The Revenant Review

Movie Review – The Nightmare (2015)

**Movie Review – The Nightmare (2015)**

It begins just as you close your eyes to sleep. A vibration, like an electrical current, goes through your body. Then they come. Sometimes you feel their presence behind you. Sometimes you see them, their slender, shadowy forms returning your gaze. You try to scream but are speechless. You try to move but your limbs won’t respond to your silent commands.

This is a common experience in those who experience sleep paralysis, or so says the documentary The Nightmare (2015) directed by Rodney Ascher. Ascher interviews people who claim to experience the phenomena, allowing them to disclose their own personal views on the subject matter, and uses a horror pastiche to dramatize their terrifying experiences. This technique follows in the successful footsteps of shows like Unsolved Mysteries or the paranormal anthology television series A Haunting, where eyewitness accounts are dramatized. Some of what Ascher shows us is truly creepy, and the interviews are filmed in dim lighting as though the shadows are always encroaching.

Ascher’s previous horror-related documentary was the popular Room 237 (2012), where he interviewed and showcased various people’s perceived meanings and theories associated with Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, The Shining (1980). His approach was similar in that film, putting an unbiased lens on people and allowing them to deliver their views. However, despite the generally favorable reviews I read for the film, I quickly grew impatient with it. For every interesting theory there were several others that were obvious rubbish. By not discerning between the wheat and chaff, what ideas might be valid are belittled and overshadowed by nonsense. It becomes the viewer’s duty to curate the material, and there isn’t enough in the film’s presentation to inspire me to do so.

The Nightmare suffers from the same fate, though because it deals with a diagnosable condition its refusal to consult or give voice to the scientific and medical community is ultimately irresponsible. Ascher allows people from different backgrounds to give their interpretations of the shadow men, and these range from demonic to scientifically feasible. However, he gives greater attention to the supernatural theories, giving indication that these shadow men are somehow real and tormenting their victims rather than archetypal constructs of a relatable human consciousness. As he did in Room 237, reasonable explanations are once again buried in the accounts of people whose judgements are clearly suspect – some stories just sound like disturbing lucid dreams – or people who may be suffering from significant psychological conditions. For instance, a great deal of time is devoted to one man’s recollections of static men, who he suggests are aliens, even though his experiences don’t really fit in the mold of sleep paralysis. The static men, also, unlike the shadow men, look like people in goofy costumes. Whatever tension is created in the reenactments is lost when we return to these stories, or else it is due to Ascher’s tendency to switch narrators so often that not enough time is allowed to build atmosphere.

I acknowledge that these images may be very frightening for those who have experienced them, but about half-way through The Nightmare I began looking idly at my phone. The film quickly became repetitive and the minutes dragged towards an unsure destination. For a documentary that deals with the fear of going to sleep, my wife had no problem nodding off and sleeping soundly beside me before the movie ended even though she’s generally sensitive to horror. Rather than wake her, as I usually do, I envied her and let her snooze. When she awoke, she wasn’t even interested in what she had missed. She asked me what I thought of it. I shrugged my tired shoulders and replied, “Eh.” We then went up to bed and slept deeply.

Grade: D

February 10, 2016 1

Movie Review – Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)

**Movie Review – Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)**

Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988), the sequel to 1987’s Hellraiser, is the perfect companion piece to the previous film. I cannot watch the first without immediately wanting to watch the second, and in many ways the two feel like segmented parts of a single feature. Taking place immediately after events of the first film, the plot follows Kirsty (Ashley Laurence) as she tries to use the Lament Configuration, a demonic puzzle box, to open a portal to Hell to retrieve her father, who she believes is suffering there. With her is a fellow hospital patient and mute teenage girl named Tiffany (Imogen Boorman) who has a knack for solving puzzles and whose talent has been exploited by Dr. Channard (Kenneth Cranham), who himself is trying to solve the box to seek the legendary experiences of the Cenobites. Channard resurrects Julia (Clare Higgins), seeking her help, and all four end up descending into the regions of Hell.

Directed by Tony Randel, with a screenplay by Peter Atkins based upon a story by Clive Barker, Hellbound plays far more like a horror fantasy. In fact, as Kirsty is running through the mazes of Hell, which looks very much inspired by an M.C. Escher drawing, in search of her father, I can’t help but be reminded of Sarah running through the Goblin King’s realm in search of her brother in 1986’s Labyrinth. This bend towards storybook fantasy is even admitted by the characters when Julia tells Kirsty, “They didn’t tell you, did they? They’ve changed the rules of the fairy tale. I’m no longer just the wicked stepmother. Now I’m the evil queen. So come on!” and then, “Take your best shot, Snow White!” This allows the more unbelievable plot twists to be more acceptable if viewers see them through this fantastical, almost dreamlike lens.

The themes of excess, desensitization, and desire from the first film remain strong, with the turning Leviathan in the center of Hell’s maze being referred to by Julia as “God of flesh, hunger, and desire.” Of the puzzle box, Pinhead says, “It is not hands that summon us. It is desire.” Hell is of one’s own making, taking the forms that the individual’s mind creates. As Channard tells his students while he performs brain surgery:

“The mind is a labyrinth, ladies and gentlemen, a puzzle. And while the paths of the brain are plainly visible, its ways deceptively apparent, its destinations are unknown. Its secrets still secret. And, if we are honest, it is the lure of the labyrinth that draws us to our chosen field to unlock those secrets. Others have been here before us and have left us signs, but we, as explorers of the mind, must devote our lives and energies to going further to tread the unknown corridors in order to find ultimately, the final solution. We have to see, we have to know…”

For Frank, Kirsty’s villainous uncle from the first film, Hell is nude women writhing, whimpering and moaning with desire, begging to be touched but always unreachable. Even in Hell there is no satisfaction, and that is the worst torture.

Hellbound is rich with imaginative filmmaking and impressive gore. Julia’s rebirth through the bloodstained mattress, in particular, is masterful. However, its style outweighs its attempt at character development, with Julia being the only character with any real nuance. Really, the Cenobites are awesome to behold but this is ultimately her movie, as Barker had originally intended Pinhead to end here and Julia to step up as the main franchise villain. However, Clare Higgins was uninterested in reprising her role in further films, which is actually a shame as her character’s progression was the most interesting arc through both entries.

Though I know many disagree with me, I prefer this installment to the first film, if only by a small measure. Its style has always spoken to me and the audacity of its dark reverie has continuously drawn me in. When I think of the franchise, this film and its images are what are conjured in my mind. It’s nightmarish and attractive all at once, as a movie with Hellraiser’s themes should be.

Grade: B

February 9, 2016 4

Movie Review – Class of Nuke ‘Em High (1986)

**Movie Review – Class of Nuke ‘Em High (1986)**

1986’s Class of Nuke ‘Em High, directed by Richard W. Haines and Lloyd Kaufman (as Samuel Weil), is yet another Troma Entertainment release – the first in-house production after 1984’s The Toxic Avenger – that has since become a cult classic. While Nuke ‘Em shares many trash and exploitation qualities with Toxic, it is in many ways a more polished, mainstream film. The absurdist antics revolve around a fairly typical teen sex-comedy as the virginal couple of Chrissy and Warren begin to flirt with drug use and sex – with dire consequences. Though the dangers of nuclear waste and corrupt corporatism play a part (tropes present in Toxic and which would at least in part come to define Troma), the film is more about teen experimentation and telling very timely jokes about the punk scene, which by this time had largely lost its edge. Ironically, however, in a post-Columbine era, the scenes of school violence perhaps make Nuke ‘Em a more subversive film than it was at the time of its release.

Nuke ‘Em is replete with charmingly bad jokes, plot-lines that often go nowhere, and a surprising amount of impressive body horror effects. Editing, too, is impressive, particularly in the end sequence where a spectacular looking monster is killing off invading punks. The creature was not completely formed and clever camera angles and rapid editing cuts make the thing feel far more whole and threatening than it otherwise would. For all the trappings of trash movies that Troma indulges in, Nuke ‘Em reveals that some fairly talented and calculating filmmakers were actually at the helm.

Personally, I prefer the ridiculous extremes of Toxic and how it continually defies viewer expectations. Nuke ‘Em feels more mainstream, albeit barely, as it follows more comfortable plot lines and uses its exploitation aspects more sparingly, yet for this reason it’s perhaps the best choice to introduce new viewers to Troma. For some fans, this is Troma’s best movie in terms of filmmaking, though it manages to keep its humor and visual style very much in the wheelhouse of other Troma offerings.

Grade: C

February 8, 2016 0

Movie Review – Hellraiser (1987)

**Movie Review – Hellraiser (1987)**

Something has to change.
Undeniable dilemma.
Boredom’s not a burden
Anyone should bear.

Constant over stimulation numbs me
But I would not want you
Any other way.

Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (1987) is the onscreen adaptation of his own novella, The Hellbound Heart. Being dissatisfied with the way other directors had handled his material, Barker decided to try his own hand at bringing his vision to the screen. As a kid in the late 1980s the Hellraiser series held a particular fascination with me. I was vaguely aware of the Cenobites and especially of Pinhead, and the rotating wooden posts, creaking and knocking, covered with gruesome, gory flesh like Satan’s own art show, in many ways signified in my mind the epitome of horror. Its strong overtones of torture and sexuality were not lost upon me, and that it dealt directly with Hell only added to its horrific credentials. When I finally saw the film at some point, probably as a teenager, I recall being largely impressed, especially with the effects. Yet at the same time, something didn’t sit right with me.

It’s not enough.
I need more.
Nothing seems to satisfy.
I said
I don’t want it.
I just need it.
To breathe, to feel, to know I’m alive.

Finger deep within the borderline.
Show me that you love me and that we belong together.
Relax, turn around and take my hand.

I normally don’t bother with recaps other than a line or two about the plot, but discussion of films such as this require a more detailed basis from which to begin. The story tells of Larry Cotton (Andrew Robinson) who moves into his childhood home with this wife, Julia (Clare Higgins). Larry finds signs that his hedonistic ne’er-do-well brother, Frank (Sean Chapman/Oliver Smith), has recently been squatting there. Larry’s daughter, Kirsty (Ashley Laurence), has an apartment nearby but her strained relationship with her step-mother keeps her at bay. Enter into all of this a mysterious puzzle box which opens a portal to Hell (or at least a pocket dimension very much like it) which Frank had used in the hope of receiving experiences like no other. He had grown too desensitized through his debauchery to what the world had to offer and needed more, searching in the box for a door to unknown carnal pleasures, unaware of the Cenobites lurking within and their methods of torture which awaited him as they pulled him into their realm. Some spilled blood inadvertently brings Frank back from the dead, helped along by Julia, with whom he had had an affair and who still bears a torch for him. Like him, she is bored with her life and wants to rekindle the physical pleasures she felt with him, and she sets out to lure unsuspecting men back to him where they can be brutally dispatched and bled to feed Frank with ever more life-giving blood. However, if the Cenobites discover his whereabouts, Frank is a goner.

I can help you change
Tired moments into pleasure.
Say the word and we’ll be
Well upon our way.

Blend and balance
Pain and comfort
Deep within you
Till you will not want me any other way.

Barker updates Hell with a contemporary vision that adopts the pastiche of sadomasochism, complete with black leather and jangling chains. Sexual overtones are apparent in the Cenobites, such as the female one whose neck is pulled open like a gaping vagina. At the height of the AIDS crisis sex has become something to be feared as much as to be desired. The Cenobites operate in extremes – suffering and sexual satisfactions are indiscernible to them. The lead Cenobite, who in subsequent films will be named Pinhead, played expertly by Doug Bradley, refers to himself and his cadre as “Explorers… in the further regions of experience. Demons to some, angels to others.” In this world Hell is real, but heaven appears nothing more than a happy fiction.

It’s not enough.
I need more.
Nothing seems to satisfy.
I said
I don’t want it.
I just need it.
To breathe, to feel, to know I’m alive.

Knuckle deep inside the borderline.
This may hurt a little but it’s something you’ll get used to.
Relax. Slip away.

In an age of excess, where sensory overload and immediate gratification are cultural norms, people come to want ever more in order to feel. In Barker’s dark world people don’t have to be sent to Hell, as Hell can patiently wait for its victims to willingly come to it. The puzzle box, though it’s unclear how it actually works, is an ingenious narrative mechanism for puzzles inherently represent an insatiable curiosity. Dissatisfied with reality, people will court damnation in order to overcome their dumbness, but they get more than they bargained for. As Frank tells Julia, “I thought I’d gone to the limits. I hadn’t. The Cenobites gave me an experience beyond limits… pain and pleasure, indivisible.” In a way, the Cenobites are like naïve children playing with a fragile kitten, unable to distinguish in its cries play from torture.

Something kinda sad about
The way that things have come to be.
Desensitized to everything.
What became of subtlety?

How can it mean anything to me
If I really don’t feel anything at all?

Hellraiser deals with deep adult themes in an extraordinarily fantastical way. This, to me, is where the film’s true strengths lie. Helped along by some stellar practical effects, and hindered at times by some poor ones, Barker creates a visceral world that the viewer can practically smell. However, this is partly where the problem rests with me, and what sat uneasily with me when I first watched it all those years ago. The film is, to put it bluntly, ugly (and I’m not just talking about Julia’s very timely fashion sense). The sets are perpetually filthy and we see the actors, all of whom are quite good, interact with it as though it wasn’t covered with grime, including leaning their white clothes against dirty doors or bearing a willingness to fornicate beside rat-infested muck. Are we to find beauty in this ugliness? Have the characters grown so desensitized to the world that they no longer recognize the repulsively unhygienic? I don’t think so. Rather, it seems to me to be the likely result of a limited budget and few sets. Additionally, for me at least, something about the pacing of the film never sits right with me. It feels longer than it is.

I’ll keep digging
Till I feel something.

My respect for Hellraiser runs deeper than my enjoyment in watching it, and I find that difficult to admit. I entirely understand those who consider this a masterpiece, but I feel that the merits of the film are found more in its themes, and in the rather briefly shown Cenobites, than in the actual filmmaking. Barker’s directorial debut is strong, but it feels like a film that might have been much stronger had more time, money, and experience allowed.

Elbow deep inside the borderline.
Show me that you love me and that we belong together.
Shoulder deep within the borderline.
Relax. Turn around and take my hand.

– “Stinkfist” (1996) by Tool

Grade: B-

February 7, 2016 10

DADDY DREADFUL – The Munsters (1964-1966)

This review is part of the Daddy Dreadful review series.

**Daddy Dreadful Review – The Munsters (1964-1966)**

Monsters, especially popular ones, go through curious phases. When they first appear they terrify audiences, and then as their exposure increases they become more farcical. Finally, they become kid’s toys. In my own lifetime I witnessed the phenomenon of Freddy Kruger go through these stages, from being a serious slasher villain – a child murderer (and suggested molester), in fact – to a humorous trickster and finally to being on kids’ lunch boxes at my elementary school.

Half a century before Freddy, as the nation reeled from an economic depression, Universal unleashed their monsters on the American public, terrifying unsuspecting viewers. A decade later the comedic duo Abbott and Costello were sharing the screen with them. In the 1950s teenage horror schlock dominated the drive-in screens, but at home children were gathered around their televisions to watch these monsters through a new generation’s eyes. Universal sold its monster movies to television, never anticipating what a massive cultural phenomena it would generate – especially for kids.

By the early 1960s horror was largely a genre for children. Beginning in 1958 the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland was being devoured by kids and by 1961 Aurora Model Kits was releasing monsters for youngsters to build themselves. Soon afterward the creators of Leave It to Beaver came up with an idea for a show about a family of harmless monsters trying to fit into modern American suburbia. The Munsters played on the already tired tropes of TV family sitcoms and subverted them with macabre jokes and slapstick humor. Another show with a similar horror theme, The Addams Family, aired at the same time, but whereas the Addams clan was humans who dwelled on death, the Munsters were actual living dead who never quite grasped that people found them horrific. Case in point, one of the running gags was that their niece, Marilyn, named and modeled after Marilyn Monroe, was a beautiful young woman who was nevertheless viewed by herself and her family as the unfortunate ugly duckling.

The Munsters ran from 1964 to 1966 and while it never garnered critical success it was immensely popular with kids. Even today there is much to appreciate, particularly the comedic duo of Fred Gwynn as Herman Munster and Al Lewis as Grandpa Munster, two actors who had already formed a comfortable professional relationship in Car 54, Where Are You? (1961-1963). Truly, they remain one of the great television comedy teams.

1964 was a significant year in American history. The country was turning away from the conformity of the previous decade and approaching the social unrest and generational discord that would come to define the 1960s. It was the year that The Beatles turned teenage girls ravenous, the Gulf of Tonkin became a flash-pan for Vietnam, LBJ declared a “War on Poverty” and signed the Civil Rights Act, and three civil rights workers were found to have been murdered by the Klan, causing a national uproar. The Munsters was not explicitly metaphorical, but it is surely recognized as a social commentary on the changing American landscape, at least in retrospect. After all, they were “those people” moving into the white suburban neighborhood. They were benign but misunderstood, villainized from no fault of their own. Herman sent people running scared due to his visage but in the end he was a devoted father trying to forge the best life for his family – he just happened to look different. The Munsters were the misunderstood outsiders – is it any wonder that kids latched onto them so fiercely?

This past summer watching The Munsters became a morning routine during breakfast. I wasn’t sure how my son would react to his first black and white show, but he loved it. He laughed at the physical humor and quickly learned the characters’ names. He saw something of himself in Eddie Munster, who carried around a stuffed animal the way my son carried around his Teddy. Each morning he’d ask to watch “the monsters” while we cooked and ate and my wife and I would happily oblige. I enjoyed the show’s reruns as a kid and found a lot to enjoy watching it this time around, laughing unapologetically at the admittedly terrible jokes and puns. The first few episodes are rocky but by mid-season the show has its footing. Just as in 1964, there are far worse ways for a family to enjoy each other’s company.

Recommended Age: 3+
Final Thoughts: Highly recommended. The Munsters is classic television that can still be enjoyed by the kid in all of us.

February 7, 2016 1

Movie Review – Alien Abduction (2014)

**Movie Review – Alien Abduction (2014)**

You arguably can’t get a more generic a title than 2014’s Alien Abduction (well, okay, Alien is certainly more generic). Its blandness lets you know exactly what you’re in for and the lackluster poster leaves little to whet one’s interest further. That this is yet another found-footage horror is reason enough for most genre fans to pass on it. Despite all that’s stacked up against this film, I still gave Matty Beckerman’s directorial debut a shot after hearing Dr. Shock (of DVD Infatuation) favorably review it on Horror Movie Podcast, and I must say I’m glad I did.

Alien Abduction follows the Morris family as they camp on Brown Mountain in North Carolina. Their journey is being documented by the autistic son Riley, who uses the camera as a coping mechanism to help him focus. This clever justification allows the filmmaker to answer the question so often posed to found-footage films, being why anyone in their right mind would continue filming when their life is in danger. Beckerman allowed the actors to adlib most of their lines, helping to generate a mostly natural dialogue between the characters. The acting isn’t stellar – nothing about the film is – but it’s certainly adequate enough to not be a distraction. When the family’s circumstances become ever odder and the extraterrestrials make themselves known, pursuing their victims relentlessly, the film moves quickly and provides for some very well-crafted jump scares.

Ultimately, Alien Abduction adds nothing new to the genre, but what it sets out to do it does well. It seeks to create a fun ride for viewers and it succeeds. As a first-time director, Beckerman is entirely competent and shows some promising creativity. If you’re looking for something light and entertaining, you could do a lot worse than Alien Abduction.

Grade: C

February 6, 2016 0

Movie Review – 13 Sins (2014)

**Movie Review – 13 Sins (2014)**

13 Sins (2014), also known as 13: Game of Death, is a remake of the 2006 Thai horror-comedy film 13 Beloved. Directed and co-written by Daniel Stamm, the story follows Elliot (Max Weber), a nice guy who is drowning in both debt and personal responsibility. One day he receives a mysterious phone call claiming he can win money by completing thirteen tasks, but soon the tasks become more destructive and criminal, transforming Elliot from a meekly passive person into an assertive individual who begins to wrestle with serious moral questions as the game delves into ever darker territory.

Already anyone reading this is likely to recognize elements of the story from many other films. Truly, the film’s strong point is not originality. However, what it lacks in new plot points it makes up for in great execution and a strong performance by Weber, who makes Elliot’s transformation, which Stamm meant to reflect drug addiction, sympathetic and convincing. Elliot finds his self-image continually compromised for the promise of wealth, but slowly begins to question whether that wealth is worth it.

In a movie like this, predictability is inevitable, yet even when I saw a scene coming it’s generally done so well I didn’t mind. There are some twists at the end which, although not entirely surprising, are pulled off perfectly. Good practical effects help to ramp the horrific aspects of this mostly psychological thriller, and there is just enough humor infused to make the watching highly entertaining.

13 Sins’ only sin is unoriginality. Nevertheless, it manages to rise above this shortcoming to offer a fun, wholly satisfying viewing experience.

Grade: B-

February 4, 2016 0

Movie Review – Twixt (2011)

**Movie Review – Twixt (2011)**

In an early scene in 2011’s Twixt, the main character, Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer) – a second-tier horror writer whose career and finances are on the decline – explains that he no longer wants to write what is expected of him by others. He wants to write something personal, something that speaks to and matters most to him. In many ways this is director Francis Ford Coppola talking to the audience, explaining the rationale for the rather bizarre film to which they are bearing witness. Coppola is a rightfully celebrated filmmaker, praised for the artistic masterworks he created in the 1970s, and he is no stranger to horror. He first cut his teeth directing the 1963 Roger Corman produced Dementia 13, and then in 1992 returned to the genre in the visually dense, operatic Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which functions effectively as a love letter to the vampire character’s portrayal in cinema since 1922’s Nosferatu. Horror fans were therefore justifiably excited when it was announced that Coppola was returning to the genre.

Twixt follows Baltimore as he stops at a small town on a flailing book tour and becomes inspired by a local murder mystery. In his sleep he is visited by a mysterious adolescent girl named V and is given a tour and literary input from the master of macabre himself, Edgar Allan Poe. Add to this vampires, child murder, religious zealotry, a clock tower where the Devil may reside, and a quirky sheriff who wants to be a horror writer. All of this and more make for an intriguing plot, but it unfortunately never comes together in a cohesive manner. Too many plot points are thrown into the mix and too few end up paying off.

Coppola had originally conceived of the project in a dream, and he wanted to perform live editing before live audiences like an orchestra conductor, adjusting the movie to the reactions of the viewers. This is all very ambitious and interesting, but it proved too unwieldy and eventually he had to settle on a final cut, one which is tonally uneven and ultimately unsatisfying. There is black humor throughout, but the handling of it is sometimes so awkward that instead of laughing, I felt uncomfortable. The performances are adequate, but nobody is turning in their best work or elevating the drab dialogue.

Looking back at his take on Dracula, it’s almost difficult to believe that the man who put poetry on celluloid in such a fluid, beautiful manner in that film created the Gothic scenery in Twixt. A veneer of artifice effects nearly every scene – what might have been surreal instead looks cheap. It’s not an aesthetically pleasing film despite its best efforts. The title refers to Baltimore’s state as being “betwixt” reality and the dream world, but neither realm is ever very convincing.

I really wanted to like this movie. As someone who admires Poe, a film that is very much an ode to that influential American author is one I want very much to succeed. Yet other than providing trivia for me to catch and a few allusions, the scenes with Poe don’t end up adding much to the plot. Will we ever get a great film deserving of that great author? I truly hope so, but this is not it.

Grade: D+

February 3, 2016 0

Movie Review – Sauna (2008)

**Movie Review – Sauna (2008)**

The year is 1595. After a decades-long war between Sweden and Russia a joint team of representatives from both monarchies are trekking through Finland to mark the border between the two powers. The Swedes are led by two brothers, the younger Knut (Tommi Eronen) – a gentle, hopeful scholar – and Eerik (Ville Virtanen), a veteran of the conflict whose body is betraying him with age and who is finding it difficult to transition from bloodthirsty soldier to peacetime diplomat. As the Russian Semenski says to Eerik, “You are scared of peace, because the end of war will take away the justification for the murders that you have on your conscience.” He is haunted by his past misdeeds in ways which seem to manifest on their journey, especially as the team comes across a remote, uncharted village with a mysterious sauna on its periphery.

“What if Hell is not a fiery furnace beneath the continents?” one of the Russians asks, “What if it’s just an unclean place without the presence of God? A time and place behind God’s back?”

Finland’s Sauna (2008), directed by Antti-Jussi Annila, unfolds within this fantastic historical backdrop. Themes of conflict permeate the film, with Eerik often serving as the volatile nexus, be they between nations, religions, the past and the future, or, as suggested by the sauna, salvation and damnation. The cinematography is gorgeous. The muted colors and intimate camerawork serve to bring the characters and era to life. All of the actors, but particularly Virtanen and Eronen, are well-cast. Virtanen especially evokes Max von Sydow’s crusading knight in Ingmar Bergman’s brilliant The Seventh Seal (1957).

The film tackles many themes and has some truly striking images, but its messages and meanings are largely not forthcoming. Sauna is more like a puzzle box which we know does not have all the pieces in it, but has just enough to give us some kind of picture. The filmmaker leaves many elements open to interpretation – particularly the ending – making the experience a surreal, almost Expressionist one, and one that the viewer is likely to mull over days after watching. Its approach is heavily atmospheric and psychological, relying upon various forms of symbolism to convey many of its plot points. Viewers would be wise to pay close attention to the dialogue and images so as not to miss potentially vital information.

Sauna is not a film for all horror fans. It’s a contemplative, patient film with very few jump scares, and it is purposefully enigmatic, perhaps frustratingly so to viewers who want clear answers from the movies they watch. However, it’s the sort of film that gives hope to discerning viewers that the genre still has new places to go and filmmakers willing to take the journey to go there.

Grade: B

February 2, 2016 0

Movie Review – Fascination (1979)

**Movie Review – Fascination (1979)**

My only prior experience with French director Jean Rollin was his nearly unwatchable, schlocky Zombie Lake (1981). I was aware that he had had a prior reputation for effective erotic horror and so I decided to give his Fascination, released in 1979, a try. The film opens in 1905 in an abattoir where wealthy women have gathered to drink ox blood as a fashionable treatment for anemia. The scene is framed wonderfully, the colors creating a macabre palette, and sets the tone for the film, combining the lustfully tempting with the physically repulsive.

This being 1970s erotica, there are plenty of nude women and stilted, awkward sex scenes. The two lesbian lovers who harbor a sanguineous secret, Elizabeth and Eva, are played by the beautiful Franca Maï and Brigitte Lahaie (then a porn actress), respectively. The story centers on a thief on the run who hides out in the girls’ chateau, curiosity leading him to stay with them to find out what secret activities these bourgeois women and their friends are up to at night. Themes of class conflict run through the narrative, and the title refers to fascinations of all kinds, be they sexual or morbid.

Overall the cinematography is very appealing, helped by soft and natural lighting, yet the editing is uneven as scenes tend to run on too long and the pacing suffers as a result. The physical effects are almost laughable when compared to contemporary films. It takes much more inspiration from the early, sexually charged vampire Hammer films where a bit of blood was the extent of the gore, and feels dated as a result. Also, the dialogue is repetitive and could have been better served to add more characterization.

Nevertheless, Fascination is certainly a far better movie than Zombie Lake. It’s effectively erotic (if Sapphic kissing is your thing) and the story it ends up telling, when it gets around to it, is actually quite dark, sinking its teeth into the themes of obsession, privilege, and whether what fascinates us about the people we are attracted to is what they are willing to offer, or what we are compelled to covet.

Grade: C-

January 29, 2016 0

Movie Review – The Company of Wolves (1984)

**Movie Review – The Company of Wolves (1984)**

There are certain memories which are personally defining to one’s childhood, but are so specific to a certain generation that their children will never know them. For my grandparent’s generation it was buying candy at the Five and Dime. For me and my friends growing up in the 80s, there were the video rental stores. We’d wander the aisles of VHS tapes and feast our eyes on the covers. The horror section always beckoned me, and certain covers would burn into my brain and make me wonder at the nightmares that those spools of film contained, such as the looking skull of 1987’s Evil Dead II or the ponytail noose of 1986’s April Fool’s Day.

However, none captured my imagination more than 1984’s The Company of Wolves, showing Little Red Riding Hood looking at a man who has a wolf snout painfully protruding from his mouth. It fascinated me then but over the years, as I finally saw many of those films which had tempted me, I somehow forgot about it. Recently, however, I stumbled upon that image again while tumbling down one of those internet rabbit holes. There it was, those rental store memories flooding back. I instantly opened my Netflix account and placed the film in my DVD queue, moving it to the top.

The Company of Wolves is an early directorial effort by Neil Jordan, who went on to do 1994’s Interview with the Vampire, a film which had a significant impact on me when it was released, and 2012’s beautifully crafted though sadly underappreciated horror-fantasy Byzantium. The screenplay was written by Jordan and Angela Carter, adapted from one of Carter’s short stories turned radio play of the same name.

Wolves is very much a Gothic fantasy, rich with dream logic and symbolism. The film opens in the present day with a girl banging angrily on the door of her younger sister’s bedroom as her sibling sleeps restlessly on her bed wearing her sister’s lipstick. We immediately enter the younger girl’s dreams, which take place in a fairytale forest. We see the older sister running terrified through the gloomy wood, being accosted by the younger girl’s giant toys and then by hungry wolves which devour her, letting a smile play on the dreamer’s lips.

The dreaming girl is the framing device for rest of the film which takes place within the fantasy world, in both the forest and the village which it surrounds, and in the stories that the characters tell. And so we often times have a story within a story within a story. The narrative delves into the sexual subtext of Charles Perrault’s Le Petit Chaperon Rouge, first published in 1697. Unlike later versions of the Little Red Riding Hood story, this original telling was heavily moralizing. Red Riding Hood is tricked into giving the wolf directions to her grandmother’s house, who then eats the grandmother and convinces Red to crawl into the bed with him before eating her too. There is no woodsman in this version to save the day or seek vengeance. In case his readers missed the point, Perrault lays it out for them:

“From this story one learns that children, especially young lasses, pretty, courteous and well-bred, do very wrong to listen to strangers, And it is not an unheard thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner. I say Wolf, for all wolves are not of the same sort; there is one kind with an amenable disposition – neither noisy, nor hateful, nor angry, but tame, obliging and gentle, following the young maids in the streets, even into their homes. Alas! Who does not know that these gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!”

The wolves in the film, and in particular werewolves, represent the carnal desires in men and serve as a warning to the main character, Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson), an adolescent girl on the threshold of sexual awareness. Perrault’s moralizing is echoed by her Granny, played by Angela Lansbury. She tells Rosaleen that some wolves are furry on the inside, cautioning her against the advances of amorous men. “Oh,” she states, “they’re nice as pie until they’ve had their way with you. But once the bloom is gone… oh, the beast comes out.”

The forest is a place of wonder, fear, and compelling curiosities, and is a stand in for sex. Her grandmother instructs Rosaleen to always stay on the path, for if you leave it you’re forever lost. When an amorous neighbor boy asks her to go walking, he declares that they will stay on the path, meaning a veiled preservation of virginity. When Rosaleen meets the sexually charged and handsome huntsman, he comes to her from the forest, a place of forbidden knowledge which she finds most tempting.

Rosaleen, like her sleeping counterpart, is becoming knowledgeable of her own sexual desirability. In a strange sequence fit for a dream, Rosaleen climbs a tree to hide from the amorous neighbor boy and finds a stork’s nest. In the nest is red lipstick, which she applies, and a hand mirror, with which she admires herself. The eggs in the nest crack open and instead of chicks we see baby figurines. All of this, I presume, is meant to symbolize her growing sexuality and fertility.

Though the werewolves are used mostly as symbolic warnings to girls about men’s passions, the film is not ready to adopt Granny’s perspective on things. Female initiative and power are strong currents through the narrative, as is the notion of not judging men solely by their sexual desires. When Granny laments that Rosaleen’s sister was “all alone in the wood, and nobody there to save her. Poor little lamb,” Rosaleen then asks, “Why couldn’t she save herself?” Later Rosaleen is talking to her mother about her grandmother’s views, to which her mother responds, “You pay too much attention to your granny. She knows a lot but she doesn’t know everything. And if there’s a beast in men, it meets its match in women too.” Rosaleen begins to adopt this very view, telling stories about a vengeful witch who displays female empowerment, and a harmless, misunderstood she-wolf. The men we hear about in the stories are carnal predators, but the one’s we see, particularly Rosaleen’s father, are fairly gentle men who are respectful toward the women in their lives.

The ending of the film, the specifics of which I will not spoil here, is ambiguous, though I believe it is all about breaking that barrier between childhood innocence and sexual maturity, shown metaphorically as the worlds of dream and reality violently crash together and the toys which played so prominent a role early in the film are left lying on the floor. Over this intrusion we hear Rosaleen reciting Perrault’s poetic warning:

Little girls, this seems to say
Never stop upon your way
Never trust a stranger friend
No-one knows how it will end
As you’re pretty, so be wise
Wolves may lurk in every guise
Now as then, ’tis simple truth
Sweetest tongue has sharpest tooth.

The Company of Wolves is not the first film to link female sexuality with bestial transformation, as we saw this in films such as Val Lewton’s 1942 production Cat People, and it is certainly not the last. 2000’s Ginger Snaps and 2011’s Red Riding Hood also link the two, this time adding the lupine aspects. The pairing of werewolves and female puberty is an obvious one as the cycles of ovulation and the Moon have always been symbolically related. Etymologically, the word “menstruation” comes from the Latin menses (month) and the Greek mene (moon), after all.

Though rated-R, I could easily see this film being shown to adolescent girls. The sexuality is present but tame by comparison to what is shown on television today. The horror is relatively light; the visuals focus more on a fantastical dread or gloom save for some gory transformation scenes, which appear inspired more by John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) than by 1981’s An American Werewolf in London or The Howling. It’s a shame that this film has largely been forgotten, just as I had forgotten it, as it is daring, impressive filmmaking which abounds with deeper meanings. Had it been rated PG-13, it may have become an important film staple in young girls’ lives.

Grade: B+

January 22, 2016 1

Movie Review – Wicked Little Things (2006)

**Movie Review – Wicked Little Things (2006)**

2006’s Wicked Little Things (also known as Zombies) is a zombie-esque tale directed by J. S. Cardone, who would go on to write the atrociously bad 2008 Prom Night remake. The revenge plot takes a great deal from John Carpenter’s The Fog (1980) as kids killed in a 1913 mining accident roam the woods each night as murderous, flesh devouring zombies, hacking apart whatever they come across with mining tools. Why? Well, the movie never explains this. Yet unfortunately for a widow (Lori Heuring) and her two daughters, played by genre-favorite Scout Taylor-Compton and a young Chloë Grace Moretz, they move into the accursed Bulgarian – I mean, Pennsylvanian – woods and have to contend with the pasty, ravenous brats.

While the thin premise is still a solid basis for a horror film, Wicked Little Things is a fairly banal, paint-by-numbers affair. There are no surprises and the audience will be many steps ahead of the characters the whole way through. The gore is not excessive and truly, if it had been cut, this film could easily have garnered a PG-13 rating and played on television.

The characters and plotting will likely irritate viewers, as they did me. Here are just a few things that had me glaring at the screen:

Emma (Moretz) is way too old to constantly go wandering off all the time.
Why is it that only now locals are getting killed when they all seemed to be at least vaguely aware of the curse?
If Sarah (Taylor-Compton) would have taken her foot off the gas pedal the guy she was trying to warn might have had a chance to hear her over the revved engine.
If a mother can find her daughter in the middle of a strange forest, she should be able to retrace her steps up a hill back to her house…

There’s more, but I’ve dedicated enough time to venting.

Wicked Little Things will kill an hour-and-a-half if you need it to, but so will watching a good horror movie.

Grade: D

January 14, 2016 1

Movie Review – What We Do in the Shadows (2014)

**Movie Review – What We Do in the Shadows (2014)**

What We Do in the Shadows (2014) is a horror-comedy mockumentary that doesn’t try to break new ground with vampires, but retread old tropes in funny, inventive ways. Directed and written by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, who both also star in the film, it’s backward looking in the most endearing way, paying homage to the vampire’s various on-screen forms via the unlives of four vampire flatmates living in Wellington, New Zealand. There is the foppish Viago, played by Waititi, something of a Hammer Films Production dandy, who loves his antiques and pines for a woman he let go many years ago. There is the youngest, Deacon, a New Romantic who takes many of his vampiric cues from the rebels in The Lost Boys (1987). We also have the medieval-minded Vladislav the Poker, played by Clement, who represents a Gary Oldman-style Dracula who has lost his mojo. Finally there is Petyr, an 8,000 year-old feral rat-like figure in the vein of Orlok in Nosferatu (1922), who lives in the basement (which may be a comment on where the traditional vampire now resides in current cinema, thanks to films like Twilight).

Unable to leave their flat during the day, the quartet have been unable to adjust to twenty-first century life and mostly bumble their way through their various bloody conquests. Along the way they meet a young, reckless vampire and his friend Stu, a human IT tech who they inexplicably gravitate towards as he teaches them about new technology.

Stu: [Showing the vampires Google] “Anything you want to find you type it in.”
Viago: “I lost a really nice silk scarf in about 1912.”
Deacon: “Yes, now Google it.”

Shadows is fast-paced and fun, and even when you see the jokes coming their execution is still effective and hits just the right amount of silliness. Like a This Is Spinal Tap (1984) for vampires, the movie wants these characters to succeed despite their ineptitude (and the fact that they’re serial killers). Some of the funniest scenes involve their rivalry with werewolves (not “Swear-wolves”) who appear to be part of some kind of twelve-step program. There are also many choice lines, such as when Deacon admits, “I think we drink virgin blood because it sounds cool.” To which Vladislav adds, “I think of it like this. If you are going to eat a sandwich, you would just enjoy it more if you knew no one had fucked it.” It’s one of those films that feels like it will get funnier with repeat viewings.

Vladislav: “Leave me to do my dark bidding on the internet!”
Viago: “What are you bidding on?”
Vladislav: “I am bidding on a table.”

Grade: B+

January 10, 2016 0

Movie Review – Irréversible (2002)

**Movie Review – Irréversible (2002)**

Films associated with the New French Extremity movement, by their transgressive nature, evoke strong reactions from viewers, most of which are negative. When 2002’s Irréversible was released at the Cannes Film Festival some fainted and hundreds walked out. Nevertheless it won the top award at the 2002 Stockholm International Film Festival and no less a critic than Roger Ebert, whose distaste for violent horror was generally well-known, gave it a positive review.

Irréversible is a work of body horror which early on shows unfettered perversity with a graphic murder of a man in a night club. Worse still, halfway through there is a minutes long rape and beating of a woman named Alex, played by Monica Bellucci. Throughout most of the film the camera sways and swirls, always moving and floating through walls like a ghost as a dolphin might come up for air. For the first thirty minutes a low hum is heard, designed to inflict nausea on the audience. But during this terrible violation the scene is continuous and the camera is still, locked on the attacker and his victim in each moment of agony. We hear all too clearly the grunts and muffled screams echoed in the red-walled underpass. It dares the viewer to confront the reality of rape by not allowing any means of escape. Like The Last House on the Left (1972) or I Spit on Your Grave (1978), Irréversible is not a film you are supposed to enjoy while watching. It’s a visceral experience that is meant to showcase violence in its true ugliness.

These elements are reason enough for most people to steer clear from this movie. However, for those willing to dig deeper there is an undeniable artistry in this film that moves it beyond gratuitous exploitation. Director Gaspar Noé, Bellucci, and co-star Vincent Cassel conceived of the story together. Only the framework of the tale was completed before filming and the dialogue one hears is almost entirely improvised.

The ever-moving camera, which could easily cause motion-sickness in some, is actually relevant to the narrative structure. The story told is non-linear beginning with the ending and working its way back, much like Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2000). As each scene ends we go back in time to the scene before. In terms of the narrative, the reason is suggested in what is actually the films first chronological scene where Bellucci’s Alex is reading the book An Experiment with Time by John William Dunne. Published in 1927, the book deals with concepts such as precognition and posits that all time is happening now and that past, present, and future are constructs of our mind’s inability to perceive it all at once. Therefore the camera may in fact be the perspective of a time traveler – it may in fact be Alex herself.

But there are artistic reasons for the structure as well. Each scene is given a weight that would not be there otherwise. With the gift of hindsight we see the decisions that the characters make that, while seemingly small in the moment to them, will have profound effects. As Roger Ebert in his review poignantly noted: “To know the future would not be a blessing but a curse. Life would be unlivable without the innocence of our ignorance.” Monica Bellucci is an exquisite woman, but already knowing her fate before seeing her in her silky, body-hugging dress makes her look more vulnerable than attractive. Sex features heavily in the story, and Noé gives us the terribleness of it in the first half, but he leaves us with the love and intimacy of it by the film’s end, if not the story’s. It’s a bit of salve to heal our mental wounds.

Irréversible has been criticized for its perceived homophobia, though Noé has been adamant that this is not the case, even going so far as to himself play a masturbating client in the seedy gay night club. Nevertheless, homosexuality is depicted as largely degenerate. Though I believe this is more to prey on the fears of insecure men who will no doubt be watching the movie, placing them emotionally in the sexually compromised position of all too common female rape victims, it will no doubt be yet another element that will rankle audiences.

The title can be applied many ways to the film, but like the name suggests, Irréversible is a movie you can’t unsee, and it’s not a film most will want to watch a second time. Regardless, it’s an abrasive yet interesting movie that is smartly conceived and manages to say something valuable about the human experience.

Grade: C+

January 9, 2016 0

Movie Review – Pontypool (2008)

**Movie Review – Pontypool (2008)**

“Pontypool. Pontypool. Panty pool. Pont de Flaque. What does it mean?… In the wake of huge events, after them and before them, physical details they spasm for a moment; they sort of unlock and when they come back into focus they suddenly coincide in a weird way. Street names and birthdates and middle names, all kind of superfluous things appear related to each other. It’s a ripple effect. So, what does it mean? Well… it means something’s going to happen. Something big. But then, something’s always about to happen.”

Pontypool (2008) is a Canadian horror film written by Tony Burgess, adapted from his novel Pontypool Changes Everything, and directed by Bruce McDonald. Inspired by Orson Wells’ 1938 “The War of the Worlds” radio broadcast, which infamously caused (likely overstated) panic in its unsuspecting audience, Burgess’s story was produced as both a feature film and as a radio play. A fresh take on the zombie narrative, the movie takes place almost entirely in a make-shift radio station during a snow storm, as a recently fired shock jock tries to adjust to his new gig as a small town disc jockey. Played perfectly by Stephen McHattie, Grant Mazzy is gruff and resentful toward his perceived demotion, but has such a mastery of linguistics due to his job that as the virus spreads via language (specifically English) words for him have become already so malleable as to be meaningless that he alone can keep a clear head. His producer, Syndey, is played by Lisa Houle (McHattie’s wife). We see little of the horror but rather hear it through phone calls and broadcasts, and we have to piece together the puzzle along with the characters.

Unlike many other Canadian horror movies, Pontypool wears its maple stains clearly on its sleeve and pulls its narratives from that country’s unique experiences. We see themes of language duality in a country with two official languages and of the perceived disparate statuses that both languages appear to hold. The three main characters we see, residents of Ontario, are Anglophones whose knowledge of French is meager. We here of French separatists and a radio transmission which seeks to save only those who can understand French.

The film plays heavily with the notion that truth is subjective. Throughout the first half of the film the characters cannot determine if what they’re hearing is real, a hoax, or a misunderstanding. They’re reluctant to take things at face value, as they’re largely in the business of illusion. Their traffic reporter’s “Sunshine Chopper” is actually a van on a hill. Sydney knows the small town’s secrets but helps to keep up the appearance of normalcy. Words, too, are given deep examination. Their meanings can have profound effects on us, and as Mazzy demonstrates, sometimes talking – taking the diplomatic approach – can be more effectual than physical force.

Pontypool is one of those “bottle movies” – predominately taking place in a single location – for which I have a great fondness (other examples include Twelve Angry Men, Rear Window, Rope, The Breakfast Club, The Mist, etc.). It allows the actors to really use the space and allows the audience to concentrate on their performances. Pontypool is a quiet but still effective horror film with enough humor to keep things fun and fresh.

“I’m still here, you cocksuckers.”

Grade: B+

January 6, 2016 0