I'm unsure whether I appreciate it or hate it when remakes copy EXACT SCENES

The Crazies, however, was a pleasant surprise to me.  I must admit, I had a little more hope for this remake than most.  Something about Romero‘s over-the-top-ness can translate well into a remake (a la Dawn of the Dead, which, while in no way superior to the original, is very satisfying), as long as the new director doesn’t completely lose the spirit of Romero’s original.  Also, there is something to be said for improvements in special effects and make-up – it can do a lot for horror if it isn’t super overdone and ridiculous (or…in the case of people like Sam Raimi, BECAUSE it’s super overdone and ridiculous).

The scene where pitchforks went from stereotypically demonic to scary as hell

Given that, The Crazies was pretty satisfying.  I felt like it made up for some of what was lacking in the original.  Mainly the scare factor.  Not saying that the original wasn’t scary – it was, in that cerebral, creep the hell out of me, “the government will destroy us all out of sheer stupidity” sort of way.  But in terms of actual jump moments or simple scares, it was somewhat lacking.  The new version, however, has some really great moments, and some surprising ones at that.  Ok, I have to admit, seeing a guy dragging a pitchfork through a room and randomly stabbing people did not seem like it’d be that creepy to me (watch the trailer, if you want an idea what I’m on about).  However, the way the scene was shot and executed sent some major chills down my spine.   Ditto for a scene in a car wash.  I mean, it’s a freaking car wash.  But, now I’m unsure if I’ll ever feel quite comfortable driving through a car wash again (which sucks, because I actually find those things REALLY entertaining).  The film was just very good at making sort of over the top, ridiculous death scenes still rather frightening, which is admittedly hard to do.  So kudos on that.

Pajamas: the new hip look for the zombie/evil virus apocalypse.

Here’s where I get to the parts where I’m torn about the film or just downright upset.  On the one hand, it was sort of nice to have some of the ridiculous governmental mumbo jumbo cut out of the film and spend a bit more time with our protagonists getting scared in car washes and such.  On the other hand, the film went *too* far in the other direction.  The government was almost a non-entity, a plot point.  I mean, yes, it was there.  There were military guys and they shot people.  But they weren’t really all that scary.  Compared to how deeply unnerving the government is in the original, they were pussycats.  Sort of random mindless drones – we even got a nice neat scene where we talked to said drone and he assured us that he was, indeed, just a drone following orders.  The fact that the disease was caused by the government was touched on for all of about 3 minutes and then dropped immediately.  I’m not saying that Romero’s over-talking is necessarily the way to do it but…it’s supposed to be a movie about how fucked up the government is by accidentally poisoning Americans and then killing them.  By the end, when the supposed big, OMG ending happened by nuking the town, I almost didn’t care.  Like, yes, it’s a scary concept to have the government drop a nuke on an American town but…I was so not focused on that element of the film by that point that I was sort of like “wow, that sucks…so is there a zombiecrazy hiding in the back of the car or anything?”  Which isn’t right.  I would have liked that ending IF we’d actually had a reason to be scared of the government by that point.  It’s supposed to be a conspiracy theorist horror not a zombie film.

Oh wait, let me reiterate this:

YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A ZOMBIE

Ok, I get it.  I really do.  Zombies are kind of hot right now – not as hot as vampires, but that might have to do with the whole looking disgusting and eating brains thing.  And we have all these fancy new fangled make-up techniques which is all shiny and exciting.  But there should be no zombies in this film, only people getting sick.  The man you see above you is not sick…he’s getting zombified as hell.  I mean, at least the story didn’t change to the point where if the crazies were ACTUALLY zombies, and if they were shot anywhere but their head they popped back up and started charging.  But still…tone it down a bit.  They’re sick, not dead.  I don’t even know what kind of virus would suddenly consume half your ear and make your eyes turn yellow.  And the veins are just a bit much.  I don’t have a picture of it (sorry!) but when good ol’ deputy Russell started getting crazy, his uber pale skin and sunken eyes were much more representative of what the crazies *should* have looked like.

I want BRAINS...oh wait, I mean, MEDICINE!

On a similar note,  why did all the crazies in this new film have to be homicidal?  If you’ll remember, I sort of wished Romero had put a larger variety of crazy into his film.  Well, in this one, the only variety was one shot of a woman creepily riding her bike through the deserted city (which was in the previews) and someone laughing.  The end.  While, yes, it makes it scarier to be running away from mindless murderers, we’re getting closer to zombies again.  It’s much more unsettling and innovative to have a multitude of types of crazy.  Otherwise, I’m starting to fail to see the difference between “virus” and “undead”.

I am bashing a bit, but I’m not meaning to say I didn’t like the film.  I really did.  And I would very much recommend it.  It was fun.  It kept my interest, made me jump a few times, and had some very innovative ideas and moments.  Again, I kind of wish I could blend some of the scarier elements and focus on the sheer fear of the protagonists into Romero’s film (it could replace those scenes with the ridiculous stock footage).  But, I just missed some of the cerebral content that Romero’s film have.  This felt almost too generic – good, but like a good generic zombie film as opposed to an interesting horror commentary on government.  So, definitely, go see it.  But, if you can only see one version (or only want to), see Romero’s 1973 – overall, more satisfying, in my opinion.

Interestingly enough, this hairdo *isn't* due to him going crazy

That’s right, folks; Romero didn’t make only zombie films.  And that new movie in the theatre is another remake and it’s not about zombies, in either the Romero-esque sense of the walking undead or the Haitian legend sense of the mind-controlled slaves (note: I did see the remake…that review will come later).  The Crazies is about people who are, surprise surprise, going crazy from a chemical warfare agent that has leaked into the population.  Let me reiterate – NOT ZOMBIES – these folks are alive and then when they cease to be alive, they stay not alive.

Was this Romero’s best work?  Nah, not by a long shot.  It got a bit over the top and overstated, even for Romero.  At times, the long ventures we spent with the military got a bit monotonous and, at times, downright silly (although, there was a bad-horror-lovin’ part of me that was thrilled by the random insertion of Dr. Strangelove-esque stock footage of nuclear weapons and people yelling in a war room).

I also wished there was a bit more examination of what was going on with this actual virus/weapon that was so terrifying and awful.  Besides one guy burning down his house, which was admittedly unnerving, and another guy going all Cheney gun-happy (which, honestly, could’ve just been how the character was normally by the way he was portrayed), there wasn’t much in terms of crazy people straight-up scares.  In terms of other crazy examples, surprisingly, Romero didn’t just have people going psycho murderer crazy – he had a nice array of people going different, and equally upsetting, kinds of nuts.  The girl who’s toted around the entire time giggling and acting, basically, like she’s stoned out of  her ever-loving mind was in a lot of ways as creepy as the people who were getting all homicidal.  Given how the few bits of crazy we got were effective, I would have liked to see more of how the infection reacted differently in different people…and just…more of the crazies themselves.

Talk about going postal! (give me a break, my mind's on weekend time already )

On the other hand, I liked, really liked, that it was mostly about how terrifying the government is.  Sure, people going crazy are scary, but the story behind the government accidentally poisoning a whole town with a terrifying biological weapon and deciding that just mass murdering thousands of Americans is the only solution is great to me.  And, even with being sometimes *too* over the top, I liked how Romero played it.  Shots like the above one, where a guy in a mask and a gun stands in front of a government building, innocuous as it may seem in daily life, are pure gold to me.

It's like Duck Hunt, except without the cheeky dog...oh, and with killing people

Not to mention the random killings – while I don’t actually believe that everyone in the US military would be ok with just murdering their compatriots, there’s something deeply unsettling about unnamed, unseen, and largely voiceless militia characters shooting up a town.  The mask thing may be getting old, but not seeing people’s faces, thus making them mindless drones, also goes a long way in the creep-out factor.

I often mistake scientists for maniacs too...it's nothing to be ashamed of

I also loved how the government seemed to not care at all about actually curing the people – they send one guy to look into a cure for the virus, don’t get him any equipment except some high school microscopes, and basically hinder him at every turn.  In the meantime, el genius scientist somehow finds a cure with the craptastic high school equipment, only to be mistaken for a “crazy” and pushed into the cattle call of infection…and thus, presumably killed/  So the only hope in the film is destroyed because the government wouldn’t let him make a phone call without jumping through about fifty hoops – fantastic. The fact that the scientist is never brought up again, like everyone else totally forgot about the option of finding a cure, is the sort of creeping horror that I love – to me, that was the delicious moment of realization that this “organized” martial law is actually just as chaotic and insane as the people losing their marbles.

Now, I realize (especially given that the person I watched the film with had a completely different reaction than me) that Romero’s overblown style is not for everyone.  But, if you’re ok with things being blatant to the point of ridiculous and you like government-is-evil-and-horrifying type films, this is really a very good film and a lot of fun.  If you plan on seeing the new Crazies, I very strongly recommend it as well.  Personally, I liked Romero’s better – but the two are just really interesting to see side by side.  I kind of wish I could take the two films and squish them together, because they seem to be lacking in completely opposite elements.

But more on that in the next review

I'm too emo to like acting...or Oscars...or smiling...

First off, I know that there are 13-year-old girls everywhere who went crazy over seeing those two, even though Kristin Stewart still looked and sounded like she’d recently had a lobotomy, but could a sistah get some Wes Craven up in this joint?  Or how about bringing out Jackie Earl Haley and Robert Englund together? That would be timely and make all of us horror fans drool slightly.  Or maybe the director/cast of Paranormal Activity, a film that in this past year did amazing things within the realm of low-budget horror and honestly should have been nominated for sound editing, in my opinion?  Or, really, how about just anyone who actually has ANYTHING to do with horror films?   Because, again, no matter how much you think sparkly vampires staring chastely at each other is horror, it just fucking isn’t.

So, strike one, Academy.  But, ok, that’s fine, you need to give the screaming girls what they want, and that is Team Jacob.  Let’s move on to the montage.  It was…meh.  Seriously meh.  The whole thing just felt like it was made by people who don’t know horror – the only movies featured were the most stereotypical/popular/hollywood (which is not always best – sometimes, but not always) films.  It was like Horror for Dummies or Disney’s “It’s a horror world afterall”.  There were about 10 Nightmare on Elm Street clips, which, while I love the movie, seems a bit overkill, especially when one of them is obviously just there because “oh wait! that’s a young Johnny Depp”.

Be glad he got better hair and some acting lessons and move along.

Yes, folks, he was in the original Nightmare; he was scrawny, dorky, and pretty much sucked at acting.   There was very little time devoted to any classic horrors, except for about 20 seconds where they very quickly flashed through the classic movie monsters as if to say “oh, yeah, and this genre has been around for a while!”  Then there was the random addition of crappy recent films that have famous people (Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was a travesty and the same can be said for Sleepy Hollow), and films that, as much as they’re popular, famous films, seriously aren’t horror films (a la Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, and Twilight…and, honestly, I’ve always felt a bit weird about calling Sixth Sense horror…yes, he sees dead people and the girl puking in the tent is a good jump moment, but it’s really just more of a thrilling mystery).   Not to mention the fact that horror is kind of known for awesome music and they insisted on just playing different parts of Psycho, mixed with a little Halloween and then some Young Frankenstein…which is, oh wait, NOT A HORROR FILM.  It’s a fucking spoof of a horror film.  Please – PLEASE – just because a film has a word or character who relates to a horror trope does NOT mean that it will be a horror film.

The tree rape in the first Evil Dead is still the best scene but...this will do

SOOO much seemed to be missing.  What about (as much as I really do hate him) some Cronenburg or how about Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive? Remember him?  He did all those hobbit movies…he also started by making a deliciously gory and hilarious horror film.  Look it up.  Where were the zombies?  Really?  I don’t recall seeing a single zombie. Seriously, ever hear of George Romero?  28 Days Later?  Or, better, 2009′s amazingly awesome zombie-nazi-horror-com, Dead Snow?   Or actually, featuring any of 2009′s horror films (as I think it was frankly a pretty good year for horror) besides one clip of Paranormal Activity?  Or how about anything that makes the genre look like the incredibly diverse, in-depth, influential, culturally relevant genre it is instead of a collection of people in scary make-up and blood?

And, frankly, in the end, it was insulting.  It basically felt like it was supposed to placate fans of genre films.  Like “ooo, look, see we’ll give you a shiny montage once every 30 years to acknowledge that you exist and then we don’t have to actually consider you an artistically worthy genre! YAY!”  It seemed patronizing and…genre-ist?  I don’t really know how else to put it.  But, seriously, Academy – you’re going to go ahead and nominate 10 films for best picture.  But instead of looking at that as an opportunity to honor films of different genres, such as horror, science fiction, and comedy (wtf, by the way, on no nod for Star Trek or The Hangover), why don’t you just go ahead and nominate double the “oscar-type” dramas and just throw a shoddily put together montage our way?

Silence of the Lambs is the only true horror to win an Oscar for Best Picture (1940's Rebecca and 2007's No Country for Old Men being the two winners which are really thrillers that somewhat touch on the genre of horror)

It’s stupid.  Seriously, it’s stupid.  Movies other than dramas can be great movies – they can be movies that speak to our generation, have great acting, are well written, and are impactful.  Just because Sandra Bullock played a benevolent white woman who saves the poor black boy doesn’t mean that the film deserves an Oscar.  How about this?  Save that extra 5 minutes of your show to let the poor team of make up artists all get to say a few words in the biggest moment of their lives, and actually look at all movies as equal instead of discriminating against some of the most popular and well executed movies of the year just because they’re not what you in your snobbery consider “elite.”  Did you know that when the novel first came into existence, it was viewed as vulgar and low-class?  If that sort of discrimination had been allowed to persist, we would have never gotten to see Precious because that book would have probably never been written.  Think about it.

So next time, save your montage, watch some genre films, and use the expansion of the best picture category to honor a more diverse group of films.  Who knows, you might actually find that even low-class genres like horror can be more intelligently written than Avatar (because, seriously, that script blew harder than Old Faithful).

**I don’t know how long this link will be up, considering I’m sure that they’re rapidly being hunted down and killed, but if you missed it, here’s the montage (although low quality)

Ohhh so THIS is what grocery shopping in Hell is like...

Why, you may ask?  Was the trailer really that good?  Answer: um…maybe?  Ok, on the one hand, there are some really freaking awesome looking scenes.  Some of the dream sequences look like they could do exactly what a reimagining of this film SHOULD do – take the whole concept of real nightmares and use all the glory of special effects we have to make it look sweet.  Note – THIS DOES NOT MEAN EXTRA GORE.  It means scenes like the one above where the reality of the grocery store flickers into the unreality of Krueger’s world.  And while the original Nightmare wasn’t afraid of blood, this looks like it’s not trying to out-bloody – its predicessor…which I’m good with.

Mom told you to close the window when it snows for a reason.

Plus, it makes me believe they’re going to focus mostly on what’s great about the Nightmare concept – dreams that can kill you are scary as anything.  We’re supposed to be safe from nightmares – that’s the whole point.  Your brain can work out fears without them actually hurting you.  So, when they hurt you, you’re effed.  The fact that the trailer seems more interested in the bizarre dream sequences and how much that scares the main characters gives me hope for this film.

On a side note which I don’t have a ton to comment on, I’m intrigued to see Jackie Earle Haley’s performance.  I think he could do a good job.  So…he’s a big plus to me.

Still…I’m not entirely hopeful.  I’m sorry, I still think the makeup for Freddy is utter shit. 

What the crap is that.  Seriously.  It looks like amateur night at sculpting school – some crappy clay representation of what a face might look like.  PLUS – it seems to keep changing from scene to scene.  Here, he looks all melty clay man/Voldemort’s acne scarred cousin, and HERE he looks like he has a giant freaking crater in his face.  Where did all that scarring come from?  Is he still burning?  Like is he just going to get consistently more burned throughout the film until he’s a black lump of coal?  I may be totally on the unpopular side of things here but I just really hate this look.  I think the old Freddy, even with the less refined shooting/makeup/world of film was a hundred times more intriguing and scary.  PLUS more iconic and memorable.  To me, this is very blase and forgettable make up – one of the coolest things to me about Freddy is that after seeing that film, he WAS in your dreams, because a mug like that is just easy to erase from your mind.

I am SERIOUSLY hoping this is part of one of the dreams, because otherwise we're dipping into "He's been around forever"-IT territory that we just don't need to go into.

Issue number two: Back story.  I’ve read a couple of recent interviews with Haley and he’s all amped about how they’re going more into Krueger’s back story and what makes him tick…because it’s scarier…I feel like I’ve ranted against this same thing about 500 million times, but, you know what, I’m going to do it again.  Fears are irrational – thus rationalizing your scary ass characters MAKES THEM LESS SCARY.  I don’t want to know what it felt like for Freddy to burn alive and why he took his murder and decided to start haunting people’s dreams.  I like it better that I don’t – that he’s some fucked up former pedo burn victim who likes cutting women to ribbons in gory and fantastic ways.  I don’t want to know who he is, why he is, or even where the fuck he is.  I just want him to be…I want to know HE IS.  That’s it.  Period. Close the book.  I mean, sure, I’m always open to the idea that someone somewhere can prove me wrong, but I have yet to find a film, book, or story where finding out more about our scary monster villain makes him scarier.  Perhaps this will be the one film that changes my mind.  I’m gonna go ahead and bet it isn’t.  Thus, I’m still calling major skepticism on this film being as good as I hope it is.  I just can’t understand the focus on back story…blech…

Watch the trailer, see what you think, feel free to comment.  I’m hoping that the fears I have about this movie are unfounded because, seriously, the way they’re using new effects and technology to make the dreams looks like it could just completely blow me out of the water – I would LOVE for this to be one of those remakes that I go “wow, ok, totally did right by remaking this”.  But, I guess we’ll just have to wait until April to see if that happens.  Until then, can we please make Freddy look less like Voldemort?  Pretty please??

Oldboy: one of the greatest fight scenes ever...for reals

Anyway, for those who don’t know, Thirst was directed by Chan-wook Park, who also directed Oldboy, which is one of the cooler films I’d seen in quite some time.  Incredibly, painfully overwritten at the end, but the first two hours are fairly awesome.  If you’ll allow me a moment to digress: if you don’t mind gore (because there is a fair bit of graphic gore), it’s definitely worth a watch.  Not really horror – more of an action/thriller/mystery, but very well done until the end, which isn’t terrible, just overwritten to DEATH.  Anyway, given my adoration of Oldboy, it only seemed logical that I would seek to see a film in my genre of love by a writer/director I admire.  Unfortunately, the verdict? Meh.

As if Catholic priests didn't get enough criticism, now they have to deal with vampires in their ranks

Basic plot-wise, Thirst is awesome.  I am so happy that there are still people who understand, at least on some level, the roots of the vampire myth – it’s all about sex and sin, people! Not emoness and brooding.  The concept of having a Catholic priest infected with vampirism through a blood transfusion he gets while participating in a study to cure a deadly disease is AWESOME.  And, frankly, that aspect was handled very well.  Sang-hyeon’s struggle with his desire to live, his newfound blood and sexual lusts, as well as his feelings of remorse and guilt were very nicely handled by both the writer and the actor .

Loving embrace? I think not...

Much like Oldboy, the film was also very visually spectacular – another great example of how horror, even at its bloodiest, can be very beautiful as well.  Hats off to whoever decided that painting the entire apartment white and lining it with fluorescent lights would be deliciously incongruous and eerie,  because seriously, creep factor went up about tenfold when that happened.

But from there, things sort of go sour.  Not like super, “wow, this sucks” sour, but just…meh.  First, I would have liked to see some basic issues delved into more – there was no mention of holy water or crosses being a problem, as Sang-hyeon kept right on preaching for some time.  I would think that, for a priest, that whole needing to avoid crosses might be an issue.  I also would have probably appreciated a bit more thought being put into some of his character turns (like, if anyone has seen this, why he had to murder the old, blind priest?  I think I have some theories but that was sort of muddled to me).  I think also, given the nature of the lover/sire relationship which Sang-hyeon was to Tae-ju, the orphan with obvious abandonment and parent issues, the whole fucked up father/sire thing could have been played out a bit more…especially knowing that Park isn’t afraid of dealing with fucked up incest stories.

Actually, come to think of it, the whole Tae-ju going from fucked up woman with crappy family to sex bunny to wanting mom’s approval to psychopath was just a bit…unexplained.  In each of her shifts, it seemed to come out of no where.  While some shock value is good, it almost felt like her character was a bunch of different people thrown together.  I wasn’t sure if she was losing her mind, had always been nuts, or was affected by the vampirism to be that way?  While her character was very compelling at points, it was too all over the place to be truly interesting.  She just hopped around between too many personas a bit too much.

Then, the story just dragged.  Like SERIOUSLY dragged.  I’m somewhat ADD when it comes to movies.  I like to do things as I watch things – play a rubix cube, check email, play with my kitten – my hands don’t like being idle.  One way I can tell I’m really into a film is if I’m not tempted to check what time it is.  I wanted to freaking stare at a clock for half of Thirst.  It just went SO slowly and kind of all over the place.  It felt like maybe Park had too many ideas, didn’t know which one to follow, so he sort of just threw them all together.  Without many of them getting resolved, it just lead to a movie that could have been edited down by about 10 scenes, if not more.  By the time I got to the end, I was more than ready for it to do so, which is sad because the ending was really well done actually (I love horror scenes in dawn/daylight…I also love when vampires actually burn alive when the sun hits them…it’s the little things).  But, by that point, I kinda just wanted it to be over so I could get on with cooking dinner.

So, recommendation?  Meh…I mean, it does have some interesting elements to it.  The overall concept is sort of worth a watch as is the prettiness/artsiness of it.  But I kind of don’t want to recommend it because it is slow and it does drag and I don’t want you to spend 2.5 hours of your life and then go “eh”.  So, judge for yourself.  Or, perhaps better, go watch Oldboy and if you like it, especially visually, consider giving this one a gander.

That being said, I loved this film.  I’ll admit that I’m a bad little English major and have not read The Turn of the Screw, but considering that I almost always find written versions better than film versions, I have to get on that.  The Innocents is creepy, compelling, and disturbing.  It is a slow burn in the extreme.  If you were to ask what happened in this film, I could give it to you in just a few words: new governess sees ghosts, thinks her charges are possessed, ends up killing one of them.  That’s really about it.  The incidental moments are not big huge things – there’s a sighting of a ghost by the lake, a weird recital of a poem by the little boy, and the overall creepiness of the kids in general.

That's not creepy...

Nope...not at all...

What I love love LOVE about this film though is its masterful play off of ghosts vs. insanity.  On the one hand, the kids are creepy as fuck and seriously off in some way.  It’s not really that much of a stretch to believe they’re possessed; personally, I might have thought by Satan rather than some random ghosts, but whatevs.  On the other hand, they are super neglected, abandoned orphan children who probably have some SERIOUS issues that need to be worked out by a child psychologist, thus making them seem possessed/evil.

Umm...do you have some sugar I could borrow?

By the same token, the sanity of the governess, Miss Giddons, our main character, is constantly brought into question.  We see the ghosts she sees; we are visually privileged to get the creepiness that she experiences.  But, we are also seeing everything from her POV.  So, just because we too see the ghosts doesn’t mean they’re there; it just means she’s seeing them.

Ahhh the awkward pedophile kiss...a staple in any good ghost story

And she is pretty whack.  Her strange attachment to the kids, or, in fact, ANY kids, verges on the pedo, especially when she actually gets kissed by the little boy (and doesn’t pull away right away).  Her instant puritanical obsession with the love/sex story of the two dead folks is a bit too “wow someone has some repression issues”.  So, it’s just not that much of a stretch to believe that she could just be losing what few marbles she had left.

Sure, the play between reality and insanity is a trope used in horror over and over again, but it’s just done so well in The Innocents that it doesn’t feel cliché or old.  It just feels awesome and compelling.  Again, is it horror?  I don’t really know.  My gut really says it’s really a psychological thriller.  Sure, there’s the element of the possible supernatural, in the way of the ghosts, but it’s so subtle and understated that it almost feels like it’s a side thought; the point is the mental struggle that Miss Giddons goes through, be it real or all in her head.  I don’t think it really matters though – it’s a damn good film and well worthy of being on people’s top horror movies to see.   If you like subtle, slow burning, and just sort of…quietly creepy, you will like this film.  If you do decide to check it out, it is on Netflix watch instantly, if you have it, so…yay rah for that.

I think I’m about to commit horror fanatic blasphemy by saying this, but…such is life.  I didn’t like Suspiria.  Like…not at all.  For YEARS now, that has been one of the films that I always want to watch, never get around to, am super excited for, etc.  Maybe that was my problem.  Maybe the film was too hyped up.  I mean, it’s almost always on top horror lists, it’s always one of those “must-sees” for horror aficionados.  It’s just supposed to be groundbreaking and intense.  I found it odd, confusing, and rather bland.

It's like Alice in Wonderland...except in Hell

The one thing that is consistently talked about in reviews of this film that I do agree with is that it is shockingly beautiful.  I will admit that I am of a rare breed of people who thinks horror films can often have some beauty to them (like the scene in The Exorcist where Merrin steps out of the car in front of the MacNeil’s home – it consistently takes my breath away).

Why is there a whole room full of razor wire in a dance academy? How does that make any sense?

But I think even the most gore squeamish, horror hating person would have to admit that Argento’s film has an immense amount of artistry to it.  The colors are spectacularly vibrant and the lighting is powerful while not being over the top.  Even the death scenes have a sort of creative beauty to them, in the midst of, you know, the death and the blood and the dying by getting caught in a bunch of razor wire.

Umm...question before I kill you - why the hell did you kill the blind guy and how was that at all relevant to the "story"?

But that’s about it, in my opinion.  The story was fairly weak and contrived.  For the majority of the film, I was just confused.  Not in that “ooo, I don’t know where this is going but I’m intrigued” sort of way.  More in the “wtf is this crap?” sort of way.  There was no indication of what was going on and no real intrigue to make the audience even begin to question or hypothesize what was going on.  By the time some explanation was given, it seemed so forced and stilted that I really just didn’t care anymore.

So I just don’t get it and how it’s so freaking acclaimed.  I mean…I guess I would sort of recommend it to people as long as you know what you’re getting in to.  If you know that Suspiria makes no sense, that doesn’t have a good plot, that it’s very poorly written, and that even when it tries to have a point at the end, it pretty much fails miserably, you might sort of like it.  It is really cool looking.  I actually quite enjoyed the movie whenever there was a creative death scene going on.  Maybe Argento should have just strung together a bunch of really cool, pretty murders with no attempt at plot – it would have probably been slightly more entertaining and only very slightly more random and confusing.  But to be consistently in top lists of horror films?  Hells to the no.  Cool deaths do not a great horror film make (could someone PLEASE pass that message on to the makers of the Saw movies?)  It takes a lot more than that to be one of the greats.

Herrreeee's Masky

Second, it looked like it would be some crappy gore film à la Hostel.  Don’t get me wrong – I’m not totally anti-gore but I hate gore films that have no purpose and that seem to think disgustingly bloody=horror.  The Strangers looked like just that.  But a friend of mine watched it recently and told me I should see it; she thought it was one of the scarier movies she’d seen in a long time.  Given that this isn’t a friend who screams at the word “boo”, I thought it was worth checking out (especially when I saw it in Redbox…gotta love movies for a dollar).I am very glad I did.  Is it the most earth shattering film of the past several years? No.  It follows, quite often, the mold of a basic slasher.  There’s the mandatory stilted dialogue to “lull” the audience into a false sense of security.  Actually, while I wish it had been done away with a little, that sort of worked in this film; it sets up this inane dramatic scene that does draw you out of the “this is a horror film” thing for a little while at least.  Then there’s the fact that no one ever calls the police…ever…like, seriously, that should be the first call you make, you freaking morons.  There’s the promise that this is all inspired by true events, even though that actually never means anything in films these days…especially horror films.

Always take time to relax in the midst of committing murder

The two weakest points of the film are its repetitiveness and the predictability of certain moments.  I put those together because they probably could have both been avoided if the movie were about an hour long.  Unfortunately, Hollywood would never go for that.  After a while, the whole “yes, you’re scary, wear masks, and sneak in and out of the scene very quickly” thing gets a bit tired.

No, you're kidding...the long, drawn out stalking scene is a red herring? Who would have guessed?

Along the same lines, what I would suppose to be the biggest jump moment in the movie, (YES IT’S A SPOILER) where Jamie kills Mike accidentally, was WAYYYYY too drawn out.  After the first minute of Mike tiptoeing through the house while Jamie and Kristin are waiting in a dark room with a shotgun, I knew Jamie was going to shoot Mike.  And I really wished Jamie wouldn’t shoot Mike.  And then I had to sit there for 5 minutes going “please don’t have Jamie shoot Mike, that’s freaking stupid.”  It might not have bothered me as much had I not had as much time to sit there and figure out exactly what the next few scenes of the movie would be.

This scene definitely did not make me lock all the windows in the house.

However, even with those flaws, I really cannot comprehend why The Strangers got so ripped on by critics.  It’s a creepy ass film.  Period.  The scene were we first see the dude in the burlap bag mask (which is a really disturbing looking mask, by the by, much better than the plastic ones the chicks wear) was just perfectly done.  Quiet, chilling, simple and, frankly, one of the best horror moments I’ve seen in a long time.  The film is, contrary to what I thought it would be, surprisingly devoid of gore and jump moments.  It’s slow-moving: a cat and mouse game as opposed to a slash and gash horror.

Never has a skipping record been more ominous

While it might not be revolutionary, it is effective at making you want to constantly look over your shoulder to see if something’s stalking you.  The slightly swaying long shots of the house from outside create an unsettling atmosphere with great subtlety, as does the disturbingly incongruous happy/mellow music that continually plays on the record player.

NERD ALERT: Most interestingly, to me, as someone who’s a bit of an academic horror nerd, is how this film reflects the society we live in.  The generation that is now in their 20s is often considered to be a generation full of apathy, that we don’t have the drive and/or the guts to speak up against what we believe in the same as our parents, the hippies, did.  If horror is a reflection of the collective fears of a society, The Strangers is a commentary on a pervasive apathy and boredom that seems to be infecting the youth of the US.  When asked why they’re murdering, the masked ones reply “Because you were home.”  It’s not a farce or a cover for them to be saying that; they went on a murderous rampage because…well, just because.  If that isn’t apathy, I don’t know what is.  In a sea of horror films, especially remakes, that seem to have lost their cultural anchor, it’s refreshing to see one that seems to be very strongly rooted in the sociocultural fears of our time.

Ok, nerd alert over.  Point being, this film is far better than it was given credit for.  While it may not change the face of horror or deserve to go down in the annals of horror history, it definitely merits a viewing, and I would pretty much guarantee that if it’s given a fair shot, it will have you locking your doors and glancing out windows to make sure no masked figures are lurking in your yard.  And, given that, I’d say it’s a pretty damn successful horror.

EDIT EDIT TOTALLY EDIT: So, I forgot something I wanted to say.  One, the last scene of the movie sucks.  Like majorly sucks.  Like in a really hard this sucks sort of way.  The two scenes before that are actually really good – the climax where our two protagonists are finally caught/killed by the strangers and the scene immediately following that.  The fact that those scenes are during the day is totally creepy considering, come on, shit like that NEVER happens during the day.  Also, the scenes are just sort of quiet and understated.  Not big bangs and screamings, just brutal and realistic(ish).  Thus, the last scene…it sort of makes me angry.  Not all horrors need to end in a jump moment, people.  It’s really not always necessary. Especially when you just had a scene that, while super quiet and different, would have been an awesome ending.  Making a moment where something jumps out at you doesn’t equal a better ending.  It just makes me think they’re setting up for a sequel.  Which also makes me angry.  Ok, that’s it

I feel it is my obligation to inform you that I don’t like writing reviews without spoilers.  I want to talk about what I thought of the movie/book/TV show, including what I thought of certain scenes and, often, the ending.  If you haven’t seen or read whatever I’m talking about and you don’t want to know, don’t read my review yet – wait until after you’ve viewed the film yourself, then come back and read/comment/snark along with me.   I’m not going to stop and say “OMGSPOILERZZ” every five seconds to remind you.  I just feel like I can’t adequately describe films if I’m censoring myself to not tell you that the dumb bitch ran up the stairs instead of calling 911 and thus died in a brutal, bloody way.  So…please, read on, but do so at your own risk.

Love,
The Mistress

Why are children's toys in attics always ten times more creepy than they should be?

This movie was NOTHING like I expected.  Your typical slasher this is not.  It felt to me almost more like a haunted house.  The setting itself fit the plot – a bright, young, sorority house – but the emptiness due to the girls being away, the placement of key objects, such as abandoned children’s toys in the attic, the creaking of old floor boards made the house feel cold and ominous.

Why couldn't the Saw series have recognized that creative ways of killing people can also be accompanied by a plot?

More important, however, was the depiction of the killer himself.  Throughout the film, almost all of our contact with him is first person. We are him as he creeps into the house and shuffles through the attic.  We burst through the plastic bags hanging in the closet to choke the first victim.  We slowly rock the rocking chair that a dead girl is poised in.

I see you!

The killer becomes a disembodied entity almost possessing the viewer, a ghost haunting us rather than a corporeal murderer.  The only glimpse we actually  get of him is of his eye, an eye that through lighting or effects or something looks very wrong.  It’s not exactly inhuman, but it’s not exactly normal either.

As if to compensate for his lack of body, we are constantly subjected to “his” voice, both through the rages he goes into as and after he kills and through the phone calls he keeps making to the sorority house.  I put “his” in parentheses because that ain’t just one voice.  The calls seem to almost be a psychic representation of a memory, with multiple voices and sounds overlapping each other.  As one other reviewer mentioned, it’s almost Exorcist-esque.  Instead of one killer, there’s a legion of psychotic personalities, ghosts, or demons lurking in the unseen body.  Moreover, the legion of voices keeps referring to some long off event that, presumably, made “Billy”, the killer, the terrible human being he is today.  But we only get slight clues, something about a baby, something about mother and father, something about someone named “Agnes”.  We have no idea who this guy is and what his motivation springs from – but, it’s not completely left out either so we’re left wondering.  If that ain’t a haunting, I don’t know what is.

Worst...Santa...EVER

Yes, in case you were wondering, then, how Black Christmas is really a slasher, it has all the elements you would expect from a good slasher.  It has creative and creatively shot death scenes, including death by strangulation, hook, and crystal unicorn (yes, by crystal unicorn…now you’re intrigued).  It has some good laugh moments, such as the sorority house-mother who has about 50 bottles of booze stashed around the place or the drunkard of the house giving champagne to a 6-year-old.  It has a cast of young girls getting slowly and methodically whittled down until one is left alone for a climactic cat-and-mouse game in the house with the killer.

There is seriously nothing that a cat will not at least try to eat

But what makes this movie great is its atmosphere.  It is a deeply unsettling movie.  Watching it on a computer, with all the lights on, in the early evening, I still felt slightly queasy every time the phone rang in the film.  I still felt my pulse quicken as a shot of an empty hallway had a shadow move slowly and silently across it.  I still cringed as the camera cut to yet another shot of the first murdered girl, her face still in terrified agony, swaying slowly back and forth in a rocking chair perched in front of the attic window.  There weren’t many jump moments and I wasn’t terrified, huddling in my sheets after I went to bed.  But I was creeped out in that delicious way only a well done horror can do.

I’m not going to reveal the ending. It just wouldn’t do much good.  It’s not that it’s one of the greatest surprise endings I’ve ever seen.  I felt the red herring planted in the plot played out somewhat predictably, and the ending was what it should have been.  But the *way* the ending was done, in light of the way the rest of the film is shot and written, just was incredibly creepily satisfying.  If I said what it was, you wouldn’t get it.  You just have to watch.

And watch you should.  This movie made me really happy.  It’s just a good, subtle horror that’s deeply unsettling, well shot, and pretty well acted.  If you’ve been craving something that will rivet you to the screen and send shivers down your spine, look it up.