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.

 

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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.

 

1/2/15 (Part Two): Do Not Provoke the Bigfeet

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1st person POV, Altered, Bigfoot, Blair Witch Project, cabins, Chris Osborn, cinema, creature feature, Denise Williamson, Dora Madison Burge, Eduardo Sanchez, Exists, film reviews, films, found-footage, hand-held camera, horror, horror movies, isolation, Jaime Nash, Jeff Schwan, John Rutland, lost in the woods, Lovely Molly, Movies, Roger Edwards, Samuel Davis, Sasquatch, Seventh Moon, siege, The Blair Witch Project, vengeance, Willow Creek

While it was certainly odd to see six or seven doppelgänger films released in 2014, I actually found the mini-trend towards Bigfoot films to be even weirder. After all, I can understand the current fascination with thinking that there’s a cooler, more successful version of yourself running around the world: it’s only natural that we’d begin to reap the fruits that we planted in the Social Media Age. What’s behind the boom in Bigfoot/Sasquatch films, though? Current facial hair trends? Our desire to return to the wilderness and live simpler lives? The notion that as the world continues to shrink (that darn social media thing, again), we’re gradually running out of isolated pockets of the unknown to poke and prod, leading us to go over old ground with a finer tooth comb?

Here’s where it gets even stranger, however: of the three Bigfoot films that were released in 2014 (Willow Creek, Skookum: The Hunt for Bigfoot and Exists), two of them actually share a connection, however tenuous. You see, Bobcat Goldthwait’s Willow Creek plays like a Sasquatch-oriented re-do of The Blair Witch Project (1999), albeit one that seems to have the goal of fixing Blair Witch’s many problems (unlikable characters, lack of action, iffy script). Exists, by contrast, is the newest film by Eduardo Sanchez, one of the two filmmakers responsible for The Blair Witch Project and our current obsession with found-footage films. Exists is also a found-footage film (for the most part), which means that we got two, separate found-footage Bigfoot films that both appeared to (obliquely) reference Blair Witch…holy alternate universe, Batman!

Despite the surface similarities, however, there are actually quite a few differences between Willow Creek and Exists (I never screened Skookum, so that may very well slot in here, as well). Of the two films, Willow Creek is much closer to the original Blair Witch Project in tone and intent, whereas Sanchez’s Bigfoot opus is more of an action-horror/siege film: in many ways, Exists is another in the long, storied tradition of “something chasing our heroes through the woods” films, rather than a “traditional” found-footage horror film. Both films have their merits, although I’ll admit to leaning a little heavier on Willow Creek than Exists, which often seems too reminiscent of other films (including Blair Witch). Nonetheless, Exists has plenty to offer fans of Bigfoot-themed horror flicks and manages to whip up a pretty decent sense of atmosphere and tension.

The film begins with us firmly in found-footage cliché land, as we get hand-held footage of our intrepid heroes goofing around on the picturesque drive to their backwoods cabin location. We have brothers Matt (Samuel Davis) and Brian (Chris Osborn), couple Todd (Roger Edwards) and Liz (Denise Williamson) and fifth-wheel Dora (Dora Madison Burge), all out for a nice, fun weekend at the cabin owned (and mysteriously abandoned) by Matt and Brian’s Uncle Bob (Jeff Schwan). The group has snuck out to the cabin, without Uncle Bob’s knowledge, so no one has any idea where they are. If you just said “Sounds like a bad idea,” go ahead and give yourself that gold star, buckaroo.

While driving at night, the group appear to hit something with their SUV: after the most cursory of cursory looks, they take off, convinced that they’ve just “wounded” some friendly, little woodland creature. Turns out this was another bad idea, since something large, angry and extremely violent is now after their group. When the friends hole up in Bob’s abandoned cabin, they quickly find themselves under siege from what appears to be an angry mob of…well, of some kind of furry, bipedal creatures that are, essentially, the exact opposite of the Henderson’s ol’ buddy, Harry. When the group are forced to split up in order to get help, they only end up making themselves easier targets. As Uncle Bob races to the cabin for a desperate rescue mission, the others will learn the terrible price of their thoughtless actions. Can they find forgiveness and salvation in the deep, dark woods or will they end up as just more mysterious footnotes in the murky history of the creature known as Bigfoot?

For my money, Eduardo Sanchez was always the most talented of the Sanchez/Myrick combo. In the time since The Blair Witch Project revolutionized the indie horror film, Sanchez has been responsible for a small handful of really exceptional films: Altered (2006), Seventh Moon (2008), Lovely Molly (2011) and a segment in V/H/S 2 (2013). Lovely Molly, in particular, is an amazing gut-punch of a film and easily one of the best of the past decade. Myrick, by contrast, released the disappointing Believers (2007), Solstice (2008) and The Objective (2008) in the same time-period, none of which approached the quality of Sanchez’s output.

In this case, then, we have the more gifted of the two Blair Witch filmmakers returning to the found-footage sub-genre that he helped popularize: my anticipation for this was pretty high, especially considering how much I respect Lovely Molly. If nothing about Exists manages to hit the heady heights of Lovely Molly, however, it probably has something to do with this being a slightly less personal project: Sanchez directs from a script by Jaime Nash rather than writing the film himself, as he’s done in the past. The characters are much flimsier than his previous films, for one thing, nearly reduced to the level of stock characters (Todd and Brian, in particular, are more stereotypes than actual real people). Again, this only really becomes an issue when compared to Sanchez’s previous full-length, the astounding Lovely Molly: the drop in quality might not be as notable were it not for this rather unfortunate progression.

One of Exists greatest strengths, in the long run, ends up being its more action-oriented take on found-footage films. The usual complaint with these type of films (a complaint that goes right back to Blair Witch) is that nothing actually happens until the final five minutes: everything else is just atmospheric build-up to that brief pay-off. One can’t make that complaint here, since things start happening almost immediately and the film is chock-full of memorable setpieces: the assault on the cabin, the incredible attack on the stranded RV, the Go-Pro-filmed forest bike chase that directly recalls the “A Ride in the Park” segment of V/H/S 2, the effective (if slightly hokey) ending. Exists is able to build and release tension at regular intervals, making it much closer to a “traditional” horror film than the usual “delayed gratification” of found-footage.

Atmosphere-wise, Exists is a complete success: at times, the film is layered with so much tension and dread that it’s almost unbearable. Cinematographer John Rutland (who also shot Lovely Molly) perfectly captures the eerie, isolated woodland location and turns the abandoned cabin into one of the creepiest places of the year. The night scenes are also exceptionally well-shot, with plenty of good image definition, along with lots of that aforementioned tension. From a craft standpoint, Exists biggest failings can actually be traced directly back to its found-footage roots: at times, the film almost seems to replicate specific shots from Blair Witch (the night-vision scenes, in particular), which, ironically, gives it a more slavish air than Willow Creek: Sanchez seems to be ripping himself off, which is a decidedly odd move. There are also several points in the film where the 1st-person perspective is abandoned in favor of a more omniscient viewpoint, which gets kind of confusing: just who, exactly, is supposed to be filming those angles? A Bigfoot? It’s not a deal-breaker but it’s definitely noticeable and anything that takes the audience out of a film like this runs the very real risk of not getting them back.

All in all, I definitely liked Exists: the film was fast-paced, well-made and quite tense, even if it was never particularly unique. That being said, I also found this to be the weakest of Sanchez’s post-Blair Witch output, by a long shot: I would have figured this to be the direct follow-up to his debut, not his fifth full-length. There’s a lot to like here (the repeated images of uprooted trees are frankly awesome and that RV assault is one of the record books) although I can’t help but wish the characters were more fully realized and sympathetic (or, at the very least, interesting). Of the two Bigfoot films I saw in 2014, I was definitely more impressed by Goldthwait’s, even though it seemed to be the less “hard-charging” of the two, on paper. Perhaps it was Willow Creek’s great characters, its handful of genuinely hilarious scenes or that impressive final 30 minutes but it just ended up grabbing me harder than Exists. Despite that fact, however, I’m confident that there’s enough room in the woods for both of these shaggy beasts to happily co-exist: if you’re looking to scratch that Bigfoot itch, you could do a whole lot worse than Exists.

12/17/14: The Bobcat Bigfoot Project

Tags

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

Tags

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.

9/21/14: Father Doesn’t Know Best

Tags

AJ Bowen, Amy Seimetz, auteur theory, based on a true story, Charles Anderson Reed, cinema, cults, Donna Biscoe, Eden Parish, estranged siblings, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, found-footage, Gene Jones, House of the Devil, isolated communities, Jim Jones, Joe Swanberg, Jonestown Massacre, Kate Lyn Sheil, Kentucker Audley, mass suicide, mockumentary, Movies, murdered children, Safe Haven, Talia Dobbins, The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers, The Sacrament, Ti West, Timo Tjahjanto, VICE, writer-director

Sometimes, all of the elements can be there for a roaring blaze but all you get is a little spark and some smoke. Although I went into writer/director Ti West’s newest film, The Sacrament (2013), with high hopes and a head full of overwhelmingly positive critical reviews, I’m rather disappointed to admit that this appears to be yet another underwhelming showing from the modern-day horror auteur. Although I really enjoyed West’s sophomore effort, The House of the Devil (2009), I must admit that I’ve been hard-pressed to really like the rest of his output: The Roost (2005) felt half-baked and slight, The Innkeepers (2011) squandered some nicely built atmosphere with a lazy, perfunctory climax and his entry for The ABCs of Death (2012) managed to be equal parts lazy, stupid and sloppy. My main issue with West remains the same: his films tend to look good but are as empty and slight as cereal commercials. While I’d love to say that West’s take on the infamous Jonestown Massacre is a grand slam, the film is actually closer to an entire nine innings composed of walks and bunts.

For a time, The Sacrament manages to hold, build and maintain a reasonable amount of interest and tension. Our trio of protagonists, Sam (AJ Bowen), Patrick (Kentucker Audley) and Jake (indie writer/director Joe Swanberg) are all employed by modern alternative-media outlet VICE, perhaps most familiar to casual fans as the organization that immerses itself in various “outsider” enterprises like street gangs, drug dealers and, apparently, religious cults. This “immersionism,” as the film calls it, results in a neutral, no-judgement take on various societal elements that usually spawn pretty intense reactions one way or the other. Most importantly for the context of the film, VICE is a real organization and their inclusion in the film helps to heighten the realism of the found-footage aspect, as well as blurring the lines between the reality of the situation and the highly fictional nature of filmmaking. This ends up being the film’s biggest hat trick and, for a while, was almost enough to keep this viewer’s attention…almost.

The plot is almost simplicity, itself: Patrick’s drug-addled, estranged sister Caroline (Amy Seimetz) has just sent him a letter explaining that she got clean, moved out of the country and hooked up with a religious cult. Patrick plans to head to the tropical commune and check out the situation: when his boss, Sam, convinces Patrick to take him and cameraman Jake along for the ride, we get yahtzee. Once there, the trio notices that there seem to be quite a few more armed soldiers hanging around than seems necessary for a supposedly peaceful commune: the place looks more like a ramshackle army encampment. The followers all seem nice and friendly, however, especially the former gutter-trawling Caroline. Although our friendly heroes are a little wary, nothing seems particularly out of the ordinary…at least nothing that they can put their fingers on.

In time, Sam gets his wish and is allowed to interview the cult’s charismatic leader, Charles Anderson Reed (Gene Jones), otherwise known as “the Father.” Reed makes his initial appearance dressed in an all-white suit, wearing sunglasses, entering to rapturous applause: he’s like an older, pudgy, nerdier version of Bono. He also seems a bit cuckoo, although his initial paranoia and dislike of American policies doesn’t necessarily set-off warning bells among the counter-culture journalists. When a young girl (Talia Dobbins) slips Sam a note that says, “Please help us,” however, the group begins to realize that there’s something more sinister going on here. As their departure time approaches, unease and turmoil seems to be spreading through the camp: something’s brewing and it’s making Sam, Jake and Patrick more than a little nervous. When “paradise on earth” suddenly becomes “Hell,” however, the journalists find themselves trapped in a living nightmare and realize the terrible truth: when you immerse yourself too completely in darkness, you tend to disappear.

For most of its running time, The Sacrament is a fully competent and well-made film: the cinematography is frequently lovely, the acting is decent and the locations are certainly interesting. The main problem, unfortunately, is the overwhelming sense of “been there, done that.” Perhaps this is due to the fact that Ti West has modeled his film pretty much part and parcel on the real-life Jonestown Massacre: in many ways, Charles Anderson Reed is just a slightly fictionalized version of Jim Jones, right down to the way he dresses. The problem with this becomes a similar problem with any film based on true events: when you know how everything will play out and end, there needs to be other elements to hold viewer interest. Although James Cameron’s Titanic (1997) is a rather dubious example (I’ve never actually sat down to watch the film, so my knowledge of it is strictly anecdotal), there does appear to be one main difference between the two films: Cameron’s film used the sinking of the Titanic as the background for a love story, whereas West seems content to simply rehash the basic beats of the original story.

We get very little in-depth analysis on the cult or its members and none of the main characters are ever fleshed-out beyond a few basic brushstrokes: Sam and his wife are expecting their first baby, Patrick is worried about his ex-junkie sister, yadda yadda yadda. With no particularly interesting characters to focus on, our primary focus becomes the story, itself. The problem with this, of course, is that most of us already know how this particular story ends. I could certainly see how someone who’s unfamiliar with the original Jonestown Massacre might be shocked and horrified by what’s on display here but the reality was much, much worse: West’s depiction ends up being a pale imitation of real events.

This notion of “same old, same old” is compounded by the fact that horror fans have already seen this particular idea done much better previously: Timo Tjahjanto’s entry in V/H/S 2 (2013), Safe Haven, was a similar “journalists go hang out with a doomsday cult” scenario but managed to be endlessly inventive, eye-popping and a ludicrous amount of fun. The Sacrament is too serious and po-faced to be that entertaining, unfortunately, seeming to strain for a relevance that it just doesn’t fully earn.

For all of my disappointment in the film, I still can’t deny that West is a talented filmmaker: the film is filled with highly effective, evocative scenes (the “interview” scene between Sam and The Father is especially atmospheric and well-done) and the mass suicide scenes definitely have a raw power to them. There’s something especially dreadful about watching the helpers mix up the poisoned Kool-aid and serve it to the unsuspecting children as their tearful, resigned parents look on. The violence and gore effects are well-done, helping to ramp up the inherent realism of the piece. On the acting side, AJ Bowen does a typically rock-solid job as the pushy editor, while Gene Jones makes a highly effective cult leader: there’s something about his soft, doughy expressions and wheedling voice that are both strangely soothing and unsettling.

Ultimately, however, The Sacrament is what it is: an extremely faithful retelling of the Jonestown Massacre that features no real surprises and seems to add nothing to discussion of the original incident. While there’s not much technically wrong with the film, there’s also no spark, no real sense of invention or purpose. In a genre that thrives on strong audience reactions to films, whether positive or negative, The Sacrament received the worst possible reaction from me: I shrugged. So middle-of-the-road as to be nearly faceless, Ti West’s newest is another case of “close but no cigar.” I’ll keep watching his films but, at this point, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to muster up much more emotion than faint interest.

7/8/14: Buffalo Bill vs the Aliens

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aliens, Anne Roland, Banshee Chapter, Blair Erickson, Buffalo Bill, cinema, conspiracy theories, Fallen, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, flashbacks, found-footage, government secrets, Katia WInter, Michael McMillian, missing friend, MK-Ultra, Movies, mysterious broadcasts, radio broadcast, radio stations, sci-fi-horror, secret labs, Silence of the Lambs, Ted Levine, Thomas Blackburn, writer-director

After a distressingly rough opening, writer/director Blair Erickson’s modest sci-fi chiller, Banshee Chapter (2013) ends up settling into a pretty comfortable groove, thanks in no small part to an enjoyably over-the-top performance by none other than The Silence of the Lamb’s (1991) own Buffalo Bill, Ted Levine. Levine is pretty gonzo (pun intended) as a free-spirited writer who looks and acts a whole lot like Hunter S. Thompson and he, along with some pretty creepy ideas and visuals, manage to do a lot of the heavy lifting. There ends up being quite a lot of slack to take up here, though, thanks to a rather confusing script, some perspective issues regarding the found-footage aspect and an overly trite resolution. The film’s never dull, however, and even manages flashes of brilliance, from time to time, usually whenever Levine is snarfing up scenery.

Journalist Anne Roland (Katia Winter) is on the hunt for her old college friend, James (Michael McMillian), who’s gone missing after consuming some sort of experimental chemical known as MK-Ultra. We’ve already seen James get snatched by “something,” thanks to the rather stereotypical found-footage opening, so we’re one step ahead of poor Anne: things are strange and only going to get stranger.

After going to see a short-wave radio enthusiast, in order to identify the radio broadcast that can be heard during James’ recorded final minutes, Anne is introduced to the notion of “numbers stations”: short-wave radio stations that broadcast odd transmissions consisting of robotic voices (male, female and children, various languages) reading strings of numbers. In this case, Anne’s contact tells her that the best way to catch that particular station is to listen from the far side of the Black Rock Desert, sometime between 3-5 in the morning. She does and ends up hearing the broadcast for herself, along with catching a glimpse of “something” out in the darkness.

Properly spooked, Anne tracks down the person that she believes sent James the chemical, the aforementioned Thomas Blackburn (Ted Levine). Once she meets Blackburn, Anne really goes down the rabbit-hole, getting introduced to a new world of government conspiracies, secret tests and alternate dimensions. As Anne and Blackburn move from one clue to the next, they get closer to the original source of the MK-Ultra, the mysterious Dr. Kessel (Chad Brummett). The answers to all of Anne’s questions may be found within the abandoned walls of Kessel’s desert bunker…along with the keys to the destruction of mankind.

Let’s get one thing straight right off the bat: there’s a lot to like in Banshee Chapter but you have to be willing to wade through a bit of refuse to get there. For one thing, the film never really finds its footing as a found-footage film: too often, there are disingenuous moments, like non-digetic sound or subjective camera angles, that tend to throw a monkey-wrench into the machinery. The film is also terribly fond of loud musical stingers for jump scares and the ending, which manages to reference Fallen (1998), is kind of a mess.

Despite lots of issues, however, there are plenty of genuinely creepy moments in the film, not least of which is the moment where Anne goes to listen to the radio broadcast in the middle of desert. With her face lit only by the green dashboard light, the scene is a masterpiece of economy and subtly, wringing every last drop of tension possible out of the scenario. The desert bunker is also a pretty incredible location and is well-used in the film: good locations go along way toward making a horror film and Banshee Chapter has a few memorable ones. The overall idea is also pretty damn creepy: I’ve always been fascinated by numbers stations and the film weaves their mythology into the storyline in some pretty smart ways, arriving at a final reveal that I really wish hadn’t been let down by the pedestrian finale.

More than anything, however, Ted Levine’s performance as Blackburn is a huge check mark in the “asset” column for the film. I’m hard-pressed to remember anything that Levine has been in, aside from Silence of the Lambs, but he’s absolutely fantastic in Banshee Chapter, even if he’s basically playing his own version of Johnny Depp’s version of Hunter S. He’s quick-witted, genuinely funny, just outrageous enough to be believable and never less than completely committed to the role. If anything, I wish that there had been more Blackburn in the film: making him the protagonist may have given the film the extra edge it needed to truly excel. As it is, however, Levine is one very big reason to give the film a shot.

First-time writer/director Erickson does quite a bit right on his debut feature, even if he also manages to trip more than a time or two. More than anything, his script shows a willingness to take some pretty familiar concepts (found-footage, government conspiracies, secret medical facilities) and take them into some fairly original new places. If he’s less successful than he could be, this (hopefully) hints at lots of room to grow and improve in the future. While Banshee Chapter is no hidden masterpiece, it’s a consistently watchable, often unnerving chiller that features a handful of truly interesting ideas, a great performance by Levine and some really creepy locations. It also might make you think twice about those strange, fuzzed-out stations that you can sometimes almost hear, wafting through the universe on a warm, summer night.

 

7/1/14: That New World Odor

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Aaron Poole, Alan C. Peterson, Bruce Clayton, Christopher MacBride, cinema, conspiracy theories, conspiracy theorists, cults, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, found-footage, James Gilbert, Lina Roessler, Mithras, Movies, New World Order, paranoia, secret societies, Tarsus Club, the Bilderberg Group, The Conspiracy, thrillers, writer-director

If you think about it, it’s really not so difficult to imagine that some sort of world-wide conspiracy is responsible for the current state of the world. After all, in a time when the rich and multi-national corporations have their hand in everything from food safety to the justice system to scientific research, it’s not a stretch to assume that they don’t really have the best interests of “the rest of us” in mind. After all, the robber barons may have built America but they didn’t build it for the railroad workers, the slaves and the “poor, huddled masses”: they built it for themselves and were “nice” enough to allow everybody else to live there…for a price, of course. Just because the notion of a secret, all-powerful group who runs the world from behind the scenes is plausible, however, certainly doesn’t make it fact. As with many things, the belief in large-scale conspiracies requires no small amount of faith on the part of the believer: after all, you can find a pattern in almost anything, if you look hard enough. On the other hand, however…is it really paranoia if someone is actually out to get you?

Writer-director Christopher MacBride tackles this idea of global, secretive society head-on in his recent found-footage thriller, The Conspiracy (2012) and the results are certainly fascinating, if less than eye-opening. While much of the film revolves around some pretty basic, “Conspiracy 101” ideas (chem-trails, the Illuminati, secret societies, the NSA, New World Order, et al), The Conspiracy manages to be more than just a soapbox: there’s plenty of genuine tension and a cracking good ending that manages to reference both The Wicker Man (1973) and Kill List (2011) while still managing to maintain its own sense of self. While The Conspiracy might not have the capacity to change the world, it certainly offers a nice respite from the usual “haunted house/lost in the woods/exploring the asylum”-type of found footage films and should certainly hold some appeal for fans of more thoughtful horror offerings.

Beginning with a quote from Benjamin Disraeli about how the world is governed by very different forces than we imagine, we’re introduced to our protagonists, Aaron (Aaron Poole) and Jim (James Gilbert), a pair of filmmakers making a documentary about conspiracy theorists. Jim is the more settled of the two, thanks to his loving wife, Tracy (Lina Roessler) and infant son, while Aaron is the wilder and woollier of the pair (at times, Poole reminds of Aaron Paul). We’re told that the dynamic duo began working with uber-conspiracy theorist Terrance G (Alan C. Peterson) in 2011, after coming across YouTube clips of Terrance practicing his particular brand of street-corner conspiracy evangelism. His goal, as he tells the fellows, is to let “them” know that he knows about them: watching the watchers, as it were.

After a July 11th interview, however, Aaron and Jim lose contact with Terrance for four weeks. Going to his formerly cluttered apartment, they find the whole place cleaned-out, save for heaps of the newspaper clippings that Terrance kept tagged to every available surface in his place. Taking the assorted clippings with them, the pair is, at first, extremely flippant about Terrance’s disappearance (“Maybe the mother-ship came and picked him up”) but are still curious about his “research.” As Aaron becomes more and more invested in the clippings, however, he begins to adopt some of Terrance’s rather nutso tendencies, such as filling every available surface in his home with clippings, scraps of paper and pictures while also noticing a distressing amount of mysterious folks hanging around everywhere. Jim is naturally skeptical of the whole thing (“Every conspiracy theory is up there: if you stare at it long enough, of course it will make sense,” Jim tells Aaron in exasperation) but begins to come around when Aaron makes a breakthrough. According to Terrance’s research, Aaron is able to trace the source of many of these conspiracies back to a single group: the Tarsus Club (standing in for the real-life Bilderberg Group).

According to Aaron (and Terrance), the Tarsus Club (whose symbol is a red bull’s head) has been pulling the strings on every major political, socio-economic and cultural issue for generations: their meetings always seem to occur right before big, world-changing events (such as wars) and the group seems unnecessarily secretive: their website describes Tarsus as “a membership-only club for leaders” and a call to their listed phone number only results in an automated female voice repeating Aaron’s phone back, over and over. Clearly, something is going on here and the guys do what any self-respecting researchers would do: they flood the internet with requests for any and all information about the Tarsus Club and their activities. Soon, they’re sent an invitation to meet in one of the online conspiracy virtual chat-rooms that Terrance frequented: once there, they’re introduced to Mark Tucker (Bruce Clayton), the supposed author of a Time Magazine article about the Tarsus Club. Mark agrees to meet with them, in person, and give them the low-down on Tarsus, provided they stop with all the internet stuff: according to him, it’s just pricking the bull (so to speak) and will only result in them getting unceremoniously squashed.

Mark proves to be a rather strange, enigmatic figure, whose obviously broken and reset hand speaks to some pretty dire stuff in his background. He fills them in on the Tarsus Club, telling them that the club actually dates back to a pre-Christian cult that worshipped the god Mithras. Mithras was always depicted killing a bull, hence the bull-head symbol, and Tarsus Club meeting always include the ritual killing of a bull. When asked what the point of all this is, Mark readily points to the New World Order: the desire to put more power in the hands of fewer people has resulted in the entire world being split up between a few factions, all of which are connected to Tarsus.

As time passes, Aaron becomes more and more paranoid: he sees strangers stalking him at all times and ends up moving in with Jim and Tracy after his apartment is ransacked. When a mysterious, black SUV shows up at Jim’s house late one night, he begins to get the notion that this whole enterprise might be a wee bit hazardous for him and his family but Aaron refuses to back down. When Mark tells them that he can actually sneak them into the next Tarsus Club meeting, so that they can see what goes on firsthand, Aaron jumps at the chance, dragging a much more hesitant Jim along for the ride. The pair will soon learn, however, to be careful what they wish for, as they get to witness, firsthand, just how the Tarsus Club conducts business.

As a unique spin on found-footage films, The Conspiracy really stands out, with one rather odd caveat: most of the cinematography is way too good to ever be passed off as found-footage. In fact, up until the two infiltrate the meeting, there’s not much of the film that couldn’t pass for a more “traditional” paranoid thriller. While I expected this to bother me, I actually got used to it pretty quick: in many ways, The Conspiracy is more of a faux-documentary than a found-footage film (at least until the final 15 minutes or so). The cinematography, by veteran camera operator Ian Anderson (who also makes an appearance in the film), is quite good throughout and goes a long way towards establishing the film’s chilly, sinister atmosphere.

I was also quite fond of many of MacBride’s filmmaking tricks, such as the decision to “blur out” all of the faces of the people at the Tarsus Club: this added an extra air of authenticity to the proceedings, which helped with the overall suspension of disbelief. In fact, everything about the Tarsus Club portion is spot-on and pretty great, especially from a horror standpoint. If the film has the occasional rough moment in its first two-thirds, the back-half is consistently well-done and, at times, quite frightening. While I could see the ending coming fairly early on (if you watch enough of these kinds of films, it’s pretty inevitable, regardless of the quality of said film), MacBride still managed to throw a few twists in that I didn’t see coming. The Conspiracy is MacBride’s feature debut and I’m genuinely interested to see where he goes from here: I’m not sure if the gentleman is actually interested in conspiracy theories or is merely mining fertile ground for his own uses but he’s obviously a talented filmmaker/writer, which is always a great find.

Ultimately, despite its emphasis on conspiracy theories and paranoia, The Conspiracy is not simply aimed at a core, captive audience. I’m willing to bet that anyone, regardless of political or social believes, would find something to like in the film: after all, remove the conspiracy angle stuff and you’re still left with a whip-smart thriller that features just enough horror elements to appeal to a wide swatch of potential viewers. While The Conspiracy may not revolutionize the world (or filmmaking, for that matter), it’s a more than worthy addition to the growing canon of found-footage/first-person-POV films and should appeal to anyone with an open mind and about 80 minutes to kill. Remember, though: it’s not paranoia if they’re actually out to get you.