Haunt (2019)

DECEMBER 23, 2019

GENRE: SLASHER, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: STREAMING (SHUDDER)

For as long as I can recall going to haunted houses and "horror nights" theme park makeovers in October, I've thought that they should make a movie where people got killed for real at one. Well, now that we've had a few, I don't think we need any more for a while. Haunt is a perfectly decent slasher, and more mainstream than most of the Shudder exclusives that they tout a lot, but it's too silly/thin a premise to sustain being done several times in such a short period. Over the past few years we've had Hell Fest, The Houses That October Built (and its sequel), Blood Fest... not to mention things like 31 that change up the setup (those folks were kidnapped and forced to run through the maze, as opposed to voluntary ticket buyers) but otherwise play out the same. We get it! We should stick to the normal houses in our own towns!

In Haunt's case, even some of the dynamic is the same as Hell Fest's, as our skittish heroine Harper is coaxed on by her roommate and partially willing to go along for the ride because of her burgeoning crush on a nice guy. And while there's no proving anything, it's worth noting that the Hell Fest script floated around for quite a while before finally being produced only a few months after Haunt was shot, and from what I understand they quickly put it together to get it out for last year's Halloween season. So it's not too farfetched to assume that Hell Fest's long development process got the script into the hands of people who'd go on to make Haunt instead, and once the HF holders caught wind of it, barrelled their version through whatever the holdups were to get it done and out first so that they wouldn't be seen as the ripoff, which would just be twisting the knife considering how long it had been in the works (it has been around at least as far back as 2011, when Neil Marshall was attached to direct it).

There are two key differences though, both of which can explain why I ultimately preferred Hell Fest to this one. One is that in that movie, they were being stalked by a sole killer in an open, normally running park, opening it up to different possibilities and adding the always fun "no one will believe our hero" scenario. This meant that the action was rather backloaded, yes, but it was something different, and the tradeoff that they had no real reason to be cautious or confused about the situation, allowing them to hurdle over a number of the logic issues. But here, our group drives to this place in the middle of nowhere and there's no one else around and it's very creepy i.e. they should have had warning bells go off in the first place, so it's not as interesting - it's just "yet another", instead.

Also, Hell Fest's sole killer kept it firmly within the standard slasher template (which I love, warts and all). Here there's like a half dozen murderers working for this place, some of which you only see for the first time moments before they attack one of our heroes. I guess the idea is to make the odds feel insurmountable for our protagonists, but it just felt closer to cheating to me, as they could just keep throwing new killers at the kids until the 90 minute runtime was reached - I think it's only fair to establish just how many villains they had to get past in order to escape. It got pretty repetitive by the last half hour, I gotta say, and it denies us any real mega villain that we can really fear, as they're all kind of equal (and not particularly memorable). Like you know in Hellraiser III when they bring out those new Cenobites even though it's pretty much a Pinhead vehicle? Imagine if the movie was just those guys, and every time another one got killed a new, equally generic one would come along a few minutes later. That's what this is like.

All that said, it more or less gets the job done in a basic, no-frills kind of way. Our heroes are thankfully not obnoxious and have no in-group fighting to annoy me; I think the biggest drama is that the roommate loses Harper's mother's ring - when she's attacked! Harper is also a pretty great Final Girl - she's normal without being a wallflower (she actually makes the first move on the guy!) and doesn't need fifty attacks to finally fight back. I also liked Evan, the would-be boyfriend's best brah, who is introduced as kind of a dick (he spills a drink on Harper) but when they realize they're in real danger he's the most proactive about getting everyone out - he doesn't sell them out or leave them behind to save himself (which is what I expected him to do as soon as they arrived).

Indeed, the best thing about the movie is how it occasionally circumvents traditional cliches; the absolute highlight of the film is when Nate (the would-be boyfriend) does that thing where he reaches into a hole and pretends to get grabbed to scare his friends - a tired horror gag we've seen a million times, but then there's a fun twist to it that works really well. The final scene also does something like this, though obviously I won't be spoiling any details, and in this day and age I guess it also counts as a "twist" that our group doesn't all hate each other (indeed, later on I tried a random Christmas slasher on Prime and sure enough, the heroine's boyfriend had fooled around with one of her sorority sisters). The second best thing is that they don't waste too much time on the "is this actually happening or is it part of the act?" stuff, though perhaps if they HAD stretched that out a tad they wouldn't have had to run in circles (literally, at one point) to pad the rest of it out.

Considering it was from the writers of Quiet Place, and produced by Eli Roth, I guess I was expecting a little more from it, so I'd probably like it more a second time around if that were to happen. Again, it's an enjoyable enough movie, but it's not particularly novel or memorable either - the occasional "let's pull a switcheroo with this generic scare type moment" beats only make up a few seconds of a 90 minute movie, after all. But as I mentioned, a lot of Shudder's exclusive stuff tends to fall on the less mainstream side of things (like Prevenge and We Are The Flesh), so I think it's a good thing that they'll be the home to easy recommendable stuff like this in order to woo more casual horror fans. And if means more people might check out Hell Fest, even if just to compare, that's a good thing too!

What say you?

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3 From Hell (2019)

OCTOBER 15, 2019

GENRE: HERO KILLER, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: 4K UHD (OWN COLLECTION)

With the exception of Lords of Salem, you rarely hear anyone say their favorite Rob Zombie movie is anything but The Devil's Rejects, his 1000 Corpses sequel that dropped the Texas Chainsaw-y kinda stuff in favor of a violent revenge thriller that pitted the Firefly family against the brother of a guy they killed in the first film. I wouldn't say Zombie ever sided with Otis, Baby, and Captain Spaulding in that film, but he clearly didn't want us rooting for their hunter (William Forsythe) either, allowing them a few minutes of "triumph" after offing him before they too met their grisly and deserved end in a hail of police bullets. We never actually saw them die, but it seemed pretty unlikely that a dozen cops firing on them would leave any of them alive, and so when he announced the long awaited (?) sequel 3 From Hell, my assumption would be that he'd be returning to the more traditional horror elements of the first film by introducing a supernatural angle.

(NOTE - Some spoilers follow, including details about the film's third act!)

Alas, the title isn't meant to be taken literally - the Fireflys simply miraculously survived their wounds (we're told they were shot about 20 times each) and that's that. I don't know if it was the lowered budget or simple laziness on Zombie's part, but it's kind of distressing that he'd wave away a fairly definitive ending to his best movie with such a half-assed excuse to keep them around (it's in the same eye-rolling territory as Halloween: Resurrection's "she beheaded a paramedic"). Alas, by "them" I mean Otis and Baby; due to star Sid Haig's health issues, Zombie was forced to rewrite his script a bit (Haig fell ill just before production began, apparently) and fill his role with a new character named Foxy (said to be Otis' half brother) played by Richard Brake. The filmmaker was only able to get Haig for one day to give Spaulding a single scene where he is interviewed on Death Row by a documentary crew, and that's it - we're told in the next scene that Spaulding had his lethal injection and died without any fuss the next day.

Yep, he survives being shot 20 times (not to mention the torture from Forsythe) only for a few fluids to do him in. It feels like a disconnect, which got me thinking perhaps there WAS some kind of "they're unkillable" element in the original script that Zombie had to abandon in order to give Spaulding a proper sendoff? The filmmaker has never been one to be too forthcoming with abandoned story ideas (indeed, the making of doc shows Danny Trejo apparently filming scenes for a part of the movie he has no role in whatsoever, but Rob doesn't explain it there or in the commentary), so we'll probably never know - it's kind of a victory that he even admitted the "Foxy for Spaulding" switcheroo. And Brake is fine, but the movie never quite feels like the "end of the trilogy" it should because of Haig's unfortunate inability to participate two weeks before shooting, when sets had been built and actors/locations secured, etc (i.e. too late to wait for Haig to get better, which, as we sadly now know, he never did - RIP Sid!).

But that said, I don't think Rob changed the script so drastically that he created what the real issue is with the movie, which is that it feels too much like Rejects. If I were generally sum up the film, I'd say that Baby and Otis escape the law, meet up with a relative, terrorize and ultimately kill an adult family, then head to a brothel for safety, only for the owner to sell them out to a guy that wants to kill them as revenge for a loved one they killed earlier - that sound familiar at all to you? One of the things that made Rejects work as well as it did is that it took a few of the characters from Corpses and plunked them into a different kind of movie, something I was hoping he'd do again here, but if anything it's not only the same kind of movie, but it recycles a few too many of the same beats as well. Ironically, if not for Brake's presence it'd come off as a Wake Up Ron Burgandy kind of thing where we might as well just be watching alternate scenes from the last movie.

To be fair, it's not really all that bad - it runs a bit long but I wouldn't say I was ever bored, and Bill Moseley and Sheri Moon deliver their expected animated performances, both of them clearly enjoying revisiting their most iconic roles (well, a tie with Chop-Top for Moseley). Baby is crazier than ever, and her scenes in prison are a hoot - there's a guard played by Dee Wallace who seems kind of obsessed with her, and they have a strange allure that almost gives you a glimpse of what a Rob Zombie Ilsa movie might look like. He even lets the characters just stop and talk about their lives every now and then, and while I never stopped missing Spaulding (Otis giving him a bit of a eulogy takes on new meaning with Haig's real life passing since the film was completed), Brake's character had some amusing monologues and a fun chemistry with Moseley - the two of them arguing about Cagney vs Bogart is a highlight. If there's any such thing as a "lighthearted" Rob Zombie movie, you'll see glimpses of it here. And the torture-y kinda stuff has been toned down somewhat; the new "villain" isn't as vicious as Forsythe and the Fireflys off most of their victims fairly quickly (or off-screen entirely in a few cases).

Then again, the bad guy (Aquarius, the son of the Danny Trejo character from Rejects, who is offed by Otis after a chance "reunion" while on a chain gang) doesn't even exist until the movie's final half hour or so, even though they set him off in the first ten minutes or so by killing Trejo. Their antagonist for the first half of the movie is the warden of the prison they're at, played by Zombie regular Jeff Daniel Phillips. More than once it seems like the character is being groomed to embrace his dark side and become a sort of willing accomplice to them, like Robert Downey Jr in Natural Born Killers, who they'll happily use until they don't need him anymore, but nah - he exits the film just past the halfway mark, almost as unceremoniously as Spaulding is written out. It's very awkward, and gives the film a kind of episodic feel that it doesn't quite benefit from in any way that I can see, since our "heroes" just kinda hang out for a while until Aquarius enters the picture. Sure, it's a surprise when these things happen, but it robs the movie of cohesion and momentum - it feels patched together and even kind of sloppy at times. I've long held the opinion that Zombie is a much better director than a writer, but there isn't much here I'd want to use to prove my point.

At least, not in the movie itself. The feature length making of on the disc shows, in some ways more than ever, how hands-on and detail oriented he is when it comes to his sets and staging the action. We see him fixing up a costume, dressing the set, walking actors through their movements, working things out with the camera crew, etc - he is not a guy who will sit in his chair in video village and wait for everyone else to do the work. As always, he frustratingly ends the doc as soon as filming wraps instead of showing us the post process (again, my man isn't all that into showing alternate ideas), but it's an otherwise thorough look at what was a tight - and unfortunately re: Sid, somewhat melancholy - shoot. Rob provides his usual commentary as well, noting a few on-set issues (Clint Howard was apparently late to set for his bizarre but kind of awesome scene) and why this or that scene was difficult, but it can be a frustrating listen since they didn't turn down the sound of the movie as much as you'd normally find on a commentary, so it can be hard to concentrate on what he's saying when you can clearly hear the dialogue or music he is talking "over".

I liked 31 more than most, but it was one of his lesser films for sure, and now this ends up more or less in the same place. After seemingly hitting his creative peak with Lords of Salem (which followed his Halloween II, which I've come to like more and more over the years), it feels like he's kind of phoning things in now, which bums me out - the movies aren't terrible or anything, but they also lack any real spark. After 14 years, what exactly made him decide to return to the Firefly family when he's not really doing anything different? If this was a "Rob Zombie Presents" kind of deal, with some old buddy of his taking over writing/directing duties and respectfully not putting too much of his own stamp on things, I could forgive the sameness, but I kind of expect more from the man himself. Hopefully it's just a brief rut and he'll come back swinging on the next one - which will ideally be something entirely new.

What say you?

P.S. Amusingly, I have this movie on 4K UHD, whereas I never even upgraded the first two from DVD to regular Blu-ray. It's kind of crazy that an entire format passed by while the Firefly family lay dormant.

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House of 1000 Corpses (2003)

SEPTEMBER 13, 2019

GENRE: SURVIVAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

I honestly don't know when the last time I watched Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses in its entirety, in fact it's possible that I only saw it the one time, theatrically (where I dozed off for a bit to boot). I could have sworn I watched my DVD at some point before Devil's Rejects came along, but today I found myself struggling with Lionsgate's notoriously obnoxious security adhesive (where they seal all three sides of the disc, and use a sticky solution that often leaves residue on the case) as I opened it for the first time. With 3 From Hell coming in a couple days, I wanted to refresh my memory, but as I watched the film I realized my memories were so poor it was essentially like watching the movie for the first time.

Indeed, even two of my "specific" memories of the film turned out to be wrong. I thought I remembered a scene of Baby (Sheri Moon) ordering pizza, but it was just booze - I had it mixed up with Texas Chainsaw 4 I guess? And then I vividly remembered the scene where Bill Moseley executes a man, depicted via a long slow-motion crane shot, but in my head it was the father of one of the girls the Firefly family was terrorizing - this was also wrong, as the father was gunned down earlier in the sequence. No, the man who got the crane shot was none other than Walton Goggins, a name I was surprised to see in the credits anyway, further proving how long it had been since I took a look at the film (yes, I remembered that Rainn Wilson and Chris Hardwick were the two male heroes).

In turn, the movie was better than I remembered. I wouldn't say I loved it - it's kind of all over the place and has about two too many villains - but I was never bored, and found myself frequently impressed by how much memorable imagery Zombie managed to cram into the 88 minutes of his very inexpensive movie. The set dressing alone is on par with things like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Nothing But Trouble, in that you can watch the movie a dozen times and still be noticing strange props and decor around the (equally colorful) characters. The Natural Born Killers-esque cutaways (recolored footage, video mixed with film, etc) get a bit overused, but otherwise I was impressed by how clearly Zombie established himself as a filmmaker in his first attempt.

Granted if you hate his "thing" then there's no chance to enjoy the movie, but just as I came around on his 2nd Halloween entry (in director's cut form) I found myself really appreciating how he was basically applying his distinctive style to a particular brand of horror (in this case, a Texas Chainsaw kind of thing, though he has some Eaten Alive in there too). I remember someone saying that if they had to guess what a Rob Zombie was like (for better or worse), their mental image would be almost identical to his film 31 - but they were saying it dismissively, whereas I kind of love that I know what I'll get when I sit down for one of his movies. If he was making them every year, I'm sure it'd get tiresome, but 3 From Hell will be his 3rd movie in the past decade - that's a big enough gap in between to enjoy his hillbilly hijinks as a diversion from the supernatural horror movies that make up an increasing percentage of what horror films are playing in our multiplexes.

It's also legitimately tense at times. The finale is kind of a dud (Zombie always knew this, for what it's worth) but there are some really great sequences along the way to make up for it. The first big attack on the group as they attempt to escape is fairly harrowing (and again, this was a movie released at a time that the likes of Darkness Falls was able to top the box office), and even the fakeout bits, like Captain Spaulding (Sid Haig, in what was his first major role in years) pretending to get angry at Wilson's character for mocking him, carry their fair share of unnerving energy. Also, Zombie's penchant for zooms and film distortion lends the film the appropriate "grindhouse" flair four (really seven since it was filmed) years prior to the film Grindhouse, so he deserves some credit for bringing that sensibility into the mainstream long before it became tiresome.

Its only real flaw (again, if you're on board with its general vibe in the first place; it's admittedly a tough sell) is that it's got so much packed into it, it ultimately kind of feels like Zombie lost interest in his own villains. The final 15 minutes finds the one survivor (Erin Daniels) facing off against Dr. Satan (a character we've heard about but not interacted with) and his creations, leaving Moseley and Sheri Moon pretty much on the sidelines, which is not only awkward but simply unsatisfying - it'd be like if Sally Hardesty's final ordeal found her fighting off the random drunk from the cemetery instead of Leatherface. There's also an ongoing subplot about five cheerleaders that is continually referred to for a solid hour of the movie, only to be discarded without fanfare, making me wonder why Zombie didn't just confine them to an introductory prologue so we could focus on our hero quartet the rest of the time.

I'm gonna revisit Devil's Rejects too; I KNOW I haven't seen that one since theaters (but retain more memories of it), and in my mind it's still his best film - curious to see if it holds up to that. I don't outright love anything he's done, but I don't hate anything either (hell even his Halloween - his worst film - has stuff I enjoy), and while early reviews on 3 From Hell have been pretty scathing, I suspect I'll walk out enjoying it. I just hope I'm not doing it a disservice by refreshing my memory of the first two, when he was still hungry (and had more budgetary support for his ideas) and what he was doing was something wholly unique in the landscape. I'll know on Monday!

What say you?

P.S. I went to the 1,000 Corpses maze at Universal Horror Nights last night, my first time in one even though it's like the fourth time they've done one based on the film (which was partially shot on the same backlot), and not only did I quite like it, but was amused at scenes in the film that were essentially playing out the same as these mazes, with the girl wandering through corridors as things jump out at her. It's the first one you'll come across after you enter the park, so make sure you check it out if you plan on hitting up the event!

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Ready Or Not (2019)

AUGUST 22, 2019

GENRE: COMEDIC, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I'm not sure how they differentiate behind the scenes, but to the average moviegoer, a Fox Searchlight movie is traditionally less commercially minded than the stuff that comes out from the traditional Fox label. Grim subject matter (12 Years A Slave), taboo topics (teen pregnancy re: Juno), Batrachophilia (Shape of Water)... it's easy to see why they might not want these things starting off the same way as Home Alone or Night at the Museum. So when you hear that Ready or Not is a Fox Searchlight movie, you're probably thinking it's disturbing or psychologically driven (they did Black Swan, after all), right? Wrong. It's actually the most fun genre movie of the summer, possibly all year.

If you've seen the trailer you know the premise (and, alas, a few of its surprises): a woman named Grace (Samara Weaving) gets married to a man named Alex who belongs to a wealthy family he has largely distanced himself from, and is made to join them for their "new family member" ritual of a game night, where the game is chosen by a mysterious box that dispenses cards with the game name printed on them. When Grace takes the card and sees that it's Hide & Seek, she laughs at the idea of adults playing such a silly kid's game, but everyone else clearly takes the matter very seriously. She goes off to hide, and her new in-laws grab crossbows and axes - if they find her they mean her very serious harm. Since this is not a short film, she gets privy to their plans and decides to fight back, with only minimal support from her husband.

As I said, the trailer does give away some things I wished it hadn't (at least two major moments in the trailer, with plenty of context offered along with them, are from the film's last 15 minutes), but the interesting thing about the movie is that the filmmakers seem to be aware everyone will know the premise already, and it gives the first 20 minutes or so some bonus comedy for the audience. When her husband suggests they just elope ("I'm giving you an out...") she just sees it as him having jitters or whatever, but everyone in the audience is laughing because they know he's really trying to possibly save her life. Likewise, there's no big dramatic reveal of their murderous intentions - patriarch Tony (Henry Czerny) just starts handing out the weapons to his wife and children as casually as he might deal the cards if they were playing poker.

Which leads me to one of the film's odder weak spots - the fact that it's ONLY Hide & Seek that means someone will be hunted and sacrificed. A few of her fellow "married in" in-laws reveal their games ("I got Old Maid at mine - what the hell even IS that?" says her husband's brother-in-law) and someone notes that it's been ages since they had to play Hide & Seek, but they don't do a thorough job of clarifying that, apparently, those who play Old Maid just play the game and go to bed - there's no high stakes for that or checkers or whatever else the card might say. So I was watching for a while thinking that the Old Maid guy and others did indeed go through this ordeal and "win" (survive), making the family's repeated "if we fail we're all dead!" claims confusing for a bit.

But that sentiment is offset by how damn fun it is. Czerny is one of those actors who is always just a delight to watch and truly excels at playing villainous assholes (when they killed him off on Revenge, I stopped watching the show as he was the last good thing about it), so seeing him get to get more manic as the film goes on was truly a gift. See, they only have until sunrise to find/sacrifice Grace or they'll all die (per the backstory of his great grandfather, who started this tradition after making a deal with a mysterious man in exchange for their good fortune for their business dealings), so as time winds down he panics more and more, while his wife (Andie MacDowell in rare form) does her best to keep him focused.

The real MVP, however, is Adam Brody as Alex's brother Daniel. An alcoholic who is said to always be hitting on Grace, he is clearly growing disillusioned with the family traditions and isn't sure if he should continue to assist them, making him a bit of a wild card. At one point he finds Grace accidentally (he was just looking for a drink) and allows her a ten second head start before alerting the others, though he seemingly can't bring himself to become a full blown accomplice. So part of the fun is wondering when or if he will truly turn sides, as well as the realization him hitting on her was probably his own way of trying to get her to leave on her own accord and save her life, without having to actually turn on his family. Brody gets some of the film's best lines (including one near the end I obviously can't repeat, but if you see it you'll know which one - the phrase "for a week" is involved), and it cements my post-Jennifer's Body belief that the actor is truly at his best when playing in horror comedies.

That said, everyone is doing fine work; they're all playing in-law stereotypes (ditzy sister and her clueless husband, Brody's wife is an ice queen, etc) but they walk on the exact right line between horror and comedy - it's not a movie meant for scares, per se, but it delivers on the suspense even if you're never far from another laugh, and the cast keeps it from ever veering too far into goofy comedy. And Weaving dives right into the physical demands of the role, including an accidental fall into a pile of decomposing bodies and a gnarly "hand through a nail" bit - all in a wedding dress! (She does change her shoes into something she can run in though; sorry, Jurassic World fans.)

Fun: that's the keyword here. It's a goofy premise played straight as can be, with enough blood/violence to justify its R rating (the F-bombs would have sent it there anyway) but not so much that it starts feeling like a torture flick. The climax is that rare mix of jaw-dropper and crowd-pleaser, and - even though I deplore the habit in real life - it's got the best use of a "now I need a smoke" moment in who knows how long (ages, since people almost never smoke in movies anymore). Ultimately its only real flaw was that the trailer gave away so many of its secrets, but since knowing the premise before the protagonist gave it some bonus humor, it kind of evens out. Don't let the "buried at the end of August" release date fool you - this one's a winner.

What say you?

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47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019)

AUGUST 16, 2019

GENRE: PREDATOR, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

"There won't be a "48" Meters Down." - BC, Horror Movie A Day (from the review of 47 Meters Down)

OK in reality I meant there wouldn't be any sequel at all, but ironically I am still *technically* correct, because they decided to be less cute and named their sequel 47 Meters Down: Uncaged instead. To be fair, it's a more accurate title than "48" - the heroes in this one aren't too far down at all, let alone further (if so, they've abandoned the "bends" concept that drove so much of the original), but they ARE uncaged, as the four swimmers this time around are on an impromptu scuba dive and have nothing between them and the sharks.

That is, except for the area itself, which is a flooded Mayan temple. I guess this series is committed to reminding us of The Descent, as the first one cribbed its (UK!) ending and this one borrows the same kind of claustrophobic thrills, as narrow tunnels and an unsure path to reach the surface offer up just as many scares as the sharks. Also, because the sharks (and one random fish that is used for a scare!) have been down there for so long, they basically evolved without eyes, making them blind and needing sound to find their way around - just like the Descent monsters.

But hey, "The Descent with sharks" is a pretty solid concept for a B-movie like this, and honestly I think it might be a minor improvement over the original. For starters, the expanded cast means, well, more action - the sisters in the original had to live until the closing moments (give or take a hallucination), but there are four divers plus three dudes who are working in the area to... clear a path for development, or something? It doesn't really matter, as it allows for a few extra potential victims, plus a scene where a guy is welding while listening to music only to get spooked by the villain, a classic cliche kind of horror movie scene except for it's all playing out underwater. It's an amusing sight.

And naturally, not everyone makes it out, which means there's more shark carnage this time around. Also, it retains the "more or less real time" approach of the original, but as they don't have a cage to sit in and stay safe for a bit, there are far fewer cringe-worthy dialogue scenes, which were a major blight last time. Sure, the pre-dive dialogue is generic and vague (our heroine Mia is hated by everyone at school, but we have no idea why - a new Johannes Roberts tradition I guess as we never understood what Bailee Madison's character had done wrong at the top of Strangers 2), but once they're down there they rarely say anything outside of things like "Look out!" "Check your air!" and "We're trapped!" (followed by "There must be a way!"), so that's nice.

In fact if anything they go too far in the opposite direction. Mia has a stepsister, Sasha, and we quickly learn the two don't really get along ("She's not my sister," Mia says to her stepmom, who she does seem to bond with - a nice change of pace from the norm in horror movies). But when Mia's dad (John Corbett) sends the two of them off on a shark-watching boat only for Sasha's friends show up and convince them to change their plans and go scuba diving with them instead, Mia hesitates for a second... and then Sasha is suddenly her BFF. Sasha's pals also take to Mia quite quickly, making me wonder why they even set up any conflict at all. I was expecting/assuming to see their animosity have to be put aside in order to survive and then maybe they'd actually find their sisterly bond that they lacked, but nah, all four of them get along just fine for the rest of the movie. It's the rare film in that the people who come in late and get there just in time to see them go into the water (maybe 15 minutes in) will actually get the better experience - we that got there on time had to watch a prologue that had no bearing on anything. They don't even get mad at the girl who causes them to get stuck in the first place by poking around and ultimately knocking over a Mayan statue, blocking their path.

So it fails on character levels (if you show up to this expecting such things in the first place, that is), but it delivers the shark goods. The "they can't see us" thing is used to good effect without overdoing it, as are the "it's too narrow, I'm stuck!" kind of moments - Roberts keeps everyone moving and divides his time equally between the survival elements and the shark stuff. Their dwindling air supply is mentioned just enough to remind us without really focusing on it (in the first movie they might as well have just put an on-screen graphic the entire time since they brought it up so much), and when they find an air pocket to give the oxygen tanks a break, they discover the air is too stale/toxic to breath for too long, so that added another complication/variation to break up the repetition. Once again some of the attack scenes are a bit hard to follow since they're all wearing masks and flailing about too much to make out any features, but Roberts delivers on the money shots when they happen, so it's forgivable.

Less forgivable: the director's frequent slo-mo shots (including one of Mia that had the audience laughing when it wasn't a funny moment), and trying to pull the Sam Jackson in Deep Blue Sea thing again for the death of one character. That one worked amazingly, but it's been 20 years of diminished returns on such things - now we can pretty much see it coming, which is the exact opposite of how it should work. Let's give this "someone important dies mid-speech" thing a rest for a while, huh? But some of the other scares (particularly one during the climax) play flawlessly, and there's even some gnarly gore considering the PG-13 rating, so if you're just there for the body count you should be satisfied (and certainly more so than you were with the first one). The FX are pretty good too - in fact the cheapest looking thing in the entire movie (besides the horrible Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures logo) is the film's title, which has a cool dissolve from blood kinda thing but when the letters themselves form they look lo-res. How y'all make an albino shark look real enough but not the letter M?

The first one came out in June and was a surprise hit; this one has the more fitting release time of August, but isn't expected to do as well - go figure. Maybe the recent Crawl, which catered to the same kind of thrills (and was, admittedly, a bit better) just scratched everyone's itch for such fare, or maybe the complete lack of connection to the first* means they're starting from scratch and won't benefit from the usual sequel bump? (Not that this year has been particularly kind to sequels anyway.) It's not quite good enough to play the "YOU GOTTA SEE THIS!" card, but I hope those who enjoy such things can scrounge up the cash (or Moviepass, A-list, etc) and time to give it a look.

What say you?

*Minor spoiler, but there's a scene where *someone* reaches the surface and spies a boat nearby - for a hot minute I really thought it was gonna be Matthew Modine's boat from the original and finally give it a tie in to that one, especially since the movie was noticeably "timeless". Our heroes are four teenaged girls and not a single one of them ever has a cell phone! But alas, it's a different boat, and the film remained completely standalone. Maybe if it becomes a hit anyway they can do a couple more one-offs and then make a 47 Meters Down: Avengers kinda thing where all of the survivors team up.

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Crawl (2019)

JULY 11, 2019

GENRE: PREDATOR, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Remember Burning Bright, the movie about a young woman and her little brother trapped in their house with a tiger during a hurricane? OK, well, Crawl is basically the same thing except it's her injured dad instead of her brother, and it's an alligator instead of a tiger. Actually a few alligators - I can't be sure but I think there's at least four swimming in and around the house that they're trapped in by a massive hurricane that has flooded their cars away and cut off all communications they may use to call for help. Whether it's intentional or not I don't know; it's not like Burning Bright was this huge hit or anything (it went direct to video, in fact), but as a fan of that one I was happy to see the concept play out again, even if it ultimately suffered from a few of the same issues.

And by that I mean it's a bit repetitive, which is the direct result of the otherwise smart choice of keeping things simple. Characters being trapped with a monster is nothing new, but usually they're in a much bigger locale, like the research facility in Deep Blue Sea, or Jurassic Park in Jurassic Park. Here (and in BB), the setting is a pretty ordinary house in Florida - nothing exotic about it, and while sets are probably being used there's only so much they can expand (wider hallways than your or my house, for example) before the direct appeal - "this could be MY house!" - is diluted too much to be effective. And with the minimal cast, the filmmakers can't just off someone else every 10-15 minutes or else the movie would be too short (as is, it's the rare under 90 minute movie playing right now), so you get a lot of scenes of the heroine slowly making her way around the same spots, temporarily escaping danger only to face a new but more or less similar obstacle moments later.

That said, it's a pretty fun ride all the same. Director Alex Aja (making his first fully original movie since High Tension; everything else has been a remake or book adaptation) masterfully offers up a number of terrific jump scares, most of which even made ME jump so it should play like gangbusters for those who are more easily startled anyway. Kaya Scodelario is pretty great in the role of Haley, a would-be champion swimmer who doubts her own abilities despite encouragement from her father (Barry Pepper), a divorcee who has started withdrawing from his children as well. The plot kicks off when her and her sister are unable to get a hold of him, knowing he lives right in the center of the hurricane target, so Haley drives down to check on him and finds him in the basement of the family home he's halfheartedly trying to sell, unconscious from a pretty nasty wound. Guess how he got it?

Yes even though the house hasn't flooded yet, at least one gator is already inside, so there's minimal waiting for the fun stuff to get going once she arrives at the house (probably 20 minutes into the movie). The various pipes and half-walls in the (seemingly too big, but whatever) basement provide them with spots that are safe from the gators, but the rising water means they can't just sit and wait for the storm to pass and help to arrive, as they will drown first. The dad's injuries keep him from getting too far, so it's all on Haley to move him around, find help, battle the gators, and - when time allows - patch things up with her old man before it's too late.

Without spoiling anyone's fate, I will say this - Aja and the screenwriters (Michael and Shawn Rasmussen) improve on Burning Bright's minor issue that the two people in the movie were never in any believable mortal danger - they're not going to kill a little kid, and if Briana Evigan dies at all it won't be until the film's conclusion. Not the case here - Pepper can go at any minute, having fulfilled his 2nd billing status after only about ten minutes (since the other six people in the movie only have a scene or two each, it's not a big task), and as a bonus (for lack of a better word) there's also the family pooch, Sugar, who is big enough to avoid easily drowning or being stepped on but not big enough to help in any meaningful way. There's a bit where Haley tries to escape the basement using an access panel that is unfortunately blocked by a hutch or something on that floor above, and she can only get her hand through - which the dog just sniffs and licks instead of being a superhero movie dog and moving the thing out of the way himself. The realistic approach is most welcome, and with Aja's penchant for surprise attacks, you're worried about the pooch every time he appears.

This sequence unfortunately leads to one of the movie's occasional "the characters have to act stupid for the plot to work" bits, which I always feel can be improved upon with a little bit of effort. Moments after this escape attempt fails, a cop comes by in his boat and starts checking the place out, knowing Haley went there and concerned he didn't hear back from her. She knows he's there, but rather than go back to the hatch that was big enough to fit a hand through, where she could call for help and it would only take him a few seconds to push the thing out of the way, she bangs on pipes and calls for help from her random spot in the basement, prompting further complications. There's also a dumb moment where she gets back to her cell phone (after having dropped it in the open near the gator) and instantly tries to call 911 from there, instead of retreating back to her safe spot first - come on! We know the phone will end up broken/useless anyway, why make your character look like a dummy in the process when there's so many other ways to solve the phone problem?

Otherwise, she's a well written heroine - she's remarkably "quiet" in that she rarely screams or panics - she's able to think quick and be resourceful more often than not. There's a bit where she gets a gun and how she uses it is something I don't know if I've seen before (except in the trailer, which sadly gave it away), but I know it's pretty badass. Aja doesn't indulge in his gore as much as you might expect given his previous adventures with water monsters, but he doesn't hold back when necessary, either - the R rating is justified, but never flaunted, which is an approach I quite liked. There are some gnarly injuries and a pretty glorious death for a supporting character, but it feels like everyone decided to be as realistic as possible, perhaps to balance things out with the kind of ridiculous plot? Though to be fair, there have been reports of gators entering homes even without the aid of flooding waters, so I guess it's not as farfetched as it may seem on paper. The gators look good too - the CGI is never dodgy and animatronics are used when possible, so I was pretty happy with them, and Aja smartly keeps them partially submerged more often than not to minimize any potential fake-looking moments anyway.

Basically, if you liked Burning Bright or The Shallows, you should be pretty satisfied here as the approach seems to be "basic story maximized for scares/suspense", and it works far more often than it doesn't. I believe it's told in real time from the moment she enters the basement to look for her dad, which is always a ballsy tactic that I admire, and it works to the film's advantage more often than not, as we can keep track of where everyone (and everything) is, while also never having time to slow down and forget the various dangers (bleeding out, rising waters, and of course, chompy chomp). It's a shame they didn't hold off release until August, as everyone's still seeing Spider-Man and/or waiting for Lion King, so it's not like the movie's gonna pack every theater this weekend (plus Stuber, pretty much the summer's only other R rated original so far, is opening today as well), because it'll probably be one of those movies people end up wishing they saw on the big screen when they could and it would probably sell more tickets in the less crowded August, but I assume they wanted to stay away from 48 Meters Down (I don't care, that's the title it should be and that's what I'm calling it!), so I get it. Here's hoping it does well enough for Aja to secure another wide release next time (his last two were very limited), now that we know he is capable of delivering more traditional thrills - if Eli Roth can do a kid's movie there's no reason his fellow "splat pack"er can't be trusted to apply his keen eye and craftsmanship to a blockbuster type, if he so desires.

What say you?

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Us (2019)

MARCH 25, 2019

GENRE: SURVIVAL, THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

One of my favorite (for lack of a better word) things to do when watching movies is to scan the characters' bookshelves/ entertainment centers to see what movies/books/games/etc they own, usually for my own amusement and also to test my "skill" at recognizing something from a blurry spine. However, in Jordan Peele's Us, this habit is actually rewarded - the five VHS films that are seen on the shelf next to a television in the film's opening scene are all referenced later in one way or another, and help unpack some of the clues that this puzzling film offers about its ambitious (borderline insane) concept. It's a film that I felt I needed to see twice before writing this review (I first saw it last week at an advanced screening), partly because I had some issues with its third act reveals that I thought might work better a second time, and partly to double check that my own theories as to what Peele was *really talking about* weren't contradicted by information I was conveniently forgetting (i.e. what 90% of fan theories end up being).

But also partly just to enjoy the film on its surface level, which is a perfectly fine way to watch the movie - it's not like everyone who loves Dawn of the Dead has picked up on its satire, to name one example. If you've seen the trailer you know the concept: a normal family of four, led by Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o) and Gabe (Winston Duke) finds themselves menaced by mirror images of themselves, and the first 80ish minutes are essentially a freakier version of a home invasion movie as a result. There's a lengthy chunk in the middle where it's easy to forget that this movie has any real ideas and just enjoy the cat and mouse stuff, with clones substituting for the usual people in masks or whatever. Our heroes don't stay in the home for as long as you'd expect from a traditional entry in the sub-genre, but it still offers the same kind of thrills. There's a bit where the clone of the daughter chases her to a car and then seemingly disappears, leaving our hero daughter to wonder if she's gotten on the car's roof or gone under it - that's just a straight up suspense setpiece, no politics or message required.

However, eventually these sort of beats are discarded in favor of explaining where the clones came from, what they want (sort of), and why Red (Adelaide's double, who she first encountered as a child and was traumatized as a result) seems to be the only one that can talk. And that, my friends, is where we get into heavy spoiler territory, so after I say "This movie is really good if somewhat messy in spots" for those who came here to see if it got my seal of approval, you need to close this tab right now if you haven't seen it yet.

Still with me? OK, so Peele could have just let the clones do their thing for an appropriate horror movie runtime, have our family (or just SOMEONE) survive and maybe give us a grim ending with the reveal that they weren't the only ones being menaced by duplicates, without ever explaining where they came from. It'd frustrate some, of course, but it'd follow suit with horror classics (including Peele's beloved Night of the Living Dead) to not explain why it was happening and focus more on who will survive it, letting audiences draw their own conclusions. Instead, Red delivers not one but two lengthy monologues that lay most of it out, plus there's a Saw-like "OK here's all those things that happened earlier, quickly flashing by now that you have new context" montage for good measure. Red's first info dump is vague enough to still fit into a "it just IS" kind of explanation since it focuses more on her own personal motivations, but the second (much longer) one inches into "Someone's about to draw a diagram on a chalkboard" areas of making sure the audience is completely brought up to speed.

(In fact there is a chalkboard behind her, but she doesn't use it in the scene, so I guess we dodged a bullet there.)

It's not that the explanation itself is bad - on the contrary, it's kind of fascinating, and I'd happily watch another movie (even - gasp - a prequel) that explored it even more. The problem is, like The Purge (also from Jason Blum, notably), the concept is so good that it's natural to ask questions about the logistics, and the way the information is presented invites itself to these questions. I won't spoil everything, but I'll say that the clone people come from underground subway tunnels and such and apparently have a Dharma Corporation-like entity making sure they are supplied with water (food is explained via rabbits, eaten raw) and materials to make clothing (and also lots of golden scissors, for some reason). If we only ever saw the clones wearing red jumpsuits, no one would think "where did they get their clothes?" but instead we see them dressed in generic normal clothing and then actually make their jumpsuits - and it's very difficult to see this and not start wondering how that worked. Did they have enough red material to make 320 million suits? Why? The concept is huge, but it feels like Peele realized if he answered one question about the nitty-gritty he'd have to answer all of them, so he had to just ask us to go with it, but perhaps he should have been scaling back what he showed us so we never thought to ask.

One benefit to this is that you are free to come up with your own theories as to what he's really getting at, as there's not a lot of hard evidence that can contradict it. One thing that keeps popping up is "Hands Across America", a charity stunt that was held in 1986 where people would hold hands in a line (ideally from one end of the country to the other) while raising awareness/money for hunger. It didn't really pan out; they didn't make all that much money and more than half of what they did went to paying for the operating costs. This concept - for spoiler-y reasons I won't divulge - speaks to the clone folk, and stage two of their uprising (stage one being "kill our others") appears to be recreating it, only more successfully. Now, while the film isn't as overtly racially motivated as Get Out, this interpretation (and others that I've spoken to) about these people, with their affinity for red clothing and mission to form a wall, certainly recalls some unfortunate racial biases - but that whole idea might just be my own reading and not what Peele intended at all.

And there's a trickle down effect to this that can drive you batty if your mind is engineered to decode/analyze what you're seeing, because you're not sure where it ends. The VHS tapes are obviously very carefully chosen (otherwise they'd just be fellow Universal movies), as is the "I got five on it" song that the family sings along to (it's about sharing something that traditionally is barely enough for one, like a dimebag, or your time on earth). But where does it stop? The son wears a Jaws shirt throughout the movie - is Peele drawing a parallel between the shark and the clones, because they're both coming to the surface because they need to survive but seen as monsters to the people above? Or does he just like Jaws and could save a couple bucks on licensing if a character wore a shirt from a Universal movie? This sort of thing can be fun (see: The Shining documentary Room 237), but it can also be distracting, as you start looking around for clues and end up missing the larger point of a scene. And since some information is indeed conveyed in a subtle manner (Adelaide's father walked out on the family shortly after her incident, but that's never spelled out - we just have to notice that he's not in any of the pictures that we see of her growing up), it's hard to know when you're allowed to just get caught in the moment of a scene or if you still need to have your thinking cap on.

Of course, he has something he wants to say, and is using a horror film to make that point because he's good like that. Naturally, your reading of these elements will play a big part on how you look at the film as a whole, so on one hand it's good that he confined the bulk of it for the film's final 20-25 minutes, so you could at least enjoy the ride until then. On the other, it gives the film a strange pacing, as it almost literally stops dead to have someone explain everything that's going on, at a point where things should be at their most exciting. And it's stuff I'm not sure we needed explained anyway, so it'd be like if the original Halloween carried on as normal and then Dr Wynn came back and explained all the cult stuff from H6 right then and there. In interviews, Peele has gone out of his way to combat the "it's a psychological thriller" kind of shit by insisting that it's a horror movie, but the lack of tension in its final reel is odd to say the least. The crux of the finale involves Adelaide trying to rescue her son from Red (who has taken him back to the tunnels), but he's practically forgotten once Adelaide gets down there and confronts her doppelgänger - he's not in any perceivable danger, and even if he was, most audience members would probably be thinking about the implications of what they just learned instead of getting worked up in the present threat.

That said, Peele's horror cred is never in doubt throughout the rest of the film; a clever in-joke early on reminds us that he knows his shit ("They're filming a movie by the carousel," says Adelaide's mother in a 1986 flashback set in Santa Cruz - you get it, Michael?) and while one of the two horror films in that aforementioned VHS collection is a classic everyone knows, the other is more obscure and will excite only Peele's fellow Fangoria readers. But more importantly, he uses horror cliches smartly - in particular an early bit where Gabe and Adelaide chide their daughter for wanting to quit the track team because she says it's pointless. This is a standard bit of foreshadowing shorthand; they want to establish that this character can run fast because later on they'll be required to do that for plot purposes, and that is indeed what happens. BUT, the real point to it is to lay out another example of how the "above" people are wasting the life that has been denied to the clones in the tunnels, hammered home when the clone daughter has to chase the real one and is clearly relishing the ability to use her skill, even letting the real one get a bit of a head start so that she can give herself more of a challenge. That's the sort of thing that Peele really excels at, and why the genre is lucky to have him.

But it's his intelligence and skill that also makes the film somewhat frustrating, because it's so close to being an all-timer. I don't know if he chose to convey as much info as he did (and WHEN he did) or if a producer/test screening dictated he do so, but either way it lacks the finesse that earned him an Oscar last time. An opening text crawl also seems to exist only to clarify something people might wonder about, and it too is ill-timed, as it foreshadows information that seems like it should be a total surprise when introduced ninety minutes later (it reminded me a bit of the theatrical cut of Dark City explaining who the strangers were right off the bat). We also have to take a large leap of faith that Adelaide has seemingly never realized that their summer home is so close to the beach where she had her childhood trauma, which is another thing that Peele could have easily avoided by removing the references to having been there before in the first place.

However, even with its minor missteps, it's another exciting film from a one-of-a-kind modern filmmaker, one I'll enjoy revisiting down the road to pick up on more little details and see how my own continued privileged existence has me interpreting certain things. Peele even said he'd be open to going back to this world (more optimistic than he sounded when asked about a Get Out sequel), so it's possible there are things we're not meant to fully comprehend yet but will later. If that doesn't happen, then what we got is intriguing and ambitious, and overall worthy of its praise (and box office fortunes) despite its few flaws. Since I could say the same about the original Twilight Zone, we can consider this movie a $20m advertisement for his upcoming revival, and CBS should send Universal a gift basket for all the extra subscriptions they'll be selling as a result.

What say you?

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Escape Room (2019)

JANUARY 10, 2019

GENRE: SURVIVAL, THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

If I was operating on a normal schedule, I would have seen/reviewed Escape Room on its opening day (perhaps the Thursday night before), as seeing genre films on opening day is one of the only HMAD traditions I still uphold. But ironically, I was out of town for a weekend bachelor party that included doing an actual escape room on Friday, so between traveling and wanting to spend time with my family on Thursday night I just couldn't make it happen, and had to wait for an opportune moment during the week. Weirder still, there's a moment in the movie where a character looks at a newspaper headline saying that five people died in a fire - it has nothing to do with the movie, but in real life, on the day the movie opened, five girls actually DID die in a fire that broke out in the escape room they were doing. So that's kinda freaky, and if I went to the movie earlier I wouldn't have thought anything about it.

Odder still, the escape room I was playing in real life was based on the Saw films, which this movie occasionally feels like. The characters arrive on their own freewill, but it's still kind of the same deal as Saw II and V (and, uh, Jigsaw) - a group of people who don't know each other are trapped in a building and need to complete twisted tasks engineered by an unseen madman, and making a mistake means you die. The PG-13 rating obviously keeps it from ever being as violent/gory as those films could get, but it's still easy to be reminded of that series from time to time, and not in a ripoff way - it's actually kind of part of its appeal, reminding me of when that series was king and still retained its clever appeal. There are no major twists in this one, but the ticking clock scenarios that usually reduce the cast by one before they move on to a new challenge makes it feel like a Saw that doesn't require a notebook to keep up with who's who and when things take place. So a more successful Jigsaw, I guess.

But the film's primary appeal is that the writers clearly ran through some escape rooms before sitting down to hammer out their screenplay, giving it a genuine feeling that a number of game-driven movies often lack. Video game movies (that is, movies *about* video games, not Tomb Raider or whatever) are the worst offender - the games the characters play often bear no resemblance to a game anyone would actually play, suggesting the writers never bothered to check if they came off as genuine. But here, even if the setup is unlike anything in the real world (people are invited to the room to play with strangers - it's almost exclusively something one does with their friends), the puzzles themselves are 100% in line with what I myself have experienced in these things*, which added immensely to the proceedings.

In fact, the movie was at its best when combining danger with their attempts to solve a standard puzzle. The trailers highlight what's probably the best overall sequence, where the group is trapped in an upside down room - as the floor gives way, they have to figure out a four digit code for a safe that contains the key that will allow them to get to the next room. Apart from the whole "the floor is disappearing and can send you plummeting to your death" element, it's a puzzle that anyone who has ever done an escape room will recognize - the group has to scour the room for clues that will produce the necessary code (in this case, it matches up to the color/number of billiard balls that are glued to the table above them), with the clock ticking down and the ever-present "we have the numbers but the wrong order" hiccup that I've run into nearly every time I've done a room.

Unfortunately, they occasionally betray this realism with some stuff that would never fly in a real room, like when their key is frozen in the center of a giant ice cube, so they have to melt it with their bare hands. The room had plenty of other dangers (the cold temperature and cracking ice), so I wish the solution involved something more traditional i.e. "brainier" rather than be something that just adds to their risk. Later in the movie they get even more unfamiliar, but it's explained away with "they did their research, they know what we can handle!" so solutions require them to know sign language and things like that. And by that point I was pretty much on board and willing to forgive, but still - I would have loved if they kept the puzzles/solutions in line with reality while simply increasing the risk of the danger around them.

Speaking of the danger (and this is kind of a spoiler, so skip to next paragraph if you want to go in blind-ish), it's the rare instance of a PG-13 rating actually kind of helping a genre movie rather than hurt it. If it was rated R, I'm sure we'd see all the horrific details when our characters got offed, but instead it's usually left pretty vague - which got me wondering for a while if it was all a game after all and no one was really being killed (a la April Fools Day). The first time it becomes 100% clear that these folks are dying is when it's actually from the hand of another player (not in a villain way, it's a fight to the death per the game's rules), so it kind of works as much of a shock to us as it is to the person who just took another life, an element we'd be denied if they were going the Saw (or Cube, respect) route and letting us see the gruesome outcomes.

Another smart thing is that we only meet three of the six players before they all arrive for the game, which makes us identify more with them and mistrust the others, because if Saw II or Cube taught us anything it's that there's usually a mole in there to make sure things are going smoothly. I won't tell you if that's the case here, but the approach keeps us on our toes with regards to that and also the order in which people exit the film. The trailers thankfully stuck primarily to the first couple rooms where everyone was alive, so it's a legit surprise when this or that person is removed from the proceedings. It's a good mix of actors too; you might recognize them from this or that thing (for horror fans, Deborah Ann Woll from True Blood and Tyler "Dale" Labine being the most obvious), but there isn't a clear "star" that overshadows everyone else - it's a true ensemble from start to finish. That said, it's a shame they had to blow part of the mystery with the ever awful flash forward opening, which shows us one character in a room by themselves, rendering their "in danger" scenes throughout the film anticlimactic. It doesn't take too long to get going (especially since we only see three of the characters prior) so I'm not sure why they thought this was necessary, but it's mostly forgivable thanks to the other stuff that managed to surprise.

My only other quibble is that the ending drags. Obviously I can't get into details, but at a certain point it seems like we're watching the sequel to the film as opposed to the natural conclusion to this one, followed by a lengthy teaser for where the next room might be held - it's a bit much, in a movie that's already longer than average as is. Think of Cube, how it ended so perfectly with the guy walking out into the unknown - this could have done something similar, but instead it relieves us of the ambiguity, and then keeps going on and on for good measure. So it loses some of its energy, unnecessarily, with the only saving grace being that the film's surprising success (it made $5-6m more than it was expected to over the weekend) means we will probably get a sequel and this stuff will at least not be in vain.

Other than that, it's a solidly entertaining movie that makes the most of its concept and doesn't get bogged down in too much "how is this all possible" nonsense that would just kill the fun. It's more of a thriller than a horror film, and I think that works in its favor - the focus is always on the game itself and occasionally even lets you solve the puzzle along with the characters (I figured out one before them!), giving the film a minor interactive feel that the likes of Saw can never accomplish ("Audience members are invited to chop off their own fingers along with the characters on screen!"). This sort of thing makes up for its occasional blunders, and I hope they get the sequel to work out the kinks. In summary: it might be released in January, but it's not a "January movie"!

What say you?

*The Saw one has seven rooms and if you fail one you get to move on. We ended up beating five of the seven, which is apparently very good as we were told the average group only beats one or two! I believe it was the seventh room I have done over the past few years, so I'm not an expert by any means but I've done enough to realize that the people who make these things really love 3 or 4 digit combinations.

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Inside (2016)

JANUARY 2, 2019

GENRE: SURVIVAL
SOURCE: ONLINE (HULU)

I usually bristle when they remake a recent foreign language horror film for seemingly no other reason than to do it in English, but at least they waited about a decade to do it with Inside, as opposed to the insulting turnaround times for the likes of Shutter (not even four years) and Let Me In (barely two!). Plus it wasn't just a greedy big studio behind it - this Inside is an independenta Spanish co-production, with [Rec] fave Jaume Balagueró writing and producing (a guy who'd know about quickie English language remakes), giving it more "on paper" cred than the likes of, say, The Stepfather '09. And as a bonus, they cast Rachel Nichols from my beloved P2 as the pregnant mother - add all that up and you should have a redux that's at least worth a look, right?

Well... they kind of cleared that not-exactly lofty goal, I guess. It's not a bad movie, but it's so beholden to the original's beats (not its specifics, more on that later) that the only reason to see it would be if you haven't seen the original. I prefer my remakes to keep the basic scenario but change just about everything else (Dawn of the Dead being the easiest example, though the recent Suspiria is also an easy one to point to, albeit less accessible), but this only diverges slightly from the Bustillo/Maury original, so if you've seen it there's little surprise to be found here, and you'll keep asking yourself why they bothered. Suspense/home invasion movies like this tend to not lend themselves to repeat viewings anyway, and that's what this kind of feels like; even when they change things up a bit, they tend to fall right back in line with the story we already knew... and likely preferred.

But in theory, it should actually be the better film, ironically enough, as they excise the original's two biggest blunders (skip the next three paragraphs if you haven't seen the original!). For starters, we aren't subjected to horrible CGI shots of the baby being jostled around inside the womb (to be fair, the original's directors didn't want them either - they were forced to add them by the producers), so that's a blessing. The other thing they thankfully get rid of is the number of cops (and the suspect!) who come over and figure out what's going on - this time around, there's no suspect at all, nor does one of them survive their initial injuries but attack Sarah thinking she was the villain. That chunk of the original nearly derailed the movie for me, so I was happy these folks seemed to feel the same, removing it without putting anything else in its place. The stuff with the cops is simplified and, for what it's worth, superior.

Their other changes aren't as successful, unfortunately. One intriguing one is that Sarah has lost her hearing as the result of her injuries from the car crash, but very little is done with it - it's mostly just an easy way to keep her from alerting a friend that stops by (because she isn't even aware he's there until she replaces her hearing aid battery, at which point he's out the door anyway), and rarely used otherwise. Also, this time The Woman (Laura Harring) has set up shop across the street in a half-finished house, so she can take pictures and such, but the only reason this exists, best I can tell, is to give them a second location to go to for part of the film's climax, which is always a dumb move in these things anyway. It's a home invasion movie - why is it all building toward two people fighting elsewhere? Hell they don't even stay in THAT house - they go outside for the final fight. So now it's a Yard Invasion movie.

In fact the ending is drastically different, so if you ignored my earlier spoiler warning then DEFINITELY skip this paragraph because it spoils them both! In the original, in keeping with the French New Wave Horror's sensibilities of being grim af, Sarah dies and The Woman gets the baby after all - this time it's the other way around, so it kind of just ends as you'd expect it to as opposed to something more interesting or daring. Worse, they fight to the death inside a covered swimming pool, so when The Woman is subdued Sarah swims to the top and pushes through a cut in the tarp to emerge from the watery enclosure - even the baby in Sarah's belly would probably roll its eyes about the corny symbolism. Then she just delivers the baby herself, robbing us of one of the original's intriguing elements: that The Woman becomes a protector and nurse during the delivery. They never have that sort of "bond" here, and I actually missed it - because otherwise it's just another crazy person trying to kill our hero (it doesn't help that we already had a ripoff of Inside called Visions, which gave us the happy ending version already).

Now, when doing a review of a remake I try to avoid too much "this is how it differed" stuff and try to judge it on its own terms, but when it's so close to a movie I've seen (let alone really loved) it's hard to separate. Any review I write will be from the mindset of someone who has seen x number of horror movies, and their job should be to make me think this is one I haven't basically seen yet. At no point was I able to forget that I was watching a remake, as Balagueró and director Miguel Ángel Vivas (who also co-wrote) never gave it enough of its own identity to let me get sucked into it (perhaps Balagueró was inspired by the impressive box office of Quarantine, which also changed precious little). There are times when it feels like things might go a different way, such as the introduction of a gay couple who lives next door (more or less filling in the role of the coworker), but they're dispatched before having much of a chance to do anything differently. Even the specifics barely change - the cop once again leaves the house thinking everything is fine before realizing that the woman he talked to wasn't pregnant. Like, they couldn't think of a different reason to have him go back (or just not leave in the first place)? It's fine to use the same setups if you have new punchlines, so that viewers can all enjoy whether they've seen the original or not, but here it's like the opposite - the setups occasionally change but it always ends the same way.

So it's like one of those Telltale interactive games, where they say you have a choice between saving Person A or Person B and regardless of what you choose, they kill Person B because that's how the main story needs to go (Person A will just be kind of a dick to you for not trying to save them). And by design it's not like we can fall in love with these versions of the characters, as they're not around long enough to get attached to any of them except Sarah. As for her, again I'm always happy to watch Ms. Nichols, but she's not given much to do here beyond look startled, look around for something to fight with, etc. She gets in a couple of good lines near the end (both the result of trying to stall The Woman while waiting for the right moment to strike), and they have softened her a bit from Alysson Paradis' version, though as with the ending that just gives the film less of a personality overall. So she's stuck kind of just going through the same "trapped with a psycho" stuff we saw her do in P2, so it's double the deja vu.

The good news is, it's watchable and decent enough on its own, and unlike the original it's not "tough to watch", so if you're squeamish there's finally a way for you to get through this story! It's got some gore (including a borderline darkly comic moment where someone is seemingly using their own pouring blood as a weapon of sorts), but nothing that would give the MPAA much of a problem - this movie won't have you worried about scissors, anyway. Indeed, I can't help but think this was meant to be a wider theatrical release at some point and all of these changes were made to make the film more accessible to mainstream audiences, only to see it get an even more buried release than the French original (which at least got Dimension behind a big video push for their Dimension Extreme label). I wasn't even aware the damn thing had even come out until I found it while scrolling around on Hulu (which I just got) for something to watch to fall asleep to. Considering Vivas made the incredibly grim Kidnapped (which makes the original Inside look like, uh, this one) I can't help but wonder if they had gnarlier ideas that were left off the table in favor of chasing ticket sales, but I also suspect that would just mean they'd make an even closer clone. So instead we get this watchable but forgettable version that exists mainly for Nichols' devotees and people who don't like to read.

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Blood Fest (2018)

OCTOBER 12, 2018

GENRE: COMEDIC, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I recently bemoaned the less than record-breaking box office of Hell Fest on Twitter, and someone replied that Blood Fest coming out at the same time didn't do it any favors. To be fair, he had a point - both films are about some kids who find themselves being killed for real in a Halloween haunted park attraction - but they are very different in both plot and tone. Ultimately it'd be like suggesting that Incredibles 2 should have tanked because Avengers Infinity War also came out so people didn't have any more interest in superhero ensembles (and, nothing against Blood Fest, but it wasn't a wide release and the Blu-ray was released after Hell Fest's debut, so it's not like there was much of an audience that theoretically had its fill). So if you avoided Hell Fest because you saw this already, boo on you! BUT - if you DID see Hell Fest and were considering skipping this, I think it's worth a look.

The biggest difference, of course, is that the kids are aware of the danger they're in right away in Blood Fest, as the host of the park (writer/director Owen Egerton) tells them as much during the opening ceremonies (one of the film's "grain of salt" necessities is that this particular park requires everyone to arrive by a certain time and also pay attention to a guy on a stage instead of going off and doing whatever). In Hell Fest, the characters are stalked by one silent killer who is able to do his thing without drawing attention to himself, but here they lock the doors and try to kill every single person inside (Egerton has hired killer clowns, chainsaw murderers, etc. for the occasion). So it's more survival horror than traditional slasher, even before some dimly explained supernatural elements (zombies, vampires) are added to the mix.

The other key "they're not really alike" element is that this one is kind of played for laughs, though it's not a spoof or anything like that. Scream would be a reasonable point of reference for the tone; the stakes are very real, but the script finds humor throughout thanks to the characters and, yes, many references to horror classics. But they're not above making up movies, either; in order to get around what would be astronomical licensing fees, the characters talk about Halloween and Friday the 13th and what not, but none of the movie posters or attractions (based on movies, I believe?) are drawn from anything you or I have seen. The main one we see is a series called Arbor Day, which has a Jason-like killer and a complicated backstory that directly mocks Halloween's (we're told parts 5 and 6 had some hooey about an alien mark, a clear swipe at "Thorn"), and the film's Robert Englund-esque thespian collecting paychecks to play the killer is one of the people trapped inside with our heroes, which allows for a few more gags but also a minor "Don't meet your heroes" subplot as the guy turns out to be a dick (and of course, warms up to them throughout his time in the film).

One thing it DOES have in common with the other film is how good it looks for what couldn't have been a lot of money (in fact, a lot less than Hell Fest, from what I understand). The kids spend a lot of time in rather anonymous hallways and such as opposed to the haunts, but there is still an impressive sense of scale to what we see, with untold numbers of extras and a gigantic body count. There's enough practical blood to forgive the digital spray, and on that note they actually use CGI correctly for the most part - sizing things up, recoloring shots, etc. There's a bonus feature that shows the before and after shots for many of the film's digital tricks, and I was legit surprised to see how much it was used invisibly, as opposed to "let's make a CGI monster go after them" or whatever. It occasionally looks fake, sure, but the intent is spot on which makes it easier to forgive.

I was also impressed that Egerton wasn't afraid to kill off his characters (so it actually tops Scream in that regard). Since there was a breezy charm to the proceedings I assumed most of our named characters would get out alive, but no - the body count is sufficient and I was often surprised to see someone die when they did. The backstory and "surprise" villain (working with Egerton's character) was a bit dumb, i.e. the kind of thing you'd expect in a movie with no body count whatsoever aimed at younger people (think the live action Scooby Doo films), but they committed to delivering real stakes as if this was a deadly serious film as a whole. So there is some occasional tonal whiplash, and I doubt anyone would ever find it scary or even particularly suspenseful as a result, but it's never a crippling thing - it's just kind of slight as a whole, like a movie you want to casually hang out with as opposed to really invest yourself into.

Along with the aforementioned VFX showcase, the disc comes with a pretty fun commentary by Egerton and some of the actors, where they discuss the usual stuff along with some irreverence and trivia (apparently the Halloween 6 gags were supposed to be more plentiful!) - if you liked the movie's brand of humor, you will like the track. There's also a deleted subplot that I think is supposed to be an in-joke for fans of Rooster Teeth (their online comedy outfit, of which I have next to zero experience with) and some other deleted scenes that unfortunately don't have a "Play All" function nor do they include any explanation for their removal, which always bugs me. On that note, the disc also has like six trailers that you have to manually skip one by one, without access to the menu - another strike against the disc! Why do companies do this? Trailers are advertisements, and the only time we should be forced into watching them is if we are watching the product for free and they need to find another way to get their investment back. If I bought the disc, I shouldn't be subjected to such things, especially not over and over again. If we care about their other movies, we can choose to watch the spots - don't make us kill our remote batteries that much faster by not letting us bypass the lot of them by pressing "menu". Back to the deleted scenes, it includes what would have been the second funniest line in the movie, so give the video store one a look if nothing else. There's also a look at the design of the film, but it's also sans any kind of insight from the filmmakers so it's not particularly useful beyond reasserting that they worked hard on the film.

A sequel is more or less set up at the end, and I'd be fine with spending another 90 minutes with the people who survived. Not all of the humor was my cup of tea (the trailer gave away the one line that really had me burst out laughing), but I was endeared both by the content and the ambition, and I am familiar enough with Egerton (via Twitter and the like) to know he's a real fan of this stuff and not just using it as the butt of his jokes. It's a fine choice for the current season, and the disc has enough bonus content to justify the purchase cost should you choose to go that route. Good work, folks.

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