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Movies (Horror)

The Possession (2012)
Jewish Demons Can Be a Mouthful

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The-possession-header

Zombos Says: Good

Two thoughts pushed their way to the top after I saw Ole Bornedal’s The Possession. The first was how much less frightening the dybbuk  demon is than Pazuzu in The Exorcist: I find that evil, when it’s personable, when it speaks directly to you in  a normal, conversational fashion, is more terrifying than the silent type. The second thought was how Bornedal’s beautifully moving camera, along with Anton Sanko’s suitably depressing piano tinkling heralding austere, fade to black, moments, fairly killed the story’s momentum. Antiseptic, plain vanilla, no contrast, these are some of the words I would use to describe how the story unfolds. This is still a good movie, mostly due to Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s intensity as Clyde, a father who slowly realizes the truth, Natasha Calis’s sinister behavior as the possessed girl, Em, and a delectably creepy hint of a backstory for the wooden box that traps the dybbuk (or fails to). This is the kind of movie I found myself wishing they’d stuck with that backstory because the present is comprised of moments we’ve, mostly, seen before (and were done with more con brio when we did). Except for that exquisitely bad to the bone looking box.

It not only looks old but it looks like one you’d fear was full of dark secrets.  Its contents are even more bizarre than the ones seen on that cable show Oddities. It made me wonder what its oddly shaped jars contained and why those contents were put there, and especially how the dybbuk was trapped the first time. Instead,  we see the diagnostic-tests-at-the-hospital scene, although this one does provide the scariest moment of the movie with a brightly conceived visual; and, of course, there’s the now standard family situation to generate budget tension–mom (Kyra Sedgewick) and dad are divorced and mom has an annoying suitor (Grant Show); and, of course, there are langorous scenes of bodily invasion, like moths flying in and out of mouths.  What is it with winged bugs and possessing demons?  Can someone, anyone, please give me an explanation for their overuse in horror movies and their preference for oral cavities?

Picking up the box at a yard sale, Em opens it and the possession begins with her becoming more and more Goth in appearance (no offence to Goths or Emos intended, but hey, it’s a spooky look). Em also puts on a large, hard to miss, ring, which turns her hand all veiny and purple. Her parents and sister don’t seem to notice. Another reviewer noted how odd it is that neither parent notices the purpling hand or the Victorian nut-cracker of a ring. Dracula wished he had a ring like that.

The usual quirky behavior of the new man in Clyde’s ex-wife’s life provides the usual banter and time-filler between more serious moments with Em being sucked dry of life by the demon. Bornedal is so visually artistic and thematically structured in his approach, however, there’s no meat on this horror bone. Comparison’s to The Exorcist, and other possession movies, are inevitable. Where Bornedal brings a fresh take  is when he jostles Clyde’s predictable, coaching-life world alongside an older, steeped in tradition, Hasidic world in Brooklyn as Clyde seeks help from the experts, who in this case are the rabbis.

They see the box and tell him to take a hike, with it. A brilliant and unexpected move. In The Exorcist, the priests tackle Pazuzu as a matter of faith and conviction. And both priests do not survive the ordeal. Here, the rabbis choose survival first, knowing what’s in the box is serious enough to warrant being in the box. The head rabbi’s son, Tzadok (Matisyahu), still retains his faith and conviction: he’s young, what does he know? He leaves with Clyde and both must do one thing first: find out what the demon’s name is because that is what’s needed to force the demon back into the box.

The name is found a little too quickly, but it leads to the showdown between the rabbi’s son with conviction, the father with conviction, the mom with conviction, and the demon with conviction. Bornedal doesn’t ignite enough hell fire though, and compromises the showdown by resorting to strobe-lighting views as the demon pulls itself out of someone’s mouth (there’s that foreign object in mouth again theme: see the movie poster) and crawls along the floor, reluctantly, toward the box. Stylish? Yes. Dramatically hot? No; tepid. Terrifying? A little.

The ending follows the prescribed sequel-antic expected for generating a horror movie franchise. I doubt, however, this box will turn up again unless it’s straight to DVD.

Total Recall (2012)
Not Too Memorable

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Totalrecall

Zombos Says: Good

Watching the action unfold in director Len Wiseman’s Total Recall, I couldn’t help but compare it to the Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone star vehicle of the same name. But that movie was in 1990, when writers could play around the science fiction edges with cheekiness and guile and directors couldn’t overplay their hand with computers and saturate us with non-stop action hurtling through uber landscapes filled with mini and mega structures moving with tantalizing, but numbing, techno-complexity and velocity. But now is now, after all, and cinematic now is filled with the heat of global meltdowns, the incessant beating of warring drums, a tiresome fusillade of political bull dung flying in all directions, and a lot of sour and dour events preoccupying our thoughts. So it’s only natural science fiction movies, super hero movies, and movies formerly filled with imagination and inspiration, now, have tuned down the inspiration while hustling us faster, and very predictably, through a patented and familiar imagination.

Instead of becoming involved with characters through association or taking wild rides to Mars and having our eyes comically bug out from the lack of oxygen, we’re enveloped by hover car chases–albeit breathtaking hover car chases–evocative, rainy, cityscapes dotted with dreary hanging apartments that seem to sprout out of the congested city’s concrete megastructures like weeds thriving in the incessant rain, and homogeneous huddled masses yearning to find a free space in all the hubbub or, at least, a cool palm phone. So yes, this Total Recall‘s production design by Patrick Tatopoulus is stunning and easily runs away with the film while leaving its script a tad short on wit and gumption, but tall on action of the bullets flying, people dying, and big send off explosions kind.

The Fall figures heavily in all this pyrotechnic destruction and sets up the Metropolis-like dystopian dynamic for the two class structures–the wealthier United Federation of Britain and the poorer Colony–both vying for habitable land after Earth is decimated by chemical warfare. The Fall is a gigantic gravity elevator that travels through the planet between the two nations, bringing Colony workers to and from “below,” to toil at building synthetic police (THX 1138 anyone?) for the UFB. The Fall provides the film’s more intense moments and thorough special effects, but the plausibility factor is nil and a pivotal (I’m being literal here) standoff borders on the periphery of silliness: elite commandos conveniently fail to realize something important about the daily commute and they lose their advantage because of it.

Plausibility wobbles again when factory worker Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell), plagued by a violent dream with a mysterious woman and dissatisfied with his assembly line life, heads to ReKall, the happy memories franchise. He gravitates to their secret agent memory product, but implanting fake memories over real, similar ones stops the process cold and sends Quaid on a bumpy and lumpy journey to discovering who he really is. In-between all his huffing and puffing as he runs from his wife (a guns-blazing and hips hugging typecast Kate Beckinsale) and UFB President Cohaagen’s (Bryan Cranston) police force, he stops long enough to find clues to his past in places I thought the police should have gotten to first, like his safe deposit box and his former apartment, since they know who he really is even if he doesn’t.

The woman in his dream, Melina (Jessica Beal), much like Maria in Metropolis, provides the romance and the reason for his actions. Unlike Maria, she also wields a mean handgun, drives a hover car better than Mike Mercury, and kicks ass more believably than the wispy Beckinsale. Melina helps Quaid find Matthias (Bill Nighy), the leader of the resistance against Cohaagen’s political meanderings. Unfortunately, Matthias is not as interesting as his namesake in the original and doesn’t have a mutant humanoid brother living in his belly.

With the main storylines of both Total Recall movies being similar, what’s the difference here to warrant a remake? If blazing action, dispensed heavily through computerized imagery and wild futuristic technology is your bag of popcorn, than this movie is definitely for you.

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

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ScreenHunter_52 Jun. 04 11.33

Zombos Says: Good

In Disney’s  groundbreaking 1937 animated version of the Snow White fairy tale, the wonderfully wicked and least kid-friendly moments take place in the Dark Forest, when the witch-queen is spellcasting, and when she plummets to her death after being chased by the rosy-cheeked dwarves. In Snow White and the Huntsman, Charlize Theron as the monomania-driven Ravenna provides splendidly wicked moments throughout, returning this Brothers Grimm story to its darker meaning of sorcery, depravity, vanity, and the lust for power. The few glimmers of romance seen flashing between Snow White (Kristen Stewart), the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) who saves her, and her childhood friend William (Sam Claflin) who blames himself for abandoning her, pale against Theron’s mordsdurst for eternal beauty. If Mirror, Mirror left you with a Pop Rocks candy aftertaste, here’s your chance to replace it with the bite of a mature licorice liqueur.

Ravenna seduces then kills Snow White’s father, King Magnus (Noah Huntley), and imprisons her in the castle’s North Tower. As Snow White grows into a fair young lady, Ravenna ravages the countryside, draining the beauty and youth from attractive female villagers to remain the fairest of all; until Snow White becomes of age that is, and the Magic Mirror warns the Queen that to remain the fairest and gain eternal beauty, she must eat Snow White’s heart.

Ravenna sends her white-haired, Moe haircut-styled, brother (Sam Spruell) to fetch Snow White. He fails and Snow White takes a powder to the Dark Forest. Ominous black shrouded figures, gnarled, black shriveled trees, and creepy big black bugs galore play on her mind and she swoons, luckily landing on the one dry spot of ground in an otherwise murky nightmare of marshes and muck.  Ravenna sends Eric the Huntsman to bring her back with the promise of bringing his wife back from the dead. She lies, so Eric sides with Snow White and takes her out of the Dark Forest, where they meet a small group of women who have disfigured themselves so Ravenna will leave them alone. Her brother doesn’t, and Eric must quickly return to protect Snow White.

Ms. White not only enchants the Huntsman into helping her, but also the sourpuss dwarves (Mini-Me versions of Bob Hoskins, Ian McShane, Ray Winstone, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan, Johnny Harris, Nick Frost, and Brian Gleeson) who capture her and Eric. She also beguiles a bridge-watching troll, some fairies, many cute woodland creatures, adorable one-eyed mushrooms, and a majestically rendered white stag, in CGI animated scenes that harken back to Disney’s hand-animated ones.

At Ravenna’s “mirror, mirror, on the wall…” this Magic Mirror flows golden across the floor and forms into a tall, shrouded figure with a male voice to reassure her she’s still the fairest or to give direction on how to stay the fairest. A telling moment comes when Ravenna is speaking with the golden figure as her brother watches unnoticed. He doesn’t see the figure standing in front of his sister and he doesn’t hear it speaking to her. I suddenly thought it’s all in her mind! The mirror isn’t magic. The male figure is her solace and her guilt personified.

The battle between good and evil in Snow White and the Huntsman reminded me of Ridley Scott’s Legend.  Although the stakes are somewhat different, Ravenna is as evil and purposeful as Legend‘s Lord of Darkness, and Snow White is as determined as Jack in stopping her and restoring the balance of goodness to the land. Unlike previous versions of the Snow White story, romance and housekeeping are not the priorities here, but beauty is.

Ravenna’s beauty runs only as deep as her skin; Snow White’s beauty runs to her soul.

Silent House (2011)
Filled With Noisy Memories

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Silent House Movie

Zombos Says: Good (but only just)

(This review contains key plot spoilers)

Chris Kentis and Laura Lau Americanize Gustavo Hernandez’s La Casa Muda into Silent House, adding Elizabeth Olsen’s strident histrionics in the form of Sarah, a young girl trapped in her lakeside childhood home with her unconscious father (Adam Trese), lit by a few hurricane lamps and flourescent lanterns throwing lots of shadows (mostly across her bosom), and being stalked by an intruder or intruders, unknown or known, making her scream a lot as she looks for a way out upstairs and downstairs.

No, it isn’t quite like the French movie Them, though at times I wished it followed that film’s straightforward simplicity of unremitting terrorization. And no, it also isn’t at all like 2009’s The Uninvited with Emily Browning, except perhaps for a familiar psychological scrambling involving mirror mirror on the wall duality. This duality provides answers at the end of Silent House as well as the twist ending that’s not so twisted because of the neon-sign-obvious inclinations of Sarah’s uncle (Eric Sheffer Stevens), and the polaroid snapshots, popping up in unlikely places, he and her father are unnerved by.

The anachronistic use of a polaroid camera to take photographs of mold, and to provide intermittent flashbulb light for Sarah as she becomes more terrorized by what’s happening around her in the dark, distracts more than it sharpens the suspense. The camera exists for the sole purpose of implying a relationship between those unnerving photographs and their possible photographer, therefore diminishing uncertainty, too early, as to what is really happening to Sarah and her perceptions of what is happening; a cinematic contrivance so threadbare it’s obvious, even if we see mysterious people in the house, and Sarah talking to a strange childhood friend she doesn’t remember, although they played dress-up together.

The audience promotion gimmick of filming Sarah in one long take (more or less) as the camera shakily follows her, looks at her, sees what see sees, and runs from the house with her, doesn’t bring anything to this production that a less shaky view would have. Lighting throughout the house is impressively sinister, but the rooms and hallways get slightly brighter toward the climactic ending, either a studiously planned subtlety showing Sarah’s growing realization of the truth, or the camera crew got tired of tripping over their feet in the dark house.

What makes this movie good is Olsen’s intensely executed performance (or cleavage, I’ve not fully decided yet), and its (the movie, not her cleavage) ability to hold our fear within the shuttered house, at least for a short while. And then there’s the “lift-gate open” scene outside the house. It sparkles with terror more than any other moment.

Now there’s a gimmick I would like to see more of: more moments of sparkling terror, without unnecessary pychological twists to tarnish them.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010)
A Taste of Country Dying

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Zombos Says: Very Good

You know the saying, dying’s easy, comedy is hard? Try doing horror-comedy, now that’s hard. Eli Craig and the rest of the cast and crew of Tucker and Dale vs. Evil do a stellar job playing off usually more serious slasher grint and gore to show the funny bone in awkward body impalements, whizzing buzzsaw head-slicing, woodchippered ground round torsos, and assorted lacerations as hillbillies Tucker and Dale’s vacation keeps getting interrupted by a group of city-bred college youngin’s who’ve seen too many horror movies. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry (from laughing), you’ll wonder how grisly death can be so funny. We needed these guys around when Freddy took on Jason.

The way out-of-the-way gas station Allison (Katrina Bowden), Chad (Jesse Moss), Chloe (Chelan Simmons), Chuck (Travis Nelson), Jason (Brandon Jay McLaren), Naomi (Christie Laing), Todd (Alex Arsenault), Mitch (Adam Beauchesne), and Mike (Joseph Sutherland) stop at is typical for The Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn kinds of gas stations: shabby, grimy, and frequented by droopy eyed, scruffy types wearing dirty clothes, construction boots, and sour looks. Tucker prods the shy Dale into meeting Allison. Already spooked by the milieu, Dale’s greeting, made with a bad stammer and while holding a scythe, scares off Allison and her friends. Tucker continues to lecture Dale on being more assertive as they drive to Tucker’s recently purchased dream cabin in the woods, which is also rundown, filled with cobwebs, dirt and dust, and a dangerously loose, nail-studded beam poised to do some serious head-whacking.

This comedy of errors begins its blood-letting when the frat kids, camping nearby, listen intently to Chad’s Memorial Day Massacre campfire story about a hillbilly rampage that happened twenty years ago, leaving only one survivor. They laugh it off and go skinny dipping. Allison is startled by Tucker and Dale, who are on the lake fishing. She falls, knocking herself unconscious. Tucker and Dale rescue her and take her to the cabin. Her friends, thinking she’s been kidnapped, plan her rescue. Much accidental carnage ensues when hillbilly massacre-primed college students stumble, run, and turn abruptly into sharp objects each time they confront Tucker, who’s not very good with power tools to begin with. Inside the cabin Allison wakes up, and after her initial fright learns that Dale is actually a nice guy, and very smart, when he pulls out the board games. We also learn Allison is a nice girl and also smart.

Meanwhile, her friends are dropping faster than whack-a-mole. Mike’s full-body slam dunk into the woodchipper leaves Tucker and Dale holding incriminating evidence when the sheriff (Philip Granger) pulls up. The sheriff steps into close proximity of the nail-studded beam, which results in more screaming and panic from Allison’s friends. She tries to explain how they’ve got it all wrong, but now they think she’s suffering from the Stockholm Syndrome.

Somewhat like the comedy duo of Abbott and Costello, Tucker plays straight man to Dale’s fall guy, but it’s Dale who must save Allison from the psycho-killer suddenly popping up. Backwoods horror characters and situations are refreshingly skewed: the beautiful blond is approachable and wants to be a psychologist; the unsophisticated hillbillies are kind-hearted, average guys–on vacation; the sophisticated college kids expertly self-destruct; and the sheriff is ineffective (oh wait, that’s to type, actually).

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil is one of those rare events: a festival-shown horror movie that’s actually intelligently produced, well acted, witty, gory, and surprising in that it didn’t get a wider theatrical release in the U.S. I hope Tucker and Dale go on another vacation real soon.

Ghost Rider
Spirit of Vengeance (2012)

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Zombos Says: Good

There are moments in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance when Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage), as the demonic Ghost Rider, forces men to gaze into his big, dark, empty eye-sockets with his penance stare. The penance stare makes his victims experience all the suffering they’ve caused. During those long staring matches, I anticipated seeing pinpoints of red that would slowly grow to become like eyes, filling his dark skull-orbs with crimson light.  The pinpoints never come. Someone in production should have noticed how dull it can be looking at someone else looking into dark, empty, eye-sockets with little else happening. Other moment’s  in this second, more pyrotechnically intense, yet more oddball, franchise entry should also have received notice. Watching Ghost Rider’s magical chain, whipping around to char-broil assailants into glowing embers and ash, and his flaming touch consuming everything is more exhilarating than the first movie, but everything else is underdone.

Johnny Blaze isn’t doing well with his deal with the Devil. He’s sulking in Eastern Europe (which considerably cuts production costs).  A mysterious religious order needs his help to protect a boy the Devil (Ciaran Hinds) wants badly. The boy, Danny (Fergus Riordan) is the Devil’s son. In order to become supremely powerful on Earth, the Devil needs to take over his son’s body. Although Danny has the required “D” sound for being the Devil’s offspring, he’s not evil. Not yet. His mother’s (Violante Placido) deal with the Devil is going sour, too.

That’s it. You now know the whole story. Johnny Blaze reluctantly agrees to become the boy’s protector, but Ghost Rider provides the seering muscle. Weapons with escalating destructive power are employed by the underlings hired to kidnap the boy. The weapon-toting underlings are employed by suitably nasty Carrigan (Johnny Whitworth). He gets whumped in spite of all the fire-power, but Roarke (that’s the Devil’s human name), brings him back to life, adding the power to decay everything he touches. With Johnny Blaze turning everything to smoking charcoal and Carragan turning everything to rot, the computerized special effects team earns its pay. One funny bit has Carrigan unable to spoil a famous snack. It’s sweet and moist, and a zombie hunter in another movie has quite a hankering for it. Guess?

When the boy is safely sequestered with the tattooed monk, Methodius (Christopher Lambert), who lives in a cave, Blaze gets a new deal to become Ghost Riderless. But the tattooed monk is Christopher Lambert, so any genre fan worth his or her salt will already know how safe that situation is. A not so surprising reorganization of effort to stop a Satanic Mass and save the boy leads to a Mad Maxish road rage confrontation that flames out too soon.

Perhaps that’s because the four or so writers and two directors, Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, don’t all go in the same direction. There’s a Ghost Rider hissy-piss that either will crack a smile for you or insult, brief tender moments that should have been felt more, and Cage’s crazed and damned Johnny Blaze needs a bigger plot to simmer and boil in. Every other character is two-dimensional in spite of the flat 3D embellishment. Animated, graphic novelish, backstories show strong visual flair (and provide a cheaper way to bring an audience up to speed), but their tone doesn’t jive with the rest of the movie.

Opportunity for another sequel is given, but it better run on a higher octane than this one or I’ll be using the penance stare myself.

Attack the Block (2011)
Bad Kids Do Good

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Attack-the-block-still

Zombos Says: Excellent

“Oh, I can see its eyes.”

“Not sure those things its eyes…”

Sometimes the simplest premise and the necessities of moderate budget constraints can lead to an understated sci-horror movie that shines with low-key wit, involves us with colorful characters by not forgetting their humanity, and dares to completely tell its story instead of neutering it in hopes of lucrative franchised bastardizations. Joe Cornish manages to accomplish all of this in Attack the Block, a zeitgeist experience, if ever there was one, of realness, fakery, nonplussed attitudes, a variety of cliches, and decade-spanning B-movie horror sensibilities. If that weren’t enough, there’s fur-ball monsters with large day-glo mouths and teeth to match, with wonderfully nondescript black bodies, yet ingenious in design because it’s all about those teeth, and desperately keeping necks, arms, and legs away from them, that propels this sci-horror gem’s action along.

Thomas Townend exploits those wonderful teeth with his cameras in two key scenes: during the first appearance of a fur-ball alien the boys think is as easy a target as the hairless, light-skinned one they attacked and killed earlier, and when pot dealer Hi-Hatz (Jumayn Hunter) makes the mistake of not looking out the apartment window. It’s amazing how much bang for the buck you can get from such a simple creature design when paired with those ominous, neon teeth.

The many meteors carrying these aliens crash into the neighborhood on Guy Fawkes Night, while fireworks are going off all around. The first crash comes after would-be youth gang’s Moses (John Boyega), Pest (Alex Esmail), Biggz (Simon Howard), Jerome (Leeon Jones), and Dennis (Franz Drameh) hood up to mug Sam (Jodie Whittaker) in the street as she’s heading home to the Block, the apartment building they all live in. The smashed up car the small meteor hit provides Moses an opportunity to rifle through it,  and the chance for Sam to get away. She does, and Moses avoids being nipped by an alien. He and the boys chase after it with youthful abandon, after first grabbing their assorted weapons including bats, a samurai sword, knife, and some firework rockets. Moses kills it and takes it to pot dealer Ron (Nick Frost), who then takes Moses and the creature to see Hi-Hatz, the bigger dope dealer, in his steel-door fortified, ultraviolet-lighted, pot-growing room. Moses is looking for a place to stash the creature safely, but he also wants to impress Hi-Hatz so he can accelerate his criminal career path.

It’s the deviation from this path that Moses must ultimately confront when he realizes the consequences of killing the first alien. The fur-balls are nastier, bigger, and unrelenting in their pursuit of him and his gang, but why they keep coming after him is a mystery eventually explained, while holed up in that fortified pot-growing room, by Brewis (Luke Treadaway), the pothead, nerdy, white kid caught up in the mayhem. (Sure, go ahead; imagine a hash pipe’s worth of Cheech and Chong-styled humor undercut through all this, if you like.)

Between the gang’s bikes and scooters transportation, the frantic chases, Sam and Moses reluctantly teaming up but growing to understand and like each other , Hi-Hatz having it in for Moses because Hi-Hatz refuses to understand or like anyone, the Block’s cramped apartments and dreary hallways becoming a battleground, and those fur-balls climbing the building when they’re not prowling its hallways–you may feel a subdued 1980s deja vu, but the sensation may also bring some 1950s kitsch and 1970s flow along with it, modulated by Steven Price’s techno score.

Then Cornish rythms up with dialog that’s one-liner bright and character revealing, pushing his story up two notches beyond the superficial people-fodder most often seen in horror and sci-horror. You may not like these kids at first, but after the movie, you’ll wish you had them living in your Block when the alien invasion comes.

The Girl With the
Dragon Tattoo (2011)

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Rooney-maraZombos Says: Excellent

The revelation of the serial killer in The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo brings with it the most chilling line delivered onscreen since Silence of the Lambs‘ Chianti and Fava beans culinary mashup: a starker revelation that being a victim is one part maniacal killer, two parts victim’s mistake. When it’s added up, demoralizing insult is heaped on potential injury for journalist Mikeal Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) in this strong R-rated mystery.

Because it is a mystery you will need to pay attention. This is the second time I was asked for an explanation of a film’s story in the theater’s men’s room after the film. “You saw Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, right?” “Yes.” “What the hell happened?”

The labrynthine investigation of Henrik Vanger’s (Christopher Plummer) family tree and the living and dead closet skeletons inhabiting the island, where relatives avoid each each, can be vexing enough, but the story is not only about them: it’s about Blomkvist being successfully sued by a financial predator he was investigating; it’s about that girl who likes tattoos and hacking into people’s personal lives, Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara, who looks a lot like her name sounds). She’s preyed upon by a social worker who can’t keep his pants zippered; then there’s a 40 year-old disappearance, complicated by more Nazi-skeletons rattling in that closet and a serial killer who may still be active.

I could go into detail, but it’s better to watch it unfold. Just stay alert. It becomes dicey when Lisbeth teams up with Blomkvist. She did a very thorough background check on him. He knows about it. She was so good at it he figures she’d be a perfect assistant. She can’t seem to keep her pants zippered when he’s around, so he reluctantly lets her investigate that, too. The movie’s a hot roll in moist bedsheets. It’s a study in predator types. It’s a downbeat, whitewashed landscape of cold days and nights, and dangerous revelations. It’s also a puzzle involving not only the pieces but how they’re fitted into place, one by one, and the unsavory picture those pieces create. Craig doesn’t muscle-up his Blomkvist and Mara doesn’t muscle-down her Lisbeth. The roles stay brittle: they get beat up, they get even.  Lisbeth is a lot better at getting even.

She’s one victim who knows how to exact revenge that’s also economically rewarding. My guess is this is the part that capped the confusion the guy in the theater’s men’s room had. It’s a little drama after the stage’s main event has played out, so it’s natural to drop your attention a notch at this point. Don’t. It’s even more fun to watch Lisbeth play with her mice. I’d wager if Lisbeth made it into a Bond movie she’d better play Bond’s sister. Otherwise he’s going to get his ass kicked but good.

The Darkest Hour (2011)

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The_Darkest_Hour_Theatrical_PosterZombos Says: Good

Watching The Darkest Hour reminded me of the 1954 movie, Target Earth. The similarities would be sparsely marauding alien invaders, standardized and blandly irrational and frenzied survivors looking for a way out of a desolate city, and dialog written and delivered with the emotional intensity of one hand clapping.

Unlike Target Earth‘s robots from Venus (actually only one was ever shown menacing the survivors), The Darkest Hour has a few more CGI aliens conveniently rolling around in their protective invisible balls of armor, incinerating anyone in their path. I don’t recall why the robots invaded earth in 1954, but these ball-o-fire aliens of 2011 are plundering our planet for its natural resources in a drill, baby, drill paroxysm of destruction. You could do better for a holiday movie, but you could also do worse.

The alien-vision POV as people are hunted down conveys other-worldliness well enough on a budget, and the actors are only poorly written into their characters, although the stoic militia leader (Gosha Kutsenko) grinds out his “Moscow’s got our back” patriotism badly enough to make you groan. Given more to work with, I’d expect more acting, too.

Two young entrepenuers, Sean and Ben (Emile Hirsch,  Max Minghella) wind up in Moscow after being fleeced by Skyler, a corporate wolf (Joel Kinnaman) who steals their idea for a mobile app that guides travelers to local hotspots of iniquity. So, of course, when survivors are surviving, Sean and Ben find themselves holed up with Skyler. Cue the we-hate-your-guts-but-let’s-get-through-this-first turmoil. Now add two girls, Natalie and Anne (Olivia Thirlby,  Rachael Taylor) the boys run into in one of those hotspots, a resourceful old codger of a scientist who figures out the aliens can be toasted with a homemade microwave gun, some flimflam about a Faraday Cage to support the need for making their way to a nuclear sub waiting for survivors in the harbor–survivors with radios, anyway, who heard the broadcast–and a ragtag militia for comic relief (very little relief) fighting with their wits and whatever else they find will work against the aliens, and you’ve got almost a complete story, give or take some beats; enough to be watchable and guiltily enjoyable (like those Roger Corman Syfy movies).

That’s pretty much it. Chris Gorak directs the action with gusto, but he dozes during downtimes, and lighter moments aren’t deftly handled. Everything else, like the by-the-script bickering, the standard, doing stupid crazy tricks to get yourself killed moments, the not so surprising finding-by-accident ways to avoid the aliens, and a token patriotic ferver that makes Independence Day look like a masterpiece of rousing nationalism in comparison, will keep you waiting for more, which, in the long run, keeps you watching. Go figure.

Fright Night (2011)
A Well Done Stake

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Davidtennant_frightnight
Zombos Says: Good

In this remake of 1985’s Fright Night, Jerry (Colin Farrell) is the vampire living next door to Charlie Brewster (Anton Yelchin). Although he’s Twilight sexy (Chris Sarandon in the original was Disco sexy), Jerry’s still got that nasty shark-toothed over-bite, although when his mouth does its CGI stretch it lacks the drool-dripping, visceral punch of the old-style analog mechanical effect . Surprisingly, Jerry also lacks sexual tension. All he really cares about is his next meal. An isolated housing development gone bust, located on the outskirts of Las Vegas, provides all the takeout he can handle until Charlie realizes why an increasing number of kids aren’t showing up for classes.

This go round, times have changed: Charley’s cool by not being a horror movie-loving geek, and his home is surrounded by desolation and “House For Sale” signs; and Roddy McDowall’s tuned-out horror host turned vampire slayer is upstaged by Tennant’s hip-deep-shallow Peter Vincent, a boozy, profane Las Vegas punk-goth-rock stage magician with Peter Frampton locks, Chris Angel darks, and Mick Jagger thins.

What this updated and glossier version offers is a one-two punch delivered by Farrell and Tennant and no ridiculous sequel–yet–to ignore. (Any Fright Night fan who dares think 1988’s Fright Night Part 2 is remotely worthwhile is persona non grata as far as I’m concerned.) I naturally gravitate toward Tennant, being a Dr. Who fan and all, but here he’s part Doctor-making-a-house-call, a tad much of a sod, and all together shamelessly sixes and sevens throughout. His manic cursing and alcohol-induced distancing keeps it dicey flippant while Farell plays Jerry entirely darkly black-humored, and egotistically nasty-mean: he’s been around for over 400 years, so he’s got attitude.

The revelation for Charlie comes after his outcast former friend Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse)  disappears, leaving surveillance video behind of Jerry, only you don’t see Jerry because vampires–say it with me, faithful ones–don’t cast reflections because they have no souls. When Jerry knows that Charlie knows, the cat and mouse fun begins, and Jerry introduces the simple concept of no home? no invitation needed to enter! limiting Charlie’s defensive strategy when Jerry blows it up. I can tell you Jerry’s a lot more direct in this version. He doesn’t have a lacky servant like the green goo-filled handyman Sarandon had in 1985 to do his dirty work.

An exuberant car chase adds a cameo for Sarandon and more CGI opportunities for mayhem as Charlie works the kinks out of his vampire defense. Vincent offers some advice and his collection of vampire-hunting artifacts, but doesn’t want to get involved for personal reasons, which are made clear later on. There’s a funny–although now standard for hip horror movies–bit involving an eBay-purchased automatic stake-gun, and more humor to be found in the final confrontation beneath Jerry’s abode. He’s a subterranean vampire, so he likes to dig a lot.

I criticized the shock-drop opening in Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, but I’ll go gentler with the one used here as Jerry obliterates an entire family in the blood-spattered opening minutes. It’s confusing until the rest of the movie catches up with it and it’s still a cheap shot I associate more with straight to DVD amateur endeavors. Do some directors really think horror fans need a quick and loosely attached gore-jolt to settle down for the rest of the movie? 

What this new Fright Night lacks is not the talent or the production quality;  it misses the mark on raising the emotional thermometer, the feeling a movie  can roll you over with, like a steamroller, if its story invests you in it. A handful of horror movies do this and, more and more it seems, many are only concerned with the CGI-involved action quotient instead of the needed quality time between it. Remember the attack on Peter Vincent by Evil Ed in 1985? If you haven’t seen it, watch the original Fright Night, then compare that simpler scene to the CGI-effects laden penthouse smackdown in this movie. You tell me which one has more feeling.

Sure, the special effects may be so cool now, Brewster! but back then you had heart. I’d stake my expert opinion on it.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2011)

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DBAotD
Zombos Says: Good

One criticizes Guillermo del Toro at one’s peril. He’s become a savior to fans of the Cinema Fantastic, the horrific, and the arabesque in movies, wielding his creative sword to smite mainstream naysayers into acquiessence with tales of morose children imperiled by Baroque situations. This is another such tale, although it’s based on the television movie that frightened del Toro and many other genre fans–myself included–when it first aired in 1973.  The criticism I’ll dare to level here is del Torro’s glossier version tries very hard to impress, but never actually does because he builds it on familial relationships overused in horror movies: the displaced, unhappy kid with separated parents and an unwanted stepmom; and he replaces simple, old-fashioned mystery-building with letting the CGI boys run wild. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is a good monster movie, it’s just not a good scary one.

I’ll lay some of the blame with director Troy Nixey. The opening shock-drop–what I call those brief, jarring scenes often used at the beginning of straight-to-DVD-movies–of Blackwood (Gary McDonald), the house’s first tenant desperately trying to get his missing son back, robs the suspense we needed as Sally (Bailee Madison) pays a forced visit to her architect dad (Guy Pierce) and his live-in, interior designer girlfriend (Katie Holmes). They’re renovating a brooding Gothic mansion surrounded by intimidating formal gardens and filled with dark hallways and subterranean pests. Shades of Arthur Machen’s forestry horrors and startling Pickman’s Model revelations are hinted, but del Toro gives them fan-boy nods instead of plumbing deeper while Nixey’s CGI animators and production designers direct the action out from under him. It all looks fantastic, but doesn’t play fantastic.

Transitioning the original danger of threatened adult (Kim Darby in the televised version) to threatened child–we’re told the underground creatures love to eat children’s teeth after terrorizing them–should have pumped up the quotient for eldritch terror dramatically, but it doesn’t. We all ready know the threat looming after the opening few minutes and must wait for sullen Sally and everyone else to catch up;  except for the laconic groundskeeper (every brooding mansion must have one) Mr. Harris (Jack Thompson). He knows about the nasty buggers waiting behind the ash pit grate in the hidden basement, but damned if he’ll tell anyone before they slice and dice him to a bloody pulp. Which brings me to another pet peeve I have with laconic groundskeepers in horror movies: namely that they’re always laconic when they should be screaming bloody hell warnings, and they always spill the few beans well after the time they really needed to spill them ahead of. You can call it script contrivance, or even crafty planning depending on how it’s used, but its use is often counterproductive, like the shock-drop that reveals much of the mystery before any detection can begin. I will call them cheap shots. I expected more from del Toro.

I also expected less. Suspense gives way to too much CGI conflict between Sally, the adults, and the evil goblins living beneath the mansion: brief scenes of eyes looking through keyholes, being threatened by pointy objects poised to strike from the other side; longer scenes of straight-razor dalliance at ankle level; and an encounter with a toolbox worth of pointy objects aiming through the darkness, capped by close-ups of goblins wreaking havoc, illustrate the story like a fairy tale book’s pictures without embellishing its emotional contextual ambience.  Nixey knits scenes together with little suspense building: the house is creepy dark, got that; the basement’s one of del Toro’s nightmarish wetdreams, got that, too; but so what? More feeling and less seeing would have elevated Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark to scare the bejesus stature.

It’s a shame del Toro wasn’t able to recapture the terror he felt when he  first saw Kim Darby being victimized by the goblins. That sense of terror needed to be here. It isn’t, although it looks like it is.

Final Destination 5
Ode On A Deathly Turn

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Urn

THOU 5th installment of gory loudness,

Thou oft repeated script of messy deaths in time and time again,

Cinema horror fan, who canst thus express

Such bread and butter tales more bloodily than our rhyme:

What bowel-fringed tissue fragments haunt about thy screen

Round loose heads or flopping appendages, or of both,

In air flying or across floors smearing, outside or in?

What victims are these? What maidens quartered thus?

Which death pursues? What struggle to escape when sequels beckon?

What screams and entrails? What wild ecstatic gore?

Seen terminus’s are sweet, but those bleeding reddest

  Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft impalings, gut on;

Not to the sensual eye, but, more endear’d,

Slice to the entrails, tear the eyes, these messy ditties:

Fair youth, beneath the car, thou canst not breath

  Thy song of fear, nor ever can these scenes be fair;

Bold victim, never, never canst thou live,

Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;

You cannot fade, though thou hast not thy stomach nor other bodily parts,

For ever wilt thou die, for Death be not fair!

Ah, happy, happy fans! that cannot shed

  Your quest for gore, nor ever bid the grue adieu;

And, happy dramatist, unwearièd,

For ever piping scripts for ever over and over again;

More happy death! more happy, happy death!

For ever breathing warm, and wet, sopped to overflowing,

For ever panting, and for ever young;

All breathing human misery far above,

That leaves a heart bursting forth, and cloyed over rest,

On burning forehead, a dislodged tongue, or cleaved breast.

Who are these critics coming to the sacrifice?

To what film altar, O mysterious critic,

Lead’st thou that review lowing at the tale,

And all its slimey flanks with gorelands drest?

What nestled town by river or sea-shore,

Or home-built citadel in city or temple,

Is emptied of its victims, this pious morn?

And, nestled town, thy streets for evermore

  Will no longer silent be; and not a soul, to tell

    Why thou’s art’s so desolate, can e’er return,

Till sequel plays havoc once again.

O terror shape! fear attitude! with dread

Of creature men and bosomy maidens overwrought,

With frightful branches thick with the trodden bowels;

  Thou, noisome form! dost tease us out of thought

As doth eternity: Cold tableau!

When old age shall this generation waste,

Thou shalt remain, to kindle other woe, more

  Than ours, a fiend to all, to whom thou say’st,

‘Horror is truth, truth horror,—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know,

Till the next final destination.

 

by John M. “Keets” Cozzoli