Last night/ today (the power went out so I couldn't finish it) I plowed my way through 2013's The Conjuring. This movie was the platonic ideal of "fine." Not offensively/ entertainingly bad. Not great. Just decent to good script, acting, directing, and execution. I was neither bored nor swept up. It just kind of happened and then it was done.
The movie revolves around the obviously very true real story of the time a witch haunted a family in New England. That brings the Warren family (I assume they are related to Liz and they gave her spooky energy to campaign with) out to investigate and yep that house sure is haunted. Well the house isn't haunted but the family living there is. Some spooky things happen. There's a jump scare or two. And then there's an exorcism that leads to Chekov's Shotgun being fired. Then the witch is exorcised and the day is won. Hurray!
I will also note that this movie marks the first appearance of the Annabelle doll who has gone on to have 3 movies of her own. There are also other spin of movies in the CCU (Conjuring Cinematic Universe) which as of now (of course there are more coming) are The Nun and the Curse of La Llorona. Basically I've fucked myself into watching all of these movies.
RATING: 25 missed shotgun shots out of 50.
HOW I WATCHED IT: Netflix
BEVERAGE: DMD!
FINAL THOUGHTS: Do you want a movie that will mildly entertain you and then be done and not really stick with you? Then The Conjuring might just be the movie for you! Or maybe not?
Monday, September 30, 2019
Spooktober IV Review 3: The Exorcist
This will be the first of a three part series on the Exorcist films. Obviously I've seen the original before several times, and it holds fast as an absolute classic of 70's horror. But I've only seen chunks of Exorcist II: The Heretic, and haven't seen a lick of Exorcist III: Legion, but Emily and I will endeavor to complete the trilogy this week! Stay tuned!
The Exorcist (1973)
William Friedkin
"That's much too vulgar a display of power, Karras."
Note: some light Once Upon a Time in Hollywood spoilers ahead, but if you haven't seen that by now...what are you doing?
A film from this year that I can't get seem to get out of my head is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I'm a big Tarantino fan, but his latest movie is the first of his to really hit me in a profound way. The world he constructs, the characters he fills it with, and the narrative path he takes to conclude his story is filmmaking from a bygone era. Movies don't look like they used to, and Tarantino's new film makes this abundantly clear. Obviously the look of films changing over time can be a good thing. Visionary directors and cinematographers are supposed to come along and reshape the landscape of film every once in a while, but being able to lovingly emulate the style of an old master is a talent as well. And that's exactly where Tarantino's excels. He has the ability to see film like he's inside the head of the filmmaker who made it, and then recreate it in front of a camera with his own flourish.
But beyond just his technical skill and vision, the story of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood grabs me in a way his stories haven't before. Don't get me wrong: I love how his other stories unfold, and his ability to spin a trashy yarn with all sorts of fun twists and turns is amazing, but Hollywood is so simple and effective. If you go in with some knowledge of the murder of Sharon Tate, the film will lead you on a journey past the fateful end of the 1960's into a mythical land of what-might-have-been. It's as much of a fantasy film as Raiders of the Lost Ark is; a re-litigation of past events as the omnipotent god of a tiny, self-contained film universe.
At the end of Tarantino's film, he conjures a mythical world where the murders did not take place. Does The Exorcist get made in that world? Does the tonal jump from a film like Rosemary's Baby to films like The Exorcist and even Roman Polanski's own Chinatown happen organically without such a senselessly awful and violent crime being committed among one of Hollywood's own? Within just a few years, the Hollywood good guys aren't winning, filmmakers are pushing the boundaries of what's suitable for mass audiences, and movies are being splashed and splattered with bodily fluids. There are other undeniable influences for the reshaping of film through the 1970's--the images coming from the wholesale slaughter in Vietnam and violence in the civil rights movement did a lot to mold independent film around this time as evidenced by titles like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Night of the Living Dead and Ganja and Hess (the murders also directly inspired a new style of exploitation film: the hippie freakout movie, which...stay tuned!)--but for the mainstream Hollywood machine, the Tate-LaBianca murders were a pivotal moment.
Now it seems almost quaint, but the idea of a character projectile vomiting on screen used to be considered the height of depravity, saying nothing about a scene featuring a 12-year-old girl screaming "fuck me!" while violently masturbating with a crucifix. The Exorcist is soaked in blood, bile, vomit, and urine. The scene where Regan pees on the living room rug is particularly effective, especially since Friedkin gives us a beautifully understated scene of the maid later desperately trying to scrub the stain out of the rug, and out of the film. Her efforts are in vain, as eventually the dam breaks, and soon the movie is drowning in revolting slime. And so is film as a medium.
This is a good time to talk about the filmmaking style of people like Friedkin in this era. The detached method of directing, where the auteur sits in his chair and commands his army of actors like a field marshal, died with the last of the technicolor epics. Now directors were in their actors' faces, goading them, prodding them, torturing them to elicit the perfect reaction and emotion to the scene. The Exorcist looks like a wholly unpleasant film to star in. There's intense screaming, physical rending, horrifying apparatuses that thrash them around, and disgusting goo squirted on them. Ellen Burstyn hurt her back in the scene where Regan clocks her in the eye, because Friedkin ordered the harness rig to be yanked back violently to achieve the desired look. Burstyn asked that this particular shot not be used in the film, but it was too perfect, too real, so Friedkin used it anyway. The famous pea soup scene also features a genuine reaction, this time from Jason Miller. The stream was supposed to hit his chest, but instead it sprayed onto his face and into his mouth (a technical glitch he blamed Friedkin for). Is it right to go this far for a film? There's no excuse for physically and emotionally torturing an actor, but the spectacle it produces is certainly a more visceral experience, and that was the goal.
This is plainly evident in the scene where Regan has an imaging procedure performed on the vascular structure of her brain. My wife, a neurologist, was horrified by the procedure, but in doing some reading after watching the film, it was done using cutting edge medical practices from the time. And Friedkin filmed an actual procedure taking place, which means that the pulsing arterial spray we see on the film is someone's real, honest-to-goodness blood squirting out onto the surgeon's hands. It's cold, technical, and horrifying. That whole hospital testing scene is a mix of sterility and bloodshed: a jumble of hulking machines noisily clanking and whirring over a terrified little girl who's lost control of her personality. It's the scariest part of the film by far.
This is going to sound especially depraved, but maybe not so unusual considering my love of Hagazussa: the scene with the crucifix is my absolute favorite. It's where all of the subtext about the mother-daughter journey through puberty and a young girl's confusing libidinal urges passes through the filters of Catholic repression and demonic possession, and we get the wildly unpleasant Regan/Pazuzu masturbation scene. It doesn't matter what era of film you're in: a girl rubbing her mother's face in vaginal blood and then smacking her across the room is always going to be a shock. But I'd argue menarche and the discovery of sexuality are huge shocks to young girls across the world. Maybe not on such an extreme level, but they're life changing and oftentimes traumatic events. Every 12-year-old at some point wonders fearfully to themselves alone in their rooms, "Am I the only one on earth who does this?" This scene can be an almost calming influence: you're not alone, puberty sucks for everyone, and some people have it waaaay worse than you do.
My good friend Ryan is currently wrapping up a Marlene Dietrich film marathon and has been talking about the scenes that filmmakers were able to shoot in the days before the Hays Code took over Hollywood. Sexual perversion, depravity, and excess were fair game before the priggish marms ruined everyone's fun and drove dangerous cinema underground. Did the Tate murder, Vietnam, and civil rights really reshape people's brains in Hollywood, or was it always there under the surface? Did daily violence on television inure audiences to the idea that the world can be a bloody and terrifying place? Is the entire genocidal history of our country to blame for Hollywood filmmakers finally deciding to spray the screen with gore? How deep could we go? How far back could we delve in our own biological history before we found the root need to get grimy?
Without filthy, disgusting art we have no window into that side of ourselves. Actively choosing not to explore the ugly darkness doesn't stop bad thoughts from forming, nor does it stop bad people from doing terrible things. The idyllic Hollywood that Tarantino wistfully dreams of should have given way to filth regardless (and likely that's his point, given what transpires in the last 20 minutes of his film), because that's what audiences need to see to help them make sense of the awful, confounding, and revolting aspects of our own being.
Long live the new depraved flesh.
RATING: A thousand puking Pazuzus
HOW I WATCHED IT: Shamefully I don't own it, so I had to rent it for $3 on Amazon.
BEVERAGE: Double Two Hearted Ale. A depraved amount of hops.
Sunday, September 29, 2019
Spooktober Side Car 2: Night of the Demons (1988)
Now this... this is what I wanted in a crappy 80s teen horror movie. It opens with some rad hand drawn credits with a rad synth soundtrack:
We open on some rude "teens" played convincingly by actors in their mid to upper 30s driving wildly down a street who yell at/ catch the ire of an old man who tells them to go to hell. We soon find out that these teens are going to attend a Halloween party at an abandoned house/ funeral parlor along with, well, other teens. There's a scene in a convenience store where one of the girls bends over to show her panties, causing the clerks to stare at ass (god bless the 80s and the objectification/ horniness towards high school girls) while her friend steals party favors. Soon enough, the whole crew shows up to the creepy house and they start getting down. When their boombox (playing some hot hot Bauhaus of all things) runs out of batteries, they decide to hold a "Halloween Seance" and you can probably guess how that goes. They perform said seance in front of a spooky mirror and, not surprisingly, a demon head appears in the mirror.
Someone gets possessed, this kind of daisy chains into multiple possessions/ killings, and then the final survivors escape. I will say I was surprised by who the survivors were (one was obviously going to live. Another... well, I assumed that character would die). Before the end we go back and visit in on our old angry man again and then cut to the credits with a sweet 80s ballad rocking.
RATING: 3 fudge logs gravestones out of five. I was very entertained during the 90 minute run time.
HOW I WATCHED IT: The whole dang thing is on the youtubes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccHVKwaVMcg)
BEVERAGE: Short's Black Cherry Porter. It's mediocre.
Final Thoughts: Should you watch this movie? Depends if you like 80s teen slasher/ zombie flicks. I had a good time watching and don't regret it (that's why I didn't really spoil anything in my review. This is worth a watch unlike that last piece of shit I watched).
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| Spooky credits monster |
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| I see a similar visage in the mirror every time I wake up |
RATING: 3 fudge logs gravestones out of five. I was very entertained during the 90 minute run time.
HOW I WATCHED IT: The whole dang thing is on the youtubes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccHVKwaVMcg)
BEVERAGE: Short's Black Cherry Porter. It's mediocre.
Final Thoughts: Should you watch this movie? Depends if you like 80s teen slasher/ zombie flicks. I had a good time watching and don't regret it (that's why I didn't really spoil anything in my review. This is worth a watch unlike that last piece of shit I watched).
Saturday, September 28, 2019
Spooktober Side Car 1: Tales of Halloween
So, kicking off my short and disappointing... uh, review. Yeah that's the short and disappointing thing that involves me, yeah. I watched the 2015 anthology Tales of Halloween. It is ~90 mins broken into 10 short stories only 2 or 3 of which were entertaining or memorable in anyway. In a very big surprise each and every story has some kind of twist in it. All the twists suck though.
The opening credits are Gamecube/ PS2 era CGI and that's about as good as the effects get throughout. I'm also going to spoil what stories I can remember because this anthology was doo doo garbage and you shouldn't watch it.
The first story involves an urban legend where there's some kind of monster that kills you if you don't leave it an offering of candy from your trick or treating haul. If you eat your whole haul it will rip you open so it can eat some of that sweet sweet candy that's in your tummy.
The second involves a kid that is manipulated and encouraged by a demonic Barry Bostwick to do tricks that include stabbing a dentist with a shiv fashioned from a toothbrush. This is one of the better shorts. Plus, Barry Bostwick makes some pervy comments and is creepy (in the sex way not in the spooky way).
The third has a group of 4 adults partying. When one answers the door a small child dressed as a Witch says she wants to do a trick instead of get a treat and then stabs him in his belly repeatedly with a knife. Some other murder children show up and kill the other adults. One of the kills involves a flame thrower to the face followed by pouring rat poison in the guy's mouth and sealing the mouth shut with duct tape, so that was decent. The remaining surviving lady runs into the garage and quickly deletes some photos off her phone instead of calling 911 while she hides in the corner. The murder children come in and flip on the light and there's a child tied down to a surgical bed missing an eye. This part is cut with flashbacks of the adults doing torture surgery and showing they were the real murder people all along. The now justified murder children cut the restraints on eye girl who grabs an axe and plants it into the skull of the last adult while saying, and this is an actual quote from this high quality movie, "Happy Halloween you fuckin' sicko". Also this short involved some very good practical effects
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| This is a very realistic looking human eye and also blood |
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| Check out these pants made of flesh I think? |
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| This tiny claymation dude was the cutest/ best effect in the movie |
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| Raaar I'm a killer pumpkin eatin ur head |
RATING: 1 poorly CGI'd star out of five. It was awful and I have a high tolerance for shlock.
HOW I WATCHED IT: Amazon Prime
BEVERAGE: New Holland Sour Inc: Concord Grape Gose. The beer was way better than the movie.
Spooktober IV Review 2: The Terminator
The Terminator (1984)
James Cameron
"Nobody goes home. Nobody else comes through. It's just him...and me."
The Terminator is a movie I've seen, easily, dozens of times. It always played second fiddle to Terminator 2 when I was a kid, but that's to be expected. T2 features a young protagonist, has far more polish, and is a big step up in the visual effects department. When you're a kid, the original Terminator is dark (especially on VHS), a little cheesy, and slightly confusing. Plus Arnie plays the bad guy, which is upsetting when you're used to him being the hero from so many other films (although it does have a scene with brief female nudity, so not a total loss when you're young).
As an adult, my tastes shifted. I still appreciate Terminator 2 of course, but The Terminator is clearly the better film. In fact, T2 is essentially a beat-for-beat remake with some extra plot and a few more elaborate stunt sequences to round out the experience (it's about 50 minutes longer than the original). By the time he made T2, James Cameron had numerous successful films under his belt, had far more leeway to go big, and Arnold Schwarzenegger was an international superstar that would naturally command a huge box office score. T2 is a wonderful early 90's sci-fi/action film, and basically redefined the genre, and deserves all of the credit and attention that it gets.
But damn, The Terminator speaks to me on a whole other level. Before there was such a thing as the Terminator-verse and before the concept of Cinematic Universes were a thing (truly blessed days), The Terminator was just a dark, grimy little sci-fi/horror/action film made by the guy who directed Piranha II: The Spawning. The Terminator is filled with so many little B-movie touches, but is operating on a far more sophisticated wavelength story and performance wise. Like Joe Dante pulled off with Gremlins, James Cameron and Gale Ann Hurd took schlock and crafted it into genius. Really the only facet of the film that falls a little flat for me is the end of the third act. The effects really start to fall apart and one scene in particular, utilizing rear screen projection, is just brutal and looks like it belongs in King Kong. Otherwise, it's kind of a perfect movie.
It comes down to tone for me. I'm a simple man who enjoys his films dark, violent, and preferably from the 1980's. Where T2 is shiny and chrome, The Terminator is filthy and rusted. Casting Arnie in the role as the titular bad guy was such an inspired choice. He's in amazing shape and immediately commands your attention. Even his thick Austrian accent and his stiff, inexperienced line reads work perfectly. The initial scene when he confronts the punks to get their clothes is the perfect blend of darkly comic and ultra-violent. He punches through a man with his bare fist, and pulls it out dripping with gore (unlike the later effects, that's something that plays so much better on the big screen or in HD).
Kyle Reece's journey through time goes far worse, and we're immediately confronted with his human frailty. Whereas the terminator travels through time with machine-like placidity, Reece is thrown through the portal like someone dropped him out of the back of a garbage truck filled with lightning. He then immediately steals a homeless man's stained sweatpants, and then proceeds to wear them for like 48 hours straight, which is maybe the most underappreciated disgusting detail in the film.
Within the first 15 minutes, we understand fully well what's at stake: the future sucks, giant robot tanks plow through mountains of human skulls, a terrifying killing machine is sent back to kill the savior of humanity before he's born, and the humans of the future have to settle for a random infantry soldier who is poorly nourished, covered in scars, and has a personality shaped by apocalyptic levels of trauma. I love the way Reece acts during his opening escape from the police. He crawls around the department store like a wild animal, a skill he would have learned evading hunter killers and T-600's in his horrible future. Michael Biehn is great in the three Cameron films that he stars in, but he absolutely kicks ass here. He's intense, and wild, and a little bit crazy in the best possible ways. When Dr. Silberman is interviewing him at the police station and hearing his stories about post Judgement Day Los Angeles, he gets bug-eyed levels of intense and sounds like he's on his last nut, because, well, he is. The flashbacks (flashforwards?) that we get of Reece's life in the future are horrible. He's burned, shot at, sees comrades explode, and lives a tortured life beneath the rubble of the old world. He's naturally going to be a little crazy, especially considering that the weight of humanity's future rests on his shoulders.
This viewing I also came to appreciate the strong arrested development virgin energy that Reece has when he's revealing his true feelings to Sarah in the motel room. His childhood and adolescence were spent hunting rats, cooking plastique explosive, and scurrying around in the shadows. There was no time for love or tenderness. In fact, he makes a comment about how pain can be disconnected and controlled. Emotions get in the way of survival, so they need to be compartmentalized and hidden away. He gets so embarrassed by his display of real emotion that he starts shoving pipe bombs into a duffel bag in a way that can't possibly be safe.
The story for The Terminator is smart in lots of small but important ways, but a new detail that I appreciated for the first time last night was how Reece knew exactly which LA Sarah Connor was the correct one in the phone book, because John would have told him her middle name. The Terminator has to go through the list methodically before finding his correct target. Story elements like this are minor, but add layers to the film that elevate it beyond its modest trappings. It's a good thing our Sarah Connor wasn't named Sarah Aardvark Connor, because then humanity would have been doomed.
Those little "oh, that was a close one" details are sprinkled throughout the film. What if her douchebag boyfriend hadn't stood her up? Humanity doomed. What if she hadn't bent down to pick something up at Tech Noir as the terminator was scanning the room? Humanity doomed. What if that club-goer hadn't been standing behind Sarah when the terminator popped off? Humanity doomed. There's a playfulness with the film making to add to the tension, and tap back into that sense of frailty and vulnerability our heroes have in the face of unstoppable cyborg terror. Thousands of seemingly insignificant things all need to go exactly right for her to survive.
What else is there to say about a movie that's been out for 35 years and has spawned a billion dollar entertainment franchise? Probably nothing, but here are some quick hitters to round out this review:
I know there's an alternate cut of the movie, but it's been years since I've seen it, and I don't remember it particularly fondly. There's a montage of deleted scenes here, but I like that Cameron kept the film tight and didn't try to explore the bigger themes that T2 went after. Also the scene with Reece and Sarah in the woods is painfully bad.
So if you've somehow never seen The Terminator, now's the chance. If it's been a few years, watch it again. It fits in perfectly with Spooktober, while also scratching that 80's Arnie action movie itch.
RATING: Five yoked out T2-era Linda Hamilton chin ups out of Five.
HOW I WATCHED IT: Amazon Prime
BEVERAGE: Trappist Rochefort 10. Hey, if the world is going to end, I'm going out deliciously.
As an adult, my tastes shifted. I still appreciate Terminator 2 of course, but The Terminator is clearly the better film. In fact, T2 is essentially a beat-for-beat remake with some extra plot and a few more elaborate stunt sequences to round out the experience (it's about 50 minutes longer than the original). By the time he made T2, James Cameron had numerous successful films under his belt, had far more leeway to go big, and Arnold Schwarzenegger was an international superstar that would naturally command a huge box office score. T2 is a wonderful early 90's sci-fi/action film, and basically redefined the genre, and deserves all of the credit and attention that it gets.
But damn, The Terminator speaks to me on a whole other level. Before there was such a thing as the Terminator-verse and before the concept of Cinematic Universes were a thing (truly blessed days), The Terminator was just a dark, grimy little sci-fi/horror/action film made by the guy who directed Piranha II: The Spawning. The Terminator is filled with so many little B-movie touches, but is operating on a far more sophisticated wavelength story and performance wise. Like Joe Dante pulled off with Gremlins, James Cameron and Gale Ann Hurd took schlock and crafted it into genius. Really the only facet of the film that falls a little flat for me is the end of the third act. The effects really start to fall apart and one scene in particular, utilizing rear screen projection, is just brutal and looks like it belongs in King Kong. Otherwise, it's kind of a perfect movie.
It comes down to tone for me. I'm a simple man who enjoys his films dark, violent, and preferably from the 1980's. Where T2 is shiny and chrome, The Terminator is filthy and rusted. Casting Arnie in the role as the titular bad guy was such an inspired choice. He's in amazing shape and immediately commands your attention. Even his thick Austrian accent and his stiff, inexperienced line reads work perfectly. The initial scene when he confronts the punks to get their clothes is the perfect blend of darkly comic and ultra-violent. He punches through a man with his bare fist, and pulls it out dripping with gore (unlike the later effects, that's something that plays so much better on the big screen or in HD).
Kyle Reece's journey through time goes far worse, and we're immediately confronted with his human frailty. Whereas the terminator travels through time with machine-like placidity, Reece is thrown through the portal like someone dropped him out of the back of a garbage truck filled with lightning. He then immediately steals a homeless man's stained sweatpants, and then proceeds to wear them for like 48 hours straight, which is maybe the most underappreciated disgusting detail in the film.
Within the first 15 minutes, we understand fully well what's at stake: the future sucks, giant robot tanks plow through mountains of human skulls, a terrifying killing machine is sent back to kill the savior of humanity before he's born, and the humans of the future have to settle for a random infantry soldier who is poorly nourished, covered in scars, and has a personality shaped by apocalyptic levels of trauma. I love the way Reece acts during his opening escape from the police. He crawls around the department store like a wild animal, a skill he would have learned evading hunter killers and T-600's in his horrible future. Michael Biehn is great in the three Cameron films that he stars in, but he absolutely kicks ass here. He's intense, and wild, and a little bit crazy in the best possible ways. When Dr. Silberman is interviewing him at the police station and hearing his stories about post Judgement Day Los Angeles, he gets bug-eyed levels of intense and sounds like he's on his last nut, because, well, he is. The flashbacks (flashforwards?) that we get of Reece's life in the future are horrible. He's burned, shot at, sees comrades explode, and lives a tortured life beneath the rubble of the old world. He's naturally going to be a little crazy, especially considering that the weight of humanity's future rests on his shoulders.
This viewing I also came to appreciate the strong arrested development virgin energy that Reece has when he's revealing his true feelings to Sarah in the motel room. His childhood and adolescence were spent hunting rats, cooking plastique explosive, and scurrying around in the shadows. There was no time for love or tenderness. In fact, he makes a comment about how pain can be disconnected and controlled. Emotions get in the way of survival, so they need to be compartmentalized and hidden away. He gets so embarrassed by his display of real emotion that he starts shoving pipe bombs into a duffel bag in a way that can't possibly be safe.
The story for The Terminator is smart in lots of small but important ways, but a new detail that I appreciated for the first time last night was how Reece knew exactly which LA Sarah Connor was the correct one in the phone book, because John would have told him her middle name. The Terminator has to go through the list methodically before finding his correct target. Story elements like this are minor, but add layers to the film that elevate it beyond its modest trappings. It's a good thing our Sarah Connor wasn't named Sarah Aardvark Connor, because then humanity would have been doomed.
Those little "oh, that was a close one" details are sprinkled throughout the film. What if her douchebag boyfriend hadn't stood her up? Humanity doomed. What if she hadn't bent down to pick something up at Tech Noir as the terminator was scanning the room? Humanity doomed. What if that club-goer hadn't been standing behind Sarah when the terminator popped off? Humanity doomed. There's a playfulness with the film making to add to the tension, and tap back into that sense of frailty and vulnerability our heroes have in the face of unstoppable cyborg terror. Thousands of seemingly insignificant things all need to go exactly right for her to survive.
What else is there to say about a movie that's been out for 35 years and has spawned a billion dollar entertainment franchise? Probably nothing, but here are some quick hitters to round out this review:
- I love the old garbage man at the very beginning of the movie when the terminator is coming through his portal. He's up at 4 am working a shit job, and his truck conks out. His exasperated "what the hell? God damn son of a bitch" is so funny.
- I also love the black guy in the motel as Arnie walks out with two assault rifles slung over his shoulders. What a great line read.
- Right before that scene comes the funniest line in the movie, when the flophouse janitor knocks on the door and asks the terminator if he has a "dead cat in there?" First, it implies that the flesh around the terminator might be breaking down a bit from all of the wounds he's taken, which is reinforced with the sounds of flies buzzing around (and earlier in the film Reece says that the T-800's have both sweat glands and bad breath, implying bacterial growth). Second, it's a wonderful little callback to the first scene of the film when the terminator asks the punks for their clothes and is told, "Fuck you, asshole." This all leads up to a beautiful moment where we go inside the terminator's head and watch his CPU select the best possible response to the situation, also showing that he's learning from the mannerisms of the humans he's encountered thus far. Magical:
- The police station massacre scene is just amazing. It's terrifying, action packed, and features some great low-budget special effects. I'm a sucker for honest-to-goodness squibs and blood packs for my gunshot wounds, and they are all over this scene. There's also some real world gravity lent to this scene as we hear the car radio as Reece and Sarah ditch their car and the news update is naturally about the slaughter at the police station, and the largest police manhunt in history.
- Speaking of the police, Lance Henrikson and Paul Winfield are nice supporting characters that don't really get sucked into the story at large, but provide some real world grounding to the film, and offer Sarah a little false hope ("You've got nothing to worry about. There's over thirty cops in this building.") I especially love how Winfield has to keep talking over the more socially awkward Henrikson, who can't help but tell stories about all the fucked up shit he's seen in his years on the force. They have a well rounded dynamic, despite only being in about 8 minutes of the film.
- I also appreciate that Winfield isn't totally sold on the idea that Reece is crazy. He's been around a long time, and has surely seen a lot of raving weirdos, but something about Reece's story intrigues Winfield and gives him pause. It's a nice touch.
- As if the film's B-movie trappings weren't already self evident, we get a nice little scene with Dick Miller as the owner of a gun shop. Miller was a mainstay of Joe Dante's films, and has been punching the clock as a B-movie character actor since the 1950's. He's gruff, and gritty, and I always chuckle when Arnie asks for a "phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range," and Miller gives him a "Hey, just what you see, pal." Wonderful stuff.
- Finally, Sarah's shitty day as a waitress at a Bob's Big Boy knockoff is so wonderfully textured. The customers are terrible, she can't keep herself organized, she's frazzled, and a little shithead kid drops a scoop of Superman ice cream into her apron. The line from her gum-smacking coworker "Think of it this way: in 100 years who's going to care?" is just delightful. I hope the dude who said he was still waiting for his coffee is the first to die in the August 29, 1997 explosion.
I know there's an alternate cut of the movie, but it's been years since I've seen it, and I don't remember it particularly fondly. There's a montage of deleted scenes here, but I like that Cameron kept the film tight and didn't try to explore the bigger themes that T2 went after. Also the scene with Reece and Sarah in the woods is painfully bad.
So if you've somehow never seen The Terminator, now's the chance. If it's been a few years, watch it again. It fits in perfectly with Spooktober, while also scratching that 80's Arnie action movie itch.
RATING: Five yoked out T2-era Linda Hamilton chin ups out of Five.
HOW I WATCHED IT: Amazon Prime
BEVERAGE: Trappist Rochefort 10. Hey, if the world is going to end, I'm going out deliciously.
Friday, September 27, 2019
Spooktober IV Review 1: Hagazussa
Hagazussa (2017)
Lukas Feigelfeld
"Whose path is paved with suffering and pain."
It's not possible for me to recommend Hagazussa to everyone even though I think it's a great film. I can think of maybe four people who I'd encourage to give this a watch (and I'm sure they're the only ones reading this blog post. [Honestly, a blog in 2019??]), and like 50 others that I think would never speak to me again if I told them to see this. I can't imagine what Lukas Feigelfeld's mother said to him at the premiere when the film ended. If I had directed this and showed it to my mom, her soul would leave her body. It's...a complicated watch.
The story is about a girl named Albrun who lives with her mother Martha in the Alps in the 1400's. Life is difficult, but it isn't as outwardly dire as things were for the family in The VVitch, because Europe has beautiful scenery and isn't built on one giant Native burial ground. But Albrun and Martha have it worse than most around them, because they've been outcast from the tiny Alpine village, and are treated as witches and pariahs. At one point, it's suggested that they are maybe Jews, but they're not outwardly any different from the rest of the villagers. They're just carrying around the invisible label for some unknown past transgression that has likely even been forgot among the tormentors.
One of the most amazing things about Hagazussa is how fragile and difficult it makes life look. I enjoy movies that take the time to show you meticulous tasks in careful detail. At one point Martha squeeze goats milk through a cloth to make cottage cheese, in another scene Albrun milks a goat (while masturbating, but that's another story) and it's enjoyable to watch the finer details of life during this time, because it gives you the tactile sense of how difficult it was to take care of the activities of daily living back then. Characters show their social status and means on their bodies. Martha and Albrun are small and wiry; Albrun's acquaintance and her husband are tall and have some meat on their bones. Even the children who taunt them as they try to pass down the road are plump, hearty boys. If you didn't have the means to survive, you likely didn't. At one point a character comments on how healthy Albrun's infant daughter looks, which must have been a notable thing back then. Another scene shows the difficulty of getting the child to latch during breastfeeding. Something so basic, so minor, but back then, so fundamentally essential to life, and it's not working. The stress of that situation now is mitigated by research, and breast pumps, and formula. In the 1400's, a baby who didn't latch was dead in a week.
When Martha collapses in the snow from an unfortunate and sudden onset of bubonic plague, Albrun is completely alone and is the only one capable of helping her. Death back then was intimate, hands on, and mysterious. For Albrun and Martha, it is also cold and unfeeling. When a priest/doctor comes to inspect Martha and sees the buboes, he never speaks to or comforts Albrun. He just shakes his head and leaves Martha there to whither and die in front of her daughter. Albrun struggles to feed her mother, who chokes and vomits on thin gruel and goat's milk. She becomes covered in large purulent bubous, and hallucinates with fever, interspersing her wails of agony with fits of sinister laughter. It's even more unpleasant than it sounds.
There's a lot of VVitch vibes in Hagazussa, and besides the obvious similarity in stories (how to make a witch between the years 1400-1700 AD), I think a lot of the commonality boils down to both filmmaker's intention to make a cultural folk story. Where The VVitch is about our flawed, and uniquely American, propensity to isolate ourselves from community for bad reasons, Hagazussa is absolutely one of those brutal and bizarre Old German fairy tales about children who get their fingers bit off by a ghostly woodsman if they lie to their parents brought to life through the medium of arthouse horror. It is brutal and dire and direct and there are no princesses or castles, and the only lesson is "don't be an outcast," as if that's a choice.
Like Robert Eggers with The VVitch, this was Feigelfeld's first film, and it looks and sounds amazing. He captures the grim majesty of the Alpine hills where they live, showing their beauty but keeping them foreboding. The interior of their cabin is wonderfully lived in and well realized. You understand their space and appreciate the intimacy that must have been normal at the time. The sound design is also incredible. The wind and rain pelting the cottage, the banging on the door, the taunts of the villagers coming from the woods are all beautifully mixed and sounds great on big speakers. The soundtrack is also strong. It's minimalist but darkly evocative, and it fits perfectly with the subject matter.
It's really hard to believe this was his first film.
There's a lot to unpack in the film, but one sequence that absolutely blew me away was late in the film after Albrun...um, let's say plays a really good prank on the naughty villagers and discovers some psychedelic mushrooms growing near a deer skull. She begins to trip balls 15th Century style and wanders into a slimy bog. As she's under, the filthy, swirling water begins to fill with blood, and coalesces into mishapen fetal tissue, before becoming a mix of light and dark as Albrun climbs onto the muddy shore. The visuals are just stunning, and it was nice to be truly wowed by a film's visual effects again.
I'm not going to discuss any of the plot here, other than to say it is achieved deliberately and with great care. It's also horrifying and vile and perverse and, quite literally, ghoulish. So you should probably never watch it. Unless you want to. Then you should.
Except you, mom. You'd just be worried about me.
RATING: Hagazussa knowests the taste of butter
HOW I WATCHED IT: Amazon Prime Video
BEVERAGE: Paulaner Oktoberfest
The story is about a girl named Albrun who lives with her mother Martha in the Alps in the 1400's. Life is difficult, but it isn't as outwardly dire as things were for the family in The VVitch, because Europe has beautiful scenery and isn't built on one giant Native burial ground. But Albrun and Martha have it worse than most around them, because they've been outcast from the tiny Alpine village, and are treated as witches and pariahs. At one point, it's suggested that they are maybe Jews, but they're not outwardly any different from the rest of the villagers. They're just carrying around the invisible label for some unknown past transgression that has likely even been forgot among the tormentors.
One of the most amazing things about Hagazussa is how fragile and difficult it makes life look. I enjoy movies that take the time to show you meticulous tasks in careful detail. At one point Martha squeeze goats milk through a cloth to make cottage cheese, in another scene Albrun milks a goat (while masturbating, but that's another story) and it's enjoyable to watch the finer details of life during this time, because it gives you the tactile sense of how difficult it was to take care of the activities of daily living back then. Characters show their social status and means on their bodies. Martha and Albrun are small and wiry; Albrun's acquaintance and her husband are tall and have some meat on their bones. Even the children who taunt them as they try to pass down the road are plump, hearty boys. If you didn't have the means to survive, you likely didn't. At one point a character comments on how healthy Albrun's infant daughter looks, which must have been a notable thing back then. Another scene shows the difficulty of getting the child to latch during breastfeeding. Something so basic, so minor, but back then, so fundamentally essential to life, and it's not working. The stress of that situation now is mitigated by research, and breast pumps, and formula. In the 1400's, a baby who didn't latch was dead in a week.
When Martha collapses in the snow from an unfortunate and sudden onset of bubonic plague, Albrun is completely alone and is the only one capable of helping her. Death back then was intimate, hands on, and mysterious. For Albrun and Martha, it is also cold and unfeeling. When a priest/doctor comes to inspect Martha and sees the buboes, he never speaks to or comforts Albrun. He just shakes his head and leaves Martha there to whither and die in front of her daughter. Albrun struggles to feed her mother, who chokes and vomits on thin gruel and goat's milk. She becomes covered in large purulent bubous, and hallucinates with fever, interspersing her wails of agony with fits of sinister laughter. It's even more unpleasant than it sounds.
There's a lot of VVitch vibes in Hagazussa, and besides the obvious similarity in stories (how to make a witch between the years 1400-1700 AD), I think a lot of the commonality boils down to both filmmaker's intention to make a cultural folk story. Where The VVitch is about our flawed, and uniquely American, propensity to isolate ourselves from community for bad reasons, Hagazussa is absolutely one of those brutal and bizarre Old German fairy tales about children who get their fingers bit off by a ghostly woodsman if they lie to their parents brought to life through the medium of arthouse horror. It is brutal and dire and direct and there are no princesses or castles, and the only lesson is "don't be an outcast," as if that's a choice.
Like Robert Eggers with The VVitch, this was Feigelfeld's first film, and it looks and sounds amazing. He captures the grim majesty of the Alpine hills where they live, showing their beauty but keeping them foreboding. The interior of their cabin is wonderfully lived in and well realized. You understand their space and appreciate the intimacy that must have been normal at the time. The sound design is also incredible. The wind and rain pelting the cottage, the banging on the door, the taunts of the villagers coming from the woods are all beautifully mixed and sounds great on big speakers. The soundtrack is also strong. It's minimalist but darkly evocative, and it fits perfectly with the subject matter.
It's really hard to believe this was his first film.
There's a lot to unpack in the film, but one sequence that absolutely blew me away was late in the film after Albrun...um, let's say plays a really good prank on the naughty villagers and discovers some psychedelic mushrooms growing near a deer skull. She begins to trip balls 15th Century style and wanders into a slimy bog. As she's under, the filthy, swirling water begins to fill with blood, and coalesces into mishapen fetal tissue, before becoming a mix of light and dark as Albrun climbs onto the muddy shore. The visuals are just stunning, and it was nice to be truly wowed by a film's visual effects again.
I'm not going to discuss any of the plot here, other than to say it is achieved deliberately and with great care. It's also horrifying and vile and perverse and, quite literally, ghoulish. So you should probably never watch it. Unless you want to. Then you should.
Except you, mom. You'd just be worried about me.
RATING: Hagazussa knowests the taste of butter
HOW I WATCHED IT: Amazon Prime Video
BEVERAGE: Paulaner Oktoberfest
Spooktober 2019: Oh No, Not This Again
Spooktober 2019:
Oh No, Not This Again
Another year, another Spooktober. It's my favorite little movie tradition of the year (eking out Kurosawa during a snowstorm and "oh damn Robocop is on HBO2" Sunday. I'm not senselessly strict about the tradition, and will occasionally enjoy a horror movie outside of the confines of autumn, but I really do get an extra kick out of it this time of year. Maybe there's something about sticking to one overall genre, and getting a great perspective of the diversity of visions within. Maybe it's something to do with the weather turning cold and grey and facing a long and dark winter. Maybe it's because horror movies rule. I don't know. I'm not a philosopher.
Anyway, there's no telling how far I'll get this year. Last year I made it about half the month, and, you know, that's not bad. Like every year, this is a way for me to roll around the movies I just watched in my head a little bit more. It can make the whole experience that much more enjoyable. So if I don't make it the whole month, just understand that I got insanely frustrated with the Blogger html software and gave up.
And I don't know how I'll handle the reviews this year. Stars feel trite. My rating scale last year wasn't very effective. I can't really think of anything good right now. So I'll just make it up as I go along.
Happy Spookin'!
-Aaron
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