Top 10 of 2015 and Shadowboxing With My Father

Top 10 2015

Worst:

Vacation

Honorable Mentions in no particular order: 

The Gift

Krampus

Spring

Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation 

Straight Out of Compton

Turbo Kid

What We Do In the Shadows

Magic Mike XXL

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

We Are Still Here 

Top 10:

10. Bone Tomahawk 

9. Sicario

8. Chi-Raq

7. Ex Machina 

6. Mad Max: Fury Road 

5. Spotlight 

4. It Follows

3. Love & Mercy

2. The Hateful Eight

1. Creed

Let's talk a little about my number one pick. I generally try not to get too personal online, but I gotta do so a bit here, so expect a fair level of incoming schmaltziness. 

From the day I saw it until the day after Thanksgiving, I thought Love & Mercy was a lock for my top spot. While I love a lot of Beach Boys music, I was mostly unfamiliar with Brian Wilson's story (I basically knew just enough to get the references in the Barenaked Ladies song "Brian Wilson") and I only went to see the movie because I knew my dad wanted to, if he hadn't I probably would have skipped it until it hit home video. We went together, and to my surprise I was completely swept up in it from the very opening frames. Two hours flew by in what felt like the length of a single Beach Boys song, and by the time the end credits rolled (over footage of the man himself singing the title song) I had tears of pure joy running down my cheeks (warning: this may become a theme here). It touched me in a way that's rare, and I've since become a tremendous fan of Wilson and gained a new appreciation for his genius on a level that I had never been able to comprehend before. Over the span of two hours, I fell in love with Brian Wilson.

My dad, on the other hand, didn't think much of the movie. He wanted less time spent on all the Dr. Landy stuff and more time spent in the studio in the Pet Sounds era. I was a little bummed that the movie didn't connect with him the way it did with me, but I was still happy that we had the opportunity to see it together.

Cut to the day after Thanksgiving. I had the day off from work and I'm not the Black Friday shopper type, so I decided to go see Creed. It was my dad who introduced me to the Rocky series so many years ago (around the release of Rocky III, circa 1982), and while I knew he'd want to see it, he was out of the country so I went on my own figuring that if it was any good I'd go see it again with him when he got back. I certainly wasn't expecting much from it. I love the Rocky movies, but the thought of a spin-off centered around a character who never existed before seemed like it was destined to be a forgettable, cynical cash-in at best. 

Sometimes movies can surprise you.

A funny thing happened during that first screening of Creed. Those Love & Mercy tears? They ain't got nothin' on what Creed did to me (told you it would be a running theme). I had tears streaming down my face for a solid half of the movie, completely caught up in the passion co-writer/director Ryan Coogler poured into every frame. At first I didn't understand why it was so emotionally overwhelming, but then I realized what it had to be. I needed my dad to see this movie. I needed to share it with him. 

My father is a good man, and I love him, but we didn't always get along. When I was a kid, I was often afraid of him (not physically, he wasn't abusive or anything like that, just very intimidating) and as I got older, there were times I resented being compared to him. Times when I felt there was no real me, that in most people's eyes I wasn't Josh, I was just Bob's son. 

There's a scene in Creed, a very small moment but also my favorite single moment in any movie this year, in which Adonis Creed is watching a YouTube clip of his father, Apollo Creed, in a title fight with Rocky Balboa. The clip is being projected onto a wall so that it's practically life-size, and Adonis stands up and begins to shadowbox. What struck me about the moment isn't the imagery of this conflicted man fighting alongside the father he never knew, it's the fact that he's not fighting alongside Apollo, the moves he's matching are Rocky's. He's fighting against his father, against his legacy, against his very name. 

Shortly afterward, when he meets Rocky and they begin to slowly form their own familial bond, I couldn't get the image of him fighting against his father out of my head. The whole movie revolves around Adonis deciding how to make his own way without either embracing or besmirching his father's legacy. To suggest this might have hit a nerve with me is to suggest the sky might, at times, be blue. 

A short while after my dad got back from his trip we went to see Creed together, and I've never been more grateful for the darkness of a movie theater, because it meant he couldn't see that I cried through the entire movie that time. I didn't even know I had that many tears in me. I don't think he knows why the movie resonated so deeply with me (at least not until now, because he's one of the three people who will read this) but there are tears welling in my eyes as I write this. 

Adonis Creed learns to take pride in his father's legacy rather than shun it. It took me a long time to learn the same thing, but over time I did learn it. Sitting there with my father, watching this tale of fathers and sons, watching a man struggle with the intimidation of living up to his revered father, was the best two-plus hours I spent in a theater all year. 

I love Rocky Balboa, and I have ever since my dad introduced me to him when I was seven years old. I could never have imagined back then that someday I'd be 40 and I'd still have a new Rocky movie to share with my dad, much less one that helped me appreciate him and his love and support that much more. As proud as Adonis becomes of his father's legacy, it can't even touch how proud I am of mine.

And I don't even have to wear star-spangled shorts and punch other people in the face repeatedly to show it.

Scary Movie Month 2015 Day 31: Happy Halloween!

In Memoriam: Scary Movie Month 2015 

I've got no movie today. Technically we did make it halfway through a midnight screening/shadowcast performance of Repo! The Genetic Opera here at the Spooky Empire horror convention but the performance was lame and also that movie is terrible. Anthony Stewart Head has got some strong pipes, though. 

Not a lot of time to write today thanks to Spooky, but I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who's been reading and commenting here and on the Twitter machine. This is my favorite time of year, and talking horror and hearing about what everyone is watching, from old favorites to new discoveries, is always fantastic. I have a tremendous list of movies to catch up on thanks to everyone championing what they're digging, and there are few things on this planet that make me happier than the anticipation of new horror.

That's all I've really got today, I've gotta get rambling if I'm gonna catch the Fright Night panel (William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse and Stephen Fucking Geoffreys are here). Thank you all, stay safe and have a happy Halloween!

Scary Movie Month 2015 Day 30: Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Normally I save this one for Halloween itself, but I'll be at Spooky Empire horror con tomorrow, so I won't have time for a Scary Movie Month movie (however I will still post something here for the three of you reading this). I wrote about this one last year as well, but it's a Halloween tradition for me so I had to write about it again. Deal with it, jerks.

I adore this movie, because it's not only an entertaining riff on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it's also wall-to-wall batshit insane. Angel-who-walks-among-us-as-man Tom Atkins stars as Dan Challis, a doctor-slash-estranged-father-slash-lothario-slash-drunk. He stumbles across a plot masterminded by Conal Cochran, CEO of Silver Shamrock Novelties (Dan O'Herlihy, gloriously unhinged), to kill a whole bunch of children on Halloween night by using a television signal to trigger pieces of Stonehenge that are also insect-and-snake-producing lasers  sewn into the popular masks he manufactures to melt the heads of the kids wearing the masks. Feel free to read that (admittedly run-on) sentence again and let it sink in. Oh, and also there are people who are actually robots, one of whom kills a guy by breaking his nose FROM INSIDE HIS HEAD. Have I mentioned that this is a certifiably batshit movie?

This year it was even more fun than usual because I watched it with a commentary track recorded by (some of) the F This Movie! crew which is (as always) both hilarious and informative. From discussing the genesis of the movie and its place in the Halloween franchise to pointing out goofy details like Challis' handkerchief (or "dickcloth") I enjoyed every moment of the track, it really helped to make the movie feel fresh. Also, it was a kick to hear JB's assertion that it's not a good movie completely deflate as he kept pointing out more and more things he liked. For a movie about a crazed Irish mask-maker and his robot minions attempting to murder as many children as possible with Stonehenge-lasers it's strangely likable. From the painfully early-80's computerized opening credits to the legitimately great (and frighteningly bleak) final shot it's a tremendously fun watch. Plus you'll never get the Silver Shamrock jingle out of your head, ever, not even if you're the victim of a laser-equipped Halloween mask. Hap-py hap-py Halloween, Silver Shamrock!

Scary Movie Month 2015 Day 29: WNUF Halloween Special

WNUF Halloween Special

I'm kind of torn about this one. Stylistically I greatly appreciate what they're doing, but narratively it's significantly less satisfying. The concept is great: what we're seeing is a VHS recording of a Halloween special aired on local TV on Halloween night 1987 in which a reporter takes a group of people into a supposedly haunted house. As would befit a VHS recording of that time, all of the commercials are in place and I could legitimately imagine someone who doesn't know this was actually shot in 2013 thinking that it was authentic. They really have the details down of that era of television, and it's as convincing a recreation as you're ever going to see.

As convincing as the production is, the novelty wears a bit thin by the halfway point. Yes, including the commercials is a very clever conceit, but the "station breaks" come so often that it begins to feel like so much padding. Also, while the commercials feel very authentic, it tends to pull the audience out of the movie when the sixth commercial for a show that never existed comes up. There was never a moment where I stopped thinking "this sure does look like the real thing" which only served to remind me that of course it wasn't the real thing. The whole special is just over 80 minutes as it is, but it might have benefited from removing three or four of those breaks and clocking in at around an hour. 

Once the proverbial excrement hits the cooling device and the allegedly haunted house turns out to be exactly that, things escalate so quickly that there's no real time for tension to build. It's a very impressive production that leaves itself almost no room to tell a story, which is disappointing. I appreciate the novelty of it and the artistry involved in recreating the look of a 1987 television broadcast so exactly, but when all is said and done it feels like no more than that: a novelty. That novelty is certainly worth a look, and the intention is worth applauding, but I wish it was a strong enough movie to be recommended as more than a curiosity. 

Scary Movie Month 2015 Day 28: Transylvania 6-5000

Transylvania 6-5000

I blame Mel Brooks. I grew up watching his movies and listening to his & Carl Reiner's 2000 Year Old Man records over and over and over (and over), so I have a tremendous soft spot for his borscht belt style of comedy. It's silly, it's often infantile, and more often than not it makes me laugh. That combined with a love of monster movies makes me a pretty big fan of this goofball lark written and directed by Rudy De Luca, cowriter of a whole bunch of Brooks' movies (but typically not the good ones). 

Jeff Goldblum (dreamy as always) and Ed Begley, Jr. are tabloid reporters sent to Transylvania by their editor (Norman Fell!) to chase down a Frankenstein story. This leads to all sorts of monstery chicanery as they cross paths with a mad scientist (Joseph Bologna, playing to the cheap seats), a scheming hunchback (John Byner), a sexy vampire (Geena Davis, hooooooooly shit, worth seeing the movie just for her costume) and assorted wacky townsfolk. 

The interplay between Goldblum and Begley is legitimately pretty great, and they manage to wring laughs out of material that really doesn't earn it. Whenever they're offscreen the movie suffers, though Bologna appears to be having fun going so broad and there's charm in that.

Overall it's a tame, harmless, silly little comedy that for some reason (read: Goldblum) has remained on my radar for thirty years. I was in first or second grade when it hit cable, and it was one of those movies that seemed to play almost daily on HBO at that time, but I'm still surprised how fondly I remember it and how well it still works for me. Comedy is just as subjective as horror, and this certainly won't play as well for everyone, but I had a pretty big smile on my face the whole way through. I'd love to have seen what someone with a deft comic touch and genuine affection for horror movies like Brooks could have done with the same material (as a director, De Luca is a pretty decent screenwriter) but at least Goldblum & Begley's chemistry manages to keep it afloat. Also, did I mention Davis' outfit? Because that has also remained a very fond memory for thirty years. Ahem.

Scary Movie Month 2015 Day 27: The House That Dripped Blood

The House That Dripped Blood 

Another reader request, this one from my friend Nicky who is a straight-up horror authority and often knows my tastes better than I do. She knows I love anthologies so she recommended this one from Amicus, the studio behind my favorite anthologies Tales from the Crypt (1972) and The Vault of Horror (1973). This is a bit different from those in structure in that all four of the stories here (plus the framing story) take place in the same location, a house that has seen its share of horror over the years. Also, while Crypt and Vault were both based on EC Comics stories, these tales are all based on Robert Bloch stories, with the man himself adapting them for the screen.

It's not quite as consistent as the EC movies, and the twists are a bit more predictable, but the stories are entertaining and feature a few standout performances by the likes of Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Denholm Elliott, Jon Pertwee, and Joss "Diplomatic Immunity" Ackland. It starts off strong with probably the best story in the bunch, featuring Elliott as a writer who is haunted by his own murderous creation (shades of I, Madman and Martin Scorsese's episode of Amazing Stories, "Mirror, Mirror," both of which are things I love). It's a scary concept effectively executed.

The next two stories are a bit weaker, but there aren't any in the movie I'd call bad. One concerns Cushing and Ackland as friends who become obsessed with a waxwork that resembles a woman from their past, and the next features Lee as an abusive father whose young daughter turns to the supernatural for revenge. Both follow somewhat predictable beats but they also both have moments that work. 

Things pick up again in the final story, with Pertwee (who was playing Doctor Who at the time as well) starring as a horror film star whose costume cape turns its wearer into an actual vampire. It helps that this segment also features the luminous Ingrid Pitt, who is welcome to bite my neck any time she wishes. 

While none of the stories are quite as effective or memorable (or scary) as those in Crypt and Vault, this is still a better-than-average anthology and worth checking out if you're into that kind of thing. What it's really missing is the wicked streak of dark humor that permeates the EC movies, it takes itself just a tad too seriously, but that's not enough to sink it completely. Amicus produced such high quality movies that even their weaker efforts tended to be worth seeing, and this is no exception. If it sounds like I'm being hard on it, it's only because some of their other work is so strong that it makes for a pretty high bar to clear.

Scary Movie Month 2015 Day 26: Ravenous

Ravenous 

Hey, it's a reader request! My friend Fabian asked me to do this one at some point this month and since I loved Bone Tomahawk yesterday it seemed like the right time to revisit another Civil War-era cannibal movie featuring David Arquette in a small role (which is turning out to be a surprisingly robust subgenre). This one is a lot goofier, but it's also buckets of fun.

Guy Pearce, who should be in everything, stars as a US soldier during the Mexican-American War who is stationed in a remote California outpost when a disheveled man (Robert Carlyle) appears at the base with wild tales of cannibalistic survival. Turns out that there's more to his tale than Pearce and the other members of his regiment (including Jeffrey Jones, Neal McDonough, and Jeremy Davies) realize, and things go next-level bonkers (™ Jason Mantzoukas) from there.

Where the cannibal threat in Bone Tomahawk was deadly serious, here it's a lot sillier. It's stated at one point that to consume the flesh of another gives you that person's life energy, which basically turns this into Highlander with moderately less goofy accents as people are absorbing each other's energies all willy-nilly. It's a lot of silly fun, with Antonia Bird's energetic direction and Damon Albarn & Michael Nyman's quirky score helping it stand out from the crowd. The tone is kept light despite the subject matter and setting, and that comic tone (along with a bunch of fun performances, Carlyle in particular has maybe never been better) keeps the material from ever getting downbeat. This is one of the best comic horror movies of the 90s, and while it tanked in theaters it's easy to see why its cult has grown on home video and it has such a strong reputation in the horror community. It's on a special-feature-packed blu-ray from Scream Factory (doing the Lord's work, as usual) and absolutely worth tracking down. Just don't watch it when you're hungry.