I can't believe people haven't figured out by now that "Based on a true story" means, "not actually based on a true story". Yes, there was a family that was supposedly tormented by a demonic force. Yes, Ed and Lorraine Warren are real people, but the veracity of their profession is up for opinion. The devil is literally in the details, here, because with cases like these its hard to withdraw facts, and I'm not speaking as a skeptic. I believe in the supernatural to a certain degree, and I believe that the horrors that the Perron family were subjected to in this film could actually happen (despite, apparently, none of the events of the film actually happening according to one of the daughters of said family.) Yet people still buy into this stuff and they don't bother to do any research to identify the truth. And this isn't with just horror movies, but politics. But that's a horror story for another day. Right now, we're discussing The Conjuring.
Right from the get go, this movie convinces you that it should belong to the Holy-Canon-of-'70s-Horror-Movies, to which The Exorcist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror, and Halloween belong. Even the font lettering when the title rises up on screen looks like a horror font you'd find in '70s titles.
The plot is your typical "family moves into haunted house" affair that we've been introduced to in films like:
The Amityville Horror
Poltergeist
The Haunting in Connecticut
The Haunting of Molly Hartley
The Haunting of Helena
The Haunting The Haunting blah blah blah why the hell are there so many movies that begin with the words "The Haunting of..."?
Anyway, despite its typicality, the filmmakers take the plot in interesting, atypical directions. Much of the focus is on the investigation by Ed and Lorraine Warren, who the Perrons call to help them with their particularly frightening haint. The characters all act very realistically, too, and I always imagined people in real life would act and react to events like these characters did in the movie.
And lets talk about the haunts themselves. The reason I despise a lot of these movies is because they are so unsubtle about their ghosts and demons. I'm pretty sure it's a direct result of filmmakers trying to emulate the very visual nature of spirits in Asian horror movies, but I feel like hauntings need to be subtle and move subtly to truly spark fear in the imagination. Immediately, the spirits of The Innocents come to mind, as although you see one of them up close, you see so little of him that it retains its creep factor. You are unsure of what you are seeing, and that in turn makes you freaked out more. Hell, the woman spirit in the Innocents is one of the most frightening ghosts I've seen committed to celluloid and it's because she's always seen at such a distance her facial features are either hidden in shadow or distorted. But today, it's all about indulging in a fantasy. This is problematic for a horror movie, because the established rule that has driven all great scare experiences is that the less you see, the more you fear.
This film indulges in fantasy and un-subtlety a little too much for my taste, but the scares are still terribly effective. It's saying something that I can get scared by a horror movie, and I found myself to be terrified of the ride this movie will take you on.
Having said all that, is this movie good? Like, is it good enough to join the Holy Canon forever and ever? Well, no. I have too many problems with this movie to try to elevate it to any status it doesn't deserve. It's frightening, but unsubtle. It's melodramatic, but most of the time in a bad way. I wish it was a more honest movie. The filmmakers don't want us to form bonds with these characters (the family or the Warrens). Their main goal is to frighten us. So why then are you guys trying to stick in some little sappy moment that is so minor it doesn't deserve to have the big payoff it does at the end? If you're going to make a character driven film with emotions and such, make that movie. You can't just awkwardly stick in a moment just so you can say, "well, we have met our emotion goal, lets get back to the scariness". Either do that movie and do it proper or don't do it at all.
The best "haunt" movies have been character driven. The Changeling and Jacob's Ladder come to mind, as well as The Haunting (1963) and The Sixth Sense (1999). These are movies that examine haunts through the eyes and the mind of a certain character, and you get to witness their highs and lows in a realistic manner. This movie is not that. It is just a thrill ride and it should be treated as such, and it should allow the audience to form its own emotions regarding the characters and the situation.
I'm totally giving this film a B+, because it deserves it, but it could've been better. It could've stuck to the "facts" that the family actually reported rather than embellish in scary things that don't actually happen, it could have been more character driven. But it wasn't. However, what it was despite my complaints was a truly frightening experience, and it really doesn't need to conform to the "truth", since The Exorcist and Amityville don't exactly follow the true stories they are supposedly based on either.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Monday, June 3, 2013
A lot has happened since last we met.
I have graduated from college with a history degree. I received a writing award from my university for my paper on zombies in the modern day pop culture perception in comparison to the Christian Tradition of resurrection. Lengthy, I know, and that's just a paraphrase of the title. So as you can see, I have not lost my horror spirit.
I just feel like horror is on another downturn. This happened in the early 1990s after the film industry had over-saturated its media with formulaic slasher films, and newer ideas were becoming less prominent. Fortunately for horror fans, even though we weren't seeing a whole lot of good, scary movies in the theater, we had shows like Tales of the Crypt and Tales from the Darkside on television to give us good, scary fun. But those shows could only do so much for horror.
I feel like horror has taken another downturn. I have not lost interest in horror or its impact on the lives of its captive audience, but I feel that no new avenues are being explored. Nothing is being said that can bring new perspectives to those who baptize themselves in horror fiction. That isn't to say that there aren't still movies and books being created by passionate, horror loving people that aren't doing these things. They are just very, VERY hard to find. Especially for someone with my tastes.
Even beloved horror sites are failing to share good movies with their followers. I concur with the assessment by blogger Dorian Dawes that horror media is rapidly decaying, (indeed, reading their article is really what inspired me to write this one.)
But when I have something to say to you, you damn well better believe I am going to come on here and speak my mind. I am still a believer in good horror fiction. It's still out there, and I still appreciate it.
I just feel like horror is on another downturn. This happened in the early 1990s after the film industry had over-saturated its media with formulaic slasher films, and newer ideas were becoming less prominent. Fortunately for horror fans, even though we weren't seeing a whole lot of good, scary movies in the theater, we had shows like Tales of the Crypt and Tales from the Darkside on television to give us good, scary fun. But those shows could only do so much for horror.
I feel like horror has taken another downturn. I have not lost interest in horror or its impact on the lives of its captive audience, but I feel that no new avenues are being explored. Nothing is being said that can bring new perspectives to those who baptize themselves in horror fiction. That isn't to say that there aren't still movies and books being created by passionate, horror loving people that aren't doing these things. They are just very, VERY hard to find. Especially for someone with my tastes.
Even beloved horror sites are failing to share good movies with their followers. I concur with the assessment by blogger Dorian Dawes that horror media is rapidly decaying, (indeed, reading their article is really what inspired me to write this one.)
But when I have something to say to you, you damn well better believe I am going to come on here and speak my mind. I am still a believer in good horror fiction. It's still out there, and I still appreciate it.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Return of the Living Dead review
I apologize, as this one may be a little long:
I think its surprising that not a whole lot of people are aware of classic horror movies. And I'm not talking about the Universal Monster movies from the 1930s, although those are practically obscure now. I'm talking about recent classics. As much as there is a culture surrounding horror films, not a whole lot of people know what Return of the Living Dead is, or even the original Night of the Living Dead.
Maybe that's why I don't feel bad when I review "the usual suspect" horror films, the ones that always appear on top 25 lists of horror movies you need to watch before you die. I've wanted this blog to be a place where an average person could go and perhaps gain an interest in new horror movies.
With that said, I had a Halloween party the other night and for our movie, I chose to watch Return of the Living Dead. ROTLD came out in 1985, the same year Romero's Day of the Dead came out, and despite the reputation that George carries with his name alone, ROTLD knocked Romero's DAY out of the water. And it really should, its a fantastic horror film.
However, when faced with the scrutiny of modern film goers, ones who aren't massive horror film geeks like myself, how does this movie hold up? Well, I was hoping that everyone was enjoying it, but I feel like they enjoyed it for the wrong reasons. They laughed a little too much for my taste, and all at the wrong moments.
Don't get me wrong, laughter is good. The movie is a horror comedy after all. However, comedy is only half of it. The other half of it is surprisingly tense, and scary. But all in the name of fun.
When I first watched the movie I was very aware of how funny the movie was. However, it's also very horrifying. These are characters you absolutely fall in love with, and then you get to see them lose control of an already volatile situation, and as much as you want them to live, you know there is a chance that they wont make it. So as the movie goes on and things continue to get worse and worse, the movie raises the tension because of it.
I guess I can't forget to plot it out for you before I talk about it more. The movie concerns two groups: Bert, Frank, and Freddy, who work at the Uneeda Medical Supply in Louisville, Kentucky (Kentucky represent) and a group of Freddy's teenage friends who are busy trying to party hardy.. When Freddy, the new guy at the job, inquires about the scariest thing that Frank has ever seen at the Supply Warehouse, Frank shows him these strange canisters filled with Trioxin, which is a reanimating agent. The two hapless heroes accidentally unleash the toxin all over the warehouse, reviving a body that was stored in the Warehouse freezer.
Okay, relatively simple situation. There's only one dead body running around, right? Well, Frank and Freddy are scared stiff by the thing, and decide to call in their boss Bert, who tries to cover his and his company's ass for the rest of the film. The trio discover that the body cannot be killed in the usual zombie fashion of head bludgeoning, so they ship the body to Bert's friend, Ernie, who runs a mortuary/crematorium, with the intention of using Ernie's crematorium to completely burn the body.
So you're thinking to yourself, how in the hell could four guys completely mess up this situation and make everything worse? Well, when they cremate the body they aren't aware that the smoke from the fire and the ashes of the body mix to form an entire new batch of Trioxin, which in turn transforms into acid rain and rains down on the nearby cemetary, thereby reanimating the dead. Whoops.
The rest of the film concerns the two groups of characters trying to survive the onslaught of the living dead.
If you're not aware, these zombies are not your typical Romero zombies. They run, they talk, and they tackle. And they cannot die. So you can imagine how the already terrible situation has the potential to get much worse.
The reason this film works for me is that instead of being a zombie action kill movie, its a movie about a zombie siege. It directly follows Night of the Living Dead's winning formula of putting a group of different individuals into a location together and have them try to survive against an army of the living dead. So characters don't unrealistically become zombie killing badasses and they don't come out of a Juno movie.
No, instead they do their best and die trying. And as the situation gets worse, everything becomes more hopeless. THAT is tension building, because you really end up liking the four guys Bert, Ernie, Frank, and Freddy and you don't want anything to happen to them. I also love that one guy who yelled "Get in here honky!"
Naturally, the scares are supposed to eventually override the fun funny stuff, but I don't think my friends really got into it that much to allow themselves to give in to the suspense and the terror. Plus, it was made in 1985, so by modern audiences the movie is dated. However, the movie has that great 80s atmosphere that modern horror films significantly lack. My favorite shot of the entire film is during the opening credits when you see the trioxin revive the dead body for the first time, and the camera pans in as you see the body shake.
Please watch this film. I'm terribly sorry I talked about it in great length, but I don't think I've spoiled too much. Its an A+ film, and I cannot recommend it enough. Watch this film and know just how you're supposed to do a zombie comedy.
I think its surprising that not a whole lot of people are aware of classic horror movies. And I'm not talking about the Universal Monster movies from the 1930s, although those are practically obscure now. I'm talking about recent classics. As much as there is a culture surrounding horror films, not a whole lot of people know what Return of the Living Dead is, or even the original Night of the Living Dead.
Maybe that's why I don't feel bad when I review "the usual suspect" horror films, the ones that always appear on top 25 lists of horror movies you need to watch before you die. I've wanted this blog to be a place where an average person could go and perhaps gain an interest in new horror movies.
With that said, I had a Halloween party the other night and for our movie, I chose to watch Return of the Living Dead. ROTLD came out in 1985, the same year Romero's Day of the Dead came out, and despite the reputation that George carries with his name alone, ROTLD knocked Romero's DAY out of the water. And it really should, its a fantastic horror film.
However, when faced with the scrutiny of modern film goers, ones who aren't massive horror film geeks like myself, how does this movie hold up? Well, I was hoping that everyone was enjoying it, but I feel like they enjoyed it for the wrong reasons. They laughed a little too much for my taste, and all at the wrong moments.
Don't get me wrong, laughter is good. The movie is a horror comedy after all. However, comedy is only half of it. The other half of it is surprisingly tense, and scary. But all in the name of fun.
When I first watched the movie I was very aware of how funny the movie was. However, it's also very horrifying. These are characters you absolutely fall in love with, and then you get to see them lose control of an already volatile situation, and as much as you want them to live, you know there is a chance that they wont make it. So as the movie goes on and things continue to get worse and worse, the movie raises the tension because of it.
I guess I can't forget to plot it out for you before I talk about it more. The movie concerns two groups: Bert, Frank, and Freddy, who work at the Uneeda Medical Supply in Louisville, Kentucky (Kentucky represent) and a group of Freddy's teenage friends who are busy trying to party hardy.. When Freddy, the new guy at the job, inquires about the scariest thing that Frank has ever seen at the Supply Warehouse, Frank shows him these strange canisters filled with Trioxin, which is a reanimating agent. The two hapless heroes accidentally unleash the toxin all over the warehouse, reviving a body that was stored in the Warehouse freezer.
Okay, relatively simple situation. There's only one dead body running around, right? Well, Frank and Freddy are scared stiff by the thing, and decide to call in their boss Bert, who tries to cover his and his company's ass for the rest of the film. The trio discover that the body cannot be killed in the usual zombie fashion of head bludgeoning, so they ship the body to Bert's friend, Ernie, who runs a mortuary/crematorium, with the intention of using Ernie's crematorium to completely burn the body.
So you're thinking to yourself, how in the hell could four guys completely mess up this situation and make everything worse? Well, when they cremate the body they aren't aware that the smoke from the fire and the ashes of the body mix to form an entire new batch of Trioxin, which in turn transforms into acid rain and rains down on the nearby cemetary, thereby reanimating the dead. Whoops.
The rest of the film concerns the two groups of characters trying to survive the onslaught of the living dead.
If you're not aware, these zombies are not your typical Romero zombies. They run, they talk, and they tackle. And they cannot die. So you can imagine how the already terrible situation has the potential to get much worse.
The reason this film works for me is that instead of being a zombie action kill movie, its a movie about a zombie siege. It directly follows Night of the Living Dead's winning formula of putting a group of different individuals into a location together and have them try to survive against an army of the living dead. So characters don't unrealistically become zombie killing badasses and they don't come out of a Juno movie.
No, instead they do their best and die trying. And as the situation gets worse, everything becomes more hopeless. THAT is tension building, because you really end up liking the four guys Bert, Ernie, Frank, and Freddy and you don't want anything to happen to them. I also love that one guy who yelled "Get in here honky!"
Naturally, the scares are supposed to eventually override the fun funny stuff, but I don't think my friends really got into it that much to allow themselves to give in to the suspense and the terror. Plus, it was made in 1985, so by modern audiences the movie is dated. However, the movie has that great 80s atmosphere that modern horror films significantly lack. My favorite shot of the entire film is during the opening credits when you see the trioxin revive the dead body for the first time, and the camera pans in as you see the body shake.
Please watch this film. I'm terribly sorry I talked about it in great length, but I don't think I've spoiled too much. Its an A+ film, and I cannot recommend it enough. Watch this film and know just how you're supposed to do a zombie comedy.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Blogging hiatus/Announcement/Zombie review
This is going to be a very simple post to explain my absence and the future of this blog:
1. I forgot my log in information. So...yeah. It was that simple.
2. I am still going to write to this. Tomorrow I am going to be hosting a Halloween party and the movie that I am forcing everyone to watch is Return of the Living Dead, which currently is my favorite zombie film of all time. That movie just gets so much right, but more on that later.
Right now, I want to take a brief moment to talk about Zombie. In fact, I'm going to review Zombie.
I recently got a chance to pick up a copy of Zombie from the mall on a trip to visit my extended family. Now, when I shop, I'm more of a window shopper. I always try to conserve my money, which mostly goes towards food and gas (and my gas gets eaten up really fast, as I commute to college.) So by chance whilst my fiancee and I were perusing the rows of horror films in the F.Y.E. I happened upon the Blue Underground DVD of Zombie. Needless to say, I was immediately smitten. However, when I happen upon something that I would like to purchase I tend to get somewhat of a guilty conscience. There was also a bit of confusion as to whether or not the box I was holding in my hands was a Blu-Ray edition or DVD. I'm not kidding, it wasn't giving us any indication which one it was.
But, I gave in and I bought it, and a few days later we popped it in to watch it.
Now, it wasn't my first time seeing it. I managed to watch it online a long time ago back when I had more time to fulfill my desire to watch horror films. I loved it back then, and I loved it the second time watching it as well.
The story begins with a boat that pulls into a New York harbor. The boat is abandoned, so the Coast Guard thinks. The two members investigating the boat get chewed up by a stowaway zombie, whom they don't properly deal with. The zombie disappears, and they walk away with some bites and scratches.
The boat, it turns out, belongs to the father of the main character, a girl named Anne. She becomes involved because she wants to know where her missing father is, and she entangles herself with reporter Peter West, who thinks there's an interesting story to tell with the boat.
Immediately starting the movie the average viewer will take note that a lot of the actors have been overdubbed. This kinda took me out of the movie a bit, as I wasn't used to it, but once I allowed myself to get lost in the story I eventually forgot about it. I'm not going to really go into too much detail about this movie. It's pretty famous in the horror world. Yadda yadda Lucio Fulci (props) yadda yadda special effects, yadda yadda beautiful cinematography.
The main characters' search eventually brings them to an island where the dead are mysteriously rising. Dr. Menard and a few others are investigating the phenomena, and he is Anne's connection to her missing father. But when the main characters arrive on the island, all hell breaks loose and things heat up pretty quickly.
Now, I'm afraid I'll have to go against the grain here and say that I'm totally not a fan of the zombie vs. shark thing. And no, it's not because the idea is completely silly, because I can deal with that. It's just that...the sequence goes on for far too long and its not too integral to the main story. Yadda yadda, the cinematography is impressive and beautiful, but come on, it's a film where people are being ripped apart and having their arteries severed by zombies. However, I'm not going to knock someone by saying that they can't appreciate how beautiful the cinematography is. When they aren't spending fifteen minutes pondering the scenery, this movie is gorgeous.
So what do I think of this film? I'm giving it a well deserved B. And please, if you are reading this blog and have anything you want to say, please say it. I want you to, really. I wanna hear what you think.
1. I forgot my log in information. So...yeah. It was that simple.
2. I am still going to write to this. Tomorrow I am going to be hosting a Halloween party and the movie that I am forcing everyone to watch is Return of the Living Dead, which currently is my favorite zombie film of all time. That movie just gets so much right, but more on that later.
Right now, I want to take a brief moment to talk about Zombie. In fact, I'm going to review Zombie.
I recently got a chance to pick up a copy of Zombie from the mall on a trip to visit my extended family. Now, when I shop, I'm more of a window shopper. I always try to conserve my money, which mostly goes towards food and gas (and my gas gets eaten up really fast, as I commute to college.) So by chance whilst my fiancee and I were perusing the rows of horror films in the F.Y.E. I happened upon the Blue Underground DVD of Zombie. Needless to say, I was immediately smitten. However, when I happen upon something that I would like to purchase I tend to get somewhat of a guilty conscience. There was also a bit of confusion as to whether or not the box I was holding in my hands was a Blu-Ray edition or DVD. I'm not kidding, it wasn't giving us any indication which one it was.
But, I gave in and I bought it, and a few days later we popped it in to watch it.
Now, it wasn't my first time seeing it. I managed to watch it online a long time ago back when I had more time to fulfill my desire to watch horror films. I loved it back then, and I loved it the second time watching it as well.
The story begins with a boat that pulls into a New York harbor. The boat is abandoned, so the Coast Guard thinks. The two members investigating the boat get chewed up by a stowaway zombie, whom they don't properly deal with. The zombie disappears, and they walk away with some bites and scratches.
The boat, it turns out, belongs to the father of the main character, a girl named Anne. She becomes involved because she wants to know where her missing father is, and she entangles herself with reporter Peter West, who thinks there's an interesting story to tell with the boat.
Immediately starting the movie the average viewer will take note that a lot of the actors have been overdubbed. This kinda took me out of the movie a bit, as I wasn't used to it, but once I allowed myself to get lost in the story I eventually forgot about it. I'm not going to really go into too much detail about this movie. It's pretty famous in the horror world. Yadda yadda Lucio Fulci (props) yadda yadda special effects, yadda yadda beautiful cinematography.
The main characters' search eventually brings them to an island where the dead are mysteriously rising. Dr. Menard and a few others are investigating the phenomena, and he is Anne's connection to her missing father. But when the main characters arrive on the island, all hell breaks loose and things heat up pretty quickly.
Now, I'm afraid I'll have to go against the grain here and say that I'm totally not a fan of the zombie vs. shark thing. And no, it's not because the idea is completely silly, because I can deal with that. It's just that...the sequence goes on for far too long and its not too integral to the main story. Yadda yadda, the cinematography is impressive and beautiful, but come on, it's a film where people are being ripped apart and having their arteries severed by zombies. However, I'm not going to knock someone by saying that they can't appreciate how beautiful the cinematography is. When they aren't spending fifteen minutes pondering the scenery, this movie is gorgeous.
So what do I think of this film? I'm giving it a well deserved B. And please, if you are reading this blog and have anything you want to say, please say it. I want you to, really. I wanna hear what you think.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Why I hate modern zombie movies
As much as I adore Shaun of the Dead, I can't help but think of how much bullshit it has spawned. As far as Shaun goes, the movie was perfect. It was a Romero zombie movie that poked fun at Romero zombie movies, but not in a stupid way. As far as humor went, it was the characters and their situation and interactions that were funny (and often dramatic) instead of relying on zombie sight gags.
Unfortunately, Shaun of the Dead sparked a whole new interest in zom coms. And none have been particularly good. Zom coms (as they are called) have pretty much existed since the inception of the Romero zombie (I mean, how is Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things not a comedy?) Back then they were done well, emphasizing comedic situations interspersed with true moments of horror.
The movie that has done this best (besides Shaun) is Return of the Living Dead. Sure, there are a few moments in the film that are completely, ridiculously silly ("Send more cops") but the movie gets the actual zombie onslaught stuff right. The best zombie films always put characters in a nearly impossible situation, and then proceed to make that situation increasingly worse. In Return, the characters find themselves trapped in a morgue that has barely any defensive capability against hordes of invincible zombies that are trying to find their way in. To make matters worse, two of their number are already dying and slowly becoming Returners themselves. Added to that is the fact that every ounce of help that seems to come their way is torn apart by the zombie horde, and as each moment passes the characters options are running out.
Theses are the zombie movies I love to watch, because it creates such a great terror and suspense in the viewer that, in my opinion, is unrivaled in the horror movie genre community. It's so satisfying to watch the characters succeed in escape (and even destroying) the zombies and its so heart-wrenching and terrifying to see them fail.
Zombie movies these days follow a different rule. Throw in some quirky characters, put them in amusing situations, and watch them turn into complete zombie killing badass machines at the end that are capable of dealing out many headshots (even while they are running) despite the fact that they've had no prior experience or practice with a gun.
Modern zombie movies are fixated on delivering zombie killing action, to the point of making their human characters into Robocop, and its so ridiculous that I can't stand watching these films. In Night of the Living Dead, our heroes struggled to even hit their targets at all because they were all people who had never previously dealt with firearms.
Where is the tension that used to come from watching a zombie movie? Why does that tension suddenly get ignored in the modern day?
What follows are several minor nitpicks regarding the depictions of zombies themselves:
I am a fan of old school slow zombies. However, I like the fast Olympic medalist zombies that have been introduced in recent times. To be fair, if the dead ever rose up out of their graves in real life, they would be running to after the effects of rigor mortis wore off (which they will). They won't be Olympic medalist fast, but they won't be tree-swaying-in-the-wind slow. However, I feel like my slow zombie palos are beginning to become ignored. I'm not asking that fast zombies go away. I'm asking for more equal representation.
Another big thing I dislike is how zombies look these days. I'm not sure how well I'll be able to articulate this thought, but...zombies now have a "look". Whenever you think of zombies, you think of that look. Compare this:
to this:
What is with with this zombie snarl face that so many extras do these days? All their zombies have that same damn look. When I think of a zombie I think of a reanimated CORPSE. Meaning whatever you're seeing is a shell that is just walking around and eating humans. I hate (and this is just my personal opinion) zombies that have very varied expressions. To me, the only expression a zombie should have is the expression they had when they died. It makes them so much creepier. A zombie snarling at me like a dog doesn't make them scary.
Zombie movies need to emphasize the fact that what we are looking at is literally a dead person. Instead of a director saying, "Act like a zombie", they should be telling them, "Act like a walking dead shell, a corpse." We need to get away from the zombie stereotype and go back to thinking of zombies as a dead body that gets up and and wanders around.
I say these things because I assume that there is such a thing as objective fear, and such things that I suggest can only improve zombies so that they can get back to that objective fear and all of us can be scared again.
Other than that, that's about all I have to say about it. I would love for anyone reading to send their thoughts.
Unfortunately, Shaun of the Dead sparked a whole new interest in zom coms. And none have been particularly good. Zom coms (as they are called) have pretty much existed since the inception of the Romero zombie (I mean, how is Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things not a comedy?) Back then they were done well, emphasizing comedic situations interspersed with true moments of horror.
The movie that has done this best (besides Shaun) is Return of the Living Dead. Sure, there are a few moments in the film that are completely, ridiculously silly ("Send more cops") but the movie gets the actual zombie onslaught stuff right. The best zombie films always put characters in a nearly impossible situation, and then proceed to make that situation increasingly worse. In Return, the characters find themselves trapped in a morgue that has barely any defensive capability against hordes of invincible zombies that are trying to find their way in. To make matters worse, two of their number are already dying and slowly becoming Returners themselves. Added to that is the fact that every ounce of help that seems to come their way is torn apart by the zombie horde, and as each moment passes the characters options are running out.
Theses are the zombie movies I love to watch, because it creates such a great terror and suspense in the viewer that, in my opinion, is unrivaled in the horror movie genre community. It's so satisfying to watch the characters succeed in escape (and even destroying) the zombies and its so heart-wrenching and terrifying to see them fail.
Zombie movies these days follow a different rule. Throw in some quirky characters, put them in amusing situations, and watch them turn into complete zombie killing badass machines at the end that are capable of dealing out many headshots (even while they are running) despite the fact that they've had no prior experience or practice with a gun.
Modern zombie movies are fixated on delivering zombie killing action, to the point of making their human characters into Robocop, and its so ridiculous that I can't stand watching these films. In Night of the Living Dead, our heroes struggled to even hit their targets at all because they were all people who had never previously dealt with firearms.
Where is the tension that used to come from watching a zombie movie? Why does that tension suddenly get ignored in the modern day?
What follows are several minor nitpicks regarding the depictions of zombies themselves:
I am a fan of old school slow zombies. However, I like the fast Olympic medalist zombies that have been introduced in recent times. To be fair, if the dead ever rose up out of their graves in real life, they would be running to after the effects of rigor mortis wore off (which they will). They won't be Olympic medalist fast, but they won't be tree-swaying-in-the-wind slow. However, I feel like my slow zombie palos are beginning to become ignored. I'm not asking that fast zombies go away. I'm asking for more equal representation.
Another big thing I dislike is how zombies look these days. I'm not sure how well I'll be able to articulate this thought, but...zombies now have a "look". Whenever you think of zombies, you think of that look. Compare this:
to this:
What is with with this zombie snarl face that so many extras do these days? All their zombies have that same damn look. When I think of a zombie I think of a reanimated CORPSE. Meaning whatever you're seeing is a shell that is just walking around and eating humans. I hate (and this is just my personal opinion) zombies that have very varied expressions. To me, the only expression a zombie should have is the expression they had when they died. It makes them so much creepier. A zombie snarling at me like a dog doesn't make them scary.
Zombie movies need to emphasize the fact that what we are looking at is literally a dead person. Instead of a director saying, "Act like a zombie", they should be telling them, "Act like a walking dead shell, a corpse." We need to get away from the zombie stereotype and go back to thinking of zombies as a dead body that gets up and and wanders around.
I say these things because I assume that there is such a thing as objective fear, and such things that I suggest can only improve zombies so that they can get back to that objective fear and all of us can be scared again.
Other than that, that's about all I have to say about it. I would love for anyone reading to send their thoughts.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (2011 Remake)
I have a sort of love/hate relationship when it comes to modern supernatural horror movies. On one hand, the films are getting better when it comes to delivering atmosphere. On the other hand, how many times can you watch the same movie over and over?
This movie is in a middle ground of these kinds of films. It surprised me that the filmmakers didn't take the easy way out with its scares and set ups, but then again Guillermo had a huge hand in writing and making this movie, and he was responsible for the excellent The Devil's Backbone. Each time I thought this movie was going to do something predictable, I was surprised when that ended up not being the case.
I guess I should give a plot. A family moves into a creepy house that they are renovating for some architectural or historical society deal. The girl of the family, Sally, was given up by her mother to live with her father, who is renovating the building with his girlfriend. Soon, Sally comes across this odd heater/fire place thing in the basement of the house where she can hear voices whispering her name.
It turns out that there are strange, ancient little creatures living deep below their house in the earth that feed on children, and they've chosen Sally as their next target. Besides scaring her by their presence alone, the little monsters choose to whisper bad and hurtful words to Sally to deceive her already fragile mind. When it came to it, I found these moments more disturbing than the usual "stalk and attack" moments, and I felt you could only have those "stalk and attack" moments so many times before I stopped caring what the outcome of them was.
In terms of scariness, I was a bit let down. The beginning portions of the movie were terrifying, but as the movie went on I felt that the threat factor of these little gremlins was decreasing. Maybe it was due to their actual appearance. In the first half of the film you don't get to see much of what they look like, following the rules of Jaws where the less you see of it, the more terrifying it is.
As much as I nitpick, overall this movie was top notch, a step above films of its type that suffer from doing nothing new for its audience. The actors were all great (Guy Pearce--and here I'd been complaining that he wasn't doing much lately--Katie Holmes, Bailee Madison--great performance from someone so young) and the atmosphere was perfect, but as much as the film plays against audience expectation, it also falls into the tropes that one comes to expect from these kinds of films.
I give Don't Be Afraid of the Dark a B.
-Couple moves into house, may or may not have kids.
-emotional/mental baggage comes with being the main character.
-spooky jump scares and brief glimpses of creepy demonic things.
-creepy child drawing creepy pictures of a creepy place that acts as foreshadowing of something creepy that will creepily creep up later creep.
-one of the protagonists becomes an investigative journalist in the last half of the movie to find out what's REALLY GOING ON.
-Movie has a bittersweet ending.
This movie is in a middle ground of these kinds of films. It surprised me that the filmmakers didn't take the easy way out with its scares and set ups, but then again Guillermo had a huge hand in writing and making this movie, and he was responsible for the excellent The Devil's Backbone. Each time I thought this movie was going to do something predictable, I was surprised when that ended up not being the case.
I guess I should give a plot. A family moves into a creepy house that they are renovating for some architectural or historical society deal. The girl of the family, Sally, was given up by her mother to live with her father, who is renovating the building with his girlfriend. Soon, Sally comes across this odd heater/fire place thing in the basement of the house where she can hear voices whispering her name.
It turns out that there are strange, ancient little creatures living deep below their house in the earth that feed on children, and they've chosen Sally as their next target. Besides scaring her by their presence alone, the little monsters choose to whisper bad and hurtful words to Sally to deceive her already fragile mind. When it came to it, I found these moments more disturbing than the usual "stalk and attack" moments, and I felt you could only have those "stalk and attack" moments so many times before I stopped caring what the outcome of them was.
In terms of scariness, I was a bit let down. The beginning portions of the movie were terrifying, but as the movie went on I felt that the threat factor of these little gremlins was decreasing. Maybe it was due to their actual appearance. In the first half of the film you don't get to see much of what they look like, following the rules of Jaws where the less you see of it, the more terrifying it is.
As much as I nitpick, overall this movie was top notch, a step above films of its type that suffer from doing nothing new for its audience. The actors were all great (Guy Pearce--and here I'd been complaining that he wasn't doing much lately--Katie Holmes, Bailee Madison--great performance from someone so young) and the atmosphere was perfect, but as much as the film plays against audience expectation, it also falls into the tropes that one comes to expect from these kinds of films.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
I Am Very Angry
In an earlier post I celebrated the fact that every Friday the 13th film was on Netflix for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunately, that's not the case. I don't remember seeing two entries on there: The New Beginning (or Part V) and Jason X.
I was anticipating The New Beginning because it's possibly the most notorious Friday the 13th movie. It has the stigma of being polarizing to F13 fans, so you either love it or you hate it. Me being extremely laid back and easy going, I have no problem liking films that other people write seething fanboy hate speech for, (i.e. The Star Wars prequels and the Special Edition Star Wars Original Trilogy, not to mention the other movie, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) so I didn't think I would have a hard time watching this one. It apparently has the biggest body count in any of the Friday films, which is nice, but as per my review of Part IV, having more characters than you can have characterization for is a bad thing.
However, I didn't get a chance to watch this film because Netflix skips over it and goes on to Part VI, which I am not going to watch until I see Part V(if I watch it at all since I don't like the idea of Jason coming back to life). I don't want to spend money on a rental because in this stupid small ass town people abuse rental disks to the point that they are unwatchable, and I don't want to buy a movie that I haven't seen that could potentially suck. I also don't want to watch a poor quality online bootleg, so I'm kind of stuck until I can find a copy to borrow, or UNTIL NETFLIX GETS SMART AND PUTS THIS DAMN MOVIE BACK ON THERE WITH THE OTHERS. I mean, how could you just skip over a movie in a series like this? It would be like skipping The Dark Knight after watching Batman Begins, or Empire Strikes Back after watching Star Wars and going to Return of the Jedi.
That's why instead of watching The New Beginning, I reviewed Deep Red, and I ended up being completely frustrated with that piece of fuck. So now I am angry. I guess I should try to look for someone in this town who could possibly have a copy of this movie, because I don't want to wait for Netflix to get it. I'm still waiting for them to put The Living Daylights back on.
By the by, I don't do the whole Netflix-by-mail thing, so that's out of the question.
I was anticipating The New Beginning because it's possibly the most notorious Friday the 13th movie. It has the stigma of being polarizing to F13 fans, so you either love it or you hate it. Me being extremely laid back and easy going, I have no problem liking films that other people write seething fanboy hate speech for, (i.e. The Star Wars prequels and the Special Edition Star Wars Original Trilogy, not to mention the other movie, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) so I didn't think I would have a hard time watching this one. It apparently has the biggest body count in any of the Friday films, which is nice, but as per my review of Part IV, having more characters than you can have characterization for is a bad thing.
However, I didn't get a chance to watch this film because Netflix skips over it and goes on to Part VI, which I am not going to watch until I see Part V(if I watch it at all since I don't like the idea of Jason coming back to life). I don't want to spend money on a rental because in this stupid small ass town people abuse rental disks to the point that they are unwatchable, and I don't want to buy a movie that I haven't seen that could potentially suck. I also don't want to watch a poor quality online bootleg, so I'm kind of stuck until I can find a copy to borrow, or UNTIL NETFLIX GETS SMART AND PUTS THIS DAMN MOVIE BACK ON THERE WITH THE OTHERS. I mean, how could you just skip over a movie in a series like this? It would be like skipping The Dark Knight after watching Batman Begins, or Empire Strikes Back after watching Star Wars and going to Return of the Jedi.
That's why instead of watching The New Beginning, I reviewed Deep Red, and I ended up being completely frustrated with that piece of fuck. So now I am angry. I guess I should try to look for someone in this town who could possibly have a copy of this movie, because I don't want to wait for Netflix to get it. I'm still waiting for them to put The Living Daylights back on.
By the by, I don't do the whole Netflix-by-mail thing, so that's out of the question.
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