Red State

Three horny teenage boys plan to meet a stranger they met online for sex, and instead find themselves captured by a weirdo group of fundamentalist Christians with some extreme ideas on how to atone for your sins.

Way back in February, I wrote a post where I made a bunch of predictions about how Kevin Smith's ambitious but also kind of obnoxious plans for the distribution of Red State, his first ever non-comedy, would turn out. I then, more or less, promptly lost interest and forgot to keep following the story. So I'm not really sure if any of my predictions came true, and at the moment I'm too lazy to do any research.

There is one comment, though, that I'd like to eat. Or at least nibble a bit. I predicted that it would lack "the needed atmosphere and tight directorial craft that make for a truly special horror film." I guessed correctly that I would enjoy it but have mixed feelings overall, but my problems with the film honestly had little to do with Smith's direction. In fact, he does a pretty okay job going out of his comfort zone and trying something new. Cop Out had lead me to think Smith incapable of doing anything besides scenes of people talking at each other, but Red State looks and feels like a real horror movie. So kudos to Kevin for stretching his wings.

The problem I guess is that it's a movie that works more in concept than it does in execution. For instance, it pulls what is, in theory, one of my favorite tricks in horror movies, right out of the Hitchcock playbook, where SEMI SPOILERS characters we might assume are the lead characters are abruptly knocked off, making way for other characters. It's a nice way to shock the audience out of complacency, but I don't think Smith pulls it off entirely, and the result is that the film feels more disjointed than it should.

The same goes for a lot of other major elements. The film is going for a pretty bleak tone, with no real heroes or likable characters, which I admire but it also has the side effect from removing a lot of the suspense out of the second half of the film. It essentially becomes bad guys vs bad guys. It doesn't stop being entertaining, but you're not so much invested in the actual outcome. Near the end, Smith throws in what seems to be a pretty radical, biblical twist... but then walks back from it and provides a much less interesting explanation.

The film is, the more I think about it, chock full of great ideas, but a lot of them don't really play out as successfully as you'd like. It's not a disaster either; these ideas are legitimately good and they get milked enough to keep you going along. Plus, you can't help but admire the effort. It sounds like Smith is going back to comedy, but I'd actually like to see him tackle something like this again. It's an ambitious film with a lot of intriguing elements, strong performances, unique touches. Even if it doesn't come together like gangbusters, we need more people out there trying to make these kinds of horror movies.

Grade: B-

Evil Dead Trap

In this Japanese horror film (with absolutely no relation to the beloved American Evil Dead series), a woman who works for a television program that airs viewer submissions receives what appears to be a snuff film. She and her crew decide to try to track down the source of the tape, only to find themselves ensnared in a deadly trap. An evil dead trap, if you will. (I won't).

What starts off seeming like a Japanese Videodrome turns into more of a slasher film, with something of a focus on bizarre, elaborate traps. So in that sense, I suppose Evil Dead Trap is more like a precursor to the Saw series than anything else. For a while, it's not bad verging on good. It looks nice, has a cool score, some good gore effects, a really fun scene involving a crossbow set to go off when someone opens the door. It had its problems (including a gratuitous rape scene), but it was shaping up to be a good time at the movies.

Unfortunately, it turns in to one of those slasher movies where pretty much all the side characters get killed in the first half, the movie goes slack, and the heroine spends the rest of the movie aimlessly wandering around, hiding from the killer, and slowly solving the not particularly interesting mystery at the center of the film. Outside of a ridiculous twist in the final 15 minutes that gives a slight boost to the final confrontation, not much of interest happens during the second half of the film. It's boring enough to pretty much retroactively wipe out any of the fun you had during the first half.

Grade: C

Torture Garden

It's your prototypical anthology film setup: a creepy carnival barker promises to show a group of people their fates in exchange for a little extra money. In the stories, a man becomes obsessed with his late uncle's strange, sinister cat; an up and coming Hollywood actress discovers the bizarre secret behind her costars' good looks; a piano becomes possessed by a vengeful spirit; and collector of the works of Poe kills a fellow collector to get a look at a very special part of his collection, and what he finds is quite curious indeed.

Pretty run of the mill as far as British anthologies from this era go, but that's not a bad thing because I kind of love these movies. I don't have a lot to add (as much as I enjoy these movies, they are all sort of the same, so it's hard to think of new tings to say) except that these are fun, reasonably well made stories, and if you enjoy this sort of thing then it's worth your time. Director Freddie Francis also directed at least two other anthology horror films: the excellent Tales From the Crypt and the acceptably okay (though wonderfully titled) Dr. Terror's House of Horrors. I'd say that Torture Garden falls somewhere between those two, in terms of quality.

Grade: B-

The Thing (2011)

In this prequel to/remake of John Carpenter's The Thing (itself a remake of The Thing From Another World, itself based on a story called "Who Goes There?"), we discover what happened to the Norwegian outpost, the grisly story of which were only hinted at in Carpenter's film. Turns out that the Thing, an alien capable of ingesting and then perfectly imitating other living creatures, um, basically did the same kind of stuff to them that he did to the American's in the 1982 version.


Look, Carpenter's The Thing is one of my top 2 or 3 favorite horror movies of all time (and by extension, one of my all time favorite movies of any kind), so there was no way that this was going to hold a candle to it. Just not possible. But that's cool. I'm a laid back guy, I try to keep an open mind. I don't get upset when my favorite movies get needless remakes. In fact, considering that Carpenter's version was already at least the third version of this story, it would be downright silly to complain about it being remade. I went in with an open mind.


It's not terrible. It's just not any good, either. It somehow manages to be reverent to Carpenter's film (copying the look, set design, props, basic structure, even reusing some of Morricone's great score) without really capturing any of its magic. Or, really, even understanding what's so great about that film. Carpenter's film is probably best remembered for it's eye-poppingly awesome, disgusting special effects, but in between the big payoff scenes the film is moody, tense, downbeat and paranoid as hell. The new Thing pays some lip service to the idea that no one can trust each other, but it's so short and briskly paced, it's basically just in a rush to get to the big special effects scenes. And don't get me wrong, some of the effects are cool, but they aren't enough to hang a whole film on.

What the new film doesn't understand is that the Thing is scary because it hides. It disguises itself as your friend, a perfect copy right down to the cellular level, and waits. It only attacks when it gets you alone or when it's forced out into the open. Not this time, though. This time, the Thing is prone to Thing-out for no particular reason, at any given time, basically whenever the filmmakers decide that it's been too long since the last gross special effect of a morphing monster. There's no rhythm, no build, no suspense, really, just sporadic money shots that come out of nowhere.

One last note: the movie kind of has an anticlimax, because if you've seen the 1982 film, you know how it has to end. What I want to know is, for the people who say this one but never saw Carpenter's version, what the hell do they make of the final scene? During the credits we essentially see the lead up to the first scene of Carpenter's film, as two Norwegians get in a helicopter chase down the Thing, currently disguised as a dog. And then it abruptly ends. Hopefully this will inspire them to see Carpenter's version, but I have to imagine there were a lot of confused teenagers walking out of multiplexes this past weekend.


Grade: C

Cruising

A serial killer is on the loose, preying on gay men he picks up at S&M clubs. The NYPD send in an undercover cop (Al Pacino) to cruise the gay scene and see if he can smoke out the killer.

I already wrote extensively on Cruising a few years ago, and I don't have much to add to my original thoughts except that I liked it even more this time. It has the trappings of a more run of the mill serial killer thriller (with the admittedly unorthodox-for-its-time gay themes), but leave it to William Friedkin to strip out all the usual structure, thrills and resolution, leaving a weird, sparse work of profound ambiguity. The story is disjointed, the hero is held at arm's length, tantalizing plot threads lead nowhere, the mystery is never satisfactorily resolved to the degree where it's heavily implied (but never clearly answered) that the hero might be the killer, or at least one of several killers. The film is dark and unknowable.

Also, awesome. It's more of a mood piece exploring some odd themes, scoring chills not through tightly crafted suspense sense but through revealing in the creepy mysteriousness of everything. One of the things that really threw me the first time I saw Cruising is that it seems to set up this identity crisis for Pacino's character but then never really explores it or resolves it. It's not clear what's up with him, whether his work disgusts him or turns him on or what. But now I think that maybe the film just externalizes his identity crisis. Cops and gays start becoming a fluid concept in the world of the film. There are cops sexually assaulting trannies, a cop-themed gay S&M club, cops employing large black men in ass-less chaps to slap suspects around, even the title is a double meaning applying to both cops and gays... what the hell is going on with this movie sexually? Exactly.

Grade: B+

The Human Centipede 2 (Full Sequence)

A retarded, mentally unbalanced man, obsessed with the movie The Human Centipede, begins abducting people in order to make his own centipede. Unfortunately, unlike the mad scientist in the film he so loves, this man has no real medical experience and goes about making this hideous creation with duct tape and a staple gun.

Tom Six's first Human Centipede turned out to be something of a pleasant surprise. It wasn't the grueling, perverted endurance test I was expecting; more of an old fashioned mad scientist movie with a particularly unique, disgusting (but not too graphically explicated) twist. And it had something of a playful sense of humor, a welcome touch.

Part 2 is a little closer to the movie I had imagined in my head when I heard about the first one. It feels more like a reaction on Six's part to the over-reaction to his original film. "Oh, you guys think my movie was sick and twisted? Well, I'll show you something sick and twisted..." It's everything part 1 was not. The original's sterile, clinical atmosphere and (relative) restraint is here replaced with a grainy, black and white grittiness and absurdly filthy and over-the-top violence.

So far over the top, in fact, it's clearly intended as even more of a comedy than part one; granted, a comedy that would probably nauseate and repel most audiences. Six is clearly going for the "I can't believe I just saw that" brand of shock humor, and with the exception of a few missteps (the movie has a few details that veer it into more serious territory that it just can't handle) he's pretty good at it. I don't know, guys, maybe there's just something wrong with me. Certainly, I'm at a loss for words for why the scene where he gives the centipede some powerful laxatives and then cackles with glee as all the members have to violently shit in each other's mouths was funny, but I wasn't the only one in the theater laughing. It's just so far outside the bounds of acceptable content that you have to go with it.

It's a little too crass, cheap and slight for me to praise it too much, and overall as a film I didn't like it as much as the original. Still, one thing I have to give it credit for: the main character never speaks, and long passages of the film go by without much dialogue. That can sometimes draw attention to itself, when a movie attempts long, silent sequences. Yet it didn't even dawn on me until the extended, basically dialogue-free finale how much of the film played that way. I think it's a testament to Six's skills as a visual storyteller (and the relative simplicity of the screenplay) that you barely even notice until afterward.

Grade: B-

A Horrible Way to Die

A recovering alcoholic meets a nice young man in her support group, but has trouble opening up to him due to some dark secrets in her past. Meanwhile, a serial killer escapes from jail, and leaves a trail of bodies behind him as he travels the country. Flashbacks slowly reveal a shared history between the two, and it becomes clear that their paths will be crossing again soon.

Things were off to a bad start, and I was not inclined to give director Adam Wingard the benefit of the doubt. His Home Sick was one of the worst horror movies in recent memory, and I had to shut off Pop Skull after 30 minutes due to boredom. So when A Horrible Way to Die started in with its desaturated, hand held style (often obnoxious, lazy, low budget shorthand for "this movie is serious and gritty, yo"), I was ready to write it off. I'm glad I didn't. Much like how Stevan Mena made major personal improvements between Malevolence and Bereavement, so too has Wingard evolved into a promising filmmaker. A Horrible Way to Die is a smart, moody thriller/character piece with some seriously strong performances and a few unique ideas. It's serious minded and even kind of sad in a way few horror movies ever bother for these days. And though Wingard's initial aesthetic choices rubbed me wrong, they are mitigated by his favoring of long takes and naturalistic performances.

My main misgivings here come from the ending, but I don't want to get specific because I'm still highly recommending this one. After an hour an 15 minutes or so of muted, understated atmosphere (punctuated by effective scenes of violence) and thoughtful character work, it throws in a silly, unnecessary and borderline insulting twist that makes some of the movie seem weaker in retrospect. But then, the movie throws in another twist that's actually kind of cool and, unlike the first, follows logically from everything we've seen before. So I guess I'm conflicted.

As a final note: just a shout-out to actor AJ Bowen, who plays the serial killer. Bowen is becoming something of a scream king; he was in two of my favorite horror films from the last decade, House of the Devil and The Signal, and stole every scene he was in. As far as I know, maybe he hates it and feels like he's stuck in the horror movie ghetto, but I'm always happy to see someone doing strong work in the genre. Here, after so many lively, wisecracking serial killers in the movies, Bowen brings us a guy with a real sense of melancholy and inner-turmoil, and he's a big part of why this film works so well.

Grade: B

American Horror Story (Episode 2 "Home Invasion")

Episode 2 of American Horror Story is considerably more cohesive than the pilot, and consequently a more satisfying hour of television. Though I had a certain admiration for its insanity, the pilot more felt like a bunch of weird shit that happened without rhyme or reason than it did a coherent story. Although episode 2 ("Home Invasion") did move some of the myriad subplots from the pilot forward, it had a central story with a clear beginning, middle and end. And it was a fun one, too: the house turns out to be the site of some murders committed by a famous serial killer back in the '60s, and a group of his weirdo followers break in and tie up the mom and the daughter, hoping to reenact the grisly crimes. It's not exactly a masterpiece of suspense, but it's a funny, exciting episode that gives me a little bit more confidence for where this show is heading.

Some overall notes:

- The ADHD editing from the pilot is still here, prevalent enough that it's obviously a (poor) stylistic choice and not just incompetence. Looks like I'm going to have to learn to ignore it if I'm going to enjoy this show.

- Like the pilot, the cold open is a flashback to something terrifying happening in the house years ago. I like this, and I hope the other episodes do the same. It sort of makes the beginning of each episode like a little short horror film unto itself.

- I don't take notes while I watch this, but I'm pretty sure both this and the pilot used bits of various old Bernard Herman scores. And why not? I'm sure some people out there don't like hearing their favorite film scores being re-purposed, but I tend to take the Quentin Taratino view that great music should be reused.

- I still am not finding myself caring much about the characters or the overall story. The family is going through a lot of boring, troubled family cliches. The parents are too morose to like, the daughter too bitchy. The only actor I'm enjoying watching is Jessica Lange, who is having fun going a little bit over the top while still maintaining some level of emotional honesty.

- The best part of the episode was, clearly, the ipecac-filled cupcake and how it pays off. But I'm still unclear as to why Lange's character wanted to give it to the daughter. Is it because she doesn't like the way the daughter treated her family, or did she somehow know that one of the killers would eat it?

Grade: B

Ghost Story

Returning home after the bizarre death of his twin brother, a man learns of the dark secret his father and his father's friends have been hiding for the last 50 years.

Milquetoast, I suppose is a good word for this one. It's not bad so much as kind of dull and unsurprising. I was very curious about it based on the description and the cast (including an elderly Fred Astaire and Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), but it's story (based on a Peter Straub novel) is a bunch of sub-Stephen King cliches involving small town life, the supernatural, hidden secrets, etc. I guess I'm getting in to some SPOILERS here, but I think it's pretty clear within 5 minutes that 1) There is a ghost and 2) the old men are responsible for her death. Yet the movie teases this out slowly, over two hours, as if there is some sort of mystery. We are even treated to an extended flashback (seemed a good 20 or 30 minutes) late in the film to finally "explain" everything, and of course it's just a bunch of information we already inferred earlier in the film. There is no mystery, it's exactly the same story as every other ghost story, only longer and slower.

Grade: C

Genesis

In this short film, a sculptor working on a tribute to his late wife finds himself in a bizarre situation when the statue begins turning into flesh... and he begins turning to stone.

Another short film from Nacho Cerda, whose Aftermath I also watched for this year's YVIAHMMAOIHTNQ. Genesis is a much, much less disgusting film, in fact this premise basically could have been used for an old Roger Corman movie or something. It's much more of a classical horror film setup, spooky and a little dreamlike, and far less of a confrontational piece of work. In that sense, I think this one was a lot more enjoyable and I'd actually be comfortable recommending it to other people. Aftermath I felt like I could defend but not really endorse; Genesis is just a cool little artsy horror short that anybody could get behind.

Like Aftermath, Genesis's story is told without dialogue, instead relying on clear visual storytelling and a simple to grasps premise that supplies some memorable visuals. Cerda definitely shows talent, although he's also a bit of a needless over-director (like a pointless nightmare scene full of whooshes and flashes and sped up footage and all that stupid crap), which is ultimately what keeps this from being a better film. Enough of this film is done right that it's kind of a shame that they throw in some silly, show-offy flourishes like that that kind of breaks the spell. Oh well.

Cerda also has a full length feature called The Abandoned; I haven't yet decided if I want to give it a shot this month.

Grade: B-

The Wolf Man

A young man is bit by what he thinks is a wolf while protecting a lady the beast was attacking. He beats the creature to death, but the police find the body of a dead man instead. Could the beast have been some sort of... wolf man?

Considering my love of horror movies, I have to admit that I'm not too familiar with some of the old, established classics. It's a bit of a bias on my part. There are a lot of wonderful horror movies from all eras, but I tend to be drawn towards horror films from the 70's onwards. So this is always a good time of year to slip in a few beloved classics that I've never seen, to at least get them under my belt.

The Wolf Man is not an all-time great, in my esteem, but it is atmospheric and fun, and has a good cast to boot. It's one of those movies that's engrained enough in the culture that you sort of feel like you've already seen it, even when you haven't. It is kind of a kick to see a movie from back before werewolf movies were an overpopulated subgenre. The characters all act as though this "werewolf" concept is totally alien to them, they have to be told that silver kills werewolves, etc. On the other hand, everything that this film does has been done a thousand times since (and in some cases, better) so there is nothing here to really surprise or wow. It is, I suppose, exactly the movie I expected it to be.

Grade: B-

The Invisible Man

A scientist, experimenting on himself, has managed to turn himself invisible but has not yet discovered a way to turn himself back. The invisibility has some unfortunate consequences: his new found ability to basically get away with anything has given him a serious superiority complex, and he begins expressing his supremacy in increasingly violent and detestable ways.

The Invisible Man turns out to be a much funnier movie that I expected; while not exactly a horror/comedy, the antihero is just so delighted with himself and his evil deeds that it's hard not to crack a smile, even when he's doing some pretty heinous stuff. In fact, the whole movie is more in the spirit of fun than anything else, with the other major draw being the frequent, creative invisibility special effects. You know, doors opening by themselves, objects floating across the room, clothing walking around with seemingly no one inside them, that kind of stuff.

What maybe keeps the movie from being a little better than it is, is that it lacks a center. The main character is really the invisible man, but he's evil and completely unsympathetic, plus its hard to identify with a character if you don't even know what they look like (until the final, pretty cool shot of the film). The ostensible hero of the film is a passive, weak-willed loser who spends the whole movie afraid of/getting pushed around by the invisible man, so we don't really like or care about him either. As a result, it's hard to get too invested in what's going on, even though the humor and the effects most definitely do provide a fair amount of fun.

Grade: B-

I Bury the Living

So there is a cemetery, and at this cemetery there is a map of all the plots. The map has a simple system: plots with black pins are in use, and plots with a white pin are reserved but empty. One day, the new proprietor accidentally sticks black pins in some empty plots. Soon after, the owners of those plots mysteriously drop dead. Is this a tragic coincidence, or has the man discovered some sort of terrible power?

Despite not featuring anyone getting buried alive like the name implies (the name is really just a confusing way of saying "I kill people"), nor any zombies like the poster shows (although it does tease the audience that things might be heading that direction), I Bury the Living is a pretty cool old low budget horror movie. I'd say it's a little bit like a feature length Twilight Zone episode, where its more about setting up and exploring a creepy concept than it is about action or violence. It also reminded me a little bit of Jacques Tourneur's excellent Night of the Demon, where most of the tension comes from the ambiguity: is there something supernatural going on here, is it just coincidence, or is someone trying to fuck with the hero? It turns out to be a (slightly confusing) combination of those options, and though I would have preferred it left things more ambiguous, it still all comes together as a tight, tense, scrappy little horror movie with an intriguing moral dimension.

Grade: B

The Keep

In WW2, a group of Nazis (including Jurgen Prochnow and Gabriel Byrne) stationed in Romania accidentally incur the wrath of a head-exploding demon, locked away in massive citadel. Their prisoner, a Jewish scholar (Ian McKellan) brought in to help investigate, secretly tries to unleash the monster, in the hopes that it will slay the Nazis, while a mysterious man with glowing eyes (Scott Glenn) arrives to offer ominous warnings. Or, more briefly, imagine if someone tried to turn the finale of Raiders of the Lost Ark into a feature length film, but less awesome than that sounds.

One recurring plea I make is that I wish more talented filmmakers with strong, recognizable styles would go out on a limb and make horror movies more often. I feel like there are so many great directors out there whose unique skill sets could make for some awesome horror movies, but the genre has this stigma that seems to keep a lot of filmmakers away, even if they wouldn't bat an eye at making a more action oriented film (or nearly any other genre, for that matter). Michael Mann would have been on my list of non-horror directors with the chops to make a killer horror film, due to his films' rich atmosphere and his (inconsistently applied) ability to make precisely crafted set pieces. Turns out that he actually did make a horror film, back in the early 80's, so I knew I had to check it out.

(And, okay, now that I think about it, Manhunter has some serious horror movie elements to it, even if it's more of a thriller/police procedural.)

Well, I guessed right about the atmosphere part. This is a gorgeous looking movie, creating a dreamy, fog-covered world, filled with strange, endless caverns and war torn battlefields straight out of a nightmare. It also has a great, characteristically trippy Tangerine Dream score that lends much to the tone of the film. Although the film is probably at least as much fantasy as it is horror, I was surprised to find how much of the score was energetic and rousing (as opposed to dark and creepy). It's a little incongruous at times, as Tangerine Dream's scores often are, but in an interesting way where it feels more like it's adding unexpected dimensions, rather than misjudging the tone.

Unfortunately, it's one of those visually wonderful films that's all great shots and no good sequences. Mann would later become known for his action, but here none of his shots are pieced together in a way that suggests he cared at all about giving the movie any sense of energy, or narrative propulsion. There's nothing like a real set piece or suspense sequence. Everything is just mood, and its all the same mood, whether its an action scene or just a drawn out sequence of a boat drifting across the ocean while the sun sets in the background. It all plays at the same speed. A scene of violence is given the same weight as a character standing around doing nothing.

Mann's silly, tin eared screenplay doesn't help. A dynamite cast is forced to spit out a lot of dumb, over written dialogue and interact with cool but dated special effects, and I'd say McKellan is the only one who comes out without embarrassing himself. Like a lot of Mann's films, The Keep often feels like it was whittled down from a much longer film. It has way too many major characters than it can sustain in its brief 95 minutes, with characters often vanishing for extended periods of time only to re-emerge during a seemingly climactic moment... and ultimately prove their presence pointless in the overall scheme of things. Mann would have been smarter cutting most of the characters out and focusing on McKellan and the demon, unquestionably the highlights of the film.

If it seems like I'm slagging this one, well, I am, but I also had a certain affection for it. It has a corny, indelible 80's-ness to it that I enjoyed, a great score, some fun special effects, and a rich visual style. So I'm giving it a thumbs up, but I must be honest that by the end of the film, my frequent laughter was mostly at the film's expense and not simply out of fondness.

Grade: C+

The Baby

A social worker finds herself drawn to a bizarre case, that of a supposedly retarded grown man with the mind (and behavior) of a baby. Only, she comes to believe that there's nothing wrong with his mind at all. Rather, she suspects that Baby's domineering mother and sisters have deliberately kept him trapped in a state of eternal infancy via bizarre abuse.

Ick. Just ick. Even if The Baby was a shitty movie, the premise alone would be enough to get under my skin. Something about a grownup dressed in baby clothes and making baby noises creeps my shit out. No offense to those adult-baby fetishists all over the internet, you guys please feel free to continue to live your lives in whatever way makes you happy, but gross.

Thing is, The Baby is also a pretty good horror movie. It's deliberately paced and, while far from a realistic portrait of abuse or abnormal psychology, spends a lot of time milking the psychological dimensions of its premise for its creepiness, rather than inserting too many arbitrary, phony thrills. Things do become more overtly thriller-y during the last half hour or so, but it's earned after a strong buildup, and works in a great, icky final twist that must have a large part in giving this film its (deserved) cult status.

Grade: B