Halloween Blog Month: My Favorite Horror Films

          My relationship with Horror is tricky. While it's a genre I particularly like, I usually walk away feeling cheated and angry. Horror has a way of playing to the lowest common denominator. This means that Horror is usually, on a maturity level, about even with anything from the Happy Madison production company. But when I find that diamond in the rough, that rarest of precious stones, the good Horror film, I cherish it for years and years.

Here are ten Horror films I can usually rely on. For list purposes, I'm leaving out The Exorcist, The Shining, The Blair Witch Project, Rosemary's Baby, Carnival of Souls, and Night of the Living Dead. You've seen them, I've seen them, we've all seen them. We all know they're good. My number 10 is a little iffy too. But hey, here it is:

10) Evil Dead 2

          Sam Raimi's fantastic Horror/Comedy sequel is one of the most crowd-pleasing of all crowd pleasers. This movie gets better and better every time you see it. The camera work, the acting, the writing, the crazy effects. It all works. Army Of Darkness is also highly recommended. While the film isn't really all that scary, it makes up for it with the amount of fun it has with the genre.


9) [Rec]

          [Rec] is one of those Horror movies that sneak up on you. What at first feels like a pretty standard "found footage" flick becomes an immensely frightening, and surprising, real-time pot-boiler. It begins with a woman trying to find something interesting to film for her after-dark news series. When she decides to follow some firemen to a routine rescue, she quickly finds herself in a dangerous quarantine zone.

             The film's use of its set design is truly mesmerizing. The apartment complex becomes a character in itself. There was an American remake of this film recently that did an okay job of recreating the magic of [Rec], but there's just something about the end that doesn't compare to the Spanish-language original. The last five minutes are truly frightening.

8) Trick'r Treat

          Trick'r Treat is one of those rare short film anthologies that actually work. The films congeal. They are the separate limbs of a tree. Too often, these short film anthologies feel too disjointed and tonally dissimilar to be tacked to one another. When Trick'r Treat was brought to my attention last year, I couldn't help but feel like the movie would disappoint. Its distributor had decided to pull it from a theatrical release, last minute, in order to send it straight-to-DVD, the writer and director, Michael Dougherty, hadn't really proved himself in any significant way yet, and the overall story (plus marketing) are pretty dreadfully displayed.

         However, despite all of this, I found a way to really dig this movie. It knows what it's all about. There is a strange tone to it. It is a very funny Horror movie, but it's not really a Horror/Comedy. The stories work together to create this wacky Halloween film that exists in its own special world. As if Raising Arizona were made into a Horror film, but kept its zany logic intact. I'm going to make this movie a yearly event.

7) The King of Comedy

          Martin Scorsese's often overlooked masterpiece is also often overlooked as a comedy. While, yes, the film does use the word comedy in its title, have Jerry Lewis in its cast of characters, and center on a stand up comedian, the movie is really only kind of funny. The humor is dark, twisted, and mean. Robert DeNiro's Rupert Pupkin is only funny in that he doesn't really exist. Jerry Lewis' version of Jerry Lewis is only funny because we all know that Jerry Lewis truly is a mean, narcissistic comedian.

         In reality, The King of Comedy is a much less optimistic version of Taxi Driver. You read that correctly. While Taxi Driver has that little bit of redemption at the end, what does Rupert Pupkin have by the end of King of Comedy? The movie is a dark portrait of a man who wants nothing more than to be laughed with. He wants to be in on the joke, but he is always the butt of it. DeNiro's performance is sad, pathetic, terrifying, and, yes, a little funny.

       I recommend you check it out immediately. It should be more popular than it is.

6) The Devil's Rejects

          Something happened to Rob Zombie between House of a 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects. While the former film seemed rambling and adolescent, the latter film feels like an absolute explosion of raw talent. The key word here is raw. The Devil's Rejects is, admittedly, totally disgusting, but it is also kind of charming. The characters are full and dynamic. They love each other. They have senses of humor about their day jobs. You come to truly care for them. And after you see the kinds of things they do in this movie, you really come to appreciate the level of skill Rob Zombie has as a director.

        I will be the first to admit that Rob Zombie is a horrible screenwriter. But what he lacks in his writing talents he more than makes up for with his casting, direction, and music choices. This movie has a killer soundtrack. And when the actors say their terrible dialogue, they do it with such conviction that you can almost believe it. There's just something whimsical about this film that Zombie has not been able to capture in his other efforts. It's so off the cuff, so unpretentious, so totally raw, that it is hard to find fault with it. It is one of the truest expressions of Horror filmmaking I've seen in some time. It's not for everybody, that's for sure, but The Devil's Rejects is definitely better than it needs to be.

5) Martyrs

          The hallmark of any good horror film is its ability to cause discomfort. There is the cheap route, where gore and violence become a quick way to make moviegoers barf, and there is the effective route, where the film takes its time to prove itself. Where it makes you fall in love the characters and fear for them. A good Horror film stirs something inside of you. It takes your fears and turns them against you. It forces you to question disturbing topics.
       
            Martyrs is in the latter category. While it is true that Martyrs has some of the most disturbing images of gore I have ever witnessed, it is not reliant on that gore to manufacture its scares. Martyrs is a hopeless film. It is about a girl who escapes abuse and makes it her lifelong goal to find retribution. When she finally does get her revenge, a half hour into the film, the audience wonders where the film could possibly go from here. And it goes to a place you never would have expected. The film is beautifully shot. The acting is superb. And the scares genuinely unnerve you. No matter how many "serious" critics dismiss the film as nothing more than a torture porn trifle, there really is something to Martyrs. In a way, it is a beautiful film. But it is also nihilistic as all get out.

          Martyrs is for the brave. Be warned.

4) Inland Empire

          I think I've said enough about this movie, but I'm going to say some more. If you let it, Inland Empire can really, really terrify you. Lynch takes almost every film convention and turns it on its head. He intentionally edits scenes of dialogue so that the moments of silence stretch into an eternity. He takes the convention of character continuity and spins it by making names and faces almost never match up. The visuals are fuzzy and unclear, breaking our HD-centric times. The film plays like a bad nightmare. It never fully makes sense. Its characters suffer and we don't know why.

         And then there's that horrible shot of Laura Dern running toward the camera, her makeup running across her face, screaming.

       Good luck.

3) Don't Look Now

          You'd be hard-pressed to find a more atmospheric Horror film than this one. Nicolas Roeg's strange, hypnotic psycho-Horror about a married couple's slow descent into madness after the death of their daughter is truly a masterpiece of film editing. The entire film plays like the worst therapy session of your life. The film succeeds because of its truth. These are parents who are struggling with a very real fear. The characters are honestly and accurately portrayed.

           The Venice setting adds another layer to the madness of the film. Its thousands of small alleyways and canals make the very setting something of a Jungian maze.

         And that ending, my God, that ending.

        Don't Look Now is not only one of the best Horror films I've ever seen, but one of the best films period.

2) Audition

          Now that I've told you that Audition is a Horror film, it is much less likely to scare you. But don't let that fact deter you. This is one genuinely disturbing flick. What starts off as a kind of sweet little art film about an old man's search for love turns into a sort of poor attempt at a RomCom, which then turns into an excellent attempt at terrifying Horror masterpiece.

            Takashi Miike does something amazing with Audition--he somehow combines an interesting, thought-provoking arthouse film with a Horror film final act that doesn't suck. While a lot of Horror films seem to fall apart and lose steam as they reach their conclusions, Audition only gets better and better. If you haven't seen this one, definitely look it up. I believe it is available as Watch Instantly on Netflix.

1) Benny's Video

          Benny's Video is, without a doubt, the most disturbing film I have ever seen. This is because the film does not ever, at any time, ring false. Michael Haneke's direction is straightforward. At no time does the movie go out of its way to be theatrical. It merely is. And the bleak picture that it paints is enough.

             The film is about a young man, Benny, who obsesses over violent videos in his bedroom. There is one video in particular, one where a pig is slaughtered, that he watches repeatedly. In a time where literally any form of violence can be found on the internet, this film is even more true, and even more bleak, in its representation of disillusioned youth.

          Benny's obsession with the video leads him to make his own. He invites a cute girl over to his house, watches the video with her, sets up his own camera, and kills her. The shot is long. We watch her die and fall onto the ground. Benny cleans up his mess, hides the body, and watches the tape again.

         The film makes a point to be untheatrical. It just exists. The shots last for several minutes at a time. The acting is incredibly minimalist. There are no consequences in the film. It is truly the bleakest, most disturbing Horror film I have ever seen. And it is also the best.

Honorable Mention
         Santa Sangre

               This film defies genre. But it is mostly Horror. It is on Netflix Watch Instantly. I suggest you just look up and watch it. You won't regret it.

What are some of your favorite Horror films? Let me know in the comments section or on Facebook. 

Halloween Blog Month: Modern Horror Vs. Modern Horror Fans

Gross

                                      (Note: This is the bloggiest blog I've ever blogged)

         Modern Horror is all about butts in seats. But let's be honest, Horror is a genre's genre, and most of the people who produce it are in the field because they love dem seat butts. There is a formula, people. And that formula is easy for hacks to follow in order to make a quick buck. When people talk about the state of Horror films, they mostly speak from an "All is lost" perspective. The great Don't Look Now's of yesteryear are lost to buckets of blood and graphic torture. Where is the suspense! Where is the mystery! I've written a couple of blogs on the subject myself. And for a movie lover like me, it is painful to see other cinephiles scoffing at Horror films like they are the lowest form of entertainment. Even if they are.

       Of course, when a Horror film does turn out to be good, its genre is always transferred to thriller. The Sixth Sense, The Silence of the Lambs, The Exorcist--all now widely written about as thrillers. Why? Because the very word, Horror, is demeaning to the film.

        It reminds me of a joke from 30 Rock, where Alec Baldwin's character tries to stop Tina Fey from calling a man Mexican. "No, Lemon, don't call him that. That can't be what he wants to be called."

       The fact is, Horror has always been a dead genre for film. Going as far back as Nosferatu, true cinema lovers often wonder why any intellectual would want to feel such a "feely" feeling as fear. Certainly tragic catharsis is the only true emotion an intellectual can have. But Tolstoy claimed that Comedy is for the intellectual and tragedy is for the commoner. Furthermore, an interesting thing about comedic films is that they are structurally quite similar to Horror films. Their purpose is similar as well.

        I suppose I could write about the difference between the Saw franchise and the Paranormal Activity franchise as two ends of a Horror spectrum. One side being too gory and up-front, and one side being too slow expecting too much from too little. I suppose I could talk about Kevin Smith's newest film, Red State, and how it's trying to satire the very genre it becomes--and not very well. But I'm going to talk about something else instead. You've heard enough about these other things.

       I want to talk about Horror fans.

       More specifically, I want to talk about The Human Centipede (Full Sequence). Not because it's disturbing, disgusting, revolting, blah blah blah, but because it is extremely aware of the state of Horror fandom. And in this way (and, I promise, in this way alone), Tom Six's film is...kind of brilliant.

     The first Human Centipede is a pretty standard torture porn film. It has the annoying young women, the creepy older villain, the gross-out shots of mouth-to-anus surgical binding. The usual suspects. Six's film is by no means the most repulsive movie I've ever seen (I'm looking at you Martyrs), but it is certainly in the same camp as something like High Tension or Inside.

     The full sequence, however, is another beast altogether. It stars a man named Martin, fat, alone, sad, and the biggest Horror nerd you've ever met. He becomes obsessed with the original Human Centipede film and decides that he is going to attempt his own sequence. The film is shot in glorious black and white (to add an extra level of artifice) and uses unknown actors.

     While the film kind of turns into one long poop joke, I can certainly appreciate what Tom Six is doing with the material. But I am also extremely upset by it. He is taking the common stereotype of a Horror nerd and putting him in the situation that the media absolutely loves to cover. This is the guy who shot his classmates because of Grand Theft Auto. He is the weak minded, highly malleable superfan that horror is famous for. He is the extremist.

     Which brings me to my problem with the genre. Horror has some of the most devoted fanboys imaginable. When Horror films are released, they are sold to this demographic. The trailers are cut to please the guys and gals on the forums and fanboards who religiously say things like *Most Boring movie EVER UGH*. These are the most vocal supporters, and detractors, of any Horror franchise.

     But what about the people who don't want franchises? What about the people who don't spend all of their time on forums? I suppose we just have to accept the extremes of the spectrum. Do I want to throw up when I go see Saw or do I want to fall asleep during Paranormal Activity 3? I don't want to do either, really. But, as politics has been split into extremes, so has Horror. We have liberal and conservative, and the moderates are the ones who suffer. Again and again.

     It's not often that we get good Horror. It's sad really. But we can thank the few extremists who ruined it for everybody else.

     Speaking of good Horror, I suppose I should let you guys in on my favorite Horror films of all time.

    That's next in line, folks.

Movie Review: Moneyball

         Moneyball, based on Michael Lewis's bestselling book of the same name, is another one of those feel good sports movies about the drama of competition and the rewards that great sacrifice can bring. Except not really. Actually, Moneyball doesn't really make you feel that good. And it's not really even about sports. It's about creativity and adaptation. It's about having a bold vision and then following that vision until the end. Of course, that said, Moneyball is still the most exciting sports movie I've seen since Friday Night Lights.

         In a way, Moneyball is a spiritual sequel to last year's great Social Network. Not only because Aaron Sorkin wrote both screenplays (Screenplays that Sorkin may win back to back Oscars with), but because they are about recent events that shook how we view our culture. While Social Network is about creative ownership and how we interact with one another in the twenty-first century, Moneyball is about adaptability and how creative, critical thinking can redefine a way of doing business.

       The basic plot is this--Billy Beane (in one of Brad Pitt's most believable roles) is the general manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball team. They have a tenth of the budget of the New York Yankees. He has just lost his best three players, and he has one season to save his job and the reputation of the team. At first, Beane counts on his scouts' old way of finding athletes to help find replacements for his top players. However, Beane finds out quickly that the way scouts find recruits feels more like a beauty contest than a search for raw athletic talent.

      This is where Peter Brand comes in. Brand, played here by Jonah Hill in the absolute best, most subdued performance of his career, is an economics major from Yale who has created a formula for finding the most undervalued (i.e. cheapest) players in professional baseball, and using their abilities to get runs for the advantage of the team. At first, Brand's theories are labeled as ideological and naive. Like Mark Zuckerberg, Brand is young, brilliant, and totally misunderstood by the veterans surrounding him. However, Billy Beane is desperate for some new ideas, and he, much to the irritation of his peers, puts his full confidence in Brand's ideas. What results is the greatest winning streak in professional baseball history.

      The film, directed by Capote's Bennet Miller, somehow makes guys sitting around talking the most exhilarating piece of filmmaking I've seen all year. The performances are understated and nuanced, allowing the audience to understand these men as a strange combination of professional gambler and businessman. Billy Beane is not played as a crusading genius, but instead as a broken, hopeless loner searching for a way to keep his job. When he isn't sitting quietly in his office, he is erupting in rage at whatever object he has around. Beane is terrified by Baseball, by his team, by his own ideas, and by Peter Brand's youth.

      Brand, in turn, is terrified of being wrong. Although his ideas seem to be sound mathematically, he has a hard time feeling confident that the formula has a real-world application. This fear is amplified when the team, in the beginning of the season, has trouble finding its footing under the management of Art Howe, played by a thankless Philip Seymour Hoffman. Unlike Jesse Eisenberg's characterization of Mark Zuckerberg, Hill plays Peter Brand with with a completely opposite fault. He cares too much about those around him. He doesn't want to step on anybody's toes, and by empathizing too much with others, he has a hard time committing completely to his unorthodox ideas. Hill plays the role with a sort of hesitant politeness. He is quiet, always saying please and thank you, and is constantly moving out of other people's ways. The Jonah Hill you have come to love (or in the case of most people, come to hate) has made a total personality transformation for this film. His voice never rises above a whisper.

      However, despite the excellent Sorkin screenplay and the excellent performances, Moneyball is truly Bennet Miller's film. From the opening shot of the film, it becomes quite clear that we are in the hands of a masterful filmmaker. The film is shot with a steady hand, only utilizing camera movement when it is of the utmost importance. The visual style, in its total lack of dynamic movement, is directly contrasted by the film's amazing use of sound.

     There are hundreds of voices in Moneyball. At any one time, the voices of several sportscasters can be heard on the film's soundtrack. From the opening shot, the film is narrated by the voices of Baseball games. Voices act as the Greek Chorus here. In every major scene, over twenty voices speaking simultaneously can be heard over the somber image of Brad Pitt's face as he runs on a treadmill, listens to the radio, paces in his office. The voices represent the world's opposition of Billy Beane's ideas, and their omnipresence in the film lend to its unbelievable suspense.

     Moneyball is an excellent film and I suggest you go see it as soon as possible. I challenge any of you to find a more compelling sequence in any film this year than "The Streak" sequence in the final act of the film.

I give Moneyball 9/10 well-behaved Jonah Hills.

Underrated: Life During Wartime

          Like Kevin Smith, Todd Solondz has created his own universe of characters who interact from one film to the next. These are not sequels as much as they are investigations. For instance, Mark Wiener, the older brother from Welcome To the Dollhouse and the character who most resembles Todd Solondz physically and temperamentally, shows up in three of the five Solondz movies made since his first appearance. Mark never lasts long in the film, and usually says the exact same line, but the context is always dramatically different. In Welcome To the Dollhouse, Mark tries to help his sister deal with her unpopularity in school. In Palindromes, Mark tries to help Aviva realize that human relationships, and human love, are much more complicated than the grace she seeks. And in Life During Wartime, when a young man asks how to forgive and forget, Mark wonders aloud if anybody could ever forget, but not forgive. What makes people feel the need to forget when they've already decided to forgive?

         Life During Wartime is about forgiveness. It is also about how dumb it is to forget what you've forgiven. If you don't remember what you've forgiven, what's the point?

        Solondz's film is a quasi-sequel to 1998's Happiness. I call this particular film a sequel because it is, more or less, a continuation of the story from that film. Of course, the characters of other Solondz films make appearances throughout, but the bulk of the story is still centered around Joy's many problems. Joy, now played by Shirley Henderson (of Moaning Myrtle fame) in an even more pathetic, childish manner than Jane Adams's version of the character in the previous film, is a middle-aged optimist who cannot catch a break. After several failed relationships and losing a job helping imprisoned rapists sort out their lives, Joy decides to visit her sister, Trish, now played by Allison Janney, who lives in Florida. Which brings me to the most written about aspect of the movie.

         Instead of casting the film with the same actors he used for Happiness, Solondz decided to recast all of the characters with new actors who could bring new life to the characters. In some cases, the actors don't resemble the previous ones at all. For example, Dylan Baker's red haired, pasty-faced, boring Bill Maplewood has been replaced by the tall, dark and handsome Ciaran Hinds. Jon Lovitz's Andy has been replaced by Paul Reubens, who plays the role uncharacteristically straight. It is Reubens, strangely enough, who delivers the finest and most powerful performance in the entire film. Other odd choices abound in the film, most notably Ally Sheedy taking Lara Flynn Boyle's spot from the previous film. Sheedy's performance is the hammiest and most underwritten of the film, but I believe that fault lies more with the director not really knowing what to do with her than Sheedy's talent.

     
           Although Solondz's films are classified as comedy, he has become famous for taking dark, disturbing subject matter and looking at it through sympathetic eyes. His characters often harbor dangerous secrets and strange habits that are often considered unforgivable or strange. However, Solondz has never dismissed a character because of their behavior. In fact, the kind of person most often abused in these films are the "normal" people. The people who shop for matching rugs and order incredibly specific salads are the ones under attack in these films. This is because Solondz sees these people as phonies. He believes that everybody has a darkness inside of them, and that those who do the judging are the most guilty of exerting this darkness.

           Solondz often skirts the boundaries of tragedy and dark comedy, usually ending up somewhere in the middle. When Timmy, the son of a pedophile in Life During Wartime, tells his mom that the other kids at school call him a faggot because his father molested boys, his mother tells him that he is "not a faggot. [He] will never be a faggot as long as she is alive." She says this to him in a protective, babying manner. It is like she is protecting him from some evil force that, if he isn't looking, might take over. The scene is all at once funny and horrifying. The shooting style, mixed with the music, is reminiscent of early '90's sitcoms, but the dialogue itself is deeply disturbing.

       Life During Wartime, while definitely a comedy, is by far Solondz's most bleak affair. The characters in the film are exhausted by the world in which they live. They are tired of the war. They are tired of behaving the way their parents expect them to and the way society urges them to be. Joy is exhausted by the world's cynicism and condescension toward her unique brand of optimism. While Happiness was about America's search for happiness in a world full of sickness, Life During Wartime is about the difficulty of living in a country that is all about appearances. It is no longer enough to be happy for these characters. They want to be forgiven for who they are. They want to be accepted for their idiosyncrasies and loved because of them.

      Life During Wartime is available on Blu-Ray and DVD from the Criterion Collection.

I give the film 10/10 miscast Ally Sheedys.

Movie Review: Drive

         

           "I used to produce movies. They were violent, sexy little films. The critics called them European," says Albert Brooks's Bernie about halfway through Drive--a violent, sexy film that many critics are also calling European. However, this critic must say this up front, Drive is an excellent, thought-provoking, controversial and violent film that seems to not care about its own hype, and I love it for this reason. But I must also say this, the film does carry hype, and it may not live up to thing you're expecting.

          First off, Drive is not The Transporter, as many people have been saying. Of course, a film containing a good looking man who drives a car and gets in a fight must be a rip off of a Jason Statham film. Because, you know, it's the only other movie that contains such things. Forget Bullitt, Mad Max, Gone in Sixty Seconds (The good one and the crappy one), Vanishing Point, Two-Lane Blacktop, and a whole host of other films, The Transporter is the movie that Drive is totally ripping off. Okay, enough bitter sarcasm.

          One of the first things I read about Drive, after its director, Nicolas Winding Refn, won the best director award at Cannes, was that he had intended the film to be some sort of hybrid between Purple Rain and Blue Velvet--filled with dark, moody atmosphere while simultaneously oozing some sort of pop-rock vibe. After reading that interview, Drive immediately became my most anticipated film of the year. Add that to my admittedly frightening love of Ryan Gosling and my admiration for Refn's previous work, and you're looking at somebody who was fully prepared to love every waking second of Drive. 


         But the movie really is not a hybrid of two strikingly different '80's films whose titles begin with a color. It actually feels a whole lot like American Gigolo. From the font of the opening credits to the synthesized, soundscapey soft-rock soundtrack, to the way in which the main character seems to only exist because of his profession, all I could think about was how similar these two movies are. However, instead of male prostitution gone wrong, Drive is all about a heist gone wrong. Or perhaps it's about more, perhaps it's about a choice gone wrong. Or maybe a lack of choices. Or maybe it's about something totally different, like the violence of American cinema, or the evil of greed. Maybe it isn't about anything. I don't really know. I don't think you do either.

         The main character, played by Ryan Gosling, is named Driver in the credits. In the film, his name is never mentioned. He has no past, no family, no goals, and no real personality. He's a good enough guy. He's loyal to his boss, he's fiercely protective of his girlfriend, Irene, and her son. He is even protective of his girlfriend's husband, who returns from a two-year stint in prison during Driver and Irene's courtship. But who is he really? He loves fixing and driving cars. That's about it. Driver keeps mostly to himself, usually letting those around him do the talking. In this way, the characters who surround Driver are the ones who define him. The ultimate existential protagonist.

         In fact, the only time Driver seems to have some sort of humanity inside of him is when he explodes into a violent rage. Like a switch going off, Driver is able to unleash a violence more intense than anybody in my theater, including me, expected. And the most terrifying part of it is, the people he hurts only deserve so much. When he decides to fight back he goes all the way, whether the audience is rooting for him or not. Sometimes the violence is so shocking and so sudden that it takes a second to even register that it happened.

       Of course, movies today contain violence far more shocking than what can be found in this film. Gore levels have reached an all time high in Hollywood films. Even Refn's previous film, Valhalla Rising, contains far more violence in its first half hour than Drive's entire runtime. But there is a difference. Valhalla Rising lets the audience know what kind of movie it is right away. Drive does the opposite, letting the audience think it is one thing, before changing drastically halfway through the picture.

      The film begins in typical heist movie fashion. We are treated to a scene in which Driver helps two men escape from a crime. Driver is calm, collected, confident, and amazing at his job. The opening chase sequence, hands down, is one of the most riveting sequences I've seen in the theater since The Dark Knight's bank robbery opener.

       We then get to see Driver at his other job, performing dangerous maneuvers as a stunt driver for Hollywood movies. In this job, he also excels because of his amazing talent and seemingly infinite calm. However, after the film gets into a nice rhythm and falls into the formula we've come to expect from movies like this, it goes off and becomes something totally different. Something totally, unbelievably chilling. The film turns into a wrestling match between two ideas: whether or not we like the protagonist. At first, Driver is exactly the kind of action movie star we've paid to see. But then, after some time with the character, we learn to fear him. We begin to question his morals. Who is he exactly? How much do we really know about him?

       He is an action movie star performing action movie stunts, but he is missing that Jason Statham charm. Which makes us wonder, why do we pull for the protagonist of action movies in the first place? Because they are usually the best looking and most charming characters? Surely such grisly acts of violence should be met with shock and horror instead of high fives and laughter. Drive is a film that seems to question the audience's morals. It seems to be constantly asking us if we should trust such a protagonist.

     Drive is superbly directed in a style somewhere between European Art-house and Mumblecore minimalism. The performances are exceptional, especially those from Albert Brooks and Ryan Gosling, and the music (excluding a couple of questionable choices) is perfectly, ironically chosen. If you were a fan of the George Clooney espionage thriller The American, or you are, for some reason, a huge fan of American Gigolo, I recommend you see the movie immediately. If you like action scenes where the camera captures the scene by shaking incoherently, then look elsewhere. I'm sure Paul Greengrass is working on something new.

       As the film finally reaches its dark, violent end, it leaves us with one last joke. Will there be a sequel?


I give Drive 9/10 bloody hammers.

Good Horror: Insidious

I have less than ten minutes of screentime!

          It takes a certain wisdom to make a good horror film. Until now, I never figured director James Wan to be a guy to have this wisdom. His previous films, Saw and Death Sentence, while moderately suspenseful, don't really provide any evidence of good horror. The first Saw film was, obviously, a hugely successful film that became a franchise, but the original film doesn't really constitute as a horror film. The Saw franchise is usually categorized as horror because of its shocking imagery and even more shocking body count, but the first film is actually closer to a police procedural than a full blown horror film. James Wan, however, believes that Saw is a horror film, and this is why I have always believed there to be a crack in his wisdom.

       Death Sentence, like Saw, is a film that James Wan would describe as a horror film. While I understand this categorization a little more (the pointless murder of your family is rather horrifying), Death Sentence is actually filmed like a pretty straight forward revenge thriller. Both of these movies have their charms, and Death Sentence in particular has that spectacular parking garage chase sequence (one shot!), but neither film really shows a horror director understanding the genre with which he works.

    This is why, last summer, I decided to skip Insidious. The film, starring Patrick Wilson (Hard Candy, Little Children) and Rose Byrne (Bridesmaids), was advertised as suspenseful, haunted house fare full of jump scares and creepy children. Who hasn't seen 454352 horror films with creepy children and lousy jump scares? Do we need another one really? So without having seen the movie or read the reviews, I used my anti-lazy-creepy-children-horror-movies-dar and decided to skip out on the fun.

     Fast forward to a month ago. I was reading an article on the best horror films of the last few years, and the writer would not stop gushing about Insidious. However, earlier in the article, he made a remark about torture porn that was less than favorable, torture porn being a genre brought into the mainstream with the help of Saw. This intrigued me. I looked around on other sites and found that Insidious is pretty highly regarded as a horror film. So I decided to give it a go.

     I know what you're thinking--"What a movie snob"

     That's only partly true. It's not that I'm a movie snob, it's that I am a horror movie snob. The horror genre is plagued by derivative crappyness, poor acting, poor funding, cheap scares, cheap gore, and boring formulas. A great horror film needs to understand horror. It needs to understand the audience's experience with horror. Like a good comedy, a good horror relies on surprise, originality, and execution. A poor drama can get away with more mediocrity if it is based on an "important" subject. Case in point-- Crash.

Here are some rules a horror director needs to be aware of:

•     Good horror needs to be believable. We need to relate to the characters, identify with them, fear for them, and fear with them. 
• The scares need to be real. None of this cat jumping out a closet nonsense. 
• The characters need to be smart. If there's something horrifying happening in your house, move out of your house. 
• If you're going to use a creepy kid, use him/her sparingly. However, I prefer you don't use one, because what else is there to do with that dead, dead subgenre?
• If you're going to include demons, ghosts, etc, give them a motivation. If they haven't killed the protagonist yet, there had better be a good reason. Because what's stopping them? They've kind of already been punished.
• We need to know the setting just as much as we know the characters. 
• The characters need dramatic arcs. Static characters do not make for interesting horror. Or fiction for that matter. 

          Insidious does an excellent job of enforcing these rules. Not only does it follow these general guidelines, it also provides an excellent variation on the haunted house genre. The usual suspects are there from the beginning--an emotionally fragile mother, a distant father, a creepy old house, inexplicable noises coming from the attic, small children being creepy, but all of these factors turn out to be secondary scares. The movie uses our own knowledge of the haunted house movie against us. It expects us to look for figures in the shadows. It knows we expect a cheap, cat from a closet jump scare, so it sets us up for the jump scares without delivering.

        When the audience is met with silence and suspense, instead of a cheap jump scare, they prepare themselves for the fake out scare. This is when the jump scare doesn't occur, only for the character to turn around and notice their husband was standing right beside them, scaring them. Of course, we don't get a fake out scare either. We just get silence, confusion, uneasiness, and thwarted expectations. We know the film is horror because we saw the loud trailer, we know something terrible is going to happen soon, but it always seems just out of reach.

        So when the horror does start to creep in, about a third of the way into the movie, we have been looking for something in the shadows for almost half an hour. The tension has been building. The characters are uneasy. The atmosphere of the film becomes claustrophobic. The horror does not unfold in typical formula fashion. It does not make the audience jump with a loud noise every 5-7 minutes. It explodes at random. The film, in its most brilliant scenes, is ripped from its hinges at the most shocking and unexpected moments possible. The scenes don't startle you, they scare you. There are things in the house, but you can't see them. You can only catch glimpses.

      And when the family is finally, after over thirty minutes of buildup, sent into complete terror, they do what any intelligent person would do. They move out. And that's when the real horror movie starts.

     Insidious is an amazingly competent horror film. It does almost everything right. The scares are genuine, shocking, and original. The performances are naturalistic and engaging. The writing is smart and knowing. The film works. My only problems with it lie in the admittedly left-field third act, but the lead up is so smart, so original, that I can't even fault the film for it.

    I suggest you rent it or buy it as soon as possible. It is very, very worth the watch.

Your Wish is My Command: The Worst Movies I've Ever Seen

Look at those cold, duck eyes.

          You've requested it time and time again, and I've never had the heart to sit down and write it. That is, until now. I promise that this has nothing to do with my recent run in with the total brain fart that is Sucker Punch, and has more to do with my bitterness toward the fact that summer is ending, but let's just say that bad movies everywhere should run for it.

         As usual with my list blogs, I'm going to break this down into three categories. Mind-Numbingly Mediocre, Offensively Bad, and Hilariously Bad. Let's get this over with.

Mind-Numbingly Mediocre:

• 50 First Dates 
• Really, this could have been any movie from Adam Sandler's Happy Madison production company. I choose 50 First Dates because I feel like it's the most absurdly mediocre of all of them. Sure, Grown Ups is stale, meandering, weak, and schmaltzy, but at least it doesn't have scenes like the one where Rob Schneider (Fill in the blank) and (Fill in literally any single thing that Rob Schneider does in this movie that wasn't the first thing). There are multiple jokes about a walrus' large penis delivered by pretty much every character, there is a totally thankless Dan Akroyd cameo, there are stupid and out of place steroid jokes, and there are stupidly racist jabs at pretty much every culture. Oh, and the ending is the most absurd cop-out I've seen this side of the O.J. Simpson trial. This movie is formulaic, lazy, boring, and insulting to its demographic. But most of all, it is unbelievably meh. 

• Gran Torino
• Yep, I went there. Gran Torino may be Clint Eastwood's final performance on screen. It is obviously meant to be the stuff of legend. And Eastwood picked a noble topic to leave on, the subject of gang violence and race relations in small town America. Kudos, Clint. But did he really have to hire non-professional actors? Did he really have to continue his trend of doing one or two takes before moving on? The acting by every single supporting cast member in this movie is pathetic. The line delivery is lousy, the body language is stale, and the chemistry on screen is non existent. In the scene where (Spoiler?) Eastwood locks Toad in the basement and Toad begs to be let out, the entire theater burst into laughter. This is not the response you want at the dramatic high point of your movie. Also, there's a bizarre scene around the same time where the police force the Priest to leave with them in their cop car in what must be the most awkwardly staged and poorly executed pieces of acting I've ever seen. The ending is schmaltzy and seems to actually do more harm than good, unless that particular gang only had about 8 members--in which case...that gang wasn't very threatening at all. 

• The Fast and the Furious
• The film that launched a truly strange franchise (the casts for each film makes for a fun game of bingo) is actually pretty meh. It follows a typical "machismo motorhead" formula and does just enough to keep the audience from falling asleep. The scene where the tech guy races the main villain, and then loses and escapes in his car, goes pretty much unexplained. Why did he race that guy to begin with? Why was he all of a sudden needing to prove himself? There was no lead-in to this character development. Until, of course, he's killed in a drive-by and the audience realizes he was just a poorly-developed plot device. Hmph. All I remember about this movie is the mean, bearded camo wearing guy who arbitrarily hates Paul Walker's character because the script demands a cathartic bond later in the film. They couldn't even explain a little bit why they hate each other? Sheesh. 

• Honorable Mention:
•  Tenure: look up this bland Luke Wilson comedy on Netflix watch instantly if you feel the need to sit and stare blankly at a screen for 90 minutes. 

Offensively Bad:

• Battlefield Earth
• Do I really have to tell you why? The cinematography is drunk, the plot is ridiculous, the effects are stupid, the ending is silly, and the casting is lame. Barry Pepper? Really? He's the guy you wanted to lead your revolution? How do a bunch of uneducated cavemen learn how to fly the world's most sophisticated jets in less than an hour? Why would a group of aliens place bombs so close to a portal that leads to their planet made of flammable gas? Why would the aliens heavily train one of their prisoners and then give them the ability to talk to their friends in secret? This movie makes no sense. 
• Howard The Duck
• There is a scene in Howard the Duck where Lea Thompson tries to get wit' dat. If that's not enough, look up the budget to this movie. Then look at the movie. Words will never describe its idiocy. 
• Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
• Headaches, headaches, headaches. This movie is long, bloated, loud, racist, sexist, crude, illogical, and pointless. Why would a robot have testicles? Why would two robots want to emulate stereotypes that haven't even been around for over two decades? Why would my beloved John Turturro accept a paycheck for this movie? He's The Jesus! He can afford to not be in the this. The lack of originality and logical thought put into this film's screenplay is offensive to anybody unlucky enough to be deemed this film's demographic. 
• Honorable Mention:
• Rocky V: simply unwatchable. And that's coming from a serious Rocky fan. 

Hilariously Bad:

• The Wicker Man
• Leave it to Nicolas Cage to make a hilariously bad movie. And if you don't believe that a movie can be hilariously bad, check out this wonderfully preposterous medley of clips. I believe it speaks for itself, really. 
• The Room
• Another film, another medley of clips. The Room is astoundingly bad. It is also astoundingly brilliant. No other film has made me laugh harder in my life. And that's a fact. The line delivery is awful, the cast is bottom notch, the cinematography is bland, and the plot is...kind of whimsical in its absurdity. The best part is when Tommy is talking to his friend, and out of nowhere, asks him about his sex life. 
• Batman & Robin
• Whaaa? Bat Credit Card? Nipples on the bat suit? Ahnold delivering a a wonderful medley of puns, George Clooney trying desperately to appear awesome and failing, and Uma Thurman chewing up the scenery like she's going to find Quentin Tarantino in it? This movie is a spectacular failure in the highest degree. And it is flat out hilarious. 

• Honorable Mention
• Plan 9 From Outer Space: Most people know about this one. If you've never seen it, you should definitely check it out. It is a treasure trove of awful. 

What are some of the worst movies you've ever seen? What category does it fall under? Should I have included the Pirates sequels? Let me know the comments section below or on Facebook.