11/21/15 (Part Two): The Abyss Stares Back

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Amy Jump, auteur theory, Ben Wheatley, best friends, British films, cinema, co-writers, contract killers, disturbing films, Emma Fryer, fate, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Harry Simpson, hitmen, husband-wife relationship, Kill List, Laurie Rose, Michael Smiley, Movies, MyAnna Buring, Neil Maskell, psychological horror, secret societies, strange ceremonies, Struan Rodger, twist ending, writer-director-editor

When one is standing at the bottom of a very deep hole, looking up at a tiny patch of daylight, it’s tempting to say that it can only get better from there: the only way is up, after all. This, of course, is a very comforting lie, the kind of fairy tale that helps us all sleep better at night. The plain and simple truth of the matter is that things can always get worse: regardless of far down you’ve already dug your hole, there’s always new depths to aspire to. As humans, the very bravest (and foolhardy) thing we can do is stare fate right in the face and dare it to blink. We’ll lose, every time, but that doesn’t stop us from trying.

Nowhere is this notion made more explicit than in British auteur Ben Wheatley’s sophomore film, Kill List (2011). When we first meet Jay (Neil Maskell), the poor bastard seems to have dug a hole as far into the earth as humanly possible. Out of work for eight months, after botching some sort of undisclosed job that appears to have left him with a potent case of PTSD, Jay’s doing everything he can to hold his life together, even if he’s doing a piss-poor job of it. Jay and his wife, Shel (MyAnna Buring), are at each others’ throats constantly, to the point where they routinely hurl bottles against walls and scream in each others’ faces until they’re out-of-breath. To make a bad situation even better, their young son, Sam (Harry Simpson), is a silent, aching witness to the whole massive shit show, wanting nothing more than some semblance of peace in his shattered home.

Things start to look up a bit, however, when Jay’s partner, Gal (Michael Smiley), shows up for a night of drinking, merriment and reminiscing. As the night progresses, complete with a number of potent meltdowns between the feuding spouses, Gal takes Michael aside and offers him an opportunity to “get back up on the horse” and bring a much-needed sense of financial security back to his domestic war-zone. Caught between a rock and an even sharper rock, Jay’s only too eager to get back to earning and takes Gal up on his offer.

Just what, exactly, did Jay and Gal do before whatever happened eight months prior? Well, as it turns out, they were hitmen, a revelation that Wheatley gets out of the way fairly quickly. Gal has just received a job offer that promises maximum money for minimum effort: all they have to do are exterminate three separate targets and they’ll get enough money to make any number of problems permanently disappear. After the pair meet with their strange “client” (a suitably sinister Struan Rodger), a meeting that ends with an impromptu blood oath, they set off on their fated path, uneasy but determined to get the job(s) done. It doesn’t take a psychic to know that this ends up being a very, very bad idea, the kind of bad idea that proves, once and for all, that life can always get worse. Much, much worse.

From his humble beginnings with the caustically comic “kitchen-sink-and-gangsters” flick Down Terrace (2009) all the way to his upcoming, much ballyhooed adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s High Rise (2016), writer-director Ben Wheatley has made a sort-of cottage industry out of the intersection between “polite” British society and the howling insanity of a world gone very, very wrong. By mashing character dramas up with more traditional (“traditional” being a relative term, here) genre films, Wheatley gives extra heft to his narratives, providing intricate insight into characters that, in lesser hands, might across as either vilely unredeemable or completely sociopathic. In Wheatley films, there are never traditional “heroes” or “villains,” nor is there, necessarily, a “right” or “wrong.” There just is, for better or worse…often, of course, for the worse.

Like all of Wheatley’s films, Kill List takes so many sudden turns and reveals so many surprises that to reveal much beyond a basic synopsis is to rob new viewers of a singularly unique experience. As far as plot and story goes, suffice to say that you will call some of the twists (or, at the very least, suspect them) but you will never call all of them, least of all the harrowing, soul-shattering climax. You may think that you know what Wheatley’s doing and, for a time, you might be right. Hell: even after seeing the film a half dozen times, I still find myself second-guessing earlier viewings and readjusting my understanding of the proceedings.

This, of course, is one of the hallmarks of any indispensable film: that ability to return, time and time again and discover new thrills with each subsequent viewing. There are plenty of exquisitely made films that have always been “one-and-dones” for me: it’s to Kill List’s great credit that, despite the film’s many unpleasantries, I keep returning to it, time after time. Chalk this up to the exceptional filmcraft, the airtight writing or the stellar performances (there, literally, isn’t a bad performance from the entire cast, whether in lead or walk-on parts) but Wheatley’s Kill List is the very definition of a modern classic.

Despite all of this, however, I find myself offering the same caveat that I do with many of my favorite films: Kill List, despite its overriding quality, is not a film for everyone. This is a film that delves into the very heart of darkness that so many genre and horror films only hint at, a film that derives its hideous power not from a collection of gory onscreen effects (although there’s plenty of those) but from the deeper horror of shattered humanity. The finale is impossibly, almost oppressively horrifying, make no bones about it, but it’s also deeply and fundamentally sad and hopeless, the kind of revelation that sucks the wind out of your sails, leaving you defeated and broken.

Kill List is many things: a tale of friendship and duty; a heartbreaking look into the dissolution of a marriage; an examination of the destructive power of anger and the redemptive nature of martyrdom; a mystery; a grotesque; a cautionary tale. Kill List is all of these things and so many more. Above and beyond all else, however, Wheatley’s Kill List is a dark, savage, merciless abyss: stare into it, by all means, but don’t be surprised if you find that the abyss also stares back at you.

7/29/15 (Part One): A Sinister Case of Deja Vu

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Antonia Campbell-Hughes, archival footage, archivists, Calum Heath, Carl Shaaban, Ceiri Torjussen, cheating partners, children in peril, cinema, dead children, dramas, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, foreign films, Hannah Hoekstra, haunted bathrooms, horror, horror films, human sacrifice, husband-wife relationship, infidelity, Irish films, Ivan Kavanagh, Kelly Byrne, Movies, Piers McGrail, Robin Hill, Rupert Evans, sewer tunnels, Sinister, Steve Oram, supernatural, The Canal, The Ring, twist ending, UK films, writer-director

Here’s a bit of friendly advice, free of charge and as heartfelt as the day is long: should there ever come a time when you’re in the market for a house and discover creepy video footage of terrible acts being committed in said house…go find another damn house. I mean, sure: this particular place might have hardwood floors, a nice backyard, good schools, a progressive city council and easy access to public transportation. If, however, it was also a place where people were tortured/murdered/sacrificed/et al, well…is linoleum really that bad?

While there have been a handful of films that have utilized the above trope to good effect, perhaps none have been more recently popular than Scott Derrickson’s Sinister (2012), in which Ethan Hawke moves his family into a former “murder house” and shit gets all kinds of…you know…sinister. On the heels of that surprise smash (with a sequel scheduled for sometime in the near future), we get Irish writer-director Ivan Kavanagh’s The Canal (2014), in which a husband/father discovers that his family’s new(ish) home might have more than a few secrets of its own. Similar to Derrickson’s film in some pretty substantial ways, The Canal still manages to carve out its own path, paralleling the sad dissolution of a marriage with the eerie happenings in and around a creepy house and the adjoining canal.

We first meet our hapless hero, David (Rupert Evans), as he and his pregnant wife, Alice (Hannah Hoekstra), are just about to buy the aforementioned creepy house. Flash forward five years and David, Alice and their now five-year-old son, Billy (Calum Heath), seem content in their abode, although we get hints of trouble in paradise. In particular, David and Alice seem to have a strained relationship that includes her getting late-night calls from “clients,” one of whom, a strapping young lad named Alex (Carl Shaaban), seems to be just a little too close for comfort to David’s lady-love.

As these dramatic developments are unfolding, David’s day-job suddenly inserts itself into the equation. You see, David and his partner, Claire (Antonia Campbell-Hughes), are film archivists and they’ve just got in a new batch of old police films, one of which takes place in the very house that David, Alice and Billy call home. It appears that a husband murdered his philandering wife, was jailed, escaped and proceeded to hunt down and slaughter his own son and the boy’s nanny. Faster than you can whisper “sinister,” David has become obsessed with the case, the grisly details of which have begun to seep into his dreams.

Opting to follow his hunch, David trails Alice, one night, and his worst fears are confirmed when he witnesses her making the beast with two backs with handsome, ol’ Alex. Utterly destroyed, David slouches away and winds up at the undeniably creepy public restroom, next to the canal by his house, where he and his young son once threw stones at “ghosts.” While sobbing in a stall, David is confronted by a mysterious figure who intones the suitably chilling “The Master wants you.” Racing out, he seems to be just in time to witness his wife grappling with someone by the water’s edge.

When his wife never comes home that night, David calls the police and ends up in the gravitational pull of one Detective McNamara (Steve Oram), a cagey, soft-spoken Irish Columbo who gets one of the film’s best lines: “People always suspect the husband. You know why that is? Because it’s always the fucking husband.” Needless to say, McNamara doesn’t buy David’s story of a mysterious assailant or bathroom visitation for one minute: from the jump, it’s pretty obvious that he’s a bulldog with a bone and has no intention of dropping his “prize” whatsoever, especially once Alice’s body is hauled up from the canal.

As David tries to keep his life together, with the endless assistance of long-suffering, pot-smoking nanny Sophie (Kelly Byrne), he digs deeper and deeper into the history of his house. Turns out that the aforementioned husband and wife weren’t the only tragedies in the home’s past: there’s a virtual laundry list of previous crimes, atrocities and terrible acts, including a woman who burned her own child alive but insists that “demons” did it. David becomes convinced that the house (and adjoining canal) are all part of a terrible child sacrifice conspiracy, a terrifying tradition of evil that he, Alice and Billy have, unwittingly, become part of. To make matters worse (better?), David sees all manner of strange, creepy figures around the house, especially once he begins to film supposedly empty rooms with an old-fashioned movie camera.

With Claire and Sophie worried about his sanity and McNamara doing his damnedest to put him into jail, David knows that the only way to clear his name is to uncover the hideous paranormal monstrosities at the heart of it all. Is David really getting a peep into a murderous, ghostly phantasmagoria or is he just as insane and guilty as McNamara assumes? To find out, David will need to do the unthinkable: he’ll need to go into the murky, seemingly bottomless depths of the canal. Will he find salvation…or doom?

Exceptionally well-made, if always a little too obvious, writer-director Kavanagh’s The Canal is the latest in a series of austere, serious-minded and atmospheric horror films that include the likes of Absentia (2011), The Pact (2011) and Oculus (2013), among others. As with the rest of these “New Wave of Atmospheric Horror” (NWoAH, patent pending) films, The Canal looks and sounds great: the colors are bright and vibrant (the color palette switches between reds and blues, depending on David’s current state of mind), cinematographer Piers McGrail (who also shot the highly lauded Let Us Prey (2014)) shoots some truly lovely footage and the sense of creeping unease is thick from the jump.

The acting is solid, with Evans and Oram leading the pack, albeit from two completely opposite sides of the coin: Evans perfectly portrays the combined despair, agony, fear, rage and sorrow within David, leading to a performance that’s truly three-dimensional, even if the whole thing is colored in shades of gray and black. Oram, on the other hand, is like a breath of fresh air, a vibrant, alive, cynical and altogether awesome police presence who provides a perfect foil for David and a great source of association for the audience.

Between these towering presences, the rest of the cast acquits themselves nicely (Campbell-Hughes is especially great as David’s partner/only friend), although a few of the characters (Alice’s mother comes immediately to mind) are so under-developed as to be more plot points than real people. I also wish that Hoekstra got a little more to do: there are a few nicely emotional moments between her and David but, by and large, the focus is squarely on him, not her. Due to this, Alice comes across as more of a “bad guy” than anything: since we never get to spend much time with her, the decision to cheat on David also feels more like a plot point than an organic culmination of their relationship.

On the horror side, The Canal also equates quite nicely with the aforementioned NWoAH films: like the others, the film has a chilly, glacial pace and a tendency to rely on slow burn chills and “something’s happening behind you”-isms, although the occasional jump-cuts and loud musical cues are thoroughly off-putting and kind of obnoxious. When you have images as nice as the ones in this film, long, leisurely takes work much better than jump-cuts or quick-cuts, especially when trying to build atmosphere. It’s a minor quibble, to be sure, but one that definitely took me out a time or two.

While The Canal is full of really rich horror moments/imagery (one of the most unforgettable being the zombie-like figure that gives birth to an equally horrifying child…I’ve rarely seen anything quite that nasty and it’s a truly bracing moment), the main problem, once again, ends up being the familiarity of it all. In particular, Kavanagh and company make two explicit references to Gore Verbinski’s remake of The Ring (2002), including one where a creepy woman with long, dark hair crawls out of a television set. To be honest, it’s an oddly lazy moment in a film that’s generally much more interesting than that, although the image, itself, still packs a nice visceral wallop.

There’s also an inherent issue with this kind of “did he/didn’t he?” storyline, especially when the filmmakers seem to push one particular viewpoint over the other: while The Canal does take a few twists and turns and does a good job with the kind of open ending that usually causes me to roll my eyes, nothing that happened was really that surprising or shocking. I felt like I knew what was coming from the first reel and, for the most part, that’s exactly what I got. Again, this isn’t to cast undue derision on Kavanagh’s film as much as to state the relative limitations of this particular kind of tale.

Despite some minor issues and the aforementioned similarities to other films, The Canal is actually quite exceptional: some of the supernatural elements and imagery were quietly stunning and the relationship drama aspect feels utterly real (almost painfully so). One of the scenes, where David films by the canal as “something” approaches the camera, agonizingly slow step by agonizingly slow step, is really as good as NWoAH films get: there’s a genuine sense of building terror that hits you in the gut like a brick.

Looking through Kavanagh’s back-catalog, The Canal appears to be his most explicitly horror-related film, with the majority of his work seeming to fall into the “dark drama” category. This, of course, makes perfect sense: as mentioned earlier, the dissolution of David and Alice’s marriage has a verisimilitude that makes you want to look away, even though you’re too wrapped up in the events to do so. Here’s to hoping that Kavanagh continues to work in the horror field: there are enough good ideas and stylish moments here to indicate that he definitely has something to say. Hopefully, in the future, he won’t lean quite so heavily on what came before: I have a feeling that Kavanagh’s “roads not taken” might lead to some pretty damn interesting places.

7/26/15 (Part One): Doomed to Repeat

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Ashley Rickards, At the Devil's Door, atmospheric films, Bresha Webb, Bridger Nielson, Catalina Sandino Moreno, cinema, Daniel Roebuck, demonic possession, film reviews, films, flashbacks, haunted houses, horror, horror films, Jan Broberg, Kent Faulcon, Michael Massee, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, Naya Rivera, Nicholas McCarthy, Nick Eversman, Oculus, Olivia Crocicchia, real estate agent, Ronen Landa, Satanic rituals, selling your soul, sisters, suicide, supernatural, The Pact, twist ending, writer-director, Wyatt Russell

Writer-director Nicholas McCarthy’s full-length debut, The Pact (2012), might not have been a perfect film but it was still a pretty darn good one: nicely atmospheric, evocative, methodically paced and possessed of a genuinely surprising (if sorta nonsensical) twist ending, The Pact was a suitably eerie little haunted house chiller and certainly boded well for the rest of McCarthy’s burgeoning career. If nothing else, The Pact showcased an exciting, new filmmaker who wasn’t afraid to let his film play out at its own, languorous pace, sort of a less exceptional cousin to Mike Flanagan’s leisurely paced Oculus (2013).

Now, two years down the road, McCarthy has reunited with many of the principal crew behind his debut, including cinematographer Bridger Nielson and composer Ronen Landa, to fashion his sophomore film, At the Devil’s Door (2014). In a twist that no one (including yours truly) saw coming, At the Devil’s Door is so similar to The Pact, in both look, structure and narrative that it feels, for all intents and purposes, as if McCarthy has drawn this from the exact same inspirational well that yielded his debut. An evil presence in a house? Check. Dysfunctional sisters as the main protagonists? Check. An austere, serious feel that emphasizes mood over generic jump scares and ultra-violence? You get the point. Uncanny similarities aside, there’s really only one important question to answer: does At the Devil’s Door do what it sets out to do? Let’s find out.

We begin with teenaged Hannah (Ashley Rickards), whose just met a hunky guy, Calvin (Nick Eversman) while vacationing in California. Calvin seems cool and all but Hannah should probably have been a little more worried when he cajoled her into selling her soul to Satan, via his creepy Uncle Mike (Michael Massee), for the whopping sum of $500. She’s not, however, and she returns home to face lots of creepy shit, a mysterious virgin pregnancy and the unsettling notion that “something” has taken up residence inside her body.

Afterwards, we’re introduced to driven real estate agent, Leigh (Catalina Sandino Moreno), and her younger artist sister, Vera (Glee’s Naya Rivera). Like the sisters in McCarthy’s debut, Leigh and Vera have enough outstanding issues to fill the Grand Canyon. As it so happens, Leigh has been contacted by a rather odd couple, Chuck (Daniel Roebuck) and Royanna (Jan Broberg), to sell their house…the very same house that we see Hannah inhabiting at the beginning. While checking the place out, Leigh happens to spy a mysterious young woman, clad in a bright, red rain coat. Chuck and Royanna think that the young lady might be their runaway daughter, Charlene: dutiful Leigh is only too happy to help them find some answers.

When something untoward happens to Leigh, however, Vera must now begin her own investigation into what’s going on. As creepy figures pop up in mirrors and underneath the kitchen sink, Vera gets ever closer to the truth about what happened to Hannah, Charlene and, by extension, her own sister. Will Vera be able to undo the evil that was perpetrated at that lonely, California crossroad or will her and her loved ones become just another cog in a dastardly game of demonic possession, maternal love and obsession?

First, the good news. Thanks to the return of The Pact’s creative personnel, At the Devil’s Door looks and sounds just as good as McCarthy’s debut. Nielson has a real skill with framing shots for maximum effect and there are some moments here (the amazing shot where Leigh lies in the foreground while something truly monstrous “molts” out of someone in the background is but one example) that are just as good as what came before. Hand-in-hand with Nielson’s visuals, Ronen Landa’s score is nicely evocative and, usually, used to good, subtle effect. As with the debut, At the Devil’s Door certainly reminds of something like Oculus and that’s a compliment in every sense of the word.

Performance-wise, no one here is as good as Caity Lotz or Casper van Dien were in The Pact but they’re all suitably solid, nonetheless. Particularly surprising is Rivera, who manages to handily shed all remnants of her TV personality and gifts us with a performance that’s a nice combination of intensity, awkwardness, inner turmoil and steely resolve. It’s not the kind of performance that wins awards but it is the kind that should ensure plenty of casting agents will be calling her up in the near future. Most importantly, Rivera’s performance never feels off, unlike the occasionally tone-deaf work of her screen sister, as portrayed by Moreno.

The bad news, as hinted above, is that At the Devil’s Door breaks absolutely no new ground for McCarthy as either a director or a writer: in every way, this is a retelling (albeit one with major narrative differences) of The Pact. We have the same pacing, the same narrative structure (we begin with one sister before ending up with the other sister), the same moldy mirror gags (McCarthy seems to love these as much as I dislike them), the same scenes where a malevolent, invisible presence tosses our protagonists around like rag dolls. Indeed, by utilizing the same behind-the-camera crew, At the Devil’s Door ends up seeming more of a natural sequel to The Pact then its actual sequel, The Pact 2 (2014), does.

This sense of similarity wouldn’t be so off-putting if McCarthy opted to do anything different with the material but, alas, the sense of “same-old, same-old” is almost overpowering. By opening with the bit where Hannah sells her soul, any true sense of mystery is eliminated almost before the film has rolled out its opening credits. While the finale still offers up a twist (albeit another one as old as the hills), any audience member who pays attention should be able to plot each and every beat here: there are no real surprises, especially if one is familiar with practically any other demonic possession film under the sun.

With only two full-lengths under his belt, I’m definitely not ready to write McCarthy off yet, even if I might not be as eager to check out his new films as I might have been before. If nothing else, there’s certainly something laudable about his commitment to produce atmospheric, lush films, especially ones which feature strong female protagonists (still a major Achilles’ heel for the horror industry). To be honest, without The Pact in the picture, At the Devil’s Door would have probably hit me a lot harder. As it stands, however, McCarthy’s latest is just more of the same: that’s okay but more than a little disappointing. Here’s to hoping the writer-director steps out of his comfort zone on his next go round.

7/8/15: If These Walls Could Talk

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abused children, abusive childhood, Agnes Bruckner, based on a short, Bridger Nielson, Caity Lotz, Casper Van Dien, cinema, Dakota Bright, dead mother, dysfunctional family, estranged siblings, family home, family secrets, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, ghosts, Haley Hudson, haunted house, haunted houses, horror, horror movies, Judas, Kathleen Rose Perkins, Mark Steger, mediums, Movies, mysteries, Nicholas McCarthy, Petra Wright, Ronen Landa, Sam Ball, serial killers, sisters, small town life, The Pact, twist ending, writer-director

Based on an earlier short of the same name, writer-director Nicholas McCarthy’s debut full-length, The Pact (2012), is an effective, if overly familiar, little haunted house chiller that manages to distinguish itself by dint of its austere atmosphere, focus on mystery and mood over gore and a twist ending that’s massively entertaining, if more than a little nonsensical. While nothing about the film is exactly revolutionary, the overall quality certainly bodes well for the rest of McCarthy’s burgeoning career.

After vowing to put as much distance between her abusive mother and herself as possible, Annie (Caity Lotz) finds herself returning to her childhood home under less than auspicious circumstances. Annie’s much-detested mother has just passed away and, under no small amount of duress, she’s come home for the funeral, mostly to appease her sister, Nichole (Agnes Bruckner), and see her adorable niece, Eva (Dakota Bright).

When she gets home, however, Annie discovers that Nichole, a former drug addict, has seemingly vanished into thin air, leaving Eva under the care of cousin Liz (Kathleen Rose Perkins). Annie assumes that her sister has relapsed but there’s just something about her old home that doesn’t sit quite right. When Liz vanishes under similar circumstances, Annie is convinced that something sinister is going on right under her nose.

As she investigates the history of her family and childhood home, Annie draws the attention of local sheriff Bill Creek (Casper Van Dien), a pensive, kind-hearted lawman who knew Nichole from her wild, druggie days. She also enlists the aid of Stevie (Hayley Hudson), a mysterious, blind, trailer-park medium who makes house calls along with her sketchy, paranoid brother, Giles (Sam Ball). Stevie detects a ghostly presence in the house, some kind of maligned specter who’s only seeking justice for its untimely end. She also detects something much crueler and more malignant, however, a festering, suffocating evil known only as “Judas.” Who (or what) is Judas? How, exactly, is Annie and her family connected to the tragedies at their old home? Will Annie be able to bring peace to the dead or will she find herself joining them?

Although there’s nothing about McCarthy’s debut that screams “instant classic,” it still ends up being a highly likable, well-made and effective film, albeit one with plenty of cheesy moments, overly familiar plot elements and more than a few outright holes. Caity Lotz is effective as Annie, bringing the right mixture of hard-edge, spunk and insecurity to the mix: she certainly doesn’t vault herself into the company of luminaries like Jaime Lee Curtis or Sigourney Weaver but she more than holds her own and gives us a (fairly) level-headed hero to hang our hats on.

The supporting cast ranges from dependable to slightly over-the-top, with Van Dien underplaying his role to the point of mumblecore, while Hudson and Ball have quite a bit of fun as the oddball, white trash mystics. Hudson, in particular, is suitably ethereal and brings a really odd, interesting quality to her performance as the blind psychic. For his part, Mark Steger brings a weird, lurching and almost insectile physicality to his performance as Judas, making him quite the memorable villain, even if he never utters a single line of dialogue. Just the sight of Steger hanging around in the background of various shots is enough to chill the blood and McCarthy gets good mileage out of it.

One of The Pact’s biggest strengths is its focus on the mystery aspect of the narrative, rather than a simple rehashing of moldy haunted house tropes. While McCarthy’s script certainly isn’t comparable to something like Silence of the Lambs, it definitely recalls Vincenzo Natali’s equally modest and effective Haunter (2013), another indie horror film that prided atmosphere over effects. There are still plenty of traditional haunted house scares, of course: people get pulled backwards by invisible forces, doors open and close on their own, lights turn on and off, sinister forms appear in the background while our heroes look in the opposite direction…basically “Ghosts 101.” For the most part, however, these end up being the film’s weakest moments (the invisible forces aspect, in particular, is so old that it sweats dust): when we’re following Annie on her quest for knowledge, the film is an altogether more interesting, tense and driven affair.

Another aspect of The Pact that separates it from its contemporaries is the big, Shyamalan-esque twist that pops up during the climax. While I would never dream of spoiling the surprise, the whole thing tends to make imperfect sense under closer inspection (it presupposes, for one thing, that a key character is either completely deaf or incredibly stupid, neither of which seems to be the case) but it ends the proceedings with a gonzo flourish that’s a lot of fun, if rather silly.

For the most part, I quite enjoyed The Pact, although it was certainly nothing I hadn’t seen before. When the film is silly, it can be quite silly: the scene where Annie draws a Ouija board into the floor and proceeds to contact a spirit is a real howler, as are most of the parts where Annie is shoved around by empty air. When the atmosphere, mood and languid pace all mesh, however, The Pact has plenty of genuinely chilling moments: the scene involving the ghostly photograph is fantastic, as is the one where Bill and Annie discover the hidden room. Any and all of Stevie’s scenes have a genuinely weird, otherworldly quality to them and the finale (minus the eye-rolling coda) is a real corker.

McCarthy would follow-up his debut with At the Devil’s Door (2014), which I’ve yet to see, along with an entry in the upcoming horror-anthology Holidays, which has been on my must-see list since it was announced. If McCarthy can continue to tweak his formula here, replacing some of the overly familiar material with stuff that’s a bit more singular and unique, he stands a good chance of blazing his own trail through the horror wasteland.

5/22/15: Doin’ It For the Kids

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7th Floor, Abel Dolz Doval, Adrian Garcia Bogliano, Alfred Hitchcock, alternate title, Argentinian film, Belén Rueda, Buenos Aires, Charo Dolz Doval, cheating husbands, cinema, custody issues, divorced parents, film reviews, films, foreign films, Guillermo Arengo, husband-wife relationship, infidelity, Jorge D'Elía, kids in peril, Lucas Nolla, Lucio Bonelli, Luis Ziembrowski, missing children, Movies, mysteries, Osvaldo Santoro, parent-child relationships, Patxi Amezcua, Ricardo Darín, Septimo, set in Argentina, Spurloos, suspense, The Lady Vanishes, The Vanishing, thrillers, twist ending, writer-director

For parents of young children, there can’t be many more terrifying nightmares than having them vanish, seemingly without a trace. Despite how careful and attentive parents might be, they’re not omniscient deities: even the best parents can let their attention stray for a moment, become complacent with friendly surroundings, take their eyes off their precious charges for the barest of moments. As we find out all too frequently these days, it doesn’t take more than a moment (sometimes only a few seconds) for tragedy to strike.

Argentinian writer-director Patxi Amezcua’s Septimo (2013) deals with just this parental nightmare and, for over half its 88 minute running-time, it’s quite the razor-sharp, white knuckle thriller. Coming off as a grim combination of Hitchcock’s classic The Lady Vanishes (1938) and George Sluzier’s Spurloos (The Vanishing) (1988), Amezcua puts his characters (and his audience) through the wringer, giving us a front-row seat to the mounting terror that an estranged husband and wife feel as they desperately search for their missing children. Once the mystery comes into sharper focus, however, the film loses much of its inherent tension, playing out towards a rather predictable ending, right up to the fourth act “twist.” At the end of the day, however, half a Hitchcock ain’t too shabby.

When we first meet newly divorced criminal lawyer, Sebastian (Ricardo Darín), it’s pretty obvious that the guy is a dick: we watch him shrug off his anxious sister’s concerns about her potentially abusive ex and see him rage against the “old lady” who keeps parking in his designated spot at his apartment building. After the kindly super, Miguel (Luis Ziembrowski), explains that the old lady is almost blind, Sebastian snorts and replies that he’ll happily have her towed, anyway: if she can’t see, sell the damn car. George Bailey, he’s most certainly not.

Once Sebastian gets up to his seventh floor apartment (hence the film’s Spanish title, as well as its alternate title, 7th Floor), we meet his adorable kids, Luna (Charo Dolz Doval) and Luca (Abel Dolz Doval), as well as his put-upon ex-wife, Delia (Belén Rueda). There’s still lots of simmering tension in the relationship, mostly due to the fact that Sebastian is a pompous ass who’s constantly running late, although more for the fact that he steadfastly refuses to sign the paperwork that will allow Delia to move herself and the kids to Spain (they all currently reside in Buenos Aires), so that she can take care of her ailing father. Sebastian is, above all else, a deeply selfish man, however, and he has no intention of making anything easy for his ex.

On the day of a particularly high-profile case, however, Sebastian’s life hits a bit of a speed-bump. Humoring his children, the lawyer lets them race down the stairs while he takes the elevator, the exact same “game” that Delia has previously complained about being “too dangerous.” Beating them to the lobby, Sebastian waits around until he gets a troublesome notion: the kids aren’t coming down. From this point, Luna and Luca’s father flies into a mad frenzy of activity, frantically searching his apartment building for any sign of his kids, all while trying to avoid alerting Delia to the present crisis. Enlisting a resident police office, Rosales (Osvaldo Santoro), for help, Sebastian questions his neighbors, many of whom seem to be decidedly odd, suspicious people. As the clock continues to tick down, the obnoxious lawyer must learn to rely on the help of others, even as he seeks to unravel the mystery of his kids’ disappearance. Is this related to his high-profile case? Does Rosales know more than he’s letting on? And, most importantly: will Sebastian and Delia ever see their children again?

Up until the midpoint revelation, Septimo is an endlessly tense, nail-biting bit of cinema, easily comparable to the work of fellow Argentinian Adrián García Bogliano (there are bits and pieces of his Cold Sweat (2010) and Penumbra (2011) littered through Septimo’s DNA). The acting is uniformly solid, with Darín and Rueda being easy standouts as the parents. There’s a real art-form to playing an asshole character (too much on either side and the character becomes either completely unbearable or thoroughly unrealistic) and Darín hits the bulls-eye with what seems to be studied ease. It’s all in the margins for the character: we get enough casual exposition to establish Sebastian’s more douche-bag tendencies (his infidelity with Delia’s best friend, his casually dismissive interactions with anyone “below” his station) but he fills in the spaces with some truly subtle mannerisms that are almost subliminal. We can see that Sebastian is an asshole but, more importantly, we can feel that he’s an asshole: as far as I’m concerned, that’s great characterization, right there.

For her part, Rueda’s Delia is a massively complex character, made more so by the fact that we spend so little time with her compared to Sebastian: like Sebastian, we pick up much of our impressions of her from the margins, with the added benefit of the surprise “revelations” of the mystery format. There’s a subtle sense of downplaying that really works with Rueda’s performance: she dials it back enough that, when Delia needs to let loose, her outbursts actually come with a little punch. Call it the benefit of knowing when to turn the knobs to 11 and when to exercise a little restraint.

The rest of the cast does equally admirable work, albeit in much smaller doses. Osvaldo Santoro is extremely charismatic as the gruff, no-nonsense police officer, while Luis Ziembrowski manages to make the character of the landlord seem kindly, sympathetic and a tad bit sinister. Perhaps most impressively, the Dovals do fantastic work as the children, Luna and Luca. Oftentimes, child performers are the weak link in any production: it pretty much comes with the territory. In this case, however, Abel and Charo hit every single required beat, managing to walk a tight line between adorable urchins and actual flesh-and-blood people.

If I have any real complaints with Septimo, they lie more with what is being expressed than how it’s being expressed (although I’ll freely admit that the midpoint resolution and resulting “twist” ending did nothing for me and actually knocked the film down a peg or two, in my mind). While I won’t give away the final revelation (astute viewers will probably be able to piece at least part of it together well before the final act), suffice to say that it felt more than a little misogynistic and casually cruel, at least to this viewer. It seems that Amezcua went out of his way to establish Sebastian as an unrepentant cad throughout the film, only to suddenly end up in his corner by the finale. It feels a little unfair, sure, but it also feels as if it blatantly disregards many of the subtle points that have been raised throughout the rest of the film. I’m not sure if Amezcua was making an actual point or whether I just read a bit too much into it: regardless, this ended up leaving a distinctly bad taste in my mouth that impacted my overall impression.

Slightly muddled message aside, there’s an awful lot to like here. As stated earlier, the first 40+ minutes of the film are some of the tightest, most tense and atmospheric that I’ve seen recently: I don’t throw that Hitchcock stuff around lightly, after all. When Darín is frantically racing around his apartment building, barging into locked residences and alternately cajoling and threatening anyone who crosses his path, there’s a sweaty, adrenalized sense of panic to the proceedings that are pure cinematic bliss. Perhaps it was asking a bit much for Amezcua and company to sustain that fever pitch for the entirety of the film but I still can’t help but feel a bit disappointed. Here’s to hoping that, next time around, Amezcua lets us all twist on the hook just a little longer.

5/6/15: Blurring the Lines

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Alexandria Fierz, backwoods folk, based on a true story, Bert Wall, cinema, David Z. Roberts, dead father, Devil's Backbone, Devil's Backbone Tavern, Devil's Backbone Texas, directorial debut, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, found-footage films, ghosts, Haley Buckner, haunted houses, horror, horror films, isolated estates, Jake Wade Wall, James Carrington, Jodi Bianca Wise, mockumentary, Movies, screenwriter, supernatural, twist ending, Unsolved Mysteries, writer-director-producer-actor

If the whole point of mockumentary/found-footage horror films is to obscure the dividing line between truth and fiction, freely mixing the “real” with the “fake” until audiences are too dizzy to know the difference, then Jake Wade Wall’s debut, Devil’s Backbone, Texas (2015), just might be one of the most successful yet. By interweaving the actual story of his horror writer father’s experiences on the titular patch of land with the kind of traditional found-footage aspects that we’re used to seeing (the Blair Witch Project (1999) is an obvious inspiration), Wall is able to come up with a virtually textbook example of the subgenre. If Devil’s Backbone, Texas is less successful as an actual film, well…let’s chalk that up to growing pains: there’s enough good ideas here to make Wall someone to keep an eye on in the future.

The concept of the film, as mentioned above, cleverly blends the real-life story of Bert Wall, a writer/rancher who lived in the area of Texas known as Devil’s Backbone, with the usual “running through the woods with a camera” found-footage schtick. Wall’s ranch came to fame via a mid-’90s segment on Unsolved Mysteries that detailed the massive amount of ghostly activity that he claimed to witness on the land, including everything from ghostly monks to ghostly Native Americans. Wall’s real-life son, Jake (the film’s writer/director/producer/lead), uses this as the basic setup and then jumps us 20 years into the present. After his father has died, Jake’s mom asks him to take his ashes to his old homestead and perform the “ash ceremony” that Bert always wanted.

Seeing this as a great opportunity to explore stories of the area, Jake takes the ashes and a small passel of his best friends, a group which features the usual mixture of believers and non-believers. As Jake interviews the locals, in order to get a better picture of his estranged father, he also begins to uncover hints of the strange doings in the area: there’s even stories about a mysterious German POW camp on the ranch, providing yet another possible source for the region’s “hauntings.” As things gradually become stranger, Jake’s friends want to pack up and leave, especially after they keep bumping into a strange pickup truck that, for all intents and purposes, shouldn’t be there. Jake has become obsessed with getting to the bottom of his father’s death, however, as well as the legends of Devil’s Backbone and he has no intention of backing out. Will Jake’s stubbornness lead to the ultimate revelation of the Devil’s Backbone’s secrets or will his poking around spell the doom for everyone he holds dear?

One of Devil Backbone, Texas’ greatest strengths (perhaps its single greatest one) is the way in which it ingeniously melds fiction and reality within the framework of the film. To be honest, I wasn’t actually aware that there really was a Bert Wall: I assumed that the Unsolved Mysteries segment was a clever mock-up and that the whole film was an entirely fictionalized account of a real area/phenomenon. Imagine my surprise, then, when a little research revealed that not only does Bert Wall actually exist (along with that illuminating Unsolved Mysteries segment from 1996) but that Jake is his son. This sort of (gently) blew my mind, as it managed to recontextualize much of what I had just seen, especially considering the familial angle. Any film that can actually fool me gets big props, in my book, and Wall definitely deserves props.

The main problem with the film doesn’t really have much to do with the story, although it does end up feeling a bit musty, in places: in general, Wall throws plenty of good ideas around and many of them end up sticking, even if nothing is explored in as much depth as it should be (in particular, the German POW bit is so under-developed as to be mystifying). The big problems with the film, unfortunately, all stack up on the actual production side of things: while Wall has plenty of intriguing ideas, the film that contains them is, at best, rather average.

As the lead, Wall has a tendency to swing between an effective, upbeat kind of understatement and a much more ineffective hyper-emotionalism: when Jake really gets wound up, his character tends to come across as whiny,  shouty and altogether unpleasant. Found-footage films have a history of leads like this, of course (think back to Blair Witch’s insufferable Heather), but that doesn’t make it any more tolerable here. If anything, I found myself constantly wishing that Wall had stayed behind the camera: while his character definitely has moments, I found my suspension of disbelief shattered a few times too many for comfort.

The rest of the cast does decent work, although I’ll admit that the only one who actually left any kind of impression on me was the fella who looked sort of like Hugh Jackman: he had an easy-going delivery and charisma that was quite effective. Other than that, however, the group seemed like the usual crew of interchangeable types. As with similar mockumentary films, Devil’s Backbone, Texas, also features various interviews with academics, experts and towns’ folk: this all help with the film’s verisimilitude immensely, even when the acting from the cast becomes just rough enough to notice.

Ultimately, Devil’s Backbone, Texas is a decent debut, albeit one hampered by a shaky lead, slight lack of focus and a rather dreadful twist ending (not to put too fine a point on it but the lazy “surprise” finale is easily the dumbest part of the film, hands down). That being said, there’s something about the film that still got to me: perhaps it was that initial blurring of real and fiction or Wall’s very obvious enthusiasm for the film and subject. Perhaps it was the genuinely creepy location or the standout bit of atmosphere where we see teeming masses of spiders all over the walls of Bert’s abandoned home (as a lifelong arachnophobe, this practically had me crawling out of my skin). Whatever the reason, I walked away from Wall’s debut entertained, which is quite a bit more than I can say for many micro-budget indies. As such, I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

4/25/15: The Fixer-Upper From Hell

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Adam Thomas Wright, Altar, Antonia Clarke, British films, British horror, children in peril, cinema, film reviews, films, ghost whisperer, ghosts, haunted house, haunted houses, hidden mosaics, home renovations, horror, horror film, horror films, horror movies, husband-wife relationship, isolated estates, isolation, Jan Richter-Friis, Jonathan Jaynes, Matthew Modine, Movies, Nick Willing, Olivia Williams, parent-child relationships, possession, Rebecca Calder, Satanic rituals, set in England, sins of the past, Stephen Chance, Steve Oram, supernatural, twist ending, UK films, writer-director

If we go by the conventions of horror films, one of the single most dangerous occupations out there is home renovation. Sure, law enforcement, fire fighting and high-rise window-washing might seem more dangerous, at least on paper, but we know the truth: anytime someone tries to fix up a creepy, old, decaying country estate, there’s a roughly 90% chance of something terrible happening. If those were Vegas odds, Sin City would have gone the way of the dodo generations ago.

Writer-director Nick Willing’s Altar (2014) is but the latest in a long line of haunted house films precipitated on the above notion: a family moves into a creepy, isolated country manor in order to renovate it, runs into long-buried secrets and ghostly presences and must survive the sinister residence’s sustained assaults upon their persons and psyches. In this case, Meg Hamilton (Olivia Williams) is the renovator who, along with her artist husband Alec (Matthew Modine) and children, Penny (Antonia Clarke) and Harper (Adam Thomas Wright), move into the creepy abode. Faster than you can say “Jack and Wendy Torrance,” the family are dealing with ghostly manifestations, Alec’s obsession with suddenly crafting a life-like clay figure and Meg’s discovery of a strange, vaguely pagan floor mosaic. If you guessed that “possession” factors into the proceedings, you’d be right but Willing has a few tricks up his sleeve that help take Altar in a slightly different (even if barely so) direction from the rest of the herd.

As far as atmosphere and location go, Altar is strictly top-notch: there’s a genuine sense of foreboding that lingers over every scene, thanks in large part to the exceptionally creepy location. Quite simply, Radcliffe House is the kind of evil, Gothic edifice that can make or break a haunted house film: in this case, it goes an awful long way in stocking up good will for the (occasionally) rough going. Willing goes light on the obvious jump scares, allowing for the whole thing to feel much more organic and old-fashioned than similar films (obnoxiously loud musical stingers are, thankfully, few and far between) and cinematographer Jan Richter-Friis’ camera-work helps to subtly play up the creep-factor.

The acting is uniformly good, which is another important factor in this kind of film: when a movie relies on mood and atmosphere, nothing spoils the party quite as effectively as over-the-top, amateurish or stilted acting. Williams is excellent as the mother/renovator: her extremely expressive face always seems to be reflecting some new measure of fresh horror, amping the psychological horror to an almost unbearable level. Modine, who’s had an almost ridiculously varied career over the past 30+ years, doesn’t fare quite as well as Williams does, mostly because his character is saddled with a few more eye-rolling traits than hers is. That being said, Modine and Williams have good chemistry together: until things go completely off the rails, it’s easy to imagine these two as a (once) loving couple, which is certainly more than you can say for many horror film duos. As the beleaguered children, Clarke and Wright are quite good, although they don’t get quite as much to do as their parents: at the very least, neither one wears out their welcome which, again, is more than you can say for many young actors in horror productions.

If anything really lets the air out of Altar’s sails, it’s definitely the hum-drum, overly clichéd ending: while the plot has plenty of holes (especially in the later going), the film manages to glide over most of them pretty effortlessly until it crashes headfirst into the chasm that is the film’s final “revelation.” While I wouldn’t dream of ruining the ending (perhaps because I understand it so imperfectly), suffice to say that faithful genre devotees will have seen this exact same thing done many, many times in the past…and done much better and much clearer, might I add. It’s a pity, really, since the film has some fairly intriguing ideas about transmogrification that are completely lost in the muddle. However unique the film begins, it ends in territory that is, to be kind, well-worn.

Ultimately, Altar is a good, if not great, entry in the crowded “family in peril” subgenre of horror films. When the atmosphere and mood are allowed to develop at their own measured, glacial pace, Willing’s film stands tall above the pretenders, buoyed by its own sense of stately grandeur. When the film becomes overly familiar and middle-of-the-road, however, it sinks right back into the teeming masses, indistinguishable from any one of two dozen other similar films.

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.

 

3/3/15 (Part One): On the Beat

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2014 Academy Awards, 87th Annual Academy Awards, abusive relationships, Austin Stowell, based on a short, Best Adapted Screenplay nominee, Best Film Editing winner, best films of 2014, Best Picture nominee, Best Supporting Actor Winner, C.J. Vana, character dramas, cinema, Damien Chazelle, dedication vs obsession, dramas, drummers, dysfunctional family, egomania, father figures, father-son relationships, favorite films, film reviews, films, J.K. Simmons, jazz musicians, Justin Hurwitz, Melissa Benoist, mentor, Miles Teller, Movies, multiple award nominee, multiple Oscar winner, music school, musical prodigy, Nate Lang, New York City, obsession, Oscars, Paul Reiser, protege, romance, set in New York City, Sharone Meir, teacher-student relationships, Tom Cross, twist ending, Whiplash, writer-director

For musicians, there’s a thin, almost invisible, line separating “dedication” from “obsession.” On one side of the line, adherents remove all unnecessary outside distractions, focusing almost exclusively on their craft. They practice endlessly, never stop learning and live, eat and breathe their music. For dedicated musicians, it’s not necessarily a sacrificial move: when you live for music, what else would you rather be doing? On the other side of the line, it’s a similar story, with one major twist: when you’re obsessed with your craft, you eschew any and everything, zeroing in on your music with a frightening degree of tunnel vision. Turning their back on friends, family, relationships (both romantic and professional), societal niceties and any concept of a well-rounded life, obsessed musicians live for only one thing: their craft. Removing their music from the equation would be as deadly as dropping a goldfish on the floor.

The world is full of amazing, talented, dedicated musicians. The irony, of course, is that the only way to be a legendary musician, the kind of performer that other players idolize, copy and envy, the kind of musician who achieves immortality through their art, is to be obsessed. There are plenty of normal, well-adjusted musicians covering virtually every square inch of the Earth. The geniuses? I’m guessing you’ll only need one hand to do that math.

Damien Chazelle’s vibrant, kinetic and endlessly thrilling Whiplash (2014) takes a good, hard look at the dividing line between “dedication” and “obsession,” at the difference between being “your best” and “THE best.” Our entry-point into this world is Andrew (Miles Teller), a 19-year-old drum prodigy who idolizes Buddy Rich and wants to be the best damn drummer in the world. As such, he’s currently studying at the prestigious Shaffer Music Conservatory: when he’s not in class, he’s behind his kit, pummeling his way through one endless practice session after another. Andrew is a fine, upstanding young man, with a good head on his shoulders and a supportive father (Paul Reiser) who only wants the best for him. At this point, our hero is standing firmly on the “dedicated” side of things.

While practicing one night, Andrew happens to attract the attention of Fletcher (J.K. Simmons), the Draconian, hot-tempered, much feared “local god” who commands (conducts isn’t quite strong enough) the much-vaunted Shaffer Academy studio band. Getting selected for Fletcher’s group is kind of like an amateur getting invited to spar with Bruce Lee: it’s a huge honor but you’re gonna get your ass kicked. While Fletcher doesn’t give Andrew the nod right away, he does pop into his class the next day, gives everyone an impromptu audition and whisks our young hero from obscurity into the upper echelons.

Once he finally gets a chance to sit in on Fletcher’s class, however, Andrew comes to a massive revelation: his wannabe hero is an abusive, violent, savage, mean-spirited shithead who believes that the only way to achieve greatness is to be battered until you’re broken. For him, the only way to test greatness is with fire…lots and lots of fire. As Andrew and Fletcher slam heads like bighorn sheep, each one attempting to exert their authority over the other, it seems that Fletcher’s tact is working: under his exacting, abusive, obsessive tutelage, Andrew is getting better and better, faster and faster. When it finally comes time for the student to challenge the master, however, Andrew will come to find that not all obsessions are created equal: his obsession to be the best might just get crushed into dust by Fletcher’s obsession with MAKING him the best. Will Andrew scale the heights that he so desperately wants, joining the esteemed company of his hero, Buddy Rich, or will Fletcher break him just like he broke everyone else?

Let’s get one thing out of the way, right off the bat: Whiplash is a pretty amazing film. Smart, relentless, brutal, simple, streamlined…if Chazelle’s film was a fighter, it would be the silent, pensive and cold-blooded tough guy that doesn’t need to brag: he just wipes up the street with you. In every way, Whiplash is an old soul: the film’s simplicity and style handily recall similarly single-minded dramas from the ’60s and ’70s, so sparse and frill-free as to be a complete breath of fresh air in this increasingly fractured modern era. This is a no bullshit character study which, at the end of the day, is exactly what it needs to be.

As a film, Whiplash is as single-minded and laser-focused as our young protagonist: in fact, the only element of the film that ultimately falls flat is the obligatory romantic angle involving Andrew and Nicole (Melissa Benoist), the concession-stand worker that he falls for. I understand why the relationship is there: it provides a nice, first-hand illustration of the relationship sacrifices that obsessed musicians make. Thematically, it holds water just fine. On a filmmaking level, however, the side-story actually dilutes some of the film’s power: watching Andrew and Fletcher battle is like watching Godzilla go ten rounds with Ghidora, while the awkward courtship feels like the padding in between the “good stuff.” It also doesn’t help that the scenes between Teller and Benoist are some of the most conventional and static in the film, featuring basic back-and-forth coverage and mundane dialogue.

Quibbles aside, however, Whiplash pretty much knocks everything else out of the park. Teller is fantastic as the young prodigy, able to portray naivety, vulnerability, anger and obsession in equal measures. Whether facing off against Fletcher, his backstabbing peers or his own condescending family, Teller is more than up for the task. While I believe that this is the first film I’ve actually seen him in, I’m willing to wager that I see lots more of him in the future.

There’s a reason why J.K. Simmons took the Best Supporting Actor Oscar over Edward Norton’s fiery performance from Birdman (2014): his performance as Fletcher is one of the most intense, incredible and uncomfortable acting tour de forces that I’ve ever seen. There’s no denying that Simmons is an absolutely essential actor: he’s one of those guys who seems to be in everything, including TV commercials, yet he never wears out his welcome…he’s like Ron Perlman or Bruce Campbell in that you just want more of him, regardless of the production. As an acting job, it’s practically a master-class in the craft: veins popping, spit flying from his hard-set lips, throwing chairs, slapping the shit out of students…if you don’t jump the first time he really lets loose, you might be watching a different movie. Simmons performance is so good that it’s the kind of thing that could easily get lost in hyperbole: it really is one of the best performances in years, no two ways about it.

Aside from the kinetic style and tremendous performances, Whiplash is a marvel of filmmaking technique. The score, sometimes foreboding, sometimes playfully jazzy (in a “Times Square circa 1970” way), is used sparsely but to great effect. There are no leading musical cues, no heart-tugging orchestral swells (I’m glaring at you, The Theory of Everything (2014)) and no hand-holding. As befits a film about jazz musicians, Whiplash is expertly edited on the beat, making the jazz an integral part of both the film’s narrative and its DNA. Editing is often (and rightfully so) an invisible art-form but we all owe Tom Cross a debt of gratitude for his stellar editing job here. There’s a reason why Whiplash won the Best Editing award and the proof is definitely in the pudding.

The film also looks great, with plenty of atmospheric shots and some wonderfully slow, measured pans. There’s a tendency towards extreme close-ups, which really heightens the film’s tension, as well as drawing attention to the film’s incredible performances: Teller and Simmons do so much with their faces (particularly their eyes) that one well-timed close-shot says as much as a scene full of expository dialogue. Again, this is a film that purposefully recalls an older style of filmmaking: the assumption, here, is that we’re all smart enough to follow along…no need to telegraph, over-explain or “connect the dots,” as it were.

You can have a good film with a terrible script but, in my opinion, you can’t really have a great film with a terrible script: good thing for us that Chazelle (who wrote the script) is also the genius behind the screenplay for Eugenio Mira’s extraordinary Grand Piano (2013), one of the smartest, best written films I’ve ever seen. With two fantastic script under his belt (I might even be forced to check out The Last Exorcism 2 (2013), since he penned that, as well), Chazelle is officially a force to be reckoned with.

In every way, Whiplash is a simple story told exceptionally well: in other words, my favorite kind. By cutting out all the unnecessary minutiae that clogs so many similar films, Whiplash hums like a live wire and never releases its grip on the audience. From the brilliantly stylized, simple opening, to the awesome visual of Andrew plunging his bleeding hand into a tub of ice water, all the way to the genuinely surprising twist ending that manages to throw conventionally clichéd “triumphant” final performances right out the window, Whiplash is one delightful surprise after another. As an ode to the impossible dedication and obsession that go hand in hand with creating beautiful music, as well as the universal need to be accepted by those we look up to, Whiplash has few peers.

One of Fletcher’s favorite retorts, snarled in his typically polite, bulldog-with-a-smile way, is “Not my fucking tempo”: no matter how good his students are, they’re never good enough for him…or for themselves, as far as he’s concerned. I’d like to think that, if it could “talk,” Whiplash would have the same withering contempt for most of its peers: not my fucking tempo, indeed. The rest of ’em are welcome to play along but they’ll never be able to keep up.

2/28/15 (Part Two): The Unexamined Life

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'90s films, 1990s films, Andrew Kevin Walker, auteur theory, Brad Pitt, cinema, Darius Khondji, Dark City, David Fincher, detectives, dramas, envy, favorite films, Fight Club, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, gluttony, greed, Gwyneth Paltrow, horror, horror movies, Howard Shore, husband-wife relationship, industrial score, insanity, John C. McGinley, Kevin Spacey, lust, Morgan Freeman, Movies, NIN, Nine Inch Nails, police, police procedural, pride, R. Lee Ermey, Richard Roundtree, Se7en, serial killers, Seven, Seven Deadly Sins, sloth, The Crow, The Game, Trent Reznor, twist ending, wrath, Zodiac

I can still recall the first time that I saw David Fincher’s break-through, Seven (1995), as clearly as if it were a few days past. I was 18, at the time, and went to see the film on opening night with a high school buddy. The theater was filled with the usual mix of boisterous young people, couples on dates and large groups of friends, everyone ready for the weekend and focused on having a good time. By the time the end credits rolled, however, the entire theater was dead quiet: no one talked on the way out, no one hooted and hollered, nothing approaching a smile crossed anyone’s faces. I’ll never forget watching the formerly happy couples walk out in rather stunned silence, unable (or unwilling) to get any closer to each other than arm’s length. For our part, my friend and I said nothing to each other on the way home, each of us lost in our own thoughts, neither of us willing (or able) to deal with any other humans, at that particular moment.

20 years later, Fincher’s sophomore film may have lost the shock factor that allowed it to so handily eviscerate unsuspecting audiences: after all, in a post-Saw (2004) world, the very concept of on-screen human suffering has set such a high bar that it’s almost impossible to really shock people anymore…blame it on the internet, our own jaded sensibilities or the fact that the 24-7 news cycle has brought countless real-world atrocities right into our own living rooms but that’s just the way it is. That being said, Seven still stands as a towering testament to the inherent evil of the human animal and is still, to this day, my very favorite Fincher film. 20 years later, I offer Seven the best compliment you might give in this modern age: the film has aged exceedingly well.

The core story is nothing if not familiar: a jaded, cynical police detective, a mere week away from retirement (Morgan Freeman), gets an eager-to-impress, hotheaded, new partner (Brad Pitt) and a grotesque murder case. This particular murder was methodically planned, sickeningly creative and impossibly brutal: fearing the first sign of a serial killer, the veteran detective wants off the case…this isn’t the way that he wants to leave the force. His partner, on the other hand, sees the high profile murder as the first step on his rising career. When additional murders emerge, the older detective is proved right: it is the work of a serial killer, a seemingly genius maniac who kills based on the Seven Deadly Sins. As the pair continue to investigate the case, they uncover an increasingly complex plot that involves damnation, redemption and pure, unadulterated evil. In the process, the detectives plunge down a rabbit hole that, for at least one of them, will lead straight to a living hell.

As previously mentioned, much of the initial power of Fincher’s film comes from the shocking ways in which the story unfolds: it’s not necessarily a mystery, per se, since we’re never given quite enough to piece it all together. Rather, Fincher gradually unfolds the film, layer by layer, inching us towards the devastating conclusion one ugly atrocity at a time. The film is unrelentingly gruesome, although all of the focus is on the aftermaths: we never actually see any of the victims die, ala Saw, but we do spend plenty of time with the disturbing crime-scenes. Disturbing, in this case, is a bit of an understatement: each of the murders revolves around a particularly nasty detail that makes for some appropriately bracing visuals but, more importantly, worms its way straight into the viewer’s brain.

Unlike most slasher/serial killer/horror films, the various murders in Seven aren’t there to be “admired” by gorehounds (think of any of the latter Friday the 13th sequels or pretty much any Nightmare on Elm Street film for examples of cinematic slaughter tends to devalue the victims in favor of the “star” villain). The killings are painful, both physically and emotionally: Seven is the kind of film that you think about for days afterward, your mind constantly turning back to the various torments inflicted by the killer, worrying them over and over, like a dog with a bone. While “Gluttony,” “Greed” and “Pride” are all terrible, “Lust” and “Sloth” were the two that always got to me: there’s something so undeniably awful, yet undeniably clever, about those torments, something that I’ve never really seen replicated on-screen since (including any of the Saw films or their endless imitators).

Fincher and cinematographer Darius Hhondji (responsible for such eye-popping treasures as Jeunet’s Delicatessen (1991) and City of Lost Children (1995), as well as several of Fincher’s other films) shoot the film in the darkest, dreariest way possible, as if the evil at the core of the narrative has spread out to infect the entire world around them. Perpetually rainy, shadowy and claustrophobic, Seven pulls you into its thick atmosphere of dread and holds you there for the entire run-time: nothing sunny infiltrates this world, no joy, no hope…there’s only pain, sorrow and the promise of future pain for the denizens of Seven’s world to look forward to. It’s an atmosphere that’s as fully realized as more fantasy-oriented films like The Crow (1994) or Dark City (1998) but the grounding in “reality” makes it all seem that much more hopeless.

Across the board, the performances in Seven are impeccable, showcasing not only Fincher’s reputation as an “actor’s director,” but helping to keep us immersed in the narrative. In many ways, Brad Pitt’s performance as Det. Mills is a companion piece to his performance in Twelve Monkeys (1995), catching the matinee-idol in the transition between his twitchier, fidgetier past (there are lots of big arm movements, here, just like in Twelve Monkeys, and he often comes across as petulant, rather than driven) and his more polished future. For his part, Freeman is reliably world-weary and as sturdy as a rock: he doesn’t break any new ground, here (his performance as Det. Somerset looks an awful lot like many of his other performances, truth be told), but he’s the perfect compliment to Pitt’s brash, young enthusiasm and brings a welcome sense of “grounding” to the proceedings.

We also get Gwyneth Paltrow, in a nicely understated performance as Mills’ pregnant wife, right before her “star” would begin its meteoric rise into the stratosphere. She has genuine chemistry with both Pitt and Freeman, here: one of the films best scenes (and ideas) is the notion of the young wife seeking out the grizzled detective for life and relationship advice. There’s a subtle sense of father-daughter dynamics between the two that helps expand both their characters, as well as providing the shocking finale with an ever bigger gut-punch. As for Kevin Spacey: after first arriving on my radar via his demented performance as Mel Proffit in the old Wiseguy TV series, Spacey would go on to really impress me in Swimming With Sharks (1994) and The Usual Suspects (1995). While his role in Seven is, in some ways, little more than a cameo, he’s absolutely crucial to the film (for many obvious reasons): Spacey’s cold, reptilian, mannered performance is the embodiment of psychological evil in the same way that the gruesome killings are the embodiment of physical evil…you can’t have one without the other.

In many ways, it’s hard to gauge just how influential Fincher’s film has been in the 20 years since its release. If you think about it, so many modern genre film elements that we routinely take for granted spring from this film, like Athena from Zeus’ skull: the shadowy, dark cinematography and mise en scene; the industrial soundtrack (which features future Fincher collaborator Trent Reznor’s Nine Inch Nails); the focus on the aftermath of the killings; the complex pathology of the killer, complete with twisted “morality”; the shocking twist that puts a pitch-black bow on everything…Fincher wasn’t the first filmmaker to use these techniques, granted, but he was one of the first pop filmmakers to put them all into the same cauldron, freely mixing the “underground” with the multiplex. Without Seven, it’s doubtful there would have been a Saw (or an 8mm (1999), for that matter, but we won’t hold that against Fincher)…the film’s DNA runs so deep, by this point, that it’s almost subliminal.

In the 20 years since Seven careened into theaters, Fincher has become one of the most well-known, iconic filmmakers of the modern era: Fight Club (1999) and Zodiac (2007) are both neo-classics and if The Game (1997), Panic Room (2002), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and The Social Network (2010) are all far from perfect, they’re also the furthest thing from dull, middle-of-the-road films as possible (even the schmaltzy Benjamin Button has some pretty dark undercurrents to it). Fincher may continue to define and improve his craft but, for me, Seven will always be his finest, most essential film: even if the film fails to “shock” me, these days, it never fails to make me queasy, unlike many other past favorites.

If anything, I envy modern audiences the opportunity to see Seven for the first time, with fresh eyes. As miserable and soul-shatteringly horrifying as the film is, it possesses a feral power that manages to cut through years of processed bullshit, cutting straight to our emotional core. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding: 20 years later, I still remember the experience like it was yesterday. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a classic.