Eden Lake (2008) – Horror Film Review

Eden Lake (2008)James Watkins’ EDEN LAKE won Empire’s Best Horror Award 2009, and was also nominated for their Best British Film Award. The film has some fine, young, British actors performing brilliantly as the threatening teenagers, most notably Jack O’Connell [ring leader Brett], Finn Atkins [Paige] and Thomas Turgoose [whom the London Critics’ Circle awarded their Young British Performer of the Year award to, for his excellent portrayal of young Cooper].
Nursery worker Jenny [Kelly Reilly] and her boyfriend Steve [Michael Fassbender] are heading to an idyllic and secluded lake to spend a blissful weekend together. His plan is to propose to her in these perfect, romantic surroundings. Only a few minutes into the film their satellite navigation system advises them ‘at your first opportunity, turn around’. If only they’d heeded this advice! Of course, they ignore it, instead driving off-road to Steve’s favourite spot by the lake. Almost immediately their peace is shattered by a group of obnoxious teenagers, hell bent on making their weekend miserable.
The sensible thing to do upon encountering these obdurate youths would be to leave…..quickly. But Steve, using the mature argument of ‘we were here first’ is having none of it. Why anyone would stay within spitting distance of such unsavoury characters as a matter of principle, is beyond me, but it is a move that both Steve and Jenny will later regret.
When they confront the gang, for stealing their belongings and their car, there’s a violent altercation and Steve accidentally kills ringleader Brett’s dog. So begins the most horrifying story of violence, torture and savagery I have ever witnessed.
The problem with Eden Lake, is that, unlike most horror movies, this one is believable. In fact, in the U.K. teenagers like this [known as ‘chavs’, or ‘hoodies’] are not uncommon, and crimes not dissimilar to those in Eden Lake have actually been committed. No doubt a result of bad parenting – which was a result of bad parenting – these teenagers simply don’t seem to know when the line has been crossed, when things have gone, way, way too far. They have no conscience.
Because of the realistic nature of Eden Lake, it is extremely uncomfortable to watch. The nightmare ordeal this couple endure at the hands of this group of teenagers is disturbing and barbaric and leaves a nasty after-taste. Because of the unimaginable terror and the credible way it is directed and acted, this is not a film you will forget in a hurry.
Eden Lake shows perfectly how things can escalate out of control, how other people will join the violence to save their own skin, and how parents will do absolutely anything to defend their children, no matter how revolting those children are. It holds a huge mirror up to the worst society has to offer, and the reflection is a blinding and horrifying image.
If you like your horror movies truly horrifying, Eden Lake is as good as it gets.
EDEN LAKE (2008). Written and directed by James Watkins. Cast: Kelly Reilly, Michael Fassbender, Tara Ellis, Jack O’Connell, Finn Atkins, Jumayn Hunter, Thomas Turgoose, Thomas Gill, Shaun Dooley.

Laserblast: The Haunting in Connecticut on DVD & Blu-ray

When it comes to horror, fantasy, and science fiction title, this week’s big home video release is THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT, which was a minor sleeper hit in theatres earlier this year. The film arrives on disc in three variations: a single-disc edition, an unrated special edition, and a Blu-ray disc.
The only other notable new title is THE HORSEMEN, a direct-to-video film about a detective (Dennis Quaid) who discovers a connection between himself and a serial killer linked to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse; Ziyi Zhang co-stars.
As for the rest, it’s old wine in new bottles:

  • CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON; CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, and HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS are packed together in a Blu-ray box set
  • I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER and DEATH TRANCE (a 2005 Fant-Asia adventure) ges the Blu-ray treatment
  • SWAMP THING re-emerges from the swamp onto DVD.
  • “Zombie Pack (slimpack) offers three sequels to 1980’s seminal Italian splatter pic ZOMBI 2 (so named to make it sound like a sequel to George Romero’s DAWN OF THE DEAD, which was released as ZOMBI in Italy). Neither ZOMBI 3 nor ZOMBI 4: AFTER DEATH nor ZOMBI 5: KILLING BIRDS have achieved the cult status of their progenitor.

Chanbara Beauty & Chanbara Beauty: Vortex – A Saga of Sword and Skin

A look at a lovely pair of import DVDs from Japan

onechanbaraCHANBARA BEAUTY (Onechanbara, Japan, 2008) is geek paradise: two gorgeous babes and a fat dude wander around the countryside killing zombies. One is a gorgeous sharpshooter who never misses. The other is a samurai in Western hat and serape – and little else save for a fuzzy bikini; she is the title Chanbara Beauty (the term chanbara in Japanese refers to sword-fighting movies; the term beauty refers very accurately to the lead character).

There’s little story save for a predictable and familiar situation in which two rival sisters seek vengeance and/or reconciliation upon one another. The night-time photography is pretty murky and the budget is miniscule, but the film has some cool fighting and gunplay scenes against hordes of zombies, and the final confrontation between sisters Aya (Eri Otoguro) and Saki (Chise Nakamura) is pretty good. For a low-budget exploiter, the story is effective enough, actually. And of course Aya’s appearance and meager dress is enough to keep most male viewers glued to the screen for a long, long time.

Written and directed by Fukada Yohei and based on a popular video game, CHANBARA BEAUTY avoids the overly campy drivel storyline and acting of Takafumi Nagamine’s KEKKO KAMEN series (2004), which also hangs its effectiveness on its heroine’s lack of clothing, but Aya’s bikiniwear is much more alluring that Kakko’s mask and sash, and CHANBARA BEAUTY’s story and performances much less moronic and camp. It’s kind of a mixture of Leone and Miike and Romero and Tarantino without their budget or wit; it’s an entertaining and likeable samurai-bikini-zombie-killing movie that plays out rather well.

onechanbara-vortex2CHANBARA BEAUTY THE MOVIE: VORTEX (Japan, 2009) – the inevitable direct-to-DVD sequel – still has the primary draws of the former film (lots of zombies and swordplay, samurai babe wearing fuzzy bikini aided by younger samurai babe in school girl outfit) but lacks entirely the luster and interest of the first film.

A serviceable new cast takes over the pivotal roles: model Yuu Tehima assumes the title role of Aya; Kumi Imura takes over as her equally sword-capable sister Saki; Akari Ozara is Reiko, whose shotgun virtuosity isn’t given as much time as in the first time; also, model Kawamura Rika is Himiko, set up as the new villain of the piece.

The film starts out promising enough as Aya and Saki dispense with random bands of zombies in flowery spurts of crimson; but then it dispenses with everything that made the first one intriguing (besides its heroine). The amiable fat guy sidekick is gone. Aya and Saki have no strategy in their fighting of the zombies; they just walk into a gang and start flailing swords and spraying geysers of blood. Reiko is diverted to a subplot with a male swordfighter eventually joining up with Aya for some plutonic zombie killing and to rescue a young girl whose blood has the power to control the zombies or something; she is captured by a Countess Dracula type babe (Kawamura), who initially is a kind of partner to Aya and Saki but then becomes the villain when she reverts to her true age and needs the young girl’s blood to restore her youth.

It all comes to a head in a kind of zombie mosh pit inside a warehouse where Saki and Aya’s new guy friend slice and dice the crowds while Aya and Himiko battle it out in a murky conflict whose pacing is slowed by an overabundance of recurring slo-mo, superimposed blood marks riding up the villain’s skin like a revolving barber pole (signifying her infusion of blood), and other stylistic effects that detract from the action and vitality of the sword fight, rendering the action insignificant and reducing the massed zombies to arm-waving bystanders.

The first CHANBARA BEAUTY was inventive, fun, and fairly alluring, it also maintained a kind of post-apocalyptic situational awareness and a sense of emotional connection between characters, while a serviceable synth/sampled score accentuated its drama. CHANBARA BEAUTY THE MOVIE: VOTEX is claustrophobically restrained to small sets and set-pieces; characters rarely communicate; an over-use of showy stylism is counterproductive to its pacing; a heavy rock/metal droning film score proffers zero dramatic intensity to its lengthy final fight scene, and there is a murky resolution to its very austere storyline.

CHANBARA BEAUTY and CHANBARA BEAUTY THE MOVIE: VORTEXT are currently unavailable on Region 1 DVD; they are available on Region 2 imports from Japan.

onechanbara1
Eri Otoguro as Aya in CHANBARA BEAUTY

CHANBARA BEAUTY (2008). Directed by Yohei Fukuda. Screenplay by Yohei Fukuda, Yasutoshi Murakawa. Cast: Eri Otoguro, Tomohiro Waki, Taro Suwa, Manami Hashimoto, Chise Nakamura, Ai Hazuki.

CHANBARA BEAUTY THE MOVIE: VORTEX (2009). Directed by Shouji Atsushi. Written by Fukushima Yoshiki. Cast: Chika Arakawa, Kumi Imura, Rika Kawamura, Akira Ozawa, Yu Tejima, Hoshina Youhei.

Fear Me Not – Movie Review

I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People are Going to Flee Screaming from Me: Ulrich Thomsen achieves a higher plain of monstrosity in FEAR ME NOT
I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People are Going to Flee Screaming from Me: Ulrich Thomsen achieves a higher plain of monstrosity in FEAR ME NOT

Does Bill Maher know about this? On hiatus from his high-pressure job, loving husband and father Mikael (Ulrich Thomsen) is finding it hard to adjust to 24-hour idleness. With nothing better to do, he volunteers as a test subject for an experimental tranquilizer, and is startled by the peace and clarity the drug invokes. When the test is abruptly cancelled, he decides to keep taking the pills, the better to explore his new insights into life. However, since those insights include compulsions to statutory rape and a desire to drive his wife insane, you have to begin wondering if the drug company wasn’t just a little bit more savvy than its guinea pig.
There’s no real gore in FEAR ME NOT, and precious little violence — save mostly for violence to the psyche — and you shouldn’t have too much trouble guessing a key plot twist, yet this examination of an ordinary man’s descent into monsterhood is so subtly turned and beautifully captured that the film is no less chilling. A lot hangs on Thomsen’s performance. His serene embrace of increasingly horrific compulsions — by the time both the on-screen characters and the audience fully realize Mikael’s intent, it’s way too late — turns the man into unsettling prototype for a twenty-first century Jekyll and Hyde.
FEAR ME NOT comes out of Denmark’s Zentropa Entertainments, Lars von Trier’s company. With von Trier’s own ANTICHRIST coming up and Sweden’s LET THE RIGHT ONE IN last year, it appears that J-Horror is soon to be supplanted by a new stream of S- (for Scandanavia) Horror. Guess we’re going to have to start mounting our flatscreens in teakwood cabinets.
FEAR ME NOT (IFC, 2008; 95 mins. In Danish with English subtitles.) Directed by Kristian Levring. Cast: Ulrich Thomsen, Emma Sehested Høeg, Lars Brygmann, Paprika Steen.
[serialposts]

Passengers (2008) – DVD Review: Overlooked and Underrated

click to purchase
click to purchase

PASSENGERS is a not-quite direct-to-video title that should have had more than enough star power to warrant a wider theatrical release: Oscar-nominee Anne Hathaway and Oscar-winner Dianne Wiest. The film may not be a conventional blockbuster, but it has an intriguing premise that is reasonably well executed; though not a complete success, it certainly delivers enough to have appealed to fans of more subtle, suggestive scares.
Hathaway stars as Claire Summers, a therapist helping survivors of a plane crash to cope with post-traumatic stress; their recollections of the accident contradict each other, and one of the passengers (Patrick Wilson as Eric) has developed both a suspiciously upbeat outlook and, apparently, psychic abilities. The therapist and her patients seem to be stalked by threatening strangers; the patients begin mysteriously disappearing.
What’s going on? Well, the coming attractions trailer suggests that PASSENGERS is a high-class version of FINAL DESTINATION, and the box art promises, “The line between this world and the next is about to be crossed.” It all sounds very spooky and tantalizing; however, the film itself downplays the genre elements, focusing on the drama instead, while gradually dropping hints about a possible supernatural conspiracy underlying the mysterious events. (Imagine watching FEARLESS and wondering whether the  Jeff Bridges character is no longer afraid because he died in the plane crash – he just doesn’t know it.) This is all well and good, except that those hints are a little too gradual; after a few early teasing suggestions, the screenplay settles into a conventional story that leaves you waiting – and waiting and waiting – for the supernatural payoff.
During the long middle section, PASSENGERS nearly overcomes this imbalance of elements by working as a straight drama about people coming to terms with a traumatic experience. Unfortunately, it is marred by a love story between therapist and patient. This raises questions about Claire’s ethics and judgment that are ultimately resolved by the twist ending, but this resolution cannot erase the biggest problem with this romantic subplot: Eric’s allegedly charming behavior (pretending to jump off a building to his death, pretending to drown in the ocean) should have provoked a slap in the face instead of romantic longing.
Hathaway is likable enough in the lead role, but the character is written a bit passively – a narrative gambit that only partially pays off (her experience is supposed to help her learn to come out of her protective shell). Wilson manages to convey the artificial exuberance that makes us (rightly) suspect his too-upbeat attitude after the crash. Andre Braugher and Diane Wiest lend moral support as characters who (to our suspicion) pop in and out of Claire’s life a little too conveniently; Wiest’s character is underwritten, so the film relies on the Oscar-winner’s winning presence to fill the vacuum. David Morse struggles valiantly in an role that is a little vaguely conceived – at first sinister and then not. William Davis (the Cigarette Smoking Man in THE X-FILES) shows up briefly, but the script literaly gives him nothing to do but lurk. The stand-out is Clea DuVall as one of the crash survivors; she is the only one who actually manages to register as a fully developed character.
As PASSENGES moves into its third act, its early promise comes to fruition. If you have ever seen CARNIVAL OF SOULS or SOLE SURVIVOR, the general outline of the “twist” ending is fairly predictable, but the script works to keep you guessing about the exact details. Credit goes to director Rodrigo Garcia for dropping visual hints that make sense only in retrospect (e.g., after the crash, we cut to a scene of another character waking up in a distant apartment, and for a brief moment rain falling on the window outside resembles falling debris from the accident, suggesting a connection between the two scenes that does not become apparent until much later).
For all the turbulence it encounters on the way, PASSENGERS ultimately reaches a satisfying destination. The decision to mute the scares frees the film from mechanical genre conventions, allowing the characters room to breathe and an opportunity to engage out interest in how they live (rather than just waiting to see how they die). That’s not enough to turn it into another SIXTH SENSE, but it does make for an engaging story with a subtle undertone of menace and mystery.

DVD DETAILS

PASSENGERS was on DVD and Blu-ray on May 12. Bonus features include a director-and-cast audio commentary, deleted scenes, a making of featurette, and an “Anatomy of a Plane Crash” featurette. The DVD offers a great widescreen transfer and clear sound; the glossy presentation reminds us that the production was intended as a fairly lavish theatrical feature, not a DTV knock-off.
The deleted scenes are fairly trivial, offering no insights into the plot , nor fleshing out the characters. Clearly, deleting them was the correct decision.
The making-of featurette is a bit schizophrenic. It operates like a standard promotional puff piece, intended to entice your interest before seeing the film, but it is loaded with spoiler-information that should not be viewed until after you know the ending – at which point, you no longer need to see video interviews with the actors explaining the characters they play.
“Anatomy of a Crash” is more interesting. As the title suggests, it takes a look at the crash around which the story is built. Technical matters are examined in a fair amount of detail that would please Goldilocks (not to much, not too little, just right). More important, director Rodrigo Garcia addresses the issue of not filming simply a generic blockbuster plane crash but one that makes sense within the dramatic context of this movie.
The audio commentary, with Rodigo Garcia and Patrick Wilson is worthwhile but a little frustrating. Director and actor amiably discuss their artistic decisions, in particular their attempts to find the right dramatic beats to maintain the story’s integrity while working within the context of a supernatural conspiracy thriller.
Frustration sets in, however, when Garcia admits that part of the reason for this struggle was that he knew he had not solved all of the script’s problems during the development stage and would therefore have to smooth over them while shooting with his cast. Having raised the issue, he promptly drops it, never explaining what the script problems were nor why gave up on fixing them in preproduction. As is too often the case, here is another example of why audio commentaries cannot replace journalism when it comes to revealing the full story of behind-the-scenes filmmaking: a journalist would have followed up and gotten the answers that Garcia is reluctant to voice.
We would also like to know how the director feels about PASSENGERS being treated essentially as a direct-to-video title in the U.S. IMDB lists a “limited” release in October 2008, when the film was apparently dumped into theatres with little or no fanfare, presumably to capitalize on the Halloween season – pretty much the wrong way to go wtih a film that tries to present its genre elements as a surprise underlying a serious drama. Not every film can be a blockbuster, and PASSENGERS was unlikely to be a sleeper hit, but it deserved a better chance at finding an audience.
[serialposts]

The Spirit – DVD Review

Audience indifference quickly exorcised THE SPIRIT from theatres last year, but now it rises from the grave on home video, including a Two-Disc Special Edition DVD. It is not hard to see why the film bombed at the box office: the one thing it has going for it is the digitized neo-noir stylings that render a high-tech version of an old fashioned black-and-white hard-boiled crime thriller. Unfortunately, this impressivetechnique is not put to good use stylistically; it feels contrived and flat, draining the action of intensity instead of amping it up. Nor is it matched by any artistry in the story-telling, which is thin, or in the performances, which are thick with ham. The familiar stereotypes of the genre (tough guy hero, gruff cops, hot dames, femmes fatale) are rendered as nothing more than stereotypes; basically, this is a 13-tear-old boy’s concept of adult entertainment. At times the patter and over-familiarity border on camp, but THE SPIRIT never manages to satirize the trademarks of its genre; it simply feels like a target for future parody.

DVD DETAILS

The two-disc special edition DVD of THE SPIRIT comes loaded with bonus features, including audio commentary, featurettes, an alternate ending, and a digital copy of the film.
Disc Onebegins with trailers for other releases from Lionsgate, including the ridiculous-looking CRANK. THE SPIRIT is presented in a great widescreen transfer that captures the digitally achieved noir imagery (THE SPIRIT’s one true strenght)  in a way that looks fantastic on a widescreen television. There are options for English 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby Digital, plus English and Spansish subtitles.
There are 28 chapter stops, but the chapter menu sucks: the little arrowheads to advance to the next batch of four chapters ore return to the previous batch are so small you might overlook them, and they are situated so that they look like brackets around the Main Menu button.
Special features consist of an audio commentary by director Frank Miller and producer Deborah Del Prete; the featurettes “Green World” and “Miller on Miller”; an alternative storyboard ending with voiceover by actors Gabriel Macht and Samuel L. Jackson; and a theatrical trailer.

Gabriel Macht as the Spirit
Gabriel Macht as the Spirit

The audio commentary between Frank Miller and Deborah Del Prete details the strategy behind the choices made, such as starting the film in the Spirit’s lair, which is filled with cats (whose reputation for having nine lives foreshadows that the Spirit himself is on his second life, having cheated Death). The dialogue between Miller and Del Prete  is reasonably informative, but they seem so enamored of their good intentions that they are blinded to the shortcomings of the results. (Rather like Don Bluth and Gary Goldman’s audio commentary for TITAN A.E., Miller and Del Prete talk up relatively minor moments as major plot points.)
The first featurette, “Green World,” sounds as if it will be a documentary on using green screen and digital effects to create the world of Central City, but that turns out to be only part of the focus. Instead, “Green World” is a fairly standard promotional piece, providing background on the title character, with the actors saying how much they wanted to work with Frank Miller and Miller expressing his admiration for Will Eisner, who created the “Spirit” comic strip.
“Miller on Miller” is an interview with Frank Miller tracing the growth of his work, starting with his formative years as a child, making drawings of New York City, which helped him develop skills that he would utilize in his professional comic art for such ground-breaking graphic novels as The Dark Knight Returns. Miler also discusses his influences, ranging from comic book artists (Jack Kirby, R. Crumb, Jim Steranko, Neal Adams) to hard-boiled novelists (Dashiel Hammett, Raymond Chandler). Frank Miller’s fans may already be familiar with much of this material, but the uninitiated will find it a useful primer.
The alternate ending features  some animatic imagery intercut with static storyboard drawings, depicting the Spirit tearing Octopus’s dead body to pieces in order to prevent him from resurrecting – a rather non-sensical maneuver considering that the villian has already been blown to pieces by a grenade. It is no surrpise that the studio would not want to end on this moment of gratuitous carnage – which is in keeping with Miller’s other work but somewhat out of step with the slightly goofy tone of THE SPIRIT.
Disc Two contains the digital copy of the film, which can be loaded onto you PC or Mac. A 4×6 insert provides instructions on how to do this.
THE SPIRIT is a bit of a misfire from a talented artist (put most simply, it’s like SIN CITY but not as good), but for those fans who found the film entertaining, the double-disc DVD offers a solid home video presentation with some worthwhile extras.

Let the Right One In – Best Horror Film of 2008

Being a movie-lover – especially a horror movie-lover – is a bit like being a junkie: you’re always looking for your next fix, and as time goes by, the high diminishes. You just don’t get the same old thrill from the new stuff, and you blame the dealer for palming off some bad shit on you, but eventually you wonder, Maybe it’s me. Maybe my system’s so worn out that I just can’t achieve that state of ecstasy anymore. Maybe there’s nothing left that can  ignite my senses and fry my brain like a jolt of pure energy pulsing through my nerves, tingling my toes and accelerating my heartbeat. Maybe it’s all over. Maybe it’s time to quit.

Then you see LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, and all your concerns are washed away in a tidal wave rush of joy that hits your mind and senses like an injection of artificial adrenalin. Watching this film feels like taking a hit of the good stuff: no matter how jaded you are, no matter how withered your tired old veins, you will feel the rush  every bit as much as if it were your very first time. And the best thing is: the buzz will last long after the film fades out.

How does this wonderful Swedish film – easily the best horror film of 2008 – achieve this? It skillfully combines an art house sensibility with the horror genre and makes the combination absolutely seamless. All the artistry and craftsmanship that would go into the most serious subject matter is lavished on a story about a a troubled young boy, who meets and eventually befriends his new neighbor, a mysterious girl who turns out to be a vampire. The story plays out like a tender character study; however, the film never forgets to be a horror movie. The genre elements are utilized to their fullest extent, but never as the be-all and end-all of the story, and almost never as an excuse for cheap sensationalism.

Instead, LET THE RIGHT ONE in figurative invites the audiences into its world, and into the lives of its characters, seducing you into identifying with the two lonely souls who tentatively find each other and form a bond that will unite them against the outside world – that is, against the world you and I inhabit. In the manner of an Anne Rice novel, the story is told from their perspective, so that what happens to them determines whether we perceive the film as having a “happy” ending,  regardless of the other characters who die. The morality may be questionable, but the emotional catharsis is undeniable.


The story begins rather inauspiciously. After introducing us to Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), who practices stabbing a tree with his knife while rehearsing what he will say when turning the tables on the school bullies, we see Hakan (Per Ragnar) drugging an innocent passer-by, hanging him upside down from a tree, and slitting his throat to drain his blood. The grim imagery is effective but tawdry, suggesting a torture porn with unwarranted aspirations; fortunately, the film soon moves on to something better, as Oksar meets Eli (Lina Leandersson), whom we assume to be Hakan’s daughter.

It soon becomes apparent, however, that the power structure of this “father-daughter” relationship is exactly the opposite of what one would expect, based on their apparent ages, and gradually we realize that Hakan is what Nancy Collins (in her Sonya Blue vampire tales) would have called a “Renfield.”  As devoted to Eli as any vampire’s assistant ever was to his master, Hakan assists her by obtaining the blood she needs to survive; unfortunately, he has reached an age at which his usefulness is diminishing, and Eli has to fend for herself, drawing suspicion from some neighbors.
Meanwhile, Eli meets at night with Oksar in the courtyard outside their building, advising him to fight back against the schoolyard tyrants who terrorizing him on a daily basis, and though she initially insists that they cannot be friends, they soon draw closer and closer together, especially after Hakan is arrested after his latest botched murder attempt.

In a way, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN works some of the same territory as TWLIGHT, featuring a kind of love story between a young human and a vampire who is much older than she looks (“I’m twelve,” Eli tells Oskar, “but I’ve been twelve for a long time”). The difference is that the perverse undertones of pedophilia, though not emphasized, are not concealed beneath a Harlequin-romance-type gloss, and LET THE RIGHT ONE IN eschews any attempt to justify Eli’s existence by making her into a “good” vampire. As with the best vampire stories, vampirism is used as an elastic metaphor, a rubber mask that can disguise a variety of strange behaviors, making them acceptable for cinematic treatment.

The movie looses a little bit of its zing in the second half, once the direction of the story becomes clear. (It is pretty obvious that Oskar is being groomed to replace Hakan.) Fortunately, director Tomas Alfredson holds our interest by, ironically enough, affecting a certain detachment. Instead of hyping the action with close-ups, hand-held cameras, and jagged editing, he offers icy cold tableau, often in serene long-shots, luring the audience into perusing the details, the eyes and attention of the viewers acting as their own zoom lens.

This beautiful serenity lays the ground work for the horror: when it does erupt – at sporadic intervals – it is all the more effective for intruding into a world that otherwise seems so sedate (an effect similar to that achieved by Shyamalan in THE SIXTH SENSE). At times, his approach is almost Hitchcockian, in that suspense derives from the audience knowing something the characters do not: When an innocent man sees Eli crying under a bridge, he thinks he is helping a lost child, but we cringe in anticipation, knowing that he is being lulled into a vulnerable position by a skilled predator.

One of the best staged horror scenes occurs when Oskar, in his new-found role as Eli’s protector (during the daylight, when she is vulnerable) distracts a would-be avenger. The camera angle focuses our attention on Oskar and the intruder, but in the best Val Lewtown tradition, the attack ultimately comes from an unexpected direction when Eli awakes and leaps on the man’s back. What follows is obscured mostly behind a half-closed door, offering only a tantalizing glimpse of a bloody hand smearing a wall.
The screenplay by John Ajvide Lindqvist condenses his novel into a tight structure, filled with touching moments (this is one of the most heart-felt horror films you will ever see), but there are a few loose ends. For instance, in the book, Eli was a boy before becoming a vampire (a plot point of dubious import). All that remains in the film are a few lines where Eli asks Oskar whether he would still like her if she were not a girl, plus a brief moment when we see that Eli’s gential area looks mutilated. Viewers unfamiliar with the book assume that the reference to not being a “girl” refers not to sexuality but to the fact that Eli is not a child, her girlish appearance merely the result of the arrested aging process; and the mutilation, rather than suggesting castration, leads one to suspect that Eli was sexually abused while still a human.

Also, the script tosses a handful of gratuitous horror moments that seemed included almost for their own sake. One of Eli’s victims goes partway through the transition to becoming a vampire: a friend’s cats turn upon her unexpectedly (an entertaining moment that lasts too long, allowing one to note the CGI fakery), and she commits suicide by sunlight, exploding into flames. Other than that, the focus remains on Eli and Oskar, culminating in a poolside confrontation with the schoolyard bullies – a sequence at once subtle and lurid, in which the karma is leveled in a satisfying way. Yes, it’s horrible, but in a disturbing kind of way, it is also satisfying.

Technically, the film is a delight. The music lulls us into the shadowy world of the two protagonists, and the cool detachment of the cinematography recalls the best of the J-Horror genre, while calm vistas covered by falling snow evoke (deliberately or not) “God’s Silence” from Ingmar Bergman’s work. A handful of live-action effects break the sense of normality with a sudden intrusion of the uncanny (as when we see the vampire scale a sheer wall in the background of a long shot of a hospital); also, a judicious use of computer-generated effects shatter the beauty of the images with flashes of outrageous horror (a severed limb, a severed head) that achieve their own weird kind of beauty.

In a strange way – and I know this is a stretch – LET THE RIGHT ONE IN reminds me of DIE HARD. In that 1988 action film, the genre tropes – the explosions, gunshots, and bloodshed – were carefully orchestrated to express the conflict between John McClane and Hans Gruber. When the movie was over, I remember thinking, “This is the way it’s done. If I ever teach a course in filmmaking, this is the movie I would show.”

In a somewhat similar fashion, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN orchestrates its genre tropes – the bloodshed and the biting, the sunlight and the shadows – to express the the bond between its two lead characters. Blood is life and passion, and no drop is spilled here with igniting some passion, eliciting some emotion, forcing viewers to watch not just as voyeurs seeking a cheap thrill but as empathetic participants in the story.

This is the way it’s done. If you want to know how to make great horror movies, watch LET THE RIGHT ONE IN.

DVD DETAILS

Unfortunately, the original pressing of the Region 1 DVD substituted new subtitles for those scene on theatrical prints. The new subtitles streamline (one might say, “dumb down”) the dialogue. For example, when Oskar first sees Eli standing on the jungle gym and asks, “Do you live here?” the theatrical version has Eli respond, “Yeah… I live right here, in the jungle gym.” The DVD shortens this to: “I live here.” The DVD distributor promises that the problem will be fixed on subsequent pressing, with the packaging clearly marked to indicate that the disc will feature the “theatrical subtitles.”

NOTES

The title is a reference to a piece of vampire lore: blood-suckers can only cross a threshold when invited inside; conversely, it also refers to Eli allowing Oskar into her life – the “right one” who will guard and protect her while she lies vulnerable during daylight. At one point, Eli demonstrates what happens if she enters a room unbidden, her skin erupting into open wounds until Oskar speaks the invitation that will spare her.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN tied for the Best Picture of 2008 in Cinefantastique’s Wonder Awards.

CLET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008). Directed by Tomas Alfredson. Screenplay by John Ajvide Lindqvist, based on his novel. Cast: Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl, Karin Bergquist, Peter Carlberg, Ika Nord, Mikael Rahm, Karl-Robert Lindgren.

Synecdoche , New York: A Horror Chamber Piece

Synecdoche, New York (2008)When I saw this film in an upstate New York movie theatre – near Schenectady, in fact – there was a small audience, seven or eight people total. But two women sitting across the aisle from me insisted on talking through it, particularly during sex scenes (of which there are several). My quiet “sshing” had no effect, so I finally loudly asked them to please stop talking. “No” was the childish response. It’s moments like this when I understand how sweet-tempered people like myself can become suddenly aroused by rage and want to…oh, slash someone’s ears off with a straight razor. This wasn’t the multiplex, but the local arthouse – the last bastion of yahoo-free behavior, or so I have fervently wished. I found myself deeply affected by the film, and wondered if the experience might have been even more intense and memorable if it had not been marred by the rude behavior of two adult strangers who also happened to be there.
It turns out this experience was a perfect microcosmic reflection of the film’s central theme: that choices we make and events that conspire against us are often one and the same. There may or may not be anything we can do to alter their outcome, and how we choose to respond can make all the difference, and we will always look back on certain moments with anger or pain or regret, and in our desperate final hours we will remember these old hurts as potently as we remember our happiest moments.
If you have seen this film already, you may well understand why I am prompted to make such a meta-mountain out of my minor movie-going molehill. And if you haven’t, let me say that this is one of those rare films you will not be able to get out of your head, and may in fact fill you with occasional (or maybe frequent) glimmers of dread at the oddest moments.
Buried in the buzz surrounding the release of this stunning directorial debut by award-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman was the news that it was supposed to have been a horror film, written for Spike Jonze to direct. Kaufman says (in an interview with Drew McWeeny from Ain’t It Cool News): “We talked about ideas and we wanted to do something that sort of wasn’t attached to the genre notion of horror, and so were talking about things that are scary in the real world, and in our lives, and anxieties and the sort of notion of being in a kind of a dream.”
Kaufman later took over as both writer and director because Jonze was committed to another project. A non-traditional horror film was the plan. But it turned into something else.
That something else is also a horror film. But not a visceral horror film full of gore and screeching violins, nor a subtle psychological terror film of the “less is more” variety. It doesn’t so much tell a horror story as create a horrified state of mind. Despite being full of unusual, implausible and highly symbolic events, this film prods us to acknowledge our mortality and smallness in a scary universe. In Kaufman’s words: “The movie follows this character for 40 years, and it’s about people’s losses and death and fear of death and intimacy and relationships. Romance and regret and struggle and ego and jealousy and confusion and loneliness and sex and loss.”
Kaufman’s Everyman is Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman, perfect as a man whose body betrays him with daily incremental cruelty), a theatre director living in upstate New York (the Schenectady invoked in the title) whose marriage seems to be on the rocks. Wife Adele (Catherine Keener) is a selfish, melancholy artist who paints miniatures. Their five-year old daughter Olive (Sadie Goldstein) is alarmed by the bright green color of her feces one morning. After reassuring her, Caden almost immediately begins experiencing alarming physical symptoms (boils and pimples) that kick in after he bumps his head on the medicine cabinet and bleeds all over the place. His ailments turn out to be flawed autonomic response; he cannot produce tears or saliva naturally. Like Jeff Goldblum in THE FLY, he seems to accept that these grotesque changes are his own doing, but still wants to be pitied. His doctor is eerily uncaring, in that way we all have no doubt experienced. The deterioration of the body, it is implied from the Cotard family’s obsessions, sets in practically from infancy. This is MISHIMA for lifestyle neurotics. But the courageous decision to opt out at forty is replaced with the inability to accept that death is coming to all of us.
Adele takes Olive to Berlin for an art exhibit, after asking Caden to stay home from their planned month abroad. Her paintings are a hit in Europe. Meanwhile, Caden is pursued by cute box office worker Hazel (Samantha Morton), and wins a genius grant to mount a theatrical production of his choosing. He rents a cavernous space in Manhattan, casts dozens of actors, and slowly embarks upon an unknown journey into thoughtful, meandering artistic expression. He essentially recreates his own life amid the multiple scaffold-supported sets, and coaches actors to discover their own personal reality in the endless rehearsals. Schenectady, it seems, is too small to contain Caden’s actual existence and so a Greater, More Ambitious New York must be called into service.
Years seem to pass. We begin to understand Caden’s family has been away for quite some time. He becomes impotent, physically and emotionally. Hazel moves on and into a house that is perpetually aflame: an actual and metaphorical set-piece that is the first clue we are slouching towards surreality. Caden remarries: an actress (Michelle Williams) from an earlier production of Death of a Salesman in which Willy and Linda were played by young performers. Caden explains that this was to get the audience to think about how the actors themselves would one day face the same problems and pain their characters did. This casting choice made him a genius worthy of being awarded a small fortune, in the eyes of those holding the grant purse-strings.
As Caden’s theatrical project seems to flounder within its own grandiose inscrutability, he tries various gimmicks to inject it with life. Casting replacements are made: Emily Watson plays a younger version of Hazel. Tom Noonan joins the cast to play Caden himself. Dianne Wiest plays Adele’s cleaning woman (yes, in Berlin). We’re not quite sure where we are at times, and that’s all right, because Caden is also lost amid his own temporal and spatial landmarks. And then there are the freakish dreamscape images that stalk intermittently past the realistic scenes, which Caden takes in his stride, if he is even aware of them. He seeks out his long-lost daughter (flashes of olive green like the windbreaker of her kindergarten days remind us she is always on Caden’s mind), and their ultimate reunion is heartbreaking in its cold and misguided delusion. He is also, in the end, seemingly reunited with a woman who may be his mother.
Kaufman seems adamant that viewers not be hit over the head with blatant symbolism or metaphorical messaging. A burning house may just be a burning house. The sense of helplessness and smothering inevitability Caden displays conjures up our worst fears as they’ve been expressed in more traditional horror works, or in our worst nightmares: being buried alive, for example, or being pursued and finding our legs paralyzed and unable to run. Because there is a great deal of humor in the film as well, there may be a tendency for different types of filmgoers to have different experiences. (I saw DOWN BY LAW in the same theatre on two different occasions; the first time the audience was quiet and thoughtful; the second time they laughed constantly.)
But even amid the complexity of his vision, there are moments of searing simplicity and emotional speechlessness that even the most hardened loner among us cannot fail to take to heart. This is the stuff of chest-tightening fear: disease, decay, disappointment, doubt, depression, delusion, dread, death. SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK is a filmic memento mori that dares us to imagine our own mortality, not as a noble and unique expression of identity, but as one fragment of colored glass in humanity’s kaleidoscope. Kaufman shows us Caden’s choices and regrets within a context of artistic creativity and invites us to consider our own trajectories and tragedies.
What if our life’s story was writ large on the silver screen for unsympathetic strangers to see? What if we saw who we really are in images twenty feet high, with Dolby sound? Would we be charmed? Bewildered? Horrified? Cinema of this caliber materializes our dreams, spooling unbidden in the dark as we watch, paralyzed in our chairs. We can leave, or forget, but we cannot escape. For many of us, nothing is more terrifying than that moment at which we will one day cease to be. This fear drives us forward until we come to peace with it, or scream at it with our last breath. It catalyzes artistic creation and feeds destructive behavior. A work of cinema might be a more compelling legacy than most, because it feels alive and vital in ways books or paintings cannot. It is a fragile time capsule of dreams. So are we, in a way.
Kaufman is a psychopomp possessed of astonishing gifts. He offers up this dizzying cache of dreams, and possible outcomes, to guide us. What we do with them from here on out is up to us, in the time we have left.

Synecdoche, New York
Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman) confronts the subtle horror of an empty life.

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK (2008). Written and directed by Charlie Kaufman. Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Sadie Goldstein, Tom Noonan, Peter Friedman, Charles Techman, Josh Pais, Daniel London, Robert Seay, Michaelle Williams, Stephen Adly Guirgis, Samantha Morton, Hope Davis.

Dark Reel – DTV Horror Film Review

Dark ReelOnce the decision to review modern horror films is made, the critic must make an uneasy peace with certain issues of quality. We understand perfectly well that lower budget productions can’t be held to the same standard as their slick studio cousins (though judging from recent efforts like Prom Night and Mirrors, that might not be such a bad bargain) so a slightly different grading system is used. The use of talent that is more typically found selling autographs on the horror-con circuit is easily forgiven, along with the lack of sufficient camera coverage during a given scene, or even a script that needed one or two crucial extra rewrites, as long as it remembers the most important thing – to be scary. Conversely, the lack of actual scares can abruptly rip down the curtain of clemency and bear the critical fangs; patience runs out and we go for the groin.
Dark Reel is the newest release from North American Motion Pictures, a company that really wants me to know their name, as the review copy sent out has their company name burned into the screen for roughly 40% of the film’s egregiously overlong running time. The story begins with a black & white prolog that would appear to take place in the late ’40s or early ’50s (or the 1860s, if you go by the bartender’s mustache) where a glamorous young actress is picked up in a bar by a dashing studio executive with the promise of a screen test. Things quickly take a turn into Peeping Tom territory when the actress, Scarlett May, is butchered by the young man with the camera still rolling. We move to present day Los Angeles for the balance of the film and pick up out protagonist, Adam Waltz (Edward Furlong), who just won a bit part in a poverty row pirate picture produced by the egomaniacal Connor Pritchett (Lance Henriksen). Soon, an actress on the film is brutally killed (in a strikingly familiar way…) by a figure in a black trench coat and a grotesque mask, bringing the attention of two detectives (Tony Todd and Rena Riffel) to the set. When Adam thinks he sees the ghost of Scarlett May walk off the screen while watching the dailies, he begins to think that the murders are somehow related to the slaying of Scarlett all those years ago.
First, the good news – Dark Reel is one of the few horror titles we seen in the past few years that feature bloody murder set pieces without the (apparent) aid of CGI, something even Dario Argento’s latest can’t claim. Patient gorehounds will be rewarded with several scenes that are surprisingly graphic for a film carrying an R rating – that is, if the obscene 109min (!) running time doesn’t put their lights out first. There is quite a bit of humor as well, though it’s impossible to tell how much was in the script and how much was added during filming out of desperation to retain the audience’s attention. We see enough of Pritchett’s previous film, Gnome Killer, to wonder how farfetched the concept actually is, though the pirate film that the characters are making is more befitting a porn spoof than a genre programmer. Though even we don’t know quite what to make of the police representatives; Tony Todd’s wardrobe suggests that his character spends nights stealing from Goodwill kiosks, while his partner looks made up to be a ’90s variant of a Vargas girl and sports distracting tattoos that bring to mind a rock groupie rather than a detective. Other bits, like the Julian Sands-like leading man’s obsession with eating onions, die on the vine long before it becomes a heinously unfunny running gag.
We’re not sure what to make of Furlong, with his puffy, tired eyes and general disheveled air. He appears lost much of the time, with a hazy expression that makes him look like he’s constantly trying to adjust to unfamiliar surroundings. It’s an odd, flinchy performance that can be physically uncomfortable to watch. As always, Lance Henriksen has a blast with the screen time given him; he’s been at this game for more than 3 decades now and has learned well how to amuse himself while laboring on unworthy projects. We were pleasantly surprised to see the great character actor Tracey Walter turn up in a small role as a tabloid photographer.
The film is being released on Blu-Ray and DVD on March 10th, and is supposed to feature 2 commentary tracks, along with deleted scenes and a production featurette, though none were present on our review copy. It’s unknown what sort of mischief the studio thinks reviewers will get up to with a full retail copy of the finished product, but we certainly appreciate letting us see the 8min of trailers for upcoming North American Pictures releases!
DARK REEL (2008). Directed by Josh Eisenstadt. Written by Aaron Pope, story by Josh Eisenstadt. Cast: Lance Henriksen, Daniel Wisler, Edard Furlong, Tifany Shepis, Rena Riffel, Tate Hanyok, Alexandra Holden, Mercedes McNab. Brooke Lyons, Tracy Walter.

Repo! The Genetic Opera – DVD Review

I would like to tell you that REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA a such thoroughly fascinating misfire – such an epic train-wreck of bloodshed and carnage – that you simply cannot look away; unfortunately, I did look away: I got bored after about twenty minutes and turned off the DVD, forcing myself to return and finish the ordeal at a later date, after my endurance capacity had been augmented with a good night’s sleep and lots of caffeine. In the end, I’m glad I made the effort, because there is too much ambition on display for the film to be completely dismissed, but I still have to conclude that the good intentions carry REPO! only partway toward success, even on the cult level that it so obviously intends.
Basically, REPO! is a futuristic sci-fi-horror rock opera, but unlike Tim Burton’s horror-musical-comedy SWEENEY TODD, it does not hit all the right notes. The screen is consistently filled with fascinating details (you could spend a lifetime picking out the visual similarities to BLADE RUNNER, MOULIN ROUGE, etc), but all the rococo richness is in service of a story with severe structural weaknesses, and the over-the-top directorial approach suggests high-camp that undermines the obvious attempt at crafting an engagingly operatic melodrama.
The set-up has Shilo (Alexa Vega) living in isolation imposed by her over-protective father Nathan (Anthony Head), who (unbeknownst to her) moonlights as a Repo Man. In this future world, GeneCo, run by Rotti Largo (Paul Sorvino) provides engineered organ transplants and elective surgery, but if a customer falls behind on the payments, the company can have have Nathan legally repossess their property, killing the customer in the process. The plot follows Rotti’s attempts to lure Alexa into becoming his heir because he is so disgusted with his own progeny, who are (to put it charitably) a group of freaks (including one addicted to surgery and another who likes to wear other people’s faces).
In order to justify the characters’ actions, the film is bogged down with back story upon back story, explaining the connections between Nathan, Rotti, Shilo, and Blind Mag (Sarah Brightman), who used to know Shilo’s late mother. The convolutions grow wearying, never building much audience empathy, so we’re left to sit back and enjoy the music and visuals. As good as they sometimes are, they are not enough to elevate this leaden story.
The songs (there is almost no spoken dialogue) mostly serve as operatic recitatives, filling in the exposition and telling the story in lyrically prosaic rather than poetic fashion, although there is a stand-out scene in which seventeen-year-old Shilo finally expresses some good old-fashioned teenage rebellion courtesy of a hard-rock number that contains one of the few memorable lyrics (“I’m sweeter than sixteen’) and also features a welcome cameo by Joan Jett, thrashing her guitar in approving accompaniment.

Sarah Brightman as Blind Mag
Sarah Brightman as Blind Mag

Too seldom does the soundtrack burst out into a full-blown aria of this sort that invests the action with emotional resonance, and honestly most of the cast seem ill-equipped to deliver such a performance (even though they do a good job of projecting drama through their sung dialogue). The major exception of course is Sarah Brightman, who momentarily brings the film to such grandiose life that you realize just what a masterpiece it could have been if handled entirely correctly.
Also impressive is co-composer Terrance Zdunich’s performance as Graverobber, who acts as a sort of narrator; though hardly an admirable character (he’s a drug pusher), he provides the perfect perspective on the film, inviting us to see the world through the eyes of someone who knows the score, good or bad. Ironically, the actor who is most at home is the one who should have been most out of place: maybe it’s his Italian background, but as Rotti, Sorvino comports himself in exactly the sort of fashion appropriate for a villain of operatic stature.
These highlights make the film worthwhile, but they also showcase the relative weaknesses of the rest of the film, which throws everything at us, whether or not it works. (Rotti’s three adult children add nothing to the plot, for example; their various perversions, lovingly captured by the camera at length, merely serve to tell us why the father would rather bequeath his company to someone else.) There is also a poorly integrated subplot about an addictive, pain-killing drug that Graverobber extracts from bodies – did the writers really feel that a story about a disfunctional-father daughter relationship set against the backdrop of repossessed genetic organs was just not enough to fill up a movie?
Darren Lynn Bousman directs as if he is still working on SAW II-III-IV. His bravura visuals suggest a Baz Luhrmann musical extravaganzas gone bad, with the emotional underpinnings drowned in a welter of gore as Nathan repossesses organs from unwilling victims. This bloodshed works only on an “ain’t it cool” level, never involving the audience. At times, it is almost insulting, as when a major character is casually killed off without a second thought: what should be a moment of grand tragedy is reduced to a cheap shock effect. (Again, compare this to Burton’s SWEENEY TODD, in which the copious bloodshed expressed the high-strung emotional turmoil of the title character, particularly in the film’s closing moments when the drops of blood became, symbolically, red-tinged tears.)
Whether you will want to take a chance on REPO! depends on your tolerance for good ambitions gone wrong. At the very least, the film convincingly creates its own world, in which the bizarre action seems appropriate. You have to give Bousman credit for presenting a unique vision, even if that vision is ultimately skewed.

DVD DETAILS

Lionsgate’s single-disc DVD of REPO! THE GENETIC opera offers a good transfer and solid sound, so that you can enjoy the images and music in almost their full cinematic glory. Bonus materials are limited to a couple of featurettes and two audio commentaries.
“From Stage to Screen” provides a ten-minute rundown on the history of the stage version of REPO! THE GENEIC OPERA and how it was adapted for the screen. This is a decent mini-documentary for those curious about the project’s background.
“Legal Assassin: A Repo on the Edge” is a bit more of a promotional puff piece in which various members of the cast and crew explain what a Repo Man does in the film’s futuristic world.
The audio commentaries tend to overlap information with each other and with the “Stage to Screen” featurette.
The first commentary is chatty, with director Bousman and actors Alexa Vega, Bill Moseley, and Ogre at times threatening to devolve into a sing-along with the on-screen performances. We do learn that George Romero was intended for a cameo (a revelation that prompts Vega to ask, “Who’s George Romero?”) To their credit, the actors ask for – and receive – an explanation or two for plot points left vague in the film (yes, Graverobber’s pain-killing drug is simply extracted from corpses – with no need for lab processing to make it work). Also there is a round of praise for Paris Hilton, who supplied much of the film’s costuming needs out of her own wardrobe.
The second commentary features Bousman again, this time with Darren Smith and Terrance Zdunich, who created the stage musical and wrote the screenplay for the film, along with all the music. This commentary focuses more on the project’s evolution and on behind-the-scenes details of making the film. Somewhat sadly, it seems to have been recorded at a time when the filmmakers still thought their hardwork would pay off with a sizable hit. One can admired their dedication in getting this quirky project onto the screen, but their justifiable pride creates a communal blindness regarding shortcomings in the final product.
REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA (2008). Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman. Screenplay by Darren Smith & Terranc Zdunich, based on their opera. Cast: Alexa Vega, Paul Sorvino, Anthony Head, Sarah Brightman, Paris Hilton, Bill Moseley, Nivk Ogre, Terranc Zdunich, Sarah Power, Jessica Horn.