SyFy vs. The Mynd: Grave Halloween (2013)

Maiko (Kaitlyn Leeb, taking part in the long tradition in American casting direction not knowing the difference between Japan and China) has come to Japan to lay her Japanese birth mother she hasn't seen since she was four to rest. That's easier said than done, because Maiko's mother committed suicide somewhere in Aokigahara Forest aka Suicide Forest, with her body not found. Thoughtful mother has at least provided Maiko with personal items needed for a ceremony to be held at her dead body on October 31st to hinder her spirit from becoming a yurei. So all Maiko has to do is to find her mother's dead body. Because this is a thing you shouldn't do alone, and a horror film of this type without people to kill off would be quite difficult to pull off, Maiko is accompanied by her friends Amber (Cassi Thomson) and Terry (Dejan Loyola) who are of course shooting a documentary about the whole she-bang.

There's also a last minute cameraman replacement for Maiko to romance and a trio of jerks around, so there's a lot of meat for the ghosts to disperse of. Things do start off rather well for Maiko and the meat, with a helpful Japanese gentleman (the rather inevitable Hiro Kanagawa) suddenly turning up to assist. Alas, the situation deteriorates quickly, and soon, forest rules are broken and ghosts get grumpy.

Steven R. Monroe is another of the handful of regular SyFy Original directors who make films for the channel as well as for the home video market, and whose SyFy films are generally - and rather counter-intuitively - better than their theoretically more personal non-TV work.

Grave Halloween is a pretty entertaining example of the "people stumble through woods; terrible things happen" type of horror movie. To get entertainment out of it, one of course needs to give the film some leeway, for British Columbia where this was shot and Japan look nothing alike, and - as is par for the course for SyFy films good and bad - originality lives elsewhere. What does live in the movie are a bunch of well-placed shock effects, a competent SyFy interpretation of Japanese ghost lore, and mostly sympathetic characters – apart from the jerks – who often act rather rationally. At least I did find myself thinking "you know what, that's actually a sensible idea, poor doomed character" more than once, which is more than I can say about many other movies.

I also thought that the film's version of Japanese culture and myth was surprisingly well done. While it's surely not authentic, it seems at the very least born of actual interest and probably even a bit of research, and lacks the "gosh, look at the exotic orient and its strange customs" vibe I rather expected going in. I unfairly expected, now that I think about it, because many of the last few years' SyFy films were actually trying to put a bit of effort into their view of cultures beyond the US. Perhaps this could be the start of a new mini-trend, and soon, we'll see SyFy interpretations of yokai, too? I'd love to see a karakasa-kozō SyFy movie, and really who in possession of a soul wouldn't?

All in all, Grave Halloween is rather typical of the good but not great kind of SyFy movie, the sort of film that makes for a fun enough time while you're watching it but lacks that little something that would turn it from an entertaining time into the sort of thing I'd ramble on about for double the length I just did.

Technorati-Markierungen: canadian movies,american movies,in short,steven r. monroe,kaitlyn leeb,cassi thomson,syfy vs the mynd,horror

SyFy vs. The Mynd: Ogre (2008)

Some time in the first half of the 19th Century (or the late 18th, as the film's not forthcoming or, one suspects, doesn't actually know the difference), a small town in some American woods that look disturbingly like British Columbia is beset by a terrible plague. The townsfolk are so desperate, they agree to a dark plan of their local magus (I'll have you know in the olden times every village had its own magus but curiously, no priest) Bartlett Henry (John Schneider) to keep away the plague. After having been made magistrate, Bartlett casts out all of the town's illness, which then concentrates itself into a horrible monster, an ogre.

The ogre is a ravaging beast by nature and has to be kept away from the town by the yearly sacrifice of one of the townsfolk's own. On the plus side, those people who aren't sacrificed will never get ill, don't age, and don't have to think about contraception anymore either - it's all part of the spell. The townsfolk also aren't able to cross the town limits and live anymore, but everything has his drawbacks.

In the now of 2008, a quartet of hikers (among them Ryan Kennedy and Katharine Isabelle in a performance so dreadful and annoying I really didn't think she had in her) in search of the rumoured and lost town stumble upon the charming little place that hasn't changed at all in the last centuries (except for the sacrifice-shrunk population, of course). Their arrival signals the beginning of a change. Those among the townsfolk who disapprove of the whole immortality and sacrifice culture - among them Henry's own daughter Hope (Chelan Simmons) - finally decide to stop whining and do something about their situation. Clearly, that's not a thing ogre and magi approve of.

As is obvious, Steven R. Monroe's Ogre belongs to the group of SyFy Channel productions that attempt to change up the whole monster mash formula by adding monsters to some ideas borrowed from other movies (in this case, The Village without the crap twist-ending nonsense of our buddy M. Night), closing their eyes and hoping for the best.

That technique works well enough in this particular case. While the matter-of-fact presence of a magus in a rather normal village and some of the plot's other basics are of course quite silly, the movie really isn't a bad example of that well-worn narrative in which an isolated group of people first makes one horrible decision and afterwards can't face up to what they've down well enough to change their situation until some strangers demonstrate courage in the face of adversity to them. It's nothing new, but the minimalist set-up works quite well for that very traditional story as seen in many a Western (just without the ogre). I think the film goes for the archetypal here, even though I know well enough that the plot's simplicity is a result of Ogre's low budget.

Monroe's direction is often atmospheric, particularly if you've grown up with American TV shows filmed in British Columbia, and can't get enough of that wet autumn look. There are, alas, some very obvious continuity gaffes and - particularly during the first act - some rough editing that don't fit into the picture of Monroe's general technical competence and Tom Harting's fine cinematography at all. Ogre's other problems are often weak dialogue - particularly in the villagers' unconvincing olden time speak the modern characters ill-advisedly even make fun of, and in every fucking word Isabelle says - and one of SyFy's shittier CGI monsters. On paper, it's a funny enough idea to use an ogre designed to look like an evil, brown Shrek, but in practice, the thing looks particularly unthreatening even as part of a series of TV movies that often seems to go out of their way to not let their monsters look threatening at all.

Yet still, despite the clear and obvious problems, Ogre is a worthwhile little movie, making up for everything that's wrong with it with Monroe's ability to tell a simple, decidedly not stupid, story in the simple, decidedly not stupid way that befits it.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,american tv,syfy vs the mynd,reviews,fantasy,horror,steven r. monroe,john schneider,ryan kennedy,katherine isabelle,chelan simmons

SyFy vs. the Mynd: Jabberwock (2011)

In a curious medieval Europe (one supposes, at least the film mentions the Romans, so should take place on planet Earth; filming did of course take place in Bulgaria) full of American accents, where neither church nor liege lords seem to exist, but rather a lot of short swords are bandied about, a lightning storm - that all-purpose fiend - opens the remaining egg of one of the horrible flying creatures which once created the local wastelands. The Jabberwock, as the creature only still remembered via a children's rhyme (or - cough - what we know as a poem by Lewis Carroll), is called, follows an unlucky traveller (Raffaello Degruttola) to a peculiar local village whose inhabitants live from who knows what yet still have a weapon smith if no other visible means of subsistence.

The creature - as is creatures' wont - starts terrorizing the countryside, killing people and grabbing take-away virgins to eat. It will fall to Francis (Tahmoh Penikett), the smith I mentioned, his undeclared love interest Anabel (Kacey Barnfield), his dying father Reginald (Hugh Ross), and his warrior brother just returning from war Alec (Michael Worth) to find a way to get rid of the monster. Their plan will involve a dubious looking home-made armour and an oversized mouse trap, so surely nothing can go wrong.

Oh no, it's another SyFy production I liked. Despite its curiously weak worldbuilding (seriously, what do these people live off, and what are Anabel and the other villagers doing when they're not fighting a monster, and so on?), Steven R. Monroe's sword and sorcery without the sorcery movie is a really fine time.

Sure, it's not a deep film, and I sure as hell could have lived without the "Tamoh Penikett is finally growing up and learning to grow closer to his family (too bad they'll have to die for it)" subplot, but the film does at least handle its cliché characters development with a firm hand, and the actors work pretty well together, so that the character parts are never standing in the way of the medieval monster movie parts, are in fact motivating them in a not subtle yet useful manner. Plus, there's no annoying comic relief at all, the film taking its smith versus monster plot seriously.

Talking about the Jabberwock, the monster in question is a decent CGI creation with a pretty interesting looking head that is of course at its most convincing when it's alone on screen, and is the most troublesome when it's supposed to interact with the characters around it. There's an early scene with the creature sitting on the village's wall (by the way, wouldn't that kind of wall not make it a town?), and the villagers fighting it where perspective and reach seem particularly dubious, but for most of the time, Monroe shoots around the limitations of its creature well enough.

Working around the limitations of his material and his budget is really what Monroe does for most of the time here, turning out a low budget sword and sorcery CGI monster movie that gains quite an entertaining pull through its insistence on not taking lazy shortcuts when it doesn't need to, and telling an old story with enough conviction to make it feel lively again.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,american tv,in short,sword and sorcery,steven r. monroe,tamoh penikett,michael worth,kacey barnfield

SyFy vs. the Mynd: Wyvern (2009)

The loveable eccentric inhabitants of a small town in Alaska are at the height of said eccentricity after a full dose of the old midnight sun. Alas, their being kind of crazy doesn't safe them when melting ice frees a wyvern from its monstrous sleep. As you know, global warming is responsible for nearly as many monster attacks as the mad science of the military-industrial complex.

The wyvern is a curious beast. It's not just mindlessly sweeping down from the skies to nibble people's heads off, it does have enough brains to cut off the only road out of town, and even lays simple traps. Might be hillbilly philosopher Hoss (Northern Exposure's Barry Corbin who is also joined by Elaine Miles from the same show) is right, and this wyvern really is a mythological creature rather than just a hungry animal. Be that as it may, the townsfolk - particularly former ice road trucker with an ice road trucking accident based trauma Jake (Nick Chinlund), café owner/waitress Claire (Erin Karpluk), DJ Hampton (Tinsel Korey) and retired military Colonel Travis (Don S. Davis, who, I'm sorry to say, will always be Scully's dad to me) - will have to use all their working class abilities (it's, to get parenthetical here, quite interesting to note how often the heroes of SyFy Channel movies belong to the working class, by the way; even SyFy scientists usually feel curiously working class, at least the sane ones) to defend themselves against the creature.

One thing my half-way insane consumption of SyFy Channel movies in the last few weeks has brought back into perspective for me again is how little a film being formulaic or not has to do with the enjoyment I can get out of it (or not). A good director of films like these - as Wyvern's Steven R. Monroe definitely is - will make even the most formulaic of monster movie rituals interesting or fun, and a good script - as Jason Bourque's script for Wyvern surely is - will include enough that is different from the formula next to the trope check marks. It is a game of small changes and minor twists to be sure, yet these small things are what makes the difference between boredom and fun. Wyvern stays on the fun side of formula throughout, keeping the balance between cheesiness, the expected, and the not quite expected just right. It also helps that its high concept seems to have been "Northern Exposure with a giant monster", and everything gets better when you put a giant monster in (they are a lot like snow in that way).

Actually keeping in the tradition of Northern Exposure, Wyvern manages to turn its cliché characters loveable and charming, making them much more interesting - and sadder monster victims - than the more usual bunch of asshats. Half of that effect is thanks to Bourque's script that knows when to be funny - yes, the film is actually funny when it wants to be - as well as it knows how to sell a silly backstory like Jake's ice road trucking accident (that of course killed his brother) in earnest. The film's cast of experienced TV and low budget character actors are carrying the other half of the effect, generally turning clichés personable and likeable.

By now, I have to say that I also really enjoy that other way SyFy brings variations into their films by having them take place in a variety of US states - generally played by British Columbia, Bulgaria, or Louisiana. The local colour is of course never true "local colour" but a strange backyard version of exoticism that may be annoying when you're finding the place where you live portrayed unrealistically, yet really helps add personality to a movie.

One major surprise for me with Wyvern is its monster, or rather, its monster effects. The CGI in many SyFy movies seems needlessly crappy, probably because so many of them are about swarms of things eating people, which can't be good for detail work on a budget; though some single monsters are pretty bad too. Most of the time, it's a flaw I've learned to tolerate by now. However, Wyvern's CGI is actually pretty darn impressive with few - if any - of the flaws I mention in every second write-up of this series. Like the rest of Wyvern, its monster is realized with a degree of love and care that seems to go beyond the dictates of mere professionalism.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,american tv,reviews,syfy vs the mynd,horror,giant monsters,steven r. monroe,nick chinlund,erin karpluk,barry corbin,tinsel korey,don s. davis