Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) Gotta Be Prepared

 How is it that horror monster icons like Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and the like always seem to be in the right place at the right time?  How is it they always seem to come back for more, no matter what the frightened protagonists hurl at them?  Is it luck, or could it be magic?


According to the literally-insanely-creative Behind The Mask:  The Rise of Leslie Vernon, it's all in the preparation.

Written by David J. Stieve and director Scott Glosserman, Behind The Mask:  The Rise of Leslie Vernon is a half-mockumentary, half-actual horror film revealing the lengths the charismatic Vernon (played masterfully by Nathan Baesel) will go in order to establish himself as one of those icons alongside his idols, Voorhees, Krueger, and Myers.  There's nothing inherently supernatural about Vernon, but the ways he goes about creating his own legend are like viral marketing gone mad.  He's smart, determined, funny, often friendly, and just a little bit psychotic.  OK, maybe a lot psychotic.

Taylor, Doug, and Todd (Angela Goethals, Ben Pace, and Britain Spellings respectively) are a reporter and cameramen filming a documentary about an aspiring serial killer in the vein of the aforementioned horror legends, one Leslie Vernon (Baesel).  It's an "alternate universe" of sorts, where the horror icons are a real and reluctantly-accepted aspect of the world.  Vernon is excited; he's been planning his debut for years.  Everything is timed and mapped down to the tiniest detail.  He's in top physical shape with incredible mental discipline.  He's got a backstory, he's got his virgin "final girl," and he's even got a mentor (Scott Wilson, The Walking Dead's Herschel) and an "Ahab," Dr. Halloran (Robert Englund).  Everything's in place as Vernon stalks his prey, basically herding her and her friends into a late-night outing to his "legendary" house.  Taylor and her crew follow along, playing neutral parties to what will essentially be night of murder.  When the night comes, things begin well enough, but Taylor has misgivings.  And from there, events spin out of control...or do they?  A mockumentary turns into a straight-up horror film - a metatextual transition - as Vernon pursues his dream and his final girl in the climax of this entirely creative little flick.  I won't give the bloody details, but let's just say everything happens for a reason.

Behind The Mask:  The Rise of Leslie Vernon is sparkling fun, a nod to horror fans everywhere and a different viewpoint "behind the mask," as it were.  It's like a magician revealing the trade secrets, but still managing to pull off one hell of a trick.  Baesal and Goethals are magnificent as the leads, who display a tension and respect for each other, all while creating an air of believability.  Englund is especially fun as the Donald Pleasance/Dr. Loomis pastiche and Vernon's "Ahab," the force of good that relentlessly chases the force of evil.  The film also marks the final appearance of Zelda Rubenstein, she of Poltergeist fame, as she plays the doomed librarian who relates the tale of Leslie Vernon to the intended "final girl."

The film is funny, energetic, and somewhat disturbing - I mean, you'll really start to like Vernon until you realize, "wait a damn minute, he's aspiring to kill a buttload of people."  But that's the fun of the film:  it takes itself seriously just enough to allow some guilty fun to creep in before turning the whole thing on its ear.  But most of all, it's a creative idea enhanced by great writing, directing, and definitely the acting.

So sit back and witness the rise of a new horror icon who may or may not have everything perfectly planned out...and remember to break out the windows on the ground floor.  You'll see.

Now, enjoy the trailer, won't you?  (WARNING:  Slightly not-safe-for-work, but not too bad.)

We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011) Some Are Born Bad

Disquieting.  Disturbing.  Non-linear.  Tense.  Realistic.

While I wouldn't exactly call Lynne Ramsay's 2011 thriller We Need To Talk About Kevin a horror film, there are plenty of aspects about it that are truly horrific, not the least of which is its main premise:  a helpless mother deals with a son that is psychopathic right out of the womb.  Based on Lionel Shriver's 2003 novel, the film takes a winding path towards an incident that is slowly peeled back, onion-skin style.  We, the audience, get clues as to what's going on, but we don't get the full story until near the end.  By that time, though, you'll pretty much guess how the movie will pan out, and it will leave you feeling uneasy and sad.

 

Eva (Tilda Swinton) gives birth to little Kevin, who doesn't seem to bond well with his mother.  She's not exactly Mother of the Year, though, as she is constantly impatient with the odd child.  As an infant, he never stops crying when she's around, but clams up when held by his father, Franklin (John C. Reilly).  At one point during a walk in the city, she pauses for a long while near a jackhammer just to drown out Kevin's constant bawling.  When Kevin gets older, he's a constant challenge, and that's putting it nicely.  He refuses to potty train, and soils his diapers on purpose to tick off Eva.  Fed up, she wrongly throws him against a wall, breaking his arm.  Kevin doesn't tattle on her, but already his manipulative nature kicks in and he lords the incident over Eva.  Eva and Franklin have another baby - unplanned, as the cracks in the marriage continue to widen - but the little girl, Celia, is sweet and every bit the cute kid Kevin isn't.  "Inspired" by a story read to him by Eva, Kevin takes a keen interest in archery, becoming quite adept at it as he grows into a teenager (played with cool evil by Ezra Miller).

 

 

Even years on, Kevin harbors a psychotic disdain for his mother.  Eva feels helpless, as no one, even Franklin, will believe what kind of darkness inhabits Kevin.  Just how dark that abyss in him is grows evident throughout the flashbacks and flash-forwards:  Kevin is imprisoned for something that doesn't come to light until the final act.  Let's just say you don't put a bow and arrows in the hands of an ultra-intelligent, sociopathic teenager with Mommy issues.  The movie slides into this final act with no hint of "surprises" or "twists"...you know what's about to happen, and just like Eva, there's nothing you can do about it.

We Need To Talk About Kevin is like a sneaky nightmare.  It creeps up on you and fills you with dread through the entire film.  It's not a horror film, per se, but what happens in it is horrific and that suspenseful dread I mentioned permeates the whole story to the point where just like Eva, the viewer isn't allowed to feel anything good in this twisted, dream-like world directed with great skill by Lynne Ramsay.  Swinton and Miller are utterly fantastic as mother and son, the helplessness and mental sickness coming out in droves through their expressions.  I should also mention the tremendous job done by Jasper Newell as the younger Kevin.  He effortlessly shows the remorseless and purely psycho leanings of Kevin as a still-diaper-wearing-at-six kid.

Make no mistake:  We Need To Talk About Kevin is not a feel-good movie.  I would say those seeking a hip-hip-hooray movie (or moms-to-be, for that matter) try something a little less bleak.  But still, this is a fine piece of filmmaking that is a study in the building of dread over a ninety-minute span of time.

Next review, I'm writing about something a little less dreary!

Now here's the trailer, which is pretty intense itself:

The Thing (1982) A Classic From A Classic

And here's yet another in my unofficial "Why Haven't I Reviewed This Yet?" series.

I mean, seriously:  John Carpenter is one of my favorite directors of all time, and probably my favorite director during the 80's along with Steven Spielberg and Richard Donner.  I've already reviewed Prince of Darkness and In The Mouth of Madness here, as well as Big Trouble In Little China as a guest on another blog.  It should be a foregone conclusion that I'd review Carpenter's first entry in his "Apocalypse Trilogy" from 1982, The Thing.  Hell, I should've reviewed this one before reviewing the not-so-bad 2011 prequel...um...The Thing.  Yeah, I know, that's a lot of linkage there.

Carpenter's The Thing was a juggernaut in the VHS era.  I can't begin to tell you how often I rented/borrowed it.  It had that "oh, man, you gotta SEE it" vibe years after it came out.  Its reputation preceded it when I first settled in to watch it in 1984 (the turnaround for movies was a little slower back then, plus I'd spent a year in Sweden as an exchange student, limiting my renting abilities).  Plate of beefy nachos in hand, I was enthralled and filled with adrenaline.  This movie was going to GROSS (according to my friends) and filled with groundbreaking practical effects by the legendary Rob Bottin (with significant input by another legend, Stan Winston), it definitely filled that quota.

Now imagine this friendly fellow hanging from your ceiling as you fall asleep.  You're welcome.

U.S. Outpost #31 is a research facility in the sunny locale of Antartica.  A lone dog, chased by a pair of frantic Norwegian men, seeks refuge and as a result of crazy desperation and a language barrier, its pursuers are killed.  You just know the dog is hiding something, and if you translate what one of the Norwegian men shouts, you get much of the plot right there.  Strange things begin happening when the the dog reveals its true nature, assimilating several dogs before apparently being stopped.  R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell) leads an expedition to the Norwegian outpost, finding evidence that something had ravaged the researchers there.  And hey, if you watch the 2011 prequel, you get to see how it all happened.

Back at the camp, Blair (Wilford Brimley) deduces that the creature can assimilate other living beings.  That's when the paranoia really kicks in.  Who can trust whom?  Things (slight pun intended) get really crazy from here on out, and if you haven't seen the film, what are you waiting for?  You've got a creature that is comprised of individual creatures in a conglomerate building possessing a modified hive mind.  It can be separate creatures, but with one purpose and drive.  MacReady and his colleagues go from guys who work together to guys who don't know who's going to assimilate them at a moment's notice.

You get to see a guy suddenly grow a mouth on his belly while trying to be revived.  You see a blood test like no other - hey, even the blood is a freakin' "Thing."  You see guys who you think are just fine change into bloodthirsty alien demons while tied to a couch.  You just don't know who is who, right down to the final frames.  One of the biggest mysteries of Carpenter's film is the ending.  Are we seeing who we think we're seeing?  The answer is given somewhat in the prequel, if you know where to look, but even that is up to interpretation.

Carpenter used a classic novella ("Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell Jr.) and the classic 1951 sci-fi film (The Thing From Another World from directors Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks) as inspiration and stirred them up with the earmarks of a closed-room mystery to create what has become a true cult classic.  The Antarctic itself stands as the "closed room," with escape not an easy option.  Hell, it's practically impossible with the weather and terrain.  Then add to that the fact that if anyone actually leaves, he may be carrying the Thing with him.  The creature can appear as anyone, so there's your "it can be anyone" trait that the classic whodunnits and closed-room mysteries have.

Kurt Russell is a standout among intense performances, adding another to his list of great tough-guy heroes that he portrayed during the 80's like Snake Plissken and Jack Burton.  He's steady and reliable, but still paranoid enough that he isn't superhuman.  He makes mistakes just like anyone else, as Clark (Richard Masur) finds out.

The Thing is a classic, with tight direction from Carpenter and a moody soundtrack from Ennio Morricone.  It is, as my subtitle suggests, a classic from a classic - similar but different enough to stand well on its own.  If you've never seen it, take it in the way I did when I first saw it:  full of anticipation with a plate full of beef nachos.  And hey, if you can fully recreate my experience by seeing it on VHS, I tip my Phillies cap to you.

Now here, please enjoy the trailer:

The Thing (2011) Not Too Bad Of A Setup

I'm just glad it wasn't a remake...of a retelling.

As horror classics go, it would be considered sacrilege to remake John Carptener's The Thing from 1982, which in itself, was a retelling of The Thing From Outer Space from 1951 which was film version of John W. Campbell's 1938 story "Who Goes There?"  Yeah, it's got a long pedigree, but Carpenter's version is considered hands-off.  But when a prequel was rumored, then confirmed, to be in the works, I have to say I was intrigued.  As anyone who has seen Carpenter's film knows, there's a whole story to be told about the Norwegian guy trying to kill an "innocent" dog and the Norwegian outpost that the characters visit in the early parts of the movie.

Well, that's what 2011's The Thing is all about.

In Carpenter's 1982 classic, a frantic man shouting in Norwegian pursues a dog into the American camp and is killed as he begins firing his rifle wildly.  Later in the movie, the Americans, led by Kurt Russell's McReady, discover the leftovers of carnage at the Norwegian outpost.  2011's version aims to tell the story of what led up to the opening moments of the 1982 movie.  Got it?

Written by Eric Heisserer (based on Campbell's story) and directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., The Thing finds paleontologist Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) being drafted for her expertise as something has been discovered - quite by accident - in the Antartican snowfields:  a bona fide spaceship.  Not only that, one of its occupants has been found nearby, encased in ice.  They bring the extraterrestrial popsicle back to camp where it eventually thaws and that's when the fun starts.

This creature doesn't just rampage through the camp, cutting down humans left and right.  Well, it does do that, but this is a crafty little bugger.  It gets into a person, assimilating them cell by cell, until you can't tell the human from the alien.  Or can you?  There is a way, and right when I thought they might completely copy how it was done in the 1982 film, they go in a different, actually quite interesting direction.  Paranoia still reigns as poor Kate is numbered among the dwindling survivors.

The creature has plans of its own, heading back to the spaceship from whence it came.  Its intentions aren't quite clear, but anyone can guess what could happen if this little cell-changing puppy gets out into the world.  It wouldn't be a street party, I can tell you that much.  There's a showdown on the ship as it nearly takes off, explaining how it's just below the surface when the American team finds it later.  There's a sigh of relief as it all over.  Ahhh.  Oh, wait, this isn't an uplifting type of movie.  Kate and Carter (Joel Edgerton) still have a few issues to work out.

It isn't really a spoiler to say that the film ends by blending nearly seamlessly with the beginning of Carpenter's movie.  One could watch this film, then pop in 1982's classic and the story just keeps on going.  Although I expected much less from this movie, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I didn't dislike it.  It's not the same nail-biter as the other, and the aura of paranoia isn't quite as palpable.  However, as a setup to Carpenter's movie, it's enjoyable and quite respectful to its source material.

Events that happen in this movie show up in the one we all know and love.  The ice block...an axe in the door...the guy with the slashed throat...the specimens in the snow.  It's all there, and this is the story that explains how it all came to be.  A lot of it is very much the same as the other film, but one could argue that the choices of actions that a group could resort to would be limited.  If it was a standalone movie, I'd be much more lukewarm about it.  As a companion piece, it's not all that bad.  It provides some subtle answers to long-asked questions about the 1982 version, and still leaves things open for interpretation.

And now if you'll excuse me, it's time to pop in that 1982 movie I keep telling you about.  In the meantime, here, watch the trailer for this one...

Absentia (2011) Avoiding Tunnels Now

 Oh, those thin little pedestrian tunnels.

Took this picture back in Traverse City, Michigan.  I did not disappear when I walked through it.  That time, anyway.

 

Not those nice, spacious traffic tunnels that are so safe...oh, wait.  There was that scene in 28 Days Later. Hm.  Well, anyway, the claustrophobic elements of the pedestrian tunnels make them a tad more unnerving.  Add to that a history of Lovecraft-esque colonies of creatures lurking in the walls of the tunnel - and reality - and you have a combination that will make you not want to enter one, day or night, muggers be damned.  This is the scenario presented by writer/director Mike Flanagan in his small but moody film, Absentia.

The winner of a number of film festival awards in 2011, Absentia operates on a small budget with an enormous amount of spirit and atmosphere.  Special effects are minimal, and yet that minimalism only adds to the bigger picture.  I invoked the name Lovecraft earlier.  H. P. Lovecraft penned chilling stories where the ghastly, mind-destroying creatures on the edges of reality weren't revealed in full.  It was the idea of their existence that was terrifying.  We never see a full-on shot of what lies underneath reality in Absentia, but your imagination can fill it in.

Tricia (Courtney Bell) is at a crossroads.  She has moved on in her life after the disappearance of her husband, dating a police detective (Dave Levine) and carrying his child.  Yet she still posts notices right up until she finally decides to have her missing hubby declared "dead in absentia."  Her sister, Callie (Katie Parker), a struggling drug addict and free spirit, arrives to provide moral support.  Tricia begins seeing disturbing apparitions of the missing Daniel (Morgan Peter Brown) while Callie finds herself trying to help an apparently homeless and very frightened man (Doug Jones) in a pedestrian tunnel near Tricia's house.  Things get weirder, especially when Daniel shows up, looking tortured and nearly catatonic.  Where he's been is a mystery, and that unravels as the movie builds towards its inevitable, sad conclusion which I won't spoil here.

You're only given a glimpse of what Daniel has been through, and like a Lovecraft story, the idea of it is scarier than actually seeing it.  Besides the creepiness of the atmosphere surrounding that ominous tunnel, what struck me most was the stellar acting by the two leads, Bell and Parker.  Their scenes together are seamless - you really believe they're sisters.  Individually, their performances are natural and utterly believable.  While Levine, Brown, and the always-a-standout Jones turn in fine performances, it's the team of Bell and Parker that really draw the viewer in.  They don't seem like actors playing a part - they seem real.

Absentia is a small film but is making big waves.  If you want some low-key creepiness chilling you as you ponder what moves beyond the veil of the barely-hanging-on reality around us...yeah, you'll want to avoid pedestrian tunnels after you watch it.

Until next time, dear readers, here's the trailer:

The Cabin In The Woods (2012) Can't Even Begin To Tell You

You ever have this happen?  A friend says, "Hey, let's go to this little party at this place I know."  You agree.  Sounds like it might be fun, little party with some low-key people who are wonderful hosts.  Maybe a game of Pictionary. You get there, and it's all-out, record-breaking, lampshade-wearing, fireball-spitting mayhem and you look at your friend and laugh out over the blaring Motorhead, "OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING?"  And you're loving every minute of it.

That party is The Cabin In The Woods.

Written by Drew Goddard and producer Joss Whedon, and directed by Goddard, is this film that takes a genre and its modern tropes, and turns it on its ear.  Not out of spite, mind you, but out of respect.  When you see it, and you step back and take a look at the big picture - and I mean really step back so you can consider everything - you can easily see what it's really about.  And it is good.

I honestly can't even get too far into the plot without giving anything away.  Seriously.  It's a wild, wacky story.  I can tell you this much:  five college kids head to the titular cabin in the woods for a weekend of revelry.  You've got your sweet smart girl (Kristen Connelly), your smart guy (Jesse Williams), your jock (Chris Hemsworth of Thor), your party girl (Anna Hutchinson), and your stoner (Fran Kranz).  You know, the "usual" tropes.  Or are they?  Things get weird, but in many, many more ways than one.  To tell you any more than that would be spoiling it, and the movie's still too fresh.  You need to discover its secrets on your own.

While the film centers on the horror genre, there are plenty of laughs to go around.  Kranz as the perpetually high Marty gets the lion's share of those moments, but there are definitely others.  And wow, that third act is incredibly, utterly insane.  So much wonderful mayhem.

Like that party you went to.

As of this writing, The Cabin In The Woods is playing in theaters everywhere, having just opened a few days ago.  It's not what you might think.  It's even more fun.  There's a bit of a message if you know where to look but you might be having too much of a blast watching what's happening on the screen.

Hell of the Living Dead (1980) A Nostalgic Mess

Hell of the Living Dead.

Night of The Zombies.

Virus.

Zombie Inferno.

Zombi 4.

These are just some of the titles this wild mess has gone under, like a sneaky con-man sliding from alias to alias.  I can almost envision this movie sitting in a dark corner, cackling over its latest grift, looking all disheveled and wild-eyed.  It not only lifted things like incidental music - which I'll get to later - and documentary footage, but it may also steal your soul.

And yet there's an odd, nostalgic feeling to this strange movie.  As funny-awful as this movie is, there is a sense of carefree abandon about the experience.  At the time, it was certainly the goriest picture I had ever seen in my then-sixteen years.  My summers in the 80's were usually pretty fun and free-wheeling, what with no Internet and massive video games to keep me inside all the time.  Time spent indoors was either with reading, watching baseball, or watching movies I rented or borrowed.  I can remember friends of mine lending Hell of the Living Dead to me in 1984, recorded on VHS off of a movie channel which I couldn't get living in the woods.  I recall thinking to myself that I was ever quizzed on what the plot was, I'd be stumped.  But one could get extra credit in the "gratuitous cheesy gore" section of the test.

Ah, enough metaphors.

You want to know a clue that this movie is up to something?  It's co-written and co-directed by Claudio Fragasso.  You may remember him from my reviews of Troll 2 and Best Worst Movie as the director and co-writer of that vegetarian goblin cult classic.  When you see Troll 2 and you listen to his rants in Best Worst Movie, then things fall into place about Hell of the Living Dead.  It all makes sense.  Well, sort of.

Rrrrgh - I want my ICE CREAM!

Hell of the Living Dead seemed doomed from the start.  Like now, zombies were a hot commodity back in the 70's, with George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (released as Zombi in Italy under Dario Argento) and Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 splattering screens in the latter part of that decade.  Italy became a breeding ground for quick, inexpensive zombie flicks, and Hell of the Living Dead was barely given a budget.  Not to mention, much of the footage shot by director Bruno Mattei (credited as Vincent Dawn) was apparently not up to snuff, so they pieced together a mish-mash of already-shot footage and clips from a documentary about native rituals.  Then there's the issue with the music.  When you pop in Hell of the Living Dead, you may see that the soundtrack is by none other than Goblin, the same group that provided the now-legendary score to the original Dawn of the Dead.  After a few minutes, you'll soon realize that not only is Goblin doing the music...it's the exact same soundtrack as Dawn of the Dead.  They didn't even bother to get new music.  Hell, Goblin apparently didn't even allow it, but hey, what's a little legal trouble to a juggernaut like this movie?

Despite what I said before, there is a plot.  An accident at a chemical plant in New Guinea lets loose a contagion that causes living things to become sadistic, flesh-eating automatons.  It also causes their faces to take on a weird shade, but that's neither here nor there.  After foiling a terrorist takeover of an embassy, a crack military unit is sent to New Guinea to find out why communications with the chemical plant have been lost.  The unit is comprised of stock characters:  the hunky hero guy, the almost-hunky guy, the crazy guy, and the goofy guy.  They meet up in a seemingly-abandoned settlement with some people trying to escape the land:  the half-tough/half-screamy woman reporter, her half-brave/half-nauseous cameraman, and a family of three with a sick child.  The settlement is a wash, as the family is slaughtered by an infected priest and their now-bitey child.  The other six take off further into the jungle, offering the reporter an excuse to suddenly remove her shirt and claim she can communicate with the indigenous people.  The dead rise at the village, so the crew must bug out again, finally stopping at a plantation in the middle of nowhere.

Why, oh, why did I wander near a window?

The plantation offers very little in the way of answers, but a whole lot in the way of infected, gore-hungry former residents.  The team's Goofy Guy is killed - wearing a dress, no less - and the team fights their way out, finally heading for the chemical plant.  Once there, they discover that the chemical was meant to be used as Third World population control, but it got out of hand.  Cameraman, Almost-Hunky Guy, and Crazy Guy are all killed before Reporter Girl and Hunky Guy meet their grisly fate in the bowels of the plant.  The epilogue shows a young couple on the toothy end of some zombies in a metropolitan city.  Dun-dun-DUUUN!

Wow, what a journey.

The expression that says, "Dude, I told you."

Let's see:  the acting is fairly average to over-the-top, thanks to the Crazy Guy.  The dubbing is tremendously awful, and the movie is such a scattershot affair that your brain will stop trying to figure it out after about ten minutes.  Possibly sooner than that.  There are plenty of chuckles and winces whenever you see the gore, and there is a lot of it.  Lacking the gritty realism of Tom Savini's special effects work, it appears as though they effects team had a ton of raw meat and, by the power of Greyskull, they were going to use it.  The ending gore is so blatantly insane, it's laughable yet memorable.  Tongue!  Eyes!  Everything!

I also love the lack of basic reasoning that takes place in the film.  Once the team figures out that to stop the creatures, they must be shot in the head, they continue to waste ammo by spraying them in every area below the head.  "They just won't stop!"

Hell of the Living Dead is just not a good movie.  And yet, somehow I've seen it four or five times.  It's like I forget how painful it is, rent it, and say to myself, "oh, yeah, now I remember."  A cult film?  One could argue that it is.  There are plenty of people who do like it.  I'm nostalgic about how I first saw it - that lazy, sunny summer day back in '84 - but beyond that, I don't think I could ever own it, ever see it being the beloved center of attention like Troll 2.

If you don't mind a meandering film with plot holes the size of Florida sinkholes that's worthy of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 or RiffTrax treatment, this is your film.  Don't take it seriously, and you may be able to have some fun with it.  It will never go down as a serious classic of the genre, yet it somehow gets noticed.  In a roundabout way, it did that one thing - getting noticed - right.

Until next time, dear readers, beware of chemical leaks. They might cause bad movies.