4/26/14: Odd? No. Lame? Yes.

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Addison Timlin, Anton Yelchin, bad films, bad movies, based on a book, Bodachs, CGI, cinema, Clive Barker, Dean Koontz, diners, film adaptations, film reviews, films, Fungus Bob, Movies, Odd Thomas, Peter Straub, Phantoms, short-order cook, small town life, special-effects extravaganza, Stephen King, Stephen Sommers, terrible films, The Frighteners, The Mummy, The Sixth Sense, Van Helsing, Willem Dafoe, worst films of the year

We like to point to film adaptations of Stephen King novels/short stories as being prime examples of how difficult it is to translate the written page to the big screen but, if you think about it, none of the “old guard” horror authors have fared particularly well in Hollywood. King tends to be the most visible, due to the sheer number of his projects that have been filmed, but none of his peers have done much better. Peter Straub’s Ghost Story was turned into a decent slow-burner but the filmed version of Julia was kind of a mess. Clive Barker turned one of his best known shorts into the horror classic Hellraiser (1987) but follow-ups have been mixed bags, vacillating between so-so adaptations of Candyman (1992) and Lord of Illusions (1996) and unmitigated crap like Rawhead Rex (1986), Book of Blood (2009) and Dread (2009). And poor Dean Koontz…oh, Dean…

Of the established old-guard of horror writers, perhaps none have fared quite so poorly on the silver screen as Dean Koontz has. While King, Straub and Barker can at least claim a few successful adaptations of their best known work, there doesn’t seem to be much good that anyone can say about filmed versions of Koontz’s work. While Demon Seed (1977) may have functioned as a bit of histrionic, “so-bad-it’s-good” fluff, The Watchers (1988), The Servants of Twilight (1991), Hideaway (1995) and Phantoms (1998) all produced truly execrable films. In fact, Phantoms had the distinction of being one of the single worst films that I ever paid to see in a theater, as well as being one of the absolute worst films of 1988: quite an honor! Truth be told, I can’t really think of any filed adaptations of Koontz novels/stories that are anything better than “meh,” with most of them being dogfood. To this refuse pile, we can now add the smelly, bloated stupidity that is Odd Thomas (2013), a film that proudly continues the tradition of making unconditionally awful “product” out of Koontz’s decidedly low-brow page-turners. If anything, Odd Thomas is actually worse than most of the previous adaptations, resulting in something that’s akin to a Viceroy of Crap (nothing will ever unseat the howling, eye-gouging, terrible evil that is Phantoms, however, including that box of rocks Watchers).

As far as plot/story goes, consider this the drooling, inbred cousin to Peter Jackson’s far, far superior The Frighteners (1996) or a screwball retake on The Sixth Sense (1999), as envisioned by Pauly Shore. Odd Thomas (Anton Yelchin) is a short-order diner cook who also happens to be able to see dead people. He uses this ability to play “spiritual private eye,” as it were, or, as he eloquently puts it: “I may see dead people but by God…I do something about it!” Good for you, buddy. Odd has a spunky, pixie-girl girlfriend named Stormy (Addison Timlin), who’s basically a bored (and boring) Veronica Mars. He’s also got a long-suffering, overly patient police chief friend, Wyatt (Willem Dafoe), whose sole job is to sigh, shake his head and follow Odd’s lead. What’s this all spell, ladies and gentlemen? Fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun, of course!

Odd has a tendency to see Bodachs, which are basically oily, CGI-critters that swarm invisibly around people who are about to engage in big-time violence. One day, Odd sees the creatures massing around a particularly strange customer, by the name of Fungus Bob (Shuler Hensley), a guy who looks like an unholy fusion of Tom Waits and Men in Black-era Vincent D’Onofrio. Since there are so many of the Bodachs hanging about, Odd figures that Fungus Bob must be one massively bad dude, maybe the baddest dude ever (so now the film is also ripping off The Prophecy (1995), which is miles better than anything found here). In order to prevent whatever tragedy is looming, as well as adding another notch to his “spiritual private detective” punch-card, Odd sets out to uncover the truth about Fungus Bob, with Stormy and Chief Wyatt in tow. Along the way, he’ll experience massive amounts of dramatic slo-mo, more CGI creations than you’re likely to see in an After Effects demo and a convoluted conspiracy that only goes undetected because it makes no sense whatsoever and the audience is provided with no clues to help figure it out along the way. Lucky for the main characters that they’ve read the script, otherwise they would be just as lost as us. The whole thing culminates in a shopping mall set-piece that was musty a decade ago before finishing up with a “tragic” twist that anyone who hasn’t fallen asleep by the film’s final twenty minutes will have had to see coming from a mile away. On the plus side, the film ends with an absolutely gorgeous shot of the city’s lightscape at night: my recommendation would be to forward to the final minute or so, check the shot out and call it a day.

Odd Thomas is one massive pile of glossy, CGI-soaked, over-produced, brainless crap. The editing is overly showy and obnoxious, full of needless quick cuts and so much cheesy slo-mo that it seems like every third shot is tinkered with. The acting is serviceable, although non of the principals look like they’re having a good time. While I’m not the biggest fan of Yelchin, I really enjoyed his performance in Charlie Bartlett (2007) and found him decent in another half-dozen films. He’s pretty much a non-entity here, however, possessing zero charisma and not much pizzazz. Addison Timlin, as Stormy, is consistently obnoxious, one of those “quirky” characters who would be repeatedly stomped into the dust in the real world. Poor Dafoe just looks sleepy and defeated, his performance carrying all of the gravitas of someone fulfilling their end of a losing best.

That Odd Thomas is a giant CGI-fest should come as no surprise, seeing as how Stephen Sommers wrote and directed the film. Sommers is a guy who’s practically synonymous with big CGI flicks: his resume, after all, includes such cinematic majesty as Deep Rising (1998), The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Returns (2001), Van Helsing (2004) and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009). What is surprising, however, is how lifeless and boring Odd Thomas is. Sommers previous films may be many things – loud, juvenile, silly, weightless, glossy, slapstick – but they’re rarely boring, zipping from one zany special effects moment to another mugging character actor. Perhaps his previous films benefited from more charismatic leads, like The Mummy’s Brendan Fraser or Van Helsing’s Hugh Jackman. Perhaps Sommers had little interest in the source material. Whatever the reason, Odd Thomas plays like a particularly deflated TV movie, something to have on in the background while you’re making dinner for the kids. The film looks (and plays) so flat that I have a hard time believing it ever played an actual movie theater, although it did, briefly, hit the festival circuit.

At the end of the day, Odd Thomas is a tax write-off, a cheap-looking “product” that seems to exist only to move digits from one column to the other. There’s no sense of love or craft here, whether from the cast or behind-the-scenes talent. If you want to see this kind of story done right, check out either The Frighteners or The Sixth Sense. If you want to see a better Sommers flick, check out The Mummy. If you just want to kill 90 minutes and a few brain cells…aw, fuck it…it’s not even really good for that. If you wanna kill some time and brain cells, go watch a Troma film. At least Uncle Lloyd and his merry band of pranksters know that they’re serving up steaming crap: Odd Thomas can’t be bothered to care one way or the other.

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4/2/14: The Past Always Chokes Me Up

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1970's cinema, alternate title, based on a book, Burnt Offerings, cinema, Don't Look Now, film reviews, films, Full Circle, gauzy camerawork, ghost stories, Ghost Story, horror films, Jill Bennett, Julia, Julia Lofting, Keir Dullea, killer children, medium, Mia Farrow, Movies, Peter Straub, revenge, Richard Loncraine, synth scores, The Haunting of Julia, The Sentinel, Tom Conti

We’re all haunted, to some degree or another, by the past. For some, this haunting is a prison, forcing them to constantly relive past traumas, heartbreaks, defeats and lost loves. For others, the past is something more sentimental, a fond memory to be returned to in the same way that one remembers the smell of freshly baked bread or the unmitigated joy of a snow-day. Each of us must deal with the past in our own ways but few of us, thankfully, are actively hunted by our pasts, forced to look over our shoulders for that feared reminder of what’s coming for us. Sometimes, the past can come back not to haunt us but to tear us limb from limb. In the Haunting of Julia, based on horror icon Peter Straub’s novel Julia, the past is not only a terrible reminder of our own failings but a reminder that we know so little of the mysterious world around us as to know nothing about it at all.

Few popular authors, if any, have made as much of a cottage industry of the inherently sad, frightening nature of the past as Peter Straub has. Beginning with Julia (1975), many of Straub’s best novels have dealt extensively with the ramifications of the past: If You Could See Me Now (1977), Ghost Story (1979), Floating Dragon (1983), The Talisman (1984) and the Blue Rose trilogy of Koko (1988), Mystery (1990) and The Throat (1993). Most of these novels deal with a protagonist who must confront some long-buried past trauma in order to deal with a current threat, usually some sort of vengeance-seeking specter. In this respect, Julia is a pretty typical Straub novel, although The Haunting of Julia ends up being a pretty mixed-bag, as far as films go.

The film begins in happier times, with Julia Lofting (Mia Farrow), her husband Magnus (Keir Dullea) and daughter Kate (Sophie Ward) sitting down for a cozy breakfast. In short order, however, Kate is choking and, in a split second, Julia makes one whopper of a bad decision, leading her beloved daughter to bleed to death in her arms. Needless to say, this puts the final nail in the unhappy coffin that is Julia and Magnus’ marriage, leading her to flee to her own apartment, while Magnus’ sister Lily (Jill Bennett) attempts to maintain some sort of presence in Julia’s life. Julia, still shell-shocked from the traumatic death of her only child, only wants to glide through the rest of her life like a ghost

After Julia begins to experience odd things, including some stereotypically haunted incidents at home and increasing visions of her dead daughter, Lily decides to help by organizing a séance. This goes about as well as can be expected, especially if you’ve seen any other films that feature a séance, and leads the medium, Mrs. Fludd (Anna Wing), to issue one of those classic haunted house warnings: leave this place immediately. Julia doesn’t, of course, and begins to investigate the history of her new abode, with the assistance of her good friend Mark (Tom Conti) and a helpful next-door-neighbor (Pauline Jameson). The more she learns about the mother and daughter who formerly lived there, however, the more that Julia becomes convinced that something very sinister is going on, possibly involving the decades-old murder of a young boy. She’s right, of course, but the truth is a lot more terrible than she figures…and a whole lot more deadly, to boot.

The biggest problem with The Haunting of Julia (alt title: Full Circle), a problem that prevents the film from being completely satisfying, is how similar in tone, plot and look the film is to a grip of existing film. The film has a look (ultra-gauzy camerawork, sepia-tones) that immediately recalls the similarly paced Burnt Offerings (1976), while Julia’s first meeting with Mrs. Braden looks strikingly similar to one of the attic scenes in The Sentinel (1977). Most tellingly, however, is the fact that The Haunting of Julia bears more than a passing resemblance to Nicholas Roeg’s classic Don’t Look Now (1973). In certain ways, The Haunting of Julia is almost a companion piece to Don’t Look Now: both films have similar looks and color palettes, camera movement, pacing and settings, as well as the obvious connection that both films deal with parents coping with the death of a child. I’ve never been the biggest fan of Don’t Look Now, to be honest, mostly due to the ridiculous “twist”ending that still makes me smack my forehead after all these years. The ending to The Haunting of Julia is much more poetic and “serious,” although it’s just as non-sensical.

In fact, one of the single biggest issues with The Haunting of Julia is how little sense it ultimately makes. Many of the revelations seem to be rather arbitrary and I’m still not sure what the overall point was: I’m inclined to think that the film was a thinly veiled treatise on the inherent issues associated with divorce in the mid-’70s but what do I know? Once the film settles down into its “vengeful ghost” scenario, it barrels ahead boldly, rarely looking back but never bothers to do anything about the rapidly growing plot holes. By the end, the film has, essentially, collapsed into a soggy mess that’s one part Final Destination, one part Don’t Look Now and a little bit Repulsion. While the ending is quite beautiful, visually, and leads to a tremendously effective final image, it makes absolutely no sense. After it was over, I found myself thinking back to see if I might have missed something that would clear things up: although I’m pretty sure I didn’t, it’s also possible that the film’s structure was a bit thornier than I gave it credit for. Regardless, the finale is certainly a textbook example of “style over substance.”

On the plus side, the atmosphere in The Haunting of Julia is genuinely effective and frequently quite chilling. The synth score, which frequently reminded me of Goblin’s work for Argento, was pretty fantastic and the acting is pretty even, although Farrow has a tendency to be a bit hysterical at times (which often suits the character…until it doesn’t). Perhaps I would have enjoyed the film more if it had managed to stake out a little more original territory. As it stands, however, The Haunting of Julia spent so much time reminding me of other, better films that I had a difficult time really appreciating it on its own merits. If you’re a fan of glacially-paced, slow-burning ghost stories, The Haunting of Julia should have enough genuine chills to entertain on a sleepy weekend. Otherwise, you’d probably be better served checking out one of its undeniable influences.