2010 Horror Part Two

WE ARE WHAT WE ARE
Dir - Jore Michel Grau
Overall: MEH
 
Plot wise, Jore Michel Grau's We Are What We Are, (Somos lo que hay), is a different beast from Jim Mickle's 2013, American remake; something that at least warrants the latter as having merit.  Shot entirely in the slums of Mexico City, Jore Michel Grau maintains a dank, desperate atmosphere from beginning to end, with several acts of brutality that are staged disturbingly well.  The mood goes a long way, which is fortunate since the script is poorly formulated and the characters underwritten.  This becomes distracting within seriously-played scenes that are supposed to be emotionally intense as they never connect due to everything being rushed along with only the vaguest of story construction.  There are also moments that come off comical in large part due to the imprecise writing, which clashes tone-wise with the rest of the film.  The concept is macabre enough though and the cast strong though yet again, they would appear even more so if they were properly fleshed-out and the presentation was less aloof.

 

TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL
Dir - Eli Craig
Overall: MEH

There is clearly an agenda to send-up and severely tweak various tired and lazy slasher horror conventions in Eli Craig's Tucker & Dale vs. Evil; conventions that have run rampant for decades now and deserve the piss being taken out of them to some extent.  Such cliched details are served up a plenty and the movie's overtly slapstick tone is kept consistent so that when the ridiculous repeatedly continues to happen, it works in its own wacky universe without any issues.  Alan Tudyk is one of the title characters, so any self respecting Joss Whedon fan will be genuinely pleased to see him excel with such silliness.  All that being said though, one could argue that what is being made fun of here are tropes that are better off left alone than once again lampooned.  It is still difficult to stand the "stupid college kids venture into redneck territory + serial killer in the woods" premise, since nothing unique is brought to the table here and the story is at the mercy of so many other stories that both came before it and were played more seriously in the process.  Still, the results are entertaining, the title characters are lovable, and the burn-out factor may be more forgivable to the less-jaded horror movie fan out there.

 

I SAW THE DEVIL
Dir - Kim Jee-woon
Overall: GOOD

Despite its relentless miserableness, Kim Jee-woon's revenge thriller I Saw the Devil is brutally satisfying for those who can stomach it.  Lapsing a breath away from torture-porn territory on occasion, Jee-woon thankfully steers sheer of the most disturbing "I really don't wanna see this" moments while at the same time almost gleefully showing the less-disturbing yet just as eye-wincingly brutal "I also really don't wanna see this" moments.  Meaning that it is easier to endure an unfathomably evil lunatic getting his Achilles tendon diced up as opposed to watching some poor, innocent, pretty Korean girl get done in with the same kind of gruesome detail.  Nothing is performed or photographed anything shy of stellar though and even the relatively long running time and monotonous nature of the plot sits uncomfortably yet is necessary to allow for the audience to soak in the most vile aspects of human behavior.  Good and evil are increasingly painted with the same colors here and the whole thing delivers the viscerally channeling chills that are impressive without being outright enjoyable, since "enjoyment" is hardly a thing that is on the menu here.

2010 Horror Part One

STAKE LAND
Dir - Jim Mickle
Overall: MEH

The borderline terrible Stake Land directly proceeded Jim Mickle's much better We Are What We Are remake and even unfortunately got a sequel in 2016.  Mickle and co-writer/actor Nick Damici initially envisioned the film to be a webseries and wrote forty, eight-minute scripts before a producer unwisely advised them to fuck all that and just make it a full-length movie.  Seven, additional mini-prequels were made and released online at the time, but all of this points to the fact that much was left out of the actual film.  Several characters and sub-plots emerge and get glossed over and at the same time, the plotting is tedious.  Everyone goes from point A to point B to point C, (camping, mingling, killing vampires, and repeat), with vague motivation and a downright miserable tone permeating through everything.  Worse though, there are random, schlocky moments full of the most generic, hokey dialog which makes the movie spontaneously morph into B-rate, straight-to-DVD level tripe.  Combining awful, lazy religious themes with so many things that we have seen so many times, it is equal parts Mad Max, The Grapes of Wrath, John Carpenter's Vampires, and Zombie Land, sans all of the humor and with boatloads more ugly grit.

TROLLHUNTER
Dir - André Øvredal
Overall: GREAT

The highly praised, well-respected Norwegian export Trollhunter, (Trolljegeren, Troll Hunter, The Troll Hunter), is deserving of its reputation as a premier horror outing from a country that has produced fewer than most.  Utilizing the often tired found-footage format for another trek into the woods, this time it is to encounter Norway's most iconic fairy-tale creatures.  Thankfully, writer/director André Øvredal plays his cards more competently than others in the over-worked sub-genre, utilizing a modest budget and pleasantly passable visual effects that are on par with any well-funded Hollywood production from the time period.  The plot is not perfect and there may be one or two questionable routes taken, but a mostly convincing job is done to keep the cameras rolling and slam home every character's motivation enough so that when huge portions of expository dialog are given to us, none of it takes us out of the experience.  This is something that is often a problem with hand-held camera horror films and it does not hurt that the cast is exceptionally strong here with Otto Jespersen, (a known Norwegian comedian who is anything but gut-bustingly funny here), being particularly solid.

DREAM HOME
Dir - Pang Ho-cheung
Overall: GOOD

Writer/director/producer Pang Ho-cheung's Dream Home, (Wai dor lei ah yut ho), is inconsistent in some respects yet hits more than it misses.  This is most prominent where the over-the-top gore and murder sequences are concerned; gore and murder sequences which would easily make Dario Argento stand up and applaud.  Though the horror-comedy moments work to a tee, the narrative itself is thin and executed confusingly.  Half told in flashbacks, such moments ultimately derail the otherwise hyper-violent pace, confused further by present day sequences that seem non-linear and take extra work on the audience's part to put together.  While the zig-zag structure is not as huge of a detriment as one would think, the tone suffers with the majority of time being spent on such a somber and serious back story.  Main protagonist Josie Ho's aloof performance is also tricky to pin down as she zombies her way through things, though her inevitable "cracking psyche" scene is well-deserved.  Not for the squeamish or for those who are unequipped to decipher a labyrinth-like plot line, but it is a nasty, Hong Kong Falling Down variation that provides the inflated housing market crash with a sure-fire, feminist anti-hero and again, plenty of nauseating violence.

2000s American Horror Part Thirty-Five

THE GRUDGE

(2004)

Dir - Takashi Shimizu

Overall: MEH

After four Ju-on entries in his native Japan, filmmaker Takashi Shimizu was tasked with the inevitable American remake from Sam Raimi's production company Ghost House Pictures, here simply titled The Grudge.  Garnishing a recently Buffy-free Sarah Michell Gellar in the lead as well as a slew of other recognizable faces to varying degrees, (including Ted Raimi, Grace Zabriskie, William Mapother, Clea DuVall, Ryo Ishibashi, and Bill Pullman who should always be in more movies), it is a slicker production than its counterparts from across the Pacific and is the first not to be penned by Shimizu himself.  Stephen Susco's script sticks to the previously established bullet points and adds a couple of fresh set pieces, but the entire film seems to be oddly stuck in an unenthusiastic haze.  The performances come off as phoned-in, the franchise's disjointed narrative structure is not broken into chapters this time and is ergo more off-putting than interesting, and the Westernized approach lacks the eerie subtly that Shimizu had become adept at delivering.  Instead, the movie is only creepy on paper, with stock scary music, stock jump scares, crappy CGI effects, and no sense of paranormal urgency to an already over-trotted story.

SOMEBODY HELP ME

(2007)

Dir - Chris Stokes

Overall: WOOF

The novelty of a horror film premiering on BET of all places quickly wears off when viewing the atrocious Somebody Help Me; easily one of the most insultingly lazy and embarrassing horror movies of the entire decade.  Written and directed by record executive filmmaker Chris Stokes, all of the details would render this a Scary Movie-styled parody, with a stunning amount of braindead narrative cliches, dialog, performances, and scare tactics that are all played stunningly straight.  The first act is cringey enough, with several young couples throwing a birthday party for one of their friends who all act like caricatures out of a non-threatening hip hop video or a white executive's version of a commercial that is aimed at urban America.  Once some generic, mask-wearing psycho starts picking them all off with implausible ease, we are then treated to torture porn segments, characters endlessly debating if they should stay put, leave, or look for their friends some more, and even a little girl on a swing who sings "Ring Around the Rosey" for Christ's sake.  There are too many other nauseatingly hack details to mention and never once does Stokes present his bombardment of formulaic tripe as anything unique, fun, suspenseful, or even tongue in cheek.  It is movies like this that make people who hate horror movies be 100% correct in their opinion.

THE NEW DAUGHTER

(2009)

Dir - Luis Berdejo

Overall: MEH

A formulaic and uninspired horror movie that is about as scary as an expired pack of spearmint gum, The New Daughter doubles as a dud follow-up to Swing Vote for star Kevin Costner.  The full-length debut from Spanish filmmaker Luiso Berdejo, it adapts John Connolly's novel of the same name which has a handful of familiar trappings that are served up without any flare or intrigue.  A single parent moving into a giant old house in the country with a brat teenage daughter who hates everything about such an arrangement, Native American mysticism about a chosen one, a folklore expert with a British accent, a kid starting a new school in a small town who immediately come in contact with a bully, stock screechy monster noises, a frustrated dad who literally googles "crazy daughter" and "bad parenting", and of course a cockamamie, supernatural scheme that takes its sweet ass time for no reason besides stretching the movie out until at least the ninety minute mark.  Costner is reliably solid in the lead, plus actor Ivana Baquero and composer Javier Navarrete, (both of whom did lauded work in Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth), are appreciated, but the story and presentation here is too pedestrian to remember, even mere moments after the credits roll.

2000s American Horror Part Thirty-Four

FROM HELL

(2001)

Dir - Albert Hughes/Allen Hughes

Overall: MEH

 

The Hughes brothers take a detour with the substantially-budgeted period piece From Hell; a gleefully violent yet bloated adaptation of Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's sprawling graphic novel of the same name.  Neither historically accurate nor a faithful interpretation of its source material, (as well as thematically singular from the director's contemporary crime films), it has a stylistic, glossy sheen that jives interestingly with its frequent bloodshed and dingy representation of late 19th century prostitute life.  Nearly all of the characters are sensationalized variations of historical figures and the performances are admirable, with Johnny Depp utilizing yet another convincing British accent, as does Heather Graham.  Depp's Cockney-adjacent, opium-indulging inspector named after and based on Frederick Abberline, (who famously tried to tackle the Jack the Ripper slayings of the era), comes off as more of a bystander than a Sherlock Holmes-level eccentric and the script's drama is too underplayed and underwritten, failing to capture the gritty flare of Moore and Campbell's initial material.  Still, it is not without some nasty charm and is certainly no more or less forgettable than the vast array of other Ripper cinematic works that came before it.

THE BURROWERS

(2008)

Dir - J.T. Petty

Overall: MEH

 

A period-set, "Tremors if it was a Western" genre offering from writer/director J.T. Petty, The Burrowers pulls no punches in its grit-covered depiction of the Old West's pioneer country.  Riddled with Native American hostility and racism, the trek that the characters embark on is further complicated by underground monsters that paralyze their victims, bury them while still alive, and come back to feast on the mushy bits at a later convenience.  Having previously fed off of buffalo for centuries, the white man's reckless slaughter of such livestock has given the creatures the taste for human meat out of necessity and the movie works as a metaphor for mother nature's non-bias agenda where any and all nationalities are on the menu, regardless of their petty squabbles.  Some familiar faces are sprinkled through the cast, with character actor Doug Hutchison getting the most scenery-chewing in as another odious pipsqueak which he has made a career out of portraying.  Sadly, the pacing is monotonous and the cinematography is of the dark, hand-held, shaky, "What the hell am I even looking at?" variety, which is not helped by Ritalin-fueled editing during the gruesome attack sequences.  Elsewhere, the dialog is largely mumbled and the title monsters look awful in their CGI form at least, though the practical effects close-ups are appreciated.

SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD

(2009)

Dir - George A. Romero

Overall: MEH

Some low-level digital gore effects and an unshakable air of redundancy are the biggest grievances one can find with what would turn out to be George A. Romero's final film Survival of the Dead, which doubles as the closer to his second abysmal Dead Trilogy.  In this respect, the movie's flaws can be seen as a breath of fresh air compared to the misguided mess that both Land of the Dead and especially Diary of the Dead were, the latter being a solid contender for the worst horror film ever made.  Romero had run out of ideas, (or at least not embarrassingly stupid ideas), for his Dead movies long before he got to this one, but his attempts here manage to be silly and ugly without being insulting.  Some of the on-screen means of disposing of zombies are humorous, even if they are also undermined by the aforementioned cartoony blood-splatter.  The moral conundrum presented with focusing on a bitter feud between two families who have opposing views on how to handle the flesh-eating ghouls is just a variation of Captain Rhodes and Dr. Frankenstein's much more bombastic arc from Day of the Dead.  The tongue is still in cheek here, but it lacks gusto as well as freshness, making it simply a competent note for Romero to go off on, which all things considered, is probably the best we could have hoped for after Diary of the Dead.

2000s American Horror Part Thirty-Three

THE COLLINGSWOOD STORY

(2002)

Dir - Michael Costanza

Overall: MEH

 

An interesting footnote at least for being the first credited screenlife horror film, The Collingswood Story is admirable for what it humbly attempts, but it is more unintentionally embarrassing than properly unnerving.  Shot during the early stages of home-used webcam technology, (when a hundred feet of phone cable was needed to keep a conversation going via laptop), independent filmmaker Michael Costanza makes the common found footage mistake of simultaneously utilizing scary music, montages, and conventional editing techniques.  Such would be forgivable if A) the story was any good or B) if the performances and dialog were anywhere near acceptable.  Four actors are given speaking roles, including a comic relief slob, a likeable college student, a cartoonishly silly psychic medium, and a bro with a heart of gold played by one Johnny Burton who is a dead ringer for Glenn Howerton.  All of the performances are high school-level play bad at best and Costanza's script is loaded with inane cliches, none of which makes his tale compelling of a clandestine cult conducting evil tomfoolery in the unassuming New Jersey town of the title.  There are certainly worse found footage offerings out there that came in the immediate wake of The Blair Witch Project, but this is easily one of the clumsiest.

 

RED EYE

(2005)

Dir - Wes Craven

Overall: GOOD

 

Released the same year as his laughably abysmal and studio-mangled, alt-teen werewolf movie Cursed, Wes Craven's Red Eye at least hits its mark as a quasi-silly thriller with a consistent, popcorn-munching tone.  Carl Ellsworth makes his feature film, screenwriting debut here having previously worked in television and even though his plot has one or two loosey-goosey craters in it to keep things held together, it delivers a catchy, high-stakes shift that kicks the second and third acts into gripping gear.  As is often the case with such movies, the audience may be yelling at some of the panicked choices that Rachel McAdams' protagonist makes in such a predicament, but the story avoids more cliched tropes than it adheres to, all of which elevate the tension so that the final set piece seems well-deserved in its B-movie fervor.  Cillian Murphy is ideally cast as the charming hit-man terrorist guy who seems to cross all of his T's and dot all of his I's until a crowd-pleasing monkey wrench gets thrown into his, (throat), gears, at which point the whole thing kicks up the camp and becomes a well-executed cat and mouse chase.  Craven keeps the whole thing together with the bare minimum of his usual, undercutting schlock elements, cruising along to where it might not completely hold together upon closer inspection, but works its cinematic trick sufficiently during the ride.

 

MY NAME IS BRUCE

(2007)     

Dir - Bruce Campbell

Overall: GOOD

Cranking up the self-deprecation to eleven, Bruce Campbell's sophomore directorial effort My Name Is Bruce is a delightfully stupid meta extravaganza made with oodles of nod-and-a-wink love on a shoestring budget.  Filmed independently in Campbell's own Medford, Oregon backyard, he portrays a down-on-his-luck, alternate universe version of himself that is reduced to making throw-away, D-rent B-movies, lives in a trailer, feeds booze to his dog, has Ted Raimi as his agent who is also sleeping with his ex-wife/Evil Dead co-star Ellen Sandweiss, and ultimately gets summoned to a hole-in-the-wall mining town to defeat a resurrected Chinese demon that is also the god of bean curds.  Plot wise, it follows the same outline as The Three Amigos except with Campbell playing up his smug schmuck persona, numerous references to his actual body of work, several beheadings, and plenty of profane, off-color jokes to offend anyone misguided enough to take any of this seriously.  This includes Raimi in yellow-face, cruelty towards animals, a trans hooker, and two hillbilly gay slobs to name but a few eye-brow raising incidents.  Thankfully, the film lays into its overt ridiculousness so hard that even the gags that fall flat are as hilarious as the ones that land, so in that sense, Campbell has crafted something that makes fun of himself so relentlessly that it is impervious to criticism.

2000s American Horror Part Thirty-Two

AMERICAN PSYCHO

(2000)

Dir - Marry Harron

Overall: GOOD

 

Frustrating in some respects while hilarious in others, (with a command performance from Christian Bale), Marry Harron's adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho novel works best as an over-the-top satire of 80s yuppie culture and the soulless narcissism inherent therein.  Nearly a decade in the making with everyone from Oliver Stone, David Cronenberg, and Leonardo DiCaprio at one point attached, Harron and screenwriter Guinevere Turner were able to crack the code in Ellis' self-proclaimed "unfilmable" source material, toning down some yet not all of the horrific violence and focusing on the sigma male qualities of Bale's protagonist Patrick Bateman, which in turn makes it a pro-feminist work.  By exaggerating the laughably self-important and shallow lifestyle of privileged Wall Street bros who consider all attractive women to be of a lesser intelligence and that only smart women can be ugly since they have to make up for their lack of looks, Bale's Bateman is the cartoonish poster boy for a culture that champions vapid consumerism and greed.  Him being an unreliable narrator and leaving the audience in the dark as to how much of his mass murder spree was imaginary shows a cynical yet amusing point of view which might leave many a viewer scratching their head, yet it also fits the hopeless cycle that our wholly artificial main character is admittingly trapped in.

 

THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE

(2005)

Dir - Scott Derrickson

Overall: MEH

On paper at least, the combination of court room drama with demonic possession movie suffices as an adequate gimmick to go with, making Scott Derrickson's The Exorcism of Emily Rose something of a curiosity to seek out.  Whether or not it manages to save face under a barrage of schlocky melodrama and bombastic supernatural set pieces though is another story.  As many a "based on a true story" film likes to proclaim, it was inspired at least by something "factual", specifically the 1970s case of Anneliese Michel and the ensuing conviction of her parents and priest after Michel's death by malnutrition; a death that only occurred once a whopping sixty-seven documented exorcisms were attempted.  The concept of having an agnostic, hot-shot lawyer defend a clergyman while a devout Christian prosecutes him is a clever one, but it leads to Laura Linney's protagonist having a hokey change of heart as demonic forces seem to influence the very trial that she is a part of.  CGI monster faces in the clouds, characters waking up to a burning smell during the witching hour, a key witness with cold feet getting "accidentally" killed, and most of all, Jennifer Carpenter contorting her body, speaking in tongues, dilating her pupils, and screaming at everything in typical horror movie grandiosity gives it all an unintended camp value that is jarring against its otherwise sincere presentation.

DEAD SILENCE

(2007)

Dir - James Wan

Overall: MEH

The writer/director team of Leigh Whannell and James Wan, (unfortunately), return with their first non-Saw film Dead Silence; a shamelessly stupid popcorn horror extravaganza that utilizes some of the cheapest and most hack-laden scare tactics in any such movie.  According to Whannel, it was reworked by script doctors to the point of being virtually disowned by its initial author, and coming from the man who brought us both the Insidious and aforementioned Saw franchises, his own disappointment with the finished product here is telling.  Opening with a misleading, black and white Universal logo to signify its alliance with old school spook shows, the resulting movie is anything but and also about as scary as a bowl of Campbell's soup.  Ventriloquist dummies are inherently creepy, but they and every other visual flourish here plays into such an overdone, cheap haunted house aesthetic that it all becomes comically ridiculous instead of atmospherically chilling.  This tonal misstep is a prominent faux pas in all of Wan's horror efforts and it was done to both lesser and more bloated effect in other entries in his filmography, but at least there are a few silver linings here.  For one, the pacing is agreeably brisk and Donnie Wahlberg leans into his role as a wise-ass detective with a level of glee that at least seems intentionally humorous, as opposed to the asinine twist ending which adheres to cartoon logic that is likely to make every viewer point and laugh at the screen.

2000s American Horror Part Thirty-One

THE ATTIC EXPEDITIONS
(2001)
Dir - Jeremy Kasten
Overall: WOOF

 

Both staggeringly incomprehensible and boring, The Attic Expeditions, (Horror in the Attic), is a nightmare to sit through, despite the inclusion of Jeffrey Combs, Seth Green, Ted Raimi, Wendy Robie, and even Alice Cooper in a completely random cameo not playing himself for a change.  Initially planned to be the forth entry in the Witchcraft series, the project was ultimately reworked into its own ill-conceived thing, with editor Jeremy Kasten jumping at the chance to make this his directorial debut.  Deliberately plotted to be head-trip into a kind-of-insane-asylum patient's mind, it is played straight besides the fact that is is also laughably convoluted and only grows more frustratingly nonsensical as it goes on.  Andras Jones is a daft choice in the lead as he lacks any and all charisma, which is something that hardly helps the viewer to gain interest in whatever cockamamie scenario he seems to be in.  It all has something to do with Combs conducting an experiment with other actors who are all pretending to be either patients or doctors in an institution in order to garnish some sort of black magic secrets from Jones' protagonist; secretes that are locked in a chest in the attic.  Whatever.

CONSTANTINE
(2005)
Dir - Francis Lawrence
Overall: GOOD

An unfaithful yet enjoyable adaptation of DCs Hellblazer series, Constantine gets by on its stylized popcorn-munching aesthetic and plenty of end of days, Biblical mysticism details.  Several years in development, creator Alan Moore removed himself from the project as he is wont to do, which is fitting in that screenwriters Kevin Brodbi and Frank Cappello make-up much of their own nonsense anyway, loosely utilizing aspects from Garth Ennis' "Dangerous Habits" arc while cherry picking elements from others.  Yet another variation of the "birth of the Anti-Christ" motif which is an age-old one for horror films, this time there are fun magical rituals to be abused and supernatural rules to be broken, all with A-lister Keanu Reeves in well-suited, brooding, unwilling world savior form.  A far cry visually from the "Sting with a beige trench-coat" look of the character and minus the British accent, (Reeves not making that mistake again), he still nails some of the humorous and rough around the edges cynicism of the chain-smoking occult expert.  Some fine scenery chewing from Gavin Rossdale, Tilda Swinton, Djimon Hounsou, and especially Peter Stormare as the Lord of Darkness Himself are also most welcome.  It ties up enough loose ends to set the stage for a sequel that of this writing is still yet to emerge, but even as a stand-alone comic book movie that plays recklessly with its source material, its charm is appreciated.

THE RUINS

(2008)

Dir - Carter Smith

Overall: MEH

 

For his full-length debut, director Carter Smith collaborated with screenwriter Scott B. Smith on the latter's novel The Ruins; a nasty nature horror outing that plays with the age ole concept of dumb-dumb young adults venturing into a foreign setting that is off the beaten path for a reason.  Here, it is a mysterious Mayan temple that is home to some sort of presumably ancient vegetation that consumes anyone who comes in contact with it, with the extra unsettling angle of it also being able to mimic its victims through flower pedals.  Wisely, Smiths' script spends a limited amount of time setting up its small cast of characters and the bare-bones amount of personal drama between them in order for us to be invested when things begin to go strangely wrong.  This makes it more of a doomed, would-be survival tale than anything else, sparing us a lot of over-played, Romero-styled squabbling amongst everyone on screen as to how they should handle their hopeless predicament.  The CGI effects are used sparingly, yet they are also poorly convincing, with more icky uncomfortableness stemming from the disturbing scenario itself, as well as some eye-wincing gore in the final act.