquisitely animated and designed.  After an intriguing set up, the second act is straight-forward and ultimately the most rewarding as a group of survivors try to simultaneously outrun and make sense of their dangerous, thorn and monster infested surroundings, with more layers being pulled back as to each of their purposes in some kind of post apocalyptic, virus-infected conspiracy.  Sadly, the last section of the movie spirals into mind-melting extravagance and becomes annoyingly impenetrable.  Characters keep hallucinating, re-living flashbacks, or not doing either for all the viewer can decipher.  It rapidly bounces between such topsy-turvy situations with incessant expository dialog dumps that only make things more ill-defined.  In a more surreal context, this could have been rewarding instead of merely looking quite fantastic yet also being hopelessly challenging. 

2000s Asian Horror Part Nine

DUMPLINGS

(2004)

Dir - Fruit Chan

Overall: MEH

 

Released the same year as the anthology outing Three... Extremes, Dumplings, (Jiǎozi, Gaau2zi2), is a mere full-length expansion of the short segment baring its name from the other film.  It differs naturally from its more condensed version by adding subplots which expand upon the arcs and backstories of certain characters.  The ending is also different and may or may not be preferable to the already acceptably macabre one from Three... Extremes.  While it retains the same level of uncomfortable creepiness, it is a bit of a shame that things do not quite come together in a more satisfying way.  The extended story elements do not really add anything too interesting overall as no darkly compelling lore is brought into the proceedings to make the outcome any more engaging than it already was in its shortened form.  The finish here is more disappointingly open-ended than ambiguous as well.  Though it has an extra hour or so to play with its material, it does not particularly do so to any more rewarding of an end.

SHUTTER

(2004)

Dir - Banjong Pisanthanakun/Parkpoom Wongpoom

Overall: MEH

 

Remade three different times in as many countries, Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom's Shutter, (Chattoe: Kot Tit Winyan), is a typical J-horror entry even though it is technically from Thailand.  Typical in the fact that ghosts once again inhabit technology; cameras in this case where vengeful spirits show up as blurry images or blink and you will miss them faces buried behind other people.  It is atmospheric in parts and gives its story plenty of time to unveil its layers.  There is a hefty reliance on genre cliches though, too many to make the film stand out from the hordes of similar movies out there.  A female spectre in a schoolgirls uniform with blood pouring from her whited-out eyes with a weird mother living out in the boonies, characters witnessing spooky things and not mentioning them to anyone, an expert on the supernatural showing up to drop some expository dialog, nightmare sequences, obligatory plot twists, and the standard amount of jump scares are all present amongst other such tropes.  It might not be all that clever or unique, but it is adequately well made in a pedestrian fashion at least.

 

13 BELOVED

(2006)

Dir - Chookiat Sakveerakul

Overall: MEH

The ambitious, enormously dark comedy 13 Beloved, (13 Game Sayong), is the sophomore effort from Thai filmmaker Chookiate Sakveerakul, here credited as Matthew Chukiat Sakwirakul.  A bit of Twilight Zone meets Saw meets Falling Down, the movie is an adaptation of the "13 Quiz Show" episode of the My Mania graphic novel by Eakasit Thairaat.  It is also clearly a commentary on reality TV, sadistic voyeurism, and horrific human capabilities brought on by desperation and a severely mangled childhood.  The premise is successfully unnerving and Sakveerakul makes it through the entire, exhausting ordeal without losing any momentum.  One or two of the set pieces are too gruesome or nauseating to enjoy, which regrettably pushes the movie into torture porn terrain even while it is doing so in a somewhat sly and amusing fashion.  It is not until the final act that the tone shifts more noticeably, dropping the comedic angle and going for something quite grim and serious.  Sadly, the conclusion does not really live up to the nerve-wracking build as it comes off more pretentious than profound.  The movie has a handful of interesting moments and even some genuinely funny ones, but it is also too unpleasant and unfocused to result in anything close enough to satisfying.