7/15/15 (Part One): Peachfuzz Still Loves You, Little Buckaroo

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awkward films, Best of 2015, cinema, co-writers, confessions, Creep, dark comedies, disturbing films, feature-film debut, Film, film reviews, found-footage, found-footage films, Funny Games, horror, horror films, insanity, isolated estates, lake house, Man Bites Dog, Mark Duplass, Movies, multiple writers, obsession, Patrick Brice, Peachfuzz, psychopaths, small cast, The Puffy Chair, trilogy, unsettling, videographer for hire, writer-director-actor

Suppose that you’re a freelance videographer and you’ve just stumbled upon one of those “too-good-to-be-true”-type Craigslist ads: you know, the ones that promise lots of money for what seems like a surprisingly small amount of work? In this case, the job offers a cool grand for just a few hour’s work…not too shabby, eh? When you get to the address, you find out that it’s in a really picturesque, isolated mountain town, at the top of a long, wending hill. Once there, you discover that your prospective employer is the dictionary definition of a meek, unassuming guy…basically, the kind of guy that no one would cross the street to avoid, although they might do so to steal his lunch money.

This guy, he seems like a nice enough dude but he has a few quirks: he really likes to hug, for one thing, and he has a rather unsettling propensity for jumping out from around corners and trying (and succeeding) to startle you. He also keeps a wolf Halloween mask in his closet, which he’s named “Peachfuzz” and written a jaunty tune about. No biggie, though: the guy’s house is really nice, modern, well-lit and comfy…no piles of bodies, bone chandeliers or Sawyer-approved home decor to be found here, doncha know! In every way, shape and form, this guy is the poster-boy for middle-of-the-road, plain-ol’-vanilla normalcy.

After talking to this friendly, unassuming fella, he makes a pretty good case for needing your services: turns out that he’s been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and he wants you to make a “My Life (1993)-esque” video document for his unborn son. He may not be around to raise him, but this dedicated soon-to-be-dad wants to leave his child with as much of his wisdom and attention as he can: get the life lessons out of the way right now, while he’s still around to give them, and leave his son a legacy for the future.

All well and good, no alarm bells whatsoever…if anything, this guy might be in the running for “Father of the Year,” unborn child or not. After paying you upfront (talk about a totally upstanding dude!), your humble host decides that it’s time to get down to business: you were paid to film, so film you will. The first thing on the agenda? This totally normal, average guy wants to walk his son through the mechanics of “tubby time,” so he strips naked and jumps in the bathtub, all while you keep filming. And then things get really weird.

This, in a nutshell, is Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass’ intensely awkward, genuinely disturbing Creep (2014), a two-person, found-footage examination of obsession, insanity, loneliness and the often terrifying “real faces” that supposedly normal folks hide from the world at large. Despite the inherent simplicity of the set-up and format (Brice and Duplass co-write the film, as well as starring in it, while Brice also served as the director…at no point do we ever get another actor on-screen aside from these two), Creep is endlessly engaging and so tightly plotted that it’s almost seamless. Creep is not only a first-rate found-footage film, it’s also one of the best, most unsettling films of the year.

The secret weapon here, as in many other indie productions, is wunderkind Mark Duplass. Although perhaps best known for his pioneering work in mumblecore and for his role on the relentlessly hilarious TV show The League, Duplass and his brother, Jay, have been involved with an almost dizzying variety of projects, either as writer, director, actor or all three: The Puffy Chair (2005), Baghead (2008), Cyrus (2010), Greenberg (2010), Jeff, Who Lives at Home (2011), Your Sister’s Sister (2011), Safety Not Guaranteed (2012), Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and Mercy (2014), to name but a few.

In this case, Duplass has teamed with Patrick Brice, whose follow-up to Creep, The Overnight (2015), made big waves at various film festivals this year. Described as the first in a trilogy, Creep is as low-budget and bare-bones as it gets: in essence, the entire film consists of Duplass’ Josef creeping out Brice’s Aaron in every way imaginable, with the tension slowly ratcheting up until the entire film threatens to explode like a busted water heater. To make things even odder and more uncomfortable, Creep is also full of pitch-black, deadpan humor, much of which walks an incredibly thin line between making one burst out laughing (Josef’s “Charlie Day-worthy” Peachfuzz song is an easy highlight) and making one cringe down in their seat, attempting vainly to become invisible.

Perhaps the greatest triumph, here, above and beyond the masterfully economic production (“anyone” can do this…provided, of course, that they’re as talented as Brice and Duplass) is the way that the film sinks its hooks into us and refuses to let go. Unless you’re a complete horror neophyte, you’ll probably be able to predict where the film eventually ends up. The route to get there, however, is a particularly thorny one, full of red herrings, dead ends, misplaced assumptions and cinematic slight of hand: at one point, we seem to be witnessing the natural progression of what we assume will happen, only to have it be revealed as recorded footage from earlier. Brice and Duplass don’t engage in the same sort of meta-mind-fuckery that Haneke did in Funny Games (1997) but they’ve managed to set up show just one door down, which is a pretty neat trick all by itself.

Creep is a strange film, no two ways about it. It’s a surprisingly complex narrative for such a short, deceptively simple film: Brice and Duplass seem to be telling a pretty straight-forward genre story about a creepy guy (think Psycho (1960) stripped down to a two-person drama) but constantly throw in allusions, asides and nods to much bigger, darker things happening in the background. The film could be about the hidden dangers lurking behind any potentially smiling face but it could also be about the very nature of truth and perception, sort of a Schrodinger test to see if “absolute truth” exists outside of our individual understandings. It could be about loneliness and mental illness but it could also be about the horrifying randomness of the universe, the howlingly unknowable cosmic coin toss that puts some folks on the road to happiness while others end up mulch.

There are moments in the film (the harrowing bit involving Josef’s ringing cell phone, that amazing final long shot) that are as classically “horror” as the genre gets, while other scenes (tubby time, the unpleasant Peachfuzz story, the visit to the healing spring) would be odd fits in any film, regardless of the generic focus. Creep is such an amazing piece of work because it somehow makes all these disparate elements fit together in a wholly organic way: Brice and Duplass’ film could be about any or all of these things or it could be about none of them.

While Brice has a few off moments, acting-wise (some of his close-up asides to the camera feel more like delivering lines than just “being”), Duplass has such a singular focus that it’s difficult to see where the actor stops and the character begins. At times, I was reminded of Duplass’ archly awesome asshole from The League, a totally cool dude who fucks with people just to watch their reactions. At other times, however, that odd combo of sweetly goofy happiness and reptilian, dispassionate reserve would chill me straight to my blood cells: it’s always difficult to get under a lifelong horror fanatic’s skin, especially where more modern horrors are concerned…Creep makes it seem distressingly easy.

As the first film in a proposed trilogy, I’m deathly curious to see where Brice and Duplass go from here: while the film ends in a way that seems to “pan back” and give us a wider overview of the evil we’ve witnessed, I’d hate to think that Brice and Duplass might get lazy and just give us more of the same in future installments. As it stands, Creep was one of the most uncomfortable, unpleasant, powerful and astounding little films I managed to see this year: I’d love to be able to say the same thing about the next two, whenever Brice and Duplass decide to unleash them upon the world.

For now, however, I’m going to double-down on my long-standing paranoia regarding other people: the world might be full of totally nice, cool individuals, but as long as there are Josefs out there, I think I’ll be a little more comfortable behind my locked door, thank you very much. As for answering Craigslist ads? Fuggedaboudit.

 

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.

3/19/15 (Part One): The Third Time Ain’t the Charm

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Aaron Scott Moorhead, anthology films, Bonestorm, Chase Newton, cinema, Dance of the Dead, Dante the Great, Deadgirl, evil magicians, film reviews, films, found-footage, found-footage films, Gregg Bishop, horror, horror films, horror franchises, horror movies, Justin Benson, Marcel Sarmiento, Movies, multiple directors, multiple writers, Nacho Vigalondo, Nick Blanco, Parallel Monsters, parallel universe, Resolution, Shane Bradey, skaters, Timecrimes, V/H/S Viral, Vicious Circles, writer-director

In most cases, you know exactly what you’re in for by the time you get to the third entry in a horror franchise: by that point, rules and themes are established, villains are developed and fans know to expect more of the same, albeit with enough slight variations to keep the whole thing from getting (too) dull. This set of expectations works for pretty much any horror franchise out there, with one rather notable exception: the V/H/S (2012-2014) series.

Since V/H/S, V/H/S 2 and the recent V/H/S Viral (2014) are all horror anthologies that feature multiple writers and directors, there’s very little similarity between the three films, aside from the central conceit (found-footage horror shorts). As such, it’s kind of a strange “series” with no true sense of continuity between installments. While I enjoyed the first film in bits and parts (the only truly effective segments were Adam Wingard’s wraparound story and Radio Silence’s crazy exorcism piece), I found a lot more to enjoy in the follow-up: in particular, Timo Tjahjanto’s bat-shit insane “Safe Haven” is the killer cult film that Ti West’s The Sacrament (2013) should have been and easily one of the best shorts of the past several years. After digging V/H/S 2, I found myself eagerly awaiting the follow-up, despite the possibility that it might hew closer to the debut than the sequel. This, after all, is the joy (and potential disappointment) of this type of endeavor: you never know quite what you’re going to get, as that lovable goof Gump might say.

The bad news, of course, is that V/H/S Viral is not a particularly good film (films?), certainly no where near as accomplished and entertaining as Part Two. The wraparound segment, directed by Marcel Sarmiento (the twisted genius behind the suitably grimy Deadgirl (2008)), is a complete waste of time and manages to squander the supremely creepy notion of an ice cream truck driving around at night, creeping people out. Gregg Bishop (the guy behind the “zombies vs prom” epic Dance of the Dead (2008)) turns in a fairly effective piece about a cheesy magician and his deadly magic cloak that gets hamstrung by a thoroughly silly wizard duel and an old-as-the-hills “surprise” ending.

Nacho Vigalondo, who completely blew my mind with his head-spinning Timecrimes (2007), contributes a short about parallel worlds that features some great visuals (the blimp with the upside-down, neon cross is amazing, as are the glowing orifices on the “demons”) but seems to have been constructed more as a half-serious variation on the old “twins switching places” cliché than anything more substantial. As a huge Nacho fan, this one was probably the biggest disappointment, even though it was still average, by most other standards.

Only the concluding story, “Bonestorm,” manages to stick its landing (minus a slight foot shuffle on the dismount), mostly because it’s the perfect synthesis of fun, creepy, bloody and silly: pretty much the mission statement for the series, if you think about it. Directed/written by Justin Benson and Aaron Scott Moorhead, the dynamic duo behind Resolution (2012) (easily one of my favorite modern horror films), the short is set-up like an old-skool skate video and details what happens when a rambunctious skate crew heads to Tijuana to film their antics in an abandoned drainage area. What happens, of course, is a protracted battle involving vicious, machete-wielding cult members, creepy girls in old-fashioned dresses and enough skateboard-initiated decapitations to ensure that Tony Hawk gets his eventual shot at taking down Jason Voorhees. There are also bloody pentagrams, awesome re-animated skeletons and enough gallows’ humor to guarantee that things never seem too grim, no matter how grim they really get. Extra points for an extremely likable cast, full of charismatic wise-asses.

Ultimately, any anthology film has the potential to be hit-or-miss: that’s just the nature of the beast for this kind of film. The problem with V/H/S Viral comes with the fact that only one of the four stories (in this case, the wraparound definitely functions as its own story, albeit a thoroughly confused one) is actually consistently good: the others have their moments, sure, but they also end up falling apart by their conclusions (although, to be fair to “Parallel Monsters,” it sort-of crumbles rather than outright implodes). There’s plenty of gory effects and mildly shocking moments to spare, no doubt about it: one of the best is an intensely gory, yet relentlessly funny, bit involving an obnoxious bicyclist who gets dragged behind the ice cream truck, to a deliciously distasteful conclusion. In many ways, V/H/S Viral is much closer to the original V/H/S, which also doled out delights in sparing doses, in between juvenile humor and lovingly composed gore effects.

Despite its inconsistency, however, Viral definitely has its moments, indicating that there’s still gas left in this particular franchise’s tank (unless those are some awfully powerful fumes, I suppose). With the mind-boggling array of top-shelf horror filmmakers currently working in the industry, there’s still plenty of future potential for the series, both good and bad: they could, conceivably, keep the franchise going for a full decade and still have plenty of fresh talent to pull from. As long as future installments feature films as entertaining as “Bonestorm” or “Safe Haven,” I’ll keep coming back, regardless of how many times I get disappointed. After all, part of being a horror fanatic is sifting through all the chaff to get to the wheat: as long as they keep growing ’em, I’ll keep sifting ’em.

2/21/15 (Part Three): A Monster Mash

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Adam Green, Alex Pardee, ArieScope Pictures, auteur theory, Chillerama, cinema, creature feature, Digging Up the Marrow, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, found-footage, found-footage films, Frozen, Hatchet, horror, horror films, indie horror film, interviews, mockumentary, Monsters, Movies, Nightbreed, practical effects, pseudo-documentary, Ray Wise, self-promotion, Will Barratt, William Dekker, writer-director-editor

As I stare forty years of living in the face, there are precious few holdovers from my childhood but there are still a few: I’m still terrified of spiders, I’m still fascinated by outer space and I still believe in monsters. Call it a life-long delusion, a long-held conviction or just plain bull-headedness but I staunchly refuse to believe that we puny humans really know all there is to know about this massive ball of rock and water that we live on (much less the billions of unexplored ones that blanket the cosmos). The oceans are mighty deep, the jungles are mighty thick and there are plenty of dark places to poke around in…if you think about it, we know as much about our world as any child does, which is, of course, not much.

Indie horror auteur Adam Green also believes in monsters and, like me, isn’t afraid to admit it. The difference, of course, is that this stuff is his bread-and-butter: as the head of ArieScope Pictures, creator of the Hatchet franchise (2006-2013) and horror-oriented TV show Holliston, as well as writer-director of the ‘stuck-on-a-ski-lift’ chiller Frozen (2010) and a segment in the rather odious Chillerama (2011) anthology, Green is one of the brightest stars in the modern horror constellation. With his newest film, Digging Up the Marrow (2014), Green fuses his life-long love of monsters and horror to a sturdy found-footage template and comes up with something along the lines of a low-key, indie, found-footage Nightbreed (1990). In the process, he illustrates the fact that true believers have known all along: monsters are real…and they don’t always have our best interests in mind.

Structurally, Digging Up the Marrow is similar to another indie horror film: writer-director J.T. Petty’s S&man (2006). Like S&man, Green’s film begins as a mockumentary, with the writer-director going around various fan conventions and interviewing genre luminaries like Lloyd Kaufman, Tony Todd, Mick Garris and the like. On the surface, the subject is monsters but the early part of the film is actually all about Green and his film company, ArieScope Pictures. In an exceptionally clever bit of cross-promotion, Green and his associates play themselves in the picture and we get plenty of behind-the-scenes peeks into films like Hatchet (2006): it works within the structure of the film but it also serves as a neat little bit of fan service, a two-for-one that speaks volumes to the way Green approaches the subject (and his films, in general).

As Green discusses the various monster-related things that fans and peers send him, all while accompanied by erstwhile cameraman Will Barratt, we finally get to the “fiction” at the heart of the “fact.” In the midst of all the documentary footage and interviews, Green discusses one particular person, William Dekker (Ray Wise), who claims to have actual evidence of real monsters. Dropping everything, Green and Barratt head out to go see Dekker and prove (or disprove) his claims. Once there, the filmmaking duo find their host to be an exceedingly eccentric individual: intense, no-nonsense and utterly convinced of the existence of monsters, Dekker claims to know where the entrance to their underground world is. Dubbed “The Marrow,” Dekker claims that monsters regularly emerge from the otherwise unexceptional hole in the nearby forest and he gives Green the opportunity he’s waited his whole life for: the chance to actually see a real monster.

As Adam and Will settle in, however, they begin to get the gradual impression that Dekker isn’t playing with a full deck, especially when he claims to see monsters that neither of them can. When Green unexpectedly gets his wish and actually sees something, however, it sets off a fire in him: despite Dekker’s increasingly frantic pleas to leave well enough alone, he’s bound and determined to descend into The Marrow, scratching that unscratchable childhood itch for the first time. Will Adam and Will find the monsters that they seek? Is Dekker telling the truth, completely insane or some combo of the two? And where, exactly, does that ominous hole really lead?

Let’s get the negative stuff out of the way up front: Digging the Marrow suffers from many of the same issues that most found-footage films do (at this point, these issues are starting to seem like inherent genetic defects in the sub-genre), the finale is a little rough and we don’t get to see quite as much of the monsters as I’d like (pretty much a standard complaint in most horror fare, if you think about it). As with pretty much any found-footage film, the movie also ends just as it’s really kicking into gear: again, pretty much endemic of the sub-genre.

And that’s pretty much it, folks: past those few small complaints, Green’s film is a complete joy, a fan love letter to monsters that manages to push pretty much ever necessary button in my black, little heart. While I’ve been a fan of Green’s since Hatchet, I was unaware of how genuinely charismatic the guy is: it’s always a danger when directors “play themselves,” as it were, but Green manages to be friendly, likable, interesting and, most importantly, absolutely believeable during the fictional portions of the film. It shouldn’t be surprising that Green can interact effortlessly with the other directors and industry folks at the conventions (those are his peers, after all) but his acting scenes with Wise have just as much authenticity and realism. Ditto Barratt, who proves a more than capable foil to Green. In a subgenre that often suffers from unrealistic, unlikable actors/characters, Digging Up the Marrow acquits itself most ably.

This, of course, doesn’t even take into account the stellar contributions of long-time genre great Ray Wise. Always dependable and usually the best thing on any screen at any given time, Wise is one of those actors that lights up any production: to be honest, his part in Chillerama was just about the only thing I enjoyed in that entire film and it probably accounted for a grand total of five minutes, tops. Here, Wise has never been better, for one important reason: Green actually gives him the opportunity to stretch out and sink his teeth into a meatier role. We get much more of Wise, here, than we usually do (maybe since Swamp Thing (1982), to be honest) and the results are predictable: more Wise equals more badassitude, period. He’s tough, snarky, sarcastic, caustic, funny, vulnerable, sinister, innocent and all-around amazing: it’s a full-rounded performance and a multi-dimensional character. More than anything, this should serve as a wake up call for other filmmakers: stop using Wise as seasoning and start making him the main course…there’s no reason this guy shouldn’t be carrying more movies.

Any film about monsters, however, must still answer one very important question: how cool are the monsters? In the case of Digging Up the Marrow, the answer is “Very cool.” Based on the artwork of outsider illustrator Alex Pardee (who also appears during the film’s faux-interview portion), the monsters are unique, frightening, weird, cool and all-around unforgettable. My big complaint, of course, is that we never see as much (or as many) of them as we should but that’s also like complaining that free ice cream isn’t your favorite flavor: are we really going to bitch about free ice cream? What we do see, however, makes all the difference in the world: it’s obvious that Green and crew have genuine love for their subject and it really comes out in the exceptional practical effects and creature designs.

One of the biggest compliments I can give Digging Up the Marrow is that I wanted more as soon as the film was over: the film is ready-made for a sequel (The Marrow has many entrances, according to Dekker, all over the world…including in an IHOP, since monsters like pancakes) and I say “Bring it on.” Digging Up the Marrow is a fascinating, unique and extremely personal film by a massively talented filmmaker: I have a feeling that Green still has a lot to say about the subject and I can’t wait for him to say it.

While monsters always function better in the darkness, Adam Green is one of the few filmmakers to successfully grab them and haul them into the light. As a lifelong monster hunter, I tip my camouflaged hat.

2/13/15: Old Habits Die Hard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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.

 

12/22/14 (Part One): Tie Your Mother Down

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Adam Robitel, alternate title, Alzheimer's Disease, Anne Bedian, Anne Ramsay, Brett Gentile, children in peril, cinema, co-writers, Deborah Logan, evil old lady, feature-film debut, film crews, film reviews, films, found-footage films, horror, horror films, immortality, Jeremy DeCarlos, Jill Larson, Julianne Taylor, Michelle Ang, mockumentary, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, murdered children, Paranormal Activity, possession, pseudo-documentary, Ryan Cutrona, serial killers, snakes, The Blair Witch Project, The Taking, The Taking of Deborah Logan, titular characters, Tonya Bludsworth, writer-director-editor

Anyone who’s ever watched a loved one succumb to Alzheimer’s knows that the disease is a true monster that rivals anything the brightest stars in horror can dream up: formerly brilliant minds revert to a state of petulant childhood, life-long lovers forget the partner who’s been by their side for decades and, eventually, the victim’s body betrays its own basic functions and forgets such prime directives as “Eat” and “Breathe.” The deepest, most enduring tragedy of the disease is the way it makes the familiar alien to us: when all that we ever really carry with us is our memories, Alzheimer’s ends up being the most lethal, insidious thief of all.

Despite the inherently horrifying nature of the disease, cinematic depictions of Alzheimer’s are almost always delivered as tear-jerking dramas, stories of families in crisis, bittersweet ruminations on life-long love running its course, etc…Thanks to writer-director Adam Robitel, however, the world of cinematic horror finally has its first “Alzheimer’s disease”-related film: The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014) is a found-footage film that purports to examine someone suffering from the effects of Alzheimer’s who may also (or may not) be suffering from some sort of demonic possession. While the film’s angle is pretty unique and the first half manages to offer up some nicely subtle chills, however, Robitel’s feature-length debut winds up collapsing into a mess of lazy Blair Witch Project (1999) and Paranormal Activity (2007) clichés by its final act, squandering much of the good will that the film earns along the way. Nonetheless, The Taking of Deborah Logan certainly earns points for finding a more unique subject to exploit” than the same moldy old haunted house/moving furniture tropes that have been de rigueur in found-footage for the past 15 years or so.

Right off the bat, we’re greeted with text that explains that the film we’re about to see has been cobbled together from various footage sources and has been “lightly” edited and spruced-up: a vague bit of base-covering that, essentially, gives a pass for any and all unexplained angles, non-digetic sounds, etc…that we’ll be encountering. It’s also, by its very nature, a rather lazy approach to the format and the first (of many) warning signs that this particular way will be a rocky one. In a nutshell, medical student Mia (Michelle Ang), along with crew members Gavin (Brett Gentile) and Luis (Jeremy DeCarlos), wants to make a documentary about Alzheimer’s patient Deborah Logan (Jill Larson). Deborah’s grown daughter, Sarah (Anne Ramsay), is eager to get the filmmakers involved, since they’ve offered to help pay for her mother’s increasingly expensive medical care. When the formerly on-board Deborah suddenly decides that she values her privacy more than the assistance, however, all signs point to Mia’s documentary being D.O.A.

There wouldn’t, of course, be a movie without a change of heart, however, the crew are invited back a week later to begin filming their project. At first, everything seems pretty normal: Deborah is certainly more forgetful than the average person but there doesn’t seem to be anything too terrible going on. In short order, however, we see just how fast Deborah is stuck in the sticky web that is Alzheimer’s: she begins to forget basic things about her own daughter and past, has mood changes on a moment’s notice and has started to let her own hygiene slide. As Sarah tries to help her mother retain as much of her personality as she can, we witness the heartbreaking ways in the disease breaks down both its victim and her caregiver: as Mia notes in one of her documentaries many talking points, caring for an Alzheimer victim can alter the caregiver’s brain chemistry, as well, making the terrible disease a truly lose-lose proposition.

Just when it seems as if The Taking of Deborah Logan might be the world’s first found-footage-styled “after-school special,” however, things begin to take a turn for the sinister. Cameraman Gavin happens to spy Deborah doing some odd things with a snake and the older woman seems to develop a habit of appearing right behind folks, scaring the everlovin’ shit out of them. Things really come to a head, however, when Deborah completely flips out and accuses Gavin of stealing her beloved garden trowel: she chases him around the kitchen with a large butcher knife, cornering him on the counter and very nearly costs everyone involved several fingers. After taking her back to the hospital and the kindly Dr. Nazir (Anne Bedian), Sarah gets the worst news possible: her mother’s condition is deteriorating at an ever more rapid rate and she’s losing more of her brain on a daily basis. The end, as Sarah knows all to well, may be over the next horizon but it’s getting closer by the minute.

Deborah’s condition may be terrible but Mia and the others begin to notice a frightening pattern: Alzheimer’s explains some, but not all, of the things that are happening around them. Snakes start popping up everywhere, Deborah has taking to painting a series of pictures which depict a mysterious, black figure moving ever closer to their house and she’s developed an alarming propensity for what medical experts must surely dub “scary, intense and gravely demon voices” (take two pills twice a day, as needed). After a truly creepy incident involving Deborah’s patented in-home switchboard system, Mia and the others come to think that someone else might be responsible for Deborah’s more violent tendencies: specifically, they come to believe that poor Deborah is possessed by the spirit of serial killer Henry Desjardins (Kevin A. Campbell), a pediatrician who mysteriously disappeared after killing four children as part of an immortality ceremony.

As Deborah’s behavior becomes more and more extreme, Sarah is truly backed-up against a wall: she could barely care for her mother before creepy paranormal shit started happening and this all just seems like one cruel cosmic joke, especially when everyone from the local priest to the college’s expert in anthropological studies seems unable to give her any assistance. Is Deborah actually possessed by the spirit of an insane killer or is her Alzheimer’s just getting exponentially worse as time goes on? What’s up with all of the snakes that seem to be popping up everywhere? Could there be another, darker, mystery at the heart of everything…a mystery that could potentially unravel our comfortable belief in a rational world and give us a front-seat to our own demise? What is actually taking Deborah Logan: an unstoppable disease or pure evil?

For roughly the first half of the film, The Taking of Deborah Logan is a really well made found-footage film, albeit one that doesn’t do much new with the sub-genre, aside from the subject matter. That being said, the early found footage aspect of Robitel’s film is quite strong: in particular, I really liked the pseudo-documentary aspects of Mia’s film, such as the computer-aided infographics, actor reenactments and talking head interviews. Unlike other found-footage films that aim for a pseudo-doc feel, The Taking of Deborah Logan actually feels like the real thing: kudos to Robitel for managing to nail the tone/look so spot-on.

The acting is also quite good across the first few acts, with Jill Larson turning in a massively impressive performance as the titular character: her ability to vacillate between sweet, angry, forgetful and prideful is absolutely essential to the success of the character and Larson pulls it off quite handily. There are moments in The Taking of Deborah Logan that are absolutely heart-breaking and it’s all down to Larson’s incredibly subtle, expressive performance. Once she gets more bonkers in the latter half of the film, her performance begins to seem a bit more heavy-handed but the early going is quite masterful.

If only the same could be said of Anne Ramsay’s performance as Sarah, however. Ramsay comes into the film “turned up to 11,” as it were, and her performance only gets more strident as the film wears on. By the climax, both Sarah and Mia are so shrill, giddy and obnoxious that I spent the final 15 minutes secretly hoping something would bump off both their characters, a pretty extreme switch from rooting for them a mere 20 minutes before that. Ditto for Gentile and DeCarlos’ unlikable turns as Mia’s film crew: neither character ever gets more to do than utter tired variations on “Oh, hell no!” and the script saddles DeCarlos with one of the awful “these crazy white people” asides that’s a real head-smacker. I’m also not sure what’s going on with Ryan Cutrona’s performance as next-door-neighbor Harris: not only did he never really seem to factor into the story, his motivations and personality also seemed to change on the drop of a hat, based on whatever the script needed him to do…nothing quite like a character who might as well be named “Johnny Plot Contrivance.”

As mentioned earlier, the subtle, sparse quality of The Taking of Deborah Logan’s first 40 minutes ends up getting thrown completely out the window in the last half of the film, resulting in endless scenes where characters look through a camera viewfinder while running down endless, anonymous dark tunnels, as well as those now ubiquitous “stationary cameras recording while everyone sleeps” clichés that seemed to spring fully formed from Paranormal Activity like Athena busting out of Zeus’ cranium. None of it adds anything new to the format whatsoever and the film even manages to end with one of those moldy “or are they…evil?” “twists” that’s probably only novel for folks that have been in comas for the past several decades.

Despite how disappointing the film becomes, however, there’s plenty to like here, including a thoroughly gonzo, kickass scene during the climax that involves one of the characters spitting acidic venom and distending their jaw like a snake in order to swallow someone whole: suffice to say that my resulting upraised fist probably knocked a big chunk of cheese out of the moon. On the whole, however, The Taking of Deborah Logan ends up being just another found-footage film, full of all of the same problems and clichés, albeit with slightly more imagination and invention, than the rest of the unwashed masses. There was enough solid material here to make Robitel’s film easy to recommend, even if the film will always function best as one of the “rainy day” viewings. Nonetheless, give Robitel and co-writer Gavin Heffernan credit for one thing: they have to be the first filmmakers to plant a horror flag in the desolate wasteland that is Alzheimer’s Disease and that, on its own, has to be worth something.

12/17/14: The Bobcat Bigfoot Project

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Alexie Gilmore, auteur theory, believers vs non-believers, Bigfoot, Blair Witch, Bobcat Goldthwait, Bryce Johnson, Bucky Sinister, cinema, cryptids, cryptozoology, eccentric people, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, found-footage, found-footage films, God Bless America, horror, horror films, isolated communities, isolation, Laura Montagna, legend vs reality, legends, lost in the woods, Movies, Patterson-Gimlin film, Peter Jason, Sasquatch, The Blair Witch Project, Tom Yamarone, Willow Creek, writer-director

While The Blair Witch Project (1999) may not have been the very first found-footage film (we can argue about it later), it was certainly the film that brought the sub-genre to the attention of the general public and helped get it into the pop culture zeitgeist. It was also the film that helped establish the “rules” that would make found-footage such a popular, if restrictive, way to tell a story: hand-held camera, first-person POV, a lack of obvious action with an emphasis on atmosphere and mood, a focus on verisimilitude that includes mundane conversations and long “dry” stretches, small cast, isolated setting, dropping the camera at the conclusion…these were all presents that The Blair Witch Project pretty much brought to the party. Something obviously must have worked, since the film would go on to be one of the highest-grossing independent films of all time and would help to usher in a new era of lower-profile, word-of-mouth film festival hits, such as the similar Paranormal Activity (2007).

Despite its success and influence, however, The Blair Witch Project isn’t without its problems, some of which are more critical than others. For one thing, the acting tends to be rather rough and the characters are extremely unlikable: we basically get stranded with a bunch of amateur actors in the woods as the yell at each other for upwards of an hour. There’s also a decided lack of actual “action” in the film: the majority of the movie consists of the three actors tromping around the woods, arguing about being lost, before we get the decidedly iconic finale featuring the creepy abandoned house. There is plenty of great atmosphere here, don’t get me wrong, but The Blair Witch Project is pretty much the epitome of a film that hasn’t aged well: after screening it again, recently, I actually found it to be fairly tedious and way too obvious. There’s still a great core idea here, an interesting mythos and a nicely isolated setting but I can’t help but feel there was a much better, more interesting film here struggling (and failing) to get out.

Bobcat Goldthwait’s Willow Creek (2014) is that film. While the movie seems to be a conscious attempt to replicate some of the exact same beats from The Blair Witch Project – small cast searching for a local legend in the woods, meeting exceptionally eccentric locals, getting lost in the woods and coming face-to-face with the exact thing that they’re looking for but don’t, in the end, really want to find – Goldthwait does something rather revolutionary: he gives us characters we can actually care about rather than obnoxious “types” who ultimately serve only as cannon fodder. With this one simple step (along with a small host of refinements, tweaks and improvements), Goldthwait fixes many of the inherent issues with The Blair Witch Project and gives us a glimpse into what the film could have been. Willow Creek is not a perfect film, by any stretch of the imagination, but it is rock-solid, one of the “purest” found-footage films I’ve ever seen and, despite the near complete lack of on-screen chaos, a genuinely scary film.

Premise-wise, Willow Creek is simplicity, itself: Jim (Bryce Johnson), a Bigfoot enthusiast, is determined to follow in the footsteps of the famous Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film from 1967 (you’ll know it the second you see it, trust me) and he’s dragged his non-believer girlfriend, Kelly (Alexie Gilmore), along for the ride. He’s decided to turn their “adventure” into a lo-fi documentary with him serving as eager “host” and Kelly running the camcorder (in other words, the perfect found-footage set-up).

The pair head to Willow Creek, California, the small, Bigfoot-obsessed town that lies on the outskirts of the heavily wooded area where Patterson and Gimlin first caught sight of the famously hairy woodland creature. Once there, they poke around town, interviewing the locals (believers and non, alike) and gathering information for their inevitable trek to Bluff Creek, the actual location of the famous sighting. Willow Creek happens to be home to more than its fair share of mysterious disappearances, it seems, although the scuttlebutt seems to be divided as to how much ol’ Bigfoot is responsible for and how much is the work of the extremely uncompromising wilderness surrounding them (bears and mountain lions are common occurrences, after all).

While most of the locals are friendly, they also bump into a couple rather sinister ones (gotta have balance!), which has the effect of giving Kelly second thoughts about their trip: she might not believe in Bigfoot but she sure as hell believes in Deliverance (1972). She’s even more wary once they head into the woods and run into former Forest Ranger Troy Andrews (Peter Jason), who tells them a rather disturbing story about “something” that tore his beloved dog to pieces: she’d rather not meet whatever was responsible but Jim has Sasquatch-fever and won’t take no for an answer. From this point on, the progression of events should be pretty familiar: they wander around a bit, find various eerie hints of strange doings and end up spending a rather terrifying night in their tent, all leading to an explosive, highly disturbing ending that’s the very definition of “you should have left well-enough alone.”

And that’s pretty much it: 80 minutes, from beginning to end, no tricks, no frills, nothing but the goods. As I said, nothing here should really be new to anyone who’s seen The Blair Witch Project but the key here is all in the execution and attention to character development. Unlike the antagonistic, obnoxious characters from Blair Witch, Jim and Kelly come across as realistic, interesting, dynamic and highly likable: they may not be completely three-dimensional but they’re a helluva lot more developed than the paper-thin characters in Blair Witch. Little things are the key here: the way in which we subtly learn how obsessive Jim is, via the way he constantly re-records footage to get the absolute best take, even though he’s going for “realism” above all else…the way that Kelly can express extreme disapproval with only a slightly furrowed eyebrow while still smiling and toeing the “party line”…the quietly stunning moment, towards the end, where Jim apologizes for getting them into their current predicament…these are all the kinds of “actorly” moments and beats that were completely missing from Blair Witch. You know…all those things we normally associate with a “good” film?

Willow Creek is also a genuinely funny film, at times: the scenes where Jim and Kelly goof around in town are great and another crucial way in which Goldthwait keeps building our empathy for the characters. The bit where they riff on the ridiculous mural of Bigfoot that covers the entire outside of one building is an absolute classic bit of comedy: paced like a good stand-up routine, the minutes-long segment had me laughing so loud that I found myself needing to rewind in order to miss additional lines…that, my friends, is the very definition of a funny scene. Despite the inherent humor of the town scenes, however, it never feels as if Goldthwait is playing his subjects as idiots: it’s quite obvious that the scenes where they interview the various towns-folk are real, which adds quite a bit to the film’s overall tone (although this was also something that The Blair Witch Project used to fairly good effect). Perhaps it helps that Goldthwait is, apparently, a Bigfoot enthusiast: he has no interest in poking fun of these people since he, himself, is also a believer.

If you only know Bobcat Goldthwait as the Tazmanian Devil-voiced freak-show from the Police Academy films, you’ve managed to handily miss out on one of the best, most daring modern-day filmmakers around: while I’ve always been a bit hot-and-cold on his debut, the transgressive clown comedy Shakes the Clown (1991), World’s Greatest Dad (2009) is an absolutely perfect stunner and easily one of the best films of its year, if not several years in either direction. The follow-up, God Bless America (2011), was a more obvious, if no less well-made film, and showed that former Cadet Zed had somehow developed into a badass writer-director while no one was looking. While Willow Creek is, technically, Bobcat’s first genre film, it’s no less expertly crafted than the rest of his oeuvre, proving that the guy can pretty much do anything he sets his mind to.

Ultimately, however, a big question remains: Is Willow Creek just a style exercise, an attempt to improve on The Blair Witch Project while giving Goldthwait a chance to play around with Bigfoot mythology? While I think that’s definitely one of the factors behind the film, I certainly don’t think it’s the main one…or even the most important one, to be honest. More than anything, Willow Creek seems like an attempt by Goldthwait to weld the type of fully developed characters from his dramas/black-comedies onto a standard-issue found-footage template (short of the rather astonishing 20-odd minute single-take shot that he uses in the tent, there’s not a whole lot of particularly “innovative” filmmaking here, per se). It’s a film where so many of the truly important details happen in the margins: the chilling foreshadowing of the missing poster scene…the marriage proposal…Jim and Kelly’s arguments about moving to Los Angeles…the little asides and quips that crop up in the documentary parts…these are all genuinely human, dramatic moments and they help make the film seem much more fleshed-out and well-rounded than it might have been (and certainly much more than The Blair Witch Project, at any rate).

Is Willow Creek a good film? To be honest, it’s actually a very good film, even if it does manage to get tripped up by many of the same issues that helped fell Blair Witch: the overly shaky camera; bad sight lines; occasional dry stretches; the lack of any conventional “action” on-screen, save for the finale. Crucially, however, none of these issues are critical hits, which can’t necessarily be said for Blair Witch. While Willow Creek doesn’t necessarily reinvent the wheel, it manages to improve on its spiritual forebear in pretty much every way possible. When we actually care about the characters, their ultimate fates become that much more impactful: suffice to say, I found myself thinking about that finale quite a bit after the end credits rolled. As a huge fan of Goldthwait’s work ever since World’s Greatest Dad, there’s nothing about Willow Creek that really surprised me, for one very important reason: I already knew the guy was gonna knock it out of the park as soon as I saw his name attached. While Willow Creek may not be the best horror film of the year (there’s plenty of competition), it certainly deserves a place on the finalists’ list. Here’s to hoping ol’ Bobcat doesn’t lose his jones for the scary stuff anytime soon: with a calling card like Willow Creek, the sky, literally, is the limit.

12/15/14 (Part One): Unidentified Flailing Object

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Alien Abduction, alien abductions, aliens, Ben Sharples, Brown Mountain Lights, Brown Mountain North Carolina, chase films, children in peril, cinema, Corey Eid, families, family vacations, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, found-footage, found-footage films, government secrets, horror, horror films, isolation, Jeff Bowser, Jillian Clare, Jordan Turchin, Katherine Sigismund, Kelley Hinman, low-budget films, Matty Beckerman, Movies, Peter Holden, Project Bluebook, Riley Polanski, Robert Lewis, sci-fi-horror, UFOs

Why is it generally not a good idea to open a film with the resolution? I’m not talking about the rather de rigueur habit of giving us a glimpse of the climax before working backwards – that particular tactic has been done successfully multiple times, most recently by Big Ass Spider (2013). No, I mean beginning a film with the entire resolution before jumping backwards, playing everything through linearly and then concluding with the very same resolution that began the film. Just speaking for myself, mind you, I can think of one very important reason why this is a bad idea: the last thing you want to end a film with is a hum-drum, “seen it before” conclusion, especially if the audience has already been shown said climax earlier. I’m not saying that everything needs (or even should) end with a twist or a surprise but leading with your climax is like beginning a joke with the punchline and still expecting your audience to laugh at the end.

As should be fairly obvious by now, Matty Beckerman’s found-footage alien film, Alien Abduction (2014), does exactly what I just complained about above. More’s the pity, since the conclusion in question is pretty damn awesome: visually eye-catching, well-staged, creepy as hell and suitably shocking, it would have been a great way to end a film. Hell, it still IS a great way to end a film, even though we see the exact same scene, verbatim, at the very beginning of the film. I can understand being proud of a perfectly executed scene, don’t get me wrong, but the sense of deja vu I felt going into the film’s final five minutes kind of defeated the purpose. Again, more’s the pity, since Alien Abduction is actually a pretty decent, albeit less than essential, found-footage film and ends up being a fairly thrilling ride for most of its 85 minute runtime.

Beginning with a note that “this is actually leaked footage from classified Air Force files,” we get some standard-issue “talking head” interview stuff about aliens, particularly as related to the Brown Mountain area of North Carolina. Apparently, a phenomena known as the “Brown Mountain Lights” has been documented in that part of the country for some time now, a phenomena which has also been tied in to several unexplained disappearances. We’re told about a secret government project know as Project Bluebook (about time someone helped car buyers!) that monitors and studies alien and UFO activity. One of the cases has to do with the disappearance of 11-year-old Riley Morris (Riley Polanski), whose camcorder was recovered even though his body, along with those of his family, was never found. Alien Abduction, then, supposedly consists of Riley’s found-footage. As should be pretty clear by now, The Blair Witch Project (1999) is a pretty big influence here, right down to some of those patented “cry into the camera” shots.

We now meet the Morris family as they set out for a fun weekend of camping in the Brown Mountains (dun dun duuuuun!): parents Katie (Katherine Sigismund) and Peter (Peter Holden) and their kids, autistic Riley and his siblings, Jillian (Jillian Clare) and Corey (Corey Eid). Since this is a found-footage film, we get plenty of footage of the family goofing around in their truck on the drive over there (the filming aspect is explained by Riley’s constant need to film everything). As with most films (and scenes) like this, we don’t really get a whole lot of anything here but, ya know, it’s part of the trope, so why not?

That night, after settling down at their first campsite, the kids happen to see strange, “intelligent” lights in the sky, lights which form some sort of pattern before zooming away. Their parents, as can be expected, are slightly less than convinced, however. On their way to the next campsite in the morning (apparently, the family has a thing about spending the night in every campsite they come to), they begin to deal with some pretty standard horror movie issues: none of their phones get a signal, the truck’s GPS is on the fritz and a mysterious rain/fog has popped up out of nowhere to make everything nice and ominous. Did I mention that they’re also dangerously low on gas? Because they totally are, dontcha know.

As they continue to drive, the family begin to pass a series of stopped vehicles: the various vehicles appear to have just stopped in random places, with the doors open, lights on and all personal belongings still inside. They make their way to a creepy tunnel, which appears to be jam-packed with more stalled vehicles, including a police cruiser. Proceeding through the tunnel, the group is suddenly confronted with a blinding light and, for lack of a better word, a pretty stereotypical alien (close your eyes and you already know what it looks like, trust me). From this point on (with an hour to go), the film becomes a relentless chase picture, with the family running in desperation from the alien. Along the way, they meet a redneck hunter with a thing for guns (Jess Bowser) and get involved in situations that seem an awful lot like video game segments, especially when everything is filmed in a first-person “put you right in the action” kind of way. This leads directly to the already-seen conclusion with nary a detour to the left or right along the way. Roll credits.

Despite being rather underwhelmed by Alien Abduction, it’s actually not a bad little film at all. There’s plenty of eerie atmosphere to be found on the way to the tunnel sequence and that first/final scene is a real home-run. I also have to give extreme kudos to the filmmakers for actually managing to film an hour-long chase scene: while it’s not perfectly executed (again, just a little to “video-game-rail-shooter” for my tastes), it’s still a nicely ambitious tack to take, especially when something less ambitious would have gotten the job done.

On the other hand, however, there’s also plenty of stuff here that drags the film down like an albatross. The acting, as can be expected with many found-footage films, is functional, at best, and silly, at worst. Chief offender here would definitely have to be Peter Holden as the father: after finding him to be one of the worst parts of the recent Under the Bed (2013), I was rather chagrined to see his name in the credits for this one. As expected, he’s rather awful, although he does get some competition from Jeff Bowser as the redneck and Corey Eid as the oldest son. Katherine Sigimund and Jillian Clare end up coming out the best, acting-wise, but that’s mostly because they don’t stick out as much as the others.

The film is also tonally inconsistent, swinging wildly from subtle chills to klaxon-blasting jump scares, sometimes within the same scene. Rather than keeping me off-balance, I found the back-and-forth to be extremely irritating: had the film decided to be either a balls-to-the-wall rollercoaster or a creepy slow-burner, it would have been a much better movie. There are also a few moments where the film’s low-budget shows through, although the film’s key moment (again, that stellar opening/conclusion) actually looks pretty great. The alien costume/makeup is pretty good, too, from what we can see of it, although I wish they’d been a little more original with the look; by contrast, the aliens in the “painting” segment of All Hallows’ Eve (2014) looked a whole lot more original and scary than what we get here.

As a low-budget first feature, Alien Abduction definitely shows that director Beckerman has some potential: I’m really curious to see what he does with something a little more ambitious (and original) next time. If you’re the kind of person who relishes the opportunity to watch any found-footage film, you could probably do a lot worse than Alien Abduction: it’s not the most flawless example of this type of thing but it’s far from the worst. On the other hand, this exact same idea has already been done recently (and better) in the aforementioned All Hallows’ Eve and Jason Eisener’s excellent “Slumber Party Alien Abduction” segment of V/H/S 2 (2013). With so many choices already out there, Alien Abduction just doesn’t do quite enough to stick out from the crowd. Close, as they say, but definitely no cigar.

10/31/14 (Part Two): The Unblinking Eye

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31 Days of Halloween, Amy Lalonde, auteur theory, Chris Violette, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Diary of the Dead, Film auteurs, found-footage films, George Romero, Greg Nicotero, horror franchises, Joe Dinicol, Josh Close, Land of the Dead, living dead, Megan Park, Michelle Morgan, Night of the Living Dead, Philip Riccio, R.D. Reid, Scott Wentworth, sequels, Shawn Roberts, student films, Tatiana Maslany, voice-over narration, writer-director, zombie apocalypse, zombies

At one point in Diary of the Dead (2007), George Romero’s fifth official “Dead” film, one of the characters wonders what compels us to stare at an accident but not offer assistance: we’ve become a society of cold, removed observers, she notes, as dead on the inside as the walking corpses that relentlessly hunt the living. It’s a thought-provoking observation and one that seems especially prescient in this era of social media and “cellphone journalists.” These days, Good Samaritans appear to be a thing of the past, concert-goers watch bands through their phones while standing three feet from the stage and the general public can receive nearly 24/7 celebrity updates via Twitter, Instagram, etc. Technological advancements have made it so that humans are more inter-connected than at any previous point in our history: never before has it been more possible for complete strangers on opposite sides of the world to “talk” than it is now. This, of course, makes it even more puzzling when close friends sit next to each other and text rather than, you know…speaking: never before have we been more connected yet simultaneously unplugged from the “real world.”

Like all of his “Dead” films, Romero’s Diary of the Dead is anything but a straight-forward zombie flick: Romero, after all, was the guy who inserted social commentary into the very DNA of the zombie film all the way back in 1968 with the incendiary Night of the Living Dead, taking on race relations, global unrest and the Vietnam War with equal aplomb. The follow-up, Dawn of the Dead (1978), took the very notion of consumerism and capitalism to task as survivors of the global zombie epidemic hole up in an abandoned shopping mall and live like royalty while the mindless flesh-eaters gather en masse outside the gate like so many rotting barbarians. Day of the Dead (1985) further explored Romero’s fascination with the notion of “evolving” zombies, as the undead gained more human attributes even as the actual human characters descended into a cartoonish maelstrom of prejudices, misplaced rage and violent tendencies. Romero followed up Day of the Dead twenty years later with the action-oriented Land of the Dead (2005), which tackled the eternal war between the haves and the have-nots, with the rich barricaded away from the world in a literal ivory tower before being turned into a smorgasbord by the living dead.

With Diary of the Dead, Romero takes an unflinching, if achingly obvious, look at the world of media and journalism, particularly the “infotainment” that has replaced our formerly unbiased news coverage as of late. Jason Creed (Josh Close), the student filmmaker at the heart of Diary’s storyline, has a very simple reason for being so compelled to finish his documentary about the zombie crisis, “cleverly” entitled “The Death of Death”: he wants to make sure that the truth makes it out there, somehow, amidst all the “conventional news resource bullshit.” In an era where it can sometimes be difficult to make out any individual voices, thanks to the excess of information bombarding us from every angle, Jason wants to be the voice of truth, a beacon in the wilderness: that he’s willing to constantly put himself and his friends in harm’s way to do so might make him some sort of martyr…or it might make him just as dangerous as the shuffling dead that continue to pop up everywhere.

Utilizing a found-footage aesthetic for the first time in the franchise’s history, Romero throws us right into the middle of the zombie apocalypse and gives us a front-row seat to the chaos, thanks to Jason’s unblinking camera and the host of other media (cell-phone videos, security cameras, news broadcasts) that help fill in gaps in the story. In some ways, Diary of the Dead serves as a kind of prequel to the other films (albeit one with a very different timeline), since it purports to show the period of time right after the dead begin to overtake the living. This ends up putting it in roughly the same time-period as Dawn of the Dead (1978), although the action has been wholesale moved forward about 30 years, which must certainly be the cost of doing business with a series that first kicked off in 1968.

As Jason and the rest of his film-crew, including Tony (Shawn Roberts), Ridley (Philip Riccio), Francine (Megan Park) and Eliot (Joe Dinicol) are out in the woods shooting a low-budget mummy epic (along with their film professor, Prof. Maxwell (Scott Wentworth)), reports begin to pour in about the dead returning to life and attacking the living. After opting to abandon his school project in lieu of turning his camera on the events around them, Jason leads his group back to their school so that he can meet up with his girlfriend, Debra (Michelle Morgan, whose voice-over narration quickly wears out its welcome). Everywhere they turn, however, there seems to be nothing but mounting danger. To make matters even hairier, the students notice that news broadcasts of the events are now being edited and given particular spins, slants which have nothing to do with disseminating the truth and everything to do with pushing forward an agenda.

Tension rises within the group, however, when Jason’s constant filming begins to wear on everybody: at one point, he even stays with his camera as its charging while the rest of his group are off trying to save one of their own. For Jason, his documentary is the only thing that matters now, a time-capsule that can explain the disaster to whoever manages to follow them. The rest of the group, however, tend to see things a bit differently: to them, Jason is hiding behind his camera in order to avoid facing the terrible reality that surrounds him. “There will always be people like you who want to document,” Prof. Maxwell scoffs at one point, venom dripping from every syllable. Even Debra begins to take her boyfriend to task, arguing with him about his unceasing focus on filming above and beyond everything else, including their personal safety. As the group begins to fracture and splinter, they all agree to make their way to the supposed safety of Ridley’s luxurious house. When they get there, however, they discover that their nightmare isn’t winding down: it’s just beginning.

Unlike Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead is a distinctly more horror-driven enterprise, lacking the over-the-top action setpieces and overwhelming firepower of the fourth film while returning to the social commentary of the second film. On the surface, this would seem to make Diary a better “Dead” film than Land but, alas, that’s not necessarily the case. The acting here, for the most part, is a decided step down from the previous film, bringing us dangerously close to the over-the-top thespianism of Day of the Dead. The zombie elements, while well-done, almost seem a bit perfunctory, although there are two suitably gruesome setpieces involving a barbecued State Trooper and jar of acid to a zombie’s acid, respectively, that are pretty damn impressive. As with Land of the Dead, Greg Nicotero handled the zombie fx, which lends this a similar look, if on a decidedly lower budget.

One of the biggest issues with Diary of the Dead ends up being its highly melodramatic and constantly hectoring tone: so much of the film seems to devolve into amateurish young actors shouting at each other and sticking cameras in their faces that it sometimes has the feel of a student production, which is rather ironic considering the storyline. Michelle Morgan and Josh Close, in particular, get rather difficult to take seriously by the end since they’re both so damn intent on proving how serious they are: Debra’s voiceover is a constant presence in the film and, while it may deliver the occasional thought-provoking whopper (such as the aforementioned bit about modern folks and their detachment), it’s just as often prone to deliver ennui and vaguely revolutionary talk that does nothing but detract from the visual aspect of the film.

Unlike previous efforts like Night of the Living Dead or Dawn of the Dead (or even Land of the Dead, for that matter), the “message” in Diary of the Dead is right upfront and constantly shoved in the audience’s face: mainstream media is nothing but bullshit fear-mongering and independent news sources, whether individuals with cell-phones or underground agencies, are the only source for truth in an increasingly confusing world. It’s a great, valid message, one that I (personally) couldn’t agree more with. On the other hand, Romero is so heavy-handed with the message, so constantly “on-point” that it becomes wearing, after a while: the film is kind of like a street-corner preacher with an apple-box and a megaphone, shouting at passerby as they try to scurry away.

Where Diary really exceeds, surprisingly enough, is as a found-footage film. Romero addresses many of the inherent issues with found-footage films (added music/effects, unknown camera angles, constant filming during stressful situations) throughout the course of the movie and comes up with some rather reasonable twists on the formula. The film also handles its morbid humor in a more subtle way than Land of the Dead, recalling the drier tone of films like Night of the Living Dead or Day of the Dead. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention that the final scene of the film is amazingly powerful, easily the equal of the iconic final moments of the original Night of the Living Dead. It has the quiet horror, subtle irony and terrible beauty that has always marked the best of Romero’s work, whether zombie-related or not…it’s a purely cinematic moment and, without a doubt, the strongest in the entire film. Were there more moments like the final image, perhaps my ultimate opinion on Diary of the Dead would be a bit more positive. As it stands, however, I always find myself a bit disappointed by this film: any Romero is a good thing, of course, but I can’t help but wish for a return to the glory days.