Last Shift - Movie Review - Shocktober 2017

Day 9 - Last Shift

The Pick: Netflix got me again with their short, 30 second looping trailers with the pumping, genre-appropriate music. I was further intrigued by the face of the man or creature that appears on the cover art for the film. The satanic overtones proved to be too enticing, and Last Shift ended up playing on my television for this, the ninth night of Shocktober 2017.

The Film: Directed by Anthony DiBlasi, Last Shift tells the tale of Jessica Loren (Juliana Harkavy), a rookie cop assigned to watch over a decommissioned police station on its final night of operation. During the night, Loren is anticipating the arrival of a Hazardous Materials team to dispose of some leftover evidence. On the surface, it's a straightforward task and Officer Loren is given only one directive by her superior; do not leave the police station.

As the night begins, Loren finds the police station to be empty and quiet, as would be expected given the situation. Loren is surprised by the sudden intrusion of a homeless man who promptly urinates in the lobby. After moving the man to a holding cell, the night begins to further unravel. An emergency call is received at the station, despite having been told that all such calls have been rerouted to the new station. Chairs begin to move; closed doors are found open; and lights in the back of the station are found turned on. And then, there's the soft, ghostly singing that seems to waft forward from the deep, dark recesses of the station.

Without going into spoiler territory, the story told in Last Shift is engaging and tightly wound. DiBlasi competently uses an array of psychological thriller elements that certainly kept me engaged with the story. The film feels small and quaint; the single location of the police station is isolated and claustrophobic in the ways that the settings of many good horror films are.

Further. as the sole character on screen for much of the film's run time, Juliana Harkavy does an admirable job remaining engaging and believable in her role as the beleaguered Officer Loren. The mature sensibilities of this character is key to the film's success, especially as the supernatural elements continue to pile up, and we see the toll of the night's events on Loren's frame of mind.

Last Shift is a slow moving film, but one which uses its single location and atmosphere to its advantage. The supernatural elements of the story are used to good effect, creating an unsettling tone which only becomes increasingly disturbing as the events of the film unfold. The few special effects in the film are well used, and the late-film make up effects are suitably unnerving and horrifying. The less that you know about the story going into the film, the better I think you will enjoy it.

Three Bruces.

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House on Willow Street - Movie Review - Shocktober 2017

Day 8 - House on Willow Street

The Pick: I've had to admit to being shallow on at least a few different occasions in my life, several of which were explaining previous movie picks for this Shocktober 2017 season. It should come as no surprise then, dear reader, that House on Willow Street was chosen based solely upon the strength of its poster art. More accurately, I chose this film based on the font choice on said poster. Look at that font!

The Film: House on Willow Street has quite the premise; do try to stay with me on this one. A group of criminals plot to kidnap the daughter of a business man who has access to diamonds. Said criminals successfully kidnap said girl, and bring her back to their warehouse lair where they go about filming a ransom video. The kidnappers then experience difficulty contacting the girl's parents. They return to the house from which the girl was kidnapped only to find that the girl's parents are dead. They also find a video tape which shows them that the girl is possessed by a demon and that she killed her parents and also a couple of priests. Then the girl suddenly starts acting possessed again. Also, there are other ghosts. Oh, and one of the kidnappers has a heart of gold. Guess who survives?

You cannot accuse House on Willow Street of not trying. From the overly complicated story, to the grotesque special effects, to the stylish and gritty cinematography, this film is really trying to hit on all cylinders. The only problems is it's trying way too hard to hit above its weight class. The acting can't quite keep up, and the story never resonated. Also, I have difficulty being sympathetic towards kidnappers, hearts of gold or not. The protagonists really earn everything they get.

That said, this is not a simple demon possession story. No, like everything else in this film, Willow Street has to up the ante to the extreme. There's nothing short but the FATE OF THE WORLD at stake! You see, the demon possessing the girl is a very bad, terrible demon! One that consumes the souls of people! And it grows EXPONENTIALLY more powerful for each soul it consumes! And it only needs FOUR SOULS to... to... WALK THE EARTH!

So despite the hamfisted exposition delivered via videotape, I never got the impression that the demon actually became more powerful with each soul it consumed. By the climax of the film, the demon needs only one more soul to complete its barbershop quartet of DOOM, but feels just as powerful as it did before. I mean, if you can choke a person with a super-strong, invisible force power, why not just hold them still while you eat their soul? Or, at the very least, why not use your Sith powers to break your restraints? Is this somehow breaking demon hospitality rules?

Also, I guess I don't understand how possession works in this film. The demon's stated goal is to consume four souls. Somehow this correlates with putting some sort of tentacle appendage down a person's throat to possess their body. I'll let this one go, and I will presume that in the lore of this film, possession equals soul consumption. However, one of the kidnappers is somehow possessed by playing tentacle-tonsil-hockey with the ghost of his dead mother. Admittedly, french kissing your mom, dead or not, is probably a sure-fire way to kill your soul, but how this counts as a soul consumed by our demon friend is never addressed.

Again, it could just be that my definition of demon possession is too narrow for the lore of this film. While the demon is said to manifest our worst fears to gain power over us, and it could be assumed the ghost of this guy's dead mother is a manifestation of the demon, this is the only possession in the film that works this way. No other possession is done via a proxy entity. No other possession is done via long distance. How this demon is able to possess a guy that is somewhere in the middle of the woods while the demon itself is chained up in some warehouse is never addressed. And, really, if the demon can possess people this way, why does it matter that it's physical body is chained up in a warehouse? Why not just possess four people via satellite and be done with it already?

You know what else bothers me? I don't like my own explanation that the dead mother's ghost is simply a manifestation of the demon created with the express purpose of possessing her son. There are other ghosts in the film and none of them ever try to possess anyone. In fact, one of the ghosts ends up being there to help.

You know what? None of this makes any sense, and I'm thinking about it way too hard.

One Bruce.

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Lights Out - Movie Review - Shocktober 2017

Day 6 - Lights Out

The Pick: Lights Out began life as a 5 minute short film, which I had the pleasure of stumbling across on one of my many journeys across the vast wilderness that is the internet. So impressed by the originality and execution of this short film, that I even wrote a quick blurb about it in a much earlier article on this very website! That said, I've been interested in this particular film for longer than I ever knew a feature-length film was to be based upon it. This Shocktober season seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally catch up.

The Film: In some ways, the feature-length Lights Out film follows in the footsteps of classic supernatural slasher films, like Halloween, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. This is doubtlessly good company to keep. I really adore the underlying conceit at the heart of Lights Out, that of a monstrous creature that only physically exists in the absence of light.

I thought it was interesting for the film to give its other-worldly shadow monster the name Diana. This alone makes it difficult to not want to draw comparisons to other named slashers, like Michael, Jason, and Freddy. It's that last one with whom Diana shares the most common ground, but even still, she remains a fresh and original entity throughout the film. The central conceit of the character remains a great concept, and it allows for some fun visual tricks that are well-mined throughout the length of the film.

Still, the movie falls flat for me when it comes to basically everything aside from the basic nature of Diana. To be more specific, I really adored that concept in the Lights Out short, but was less fond of the complicated backstory added in the feature length film. Frankly, the medical science explanation of how and why this creature exists was a bit too goofy for my tastes. Still, Diana did get quite the upgrade if you're considering her appearance in the short as compared to the film.

Further, I found most of the characters relatively one note and, frankly, boring. The main protagonist of the film also makes some off decisions once the nature of Diana becomes better known to her. Arming yourself with only a crank-operated flashlight with short battery life seems like a poor choice, especially when there has to be a Walmart with all the giant LED lanterns and size D batteries you could want within a 20 minute drive.

Finally, and this may be verging on spoiler territory, but I also didn't care for the "relationship" that Diane shares with one of the other characters in the film. Namely, having Diane's physical manifestation be somehow linked to the expression of another character's mental illness. Admittedly, this isn't a story I've seen before, so while it does feel like original territory, I'm not sure a goofy slasher movie is the exact right cinematic vehicle for what is ultimately a pretty heavy message about mental illness and suicide.

Between the two, I'd probably just watch the short again. Two Bruces.

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The Black Room - Movie Review - Shocktober 2017

The 31 Day Horror Movie Challenge, which we here at Manson Manor have affectionately termed Shocktober, continues with the following film:

Day 3 - The Black Room

The Pick: I'm playing it fast and loose with my picks for Shocktober 2017. Instead of doing any extensive planing, I decided that I would make all of my picks from the streaming services to which I am currently subscribed. So, as I found myself scrolling through the countless titles on Netflix, I began watching the short, 30 second autoplay "trailers" that Netflix adds to each film. Now, I typically find autoplay videos irritating, but I figured if I was going to do this all-streaming Shocktober right, I should use all of the resources put before me. With some pumping electronica, flashing red lights, and some mysterious red hands emerging from a black wall, I had the impression that I was selecting a surrealist horror film of some kind. My watching The Black Room is a direct result of that autoplay trailer.

The Film: Let's be clear, The Black Room is not a surrealist horror film. In fact, in the first five minutes of the film, I became fairly convinced that I had accidentally stumbled across a softcore porn flick on Netflix. Alas, but I am committed to the purity of the 31 Day Horror Movie Challenge, and, once the pick is made, I feel a strong sense of duty that the film must be viewed to completion. Lucky me; lucky you; lucky Mrs. Manson.

A nubile young blonde, staying with her elderly grandmother, is accosted by an unseen demon that makes her feel tingly in her naughty bits. The young woman seems rather content with the entire situation, and makes quite the show of moaning and writhing. There's even a topless scene with the most impressive invisible demon-powered nipple manipulation special effect in all of recorded movie history. As can be surmised, The Black Room hits a very high bar in its opening few minutes.

In terms of story, we skip ahead and are introduced to the protagonists of the film, a happily married middle-aged couple whom are buying the sexy demon house for a bargain price. Eagle-eyed horror fans may recognize the lead actress as Natasha Henstridge, who famously portrayed the sexual reproduction-obsessed human-alien hybrid, Sil, from the film Species back in 1995. I say eagle-eyed, because who on earth would be looking to recognize Natasha Henstridge in a low budget, horror nudie flick some 22 years after debuting in one? I suppose that is being unfair to Species which, as I recall, was a comparatively high budget horror nudie flick, but I digress.

Natasha gets to really express her acting chops here, playing against her unlikable husband, her unlikable sister, the unlikable neighbor, and the unlikable neighbor's unlikable wife. There's also an unlikable electrician in there, but at least he has a ton of great dialogue and makes all sorts of sexually suggestive gestures towards Natasha in front of her unlikable husband. I'm not entirely sure why an electrician was called about replacing a furnace, but at least he has the opportunity to say, "there sure is a lot of pipe down here" while simultaneously gesturing toward the HVAC ducting and his crotch.

Back to the story, Natasha's husband gets possessed by an incubus, which is a type of male sex demon. For being some sort of embodiment of pure sexual lust, this demon somehow manages to be even more unlikable than the husband. Meanwhile, Natasha has some demon-powered masturbation sessions which include sexy times in the bath, and another where she presses her mons pubis into the corner of an old, rocky washing machine. 2,000 years of pent up demon lust, and the best this walking Kama Sutra can only come up with is making her hump the washing machine?

Also, I'm not sure why"body horror" falls under the purview of an incubus, but he teaches a rude waitress a lesson by shrinking her breasts to complete flatness before placing her breasts on her back. We never really see what happens to this woman, but I can only image a very strange series of doctor visits are in her future.

Anyway, spoiler alert, the demon gets sent back to hell, but not before transforming into a sexy and very nude lady demon because, uh, reasons. And then Natasha and her husband go back to their lives. The end. Oh, and the movie ends on the note of the two of them engaging in some sweet-ass sex, made all the sweeter since, during the possession, the incubus made the husband's dick way huge. So, Natasha's sister and all of their friends are still dead, but whatever! Sweet-ass demon-dick husband is here to stay!

One Bruce.

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[REC] 3: Genesis - Movie Review - SHOCKTOBER 2015 - Movie #15

Wow, movie #15 of the Shocktober 2015 season. I had doubts that I would make it this far, to be honest. This weekend will prove to one of the toughest- if I can maintain my momentum through some days filled with traveling and family functions, I might just be successful in my quest to watch 31 movies in the 31 days of October. Today's film is [REC] 3: Genesis.

I watched the first [REC] a few years ago now, and really loved the zombie-infested apartment building story, particularly for its demonic twist at the end. Yeah, I've given up on hiding that particular spoiler, I mean, you are reading a review of the third installment of a film series. Sorry, I guess? Anyway, the second film followed with a very similar approach; high tension, good gore, and super serious treatment of the material. I really enjoyed [REC] 2, as you can read about in my review from earlier in this Shocktober season.

In this, the third installment of the series, the filmmaker take some fairly significant departures from the series' formula. First, they begin with a proper fake out, as the film initially appears to continue in the tradition of the found-footage styles films that came before it. After a late title card though, the film switches to a more traditional third person-style camera. Second, the film is much less serious than the first two films. I found many sequences were played for laughs, there is a significant amount of campiness to all of the proceedings, and the demon-possessed zombies seemed to be much less of a threat.

On the one hand, I like horror comedies a whole lot. They might be my favorite genre of film, thanks to that fine line that the best examples of genre walk. On the other hand, I loved the [REC] series as it was, super-serious and deeply foreboding. I wasn't really longing for a comedic turn from these particular films. So, I guess I'm conflicted by the series' new direction in this third film. That said, this is still a well-made film for what it is. The camp on display is cheeky and fun -the imagery of a bride in white wielding a chainsaw to take out hordes of demons is certainly setting off my highly tuned horror silliness detector.

Oh right, a bride in white. Maybe I should explain the plot of the film. It's pretty straightforward, the demon-infection from the first two films somehow finds its way to a wedding reception going on at the same time as the events of the first two films. This time line is revealed by some news broadcasts that you occasionally see in the background of this film. The infection at the wedding reception seems to originate with an uncle that claims to have been bit by a dog -how this relates to the events of the first two films, I cannot remember. Was there a demonic dog at one point in those films, perhaps the first film since it has been so long since I've seen it? In any case, I was somewhat confused as to exactly HOW the demonic infection spread from the apartment to this location, but I guess that doesn't really matter.

As the reception turns into a living hell, with all of the friends and family dying and turning into zombies, the bride and groom get separated. The film tells the story of them finding one another through these extenuating circumstances and their attempts to survive the demon plague. As Mrs. Manson pointed out, you might even be able to consider [REC] 3 a love story. A gruesome love story in which arms are severed and tongues bitten and torn out of people's heads, but a love story nonetheless.

[REC] 3 has some clever moments, and the campy visuals and sequences are decidedly fun. I liked this film; it plays very well. The only caution I offer is that you need to be able to let go of those things that made [REC] and [REC] 2 great. If you can't deal with the loss of the self-serious tone, your will find [REC] 3 to be very difficult to enjoy.

Three out of four Bruces.

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The Demon's Rook - Movie Review - SHOCKTOBER 2015 - Movie #13

What the hell did I just watch?

I seriously considered having that previous sentence compose the entirety of this review, as I actually think it does the film, The Demon's Rook, justice in some regard. This is a movie with a lot of ideas and a lot of ambition. Don't get me wrong, I think the Demon's Rook is a terrible film, but I sort of enjoyed watching it. Weird, right?

We meet Roscoe, a young boy that is frequently visited by a demon. One night the demon vaporizes Roscoe's parents and brings the child to some sort of alternate dimension known as the Dark Womb. It is here, under the tutelage of this demonic mentor, that Roscoe learns the dark arts and grows into adulthood. Eventually, for reasons I won't disclose here, Roscoe returns to his home world, but three evil demons cross the gateway with him. The demons then go about causing havok- one turns men into beasts, another drives people to commit violent acts, and the last one raises the dead. It certainly doesn't look good for earth.

Luckily, Roscoe is able to combat the demons using the dark magic that he was taught by his demonic mentor. Roscoe is even able to "save" one of the men turned into a beast, freeing his mind to take revenge against the demon that disfigured him. He meets up with his childhood friend and potential love interest, Eva.

Spoilers ahead.

The film builds up to this moment where Roscoe and Eva will face off against the most powerful of the three demons. Roscoe shares his magic with Eva, and it seems that their forces combined might stand a chance at eradicating this evil threat. When the showdown does finally happen. the demon smokes their asses without even a semblance of a fight. Then, out of nowhere, the beast-man whom Roscoe "saved" runs out of the woods and kills the third demon by ripping out its heart. The End.

The experience of watching this film is really strange, surreal even. It has all of the makings of a b-movie, including gore and and special effects, but none of it is played for scares. The Demon's Rook is played completely straight, with no winks or nods to the audience. I actually came to watch this movie off of the strength of its trailer - go ahead, watch the trailer on Amazon Prime. The film looks like a fun b-movie romp, with an angry bearded fellow fighting demons - not too dissimilar in tone to something like Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer. Instead, the Demon's Rook plays out more like a self-serious independent film, or maybe more of an urban fantasy, than a more traditional horror movie. At any rate, I found the film to be a very different movie than the one advertised in the trailer.

It has a lot in common with 80's Italian horror cinema, with little dialogue and a constant electronic Goblin-like soundtrack running almost the entire length of the movie. I definitely found this to be a strength of the film. In some ways, I was reminded of the long, lingering cinematography of a Sergio Leone spaghetti western. Two strong comparisons for sure. For a a low budget film, the Demon's Rook is well-made.

Story-wise, I understand why this film is called the Demon's Rook: Rook, verb: to swindle or cheat. This film definitely cheats the audience out of a satisfying conclusion with the sudden deaths of both protagonists. I don't know of any other films with this type of campy subject matter that also display this degree of self-seriousness. It's a strange experience from start to finish.

I definitely don't recommend the Demon's Rook, but I think I respect it.

One out of four Bruces.

Ignore the low rating. This film is weird and it might be the right weird for you.

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V/H/S - Movie Review - SHOCKTOBER 2015 - Movie #10

Doc Manson returns to B-Movie Geek this October to take the #SHOCKTOBER Horror Movie Challenge! The goal? 31 films in the 31 days of October. We're up to movie #10, the highly regarded horror anthology V/H/S (2012). So, how does this one hold up under the watchful eye of the B-Movie Geek?

Quite well, actually! Each of the five stories told in the film is directed by a different director, adding a bit of variety to the proceedings. The film also has an over-arcing story, revolving around a group of hoodlums that have taken to filming themselves committing petty crimes. They are hired by an unknown party to break into an apartment and steal a VHS tape, although its contents are not specified to the audience. The hoodlums find a dead man in the apartment, and they spread out to search for the tape. One of the vandals sits down in front of a television and plays one of the nearby VHS tapes, beginning our first story.

Of all of the tales spun in V/H/S, the first, Amateur Night directed by David Bruckner, might be my favorite. It's a tale as old as time; a bunch of college-age bros go to the bar to pick up loosely-moraled women for a night of casual sex and they record themselves using a camera hidden inside a pair of eyeglasses. Like I said, a tale as old as time. It turns out that one of the women they bring back to their hotel room is way more woman than any of these boys can handle. Amateur Night tells a complete, compact story and features a visually striking monster design.

My second favorite tale is titled Tuesday the 17th, an obvious ode to the Friday the 13th series. In this short, a survivor of a massacre returns to the wooded lake where it occurred in an attempt to discover the true nature of the killer. The twists here are two fold: 1) the girl has brought a group of friends with her in an attempt to use them as bait for the killer; 2) the killer has some sort of metaphysical presence, where he can appear in multiple locations at once and, when harmed, can simply sort of phase in and out of reality and be healed. Supplementing this latter point, the killer also causes some sort of artifact to appear on film, so we never get a clear look at him/it. I thought this short was a exceptionally cool modern interpretation of the classic slasher story.

There are a few other shorts, but I think the only other one I want to mention is Second Honeymoon, directed by Ti West. West is a known horror director, and he has a number of well received throw-back style films on his resume. Offered as context, I am a pretty big fan of his slow burn haunting picture, The Innkeepers. This short might have been the least interesting in the film. It isn't bad, necessarily, and it fits thematically, but there's really nothing especially unique about this story. I honestly felt it could have been elimated from the film without any great loss. Sorry, Ti. Better luck next time.

All said, V/H/S is 116 minutes well spent for any horror fan. I don't often find competent anthology films, but when done correctly they can be very engaging thanks to their oft-quickened pace. V/H/S is no exception, and is easily a film that every horror fan should at least check out.

Four out of four Bruces.

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Annabelle - Movie Review - SHOCKTOBER 2015 - Movie #9

It's October and the B-Movie Geek, Doc Manson, is back to take the #Shocktober challenge! The quest? To watch 31 horror movies in the 31 days of October. Tonight I'm here to review Annabelle, movie #9 of my October Horror Movie Challenge.

I decided to request the Bluray of Annabelle from the mail-in Netflix service because I really enjoyed The Conjuring (2013). The Annabelle doll was present as an ominous presence in that film, an ever-looming threat lurking within the home of the protagonist paranormal investigators, The Warrens. In the context of The Conjuring, Annabelle was a secondary antagonist, existing separate from the main storyline and thereby providing a richness to the universe within the film.

This shouldn't be surprising, I suppose, given that The Conjuring was based on a true story and that the aforementioned protagonists, the Warrens, are a real life husband-wife paranormal investigation team. The Annabelle doll is likewise teal and is currently stored in the occult museum located at the Warrens' house in Monroe, CT. For posterity, here is a comparison image of the Annabelle doll used in the movie and the one from the real life case.

OK, so why have I spent two paragraphs talking about The Conjuring in an article about Annabelle? Mostly because The Conjuring is a superior experience, filled with a lush sense of period and presence. Meanwhile, it's psuedo-prequel, spin-off, Annabelle, feels like a hollow, horror movie simply checking off the boxes that some Hollywood business executive dictated needed to be covered in a film about a demonic haunting.

The film takes a lot of license with the true story of Annabelle. The film is bookended by scenes taking place in more modern times, in which a two female roommates talk about some strange occurrences revolving around the doll. The bulk of the film, however, goes back in time to tell the origin story of the doll. In the film, the estranged daughter of two mild mannered suburbia folk falls into some sort of satanic cult. For some reason, the daughter returns home with her cult-following boyfriends and murders her parents. Then, the daughter and boyfriend go next door to try to murder the neighbors. In the middle of this second attempted murder, the cops show up and shoot the boyfriend dead. The crazy cult daughter goes into a room filled with a collection of dolls, picks up Annabelle, commits suicide, and after she dies some of her blood happens to fall into the doll's eye socket, which I guess counts as some sort of binding ritual that attaches a demon to the doll.

Can we talk for a moment about how none of this makes any sense? Like, not even Hollywood movie sense. The cult daughter has no reason to target the neighbors, either for murder or for haunting by a demonic devil doll. I'll accept at face value the daughter returning home to kill her parents, but I'm not sure how that act in anyway relates to their plan to attach a demonic presence to an inanimate object. Unless, the cult couple's plan was to kill the parents, and the doll demon-ritual was an after thought borne out of desperation right before the daughter's death?

I mean, if the goal was to call forth a demon to possess a doll with a demonic presence, why didn't the cult couple complete this ritual when they were murdering her parents? If the daughter only needed to commit suicide to link the demon to the doll, why did they murder anyone? How did the daughter know that, after she was dead, that her blood would fall exactly as it was needed to possess the doll? Why did she decide to send a demon after the neighbors only after failing to murder them? Why not just send the demon after them in the first place?

No matter how I look at this, I don't really understand what the goal or thought processes might have been leading up to the moments where the Annabelle doll is linked to the demon. There is no attempt at any point to provide motivation for this cultists' actions, and I get the vague impression of a Hollywood suit somewhere telling a frustrated screenwriter, "They're cultists and they just do evil demon stuff! Enough said!"

I suspect that my sense of disjointedness in the storytelling is also because the bulk of the film is pure fiction created by the screen writers. Only the bookend scenes, you know the scenes lasting maybe 3 minutes of screen time, are actually based on the true story of the Annabelle doll. I don't know why the filmmakers chose to completely invent a story for the doll instead of retelling the actual true story, but I guess this leaves the film open for a sequel with a minimum need for creativity?

Everything that happens after the doll origin sequence deals with the demon trying to claim the soul of the protagonist neighbor lady's baby. Except, in the logic presented by the movie you can't just take a soul, it has to be given. Also, a baby's can't give their soul away, so, TWIST, the demon was really after the mom's soul the whole time. Since the demon needs mom lady to freely give her soul, the demon messes with the baby a whole lot to make the mom crazy enough to offer up her soul to protect the baby? I don't know, demon logic seems complicated.

In the end, this prequel felt like a paint by the numbers horror experience, lacking the real world grounding of its predecessor. It's not very scary, and the demon seems to just do demonic stuff because, hey, it's a demon.

One out of four Bruces.

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Drag Me to Hell - Movie Review - #SHOCKTOBER 2015 - Movie #6

If you've been following along, you know that I am up to movie #6 of the October Horror Movie Challenge, which I've affectionately termed my Shocktober quest. I'm now over one-fifth of the way to my goal! The best part of this challenge is getting the opportunity and the excuse to reach back and watch those films that I somehow just never got around to at release. Drag Me to Hell is a perfect example of this.

When I searched for the release date, I could hardly believe that Drag Me to Hell was released in 2009. It seems incomprehensible that this film has eluded me for nearly 6 years. After all, this is a movie that I seem destined to love, what with the involvement of Sam Raimi, the man that conceived and directed my favorite horror series of all time, the Evil Dead.

And there are things about this film that I adore. There is a unique mix of horror and slapstick, executed with a deftness often lacking in horror comedies. The seance sequence is so incredibly reminiscent of any number of demon possession scenes in the Evil Dead that I can't help but think that these films take place in the same universe. There's a frenetic energy to the proceedings and the demon attack scenes that I can't help but love.

Despite this, I'm not actually sure I really liked Drag Me to Hell. I think the fundamental problem I had with the film is that the protagonist, Christine, seems like a perfectly nice and good human being. At no point does it feel like she deserves the gypsy curse that has been placed upon her. Frankly, in trying to change up the standard formula, the film simply emphasizes why horror films are typically full of "bad" people deserving of the fates that befall them. At no point did I want to see the bad things that befall our heroine.

Beyond this failing, there was little exciting about the film, no true stand-out sequences. The frantic, darting camera work only served to remind me of how much I want another Evil Dead film. The moment that the psychic put the button into the envelop, the end of the film was obvious to both my wife and myself. Given the bad luck that befalls Christine at every turn, of course the ending plays out the way in which it does.

Drag Me to Hell is a perfectly competent film. It is well made, with great acting, with fun special effects. I found the script to be somewhat lacking, and I felt no real motivation to root for or against the protagonist - the series of events that befall Christine just felt unfair and not in any way that I found compelling.

I did really dig the old school Universal logo on the front and end of the film though.

Two out of four Bruces.

 

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[REC] 2 - Movie Review - SHOCKTOBER 2015 - Movie #4

Doc Manson returns to his roots for the month of October, taking the Horror Movie Challenge. The quest before him? To watch 31 horror movies in 31 days. And to be extra ambitious, try to write something about each one on this website. So far, so good. We're through movie #4, which is the foreign import [REC] 2.

The film is a sequel to the Spanish film [REC], a well-made zombie-infection type movie with a twist. I previously reviewed the first film, and you can refresh yourself on the series by clicking here. Go ahead, I'll wait for you to come back.

Alright, so let's be clear: here, there by spoilers! If you don't want the end of [REC] spoiled for you, you will need to stop reading here. The wrinkle introduced into the zombie infection formula at the end of that film plays prominently into the plot of the sequel which necessitates talking about that development at length.

Last warning, SPOILERS AHEAD!

Alright, so, the zombies aren't just zombies. Turns out that the infested apartment building is the site of ongoing scientific experimentation run by a doctor associated with the Vatican. His research project? Finding the molecular basis for demonic possession. Unfortunately, the doctor did his job a little too well, isolating an enzyme found in the blood and saliva that is able to transmit like a virus. The infected folks aren't just zombies, they're possessed by one demon whose consciousness co-habitates all of the infected folk simultaneously.

Demon zombie hive-mind, then? Got it? Good.

The sequel picks up right where the first one leaves off -literally, with the same shot. The action picks up with a new group of characters, a SWAT team escorting a Ministry of Health official into the apartment building. The film is still filmed in the found-footage or shaky-cam style, although the SWAT team has some interesting picture in picture capable equipment that provides unique view points that I hadn't previously seen in films of this types. Definitely bonus points for innovative cinematography.

The film also splits its runtime between a second group of characters. Scenes play out from multiple angles and perspectives, and time has a way of skipping back and forth. It's rather satisfying to realize that you're watching a scene play out from a parallel perspective, and to piece together the continuity on your own. The script is smart and it keeps the film engaging.

Much like the first [REC], the sequel is a great film. The only issue is, once again, they introduce new information during the closing minutes of the film. As a viewer that likes to try to piece together stories, I'm conflicted by the continued use of this device by the [REC] series. Like an Agatha Christie novel that deliberately denies you information, I felt somewhat cheated as the credits began to roll. Don't get me wrong, I like being surprised, but I hate it when the rules are suddenly changed. I'm mostly just hoping that the same formula isn't applied to the third film in the series.

A Kiss to Remember

I hope to find out for sure later this month -both [REC] 3 and [REC] 4 are currently on Netflix Instant Streaming!

Minor complaints aside, this film was good. GOOD. Four out of four Bruces.

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