The “I”s of Horror 👀
by Kristin Battestella
Beware! These intriguing horror stories almost have it all, but some throwback allegory chills are better than the island isolation and exorcism could have beens.
It's Excellent!
In Fabric – Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Without A Trace) leads writer and director Peter Strickland's (Berberian Sound Studio) 2018 British throwback getting right to the edgy score, seventies style, and cursed red dress peppered with red nails, black panties, vintage fashion, and old school unease. Personal ads aren't exactly the truth amid forced smiles at the bank and that hypnotic, sale sale sale advertising allure. Our somewhat frumpy divorcee is jealous of her son's saucy, intrusive, French speaking femme fatale girlfriend, and the creepy sales girl insists a date is purely about the temptation of a sensational, risque garment worn to provoke pleasure. Dumbwaiters and grand old fashioned department store spooky accent the retro technology as cold answering machines relay character information and money tubes or vintage buzzers invoke off kilter startles while time is distorted when browsing the fashion catalogs. The previous model of our dress – colored “artery” – came to tragedy and the tight frock leaves rashes before sending the washer crazy with damage, cuts, and blood. There's an intimacy to doing someone's laundry, and the mannequins are cleaned in a ritual, sexual fashion that's bizarre without actually showing anything nasty thanks to overlay montages and through the lens double vision. Bald heads and pubic hair are both seemingly unattractive and misleading reflections, store windows, and bank partitions create physical barriers, yet our projection of self changes when we know it's for the gaze, voyeurism, and getting off on the standards of beauty. Instead of wowing the audience with special effects, there's a “what we think we see” in the vaginal imagery, red sheets, and cult euphoria of the staff rousing the end of the year holiday crowd waiting to enter the store. They are so bereft when a shopper says she is over the retail ecstasy! Customers ignore the increasing, freak mishaps because we're buying into the couture, but the red dress moves on for stag drag gags complete with pacifiers and peer pressure disguised as good-natured humor. Prior events in the newspaper and the perpetually perfect Size 36 dress fitting every body type are dismissed as are the potential banking and department store connections. Handyman temptations and awkward sex at home lead to winks about how even the nerdy man can be manly because he can fix her washer. This henpecked man named Speaks holds his tongue as his intimidating boss eats Speaks' employee card – adding male subtext and consuming symbolism alongside stockings, penis shaped gourds, and latent bankers offering to role play in Tudor costumes. Nightmare nurses, nasty babies, marred faces, and skeletal thinness are recounted by the dreamer, foreshadowing for themselves rather than a flashy, meaningless visual for the viewer. Supposedly decent ladies spit, loot, and fight at the register before fires, alarms, melting facades, and bleeding mannequins laugh at the all consuming commercial machine we're dying to be a part of before another takes our place. It's pleasing to see a past telling in order rather than intercut flashbacks as if the dress connection was a big secret, but it's not quite fair to call this realistically bitter satire a comedy, for there are many layers and connections worth multiple viewings. Some may be upset at the the lack of explanations, but the social media horror seeping into our blood allegory speaks for itself.
Almost Has It...
The Isle – Siren warnings, echoing vocals, and watery perils begat three shipwrecked merchant sailors and uncharted edge of the world Scottish isolation in this 2019 parable. Rather than some spectacle disaster, we meet our 1846 survivors lost in a row boat, arguing about the run aground decisions, fog, chaos, and screams. The titular inhabitants are hospitable when the men come ashore, but the women are hushed behind closed doors and information about the dwindling community is not forthcoming. Celtic music cues, windswept scenery, stone fireplaces, wooden wreckage, kettles, and lanterns accent the well done rural as the residents insist our restless sailors shouldn't go exploring. Risking a burial at sea in a small local boat leads to dark waters, ominous mist, ghostly ship bells, and echoes of others caught in this island's lure. The whispering winds, moss covered tombstones, and dangerous cliffs work organically in scene, however there are a bit too many lovely for the arty sake of it scene transitions and splitting up to search will obviously, stereotypically not bode well for our Black sailor. More modern constructs like a bathroom scare via the wash stand mirror, spooky flashbacks of famine and rival affections, and abstract dream snippets intrude on the period atmosphere before a totally tame bedroom montage. The siren enchantment is apparent without the opening poems or Greek references, and bizarre distortions aren't for the sailor experiencing the delirium but a calling attention to itself visual for the audience. The score ramps up the tension before the editing cuts away – feigning the something spooky without any actual action far too many times. While one shouldn't expect outright horror here, the contemporary storytelling cliches and lengthy credits pad what should really be a straightforward ninety-two minutes. The survivors don't unravel the mystery for themselves and viewers already know what's what, so going back to the original curse as if it were a surprise drags the more pressing get out of Dodge goal. Again the faults here stem from a small production with a writer/director husband and a co-writer/star wife who needed a second eye. Although melancholy and atmospheric for a late night watch, this potentially unique story and setting deserved another polish.
An Unfortunate Skip.
Incarnate – Aaron Eckhart (Olympus Has Fallen) and Carice Van Houten (Brimstone) star in this PG-13 Blumhouse Exorcist meets Inception thriller opening with neck snapping growls and youthful possessions. After meeting our divorced mother and son in peril, the story resets with night club strobe and a smooth demon hunter who can enter the mind of the possessed and convince them to resist the evil influence. The red lights and maze like escapes, however, lead to medical hook ups, cameras, and a wheelchair bound warrior not so cool in the real world. Bruises on the inside become real injuries as the fantastic science and high tech supernatural mix with old school paperwork and Vatican officials interested in this rare kind of incarnate exorcism. He doesn't work for the church or believe in any religious aspects for what is just a parasitic entity – Ember is a doctor not a priest. These official exorcisms, church cover ups, mind over evil methods, and demon vendettas might have made a neat show, so it's strange that we open with the family encounter first when the doctor's treating a demon like a disease to be evicted from the inside is the main story. The family details are also repeated in a file report with a complete background check. Traditional, off camera exorcisms have failed, and there's a lot of telling and ham-fisted explaining for the audience when mom gasping at the unseen video is a nicer moment for the character and not a viewer wow. The deep voice and whooshing maneuvers make the boy's possession bemusing, and the subsequent tearful car accident man pain feels laid on thick since the audience has already deduced the past angst. Mom has nothing to do but ask questions about frequencies and auras, and leaving to bring in the abusive, drunk dad to help breaks the exorcism tension. The demon resists with illusions its prey desires, but serious strides resort to laughable on the ceiling action and more recollections of what we already know. Expedited timelines crunch the conflict from years of searching right down to ten seconds left on the EEG, but switch-a-roos and detours don't get us anywhere. Mom is told to be strong when of course she must have been but we don't see her perspective until the brief, required bonding between the grieving adults. Any symbolism between Dr. Ember and the demon's name being Ash is unused, and the finale comes easy with carnivals, crosses, and sudden devotions leading to hospital chases, levitation, and sacrificial contortions. Rather than utilizing the tender performances, this over-relies on predictable scares. Viewers understand why this was filmed in 2013 but not released until 2016. Derivative leaps and miraculous contrivance don't make in world sense or explore the provocative possibilities – leaving what should be a touching and soul searching story downright hollow.
