So I’m coming to the end of the first week of my two-week stay-cation. And the best part is, I’ve actually had a chance to sit down and watch just a ton of movies. Most of the time, my ever-shrinking attention span has gotten to the point that, not only can I no longer enjoy novels, but setting aside two hours at a clip to watch a flick seems like a monumental commitment. Something that used to be a de rigueur part of my weekly–even daily–schedule has become the sweetest of luxuries.
Adding to that, I recently got a request from a friend to help out with writing a horror movie. He set me up with a short list of flicks to watch as inspiration, which is good, because I’ve never been a student of that particular genre. That makes this an interesting writing exercise, to be certain. So, you’ll see some analysis of these flicks filtered through that lens. SPOILERS AHOY, y’all.
The Crazies (the 2010 remake) – I watched this one before my friend brought up the idea for the screenplay, so I wasn’t really watching it with a critical eye. Looking back, though, it was a good example of People Under Stress who begin to question one another’s priorities. “Is Guy A infected? Because he’s acting kinda weird. Is that because we’re all exhausted? Or is it because he got bitten by Guy B?” That sort of thing. Effective stuff, though. While it’s a little too slick in spots to really be 100% effective, it does maintain that Sense of Foreboding nicely.
Splinter – Not a great film, but it’s a great execution of this type of film–a small group of people who don’t like one another trapped in a secluded spot, fending off a monster. It’s got a cool monster with its own well-realized rules and biology, it’s got some well-realized characters with easily discernible motivations that don’t devolve too far into cliche. It’s a fun little thriller–as creature features go, you could do far worse.
House of the Devil – Rotten Tomatoes gave this movie an 85% rating, based entirely (I’m convinced) on the pains the filmmakers took to recreate the look of an ’80s horror flick. And on that level, shit–home run. The out-of-print Coke cups, the 15-pound Walkman…it’s hard to find an anachronism in this picture. But you know what else they did in 80s horror movies? They spent a crazy amount of time leading up to the action. CRAZY. And House of the Devil follows suit. It takes literally an hour and five minutes to get to the action of the flick. There’s no build. There’s no rising action. It’s a teenage girl talking to her friends and walking around a big house for an hour, then, BOOM. She’s tied to a pentagram in her underwear and the movie sprints to the end. The movie gets big points for its look and its conceit, but it’s executed clumsily. What saves it–for me, anyway–is an absolutely delightful sequence in which star Jocelin Donahue (an adorable Karen Allen lookalike) dances through a thoroughly creepy house with her headphones on.
Daybreakers – We did a review strip of this a while back, and I wish I could say it aged well. Sadly, it suffers from “It surprised me that it was as good as it was” syndrome; such movies never view as well the second time through, and I should know that. Still, Sam Neil plays such a good malevolent asshole, the Hummer chase is every bit as cool the second time, and Willem DeFoe’s dramatic rendition of an Elvis song must be seen to be truly understood.
Inception - Boxes within boxes within boxes. God I love a good Christopher Nolan movie, and they all seem to be good ones. Seriously, this guy as a track record that rivals Pixar in terms of high-brow, intellectual entertainment. He’s the middle ground between Charlie Kaufman and Michael Bay, if such a thing is even conceivable. What a fun movie–and the best part was listening to the redneck in the seat next to me playing the “Finish the actors’ sentences” game and failing every single time he opened his mouth. There’s nothing by-the-numbers here–it’s something you’ve never seen before, and you’d do well to see it at least twice before it leaves theaters.
Haute Tension (High Tension) – This movie pissed me off. (Again, SPOILERS COMING.) What started off as a perfectly serviceable, by-the-numbers thriller throws a twist at us at the end that really deflates everything that came before it. You know how you were scared for the plucky little lesbian protagonist? Remember how cathartic it was when she killed the dirtbag serial killer? Yeah–that never happened. That was all imaginary. Turns out she was really the killer and she was hallucinating (?) the events we saw. Now we have to root for the simpering mess of a kidnap victim to try and kill the hero we were emotionally invested in for the last hour and a half. Fuck. Whatever. And now the director’s going on to direct Piranha 3-D. I have no sympathy. But up to the Big Reveal, the flick was awfully well done.
Still to come in part 2: Another French horror flick (Them), The Thing (1980s version), craptacular direct-to-video laughfest Dark Harvest 3: Scarecrow, and Japanese horror flicks Ringu and Pulse, and Ils (Them). And topping them off–The Complete Metropolis. Bring that shit ON.
Joe