4/8/15: The Silence is Deafening

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British films, cinema, Erin Richards, evil dolls, experiments, film reviews, films, foreign films, ghosts, Hammer, Hammer Films, haunted houses, horror movies, insanity, isolated estates, Jared Harris, John Pogue, Movies, multiple writers, obsession, Olivia Cooke, paranormal investigators, possession, Rory Fleck-Byrne, Sam Claflin, set in the 1970s, The Quiet Ones, twist ending

For old school horror fans, few names bear quite as much weight as Hammer Films. For the uninitiated, Hammer Films was a British production company that specialized in lush horror films that were, by turns, elegant and suitably lurid. From the ’50s all the way through the Swingin’ ’70s, Hammer churned out a fairly staggering amount of stylish films, many of them sequels and offshoots to popular properties like Dracula and Frankenstein. As the times changed, Hammer Films became bloodier and more sexually charged, although they always maintained a least a little of that initial elegance. As the world moved on into the 1980s, however, Hammer’s cachet in the genre dwindled to nothing and the company, essentially, petered out of existence.

Like any good undead monster, however, the Hammer story would also include a bit of reanimation. After lying dormant for decades, Hammer Films was bought-up and the company began to release new films in the mid-2000s. Beginning with Beyond the Rave (2008), Hammer would release a handful of films including the American remake of Let the Right One In, Wake Wood (2011) and The Woman in Black (2012), as well as a sequel in 2015. They would also jump into the currently hot topic of possession stories with The Quiet Ones (2014), which is where we enter this particular tale.

As someone who grew up on Hammer Films, I was pretty excited when they announced a restart to the fabled production company. My one concern, of course, was the same one that I had when Hammer originally petered out: would they have any relevance in a modern world that had long ago left behind the stylish, Gothic trappings of their best films or would they stick out like a septuagenarian at a One Direction concert? My first experience with the “new” Hammer didn’t set the bar very high, as I found Wake Wood to be a marginally entertaining, if massively flawed exercise. Much better was The Woman in Black, which managed to retain much of the old-school Hammer elements (slow-burn horror, stylish production design, mature themes) and used them in service of a pretty good ghost story. As such, I was primed to see where The Quiet Ones would take me: would this be the disappointment of Wake Wood or the pleasant surprise of The Woman in Black?

Taking place in 1974, The Quiet Ones concerns the experiments of one Professor Joseph Coupland (Jared Harris), the kind of driven, obsessive man-of-science that was practically a staple for Hammer back in the day. Coupland is conducting research into the intersection of “faith, superstition and medicine” which, as we all know, is shorthand for “messing around where he doesn’t belong.” Along with his faithful students Brian (Sam Claflin), Krissi (Erin Richards) and Harry (Rory Fleck-Byrne), Coupland seeks to observe actual poltergeist activity in a test subject, with the ultimate goal being to remove said “bad spirits” in a purely scientific manner. The subject, in this case, is Jane (Olivia Cooke), a disturbed young woman who seems to have an unhealthy relationship with a sinister doll named Evie.

After Coupland has his funding pulled by the overly-cautious Oxford University administration, he’s forced to relocate Jane and his team to a secluded, out-of-the-way country estate so that they can continue their experiments. If you guessed that moving the proceedings to a secluded area is a bad idea, go ahead and give yourself that cookie. As strange, unexplained things begin to happen around them, Coupland and his team are quick to realize that they’ve opened a door to a very, very dangerous place. Our obsessed professor has a secret, however, a secret which will threaten not only the team’s collective sanities but their very lives. Who, exactly, is Jane? Is Evie an actual sinister presence, like a demon, or she just a manifestation of Jane’s own damaged, fractured psyche? All these questions and more will be answered as our intrepid heroes discover that, sometimes, the quiet ones are the ones you need to watch out for.

As previously mentioned, my opinion on the “modern” Hammer Films is a little mixed, making The Quiet Ones a bit of a tie-breaker, as it were. In this case, however, the scales have definitely tipped down towards the Wake Wood end of things, rather than the Woman in Black end. Like Wake Wood, The Quiet Ones alternates between measured, stately scares and purely ridiculous moments in an awkward ballet that never seems to come into its own. The initial premise is intriguing and there’s plenty of room for commentary on the obsessive quality of “good” researchers, the horrors of the past, etc etc but a late revelation about the “true” nature of the evil upends the film and turns it into an all-too-familiar possession story without adding anything new to the mix.

For my money, however, The Quiet Ones critical flaw is, ironically, found right there in the title: for a supposedly stately film about “quiet” evil, this film had more excruciatingly loud jump scares than anything I can remember in the near past. This was also an issue with Wake Wood, although not to this extent, while The Woman in Black managed to largely avoid this issue. Here, each and every instance of Evie’s presence is denoted by some sort of blaring loud sound, usually an intensely unpleasant EMF “whine” that’s positively headache inducing. I’m not ashamed to admit that I have a complete and total bias against loud jump scares: call it extreme prejudice, if you will. In this case, The Quiet Ones obnoxious sound design managed to hobble the film before it even made it out of the gate.

Which, in a way, is kind of a shame: there’s a lot to like here, even if nothing is extraordinary or particularly thought-provoking. Harris gives a phenomenal performance as the far beyond driven professor, proving, once again, that he’s an absolute diamond in the rough when it comes to these sorts of films. While none of the other actors have anywhere near Harris’ presence or charisma, they still produce decent enough work, although I can’t shake the feeling that Sam Claflin has to be one of the most generic, vanilla protagonists in some time. The film also blends its found-footage and “traditional” cinematography to good effect, although the film, eventually, devolves into much more of a stereotypical found-footage film, complete with “spooky” things in the background. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention the location: the secluded mansion is a masterpiece of set design and any of the film’s genuine frights are to found from the hapless researchers bumbling down its dark halls, ala any number of more traditional Gothic affairs: this is one aspect of the “new” Hammer that most resembles the “old.”

Ultimately, The Quiet Ones was a disappointing film, mostly because there was so much potential here. I’ve yet to see the Woman in Black sequel, so it would be a little silly to make any concrete declarations about the dreadful state of Hammer’s current incarnation. So far, however, suffice to say that I’m somewhat less than impressed. While the new Hammer resembles the old one in some fundamental ways, it also lacks a lot of the original’s soul and spirit. Like any good ghoul, Hammer refuses to stay dead and buried: at this point, however, it’s difficult to determine whether that’s a noble attribute or whether this particular creature needs to be put out of its misery.

 

1/4/15: Leave Your Mind At the Sound of the Beep

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Ahnna Rasch, Alexander Brøndsted, Antonio Tublen, audio experiments, audio tones, Björn Löfberg Egner, cheating husbands, cinema, Computer Chess, dark comedies, dramas, dysfunctional family, electronic score, Erik Börén, experiments, film reviews, films, flashbacks, foreign films, hallucinations, husband-wife relationship, infidelity, insanity, Johanna Tschig, LFO, Linus Eklund, loners, Lukas Loughran, mental breakdown, mental illness, mind control, Movies, neighbors, Patrik Karlson, Per Löfberg, Samir Dounas, sci-fi, scientists, secrets, sound frequencies, sounds, stylish films, Swedish films, synthesizers, troubled marriages, writer-director-score-editor

Suppose that you invented the perfect self-help device, a machine that would put you into a highly suggestible state, allowing for subtle modifications to your behavior. Trying to cut back on sweets? Simply leave a “message” for yourself and your mind will subconsciously take care of the heavy lifting. Want to exercise more? Listen to a particular tone and, without even trying, you’ll actually want to run a marathon and do sit-ups until the cows come home. Want to just be a “better” person, in general? Set the controls, leave your command and, through no additional effort of your own, your brain and body will spring into action, making your “wish” come true. Sounds pretty amazing, right?

Now…suppose that you also just realized that if your humble little invention works so well on you, it might also work equally well on others. Suppose you discover that your device allows you to “control” others, using the power of hypnotic suggestion to subliminally influence and direct their actions and thoughts. Would you use said device to help make the world a better place, influencing people to abandon selfish, dangerous and destructive behaviors in favor of a more helpful, unified world view, inching humanity ever closer to a long-sought-after utopia? Or would you use it to turn those around you into mindless slaves, unknowingly beholden to your whim and command?

In a nutshell, that’s the conflict at the center of multi-hat-wearing director Antonio Tublen’s (he also wrote, edited and performed the electronic score) intriguing LFO (2014), an odd, stylish and darkly humorous bit of heady sci-fi that whips mind control, mental illness, marital discord and God complexes into a heady brew. While the film can be a little rocky, at times, and comes across as overly complex in the early going, LFO eventually settles down into a smart, edgy and appropriately weird little film that’s somewhat reminiscent of Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess (2013), while still managing to stake out plenty of original territory of its own.

Robert (Patrik Karlson) is a loner who lives by himself, routinely ignores his self-posted notes to “Take his medication” and seems to hallucinate the specter of his former wife, Clara (Ahnna Rasch), who appears to serve as his conscience. He also appears to be a scientist, of some sort, who’s working on an experiment involving sound frequencies: Robert collaborates with several other colleagues, including Sinus-San (Erik Börén), via short-wave radio, since he rarely seems to leave his house. Robert makes a breakthrough when he notes that a particular frequency makes him highly susceptible to suggestion: upon further experimentation, he discovers that he can actually command himself to do things by giving an order into his device and listening to the resulting tone. In a humorous bit, Robert makes himself dislike cookies: after “waking up” from the frequency, he absent-mindedly noshes on a cookie, only to spit the treat out in disgust. Success!

After further tests prove how well the device works, Robert decides to take everything to the next level, “Phase 2,” as it were. Inviting his new neighbors, Linn (Johanna Tschig) and Simon (Per Löfberg) over for coffee, Robert uses the device on them and discovers that it has the exact same effect as on him. While in their hypnotic states, Robert plants subtle subliminal commands that have the effect of turning Linn and Simon into mindless drones: whenever they hear the tone, they’re powerless to resist Robert’s commands, although they remember nothing upon “waking.” In short order, the mad scientist is using Simon for free labor, while Linn serves as his sex slave, in a pretty obvious example of “absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

As Robert continues to fine-tune and perfect his device, however, outside forces begin to swirl about him. Sinus-san has taken to lurking around the periphery after discovering that Robert has cut him out of their joint discovery, while a mysterious insurance adjuster, Peter (Lukas Loughran), keeps asking questions about a car accident that Robert seems to have been involved with. There’s also the little matter of Clara, whose presence becomes more and more pronounced, as she constantly admonishes Robert to take his meds. Buffeted on all sides, Robert begins to lose control of his unwitting neighbors, who are now beginning to experience strange, unexplained half-memories of things that they can’t quite recall, such as Linn having sex with Robert. As Robert slips further and further into madness, humanity slides ever closer to a complete loss of free will…for better or much, much worse.

Tublen’s LFO bursts out of the gate with a smart, fresh concept and then proceeds to expand on it in some interesting ways. If the initial going can be head-swimmingly complex (perhaps those with knowledge of sound frequencies and the resulting science behind it may be able to keep up but this viewer was underwater fairly quickly), the film eventually settles down and, once we’ve accepted the tech aspect, becomes much more of a basic “mind control” film, albeit one filtered through the cracked, surreal lens of something like a Quentin Dupieux film. While not as outwardly strange or surreal as Dupieux’s films, there’s still the basic sense of a world that’s similar to ours but just off-kilter enough to be strange and unsettling.

LFO is a highly stylish, visual film, filled with vibrant colors, blinking lights, lo-fi technology and lovingly composed frames. The cinematography, courtesy of dual personnel Alexander Brøndsted and Linus Eklund, is consistently strong and the film always looks interesting. As befits a film focused on sound frequencies, the sound design in LFO is absolutely top-notch: I don’t normally single out sound engineers but I’d be a real jerk not to heap some praise on Samir Dounas, since the sound mix and editing is so vital to this particular film’s success. There’s also a highly effective electronic score, courtesy of the director, himself, which adds immeasurably to the atmosphere and tone of the film: another way in which LFO reminded me of Dupieux’s filmography.

The performances are uniformly strong, with Karlson being particularly impressive as the increasingly unhinged Robert. Tschig and Löfberg are quite convincing as the couple, vacillating between dead-eyed drones and confused, slightly frightened babes-in-the-woods: particularly good are the later scenes where Robert pretends to be a marriage counselor and leads the couple through his version of reconciliation therapy. One of the most impressive aspects of the film is how outwardly funny it is, albeit in a dark, rather twisted way. All three of the leads display excellent and subtle comic timing, which helps keep everything moving smoothly.

If I have any real complaints with LFO, they’re the same kinds of issues I might have with any similarly “tricky” film: at times, the film can get tripped-up in its own complex rationalizations and the whole thing feels just slightly longer than it should be. There’s also the underlying problem of Robert’s virtually unbeatable ability to control minds: similar to superheroes/villains that are too powerful, the balance of power in LFO is always drastically unbalanced. Since Robert is able to effortlessly control any and every situation with a click of his remote, there are times when the film feels rather low stakes: regardless of his situation, we’re always fairly sure that our little anti-hero will be able to regain control. Tublen still manages to wring plenty of genuine suspense and tension out of the scenario, don’t get me wrong, but this is definitely the epitome of a “stacked deck.”

In the end, I quite liked LFO: the film was very smart, relentless and genuinely intriguing. While never as unpredictable as something like Computer Chess or Wrong (2012), it was still one of the trickier films I saw last year and is never anything less than thought-provoking. LFO also manages to go out on a real high point, with one of the best endings I’ve seen in some time: in fact, the ending is so good that it actually helped to smooth out some of my previous reservations, proof positive that you always want to leave ’em with your best foot forward. While I’m sure that none of us would ever want a neighbor like Robert, it goes without saying that we could all benefit from spending a little time with the creepazoid, now and then.

10/24/14 (Part Two): Mommy’s Little Monster

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31 Days of Halloween, Adrien Brody, androgyny, auteur theory, body image, Brandon McGibbon, Bride of Frankenstein, Canadian films, cinema, co-writers, creature feature, Cube, David Hewlett, Delphine Chaneac, experiments, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Frankenstein, gender roles, gene splicing, genetic research, Henry Frankenstein, intelligence, KNB Effects, Mary Shelley, Movies, near future, new parents, parent-child relationships, research & development, Sarah Polley, sci-fi, sci-fi-horror, Splice, technological advancement, Vincenzo Natali, writer-director

As this “brave new world” that we’re part of throttles ever forward, we find ourselves in an era when groundbreaking scientific discoveries seem to be a dime a dozen: here a medical breakthrough, there a previously undreamed of planet, everywhere some innovation. Hell, researchers even think they’ve discovered how to prevent humans from aging: forget the Jetson’s flying cars…this is what the future really looks like, apparently. As the question of “Can we do this?” becomes more moot, however, we find ourselves in a quandary that’s at least as old as Mary Shelley’s stitched-together creation: “Should we do this?”

Indeed, as our technological prowess and knowledge expands exponentially (seemingly by the minute), humanity finds itself at a bit of a crossroads, similar to that faced by a parent and child: at some point, the child’s knowledge will surpass the parent’s, regardless of how “smart” they are. As our technological abilities lap our current understanding of the larger implications involving issues like artificial intelligence and genetic engineering, however, the bigger, more terrifying problem becomes evident: at some point, humanity will unleash something on itself that it not only doesn’t fully understand but that it’s powerless to resist. Writer-director Vincenzo Natali’s sci-fi/horror Splice (2009) takes a look at this very issue, wrapping the warning in a tale that’s equal parts “new parent blues” and body horror, sort of like Cronenberg tackling Frankenstein. It’s a bracing and, at times, highly unpleasant film. Like all of Natali’s films, however, it’s also thought-provoking, intelligent and has enough twists and turns to separate it from the pack.

Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) are maverick scientists involved in cutting-edge gene-splicing research. Their research involves combining various organisms, culminating in their pride and joys, “Fred” and “Ginger,” organic creations that are like nothing that came before. After their research company decides to halt further genetic splicing in favor of focusing on the breakthroughs they already have, however, Clive and Elsa decide to go rogue and continue their splicing experiments on their own. For “pure” scientists, the thrill is always in the chase, not the chase, and the partners won’t stop when they’re so close to a world-changing discovery.

And, of course, they end up getting their wish, albeit in a way that they probably didn’t expect. Thanks to the inclusion of human DNA in their experiment, Clive and Elsa are now the proud “parents” of…well, something, for lack of a better word. The name their creation “Dren” and there’s immediately conflict: Clive is horrified by what they’ve done and wants to kill the “creature” before anything bad happens. Elsa, on the other hand, wants to study Dren: since the creature ages at an accelerated rate, Elsa figures that they have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe the entire life-cycle of a new species…what scientist worth their salt would pass that up?

As Dren grows, she develops into something decidedly alien, humanoid although possessed of a massive tail with a poisonous stinger at the end, similar to a scorpion. As Dren gets older, the relationship between the “parents” and their “child” becomes more complicated, made more so when Dren begins to display some decidedly violent behavior. If Frankenstein taught us anything it’s that first impressions probably aren’t the best judge. For, you see, as Dren grows, she’s changing: becoming something much greater and more terrifying than the scientists could have ever imagined. After “Fred” and “Ginger” tear each other to rags before a mortified crowd of spectators, Clive and Elsa’s “official” research is shut down. Their secret project has now become something potentially lethal, however, something which threatens not only their lives but the very future of the human species. As Clive and Elsa will learn, there are some doors that should never be opened, even if we have the key.

Like Natali’s solid debut, Cube (1997), Splice is elevated by a great central idea and some truly intelligent writing. Unlike Cube, however, Splice benefits from some excellent acting and much greater production values: the creature is always impressive, from the get-go, and only gets more so as it continues to “evolve” and change. Natali is a tricky filmmaker, almost a poker-faced prankster who delights in hiding things in the margins of his films. One of my favorite revelations in Splice comes from the names of Brody and Polley’s characters: Clive and Elsa. Unless I’m reading too much into it, the connection with Universal’s classic monster flicks seems undeniable: Colin Clive played Henry Frankenstein in James Whale’s classic Frankenstein (1931), while Elsa Lancaster played the monster’s “bride” in the followup, The Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Subtle, sure, but just the kind of attention to detail that make Natali’s films so interesting.

More importantly, however, Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley invest the film with some genuine heart and soul: unlike the under-developed characters from Cube, Splice is filled with what feel like real people dealing with some intensely difficult decisions. They don’t always make the right decisions, of course, but what Frankenstein story would be complete without a misguided God complex? Polley, in particular, is fantastic as Elsa: she gets some extremely difficult emotional beats to work through and nails everything with a verve that makes it impossible to take your eyes off of her. It’s to Polley’s great credit that she can share the screen with what amounts to a scorpion-tailed gargoyle and still hold her own: contrast this with something like Pacific Rim (2013), where the human actors are completely upstaged by the monsters and robots.

As previously mentioned, Splice is full of some pretty ingenious twists and turns, none of which I’ll spoil here. Suffice to say that the film manages to work in discussions of body image, gender roles and Oedipal/Elektra complexes before the whole thing culminates in a blood-drenched finale that’s the very epitome of “The end is the beginning.” As with almost all of his films, Natali seems more interested in setting up clichéd tropes in order to detonate them from the inside than he is in playing to audience expectations: just when you think you have Splice figured out, Natali flips the film on its head and tells you to take another look. As someone who constantly bemoans lackluster resolutions in indie horror films, I find Natali to be a breath of fresh air: no matter what happens, I know that he’ll find an interesting way to resolve everything without resorting to obvious “Shyamalanisms.”

As with most of Natali’s films, Splice is far from perfect but none of the minor issues or slight imperfections really impact the overall film: taken as a whole, Splice is a massively entertaining, thought-provoking sci-fi/horror film that combines the chilly sterility of Cronenberg with a blood-and-guts monster flick. There are ideas aplenty here and Natali manages to hit most of what he’s aiming at, making Splice one of the most intriguing of the new wave of “intelligent sci-fi” that’s cropped-up in the last five years or so. It’s rare to find a horror film that has both heart and brains, guts and a soul. Like any good mad scientist, Natali has cobbled his film together out of some pretty cool spare parts and let me tell you: it’s a real monster.