2011 Horror Part Three

SLEEP TIGHT
Dir - Jaume Balagueró
Overall: GREAT

Jaume Balagueró's outstanding Sleep Tight is more of a straight up thriller than a horror film and a straight up thriller that gets everything right from beginning to end.  Balagueró’s direction and Alberto Marini’s script are both fantastic as we are deliberately misled from the very opening scene, only for things to remain completely unpredictable until the credits roll.  When your main objective is to build tension throughout the duration of your movie, this could not have been handled better.  Luis Tosar’s César is one of the most sinister villains you are likely to see; a malevolent, behind-the-scenes manipulator whose resourcefulness is as uncomfortably admiring as it is disturbing.  Plus, he is our main protagonist for the entire film, making this a challenging yet fascinating framework to utilize.  There is some perfectly toned, dark humor sprinkled throughout and numerous moments are as comically intense as they are memorable.  In addition, the ending is as pitch perfect as you were hoping not to hope it would be.  

THE INNKEEPERS
Dir - Ti West
Overall: MEH

Ti West's sophomore effort The House of the Devil gained the independent writer/director some positive critical attention, yet some of the problems that are present there are also in his follow-up The Innkeepers.  In this respect, West is a frustrating filmmaker.  His work is often present with well done, individual moments and the amount of tension he can create can be very rewarding.  Working mostly in the horror field, creepy, unsettling, and/or disturbing things find their way in some capacity into each of his offerings in this genre.  At the same time though, every one of his scripts suffer from irrational behavior from his characters and very apparent plot holes, all of which deflates what would otherwise work.  West's insistence on writing his scripts solo would appear to be the problem then.  With no one to bounce ideas off of and point out how some of them do not work, he stumbles to varying degrees.  There is some well-produced spookiness here, particularly a scene in a very eerie basement that is impossible not to get chilled by.  So it achieves its goal as a haunted house, (hotel), movie in that respect, but achieving its goal as a good movie in any other capacity is simply outside of its grasp.

YOU'RE NEXT
Dir - Adam Wingard
Overall: MEH

Another very problematic, contemporary horror outing that misses the mark with its botched tone and severely flawed script is Adam Wingard's You're Next.  Both Windgard's direction and screenwriter Simon Barrett's script are the culprits; neither melding into the competent whole that they are required to.  As a cooky, over-the-top, "Home Alone if it was a horror movie", tongue-in-cheek dark comedy, this could have utilized a far sillier emphasis to make its wacky plot work.  Instead, the comedy element is not the prominent one, Wingard choosing to play most of the film as a straight slasher outing.  This is even more precarious because for a long time now, slasher films are nearly impossible to come off as compelling or unique.  So, meshing one already tired sub-genre with another that would have benefited from more overt comedy produces a fumbling exercise for ninety-four minutes.  Wingard has a likeable enthusiasm for gore and seems content to stick with the horror genre, so hopefully he is capable of surprising us at some juncture further down the road.