Three Films Make A Post: Your ally could become your enemy

The Precipice Game (2016) aka 魔輪: A bunch of arseholes – alas not interesting arseholes – takes part in a dumb game for the prize of a million dollars that takes place on a mostly empty cruise ship. Boredom ensues, for this is a mix of the old, cheap corridor runner genre, the sort of Saw-ish murderous game show and a whole lot of nothing. The characters have the inhuman and antiseptic quality all too frequent in Chinese mainland cinema of the last decade or so (and without any inherent star qualities that might make up for that little problem) and the plot makes little sense. Actual suspense or thrills just aren’t happening because neither the script nor Wang Zao’s direction seems to put even the tiniest amount of effort in.

Don’t Knock Twice (2016): Compared to that mess, Caradog James’s horror film with more than decent lead performances by Katee Sackhoff and Lucy Boynton is a shining example of good writing and direction. Realistically, it rather rests in my most unloved category – movies of boring competence. Apart from the surprise twist that will surprise no one (and that doesn’t make too much sense), there’s little here to annoy or outright bore. The horror sequences are utterly generic 2010s style horror sequences, unfortunately, so about as exciting as watching grass grow, but browner, the visuals are of the usual desaturated type with little to look at that might excite or frighten, and the script has an interesting plot line about a woman trying to regain the trust of the daughter she left Sackhoff and Boynton could get their teeth in but never gets around to meaningfully connect that with the horror parts of the plot (not to speak of the twist ending). It’s really not a bad film at all, but it is terribly bland. I can’t help but ask myself why anyone should spend time on this when there are quite a few films out there that are actually good instead of not being bad.


47 Meters Down aka In the Deep (2017): Johannes Roberts’s film about two sisters (as played by Mandy Moore and Claire Holt) trapped 47 meters under water in a shark cage threatened by (you guessed it) sharks is certainly the cream of the crop of these three. Sure, it’s not terribly original in the way it follows the thriller rules for films concerning people trapped somewhere unpleasant quite strictly, the characters aren’t wildly complex, and it’s not as riveting as the comparable The Shallows. However, Roberts does build tension carefully, escalates things with a sure hand and not always in the most expected manner. The director also manages to make a film that mostly takes place underwater (and which isn’t going for pretty nature documentary shots) not look boring. In fact, I found myself excited enough during the proceedings I cared not a bit about things like probable shark behaviour, the correct application of the laws of physics or if or if not wet suite diving works this way but cared quite a bit about what happened to the main characters. More, I could not ask of a film.

In short: The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia (2013)

There’s actually a fine Southern Gothic ghost story with many a creepy idea hidden inside Tom Elkins’s film just burning to get out. All the elements are there after all: a family whose female members all have the ability to see ghosts, a house in the woods in Georgia with a dark secret connected to its past as a station of the Underground Railroad, and more ghosts than you can shake a stick at. Unfortunately, it also has no idea how to treat these elements properly and not end up with what plays out like a somewhat more brutal episode of one of those TV shows about people talking to ghosts and fixing their problems so they can move on (like crap occult detectives who nearly never actually meet frightening ghosts, come to think of it).

Unfortunately, even if the script did better, it all would still come to naught thanks to the most generic Insidious “inspired” modern mainstream horror direction imaginable, so it’s a film that mostly consists of clichéd “character moments” that have little to with people or the idea of actual people (despite Abigail Spencer and Katee Sackhoff trying their best to pretend they are in fact playing human beings), and the kind of horror scenes that just can’t imagine to use anything other than whoosh cuts, flash cuts, random inserts of the moon, lots of flickering for no reason, and many a stupid noise on the soundtrack that’s pretty much the opposite of sound design.

It’s a bit as if the supernatural menace here were a chap trying to try out all the effects of his cheap new digital editing suite; not surprisingly, the resulting scenes of horror are ineffective, generally annoying and even a bit depressing because it’s oh so easy to imagine what people who actually knew what they were doing could achieve with some of the film’s basic ideas. Unfortunately, we end up with a cheap house of horror ride that doesn’t even work as one. Though I have to give The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia props for the gnomic paradox of its title.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,in short,horror,tom elkins,abigail spencer,katee sackhoff

Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

So, what does a film do when its main bad guy has been decapitated on camera in its predecessor? Well, I don’t know what an actual film would do, but the entity known as Halloween: Resurrection concocts an idiotic excuse involving Michael fucking Myers dressing an ambulance driver up in his beloved mask, conveniently crushing his larynx so he can’t speak, and pretending Laurie Strode wouldn’t know the difference between the Shape and a guy with a beer belly. But hey, at least the film starts as idiotic as it is going to continue.

Anyway, because of murdering the ambulance dude, Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis looking so pissed off she must have read the script) has now been in a closed mental institution for three years or so, when one night Michael comes for a visit and murders a few people and then her. Lucky woman.

The rest of the film has little to do with the beginning, except for the coming degree of suckage. We follow the misadventures of a group of six students (final girl Bianca Kajlich, a pre-Kara-Thrace Katee Sackhoff whose acting here is as bad as that of everyone else, and some other people) who have been chosen to star in an internet reality TV show produced by Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes) and one Nora (Tyra Banks). They’ll spend a night locked in the old Myers house to, ahem, find clues regarding the reason for Michael’s murderous nature. Of course, Freddie is sneaking around the house dressed up as Michael, of course he and his – tiny – crew have dropped fake clues of ritual child abuse around the house (stay classy, Halloween: Resurrection), and of course the real Michael (Brad Loree) has been living under the house since 1978 (yeah, I’m sure Dr Loomis wouldn’t have copped to that, but what do you expect of a film that doesn’t even get the number of Michael’s victims in the first film right) and doesn’t like house guests. Alas, this being a film very much in love with his smarmy, flat and boring idea of media satire, he takes his dear time killing them, and will suffer from indignities like being kung fu kicked by Busta Rhymes, or, you know, being killed – as much as he can be killed – by the very same acting disabled personage who spouts dialogue like “Trick or treat, motherfucker!”. So at least this thing gives me a new appreciation for the Rob Zombie remake of the first film.

Look, I’m the last one to wish anything bad on the people who made any movie. After all, they didn’t strip me to chair and made me watch it, but a film like Rick Rosenthal’s Halloween: Resurrection makes a boy think bad thoughts, because, frankly, it’s atrocious, inexcusable and crap in all the expected and many unexpected ways. On the plus side, I really can’t complain about boring competence this time around, because competence and this thing have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. Hooray for that, I guess.

I’ve already hit on some of Halloween: Resurrection’s failures while going through the plot, so let’s just repeat for clarity: this one’s the Halloween film where the final fifteen minutes consist of Busta Rhymes being the kind of hero even a 90s direct to DVD action movie would be embarrassed by and the supposed final girl screeching and cringing (like anyone involved with this film would do).

Well, okay, there’s also a script that permanently pats itself on the back for its supposedly smart media satire while missing out on any and all opportunities to actually be one, where characters flat even for a slasher movie are played by actors who just seem embarrassed by the whole thing (who can blame them?), where the whole Internet reality show angle in practice is only a way to prolong the film with more scenes during which nothing of interest happens, where no idea is embarrassing and awkward enough not to be included. And don’t even get me started on replacing the traditional final girl with action movie Busta Rhymes (and does that mean the producers couldn’t even afford Ice-T?), replacing one of horror film’s more pleasant clichés with a much more rote one. Plus, as nice as I suspect the guy to be, an actor he ain’t.

I could add equally ecstatic words on Rosenthal’s direction, the aesthetically utterly clueless way in which he includes the pseudo found footage movie elements from the cameras our internet heroes are wearing, his inability to stage even a single decent fright scene, the bad pacing, the dubious blocking and so on, and so forth, but really, what’s the use with a film that contains not a single worthwhile moment, at this point effortlessly kicking Jason Takes Manhattan from its podium place of the worst movie I’ve lived through during my perhaps ill-advised pre-Halloween slasher film sequel binge. Surely, none of the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels will be quite this bad? Please?

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,reviews,horror,slasher,jamie lee curtis,busta rhymes,bianca kajlich,katee sackhoff,rick rosenthal