Monster Mash Movie Marathon Month - Week 2

Right out of the gate this week, I watched some movies I thought were quite good, before descending back into the depths of mediocrity I am used to with this exercise. Still, it's always appreciated to find something entertaining in this sea of screams, rubber suits and computer-generated blood splats. Not to mention, the ones I enjoyed the most were from the last couple of years - I think you all know by now how rare that is for me.

Enough jabber. Here's what my letter scores mean:

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

So, without further adieu, let's start the first full week of reviews! REMEMBER: My reviews might SPOIL these movies. I am better about revealing details about more recent films, but if you haven't seen Them! by now, you can't be too mad at me for telling you how it goes...

It Follows (David Robert Mitchell) - B+

Jay, and Hugh, the man she's recently begun dating, finally knock boots. While she's reminiscing about how she thought dating would go as a child, he proceeds to chloroform her, and strap her to a wheelchair in her undies. When Jay comes to, Hugh explains to her that by having sex with him, a thing (its nature is never explored) is going to be coming for her. It is always a person, but sometimes it's people she knows and sometimes it's strangers. No matter what, though, she can't let it get to her, and the only way to escape it is to sleep with someone else, and transfer it to them. After a couple encounters with the creature (in which all that happens is someone gradually walks directly at her), her friends become concerned, and they try to help her get to the bottom of this mysterious malady (starting with finding Hugh, who, they learn, is not really named Hugh at all). Will Jay be able to pass the curse on before whatever it is gets her?

It Follows has a sharp, unique premise and a very strong filmmaker at the helm. Literally all the monster really does is walk towards Jay most of the time, but the menace comes from the music, the camera work and the expectations the viewer will quietly form about where it will come from next. The film loves showing you empty space, with the understanding that you will assume anything that walks into frame is the monster, and instantly captures your attention. Indeed, only once are we given a sudden, shocking scare. In the other scenes, we see the thing coming literally a mile away, slowly pacing towards Jay. I would argue that this is drastically different from most modern horror films, and because of this difference, it gives an audience that is fatigued by modern horror tropes a breath of fresh air.

The pacing of the film is slow, and while this is integral to the film's success, some viewers might get bored. Faithful readers may consider me a hypocrite for feeling slow pacing is an upside (citing something like my review of Ti West's House of the Devil, in which I complain nothing happens, and the director is clearly more in love with his camera work than telling an engaging horror story), but why It Follows can get away with a simple premise and being light on things happening is because it has characters you care about, an appealing (if not heavy-handed) sense of style, and doesn't just threaten you endlessly with menace. It Follows manages to keep you as on edge as much as the characters living its terrifying plot. Horror directors of the 50s could take a lesson or two from this film about how to cheaply make a horror movie with a goofy idea while still making a quality product (I know time doesn't work that way, but darn it, I can dream).

Small complaints I'd make would be the retro style of the movie, while pleasant, is unnecessary. It's established early on that it takes place in a time with touchscreens and cellphones, but the music and locations often make you feel like you're watching something from the 80s. The soundtrack was eerily reminiscent of the score of Stranger Things (which I feel is a plus), and that's all well and good, but why give it that feel and not set it then? Technology never plays an intricate part in the story. It could have been the 80s. No one tries to look at the thing through a camera lens, or get rid of their death-curse-by-fucking on Craigslist.

But, whatever. It Follows is a pretty good modern horror movie in my books. It has style, a unique premise, and some genuinely disturbing moments. I will need further time to process how I feel about it, but I'll confidently say I liked it at least as much as anything I watched last year. I would caution though that this kind of thing only works once, so if we get sequels, it's bound to get fucked up somehow.

Krampus (Michael Dougherty) - B+

Max is a little old to believe in Santa, but he does. He tries his best to be good, but it's hard around the holidays when his stupid extended family shows up and gets up to their vicious, bullying crap. This Christmas is a little different, though, and once Max tears up his wish list, symbolically giving up on Santa in the process, things get spooky. Starting with a neighborhood blackout shortly after the family is assembled, Max's older sister Beth goes missing. Max's father and uncle go out to look for her, but soon return after Uncle Howard is almost dragged under the snow. That night, Howard's oldest son is fished out of the house via the chimney in front of everyone. Max's German grandmother knows what's up: Krampus (the evil, german-folklore Santa counterpart) has come back to punish the wicked. Now, Max's family is besieged by giant, angry Christmas toys that are hellbent on destroying them all. Escape seems impossible, but the family has to try...

Krampus came out last year around Christmas and quickly vanished from theatres. While the easy finger to point would be at Star Wars episode VII, it's possible that this was maybe a little too October for Christmas. Sure, it's very much a Christmas movie, but Krampus is also a very great horror movie too. Many genre are observed and executed quite well. We only get hints and screams as family member after family member are picked off, but by the time most of the children are gone, the monsters (Krampus' helpers) are seen in their full glory. What starts as a 'you've seen this story before' Christmas tale quickly turns into Have A Holly, Jolly Night of the Living Dead. Indeed, as the family lock themselves into grandmother's house and start barricading the windows, one cannot help but harken back to the mother of all zombie survival films.

The cast of Krampus, well, the adult cast of Krampus is superb (With particularly good performances by Adam Scott, David Koechner and Allison Tolman). The creature effects are alarmingly effective (until, perhaps, the finale where it looks like the designer was struck by a confusing Guillermo Del Toro obsession), with many of the characters we see probably being actual actors in costume (except the ginger bread cookies which are definitely computer graphics). Some excellent sound design and camera work help to sell the isolation of the family as bleak and hopeless. With the brilliant opening musical vignette (in which a department store opens its doors to have a crowd of riotous Christmas shoppers surge, who proceed to get into brawls with one another, before sadistic security guards taze them, smiling. The song used? Have Yourself a Merry, Little Christmas), the film feels like it's going to go into a preachy 'remember when North America was well-behaved during Christmas?' territory. But while morality does play a part in the story, no one learns a lesson or changes their ways. Krampus holds a mirror to our bad behavior, but offers no solutions, only repercussions. And that's probably what society needs anyway.

It's Alive (Larry Cohen) - C+

Frank and Lenore are about to have their second baby. After dropping 11-year old Chris at... um… Uncle? Friend of the family? Some dude named Charlie's, they arrive at the hospital. Lenore complains about something being different about her labor this time, but Frank and the doctors ignore her. Turns out, they shouldn't have when the baby massacres five doctors and nurses. It appears the baby is some kind of mutant killing machine (it is implied the mutation is a result of modern pharmaceuticals, though never explicitly revealed), and after escaping through an operating room skylight, it begins chewing its way through Beverly Hills, one victim at a time. Frank becomes a man possessed with destroying his evil offspring, callously signing its body away to science, and asking investigating officers to tag along on attempts to put the thing down. After many cat and mouse chases, the police manage to corner it in the city sewer system. Frank finds it first, and has a sudden, predictable change of heart. This doesn't save the baby, which does end up going down in a blaze of gunfire (along with the doctor that cannot wait to autopsy it), and as Frank and Lenore leave the scene with the police lieutenant in charge of the task force, all three learn a grim fact: another monster baby has been born in Seattle.

I love Larry Cohen. The man is not a celebrated director of horror, but he consistently made effective, eclectic movies. It's Alive is probably his best known work in the genre (there are two sequels that follow, including a pairing of Cohen with his best leading man ever, Michael Moriarty in part three). While It's Alive is a perfectly decent monster story, its wacky creature, all over the place acting, and predictable story are downright amateurish. But there's a lot going on behind the scenes, especially with regards to the script. It's Alive is a satirical commentary on parenthood, media, police incompetence, drug companies and other normal things that were taken for granted by its audience. This rich tapestry of subtext is subtle (no one ever comes out and starts ranting "What's the matter with this country?"), and is ultimately the most interesting thing going on in the movie.

Though I did enjoy it well enough, it wasn't the most compelling Cohen film (Q: the Winged Serpent is a classier monster movie, while The Stuff is a richer social commentary on American society, albeit from a different angle). The first half of the film is rather bland; next to no creature effects grace the screen, and I feel like the existence and hostile response to the infant are kind of glossed over so that Frank's character can be fully established (which would work better if this was a drama or thriller, not a monster movie). The two final scenes make up for this though, as the two parents soften and begin to realize there is room for a little monster in their lives.

Ghoulies (Luca Bercovici) - D-

Jonathan just inherited his estranged father's house. Why was he estranged, you ask? Because he used to be some kind of crazy warlock that was tight with demons and fed them human sacrifices. He was, in fact, going to sacrifice Johnathan as a baby, but his mother put a magic necklace on baby Jonny that prevented him from doing so. Anyway, not long after arriving at his new digs, Jonathan discovers his dad's library and becomes conveniently obsessed with the occult, much to the chagrin of his girlfriend Becky. The mired couple throw a housewarming party, and afterwards, Jonathan, Becky and six of their closest friends ‘do a ritual'. It seems to fail, but doesn't. Not that it matters, as later, Jonathan just keeps casting spells and eventually populates his house with little demon puppets. Then he summons two dwarves, and they promise they can make his wishes come true, if he performs a special ritual. Naturally, Jonathan enacts the spell, summoning his Zombie Pops back into existence. Zombie Pops reveals he's been controlling Jonathan the whole time, and aims to steal his youth. Then you get to the wizard battles...

All I knew about Ghoulies going into it was it is considered a Gremlins rip off. That's not entirely accurate, as it turns out, but people are probably referring to the demons that get conjured up by all the black magic going on. These, unlike the Gremlins, are almost just window-dressing to the film, only showing up to fill (steal?) screen time away from the woefully-lacking script. Indeed, given the first shots of the movie show you the creatures right off the bat, you can't help but feel like someone was incredibly proud of their puppet monsters. But, as was often the case with cheap monster effects, the more of the monster you see, the less impressive it becomes, and Ghoulies shows you these little bastards a lot. In fact, very soon you figure out there's probably only four or five models that get used multiple times, and can't move more than their eyes and lips. Later, over halfway through the film, you come to understand that they are more of a talking point than something that impacts the story, you begin to wonder why so much time is being spent on them.

There's a lot of heart here, but also some really terrible acting, a director that makes weird decisions about timing and editing, and a script that dictates too much time on dreck, and not enough time on the plot. These factors make Ghoulies dull and difficult to like. It's got decent special effects beyond the inanimate puppet monsters (the best of which being a tongue that crushes a dude's throat), but for 1985, even these are kind of lackluster. Eraserhead star Jack Nance makes an appearance and narrates the film, but the real surprise is the chick from Law and Order: SVU (she's dating the dud) in her first credited role. Not that she is particularly stand out, or anything.

Creep (Patrick Brice) - F

Josef has hired Aaron to come out to his isolated cottage and make a video documentary about a day in his life. But this is a found footage horror movie, so his story turns out to be bullshit. Josef has lured Aaron out there to be murdered, but Aaron smartly drugs Josef and eventually confronts him. You're made to think Aaron dies, but it's revealed he hasn't. Josef terrorizes Aaron a bit more and then eventually does kill him. Turns out Josef does this kind of thing a lot.

I enjoy found footage, but maybe I've seen too much. Within the first few minutes of the movie, I could tell:

•  Because the footage was edited, one of the two characters would have survived and made a movie
• Because this was a low budget indie movie, there'd be no gore or special effects
• Because there was going to be no gore or special effects, the film was going to rely entirely on startling you, or showing you things in frame that Aaron doesn't see or notice.
•  Because the story is going to be about two characters in mostly isolated locations, the success of the film is going to really depend on the performances of the two leads.
• Because of how much they show our camera man, Aaron, we are in for a tacky ride (showing the person filming in found footage is highly unrealistic).

With regards to the last two points, Aaron screams a lot and makes some stupid choices. Josef is better, and his character does transition from weirdo to psychopath more-or-less at an appropriate pace, but anyone who has seen the trailer knows at once that his story is bogus, and spending 2/3s of the movie on the set up to get to 'Josef is actually a murderer' makes most of his stories unimportant. Inexplicably, the filmmakers thought doing a 5 minute scene with the lens cap on the camera was a good idea (the movie is about 75 minutes long, so that's not insignificant), but actually this is an awful choice, as it slows the film down even further. Honestly, Josef is at his best wearing his Peachfuzz outfit (a legitimately unnerving werewolf mask). This is played for laughs earlier, but no one is fooled.

As to showing Aaron, I knew it was going to be rough when he was filming himself at the start, as it set the stage for further scenes. Now, in a two person found footage movie, I get that you gotta show more than one character or it verges into ultra-boring territory, but, showing the camera person often only serves to remind you that you're watching a movie, which in turns shatters the extreme realism needed to pull off a movie in this sub-genre. It shouldn't have shown him at all until after the escape from Josef's cabin.

Ultimately, the most disappointing aspect of the film is its conclusion. As mentioned, the third act of the picture concerns Aaron having escaped and more terrorizing from Josef. At this point, really the only clever point in the movie, the script had a chance to go in another direction. Aaron has some nightmares in which he and Josef are more similar than Aaron is comfortable with. I found myself wondering if, after all, Aaron would end up slaying Josef and take up being a serial murder himself. That would have been a real twist. But instead, these scenes don't go anywhere and Josef ends up killing Aaron (a cool shot, but hardly anything mind-blowing) before the plodding story reveals Josef lures many hipster videographers to their death. This is a far more typical ending than I think the screenwriters care to admit. Ultimately, Creep is just a forgettable experience.

Piranha (Joe Dante) - C+

Maggie, a spunky private investigator, is dispatched to look into the disappearance of two teens in Flordia-like backwoods. Not long after she arrives, she meets up with Paul, an alcoholic divorcee who seemingly wants nothing to do with her. Nevertheless, the two trace her quarry to an abandoned military station in the mountains, where they encounter Dr. Hoak, and unwittingly free his creation. Hoak had been working on a special breed of piranha to be used by the American military in the Vietnam War, but the war ended before they saw use. Now, the mutant monsters have been released into the local waterways, and Maggie and Paul race against time to stymie the spread of the fish, and save as many locals as possible.

Piranha is a successful, if not notorious franchise all on its own, so let's skip the obvious comparison to Jaws (the second scene of the film shows Maggie playing a Jaws arcade game - a direct nod to this film's inspiration). What we have here is a charming enough B-Movie for its day, but it's actually fairly typical when compared to others of its ilk. Some of the special effects are impressive (especially earlier in the film when you see a man's legs have been chewed to the bone, and there's an unexplained stop-motion animated fish-thing in Hoak's lab), but most are of the usual, cheap, don't let the audience see it much variety. We get many underwater shots, but these become so commonplace that you start to lose your appreciation for them as the film goes on.

Piranha has way too many characters in it for such a simple story. Maggie and Paul get the most screen time, but there's a subplot with Paul's daughter at summer camp (introducing her, along with three camp counselors that have multiple scenes), a military cover-up subplot (including scientists and a crooked colonel, arguably the film's human antagonist). Add to that Dr Hoak, Maggie's boss, a greedy resort owner, Paul's spritely neighbor, and a gaggle of other victims, and you drastically reduce the time you can dedicate to your story. Perhaps the filmmakers figured that the oodles of piranha attack scenes would be the main attraction (and probably were), but it just makes for a very repetitive experience. An attack on the summer camp is followed directly by an attack on the resort, and they're so similar, you wonder why they weren't rolled into one, longer scene. Piranha is a classic, and absolutely worth a watch, but not by much.

Them! (Gordon Douglas) - C

A pair of New Mexico police officers find a little girl wandering the desert, followed by the wreckage of first a trailer, and then a general store. One cop, Ben, leaves the scene to bring back more men (a good choice, as his partner wanders off frame, shoots his gun a few times and screams). An unusual print is found in the sand when Ben returns. The police send this to the scientific community and are soon joined by an FBI agent named Robert, and a pair of scientists from the department of Agriculture, Dr. Harold Medford and his daughter Pat. Medford immediately suspects the culprit is giant ants (a result of nuclear bomb testing in the area), and his suspicion proves correct, leading Ben and Robert to a nest that the group promptly wipes out (using a combination of bazookas, cyanide gas and flamethrowers). Alas, they have discovered the nest too late and young queens have already flown the coop to make hives of their own. One is quickly discovered in Corpus Cristi (it is dealt with efficiently), the other in the Los Angeles sewer system. Due to the urban location, humans have begun to go missing in the big city, so Ben, Robert and Dr. Medford lead the charge into a final confrontation with the nuclear-grown insects. Will the American military be defeated? Not on your life, bub.

On the one hand, Them! is a pretty standard from the 1950s collection of sci-fi horror. A monstrosity created by scientific disasters threatens the American way of life, and the military needs to stop it. The conclusion is a given (it's rare we see the military portrayed as villains today, and unheard of during these early cold war years), and no one is really acting in the modern sense of the word. At no point do you feel as though there is any danger to the world, on account of how efficiently those good ole American boys dispatch ant after ant with common know-how. The cringing moments of heavy sexism makes the film seem incredibly out of touch (though, in its day, this was business as usual).

To its credit, however, Them! doesn't waste a lot of time getting to man vs. giant ant. Bob & Co bust out flamethrowers before the halfway point. Actual military hardware was used, and, in some way was probably very reassuring to see that if these weapons were good enough to deal with giant ants, they were certainly good enough to crush the Communist threat. Cool as this is, it feels - as many 50s sci-fi horrors do - as though it's more propaganda about the assured success of the military against fantastic odds.

How about the giant ants? Well, they're cheesy, but not terrible. They do suffer from diminishing returns the more you see them, but there's one giant ant that's hanging out of an anthill with a fake human rib cage hanging on its mandibles that deserves mention (you definitely don't see an image like that every day). Later, though, Dr. Medford starts telling other characters about how ants work, his explanation is heard over a nature documentary about the insects. It really felt like I was back in elementary school.  This film is better than most of its contemporaries, but that’s not saying much.

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Well, that does it for another week of MMMMM reviews. I hope you enjoyed reading about them. This week, we forge on with another seven films. The line-up is somewhat fluid, still, but tonight is The Witch! I've heard good things, and I hope to see them come to life (well... in movie form). Til next time, my Bloody Buddies.