THE SHALLOWS (2016)
Blake Lively goes on the holiday of a lifetime, only to find herself stranded on a small island near the shore with a giant great white shark stalking her. She is a champion level surfer. Surfing by a beach in Mexico, Nancy flirts with some local surfers. We find out she’s taking time out to cope with the death of her mum, and she has a younger sister (back in Texas) who idolises her.
And then the Jaws music doesn’t play.
But an unseen shark does bite her leg, causing her to bleed into the water.
And from then on, its injured woman, out from the shore, vs hungry shark.
Lots of underwater shots.
This is largely imply don’t show, which works best for horror. And as mostly a monologue piece, Blake Lively (who I hadn’t seen in anything before) carries the desolation and fear well, as well as Nancy’s refusal to give up.
Though for all the implicated threat, the actual shark is very impressive as a cgi threat. And has at least one jump scare that caught horror fan me out.
Essentially this is what if the woman at the start of Jaws was only badly injured, and then spent 90 minutes trying to survive.
Despite many characters having the idiot ball when the shark needs to eat them, this works.
I’m not entirely sure that the approach to surviving a shark bite would work for several days on end (though Nancy deserves plaudits for keeping as much of a clear head as possible in the circumstances), and surely a shark would go and find better sources of quick food. But even so, it works as a decent but not taxing 90 minutes.
Also she takes time out from nearly dying to rescue a seagull.
The Raven (1963)
Talking Pictures introduced this as a comedy.
We're back in Roger Corman land.
After reciting part of The Raven (a great poem by Edgar Allan Poe), Vincent Price conjures a raven in his study, and it then it leaves through the window.
How do you stretch a poem out into 90 minutes? Not a problem to Roger Corman, who introduces the dotting daughter, and soon Vincent Price goes through the beats of the poem, including seeing the raven itself. The raven is somewhat chattier than in the original poem, which is briefly a laugh.
The cinematography by Floyd Crosby, who shot the cameras on High Noon and was the father of David Crosby, is excellent. Lots of shots from above.
The raven is voiced by Peter Lorre, in one of his final roles. It's a magician trapped in raven form.
This weird, weird film was written by Richard Matheson, a legend in horror terms.
Roger Corman states that it was a fun film to make, apart from all the actors who didn't get on. Peter Lorre didn't get on with young Jack Nicholson, and an old and pained Boris Karloff was old and pained and, as a meticulous preparer, did not take kindly to be in a room full of adlibbers!
This has very little to do with Poe, but with that amount of talent behind a film, and Vincent Price clearly having a ball of a time, you can't go too wrong.
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
Interviewer: George A Romero really loved that film.
John Carpenter (with a big grin): That's because he recognised his own work!
Is this the greatest cheap film ever made? The lack of budget is everywhere. The acoustics are all off in scenes as one example. People actually drive around LA, and that neighbourhood is so run down it makes Milton look like Beverly Hills.
Police take out a gang early on, so the gang (who are deliberately multi-cultural so folk couldn't attribute their prejudices) seek revenge on everyone.
This must have leaked out at some point, as the streets are nearly empty.
But then, after one of the legit most shocking scenes in cinema, we shift towards a police station with a skeleton staff. It's about to shut, you see, budget issues. They've got to hold a dangerous prisoner for transportation. And then, into this by the books shift walks one man, followed by the entire gang. And it's a base under siege.
What Carpenter did was to take Night of the Living Dead and remove the supernatural elements. But in doing that, he kept every horror beat, and made a better zombie siege film than most films with actual zombies.
He had no money at all. Carpenter wrote the script ("too fast" he claims), directed, even composed the incidental music to lower costs. J.S. Kaplan put up £100, 000 and that was the total budget.
As a result, Carpenter went to Rio Bravo for inspiration, to Hitchcock, to Romero, and pieced together an affordable horror. Extra roles (gang members) went to students at USC. Carpenter and Tommy Lee Wallace learned their craft as they went along.
And the end result is incredible. Carpenter knows even with no money how to drag as much tension out of a scene as possible. He casts well, his regulars show up even here (say hello to Charles Cyphers everyone!), Austin Stoker excells in the lead role.
Basically, the sheer talent drips out of every scene. If you give a talent a chance, well, if they make something this great with 100 grand, imagine the end results if you gave them 300 grand (Halloween), or one million (The Fog), or fifteen million (The Thing).
As an audition tape, Assault on Precinct 13 brought us some of the all-time great horror films, and for that alone, we should be grateful to it. But as well, it's an incredible piece of tension soaked drama, which puts many films with budgets hundreds of times larger to shame.
Oh and the Anderson Precinct is number 9, not 13. It's in the 13th division. That was distribution changing Carpenter's title though.
I was lucky in that my parents operated a fairly liberal attitude to me seeing horror films. Mum tried to block them at first, as she knew I was a big ghost story fan from early age (blame RL Stine!) but she, justifiably I add, saw a huge difference between that and the Twilight Zone, and Wes Craven. When Scream came out here on VHS about the end of 96, early 97, everyone wanted to see it, and Mum put her foot down. We weren't getting it.
So, obviously I went to my friends house and saw his copy. His mum even vouched we were playing video games and said she'd made me dinner so mum could come over later (after Scream had ended). So Mum did come over later, and on the bus home, she asked: "So how was the film?"
You can't get anything past a mum.
About a year later, she was of the view: if he's going to watch them anyway, it's better he watches them with a parent. And by parent, she meant Dad.
Though I point out a number of the actual horrific scenes that stuck with me were from Mum watching the X-Files, which she thought was harmless TV!
Whereas me and dad used to watch the classic slasher films and guess "who dunnit" and I was amazed he was always correct, because I didn't twig he'd watched them years earlier!
Once I became a teenager it was a case of "Michael can judge for himself". No, he couldn't, he gave up on Halloween 4 after 30 mins and it's actually great. Though I did twig only years later that Muirend let me into see Final Destination when I was 14!
Incidentally, I gave my dad one of the biggest jump scare's he's ever had watching films. Picture the scene. It's winter 1990, in our 2 room flat we had before my sister was born. Living room also doubled as toddler's bedroom. It's late and my Dad sat down to watch Aliens in a darkened room, with a child sleeping in the corner.
And cue a pivotal tense scene in the classic, suddenly a thing jumped up from the side of his eye and loudly said "I DONT LIKE THOSE DRAGONS, DADDY!"
And that's how 3-year-old me made my tough as nails dad jump a foot in the air!
Frenzy (1972)
Parts of Frenzy overindulge the sadistic, perverse nature of Alfred Hitchcock. The first murder, for example, steps way over the line of good taste, even with a body double for Barbara Leigh-Hunt.
But other parts show that his skills as a director were still there, even in the final decade of his life, as his health went on the decline. The opening shots of London (an idea he kept from being unable to do on films with lower budgets) and the mundane government speech folding into the discovery of the latest murder, is nicely done. The discretion shot, backing out of the tenement so we don't see Anna Massey's death, is justly famous.
The cast is great too. Jon Finch, who does a remarkably turn in looking like Oliver Reed, looks like the sort of dangerous man you could well believe was a serial killer. The casting gag of Van der Valk being a crazed killer amuses, and there are some greats in smaller roles. We've got Bernard Cribbins in a Hitchcock film, as a half-demented barman who so dislikes Finch he doesn't notice the obvious killer. And in a very small role as a shy secretary, we have Jean Marsh. Clive Swift perfects his Richard Bucket role decades early, Michael Sheard has a blink and you'll miss it pub role, and Alec McCowan plays the most intelligent policeman in all of Hitchcock, having worked out Finch's innocence and continued to track the killer, even after the frame job.
The film is lurid enough to have put off Michael Caine and Vanessa Redgrave, and for some, the lurid horror is what will appeal in the first place. But for those who like the more careful Hitchcockian horror, there is enough glimpses of that in this penultimate work by the old master to give it a spin.
Every year there's always one. Hatchet, The Sand, Jurassic Games, Final Girls, House of 9. That really daft sound B-movie which actually turns out to be much better than some of the classics I sit down to watch.
And so, in 2022, we've got:
HAPPY DEATH DAY (2017)
The premise of this sounded ludicriously fun. Groundhog Day, as a slasher film. Now, I had recently seen Russian Doll (resume - great first series, mediocre second series) which runs on the same theme. So I was expecting some daft kitsch fun. But when I saw it appear on the TV schedule ,I was also aware that Nikina had rated it recently, and she tends to be a good judge of films.
It's Tree's birthday and she walks up in a grumpy mood, in the dorm of her one-night stand, Carter. She's a member of the popular sorority at college, he's one of the geeks. She has awkward relationships with her friends, roommates, and the professor she's sleeping with. She also hates birthdays, and really hates this one, as she is soon killed in a particularly well-done scene.
And then she wakes up again, in Carter's spare bed. On her birthday. The birthday she's going to be killed on, again and again.
Obviously, this plays with the central conceit to the nth degree. I particularly like Tree discounting suspects as to who murdered her, by being bumped off by the (actually quite eerie) mask wearing foe as she stakes out her rivals. That she becomes weaker with each reset is also a great idea. Russian Doll played with a variation on it.
What really launches Happy Death Day into the realms of being a good horror film though, apart from some nice choices by director Christopher Landon, is our lead. Jessica Rothe is incredibly sympathetic as Tree, to the point that even when she starts as a spoiled soriority girl, she gives enough away to hint that this isn't her real character. As she gets further into the recurring nightmare, Rothe's Tree is justifiably damaged by the ordeal of being murdered over and over again, and the secrets at the heart of her distance to others are well handled. And foreshadowed early.
Carter's also one of the more decent male characters you'll find in horror. The antithesis to those jerks in It Follows. I've always found Bill Murray's character development in Groundhog Day a bit cynical. Here, Tree really comes to appreciate this guy who, no matter the time line and not recalling stuff each time loop, just wants to help the best he can.
This leads to a horror film which manages to both have some genuine creepy moments, and some actual genuine heartwarming ones.
Oh and Rob Mello is channelling his inner Brad Dourif but he does it very well.
These conceits work on how much you are made to care about the main character. Luckily, Happy Death Day makes us feel for Tree Gelbman.
I was all ready to go "wasn't this wonderfully goofy?" but I can skip the goofy bit. This is great. Go watch it.
The Changeling
Weird weird 80s film starring George C Scott. A man loses his wife and child in an accident, so moves to a big haunted house. The music, the effects and some of the acting starts at 11. The real star is the camera work, which rushes around, suggesting threat by movement alone, and adding a sense of unease well beyond what you'd otherwise expect.
Solace (2015)
This time, Anthony Hopkins is the FBI agent chasing the serial killer! Zzzzzzz. With shades of Leonard Betts, but the X-Files did it far better. I saw this show up on the former Horror Channel and thought it'd be a laugh. It was not.
Prince of Darkness (1987)
This is weird, because it's a John Carpenter horror but in the style of his later 80s They Live/Big Trouble in Little China pictures. There's a distinct difference in feeling between the two, so seeing a straight horror told through that lens is often more disconcerting than the actual subject matter. This is 80s Carpenter so it can't be bad, but it is a distant cousin to his big classics.
Sequels are weird beasts. For every Aliens, which works in its own right as a companion to a great original, you get The Exorcist II. Sometimes you get unexpectedly decent films, like The Exorcist III, but they live in the shadow of their superior original.
Sometimes you get The Evil Dead II, considered better than the original.
And sometimes you get a worthy equal.
Sometimes you get...
PREDATOR II (1990)
I'd never seen this before. It's a 90s horror sequel, they have diminishing returns usually.
And the moment I realised this one was going to be different came early on. We're in the future, drug cartels running wild with shootouts in the streets with police. Danny Glover leads the armed police response to a gang, and the Predator provides an assist to the cops by slaughtering the gang members. Glover goes to the roof to find the culprit, and the Predator's in cloaked mode, but as it moves, Glover dives round and trains exactly on its spot. He can't see the Predator, but his years of on the job experience tells him someone is standing in front of him, so he draws his gun.
And we get this from the Predators POV, and it starts to breathe heavily. It's ¤¤¤¤ting itself at Danny Glover!
And this leads us to the two things which make Predator II such a good film. The first is that we see more of events from the Predators perspective. We get a sense of its morals and ethics, its world view, and its fear. Crucially, while this is a more gung-ho antagonist than the first Predator film (see that brutal and effective train scene), it's also got more shades of grey to its persona. It spares a pregnant woman, it recognises a child is playing with a toy, and it even sets up its own demise. When Danny Boy (not Glover) is investigating the murder scene, he goes to fall from the roof, and the Predator instinctively grabs his arm to save him. And that moment, that act of kindness, leads directly to the cultural misunderstanding which leads to Glover's best mate being dead, and our man Mike Harrigan becomes as determined to track down the Predator as it is in seeing him as a worthy foe.
But since the Predator can't talk (mostly), the film relies on its human lead. And thankfully, we've got Danny Glover here to be amazing. Now, Glover is such a good actor - see him as the villain in Witness - that even with his never ending CV, he still feels like someone who hasn't got his due. He's fantastic here, as the renegade cop who does it his way trope, taken to the logical extreme. When Harrigan starts charging in and going his own way, he's seen as a problem by his superiors. Because he is. But he is also given reasoning for his actions, as he's paranoid early on through being stalked by the Predator. Just look at the scene in the cemetery, that is one scared guy.
That he's clearly terrified and keeps going because he feels its his duty to protect others makes him even more of a hero, of course. Doctor Who for you.
And note that even though the exec guys dislike him, as soon as they realise that Mike knows about the Predator, they bring him in. Admittedly to show off, as well as that works.
Gary Busey also spent a decade preparing for that meeting and the Predator didn't even bother to learn his name.
But yeah, this is the story of two people, one of them human, who have to face off. It's High Noon with an alien. By focusing on the two characters, we get a proper horror classic.
Let Us Prey (2014)
In the first film of the 2022 marathon, we saw a woman alone in the wilderness against a shark.
In the final film of the 2022 marathon, we see a woman surrounded by people, facing a shark, but equally as alone. Her colleagues are most interested in their own affairs, or secrets, as a stranger comes to town.
A man nobody knows is hit by a teenage joyrider, and taken in to the police station, where the local doctor goes to examine him, and, faced with a mutual flashback, suddenly tries to murder the stranger instead.
Pollyanna McIntosh is our protagonist, Liam Cunningham the mysterious stranger.
If you ever wanted to see a darker version of An Inspector Calls, through a Scottish horror lens, then this is for you.
Jonathan Watson appears as a teacher with a dark secret, and plays on his well known amiability to play a much darker role. I've met Watson, shortly after my grandfather died, some friends took me to see his live show. Alas, tickets were sold out, but as we stood glum in the opening of the GFT, who walked in but Watson himself, to sort out seats for his elderly parents.
"You boys here to see the show?" he asked.
"Of course" said my friend, quickly.
"Great, follow me" - and he led us to the front row, so I watched his show next to his mum!
Nearly 20 years after this, he was a Sontaran leader in Doctor Who!
Good guy.
Some of this film crosses over my line of taste (there's abuse references, for example) but overall a good way to end the month. (It's the weekend so I try not to watch horror films when Sarah can see them.) But it's also grim. The police are corrupt figures, the village doctor a killer, danger lurks behind every corner. I think Blake Lively had more support from that seagull.
No comments:
Post a Comment