The 31 Days of Halloween: Week 5 Mini-Reviews (Part One)

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31 Days of Halloween, Asylum Blackout, cinema, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, Dark Ride, Extinction, film reviews, films, Halloween traditions, horror, horror films, Let Us Prey, Manborg, mini-reviews, Movies, October, Offspring, Sleepaway Camp, TerrorVision, The Gift

The VHS Graveyard’s post-October wrap-up continues with the first part of the fifth and final week, 10/26-10/28. Coming soon: the last half of the fifth week, our final thoughts on the October viewings and a complete listing of all films watched during the 31 Days of Halloween. Stay tuned, faithful readers: the finish line is finally in sight.

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Monday, 10/26

Manborg — I’m not sure why Steven Kostanski’s Manborg worked so much better for me than Francois Simard and Anouk Whissell’s similar Turbo Kid but it was a night and day difference. Purposefully cheesy, goofy, extremely low-budget and endlessly fun, Manborg reminded me of Hobo With a Shotgun, which is extremely high praise, indeed. Thematically similar to RoboCop, this story of a half-man/half-machine hero out to save our post-apocalyptic world from the vile clutches of Draculon and his legions of Hell minions is a fast, smart little thrill ride.

Full of endearing performances and characters (Ludwig Lee’s illiterate #1 Man is one of my favorite characters in forever, with the epic scene where he finally sounds out the word “grenades” being pretty awe-inspiring), Manborg is a loving throwback to the direct-to-VHS ’80s and promises big things from Kostanski in the future (the writer/director was also responsible for the outrageous Father’s Day, as well as the flat-out amazing “W is for Wish” segment of ABCs of Horror 2). Here’s to hoping he expands the included fake trailer for BioCop, an insane mishmash of Maniac Cop, Toxic Avenger and RoboCop that features the best ever use of “Please kill me,” into a full-length: with Kostanski behind the wheel, I bet that would be a real showstopper.

Extinction — These days, it’s all but impossible to do anything new with zombie films so, in many ways, the best that fans can hope for are well-made films that attempt to eschew as many of the moldy tropes of the sub-genre as possible. Using that rubric, writer/director Miguel Angel Vivas’ Extinction is just about as good as modern zombie films get. Tense, beautifully shot (the film is gorgeously lit, especially for this type of fare) and grounded by a trio of sturdy performances in the persons of Matthew Fox, Burn Notice’s Jeffrey Donovan and youngster Quinn McColgan, Extinction doesn’t reinvent the wheel but does nothing to dilute its basic power.

While this often familiar tale of a trio of survivors trying to out-last a zombie outbreak in a harsh, frozen near-future can occasionally be a bit confusing (the need for a “twist” makes some of the relationships more convenient than realistic) and lightly sketched, it’s also refreshingly serious, very smart and quite thought-provoking. For fans of the living dead, Extinction proves that the sub-genre still has plenty of (un)life left in it.

Let Us Prey — Extremely well-made but odd and rather off-putting, Brian O’Malley’s full-length debut is helped considerably by its strong performances and Piers McGrail’s cinematography but suffers quite a bit from an over-reliance on flashbacks, a ridiculously macho, chest-beating vibe and its frequent descent into pure innanery.

The story, itself, is familiar but reliable: it’s PC Rachel Heggie’s (the always awesome Pollyanna McIntosh) first day on the job in a remote, Scottish police station and she’s been put in charge of four prisoners, one of whom (the equally awesome Liam Cunningham) might or might not be the living incarnation of the Angel of Death. Once Cunningham’s Six starts to get into everyone else’s heads, however, and exploits their innermost fears, weaknesses and shames, the insanity and blood flow like a raging river.

Always more interested in being badass than making sense, Let Us Prey is too well-made to be easily dismissed but frustratingly short on depth, once the endgame is revealed. I’ve seen lots of films over the past several decades that have involved a mysterious person wrecking havoc on the unknowing inhabitants of an isolated establishment: Let Us Prey certainly isn’t the worst (McIntosh and Cunningham are actually outstanding) but it’s also nowhere near the best.

Da Sweet Blood of Jesus — In a career that’s spanned three decades, it’s interesting to note that Spike Lee’s Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (a remake of Bill Gunn’s ’70s-era Ganja & Hess) is actually his first ever horror film. As such, I was genuinely curious to see what one of cinema’s premiere social commentators might do with a fright film, particularly one centered around the experience of black Americans in our current climate. Would this be a classic tale of an auteur out of his natural element or a bold, fresh new entry in a pretty formidable filmography?

As it turns out, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus is more Twixt than Bram Stoker’s Dracula: a misguided, dull and disjointed attempt by a well-respected filmmaker to branch out and try something new. The problems here are legion: the film is drastically over-long, full of acting that ranges from rough to amateurish and the tone flip-flops dramatically from art-house serious (lots of long, silent, mournful shots) to over-the-top cornball, sometimes in the same scene. There’s very little trace of the revolutionary director behind such staples as Do the Right Thing or Malcolm X: Da Sweet Blood of Jesus is filled with awkward dialogue, nonsensical action and intentionally comic bits that completely miss their mark (a bit involving a glass of blood vs a glass of vodka is, for lack of a better word, really dumb).

It really is a shame, to be honest: parts of Lee’s film are genuinely beautiful, fusing moody atmospherics with evocative cinematography to produce something that almost recalls the glossy Euro-vamp flicks of Jean Rollin, albeit with much less of their trademark hallucinatory visuals. The film also employs a genuinely fascinating soundtrack: while the score is sometimes at odds with the action, it usually sets up an interesting parallel and is never less than thought-provoking. At the end of the day, however, Lee’s tale about almost/sort-of vampires who find love (almost/sort-of) is way to talky and stage-bound to ever be truly effective. After two back-to-back and largely unsuccessful remakes, looks like Spike needs to get back to the original stuff post-haste: the “Tim Burton career path” (patent pending) is the last road any filmmaker wants to get stuck on.

TerrorVision — Equal parts weird, goofy and genuinely cool, oddball auteur Ted Nicolaou’s TerrorVision belongs in the rarefied company of such cult classics as Repo Man and Meet the Hollowheads: ’80s films that seemed to have been beamed to our poor, unsuspecting world from some insane galaxy light years away. To perfect the comparison, TerrorVision is actually about something being beamed to Earth from light years away: in this case, the “something” in question is actually a slimy, ravenous alien bent on liquefying and devouring as many tasty Homo sapiens as possible.

What makes TerrorVision so weird? Take your pick: the acting is so cartoonishly over-the-top that it’s hard to take anything (including the impressive gore effects) seriously; the punk-metal angle is approached in a similarly OTT manner, resulting in such glorious moments as Jon Gries’ O.D. character, who’s sort of the love child of Mad Max’s Toe Cutter and Otto’s dumbass friends in Repo Man; odd material like the swinging subplot is treated so matter-of-factly as to seem even odder; the script is full of incredibly strange exchanges like the one where O.D. tells Chad Allen’s Sherman (yes, the same Chad Allen that was in Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: that is correct) to “Kiss the boot, little man,” to which the youngster replies, “Kiss this, asshole!” and pulls a pistol.

In fact, one of the single, greatest things about TerrorVision is just how truly unpredictable it is: the film employs an absolutely bonkers “anything goes” philosophy which means that it’s never dull and, at times, is genuinely mind-blowing in its inherent weirdness. Embrace your freak flag with TerrorVision which proves the old adage “Some television is so awful that it can kill you…literally!”

Tuesday, 10/27

Asylum Blackout — In many ways, Alexandre Courtes’ Asylum Blackout is the best John Carpenter film that the Godfather of Slashers never made. All of Carpenter’s trademarks, circa Assault on Precinct 13, are here: the low-key, realistic style; evocative electronic score; sustained feeling of tension punctuated by moments of shocking violence; mean, gritty vibe; claustrophobic setting; sense of helplessness; siege storyline…the whole thing might come across as needlessly worshipful if, in fact, Courtes’ film wasn’t so damn good.

This streamlined story of mental asylum staff trapped by the patients during a blackout is so good, in fact, that even some unnecessarily confusing plot points and a genuinely head-scratching twist ending (I’m not quite sure what happened, although I have my suspicions) don’t derail the proceedings. Asylum Blackout isn’t a particularly pleasant film, although it also never wallows in the grim events, preferring to focus on a few explosively gory, effective set-pieces to sell us on everything, part and parcel. With strong acting, a great sense of period detail (the late ’80s, in this case) and some truly ferocious moments, Asylum Blackout is both a sleeper and a keeper.

Offspring — Like an even blunter, far less poetic Cormac McCarthy, author Jack Ketchum has been detailing the heart-stopping depravities of humanity for decades, culminating in a series of novels about a clan of feral cannibals who claim the coastline of Maine as their feeding ground. As a producer, Andrew van den Houten has been responsible for bringing several of Ketchum’s books to the silver screen including Offspring, which he also directed.

Prior to this year, I had seen and been thoroughly impressed by Lucky McKee’s The Woman, finding the film to be a bracing mixture of awesome and repugnant, filled with deliriously insane characters, relentless violence and razor-sharp social commentary. It would be a stretch to say that I enjoyed the film (there’s far too much intense torture, gore and sexual violence to ever make that claim) but lead Pollyanna McIntosh’s performance was an absolute stunner and the whole thing was just too smart to easily dismiss.

Van de Houten’s film serves as a direct prequel to McKee’s, detailing the events that led up to McIntosh’s mysterious wild woman being taken captive by the family of civilized savages. The film is a much cheaper, more amateurish affair than The Woman, bordering on crude at times (the children, in particular, often look more silly than scary) but it also possesses a tremendous amount of brutal, feral power. In many ways, Offspring is The Hills Have Eyes, Maine Edition, with all of the positives and negatives that the descriptor may carry. Above and beyond any of the film’s shortcomings, however, rises another outstanding performance by McIntosh, quickly proving herself to be the modern era’s Sigourney Weaver. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is never a bad thing.

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Dark Ride — A great setting can take a film pretty far and, for a while, the creepy, abandoned amusement park in Dark Ride seems ready and able to hoist the rest of the film on its shoulders and rumble straight to the finish-line. It doesn’t, unfortunately, which is certainly a bummer but probably not unexpected.

Until it falls apart considerably in the third act, Dark Ride comes across as a third-rate Funhouse, although that’s not quite the pejorative that it might sound. The aforementioned setting is fantastic, the tension is strong and the various references to classic films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre are fairly subtle and well-integrated: throw in some decent, Hatchet-like ultra-gore and you have the makings of a pretty nice little B-movie. The lead anchor here, unfortunately, ends up being the strictly by-the-book (and oftentimes much less so) acting and the thoroughly generic, bland killer. One of the cardinal sins of any slasher is a villain with no personality and Dark Ride’s mannequin-faced hacker just never makes an impression…on the viewer, at least. Strictly middle-of-the-road but certainly not the bottom of the barrel.

Wednesday, 10/28

The Gift — Rock-solid, if never exactly amazing, writer-director-actor Joel Edgerton’s The Gift is a timely reminder that while we may be done with the past, the past may not be quite done with us. Essentially a three-character piece with added accoutrements, half of the fun here is watching the seamless ways in which Jason Bateman’s Simon, Rebecca Hall’s Robyn and Edgerton’s “Gordo” feint, prod and maneuver around each other.

The other half of the fun, of course, lies with the twisty, thorny plot, one of those Oldboy-type deals that unveils grim, new information with each unraveling layer. The Gift is a smart film, which is often its biggest asset: while the replay value may diminish a bit after an initial viewing (ala Seven or The Sixth Sense), there’s plenty to mull on here for repeat viewings including the poisonous nature of bullying, the terrible power of karma and that age-old realization that getting what you want can often be the very worst thing for you. Not really a horror film, in any strict sense of the term, but the psychological scarring is strong with this one, so I’ll allow it.

Sleepaway Camp — Although it will probably always be best known for its eyebrow-raising final shot/surprise (which I wouldn’t dream of spoiling here, gentle readers), Robert Hiltzik’s Sleepaway Camp is actually one of the better slashers to emerge during the post-Friday the 13th ’80s glut, although it’s nowhere close to its spiritual forebear in terms of quality. Featuring inventive kills, an odd tone that splits the difference between serious carnage and goofier frivolity and an energetic (if amateurish) cast, Sleepaway Camp has tons of personality that belies its ultra low-budget roots.

While the film can occasionally be rough going (pretty much anytime the awkward/goofy needle winds up in the red), the central story is strong and, while the ultimate denouement would undoubtedly raise all kinds of red flags in our modern times, it’s easy to see how it would have floored a more unenlightened era. Although the two sequels that followed were lots of fun (albeit so much more exponentially silly as to be horror-comedies rather than true slashers), the first film manages to tip the scales heavily on the side of the horror. Like A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween and John Carpenter’s The Thing, Sleepaway Camp should be on every true horror fan’s must-see list: history lessons were never this fun!

The 31 Days of Halloween: Week 4 Mini-Reviews (Part Two)

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31 Days of Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Child, Bone Tomahawk, cinema, Dead of Night, film reviews, films, Freddy Krueger, Freddy vs Jason, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, horror, horror anthologies, horror films, horror franchises, horror westerns, Lost River, mini-reviews, Movies, October, Pay the Ghost, remakes, Saw franchise, Saw: The Final Chapter, Wes Craven, Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Slowly by slowly, little by little, we continue to try to catch up with the avalanche of films from our October horror spectacular. Here are the mini-reviews from the second half of the fourth week of October, 10/22 to 10/25. Coming up, we finally approach the end of the 31 Days of Halloween with the fifth (and final) week of October. We’ll be discussing new films like Spike Lee’s Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, Contracted: Phase 2 and The Gift, as well as old favorites like Jaws, Trick ‘r Treat and Swamp Thing. Stay tuned, gentle readers: that light at the end of the tunnel might be daylight or it might be some sort of creepy ghost train…only one way to find out!

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Thursday, 10/22

A Nightmare on Elm Street — It all started here. There’s a reason why Wes Craven’s seminal creation would go on to spawn not only a blockbuster franchise but a genuine pop culture phenomenon: it is, quite simply, one of the best, most original films to come out of the entire history of the horror genre, from the silent days to modern times. By welding the burgeoning slasher genre to something explicitly supernatural and dream-like, Craven made a cinematic Frankenstein that would change the game for decades to come and introduce the world to one of the most iconic boogeymen of all time.

Much grittier than anything else in the series until Craven would return with New Nightmare, there is very little of the trademark wisecracks and villain worship that would come. In the original installment, Freddy Krueger is a terrifying creation, a scarred, insane, remorseless child killing demon who morphs and bends reality to his whim, far removed from the smarmier jokester that the character would eventually become. The setpieces (Johnny Depp sucked into his own bed; the body-bag dragging down the school hall; Freddy in the bath; the victim tossed around her room by an invisible Freddy) are as iconic as anything by Argento and the cast is likable enough to make us actually care what happens. In a long career, Wes Craven would never top this unforgettable blast of pure nightmarish nitro.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge — Coming off the high that was the original entry, the first sequel to Craven’s iconic creation was always going to have an uphill climb. It’s not that director Steve Miner didn’t try: there are certainly moments and setpieces (the opening school bus bit is pretty great, for one) that stand up with the first film. There’s a gleefully gonzo element to much of the film that allows for exploding parakeets, backyard barbecue massacres and an unexplained (but plainly obvious) homoerotic subtext that prevents the film from ever becoming boring.

On the other hand, however, Freddy’s Revenge is also sort of a mess, featuring an unnecessary possession angle (Freddy takes over a teen’s body in order to continue his killing spree), lots of rough acting and an unfortunately silly aftertaste to much of the proceedings: the aforementioned parakeet is one of those oddities that would never fit in anywhere, regardless of the film, context or era. If anything, Freddy’s Revenge stands as a fledgling franchise taking the first tentative steps towards immortality.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors — The first NOES film that I ever saw in the theater (I snuck into the showing when I was the ripe old age of ten), Dream Warriors is also my very favorite installment in the series, including Craven’s original. Hell, the third entry in the NOES franchise is actually one of my favorite films, of any genre, period.

For my money, Dream Warriors is the perfect culmination of what Elm Street has to offer: the kills/setpieces are inventive, unnerving and pretty glorious (Freddy as puppetmaster and “Primetime Freddy” are probably my favorites); the kids are likable and fun; the pop-metal soundtrack is appropriately kickass (in that patented late-’80s way) and, most importantly, Robert Englund’s Freddy finally perfected his trademark brand of razor-sharp snark here, finding a perfect balance between smarmy sarcasm and genuine dread. Dream Warriors also has the benefit of being one of only three Elm Street films that creator Craven was directly involved with: although he didn’t direct the film (that honor would go to The Blob remake’s Chuck Russell), Craven did co-write the script. As far as I’m concerned, horror films just don’t get much better than this.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master — Although it’s at least a solid half-step down from the utterly amazing Dream Warriors, Renny Harlin’s The Dream Master (his precursor to action juggernaut Die Hard 2) is still a great film and a more than worthy entry in the franchise’s “golden era.” We continue to get more of Freddy’s back story here and, although the humor is much more upfront, this is still, first and foremost, an inventive slasher film. Dream Master is also where Alice, NOES’ best final girl after the original Nancy, really comes into her ass-kicking own.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child — Although Stephen Hopkins’ (also known for Predator 2, Judgment Night and the criminally under-rated Ghost and the Darkness) Dream Child is much jokier and more gimmicky than its predecessors, it’s still a fun, highly watchable and suitably entertaining entry in the series. Although the film is never as inventive as the ones that immediately preceded it, the notion of Alice’s ever-sleeping unborn child is a great revelation/complication and the “doll party” death is still one of the ickiest and most disturbing in the entire franchise. The last truly good NOES film, since I’ve always considered New Nightmare to be a slightly different kind of animal.

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare — When it first came out in theaters, I remember that I couldn’t get enough of Freddy’s Dead, the “supposedly” final installment in the Elm Street saga (at that time, at least): I know that I saw it at least twice but I might have actually seen it three times, to be honest. I do remember one thing quite distinctly, however: if I got any more excited about the film’s 3D aspects (we were given glasses at the screening and I think I still have a pair stowed away somewhere), I’m pretty sure that my head would have literally exploded, sending brain matter to every corner of my humble multiplex.

Time and perspective, as they often are, have not been kind to The Final Nightmare (feature debut for Tank Girl’s Rachel Talalay and one of only three non-TV credits to her resume, thus far). In every way, Freddy’s Dead is the absolute nadir of the series (including the goofy second film), a film that’s much more interested in throwing silly, random pop culture references at the audience (“You forgot the Power Glove!” is as immortal as it is idiotic) than it is in crafting anything approximating a legitimate scare. Gone is any notion of actually being frightening, in any way, shape or form: this is Freddy Krueger as stand-up comic, “slaying” the audience with the aid of things like an extended Wizard of Oz gag and cameos from Tom and Roseanne Arnold.

Despite a genuinely intriguing core premise (with all of the children on Elm Street finally gone, the adults have all gone insane), Freddy’s Dead is nothing but one lame, dated raspberry after another. Small wonder, then, that when the series did finally attempt to move past The Final Nightmare, it went in the completely different, meta-fictional direction of New Nightmare: when you’ve scrapped the bottom of the barrel straight to the wood, there’s just no further down to go.

Friday, 10/23

Saw: The Final Chapter — As hard as it is for me to believe now, there was once a point in time where I not only really liked the Saw series but actually anticipated each entry with something that probably approached a low-level kind of fanboyism. Youth, as we all know, is very much wasted on the young.

By the time I finally got around to watching the concluding chapter of the series recently, not only was I no longer a die-hard fan, I actually disliked much of what I previously enjoyed, finding only the first and third entries to really have any merit. Saw: The Final Chapter (or Saw 3D, if you were “lucky” enough to catch it in theaters) is, without a doubt, the absolute worst entry in the franchise, a feat made all the more impressive when one remembers how truly wretched the 4th and 5th installments were. Loud, chaotic, nauseatingly violent, lunk-headed, ugly, inane and tedious, The Final Chapter manages to wrap everything up with a bow by introducing so many deus ex machinas and “twists” that it’s pretty obvious the series’ caretakers must dislike it as much as we do. The very best, most succinct way I can describe this film is “obnoxious.”

Wes Craven’s New Nightmare — After the franchise went out in a cotton-candy bang of celebrity cameos, Nintendo references and more bad one-liners than an amateur open mic, it seemed that Freddy Krueger and his little spot of suburban hell might go the way of the dodo. Instead, creator Wes Craven would return to the series he kickstarted a mere three years later with New Nightmare, a smart bit of meta-fiction that would serve as a sort of dry run for what would become Craven’s “modern-day” legacy: the Scream series.

Much more serious, stream-lined and genuinely eerie than anything in the franchise since the debut film (not surprising, considering the genesis), New Nightmare uses the conceit that the actual creative personnel behind the films (writer/director Craven, original stars Heather Langenkamp and John Saxon, Freddy portrayer Robert Englund) are now being haunted by an honest to god demon, a creature which has decided to portray itself as Elm Street’s resident stalker for familiarity reasons (think of the various forms that It takes throughout the novel, as comparison).

The meta-angle is smart because it allows Craven to not only return to the franchise he created but to also comment on the violence, terror and nightmares he’s left behind in his wake. More so than his peers, Craven has always been at his strongest when he’s not only creating horror but actively commenting on it, perhaps due to his early turn as a member of academia. As a NOES film, New Nightmare performs lots of smart fan service, giving Elm Street acolytes the opportunity to spend a little more time with some beloved old friends: as a horror film, it’s generally successful, trading in the gaudy variety of the later films for a more streamlined sense of stalk-and-slash. That said, the film’s action can tend towards the cheesy, at times (the final confrontation, in particular, is pretty silly), and there’s never the overriding sense of fun produced by the best films in the series (3, 1 and 4, if we’re keeping score). It’s a good film, mind you, and exponentially better than what immediately preceded it: it’s just never been one of my personal favorites, that’s all.

Saturday, 10/24

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) — I actively avoided watching the 2010 remake of Craven’s immortal Nightmare on Elm Street for a few different reasons: I really, really dislike unnecessary remakes; the recent “reboot” of Friday the 13th not only didn’t add anything new to the mix, it wasn’t even a particularly good F13 ripoff and the NOES “reboot” looked identical; I didn’t think Jackie Earle Haley was a suitable replacement for Robert Englund’s take on Freddy; the implied ultra-serious tone turned me off in the pre-release buzz; there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with the original NOES and I wasn’t sure what the new one was supposed to “fix” or “improve” and, of course, the most important reasons: I really, really dislike unnecessary remakes.

When it came time for this year’s October programming, however, I decided to give the reboot a shot and programmed it at the tail end of my NOES “marathon”: if there was ever a time to approach this with fresh, unjaded eyes, this was it and believe me when I say that I absolutely tried to do so. Despite my preconceived notions, I was fully prepared to let Samuel Bayer (better known for directing roughly a million music videos) blow me out of the water with his vision.

And then, of course, I actually watched the thing. Too technically well-made to be called crap, I still don’t have a problem applying the descriptor: this is soulless, overly glossy, loud, inane garbage, the kind of by-the-numbers modern multiplex filmmaking that’s conducted by committee rather than imagination. The new take on the makeup is awful, Haley’s performance is so generic and beige that he completely fades into the woodwork and all of the numerous references to the far superior original film (such as the “Freddy in the wall” gag) only serve to show just how chintzy and lame the new version is.

Look, I get it: modern audiences don’t like old stuff. No problem. In that case, why not give them someone new, then, instead of some idiotic reinterpretation of something that they’re not going to give two shits about in the first place? The NOES remake is offensive precisely because it appeals to exactly no one: old school fans need this roughly like we need a hole in our heads, whereas “the youth” will probably find this tepid version about as fascinating as listening to Gramps talk about record stores.

Dead of Night — Perhaps the less said about this haphazard late-’70s TV anthology film, the better. Consisting of three stories, Dead of Night features a suitably interesting cast (Ed Begley Jr., Patrick Macnee, Elisah Cook Jr., Horst Buchholz, Joan Hackett and Lee Montgomery all feature prominently) and then doesn’t give them much of anything interesting to do. Ranging from a pre-Back to the Future time-travel jaunt to a clichéd vampire period piece to a grieving mother bringing her dead son back from beyond, nothing here hits with any lasting impact and the overall impression is of a strictly bottom-of-the-shelf product slotted into a lonely Sunday night in order to kill time. Hopelessly dated, Dead of Night is proof that not every wine becomes a classic with age: some just turn into vinegar.

Lost River — Although it’s often easy to forget, celebrities and matinée idols are really, at the end of the day, just human beings like every one else. As such, they love (or hate) corn chips, sing in the shower and idolize other celebrities, just like everyone else. Case in point: leading hunk and all-around indie-action renaissance man, Ryan Gosling. While he may be a mega-charged star, in his own right, it’s pretty obvious that the Gos also really, really looks up to writer/director/badass Nicolas Winding Refn. After all, Gosling was already a lead before Refn cast him in the enigmatic Drive but it was that film (and role) that have clearly resonated the most with him: his “legitimization” in the world of “cool” films, as it were.

For his directorial debut, it’s not surprising that Gosling would turn towards the Danish wunderkind for inspiration, nor is it necessarily surprising that the result would be a huge mess. After all, Refn had to walk before he was setting the asphalt on fire, priming the pump with his Pusher series and the kinda/sorta biopic Bronson before diving into the weird with his surreal Viking curiosity Valhalla Rising and the magical-realist brutalist epics that would follow. With Lost River, Gosling jumps in without testing the waters, aiming for something like the neon-lit melancholy and perversion of Only God Forgives.

The problem, of course, is that all of this is way beyond the abilities of a fledgling filmmaker, especially one who’s still getting the hang of essential storytelling elements. In essence, Lost River is a mishmash of several dozen disparate tropes and themes, pulling in everything from weird, futuristic sex clubs (ala Clockwork Orange) and submerged towns to wandering gangs and general dystopia. There’s a love story (or two) here, lots of evocative atmosphere, plenty of head-scratching strangeness (the sex club, in particular is exceptionally strange) and not a whole lot of narrative. We get random musical numbers, probably because Only God Forgives did the same thing, but the effect is more one of opening random doors and observing assorted activities rather than any sort of overriding theme or intent.

None of this would, of course, make a damn bit of difference if the actual film was as mesmerizing as it intends. It’s not, unfortunately, but it certainly does try: Ben Mendelsohn turns in another of those performances that reinforces his status as the modern-day’s go-to sleazebag, while Christina Hendricks and Iain de Caestecker are solid as the mother/son duo at the heart of the film. There are eye-popping visuals aplenty and the sunken town is a fantastic concept, even if the actual execution leaves a bit to be desired. Even better, Gosling and cinematographer Benoit Debie (who shot Gaspar Noe’s mind-expanding/exploding Enter the Void) turn Detroit into a virtual post-apocalyptic wonderland, a crumbling land of the dead that provides the best possible backdrop for what Gosling has cooking.

Which, as previously mentioned, just doesn’t amount to much, in the end. Films certainly don’t have to make sense: there’s no written (or unwritten) rule that’s ever enforced that, least of all in my personal rulebook. The chief sin of Lost River isn’t that it makes an imperfect kind of sense: the chief sin of Lost River is that it’s haphazard and random, mood and image for the sense of such. Gosling might be looking towards such stylish artisans as Refn, Bava and Argento for inspiration but he’s forgotten the most important part: first and foremost, those filmmakers could tell a story. Lost River might be an “experience” but it could (and should) have been a whole lot more.

Sunday, 10/25

Bone Tomahawk — Although I like and watch all kinds of films, there are two genres that definitely have a lock on my heart: horror films and Westerns. While I’ve loved and been obsessed with horror films since I was a little kid, I actually grew up disliking Westerns something fierce, although anything with Clint Eastwood in it was always at the top of my fave list, regardless of genre. Once I grew up and was actually able to appreciate the genre, I learned that I had been a pretty huge bonehead (sorry Mom and Dad!) and that Westerns could be every bit as glorious as the horror films that I always swore by. Doh.

Since that point, I’ve always had my eyes peeled for that perfect intersection of my twin loves, that Venn diagram of utter awesomeness: the horror-Western. Like most rare, reclusive creatures, however, the horror-Western is a mighty difficult one to pin down. In fact, in all of these years, I’ve really only seen two films that I would consider to be absolutely essential horror-Westerns: Antonia Bird’s criminally under-rated Ravenous (1999), one of my all-time favorite films, and J.T. Petty’s stunning The Burrowers (2008), which has been burned into my mind since the very first time I saw it. At long last, these past favorites can finally set another place at the table: writer-director S. Craig Zahler’s Bone Tomahawk (2015) is not only the single best horror-Western I’ve seen since The Burrowers, it’s also one of the very best films of the year, hands down.

Bone Tomahawk, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love how Kurt Russell channels the world-weary air of latter-day John Wayne for his flawless portrayal of Sheriff Franklin Hunt, one of the most effortless cinematic badasses ever. I love how Richard Jenkins’ Chicory is the culmination of every sassy, ancient deputy in the history of the genre. I love how none of the characters, whether Patrick Wilson’s kind-hearted and “traditional” hero or Matthew Fox’s charismatic but odious “Indian-killer” are ever reduced to just simplistic stereotypes or lazy cinematic tropes. I love how the smart, Tarantino-esque dialogue adds to the overall feel and flow of the film rather than calling unnecessary attention to itself: there’s a great scene involving the relative merits (or lack thereof) of reading in the tub that provides big belly laughs without detracting from the film’s overall thoughtful, mournful air.

I love cinematographer Benji Bakshi’s gorgeous, panoramic imagery, beautifully composed shots that elegantly place our small, insignificant heroes into a massive, almost apocalyptic landscape that perfectly illustrates the immensity of their quest. I love that the horror element (cannibalistic, nearly inhuman cave-dwelling troglodyte savages who communicate via a series of eerie howling calls) is grounded in reality but never so ruthlessly explained as to lose its overriding air of mystery and menace. Did I mention how much I love the opening that features Sid Haig and David Arquette doing what they do best? No? Well, I love that, too.

To be frankly honest (as if it wasn’t already painfully obvious), I loved every thing about Bone Tomahawk. Just like with The Burrowers and Ravenous, this felt like an instant classic from the very first frame, a feeling which remained constant and consistent throughout its runtime. This is not only a quality horror film or a quality neo-Western: it’s a quality film, period, the kind of immaculately made, exquisitely acted piece of art that makes my heart soar and validates any and every shitty, boring or clichéd film I’ve had to sit through this year. It’s an absolute given that Bone Tomahawk will end up on my year-end Best of list: if most critics didn’t wear blinders when it came to horror films, I’d be willing to wager it would end up on their lists, too.

Freddy vs Jason — The worst thing about Ronny Yu’s Freddy vs Jason isn’t that it’s a dumb film, although it certainly is that. In fact, I’d go so far as to say the film is aggressively stupid, pitched at such a loud, blaring and bubble-headed level that it all but guarantees derision from anyone who grew up on the original NOES and F13 franchises: by comparison, Freddy’s Dead and Jason Goes to Hell both come across as downright Shakespearen.

No, the worst thing about Freddy vs Jason, by a long-shot, is how hard it tries (and overwhelmingly succeeds) in making Freddy Krueger look like a complete and total moron. Never more than one banana peel slip away from outright buffoonery (perhaps that’s on the Blu-ray extras?), this is even more terrible when one realizes that it will also probably stand as Englund’s last official outing behind the makeup. When I think of Freddy, I’d rather think of the cunning, wily and bloodthirsty monster of Dream Warriors or New Nightmare, not the dope in Freddy vs Jason who spends the entire film running around shouting the equivalent of “Those meddling kids!” while shaking his tiny fists at the sky. There’s never a point here where Freddy approaches anything like his former menace (although the Alice in Wonderland riff is a nice try): he’s the whiny nerd making threats while someone gives him a swirly in the boys’ room, the blowhard doofus who needs a little comeuppance from the “cool kids.”

Is it fun, though? Eh…it’s certainly loud, kinetic and action-packed…is that the same thing? Although Freddy gets the shortest possible end of the stick, Jason makes out slightly better, possibly because his constantly bemused expression stands as a perfect surrogate for our disbelief. It’s almost as if Mr. Voorhees is thinking: “Huh: get a look at this, will ya? This is some pretty out there stuff, man.” The actual fight between Freddy and Jason is fun, sure, even if the whole thing feels suspiciously like one of those Peter vs the Chicken fights from Family Guy: at a certain point, they might as well be smashing through panes of glass on the street and upending fruit carts, for all the actual impact it has.

I will freely admit one thing, however: I laugh my damn ass off each and every time I watch the scene where the stoner, referencing Jason’s murderous rampage, observes “Dude, that goalie was pissed about something!” My guess? He just got finished watching this stupid movie.

Pay the Ghost — When it comes to Nicolas Cage, it’s never a given as to which side you’re going to get: will it be the teeth-gnashing, out-of-control, bee-hating Cage of The Wicker Man remake or will it be the restrained, low-key artisan of Joe? The glory of Cage, of course, it that it could be either (or both!): like a box of mixed chocolates, you never really know until you’ve paid your money and taken your chances.

For Uli Edel’s Pay the Ghost, we get a little of both sides, albeit watered-down: call it diluted Cage, if you will. And it works, for the most part: Cage is a massively likable presence as Mike Lawford, the hapless professor who manages to lose his young son during a chaotic Halloween carnival and uncovers a supernatural conspiracy when he tries to find him. There are some genuinely eerie moments here, even if many of them seem borrowed from similar genre fare like Mama or The Woman in Black (perhaps the closest parallel to Pay the Ghost’s themes and execution) and Edel (who was also responsible for the fantastic Baader Meinhof Complex) builds up a reasonable amount of tension throughout.

The biggest problem, as it turns out, is that the film ends up being both too convoluted and too familiar: the moments where Edel and screenwriter Dan Kay (scripting from Tim Lebbon’s novel) break away from the usual “evil forces snatching children” tropes end up being some of the film’s weakest, mostly because it’s often difficult for us to make the connections that the characters are. Even now, I’m not 100% sure of what transpired, although I’m pretty sure I’ve got the gist. That being said, the film is still a reasonable solid, well-made piece of multiplex-ready fare and features a strong performance from Cage and lots of creepy vultures: if that sounds like your thing, I suggest you pay this particular ghost and see what happens.

The 31 Days of Halloween: Week 4 Mini-Reviews (Part One)

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31 Days of Halloween, Alleluia, cinema, djinn, Feed the Gods, Felt, film reviews, films, Gravy, Halloween, Halloween traditions, Lost After Dark, Love in the Time of Monsters, mini-reviews, Movies, October, Teeth, The Boxtrolls, The Diabolical

Our recap continues with the first few days of the fourth week of October, Monday through Wednesday (10/19-10/21). As with the others, it was necessary to break this up since 24 films were screened that week. We’ll have the second half of the week a little later: stay tuned for my run-through of the Nightmare on Elm Street series (including the remake) along with another of my picks for film of the year, Bone Tomahawk.

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Monday, 10/19

Alleluia — If French auteur Fabrice Du Welz has an agenda, I’m more than willing to bet that it’s making audiences extremely uncomfortable.  With his stunning debut, Calvaire, Du Welz put his own unforgettable spin on one of the moldiest horror tropes out there (dangerous, inbred backwoods folks), turning it into a thoroughly unpleasant, if bleakly powerful, examination of obsession, insanity, gender assignment and creepy yokels. Du Welz would follow this up with Vinyan, an equally unpleasant if slightly less successful look at parent-child relationships and the bottomless hole that is loss.

For his third feature, Du Welz turns his attention to the oft-filmed, true life crime story of the Honeymoon Killers: a charming con artist woos and swindles women until he ends up in the orbit of an obsessive lover, at which point his chicanery combines with her insanity to produce an increasing pile of murdered women. While this features plenty of Du Welz’s trademark visual flair (a blue-lit journey through a sex club is particularly impressive), it also becomes unfortunately repetitive by the third act, as we settle into an increasingly predictable “wash, lather, rinse” cycle of Gloria getting jealous, Gloria getting seriously violent and Michael staring in shock at the aftermath. If the film, itself, is Du Welz’s most straight-forward and least surprising yet, then the searing performance by Lola Duenas as Gloria stands as one of the very best performances I saw this year. With her big, soulful eyes, goofy, glazed grin and propensity to turn into a Tazmanian Devil when angered, Duenas’ Gloria is, perhaps, one of the single most terrifying characters ever brought to the screen. Too bad Alleluia isn’t as feral as its lead.

Gravy — This one’s a bit tricky, folks. On the one hand, writer-director James Roday’s feature debut is astoundingly funny, full of brilliant dialogue, some awe-inspiring performances (they don’t normally offer Oscars for splatterific horror-comedies but, if they did, both Jimmi Simpson and Michael Weston would receive an equal half, split down the middle like Solomon’s infamous baby), brilliant setpieces and some genuinely amazing gore/effects work. It’s no hyperbole to say that, come the end of this year, Gravy will absolutely end up in my Top 5: it’s all but guaranteed a spot, given that the damn film is pretty much flawless, as streamlined of purpose as a shark.

So what’s in that other hand, gentle readers? Well, in this case, it would be the twin qualifiers of societal taboo (cannibalism) and extreme, unabashed and outrageous bad taste. While most folks will probably find themselves turned off by the actual story (a trio of nutty cannibals takes the employees of a Mexican restaurant hostage on All Hallows’ Eve and proceeds to butcher and eat them, all while playing a series of silly games), I’ll wager that the tone will tick just as many off. Thanks to the astounding performances, cannibals Simpson and Weston become the de facto, ultra-charismatic leads, even as they’re sawing people in half or biting their voiceboxes out through their throats. To put it bluntly, our cannibals are so damn lovable and quirky that it puts the audience in a weird situation: we want to root for the employees (who are also such a lovable, cool bunch that it’s never a chore) but then Simpson, Weston or Molly Ephraim (whose female cannibal easily holds her own in the boys’ club) will do or say something so gut-bustingly rad that it’s hard not to cheer ’em on.

Make no mistake about it, however: if you can stomach the intense bloodshed and far less than PC humor, you’ll find that Gravy is one of the funniest, most original and most ingenious films to emerge in the last decade or so. With its phenomenal score (“La Bamba,” “Sowing the Seeds of Love” and “Walking on Sunshine” are all used to turn already epic setpieces into the kind of water-cooler talk that make legends) and razor-sharp dialogue (the scene where Simpson and Weston discuss how Jenny Agutter going “full frontal” in Equus was the source of Simpson’s love of British accents is so perfectly timed that it’s like a comedy workshop), this thing is a crowd-pleaser dressed in lunatic garb. Final word: any film that makes me laugh this often and pump my fist this high gets only one real descriptor, in my book…classic.

The Boxtrolls — Despite a slightly off-putting visual style (sort of like drastically over-lit Claymation) and a slightly too long running time, I rather enjoyed this quirky little story about finding your own family in the world, regardless of whether they look like you or not. With some nice voice-acting, heartfelt themes  and fun setpieces, The Boxtrolls doesn’t reinvent the wheel (or even spiff it up, to be honest) but it’s a pleasant enough way to pass the time.

Tuesday, 10/20

Djinn — Of all the ’70s horror masters who’ve gradually lost their edge, few have fallen further and harder than the once unstoppable Tobe Hooper. While everything between his iconic 1974 debut, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and its direct 1986 sequel are varying degrees of awesome (the worst thing you can say about any of the eight films in his “classic” period is that they might be a tad bit over-the-top), he’s been unable to create anything worthwhile in the nearly 30 years since.

His newest film, the UAE-funded Djinn, fits nicely into the pattern of latter-day Hooper: clichéd scenarios, iffy acting, and an overall workmanlike quality that’s the polar opposite of essential films like TCM, Fun House or Life Force. There’s no point in the film’s 80 minutes where it ever exceeds expectations, surprises or produces anything like the glory of his mid-’70s to mid-’80s output. In fact, if you didn’t catch his name in the credits, I’m willing to wager there would be no way whatsoever to discern this as a Tobe Hooper film any more than an Alan Smithee joint. Save one really smart scene involving a pair of oblivious cops and several coolly atmospheric moments, this tired story of a husband and wife finding ancient evil when they return to their homeland is just about as D.O.A. as it gets. Hard to call this a disappointment, really, since ol’ Hoop’s been driving this awful back road for almost three decades now.

Lost After Dark — Nowadays, with nearly as many retro-’80s-themed genre films floating around as there were actual films back in the 1980s, it’s a little harder for any one to make a genuine impact. Enter writer-director Ian Kessner’s full-length debut, Lost After Dark, which utilizes a surprisingly smart and simple way to stand out from the pack: by playing the film mostly straight, the whole thing ends up feeling like a long-lost slasher curio rather than a calculated homage to an era. Sure, there are meta moments like the obligatory “missing reel” gag (albeit used in a pretty fresh way, here) and the fact that every character in the film is named after either a famous horror director, performer or character (most head-slapping bit being the point where Heather proclaims “I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again” because, ya know, the actress who played Nancy in A Nightmare on Elm Street was Heather Langenkamp. Get it? Huh? Huh?).

For the most part, however, we get a pretty well-made old school slasher film filled with unique kills (the giant corkscrew to the back was certainly original), fun characters and a pretty neat performance from Robert Patrick as a tough-as-nails high school principal (“I’m no teenager: I was in the ‘Nam and I’ve got chunks of guys like you in my stool!”). If the film occasionally comes across as slightly generic, well, that may just be the most authentic bit of verisimilitude yet.

Wednesday, 10/21

Love in the Time of Monsters — In the past, I always held fast to the notion that horror-comedies were, quite possibly, the hardest films to really knock out of the park. Judging by the amount of amazing ones I saw this year, however, it looks like filmmakers may have finally cracked the code. Next exhibit? Matt Jackson’s thoroughly endearing Love in the Time of Monsters.

All of the necessary aspects are present and accounted for: funny, unique angle (the various guys who play Bigfoot at the Sasquatch-themed Uncle Slavko’s All-American Family Lodge become infected by toxic waste and turn into rampaging Bigfoot-costumed zombies who chow down on the guests and other employees); well-done gore effects; fun, likable characters (Doug Jones gets a marvelous bit as an Abe Lincoln-costumed doctor, while every employee of the lodge has their own personalities and quirks, ala Gravy);  great setpieces (the scene where the Big Kahuna and Brandi have to “dance like lives depend on it” is fantastic but the scene where our survivors get a full view of the contaminant’s effect on the local wildlife is a showstopper); great acting; smart, fast and funny dialogue (writer Michael Skvarla’s script rarely comes up for air, preferring to batter the viewer with one hilarious line after another, again, ala Gravy)…if it’s possible to create quality film with a checklist, this is the one to use.

While Love in the Time of Monsters isn’t quite as flawless as either Gravy or Cooties (the film sometimes devolves into silly chaos and there’s a really ill-advised and, frankly, awful electrical charge effect that’s used way too often and never failed to make me groan), if you’re a fan of horror-comedies, this should be just what you’re looking for.

Feed the Gods — Needlessly confusing, drastically under-lit and genuinely odd, Feed the Gods is one of those horror film collages (creepy backwoods locals, Bigfoot, sins of the parents, humans in thrall to monsters, yadda yadda ya) that seems to have a lot on its mind, yet doesn’t end up saying a whole lot. There’s lots of interesting stuff in this film about brothers who travel to a virtual ghost town in search of their birth parents and run afoul of the Bigfoot-worshipping locals but the plot takes so many sudden zigzags that it becomes tiring trying to keep up. It was never a terrible film, mind you, but by the time the film chugged into the finish line, it had become a somewhat silly film, which rather belies its serious-as-a-heart-attack tone. Extra points for finding a way to channel Shirley Jackson’s immortal The Lottery, even if it ends up being just another hanging thread in a pretty shaggy tapestry.

The Diabolical — There’s nothing worse than a lazy, middle-of-the-road film that takes zero chances and does it’s damnedest to blend into the pack: Alistair Legrand’s The Diabolical is probably the furthest thing from that. On the other hand, however, films (and filmmakers) that bite off way more than they can chew can be just as bad, albeit in a different way. The Diabolical, without a doubt, falls under that category.

Ostensibly one of the ubiquitous “troubled family moves into a new home and experiences strange occurrences” family of films, Legrand throws in diabolical scientific experiments, time travel, typical haunted house stuff (skinless apparitions are plentiful here) and convoluted familial drama until the whole thing begins to resemble a Whitman’s Sampler of Horror. There are moments of genuine power here (the bit where a skinless creature crawls out of a clothes dryer is the genuine stuff of nightmares) but the ultimate resolution makes imperfect sense (at best) and the whole thing becomes almost unbearably cluttered and confusing by the “twist” ending. Nothing wrong with a little ambition, mind you: complete lack of focus, however, is something else entirely.

Teeth — Pitched somewhere between a particularly grim fairy tale and a tongue-in-cheek reproachment of misogyny, Teeth details the adventures of Dawn, a goody-two-shoes high school student who’s a little different from her peers. For one thing, she’s a highly aggressive proponent for abstinence and wholesome entertainment (PG-13 movies have too much “making out,” so cartoons are safest), which makes her the object of ridicule for her “cooler” peers. For another thing, she has vagina dentata, a fact which she discovers when the supposedly nice guy that she has a crush on tries to rape her and gets his manhood forcibly removed.

Held aloft by Jess Weixler’s positively effervescent performance as Dawn, Teeth is always lighter than its subject matter might indicate but never sells the very serious core themes short. There’s lots of thought-provoking discussion about gender norms, the stereotype of the “good girl,” the fallacy of the “white knight” and the notion of justice versus vengeance. That’s not to say, of course, that the film is all dour philosophizing: thanks to the quick, smart dialogue, Weixler’s constantly engaging performance and some genuinely impressive setpieces, Teeth ends up being a whole lot of fun, a smart teen comedy with a significant edge and plenty on its mind.

Felt — It’s quite possible to love the message, yet dislike the messenger: Jason’s Banker’s follow-up to Toad Road, Felt, is proof positive of just that. Despite being 100% on board for this searing indictment of misogyny and rape culture (with a little Repulsion thrown in, for good measure), I was left cold and, to be honest, a little irritated. Chalk it up to co-writer/lead Amy Everson’s thoroughly off-putting performance as a traumatized artist who gradually loses her grasp on reality amid a seemingly unending array of piggish, assholish masculinity, the best of which can said to be liars, the worst of which are no less than dangerous predators. Even though I agreed with everything Amy was saying and (for the most part) doing, I just couldn’t stand her character, finding her to be obnoxious and rather tedious.

It’s a shame because there’s so much potential that feels squandered here, so much more that could have been done with this set-up. After loving Banker’s previous film, Felt was just about as highly anticipated for me as anything this year: that makes my general dislike of this one of my biggest disappointments of the year. Aside from a few unnerving setpieces and some genuinely beautiful cinematography (Banker continues to be a real wizard with the camera, just as in Toad Road), the film is just sunk by Everson’s unlikable performance. I wanted to love this, trust me: it hurts me deeply to say that I didn’t even like it.

The 31 Days of Halloween: Week 3 Mini-Reviews (Part Two)

Tags

31 Days of Halloween, cinema, Circle, Corpse Bride, Fantasia, film reviews, Halloween traditions, horror, horror films, Labyrinth, Movies, October, Omen IV: The Awakening, Soulmate, Tales of Halloween, The Last Unicorn, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Otherworld, The Visitor, Unnatural

Despite the fact that we’re now in the early days of November, my quest to document all of my October viewings continues. This time around, we’ll talk a little about the films from the last half of the third week of October (10/16-10/18). As ever, faithful and patient readers, stay tuned as your humble host continues to convalesce: it may take a little longer than usual but we’ll eventually get to our destination.

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Friday, 10/16

Tales of Halloween — Right up until I actually saw Tales of Halloween, the new multi-director horror anthology, I was totally fine with calling Michael Dougherty’s Trick ‘R Treat the single greatest Halloween-themed anthology of all time. Afterwards…well, let’s just say that absolutes are made to be broken. Although it doesn’t have quite the singular vision that Dougherty’s modern classic does (chalk it up to the fact that each of the ten tales here are written and directed by ten different filmmakers), Tales of Halloween is an absolute blast from start to finish. When the stories are really good (Darren Lynn Bousman’s The Night Billy Raised Hell; Axelle Carolyn’s Grim Grinning Ghost; Mike Mendez’s Friday the 31st; Neil Marshall’s Bad Seed), they’re absolutely out of this world (in particular, Mendez and Marshall’s shorts are two of the best things these auteurs have ever done). In fact, of the ten shorts, only Adam Gierasch’s Trick failed to utterly enthrall me. Are we in the golden age of horror anthologies? Magic 8-Ball indicates “Yes.”

Labyrinth — As a child, there were a few films that were watched so often that I practically had all the dialogue memorized and Jim Henson’s Labyrinth was definitely one of those. Although my older sister and I never agreed on much, growing up, we were completely in sync on one important issue: this magical tale of a teenage girl trying to rescue her baby brother from the Goblin King (David Bowie, alternating between looking like he’s having the time of his life and suffering from a mild case of severe annoyance) is just about as good as ’80s kids’ fantasy films got. While the film is slightly dated and occasionally cheesy in the cold, hard light of our modern era, it’s also an endless amount of fun, thoroughly inventive and features one of Bowie’s coolest songs ever (try to get “Dance Magic” out of your head…I dare you). Watch this on a double-bill with Henson’s The Dark Crystal for the full effect.

Saturday, 10/17

The Otherworld — When it comes to filmmakers, writer-director Richard Stanley has always done stuff the hard way. Whether his utterly insane, hallucinogenic “killer robot” flick Hardware, his mystical, highbrow Dust Devil or his aborted attempt to bring another version of Wells’ classic The Island of Doctor Moreau to the screen (recent documentary Lost Soul gives an in-depth view of Stanley’s batshit crazy history with that particular production), Stanley seems to make the films that he wants to see, popular interest or modern clichés be damned. The Otherworld is Stanley’s fascinating documentary about his experiences in Montsegur, France, long-held as one of the most mystical, strange places on Earth. Undeniably strange, often disjointed but never less than enthralling, Stanley details the history of the Cathar religion in the area (a female-centric religion that prized feminine power at a time in history when powerful women were more likely to be burned at the stake than lauded), as well as various unexplained, otherworldly occurrences. While true disbelievers might not be as moved, anyone with an open mind will find plenty of eerie, unexplained and flat-out amazing phenomena to chew on.

The Nightmare Before Christmas — An utter classic, this collaboration between Tim Burton, Danny Elfman and Henry Selick is just as awesome today as it was over twenty years ago. The animation is unique and immersive, the songs are great and there’s a genuine sense of wonder and menace that reminds us all why Burton was once of the single finest purveyors of the strange working in American cinema. Occupying the enviable position of being both a suitable Halloween AND Christmas film, smart viewers should program this one twice a year, just to be safe.

Corpse Bride — Although it’s a solid half-step down from The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride is still quintessential Burton and worthy follow-up to the classic original. Directed by Burton and featuring his longtime muses Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, Corpse Bride feels like a Burton film through and through, ramping his Gothic tendencies up to a level that almost (but not quite) approaches parody. Above all else, however, this tale of a mild-mannered dweeb accidentally marrying a dead woman is a whole lot of fun and features a handful of truly wonderful setpieces. Smartest parallel here? The drab, boring, colorless world of the “living” versus the cotton-candy-colored, dynamic and utterly alive world of the “dead.”

Soulmate — For a time, Axelle Carolyn’s moody ghost story is pretty excellent, all foggy moors, creepy old houses and moldering “sins of the past.” Once the film reveals its true intentions and becomes an exceptionally silly romance between the lead and a debonair ghost, however, the whole thing circles the drain with alarming speed. Too well-made and evocative to be completely disregarded but too inherently stupid to be taken seriously, this went from “I like what they’re doing” to “How much time is left?” with disappointing ease.

Fantasia — While some might question the positioning of Walt Disney’s iconic Fantasia in a month of only horror films, I kindly direct their attention to the Night on Bald Mountain segment. Not only was this one of my earliest introductions to the world of horror, it still stands as one of the creepiest, most intense and casually awesome animated shorts in the history of the medium. To this day, I still consider the film one of the crowning achievements in the cinematic world, despite all of the innovations that have come since.

Sunday, 10/18

Omen IV: The Awakening — Until I actually sat down to watch it, I was completely unaware of the existence of the fourth Omen film, falsely believing that the original franchise ended with The Final Conflict. Turns out there was a very good reason I’d never heard of this TV movie from the dawning of the ’90s: it’s a complete and total piece of shit, even when compared with the notoriously low standards of the series. The whole thing is an awesome blossom of awful, from the howlingly bad dialogue to the dull death scenes (in a series that only ever had that aspect going for it, this might be the critical blow) to the acting that can politely be described as “blunt.” Hard to pick a “favorite” moment here, although the scene where Delia and Jo walk through a “psychic fair” has to be one of the single most ridiculous scenes ever filmed. Actual fans of the series should end with the third film and pretend this tax write-off doesn’t exist.

The Visitor — Some films exist to be mulled over, contemplated, debated and examined through a critical lens. Some films, however, exist for only one purpose: to be experienced. The Visitor, one of the most insane, confusing and outrageous Itallo-fantasies ever created, is obviously one of the latter. Although almost nothing makes sense, on any kind of fundamental level, this manages to throw evil children, killer hawks, extraterrestrial Jesus figures and basketball (?!) into an industrial-sized blender: the resulting concoction is frothy, silly, kinda stupid and endlessly entertaining. Extra points for featuring both John Huston and Sam Peckinpah in acting roles: extra, extra points for the fact that Peckinpah was such a mess, his dialogue had to be dubbed in post. Imagine what would happen if Jodorowsky decided he wanted to be Michael Bay. Can’t imagine it? Just watch The Visitor, instead. Mind…blown.

Unnatural — When it comes to horror films, there really aren’t a lot of “killer creatures” that haven’t been utilized: we’ve had killer sharks, killer bees, killer lions, killer birds, killer whales and killer dogs (among many, many more species of fauna). To this pile of snapping teeth and claws, we can finally add killer polar bears. Not just any killer polar bear, mind you: this particular polar bear is genetically modified to be bigger, meaner, smarter and scarier. While the genetically modified angle seems completely unnecessary (what, actual polar bears aren’t terrifying enough?), Unnatural is a pretty great fright flick, taking more than a handful of cues from that other well-known killer animal flick, Jaws. Lead James Remar is fantastic as our de facto hero and Twin Peaks alum Sherilyn Fenn is solid as a morally ambiguous scientist. Only real complaint? The filmmakers had the temerity to cast the one and only Ray Wise and then relegate him to a total of two scenes, neither of which really have anything to do with the narrative. Misuse of Wise? Not a wise move, my friends…not wise at all.

Circle — Many years ago, I took a chance on the modest, lo-fi debut of an (at the time) unknown filmmaker. Despite some rough acting and obvious budgetary limitations, the film ended up being pretty amazing: smart, unconventional, fascinating and completely its own beast, the filmmaker was Vincenzo Natali and the film was Cube. Natali would go on to become one of my favorite, most underrated filmmakers and Cube would go on to earn a place on my list of “neo classics.” This time around, the unknown filmmakers are Aaron Hann and Mario Miscione and the film in question is Circle. Using only one location (a dark room with a series of red circles on the ground), 50 unnamed characters and no movement, Circle manages to be endlessly fascinating, featuring some of the most cutting, potent discussions on morality that I’ve ever heard uttered in any film, much less a micro-budget sci-fi film. You might not think that a film featuring 50 unnamed people debating the logistics of who deserves to live and die in our modern society would be so interesting, well-made and thought-provoking. You would be wrong, of course, but that’s probably because you haven’t watched Circle yet. Rectify that immediately.

The Last Unicorn — I finished the third week of October with another of my longtime, favorite films from my childhood: The Last Unicorn. Possessed of a beautiful, ethereal style of animation that pretty much died with the ’80s, The Last Unicorn is a consistently lovely film to look at, sort of like a kids’ picture book come to life. The film, itself, is certainly an odd duck, juxtaposing the usual cartoonish antics that kids expected with some significantly more adult material (besides the terrifying Red Bull, there’s also the extraordinarily odd scene featuring the large-bosomed tree, a moment that must have scarred my formative mind at least a little). There’s an overriding air of melancholy to the film that keeps everything from becoming too lightweight and the scenes that stuck out the most when I was a kid (that amazing harpy, the ultimate demise of the king) still possessed the same power this time around. Will modern kids be able to appreciate something this out-of-fashion and out-of-time? While my head says “no,” my heart really, really wants to say “yes.”