REVIEW: SINISTER (2012)

 "Sinister is a frightening new thriller from the producer of the Paranormal Activity films and the writer-director of The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Ethan Hawke plays a true crime novelist who discovers a box of mysterious, disturbing home movies that plunge his family into a nightmarish experience of supernatural horror." - (C) Summit

OBS! THIS REVIEW MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS! 
So last night my boyfriend texts me, saying we're gonna watch Sinister when I get home from work. Great, I thought, having waited for it for a couple of months now, despite not having read or knowing anything about it. Sometimes you just have that weird feeling that a movie's gonna be really good. And it was. Damn it was.

Ethan Hawke does the convincing and committed role of Ellison Oswalt, a true crime writer who's famous for his debut book Kentucky Blood, in which his reporting exposed some cracks in the local police department's murder investigation techniques. And as a result, cops don't like him very much.

With the idea for his new book, Ellisson knowingly moves his family (his wife Tracy, his 12-year old son Trevor and younger daughter Ashley) into a new house in Long Island, where the previous family was hung from a tree in the backyard. All but one. Their youngest daughter, Stephanie, is still missing. With the purpose of solving the murders and find the missing girl, Ellison sets up his ordinary office with a cardboard box wall of clues and evidence and starts the hunt for material for his new bestseller.

Stumbling upon a box of homemade Super-8 reels in the attic, each labeled with a disturbing title (BBQ '79, Pool Party '86, Sleepy Time '98), Ellison rigs up his home movie theater, pours himself a whiskey on the rocks and starts watching. Each of the 'snuff' footage shows a gruesome set up of a family being simultaneously murdered in sickening ways, suggesting that the murder Ellison is currently researching is the work of a serial killer whose work dates back to the 1960's.

Once the filmstrips have begun rolling the movie itself suddenly takes on a dark tone.  After reviewing the films over and over, Ellison discovers a special mark and a demonic face that turns up on each of the footage. With the help of the Sheriff's deputy and a local occult professor, Ellison starts to piece together a gruesome murder puzzle. A puzzle which effects the entire family. Ellison's son starts having his night terrors again, his daughter Ashley starts painting images taken from the 8mm films on her bedroom walls and Ellison himself leaves his wife on the verge of a nervous breakdown watching him fall into pieces due to his obsession battling his paranoia.

Sinister skillfully uses fragments of the supernatural to underline its investigation of the human mind and foibles of paranoia and insecurity, and does so with originality and a few genuine scares that will make you wet your pants. Apart from the few jump-and-scare tactics (desynced in video/audio which gives them a nano second's head start to your brain), it builds and broods atmospherically on the evil and hostility that mankind is capable of. When the demonic face from the filmstrips is identified as not only Mr. Boogie, but as the pagan Babylonian deity Bagul - he is inevitably invited to continue his work, resulting in the final film, House Painting '12.

On a personal note, this has been the atmospherically creepy and frightening movie I've seen in years. Adding to the scare is the fact the while we were watching the movie with all the lights in our house off, the globe lamp that's placed on one of the taller stereo speakers next to the TV suddenly lit on its own. An hour later when we were in bed (I'd already fallen asleep and J was laying next to me, watching Netflix on his computer) a flashlight on our dresser at the other end of the room suddenly turned itself on.

REVIEW: THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PT. 2

Yeah, I did it. Last night I went as Team Sceptic-but-still-hooked and saw the conclusion to the Twilight Saga, Breaking Dawn Part 2. It wasn't as dull as I'd expected (due to the twisted end), but it wasn't as upmarket aspiring as I'd hoped the finale would be, either. At times it was cute. Mostly it was the same naïve, antagonizing cuddling and fiddling as it has been for the last couple of years.

I know, for a 'true horror fan' the Twilight Saga is an abomination with its salad chopping, interior designing, forest hiking, teenage stalking, suprisingly slow moving, 'tofu vegetarian', sparkling vampires. It does take the humanization of vampires to an extreme when discarding the general traits of the aristocratic fiend among high society that used to identify a vampire. And it does also (as I've stated in a previous entry) set the female role back to the late 50's, as it has been doing for the last four movies. And even in this last installement Isabella Swan (Kristen Stewart) is never given enough space to reclaim her role as a strong and independent vampire female. What I liked most about the novel were the parts where she exercised her ability to project her mental shield and use it externally to weild against her enemies. Although playing with the thought of Bella having her way with flat-faced hubby Edward (Robert Pattinson) any time she wants, all Bella's traits as a vampire (the strength, the hightened senses, the ferocity, the hunger, the untamed traits of a newborn) seem diminshed as she lives in the shadow of her husband's thought of her finally being an 'equal'. Or should I say the obedient wife? All this gender and race (human/vampire/wolf) comparison both irritates and sets me off. Why does this keeping on happening? Why would a female writer deliberately make her female characters inferior, as they seem less worthy than their male mates?

And Breaking Dawn Part 2 does become very doozy and cotton candy-like with the post-honeymoon cuddling and post-transformative, weirdly enough, boring sex. All talk and no action, so to speak. The movie uses the same blue-grey production design that was also used in the previous as well as the first movie, which becomes a bit mundane after having stared at it for more than an hour. The wolves are still the same digital disaster as in the prequels and the newborn half-human, half-vampire Renesmee (what absurd name is that?) is also digitalized in her infancy. The same effects that make the fighting scene(s) a bit tacky and way too PG to actually make a good supernatural fight. One clever switch is pulled as the movie nears its end and this movie screen twist is probably the only innovative surprise from its original novel. The rest was a mediocre ending to a mediocre story.

To read more on my opinions on The Twilight Saga, check out this previous post from 2010.

REVIEW: CITADEL (2012)

"An agoraphobic father teams up with a renegade priest to save his daughter from the clutches of a gang of twisted feral children who committed an act of violence against his family years earlier" - IMDB

OBS! THIS REVIEW MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!

Supposedly inspired by a violent mugging experienced by Irish writer and director Ciarán Foy, Citadel brings you to dilapidated council flats and crumbling social highrises in a dirty British suburb, a dystopia called Edenstown. The dingy surroundings and the bleak exteriors themselves make you cringe, and after the gruesome opening where Tommy Cowley's wife is silently attacked by a gang of hooded children that stab a syringe in her highly pregnant belly - you're left with a nauseating sub-textual message.

As a result of his wife's death (after being comatose for nine months) Tommy, played by Aneurin Barnard, is left with their nine month old daughter and a severe agoraphobia. Despite his intense therapy sessions, Tommy spends most of his days hiding out indoors in his new housing, cowering reduced to a gaunt wide-eyed emotional wreck. One night there's a banging on the door.

Convinced that the hooded gang is out to kidnap his daughter Tommy finds refuge in Marie, a sympathetic nurse that helped care for his wife during her comatose. Marie patiently explains to Tommy that his fear and paranoia are all in his head. “It’s so easy to demonize these kids. What they need is our sympathy." Well, what you got Marie, is blunt force trauma to the head.

In a last desperate search for an escape Tommy turns to the local vigilante priest, played by James Cosmo, who convinces Tommy that the children aren't the result of a greater malaise - they're plainly a disease unto themselves and must therefor be extinct. And you're dying to know; are these unloved children from broken homes or creatures far more sinister than that? Together with the priest, and his blind son, Tommy sets out on a final battle to save his daughter. And his sanity.

Citadel effectively rides on its initial tension through out the movie. The story balances between the feral reality of suburban brutality with poor economics and shattered homes, and the fragile mind of a young man who just lost his wife and is battling Social Services. For the main character Tommy, it's a parable of urban anxiety and the fear of fatherhood. For the viewer, it's an uneasy blend of horror of the psychological (the agoraphobia, the paranoia, the insomnia) and the supernatural kind; are those hooded child ruffians actually freakishly skinny zombies?

HALLOWEEN TOP 10: MOVIES IN THE SPIRIT OF THE SEASON

This year I've been a tad lazy and decided to just make two Halloween Top 10 list. All work and no play has diminished my time to actually sit down and dig through the range of new favorite characters, inventive costumes or debuting  filmmakers. So I've narrowed it down to two lists; my favorite Halloween jingles and the following - a list of the ten movies which I feel best embody the spirit of Halloween. 

10. Creepshow (1982)
This collaboration between director George A. Romero and author Stephen King brings five tales of terror to the screen, inspired by the E.C Comics of the 1950's (which were also the basis for the popular Tales From the Crypt TV series). The five stories are framed within the pages of a comic book which a young boy's insensitive father has thrown in the garbage, and are linked to each other with animated bridges in the style of the old comics. Romero and King have effectively approached this movie with a combination of thrills and gimmickal humor.

9. Pumpkinhead (1988)
A Ten Little Indians story set in Deliverance outbacks, Pumpkinhead presents a season inspired Boogeyman, conjured by a man whose son is accidentally killed by a group of teenagers who pass across their land. Despite the hollowness of the acting (at times) and the questionable props (mostly the costumes), this is a dark fairy tale that teaches us that vengeance isn't always the best course of action. At its heart this is a tale of morality that stands out from the 80's crowd of low budget horror movies. The design of the monster is a thrilling representation of something vaguely humanoid but at the same time completely alien and foreign.

8. Halloween (2007)
Rob Zombie's resurrection of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978) is one of my few favorites in the modern remake wave. It perfectly balances the brutal gore that can only be produced by Rob Zombie, and the tinkly chilling feel of 70's original. I know most Rob Zombie fans were disappointed after his landmarks House of 1000 Corpses (2003) and The Devil's Rejects (2005), and I can agree to the extent that the little boy who one day snapped and killed his sister for no apparent reason is far more scary than the Michael Myers background story that Zombie presents. However, I adore Rob Zombie's twisted touch, his perfect ear for accompanying butcher scenes with 70's country music and the way he avoided turning it into another high school slasher but instead made it a slaughterhouse stabathon.

7. Scream (1996)
As a half-parody, half-tribute to the "dead teenagers" movies of the 70's and 80's, Scream is the 90's answer to classic slashers which instantly became a success. Though the introduction and the ending are merely simple and bloody roughness, the complicated plot in between skillfully plays with the conventions of horror movies in a clever mix of irony, self-reference and blood spills. With constant references to its classic horror predecessors, Scream pays endless homage while at the same time subverting and adhering to the "rules" of horror films. This is truly the most entertaining fright fest of the 90's.

6. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
For the die hard fans of Michael Myers (myself included) it might be hard to accept the fact that he's not the villain of the third installment of the Halloween franchise. In fact he only appears briefly on a TV screen when the main characters watch a commercial for the first Halloween movie. As a sequel to Halloween and Halloween II this movie plainly sucks. On its on though, Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a perfect little midnight movie for the season, and once I got over the disappointment that Michael Myers has no place on this film, I started to notice the aspects of it that make it such an alluring movie on its own. The key element (which is also its link to the previous movies) is the mask. It holds a gateway to a greater evil that wishes to take the life away from children. As the children put their Halloween masks on they themselves become the boogeyman, the monsters and the ghouls. The trigger of the masks is the Halloween commercial from Silver Shamrock Novelties, which is an effective detail and has become a memorable aspect of the movie.

5. Trick 'r Treat (2007)
This delicious, gleeful anthology intertwines four different Halloween stories in a brilliant way, with each story complimenting the other. It holds a morbidly charming tone through out the movie and with its campfire-tale shivers and surprisingly fresh screenplay it never has a dull moment. With its thick autumnal atmosphere, jack-o-lanterns and bloody tricks, Trick 'r Treat is a full on homage to the Halloween season.

4. Fright Night (1985) 
Along with my top two choices, the original Fright Night has always been my must-see-every-season-movie. Perhaps not a classic, Fright Night still is a spook show of season spirit, wit, charm and the perfect amount of suburban creepiness. The story is simple and believable (if you're a horror-obsessed geek like Charley Brewster) and Chris Sarandon's suspiciously good looks is the perfect mask for the centuries of decay and seduction that this vampire neighbor has hidden in his closet.

3. The Exorcist (1973)
It really doesn't matter if you're a first time viewer or if you've re-watched this movie since you were too young to see it in the first place; there's no mistaking the gruesome tale and unnerving shocker that is The Exorcist. It's as disturbing today as it was 40 years ago. Few movies have managed to have the same mental impact on me (The Blair Witch Project, The Fourth Kind included) and the beautiful but brutal, yet simple, special effects contribute to the indescribable obscenities. Based on the last documented and known Catholic sanctioned exorcism in the US, The Exorcist displays a journey back in time where religion triumphs modern medicine and shakes the foundation of Christianity, which contributes to the movie's great historical value.

2. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
Although not a horror movie per se, this low-budget freak show offers an entertaining and bizarre cocktail of musical scores, weird costumes and outrageous characters. The Rocky Horror Picture Show came to be more of a social phenomena than a great picture of cinema. It turned social identification upside down with its fetish-based transsexual love musical. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a cult classic and would best be experienced as a double feature at the drive-in midnight theaters. 

1. Halloween (1978)
Not only my favorite Halloween movie, John Carpenter's Halloween is my all time favorite horror movie. After all these years it remains untouched by the endless numbers of imitations and maniac-on-the-loose suspensers. Halloween is basically the original slasher movie; it came out of nowhere, was filmed in only 20 days and revitalized and patented the whole genre of slashers. With a stunning opening scene (seen from the child-monster's point of view) this suburban horror smash takes a scary stalkerish turn with its murder-incestious plot and twists into the bloody crescendos, which have made it one of the most influential movies ever.

HALLOWEEN TOP 10: SEASONAL SERENADES

As always, I let music play a big part in my horror watching. Therefore I've decided to put together a little list of ten jingles from this year's movie releases I feel represent the 2012 Halloween season best.

10. Michael Rault - Call Me On the Phone (Grave Encounters 2)
I really had to do some digging to find this one. I remembered I'd heard something that caught my attention watching the sequel to what actually was a decent mocumentary. But Grave Encounters 2 was such a dissapointment for me. Obsessing over a movie showing a student obsessing over a movie that's obsessing over a haunted facility? Nah, not really my thing. But this featured track was a good distraught from the poor plot and even more poorly executed acting.

9. Foreigner - Feels Like The First Time (True Blood) If you would have to choose just one song from last season of True Blood it would literally be impossible. Each episode is filled to the brim with great new indie bands, southern tunes, old classic American rock and modern punk. And old classic I was reminded about when watching the first episode of season 5 was Foreigner's debut single Feels Like The First Time. Which is a good description of my giddiness every summer when the fang banging resumes.

8. Claudio Simonetti - Kiss Me Dracula (Dracula 3D)
Writer and director of cult classics Suspiria, Inferno, Phenonema and Opera, Dario Argentino, has now returned with a 3D remake of Dracula. Some people desperately wish Argentino would stop making movies and instead aim to preserve his legacy. I, on the other hand, am all for letting the old sports return to mix their cult minds with us mortals of the modern world. I haven't seen Dracula 3D yet but doing some research on trailers and teasers, I quickly came to like this song.

7. REO Speedwagon - Roll With The Changes (The Cabin In The Woods)
I'm all about old American rock and REO Speedwagon has produced two of my favorite rock songs from the 80's - Can't Fight This Feeling and Keep On Loving You. Avoiding mainstreamíng and making the obvious choice, The Cabin In the Woods chose one of the band's more low-key songs which I feel make a great atmospheric statue of the otherwise uncanny genre deconstruction.

6. Little River Band - Lonesome Loser (The Loved Ones)
Though released in its homecountry Australia back in 2009, I didn't come across The Loved Ones until this year. Apart from Wolfmother I've never really found any interesting classic rock from 'down under'. But Little River Band makes a good impression in the midst of the 21st century high school drama and sadistic prom theme.

5. Jessica Lowndes - In All My Dreams I Drown (The Devil's Carnival)
For a musical nerd like myself, what could be better than a rock opera? Saw II director Darren Bousman's experimental short horror film The Devil's Carnival has Aesop's fabels as its core, with the main characters each representing a fabel. Bousman has stated that The Devil's Carnival will be an ongoing project with chapter two and three already being written. With the intention of being more of a subversive experience rather than just a dark and enchantingly comedic movie, The Devil's Carnival set on a multi-city road-tour in April 2012 and with it released a 12 song album. From it I've chosen my favorite soundtrack; All In My Dreams I Drown sung by Jessica Lowndes.

4. Mozart - Requiem (The Lords Of Salem)
Being schooled in piano (Baroque, Classical and Romantic) it would be sinful not to have Chopin, Mozart, Bach and Beethoven as rolemodels and/or musical inspiration. Mozart's Requiem (in D Minor) is one of my favorite pieces. It was left unfinished by its composer upon his death and was completed by the Austrian composer Süssmayr within 100 days of Mozart's death. Whether the two men had discussed the Requiem during Mozart's last days is unknown, but Süssmayr took on the task of completing the score and his version is to this day the most played. The Requiem's well-contained complexity and the incorporation of many different musical elements and vocal forces in each bar and section makes this a triggered and atmospherical sequence to Rob Zombie's upcoming The Lords of Salem.

3. The Carpenters - On Top Of The World (Dark Shadows)
Featured in Tim Burton's latest horror comedy Dark Shadows (based on the 1960's gothic soap opera with the same name), is the 1972 song On Top of the World by the Carpenters. Although having listened to a rather large extent of 60's and 70's music during my childhood, this vocal and instrumental duo was never part of my favorites. Although this song belonged to the sibling's record-breaking run of hits, it's so far up the clouds with its cheesiness and 70's groove that it literally makes me cringe. That's why it's the perfect match for a 200 year old vampire indulging in interior design. 

2. The Singing Nun - Dominique (American Horror Story)
Safe to say, the common room scenes are my least favorite in the second season of American Horror Story. It's impossible not to balance on the verge of insanity when constantly fed this high-pitched bird like jingle. And as AHS is all about the clues, the interesting fact is that Jeanine Decker (known as 'the Singing Nun') left her nun position at the church to live with her female partner (clue #1), with whom she eventually engaged in an OD suicide. The Express also notes that she was the daughter of a baker (clue #2) and that the song originally was praise to the Spanish-born founder of her order, St Dominic. Instead American humourist Joe Queenan has written: "The song would have us believe that St Dom­inic was a humble, lovable monk who fought valiantly against the forces of darkness (clue #3). In fact he founded the religious order that brought mankind the monstrous Spanish Inquisition.”

1. Doris Day - Que Sera Sera (American Horror Story)
With its usual creepy take on everything it touches, American Horror Story: Asylum is using Doris Day's classic Que Sera Sera as its teaser tune for the second season of the US' most popular horror show. What creeps me out the most is that this is a tune my grandmother used to sing to me when I was little. It has been one of my favorite tunes ever since.

18 MORE DAYS 'TIL HALLOWEEN

Simplistic but mood setting October decorations at my house

7 MORE DAYS 'TIL AHS: ASYLUM!

CAN'T EFFIN' WAIT! American Horror Story: Asylum, Premieres Wednesday, October 17 on FX.

MOVIE REVIEW: V/H/S (2012)

"When a group of petty criminals is hired by a mysterious party to retrieve a rare piece of found footage from a rundown house in the middle of nowhere, they soon realize that the job isn't going to be as easy as they thought. In the living room, a lifeless body holds court before a hub of old television sets, surrounded by stacks upon stacks of VHS tapes. As they search for the right one, they are treated to a seemingly endless number of horrifying videos, each stranger than the last."

Partly produced by the site Bloody Disgusting, V/H/S is an anthology of found footage shorts written and directed by a bunch of grass-root filmmakers and horror geniuses (Ti West, Joe Swanberg, Chad Villella, Tyler Gillett, Glenn McQuaid, Adam Wingard, Nicholas Tecosky, Justin Martinez, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Simon Barrett and David Bruckner) with an appetite for brutal inconsistency, mind perversion and lethal suspense.

V/H/S is basically divided into six different sequences, opening with a group of sleazy criminals filming their en route of harassment which includes attacking women and acting like complete jerk-offs. For those who've read some of my previous posts you might be aware of the fact that I loath any sexual brutality or female opressing behaviour. Which made the first couple of minutes of V/H/S intolerable for me. Luckily the storyline changes direction as the gang breaks into a house to steel an important VHS tape. Who ordered this job or why, is never explained (or I just missed that part) but wandering around the house leads them to different tv-monitors and recording devices, from which each of the five found-footage stories play out for the audience. 

Containing nasties as follows, each hand-held horror story has you on the suspense delivering unique turns and surprises as you don't know what each story holds or for how long it will play out. 

OBS! THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPHS MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!

1. A group of horny guys set out for a night of clubbing wearing a hidden camera in one of their eye-glasses with the purpose of recording whatever sexual action will be achieved. This, however, goes disturbingly wrong as the guys bring back the wrong girl to their motel room.

2. An all-American couple is on a weekend getaway to Grand Canyon, when an anonymous intruder visits their motel room in the middle of the night. Although it sounds like the typical Hostel scene, it's anything but just that. This was my favorite segment of the movie and, directed by Ti West, it offered an unsettling enviroment disturbed by an even more uneasy ending scene, which was cut abruptly and without further explanation. Just the way I like 'em!

3. This segment offers the best visual effects with heavy distortions and blurry serial killers zooning in and out of the forest. A bit unnerving but as the sequence reminds a bit too much of The Blair Witch Project (c'mon, even stealing punch lines from it?) it's not far from lazy-ing back to being a gimmick.

4. During several Skype conversations with her boyfriend, a young woman reports having difficulties sleeping due to some racketing going on in her hallway at night. Her boyfriend guides her in trying to find out who's playing tricks in her apartment, but the man behind the machine turns out to be an unexpected guest. This is Joe Swanberg's 'The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger'.

5. Four party-hungry men drive to an address where there's supposedly a huge Halloween party taking place. Entering the house they realize they've stepped into another form of hell. This is rumoured to be favorite sequence of all the people involved in V/H/S and it is a damn fine and mind wrenching way to end the terror tales. 

 Each installment in V/H/S varies in quality and lenght; with shaky camera work, partly doubtful acting and seemingly incomprehensive plots and storylines. But despite its low-budget effects and low-rent feel it flashes some very sinister images and has some disturbed visual tricks up its sleeve. Truth be told - this is one of the scariest and disturbing movies I've seen for quite some time.

PREVIEW: AMERICAN HOROR STORY: ASYLUM

My most anticipated release, after Rob Zombie's The Lords of Salem, this coming fall is FX's American Horror Story: Asylum. Yet again created by Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy, the new season offers a completely new story in a completely new setting. American Horror Story: Asylum takes place in 1964 at the Briarcliff Institution in Boston and is said to involve Nazi's, aliens and a serial killer named Bloody Face, who wears 'a mask made out of his victim's skin along with a black nightie and opera length gloves'. Premiering in the new season are (the oh so hunky) Adam Levine (insert pause to drool), Chloe Sevigny, James Cromwell and Joseph Fiennes. Returning to the series with new characters are Jessica Lange, Zachary Quinto, Evan Peters, Lily Rabe and Sarah Paulson. To get a glimpse of the new season's character set up, check out the two trailers below.

 

 

Briarcliff Institution is run by the sadistic Sister Jude, a stern woman with 'a dark past that will resurface'.  Working with her are Dr. Thredson (Zacahary Quinto) a psychiatrist whose forward-thinking inflicts him to go head to head with Sister Jude, and Dr. Arden (James Cromwell) whose behind one of the season's new frights; The Raspers - mutated humans that are the result of Dr. Arden's diabolical experiments on Briarcliff's inmates, and who lurk in the forest outside the institution. Superior to Sister Jude is Monsignor Timothy O'Hare (Joseph Fiennes) who finds himself on the receiving end of her affection, and inferior to her is Sister Eunice (Lily Rabe) who, although she appears a bit dense, might not be the perfect second-in-command.

Adam Levine plays Leo, a newlywed who visits Briarcliff and gains the attention of the 'Big Bad', who will be the Rubber Suit Man of this season. With him he brings his wife Teresa (Jenna Dewan-Tatum). Sarah Paulson portraits the lesbian reporter Lana, who's committed to the asylum by her own girlfriend after she nearly exposes Briarcliff's darkest secrets. Chloe Sevigny plays the ominous but secretive nymphomaniac Shelley and Evan Peters returns as as the good-guy Kit, one of Briarcliff's newest inmates who's committed after being accused of murdering his wife (played by Britne Olford) although he claims she was abducted. And not by humans.

Not much else has been revealed on the new season's setup or synopsis but the twelwe teasers below might give some clues on what to expect. American Horror Story: Asylum premieres on FX, October 17th .

TWO CRAPPY QUICKIES: THE DEVIL INSIDE (2012) & CASSADAGA (2011)

OBS! THE FOLLOWING POST MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS!

THE DEVIL INSIDE (2012)
A young American woman, Isabella Rossi, travels to Rome where her mother's been institutionalized for the past 15-20 years after killing three clergy people during what later turns out to be an exorcism. Trying to understand what happened to her mother all those years ago, Isabella brings with her a camera man in the hopes of making a documentary on her mother's case. When attending a seminar on exorcism in the Vatican City, Isabella meets two priests who explain to her that her mother's condition might not be medical, but could well be demonic possession. Together with the priests and the camera man she decides to perform an exorcism on her mother, which obviously goes horribly wrong.

US poster for The Devil Inside (2012)

Seems like a decent synopsis, doesn't it? Well... it isn't. In the range of exorcism movies The Devil Inside could be the worst example in years when it comes to storyline and acting, or rather lack thereof. Fernanda Andrade, who plays Isabella Rossi, is toe-curlingly embrassing in her lack of sensing the fine line of talking directly to the camera during a 'real' documentary and actually reading directly from the cue-cards, which in this case became extremely stilted. The two priests are the epitome of modern bad-acting crusaders; one a heavy American blabber mouth and the other a light weight British stiffness. Apart from some entertaining bone-breaking special effects this movie was just a huge waste of time.

CASSADAGA (2011)

What was time even worse spent was the 113 minutes watching Cassadaga. The deaf college student slash art teacher Lily Morel is devastated when losing her younger sister in a traffic accident. Being an orphan, Lily seeks solace in the spiritualist community of Cassadaga. Distraught by the recent tragedy of her sister's death, Lily visits a local physic together with some friends and her new hunky acquaintance (my long lost True Blood favorite Jesus). The seance is somewhat successful when the psychic manages to contact Lily's sister but also has the side effect of opening a passage for the ghost of a murdered young woman, whose hauntings soon start to jeopardize Lily's sanity and safety. 

Censored poster for Cassadaga (2011)

So far the story seems believable although Kelen Coleman has some difficulties tackling the deaf role. Having placed the spiritualist community of Cassadaga, FL, as the center point of a movie you would think that 'Psychic Capital of the World' would act a stronger foundation for the supernatural events of the movie. But these are suddenly pushed aside to give room for a serial killer plot, and that's how the movie starts go to awry. Although we learn that the ghost of the murdered young woman had fallen victim of a sadistic and sexually confused man who dismembers and reconstructs young women into marionettes, the two stories rather seem like incomplete sidelines than going hand in hand. Had the movie had a clearer sense of direction it might have been able to deliver on the tension it builds, but unfortunately it only left me with the sense that it actually didn't have much to offer.

MOVIE REVIEW: THE TALL MAN (2012)

"In an isolated, slowly dying mining town, children are vanishing without a trace - abducted, the townsfolk whisper, by a mysterious entity known locally as "The Tall Man." Town nurse Julia Denning (Jessica Biel) seems skeptical...until her young David disappears in the middle of night. Frantic to rescue the boy, Julia lives every parent's darkest nightmare in this twisting, shock-around-each-corner thriller from acclaimed director Pascal Laugier called The Tall Man." - Rotten Tomatoes

The small town of Cold Rock, Washington, is struggling with economic hardships and growing class differences as the prospect for the town's recidents is slowly diminishing when the mine that has been the main source of employment has shut down. In the midst of battling poverty and lack of resources, the adults in Cold Rock are one by one experiencing yet another heartbreaking tragedy; the children keep disappearing from their playgrounds, their schools and even from inside their homes.

Rumours surrounding the circumstances of the disappearances are widely spread; some believe it's a local child molester. Some say it's the Devil himself. Some talk about the town's own urban legend figure; The Tall Man - a mysterious man abducting children into the woods, after which they're never seen again.

One who's never fallen for the urban legend is the town nurse Julia Denning (Jessica Biel). Being the only medical practicioner in the area since her (doctor) husband died several years earlier, Julia Denning has become the antithesis of Cold Rock - the heroic baby deliverer, the house warming care taker and the loving mother. Naturally, as a counterpart to the social downward spiral, her son goes missing.

What starts out as a mother giving chase builds up in an intricate and inscrutable pattern, where The Tall Man's mysterious role decreases and the hidden role of nurse Denning slowly increases. The Tall Man is a heart-wrenching, shocking thriller that never fails to turn corners. We learn that the kidnapper is someone far less legendary than The Tall Man and that the urban legend figure himself exists in a whole other way than we are first to believe. The underlying supernatural prescence and the mythical references are soon diminished by the stereotype small town tropes being skillfully demolished into the heartbreaking conclusions of today; how a national economy crises always hits the hardest against small towns. The defiance and suspicion exuding from small town folks towards the outside world. The iron fist of distant and anonomous governments. The brutal consequences of class differences and the limited means of those less fortunate. The Tall Man is a provocative end twister that gives food for thought by putting an edge to the horror genre and leaves the viewer with more than one moral reflection.

MOVIE REVIEW: THE CABIN IN THE WOODS (2012)

Oh, wow. I haven't really made up my mind about this movie yet. Been digesting it for over a week now and can't seem to make up my mind whether this practical joke has just spun out of its own comfort zone or if it's in fact a master piece in the world of climax within the climax, and story on top of story.

It's safe to say that what starts out, after a thought provoking pre-credit sequence, as your typical teenage weekend getaway (yeah, you have the jock, the slut, the stoner, the virgin, the scholar) crammed up on an outback mountain dirt road with a name-calling, tobacco spittin' loonie stationed at the old gas station. You know the drill 'cause you've seen it before. Only, you haven't. And that's kinda the point.

The Cabin in the Woods is a simple idea executed into a whole different story. It positions itself amongst all previous slasher movies, all character clichés and genre zones just to deconstruct these very components into what can only be described as a wickedly entertaining caricatur and a brutal genre exercise. The rythm of the movie skilfully maneuvers its audience between stereotype assortments and commited actors, from scares to laughs, from hoarder basements to social science labs á la 'DHARMA in space', from hilbilly zombies to canned Silent Hill monsters, from haunted old cabin to futuristic force fields á la The Hunger Games in a surprising transition.

The Cabin in the Woods is a ritual sacrifice that'll require a lot more than just the blood of a virgin; it'll need its movie audience to. Because this is a playground for a completely new set of horror chess. A total game-changer.

PHOTO PREVIEW OF CARRIE REMAKE (2013)

Oh, yes.. keep 'em coming.


Chloe Grace Mortez and Julianne Moore as Carrie and Margaret White. Image borrowed from http://gorestruly.com/

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY