Day 28: Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987)

Evil Dead 2 (1987)

Starring: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Denise Bixler, Ted Raimi

Category: New classic, favorite

Plot Tags: demon possession, comedy/scary

Original release: March 1987

Format viewed: Blu-Ray - own collection

Directed by: Sam Raimi

Written by: Sam Raimi, Scott Spiegel

Produced by : Robert Tapert, Irvin Shapiro, Bruce Campbell

Distributed by: Rosebud Releasing, Anchor Bay

It didn't seem fair to include Army of Darkness in this little project because I can basically recite the whole movie from memory give/take. So I thought it would make more sense to include the equally awesome but viewed-less-times Evil Dead 2. I remember seeing this for the first time with my dear friend Justus Humphrey (along with things like Dead Alive) and just having a grand old time. That has been part of what has made this project fun - remembering the circumstances by which I saw these for the first time or with whom etc. It's like with Reservoir Dogs- I remember the midnight screening and the crowd and all the rest of it and that positive association will always stay with the movie. So anyway, that is certainly part of it with Evil Dead 2.

The story starts with Ash and his girlfriend Leslie headed to a cabin in the woods for a romantic getaway. They find a tape recorder with a professor type guy reciting passages from the book of the dead (the necronomicon) and playing them brings out an evil demon thing that kills Ash's girlfriend Linda and possesses her body. Ash must remove her head to stop her and buries her outside the cabin. The demon attacks him and is possessed for a little bit and then let go. The next day we are introduced to the professor guys daughter and her partner who discover (as Ash previously did) that the bridge leading to the remote cabin is destroyed. They get help from a couple local guys to get another way to the cabin. Oh yeah, and Ash has to cut off his own hand which had become possessed by the demon. This is an absolutely hilarious scene and basically ruined all future 'person-versus-their-own-appendages' scenes in movies because no one could really do it better. Prior to the researchers and locals arrival, Ash starts to hallucinate and thinks that all the objects in the cabin are laughing at him, including cabinets, books, deer heads, the whole deal. It is like an evil version of that George Harrison video for 'I've got my mind set on you' - very fun. Once the others arrive, everything heads towards a steady decline with people being possessed, attacks by trees, the revelation that the professor guys wife was possessed but is in the basement/cellar versus being decapitated which leads to a rather amazing end to one of the characters. 

This all continues on with the remaining ones trying to figure out how to cast the demon away. A reading of the last couple pages of the necronomicon opens a portal which does just that but also sucks Ash, his old car and newly fitted chainsaw hand into some pastoral area in Europe many centuries prior. He kills a 'deadite' which validates his heroic status with the locals but it also dawns on him that he is now, somehow, stuck in this time. 

This movie, from top to bottom, is a crazed, bloody, goofy, manic good time. Raimi uses wild camera techniques and over the top creature effects to elicit a sense of controlled chaos that seems to echo the insanity the characters are going through. These things add to the overall fun of the movie which is, I guess, subjective. The grossness and overall violence (I mean, hey, a guy has to cut off his own hand once possessed) is pretty high but, if you're in the right mood, Evil Dead 2 is about as fun a time as you're going to have in this genre'. Bruce Campbell is just inspired as Ash and continues his smarm charm into Army of Darkness. All in all, I just love the Evil Dead films and hope to God the new one next year will be worth a damn because the source material sure as heck is. 

Day 27: Trick r' Treat (2007)

Trick r' Treat (2007)

Starring: Dylan Baker, Anna Paquin, Brian Cox, Rochelle Aytes, Leslie Bibb

Category: New classic, favorite

Plot Tags: anthology, holiday

Original release: December 2007*

Format viewed: DVD - own collection

Directed by: Michael Dougherty

Written by: Michael Dougherty

Produced by : Bryan Singer

Distributed by: Warner Brothers*

Okay, so first things first, the (*) marks above and what they mean (at least to me). This film is one of many that got made and a bunch of lame-ass marketing people and a bunch of lame-ass studio types didn't know what to do with it. I base this on many accounts I've read about the production and subsequent shelving of the movie after it was made. The bottom line, as near as I can figure it, is that it wasn't an out and out comedy (because of the inherent meanness and dark humor) and it wasn't and out and out horror film (I guess if you know nothing of the genre' you'd think that) so they were unsure about how to position it. So there it sat, seeing only a handful of screenings from the tail end of 2007 into 2008 and 2009 and when I got my hands on it finally in October 2009, it took a couple weeks of tracking it down and ultimately got a copy entirely by accident. They printed some criminally small amount of copies at the time which meant Amazon couldn't ship it and no retailers even had much of a record of having one or two or not. I finally found it at a Best Buy way way north of where I live and even then it was mislabeled. Since that time, they've upped the print runs considerably and you can find it pretty much anywhere but at that time, it was a massive chore. Course, you could find enough copies of the terrible Halloween remake, the Amityville remake and 10,000 other remakes at the time to repanel your house if you were so inclined. Sigh. Okay, so the reason I'm writing all of this is that Trick r' Treat is an absolutely wonderful love letter to the whole mythos of Halloween, the traditions, the urban legends and all the rituals that surround it. It is a little freaky, a lot joyfully mean spirited and all together a hoot and deserved no part of the screw job the distributors put on it. 

Basically the story centers around four (maybe five) stories that intertwine over the course of one Halloween evening in a small town. One story is about the school principal (the great Dylan Baker - Thirteen Days, Road to Perdition) who seems to have a bent towards thinning the local herds and developing the family business. Another story involves a group of middle school ( I think) children who decide to play a prank on an autistic girl at their school by bringing her to the rock quarry and, after she tells the story of the bus driver who drove a bus full of developmentally disabled children into the quarry on purpose to ease their parents' burden, don zombie costumes and scare the crap out of her. Things develop beyond the prank and, well, goes a different way. Another story surrounds a tentative girl in her early 20s (Anna Paquin) who is being drug around by her sister and her friends to pick up men for a party. She is very unsure about this and it being her first time, regardless of the chiding of her sisters' friends. After the other three girls find dates, Laurie decides to stay behind and comes face to face with a hooded, masked guy who we've just seen is up to a whole lot more than just innocent fun and instead seems to be a bloodthirsty creature of the night. This changes a bit, after Laurie wanders into the forest and the party comes into greater focus. The last actual story surrounds a mean old man (Brian Cox) who is bothered and annoyed by neighborhood children who is forced to come face to face with the true spirit of Halloween in the form of a now familiar face, a little boy in a sack head costume who is a whole lot more than that. This little boy plays an integral part from the onset of the film and is a constant reminder of the true spirit of Halloween. 

So I am leaving out a lot in terms of what happens in each of these stories and the twists and turns of them because that is part of the great charm and fun of the film. Nothing is groundbreaking in terms of plot twists but the way that each story resolves itself and the way they overlap is very clever and ultimately very interesting to see how it continues on. This isn't a film for everyone, as it is a bit bloody at times and the fates of many of the characters can be somewhat unpleasant but on the whole it is entirely appropriate for yearly Halloween viewing and it is a film I've definitely grown to love on each subsequent viewing. 

Day 26: El Orfanato / The Orphanage (2007)

El Orfanato / The Orphanage (2007)

Starring: Belen Rueda, Fernando Cayo, ROger Princep, Geraldine Chaplin

Category: Foreign, favorite

Plot Tags: ghost story, child(ren) in peril

Original release: Oct 4th, 2007 (Spain), December 2007 (United States)

Format viewed: DVD - own collection

Directed by: J.A. Bayona

Written by: Sergio G Sanchez

Produced by : Guillermo del Toro

Distributed by: Picture House / Warner Brothers

This film was one of my favorites the year it came out and has stayed on my list of all time favorite scary movies. There is an elegance to the way it is constructed - everything from the filming style/cinematography to the acting to the story itself, it is a beautiful work all around. Now, it is important to note that there is an inherent sadness to it too that hangs very heavy over much of the story. I mention this because some people have a hard time with sad stories on the whole. I understand that thematically speaking, people want to turn off their emotions to a point and just be entertained by movies. That is okay. However, even though I cite this film as being sad, it doesn't mean there isn't an undercurrent of hope and beauty and love that carries through to the finale. I just think it is important to mention. 

The story centers around Laura (the wonderful Belen Rueda) who is/was an orphan returning back to the home she grew up in to renovate it and turn it into a home for disabled children. She is accompanied by her husband Carlos and their 7 year old adopted son Simon. Soon after their arrival, Simon speaks of making a new friend, Tomas, and draws a small boy with a burlap bag over his head. Laura and Carlos are also set upon by Benigna, a social worker who has ties to the home and its past. She delivers a file for Simon that reveals he is HIV positive. Soon after this, Simon teaches Laura a hide and seek game (taught to him by Tomas) that leads to the discovery of the file that leads to an argument between Laura and Simon. 

This leads to a children's party at the facility and after an argument between Laura and Simon, Simon goes and hides from her. When she is searching for him, she is confronted by a boy in a sack mask with Tomas written on his shirt. Instead of a peaceful interaction, the boy attacks her and traps her in a bathroom. Upon getting out, she cannot find Simon and becomes frantic. She tries to make her way into a cave by the ocean/waters edge and she falls and hurts herself. When being treated, the police contact suggests that Benigna might've taken Simon. The film fast forwards six months and confronts Benigna's background with the orphanage and her son, Tomas, who died after children took his mask and hid it in the cave during low tide. The mask was used to cover up his physical deformities and with desperation to find it, trapped himself in the cave and died. Additional revelations are uncovered to the true extent of these things and the sad turns that come from the aftermath. 

Laura brings in a medium to perform a seance to try to get clues as to her son's disappearance. It is from this point that the film takes advantage of the slow, steady increase in tension it has built and ratchets things up during the seance to the point where you can hardly stand it. It is constructed and crafted so so well and is beyond tense. This reminds me that I should mention this film does not rely at all on stupid jump scares or any gory popping-out type things that give you a jolt but annoy you moments after. The real art of this film is that, even without those vehicles for scares, the film is just so tense and spooky, built solely on the rising tension and desperation of Laura and the increasingly startling revelations of the past of the orphanage itself and the sad series of events that happened only a little while after she was adopted. I cannot say enough how important that lack of cheap scares are here - it would be so easy to throw a bunch of random crap at the viewer, twitchy spectres and the like and have that be where the fear comes from. But thankfully, this film takes its time, lays out the story and allows the viewer to become so emotionally involved that the scary and tenseness are all created in their (the viewers) minds and, more importantly, hearts. 

I feel it is very important to not summarize the rest of the plot beyond the seance sequence. There is a lot that comes out after it, and great lengths Laura must go to to seek out and find her adopted son and unravel the rest of the mystery of the past of the Orphanage itself. Her level of commitment is amazing, her fearlessness and utter bravery in the face of things that happen is just amazing. Her character is a real one and because of this, we feel along with her as the story culminates and resolves. It is because of this that we feel the revelations and losses deeply and Laura becomes a channel for what the viewer might feel or empathize in this situation. I'll say it again, this is such a wise choice because it makes everything that happens more personal and authentic. 

Bottom line, this film is a beautiful piece of work. It is tense and scary/spooky but does not rely on cheap scares or dumb sight scares to get you on the edge of your seat. It is a patient, well crafted ghost story with a wonderful heart and a somber tone that has stuck with me since I first saw it and every time since. Much like The Devil's Backbone (another Guillermo del Toro one), the real horror or fear is more to do with what we feel and what we don't want to happen to characters in a story and not merely what happens. That authentic connection is the real magic of a film like this. 

Day 25: Frankenweenie (2012)

Frankenweenie (2012)

Starring: Cathrine O'Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, Winona Ryder, Charlie Tahan

Category: New, animated/stop motion

Plot Tags: mad scientist, children's movie

Original release: Oct 5th, 2012

Format viewed: Theatrical screening

Directed by: Tim Burton

Written by: John August (screenplay), Tim Burton (concept)

Distributed by: Walt Disney

Tim Burton is a mixed bag of a creative person. At times, he is absolutely a genius and creates wonderful, eerie and all together original works. Such examples are Beetlejuice, Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, Batman/Batman Returns, Ed Wood, Big Fish, Corpse Bride. Other times, his style and sense of things overrun the work and it becomes awfully hard to enjoy what he is doing. Examples of this include Planet of the Apes (remake), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (remake), Alice in Wonderland, Dark Shadows (which I so so wanted to like more than I did). So his vision and his work can be a mixed bag. 

It seems like he is at his best when he is able to create what he really cares about and doesn't have to try to stuff it into this box or that safety net or whatever else. You can really see the pure creativity in Beetlejuice or Edward Scissorhands without a bunch of other producer types muddling it up. You can see the quagmire of a mess that happens when a lot of extra bodies are involved like in Alice in Wonderland. So with Frankenweenie (a full feature 'remake' of his live action short film from 1984), you can almost immediately see the care and regard he holds for classic horror films and what it means to really care for them (for someone like me). There is an immense amount of inside baseball that happens in the film with a lot (ok, a ton) of references to many old classic horror films and monsters. But like with the other animated gem this fall, Paranorman, this adoration doesn't come off as recycling, more just use with affection. Plus, it doesn't rely solely on those previous works to tell the whole story. Regardless of my personal interests, I can appreciate this because it means that the average non-horror obsessed viewer can get into it and enjoy it. 

The story is pretty simple, Victor, a young aspiring scientist and filmmaker (his home movie/monster movie was just heart melting, a la the kids film in Super 8) lives in a small, slightly odd town with his parents who appreciate his interests but want some sense of normalcy for their son. After getting somewhat forced into baseball, an accident happens at the end of the game involving a home run ball that takes the life of his very beloved dog Sparky. Victor, determined to bring him back to life, sets up a lab in the attic and, with the help of a formula (I think a reference to Reanimator) and lightning, brings Sparky back to life. Unfortunately, as these things go, Sparky is discovered and through blackmail by one of his friends, is forced to explain how he has performed this amazing feat. This spirals out of control in a hurry and the kids at his school cannot handle the aftereffects of bringing their dead pets back to life, including a truly inspired bit of lunacy involving sea monkeys. Things progress to the point where the town is overrun by the weird hybrid creatures botched by the other kids and things start to get out of hand when the mayor's daughter is dragged, literally, into the mess. The sight gags and references come fast and furious in the whole second half of the film but if you aren't a horror movie junkie, you won't miss out. Very smartly, TIm Burton elected to fade these things into the background in such a way that they feel organic and certainly not forced. The last bit of the movie I won't spoil because it is not only enjoyable to watch/discover on its own, but there is an emotional clarity to it that I think shows a remarkable amount of maturity on the part of Tim Burton and his crew. 

All in all, I really loved Frankenweenie for its charm, its timeless quality, the remarkable art style and the heart it shows. So often anymore, Tim Burton has all the ingredients but fails to give his creations heart and soul but this is not the case in this film. This was most decidedly a great success. 

Days 25-31+1+1 - And all the rest

And all the rest

When one looks at the calendar, one realizes that once the predetermined number of days in a month are over, the next month starts. This is pretty common knowledge and seems to happen pretty regularly. So I thought I should note why I'm on 24 scary movies and not the final 32. Well, between arduous work reports this last week or so and two music festivals, I slightly overestimated my free time. Free time to write, not watch. I hit darn near every day as planned and even have a few extras I'm not going to include for their lameness (looking at you, Red Lights) or lack of application to the project regardless of badassness (Seven Psychopaths). So anyway, here are the remaining films I will include on the count up to/over 32 total:

Abram's Hand (new)
Tomb of the Blind Dead (weird, cult classic, foreign)
Monkey Shines (boxes that scared me)
Orphanage (favorite, foreign)
Mientras Duermes - Sleep Tight (new, foreign)
Beetlejuice (favorite - all time)
Frankenweenie (new)
Trick R Treat (favorite)
Evil Dead 2 (favorite)
V/H/S (new)

Separate from those, I am going to write up a little thing about the recent documentary The American Scream. This is from the same folks that did the wonderful Best Worst Movie. The American Scream chronicles the ups and downs of three families in a small Massachusetts town who are obsessed with Halloween and making their homes into haunted houses. The three families highlighted are of different skill levels and demeanor and the challenges and stresses are different for each but the whole of the film is something very beautiful and true about the way we are and the way we try to be in the face of desire versus reality. It was a truly lovely film and one of my favorites this year, bar none.

Okay, so plan is I'll have these all up by the end of the weekend and the wrap it all up next week. Thanks to anyone and everyone who has taken time to read any of them.

Day 24: Attack the Block (2011)

Attack the Block (2011)
Starring: Jodie Whittaker, John Boyega, Alex Esmail, Nick Frost
Category: New(ish) favorite
Plot Tags: invasion from outter space, child(ren) in peril
Original release: May 2011
Format viewed: DVD - own collection
Directed by: Joe Cornish
Written by: Joe Cornish
Studio: StudioCanal, UK Film Council
Distributed by: Optimum Releasing

If even half the people who went and saw the last 'Martin Lawrence puts on a fat suit and somehow fools people' movie saw Attack The Block instead, director Joe Cornish would be a household name. But alas, they didn't. While I can't completely hate on Martin (seeing as he was in Nothing To Lose and Bad Boys), I can hate on the audiences a bit for not seeking out wholly original film making like this one. This is absolutely one of my favorite films of the last 5-6 years and every time I've watched it its grown in my esteem. From the creature effects (part practical, part CGI and part...wait for it...rotoscoping!!!!) to the dialogue to the story itself to the hero arc to the humor and all the rest, this is just one of those movies I just love up one side and down the other.

The story centers around a rough London neighborhood and a group/gang of street youths led by Moses (a brilliant John Boyega) who generally go around causing problems. I call them a group/gang because they really aren't a full fledged gang as they are youngsters and really aren't bad at heart. Anyway, the film starts with them mugging a nurse (Jodie Whittaker - Perrier's Bounty) and soon after seeing a flying object land in a nearby barn thing. They approach with Moses leading the way. The thing that lands attacks him, scratches his face and a battle ensues. They kill the creature and thinking it might be worth something, the lug it back to their neighborhood drug dealer's flat (played by Nick Frost - Sean of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Paul) to store in their weed room. As it turns out, many more creatures are following this one and not long after they are there, they see a ton of streaming things from the sky, leaving the small dead creature there. They are set upon by the police who have Whittaker's character in the police van to help identify them. In the process of being arrested, large, jet-black things with bright glowing blue teeth show up and kill the police officers and nearly get our group. They flee with Whittaker in tow. What follows is a series of near misses with the creatures, mounting tension, tense and scary scenes and a sense of what is really happening with these monsters and why they are after our group. As the story comes to a head, the hero's arc because something of grand display (without being cheesy) and if you aren't rooting for that character by the end of it, there is certainly something wrong with you.

There is a laundry list of why I love this movie but part (or rather 3 parts) of the reason is...well, I have to preface this because it makes me sound kind of evil. I really love adventure/scary movies where children are in danger. Legitimately. Not like crazy crap is going on all around them but never touches them no matter what. I mean, legit danger. Take fish movies. Jaws is amazingly effective because of the youth death pretty early on. It changes the expectations and the rules and totally puts you on edge for the duration of the film. On the other side, Piranha (not the brilliant Corman/Joe Dante one, the remake) totally lame-asses out on this and put two children in dangerous situations but frames them in such a way that you know full well nothing will happen to them. Tension level -0-. I'm getting off track, so Attack The Block is great because it puts our group of youths in seriously bad danger. Some characters across the film do die. It's not like everyone who is likable makes it or they just keep killing the guys from Star Trek with the red suits. Again, legit danger. This is wonderful, brings a certain excitement to it that really draws you in.

Another reason is the script/humor and writing style. Nothing, and I repeat nothing is more lame than horror movies trying to be funny when they mug for the laugh on a misplaced joke. Like someone dies right in front of them and then a clever quip is the next line. Give me a damned break. It's not funny and not realistic and just plain crap. Perfect examples of this are the absolutely abhorrent Night of the Demons remake, Fright Night remake and maybe Valentine. Bleah. Attack the Block brings the same crisp humor from Sean of the Dead and/or Paul where they don't treat you like an idiot and they don't treat their characters with disrespect. These youths are sharp and charming and when they get going, riffing on each other, it is just grand. One character in particular, nicknamed 'Pest' is really great at this and has one of the best lines in the movie in a back and forth with Jodie Whittaker's character. Priceless.

The last reason I love this movie (at least what I have time to write about) is the effects themselves. Having a dinky budget means you have to be creative and smart about what you do and how you do it. The combination of effects techniques combined with the filming style and overall look make it seem so much grander than it is. The monsters themselves are marvelous - black haired and glowing teeth and all. They move amazingly well and occupy their spaces with true menace and exude fear. Watching the making of on the Blu-ray is freaking awesome - you gain an even greater appreciation for what they did. So the effects are just wonderful - not crutching on big, overblown CGI crap to cover a bad script or lousy acting.

Damn, okay, one more thing. The actors are all fantastic. Jodie Whittaker, John Boyega are the leads in every sense of the word - the teenage boy and the adult woman occupy the same authority and earn the two feet they stand on. By that I mean, you believe them and you believe in them. This is the mark of smart writing and good acting. Across the board, the ensemble is so wonderful to watch that you wonder how on earth they pulled it off (again, watch the making of).

So bottom line, I freaking love this movie. I really do. It is fun, scary at times, exciting, funny and just the kind of original project that should be celebrated as often as possible. Truth.



Day 23: The Objective (2009)

The Objective (2009)
Starring: Jonas Ball, Matthew R Anderson, Jon Huertas
Category: New(ish)
Plot Tags: unexplained phenomena, breakdown, survival
Original release: Feb 6th, 2009
Format viewed: DVD - rented from Vulcan, naturally
Directed by: Daniel Myrick
Written by: Daniel Myrick
Distributed by: IFC Films

This was an interesting movie - really deep when it comes to concept and the idea of it all but lacks somewhat in the forward moving structure leaving some scenes kind of repetitive. So on the one hand, I really dug it, but on the other hand I wished they'dve made better choices when it came to putting people in peril and advancing the story forward hand in hand. It's like in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy keeps stopping and getting involved with each of the characters there en route to the Emerald City. If they had a few more characters for her to pick up, it would get pretty tiresome but with three, works pretty well. In this film, the instances of 'stoppage' because of attack or unexplained stuff count over 7 or 8 times with not a ton of variation. This raises tension but also robs itself of more tension because of the repetitiveness. The director also did Blair Witch Project, so annoying repetitiveness might be in his blood.

Okay, the story itself, basically we have a highly trained team of soldiers (including Jon Huerta from Castle) being assigned to accompany a CIA operative in Afghanistan to find a cleric guy with sensitive information about, I think, weapons or trade routes or some such. They set out on this assignment in the desert (filmed beautifully in Morocco and Iraq, crazily enough) and are soon set upon by a series of strange events - lights that look like headlights heading towards them and then separating off and flying into the sky, the deafening sound of a helicopter overhead without being able to see it, no bodies left after a firefight with militants and on from there. The CIA guy is pretty set in on this infrared camera thing where he is documenting everything that is happening. It becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that something else is going on and as the group size dwindles, an encounter with a desert dweller guy goes badly etc, the CIA guys true motives become more clear and their chances at survival become less and less likely but not because of some big ass desert monster or something. There is a whole secondary level of breakdown psychology that comes into play at this point and it would be a shame to ruin it - especially considering the last (give/take) 10 minutes of the film. They really amp up the reality of what is going on and hammer home the situation these soldiers are/were in and what the real goal was.

I'm being intentionally vague here because, again, the last 1/3 of the movie is just excellent. I wish to God the first 2/3rds had the same level of urgency and structure because the ending is nothing short of brilliant and unnerving and interesting. I will say that this is a stretch to call a horror movie, but, if you can work in mental breakdown, misbegotten missions as sources of horror, then it qualifies. I'll take an overall concept like in The Objective much more than a standard horror type setup/military like in something like Dead Birds where NOTHING FREAKING HAPPENS. So anyway, there you go.

Day 22: The Roost (2005)

The Roost (2005)
Starring: Tom Noonan, Wil Horneff, Vanessa Horneff, Karl Jacob
Category: new classic (I guess)
Plot Tags: monster, zombie, stranded and in peril
Original release: March 2005
Format viewed: DVD rental from Vulcan, of course
Directed by: Ti West
Written by: Ti West
Distributed by: unsure - DIY I think

So Ti West is easily one of my favorite directors in the scary movie genre'. "House of the Devil" and "The Innkeepers" are just wonderful works that play so well against expectation that you don't realize how unnerved you really are until you're already way deep into it. Especially in the case of "House of the Devil" where I successfully scared the crap out of myself walking past a mirror downstairs in my house. One forgets mirrors reflect things they are placed in front of, and in that case, it was my own silly self that scared my own silly self. Getting off track, basically what I'm saying is that I love his filming style and the way he puts together stories. There is a 'throwback' aspect to it that relies just as much on what is shown as it does on what you think about during and after watching his films. I admire him greatly for it.

However, The Roost is a somewhat silly and confusing exercise in throwback film making back to the road breakdown, attack of the -blank- monsters type of stuff from the 70s and 80s. Most of these were relegated to late night local TV access shows and, seeming to understand this, West has a little intro at the beginning of the film done by none other than the great Tom Noonan. Beyond that little intro thing though, the fun kind of slowly seeps out. The story basically surrounds four friends (boyfriend, girlfriend, a dude and another guy) heading to a friend's wedding. Their car craps out in the middle of nowhere and after venturing around trying to find somewhere to get help, they happen upon a farmhouse and big barn where things start to go screwy. We are already aware of the location, however, because at the start of the movie we see an elderly couple seem to be attacked by some unseen creature when they venture into said barn.

Anyway, our group of people are having that age old phone issue whilst in the middle of nowhere and since no one seems to be home at the farmhouse, they start to bicker about what to do, who should go where etc. This is where some of the issues in this film start to come out. For one, my understanding is that they worked a lot of these scenes (if not all of them) as improv without a full structured script. The bickering becomes so very annoying very quickly because (at least for me) they reminded me of improv exercises in theatre and how utterly repetitive and lame they are. So this started to get on my nerves quickly. Now, there are many 'mumblecore' type movies that I quite like, The Puffy Chair, Cold Weather etc etc so I'm not completely closed off to the style but in this case, just grates on me. The budget is clearly small but that would've been forgiven with a quasi good script.

So pretty soon we're introduced to the fact that there are big bloodthirsty vampire bats in the barn whose bites seem to turn people into zombies of some form or fashion. I think. It isn't 100% clear exactly. The group dwindles, there are epic confrontations with the bats, the zombie people and then once we think part of our group survives...well, sufficed to say, if we cared more about these people then the last part of the film would impact more. I kept thinking about the film Cabin Fever (Ti West actually directed the sequel) where this unseen virus infects a group of campers and causes them to slowly fall apart, literally. One of the many reasons why that film is so damned good is that we care for each of them in a different way, so the slow, steady decline and demise is very important, if not emotional. In this one, I figure the bats can have 'em.



Day 21: Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
Starring: Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi, Glenn Strange
Category: Classic
Plot Tags: Universal Monsters, comedy/scary
Original release: June 1948
Format viewed: Alamo Drafthouse - Kids club screening
Directed by: Charles Barton
Written by: Robert Lees, John Grant
Distributed by: Universal Studios

I was very confused to learn this film was released to theatres in June, 1948. Did studios not take advantage of theme specific movies and place them on/around the holiday? A lot of Christmas films releasing in July? Anyway, thought that was odd. I got to see this (with Conlin, of course) at the monthly kids club screening at Alamo Drafthouse. I think the last time I saw it was at least 20+ years ago and might've been around the same age Conlin is now. Be that as it may or not may, this film is fun silliness.

The story centers around two men (Abbott and Costello) working at a railway baggage department. They receive a call from London from a man (Lon Cheney) calling to warn them that two packages they are going to receive should not be delivered to their owner - a museum of the weird type guy who is VERY interested in making sure the contents are undisturbed. He goes so far as to have an agent from the insurance company there to inspect the boxes. Before he can explain why, Cheney transforms into the wolfman and the line goes dead. They go on about their business. They deliver the packages to the museum and have a series of hilarious 'one guy can see something but the other guy never sees it' type bits with Dracula (Lugosi). That is one thing to keep in mind, movies like this draw their humor from the vaudeville type setups and punchline jokes from well before talking films. The audience is always in on the joke, but people in the scenes really aren't. The story progresses and our two heroes are drawn into this odd plot hatched by this doctor lady and Dracula (again, for no real understandable reason).

What makes this one a fun, silly little 70 minute diversion is the sheer goofiness of the script. On paper, the concept of Dracula shipping himself to America along with Frankenstein's monster to revive him and replace his brain with a pliable one (two guesses as to who that might be) is very flimsy. They never really explain his motivation for doing any of this beyond working with this doctor lady who is in on it (for some reason). Beyond that framework of a plot, they basically drift from one setpiece to the next with a lot of mugging for the camera. Unlike Will Farrell type-mugging though, Abbott and Costello seem to make it classy. The sideplot of two women all smitten with Costello is very amusing and the puns fly fast and goofy. It is always a joy to watch Lon Chaney and Bela Lugosi in anything, so that is an added bonus - really, this one works well because it absolutely doesn't take itself seriously but has the presence of mind to care about the end product. Fun all around and appropriate for all ages.

Day 20: Bajo La Sal (Under the Salt) (2008)

Bajo La Sal (Under the Salt) (2008)

Starring: Humberto Zurita, Plutarco Haza, Richardo Polanco, Moises Arizmendi, Blanca Guerra, Damayanti Quintanar

Category: , Favorite, new classic, foreign 

Plot Tags: murder mystery, supernatural

Original release: October 2008 (Mexico)

Format viewed: DVD - own collection

Directed by: Mario Munoz

Written by: Angel Pulido, Mario Munoz

Distributed by: Peliculas Imaginarias, Warner Bros. Mexico

This film is another reason why I wanted to go forward and attempt this horror movie project for October. I originally saw this back a few years ago and got my hands on a copy and have watched it a few times since. There are times where the story itself or the twist and turns and reveals of the mysteries and all that don't have to be super crafty. Sometimes the story can be standard and straight forward and still do a simply remarkable job of working without being completely unseen before or be way clever. That is the case with Bajo La Sal, as it is (from a plot standpoint) your standard serial killer mystery, procedural type story. These are great because they put you on the edge of your seat, give you scenes to sweat out and try to determine who the killer is etc and have it wrapped by the end. This is a good thing - what you see is what you get. However, the difference between a color-by-numbers type films of area and a film like Bajo La Sal is the execution. This film looks remarkable, feels original, is so well acted and is interesting to the final frame without going for the huge twist gimmicks. 

The story centers around a small Mexican town that exists by and large because of a large salt mine on the outskirts. The mine is enormous and quite impressive to look at from the opening sequences and throughout the film. A body is discovered during the mining process one morning and, because of other murders in the area, is linked and an outside detective is brought in to sort it out. At the same time, the story also focuses on a teenage boy and his father who run the local mortuary. The boy's mother has recently died and the relationship between the boy and his father is one of distance, misunderstanding and sadness over the mother's loss. The boy is a huge horror movie fan and constructs reenactments of scenes from horror movies in stop motion in his room and films them. These 'films' are just breathtaking in their execution and style but, at least to me, not done in a way that would make you doubt that he made them. Not unlike the kid films in Super 8, these are crude to a point and do not force you to suspend disbelief that he makes them. Because of his demeanor and interests, the focus at one point of the story is on him as a suspect. 

As the story progresses, the detective (played amazingly well by Humberto Zurita) starts to unravel a mystery surrounding the local Catholic school, a tragedy there and connections between the victims of the murders and the school and towns past. The  detective and the boy never 'team up' though to solve the thing together and this was something I admired greatly. So often in murder mystery stories there are unlikely teamings of characters that stretch the laws of logic. This story never does that and it makes the whole thing play more real. Similarly, the detective and the boy both have shortcomings that play into the story but never dive head long into that whole 'seeking redemption' or 'underdog makes good' kind of baloney that often happens. Again, this was a choice that I thought really set the story apart from so many others in that it made our main characters sympathetic but sympathetic because they are well written, smart characters and not because of a a+b=c type setup done 1000 times before. 

I cannot say enough about how beautifully this film is made - from the set locations to the filming style and all the rest - it is often like a moving painting versus a film. The relationship between the boy and his father is played to such a sharp point that big long speeches aren't needed to convey the sadness and disconnect that exists there. Similarly, events in the detective's past are brought into the story but not in a cliche' way at all - they are a part of who he is. While the film does have its disturbing imagery and a couple of jolting moments, it is overall more easy to access for the average viewer not crazily into scary movies. It was one of my favorite movies the year I saw it and is most certainly a favorite upon repeat viewings since. Very worth seeing. 

Day 19: Maximum Overdrive (1986)

Maximum Overdrive (1986)

Starring: Emelio Estevez, Pat Hingle, Laura Harrington, Yeardley Smith, Frankie Faison, Giancarlo Esposito

Category: new classic ( I guess)

Plot Tags: attack of the -blank-, survival, disaster event

Original release: July 1986

Format viewed: DVD rental from Vulcan of course

Directed by: Stephen King

Written by: Stephen King

Distributed by: De Laurentiis Entertainment Group

One of the great, confusions of life as a horror film/subject matter person is the general lousy nature of most Stephen King adaptations into film/TV. For whatever reason, his stories hit a rough road when it comes to making the transition and more often than not, they are goofy or unscary and in some cases really annoying. The Green Mile, Stand By Me, The Dark Half and a couple others are the only exceptions I can think of off the top of my head. Misery is another one and Pet Cemetery (not any of the sequels) would be included in that group. 

Sadly, Maximum Overdrive is not one of them, despite being directed by the man himself. Now, that is not to say it isn't fun, but by and large the pacing is all over the map, the progression of relationships etc make no sense and the overall dread of the event is undercut by the thought that many if not all of the mishaps that happen could be easily avoided. The basic story is that earth passes through the tail of a comet and the dust or electromagnetic something or other or some other nonsense is messing with all the machines on the planet, turning them murderous. When this is most effective is when the person doesn't know what is happening and not acting like an idiot. Unfortunately, about 80 to 90 percent of the time, people offed by machines or cars or whatever else are acting so stupid and unaware that their demise isn't shocking so much as just obvious. Case in point, the fantastic Giancarlo Esposito (Nothing to Lose, Breaking Bad) has a bit role as a guy in a truck stop arcade. All of the machines are going goofy and spitting out money and all else. Instead of seeing this as a sign of danger and getting out of there, he loads his pockets with money and packs of cigarettes. Okay, fine. But then one of the games starts showing interesting imagery and for some reason he goes over to play it and is electrocuted. Now you've just stolen some money and other items but can be sidetracked from your exit by pretty colors. Riiiight. This happens a lot, the waitress cut on the arm by an automatic knife/saw thing that TURNED ITSELF ON AND REPOSITIONED ITSELF NEXT TO HER ARM (I for one certainly wouldn't notice a buzzing electric saw moving ever closer to my arm), The draw bridge resetting itself and raising with people on it all the while making all manner of noise in the control room that the two guys there seem completely oblivious to. etc etc etc. 

The other glaringly ridiculous thing is the romantic relationship between Emilio Estevez' character and a hitchhiking girl brought into the truck stop/restaurant he works in. Right in the midst of this mess they seemingly have time to get to know each other, hop into bed and create all manner of closeness between them. This all happens in about a 20 minute span. I get that adventure type movies require (by law I assume) the lead have a girl waiting in the wings but in this case, it was just plain dumb. So as you might've guessed, machines keep attacking people, our group gets trapped in the truck stop by a herd of semi trucks and fight back with the sizable arsenal the truck stop owner seems to have collected. The convenience level is annoying because, yes, many people collect guns but many people also collect porcelain figurines or bottle caps or stamps or whatever else. How this truck stop owner has enough explosives and guns to outfit an entire army is never really explained. 

Okay, so bottom line, there are some fun scenes in the thing and some level of dumb fun to be had. However, the directing is really choppy, nearly nothing is motivated by actual thought and by the end of it you're kind of rooting for the semi trucks, or at least I was. 

Day 18: Silent Hill: Revelations (2012)

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D (2012)

Starring: Adelaide Clemens, Kit Harington, Deborah Kara Unger, Martin Donovan, Malcolm McDowell, Carrie-Anne Moss, Sean Bean

Category: new

Plot Tags: alternate world, kidnapping (kinda), video game adaptation

Original release: October 26th, 2012

Format viewed: Pre-screening via Ain't It Cool News

Directed by: Michael Bassett

Written by: Michael Bassett

Distributed by: Open Road Films, Lionsgate

Through Harry Knowles and the good folks at Ain't It Cool News, I was able to attend a prescreening Thursday night of Silent Hill: Revelations 3D prior to its release. I wouldn't claim to be a huge fan of the first film but I loved the PSP version of the game and was interested in the story overall (the mythology if you will) so I was excited to be included in this type of screening. Upon arrival I was greeted by two nurses all dressed up in bloody attire which was impressive, but considering they still had faces, not all the way game-style. It was 3D too so I was given glasses and then scanned with a metal detector (for some reason) prior to entry. In the theatre there were people dressed in costumes and others playing the new game on the movie screen. This was quite cool except for the fact that whomever was playing hadn't worked out the perspective of the character so she spent most of the time wandering the halls of the sanitarium looking as though she was trying to smell her shoulder. 

After a costume contest, it was time to start the film. There were three little things telling you to put on your glasses. I was annoyed by this, thinking you'd have to be blind not to know at this point to put them on. Then it occurred to me that, if blind, you wouldn't get much out of a 3D movie. Slight chuckle. And onto the movie itself. Having the opening set into the main street of Silent Hill with the ash/snow looking stuff fluttering around was awfully neat. This is one of the more unnerving effects in the game, lulling you into a false sense of calm prior to crap careening towards a nearby fan. In this case however, they revert to a dream within a dream gimmick to set up that our main character Heather (Adelaide Clemens - who did a fine job with the script she had to work with) and her father Christopher (Sean Bean) are constantly moving to evade police. She thinks this is because of a murder that happened years ago, but in fact it is more to stay a step ahead of evil forces that seem to be after them. The trouble is that she keeps having dreams and seeing visions of freaky stuff that lead her to a realization that there is this alternate world (Silent Hill) where these things seem to come from. Now I could go on for pages and pages about the rest of the story but the gist is that Heather is the remainder of the rest of what was good in the girl taken in the first film. I think - I can't 100% remember but it basically boils down to the bad creatures in Silent Hill wanting her back to give the evil girl power but this cult of white haired weirdos wanting to kill her to keep that from happening. Or something along those lines. Again, to even come close to trying to explain the story would take for freaking ever and honestly, it isn't really worth the effort. 

I was reminded of a thing John Waters once said about his mom. She and his father would come to screenings of some of his films and if you know anything about his films they aren't the typical fare for retired age middle America (via Baltimore) types. Anyway, his mom (grasping at a way to not be negative) would say 'well goodness, I don't know where they find the energy.' This is kind of what I feel like for this film overall. On the one hand, a lot of the visuals are really remarkable (Pyramidhead, the freaky nurses and the mannequin monster in particular) and how much the locations looked just like they did in the game are just remarkable, but on the other hand, my understanding of film making is that one should have a more or less serviceable script to use in making of said film. The actors all do fine, in particular Sean Bean and Adelaide Clemens, but often they are left to look a bit silly with very uninspired writing and setup scenes that deflate the scene they are there to set up. It's as if Akiva Goldsman had the weekend off and decided to hash out a horror script with a teenage girl troupe and a couple llamas for dictation. So many bad dialogue choices. Again, this takes a lot of suspense out of things when you're too busy rolling your eyes back into place after being hit with another stinker. This is a shame because the tension of the thing in parts could have been made all the better with a sharper, more dynamic script. 

One last thing I'll say. Carrie-Anne Moss is great. She was just grand in the Matrix films and I loved that she was in one of my more favorite zombie meets Lassie type films, Fido, but seriously, casting her as the evil mother/demon/white haired lady was completely distracting. Every scene she was in was completely useless because she stuck out like a sore thumb. Again, she is great, but not in that role. 

Overall, I was very glad and happy to be included in the screening via Harry and AICN and hope to get to go to more events. But, while this could have been a Cronenberg level brain freak out of a story, it ended up being very confusing a bunch of the time (and I knew the damned backstory) and devoid of suspense by and large and overall was an exhibit on how to make neat creatures and give them very little to do. 

Day 17: Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2 (1987)

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2 (1987)
Starring: Michael Ironside, Wendy Lyon, Louis Ferreira, Richard Monette
Category: (I guess) new classic, boxes that scared me as a kid
Plot Tags: possession, revenge, goofy
Original release: October 1987
Format viewed: DVD - rented from Vulcan of course
Directed by: Bruce Pittman
Written by: Ron Oliver
Produced by: Peter R Simpson
Distributed by: Norstar Releasing

So my plan was to watch the original Prom Night (1980 with Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Neilsen) and then this one in succession. However, it is October and playoff and World Series baseball is played in October so time management has become a minor issue. Sleep being the primary issue really. Mainly because I keep falling my ass asleep on the couch towards the end of, or right after movies end. It is a confounding thing to wake up on the couch in the middle of the night and wonder if you actually finished Maximum Overdrive or not. I guess it's a universal problem. Getting off track, so that was my plan but I settled for just sticking with the one that fit into the 'scary VHS box group'. I'm not 100% on why it was that this one freaked me out beyond the fact she is looking right freaking at you! Yeesh. Plus the back, as I recall, is all manner of ucky. Anyway, it fits.

This is a goofy movie. It is legitimately tense in a couple parts but from the onset you know what will happen in the next scene. This is the thing with movies about possession. You know that it ramps up bit by bit until the stuff hits the proverbial fan. There are few examples of a possession movie that involves a demon or entity that decides mid movie that he'd rather go play a round of golf or shop for curtains and just leaves everyone alone. So, once you get the gist of what is going on, the next step or five steps are pretty much layed out. However, this might then explain the abject strangeness of many of the scenes. This strangeness comes from the rhythm of them, or just odd stuff that happens but I get this feeling that because of the relatively cookie-cutter map of the script they opted to amp up the odd.

The story is basically this, in 1957 a harlot/hussy type character (introduced initially in a church confessional) is at the senior prom with her date Bill (played later by Michael Ironside - Top Gun, Total Recall) and, upon sending him off for punch, sneaks off behind the stage for a roll in the hay with Buddy. Upon discovering this, Bill is a bit put out and storms off. He discovers two guys working on a stink bomb in the bathroom but before they finish they have to abandon it in the trash can before an incoming teacher can discover it. Bill takes it and heads up onto the scaffolding above the stage. Mary Lou is crowned Prom Queen and while she accepts her crown, Bill throws the stink bomb down onto the stage. Instead of blowing up and causing a stink, it catches her dress on fire and burns her alive - not before she sees it was him that did it. Buddy starts to run towards her with his jacket to help put out the flame but backs away. She dies.

Fast forward to today and we're introduced to Vicki, a seemingly nice girl with friends at the school, a nice dad, an overbearing religious mom type character. Why? Who really knows. They dress in 80s clothes, she dresses like an extra in Inherit the Wind. Anyway, discussing the prom and not being able to buy a dress, Vicki's friend suggests checking out the prop room for something. She does and happens upon an old trunk with Mary Lou's dress, crown, sash and other assorted stuff. This unleashes her spirit - I think. From this point forward many things make no damned sense. The initial impression is that putting on the dress or clothing allows her spirit to take over the person, but almost nearly immediately, Vicki's friend is left alone in the art room with Mary Lou's crown and cape and doesn't actually put them on but is set upon, attacked and ultimately hung from the light fixture. People assume this is a suicide because it was revealed she was pregnant. Now, I would have known this ahead of time but the sound mastering in the 'reveal' scene for this was so darn lousy that after rewinding twice I just gave up. Okay, so back to when things stop making any amount of freaking sense. If Mary Lou's spirit can just up and fling a girl around a room, control objects and cause all manner of craziness, why on earth does she need to inhabit a person's body? Seems like a wholy unnessessary step in the process of terrorizing a bunch of people. Well anyway...

Poor Vicki is beset by weird visions involving stuff in gym class, stuff with the cheerleader jerk character and other random stuff - to the point where the rocking horse in her room goes all red eyed and talks - well, sort of talks. Kind of just goes 'blllleeehhh' or something like that. These things continue until Vicki is completely taken over and starts the killing bit in earnest. Some creative ones here (crushing someone in a locker, electrocution via a power cord) but again, none of this stuff needed to be done while inhabiting someone! Makes no damned sense. We get to the final act and Bill (now the school principal) tries to intervene and stop everything. I realize now that the actress who played Mary Lou looks a ton like Regina Spektor - sheeesh, that has been driving me nuts since last night. a bunch of people get killed (sadly, the school cheerleader jerk gets it in a very uninspiring way - disappointed by that) and we careen into the last of the movie. There are a couple twists there towards the end but, unless you plan to sit down and watch all four at once, the continuation of the story isn't all that critical.

Overall, I was hoping for more an abject massacre of a thing (a la Dead Alive) but instead you get a few good set pieces, some goofy-ass dialogue and puns and a lot of roundly confusing things. I guess all in all it was a fun way to spend an hour and a half but there certainly was a chance to make it a cult classic that they missed.

Day 16: Absentia (2011)

Absentia (2011)
Starring: Katie Parker, Courtney Bell, David Levine, Justin Gordon, Morgan Peter Brown, James Flanagan,
Scott Graham, Doug Jones
Category: New, favorite
Plot Tags: abduction, supernatural, fairy tale
Original release: March, 2011
Format viewed: DVD - rented from Vulcan of course
Directed by: Mike Flanagan
Written by: Mike Flanagan
Produced by: Morgan Peter Brown, Mike Flanagan, Justin Gordon, Joe Wicker
Studio: Fallback Plan Productions
Distributed by: Phase 4 Films

The film Absentia is one of the reasons I got to thinking about doing this writing and reviewing project in the first place. I saw this the first time this spring (and three times since) and it is most certainly one of my favorite films (of any kind) this year. When you combine sincere storytelling, interest in characters' bonds and development, original ideas and strong performances you get a film that exceeds expectations and frustrates at the same time. Frustrates because this is the kind of film that deserves larger audiences and more notoriety as opposed to many/much schlock drifting around a good portion of the time. This comes with a couple caveats but they aren't big ones. Primarily, this is hyper low budget so if you're expecting huge splashy CGI effects, you won't get them. There are a fair amount of jolts and a general errie-ness that amps up the heartbeat for long stretches but this is not achieved by piles of big time effects. Honestly, I couldn't imagine it with all that stuff. Also, the way it is filmed, you aren't going to get a ton of depth that you'd get with film film. I understand that this is a budgetary issue and I respect that you get the most out of what you can use but I felt in a few scenes where the feel of film would add more to the overall deal. That's it, those are my caveats.

The film centers around the story of two sisters, a pregnant Tricia (Courtney Palm) and Callie (the lovely Katie Parker) reuniting over a traumatic event. Tricia's husband (played remarkably well by Morgan Peter Brown - this gives nothing away, he is in a bunch of the movie) has been missing for seven years. The film opens with Tricia removing tattered 'missing' signs for her husband and replacing them on power poles around her neighborhood. We then meet her sister Callie (Katie Parker) who is there to help Tricia work through the filing paperwork for declaring her husband dead by absentia after the length of time he was missing. In addition to this, her pregnancy has come from a relationship with the detective that originally worked her husband's missing person case. Anyway, back to Callie's arrival - it is made clear pretty early on that she has been a wayward soul in every sense of the word - driving from halfway house to rehab center to this and that and apparently has found a good bit of religion in the process of getting sober. What is funny about that is that she still seems like who she was as a person/personality, just with a more grounded sense of things thanks to rehab and God.

As we are meeting the two women, getting a feel for their relationship etc, we start to see haunting and terrifying visions of Tricia's missing husband as they grow closer to packing the house up and signing all the paperwork. These visions come when she is awake and asleep and represent some of the early chills in the film. Callie takes a run and goes running through a tunnel near Tricia's house. This tunnel (a real place/thing in this neighborhood) is so damned freaky in and of itself that they didn't need to do much to make it foreboding thing it is. Upon her run back, Callie comes upon a badly beaten up, pale looking guy (Doug Jones - Hellboy films) who seems overjoyed and also scared that she can see him. He starts to offer to trade, rambling about his boy etc and tries to reach into his pocket for 'trade'. Callie gets away from him and back to the house where she explains to her sister that this 'Christian thing' means you have to reach back to help and she brings a tupperware of dinner leftovers to the tunnel but cannot find him. She leaves it there and the next day, upon return to the house after her jog, she is greeted with a pile of metal trinkets, keys and stuff all wired together in a heap on the doorstep. She tries to take it back to the tunnel but is advised against it by a man walking by. 'You can't return it'.

Soon after this, Callie and Tricia are in the lawyers office signing the paperwork to declare Daniel (Tricia's husband) dead in absentia and she sees yet another scary vision of him. ((As an aside, one of the reasons I absolutely loved the way they handled these visions is that they are startling and all, but not in a super-jump scare type of way. They startle you but there is a lack of menace so much as a presence that maybe isn't as easily explained as guilt)). They come back home and Callie recommends Tricia go out on a date and pushes her in that direction. She gets ready to go, the detective guy shows up and upon leaving they spot Daniel out in the street. Initially Tricia thinks it is a vision but the detective guy sees him too. Immediately the police are rousted up and set upon the case to try to figure out where he has been and who took him etc. As this is going on, there is a growing disturbance that is making all manner of issue for Daniel and the sisters which seems like it is coming to get him back. All the while you have Callie's drug past creeping back on her and the relationship between Tricia and the detective guy straining under all of this.

Things continue to amp up and a series of scary events and nerve wrangling things twist and turn to bring what happened to Daniel and what is happening to all of them now to a head. I feel like none of this works without the fully realized relationships the characters have and the care we as the audience have for them. With those things in place, the suspense of the final act is greater because of the investment the viewer has and as everything falls into place and it all comes together, the tragedy of it is felt more honestly and fully. I cannot say enough how much the craft of this film and the work put into the ground level of it makes the whole of the rest of it that much better. With stereotype cardboard cut outs or standard fill in victims or any of that, none of the emotional and tragic turns the story takes would mean a whole lot. But on the whole, Mike Flanagan, Morgan Peter Brown and company have made what I consider to be a unique and wholly remarkable film that I appreciate even more now than I did the first time I saw it. My hope is that they will continue to build on their full success of Absentia and bring the same full circle storytelling and character development to their future projects because in my mind, it is how it's done.

Day 15: Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)
Starring: Nathan Baesel, Angela Goethals, Robert Englund, Zelda Rubinstein
Category: New Classic, favorite
Plot Tags: docu/mocumentary, serial killer, comedy/horror
Original release: August 2006 / March 2007
Format viewed: DVD - rented from Vulcan of course
Directed by: Scott Glosserman
Written by: Scott Glosserman, David Stieve
Studio: GlenEcho Entertainment
Distributed by: Anchor Bay Entertainment

It's funny how things work out sometimes. I had the Belgian film "Man Bites Dog" on my to-see list forever. It is considered a cult classic and has received a Criterion release but it is not easy to find. Regardless, I got to thinking about it again because of wanting to include of my favorite movies last year, Behind the Mask, which I understood had a lot of similarities. On a very base level, they are both told in the documentary style and center around a serial killer as the primary subject. In the case of Behind the Mask you have a near sympathetic character in Leslie Vernon, someone you (despite better judgement) start to relate to on a human level. This is not the case for Man Bites Dog however, as the central character is so devoid of anything human the chore of watching the film crew get drawn into his life and the purely evil, random things he does is just lousy all around. So, instead of wasting any more time on that, I'd rather get to talking about a great, funny, charming, thrilling and all together excellent piece of work in Behind the Mask (I'm in a good mood today on these things as this one and Absentia are favorites and its always fun to talk about things you really like).

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is a movie split between a documentary style and a standard movie-movie style about a documentary film crew profiling a serial killer, Leslie Vernon. Leslie has a back story not unlike hundreds of other horror movie villains with family abuse/drama/murder etc etc. Leslie has returned to Glen Echo (somewhere in Portland) to exact revenge on, who else, a bunch of teens and a specially selected girl who is supposed to recognize the grander plan he has unfolding. This is all a bunch of nonsense of course, as the setup is nothing new or special and we know that the final girl always works it out, gains near superhuman strength and defeats the thing. This is where Behind the Mask becomes a supremely great film. The crew follows Leslie around and learns the many tricks of the trade in setting up the final girl, selecting the location and all the rest. Instead of just being the connect the dots horror slasher for the 90,000th time, they take a great deal of care and time dissecting all the things that happen, and even better, why they happen.

I hate to give some of this away but everything from thinking you see someone to the doorstop you setup giving way and slamming the door to those running scenes in horror movies where the running victim turns around to always see the attacker meandering along at a calm pace but growing closer - they all are explained to a very humorous end (the running/walking thing is just all manner of classic). As the time grows closer, things take a weird turn as an Ahab shows up and alters the plan. An Ahab, Leslie explains, is a scientist or cop or whatever that is very invested in the villain or victims, knows a ton and shows up to explain everything and/or battle the villain. In this case, the Ahab is played wonderfully by Robert Englund (unlike his appearance in Jack Brooks Monster Slayer which, while his performance was just fine, the movie was lousy). Anyway, we keep going until all the victims are assembled into the remote house on the apple orchard. Oh! and there is a whole sequence with Leslie's mentor too but I don't want to give any of that away at all - if you're a horror movie person, you'll get a ton of the references. Back to it, once everyone is at the house, our documentary film crew starts to have a change of heart and....

And at this point, I do not have the brass tacks to lay out the rest of the story. I had had it half figured out but the unravel and reveal is just to grand, down through the final act and even through the credits. Nathan Baesel is great as Leslie, Angela Goethals does a masterful job as Taylor/Tay, Zelda Rubinstein shows up as the librarian and if I have to tell you who she is...well I augtta...Teen Witch? Poltergeist?? Anyway, this is an absolute must for any horror fan as the humor and nonstop inside baseball are so very much fun. All in all, just enjoyable all the way around.

Day 14: An American Werewolf in London (1981)

An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Starring: David Naughton, Jenny Agutter, Griffin Dunne
Category: New Classic, favorite
Plot Tags: werewolf, comedy/horror
Original release: August, 1981
Format viewed: Original VHS - own collection
Directed by: John Landis
Written by: John Landis
Studio: Polygram Filmed Entertainment
Distributed by: Universal Pictures

I'm going to get up onto my old guy chair for a minute and ramble about why things used to be better than they are now. In this case, I'm going to ramble about movies - particularly those of the scary variety. Re-watching American Werewolf in London is both really enjoyable and also very frustrating. It's enjoyable because the movie itself is fantastic. It is frustrating because it brings to mind the general lack of skill and craft many modern horror movies have - particularly in the character development and character relationship areas. Now, this isn't universal across all films and I'll highlight one a little later on (Absentia) that absolutely suceeds on all levels in that arena. Buuuuuutt, by and large, the blueprint is to throw a bunch of model-like twits into a harrowing situation, pick them off, fling together a backstory for the killer (or ghost or angry monkey or disease or whatever) and leave one to two of them standing at the end. The trouble with this is two fold: one, it is completely hollow and lacks any level of character development which might inspire empathy when they do meet their fate and two, it is very profitable. This might seem counter-intuative but the profitability of many of these moden brainless films doesn't challenge filmmakers or producers to really push what it means to develop a strong personal connection to the characters, tell their unique stores, flesh out their relationships and their fate. If they make money, what do they care? Every over-caffinated video director can blaspheme a classic 70s/80s horror movie if they PG-13 it up and follow the model. This becomes ever more frustrating when rewatching American Werewolf.

Because by and large, this is a near perfect monster/horror film. John Landis does such a masterful job of developing the relationship between the two American leads backpacking through Europe that we care nearly immediately. These guys aren't cardboard cutouts, they are real people who really do care about each other. The story is pretty simple, two Americans are backpacking through London and happen upon a pub in the middle of nowhere. They go inside and are faced with a not-too-friendly clientele of drunks and farm folks who glare and insult and make them feel less than welcome. There is a 5 pointed star on the wall which leads to uncomfortable questioning and ultimately their leaving the bar. An argument insues once they leave that they should have been warned, they shouldn't have been allowed to leave etc. Too late, as the men become lost in the forest and then tracked and attacked by a werewolf. Well, we know it is a werewolf but the only eyewitness report was of a manman being shot during the attack. Regardless, one of our guys is killed badly and the other ripped up pretty well. The story then progresses to a hospital in London where the survivor is being cared for and nursed back to health all the while being questioned about his crazy story.
He is constantly haunted by strange dreams and visions and, in a bout of sheer brilliance on the part of director John Landis, his dead friend who comes to warn him about the curse he is afflicted with - the humor here is great but also sad as our survivor wrestles with the impending 'change' and sadness of the loss of his life and that of his friends.

So, like many other films I've touched on, I could keep going on and on from here as the story leads to his transformation in an Academy award winning special effects job by the great Rick Baker, his acceptance of his situation, how it affects the nurse lady who he has taken up with and on from there. The thing of it is though, there are a ton of lines I could highlight (zoo scene is so very funny - balloons) or scenes or how the finale comes together in a wonderful and sad but true (almost King Kong) sort of way, but I figure this is one of those ones best seen and enjoyed with all those things intact to discover. Landis really set the bar high when it comes to real human empathy for this film and I wish to God more modern directors would learn what it means to tie the characters in their stories to the audience and how much more that means (yet another reason why Absentia is one of my favorite films, of any kind, this year and I can't wait to write a bit about it).