What Comes Next: The Battery

You can read my review of this movie here, and you can read about the “What Comes Next” series here.

As always, there will be spoilers.  So if you haven’t seen this movie, you’ll need so before reading this article.  And I highly recommend that you watch this.

Before I get into the meat of this post, I want to explore Ben’s escape from the car at the end of the film.  Ben tells us (well, he really tells Annie – the woman who lives in the zombie-free colony – over the walkie talkie) how he is going to escape the car by finally telling the story of how he and Mickey escaped from the house they had been trapped in:

“We just opened the door.  They tried to pile in one side, and we just went out the other.”

It’s a novel idea, but I’m not entirely sure how well it would work.  When surrounding an object, zombies don’t really respond like lemmings.  Well, perhaps they do, but not fast-acting lemmings.  Very slow lemmings.  So, while I could possibly buy that this could work with a house (lots of room to maneuver and all that), I can’t see it working with a station wagon.  We see him opening the rear hatch (hatch?  I feel like it’s called a hatch), and the next scene is him on the road, running (more like hobbling, really) from the zombies.  With the car completely surrounded by zombies, I just don’t think there would’ve been a door vacated by zombies before the entire car was filled and Ben was bitten. 

(Not to mention the fact that a crowd of zombies groaning in one spot for a couple days was sure to attract the attention of more zombies.  By the time Ben tried his escape, there should have been hundreds of zombies, not dozens.)

Still, that’s how the movie ends, so that’s our starting point.

The last image we see of Ben is him hobbling from the zombies he just narrowly escaped.  It doesn’t look good.  He’s sleep deprived, malnourished (due to living on a diet of canned tuna and urine) and can’t move very quickly due to the gunshot wound in his leg.  With an undead horde about 10 feet behind him, it’s quite possible that his story ends a few minutes after the credits roll.  He can’t keep up his already plodding pace - inspiring Rock Plaza Central song be damned – and the zombies devour him on the road.

But there’s also a chance he gets away.  If there’s one thing we know about Ben, it’s that he’s a ruthless bastard.  Plus, these were his last words to Annie in that walkie talkie conversation:

“If it [escaping the car] doesn’t work this time, I’m just gonna put a bullet in my head.  But if it does, I’m gonna come and put one in yours.  I’ll see ya soon.”

He seemed to be having fun with the zombie apocalypse until he had to put a round in his best friend’s head.  After that, his mind unraveled faster than the baseball in his hand.  His voice got rough.  His eyes were empty.  He had two things on his mind: survival and revenge.  He was already on his way to survival (in his mind, escaping the car would be the hardest part of the plan, and he seemed to have pulled that off pretty well), which means his mind was already working on revenge.

He knows that the colony couldn’t be far.  They were in walkie talkie range.  So, while finding it would be difficult, it certainly wouldn’t be impossible.

The bigger question is what happens once he gets there?  We don’t know how big the colony is, but I’m going to assume – based on no evidence whatsoever – that there are somewhere between 20-50 people there. We know they’re careful.  We know they have guns.  And, since Ben threatened Annie over the walkie talkie, they’ll be on the lookout for trouble (even if they don’t think he’ll actually find them, they’ll still be on alert for a couple weeks). 

We also know that Ben is a good shot, and more than willing to kill someone if his own survival is at stake.  He shot a guy from around 20 yards, then had no qualms at walking up and shooting him in the head (because Ben knows that the line between life and death can be as thin as a double-tap).  But he’s also smart.  He won’t run at the colony guns blazing.  He’ll formulate a plan.  Separate and terminate.  Like a fatter, bearded version of Jim from 28 Days Later.

Even though I’d like to say that he would be able to pull it off, I just don’t think he’d be able to do it.  He may be able to take out a few of them, but not everyone in the colony.  Not if they’re prepared for him.  I imagine it’s walled off, and they would have guards.  Jim had been on the inside.  Knew the ins and outs.  Ben has no idea what he’s getting himself into.  Eventually, he would go down in a blaze of glory.  Maybe he is able to take Annie out as he’s being plugged, Sonny Corleone style. 

A crazed, bearded ex-ballplayer storming a walled-off community in search of revenge.  I would absolutely watch that movie.

Of course, he could also just lay in wait until Annie sets foot outside the colony and take his revenge at that point.  That would probably be a better option.  Less dramatic, but it would get the job done. 

Good luck on your murderous endeavors, Ben.

(If you have any ideas for a movie to cover in this series, leave it in the comments.)

What Comes Next: Best Friends Forever

In case you’re not familiar with the concept of this series, take a look at my initial post.  And beware of spoilers.  Because there will be spoilers.

Before I get into the meat of the post, I’d like to point out that Harriet pushing a flaming book cart and screaming “Get away from my friend!” was the best scene of the movie, and one of my favorite scenes in any movie I’ve seen this year (although it’s not as good as the elbow-thruster scene in Pacific Rim.  Because that was insanely amazing).

When we leave Harriet and Reba in this movie, Harriet has her left arm bandaged up and in a sling, on account of the gunshot she took while saving Reba.  The only reason she survived at all was due to the knowledge (and, therefore, power) gleaned from books. 

They step out of the library, and we’re treated to comic book scenes of Harriet and Reba in various moments of badassery.  It’s a terrific ending to a beautiful little film.  But what would really happen?

Awesome comic book scenes aside, they don’t really seem like fighters.  Sure, Harriet pushed a cart of flaming books at a group of would-be-rapists and Reba ran over a hipster, but who among us hasn’t done something like that?  I call those days “Wednesdays”.

It took them two attempts to take down a group of three hipsters, when only one of them really seemed ruthless in the first place.  And yet,  after running him over, she felt terrible about it.  She cried and kept asking how she could do such a thing.  Hardly the mark of a survivor in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

And Harriet wasn’t much better.  She pushed a flaming book cart at some guys, but what would’ve happened if they didn’t scatter?  She had no back-up plan.  And, even if she did, she didn’t have the skills to do anything about it.

Beyond all that, the group of rape-minded rednecks were local law enforcement.  Law enforcement that had a mandate on checking any person on the streets for a passport (which, as far as we know, neither Harriett or Reba is carrying).  That was likely not the last band of police officers the girls would come across, and they were highly unlikely to have a cart of flaming books at their disposal the next time they crossed paths with Johnny Law.

But perhaps they have a chance.  After all, among the books (again, books = knowledge = power) scattered in the library was one titled “How to Survive a Nuclear Apocalypse”.  Perhaps they picked up some helpful hints within those pages.

And maybe their lack of a killer instinct won’t hurt them too much.  After all, it took the murder of his wife and child to turn Max into The Road Warrior.  Maybe the loss of their loved ones in the nuclear blasts flipped an internal switch.  Would Reba have dreamed of running someone over a few days before?  Absolutely not.  If she’s capable of that, maybe she is capable of doing what needs to be done to survive in the post-apocalyptic age.  Ditto for Harriet.

Still, there are a lot of “maybes” in that last paragraph.  I can’t shake the feeling that this story does not end well.  What happens when Harriet and Reba come up against a group of grizzled survivors with weapons in their hands and malice in their hearts?  They have shown that they can be crafty in dealing with enemies when they have time to plan.  What happens when they have no time for planning?

I hope they make it.  I really do.  However, I have a feeling that the image of Harriet and Reba heading off into the world at the end of the film – a scene that is supposed to be seen as two best friends heading off to make it in this new world – is more than likely the start of a very short death march.

[If, by some miracle, Brea Grant, Vera Miao or Stacey Storey is actually reading this, I want you to know that I would absolutely throw some money at Kickstarter for a Road Warrior-esque sequel to this, and would be more than willing to contribute some music to the soundtrack/score.]

What Comes Next: Mama

Welcome to the first post in my new series, where I chronicle what I think would happen after the credits roll.  (If you’re curious as to how this idea came about – and why wouldn’t you be? – you can read my original post here.)

For my first post, I thought I would tackle Mama, mainly because it’s one of my favorite movies of the year, but I also left the theater wondering about a lot of the loose ends that were left dangling at the end.  (You can read my original review of Mama here.)

These posts are going to be extremely spoiler heavy.  So, if you haven’t seen Mama and don’t want to know how it ends, I suggest you stop reading now.    So I’ll just put a SPOILER ALERT here, and let you know that it applies to the entire post.

SPOILERS AHEAD.

First of all, I’d like to say a few words about the ending.  I know a lot of people had problems with the ending, but I kind of liked it.  I loved the build-up to it.  They make a big point of finding the bones of Mama’s lost child, and pretty much say that giving her those bones (and thus helping her to find the child she lost) will placate her.  This is a common theme in ghost stories.  To help the ghost move on, a wrong must be righted.  So they give Mama the bones of her child, and everything seems like it’s going to work out.  Mama changes from her freaky ghost figure into her freaky human figure.

But it doesn’t work.  She literally tosses the bones of her child aside in order to go after Lilly & Victoria.  Because Mama was crazy before she died, and even death can’t cure crazy.   

I loved that.  It took a scene we’ve seen hundreds of times and turned it on its head. 

Of course, I was a little sad when Mama ended up taking Lilly as a replacement, but the movie had been set up to show that, while Victoria had a real shot at fitting into society, Lilly never really had that chance.  So, while I was sad (if you’re not sad when an innocent child dies, there’s probably something wrong with you), I understood why it happened.

So…what comes next?

When the movie ends, Annabel, Lucas and Victoria seem poised to go on with their lives.  They’ll mourn Lilly, but they’ll try to get back to as normal a life as they can.  It’s not really a happy ending, but at least they didn’t all die.

But their lives probably won’t be good for very long.

On top of dealing with the death of a child, Annabel and Lucas are probably going away for the murder of Jean.  Who, on top of being the grandmother of Victoria and Annabel, was also the woman they went to court with for custody of the children.  The last time she is heard from, she is calling social services from outside the house of Annabel and Lucas, then proceeds to break into the house to get pictures that could show evidence of child abuse.  She is killed in the house by Mama, and her skeletal corpse ends up at the cabin where the girls were originally found.

Speaking of the cabin…

They are probably also on the hook for the disappearance of Lilly.  There’s evidence of all of them in the cabin, and yet they come back home with only one child.  Just because they’ll never find the body of Lilly (unless they just start looking for butterflies matching her description, which is highly unlikely in a police investigation) doesn’t mean she’s not presumed dead.  She went over the cliff and disappeared in the water.  It happens all the time.  Furthermore, the fact that Mama is no longer plaguing the family means that there’s no chance of her showing up and convincing an open-minded detective that all of this was the work of a ghost.  Mama is gone.  Along with her are the stories that paint Annabel and Lucas as innocent.

Last but not least, they’ll also be on the hook for the death of Dr. Dreyfuss, the psychiatrist.  He is killed in the cabin, and Annabel has a box of evidence stolen from his office in her house. 

With Annabel and Lucas in prison – and Jean dead – Victoria will most likely end up in foster care, which doesn’t bode well for her chances of living a normal life.  Even though she warmed up throughout the movie, her ties to reality were tenuous at best.  Without the constant presence of Annabel and Lucas in her life (the only people who know about Mama, so the only people who can really relate to her), she’ll probably crawl back deeper inside of herself, possibly going back to the feral state they found her in.  In a few years, it wouldn’t be a shock if she threw herself off that same cliff.  It’s grim, but that would more than likely be her fate.

It’s pretty depressing, but that appears to be where their story leads.

I welcome any comments that might add something else to this conversation.

Halloween, and the Psychological Impact of Surviving a Slasher Film

I have long been fascinated with the idea of what happens after a slasher movie ends.  Not all slasher movies, of course.  With some of them, I like to sit quietly and wonder what decisions in my life have led me to suffer through what I have just seen.

But the good ones leave me wondering what comes next.  What comes after the horror?

Very few films seem to deal with this.  Sure, there are sequels, but those don’t necessarily show the aftermath of the horror.  In some cases (like 1981’s Halloween 2), they pick up exactly where the first movie left off.  But the killer is still on the loose.  Lori is in the hospital, but she has no time to process what has just happened to her, as she is currently in the process of trying to survive once again. 

In a lot of other cases, we don’t see the characters from the first film at all.  Our killer is off to terrorize another group of diverse, sexy co-eds.  We’re never told what happened to the survivors of the previous film, likely because we’re not tuning into a sequel to see those characters.  We’re there to see the killer.

In others (Friday the 13^th Part II, Nightmare on Elm Street 4), we see our survivors from the previous film, only to watch them die this time around.  Sadly, even a Final Girl can’t survive forever.

And finally, in others (Nightmare on Elm Street 5), we see the survivor, but it doesn’t look like anything has changed.  The horror of the previous film seems to have been forgotten.  “All of my friends were killed.  Whatever.  I totally got a boyfriend out of it.”

I find myself thinking about horror movies in real-life terms.  If the events of this movie actually happened, what would the repercussions be?  Would the dead be so easily forgotten?  Or would their loss – as well as the terror they had to endure – leave a lasting scar?

I’m a firm believer it would be the latter.

Of all the slashers I have watched, I haven’t seen a series that captures this quite as well as Rob Zombie’s Halloween.  I know they are not widely loved (personally, I liked them pretty well, but I can’t say that I love them.  I find them interesting.  More than anything, they just make me feel kind of dirty), but Zombie certainly tackles the psychological ramifications of surviving a slasher film in Halloween II better than any film I’ve ever seen.

When we first meet Laurie Strode in Halloween, she seems to be a normal high school girl.  By the time the movie has ended, one of her best friends is dead (Laurie came across her dead body in the Myers house), and another was attacked and sliced up. 

Both of their boyfriends were killed. 

Laurie’s parents were murdered. 

The end of the movie finds Laurie trying to escape from the Myers house as Michael is relentlessly pursuing her and stabbing at her. 

That ends with Laurie sitting on Michael’s chest and shooting him – point blank – in the head.

Personally, I have never shot a human being in the head at point-blank range, but I imagine it’s not all sunshine and roses (Maniac tells me that it’s particularly gruesome, and I tend to trust Savini most of the time).  And none of the other stuff Laurie endured that night sounds like a whole lot of fun, either.

Halloween II picks up a year later.  Gone is the happy-go-lucky Laurie Strode from the previous film.  She is an emotional wreck, trying to deal with these past events through therapy, drinking and pill-popping.  Needless to say, it’s not working.  She has pushed away everyone who cares about her.

About halfway through the movie, she finds out that she is Michael Myers’ sister.  Already in an emotional state, this pushes her further to the edge of her sanity.  By the time the movie ends with Laurie in a mental institution, we’re not the least bit surprised.

Seeing it all written out over a couple paragraphs, the journey from “normal girl” to “psych ward” seems pretty sudden.  But, when watching these films, I don’t know where else it could’ve ended.

We see a little bit of this in the original Halloween series as well, but not quite as extreme, and not quite as brutal.  Laurie survives the two initial attacks, and we don’t see her again until H20 (20 years after those events).  We’re not sure the exact path she took, but she has changed her name (to Keri Tate), moved to California, and is the dean of a private school.  She has not told anyone about who she was or where she came from.  Even 20 years later, she is still haunted by the events, to the point where she thinks she sees Michael stalking her on a regular basis.  (Then again, she’s dating Theo Tonin, so we can’t expect her to be very well-adjusted.)

After surviving yet another Myers attack in that film (and chopping off the head of an innocent paramedic), we find Laurie in a mental institution at the beginning of Halloween: Resurrection (a film I hesitate to even mention, because the mere thought of acknowledging its existence makes me gag a little, Starbuck or no Starbuck).

And that is where I believe most slashers would leave the survivors.  Even the strongest, most well-adjusted person would be irrevocably scarred.  The deaths of those who didn’t survive would not be soon forgotten.  The survivors would not recover for a long time, if ever. 

I thought it would be really interesting to follow up a slasher with a drama, but that would end up being box office suicide. 

It is because of this odd obsession that I’ll be starting a new feature here.  I haven’t quite settled on a name yet, but I’m thinking of going with “What Comes Next?” or “Spoiler Corner”, although I’m certainly not married to either of those.  I’ll be taking movies I’ve recently seen and talking about where the logical progression would lead.  My first post should be coming up later this week.  It’s probably going to be Mama, because I can’t stop thinking about that movie.

I’ve toyed with the idea of starting up another blog, but have decided against it.

I'm really excited about this.  I think it's going to be a lot of fun.  If there are any movies you've had this thought about, post them in the comments.