Not Found

As much as I love horror (even awesomely-bad horror), I’ve never really developed much of an affinity for vampire movies. Most of the time they are too cliched and ridiculous for even my forgiving tastes. Even so, I couldn’t resist checking out the unbelievably well-received Swedish vampire flick, Let the Right One In.

Set in 1982 and based on John Ajvide Lindqvist’s best selling novel, the story centers on Oskar, a small, quiet boy who is recipient of frequent bullying by his classmates. One night, while hanging out in the courtyard of his apartment complex, Oskar encounters a young girl, Eli, with pale skin and a wardrobe that seems woefully inappropriate for Sweden’s frigid winter climate. Though their initial encounters are standoffish (Eli repeatedly questions Oskar about his motives, “If I weren’t a girl, would you like me anyway?”), the two eventually form a bond.

I don’t think I’m spoiling anything when I tell you that we quickly learn that Eli is in fact a vampire. The older man she lives with–who we are initially led to believe is her father–seems to be little more than her glorified errand boy, “hunting” when she is thirsty and disposing of her “leftovers” when she must catch her own food. Although she is obviously a very deadly creature whose very existence depends on the death of others, we almost never feel like Oskar is in danger around her. That dynamic represents a good part of where the beauty of Let the Right One In comes from, this bizarre, yet touching friendship that forms between Oskar and Eli, who both are unable to make any other significant connections in their lives.

To classify Let The Right One In as just another horror movie really doesn’t do it justice. There are elements of horror (and Tomas Alfredson does a nice job using the bleak, muted Scandinavian setting to create suspense), but the main questions of the work don’t center on who will survive and who won’t–as in most horror films. Instead, we wonder about the possible outcomes of this relationship between a young boy and a vampire who has looked 12-years old for God knows how long. This ties in to one of my favorite things about Alfredson’s work here, which is that he leaves the ending open to interpretation. In fact, in the “Behind the Scenes” feature on the DVD, he discusses how the film’s ending can be justifiably seen as either happy or quite depressing.

Outside of Alfredson, I think both stars of the film deserve a great deal of credit. Kåre Hedebrant (don’t ask me to pronounce that) shows great emotional depth as Oskar, a pretty typical 12-year old boy thrown into a bizarre situation. His counterpart, Lina Leandersson, is similarly excellent as Eli, managing to simultaneously convey both the natural innocence associated with her character’s appearance and a subtle menace which hides just below the surface.

Overall, Let the Right One In is a outstandingly crafted film that will be enjoyed by most audiences. If you’re squeamish and concerned about gore, be aware that there are a few somewhat graphic scenes, but nothing too bad. If you’re willing to turn your head away for a few seconds every once in a while, you should still really enjoy this film. One final recommendation: Before you start watching the movie, make sure you adjust the settings to Swedish audio with English subtitles. My girlfriend and I just selected “Play movie” and were subjected to some unsurprisingly terrible English dubbing.

No related posts.

On MetaCritic, Funny Games received seven ratings of 80 or higher (which is really good), and six ratings of 20 or lower (really bad). It’s very rare to see critics as polarized as they were about German writer/director Michael Haneke’s remake of his own 1998 film by the same name. Now, what kind of movie could split critics into such distinctly different camps? How about an incredibly well crafted and suspenseful horror film with brutal violence and an almost unbearably pessimistic message about our society?

Funny Games centers on a young family heading to their vacation home for a quiet week away. Shortly after they arrive a young man (Brady Corbet) shows up at their door claiming that he was sent by the neighbors to borrow a few eggs. What starts out as merely an awkward interaction quickly becomes something much more sinister when the young man’s companion (Michael Pitt) arrives. The pair soon informs the family that they will be participating in a bet, and that their participation isn’t up for debate. The terms of the bet are simple; the young men bet that the family will be dead by 9 a.m. the next day. The family, of course, must bet that they will be alive.

What’s most disturbing about the mayhem that follows isn’t gore (there really isn’t much of that at all). No, what will stick with you after watching this film is the cold calmness with which the two assailants carry out the night’s festivities. They very rarely seem to ever lose their airtight grip on the situation. We’re never given a real reason for why they’re doing this, and that’s partly why Funny Games is so difficult for some people to stomach.

Outside of the moral criticisms Haneke is trying to make of our society, this film is a whole lot like Bryan Bertino’s 2008 film, The Strangers. What I mean is that both films primarily serve as an exercise in creating and sustaining suspense. In both cases, it won’t take long before you’ll have a pretty clear picture of the plot’s final outcome, but that doesn’t make them any less effective. The tone of both works lets you know that nothing positive could come out of these situations and it is simply something the viewer must accept. Thankfully, another similarity is that both films are tremendously successful at creating that suspense and sense of impending dread that they set out to. In Funny Games, Haneke accomplishes this by using a lot of long, sustained shots. You often feel certain something is about to happen, but Haneke doesn’t always follow through on those expectations, which will just leave you feeling even more antsy.

While the direction is fabulous, Funny Games biggest strengths are the performances delivered by almost every member of the cast. I can’t say enough about how perfect the choices of Pitt and Corbet were. Pitt especially is fantastic. He is so eerily self-assured that everything he does on screen is frightening. When he occasionally breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience directly it is truly chilling. On the other team, Tim Roth (the husband) and Naomi Watts (his wife) are both excellent as well.

While I really enjoyed Funny Games, it certainly isn’t for everyone. It is unflinchingly dark and depressing throughout. Haneke offers a criticism of American audiences’ thirst for violence in a way that may be difficult for some viewers to take. On the other hand, I found the way he goes about delivering his criticism to be intriguing, and the story kept me on the edge of my seat from start to finish. If you like horror movies or suspense driven thrillers, then you NEED to see this film. It’s definitely one of 2008′s best in the genre.

No related posts.

The Strangers

I, along with most other moderately serious movie goers, have grown very tired with the whole slasher / torture porn genre of horror movies that have littered theaters for the past several years. While The Strangers looks like it may fall into that genre if you just judged it from the trailer, writer/director Bryan Bertino thankfully didn’t go that route. The film’s plot is simple and straightforward, a young couple at an extremely difficult time in their relationship are terrorized by a group of, of course, strangers. The surprising thing is that it really didn’t need much of a plot. The Strangers is essentially an exercise in creating suspense, and at that it excels. Bertino gradually builds an overwhelming sense of dread around his characters before anything really goes down, making sure that you’re never too relaxed. Once things do start to happen, however, you won’t leave the edge of your seat. If you’re a fan of horror movies and appreciate the art of creating suspense, then The Strangers is definitely worth your while.

Young@Heart

Young@Heart is a documentary about a senior citizen’s choir who perform famous rock songs, including hits from The Ramones, Sonic Youth, Coldplay, etc. The film manages to be both heart wrenching and inspirational as the choir struggles to overcome the deaths of two members in the weeks leading up to their show. You can’t help but be impressed by, and feel connected to this group who is defying stereotypes and doing what they love during their golden years. Be prepared to grab some Kleenex during the last couple scenes of Young@Heart as one of the choir’s members performs an absolutely stirring rendition of Coldplay’s “Fix You.” It hit me much in the same way that Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt” did the first time I saw the video.

The Counterfeiters

Wow, what a movie. After I saw the outstanding animated French film Persepolis, I was about 90% sure that the Academy had chosen the wrong movie for last year’s “Best Foreign Language Film” Oscar, even though I hadn’t seen all the nominees. Let’s just say I spoke too soon. The Counterfeiters is the true story of Salomon Sorowitsch, a famous Jewish-German counterfeiter who was forced by the Nazis to lead a team of concentration camp prisoners ordered to produce fraudulent British currency to finance Hitler’s war effort. There have been tons of World War II movies, but this is a fresh, interesting story that we’ve never seen played out on film. Karl Markovics is excellent as Sorowitsch and director Stefan Ruzowitzky shows some serious skill behind the camera. If you at all enjoy foreign films, The Counterfeiters comes highly recommended.

The Incredible Hulk

As I mentioned in my review of Pride and Glory, I’m a huge Edward Norton fan and will see just about anything he’s in. After being disappointed by Pride and Glory, however, I was prepared for Hulk not to be very good. Thankfully, I was proven wrong. Hulk isn’t an Oscar caliber film, but it’s still a pretty good time. Norton gives a characteristically strong performance and the story is fast paced and action packed. I didn’t see Ang Lee’s 2003 version, but from what I’ve gathered Lee tried to take the franchise in the King Kong / Frankenstein sensitive beast tragedy direction, and it just didn’t click with viewers (it was a giant box office flop for those of you who didn’t know). It appears that writer Zak Penn and director Louis Leterrier took the criticisms of the last Hulk to heart and went out to address them one by one. If you’re in the mood for an entertaining big budget blockbuster, you could do much worse than The Incredible Hulk.

No related posts.

An Inconvenient Truth won two Oscars. Some people may even have found the implications of its message to be frightening. Even still, the consequences of our actions that are outlined in Gore’s film seem abstract because they don’t threaten our immediate future and may not necessarily affect each of us individually. The Last Winter asks why we shouldn’t expect the Earth to defend itself, to fight for its own survival like any other living thing. What takes place in the movie is filmmaker Larry Fessenden‘s interpretation of one way Earth could fight back, and it is like nothing you’d expect.

The plot of Last Winter centers on a proposed oil well in a previously protected area of Alaska. A team, made up of employees of the oil company and environmental inspectors from the government, has been sent to get the rig up and running and make sure that the operation will meet environmental standards. Tensions begin to rise as it becomes apparent that the opinions about the projects viability of the lead representative of the oil company, played by Hellboy star Ron Perlman, are vastly different from that of the head environmental inspector, portrayed by James LeGros, whose report will likely decide if the plan moves forward. The inspector begins to notice wild temperature swings that threaten to melt the permafrost which has been frozen for several thousand years, and, without the permafrost, the ice roads necessary to bring in the oil company’s equipment cannot be safely built.

The rest of the team doesn’t really begin to notice that anything is wrong, however, until one night when a young member of the team heads out on a routine job, only to end up wandering 30 miles away, on foot, and returns obviously shaken and without a clear explanation for what exactly happened. While the others originally attribute this to his lack of experience in the fierce Alaskan landscape, a series of grisly and unexplainable events gradually make it apparent that some other force is at work.

The best aspect of The Last Winter is writer/director Fessenden’s ability to create suspense. He takes his time creating a palpable weight that hangs over the film, leaving the viewer constantly aware that something bad is going to happen, but unable to predict when. The suspense is aided by the bleak Alaskan landscape in which the film is set. The fact that we don’t expect our characters to encounter much of anything when they head out into the snow makes it that much more surprising when they do. Once the real drama does begin unfolding, the film manages to keep the tension level high as Fessenden expertly mixes action and information, firmly placing us on the edge of our seats as we begin to understand what is causing the chaos that has enveloped the crew.

While the acting isn’t the film’s selling point, there are a few solid performances. The best of these is issued by Friday Night Lights star Zach Gilford, who convincingly portrays the shell shocked newbie who first encounters the mysterious force. LeGros, who has an astoundingly long but largely unremarkable resume, also delivers a quality performance in a role that may just gain him a few more roles where his name will make the poster. Gilford’s Friday Night Lights co-star Connie Britton carries her weight as the ambiguously aligned love interest of the environmental inspector, who also happens to be one of the oil company’s main representatives on the project. On the other hand, I wasn’t impressed by Perlman, who seemed to be more of a charicature of a “big oil” company man than a real person.

My only other real issue is with the very end of the film. I don’t want to give anything away, but I’ll just say that we get a taste of denouement without getting anywhere near enough. I suggest watching the last scene either with your TV’s volume cranked to the maximum or with the subtitles on, because that is the only way you’re really going to have any idea why the things that are taking place on screen are happening or what they mean in the bigger picture. I really wish Fessenden would have either given us a little bit more here or given us a different ending that didn’t try to imply so much.

Overall, The Last Winter is definitely one of my favorite horror movies to be released to DVD this year. The film is anything but predictable and may be the first film in a new branch of the “eco-horror” genre that blends themes from environmental disaster movies with familiar elements of horror. I’d definitely recommend this to any fan of horror/suspense and to most people in general. If you have a weak stomach for gore, do be aware, however, that there are a few scenes where you’re going to want to look away.

No related posts.

I’m going to start with a mini-rant here, but bear with me.

One pet peeve of mine is when studios put tags like “*Generic Big Name Director* Presents…” on the poster/box for a new movie when they served as a producer, but didn’t direct the movie themselves. Usually the director whose coattails they choose to ride is someone who has had major success in the genre (or a closely associated genre) of the movie to be released. I’m guessing the thought process among studio big shots goes something like this, “Well, we sure like this movie, but I’m pretty sure no one is going to pay to see it if it’s our director’s first major release and our star has never been on a magazine cover. What if we offered *Generic Big Name Director* a boat load of money to ‘be a producer’ and give it his seal of approval? No one will be able to resist shelling out their money to go see a movie if we put *Generic Big Name Director*’s name on the cover! It’s brilliant!” Sometimes this happens because it is feared that a truly quality movie is going to be overlooked and sometimes it happens because a studio is afraid a crappy movie is going to fail and they want to cover their asses.

The former is the case with El Orfanato whose poster displays Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro’s name in significantly bigger lettering than either the film’s star or its director. It upsets me because it takes the spotlight off director Juan Antonio Bayona, who really deserves a lot of credit for making a great movie. It also sucks because it just pumps up the already nearly inevitable comparisons between Bayona’s work and del Toro’s “Best Foreign Language Film” Oscar winner from last year, just because they are both Spanish language suspense/horror films that involve children. I think Kobe Bryant summed up my opinion best in a recent interview with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith. When asked about whether he wanted to be the next Michael Jordan, Bryant replied, “Just let me be me.” He went on to acknowledge that even though Kobe does want to someday be considered the best basketball player ever, he doesn’t want to be “the next Jordan,” he just wants to be great in his own right. I wish the studio would have just let El Orfanato be its own movie and not forced it to be the “next” Pan’s Labyrinth in order to be considered great.

Ok, on to the review.

El Orfanato is the story Laura, a woman who, along with her husband and son, Simon, has recently purchased and moved back into the house that previously served as the orphanage in which she was raised many years earlier. Laura hopes to turn the home into a bit of a sanctuary for children herself, as she has dreams to adopt and care for several “special needs” children. Shortly after they move in, Simon begins telling his parents of several new invisible friends that he has made, which his parents attribute to an overactive imagination coupled with isolation from other children his age. After a few, particularly troubling incidents involving Simon and his invisible friends, he and his mother have a falling out on the day that she has invited the families of the children she plans to adopt to her house for a party. After Laura has a disturbing encounter with a mysterious child wearing a burlap mask, she realizes that Simon has gone missing. After months of searches turning up no trace of Simon, Laura begins to open to the possibility that their may have been a supernatural involvement in her son’s disappearance. Her investigation into the history of her house, and of herself, leads to some frightening discoveries and a stunning and emotionally jarring ending that is on par with any of the genre’s greatest works.

Screenwriter Sergio G. Sánchez crafted a masterful script and Bayona has brought it to its maximum potential, creating an astounding amount of fear and suspense for a movie that features virtually zero blood. Belén Rueda, who plays Laura, does an exceptional job with her role, hitting all of the motherly emotions. I speak very little Spanish, but the quality of her delivery comes across in any language. Spanish film icon Geraldine Chaplin (who has 111 film/TV credits on her IMDB page) also delivers an excellent performance as Aurora, a medium that Laura hires to help investigate her son’s disappearance. She exudes the perfect balance of conviction and craziness to make her character come alive.

El Orfanato is a film that I would recommend to anyone. I truly think that this is a work, like Pan’s Labyrinth, which will appeal to the vast majority of viewers, even if they don’t traditionally like foreign language or horror films. The quality of the direction, script, and acting is all top notch; the degree of originality is also a tremendous accomplishment for a genre that often struggles to avoid formula driven gore fests. Go check it out next time you want to watch a scary movie with your girlfriend but don’t want to develop a case of Hostel/Saw-like nausea.

No related posts.

I love great horror movies, but I’m also a big fan of the cheesy ones. I own at least five different Friday the 13th movies, two Halloween sequels, various zombie flicks, and assorted other gems from the $1 bin at the Record Exchange. I’m not exactly sure whether that means I have high or low standards for the genre, but we’ll just say that I appreciate both the awesome and the awesomely bad. About the only time I really dislike a horror movie is when it presents itself as a serious and I go into it expecting it to actually be a good movie, but it turns out to just be bland and predictable.

When I originally heard that Rob Zombie was going to be filming a remake of the original Halloween, I was intrigued but only allowed myself to be cautiously optimistic. As weird as it was, I did enjoy The Devil’s Rejects and appreciate the fact that Zombie is a huge horror movie connoisseur and respects the genre. John Carpenter’s Halloween was far and away the best of the series, and really the only one that didn’t fall into “awesomely bad” territory, so I was happy that Zombie would, at least, be working with a script/plot that works. So, I went into the new incarnation of the classic with as few expectations and preconceptions as possible.

One thing that I liked about Zombie’s version is that he spends a significantly greater amount of time developing Michael Myers back story. He does eventually become the soulless killing machine that we have come to know, but we are at least given a greater understanding of how he became that way, even if it isn’t fully explained. One negative about Michael’s increased back story is that we have to suffer through several scenes with the director’s talentless wife, Sheri Moon Zombie. Both she and the guy who played her husband totally overplayed their roles. I know it’s a Rob Zombie movie about a serial killer, but the “family dynamic” displayed between Michael, his older sister, his mother, and the step-father is totally and completely ridiculous. In addition to his struggles to accurately portray even dysfunctional family life, he apparently has absolutely no grasp on the conversational patterns of teenage girls. I understand that we live in a highly sexualized society, and that this is a slasher movie, but come on man; the dialogue between all of the film’s teenage characters is absurd.

While he did make a few changes from the original movie, Zombie made sure to keep all of the original horror movie clichés in tact, most notably the famous equation: Teens + Sex + Alcohol = GRUESOME DEATH!!! Of course these scenes are all over the top and ridiculous, but the plus side, for all us hormone driven young males out there, is that one of the girls in the film who made the mistake of participating in all this sinning is the lovely Danielle Harris. You may, but probably don’t remember Danielle Harris as one of the stars of Halloween 4 and 5 back in the day. She was a lot younger then, but it’s crazy to believe she’s 31 (as of June 1, Happy Birthday), because I would have pegged her at more like 21-25 on appearance alone.

Unfortunately, as we all know, being good looking doesn’t necessarily translate into tremendous acting skills. Neither Harris nor anyone else does a particularly impressive job with their role. The generic humongous guy who played Michael was appropriately menacing, but if you put that mask on anyone that big and had them walk around ominously it’d be almost impossible for them not to be.

All-in-all, Rob Zombie’s Halloween doesn’t make enough significant strides to separate itself from the original, or even match it in quality for that matter. At the same time, it wasn’t an embarrassment, and was better than the majority of horror movies coming out these days on the strength of the story of the movie it was remaking alone. I appreciate Zombie’s attempt to add his own flair to a classic, but I think he should stick to making originals that better fit his style like The Devil’s Rejects.

No related posts.

I normally reserve my final judgment on movies until the end of the review, but I’m just going to state right now that Cloverfield is definitely worth the trip to the store. The reason I’m telling you this up front is so you know to pop a couple Advil right before you head to the Blockbuster. By the time you get to the store, rent the movie, and return home, the meds should be starting to kick in and you’ll be ready to enjoy the movie. I really liked the movie, but it made my brain hurt in the same way that trying to read a book with small print while riding in a car on a bumpy highway does. Much like the book in the car, the end result may be worth it, but you have to go in knowing that you are going to commit 100% of your attention for the entire length of the film.

The reason I say this is that Cloverfield is going to, from a visual standpoint, seem like what the Godzilla remake would have looked like it if it had swapped cinematographers with The Blair Witch Project. The film is shown through the point of view of the handheld camera of one amateur, who just happens to be documenting his best friends going away party when the monster strikes. Since this lone tape is supposed to be the only surviving footage of the attack, we get no other angles but those which Hud, our cameraman, provides us with. This provides an interesting level of realism by putting the audience right into the first person perspective of the characters. We see only what the characters come across and only learn what they are able to learn about the situation, amidst the chaos. We are given no reason for the attack, no background on the monster, and no updates on what is going on when the monster isn’t on screen.

Cloverfield is a truly unique interpretation of the classic monster movie genre. While the creature is certainly a major part of the film, it doesn’t ever really become a character like Godzilla or King Kong do. A good way to describe the monster’s role is to think of it like a storm, or whatever else is your natural disaster of choice. The monster’s attack is, at its core, just another way to throw characters into a chaotic situation. That doesn’t make this any less successful of a film, though. The film sets out to show how everyday, human characters react to a totally unforeseeable crisis. I appreciate this goal because the creature and destruction special effects are good enough that writer Drew Goddard could have taken the easy way out (by letting the characters turn into faceless clichés out to destroy the monster) and Cloverfield still would have made money.

While the monster is awesome, and the first hand visuals of Manhattan in the throws of a near-apocalyptic nightmare are striking (which may make those that are particularly emotionally affected by reminders of 9/11 feel uneasy), Cloverfield certainly does have some flaws. While Goddard avoided using monster movie clichés for his characters, the plot amongst the characters is fairly predictable and their actions don’t always feel totally authentic. For one, Rob, the guy for whom the going-away party is being thrown, displays this sort of “knight in shining armor” mentality toward Beth, his longtime dream girl who he has recently slept with, only to let the chance of a potential relationship pass because of his impending move. There is only a certain amount of heroism that I can reasonably believe. You escape a burning house, only to realize that your girlfriend is trapped on the roof and you’re going to go up and save her? Why not? You’re going to dive in a swimming pool to save your little brother before a loose power line has a chance to touch the water and kill him? I believe it. But, if you’re telling me that you’re going to walk to the opposite side of Manhattan to try and rescue a girl you’re not even in a relationship with when there’s about an 80% chance that she will already be dead by the time you get there and a giant creature is killing everyone and destroying the city, then back up a foot or so because your nose is growing and I don’t want you to poke my eye out. Also, the persistent comedic relief from our cameraman, Hud, frequently seems out of place as well. I understand the desire to lighten the mood, but a lot of his comments just didn’t seem like things that anyone would say if they were truly in that situation.

With those flaws noted, there is still quite a bit to like. Although the characters actions or lines sometimes seem ridiculous, they really do seem like real people that anyone could meet. By making the characters just regular people, and not scientists or soldiers, we are able to empathize with them in a way that we normally can’t in this genre. I also appreciate the fact that the film doesn’t provide any sort of a quick-fix ending. At the very beginning of the film we are told that the tape was found at the location “previously known as Central Park,” an ominous statement that tips us off to the ultimate result of the attack.

Cloverfield is really just as much “experience” as it is “movie”, and it is definitely worth the price of admission. It’s not every day that you see writers or directors step outside the box, especially in such a traditionally formulaic genre, so when they do, it is important to take note. I stated at the beginning that I recommend checking it out, but just make sure that whoever you’re planning on watching it with isn’t prone to motion sickness before you pop it in your DVD player.

No related posts.

The best thing about this movie is that you can save yourself the hassle of wasting an hour and a half of your life actually watching it by going on YouTube and watching the preview. Literally, the trailer shows you everything you’ll learn during the movie except for the not-so-thrilling conclusion.

The plot, a crazy manager at a remote motel and his cronies make videos of themselves murdering unfortunate guests, is ridiculous. They never give you any hint as to why they do it, how they get away with it, how long they’ve been doing it…you know, minor details like that. The whole thing is just totally implausible. In the end, there is exactly zero denouement offered, which, while stupid, fits with what you would expect after watching the rest of the film.

Plus, the casting couldn’t have been worse. The hotel manager seemed more nerdy than crazy, creepy, or frightening, and some genius chose Ethan freaking’ Embry (Can’t Hardly Wait) to play one of the killers. As the Comic Book Guy would say, “Worst. Choice. Ever.”

Stay away from this.

No related posts.

Unlike most movies you’ll see me review for this site, I really had no intention of seeing The Mist. In fact, the only reason I did end up seeing it was that I was presented with the choice of either going to see The Ruins in theaters or watching The Mist on DVD at a friend’s house. After doing a little bit of research online and discovering that The Ruins is essentially the latest in Hollywood’s recent string of “torture porn” nudity and gore fests, I decided that The Mist had to be the lesser of two evils. It turned out that not only was it the lesser of two evils, but I ended up genuinely enjoying it.

The Mist is the newest Stephen King adaptation, and definitely one of my favorites. It focuses on a group of people who become trapped in a supermarket when a mysterious mist descends from the mountains and envelopes their small New England town. Their initial fear that it is the result of a chemical explosion at the nearby military base is quickly brought into question when a man comes bursting into the store claiming that there is something in the mist and that it captured his friend as they were trying to flee. Tensions first begin to rise when a portion of the group, considering themselves to be pragmatists, decide that the idea that there are giant creatures in the mist is ludicrous and that the best thing to do is go out and seek help. Matters are further complicated when the town’s resident religious fanatic, Mrs. Carmody, begins asserting that what is happening must certainly be the beginning of what is described in “Revelations” and that God is vengefully bringing “the end of days.” Although most of the crowd originally dismisses her rants as absurd, the events that unfold gradually begin to make some of her claims seem increasingly reasonable, which slowly divides the group into two distinctly oppositional camps. This is about as far as I can go into the plot synopsis without ruining major chunks of the film.

The Mist is, at its heart, a B-movie and thus is going to have some B-movie problems. The main one is that the creatures are really the film’s stars. They are why the movie was made and they are why people went to theaters. When the main draw of a movie is a special effect, it is typically not a recipe for critical acclaim. The film’s leading man is Thomas Jane (The Punisher), who plays a local artist who becomes the de facto leader of the non-religious sect. Jane simply doesn’t have the presence necessary to make the film more about the characters than the creatures. He does a decent job with what he’s given to work with, but in addition to his limitations as an actor, he wasn’t given an adequate script to save the dialogue from seeming like filler between the film’s horror elements. Oscar winner Marcia Gay Harden (Pollock, Mystic River), who plays Mrs. Carmody, on the other hand, really milks her role for everything it’s worth. There have been plenty of similar religious extremists in films before, but she is successfully convincing and frightening to a degree that very few others have achieved. She possesses just the right amount of “crazy” in a way that reminds me of Judi Dench’s excellent performance in 2006′s Notes on a Scandal.

Where The Mist does succeed, however, is generating plenty of suspense. I was on the edge of my proverbial seat for most of the film, never being able to guess exactly what was coming next. This lack of predictability may not seem like a major achievement, but with as many terrible, clichéd horror movies as have been released in the post-Scream era it is really something to be proud of. The movie’s stars, the creatures, were handled effectively as well. We see plenty of them, but I never felt like I was being beaten over the head with them to the point that they were no longer frightening. Part of the reason for this success is that there was enough diversity in the type and size of the creatures that each encounter with a new one felt fresh. The most surprising achievements of The Mist, though, are the thought provoking examinations of human nature and morality under extreme conditions. You may be a pragmatist or an atheist, but what is the threshold for what would have to happen for you to potentially question those beliefs? Once that threshold is crossed, what would you be willing to do in an effort to save your soul? The final question the film poses, in a scene somewhat reminiscent of old Twilight Zone episodes, is even more difficult to answer. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will tell you that after watching the final scene I spent the next several minutes silently staring blankly at the screen as the credits rolled past. To give you some perspective, that is an effect that no movie has had on me since the first time I watched Requiem for a Dream.

Overall, while The Mist isn’t terrifying, and is certainly less graphic than a lot of the horror movies being released these days, it’s still not something that I would encourage my mom, or anyone else that is particularly faint of heart, to rent. Still, The Mist is something that I believe the vast majority of people will enjoy. So, if you’re having a movie night with some friends or your significant other and are considering choosing horror movie, do yourself a favor and rent this instead of whichever Hostel / Saw clone is new to Blockbuster that week.

No related posts.

I’m not normally big on monster movies. This may surprise some people because I’m normally a huge fan of horror movies in general. Serial killers? Sure. Zombies? Why not? Murderous ghosts? I’ll give it a shot. For some reason, however, monster/creature movies have always struck me as being a little too over the top and outrageous. After seeing The Host, though, I’m now beginning to think that this was just because there hasn’t been a decent monster movie made in recent memory.

The Host is set in Seoul, South Korea and centers on the highly dysfunctional Park family. Gang-du and his father, Hie-bong, run a small food stand on the bank of the Han River. Hang-du doesn’t have a whole lot going for him. He’s kind of chubby, he’s always falling asleep on the job, and he doesn’t really seem to have any sense of ambition. Somehow, however, he must have at least had his game together at one point because he has a daughter Hyun-seo, who appears to be smart and very well adjusted. Hang-du’s sister, Nam-joo, is a world class archer who has the problem of freezing under pressure, and his brother, Nam-il is a cynical alcoholic.

The film opens with a scene in a morgue with a cold-hearted American ordering his Korean assistant to dump hundreds of bottles of formaldehyde down the drain, even though he knows full well that the pipes eventually lead to the Han River. (Interesting Note: This is based loosely on a real event, where an American ordered 20 gallons of waste that contained formaldehyde be dumped down the drain. The drain would eventually lead to the Han River, but not before passing through two water treatment plants and reducing any formaldehyde to safe levels.) This is really the only explanation we get for the monster’s existence and it seems to be done more as a courtesy to the viewer than as a necessary plot device. As much as I think my subconscious wanted a more complete explanation of how this menacing creature came into existence, when I think back, I think the way this was handled worked well. This allows the film to be presented as more of a disaster movie, likening the monster to an earthquake or tornado, which adds a sense of realism. The message that is put across to the characters/viewers is basically, “You may never know exactly how or why this creature is here, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is, so now you’re going to have to deal with it.”

The creature first makes its presence felt when it attacks the area of the Han River bank where the Park’s operate their business. The creature is menacing and devastatingly powerful, but not to an absurd degree. The fact that the damage the creature creates is proportional to its size (which seems to be comparable to a school bus) really does wonders for the film. If the monster would have been smashing buildings or throwing tanks around it would have been too easy to become comical. Amid the chaos of this first attack, the creature captures Hyun-seo, despite Gang-du’s best efforts to save her. Gang-du and the entire Park family are distraught. They think that they have lost the little girl forever. After the attack, all of those that survive are taken to a large gymnasium that is basically set up like the Super Dome after Hurricane Katrina. It is here that we learn that the only other person beside Gang-du to come into contact with the monster and survive appears to be suffering from some strange new virus that officials decide must be carried by the beast. Gang-du is immediately perceived as a threat and is taken into custody. While in quarantine, Gand-du receives a phone call that encourages him to hold out hope that his daughter may still be alive and he might have the chance to save her.

From a visual standpoint, I thought The Host was very well shot. There were a lot of muted gray, green, and blue tones throughout the film which worked especially well in the sewer scenes of the movie. The creature also looks fairly realistic, both in its movement and appearance, which is a credit to whoever was in charge of the film’s CGI.

My one serious problem with the DVD is the terrible English dub. Normally I watch foreign films in the native language with subtitles, but when I started this one up and it defaulted to English audio I decided to let it go. This was a mistake. Whoever cast the English voice over actors for The Host needs to get fired from whatever project they are currently on just because they did such an awful job here. The English voices were beyond ridiculous and at some points were just outright cartoonish. Often, there was slapstick emphasis in places it where it had no business being and there were frequently very significant differences in what the dub said and the subtitled translation put on the bottom of my screen. Why was I watching the movie in English with English subtitles, you may ask? Well, this is mainly because I had that little belief that the voice actors were actually doing the writer’s script justice. I think I would have enjoyed Host significantly more if I had watched it in Korean, and I partially blame myself, but that isn’t enough to excuse just how unprofessional a job this was.

That being said, I still did enjoy the film quite a bit. For anyone who is considering renting the movie, I still recommend it. Just watch it in Korean with subtitles. The Host is filled with great suspense, solid art direction, and awesome CGI. If you like horror movies then this falls into the “Definitely Rent It” category. If you don’t like horror movies, I still think there is plenty of value in The Host that makes it worth your while. While great at generating suspense, the monster isn’t something that the faint of heart are going to have nightmares about. There is also just enough humor / satire thrown in to make Host a completely worthy selection for a movie night with a few friends.

No related posts.