11/22/15: Two is the Loneliest Number

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Americans abroad, backpackers, based on a short story, Bidzina Gujabidze, Caucasus Mountains, cinema, dramas, Eastern Europe, film reviews, filmed in Republic of Georgia, films, Gael Garcia Bernal, Hani Furstenberg, Inti Briones, Julia Loktev, Movies, relationships on the rocks, Shalva Kirikashvili, The Loneliest Planet, writer-director

What do you call a film that features gorgeous cinematography, beautiful locations and almost no sense of dramatic tension, character development or desire to propel the narrative forward? While I would have accepted either “a travelogue” or “vacation footage shot on a RED camera” as correct answers, the one that I was actually going for was The Loneliest Planet (2011), writer-director Julia Loktev’s examination of a relationship pushed to the breaking point. Despite being a genuinely lovely film to look at, The Loneliest Planet ends up as the cinematic equivalent of a postcard: flat, one-dimensional and utterly static.

Engaged cutie-pies Alex (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Nica (Hani Furstenberg) are on a picturesque backpacking expedition through the gorgeous, green countryside of the Republic of Georgia and they couldn’t be happier. So in love with each other that they not only spend every waking minute together but also gleefully discuss each other’s bowel movements, this is the couple that every rom-com meet-cute in existence was founded on.

Trouble eventually (very, very eventually) shatters their happy existence, however, when the couple and their local guide, Dato (Bidzina Gujabidze), run afoul of a few grumpy, armed locals. In one moment of complete, unblinking cowardice (think Ruben Ostlund’s Force Majeure (2014), for comparison), Alex destroys their complacent happiness and reorients the relationship along a much more antagonistic route. With the joy and innocence completely bled from their formerly care-free trip, will Alex and Nica be able to make things right between them or has their relationship been damaged beyond repair? Once you’ve seen your significant other in a new, unfavorable light, is it ever possible to go back to “the good old days”? Can innocence lost ever be regained?

First of all, let’s speak to the film’s obvious selling point: cinematographer Inti Briones shot some impossibly beautiful, genuinely stunning footage and it’s showcased here in all its glory. The vistas are sweeping and verdant, the numerous wide shots are suitably evocative and all of the locations, whether wide, open fields or ramshackle, abandoned buildings pop off the screen in bright, vibrant colors. This is a film that could function just as well with the sound turned off (perhaps better, in some cases), honest testament to the beauty of the imagery here. Despite whatever else I felt about the film, my admiration for the look and camera-work are truly heartfelt.

The downside, unfortunately, is that the excellent cinematography and beautiful locations do nothing to conceal the fact that The Loneliest Planet is dull, devoid of tension, lacks any kind of character development and runs on for at least 40 minutes too long. The film is obnoxiously repetitive, to the point of seeming almost parodic: the scene where Nica sings the odious “Don Gato” song goes on for so long and is so straight-faced that I half-expected Seth McFarlane to pop up at some point. Repetition to make a point is one thing: letting scenes drag on well after the point has been made is something else altogether.

In a nutshell, that might be The Loneliest Planet’s Achilles heel: almost every shot, scene and beat in the entire two-hour run-time is held for much longer than it needs to be. Not only does this inflate the film to an unnecessary degree (trim the shots and I’m willing to wager the film wraps-up around a much more manageable 90-100 minute time-frame) but it also robs the tension out of everything and grinds the film to a complete standstill even during those (brief) moments where it should be sprinting. Sure, there’s definitely an art-house aesthetic going on here, an aesthetic which generally encourages longer, more static shots. That being said, Loktev holds everything here just long enough to cross from “effective” to “irritating”: it’s no hyperbole to say that almost every shot and scene needed much more judicial use of the trimming tool than they ultimately received.

To compound issues, the film manages to criminally under-use Bernal (one of our most expressive, interesting modern actors) and Gujabidze (the real emotional center of the film), while tipping the scales in favor of Furstenberg, who more often than not radiates blankness more than any kind of relatable emotion. Chalk this up to the script, which saddles poor Furstenberg with scenes like the aforementioned “Don Gato” monstrosity, but there were few times that I ever felt she was more than another “quirky manic pixie girl.” While Bernal gets the odd moment to shine, here and there, Furstenberg gets an equal amount of camera-time and far less to do with it. For a film that is, fundamentally, about a relationship between two people, The Loneliest Planet often feels like only one of the principals is doing any heavy lifting.

Lest all of the above suggest that I hated The Loneliest Planet, let me lay that to rest: I never really became invested in it enough to feel strongly one way or the other. More than anything, I was disappointed, since there are plenty of moments that hint at what the film actually could have been: the inciting incident is genuinely tense, even if Force Majeure used that particular plot device in a more effective manner…the campfire scene where Dato relates his hard-luck story is a real gut-punch, much more powerful and emotionally resonate than anything that came before…the impromptu volleyball game is genuinely cute and fun, the exact tone that the first half of the film tries (and fails) to nail…those eye-popping visuals…the problem ends up being that Loktev introduces some genuinely interesting elements and then proceeds to focus on the most uninteresting, repetitive parts of the narrative.

Ultimately, my biggest beef with the film isn’t that nothing (literally) happens until almost the midpoint of a two-hour film: I’ve seen plenty of films where it seems like nothing is going on until nearly the conclusion and liked them just fine. My biggest beef with the film is that any moment of forward momentum or genuine interest exists only as momentary up-blips on a generally inert lifeline. The Loneliest Planet takes its time getting to its destination, only to, ultimately, never arrive. It’s the equivalent of someone taking the time to careful arrange the letters on a poster-board sign, only to run out of room with half the word still missing. There’s a good film nestled in The Loneliest Planet’s bloat, like the tiny center of a set of Russian stacking dolls: whether you want to take the time to get to it, however, is a question only you can answer.

6/20/15 (Part Two): Leaving the Sunlit World Behind

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'90s films, Alice Drummond, anthology films, based on a short story, Christian Slater, cinema, Creepshow, dark comedies, David Johansen, Deborah Harry, Dick Smith, Dolores Sutton, film reviews, films, gargoyles, George Romero, horror, horror anthologies, horror films, James Remar, John Harrison, Julianne Moore, KNB Effects, Mark Margolis, Matthew Lawrence, Michael McDowell, Movies, mummies, Philip Lenkowsky, Rae Dawn Chong, revenge, Richard P. Rubenstein, Robert Draper, Robert Klein, Robert Sedgwick, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Stephen King, Steve Buscemi, Tales From the Darkside, Tales From the Darkside: The Movie, The Crying of Lot 249, vengeful cats, William Hickey, witches

As eerie music plays, we witness various pastoral scenes: a picturesque country road…a covered, wooden bridge…a heavily wooded area. As the camera continues to show us imagery that should be soothing but is the farthest thing from it, a narrator begins to speak, drawing out his lines with almost ghoulish relish: “Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality.” As the narrator speaks, the image on-screen spins slowly to reveal its negative side: “But there is, unseen by most, an underworld…a place that is just as real but not as brightly lit…a dark side…”

If you were a horror fanatic who came of age in the ’80s, I’m willing to wager that you were more than familiar with the above opening: this, of course, is the now iconic credit sequence to one of the most important TV shows for formative fiends…this, of course, was Tales From the Darkside.

While The Outer Limits and The Twilight Zone were always reliable standbys for me, Tales From the Darkside and its successor, the gorier, goofier Monsters, were really where my heart was at. When Tales From the Darkside was good, it could be absolutely astounding, especially considering the era it came out of. They weren’t all classics, of course (even less so for Monsters), but individual episodes and storylines have still managed to keep a summer cottage in my brain, after all these years, proving that the stuff you get exposed to as a kid tends to hang around the longest in your subconscious, for better or worse.

When Tales From the Darkside went off the air in 1988, its legion of horror-obsessed fans must have really had some sleepless nights: lucky for us all, however, that the series’ producer, Richard P. Rubenstein, and several of its creative personnel, including director John Harrison and cinematographer Robert Draper, would see fit to bring the eerie anthology series to the big-screen, no doubt hoping to capitalize on the success of Creepshow (1982) a few years earlier (in a telling bit, Rubenstein also served as producer for Creepshow). While Tales From the Darkside: The Movie (1990) isn’t quite the encapsulation of the series that I wanted, there’s still plenty of good, fun material here, much of which would have fit in quite nicely on my living-room screen.

Tales From the Darkside: The Movie consists of three separate fright tales, along with the standard wraparound story that’s so integral to anthology films. The wraparound involves a modern update of Hansel and Gretel, in which new wave icon Deborah Harry plays a polite, suburban witch/cannibal who plans to fatten and slaughter a young boy (Matthew Lawrence, who could go on to front a bakers’ dozen of kid-related TV shows). In order to forestall his inevitable death, the boy reads the witch stories out of one of her own books. Turns out the book is called “Tales From the Darkside,” so I’m imagining you can guess where this goes.

The first tale, “Lot 249,” is an adaptation of the classic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle mummy tale, “The Crying of Lot 249.” In this version, set in the sort of collegiate environment that might best recall Lovecraft’s Miskatonic U, Edward Bellingham (Steve Buscemi) has just been cheated out of a grant by the combined team of Lee (Robert Sedgwick) and Susan (Julianne Moore, in her feature film debut). When Edward decides to get a little revenge using an ancient, Egyptian resurrection scroll and the mummy he’s just received in a crate (the “Lot 249” of the title), it’s up to Susan’s brother, Andy (Christian Slater) to even the score.

Our second story, “The Cat From Hell,” is an adaptation of a Stephen King story done by none other than George Romero, himself. This particular tale involves a mercenary, old billionaire (William Hickey), a super-cool hitman (New York Dolls frontman David Johansen) and the seemingly invincible cat that he’s been hired to kill. Once the villainous billionaire (who made his fortune from a global pharmaceutical empire) reveals that the cat may be seeking revenge for all of the poor cats that were killed during testing of their newest, hit pain-killer, however, we can see the gleeful comeuppance coming from a mile away.

The final (and most “serious”) story, “Lover’s Vow,” is a modern take on the ancient myth of the sailor who ends up with a beautiful, mysterious bride, yet loses everything because of his inability to keep a promise. In this case, troubled, down-on-his-luck artist Preston (James Remar) comes face to face with a ferocious, living gargoyle. After the monster makes Preston promise never to tell another soul about its existence, he ends up running straight into Carola (Rae Dawn Chong), the woman of his dreams. This being Tales From the Darkside, of course, things don’t go quite as planned, resulting in the most bittersweet, mature short in the film.

All in all, the big-screen version of Tales From the Darkside is a fun, if slight, horror anthology, sort of like the tag-along kid brother to Romero’s much more interesting Creepshow. While none of the stories really pack much of a wallop, although the final one does have a genuine sense of poignancy to it, they’re all well made and well-acted, leading to a nice, breezy experience. One of the biggest joys in the film comes from spotting a rogues’ gallery of future/current stars in their more formative years: Slater, Moore, Buscemi, Hickey and Johanson give it their all and the results make this all but required viewing for fans of any of the above. For their part, Remar and Chong get the most dramatic heavy-lifting and acquit themselves nicely, even if the story, itself, is a bit too predictable.

While many of Tales From the Darkside: The Movie’s elements are top-notch (legendary makeup guru Dick Smith served as a consultant and the equally legendary KNB Effects handled the SFX), the whole thing suffers by comparison with that elephant in the room: Creepshow. In most cases, the film comes off as a pale imitation of its predecessor, right down to the comic book-esque wipe transitions and multiple frames that adorn the various segments. To compound the problem, none of the shorts are either particularly surprising or particularly weighty: in particular, the wraparound is so slight as to almost non-existent, although it’s always nice to see Harry in anything.

Ultimately, Tales From the Darkside: The Movie will probably appeal most to horror fans looking to scratch a nostalgic itch from their childhoods. While the film is fun and well-made (aside from the terribly muddy picture/transfer in the middle tale), it definitely doesn’t earn a pole position in the pantheon of great horror anthologies, although it’s arguably light-years ahead of the fairly rank Cat’s Eye (1985). For horror fans that like their frights bite-sized and tongue-in-cheek, Tales From the Darkside: The Movie has plenty to offer. It might not be the kind of car that ages into a classic but it still turns over when you put the key in and that, my friends, has to account for something.

2/1/15 (Part One): Crazy in Love

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alienists, alternate title, Asylum, based on a short story, Ben Kingsley, Benjamin Salt, Brad Anderson, Brendan Gleeson, cinema, David Thewlis, Don't Look in the Basement, dramas, Edgar Allen Poe, Edward Newgate, electro-shock therapy, Eliza Graves, Even Dwarfs Started Small, film reviews, films, Gothic, Guillaume Delaunay, House of Crazies, inmates, insane asylum, insane asylums, insanity, isolated estates, Jason Flemyng, Jim Sturgess, Joe Gangemi, Kate Beckinsale, King of Hearts, Lady Eliza Graves, lobotomies, love story, lunatics, madhouse, medical school, mental breakdown, mental illness, Michael Caine, Movies, mysteries, period-piece, Session 9, set in 1890s, Shutter Island, Sinéad Cusack, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Stonehearst Asylum, The Call, The Machinist, The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, Tom Yatsko, Transsiberian, twist ending, Vanishing on 7th Street

Back in the 2000s, writer-director Brad Anderson was responsible for two of the most interesting, thought-provoking films of the decade: Session 9 (2001) and The Machinist (2004). While Session 9 was a subtle, endlessly creepy psychological chiller about a supposedly haunted, abandoned insane asylum, The Machinist showcased Christian Bale in a haunting role as an emaciated factory worker suffering from insomnia and really seemed to put Anderson on the map. After being duly impressed by both films (Session 9, in particular, is a phenomenal horror film and truly frightening), I eagerly awaited what seemed, on the outside, to be the ascension of a brilliant filmmaker. And then…nothing.

When Anderson finally followed-up The Machinist with 2008’s Transsiberian, I couldn’t help but be disappointed. Unlike his previous two films, Transsiberian was average, at best, a Hitchcock-lite exercise that had been done much more effectively by Sam Raimi with A Simple Plan (1998). While the film wasn’t terrible and featured a good turn by Woody Harrelson, it was a notable step-down from The Machinist. After Vanishing on 7th Street (2010) showed up, however, my disappointment turned into a sort of dismal acceptance: not only was Vanishing worse than Transsiberian, it managed to be a fairly awful film, by any definition. Marked by iffy acting, a scenario that felt cobbled together from much better films and a decided lack of common sense, Vanishing on 7th Street was the first legitimately bad film of Anderson’s I’d seen. After spending the next few years working in television, Anderson returned to the big-screen with the Halle Berry-starring howler The Call (2013), which only seemed to drive home the fact that the party was over. Suffice to say, he fell off my radar at that point.

Which, of course, brings us to the present with Stonehearst Asylum (2014), Anderson’s follow-up to the critically reviled The Call. Since I no longer had any particular expectations one way or the other, I was able to approach the film with a relatively clean slate, so to speak. From the outside, there certainly seem to be a lot of positives here: Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley top-line the cast (never a bad thing), it’s a period-piece set in a turn of the century insane asylum (always a cool setting/time) and it’s listed as an adaptation of Poe’s classic short story, “The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether.” On paper, this would definitely seem to have all the earmarks of an effective, low-key psycho-drama. In reality, however, Stonehearst Asylum (originally titled Eliza Graves) is much closer to Transsiberian: decidedly average and middle of the road, Anderson’s newest film features some good acting and plenty of nicely realized Gothic atmosphere but is a decidedly “been-there, done-that” affair. It’s always problematic when a film’s big “twist” can be parsed within the first quarter of the film, especially when the film makes great efforts to obscure this fact, only to deliver the self-same “twist” that was previously discovered.

Taking the basic narrative of Poe’s story but expanding upon it (in ways both effective and decidedly less so), Stonehearst Asylum tells the story of Edward Newgate (Jim Sturgess), a newly graduated “alienist” (a doctor who specializes in asylum patients) who finds himself at the mysterious, Gothic Stonehearst Asylum. Once there, he meets the eccentric staff, including Dr. Silas Lamb (Ben Kingsley), the head administrator; Mickey Finn (David Thewlis), the earthy, vaguely threatening chief steward; Lady Eliza Graves (Kate Beckinsale), a piano-playing patient who also seems to serve on the staff and Millie (Sophie Kennedy Clark), the swoony nurse who seems to be smitten with the young doctor.

Settling into his rounds, Newgate discovers that the asylum employs a decidedly unconventional approach: not only are the patients not restricted in their movements or activities, they’re also encouraged in their various psychoses. One patient fancies himself a horse, so Lamb and the staff hand-feed him and “brush him down” regularly. “Why turn a perfectly happy horse into a miserable man?” Lamb impishly responds when Newgate asks why he doesn’t attempt to “cure” the poor, delusional fellow. Most of the patients at Stonehearst are “outcasts” and “embarrassments to their families,” Lamb continues, and have been, for all intents and purposes, abandoned at the facility.

In very short order, Newgate seems to be falling hard for Lady Graves, who suffers from a particularly debilitating form of “female hysteria”: any time she’s touched by a man, her body locks up in a rigid, paralytic state and she becomes completely unresponsive. She looks the piano, however, and her and Newgate begin to bond over their shared affinity for music. At this point, Stonehearst Asylum begins to seem like a Gothic romance, a story about star-crossed, ill-fated lovers doomed to feint and pirouette around each other like so many shadows. There is, of course, another shoe waiting in the wings.

This other shoe drops with a resounding thud when Newgate happens to look into the basement and discovers a group of filthy, hungry people locked in cages. Horrified, he listens in stunned disbelief as the leader of the group, a man who calls himself Dr. Benjamin Salt (Michael Caine), explains that the captives are the real staff of the asylum: Lamb and the other patients overthrew them, imprisoned them and took over the facility. In the strictest sense of the term, the inmates, according to Salt, are running the asylum. In a case of extreme agitation, Newgate approaches Eliza with his discovery and she seems to confirm Salt’s story, with one caveat: the former administrators of the asylum were monsters who tortured the patients in the name of “science” and deserve to be caged.

Caught between a rock and a hard place, Newgate doesn’t seem to have anywhere to turn. Although Eliza confirmed Salt’s story, certain discrepancies indicate that either (or both) parties might be lying. If Salt’s story is true, Newgate is in terrible danger, especially if Lamb and the others discover that he knows the truth. If Eliza is telling the truth, however, imprisoning Salt and the others is more an act of self-defense than anything else: restoring the original balance of power could have tragic results for all involved. As everyone around him (including the caged prisoners) continue to act in increasingly erratic, troubling ways, Newgate must figure out how to get both himself and Eliza out safely, even though she’s explained that she has no intention of leaving. Newgate must be quick, however: Dr. Lamb has just developed a new technique called “electro-shock therapy” and he’s quite eager to test it out…if Edward isn’t careful, he might find his stay at Stonehearst to be a bit more permanent than he might’ve hoped.

As mentioned earlier, there’s a lot working in the film’s favor. For one thing, the Gothic atmosphere is always thick and highly effective: aside from Session 9, this is, easily, Anderson’s most atmospheric work. Thick wisps of fog obscure the hulking, angular asylum’s exterior walls, long, dark halls hold endless secrets and the continuous cries and laughing of the insane form a cacophonous soundtrack to the events. The asylum, itself, is a great location and cinematographer Tom Yatsko shoots it to great effect. The cast is also, for the most part, quite effective: while Sturgess and Beckinsale are blandly vanilla as the potential lovers, they’re surrounded by a suitably colorful cast doing some nice work. While Kingsley and Caine occasionally slide from “passionate” into “melodramatic,” they’re still both rock-solid and their handful of shared scenes are an easy highlight. I actually wish that Caine would do more low-key genre work like this: he’s pretty great and lends an air of prestige to the film that certainly helps elevate it.

There’s also plenty of great performances from Thewlis as the ultra-slimy Finn (the scene where he slow-burns over Newgate’s jokey comment about his name is genuinely scary), Clark as the (presumably) nymphomaniac nurse and Brendan Gleeson, in a glorified cameo, as the head alienist. There are plenty of quirky psychiatric conditions on display here, most of which make for (at the very least) some highly entertaining scenes: the man-horse bit is pretty damn great, truth be told. The film is also able to whip up some decent tension, especially as conditions in the asylum begin to rapidly degrade and we can start to see the unfortunate writing on the wall. The lobotomy scene is both effective and highly disturbing and there’s an incredibly chilling scene involving a pair of escapees that manages to be both beautifully visual and a subtle gut-punch.

On the downside, however, Stonehearst Asylum is just never quite as surprising or inventive as it should be (or thinks it is, to be honest). As mentioned, the film’s big “twist” is pretty apparent at about 30 minutes into the film, which makes the various “slight of hand” machinations at the end seem both unnecessary and a little offensive. It’s the equivalent of trying to run a shell game with only one shell: we know exactly where the pea is, so moving the shell in endless circles doesn’t really do anything. The film is also about 30 minutes too long: it would have been much more effective as a tidy 80-90 minute sprint but quickly runs out of ideas and energy when stretched to marathon-length. The use of flashbacks to illustrate one character’s fractured mental state is both ineffective and confusing and the ultimate “twist” makes so little sense as to be almost completely arbitrary. In many ways, Anderson seems to be trying to approximate the look and feel of Cronenberg’s latter-day “prestige” pictures, such as A Dangerous Method (2011) without any of his trademark character development: it’s definitely a far cry from the anguished internalism of The Machinist or, even, Session 9.

Ultimately, Stonehearst Asylum is decent enough, which is actually part of the issue. While well-made and sturdily acted, nothing here stands out: this exact same storyline has already been explored (to much greater effect) in films like Asylum (1972), Don’t Look in the Basement (1973),  Shutter Island (2010)…none of these are necessarily classics but all manage to come up with more unique scenarios than we find here. This isn’t a terrible film but it does seem like a terribly unnecessary one: by-the-book, largely bereft of genuine surprise and unevenly paced, Stonehearst Asylum will probably only be of interest if something…say, a lobotomy, for example…has managed to wipe out all memories of other, better films. Check in to Stonehearst if you like but, unless you’re nuts, you might want to find better accommodations.

12/24/14: To Grandmother’s House We Go!

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Amanda Walsh, based on a short story, brothers, Byron Shah, Chandler Riggs, children in peril, Chris Browning, cinema, creepy buildings, demons, Dylan McDermott, dysfunctional family, Eddie Jones, farmhouse, feuding brothers, film adaptations, film reviews, films, flashbacks, Frances O'Connor, Gramma, grandmothers, Hastur, horror, isolated estates, Joel Courtney, literary adaptation, Mark Duplass, Matt Greenberg, Mercy, Movies, Peter Cornwell, possession, Reza Safinia, Shirley Knight, single mother, Stephen King, suicide, violence against children, voice-over narration, weeping book

When it comes to filmed adaptations of literary works, the question always comes around to “How close do you stay to the original work?” As a visual medium, film is a much different ballgame than written works and not every book or short story is equally suited to adaptation. In particular, adapting short stories can present certain challenges, especially when filmmakers attempt to make full-length productions out of decidedly shorter works: when you only have 20-30 pages of the original material to work with, stretching the proceedings to 80 or 90 minutes seems to make about as much sense as a silent-film version of a Mamet play.

This, of course, becomes the first (and, perhaps, most significant) problem with Peter Cornwell’s recent adaptation of the Stephen King short story “Gramma,” here renamed Mercy (2014) in honor of the titular character. While Cornwell’s version of the story gets quite a bit right and makes great use of the creepy, isolated farmhouse locale, it also bears little resemblance to the original, save for the film’s final 20 minutes. By attempting to expand King’s original short to roughly three times its size, Cornwell and screenwriter Matt Greenberg manage to add lots of stuff and nonsense, especially concerning “gramma’s” backstory, but very little in the way of real value. In the process, the filmmakers manage to strip much of the quiet menace from King’s story, a creepy little shocker with a simple premise (little kid stuck by himself with his creepy, dead grandmother), turning it into something both more complex and, unfortunately, far less interesting.

After her aging mother, Mercy (Shirley Knight), has a stroke, single mother Rebecca (Francis O’Connor) and her two young sons, George (Chandler Riggs) and Buddy (Joel Courtney), move into her dilapidated farmhouse, in order to take care of her. Rebecca’s loutish brother, Lanning (Mark Duplass), had been taking care of their mother but he’s not quite reliable (he may also be a little crazy, come to think of it) and doesn’t really seem to care whether Mercy lives or dies. Also on the scene are Jim (Dylan McDermott) and his wife, Charlotte (Amanda Walsh), an artist who paints eerie pictures of local “haints” like the death wolf. Seems that Jim and Rebecca used to be an item, back in the day, and there appear to be a few unrequited feelings flying around on both their behalves: hell, even the kids make constant comments about “the one who got away” and keep talking about how they wish dear ol’ mom had married Jim, when she had the chance.

Via flashbacks, we’ve already had a little inkling of Mercy’s past, including her tireless efforts to conceive (she has one miscarriage after the other, at first), as well as the shocking suicide of her husband (by axe to the face which, if you think about it, is pretty much one of the most hardcore way to off yourself, ever). After her stroke, Mercy has been mostly silent, although her eyes seem ever watchful. When George gets a mysterious note that mentions “Hastur,” however, he sets off a rather dreadful chain of events when he speaks the name to his ailing grandmother. In no time, Mercy seems sharper, more alert and, needless to say, more than a little sinister (she’s given to dropping more big winks than the wolf in a Merrie Melodies short). As bodies begin to pile up around them, George is faced with the frightening notion that his beloved gramma may be both more and less than completely human: with the help of his brother and a local priest (Eddie Jones), George must get to the bottom of Mercy’s past, before he becomes her next victim.

Right from the jump, Mercy looks and sounds great: Byron Shah’s evocative cinematography really shows off the landscape and creepy farmhouse to great effect and the droning musical score, courtesy of Reza Safinia, adds immeasurable tension to the proceedings. The acting is generally pretty good, with industry vet Shirley Knight chewing a bit less scenery than she’s been known to and familiar faces like Dylan McDermott and Mark Duplass giving a little oomph to the film. Chandler Riggs isn’t bad as George, although I found Joel Courtney’s performance as his brother to be slightly off. The film moves at a decent clip and, at slightly under 80 minutes, doesn’t really wear its welcome out until the final reel.

The biggest problem, as previously mentioned, is how overstuffed Mercy’s narrative is compared to the original source material. While the need to expand on the evil gramma’s backstory makes sense, the new material ends up being rather confusing and unnecessarily jumbled: by the time we get to the climax, we’ve even been introduced to some sort of shaggy Sasquatch-demon-thing that pops up out of nowhere, sends the narrative in a new direction and disappears just as quickly. Unlike the sinister bit of foreshadowing that ends the original story (although these kind of “Or are they actually evil?” endings have been driven into the ground, as of late), the conclusion to Cornwell’s film makes little sense: the film ends happily but certain unresolved issues seem to make this an impossibility, rendering the final image as something perilously close to silly.

Despite all of the frustratingly unnecessary added backstory, I kind of liked Mercy: for much of the film, the atmosphere and tension is as thick as a New England fog and there are some genuinely interesting ideas floating around (the concept of the “weeping book” is pretty great, to be honest). While the acting can, occasionally, dip into the highly unrealistic, most of the time, Mercy is filled with some nice, dependable performances, none of which really stick out like a sore thumb. Perhaps my overall dissatisfaction with the film has more to do with my status as an avowed Stephen King fan than any more technical reason: in any other situation, Mercy would be an enjoyable,  decent-enough B-horror film. As a King adaptation, however, the film comes up just a little bit short.

10/11/14 (Part Two): Who Goes There?

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31 Days of Halloween, aliens, Arctic setting, auteur theory, based on a short story, Charles Hallahan, classic films, cult classic, David Clennon, Dean Cundey, Donald Moffat, dopplegangers, Ennio Morricone, favorite films, Film auteurs, horror films, isolation, Joel Polis, John Carpenter, Keith David, Kurt Russell, paranoia, Peter Maloney, remakes, Richard Dysart, Richard Masur, sci-fi, sci-fi-horror, scientists, shape-shifters, T.K. Carter, The Thing, Thomas Waites, Wilford Brimley

Although we horror film fanatics tend to be a fairly diverse bunch, there are still a handful of films that are pretty much accepted as canon by discerning viewers. This doesn’t, of course, mean to speak for everyone: many fans who call themselves horror fanatics have no interest in the genre’s history, past or anything more academic than watching the newest collection of gore scenes. I’ve long argued that horror is a genre and field as worthy of deep exploration as any other but it doesn’t change the fact that many viewers are still just after a visceral, momentary experience.

For every “casual” fan of the genre, however, there are plenty of what could best be described as “rabid” fans, folks who live, breathe, eat and sleep the stuff, tearing into everything from silent, black and white films to the newest CGI spectacles. For these fans, there are a few films that have managed to stand out from the crowd, proving endlessly influential and sources of much repeat viewings and continued exploration: Night of the Living Dead (1968), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Halloween (1978), the classic Universal monster films, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Peeping Tom (1960), Psycho (1960) and The Exorcist (1973) are but a small handful of the films that would probably show up on most hardcore horror fans “Best of” lists. One would be remiss, of course, if they didn’t also include one of the single most influential, popular and well-made horror films of the ’80s: John Carpenter’s ferocious, ground-breaking and utterly essential sci-horror masterpiece, The Thing (1982).

Although I’m pretty sure that almost everyone is, at the very least, familiar with the basics behind The Thing, the plot is pure simplicity. A team of American scientists at a remote research base in the frozen Arctic come into contact with something decidedly not of this world after they run into a group of Norwegian scientists who are violently pursuing a seemingly innocent dog. What at first seems like an extreme case of “snow madness” is soon revealed to be something much more terrifying: the dog is actually a grotesque, shape-shifting alien organism. The creature is cunning, quick and extremely hungry: with the Norwegians out of the picture, the Americans become the new snack du jour. As resourceful, gung-ho chopper pilot R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell, in one of his most iconic roles) takes command of the increasingly paranoid and frightened group, he’s faced with a real devil’s dilemma: since the monster can look and act like any of them, how do the men really know which of them are from planet Earth and which are from a location just a little further away in our galaxy?

Full disclosure: I’ve been a pretty nutso fan of Carpenter’s classic ever since I first saw the movie, an impression that hasn’t changed one iota in all the years since. To be frank, The Thing is just about as perfect as a film gets, a classic case of intention meeting craft in a perfect creative spark. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been able to appreciate different aspects of the film: when I was younger, I was all about the ooky effects, rewatching the key setpieces so often that I practically had the creature’s movements memorized. Now that I have a few years under my belt and have become a little more jaded regarding special effects in films, I find myself focusing more on the film’s exquisite use of location and the exceptional ensemble cast: I still dig the ever-lovin’ shit out of the effects scenes, don’t get me wrong, but the subtler aspects of the film are the ones that really push it from something special to something essential.

There’s so much about The Thing that exemplifies the film as one of the very apices of the horror film genre, a perfect storm of disparate elements. There’s Carpenter’s sure-handed, expert direction, of course: the auteur is one of the very best filmmakers for combining action and horror into one Voltron of awesomeness and he has a rare eye for background detail that adds immeasurable tension to every frame of the film. The film was shot by Dean Cundey, the masterful cinematographer responsible for everything from Halloween to D.C. Cab (1983) and Jurassic Park (1993): the film looks absolutely gorgeous and Cundey is expert at making the principal characters seem as small and insignificant against the unforgiving immensity of the Arctic wasteland as possible. The score was done by the iconic Ennio Morricone, the creator of some of the most legendary, unforgettable film scores in the history of the medium. While Carpenter’s self-made synth scores have always a particular highlight of his films, Morricone’s epic, sweeping score really adds a new layer to the proceedings. The groundbreaking practical effects work was done by industry pioneer Rob Bottin and would go on to influence at least the next generation of effects creators, if not more.

And then, of course, there’s that cast. Jeez…what a cast. Taking a cue from Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), Carpenter stocks his film with some of the best character and genre actors in the biz, ensuring that no one comes across as generic “cannon fodder.” Kurt Russell…Wilford Brimley…Richard Masur…Keith David…Richard Dysart…Donald Moffat…each and every performer brings their A-game to the proceedings, adding up to one hell of an ensemble performance. The shining star of the group, of course, is Russell: while he’s been behind some of the most iconic action heroes in cinema (any conversation about kick-ass heroes that doesn’t include Snake Plissken is fundamentally flawed from the jump), MacReady is easily one of the highlights. We first meet Russell’s character as he plays computer chess: when the machine beats him, MacReady pours his bourbon down its access panel, shorting the computer out. Classic Kurt, in other words. Regardless of what’s happening on-screen, Russell is always the magnetic, undeniable center of everything: MacReady is one of the great screen creations and much of the credit for this must go to Russell’s inspired performance.

In fact, the cast is so perfect that my one quibble with the film’s actors has always been the same: I’m disappointed that there are no strong female characters here, ala Alien or Aliens (1986). There are certainly room for them, as the previously mentioned examples state. While some have pointed out that an isolated research station wouldn’t be co-ed, this has always seemed like a rather spurious assumption: after all, women have been successfully integrated into many such films (Aliens pretty much makes and ends this argument, thanks not only to Ripley’s character but the other female space marines, as well).

Integration complaint aside, The Thing really is a perfect film. It’s unbelievably tense, expertly crafted, looks amazing and is an absolute blast to watch. So many of the film’s setpieces have been burned into my brain over the years that it’s hard to imagine a world without them: the dog transformation…the hot wire and the blood…the defibrillator gone horribly amok…the spider-head…the cynical, utterly badass ending…the jaw-dropping reveal of the UFO…to be honest, a good 80% of the film plays like a highlights reel, similar to an award-winning band that scores eight hit singles out of ten on their album. I attempted to watch The Thing with as critical an eye as possible, this time around, but my earlier impressions were all just reaffirmed: this thing really is one of the all-time classics. I can’t even knock the film down a few points for being a remake of the Howard Hawk’s classic The Thing From Another World (1951), since it’s one of the few remakes to not only do justice to the original but to improve upon it in pretty much every way: Carpenter’s film has never felt like a cash-grab to me, like other remakes. The Thing has always seemed like a complete labor of love, pure and simple.

As someone who constantly finds myself re-examining and re-evaluating my impressions and opinions on films, I find that my “Best of” lists are, likewise, in constant flux. One thing that’s always remained constant, however, is my love and appreciation for Carpenter’s film. I’m not sure that I’ve ever left The Thing off of a list, to this point, and I can all but guarantee that I probably never will.

6/8/14 (Part Three): Sweets For the Sweet

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1990s films, abandoned mansion, avenging spirits, based on a short story, Bill Condon, Bill Nunn, Candyman, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh, cinema, Clive Barker, cursed families, Daniel Robitaille, David Gianopoulos, David Gianopoulous, electronic score, Ethan Tarrant, evisceration, family obligations, family secrets, Farewell to the Flesh, film reviews, films, former plantations, Gods and Monsters, guilt, hook for a hand, horror, horror films, Kelly Rowan, Mardi Gras, Matt Clark, Michael Culkin, mirrors, Movies, New Orleans, Philip Glass, pre-Katrina New Orleans, revenge, sequels, slavery, Tony Todd, upper vs lower class, vengeance, Veronica Cartwright, William O'Leary

How much of a good thing, exactly, is too much? For most of us, if we’re talking about indulgences like food, alcohol, candy or amusement park rides, it’s probably when we get sick: becoming physically ill from something is a good way to end the good times. In reality, however, we can have too much of almost anything. Too much time off can make one restless, too much sleep can make one groggy and too many Tribbles…well, we all know the trouble with Tribbles, don’t we? Too much self-assurance and you’re an asshole, too much humility and you’re a wimp. In film, just as with the rest of the world, it’s certainly possible to get too much of a good thing although sequels certainly push back against this conventional wisdom: since replicating a previous film’s success is so important, delivering more of the same “good thing” is usually the order of the day.

In many cases, sequels to popular films that weren’t originally planned as serials attempt to give fans more of the “good stuff” by either expanding on the backstory of the returning characters, so as to give fans of the characters a deeper, richer experience (along with more face-time with their favorites), or by attempting to replicate the most popular aspects of the first film. This can lead to films like Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), which often plays as a remake of the first film, or Halloween II (1981), which picks up from the end of the first film and continues with many of the same characters (the survivors, at least). Personally, I tend to be a bigger fan of expanding upon the story versus simply replicating my favorite parts from the previous film: even if I really enjoyed something once, why would I want to see the exact same thing over and over? As someone who was never big on the original Candyman (1992) when it first came out, I never saw a reason to bother with the sequel, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995). For purposes of the blog, however, I recently re-watched the original film and decided to screen the follow-up as a double-feature. Unlike the original film, I had no experience with the sequel save for some vague memories from trailers when it originally came out. How would Farewell to the Flesh measure up as an actual sequel to a seemingly stand-alone tale? Would it fall into the same pitfalls as other “unnecessary” sequels or would it actually stake out its own place and expand upon the original’s mythos?

Even though the action has moved from Chicago to New Orleans, we begin with a direct link to the first film in the person of egomaniacal, obnoxious egghead Purcell (Michael Culkin), the urban legends expert who butted heads with Helen over her Candyman research. This time around, Purcell is giving a reading of his most recent book about Candyman, a book which mentions that Helen took on the persona of Candyman in order to continue his gruesome crime spree. After the reading, Purcell is confronted by Ethan Tarrant (William O’Leary), who blames the writer for the death of his father, Coleman. According to Ethan, Coleman was killed by Candyman after Purcell convinced him that it was just a myth. When Purcell is shortly eviscerated by our friend, Candyman (Tony Todd), Ethan becomes the primary suspect and is tossed behind bars. Detective Ray Levesque (David Gianopoulos) is positive that Ethan’s responsible for not only Purcell’s death but Coleman’s, as well, mostly because he’s always disliked the “mansion on the hill, rich and privileged” lifestyle of the Tarrants: they’re so wealthy that they must be corrupt, he reasons.

After hearing about her brother’s arrest, schoolteacher Annie (Kelly Rowan) rushes to be by his side but it doesn’t seem to be much use: Ethan has already confessed to Purcell’s murder (even though it’s obvious he didn’t do it) and feels equally responsible for his father’s death. As Annie tries to figure out what’s going on, she visits the Tarrant family manor, a former plantation that been collapsing into rubble, moss and graffiti for some time. Once there, Annie happens upon elaborate murals and an impressive shrine dedicated to Candyman. When one of her students, Matthew (Joshua Gibran Mayweather), begins to draw pictures of Candyman, Annie takes it upon herself to help “dispel” the myth by “summoning” Candyman in front of her students. Annie’s mildly triumphant when nothing happens but her victory is short-lived once she realizes that the urban legend does, in fact, exist and he’s now stalking the streets of New Orleans. As Mardi Gras kicks into full force, Annie gets pulled further and further into the darkness. As the people around her continue to get gutted, one by one, Annie soon becomes the prime suspect (ala Helen from the first film) and must delve deep into her family’s long-buried secrets in order to finally put an end to the curse of Candyman. Everything will come to a head in the long-abandoned, flooded former slave quarters of her old home, as Annie faces off against the monster that destroyed her family…a destruction that may have been completely justified, as the abyss of time collapses to show Annie that anyone can be capable of ultimate evil, under the right circumstances.

Despite the somewhat lesser production values, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh actually holds up as a pretty suitable sequel to the original film. While it lacks some of the previous film’s “Ken Russell on opium” vibe, there are enough artistic flourishes to keep this one from seeing like strictly “direct-to-video” product. Philip Glass returns to score the sequel, which helps to provide a sense of continuity with the first film, particularly since certain passages/suites are reused for similar effect. The locations are also top-notch: pre-Katrina New Orleans is always an eye-popping delight, especially during Mardi Gras, and the film makes expert use of its setting. On top of the gorgeous New Orleans imagery, the abandoned mansion and flooded slave quarters are pretty damn awesome: in particular, the slave quarters may be one of the single creepiest set-pieces I’ve seen in some time and are a fantastic place to stage the final confrontation.

Like the first film, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh incorporates a few complex themes within its more traditional “slasher” framework. Whereas the first film dealt with “white flight” and the plight of urban housing developments in the big city, the sequel tracks this conflict back further, focusing on the overt racism that led to Daniel Robitaille’s transformation into Candyman. We get an even more detailed and disturbing depiction of his murder this time around (although the incident was still disturbing in the original film), which focuses on plenty of small but important details: the women and children who gather around to laugh as he’s tortured to death…the fact that “Candyman” isn’t a name that Robitaille chose for himself (ala the Son of Sam or the Unibomber) but is something that was given to him by his attackers/oppressors, like a slave name…perhaps most importantly, the film steps back to give us a slightly more clear look at the relationship between Robitaille and his white girlfriend, a relationship that was directly responsible for his murder. If anything, this extra emphasis on the past events tends to paint Candyman as something of a Byronic anti-hero, like a Dracula: he’s not some heartless monster but a loving, compassionate man who was tortured, mutilated, humiliated and killed by a rabid, racist mob. Whereas Candyman seemed like an equal-opportunity slayer in the first film, his killings in the sequel are directly tied in to his killing, making them more revenge-related than sociopathic. It’s a small but significant difference.

Despite the fact that Farewell to the Flesh holds up so well, it’s still a noticeably lesser film than the original. While the slight loss of atmosphere is a bit of a bummer, the over-reliance on “musical stinger jump-scare” effects is a complete wet blanket: this was an issue that was non-existent in the first film, which makes the repeated stingers that much more annoying. A slightly bigger issue has to be the subtle sense of deja vu that the film evokes: while its bears distinct differences from the original, Farewell to the Flesh still manages to replicate many of the original’s biggest beats. In many ways, Annie and Helen are the same character and go through nearly identical arcs across their respective films. The “Candyman shrine” moments in both films are nearly identical, although the scene in Farewell to the Flesh is much more visually interesting than its predecessor. Perhaps most noticeable, however, is the utterly repetitious nature of the killing: if you’ve seen one “hook hand-gutting” in Farewell to the Flesh, you’ve seen all 99 or so of them, since each and every one is executed in the exact same manner. The Candyman films were never about a cornucopia of inventive deaths, ala the Friday the 13th films, but the generic, repetitious nature of the deaths here actually makes this a bit tedious by the midpoint.

Director Bill Condon, who would go on to helm the Oscar-winning Gods and Monsters (1998), treats the material with utmost sincerity, which helps elevate the pulpy source a little. While the film doesn’t feel quite as inventive as the original, Condon is a pretty sure hand with staging the various action sequences and, as mentioned earlier, the climatic scene in the slave quarters is a masterpiece of atmosphere and efficiency. From a craft-standpoint, Farewell to the Flesh must surely stand as one of the more elegant, nuanced “non-essential” genre sequels out there: while there was absolutely no need to continue the story after the first film ended, Farewell to the Flesh feels less like a money-grab than an attempt to say something new, if only ever so slightly.

For the record, I’m still not a huge fan of “sequels for sequels’ sake,” even though I’ve re-watched most horror franchises so much that I have them memorized. That being said, I ended up being duly impressed by Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh. I didn’t go in expecting much but the film managed to throw me several curveballs and there was enough connection to the original to warrant calling this an actual sequel. While it’s not an amazing film, Farewell to the Flesh is a clever, energetic way to continue the series. Although I’ve yet to see the third and (presumably) final film in the Candyman trilogy, my intuition tells me that Farewell to the Flesh will still stand as the better finale. This might be more of the same but it’s different enough to keep me from getting sick of it…yet, at least.

6/8/14 (Part Two): What’s Blood For But Shedding?

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1990s films, based on a short story, bees, Bernard Rose, Cabrini-Green, Candyman, cheating husbands, Chicago, child killing, childhood fears, cinema, Clive Barker, Daniel Robitaille, DeJuan Guy, dream-like, electronic score, false accusations, film reviews, films, graffiti, hook for a hand, horror, horror films, housing projects, Immortal Beloved, Kasi Lemmons, Michael Culkin, mirrors, missing child, Movies, murals, Philip Glass, racism, revenge, self-sacrifice, serial killer, Ted Raimi, The Forbidden, Tony Todd, urban legends, Vanessa Williams, vengeance, Virginia Madsen, voice-over narration, writer-director, Xander Berkeley

Urban legends are funny things. On their surface, most of them seem pretty easy to discount: How, exactly, do baby alligators grow to enormous size after being flushed down the toilet? Do we actually believe that people have died from mixing Pop Rocks and soda? How come this stuff always happens to a friend of a friend’s twice-removed cousin? Examined in the cold light of day, almost all urban legends seem absolutely ridiculous (even the hook on the door requires too much suspension of disbelief to be truly scary): rational thought is always there to chase away the boogeymen and monsters of the imagination. As our parents may have been wont to say, we’re only scaring ourselves most of the time: there isn’t really anything out there to be worried about.

In reality, however, humans are deeply flawed, superstitious creatures who possess boundless capacity for believing in anything under the sun. We need look no further than the infamous witch trials that claimed the lives of so many innocent people in the 1600s: none of us believe in witches until there’s mob rule, at which point we all believe in witches. The human mind is a wondrous thing, the equal to any computer that’s yet been conceived. Part of the mind’s power comes from our ability to acquire, examine and interpret information around us, changing our preconceived notions if the new information should go against them. In other words, we possess the limitless capacity to learn, to absorb new knowledge and experiences and allow these experiences to change and color our overall world-view. We are so amazing because we have the simultaneous ability to soundly reason and to unleash our wildest imaginations. We believe in urban legends because we are human: our rational mind examines the evidence and discards each situation as it arises, yet the imaginative, childlike part of our brain allows for any number of possibilities…including the very real possibility that everything we think we know is wrong. Bernard Rose’s Candyman (1992), an adaptation of one of Clive Barker’s short tales, examines the intersection of rational thought and unchecked imagination, detailing what happens when our belief in something becomes so strong that we can pull something from the shadowy world of legend into the cold, hard light of the real world.

After an ominous, impressionistic opening that establishing the oppressive mood of the film, we meet our protagonist, Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen). Helen is a grad student who happens to be married to the egotistical, philandering Prof. Trevor Lyle (Xander Berkeley). Helen and her friend, Bernadette (Kasi Lemmons), have been doing research on urban legends, with their eyes on publishing a paper about their results. In particular, their work focuses on the legend of Candyman, a hook-handed, vengeful spirit who’s said to haunt the Cabrini-Green housing projects in Chicago. While neither Helen nor Bernadette actually believes in the myth (say “Candyman” five times in a mirror and he’ll appear to gut you with his hook), Bernadette lets Helen know that there are plenty of real-world horrors to be found in Cabrini Green, including vicious street gangs and omnipresent drug devastation.

Ignoring her friend’s warnings, Helen plunges headfirst into the mystery of Candyman, going so far as to examine the abandoned apartment of one of his supposed victims. Once there, Helen finds a hidden passage into an area that contains a giant Candyman mural, explaining the events that led to his original death, as well as what appears to be a shrine to the cult figure. She also meets and befriends Anne-Marie (Vanessa Williams), an initially suspicious and standoffish neighbor who has an infant child and a healthy distrust of white people like Helen: “The white folks that come around ain’t to handshakey,” she tells Helen and it’s not impossible to believe. Cabrini-Green, as portrayed in the film, is an almost post-Apocalyptic, burned-out wreck: Helen seems to be the only white person for miles and the various residents she meets view her with a mixture of contempt, amusement and dislike.

As she continues her journey into Cabrini-Green, Helen befriends a youngster named Jake (DeJuan Guy), a firm believer in the Candyman mythos thanks to a “friend of a friend” connection to the supposed killings. Jake shows her the public restroom where another young boy was supposed to have been butchered by Candyman and, once there, she runs afoul of a local gang leader who calls himself “The Candy Man” and wields a sharp hook. When the police arrest the gang leader, everyone (including Helen) assumes that he’s responsible for all of the Candyman-related deaths. Helen changes her mind, however, when she’s confronted by the real Candyman (Tony Todd) in a parking garage. Helen passes out and wakes up in Anne-Marie’s apartment, covered in blood: Anne-Marie’s dog has been brutally killed, her baby is missing and Helen is lying on her apartment floor, holding a bloody knife.

As the terrified, confused Helen finds herself the number-one suspect in a terrible crime, the walls between fantasy and reality begin to collapse. Helen keeps seeing Candyman everywhere and, when she does, someone around her is sure to be butchered. He seems to want Helen for something although whether it’s vindication or vengeance is left up for debate. As she finds herself increasingly alone, Helen becomes even more connected to Candyman and his tragic history. In order to clear her name and end the terror, Helen must descend into the shadowy recesses of Cabrini-Green, in search of Anne-Marie’s missing child and the truth behind Candyman. Will Helen end up solving the mystery, bringing peace to Cabrini-Green, or will she end up as another of Candyman’s victims? Is there really even a Candyman or is Helen just losing her mind?

I remember watching Candyman when it originally came out and being less than impressed, perhaps because I was such a gonzo Clive Barker fan at the time: I was so eager for any Barker content on the screen that my expectations were constantly too high (damn you, Lord of Illusions (1995)) and I was always getting disappointed. Ironically enough, I haven’t read the original story, “The Forbidden,” in decades, so it’s a little hard for me to determine how close/not Rose’s adaptation ends up being. My most recent viewing of the film, however, revealed a pretty simple truth: Candyman is actually a really good film.

Part of the reason for the film’s success is due to the unrelentingly oppressive atmosphere served up from the first frame to the last. Thanks in part to renowned experimental composer Philip Glass’ haunting, dissonant score and some beautifully evocative cinematography from industry vet Anthony B. Richmond (who shot The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), The Sand Lot (1993) and one of my all-time favorite films, Ravenous (1999)), there’s a thick, Gothic vibe to everything that really accentuates the horror. Cabrini-Green, with its dilapidated buildings and empty, burned-out streets is a helluva location even before we get to the ultra-creepy “shrine” that Candyman calls home. Stylistically, the film often plays out like a fever-dream, as if avant-garde genius Ken Russell were helming the proceedings rather than a more workmanlike director like Rose. Many of the scenes, such as the beginning and any of Helen’s meetings with Candyman, play out with imperfect logic. The apex of this definitely has to be the disorienting, horrifying scene where Helen wakes up in Anne-Marie’s apartment: the scene is played with such a breathless, breakneck pace that it’s easier to absorb what’s happening than to actually understand it. It ends up being a genuinely powerful cinematic moment in a film that could just as easily have been aimed at lowest-common denominator multiplex audiences.

On occasion, Rose’s film can be a bit heavy-handed (heavenly choirs on the soundtrack always indicate something is up) but this tends to play nicely into the thick, cloying atmosphere. If anything, Candyman often plays a modern-day fairytale, an update to the cautionary tales of the Brothers Grimm. As a horror film, Candyman contains not only the requisite moments of gore and violence (which tend to be a bit shocking, although that’s always been Barker’s milieu) but also scenes that are genuinely creepy and unsettling. One of the most well-done moments in the film involves Helen and Bernadette discovering the secret passage in the murder victim’s apartment. As Helen looks into the mysterious, dark unknown, the sense of creeping tension and dread is palatable. Her passage to the other side carries the same sense of primal wonder and fear that can be found in the similar scene in Michael Mann’s The Keep (1983): humanity moving from the warm light of understanding into the frigid abyss of the unknown.

Candyman’s backstory is well-integrated into the overall themes of the film, driving home the notion that our history of racial inequality and a terrible lynch-mob mentality are ultimately responsible for Candyman’s rampage. While it’s painfully evident that Daniel Robitaille’s transformation into the Candyman is due to the violence inflicted on him by his white oppressors, it’s just as evident that a similar, if much more subtle, form of violence is being inflicted on the mostly black residents of the Cabrini-Green housing project. When Anne-Marie makes her comment about the “white folks not being too handshakey,” she seems to be speaking for most of the residents of the Green: if white people are there at all, they’re there to take advantage, satisfy their curiosity or get a cheap thrill. Even Helen, who seems to have the best of intentions, ends up bringing an untold amount of misery down up on the residents of Cabrini-Green: she presumes to be helping them but she’s really only furthering her own academic ambitions.

Acting-wise, Candyman is top-notch, with Madsen presenting a nicely vulnerable, multi-faceted performance as Helen. Even though she’s far from perfect, Helen actually means well and Madsen takes a character that could come across as condescending and makes her appealingly real. I didn’t always agree with everything Helen did (to be honest, she made some astoundingly bad decisions from the jump) but she never felt like a plot contrivance, especially once we reach the powerful, emotional climax. The final scene is one that could have across as over-the-top and unnecessarily maudlin, but Madsen wisely takes the “Ellen Ripley” approach, letting the character’s inherent heroism shine through, if for only a brief moment.

As the titular “villain,” Tony Todd is excellent in the role that brought him to the attention of the horror world and turned him into a household name along the likes of Robert Englund, Sid Haig, Kane Hodder and Bill Moseley. While Todd doesn’t get a ton of screen-time, relatively speaking, he is a completely empathetic, complicated character, as far from a one-dimensional slasher like Freddy Krueger or Jason as one could get. There’s an inherently sad, tragic and romantic component to the Candyman backstory that’s beautifully communicated via Todd’s ever-expressive, sad face. Combined with his powerful, mellifluous voice, Tony Todd’s depiction of Candyman went a long way towards enshrining the character in the annals of pop culture. That and the ribcage full of bees, of course.

Ultimately, Candyman is equal parts bombastic and restrained, hushed and explosive. While Clive Barker’s books/stories haven’t always survived the transition to the big screen (the aforementioned Lord of Illusions is ridiculously disappointing and the torture-porn version of Dread (2009) is thoroughly wretched and despicable), Candyman is one of the best, perhaps only bested by Barker’s own Hellraiser (1987). I can only imagine that my teenage mind must not have been quite ready to process what was presented on-screen, since my recent viewing brought up very few actual issues with the film, many of which were endemic to ’90s-era horror films. For its intriguing collision of the past and present, violence and sexuality and white vs black relations, Candyman deserves to be dusted off and given another look in the 2010s. Just remember: you better think real hard before you get to that fifth “Candyman.” It’s probably just a myth but…better safe than sorry.

6/6/14 (Part Two): Alpha Males

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action-adventure, adventures, Alaska, Alaskan wilderness, alpha males, based on a short story, Bronson, cinema, Dallas Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, faith, fighting animals, film reviews, films, flashbacks, Frank Grillo, Greg Nicotero, guy movies, isolation, Jack London, Joe Anderson, Joe Carnahan, killer wolves, Lee Marvin, Liam Neeson, man vs. nature, Movies, Narc, Nonso Anozie, oil riggers, Ottway, plane crash, Smokin' Aces, snow, stranded, survival, survival-horror, The A-Team, The Descent, The Grey, voice-over narration, wolves, writer-director

Mankind likes to think that it’s the master of any domain it comes across but the reality isn’t quite as optimistic. Sure, we can go into frigid Arctic areas, travel deep below the sea and even walk on the Moon: if we put our minds to it, nothing seems impossible. Throw humans into any of these situations wearing just the frail skins we were born with, however, and see how far we get. We may be able to use technology and innovation to take us further than anyone has gone before but, at our core, we are shockingly fragile, insignificant little things. Without the various safety nets we establish for ourselves, like clothing, shelter and weaponry, humanity is very much at the mercy of the natural world. Hunters are all-powerful when they’re armed but look an awful lot like food when they aren’t. A shady banker with a computer can bring down the world: a shady banker, in the forest, with no protection, will get eaten by a bear…that’s just the way the world works.

Writer-director Joe Carnahan’s The Grey (2011) (an adaptation of Ian Mackenzie Jeffer’s short story, “Ghost Walker”), is yet another examination of “man vs. nature,” one of those time-honored tales where disparate and diverse personalities must come together in order to survive a greater threat. In the process, the characters will do lots of surviving, lots of dying and lots of personal discovery. While this type of story is certainly nothing new (hell, Jack London may have invented this subgenre all the way back in the 1900s), The Grey ends up being an extraordinarily powerful film, anchored by a quietly explosive performance from Liam Neeson and a strong, viscerally violent atmosphere. While popular jokes at the time may have cast The Grey as nothing more than “Liam Neeson punching wolves,” the film is a helluva lot more than that. In fact, it may just be the best survival-horror film since Marshall’s classic The Descent (2006).

We’re immediately dropped into the desolate, snow and wind-blasted wilderness of Alaska, where we meet Ottway (Liam Neeson), our guide through this particular wasteland. Ottway is a master outdoors-man and responsible for protecting the rugged members of an oil-rigging crew from the hungry wolves that endlessly patrol the icy wastes. Ottway is also a hopelessly damaged individual, suffering from some sort of unnamed loss (we get lots and lots of flashbacks) that drives him perilously close to eating a bullet. He doesn’t, however, and boards a plane with the rest of the crew, including Diaz (Frank Grillo), Flannery (Joe Anderson), Talget (Dermot Mulroney), Henrick (Dallas Roberts) and Burke (Nonso Anozie). When the weather gets worse, the plane freezes over and ends up crashing in a spectacular, absolutely thrilling sequence (talk about edge of your seat…literally): the lucky ones are killed in the crash. The unlucky ones, led by Ottway, must now survive in the harsh elements with only the clothes on their backs and a few canisters of pilfered airplane fuel to start fires. They need to get back to civilization but there are plenty of eyes watching from the woods…hungry eyes.

As Ottway does his damnedest to keep the survivors alive, he finds himself butting heads with the worst aspects of humanity, including greed, fear and the selfish desire to survive at the cost of everyone else. In particular, Ottway finds himself at odds with Diaz: while the vicious wolves circle in the darkness, Diaz and Ottway circle each other in the light, sniffing for weakness and constantly struggling for domination. Even as Ottway discusses the need to find and slay the alpha male wolf, the struggle for alpha dominance within the survivors threatens to tear them all asunder. Will Ottway be able to overcome his own emotional issues in order to fulfill his duties as group protector? Will the men learn to work together, against all odds, or will they continue to be picked off, one by one, until only their bones remain to remind of their existence? In order to survive, the men will not only need to overcome the wolves: they will need to become the wolves.

The Grey is, first and foremost, a glorious return to the kind of big-screen adventure-survival epics that used to be de rigueur at the box office back in the ’70s. In many ways, the film isn’t such a huge departure from films like Deliverance (1972), Jaws (1975) or Sorcerer (1977) but a much closer parallel would be the aforementioned one with The Descent. In many ways, The Grey is definitely a survival-horror film: the wolves are introduced in a way that establishes them as monsters (the glowing eyes and frightening baying) and the alpha male wolf is established in a way that sets him up as the “chief bad guy” (the scene where Diaz tosses the decapitated wolves’ head into the darkness, only to be met by the angry response call from the alpha male, isn’t much different from any scene where an evil leader reacts in anger to the death of a subordinate at the hands of the heroes). In this way, the wolves are very similar to something like Peter Jackson’s orcs or Marshall’s cave dwellers and serve a similar function in the film.

An action-adventure film lives or dies by its action sequences and, in this regard, The Grey is a complete stunner. From the initial plane crash to the heart-in-mouth scene where the survivors rappel down a craggy mountain-side to the final confrontation with the alpha wolf, The Grey is one incredibly intense scene after another. Carnahan masterfully coils and uncoils the tension, building up quiet, personal dialogue scenes into explosive action beats, prompting me to (literally) jump out of my seat on at least a half-dozen occasions. One of the scenes, which begins as a confrontation between Diaz and Ottway but ends as a confrontation between Diaz and a wolf, is so perfectly executed that it’s almost a textbook example of how to set-up and execute such a moment. I’ve never been a huge fan of Carnahan’s other films (I positively abhor the empty-headed Smokin’ Aces (2006)) but he displays an absolutely deft touch on The Grey that has me eagerly anticipating his next project.

The film almost always looks and sounds great (the sound design is particularly strong) but I wasn’t fond of cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi’s (who also shot the Oscar-winning Silver Linings Playbook (2012)) frequent over-reliance on blown-out visuals. His landscape cinematography was so beautiful that it was frustrating to have such an obvious visual aesthetic for the more intimate scenes: I get that it’s a cold, white, desolate place…no need to rub my nose in it. Additionally, in the minor quibble department, I felt that Ottway’s frequent flashbacks/dream sequences wore out their welcome pretty early into the film and frequently killed the forward momentum. The sequences did a little to help establish Ottway’s character, although this type of character development seems particularly heavy-handed and unnecessary.

Ultimately, however, no discussion of The Grey can be complete without singling out Liam Neeson for some special recognition. Although the rest of the cast is solid (Dermot Mulroney is particularly good as Talget), this is definitely Neeson’s film. Over the last few years, Neeson has been gradually morphing into an action star, not too far removed from what Bronson and Eastwood were doing in the ’80s and ’90s. In fact, it’s pretty easy to imagine someone like Bronson, Eastwood or Lee Marvin playing the part of Ottway: it’s a quiet, brooding role that requires not only plenty of ass-kicking but also some degree of wounded vulnerability. Ottway may be a man of action but he’s still just a man: Neeson shows us the confusion, fear and conflict beneath his stoic visage, without doing anything to denigrate his inherent heroism. Ottway is not some unrealistically pure “white knight”: he’s just as fucked up as everyone else, yet manages to work through his issues to do what needs to be done. It’s a truly multi-faceted performance made all the more impressive by how little (relatively speaking) Neeson says. Those flinty eyes tell a helluva story, however, and Carnahan/Takayanagi take full advantage of this with plenty of intense closeups, ala Eastwood and his similarly flinty orbs.

While The Grey could, perhaps, be considered the ultimate “guy movie,” (the only women in the film appear in flashback/dream sequences, which is probably rather telling) I think that there’s a lot more bubbling beneath the surface than mindless chest-beating and machismo. This is definitely an action film, through and through, and packed with enough hardcore, visceral violence to please even the most discerning gorehound (the film doesn’t skimp on the “wolves eating people” visuals and there’s one bit involving half of a guy that’s pretty difficult to watch). Along with action and violence, however, there are some surprisingly deep conversations about the nature of faith and there’s one particularly moving scene where Ottway helps a dying man pass on peacefully. They’re rare moments of beauty and serenity in an otherwise unforgiving, harsh landscape but they make the film an overall richer experience.

Ultimately, I found myself quite taken with The Grey: perhaps future viewings will help push it into the neo-classic status of films like The Descent but, for the time being, it simply stands as an extraordinary, ridiculously exciting adventure film. That being said, the film also features one of the most perfect final scenes I’ve ever seen (ruined only so slightly by an unnecessary post-credits tag), a scene that manages to be simultaneously regal, sad and ruthlessly badass. It’s a scene that stops right before it begins, leaving the viewer’s brain to fill in the gap. It’s a wonderful, powerful, amazingly cinematic moment: it’s what movies are all about (in my non-humble opinion) and any modern film should be proud to feature anything close to it. If the finale doesn’t find you on your feet, fist thrust heroically into the air…well, let’s just say that there may not be any hope for you, after all. The Grey is vicious, vital, bloody filmmaking at its very best: you’d be wise to give it a look sometime.

 

6/5/14 (Part Two): Way Beyond Overdrive

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AC/DC, B-movies, bad films, bad movies, based on a short story, cinema, comet, directorial debut, drive-in fare, Ellen McElduff, Emilio Estevez, Film, film reviews, films, Giancarlo Esposito, Green Goblin, hard-rock soundtrack, horror films, ice cream truck, John Short, Laura Harrington, living machines, Maximum Overdrive, Movies, Night of the Creeps, Pat Hingle, rocket launcher, sci-fi, science-fiction, set in the 1980's, Stephen King, terrible films, truck stop, trucks, Who Made Who, writer-director, Yeardley Smith

There’s a bit of a stigma attached to filmed adaptations of Stephen King novels/stories, something that almost approaches urban legend: with very few exceptions, movies made out of King’s catalog aren’t very good. There are, as mentioned, some pretty popular exceptions, such as Rob Reiner’s adaptation of Stand By Me (1986) and Darabont’s The Green Mile (1999). For the most part, however, King adaptations never seem to get it right, either treating the source material slavishly or managing to completely bungle the tone. By the mid-’80s, King decided to take matters into his own hands, end the curse and write/direct a film version of his short story, “Trucks.” The result could have been the definitive King adaptation: after all, who better to get into the mind of the Master of Horror than the master, himself? The end result, of course, was a bit different: Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive (1986) is not only one of the worst King adaptations of all time, it’s also one of the worst films of its era. The lesson is blazingly clear: while prose and screenwriting may look awfully similar, they’re two very different beasts and being a master of one means nothing whatsoever in regards to the other. It also makes another point painfully clear: being a best-selling author makes one about as qualified to direct a feature-length film as being a world-class gymnast.

After a short intro sets up the scenario (Earth has passed into the tail of a rogue comet and will remain there for the next eight days), King jumps us right into the action, which makes the biggest flaw of the film all too clear: it’s unrelentingly stupid. King makes an appearance as a bug-eyed yokel who stares stupidly as an electronic marquee-sign changes to read “Fuck you” and an ATM flashes him the message, “You’re an asshole.” As King pops his eyes out (cuz he’s “comically surprised,” dontcha know?) and leans into the camera, he relates the classic line,” Sugarbuns, come look at this: the machine called me an asshole!” Cue AC/DC’s “Who Made Who,” roll the opening credits and give your soul to the movie gods: it’ll gets worse from here.

Like the short story upon which it’s based, Maximum Overdrive concerns a very Kingish scenario: the aforementioned comet has, for some reason, caused all of the machines on Earth to “come to life” and act independently. This means that vehicles drive themselves around, soda machines spit out cans like ammunition, electric carving knives cut through the air as if propelled by invisible hands, drawbridges raise and lower themselves and ATMs call people “asshole.” For the next eight days, humans are no longer the masters of their own technology: machines are mad as hell and they won’t take it any more! After we see a bunch of this chaos in action, including a slapstick scene involving an animate drawbridge and a truck full of watermelons, we finally settle into the truck stop that will form the setting for the remainder of the film. Once there, we meet the usual group of colorful characters: ex-con turned short-order cook, Bill (Emilio Estevez); his sleazy, obnoxious boss, Bubba Hendershot (Pat Hingle); ridiculously melodramatic waitress, Wanda June (Ellen McElduff); truck stop attendants (and fellow ex-cons) Duncan (J.C. Quinn), Joe (Pat Miller) and Brad (Leon Rippy) and random videogame player Giancarlo Esposito (otherwise known as Gus Fring on Breaking Bad).

In short order, as the machines begin to take over the outside world, the small band of survivors are joined by others: newlyweds Curtis (John Short) and Connie (the Simpsons’ Yeardley Smith); hitch-hiker Brett (Laura Harrington) and the sleazy bible salesman that gave her a ride (and tried to feel her up), as well as Duncan’s adorable Little League uniform-adorned son, Deke (Deke Holter). Deke makes his way to the truck stop after surviving a harrowing attack at the diamond that begins innocently enough, with an insane soda machine pelting his coach in the crotch with high-speed cans (Q: What’s funnier than multiple soda cans to the crotch? A: If you’re Stephen King, nothing.) and ends horribly, with said soda machine putting a can through his coach’s head. Yikes: talk about the adverse health affects of sugary beverages!

Once this motley crew all converge on the truck stop, a rampaging group of driverless semi-trucks, led by a particularly nasty toy company truck with a Green Goblin head, pen them in, encircling the truck stop and running over anyone who dares to break free. Anyone familiar with the source material will know that these trucks may be all-powerful (the original story was called “Trucks,” after all) but that they still need a little human touch when it comes to gassing up. In King’s original story, this aspect led to a bleak finale where humanity becomes enslaved to their new mechanical overlords. This time around, however, it’s all rocket launchers, “witty” one-liners (a character actually utters the line “Eat my shorts.” For real. I would not lie to you.) and good ol’ human gumption as Billy leads the survivors in one last, ultimate push against the deadly trucks. I won’t give anything away but let’s just say that “Who Made Who” makes another appearance and that song always brings the party.

There are a lot of reasons why Maximum Overdrive is a pretty awful film but most of them lead directly back to King, whether in his capacity as screenwriter or director. The script, by itself, is dreadful, full of wooden dialogue, zero characterization (Billy and Brett are a couple sorely because it says so right there on the printed page), a bafflingly inconsistent tone (extreme slapstick scenes sit right next to stuff that should cut deeper, such as the aforementioned Little League massacre) and completely arbitrary plot developments. The acting, aside from Estevez, who always manages to rise above the material, is consistently hysterical and over-the-top, none more so than the amazing creature that is Wanda June. For some bizarre reason, Ellen McElduff opts to bring her best Greek tragic acting style to the role, culminating in the scene where she rushes outside and repeatedly hollers, “You can’t! We made you!” at the trucks. She shakes her fists at the heavens, shouts til her veins pop out and even sinks to her knees: it’s a performance that absolutely befits King Oedipus but comes across as ludicrously OTT for a truck stop waitress. If this was an actual directorial/acting choice, it seems bizarre: if this was just an unchecked performance, it doesn’t say much about King’s command of the cast.

Similarly, longtime Simpsons’ voice actor Yeardley Smith (Lisa, among many, many others) makes an appearance here as Connie, one half of the nearly brain-dead duo of Curtis and Connie. Smith is so obnoxiously screechy, so whiny and just flat-out terrible, that she literally grinds the film to a halt whenever she makes an appearance. Forget the character’s motivations, which make not one whit of sense (at one point, Connie seems devastated by the destruction of their car: why treat the car as if it were a dead child?): it’s her obnoxious voice and/or personality that really come across like fingernails on chalkboard. Most of the other actors play their characters fairly broad (Pat Hingle is so damn devious as Bubba that he may as well have cloven hoofs) but McElduff and Smith deserve a special place in this film’s Hall of Shame.

Despite the massed silliness on display here (or perhaps because of it, who knows), Maximum Overdrive does possess a certain gonzo “so-bad-it’s-okay” charm that makes the film an easy watch (especially in a part environment). It will never be mistaken for anything approaching a good film (compare this with Fred Dekker’s Night of the Creeps, also from the same year, to see how to make a really great B-movie) but it certainly has its moments. The Green Goblin-faced truck is a pretty great adversary, even if it doesn’t get any lines or do much more than drive around and look menacing. There’s also a nicely realized gag involving a driverless ice-cream truck playing Roger Miller’s “King of the Road,” which easily amounts to the film’s most mature joke. As previously mentioned, Estevez is really good: he’s one of those actors who can keep my eyes glued to the screen even when he’s the only thing worth watching. I must also admit to throwing more than my fair share of devil-horns into the air during the film, as well: when the score consists entirely of AC/DC tunes (including “Hell’s Bells” and “Highway to Hell”), some headbanging must be expected, although their actual “score” contributions amount to little more than random guitar riffs that spring up during the film’s various action sequences. Regardless, no film can be truly worthless when AC/DC is involved.

Ultimately, your capacity to appreciate Maximum Overdrive will depend entirely on your tolerance for Z-grade schlock entertainment. While King’s directorial debut is sloppy, silly and nonsensical, it’s also propulsive and mercifully short. Pair this with another B-movie (as I did with Night of the Creeps) and you’re looking at a fairly amusing experience. Luckily for the world, King took the hint here and hasn’t returned to the director’s chair: although his first effort managed to cram a Simpson’s reference, flying watermelons, killer trucks and Pat Hingle into the same film, perhaps it’s better for us all if he just sticks to literature.

 

4/23/14: When Fear is Good

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A Fantastic Fear of Everything, Alex de la Iglesia, Amara Karan, based on a short story, British comedies, British films, Bruce Robinson, Bunny and the Bull, Burke & Hare, childhood fears, Chris Hopewell, cinema, Clare Higgins, comedies, crime novelists, Crispian Mills, Decades of Death, Dr. Friedkin, eyeballs, fear, film reviews, films, Guy Ritchie, Hanoi Handshake Killer, Harold the Hedgehog, Hayley Mills, horror-comedies, I Sell the Dead, Kerry Shale, Kula Shaker, laundromats, Movies, paranoia, Paul Freeman, Quentin Tarantino, serial killers, SImon Pegg, Terry Gilliam, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, The Final Countdown, The Hendon Ogre, Time Bandits, voice-over narration, Wes Anderson, Withnail and I

There’s something about an “everything including the kitchen sink” approach to filmmaking that’s always appealed to me. Perhaps it was because Time Bandits (1981) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) were two of my favorite films growing up and neither of those films understood the words “restraint” or “over-indulgence.” Perhaps it’s because I developed an early love for Tarantino and Ritchie’s hyperkinetic, restless bullet-ballets: the former contorted his traditional narratives into fantastic new balloon animals while the latter never met a camera-angle, editing trick or musical cue that he didn’t love. When a filmmaker throws everything at the screen, and it sticks, the results can be some of the most thrilling, eye-popping cinema I’ve ever seen. I never tire of Wes Anderson’s immaculate miniatures-writ-large and if Alex de la Iglesia can sometimes be the model of restraint, he’s more often the device for delivering machine-gun-armed circus clowns and silver-bodypaint-adorned Jesus bankrobbers. I love small, quiet, subtle films, especially horror films, but it’s no coincidence that three of my favorite films of the past decade have been I Sell the Dead (2008), Bunny and the Bull (2009) and Burke and Hare (2010), all three of which throw so much material/effects/multi-media/razzle-dazzle at the audience that they’re almost endurance matches. While Crispian Mills debut film A Fantastic Fear of Everything (2012) may not be quite as perfect as the aforementioned classics, it’s just close enough to deserve a place with the pack.

After a truly dynamic animated opening sequence, we’re introduced to our hero, Jack (Simon Pegg), a children’s author who has decided to expand his horizons with a book about serial killers. Unfortunately for poor Jack, he has a tendency to be…well…afraid of everything and he quickly begins to obsesses about the various Victorian slashers, such as The Hendon Ogre and Crippen, that he researches. Even worse, he begins to think that insidious killers are actually after him, leading him to superglue a large kitchen knife to his hand. After his long-suffering agent gets Jack a meeting with the mysterious Harvey Humphries (Kerry Shale), a film producer interested in turning his research on serial killers into a movie, Jack must get over his intense agoraphobia and prepare to actually leave his house. After his usual laundry method (washing in the sink, drying in the oven) goes horribly awry, Jack must venture out to that most dreaded of public places: the laundromat. Not only have laundromats always been at the secret center of Jack’s endless phobias but there’s also a new killer nicknamed The Hanoi Handshake Killer running around. As Jack leaves his home, knife glued to hand, he must come to grips with the source of his childhood trauma, solve a local mystery and figure out whether he wants to stick with the hedgehog that made him famous or follow his dreams into the true-crime stories that haunt his dreams. Along the way, he might just find love. He also might get into an argument with a serial killer about the validity of The Final Countdown and hair metal vs gangsta rap, of course, but he definitely might find love.

Although it may seem overly reductive, perhaps the best “easy” descriptor of A Fantastic Fear of Everything would be Wes Anderson directing a Terry Gilliam film as envisioned by Guy Ritchie.   From the opening credit sequence to the closing one, AFFOE never sits still, spinning endlessly like a perpetual motion machine. Director/writer Mills (the son of actress Hayley Mills and member of Brit-rock band Kula Shaker), along with cinematographer Simon Chaudoir, have managed to craft a film that both visually and aurally inventive, hyperkinetic and fast-paced, yet inherently human and character-driven. This is no mean feat when there’s this much stuff flying around. At various points, we get super-stylized camera shots (the opening close-up of Pegg’s eye, which rotates out to make it seem as if he’s on the floor, yet is finally revealed to him by the wall, is nothing short of genius), nifty animated sequences (the paper-doll murder explanation is super cool and the claymation Harold the Hedgehog sequence is good enough to be its own short) and inventive use of sound (there’s a great moment where the sound begins loud and non-diagetic before becoming cracked and tinny as Jack walks into the launderette). The colors are all gorgeous and vibrant, looking like nothing so much as one of the aforementioned Anderson’s candy-colored epics.

In the pivotal role of Jack, Pegg is as reliably solid as ever. He manages to bring just the right amount of nice-guy restraint to balance out the bottomless ocean of neuroses that is Jack: too much in either direction and the character would be either insufferable or as bland as milquetoast. As such, however, we get some truly great Pegg moments, including the scene where he gives change to begging children, via used sock, through his mail slot or the aforementioned bit where he argues with his potential killer about whether hair metal or gangster rap was the more valid cultural entertainment. The rest of the cast, particularly Alan Drake as the daffy “community support police officer” Tony, are all excellent but this is truly Pegg’s show: he gets the most screen-time, by a yard, and relishes it.

There are a laundry-list of reasons this film shouldn’t have worked. For one thing, this kind of hyper-kinetic storytelling can easily dissolve into mush when done wrong: just look at Ritchie’s post-Snatch filmography (including Sherlock Holmes, please and thank you) or the brain-dead Shoot ‘Em Up (2007) for proof. Mills is a new, untested director coming from not only a famous family but a famous rock band: there’s no reason this shouldn’t have smelled and tasted like a vanity project. The actual plot (guy is afraid of everything, must get to meeting) is pretty thin and the final twist wraps things up in such a stereotypically happy, upbeat ending that it threatens to make everything before it seem like subtle parody, like a Jack Handey aphorism taken too far.

Against all odds, however, A Fantastic Fear of Everything works. And it works spectacularly well, if I might add. The script is sharp and clever, full of laugh-out-loud scenes, dialogue and ingeniously clever plot details. The animated sequences are all fresh and fit in perfectly with the rest of the film, as well as contributing to the overall themes of the film (how one’s imagination can imprison one, if not careful). The acting is uniformly top-notch and the cinematography and sound design are exemplary. Truth be told, short of a truly embarrassing scene where Pegg mugs along to a rap song (this is almost as nerve-gratingly mortifying as the worst moments of The Office) and some minor issues with structure, there really isn’t much wrong with the film. If you can handle a little silliness and some self-referential moments, A Fantastic Fear of Everything is actually a pretty smart peek into the issues that make us all the stupid little humans that we are. For my money, I’m more than willing to give Jack a place on Simon Pegg’s Character Wall of Fame and I’m more than eager to find out what Crispian Mills comes up with next.