"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.
"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?
"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."
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.
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.
"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.
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.
