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Monsters – Review

reviewed by danny
directed by Gareth Edwards, 2010
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I don’t believe I have ever used the word “lyrical” to describe a giant-monster movie before now, but that was first word that popped into my head after watching Gareth Edward’s powerful, touching Science-fiction/horror film Monsters.  Monsters is the story of two travelers who, after a not-so-cute meet, find themselves allies on a hike across a dangerous landscape.  Often in horror films, the personal stories that filmmakers include seem perfunctory and get lost among the more fantastical, high-concept elements of the plot.  In Monsters, the “little” stories drive the plot.  The film explores how personal tragedy and conflict can dictate how we behave even during a large-scale disaster.

The details on what has happened on earth are sparse.  We learn that a NASA ship crashed while carrying evidence of alien life. Six years later, Northern Mexico is under quarantine because it has been “infected” by the alien life forms.  Monsters follows a photojournalist, Andrew, and an American tourist, Samantha, who, unable to book passage to the US when the army shuts down the region, decide to hike to America across the Infected Zone.  These characters, not the giant monsters are the heart of the film.

As the two characters make there way across the beautiful but ravaged landscape (Edwards experience filming natural disaster documentaries certainly shows), we learn through flashbacks about what was going on in each of their lives before they found themselves stranded in Mexico.  Their stories are common and familiar.  Being so, it would be easy for the stories to be simple character development.  Not here.  It becomes obvious that it is the alien crisis that is playing in the background as the characters work through these smaller issues.  All along, the two characters are also growing closer together.  It isn’t a film working its way inevitably to a kiss, but there is always the hope that together they can deal with the pain they each carry.

We really don’t see the aliens for most of the film.  We hear them off-screen, see parts of them during an attack, see them in the distance battling soldiers.  This delay in gratification builds a great deal of suspense.  We wait to see what the creatures are going to look like, how they are going to behave.  When our protagonists finally see the creatures up-close, the film doesn’t disappoint, but it also doesn’t give us what we might have been expecting.

It is strange.  The movie doesn’t have a big twist in the end or any real surprise plot points, but I am wary of giving many more plot details for fear of playing spoiler.  This is a film that it is best to come to fresh because it challenges so many conventions, albeit in a quiet, non-jarring way. All I feel safe saying is that the big reveal of the monsters and the final scene with our characters feature a powerful juxtaposition.  The main theme of the film is revealed in these two scenes.  I think it is that theme, not the plot, that I feel so wary of spoiling.

Lyrically paced, beautifully shot and deeply personal, Monsters is a film unlike any I have seen before.  At a time when mainstream horror is stuck in a deep, depressing rut, I am ecstatic that independent horror can come up with something so fresh and powerful.  Monsters gets my highest recommendation.

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Asylum – Review

reviewed by Danny
directed by David Ellis, 2008
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The idea that places can have memories is a powerful one.  We often hear of acts that are so awful, so unbelievable in their evil that it is easy to imagine them leaving a permanent impression on their physical surroundings.  Some great horror films have been based on this concept;  unfortunately, Asylum isn’t one of them.

Asylum is the story of Madison, a college freshman with considerable baggage.  When she was a young child, she witnessed her delusional father kill himself while battling imaginary foes.  More recently, her older brother has killed himself—at the very college she is now going to.    Those facts alone would make for a pretty rough freshman year, but then she arrives at her “dorm.”

Apparently, business is good at Richard Miller University because they have had to remodel an old mental hospital on campus and convert it into a co-ed dorm.  Well, they converted half of it.  The rest is left as is, connected only by a single door at the end of a dorm hallway.  A note: rarely in the history of film have establishing shots and interior shots looked more disconnected than they do here.  At no point did it feel like the action of the film was actually taking place in the buildings they were showing on the outside.  As a young kid, I did a short film that used the outside of our local hospital as an establishing shot and then cut to an interior shot that was just my bedroom with no attempt to make it look like a hospital room.  I got the exact same feeling watching Asylum, which is odd considering they apparently shot the film at a real university and presumably used the actual exteriors and interiors.

Back to the plot—we soon learn that bad things happened in the dorm/hospital in the past.  The doctor who was supposed to be helping troubled teens was actually mutilated and torturing them in order to “heal” them.  His spirit (though we are assured it is not a ghost at one point) still roams the building where he can “get inside” students heads and manipulate them.

Madison quickly hooks up with a bunch of students as troubled as she is, forming a perfect little group of victims for the evil doctor.  The problems exhibited by her new dorm mates read like a list of troubled-teen cliches.  Biff’s a drug addict.  Buffy’s boyfriend used to abuse her.  Brainy is so smart he is an outcast.  Rocky used to be fat and now is addicted to fitness.  Yes, I’m making those names up.  They should work as well as the real names for characters as flat, stereotypical and uninteresting as inhabit this film.

We are soon treated to a series of “dream” sequences as the evil doctor gets inside the heads of the co-eds, causing them to face their worse fears.  For entertainment’s sake, this is a good section to play a little game.  Pick a character, consider his or her psychological problem and then guess what the dream sequence will consist of.  If you are right, give yourself a cookie.  If you are wrong, you need to watch more horror films.  The only real surprise here is just how blatantly one of the scenes rips of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

As I saw how these sequences were going, I began to hope that when we got to the jerk with an eating disorder that we would get an homage to the scene with the walking pastries from Young Sherlock Holmes.  No such luck.  Just a fat mom yelling at her fat kid to clean his plate.

There are more cliches and rip offs of better movies as the film progresses and it culminates in one of the most overused cliches in all of modern horror—the releasing of the souls of the victims when the bad guy is killed.

Asylum isn’t just bad—it is depressingly so.  This is the point in the review where I usually point out a group of viewers who would like the film.  In this case, I’ll demure.  There are simply too many better options out there to make this film even worth a rental.

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Black Swan – Review

reviewed by Danny
directed by Darren Aronofsky, 2010
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For my money, the most disturbing horror sub-genre has always been body horror.  Many of the most indelible images from my thirty-plus years of consuming horror literature and film come from works of body horror.  Belial raping Duane’s love interest in Basket Case, Jeff Goldblum as the disintegrating Seth Brundle in Cronenberg’s The Fly, the “prick” test in Carpenter’s The Thing, Billy Halleck wasting away in King’s Thinner—all of these and more are perma-burned into my brain, and I haven’t even got around to watching The Human Centipede.

Black Swan, the first horror film nominated for a major Academy Award since Silence of the Lambs in 1992 (or Jaws in 1976 if you are one of “those” people) takes the abuse that ballet dancers put themselves through on a daily basis, adds to it a Poe-like protagonist whose mind is degrading alongside her body, and finishes it off with a dash of Grand Guignol moments that would make Argento proud.  It is a heady piece of work.

The film is the story of Nina Sayers, a ballerina finally getting her shot to dance the lead role in a New York ballet production of Swan Lake.  The pressures of the job and extra stress heaped upon her by an overbearing mother and a conniving dance troupe member begin to chip away at what appears to be her already tenuous grip on reality.

She starts imagining things, or are they actually happening—at first there is some question.  Lily, as the whore to Nina’s Madonna, provides the film with a worth while antagonist who may, or may not, be trying to drive Nina crazy.

As her psychosis builds, we are exposed to many horror tropes and, surprisingly, a handful of attempts at “gotcha” kind of scares.  There are some great moments throughout and I’m loathe to spoil them here, but I will say that her eventual transition into the titular black swan is simply beautiful.  There, as throughout, the make-up, physical and digital effects are top notch, as we have come to expect in Aronofsky’s films.

Effects aside, the core of the horror in Black Swan is anchored in realism.  We witness the tremendous stress and injury that goes with the day to day activity of ballet.  It is a good thing the film is rated R.  If too many young dancers got a peak at the film, it would be hard to cast all those Nutcracker mice for the coming holidays.

For some reason, the image that affected me most was a simple one late in the film.  Our protagonist, after a hard day of practice, takes off one of her pointe shoes and reveals a bruised foot and toes scrunched together like a clenched fist.  She takes off the second shoe and we get a full-on horror shot of that foot with all the toes fused into a single mass.  I’m not sure the more realistic reveal isn’t the more horrifying of the two.

There will be some argument among horror fans and critics as to whether Black Swan is really a horror film.  I’ll let them hash that out for themselves.  For me, it is a nearly perfect example of body horror, and it is the best horror film I’ve seen since Let the Right One In.

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The Rite – Review

reviewed by Danny
directed by Mikael Hafstrom, 2011
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Horror has always been the most schizophrenic of genres—at any given time both parochial and subversive.  This division is most obvious in the way horror films deal with religion, especially Christianity.  We are all well aware of the puritanical leanings of the average slasher film, with conservative values being reenforced and thinking and behavior outside the norms being punished, but equally prevalent are films that mock religious belief and present the representatives of organized religion as anything from buffoons to monsters.  Going into The Rite, I wasn’t sure which side of the hammer I was going to get pounded with, but I knew an assault was coming.  The Rite is about exorcism, and there are few film topics that highlight the religious vs. sacrilegious dichotomy of the horror genre better than exorcism, a practice that is divisive even within religious communities much less when mixed with the decidedly secular world of Hollywood.

The Rite is the story of a young, Catholic priest in training who has entered the seminary not because he has felt a particular calling but, instead, because it was what his father and late mother expected of him (though his father might have preferred he stay in the family’s mortuary business.  At the end of his years in seminary, Michael decides that he must decline the taking of vows.  The church isn’t inclined to let him go so easily.  Using the threat of commuting his scholarship to student loans (the most horrific concept in the film), his supervisor gets Michael to travel to Vatican City to be trained as an exorcist.  As a side note: nothing in Colin O’ Donoghue’s wooden performance suggests the kind of charisma or promise that everyone in the film senses in him which may be why every other character in the film feels the need to vocalize something along the lines of “I sense great potential in you.”

Up until the setting switches to Rome, it is hard to tell where Michael or the film stands.  He is having a crisis of faith, but it isn’t until we see him participating in the exorcism classes that we learn that he may be a full-blown skeptic.  He challenges the priest who teaches the seminar constantly, using rhetorical questions to suggest that there is no proof that demons are involved in the episodes that are being discussed, or that demons or even sin actually exist.  After a few such exchanges, he is sent to Father Trevant, an accomplished exorcist, in hopes that he will see things to re-affirm his faith.

What he sees isn’t enough to re-affirm our faith in Hollywood for sure.  Michael is brought in pretty quickly on an exorcism-in-progress involving a young pregnant woman.  As her story plays out, we are witness to scene after scene that are copies of similar scenes from better films (mostly The Exorcist, of course).  Does the demon knows something about the young priests past? Check.  Does the demon mock the priest? Check.  Does the demon attempt to use the body of the possessed to seduce or scandalize the priest? Check.  Head turning? Check.  Bones and ligaments popping? Check?  Speaking in Latin and other unknown to the victim languages? Check?  I could go on (and, boy, am I tempted to), but you get the point.

The only thing surprising about the film is how long it takes Michael to start believing in possession.  The young Italian girl quotes, in English, something his girlfriend has said to him the night he announced he was going to the seminary.  His explanation:  she’s probably listened to thousands of American rock songs.  This might explain her knowing some English words, but I’m not sure how it explains the stuff she actually said.  Of course, coming around to the belief that a person is possessed by an actual demon can’t be easy even for someone of great faith, much less someone whose faith is wavering.

Still, he comes around to it eventually, but not until he if forced to perform an exorcism on Father Trevant himself, now the host of the demon that once possessed the young pregnant girl.  The climatic exorcism isn’t bad;  it might even be good.  Certainly, the performance by Anthony Hopkins as Trevant is a cut above any other victim of possession in recent memory.  I’d actually have to go back to Jason Miller’s turn in The Exorcist III to think of a more effective performance.  Michael redeems himself in these scenes also, drawing on the faith instilled in him by his parents (and possibly the undeniable presence of the unholy) to get the demon to give up his name and, therefore, his power.

With the relative strength of its final scenes, The Rite ends up in a good place.  Unfortunately, getting there is a trip full of cliches, tropes, and over-used conventions.  A little originality in the way the possessions and exorcisms in the film are portrayed would have went a long way toward turning this into a film of some interest to horror fans in general and fans of religious horror films in particular.  Instead, I can’t recommend the film to any but the most diehard Anthony Hopkins fans.  His work here is worth a rental at the very least.

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The Collector – Review

reviewed by Danny
directed by Marcus Dunstan, 2009
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With a box that boasts that it is from the writers of Saw IV, V, and VI, The Collector pretty well announces who its target audience is.  I knew going in that I wasn’t likely part of that target group, but, even though “torture porn” isn’t my favorite sub-genre, I can usually get enough thrills from a well-made example to make it worth a rental (or, in this case, a used DVD purchase).  For about forty-five minutes, The Collector delivered enough of those thrills to keep me interested.  Unfortunately, things go pretty far downhill in the last half of the movie.

The Collector is primarily the story of Arkin, a locksmith, safe-cracker, and ex-con who, in a desperate attempt to help his ex-wife pay off a loan shark, accelerates a scheduled burglary.  In the first of what will become many coincidences, that night also happens to be the night that “The Collector,” a vicious killer and Rube Goldberg enthusiast, has picked to capture and torture the family that lives there.

When Arkin arrives, he finds himself trapped in a house that has been booby-trapped with the most elaborate, physics-defying, and deadly traps ever seen outside a Dungeons and Dragons adventure.  Many of the traps truly are ridiculous and require incredibly specific things to happen before they would actually work.  Still, they all work just fine, except for the one that the plot needs not to work.  That one, which at one point activates on the villain, is a simple pulley and needs only gravity and the collective pokiness of a chandelier made out of blades in order to work.  It, of course, does no damage to the bad guy.

From the first moments in the home, The Collector establishes a pretty depressing structure.  Arkin discovers a family member, tries to rescue them, and, often through no fault of his own, gets them killed in the process (via the elaborate traps).  When he heads back in to the home near the end of the movie to rescue the young girl he had bonded with over a tea party during one of the film’s two unnecessary prologues, I couldn’t help but think that she might be better off on her own.

As silly as the film is, it has its moments.  The creepy opening features a “what’s in the steamer trunk?” moment that reminded me of one of the best moments in Audition.  Arkin is played well by Josh Stewart, who shows no sign that he knows how ridiculous the film’s plot is.  The gore is vast and well-done.  I’m sure special effects guys love working on films like this.  Where else can you show off your ability to make it look like a man is chained to the wall using fish hooks?  The editing and cinematography are likewise excellent.  Still, none of these high points make up for the giant pile of absurdity that is the plot.

As silly as things eventually got in The Collector, it became impossible for me to continue to invest any real emotion in the film.  When the “surprise” ending finally came around, I could not have been less surprised or more disinterested.

So, is The Collector beneath any recommendation?  Maybe the answer is, yes.  But, I suppose the kills themselves are enough to interest those that mainly watch horror for the gore.  Also, anyone who has the ability to suspend his or her disbelief no matter how ridiculous a movie is could maybe find some interest in Arkin’s plight.  As for me, I don’t regret watching the film, but I won’t be lining up to rent the inevitable, The Collector II.

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Jennifer’s Body – Review

reviewed by Danny
directed by Karyn Kusama, 2009
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As far as basic film making goes, everything about Jennifer’s Body is done fairly well.  The writing, though a bit precious, is better than the usual low-budget horror script.  The film is well-acted, for the most part, with Amanda Seyfried and Johnny Simmons putting in particularly good performances.  Everything looks great, from the washed-out, cool color palette to the gore.  There are a handful of fun, gruesome scenes that I really enjoyed.  Still, it seems to promise a lot more than it actually delivers.

Jennifer’s Body opens with a scene of the unfortunately named Anita “Needy” Lesnicki in a psych ward.   We see her flip out, attack a nutritionist, and get placed in solitary confinement.  The film then flashes back to the events that brought her to this point.  Needy is a bookish virgin who happens to be best friends– sealed, we will later learn, in blood–with Jennifer Check, a promiscuous beauty who cruises the halls of he high school like a shark cruises the shallows.  The fact that the film was directed by a woman, Karyn Kusama, and written by another, Juno’s Diablo Cody, had me hoping that the film would dig beneath the stereotypes and provide some kind of insight into these two characters.  Sadly, that is not the case.  Other than a good deal of chewing into the guts of victims, the film never gets more than skin deep.

Fairly early in the movie, Jennifer is kidnapped by a band clearly intent on doing her harm.  I like how particularly clueless the band is (“There’s always that type of girl—they love to show it off, but they are not going to give it up”) It’s also interesting just how resigned to something bad happening Jennifer seems to be when she gets in to the band’s van after a fire in the bar has provided the needed distraction.  She looks more beaten down by life than any high school student has a right to.  When she turns up at Needy’s house in the following scene, bloodied and vomiting an evil-looking black substance onto the kitchen floor, it is clear that something bad has happened, though we don’t yet know what.

It soon becomes apparent that Jennifer isn’t herself anymore.  We see her using her feminine charms to seduce a football player who is mourning the loss of his best friend and lure him to the woods where she proceeds to eat him.

We later learn that Jennifer has been the “virgin” in a virgin sacrifice to bring the band success (guess no one just sells their soul to the Devil anymore)  In the movie’s folklore, the fact that she wasn’t actually a virgin means Jennifer’s body becomes the host to the demon for whom the sacrifice was intended.  This turns Jennifer into a kind of succubus who has to eat flesh in order to stay beautiful.

Is the film suggesting that she is just the perfected form of what she was before—a beast that chews men up and spits them out, so to speak.  I don’t know.  The film’s message seems pretty muddled. If Jennifer, pre-possession, is supposed to be the villain, why does she come off as so needy and sad during the scene at the bar.  If she is just supposed to be another victim, why not show her trying to fight the possession just a bit.  If the creature is just inhabiting Jennifer’s dead body, then nothing that happens after the sacrifice has much to say about her character at all.

Which leaves Needy.  Though a bit clueless at first, eventually Needy figures out what is going on and what needs to be done.  The final revelation about Needy does nothing to add depth to the story.  Instead, it just seems like the writer thought horror films always needed to end with a twist.  Ultimately, the film just seems kind of empty.  Well-crafted, but empty.

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