5/6/15: Blurring the Lines

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Alexandria Fierz, backwoods folk, based on a true story, Bert Wall, cinema, David Z. Roberts, dead father, Devil's Backbone, Devil's Backbone Tavern, Devil's Backbone Texas, directorial debut, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, found-footage films, ghosts, Haley Buckner, haunted houses, horror, horror films, isolated estates, Jake Wade Wall, James Carrington, Jodi Bianca Wise, mockumentary, Movies, screenwriter, supernatural, twist ending, Unsolved Mysteries, writer-director-producer-actor

If the whole point of mockumentary/found-footage horror films is to obscure the dividing line between truth and fiction, freely mixing the “real” with the “fake” until audiences are too dizzy to know the difference, then Jake Wade Wall’s debut, Devil’s Backbone, Texas (2015), just might be one of the most successful yet. By interweaving the actual story of his horror writer father’s experiences on the titular patch of land with the kind of traditional found-footage aspects that we’re used to seeing (the Blair Witch Project (1999) is an obvious inspiration), Wall is able to come up with a virtually textbook example of the subgenre. If Devil’s Backbone, Texas is less successful as an actual film, well…let’s chalk that up to growing pains: there’s enough good ideas here to make Wall someone to keep an eye on in the future.

The concept of the film, as mentioned above, cleverly blends the real-life story of Bert Wall, a writer/rancher who lived in the area of Texas known as Devil’s Backbone, with the usual “running through the woods with a camera” found-footage schtick. Wall’s ranch came to fame via a mid-’90s segment on Unsolved Mysteries that detailed the massive amount of ghostly activity that he claimed to witness on the land, including everything from ghostly monks to ghostly Native Americans. Wall’s real-life son, Jake (the film’s writer/director/producer/lead), uses this as the basic setup and then jumps us 20 years into the present. After his father has died, Jake’s mom asks him to take his ashes to his old homestead and perform the “ash ceremony” that Bert always wanted.

Seeing this as a great opportunity to explore stories of the area, Jake takes the ashes and a small passel of his best friends, a group which features the usual mixture of believers and non-believers. As Jake interviews the locals, in order to get a better picture of his estranged father, he also begins to uncover hints of the strange doings in the area: there’s even stories about a mysterious German POW camp on the ranch, providing yet another possible source for the region’s “hauntings.” As things gradually become stranger, Jake’s friends want to pack up and leave, especially after they keep bumping into a strange pickup truck that, for all intents and purposes, shouldn’t be there. Jake has become obsessed with getting to the bottom of his father’s death, however, as well as the legends of Devil’s Backbone and he has no intention of backing out. Will Jake’s stubbornness lead to the ultimate revelation of the Devil’s Backbone’s secrets or will his poking around spell the doom for everyone he holds dear?

One of Devil Backbone, Texas’ greatest strengths (perhaps its single greatest one) is the way in which it ingeniously melds fiction and reality within the framework of the film. To be honest, I wasn’t actually aware that there really was a Bert Wall: I assumed that the Unsolved Mysteries segment was a clever mock-up and that the whole film was an entirely fictionalized account of a real area/phenomenon. Imagine my surprise, then, when a little research revealed that not only does Bert Wall actually exist (along with that illuminating Unsolved Mysteries segment from 1996) but that Jake is his son. This sort of (gently) blew my mind, as it managed to recontextualize much of what I had just seen, especially considering the familial angle. Any film that can actually fool me gets big props, in my book, and Wall definitely deserves props.

The main problem with the film doesn’t really have much to do with the story, although it does end up feeling a bit musty, in places: in general, Wall throws plenty of good ideas around and many of them end up sticking, even if nothing is explored in as much depth as it should be (in particular, the German POW bit is so under-developed as to be mystifying). The big problems with the film, unfortunately, all stack up on the actual production side of things: while Wall has plenty of intriguing ideas, the film that contains them is, at best, rather average.

As the lead, Wall has a tendency to swing between an effective, upbeat kind of understatement and a much more ineffective hyper-emotionalism: when Jake really gets wound up, his character tends to come across as whiny,  shouty and altogether unpleasant. Found-footage films have a history of leads like this, of course (think back to Blair Witch’s insufferable Heather), but that doesn’t make it any more tolerable here. If anything, I found myself constantly wishing that Wall had stayed behind the camera: while his character definitely has moments, I found my suspension of disbelief shattered a few times too many for comfort.

The rest of the cast does decent work, although I’ll admit that the only one who actually left any kind of impression on me was the fella who looked sort of like Hugh Jackman: he had an easy-going delivery and charisma that was quite effective. Other than that, however, the group seemed like the usual crew of interchangeable types. As with similar mockumentary films, Devil’s Backbone, Texas, also features various interviews with academics, experts and towns’ folk: this all help with the film’s verisimilitude immensely, even when the acting from the cast becomes just rough enough to notice.

Ultimately, Devil’s Backbone, Texas is a decent debut, albeit one hampered by a shaky lead, slight lack of focus and a rather dreadful twist ending (not to put too fine a point on it but the lazy “surprise” finale is easily the dumbest part of the film, hands down). That being said, there’s something about the film that still got to me: perhaps it was that initial blurring of real and fiction or Wall’s very obvious enthusiasm for the film and subject. Perhaps it was the genuinely creepy location or the standout bit of atmosphere where we see teeming masses of spiders all over the walls of Bert’s abandoned home (as a lifelong arachnophobe, this practically had me crawling out of my skin). Whatever the reason, I walked away from Wall’s debut entertained, which is quite a bit more than I can say for many micro-budget indies. As such, I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

2/4/15: Bones to Pick

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Ali Marhyar, archaeologists, As Above So Below, Ben Feldman, catacombs, childhood trauma, cinema, co-writers, Cosme Castro, Dante's Inferno, dead father, disappointing films, Drew Dowdle, Edwin Hodge, film reviews, films, Flamel, found-footage films, François Civil, Hamid Djavadan, horror, horror films, John Erick Dowdle, Leo Hinstin, Marion Lambert, Movies, multiple writers, ossuaries, Perdita Weeks, Philosopher's Stone, Roger Van Hool, set in Paris, suicide, The Descent, trapped underground, visions, writer-director

Let’s get one thing out of the way right off the bat, shall we? John Erick Dowdle’s As Above, So Below (2014) is not a good film. It has many of the elements of a good film, such as a killer location, some genuinely effective scenes and some thought-provoking ideas but this does nothing to change the final outcome: it just isn’t very good. In the same way that both a good and bad meal may contain identical ingredients, writer-director Dowdle’s movie has all of the necessary pieces, yet the end result is a tedious, dull, overtly silly and largely disposable bit of cineplex fluff. Upon finishing the film, I really only had one question, similar to the question I had after finishing Escape From Tomorrow (2013): how, exactly, did this potential souffle turn into mush? Take my hand as we descend into the darkness and let’s see if we can’t figure that out, shall we?

In the interest of fairness, let’s start with the elements that actually work. First, and most obviously, AASB has an absolutely unbeatable location: the legendary catacombs and ossuaries that lie beneath the streets of Paris. To this point, no other filmmaker has really shot down there (at least that I’m aware of), making the ancient site something of an undiscovered territory. Without putting too fine a point on it, the catacombs are absolutely astounding. Not “cool CGI, bro” astounding, mind you, but honest-to-god “your mind has just been blown” astounding. If there is any real reason to sit through AASB (and there are a couple, mind you), the location is absolutely Reason #1, with a bullet. In fact, the only thing that dings the location aspect is that it isn’t utilized enough: too often, the filmmakers resort to substandard chills in obviously fabricated locations when all they had to do was point at the real site and let our goose-flesh do the heavy lifting. If you have any interest in urban exploration (which I most certainly do), this aspect, alone, might make AASB worth a look.

Secondly, certain elements of the storyline work extremely well. While the film often resembles a confusing hodge-podge of Dan Brown-esque historical adventuring and sub-standard found-footage tropes, the central narrative is just intriguing enough (most of the time) to carry the audience through some extremely choppy waters. Extra points for the myriad references and connections to Dante’s Inferno, a classical work of genre fiction that is relatively untapped in these modern times. While the film, ostensibly, revolves around Scarlett (Perdita Weeks) searching for Flamel’s legendary Philosopher’s Stone, it’s mostly an excuse to dump the cast (almost literally) right into the Inferno. When Dowdle and company focus on the Dante aspect (the “abandon hope” bit is particularly well done), AASB is not only interesting but fairly unique: the gold beneath the mud, so to speak.

Thirdly, AASB contains a handful of highly effective scenes/scares, some of which end up being quite memorable. There’s a scene involving a mysteriously ringing telephone that comes perilously close to becoming a minor classic and the visual of the burning car is actually pretty damn cool. The film’s conclusion, which I won’t spoil here (although I will bet money that you’ll figure it out before Dowdle elects to reveal it), is also pretty neat looking. One of my favorite bits in the film, however, has to be the scene where Scarlett figures out that the group needs to keeping heading down: the bit where she bashes a hole in the floor, allowing water to flood into the unseen space below them, is appropriately Lovecraftian and reminded me (favorably) of the scene in Mann’s The Keep (1983) where the soldiers break through into the “abyss.” There’s an appropriate sense of space to many of the film’s underground scenes that makes the film simultaneously claustrophobic and impossibly large: it’s a great trick and definitely one of AASB’s hidden aces.

And there you have it, folks: the positives, benefits and virtues that can be found in As Above, So Below. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s take a look at the rest, shall we? Spoiler alert: it ain’t pretty.

Right off the bat, Dowdle’s film is populated with some of the most obnoxious, tedious, hateful and just plain awful characters I’ve ever had the misfortune of “knowing.” Familiar with the term “cannon fodder?” Dowdle and co-writer Drew (his brother) sure are, since there isn’t a single person in the film worth saving. The chief offenders, of course, are Weeks’ Scarlett and Ben Feldman’s (of Mad Men fame) George. Taken separately, the characters are whiny, obnoxious, nonsensical and prone to some exceptionally rash, stupid decisions. When put together, however, the pair form the Voltron of Awfulness: they’re like a black hole that sucks anything good straight into the cold reaches of the cosmos, never to be seen again. Even worse, they’re both essentially the same character: in fact, their personalities are so interchangeable that I began to refer to them as “female George” and “male Scarlett” in my notes.

The combined wretchedness of Weeks and Feldman’s performances should not take away from the rest of the cast, however: no one makes out like a bandit in this. At best, as with the case of Edwin Hodge’s Benji, the characters (and performances) are clichéd, rote and highly predictable. At worst, as with Cosme Castro’s ludicrous La Taupe or Francois Civil’s blustery Papillon, the characters take us right out of the action (such as it is), reminding us that we’re watching a bunch of actors tromp around in darkly lit tunnels for upwards of 90 minutes. I can honestly say that I never found a character I could root for: even by the film’s rather upbeat conclusion, I was hoping a sudden earthquake would swallow the idiots and send ’em straight back to the Devil’s living room.

To further add insult to injury, the camerawork is genuinely nauseating, as if someone took a look at the seasick camera motions of progenitors The Blair Witch Project (1999) and Cloverfield (2008) and said: “I can make it even shakier.” When the film is action-packed, the camera shakes. When the film is quiet, the camera shakes. When the group is stressed: shakes. When they’re relaxed: shakes. By the time the whole damned thing was through, the only thing I wanted was some Dramamine and a flat space of carpet to lie down on. This shaky camera issue becomes even more pronounced, if possible, during the film’s handful of action sequences, such as the stone monster attack scene. While I have a tendency to hate overly kinetic action films like The Bourne Identity (2002), AASB made that film feel like it was shot in slo-mo. It’s so hard to figure out what’s going on in any of the chaotic scenes that I eventually just stopped trying.

The film also constantly recalls better films, such as The Descent (2005), by virtue of ripping them off. The scene where Benji gets stuck in the tunnel should be familiar, as are any of the ones where the group realize they’re going in circles (pick your reference for that one). The character of George, who makes a hobby of breaking into places and fixing things (I shit you not), feels like he’s from at least four different films, while Scarlett’s driven, whiny and high-strung group leader might be more familiar to folks when she was Heather, the doomed director from Blair Witch. Time after time, AASB seems to parallel other films, both consciously and unconsciously: it’s like a long, sustained case of deja vu. Hell, there’s even a nod to the infamous “closet vortex” scene from Poltergeist (1982) when Papillon gets pulled into the car, although the CGI utilized here makes the ’80s film look like Avatar (2009), by comparison.

Not to be overly mean, here, but I have to say it: one of the film’s biggest issues is that it wildly vacillates between “reasonably intelligent” and “gap-mouthed drooling,” often within the same sequence. Take, for example, the sequence where Scarlett realizes that she had the wrong stone and needs to go back to get the correct one. The scene is staged and executed exactly like a video game, with Scarlett running, jumping, climbing and punching rock monsters like she’s trying to earn experience points. It reaches its loony apex when she stumbles across the specter of her deceased father: stopping just long enough to hug him and apologize for “not being there,” Scarlett takes off as he fades away. It’s almost as if Dowdle thought: Hmm…I could take the time to give this an extra beat or two, for emotional resonance…or I could just get back to running and jumping.

This lack of reason ends up infecting just about every area of the film: characters act in inconsistent, dumb ways; various elements are introduced, only to be summarily dropped almost instantly (try as I might, I can figure out no good reason for either the ageless Knight Templar or the cowled, “scary face” guy that the group bump into); and there’s no rhyme or reason to the whole Philosopher’s Stone thing: it ends up being the worst kind of McGuffin, since it’s proved to be largely unnecessary (from what I can tell).

And, finally, the film just isn’t scary, despite being billed as a horror film. There are about five legitimate jump scares in the film, one of which (the figure appearing behind Benji) is so moldy that you might need a breathing mask. The others range from good (the phone) to inane (the cloaked guy), although the film gets the most mileage out of my absolute least favorite genre trope: the past coming back to haunt characters. If I’ve seen this once, I’ve seen it a thousand times and it’s just never effective: every character in here sees their dead brother/father/child/lover so many times that it just becomes tedious. Similar to the way in which so many films fall back on the hoary old “possession” cliché, using “past trauma” as a scare factor is really just a way for the filmmakers to admit there’s nothing under the hood: rather than take the time to come up with any genuinely unique, frightening visions, we just get the standard “dead dad/brother under water/person in a burning car” shit. If we actually got to know and like the characters, perhaps these would bear weight. As it was, however, it just made me hate the characters AND their dead relatives that much more.

Here’s the thing: perhaps I sound so bitter over Dowdle’s film because it had such potential to be a real winner. A found-footage film set in the Paris catacombs? Friends and neighbors, that pitch practically prints money, at least for a jaded horror-hound like me. In the end, however, I probably should’ve listened to my gut: after slogging through Dowdle’s previous films, Quarantine (2008) (a direct remake of the Spanish [REC] (2007)) and Devil (2010), I should have figured this wouldn’t be smooth sailing. While critics seemed to have enjoyed Devil and audiences liked Quarantine enough to warrant a sequel, I must admit to disliking them both pretty evenly: if nothing else, Dowdle seems to be a remarkably consistent filmmaker, which surely counts for something. With irritating characters, a squandered setting and enough ludicrous moments to insure that the palm-mark never left my face, As Above, So Below is one of the most disappointing films I’ve seen in some time. Some day, a filmmaker will make a genuinely interesting film about the catacombs. This isn’t it, of course, not by a long shot. For the time being, however, it is, quite literally, the best we have.

 

6/21/14: When Brothers Attack

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actor-writer, Alex Rennie, Awful Nice, Brett Gelman, brothers, Christopher Meloni, cinema, co-writers, comedies, dead father, estranged family, estranged siblings, feuding brothers, feuding families, film reviews, films, Hari Leigh, home renovations, independent film, independent films, indie comedies, James Pumphrey, Jon Charbineau, Keeley Hazell, lake house, Laura Ramsey, male friendships, Movies, sibling rivalry, The Money Pit, The Odd Couple, Todd Sklar, will, writer-director

For anyone who grew up with a sibling, Charles Dickens’ famous quote from A Tale of Two Cities may be all too accurate: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” While there may be no truer, closer friend than a brother or sister, these are also the people who know how to push our buttons better than anyone in this big, crazy world. An older sibling may prove to be a tyrant, while a younger sibling may have been a constant source of annoyance while we were young. The frustrating thing about families, obviously, is that we rarely (if ever) get to pick ours: that particular lottery was taken care of well before we had any say in the situation. Writer-director-actor Todd Sklar’s sophomore film, Awful Nice (2013), takes a look at a pair of estranged brothers who may just come to realize how invaluable they are to each other…if they can keep from beating the crap out of each other, that is.

Jim (James Pumphrey) and Dave (co-writer Alex Rennie, channeling Charlie Day) are estranged brothers who end up forced back into each other’s lives after their father dies and leaves them a dilapidated lake house in his will. Jim is the marginally more mature/responsible of the two, given that he actually has a wife, kids and full-time job, while Dave is more prone to eating donuts out of trash cans, stealing complimentary breakfasts from motels and living so far off the grid that he kinda seems…well…like a vagrant. Even though Jim and Dave haven’t seen each other in years, they manage to handily pick up their former sibling rivalry as if no time had passed, including all of the stupid challenges and dares from their childhood (the dinner scene that begins with a drinking challenge – water, beer, gravy – before turning into an arm-wrestling match that morphs into a fist-fight is a particular highlight). Jim has no time for Dave’s foolishness, while Dave can’t stand Jim’s condescending, superior attitude: nothing’s changed since they were kids except for the addition of facial hair.

After visiting their father’s lawyer, Jon Charbineau (Law and Order’s Christopher Meloni in an absolutely ridiculous wig and glasses), the brothers receive some money to renovate the house, along with an offer for Charbineau’s “personal” construction team to take over the renovations. Jim is all for the idea, wanting nothing more than to get the hell away from Dave and back to wife Michelle (Hari Leigh), who’s becoming increasingly annoyed over his absence from home, thinking he’s just using this as an excuse to bail on familial responsibilities. Dave, on the other hand, is so positive that he and Jim can renovate the wrecked house (think The Money Pit (1986) with better wiring) that he spurns Charbineau’s offer and jumps in headfirst, as it were. Taking the bait, Jim decides to stay and renovate the house, naively believing this to be a fairly simple task. Poor, poor, stupid Jim…

As Jim and Dave continue to work on the house, more and more things begin to go wrong: Dave’s flighty inability to focus on the task at hand leads to untold complications (he begins the renovation by spending $900 of their money on an arcade game, which doesn’t bode well); Charbineau’s construction crew, led by the quietly sinister Ivan (Brett Gelman) appear to be made up of Russian mobsters and don’t take kindly to Dave’s obnoxious attitude or desire to do the job himself; Jim runs into an ex-girlfriend, Lauren (Laura Ramsay), which complicates his present marital difficulties; and Dave falls for a waitress, Petra (Keeley Hazell), who may or may not be a Russian prostitute. In time, many of these disparate issues will come together in a perfect storm, forcing Jim and Dave to finally fix their hopelessly fractured relationship. Will it be too little, too late or will family always win out in the end?

While there’s absolutely nothing unique, ground-breaking or particularly fresh about Awful Nice, it does have a particularly potent ace up its sleeve: the film is very, very funny. Uproariously so, if I may be so bold. The script is exceptionally sharp and witty, which helps do a lot of the heavy lifting, but let’s give credit where it’s due: Pumphrey and Rennie are absolutely perfect as the feuding brother. Not only are the two actors individually funny (as mentioned, Rennie channels Charlie Day’s spastic insanity to near perfection) but they work beautifully as a comedy team. They actually seem like brothers, which is no mean feat, but they’re a perfectly synced combo, which is even more important. While the dialogue is consistently great, much of the film’s physical comedy is completely sold due to how in-tune the two actors are with each other’s comedic style: it’s the kind of complimentary acting that can be found in the best “buddy” films, such as The Odd Couple (1968) or Crosby and Hope’s “Road to…” pictures. The rest of the cast is just fine (although Meloni is so silly as to be almost trifling) but the film is dominated by its charismatic, dynamic leads.

When Awful Nice is funny, it’s very, very funny: there were moments during the film where I laughed harder than I had in some time (the bit where Dave sets off the airbag in Jim’s car by jumping on the hood is a neo-classic, as is the running gag where Jim constantly bops Dave in the head with an umbrella, to Dave’s growing irritation ). The film is never dumb, however (aside from Meloni’s ridiculous get-up), and just as apt to blindside with a genuinely impactful observation about Jim and Dave’s childhood or their miserable adult relationship as it is to throw in a scene where Dave gets his ass beat by a couple sneering yuppies. It’s this expert melding of the emotional and the silly that really drives the film: it’s never so lightweight that it floats away but this sure as hell ain’t On Golden Pond (1981), either. It’s a pretty perfect mix and one that I wish more modern “dramadies” would get right.

For the most part, Awful Nice is a pretty exceptional, modest little film. Not everything works, mind you, and there are a fair number of plot developments that just don’t go anywhere (in particular, the bit with Jim and his ex-girlfriend amounts to a red herring and the Russian construction crew is woefully under-utilized) but the film hits more than it misses and is genuinely funny, which can’t be stated often enough. I also appreciated the little absurdist elements that popped up here and there, never enough to take focus off the rest of the action but just enough to let you know that Sklar and Rennie have got more on their minds than just churning out a low-budget film. Awful Nice is gut-bustingly funny, full of heart and surprisingly sweet without ever becoming cloying: in other words, it was a pretty great little film and I eagerly await Sklar and Rennie’s next full-length. Let’s just hope that if Meloni’s in that one, he gets to keep the rug and Groucho glasses at home.