Some Mini-Reviews Since Time Flew By

Yeesh, I had no idea it had been that long since I'd posted anything.  I've got to stop getting distracted by shiny objects.

Let's get caught up with some "mini-reviews," shall we?

Almost Human (2013) - Definitely a shoestring budget and an attempt to recreate the magic of 80's VHS horror and slasher flicks.  It tells the story of what happens when a UFO abductee returns years later and has gone from kindly bearded fellow to homicidal maniac with some new alien body parts.  Good effort but the execution fell a bit short.  Any intrigue melted away and it needed more story.  Nice practical effects, though.

Red State (2011) - Kevin Smith takes an effective journey into non-comedy with a suspense thriller about sees some local boys run afoul of the town's crazy church/cult leader that oddly seems like the funeral-protesting wack-a-doos in real life.  Not as talky as a lot of Smith's other offerings, and don't look for a cameo by Jay and Silent Bob.  Tense storytelling and good performances, especially from Michael Parks as the frustratingly smug leader.

Haunter (2013) - A pleasant surprise, this haunted house mystery sees the story told from the ghost's point of view, much like the awesome I Am A Ghost.  In this case, Abagail Breslin turns in a great performance as the ghost of a murdered girl who comes to the realization that she's dead and tries to awaken her family to the fact as well as prevent an evil spirit from his eternal murder spree.  Good tension and a good story.

Jug Face (2013) - This one really started off on the right foot but didn't go as far as I hoped.  It's the story of a young girl who's part of a backwoods community that worships a pit that has healing properties but also demands a sacrifice.   The likeness of who is to be sacrificed is carved onto a clay jug, but when the girl hides hers, the pit expresses its displeasure.  Fine acting and a creepy vibe made it good but the story felt like it lost steam.

Frankenstein's Army (2013) - A crazy Dutch-American-Czech production set in World War II that follows a group of weary Russian soldiers who follow a distress signal to a small town.  What they find there is insanity as the descendent of Victor Frankenstein says "the hell with it" and sets his insane creations on Ally and Axis alike.  The monster design is tremendous and there's no shortage of blood and guts as the movie descends more and more into utter madness.  I dug it because it wanted to be nuts and it got its wish.

My Bloody Valentine (1981) - Remade just a few years ago, this cult classic came from the old school of matching psychotic killers with holidays.  The residents of a town relive an old nightmare that took place on February 14 when grisly murders pile up as the day grows closer.  Add to that the Eternally Doomed Teen Party and you know the body count rises.  Good 80's wackiness and a murder mystery to boot.

Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) - While I felt the first one went off the rails a bit, yet still told an intriguing story, I felt the second chapter was a little stronger.  The poor Lambert family is back and just when they think they dodged an astral bullet, it's the father who becomes the center of a spiritual attack.  Just the right amount of ghostly and strange, I enjoyed it like I usually enjoy seeing Rose Byrne.

+1 (2013) - An interesting take on a sci-fi standard of what duplicates would do if they met.  A meteor crashes, causing a nearby party to experience a little glitch in the matrix.  Time splits and people meet themselves from a few seconds behind.  An interesting story set on a strange premise with decent performances.  Not a bad choice if you like being weirded out by time and space.

Hellbenders (2012) - With a good cast and a premise that borders on sacrilege, this movie was more fun than it had a right to be.  The Augustine Interfaith Order of Hellbound Saints are a ragtag group of badasses who also happen to be priests of various faiths that sin on purpose on orders of The Pope so that if a demon possesses them during an exorcism, they can kill themselves and drag the demon to Hell.  Good guys who do bad things to prevent the really bad things.  In this flick, they have to stop a runaway Norse demon from pulling Hell up around the world.  Funny and with a touch of honor, the cast is headed by the reliable Clifton Collins Jr. and Clancy Brown.

Willow Creek (2013) - Oh, Willow Creek, how I wanted to like you.  A good director in Bobcat Goldthwait and some really suspenseful moments still added up to a movie that was a hair below "OK."  It's a found footage style movie about a couple setting out to make a documentary about the Patterson Bigfoot sighting and getting much more than they bargained for.  Admittedly, the tent scene is suspense at its best, but the ending left me feeling like the whole thing was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek joke.  Maybe it was, but I was hoping for a little more.

OK, that should just about do it for now.  I gotta stop taking so long between reviews.  Maybe some caffeine would help.

Until next time!

The Last Exorcism (2010) Sleight Of Hand, Magnified

You know when movies leave you with just enough to form your own interpretation, thereby making you mull over it for a while after you've shut off the TV, imagining hypothetical pathways down which the movie might have intended to go?

I like that.

I know there is a general "either you like it or you hate it" feeling about director Daniel Stamm and producer Eli Roth's The Last Exorcist out there - I've got friends who are steadfast in their opinion either way. That's fine. Everyone seemed to see something different. Even among those who liked it, there are varying viewpoints on what happened, what the movie meant, what the central theme may or may not have been. All I know is this: The Last Exorcist made me ponder what I had just seen long after I was done watching it, and for that, it earns points.

To give a full, blow-by-blow account as I often do would be to give away far too much. I do, however, want to offer my opinion on what I saw. To be honest, it's only one of my interpretations...but we'll get to that in a bit. First, allow me to give you some of the basics.

Reverend Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) is an ultra-charismatic preacher who's been groomed for the pulpit since he was a child. When he talks, people listen and testify, no matter what he says - proven in a hilarious little bit regarding a "banana bread sermon." He has a loving wife, an energetic deaf son, and a high standing in the community as a preacher and exorcist. There's a problem, though: Marcus has lost his faith. He's on a new crusade after discovering an exorcism's role in the death of a child, and he wants to expose exorcism as a "sham." The documentary crew is there to film him as he engages in his "last exorcism," so he can show step by step the ways in which he himself has scammed believers out of thousands of dollars.

He randomly chooses a handwritten cry for help out of a pile and takes the case of young Nell (Ashley Bell) in a backwoods Louisiana town. Marcus is met with instant hostility from Nell's brother Caleb, and fire-and-brimstone rhetoric and belief from Nell's father Louis (Louis Herthem). Marcus is slick, though. He gets the father to agree to film the exorcism and sets about earning Nell's trust. Through some sleight of hand, he causes the water Nell has her feet in to "boil," indicating a demon is indeed inside her and needs to come out.


Marcus performs the exorcism, and we are treated to parallel shots of how he will set the whole thing up to look authentic. You have to chuckle at the audacity, the creativity, the slickness, and the brass balls of the whole operation. After an emotional performance, Marcus proclaims Nell free, counts his money, and leaves for his motel.

From here, the movie takes one of its 90-degree turns.

Nell shows up at the motel, acting strangely. After a hospital visit, Marcus shows up again to find that Nell has sliced her brother in the face. The father, Louis, takes his other child to the hospital while Marcus and the film crew keep an eye on Nell.

You think Nell acting strangely before...

Nell gets downright scary here: staring, speaking in two voices, "drowning" a doll, even killing a cat with the camera as the crew sleeps. She remembers none of it, though. Marcus feels he's in over his head and believes she should have psychiatric treatment. Louis will have none of it, and after discovering that Nell is...shall we say...carrying more than a possible demon inside, demands - shotgun and all - that Marcus perform another exorcism.



Now, here is where I will tread carefully. I really don't want to give away anything to those who haven't seen the film. If you have seen it, bear with me. If you have NOT seen The Last Exorcism, I'm going to be VERY clear where the spoilers start and VERY clear when they end. OK? OK.

HERE THERE BE SPOILERS! BEYOND THIS POINT, IT WILL BE ASSUMED THAT YOU HAVE ALREADY SEEN THIS MOVIE. THEREFORE, PLEASE DO NOT SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU THAT IMPORTANT, SPOILER-IFFIC PARTS OF THE MOVIE ARE ABOUT TO BE DISCUSSED:

Alright, are we clear? Good...let's continue.

You've seen the movie, you know how it ends as we see it: second exorcism seems to reveal that Nell wasn't possessed, but suffering from extreme shame from becoming pregnant despite the teachings of her zealous father. Everything seems like it will (eventually) be fine. The pastor from Nell's former church arrives to reconnect with the family. Marcus and the crew leave, meet the supposed father of Nell's baby, discover conflicting evidence, and return to find Nell and the others gone and Satanic symbols painted all over the house. Later, they stumble upon a dark ceremony where Nell is forced to give birth to a demon baby, which is thrown on a fire and "reborn." Marcus finds sudden resolve and faces down the demon while the film crew runs and is killed just as one of Nell's drawings foretold.

One interpretation is that we have seen exactly what we were intended to see. The story played out, no frills. That's the end, much like an old 70's demon versus man midnight movie. Check out the recent The House of the Devil for a more direct homage to that subgenre. Definitely a down note, but a common trait of that style.

Another interpretation is along the same lines, only with the added bonus that Nell was in on it the whole time, and everything leading Marcus to that end point was pre-ordained, whether through supernatural or clever man-made means. A footnote to that outlook is that maybe Marcus was meant to go there, guided not by demons but by God in order to win back his faith. "In order to believe in one, you have to believe in the other," Marcus says early in the film (and I'm probably paraphrasing - I don't have it on right now).

Now for an interpretation that I seem to gravitate to, and it's one of many that seem plausible. I thought it out, but that doesn't mean I'm the first person to get the idea. I'm sure someone had the idea before me. Here goes: I offer that not only was Nell in on it, but that Marcus orchestrated the entire thing from start to finish. Early in the movie, Marcus' wife tells us that he is heavily involved with community theater: writing plays, performing special effects, and other areas of it. We know Marcus is charismatic. People believe him. We also can see he likes magic tricks, as he uses them in his sermons and playing with his son. His whole exorcism act is based on magic tricks and sleight of hand. At every turn, Marcus is the central character, no matter what. Things are happening, but we are focused on him. That's sleight of hand carried out to a larger scale: focus on one thing, and something else is happening just out of your sight. What if everything was already meant to play out that way? What if Marcus wrote the community theater production of a lifetime, complete with the special effects he loved? While it can be argued as something supernatural guiding the path, from the random choosing of the assignment to Nell's prophetic drawings, it can also be argued that it was all written by Marcus himself to be that way.

I don't know. That's just my take on it. Take it or leave it as you will. And that's why I like the movie. It made me use my brain and, dare I say, my imagination.

OKAY, THIS IS WHERE THE SPOILERS END. DON'T SCROLL UP UNLESS YOU'RE LOOKING FOR THE WARNING IN THE SAME BOLD, CAPITAL LETTERS. FROM HERE ON OUT, IT'S SAFE TO READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE.

A few final thoughts about the movie: the direction by Daniel Stamm was excellent, building tension, making us familiar with the characters, maybe even engaging us in sleight of hand. The acting was great, but the performances by Patrick Fabian as Marcus, Ashley Bell as Nell, and Louis Herthum as Louis really stood out to me. They were believable, realistic characters. You feel and understand Marcus' inner turmoil, smile as Nell giggles, and have pity on Louis and his struggle to deal with family issues. And while the ending is a talking point, there were some parts of it that seemed overwrought, but that's really a small nitpick compared to how the rest of the film held up.

A movie about possession? The power of faith and belief, both good and bad? A preacher and his own inner demons? Perhaps something more? Maybe it's all those things, or another animal entirely.

Depends on what you believe.