07 of 31 Horror Films I've Never Seen 2016: Hellions (2015)

I like weird movies.  I always have and I'm not 100% sure why.  Pragmatically, I like movies that challenge my perception of what I'm seeing and leave the ending open enough for me to imagine the continuation/conclusion of the story while the credits are rolling.  But even writing that here feels like a bit of a cop out.  I also like when a movie is so strange and bizarre that I have to watch it again and again and again to try and determine just what the hell I watched.  There's a Canadian filmmaker named Bruce McDonald who makes films like that and he seems to have provided yet another bizarre horror film, set on Halloween, called Hellions.

How the hell do I describe this movie?  It's a psychotronic Halloween pregnancy nightmare.  Let that sink in for a minute.  The simple description of the plot is that seventeen year old Dora (Chloe Rose) learns that she's 4 weeks pregnant on Halloween.  While weighing this discovery in her mind and waiting for her boyfriend to pick her up she begins to get accosted by children in the creepiest damn costumes you've ever seen.  Their taunting escalates as they show her boyfriend's head in their candy sack and suddenly the entire world shifts to a crazy pink world where a tornado happens inside a kitchen and it becomes completely impossible to discern what is real and what is fantasy.

I love Bruce McDonald's films.  That is to say, I love the three that I have seen, including this one.  The first film of his that I saw was The Tracey Fragments and in 2014 when I first did this little movie challenge I watched and reviewed the incredibly strange, but also arresting, Pontypool.  Hellions fits in nicely with the two films.  Like Tracey Fragments it employs incredible hallucinogenic editing sequences to metaphorically show (rather than tell) the heroines fracturing psyche.  Like Pontypool it employs equally incredible music and sound editing as well as subversion of horror tropes, such as deliberately over the top acting moments to accentuate the psychotically deranged fever dream that we've been sucked into.  Hellions also takes the creepy kid factor and pushes it to one of the most extreme levels paying homage and simultaneously outdoing classics like Bloody Birthday and Children of the Corn.  And when you think it couldn't go further, it does, and how.  Hint, if you've seen Andrzej Zulawski's Possession you may have an idea.

The music of this film stands above and beyond.  Composer Todor Kobakov and Ian LeFeuvre have quite possible crafted the creepiest mixture of electronic, rock, and chorale I've ever heard.  Every element comes together to set and elevate the mood of the film making it damn near impossible to look away even when you may want to.  The ending is questionable and since I've been using the "fever dream" analogy I feel it is appropriate to say that I'm still not sure if Dora's entire experience was real or imagined.  Definitely one to watch once, twice, maybe even three times, and conveniently on Netflix.  Oh yeah, and Robert Patrick (Terminator 2) is in it and he's wonderful.

06 of 31 Horror Films I've Never Seen 2016: The Lazarus Effect (2015)

Some films are just mean.  The kind where no one is redeemed, where no real lesson was learned, and where the force of evil, or violent destruction, wins in the end.  There are plenty of them in the canon of Horror and they appear to be making a come back in more recent years.  David Gelb's The Lazarus Effect falls into this category.

The build up is key to the carnage that follows.  The story follows a team of scientists who have spent 3 years working on a serum they have dubbed 'The Lazarus Serum' on a private grant.  Their initial goal of the serum is to bridge inactive brain function during crises to help aid resuscitation, essentially, giving people a better fighting chance of survival, but over the years the experiment evolved into a resurrection agent.  Frankenstein meets the Pharmaceutical age.  The characters are introduced with all of their quirks, but the story centers on Zoe (Olivia Wilde) and Frank (Mark Duplass) the creators of the serum.  When their experiment is ripped out of their hands via corporate espionage by a Big Pharmaceutical company they race against the clock to duplicate their experiment but a malfunction electrocutes Zoe and a grief stricken Frank tries the serum (against advisement from his team) on her.  You can probably see where this is going.

While the plot is mostly predictable, as most films tend to be these days, it is delivered in a most engaging way.  There is a subtext of spirituality and science; how they clash, compete, and cohere.  Questions of moral responsibility, emotional instability, loyalty, and distrust are constant when Zoe is brought back from death via the serum, but there's not much time to dwell, because the drug's negative side effects quickly cause a highly sped up and advanced evolution to occur in Zoe's brain and the entire team suffers the consequence.

And oh do they suffer in a most brutal fashion.  Like most horror films there is a moment where it seems that the innocent will overcome the obstacle, but like most things in reality, this moment is fleeting.  Otherwise the film could not live up to the descriptor of "mean spirited."

Well meaning scientists don't quite stand a chance against a now telepathic resurrected woman who believes that she was sent to Hell during the hour she spent lying dead on the floor.

The cinematography and editing makes use of all the best tricks in the book with creative lighting gags, subliminal imagery and sound, and dynamic camera movement.  You're never quite sure where Zoe is going to pop up until she does it.  Add in some lovely supporting actors in Donald Glover, Sarah Bolger, and Evan Peters, a delightfully sinister cameo by veteran character actor Ray Wise, and you have a pretty entertaining film that is not afraid to rip your heart out and squeeze.

 

05 of 31 Horror Films I've Never Seen 2016: Some Kind Of Hate (2015)

Netflix "suggested ratings" are the damndest thing.  I'm pretty sure almost anyone reading this can attest to the often 1 star rated film that actually deserved 3 or 4.  I'll never quite understand how their algorithms work to come to that conclusion, but it happens to me 9 times out of 10 when I'm looking for new Horror flicks to watch, with the exception of Contracted.  That movie was a true 1 star (or skull) rated film.  Such is the case with Adam Egypt Mortimer's Some Kind Of Hate.

Lincoln (Ronen Rubinstein), a bullied kid, finally fights back and gets sent to some mountain desert school for a "holistic" approach to healing troubled minds.  Because of how he got their he ends up getting bullied again by another aggressive member of the school.  After a particularly ferocious incident he runs to the basement of an unused building where he meets a spirit (Sierra McCormick) who takes his frustrated cries seriously and brutally.

The film is all about build up.  It very realistically produces the effects of abuse and damaged psyches in the characters.  The cyclical nature of abuse tends to feel unending for many victims and the desire to lash out against even those who are close is only natural.  Breslin's brooding and complicated Isaac manages to stay away from being overly cliched by his shear honesty.  He's angry, but he abhors violence and it only comes out of him when it is driven out by the bullies of the story.  So when an unstoppable force takes his pitiful cries of rage seriously a true disaster lies in wait.  Also, when are angst ridden teenagers going to learn not to trust vengeful spirits?

The one thing that got me about the film was how darkly it was shot and it's clear abuse of desaturated color.  Otherwise I found the editing and framing choices to work incredibly well.  Clearly shot on a low budget with a cast of mostly unknown actors, the film relies on it's ability to make the characters believable and when the killing finally begins are when the inventive choices start to come out.  It doesn't shy away from the blood either, the weapon of choice usually being a razor blades.  There's a bleakness to the film, moments of tenderness are cut short in favor of cruelty, because how else does one explore the effects of cruelty?  The ending is unrepentant and unforgiving.  Not exactly for the feint of heart and probably full of a good many triggers for those of fragile mental states.

04 of 31 Horror Films I've Never Seen 2016: Odd Thomas (2013)

Critical writing can be a god damn pain in the ass.  The writer wants to be fair, but must also admit his/her biases, and get through all the muck to some how quantify a qualitative written review.  Some writers revel in writing negative criticism and while I've found myself in the position to do so, I don't enjoy it, but here I am about to write a mostly negative review of Stephen Sommers' Odd Thomas.

The first of a series of popular novels by Dean Koontz and set in a fictional California desert town called Pico Mundo, Odd Thomas is a film about a young man who is a detective for the dead.  He has a psychic gift to spirits of murdered people and helps capture their murderers.  His power then leads him to a chance to prevent a mass murder in his town, but not without cost.  At the start the film is a supernatural detective story with a lot of quirky dialogue and comedy thrown in for good measure.  Anton Yelchin, who played the lead, truly is the star of the show, relegating pretty much everyone else (Willem Dafoe, Addison Timlin, et al) to the background.  He embodies the idea of the character superbly, but unfortunately that does not save the film.

The thing about genre bending is that there has to be some sort of underlying thematic or tonal consistency.  Odd Thomas is all over the map.  The opening, which I enjoyed, sets up the story and the protagonists quite smoothly and although there is the strange discrepancy of a small town police chief (Willem Dafoe) being supportive of this strange kid's endeavors, it's one that is easy enough to overlook.  The character dynamic of star crossed love between Odd and Stormy (Addison Timlin) comes across well, but at times in a sort of annoyingly predictable way.  When you know how a scene is going to play out before it's finished playing out it's because you're characters have become 2-dimensional, which, again unfortunately, seems to happen a number of times throughout the middle portion of the film.

Stylistically, the look of the film was probably the most consistent part.  The desert environment is amplified by warm cinematography which is an added bonus.  Most horror films seem to adopt a very de-saturated cold look, which at this point has become a tiresome cliche.  This doesn't fully save the film, but it is a saving grace.  The ending "twist" was kinda wasted with bad pacing and a sudden drastic tonal shift that, while effective in eliciting emotion, still left me thinking "Really?  That's it?"  To summarize: Odd Thomas is not a bad film, but it's not a good film either.  It all comes down to personal taste and while it does offer quite a bit, it fails to offer enough.  Make your own decision and rent it or watch it on Netflix.

 

03 of 31 Horror Films I've Never Seen 2016: Let Us Prey (2014)

If you haven't figured it out yet, I have be severely lacking in my recent film watching.  Truth be told while I was managing a movie theatre I found myself making more time for restorations of classics than catching the up and comers.  While I have seen a great great great number of films in the last 16 or 17 years of my life (when I became utterly addicted) I seem to constantly be at least 5 years behind most people when it comes to pop-culture.  So, while some may be surprised at me for taking so long it's still kind of a thrill to discover what I missed.  While it's not perfect and the title is absolutely ridiculous, Brian O'Malley's Let Us Prey takes the idea of spiritual vengeance to almost gonzo heights.

The plot is actually quite simple.  Set in a small Scottish Police office, PC Rachel Heggie (Pollyanna McIntosh) has a literal night of hell on her first day of work.  Her co-workers are assholes and along with the guests in the holding cells have some rather dark secrets that start to come out from the influence of a strange and supernatural character, hitherto referred as '6', played by the always enjoyable Liam Cunningham, named for the cell he ultimately ends up in.

While the plot is, honestly, nothing to write home about, the dialogue is decent and the acting and style are on point.  This is one of those films that doesn't exactly innovate but poses the question of what if vengeance and retribution could manifest in a physical form.  The characters, minus Heggie and 6 all have some serious dark sins and, if you haven't figured out from the title alone, they must pay for those sins.  The film is full of metaphorical imagery from the start, including (and I'm so excited I get to write this) a large murder of crows, a man who comes from nowhere, the darkness of night, and a sweet ton of gore.

I can't really say too much about the film without spoiling things so I'm going to let the trailer speak for itself for the most part.  Suffice to say, I did enjoy watching the film for it's more baser elements as well as it's look and feel.  It has a great synth score that almost had me thinking of it as as supernatural spin on John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, in feeling only of course, and as I said before Liam Cunningham is probably one of the most effortless show stealers.  It's also got one hell of a third act full of psychotic biblical quotation, shot gun blasts, fire, a maniacal performance by Douglas Russell, and an endearingly creepy twist of fate.  It's on Netflix so give it a look.

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!