2018 Horror Part Six

WHAT KEEPS YOU ALIVE

Dir - Colin Minihan

Overall: MEH

This solo venture from writer/director Colin Minihan of the Vicious Brothers fame, (Grave Encounters), takes a slow boil approach that unfortunately leads into borderline insulting rubbish.  What Keeps You Alive makes some interesting moves, focusing on a same sex couple for one thing and pulling off one thoroughly exciting rug-pull early on.  Outside of that though, it stretches plausibility to a breaking point and quickly becomes an exercise in illogical storytelling and the type of slasher movie tropes that have long aggravated viewers.  In fact it manages to push such moronic cliches even further, spending its last two acts letting both victim and pursuer get away with schlock-level nonsense.  That said, Minihan handles everything in a fairly respectable way.  The movie is artful in many instances and the lead performance from Brittany Allen, (who also composed the effective musical score), is quite strong.  It is a shame that the film could not continue in the more singular direction that the first act may have hinted at, but its few redeemable qualities are worthy of some recognition at least.

CLIMAX

Dir - Gaspar Noé

Overall: MEH

 

The latest from contentious, Argentinian filmmaker Gaspar Noé is on the one had both simple and wildly ambitious.  Climax is an exercise in style over substance to be sure and features the type of confrontational, brazen approach the director is routinely known for.  Featuring an ensemble cast made up almost entirely of dancers with no previous acting experience, no script or written dialog, the ending credits at the very beginning, the opening credits midway though, some of the on screen text backwards, some of the cinematography upside down, and one continuous take lasting over forty-two minutes which makes up nearly half the total running time, it is about as conventional as a Naked City live performance.  One can scarcely deny the technical skill on display and the dance sequences and overall visual spectacle of it leads one to at least champion Noé's bold creative moves on a surface level.  As far as actually being able to enjoy watching the movie though, that is a different story.  While certainly fascinating, it is unavoidably tedious far before the extended descent into chaos takes center stage.  At that point there is literally no break from the improvised insanity on screen so sticking it out is an exhausting experience.

 

POSSUM

Dir - Matthew Holness

Overall: MEH

The full-length debut Possum from English comedian/writer/actor Matthew Holness seems to have been made with respectable intentions, but is almost obnoxiously unwatchable.  Based off of his short story of the same name which appeared in the 2009 anthology book The New Uncanny: Tales of Unease, Holness draws direct inspiration from silent, German Expressionism, Dead of Night, George A. Romero's Martin, and old British public information films.  The simple premise is ideal enough to warrant an unnerving end result, the lead performance from Sean Harris is rather committed, (though his mumbled dialog is literally unintelligible throughout), and the cold, grimy look is appropriately atmospheric.  Two very persistent issues undermine the entire thing though.  One, the sound design is eerie and un-melodic yet annoying punctuated by deafeningly loud bangs and shrieks literally EVERY SINGLE TIME the very creepy title monster appears on screen.  It is highly disturbing enough to look at in its own right and the fact that we are never allowed to experience it without such gross overuse of jump scare tactics is unforgivable.  Secondly and even more problematic is that the pacing is comatose-inducing.  Very little happens and with so many ear-piercing noises increasingly screaming at you, good luck even getting a nap in while you are waiting for the whole ordeal to be mercifully over with.