Tag Archives: Horror

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May 7, 2024

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Alien 45th Anniversary Revisit (2024)

It’s hard to believe that 45 years ago  “Alien” opened and I saw it at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood California. I was preparing to graduate from USC, and begin a graduate program in rhetoric of all things. I’d had a period of difficulty in my last semester as an undergraduate, including losing a close friend in a horrible car accident, and my debate partner also being severely injured in the same accident. I was in a mood to recover from the end of the term and some of the tragedies that life throws at you. Interestingly enough I’ve always said that the summer of 1979 may have been my favorite. That’s because I didn’t have to work, I had no active School responsibilities, and my girlfriend graduated at the same time and had her own place and a job that was taking care of her. Despite the fact that the recent past had been tough, the immediate future looked bright. That summer I did two things consistently, swim in the pool at our apartment building everyday, and go see “Alien” multiple times.

I’ve said it before in other posts, my favorite between Alien and Aliens is whichever one I’ve seen most recently. That means for this week at least, Alien is my favorite. Seeing it at a 45th anniversary screening, during a week in which it reappeared on the box office charts 45 years later was a lot of fun. It’s easy to get caught up in nostalgia, because I always equate the movies that I see with the times in my life that I saw them. Of course they have their own qualities that make them memorable as well, and “Alien” is certainly memorable.

Thank goodness this was the original theatrical cut and not the enhanced Edition that has been released in several forms since the movie came out. Those versions add information and sequences that are unnecessary and frankly distracting. I found it much more mysterious and frightening that Dallas simply disappeared. Although there is some setup for a future film in those deleted scenes, I don’t think James Cameron thought they were necessary when it was time for him to direct the sequel. So we’ll stick with the best things about the original version. That’s how I’m going to spend a little bit of time on this post.

The music score for Alien was created by my favorite composer Jerry Goldsmith. The theme, which plays as the title is slowly being spelled out, letter segment by letter segment, is mysterious and creepy. It’s not, however the theme that makes Goldsmith’s music so effective here. He created some mood sequences that are very effective. The excursion onto the planet, where they encounter the alien egg, is filled with suspense and fear in the background score. Toward the end of the film there is a torrid, energetic, and frantic musical sequence that accompanies Ripley’s desperate attempt to destroy the ship and to cancel the destruction. When she’s not successful stopping the self-destruction process, there’s another musical sequence, as she prepares for a long rest, and is interrupted one more time by the unwelcome visitor. This score can be played over and over and you will get those images in your head, this is the way that film music should work.

Once again it’s probably unnecessary to point to the fabulous production design of this film. The H.R. Geiger inspired look of the alien vessel, and the used space pallette that had been adopted to some degree from Dark Star, is just terrific. We have a very clear sense of the differences in the work responsibilities of the crew. Parker and Brett are trapped working in a dark environment with grease and steam all around them, and they’re doing the tough work of keeping the ship and processing centers functioning. The resentment that they feel that their Shares are not equivalent to the rest of the crew is completely understandable. This adds a little bit of social reality to what otherwise would be a nondescript group of astronauts. The jobs of all of the space travelers, matter.

When we discover that the real monster is the corporation that all of them work for, it is a gut punch to these laborers, who have trusted their employer with their lives. The added surprise that one of them is secretly working on behalf of the company, and in fact is an artificial person, is another terrific element in this reality based setting. Yeah it’s science fiction, but it’s grounded in the economics and social systems that most of us encounter on a regular basis.

A 100 other voices have said it more effectively than I’ll ever be able to, but Ellen Ripley is one of the Great Movie heroes of American Cinema. I think her role in this film reflects some of the issues faced by women in the workplace in the 1970s. In the sequel, the issues have more to do with military adventurism, and distrust of corporate profit seeking. Both versions of the character are excellent, but the second does require the existence of the first.

There are still jump scares that work, even though I’ve seen the film dozens of times. The race against the clock at the end, may be an overused plot device but it works anyway. All of the actors don’t get as much screen time as they probably deserve, but they all make great use of what time they do get on the screen. Director Ridley Scott has come back to this franchise a couple of times with much less success. As a producer he will be overseeing a new episode that opens later this summer. We can only hope that it comes closer to “Aliens”, then it comes to any of the subsequent films.

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March 28, 2024

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Late Night with the Devil (2024)

I almost pulled the trigger on this with one of my streaming services, but on the podcast, one of my guests did say it was playing in theaters, which I had not realized. I immediately went in search and found a screening in one of our favorite venues, and boy am I glad I did. This is an early contender for top film of the year, and seeing it with a sold out audience was fantastic because when a horror film hits, you can feel it in the people around you, and I definitely felt it.

David Dastmalchian plays Jack Delroy, a late night talk show host in the 1970s, who has had great success but can’t quite climb the mountain of Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. The Halloween episode of his show in 1977, will feature some macabre guests and stunts, and as you can probably guess, it does not go quite the way it was anticipated. The film is presented as if it were the video record of that nights show. With the exception of an seven or eight minute prologue feature, which is made to look like a short documentary, the film plays out over the course of what would be a ninety minute late night show. Setting it in the seventies gives the staging a verisimilitude that a contemporary setting would lack. Nowadays, a huckster like the character Christou, would be doing YouTube or TikTok readings for his psychic demonstrations. There is a character, Carmichael Haig, that is based on James Randi, a magician and psychic skeptic, who made numerous appearances on talk shows of the era, debunking paranormal phenomena. His skills are used to help extend the mystery we are witnessing, but he becomes the subject of debunking as well.   

A horror film can only be said to be successful if it frightens the audience. The fact that Delroy’s audience is subjected to some unpleasant surprises, offers us a couple of jump scares, but more importantly, an aura of dread hangs over the interview and demonstration of  parapsychologist author June Ross-Mitchell, June’s subject Lilly D’Abo. Lilly’s back story is highlighted in the film with another documentary short that is presented as a film clip on the show. The two film segments do a lot of exposition in a way that makes perfect sense for the media that we are watching. The combination of behind the scenes video with what was purportedly broadcast, allows the story to play out in a more narrative form than it would otherwise be able to achieve. 

Like most 70s films, this is a slow burn with the climax pulling out all the stops to make the show frightening. Although the effects and actions have been seen before in a dozen other horror films, they work really well here. The use of practical effects helps the movie as well, and when the events are shown at they might have appeared in the television camera, they seem even more creepy. There is a little bit of a twist in the wrap up, that feels a bit conventional but it ties everything together pretty well, and the seeds for it were planted early on. 

Dastmalchian is convincing as  a desperate TV Host but especially as a skeptic turned believer who is frightened by what he sees. Australian teen actress Ingrid Torelli is chilling as the subject of possession that drives most of the film’s second half. All the other actors have been well cast and they get to play with the effects and the story to make their characters interesting. There is a hypnosis sequence that is pretty startling. Directors Colin Cairnes and Cameron Cairnes, have made the found footage style film work by dropping it into the late night TV venue of the 1970s. Lots of clever touches here and there. The AI controversy that has popped up is a nothing burger that you can safely ignore without surrendering to Skynet. Find this film in a theater and treat yourself to some genuine scares and a really well made film. 

One of the LAMBs has an interview with star David Dastmalchian, you might want to check out.

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August 9, 2023

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Talk to Me

The trailer is included above, but like a lot of horror films, I think you will enjoy the movie more if you don’t watch the trailer first. I knew nothing about this film before I saw it, except that there was a hand. I kept trying to call the movie “Take My Hand” or “Hold My Hand”. When the film started, I suddenly discovered that it was an Australian film. OK, I did know that it was a horror film because that’s why it was recommended to me. This is the debut feature film from Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou, who collaborated with a bucket load of people to come up with the idea and the script.

The premise will sound like a lot of other horror films, people get enamored with an object that seems to have supernatural abilities, and they end up taking the playful interaction with the spirit world too far. Maybe you remember JoBeth Williams as the Mom in Poltergeist, playing with the spot in the kitchen? It’s like that, or as Ian Malcolm would say, “Oh, yeah. Oooh, ahhh, that’s how it always starts. Then later there’s running and um, screaming.” The problem here is that you can’t really run away. Somewhere there is also a fentanyl allegory here, because it does not take much to push things over the edge. 

Our hero is Mia, played by actress Sophia Wilde, a teen who is dealing with the grief of having lost her mother. She has adopted her friend’s family as a surrogate when she has difficulty interacting with her dad. Here Best friend Jade and Jade’s younger brother Riley are her closest confidants. Like all teens, they sneak out to party, but this time they are going to a gathering where people are taking turns interacting with the spirit world. I don’t really believe in that sort of supernatural stuff, but I would not be taking those chances anyway, why tempt fate? Of course if people never made stupid choices, most horror movies would end before they begin. 

There are a couple of jump scares but the most horrifying moments are of self destructive behavior by those in the thrall of the supernatural hand at the center of the disturbances. Horror movies often leave things abstract, because an answer to some questions would minimize the mystery of what is happening. There is a bit of that here in the second and third acts of the film. Mia is drawn to the spirit world for one reason and repulsed by it for others.  Is she hearing the truth or is she simply imposing her fears on the voices she is listening to. It is not quite clear, and the resolution does little to make it easy to understand. 

I did think the final moments of the film work pretty well. We get some good suspense, an ironic outcome and a sense that the story is never really finished. Because we are seeing a distorted world it is not entirely clear how some of the other characters get resolved, but that is a minor quibble. The film was able to create a sense of dread, follow that up with some shocks and finish off with a frightening coda. That makes it a successful outing as far as I’m concerned and I would recommend the film to you. 

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March 10, 2023

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Scream VI (2023)

So far, I have not been disappointed with any of the “Scream” films. They are a great amalgam of horror, film tropes, meta analysis and comedy. The fact that these have managed to sustain themselves for twenty-five plus years is impressive. Watching each new version is also an opportunity to peek into the development process of the franchise because they put their thinking right in the script and invite everyone to appreciate and laugh at it. The movies have managed to stay this side of parody but to also enjoy some of the clear cutting that parody allows. 

The previous iteration of the films was a “requel” , a term I’d not heard before but is a perfect sniglet for the type of film we are seeing. These are not reboots where the series is starting over, and the two most recent films are not direct sequels to the original four films. What we are getting is an integration of new characters with the old (legacy) characters, and a new scenario that ties back to the previous story lines but usually in a circuitous manner. In this case, we need a link to the original series of murders and the deaths in the previous film. When the resolution comes, the tie in is just adequate enough to satisfy the desire for this universe of killings to all be interrelated. 

One way that the film subverts itself is in the opening. There is the traditional phone exchange and then a gruesome murder, but the the identity of the killer appears to be revealed. Will we be looking at this story with a completely different perspective for the remaining time? I won’t spoil things for you but I will say that the traditions of the tropes are respected, even as they are being mocked. I found that sequence very clever and enjoyable. The new cast, which may be referred to as the “core four”, then gets the front and center attention we are expecting. Jasmin Savoy Brown as Mindy, again gets to pontificate on the traditional tropes of a horror film, but then expand on the convoluted explanations that her character provided before. Everyone questions their role on the story, and people who are in on the joke (that’s you and me) get to laugh at the obviousness of some of the points and the cleverness with which we then get thrown off of the trail, and finally the realization that the film has stuck to it’s stated “rules” after all. 

Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega are back as the main characters of the Carpenter sisters. Big Sister Sam is trying to cope with and manage her heritage still and the trauma she has undergone. Younger sister Tara is trying to sublimate the trauma, and that forms the early conflict in the story. Once the more active pursuit of Ghostface starts however, those sibling issues get shunted aside for the horror tropes we are looking for. Courtney Cox returns as Gale Weathers, and there is a little contentiousness because of events that supposedly happened between the two films, but that goes away pretty quickly as well. 

I’m not ashamed to say that in most of the previous films, my first time through, I was fooled by the tricks and taken in by assumptions which lead to my surprise at the reveal. This was the first of the films where I saw what was going to happen, at least in part, before the final reel. In trying to play fair, the screenwriters gave one character a piece of dialogue which is a tell. If you are looking for it, you will probably see it as well. Everything won’t be explained, but you can connect the dots rapidly as the conclusion plays out. I don’t consider this a flaw in the film, just a moment of clarity that comes from having seen this form of story subterfuge play out before. 

David Arquette is missed but only because his character was well beloved. Mason Gooding as the fourth corner of the “core four”, clearly looks like he will be taking over many of the tropes that Deputy Dewey had in the previous films. There is a callback moment near the end which make me laugh really hard. Some characters just are too resilient. If you stick it out through the credits, there is one more joke and good laugh to be had, but be warned, it will be at your expense. 

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February 10, 2023

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Knock at the Cabin

This looks like a home invasion horror film, but it has a different take on that genre, one that is not quite given away by the trailer, and it is a pretty good turn. That said, the biggest spoiler that is possible is to say that M. Night Shyamalan leans into the concept of the story, and there is no big twist ending. It plays out in a very straight forward manner, generating all of it’s tension from the impossible choice that is being given to the family. 

Without going into too much plot, the family is tasked with making a sacrifice and the four strangers who have captured them in the vacation cabin, attempt to convince them that the prediction of the apocalypse is real. Most of the dramatic elements of the film revolve around this attempt at persuasion. The strategies used seem to de-escalate instead of building. Force and threat is the first approach, conveyed by Ron Weasley himself, Rupert Grint. Since this approach dissipates quickly, you might think that the tension level would drop, but instead it actually increases. 

The emotional plea is very effective if you can empathize with Adrienne, the cook played by Abby Quinn. She is sincere and seems motivated by her desire to save her own child from the horrors that the visions hold for the four heralds who have invaded the house. One of the reasons that her empathetic pleas fail to register with one of the two dads in the story, is that he dismisses even the existence of her child. In a strange quirk, one of the reasons he doubts any of the people who have shown up is a prejudice he has built up in reaction to an attack on him many years earlier. He has associated the homophobic assault from earlier, with religious beliefs, and since the four people presenting this scenario seem to believe that this is a divine message, then the whole thing appears as a plot to Andrew, played by Ben Aldridge. The other dad, Eric, played by Johnathan Groff, has some religious background and he seems more open to at least listen to what has been said. 

Another element that keeps the tension up is that the two das and their little girl, respond exactly as you would think a rational person would to this kind of approach. They are fearful, convinced that the four people are delusional fanatics who have met on a message board and are playing out some social contagion of end of times beliefs. They fight in any way they can when given the opportunity. The irrational beliefs of the four invaders overwhelm their rational explanations and approaches to the embattled family. Apart from one character, the other three all seem sincere and even tempered. One is a little desperate, but all of them are trying to find convincing ways to influence the family to choose. 

Dave Batista as Leonard, the apparent leader of the four, is calm, even tempered, and approaches the little girl Wen, in as non-threatening a manner as a man of his looks could come up with. There are a couple of action moments, but Batista is not here to exert control through his physical power, but rather, his level even toned voice and his demonstrable regret at what he feels they are compelled to do. It is a very good performance from an actor that is going against type to make the story work. 

I have a few reservations about the interpretations that get offered in the climax of the film. I think that the flashbacks of the family are fine, but I also think some history of the antagonists would have made this more understandable. The effects found at the end of the film, are not quite enough to explain how it all came together. The cryptic drawings and doodles in the opening are not much help either. This was a pretty effective thriller, if you can buy into the premise. It is easy enough to do, most of us have played “would you rather” a couple of times in conversations. This just gives us the ultimate version of that party prompt.  

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February 9, 2023

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KAMAD Throwback Thursdays 1975 “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”

Throwback Thursday #TBT

Throwback Thursday on the KAMAD site will be a regular occurrence in the next year. As a motivational project, to make sure I am working on something, even in a week where I don’t see a new film in a theater, I am going to post on movies from 1975. Along with 1984, this is one of my favorite years for movies and it is full of bittersweet memories as well. 1975 was my Senior Year in High School and my Freshman Year in College. The greatest film of the last 60 years came out in 1975, as well as dozens of great and not so great cinematic endeavors. Most of the films in this weekly series will have been seen in a theater in 1975, but there are several that I only caught up with later. I hope you all enjoy. 

I have been an apologist for this movie since the very first time I saw it, which unfortunately was not during it’s original theatrical run. My friend Dan had recommended it, I have no idea why he had seen it and I had not, but it was not until two years later, when it was becoming a cult phenomena, that I discovered the joys of “Rocky Horror”. I have heard people say that the movie is terrible and stupid, it’s my opinion that those descriptions apply to those critics rather than the film. This is a perfect satire of the culture, science fiction films, and musical theater, all wrapped up as a filmed entertainment. 

I will get to the cult audiences in a little bit, I want to start with the film itself. Brad and Janet are like all young couples in horror movies like “The Blob” from the 50s, they get stranded in a rainstorm and end up asking for help at the nearest house. Hysterically, Brad says “Didn’t we pass a castle a castle back down the road a few miles?”  How can you not be in on the joke at this point? We have already had a corny song about their love, with a deadpan chorus of future characters in the background, and the narrator has pontificated in solemn tones with a melodramatic pause in just the right places. I was laughing at every second glance, cliché, and sly reference to sci/fi horror films. 

The title sequence is famous for the close up of the red lips and mouth, this image was used on much of the promotional material as well. When you listen to the lyrics of the song, you should be doing an inventory of all those old movies from RKO, Universal and others that are being referenced so cleverly. The Dana Andrews line should make you plotz. This film version of the stage play was my chance to see the story that had been a popular live show in Los Angeles in 1973. I remember seeing a billboard sized ad on the Shrine Auditorium, for the show that was playing in Hollywood at the Roxy Theater. In the summer of 1973, I attended a workshop for a month at U.S.C. right across from that ad and I thought it was intriguing, but I was too young to be driving over to Hollywood on my own to see the play. 

I have always been a fan of musicals, and having seen “Jesus Christ Superstar”, I was especially entranced by the Rock musicals of the era. The year before this opened, I’d seen Brian DePalma’s “Phantom of the Paradise”, which has only a little bit of the tongue in cheek attitude of this film. When Riff Raff points out that Brad and Janet are wet, and she says “Yes, it’s raining”, the on the nose sarcasm is amusing as heck. And then “The Time Warp”. Director Jim Sharman, who had done the play, took full advantage of the film formant to shoot this sequence in interesting Dutch angles, over head Busbee Berkley inspired shots and a cast of background dancers that is demented and dressed to suit that dementia. Having the Criminologist describe the dance and lead us through the steps in inserts during the song is additional icing on the humor of this movie. 

When star Tim Curry is slowly revealed as descending in an elevator, the shots are nicely matched with the rhythm transition to his introductory song, and when he throws off his cloak, revealing his get up, if you are not all in at this point, you better just give up, and I pity you. This is a performance that is fully committed, exuberant and just plain old fun. Maybe these days it would not seem shocking, since there seem to be drag performers everywhere, but in 1975, it was audacious. The juxtaposition with the straight laced Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon in their square cloths is another way we are being let in on the outrageous joke that everyone is involved with here.  

The creepy old house has the requisite living room for our dance sequence, but there is a delightful shot of the laboratory from the elevator perspective which focuses on a color change nearly as dramatic as when Dorothy arrived in Oz. The pink tile floors and walls assault our sense of what a “lab” should be, and the red instrumentation is flashing out at us as a production design made to draw attention to the color scheme.   As Brad and Janet step into the scene in their charming underclothes, their sense of alienness is exacerbated. Curry’s Colin Clive style delivery of his speech to the conventioneers and the guests, is another salute to the old style of the classic Hollywood horror films. Sarandon and Bostwick are terrific in their uptight, wooden mimicking of the innocent bystanders. 

Almost every number is a showstopper, but it never feels like they are trying to outdo themselves from one song to the next. The progression of songs feels organic to the weird nature of the story. Meat Loaf shows up in a spotlight performance which is maybe the one segment that feels a little inorganic, but who cares “Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul” is a smoking solo number that gives us a motorcycle sequence, an axe murder and a chorus line dance, all in a short order and we get saxophone solos. The fifties sensibility with “Eddie” the greaser biker played by MeatLoaf reinforces the rock and roll roots of the musical and the time period of films that are being saluted here. 

Several sequences feature musical instruments being used in unusual ways. There is an organ pumping out gothic tunes at first in the scene where Riff Raff is teasing Rocky. Then there is a drum machine and an electronic organ to follow up. The guitars and piano in so many of the songs are more reflective of older style rock songs. The guitar plucking during “Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me” reminded me of Elton John’s Crocodile Rock. Rock and Roll Porn!The Experience

When I finally caught up with the film, it was in the Midnight Screenings that happened at the Rialto Theater in South Pasadena on Saturday Nights. In the summer 1977, my then girlfriend and future wife, would drive down to Hollywood for “Star Wars” at the Chinese Theater, and then on Saturday Night, go up to the Rialto for Rocky Horror. The audience participation there was full of the call outs and props that were probably found in other venues around the country. The Janet Umbrella was accompanied by showers provided by squirt guns. Cards and Toast were tossed at the right moments, and the swaying matches during “Over at the Frankenstein Place” probably violated a hundred local codes, but we did not care.  When we ventured to the Tiffany Theater in West Hollywood, we were surprised that there was cosplay and that the people dressing up acted out the movie in front of the screen. There was a guy who sold supplies to people in line. He would walk up and down the line with the refrain “Rocky Rice 25, Rocky Matches 10”, and he had little bags with the logo filled with rice and matchbooks with the title on them. So for 35 cents you could participate too. 

This was a soundtrack that we played in Dolores’s dorm room and in the car on a cassette player. The first MeatLoaf album also came out that year and we paired those two together on a regular basis. Oh to be young and in love with the movies.

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January 27, 2023

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Infinity Pool

A ridiculous premise for a film about the consequences of our actions , transforms into an incoherent mess becoming more inconsequential as it goes along. “Infinity Pool” is a horror film with a science fiction conceit that gets completed wasted and turns the story into an examination of unpleasantness for no reason whatsoever. This could have been something interesting and important, and it gets less and less of each of those things the longer it goes on. 

Alexander Skarsgård is  failed novelist James Foster, on holiday at a resort, in a country trapped in poverty and full of the kinds of cultural improprieties that we are supposed to overlook to avoid ethnocentrism. The tribalism and cultural imperative of family honor requires immediate retribution for offenses committed in the nation. So go ahead and trust the people you just met, and venture outside of the resort enclave, meet people from the place you are visiting, and learn their quaint form of justice, except there is a get out of jail card. Maybe the wilder the idea, the more fun we can have with it, after all “Face Off” ,was a blast in spite of being completely bonkers. The problem here is that no one is having fun with the premise, instead there are pretentions of insight into human behavior. That might have also made for a good story, but writer/director Brandon Cronenberg leaves that on the table to wallow in excess revulsion. 

The idea of buying your way out of the consequences of your actions is an interesting one. What does that process do to a persons sense of self. Does guilt linger or vanish? Will your morality disappear entirely? These are great questions that the film asks, but it’s answers are muddled by a series of indulgent episodes that become increasingly boring and irritating. Mia Goth, who gave what I thought was a fantastic performance last year in “Pearl”, at risk of being trapped in the same kind of roles in the future if she keeps getting parts like this. She is great here, but her character is just a slightly different twist on the sick mind that cropped up in that earlier film. Her character Gabi, at first is mysterious, but quickly becomes tritely cruel and less and less interesting. 

A few examples of the pointless excess that Cronenberg has created here might help you understand why this movie is infuriating. Gabi gives James a reach around after a few hours of picnicking with James and his wife? We get to see his seed spilled on the ground. Why? The sense of unearned intimacy is probably what the writer is seeking here, but that is physical rather than emotional, and the emotional is where this movie needs to be working. The best character in the film when it comes to dealing with the questions being raised by the premise, is James’s wife Em,  played by Cleopatra Coleman. Unfortunately, she is removed from the film and the only characters that James has to measure his behavior against, are the ones who are indulging in the reckless excess that will turn off most of the viewers. There is an extended orgy sequence shot as if it is the “stars” sequence from “2001”. It goes on interminably,  the lights flash in different colors, and we see hazy images of people entangled in some sort of sexual behavior, but what it is will never become clear. Obtuse abstractness is supposed to be artistic in these moments, rather, it is pretentious diddling. One last thing to irritate you, there are grotesque masks worn by the characters during many of the scenes of violence and lasciviousness. They were introduced early on, without a clear explanation and the cultural symbolism is completely baffling. The art house sensibility can’t be masked by the fact that this is a horror film, it simply makes the film less frightening and more vaguely symbolic. I call bullshit.

There was another potential direction the film could have gone in, one that the director set up and then completely ignored. How do we know that the doppelganger is the one being executed? Maybe the accused has been replaced by the clone. If that is the case, is there in fact a redemption of guilt because the surviving “person” is in fact, blameless? That is an intriguing thought. Unfortunately, it is not the thought Cronenberg wanted to dwell on. Instead, we get violent and emotional cruelty. Trippy visual interludes don’t make the film deep, they simply fill in the time between unpleasant characters doing more unpleasant things. None of it makes any sense, and the symbolism is too trite to be taken seriously, much less understood. Somewhere some cineaste will write about this and make it sound like an artistic breakthrough, I’m sorry, they will be as full of it as this movie was. 

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M3GAN

It is possible to spend several paragraphs explaining how this movie could have been something dramatically deep and thematically significant. Like “A.I.” from 2001 or “Ex Machina” from 2015, this film deals with the question of human interaction with machines of intelligent design. This movie could have explored issues of attachment, grief, co-dependence, a whole variety of human conditions that might be effected by the development of artificial intelligence. Taking that path however, would have eliminated the primary function of the film, which is to scare us. This is a monster movie, like “Frankenstein”, where our own creations turn on us and the audience can at times identify with the monster. 

The trailer will give you the set up, but it comes down to this, an artificial person starts acting in ways that are not socially or morally acceptable. There is little doubt as to what is going to happen, this story has been around for a couple hundred years. The thing that makes it a little different is that the monster in in the form of a little girl doll and the person she has been created to assist is herself a little girl. Even though there was a possibility that the story line could turn to end of the world scenarios, it stays a little more grounded and the threats are immediate and localized.

Does it work? As a scare generator it is effective. We get a couple of jump scares but mostly there is a steady build up of tension and the creep factor which keeps us engaged. Dolls seem to be by definition a little disturbing, acting as substitutes for humans, typically in play situations. In this situation the doll is acting as playmate rather than plaything, and has the additional plot of replacing a human component with one that is generated through artificial intelligence. If that replacement of human contact had been followed, you would have a psychological horror film, but not a thriller. This movie goes the thriller route with mysterious deaths and ominous looks from the mechanical star. 

Other than the doll itself, the two main characters are played by Allison Williams as Gemma, the aunt who takes in her orphaned niece, and who also happens to be a cutting edge toy designer, and Violet McGraw as Cady, the nine year old with a deep psychological scar from her parents death. The least realistic part of the film is the way these two manage to be around each other before the introduction of the doll. Aunt Gemma acts as if she has never encountered a child before, was detached from her dead sister, and only overcomes professional setbacks by using shortcuts that no legal department would ever really allow. Cady gets a little more leeway, after all she is a kid suffering a great loss, but her character is more truculent than sympathetic. Only a few times, planned to make the other parts of the plot work, does she let her emotional guard down. They are better written characters once the plot kicks in.

M3GAN, is the doll at the center of the story, and she is played by a combination of a young actress in costume and a variety of puppets,and some CGI. The actress/puppet element makes the movie so much more effective because the creepy doll looks like a child sized version of those adult rubber dolls that are sold as sex toys. The element of the story that is helpful in engaging us is how young Cady bonds with Megan and Megan seems to be providing comfort that the Aunt is incapable of. If you watch the demo scene played out where Megan comforts Cady while an audience of executives look on, you can see some to the places that this film could go. It doesn’t go there however, it becomes a straight up horror picture,like “Child’s Play” but without any supernatural element. 

Ever since “2001” let loose an AI that we could not control, there have been a string of horror films that follow the same path. “Skynet” is not that far off my friends. The more we turn our lives over to “Siri”, “Alexa” and Bixby”, the more vulnerable we will be. Maybe we don’t really need to worry about malevolent machines, but we should be worried about the unintended consequences of giving technology increasing control of our daily lives. That’s not what this movie is about, but it could have been. This is a solid January horror film, but it will be forgotten when the next scary movie comes out. 

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December 1, 2022

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The Menu

Part social satire, part morality tale and part horror film, “The Menu” mixes it’s ingredients in the right proportions to set a satisfying movie meal before you. If you think too hard about what it all means, you are probably committing some of the same offenses as one of the lead characters in this film. Be careful, you could end up in the sequel called “The Screening”. If you can just sit back and savor what is in front of you, you will enjoy it so much more. Then you can digest it for hours afterwards and come up with all the right adjectives to make your own dessert.

The trailer for the film seems to suggest that this is a variation of the Hunger Games with guests being hunted down by the staff. That scenario does occur for about three minutes of the film, but it is mostly misdirection. This is a story about a group of zealots, taking out their frustrations on what they see as deserving targets, before they themselves participate in their own version of the “Heaven’s Gate” event from nearly twenty five years ago. This time, the cult leader “Do” is replaced with the star Chef played by Ralph Fiennes. Chef Slowik is a lot more charismatic than the befuddled Marshall Applewhite, but he is no less deadly and utterly fierce in his convictions. There is an incident in the story to demonstrate how he feels no compunction over what he is planning, because he is taking blame for his faults as well. This scene helps set up the twist at the end because we learn that in spite of the narcissism that he is guilt of, he wants to reject the label of being “special”.  A chink in the armor is revealed.

With flashes of brilliant absurdism, the conceit of an exclusive dining establishment, imposing a menu on the guests that reflect their vapidity works very well at providing opportunities for surprise. A gourmet  take down of the guests with the denial of a standard part of the meal, provokes laughter at the haughty way it is imposed and the deconstructionist baloney that lets the guests accept it. This is followed by a true reveal of how insidious the evening is going to be with a shocking swipe at mere excellence, in a ugly joke perpetuated as a lost soul dies. The nature of the cultish thought process sinks in at this point and that is where the real horror begins.

Anya Taylor-Joy as the last minute replacement on the guest list, matches words with the Chef  in an assertive manner that gets slapped down, at least until she discovers the way to a man’s heart is through his choice of cuisine. Nicholas Hoult as a preening foodie who laps up all of the experience as a member of a very different cult, also provides a huge amount of amusement by his words and actions. It is the early relationship between Hoult and Taylor-Joy that makes the set up so intriguing and at first funny. In the end though, It is her manipulation of inside knowledge and her understanding of the Chef, that makes the story soar at the end.

“The Menu” has plenty of other characters but they are used for very brief bits of business. The three corporate stooges who feel entitled by their positions, each offer a moment of levity, but the story never takes any of them seriously. The same is true of the other guests. They have some chances to get a laugh out of us, or joust unsuccessfully with the staff, but in the long run they are background for the main relationship of the film. The devious menu is capped off with a dessert that mocks the gourmet spirit of the guests and celebrates the mendacity of the Chef and his crew. It will also provide you  with an hysterical visual joke to finish your meal with. “Bon appetite!”

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Smile

October has arrived, and with it, the start of the spooky season on-screen. We get a pretty good one to lead off in “Smile”. Basically, this is a contagion story, like “The Ring” or “IT Follows”. Some mysterious force is passing along a curse that is leading to the death of those who end up in it’s path. For ninety percent of the film, it sticks to this concept and the horror is based on creeping psychological moments and disturbing deaths that follow those moments. It is only in the last few minutes that it turns into a creature feature and loses track of what was working so well up to then.

The cast is made up of familiar faces from television, and they all do a credible job selling their moments. Sosie Bacon comes across as a sincere therapist who has the job of trying to help a disturbed young woman who is having bizarre  paranoid vision. Her early calm demeanor and sympathetic face make what happens in the course of the film more horrifying. We know that this is a good person who is having something terrible take over her life. The fact that what happens is largely depicted as her own psyche falling to pieces is what makes the story compelling. It is a trope in these kinds of movies, that the victims come across as disturbed, which is why their explanations of supernatural origin are dismissed. You would think that a psychology professional would be able to get around that and speak to others in a way that is more rational and convincing. When the patient is yourself, it is not so easy.

There are a few death scenes that account for part of the horror in the film. The initial suicide is plenty disturbing, although the medical professional’s call for help should have been responded to quicker, the slow execution of the moment makes it visually compelling. Other deaths are mostly suggested and displayed in brief forms. The truth is that this film gets most of it’s horror impulse from jump scares, scattered throughout the movie. The jump scare is a cheap tactic but when it works, the impact on the audience can be quite chilling. There were two that worked on me, and one of them gave me the kind of shiver deep down that we really want from a horror film. 

An important component of the plot is that the witness to the death must be traumatized by it for the contagion to take hold. We know from early on that Dr. Cotter, the character played by Bacon, witnessed her own Mother’s suicide after having been neglected as a child. She is in essence suffering from a survivor’s form of PTSD. The interactions with her sister and fiance are good opportunities for us to have insight into how the long term suffering is masking the current crisis. We know also, that she has had a failed relationship in the past because of these issues. The best parts of the movie deal with the tender way she is trying to hold it together in the current situation, and how she is failing at doing so. 

Because it is a movie and not just a play, we are going to get some visual representations of those inner thoughts, and that is a tip off from early on that we cannot trust the things that we are seeing. Sometimes they are presented as nightmares, or daydreams, but there are a couple of extended points that are fake outs and undermine the audience’s ability to identify with the character. In the climax, we get a visualization of the traumatic id that turns the end of the movie into a monster story rather than a psychological thriller. It’s a pretty good visualization but it feels unnecessary and I thought it detracted from the ultimate finishing moment.

In spite of a few missteps, the movie largely succeeds at being frightening, thoughtful and entertaining. There were some nice scary moments and the film takes the time to let the pressure build. I’d say it is a reasonably good start to the Halloween onslaught of  horror. Enjoy your goosebumps this month.