7/29/15 (Part One): A Sinister Case of Deja Vu

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Antonia Campbell-Hughes, archival footage, archivists, Calum Heath, Carl Shaaban, Ceiri Torjussen, cheating partners, children in peril, cinema, dead children, dramas, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, foreign films, Hannah Hoekstra, haunted bathrooms, horror, horror films, human sacrifice, husband-wife relationship, infidelity, Irish films, Ivan Kavanagh, Kelly Byrne, Movies, Piers McGrail, Robin Hill, Rupert Evans, sewer tunnels, Sinister, Steve Oram, supernatural, The Canal, The Ring, twist ending, UK films, writer-director

Here’s a bit of friendly advice, free of charge and as heartfelt as the day is long: should there ever come a time when you’re in the market for a house and discover creepy video footage of terrible acts being committed in said house…go find another damn house. I mean, sure: this particular place might have hardwood floors, a nice backyard, good schools, a progressive city council and easy access to public transportation. If, however, it was also a place where people were tortured/murdered/sacrificed/et al, well…is linoleum really that bad?

While there have been a handful of films that have utilized the above trope to good effect, perhaps none have been more recently popular than Scott Derrickson’s Sinister (2012), in which Ethan Hawke moves his family into a former “murder house” and shit gets all kinds of…you know…sinister. On the heels of that surprise smash (with a sequel scheduled for sometime in the near future), we get Irish writer-director Ivan Kavanagh’s The Canal (2014), in which a husband/father discovers that his family’s new(ish) home might have more than a few secrets of its own. Similar to Derrickson’s film in some pretty substantial ways, The Canal still manages to carve out its own path, paralleling the sad dissolution of a marriage with the eerie happenings in and around a creepy house and the adjoining canal.

We first meet our hapless hero, David (Rupert Evans), as he and his pregnant wife, Alice (Hannah Hoekstra), are just about to buy the aforementioned creepy house. Flash forward five years and David, Alice and their now five-year-old son, Billy (Calum Heath), seem content in their abode, although we get hints of trouble in paradise. In particular, David and Alice seem to have a strained relationship that includes her getting late-night calls from “clients,” one of whom, a strapping young lad named Alex (Carl Shaaban), seems to be just a little too close for comfort to David’s lady-love.

As these dramatic developments are unfolding, David’s day-job suddenly inserts itself into the equation. You see, David and his partner, Claire (Antonia Campbell-Hughes), are film archivists and they’ve just got in a new batch of old police films, one of which takes place in the very house that David, Alice and Billy call home. It appears that a husband murdered his philandering wife, was jailed, escaped and proceeded to hunt down and slaughter his own son and the boy’s nanny. Faster than you can whisper “sinister,” David has become obsessed with the case, the grisly details of which have begun to seep into his dreams.

Opting to follow his hunch, David trails Alice, one night, and his worst fears are confirmed when he witnesses her making the beast with two backs with handsome, ol’ Alex. Utterly destroyed, David slouches away and winds up at the undeniably creepy public restroom, next to the canal by his house, where he and his young son once threw stones at “ghosts.” While sobbing in a stall, David is confronted by a mysterious figure who intones the suitably chilling “The Master wants you.” Racing out, he seems to be just in time to witness his wife grappling with someone by the water’s edge.

When his wife never comes home that night, David calls the police and ends up in the gravitational pull of one Detective McNamara (Steve Oram), a cagey, soft-spoken Irish Columbo who gets one of the film’s best lines: “People always suspect the husband. You know why that is? Because it’s always the fucking husband.” Needless to say, McNamara doesn’t buy David’s story of a mysterious assailant or bathroom visitation for one minute: from the jump, it’s pretty obvious that he’s a bulldog with a bone and has no intention of dropping his “prize” whatsoever, especially once Alice’s body is hauled up from the canal.

As David tries to keep his life together, with the endless assistance of long-suffering, pot-smoking nanny Sophie (Kelly Byrne), he digs deeper and deeper into the history of his house. Turns out that the aforementioned husband and wife weren’t the only tragedies in the home’s past: there’s a virtual laundry list of previous crimes, atrocities and terrible acts, including a woman who burned her own child alive but insists that “demons” did it. David becomes convinced that the house (and adjoining canal) are all part of a terrible child sacrifice conspiracy, a terrifying tradition of evil that he, Alice and Billy have, unwittingly, become part of. To make matters worse (better?), David sees all manner of strange, creepy figures around the house, especially once he begins to film supposedly empty rooms with an old-fashioned movie camera.

With Claire and Sophie worried about his sanity and McNamara doing his damnedest to put him into jail, David knows that the only way to clear his name is to uncover the hideous paranormal monstrosities at the heart of it all. Is David really getting a peep into a murderous, ghostly phantasmagoria or is he just as insane and guilty as McNamara assumes? To find out, David will need to do the unthinkable: he’ll need to go into the murky, seemingly bottomless depths of the canal. Will he find salvation…or doom?

Exceptionally well-made, if always a little too obvious, writer-director Kavanagh’s The Canal is the latest in a series of austere, serious-minded and atmospheric horror films that include the likes of Absentia (2011), The Pact (2011) and Oculus (2013), among others. As with the rest of these “New Wave of Atmospheric Horror” (NWoAH, patent pending) films, The Canal looks and sounds great: the colors are bright and vibrant (the color palette switches between reds and blues, depending on David’s current state of mind), cinematographer Piers McGrail (who also shot the highly lauded Let Us Prey (2014)) shoots some truly lovely footage and the sense of creeping unease is thick from the jump.

The acting is solid, with Evans and Oram leading the pack, albeit from two completely opposite sides of the coin: Evans perfectly portrays the combined despair, agony, fear, rage and sorrow within David, leading to a performance that’s truly three-dimensional, even if the whole thing is colored in shades of gray and black. Oram, on the other hand, is like a breath of fresh air, a vibrant, alive, cynical and altogether awesome police presence who provides a perfect foil for David and a great source of association for the audience.

Between these towering presences, the rest of the cast acquits themselves nicely (Campbell-Hughes is especially great as David’s partner/only friend), although a few of the characters (Alice’s mother comes immediately to mind) are so under-developed as to be more plot points than real people. I also wish that Hoekstra got a little more to do: there are a few nicely emotional moments between her and David but, by and large, the focus is squarely on him, not her. Due to this, Alice comes across as more of a “bad guy” than anything: since we never get to spend much time with her, the decision to cheat on David also feels more like a plot point than an organic culmination of their relationship.

On the horror side, The Canal also equates quite nicely with the aforementioned NWoAH films: like the others, the film has a chilly, glacial pace and a tendency to rely on slow burn chills and “something’s happening behind you”-isms, although the occasional jump-cuts and loud musical cues are thoroughly off-putting and kind of obnoxious. When you have images as nice as the ones in this film, long, leisurely takes work much better than jump-cuts or quick-cuts, especially when trying to build atmosphere. It’s a minor quibble, to be sure, but one that definitely took me out a time or two.

While The Canal is full of really rich horror moments/imagery (one of the most unforgettable being the zombie-like figure that gives birth to an equally horrifying child…I’ve rarely seen anything quite that nasty and it’s a truly bracing moment), the main problem, once again, ends up being the familiarity of it all. In particular, Kavanagh and company make two explicit references to Gore Verbinski’s remake of The Ring (2002), including one where a creepy woman with long, dark hair crawls out of a television set. To be honest, it’s an oddly lazy moment in a film that’s generally much more interesting than that, although the image, itself, still packs a nice visceral wallop.

There’s also an inherent issue with this kind of “did he/didn’t he?” storyline, especially when the filmmakers seem to push one particular viewpoint over the other: while The Canal does take a few twists and turns and does a good job with the kind of open ending that usually causes me to roll my eyes, nothing that happened was really that surprising or shocking. I felt like I knew what was coming from the first reel and, for the most part, that’s exactly what I got. Again, this isn’t to cast undue derision on Kavanagh’s film as much as to state the relative limitations of this particular kind of tale.

Despite some minor issues and the aforementioned similarities to other films, The Canal is actually quite exceptional: some of the supernatural elements and imagery were quietly stunning and the relationship drama aspect feels utterly real (almost painfully so). One of the scenes, where David films by the canal as “something” approaches the camera, agonizingly slow step by agonizingly slow step, is really as good as NWoAH films get: there’s a genuine sense of building terror that hits you in the gut like a brick.

Looking through Kavanagh’s back-catalog, The Canal appears to be his most explicitly horror-related film, with the majority of his work seeming to fall into the “dark drama” category. This, of course, makes perfect sense: as mentioned earlier, the dissolution of David and Alice’s marriage has a verisimilitude that makes you want to look away, even though you’re too wrapped up in the events to do so. Here’s to hoping that Kavanagh continues to work in the horror field: there are enough good ideas and stylish moments here to indicate that he definitely has something to say. Hopefully, in the future, he won’t lean quite so heavily on what came before: I have a feeling that Kavanagh’s “roads not taken” might lead to some pretty damn interesting places.

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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.

3/3/15 (Part Two): All The Time In the World

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Alejandro Hidalgo, Cezary Jaworski, childhood trauma, children in peril, cinema, directorial debut, dramas, Efraín Romero, family secrets, father-son relationships, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, flashback narrative, flashbacks, foreign films, ghosts, Gonzalo Cubero, Guillermo García, haunted house, haunted houses, Héctor Mercado, horror films, house arrest, husband-wife relationship, infidelity, José León, La Casa del Fin del Los Tiempos, Miguel Flores, mother-son relationships, Movies, mysteries, Rosmel Bustamante, Ruddy Rodríguez, set in Venezuela, Simona Chirinos, supernatural, suspense, The House At the End of Time, Timecrimes, Triangle, Venezuelan films, writer-director, Yoncarlos Medina, Yucemar Morales

Some films grab you from the first frame, locking on like a steel bear-trap and refusing to let go until the end credits roll. Some films, however, take a little longer to work under your skin. Alejandro Hidalgo’s debut feature, La Casa del Fin del Los Tiempos (The House At the End of Time) (2013), is one of those “growers”: while the film has rough patches, it gets gradually better as it progresses, culminating in a genuinely powerful finale that features a twist that’s organic, surprising and very satisfying. For a first-time writer-director, I really couldn’t ask for more.

After spending a couple of decades in prison for the murders of her husband and son, the now-aged Dulce (Ruddy Rodriguez) is released under house-arrest, right back into the same home where the murders originally occurred (her son’s body was never found). Left alone with only her thoughts, memories and the “ghosts” of her past, Dulce settles into a lonely existence, her ever-vigilant guards and the local priest (Guillermo García) serving as her lone connection to the outside world. She’s a sad, broken-down person, surrounded by the ghostly remnants of her former life, never more than a few rooms removed from the place where her husband met his bloody end and her child vanished into thin air.

As Dulce roams around her former home, however, she notes a number of odd occurrences: strange sounds, doors that seem to open of their own volition and, most disturbing, the seeming specter of an elderly man (José León) wielding a butcher knife. The film parallels Dulce’s investigation, in the present, with flashbacks to their original events, decades in the past. In the past, we see a much younger Dulce, her husband, Juan Jose (Gonzalo Cubero) and her two sons, Leopoldo (Rosmel Bustamante) and Rodrigo (Héctor Mercado), as they go about their lives in the house. Before long, the two timelines collide, as Dulce uncovers the full truth of the terrible events that sent her to prison, as well as the full story regarding Leopoldo’s disappearance. What is the history behind the house and its strange, subterranean tunnels? Do ghosts walk its halls or something decidedly more earthbound? And, most importantly: did Dulce really kill her own child?

The House At the End of Time opens with a great deal of atmosphere, similar to the thick Gothic miasma that enfolds Del Toro’s more sedate films, and manages to maintain this for the majority of its runtime. Indeed, one of the film’s great strengths is its claustrophobic aura: Hidalgo and cinematographer Cezary Jaworski get a lot of mileage out of the numerous creepy shots of Dulce exploring her old home, slowly walking from one abandoned hallway to the next. A less self-assured film might pile on the jump scares but Hidalgo shows a remarkable degree of control there, as well: you won’t find a musical stinger or scary-faced spook hiding around every corner in this particular haunted house.

In many ways, the film is a variation on the “alternate timeline” trope, ending up in the same basic peer group as Timecrimes (2007), Triangle (2009) and Coherence (2014). That being said, Hidalgo throws some interesting twists into the idea: it’s nowhere near as complicated as Timecrimes or Coherence but it manages to evoke much of the same vibe. While the various plot machinations don’t always make perfect sense (there’s a reliance on chance and pure, dumb luck that’s uncomfortably close to a deus ex machina, for one thing), it all manages to come together, in the end, and the final resolution is not only a smart way to wrap it up but a genuinely emotional ending.

As mentioned, the film isn’t always smooth sailing. The pacing is slightly off for the first third of the film, giving the movie a lurching, uneven quality. There’s also a few inconsistencies in the performances: while Rodriguez and Cubero are always good (Rodriguez, in particular), the kids waver between decent and way too broad (think sitcom-quality acting). Similarly, Guillermo García is quite believable as the sympathetic priest who takes a personal interest in Dulce’s case, whereas the police officers who guard her feel one step removed from slapstick. None of these are particularly critical issues, mind you: the cops are basically background characters and both of the young performers have plenty of great scenes. The focus of the film is squarely on Rodriguez’s capable shoulders and she acquits herself just fine. For the most part, it’s just the little details that keep the film from really hitting its full potential.

I’ve also got to take a minute to call out the film’s rather dreadful old-age makeup: the constant flopping between past and present obviously necessitates this but there’s absolutely nothing believable about Rodriguez’s “present day” makeup. I’m willing to wager that this was due to budgetary constraints and, as above, is definitely not a critical issue: I’m reminded of how much I enjoy cheap Italian zombie films, despite the fact that the makeup often resembled lumpy oatmeal. It only seems to be an issue here since we spend so much time with “old” Dulce: it’s kind of like having your rubber-suited monster in every single shot…it gets a little hard to properly suspend that disbelief.

When all is said and done, however, The House At the End of Time is a more than worthy accomplishment. Low-key, creepy and intelligent, the film has all the earmarks of a genuine sleeper and bodes good things for Hidalgo’s future. To use one final comparison: imagine the film as an old, reliable vehicle. It may take a few tries to get the motor started but, once it’s chugging away, you have no doubt that it’ll get you to the destination. As I’ve said before: you could ask for a whole lot worse.

2/9/15 (Part Two): Between a Russian and a Hard Place

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action-horror, auteur theory, Ørjan Gamst, Best of 2014, Charlotte Frogner, children in peril, Christian Wibe, cinema, co-writers, dark comedies, Dead Snow, Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead, Derek Mears, Dod Sno, English-language debut, Evil Dead, extreme violence, favorite films, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, flashbacks, foreign films, gore films, Hallvard Holmen, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, horror franchises, horror-comedies, Ingrid Haas, Jocelyn DeBoer, Kristoffer Joner, Martin Starr, Matthew Weston, Movies, multiple writers, Nazi zombies, Nazis, Norwegian films, Peter Jackson, Russians vs Nazis, sequels, special-effects extravaganza, Stig Frode Henriksen, Tommy Wirkola, Vegar Hoel, voice-over narration, writer-director, zombie hunters, zombies with weapons

At one point in Tommy Wirkola’s Dead Snow 2: Red vs Dead (2014), intrepid American zombie hunter Daniel (Martin Starr) turns to our put-upon hero, Martin (Vegar Hoel), and tells him, “I’ve seen thousands of zombie movies and this is not in any of them. You’ve created a whole new genre here, man!” Wirkola might not have invented a whole new genre with Dead Snow 2, per se, but he certainly seems to have perfected the one he’s working in: in every way, shape and form, Wirkola’s long-awaited sequel to his outstanding Dead Snow (2009) is top-shelf entertainment, 100 minutes of pure, unadulterated zombie-killing bliss. Bigger, better, funnier and more explosive than the original, Dead Snow 2 is that very rarest of sequels: it takes the original film, turns it up to 15 (sorry, Tap: this amp is way louder) and gives fans every single thing they wanted, along with lots of things we didn’t know we needed. I hate to draw a line in the sand but here goes: Dead Snow 2 is the single greatest Nazi zombie flick in the long, storied history of moving pictures. Wirkola has done it again.

In a stroke of pure genius, Dead Snow 2 picks up from the very shot that ended the first film, providing one of the very best examples of continuity possible (even more impressive when one considers the five-year gap between the films): all of the principal crew return, along with the previous film’s Vegar Hoel, allowing both films to dovetail as neatly as possible. After escaping from the villainous Herzog (Ørjan Gamst) in a white-knuckle car chase that culminates by introducing the undead commandant to the front grill of a speeding semi (right after he loses his saluting arm), Martin crashes and wakes in the hospital.

Afforded a little breathing space, Martin notices two things right off the bat: he’s handcuffed to the bed and he appears to have a new right arm. A nearby police officer cheerfully lets Martin know that they suspect him of massacring all of his friends from the first film, while a doctor cheerfully tells him that they found his severed arm in the vehicle and decided to reattach it. That’s right, folks: Martin’s new right arm is Col. Herzog’s old one! Faster than you can say “Evil Dead 2,” Martin’s possessed arm is killing the living shit out of everyone around him, forcing him to go on the lam.

As Martin tries desperately to control Herzog’s murderous limb, the undead Nazis rampage across the countryside, slaughtering dozens of unsuspecting civilians at every turn, only to resurrect them as additional zombie soldiers. Herzog’s army grows ever larger and it seems that all might be lost until Martin gets an unexpected call from the Zombie Squad, an American team of professional zombie hunters (according to Daniel): they’re heading across the world to help bail him out and squash the undead Nazi threat once and for all. As we see, however, this group of “professionals” actually consists of Daniel and his two friends, Monica ( Jocelyn DeBoer) and Blake (Ingrid Haas): they operate out of Daniel’s basement, have arguments about the merits of Star Wars vs Star Trek and have, to the best of our knowledge, never actually set eyes on a member of the living dead.

We don’t get to pick our heroes, however, and it soon becomes apparent that Martin, the Zombie Squad and new recruit, Glenn (co-writer Stig Frode Henriksen), are all that stands between the unsuspecting citizens of Norway and an honest-to-god Nazi invasion. When the chips are down, however, Martin will be forced to rely on a rather unorthodox solution: he’s going to have to use Herzog’s arm to resurrect the slain members of a rival Russian POW group. With undead Russians on one side and undead Nazis on the other, however, Martin and his team will quickly learn that leaping from the frying pan to the fire is a mighty fine way to get burned. Will they be able to stop the zombies in time or is the entire world on the cusp of a terrible, bleak new dawn?

As someone who absolutely adored the first Dead Snow, I’ll admit that I was more than a little nervous when I first sat down to watch the sequel: after all, this could only be a disappointment, no matter how small, and actually ran the risk of affecting my positive feelings towards the first film. Turns out I should have had a little more faith in ol’ Tommy: not only is Dead Snow 2 not a disappointment, it’s actually one of the very best films of 2014, horror or otherwise.

The key to the film’s success comes from amplifying those elements that really worked in the first film (the over-the-top action setpieces, the sly humor) and downplaying or eliminating the elements that weren’t quite as successful (namely the fact that Martin is kind of a drippy hero, for much of the film). While the first film had plenty of creepy, more traditionally horror-related scenes (such as the outhouse stalking), Dead Snow 2 is almost completely action-oriented. There are plenty of scenes devoted to zombie mayhem, don’t get me wrong, but nearly all of them are pitched as frenetic, over-the-top action moments, rather than more traditionally “scary” ones. Some of the best scenes in the film are the impossibly mean-spirited ones where the zombies rampage through veritable mobs of innocents, dispatching them in some truly inventive, eye-popping ways. Nothing’s sacred in the film (literally, as one of the plot points involves killing and resurrecting a priest), which anchors the film completely and totally in “early Peter Jackson” territory. From the gag where a tank rolls over a sandbox full of kids to the one where a zombified Nazi guts someone, uses the intestines to siphon gas out of a car and then gives a cheerful thumbs-up, Dead Snow 2 practically holds up a banner that says “Anything’s possible” and dares you to think otherwise.

In fact, this element of “anything goes” is one of the most intoxicating aspects of Wirkola’s film: there’s invention, originality and individuality to burn here, yet it always feels like the biggest surprises/delights are still over the horizon. By the time we get to the resurrected Russians, a ridiculously thrilling fight atop a moving tank and the simply fantastic finale (featuring, quite possibly, the best use of Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” that anyone could come up with, ever, period), the film feels like it’s going to keep piling on badassitude until our collective heads explode. This is the kind of film where the final credits roll and you realize that your chest hurts because you’ve been holding your breath without realizing it.

As with the first film, Wirkola and Henriksen’s script is rock-solid and almost impossibly funny: they’ve doubled-down on the number of gags in this go-round, gifting us with classic moments like the one where Herzog tries to Sieg Heil without his missing arm, the outrageous scene involving Martin and the kid in the hospital that manages to be horrifingly hilarious and some truly inspired bits involving a friendly zombie (Kristoffer Joner) that manage to one-up Bub in every way. The film is a lot funnier than the original, yet still manages to deliver plenty of hardcore/badass moments: the bleeding stained-glass windows as Herzog strides into the church deserve to be iconic and the scene where Daniel turns into a full-on zombie slaughterer is a real thing of beauty. As with the first film, Wirkola perfectly melds the horror and humor: this time around, everything just hits harder because it’s all so much better. Talk about a success story!

As with the first film, Dead Snow 2 looks and sounds absolutely killer: the effects are all top-notch and, with the exception of a few dodgy CGI blood shots, look as real as they need to. Acting-wise, the sequel is head-and-shoulders above the original (which was, itself, no slouch): besides the reset of Martin as a more traditional hero (ala Ash), we also get the always reliable Martin Starr as Daniel; another great, silent turn from Gamst as the vile Herzog (he really gets into the character this time around, giving us a handful of scenes that do the impossible and almost (just barely) begin to humanize the monster) and the brilliant addition of Hallvard Holmen as the impossibly obnoxious Gunga, a rural police chief who’s half-way between a Keystone Kop and James McAvoy’s repellent Bruce from Filth (2014). DeBoer and Haas are quite wonderful as Daniel’s perpetually feuding cohorts (DeBoer’s “May the force be with you” is a definite highlight) and Henriksen is equally great as Glenn: the scene where he, singlehandedly, stands up to the entire Nazi battalion is pure poetry and a real fist-raiser.

I’ve always enjoyed Wirkola’s films (I’ve seen the original Dead Snow quite a bit in the five years since its release and I seem to be one of the few people in the world who really enjoyed Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)) but there’s no denying that Dead Snow 2 marks a new evolution in his filmmaking. At this rate, Wirkola stands a very good chance of becoming the reigning clown-prince of horror-comedy: the level of polish and quality here is astounding. With one foot firmly in the outrageous gore comedies that influenced him (those looking for the red stuff need not fear: Dead Snow 2 is, quite possibly, one of the most splatterific films since Romero’s unassailable Dawn of the Dead (1978)) and the other in the kind of bright, big-budget multiplex fare that have always been anathema to “real” horror, we might be looking at the next, great “uniter,” similar to Edgar Wright. With a sequel to Hansel & Gretel in the works, I’m willing to wager that Wirkola plans to take his game to the next level. Bully for him: as a die-hard member of Team Tommy, I, for one, cannot wait.

1/30/15: Toecutter’s Last Jam

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'70s action films, '70s films, A Clockwork Orange, action films, Australia, Australian films, auteur theory, Brian May, children in peril, cinema, co-writers, cops, cult classic, David Bracks, David Cameron, David Eggby, Death Wish, dramas, dystopian future, feature-film debut, Film auteurs, film franchise, film reviews, films, gang rape, gangs of punks, Geoff Parry, George Miller, highway patrol, Hugh Keays-Byrne, iconic villains, James McCausland, Joanne Samuel, law and order, Mad Max, Max Fairchild, Max Rockatansky, Mel Gibson, motorcycle gangs, Movies, Paul Johnstone, post-Apocalyptic, revenge, road movie, Roger Ward, set in Australia, Sheila Florence, Steve Bisley, The Warriors, thrillers, Tim Burns, Toecutter, vendetta, vengeance, vigilante, Vince Gil, writer-director

When George Miller first introduced the world to Max Rockatansky in 1979, I wonder if he could have predicted that the character would be popular enough to warrant reexamination almost 40 years later. With three films in the Mad Max canon and a fourth coming this year, however, it’s pretty clear that Miller’s Australian “Road Angel of Death” has had some serious staying power. While the upcoming Fury Road (2015) appears to follow the template set by latter-day high velocity outings like Road Warrior (1981) and Beyond Thunderdome (1985), the original film, Mad Max (1979), was a much leaner and meaner affair, albeit no less over-the-top and prone to some particular comic-book affectations. Drawing inspiration from sources as diverse as Death Wish (1974) and A Clockwork Orange (1971) while bearing more than a passing resemblance to The Warriors (1979), Miller’s initial outing is a real doozy and one that would go on to influence generations of action and post-apocalyptic films to come.

Kicking off with an epic, 10-minute smash-and-bash car chase between the howling mad Nightrider (Vince Gil) and a group of unfortunate highway patrol officers, we’re thrust into the middle of the action with no info-dump or warning. As things gradually settle down, a bit, we come to discover that this appears to be a rather lawless, possibly post-apocalyptic, society, where cops and criminals duke it out on the dusty highways that stretch across Australia. At first, Nightrider seems unstoppable, a Tazmanian Devil behind the wheel who handily out-runs, out-drives and out-bravados every cop he comes across. Cue our hero, Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson), the coolest, toughest and most badass patrol officer of the bunch. Max shows up, mirrored shades reflecting back the blistering sun, and proceeds to drive Nightrider straight into an early grave. This, ladies and gentlemen, is his business…and business is very, very good.

Max’s partner, Jim Goose (Steve Bisley), is a good egg and loyal as the day is long, while his superior officer, Fifi (Roger Ward), treats Max like royalty and holds him up as shining example for the rest of the officers. At home, we get to see the softer side of Max: his loving wife, Jessie (Joanne Samuel) blows a mean sax and he’s got a cute baby named Sprog. Life seems pretty darn groovy for this Down Under Dirty Harry but there’s big trouble brewin.’

This big trouble arrives in the form of the dastardly Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne) and his marauding biker gang. Seems that the gang has a bone to pick with Max for snuffing out their beloved Nightrider and Toecutter has sworn vengeance, the bloodier the better. When the gang blows into town to retrieve Nightrider’s coffin, they end up trashing the place, ala an old-fashioned Western, and chase a couple out onto the open road where they destroy their car, chase the guy away and gang-rape the young woman. Max and Goose arrive in time to pick up the pieces, finding the chained, traumatized woman and one of the gang members, Johnny (Tim Burns), so drugged-out that he forgot to run away when the others did.

Faster than you can say Dirty Harry (1971), however, the case gets tossed out and Johnny is released because none of the victims, including the young woman, will come forward to testify. Johnny walks, after taunting the cops, and Goose is furious. When the gang ambushes and attacks Goose in a particularly terrible way, however, Max will have to decide which path to follow, the one that leads to his family or the one that leads to revenge. As Toecutter, his cold-blooded lieutenant, Bubba (Geoff Parry), and the rest of the gang get closer and closer to Max, they will learn one very important lesson: you can do a lot of things to Max Rockatansky but the last thing you wanna do is get the guy mad.

Despite the often grim subject matter (children in peril, rape, collapsing society) and the often intense violence (immolations, dismemberments, semi driving over people), there’s a sense of buoyancy and energy to Mad Max that makes the whole thing a lot closer to a comic-book movie like RoboCop (1987) than to something more serious like, say, The Road (2009) or The Rover (2014). In addition, Miller uses several techniques, such as the wipe transitions between scenes and the jaunty score (courtesy of Australian composer Brian May) that help to elevate this sense of action-adventureism. To be honest, Mad Max often feels like a synthesis of Lethal Weapon (1987) (not specifically because of Gibson’s involvement but more for the depictions of Max’s home-life and the way in which the film’s action constantly toes the “silly/awesome” dividing line) and A Clockwork Orange (the gang’s affectations, slang and Toecutter’s casual brutality all reminded me explicitly of Kubrick’s adaptation), as odd as that may sound.

While never completely serious, aside from the film’s handful of heartstring-pullers, Mad Max never tips all the way over into campy or silly. This isn’t quite the novelty of The Warriors: Toecutter’s gang has an actual air of menace to them, an air that’s not helped by their propensity for rape and assault on innocent civilians. Keays-Byrne is marvelous as the insane gang leader, easily going down as one of the most memorable villains in these type of films: his polite, slightly foppish mannerisms are completely off-set by his hair-trigger barbarity, making for a bracing combination. Nearly as memorable is Geoff Parry’s turn as Bubba Zanetti: his laconic delivery perfectly contrasts with his hot-headed personality making for a character who would’ve been perfect going up against Clint Eastwood in a spaghetti Western.

In fact, more than anything, Mad Max is like a spaghetti Western, albeit one filtered through all of the influences listed above. The interplay between the gang members, between Max and his superiors, between the law and the lawless…the setpieces that could have easily been chases on horseback or wagon…the lonesome, wide-open devastation of the Australian landscape…Sergio Leone might have been proud to call any of them his own.

As one of his first roles, Mad Max set a course for Mel Gibson’s career that would serve him quite well, right up to the point in time where he self-detonated it. Here, however, we get Mel before the headlines, stupidity and career suicide: he’s rock-solid as Rockatansky, bringing just enough vulnerability and indecision to the role to prevent him from ever seeming as completely callous as someone like Eastwood’s Harry Callahan. He also brings a physicality to the role that helps make the whole enterprise seem that much more authentic: Gibson’s performance is so “all-in” that the scene where he limps and drags himself down the pavement genuinely looks like it hurts like hell. It would be the easiest thing in the world to play Max like a video game character but it’s to Gibson’s immense credit that he makes him both so human and so completely badass: it’s easy to see why this became a franchise so quickly, as the magnetism is undeniable.

In some ways, the differences between Mad Max and its predecessors is the same as the difference between the first two Alien or Terminator films: Mad Max is more of a small-scale revenge drama (very similar to Death Wish, particularly in the final reel) whereas the films that followed it are more wide-screen, adventure epics. Despite this, however, I was genuinely surprised to note how honestly cartoonish the film is. Perhaps I picked up on this when I watched the film in the past but it was more apparent now than ever before that the first film fits in perfectly well with the more OTT vibe of the other films. While it may be smaller scale, it’s definitely of a piece with The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome: Toecutter would have fit in nicely in either of those.

With Fury Road on the horizon, I thought it might be useful to go back and revisit the film that started it all. As always, Mad Max doesn’t disappoint: from the rousing action setpieces, astounding car chases, cool-as-a-cucumber lead character, colorful villains and genuine sense of danger and tension, Mad Max is an absolute blast from start to finish. Here’s to hoping that Miller manages to maintain this classic feel with his newest: the world has been without a Rockatansky for way too long now…we need our Mad Max now more than ever.

1/17/15 (Part One): Set An Extra Place at the Table

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A Lonely Place to Die, action films, Adam Wingard, Best of 2014, Brendan Meyer, brother-sister relationships, bullies, Chase Williamson, children in peril, cinema, covert military action, Dan Stevens, dark comedies, Drive, electronic score, families, favorite films, film reviews, films, Joel David Moore, Lance Reddick, Leland Orser, Maika Monroe, military coverup, military experiment, Movies, mystery, Robby Baumgartner, Sheila Kelley, Simon Barrett, Steve Moore, stylish films, Tabatha Shaun, The Guest, thrillers, war veterans, writer/director teams, You're Next

Hot on the heels of their surprise hit, You’re Next (2013), director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett have returned with another gleefully demented genre offering. Whereas their last film took the “home invasion” sub-genre into some truly inspired new directions, this time around, the dynamic duo have set their sights on “stranger in our home” films. Like You’re Next, The Guest (2014) is a gonzo good time, full of clever writing, subtle black-as-coal humor and some truly asskicking action setpieces. At the center of the film is a truly inspired trio of performance from Dan Stevens as the handsome, charismatic and ultra-sensitive “golden boy” who may or may not be a murderous psychopath and Maika Monroe and Brendan Meyer as the savvy kids who may or may not be able to stop him dead in his tracks. The end result? Over 90 minutes of pure, pulpy, cinematic bliss and another check in the “Win” column for the Wingard/Barrett juggernaut.

As the Peterson’s mourn the unexpected death of their soldier son, Caleb, in Iraq, a mysterious visitor shows up and puts the household into a topspin. David (Dan Stevens), a quiet, ridiculously polite and charismatic young man, claims to be a friend of Caleb’s and fellow soldier. After getting discharged, David sought out the Petersons, as per Caleb’s last wish, in order to “watch over them.” Mother Laura (Sheila Kelley) is only too happy to have David around, since any reminder of her beloved son is a good thing. Father Spencer (Leland Orser), however, isn’t quite as big on David, worried that the seemingly nice young man might have a bit of “the PTSD.” For their parts, Caleb’s sister and brother, Anna (Maika Monroe) and Luke (Brendan Meyer), seem to regard David with a mixture of curiosity and faint amusement: the guy is so unbelievably polite and nice that he might as well have stepped out of a woodcut, for all his old-fashioned “aw shucks”-ness.

David ends up staying with the Petersons and goes about the business of ingratiating himself into the family’s good graces: he helps Luke with his homework (with some difficulty), drinks beers with Spencer as he pours his heart out about his shitty job, helps Laura around the house and goes with Anna to a Halloween party. All seems nice and normal, even if we sometimes get shots of a pensive David that border on the unsettling. At one point, Spencer asks David if he’s tired: “I don’t need much sleep,” he responds, with a knowing look, and anyone paying attention should get a little of the ol’ goose flesh.

The situation hits a new level when David finds out that Luke is being bullied at school: in a truly awe-inspiring scene, David has Luke take him to the bullies, at an isolated roadside bar well-known for serving minors. After taunting the high school toughs with a particularly offensive drink order, David proceeds to wipe the bar up with the creeps in a scene that makes Road House (1989) look like a commercial for allergy medicine. The point is crystal clear: David is absolutely not the kind of guy that you want to fuck with, in any way, shape or form.

As David continues to thread his way through the lives of the various Petersons, however, Anna begins to notice that strange things are happening all around them, including the unexpected death of one of her friends. As Anna begins to believe that David might not be quite who he seems, the rest of the family seem to close ranks, more convinced than ever that David is a true-blue friend and confident. Is Anna right or has she unfairly maligned this sweet, young man? Will she be able to convince her family of the “truth” (whatever that might be) before it’s too late? Why, exactly, is David here? Is he really trying to protect the family, at all costs, or is his real mission to destroy everything? By the time it’s all over, Anna will have learned a very important lesson: always be careful who you invite into your home…not all guests are created equal.

Similar to You’re Next, The Guest is sort of a hybrid-genre film, melding together elements of action, horror, thriller, comedy and drama into one seriously delicious stew. The film is stuffed to bursting with some ridiculously energetic action setpieces (the bar beat-down is, without a doubt, solid gold: if you don’t shadowbox the screen, you might be watching a different film), as well as some genuinely nail-biting moments of pure tension. The drama elements are well-represented via the family’s interpersonal dynamics and the ways in which they subtly come to accept (and rely on) David’s presence in their lives. One of the biggest and best surprises regarding The Guest is how funny it actually is: while this is certainly not an out-and-out laugh-riot, the vein of dark humor that runs through the film is quite pronounced and leads to some of its best moments. The bar fight sequence is a great example of all of the elements coming together in one heady moment: this is the kind of genre splicing that folks like Robert Rodriguez and Quention Tarantino excel in and Wingard/Barrett knock it right out of the park.

At times, The Guest almost plays like a more tongue-in-cheek, conventional version of Refn’s Drive (2011): the production values are high, the John Carpenter-influenced electro-score (courtesy of Steve Moore) is utterly fantastic and the whole thing is stylish almost to a fault (the finale, in particular, is an absolute masterclass in stylish anarchy). Where Ryan Gosling’s Driver was a self-styled, if nihilistic, white knight, however, Dan Steven’s David is a decidedly more shadowy individual: for the majority of the film, it’s impossible to really gauge his motives, lending an overriding air of unease and tension to the proceedings. We knew why the Driver was doing what he did, regardless of how violent, self-destructive or pointless his actions, but we’re never sure about David. Even when he’s whupping ass on the “bad guys,” we’re still never quite sure if he’s right or wrong.

While the entire cast is solid, Stevens, Monroe and Meyer are exceptional as the trio at the center of everything. Monroe is a nice, strong female character, with a sardonic edge and just enough youthful inconsistency to make her seem like a real person, rather than a stock “final girl.” For his part, Meyer makes Luke quite likable, while still allowing for subtle hints of darkness around the edges: the scene where he emulates David and kicks the shit out of one of his bullies is all kinds of awesome but it’s also kind of scary and unhinged: predominantly known for TV roles in the past, here’s to hoping that Meyer gets more opportunities like this to stretch his wings.

And then, of course, there’s Dan Stevens. Almost supernaturally good-looking, with piercing eyes and a purposefully blank expression, the British actor is the kind of fellow that you might expect to play a prince in a life-action Disney film, not a potentially insane and murderous misanthrope. His performance is pitch-perfect, however, full of the kind of subtle mannerisms and expressions that build his character without handing the audience a cheat-sheet to follow along with. When David is being nice, he’s the kind of dude that everybody wants to hang out with: nowhere is this made more clear than the awesome scene where David triumphantly walks into the Halloween party, carrying kegs like they were six-packs. It’s the kind of bit that makes you want to high-five the nearest bro. When David unleashes the darkness, however, he’s absolutely terrifying, leading to some of the most surprising, shocking bursts of violence I’ve seen in some time. It’s a terrific balancing act and it’s to Stevens immense credit that he makes it look so easy. Let’s hope this is but Act One of Steven’s career in genre films, since we could absolutely use more of this guy ASAP.

Perhaps the most important aspect of The Guest is how much fun it is. Like You’re Next, Wingard and Barrett’s newest film is an absolute blast from start to finish: adrenalized, stylish and smart, The Guest is almost calculatedly crowd-pleasing, jumping from one awesome setpiece to the next. If the ultimate revelation about what’s going on is both a little silly and a little tired, it’s the only thing about The Guest that ever feels less than totally righteous: I’m not saying that I disliked the “reveal” so much as that I felt Barrett could have come up with something a little stronger and/or stranger. That being said, I wouldn’t change a single frame of the climax, which manages to toe the line between “ridiculous” and “ridiculously cool” with total aplomb.

Ultimately, The Guest is a metric ton of good times, all wrapped up in a nice, shiny package. When the film is completely off-the-rails, such as the bar fight, Halloween party and finale, it’s completely unbeatable. More than just an asskicking action film, however, Wingard and Barrett toss all kinds of subtle details into the mix that constantly elevate the film. From David’s extremely awkward sex scene with one of Anna’s friends to the subtle moment where David and Luke carve pumpkins to the triumphant scene where David takes Luke’s obnoxious principal to task, there are so many little quirks here that add immeasurably to the richness of the film’s tableau.

Judging by this film and You’re Next, it would seem that Wingard and Barrett have decided to be the preeminent neo-thriller advocates for our modern day and age. All I can say to that is: bring on the next one, ASAP…we need more of these films like we need water and oxygen.

12/27/14 (Part Five): They Call Me Mr. Babadook

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Australian films, Australian horror films, bedtime story, Best of 2014, children in peril, childrens' book, Chloe Hurn, cinema, Daniel Henshall, dysfunctional family, Essie Davies, Essie Davis, favorite films, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, foreign films, Hayley McElhinney, horror, horror films, insanity, Jennifer Kent, monsters under the bed, mother-son relationships, Movies, Noah Wiseman, psychological horror, Radek Ludczuk, Repulsion, set in Australia, single mother, stylish films, The Babadook, Tim Purcell, writer-director

If there was one film that most horror and genre critics seemed to agree on in 2014, it was Australian actor-turned-director Jennifer Kent’s fearless debut, The Babadook (2014). Kicking completely against the mainstream thirst for franchises, familiarity, sequels and found footage, Kent’s film is a fiercely original and, at times, genuinely frightening, treatise on fractured families, difficult children and the mothers who must hold them all together, even when the only reward is the promise of more pain at the end of another difficult day.

Single-mother Amelia (Essie Davis) is doing her best to raise her young son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman), although the boy’s very obvious emotional and developmental issues don’t make it a walk in the park. Amelia is still trying to get over the death of her husband (he died while driving Amelia to the hospital to deliver Samuel) and her son’s constant violent outbursts and spirited “antics” serve to both isolate her from everyone around her and constantly remind her of her beloved, dead husband. Amelia works in a rather dreary old-folks home, lives alone in her large house with her disruptive son and has only her standoffish sister, Claire (Hayley McElhinney), for occasional company, although Samuel’s behavior ensures that Claire spends as little time at Amelia’s place as possible.

In every way possible, parenthood is a full-time job for Amelia, above and beyond anything else in her life: she has to keep bringing Samuel home from school due to his propensity for taking homemade crossbows to class and, once at home, every minute of the day is devoted to Samuel’s care. In a particularly telling scene, poor, lonely Amelia can’t even get a few spare minutes to masturbate in bed before Samuel comes rampaging in, off on some hyperactive bustle of activity like a tiny, pubescent Tazmanian Devil. Amelia is constantly tired, depressed, stressed-out, overwhelmed and isolated: whenever she looks to her son for affection, she’s met with angry outbursts, violence and uncontrollable chaos. Imagine the hell of being forced to care for someone who not only doesn’t seem to appreciate your efforts but who actively fights and pushes back against you at every possible opportunity…there’s nothing enviable about that whatsoever.

As if all of this weren’t enough to send someone screaming into the abyss, however, young Samuel suddenly comes up with a heretofore unknown bedtime story called Mr. Babadook. The creepy pop-up-book seems to have appeared out of nowhere and is sort of like Clive Barker taking a stab at Dr. Seuss. Needless to say, Samuel is completely unnerved by the sinister, shadowy figure of Mr. Babadook and his mother is only too eager to hide the book and move on with life. As Samuel seems to become more and more obsessed with the book, however, things begin to happen around the house, things which the boy blames on the increasingly evil Babadook: it all reaches a head when Amelia finds glass in her soup, another bit of “mischief” attributed to the story-book villain. For Amelia, the implication seems clear, despite her son’s protests: his behavior has progressed to the point where she can no longer safely care for him.

Buffeted on all sides, Amelia begins to feel her tenuous grasp on reality slip: she begins to see hints of the Babadook everywhere, including the local police station, and there always seems to be something sinister lurking outside her field of vision in her dark, creepy house. Already pushed to the breaking point, Amelia begins to lash out violently at the one continued source of her strife: Samuel. As Amelia becomes more and more obsessed, however, the situation becomes more and more murky: is Amelia falling under the dread influence of the sinister Mr. Babadook, is she losing her mind or is there something altogether more apocalyptic going on?

Despite its surface similarity to a handful of other films, including Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) and James Wan’s Insidious (2010), The Babadook is wonderfully original, inventive and just out-of-step enough with the current mode of horror film to make it seem more refreshing than it might be in any other era. There’s an effortlessly old-fashioned quality to Kent’s film that recalls ’80s horror, such as Pumpkinhead (1988), without slavishly imitating the era. There’s nothing about this that screamed “period piece,” yet everything about the film’s style and execution pointed back to these older films.

One of the most difficult aspects of crafting a memorable horror film is always the creature/villain and Kent’s Mr. Babadook is truly interesting, creepy and fascinating. Equal parts Coffin Joe and Freddy Krueger (albeit much less loquacious), we don’t get any backstory, which ends up being a big plus: there’s a genuine sense of mystery to the proceedings, since nothing is over-explained. While I think that the film definitely takes a side on the “Is it or isn’t it real?” issue, there’s a refreshing lack of hand-holding that allows for some real emotion to shine through.

In fact, the single most impressive thing about Kent’s film, aside from its decidedly old-fashioned take on horror, is the crushing heft of the film’s emotional content. At its best, Amelia’s descent into insanity recalls Polanski’s Repulsion (1965): we’re never far from the notion of a strictly supernatural cause for the disturbances, unlike Polanski’s film, but there always a distinctly queasy unease over what is and isn’t really happening. Once the film really takes off, in the final reel, it seems a bit less open for interpretation (although there’s still a margin one way or the other) but the lead-up to that is impressively open-ended.

Much has been made of Essie Davis’ stunning performance as Amelia and, to be honest, all accolades seem fairly earned. This is the kind of raw, painful, agonized performance that would all but guarantee an actor an endless stream of awards and nominations in anything but an explicitly genre-based film. As it is, Davis’ performance will probably be one of those “best-kept-secret” deals for horror fans, something for us to gloat over whenever non-believers spout off about how facile and “silly” horror films are. The facts are quite plain and undeniable: horror and genre films are not afforded the same level of respect as other types of film and this is often to the detriment of truly great performances like Davis’.

The Babadook is precisely the kind of “prestige” horror film that deserves to be seen by as many people as possible, the kind of film that could easily break out to a much wider audience. The film looks absolutely gorgeous, for one thing: Radek Ludczuk’s cinematography is wonderfully evocative and it’s easily one of the best-looking films of the year. The production design is completely immersive, with some really awesome work being done on the creepy pop-up-book (the bit that foreshadows Amelia and the dog is insanely cool), as well as the house location. One of the biggest surprises for me regarding The Babadook is just how polished and amazing the film looks for a debut feature: it’s almost impossible for me to believe this was the product of a first-time filmmaker. I daresay that the finale, which manages to combine Time Bandits (1981), In the Mouth of Madness (1994) and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), may be one of my favorites of the year, even as it manages to wrap up the film’s themes with a nice bow.

One of the great shames of the horror industry is that female voices are so under-represented: roughly 90% of horror film “victims” are female, yet you can practically count the number of female horror filmmakers on one hand. Couple this with the fact that actual female stories are so few and far between and it makes something like The Babadook seem even more special. Here we have an exquisitely well-made, genuinely scary horror film, told from a female perspective, and written and directed by a bold, new female filmmaker. This is precisely the kind of film that must be supported if folks want to see a more balanced, interesting and original kind of horror film, in the future. If nothing else, The Babadook should serve as bracing notice that Jennifer Kent is here: she’s kicked the door wide open and I, for one, can’t wait to see what she does next.

12/27/14 (Part Three): Stop Dragon My Heart Around

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adventure, archaeologists, Bjørn Sundquist, CGI, children in peril, cinema, Daniel Voldheim, dragons, eggs, family films, fantasy, father-daughter relationships, film reviews, films, flashbacks, foreign films, John Kåre Raake, Julian Podolski, Jurassic Park, Magnus Beite, Maria Annette Tanderø Berglyd, Mikkel Brænne Sandemose, Movies, mythical creatures, Nicolai Cleve Broch, Norwegian films, Oseberg Vikings, Pål Sverre Hagen, Ragnarok, set in Norway, single father, Sofia Helin, Steven Spielberg, Terje Strømdahl, Vikings

For many folks of a particular age, the term “adventure film” will always be synonymous with one thing: Steven Spielberg. Throughout the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, the auteur was directly responsible for some of the biggest, most iconic adventure films of those eras: Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom (1984), Indiana Jones and Last Crusade (1989), Hook (1991) and Jurassic Park (1993). This, of course, doesn’t include all of the iconic adventure films that he produced but didn’t direct during the same time-period: Poltergeist (1982), Gremlins (1984), The Goonies (1985), Back to the Future (1985), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Arachnophobia (1990), among many, many others. Regardless of how you, personally, feel about his films, there’s no denying that Spielberg has practically been a cottage industry for the past forty years…no mean feat, if you think about it.

Despite his massively impressive history with adventure films, however, we haven’t had a whole lot of Spielberg adventure movies since The Lost World (1997): there have been a few, such as Minority Report (2002) and War of the Worlds (2005) but, for the most part, Spielberg has turned his attention to “prestige” films like Amistad (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Munich (2005) and Lincoln (2012) since the Aughts and doesn’t really show signs of stopping anytime soon. For people who miss Spielberg’s brand of high-octane, family friendly, effects-spectacles, there doesn’t really seem to be much that’s filled the void…until now, that is. If you’re looking for big, fantastic adventure, look no further than Norwegian director Mikkel Brænne Sandemose’s Ragnarok (2013), a big, colorful and exuberant adventure yarn that recalls films like André Øvredal’s Trollhunter (2010) in subject matter but more closely resembles Spielberg yarns like Jaws, The Goonies and, especially, Jurassic Park, in tone and execution.

After an extremely effective medieval-set opening that helps establish the film’s mythology, Ragnarok wastes no time in introducing us to our intrepid hero, single-father and Viking history expert Sigurd (Pål Sverre Hagen). Sigurd genuinely his two young kids, Ragnhild (Maria Annette Tanderø Berglyd) and Brage (Julian Podolski) but he’s far from the best father in the world: absent-minded and completely obsessed with finding some connection between the Oseberg Vikings and the mythical Ragnarok, Sigurd is the kind of father who remembers to pick his children up from school after they’ve been waiting for hours and plans family vacations based around archaeological digs.

After Sigurd’s partner, Allan (Nicolai Cleve Broch), shows up with a Viking runestone, Sigurd finally gets the confirmation he needs and the group has a new destination: the mysterious “Eye of Odin,” an island-within a lake-within a volcano that’s got to be one of the coolest locations for an adventure film, ever. Once there, sparks (the good kind) fly between Sigurd and Allan’s comely assistant, Elisabeth (Sofia Helin). There are also sparks flying between Sigurd and Allan’s guide, Leif (Bjørn Sundquist), although these are definitely the “wrong” kind: Leif thinks the whole expedition is beyond ridiculous and treats Sigurd like a dumb kid, which tends to make Sigurd kinda pissy. In other words: the circle of movie antagonism.

Once at the Eye of Odin, Sigurd and the others begin to unearth evidence that Sigurd was absolutely correct in his speculations: not only did the Oseberg Vikings land in Finnmark, as he postulated, but the group is able to find plenty of evidence of their passing, including preserved helmets and weapons…score! The group also finds evidence to support not only the one-time existence of the monstrous Ragnarok but its current well-being, as well. Faster than you can say “Jurassic Park,” Sigurd, his kids, Elisabeth, Allan and Leif are on the run from something that should only exist in fairytales, yet has somehow attained massive, terrifying life. It will take all of Sigurd’s skills, wits and extensive knowledge of Viking lore to survive the day but he’ll be damned if any of his family are going to become dragon snacks. Is the Ragnarok really as terrible as it seems, however, or is there more going on here than meets the eye?

Gorgeously shot, suitably thrilling and filled with lots of well-executed CGI and visual effects, Ragnarok is a decided throwback to Spielberg’s aforementioned adventure film glory days, yet never comes off as slavish imitation. The whole film definitely has the feel of a family film, with the vast majority of the film’s violence occurring off-screen. In fact, there’s nothing here that really pushes the PG-13 rating, save one brief shot of a corpse that directly recalls the similar jump-shock in Jaws (which, as we’ll all recall, was rated PG). In many ways, Ragnarok is sort of an update of Jurassic Park: absent-minded, absentee dad and precocious kids must survive an attack by giant reptiles while bonding and becoming closer to each other. Throw in a romantic angle, some double-crosses and betrayal (always to be expected), truly jaw-dropping locations and the parallels seem pretty obvious.

While Pål Sverre Hagen is dependable as Sigurd, Sofia Helin handily steals the film as the ever-resourceful, ass-kicking Elisabeth. Indeed, Elisabeth is pretty much single-handily responsible for saving the entire group on multiple occasions (including a thoroughly awesome setpiece involving crossing a chasm via rope) and Heflin is a mighty great action star: I can’t wait to see her in other films after this. Berglyd and Podolski are good as the kids, although neither one brings anything unique or revolutionary to the performances.

The real star of the show, however, aside from Heflin, is cinematographer Daniel Voldheim’s stunning camera-work. The various Norwegian locales never look anything less than beautiful and the cave sequences make excellent use of light and shadow to create some spectacularly atmospheric scenes. Also noteworthy is composer Magnus Beite’s highly effective score: it’s no patch on any of John Williams’ iconic scores but it is exciting, moving and just bombastic enough to effortlessly sell the big action beats.

Ultimately, I found myself quite taken with Ragnarok: there’s a genuinely old-fashioned quality to the film that I really enjoyed and I found it to favorably compare to some of my favorite adventure films from the past. Sandemose’s film may not be the most original film of the year but it’s got a helluva lot of heart and a genuine desire to thrill its audience. I’d like to think that ’80s Spielberg would have been a big fan, too.

12/26/14 (Part Four): Letting the Idiots Speak

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actor-director, animal masks, Boris Mojsovski, children in peril, cinema, co-writers, disappointing films, dysfunctional family, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, horror, horror movies, isolated estates, isolation, Jordan Barker, Katherine Isabelle, masked intruders, Michael Foster, Movies, Peter DaCunha, Robin Dunne, Stephen McHattie, stepmother, Thomas Pound, thriller, Torment

For roughly the first half of Jordan Barker’s Torment (2013), all signs point to an above-average little chiller: effectively shot, tense and extremely atmospheric, this little “family in peril” flick doesn’t break a lot of new ground but it ferociously stakes claim to the terra firma that’s already there. Creepy, relentless and with an absolutely ruthless sense of forward momentum, Torment (at first) seems like it’ll be one of those “horror sleepers” that worms its way into my sub-conscious, complete with some very eerie, animal-mask-bedecked baddies…again, not original but highly effective, nonetheless. But then, unfortunately, something rather terrible happens, something that cuts the legs out from under the film and leaves it to die a slow, miserable, humiliating death, flopping around and about like that poor fish from Faith No More’s “Epic” video: the creepy, masked bad guys speak and the whole thing heads straight to Hell in the proverbial hand-basket.

Until the film manages to completely squander all of its accumulated good will, there’s actually quite a bit to like here. The central story, about a pair of newlyweds who vacation in the country with the husband’s extremely difficult son (from his first marriage) opens up some nice avenues for drama: there’s a genuine sense of tension between bratty Liam (Peter DaCunha) and his trying-too-hard stepmother, Sarah (Katherine Isabelle), and a few quietly astute observations about the ways in which step-parents and their families interact. The familial relationship feels fairly authentic (in particular, you really feel for poor Sarah’s attempts to bond with her step-son) and none of the acting gets in the way.

From a horror level, Torment’s first half is a real slow-burn that still manages to include some fairly nasty, abrupt violence, including a very memorable scene involving some sharp garden shears and an astoundingly creepy shot involving shadowy figures in the basement (to be honest, one of the creepiest shots of the year: bravo!). There are some really tense action setpieces, including a marvelously executed cat-and-mouse chase involving Sarah and the masked baddies. Hell, Stephen McHattie even shows up as the lackadaisical sheriff and that’s always a good thing.

Once the film hits the midpoint and decides to let the masked intruders talk, however, the whole thing instantly collapses like a castle made of wet tissue paper. Gone is the tension, mystery and atmosphere, replaced by some of the most tedious, obnoxious and straight-up stupid “tough guy” talk this side of a dinner-theater production of Glengarry Glen Ross. The question of whether to have your masked bad guy speak is always a tough one: in most cases, any mood and mystery goes right out the window as soon as any formerly “strong and silent”-type tests the mic and Torment is absolutely no exception. Suffice to say, that my burning interest in the film was almost instantly doused and the resulting 40 minutes became as awkward, terrible and stupid as the first 40 minutes were effective and chilling.

Hard to pinpoint exactly where to lay the most blame here, but I’ll go ahead and toss a heaping helping of scorn onto the film’s two scribes (that’s right, two screenwriters for this drivel), mostly because the dialogue in the latter half of the film is so painfully stupid and contrived as to stick out like a neon sign. The whole thing ends with an obvious setup for a sequel, which, of course, begs one enormous question: who in the hell wants seconds from this particularly rancid smorgasbord?

Ultimately, Torment is that most terrible of films, at least for me: a scrappy little coulda-woulda-shoulda contenda that ends up as just another cauliflower-eared, empty-headed palooka. There’s plenty of potential here but precious little follow-through: “Torment” might not accurately reflect one’s experience with Barker’s film but I’m wagering the more accurate title wouldn’t have looked as good on the box art: “Tedium.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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