Posted by admin | 0 Comments

The Last Exorcism – Review (second opinion)

reviewed by Skot
directed by Daniel Stamm, 2010
(read Melissa’s review here)
___________________________

If you believe in God, you have to believe in the Devil.”  Or so said the reverend Cotton Marcus in Eli Roth’s new movie, The Last Exorcism.  That’s even the tagline on some of the move posters.  Actually, I think he’s got it wrong.  It should be the other way around: “if you believe in the Devil, then you must believe in God.”  And this is the point the movie ends up making.

What should we make of the movie poster with a crucifix and the words, “Believe in Him” above it?  The girl in the poster is bowing in submission, though contorted into a grotesque version of a believer paying devotion before the symbol of the Lord.  Pictures mean things.  And I’m still wondering what this one means.

Cotton Marcus is the magnetic pastor of a pentecostal-ish congregation in the deep South.  He started preaching in his dad’s church when he was 8 years old.  He’s a born performer.  Doing exorcisms has been a family ministry, passed from father to son, for generations.  However, during a family crisis, Cotton discovers that his faith is lost.  He continued the charade of his ministry, even the exorcisms, because. . . well, it’s a living.  And besides, he figured he was basically helping people.  Things change again when he learns of an episode where a child is accidentally killed during an exorcism.  This is his turning point.  Cotton decides to blow his own cover by performing one last exorcism with a documentary film crew recording his spiritual warfare sleight of hand.  The minister randomly chooses one of the frequent letters he receives from troubled souls requesting his services and off they go.

They arrive at the Sweetzer farm in poor rural Louisiana where they meet Nell, an angelically innocent girl whose father is convinced she is inhabited by the Devil.  Cotton employs his usual tricks, allowing the camera see how he does things behind the scenes.  Things get interesting when the counterfeit demon slayer comes up against something real.

To say more about the plot would be to give too much away.  The central question is whether the devil is real and, if so, what implications should this have on one’s belief in God.

When I heard that Eli Roth was producing The Last Exorcism, I expected more than I got, which is not necessarily a bad thing.  Actually, I appreciate the comparative restraint this movie exercises.  Too many occult themed movies feel the need to top the last in terms of shock and awe, leading many into the realm of the absurd.  A general rule of thumb for storytellers is to show, not to tell.  But one can show too much.  Equally important to restraint and good editing is timing.  If you must show, then do so at the exact best time to have the greatest impact.

Many people I’ve talked to say they disliked the ending.  The director definitely took a risk.  In my opinion, the ending is not entirely satisfying, but it wasn’t  a total miss.  I needed just a little bit more.  The film is good, not great.  It takes the increasingly popular found footage approach, which still works for me.

Take a little bit Rosemary’s Baby, a little bit The Exorcist, a little bit Blair Witch Project and more than a smidge of The Exorcism of Emily Rose.  Stir them on a low heat and you get this new film.  The Last Exorcism is not nearly as good as any of the above mentioned projects, but is still probably better than most occult-themed films.

Read More

Posted by Hallo | 2 Comments

The Last Exorcism – Review

reviewed by Melissa
directed by Daniel Stamm, 2010
(read Skot’s review here)
_________________________

The Last Exorcism is directed by Daniel Stamm produced be Eli Roth and stars Patrick Fabian and Ashley Bell.   It is the story of a disillusioned preacher who has decided to do a documentary showing how exorcisms can be faked.   The movie begins with Reverend Cotton Marcus being filmed for a documentary exposing exorcism hoaxes. Cotton has done over a hundred exorcisms and has decided to prove that they are a hoax after reading about a boy that was killed during an exorcism. Patrick has gathered a film crew for one last exorcism to expose how he fools people into believing he has exorcised a demon.

Cotton randomly picks a letter he has received about a girl who is possessed named Nell Sweetzer. Patrick and the crew go to the Sweetzer rural farmhouse where the sixteen year old lives with her older brother and father. Once they arrive Cotton realizes that Nell has problems. Having lost her mother to cancer she seems to be suffering psychological issues and is killing the family livestock, though she has no memory of these acts.   Cotton does a fake exorcism and then tells the family she is fine and leaves to go to a hotel for the night. Nell shows up at Cotton’s hotel room that evening in a catatonic state. Cotton and the film crew take Nell to the hospital and then back home. The next day Nell attacks her brother Caleb which prompts the return of Reverend Cotton and the film crew.

The remainder of the movie takes place with Cotton and the film crew trying to talk Nell’s father in to the fact his daughter needs counseling and her father convinced she is possessed by a demon.  While this debate is going on Nell is spiraling out of control with devastating results.

I was incredibly excited to see this movie and the first 80 minutes of it did not let me down. From the opening scene with Cotton I liked him. He was a fraud but I took to him and he made me laugh. He does seem to care about people and this is why he is out to expose exorcisms as hoaxes. He has lost his faith but through out the whole movie I was cheering for him and hoping he regained it.

I thought the cinematography was engrossing and felt like a documentary. I felt like I was watching something on the Discovery channel. The camera did an amazing job of searching out the rooms and catching a glimpse of what was going on beyond the camera lens. I would hear noises and was afraid what the camera was going to find, and there were really no cheap shocks in the entire movie. I also thought the movie built at a very good pace. I felt engrossed with the characters and I was involved with the plot. The movie kept building and building at a steady pace to the climax. That is where the movie takes a turn for the worse. The last 10 minutes of the film disgusted me as all this incredible build up was destroyed in one cheesy conclusion. I say that because I loved the film up to that point and was very involved, then they tied up the story line in 10 minutes and it was uninspired.

The movie was ruined for me with the ending but it is worth a see because Patrick Fabian and Ashley Bell do an outstanding job and the cinematography helps to propel the storyline.

Read More

Posted by admin | 2 Comments

The House of the Devil- Review

reviewed by Danny
directed by Ti West, 2009
_____________________

Ti West’s camera is smarter than his characters.  Note how, when young Samantha, desperately in need of money for a new apartment, walks past a job-postings board,  the camera stays behind and allows Samantha to move off-screen as it zooms in on the “Babysitter Needed” posting.  It is only the first sign of how sharp the camera is and of just how much dramatic irony West is going to filter this classic horror story through.  Later, the camera will show us a room full of bloody corpses that Samantha won’t find out about until it is way too late.  It is commonplace in a horror film for the audience to be at least slightly more aware of the danger than the protagonist, but in the case of The House of the Devil, we are not only aware that the characters are in a horror film, we know exactly what kind of horror film it is.  And, we know it is going to end badly.

After the creepiest hire in the history of horror films, Samantha has the job and finds herself alone in a large house while the “parents” go off to watch a rare lunar eclipse.  As aware viewers, we know that there is a significance to the lunar eclipse, we know that Tom Noonan is more than a bit creepy, and we know that the best friend that dropped her off isn’t going to be coming back to pick her up.  Samantha only comes by these realizations slowly, and the film allows her to gradually become aware of her situations, to gradually grow more and more tense, and, finally, to become afraid.  The lyrical pacing lets the viewer progress with Samantha, even though we know where the road leads.  In the end, we are frightened for her and with her.

Part of the fallout from the recent success of the “torture porn” sub-genre (Hostel, the Saw films) is that many critics and horror-film lovers are waxing nostalgic for the days when “less was more.”  It is easy to find articles and forum posts discussing how much better horror films were when they chose not to show the viewer every grisly detail.  Well, here is a film for those horror fans.  The House of the Devil is set in the 1980s, but its influences are much older.  Its subject matter is straight out of the 1970s, but its tool set is older still.  Think Val Lewton or Todd Browning or, closer to the period and subject, Rosemary’s Baby.  Up until the absolute crisis moment when Samantha is actually in the hands of those wanting to sacrifice her, West avoids slamming down the gas pedal.  The film stays on cruise control.  Sure, her friend is killed violently on-screen, but the whole scene is less than a minute long.  We see the bodies of the family that really lived in the creepy house, but only for just long enough for us to realize what we are seeing.  The rest of the time we are treated to Samantha wandering about the house, slowly noticing that things aren’t right.  Then, the killers come for her and the film explodes.

Those late scenes where Samantha is fighting for her life, showing toughness and awareness we weren’t prepared for, are gripping.  It has been a long time since I rooted for a horror-film protagonist the way I rooted for Samantha.  Her encounter with the devil/demon is agonizing mostly because we have taken the journey with her and not been pulled out by constant beheadings, slashing of Achilles’ tendons, or buckets of blood.

If the film had ended after the encounter with the devil and his cult, The House of the Devil would easily move in to my short list of must-see horror films.  It doesn’t.  There is an unsatisfying epilogue clearly inspired by the classic films that the film references throughout.  The problem is that those denouements were often the weakest part of the classic films and the same is true here.  Still, even with an ending I could have done without, The House of the Devil is the best new horror film I’ve seen since Let the Right One In, and I recommend it without hesitation to film fans looking for a more lyrical and patient horror film.

Read More

Posted by admin | 0 Comments

The Unborn – Review

reviewed by Danny
directed by David S. Goyer, 2009
_______________________

Some films wear their influences on their sleeves;  The Unborn is fairly well clothed in them.  David S. Goyer’s supernatural yarn has scenes lifted from (or, to put it nicely, inspired by) dozens of earlier, better horror films.  Still, the film has some cool horror imagery that would likely be thought highly of if it was it service of a better, more original plot.

Right from the beginning I liked the way the plot got off and running without the background drivel often seen in modern horror.  The film may well be about the sins of the father being revisited  on the son (or, in this case, it is Grandmother/Granddaughter), but The Unborn skips the exposition and gets right to the creepy bits.   Casey (played by the lovely and game Odette Yustman) is jogging along a park road when she notices a single glove in her path.  She turns to see a creepy young boy (imagine Santi from The Devil’s Backbone minus the GGI).  The boy quickly turns into a dog wearing a plain white mask.  Casey follows the dog into the woods, where she finds the mask.  When she tries to pick up the mask, she reveals a jar with a fetus in formaldehyde.  While she is staring at it, the fetus opens its eyes.  Cut.

“So what do you think the dream means?”

It is a good opening.  Stylish.  Creepy.  It establishes a tone that the film manages to hold on to… for about thirty minutes.  The stuff happening around Casey is truly creepy when we have no clue what is going on.  The scene with the young boy, the baby, and the hand mirror is particularly effective even in its brevity.  The problem with the cool imagery is that, eventually, the plot comes along and renders it cliché and overdone.

Soon, we learn that Casey had been a twin and her twin brother had died in the womb after having her umbilical cord wrapped around his neck.  That would probably have been enough, but we are also treated to Nazi experimentation, Jewish mysticism, genetic mosaicism, and a ton of references to myths and folklore.  It all becomes a mess of tropes and cliches familiar to any horror film fan.

Unfortunately, even the visual tone of the film falls apart about the same time the plot unravels.  For the last half of the film nearly every supernatural image is one we have seen before.  I’m not talking obscure movies.  The references here are to films like The Exorcist and Ringu.

By the time the film wrapped up, I had little emotional connection to the characters.  Things had simply become too absurd and unbelievable.  The set up for the exorcism itself is as unbelievable as any element I’ve seen in a horror film in years.  It seems to exist only to provide more bodies for the demon to kill in gruesome ways.  It is also nice to note that you only actually have to read the first and last paragraphs of the exorcism ritual in the presence of the demon.  All of that middle stuff is apparently filler that can be done off screen.  That is going to allow me to cut a lot of useless pages out of my “How to Survive in Horror Film Situations” compendium.

After a strong opening, The Unborn falls apart.  It wastes a good core performance from Yustman and gives the brilliant Gary Oldman nothing interesting to do or say.  Worst, it wastes an excellent opening that led me to expect a much better film than I actually ended up seeing.

Read More

Posted by admin | 0 Comments

The Fourth Kind – Review

reviewed by Skot
directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi, 2009
___________________________

The Fourth Kind is a sci-fi horror picture starring action movie princess, Milla Jovovich.  I don’t know how many reviewers would classify it as science fiction, but I do so, though with hesitation, because U.F.O. movies tend to be a sci-fi sub-genre.  The director of Fourth Kind attempts to follow the examples of The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, Quarantine, and Paranormal Activity by presenting supposed documentary on-the-scene footage.  Then Fourth takes the technique to the next level by adding in dramatized re-enactments portrayed by Hollywood stars, cutting back and forth between the documentary footage and dramatizations, even occasionally running the two side by side for certain scenes.

Milla Jovovich plays psychologist, Abigail Tyler, who is investigating a series of unexplained phenomena she hears about from a number of her patients.  Early in the film, Dr. Tyler notices that several of her patients report trouble sleeping and peculiar images in their dreams, including that of a white owl watching over them.  We’ve all had weird dreams that we couldn’t quite shake off the next day.  So it is mildly creepy to hear different people describe seeing the same detail, and an unusual one at that, in their night terrors.  (Allow me to say that I was watching this movie with my 14-year-old son who was opening an eighth grade graduation card he received at this point in the film.  The card had an owl on it.  Woooooo-oooo).  The patients are all plagued with the feeling of not being able to remember something significant that happens during their dreams.

Dr. Tyler tries using hypnosis to bring these repressed memories into the light of day.  Not good.  Bad things happen.  People die.  Could it be that some things are so terrible that the memory of them causes madness?  An incomplete memory is bliss after all.

I applaud the filmmakers for taking a risk and doing something out of the ordinary.  It’s not exactly a nail-biter but there are a few genuinely disturbing moments.

The Fourth Kind is a different kind of U.F.O. movie that has more in common with supernatural chillers like The Exorcist than it does with sci-fi adventures like Star Trek or War of the Worlds or television’s V. This movie suggests that inhabitants of Nome, Alaska, and possibly millions of other earthlings, are being visited and even abducted by other-worldly entities which may or may not have arrived in your run-of-the-mill spacecraft.  Some scenes resemble episodes of demonic possession or spiritists channeling otherwordly intelligences more than merely patients in psychoanalysis coping with painful recovered memories.  This opens the possibility that these extraterrestrials could be from another dimension or universe instead of merely a distant galaxy.  The influence of Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods and The Mothman Prophecies by John Keel can be seen.  Like a good postmodern sci-fi horror movie, The Fourth Kind delves more into metaphysics than astrophysics.

Like many examples of the horror genre, The Fourth Kind challenges the ability of reason to explain every aspect of human experience.  This movie explicitly argues the point that some phenomena, real and true, lie outside the scope of the scientific method.  Those who cling irrationally to the sufficiency of rationalism are the bad guys here.

Unfortunately, the interspersing of documentary style footage in and around the dramatized parts of the movie failed.  It didn’t make the movie scarier.  It was just distracting at first, but became annoying later on.  The filmmakers should have been forced to make a decision.  Either go the Blair Witch route entirely or scrap that technique altogether and just give the audience a solid dramatization.  It’s possible to have too much of a good thing.  And what works in one scenario, one project, in the hands of certain artists, might not work elsewhere.

I don’t usually use a star system to rank movies, but for this I’d give it a 2.5 out of 5.  Now, if Milla Jovovich had gone all Jack Bauer on the aliens, that might’ve been worth the full five stars.

Read More

Posted by admin | 2 Comments

The Changeling – Review

reviewed by Danny
directed by Peter Medak, 1980
____________________

One of my earliest horror-related memories was being scared witless by my first viewing of Friedkin’s The Exorcist.  I had been forbidden to watch it by my parents and had to turn the channel on the television anytime I heard footsteps approaching my room (no remote control for me, so I was sitting within arm’s length of the television at all times).  The fear of getting caught mixed with the frightening images on screen left me exhausted but intoxicated by the time the film ended.  This experience made me a fan of the genre for life.  Unfortunately, after years of exposure to and analysis of the genre, it is rare that I find a new horror film frightening.  For that reason, I value those films that scared me back in the day and, more so, the films that creep me out even after repeated viewing.  Peter Medak’s The Changeling is certainly one of those.

The Changeling stars George C. Scott as John Russell, a composer and music professor who has the awful experience of watching his wife and daughter die in a traffic accident.  After a period of mourning, he moves to a new town and begins teaching again.  He soon moves into a large mansion with, we find out later, a mysterious history.   As is pretty traditional in the sub-genre, Russell hears strange noises, sees things in his peripheral vision, and is generally made uncomfortable in his new surroundings.  Eventually, Russell begins to piece together the history of the house.  As you might expect, it is dark and violent.

The Changeling contains many elements that are now standard in the haunted house movie.  Most of them were well-used in the early years of the genre.  We get a séance, see spirit writing, hear mysterious voices that have been recorded on tape but weren’t heard live.  A walled off room is discovered that reveals a dark secret.  Thematically, the sins of a father are re-visited on a son.  None of this is particularly original.  In fact, it is all to be expected in such a film.  The Changeling stands out because of its craftsmanship, its sincerity, and the weight imparted on the events by Scott’s central performance.

Despite the familiar nature of the plot, many of the elements feel fresh and new because of how well they are shot.  The séance that is arranged after Russell begins to believe something supernatural is going on is one of the best ever filmed.  It is supernatural through and through yet somehow very believable.  This quality is seen in nearly every supernatural moment.  There are some great special effects later in the film, but mostly everything is pulled off with simple camera trickery which never comes off as cheesy.

At no point watching The Changeling do we feel the events are anything but real.  The sadness at the heart of the Russell character colors how we see the events.  Clearly still troubled by his loss, he easily could have been one of Poe’s unreliable narrators.  Instead, he is just the opposite.  We believe the events of the story because Russell believes them.

And that belief is so important in a horror film.  By their nature, they can’t be “realistic” in the literary sense, but they must feel real.  The Changeling does and I think that is the core reason I have always found it so scary.

In the end, what we find scary is such a personal concept that I can’t guarantee The Changeling will have the same effect on other viewers as it did on me.  I can guarantee that they will see an amazing central performance and an extremely well-made film.

(Note:  I couldn’t find many details about the films U.S. Theatrical run, so I’m not sure how much of an impact it had here.  However, the film is one of the most successful Canadian films of all time, in terms of both box office and critical acclaim.  The film was nominated for ten Genie awards (basically the Canadian Oscars) and one eight, including Best Motion Picture and Best Foreign Actor– for George C. Scott).

Read More