HAPPY
OCTOBER, EVERYBODY!
The time has
come again to tell you all about the movies I’m watching! Each week, I’ll
attempt to put out a synopsis and review of each film I watch, and, in some
cases, maybe even talk a little bit about the horror genre in general (I don’t
want to say I’m an authority, but I know a thing or two). These digests will
typically come out on a Sunday, but I can’t promise that with a work schedule
that keeps me guessing.
Last year, I
did very well for four out of five weeks, but never got around to releasing the
final write-up (oops!). While most of it is written in my Evernote, the parts
that aren’t written became more and more impossible to revisit, as it would
have involved watching the films again. In many cases with the last week of
2014’s festival, this was not likely to happen (though Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
was excellent and Ms. 45 was a bizarre, unique entry that should definitely see
more praise).
As usual, I
want to show you how I grade movies. Keep in mind that I’m a bit of a film
snob, and tend to be more analytical than the average viewer. Also keep in mind
that these grades are opinions, and I am not trying to present my opinion as
strictly academic – I have my guilty, personal pleasures too. These grades are not necessarily the ones I posted during the week on Facebook either. After having time to consider and compare films, I tend to curve my grade a little.
A =
Excellent, a must see
B = Very
good, I’d watch it again
C = Worth
Seeing
D = Maybe
don’t bother
F =
Worthless
+ = Superior
for this grade
- = Just barely
makes it into this grade
Please also be aware that I do not pull punches when it comes to spoilers. Let me be caps lock clear about this: THESE REVIEWS VERY WELL MAY SPOIL THESE MOVIES. You have now been properly warned.
I decided to
start 2015 with my Wes Craven mini-festival, and, thus, the first entry has the
dubious honor of being entirely composed of his films. Without further ado…
Scream (Wes Craven) - D+
Only a year
ago, Sidney's mother was raped and killed in the peaceful town
of Woodsboro. But now, despite a suspect being on death row, the actual killer
resurfaces, and no teenage character that we learn the name of is safe. A
ghostfaced murderer with a sinister voice (and balls of steel) dices his way
through Sidney's chums, hellbent on murdering as many people as it takes to
kill the sole target of his malice. It's difficult to understand, actually, why
anyone was killed by the murderer in the end - the killer's agenda sounds
pretty specific to Sidney, but countless others are slain leading up to the
reveal - including Drew Barrymore AND the Fonz. Along the way, Courtney Cox and
David Arquette fall in love (which is so odd within the context of the film
that it feels like you could be watching another movie), and eventually the
identity of Ghostface is revealed, in a bizarre Scooby-Doo style 'I'LL TELL YOU
WHY!' flourish.
Scream isn't
really about that, though. It is an attempt at being a meta-slasher film,
concerned with exploring the mentality of movie-killers, and the genre tropes
of splatter flicks. Sadly, the tactic chosen to analyze this substance is
hamfisted dialogue in which every character knows way more about horror movies
than most people would. There's even a character, named Randy, a self-touted slasher
fan that works at the local video store, whose main purpose in the movie seems to be filling the audience in on the
logic by which Scream functions. He literally explains exactly how the horror
genre works, right before the film goes down that road under its own power.
Ultimately his character is unnecessary, as almost every main character has snappy,
Kevin Smith-style comments to make about horror movie icons that apply directly
to the film they're in. It's not subtle at all.
Now, I can't
think of a movie that did this exact thing before Scream, but horror is never a
genre known for taking itself too seriously. If you're not too squeamish, gore
(and especially gore special effects) can be hilarious. Here in 2015, we live
in a golden age of horror parody. Films like Shaun of the Dead, The Cabin in the Woods and Tucker and Dale vs. Evil have shown we can blend gore and comedy
seamlessly. Scream, by comparison, only dips a toe in the comedy pool, but
doesn't have a solid enough horror base to be notable for that either.
Ultimately, it's the Abed Nadir of slasher movies - only completely understood
by few, and even then, its kind of hit or miss.
Following
the events of Freddy's Dead, no Nightmare on Elm Street movies have been
produced. The character of Freddy Krueger is done... Or is it? Star of the
first and third Nightmare films, Heather Langenkamp, has started to have
all-too-familiar bad dreams, and when special effects men start to die
mysteriously (including Heather's husband, Chris), and her son Dylan reveals he
too has been having bad dreams featuring a clawed glove. From then on, Heather
and Dylan go to great lengths to avoid sleep. Heather knows Freddy isn't real,
and yet, there's no other possible explanation for what's going on. Eventually,
Wes Craven (playing himself) calls on Heather to reprise her role from the
series, implying to her during the conversation that Freddy is an evil that
can only be contained by featuring it in movies, and before long, Heather
understands the only way to save herself and Dylan is to play along, and tell
the same story one more time.
This movie
is up its own ass so much that it is hard to believe it was ever made.
Obviously, Freddy must have been a big enough deal in 1994 that the thought of
following through on their promise of keeping him dead was unfathomable. New
Line Cinema execs were horny for anything Nightmare Wes Craven wanted to do,
and this is what we got. Minus some foul language, this could have been a
children's horror movie. There are very
few of the celebrated Nightmare kill-scenes (aside from the opening
scene, in which two men are killed by an animatronic Freddy glove, I think only
two characters are killed on screen, and only one of them is particularly
violent), the second-most main character is a young child himself (far younger
than any of the characters in Nightmare III, the Dream Warriors), and though he
doesn't have nearly as much screen time as Heather Langenkamp, you can't deny a
lot of the plot revolves around him. This isn't inherently bad, but it serves
to set a tone that perhaps not all of this film was directed at adults.
Perhaps
hardest to accept of all is Wes Craven’s scene, in which, with a straight face,
he proceeds to talk about Freddy as one of the most ancient storytelling evils
– not some burned janitor dude Wes came up with in the 80s. Craven almost
likens Freddy to horror movie Jesus, but we all know that’s Frankenstein. The most
redeeming scene in the film is the finale, when Heather must rescue Dylan from
Freddy's boiler room version of hell. Only then do we get to see Krueger do
his usual thing, but it's a fairly confusing scene, and ultimately is too
little, too late. While I haven't seen enough of the Nightmare films to be able
to rank this film amongst its kin, I can definitely say this one was not for
me.
A poor black
family faces eviction from the ghetto at the hands of greedy white couple.
They've been giving as many people as possible from their residences in order
to sell the land for condos and become even more rich. Enter Poindexter (well,
that's his actual name, but after a tarot reading at the start of the film, we
learn he goes by Fool), a youth of 13 years, who is determined to save his
family from eviction. Fool and LeRoy (a dashiki-wearing Ving Rhames) learn that
their greedy landlords have a hoard of gold coins that would surely save Fool's
family and then some. Entering the landlords' (a middle-aged couple that go by
Mama and Papa) mansion under false pretense, Fool quickly learns the mansion is
heavily booby-trapped, can be locked down by its owners to prevent any escape,
and, most disconcertingly, the basement and walls of the house are home to twisted
freaks that are probably cannibals. LeRoy is quickly dispatched, leaving Fool
to try and escape the house on his own (and rescue Mama & Papa's adopted
daughter, Alice).
Of the three
Wes Craven movies I've watched this year, The People Under The Stairs is far
and away the winner. This is probably because it was a straight-up horror show,
rather than an examination of the metaphysics of the horror genre. It also has
a great, if not contrived, premise. Being stuck in a murder house that has been
painstakingly built by rich crazy people is an original, and, in this case,
thrilling concept. While the film does get a little repetitive (Mama and Papa
send their ill-fated rottweiler, Prince, into air vents to hunt Fool down at
least three times), Mama and especially Papa (played by Wendy Robie and Everett
McGill, better known to me as Nadine and Big Ed on Twin Peaks), are such wildly
unpredictable characters, that they bring tension and excitement when they come
on screen. You might know that Papa will be just around that corner, but you'd
never expect him to be in full bondage gear, carrying an assault rifle.
And while
every Wes Craven film I've ever seen has tongue-in-cheek one-liners inserted in
every conversation, The People Under the Stairs does away with the pretense
that it's not silly. There's slapstick, there's great quotes, and you even get
to see a little boy punch a dog in the face. It's not the best film I've ever
seen by any stretch, but this one was surprisingly entertaining, and unlike New
Nightmare, not just a kids' movie with baffling murder scenes.
-----
All I've
watched so far have been Wes Craven films, so I feel inclined to say a little
bit about what I saw as common threads through his work.
- Wes loved close ups. In Scream, I'd swear 50% of the movie is extreme close ups on faces. While this is a good reminder for the audience of who your actors are, when you compare it to visual media that makes use of sets, lighting, and, well, other things to look at than faces, you might realize it's kind of boring to look at faces for most of a film. Scream was the worst culprit, but the other two films DID feature many close ups as well. Now, some of you might recall last year, when I watched Red Eye, I actually claimed Wes used a lot of close ups to evoke a claustrophobic feel. Upon retrospect, this might have been accidental because of how many close ups he features in most of his later films. I'M ALMOST POSITIVE (but not certain) that his older works - Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes and Nightmare on Elm Street for example - do not contain a high percentage of them. I can't say I recall many of them in The Serpent and the Rainbow either, but even if there were, at least it was set in a fucking jungle.
- Wes was not afraid to use comedy. As mentioned above, this ranged from sarcastic rejoinders to slapstick and ball-punching. Even from Last House on the Left, a film that contains extremely disturbing scenes, had a bizarre folk soundtrack that narrated the goings on, which is kind of hilarious. Freddy Krueger is notable for being a slam-dunk in terms of being able to blend comedy and carnage. I laughed loudly, by myself, during The Serpent and the Rainbow when Bill Pullman shared a loving embrace with a jaguar - maybe not something to intentionally make me laugh, but it helps keep me entertained. A horror movie doesn't have to be an ultra-serious murder parade, and Wes Craven understood this.
- Wes was definitely a fan of special effects. Gore is one thing, but Freddy Krueger's entire concept fails without fantastic special effects. These days, when money can just buy whatever computers can churn out, this is far less impressive, but when the majority of the Nightmare films came out, that wasn't possible. There's a SICK morphing shot of Freddy appearing in the clouds during New Nightmare, something that would have been cutting edge technology in 1994. Though I didn't think much of the film, the special effects in New Nightmare definitely took me back to a time when everything on the screen physically had to be on the set. Even The People Under the Stairs, which didn't feature anything quite as involved as the dream-kills in Nightmare, had very inventive props and sets that would have been very intricate and involved to create and use on camera. Though some of his films didn't do this quite as much, they rarely go down without something crazy happening. Red Eye has way more missile launchers in it than you’d ever expect when you started watching it.
Ultimately,
I don't have much to say about him though. He was very successful, but his
greatest contribution to the genre was a blockbuster franchise that I'm not the
biggest supporter of. He had definite chops, but rarely veered away from lazy
filming, and loved to have characters spell things out for an audience. Still,
without him, horror would have been a very different genre, and he's been
influential, I'm sure, to many directors that followed him. Rest in Peace, Mr.
Craven.
So, that
caps off the first week of the 2015 marathon. Tonight I'm watching John
Carpenter's horror/sci-fi/action spectacle Ghosts of Mars, and a little later
in the week will be feasting my eyes on the ABCs of Death 2, a sequel of the
wildly enjoyable anthology film the ABCs of Death.
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