Prey

"The animals who play with the most abandon are the predators."

"But surely prey are almost never safe enough to play."

-Brenda Cooper, Edge of Dark 

All Native peoples have legends and stories about the sky, according to Lee Grayson, and in some groups, "children moving into adulthood go into nature to look at the sky for life-changing visions." But what if what a youth saw in the sky wasn't simply a vision serving as an impetus for her hero's journey but also a sign that something unearthly and dangerous was about to come for her? Such a danger has been featured several times before: with Navy SEAL Arnold Schwarzenegger and crew in Central America, with L.A. detective Danny Glover, and two (or four, if you count the Alien vs. Predator movies) more films, all featuring that omnipresent clicking noise of the Predator. 

Prey, directed by Dan Trachtenberg, is the latest Predator movie. The last one was the Shane Black-directed film The Predator, but with reshoots, mixed reviews, and a MeToo controversy, it might have been the last time we would see the towering menace and its thirst for human trophies. However, the creature returns in a prequel surprisingly set in the Northern Great Plains in 1719, and for many, surprisingly or not, Prey has been the best. This time, one of the Predators is up against not Arnold and his SEALs or Detective Glover (or Adrien Brody or Boyd Holbrook and on and on) but a Comanche tribe, specifically a young woman named Naru, played by Amber Midthunder. 

Predictably, everyone around Naru wants her to be domestic, yet she yearns for traditionally masculine roles, such as being a hunter like her brother, Taabe (Dakota Beavers), a leader in her tribe. Her brother can be supportive, but not fully; ultimately, he decides she is not ready to go out and hunt whatever it is that she claims to see in the sky. Yet she and her dog Sarii (played by Coco) secretly follow her brother and the other men to rescue one of their members who was attacked by a mountain lion. Along the way, however, Naru sees troubling signs of a creature far worse. There are warning signs all around her: a dead snake, gigantic footprints, and that disturbance in the sky she mistakes for a sign that she is ready to begin her trial. 

Naru and her tribe are in danger due to both kinds of aliens: one from outside their world and one from across the ocean. The latter are French fur traders, and the usual beats are there: They slaughter the buffalo the Comanche rely on, Sarii's tail gets trapped in one of their foothold traps, and they capture one of the Comanche men and torture him. The film uses the horrid behavior of the fur trappers to potently remind audiences what happened on this continent. The film makes clear that the real predators were Europeans. 

I'd like to quote Jon T. Coleman's book Vicious: Wolves and Men in America to help understand Naru as a character in relation to the Predator. According to Coleman, "Vulnerability—not hunger, not anger, and certainly not spite—is the key to predator-prey relationships. The skill and viciousness of the hunter matters less than the size, speed, strength, health, and ferocity of the hunted...Predators eat the mild and weak because those are the animals they can catch and kill." This is not to suggest that Naru is always invulnerable throughout the story. At different times, she is in profound danger. She even makes mistakes. But she also possesses the driving force of her own ambition to prove herself that helps keep her alive. The scorn she receives from male members of her tribe and the skepticism and frustration from her mother (Michelle Thrush) only augment her drive. True, she might use vengeance against other humans occupying her space, but against her nonhuman hunter, she will also weaponize her size, speed, and strength. Along the way, it certainly helps that she knows medicine and can help the injured. In essence, she is one of the most badass characters we've seen on the screen in a while. 

There are exciting moments throughout the film involving a variety of other predator-and-prey creatures (snakes, mountain lions, wolves, rabbits, deer, and even a bear), all set against the backdrop of gorgeous locations in Calgary. Our protagonist will find herself in at least some of these trials and tribulations, and she faces them with wide-eyed grit. While watching, though, you might forget that you're not simply viewing a period piece involving a Comanche young woman, but you're also watching the latest installment in a thirty-five-year franchise. The Predator, as most of us have seen, is a tall, incredibly robust creature with technology far more advanced than everything humans have been able to throw at it. In Predator back in 1987, he was played by the seven-foot-tall Kevin Peter Hall, and with hours of Stan Winston-created makeup effects featuring terrifying mandibles, Hall as the Predator made for a formidable foe against Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, and others. Here, an ancestor of that first monster is played by actor and former basketball player Dane DiLiegro. The technology DiLiegro's Predator uses may be more primitive than that used in films that take place centuries later, but it is still more potent and deadly than anything his opponents have. 

Despite how exciting and thrilling this sci-fi/action/horror/thriller can be, it's a little surprising and even fascinating that 20th Century Studios, Disney, and the others involved with the production would agree to try something like this: to take a franchise that got off to a great start way back in the Eighties (and then featured mediocre-at-best attempts to recreate the magic) but now make something totally familiar yet fresh. I imagine director Dan Trachtenberg, screenwriter Patrick Aison, and others might have faced a skeptical audience as they tried to persuade the powers that be that this would be a worthwhile project and worth the risk. Fortunately for them, the risk paid off: Prey is currently ranked among the ten best films of 2022 on Rotten Tomatoes, and it became Hulu's biggest premiere ever.  

It's not too surprising that the franchise took a big swing by making the film a prequel and setting it three hundred years ago. It's not surprising because Trachtenberg has a track record of taking such risks, like when he verged away from the found-footage monster horror of Cloverfield to make its sequel (10 Cloverfield Lane) a human-based thriller set entirely in a bunker. What is more surprising is that this well-known commodity features a mostly indigenous cast. Prey comes at a time of greater indigenous representation in the U.S., with Deb Haaland's appointment as the first Native American cabinet secretary in history and the FX teen comedy-drama series Reservation Dogs gaining rave reviews being notable examples. Yet these examples exist in the backdrop of disappointing but unsurprising statistics: According to Reclaim Native Truth, Native American characters make up no more than 0.4 percent of characters in film and television.

Prey, whose production team took steps to make sure what was on screen was historically accurate (including the tooth-brushing scene and horses, for example), even features a dubbed version in Comanche. I first watched Prey when it was released last summer. When I rewatched it, I did so with the version that was dubbed into Comanche, and I was happy that the dubbing was not as distracting as I thought it would be. It's least distracting in Midthunder's scenes. Speaking of Midthunder, she's the best part. Her acting is top-notch, and whether it involves her going toe-to-toe with the Predator, standing up to the men in her tribe, or constantly running, she's great. It seems unlikely (though possible) that we will see her Naru again; if anything, the owners of this franchise will likely do what has always been done: try something new. But there are hints that a sequel could be hidden throughout the film (including a neat Easter egg). I don't think there should be a direct sequel involving these characters, but if there is, I look forward to seeing Naru and her trusty dog companion once again.   

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Wolf

Wolves are the largest members of the dog family. Adult wolves have 42 teeth. They prefer to eat large mammals like deer and moose. They can weigh up to 175 pounds.

All of these trivial facts are more interesting than most of what we get in the 1994 romantic horror flick Wolf, the Mike Nichols-directed take on werewolf films from a screenplay by Jim Harrison and Wesley Strick. Wolf is a film in which I had mostly low expectations that were by the end met. The first half of the film is wherein the potential for something greater lies. This is a werewolf movie, but our wolfman here is a sophisticated yet banal editor-in-chief, making this story ripe to do whatever it wants to do, and yet it doesn't take the bait. Early test reactions to the ending were negative, so a new, action-packed one was shot. By that point, though, I couldn't wait for it to be over.

Jack Nicholson (in his second-last of seven horror movies in his career) plays Will Randall, a successful editor-in-chief at a large publishing house in New York. Trouble is brewing for Randall, however, as the tycoon Raymond Alden (Christopher Plummer) has recently purchased the publishing house and plans on replacing Randall with his protégé, Stewart Swinton (James Spader). To make matters much worse for Randall, while driving home in snowy weather after negotiating a deal in Vermont, he accidentally hits a black wolf. While attempting to move the seemingly dead animal off the road, the wolf suddenly reanimates and bites him in the hand before darting back into the woods, where it's protected by its pack. (Another fun fact from wolvesmatter.org that's more interesting than Wolf: "Wolf packs work together to hunt for food. The loss of one wolf from a pack can damage cohesion of the group and can cause packs to break up.") Randall escapes and hurries home.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) for Randall, things start to drastically change for him. His senses are heightened, so much so that he can tell what kind of liquor someone has recently drunk and can edit manuscripts without his reading glasses. His hair starts to grow back and become youthful-looking again. He can hear virtually anything, including every conversation in the building. His sex drive rapidly increases. These newfound heightened senses give him a new purpose, mainly for revenge against the back-stabbing sycophant Stewart. "Ruthless" is the word that's used to describe him, and the scenes of him being so are the most captivating to watch.

But Wolf is a werewolf movie, and it's the "man-wolf" scenes that are the most ridiculous, expectedly. Going into a movie like this understandably requires a certain level of tolerance toward the silliness and definitely loads of suspension of disbelief, but Wolf takes that agreement for granted. The film made a profit, though, earning $131 million worldwide from a large $70 million budget, so despite the subpar appearance of the horror effects and sets, audiences at least somewhat embraced the...I don't know what to call it—camp, I guess, as Randall increasingly metamorphoses into a wolf and howls at the moon. You've heard of An American Werewolf in London; this is "A Callous Werewolf in New York Not Afraid to Take On Armed Men About to Mug Him."    

Nichols certainly pulled out the big guns for this film, his only horror movie. In addition to uncredited screenwriting work from his longtime collaborator Elaine May, the score is by Ennio Morricone, the makeup effects are by Rick Baker, and the production design is by Bo Welch. All of them, however, put in much better work before and since, especially Baker, whose makeup effects make Spader basically look like a thin version of Fat Bastard and Nicholson look like an older Wolverine. There's nothing particularly noteworthy about Morricone, Welch, or Baker's contributions to the film; the same could largely be said about the acting, and certainly the characters. Other than Nicholson's Will Randall, every other character is about as two-dimensional as possible. The other huge star here is Michelle Pfeiffer, who worked with Nicholson on The Witches of Eastwick. Pfeiffer plays Alden's daughter, often in trouble with the law and not a big fan of her father. Pfeiffer does a fine job, no doubt, but her character only serves as a sex object for Randall and to a lesser extent another element of animosity between the protagonist and his jerk boss, Alden. 

Both Nicholson and Spader overdo it from time to time, but it's less bearable watching the latter do it. Nichols at least got Nicholson to tone down the obnoxiousness that was present in Carnal Knowledge, the first film the two worked on together. (They also collaborated together on Heartburn.) That being said, it's impossible to take your eyes off Nicholson. For one, he's in basically every scene, usually at the center. Even watching him eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and drink a glass of milk can be fascinating. It may not be his most challenging work ever, but he and some of the others make it look like a piece of cake. There are also a variety of pre-stardom cast member appearances here in almost blink-and-you'll-miss-them moments, such as Allison Janney, David Schwimmer, and Peter Gerety.  

Wolf is usually rather predictable; the only thing anticipated about it that follows through is its absurdity. The simplest way of describing Wolf is that at times, it's more or less watchable. But it certainly becomes less so during its second half. One of the fundamental problems with Wolf is that it's not sure what it wants to do. Is it a conventional horror feature? Does it want to satirize the dog-eat-dog world of editing? Is it trying to do something different? All of the above? Who knows, and who cares? 

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My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To

In My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To, directed by Jonathan Cuartas, two siblings (Patrick Fugit as Dwight and Ingrid Sophie Schram as Jessie) struggle to make ends meet while caring for their ill brother, Thomas (Owen Campbell). Jessie works as a waitress in town, while Dwight doesn't seem to have a job other than to try and fetch the only ailment that helps the sickly Thomas: human blood. Given that Thomas needs to drink blood, it should be quite clear what actually is going on, and I don't think that's a spoiler because we see Dwight and Jessie collecting blood (in a manner you can probably guess) before giving it to their brother, who drinks it in bed. Oh, and he can't go outside during the day. 

These acts of murder and bleeding have become ordinary to the siblings, especially Jessie, who seems the least fazed (at least on the surface). Despite occasionally showing signs of cracking, her steely resolve allows her to sing along to songs on TV even though she stays up late into the night to take care of Thomas before going into work again the next day. Dwight, however, is a wreck, losing more and more of his humanity with each kill. Things start to get complicated for the three: Jessie might target someone Dwight cares about in order to feed Thomas, Dwight soon starts to feel that he cannot keep doing these horrendous acts, and Thomas just wants a friend. One of the interesting things about Cuartas's screenplay is that Thomas' "illness" is never named. Dwight and Jessie only talk about how he's not getting any better. The audience, though, obviously knows what's really going on, yet in the film's mythology and universe, it seems that no one has ever heard of vampires, similar to how the word "zombie" is never used in The Walking Dead. To Dwight and Jessie, there are no vampires, just a sick brother, and they don't know how else to help him. The things we do for family. 

A typical rule of thumb in viewing movies is that if nothing happens in the first twenty minutes or so, nothing will happen for the rest of it. With this one, things certainly happen, but they happen at such a slow pace that some audience members, even horror fans (who often are among the most loyal to their beloved genre) may be turned off. While it is slow moving, this unhurriedness is punctuated with moments of intense violence. Because of this, the strongest element of this film is its tension. It's worth mentioning, though, that while it is a violent horror flick, it employs violence in the classical sense; that is, you don't see much of it. However, even if you can't see it, you can hear it, and you most certainly can imagine it, so there's a strong chance the hand will go up to cover the images on the screen.

While I liked the My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To, the biggest problem I had with it is that the whole thing doesn't feel very original. It reminded me too much of the Swedish film Let the Right One In, which had a Hollywood remake a few years later. There's also the 1997 novel Thirsty about a teenage vampire, as well as the film Only Lovers Left Alive about modern-day vampires contemplating their existence. But one interesting bit of novelty with the movie is its decision to focus on poor and working-poor characters (protagonists and victims). Typically, the horror movies that come to mind center on middle-class folks and above (think the suburban teenagers in Halloween and Scream or the rich families in The Exorcist and Hereditary), but this film's setting and characters almost make it feel like it's hinting at being allegorical. 

At any rate, Fugit, Schram, and Campbell all do a fantastic job in these sympathetic portrayals of three family members trying to survive, especially Thomas, who just wants to be a normal boy. In fact, I thought it probably would have been more interesting if the filmmakers had cast a younger actor in the role (perhaps someone around Jacob Tremblay's age or younger), which would have made his mannerisms and the way the three of them act around each other much more believable. Campbell was about twenty-four years old during film, and his age seems to make the situations awkward at times.   

If you can tolerate the deliberate pace of the film, My Heart Can't Beat Unless You Tell It To is a recommendable film. It's scary and unsettling, sure, but not gratuitously so. So if you prefer your horror films to have lots of gore, rest assured that there is plenty of blood in this movie. 

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The Witches

"Witches are women who have subsumed their anger, right?" That's a question Angelica Huston asked her interviewer a few years ago to promote a new film she was starring in. Much of the conversation, it seems, centered on Huston's thoughts on micro-aggressions toward women and the anger that such acts can produce. "Everything about [witches] hurts," she continued, "and every time they look in the mirror they hate what they see. They're so great to play because they're just furious—and everything dreadful happens to them."

That's a nice quote to keep in mind when watching The Witches, the 1990 adaption of Roald Dahl's novel (which was also adapted on HBO this year starring Anne Hatheway and Octavia Spencer) released during a Hollywood crave for such comedy horror. (It was released three years after The Witches of Eastwood and three years before Hocus Pocus.) The witches in this film are indeed angry, but the story doesn't much want us to sympathize with them. They are, after all, out to destroy every child in the world. Huston plays the leader of the witches, and she's disappointed that there are still so many young kids running about in England. (From her name and accent, it sounds like Huston's witch is from Germany.) She devises a plan that gets rid of the children once and for all. It's not clear why they hate kids so much, but they are indeed furious.

Taking place in idyllic locations in Europe (and yet everything is drab at best and hellish at worst), Grandma Helga (played by Swedish actress Mai Zetterling in her final acting role) chomps on cigars as she tells her sweet grandson, Luke (Jasen Fisher), tales of witches. Witches, she tells him, are actually very ordinary, or at least they appear ordinary to everyone else. These are not the witches of the Harry Potter franchise or of The Blair Witch Project, but sort of a hybrid, simultaneously normal and monstrous. They present themselves as regular people, though they all wear wigs; only the pink hue in their pupils can give them away. To add some details to her stories, Helga includes a horrifying anecdote from her youth in Norway in which a witch hunted down a young girl and kidnapped her. What became of the girl is uncertain, even to the audience, but Helga does tell us that her friend started appearing in paintings, getting older as the years went on, until one day she just disappeared. As for the witch, well, "witches never get caught." Despite all the terror Grandma Helga speaks of, Luke seems genuinely entertained by the tales, unfazed as he is inquisitive.  

After a domestic tragedy, Helga decides to move Luke back to the United States. But before they do that, they take a short trip to England, where they'll stay in a hotel on the coast and relax before continuing their journey. The hotel looks straight out of "Mr. Bean in Room 426" from Mr. Bean. Speaking of Mr. Bean, Rowan Atkinson himself plays the manager of the hotel. He's fairly competent at his job, though he doesn't like children, either, scolding Luke for bringing two mice into the hotel and threatening Helga before she outwits him and turns the tables on him. At any rate, Luke and Helga have far bigger problems that an unsympathetic hotel manager, for a large convention is using the hotel for their conference. And this isn't just any ordinary group; they're actual witches instead, secretly meeting to discuss their plan to eliminate every child from England. 

Their leader is the Grand High Witch, who uses the name Eva Ernst. She's the one played by Huston, not long after winning an Oscar and then appearing as Morticia Addams in two Addams Family films. For her really iconic scenes, in which she is covered in grotesque prosthetic makeup, she endured hours and hours worth of getting the makeup on and another five just to get it off; the prosthetics on her hands also made it problematic (her word) to use the restroom. Despite the misery of such filming conditions, she looks like she is having a blast.   

She's in good company, with Zetterling providing an effective performance and the two young boys, Fisher and Charlie Potter as Bruno, the hungry British boy who also finds himself mixed up in all this toil and trouble, doing as good a job as child actors generally did in the early 1990s. But the production elements of the movie are the most spectacular, with Jim Henson's Creature Shop creating a variety of different-sized puppet mice. They look far more interesting to watch than all the CGI mice in the new adaption, and they elevate the film's humor (like when Helga tries to convince Bruno's spoiled, uninterested parents that he's been turned into a mouse) as well as the adorableness quality. How can you not find it cute when Luke in mouse form says, "One of the cooks tried to cut off my tail with a carving knife"? The puppetry really works. This was the final film Henson supervised before his death the same year The Witches was released. Dahl also died in 1990. 

I don't seem to recall ever having watched The Witches as a child, although part of me wants to say that I vaguely remember the scene of Huston's character disturbingly pulling off her face to reveal her true self. It is a film, though, that apparently has haunted an entire generation of children. The director, Nicolas Roeg, wrote in his autobiography that he screened an early version of the film for his young son, who was so creeped out that he ran out of the room and hid, which convinced Roeg to further edit this children's film. What remains the spookiest moments besides the witches themselves are the scenes of the boys turning into rats (even scarier than when boys turn into donkeys in Pinocchio) and the real-life horror of adults harming children. 

For much of the roughly ninety minutes of the film, I couldn't quite decide if I liked it or not. What harms the film is its over-reliance on "...and then..." aspects to storytelling; that is, one thing constantly leads to another and that's it. It seems like something would cause and complicate another thing (it is a tale, after all, of witches turning children into mice), but it instead feels like the stakes aren't there, or at least the movie doesn't care if you care about such stakes. Another disappointing trait is its denouement, deviating strongly from the novel. I initially wrote in my notes that the film had a "peculiar but un-formulaic ending", and then moments later I crossed it out. "Guess not," I wrote. Apparently, they filmed and tested two versions, but the one they predictably went with deeply angered Dahl. 

This isn't to say that it's a bad film. While I would hesitate showing it to very young children, most kids (and adults) would probably like it, whether in 1990 or 2020. It's good, if perhaps overly creepy, fun. The witches might not gain our sympathy, but even in the most unsightly scenes, you can't look away. 

Happy Halloween  

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The Sixth Sense

The Sixth Sense featured a twist that these days seems totally obvious. I never like spoiling ends, even for films that are twenty years old. (I don't even like to discuss the ending of Citizen Kane.) But the twist in The Sixth Sense is not so important. I initially thought upon re-watching this horror film, written and directed by M. Night Shyaamalan, that knowing what happens at the end might make the movie feel like a one-trick pony. (For the record, I can't remember if a friend had actually spoiled it for me when I was a kid.) Fortunately, the movie, despite a dull start, has retained its wonder twenty years on.

Bruce Willis stars as Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist in Philadelphia who appears to be going through a schism with his wife, played by Olivia Williams, and his career is not what it used to be. He does, though, take up a case of a young boy named Cole, played by Haley Joel Osment. Cole demonstrates peculiar behavior, including emotional outbursts, and he always seems to be around when something creepy happens. His mother, for example, played by Toni Collette, screams when she comes back in the kitchen after only a moment to discover that all the cupboards and drawers have been opened (she believes) by Cole.

That really is about all the plot you need to know.

The Sixth Sense may be an atmospheric supernatural horror film that requires considerable more patience than the average thriller, but this, of course, is not a bad thing. And if you know what happens at the end, it can at first make the journey seem considerably less enjoyable. But the acting really helps elevate the film. It was an impressive change of genres for Willis, who then (and now) was known primarily for comedies, dramas, and action films. But the actors who deserve the most praise are Osment and Collette.

Two of Toni Collette's highest-rated films have been horror films: this and last year's deeply disturbing Hereditary. In both, she is required to react a lot, but in the latter there is much more screaming, which isn't as impressive as the quietness that she displays here. Her character as the mother struggling to help her child (as some believe she might be the cause of his pain) is the most interesting in the film, and her scenes with Osment feature the film's best acting and some of the most powerful moments. Then, of course, there's Osment. His performance for the first part of the film essentially boils down to the trope of the creepy kid in school with invisible friends. But then there is a scene that helps him stand out as the breakthrough star of the film, when he is in class and his History teacher tells him his answer about the history of the school building is wrong. Cole tells the class that people were hanged there; how he knows this information is not clear at first. When his teacher gives him a look he doesn't like, it sets him off. Somehow, he knows that his teacher overcame a stutter, and he closes his eyes and starts screaming "Stuttering Stanley" until his teacher loses it. It's the first case of remarkable acting from Osment. He channels that energy again when the bullies lock him up in a tiny closet in which he is not the only one. The third time is the moment everyone remembers. He's cold, bundled up in a hospital bed, and he's ready to tell Malcolm his secret.

After The Sixth Sense became a smash hit, Shyamalan was crowned "the next Spielberg", an enormously high standard for any filmmaker to reach, one that ultimately proved impossible. His exceptional story-telling skills have come mainly from his directing and less from his script writing. Some of the dialogue, and especially Malcolm's "eureka" moment when he suddenly is convinced that Cole is right, are evidence of this. But I can hardly blame the media for hailing him as the next Spielberg. The Munchausen by Proxy scene is superbly filmed, assisted by the crisp cinematography of Tak Fujimoto and a hauntingly beautiful score by James Newton Howard. All of this is most apparent in the final scene, the famous twist. The way that scene unfolds is the ultimate cinematic shiver down the spinal.

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It Chapter Two

Twenty-seven years have passed since the events of It, when a malicious clown-monster named Pennywise emerged from the sewers to feast on people. Michael (played in adult form by Isaiah Mustafa and as a teenager by Chosen Jacobs) is the only member of the group of outcast kids called the Losers Club to have stayed in Derry, a sleepy yet picturesque town in Maine where adults seem to be oblivious to the fact that every thirty years or so numerous people end up missing and body parts are found. Michael, though, has kept a watchful eye, and it's time to warn his former friends of It's return.

Michael has no choice but to call them and remind them of the promise they made as children to return and defeat It, also known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgard). But Michael's friends have all moved on. Bill (James McAvoy as the adult Bill and Jaeden Martell as the young one) is a successful writer, Beverly (Jessica Chastain/Sophia Lillis) is married to an abusive man not too dissimilar from her father, and Richie (Bill Hader/Finn Wolfhard) is a stand-up comedian. The remaining members are Ben (Jay Ryan/Jeremy Ray Taylor), Eddie (James Ransone/Jack Dylan Grazer), and Stanley (Andy Bean/Wyatt Oleff). By the way, if you watched Wolfhard in Stanger Things 3 and/or Grazer in Shazam! this year and noticed that they've been growing up, you can now know that de-aging works on children, too. Incidentally, Lillis and Wolfhard both publicly stated two years ago that they wanted Chastain and Hader, respectively, to play the characters in their adult forms. Their wishes were granted.

Once Michael does make clear to the group that It has returned and again is consuming the people of Derry, the Losers Club members are reluctant to fight back. It's only when they are each individually tormented by Pennywise, who is terrifically delighted to see them return. These moments are either the best or the worst part of the film; it's difficult to say which. Some (like Beverly's) take place entirely in the adult form, as she returns to her childhood home and discovers that some things are not as they seem. Others (like Ben's) only take place when he's a child, being chased by Pennywise in his school. And some (like Richie's and Eddie's) show Pennywise's acts of malice against them both as children and adults. These scenes mostly work, but it takes up a lot of time (like the entire second act).

It Chapter Two, directed by Andy Muschietti and based on the 1986 novel by Stephen King, doesn't necessarily feel like an overly cumbersome horror film, but it is more than most. What ultimately harms it to the point rendering it mostly forgettable is how it adds nothing new from the previous film. It made perfect sense to adapt Stephen King's 1,138-page novel into two films, but the result is a sequel that feels less fresh. The climax especially feels like a simple repeat of the previous film. Even by deleting the infamous orgy scene from the adaption, the story can seem bloated at times (especially that dull ending). There's certainly no reason to extend this story into a third film, as some have suggested.

That being said, the cast here carries a lot of the weight (more on that later), but the production value of It Chapter Two really goes a long way. Horror films usually are among the highest (if not the highest) in terms of return on investment (ROI) largely because they are relatively inexpensive to make. The Devil Inside, for example, was made on a budget of about a million dollars, and yet it made over $100 million at the box office. It and It: Chapter Two take a different approach, not afraid to pour in loads of money. (It was made for $35 million and made of $700 million at the box office; that's a ROI of 1,900%.) The money poured into a movie like this works. The visual effects provided by Atomic Arts and Method Studios are stellar, Benjamin Wallfisch's score is alluring, and the production design by Paul D. Austerberry is haunting.

Chastain gives a stellar performance, as expected, and McAvoy also does well. But Hader's performance appears to be the most impressive to audiences, given that we haven't seen something like this from him. He's as funny and snarky as many of his screen performances have been, but he also has mastered the "shocked fish" look, as is when Pennywise haunts him in broad daylight. His paring with Ransone often works as comic relief, though sometimes it's oddly placed. Still, my favorite performance is Skarsgard's. Even without the ostentatious makeup, it's impossible not to be mesmerized by what he presents. It Chapter Two is even less scary than It (that may be a good or bad thing for you), and part of this is because all of Pennywise's tricks have already been revealed. Beyond that, the usual notes are followed: the music features a crescendo, and then there's silence. The clown might not be in front of you, but surely he's right behind you. Even with these flaws and that fact that Pennywise himself doesn't pack the cinematic thrill he did two years ago, it's still a masterful performance by Skarsgard. Clowns are scary (apparently even scarier than terrorism, death, and climate change), but a man dressed as a clown is not all that is required. Skarsgard commits, and should be rewarded.

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Drag Me to Hell

A child being chased by a demon is a rather morbid way to start a rather morbid movie. Keep in mind this movie is also a comedy. It's not one that will likely make you laugh out loud, but its blend of horror and humor will remind you that before he was with Spider-Man, director Sam Raimi made the Evil Dead trilogy. Is his 2009 movie Drag Me to Hell funny? Kinda sorta. Scary? Often. Enjoyable? Most of the time.

Horror might be the only genre I can think of where filmmakers have understood that women in the lead role creates as good results as those led by men, if not better. (In case none are coming to mind, think The Exorcist, Alien, Rosemary's Baby, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, The Babadook, etc.) Alison Lohman is the lead here, and she's incredible. It's a unique challenge for her, because on the one hand we are meant to applaud her and root for her, and on the other we are supposed to think that as the banker who denied an older woman an extension on her loan, she is somewhat at fault for her tribulations. Lohman plays Christine, a young woman with a good job at a bank and in a serious relationship with a young professor (Justin Long). Christine is so determined to get the promotion as assistant manager at the bank that she practices diction on her way to work. Alarmed that she might be pushed aside in favor of her male colleague (Reggie Lee), she's willing to make "tough" decisions to impress her boss. That means refusing to extend mortgage loans for the elderly. Big mistake.

The older woman (Lorna Raver) even begs for the extension, then attacks when it is denied. But soon, she warns, it will be Christine who comes to her begging for help. She places a curse on her. While Christine's boyfriend may be skeptical at first, Christine know almost from the beginning that something is wrong. She seeks out the guidance of a psychic (Dileep Rao) who might be able to make sense to her the paranormal things happening; indeed, he tells her that a curse has been placed. After three days, she is told, a demon will finally come to drag her to hell. She cannot defeat this devil by herself, so she and the psychic seek the help of another psychic (Adrianna Barraza) who has some experience in this domain.

There are three types of frights in this film. The first is the hackneyed, overused device in which something something abruptly jumps out at us. It's not impressive because it's utilized in virtually every other Hollywood horror film, whether you want it to or not. The second is much scarier. Something moves slowly across the screen. The audience sees what the protagonist sees, and then it's there: some ominous, nefarious presence. We know it's there, and we get a sense of what it wants. It doesn't jump out just yet, it's simply there. This comes right after the first type, and so our adrenaline is already rushing. The third kind is the simple ambiance of the film, the sense of fear of demons and that sort of thing. I went to a Catholic school in the first grade where my teacher told me that the devil drags you down to hell by your hair if you are bad, so you could say this film kind of spoke to me.

Beyond that, there is a surplus of gross horror here. Lohnman is subjected to all sorts of disgusting things that I hope she was compensated handsomely for. If bugs, phlegm, and vomit are not really your thing, consider skipping this film. I've heard that actors in horror films often find the filming fun, that it's in post-production where things get scary. I still can't imagine how Lohman would be able to sleep without the lights on after having vomit leak out onto her on a set during the filming. Despite some tired clichés about Eastern mysticism and all that, this is a mostly enjoyable horror film. It's not as disturbing as the similar-themed Paranormal Activity from the same year, so that could be either a plus or minus, depending on your perspective. Enjoy it, and don't piss off the elderly afterwards.  

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The Thing

"Hounds follow those who feed them."
-Otto von Bismarck

Antarctica's vast, snowy landscape is a peculiar yet perfectly dreary setting for a horror film. Here, American researchers (though we hardly see any of them do any actual, you know, research) come across an infectious monster unlike any on the planet in the 1982 close-to-apocalyptic horror-science fiction flick The Thing, directed by John Carpenter. One of the early moments of the film shows a husky being chased by a helicopter, whose wing man is desperately trying to shoot it. Despite the presence of an adorable pooch, there are ominous signs everywhere from the start.

This movie, based on the 1938 novella Who Goes There? by John W. Cambell, is regarded as a more faithful adaptation of the story than the 1951 version called The Thing from Another World. In this Carpenter version, a group of twelve researches are isolated in the cold Antarctica just as winter is beginning. Something, though, is very off. A Norwegian scientist looks as if he has gone crazy as he appears to try to shoot up the American camp until he is killed. Despite the imminent threat to the Americans' lives being removed, danger has only just begun. The Thing is there with them, and it's incredibly difficult to kill and really pissed off. One by one, the men are picked off by the Thing as it "absorbs" and "imitates" them. If the Thing doesn't get them, then they still have to deal with each other as paranoia and cabin fever set in. They are totally oblivious as to who (if any) of them are infected and serving as a host for the Thing. The movie becomes a unique sort of "who is it" rather than a "who dunnit."

There is a great cast here, and those who give the best performances are Kurt Russell, Keith David, Wilford Brimley, and Donald Moffat. Russell, who was also directed by Carpenter in Elvis, Escape from New York, Escape from L.A., and Big Trouble in Little China, is MacReady, the crew's pilot. As Garry (Moffat), more or less creates a leadership vacuum in the panic and confusion, MacReady fills it. "Somebody in this camp ain't who he appears to be," he warns, as if he's in the American wild west. It's a little difficult keeping track of so many characters in a limited area, but it's no matter because Russell, particularly in the scenes where the Thing is not dominant, drives the film. Russell has never been given enough acclaim for his ability to do that as an actor.

There's a combination of Ennio Morricone's subtle yet operatic score and the grotesque makeup effects by the legendary Rob Bottin that give this movie a really disturbing vibe. Everything moves at the right pace, with the editing by Todd Ramsay and Carpenter's direction making this a truly memorable horror film. So much credit should be given to Carpenter. Most will likely disagree with me, but this is superior to his other well-regarded horror film, Halloween. And the "dog cage" scene might just be the most disturbing moment in 80s cinema, as we first see this monster become another species. (Let's just say it might not be a great scene for dog lovers.) Though I must say that one problem I had with this movie is its very first scene; that moment partly harms the film as the enigmatic nature of the dog is tarnished. Additionally, sometimes the makeup makes the film appear dated, and some of the usual horror tropes are too prevalent--at least through the prism of watching films these days. Initial reviews weren't too kind. Roger Ebert called it a great "barf bag movie" that was ultimately disappointing. Vincent Canby of the New York Times called it "foolish." But like several other Carpenter-directed films, the movie has since been re-appraised, and I join others in my admiration. 

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7 Days of Halloween: The Descent

I once went spelunking in rural Pennsylvania when I was in Boy Scouts. I feel very fortunate that the experience was nothing like "The Descent." In my experience, like that of virtually every human in recent human history who has gone caving, the scariest thing is when your guide tells you to turn off your helmet light so that you can see just how dreadfully dark it is under the earth. I might have been as pale as the grotesque creatures featured in "The Descent," the 2006 horror movie directed by Neil Marshall about a spelunking trip gone wrong, but I'm fairly certain there were none of them when I went caving, and if there were, they certainly left us alone.

Forgive me for the digression, but "The Descent" made me think of the recent discovery of homo neladi in a cave in South Africa, and how it has not provided an answer as to how those skeletal remains got there in that secluded cave area. Some think they were deliberately put there as burial grounds, some think they became accidentally trapped there, some think they were deliberately trapped there. Either way, it would be frightening to be trapped there with no way out and such primitive, if any, technology. Just imagine adding dozens of bat people who only make their way to the surface to hunt. That's the situation six British women find themselves in.

The six of them meet in North Carolina for their epic trip. Their leader, Juno (Natalie Mendoza), explains the symptoms they could experience while being down there: claustrophobia, hallucinations, and the like. (It does make one wonder why people do this sort of thing in the first place.) Predictably, the women become trapped and find themselves in the wrong cave. Being lost in the woods, like in "The Blair Witch Project," is scary enough. I can't possibly imagine being lost in a cave. Juno reveals to them that she left the guide book in the car, and they argue and shout for a while. They find caving equipment from a hundred years ago and ancient, possibly pre-history, paintings. Fascinating to see, perhaps, but something else is wrong: not only are they lost, but they are being hunted. Something is clearly down there; some kind of humanoids that make odd echolocation noises to hunt for their food. They are some kind of creatures who've evolved to live in the dark caves. In a movie sense, they're like a hybrid of vampire, zombie, and general monster, biting the neck, eating the body, and hiding in the dark. There's a pit of graves that only further reveals the reality that they are in terrible danger. Like in many other horror movies, they become separated; it becomes fight-or-flight to the extreme.

The caves are a convincing set design at Pinewood Studios by Simon Bowles that make you wonder if they actually filmed it in a cave or not, and there are thunderous trumpets provided by David Julyan's score that heighten the intensity of the scenes. Sam McCurdy's cinematography is also spot-on; occasionally, we are able to see what the characters see in the dark through their hand-held camera, and these are the spookiest moments. Obviously, the makeup effects by Paul Hyett of the creatures are terrific. And there's lots--lots--of blood, an almost "Carrie"-like amount. Despite all these great elements, it doesn't equal a great movie.

The biggest flaw is this: Caves are scary. Being in the dark is scary. Being hunted is scary. Being hunted by those things (whatever they are) is scary. But if your movie, with all those elements, is not scary enough that you need to insert nightmare sequences and characters accidentally bumping into each other, bats and birds flying out, and other formulaic parts, you've done something wrong. Nightmare sequences in horror movies, in my opinion, are usually cheap. They feel almost as if someone has mandated their insertion simply to fill a scare quota. So, too, it is here. The main character, Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) experienced an awful tragedy a year before while white-water rafting when her husband and young child were killed in a car accident. This is a scary enough scenario that nightmare sequences are unnecessary.

That doesn't mean I didn't like "The Descent." I did, and I recommend it. I actually thought it would be far scarier. It oddly brought back memories of my Boy Scout days, but it also made me think that I probably would never go spelunking again. It's a wonder if "The Descent" did for caving what "Psycho" did for showers.  

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7 Days of Halloween: Nosferatu

The first time I saw "Nosferatu," the first adaptation of Bram Stoker's "Dracula," was in high school, and regrettably, it was a DVD of the 1998 "remastering" with an introduction from David Carradine and a soundtrack provided by the metal band Type-O Negative. However, this newest version, released in 2006, is a fine compilation of various surviving German and Czech copies of F.W. Murnau's adaptation, the most famous "Dracula" you might not have heard of. And if you do find yourself hunting for "Nosferatu" this Halloween, go for the 2006 version and listen to James Bernard's score instead of Type-O Negative.

Taking place in 1838, Nosferatu is, as we're told, a word that sounds "like the deathbird calling your name at midnight." The story is meant to be a retelling of a supposed "Great Death" in Wisborg. We meet Hutter, a young lawyer played by Gustav von Vangenheim. (While the overacting universal in virtually all films of the Silent Era is certainly prevalent here, Von Vangenheim is probably the worst offender in this movie.) Hutter is madly in love with his young wife, Ellen (Greta Shroeder), but he must be separated from her for awhile as he attends to a trip into the "land of phantoms" to secure a building purchase of a mysterious count named Orlok (Max Schreck). His trip there will provide the modern-day viewer with views of beautiful German architecture, nature, and a trip down film history lane, as he or she will see an example of pre-color coloring using chemical reactions to create a blue hue for nighttime and sepia for indoors.

Hutter on his travels laughs off the locals' warnings about werewolves in the forests, vampires, and "bad feelings." He journeys on until he reaches Orlok's estate. Here there's another technological antique: Murnau used fast-motion, which was probably quite the novelty in 1922, to show us the entrance of Orlok's hearse. (Francis Ford Coppola understood the neat effect but made it more appealing to an audience in 1992; for the same scene in his adaptation, he simply used slow-motion.) Hutter may be a pretty forgettable character, but Schreck's portrayal of Orlok is probably almost as iconic in cinema as Bela Lugolsi's Dracula. If you don't believe, observe the character of Petyr in the recent comedy-horror mockumentary "What We Do in the Shadows." Instead of the sensual eroticism of Lugosi, Christopher Lee, or Frank Langella, Orlok is a frightening figure of long fingers and ghoulish, exaggerated features: grotesque, large ears and obvious animal-like front teeth. Upon first seeing a picture of Hutter's wife, he remarks how nice her neck looks.

The cinematography of "Nosferatu" by Gunther Krampf and Fritz Arno Wagner may not be as oft-mentioned as that of other Expressionism landmarks like "Metropolis" or "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," but it still influences filmmakers today, as is evidenced by last year's Australian horror film, "The Babadook." "Nosferatu" certainly is not terrifying by today's standards nearly a century later, but it does possess the required traits of spooky tales of wonder: coffins filled with rats, ghostly quiet sea shots, and the fear of disease. Orlok soon makes his way to Wisborg and begins feasting. Unlike the vampire of Stoker's novel, those the vampire bites do not turn into vampires themselves; they simply die (even though we never get an explanation as to why Hutter, who initially thinks he's been bitten by mosquitoes, doesn't).

After the epidemic scenes in the ship, basically right after Orlok rises from the coffin, the movie starts to bore in Act IV and especially so in Act V, where, unlike the previous acts, not much happens. Orlok basically goes on the hunt for Ellen; here we see the famous shadow up the stairs moment. He finds her and is about to feed. What happens next basically concludes the film in an anticlimactic ending, where the only conclusion one could have is that you better hope that vampires aren't fans of wearing watches. Still, "Nosferatu" is pretty much required viewing for film buffs and historians.    

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7 Days of Halloween: 28 Weeks Later

From the very first attack, there seems to be about a thousand things happening simultaneously. But just as with the first film ("28 Days Later"), "28 Weeks Later" dispenses with one complication of these kinds of horror films: these monsters can run, and they are a hell of a lot meaner than any other zombie in any other film or show. And not only that, but they keep the zombie tradition that is ubiquitous in these films: anyone--your partner, your parents, your children--can be infected and turn on you. This might truly be the most horrifying aspect of this horror subgenre.

As the title suggests, it has been 28 weeks since the massive epidemic known as the rage virus decimated England. Most of the infected have died from starvation, and an American-led NATO force is brought in to return the survivors, temporarily house them, and keep them safe. Here we meet a variety of characters: Robert Carlyle, one of those rare actors who has a screen persona and presence that is so remarkable yet ordinary, is a family man who is separated from his children but still has his wife. The two of them are with a group of survivors in the beginning of the movie, and they are quickly attacked and most are infected. He escapes and leaves his wife behind. The ethics and morality of his decision--and whether or not there was something he could actually do to save her--I'm sure are on the minds of viewers as they watch the film. Because of the various changes the father goes through, Carlyle likely was quite enticed at the thought of playing him. He's reunited with his children (Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton), who were in Spain at the time of the outbreak. Among the other cast members are part of the American forces: Rose Byrne is a medical officer, Harold Perrineau is a helicopter pilot, Jeremy Renner (a year before his Oscar-nominated performance in "The Hurt Locker") is a sniper, and Idris Elba is a hawkish general willing to do anything to contain the situation.

Teenagers aren't always the most responsible people in the world, but it's hard to believe that the teenage daughter would take her younger brother back to their home away from the protected zone (and without notifying their father) simply to find some of their nostalgia items. But that they do. I won't reveal what happens next, but it's pretty much a nasty domino effect, all because of their field trip.

This film will probably satisfy horror fans but it safely relies on the usual tricks. There are nightmares, things that go bump in the night, strobe lights, gore, and a lot of blood. It's far grosser than I remember the first one being, so much so that I had to turn away several times. This is a film that is in love with the color red--it's in practically every scene. In addition to the copious amounts of blood, the emergency lights are red, the boy's hoodie is red, and the Americans order a Code Red to destroy the infected. At times it seems like it's the only hue in the entire palate.

One of the reasons, I suspect, that so many people are turned off from horror movies is how bleek a picture these movies paint of the world. They frequently play to our fears not simply of the dark, of aliens, of ghosts, monsters (real and imaginary) but also our fear of germs, infections, the apocalypse, turmoil, and biochemical warfare, among others. "28 Weeks Later" marries the two, though sometimes when watching the film (which I'm convinced will one day have a sequel), one wonders how necessary some of the imagery is. It's more ambitious than its predecessor and just as dark, but it also becomes a bit boring half-way through despite remaining migraine-inducing. It's a truly gruesome film, at times inconceivable yet spooky nevertheless.

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7 Days of Halloween: Scream

From the beginning of the iconic opening scene featuring Drew Barrymore, "Scream" makes it unconventionally known that it is the Hollywood horror movie so well aware of the tropes of the genre that it doesn't mind totally embracing them. Barrymore appears briefly as a young high school student ready to watch a scary movie one evening when she receives a bizarre call from what could sound like a deeply perverted man. She remains calm and tells him he has the wrong number. "It happens; take it easy," she says before hanging up. The man calls back. "You should never say 'who's there?'" he teases. "Don't you watch scary movies?" He even references "Nightmare on Elm Street," one of director Wes Craven's most recognized horror films before he directed "Scream" in 1996. "The Exorcist," "Basic Instinct," "Psycho" and others are mentioned by characters throughout the movie; this might be the most self-aware film of all time. Craven even makes a practically Hitchcockian cameo by appearing in a split-second cameo as a school janitor, dressed remarkably similar to Freddy Krueger.

It's a spooky intro, even a bit disturbing, but it's not horrifying. But it is bold in its declaration that it's not only willing to show young teenagers get sliced up, but it's even not afraid to show what audience members likely thought would be the main character killed so quickly. Anybody can die at any moment in this movie, even if they're young. As SoHo's lyrics claim in the conclusion song, "Whisper to a Scream," "We are, we are, we are but your children finding away around indecision. We are, we are, we are rather helpless."

Other high schoolers are introduced in this Kevin Williamson-penned story, originally titled "Scary Movie" before wisely being renamed by the Weinsteins. If the audience didn't know who these young stars were in 1996, they probably do by know: Neve Campbell (as the main protagonist), Rose McGowan, Jamie Kennedy, Matthew Lillard, David Arquette. To add more star power, television stars Courtney Cox and Henry Winkler also appear in characters the polar opposite of what they're most famous for. (Instead of being the super cool greaser of youth, Winkler here is a harsh principal who is way too comfortable pointing a pair of scissors at juveniles' faces.) Roger L. Jackson provides the voice of Ghostface, the nickname for the audience of the villain, throughout the four films. Skeet Ulrich is Sidney's (Campbell) boyfriend, and one gets the impression that Craven did everything he could to make him look just like Johnny Depp in "Nightmare on Elm Street," the movie that launched Depp's career.

Craven, who passed away this past September, was criticized in the past for his depiction of violence. When asked about this by Terri Gross in 1980, he discussed not only witnessing the carnage in Vietnam on a nightly basis in front of his TV screen as being sort of a muse for him, but also him shooting a rat as a young boy for fun. "And it took a lot of killing to kill that rat," he said, "and it continued screaming for a long time. I'll tell you, when I was done I was totally drained. I was totally shocked by what--not only what I had done for amusement, but how fiercely that thing struggled to stay alive. And that moment never left me. You know, I never again hunted, never killed. But I remembered how hard just a rat struggled to be alive. And somehow I was able to transfer that to, you know, the thought of any human being--anything, how fiercely we all hang onto life." This is certainly true for the Barrymore character, as she does everything to hang on to life, trying to call out for her parents, returning home, but unable to produce any kind of audible cry. It's nice to know that even if Williamson created a fun slasher whodunit with a bit of dark humor in it, Craven was fluent in the terrible reality of violence and its impact on ourselves.

It's nice that this is a unique horror film that is self-aware, but throughout the movie there's one movie reference after another: "Carrie," "The Silence of the Lambs," and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." In essence, "Scream" is a little too self-aware. Every character has an opinion on these movies and their flaws; there's even a character named Randy (Kennedy) who's so in love with horror movies that he stops the watching of "Halloween" to explain to them that just in case this mysterious slasher shows up, there are certain "rules" to follow. He says, "You can never have sex"; this brings a chorus of boos from his audience. Next, never drink or do drugs. Finally, "never, ever, under any circumstances, say 'I'll be right back.'" Stu (Lillard), the untamed bro, mentions that he's going to grab another beer and asks if Randy wants one; Randy replies yes. "I'll be right back!" is Stu's obnoxious reply, and all the youngsters start howling away.

Campbell basically set herself up to be the scream queen successor to Jamie Lee Curtis, and she does a fine job. Most of the other actors don't do much, but in this type of movie, not much is required of them other than to scream (no pun intended) and look really, really scared.

"Scream" may have its flaws, but it's certainly an engaging whodunit with a twist every five minutes. Everyone's a suspect--even Sidney's father--and in almost 20 years since its release, it's aged pretty well for the most part. I personally get disturbed watching people being sliced up by their fellow human beings, especially when it's young people. And at least now, it's not particularly scary. I do recall seeing "Scream 3" when I was thirteen years old in the cinema and being terrified by it (without having seen either of the first two), but with "Scream," I simply mostly had fun. Like this year's "Trainwreck," it mocks its genre's tropes while warmly embracing them.

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The Blair Witch Project

It's not quite reality. In one of the weaker scenes of “The Blair Witch Project,” the somewhat groundbreaking mockumentary horror film of 1999, a character teases his fellow documentarian about her never-ending use of the camera. He now understands why she's in love with it, why she continues to film even though some very strange and eerie things have been happening to them on their trek into haunted woods. This movie is not quite reality, but it sure as hell feels like it. We're told in the beginning that in October of 1994, “three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found.” And thus, a genre changed.

I agree with them that the woods during Halloween are haunting enough. Burkittsville (a real-life town of about 150 people) according to our student filmmakers (Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard), used to be known as Blair. A small cemetery contains an unusually high number of dead children. Some of them, we are told, were murdered by an insane man who kidnapped them and killed them two-by-two with an ax, with one looking away in the corner. He eventually entered the town and declared, “I'm finally finished.” His reason? A witch was torturing him and told him she would stop if he killed the children. There are several other scary stories like this sprinkled throughout the exposition. One of them is the story of the Blair Witch, a local legend grandparents used to tell their children to scare them to bed early. Mary Brown, an older woman the town has written off as crazy, tells our three protagonists a story of how when she was a young girl fishing with her father, a woman who appeared to be completely covered with hair approached her. Because the three filmmakers note that Mary Brown also claims to be a scientist doing research for the government, they ignore her ominous story and drive off for the woods. There, they meet two fisherman, one of whom describes the story of Robin Weaver, an unfortunate soul who vanished, apparently caused by an old woman--or witch--whose feet never touched the ground.

These stories are eerie enough and would make a fine film of their own, but they're not particularly scary. “The Blair Witch Project,” however, is truly scary. Influenced by other horror films (its utilization of both color and black-and-white is reminiscent of “Night of the Living Dead” and the more obvious similarity is to "Cannibal Holocaust") and obviously influential (with the most obvious influence being on “Paranormal Activity” and a host of other horror films), it might be considered one of the best of all time. While not as scary as "Paranormal Activity," it certainly is more real-looking. Perhaps the reason is that, like "Jaws" before it, our witch is never seen (or is it?). Instead, we are witness to our characters being woken at night to the sound of silent cackles. There are piles of rocks mysteriously placed outside their tent. Their map goes missing. One morning, there appears to be slime surrounding the tent. The camera can barely pick it up, but who cares? It's much scarier to simply take their word for it. In fact, hardly anything can often be seen, and this works mostly to the directors' (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez) favor. The movie is so simple yet brilliant because it rests on our shared phenomenon of being scared in the woods at night. Add a witch and I can't even imagine. 

    

While the three actors are not necessarily bad, the constant improvisation leads to overacting. There's an incessant amount of shouting at each other as they argue their way into madness, constantly being hunted by a witch seen, not heard. Josh teases Heather about the camera, telling her it's not quite reality. Well, for one, it's hardly realistic that a group of characters in such dire situations would continue filming, or that they would have moments of levity and laughter in their breaks from being hunted. The reality of things like witches I'm sure will be debated for centuries, but if such creatures do exist, it can be concluded that they probably lack any sense of compassion or mercy. If there are witches, they are probably more like the Blair Witch than Harry Potter. 

Hungry, cold and hunted, the three continue to do their best to crawl out of the vast woods, but to no avail. There is an absolutely terrifying climax in a house deep, deep in the woods. It's impossible to see what exactly is going on, but it's hauntingly eerie. Handprints everywhere and a silent scream somewhere in the foods. How I would hate to be alone in the woods, hunted by a witch. Terrifying. 

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This Is the End

"This Is the End" is a parody of disaster/horror/apocalypse films in the sense that there is sort of a formula here to be poked fun at. A group of people are stranded when the world is ending and they have to use their talents and abilities to overcome the uniquely challenging environments.  But with "This Is the End," the apocalypse is in LA, the group of people are spoiled Hollywood actors, and their uniquely challenging environment is James Franco's house. The actors here appear as themselves--they are Jay Baruchel, Seth Rogen, James Franco, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, and Jonah Hill--though of course it could be argued that in a way they are playing characters. (It would be hard to believe that any of them do half of the things they do in this movie.) Their best plan is to gather all the food (which is the kind that mostly wouldn't sustain someone through an apocalypse) and then they argue about who gets the Milky Way.

They theorize what could be causing the mayhem outside (with the consensus eventually forming around the idea that the Book of Revelations is coming true) but spend most of the time doing what you would expect stoned actors to do: stage sequels to some of their hit movies and play with prop guns. There are unlikable jerks who are destined to die, only here they are actually famous people. Emma Watson (also as herself) shows up with an ax, but things go from bad to worse. In many other films, the filmmakers would assume that simply providing a cameo would provoke laughter; this usually doesn't come true. Here, it does, because the actors are actually given something to do. SPOILER ALERT: Most of the cameos feature performers who die early on; actors are people, too, and they can also be victims to the apocalypse. The actors here subtly poke fun at themselves and each other. Hill, as he is praying, introduces himself to God by reminding Him that he's Jonah Hill, "from 'Moneyball.'" McBride teases Rogen's acting ability in "Green Hornet" and then assures them that the Green Goblin (Franco, of course) surely has enough money to help them.  

The film is one of those rare ones that is funny throughout its entirety. Some jokes, as expected, either fall flat or overstay their welcome. For example, I think most will argue that ejaculation is funny. Erotic? Sure. Depressing? At times. But also fairly hysterical. (I'm not the only one who agrees with this, right?) I can't think of many scenes in cinematic history that feature this unique bodily function which don't appeal to our humor. And so McBride and Franco get into a big argument on such a topic, and then it goes on for about another minute. That's not very long, but I think it's fair to say that ejaculation jokes do in fact reach a ceiling (figuratively, of course). Consider the opening monologue between Jay Baruchel and Seth Rogen in a car from the airport. They get into a big argument about eating gluten and whether or not it is healthy and/or necessary. It is reminiscent of that famous discussion about fast food in "Pulp Fiction," so much so that I expected one of them to say something about "gluten with cheese." I thought it was a bad start to the movie, but pretty soon I was wrong. From there, the two smoke weed with a pipe they observe resembles that of Gandolf the Grey's and start mimicking Ian McKellen as if he were a pothead.

This movie is surely one of the funniest experiences I've had at the cinema. The exorcism scene in particular, in which the gang tries to rescue their friend from the grips of Satan, had me practically in tears. To provide further evidence of the lovably sophomoric humor, let me point out that the demon in the movie not only is rather terrifying but also, for no explained reason, incredibly well-endowed--it's hard (no pun intended) not to notice. Spoiler? Hardly, but you should at least have some kind of an idea of the movie you're about to watch. And beyond that, all I can say is that you will very likely laugh a lot.

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Let the Right One In

If you watched the recent Academy Awards, you probably saw Taylor Lautner and Kristen Stewart of the "Twilight" series introduce a tribute to the horror genre, a genre repeatedly ignored by the Oscars for whatever reason. It could be that the genre is ignored because in many ways these horror stories branch off from the fantasy genre, and everyone is quite aware of the handicaps of fantasy films at award ceremonies.

I don't recall if there was a moment in the montage that featured this Swedish film, "Let the Right One In," though there were moments from "Edward Scissorhands" and "Beetlejuice," hardly horror films by any stretch of the imagination. Regardless, what good would it do if "Let the Right One In" was included? As I recently stated, if the Oscars wish to honor the genre, perhaps they could actually give these films a couple of rewards.

What better way to start off a review than with a rant? Yes, the Oscars have nothing to do with this movie (particularly so since the film was not nominated in any category--maybe there could be a token category for horror films like the Best Animated Feature award). I am not an expert on Swedish cinema, but based on films that I have seen, like Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" and "The Virgin Spring," and based on its position next to the melancholic and pessimistic Finland (a nation "depressed and proud of it," as Morley Safer said), it seems fitting that this very acclaimed film came from such a country.

This is a very gloomy film, from its snowy beginning to its violent climax. It is frightening, far more than most recent horror films, but not gratuitous. There is an urge not to look away, even at its gloomiest. It possess spectacular cinematography--of snowy forests that are simultaneously dark and bright--without simply pleading to be viewed and offering nothing much in return. And to bring back Mr. Lautner and Ms. Stewart, "Let the Right One In" is often called "'Twilight' for grown-ups." I have never seen either of the "Twilight" films, but I would be willing to bet money on whether or not it is worth my time to watch them instead of "Let the Right One In."

The main character is a boy named Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), who is bullied his classmates; he's even called a "good piggy" by the jerks. Oskar does not utilize a mirror at home like Travis Bickle, but he does work on his intimidation fantasies on a tree. It is here when he is outside practicing that he meets a young girl (Lina Leandersson).

The young girl, Eli, is a vampire. Vampires are by definition quite hungry, so she requires the help from an older man (Per Ragnar), who spends some evenings murdering people to collect blood for Eli. When he is taken out of the picture, she relies on herself. She cries when she kills a man and drinks his blood.

Oskar does not realize at first that his new friend, whom he talks to frequently and who never wears a jacket despite how cold it is, is a vampire. He eventually asks her if she wants to "go steady," which must be a peculiar question for a vampire. She's not a girl, she tells him. To Oskar, of course, this means that Eli is a boy, but he loves her anyway.

The film, similar to "Paranormal Activity" released the same year, becomes increasingly unsettling. Sometimes it goes into territory it needs not enter, like when a group of angry CGI cats attack a vampire. This sequence looks incredibly dated--have the Swedes just now discovered CGI? Fortunately, the attack of CGI cats is only brief. That character who must suffer from the cats' malevolence eventually faces a situation, or rather fate, which is expected, but for it to run its course it seems to take about twenty minutes. The character believes she has been "infected" with something by the girl, Eli.

This is a brilliantly crafted movie. It deserves comparisons to "Nosferatu" and the better "Dracula" films, perhaps even to "The Exorcist." Ignored, like so many, at the Oscars, it is nevertheless far more memorable a film than blue aliens or an ignorant hangover.

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