Machete (2010)

WANT.

WEREWOLVES CURED YOUR MALE PATTERN BALDNESS

Just as Obama Is Your New Bicycle, Werewolves Are The New Vampires.

Peter Stupp, the Werewolf of Bedburg

Peter Stupp was a German farmer who was executed in 1589 for killing and eating fourteen children, along with two pregnant women and their fetuses. He claimed to be a practitioner of black magic and a werewolf. He stated at trial that the devil had given him a belt of wolf-hide that allowed him to transform. The woodcuts of his execution are among the first portrayals of the werewolf in art.

Check it out!

Gingersnaps (2000)

Gingersnaps was directed by John Fawcett and stars Emily Perkins and Katherine Isabelle.

I really like this movie. It's witty, and really smart in how it uses lycanthrophy as a metaphor for the Other and for Change. The onset of Ginger's werewolf-ism is presented as a parallel for the onset of puberty. I really wish I had seen this one first, rather than the terrible prequel Ginger Snaps Back (reviewed earlier).

The movie centers mostly on the visceral horror of lycanthrophy/puberty, of watching one's self change and being unable to halt the process. Ginger finds her transformation into a wolf bewildering, and the upheaval causes believable tension between Ginger and her sister Brigitte.

What I found most interesting, however, is the fact that, in the end, Ginger does not return to human form. She is a werewolf, irredeemably, and the connotation is that Brigitte is next. The change is unavoidable for Brigitte, and is something she must now face alone.

A

Next up: Cursed (2005)

WEREWOLF WEEKEND!

I return triumphant this weekend with a plethora of reviews! In honor of the new Wolfman (in theatres), I decided to devote this past weekend to Werewolf movies.

Wolfman (2010) Excellent. If you like Gothic fiction, this is most decidedly a movie for you. It has every element: the abandoned castle, the damsel in distress, the underground labyrinth, a curse. It was really fun to see something so modern deal with these classic tropes.

However, I think it would have done better had they stuck even closer to the rules of the Gothic. All the gore felt out of place and forced against the moodiness of the rest of the movie.

Also, Emily Blunt's character is shown wearing a blue bodice just months after her fiance died. If they were sticking true to true Victorian funerary dress, she would have still been in deep mourning, and blue would have been forbidden.

B+


Big Bad Wolf (2006) Terrible, and not in a so-bad-it's-good way. First of all, I feel werewolves in wolf form shouldn't be able to talk. Besides that, the whole movie was just bizarre and deeply misogynistic. Who thought this movie was a good idea? It's just one huge rape joke. Seriously.

F


The Wolves of Kromer (2000) Not Horror, though Netflix bills this as a Horror movie. It's basically a British comedy, which uses Werewolf-ism as a hamfisted and transparent metaphor for homosexuality. The plot swings wildly around, and most of the time I had no idea what was going on.

The only redeeming quality was William Lee, (left) who made quite a cute and endearing wolf-boy.

D+

Stay tuned for even more werewolf movies! I'm making a week of it.

Coming soon: Gingersnaps (2000)

Ils (2006)

Ils, which translates to "Them" is a French film directed by David Moreau and Xavier Palud, staring Olivia Bonamy and Michaël Cohen.

In Ils, the two main characters are pursued through their home and the surrounding area by a group of what turn out to be ten to fifteen year old children. These kids track down and kill Clementine and Lucas, seemingly as a diversion. The post-script atates that when the youngest child is asked why, he responded "They wouldn't play with us." The movie is billed as "based on a true story."

What struck me about the ending of Them is how the film depicts the children after the murders. They emerge from the woods to hop directly on the school bus. The monsterous creaking sound that has occumpanied their presence swells as they exit the woods, until one realizes it is a toy noisemaker. The children seem normal.

This movie embodies a fear that runs through a good percentage of horror, which is terror of the degenerating future. Any apoclaypse film posits a similar indightment: that if we do not change, do not work against what is seen as the moral decline of the present, these children will be our future.

Though it is not obvious, this movie asserts a very clear, conservative moral. It presents an example, as many horror films have, of the amoral future. This movie is tight, suspenseful, and definitely worth watching.

B+

Deadgirl (2008)

Deadgirl was directed by Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel, and stars Shiloh Fendandez, Noah Segan and Jenny Spain.

I was warned this movie was disturbing, and they weren't kidding. This film left me in a deep malaise for hours after I saw it. It's a great movie, but I certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone without reservations. I felt dirty after watching it. I don't know what to say about it.

The film: A

How it made me feel: D for Disgusting

The House of the Devil (2009)

The House of the Devil was directed by Ti West, and stars Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov.

Honestly, I did not like this movie very much. I've been hearing so much about it, about how perfectly it captures the feel of classic seventies and eighties horror, but I honestly think that if this film were made in the eighties, very few people would consider it anything more than a middling example of Killer Satanists sub-genre.

However, this movie does have many visual homage moments that are successful. When Samantha is heading up the stairs with the knife to investigate the noise, the light shines through the spindles of the stair railing, reveling her silhouette. It's a perfect Giallo moment. Similarly, when she wakes up tied over a pentagram, the image is a carbon copy of Hammer Satanism.

Despite this, I can't help feeling it should have been better. The director went through so much trouble to re-create the feel of the classic early eighties film, but the plot is weak in comparison. The movie had so much potential source material to draw from, including the real-life Satanic Ritual scares. This movie should have been the classic that never was, but it never rose above mediocre.

I know that eighties films are not nearly as fast paced as movies today, but literally nothing happens during the rising action of this movie. Samantha dances around the house and orders pizza, then is suddenly frightened by footsteps upstairs. However, she has been told she is watching an able-bodied elderly woman. She shouldn't be surprised when she hears someone moving about the house. I felt like she did a lot of things that didn't make sense.

However, I think the last twenty minutes of the movie were spectacular, but I was so frustrated by Sam's character that I had a hard time appreciating them. I'd recommend this movie, but not without reservations.

Horror Homage Aspects: A+

Ending: A+

Film Overall: C

A cool tidbit about this film: They marketed it by releasing special copies on VHS. Awesome!

Daybreakers (2010)

Daybreakers is currently in theatres. Directed by the Spierig Brothers, this movie stars Ethan Hawk, Willem Defoe and Harriet Minto-Day.

Daybreakers was a good movie. Not great, but mildly entertaining. However, it had a few intriguing points that make it worth seeing.

In this movie, an epidemic has swept the world, turning most of the population into vampires. The movie calls it an epidemic, but the specifics of the disease are never clarified. It seems to me to be not a sickness at all, but more like a social trend. The main character Edward's brother admits to changing Edward not because of overwhelming thirst, but because he wanted his brother to be immortal as well. This seems to be the reasoning in most cases, with each vampire turning their family and friends until vampires overwhelmingly outnumber humans. The demand for blood quickly outstrips supply. Famine and riots quickly ensue.

It seems to me that the epidemic is selfishness. People disregarded balance, thinking only of preserving the ones they love. They scrambled to change everyone, regardless of the consequences. When the blood began to run out, they rioted, or executed the crazed Nosferatu-esqe starving vamps to delay the problem. Basically, Daybreaker vampires are more human than most people would most likely be willing to admit. The transformation has not changed people's essential nature.

However, this is not to say that the film does not have problems. The director used a blue filter over much of the movie that I found uncomfortable to watch. Additionally, the last ten minutes needed to be cut off, or ten more minutes needed to be added. The end completely invalidated everything the heroes had been working toward for the majority of the movie, and made the whole experience seem pointless.

Without the ending: B +

As it stands: C

Flatliners (1990)

Flatliners was directed by Joel Shumacher, and stars Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, and Kevin Bacon.

The concept of this movie had potential. The idea of being haunted by one's sins is an old one, but definitely an archetype that carries emotional weight. Every viewer can identify with regretting one's actions, but I feel this movie is too redemptive. Everyone atones and weeps and gets on with their lives, relatively unscathed.

This may have been more a problem of expectation. I wanted Flatliners to be Drag Me to Hell (2009), but instead it was Steel Magnolias (1989) with ghosts and without the Southern charm.

Lame.

D

Trick 'r Treat (2008)

Trick 'r Treat was directed by Michael Dougherty, and stars Dylan Baker, Quinn Lord, and Anna Paquin, AKA Sookie Stackhouse or Rogue.

I'd heard so much about this movie, and was absolutely thrilled when I found out we'd be watching it in the Horror class I'm attending over intercession. Let me say, it did not disappoint.

This movie functions as an anthology. The stories overlap, as the characters of each segment interact and make appearances in other segments. The stories are not presented chronologically, so these interactions are nonsensical until the end of the film. It is certainly not a film to watch while preoccupied with other activities.

We talked in class about how this could be one of the reasons this film sat in post-production hell for years, despite how well-done it is. With the success of other non-linear films such as Memento (2000) or Pulp Fiction (1994), one would think the studios would be more open to more complex movies like Trick 'r Treat.

I feel this lack of faith stems from a lack of trust in the fans, which really saddens me. The studios seem to think that horror fans won't appreciate anything complex or difficult. Conversely, when a smart Horror film does really well, such as Let the Right One In (2009), it gets labeled as not truly horror, but an art film with Horror elements.

However, Trick 'r Treat is unavoidably a Horror movie. Its important themes deal unavoidably
with the conventions of the genre, and I think this is the major strength of the film. The movie has a little of everything.

However, what is most telling is the film's emphasis on tradition. Each character chooses to act according to or in disregard for tradition, leading to their salvation or their doom. Rhonda, who carves pumpkins and seems to know and acknowledge Sam, the pumpkin boy, survives and is empowered by the experience. She seems to know it is not simply another trick when she leaves the other children to their fate. She chooses not to save them. She stares confidently ahead during her escape, ignoring the screams of her deceitful friends. The werewolf pack also follows tradition and emerge unscathed. They are watched over by Sam, seemingly because they are creatures of the same ilk. The bus driver is saved by his unintentional offering of candy to Sam.

This emphasis on the rules seems to espouse a conservative ideology. Sins, such as the bus driver's treatment of the disabled children, are inevitably punished, as is disobedience of the rules. However, the fate of the werewolf girls invalidates this. Under a true conservative ideology, they would not be allowed to remain unpunished, regardless of the rules. Besides Rhonda, there is no clear-cut "good guy."

This movie masquerades as a traditional slasher, as different characters are picked off by an otherworldly "villain." However, there are in fact no such boundaries, making this movie much more liberal and internal than it seems.

A+

Dead Rotten Fights Back From Beyond the Grave

Time for my New Year's Resolution.

For real this time, I will try to post once a week at least. Exams and Graduate School applications lured me away from Extreme Unction, but I have returned! Onward to reviews!!!

-DR

New Moon (2009)

New Moon was directed by Chris Weitz, and stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner.

What a cheesy mess.

My friend Sarah and I went to the midnight showing. Girls were there with "Team Edward!" signs, and someone even had a "Team Charlie" sign. People screamed and cheered through the whole movie. It was a spectacle to say the least.

On thing made it absolutely worth it that we went at midnight. There was this seemingly normal, middle-aged woman sitting behind us. Every time Taylor Lautner came on screen, she would make some disturbingly over-appreciative noise. Most memorably, when he first took off his shirt, she said, "Hot damn! That is a juicy man!" Sarah and I almost died.

Surprisingly, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The director took out a lot of what made the book annoying to read, such as Bella's sheer mountain of ANGST, but didn't try to legitimize what was left into serious drama. They realized what crap they had as source material and just went with it.

As a result, much of the angst became laughable. Even Twi-hards, who made up most of the crowd, were laughing when Edward left. This is also partially because of Kristen Stewart's horrendous acting during the forest scene. Edward tells her he's leaving forever, and her face doesn't even twitch. Bad acting mixed with knowing winks from the directors makes it much more enjoyable than the first movie.

However, I do feel part of this was going on opening night. Watching this movie on your television at home would be funny, but not nearly so funny as when one is surrounded by screaming fangirls.

Movie Experience: A

Movie: B

Stewart's Acting: F