02 of 31 Horror Films I've Never Seen 2016: Dark Skies (2013)

One of the greatest things about genre film making is crossing the threshold from genre to genre. Science Fiction and Horror have frequently been mashed together with a varying degree of results so when I come across one that I truly enjoy it's a big moment.  Dark Skies, a Blumhouse production from 2013 is a truly worthy entry into the Alien Abduction world of Sci-Fi/Horror.

Centering on the Barretts, a middle class family in the suburbs of, presumably, the North West, Dark Skies examines a family under pressure made worse by frequently inexpiable events effecting the entire family.  What makes the film unique, in an otherwise very over played genre, is it's reinvention of genre tropes.  Instead of simply focusing on lost time and electronic glitches, the film plays with hallucinatory visions, catatonia, and twacked out animal behavior.

But what REALLY makes the story interesting is how they treat the nuclear family dynamic.  Not once does it feel like this is just a bunch of actors pretending to be a family.  There are real concerns going on in the background.  Social obligations and monetary concerns dominate the up-heaving world of the Barretts.   It's not until halfway through the movie that they finally dismiss all of their prior concerns to become believers in what's happening to them.  Kerri Russell and Josh Hamilton, as the mother and father leads are quite convincing as the reality of their world frays apart and the primary concern is that of any mother and father; protect the family.

The two child actors Dakota Goyo and new comer Kadan Rocket are both well placed in their roles of older and younger brother, respectively, bringing to life all the pains of growing up while set upon by an extreme and, pardon the pun, otherworldly situation.  Throw in a reserved cameo from J.K. Simmons (his hat is fantastic) and mix it together with convincing effects and increasingly moody lighting and you've got the atmosphere of a great film.

While it did suffer a few times from expository dialogue and a couple of questionable graphic effects, ultimately the films atmosphere never suffered once in it's consistency and the story, while probably not the newest, was certainly engaging and fun to watch.

 

01 of 31 Horror Films I've Never Seen 2016: The Voices (2014)

It's that time of year again, when Netflix and HuluPlus are overflowing with Horror movies, most of which I've never seen.  In 2014 I undertook a personal challenge to watch 31 films (one for each day) and it yielded a couple of interesting evenings (including one where I had to watch 4 films in one night just to catch up) as well as some downright awful bloody films.  But that's okay, they can't all be screamers.  To cut to the chase, I'm doing it again and in my own whimsical way of randomly selecting titles I started off with Marjane Satrapi's The Voices.

Set in rural Milton (anywhere USA), it follows Jerry (Ryan Reynolds), an upbeat man who works at a bathtub factory where all the workers wear these hot pink colored jump suits.  From the start there is an odd juxtaposition of the rural decay with pop color splashes and styles, suggesting that things are not quite as they appear.  Sure enough, they are not.  Jerry hears voices.  Well, more specifically, he talks to his cat and dog who take on a sort of demon and angel roles of Jerry's fragile mental capacity.  After a night gone wrong, things quickly escalate out of hand as Jerry finds himself in a constant moral battle with his own mind.

The film has an excellent visual punctuation of color cues (which should come as no surprise from the creator of Persepolis), usually Pink, that tip off the audience subtlety to the inconsistencies of Jerry's mind.  The world as Jerry see's it, is much brighter and optimistic, than when other characters are present.  Jerry's own apartment, immaculately clean and tidy, becomes a disheveled hoarder mess when other characters enter the space, and even when Jerry attempts to quell the voices with medication.  The attention paid to these details really makes the film as engaging of an experience as it is.  Throw in some mega doses of dark comedy and a seriously excellent performance from Reynolds and you have one hell of an enjoyable film.

While Reynolds performance is the central focus of the film, Gemma Arterton, Anna Kendrick, and Jacki Weaver are all perfectly cast as three central female presences in Jerry's life.  Arterton's queen bee manipulative user, to Kendrick's sweet innocence, and Weaver's professional obliviousness make for 3 complex dynamic relationships to Reynolds slowly unraveling Jerry.  It's not hard to figure out what's going to happen to who, but the actors are all in such a fine element that it stirs a strong reaction in the audience regardless.  Reynolds not only stretched his acting chops physically, but orally as well, taking on all 4 of the voices that assault Jerry throughout the film.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film and found it a pleasing start to this month of Horror.  It's only downside is that it clearly suffers at times from the indie film lack of background characters.  A small gripe, but one that may take others out of the experience.  Check it out on HuluPlus, or Amazon Prime!

Tulpa (2012): Number 4 in a Series of Reviews of Neo-Giallo Films

While it was originally my intention to try and make an overarching examination of the multi country interpretation of the Giallo with this little series of reviews, I have discovered that the majority of Neo-Giallo films are still being produced in Italy rather than elsewhere.  That is not to say, of course, that filmmakers are not trying to make Giallo's so much as it is to say that there are more of them trying to do it in Italy then everywhere else.  So I'm back in Italy with the Dardano Sachetti co-penned Tulpa - Perdizioni Mortali.

Opening with an erotic discourse in the world of bondage play, Tulpa takes no time in getting to the mean spirited murder that has characterized much of Sachetti's work over the years.  The story follows Lisa, who works for an international trading firm.  She's good at her job and obviously has the favor of her boss, much to her co-worker's distaste, but she is driven by a hunger to a secret club hidden in a parking garage where she engages in erotic adventure with other club members.  Not as classy as the club in Eyes Wide Shut, but functional and effective.  The only problem is that someone is killing off members of the club that Lisa in particular has come into contact with.  Couple that with the regular stress from work and Lisa quickly finds herself being driven toward a nervous breakdown.

Sachetti is most famous for his work with iconic gore master Lucio Fulci, co-writing or embellishing many of the late auteur's greatest films, and his mark is quite evident here.  The opening scene contains a murder scene so mean spirited that it gives The New York Ripper's nipple slicing scene a run for it's money.  Couple that with it's somewhat typical view of "sexual deviancy" and presto!  Giallo a Italia.  That is not to say that film doesn't work, but it does unfortunately succumb to many of the more disappointing stereotypes of the genre.

The lighting of the film is bathed in shadows, evoking a sense of film noir and danger at every corner.  Juxtaposed with the club being washed in deep red, a not so subtle foreshadowing, Tulpa definitely feels like a true Giallo a la Fulci, only missing out in the zoom lens department.  The shots are all composed well to maintain the air of fear and dread as the killer stalks and kills their victims.  I found myself delighted to see that the wardrobe of the killer was a clear nod to the faceless fedora and trench coat wearing killers of Blood and Black Lace and other early entries to the genre.

While it's not my favorite of what I've seen so far, it's not a bad entry into the canon by any means, it's just not particularly outstanding either.  Though it's better than Blackaria, even with Sachetti attached on the script, Tulpa is still a little too straight forward in it's approach to mark it above other films of the genre.  Worth a watch, but outside of the opening scene, there isn't too much replay value.

Blackaria (2010): Number 3 in a Series of Reviews of Neo-Giallo Films

If I've learned anything from my forays into exploitation cinema it is a simple fact that along the way to those nuggets of gold, I'm going to come across a lot of garbage.  That is not to say that some of the trash doesn't have it's moments, but on the whole, a bad film is still a bad film.  Among the incredible amount of Giallo films there are quite a number of film that fall short.  It makes sense then that among the resurgence of the genre there will be a number of entries that fail to hit the mark.  Unfortunately that is the case of Francois Gaillard and Christophe Robin's Blackaria.

The plot is centered on Angela, who is having strangely erotic and violent dreams about her neighbor Anna Maria.  After hearing strange noises from Anna Maria's apartment, Angela goes to check on her, only to find Anna Maria dead.  Accidentally smashing Anna Maria's crystal ball reveals that glass has an actual power, allowing Angela to see an incredibly violent future in which she is murdered by Anna Maria's killer, a deranged Woman in Red.

Does this sound convoluted enough yet?  That's okay, really, because some of the best Gialli have similarly convoluted plots that come together in a spectacular fashion by the close of the film.  The bad news is that Blackaria is amateurish at best and more focused on lighting and gore than acting, writing, and plot.  While we're lead to believe the story is primarily about Angela, the focus inexplicably shifts to that of the Woman in Red who goes on a murderous rampage after failing to find Angela at her apartment.  The attention is so much more focused to this section than the rest of the movie, leading one to believe that the beginning and end were added to book end the middle and give it an actual feature length run time.

That said, the lighting and gore effects are definitely the highlight of the film, recalling Lucio Fulci's The New York Ripper.  The bad news is that it isn't inventive enough to distract from Clara Vallet's Angela and most of the other cast's atrociously blank acting.  The only actor who really feels believable is Aurelie Godefroy as the psychopathic murderer in red, who's visage is incredibly reminiscent of Clara Calamai in Dario Argento's Deep Red.

Another major issue is the camera.  Good Gialli are known for an almost hyper stylized use of the camera and while Blackaria certainly tries, it doesn't quite succeed.  Shot in some sort of digital format (which is not uncommon in low budget film making) it looks much like an 80s TV movie with a soft lens filter on every single shot.  At first I thought, from the opening, that this was to create a hallucinogenic dreamlike look, which made sense assuming that it would eventually shift visually.  This was not the case.  Instead, there is a soft look to every single shot which further marks the film in the realms of amateur.  The score, a strange sounding 80s synth score, has trouble fitting in the body of the story, but worked as well as could be expected most of the time.

On the whole, Blackaria means well, but could probably do with a better budget or at least better actors and a more focused story.  For the Giallo obsessed and the gore hounds, but probably not for many others. 

Masks (2011): Number 2 in a Series of Reviews of Neo-Giallo Films

Where does one draw the line between inspiration and theft?  Better yet, where does one perceive said line?  If you're a film goer you have probably heard every opinion in the world about Quentin Tarantino, between people calling him a thieving hack, or a tributary genius.  Personally, I find it peculiar that so much attention is focused on anyone's originality, or lack thereof, in an industry that is chiefly focused on getting money out of your pocket by way of entertaining you.  I'll grant the fact that some films are such obvious ripoffs that they may as well be "theme porn," but I can't really fault anyone for taking their inspiration and pushing it as far as they can go.  Masks, a German Neo-Giallo, has been described as a Suspiria ripoff by commentators on the imdb boards, but I think that's far too simple of a dismissal of a film who's third act literally punches the viewer right in the gut.

While the focus of this is not about comparison, there are a few that need to be addressed so we can get down to business.  Like Suspiria, Masks is about a female protagonist who enrolls at a strange Academy in the countryside.  Transpose Dance to Drama and voila!  Aside from a similar use to theatrical lighting in certain segments, this is the only real similarity to Dario Argento's supernatural horror story.  The lead of the story, Stella (debut performance by Susan Ermich), goes to the Matteusz Gdula School after rejection from almost every other acting Academy in town.  Though clunky at first, the teacher's see a spark in here and accept her to the school.  Unfortunately, the school, and Gdula's method, have a dark and unsettling past.  Eager to become a great actress, Stella is drawn into the darkness like a moth to the flame, with some rather unsettling consequences.

This film, is a Giallo through and through.  The acting, while not bad, isn't the greatest thing on Earth, but the characters and story are interesting enough to enjoy the more banal parts of the exposition until it gets to the delightfully fucked up meat that make up the second half of the film.  The title of the film only has one literal reference (though there is a masked killer in the story) and is linked metaphorically to Stella.  Everyone is wearing a mask shaped by their experiences and to truly break free of themselves and become their characters they need to strip this mask off.  The idea of being artistically reborn is even literally placed into the context of Gdula's acting method, which involves a cornucopia of strange and unsettling drills, including hallucinogenic drug use, hypnotic suggestion, physical abuse, and other torments to bring the pure emotions of fear and rage out of the actors.

Writer, Director, Editor Andreas Marschall knows his stuff, in this case, and employs many satisfying methods to fit Masks into the Giallo canon.  The thudding bass and piercing guitar driven score by Sebastian Levermann recalls Bruno Nicolai's intro theme to Sergio Martino's The Case Of The Scorpion's Tail.  The creeping camera and beautiful lighting of Sven Jakob also add to the atmosphere of impending dread.  The sound design could probably have used a bit more of a punch, but the other elements made up for it's lack, though I noticed a couple of familiar canned screams that almost made me burst out with laughter at their inappropriate placement.

At 112 minutes runtime, Masks is definitely more of a slow burn that, even when it gives itself away, packs a few surprises and a rather ambiguous, albeit, bloody finale that is worth the wait.

The Hideout (2007): Number 1 of a Series of Reviews of Neo-Giallo Films.

As I have displayed in a few reviews here; I am an unabashed fan of the Giallo film genre.  In the past I would call it a guilty pleasure because, in fact, there are many things about the genre as a whole to feel guilty about.  Frequently, the films in the genre involve fetishism of extreme violence towards women, earning many of them the label of misogynist and to be fair this descriptor is quite well deserved, but to write off the entire genre because of the more truly exploitative aspects of 50% of the films isn't really quite fair.  There are films in the genre that stand quite well upon their own legs without adopting the more mean spirited violent approach, focusing more on the mystery/thriller aspect, without the fetishistic violence.

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in the genre, which all but died out in the 90s, as the filmmakers who grew up loving these strange little murder mysteries have adapted the form into something new while maintaining many of the genre's tropes.  What makes The Hideout (Il Nascondiglio) interesting, in this context, is that it is directed by a veteran of the genre, Pupi Avati, who's The House With Laughing Windows is considered among the greats of the mid 70s Giallo heyday.

The film starts out in the 1950s at a boarding house in Davenport, Minnesota.  We learn of a dilemma faced by two girls at the hands of the Nuns who run the house before we are abruptly brought to the present day and the perspective shifts.  The film is now firmly centered on Francesca (played with anxious curiosity by Laura Morante) who has recently been discharged from a psychiatric facility and plans to get back on her feet by opening an Italian Restaurant in Davenport.  The kicker is that the house she rents to stage the restaurant is also the house from the beginning of the film and that a bizarre murder that took place 50 years ago.  Intrigued by the hushed manner amongst the locals, she delves into the mystery only to find that what she begins to unravel will not only test her resolve, but her sanity.

The visual atmosphere of the film is the centerpiece here.  The large Gothic looking house has a looming presence, even in the daylight, and in the darkness it's just downright creepy.  Francesca's anxieties are well amplified by the shadowy Gothic lighting and set design of the house's oppressiveness.  The story itself, is slightly convoluted, though not in an unnecessary way, as a mystery is never supposed to be completely straightforward.  We're not quite sure who is part of the presumed conspiracy and who is not until the last 10 minutes of the film, which I thought worked to the film's advantage.  The pacing is deliberately slow to enhance this feeling and while it's not always successful in tension building, the successes outweigh the failures.

The ending, while I hesitate to use the word "twist," was indeed twist-ed and left me feeling quite shaken.  Thought it was generally ravaged by critics upon its release, The Hideout is well worth a watch to the Giallo aficionado, and certainly has more substance than anything I've seen coming out of Hollywood in the last few years.

Unfortunately there is no trailer of the English dubbed version, nor is their a trailer with subtitles available.

Violence, Bloody Violence: "The World of Kanako"

Last year at Beyond Fest, the rapidly steam building genre festival at The Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles, a film called The World of Kanako was screened.  At the time I had tried to watch it, I had drank just one too many beers and the rapid cutting of the opening sequences gave me just enough motion sickness feeling that I had to walk out and curse my stupidity for drinking that last beer.  So imagine my lack of surprise that the film still hasn't received US distribution.  I then turned to my usual alternative methods of finding the film.  Lo and behold, there is a Hong Kong DVD release with English Subtitles!  So let's get to it shall we?

Kanako is a story about a mentally unhinged, violent, ex-cop Akikazu Fujishima (veteran actor Koji Yakusho) who is asked by his estranged wife to find their daughter, Kanako, who has gone missing 5 days ago.  The story unfolds in a time jumping fashion where we slowly get closer and closer to the truth of Kanako's world; a world where innocence is lost and violence, secrets, and lies are the common core.

This film is, to put it simply, intense.  From the beginning with it's fast paced editing and it's chronological jumping we know that we're about to dive into a perversely dark world and the main question immediately becomes, who is the worst monster?  In that sense, the movie is incredibly mean spirited, with most of the main cast of characters being overly cruel and at times incredibly sadistic.  But there's something arresting about this cruel world and its inhabitants.

In an almost voyeuristic fashion the audience is pulled into the story and it's hard to look away, no matter how disturbing the scene may be.  In this way, the film is an almost candid look at the nature of violence in a society that tends to hide behind the veil of politeness.  The brashly violent Akikazu, in that way, is the perfect antidote for the otherwise passively scheming group of people he encounters.

The film features some very slick direction, camera work, and editing, but it is definitely not for the feint of heart.  It is unrelenting in it's violence, which is portrayed in almost every gamete, from physical to mental.  Characters are beaten savagely, murdered, raped, you name it, the film has pretty much got it.  In that way it's almost a testament to the violence and corruption that occurs in every level of society, from the police force, the Yakuza, to the school yard and behind the closed doors of one's home.  The film's original title is Kawaki which literally means thirst.  Given the style of the film, this is an apt title, as each character seems to go through the story driven by an unquenchable thirst, be it for answers, for love, or for retribution.  Worth a watch, but it might not land many repeat viewings for most.