Entrance

Description from Netflix:

After mysteriously losing her dog one evening, a Los Angeles barista questions her commitment to living in the city and decides to get out.  But when her going-away party takes an odd turn, she finds that the city just might not let her go so easily.

What I liked:

1. The acting was stellar.  I believe everyone involved had limited acting experience, yet they were all terrific.  For a slow movie to work, I have to feel invested in the characters, and it succeeded in doing that with some great acting.

Pictured: Acting 

2. The sense of paranoia and dread that slowly built throughout the movie.  There was one particular scene in which Suziey was walking down a road at night and was being followed by a car.  It was a long scene, but it was effective.  That was when the movie really seemed like it started to pick up.

3. The ending.  The last 20 minutes of this movie were terrific.  All of the paranoia and dread came to a head in terrifying and stressful fashion.  What had been a look inside the mind of a woman hitting a quarter-life crisis in a big city became a living, breathing nightmare for her and her friends.  This is when the movie turned from psychological thriller to slasher/home invasion.  The last 10 minutes or so is basically one unbroken shot, where the actress (Suziey Block) was actually tied up to make it more believable.  It's a tense and horrifying end to the movie, and the final scene is absolutely chilling. 

What I didn't like:

1. It opens extremely slowly.  Lots of scenes of Suziey going to work, talking to friends, and looking for her dog.  Short of the dog disappearing (which we don't even see), we're really just watching a girl go about her daily life, while getting ready to move.  It's really boring.  Beyond being really boring, it doesn't even seem like it's building towards anything for a long time.  It was about halfway through the movie before any tension started to build.  Which makes this movie feel an awful lot like Death Proof: lots of talking, not much happening.  It almost lost me in the first 20 minutes.  I'm glad I pushed through to the end, but, if I didn't know there was a good ending waiting for me, I probably would have hit stop before the 30 minute mark.

To recap: set in the city.  Slow start.  Lots of talking about nothing in particular for long portions of time.  A killer that shows up near the end and starts hacking.

Holy crap.  It's Jason Takes Manhattan.

Voorheesed! 

Rating: 2.5/5

Let's break this down a little further:

First 60 minutes: 1/5

Last 25 minutes: 5/5

Here Comes the Devil

Netflix description:

Grieving parents rejoice when their missing son and daughter return after disappearing on a family trip to Tijuana.  But they’re not the same children they once knew, even though everything looks normal on the outside.

My thoughts:

This movie was completely bonkers for the first 30 minutes or so.  I got 20 minutes in, and I wasn’t even sure there was a plot to follow.  It eventually settled in, but it took a while to get there.  Thankfully, it was entertaining, so I stuck with it.

Just as an example, here is a list of things that happen in the first half hour:

- Two naked girls messing around on a bed while a 70s grindhouse song rages.  This is the very first image we see.

- A man coming into the house and beating one of the girls senseless, an act that concludes with him cutting off a couple of her fingers and running off into the hills after the other girl hits him in the head with a fire poker.

- The same man madly humping the ground, while surrounded by severed fingers.  (This is similar to a scene in Steinbeck’s To a God Unknown.  Except I don’t think that book had severed fingers.  I don’t know.  It’s been a while since I’ve read it.  That Joseph Wayne was into some weird stuff.)

- A man and wife letting their kids run off into the hills (not unlike Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer) in an area they’re not familiar with.  While their kids are out of sight, they sit in their car in a gas station parking lot, talk about their sexual experiences as teenagers and get to third base.  Again, this is in a gas station parking lot.

- The line “seeing your parents make love isn’t the end of the world,” is uttered.  By the parents.  (They obviously never witnessed their parents having sex.)

For a while, I honestly thought the subtitles didn’t match the actual dialog.  I thought I was witnessing a practical joke by the subtitle writers.  “Wouldn’t it be funny if we totally changed the entire tone of the movie by writing insane things?”  (I would normally include some examples here, but they’re so funny that it’s best if you experience them for yourself.  I don’t want to ruin your joy.)

However, based the few Spanish classes I took, that did not seen to be the case.  The dialog really was as insane as it appeared to be.

Eventually, the movie settles in a bit into something resembling a plot, but even that wasn’t completely normal.  The kids come back to the car, but they don’t seem quite right.  Strange things begin to happen in the house.  A babysitter is run off, leaving only her bra and sanity behind.  I believe the intent was to build a sense of uncertainty in the viewer.  What is wrong with the children?  Are they possessed, or were they just mentally scarred by a traumatic event in the hills?

However, since the movie was titled Here Comes the Devil, it was pretty easy to tell what happened, so that sense of uncertainty wasn’t present.

The parents also briefly dabbled in vigilante justice, because of course they did.  They appeared particularly skilled at it, too.  I double-checked to make sure the father wasn’t actually named Frank Castle.  He was not.

Even this little storyline made little-to-no sense.  The parents had been dealing with the police since the disappearance/reappearance of their children, and the police had been extremely helpful.  And then, suddenly, they decide that knives and guns will give them all the answers they will ever need.

I’m not complaining.  I like a good throat-ripping scene as much as the next guy (probably more, actually.  I blame Dalton), but it just seemed odd.

I was going to say “odd and out-of-place”, but this movie had so many strange moments that I’m pretty sure the entire movie was out-of-place.

"Kids skipping school, you say? We should probably kill this guy." 

I was confused as to whether this movie was actually supposed to be scary or campy.  There were a couple creepy scenes, but nothing that was out-and-out scary.  The best scene was when the babysitter was telling her story of her evening with the kids, but it still felt like it was missing something.  They could have really kicked it up a notch there, and they didn’t jump on that opportunity.

At the same time, I really don’t get the feeling that it was supposed to be funny.  I laughed quite a few times, but it didn’t have a comedic feel to it.  I don’t think it was going for humor or camp. It was just so ludicrous that I couldn’t help but laugh.

This was a weird little 70s inspired possession movie, complete with lots of quick zooms.  It had a cool look to it, and I enjoyed myself throughout the entire movie, even if I was confused more often than not. 

After an absolutely bonkers opening, it kind of settled in.  Some creepy moments.  A couple cool little reveals.  It wasn’t overly scary, but it had its moments.  I really liked the visuals on the hill.

Crazy, but highly enjoyable.

4/5

Dracula 3D: Journey to the Brink of Sanity

(I originally put this up on Horror-Writers, but decided to post it here as well.  I was talking to a couple people that write for the site, and they were talking about how bad Dario Argento’s Dracula was.  So I watched it and wrote this.)

On numerous occasions, Shawn has proclaimed this movie “the worst movie ever made”.  I believe Chassity has backed him up on these claims. 

I took these bold proclamations as a personal challenge.  I sat through Blood Gnome – a movie about knock-off Ghoulies in the world of S&M – in its entirety.  I refused to believe that Dracula 3D could be worse.  It was directed by Dario Argento, for God’s sake.  I’ve never been a huge fan of the man, but at least his films have a visually interesting aspect to them. 

And so, with half a bottle of Scotch at my disposal, I hit play and prepared myself for the onslaught of Dracula 3D in 2D.

May my non-existent children forgive me.

My confusion started early, and set the stage for what was to come.  I swore the music playing over the credits was the same music used in Mars Attacks.  Was I to infer that Dracula was actually an alien?  I assumed the answer was an emphatic “yes”.  Dracula – THE Dracula – had given up pork.  I was left to wonder when (not if) Tom Jones would be showing up.  Dracula turning into a mantis.  It’s not unusual, indeed.

Within the first five minutes, I witnessed a busty young lass take off her clothes and get railed in a barn by a local (married) farmer.  In my experience, there's nothing a woman likes more from her married lover than hurried, dirty sex in a barn.  At least throw on some Marvin Gaye, man.  They had a tiff afterwards (something about him being married, the cross she was wearing, and their differing opinions of the style in which As I Lay Dying was written, I believe), which led to her running through the woods from an owl and becoming Dracula’s newest plaything, while a man with a shotgun smiled and nodded his approval.

At this point, I had come to believe that I had contracted the flu.  Nothing else would explain these images currently being burrowed into my brain.

Not long after that, Jonathan Harker – who looked absolutely nothing like Neo – arrived at Dracula’s castle and noticed the lack of Dracula’s reflection in a mirror.  “Must be a trick of the light,” he said.  “Or proof that your parents haven’t conceived you yet,” I replied, cackling into my glass.  At this point, I went to the nearest mirror and was shocked to find that I also lacked a reflection.  I chalked it up to the Scotch, and not the madness this film was inflicting on me.  While it was still too soon to know for sure, I felt as though I were already past the point of no return.  Soon, I would be pulling off the legs of those closest to me and hearing terrible, disjointed music blared out from the heavens.

Or was that Yellow Brick Road?  At this point, it was impossible to tell.  I ditched the glass and decided to drink straight from the bottle.  The night was getting away from me.  Dracula had already claimed another victim, though I was not ready to admit it to myself just yet.

Naked ladies were everywhere now.  There was one, desperately trying to suck the life of out Jonathan’s bloody hand, stealing pictures of his wife, and engaging in some passionate necking.  There was another, being bathed as part of a sexy bathtime routine by her best friend.  There was another, descending the walls of Dracula’s castle on Rapunzel’s hair.  And still another, being thrown to the ground by Dracula and hissing at him while he bit into Jonathan’s (obviously) delicious neck.

Naked ladies and bad CGI dogmen are the only things that make sense to me anymore.  They are my currency, and I am their master.

At this point, I began to question the decisions of any director who thought it would be completely appropriate to film his daughter getting a sexy naked spongebath.  I may be in no position to judge, but that’s pretty weird.

I watched Renfield running bloody through the streets and wondered if it were him or me.  Had I somehow joined the characters onscreen, like some sort of Brea Grant-less Midnight Movie?  I checked myself, and found no blood.  It couldn’t be me, then.  So why was I howling at the moon?  And how did my clothes end up in tatters?  I looked to my bottle and found it was almost full.  Nothing makes sense anymore.

I watched a sick Lucy Kisslinger in bed and found one way we are similar: we both wear sheer nightgowns in front of our fathers.  Her father seemed more open to it than mine.  Perhaps the Buffalo Bill voice was a bit too much.

“I dreamt a wolf tore a woman to pieces,” a frantic and increasingly helpless Mina Harker proclaimed.  I tipped back the bottle, drank deep and replied, “And I was that wolf.  And I was that woman.  And I was the ground on which it happened.”  I drank again and saw nothing but the wolf.  And he was hungry like he should be.

I recall flashes of activity: of life and death and blood and hope and love and loss.  And all of it washed over me like a waterfall. 

I saw Dracula appear in a cloud of flies and lay waste to the establishment.

I saw wolves running around Mina and wondered aloud how Argento got those wolves to ignore the helpless woman on the ground while filming, and whether the first five Minas were torn to shreds.

I saw three cockroaches that I believe were supposed to be Dracula, but I was never quite sure.

I saw Rutger Hauer.

I saw a giant praying mantis climb a staircase and kill a fat man.  I laughed harder than I should have, which frightened my dog.  She looked at me and asked, “What are you doing with your life that you are here, right now, watching this?” but her lips never moved.

When the end finally came, it was swift and unrelenting.  I wasn’t sure if it was actually the end, or just the end of my already fragile mind.  I opened the DVD player and found that there was nothing in there.  Did any of this ever actually happen? 

I pinched myself.  I was me.  I am me.  I am one.  I am a rock.  I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar.

I looked up.  The TV was blank.  I got out of the chair to find that two days had passed. 

I checked the mirror. 

I had a reflection.

I had survived, though I have no idea what kind of life I am capable of anymore.

I left the bottle of Scotch next to my chair and walked outside into the great wide open.  I drank all of it in.  Every single inch.  I saw a bug fly by and smiled knowingly. 

“I’ll see you again, Count.  I'll see you real soon.”

The Innkeepers

Description from Netflix:

In this eerie ghost story, a venerable New England inn closes after a century in business, and the lodge’s two remaining employees are determined to uncover the truth about longtime rumors that the majestic mansion is haunted.

Things I liked:

1. Sara Paxton.  As Claire, she showed endless curiosity, boundless energy, wide-eyed wonder and abject horror.  At times – in her more awkward moments – she reminded me of a long-lost Deschanel, which is never a bad thing.  I had only seen her in a couple movies before this (The Last House on the Left and Shark Night), and she didn’t leave much of an impression on me.  She was great in this, though.  Far-and-away the best part of the movie.

This is exactly how I looked for most of this movie 

2.  The look of the movie.  West is great at making a movie look really good.  It’s almost as if Wes Anderson is directing a horror movie.  I have the same praise of House of the Devil.  He has a great sense of how to use space.  Every shot looks perfect.

Things I didn’t like:

1. The Luke character.  He annoyed me to no end.  It’s quite possible that the actor (Pat Healy) did a really good job.  The reason doesn’t matter too much.  I found him absolutely insufferable.  I hated him, his faux-hawk, his superior attitude, and everything else.  Every time he was on the screen, I was annoyed.

2.  Once you get past the look of the movie, you realize there’s not a lot going on.  The movie itself is pretty boring.  No real tension to speak of for the bulk of the film.  The dialog isn’t good.  It’s not clever.  It’s not deep.  It’s not snappy.  It’s just boring.  There’s a little build during the ending, but the movie had completely lost me by that point.  In the end, I felt like I watched 80 minutes of two people running a hotel, 10 minutes of a slow-moving ghost story, and 10 minutes of messy, unfocused insanity.

The real problem of this film is the complete lack of tension.  Scenes don’t really seem to be building towards anything.  Very few things actually happen, and the build to these events is minimal at best.

3. Random, sloppy jump scares.  As a general rule, “slow-burn” movies don’t do jump scares.  And, if they do, they’re artfully done.  This movie decided to throw that rule out the window.  There were quite a few jump scares, and none of them were very well done.  Lots of random bumps and noises.  Just lazy, out-of-nowhere scares.

4.  Claire’s inhaler.  There were a number of scenes showing her using her inhaler, to the point where they all but telegraphed the ending.  This was the exact opposite of subtle.

5.  Some of the logic at the end of the movie.  They say things like, “We need to get out of this hotel,” then spend a couple minutes milling around the lobby.  I understand that you’re waiting for someone, but you should probably just wait outside.  There were a handful of moments like this at the ending, and they were all maddening.

6.  The ending.  Even leaving out the terrible logic employed, the ending was downright comical.  The ghosts were ridiculous.  If there had been a sense of building terror throughout the movie, the ending could have been very good.  But, since there was none of that, it was just boring.  It was just crazy stuff happening for the sake of having crazy stuff happen, not because there was an actual build-up to it. 

Final thoughts:

West knows how to make a movie look good, but doesn’t know how to make a good movie.  I’m holding out hope that he learns.  He was listed as writer/director/editor of this film.  He needs to scale back a bit.  Work with a co-writer and co-editor.  He seems like he’s very close to making something amazing, but he’s missing a key ingredient somewhere.

Favorite Movies of 2013

Top 10 Movies of 2013

10.The Battery - Took me a couple viewings to really like it.  It’s slow.  It drags in parts.  The characters aren’t overly likable.  But it feels like a realistic depiction of the impending zombie apocalypse.  It’s a different look at the genre, so it’s something even Renfield may be able to appreciate.

9. The Last Will & Testament of Rosalind Leigh - If I ever finish editing the film club entry on this, you’ll see my full thoughts.  Slow, but a good sense of tension throughout.

8. Star Trek Into Darkness - Exactly what I expected.  Lots of fun.  Great performance by Cumberbatch.

7. Best Friends Forever - Kind of cheesy in parts, but I really loved this.  Had a great feel to it.  Loved the interaction of the two main characters.  A cool little apocalyptic road-trip movie.  I adore this film.

6. World War Z - Nothing like the book, but I didn’t expect it to be.  It starts fast and doesn’t let up.  I could’ve done with less of the pointless cut-backs to Gerry’s family (because I’m a heartless fiend), but that didn’t really ruin it.  Just a fun, fast-paced action movie.

5. The World’s End - The weakest entry into the Cornetto trilogy, but I still loved it.  Much better the second time around.

4. Mama - I totally understand the complaints about this movie, but I didn’t have those same issues.  I choose to overlook the ending and the glaring plotholes and look at the story and the performances of everyone involved.  The final showdown on the cliff looked like something straight out of a Universal monster movie.

3. Evil Dead - I was so excited about this coming out that I figured I would be disappointed.  That was not the case.  I loved this movie (it helped that I went with a squeamish friend).  It had a myriad of problems, but I really don’t care.  It was crazy and bloody, and I had a lot of fun watching it.

2. Maniac - Gave a sleek makeover to the scuzzy original.  Kind of felt like Drive, but with a more scalpy protagonist. I had no idea what to expect going in, and this absolutely blew me away.

1. Pacific Rim - MONSTERS AND ROBOTS FIGHTING!  I felt like a little kid watching this.  I giggled during every fight.  I excitedly punched my knee during a few parts (“They have a rocket that makes them punch harder!”)  I’ve seen this 4 times now, and I get excited every single time.

Honorable mentions: Kill Me Now, John Dies at the End, Grabbers, You’re Next, American Mary, Inside Shadows

I don’t have a hated list, but here are a couple I didn’t love.

Escape From Tomorrow - I had such high hopes for this.  It just feels like a waste opportunity.  Instead of a slow descent into madness at Disney World (which would’ve been amazing), we were treated to a middle-aged man trying to bang every woman he sees.  Kind of surprised he didn’t use pick-up lines like, “Hey baby, you wanna see the real Magic Kingdom?”  Then point to his johnson (“Johnson?”).  Anyway, this movie was kind of terrible.

Lords of Salem - Decent idea.  Absolute mess of a film.

Frankenstein’s Army - I heard this was good.  “The creature effects are amazing.”  They weren’t bad.  The rest of the movie was wretched.

The Purge - Not horrible.  Just really boring.  Again, a really cool idea, but not a very good movie.

This is also posted over at Horror-Writers.

Inside Shadows

Short synopsis (from the film’s website):

When a young couple move into a converted shop, they are filled with excitement and ideas as to how they will make the house their own.  But it would appear the property is still clinging to its past, and unbeknown to them they are living inside its shadows.

My thoughts:

Having recently watched The Orphanage (again), The Awakening, and The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh, it seems clear that I’m a sucker for a slow-developing ghost story.  This really isn’t a surprise, but it’s something that is reinforced with each movie I watch.

Inside Shadows fits comfortably into that genre.  Calling it a slow-developing ghost story is a completely accurate description.  It may even be even slower moving than the aforementioned films, which is really saying something, seeing as how none of those movies move at a breakneck pace.  It’s very good once it gets moving, but it takes a little while to get to that point.  It would be extremely easy to lose focus before the good stuff kicks in.  The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh was slow, but it had a sense of tension that started early and kept up throughout the entire film.  There was none of that here.  This was more like Entrance: a slow-building movie that doesn’t really even try to build tension until late. 

Once it gets going, it’s pretty good.  And there are a handful of moments that hint at the upcoming insanity.  They do a pretty good job at teasing it.  But, like I said, it would be pretty easy to lose interest before it gets to that point, especially if you’re not in the right mood for this type of movie.  It’s less a “slow burn” and more “lighting fireworks with punk sticks”.  

Even when the craziness started, I had a couple issues with it.  They felt the need to give a big musical blast every time the ghost appeared for an instant.  It was somewhat reminiscent of the musical goosing we got when Michael Myers showed up in Halloween, but this less subtle.  It was extremely distracting, and completely unnecessary.  Seeing a shadowy figure appear in the background is startling by itself; there’s no need to throw it in our face.

I also had a pretty major problem with the decision-making of some of the characters late in the film.  For spoiler reasons, I can’t really get into the specifics.  Suffice it to say that a couple characters had some highly dubious logic late in this film.  It almost ruined the movie for me.

Overall, I would say that I enjoyed this movie, but I didn’t love it like I hoped I would.  Superficially, it suffers from the same problems that plague a lot of low-budget movies: mainly, poor lighting and inconsistent sound (although I will say that the sound was better here than a lot of low-budget movies I’ve seen).  I’ve never had a problem getting past those things as long as the story is good, but, if you have a problem with those things, you should probably stay away.

But, if you like a good ghost story, it’s definitely worth giving a shot.  It was pretty well-acted, and had a pretty cool style to it.  Pick a quiet night, shut off all the lights, and dive in.

Rating: 3/5

Inside Shadows is now available on VOD.  Check it out here.

The Purge

Description from IMDB:

In the future, a wealthy family is held hostage for harboring the target of a murderous syndicate during the Purge, a 12-hour period in which any and all crime is legalized.

I think I'll go ahead and put a blanket SPOILER WARNING at the top here, since a lot of the problems I have with this get into spoiler territory.

First off, I'll say that I love the concept of this movie.  The idea of a world where all crime is legal for one night is a pretty fun idea to play around with.

However, I have a major issue with the idea behind that concept.  The idea is that unemployment rates and crime rates are down because people can go bonkers 12 hours a year.  There's no way it would work out that way.  If people want to kill/rob/vandalize, they won't wait all year for a 12 hour window to do it.  They'll just do it.

For example, look at the main invader, known only as The Polite Stranger.  He is obviously wealthy, and he mentions that he and his compatriots are well-educated.  He's also a psychopath.  It's foolish to assume that his bloodlust (and that of his Purge-buddies) will be sated for an entire year just because he kicked a couple drifters to death one night.  That's not how this works.

As was depicted, it looks as though the majority of people taking advantage of "Purge Night" were out there for killing.  Which makes sense.  Perhaps you're just a normal fella who wants to pee in public without being fined for it.  You're not going to risk that when there are rich kids with automatic weapons running around the neighborhood.  Which brings up this issue: those people with the urge to get into some petty crime for the evening won't be indulging that urge, as they don't want to be murdered.  Those people won't be purging themselves that evening, which means they'll probably indulge that urge at some other time and hope they don't get caught.

The deeper you find yourself digging, the less sense it all makes.

That's not to say this entire movie was terrible, nonsensical trash.  Because it wasn't.  There were quite a few really cool parts.  I loved the opening, where we see the violence of the Purge as shown by surveillance cameras.  It gave me context and scope for what was to come.  Even though most of this movie played out as a home invasion movie, it showed that this was just one incident among thousands (millions?).  It took a huge idea and pared it down to a single incident, while still giving us a taste of what the rest of America looked like.  It was a jarring way to start a movie, but it was extremely effective.  I'm hoping to see more of this in The Purge 2: Lost in Yonkers.

My favorite scene was the nonchalant way the next door neighbor was sharpening his machete a few hours before the start of the Purge.  Big fan of that guy.  I really wanted to follow him around for the evening and see what shenanigans he got himself into.

In the end, this was a claustrophobic home invasion movie.  In a movie with limited characters, a lot hinges on how I feel about the main characters.  And they were terrible here.  The acting wasn’t bad, but the characters were extremely unlikable and made some awful decisions.  I didn’t like a single one of them.  More than any of my other complaints, this is really what killed this movie for me.

Not terrible.  Not great.  A good concept, but not really anything interesting done with it.  It’s worth catching if you don’t have anything better to do for 80 minutes, but don’t rush out to watch this.

Rating: 2/5