Recent Family Haunts

Recent Family Haunts

by Kristin Battestella

These somewhat rocky contemporary films provide enough past guilt, post-war ghosts, grown up paranormal, childhood nightmares, and modern day monsters for a terrified family or two.

Before I Wake – Mike Flanagan (Oculus) directs Kate Bosworth (Blue Crush), Thomas Jane (Dreamcatcher), Annabeth Gish (The X-Files), and Jacob Tremblay (Room) in this 2016 Netflix dark fantasy drama. In spite of the never working, always home in their mansion rich blonde white people, we hope for the couple who lost a child now making a fresh start by adopting a very special but sleepless eight year old. Group therapy's been helping our fellow insomniac mom cope – getting the psychological metaphors out of the way while showing how our husband and wife have reacted differently to such grief. Their new son, sadly, takes out his books and flashlight to stay up all night, sneaking some serious sugar because he fears the man who eats people when he sleeps. Strange images increase about the house, and instead of the typical jerky husband, it's nice to have a trying to be helpful doctor. The therapist, however, dismisses mom's encounters with creaking doors, breaking glass, and ghostly figures as lucid dreams or sleep deprived waking hallucinations. Our couple is always in front of the television not talking about how they can inexplicably see and touch their late son in tender moments giving and taking away before he disappears in their arms. Naturally, they take advantage of this gift, putting on the coffee to stay up while their current dreams come true son sleeps. He can help them heal, and with such fanciful graphics, one almost forgets how they are deluding themselves by using his dreams to fix their reality. When mom drugs his milk and cake with child sleeping pills, we know why. Dad may bond with the boy, but it's unique to see a multi-layered woman both experiencing the horror and contributing almost as a villain who thinks she's right. The monster may not be super scary for audiences accustomed to terrifying effects, but this is about kids fearing unconscious ghouls and waking nightmares not scaring viewers. Previous foster parents are committed after talking of demons when the boy's dreams come true, but he doesn't know what he's doing – unlike the adults who realize, do it anyway, then justify their response as mercy. If he can't wake up, they can't defeat the black vomit and flesh consuming monsters. Unfortunately, convenient hospital connections provide old records and birth mother details while the case worker never notices the ongoing file is lifted by the subject. Confining the boy leads to a house of horrors with moths in the stairwell, cocoons, creepy kids, gouged eyes, and bathtub bizarre – which are all fine individually. However, the story backs itself into a corner by resorting to state of mind scary at the expense of the personal fantasy, unraveling with explaining journals and a parent sugarcoating someone else's memories so obvious Freudian questions can do the trick. With this thick case file, how did no child psychologist figure this out sooner – especially with such legalese and real world missing persons? Rather than essentially letting mom get away with sacrificing people to overcome her grief, the finale explanation should have been at the beginning to further appreciate the boy's torment. Despite a kind of, sort of happy non-ending, the parents dealing with a child dreamer plot makes for a mature reverse Elm Street mixing family horrors and fantastics.

Insidious: The Last Key – After the thin, uneven, seemingly nowhere left to go Chapter 3, I'm surprised there's room for this 2018 sequel aka Chapter 4. There's headache inducing volume issues once again with soft voices versus incredibly loud excuses to make you jump if the scares don't. Fortunately, penitentiary gates, latches, and skeleton keys disturb the nearby 1950s families. Lights flicker during every execution, and young Elise insists ghosts are in the bunk bend and playing with their toys. Dad, however, gets out the switch for talking nonsense and locks her in the basement bomb shelter where child voices taunt her to open a special red door – leading to evil claw hands with keys for nails, ghostly possessions, and hanging consequences. Grown up Elise Lin Shaye dreams about the past as her Spectral Sightings team moves in with their semi-working technology and a tricked out ghost hunting van. When the latest call for paranormal help is her old address, she's initially reluctant to return to the house she fled with scars on her back. Though some of the emotion seems rushed or superficial – actual ghosts and ghosts of the past metaphors, we get it– the mix of sardonic, nerdy banter, and friendship ground the trauma, lingering cobwebs, and bibles. Night vision and point of view cameras provide shadows that some see and others don't while microphones and phantom whistles create one yes, two no communications that are more chilling than unnecessary references to the prior film. False walls and hidden keyholes reveal chains, crawling entities, and creaking demons approaching the paralyzed in fear. Awkward confrontations with brothers left behind and meeting grown nieces create personal touches amid the metaphysical and psychological horrors as the family is lured back to the maze like levels of the house. Tunnels, old suitcases, and skulls address both the personal demons and the underlying sinister as spirits need to be freed from the dark. Metronomes lead to eerie fog, lanterns, underworld jail cells, and risky confrontations in The Further. Detours with real world violence, loud action, guns, and police, however, are time wasting filler when the ghosts still have to be faced. After the fine demon reveal strengthening our family connections, everything degrades into typical whooshes, television rattling roars, and a deus ex machina that's the same deus ex machina from Chapter 3 complete with winks to the First Insidious for good measure. Although there are problems when the plot strays from the tale it's supposed to be telling, this was more entertaining than the ultimately unnecessary third movie.

The Silence – Kiernan Shipka and Miranda Otto reunite alongside Stanley Tucci (Road to Perdition) in this 2019 Netflix original. Gas masks and point of view cameras in a Pennsylvania cave unleash screeching and splatter before unnecessary credits montaging evolution and modern destruction. The tablet conversations with boys, soccer mom literally seen with soccer balls, hip grandma in the kitchen, little brother playing video games, and narration from our deaf teen likewise contribute to a very cliché start. Opening in media res with mom silently waking the deaf for breaking news would make more impact, and although the hearing impairments seem superficial, Sign Language, high pitched ringing, and helicopters better set the scene as initial television news about the cave release and device alerts are ignored. Cities are quickly infested – under attack with few details beyond viral videos warning people not to make noise as fireplaces are blocked and the emergency system sounds. Our family packs up in several vehicles to flee the city, but viewers needlessly break our deaf protagonist's viewpoint for subway passengers tossing out a mother and her crying baby, o_O. Radio reports, police sirens, traffic jams, and short cuts lead to gas station gun violence, fleeing animals, and car accidents. There's macho – dad wasn't a hands on guy and now he has to be – but tough family decisions get made once these pterosaur vesps surround the van and slam the cracking windows. Dogs alert one to danger, however barking can be a problem, and leaving the vehicle to find shelter includes injuries, infection, and rattlesnakes. After the first half hour, it's mostly innate sounds with very little dialogue – viewers have to pay attention to all the non-verbal reactions. Risky treks to a nearby small town lead to empty streets, mauled corpses, monster eggs, and cults cutting out tongues before raids, abductions, and sacrifices required. The internet is spotty, but news about the creatures disliking snow comes amid dying batteries, handwritten notes, and creepy confrontations. The performances make the twistedness and rage while thunder, lightning, and decoys create a stir alongside cell phone beeps and music. Unfortunately, rather than major social commentaries or down deep emotions, the angst resorts to physical altercations – because it's only been a few days yet all the weirdos are afoot. Why don't they ask where they're going when they have the chance? How can the unprepared do better than the armed and knowledgeable? Such derivatives rely on stupidity, conveniences, and the smart teenager before a tidy, abrupt end where nobody ever actually fights back against the swarm. Hush was better, but fans of the cast can enjoy the suspense here – which was surely Netflix's intention to maximize the bang for the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina buck with an alternative to Bird Box. We like this family and want to see them survive because not making it through an ordeal together is the scariest thing.

Voice from the Stone – It's post-war Tuscany and dilapidated castles for nurse Emilia Clark (Game of Thrones) in this 2017 tale opening with church bells, toppled statues, and autumn leaves. Letters of recommendation and voiceovers about previous goodbyes are unnecessary – everything up until she knocks on the door is redundant when the Italian dialogue explaining the situation is enough. Her charge hasn't spoken in the seven months since his mother's death, and sculptor dad Marton Csokas (Lord of the Rings) is frazzled, too. Our nurse is strict about moving on from a family, and although her unflinching English decorum feels like you can see her acting, this may be part of the character fronting when she wonders if she is qualified for the case. The mute son is likewise an obedient boy if by default because it takes speaking to object, and he listens to the walls to hear his dead mother. Period furnishings, vintage photos, mirrors, and candles enchant the interiors, but the stone and stucco are spooky thanks to taxidermy, strange old ladies, creaking doors, winding stairs, and broken tiles atop the towers. Wooded paths, overgrown gardens, and old bridges lead to exploring the flooded quarry, cliffs, family crypts, and stone effigies. This estate has been in the late wife's family for over a thousand years, and forty generations are buried beneath the rocks. Noises in the night provide chases and dead animal pranks as our nurse listens to the walls to prove it's just the settling house, rattling winds, or bubbling pipes talking. Progress with the boy takes time while billowing curtains and melancholy phonographs linger over somber scenes as she grows too attached in wearing our late mother's clothes. Unlike her, our nurse sits docile and silent when posing for his sculpture before fantasizing some saucy as he carves. She can care for father and son – talking to portraits of the Mrs. and listening to tombs to further ingratiate herself into this family. Desperate, she hears her now, too, in eerie interludes and spooky dreams that add aesthetics yet feel like weird seventies horror movies nonsensical. Wet perils and violent slaps begat illness, but questions on whether this fever is real or psychological unravel with fog, wheezing, heartbeats, and buried alive visions face to face with the dead. Although some may dislike the ambiguous non answers and stilted style or find the derivative Rebecca or Jane Eyre mood and outcome obvious, the slow burn period setting makes this an interesting piece for gothic fans not looking for outright horror a minute.

Iffy Recent Horrors

Iffy Recent Horrors 😕

by Kristin Battestella

Whether it's long form television, scary franchises, or famous faces onscreen, these recent horror legs leave a little something to be desired.

It was Okay

Bad Samaritan – Upsetting horses, whips, and screams open this 2018 thriller directed by Dean Devlin (Geostorm) starring David Tennant (Doctor Who) and Robert Sheehan (Red Riding). Older cars, computers, photography, and above the garage starving artists set the scene for our valets nicking from customers while they dine. It's a smooth operation – lifting trinkets, watches, small items that won't be missed. Why steal the gift card when you can scan it and they'll never know? Our burglars argue whether to con a decent family compared to the snobby rich before maneuvering around security systems, cameras, and dobermans. Viewers get to know these supposed crooks just trying to maximize any angle they can – Irish still struggling in corporate America while the bizarrely sans accent Tennant talks the expensive talk in his sweet Maserati. Coordinated snooping in his tricked out mod house to lift credit card numbers provides ominous phone action, handcuffs by the bed, and doors with seriously heavy locks. Encrypted passwords, suspect checkbooks, and smartphone flashlights lead to chains, horse bits, chairs bolted to the floor, and victims bound and gagged. Skeleton keys worn around the neck and cameras observing his quarry at all times elevate the suspense alongside designer tools, clean rooms, lye, serrated blades, and sinister saws. How can our robbers call the police without incriminating themselves? Close calls, regrets about the scheme, and fear of jail time or deportation bind our small timers against the twisted but suave serial killer methods, and stakeouts reveal mistakes made and a victim not where she is supposed to be. Our sociopath seeks to cleanse vulgar corruption at his secluded cabin containing torture devices, spurs, and cages. It's all about dressage and training to achieve the superior spark – just like a horse. Detective searches and police interviews come up empty thanks to coy clean ups, dismissing the bruises, lashes, and photographic proof. Our eponymous con turned do gooder becomes the prey – hacked, followed, and threatened with all manner of technology used against him. Sophisticated gadgets, vehicles, needles, and trackers implicate the petty thief, who turns to the seemingly uninterested FBI to file a missing persons report. Although he usually can't stand the low class squalor that's beyond “correction,” our killer's impressed with who's come to play in his sandbox. Terrorized families, job firings, social media blackmail, and presentation exposures help break the spirit as collared women are trained to go back to the cell and lock the door. The working class chaos and psycho trust fund order escalate to back alley attacks, violence down the stairs, baseball bats, gunshots, and explosions. So long as it isn't inelegant, who's next is going to watch, and snowy raids, jurisdiction technicalities, and shovel beatings lead to where all the gory bodies are buried. After resorting to the same old twisting mustache villain revelations, weak one on one fights, and action chases through the woods while the FBI sits on their hands waiting for a warrant; the finale does unfortunately loose some steam. The script never quite decides if we are inside the head of one or the other and doesn't always equally balance both sides. Overall this feels more like a nineties late night thriller – which is fine so long as viewers don't expect outright horror or thrills a minute – and fans of the cast can enjoy the careful orchestration and chilling interplay here.

Disappointing

Insidious: Chapter 3 – I liked the First Two in this franchise, but with releases so few and far between, it seems this 2015 prequel featuring Lin Shaye has been largely forgotten. Things here aren't off to a good start either with voices so, so low and music so, so loud. Unnecessary crescendos and warping toppers don't add atmosphere like the cluttered, old fashioned house and requests for a reading on a girl's late mother. Our psychic is out of the business and doesn't want to call on the dead because someone nasty may answer. Typical morning kitchen banter with dad Dermot Mulroney (My Best Friend's Wedding) restarts the story in a fancy apartment building complete with a bratty, ultimately irrelevant brother, hip friends with pink hair, and a kooky old black neighbor who dies first of course. Daughter Quinn rehearses but botches an audition thanks to bright spotlights and creepy shadows in the theater. Car accidents that should be shocking are again more so in volume than horror, but the hospital rush, flat lines, and fractures lead to a blue limbo and scary demon growls. Two broken legs make for sleeplessness and ringing hand bells (super loud naturally), a trapped in bed awkward amid thumps on the ceiling, shadowy arms, and phantom figures by the window. Locked basements, dark stairwells, parlors with skulls and crystal balls – the lone lady psychic fears and silence are much better than making the audience jump with a loud noise. It's weird, too, that a different horror series with astral demon action resorts to standard teen issues. While texting on an old slide keyboard phone and fake graphics are meant to indicate this is a decade ago, primitive video chat is used to great effect with the caller asking who's standing next to the would be victim when no one's there. Moved wheelchairs, figures behind the lace curtains, and looking under the bed frights increase as the intruder draws the shades, shuts the door, and flings the girl off the bed for more injuries and terror. This raspy breathing, mask wearing demon is pretty strong, jumping out four story windows and mystically transporting the wheelchair bound for abandoned fifth floor races. He's luring faceless ingenues to Room 514 yet no one researches the history of this creepy art deco building, and it takes gooey footprints on the ceiling for Dad to get a clue. It's easy to blink and miss dialogue here, questionable internal logic makes things confusing, and exposition about suicides and the reasons behind Elise giving up readings are left to exposition when we could have experienced the characterization. The living must search in the dark, resisting the lure to join dead relatives as evil follows them back from the astral underworld. The foggy corridors and red elevators are creepy, but it takes over an hour to get proactive against the demons – random scares, ghostly girls, and fun house horrors waste time while distorted frights predicting the First Insidious remain too brief. Ghost hunters found on the internet are called in complete with hidden cameras and night vision to record the flickering power, cracking bones, chilling possessions, and eyeballs in the throat. Seeing Elise overcome her issues to bring the psychic team together should have been the focus here, but for everything good, something cliché interferes. With the teen in trouble start and the psychic battles in the end, this feels like two different movies culminating with typical rattling furniture, whooshing action, and good ghosts conveniently coming through in the nick of time. Although this is late night watchable, there was potential for something much more than jump scares and gotchas.

I Couldn't Take It

Scream Queens– This thirteen episode 2015 Fox horror comedy debut opens with 1995 blood and babies in the bathtub ruining the jams to TLC before today's couture sleep masks and a millennial fast narration waxing on the superior social class, house slaves, and bulimia vomit on the carpet. Our immediately unlikable, elitist, don't feel sorry for poor little rich girl Queen of Kappa Kappa Tau Emma Roberts (The Blackcoat's Daughter) provides the breakneck history to match the quick editing and constantly on the move camera. Not so clean dean Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween) threatens to revoke the house charter, leading to confrontations, extreme clique behavior, and alumni still trying to be hip. Red devil mascots and white robes build atmosphere alongside fearful pledges, killer pranks, and faces scorched in hot vats. Plebs wanting cool boyfriends named Chad go along with dumping a body – sharing in the sisterly secrets with blood oaths found online. Exaggerated zooms and screams over bloody faces peeling off create camp horrors while deadly encounters put the killer and victim face to face but texting rather than speaking or fleeing. Here, victims tweet for help rather than shout for police who don't believe there's an emergency thanks to howling hag legends and people taking selfies with dead bodies cum décor. Eerie basement accidents and bodies in the attic connect to fatal sorority secrets while eating cotton balls and tasers to the privates begat candlelight vigils and crocodile tears Visits to lux families of the deceased reveal holiday trysts, and film classes featuring Texas Chainsaw Massacre wink at the slasher genre before fresh slicing and dicing to the upbeat music. Commentaries and home videos wax on how Halloween lets one with the right dumb luck costume get away with anything, and pledges sharpening knives and carving pumpkins talk about making sausages out of the dead to sell them at the county fair. Camper frights and trailer park snooping pieces together what happened in sorority twenty years ago, but threats to call the news are more fearful than the authorities. Unfortunately, everything here is so gosh darn busy with tell not show exposition in every walk while they talk on the move scene. The far, far too many characters go overboard on bitchy freeze frame zingers amid racist, disabled, Asian, and lesbian insults. Singer Nick Jonas plays into the gay stereotypes, and there's a difference between having nasty characters mock the deaf or queer and using the demeaning and homophobia for laughs. Overused corporate radio and existential woke quips come at espresso speed alongside superficial, pissy, unnecessary monologues. If the sardonic was taken down a notch, viewers could appreciate the mood. However, the humor in death detracts from the horror. Are we supposed to laugh at the squirting sliced arms or enjoy the demented slasher references? We can't appreciate whether the horror is straight or sarcastic because the decision to chuckle at the preposterous has already been made for the audience. Library research and juicy reveals are withheld until convenient – happening in the past with brief flashbacks for the viewer after the fact. We're not in on the discovery and have no time for the details thanks to the random plot. Each brisk, forty-four minute entry feels like empty calories with Thanksgiving appropriation, “ghosts” of not dead characters, and scary storytelling complete with cliché re-enactments. Every person has to have the last comeback, me me me repeating the costumed encounters, killer chats, and double crosses. Pleb makeovers, questionable paternity, pacts to become alibi buddies, and deaths ruled suicide in spite of footprints and slit throats can't hide the killer giveaways slicing up the instantly dated Backstreet Boys wannabes in white. Despite pink furs and chandeliers, the grandeur is an ugly Clueless cosplay, and fine references to Sixteen Candles jar against the text speak. Who is ultimately the audience here – today's hipsters who will laugh or adults who understand the horror homages? Between creating writers Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, and Ian Brennan also directing alongside Bradley Buecker and Michael Uppendahl, perhaps there are too many male cooks in this kitchen. Like their American Horror Story, this has the cast and the opportunities, but the cool crescendos and uneven pacing toy with the action to arbitrarily fit network episodes. This should have been a three night October event with all the desperate hip and trying to be funny falling flat excised. Tame blood and gore and pretentious trash talk in lieu of actual cursing come off false, leaving the commentary laden dialogue more obnoxious than witty. I skipped around and didn't miss a thing, not liking anyone or caring enough about the killers to continue. Quirky security guard without a gun Niecy Nash (Reno 911) could have carried all the humor needed, and with her dark suits, silver crop, and morning scotch, not to be underestimated Curtis stands out from the sheep. Seeing the series from her perspective would have been much more interesting!

Recent Horror Goods

More Recent Horror Goods!

By Kristin Battestella

Yes, these new millennium scares have some flaws and bumps in their dark, scary roads. However, most of the spooky here is a fun, creepy good time perfect for a quick contemporary fix or a marathon movie night with genre friends.

Below – Bruce Greenwood (Thirteen Days), Olivia Williams (The Sixth Sense), Matthew Davis (The Vampire Diaries), and Scott Foley (Felicity) do well in this 2002 World War II set haunt thanks to oceanic isolation, natural trappings, wartime fears, and mechanical failures. Ironically, the submarine secrets and mutiny don’t really need any paranormal or ghostly elements to keep the thriller pace intense – the paranoia and duress of the situation is enough for some boat bound mayhem or maniacal. Fortunately, the crew and company here are also fully aware of the inexplicable in their circumstances. The script smartly has the characters consider the expected horror movie twists on their fate – are they already dead themselves and ghosts hearing the living recovering their watery tomb? Pure horror audiences may dislike Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover) and his moments of humor, but the quirky, ironic wit here isn’t the laugh out loud jokes so often seen in today’s bad blends of comedy and scares. It’s also refreshing to see an unusually set period horror piece today – this isn’t contemporary nor Victorian gothic but has some of the brooding atmosphere of black and white forties horror.  It’s great to have old-fashioned uniforms, see records, and hear Benny Goodman yet the design here also feels a bit too modern. The boys look too all-American chiseled, and the submarine design and effects come across as too CGI laden rather than looking off the past as they should. There are a few questionable moments and some obnoxious shipmates that viewers will be happy to see depart, but this remains an entertaining 100 minutes with an intriguing mystery that needs to be carried through to the end. 

 
Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 2 –Poltergeist meets Inception with these 2011 and 2013 films from director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell. One interwoven plot of ghosts, possessions, psychic phenomena, séances, and paranormal equipment traverses across these two films; worlds blend together as our in fear family moves from one haunted house to next – be it modern scenery or spooky Victorians. Hypnosis, multiple locations, and activity in both the real world and astral arenas create layers of surreal and conflict while fog, lighting, zooms, odd camera angles, wide lenses, filters, and color photography distinguish dreams, flashbacks, and dimensions. Camera flashes and flashlights for lighting are not nearly as obnoxious as in films that literally resort to all flash and no substance, but the booming music cues and painfully loud sound effects shock for the sake of shock when the eerie soft noises and subtleties do better. Herky-jerky movements, found footage, and abandoned hospital scenes in Chapter 2 also seem like out of place Ghost Hunters add ons and convenient newspaper clippings and laying about medical files too easily replace the traditional research montage. Fortunately, the cast classes this duo up, and Rose Byrne (X-Men: First Class), Patrick Wilson (Phantom of the Opera), Barbara Hershey (Beaches), and mediums Lin Shaye (Dumb and Dumber) and Steve Coulter (Coma) all have something to do even when the script gets convoluted. Whannell and Angus Sampson (Spirited) ease and heighten fears with their love/hate humor and innuendo, but only Ty Simpkins (Little Children) as child in peril Dalton is actually needed – the unnecessary second son and baby are extraneous plot devices used for baby monitor scares and they disappear without explanation in both pictures. Jobs, detectives, doctors, and other realistic expectations also fall off as the tale goes on– neighbors don’t hear this racket? Why did the Lambert family moved to start the tale? Was this haunting there or did the astral abilities disturb the unidentified spirits? The passage of time isn’t always clear – months move but forensic results that should take a few days seem to happen in a few hours. Psychic capabilities, their origins, and rules of the supernatural locations are vague, and the demon of One has no explanation compared to the familial evil and Freudian basics of Two. These questions don’t sink the ship, but the writing and direction feels too assembly line complacent instead of structured and polished. The First film finale will be frustrating as well, for it feels more like an abrupt second act of a play. There’s too much material here for one supersized long form film, but these two halves must be see together in one marathon just to pick up on all the hints, remember the connections, and to truly see all the acts of the piece at work. The character journeys, resolutions, shadows, monsters, and scares tie together well enough that now it is surprising that these films were not written and shot back to back but instead came several years apart. In addition to repeat footage from the first movie and an open ending for the forthcoming third film, knowing Chapter 2 was actually a capitalizing follow up after the fact does cheapen it somewhat, and it’s also apparent that either Wan or Whannell has some unresolved issues with dolls. Saw, The Conjuring, the forthcoming Annabelle spinoff, and Dead Silence don’t immediately seem related in subject matter, yet all have similar creepy lipstick faces, puzzles, toys, and scary toppers. They can’t all be in the same universe thanks to repeat casting and such, but these films are certainly in the same vein with an obvious if you like one, you’ll like another style. This feeling follows these Insidious pictures, and despite intriguing film within a film facets, aha moments, emotion, complexity and action to keep up the surprises and intensity for both films, wise horror viewers can easily solve a few of the mysteries here. Not everything has a tidy coda answer – some of that is intelligent and some of it plot holes – but you have to pay attention for several viewings to get all of the Insidious goodness.

 

Stoker – A cryptic start, bizarre opening credits, distorted visuals, a superficial avant-garde, and CGI that’s a little too noticeable interferes with this 2013 family creeper penned by Prison Break alum Wentworth Miller and starring Mia Wasikowska (Jane Eyre), Nicole Kidman, and Matthew Goode (Brideshead Revisited). Fortunately, the abstract setting, older radios, cool cars, symbolic saddle shoes, retro fashion, cursive ink, and operatic flair create a mid century affluence – the camerawork need not call attention to itself thanks to an already intriguing funeral and awkward relations. Photography placing the dark and red ladies in competition or in suggestive poses with the ominous man of the hour does much better, and quick editing between multiple locations builds criminal suggestion, helping to balance the waiting for something to happen pacing and unevenly kinky and murderous tone. Brief cell phones and flat screen TVs airing obviously parallel animal predator programs spoil the mood a bit, but a solid phone booth appearance makes up the difference. Director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy) does layer too much style over substance, but this is indeed a straightforward first time script too reminiscent of other thrillers. Wasikowska’s India is a pretentious small game hunter turned anti social peas in a pod, and her escalating killer instinct, sexual awakening, and hunter versus prey reflection are no great surprise. Throwaway relatives toppers and a flashback history that could have started the picture are tossed in late despite fine fifties innuendo, familial catalysts, interesting characters, repeat viewing requirements, and the potential to dig deeper. Ironically more Hitchcockian and Grace Kelly-esque than her ill-received Grace of Monaco, Kidman is clearly in saucy pursuit of her brother-in-law, but she’s not as stupid or desperate as she seems. Goode, of course, is the noticeably creepy uncle feigning sexy older cool while being even more skivvy via dialogue laced with subtext and French flavors – gardens with soft soil for digging deep, young wine not ready to be popped, and all that. Though not horror per se or really all that scary, this is worth seeing through to the end thanks to the macabre, old school feeling and quirky, entertaining disturbia.

A Split Decision

Bag of Bones – I want to like this 2011 ghostly family tale for the fine cast, including Pierce Brosnan (GoldenEye), Annabeth Gish (The X-Files), and Melissa George (Triangle). The performances are enjoyable along with the rural, upstate setting, water scenery, and cool cabins. Some of the obligatory writing aspects are fun, too. However, even having not read the Stephen King source, one can tell this is poorly adapted, borrowed material that confusingly tries to endear whilst also using scary dreams for shockers, confusion, and audience mistrust. Despite the King of Horror pedigree, the slow pace often takes too long to get to the ghostly shenanigans, and though atmospheric, none of it is horrific. This didn’t need to be two parts, and every scene feels like it has its own unnecessary establishing scene before it. Other films have done this same type of paranormal resolution in a taught ninety minutes, and the plot here is surprisingly similar to the 1981Ghost Story adaptation – a Jazz era indiscretion, a familial curse, a female haunting, and an attempt at bodily appeasement. Prophetic connections aren’t fully explained, and too many questions are left unanswered – did he do the final revisions for his book or not? A few spiritual confrontations are downright laughable, too, like ghosts tossing records to deter people back up the stairs. Hit 007, you possessed tree, smack him with your leafy branches! These action missteps become hokey wastes of time in what should be a straightforward town mystery. King references may be fun for some viewers but too on the nose obvious or annoyingly pointless for others. This is entertaining to watch, even bemusing, but it’s also yelling at the TV frustrating thanks to convenient technological uses and contrived clues. All in all, I remember the bad more than the good, and that’s not the best way to do a memorable adaptation.