Spooktoberfest Part 2

It may seem strange to have an indie blog focus so much on horror but I will say that A) this is the month to do it and B) horror seems to be the go-to genre for indie filmmakers despite the need for special effects and intense make up. None of the horror movies I am reviewing below are mainstream. All would have had a shot at being shown at The Film House.

#5) + 1 (2013)- This is the teen sex comedy meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers mashup that I'm not sure anyone was asking for. A comet crashes to earth and creates duplicates of a group of kids attending a raging house party. The dupes do everything their counterparts do, except they are about an hour behind. A series of blackouts brings the dupes and the originals closer and closer in time. When they catch up to the same place at the same time, well, like the highlander, there can be only one.

There is a small group of protagonists who figure out what is going on but they are all kind of jerks. The real core of the movie isn't all the stuff I just described. At its heart, it is about second chances and lost love and being young and stupid. Rhys Wakefield and Ashley Hinshaw are a star-crossed couple who break up at the beginning of the movie due to some mistaken identity shenanigans. As Wakefield tries to apologize and reconcile with Hinshaw over the course of the party, he realizes the doppelgangers provide an opportunity for him to correct his mistakes and say all the right things. Has he learned anything? Is he a better person? If you manipulate someone into loving you, how is that love? Lots of big questions sit at the heart of this little sci-fi chiller but it doesn't delve too deeply into any of them.

If you can get beyond the nudity of the first hour, I would argue there are some rewards to be found in this flick.

#6) Creep (2014)- Mark Duplass is the whole show here (almost literally) as we finally (?) get a mumblecore found footage horror movie. Patrick Bryce wrote and directed this (and is the only other person in the movie). Duplass plays a man dying of cancer who hires Bryce as a videographer to document a day in his life for his unborn child. Duplass keeps messing with Bryce until the camera man just wants to leave. Then things start getting really creepy.

There is a pacing issue with this movie as half the runtime takes place on the same day and the second half is oddly split up over an undetermined amount of time. The old "why are you filming this?" question that rests at the heart of all found footage movies is never completely answered. The ending is a little tidy but Duplass brings a lot of dark, dark comedy to the role as well as dramatic gravity. Also, a scary wolf mask can go a long way.

If you like Mark Duplass, give this a go. It doesn't change the genre or anything but it is worth a watch.

#7) Beneath (2013)- This is probably the best of the 11 movies I've seen so far in that it ended up being one of the more rewarding when I had zero expectations. Jeff Fahey leads a cast of "hey, I know him"s in this tale of miners trapped during a cave-in. Ghost stories are, historically, really hard to pull off. Ghosts, mostly, can't really hurt you. Place a ghost in a precarious place (like a WW2 submarine in the excellent flick Below) and you ratchet up the danger factor. When the slightest misstep can bring a mountain down on you, having visions of dead people can seriously harm your chances for survival.

With a quick throwaway reference to 19 miners who were trapped and died in the 1920s, the stage is set for a pretty cool little thriller. As oxygen levels deplete, are the characters seeing vengeful spirits possess their friends, or are the going crazy? Special effects are used sparingly and the ambiguity of what is really happening is downplayed. I am a sucker for a small cast trapped in a small space and this movie has done nothing to cure me of that affliction. I would argue this is the best underground horror movie since The Descent.

#8) Crave (2012)- More a Taxi Driver homage than a horror movie, this flick follows a crime scene photographer who has vivid daydreams of standing up to both criminals and just annoying people. These daydreams are the source of much gore but are mainly played for laughs. Ron Perlman appears as a character I would swear is imaginary. Otherwise, this is a cast of mostly third tier actors you may or may not recognize (including Terminator 2's Eddie Furlong).

This one tries to have a love story at the center of it, also. The photographer has a random hook up with an adorable neighbor that he becomes smitten with. Unfortunately, he says all the wrong things at all the wrong times and comes off as an incredible douche. All his other choices in the movie seem to inform this, too. He dabbles in blackmail and intimidation, vigilantism and stalking. Really, one of the least likable characters I have seen hold down a movie in awhile. Your mileage may vary (maybe you, too, want to take a sledgehammer to overly earnest AA attendees?) but I found him boorish.

Without a likable center, this movie doesn't hold together that well. I can't recommend it.

#9) Proxy (2013)- The presence of indie horror mainstay Joe Swanberg should announce to you that this movie will be insane, if nothing else. The real enjoyment of a movie like this is in trying to keep up with the constant plot developments, twists and reversals. I will say that, in the first ten minutes, you see a pregnant woman mugged and her belly beaten with a brick. Once she leaves the hospital and joins a support group for parents who lost children, she finds a fellow mourner with some dark secrets of her own. What follows goes kind of off the rails into violence, revenge and lesbian erotica. I had no idea where this was going and that is also the main thing I can recommend for it.

If you like Lifetime movies with a little harder edge, this is for you. The director claims to be a Kubrick disciple but this movie has Psycho written all over it. You'll see what I mean.

#10) V/H/S Viral (2014)- The third installment in this found footage anthology regains a little of the cool that the first edition had and avoids the pitfalls the second one fell into (mostly). The wraparound segment is more compelling this time as a kid who yearns to record a video that goes viral loses his girlfriend while trying to film a high speed pursuit around L.A. As he races to keep up with a mysterious ice cream truck, several smaller stories break off and examine the downside of everyone recording everything. It even has sort of an ending.  Of course, these things are only as strong as their components...

Dante the Great by Gregg Bishop- This one really strains and batters the found footage concept, sometimes abandoning any rationale to get a good shot. It is about a trailer park magician who comes across a magic cloak that will grant him fame and powers so long as he feeds it with people. The effects are cheesy and the acting isn't great. The premise is kind of cool but I thought this was one of the weaker entries in the whole series.

Parallel Monsters by Nacho Vigalando- I admit, I like Vigalando's work. Timecrimes is one of my favorite time travel movies. He delivers some awesomely disturbing stuff in his segment about a scientist who opens a doorway to an alternate dimension at the same time as his doppelganger. They meet each other and agree to switch universes for 15 minutes. Although some details are pretty much the same (they are both married to the same woman and live in identical houses) there are some huge discrepancies between the two worlds that become swiftly obvious. This is some nasty little fun with lots of...interesting depictions of genitals.

Bonestorm by Justin Benson and Aaron Morehead- These guys brought us the top notch indie horror film Resolution last year. Now, they do a really scattered take on two skateboarders hiring a third guy to film them do tricks. The camera man seems more interested in getting the kids hurt than filming their smooth moves. He finally takes them to Tijuana to film in an empty culvert. The kids don't seem to notice all the shrines, rotting meat and pentagrams in their filming space and are soon visited by some spooky sorts. Once the ADD of the first half gives way to the confrontation between the skaters and the cult, all the go pros and camera angles actually create an intense effect.

Maybe it was the shorter runtime or the lack of a really long segment with a weak payoff but this edition just plays better than the last. If you like any of the directors involved, give it a shot.

#11) Dead Snow 2: Dead vs. Red- If you saw the first Dead Snow, you know how wacky these movies can be. The first was an Evil Dead homage with six friends going to a cabin in the woods only to find themselves hunted by Nazi Zombies. This one picks up right where the last one left off (with the sole survivor realizing he still has some of the Nazi gold that started all this). If anything, this installment is more ambitious. The success of the first one in America gets us Martin Starr as a co-star in this one, leading a group of Zombie hunters from the U.S.

This movie is not afraid to be silly and sets that tone from the beginning. If you always wondered why children and babies get spared in horror movies, this one takes such considerations off the board with extreme prejudice. Sometimes the juvenile sense of humor gets in the way of the movie (one character exists only as a gay panic joke) but, on the whole, it combines zombie action with humor pretty well. I won't give away how the communists come into this but just believe me when I say you do get some good zombie on zombie action.

Whew! Well, that is certainly enough for now. Be back soon with more.

Spooktober Fest 2015 Part 1

Welcome to Spooktoberfest, my annual attempt to watch 31 horror movies in the month of October. I will post updates periodically to let you know what to seek out and what to avoid in the realm of cinematic horror. As always, your mileage may vary.

1) Would You Rather (2012)- David Guy Levy directed this sick little shocker about a twisted 1%er (played by the Re-Animator's Jeffrey Combs) who hosts a dinner party/contest where the winner gets all their problems solved. June Squibb (fresh off of her academy award nomination for Nebraska), The Crab Man from My Name is Earl, The snitchy Barksdale from the Wire, John Heard (of Home Alone fame), Enver Gjokaj (from anything Joss Whedon has had a hand in lately and Agent Carter), the Penguin from Gotham...all add up to a fairly impressive cast for such a decidedly grade-B horror movie. Combs presents the guests with no-win scenarios and makes them choose one to act on. For example, the first round is "would you rather receive a torture level electric shock or give one to the person sitting beside you?" And things get worse from there. The poster is an eye with a razor blade held to it so...yeah, don't expect cuddles and sunshine.

The characters barely exist as sketches. Brittany Snow is our protagonist and we basically know that she has a sick brother who has expensive treatments. John Heard is a recovering alcoholic. One guy is a war vet, another is a professional gambler. We don't really get to know anyone too well and that is pretty much by design. Instead of building sympathy for these poor characters, we are faced with the same dilemma they are...knowing what we know, how would we act?

As the guests drop one by one, the ending becomes more and more obvious. Even a red herring "savior" plotline is woefully predictable. If you don't see the ending of this movie coming, I have to assume you have never seen a movie or read a story before in your life. The acting and premise are solid, the script is the weak part. I can't recommend it but I also wouldn't blame the curious for checking it out.

2) The ABCs of Death 2 (2014)- Anthologies are rough at the best of times. To hit a consistent tone and pace is nearly impossible. With the ABCs of Death, you have 26 segments crammed into a two hour run time. The first one was kind of all over the place and caused me to laugh incredulously as often as I winced from something horrific. The sequel is actually much tighter. Gone are the killer farts of Japanese Schoolgirls and killer toilets of the first edition. Pretty much every segment keeps close to the baseline idea of showing weird ways people can die. Bill Plympton and a weird bit about escaped prisoners running into a muscular man with a baby provide the only two comedic takes I can recall and they are both so off-putting as to be easily taken with the rest of the film.

Some highlights, for me, included a man on the phone with his wife while she is being stalked by an intruder; a hitman realizing that air ducts aren't all they are cracked up to be in movies; and a reality where zombies have all been cured and are placing all the "heroic" people who tried to shoot them in the head on trial for attempted murder. Some seem to have a political agenda (like the F segment about a female Israeli soldier stuck in a tree being found by an arab boy) or hammer home old cliches about looks (the U segment is basically a passive aggressive "ugly people are people too" PSA). There is nothing as brutally disturbing as the masturbation contest from part 1. Even though there is gore, I wouldn't call it excessive (a beheading early on takes CGI to the limit).

All in all, plenty to check out. If you like horror, you'll probably find something to like here. No matter your taste, you will probably hate something in here, too.

3) Banshee Chapter (2013)- Your movie might be in trouble if the viewer cannot honestly tell if it is meant to be a found footage flick until halfway through (spoiler: it is not, somehow?). It starts as a documentary and features footage taken by the main character but, all too often, it switches into third person "normal" viewing with no rhyme or reason. It seems like a poorly thought through concept that is only applied when it would be scarier to see something first person.

Anyway, the movie claims to be based on a true story. Which is technically true in the same way that sharks have attacked people and, therefore, Jaws is based on a true story. The government did do MK-Ultra experiments in the 1960s and there are these weird shortwave broadcasts no one can explain (one is featured in Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album). This movie tries to explore both while tying them into a Lovecraftian idea of other-dimensional beings coming to inhabit our bodies.

The movie stars Katia Winters as an investigative journalist. Her college best friend, played by Michael McMillian, has vanished after taking a dose of the MK-Ultra drug of choice. He was working on a book about the experiments and the whole first ten minutes or so is definitely a found footage take on his last hours before disappearing. Winters keeps hitting weird dead ends until she tracks down Ted Levine (you know him as the police captain on Monk), playing a thinly veiled Hunter S Thompson character. He has a great time chewing the scenery as a drugged out wacko who loves messing with people. When Winters tries to trick him into giving her some of the drug her friend took, the plot actually starts (about halfway through the movie).

The acting is all fine here, for the most part. The writing/directing of Blair Erickson is all over the place and really problematic. Nonsensical plot developments shoved into the denouement don't add anything to the story. It is all just a hot mess, to be honest. Unless you just really want to see Hunter S Thompson in an HP Lovecraft story, I would avoid this one.

4) Preservation (2014)- Finally, a horror movie with something on its mind. Parental anxiety has been explored in many great horror flicks like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist. This particular movie seems to almost exclusively be about how hyper-masculinity has been perverted into nearly sociopathic tendencies. But it is also a pretty satisfying survival horror movie, too.

Christopher Denham (a pretty solid character actor in his own right) directed this thriller about a woman, her husband and her brother-in-law going camping for a weekend in a closed down state park. The woman knows she is pregnant and has been waiting to tell her husband. Her husband is one of those "always on a cell phone" jerks spouting off about survival of the fittest when he is talking about business. Her brother-in-law is a bag of crazy just back from war who really wants to have sex with her. We follow these three around for a bit but, before long, all their gear and tents have been stolen and they have black "x"s painted on their foreheads. What follows is a yet another Strangers riff where masked assailants stalk and kill our protagonists.

Pablo Schrieber (who first came to my notice as the main character of The Wire season 2) plays the slightly unhinged brother-in-law just off enough that you believe he actually could be responsible for the whole thing when his brother accuses him of going PTSD. Wrenn Schmidt is very believable as the pregnant woman who finds herself in a kill or be killed situation. You really pull for the main characters and Denham dehumanizes the killers in such a way that you can't help but hope they fail.

There are tons of texts and subtexts that children aren't allowed to be children anymore. A closed down "Kidz Museum" seems cheesy and absurd when you imagine a modern, jaded kid trying to enjoy it. A playground is covered in graffiti and the killers speak only in text messages to each other. It is super over-the-top but it makes you think, if you brought a young man into this modern world, can you steer him away from sociopathy?

I like horror movies that have something to say. This one isn't particularly clever and it doesn't redefine the genre (how many times would you turn your back on someone who isn't dead? I mean, come on!). It does put some interesting characters into a tense situation where you are never quite sure how it is going to turn out. People who know me know I hate movies where the killers just get to kill at whim with no consequences (like The Strangers) so just know this movie passes my test of horror approval.

Next time, I will have seen a bunch more horror. In the meantime, see some quality horror presented by the Film House this month with Cabin in the Woods on the 8th and Shaun of the Dead on the 12th.