Kristy

At its core, this is a slasher movie about a girl who stays on campus over Thanksgiving break and finds herself stalked by 4 murdering psychopaths.  The psychopaths kill a couple security guards, and the only thing standing between our heroine and certain death are her own wits.

It's pretty standard slasher fare.  As far as standard slashers go, this was a pretty good one.  Yes, there were some pretty huge leaps in logic, but that's to be expected.  (People jump off tall buildings and are able to get up and run away all the time, right?)  There's also a fair about of slasher logic on display here, but it's a slasher.  I'm fine with it.

I believe that a slasher movie can really only be as good as its final girl, and we got a good one here.  Although the movie is called Kristy, our final girl is Justine (I'll get to that in a bit), and she's terrific, provided you don't really ask any questions about how she got the skills she shows off.  She's a likable character, but that kind of information takes a backseat to the real question: is she a fighter?  The answer is a resounding "yes."  She uses her knowledge of the campus to her advantage.  She turns the tables on her attackers.  When she's cornered, she doesn't panic.  Okay...she panics, but then she looks for a way out.

I liked all of that.  But there's another storyline running throughout the movie.  This group of murderers are part of a larger group.  This group has cells all over the country, and they all have one goal: "Kill Kristy."  They use Kristy as a code.  It basically stands for any rich white girl who appears to have a good life.  These groups stalk these "Kristys", kill them and carve a "K" into their faces.  They videotape the entire process and upload it to a central server.  All the videos of dead Kristys, all in one place.  They watch these videos on multiple TVs at the same time, like a moving murder quilt.

We see a lot of this before we even meet Justine.  The movie opens with the murder of a pretty girl in a field, then a whole lot of distorted dialogue across the network.  "Kill Kristy."  "Kristy is God.  Kill God."  Things like that.  

I didn't like any of that.  The idea that there was a larger group than these 4 killers wasn't bad, but the execution was terrible.  It was supposed to feel like this menacing presence, but it just annoyed me.  If they would have cut that stuff out of the beginning and had it as a big reveal at the end, I probably would have liked it better.  As it was, it was handled poorly in the beginning and I had a bad taste in my mouth for the first 20 minutes.

Also, all the killers wear masks made out of foil and do the whole, "tilt my head," move.  You know the one.

There it is

That's fine when it's Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees; after all, they're unstoppable killers who aren't even really human.  They tilt their heads because they truly don't understand what is going on, like a confused dog.  A regular person doing it doesn't really strike me as menacing, even with a mask.  It just comes off as forced.
Unless they're trying to emulate Myers and Voorhees.  In which case, you just look like you're trying too hard.  Get a new intimidation tactic, because this one isn't working.

As it stands, this is a perfectly decent slasher movie that reaches for heights it can't quite achieve.

Rating: 3/5

Notable actors: Haley Bennett (Hardcore Henry), Ashley Green (Twilight, The Apparition), Chris Coy (Banshee)

Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse

Have you ever found yourself watching Superbad and thinking, "I wish there was a less well-written version of this with zombies and more annoying characters,"?  Then this movie is for you!

That sounds harsher than I mean it to.  I apologize to the scouts and their stripper friend.  Let's break it down.

Ben, Carter and Augie are sophomores in high school.  They are Boy Scouts.  Augie loves being a scout.  Ben and Carter are planning on quitting - because being a Boy Scout is super lame, you guys - but don't want to hurt Augie's feelings.  

The three of them are going on an overnight scout trip with Scout Leader Rodgers (a Dolly Parton-loving David Koechner) when Ben and Carter are invited to a super-secret high school party by Kendall's (Carter's hot sister, who Ben has a very obvious crush on) boyfriend.  But it's the same night as the camp-out!  What are these scouts going to do?

They're going to ditch Augie after he goes to sleep and go to the party, because that sounds like a plan that will go very well.  Somewhere along the line, they meet up with Denise, a former high school dropout who now works at a local strip club.

Pretty standard high school sex comedy stuff, really.  Until the zombies show up.
We see the outbreak at the beginning of the movie.  They are being studied at some local sciency place, which allows burnout janitors to just dance right into the zombie zone.  It seemed like they probably could have secured the area a little better, but that's just me being cautious, I guess.

At this point, Ben, Carter, Augie (who joins up with them after having some adventures by himself) and Denise are still trying to get to the party.  Not because they want to hook up with seniors (they do, though), but because they want to save everyone there from the zombies.  Also, the military is planning on wiping out the entire city to stop the zombie spread (as seen in Resident Evil: Apocalypse, The Crazies, Return of the Living Dead and many, many more). 

I just used a whole lot of words on a pretty simplistic plot.  I apologize.  I could have just said, "high school boys attempt to procure alcohol and bang girls way out of their league, also zombies."  Or, to kind of repeat myself from earlier, "Superbad: Rave To The Grave," complete with one of the characters (Carter) trying to be a skinny Jonah Hill in the worst way.  Anyway, let's get to some thoughts.

It was fine.  Carter's whole "Jonah Hill in Superbad," act got old really quick, and I didn't really care for bland Ben, but I really liked Augie and Denise.  I liked Augie because he wasn't ashamed of who he was (he also created the best weapon when it came to killin' time) and Denise because, underneath her gruff demeanor, was actually quite sweet.  Her and Ben formed a weird little friendship that I genuinely enjoyed watching.  She treated Carter like garbage, because he was a jackass and needed to be put in his place.  I liked that, because Carter deserves everything bad in this world.

Ultimately, we're talking about zombie comedy, so let's talk about the zombies.

It was unclear how they were going to play it.  The first zombies we see are typical Romero zombies.  We also see a zombie deer, so we know it can cross species.  

Also, cats.

Then we get to a scene early in the outbreak where our heroes are making a stand in a liquor store parking lot.  A horde of zombies are lurching towards them.  Suddenly, one of the zombies goes down on all fours and starts running at them like a flesh-eating ape.  Okay then.  We're dealing with Day of the Dead (remake) zombies.
We also find out that the zombies retain something of their pre-zombie memories, much like latter day Romero zombies (as first seen in the original Day of the Dead).  How do we find this out?  Why, the scouts sing "...Baby One More Time" to a zombie wearing a Britney Spears t-shirt, and the zombie attempts to sing along.  It's a highly scientific method.

"My loneliness is killing meeeeee..."

There is some decent gore, especially when the scouts "weapon up" and hit the party.  They created a bunch of zombie-killing weapons from random hardware store items, because apparently they had all earned their Weapon Making merit badges.  Lots of death, destruction, mayhem, etc.

If you like the image of someone using a zombie penis as a handle, only to tear that handle off and send it flying through the air, there is also a scene like that.  There is also a scene where someone takes a selfie with a pair of zombie boobs.  I did not care for those scenes.

I can't say I enjoyed this movie all the way through, but there were enough funny/bloody moments to keep me entertained.  There's something I had to keep in mind as I was watching this: I am 35 years old.  This movie was not really made with the "approaching middle-age man" in mind.  If I was in high school or college, I'm sure I would find this movie hilarious.  It's a bit of dumb fun with crude jokes, lots of gore and a little nudity.  It's fast-moving enough to make it easy to overlook its flaws.
Although, honestly, if you switch out Carter for a character who is less obnoxious, I'm sure I would have enjoyed this more than I did.  As it stands, this was a fun movie that I will probably never watch again.  If I do, it'll probably be on mute, in the background of a party.  

Who am I kidding?  I don't have parties.  I apologize for lying to you all.

Rating: 3/5

The Witch

For the third straight year a horror movie has made the festival rounds and has received rave reviews from self-proclaimed non-horror fans.  In 2014 it was The Babadook.  In 2015 it was It Follows.  In 2016 we have The Witch.  I consider myself lucky in that I was able to avoid trailers for any of these films (which I was shockingly able to accomplish without even trying too hard).  However, it was impossible to ignore the hype they all got.  Even with that hype, The Babadook and It Follows exceeded my expectations.  I went into The Witch hoping for the same experience.  Going in, the only thing I knew about it was that it was “terrifying.”

I feel like I should have a lot of smart things to say about this film.    It is set in 17th century New England and it uses a lot of authentic language and accents.  Some of the dialogue is actually taken directly from journals written during that time period.  It is a dark film, both figuratively and literally: many shots are only provided the light of a candle.  It sets a mood that is authentic to the time period, but it also allows for lots of dark corners for things to hide.  This is not the kind of film that has things jumping out from dark corners, but that doesn't mean something isn't there, silently peering from the darkness.

Perhaps that’s part of why I feel like I should have smart things to say.  Robert Eggers – the director – put a lot of research and care into this film.  Every shot is a work of art.  I was drawn in from the opening scene.  Watching this in the theater was a truly immersive experience, and the rest of my theater seemed to feel the same way, as I barely heard any noise throughout the entire film.  Or maybe they were asleep.  It was impossible to tell.

NO ONE SLEEPS

Now let’s get back to the one word review I kept hearing uttered in hushed tones: “terrifying.”  It was always spoken as if the person saying it had been hiding beneath a blanket for months, but felt the need to emerge to utter this declaration of warning.

Maybe it’s because I have seen a lot of horror movies, but I did not find this to be terrifying.  I did, however, find it to be deeply unsettling.  Long after the final image left the screen, I sat in my chair staring at the screen.  I walked to my car in a daze.  I wasn’t looking over my shoulder waiting for something to pop out at me, but I was looking out into the misty afternoon, wondering if something lurked in the fields beyond.  I didn’t lose any sleep over this movie, but I did find myself thinking about it constantly over the next week.  There was not a particular scene I found myself mulling over: it was the tone of the entire movie.  The feeling of dread I felt and carried with me out of that theater.  That’s what I kept coming back to.  It wasn’t the movie that stuck with me: it was that feeling.

I remember a similar feeling after watching the original Night of the Living Dead for the first time.  The movies don't share many similarities, but that feeling as I walked out of the theater was the same: like something dark was hanging over my head that was impossible to shake.

We see the titular witch early in the film, which is a fascinating decision.  As we watched a family grow more and more suspicious of each other, Eggers easily could have played on that and make the audience question whether there actually was a witch, or whether it was just religious hysteria gripping the family.  Instead, we knew from early on that there was an actual witch lurking in the woods.  The question as to whether someone in the family is actually in league with the witch (or Satan) is one that the audience is forced to ask over and over again, but we have definitive proof that there is, in fact, a witch.
Knowing that there is a dark presence in the forest does not forgive the religious fanaticism that threatens to tear the family apart, but it does cast it in another light.  The devil is real and we know that to be true.  What happens to the family is driven by this presence, but it does not force them to blame each other for everything that goes wrong.  The Puritanical oversimplification of religion - "all good comes from God, all bad comes from Satan" - is on full display here.  While I wish I could say that is simply the product of a bygone era, I know all too well that this kind of thinking still exists.  It's not that simple.  It has never been that simple. 

I don’t want to say too much more, as I don’t want to spoil the movie. 

The cast was perfect (Black Phillip included).  The movie was a bit slow at points, but I was so riveted by what I was seeing that I never felt bored or that the movie was dragging.
The soundtrack really helped propel this movie to another level.  Creepy atmospherics combined with a slowly bubbling cacophony that ended in massive eruptions.  It really upped the "creep factor."  There is nothing inherently creepy about looking at a bunch of trees, but this movie managed to do that multiple times, and the soundtrack was a huge part of that.

Thomasin waits for a bass drop that will never come

This was not a terrifying movie.  If you’re looking for jump scares, you will not find them here.  But if you want a slow burning, unnerving horror thriller with disturbing imagery, you owe it to yourself to watch this movie.  On a grey day, turn off the lights and spend some time with this movie.  Focus on it.  Let it transport you back to that specific time and place in history and feel what it was like.

Unlike The Babadook and It Follows, the hype hurts this movie.  It didn’t reach out and grab me.  But, after thinking about it for a couple weeks, I think I really love this movie.  The authentic language can be tough to understand sometimes, but that’s a small complaint.  In the end, it really helped pull me into that period.

Rating: 5/5

The Final Girls

I’m a sucker for a typical horror movie told from a different perspective.  Scream, Cabin in the Woods and Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon are a few of the more popular movies in this genre, but The Final Girls tends to lean more towards Midnight Movie or Camp Daze (aka Camp Slaughter) than those other options.

Let’s set this up: Max’s mother (Amanda) had a small role in an 80s slasher movie called Camp Bloodbath (it was basically Friday the 13th, much like Midnight Movie’s movie-within-a-movie was basically Texas Chain Saw Massacre).  Twenty-to-thirty years later, she was still trying to make it as an actress, but was hamstrung by her appearance in this campy horror film.  On her way back from yet another audition she likely wouldn't get the part for, she and Max get in a car accident and Amanda dies.

Three years later, Max is still dealing with her mother’s death.  The school she is attending is showing Camp Bloodbath on the big screen and Max is pressured into making an appearance.  During the movie, a fire breaks out in the theater, and Max – along with a handful of her friends – find the only escape is by cutting through the screen and going through a door in the back.  By doing this, they somehow find themselves having been pulled into the movie.  When Max comes across her mother, she is not actually Amanda; she is Nancy, her character in Camp Bloodbath.  Duncan – the movie geek – proclaims that they shouldn’t mess with the events of the movie, but to let everything play out exactly like it’s supposed to.  “Don’t think of them as people,” he says.  “Think of them as animals in a nature preserve.”  Of course, they find that is not necessarily the case.  (Duncan naturally knows all the lines in the movie, so he gleefully quotes lines these characters are saying in front of him and gets giddy at the prospect of their impending death.)

Since our characters are inside the movie, there is a lot of playing around with movie conventions (my personal favorite is the flashback scene).  There are a lot of laughs, as people from the modern age are forced to interact with horror movie stereotypes from the 80s (the conversations between Chris and Kurt absolutely killed me). 

But what really drew me in was the surprisingly strong emotional core.  Throughout the film, we see how the death of Amanda has absolutely devastated Max.  Now, Max has another chance to spend time with her mother (even though Nancy is not technically her mother; rather she is the character that her mother played in Camp Bloodbath).  From the scenes we saw of Max and Amanda, it seems like Max was the responsible one in that relationship.  That carries over here, but we also get a chance to see Nancy play a bit of a motherly role for Max.  It's remarkably sweet and heartbreaking.  Taissa Farmiga and Malin Akerman played their roles perfectly.  It never felt forced or manipulative.  It felt real.

The writing was great and the entire cast was tremendous.  With the exception of a couple of the characters in Camp Bloodbath, all of the characters here felt real (and those characters only lacked depth because they were playing one-note stereotypes in an 80s slasher film).  There was a depth behind them that I wasn't expecting.  That helped some of the jokes to land, but it also helped me to feel more connected to them.  When they die - and most of the do die - I was sad.  We pulled back the curtain of slasher films and found that maybe we shouldn't root so hard for some of the unlikable characters to die; maybe they aren't as terrible as they appear to be at first blush.

I had a few issues with this, but all of those issues are minimal compared to what I loved about it.  This movie was smart, hysterical and more emotional than I would have thought.

Rating: 5/5

Notable actors: Malin Akerman, Taissa Farmiga, Nina Dobrev, Thomas Middleditch, Alia Shawkat, Adam DeVine

Creep

This is a found footage movie, and the set-up is simple: Aaron answers an ad placed by Josef, a man who is dying of cancer.  As a father-to-be, he wants someone to record a day in his life, so his son will be able to see the kind of man his father really was.  Josef even references the film My Life, in which Michael Keaton does pretty much the exact same thing.  I kind of chuckled, because I love the idea of someone taking life cues from a subpar Michael Keaton movie.  But I digress.

Listen guys, there's this movie called Game 6...

We all know where this is going.  We know that someone is the titular Creep, and we’re pretty sure that someone is Josef, mainly due to his penchant for jumping out at Aaron from hidden corners and wearing a cheap werewolf mask he calls “Peachfuzz”.  The clues are subtle, but I was able to pick up on them.

Pictured: Maybe a Creep. It's hard to tell for sure.

Eventually, Aaron picks up on these clues and decides to leave Josef, a grown man who thinks it’s acceptable to say “tubby time” in the presence of another human being.  I thought this would be the finale: a game of Peachfuzz and mouse in an empty house.  I was mistaken.  The movie went in a slightly different direction at that point, and I was happy that I did not have to sit through 30 minutes of seeing the camera look over a couch slowly, then run down the steps.  Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

For spoiler related reasons, I won’t get into where the movie went from there.  It was an interesting little twist, but it didn’t add much to the movie.  I understand that this was not an action-filled gore-fest, but there was a ton of dead time in this movie.  I feel like they thought it was creepier than it actually was.

This was an extremely small movie.  There are only two actors listed: Patrick Brice (Aaron) and Mark Duplass (Josef).  We actually hear a female voice over a phone at one point, but we never see her and the voice is uncredited.  To love a movie like this, you have to connect with the characters.  Or, at least, not actively loathe them.  That was a test this movie failed for me.  Mark Duplass was basically his same character from The League, only with eyes that were slightly more dead.  He still had that same smarmy look, and I couldn’t shake it.  He didn’t scare me.  He annoyed me.

*Adrian Peterson joke*

Aaron wasn’t much better.  After escaping the house, he had a number of moments where he is just talking to the camera, and he came off as a vlogger talking about what kind of dinner he was going to make that night, only with worse decision-making.

"Went to the store to buy parsley, but they were out. Hashtag parsley life."

I understand what is going on here.  In this era of sequels, remakes and reboots, we have a tendency to champion anything that is new.  Creep is a perfectly fine movie that grabbed a lot of hype for being small and original (or, at least, a new take on an old story).  There's nothing wrong with that.  Had I stumbled across this myself, I probably would have enjoyed it a little more than I did.  But, even then, I don't think it would have grabbed me as much as it seemed to grab others.  It's worth watching, but don't expect anything mind-blowing.

Rating: 2/5

Michael Bay's "The Birds"

I’m a member of a pretty stupid horror group on Facebook.  I don’t know why I’m still a member there.  I probably just don’t think very much of myself as a person.

Anyway, there was a recent post where someone was talking about the news of the remake of The Birds.  It went something like this: “ZOMG Michael Bay is remaking The Birds.  I bet there will be exploding birds.  LOL.  Why do they keep ruining such great movies.  My childhood is ruined and I hate everything.”  I did a quick Google search for “Michael Bay Birds Remake”, and there are hundreds of scorching hot takes, all basically saying the same thing.  “This is bad.  That’s bad.  Everything is bad.  Michael Bay is bad.  Explosions.”  And so on.  So I thought I would offer my take, even if the news is a few months old by this point.

I am no Michael Bay apologist.  He made some movies I legitimately enjoyed (Bad Boys, The Rock, The Island and the first Transformers movie, mainly), but he has his share of terrible movies as well (Pearl Harbor, Armageddon, every Transformers movie after the first one and probably Pain & Gain, though I refuse to watch it).

My personal feelings about the movies he has directed don’t really matter, though.  He’s not directing this movie.  His production company – Platinum Dunes – is producing it.  There is a big difference between “Michael Bay is directing this movie” and “Michael Bay is producing this movie.”  In fact, you could just leave Michael Bay completely out of the discussion; that’s how little his directing history has anything to do with this.
Here is a list of movies Platinum Dunes has produced, along with a few thoughts I have on them.

2003 – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Remake)
It has a completely different feel from the original, but I think that helps it.  I really like this.  It’s not a great movie, but it’s a pretty fun movie.  

2005 – The Amityville Horror (Remake)
One of my favorite remakes.  I enjoyed this version better than the original.  Ryan Reynolds is fantastic.

2006 – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
I don’t know that I would slap the “fun” label on this, but I like it pretty well.  Some familiar faces (mainly Jordana Brewster and Matt Bomer) certainly don’t hurt.  I didn’t really need to see the origin of Leatherface (especially a Leatherface that is nastier than he is in the original), but it didn’t bother me.  There were some moments in this that made me squirm.

2007 – The Hitcher (Remake)
Haven’t seen this one, but it’s on my list.  For Sean Bean and Neal McDonough if nothing else.

2009 – The Unborn
Fun fact: my brother snuck me into the theater to see this movie, as it had sold out before I got there.  I hated this when I first saw it, but it has grown on me over the years.  That’s due to the laughable dialog more than anything else.  I quote this movie way more than I should.

2009 – Friday the 13th (Remake?  Sequel?  Reboot?)
A perfectly fine little slasher.  I really liked their attempt to tie it in with the original series.  That was a nice touch.  I’ve seen this movie quite a few times, yet I have a hard time remembering exactly what happens.  Not a bad movie, but far from a great one.

2009 – Horsemen
Haven’t seen it.  I’ve heard good things, though.

2010 – A Nightmare on Elm Street (Remake)
I don’t understand the hate for this movie.  I guess Robert Englund is so closely associated with Freddy Krueger that putting someone else in the role was never going to be well-received.  I liked how it skewed darker, especially given how comical the Nightmare on Elm Street series got as it progressed (New Nightmare being the exception).  I liked this movie.

2013 – The Purge
Love the concept.  Hated the family this centered on.  They made terrible decisions and I honestly didn’t care if they survived the night.

2014 – The Purge: Anarchy
Better than the first one, in that we get to see more of what happens during Purge Night, but it still falls victim to the “no characters to love” problem.  There wasn’t enough carnage to overlook the fact that the characters were all awful (Frank Grillo’s rugged handsomeness notwithstanding).

2014 – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Pretty terrible, but this movie was not made for me.  It was made for children.  And, judging by the theater I was in, it seemed to go over pretty well with that group.  (I will say that I absolutely loved the little scene of Will Arnett eating a sandwich with mustard and Parmesan cheese.  They should call that thing a G.O.B., guy.)

2014 – Ouija

Haven’t seen it.  I may see it at some point, but I haven’t gotten to that point yet.  By all accounts, it’s a perfectly fine starter horror flick for teenagers.

2015 – Project Almanac
Haven’t seen it.  Haven’t talked to anyone who has seen it.  The trailer made it look awful, but I really have no read on this.

That’s not a bad list.  Not a single movie on that list makes me mad that it exists.  One that I love, a couple that are not very good, and the rest sit right around replacement level horror (or slightly above).

So relax.  Michael Bay is not going to ruin The Birds, mainly because he’s not going to have anything to do with it other than helping to fund it.  If the mere idea of The Birds getting remade makes you angry, just don’t go see it.  Show your support (or lack of support) through your money.
If The Birds is bad, you’ll have to find someone other than Michael Bay to blame for it.  I understand that he’s easy to make fun of, but all I’ve seen so far are the same lazy jokes.  And they don’t even apply here.

The Birds probably doesn’t need to be remade, but I could say that about a great many of movies that have been remade.  Some of them are good.  Some of them are bad.  Not a single one of them has ruined the original for me. 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: we’re living in a great era for horror.  There are great independent horror movies being released through VOD all the time.  The “direct-to-video” label is no longer a curse.  Find something you love and support it in any way you can.