Wednesday Review: Hotel Transylvania 2

Yes, I'm doing this one. I intend to have The Green Inferno up next week. But, the source material of this film still makes it appropriate, even if it isn't really horror.

I was fairly excited to see this movie. The first Hotel Transylvania is a guilty pleasure for me. It's dumb, but it's also sweet, and makes me laugh. I was hoping that with this film they'd take what worked from the first and build on it.

Sadly, I was quite disappointed. It's not a horrible movie, but whatever made the previous film work just wasn't there. For every ten jokes thrown out, I found myself laughing at one. That wouldn't be awful in and of itself, but the jokes that hit seemed to be throwaway gags, while far worse material was built up for several minutes.

The joke that stood out with me the most, because it was such wonderfully black humor, was a cutaway to a monster magician. Jonathan felt that the hotel, now hosting humans, should tone their magic show down to be less gruesome. This joke lasts a few seconds, but could easily have been used in another context, and stretched to three or four minutes until the audience was howling with laughter at an ever more morbid show. Instead, we get long bits on how Wayne the Werewolf acts like a dog.

The main conflict of the movie is Dracula's attempts to turn Mavis and Jonathan's son Dennis into a vampire, which can only happen before age five (now young vampires suddenly age at the same rate as humans). In order to do this, he convinces Jonathan to take Mavis to California as a distraction, while Dracula and his posse show Dennis how to be a “real” monster.

Jonathan is a major problem with this entire franchise. The writers seem determined to keep the focus on Mavis and Dracula, so Jonathan never evolves as a character, and goes along with any harebrained scheme that Dracula comes up with. When Mavis threatens to move to California for Dennis' safety if he's truly a human, Jonathan should be completely on her side. Instead, he sides with his father-in law. Jonathan mentions briefly that he wants to stay at the hotel because he can “be himself,” but this isn't really demonstrated. Jonathan seems constantly happy no matter where he is, and coming to the hotel seemed like just one more in a long string of adventures for him in the past film. Why is it so important to him now?

Also, I don't think I saw Jonathan interact with Dennis once in this movie. This is a huge failing for a franchise that made Dracula such a nurturing male character in the previous movie. The fact that Mavis never expresses the slightest bit of anger at Jonathan, even when she finds out about the plan, is utterly baffling.

Towards the end Mel Brooks breaths some life into the film as Dracula's human-phobic father Vlad, but he doesn't get nearly enough screen time. His entire storyline seems almost tacked-on to give us a villain for the film's climax...oh, and he isn't the villain, he just brought the villain along with him in the form of a vampire-bat named Bela who acts as a second-rate version of the first film's Quasimodo. Apparently having Dennis' great-grandfather be evil would be too much for the kiddies in the audience to endure.

I'd say wait for this movie to hit Netflix. There are worse out there, and a few of the gags work, but overall it does almost nothing with the material it's given.

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #78 The Brood

I feel as though I should hate The Brood for being both sexist and ableist. But as with most of David Cronenberg’s work though, (with the exception of The Fly), I honestly can’t bring myself to care. The story never interests me. It’s like hearing a college freshman trying to tell The Aristocrats; you know that he’s just saying it to shock you. It has no connection to the real world on any literal or metaphorical level, so why should you care?

The movie actually starts out decently. A man named Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) is forced by his custody agreement to take his daughter Candice (Cindy Hinds) for visits to her mother Nola (Samantha Eggar) who’s in an experimental psychiatric clinic run by Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed). We’re initially set up for the story of a custody battle. Juliana is coming home with scratches, and Frank believes that either Nola or the other patients are hurting her, so he wants to take away her visitation rights. However, if he doesn’t comply for the time being, then Nola could gain sole custody of their daughter.

This story could have been good. Frank is established as clearly being the more caring parent, subverting gender expectations. Nola is clearly shown as wanting to be a good mother, but not being able to handle her own mental illness. I’m never entirely sure what to think of Dr. Raglan, but that’s probably a good thing. It’s never clear if he’s actually treating his patients, or simply getting them hooked on his particular brand of therapy in order to better manipulate them.

Then, the actual plot starts. Nola’s mother (Nuala Fitzgerald), and later her father (Harry Beckman), are attacked by grey, deformed children. We eventually find out that Dr. Raglan has been experimenting with a form of psychotherapy that causes psychological illnesses to physically manifest in the form of things like rashes and boils. With Nola, it has gone a step further, and these children are born from her body as manifestations of her rage who attack anyone with whom she’s angry.

I’m pretty much giving away the ending at this point, but I feel even less shame about that than usual, as nothing remotely interesting happens during the rest of the film. There’s a long stretch between the death of Nola’s mother and the death of her father. In the meantime, we get a lot of scenes of talking and very little action. Frank wants more information on Dr. Raglan that he can use in court against Nola, and everyone is sad about the death of Nola’s mother. Even Frank had a good relationship with her, but it never feels like it’s going anywhere. The story would probably be more interesting if it were shown from Nola’s perspective, but most of our time is spent with Frank.

I should also note that there’s nothing remotely interesting about the visual style of this film. If there had been, then this might have saved it. But the color palate is dull and the babies are clearly just midgets or children in grey masks. I would have vastly preferred Claymation to give them an otherworldly quality. Granted, Cronenberg likely had a low budget, but surely he could have found something more interesting than “small, grey people.”

I don’t recommend this movie. There’s nothing about it worth seeing.

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #79 Dracula (1931)

I'll be honest, I've never seen the appeal of the story of Dracula. My personal view is that it was a pot boiler that just had the dumb luck of being chosen as the source material for one of the most famous silent horror films of all time (Nosferatu, which is on this list, but I have yet to watch it as of this writing). Solely because of that it was labeled as a “classic.” But, if that’s the case, then it's truly ironic that Stoker's widow tried to have every copy of Nosferatu destroyed.

Beyond that, it’s a story which we've outgrown as a culture. The original novel clearly used Dracula's corruption of women as symbolic of their awakening sexuality. Stoker might as well have beaten his readers to death with a sign that read “FEMALE SEXUALITY IS EVIL!” Don't get me wrong, we haven't outgrown Dracula the character, but he's far from the creature he was in the original novel.

To date, I've seen one version of the story I fully enjoyed: the Spanish Language version of this very film that was shot parallel to the Bela Lugosi version for foreign release. I also felt that the Francis Ford Coppola adaptation wasn't terrible, but it mostly shined when it expanded upon the source material by giving Dracula a more sympathetic origin without making him seem weak or uninteresting. (Looking at you Dracula Untold).

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let me say that I enjoyed this viewing more than previous viewings, as I felt that I finally “got” it. I'm very used to the idea of Dracula (Bela Lugosi) as the suave lover, so this was the first time I realized that Lugosi was supposed to come across as stiff and stilted. He was an inhuman thing that rarely had reason to interact with mortals. Basically, I was watching him playing a corpse.

I feel guilty that my praise of the film must end with the performances of Lugosi and Dwight Frye, and their ability to create a number of tense scenes together. In fact, Frye is so amazing as Renfield, you wish that the entire film had been about him and Dracula having a battle of wills. Beyond that, I almost feel sorry for the movie. It's clear that it was made in a time before the proper use of film was fully understood. The camera movements are slight and the framing of shots not always well used. While it's better than some films from the day, you often feel as if you're watching a play rather than a true film, with the actors attempting to project both physically and verbally for the people in the back row and pausing to let every line sink in.

That said, these problems were quite common with many early films, and this movie was far from the worst offender. I'll be covering The Black Cat later on this list, a movie that's well-acted, but makes you think the director had never touched a camera before. So, in comparison, this is forgivable.

Dracula belongs on this list, because when it came out, it was horrifying. The assault by an inhuman thing disguised as a man, feeding by taking the lifeblood from his victims and corrupting their very essences to keep them from salvation. The fear hasn't gone away, but it’s now been joined by tedium and annoyance at the primitive values and primitive film making of the era of its origin.

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #80 Poltergeist (1982)

Preface: I accept Tobe Hooper as the director of this film. Yes, Spielberg had a very strong creative role in the production of the movie. Producers often do. That does not make him the director. Shut up with your conspiracy theories, and stop hurting Hooper's career.

Everything's that's old is new again. In my second viewing of Poltergeist, I realized that I was watching Insidious made three decades earlier, with a happy ending... and then the sequel for Insidious gave us back the happy ending. So, really, the only difference between the two is that both Insidious movies combined have a longer running time, and Poltergeist caused more property damage, because the house was destroyed at the end.

The basic set-up of this movie is that a real estate agent (Craig T Nelson) and his family (JoBeth Williams as his wife, and Dominique Dunn, Oliver Robbins, and Heather O'Rourke as his children) are living in a neighborhood in which he is trying to sell homes, and comes under assault from a presence that wants to steal their children. This basic set-up allows for a number of freaky scenes that eventually culminates with the aforementioned destruction of the house. I somewhat suspect that the ending required the house to be destroyed simply because the entity had attacked them so many times and been repelled that any other ending would have left us with serious doubt as to whether it was actually gone, rather than simply in a momentary lull.

One frequent problem I have with reviewing these movies is that I have to separate “is scary” from “scares me.” There's certainly a distinction, as many things that others find freaky don't bother me in the slightest, and vice versa. In the case of this movie, the only scene that bothered me at all was when the father had to threaten his spectrally-kidnapped daughter (O'Rourke) with a spanking. While I don't have children, somehow I did relate to the issue. The father had to acknowledge himself as being more threatening to the child than the mother, since he was charged with discipline. The alternative to this acknowledgment was the loss of his daughter.

However, there are many other scenes that I do acknowledge as “scary.” In fact, the entire film is a long montage of the spirits doing bizarre and freaky things, up to and including kidnapping children into an alternate universe between life and death. That's not a criticism. I certainly don't expect otherworldly entities to behave in a manner that humans would find rational. So, their failure to do so makes perfect sense.

The thing that keeps us grounded in the plot is the human characters. Two parents are desperately trying to defend their children. That constant is what keeps us anchored within the movie; the transition of the characters from normality, to excitement at the possibility of the supernatural, to fear, to determination.

This movie is good, but often seems to lack direction, and really drags on too long. While I see the appeal, and would definitely recommend horror fans check it out, the remake actually entertained me more, simply because it did a better job of streamlining the plot. Still, I think my opinion is clearly in the minority here, and I definitely recommend checking the movie out.

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #81 The Howling

The Howling is commonly known among horror movie fans as “the werewolf movie that came out in 1981 that wasn’t An American Werewolf in London.” Not for one moment will I pretend that Howling doesn't deserve its place in American Werewolf’s shadow. American Werewolf has better acting, directing, special effects, and a more compelling storyline than Howling by far.

However, does this mean that Howling is bad? Hell no. Neither was How Green Was My Valley, a film that just had the shit luck of beating both The Maltese Falcon and Citizen Kane for Best Picture, thus assuring it a century of hatred (still going strong) from anyone who gives a damn about film history (...at least I assume it was good, I've never actually seen How Green Was My Valley...). In the same way, The Howling was not made to do battle with a titan of the genre.

Dealing with the plot, the storyline is a bit convoluted. A reporter (Dee Wallace) is traumatized after a terrifying encounter with a serial killer (Robert Picardo) ends with the killer being shot by police. She is told by her therapist (Patrick Macnee) that she needs to go on vacation to a secluded resort to recover. As it turns out though, the serial killer, the therapist, and the entire town are all werewolves. Needless to say, the serial killer isn't dead. And by the end of the film, she and her husband (Christopher Stone) have both been turned as well. The ending shows her turning into a werewolf on live television to prove their existence, and being shot with a silver bullet in a mercy killing by a friend. Just to twist the screws a bit harder, it implies that no one will believe that what they just saw was real.

I'm not entirely clear on how much free will werewolves have in this world. Their werewolf forms seem to be evil, but they also seem to act with intent that's carried over from their human forms. Her husband becomes evil, but he was already an unlikable bastard who cheated on her. This whole thing makes me seriously question if shooting her while in werewolf form was really necessary at all, or if it was just a precautionary measure for an unfounded fear.

The thing best remembered about this film is probably the sex scene, which to me is a great disservice to an otherwise decent movie. If we're going to remember something about this film it should be Robert Picardo, who gives one of the great performances of horror cinema. Sadly, he seems to have mostly been forgotten. The special effects are also quite good. And while they can't hold a candle to American Werewolf, they could contend quite nicely with Underworld, which came out two decades later.

Ultimately, this film is merely “good.” I'm happy to share a planet with this film and all of the people involved in its creation. If I happened to run into the director or a member of the cast while grocery shopping, and for some bizarre reason I had my copy of the DVD, I would probably ask them to autograph the case. But, I probably wouldn't seek them out at a Con or read their biographies.

The fact that this movie is so forgettable is probably why the sequels all seem to be more readily available. The sequels are mostly known for being delightful trash, which does make them more memorable. However, that doesn't exactly make me happy, since I do think this film is deserving of praise. I know I sound contradictory on that point, but I feel like I have to struggle to not insult this movie, since American Werewolf is a thing. This is a film that would probably be legendary in a universe without American Werewolf... but, that's not really a universe in which I'd want to live.

Wednesday Review: The Visit

Watching The Visit I found myself debating whether my politics had any place in a movie review. Did I want to open this review by condemning the stigma against the mentally ill this movie perpetuates? Or did I just want to stick to talking about it's quality?

Thankfully, the movie resolved my debate for me by using the aspect of mental illness in an illogical manner, giving me something to complain about: How can people with mental disorders that leave them barely able to function pull off the evil scheme presented in this movie? It relied on a great deal of secrecy and coordination that I highly doubt either of them could have carried out given their mental states.

This movie seems to have critics split right down the middle, with a little more than half declaring it to represent an upswing for Shyamalan's career now that he's back to low-budget Indie films. The rest see this as another of Shyamalan's dreaded “twist” movies, shallow and illogical. Both seem to agree that this is a passion project, since he funded it with his paycheck from After Earth, and sold it to Blumhouse.

I don't really fall into either of these camps. I think this is calculated career-saver for Shyamalan. At the end of his rope, he made a film that was sure to at least turn enough of a profit to break the streak of failures currently filling his resume for most of the 2000s. It's a self-interested move, but one I fully understand.

I reach this conclusion because the film, while made independently of Blumhouse, seems far more like a Blumhouse film than a Shyamalan. The use of found-footage robs us of Shyamalan's usual cinematography, the soundtrack is downplayed for most of the film, the colors of muted, and the performances seem calculated to give every character one or two traits to remember. The decision to copy the Blumhouse formula was likely conscious. If he wants to show he can still turn a profit, why not copy one of the most consistent profit-makers in Hollywood right now?

The premise of the movie is that a brother and sister go to visit their estranged Grandparents, who they've never met. The sister wants to document their grandparents, in hopes of finding out what caused the rift between their mother and her family. They also want to give their mother time alone with her new boyfriend. However, as the movie progresses it becomes clear that both of their grandparents are mentally unbalanced. Their grandfather is often confused and paranoid, while their grandmother enters a psychotic state after 9:30 PM and begins running around the house frantically.

Judged as a Blumhouse film, this is among their better productions. Shyamalan inserts a lot of humor, such as making the brother a terrible rapper with a gigantic ego, or having the grandmother stuff cookies in her mouth and yell “Yahtzee!” during one of the film's more frightening scenes. It's ironic that a man with such a reputation as a diva would be the one to make a Blumhouse film that doesn't take itself way too seriously. On the other hand, Signs and Lady in the Water both had levels of self-awareness that much of their audiences seemed to have miss (not that it could save Lady in the Water).

Looking at it from a horror standpoint, it's only enhanced by the humor. A frequent problem with Blumhouse productions is that we get sick of the darkness, and don't care anymore what happens to the characters. Here, however, the elements of horror and comedy blend so well together that I often found myself unsure whether my fellow movie patrons were laughing, screaming, or both in many of the key scenes.

I do recommend this movie. By the standards of Blumhouse it really knocks it out of the park. On the other hand, letting the man who directed The Sixth Sense direct a Blumhouse feels somewhat like a little-league team drafting a laid-off MLB pitcher: Yeah, he'll win them the game even if he's washed-out, but at the end of the day it isn't a lot of bragging rights. Still, winning a game is winning a game.

100 Scariest Movie Moments: #82 The Terminator

There was a time, within my memory, in which T-2 seemed to have completely overshadowed its predecessor. But I'm happy to say that in recent years this seems to have been reversed. While T-2 still forms the basis of most of the franchise, (it’s easier to write drama when the past can be changed than when you're in a stable time loop, and know the humans win) I've very rarely heard “Hasta La Vista, Baby” since the turn of the Millennium, while “Sarah Conner?” has grown progressively more popular, and “I'll be back” seems to be undying.

It's very rare to see a movie from the 80s, a sci-fi action flick especially, that never seems dated. And to find an action movie in which the story and characters seem to have been given real thought is amazing. The premise is never treated with anything less than absolute seriousness.

I feel like I'm obligated to give some lip-service to what the film is about. In the future there was a war between humans and machines. The humans were led to victory by a man named John Connor, so the machines sent a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a machine with the appearance of a human, back in time to kill Connor's mother Sarah (Linda Hamilton). The humans, realizing what the machines had done, sent a man named Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) back in time to protect her, who turned out to be the leader's father. This creates a stable time loop, which is promptly contradicted by every other entry in the franchise.

The thing that absolutely no one seems to remember about this movie is Michael Biehn, simply because he isn't in the later movies. Hell, T-2 cut out a dream-sequence cameo, because they were worried people who hadn't seen the first film wouldn't get who he was. This is a shame, because he's where the real fear comes from. And without his performance, this would be nothing more than another action flick. The characters from the present can't fully appreciate what's going on. Sarah knows that there's a killer robot trying to murder her, and has some notion that in the future there will be a war. But he's been there, and shows his fear, not through screaming, but through calculation. He is so terrified that he will not allow for one single error brought on by human emotion.

This is not to say that Sarah's perspective is lacking in fear in and of itself. The idea that someone is going around murdering people with the same name as you, since that's all the Terminator has to go on, is certainly a fearful prospect. While I don't have the advantage of having witnessed the movie without prior knowledge of Kyle and the Terminator's motives, which remain mysterious for some time, even without that, the idea gives me chills.

Many people cite the ending of this film when the Terminator's skin has been blown off as the scariest part. I disagree. Whatever you may think of his action hero roles, Arnold gives a performance that's absolutely terrifying, and far scarier than any special effect could be. When you hear the words “he doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear,” you really believe that's what you're seeing: a thing with no human emotions.

The movie also benefits from its relative realism. I've heard that the use of weapons in this film is mostly accurate. I don't claim to have the expertise to determine that, but I don't believe that the humans ever do anything obviously beyond the physical capabilities of a human being, distinguishing it from most action films. This serves to make the scenes in which the Terminator shows superhuman abilities far more impressive. He's not hunting action heroes, he's hunting a soldier and a scared young woman.

I love this movie. I love every single, solitary second of it. While I've enjoyed the sequels and spin-offs to varying degrees, none of them match the original. There's an intensity and a sincerity to it that so few films can manage. Anyone who hasn't seen this movie has done themselves a great disservice.