Movie 108: Silent Night, Deadly Night

Starring: Robert Brian Wilson, Lilyan Chauvin, Gilmer McCormick, Toni Nero, Linnea Quigley.

Director: Charles E. Sellier, Jr.

So, I failed to mention it during my write-up on Krampus but it's obviously the holiday season is upon us, so I'm celebrating here on "My Year of Horror" with good (well, terrible) ole' fashioned holiday horror movies.  While Krampus was technically the start, this is the official beginning of my holiday movie run through...and you're invited to join me.  And because I'm in the spirit of sharing indicative of the season, I'll watch this shit so you don't have to!  Merry Christmas!

So, Silent Night, Deadly Night.  This is happening.  Hoo, boy.  I think I'm biting off more than I can chew.  Feel like my family will be coming to visit ME in the Utah Mental Institute instead of the Grandpa in this film.  Little Billy will be asking "Why doesn't he say something, Mom?" and she'll gravely reply: "Horror movies, Billy.  He watched Silent Night, Deadly Night." 

I can't wait to get old and tell kids that Santa will punish them, and ramble on insanely.  Sounds like fun.  But, seriously, though: that whole thing is really insane.  And considering what's coming(like a robber dressed as Santa straight-up murdering a convenience store clerk for $31, shooting a Father and raping and murdering a Mother) very convenient.  No wonder Billy is gonna flip his goddam lid.

"Mommy, were you ever bad when you were younger?"
"Oh, once or twice."
"Did Santa ever punish you?"
I then quipped "No, instead I had you and was forced to settle for your Father."

Well, one rape-murder sequence later and we're at an orphanage, and our second actor playing Billy.  Obviously, because this movie needs to build to an obvious mental break, the Nuns basically don't bother with any of that Psychological Counseling and Mental Health nonsense and go straight to good ole' fashion child abuse to make sure Billy is SURE to be a pillar of well-adjusted adulthood.  Well, okay, one of the Nuns is interested in trying to help but...well, leave it to the Catholics to end up creating a budding psychopath.

You don't see much nipple rubbing in on-screen sex scenes.  Well, you don't see a lot of sex scenes at an orphanage, either...or Mother Superior beating the offenders with a belt...which is a weird thing for a pair of young adults to allow.  I feel like I could have gotten past her if I were that dude.  Not that the movie is going to tell me who those people were or why they were having sex in an orphanage.  Instead, Mother Superior will beat Billy with a belt(and tie him to the bed), too: but not before making sure Billy equates sex with punishment.  So, not only a psychopath but a psychopath with weird sexual hang-ups as well.  Nice work.

Mother Superior: "Now we'll have no more trouble with him.  We'll see my methods work."

Me: "Okay, Mother, tell you what: if he DOESN'T go on a killing spree before he's Twenty-One, I owe you a coke."

This movie is absolutely batshit: despite Mother Superior knowing Billy has trauma involving Santa Claus, she FORCES HIM TO SIT ON SANTA'S LAP.  Nuts.  But none of that compares to the awesome montage of Billy(now 18 and quite strapping), working at a toy store as a perfect employee while some Seventies Christmas Song playing over it...the song insists that it's always Christmas on the wrong side of the door.  I don't even know what that means.  But it's a fantastic montage.  It's 1984 madness.

Really, this is crazy: this movie exists in a world that seems solely poised on ruining the life of a single human being.  Every single person-save this stock girl who is kinda into the nutcase-is just a total horrible person to this kid.  Gotta hand it to the movie, though: sympathetic backstories(and origin stories in general) of psycho killers are kind of in nowadays, so this was kind of ahead of it's time.  Luckily I think we've gotten better at it (well, mostly?) since then.

I want to be a department store santa so I can growl "I don't bring toys to naughty children.  I punish them.  Severely."  Before there was a Bad Santa there was Billy.  Not that I would really say horrible things to children as Santa(I'm too short to play Santa anyway), I WOULD love to work for a guy who locks the store and yells "It's over!  Time to get SHITFACED" and starts pouring booze for his employees.  Better yet, I want to BE that employer.

Just so you're aware, gentle reader: this movie is impossible to analyze.  Basically, it's crap anyway.  Pointless exploitation, really.  So all I can do is...react to it here.

Billy is amassing a pretty decent body count in a short period of time, I'll say that.  Kind of impressive.  Like, four people in less than ten minutes, one of them with a Christmas bow and arrow...which seems like a thing a toy store would have.  But, anyway, he's off to spread more holiday cheer with an axe and hopefully spout more Christmas related one-liners as he goes.

I will say that the "impaling a Woman on the antlers of a mounted stag head" was actually pretty good.  Needlessly exploitive, but pretty good.  Billy takes more of a beating than the usual superhuman serial killers, too...he's totally fine with it, but it's kind of a slasher movie rarity pre-Scream.

"Have you been good this year?"
"Yes, Santa Claus."

Me: "Well, then, good.  That settles that, then."

It's even funnier when you see him give her a bloody box cutter.  Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas, kid!

Okay, I legitimately love the cops busting in on the guy dressed as Santa who was climbing into a window to surprise his Daughter.  That was genuinely a piece of entertaining work.

The police apparently couldn't find a pillow or blanket for a friggin' Nun.  This really is the "Bag o' Dicks Universe."  I wonder what number that is in the Marvel Multiverse.

I feel like a bad person for laughing when they reveal that the evil Santa they killed outside of the orphanage was the seventy-year old Priest trying to make the kids happy.  He didn't respond to the orders to stop because he was deaf.  I mean..."Holy Shit" has never felt more fitting.  The world of this movie is so utterly insane.

Billy faces down Mother Superior, whose only attempt to get Billy to stop is repeating that there isn't a Santa Claus.  Might have gotten further with a "Say, Billy, sorry about the years of abuse thing."  Mother Superior is the real villain of this film.

Final Thoughts: Uh...well, it's basically just an exploitation film designed with nothing more than "Hey, what if a serial killer was dressed as Santa" motivation.  Nudity and violence and...very little plot.  I don't think anybody really gives a bad performance or anything, though: it's not that the movie is hard to buy into on a conceptual level.  Maybe there's a deep seated brilliance in it's simplicity.  Or maybe I'm being generous.  Tis the season!

Final Rating: Two Stars.  Seen worse.

Movie 107: Krampus

Starring: Emjay Anthony, Adam Scott, Toni Collette, David Koechner, Alison Tolman, Conchata Ferrell, Stefanie LaVie Owen.

Director: Michael Dougherty. 

I didn't have a lot of expectations going into Krampus and that probably did work out in my favor at the end of the day.  I actually remember generally saying I wasn't going to bother with seeing it in theaters, as much as I liked Michael Dougherty's(superior) Trick 'r Treat until I saw that Adam Scott and Toni Collette were in and realized that I would want to make the effort after all.  So I trudged through a considerably amount of Christmas-y rain for a Tuesday afternoon matinee and generally found myself happy enough that I did so.

The general premise: after a pretty crappy day of getting into a fight at the Christmas play, dealing with his family's growing ennui, and hurtful teasing on the part of his horrible cousins(and their oafish Father), teenager Max tears up his letter to Santa as a symbol of his deciding to hate Christmas and eschewing everything hopeful and loving that the holiday stands for.  As a result, a blizzard darkens the sky and horrible creatures start beseting the family.  Sound simple enough?  It mostly is, and then it isn't.

There's a lot going on in Krampus, probably too much.  It's hard to maintain a lot of focus when Dougherty fills the space with as much Christmas decoration, a massive cast, and seemingly dozens of different creepy-crawlies into the picture, causing it ultimately to feel somewhat bloated and top-heavy. This is, in a nutshell, probably the movie's worst feature: it's far too busy.

Director Dougherty is mostly known for a film that is anthological in style, and it seems like he may actually have trouble with traditional narrative structure as a whole.  While Krampus is not an anthology film at all, it still presents itself with a frustrating pace made up of hard-and-fast sequential order.  Scenes start and stop, there's a pause, and then they start and stop again.  This works for an anthology, where each sequences tells its own story, but in a longer form narrative it mostly becomes distracting: just as you're getting into something, it jumps away to something else.  The most jarring instance of this involves Dougherty taking some of his characters outside into the snow which, while it offers a little bit of world building, some fun imagery, and a rather fun(but ultimately flat) chase sequence, mostly ends up pointless as the characters just loop right back around to where they started for one of those aforementioned extended breathers before more events happen.

Adding to that torrets-like focus problem is the multitude of monsters that are thrown at the characters.  Besides Krampus himself, there are no fewer than five or six smaller monsters running around the narrative, many of them literally for one scene only.  While they're mostly interesting(save maybe for the CGI Gingerbread Men, who offer little to the party), there's nothing to them.  Without them serving any greater function or even making sense (why would an ancient anti-christmas demon even have evil versions of mostly modern toys anyway?), they feel very kitchen-sink-like, almost as if Dougherty couldn't make up his mind about which ideas he wanted to use.  So he threw in absolutely all of them.  It's dizzying and superficial, and doesn't help give the movie any of the foundation is really needs to be successful.  The Monsters, a combination of practical and digital effects, mostly look fantastic and creative, though, so there is that.

The closest thing we get to that aforementioned desired foundation comes primarily for a very talented cast of actors who are very game for every wacky idea the movie decides to push through.  Much is made from the earnestness of Adam Scott, the sincerity(and near-constant sense of exhaustion) of Toni Collette, the oafish nature of David Koechner(admittedly more subdued here than usual) and the worry and exasperated face of Alison Tolman.  Each of the actors play every scene straight, reacting very honestly to the impossible and with terror, confusion and heartbreak as their children are targeted by evil forces.  Tolman in particularly gets a wonderful moment of lucidity as she tears through monsters to save her Daughter despite the overwhelming shock and terror she feels.  Scott, too, gets some of the more honest responses to "kids in danger," perfectly executing his naturally wide-eyed-but-square demeanor for all he's worth.  It's their reactions that keep things from going out of control(for the most part) and those quieter, grounded moments make things work better than they probably should.

Also excellent is young actor Emjay Anthony, who gives a great performance even as the script dutifully ignores opportunities to give him some very strong emotions to convey.  However, he provides such heart to earlier scenes(his letter to Santa, read aloud by his mean cousin, is heartbreaking as the camera closes in on his anguished face.  The combination of embarrassment and meaning as his Sister hears his Christmas wish that they become close again is really moving) that we care about him and, by extension, relatives we'd want to fire out of a canon.

So, despite being a very busy, distracting mess of a narrative, it has nearly endless charm (which is what a horror comedy probably needs most to succeed) thanks to some strong character work from the actors(and decent dialogue from Dougherty).  One can only hope that Dougherty can calm down and find a little more focus next time, though.  

Final Thoughts: Not nearly as funny or as scary as it would like to be, it is nevertheless charming and filled with enough successful emotional beats to remain entertaining and enjoyable, even as the distracted-by-the-shiny narrative, crowded set pieces and confusing menagerie of creatures keep threatening to derail things.  In the end, it works more often than  it doesn't.

Final Rating: Three Stars.  Perfectly fine holiday horror/comedy in the vein of Gremlins, but with less focus.

Movie 106: The Diabolical

Starring: Ali Larter, Max Rose, Chloe Perrin, Wilmer Calderon, Merrin Dungey, Joe Egender, Patrick Fischler.

Director: Alistair Legrand.

Well, Ali Larter.  So...Ali Larter.  Let's do this.

I think this has something to do with ghosts.  Looks fairly generic, but that hasn't disqualified a film from greatness every single time.  We certainly don't seem to be wasting any time: Larter is sitting at her computer in her P.J.s (sleeping, which is the universal movie sign for "money problems"), there's some weird lights flickering, sounds, and Larter says "Not again."  Then a weird looking monster thing shows up.  So, hey, just going for it, Movie.  I respect the hell out of that.  Dangerous, though: what if the rest of your scary stuff isn't able to top that?  You have to be pretty confident to throw a face-peeling monster in the pre-credits sequence.  And no, I'm not talking about Larter.  Kidding.  Larter is very beautiful and...a fair actress.  We can't hold Heroes against everyone involved in that show forever.  We have new actors to hold the shitty revival against now anyway, so maybe we should begin to forgive Ali Larter and, maybe, Adrian Pasdar.  We can let Adrian Pasdar be in horror movies, too, now.

In all seriousness, though, this movie really isn't messing around.  Right after the credits sequence, we see a couple of ghost hunter types exploring the house.  Takes the guy three minutes and he bolts right on out of there.  Again, pretty simple storytelling: even the guy whose job it is to deal with the supernatural cannot deal with whatever is haunting Ali Larter.  The kid has some sort of relationship with the Skin-Peel Beast, which does suggest the dude ain't entirely so bad.

Larter has a genius son(like in Heroes) and he's getting into fights at school and a little precocious Daughter who apparently might be pals with a ghost/demon/face-melty thing.  She might not quite be in monetary problems as I had original surmised...it might be more a psychological issue where she is still reeling from the death of her husband.  The kids clearly aren't dealing well with it, either.  I usually get a little annoyed when a horror flick gets really deep into family problems and the like-it provides something very necessary but often ends up disrupting balance(even here there's a slight threat of it, but it seems to be doing a pretty regimented job of switching between real life and monsters)-but this seems to be handling itself well.  Larter's boyfriend(and the boy's physics tutor) seems like a nice guy, so I would assume the face-melter will eat him at some point.  

Ali Larter just tried to punch a ghost.
That might be my new favorite sentence. 

Interesting turn of events.  I'm actually wondering if it's even a ghost now.  The kids develop some weird illness that causes horrible hives or whatever whenever they leave the house, leading Larter to do some research and find some interesting things out...I'm actually beginning to think their ghost might be some sort of interdimensional anomaly or something.  Which would be pretty rad.  

I haven't said anything about Patrick Fischler yet and that's really outrageous.  

Master of the mocking smile.

He's an extraordinary actor.  He only has a small role-being smarmy, which is what he's best at-but he's kinda rocking it.  He really is only there to offer another negative circumstance for the family to have to weather(which is already stacking up really horribly, between Fischler threatening to foreclose on her house if she doesn't sell, her kids being unable to leave the house without horrible burns appearing, the kid that Larter's Son punched out if threatening to press charges(wasn't sure that was really a thing, but okay), the counselor who is suppose to evaluate the kid is all unsympathetic to their plight, and a horrible face melting thing is wandering the house all willy nilly) but he's doing it well.  I think we all owe Patrick Fischler a thank you.

We seem to be entering Poltergeist territory in some ways: while there are supernatural goings-on, there are also real world problems getting serious, while a fractured family unit attempts to regain cohesion in the face of overwhelming odds.

Oh, snap, Fischler's company has something to do with whatever is happening in the house.  Possibly from the future.  The ultimate reveal is actually pretty cool.  I'm wondering where this will end up.  I won't leave any spoilers, but it's actually kind of interesting.

Final Thoughts: Well, as interesting as the storyline ends up getting by the end, it certainly isn't the greatest progression of scenes I've ever come across.  The movie is kind of an entirely different entity at the end than it is at the beginning, and it's ending is frustratingly vague(even after it over-explains the basic plot twist, which is really weird).  Larter gives a decent performance.  It's definitely a pretty okay little film.

Final Rating: Two and a Half Stars.

Movie 105: Felt

Starring: Amy Everson, Kentucker Audley, Ryan Creighton, Elisabeth Ferrera, Brendan Miller.

Director: Jason Banker.

A friend of mine turned me onto this film, stating that she generally liked it.  I became a little less enthused when I discovered it was Jason Banker, the director of the abysmal Toad Road.  But, as always, gotta keep an open mind and try to give it a fair shake.  But I absolutely HATED Toad Road.  Like, a lot.  Violently. Cannot stress enough how much I despised that film, you guys.

Okay, so depressed girl in a frog costume discussing how she can't get over trauma moping about in a room.  This is gonna be a cheery movie.  I can tell.  Just a bag full of hilarity.  Wonder if it's too late to just watch The Final Girls again.  I'm on, like, two hours of sleep and I'm not really sure I'm up to something this heady.  But, I'm committed now. I'm in the shit. Let's do this.

Oh, good.  Director Jason Banker has fallen back on his brilliant strategy of showing idiot kids drinking together.  That worked so well for the ninety-percent of Toad Road that it represented.  At least this time the scene was brief and, hopefully, will not be repeated.  I already know that I'm being far too biased towards this thing.  I legitimately do hate people talking over one another, though: it doesn't feel as naturalistic as I think most directors think it is.

Yeah, cheerful movie.  Our lead, Amy, goes on a date with a real creep who basically encapsulates every dickhead stereotype.  I'm okay with this, really, because I know there are men out there who think in that sort of terrifyingly awful state of mind ("Roofies aren't real" is a terrible thing to say, and even worse thing to joke about). There are some nice visual flourishes here and there: Amy's use of costumes as coping mechanisms is clearly demonstrating a psychological downward spiral, but it's interesting to look at even when it threatens to veer off into needlessly provocative territory.

It's definitely a very weird film, and does do a pretty good job of showing how people are occasionally forced to respond to mental illness: as Amy wears a creepy masculine mask and begins to stick her tongue out at her friend, the friend is understandably creeped out(and that scene was necessary, because I was actually about to begin discussing how movies never seem to be able to present people as being able to respond to mentally ill individuals in any sort of honest way, particularly after some of her friends can't handle Amy's lack of response during a low point).  The fact that the scene is also used to show that Amy communicates best when in her costumes-being able to voice her concerns about her friends shitty boyfriend, for example-which gives some much needed context.

The trouble mostly comes from that Amy is somewhat difficult to understand or relate to for an audience member.  Obviously her issues stem from deep-seated trauma, which is something we can sympathize with, but can't fully understand.  We can kind of get behind her attempts to make men uncomfortable-sometimes with more hostility than might be needed-and can sympathize with that, too...but truly understanding and relating to it?  It's kind of difficult.  There's not a lot of scene cohesion, either: just kind of random stuff that happens.  That lack of cohesive narrative and Amy's hostility do make it kind of difficult to find anything to root for or hold onto, which mars the emotional resonance of her burgeoning relationship with a man who seems to be nice, respectful and remarkably understanding.  I mean, he's gonna fuck it up.  He kind of has to.  Or she will, I suppose.  One way or another, this is gonna get weird.

Since we can't quite grasp this romance for the aforementioned reasons, it's hard to be worried about her losing that romance as a result of her problems, which is almost certainly going to happen.  Knowing that makes me kinda wish I could care about it.  

Amy Everson is giving a great performance, especially (as the DVD box and IMDB tell me) considering that this is the first time she's ever been in a film.  She also apparently co-wrote it with Banker, so there's that.

I feel like this movie is both muddled and preachy...and it makes me feel kind of horrible to criticize it in that way because, well, it's absolutely right in the thesis it's presenting.  Male privilege is most definitely a thing, Women are not treated super well socially, and all the movie is doing is outright saying that.  It's a message I absolutely support.  I know it's a thing, I know that I have it and so while I feel like I'm being objective about the movie's heavy-handedness and mopey certainty...I feel like kind of a jerk.  Which is kind of the point, I guess, so...bravo?  Right?

It almost appears that Felt is beyond criticism in a way.  It's difficult to notice the movies flaws and NOT feel like a shitheel as a result.  I know that I'm finding it harder and harder to really know what to make it as things progress.  I suppose I could focus on other things than it's message: Banker keeps the camera moving(usually handheld), creating a sense of unease to every frame, as well as presenting a very "lived-in" feel to the world around the characters.  It's also very intimate in style as well: the camera moves in uncomfortably close, moves over body parts at turns quickly and painfully slowly, and it feels very voyeuristic even while it avoids aggression. No small feat, really, considering the subject matter.  I think at times that the film WANTS to violate something, but it seems to shy away before it ever really makes it to that stage...or, at times, thinks it HAS been violative even when it hasn't been.  

Well, okay, no sooner did I write that when it finally went for a real sense of aggression.  It...didn't entirely work.  I don't want to spoil the ending-I think it might be a rather necessary film for gender politics, and as such I respect it too much to just outright ruin it for potential viewers-but it didn't really feel as earned as I think it wanted it to be.  Suitably shocking, I suppose, just kind of flat.

Final Thoughts: I'm not sure there's much to add.  Banks does some strong stuff with the camera but lets narrative cohesion and natural flow just fly out the window, possibly with the justification of this movie being "about life"(which is a lazy directorial attitude that is far too frequently assumed by a lot of younger directors with a sense of their film's own "importance") and never manages to really gather interest: there certainly isn't any suspense or real tension, despite frequent intimations that there should be.  Actress Amy Everson gives a strong performance(especially for a first timer), the message is a little TOO clear but is certainly one that should be noticed, and it manages to keep some sort of moral high ground by keeping that message entirely out of the subtext.  As mentioned earlier, it's difficult to criticize a lot of this film on any meaningful level without feeling anti-feminist, which is obviously part of the point: it can't be ignored or dismissed, even when it's being irritating.  Structurally it's a mess, it's far too mopey and meandering(to the point of being regrettably dull) to endearing but not intense or surreal enough to earn that slow and steady pace.  It's all at once an important and impressive film even when it's being basically unwatchable, which is impressive all on it's own.

Final Rating: Gonna split the difference and call it a 3 Star Flick.

Movie 104: Ten

Starring: Jade Sylvan, Molly Carlisle, Molly Devon, Karin Webb, Kerri Lynch, Leah Principe, Rachel Leigh Blumenthal.

Director: Sophia Cacciola, Michael J. Epstein.

So I know next to nothing about this little film except a few bits of rumor and tidbits of hype.  Word is it's kind of experimental, but plot details are nil. It seems to be entirely cast with Female actors though, so that's kind of rad.  Looks extremely low budget, and IMDB perusals have all the character names as archetypes("The Renegade", "The Religious Fanatic," etc.).  So, I figure this will either be pretty cool or entirely insufferable.  So, let's roll it and see how it plays it out.  I'm going to maintain objectivity as long as I possibly can.

The year is 1971, and we're on Spektor Island, MA.  It clearly is pretty low budget, but the camera work and set design is very arch and interesting to look at.  A young woman is wandering through a house with a flashlight, and there are pig motifs everywhere.  I hope we're not going TOO close to a female victim/pig comparison...uh oh.  

Animated credit sequence.  With Women dressed as pigs.  Being killed by a guy wearing a butcher costume.  Not sure about this anymore.  But, again, villain as butcher/victim as pig isn't necessarily a direct conversation on gender roles...if you take the gender roles out of it, it works as an admittedly simplistic horror film character dynamic.  

The basic premise seems to be ten women with no real connection are at a house on Spektor Island-one of whom was apparently the victim of the opener, who survived her fall off the cliff with amnesia-apparently without microphones.  The production values are low, but that isn't enough for me to write it off just yet: the whole thing is staged a lot like a play, but a little bit of reasoning on who these Women are and why they're here would not be amiss.  One of them is apparently some sort of realtor(maybe) who is mean.  There's a Doctor, a butch young woman...the only one we seem to have a reason for is a model who showed up for a photoshoot.  What doesn't quite track, though, is why she sticks around or why she asks no questions when she finds it ISN'T a photoshoot. 

Undaunted by their lack of connection or understanding of their space, they decide to throw a party.  Okay.  It's shot well, and is actually pretty good looking for a film with so little concern for internal logic.  The party scene-one continuous wrap-around shot-portrays the party in swing, with the actors changing locations and mental states as the camera moves away for them.  It's not bad.  I've seen a strong director make more out of less than this.  

The musician-apparently here to perform for a wedding that isn't there-plays a special song the bride and groom sent here, which is a silly sounding but clearly prophetic little ditty about "little piggies" and their misadventures with a butcher.  It's interrupted by the now-drugged model, also now naked, running down the other Women.  It's a difficult scene.  

It appears the key to this whole thing really is in that "experimental" thing.  A lot of the performances feel somewhat improvised, as if maybe the cast isn't really entirely sure of what's going to happen themselves, like experimental theater.  I have no idea if this is actually the case, but it really feels that way.  If I had any idea if that is actually what's happening here I'd be far more inclined to dig it.

Apparently, the girl from the opener is in on it.  She got paid a whole $120 for her services...and, uh, had her neck snapped by one of the other characters for scaring the others...um, what?  What is happening here?  Some of these Women are okay actresses, others are surely not.  I'm not sure if these actors are even being directed, though...this whole thing is just way too weird.  It's certainly different.  To put it mildly.

I don't...I don't know how to continue writing this.  None of this is following any sort of rational rules or any sort of sensible direction...but it isn't surreal or anything like that, just weird and maybe(?) inept.  There's some visual ability to the directorial style: lots of interesting angles and uses of color.  The blocking, performances, and costumes seem like they were be more at home on stage.  But there's not a lot of coherent writing going on.  A lot of existential (and cliche) nonsense being spouted, but no characterization or plot.  

Good lord, a weird flashback saying the characters are spies, and none of them are who they appear to be...which is fine, I suppose, except that it doesn't quite bring all the information together.  What does any of that have to do with the murders?  Little late to spring a new plot development into this thing, but they're going for it, I guess.  Russians now?  Jesus.  This thing just got a whole lot weirder. 

I really just have no idea any more.  Suddenly there's some pretty broad comedy being tossed out...what is happening here?!

Final Thoughts: I think, in an alternate universe, there was a good film here.  There's a basic murder-mystery story with a little bit of social commentary and existential musing deep down inside of this messy, amateurish but occasionally spirited and stylish(albeit low budget style) cinematic car crash.  What a weird film.  Really.

Final Rating: 2 stars.

Movie 103: The Final Girls (2015)

 Starring: Taissa Farminga, Malin Akerman, Nina Dobrev, Alexander Ludwig, Alia Shawkat, Thomas Middleditch, Adam Devine.
Director: Todd Strauss-Schulson.

Not to be confused with Final Girl-a pretty decent slasher subversion starring Abigail Breslin-this instead seems to be a horror comedy about being sucked into a horror movie or whatever.  I've never seen it before, but I like Farminga(most famous for the first and best American Horror Story(and, like, the shitty third season) and Dobrev(of the more-fun-than-it-should-be Prime Time Soap The Vampire Diaries), so I have some high hopes.  There's good buzz surrounding it as well, so let's see what we've got here.  I'm always skeptical about horror comedies, but every so often one will be pleasantly surprising.  Let's hope The Final Girls delivers.

We open to a trailer for a fun-looking Eighties slasher film called "Camp Bloodbath."  It's a pitch-perfect send-up of Friday The 13th, and one I would totally watch.  It segues into an actually rather extraordinary and heartfelt interaction where Taissa Farminga-playing Max-is in the car with her actress Mother and the two bond over a lip-synching of Kim Carnes' "Bette Davis Eyes."  I kind of love that song.  More than I probably should.  It can't win the "best usage" award for the year, though: American Horror Story:Hotel already won it.  But, hey, it's still good.  The way Max's eyes light up at her Mother's silliness is really an excellent moment by Farminga.  It's fairly easy to see where the scene is going, but it works.

If nothing else, I'm more or less enjoying the cast.  It's not the best dialogue in the world, but the cast is charismatic and very game for all of it. Taissa is suitably subdued, and deeply uncomfortable at going to see "Camp Bloodbath", which stars her now-deceased Mother, but is convinced by weirdo film-geek Duncan to go...and her Classics tutor(oddly hunky Alexander Ludwig) shows up because he's interested...and hyper-efficient Vicki(Dobrev, channeling every bit of stuck-up snobbery she has) also shows up to try and win Ludwig back.  Lots of light character work, and we're finally into the movie.  "Camp Bloodbath" is a strong parody, if a little on-the-nose, but it's short lived anyway: a fire breaks out and our characters slice their way through the cinema screen, and find themselves inside the movie.

There's no explanation given to how this came to be, but I don't think it really warrants one.  It gets very clever rather quickly: once the film-geek surmises that a van carrying "Camp Bloodbath" characters(and a fictional fascimile of Max's deceased Mother, allowing Farminga to do some more great emotional moments) will return every ninety-two minutes(the running time of the film, which is very cute), he takes initiative and gets them all ingratiated into the cast.  It's suitably trippy, cute, and every one of the cast just runs with it for all it's worth.

 It also asks an age old genre geek question: if you find yourself in the fictional world you love, do you allow things to occur, or do you try and change things?  Each character has different approaches to that conundrum, which also asks interesting questions about horror cinema in general: film geek Duncan has no problem watching two characters get brutally murdered, deciding that it's no different than watching the movie.  The others are less enthused by the spectacle.

Duncan's theories about the nature of their new-found reality are ultimately, and delightfully, proven hilariously wrong, which was making me really nervous for a bit.  Now I feel better.

This movie really only does have two basic modes: the comedy of being in an eighties horror film and the emotional beats of Max's relationship with her Not-Mother.  Those aren't bad modes to be stuck in, though: the jokes are only fitfully funny but they ARE clever and very cute.  The movie is taking an extraordinary amount of pride and enthusiasm for the "stuck in the film" bits-the stuck characters even find themselves dragged along for the ride when there's a flashback-and manages to make it work even when it shouldn't.

Malin Akerman and Farminga are fantastic, if nothing else.  Actually, everyone really is, but Akerman and Farminga are giving everything the weight it really needs to be anything more than a silly pastiche.

The Final Girls DOES win best use of Warrant's "Cherry Pie," though.  Easily.

It's really difficult to discuss this film without spoiling anything, and it's worth not spoiling.  I feel like this is another case of me really only have any ability to analyze this film is going to be through my final thoughts(where I can be vague about things that work and don't work via euphamism) instead of through as-we-go discussion.

The last act started off with some really strong promise but admittedly starts to show some wear and tear as things go on, especially as it seems to break its own rules.  But, I guess I can more or less accept it, even if I don't like it.  It seems to get over that hiccup, though, and moves on nicely enough to a spirited finale.

Okay, so call-back of "Bette Davis Eyes" just made me tear up, so...maybe it can SHARE the best use award of 2015.  I mean, seriously, what a scene.  What. a. scene.  Okay, screw it, it wins.  Best use of Bette Davis Eyes this year.

Final Thoughts: Well, it's been a long, long time since a horror-comedy basically made me cry, so what can I say?  Everyone was pretty great, but Malin Ackerman and Taissa Farminga absolutely nailed it.  It might get a little TOO carried away with itself at times, but it succeeds so frequently that it's impossible to find it anything but charming.  It isn't as funny as it could be, but in the end it clearly is far more interested in the emotional beats and the cleverness.  But those emotional beats really DO work really well, especially from Ackerman and Farminga.

Final Rating: Four Stars.  Really good stuff.

Movie 102: Last Shift

Starring: Juliana Harkavy, Joshua Mikel, J. Larose, Natalie Victoria, Sarah Sculco, Kathryn Kilger.

Director: Anthony DiBlasi.

So after a lengthy hiatus, I am back to discuss more horror movies on the internet for all of six people to read.  Luckily, it seems like this practice is basically like falling off a log, so I shouldn't be too rusty.  But it's my last shift at my current job-and I couldn't be happier about that-so I figured it'd be fitting to watch Last Shift to get back into the swing of things.  Updates should become far more frequent after this, so stay tuned...all six of you who read these.

I've seen this movie pop up on some early "Best Of" lists, so we'll see what this thing has to offer.

So we have a pretty Cop(Officer Loren) on her first day of work, the station is basically deserted and the first guy she runs into is clearly on edge.  But Officer Loren-Jessica-is stationed for the last night of the police station before all operations are up and running over at the brand spanking new station.  So Jessica has to keep watch over an abandoned station until hazmat workers come to dispose of a bunch of bodily waste stained items, and so she is not allowed to leave.  It takes about a minute or so before the good ole' flickering fluorescents and mysterious, choppy phone calls to begin.

There's a semi-creepy scene of Loren stepping outside into a deserted street(looks extremely barren: the closest structure seems to be an abandoned gas station), turns around and finds a vagrant inside the station.  It's a creepy scene-especially since we know how unlikely it is that the vagrant could have gotten inside without supernatural assistance-at least until said vagrant starts peeing on the floor and Loren takes charge of the situation and kicks him out.  It's an important scene, since otherwise it's mostly watching a Police Officer explore an empty station(with some lockers opening on their own, and a disgusting bathroom) and occasionally receiving phone calls from an alarmed young woman named Monica (who is almost certainly a ghost).

In essence the movie is making the right moves: Loren is definitely isolated, her means of communication are clearly compromised(an attempt to use her radio-as any sane person would do-is responded to by children singing) and it seems pretty obvious to me that phone calls out are likely not reaching their intended locations).  Loren once again encounters her vagrant and takes him down(maybe a little too aggressively?) and locks him up...and the door slam shuts, lights go out, and there's weird screaming...maybe we're getting somewhere.  I wish I knew a little bit more about Officer Loren-why she became a cop, does she have a family(besides her worried Mom on the phone), stuff like that-but she has enough natural charisma that I mostly care what happens to her. I just wish I had more to relate to.  But the jail cell sequence was suitably scary, so that works.  

Oh, okay, now we have some exposition.  Marigold-who is probably one of the ghosts, you guys-is a white trashy girl hanging outside smoking, and tells Loren about the evil "Manson Family Wannabes" who died in that station...Loren knows that, because her Father was one of the cops who brought them in that night.  So, now I have answers to some of those questions I had earlier.  We're getting somewhere.  That somewhere might be a bit on the cliche side, but that isn't automatically a bad thing.

That exposition was sufficient, though, which makes the following montage of video taped crazy-talking unnecessary.  The following scare sequence actually works pretty well, though: some really good editing and camera trickery.  The tune the villain whistles isn't as creepy as they hope it to be.  Officer Loren is dealing with all this insanity pretty well...it takes her a long time to decide it's a prank.  

There is a frustrating pace problem with this film.  While it should be building tension and momentum, it instead presents (admittedly decent) scare scenes and then moves to very normal scenes were Loren talks with another character.  Then that character takes off and another scare presents itself.  That start-and-stop pacing just feels off-putting, and not in a fun, stylish way.  It's just frustrating.

But those scare scenes are very stylish.  Puppet-like corpses, bloody masks, crawling murder victims...it's all good looking and creepy stuff.  It feels little "kitchen-sink," though, in that writer/director Anthony DiBlasi threw every single thing he could think of into the film.  Trouble is, it doesn't feel like it's building to very much.  Even as we've entered the climax, scenes just seem to roar themselves into being and then die quietly on the floor just as quickly.  Again, they aren't bad scenes, just awkward and jumbled.  Maybe if Office Loren got a little pissed off-and she was for a second there-this would work a little better.  But her dead Father calling her on the phone and telling her "The ghost is the guy who killed me, and you should totally fight him" isn't a strong element: I would have rather Loren gotten there on her own.  But instead the movie keeps circling around on itself: Loren witnesses supernatural, gets freaked out, calms down, goes about her business, and then witnesses supernatural again and we cycle through.  I thought the cycle would have been broken when Loren is confronted by a ghost who actually talks to her, and Loren calmly resists being terrified...but then we just went back to where we started.

Aww, unearned downer ending.  Damn it.  I hate that shit.  You had an obvious through-line, movie. So direct.  But you ignored it and went to some nonsense instead.  Blah.

Final Thoughts: I hate unearned downer endings, especially when they're gone about in this way.  There are some good scare scenes, though, despite their awkward presentation.  The pacing is really haphazard and frustrating, and...man, so many story beats are just way too poorly presented for me to say this was a good movie.  It wasn't terrible or anything, not really, just not a strong outing at all.  Disappointing, really.

Final Rating: Two and half stars because I'm feeling generous about the scare scenes.