Tag: horror

‘The Shape of Water’ is Enchanting

Published by Maximilian Gray on February 7, 2018

The Shape of Water is Guillermo del Toro’s latest fantasy film. It’s about a mute woman who falls in love with a captive undersea creature. The film has charming performances, complex characters and beautiful dreamlike cinematography. At the twenty minute mark, I had the sense that everything was being done right and that feeling never let up. It is Del Toro’s best film by far. The story feels fresh and earnest. It’s a mature fairy tale laced with raw sexuality and placed in a 1960’s setting. I think it’s one of the best films I’ve seen in recent years.

The Shape of Its Characters.

Sally Hawkins plays the love stricken heroine with remarkable charm despite her lack of dialogue. She’s quirky, but her desire for companionship is immediately relatable. All the characters are well balanced and the story takes the time to explore each of them. The entire cast is excellent. Richard Jenkins stands out as the equally lonely best friend. Michael Shannon gives a complex and terrifying performance as the antagonist of the picture. Michael Stuhlbarg impresses in his role as one of the lab scientists and Octavia Spencer lends her comedic talents (go watch Dinner for Schmucks). No character is left untended. I became involved in every one of their stories.

The Themes, Characters & Story Are in Harmony.

The film balances human desires with the proprieties of a 1960’s time period. There’s a focus on being “voiceless”. The merman cannot speak and neither can our heroine. Hidden sexuality, both homosexual and heterosexual is on full display, along with commentary about the African-American experience. It’s never preachy, but just the opposite. It feels whimsical. These characters all share a commonality with the captured creature. They lack a voice in society to express their inner desires. It’s rare that the elements of a film come together to focus on the same idea so throughly. It is the mark of an auteur.

This Director’s Skill Has Matured.

Guillermo del Toro does a masterful job with the direction. He’s finally moved beyond shooting pretty sets and into the soul of the story. It’s a testament to his ability that he is able to marry fantasy elements to such relatable feelings. The camera work and production design are standouts as usual for him. The picture has a playful quality that is not afraid to be adult. The human/”creature from the black lagoon” sexuality may unsettle some viewers, but I went along for the ride. Del Toro has scratched his merman itch before (Hellboy), but his popcorn flicks were clearly warm-ups for this more sentimental work. There’s a dash of Splash and Amelié in there, but this whimsical fantasy-romance makes its own statement. I don’t have a single criticism other than a dip in pacing going from the second to third act. It’s likely Del Toro will win Best Director at the Oscars. Go see this movie!

Year – 2017 | TRT – 2:03 | Directed by – Guillermo del Toro | Written by – Guillermo del Toro (screenplay by), Vanessa Taylor (screenplay by), Guillermo del Toro (story by) | Cast – Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer

Is ‘Jigsaw’ the Same Puzzle Again?

Is ‘Jigsaw’ the Same Puzzle Again?

Published by Maximilian Gray on January 29, 2018

Jigsaw is the 8th film in the Saw series. Although the concept has grown a bit stale, the quality is on par with other entries in the horror franchise. Production values are good, but the acting leaves something to be desired. If you’re into gory kills and sadism then this is your bag. If you aren’t, then there’s nothing here to convert or entertain you. As in previous installments a mysterious madman has captured bad people and locked them up in Rube Goldberg machines of evisceration. They are forced to play sadistic games in order to free themselves while risking death and dismemberment. The vital change this outing, is that the original Jigsaw Killer, John Kramer, may have returned. I’m kidding about it being vital. It’s the same movie again, but for fans of the franchise – therein lies the twist.

It’s About the Kills.

Shortly after the terrible main title music we’re introduced to our players/victims. They wear steel buckets over their heads while chains slowly pull them toward a wall of spinning saw blades. Who will make it past the first trap? I thought it was tense, horrifying and disgusting. The film is powered by anticipation and dismemberment. Jigsaw’s killing machines are clever enough when they’re in action, but I craved some humor in between the deaths. The dialogue is campy, but the actors range from terrible to flat in their delivery. It’s too serious for its own good. What else do you do after you disgust people? You defuse them with a laugh. Not Jigsaw. It wears a self-involved cleverness on it’s sleeve.

This One’s Strictly for Saw Junkies.

The plot makes convoluted twists and turns to explain the identity of our mystery killer near the end. They hit me like a feather. Perhaps this is because I hardly remember the other films, but for those invested in the series’ canon, I suppose it’ll please. It’s mildly clever. If you’re one of those viewers who already want to watch Jigsaw, it’s a decent enough entry. However, if you’ve never seen one, and you’re interested, I say start with the first – Saw (2004). That one was directed by James Wan and starred The Dread Pirate Roberts. It’s still the best one.

Year – 2017 | TRT – 1:32 | Directed by – Michael Spierig, Peter Spierig | Written by – Pete Goldfinger, Josh Stolberg | Cast – Matt Passmore, Tobin Bell, Callum Keith Rennie, Hannah Emily Anderson

‘Happy Death Day’ Is Deja Vu All over Again

Published by Maximilian Gray on January 23, 2018

Happy Death Day is quite simply Groundhog Day as a horror film. It’s smart and well written with satisfactory performances, but no scares or gore. This is YA horror. It’s rated PG-13 and the target audience is clearly teenage girls. Gore hounds should go elsewhere, fans of Twilight or Twilight Zone material may enjoy it.

It Plays with Your Expectations.

It begins with a Universal Pictures title card going through a time loop and restarting. A cool touch. The story starts the morning after a college hook-up. Our protagonist, Tree (Played by Jessica Rothe) wakes up in a strange dorm room after a night of debauchery she doesn’t remember. She extricates herself from the room, careful not to get along with anyone, then takes her walk of shame. She’s a sorority sister, a hard partier who sleeps around and a total bitch. The film runs through every single horror trope about the bad girl who won’t survive the killer because she’s not virginal. Then a dude in a baby mask kills her. Queue the groundhog day loop and the walk of shame commences again. It’s a clever introduction that evolves each time we see it.

We learn what makes Tree tick, we get some plot surprises and she grows as a person. Every time I thought the film was getting staid it managed to bounce back with a twist to the day’s events. I found it a hard movie to dislike, but hard to love either. There are moments where the tone veers from horror to young adult fiction to a zany energy that would fit better in a Nickelodeon movie. The pop songs are upbeat and the performances merely competent. The material explores sexual themes and profane language, but it lacks intensity. The violence is anemic. I longed for some male energy to make the thing dangerous. It’s too safe.

It’s Written by a Comic Book Writer.

Personally, I found the most interesting thing about the film to be its writer – Scott Lobdell. He’s best known for writing X-Men comics in the 90s. He worked on Uncanny X-Men and Generation X and had a large hand in “The Age of Apocalypse” and “Onslaught” cross-over events. He is also responsible for the first gay super-hero, Northstar, of Marvel’s Alpha Flight. I’m glad he’s having some success. The film is clever, but it apes Harold Ramis’ work a bit too much for my taste. It’s a young person’s film. Somebody, somewhere saw this movie first and fell in love.

IT, IT, IT – Part 2: The Mini-Series

IT, IT, IT – Part 2: The Mini-Series

Published by Maximilian Gray on January 21, 2018

Welcome to Part 2 of a three part analysis of the various versions of Stephen King’s IT. Click here for Part 1.

1990 saw the release of the first adaptation of King’s famous book as a TV mini-series. I saw it during its original airing, but had little memory of it. I’ve watched it again after seeing the 2017 film adaptation and it is with good reason that I remember none of it. It’s completely forgettable. Let’s compare.

IT Begins Different.

The mini-series does not begin the same as the movie. We are introduced to the characters as adults with sequences that flash back to childhood. The first character we meet is Mike played by Tim Reed. Mike hardly spoke in the film adaptation and yet here he seems to be the ringleader of the group. He’s also researching their home town to understand where IT began. In the movie, another character, Ben, is the one looking into town history.

After about 10 minutes, we reach the scene that begins the novel and the movie. Little Georgie follows his paper sailboat along the gutter until he meets Pennywise. It’s filmed much more naturally. Tim Curry actually puts on a performance. Skarsgård didn’t do half as much in the movie. It’s a battle between acting chops and make-up/fx. I love Tim Curry, but I’m giving this scene to the movie. It’s much scarier and it puts you on edge from the very first scene.

IT’s Focus is Different

This mini-series frames Pennywise as a childhood trauma revisited. The movie viewed him as a current problem. I think the thematics are stronger when seeing the kids through the lens of their adult selves. As best as I can tell, reflection on a horrific past seems to be the point of King’s story. I’m giving this point to the mini-series for providing a meaningful context for the horror.

IT’s Kids are Older.

The characters are better developed in this adaptation. I knew them all before the first hour was up. Unfortunately, the kid actors cast in the mini-series are older and prettier. The performers in the film looked more like misfits who embodied innocence. Their bullies seemed more maladjusted and dangerous too. The time period has changed from the Eighties to the Fifties here, but I don’t think that accounts for it. It’s more about the medium. This was network TV after all. The realistic treatment of the children was the films’s strongest point. I expect that will also be true of the book. I enjoyed the movie more for making me believe those kids were vulnerable.

IT’s a Lot Longer.

The mini-series runs for a little over 3hrs. I watched it in HD. It looks better now than when it aired in 1990. The cinematography and production values are quite good for a 20th century television program. Occasionally, it feels like a movie, but most of the camera moves are simple and the visual compositions are designed for the 1.33:1 frame. The show also spends far too much time in daylight and high key interiors for a horrific tone to develop.

The narrative continued to bounce back and forth between the characters’ present day and their past as children. After 2hrs, the plot switched to the adult storyline permanently. I found myself being reminded far too often of Freddy Krueger. There are shower scenes and boiler rooms where people are being terrorized by a gruff voiced boogieman who causes waking nightmares. They are isolated and singled out by this monster and discuss having seen him in visions. The first A Nightmare on Elm Street film preceded the release of King’s book by two years, though I assume he must’ve begun writing it far earlier. I’ll be interested to see if reading the novel recalls the same associations. I didn’t notice it nearly as much in the 2017 film. It’s a bad comparison as Freddy Krueger had a raison d’etre. I still don’t understand what Pennywise wants after two adaptations.

IT’s No Classic.

I’m giving the first round to the 2017 movie. It was terrifying and creepy with realistic performances. The film’s story omissions made me want to read the book for the full experience. The mini-series was lame by comparison. It was overstuffed with characters and it lacked any real sense of menace. Tim Curry gives a nice performance, but the show is just not frightening. It may have had better drawn characters, but it never put them in jeopardy in the way the movie did. I didn’t care about them. The only tension I felt during the three hours was in my bladder.

Please check back for Part 3 of this series for a review of Stephen King’s novel IT.

IT, IT, IT – Part 1: The Movie

IT, IT, IT – Part 1: The Movie

Published by Maximilian Gray on January 18, 2018

IT is the 2017 theatrical adaptation of Stephen King’s infamous horror novel about a group of children who face down a scary clown named Pennywise. It’s done gangbusters business at the box office largely due to two things. First, clowns have become real life objects of terror with cosplaying creeps scaring people in public. Second, the movie does what a horror film should – make you jump out of your seat. It’s beautiful to look at, but it feels hollow for much of the journey. I’ve never read the book and I haven’t seen the mini-series since it aired, but this felt like a cliff notes version of the story. Nonetheless, as a horror fan it was worth a watch.

IT’s good – this movie plays rough.

It took me an hour to really get into IT (so many chances for puns). There are traces of a meaningful story, but King’s novel has been abridged in this adaptation. Also, the characters are so numerous that it takes time to understand each of them. That being said, the cast of newcomers is excellent. The film has age appropriate casting and dialogue. That realism is one of the pluses. This story is rough with the innocent in a way I’ve rarely seen. We identify with them because they are vulnerable, not because they have well defined personalities. All of their parents are absent or abusive. They’re on their own. The filmmaker’s willingness to terrorize and isolate young children is what makes the film engaging.

IT is chock full of cringy gross outs and jump scares. It’s reminiscent of recent fare like The Conjuring, Sinister and the A Nightmare on Elm Street remake. There’s lots of darkness interupted by music stings and digital monsters that go “boo!” It’s formulaic, but it works. This is a high priced version of an internet scare video. (Put your headphones on for this car commercial.) That’s all this film really aims to do. It does it pretty well.

IT’s bad – inexperienced filmmakers.

Now, on to two things that irritated me. Director, Andy Muschietti, uses too many wide angle tracking shots. Instead of creating interesting static compositions, handholding or cutting to close-ups, the camera rolls into every scene. This creates a dreamy quality that works well for the fantasy scares, but it’s an overused visual tick. It looks nice, but it started to grate on me. His scenes play like a cinematographer’s demo reel rather than a piece of storytelling. This is partly why the characters feel so distant. We’re frequently in a master shot, watching everybody at once in a sweeping movement.

My second beef is with the music. Benjamin Wallfisch is an orchestrator and conductor who stepped up to composing recently. He’s able to create effective music stings for the scares, but when it comes to smaller dramatic moments the music swells to a meaningless crescendo and/or cuts to an inappropriate pop song. I think this is another cause for my lack of empathy in the first half of the film. There are no character thematics in the score and no clues to what anyone is thinking or feeling.

IT’s ugly truth – lazy episodic filmmaking has arrived.

By film’s end, my care for these kids had been established and they were finally on their way to an objective – then the film ended with a card that read “Chapter One.” What is this – TV? Who pays to see half the story? Apparently, a lot of people. This is becoming acceptable now that studios are obsessed with franchises.

IT is visually terrifying, but it felt like the monster bits were finished and the rest of the film was just an outline. I’m not sure the Stephen King pedigree really adds to the experience. The one impact this picture makes is with mood and digital character effects. Those jumpy monster scares and designs are really top notch. Pennywise is scary as hell, but half the time he’s animated. It takes outstanding make-up and VFX to make Bill Skarsgård into the clown.

The film is definitely worth a watch for horror fans as it does the essentials of the job, but I don’t think it warrants the hype. It’s a curious bit of zeitgeist – clowns, kids on bikes and the always dependable King of horror. Still, I was intrigued by the remnants of story tucked in between those scares, so maybe everyone else was too. I’m going to take on a little three part project and review all the versions of IT. Next up will be the 1990 mini-series and then I’ll tackle the novel itself. Check back for part 2.

Go for the Paper Cutter – ‘The Belko Experiment’ Review

Go for the Paper Cutter – ‘The Belko Experiment’ Review

Published by Maximilian Gray on July 31, 2017

Killing co-workers makes for a fun little horror movie.

The Belko Experiment is written & produced by James Gunn (Slither, Super, Guardians of the Galaxy 1 & 2) and directed by Greg McLean. It’s set in a corporate office where the employees are forced to murder each other. It’s pretty fun up till the ending. The film chooses to tease a sequel instead of fully exploring the motivations behind what transpired. The actors are all top notch, but sadly, there’s no underlying message and I think that’s a sin in genre work. Instead, it’s simply an outlet for our hatred of corporate environments. I don’t recall seeing any digital blood and somebody does use my weapon of choice. So, I say its worth watching if the concept grabs you.