I blame David Fincher, Andrew Kevin Walker, and Arthur Max for End of Days. Had those three not done such stellar work on the movie Seven, Fincher directing, Walker writing, and Max doing the production design, there would not have been a flood of pale imitations that hit the market. End of Days is not about a serial killer, but it has a drained, desolate look and feel that just didn’t exist in film before Seven. And the thing is, this movie is a bit of a laugher, but it looks so bleak that at times I felt like I was laughing at a funeral. Continue reading “Schwarzenegger Month: End of Days”
Tag: Supernatural Flick
October Horrorshow: The Changeling
John Russell (George C. Scott) just had the worst day of his life. While on a winter vacation in upstate New York, he watched his wife and child get run down in the street by an out of control dump truck. A few months go by, and John, a composer of classical music, decides it is time to begin his life again, and takes a job teaching at his alma mater. The new job is across the country in Seattle, and John needs to find a new place to live. At the suggestion of a friend, John locates a house through the local historical society. It’s quite the place. Victorian, high ceilings — it even has a music room. Any house or apartment with a music room resides firmly in the 1%.
The house had been unoccupied ever since it was willed to the historical society, and for good reason. The place is haunted. In fact, John would never have been able to secure a lease were it not for Claire (Trish Van Devere), the member of the society that showed John the house. She’s relatively new to her job, and thus didn’t know about the issues with the house. Also, she’s smitten with the gruff old composer with the surprisingly soft smile and history of personal tragedy. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Changeling”
October Horrorshow: Shutter (2004)
Shutter was a new experience for me. As far as I can remember, I’ve never seen a movie from Thailand before. If there were a line in Vegas on whether or not the first Thai movie I chose to watch would be horror or shitty, what would that line be? Or would that be a sucker bet? It is October, after all. The month of blood and death. Of course I’m watching horror. So the only question is, is it shitty horror? Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Shutter (2004)”
October Horrorshow: Apartment 143
Oh, look. Another found footage horror flick. What is going on? Are these things breeding? Seriously, something has to be done about this or filmmakers are going to stop making horror films that look like, you know, actual movies. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Apartment 143″
October Horrorshow: The Frighteners
Before he was boring me to tears putting endless hours of Tolkien tales to film, Peter Jackson used to make horror films. Not many, to be sure. Peter Jackson is not a horror filmmaker. He is a filmmaker who has made horror flicks. His most memorable work in the genre was Dead Alive (Braindead for all you worldly purists out there). That film is memorable for being, perhaps, the goriest horror film of all time. It truly was an exercise in bloody excess, impossible to faithfully convey in a posting to a website. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Frighteners”
October Horrorshow: The Conjuring
Filmmaker James Wan has, in the last decade, become horror cinema royalty. He was behind the creation of the Saw franchise, the two Insidious movies, and, from just this past summer, The Conjuring. His bona fides as a horror auteur are unassailable...which must be why he’s currently helming Fast & Furious 7. After directing three straight ghost stories, maybe a change in direction was inevitable. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Conjuring”
October Horrorshow: The Haunting (1999), or, Think of the Children!
When I imagine Purgatory, I have a fairly concrete vision in mind. I’m standing on a New York City subway platform during the morning rush hour. It’s August. The heat is stifling, and I had a twenty-minute walk just to reach the station. By the time I find myself standing in the stagnant air, waiting for the next train, I’m pouring sweat. During the night, some bum defecated on the platform and its ripe smell has been added to the unique bouquet of rot and brake dust that gives the New York subway an odor all its own — truly something unique the world over. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Haunting (1999), or, Think of the Children!”
October Horrorshow: Insidious
According to the IMDb page for Insidious, Leigh Whannell kept a list of horror movie clichés handy while he was writing the screenplay. He didn’t want his project to slip into the same predictable traps that mar so much horror cinema. With that list staring him in the face day in and day out, presumably, Insidious would turn out to be a film that was totally fresh, one that even audience members with hundreds of hours invested in the genre would find enjoyable. That is a very laudable goal, and a bit of a risk. Just because a film is formulaic does not mean it is a bad film. In its most basic sense, it just means the film will feel familiar to many people watching it. And as we all know, people like the familiar. As much as we like to pretend humanity is a collection of adventurous people, the opposite is in fact true. That’s why tourists eat at the same restaurants they have back home. It’s why popular music at times can sound like the same song done over and over again by a hundred different groups. And that’s why sequels, remakes, and carbon copies of previous successes make money at the box office. It’s just the way things are. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: Insidious”
October Horrorshow: The Skeptic
Hey, Hollywood. Cut Netflix some slack. The other day I was on Netflix’s streaming service looking for a horror flick about a haunting to watch, and the best I could come up with was The Skeptic, a movie I had no idea even existed. In fact, most of the movies in Netflix’s streaming horror queue are a complete mystery to me. This particular flick was just about the highest-rated there was for what I was looking for, and it barely cracked two stars. I did a little more research, and found that it raked in a grand total of six thousand bucks at the box office. That is just pathetic. Someone, somewhere, please sit down in a room and don’t leave until you figure out how to deliver me more than Hollywood leftovers in on demand service. I’ll pay a few more bucks a month, I swear. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: The Skeptic”
October Horrorshow: V/H/S
Oh, no! Found footage?! Why?! Whyyyyyyyyy??!!!!!
All histrionics aside, do filmmakers still make horror flicks that don’t use the found footage method? Because it feels like it’s been awhile since I’ve seen one. Is it really too much to ask that filmmakers show skill as storytellers rather than resort to gimmicks? It may be. But what happens when gimmick is combined with good storytelling? That’s just crazy talk, right? Continue reading “October Horrorshow: V/H/S”