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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12/31/14 (Part Two): Parents Just Don’t Understand

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Best of 2014, Bruce Hopkins, Cameron Rhodes, cinema, favorite films, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, foreign films, Gerard Johnstone, Glen-Paul Waru, haunted houses, horror-comedies, house arrest, Housebound, Kylie Bucknell, Morgana O'Reilly, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, New Zealand films, Rima Te Wiata, Ross Harper, Ryan Lampp, set in New Zealand, Simon Riera, The Frighteners, The Jaquie Brown Diaries, writer-director

In a year crowded with excellent horror and genre films that managed to fly below the mainstream radar, there was still one film that stood out, head and shoulders, as my favorite horror film of the year: Gerard Johnstone’s astounding debut, Housebound (2014). This wasn’t the scariest film of the year, although it had plenty of frights and atmosphere to spare. It certainly wasn’t the most horrific film of the year, although it doesn’t skimp on the grim stuff, either. For my money, Housebound was, quite simply, the best synthesis of all of the horror elements that I look for and love, the single best representation of what I truly enjoy when I sit down to watch a film. I may watch and enjoy many different kinds of movies but few filmmakers have managed to reach straight into my brain in the way that Johnstone does: in many ways, this is the epitome of what I look for in a horror-comedy.

Beginning with a dynamic two-person assault on an ATM machine that quickly collapses into a comedy of errors, we’re introduced to our protagonist, the fabulous Kylie Bucknell (Morgana O’Reilly). Tough as nails, smart, sarcastic, cynical and an all-around badass, Kylie is probably one of the coolest characters I’ve run across in a film in quite some time. As far as I’m concerned, she compares favorably with Kurt Russell’s immortal Snake Plissken in the badassitude department. Caught and sentenced for her attempted theft, Kylie receives the single worst punishment she could hope for: eight months of house arrest under the “watchful” eye of her screwy mother, Miriam (Rima Te Wiata), and step-dad, Graeme (Ross Harper).

Kylie and Miriam get along like oil and water for any number of reasons, not least of which is that Miriam is a superstitious believer in any and every paranormal thing possible, whereas Kylie has a tremendous amount of trouble believing in anything at all, let alone some mumbo-jumbo that she can’t see. Determined to make her mother’s life a living hell, Kylie proceeds to act like the world’s oldest teenager, sulking about, eating her parents out of house and home and, in general, acting like a spoiled, self-entitled little brat.

All of this changes, however, when Kylie happens to overhear her mom call into a radio show and discuss their “haunted” house. Initially passing the whole thing off as more of her mom’s loony fantasies, Kylie is forced to change her tune when she has an unexplained occurrence of her own. Determined to find a rational explanation, Kylie begins to research the house’s history, hoping to disprove her poor mother’s beliefs along the way. While this is going on, Kylie must also navigate around her dopey counselor, Dennis (Cameron Rhodes), as well as Amos (Glen-Paul Waru), the friendly tech who works for the company that monitors Kylie’s ankle bracelet and happens to be a firm believer in the paranormal. Kylie continues to experience things that she just can’t explain and she’s forced into the one partnership that she would never, in a million years, expect to make: her own mother.

Before we go any further, let me state, for the record, that I absolutely loved this film. I’m a person who tends to have intense reactions to movies, both good and bad, although it will often take a particular kind of film to draw the most intense reactions out of me: Housebound was that film. Something about the film drew me in from the very first frame and I stayed on its wave-length all the way through the final credits. Housebound is the kind of movie that I look forward to owning, in physical form, the kind of film that will “elevate” my humble collection, for what that’s worth. In the simplest way possible, it’s great…really, really great. Let’s see if I can’t explain why.

For one thing, Housebound looks absolutely amazing: Simon Riera’s cinematography is gorgeous, showcasing the marvelously creepy old house to stunning effect. It’s truly difficult to believe that Riera works, primarily, in TV and shorts: everything about Housebound screams “veteran cinematographer,” from the shot composition to the framing and the intuitive ways he works with depth-of-field. My hat’s off to Riera for coming up with one of the best looking films of the whole year: bravo, sir…bravo!

You can’t have a great film without a great script, however, and Johnstone certainly doesn’t disappoint there. Truth be told, Housebound is kind of brilliant: not only is the film laugh-out-loud funny, it’s also quite chilling and moving, in equal doses, which is certainly no mean feat. The film’s mythology isn’t particularly original (in fact, much of the film recalls fellow New Zealander Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners (1996), at least in tone, if not specifics) but it’s nicely realized and doesn’t seem moldy or overly obvious. There’s also some surprising weight to the mother-daughter relationship, which gives the whole film an underlying gravitas that’s belied by the constantly arch tone: it’s a delicate balancing act but Housebound manages to come across as sweet without seeming cloying and obvious: again, that’s a damn handy hat trick to pull off.

How are the actual horror aspects, though? As far as I’m concerned, top-notch. The true key to effective horror, as far as I’m concerned, will always be atmosphere and mood, two areas in which Housebound easily excels. Although it’s the furthest thing from graphic, Johnstone’s isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty and there were at least a couple organic jump scares that actually made me jump. Kudos to a great production design team who manage to give everything the appropriate creepy touch: it’s a suitably classy affair but the horror still shines through, loud and clear.

When it all comes down to it, however, there are two very potent reasons why Housebound is such a great damn movie: Morgana O’Reilly and Rima Te Wiata. Quite frankly, the two are perfect: there isn’t one single note, one movement, one affectation or one line delivery that I would change with either performer, were I in such a position to do so. O’Reilly’s performance as Kylie ranks up with my favorite cinematic badasses ever: I can’t help but return to the Snake Plissken comparison because it just feels so apt. When Kylie really gets going, she’s damn near unstoppable: I would love to see a franchise precipitated around her shrugging her way through various evil situations, sort of like an ever more cynical and irritable version of Bruce Campbell’s Ash.

Te Wiata, for her part, is nothing short of a marvel: she makes Miriam such a twitchy, neurotic, nearly unbearable ball of nerves that it seems impossible to ever empathize with the character. That Miriam is never anything less than 100% likable, then, is nothing short of a miracle: I’ve seen lots of great performances, over the year, but to not mention Te Wiata would be the most criminal form of neglect. Even better, the duo mesh perfectly as mother and daughter: they’re such an inspired team that I’m really hoping for a continuation of the partnership, even if they switch up the details. I honestly feel that O’Reilly and Te Wiata are one of the most inspired comic teams of this decade and can only hope that Housebound serves merely as the opening act of a great partnership.

I could go on and on, really, but anything more that I say runs the risk of spoiling any of Housebound’s myriad surprises. There’s a genuine sense of invention and wide-eyed enthusiasm that’s quite infectious: I find it rather impossible to believe that anyone wouldn’t be completely sucked into the film by the five-minute mark. In a year where lots of first-time filmmakers surprised me with some pretty stunning debuts, Gerard Johnstone’s was one of the most shocking and utterly delightful. Suffice to say that Housebound managed to rocket straight into my list of favorite films after a single viewing: this is one of those films, like Pulp Fiction (1994) or The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966), that I look forward to having a very long, happy relationship with. Here’s to hoping that Housebound is just the tip of the iceberg and that Johnstone proves to be one of our very brightest, best new talents.

10/24/14 (Part Three): I Am the Ghost That Haunts My Halls

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31 Days of Halloween, Abigail Breslin, auteur theory, Canadian films, cinema, Cube, David Hewlett, Eleanor Zichy, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, ghosts, Groundhog Day, haunted houses, Haunter, Martine Campbell, Michelle Nolden, Movies, Nightmare on Elm Street, Peter DaCunha, Peter Outerbridge, Samantha Weinstein, Sarah Manninen, serial killers, Splice, Stephen McHattie, The Frighteners, The Lovely Bones, The Others, time loops, Vincenzo Natali

For a time, it seemed like writer-director Vincenzo Natali’s most recent full-length film, Haunter (2013), would be the first one of his movies to really disappoint me. Between the too on-the-nose title, a description that reads like a mash-up between The Others (2001) and Groundhog Day (1993) and a narrative thrust that parallels Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones (2009) to an uncomfortable degree, everything about Haunter felt clichéd and old-hat from the jump. But then, as often happens with Natali’s films, something really interesting happened: just when the film seemed doomed to follow its familiar path to an all-too familiar end, Natali pulls the rug out from underneath us, sending the film into some truly inspired, fascinating directions. By the fist-raising conclusion, one fact seems all too clear: count Natali out at your own peril, since this guy is the king of the 11th hour comeback.

From the on-set, there’s absolutely nothing special or original about Haunter in any way, shape or form: a decent enough credit sequence featuring CGI butterflies in jars leads to an opening scene between Lisa (Abigail Breslin) and her mother, Carol (Michelle Nolden), that makes it explicitly clear that we’re watching a variation on The Others. Despite what her mother and father (Peter Outerbridge) tell her, Lisa is positive that her family is caught in a loop of sorts, ala Groundhog Day. She figures this out due to the fact that it’s been the day before her birthday for, like, ever, which seems like a decidedly good clue. Lisa also seems to catch hints of mysterious forms, shapes and noises around her, ala The Others, including a bewitching snippet of music from Peter and the Wolf that appears to come from the ventilation grates.

One day, while exploring her house, Lisa comes upon a small, locked wooden door in the laundry room, similar to something out of Alice in Wonderland. As she continues to explore, Lisa tries to make subtle changes to her routine, changes when end up subtly altering key moments of her daily “loop.” More importantly, however, Lisa altered routine appears to put her in touch with two mysterious presences: Olivia (Eleanor Zichy), another young killer who appears to be in a different time than Lisa and Edgar Mullins (Stephen McHattie), a sinister, obviously villainous “repairman” who seems to know an awful lot about Lisa situation…and who cautions Lisa to mind her own business, lest she open her and her family up for torment the likes of which they’ve never seen. When Lisa persists in her investigations, however, she realizes that Edgar may be more powerful than he seems, especially once she comes down for dinner and sees that her young brother’s imaginary friend is now visible…and sounds an awful lot like Edgar.

Soon, Lisa is trapped in a life-or-death struggle between mysterious forces, all in an effort to save someone who she doesn’t even know, someone who may or may not even be real. As she gets closer to the truth about her condition and Edgar’s real identity, Lisa will make the ultimate sacrifice in order to right old wrongs and bring peace to the restless dead. Edgar is a canny monster, however, and has no intention of going into that good night without a ferocious battle: as always, the past isn’t quite as easy to overcome as it might seem.

As I mentioned earlier, my initial impressions of Haunter were anything but positive, similar to my initial impression of Natali’s debut, Cube (1997). In this case, Natali’s film seemed to slavishly check comparisons off a list, arriving at something that resembled a greatest-hits jumble of haunted house and time loops clichés. If watching Natali films has taught me anything, however, it’s that initial impressions don’t necessarily mean much: sticking through the familiar aspects, I finally got to that patented tweaking of expectations that he does so well. By the end, not only had Haunter quelled my previous concerns but it kept me rapt and on the edge of my seat all the way the closing credits.

The script is patently solid, another Natali trademark, but the real feather in its cap is an excellent supporting cast, featuring a truly awe-inspiring turn from character actor Stephen McHattie as the villainous Edgar Mullins. While Breslin is great as Lisa, equal parts inquisitive young person and world-weary protector, McHattie is a complete force of nature. It might seem reductive to tell someone to watch a film simply for the “bad guy” but you can make the case with many of the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels and you can certainly make the case here. Without putting too fine a point on it, McHattie is superb, creating a character that deserves to take its place in the “Bad Guy Hall of Shame.” No lie: the character and performance is that awesome…I was still thinking about Edgar Mullins for days afterward.

As the film gets trickier and less obvious, it also becomes exponentially more fast-paced and action-packed, all the way to a stellar climax that manages to reference both The Dark Half (1993) and A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989). Similar to his work in Cube and Splice (2009), Natali ramps up to the action so subtly that we barely even notice the change from more austere haunted house chills to more overt thrills. It’s a nice technique that showcases a sense of restraint missing in many current low-budget indie horror films, a sense of restraint that other filmmakers would do well to emulate.

Ultimately, Haunter is not the most original film you’ll ever see: if I had to boil it down, I’d say that it basically plays like a better, more crowd-pleasing version of The Lovely Bones, albeit one that manages to work time loops into the mix in a thoroughly fresh way. Despite beginning with a rather tired, hackneyed idea, however, Natali manages to breathe fresh life into it: despite my general dislike of remakes, I’m coming to the conclusion that there might not be anyone better qualified to re-imagine an existing film than he is. After all, he managed to take an overly familiar concept and turn it into something shiny and new: if that’s not the whole point of a remake, I don’t know what it.

10/12/14 (Part One): Beat on the Zom-Brat

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'90s films, 31 Days of Halloween, auteur theory, Bad Taste, Brenda Kendall, cinema, co-writers, Dead Alive, Diana Penalver, Elizabeth Moody, favorite films, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, foreign films, Fran Walsh, gore films, Heavenly Creatures, horror-comedies, Ian Watkin, Meet the Feebles, Movies, New Zealand films, Peter Jackson, practical effects, Raiders of the Lost Ark, special-effects extravaganza, Stuart Devenie, The Frighteners, The Lord of the Rings, Timothy Balme, writer-director, zombies

Fans who flocked to Peter Jackson after his groundbreaking adaptation of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (2001-2003) must have really had their worlds expanded once they started to take a trip through his back catalog. The Frighteners (1996) isn’t such a stretch, obviously, and Heavenly Creatures (1994) is certainly a strange film but it’s more of an arthouse curio than a truly deviant piece of filmmaking. Go back further than that, however, and you truly start to hang out in the weird part of town. Jackson began his career with a trio of films that managed to explore perversity, gore, shock, taboos and humor in some pretty bracing ways: Bad Taste (1987), Meet the Feebles (1989) and Dead Alive (1992) are just as shocking today, in many ways, as they were over two decades ago. Very few films have ever dared to tread ground half as controversial as Jackson’s X-rated puppet spectacular Meet the Feebles and his Bad Taste manages to live up to its name in just about every way possible. And then, of course, there’s Dead Alive.

For horror fans of a certain age, especially those who’ve always sought out the more extreme ends of the genre, Jackson’s Dead Alive has been something of a right of passage since it was released 22 years ago. Popular mythology states that Dead Alive is the goriest film ever made and, to be quite frank, I’m more than inclined to agree. Oh sure, there are plenty of films out there are more extreme and unpleasant, more focused on mean-spirited body torture and nerve-wracking surgical procedures than Jackson’s zombie-comedy. There’s been twenty years of special effects improvements since the early ’90s and even network TV shows (think about some of the setpieces in NBC’s Hannibal and recall a time when NYPD Blue’s bare butts were a sign of the impending apocalypse) are trafficking in the kind of gore effects that used to be the sole purview of underground horror flicks. Conventional wisdom would seem to make it impossible for Dead Alive to keep its throne after all this time. After rewatching the film, however, I was struck with a realization: this is still just as bracing, intense and hardcore as it ever was. In fact, I’m hard-pressed to think of any other film that manages to maintain such a consistent level of gleefully insane, gore-drenched mayhem as Dead Alive does: that the film also manages to come across as sweet-natured and decidedly old-fashioned is not a fluke…it’s one of the reasons why Peter Jackson has been one of the world’s most interesting filmmakers since he first burst onto the scene.

At its heart, Dead Alive is a sweet love story about clumsy, mild-mannered nice-guy Lionel (Timothy Balme) and fiery shop-clerk, Pacquita (Diana Penalver). Pacquita has fallen madly in love with Lionel thanks to a Tarot reading and is determined to get her “happily ever after,” even though poor Lionel seems more bemused than smitten. There is, of course, one big problem: Lionel’s absolutely wretched mother, Vera (Elizabeth Moody). Vera is a complete harpy – nasty, vain, hectoring, verbally abusive, snide, stuck-up…she makes Anne Ramsey’s awful mother in Throw Momma From the Train (1987) seem like Mary Poppins, by comparison. Vera has Lionel completely wrapped around her finger and likes it that way. When she notices that her little boy is showing an undue interest in the shop clerk, Vera springs into action, determined to keep them apart at all costs.

As Vera spies on the young lovers at the zoo, however, she manages to stand just a little too close to the Sumatran Rat Monkey cage. We’ve been introduced to this particular critter already, of course, thanks to an ingeniously gory intro that manages to parody both Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and King Kong (1933) and we know what’s coming: in due time, Vera has contracted a bit of the ol’ zombie sickness and has got to the business of rotting and eating unsuspecting people and animals. Soon, Lionel’s full-time job becomes keeping an eye on his zombified mother and her increasing horde of victims, all of which he keeps tranquilized in the basement, in order to prevent the kind of mass zombie invasion that seems all-too imminent. Poor Lionel is getting run ragged, however, and has started to push Pacquita away, in order to keep her safe from the mounting chaos. When Lionel’s unbelievably shitty uncle, Les (Ian Watkin), shows up and wants a piece of his dead sister’s estate, however, Lionel is pushed to the breaking point. Over the course of one insane night, Lionel, Pacquita, a mob of Uncle Les’ obnoxious rockabilly friends and a horde of ravenous zombies will all converge: heads will fly, limbs will fly, guts will fly, lawn mowers will be used as melee weapons, lawn gnomes will be jammed into bloody neck stumps and Lionel will learn that mother doesn’t always know best, particularly when she’s trying to chew off your face.

In any other hands, it would be easy to see how Dead Alive could have been nothing more than a grueling test of one’s cast-iron stomach, the horror movie equivalent of a game of freeway chicken. It’s absolutely no hyperbole to say that the film is drenched in blood: the intro features multiple dismemberment and the resulting blood “splashes” onto the screen, forming the film’s title…this is nothing if not truth in advertising, friends and neighbors. Jackson’s gore epic features everything that you expect from the “typical” zombie film (graphic flesh-eating; gut-munching; zombies blasted into pieces) but manages to add sequences that vault the film into a whole other stratosphere, such as the bit where a zombie pushes through another character and wears them like a mask or the bit where Lionel runs in place for several minutes because the floor is completely covered in slippery blood and body parts. Very little in this world really compares to Lionel being forced back into his (now enormous) dead mother’s womb, however, and this certainly serves as one of those horror watershed moments: if this film doesn’t bother you, congratulations…in all likelihood, very little will.

The gore effects and setpieces are absolutely astounding and jaw-dropping, no two ways about it, but the film’s real ace card is it’s totally wacky sense of humor. Despite being as intensely violent as anything out there, Dead Alive is also remarkably silly, goofy and, most surprisingly, good-natured. The film often fills like a fairy tale or kids’ movie gone awry, thanks to Jackson’s heightened use of magical realism and his trademark production design. Rather than feeling forced or out-of-place, the numerous comedy setpieces shine as brightly as the gore ones. One of my favorite scenes in any film, ever, is the spectacular moment where Father McGruder (Stuart Devenie) runs up to assist Lionel with his zombie problem and immediately springs into gleeful kung-fu mode: “I kick ass for the Lord,” he chortles, as he (literally) karate-kicks a zombie into multiple pieces. The scene is silly, sure, but it’s also a ton of fun and is tonally perfect. Likewise the scene where Lionel takes the zom-baby for a stroll in the park and tries to emulate the behavior of the parents, especially once the situation manages to spiral completely out of control: there are few joys quite as sublime as watching Lionel elbow-drop onto the rubber baby or drop-kick it across the park as concerned mothers raise eyebrows sky-high.

This, then, becomes the film’s true legacy: the movie is astoundingly gory and frequently completely disgusting (you’ll probably never look at custard the same way again) but it’s never anything less than good-natured, fun and 100% entertaining. Dead Alive may just be the perfect party film, for horror fans, especially if one can watch the film with neophytes: it’s one of the few films where I truly envy newbies the experience of seeing it for the first time, especially when one reaches the show-stopping party climax. Personally, I’ve always liked Meet the Feebles a little more than Dead Alive, probably because the former film will always seem like a nasty, transgressive marvel to me while the latter has increasingly achieved the kind of warm and fuzzy sentimentality that most folks probably associate with their favorite Christmas movies. That being said, Dead Alive is one of those films that made its way to my “favorite films” list after one viewing and has never left. I’m a fan of lots of different things, from the cute-and-cuddly to the soul-shattering but Dead Alive has always been a guideline for me, in a way: if you don’t like the film, we can still exist in the same orbit…I’ll always understand if the movie isn’t someone’s cup of tea. If you love this movie as much as I do, however, than you and I are gonna get along just fine.

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

Tags

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.