Halloween Horror Extravaganza

Since I managed to be not working on Halloween, I popped by the video store and rented a bunch of horror flicks. I don't really feel like doing full reviews for all of them, so here's a bunch of short reviews.

The Wicker Man

1973

Directed by Robin Hardy

Really unconventional horror film about a British lawman who goes to a small island off the coast of Scotland to search for a missing girl, but ends up discovering a pagan society that might be bent on human sacrifice.

In some ways The Wicker Man doesn't really hold up too well. For one thing, I think that when it was made, people in a predominantly Christian society would have found the Pagan rituals and traditions rather more disconcerting than modern audiences. Sergeant Howie's constant shock and disgust at the decidedly earthy and profane goings on in the society on the island are somewhat comical to me. However, Edward Woodward plays the role of the Christian straight man rather well. The redoubtable Christopher Lee plays Lord Summerisle, the leader of the pagan society, with typical force and zeal.

This movie really creeps up on you. At first the bucolic setting and folksy music make it seem like anything but a horror movie. But as Woodward grows frustrated by the lack of cooperation on the island, and delves deeper into the nature of the case, things start to get a bit unnerving. Personally, I didn't find the end all that surprising... rather inevitable, really - but maybe you won't, who knows. Anyway, The Wicker Man is well worth seeing if you're willing to go out on a limb. For me, it was really after the movie was finished that it struck me as something of a horror masterpiece. It's also a satisfying and elaborate revenge fantasy depending on your point of view.

8.8

Drag Me to Hell

2009

Directed by Sam Raimi

Sam Raimi's return to the horror genre is a welcome break from really crappy Spider Man movies. Only somebody of Raimi's acumen could somehow retain my respect after the horror that was Spider Man 3 and Peter Parker's emo dance-a-thon. I wish I didn't have to think of that whenever I think about Sam Raimi, but movies like DMTH certainly help to repress the memory.

So. DMTH is a funny, vicious, gross and mostly excellent horror film with a somewhat old-school feel to it. Many of Raimi's trademarks are here: the heroine is subjected to a barrage of disgusting fluids a la Evil Dead; evil demons mock the living with characteristic frivolity. Alison Lohman is as good as could be expected as a bank loan type of person who pisses of an old gypsy lady (note to self: do not piss off the Roma!) and has a curse put upon her. Basically in three days a demon will literally drag her soul into hell. Fairly literal title. The movie consists of Lohman being tormented and trying her best to apease the demon with the help of fortune tellers, seances, a skeptical boyfriend (JUSTIN LONG, YAY) and maybe even some good ole animal sacrifice.

Things move quickly and there's enough cheap scares to go around, but a few genuinely good ones as well, plus DMTH is pretty damn funny. Kudos to Raimi for just putting it all out there and making a really entertaining movie. Unfortunately, some of the effects are cheesy-looking and on the silly side. In the end, not exactly a classic, but certainly a return to form.

7.7

The Leafs lose 4-5 in the shootout to the crappy Habs

This was a low point of the day when, despite tying it up with two goals in the last few minutes of regulation, Toskala was typically shitty during the shootout and we lost. Again. To the Habs. I hate those guys. And Montreal fans are the worst too. Fuck you if you're a Montreal fan. Why doesn't Toskala go out of the net to challenge people instead of leaving a whole panorama of open net for them to shoot at? Why is Lee Stempniak considered a sniper when he doesn't even look like he has half a chance on both a clean breakaway and a shootout opportunity on a backup goaltender? This shit was just bad news bears all the way.

0.2

Dog Soldiers

2002

Directed by Neil Marshall

I thought this looked subpar, so I avoided renting it for ages. Stupid, because I didn't realize that Marshall also directed one of the greatest horror movies of all time, The Descent. Dog Soldiers is accurately described as a sort of Predator with werewolves melange. A British military unit gets dropped off in the middle of the woods in Scotland for a training mission, but instead they find a mostly dead special ops squadron and a bunch of mean-spirited werewolves. They barricade themselves inside a cottage and proceed to defend themselves.

Pretty typical stuff, but it's all done really well. The cast is great - they have a lot of character, and the amusing and sometimes witty dialogue makes you actually care whether they live or die, which is more than I can say for most horror flicks. I don't recognize any of them from any other movies, but Sean Pertwee and Kevin McKidd were both above average. I was at my buddy's place watching this and we all laughed our asses off pretty frequently. But the effects were also pretty good for a low budget film. The werewolves looked pretty legit - huge and kinda scary.

Best part: no stupid CG, these were real beasts. Dunno how they did it, costumes I guess. We were satisfied.

7.8

[Rec]

2007

Directed by Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza

Wow. I read some good things about this Spanish film (which was made into a crappy American film, Quarantine), so I decided to check it out. Why oh why did I wait so long? "Holy shit" is the best way for me to describe it. I won't say anything about the plot except that basically it's about a small TV show crew that accompanies a few firefighters on a routine emergency call to a small apartment, except that things go awry big time.

The whole movie is shot from the handheld camera used by the TV crew. I thought that this gimmick had been done to death, but it works so well in Rec that you don't even think of it as a gimmick. Actually, during the whole movie, I just kept thinking, "god damn this is realistic." It does not seem like a movie so much as a document left over from a total nightmare. Rec is intense as hell. Once it gets going, there's no stopping it. Things get worse and worse. I wouldn't even recommend it to some people because it's maybe too intense and scary, but you know what, my scaredy-cat girlfriend watched the whole thing and was only mildly traumatized.

Anyway, I think it's a nearly perfect movie. I have no idea if the acting was good because it was all in breakneck Spanish, but it seemed pretty bloody convincing to me. The ending is just... wow. A masterpiece of the horror genre.

9.5

Later on everybody went to bed, but for me it was time for:

The Last House on the Left

1972

Directed by Wes Craven

Some sources might lead you to believe that this is a landmark horror film. Well, it is, in some ways. It's a total landmark of crap that you should never watch.

I was in the mood for some good old sadism, and I heard that this was a pretty infamous movie. I should preface this by saying that torture porn is really not my cup of tea. I for one am totally sick of all these bullshit Saw and Hostel type movies coming out. Humourless, plotless crap about people being tortured in various ways does not strike me as cinematic gold. It's mostly just boring. So why would I rent a movie about a trio of rapists and their shifty girlfriend who kidnap two teenage girls in order to rape, torment, and kill them? I have no idea. I guess I was just wondering what the big deal was.

As it turns out, there's no big deal at all. The raping and torture is anything but harrowing. The acting is crap all around. The music sounds like stupid capers themes from a Warner Bros. cartoon. There is some lame crap where the cops are trying to catch these guys but they keep getting held up (i.e. they run out of gas at one point, haw haw haw, and then they try to hitch a ride with a lady with a bunch of chickens in the back, but she won't move the chickens, haw haw haw...) Seriously, I can't describe to you how stupid this movie is. The killers end up hiding out in the house of one of the girls parents, and the parents find out who they are and it turns into a lousy revenge movie where they seek retribution for the murder of their daughter... by torturing the killers. Not really clever enough to be ironic, this plot device is mainly dull and predictable. I had to fast-forward through parts of Last House because it was putting me to sleep and I wanted to see how it would end so I could write this dumb review. There was nothing good about this movie except for some boobs if you're into that.

0.2

I went to bed but then I had two more movies to watch at work the next day:

Hatchet

2006

Directed by Adam Green

I didn't have high expectations for this movie, and I think that worked in my favour. All in all, it wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen. Parts were pretty entertaining. But overall, I wouldn't highly recommend it.

Starring some b-to-c-list actors and featuring some really dull cameos from horror icons like Robert (Freddy Kreuger) Englund, Hatchet tries its best to summon up old-school cred, but mostly fails. Englund, for instance, is completely wasted as an alligator-hunting hick. This is pretty much how the whole film goes - wasted potential.

The plot? Some tourists go on a haunted bayou tour in New Orleans and end up getting attacked by a deranged undead mutant named Victor Crowley. That's it. My first complaint is that the humour is god-awful. I mean, really bad. Mercifully I don't remember any of the jokes, so I'll spare you. Second, boobs don't automatically make a movie good. Please, let's be a little more inspired. How about the scene in Mosquito when some poor woman gets the life sucked out of her ass by a giant mosquito while macking a guy? That's what I'm talking about! Not this completely unrelated boobage. That might catch the eye of the adolescent phillistine, but as for me, I say, "This aggression will not stand!" Another crappy thing about Hatchet: the terrible, terrible lighting. So bad. The bayou looks like backstage for a high-school rendition of Swamp Thing. Unidentified light illuminates the set like the sun itself (slight exaggeration.) A little hard to be scared. Actually, a lot hard.

So what does this movie have going for it? A good villain. Crowley is one hell of a beast; sort of like a redneck mutant Jason Voorhees. People are torn apart and utterly destroyed in a variety of ways. Yep, this movie is gory enough. In fact, for its low budget, the carnage is pretty gruesome and impressive. At least they got one thing right. Crowley is one relentless motherfucker and you've got to sort of give credit to the filmmakers for their directness. Hatchet doesn't pretend to be anything other than a crappy b-movie slasher. A little help with the writing and production probably would have gone a long way, but you get the feeling that they made the best of it.

Overall, not very good but worth a rental for horror fanatics looking for some truly gruesome deaths that might just blow ya mind.

4.9

Dead Snow

2009

Directed by Tommy Wirkola

I had heard mixed reviews about this Norwegian Nazi zombie romp, but hey... Nazi zombies. I had to try.

One problem I have to talk about right off the bat is: what's with the running zombies lately? Okay, 28 Days Later was rage virus, not the same thing exactly. But what about the Dawn of the Dead remake? Why can zombies really jet all of a sudden? Aren't they supposed to be sluggish because they're, um, dead? Let's explore a further possibility. Assuming you're a zombie... doesn't your blood circulation sort of, well, stop? Or at least slow down considerably? Now consider what might happen if you'd been hanging around in the middle of a frozen mountain range in Norway since, oh, I don't know, 1945? Don't you think that maybe your body would rather seize up? Might it not be difficult to run around at speeds comparable to a warm-blooded and athletic human?

These questions all lead me to posit that Dead Snow is not a zombie movie at all - serious false advertising. No, these Nazis may be undead, but they sure aren't zombies. They're not mindless consumers for one thing; they appear to be organized under Herzog, their fiendish commander. They seem to desire riches more than human flesh. They're pretty damned agile for the walking dead. Nope, these are not zombies in any sense of the term.

If you get over that, Dead Snow is not a terrible movie, but it's a little dull. It has its moments of gory inspiration, sure. The undead look pretty groovy. The acting is not too bad. I tend to just like Scandinavian people implicitly, so I guess I'm probably favourably biased toward this film. But something just doesn't click. There are some great scenes, sure. It's fun to watch a couple of Norwegian medical students wailing away at undead Nazis with a variety of hammers and pointy things. The undead themselves look pretty legit. But somehow, I just wish these Nazi sons of bitches would get their asses kicked a little more. They seem a little too unstoppable at times. I would like to see the whole lot of them get owned. I guess I just can't stand Nazis. Thank you Hellboy comics! In fact, reading about Hellboy beating the shit out of an army of undead frozen Nazis would be much better than watching Dead Snow. Mike Mignola, take note!!

Until that happens, Dead Snow is probably worth a rental for horror buffs with nothing else to watch.

5.7