7/5/15 (Part One): Home is Where the Haunt Is

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Barbara Niven, cinema, dead children, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, ghosts, grown children, haunted houses, horror-comedies, Housebound, Jack Plotnick, Jeffrey Combs, John Waters, Kat Dennings, Lucas Lee Graham, Mackenzie Phillips, Mark Bruner, Matthew Gray Gubler, McKenna Grace, Mel Rodriguez, Michl Britsch, Movies, multiple writers, Muse Watson, Odd Thomas, paranormal investigators, racists, Ray Santiago, Ray Wise, Richard Bates Jr., Ronnie Gene Blevins, Sally Kirkland, scatological humor, seances, seeing ghosts, Sibyl Gregory, silly films, Soska Sisters, Suburban Gothic, suburban homes, suburban life, suburbia, The Frighteners, Under the Bed, writer-director-producer

Ah, suburbia: endless rows of identical houses, with identical lawns, with identical Suburbans parked in identical carports, tended to by identical suburbanites as they go about their virtually identical lives. For many people, suburbia is the very picture of success: after all, what really says “You’ve made it” more than your own house, family, steady job and reliable source of transportation? For the outsider, misanthrope and loner, however, the very concept of suburbia can be a kind of hell on earth: the place where all dreams go to become pureed into easily digestible slop. As the Descendents so aptly put it: “I want to be stereotyped…I want to be classified…I want to be a clone…I want a suburban home.”

For filmmakers, the concept of the dark underbelly of suburbia is nothing new: after all, films like The Stepford Wives (1975), The Amityville Horror (1979), Neighbors (1981), Parents (1989), The ‘Burbs (1989),  American Beauty (1999) and Donnie Darko (2001) have been equating cookie-cutter neighborhoods with existential dread for decades now. To this storied tradition we can now add writer-director Richard Bates Jr’s Suburban Gothic (2014): proving that there’s nothing wrong with ambition, Bates Jr takes the aforementioned suburban angst films and throws in elements of “I see ghosts” films, ala The Frighteners (1996) and Odd Thomas (2013), as well as “grown children moving back home” films, such as the instantly classic Housebound (2014) and the less successful Under the Bed (2012). If Suburban Gothic never comes close to reaching the heady heights of Housebound, there’s still enough silly, funny and outrageous material here to give genre fans a grin from ear to ear. Plus, it’s got Ray Wise: any film with Ray Wise is, of course, automatically better than any film without him…that’s just basic math, amigo.

Poor Raymond (Criminal Minds’ Matthew Gray Gubler) is in a bit of a pickle, the same conundrum that might befall many twenty-to-thirty-somethings: he’s over-educated and under-employed. Despite having his MBA, Raymond must swallow the bitterest pill of all and move back in with his over-protective, smothering mother, Eve (Barbara Niven), and obnoxious, disapproving and casually racist father, Donald (Ray Wise, swinging for the rafters), an event which is sure to put a crimp in any attempt he can make to take control of his life.

You see, Raymond is a bit of a mess: bullied as a child about his weight and “gifted” with the ability to see ghosts, he escaped his one horse town as soon as he could, hoping to put as much distance between him and the past as possible. Given to wearing outrageously showy clothes (his bright, purple scarf is a definite highlight), Raymond couldn’t be more out-of-place in his old hometown, especially once he ends up back in the sights of former bully Pope (Ronnie Gene Blevins) and his small crew of miscreants. Everyone in town is glad to see that Raymond failed at life, since it (somehow) validates their own humble existences. Everyone, that is, except for Raymond’s former classmate, Becca (2 Broke Girls’ Kat Dennings), who now tends bar at the local watering hole. To her, Raymond was always the only interesting person in town and she’s mighty glad to have him back, even if she has a snarky way of showing it.

Just in time for his homecoming, however, some truly weird shit has started to happen, seemingly centered around the makeshift childs’ coffin that Donald’s gardeners have just dug up in the yard. Before he knows what’s going on, Raymond is experiencing the same ghostly visions that he used to have, this time involving a sinister little girl. As the occurrences become more pronounced, Raymond and Becca are convinced that a wayward spirit is in need of a peaceful journey into the light, while Donald and Eve are convinced that their son is losing his ever-lovin’ mind. As Raymond and Becca dig deeper into the history of the house, however, they begin to realize that the spirit in question might not be that of a little lost girl: it might just be something a bit more on the “extreme evil” side of things. Will Raymond and Becca be able to set it all to rights or will this humdrum slice of suburban life end up destroying them all?

My anticipation level for Suburban Gothic was pretty high, right out of the gate, for one very important reason: I pretty much adored writer-director Bates Jr’s debut, the outrageous Excision (2012), a slice of high school life that managed to combine Grand Guignol gore with fanciful dream sequences and arrived at a wholly unique, if often repugnant, place that wasn’t so far removed from what the Soska Sisters did with their stunning American Mary (2012). Excision was the kind of debut that puts a filmmaker firmly on my radar, which leads us directly to the sophomore film, Suburban Gothic. If his newest possessed a tenth of the gonzo energy of his first, this seemed like a pretty sure-fire no-brainer.

In reality, Suburban Gothic is a good full-step (certainly at least a half-step) down from Bates Jr’s debut, although it’s still a thoroughly enjoyable romp on its own terms. The big difference ends up being tonal: unlike Excision, which buried its blackly comic sensibilities under a lot of very unpleasant material, Suburban Gothic is a much sillier, goofier affair. Nowhere is this made more explicit than the impossibly silly scene where Raymond watches his toenails rise and fall to the tune of the old chestnut “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.” Shoddy CGI aside, the scene has the feel of something truly slapstick and goofy, perhaps closer to The ‘Burbs than anything in Bates Jr’s debut.

This “silly” elements end up seeping into almost every aspect of the film: John Waters shows up as the blow job-obsessed head of the local historical society, the medium’s daughter is named Zelda (et tu, Poltergeist (1982)?), Raymond and Becca dress up in the most ridiculous ghost costumes ever (think Charles Schultz), anonymous hands grab Raymond from every-which direction and there’s more mugging going on than a thug convention. In one of the film’s most notable bits, Raymond masturbates while checking out his favorite site, “Latina Booty,” as an overhead light slowly fills with “ghostly” semen: at the “appropriate” moment, the light shatters, showering poor Raymond in about fifty gallons of spooky spunk. Disgusting? You bet yer bottom dollar! Terrifying? Not quite.

The aforementioned example, however, is also a good example of Suburban Gothic’s ace-up-the-sleeve, as it were: for all of the film’s silliness and scatological humor (along with the jizz, we get a lovingly filmed vomiting scene and a nice, long shot of a turd in a toilet), there’s also genuine intelligence and love for the genre. The light gag might be an easy-shot gross-out joke but it’s always a subtle, kind of brilliant nod to Sam Raimi’s original Evil Dead (1981). There’s also a not-so subtle reference to del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), lots of visual ques for The Amityville Horror and Poltergeist and plenty of cameos by genre royalty (the legendary Jeffrey Combs gets to play a bugshit-crazy doctor (natch), while the Soska Sisters pop up in a crowd scene).

While the actual plot is nothing revolutionary, Suburban Gothic is such a good-natured, eager-to-please popcorn flick that it’s never painful to watch: the CGI is fairly well-integrated (save that rather dreadful toenail bit) and if the color-timing on the cinematography seems constantly off (the film has an odd red cast that’s pretty noticeable), cinematographer Lucas Lee Graham (who also shot the much more striking Excision) serves up plenty of nicely composed, evocative images.

On the acting side, Gubler is pitch-perfect as the sarcastic, quietly suffering schlub who must swallow his distaste for everything in order to save his (decidedly undeserving) childhood home. Gubler has a rare ability to mix wiseacre dialogue delivery with Stoogian physical comedy, an ability which serves him well here: one of the film’s easy highlights is the hilarious scene where Raymond accidentally drops an ice cream cake, over and over, until he finally stamps on the damn thing in an abject display of childish tantrums writ large.

While Dennings takes a little longer to get revved up (her early scenes have a rather distracting “I don’t give a shit” quality that’s off-putting), she fully comes into her own by the film’s final reel and her and Gubler make for a believable enough couple. Although she’s never as consistent as Gubler, Dennings shows enough steel, here, to make me interested in her next move: here’s to hoping she spends a little more time in the horror genre…we could use a few fresh faces!

While Niven is fun as Raymond’s mom, Wise really gets to run roughshod over the proceedings: whether he’s proclaiming that all of his Latin American workmen are “Mexicans,” telling his son to “take a knee” as he rolls up to him in a squeaky office chair or apologizing to his black football players for his lack of “grape pop,” Wise is an absolute blast. If anything, his performance as Donald makes a nice comparison to his role as Satan in Reaper, albeit tempered with more than a little lunk-headedness. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if there’s ever a Mount Rushmore for iconic genre personalities, Wise is guaranteed to be there.

Ultimately, Suburban Gothic is a thoroughly entertaining, amusing and mildly outrageous horror-comedy: fans of this particular style will find no end of delights, I’m willing to wager, although I still found myself slightly disappointed by the time the credits rolled (the less said about the ridiculously sunny coda, the better). Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by standout films like Housebound and The Frighteners, a pair of horror-comedies that are pretty much the first and last word on this particular subject…perhaps I was hoping for something with a little more bite, ala Excision. Whatever the reason, I have no problem whatsoever recommending Suburban Gothic (provided, of course, that potential viewers are prepared for the often rude humor), although it’s not quite the Richard Bates Jr joint that I hoped for.

I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that Bates Jr is going to become a force to reckon with in the next several years. If that doesn’t blow yer toenails back, pardner…well, I don’t know what will.

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4/8/15: The Silence is Deafening

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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.

 

11/1/14 (Part One): Through the Killing Glass

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Absentia, Brenton Thwaites, brother-sister relationships, childhood fears, childhood trauma, children in peril, cinema, co-writers, differing viewpoints, estranged siblings, evil mirror, film reviews, films, flashback narrative, haunted mirror, horror, horror films, horror movies, institutionalized, James Lafferty, Jeff Howard, Karen Gillan, Katee Sackhoff, Miguel Sandoval, Mike Flanagan, Movies, Oculus, paranormal investigators, possession, Rashomon, Rory Cochrane, voice-over narration, writer-director-editor

Is truth absolute or relative? It’s a question that philosophers and social scientists have been asking for pretty much as long as the disciplines have existed. If we perceive something as “true,” does that make it so? The vast majority of us can agree that 2+2=4 but is this because the math behind it is absolute or because enough people agree that it is to make it so? What if 2+2 actually equals 5 and we’ve all been deluding ourselves, accepting as “true” something that only exists thanks to our shared rationalizations?

The question of “What is truth?” or, in variation, “What is real?,” is one that films have been asking (and answering) practically from their genesis. When the Lumiere brothers first shocked audiences with the dread notion that an actual train might rampage from the screen straight into the theater, there was much discussion about capturing the “reality” of life and putting it on the big screen. Some fifty years later, legendary auteur Akira Kurosawa would explore the idea of absolute vs relative truth with his classic Rashomon (1950), which explored the vagaries of a single terrible crime through multiple, opposing points of view, leading audiences to wonder whether there could ever be “one truth” when multiple individuals are involved. And now, over sixty years past Rashomon, we once again visit the concept of truth with writer-director-editor Mike Flanagan’s stylish slow-burner Oculus (2013), in which childhood memories and fears come back to haunt the grown children, leading them (and the audience) to wonder just what is true and what is a horrible nightmare.

Tim Russell (Brenton Thwaites) has been under a psychiatric hold for years after some undetermined childhood trauma: after being deemed fit to re-enter society by his shrink (Miguel Sandoval), Tim must now make the difficult reintegration back into “the real world.” Luckily, he’s got his sister, Kaylie (Karen Gillan), for support: they both lived through the same trauma, so who better to lean on? When Tim moves back into the old family house with Kaylie, he ends up receiving a pretty huge shock: the supposedly cursed mirror that Tim held responsible for the tragic deaths of their parents is back in Kaylie’s possession. Kaylie, for her part, is revealed to be more than a little obsessive: while Tim has spent his years in the looney-bin trying to forget the evil mirror, Kaylie has spent the same amount of time tracking it back down, with the ultimate goal of destroying the cursed glass once and for all.

This, of course, is not as easy as it first seems: the mirror appears to possess a feral intelligence and ruthlessly protects itself, confusing both Tim and Kaylie with hallucinations and false memories. Or does it? You see, neither Tim nor Kaylie seem to be playing with full decks and we get the notion, early on, that all is not as it seems. Things become even more complex when we begin to get flashbacks of their childhood incidents, their individual memories of which completely contradict each other. Who’s actually telling the truth, Tim or Kaylie? Is the mirror actually haunted or are these just two very damaged individuals who need to be locked away from polite society? What actually happened to their parents all those years ago? And if the mirror really is malevolent…what does it actually want? By the film’s powerful twist conclusion, we’ll get the answers to all of these questions, along with a host of others that we didn’t even think to ask.

Mike Flanagan first came to my attention with the indie horror film Absentia (2011), a subtle, creepy little movie about what happens when a woman’s long-missing husband mysteriously shows up again, as if nothing had ever happened. While I enjoyed the ideas and measured pace behind Absentia, there was something about the film that just left me cold: I was left with the notion that Flanagan was a potentially fascinating writer-director who just needed a slightly better vehicle. I’m very happy to report that Oculus is, indeed, just that vehicle and manages to surpass his preceding film in every way imaginable.

Look-wise, Oculus is an elegant, stately affair that fits in nicely with the polished aesthetic of recent films like Insidious (2010) or The Conjuring (2013). That being said, the film is actually a good deal more vicious than either of those entries, coming in as a more intelligent, well-made variation on Alexandre Aja’s gore-athon Mirrors (2008). Oculus gets lots of mileage out of the notion that Tim and Kaylie might not be perceiving reality in the same way that we are: the thoroughly uncomfortable scene where Kaylie gets ready to take a big bite out of a juicy apple that’s probably a lightbulb is a real eye-opener. This particular conceit works so brilliantly in the film precisely because it’s so intrinsically tied with the notion of true: if we can’t believe what we see, how do we actually know what’s true and what’s an illusion?

Structurally, Oculus employs a dizzying melding of the past and present, as we witness two separate timelines (Tim and Kaylie as kids, in the past, and adults, in the present) play out, oftentimes simultaneously. By the film’s rollercoaster final third, the two timelines have become so connected that they seem to overlap and blur into each other: as Kaylie and Tim get more and more lost down the rabbit hole of their childhood, so, too, does the audience get more and more lost trying to figure out what’s taking place when. While this could have become unnecessarily frustrating and overly complex, the tactic works like a charm: the film is so tense and chaotic by the end that I was, literally, riveted to the front of my seat.

One of Oculus’ biggest assets is a whip-smart script, courtesy of Flanagan and co-writer Jeff Howard. Rather than dumbing things down for an (assumed) tuned-out audience, Flanagan floors it and lets spectators hang on for dear life: Oculus is absolutely not a film that rewards lazy viewing, as so much of the film happens in the margins. Oftentimes, what Kaylie and Tim don’t say to each other is more telling than what they do. There also seems to be a refreshing lack of holes in the storyline: while we’re still left with doubts by the end credits, the most important realization is that Flanagan and Howard had none…everything about Oculus speaks to careful planning and exact execution.

On an acting-level, Oculus is, likewise, rock-solid: Gillan and Thwaites make for an appealingly sympathetic pair of protagonists: even when they appear to be deep in the thrall of complete insanity, we really push for them to pull through. There’s a deep vein of tragedy that runs through Oculus (or, perhaps, fatalism?), similar to films like The Burrowers (2008). Thanks to the jagged performances and forbidding atmosphere, we’re never far from the notion that this all will end horribly: when it does, there’s not so much the idea of “calling the ending” as there is Shakespearian pre-destination. These characters will not fail because they are bad people: they will fail because they, like all humans, are fallible and bound by their fate. Oculus is one of the few modern horror films that actually earns the word tragedy, imbuing it with every inch of the classical definition it deserves.

All in all, Flanagan’s Oculus really is an exceptional, powerful film: it should easily appeal to fans of “prestige” horror films, despite the occasional gore scene that “goes to 11,” shall we say. There’s a rare intelligence and grace here that marks Flanagan as exactly the sort of filmmaker I was hoping he would turn out to be: with any luck, he’ll continue to create individual, memorable works like this for some time. While there will always be a soft spot in my heart for mindless slashers and creature features, I’ll take intelligent, mature horror like this any day. If nothing else, Oculus might make you think twice every time you walk by a mirror or catch movement out of the corner of your eye: like any good horror film, it burrows its way into your psyche, taking up residence in the attic of your mind like so many family ghosts.

10/16/14 (Part One): A Haunting We Will Go

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1960s cinema, 31 Days of Halloween, based on a book, black and white film, cinema, Claire Bloom, film reviews, films, ghosts, haunted house, haunted houses, Hill House, horror movies, Jan de Bont, Julie Harris, Lois Maxwell, Movies, opening narrator, paranormal investigators, poltergeists, repressed sexuality, Richard Johnson, Robert Wise, Rosalie Crutchley, Russ Tamblyn, Shirley Jackson, The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Haunting, The Haunting of Hill House, The Sound of Music, Valentine Dyall, voice-over narration, West Side Story

Long held as one of the greatest haunted house stories ever, Shirley Jackson’s classic novel, The Haunting of Hill House, is a masterpiece of mood, a subtle examination of the very nature of fear that relies more on unsettling impressions than outright scares. It’s a treatise, in a way, on the manner in which all humans are, to a greater or lesser extent, “haunted” by their own pasts, powerless to resist the myriad phantoms and specters of the mind. It’s a book in which the suffocating atmosphere of fear is strong. even if very little appears to actually happen before our eyes…as the best writers and filmmakers have always known, what takes place in our minds is infinitely more terrifying than anything physical we can be shown. When given the option, our imaginations will always find new and unique ways to put the screws to us.

Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963) stands as the first and, arguably, best adaptation of Jackson’s book, standing head and shoulders above the far sillier CGI extravaganza that was Jan de Bont’s 1999 version. As befits the source material, Wise’s film is a subtle, low-key affair that relies heavily on sound design and an outstandingly creepy location to make its point: despite featuring a number of highly effective setpieces, The Haunting is anything but a typical thrill ride. Despite possessing a surplus of atmosphere, however, Wise’s version of the material is almost sunk by an unnecessary, constant and rather irritating voice-over narration, courtesy of lead and focal point Julie Harris: her take on Eleanor is often more of a chore than a blessing, leaving the rest of the cast and atmosphere to do all the heavy lifting. Due to this issue, Wise’s version of The Haunting ends up being sporadically entertaining, a film that I can honestly say I respect more than actually like.

Hewing close to the source material, Wise’s film begins with a short discussion of the origins of Hill House, which features the frankly awesome proclamation that “whatever walked at Hill House walked alone.” We’re then introduced to our industrious cast: the kindly, inquisitive Dr. Markway (Richard Johnson), who heads up the paranormal investigation into Hill House; Eleanor (Julie Harris), the ridiculously high-strung member of Markway’s group who once experienced poltergeist activity; Theodora (Claire Bloom), the relentlessly nasty ESP expert who bullies Eleanor as if her life depended on it and Luke (Russ Tamblyn), nephew to the house’s elderly owner and along as a representative, of sorts.

Once the crew of ghost-hunters get to Hill House, things begin to proceed in ways that should be immediately familiar to anyone who’s ever read or seen anything relating to haunted houses: things seem to move out of the corner of one’s eye, strange noises abound and the house is full of inexplicable cold spots. These subtle moments end up being the film’s greatest asset: Wise is able to wring maximum impact out of scenes that feature nothing so much as an incessant banging, similar to how Paranormal Activity (2007) gets so much mileage out of opening doors and slamming cupboards. As the group continues to investigate the phenomena, it becomes abundantly clear that much of the spectral activity seems to center around Eleanor: her agitated state of mind and extreme neurosis appears to be giving the house and its “inhabitants” a nice little jolt of pure paranormal power. When Dr. Markway’s disapproving wife, Grace (Lois Maxwell) shows up at the house, uninvited, she inadvertently sets off a chain of events that will ultimately prove the old adage “There are some places people just shouldn’t poke around in.”

For the most part, The Haunting is an extremely well-made, subtle and effective film. Wise, a Hollywood veteran of such iconic films as The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951), The Sound of Music (1965) and West Side Story (1961), is an assured hand behind the scenes, keeping the tension high and the atmosphere thick. The house, itself, is a fantastically creepy affair: the actual haunted house is one of the most crucial aspects of any haunted house story and Wise’s depiction of Hill House is a real showstopper. The film also features several nicely realized setpieces, including the iconic scene where Eleanor thinks that Theo is holding her hand when, in fact, the other woman is actually all the way across the room: who, then, was holding Eleanor’s hand? It’s a truly great, scary moment, the kind of intelligent fright that we just don’t get enough of in modern horror films.

With so many things in its favor, then, why do I find myself so lukewarm regarding The Haunting? I’ve always had an affinity for subtle, “old-fashioned” horror films and haunted house stories are some of my all-time favorites (Shirley Jackson’s original novel was a staple in my childhood reading list). Due to these factors, The Haunted should be one massive home-run from start to finish. The main issue with the film, unfortunately, becomes Eleanor’s highly unnecessary voice-over narration. Harris’ portrayal of Eleanor is already a bit problematic, since she approaches it in the same way that Nicholson approached his version of Jack Torrance: she already seems unhinged when the film begins, leaving precious little breathing space before she’s full-on bat-shit nuts. On top of this, Wise pours on some thoroughly unnecessary voice-overs that find Eleanor waxing mundane about any number of subjects: there are times when her voice-overs approach the likes of “I think I’ll walk over here and see what’s going on before I walk over there and see what’s going on,” which becomes especially torturous when repeated ad nauseam.

I can’t recall how many times I was wrapped-up in the film only to have one of Eleanor’s stupid voice-overs haul me kicking and screaming back into reality. When a film’s entire impact is derived from its atmosphere, any attempt to wreck that mood is not only questionable but completely mind-boggling. To make matters even worse, the character of Eleanor becomes almost the entire focus of Wise’s film: getting stuck with an unlikable character is one thing…getting stuck with an unlikable protagonist for the entirety of a film is a whole other ball of wax, entirely.

Ultimately, I wanted to like The Haunting much more than I actually did. The atmosphere and mood are nicely realized, the location is great and the reliance on subtle chills versus overt shocks is always appreciated. Despite these pluses, however, I found myself constantly irritated by Harris’ performance (although, to be fair, I also found Claire Bloom’s Theo to be a thoroughly ridiculous character, such an unrepentant bully as to be one “Ha ha” away from a Nelson Muntz) and the unnecessary use of voice-over narration to spoon-feed information in the most obvious of ways. While I can state, unequivocally,  that Wise’s version is miles above de Bont’s, I can’t help but hope to one day see a version that gives Jackson’s source material the respect it deserves. As it stands, however, The Haunting is a decent, if flawed effort, full of rich atmosphere but nearly scuttled by a tedious lead performance that makes the film a bit of a chore to get through.

5/14/14: Better Call Casper

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Aaron Goodwin, Destination: Truth, documentaries, documentary, EVP readings, Ghost Adventures, ghost hunters, Gold Hill Hotel, Goldfield Hotel, Goldfield Nevada, haunted hotels, haunted sites, Nick Groff, paranormal investigators, poltergeists, Travel Channel series, TV shows, Virginia City Nevada, Washoe Club, Zak Bagans

I’m a firm believer in the paranormal, the supernatural and cryptozoology, although I also like to think that I’m not a complete idiot: an idiot, yes, but complete? Not a chance. I’ve always been fascinated by these subjects and have had enough personal experiences to feel that my believe isn’t completely unreasonable. After all, you may have never seen a platypus but that doesn’t make them any less real, does it? And don’t even get me started on ghost platypi!

As someone who actually believes in the paranormal, I have a tendency to watch shows like Ghost Hunters and Destination: Truth with a grain of salt: I always hope to see something interesting, although I don’t actually expect to see anything “real,” if that makes sense. The very nature of “ghost hunting” — sitting around in dark, abandoned places with terrible histories — makes it impossibly easy for adventurers to freak themselves out, winding each other up into a giddy frenzy that rivals pre-teen slumber parties. After all, who among us wouldn’t imagine a moving shadow (if not much worse) if they were exploring an old, abandoned mine by flashlight? It’s all relative, especially since most of the these shows follow pretty similar formats: locate a good site; do research; head down after dark; take EVP (electronic voice phenomena) readings, set motion sensor cameras; try to “speak” to the spirits; get freaked out by “something;” head back and examine the footage in the cold light of day. Nine times out of ten, the only thing that I hope to get from shows like this are the opportunity to see some really cool locations and, just maybe, see something that’s difficult to explain away.

As compared to something like Destination: Truth (which I really like, mostly because I think Josh Gates seems like a pretty cool dude), Zak Bagan’s Ghost Adventures (2004) comes up pretty short. Although I’ve never seen the TV show, I did watch the full-length documentary that, apparently, inspired the TV show: if the actual series is anything like the source material, I’m not missing much. Unlike Josh Gates’ more laid-back, sarcastic approach, Zak is all vein-popping intensity – there’s no doubt that he believes it, man, but he believes it so much that my head started to hurt. Coupled with a pair of fairly forgettable associates (Aaron Goodwin and Nick Groff), Zak’s contribution to the paranormal investigation field tends to have all of the weight of bad public-access show. That being said, there were a few things that prevented Ghost Adventures from being a complete waste.

For one thing, the show features some genuinely creepy locations. Although I wasn’t particularly impressed by their visit to the Gold Hill Hotel, in Virginia City, Nevada, I must admit to finding their visit to the supposedly haunted Washoe Club to be quite intriguing. The architecture of the club’s 2nd and 3rd floors (supposedly the location of most sightings) is very strange and somehow “off,” lending the place a genuinely weird vibe. I’m not sure if there are ghosts up there by I wouldn’t be surprised if something weird was going on. The Goldfield Hotel, where Zak and his crew finish up the show, ends up being pretty damn awesome, if I do say so: I’d love to have the opportunity to wander around that property, especially with the kind of access that the Ghost Adventures guys have. Were Ghost Adventures a silent film that only featured the Goldfield, I would probably love it. As it is, having great locations really helps glide over some of the show’s rougher aspects.

The other thing that gave Ghost Adventures some value was that the hosts actually seemed to come across some unexplained phenomena. In one situation, a brick appears to be thrown across the room whereas, in other one, a shadow moves across the frame. Despite their best attempts, there really aren’t obvious answers for either incident (other than outright chicanery) and they’re decidedly unnerving. Although I’m inclined to believe that they were fabricated, I’m not really sure how, which lends them a veneer of credibility (no matter how thin). This is in contrast, by the way, to other incidents where our amped-up ghost hunters positively swear that they’ve experienced something and I resolutely call bullshit: these other incidents seem way too vague and easily misinterpreted, whereas there’s just no way to misinterpret a brick being thrown across a room. The brick-throwing either had to be physically faked or else was genuinely unexplained: despite my cynicism about these guys, I’m inclined to believe that something weird happened. At any rate, this actually gave me a little pause for thought, which is always fun for someone like me.

Ultimately, Ghost Adventures is a pretty weak film The camera-work is, not surprisingly, pretty rough (not much you can do with night-vision footage, after all) but what is surprising is how terrible the camera positioning and angles end up being. I’m not sure what the point is of filming normal objects from the bizarre low-angle that gets used to overuse here but it’s needlessly distracting. As mentioned, Zak is a pretty uncharismatic host, alternating between jumping at every little noise and picking fights with “witnesses” for withholding information. More importantly, he just doesn’t seem to have much authority. When I watch one of Anthony Bourdain’s shows, I tend to believe in his knowledge of the subject; when I watch an episode of Destination: Truth, I buy that Gates and gang know what they’re doing. Throughout the (short) entirety of Ghost Adventures, I never really got the impression that Zak, Aaron and Nick were any better at this than any of us would be. When the film opened with a pompous voice-over, by Zak, that reference Ralph Waldo Emerson, the tone was pretty much set.

As someone who dearly loves both ghost stories and creepy, old, abandoned places, I’ll never stop flocking to shows/films like Ghost Adventures. As someone who tends to turn a fairly critical eye on everything I watch, however, I simply can’t give a pass to something just because I enjoy the general subject matter. Suffice to say that I won’t be making any special effort to check out actual episodes of the show. I don’t admitting something, however: the Goldfield Hotel looks like one mean mother of a place and I sure wouldn’t mind poking around there after hours with a flashlight, a camera and a clean pair of underpants.