Horns

Short synopsis: Ig’s girlfriend Merrin is found murdered in the woods, and Ig is the prime suspect.  He awakens one morning to find that he has sprouted horns, which give him some highly persuasive powers.  He uses these powers to find out who killed Merrin.

Notable actors: Daniel Radcliffe, Juno Temple, Heather Graham, David Morse, James Remar, Kathleen Quinlan

My thoughts:

I had been looking forward to this movie since I first saw it announced.  I already had plans to see it upon its release on Halloween. 

Apparently I’m terrible at keeping up with horror news, because Horns hit VOD on October 3.  I grabbed it as soon as I got home from work and watched it.

Just like the book, it has a strange tone throughout.  It starts out darkly comedic, then slowly loses the comedy as it goes along.  After the comedy has been stripped away, you’re made fully aware of just how twisted the events of the movie really are.

The comedy is terrific.  It’s odd to say that the guy with the horns works as the straight man, but that’s exactly what happens here.  Daniel Radcliffe’s horned Ig Perrish finds that everyone he comes in contact with feels compelled to tell him their darkest desires.

A woman with a bratty child tells Ig that she wants to abandon her family and run away with her golf instructor.

A bar owner says he wants to burn his bar down to collect the insurance money.

And so on.  Through it all, it’s the reactions of Ig that sell the comedy.  Radcliffe shows off a wide array of faces that feature a mixture of shock, disgust, curiosity, fear, exhaustion and amusement.  Ig navigates his way through his town with a set of horns, but it’s the rest of the inhabitants that show their monstrous side.  (Sorry.  I couldn’t resist.)

At its heart, this is a love story.  The only times we see Ig and Merrin together are through flashbacks.  We hear a lot about her from others, and it’s clear that she was well-loved by everyone who knew her.  In a particularly beautiful and heartbreaking statement, Derrick Perrish (Ig’s father) proclaims, “She was my favorite thing about you,” to which Ig promptly agrees.  The hatred the people in his life have for him is directly proportional to the love they had for Merrin.

It’s a great story, and it’s told really well.  It has great characters and a terrific cast.  It was also a faithful adaptation of the book.  While they changed some things, they were minor and didn’t hurt the overall feel or the story. 

Let’s talk about the book for a few seconds.  I liked the book, but there were quite a few cheesy/cringe-worthy moments that found me rolling my eyes.  A lot of those moments were omitted here, which I appreciated.

I loved this movie, and I love it even more the more I think about it.  My expectations were sky-high, and this may have exceeded those expectations.  I will definitely be watching this again sooner rather than later.

Rating: 5/5

A few random thoughts:

There was some great music here.  The usage of David Bowie’s “Heroes” was absolutely perfect (not that there’s really a bad moment for that song, but still).

The movie looked great, and had some really amazing visual moments. 

The actor who played young Eric Hannity (“Meatbag”) reminded me a little bit of Thurman Murman.

I absolutely loved this quote: “People say you have to do the right thing.  Sometimes there is no right thing.  Then, you just have to pick the sin you can live with.” 

Mini Review: Rigor Mortis

You ever have one of those movies that you watch, get to the end and ask, "What was that?"  For me, that movie was Juno Mak's Rigor Mortis, a vampire/possession-zombie(?) movie that starts and ends in some kind of gray mud, which can probably serve as some sort of commentary on the entire film.  It was made in tribute to the Mr. Vampire series of films and stars a lot of the actors who made their name in those films.  I have not been able to track these down, but I have it on good authority (Wikipedia) that they exist.  So that's something.

Rigor Mortis belongs in the jiangshi genre.  Jiangshi are hopping corpses in Chinese folklore.  These are also known as "hopping vampire films", which sounds about right.  There were hopping entities in this film, complete with red tendrils protruding from their entire body, for reasons I wasn't entirely clear on.  Were they vampires?  I'm still not entirely sure.  They seemed to be more like demons or ghosts, but that's neither here nor there.

Vampires?

Let me try to explain the plot to you and we'll see if my head explodes.  A washed-up actor moves into a decrepit apartment complex with lots of strange characters.  He immediately tries to kill himself and is saved by a resident; a great rice cook/vampire hunter.

There's a woman who lives in the complex with her little white-haired son.  They used to live in an apartment, but now they don't, so they wander the halls, stealing food.  They live in the basement because the kindly security guard feels bad for them.  They used to live in the apartment the actor moved into, but her husband cheated on her and got killed by ghosts?  Maybe?  That whole scene was hard to follow.

There's a warlock.  Like, a straight-up warlock.  It might just be me projecting my thoughts when looking back, but I think he had a really dark goatee and wore a robe.  (He did not wear a robe.)  He coughs a lot and smokes "special cigarettes".  (Spoiler alert: it's the crushed-up bones of innocent children.)

There's an elderly lady and her husband.  He dies by falling down stairs, and the warlock convinces her to do a ritual that will revive her husband.  It's weird and creepy and she becomes unhinged quickly.  He becomes a monster who likes to kill, and she seems legitimately surprised by this, despite the fact that he looks like a monster and was raised from the dead by a warlock.

He's fine, you guys. He's just really sleepy.

There's a big fight scene at the end that I didn't fully understand.  There's a little scene after the fight scene that I didn't fully understand.

I feel like I would have understood this better if I had been very familiar with the Mr. Vampire films.  But I have never seen a Mr. Vampire film, so I was very much in the dark for the duration of the movie.

YAAAAAAAA!

It looked really cool, though.  I feel like this was one of those movies that would be perfect for putting on in the background of a Halloween party.  If I had Halloween parties, I would absolutely do that.  Mute the movie, throw some music on and glance over at the screen from time to time.  It would be tremendous.

I can't recommend it as an actual movie, though.  Cool as it may look, the story is absolutely nonsensical.  It wasn't a complete waste of time, but it was a 75% waste of time.

Rating: 1/5

Mini Review: Life After Beth

Description from IMDB:

A young man’s recently deceased girlfriend mysteriously returns from the dead, but he slowly realizes she is not the way he remembered her.

Notable actors: Aubrey Plaza, John C. Reilly, Molly Shannon, Cheryl Hines, Paul Reiser, Anna Kendrick, Dan DeHaan, Matthew Gray Gubler, Garry Marshall

It’s a well-known fact that I enjoy zombie movies.  Because I have seen so many, I find myself drawn to films that are a bit different from the norm.  I like seeing a familiar story from a different angle.  This is true of horror movies in general.  Fido.  Colin.  Shaun of the Dead.  The Cabin in the Woods.  Scream. And so on.  If there is a movie with a new way of looking at familiar tropes, chances are good that I’ll enjoy it.  (Not all of them, though.  American Zombie was terrible.)

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that I loved this movie.  It made me laugh pretty consistently throughout the entire movie.  It started off quickly (one of the first scenes is Beth’s funeral) and didn’t really hit any lulls.  The cast was terrific.  I wasn’t sold on Dane DeHaan at first, but he grew on me as the movie progressed.  I loved seeing how Plaza played Beth; she started as a sweet and fun amnesiac, and ended up being the flesh-craved zombie we knew she would become.  I loved John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon as her relentlessly naïve parents.  Most of all, I loved seeing this weird little story play out on the fringes of a citywide zombie outbreak.

My main complaint is that the music seemed to overtake the dialog from time to time.  I loved the atmosphere of the music (dissonant guitar squawls, courtesy of the great Black Rebel Motorcycle Club), but it had a tendency to be louder than it had any reason to me.  Perhaps that was to contribute to the chaos on screen, but I could have done with it being a little lower in the mix.  (Look at me, complaining about music being too loud.  I’m officially old now.)

That’s a minor complaint, though.  It’s not a perfect movie, but I had a lot of fun with this.  I’m already looking forward to watching it again.

Rating: 4/5

Mini Review: Under the Skin

Thoughts on Under the Skin, in three different stages:

1. During the movie. 

What is going on?  She's an alien, right?  That's what the description said.  Is she going to be driving around in this van for the entire movie?  Are those guys actually having sex with her and then getting destroyed, or are they consumed and converted to fuel without ever touching her?  That seems kind of cruel. 

2. Immediately after the movie. 

That was okay, I guess.  I think I kind of liked it.  It was different than I thought it would be.  I liked the thought process behind her trying to eat cake.  "I think I'm starting to feel things.  Maybe I'm human.  Let me check by eating this cake."  There are worse ways to check to see if you're human or not, I suppose.

3.  The day after the movie.

I really loved that movie.  Scarlett Johansson gave a tremendous performance.  She gave her stoic character a ton of depth, and brought her subtle character arc to life with silence.  It was odd and heartbreaking, and I'm really looking forward to watching it again.

Translation: it's not necessarily an easy movie to watch, but it gets better the more you think about it.  Plus, it can kind of be described as "Art house Species," which I’m a fan of.

Rating: 4.5/5

Mini Review: Snowpiercer

Bong Joo-ho's Snowpiercer - based on a French graphic novel - has some not-so-subtle things to say about class warfare, but that's an article to be written by someone much smarter than me.  An attempt to reverse the effects of global warming have backfired, leaving the sole survivors of Earth to circle the frozen globe in a self-sustaining train, powered by a Sacred Engine.  There's a cautionary tale in that, but I'm not the man to unravel it.

Instead, I'll just talk about how much fun this movie was.  Curtis (Chris Evans) is leading a rebellion against the powers-that-be.  To do this, he must lead his ragtag group from the filthy rear car to the posh front car.  It was almost like a video game, with each car presenting its own challenges.  Some of them contain puzzles to be solved, with new truths being presented that may disrupt their quest.  Others may be a car full of hatchet wielding maniacs who cut open fish to intimidate their attackers.  Others may contain exposition dumps.

It's a dark action movie, all taking place inside a train barreling through snow-covered landscapes.  It's a post-apocalyptic movie unlike any I've seen.  And, while it's bleak, there is a small glimmer of hope.  It's also a lot of fun to watch.

The acting is terrific.  Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt and Allison Pill are the highlights, but everyone here is great.

I've seen nothing but praise for this, and, while I loved it, I'll preach a little bit of caution.  I don't think it's quite as amazing as the rest of the world seems to think it is.  It’s a bit long and can drag at times, drawing out small scenes to be longer than they have any reason to be.  When I saw this, the hype level was still pretty low.  If I had seen it with sky-high expectations, I would have walked out disappointed.  As it was, I thoroughly enjoyed myself, even if I had some minor issues with it.

It’s not perfect, but it’s still really good.  Keep your expectations reasonable, and you’ll love it.

Rating: 4.5/5

Mini Review: Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead

I will talk to anyone and everyone about the extent of my love for the first Dead Snow.  It's a little slow out of the gate, but it eventually delivers the full-fledged insanity I hoped that it would, while still developing characters I wanted to spend some time with.  It's one of my favorite zombie movies of the past 5 years.  What Tommy Wirkola was able to do on a small budget (roughly $800K) is nothing short of extraordinary.

As I mentioned in my Trailer Talk post, I was very much looking forward to the sequel.  Seeing as how Wirkola's Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters made $225 million on a $50 million budget, he was given a little more money to play with this time around.  It's tough to find exact numbers, but it looks like this film had a budget of around $5.5 million.

As near as I can tell, Wirkola took that money and immediately asked himself, "How can I make this movie crazier than the first?"  The answer, of course, was more.  More characters.  More zombies.  More fights.  More intestines.  More blood.  More deaths.  More weapons.  More laughs.  More insanity.

Daniel (Martin Starr), Blake (Ingrid Haas) and the Star Wars obsessed Monica (Jocelyn DeBoer) - self-appointed members of the Zombie Squad - travel from America to Norway to help Martin Hykkerud (the only survivor of the original) with his Nazi zombie problem.  "We've seen thousands of zombie movies," Daniel proclaims, as if this is enough information for Martin to have complete faith in their zombie-killing acumen.  Martin doesn't seem overly convinced, but put a hammer/shovel/hatchet in their hands, and they're more than willing to prove their worth.  Not to mention the fact that Blake has one of the all-time best zombie killing faces.

Martin had cut off his arm in the previous movie after being bitten.  In a case of mistaken identity (armdentity?), doctors attached a super-strength Nazi zombie arm to Martin.  At first, he found himself at war with it in a way that conjured up memories of Ash.  Eventually he learned to control it and found that he could bring the dead back to life.  Herzog - the leader of the Nazi zombies - has the same ability.  And so, as the trailer shows, we are treated to a massive zombie war: Herzog's zombies vs. Martin's zombies.  It's the kind of scene Wirkola didn't have money to do in the first film, and he's clearly holding nothing back here.  It's terrific.

The Evil Dead remake was a tense, nasty film, but it was clear the filmmakers were having fun as they dumped buckets of blood on the set.  That same feeling of glee is present here, only the events on the screen are much more comical.  Wirkola clearly had a lot of fun trying to think of new ways to kill people, or new ways to use their intestines.  With every new trick, I found myself grinning like an idiot.  I'm sure he was doing the same thing.

There's too much insanity to properly describe here.  If you like buckets of blood, miles of intestines and aren't easily offended, you need to watch this as soon as you can.  Even if you don't like zombie films, you're still likely to enjoy this one.

Rating: 5/5

Added note: I loved the chemistry between Martin and Roy (Stig Frode Henriksen) in the first film, so I was really happy to see Henriksen show up in this one as a different character.

Mini Review: Willow Creek

"Bobcat Goldthwait directed found footage Bigfoot movie."

That lovely bit of word soup is all I knew about this movie going in.  Since I had just visited the International Cryptozoology Museum, my interest in Bigfoot was at an all-time high.  My relationship with found footage has been a rocky one, but I was pretty excited about this. 

While I liked Kelly (Alexie Gilmore) pretty well, Jim (Bryce Johnson) really grated on my nerves.  One minute he's admonishing Kelly for not believing in Bigfoot and making fun of the town ("You don't believe?  You don't believe?  How could you not believe?  Believebelievebelieve?"), the next he's poking fun at a Bigfoot mural or jokingly interviewing a wooden Bigfoot or mocking a man who is singing a song about Bigfoot.  You can't have it both ways, fella. 

The movie was slow and riddled with plot holes/standard found footage complaints, but it was short (80 minutes) and provided a few good scares.  While it was ultimately disappointing, I thought it had enough going for it to offer a lukewarm recommendation.  Of course, that may just be my Bigfoot-mania talking.

Rating: 2.5/5