Day 120: The Others

The Others is probably one of my favorite horror movies I have only seen once or twice. It is one of those that is fun to show to other people (if they don't know the twist). One of my pet peeves with haunted house movies is, how do you make ghosts dangerous? If they can just look scary or make noises, there isn't much to them. If they can interact with the environment and even touch people, it makes them much scarier. The Others handles this one in a pretty great way.

I'm going to try to talk around the big twist so that anyone who hasn't seen this can still enjoy it. Nicole Kidman stars as a wife and mother who lives in England in the aftermath of World War 2. She is raising two creepy children who are photosensitive and can never be exposed to sunlight. Her husband has gone off to war and hasn't come back yet (things are looking grim). With a small staff in the house, she tries to keep her shit together when it becomes clear they are no longer alone in their home. Like other movies that figure out ways to raise the ghost stakes (like Below), the child endangerment factor means that the others don't have to punch or claw the children, they can just open a shade and it is potentially deadly. As the movie winds its way towards a cool payoff, we get lots of classic ghost story moments...pianos playing by themselves, doors slamming, footsteps...and it creates a perfect mood of tension.

If you like haunted house movies and haven't seen this, you are missing out for sure. I would highly recommend The Others for horror buffs, in general. If nothing else, it changed the discussion of what a haunted house movie could be.

Day 119: It Follows

Finally saw this highly recommended horror movie from...2014? I thought it was more recent than that. Oh well. The short answer is: I liked it.

The plot follows a pretty college girl as she catches a sexually transmitted ghost from a guy she is dating. The rules are like the Ring if the ring was an STD. Once you have sex with someone who is infected, a ghost starts walking towards you from an unknown location. Whenever you move, it reorients to you but always moves pretty damn slowly. So, you can drive for a few hours and that will give you a couple of days to relax. If the ghost catches up with you, it looks like it humps you to death (possibly bending your body in unnatural ways while doing so). If the ghost gets you, it moves back to the last person who caught it and so on. The only way out is to pass it on and then hope the ghost never catches the person you passed it on to.

Obviously, the metaphor for STDs is strong here with no one ever really looking like they use a condom. The movie gets a little into gender politics (the pretty girl is constantly ogled and lusted after, even by her friends). There is also the drama of the unrequited love where one guys feels rejected that she didn't choose him to pass the curse onto.

The kids try to get proactive in this and figure out a way to stop the ghosts but they do so in the dumbest possible ways. For example, when the main girl passes on the curse, she gives it to a guy who lives across the street from her. So, if and when something happens to him, the ghost is just that much closer to turning around and getting her.

The ending is nice and creepy. The movie moves at a fairly strong pace. The chase becomes very fun and provides strong thrills. I would give this a B+, only marred by the idiocy of the characters.

Day 118: Frailty

I just read that Bill Paxton, one of my favorite actors, died this weekend. I am postponing my random topic in favor of discussing Paxton's directorial effort, Frailty. This is one latter day classic, in my opinion.

Matthew McConaughey plays a man who has come to a police station to confess the crimes committed by his father, played by Paxton. Through a series of flashbacks we get the story of Paxton's patriarch, who sees demons everywhere and trains his sons to kill them. Of course, the horror of the movie is that these demons might all be in his head and he is killing innocent people. Most of the running time is spent in the flashback section as the boys learn to demon hunt from their father. However, by the end, some intense stuff happens in the frame story that I don't want to give away.

Expertly acted and directed, this movie takes a sideways glance at religious fanaticism. It delves into what it means to be a believer and how actions mean more than words when it comes to belief. The horror stays horrifying (all the murders are done by ax) and the dramatic turmoil of the disbelieving younger brother is well-portrayed.

If you like horror with a little something on its mind (but that doesn't get too preachy about it), check out Frailty.

Day 117: Dark was the Night

This is, finally, the last of the horror movies I watched last weekend. Kevin Durand (who I mainly know as Keamy from Lost) stars in this horror movie with very similar themes to The Hallow. Durand and Lucas Haas are the only two cops in a small town. When a logging operation drives out an ancient creature (like a Wendigo), it begins feeding on pets (including horses) in Durand's town.

The sheriff has to deal with his family being broken apart because of the accidental death of his oldest son, so there is lots of drama in between moments of finding giant hoof prints on the ground and claw marks on the trees. When the creature finally starts killing people we get the showdown inside a locked up church during a blizzard where the entire town has come for safety.

This is a fine little flick. Durand can handle heavier acting than I think he gets credit for. Haas brings some humanity to the whole thing and the rest of the town is populated by various cranks, idiots and assholes. I won't spoil the ending twist but I did have a question running through my mind for the entire movie they finally answer in the last five seconds.

All in all, a solid C+ maybe even B- for the attempts at gravitas. No, no...C+ is the most I can go. Not a bad way to spend a few hours but not essential.

Day 116: Tusk

Oh, boy. Let me start by saying how much I used to love Kevin Smith. His first five movies are some of my favorites. Jersey Girl wasn't as bad as people remember and Clerks 2 is right up there with his classics in my book. I am thinking that it was when he started smoking weed that I lost interest in his writing. Cop Out was pretty damn bad. Red State, which starts strong, ends in the weakest possible way (rule number one: show, don't tell). So, I'm not surprised I kind of hated Tusk but I am saddened.

Justin Long stars as an asshole podcaster who travels to Canada to make fun of a kid who made a viral video. When that falls through, he looks for anyone he can interview and runs into Michael Parks as Howard Howe. Before you can say "Misery", Long is captured by Parks and slowly transformed into a Walrus through crude surgery. The second half of the movie is Haley Joel Osment and Long's girlfriend teaming up with a never-less-funny Johnny Depp wearing a fake nose and chewing on a Montreal accent.

I would say there are no likable characters in this movie but that would require most of them to be characters and not just one-dimensional sketches. Long is shown in flashbacks being a sonofabitch to his girlfriend and using his podcast to mock others. Depp is ineffective and boorish. Osment isn't even allowed to speak most of the time. The only actor used to good effect is Michael Parks (except for an unfortunate scene where he plays a mentally challenged man). He alone brings the gravitas that would be needed to sell this movie as either a horror or a comedy. Unfortunately, he is stranded on screen and the film fails to become either.

I don't know if Smith will ever return to form (he is still very funny and charming in his talks, so I have hope) but I can say, don't waste your time with this.

Day 115: Rigor Mortis

This Hong Kong horror is, apparently, an homage to the Mr. Vampire series of films that I have never seen. The star of those films moves into a run-down apartment block where he immediately tries to kill himself. He is taken over by the spirits of twin dead girls and swiftly exorcised by a retired vampire hunter who runs a noodle bar. Look, I am making this sound kind of awesome when it is, in fact, only average.

After the botched suicide, the second act is pretty slow as all pieces are put in place for a black magic artist to create a vampire that the twin girls can possess. I will say, I was happy with some choices they made in terms of who survives this building up period. A character that would never be harmed in a U.S. movie gets obliterated here. We get the backstory of the dead girls and the origin of the vampire as the suicidal guy befriends the vampire hunter and others in the apartments.

The final third is pretty fun as the main character does battle with the possessed vampire. A weird coda ends the movie on a weirdly hopeful but still dark as hell note. This is pretty much a downer all the way around. If you like high-concept, foreign horror, check this out. Otherwise, I would say watch Attack the Block instead. Oh, I will say the film looks pretty damn cool.

Day 114: The Mummy (1959)

This was another Hammer production by the usual crew: Terence Fischer directing, Jimmy Sangster writing, Peter Cushing as the hero and Christopher Lee as the monster. This is almost a 28 Days Later version of a Mummy in that he moves quickly and is strong as hell but is still wrapped in bandages. Gone are the foot-dragging days of old, in this production, the mummy came with his A game.

The plot is pretty much the same as other mummy movies. Some white archaeologists disturb an ancient tomb and are cursed for it. There are extensive flashbacks to the period when everyone in the tomb was still alive and the set design on these scenes is on point. Cushing plays the son of an archaeologist who disturbs Princess Ananka and her guardian mummy. After the tomb is thoroughly looted (and Cushing's dad is left a gibbering idiot after a tame run-in with the mummy), the human guardian of the temple promises to re-unearth it and release the mummy on the trespassers. The action then moves to the UK where the human guardian has moved into the same neighborhood as Cushing and is dispatching the mummy nightly to kill a different member of the dig.

Despite Cushing looking too old for his part, he plays the hero pretty well. His wife (being a dead-ringer for Ananka) and some local cops get involved, with the mummy proving himself vulnerable to a pretty face. This moves much faster than Hammer's 1958 Revenge of Frankenstein and even spawned some sequels itself. Besides the magical powers of the mummy in the Brendan Fraser movie, this one is the most dangerous I have seen. Once again, Lee does some great emoting with his face covered in make-up.

Well worth a watch if you dig mummy movies. Just remember, even a faster paced 50s movie is still kind of slow by today's standards.