Monthly Archive: October 2020

Day 21

The Perfection (2018)

Directed by Richard Shepard

Content Warning: This review of The Perfection contains discussions of sexual violence and minor spoilers.

When former cellist prodigy Charlotte reunites with her old teachers, she has an instant connection with their new protege, Lizzie. When Charlotte joins Lizzie on a trip to rural China, the two begin a dark journey that will leave both of them changed forever. A lot of the film is carried by the two leads, who are both fine actresses with great chemistry, which helps keep the movie grounded when the twists start. Like a lot of movies that describe themselves as ‘Twisty’ the twists range in believability, some are fun and wild, whereas others don’t make too much sense but generally the plot is okay. Some of the cinematography is also very nice and the last shot of the film is so brilliant they had to have thought of that first and then worked backwards to make a story around it.

So it sounds like I liked the movie and would recommend it, right? Wrong. At about the 1 hour mark the film is chugging along and building towards a big dark reveal that defines the story. What is that reveal, you ask? Rape. Child rape. A series of child rapes stretching back decades. I shouldn’t have to say why you should not write a series of child rapes into a silly twisty plot but I guess I will. Rape is not a fun twist. Once you include rape in your story it is now a feel bad story and that puts the last act of this movie so at odds with the rest of the film that the entire experience was ruined for us. The Perfection came so close to being a fun twisty dark story but it completely misunderstood what should go in a movie like this and destroys its own creation. Not recommended.

Day 20 

Bones (2001)

Directed by Ernest Dickerson

When a group of young folk decide to buy a decrepit abandoned building in the projects and turn it into a nightclub to launch their music career, they make a frightening discovery in the basement – the ghastly remains of an unfortunate murder victim. When they decide to press on with their plans regardless of what they find, the wrath of the angry dead comes back to haunt them in the form of the specter of the murdered man, who is played by Snoop Dogg. I’ll be upfront here, Bones is kind of a mess. There were so many ideas and horror concepts jammed into this movie that a lot of them don’t really have the payoff they need, and it is particularly weird that the movie switches from a haunted house type movie to a campy supernatural slasher at about the hour mark. But the strangest thing of all is I think I actually enjoyed this movie. 

Bones is strongest when it’s focusing on two things, the cast and the, at times, pretty creepy visuals. The group of friends all seem like real friends, which helps a lot to make them likeable and sympathetic, and Pam Grier is great as usual, but the show gets stolen by Michael T. Weiss who plays a dirty cop and delivers a creepy, disgusting, and memorable performance. Visually, Bones is at its best when it sticks to the haunted house, which has a cool urban gothic feel to it, and the practical horror effects work quite well. When the typical early 2000s bad CGI shows up everything goes a bit downhill, but there is still enough here that is enjoyable. Bones isn’t for everyone but if you’re looking for a campy and fun horror movie you could certainly do worse and if that sounds like you then I would recommend this film.

Day 19

The Hunger (1983)

Directed by Tony Scott

The Hunger is a stylized vampire film concerning a complex love-web involving two vampires, Miriam and John Blaylock, played by Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie, and Dr. Sarah Roberts, a gerontologist played by Susan Sarandon, and her husband. After speaking with John regarding some issues he’s been having with vampiric life, Sarah meets with Miriam, a woman she has an instant connection with. As their relationship grows and becomes more intense, the fallout from this changes both women’s lives forever. It’s slightly difficult to describe this plot because it is so character driven and character focused, but it is mainly about the relationship between Miriam Blaylock and Sarah Roberts, and how Miriam being a vampire complicates this. There’s a lot of neat takes on vampirism in this movie and I won’t spoil them, but John in particular is in an interesting position that isn’t normally seen in vampire movies which does add a bit of drama to the story. Most of what makes this movie good though isn’t the story, but the excellent visual style.

The Hunger’s visual style, particularly in the opening and during a sex scene between Deneuve and Roberts (which is all the contemporary critics cared about), is what sets it apart and makes it worthwhile viewing. However much you will get out of this movie depends precisely on that, and even though critics at the time widely panned the movie I think that if this were released today, maybe under the A24 banner, it would have received a much more positive response. The visual effects are great, the opening and ending sequences are fantastic, and it is always a treat to see David Bowie in a weird movie. There’s even a cameo by Willem Dafoe that caught me off guard! I would definitely recommend this movie, but only to people who like films driven by characters and visuals where the story isn’t always the main concern. If you’re looking for a strong and deep narrative, perhaps look elsewhere.

Day 18

Ganja & Hess (1973)

Directed by Bill Gunn

Ganja & Hess is the story of an anthropologist, Dr. Hess Green, who finds himself dealing with being turned into a vampire after his assistant stabs him with an ancient cursed dagger. Eventually, Dr. Hess meets and falls in love with his assistant’s wife, Ganja, who learns of Hess’ secret. The story of Ganja & Hess isn’t told in the most straightforward way because this film is a kind of surreal experimental take on vampire fiction, which will make or break the movie for a lot of people. In fact, I think this will be one of the shorter reviews for this month because I can sum up my thoughts with just about one phrase which is, “I don’t get it.” I just recently talked about Hausu, which is a surreal horror-comedy that used experimental imagery as a way to convey horror and comedy while keeping the narrative structure intact, but Ganja & Hess seems to do the opposite, using understandable imagery but setting up an experimental narrative structure. I often had no idea what was supposed to be happening or what purpose it had in the plot, and when I knew what was going on I wasn’t always a huge fan.

What kept me from enjoying the film, apart from the experimental nature of the structure, was that I had no love for any of the characters we met. Everyone felt arm’s length away, emotionally, and even though the acting was good, Duane Jones of Night of the Living Dead fame stars as Dr. Hess and Marlene Clark as Ganja, it wasn’t easy to connect with anyone present. It almost seemed intentional, like, yeah, of course people who are vampires would be unlikable assholes and of course, gender relations are super screwed up so there’s a weird power imbalance going on through the whole thing. There’s a lot happening, and some neat visuals, but however much you’ll get out of Ganja & Hess depends on you being the kind of person who wants to see this kind of movie. I was told this was a great Black Vampire movie and while those elements are present, I wasn’t exactly warned of the unique structure or nature of the narrative or visuals, and I probably wouldn’t have watched it had I been. If you’re really interested in the history of black horror cinema I’d still recommend checking this out, or you have a love for experimental fiction this is something to look at. For everyone else, maybe skip this one. 

Day 17

Fright Night (1985)

Directed by Tom Holland

Fright Night is the story of a young man, Charley Brewster, obsessed with cheesy horror movies. After a new neighbor moves in, Charley quickly begins suspecting that this neighbor may be a vampire, so he contacts the now down on his luck host of one of his favorite horror programs to help him fight this vampire. The two eventually team up to take down the vampiric neighbor, Jerry, who certainly isn’t going to go down without a fight. Where this eventually ends up is a lot of fun, as Fright Night is unafraid to mess with vampiric lore and play around with ideas from all sorts of vampire fiction. There’s this feeling that the people involved with this movie loved horror movies and wanted to have fun with the tropes of the genre but not make fun of the genre, which is good and helps to kind of take seriously what has to be taken seriously while allowing the lighter bits to be more amusing.

The problems I have with Fright Night mainly come from one thing, which is that everything I liked about the movie, the bits where the battle between wanna be vampire hunters and an actual real-life vampire happen and are absurd and awesome, happens in the last 30 or 40 minutes of the movie. You have to get through nearly a full hour of, “I know that my neighbor is a vampire but no one will believe me!” wacky comedy hijinks before the fun stuff starts happening and that was way too long for me. Sure, the last act is amazing and I loved it and I think I would recommend the movie based on the strength of its ending alone, but it was a slog getting there. It doesn’t really help that there’s a super uncomfortable sub-plot about this ageless vampire hypnotizing and seducing Charley’s girlfriend who even though the actress was 27, is still playing a 17 year old. That’s weird and gross but I would accept it in a regular vampire film, those are horror films after all so I want weird and gross things to happen, but it felt a little out of place here. This is one of the more difficult movies I’ve covered here because I keep going back and forth on whether or not I enjoyed it enough to recommend it. But I need to acknowledge that the ending was great, and that third of the movie is good enough to warrant sitting through the rest of it. If you’re into 80s horror and love 80s comedy then you might get more out of this than I did.

Day 15 

Dave Made A Maze (2017)

Directed by Bill Waterson

Dave Made A Maze is the story of a guy named Dave…who makes a maze. To elaborate slightly, Dave is a frustrated artist who, while his girlfriend Annie is away on business, decides to make a cardboard maze in the living room of their apartment. Dave becomes trapped in this maze, which is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, and when Annie returns home to find this, she leads a group of quirky characters into the maze, who are all surprised to find the maze full of deadly traps and a deadlier minotaur. While we’re on the topic of the maze itself let’s start with the best part of the movie, the maze itself. This maze is pure creative joy, a series of sets crafted almost entirely from cardboard that give this movie a hyper-distinct look and whimsical feel, even when the maze’s deadly traps are killing people. Cleverly, even the gore in this movie is arts and craftsy, with red yarn and confetti taking the place of blood and guts, which works both to keep the tone, and is also a smart way to avoid expensive realistic gore effects.

Visually, this movie is a real treat, and the story is barebones but works, a simple rescue quest to justify diving into this death trap. Where I think the problems start for me is where the characters are concerned. Dave in particular is a character I have trouble with. Dave is a frustrated artist who can’t finish anything, has accomplished nothing in life, and has invested all of his energy into a project that is pointless and harmful. Not to get too psychological but I see all the parts of myself I dislike in this character and that made a lot of his scenes kind of frustrating. I get that this was the point, it’s a movie about being creative and the failures that come with that, but it’s a stark contrast from the whimsy of the maze that I really liked. Back to the actual movie, it’s quick, mostly fast-paced, and has some unique and incredibly memorable sequences. I would recommend Dave Made A Maze to people looking for a weird, quirky, and visually inventive horror-comedy, even if the characters left me wanting.

Day 14

What We Do In Shadows (2014)

Directed (and starring) Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement

What We Do In The Shadows is a movie, and now also a TV show, that is a mockumentary about several vampires living in a New Zealand flat (apartment in American speak) together for environmental and economic reasons. The film is a comedic take on both this group of vampires and also supernatural life(?) as a whole in New Zealand, where we meet the local population of werewolves, witches, and zombies. I’ll be right to the point with this one, What We Do In The Shadows is hysterical, we started laughing in the opening scene and kept laughing straight through the end of the movie, whereupon we seriously considered watching the movie again because that’s how funny it was. The only times when we weren’t laughing were when Waititi and Clement reminded us that this was still in the horror genre during a shockingly tense sequence towards the end of the film.

What makes this movie so funny is how well Waititi and Clement understand vampire lore, and how much they clearly love it. The vampires we meet are all representative of a certain style of vampire which they excellently skewer: Waititi plays Viago Von Dorna Schmarten Scheden Heimburg (né von Blitzenberg), the foppish aristocrat obsessed with order and cleanliness, Clement plays Vladislav the Poker, a tortured vampire with a dark past and mysterious enemy, Jonathan Brugh plays Deacon Brucke, the youngest and coolest of the group, and Ben Fransham plays Petyr, the Noseferatu-like vampire who lives in the basement. All these people have strong personalities which lends itself incredibly well to the way the movie satirizes the mundane aspects of what an immortal life as a vampire would be, as well as connecting that to the experiences that everyday people have. This is a hilarious movie that will especially work for people who are familiar with vampire fiction, and as an added bonus the ending is weirdly upbeat, heartfelt, and hopeful. 100% recommended to anyone who likes horror or comedy.

Day 13

An American Werewolf In London

Directed by John Landis

Firmly established in the canon of horror comedies, An American Werewolf in London is the story of two young American backpackers who encounter a werewolf while traipsing through the English countryside on vacation. The survivor of this brutal attack is sent to London for recovery, where he becomes an American Werewolf…in London. Speaking of the werewolf effects, they were by far our favorite part of the movie, the transformation scenes are incredible and the general look of the werewolf is also really cool. In that same vein, this movie is full of awesome practical gore effects, the kind you don’t really see in movies anymore, which does help the horror aspects of the film. There’s also a pretty neat storyline about the small rural community that seems to know more than they let on about what happened to the two travelers, which adds some intrigue and atmosphere.. Where the movie kind of loses itself for us was in the comedic department.

There are certainly many funny moments, one near the end in a seedy movie theater stands head and shoulders above the rest of the film, but generally we didn’t find the movie that funny. Maybe it’s because we found the character dynamics so weird, we were really confused by the eponymous werewolf in London’s relationship with a nurse he meets at the hospital, and that kind of threw us. We weren’t sure if this nurse falling for a clearly mentally disturbed patient was supposed to be a joke or if this lady just had really bad taste in men. Maybe we’re just not that into 80s comedy? Regardless of that, this is a good movie and one we would recommend to people looking for a more old-school monster movie. It deserves a recommendation for its fun use of songs featuring the word ‘moon’ alone!

Day 12

Stitches (2012)

Directed by Conor McMahon

Who said we were done with clowns? After a birthday clown is heckled to death by a group of unruly young children, he returns 6 years later to exact his revenge from beyond the grave on these now high-school students. What’s great about Stitches is that it is a horror comedy that delivers on both horror and comedy in spades. While not high-brow, the humor kept us laughing throughout the movie, and this was due in no small part to the excellent comedic timing and styles of (insert actor name here), who was perfect for the part. Part of what makes the humor work so well is that it blends well with the horror, as Stitches uses ‘clown logic’ as his main weapon while crafting ironic deaths for the children who tormented him. As a callback to his demise, Stitches kills one of the teens by fashioning a balloon animal out of a kids’ intestines, among other amusing kills. The kids are also very good, especially when the movie highlights how this traumatic event has uniquely changed everyone present. Also, there is an awesome clown mythology to the film, including sequel-bait for a movie that I now desperately want to see.

There are a few problems here. There’s a bit too much of an attempt to be edgy sometimes, specifically there is a scene where a cat is killed and it isn’t funny and doesn’t have any connection to anything, it just makes you feel bad. This may not be a negative for everyone but many scenes, particularly the ones set at high school are full of cringe humor, which is very divisive but works well if you enjoy it. Also the ending is infuriatingly neat and tidy, with an unsatisfying subplot that feels very much like wish fulfillment and consequences that seem non-existent. Still, even though the movie has problems, if you have some drinks and some friends it is a hilarious darkly comic romp that we highly recommend.