May 2010 - Horrorphile

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Horrorphile - May 2010

3rd ANNUAL HORRORPHILE HALL OF INFAMY 2010: The Contenders - POLL CLOSED

May 31st 2010 01:52

Third year in and I’ve decided to change tack once again. I’ve opted for a more self-indulgent route, but one that truly expresses the True Believin’ attitude and passion of my blog. I’ve selected thirty modern horror movies from George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968) to Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs (2008). This is a list of what I think are some of the very best modern nightmares ever committed to celluloid (I've reviewed them all except one). Of course it was very hard containing the selection to just thirty, but I had to draw the line somewhere.

I was intending for the poll to be embedded in my post, but frustratingly it was one of those "really long links". So instead click on the first link and from the selection choose your THREE favourite movies in no particular order.

Additionally to the All-Time Greatest Modern Horror Movie poll I’ve created four other categories I felt warranted attention. Click on each respective link and from each selection choose just ONE title or name from these concise lists: Horror pre-1968, Remake, Comedy, SFX Make-up Artist.

The poll closes Wednesday June 30th at midnight. Make your vote count!

If you feel there was a glaring omission from the main list and/or any of the short lists then please let me know. Who knows it may end up on next year’s contenders list.

All-Time Greatest Modern Horror Movie

Horror pre-1968

Remake

Comedy

SFX Make-up Artist

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The Road

May 27th 2010 02:42

No, not a Hollywood remake of Fellini’s La Strada, but rather the next adaptation of a Cormac McCarthy novel. The Road (2009) was originally due for release in November 2008, but was delayed for additional post-production and then delayed again for 2009 Oscar contention, but it failed to score any nominations. I haven’t read the novel, so I’m working just off the movie experience, and although it’s a powerfully atmospheric movie with a heavy mood and tone, I felt it wasn’t dramatically as dynamic or powerful as I had hoped, especially coming from John Hillcoat, director of the brilliant Western nightmare, The Proposition (2005).

The Road Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smitt-McPhee

Viggo Mortensen as father and Kodi Smit-McPhee as his son

The movie begins, rather predictably and ordinarily, with a dream sequence; a flashback if you will, of happier, tranquil times between a man and a woman. The colour is suddenly vanquished, and the man from the dream jolts awake, lying amongst ash and debris, heavily bearded, clothed and filthy. A boy, obviously his son, lies beside him trying to keep warm. They continue on their quest, heading south to the ocean, pushing a supermarket trolley of supplies along a desolate road, through a ruined landscape.

The cause of the apocalypse is never explained. The closest references are two lines of dialogue; The man’s voiceover at the beginning; “There was a long shear of bright light, and a series of low concussions,” and the old man they encounter later along the road who states “I knew this was going to happen. There were warnings. Other people said it was a con, but I knew.” Because of the ash that covers almost everything, and the seismic activity, it seems most likely that a super-volcano erupted. Combined with Global Warming. The novel never explains the cause of the apocalypse, and wisely, screenwriter Joe Penhall doesn’t attempt to either.

Cannibal bad people own the road

As in the novel none of the characters are named. The speaking parts are simply, the man (Viggo Mortensen), the boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee), and the woman (Charlize Theron), who is the wife of the man and mother to the boy, but she only features in flashbacks. Robert Duvall (almost unrecognizable, but I know his voice too well) plays the old man, the always watchable Garret Dillahunt plays a hungry member of one of the marauding cannibal gangs, and at movie’s end is the appearance of Guy Pearce with very bad teeth who is credited as “Veteran” on screen, and "The Final Man", on imdb.com. Molly Parker plays his wife (Motherly Woman/The Final Woman).

WARNING! CONTAINS SPOILERS

The Road Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron

Happier times for husband and wife (Charlize Theron)

It is the ending of the movie that I have the most trouble with. I’m not sure how close it sticks to the novel, but it felt rushed and a tad rounded. In keeping with the grim, uncompromising tone throughout the movie, I was quite happy to accept an alternate ending where the boy would continue on by himself. Maybe the veteran character and his family (including two young kids and a dog) are the “good people”, but maybe not. The dramatic resolve was simply too nice, too neat an ending. Still in the first half there are some genuinely nerve-wracking scenes, especially the one inside the cannibal’s house.

Robert Duvall as hungry old man

And what the hell’s with the no thumbs business?! A black man (Michael Kenneth Williams) who attempts to steal all of the man and boy’s possessions whilst the boy sleeps and the man has swum out to a beached freight ship to seek food, has no thumbs. Okay, fine, perhaps he lost them in an industrial accident. But then the veteran/final man also has no thumbs. Okay, I don’t buy the coincidence, and I’m stumped on what the symbolism can mean. They wouldn’t have eaten their thumbs out of starvation, that’s just plain stupid. They wouldn’t have chopped them off to differentiate between good people and bad people (cannibals), that’s just as stupid. Not sure if this perplexing imagery is in the novel or not, so I’m left intrigued and a little frustrated.

The look of the movie is magnificent, almost entirely devoid of colour, just a bleak, grey world of burnt, dead trees, derelict vehicles, abandoned houses and buildings, and the toxicity of the ash all around. The production filmed in the ruined areas of Katrina-stuck New Orleans, as well as the volcanic territory of Mount St. Helens. Additionally a bunch of CGI artists added further desolation and grading. The mood is further enhanced by the score from Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, who also provided the music for The Proposition.

The cast and acting is excellent. Even if Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce and Garrett Dillahunt aren’t on screen for very long, they command their scenes beautifully. Viggo Mortensen lost a lot of weight for the role (in one scene it reminded me of Christian Bale’s frightening methodology for The Machinist), and he delivers a terrific central performance alongside Aussie newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee who also delivers the goods.

The Road Kodi Smitt-McPhee and Guy Pearce

Good man or bad man?

The Road is a science fiction nightmare for those anchored to the plight of humankind on Earth. Themes of trust and loyalty, love and tenderness are juxtaposed by the terror of savagery and animal desperation. A world created by God, which God has now abandoned … It is essentially another study in the machinations and ramifications or violence, both implicit and explicit, which is central to John Hillcoat’s oeuvre, as well as Cormac McCarthy’s, but it’s not nearly as powerful as The Proposition or No Country for Old Men (2007).

Here's the teaser trailer:

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57th SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL HORRORSPECTIVE

May 26th 2010 01:04

I’m very excited about the nightmares included in this year’s Sydney Film Festival programme! The Festival opens Wednesday June 2nd and runs until Monday June 14th. Not only is there a thematic category called “Freak Me Out”, but there’s also a retrospective of cult classic vampire movies, "Immortal Seduction", plus assorted other dark and wicked treats. I’m like a boy in a toy store at Christmas time!

“Gross. Scream. Cult. Schlock.” spurts the tagline for the Freak Me Out section of the Festival. Amongst the selection are three Aussie debut features guaranteed to pack a punch; Red Hill is a fusion of Western and cop thriller that tilts its hat to the suspense of Carpenter and the excesses of Tarantino. The Loved Ones is a blackly comic, gruesome and insane nightmare that channels The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) via Carrie (1976). Caught Inside is terrifying Dead Calm (1989) territory that echoes the recent kickass Donkey Punch (2008).

The Hong Kong Dream Home is all about cutthroat real estate with much hacking all around, The Disappearance of Alice Creed is a UK crime thriller with serious overtones of horror and twisted allegiances a la Shallow Grave (1994). Possessed, from South Korea, deals with religious madness, spiritual dysfunction and a dark social commentary underpinned with shock and gore. The Temptation of St. Tony is a monochromatic allegorical Estonian odyssey with a perverse mix of Bergmanesque and Lynchian elements that makes for a unique nightmare.

The mini-programme, Immortal Seduction – The Vampire Movie, promises to be the Festival piece-de-resistance. A timely throwback to when vampire movies relied on thick atmosphere, cult of personality, and cool prosthetics. Horror has been on the up and up over the past ten years, with vampirism particularly popular of late, especially with the teen-angst twaddle of the Twilight series. It’s great that the SFF has embraced the Darkness with such fetid fervor this year with 35mm prints to boot!

The question this retrospective begs; is there a more perfect movie monster than the vampire? “Dead, but alive, terrifying, but seductive, unspeakable, yet irresistible.” Well, the comments on my debate battle (vampires vs. werewolves) have a thing or two to say in that area, but that’s another kettle of congealing blood. The dark vamp delights on the big screen are Mario Bava’s seminal, bewitching Black Sunday (1960), a rare, complete director’s cut of Roman Polanski’s brilliant Dance of the Vampires (1967, which was butchered by Hollywood and re-titled The Fearless Vampire Killers, or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck), the strange and sensual Euro gem Daughters of Darkness (1971), Bela Legosi in the original Universal production Dracula (1931), Guy Maddin’s avant garde ballet Dracula: Pages From a Virgin’s Diary (2002), Dracula AD 1972 (1972), the Hammer production set in glam-rock London, complete with Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and buxom Stephanie Beacham and Caroline Munro, the HK comedic craziness of Mr. Vampire (1985), Kathryn Bigelow’s excellently visceral and moody romance Near Dark (1987), with Lance Henrikson leading a gang of nomadic vampires (including a young Bill Paxton) prowling the southwest, and the Australian schlock, Thirst (1979), which has hammy David Hemmings fronting a cult of blood-lovers and the woman caught in the middle.

And, last but not least, the silent German Expressionist masterpiece Nosferatu – Symphony of Horror (1922), accompanied by a live scored performance from Darth Vegas, and additional sound effects engineered by Miss Death. What a treat indeed to see these all projected on the silver screen!

Other screenings in the Festival worth noting are the Chinese war atrocity City of Life and Death, which recounts the infamous and horrific six-week Nanjing Massacre during 1937-38, The Game of Death from France, a controversial documentary centred around a ruse that revealed a recreation of the infamous Milgram experiments (obedience via electric shock treatment) of the 1960s, and Inferno, director Henri-Georges Clouzot’s ill-fated descent into the hallucinogenic depiction of jealous madness that he never completed (of which 94 precious minutes do exist!).

British maverick director Michael Winterbottom unleashes his latest, The Killer Inside Me, with Casey Affleck as a small-town psycho cop, and Jessica Alba as one of his doomed lovers, the Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning Restrepo, a disturbing documentary focusing on a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan and the inherent mesh of violence, and The Sentimental Engine Slayer from the US, which promises to be one of the Festival’s more unique outings favouring intense Catholic guilt, sexual intrigue and disorder, and a streak of nihilistic intent, coloured in psychedelic strokes.

For the complete SFF programme and all other information visit the official website or pick up a free catalogue from around the city.

And watch this dark space for previews and reviews!

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HORRORPHILE VIOLATES GOOGLE CONTENT POLICY

May 24th 2010 01:24

As you can see above and below, I no longer have any advertising. It seems my appreciation of horror in art and popular culture, in particular movies, has got me into trouble with the big boys at Google and their Ad-Sense programme. According to their programme policy “publishers may not place AdSense code on pages with content that violates any of our content guidelines. Some examples include content that is adult, violent or advocating racial intolerance.

Sites with Google ads may not include or link to:
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Curious Stories, Crooked Symbols

May 18th 2010 23:40

The Eyes of Edward James short film poster

Curious Stories, Crooked Symbols (2009) is the name given to an anthology of the short films of Rodrigo Gudiño, the founder and publisher of the brilliant Canadian “horror in entertainment and culture” publication Rue Morgue. There are three twisted tales of murder, madness, and deception that have picked up a plethora of international prizes; The Eyes of Edward James (2006), The Demonology of Desire (2007), and The Facts in the Case of Mister Hollow (2008).

The Eyes of Edward James is told through the point of view of a disturbed man, Edward James, undergoing hypnotherapy, who is being led through the events that led up to the grisly murder of his wife Sarah (Shahla Kareen) in their home, by his doctor. It seems that what James remembers that he saw is not what he wants to remember. The doctor takes him back through the last moments of that horrible evening. Something is not quite right. Someone else was definitely in the house apart from James and his wife. It’s not until the final image that the true level of deception is revealed like a flash of premonition

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A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

May 17th 2010 23:57

We’re walking down a well-trodden path now: the re-imagining of a cult classic movie, of which the horror flick has become the biggest victim. What can I say, that I haven’t already said? Yes, there have been a couple of exceptions to the rule. If a movie wasn’t as convincing as it should have been due to production value limitations, or poor acting; if the movie was considerably lacking in one or more important elements, then, yes, perhaps a remake would do the original justice. But to simply re-do a movie because you can ...?

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) Rooney Mara

Rooney Mara as Nancy

Zack Snyder’s re-envisioning of Dawn of the Dead (2004) was an improvement on Romero’s original. I know a lot of diehard zombie/Romero fans will beg to differ, and as much as I like his Dawn of the Dead (1978) for its apocalyptic vision, I think Snyder’s is a more visceral, more convincing movie. On the other hand Rob Zombie’s two Halloween re-imaginings are travesties, and did nothing for the quasi-supernatural mythology of Michael Myers.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) Kyle Gallner

Kyle Gallner as Quentin

Supertrash producer Michael Bay and his Platinum Dunes company have already delivered us the utterly unremarkable remake of Friday the 13th (2009) that did sweet fuck all in bringing the unstoppable malevolence of Jason Voorhees back to the frontline of horror villains. Now he plants his Midas touch on another icon of evil: Freddy Krueger … and turns him to stone. A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) is slick, referential, with photogenic teens (although old photos dated 1986 indicate they’d now all be 20, yet still at high school), numerous dream shocks, a couple of gore set-pieces (but nothing to get excited about), and Jackie Earle Haley playing his second pedophile in less than five years

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Julia

May 14th 2010 00:35

I plucked Julia (2008) off the shelves, the DVD cover intriguing (as covers often are), but not the title, then put it back since although I loved Tilda Swinton in Orlando and The War Zone (1999), I’m not the biggest fan, and the idea of watching her star in a two-and-a-half hour movie seemed like an ordeal. A couple of weeks later I saw the trailer and promptly hired the movie the next day. Julia is an uncompromising portrait of nightmarish desperation and self-destruction. It was an ordeal, but one I was quite prepared to endure. Tilda Swinton delivers a career performance that blows most of her contemporaries out of the water.

Tilda Swinton as Julia

From a screenplay originally by critically-acclaimed French director Erick Zonca (The Dreamlife of Angels) and Aude Py, but adapted by Roger Bohbot and Michael Collins (presumably into English, since the movie is set primarily in Los Angeles, California), Julia tells the tragic story of a raging 40-something alcoholic who can’t seem to do anything to help herself except drink herself into oblivion, only to wake sprawled on some man’s bed, or sofa, or car, half-naked, with the taste of her dignity ready to be spat in the toilet. But salvation, a baptism by fire, comes in the form of Elena (Kate del Castillo).

Aiden Gould as Tom

Saul Rubenek as Mitchell

Julia is a difficult pill to swallow, it’s a tour-de-force of direction and the central performance by Tilda Swinton, who captures the pathetic horror of being a drunk almost as well as Richard E. Grant did in Withnail and I (and curiously is essentially a teetotaler like Grant). The screenplay isn't perfect, mostly notably in the movie’s last quarter where tension is held taut, but the drama stumbles, and a couple of key factors are not illustrated well enough, serving only to confuse the audience. Not that I need everything explained, far from it, but it’s an abrupt and frayed ending that doesn’t satisfy as it should. The journey up to this point has been riveting, and the story demands more resolution, regardless of sorrow or joy

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Tony Manero

May 13th 2010 00:46

“There’s murder on the dance floor.” But don’t even think about Sophie Ellis Bexter’s whiny glam-pop song, this is sleazy psychopathic competition, Chilean low-life style. One dangerous man determined to be the best disco impersonator in town, and if that means he’s gotta kill a few people along the way then so be it. Sounds like a dark and mischievous comedy, but no, Tony Manero (2008) is deadly serious, and all the more disturbing and bizarre for it.

Alfredo Castro as Raul Peralta

Alfredo Castro plays Raúl Peralta, a shabby fifty-two-year-old living in Santiago, governed by the dictatorship of terrorist Augusto Pinochet. It’s 1978. Saturday Night Fever's brand of disco is sweeping the popular world of culture. Peralta is keen, but not just overly enthusiastic, he’s obsessed. He wants to be John Travolta’s free-wheeling, chauvinistic character Tony Manero, and he wants the rest of Santiago, Chile, maybe the world, to know

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Animal Kingdom

May 12th 2010 00:31

Joshua “J” Cody (James Frecheville) is 17 and lives in Melbourne. His mother is getting cold on the sofa. Her last shot of smack killed her. His grandmother, Smurf (Jacki Weaver) comes to collect him and usher him into her fold; middle son Craig (Sullivan Stapleton), naïve younger brother Darren (Luke Ford), and the eldest, Pope (Ben Mendelsohn). The Cody boys are criminals. Craig is making a mint from illicit drugs, but he’s a speed freak and volatile. Pope has been partners-in-crime with best mate Baz (Joel Edgerton), but now Baz wants out of the game, and Pope is in hiding from renegade detectives. Darren does what he’s told. Smurf smiles, turns a blind eye, and kisses her boys tenderly on the lips; she’ll do anything to keep them safe.

James Frecheville as J

Writer/director David Michôd’s first feature, Animal Kingdom (2010) is a powerhouse crime story, superbly written, directed with consummate elegance, and sensationally acted from a top-notch cast, that also includes Guy Pearce as by-the-books Det. Snr. Sgt. Leckie (complete with moustache), Dan Wyllie as dodgy lawyer Ezra White, Anna Lise Phillips as an equally suss barrister, and, beside fellow newcomer Frecheville, Laura Weelwright, as J’s girlfriend Nicky. Hard to name the stand-outs performances, but if I had to: Stapleton and Mendelsohn; frighteningly convincing sociopaths, bordering on psychopathic. Mind you Weaver’s role as the Cody matriarch is as dark as coal

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9

May 10th 2010 23:31

I didn’t get around to reviewing this during its theatrical release, but 9 (2009) looks mighty fine on DVD on the big-small screen (and I’m sure simply stunning on Blu-ray). The feature expansion from director Shane Acker’s Oscar-nominated short film of the same name from 1995 is described as “stitchpunk” a play on the sf sub-genre of “steampunk”, which in itself is a hybrid of futuristic cyberpunk and Victorian industrial revolution elements. In 9 the main characters are miniature dolls that have been stitched together with needle and thread and zippers banding together in a post-apocalyptic world where the automated war machines have rendered humans extinct.

9 discovers The Scientist's words of warning

It’s the production design and atmosphere of 9 that stands head and shoulders above the rest of the movie. The narrative and the characterisation are fairly pedestrian, which is a shame because the premise and the cast who provide the voices are strong. The short, however, is a more powerful film for not providing voices, simply because the oneiric, nightmarish quality is enhanced tenfold with only sound, music, and image. It’s notable that the first ten minutes of the feature is without dialogue.

9 is befriended by the adventurous elder 2

The wrath and wake of the war machines

The basic plot has a doll named 9 (Elijah Wood) - the name is scrawled on his back - awaken to find the Scientist creator dead and the outside world a wasteland of ruined buildings and the shells of cars. He takes a strange metallic badge-like object with him. A huge metal skeletal beast attacks him, but he’s saved by another of his kind, 2 (Martin Landau), a fearless senior who subsequently fixes 9’s voice. 2 brings 9 to meet a hidden posse lead by the elder, 1 (Christopher Plummer), his minder, 8 (Fred Tatascoire), the kind-hearted 5 (John C. Reilly), the visionary recluse, 6 (Crispin Glover) and the voiceless twins, 3 and 4. Later the warrior 7 (Jennifer Connelly) enters the picture

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MACHETE TRAILERS!

May 10th 2010 01:00

One of the things I really liked about Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s original Grindhouse (2007) double-feature release were the couple of fake trailers that proceeded Planet Terror and the several more that played during the “intermission” before Death Proof. My favourite was Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving (and I demand to see the feature!), but other favourite was Rodriguez’s Machete starring pizza-faced Danny Trejo as the titular anti-amigo.

Rodriguez had so much fun making the “fake” trailer that he decided a feature was on the crooked cards. Three years later the feature is about to be unleashed, and it’s now apparent Rodriguez has garnered a motley crew of A-listers slumming it with has-beens; Michelle Rodriguez (no relation to the director), Jessica Alba, Robert De Niro, Lindsay Lohan, Jeff Fahey, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, and Steven Seagal. Rose McGowan reprises her role as Cherry Darling from Planet Terror, as does SFX guru Tom Savini as Deputy Tolo, and the Avellan twins, Electra and Elise, return also, this time as Nurse Mona and Sexy Nurse #2, respectively

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The Fourth Kind

May 5th 2010 00:01

I was very excited about this movie when Natalina, over at Extraordinary Intelligence, gave me the heads up on the trailer a few months back. It looked right up my malevolent alien alley. Unfortunately The Fourth Kind (2009) is ruined by the worst kind of treatment: it’s over-produced and pretentious. Writer/director Olatunde Osunsanmi seems to have gone to the same school of filmmaking as M. Night Shyamalan, where the production values are overly lush, the narrative dramatics are painfully obvious, and it’s emotionally overwrought. It does possess a couple of intense, paranormal moments, but unfortunately they simply aren’t powerful enough to warrant sitting through the rest of the 95-odd minute movie for.

Milla Jovovich as Dr. Abigail Tyler

Things get off to a very shaky start when a blurry silhouette approaches the camera from down a forest path. The focus sharpens and Milla Jovovich talks directly to the camera as the background moves around her as if she’s stepped onto a carousel; “I’m actress Milla Jovovich, and I will be portraying Dr. Abigail Tyler in The Fourth Kind. This film is a dramatisation of events that occurred October 1st through the 9th of 2000, in the Northern Alaskan town of Nome. To better explain the events of this story, the director has included actual archived footage throughout the film. This footage was acquired from Nome psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler, who has personally documented over 65 hours of video and audio materials during the time of the incidents. To better protect their privacy, we have changed the names and professions of many of the people involved. Every dramatised scene in this movie is supported by either archived audio, video or as it was related by Dr. Tyler during extensive interviews with the director. In the end, what you believe is yours to decide. Please be advised, that some of what you're about to see is extremely disturbing.”

Elias Koteas as Dr. Abel Campos

Righto. Thanks for that Osunsanmi, however I should point out Nightmare Movie Rule #1: Never warn audience that they are likely to be disturbed. That’s like shooting yourself in the foot. So the level of pomposity is already firmly in place. But it quickly gets worse. Osunsanmi then makes the artistic and dramatic decision to run the supposed actual archive footage alongside the dramatised re-creations, sometimes with split screen and overlapping dialogue, other times by cutting back and forth. The end result - novel it may be - cancels the other out in terms of effectiveness. The performances from Jovovich and the rest of the cast, including Will Patton as skeptical Sheriff August, simply aren’t good enough, with only Elias Koteas as her initially skeptical psychologist colleague Abel Campos delivering his usual solidity

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Cure

May 4th 2010 00:54

There are some crime dramas that burn like a stogie; slow, intense, flavoursome, but an acquired taste nevertheless. Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure (1997) is just that; a psychological horror-thriller that penetrates the mind like an ice-pick wrapped in velvet, its concerns and deeper meaning under layers of doubt and subterfuge. Cure is a hard nut to crack, yet it engages on such a precise and unassuming level, that it’s not until the final scene and the reverberations that follow that you realise just how affected you’ve been as a viewer.

Tokyo, an industrious city in a state of decay, is suffering at the hands of seems to be the work of a serial killer; bodies left mutilated, left with a bloody “X” carved into the neck. But it’s not just one killer, it’s several. Each victim has its own murderer, found close by, suffering from amnesia. Homicide detective Takabe (Koji Yakusho) is determined to find the reason and truth behind this madness. With the help of psychologist Sakuma (Tsuyoshi Ujiki), their investigation proves fruitless, until a mysterious young man, Mamiya (Masato Hagiwara) is arrested near the scene of a murder. He appears disconnected, yet possesses an awesome and deadly power of suggestion over people

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