Anything but a Drag (or: Another pukey punny blog title)

When you're a film sharpshooter like me -- that is to say, you avoid seeing movies that look especially crappy, and you're not even sure the "merely OK" types (e.g. State of Play) are worth your time/money -- quite often you'll come away disappointed, since you're aiming high almost all the time.

Now, you take that and combine it with a documented love of horror (and the insistence that horror isn't especially tough to pull off), and it's easy to leave the theater underwhelmed instead of chilled by the latest offering, be it a slasher flick or a supernatural thriller.

(And when the film in question runs up a 94% score on Rotten Tomatoes ... well, that's just recipe for a Michael Bay-like explosion in one's face.)

Which, in an incredibly long-winded way, brings us to Drag Me To Hell ...

(The Hollywood News with the pic)

... which, simply put, was exceptional. Not in a There Will Be Blood, preserve-this-film-after-the-ice-caps-melt kind of way. It's more of a best-movie-I've-seen-this-year situation.

First: Drag -- Sam Raimi's story of an insecure-yet-ambitious bank employee (Alison Lohman) who, through certain fault of her own, becomes cursed by an old gypsy woman (Lorna Raver) -- is not horror in the typical sense. It makes you jump, close your eyes and/or wince in disgust, but always winks at you.

Well, not always. Part of its brilliance is how it begins; basically, it tries to fool you into thinking it's a straightforward horror story -- with its flashback opening, then some early scenes of absurdly phony dialogue (the Lohman character is even listening to diction tapes on the way to work!).

But it's all just a setup for another of Raimi's bizarro trips, which starts in a parking garage and ends -- well, I won't tell you where it ends. I'll just say this: As the curse becomes more and more outrageous, the scares more creative and the solutions increasingly strange, the film asserts itself as something of a less-gory, bigger-budget version of Raimi's classic Evil Dead 2.

No, there's no amorous tree here ... but there is an (understandably) angry black cat, an adventurous housefly and a whole lot more fun.

Bad, horror. Bad!

Seeing the early reviews -- early as in, only 11 of them by Thursday afternoon -- of Sam Raimi's latest, Drag Me to Hell, it's hard for a horror fan not to get a little giddy.

Because good horror is a mysterious (and elusive) fig.

(Thanks to Screen Rant for the pic)

Aside from the very, very, VERY exceptional cases -- and this is true for any genre (comedy, sci-fi, action, etc.) -- rarely does an offering reach an all-time-great level. But there's just something about a solid scare-fest -- say, Quarantine -- that's so much more satisfying than your typical entertaining actioner.

Also, and let me say this very quietly ... IT'S NOT THAT HARD TO MAKE!

Seems to me, good horror needs three elements to succeed (succeed = not suck):

1) An ominous, uncomfortable atmosphere -- a looming sense of dread that doesn't let up until the credits roll. Basically, just create likable (or at least tolerable) characters and threaten their lives somehow. Done.

2) A script that isn't riddled with horrifically stupid dialogue or nonsensical, eye-rolling plot points. We don't need Elmore Leonard exchanges and a Usual Suspects-level storyline here, just a little bit of logic and realism, even in an unreal world.

3) A lack of excess. There's nothing wrong with a little violence/gore, but sometimes it's just too much, and too mean. A great example is Hostel -- it kills in the atmosphere department and has a solid script ... but once it reaches its payoff, it's just too much.

Sure, this doesn't account for everything*. But it's a pretty simple set of rules that shouldn't be that hard to follow. No, you're not necessarily going to get huge critical success -- but hey, Anchorman only hit 64% on RottenTomatoes, and if that's not a legend in the world of genre films, nothing is. Like comedy fans, horror-philes have relatively low expectations, too.

*Let's not forget about side genres such as the cheesy, over-the-top slasher/monster flick (e.g. the old Friday the 13th series) or the action-horror hybrid (you could throw Aliens into this basket). There's also the bizarro-horror, which Raimi himself nailed in Evil Dead II.

I was going to rant on a couple of horror entries I've sampled lately (Thir13en Ghosts going on 30 Days of Night) -- but why waste time? I already did that watching them. In short, they didn't follow the rules -- brainless plots and dumb dialogue that waste a few pretty cool kills and effects.

Instead I'll just sit here hoping Drag Me to Hell doesn't fall into same traps. I don't want to scream its title as I leave the theater, thinking about another $10 and two hours wasted on bad horror.

The king of all ...

... cheesy horror films:

(Pic from hollywood.dcealumni.com)

OK, cheesy might be a little unfair, because when I say "cheesy horror films," you (likely) say "Jason!"*

*When I say "sportz," you say "nutz" ...

But there's a difference between the truly, icky, awful, terrified feeling you get when you watch an unrelenting piece like Texas Chain Saw Massacre (the original ... duh) or Alien. Those are small, contained situations -- a house in the middle of nowhere, a space ship -- and neither has grand ideas nor many supernatural qualities.

Typically, when you enter the realm of Satan or 666*, there must be some sort of suspension of disbelief, since the concept of EVIL incarnate is, well, slightly silly.

*Episode 666 is an exception here.

So here we go, with The Omen, a 1976 offering (again, not the remake) from Richard Donner and Atticus Finch himself, Gregory Peck. Peck plays Thorn, a politician whose son, Damien (Harvey Stephens), is no more his son than I am. Instead, their relationship spawned from an under-the-table adoption ... and it ain't workin' out so hot for our protagonist. Because, well, Damien is the Antichrist, and Thorn (with the help of a suspecting photog played by David Warner's incredible accent) must stop the little devil (haha) by killing him. Which kinda makes dad a little uneasy, what with the moral repercussions of offing a kid and all.

The film has its share of unintentional comedy, but it seems to know it ... if just barely. Everything is played straight, but you get the sense that, deep down, everyone's winking at you (or smiling, as it were ... if you've seen the ending, you know what I mean).

Then there's the film's strongest quality, and I'm not talking about the totally badass decapitation scene (yeah, don't click on that one, all you squeamish types). IMDB's trivia section for The Omen says the following:

Director Richard Donner credits the success of the film to composer Jerry Goldsmith, whose music made the film scarier than it would have been had he not been involved.

Totally. Agree.

Goldsmith won an Oscar for his work here. In a cheesy horror movie. That's how good the score is.

Enjoy:

A new Frontière(s)?

What happens when a film nerd's occasional foreign film and horror forays mix?

Uh, apparently this:


That's Frontière(s), a 2008 French movie (pretty much unreleased in the U.S.) whose title translates into English as: "Gee, what do you suppose 'frontiere(s)' means?" The setup is pretty standard (a near rip-off of my all-time favorite pure horror entry, the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre): Group of kids/twentysomethings ends up at house (in this case, hotel) in remote area, but runners of said hotel/house aren't your typical farmers*.

*Our protagonists can only *wish* these people were lead farmers.

So, you say, if the film's plot is so derivative, why are you writing about it?

I'm glad you asked.

It's not so much that writer-director Xavier Gens knows what he's doing, although he clearly does -- creating some beautiful (and beautifully awful) images (even if some of them are borrowed from other places, like a scene where two characters push their way through a cave-like tunnel ... hello, The Descent). It's not the film's excruciating violence/gore, which is considerable but rarely to the point of excess (unlike Hostel and its torture-porn counterparts). And it's not how frustratingly unrealistic the last act is (where the main character, a three-months-pregnant girl who has been near-brutalized for hours, suddenly starts kicking ass).

Mostly, it's how confounding the film's message -- and yes, it has one -- is. Frontière(s) starts not on the farm but in Paris, during race riots (the quartet of main characters are of Muslim descent). We learn an extreme right-wing government is about to win the next election -- and hello, fascism! Meanwhile, the protags have pulled off a heist of some kind, are wanted by the cops, and are getting the eff out of Dodge (Dodge here meaning France).

So they wind up at that hotel to spend the night in hiding, but its owners aren't the stereotypical American in-bred hillbilly types. The patriarch is an ex-Nazi. He wants a pure-blooded race, at least in his home. He drafts the female of the group (played quite well by Karina Testa) as the family's next "mother." And you can imagine what happens to her male friends.

Now, critics have inferred and Gens himself has said that the film is meant to be symbolic, an allegory on the importance of human rights. To which I say: Yawn. Not that human rights are, like, ya know, a *bad* thing. But as a movie message, the whole government-spreading-hate bit has been played for a long, long time*. Sure, it's easy for me to say as I'm not a member of any oppressed group, but I just can't connect with the same theme again, and again, and again, and again ...

*Which, as an aside, is part of what made Children of Men such an overrated bore, despite the incredible filmmaking involved. Honestly, it's great that you're against hate and tyranny, but please don't insult my intelligence with an obvious, inarguable message. You mean penning people up like hogs is a bad thing? Golly! I** didn't know that! Thanks! Next, you should make a movie explaining that the world is round!

**And before you come at me with, "Yeah, but not *everyone* believes in the evil of tyranny," let me ask: If someone believes otherwise, do you really think a two-hour sci-fi or horror flick (with zero subtlety, no less) is going to change their minds? Really? Good luck with that.

What's interesting about Frontière(s), though, is after some personal reflection, I saw the film's message as much different, and there's a very, very late scene that sums it up perfectly (no giving it away, though, since it's SPOILER-tastic). Basically, the movie seemed to be a commentary on how we view human rights in the 21st Century: Sure, the Bush-era panic/constraints felt scary (to many, at least), but words like "Nazi" and "fascist" and "gulag" were (and, I suppose, still are) thrown around like superfluous adjectives, overused terms that lose their meaning almost instantly. Frontière(s) shows us what a *real* gulag is, who the *real* Nazis are. Think a little wiretapping is bad? You ain't seen nothin' yet.

Whether that's a healthy message is debatable, depending on your political bent. I'm not here to argue that. My point is: At least it's different, and I like different in my movies.

Now, was it Gens' intent? Probably not, according to that above interview. But if it wasn't -- oops, he messed up.

Who says movies where people hang lifeless on meathooks can't spark discussion?

Cult Classics: The Wicker Man

Ah, yes, this gut-buster:


No, wait. Wrong one*. That's the remix of the remake starring -- who else? -- Nicolas Cage, who landed one of the film's five Razzie nominations. Ugh.

*And it's not this Wicker Man, either.

But let's focus on the positive! If you're lucky enough to see/to have seen the 1973 original ... then you're pretty damn lucky.


Dubbed a horror movie, it's not so much that as a twisted, vivid nightmare -- one that follows a pious Scottish cop (Edward Woodard) who shows up on a nearby island to search for a missing girl. Only the islanders are a wee bit strange, and very ... very ... musical. Oh, and pretty sexual too. Basically, they're pagans of some kind, led by Saruman himself, Christopher Lee (above).

What sounds like the setup for a classic Evil People Doing Evil Things movie plays almost completely the opposite. At first, the film's theme song -- yes, it has a theme song -- feels horribly out of place ... and then you understand why it's there, as you follow the religious Woodard's journey through a world that's pure anathema to him.

Oh, and then there's the ending, where everything comes together in the most devilishly clever way possible.

Jeez, writing this, I just want to see it again.

The duplex called Grindhouse

Yeah, we ... know ... about ... the ... trailers*.

*NSFW! None of them!

But thanks to the Encore movie package, the two feature-length segments of the Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino tag-team's 2007 offering, Grindhouse, have been circulating a bit, too.

Here are a few reasons why the first chapter, Planet Terror, is awesome:


-Rose. Mc. Gowan.

-The cord that's just a liiiiiittle too short.

-You'll shoot your eye out.

-"I must have passed out after I killed those things."

-MISSING REEL

-"Break a leg."

-The under-the-radar helicopter ride.

-And many, many more.

...

Now, here are the reasons why Death Proof is great:


Wait -- Death Proof is not great. And even if it had the chance to be, you couldn't hear me explain it because the characters won't ... stop ... TALKING!

So here's some belated praise to the powers-that-be for dividing these two after the film's unsuccessful theater run. (And, while we're at it, for not getting too finicky about all those trailers being on YouTube.)

The Ruins (Or: Why did I watch this?)

Or or: An ode to horror.

Please, everyone, silence your cell phones ...


Now, with a post title like "Or: Why did I watch this?", you might expect a little film snobbery, a little commentary on character development and plot and dialogue and all that, regarding the Spring 2008 horror flick The Ruins.

Except not here. For a horror film, The Ruins -- in which a few college kids make the mistake of visiting some ruins in a Mexican jungle -- actually does those three categories pretty well. Sure, that setup isn't exactly groundbreaking, but its dead-serious (and intense) execution keeps the eye rolling to a minimum (unlike your typical kids-in-trouble screamers). It's not mind-blowing by any stretch, but that quote on the poster says it all: You'll scream, squirm, cringe and bite your nails*.

*Although, to be honest, I personally would replace "scream" with "Squeeze your eyes tiiiiiight" and replace "nails" with "knuckles and bottom lip."

So let's recap: On story, character and dialogue, we'll call The Ruins average. The positives then, are that it makes you scream, squirm, cringe and bite nails -- all because of some excruciatingly involving scenes with, well, let's not go into too much detail.

So ... why would anyone watch this, again?

And yet, I did. And I'd watch it again. And I'd watch others like it. I will watch others like it. And I'm not alone.

There's just something about horror films. Some go too far, sure, and some are so mindless, derivative and/or excessive that they're not even fun.

But when a horror film gets things juuuuust right -- just enough plot, just-appealing-enough characters, just enough scares and cringe-worthy moments (and yes, gore) -- it can be as memorable as another genre that doesn't require plot/character development/any sense whatsoever: Comedy.

So we're forever keeping an eye out for the next one*.

*And no, another CGI-riddled PG-13 offering doesn't count.

Alien(s)3

My cable package keeps showing me these movies. Can't argue with that.


First, let's forget Alien: Resurrection ever happened. In fact, I might call Dr. Howard Mierzwiak just to get that junk removed from my brain.

And those AVP movies? In the word of Bill Lumbergh: Yeah ...

This is how The Film Official's Alien rankings stack up:

1. Alien

2. Alien3

3. Aliens

Yeah, you read that right. Alien3 > Aliens.

Sure, sure, in some circles, the James Cameron-helmed 1986 sequel is considered better than Ridley Scott's 1979 original -- part of that "which sequels are better than the original?" debate that often involves the first two Godfather and Terminator movies, too*.

*Although, strangely, Caddyshack II never seems to work its way into that discussion.

Aliens even has a healthy contingent of irrational fanboys and fangirls, intent on destroying everything that dare go up against their precious movie.

Well, bring it on.

First, though, let's say that the original is clearly the best -- a Hall of Famer for sure. It's bleak. Quiet. Almost slow -- just to maximize the dread. You don't really like the characters -- a seven-person crew of some towing spaceship -- but it's not as if you completely hate them. They don't have weapons or, it seems, any hope of surviving when that unmistakable alien finally shows up on their ship.

It's the kind of film where you can know everything --and I mean everything -- that happens before seeing it (that's how it worked for me), and yet it's still wholly terrifying. Even the infamous chest-bursting scene* is intense and surprising, no matter how many times you see it. And come on -- Alien even has a lovable cat as one of the good guys.

*No, not this one.

But now for the real alien-fight: Sequel No. 1 vs. Sequel No. 2.

What I can say about Aliens (which, strangely, received copious Oscar nominations despite being a sci-fi actioner) is this: It's a nice, mostly exciting shoot-em-up. It's certainly not bad -- definitely entertaining, with some intense scenes and nice effects for 1986. Sigourney Weaver does a fine job as our hero, Ripley. But that's about it. The script tells you exactly which characters will live and which will die. And gee -- Paul Reiser's character ends up being a bad guy all along? That's so obvious, I didn't even tag it with SPOILER ALERT.

Alien3, meanwhile, is all about atmosphere. The David Fincher effect -- this was the Se7en/Zodiac/Fight Club director's feature debut -- helps it rise above what is a somewhat simple script, even though Fincher (supposedly) dealt with considerable issues while filming.

That's not to say the story is bad. After escaping the Aliens situation, Ripley finds herself on an all-male penal planet, and one of those alien things is with her again. There's not too much action -- like in the original, the prisoners have no weapons -- so the film relies mostly on mood. Although the final chase-ish scene is chaotic, that's the point. Love the ending, too.

Now, for one, final, spoiler-filled note:

In Aliens, two of the characters who (quite predictably) don't get killed off are Hicks (Terminator star Michael Biehn) and, of course, the Cute Kid (also known as Newt, played by Carrie Henn). At the beginning of Alien3, we find that these two have died in some sort of incident.

Some -- it's even said that Cameron himself used these words -- called this decision "a slap in the face." And that sentiment is understandable. After all, Hicks and Newt were quite likable*.

*That's why they didn't die in Aliens ... duh!

So if you share that feeling, here's what you do. Go back to your Aliens DVD and make like me with Alien: Resurrection -- as in, pretend it never existed. Then, leave those of us in the vast, vast minority to enjoy Alien3 for what it is -- a dark, bleak, brooding film that gives you that sweetly sick feeling while you watch it.

You know, like the original.