Frightfest 08: The Broken

I’m leaping perilously out of chronological order here, because I want to get the reviews of the films that I didn’t enjoy out of the way first. Which is a bit foolish, because it’s often easier to find something to say about something you didn’t like than something you did. And I didn’t like The Broken.

The title most obviously refers to the numerous broken mirrors in the film, but it could just as easily allude to a number of other things, such as the main character’s car, or her lost memory. The film’s plot involves strange pod-person-esque doppelgangers - maybe The Broken of the title? - entering our world through mirrors and immediately setting out on a mission to kill their double. Once done they take their place in the world and act like unemotional automatons. Quite why they do this is never explained, but the film vaguely hints that this phenomenon is more widespread than just the characters under scrutiny here, and that the mirror people assist each other in carrying out their mission.

There’s a suggestion that the reason for the appearance of these creatures is because a mirror has been broken. So “deary me Jimbo, now you’ve broken that mirror you’ll have 7 years’ bad luck” becomes “curses Jimbo, after carelessly breaking that mirror, you’ll now be hunted down and killed by your double, who’ll then live your life for you, but take absolutely no pleasure in doing so”.

Lena Headey plays central character Gina. While enjoying a surprise birthday party for their father, Gina and family witness the dramatic shattering of a large mirror (see previous paragraph for why this is significant). Soon after we’re shown Gina’s bathroom mirror shatter, and high heels walking purposefully out of the bathroom. Gina then sees herself driving her car home, has a confrontation with the driver, manages to drive head first into a taxi while driving the car she previously saw someone who looked just like her driving, and wakes up in hospital with a nasty case of amnesia. Are you following this?

The film then takes what feels like three years focusing on Gina’s steady realisation that the mirror people are replacing her family members, starting with her boyfriend. But of course nobody believes her, least of all her mysteriously accented psychologist (Ulrich Thomsen), who just seems to blink out of existence during the film’s later stages. They all think her suspicions are simply caused by the trauma of the accident. That, and the fact that her boyfriend is a terrible actor, and nobody notices he’s been replaced, other than him suddenly taking a dislike to his own dog and frowning a lot.

Frightfest 08: From Within

This year’s Frightfest experience started with 3:10 to Yuma cinematographer Phedon Papamichael’s supernatural thriller. On a day that promised Swedish Vampires (Let The Right One In) and a film touted as “the most extreme film ever” (Martyrs), I had relatively low expectations for From Within.

Elizabeth Rice plays Lindsay, a teenager in a small religious town, with an alcoholic mother, and a bible bashing boyfriend. During the film’s first few moments, Lindsay is exposed to the suicide of a local goth girl, who in turn has just been covered in her boyfriend’s brain matter after shooting himself in the opening scene. It soon becomes apparent to the audience - albeit not the characters - that something is travelling from the last suicide victim’s body to whoever discovers it, causing them to be stalked by, and ultimately forced to take their own lives at the hand of a zombified mirror image of themselves.

The film soon reveals that suicide number one was the son of a local witch. A witch who just happens to have been burned alive by the town’s people after having a hand in the drowning of a popular member of the community. The town folk decide that it’s the witch’s remaining son, played by Sarah Connor Chronicle’s Thomas Dekker, who must be the cause of all the suicides. Queue predictable building of the town folk’s aggression, culminating in them all but taking up pitch forks and flaming torches, and invading Dekker’s home in the film’s final stages.

It’s the same kind of religious insanity which was so brilliantly expressed in Frank Darabont’s adaptation of The Mist, but in this film it feels unoriginal and uninvolving. I didn’t feel enough of an attachment to the protagonists to really care that they were about to be set upon by psychotic Christians.

If you’re a young teen looking for a slice of acceptable, light weight, inoffensive horror then this is probably for you. There’s very little real gore, and plenty of teen angst. Dekker is in full on emo mode, grunting his way though the film in a manner more annoying than anything I’ve seen him in before. He’s a crap John Connor, and he’s an even worse emo son of a witch.

Movie Review: Wanted

It’s been a while since I wrote one of these reviews - particularly one that I decided to “feature”. It’s also been a while since I watched something at the cinema and immediately decided I needed to see it again. In that sense, it seems fitting that Wanted marks my return.

Have you seen that Michael Bay advert? It’s the one where Bay proclaims that everything should be “Awesome“. That’s kind of how Wanted feels - everything needs to be Awesome. Yes, with a capital A.

There are huge parallels with the first Matrix movie here - just the first one, before they fell in love with their own mythology and the trilogy essentially disappeared up its own arse - in that it takes a very normal, insignificant guy, who works in a Dilbert-esque cubicle, and turns him into a superhero.

The difference here is, we care about that guy. OK, Neo was cool, but we didn’t spend enough time with him to really care. Wanted’s resident nobody Wesley Gibson basically has no life. His job sucks, his girlfriend and best mate both think he’s a joke, he’s broke, he lives in a shitty little apartment, and wonders why he bothers to get out of bed in the morning. Did Neo feel like this? No idea, we weren’t given time to find out.

And the fact that we get to see so much of Wesley’s life before his transformation, means that when he takes his life back - or perhaps more accurately gets a life - we’re cheering him along. There’s a moment with a Microsoft Natural Keyboard that I’m sure will put a large smile on the face of many a frustrated computer user. I’ve owned one of those things…they could do some damage.

And thanks to director Timur Bekmambetov - best known for Night Watch and Day Watch - when Wesley does turn into a superhero it feels, like I mentioned before, Awesome. Wesley is recruited into The Fraternity - a 1000 year old club of elite assassins, led by God himself Morgan Freeman. After which much plot twistyness ensues.

We don’t have to wait for the Awesomeness though; it begins early on with an introductory sequence featuring Doomsday’s stern-faced David O’Hara - is it just me, or does it seem like a real effort for that guy to talk? - which sets the tone for the rest of the film really.

The Hills Have Eyes 2

I didn’t expect a great deal from THHE2, but it surprised me: it’s a huge achievement.

Massive. Seriously uber-humongous. Mere words alone cannot express how huge an achievement this film is. This film has the honour of being the most tension free, uninvolving, yawn-inducing horror film I’ve ever seen. It’s not even like the Black Christmas remake (a film so bad I considered self harming as a more entertaining option after 30 minutes) in that it’s not absolutely terrible; it’s just such a complete non-entity.

The gore isn’t particularly well done: featuring more of the terrible cgi blood spurts that I loathed in 300, and some pretty crap prosthetics; the actors are all uninteresting, and lack the ability to build any emotional ties with the audience, and the cast don’t even look particularly attractive; the script is so flimsy I suspect Cravens Jnr and Snr could have knocked it together over a couple of beers one night, and is filled with the sort of cliches Craven’s Scream mercilessly taunted; and the whole thing lacks any undercurrent of dread or impending doom.

We’re basically introduced to a team of incompetent, obnoxious national guardsmen. They proceed to ponce about in the mountains for a bit, while bumpy headed mutants hop about above them. After a painfully dull 45 minutes - including the appearance of Nameless Scientist Dude #1 from within a chemical toilet - they start to get picked off. Hilariously, right after killing one bumpy headed mutant, Generic Female #2 wanders off behind a rock - without telling anyone - to urinate. Whilst trousers are firmly around ankles, another (yes, there are lots of them) bumpy headed mutant carries her off into his lair. Generic Female #1 insists that they can’t leave without her, and leads the rest of the team to their - if there’s any justice - doom. Curiously, Generic Female #2 still finds time to pull up her trousers. Come to think of it, even after being raped - a scene that some describe as shockingly violent/extreme/horrific/etc, but which is actually one of the least effective scenes of its type in any film I’ve ever seen - Generic Female #2 finds time to pull up and buckle her trousers.
The original film’s “normal people are capable of shocking violence too, you know?” subtext has been totally abandoned for the sequel, and while we’re spared any doggie flashbacks this time, it’s still a complete non-event in the history of horror.

Ghost Rider

I’m not going to give this a full review; many have been there before, so there’s very little I could add, in all honesty.

But: I will say I quite enjoyed it. There will almost certainly be two comments left on this post in the next few days calling me some sort of freak for enjoying such a terrible movie, but I did and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

It’s a fairly goofy character - we’re talking about a dude with a flaming skull for a head - but I thought it looked pretty good on screen, and made for some enjoyable set-pieces. Nothing earth shattering, nothing so oh-my-gawd cool that I’ll be rushing out to buy the DVD, but I can think of far worse ways to spend my time.

So - I liked it. There’ll be two peeps along at some point who’ll say they hated it, and I’m sure they’ll come up with some witty analogy that explains that they’d rather have their eyes sellotaped shut than sit through Ghost Rider again.

DVD Review: Masters of Horror - Incident On And Off A Mountain Road

Some horror directors seem to become associated with a particular writer’s work during their careers. Maybe they feel a certain affinity with an author, or understand and admire their work to such a degree that they are compelled to bring it to the screen. Two good examples of this are Stuart Gordon’s fascination with the works of H.P. Lovecraft and Mick Garris’ various adaptations of Stephen King material.

I’d like to add another pair to that list, if I may: Don Coscarelli and Joe R. Lansdale. OK, I’ll admit that Incident On and Off a Mountain Road is only the second of Coscarelli’s Lansdale projects, but he continues to demonstrate a marvellous appreciation of the source material. Here Coscarelli expands and refines the original short story into an excellent 60 minutes of horror. Just as with Bubba Ho-tep, Coscarelli appears to be completely comfortable when adapting Lansdale and the end result is a polished, effective piece of work by any standard.