Fear Itself: Episode 2 Spooked

If I have a problem with this episode it's that Eric Roberts isn't the best choice for the lead. I know in real-life Roberts has had run-ins with the law, and I haven't seen him in a lot of things, but as an actor here he just feels too clean to portray the sleazy character he's supposed to be. Perhaps if they'd mussed up his hair a bit, or let him grow a beard, but he does not come across as an alcoholic, ex-cop, Private Investigator, who blackmails his own clients.

Harry Siegal (Roberts) was a cop who killed a suspect he was interrogating (Jack Noseworthy) in order to find a missing child. He lost his job and pension, but moved onto Private Investigation. He's hired by the latest in a long line of suspicious wives, a woman named Meredith (Cynthia Watros). Meredith insists that he set-up shop in the house next-door to her own, but unbeknownst to Harry the house is haunted.

I use the word “haunted” in a general sense. It's never made explicitly clear what's in the house, and it doesn't seem tied to people who died in the house. It's just determined to drive anyone who comes inside to suicide Harry begins experiencing bizarre visions that eventually tie in with his history. He's first faced by Rory, the suspect he killed, but eventually flashes back to a childhood trauma, playing with a gun and accidentally killing his own brother (Jake Church).

The final twist is like a rabbit hole, getting more messed up the more you think about it. Meredith was Rory's brother, who went to the house in an effort to see him again. She sent Harry in hoping to destroy him. She claims that Rory protected her and told her to seek out Harry...or perhaps the forces of the house told her to. I prefer the latter interpretation: The house saw that it could get an extra soul by letting her go, so it did.

The final confrontation isn't quite like anything I've ever quite seen. Two individuals mutually hate each other, and are mutually indifferent to their own deaths. So, does murdering the other still have any meaning at all? The episode finds a way to avoid answering that question, when Harry is accidentally shot by his own partner (Lawrence Gilliard Jr.).

The episode isn't the best, but it's pretty decent. Most of it is a fairly standard supernatural horror, with a really good climax. I'd say The Sacrifice was better by far, but this isn't bad.

Wednesday Review: 31

Someone should really tell Rob Zombie that there are easier ways to see his wife chained up than making a movie about evil clowns.

That said, however, it’s good to see Zombie back on his game. While the Halloween films weren’t horrible in my opinion, Lords of Salem was an utter bore. What Zombie does best is sleaze, and now the king of modern exploitation has returned.

This movie isn’t as good as The Devil’s Rejects, but that lightning will only strike once. You can’t expect Zombie to change the game every time he plays. Furthermore, this film did give us one of the best horror villains in quite some time with Doom-Head. He’s a truly fascinating mixture of the intellectual and the savage in a way that I’ve never really seen, and definitely set apart from Zombie’s past villains.

The premise of this movie is that a group of Carnies in the 1970s are kidnapped on Halloween by rich people who pay evil clowns to hunt victims for sport. These rich people are led by Malcolm McDowell in a role that could very easily be an older version of Alex from A Clockwork Orange (ignoring the final chapter of the book, obviously). It’s one thing to portray and evil sadist taking great pleasure in the pain of others. McDowell is a man who sees the pain of others as a routine part of his life, and if anything seems almost bored by the game he runs. I don’t think we ever see an emotion from him stronger than annoyance. I imagine a life of breaking people through public service would have turned Alex into exactly this man.

The movie gets one thing absolutely right: every character, good or evil, has a distinct personality. Sometimes you love to watch them die, sometimes you hate it. However, every death, not matter how gruesome, has an impact on you. That’s exactly the reaction you need from your audience to set a great horror film apart from a good one.

Aside from the premise of “fighting evil clowns” there isn’t a lot to the plot until the end, and there’s only so much I can say about that without spoilers. I have mixed feelings about the ending. Zombie combines a major cliché subversion with another major cliché. In this case, however, I’m not totally sure either of these were really earned, but explaining why would be spoilerific. Perhaps another day. This is certainly a film I’d like to do a regular review on at some point.

That said, I recommend this movie. It’s a lot of fun, and if you like Rob Zombie you’re going to get exactly what you expect.

Fear Itself: Episode 1 The Sacrifice

(Note: Wikipedia and the DVD set give different episode orders. It doesn't really matter, since it's an anthology show, but I decided to stick with Wikipedia. I've also decided to keep my initial comments about the show in early reviews to reflect my opinions at the time of writing, even if my opinions changed as I continued to re-watch it.)

For anyone unfamiliar with this show, it's the unofficial third season of Masters of Horror. When HBO decided to cancel MoH, Lionsgate had already sunk an investment into the third season, and tried to recoup some of it's money by moving the show to NBC and changing the name. The gore had to be substantially toned down, and many of the “Masters” were unwilling to return for a network show, so the notability of the directors dropped significantly. Breck Eisner, who directed this first episode, didn't even direct a theatrical horror film until his remake of The Crazies two years later.

That said, however, I think that this show is underrated. While it never reached the heights of MoH, it also never sank to the same depths. The show is, overall, a lot less experimental, and so it maintains a much more consistent quality.

Four criminals running from the police have a break-down. Navarro (Reamonn Joshee) was wounded in their latest robbery, and the others are forced to carry him. They find a settlement with three sisters and an elderly man (Bill Baksa), who live in isolation from the rest of the world. The sisters initially seem helpful, but standoffish. However, they quickly begin to isolate the men from each other.

Virginia (Mircea Monroe) lures Diego (Stephen Martines) into the barn under the pretense of sex, and traps him in a pit. Chelsea (Rachel Miner) sews Navarro's mouth shut, while Tara (Michelle Molineux) feeds the brothers, Point and Lemmon (Jeffrey Pierce and Jesse Plemons). Just as Point discovers Navarro's now-staked corpse, a creature (Walter Phelan) attacks.

I love the reveal of this episode: The creature is a vampire that followed the settlers from Romania. The creature turns its victims with a bite, and none of the settlers were able to kill it. The only option they had to prevent an exponential plague of vampires from overtaking the Earth was to live with it far away from civilization, luring in victims to keep it fed and happy, and killing them when they turn.

I'm not sure if I should call the sisters anti-Villains or anti-Heroes. By the end of the episode the two survivors, Chelsea and Point, have teamed up in a final effort to end the creature. However, it's not clear if Chelsea has had a change of heart about their methods, or if the creature has simply become uncontrollable.

The twist of the episode works...kind of. Chelsea and Point are able to burn the creature, but Point has been bitten, and so Chelsea closes the gate of the community again to begin feeding travelers to Point in order to keep the evil appeased. I like the irony, but the sisters had no difficulty dealing with young vampires earlier in the episode. In fact, the entire premise is based on their ability to do so.

Maybe Chelsea just knows that Point will be as much of a badass vampire as he was a human. Or maybe she's supposed to have developed feelings for him, and can't bring herself to kill him. I don't really buy either of these, though. Still, it's an anthology show, so twists are to be expected, especially when writers are desperate to avoid happy endings.

I'd say overall this episode got Fear Itself off to a solid start. Nothing up to the standards of The Washingtonians, but a hell of a lot better than Fair Haired Child.

Masters of Horror: Episode 26 Dream Cruise

There was originally supposed to be a tradition that every season of Masters of Horror would include one episode set in Japan by a Japanese director. Since the show ran for only two seasons, we had only two such episodes: Takashi Miike's Imprint and Norio Tsuruta's Dream Cruise. It's sad that this tradition doesn't carry over to Fear Itself, where the only Asian-born director was Hong Kong's Ronny Yu, who was likely recruited for directing Freddy vs Jason.

Dream Cruise feels far more distinctly foreign than Imprint. While it has an American protagonist (Daniel Gillies), the Japanese characters never speak English among themselves as they did in Imprint. I'd say that Imprint was largely about the American character, representing as much his fantasies about Japan as the reality.

Dream Cruise, on the other hand, has the American protagonist largely as a witness to supernatural events that are culturally foreign to him. One of the two main flashbacks in the episode is a vision created by a Japanese ghost, and given to a Japanese character. So, while this was made for an American audience, I imagine that it could be viewed happily by Japanese Cinema buffs as well.

The final precursor to my review is this: The episode was shot as a 90-minute feature, but shortened to 60-minutes for broadcast. I understand that the DVD release featured the 90-minute version, but I purchased the series through Amazon, which features the 60-minute broadcast version. I apologize for any cut material I fail to cover.

The protagonist, Jack Miller (Gillies), is an American lawyer who has worked in Japan for several years. In spite of this, he acknowledges that his Japanese is still terrible, and so the Japanese characters have to accommodate him with English. Jack's story is defined by two main traits: an all-consuming fear of the water, due to his failure to save his brother Sean (Ethan Amis) from drowning as a child, and his affair with Yuri (Yoshino Kimura), the wife of his client Eiji Saito (Ryu Ishibashi).

When Eiji invites Jack and Yuri out on a boat trip, they suspect that he's onto them and planning their murder. He was able to marry Yuri because his previous wife disappeared. While there's no proof that he killed her, and she was known to be mentally unstable, the suspicion is obvious.

We see Eiji scowling a lot aboard the boat, and constantly dropping snarky hints to Jack and Yuri that he knows. But before Eiji can attempt his murder plot he is forced to go down into the water to investigate problems with the propeller, which turns out to be caused by the ghost of his murdered wife, Naomi (Miho Ninagawa). He's killed by the propeller, but reconstituted and possessed by the wife, who wants revenge on Yuri.

At the same time, the boat begins receiving radio broadcasts calling out Jack's name. Jack, not realizing the true nature of the supernatural attack, suspects that his brother has returned for revenge. I'm not sure the exact moment he figures out that the hostile ghost isn't his brother. Yuri has a vision which she explicitly tells Jack about in the last fifteen minutes, but I'm not sure if Jack had stuck with the “brother” theory until that moment. It doesn't hugely affect the episode either way.

Naomi's attack escalates over the course of the episode. She holds Eiji's body together for a while, but eventually discards it, and attacks Jack and Yuri with powers including hallucinations, water manipulation, more of the aforementioned possession, and generally whatever other powers the plot requires her to have. I don't say this as a criticism, merely an observation. This is a Japanese ghost story, it isn't supposed to make sense.

Sean does, eventually, show up in a protective capacity. However, I feel that this is something of a missed opportunity. Sean makes only two real appearances, the first to snap Jack out of a Naomi-induced hallucination that nearly led him to kill Yuri, and again to fight off Naomi when she tries to drown them. If you're going to have two ghosts, from two wildly different cultural mythologies go to war, you should give them each plenty of screen-time. Instead, Naomi dominates the entire latter half of the episode. While I know she isn't really supposed to make sense, I'm utterly baffled by why Naomi is revealed to be the one calling Jack's name, instead of Sean. It eliminates any build-up to Sean's presence.

To touch on the performances, I would say that Gillies does an effective job, but nothing special. Kimura, though, is something of a weakness. She's not terrible, and does fine in all the Japanese scenes, but she seems to have trouble conveying strong emotions when speaking English. This is a bit surprising, because her Wikipedia page says she was born in England. I suspect that she may have crippled her acting range a bit by exaggerating her accent. It would probably have worked better if she just reverted to Japanese whenever her character panicked, even when she and Jack were alone.

Ishibashi, though, really steals the show prior to his possession. In my first viewing, I saw him as an entertaining Ham, verbally building up to the murder he was planning as he taunts Jack and Yuri. On the second viewing, though, I think I caught a deeper level. We find out via Yuri's vision that he killed Naomi because she was a loveless marriage for money, and she had intentionally made his life Hell for some time. Killing a woman he actually loves for falling out of love with him is on the razor-edge of his twisted moral code, so he's putting the act off and debating it while making a show of bravado.

I'm somewhat interested to see the 90-minute version of this, and think I'll likely come back to review it at some point. I hope Sean has a greater presence. Even in it's current form, though, I recommend it.

Wednesday Review: Blair Witch

As one of the few people who actually likes Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows, I feel validated by how godawful the “real” sequel to The Blair Witch Project turned out. The original film was probably the single most complete piece of cinema I have ever seen. There was nothing further that we could be shown that wouldn’t simply spoil the mystery. So, Book of Shadows chose to simply go in the direction of mind-screw and present us with a meta story examining the original film as a phenomena.

But now, many years later, we finally have a true sequel. And make no mistake, this is a sequel. Everything in the original film has been turned up to eleven, as suddenly the Witch goes from a mysterious threat that might be supernatural, to a nearly god-like force of nature. The threat she poses goes from scary to cartoonish over the course of the film.

I’m not the first to note that the attempts to update the film go nowhere. The character’s bring a drone gets stuck in a tree and their cell phones stop working immediately. All the new technology is just there to say “ha ha, the Blair Witch still wins!” And that is only the beginning of the increasingly absurd list of powers the Blair Witch now seems to possess. I won’t spoil her full abilities, but suffice it to say that by the end of the movie she’s a full-on reality warper.

The marketing campaign has already made sure everyone is aware that this movie is about the brother of Heather from the first film searching for her many years later in response to some mysterious footage popping up on Youtube. It’s a silly premise, and it’s made sillier by the apparent revelation that no one had been that far into the Burkittsville woods in years. At minimum Blair Witch 2 acknowledged that once the story of the Blair Witch got out, the woods teamed with tourists.

I think I’ve decided that Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett work best with horror-comedies. You’re Next was brilliant, both tense and hilarious. Their segment in The ABCs of Death was side-splitting. But, for me at least, The Guest failed for exactly the same reason as this film: an overpowered villain who fails to be either scary or compelling.

My ultimate problem with this film, however, is a pretty major spoiler: we’re shown the Blair Witch. The camera is pointed directly at her multiple times, and we get brief but clear views of her. Congratulations to Wingard and Barrett! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a horror icon ruined quite so quickly as the Blair Witch who has now transformed into a knock-off of Mama.

So, for God’s sakes skip it. I’ve suffered for you, there’s no need to sacrifice yourself to this piece of crap as well.

Masters of Horror: Episode 25 The Washingtonians

I was asked shortly before writing this what my favorite sub-genre of horror was. I was surprised to realize I didn’t have a prepared answer. It wasn’t a question I’d thought about much. However, I was able to answer quite easily: Horror-Comedy. I think that’s why I’ve been looking forward to this episode as I've gone back through this show. It is one of the most absurd stories I’ve ever seen, but somehow manages to remain quite creepy.

According to this episode, George Washington took up cannibalism while at Valley Forge, and converted many other Founding Fathers to his way of thinking. He was known for feasting on the flesh of virgin girls, and his cult apparently ate both Thomas Jefferson, and the entire First Continental Congress. The Washingtonians continue to this day, living in a small town in Virginia filled with people who are obviously crazy. Maybe most people wouldn’t suspect “cannibals,” but their unhealthy interest in the age of young girls would likely land the entire town on a few watch lists if this episode occurred in anything resembling reality.

Mike Franks (Jonathon Schaech), along with his wife and daughter (Venus Terzo and Julia Tortolano), returns to the home of his late grandparents for his grandmother’s funeral, and makes a shocking discovery going through the effects: A human-bone fork and a letter written by “G.W” stating his intention to eat the children of the nation.

Mike informs his Grandmother's friend Samuel Madison (Myron Natwick) of the letter, and Samuel promptly flips out, demanding the letter. The Washingtonians begin assaulting his family with horses, hatchets, swords, and muskets, while dressed in colonial regalia, in an attempt to get the letter. While they do wait until nightfall, they make absolutely no other attempt at stealth.

The satire is obvious: Tradition and patriotism are fundamentally irrational motivations. The Washingtonians speak of cannibalism as a point of pride, simply because it’s part of their heritage. We even get a history professor (Saul Rubinek) to lecture Mike on how history is written to justify the beliefs of the society, with the truth being an afterthought.

The fact that the episode is still so utterly terrifying is a tribute to Peter Medak’s talent as a director. The Washingtonians are so utterly demented that you’re afraid even as you laugh. Maybe I don’t think that they could operate in secret for a quarter millennium, but seeing a family of three surrounded by these blood-covered maniacs is still chilling.

Tortolano really steals the show, however. She shows a degree of competency rarely seen in actors so young. Furthermore, her characterization is fairly unique: she has debilitating fear of everything, to the point of being unable to walk to the other end of the house alone without panic. This is a character trait that’s sometimes used in male characters, but rarely in females. I suspect this is because female vulnerability is generally seen as a positive trait, so this is an interesting play on gender roles. She never overcomes her fear, but I don’t find that to be a problem. It’s not easy to overcome your fears just as sociopaths are trying to eat you.

I’d say this is, without a question, my favorite MoH episode. It’s hilarious, terrifying, witty, well directed, well-written, and well-acted. Also, props to the Washingtonian who pulled a musket on SWAT Team members armed with machine guns and bullet-proof vests, for sheer chutzpah.

Masters of Horror: Episode 24 The Black Cat

I love Stuart Gordon and Jeffrey Combs. That said, however, this is not what I would have expected from them. It isn't horrible, but I honestly have no idea what tone they were going for. It varies wildly between drama, camp, and gore, and the depiction of Poe seems to be based on the now-discredited biography written by Rufus Griswold. Whether Gordon thought that Poe really was a drunken madman, or just thought it would make a good story, I don't know.

To spoil the ending: It's all a dream. The entire point of this story is that Poe (Combs) was desperate for money to treat his wife's (Elyse Levesque) tuberculosis, and had a bad dream that inspired him to write The Black Cat (I have not yet read that story, so I can't comment on the relation between it and this episode).

I suspect they made this episode a dream mainly so that they could feature a series of bizarre events that would have been mentioned by Poe's biographers had they actually happened. I certainly think it would be common knowledge if his wife had been prematurely declared dead, and he tried to burn down their home with her body in it, after hanging his cat. Honestly, I think this episode might have worked better if they'd simply declared it to be an alternate universe, and left it at that.

To address the actual plot: Poe's gets into a conflict with his cat, Pluto. He seems to be looking for excuses to blame the cat for the problems of his own alcoholism. He gouges out the cat's eye for distracting him, even as he's ignoring his writing to drink. He blames the initial “death” of his wife on the cat killing their other pets, even though she was primarily upset about Poe's drinking. After the cat and his wife both return from the dead, the cat with a white mark where Poe's noose had been, he kills his wife with an axe he swung at the cat and walls her body up in the basement (yes, The Cask of Amontillado, I know that one). The cat somehow gets into the walls with his wife's corpse, and mimics the sound of her screaming to draw the police. Poe runs, and the dream comes to an end, with the usual “everything is fine” moment. There's no shocking final twist, Poe writes his story and the episode ends.

I'm discussing the plot briefly because there isn't a lot to discuss. This episode moves slowly, and by the end is rather tedious. If they were going to make the whole story a dream, I would have at least expected some effort to make it a truly thrilling dream. Surely the director and star of Re-Animator could have managed something appropriate to that task.

The episode is well made, with good production values and acting, but I can't really recommend it. It's like a slow drama occasionally interrupted by bits of ham and gore in the style of Re-Animator, as if even Gordon was getting bored with this story.