Monster Mash Movie Marathon Month 2014 - Week 3

Hello, once again! I'm now on week three of my marathon, and have been enjoying it endlessly this year. Since I've pledged to review each of these films, my experience is yours for the reading, friends!

A reminder of my grading system: 

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

I watched some pretty excellent movies this week, actually! Most of them get a B- or higher rating, which is a rare treat for me during the month of October. 

You might also notice, if you've been following my daily posts on facebook, that several of this week's films have had a rating adjustment as of the time of this post. These films include: Pandorum (C- to D+) and Afflicted (B- to B). Pandorum was just less impressive after watching so many good horror films this month. Meanwhile, Afflicted was my favorite of the found footage trio I watched this year, and while I don't want to overhype it, I do think this Canadian effort is a very well made film.

So, thanks for indulging my self-criticism! Let's move on to this week's reviews. Remember ** THEY CAN SPOIL THESE MOVIES FOR YOU **, so read at your own risk!

Pandorum (Christian Alvart) -D+

In the future, Mankind's last hope is the spaceship Elysium. Cpl. Bower wakes up onboard to find no one else left except for himself and Lt. Payton. Soon, Bower sets out, with Payton guiding him over radio, to restart the ship's reactor and to get some answers about what happened to Elysium. The first third of this sci-fi film has some legitimate horror to it, but in the later thirds amps up the action... In a surprisingly low-tech way. The title of the film comes from the space madness that humans can experience as a result of deep sleep during space travel (along with convenient amnesia), which, as you can imagine, factors into the plot somewhere along the way.

It's nothing special, but Pandorum boasts neat, atmospheric moments during the early parts of the film, before you have much of an idea of what is going on. The film translates a sense of isolation to the viewer very quickly, and you can't help feel bad for poor Bower, crawling through ducts, running through corridors, and hearing the occasional heaving of starship bunkheads. Dennis Quaid, who plays the one-room wonder, Lt. Payton, does a decent job as a concerned voice, lending aid to Bower. It isn't until Bower starts to meet other survivors that the film begins to descend into a Movie-Based-on-a-Video-Game kind of feel (which it isn't, but it sure feels like it is).

Actually most of the actors in the film are decent (particularly non-english speaking Manh, who tragically meets his end when he lets his guard down in front of an adorable alien life form). But the script doesn't take a lot of time to explain itself. True, lack of exposition fits in this kind of movie, but only up to a point. Any explanation to the monsters that inhabit Elysium is either not found, or explained so quickly you're prone to miss it. Especially in the final act of the film, the action sequences get too fast paced, and, at points, confusing. The more suspenseful beginning of the film sets a great tone, but that tone vanishes when the script demands action.

Afflicted (Derek Lee, Clif Prowse) - B

A relatively recent entry into the pantheon of found footage movies, Afflicted is the story of two Canadian college students who plan to do a tour of the world, video-document their travels, and blog about it. The film purports to be their videoblog. Derek and Clif are our protagonists, with Derek being the face and Clif being behind the camera. Early into their trip, Derek is mauled by a woman that he picks up in a Parisian club. Clif is concerned about his pal, who begins to act weirder and weirder, but Derek insists they keep traveling. Before too long, both men are all too aware that Derek is transforming into something else.

Afflicted, in many ways, plays with the found footage, and horror movie conventions in general. Before halfway through the movie, Clif and Derek have figured out what's happening, which saves you the trouble of guessing. Once the audience is let in on it, Afflicted still manages to be spooky, replacing the monsters (mostly) with Interpol SWAT teams, firmly changing the antagonist from monster to human. While there are still some scary moments, a lot of the films tensest scenes comes not from sudden scares or jolts, but from watching the degradation of Derek. This culminates around the time he and Clif go searching for a live meal, a prospect that disgusts both men.

There are problems with the film, of course. Clif is one of the more unpleasant found film narrators I've ever encountered. He is annoying, and talks too much. Thankfully, you do not have to suffer him through the whole film (and Afflicted improves by degrees when he exits). The special effects on screen are few, but well done (super strength effects are especially neat to see in a POV format). It also transitions well from the tone of celebration and adventure from the start to a much darker, tragic monster story at the end. The film does a great job of exploring its monster mythology without being too blatant. Even inconsequential scenes, such as Derek crossing paths with a dog after he's on his own, give you more information about the story than dialogue between characters could hope to.

If you watch Afflicted, be sure to keep watching into the credits for the final scene. It sets up a sequel, though it is my feeling that Afflicted will be much better as a stand-alone film rather than a franchise.

Cannibal Holocaust (Ruggero Deodato) - C+

An intrepid American documentary team has gone missing and is presumed dead. Anthropology professor Harold Monroe agrees to venture into their last known location in the Amazon to find out what became of them (and to attempt to recover their footage). After some adventures, Monroe and his guide, Chaco, meet with the Yamamoto tribe of people. The Yamamoto are reclusive, war-like, and very definitely killed and ate the American film team. Monroe, after some quick thinking, befriends the tribe, and secures the film canisters. Back in America, Monroe is approached by the team's financial backers to examine their footage and see what can be edited together to finish their film.

Cannibal Holocaust is a story of civilization versus nature, and it posits that civilized society can be even more depraved than people who eat the fallen corpses of enemy warriors. And they're right. There's even the sense that you, the viewer, fit right in with this description, since you yourself are watching this film to be entertained. Lots of depraved shit happens in this movie: multiple rapes, multiple animal slayings (real ones! This film was made outside of animal cruelty laws), genital mutilations, they're all there folks! Why, there's even a scene of a late term abortion, followed by the slaying of the mother. This stuff is still very hard to watch in 2014, so you can imagine that the audiences of 1980 were horrified by this film. Mix in the fact that it was being publicized as real and that there had never been a movie that was made in a found footage style before it, and you've got yourself a recipe for director Deodato going to court to prove that his actors were alive.

This film was one of the hardest to watch that I've ever included in my horror month. Cannibal Holocaust satirizes exploitation film-making, but also is an exploitation film itself. The reprehensible actions of the American film crew are ironically mirrored by Deodato’s cavalier attitude towards animal murder (the other horrifying acts, while not easy to witness either, are somehow more reconcilable because they are staged. No one was really raped, no one was killed, and even the aborted baby is clearly a prop). The natives were not actors, and one wonders how they were coerced into making this film. However, as bad as the images you are seeing are, in many ways, the feeling the film tries to evoke in you - one of horrified disgust - hits the mark. Atrocities committed by the natives are certainly barbaric, but they are a calculated attack on the sensibilities of the West. What is commonplace for them is disgusting to us. The first half of the film sets this tone by way of having Professor Monroe immediately wanting to intervene on anything he sees the natives doing that doesn't mesh with his sensibilities. But this gets turned on its head in the second half of the film, when Monroe is watching the footage from the American team. The Americans commit the most heinous of deeds in the pursuit of their film. They kill, they destroy, they take what they want, they wantonly kill livestock and they rape without question. By the time they get theirs, there is no question that the documentary makers were the true monsters in the setting. You don't enjoy watching their end, but it is somehow fitting.

French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard made a film in 1968 called Weekend. I'll spare you a lengthy outline of the plot (though it is one of my favorites of all times), but the overarching message of the film is that the horrors of the West can only be answered by greater horrors. So too is the message of Cannibal Holocaust. The film even starts by saying that the marvel of landing on the moon has already been forgotten as we look to travel further into space. And yet there are entire realms of the planet that we have yet to fully understand. And so Deodato expertly captures this feeling as we follow his characters into the perilous jungles still untouched by civilized man. Not a single scene in this film happens at night, and yet there is something dark and foreboding about the setting. Something alien, that we in our comfortable city homes cannot hope to conceive of.

I've gone on at length now about the content, so let's briefly talk about format. As mentioned, this film was the first ever found footage movie. While this format was popularized almost 20 years later by the Blair Witch Project, before Cannibal Holocaust, even art cinema never attempted such a thing. Now, it's not true found footage, not like we know it today. Only the last 45 minutes of the film, the footage from the Americans being viewed by Monroe and some executives, could be considered part of the genre (Monroe's journey is filmed in a more or less typical style). Even then, music is added and commentary by those viewing it is peppered through it while they are watching it. It is not one long segment either: the film takes pauses for the concerned characters to digest and discuss what they've been witnessing. The last 15 minutes, including the final audacious acts and subsequent killing of the Americans, purports to be unedited, but still the soundtrack plays. And even this sequence is broken up by the projectionist having change reels. Due to these minor differences, the found footage style isn't exactly present. It is merely the building blocks for what comes later in the genre (much in the same way Bird With the Crystal Plumage wasn't a true slasher, but clearly influenced the genre, or at the very least was before its time).

Given the amount of emotional impact the film had on me, I'm kind of forced to give it a decent grade. It is a well-made, and groundbreaking film without trying hard to be. It makes valid social arguments and can be enjoyed on a theoretical level. But please understand, though I analyze the film and put it in a positive light, it is not something the majority of people will ever want or need to see. I'm serious, folks. Just take my word for it. They fish a real turtle out of a river and destroy it. Beheading and all. Please carefully consider my words before ever watching it. As they say on Futurama: you can't unsee it.

Cloverfield (Matt Reeves) - D

Rob is moving to Japan for work, so his older brother Jason throws him a surprise going away party. Jason is supposed to film this party, but instead he passes the buck to Rob's slow-witted best friend Hud. Things get dramatic when Rob's friend Beth shows up with a pretentious new boyfriend! Turns out Rob and Beth slept together not too long ago, and Rob is in love with her now. After a brief altercation, Beth leaves the party... And then a giant monster starts decimating Manhattan. All of a sudden, Rob, Jason, Hud, Jason's girlfriend Lily, and redshirt Marlena are in a found footage monster movie.

This, along with Paranormal Activity,  is probably the best known found footage film since the Blair Witch Project. Cloverfield is the least horror-themed found footage piece I've ever seen, being more of an action adventure style situation. The problem is that most of the film's scenes after the party at the start are just the characters running and screaming. The moments where the characters have any control of the situation they are in are few. They, like the audience, are mostly along for the ride. This creates tension, sure, but as most of the movie is the same kind of tension (frantic running!), and that gets a little tedious. While there are a couple sequences (the subway tunnel and subsequent visit to the doctor) that have an excellent genre feel to them, these scenes are few.

It's amazing that even with probably one of the largest budgets in found footage history, Cloverfield has some of the shoddiest camera work I've ever seen. I know the notion is that an amateur is taking this footage as he runs through a disaster, but a significant amount of time is spent with Hud having the camera pointed at the ground. There are many plot points that seem implausible, such as why the military is so cool with letting Rob and his party do whatever they want all movie. This may also mark the first product placement for found footage (because nothing cleans monster bites like the fresh feel of Dasani!). Cloverfield is light on information about what's going on. While it can be argued that this is realistic because we're watching a disaster from the perspective of a citizen, it also allows for lazy writing, and allows us to get at least 20 more minutes of running under our belt. It also probably encouraged people to take part in Cloverfield's viral marketing campaign - the only way to get ANY back-story on the creature (which, let's face it, no one is going to do six years after the movie was released). I know producer J.J. Abrams loves his viral marketing content, but forcing it on us to find out what the hell is going on in your movie seems like a bit of a dick move in hindsight.

What I liked about Cloverfield, though, was its premise. It was a fresh take on giant monster movies, even if it was not executed in a satisfying way. It just did not take the premise in a suitable direction. If you aren't willing to provide your audience with exposition, then you damn well better make sure your film doesn't lull (which Cloverfield tends to do, since the love story of Rob and Beth continues to try and claw its way to the forefront in the face of a world-changing disaster). There are better found footage movies, and far more satisfying monster movies (which segues nicely to...).

Q (aka Q: the Winged Serpent) (Larry Cohen) - B-

Shepard (played by awesome kung fu guy, David Carradine) and Powell are investigating a bizarre series of rooftop abductions and ritualistic flayings. At first the cases appear to be isolated from one another, but as Shepard begins to find evidence implicating the Aztec wing at the history museum, and more and more reports flood the Manhattan police station about a giant flying reptile eating citizens in broad daylight, it begins to look like there may be a connection after all. Meanwhile, small time crook and reformed junkie Jimmy Quinn can't seem to do anything right. After a failed bank robbery, Quinn hides in the top of a skyscraper under construction. He is surprised to find several skeletal remains along with a giant egg in a nest. These storylines merge when Quinn steps forward to assist the police in locating and destroying the giant reptile terrorizing New York.

I'm going to admit, I was hugely surprised by this film. It is a ridiculous premise, sure. And even though Q doesn't take itself all that seriously, it still manages to be a damned good giant monster movie. Questzalcoatl's attacks ramp up at a good pace, showing you more and more of the creature with every convenient rooftop victim being snatched into the sky. On the Aztec sacrifice side of the plot, this storyline fades into the background slightly, but they bring you back into it with a jarring bloody corpse now and then. But most of the story focuses on the bumbling actions of Quinn: a man that literally doesn't do anything well, tends to complain about everything and expects the world of everyone he speaks to. Because of this, the picture takes on an extremely silly, B-Movie tone. And yet the camera work and storytelling manage to keep you interested. We are treated to many dazzling aerial shots of Manhattan, often feeling like a premonition to some poor sod (often a bikini-clad babe) being grabbed off a rooftop by a giant green claw.

The monster effects are stop-motion, done in a style reminiscent of Ray Harryhausen, the celebrated creature animator of Clash of the Titans fame. The effects do look a little dated today, but given everything else in the film being tongue-in-cheek, this actually adds to the film's tone. The ending is fairly predictable, but it's supposed to be. And, again, the visuals of the film (mostly aerial establishing shots) are excellent, and even the Aztec regalia worn by the cultists are surprisingly sinister. Q is a good time, for sure, and has only improved with age.

Inseminoid (Norman J. Warren) - D-

Somebody really liked Alien! On a remote planet, a crew of scientists gets infected by some kind of xenomorph. Ricky, the first crew member to be infected, gets off light, but Sandy, after a period of abduction is recovered. She has all the same signs of trouble as Ricky, but she's also suddenly two months pregnant. Before too long, Sandy has gained super strength and attempts to slaughter the crew.

Inseminoid has the look of a professional film, but its all smoke and mirrors. The props are cheap, the acting is uneven and the script is pretty bad. The look of the film, as mentioned, is borrowed directly from Alien, right down to the very incorrect technology that mirrored plausible futuristic super computers, based on the technology of the 1970s. The creature effects are few, and seem to be of the rubber suit variety. Most of the tension comes from the batshit expressions of actress Judy Geeson who played Sandy.

The one quality of the film that stands out is the photography. Inseminoid has a surprisingly good framing that makes you occasionally forget its lesser qualities. And while its final sequence is predictable and repetitive, Inseminoid manages to keep you involved with its cat and mouse game finish.

Les Yeux Sans Visage (Eyes Without a Face) (Georges Franju) - A-

Dr. Genessier, a brilliant plastic surgeon recently lost his daughter, Christiane, in a car accident. Or at least, that's what he tells the police. The more complicated truth is that Christiane did not die in the crash, rather, her face was left horribly scarred. No longer able to be in public (she wears a mask that makes her look like an animate mannequin), her father keeps her housebound while he sends out Louise, his loyal ex-patient, to walk the streets of Paris and find suitable young women. Once found, Louise brings them to the professor's house under false pretenses, and he steals their faces to try and graft them onto Christiane. The good doctor is a man driven, you see, and he will not rest until he had restores his daughter.

Tame by all standards today, Les Yeux Sans Visage is a hauntingly beautiful film. It is also the first film to feature a mad surgeon as its villain. With sprawling interior locations, a never-ending series of shots featuring dead trees, and a surprisingly upbeat soundtrack, we don't need a surgeon making a bloody mess to tell us that we should be frightened. Indeed, there really aren't any monsters in this picture. The professor, while certainly breaking the law, and being resolute in doing so is driven to a vile purpose, not deranged, nor evil. He attempts to make his facial victims comfortable, even after their surgery. Louise, his Ygor, isn't sadistic or single minded in her duties. She is a former patient and very much believes that the doctor is in the right (a position that nets her being clubbed over the head and later murdered). As such, you don't really wish any of the characters to meet their end, making this film all the more tragic.

This is a genre classic, making the top 20 in many credible horror movie lists, often beating out better-known classics like Frankenstein or I Walked With a Zombie. While horror audiences of today may not find it to be gruesome enough (it is fairly goreless, given the subject matter), the tone of the film is far darker than most of the films I've watched this month. Many films I've cited as having good photography or framing pale in comparison to this effort. A necessary watch for horrorphiles.

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So onwards! Today I'll be watching 1988's Pumpkinhead, starring Lance Henriksen. Beyond that, I have no exact plans, but the choices are narrowing. Stay tuned to this space for more as the month creeps on.

Monster Mash Movie Marathon Month 2014 - Week 2

Well, it's Sunday, so it's time to tell you all about the movies I watched this week, and how I felt about them. But first, here's another friendly reminder of the grading scale.

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

I know many of you don't agree with some of the grades I give out, and it just goes to show you how personal the horror genre can be. And, as usual, please be aware that THESE REVIEWS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!! So, without any further ado, let's get into the reviews...

Insidious (James Wan) - C+

Josh and Renie have just recently had their third child, and have moved into a beautiful new home. Almost immediately, though, after their eldest son, Dalton, slips into a coma, Renie starts to have horrifying experiences and seeing figures that no one else can. She convinces Josh that they need to move. At first the new house seems to have done the trick, but it isn't long before Renie has the same old problems. Renie hires a psychic, someone Josh's mother knows. The psychic immediately informs the couple that their son is the source of their haunting, and from there, it gets complicated.

This film received a lot of positive hype when it was released, but probably only because it was being made by the creators of successful horror franchises like Saw and Paranormal Activity. It did a very good job of making both houses feel very sinister. The usual format of ghost movies, in my experience anyway, is that the paranormal aspects enter the film slowly, revealing the restless dead piece by piece to the viewer, often not letting the audience see an active ghost til the final confrontation (though, many times, this is probably due to budget-related reasons). Not the case here! The ghosts haunting Dalton physically appear very early in the picture. While at first I found this to be a refreshing change, it didn't leave much suspense for the finale. And while the monsters were very cool to look at, it's hard to be scared of ghosts that always smile. Or of a demon that looks like Darth Maul.

The film's pacing suffers. While it does reveal some of the ghosts early on, you only get frustrated when the reveals end too quickly. It feels like you're just waiting for the next scene that features something other than the protagonist family. It picks up somewhat when the psychics and her lackeys enter the picture, but then it gets real Poltergeist. You know somehow that things are going to be OK, and it seems kind of silly on the film's part to try and convince you otherwise. Still, the presentation and visual effects are good enough to keep you going.

The Thing (2011) (Matthijs van Heijnengen) - D+

A remote Norwegian science team has made the discovery of the century! Frozen in the ice near their base is a friggin' alien! The leader of the Norwegians, Dr. Sandor Halvorson, enlists the help of some American scientists, led by Kate Lloyd. Once back on the scene of their discovery, Halvorson cracks the ice to get a tissue sample, and it’s not too long after that the alien wakes up and parties like its 1982! Before long, only Kate and Carter, her crackerjack pilot ally, are all that stands between the Thing and the end of humanity.

Sound familiar? It ought to. This prequel to John Carpenter's version of The Thing examines what happened to the Norwegian science base that the Americans find destroyed. While it nicely sets up many tie-ins with Carpenter's movie, it also borrows almost every tense moment from it too. The famous blood test scene, the old dead-body-coming-back-to-life-at-an-inconvenient-moment trick, all the classics are there. It also prefers a more direct approach with its monster, rather than relying on building a character story to play off the paranoia of the premise. You get to see a lot of CGI Thing creatures running around in this movie. Big ones, little ones. And most, not all, but most of them have pretty grizzly vagina dentatas.

Maybe that's sour grapes. Carpenter's Thing is one of my favorites in the genre. This movie takes a neat premise - what happened to the last guys that found this impossibly hard to kill alien? - and bungles it. The reason Thing 82 was such a good movie was because there was a decent build up to the meat of the plot, thanks to having strong characters. Macready was a cynic who hated having authority thrust on him, Childs was skeptical of everyone, Blair was paranoid of the legitimate threat to humanity, Palmer was a chuckle-hungry stoner, Windows was a fuck-up who deserved to be badgered through the whole movie and so on. In Thing 2011, you really only get to know Kate as your protagonist, Halvorson as the asshole who was in it for fame, and you kind of got to know Lars, the only Norwegian at the base who doesn't speak English. The trouble is, there's probably over 20 living characters at the peak of people being alive in the film. That's a hard number to keep track of. There's really no chance to get to know many of the characters before they start getting eaten. I think a solution to this problem would have been to dispose of the American team all together. True, Kate is your protagonist, so the story would have to be retooled a little, but the Norwegian characters were all solidly done, so it seems clear they could have done this and still managed to make an excellent film (though it would have been a reader).

Thing 82 largely succeeded because it didn't attach a morality to its characters, leaving the audience to make their own decisions about who was good and evil (other than Macready, who was the only obvious protagonist). Even characters that went bad, like Blair, often did it for very plausible reasons. In Thing 2011, we are supplied with this information. Kate and Lars are good guys, Halvorson is the bad guy, and anyone who supports either immediately falls into that camp for the viewer. As such, it greatly reduces the paranoia the audience feels. While in Thing 2011, there is the ever present threat that some good characters are aliens, there's a whole group of characters that we aren't supposed to like, and whether they're Things or not doesn't add anything to the narrative.

I'm also not sure how to explain this, but the advanced CGI effects somehow seemed more fake to me than the creature effects in Thing 82. Especially the scene in which we first see a character turn into one of them. He's just talking, then his face ripples and then he morphs suddenly into a monster. But you can almost tell when he stops being just an actor. I found several of the effects, specifically when transitioning from human to monster, to look extra fake. This movie had a real tough act to follow in the special effects department, though, so maybe I should be less critical.

Race with the Devil (Jack Starrett) - D-

Frank and Roger, along with their wives, have got a plan to go skiing up in Aspen. They have this new-fangled RV, you see, so they hitch up some dirt bikes, and they get traveling. One evening, thinking they've managed to spy on a hip, young orgy, the pair are horrified when they discover what they witnessed is in fact a ritualistic sacrifice. Those hippies are Satanists, who are pretty pissed off when they realize Frank and Roger saw their misdeed. From there, the RV crew races desperately to flee pursuing bad guys who manage to be around every corner.

There's not much to say about this one. It billed itself in the trailer as one long car chase, but this really only happens for about 12 minutes towards the end. This chase scene is the only scene in the movie of any note. It does contain a lot of shots of Roger and Frank's RV getting smashed, a few car tricks, and some spectacular crashes. I imagine a good portion of this films budget went into pyrotechnics, as more than one car goes up in a huge fireball.

But the majority of the movie is spent watching the characters go through an increasingly frustrating series of attempts to get help. Everywhere they turn, they meet resistance. They, and by extension, you in the audience don't trust anyone they meet. The wives tend to handle every challenge by going hysterical (earlier they try to help by stealing some books on witchcraft from a local library, but this moment of helpfulness is overshadowed by every scene that follows having them scream and cower). The locals are colorful, but you can immediately tell that they are up to no good. In fact, when you realize that every scene in the movie leading up to the car chase is the same thing done over and over again, you lose interest. This is compounded by the film not even taking the time to explore its antagonists. Once you see the sacrifice and our heroes get back on the road, very little is discovered about the satanic society. All you get to know is they're everywhere. But not why. Or to what end. Ho-hum.

The Wizard of Gore (Herschell Gordon Lewis) - F

We open on a monologue from Montag, the Magnificent. Montag is a magician that butchers lady volunteers during his act in just the bloodiest ways possible. Each night of his show he does a different "trick". These tricks are obviously fatal (being sawed in half, having a metal spike driven through a brain, swallowing swords, etc.), but somehow the volunteer is miraculously unharmed after some trippy editing. At least, until about an hour after the show, when the women suddenly die in the same fashion that Montag killed them on stage. Sherry, a day time talk show host, and her fiancée, Jack, see Montag's first show, and Sherry is determined to have the wizard on her program. He agrees, but only if she keeps attending his performances.

This film was completely a vehicle for its gore effects. You can tell by the emphasis the film puts on its gross-out scenes, and by the lack of talent with any other aspect of the movie. Microphones pick up wind in outside scenes, there are millions of jump cuts giving the picture a terribly disjointed feel, and none of the actors are particularly good at acting.

So let's talk about these gore effects. Since it’s obvious by the lack of any sort of talent through the rest of the film, and Lewis used to be considered quite the gore-maker of his day, the special effects have to be kind of impressive. But the way in which they are presented - with uneven, repetitive music, confusing jump cuts, and Montag leering and running his hands through their wounds - leaves a lot to be desired. Nevertheless, fans of bad horror will be delighted by the acting here. Some of the lines are comedic gold, including a little piece in which Jack panics about his friend’s hands.

The Beyond (Lucio Fulci) - C+

Liza purchases a fixer-upper hotel somewhere in Louisiana. Decades previous, however, a murder had taken place, the body boarded up in room 36. As it turns out, room 36 contains a doorway to hell. When Liza has an ill-fated plumber begin to work on the pipes, it sets off a chain of events that threatens to bring hell to Earth. With the aid of smarmy, nonbeliever, Doctor John and the mysterious blind woman, Emily, Liza attempts to find out exactly what is going on with her hotel.

Now, the above paragraph sounds pretty straight forward, but this movie is kind of all over the place. From our first on screen death, the kill scenes are varied and even somewhat confusing. Early it becomes clear that deaths are not confined to the hotel, but it’s not exactly explained how. The special effects are oddly inconsistent. In scenes where ghosts arrive to haunt Emily, you can tell that what you're looking at are rags and paper mache made to look humanoid. Yet not five minutes later, some excellent gore effects happen. Sometimes this can be quite the contradiction (such as a scene where a man who has fallen off a ladder is beset by tarantulas. While some of the spiders are real, others are unabashedly fake). But then, at the same time, some of the gore effects are awesomely done (I howled with laughter and rewound several times when Doctor John offs a character in the last few minutes of the film).

But Fulci is no hack. The cinematography is pretty wonderful. The visuals of the film make up for some of the shoddier special effects. But some of the scenes go on too long. The aforementioned spider scene goes on about three times longer than needed. This movie could be a good time, as long as you don't take it too seriously.

The ABCs of Death (Various Directors) - B+

This collaboration is an anthology film quite unlike any other. 26 contemporary horror directors were each given a letter, and got to pick a word (or phrase) that corresponded to their letter. The result: 26 different short films in which at least one character dies. I couldn't possibly give you the premise of each film, so I'm not going to try. Besides, it’s best to go into a film like this knowing as little as possible.

These films are truly all over the map. The feel of ABCs runs from satirical to hilarious to gory to disturbing. But it evokes these emotions skillfully. It is an international effort, bringing several different languages to the table.  It also includes different formats such as animation, claymation, puppetry and found footage. But the common thread through most of the anthology is talent. Say what you will about the content of some of the pieces, each one is done particularly well.

While not every short could be considered horror, those that are are fairly disturbing. People that can't stand the genre (or violence) will probably not be able to stomach it, but overall, I found ABCs to be an excellent appeal to the horror geek in me. And people like me are most definitely the film's audience.

And while I really don’t want to talk about the specific shorts, I will let you know my favorite letters: D, F, Q, S, U & Z (Which is perhaps one of the strangest things I have ever seen. Thanks Japan!).

Carrie (Brian De Palma) - B

Nobody likes Carrie White. Though she may have secret telekinetic powers, she gets pushed around daily in just the most unthinkable ways by her high school peers. And when her almost-definitely-a-lesbian gym teacher interferes in the pranks against her, ringleader Chris decides Carrie must suffer even more. Of course, it doesn't help that Carrie's mother is a religious fanatic who makes her daughter's private life hell too. What's a girl to do? Hey, I know! After getting pushed to the limit at her prom, she goes berserk (mentally) and annihilates as many people as possible.

Director Brian De Palma tackles the celebrated Stephen King story, and he does a good job of it. True, much of his style is borrowed from Hitchcock, but he still shows a lot of class here. Many of the girl gym sequences are dazzlingly choreographed, and De Palma even brings his signature split screen effect to the table for Carrie's famous meltdown (though, personally, I found he used this technique to greater effect in Sisters). Some of the performances, including Piper Laurie, of Twin Peaks fame, as Carrie’s devout mother are excellent. The film also features a funky, electronic-sounding soundtrack that adds to some of the more surreal scenes.

Parts of Carrie are baffling to me (why does the house implode?), but the film is captivating enough that these details don't matter. Even knowing exactly where the story is going, watching Carrie discover new experiences in life only to have it all crash down around her is a satisfying experience. At points she seems to climb impossibly high, so high that you can't believe that she doesn't realize it's all a ruse. But she needs to climb that high in order for her fall to have the correct emotional impact.

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That does it for another week! This coming week, I think, will be my found footage marathon, including Afflicted, Cloverfield and Cannibal Holocaust. Tonight, though, I'm going to be checking out 2009's Pandorum, starring.... Dennis Quaid? Am... am I sure about this? Aw, mannnn.... 

Monster Mash Movie Marathon Month 2014 - Week 1

Hey gang! This is the first of, hopefully, several digest entries to review the films that I've been watching this month. Check back here every Sunday if you crave one man's fractured analysis of the horror genre.

Since this is the first one of these, and because without fail every year, someone is personally hurt when I give a movie what they feel is an unfair grade, I'd like to remind everyone of how my letter grade system works. First and foremost: Anything D- or higher implies that I liked it at least a little. I'm also a notoriously hard marker, rarely giving anything above a B+ grade (and nothing has ever secured the coveted A+ to date...)

** This contains spoilers for sure. Not always, but accept that it might happen. **

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, keeping that grading in mind, let's get down to the first week, shall we?

Friday the 13th pt. 3 (Steve Miner) - F

Right off the bat, perhaps one the worst experiences ever in my monthly horror movie watching. And I've seen a lot of bad movies during these years.

But first, the plot: picking up where the previous picture left off, Jason, who you are led to believe was dead, isn't dead at all. Seemingly unphased by his mortal injury, Voorhees immediately gets up, goes to a local shop and murders the help. Then a group of eight kids - not troubled at all by the mass murder that went on nearby a day or two before - shows up for a weekend of bongs and banging. Jason makes quick work of all of them, except the female lead, who eventually manages to take Vorhees out with an axe to the head. After a false ending that is basically an exact rehash of the first movie, the survivor is carted off to convalesce, and we see that Jason's body is still there. Still (possibly) dead. Special mention to this film is that Jason finally dons his signature hockey mask, after taking it from the body of horror geek Shelly.

Now, I wasn't expecting Citizen Kane, but I was hoping to see why this franchise is so particularly beloved. It took three movies to even get Jason to become the icon he's become today. There is nothing to celebrate in this film. The slayings aren't particularly gory or involved. One of the kills is an exact copy of one from the first movie. Would it kill you to try?

Here's how every single Friday movie goes:

• Ten minute flashback ripped directly out of the previous movie (in the case of the first movie, they replace this with 'exposition')
• Jason/Mrs. Voorhees kills some people not related to the plot
• Some kids, oblivious to all the ominous signs, take a trip to Crystal Lake
• A creepy old homeless fellow warns them about the danger they are approaching, but he is ignored
• As soon as they get there, every time one of them is alone on screen, creepy music plays, even if nothing happens. When they're together, there is no music (so you know it's safe)
• Jason (or Mrs. Voorhees) picks them all off, one by one, flawlessly. Most of the kids never even see their murderer.
• Despite this amazing success streak, without fail, when its down to one kid, Jason abandons his previous routine and becomes awful at murdering! No matter how hard he tries, no matter how many deaths he feigns, he becomes supremely inept at doing what he's been doing amazingly well all movie.
• The final kid eventually manages to put him down... But for how long?

These movies are uninspired. Even if I don't care for a series of films (Like A Nightmare on Elm St), I do find it an interesting exercise to go back to the roots of the franchise to see the evolution of their success. Not so with these movies. If you've seen one, you've seen them all. The complete lack of any explanation as to what Jason is leads the writers to be able to give him whatever powers he needs to get through each scene of the movie (for example, in one scene he's strong enough to pop a teen's skull, but ten minutes later he's trapped in a hand-rolled car window). Indeed, the only interesting aspect to this film was it was originally in 3D. There are many unintended laughs at how they tried to use these effects.

The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (Dario Argento) - A-

Sam is an American author visiting Italy. He intends to leave Italy with his girlfriend soon, but those plans go awry when he witnesses an attempted murder. Then Sam is held as a possible suspect, and his passport is taken away by the authorities. The police reveal to him that this is the fourth attack in a series of slayings. Sam takes this in stride, however, and begins to investigate the murders himself. While eventually the police come to believe his story, and collaborate with his investigation, the killer also takes notice of his meddling and begins to try and kill Sam in retaliation.

This very atmospheric thriller is the debut film by the celebrated Italian filmmaker Dario Argento. It is also perhaps the first slasher movie, but you wouldn't know it by the content. In fact, very few characters are killed on screen, and are usually women who are just on screen long enough for us to understand that their sole purpose is to add to the body count. To this end, the gore is very minimal, which is crucial to adding to the effect. Because no slasher films existed before this, there is no need to emphasize or celebrate the slayings. And besides, with the surreal, nightmarish build to the reveal of the actual killer, Argento establishes that he doesn't need gore to send a chill down your spine and make you feel uneasy.

This might be Argento's first picture, but he establishes himself quickly as a director of worth. The framing of scenes in this movie is breathtaking. And while this could be considered a slasher, it has the feel of a Hitchcock thriller. Indeed, it is apparent that Argento is paying tribute to Hitchcock's style through the movie, but he manages to make it his own. Argento's use of shadows, his innovative way of framing shots and a surprisingly fitting soundtrack from veteran Ennio Morricone assure an underlying creepy feel throughout. The whodunnit storyline is also refreshingly smart, and though they do give you clues through the film, you'll be hard pressed to see the whole picture until the reveal. While true horror fans may not appreciate it, cinephiles of all stripes will definitely find something they like about the Bird With the Crystal Plumage.

The Last Man on Earth (Ubaldo Ragona, Sidney Salkow) - C-

Vincent Price is Robert Morgan, a scientist who has managed to survive a mysterious plague that wiped out the entire population of Earth, and then reanimates the corpses into dim-witted vampires. We open getting to know Morgan through watching a day in his life. You know, the usual: have a coffee, put some gas in the generator, bring any corpses you find to a giant pit of burning bodies in the middle of town, and spend the rest of your daylight hours busting into homes and staking as many vampires as you can find. After this, we get a flashback to see what Morgan's life was like, and how it came to pass that he was the last one alive. Finally we return to dystopic present day to learn that Morgan has met another seeming survivor, who eventually reveals that she too is a vampire. Some of them have managed to work out a temporary cure for their plague and are none too happy that Morgan has been going out and murdering all of them!

Now, that description might make parts of this film seem way more exciting than it truly is. The Last Man on Earth Is the first adaptation of Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend (later remade as the Omega Man with Charlton Heston in the early 70s, and again in 2007 with I Am Legend, starring Will Smith). Released in 1964, 4 years before Night of the Living Dead, the influence of this movie on Romero’s classic is obvious; the scenes in which the vampires try to gain entry to Morgan's home are extremely similar to the zombies trying to breach the farmhouse, the vampires behave more like the zombies of Romero's films, and even some of the themes are similar (such as harboring a sick daughter in a national crisis). Therefore, it’s fair to say this movie was extremely influential on the zombie genre we are very aware of today.

But the movie itself isn't that captivating. It rushes through Price's vampire slayings in the earlier segments of the film. It also comes to a conclusion rather quickly, and, given the amount of information the film lobs at you in the last 20 minutes, I couldn't help but feel like it could have used another half an hour to better explore some things (like the vampire society that has been forming! How did that happen?). Where The Last Man on Earth succeeds is with its early establishing shots of a world full of bodies. No one lives by day, and by night… well… no one really lives, but there they are.  This film has a very depressing tone, and though it is a bit confused about what to do with it, ultimately is successful in setting the scene for a true sense of hopelessness. 

Rec 3: Genesis (Paco Plaza) - C+

Koldo and Clara are getting married! Starting with a copy of their wedding DVD, the ceremony is beautiful, and everyone is having a lovely time. But there's trouble with Uncle Pepe - who admits on camera earlier that he was bitten earlier in the evening by a dog that he thought was dead - when he starts biting and infecting the other wedding guests. So begins a true horror love story, with Koldo and Clara searching for one another through the blood-stained grounds of their wedding reception. Will they find each other? Will they be able to escape their party alive? Can the Rec franchise transition from found footage to a more traditional style of film making?

Short answer to that last one: Yes, it can. While the first 22 minutes of Rec 3 do lead you to believe that you will be watching an entire found footage movie, Koldo addresses this by smashing one of the three cameras we see being used at the start of the movie. All three camera people are in Koldo's initial unit of survivors, and they give up trying when he makes his feelings known. Though parts of the film stray back into this medium (there's more than one security camera footage sequence, and an almost useless night camera sequence), the majority of the last hour of Rec 3 is well shot, well lit, and yet it still manages to keep its signature style of spooks. They even manage to include some of their old found footage tricks (subtle additions to frame that turn out to be monsters, for example). While Rec 2 managed to begin to examine the more religious angles of their zombies (most likely to separate it from it's godawful Americanized remake, Quarantine), Rec 3 takes this further, showing that the very religious people of Spain are able to hold their own against these undead as long as their faith is strong.

Special mention MUST go to lead actress Leticia Dolera, who becomes a bride possessed with finding her newlywed husband and surviving the carnage of her wedding. While they certainly don't fail to try and make her look like a sexy horror heroine, I found myself more appreciative of the actresses' facial expressions and reactions. She may look a little like Shelley Duvall, but there's something to be said for a unique looking protagonist. The scenes in which she picks up a chainsaw and hacks her way back to her husband are marvelous.

So, you must be curious, why only a C+? Well, frankly, as entertaining as it was, this film doesn't show you anything you haven't seen before. It is also pretty predictable. You can see any scares coming a mile away. While it may prove that this franchise can outlive its found footage roots, it's nothing that I would rush out and tell people about. This film also relies on people having watched the first two films. They reference the monster that created the plague that turns people into these demonic creatures, but there's no resolution or direct confrontation with that character. While Rec 3 manages to establish its own style, there's nothing about this film that couldn't have happened in any other zombie movie.

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And that does it for week 1! Because the month started on a Wednesday, this entry is a bit smaller than those to come. I'm not exactly what will be upcoming this week (I want to do Cannibal Holocaust - Cloverfield - Afflicted all in the same week, but probably not this week), but tonight we'll be checking out the widely publicized Insidious. Stay tuned, fright fans.