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Movie Review: Sinister (2012)

December 4, 2012 in Movie Reviews, Reviews

It’s rare to see an original horror movie these days and even more unusual to see one starring Ethan Hawke (I think Daybreakers is his only other one), so I made sure I caught Sinister, a movie about a writer who becomes entangled in a bizarre murder-mystery with a possible occult slant.

Without giving away too much, Hawke plays Ellison Oswalt, a true crime writer whose last hit was more than a decade old and is desperately trying to land a homerun to revive his career. He becomes attracted to a chilling case about a missing girl and the hanging of her family from a tree that was caught on film, and relocates to the town where the tragedy occurred — with his wife (English stage actress Juliet Rylance) and two young children — so he can begin work on his ultimate masterpiece.

Despite its unimaginative title, Sinister is actually quite a creative horror film that worked really well for its first half. And unlike most horror films that dissolve into silliness towards the end, Sinister fails in its second half not because of the story but because of stylistic choices by director Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose), who also co-wrote the script.

The film excelled in the beginning because it relied almost solely on its creepy, unsettling atmosphere. The audience is drawn in by this eerie unsolved mystery and what are essentially ghoulish snuff films that are undeniably alarming yet captivating. The scenes with Hawke sitting alone in a dark room watching chilling 8mm home videos can make me shrivel up every time (interpret that as you wish).

So for the first hour or so of the film I was kept at the edge of my seat and I had no idea where the story was heading and whether it even had anything to do with the supernatural. For all I knew it was just a really strange case where lots of unexplained stuff was happening.

At some point, however, the film takes a wrong turn down an alley we’ve all seen too many times with modern horror films. Instead of watching the horror unfold through Ellison’s eyes we begin to watch it unfold around him – in that we get to see things he doesn’t – and this actually removes us from the closeness and proximity to the fear and confusion he’s feeling.

The scares also become more predictable and clichéd. Atmosphere takes a back seat to “boo” moments with grotesque images jumping out in front of the camera purely for cheap thrills. Granted, some of them are effective, especially with the blaring sound effects and music, but it brings Sinister closer to your average horror flick than distinguishes it, which is a real shame.

Fortunately, the film doesn’t fall apart completely. There are still enough twists and turns to keep audiences interested, and Hawke’s solid performance as Ellison, as well as Ryance’s as his very reasonable wife, keep the film afloat through some of its rockier moments. As always with such movies, there are some plot issues that are best ignored (such as how everyone in the house apart from Ellison can sleep through all that noise), but all things considered Sinister is still one of the better horror flicks of 2012.

3.75 stars out of 5!

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Movie Review: The Possession (2012)

September 13, 2012 in Movie Reviews, Reviews

The Possession, a supposedly “true story”, has a less than creative title, a cliched plot and employs some very old horror movie tricks. But for all its faults, The Possession IS freaking scary. I know this year hasn’t been a great year for horror films so far, but off the top of my head, I believe it is the scariest horror film I have seen this year, rather easily edging The Woman in Black.

It would be remiss of me to not mention upfront that The Possession is not even close to being “based on a true story.” The film is based on the tale of the “Dibbuk Box”, which is allegedly some kind of haunted Jewish wine box that allegedly brings bad luck to the owner. It became famous after one such box was sold on eBay and, as expected, a bunch of morons thought it would be great to buy it. You can read up on it here, a website dedicated to the story that looks so good it makes me suspicious about everything. In short, none of the stuff that happens in the “real” story happens in the movie.

Anyway, The Possession is about a recently divorced couple played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan (the American Javier Bardem) and Kyra Sedgwick and their two young daughters, one of whom comes across the dibbuk box at a garage sale. Naturally, strange and frightening stuff starts happening, and the parents have to work together to find a way to save their little girl.

Yes, it is yet another movie is about demonic possession of a young girl, but The Possession does have a lot going for it. For starters, unlike the majority of such films, it is genuinely creepy and has some really terrifying scenes, usually amped up by a blaring score that reminded me a little of Psycho. A lot of the scares are typical, classic tricks you might have experienced before, but that doesn’t make them any less effective. The Jewish slant adds a dash of freshness to the concept but also unintentional laughs during the final climax, which has elements of brilliance but didn’t break any new ground in the end.

Some of the “scary” scenes do fall a little flat, especially if you have seen the trailer. There are also some sequences that are too over-the-top for my liking, contradicting what Danish director Ole Bornedal (who did Nightwatch with Ewan McGregor and Josh Brolin, a surprisingly underrated horror flick) said about aiming for the subtlety of The Exorcist,  the greatest horror movie of all time. 

The Possession does start off with subtlety in mind, but unfortunately by the end it inevitably unravels and goes crazy — unnecessarily so, in my opinion. If you manage to get into the flow of the movie then you might be able to forgive some of the more outrageous scenes that were there merely for the sake of cheap thrills, but if you were sceptical from the outset you might find yourself laughing at how silly and nonsensical it is.

The performances of Morgan and Sedgwyck were strong, as were those of the two girls that played their kids, Natasha Calis and Madison Davenport. You really do get a sense of a familial bond between the four of them. One of the biggest and scariest shocks in the movie was discovering that Sedgwyck’s boyfriend in the movie is played by an initially unrecognizable Grant Show! Yes, I’m talking about Jake from Melrose Place!

The Possession is not what one would expect to be a good movie, and strictly speaking, it isn’t. But if it is just scares you are after, you may not find a more effective film this year.

3.5 stars out of 5!

 

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Movie Review: The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

May 14, 2012 in Movie Reviews, Reviews

I seriously cannot believe that The Cabin in the Woods, co-written and directed by Cloverfield screenwriter Drew Goddard and co-written and produced by the legendary Joss Whedon (he has to be now, after The Avengers), almost went straight to DVD.

I don’t care if it was because the studio was experiencing financial difficulties – while crappy torture porn and gimmicky 3D horror movies (you know what they are) continue to flood our cinemas, one of the THE best horror movies in recent years was on the brink of being shafted directly to the small screen. Are you kidding me?

It’s really hard to talk about The Cabin in the Woods without releasing a cascade of spoilers, so I’ll be careful. It has a typical teen-slasher premise – five college kids (three guys and two girls, led by Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth) with varying character traits go on a holiday to some in-the-middle-of-nowhere cabin in the woods, where nasty stuff is bound to be awaiting them.

But you see, the clichéd set up is only part of the film’s genius. This is a brilliant, incredibly creative horror movie that pays homage to the classics of the genre and tears down just about everything that has gone wrong with horror in the last few years.

Whedon called it a “loving hate letter” to the genre, which he and Goddard felt had devolved with the introduction of torture porn (and you know it absolutely positively has). This is what he had to say:

“On another level it’s a serious critique of what we love and what we don’t about horror movies. I love being scared. I love that mixture of thrill, of horror, that objectification/identification thing of wanting definitely for the people to be alright but at the same time hoping they’ll go somewhere dark and face something awful. The things that I don’t like are kids acting like idiots, the devolution of the horror movie into torture porn and into a long series of sadistic comeuppances. Drew and I both felt that the pendulum had swung a little too far in that direction.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Thank you again, Joss Whedon.

What I love about the film, apart from the scares and thrills, and the flat-out awesome laughs, is that it is presented as a giant mystery that keeps everyone guessing right from the beginning until the very end. You see, there is another part to this movie, outside of the cabin, that will have audiences wondering what the heck is going on. And watching the mystery unravel, piece by piece, is a huge part of the film’s charm.

The film reaches an apex about 15 minutes or so before the end, at which stage the mystery was explained to a level of perfection. I would have been happy for things to end right then and there, but sadly, the film just couldn’t help itself and kept going until it spiralled out of control. Granted, there were some magnificent scenes in those last few moments, but the “final revelation” really ruined it for me.

Nonetheless, despite the unfortunate turn of events stemming from Whedon and Goddard’s desire to “explain everything”, The Cabin in the Woods borders on an instant classic – it’s one of those rare films that has the potential to spur a new generation of horror movies like say Scream or the original Saw. When all is said and done, this is one I’m going to be remember for a very long time.

4 stars out of 5

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Review: The Walking Dead (Season 2)

April 23, 2012 in Reviews, TV

I got into The Walking Dead when it was still a comic book. Years ago a friend had lent me the first few volumes, which I enjoyed but didn’t think was anything too special (could be attributed to my bias against American comics). When I heard about the TV series, however, I became very keen because I knew it had tremendous potential.

Season 1 of The Walking Dead was great television. Anything with zombies makes pretty good television anyway, but it’s not often that a post-apocalyptic world depicted on TV is so dreary, bleak and horrifying. It had a love triangle, some volatile characters and plenty of terrific deaths (both meanings intended).

Season 2 came with a lot of expectations. What were they going to do this time that could top the solid first season?

Having now watched all of season 2 in its entirety, I have the feeling that perhaps my desire to like the show is greater than how much I really like it. The dark mood of the first season was maintained well, but significant portions of it felt somewhat repetitive and was extraordinarily slow for a show aimed at zombie lovers.

It’s strange, considering when you list the main story arcs of the season it sounds pretty awesome:

  • The little girl, Sophia, goes missing, and the gang split up and set out to find her;
  • Rick’s son, Carl, is accidentally shot and almost dies — then becomes a bit of a douche;
  • The gang find refuge at a ranch owned by the enigmatic Hershel;
  • Glenn gets a lady friend;
  • Daryl grows a heart — for a while;
  • Lori gets second thoughts about the pregnancy;
  • Andrea goes half mental; and
  • Shane goes full mental.

This doesn’t even mention all the excellent twists and turns, such as Sophia’s fate, Hershel’s little secret, the gang of dangerous survivors they run into — and of course, the mega big huge revelation of the finale, not to mention the first appearance of one of the comic’s coolest and most memorable characters. Oh, and the deaths of key characters were pretty shocking too.

Core cast of season 2

And so it baffles me while for stretches throughout this second season I found the pace to be excruciatingly slow. Part of it probably stems from the fact that the majority of the episodes take place on Hershel’s farm, meaning there is very little movement. I admire the efforts to make this a hard-hitting drama focused on the human characters and all, but to be honest, I just wanted to see more crazy zombies.

Is that wrong? I mean, let’s face it, the zombie scenes are still the most thrilling — by far — and at times during season 2 I almost forgot they existed. I suppose the point was to show that the humans are more dangerous than the walkers, but humans, for the most part, aren’t quite as exciting as decomposing cannibals. Not to say that they should go overboard and turn this into a video game because the drama is what drives this show, but slightly more balance would have been welcome. It’s really their own fault for making the zombies so wonderfully frightening — kudos to the make-up and special effects team, by the way — which only made me want more of them.

Nonetheless, judging from the final scene, it appears season 3 could be an explosive and very bumpy ride — depending on how closely they follow the comic. Season 2 was relatively strong but it could have been a lot better, in my humble opinion, had they hastened things a little. Perhaps sensing what a commercial success the series is they decided to drag it out for as long as possible.

In any case, I hope the Governor makes an appearance in season 3.

Rating: B

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Movie Review: The Woman in Black (2012)

March 5, 2012 in Movie Reviews, Reviews

Lots of awesome posters for this film -- this is my fave

Looks like Daniel Radcliffe might have a decent career after Harry Potter after all.

I was really looking forward to Radcliffe’s first post-Potter feature, the gothic horror The Woman in Black, not because I’m a fan of the kid but because it looked freaking awesome. Based on an 1983 novel by Susan Hill and set in the early 1900s, it tells the story of a struggling young lawyer (Radcliffe) struck by tragedy who heads to a small town to take care of some legal work, only to discover that it might be cursed by the titular character.

I’m a big fan of ghost stories and this one did not disappoint. In fact, I can’t think of a better ghost-related horror film from the last few years off the top of my head.

The story and progression is about as traditional as you can get: main character goes to new place, weird stuff happens and he has to unravel the mystery behind the haunting. In that respect The Woman in Black brings nothing new to the table, but as they say, it’s all in the execution.

Old dilapidated English mansions, freaky toys, pale kids with haunting stares, weirdos, psychos and shadows all over the place — the atmosphere is so brilliantly spooky it kept me on the edge of my seat even though it’s not a fast paced film.

And don’t worry, it doesn’t just rely on atmosphere — The Woman in Black also has some terrific ‘boo’ moments and some visceral scares too. Coupled with the perpetually grey, dreary backdrop, it creates an inescapable sense of dread that seems to keep pulling you deeper and deeper. And at a brisk 90 minutes, it never outstays its welcome either.

The film reminded me a little bit of the underrated Insidious from last year, except it’s set in the scarier gothic era and doesn’t crumble into silliness in its second half.

While it’s difficult to picture Radcliffe as anyone other than the boy wizard, he does do a great job here as the damaged but likable protagonist. Yes, his face seems doomed to be forever trapped in that bizarre transitional phase between child and adult, but I think with more performances and films like this he’ll have a long and successful career.

4 out of 5 stars!

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