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Movies (Indie)

Gale Stay Away From Oz (2023)

Gale posterThis one has me somewhat confused. I'm not sure if it's a series, a movie, or what it is supposed to be from Chilling. I'm not even sure where you access Chilling. The screener request provided a short teaser for this horror, and not much else. Promotion not at its finest so far.

As for the teaser, it looks promising. Dorothy Gale (Karen Swan)  is an elderly woman suffering from dementia and a fear of something that causes her to yell a warning to stay away from OZ. Visiting her estate is Emily Gale (Chloe Crump), who is the person she warns. Emily is having nightmares and those lead her to seek out Dorothy, though it is not clear what her relationship is with the famed author of the OZ books beyond their last names matching up.

The nightmares trouble Emily enough for psychotherapy sessions with a doctor who looks very familiar, hint hint. Crump's Emily is lethargic and hopefully, will pick up some energy and more facial expressions beyond the one she uses throughout this teaser. 

During her brief and bizarre visit with Dorothy, she meets her therapist (Clara Emanuel) who, again, seems very familiar, hint hint. It seems therapists are a big thing with anyone connected to OZ.

Spooky nightmares, yet another cryptic, well worn book, frantically scribbled and drawn in to provide parts of clues (doesn't anyone in horror movies know how to take good notes?), and the start to a quest for answers, ironically, are leading Gale to OZ and not away from it.

Like I said, promising but confusing. I will keep you posted when I find out more.

The Final Ride (2019)
A Cheap Fare With Some Tongue in Cheek Scare

TheFinalRide_KeyArtZombos Says: Fair+ (assorted cardboard acting and sub-basement budget levels (though the splatter effects are a hoot) level all to home movie status, but this anthology horror has an artful 1970s and 80s patina and tongue in cheek sensibility that cries out for love: a festival-fan winner for sure).

Let me state up front that the sizzling poster has nothing to do with the movie. It’s a great poster, don’t take me wrong, but my guess is they spent more money on it than the movie. But if you ride along with this 79 minutes worth of three stories that kick off with a hop in the car, you may find some artful recapturing of the 1970s and 1980s grit and cheapness which is nirvana for true believers. Of course, you’d have to be older, like me, to fully appreciate the camera work and tongue in cheek style that harkens back to that rush you got when perusing the video store shelves–not Blockbuster, I mean the mom and pop stores with the beaded curtained off areas–but that’s the fun of festival-tour movies: they always mix it up for the old, the young, and the true savant of genre terrors.

After a montage of questionable fares, irritating our driver Jean (Keegan Chambers), the first nightmare kicks off with a couple hopping into the backseat as they decide on their new home; which, of course, has a sordid history that a neighbor relates, eventually, (and barely, as his acting effort was just as sordid) after strange things and behaviors are seen. What’s really strange is how Peter (Matthew Chisholm) still has a video tape player so he and his wife, Monica (Annette Wozniak) can watch the box of VHS tapes found in the new house’s basement. The tapes show Jimmy, a fitness masochist (best performance award to Ry Barret, for sure), pumping and sweating with Hulk Hogan gusto. Here’s where the vibe capturing both 1970s street-level slackness and 1980s superficial slickness shines through in both camera work and overreaching tongue outside of cheek. That vibe turns video nasty when Jimmy works himself out of the tapes and into prime time, featuring bargain-basement blood splat that is so bad it’s completely lovable in effect and in keeping with the 70 and 80s tone and mood.

The pace (and acting chops) picks up some speed as the second couple joins Jean, two guys boozing it up (J. Robert Bellamy and Brent Baird), daring each other to get tats (is daring still a thing?), choose the wrong tattoo parlor. Their friendship heads to a blowout as one gets the tatting of his life. One well-placed hilarious moment comes when the regretful tat man meets his girlfriend’s parents. Yes, we’ve seen this black inked nightmare scenario before–actually, a lot–but our duo and their predicament has enough emotional and comic appeal propping it up–except for the wax figure lackluster ending. Whoever did the set dressing for that one must have been sick that day.

The last outing for Jean comes with a worrisome fare hopping into the backseat but making moves to the front seat, and Jean finds out what’s in her trunk the hard way. The usual switcheroo occurs, then the guns come out to determine who the real badass is. The novelty here is who does the shooting. If you are thinking of driving for Uber or Lyft, best not to see this movie or just skip the last story.

While not as completely off the wall watchable as The Video Dead or Spookies, The Final Ride keeps the pace moving just enough, and the storylines watchable, just enough, to make it a fun ride. Just keep in mind that Nicholas Cage is not in this one, so don’t be looking for him (even if the poster shows Ghost Rider driving a car instead of his motorcycle).

 

Too Late (2021)
When Comedians Die Off Stage

UnnamedZombos Says: Good (slow art house pace and limited budget keeps the camera tight, but dialog is enjoyably crisp, which helps keep the story creepy and droll).

There is a slow, droll, one-joke told too many times standup delivery going on with Too Late, but like that budding comedian you suddenly discover, it grows on you. You would think comedian Steven Wright directed this one, given it is so deadpanned-droll, but D.W. Thomas did, and he keeps the camera budget tight, the main players sedate but copacetic, and the colors and lighting subdued. The most energetic spot can be found in the opening credits, done with a Beetlejuice-styled motion and mood-setting music by Mikel Hurwitz. Tom Becker, writer, takes the slice of her life (Violet's) approach with  dialog and situations thick in irony, weirdness, and a sardonic twist on the saying "dying is easy, comedy is hard" as some comedians find dying off stage quite easy. 

Assisting in their demise is Violet (Alyssa Limperis), who aids the digestion of one Bob Devore (Ron Lynch), a long in the tooth comedian who really is older than he looks. Apparently Violet, yearning for her big break, assists Bob with winnowing the competition by the light of the full moon.

Not much is explained about Bob's eating habits or his pedigree, but the closing credits hint at a backstory, so do not miss them. I wonder if the choice of Bob's last name was a take on devour? Which he does, never seeming to bite off more than he can chew, to Violet's growing exasperation. When he goes after a comedian she really likes, Jimmy, the fur flies. 

Jimmy (Will Weldon), newbie in comedy and love, also ruffles her fur a bit too as Bob sets his sights on him (or his diet, take your pick). When stardom beckons, their relationship hits the skids and Violet must decide whether to feed Bob's appetite or Jimmy's ego or her own long-overdue freedom from late night dinners by moonlight. While she makes up her mind, Bob decides to play rough after she and her friend, Belinda (Jenny Zigrino), try to play rougher by changing his sleeping arrangements. 

Fredo (Fred Armisen) provides some comic relief as he tussles with Bob's endless demands for lighting gels and a few comics strain at their routines in brief–thankfully–moments. Will Fredo ever find the right lighting gel for Bob? Will Violet end up as the main course after serving so many? Will Bob need to reach for the Pepto-Bism0l? It's never too late to find out.

Gaia (2021)
This Ecological Horror Has Deep Roots

Gaia-film-gabi-in-lake-hr_NEONZombos Says: Good. Slow pacing and an artful but ponderously delivered ecological-warning weigh it down.

Gaia's body and ecological horror elements can be found in earlier movies such as Matango and The Ruins. At this point in time, given the intensifying global climate, the bitter taste of pandemic disruption, the continuing extinction of many species, the endless pollution of our oceans, and how little we have done to address it or even freak out about it, I am not sure that more two-fisted messaging about an ecological apocalypse is anywhere near a priority for most movie audiences. On a personal note, perhaps a little less we-know-we're-in-deep-shit movies and a lot more of what-do-we-do-about-it movies would be encouraging, at least for this reviewer. 

We tend to close the barn door after the horses have fled and yell fire after the barn has burned down. Repeatedly. Given that, this movie should be scary first and then hit us hard with its didactic ecological doomsday messaging through that horror. Jacob Bouwer (director) and Tertius Kapp (writer) prefer it the other way. Their direction makes Gaia a more polished and visually-confirming art house take on a truly terrible environmental and body horror that overwhelms its four characters, but underwhelms our emotions as we watch it unfold. In other words, Gaia aims for the head, not the palpitating heart.

Perhaps the direction is too documentarian and the characters too pensive? Brooding is not what is needed here, yet brooding we get. Even after a blind creature crashes into the cabin, it feels more like a nuisance than an actual threat. Gabi, who should be freaked out by the sudden appearance and anxious to get out of there, instead becomes more determined to stay. What gives?

What should be gut-wrenching moments to watch are delivered as artfully poetic annihilations instead. And, of course, there is the mutated, personal religion (every pre and post apocalyptic movie needs one, of course) to complicate things and that's where the horror festers in this story. It affects each character, especially the patriarch with the cliff-fall from sanity, but Gaia weighs down his and its manifesto with overly long excursions into dreamscapes and not enough of the truly frightening tree that mothers too well (depicted with excellent imagery and mood). The malevolent denizens of this strange forest, clearly having stayed too long in the woods, create little tension or threat–especially when given the overused clicks and ticks that many apocalyptic monsters seem to suffer from in these movies–and everyone goes about their day without much apprehension. Except for Winston. He's the lone black guy, so you know how he will wind up.  The characters worry about the forest creatures as much as one would for an overstayed houseguest.

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Two park rangers, making their rounds, step into the singular lives and forest of two isolated hunters, primitively living  off the land. An errant drone sends one of the rangers, Gabi (Monique Rockman)–against the warnings of the other, Winston (Anthony Oseyemi)–to find it. He eventually chases after her when she fails to make it back to the river at the appointed time. She finds the drone and Barend (Carel Nel), and his son Stefan (Alex van Dyk). Both men are survivalists, but Stefan grew up in the forest while his father chose to live there. What happened to his mother is the root to what happens with each of them, and the underpinning of the connection between Barend and the land, and the ecological horror growing there. Instead of the science that Barend once followed, he now exists in a quasi-religious and crazy-state abandonment, making his altar at the strange tree bearing even stranger fruit.

Gabi upsets the balance of this isolation and religious manifesto folie a deux, and weakens the father and son relationship to force the story's path to the usual downbeat conclusion. One can question the choices she makes as her reluctant helpers try to get her out of the forest so they can return to their normal survivalist routine, but she tries to understand them and what is happening to and around her. Every action, every conflict, is photographed with an overarching gloom that permeates the forest, the simple cabin, and Gabi's dreams. Barend, with his frail body and intense stare, is gloom and doom personified, even revels in it as he writes his manifesto by candle light. His son is no longer so sure of his father's intentions or authority, now that Gabi has entered their solitary existence to awaken sexual feelings that were unknown to him before her arrival.

Visually, Gaia is a treat. Story-wise, it needs more bite for greater emotional impact. If you are looking for a cerebral ecological horror movie, it is for you.

Untitled Horror Movie (2021)
An Enjoyable (and Remote) Horror Romp

Poster-Untitled Horror Movie - FinalZombos Says: Good+. A fun, light, horror romp that shines mostly because of the actors involved.

Watching the volley-balling egos, the gee whiz let's put on a show attitude, and the slow intrusion of an evil spirit that knows a lot about communicating remotely (in this case supernaturally, no Zoom needed), makes Untitled Horror Movie an enjoyable horror-lite watch.  

Vanity Fair did an article on the making of this movie during its covid quarantine production last year. With everyone in lockdown, the actors went old school, learning how to do their makeup, hairdressing, gaff taping, lighting, camera work; in essence, putting on a one person show that could be edited  into an ensemble later. Zoom handled the conference calls, directions, and how-to videos provided the spot training.

The undertaking reminded me of one of those Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland backyard musical movies where the kids pitch in and put on a show. No one sings or dances in this digital age version though, and Mickey and Judy didn't have to deal with demonic possession (though, looking back, that would have been cool), or do their own makeup and lighting. Having experienced the horrors of lighting, sunlight and drapery, and webcam positioning for too many Zoom meetings, I can tell you it is a miracle this movie got made at all.

Untitled Horror Movie has a slick slacks gloss to it, with a humorous crease running its entire length. It could have used more horror-tense moments, but inside jokes and the Hollywood tinsel digs and jibbing from person to person is mesmerizing. Given that you need to watch six talking heads most of the time, those heads better be connected to some lively and watchable characters: no problems there; the facial expressions, the verbal jousting, and the clean editing makes for a lively display of talent and humorous dialog with the building malevolence. 

It starts with six actors (Claire Holt, Katherine McNamara, Darren Barnet, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Luke Baines, Timothy Granaderos) in search of a project after they fear their television series is cancelled. Using a found footage approach, video chatting, and in one instance a paired meeting (still done with quarantine in mind), they banter with stereotypical personalities, that may not be so exaggerated, as one would think. Lesly Kahn provides the funniest moments or should I say her dog does? Tough call there as she coaches one intrepid actor into his character for the horror movie the group decides they should make. Unfortunately, Chrissy (Katherine McNamara) is into pendulum crystals to help her make decisions. She said she got it at the Rose Bowl where nothing bad happens. Someone points out it's like a little Ouija board of badness, but a banishment curse is easily found on the Internet and their off and running–into trouble. 

The curse, of course, kicks in and one by one they're zoombombed by the supernatural. While more visual terror would have been a plus, the vivid characters keep it mesmerizingly funny, aided by the crisp editing. One would wish all Zoom meetings were this enjoyable.

Note: As always, I receive screener links, book copies, and other stuff for review. But I still review 'em as I see 'em. So there.

Tesis (1996)

TesisZombos says: very good

What kind of horror movie fan are you? Do you go for the more fictional creatures of the night, say Dracula or the Frankenstein Monster, or the ever-ubiquitous zombies? Perhaps you prefer your horrors more real, a Hannibal Lecter munching on someone’s guts instead of a Werewolf ripping them apart? My preference leans toward the imaginary terrors: I know they are not real, so I can enjoy their scares more because I know they really will not get me, if you know what I mean. But then there are the terrors by day and night that are not imaginary, even when framed in a fictional narrative. They draw on the real world, deriving their monsters from the headlines, or history, or the neighbor whose house sits one or two across from you; or maybe they even attend the same school you do.

In Alejandro Amenabar’s Tesis, Angela (Ana Torrent) wants to write a thesis on audiovisual violence. It is all very academic, if you were to ask her, but deep down, there is something else driving her rationale for wanting to write on such an unsavory topic. Sure, she is a film student, and, yes, she enlists her professor’s reluctant help in securing graphic viewing material, but it is not quite that simple. Director and writer Amenabar complicates the path to her thesis by tossing in questions about whether she is being honest with herself, whether others are being honest with her, and just how much her thesis is an academic exercise or a deep pleasure she wants to gratify. Her confusion with all this is our confusion too, and that’s where Tesis kicks into gears as a thriller, a horror, and a do you like watching this stuff and why? And, of course, there’s the monster to contend with. But who is it?

The key players involved in answering this important question, while providing the drama, actions, and scares are, (if you are a Boris Karloff Thriller fan, imagine he is sinisterly introducing them with that knowing twinkle in his eyes): Angela, the student who cannot keep her thesis totally academic; Chema, (Fele Martinez), the student whom everyone knows is the go to weirdo for sick videos; Bosco (Eduardo Noriega), the student who Angela is strangely attracted to in an unhealthy way; Castro (Xabier Elorriaga), the substitute professor who believes audiences drive what movies should be made; and Figueroa (Miguel Picazo), Angela’s professor, who suffers from asthma and pokes around forgotten places in the university where dust and mold spores are not the only things that can make his asthma much, much worse.

Amenabar wrote Tesis while he attended Complutense University and filmed it in the halls of the School of Communications. How he filmed it makes for a rather big building with austere hallways and secretive spaces. It is in one of these spaces that Professor Figueroa discovers a snuff video, after Angela asks him to see what violent content is available in the library. Unfortunately, he is too successful in finding the right material for Angela’s thesis.

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Before this plot-forward discovery, Angela has already presented us with a question. Earlier, while riding the train to school the conductor warns that a suicide has splattered across the tracks and insists that everyone not look at the tragic and violent scene as they leave the station. Angela cannot resist, however, and almost reaches the platform’s edge before she is directed away by the conductor. She could not help herself. She wanted to see the aftermath of the suicide. But what about us watching her wanting to see the suicide? I admit I was disappointed. Perhaps I have watched too many recent horror movies and my expectations were formed by them. No Jacques Tournier subtlety for many of today’s directors and fans, they just want the gore. Did I really want to see brains and limbs and guts spread out in a nice red splotch of chunky mess? How would that have made Tesis better for me? The movie starts teasing us about violence and how we view it before the story even begins. How metafilmic! But be assured you do not need to worry about the story getting bogged down because of it. Even Scream, a metafilmic movie franchise, is terrifying and satisfying to watch, although Amenabar’s tone and mood here are more realistic, more downbeat than Scream would care to be.

Angela asks Professor Figueroa to help her find violent videos for her thesis. While he hunts through the library, she asks her classmate Chema to see what video nasties he may have. At first, he refuses to show her anything and recommends Mickey Mouse as a more suitable thesis topic. In the cafeteria, they glare at each other as she listens to classical music through her earphones and he listens to heavy metal through his. We know they are opposites, on the surface, but are they really opposites at heart? Chema finally agrees to show her his collection of videos. She asks if people really watch these movies. He replies, “You, for instance.” She says she does not enjoy them.

Tesis_1voeFSThe following day she finds the snuff video that Professor Figueroa discovered in the library. At first she can only listen to it. Once Chema finds out about it he wants to see it. They watch it together and he recognizes the girl in the video, Vanessa, had gone missing from the university a while back. He also sees a digital zoom was used. Angela, although it is her thesis project, is facing away from the television screen. She refuses to look, seeing only intestines where Chema sees the horizontal lines indicating which camera was used to film the torture and death. She does not want to get involved, now knowing a real person may have been killed. But later, seeing Bosco using the same type of camera that recorded the snuff movie, she cannot help herself and starts following him. The cat and mouse game begins. Is Bosco the killer or someone else? Why is Angela drawn to Bosco when Chema insists he is a psycho? Why does Chema hide information from Angela even though he is drawn to her? At first reluctant to seek the truth, Angela is carried away by her own attraction to danger and violence. Her role switches from thesis-motivated investigation to final girl survival as the human monster smells fresh blood.

A lot of very dry but very revealing critical analysis has been written about this Goya Award winning film made by a film student about fictional film students, but at its core is a simple question: how much violence, whether real or fictional, do you want to see? And why do you want to see it? It is a good question that all horror fans should ask themselves.

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Mayhem (2017)

Mayhem movie posterZombos Says: Very Good 

Director Joe Lynch and writer Matias Caruso deliver a slick and acerbic paycheck of an office-bound slaughterfest with Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead, Voltron) and Samara Weaving (Ash vs Evil Dead, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) hammering, nail-gunning, and power-tooling their way to the boardroom on the top floor. The slapstick-gore, inhibition-releasing adrenaline rush that a virus unleashes in a big office building law firm provides opportunities for jabs and stabs that go beyond the copious blood-letting. Who wouldn't want to unleash their inner beast on the corporate mime and grime they wade through every day? Having it happen to lawyers is just so much more icing on the cake (as cinema often tells us).

Made to look the fall guy by slick shark manager "the Siren" (Caroline Chikezie), Derek (Steven Yeun) is fired and hustled out the building, almost. A S.W.A.T team pulls up with guns tightly aimed at anyone attempting to leave. The building is put on quarantine after a sensor tips off the feds to the airborne virus that turns one eye red of those infected. Let the mayhem begin.

Ever since Captain Kirk and his crew dealt with inhibition-releasing germs in The Naked Time, horror and sci fi cinema has delivered a smorgasbord of variations on the theme. Here, the mood is more grindhouse artsy (just look at the movie's poster art), and cheeky, when Derek pairs up with Melanie (Samara Weaving), a very unhappy, soon-to-be-evicted-from-her-home-by the-evil-corporate-law-firm-David-works-for, all too happy revenge-seeker. Excuses can be made since it was David's law firm that pioneered the non-liability defense for anyone infected. They gleefully crack open the tool cage, gear up, and do things we never saw on This Old House.

Camera handler Steve Gainer (and the editing) moves gracefully between the slaying and the quiet moments of reflection (well, not that quiet), through the bright white hallways and into the darker elevator and boardroom. The elevator to the boardroom, of course, provides a metaphor for climbing the corporate ladder as Derek and Melanie go after the keycards needed to take them to the top, where the cocaine-sniffing "The Boss," (Steven Brand), waits with his wine-sipping board members, who are hoping to ride out the contagion mayhem.

Most anyone who has worked in a corporate setting will certainly cheer Derek and Melanie on.

 

 

Don’t Kill It (2016)
It Has Its Moments, Could Use More

Don't kill itZombos Says: Fair to Good 

Each time I look into Dolph Lundgren's face I see the Doc Savage movie that could have been. But he isn't playing Doc Savage in Don't Kill It, just an oafish demon bounty hunter named Jebediah Woodley (aren't they all named like that?) channeling that Kurt Russell, Big Trouble in Little China vibe. I admit it's funny to watch. His deadpan delivery fits easily within his worse for the wear duster and bumbling machismo in dealing with a demonic outbreak knocking down the population in an already small town. But it only goes so far, and, after a short while, no further. Director Mike Mendez doesn't realize or isn't concerned about that.

An ancient demonic evil (aren't they all ancient?) resurfaces near a Mississippi town, killing anyone in close proximity while screeching the usual demonic screech and showing those de rigueur beady black demon eyes. Jebediah arrives in time to be ignored, then believed, then to become chief player at fumbling through it all with his funny looking net gun and misfiring gumption. More direction and scripting devoted to that would have amped up the enjoyability factor here, but Lundgren's lethargy permeates everything when it's only him who should be moving slow.

You see, the kicker here is that you can't kill the demon outright. If you do, you get possessed. So the hilarious moments come from the inability of most everyone involved to keep from doing just that. So the demon bounces around from victim to victim, killing and possessing like demons are wont to do, in a lackluster, by-the-numbers, straight to disc or streaming or syfy channel horror movie way. The inherent absurdity and humor to be embraced in all the pinball-possible kinetics are barely hugged. Talky lulls between action scenes, action scenes that skimp on the action (except for those to be mentioned later), all of that keeps the pace of this endeavor to a little less than a brisk walk when it needs a flat out run instead. 

That's the one-note setup given in the script. The townsfolk (who provide typical clueless fodder for the gore gags), the sheriff (who shows the usual I can't handle the truth reactions), the FBI agent (who can't decide to lead or follow or jump into the action with feet firmly planted), and Jebediah (with his predictable laid-back clumsiness) fail to catapult that one note very far. More effort on characterization, more contextual effort between gore gag events, and more of a storyline are the missing elements here and from too many horror movies. Have horror fans become that simplistic and non-discerning? Do directors and production people think horror fans are, these days, a non-discerning bunch that will swallow anything thrown at them? I mean, really, what is all that gibberish about FBI agent Pierce (Kristina Klebe in a torpid turn as an FBI agent) being of angelic heredity? Did Lundgren wing that one or what?

But…

Here's something I will swallow, and you may find it tasty, too. The few scenes that are genuinely funny and rise above the stodgy acting, slow poke timing, and can-we-hurry-on-with-this-please gaps. For instance, like the town meeting. Filled with shots of cartoon-styled, poorly done gore gags (which heightens the effect, so good job there) and an almost keystone cops energy of who's got the hot potato going round the town hall room, it is one town meeting that's hilarious in its carnage.

It's one of those rare moments when Jebediah's character (the part where he doesn't think things through well at all, which is much of the time), the impracticality of holding the meeting in the first place (would you give a mass murderer easy access to most of the town's people in one place?), and the fumbling mayhem as all hell breaks loose (deputies will be deputies) is choreographed like a ballet held in a boxing ring. Simple yet sublime.

Now that's what I'm talking about.

It helps make up for the wait to get to it. Another such ensemble of deathly destruction follows. Eventually. But mishandling tone–make fun of death involving kids at your own peril–sets it down a peg. Flying demonic kids of doom are a plus, though, so I'll give points for that anytime.

Der Nachtmahr (The Nightmare) 2015

Der-Nachtmahr-poster-300 Zombos Says: Good (almost)

I've said it more often than not: to make a movie work, in its simplest composition, one of two things must happen. The good and great movies have both these things happen, but at least one needs to be there if you want an audience to pay attention, invest interest, and believe in the characters and what's happening to them.

The first thing is forward motion. Whether through dialog, character development, actions, or effective editing, without visual or story movement from start to finish, the movie won't work. Leaving an audience sitting around hoping for something, anything, to happen is not the way you want them to feel. And what happens must evolve and not just happen willy-nilly.

The second thing is to make a decision up front and stay committed to it. Is the story funny or serious, quirky or cheeky, or a  carefully blended mix, and why is it that way? If a director can't make up his or her mind in how they show us this, the audience won't be able to make up its mind, either. Remember Tim Burton's Dark Shadows remake mess? He couldn't figure it out and neither could we.

Perhaps more significantly, a director needs to know what to explain or not explain, and if a situation of "no explanation" is desired for artistic or dramatic reasons, how can you achieve that through what's shown or not shown, heard or not heard, to keep an audience satisfied with their investment in your story. Unsolved mysteries can be annoying or tantalizing: if you do the first thing really well, no one may notice, or care much, that you didn't tie a pretty bow to wrap up the second thing neatly. Horror movies, especially, suffer from franchise-itis endings, where a tidy and satisfying story is butchered by an ending that doesn't, sacrificed for a potential sequel.

Director Akiz tricks us into thinking he's covered both of these things, but he sort of  does, sort of doesn't, so Der Nachtmahr pulls us in just enough, leaves us wondering and wanting more explanation, just enough, and provides just enough to fill in the gaps as we choose. I'm not sure if he intentionally did this or a lucky accident occurred here, but this is the kind of movie you won't see too often from Hollywood. It demands active viewing not passive, and its characters aren't at all endearing or clever or the kind of people you want to hang around with. Or maybe I just don't want to hang around with them. They are vacuous (okay, maybe not the philosophically-minded student, but he's in the minority), living vacuous lives filled with pretensions.

There are the usual foreign film idiosyncrasies like time wasted listening to students (really just that one nerd in the group), who are hanging out, discussing deep philosophy on a level similar to how many Einsteins can fit in God's head  and fractals (but so serious you wish it were more humorously intended, like Animal House's stoner view of the solar system under your fingernail.) Of course, the American film idiosyncrasy found in horror movies involves students, who are hanging out, discussing male and female anatomy and party protocols. So there.).  

Akis does go bananas with his rave scenes. They are jarring, overly loud, and filmed with an arrogance and a diffusing color as his camera follows the hedonistic friends through their partying and drug excesses. In contrast to his endless malaise saturating every scene, these disorienting raves hint he's making a point about his characters and their priorities. So which nightmare you choose to see is up to you. Tina sees the creepy one, which meanders around without saying anything and is always hungry, forming a symbiotic relationship so what happens to it happens to her. Perhaps its aimlessness is hers. When it bites into a razor blade cutting its tongue, her tongue is cut. Her parents see that as a cue she's reverting to old habits. Her counselor tells her to talk to it. But it doesn't speak. Her friends start retreating.

A Donnie Darko moment of time rewind violence jars the storyline toward confusion and possibly a Tangent Universe. Or not. Hard to say, given there's a backstory to Tina (Carolyn Denzkow), alluded to through her visits to a counselor and an ever-present concern, despair, defeat, and anxiety felt from her parents. Then the police are called, a creature is seen (similar to the one in Fuselli's 1781 painting), and off we go, seeing through Tina's mind what she believes is happening, or seeing the reality as perceived by those around her.

The movie shifts into an Eraserhead kind of visual weirdness, but takes too long getting there and doesn't dare enough, and takes us for a car ride at the end to wonder where we're going or where we've been. Too much vibe when more jibe with the two must-happen things I mentioned above, would have made the movie work harder for us so we didn't have to. 

Movie Review: Harbinger Down (2015)

Zombos Says: Good

Harbinger-down-lance-henriksen

Harbinger Down is a good amorphous-glump-of-moving-terror monster romp in the vein of Leviathan, The Thing, and Slither. The practical special effects build a solid scare into the muck amok storyline, and I strongly disagree with flickfilosopher's summation of the"…cheap shoddiness of the practical FX this demo-reel flick is meant to show off." I give the effects a higher rating than that, as well as the movie overall, making me wonder why the same team that did them had their practical efx pulled from The Thing prequel in favor of the less than stellar GCI replacing it.  

The lean budget (a Kickstarter funded $384,181.00, according to Wikipedia) does show in the studio-bound, dry-docked, boat scenes, belied by a drunken-camera, woozing at the wrong times, making us conscious of all the mid-shots and close-ups constraining tight frames used to hide the lack of waves and weather. Acting and story hold watertight enough, aside from pesky horror tropes and the usual pacing and editing staleness seen in productions like this. Otherwise, some moody and scary horror moments, and a well-time, and dryly delivered, variation on the "we're going to need a bigger boat" conundrum, perk up the minimal plot and sets, creating sufficient appeal for its 82 minutes of run time .

Then there's Lance Henriksen. I'll admit I can never fault his acting and I'd pay good money just to watch him read cereal boxes out loud, melodramatically. He has a face only a camera could appreciate, and a presence that makes supporting cast members look better than they usually are. Is he given enough to do here? No. But it's more than his wasted appearance in Hollow's Grove. Instead of moving the story through him, Sadie (Camille Balsamo) and her fellow graduate classmates, along with her professor (Matt Winston), provide the direction the boat steers in and the desultory chit-chat while we wait for mayhem to ensue. 

Sailing with them are the Harbinger's scripted-go-to odd-ball crewmates including Svet (Milla Bjorn) and Big G (Winston James Francis). The chemistry between them almost happens: the story starts building a love interest–or sexual attraction–but then she's all KGB-big-knife-loving-sexy and he's just big and brutish-sexy–so the love doesn't bud between them. Instead they beat each other up before getting beat up by the monster. A wasted dynamic duo that also needed more to do with their relationship. 

The creature makes its entrance courtesy of a Soviet spacecraft lost years before. The craft's location beacon suddenly starts transmitting again –after all those lost years of inactivity–and the crabbing boat's mission to watch the effect of global warming on Whales (crabbing boat, whales–wild, right?) turns into a salvage operation pitting professor, students, and crew against each other while the monster turns them into human sushi. Just once I'd love to see everyone actually on the same page and in the same direction: fighting the monster in earnest. Hey, I can dream, can't I?

A little face time from Leviathan can be seen at one point, and a lot of tentacles make for a good slithering menace through the above and below decks. I was fooled with a scene that hinted at a more robust monster entrance by having it plop down a flight of stairs, but it never happened. That disappointed me. I was hoping for a little more playfulness with my (and our) expectations. Harbinger Down is more cut and dried in it's choices, though, retaining those common moments we see in movies like this. Not an entirely bad thing when handled well enough and Harbinger Down does handle it well enough for me to recommend you put this on your viewing list.

A courtesy stream-screener was provided for this review.

Movie Review: Snowpiercer (2014)
The Zeitgeist Express

Snowpiercer-2

Zombos Says: Brilliant

"Lord, hell must be frozen over by now. I see Boston and much of the Northeast is," remarked Zombos, reading his New York Times. He turned the page. Yes, old habits die hard with him, and he refused to shake off his love for newsprint-smudged fingers, the paper mill smell, and a crinkle of pulpy newspaper for the lesser sensory experience glossy digital screens provided.

"I wonder what Pretorius' hat is doing in the middle of the lawn," I said, standing uncertainly on the worn, shaky-on-its-track, rolling ladder as I windexed the large full arch head window that let the most light into the library.

Our groundskeeper took to wearing a deerstalker cap during the winter months. It was dark brown, made of leather with fuzzy ear flaps, and had a golden PS embroidered in large letters on it. Those letters stood out above the dark color of the hat and now almost glittered in the whiteness of the deep snow mounds that stretched across the breadth of the great lawn.

Zombos put down his newspaper and walked over to the window. We both stared down at the hat. It moved.

"Oh, my, you better pull him out of the snow before he freezes solid," said Zombos. He returned to his chair and his newspaper.

"How?" I asked. "Snowpiercer couldn't get through that amount of snow."

"Oh, just toss on some snowshoes and you will be fine," he said. "Three fingers of Brandy to brace yourself for the challenge would help."

I thought about the Brandy and a career change while I bounded down the staircase. I also thought about Bong Joon Ho's Snowpiercer and his post-apocalyptic snowscapes and endless mounds of snow. And how does one actually put on snowshoes anyway?

 

Each decade's worth of cinematic endeavors produces at least one movie that attempts to capture the defining fear, hope, and hopelessness of the time period it is created in. You might call this meta-genre approach zeitgeist cinema, or light-heartedly label it fretful cinema; or even brush it aside with a brief nod to how it is simply a pandering cinema. Call it what you like; it is still a reflection on the topicality generated from the trending distillation of disconcerting infotoids (what passes for news these days on the Internet) that are continuously funneled through the usual digital channels for our consumption, in-between posting selfies. Feeding our innate paranoia with fear is a mainstay of all news streams now.

And horror movies, of course. It's either zombies, nasty aliens, or some catastrophic event nipping at humanity's heels. We never seem to tire of dying together: living together seems the bigger challenge. Sometimes a brush with fear can be enlightening and emotionally cathartic. Fear also makes for good horror stories when what to be feared is familiar to us (the audience) but we still ignore it (the movie's victims). What we refuse to acknowledge in our fears allows us to play its uncertainties, giving us a sense of comfort, as real or as false as we choose it to be.

In Snowpiercer (a movie adapted from the 1982 French graphic novel, Le Transperceneige), fear starts with the frigid weather and worsens when a failed scientific solution for stopping global warming–a little too much, a little too late–makes the snow fall, and fall, and fall. Sub-zero cold locks the planet into an ice age that kills almost everything. The survivors are themselves locked into the Snowpiercer, a massive train whose perpetual engine keeps it rapidly circling the planet, completely, once a year. In the graphic novel it is 1000 cars long. I don't know how many cars are in the movie version but there are enough here to show us how brilliant the Snowpiercer's creator is (a perfect Ed Harris in a perfectly detestable role), and how insane.

In the back of the train are the less fortunate survivors, crammed into squalid living conditions and surviving on protein gelatin bars that look as nasty as they must taste. Towards the front of the train are the fortunate survivors, living in luxury, cleanliness, and greedy excess. In-between are the cars that provide food, water, and a chance for the have nots to reach the front of the train and take control from the haves. But the way is blocked by impregnable doors and soldiers determined to stop any rebellion begun at the back of the train. The soldiers are mostly Korean. I'm not sure if this is meant to mean something or is simply a result of the shared movie production with South Korea. I still found it disturbing and despised them immediately (within the context of the movie).

Previous rebellions have failed. This time, Curtis Everett (Chris Evans) has a better plan for breaching the doors and by-passing the soldiers to reach the locomotive car. Wearing enough clothing to hide his muscular-frame and a scruffy beard to hide his good looks, Evans gives us a different kind of hero; one who isn't all good or even idealistic. Just desperate. The protein bars aren't enough to keep everyone alive and the few children growing up in the squalid, cramped, rear of the train are mysteriously taken away every so often, never to be seen again. We find out why later, but its hideous and makes you hate Ed Harris's Wilford more than Everett does. And Everett's reason is shocking and sad and may make you want to hate Everett almost as much.

The rebellion is sparked by Minister Mason's brutality (a perfectly despicable and calmly loony Tilda Swinton), and, car by car, we see absurdity, insanity, and inhumanity gelled together like one of those protein bars, and just as distasteful. Evans must free Minsu (Song Kang-ho) from the prison car, along with his daughter Yona (Go Ah-sung), because Minsu designed the train's doors and know's how to open them. Minsu and Yona are hooked on Kronole, a drug made from industrial waste. They are more concerned with finding Kronole than hurrying up the rebellion. A brief stop for sushi in one car, a chillingly bloody fight undertaken in sudden darkness with rejects from Hostile in another, a classroom car filled with dangerous subjects, and a final confrontation with the train's creator all unfold with outrageous art house flair. The art direction, scene effects, and textures and colors bring you into the train, into the blustery snowscapes outside, and along for a wild ride on icy rails through a deadman's curve and much turmoil. This is one of those movies you wonder how it got past the stiffs and standards of typical movie-making and bless the fact it did. 

Snowpiercer (both the train and the movie) can be viewed in many ways: it is a self-sustaining ecosystem; it is an an analog for the perennial polemic of [insert whatever country you like here] social classes pitted against each other; it is a bold statement about humankind's propensity for always turning dire situations into an US or THEM algorithm; it is simply a damn good yarn filled with crazy action, desperate, morally corrupt characters, and a wild visual flair you don't see very often.

One of the 10 best films of 2014, Snowpiercer leaves you with your mouth open and an uncomfortable, winky sense that, yes, even though it bends its movie-reality into absurd shapes, it easily fits our really-real-reality into those shapes with too much familiarity. It rubs our noses in it. It makes us realize that if push comes to shove, YOU would want to be one of the lucky ones at the front of the train, even though you despise them for being the lucky ones at the front of the train.  

You would be too scared not to.

Profile of a Killer (2012)

Profile of a killer

Zombos Says: Good

Profile of a Killer (2012) is a movie that, ultimately, fails to explain why characters behave the way they do, but director and writer Caspian Tredwell-Owen manages to keep us asking anyway.

He focuses on three people: David (Joey Pollari), the teenage killer; Saul (Gabriele Angieri), the almost-retired FBI Profiler who David wants very much to meet; and Rachel (Emily Fradenburgh), the special agent who reluctantly works with Saul until David kidnaps him. Then she works hard at finding Saul and David as more victims, old and new, come to the surface. Or she works as hard, at least, as Fradenburgh can project her acting acumen up to.

Of the three, Rachel is the weakest participant when she needs to be the driving force for all the actions taking place to find killer and profiler. Fradenburgh has one facial expression, one mood, and one modus operandi. Her backstory is the least fulfilling, the least explained, which seriously releases the steam built up from those moments when we are listening in on Saul and David’s tete-a-tetes: David desparately needs Saul to profile him, an active killer, and Saul wants to understand David’s motives to stop him; but both of them are asking the same question: why am I/why are you killing? The simplicity of this question propels Profile of a Killer along, and can either generate much turmoil for both men, or it can overwhelm the storyline with expedient banalaties cobbled together from the numerous movies about killers that have come at us in all shapes and sizes and levels of sanity and gruesomeness.

Is David like the killer Bobby Thompson in Targets? Or is David a stone cold killer like Anton in No Country for Old Men? We see David’s not hungry for his victims’ livers (not yet, anyway), but he kills randomly (or so it seems) , forcing Saul to put up or shut up and watch helplessly. What little we learn about David gives no justification for his actions. The Wall of Success his mom’s pinned up for him embarrasses him, so we know he’s not a Norman Bates with a mother complex. He’s not even a thrill killer like Mickey in Natural Born Killers. He alternates between regretting what he does and needing to do it.

Oddly, Tredwell-Owen’s camera maintains a steady eye as David flips through slideshow presentations of his intended victims, which is an anachronism given David’s laptop nearby with the pictures he’s painstakingly turning into slides for the projector. And how does he manage to make those slides within the confines of the abandoned dairy farmhouse? But anachronistic stylistic conventions aside, watch the camera as it fixes on Saul and David,  steadily framing them , and slowly, very slowly, moving toward them as they challenge each other with questions and become agitated with the lack of answers.

Contrast this with how the camera handles Rachel’s scenes. Perhaps Treadwell-Owen realizes Fradenburgh dissipates any tension in those frames her character appears in, so he shakes the handheld camera, slightly, to energize the frame? Or maybe he’s playing on our expectations of who is actually in control, or not in control, of the situation? An unsteady camera usually implies disorientation, unease, or something not quite right. But the unsteadiness and unease is Rachel’s, not David’s.

Treadwell-Owen, like Rachel, can’t seem to alter his tone or mood beyond morose, keeping Profile of a Killer weighted down in moments when it should spring forward, and there are times when his camera moves more than the depth of his characters. But unlike the anemic vampire academies and tireless retreads of worn movie plots, Profile of a Killer aims its premise between sensationalism and drama with a rare spin on the serial killer genre that emphasizes the relationship (which seems like that of a father and son) between the older profiler and the younger killer more than a cat and mouse game of wits. Here, they share the same goal: both want answers and to live.