Polarizing Recent Horrors
By
Kristin Battestella
This
batch of supernatural scares and science fiction fears both foreign
and domestic serves up some interesting ghosts and literary twists
alongside some meh, skip-worthy, and polarizing frights.
Unique
Ghosts
I am the Pretty Thing that Lives in The House
– Ruth Wilson (Luther, The
Affair) stars
in this 2016 Netflix
original written and directed by Oz Perkins (The
Blackcoat's Daughter).
Poetic voiceovers tell of a house being borrowed by the living while
dark screens and period silhouettes come in and out of focus,
creating an aged feeling for our colonial house, ailing horror
author, and her jilted live in nurse Lily – who must always wear
white, can't be touched, and slaps her own hand for snooping.
Certainly there are obvious implications with repeated phrases,
solitary scenes, one side phone calls, whispering voices, and no
outdoor perspectives to disrupt our attention from the suspect
footsteps and undisturbed décor. Old music with ironic lyrics,
cassettes, rotary phones, typewriters, static TV antennas, and
Grateful Dead shirts also invoke a trapped in the past mood implying
that the thin veil between life and death is soon to be broken.
Shadowed, almost black and white shots and doorways framed in
darkness make the audience question which side of the looking glass
we are on – slow zooms peer into the dark frames or blacked out
night time windows. There are shock moments, but the one woman play
design is intense without being loud or in your face. Blindfolds,
old fashioned dresses, mirrors, musty papers, and mysterious boxes
increase amid moldy
walls and suspicious characters from our author's 1960 novel The
Lady in the Walls – creating
slow burn literary flashbacks, parallel self-awareness, ghostly
uncertainty, and feminine duality on wilted old age blooms versus
forever beautiful flowers. Is
this a linear story or are the past, present, living, and dead
blending together? Again, the answers are apparent with book titles
and name hints hidden in plain sight. No one eats, sleeps, or
bathrooms yet this ghostly rot and repetition may take multiple
viewings for full discussion, interpretation, and analysis. Although
there are some pretentious arty for the sake of it moments – not
the papa Anthony Perkins scenes on the TV! – knocking on the walls,
a flipped up rug, buzzing flies, and a will requesting another woman
writer come to chronicle this “House of Stories” are atmosphere
enough without run of the mill wham bam effects. This individual
horror experience remains can't look away intriguing for old school
horror fans not expecting thrills a minute and those who enjoy a
seventies, no concept of time mood.
Interesting
Oddities
Twixt
– Washed up horror writer Val Kilmer (The Doors) stars in
this 2011 Francis Ford Coppola directed askewer set in a sleepy town
featuring zany sheriff Bruce Dern (The 'burbs) and a belfry
with seven clocks each telling a different time. One hear tells of
twelve ghostly kids playing at midnight and a thirteenth child
damned, and bodies in the morgue are free for the viewing since the
serial killer's calling card is a giant wooden stake. Bat houses are
totally different from bird houses, and the abandoned hotel once
sheltered Edgar Allan Poe. Val's ponytail, fedora, and drinking hit
home the hoofing it, down on his luck author – his bookstore
signing is in the bookshelf half of the hardware store! He's asking
for advances so his estranged wife won't sell priceless literary
collectibles, and Joanne Whalley's (Willow) angry video chats
tops off the backwoods humor. Old fashioned lanterns, fax machines,
radios, split screen calls, tolling bells, clockwork groans, and
wonky camera angles accent the weird nighttime blues, silver patinas,
eerie woods, and decayed buildings. Distorted movements, slow motion
fireplaces, skyline perspectives, exaggerate neon signs, specific red
accents, and individual lighting schemes become increasingly
distorted, and Elle Fanning's (Maleficent) a mysterious
porcelain doll-like girl. At times, the Sin City-esque style
seems odd for odd's sake, but the onscreen editor wants a vampire
book with a story not just bullshit visuals, and a portable table and
chair, ritual writing space, and blank computer screens wink at the
select all delete that perhaps only writers can understand. Yes, it's
obvious we may be in an onscreen fiction thanks to the maybe maybe
not dream quality, moonlit breakfasts, and imaginary conversations
with Ben Chaplin's (The Truth about Cats & Dogs) Poe
blending the titular sense of time together. Is this the creative
subconscious, a story in progress, or a purgatory limbo for our
author? The interpretive subtext layers the warped atmosphere, but
the busy tale within a tale, life imitating art twists end abruptly
with typical creepy minister prayers, snakes, mea culpa, and literary
catharsis. This isn't perfect and probably too full of itself –
nobody is going to red pencil Coppola – but this didn't deserve to
be a festival blink with a delayed video release. In fact, Coppola's
intentions as a live interactive film with different versions
depending on audience reaction remain intriguing, making the picture
either all dream, all reality, or all inside story rather than a
patchwork narrative with pieces of each. Today, this choose your own
adventure concept would be a water cooler Netflix event! Of course,
the industry doesn't embrace out there film making, and one also
needs Coppola's Godfather clout and financial freedom to do
this kind of hobbyist release. Many will hate such uneven indulgence,
but the oddities here are worth a look.
One
Science Fiction Horror Questionable
The Last Days on Mars – This 2013 science fiction horror
British co-production boasts a fine cast including Liev Schreiber
(Ray Donovan), Olivia Williams (Manhattan), Elias
Koteas (Chicago P.D.), and Romola Gari (The Crimson Petal
and the White). Their six month Martian stay in claustrophobic
habitat buildings has nineteen hours left, yet some work up to the
last minute while others dread the coffin-like sleep and ride home.
It's been a testy unglamorous trip with little scientific research to
validate their efforts, and sunny swing music contrasts the dust,
sandstorms, rocks, and bitter mood. Realistic effects, spacesuits,
equipment, and rovers fall prey to patchy communications, offline
systems, and flickering lights – adding more tension to the mundane
repairs, decompression, and radiation. Everyone's already frazzled
before the hidden evidence, deceptions, and accusations over
scientific credit lead to maydays, disappearing crew, bottomless
caverns, and underground organisms. Depressurizing airlocks,
contamination, monstrous attacks, and gruesome drill uses enforce the
perilous environs, quarantines, and suit tears. Pointing fingers at
who's infected, proactive antibiotic experiments, and intravenous
versus vapor distribution accent the race to the exit rendezvous and
radio chatter horrors heard but not seen. However, the helmets and
dark, hectic scenes make it tough to tell what's happening, and one
can certainly argue that no alien zombie morph mutations were
necessary when the isolated people on edge is SF horror enough
without bringing the Z word to Mars. Somber moments also come off as
too pretentious, trying to be more sophisticated than the Alien
and Aliens imitation
– strong women defending protocols, travel through a pipe to
restore communication, and only one person able to contact the
incoming ship amid double crossings and cliché panic attacks.
Such derivative cheats proceed as expected, claiming any moody
atmosphere with too many endings resulting in unsatisfying cop outs.
While initially entertaining, too many wrong turns just run out of
steam in final act.
And
a Skipper!
White Settlers – A city couple moves to a too good to be true
Scottish fixer upper on a medieval battle site in this 2014 British
snoozer also called The Blood Lands. After
the usual cool opening credits, are we there yet driving to the
horrors, a somewhat shady estate agent, no phone signals, and
a move in montage; the very unprepared wife realizes she's afraid of
being in an isolated handyman house without power. Of course, her
jerk husband makes Scottish jokes, refusing to let up on his bullshit
attitude even when there's a scary break in and unseen attackers. The
outdoor saucy, surprisingly immature and incompatible couple, and
nighttime suspicious are typical clichés, and the divine scenery,
historical references, and great house are never used to their full
potential. When the description refers to ancient battles, one sort
of expects something wild like ghosts or cults and past meets present
horror – not guys in pig masks angry at the new neighbors. It's
tough to feel any of the supposed English versus Scottish subtext
because the horror is so substandard. Eden Lake had better us
versus them twists, and I swear I just saw this terrorizing hooligans
in animal masks trope in at least three other horror house siege
movies. Although flashlights and fog make it difficult to see much of
anything here, and our wife has to apologize to her asshole husband
for her being afraid even while she's the superior fighter. Maybe
this isn't that bad on its own, but it's certainly disappointing if
you are expecting anything more than Brits chasing some other Brits
through the woods in the dark. Nothing here is horror sentient –
people go back to check the still body, bads talk rather than act to
create a contrived victim escape, and who trusts the creepy little
boy for help? Hello, McFly. If you didn't want any English buying
your Scottish property, why not blame the real estate lady who sold
it to them? Or the bank that made the price so high? How is
unrealistically terrorizing and ridiculously kicking out the new
owners so you can move in going to get rid of any of the real world
consequences?
Despite
tens of thousands of newer horror movies available between Netflix,
Amazon, Hulu, HBO Now, Showtime, Starz, and other free streaming
sites; I find its becoming increasingly tougher to find the small
percent that's quality horror thanks to an overwhelming saturation of
low budget yarns, unimaginative knockoffs, no name derivatives, and
second tier rehashings with woeful video covers and abysmal ratings
or reviews. I feel like I need to do an essay alone on how to spot a
bad horror movie, as there is just a ridiculous amount of sludge
sinking the genre – and drowning its viewers. I protest such
drivel!
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