Unseen A-Z #2: Bang the Drum Slowly

B is for Bang the Drum Slowly 

That was quick. Two movies into this thing and I've already found one I regret not having seen much, much sooner. 

The truth is that I've sort of avoided this one over the years even though I've got tremendous affection for much of the cast, worried it would be too much of a Brian's Song-esque manipulative downer. Despite the fact that it's a movie centered on the friendship between male athletes wherein one of them is dying, it's not a downer at all. If anything it's a celebration of friendship, camaraderie, and baseball. Even as a baseball movie it's fairly atypical because it never comes down to one big game, one big play, one big moment. It's an intimate story in a setting that is anything but intimate, and it made me want to give everyone I care about a hug, preferably at a ballgame.

The lead performances of Michael Moriarty as star pitcher Henry Wiggen and impossibly young Robert De Niro as doomed catcher Bruce Pearson are absolutely stellar, finding pathos and humor while never getting overpowered by either one. The real standout, however, is Vincent Gardenia as coach Dutch Schnell. As evidenced by the address of this blog I'm already a fan of Gardenia's, but this is the best I've ever seen him. He received a well-deserved Oscar nomination for his role here, and his world-weary performance is something truly special. Also of note is Phil Foster in a small role as a con-man former ballplayer, he's a treat whenever he's on screen, and dig young, barely-recognizable Danny Aiello as one of the teammates.

You'll note that there's not a whole lot of gender equality in the above paragraph, but there's also not a whole lot of gender equality in baseball so I can't really fault the movie for that. Regardless, it's refreshing to see a sports movie that's not chock full of sports movie clichés as well as one that centers on believably human characters. It makes one long for a time when ballplayers seemed like regular, talented joes rather than the steroidal million-dollar-monsters on the field today.

Moriarty in particular has a talent for underplaying, making his character believable not only as a ballplayer but as the supportive companion helping his dying friend get the most out of what is certain to be his final year with the New York Mammoths. Again, this is not a movie of big "movie moments" and that doesn't only apply to the baseball, it applies to the character beats as well. There's no tearful deathbed scenes or emotional breakdowns, there's nothing that rings false. These characters are real people, for better or worse, and that's a refreshing and welcome change. This is a special movie, and I'm already looking forward to revisiting it just to spend more time with these people. I don't know that I can offer higher praise than that.

Unseen A to Z # 1: Amityville II: The Possession

I own a metric shitload of movies. I've seen the majority of movies in my collection, but there are also plenty I've bought with the intention of seeing them for the first time that still have the plastic on them. From 1997. Ahem. Since I show no sign of stopping the collection from growing anytime soon, I figured it might be worth my while to try an experiment to at least make a dent in the chunk of my collection that I've never seen, so I decided to go alphabetically and choose one movie that I've never seen for each letter of the alphabet and write a little bit about them as I watch them. It appears I can only do it this way once, as I only own one Q title I've never seen and one X title I've never seen, but other than those two I have a fairly wide range of options for each letter. The goal is to encourage myself to watch something new rather than, say, John Wick for the 85th time, and also to fill in some glaring #MovieShame holes in my viewing history (I'll note which ones I'm particularly ashamed of not seeing until now as I get to them). There's no real schedule to this thing (it certainly won't be daily), so let's see if I manage to stick with it, shall we?

So...let's get started! 

A is for Amityville II: The Possession 

I've seen the first Amityville Horror a couple of times and I am not a big fan. I also read the book and liked it even less than the movie, so I never had much desire to check out the sequels. That being said, a blu-ray set from Scream Factory is a siren call that cannot be denied so naturally now I own the first 3 Amityvilles in glorious high definition. This first sequel is actually a prequel, loosely based on the real-life DeFeo murders (in which 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo, Jr. murdered his parents and his four young siblings while they slept in their Amityville home, leading to the alleged haunting of George and Kathy Lutz when they bought the home afterward which was the basis for the first movie). 

In this fictionalized take, Anthony Montelli (aggressively unappealing human sweatsock Burt Young) moves his family into the soon-to-be-infamous Amityville house (actually shot in NJ, but what are you gonna do?) and almost instantly things start to get creepy. Objects move on their own, messages are painted on their walls, a drippy, cobweb-festooned crypt is discovered within those walls...you know, haunty stuff. The whole family is constantly fighting, verbally and physically. It's suggested that this is the influence of the malevolent house, but since we don't meet the Montellis until they're moving in we have no frame of reference to know whether or not this is just how they are all the time. Oh, and also the eldest son and daughter start fucking. This too is supposed to be seen as part of the haunting, but from the moment they're introduced they are very clearly intending to jump in each other's pants and wiggle around, so I don't know that ghosts had all that much to do with it. 

For the first half it's a fairly standard haunted house movie (except for the incest), but once the murders occur (in a well-staged, legitimately frightening sequence) it shifts gears and becomes a poor knockoff of The Exorcist as a priest (James Olson, fairly bland) attempts to exorcise the murderous demon from Ronald DeFeo simulacrum Sonny Montelli (Jack Magner). The second half suffers from the loss of the family and gets a bit draggy and repetitive, mostly suffering from the fact that we've seen all this exorcism stuff before in another, better movie. 

Awesomely-named director Damiano Damiani brings some fun (if sleazy) style to the proceedings, and there are some pretty terrific makeup effects (courtesy of the great John Caglione, Jr.) that do a lot to make this a better movie than the original, despite the fact that it's still not very good. I imagine that it would make for a tremendously fun midnight screening with the right crowd, but in the unforgiving glare of home video it's eminently skippable. 

Scary Movie Month 2014: The Final Chapter (with Gabby Ferro!)

Josh: I just love Scary Movie Month. I've been a horror junkie most of my life, and the devotion to horror movies this time of year, especially within our beloved F This Movie! community, is simply the best thing. I thought it might be nice for us to just talk about horror a bit. How we got into it, what attracts us to it, what we look for in it, that sort of thing.

I'll start with a bit of history for me. Stephen King's It hit paperback when I was 11 years old. I was in a small-town bookstore called The Bookworm with my mom and she bought it for me because I was captivated by the cover and she was always happy to encourage me to read more. The cover showed a tiny paper boat floating toward a sewer grate, and a scaly green clawed hand reaching out of the grate. I was too young for the book and while my mother recognized that, she also knew I was a pack rat and would hold onto the book until I was ready for it.

Cut to less than a month later. My father and my brother were arguing about something, I have no idea what. I only know the yelling was loud and I didn't want any part of it. I went into my room, closed the door and looked for a distraction, any distraction. There on my shelf sat this brick of a book, over 1,000 pages and with that same image of the clawed hand and paper boat on the spine. Desperate to tune out the tension in the house, I plucked it off the shelf and began to read.

The story opens with little Georgie Denbrough, a kid a bit younger than I was at the time but not by very much, folding that little paper boat on the cover. In order for the boat to float, he had to coat the bottom with paraffin wax. Unfortunately, the paraffin was in the basement, and Georgie was afraid to go down to the basement.

At this point, I was already hooked. We were living in New York at the time, and we had a big water heater in the laundry room in our basement. It was loud and had some ancient-looking cobwebby brickwork behind it and I was always scared to go near it. I was amazed that Georgie was so similar to me, I had never encountered a character in a book that had the same fears I did before.

Georgie was afraid to go down the steps into his basement and I was afraid to go with him, but we had to go down there. We needed that wax. So down we went, Georgie Denbrough and I. We went and we both got scared that a scaly green clawed hand was going to reach for us from the darkness, but we charged down those steps, grabbed the wax, and hauled ass back upstairs. We did it. We got the wax, and there was nothing in the basement to be afraid of.

I kept reading, feeling triumphant about braving those basement stairs along with Georgie, and I had forgotten all about the argument going on outside my door. Georgie went outside to sail his boat along the gutter, and a page or so later the world came crashing down. His boat slipped into a sewer grate and when he went to retrieve it, there was something waiting for him behind the grate. Something with scaly green clawed hands. Something with teeth.

That something killed little Georgie Denbrough.

Mere moments after his triumph over his fear of the basement, our triumph dammit, Georgie was dead. Gone. Literally ripped apart. I cried. Boy, did I cry. I was devastated, horrified, sad, and scared out of my mind. I put the book in a drawer, I couldn't look at that cover anymore, and I sobbed and shook with anger and fear. I knew it was coming, after all it was right there on the cover, but I never imagined that Georgie wouldn't survive it. Georgie was just a kid, like me. Kids don't die in books. They just don't. There are rules.

Stephen King broke the rules.

It was years before I went back to that book. I was in high school when I finally read the whole thing, but as long as I live I'll never forget the way it felt reading those first few pages. That was my introduction to horror, to real horror, to that helpless, terrified chill in your bones that real horror gives you. I had been scared of things before (to this day my parents make fun of my blobmares and fear of Jaws) but nothing has ever matched the sheer terror of braving Georgie Denbrough's basement steps only to lose him to the very creature he was so afraid of.

The thing is, as scared as I was after Georgie died, I was also amazed at how completely absorbed in the story I had been. Everything around me fell away, there were no arguments, there was no anger, all of that stuff was going on someplace else. I was in Derry, with Georgie Denbrough. Nothing had ever enveloped me so completely before, and as scared as I was, I was also hooked on that feeling. I had found a new home, odd as that must seem considering the circumstances.

Gabby, was there anything like that for you? Any one book or movie or what have you that got you hooked on horror?

Gabby: I love that story Josh. I wish I had one solid thing that I could point to, but really it was a collection of things. I have mentioned in the comments section on F This Movie a few times my affinity with witches. Even when I was a little girl I loved the Meg and Mog books and wanted to be Meg. I was always obsessed with The Wizard of Oz (that hasn't changed) and fascinated by The Witches (1990). When I was a bit older I got hooked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed. I think fantasy and horror are at least cousins and I soaked up the world of monsters and vampires as well and wanted more. When you're a certain age (is this just girls?) horror is the coolest things ever. Watching a horror movie is THE activity at a slumber party. I remember when it was my turn and I picked The Others, I was so happy to see the reactions of those around me. It spooked them, my choice worked! I watched Blair Witch Project at one and remember being scared out of my wits thinking it was real, even though I still enjoyed that feeling. Despite one traumatic experience with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), which was watching it when I was 11, I loved the world of horror. Still just the idea of the 74' Texas Chainsaw terrifies me, I don't know if I will ever be brave enough to re-watch it. I remember the first time I watched Silence of the Lambs (1991). I was so intoxicated by it. Every detail mattered to me. I was watching it over and over. My dad thought I was so weird. Who the hell watches a movie like that so many times? I did! I was that kind of person all along really.

Do you have any horror movies that you have watched so many times yet you still love getting absorbed in it?
Also do you have any movies that you find essential to Scary Movie Month?

Josh: It's not just girls, I think most kids go through that phase where horror is the coolest thing ever, some of us are just lucky enough to never grow out of that. I think it particularly appeals to kids because it's something that's so often forbidden, and there ain't no fruit sweeter than forbidden fruit. Also, I've never heard of Meg and Mog. Tell me more.

As for movies I still love getting absorbed in, absolutely. In fact, a few months ago I did the unthinkable. I took a DVD off my shelf, I put it in the player, I turned out all the lights, and I (gasp! shriek! other noises of terror!) turned off my phone. I know, right? I turned off my phone as if I was at the movies and I watched a movie on my couch in the dark with no distractions.

That movie was The Shining, and despite the fact that I've seen it multiple times (including once in a theater on 35mm for a Halloween night screening) it completely cast a spell over me. It probably helps that it's a movie so dependent on atmosphere, but it was like seeing it for the first time. I got just as lost in the Overlook as the Torrances and it was glorious.

There are only two movies I find essential for Scary Movie Month and they're Halloween (Carpenter, not Zombie, and I don't like that we live in a world where that qualifier is required) and Halloween III. Other than those, I tend to mix it up. This year my goal has been one new-to-me scary movie every day and so far I've been reaching my goal (I'm writing this on 10/19, on the schedule for today is the brand new director's cut of Clive Barker's Nightbreed, new enough to count). Also, every year since 1996 I've at some point in October listened to or watched Oingo Boingo's farewell concert, recorded on Halloween night in 1995. They were my favorite band growing up and that concert always helps me get into the seasonal mood, especially now that I live in a state where the leaves don't change and the air never cools.

Are there any movies or books or pieces of music that you find essential to Scary Movie Month? I know this year you've taken tons of new-to-you movies out of the library, have there been any that you feel may become Scary Movie Month essentials, or any that really stood out to you as something special?

Gabby: Meg and Mog are a series of books for small children, with large print and lots of pictures. Meg is a witch, Mog is her cat and she has a pet owl... named Owl. They were such fun. I remember one ends with Meg turning her witch friends into mice, flying off, cackling that she would turn them back next Halloween! What a fun way to get young kids into the world of Horror. There are episodes of the animated TV show available on youtube I believe. Wow that screening of The Shining sounds fantastic. I'd love to see that in the cinema.

A Scary Movie Month essential for me is at least one Universal horror. It would be like birthdays with no cake for me!

I think I need to get into horror fiction a bit more. I love a bit of Poe and have read Bram Stoker's Dracula quite a few times. I think the Harry Potter series is another good way of getting the young into scary worlds. Despite it not actually being horror, there are many scary moments within that leaving you wanting more. With music I saw collections of CDs with mixes of different Halloween type songs yesterday. I really want to get one and put it on my Ipod. I think it would be great fun to be able to listen to these every year. One song that I have to play is 'I Put a Spell on you' from Hocus Pocus. I loved that when I was a child (what a surprise) but not in the way most children did. I actually rooted for the witches, which is a bit odd. I loved them. I thought they were hilarious and full of life, particularly Bette Midler. They have some infectious giggly lines that still make me laugh when I re-watch it.

I have been watching quite a bit this year! Christine was new to me and I really enjoyed that one. I think the way Carpenter took on that subject was very well thought through. It was asked on F This Movie what scares you most in Horror and I answered it was the transforming of the soul. A loss of humanity to something that we can all fall into; like greed, obsession or vanity. Christine was Arnold Cunningham loosing his humanity through obsession, which worked on me. I think my favourite that I have rented from either repeat viewings or new ones is The Masque of the Red Death (1964). It is a great example of the distortion of the soul movie. It is filled with intelligence and falls into madness. I tweeted out that it is such a beautiful messed up ballet, a dance into hell. I was surprised the most by Hellraiser, I think that has some really interesting elements to it (another lust and obsession brings a downfall movie). From Netflix my favourite so far has been House of the Devil (thanks Adam Riske), which has really stood out to me as special. That sets up atmosphere so well. One that did it too well was Three... Extremes (2004). It was just terrifying, atmospheric to the point where it made me incredibly uncomfortable. I almost couldn't sit through that one!

What are your highlights so far and have you been scared yet?

Josh: "Birthdays with no cake"...love it! Also, let me jump on the Adam Riske train for a brief moment (wait, what?), I'm so glad you dug House of the Devil because that movie is fantastic. Easily one of the best recent horror movies.

I'm shocked that one of my highlights so far was Big Ass Spider! which is a movie I had never even considered watching before I heard Mike Mendez on Killer POV. Bad Dreams and Creep were also highlights so far, but there's been some pretty rough stuff this month too. Honestly, I even enjoy the bad stuff to an extent because it's still fun to discuss it and wading through the crap sometimes makes the good stuff shine that much brighter.

Nothing I've watched has been particularly scary so far (EDIT: since I wrote this I watched Barry Levinson's The Bay which legitimately scared the hell out of me), but I think that might be my own fault as I haven't really chosen movies that looked scary so much as I picked ones that looked fun or I had heard good things about.

I think you're absolutely right about Harry Potter. Something doesn't have to be horror to be horrific. Hell, two of the scariest things in my childhood were the boat scene in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and, of course, Large Marge. There are elements of horror in so much of our entertainment. I mean, have you seen Pinocchio lately? Because seriously, holy shit. SCARY.

What about movies that haven't really worked for you? Have you had any major disappointments so far this month?

Gabby: The worst thing I watched was Maximum Overdrive, which was made instantly better by F This Movie's commentary track of the film! The original 13 Ghosts turned out to be a real stinker, it did have a certain charm that I can't seem to explain, but it has cupboard cut outs for character. I just think they needed a Vincent Price or something and it would have made it SO much better. The Fearless Vampire Killers I wanted so much much more out of. I am not sure why but I got my hopes up. I was disappointed by that one. The rest though I have really enjoyed.
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It is like you say, even if it has been a mixed bag, I can find a lot of things to like in most of the movies I have seen, which is part of the reason why Scary Movie Month is so fun. Everyone at F This Movie tries to find something interesting to say and it just feels like a great and positive place to have discussions about the movies you are watching. So in that spirit I will say that I saw The Wasp Woman on Full Moon Streaming. It is was a typical Corman in many ways. But something about it struck me. I can't call it a brilliant movie. I would say it is good and entertaining with some interesting themes, but has some obvious flaws. However, when I was going to sleep, I had this image of me slowly turning into the wasp woman. This no budget B flick worked on me. I was so happy about that and maybe it is weird, but heck that's what Scary Movie Month is about!

Have you got anything planned for Halloween?

Josh: I like the original 13 Ghosts! I even like a lot about the remake, but I recognize that it's not very good. Totally agree about Fearless Vampire Killers, the title is great but the movie not so much.

As I write this, Halloween has just passed. Mine was uneventful: horror movies, scary music, and alarmingly few trick-or-treaters, unfortunately. I have so much candy left over that to step into my house is to risk second-hand diabetes.

We should wrap this up, but I want to know what your Halloween was like. I'm sad to see this time of year go by, but I'm already looking forward to next year. I love the focus on scary movies (and books and music and everything else that goes bump on our shelves) all month, and you and the F This Movie! community at large have made it so much better. Scary Movie Month has always been my favorite, but sharing it with all the other F Heads has multiplied that a thousandfold.

Gabby: I had a lot of fun. Thursday 30th I arranged a little night for my younger brother and sister. We carved a pumpkin (Bellatrix the Third) and then they got a surprise. I numbered four doors upstairs. Behind each door was a different plate of treats and a bunch of clothes I could make some kind of costume out of quickly (like a shawl). When I was ready, I called out 'Come up if you dare!' So they came up to the first door and knocked. I open the door as Mrs Witch (from a British children's TV show called Ben and Holly). The rule was after I closed the door they had to go back downstairs until I called them back up. Mrs Witch gave them Boiled frog (chocolates shaped like a frogs) and Eye of Newt (Jelly Beans). The rest were Gruesome Gail the Ghost, Dracula's daughter and Professor Snape (I do a mean Professor Snape impression, so ANY excuse). Then we wrapped things up by watching The Witches, which is one of my favourite Halloweeny type movies from my childhood (shocker). I think I had just as much fun as they did! On Halloween, I spent the night chatting with my friend and we watched Addams Family Values. It was so great seeing so many people in my neighbourhood dressed up this year. And as is tradition in England the fireworks have already started up, celebrating bonfire night as long as possible (still one of the weirdest holidays ever in my opinion)!

I agree, the F this Movie Community, and the people who work there, are just the best. #ScaryMovieMonth forever!

Josh: At some point before the Grim Reaper shows up at my door I'm going to need to hear that Professor Snape impression. By Grabthar's hammer, I must!

Thanks for taking the time to chat about Scary Movie Month with me, Gabby. I'm glad you had as much fun with it as I did...here's to another year of murder, mayhem, and movies!

Scary Movie Month 2014, Day 31

The Old Dark House/Satan's Little Helper/Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Now that Halloween is here to bring Scary Movie Month to a close, I figured I might as well go all out. Every day this month I've watched a new-to-me movie, so today it's two of those plus a perennial Halloween favorite.

I started with The Old Dark House because it ain't Halloween without a bit of Karloff and because Horror-Hound Hollywood Heath Holland recommended it earlier this month. It was great, and I have no idea why people seem to have forgotten it. It's gothic horror with the same light touch that director James Whale brought to The Bride of Frankenstein. Also, this was the first Hollywood film of Charles Laughton, who would go on to direct one of my favorite movies of all time, The Night of the Hunter (another great Scary Movie Month choice if you haven't seen it).

It leans more toward comedy than horror, but the gloomy atmosphere lends itself nicely to the Halloween season. Elspeth Dudgeon (a woman) is particularly memorable as the 100+ year old patriarch of the crazed family living in the titular house. There's no mistaking her for a man, but her performance somehow works anyway and it is, as they say, a hoot.

On to Satan's Little Helper. I had to watch it because Adam Riske said some things that made me curious. He said that it's not better than John Carpenter's Halloween, but he'd sooner rewatch it than Halloween. Those are strong words, and while I absolutely understand the concept of respecting or even loving a movie without necessarily wanting to revisit it, my brain still cannot process what he said.

That being said, this isn't a bad movie! I'm not sure if "amiable" is the right word for a movie about a small child befriending a serial killer and becoming his unwitting accomplice, but that's what this movie is. It's an unabashedly goofy little movie that never takes itself too seriously and it's a fun watch. It's all very cheap and silly (and it appears to have been shot with a cell phone) but that's part of the charm. Also, it was a nice surprise to see a cameo from Lisa G of The Howard Stern Show (era).

While I really enjoyed it, there were a lot of things that didn't work, the most egregious of which was the old horror movie trope where somebody kills a masked person only to pull off the mask to find a completely different person than they expected underneath. This happens multiple times in this movie to the same character, to the point where you're left wondering if they have a learning disability. Problems aside, it's still a fun & entertaining movie, even if I can't imagine anyone on the planet choosing to watch it over Halloween. Sorry, Adam!

Finally, we have Halloween III: Season of the Witch, a movie I watch every year on Halloween. It's a movie made by an insane person, possibly a team made up of nothing but insane people, and I love every batshit crazy second of it. It's had a terrible reputation for years because the plot has no connection to the plot of the first two Halloweens, but it's by far my favorite of the sequels (I also like Halloween 4 a lot and I appreciate what H20 was trying to do, but that's pretty much it for the rest of the series). This is a movie unafraid to commit to a crazy premise and that goes a long way with me. If you haven't seen it, forget about the number in the title, it's completely standalone. Watch it and bask in the glory of Tom Atkins' mustache facing off against a diabolical mask-maker and his robot minions who are plotting to wreak havoc on Halloween night with lasers made out of pieces of Stonehenge. No, really.

All in all, it's been a great Scary Movie Month, even with all the crappy movies I sat through. I'm still glad to have the opportunity to see so many new horror movies and chat about them with everyone over at F This Movie! and on Twitter. I appreciate everyone who's read these (especially those who have offered feedback) and I hope everyone's having a safe and fun Halloween! Don't forget to be in front of your TV at 9pm for the big giveaway. Put your mask on and listen for the Silver Shamrock jingle. Happy happy Halloween!

Scary Movie Month 2014, Day 30

All Hallows' Eve

On Halloween night, two kids and their babysitter sit down to watch an unlabeled VHS tape that was dropped into one of the kids' trick-or-treat bags. This scary videotape, according to shots of the TV while they're watching it, is in anamorphic widescreen so rock on, forward-thinking VHS company!

The tape is our framing device for an anthology consisting of three stories and a wraparound, but I'm using the word story as loosely as possible. There's no real story to any of them, just a collection of nightmarish images that are just as hollow as a pumpkin on Halloween night. Those images can be scary, but truthfully this isn't even a movie that's interested in being scary, it just wants to be as "fucked up" as possible, which is frankly boring to me.

Horror movies tend to (falsely, for the most part) have a reputation of misogyny. That reputation is earned by movies like this in which women exist only to be raped, mutilated, terrorized, and murdered. I defy anyone watching this movie to tell me anything at all about the women in each segment. You can't, because they have zero defining characteristics beyond physical appearance. They're beyond thinly sketched, they're anorexically sketched (I may have made that word up, but you get the idea). That's not to say the male characters are any more fleshed-out (they're not) but the movie revels in violence against women in a way that's leering and ugly. Then again, leering and ugly seems to be this movie'a mission statement, for better or worse. Mostly for worse.

Scary Movie Month 2014, Day 29

The Bay

Finally toward the end of it all, Scary Movie Month earns its name. I've watched good, bad, fun, silly, smart, and stupid movies this month, but this was the first that was legitimately, deeply scary. It's found footage (one of the reasons I avoided it until now) but the gimmick works much better here than in most found footage movies, and since the footage comes from multiple sources (news footage, surveillance cams, Skype, vlogs, etc.) the majority of it is not the nausea-inducing shaky-cam that plagues so many found footage movies.

There's something in the polluted waters of the Chesapeake Bay, something deadly. Thousands of dead fish have floated to the surface, and now people are getting sick and dying, quickly and messily. The story is being told by a survivor, along with the conceit that a Julian Assange-type has uncovered and assembled the footage we're seeing to show what really happened despite governmental cover-ups.

Everything is very immediate thanks to it being found footage, which manages to increase the horror of the situation. As we see doctors and the CDC scurrying around trying to figure out what's going on, the sense of impending doom is palpable and legitimately frightening, not dissimilar to Soderbergh's Contagion only much scarier. The ending is a bit abrupt, but the movie is tremendously fast-paced and the scares build throughout. There are even a few solid jump scares on top of the terror that's already building, so there's something for horror fans of all tastes.

The environmental message is of course a bit heavy-handed, but the movie never comes across as preachy. I imagine if, say, Richard Donner had directed it it could've drowned in its obvious politics, but the focus here is on scaring the shit out of you, which it does extremely well. I don't scare easy (at least not when it comes to movies), but this is the real deal. Terrifying.

Scary Movie Month 2014, Day 28

The Beast Within

So apparently supernatural rapists are a running theme this month. I didn't plan that and can't say I'm too fond of it, yet here we are.

We open on just-married Ronny Cox and Bibi Besch driving through the woods. Their car breaks down (because movies) and Cox goes to get help, leaving Besch to get raped by a creature in the woods. Cut to 17 years later and their son Michael is exhibiting strange behavior and alarmingly bad dental hygiene. I bet he never even sent the rape-creature a Father's Day card.

It's an oddly structured movie in that it's not a mystery, we know Michael is half-Carol Marcus and half-rapey-woods-monster from the beginning, but the movie sort of treats it like a mystery, as if that might be someone else tearing people's throats out in full close-up. There is a sort-of-reveal toward the end (along with one of the better decapitations I've seen in a movie, so it's got that going for it I guess) but it's deflated by how unsympathetic Michael is to begin with. He's already a part-time monster when we meet him, so we never really get a chance to know who he is outside of that.

The movie is notorious for a transformation scene in the climax, and it's impressively goopy but also very rubbery. While they use similar techniques to the famous transformation in An American Werewolf in London, it's nowhere near as effective and looks nowhere near as good.

It's not a terrible movie, but it's not a particularly good one either. As much as I love the commitment to 80s goopiness, the similarly-themed 50s classic I Was A Teenage Werewolf is still a more consistent and more interesting (and more fun!) watch. Better letter-jacket-attired-monster in that one, too.