2021 Horror Part Four

CANDYMAN

Dir - Nia DaCosta

Overall: MEH

 

Following up a beloved film almost thirty years after the fact, (regardless of whether or not it is in the horror genre or has inspired numerous sequels of its own), is certainly trendy with a barrage of nostalgia-pandering releases in recent times.  It is also, generally, doomed to fail in some capacity.  On that note, though screenwriter/producer Jordan Peele and director Nia DaCosta's Candyman collaboration is ultimately uneven, it is also far better than it easily could have been.  The elements that work here are largely credited to DaCosta.  A deliberate avoidance of tired-out horror tropes is consistently maintained.  There are no jump scares and especially considering that the plot relies heavily on seeing things in the mirror, countless opportunities would have called for such debilitating, hack methods in the hands of a lesser filmmaker.  The musical score by Robert A.A. Lowe is also excellent and animated puppet sequences by Chicago-based theater company Manual Cinema further enhance the movie's stylized aesthetics.  The problem comes in the form of the script itself which is almost disastrously messy.  As is the case with Peele's directorial efforts, the humor is awkwardly placed and often clashes with the rest of the tone.  Expository dialog sequences also come off as forced and there are many of them.  Things dip too liberally into schlock terrain at times, particularly by the third act which feels noticeably rushed.  It is unfortunate that all of these detriments ultimately undermine the movie's sincere, racially-driven themes revolving around gentrification and the like, but at least it is visually compelling and a solid testament to DaCosta's talents.

 

THE 8TH NIGHT

Dir - Kim Tae-hyoung

Overall: MEH

 

Bombastic and overtly schlock-fueled, Kim Tae-hyoung's The 8th Night, (Je8ileui Bam), does manage to provide some fun along its bumpy road.  The fairytale, "end of days" premise would fit snugly at home in any occult-tinged, mystical anime and the plot practically bombards you with a slew of supernatural rules that are difficult if still amusing to keep up with.  Stylistically, Tae-hyoung propels the film along at an alarming pace, often nearing the point of feeling as if it is playing out in fast-forward.  The script is persistently dumping expository dialog, flashbacks, and both visual and audible call-backs with a sweeping musical score that barely lets up.  All of this gives it a ham-fisted, over-the-top feel that at the very least is anything but boring.  For a movie that is essentially nothing more than silly, demon-battling nonsense, it contains a rather excellent, dramatically-wrenching performance from Lee Sung-min as a disgraced former monk.  While the film ultimately moves way too fast and presents itself way too goofy to take any of its emotionally-driven baggage very seriously, it is all ambitious enough to still be admirable.

 

WEREWOLVES WITHIN

Dir - Josh Ruben

Overall: MEH

Josh Ruben and screenwriter Mishna Wolff's adaptation of the Werewolves Within video game is a largely obnoxious movie that collapses under its forced quirkiness.  A general rule of comedy is that any crop of weirdos should be balanced by characters that act in a more agreeable fashion.  The Marx Brothers and Ace Ventura only work when everyone around them behaves either nonchalantly towards their buffoonery or represent some sort of reasonable voice for the audience to feel grounded with.  The first act of Werewolves Within introduces us to an ensemble of annoying, rural townsfolk who all have to have some sort of neurotic or goofy attribute to them and then the plot ultimately pits their eccentricities off of each other.  While this could somewhat be justified narratively, it does make for an exhausting viewing experience where every frame of the film seems to be trying way, way too hard to be wacky and clever.  Worse yet, the gags and twists become either increasingly predictable or just nonsensical due to the underwritten nature of the script.  Throw in a handful of hackneyed jump scares, loud, moist sound effects, and virtually no actual werewolf moments until the very end and the movie even drops the ball as clever horror send-up.

2021 Horror Part Three

THE POWER

Dir - Corinna Faith

Overall: WOOF

As the first full-length from writer/director Corinna Faith, The Power is a bold, blatant stab at feminist empowerment that is absolutely destroyed by its own insulting, cliche pandering.  In an era where more and more female filmmakers are emerging with intelligent, thought-provoking works, it is a complete shame that crucial themes such as child molestation and the silencing of women's voices in general get tossed up into a thoroughly miserable and obnoxious movie such as this.  Faith chooses to consistently undermine her substantial intentions with an incalculable amount of jump scares to the point that this film can qualify as a torture device for people burnt out on them, (which should include every single movie-goer by now).  The soundtrack is either blarringly loud or completely silent, with deafening, screechy punctuations happening about ten times more than when actual dialog shows up.  Every character save two are shown to be deplorably awful people and the visual presentation is one of comedically overdone bleakness that is meant to be atmospherically creepy.  Speaking of laughable, a twist ending literally erupts into more ear-piercing screaming and is just the final jab after a bombardment of  over-the-top genre tropes.  Faith clearly has something to say here, but unfortunately it is all impossible to hear underneath all the tired, tired noise.

THE DJINN

Dir - David Charbonier/Justin Powell

Overall: MEH

 

Writer/director team David Charbonier and Justin Powell reunite with child actor Ezra Dewey for their considerably sub-par The Boy Behind the Door follow-up The Djinn.  Set in 1989 for no other conceivable reason than to justify the throwback, synthwave soundtrack, the movie is hardly brimming with originality.  Jump scares are as detrimentally predictable and over-used as in any modern horror film, the supernatural tomfoolery follows no rhyme or reason, and even oddly specific, minor cliches pile up annoyingly like a moody kid not wanting to eat, not knowing how to properly use an asthma inhaler, going for a knife that is just nearly out of reach, and hiding under beds to await yet another "Gotcha!" moment.  In setting their story in a single location on a single night with basically Dewey carrying the entire movie on his lonesome, Charbonier and Powell are utilizing a less is more approach that unfortunately wields monotonous results.  One particular flashback feels like it is used virtually every fifteen minutes and by the time it delivers as an emotional climax, we are then simply waiting for the inevitable twist to wrap everything up.  Done in such a meandering, trope-adherent style, it is about as forgettable as they come.

TILL DEATH

Dir - S.K. Dale

Overall: MEH

The full-length debut Till Death from director S.K. Dale is a pretty tight and mostly engaging thriller for the most part.  Ending its first act properly with a rather alarming curveball, Dale kicks things into high gear and even though he basically plays a one-note game throughout the bulk of the film, the pace is kept up at a considerable cruise.  This stops it from becoming monotonous even as the plot seems to be going for a world record as far as close calls are concerned.  The story has a unique combination of borderline silly yet still fun nuances, just enough in fact to elevate its rather straightforward production values and overall presentation.  Despite the movie's polished and successful attributes, it is unfortunate that Megan Fox is unavoidably stiff in the lead.  Whatever cosmetic work the actress has had done to her already picturesque face renders her consistently incapable of emoting and she comes off wooden almost exclusively for this reason.  Lacking a more fittingly robust, main performance then, the movie does not quite pack the most effective wallop it otherwise would have.  As an exercise in high taut tension though, Dale certainly proves that he has the chops for such a thing.

2021 Horror Part Two

IN THE EARTH

Dir - Ben Wheatley

Overall: MEH

 

The latest horror outing from writer/director Ben Wheatley is another captivatingly photographed yet ultimately misguided, pretentious mess.  In the Earth was filmed in fifteen days during the COVID-19 quarantine and certainly seems to be an answer to the pandemic.  Set during a viral outbreak where scientists are working on some form of a cure in the woodlands outside of Bristol, the movie plays out like a mother nature nightmare where Pagan mythology, hallucinations, madness, survivalist instincts, and vague scientific hoopla co-mingle with each other rather jarringly.  The tone is utterly humorless, laying the groundwork for equal levels of uncomfortable incoherence.  Wheatley's genre films linger in a frustratingly half-baked narrative landscape more often than not and a similar case of paddling against the waves with no obtainable destination is once again readily apparent here.  The cast is earnestly committed and the very tripped-out optical effects are gorgeously put together for such a low-budgeted, rough, rushed, handheld camera affair.  Sadly, Wheatley's guerilla-style, mystical ambitions amount to a considerable chunk of nothing despite such deliberate efforts to come off as profound.

 

CENSOR

Dir - Prano Bailey-Bond

Overall: MEH

 

An expansion on her earlier short Nasty from 2015, writer/director Pran Bailey-Bond's full-length debut Censor is a part throwback, part psychological, part heavily-surreal character study.  Set during the video nasty era in England and using such a jumping-off point to examine the fundamental concept of life imitating art, Bailey-Bond presents a film that is purposely stylized and deliberately intent on blurring its narrative components.  Visually, it is clearly influenced by Italian giallo color schemes and aesthetics while playing with aspect rations and film-within-a-film motifs.  The un-glamorized portrayal of conservative office buildings and grimy subways would seem to juxtapose such things, but the overall look is more consistent than not.  While it is steadily captivating to look at and Bailey-Bond's attention to visual detail is undoubtedly impressive, the movie falters a bit under its ambitions.  It bares many similarities to other ambiguous, experimental stories revolving around traumatized and increasingly unstable, central protagonists, but it becomes more frustratingly muddled than engaging as things progress.  Irish actress Niamh Algar is quite good in the lead and Bailey-Bond cleverly ties her mental decent into the setting itself where women were both exploited on screen and demeaned off screen.  There is a style over substance vibe that unfortunately becomes slightly detrimental to the whole though.  While imperfect then, it is still a promising debut from a respectfully challenging filmmaker.

GAIA

Dir - Jaco Bouwer

Overall: MEH

As a somewhat rare, South African ecological horror film, Jaco Bouwer's Gaia is low on introspective ideas, but has some inherent, ambiguous beauty to it all the same.  Written by Tertius Kapp, one could almost toss it off as yet another "tripping in the woods" story where characters find themselves both isolated and victim to mother nature's mysterious and mystical hallucinations.  Though plenty of evidence presents itself that otherworldly elements are indeed at play, the minimalist approach does not wield many narratively compelling results.  The cast is quite small and the dialog is sparse, neither of which allows for any proper understanding of what may be going on.  While this is not universally necessary, the film also grows monotonous and rather stuck in the mud after awhile.  Interesting visuals are introduced, (as well as some creepy, inventive creature designs), but the story lingers on three characters going nowhere throughout the bulk of it and the very little we do learn ultimately does not lead anywhere that enhances either the mood nor the story.  There are biblical nods, numerous dream within a dream sequences, plenty of visual, acid-trip flair, grime and grit, but it all results in mere arthouse aesthetics that are fun to look at yet vacant to ponder.