Double Feature Rant - RAW and BITE

I just had a brief rant for the blog. Like my other posts, this will be short, sweet, and to the point.

RAW (2016 aka GRAVE)
A fantastic film about a vegetarian vet school student that undergoes a series of dietary changes after some hazing. The thing I found most horrifying in this film is the hazing of the new students. It seemed way over the top and made me curious about if this is really a thing in France. Super solid direction and screenplay from Julia Ducournau. A wondrous, "coming of age" ish drama story with some horror elements, but I can't say that I saw it as strictly horror. I found it to be far more drama, but it was very engaging.

 

BITE (2015)
A fun ride of a film about a bachelorette party gone horribly wrong on several fronts, the main one being the bride being bitten by an exotic insect that changes her genetic being. Lots of gross-out horror elements tossed into the mix with not much more going on. It's almost a one set film - the majority taking place in an apartment. However, the nastiness is fun and the gore and makeup makes for an interesting watch.

But....here is the rant. 

"THIS was no BOATING ACCIDENT!"

These films were both heralded as some sort of bile inspiring, nasty bit of business only meant for the strong of heart and stomach. Barf Bags were being passed out due to the graphic and disgusting nature of the films.  People were said to be passing out cold from the shock and horror of it all.

No. Just stop. Knock it off.     heh

I have to say that all this BS kinda took these films down in my head a bit. I fell for the hype, but it had negative results. I thought these might be INSIDE or MARTYRS level films. Films that really messed with you. However, RAW was just a really good film with some gross little moments here and there and BITE was just an above average creature feature. Even the gross out levels where minimal. So, I got my hopes up WAY too high and ended up walking away feeling a bit cheated.

I guess it's really my own fault for listening to the HYPE MACHINE® and it's ranting and raving. I recently saw something that was being compared to something like JAWS meets STRANGER THINGS and it was nothing of the sort, but I also didn't fall for it because....come on. Jaws? Stranger Things? Both fantastic, but if something came out that was like a combination of the two, I think the broader stroke of the media would be discussing it in great detail! hehehe

And, I get it. This goes back through the ages.  There has always been a Hype Machine overselling what we're going to be seeing.

So, don't believe the HYPE MACHINE. Hell, don't even place too much on what people say about films in general. Try to fly into a film blindly if you can. You know what they say about opinions. :)

Death Double Feature: Death Walks at Midnight / Death Walks on High Heels

GIALLOCTOBERFEST 2017 continues! 

I did a Luciano Ercoli DEATH DOUBLE FEATURE this week - DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT (La morte accarezza a mezzanotte ) and DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS (La morte cammina con i tacchi alti ) . One I loved and one...not so much. This was particularly interesting to me because it's the same director and much of the same cast, but one resonated with me far more than the other. It might have been the writer lineup for the screenplay and story. MIDNIGHT had this grouping...

Sergio Corbucci     ...     (story)   
Ernesto Gastaldi     ...     (screenplay) 
Mahnahén Velasco     ...     (screenplay) (as May Velasco)

And HEELS had....

Ernesto Gastaldi (screenplay)
Mahnahén Velasco (screenplay) (as May Velasco)

I think the addition of Corbucci might have sweetened the spices Midnight offered. He wrote the wacky, super police officer story SUPER FUZZ back in the day and I loved it. Midnight had more flavor and buzz with a plot that I found to be more interesting and engaging. Let's talk about it.

Now, don't get me wrong - I liked DEATH WALKS IN HIGH HEELS well enough. The plot is relatively simple. A woman's Father is involved in a diamond heist. He's out of the picture, but the diamonds are missing. Does his daughter know where they are? Maybe. And someone - a masked killer with striking blue eyes....wants her to tell where they are...or DIE!

Classic.

So, all that's working for me here, but honestly, the characters bored me to tears and the pace made me shake with desire to fast forward....which I did.

The lovely Nieves Navarro (or...Susan Scott as she was known)  stars in both films. Here, she's a exotic dancer named Nicole Rochard with a penchant for wigs and elaborate costumes...including a "black face" nubian number that was truly cringe-worthy! hehehehe  The shot and line below....wow....

And, Ms. Nieves Navarro is NOT a good dancer, so the first part of the film was rather painful for me there as well - watching this woman jerk around like she's having a seizure.

We're treated to some good bully acting from Luciano Ercoli, the Director of both of these films AND Nieves' real life husband, as I found out. Rather cool.

Here he's the boyfriend of Navarro and not 100% sweetheart. Sweethearts don't toss knives at their girlfriends.

When the mysterious masked diamond hunter comes after Nicole and demands to know where the diamonds are, she decides that the advances of an admirer from the clubs she's performed in - a Dr. Robert Mathews (Frank Wolff) - seem pretty great and she runs off with him without a word to anyone.

They have a grand time and Nicole is treated like a Queen as the Doctor buys her dresses and dinners and the two seem like they are made for each other. The Doc whisks her away to a cottage he owns in a small town and Nicole pretends to be his wife as they live life to the fullest - happy and content.

Sure, the small village is filled with gossips and nutty people...including a strange man missing a hand, but I'm sure everything will work out for them.

Again, all of that was great for a story perspective, however the pace made me CRAZY. We see them shopping....eating....exchanging cute banter with a local fish seller....making love....saying they'll miss each other when the Doctor has to fly back to London for a while, but it all takes WAY TOO DAMN LONG to deal with. There's just not enough story to support the run time for me. I felt like I was being dragged behind a very slow pony.

Ercoli's direction is great and the film does manage to wrap very nicely in true giallo style, but it just took to long to get there for me. And the exposition at the end.....whew. Pretty funny, really. "Let me explain everything I did and why I did it...."   DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS might require me to re-watch at some point in the near future, but I'll start it in the middle for sure.







Now, DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT was a different viewing for me all together.

From IMDB:
Valentina, a beautiful fashion model, takes an experimental drug as part of a scientific experiment. While influenced by the drug, Valentina has a vision of a young woman being brutally murdered with a viciously spiked glove. It turns out that a woman was killed in exactly the same way not long ago and soon Valentina finds herself stalked by the same killer...

Now this film really hit the mark for me. The pace, character interactions, and visuals were interesting, engaging, and fun. Nieves Navarro as Valentina is strong, confident, and doesn't take any crap from anyone.  Simón Andreu is this magazine guy  (always get him and Luciano Ercoli mixed up!) who manages to get Valentina fired from her job and exposed to the murdered after backing out on his promise to keep her masked and anonymous for this wacky drug experiment that kicks this who plot off. Their chemistry is fun to watch as they snip at each other and fight. 

Suuuuuuure, the main catalyst for the plot - a vision of a killer while under the influence of a drug - falls right into the WTF?! gialli plot nuttiness for sure, but it's really just used to get things rolling and get us involved in this murder situation. After that, it's cat-and-mouse with the killer (who we see right away)  as he tries to silence Valentina.

And....we have J&B references! 

I loved watching this film. The banter was grand and natural, the characters were well rounded, and the pace was clipping right along from set piece to set piece. And, the mystery was interesting and really had me guessing. I'll watch this one again for sure.

So, I plan to watch Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion to break this Luciano Ercoli tie. :::grin:::   I loved one of his films and wasn't so happy with the other. We'll see what PHOTOS has to offer. (also on Shudder U.S. at the time of this posting)

Have you seen these? The SHUDDER reviews put HEELS in a far better light than I've placed it - hence the planned rewatch. I'd love to hear what other people have to say about these films.

Am I missing something? LET ME KNOW!

Gore v. Fear: What's scary?

I was sitting here the other night watching THE CAR (...and giggling).  It was rated PG and didn't have much gore or blood or...well...anything. But, it was still engaging, even if the story was a little thin. I think I remember some blood on a wall at one point - that's all.

Then I thought about it not being at all scary because the premise was just rather flat. One car driving around just wasn't scary to me. I'd just run up a hill, down stairs....so many ways to get away from a car.

That, in turn, got me thinking about what really scares me. Gore in films tends to just be gross to me. (Sure...FUN, but...) Blood and guts are just that and they don't get me scared. Story based tension really gets me. Situations that place people I care about at risk. Showing the gore can up the risk factor and danger, but the true fear comes from the "surface tension" and story. And, there's just no fear if I don't care about the characters.

It's not to say that I don't enjoy a great splatterfest like BRAIN DEAD or EVIL DEAD, but the viscera just doesn't scare me on it's own. (Honestly, not much can really scare me these days.)


Films like SAW don't put fear in me at all. Neither does something like HOSTEL. (Those of you who frequent the site already know how I feel about those films as a whole.)  But, it's not the violence that really makes these films a wash for me. It's the violence with nothing at stake. Nothing is at stake because the characters are so hollow that I really don't like them, which makes it difficult to care what happens to them.


Now, bring in some heavy hitters. Films like MARTYRS or INSIDE manage to ramp the gore factor way up, but that's not the draw. It's a solid story with fleshed out characters. You care about them and about what happens to them, so the threat of violence makes the stakes higher and the outcome more frighting. The fear stems from the situation. I want the characters to survive. I'm invested.

The 60s and 70s were thick with violent, gore-fests. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE BEYOND, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, DEEP RED,  and THE WIZARD OF GORE were just some of the wet-works to come out of that time. Many of the films of the period were exploitation based with little or no attention to story, but some like the aforementioned DEEP RED had very strong story lines that the gore was meant to support.

Now, ramp it back a bit.

In 1973, a little film came out called THE EXORCIST. It didn't have chainsaws, hatchets, or body horror. It had a little girl that was possessed by something evil. Why was that frighting? Because we spend a lot of time with the family beforehand. We see them play, laugh and love. We identify with that. We care. When things start going bad for them, we actually don't WANT then to get hurt.

  
ROSEMARY'S BABY had people squirming, but I'm not sure there was any blood in it at all.

Now, the other side of this little coin is films - like SAW - where the main goal is to "Set 'em up and knock 'em down". I use this term for films where the main goal is the introduction of canon fodder. People introduced to get killed. There is a HUGE market for these films and I think they have their place, but they just do not illicit fear in me. It's more like what was going on back in the coliseum. "RELEASE THE LIONS!", as the crowd roars to life and the victims meet their deaths. Bloodsport done on a more humane level. 

I love a film like THE INNKEEPERS or INSIDIOUS or DEAD SET (BBC) where the stakes are high due to a good script, good story development and characters I care about. I don't need the gore like I did when I was a teen. Back then, I was in love with the monstrous visions of folks like Dario Argento - violent, bloody and nasty with the wet stuff. But, when I re-watched SUSPERIA recently, I realized that even the violent nightmares Argento put to screen were story based and packed with character development.

I also find that I'm more scared while watching a film if I can identify with a situation or character. 28 DAYS LATER and 28 WEEKS LATER had my heart racing a few times. There's one scene where a guy freaks out and leaves a loved one to escape from zombies. I found that horrid and horrifying.  Then he has to flee as a horde chases him down when he tries to make his way to an escape vehicle. It had my heart pounding.

And lack of fear doesn't mean I don't squirm from time to time due to the gross factor. The shivers are there, but that's not fear talking. :::grin:::

What do YOU look for in the scare department? Does the sight of blood instantly fill you with fear or just give you a little thrill? Do you need to care about characters to feel fear for their safety? 

Let me know! I'm curious!

Horror complaints - The Unborn and The Moth Diaries

 

The HORROR SHOW usually doesn't post anything if it's just going to be bashing or a public hanging of a movie following the "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" rule of thought. However, there have been a few movies that have managed to be so annoying that we are back burnering the rule for a moment.

I recently watched THE UNBORN. Don't ask me why. I was working and needed something on in the background while I toiled away on mindless efforts. I wasn't planning to pay much attention, but I grew more and more caught up in the film as it went along. Why? Because I was getting more angry as it progressed. The fact that it got made and dumped on the genre loving public made me really upset.


Now, here's the funny thing. I see a LOT of bad horror films. I usually knock them out three or four at a time via high speed Netflix stream scrubbing so I don't waste too much of my time on them. For some reason, seeing these horrible horrors didn't make me as upset and pissed off as watching the Unborn and I think I know why. The Unborn was just lazy across the board. It took classic tropes of the genre and just tossed them into a big pile and said, "Here, Horror Fans, watch all this stuff we tossed together." Much of what I detested about the film could have been handled with another pass...or two...at the script.

We have a rather standard tale here. A girl is being "haunted" by some spirit that wants to be born. Ok, fine. I accept that. But then we start going into la la land on things. Visuals are tossed at us, but there is nothing to back anything up.


A dog appears to our lead at one point. It's wearing a mask. Ok, the visual was cool and frucking odd, but...WHY?! WHY is a dog wearing a mask?! What the HELL does it mean?!






When this demon...spirit...thing...boy shows up to kill folks, there's this visual trick where his mouth opens super wide and he screams and stuff. WHY?! When an old man is possessed and comes after another character, his body is twisted around and his head is upside down. WHY?!

So...how would I have fixed this? Made it a bit more locked into something? Make it so the demon baddie needs to scare folks first before being able to kill them, yeah? He needs to get their fear up and he uses that fear power to power himself. Done. Fixed. Now, all the stupid shite they tossed at us as a purpose other than just looking neat and computer graphicy.

And then we have Jane Alexander, Idris Elba and Gary Oldman in the film. When I saw Alexander, I shrugged it off. Then Gary Oldman showed up and I had to do a double take. I thought, "Whoa...what did he do - loose a bet? Did they not give him the full script? Did he get a DUI and this was his community service option?" (I'll stop....)   Then Elba shows up as an exorcist type and I lost my mind. "WHY are these people IN THIS FILM?! It's not worthy!"


 And you know that when you resort to tossing your lead characters butt up on your poster standing in the bathroom in her underwear...you don't have faith that the movie will draw people. You're fishing for the teen boy crowd. "Dude...she's kinda hot. Let's watch this. Maybe she gets naked."



And lastly...come on...fuck you on the "plot twist". You're not even trying. They treated it like it was a big shocker, but it was painfully obvious from 40 minutes or so into the film. Test audiences must have just flipped off the screen and walked out, tossing their questionnaires over their shoulders as they fled the theater. I know I would have. Don't waste my time.




I had a similar experience with THE MOTH DIARIES recently as well. The same scenario -  something light tossed on while I did some renders and keying. The plot...simple at best. Girls school, our lead is excited to get back to all her CUTE AND WELL DRAWN MIXED GROUP OF BEAUTIFUL AND VAPID FRIENDS - one of each color so no one is offended...but the people subjected to this pandering. No one is fooling anyone. Strange girl is introduced. They call out the 1872 novel CARMILLA right from the start and basically sum up the plot of the film. Chic's a vampire and up to something. We all know it, the lead knows it, but no one else does.

So...we watch the lead stumble around and watch her friends get caught up in the vampire's plan and we're bored. Nothing really happens. For a while, I thought I hit the TV button and stumbled into a CW television school drama where boring people do boring things for people who are even MORE boring to watch. But...nope...it was still MOTH DIARIES unfolding painfully before me.

I could only think that Rachel Klein's novel was more interesting. I looked it up and I felt ashamed. It's listed as children's lit. Most likely the same sort of youth fiction that TWILIGHT and POTTER service. Had I known, I would have just passed or paid far less attention. I thought I was in for a more sinister fair. Students being bled dry as the cleaver vamp misdirects people towards the lead to throw people off her scent. The lead having to convince people she wasn't the evil one while the vampire plays with her life and smiles wicked smiles behind her back, all mounting to a classic conclusion where the lead kills the vamp. Maybe with a little sad twist where our lead is called out as a murderer. I dunno....

Anyway...the most scary part of THE MOTH DIARIES is the vampire lead and her CREEPY DOLL FACE! YIKES! Lily Cole is creepy!

Lily Cole is a living, creepy doll

I was sad to see that Mary Harron directed this. Her work on AMERICAN PSYCHO was fantastic, but she has not really pulled anything in that's been close to it since.  The Notorious Bettie Page came and went in 2005, she did a lot of TV work, then she hops in with MOTH in 2011 and got a big, stinky 38 out of 100 on Metacritic.  I agree with the score. 

So....no need to say anymore. There are certain films that get a pass from me. 

The DAY OF THE DEAD remake with it's CGI, leaping zombies and horrible script - pass. Who really cares? It's laughable. QUARANTINE 2...CHILLERAMA...whatever. But, these UNBORN and MOTH DIARIES types just push my buttons. I want to kick them in their celluloid crotches and call them names. I want to make the screenwriters write me apologies and submit them for me to critique before I have them rewrite them over again...maybe three times. 

Are you out there, David S. Goyer? Write me and let me know what you were thinking when you hammered out the Unborn script. Did I miss something? Seriously. Was it the Evil Studio® messing with the works? Were you just looking to get money for something good you wanted to write. Hell, we've all been there. "I gotta get this crap done so I can get back to my cool stuff." I would really like to hear what you have to say. 

Mr. Goyer's works include, but are not limited to.... 
DARK CITY
BLADE
BLADE II
BLADE TRINITY
BATMAN BEGINS
Jumper....ok...well....:::grin:::
THE DARK KNIGHT
::whispers:: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance...moving on....
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES
and MAN OF STEEL

I'd call out Mary Harron for THE MOTH DIARIES script, but...you know...she was working with the novel, right? Not really her fault. :)

Ok...back to talking about things we like. I need to watch LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE to wash the moth taste out of my mouth. 

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