6/4/15: All Good Children Fear the Woods

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Alice Englert, Allen Leech, backwoods folk, British films, British horror, cinema, couples on vacation, Daniel Pemberton, David Katznelson, endless roads, film reviews, films, horror, horror movies, Iain De Caestecker, In Fear, isolation, Jeremy Lovering, lost in the woods, masked killers, Movies, psychopaths, Roly Porter, secluded hotel, set in Ireland, UK films, writer-director

While some might disagree, I firmly believe that there’s one, universal fear: being lost in an unfamiliar place. Not everyone is terrified of spiders, dogs, heights, the dark or rutabagas but I’d be more than willing to wager that it’s impossible to find a person who isn’t afraid of being lost somewhere. Sure, you’ll always have the adventurous folks who say that getting lost in a new place is half the fun but I’m pretty sure there are qualifiers: said folks might enjoy being lost in a bustling, vibrant, overseas food market but how would they feel about suddenly finding themselves wandering some anonymous country road, alone, in the middle of night with nothing but a matchbook for illumination?

Getting lost in this big world of ours used to be a much easier task: anyone who remembers the acute joy of unfolding the equivalent of thirteen miles of intricately folded paper in order to find their current location “on the fly” knows this all too well. With the introduction of smart phones and GPS, however, the world has become notably smaller and it’s become decidedly more difficult to become truly lost. After all: how often do we actually come upon a location that doesn’t show up on the all-seeing eye of the Global Positioning System? According to writer-director Jeremy Lovering’s In Fear (2013), it does happen. The results, as you might guess, aren’t pretty.

Tom (Iain De Caestecker) and Lucy (Alice Englert) are a young couple who’ve been dating for a couple of weeks and decide to meet a bunch of friends at a big music festival in Ireland. In order to celebrate their fledgling relationship, Tom (without Lucy’s knowledge) has booked them a stay at an isolated inn that happens to be on the way, all the better to get a little “alone time” before they meet up with the rest of the crew.

After some unpleasant run-ins with the locals that we hear about (but don’t see), Tom and Lucy find themselves driving down a seemingly endless country road, following what seems to be an absurd amounts of signs that purport to lead the way to their inn, the Kilairney House Hotel. On the way, they pass a sinister-looking, decrepit house with a prominent “Do Not Enter” sign affixed to the front gate. Lucy also begins to get the creeping suspicion that someone (or something?) is watching them from the shadows, as the day quickly transitions into the even shadowier evening.

As the couple continues to drive in circles, their relationship begins to fray at the edges. Things really get interesting, however, when the couple accidentally plows into a mysterious stranger who just appears in the center of the road. The bloodied Max (Allen Leech) claims that he was attacked by a group of local hunters, folks who he has some sort of undisclosed beef with. Finagling a ride from Tom and Lucy, Max seems like a harmless enough, if rather odd, fellow. As the couple will discover, however, you can’t always judge a book by its cover. What are Max’s real intentions? Does he have anything to do with their current predicament or is it just coincidence that they happened upon him? Who is watching the group from the woods? What happened with the locals in the pub? Is there a logical explanation for what’s happening or have the couple managed to slip through the cracks of our comfortable, well-lit existence into something decidedly more shadowy and evil? Will they ever make it to the inn? If so, what will they find there?

At first glance, In Fear seems to be yet the latest in a long line of “backwoods brutality” pictures, those delightful little gems that feature citified folks heading into rural areas (usually in foreign countries), running afoul of the (usually) debauched locals and being pursued/tortured/eaten/etc. In a nice change of pace, however, Lovering doesn’t make this notion the main course, even though he keeps it simmering on the back burner for much of the film’s relatively short running time. Instead, In Fear ends up being something decidedly more eerie, supernatural and difficult to describe, with the closest parallel that I can handily recall being something like the highly under-rated Dead End (2003), where Ray Wise and Lin Shaye found themselves trapped on an endlessly repeating stretch of country road.

In fact, one of the film’s greatest strengths is its steadfast refusal to over-explain anything or hold the audience’s hand. While some viewers might be turned off by the strange, open-ended nature of the film, that aspect actually elevated the proceedings, as far as I’m concerned. Lovering doles out little details, here and there, but we’re never quite sure what’s going on or why: at one point, Max tells Tom and Lucy that they must have provoked “them” but we have absolutely no idea who he means…the locals? The mysterious hunters who’ve strung strange pelts across the road? The woods, itself? Ghosts? Sasquatch? We never find out and the film is all the stronger for it.

Along with the simple, compact script and structure, In Fear also benefits from a trio of exceptionally capable performances: when your film only features three actors, they better all be able to hold their own and Lovering’s cast acquit themselves quite nicely. De Caestecker (excellent in the recent Filth (2013)) and Englert (star of the recent Beautiful Creatures (2013)) make a good couple and have genuine chemistry together, which is something that you see all too infrequently in indie horror films like this. In most cases, you’re left wondering why people this miserable would ever want to spend time together: here, we buy their new relationship from the get-go, which makes the eventual collapse more impactful. More importantly, Tom and Lucy are both sympathetic characters (barring the odd moment where Tom sneaks up on Lucy and scares her for no reason, whatsoever), which makes what happens to them more powerful.

The third point of the triangle, Allen Leech, is probably the most high-profile, especially following his excellent turn in last year’s Oscar-nominated The Imitation Game (2014) and his recurring role on the hugely popular Downton Abbey. It’s also important to remember, however, that Leech was equally fantastic as John Cusack’s creepy assistant in the stellar Grand Piano (2014) and it’s this particular well that he dips into for In Fear. Leech’s Max is a highly enigmatic character, swinging wildly from absolute insanity to cheerful “laddish” behavior, often within the same scene. We never do really find out who Max is or what he wants but, as with the rest of the film’s open-ended nature, this feels less like an omission and more like a very conscious choice. Regardless of where he ends up fitting in the overall scheme of things, Leech’s Max is a really great, endlessly creepy character and another unforgettable performance from one of the 2000’s most interesting actors.

Ultimately, In Fear is the very definition of a sleeper: the film defies all expectations and, in its own way, is one of the more successful horror films I’ve seen recently. Rather than holding it back, the film’s small-scale and modest scope allow it a focus missing in many similar indie films: unlike other low-budget genre filmmakers who swing for the stars and miss miserably, Lovering and company focus on telling a small story in a tight, focused manner and succeed quite handily. When the film is creepy, it really burrows under your skin and takes up residence: just the hazy lighting quality of the dusk scenes, alone, is enough to light up the reptilian fear parts of the brain. With David Katznelson’s evocative cinematography and Daniel Pemberton and Roly Porter’s constantly ominous score, In Fear is a quality piece of work, from start to finish.

If getting lost in the middle of nowhere is one of your big fears, In Fear might just give you a case of the old cold sweats. Even if you’re one of those weekend warriors who relishes getting lost in the great outdoors, however, I’m willing to wager that you’ll still find something to unsettle you. At the very least, can’t we all agree that picking up mysterious, bloody strangers, in the middle of a deserted country road, at night, is just not a good idea?

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4/25/15: The Fixer-Upper From Hell

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Adam Thomas Wright, Altar, Antonia Clarke, British films, British horror, children in peril, cinema, film reviews, films, ghost whisperer, ghosts, haunted house, haunted houses, hidden mosaics, home renovations, horror, horror film, horror films, horror movies, husband-wife relationship, isolated estates, isolation, Jan Richter-Friis, Jonathan Jaynes, Matthew Modine, Movies, Nick Willing, Olivia Williams, parent-child relationships, possession, Rebecca Calder, Satanic rituals, set in England, sins of the past, Stephen Chance, Steve Oram, supernatural, twist ending, UK films, writer-director

If we go by the conventions of horror films, one of the single most dangerous occupations out there is home renovation. Sure, law enforcement, fire fighting and high-rise window-washing might seem more dangerous, at least on paper, but we know the truth: anytime someone tries to fix up a creepy, old, decaying country estate, there’s a roughly 90% chance of something terrible happening. If those were Vegas odds, Sin City would have gone the way of the dodo generations ago.

Writer-director Nick Willing’s Altar (2014) is but the latest in a long line of haunted house films precipitated on the above notion: a family moves into a creepy, isolated country manor in order to renovate it, runs into long-buried secrets and ghostly presences and must survive the sinister residence’s sustained assaults upon their persons and psyches. In this case, Meg Hamilton (Olivia Williams) is the renovator who, along with her artist husband Alec (Matthew Modine) and children, Penny (Antonia Clarke) and Harper (Adam Thomas Wright), move into the creepy abode. Faster than you can say “Jack and Wendy Torrance,” the family are dealing with ghostly manifestations, Alec’s obsession with suddenly crafting a life-like clay figure and Meg’s discovery of a strange, vaguely pagan floor mosaic. If you guessed that “possession” factors into the proceedings, you’d be right but Willing has a few tricks up his sleeve that help take Altar in a slightly different (even if barely so) direction from the rest of the herd.

As far as atmosphere and location go, Altar is strictly top-notch: there’s a genuine sense of foreboding that lingers over every scene, thanks in large part to the exceptionally creepy location. Quite simply, Radcliffe House is the kind of evil, Gothic edifice that can make or break a haunted house film: in this case, it goes an awful long way in stocking up good will for the (occasionally) rough going. Willing goes light on the obvious jump scares, allowing for the whole thing to feel much more organic and old-fashioned than similar films (obnoxiously loud musical stingers are, thankfully, few and far between) and cinematographer Jan Richter-Friis’ camera-work helps to subtly play up the creep-factor.

The acting is uniformly good, which is another important factor in this kind of film: when a movie relies on mood and atmosphere, nothing spoils the party quite as effectively as over-the-top, amateurish or stilted acting. Williams is excellent as the mother/renovator: her extremely expressive face always seems to be reflecting some new measure of fresh horror, amping the psychological horror to an almost unbearable level. Modine, who’s had an almost ridiculously varied career over the past 30+ years, doesn’t fare quite as well as Williams does, mostly because his character is saddled with a few more eye-rolling traits than hers is. That being said, Modine and Williams have good chemistry together: until things go completely off the rails, it’s easy to imagine these two as a (once) loving couple, which is certainly more than you can say for many horror film duos. As the beleaguered children, Clarke and Wright are quite good, although they don’t get quite as much to do as their parents: at the very least, neither one wears out their welcome which, again, is more than you can say for many young actors in horror productions.

If anything really lets the air out of Altar’s sails, it’s definitely the hum-drum, overly clichéd ending: while the plot has plenty of holes (especially in the later going), the film manages to glide over most of them pretty effortlessly until it crashes headfirst into the chasm that is the film’s final “revelation.” While I wouldn’t dream of ruining the ending (perhaps because I understand it so imperfectly), suffice to say that faithful genre devotees will have seen this exact same thing done many, many times in the past…and done much better and much clearer, might I add. It’s a pity, really, since the film has some fairly intriguing ideas about transmogrification that are completely lost in the muddle. However unique the film begins, it ends in territory that is, to be kind, well-worn.

Ultimately, Altar is a good, if not great, entry in the crowded “family in peril” subgenre of horror films. When the atmosphere and mood are allowed to develop at their own measured, glacial pace, Willing’s film stands tall above the pretenders, buoyed by its own sense of stately grandeur. When the film becomes overly familiar and middle-of-the-road, however, it sinks right back into the teeming masses, indistinguishable from any one of two dozen other similar films.

2/28/15 (Part Three): Dying a Thousand Deaths

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Brendan Hood, British films, British horror, Charlie Anson, Christina Cole, cinema, creatures, Dario Piana, death, dying, fear, film reviews, films, George Dillon, Harvesters, horror-fantasy, Ian Stone, Jaime Murray, Michael Dixon, Michael Feast, Mike Vogel, Movies, reincarnation, set in England, special-effects extravaganza, Stan Winston, The Deaths of Ian Stone, violent films

While ambition is a necessary part of success, too much ambition can be a dangerous drug. Take Dario Piana’s The Deaths of Ian Stone (2007), for example: until the film sags under the weight of its own ambitions, it’s a weird, unsettling and fairly unique take on those tired, old “normal person pursued by unknown forces” tropes. Proudly straining against the constraints of its budget, Piana’s film makes expert use of producer Stan Winston’s legendary effects studio, giving the film some extra oomph in the production department. As Brendan Hood’s script keeps springing “surprise” twists and revelations on us, however, the film gradually becomes bloated and unwieldy, taking on the characteristics of the first film in a series, even as the story works towards a self-contained conclusion. It’s quite the pity: until the film stumbles in the second half, it has all the makings of a real sleeper.

Our titular hero, Ian Stone (Under the Dome’s Mike Vogel), appears to have a bit of a problem: every day, he’s pursued by mysterious, monstrous forces and killed, only to be “reborn” into a different life (hockey player, office drone, taxi driver, drug addict, etc). There’s no explanation for anything: he sees many of the same people in each “reality,” including Jenny (Christina Cole), who appears to be his girlfriend; Medea (Jaime Murray), who ALSO appears to be his girlfriend; a sinister hockey referee (George Dillon); and a mysterious man (Michael Feast), who seems to know more about Ian’s situation than our poor protagonist does. Time and time again, we witness Ian attempt to escape from the shadowy monsters that pursue him, only to be brutally killed, time and time again. As he “jumps” from one reality to the next, however, Ian gradually comes to piece together more and more of the mystery. In the process, he’ll learn what the monsters are, who Jenny and Medea really are and, more importantly, who HE really is. Will Ian be able to put a stop to the terrifying events or is he doomed to keep dying, over and over, for all eternity?

Up until the point where Piana and Hood drop the bomb about Ian’s true identity, The Deaths of Ian Stone is a compact, weird and intriguing little film. The various death setpieces are nothing spectacular but all come with an appropriate amount of tension and a handful of genuinely creepy moments. At times, the film recalls Jacob’s Ladder (1990) in the way that it seems to blend the real and the possibly illusory with equal aplomb. Vogel makes a great protagonist and the effects, courtesy of Stan Winston’s team, are nicely realized. For the first 45 minutes or so, the film seems to be setting us up for some kind of alternate reality/parallel timeframe situation and it’s a lot of fun trying to figure out how the various pieces are going to fit.

Once the film springs the “twist” on us, however, it becomes a different kind of film entirely, something closer to Spawn (1997), perhaps, with various elements from Terminator 2 (1991), Highlander (1986) and The Matrix (1999) thrown in, for good measure. It’s not necessarily that the reveal, itself, is bad (it’s not great but it’s not a critical wound, either): it’s the fact that the twist opens the film up and seeks to expand it just as the actual movie is beginning to gear down. It has the effect of making everything past the midpoint seem rushed and truncated, as if Piana was trying to cram two hours of plot development into 40 minutes of film. The twist also turns the film into something of an action movie, which not only deflates the tension to a considerable degree, but also shows off the budgetary shortfalls to a distressing degree: too often, intense action sequences in low-budget genre films come across as clumsy and cheesy, two issues which certainly plague the film’s back-half.

Think of it as the equivalent of trying to hand-write a large sign without properly planning it out: initially, the letters, words and phrases are all spaced beautifully but things get gradually more cramped, crabbed and illegible as the sign-maker runs out of space…words go at odd angles, things end up in margins and odd abbreviations are used to try to conserve space. This, in a way, is exactly what happens to The Deaths of Ian Stone: as the film becomes more complicated and time ticks down, characterization and plot development get more and more truncated to the point where it all begins to take on a kind of shorthand: the bad guys dress just like the leather-clad baddies in The Matrix, ergo, they must be bad. A particular character needs to act heroic, ergo, they act heroic, even if it plays at odds with what we’ve learned. It’s frustrating precisely because it’s so easy to see how this could have worked: an additional 30 minutes here, a few more scenes there, a slower pace over there…while the midpoint twist is the anchor that weighs the film down, it’s death by a thousand cuts that kills it, not drowning.

I’d like to say that director Piana shows a lot of promise here, since he does, but it’s also telling to note that his follow-up, the direct-to-video Lost Boys: The Thirst (2010), is a completely wretched waste of film that seems like a surefire albatross for any burgeoning career. At this point, there doesn’t seem to be anything new on the Italian director’s resume, indicating that my initial impression was on-the-nose. If Piana does decide to tackle genre filmmaking again, here’s to hoping that he builds from his successes on The Deaths of Ian Stone, while avoiding the disaster that was (to this point) his final film. While it’s never boring or terrible, it also doesn’t live up to its full potential: sometimes, simpler really is better.

2/13/15: Old Habits Die Hard

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Aidan McArdle, alternate title, British films, British horror, Catholic church, Christianity vs paganism, cinema, Elliot Goldner, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Final Prayer, foreign films, found-footage, found-footage films, Gordon Kennedy, haunted church, horror, horror films, horror movies, insanity, isolated estates, Luke Neal, mental illness, miracles, Movies, paganism, paranormal investigators, Patrick Godfrey, religious-themed horror, Robin Hill, suicide, The Borderlands, UK films, Vatican investigators, writer-director

Sometimes, it doesn’t take much to give a particular film a leg up on its competitors. Take writer-director Elliot Goldner’s feature-debut, The Borderlands (2014), for example. For the most part, Goldner’s film doesn’t do much different from the majority of other found-footage horror films on the market but it also doesn’t make many obvious mistakes, either. Add to this some effective performances, along with a creepy, fairly original main concept, and you end up with a pretty winning formula. While The Borderlands doesn’t raise the bar for these types of films, it’s still a suitably sturdy entry and should prove duly thought-provoking for patient horror aficionados.

Goldner’s debut deals with a small team of Vatican investigators who have been sent to a rural British church in order to check on claims of strange, miraculous occurrences. Our team consists of Deacon (Gordon Kennedy), the good-humored, gruff, hard-drinking veteran investigator; Mark (Aidan McArdle) the stick-in-the-mud, uptight, by-the-book priest who doesn’t actually seem to believe in anything; and their tech expert, Gray (Robin Hill), a studied non-believer who still seems more open to the concept of miracles than his religious-oriented cohorts. The group has been called to the small church in order to investigate the resident priest, Father Crellick (Luke Neal), whose claims of strange, unexplained happenings have set off alarm bells in Vatican City. While Deacon and Gray are used to debunking such claims, the case quickly proves itself to be a singularly odd one. For one thing, Crellick is a decidedly weird duck, given to strange proclamations and privy to “visions” that no one else seems to have. For another, the rural church is a ridiculously creepy place, less of a functional religious center than a hold-over from a much older, darker time: as a rule, folks in films should steer clear of anything built “on top” of anything else: suffice to say, it’s always bad news.

As the team continue to investigate, Deacon comes upon a journal, belonging to the church’s 1800s-era caretaker, which seems to hint at some sort of dark presence in the area. After a horrifying incident involving a flaming sheep, the group gets the distinct impression that the locals are a little less than welcoming of this intrusion into their land. Who (or what) is responsible for the mysterious, seemingly paranormal incidents at the church? Is eccentric Father Crellick somehow responsible? Is it all related to stories of ancient pagan ceremonies in the isolated valley? Is someone trying to chase the investigators away from an earth-bound conspiracy or is the reality something much darker and more sinister? As each of the men begins to experience their own strange events, Deacon and the others will be forced to face the unfathomable: if a “miraculous” event isn’t a miracle…what, exactly, is it?

For the most part, The Borderlands (given the unbelievably boring, generic alternate title of “Final Prayer” for American audiences, natch) is an assured, well-made and interesting film, albeit one that makes many of the same (inherent) missteps that most found-footage movies make. While nothing here is as obvious as the many Paranormal Activity (2007) sequels, we still get plenty of scenes that involves the audience intently peering at a static video image, waiting for something to move/jump/make a scary face/etc. Again, not terrible but so old hat, at this point, as to be almost risible. There are also plenty of strangely “unmotivated” camera shots, such as the lovely but out-of-place landscape exteriors, that pop up from time to time: like many found-footage films, the makers of The Borderlands don’t always have the tightest grasp on their “gimmick,” as it were, although this is hardly the sloppiest example of said issue.

Where Goldner’s film really sets itself apart from the found-footage pack is in the quality of its acting. Gordon Kennedy and Robin Hill are both pretty great and make nice foils for each other: there’s a level of shared respect between the two characters that’s nicely illustrated in the performances. Kennedy does the gruff “two-fisted man of God” schtick to a tee and Hill is nicely nerdy and kind of sweet as the tech wizard who only wants to believe, even though he really doesn’t. For his part, Aidan McArdle is appropriately assholish as the immovable Mark but, for some reason, I had the hardest time not seeing his character as a non-secular version of David Mitchell’s odious Mark character in Peep Show (2003-present). Jerks are jerks, however, and McArdle acquits himself nicely as the smug priest/bean-counter.

One of the biggest issues with found-footage films is always the endings: in most cases, they simply devolve into shaky camera-work, motion blurs and the all-important “drop the camera” bit, regardless of what came before. The Borderlands doesn’t (quite) go that route, opting for something quite a bit creepier and more bizarre. While the ending is certainly open for multiple interpretations, I’d like to think that the whole thing is a nod to Ken Russell’s batshit-crazy Lair of the White Worm (1988): it’s probably highly unlikely but who wouldn’t want to throw some props Russell’s way? Regardless of what it ultimately means, however, the ending is just different enough to warrant sitting through the entire film, especially if one is inclined to enjoy found-footage films.

For a debut-feature, The Borderlands is surprisingly good and makes an effective calling card for Goldner. By making good use of a rather unique location, a rarely-used religious angle, some rock-solid acting and a creepy, unexpected climax, Goldner and crew have come up with a film that looks a lot like its peers but has enough individuality and presence to stand on its own. It also features one of the single most disturbing, horrific and unforgettable scenes I’ve ever seen in a film (the burning sheep scene will haunt you, guaranteed), indicating that writer-director Goldner has no problems hanging out in the “dark side,” when necessary. Here’s to hoping that his next feature takes the good will he earned here and runs it in for the touch-down: The Borderlands may not be perfect but I’m willing to wager that Goldner has a pretty fascinating career ahead of him.

 

3/14/14: Men Are For Lunch, Women Are From Moodley

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auteur theory, battle of the sexes, British comedies, British horror, Christina Cole, cinema, Daniel Schaffer, Danny Dyer, Doghouse, Dogwitch, Evil Aliens, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, graphic novels, guys' weekend, horror films, horror-comedies, isolated communities, Jake West, killer women, misogyny, Moodley, Movies, Neil Maskell, Noel Clarke, remote village, Stephen Graham, Terry Stone, the battle of the sexes, violence against women, zombies

Ah, the battle of the sexes: that (presumably) eternal struggle between men and women for understanding, equality and empathy. As with most cultural/societal issues, the battle of the sexes has been fodder for popular entertainment since practically the time that men and women could walk upright…and probably before that, to be honest. In all of this time, we’re not in sight of a resolution yet, although there have obviously been numerous individual victories along the way. From George Cukor’s classic Hepburn/Tracy vehicle Adam’s Rib (1949) to Mamet’s misogyny (In the Company of Men (1997), Oleana (1994)) to the world of horror (Season of the Witch (1972), Donkey Punch (2007), Witching and Bitching (2013), the battle of the sexes continues to rage on in movie theaters and on the small screen.

Any film (or book, for that matter) that attempts to take on the battle of the sexes has quite the tightrope to walk. On the one hand, battle of the sexes stories are essentially universal (I’m willing to wager that in societies where it’s not part of the context, it’s an inherent part of the subtext of daily life) and can (theoretically) appeal to just about anyone. In reality, of course, battle of the sexes films (or other forms of media/entertainment) are just as beholden to the realities of a largely patriarchal society as any other forms of entertainment. One need only reflect on Shakespeare’s far from “enlightened” Taming of the Shrew or classic romance/comedies like Adam’s Rib and Pillow Talk to see just how much of the humor/entertainment is filtered through a decidedly male-oriented point-of-view.

The notion of the battle of the sexes gets even iffier, however, when one grafts it onto horror films, which have tended to be even more male-oriented/patriarchal than other genres (with the possible exception of the glut of late-’70s/’80s sword-and-sandal barbarian flicks). In slasher films, for example, the concept of the “male gaze” is so inherent to deeper readings of these works that it’s inseparable: there’s a reason that you can’t intelligently discuss either Friday the 13th or Halloween without going into a detailed discussion of the concept of the “final girl.” Horror films that explicitly take on the battle of the sexes, such as the aforementioned Donkey Punch, Witching and Bitching or I Spit on Your Grave can be rather tricky: while the films may attempt discussion on weighty issues like violence against women, the role of women in a predominantly patriarchal world and the unfortunate prominence of “rape culture” in our modern world, this all comes filtered through sensibilities that are targeted at primarily male viewers. The end result, in many cases, are films that combine serious issues with old-fashioned, stereotypical and, in some cases, outright misogynistic attitudes.

Into this existing goulash of existing “battle of the sexes” films comes Jake West’s Doghouse, a film that posits the battle of the sexes as a real, honest-to-god, knock-down-drag-out fight. While the film operates from the same starting point as Louis Malle’s experimental Black Moon (men and women are actually fighting each other in open, armed conflict), it’s intent is actually much simpler and more “laddish,” as it were: take a bunch of guys, drop them into an isolated village full of blood-thirsty zombie women and see what happens. As can be expected, the results are bloody, comic and just un-PC enough to appeal to the genre fans that flocked to West’s outrageously over-the-top debut Evil Aliens, although it’s doubtful that the film will have anything of value to add to the actual battle of the sexes. As 90 minutes of mildly offensive, early-Peter-Jackson-esque gore, however, Doghouse quite ably fits the bill.

In short order, the film introduces us to our core group of “blokes,” with just enough individual characterization to prevent them from being distinguished solely by descriptors like “the bad boy” or “the nice guy”: We have our hero, Vince (Stephen Graham), the newly divorced one. We’ve got the “bad boy,” of course (Danny Dyer); the “nerd” (Lee Ingleby); the “token gay friend” (Emil Marwa); the “consistently late friend” (Neil Maskell); the “married friend” (Noel Clarke) and the “self-improvement-obsessed-friend” (Keith-Lee Castle). We’ll also get introduced to a stereotypical “aggressive, meat-head, military” guy later on, for a little variety. The friends have all come together to help Vince get over his recent (and painful) divorce with a “guys-only” weekend at the isolated, female-dominated town of Moodley. Enlisting the aid of bus-driver Ruth (Christina Cole), the lads make it to Moodley but discover something sure to give them that ol’ sinking feeling: all of the women in the town have become murderous “zom-birds,” weapon-wielding, rage-possessed, man-hating (and eating) creatures with only one coherent thought in their heads: if it has a penis, kill it.

Soon, the guys must pool their resources and attempt to make a desperate stand against the legions of possessed women, a situation made worse by the discovery that the infected women are still changing, evolving into bigger, faster, more lethal and infinitely more monstrous versions of themselves. When Ruth becomes infected and turns their bus into her lair, the guys seem to be trapped and doomed. Will they survive the worst stag party in history? Will Vince keep his sweet disposition, despite the long odds? Will Neil ever treat women like human beings? And what, exactly, does the military guy have to do with everything? The answers won’t surprise but they will entertain.

Overall, Doghouse is an extremely well-made, energetic, fast-paced and clever film, with a genuinely funny script and some unique little additions to the well-trod zombie genre. The acting is uniformly good, especially from Danny Dyer and Stephen Graham. Dyer, in particular, is perfect: he plays the part of the womanizing, smarmy bastard to a t. Dyer’s been one of my favorite British genre actors for some time now, possessing the quick-witted delivery and roguish good looks of a more tolerable Colin Farrell, and Doghouse is my favorite performance of his with the exception of Severance, which bears the distinction of being one of my favorite modern horror films. Graham, as usual, is incredibly likable and, for most of the film, comes across as the distinct voice of reason, particularly when paralleled with Dyer’s unrepentant misogyny. It’s doubly unfortunate, then, that the films makes its only real missteps with the transition of his character from “reasonable, normal guy” to “kind-of/sort-of misogynist” by the film’s end. That his “attitude adjustment” is viewed as necessary to his survival is, in the end, quite troubling: the film seems to be saying that any male attitude short of misogyny is not only passe but hazardous to one’s health.

Let me be clear: I don’t find Doghouse to be a sexist film, although I do think it unnecessarily muddies its intent with a bit too much sexist humor and that aforementioned need for male characters to become misogynist in order to ensure their survival. As Graham, the film’s sole gay character tells Neil, at one point: “Now is not the time to stop objectifying women!” In fact, Neil’s softening of his initial stance on women almost gets him killed several times, while Vince’s eventual adoption of Neil’s earlier misogyny ends up saving his life…talk about a conflicted sense of equality. Furthering the issue, there really aren’t any women in the film that aren’t (or later become) zombies, leaving the guys as our only actual points of entry into the film. At first glance, it seems that Ruth may end up as a tonic for the “boys-only” attitude but her quick transformation into a zombie effectively takes her out of the game: at the end, the only “humans” in the film end up being the guys, which seems a bit reductive.

Ultimately, however, I didn’t find the film’s male perspective to be any more offensive than Zach Snyder’s Sucker Punch, another genre film that purported to be about female empowerment, yet saw fit to dress its female leads up like fetish models. At least Doghouse doesn’t claim to be more than it is, whereas Sucker Punch’s disingenuous male-gaze seems distinctly more obnoxious thanks to its supposed intent. At the very least, Doghouse doesn’t end up being radically more offensive or unenlightened than any number of similar genre offerings and is worlds away from the rape-revenge fantasies of films like I Spit on Your Grave or Mother’s Day. At its heart, this is a silly, splattery horror-comedy and doesn’t seem to have pretensions to more. The dialogue is quick and funny, the acting is excellent, the effects are really quite good (and very, very gory) and the whole thing has a shaggy-dog-esque likability that goes a long way towards out smoothing over some of the more potentially misogynist material. While Doghouse doesn’t break any new ground, it stands the very real chance of making you break out in a big smile. Sometimes, that’s all you can ask for.

 

2/21/14: What’s in a Name?

Tags

Alan Ford, Apple Dumpling Gang, Ashley Thomas, bank robbery, British films, British horror, cinema, Cockney rhyming slang, Cockneys vs Zombies, Day of the Dead, Edgar Wright, Film, film reviews, former Bond girl, getting old, Goldfinger, Guy Richie, Harry Treadaway, Honor Blackman, horror films, horror-comedies, Jack Doolan, Matthias Hoene, Mental Mickey, Michelle Ryan, Movies, old-age home, Rasmus Hardiker, Ray, Shaun of the Dead, Snatch, the East End, Tony Gardner, zombies

As a guy who dearly loves horror films in every make, model and vintage, I’m also someone who has to wade through more than the usual amount of crap. For every new film that blows me away, there are probably at least four (or nine) that inspire rabid cries of “Meh.” Part of the problem is that there are a lot of horror films out there: the genre has become sort of the “gateway-drug” for burgeoning filmmakers, if you will (although Corman will probably attest that it always was). Since there are only so many hours in the day, I often find myself having to make snap decisions about certain films as a form of pre-screening: if this is going to get 90 minutes of my time, it should probably be, at the least, entertaining. I’m actually a big fan of B-movies and “so-bad-they’re-good-films” but some films are just plain dull: moronic cash-grabs that were probably sold in bulk to online sites like Amazon and Netflix similar to how you can buy 50-gallon drums of ketchup at Sam’s Club. These films aren’t fun: they’re time-wasters and that time could better be spent with something genuinely wonderful/awful like Troll 2.

Sometimes I can tell by the production company: I always know what to expect with the Asylum or August Underground, for example, which is why I steer clear from pretty much anything with their names on it. Spectacularly crappy cover art can do it for me, too: if it looks like it was designed for a ’90s-era CD-ROM game, I usually pass. In this day and age of generic poster art, it’s getting harder and harder to use this as a reliable yardstick (most new films seem to have generic, terrible poster art) but some covers are just too damn obvious. If the film is directed by someone whose reputation precedes them (Uwe Boll, Michael Bay, Brian DePalma), I tend to proceed with extreme prejudice. Sometimes, however, one of the very best early warnings is simply the name of said film. If I recognize the name from a video game, I’ll probably pass. If the title features the phrase “The Terror of…” and isn’t followed by either Dracula or Frankenstein, I’m probably outta there. If there’s a “Vs” in the title (ala Strippers Vs Zombies, Strippers vs Werewolves), I’ll probably look elsewhere, although this particular rule is put to lie by a few films. There is, of course, the unmitigated awesomeness of Billy the Kid vs Dracula. There is Tucker and Dale vs Evil, possibly one of the finest horror comedies ever. And now, of course, there is Cockneys vs Zombies.

At first glance, Cockneys vs Zombies is just about as generic as it gets. We start with the lazy title, which seems to indicate exactly where the film’s sensibilities lie. There’s also the incredibly generic “zombie-arm-thrusting-up” artwork that graces the official cover art (the artwork for this particular blog comes from an alt cover, which usually tend to be more my speed). Put together, this is a film that I would probably pass by at any other time. I’d heard good rumblings, however, and I’m an unabashed lover of British cinema so I gave it a shot. The good news? Beneath the generic exterior, Cockneys vs Zombies is a rip-roaring comedy-crime-horror film that puts Guy Richie and Shaun of the Dead into a blender, pouring out a concoction that’s definitely more Shaun than From Dusk Till Dawn. This is a surprisingly good-natured film, despite the copious amounts of torn flesh on display.

The movie kicks off with a pretty cool sequence that introduces the zombie threat as the result of unearthing an ancient tomb rather than as the by-product of modern living. This jumps right into a dynamic, comic-book-inspired credit sequence that perfectly sets the mood for the rest of the film. Terry (Rasmus Hardiker) and Andy (Harry Treadaway) are a pair of brothers always one step over the line dividing “legal” from “go straight to jail.” Hard not to be, however, when their beloved grandfather Ray (Alan Ford) is one of the most notorious gangsters in London, albeit long retired. His retirement home is slated for demolition and Terry and Andy decide to do the only thing sensible: rob a bank with their moronic friend Davey (Jack Doolan), insane gun-runner “Mental” Mickey (Ashley Thomas) and locksmith cousin Katy (Michelle Ryan). As expected, the robbery goes ass-over-tea kettle mighty quick and the gang (which makes the Apple Dumpling Gang look like the Triad) are forced to take hostages. When they finally bluster out of the bank, however, they discover that everything, including the surrounding cops, has been over-run by your standard, garden-variety zombie outbreak. The group must work together (not always the easiest the easiest thing when one of your members is a hair-trigger gun-nut with a metal plate in his head) and make their way to Ray’s retirement home, where the decidedly non-helpless septuagenarian has organized the various old men and women into a lean, mean, zombie-killing team. He might not need help but he’s more than happy to put a boot up the lads’ asses for botching the hold-up: he has a reputation to uphold, after all!

First of all, let it be said that Cockneys vs Zombies is legitimately, laugh-out-loud funny. Similar to other well-made horror-comedies like the aforementioned Shaun of the Dead and Tucker and Dale vs Evil, C vs Z gets much of its biggest laughs from character development and well-timed extended jokes. While the film has plenty of fun gently ribbing the various clichés of zombie films (one character remarks that he’s surprised the dead don’t move faster, to which another quips, “Well, they’re dead, aren’t they?”; an old man “outruns” a horde of extremely slow zombies while using a walker), it has much more fun blowing holes in the conventions of gangster/Brit-crime films. Alan Ford, in particular, is absolutely magnificent as Ray, the hardest old man in the entire galaxy. Playing a role that’s like an age-advanced version of Brick Top in Snatch, Ford doesn’t chew the scenery: he napalms the landscape and toasts marshmallows in the ruddy glow. Ford is so intense, so spot-on endearing that he’s almost like a black hole: it’s impossible to escape his orbit for any given scene. In fact, the absolutely bananas ending, where Ray yells out “Oi, zombies: get the fook outta me East End” as he machine-guns hordes of the ravenous dead was so epic that I almost restarted the movie from scratch as soon as it ended. There’s a whole lot going for C Vs Z but don’t think for one minute that it would be half the film it is without Ford’s take-no-prisoners performance.

The rest of the cast, while nowhere near as magnetic as Ford, still bring their A-games. Hardiker and Treadaway are completely likable and believable as the slightly dense brothers who really do love their granddad and are always just one bad idea away from success. Ashley Thomas, as Mental Mickey, gets to chew up whatever scenery Ford leaves intact and he’s consistently fun to watch, even if his delivery eventually approaches cartoon levels. Tony Gardner deserves special mention as Clive, one of the hostages and just about the biggest douchebag to grace the screen in some time. Astute viewers might also notice former Bond girl Honor Blackman (Goldfinger) as one of Ray’s fellow rest-home residents. Like similar British crime-comedies, C vs Z is very much an ensemble piece and the whole cast works amazingly well together.

I’ve already said that Cockneys vs Zombies works great as a crime film: how does it fare as a zombie film? To be honest, it does pretty damn well. In some cases, I’d actually rank it above Shaun of the Dead, although Wright’s film is probably more consistent. There are two set-pieces in particular, the aforementioned walker vs shufflers bit and another where the tied-up hostages must navigate around a hungry zombie, that easily stand up to the best in the genre and the rest of the action is pretty solid. The gore, for the most part, is practical and looks pretty good: one of the characters dies in a manner reminiscent of Capt. Rhodes “wishbone” death in Day of the Dead and it’s definitely a little urp-worthy.

Ultimately, Cockneys vs Zombies is an incredibly fun, fast-paced and gleefully vulgar film that still manages to be surprisingly good-natured and vibrant. Whether the film is showcasing a character’s failed attempts at Cockney rhyming slang (culminating in one of the funniest, most fist-raising scenes I’ve seen in some time) or a white-knuckle double-decker bus chase, it never ceases to be endlessly inventive and wildly entertaining. Cockney’s vs Zombies has a genuinely smart script and some really interesting ideas floating around. As usual in these kind of British films, there’s a distinct notion of classism, made plain when Ray states, “We’re on our own: we’re old-age pensioners. We gotta take care of ourselves.” He’s taking about them, specifically, but he may as well be speaking for all of the old, poor and marginalized people who must fend for themselves. It’s a sobering reminder that the haves and the have-nots will experience whatever apocalypse might be coming in very different ways: some will observe from relative comfort while others will be getting dirty in the trenches. Cockneys vs Zombies, however, is a film that knows how possible, if highly difficult, it is for the little guy to make good. In the face of grave odds, the salt of the earth will always prevail. As Terry so eloquently puts it: “The East End has been through far worse. It’ll bounce back: it always has.”

He’s talking about them, specifically, but he could really be talking about any of us.