11/1/14 (Part One): Through the Killing Glass

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Absentia, Brenton Thwaites, brother-sister relationships, childhood fears, childhood trauma, children in peril, cinema, co-writers, differing viewpoints, estranged siblings, evil mirror, film reviews, films, flashback narrative, haunted mirror, horror, horror films, horror movies, institutionalized, James Lafferty, Jeff Howard, Karen Gillan, Katee Sackhoff, Miguel Sandoval, Mike Flanagan, Movies, Oculus, paranormal investigators, possession, Rashomon, Rory Cochrane, voice-over narration, writer-director-editor

Is truth absolute or relative? It’s a question that philosophers and social scientists have been asking for pretty much as long as the disciplines have existed. If we perceive something as “true,” does that make it so? The vast majority of us can agree that 2+2=4 but is this because the math behind it is absolute or because enough people agree that it is to make it so? What if 2+2 actually equals 5 and we’ve all been deluding ourselves, accepting as “true” something that only exists thanks to our shared rationalizations?

The question of “What is truth?” or, in variation, “What is real?,” is one that films have been asking (and answering) practically from their genesis. When the Lumiere brothers first shocked audiences with the dread notion that an actual train might rampage from the screen straight into the theater, there was much discussion about capturing the “reality” of life and putting it on the big screen. Some fifty years later, legendary auteur Akira Kurosawa would explore the idea of absolute vs relative truth with his classic Rashomon (1950), which explored the vagaries of a single terrible crime through multiple, opposing points of view, leading audiences to wonder whether there could ever be “one truth” when multiple individuals are involved. And now, over sixty years past Rashomon, we once again visit the concept of truth with writer-director-editor Mike Flanagan’s stylish slow-burner Oculus (2013), in which childhood memories and fears come back to haunt the grown children, leading them (and the audience) to wonder just what is true and what is a horrible nightmare.

Tim Russell (Brenton Thwaites) has been under a psychiatric hold for years after some undetermined childhood trauma: after being deemed fit to re-enter society by his shrink (Miguel Sandoval), Tim must now make the difficult reintegration back into “the real world.” Luckily, he’s got his sister, Kaylie (Karen Gillan), for support: they both lived through the same trauma, so who better to lean on? When Tim moves back into the old family house with Kaylie, he ends up receiving a pretty huge shock: the supposedly cursed mirror that Tim held responsible for the tragic deaths of their parents is back in Kaylie’s possession. Kaylie, for her part, is revealed to be more than a little obsessive: while Tim has spent his years in the looney-bin trying to forget the evil mirror, Kaylie has spent the same amount of time tracking it back down, with the ultimate goal of destroying the cursed glass once and for all.

This, of course, is not as easy as it first seems: the mirror appears to possess a feral intelligence and ruthlessly protects itself, confusing both Tim and Kaylie with hallucinations and false memories. Or does it? You see, neither Tim nor Kaylie seem to be playing with full decks and we get the notion, early on, that all is not as it seems. Things become even more complex when we begin to get flashbacks of their childhood incidents, their individual memories of which completely contradict each other. Who’s actually telling the truth, Tim or Kaylie? Is the mirror actually haunted or are these just two very damaged individuals who need to be locked away from polite society? What actually happened to their parents all those years ago? And if the mirror really is malevolent…what does it actually want? By the film’s powerful twist conclusion, we’ll get the answers to all of these questions, along with a host of others that we didn’t even think to ask.

Mike Flanagan first came to my attention with the indie horror film Absentia (2011), a subtle, creepy little movie about what happens when a woman’s long-missing husband mysteriously shows up again, as if nothing had ever happened. While I enjoyed the ideas and measured pace behind Absentia, there was something about the film that just left me cold: I was left with the notion that Flanagan was a potentially fascinating writer-director who just needed a slightly better vehicle. I’m very happy to report that Oculus is, indeed, just that vehicle and manages to surpass his preceding film in every way imaginable.

Look-wise, Oculus is an elegant, stately affair that fits in nicely with the polished aesthetic of recent films like Insidious (2010) or The Conjuring (2013). That being said, the film is actually a good deal more vicious than either of those entries, coming in as a more intelligent, well-made variation on Alexandre Aja’s gore-athon Mirrors (2008). Oculus gets lots of mileage out of the notion that Tim and Kaylie might not be perceiving reality in the same way that we are: the thoroughly uncomfortable scene where Kaylie gets ready to take a big bite out of a juicy apple that’s probably a lightbulb is a real eye-opener. This particular conceit works so brilliantly in the film precisely because it’s so intrinsically tied with the notion of true: if we can’t believe what we see, how do we actually know what’s true and what’s an illusion?

Structurally, Oculus employs a dizzying melding of the past and present, as we witness two separate timelines (Tim and Kaylie as kids, in the past, and adults, in the present) play out, oftentimes simultaneously. By the film’s rollercoaster final third, the two timelines have become so connected that they seem to overlap and blur into each other: as Kaylie and Tim get more and more lost down the rabbit hole of their childhood, so, too, does the audience get more and more lost trying to figure out what’s taking place when. While this could have become unnecessarily frustrating and overly complex, the tactic works like a charm: the film is so tense and chaotic by the end that I was, literally, riveted to the front of my seat.

One of Oculus’ biggest assets is a whip-smart script, courtesy of Flanagan and co-writer Jeff Howard. Rather than dumbing things down for an (assumed) tuned-out audience, Flanagan floors it and lets spectators hang on for dear life: Oculus is absolutely not a film that rewards lazy viewing, as so much of the film happens in the margins. Oftentimes, what Kaylie and Tim don’t say to each other is more telling than what they do. There also seems to be a refreshing lack of holes in the storyline: while we’re still left with doubts by the end credits, the most important realization is that Flanagan and Howard had none…everything about Oculus speaks to careful planning and exact execution.

On an acting-level, Oculus is, likewise, rock-solid: Gillan and Thwaites make for an appealingly sympathetic pair of protagonists: even when they appear to be deep in the thrall of complete insanity, we really push for them to pull through. There’s a deep vein of tragedy that runs through Oculus (or, perhaps, fatalism?), similar to films like The Burrowers (2008). Thanks to the jagged performances and forbidding atmosphere, we’re never far from the notion that this all will end horribly: when it does, there’s not so much the idea of “calling the ending” as there is Shakespearian pre-destination. These characters will not fail because they are bad people: they will fail because they, like all humans, are fallible and bound by their fate. Oculus is one of the few modern horror films that actually earns the word tragedy, imbuing it with every inch of the classical definition it deserves.

All in all, Flanagan’s Oculus really is an exceptional, powerful film: it should easily appeal to fans of “prestige” horror films, despite the occasional gore scene that “goes to 11,” shall we say. There’s a rare intelligence and grace here that marks Flanagan as exactly the sort of filmmaker I was hoping he would turn out to be: with any luck, he’ll continue to create individual, memorable works like this for some time. While there will always be a soft spot in my heart for mindless slashers and creature features, I’ll take intelligent, mature horror like this any day. If nothing else, Oculus might make you think twice every time you walk by a mirror or catch movement out of the corner of your eye: like any good horror film, it burrows its way into your psyche, taking up residence in the attic of your mind like so many family ghosts.

10/25/14 (Part One): Where’s Howie When You Need Him?

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31 Days of Halloween, brothers, Bryan Rasmussen, childhood fears, childhood trauma, cinema, creature feature, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, Eric Stolze, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, Gattlin Griffith, Jonny Weston, Kelcie Stranahan, kids in peril, Little Monsters, monster movies, monsters under the bed, Movies, Musetta Vander, nightmares, Peter Holden, Sam Kindseth, Silent Night, Steven C. Miller, The Gate, Tyler Steelman, Under the Bed

If there’s one fear that’s pretty universal among kids, I’d be more than willing to wager that it’s the old “monster under the bed.” For generations of youngsters, bedtime consists of a series of arcane processes – not touching the floor, staying under the covers, keeping the light on – solely designed to prevent one from becoming a late-night snack. As children grow older and get their first experiences with the “real” world, however, the omnipresent threat of monsters under the bed diminishes, replaced by the all-too real knowledge that plenty of flesh-and-blood monsters are around to worry about without stressing over the imaginary ones. For a time, however, monsters under the bed are as real as it gets for kids (just watch the mortifying Little Monsters (1989) for evidence of that) and, undoubtedly, perfect fodder for a horror film.

This, of course, leads us to director Steven C. Miller’s Under the Bed (2012), the follow-up to his excellent remake of the Santa-themed slasher Silent Night (2012). Working from a script by Eric Stolze (who also wrote the upcoming werewolf flick Late Phases (2014)), Miller turns in a glossy, rather bombastic, effort that has a similar visual style to films like Insidious (2010) and The Conjuring (2013), yet ends up being a much more violent, graphic affair. If anything, Under the Bed’s rather formidable violence is one of the film’s big issues, as it sets up a decidedly schizophrenic tone: at times, the film feels like it’s pitched at young adults, yet features a scene where someone’s head is slowly ripped into several pieces. Suffice to say, Mr. Rogers would not approve.

Under the Bed kicks off as Neal (Jonny Weston) returns home for the first time in years, coming back to his younger brother, Paulie (Gattlin Griffith) and father, Terry (Peter Holden, looking for all the world like a surly Zach Galifianakis). It would appear that Neal has spent time in some sort of care facility, apparently due to the traumatic death of his mother in a house-fire. The relationship between Terry and Neal seems to strained, indicating that the father may hold his son more accountable for his mother’s death than he lets on. When Neal returns, however, he seems to be more on edge than ever: he’s afraid that the evil he fled years ago is still there…and he would be absolutely correct.

Turns out that Neal had a run-in with an actual monster years ago, a beast which now appears to be stalking his little brother. Terry won’t listen to this foolishness, however: he’s convinced that Neal had a nervous breakdown and is now back to “infect” his other son with the same foolishness. Only Neal and Paulie know the truth, however: something hungry, evil and vicious lives under the bed in Paulie’s room. As Neal and Paulie inch ever closer to confronting this source of ultimate evil, this monster that was also responsible for their mother’s death, they find a kindred spirit (of sorts) in neighbor Cara (Kelcie Stranahan), whose little brothers think Neal and Paulie are just about the creepiest things in the neighborhood. Aid also comes from an unlikely source when the boys’ new step-mom, Angela (Musetta Vander), comes to believe them and throws her support into the ring. Will all of this be enough to destroy childhood fears made flesh or will the brothers and their allies become just more midnight snacks for the creature?

For the most part, Under the Bed is a perfectly decent, middle-of-the-road “kids versus monsters” story, albeit one told with the utter seriousness of a biblical epic. Truth be told, the bombastic, over-the-top tone of the film, reinforced by everything from the overly shouty performances (Jonny Weston, in particular, can effortlessly play to the back rafters) to the brash, loud musical score, tends to wear one down after a while: for the life of me, I found myself wishing that everyone, monster included, which just chill out and have a quiet sit-down by the time the film was rushing towards its manic climax. There’s just too much of everything here: too much shouting, too many loud musical stingers, too much “acting” when something more subtle would suffice. Under the Bed isn’t a bad film, by any stretch, but it is an extremely tedious one, which might actually be a worse sin.

Which, ultimately, is a bit of a bummer, since there’s plenty to like here. The overall storyline, about the demonic presence under the bed, is a solid one, if hammered home with way too heavy a hand and the creature/gore effects are expertly executed. In particular, the scenes where Neal goes into the “under the bed world” to save Paulie are pretty fabulous: I really wish we got to spend more time in that apocalyptic world, with ash floating through the air like snow, but the most we get are a couple fast, rather confusingly edited bits that are the equivalent of a famous actor making a quick cameo. I was also dutifully impressed by the filmmakers’ ability to kill off kids and main characters at the drop of a hat: usually, both group tend to be fairly sacred cows in films like this but there’s the refreshing notion that no one is safe, which tends to up the stakes considerably.

If anything, Under the Bed reminds me of a combination of the disappointing, Guillermo del Toro produced Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2010) and the minor ’80s classic, The Gate (1987), both of which focused on demonic beasties harassing spunky kids. The film borrows its slick visual sense and tone from the former, while it gets some of its violence and story structure from the latter. This also means, of course, that the film seems to have precious little identity of its own, a matter further complicated by the aforementioned extreme violence: often times, the film is completely appropriate to younger audiences, similar to The Gate. At times, however, the violence zooms straight into Grand Guignol territory (that head-ripping bit is a real corker and this comes from a guy who’s pretty much the definition of jaded.

Ultimately, Under the Bed isn’t a bad film but it’s much less than what it could have been, especially when one considers just how great Silent Night was: the “backward” progression seems a bit worrisome, especially for a director with a relatively small body of work. With a lot more restraint and a clearer goal, Under the Bed might have been a minor classic, just like The Gate. As it stands, however, the film should appeal to monster lovers and curious horror-philes but probably won’t have much of a bigger resonance past that. Which, again, is a shame, since it came so close to being a contender.

 

10/15/14: All in the Family

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31 Days of Halloween, adoption, Andres Muschietti, based on a short, childhood fears, children in peril, cinema, co-writers, Daniel Kash, David Fox, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, fairy tales, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Guillermo del Toro, horror, horror movies, Isabelle Nelisse, Jane Moffat, Jessica Chastain, Mama, Megan Charpentier, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, sisters, The Woman in Black, writer-director

For the majority of its run-time, writer-director Andres Muschietti’s Mama (2013) is a moody, atmospheric and fairly slick little chiller that handily recalls such recent films as Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2010) and The Woman in Black (2012). Relying more on suspense and fantastic visuals than creative bloodshed or mass chaos, there’s something decidedly old-fashioned, yet intensely endearing, about the film’s rather modest aims. It’s nothing we haven’t seen before, for the most part, but it’s an incredibly easy film to get along with.

At the climax, however, Muschietti tries something a little bold and stretches for a pretty emotional, almost melodramatic, finale. While this tactic could have resulted in something with all the consistency of sodden cardboard, it actually ends up working spectacularly well, imbuing the film with a warm, authentically emotional and subtly powerful finale. If the final moments can color our ultimate impression of a film (how many otherwise quality movies have been all but ruined by terrible endings?), then Mama’s finale helps boost the movie up into a slightly loftier collection of peers.

Muschietti’s feature-length debut is actually an expansion of his earlier short (also called Mama), which garnered quite a bit of attention, particularly from genre superhero Guillermo del Toro. Suitably impressed with Muschietti’s ability to combine atmospheric chills, creepy visuals and genuine emotional impact, del Toro jumped on as executive producer, leading to the full-length expansion that we’re currently discussing. There’s always an inherent danger to expanding a short into a feature: one merely has to look at the vast majority of SNL “features” to fully see how difficult it can be to stretch 5 minutes of material across 90 minutes of dead air. In this case, however, Muschietti has succeeded in expanding out his original idea without making the whole exercise seem unnecessary and academic.

Beginning with a haltingly handwritten “Once upon a time…” scrawled in white over a black screen, Mama has all of the nightmare unreality and sense of fantasy of the best fairy tales. We follow an obviously distraught man as he packs up his two young daughters (leaving their pet dog behind, which strikes a subtly ominous tone from the get-go) and races out for an isolated cabin in the woods. His behavior is erratic and frightening and there’s nothing about this that seems to spell a happy (or long) life for either young girl. Once at the cabin, however, the father is attacked and dragged off by some kind of unseen something, leaving his daughters on their own in the middle of nowhere.

Jumping ahead five years, we learn that the girls’ uncle, Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), has been looking for them ever since, despite the nagging notion that five years is an awful long time for a couple of young kids to be missing. As luck would have it, Lucas’ friend, Burnsie (David Fox), manages to stumble into the hidden cabin in the woods and finds the young girls alive and well, if filthy and seemingly feral. With the aid of his punk-rocker girlfriend, Annabel (Jessica Chastain) and the kindly Dr. Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash), Lucas attempts to reintegrate the girls back into the civilized world.

The girls, however, are acting a bit odd, to say the very least. For one thing, they won’t stop talking about the mysterious “Mama” that (supposedly) cared for them in the cabin for the past five years. Burnsie and Lucas find no sign of anyone, however, leading them to believe that the girls have retreated into their imaginations in order to deal with the trauma of their father’s actions. Even more unnerving, however, are the quiet little conversations that Victoria (Megan Charpentier) and Lilly (Isabelle Nelisse) appear to have with no one in particular. As these behaviors continue, Lucas and Annabel begin to feel the influence of a powerful, potentially malevolent force.

When Lucas is inexplicably shoved down the stairs by an unseen force, Annabel is forced to care for the kids on her own, while her boyfriend lies unconscious in the hospital. Despite her steadfast refusal to devote herself to kids or “settling down,” Annabel comes to care for Victoria and Lilly, vowing to protect them at all costs. Something else feels protective towards the children, however, something primal, evil and relentless. It would seem that someone else was looking after the girls, after all…and Mama has no intention of letting her “babies” go without one helluva fight.

Similar to Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and The Woman in Black, Mama puts atmosphere before action and setpieces, which tends to give the whole affair a more muted, subtle feel. This isn’t to say that the film doesn’t feature more “modern” scare moments (ie: the “screeching jump-scare sound of death”) but it is to say that these moments are easily the film’s weakest. When allowed to spool out slow and creepy, however, Mama proves to be a real winner. There one scene, in particular, which showcases the film’s aesthetic to great effect: as Annabel and Victoria play in one room, Lilly plays with an unseen Mama in the other. The shot is devised as a “natural” split screen, with the door frame dividing the screen in half. It’s a cleverly staged moment, to be sure, but it’s also a fantastically effective one: I’m willing to wager that more than one viewer will experience a bit of the ol’ goose-flesh during that particular moment.

As mentioned earlier, the film is aided considerably by a nicely realized, very emotional finale. Without giving anything way, suffice to say that Muschietti manages to temper the character of Mama with enough melancholy to put her evil into a different perspective, allowing for a climax that’s equal parts sad, lovely and very satisfying. There’s nothing especially upbeat about Mama but it also refuses to traffic in easy “sorrow-porn,” either.

Craftwise, the film has a consistently polished look that works quite nicely, especially during the aforementioned finale. The special effects scenes, while obviously CGI, are fairly well-integrated into the film, allowing everything to feel a bit more organic than in the similar Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (which often felt perilously close to slipping into CGI-silliness). The acting is good, although I must admit to being less than impressed with Chastain’s performance: her character vacillates between whiny and ridiculously self-assured and there were plenty of moments where I found myself unable to fully invest in her character. By contrast, Charpentier and Nelisse are rather amazing as the young girls: child actors can be notoriously hit-and-miss but there’s nothing about either one of their performances that took me out of the film, especially once things start to ramp up in the final third.

While there’s nothing especially gritty about Mama, it stands as an exceptionally well-made, effective and moving bit of fairy-tale influenced horror. From the outstanding opening credit sequence (creepy kids’ drawings that tell the film’s story in shorthand) to the knockout finale, Mama is a consistent pleasure. It may not be the most original film in the world (astute viewers should probably be able to get the general drift by at least the midpoint of the film, if not sooner) but it’s also the furthest thing from anonymous dreck as one can get. If you’re a fan of slicker, more commercial fare (the movie is rated PG-13 which, for the most part, means absolutely nothing nowadays), you could definitely do a whole lot worse than pulling yourself up to Mama’s table.

10/5/14: The Boy Who Cried “Martian!”

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'80s films, 31 Days of Halloween, alien invaders, Bud Cort, child heroes, childhood fears, cinema, Eaten Alive, film reviews, films, Hunter Carson, Invaders From Mars, James Karen, Karen Black, Laraine Newman, Louise Fletcher, martians, Movies, Poltergeist, remakes, sci-fi, sci-fi-horror, set in the 1980's, Spielberg, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Funhouse, Timothy Bottoms, Tobe Hooper

Despite beginning his career with ultra-gritty, low-budget chillers like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Eaten Alive (1977) and The Funhouse (1981), horror auteur Tobe Hooper quickly moved into an odd, mid-’80s phase that saw him tackle bigger budget, more mainstream fare such as the smash-hit, Spielberg-produced Poltergeist (1982), the bizarre space vampire/sci-fi shocker Lifeforce (1985), a remake of the ’50s-era sci-fi classic, Invaders From Mars (1986) and a more expensive, candy-colored sequel to his debut, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986). Since that time, Hooper’s career has been all over the place, although he hasn’t managed to return (as of yet, at least) to either his ’70s-era glory days or his inscrutable ’80s output. While none of his ’80s films, with the exception of Poltergeist, ever made much of a splash (indeed, his ’80s era Canon films actually helped to nail the lid on that studio’s coffin), they’re all infinitely better than the “paint-by-numbers” TV productions and Poverty Row genre pics that would dominate his ’90s-’00s filmography.

Of his ’80s-era films, Invaders From Mars is easily the slightest entry on Hooper’s resume. While Lifeforce wasn’t entirely successful, it was completely audacious, which certainly must count for something. Most critics and fans seem to detest The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 but I’ve never understood the derision or hate that gets heaped on that film: it may not be the same type of movie as the original but it’s a pretty genius production, in its own right, and handily slots into the series’ original mythology before subsequent sequels would scatter the storyline to the four winds. Poltergeist, of course, is almost universally revered, although the conventional wisdom has always been that Spielberg had as big a hand in the production as Hooper did (anyone familiar with films like Eaten Alive and The Funhouse, however, will see plenty of parallels in Poltergeist: Spielberg may have been a presence on the set…he is Spielberg, after all…but the film doesn’t feel like it was his, alone). Of these films, then, only Invaders From Mars seems to stick out like a sore thumb. Lacking the sheer, nutty verve of his other ’80s films, Hooper’s take on the ’50s sci-fi staple isn’t a bad film but it does feel slight and unnecessary, which certainly isn’t a particularly strong recommendation. More than anything, however, Invaders From Mars strikes me as a definite product of its era: unlike classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or even The Funhouse, Hooper’s Invaders has not aged particularly well.

One rainy night, young David Gardner (Hunter Carson) happens to see some sort of alien spaceship descend from the skies and land somewhere over the hills behind his house. David’s a bit of a space buff, so his parents don’t entirely (or at all) believe his story about the UFO but his dutiful father, George (Timothy Bottoms), nonetheless goes over to check it out. Next morning, Mr. Gardner is acting extremely odd: he seems emotionless and robotic, is walking around with one slipper as if it’s the most normal thing in the world and has a strange mark on the back of his neck. David is instantly suspicious of his father but the situation gets even worse after his mother takes a walk with George in the hills (after she finishes washing the dishes, of course): the following morning, she’s equally listless and strange, although she also appears to have developed an appetite for raw hamburger. Something, clearly, is going on.

The situation continues at school, as David overhears his much-detested teacher, Mrs. McKeltch (Louise Fletcher) discussing some sort of secret plans with an equally suspicious police officer, plans which somehow also involve David’s father. David flees his sinister teacher and lands straight in the arms of school nurse, Linda (genre vet Karen Black). Linda doesn’t quite believe David, either, but she’s noticed that something seems to be going on and is determined to get to the bottom of it. “It,” of course, is an evil plan by Martians to invade the earth, a plan which only David and Linda seemed equipped to stop. With time running out and the whole town seemingly under alien control, David and Linda must risk their own lives and freedom in a desperate bid to repel the intruders and restore order to their formerly sleepy little town.

For the most part, Hooper’s version of Invaders From Mars is no better or worse than most similarly constructed/plotted sci-fi films. The creature designs, courtesy of legendary effects artist Stan Winston, are pretty excellent, although it’s a little distracting that the Supreme Martian Leader is a dead-ringer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle’s Krang: since Krang debuted sometime in 1987/88, I’m more than willing to wager that the character might have been influenced by Hooper’s film. On the other hands, many of the films other effects are absolutely awful, including some of the worst laser effects ever put to film. The musical score is thoroughly generic, although there are some nifty elements to the cinematography: in particular, the spaceship scenes are extremely well-done and favorably compare to similar scenes in Spielberg’s iconic Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).

As with the technical side of the film, the acting in Invaders From Mars is equally hit-or-miss. Carson actually does a great job as David: he’s believable and only rarely irritating, two qualities that seem rather rare for ’80s-era child actors. The part where David calls the Martian leader “dickbrain” is pretty great, as it directly recalls the way that the kids speak in other ’80s films like Spielberg’s ET (1982) or Richard Donner’s The Goonies (1985). I also got a big kick out of character actor Bud Cort’s turn as Dr. Weinstein: the bit where he tries to talk sensibly to the Martians is just a hairbreadth away from greatness. On the flip side, Louise Fletcher is astoundingly terrible as Mrs. McKeltch, while Karen Black becomes tedious by the film’s final reel, reduced to no more than a living, breathing, running bag of scream. She begins the film strong but devolves into wet paste, which seems like a terribly shabby way to treat the scream queen.

Of all of these issues, however, none bother me quite so much as the obnoxious ending. Without giving (much) away, suffice to say that anyone who’s familiar with Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City (1980) will know exactly what I’m talking about. These kinds of endings always strike me as cheap, ridiculous cop-outs and it ends up being a severely deflating way to finish the film. Whatever good will had been built up by the final scene was largely squandered with one of those endings that seems designed to elicit nothing more than forehead slapping and audience groaning.

Despite my problems with the movie, however, I would still rather watch something genuine, if a bit clumsy, than something that feels like a carbon-copy of a million other films. When the film works, it’s a rousing, entertaining throwback to a time when effects were still mostly practical and kids’ movies (I still feel that this is aimed at slightly younger audiences) could feel dangerous and high stakes without seeming completely age inappropriate. It’s telling that my warm feelings once the film ended were largely nostalgia-based: while the film itself was fun, it reminded me pretty explicitly of my own youth, which really increased my appreciation of the finished product. Had I not grown up in this era, however, I wonder if I would find Invaders From Mars quite as charming? Despite its good qualities, I’m pretty sure that this won’t supplant TCM 2 as my go-to ’80s Hooper film, although it practically begs for a future double-feature with the original.

 

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.

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.