09 of 31 Horror Movies I've Never Seen 2016: The Sacrament (2013)

I should probably start this with the fact that I'm not the biggest fan of "fount footage" genre.  It's not that I don't find the device amusing, but I have serious issues when the line is broken.  By the line, of course, I mean when shots start showing up looking too seamlessly edited.  If the gimmick is that the film is made up of "found" footage than it should look that way.  While the film itself is definitely creepy, Ti West's The Sacrament somehow managed to engage me and enrage me at the same time.

Imagine if the Jonestown Massacre had been caused and then covered by a VICE team: Jake (Joe Swanberg), Sam (AJ Bowen), and Patrick (Kentucker Audley.)  That's The Sacrament, just change the name from Jonestown to Eden Parish and Jim Jones to The Father.  Not really much else to tell about it story wise.  What I thought worked very well though, even knowing exactly what the outcome had to be, was the build up to the massacre.  Using the docudrama method we get to see a little bit of the VICE team's thoughts behind the scenes of their interviewing and experiences at Eden Parish.  West paces these moments very well creating a false sense of security so that when things start to get unsettling it's sudden and startling.

What drove me crazy throughout the film were too many moments where the camera impossibly cut.  With found footage the number of camera's is dictated by the character cameramen.  In the case of The Sacrament there is only one cameraman, Jake, and for ONE scene, we find out that Patrick's DSLR can shoot video.  However, before the aforementioned scene there are numerous cuts that looked good for film, but not good in terms of found footage.  Good meaning that they would be impossible to achieve with only one camera.  If the viewer is capable of conveniently forgetting this, it's not a problem, but otherwise it takes the viewer out.  It's jarring.

Otherwise, I thought the actors were all very convincing.  AJ Bowen's well meaning subjective observer who feels compelled to get involved was very empathetic and believable.  Amy Seimetz, as Patrick's cultist sister Caroline pretty much embodied the brainwashed psychopath.  No one, however, holds a candle to Gene Jones as The Father.  The only other person I can even think of that could play the character that way is John Goodman.  The man was so damn creepy and yet so charismatic that it made me kind of understand how so many people fell for Jim Jones' trip.  All this said, the film is worth watching, it just might be a very frustrating viewing.

You're Next: 27 of 31 Horror Movies I've Never Seen

Home invasions movies stormed the cinema for a brief spell.  It seemed the more explicit the torture the more money the films could make.  The problem is that they were all basically the same movie.  Family, or couple, is tormented by masked and unknown assailants for no apparent reason other than the glee of killing and chaos and have to fight tooth and nail to survive in their own home.  Sound familiar?  So what happens when you turn that prospect upside down and make one of the survivors, a survival expert? You get, You're Next.

The film is about a delightfully screwed up rich family gathering at a large estate somewhere in some rural area to celebrate the Mother and Father's 35th Anniversary.  The first 20 minutes gets the exposition out of the way, introducing the tension between siblings, the mother's life of medication, as well as the wives/girlfriends/boyfriends of the siblings.  Then in the midst of a fight at dinner Tariq (Ti West), boyfriend of sister Aimee (Amy Seimetz), notices something out the window, goes to investigate and gets a cross bolt in the head.  As you may guess all hell breaks loose from there and the rest of the film is about survival as family members are picked off left and right by three men clad in black tactical gear and creepy animal masks.

The delightful twist in this story is that middle child Crispian's (AJ Bowen) girlfriend Erin, played by Sharni Vinson seems to have a knack for what to do in a crisis situation, which we learn later has to do with her being raised on a survivalist commune by her dad until she was 15, in the Australian outback.  Bad luck for the killers, who she seems to thwart by every, and I mean EVERY, means necessary, including a meat tenderizing mallet, a blender, screw driver, axe... You get where I'm going with there.  There's a lot of carnage in this movie and the pacing is damn near perfect.

I'm not generally a fan of movies like this.  I hated The Strangers and most of the films that came out in that era.  You're Next, however, has a very dark sense of humor that I seemed to get.  Who doesn't have that family member that drives you up the wall so much that you almost wish they would get stabbed a dozen times by various screwdrivers and knives?  While certain aspects of the movie were a bit cheesy and a bit unbelievable, it was refreshing to see three masked killers, who look like cinematic badasses, continuously get set back by a tough as nails Australian girl.

4 out of 5 skulls.

The Innkeepers: 01 of 31 Horror Films I Have Never Seen!

Last year I made an attempt at a personal challenge to watch 31 Horror films that I had never seen before.  Due to my work schedule and my personal life being in a state of turmoil I was unable to complete this challenge so this year I’m taking the plunge once again with the intention of completing it come hell or high water.

For film number one, I settled on Ti West’s The Innkeepers.  The film is a loving homage to the Haunted House Ghost Story, while simultaneously being a bit of a critique on the millennial generation.  The main characters, Claire and Luke, are spending the last weekend at work before the Yankee Peddler Inn will close its doors once and for all.  Luke is really more of the supporting character of the story as the central focus is Claire, an early 20s college dropout who has no idea what she wants out of life.  Sara Paxton plays Claire with sort of manic energy that certainly harkens to a younger generation which is contrasted nicely by Pat Healy’s dead pan malaise.

West throws us into the story with very little exposition other than a few remarks that ultimately lead us to our central focus, the search for proof that a spirit is haunting the Inn.  From there the story unfolds in a fashion that was a bit too typical for my tastes.  The film is very well shot, very well lit, very well edited, and even very well scored, but West spends too much time trying to make the world real before getting to the juicy bits. 

Ultimately I found it rather tedious and not nearly as arresting as his previous film, House of the Devil.  I couldn’t relate with Claire and Luke, because I have nothing in common with them.  Overall, I think West, who wrote/directed/edited the film, could have gotten to the actual conflict in the story much faster than he did.  He opted for a slow burn type of story, but the climax fell short.  Still there were a few enjoyable jumpy moments, great make up, and Kelly McGillis was perfectly cast as a retired actor turned spiritual guru.

For all its short comings, I still enjoyed the film more than found footage ghost films like the Paranormal Activity series, a series which needs to die horribly in a fire.  West does a good job setting up the atmosphere, but all the atmosphere in the world doesn’t quite save this film from the “meh” factor.

I gave it 3 out of 5 Skulls.