Horror Movies: I grew up, they didn’t.

I hear young filmmakers say things like ‘Why should I study someone that everyone else thinks is so great? I’m trying to do something new!’ Guess what, precious, people were doing this before you were born and some of them ACTUALLY knew what the hell they were doing. There is a wealth of human knowledge for the taking, all you have to do is want to learn.

In short, Welcome To Earth, it was here before you were born.

Of late, my love affair with horror movies has been on the rocks.

In the summer of 1998, I watched every horror movie I could get my hands on. I went through all the Friday the 13ths, all the Nightmare on Elm Streets, all the Halloweens. I saw Hills Have Eyes, The Shining, the Fright Nights, The Howlings, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Psycho, The Birds, The Amityville Horrors, the Exorcists, the Puppet Masters, the Subspecies, Castle Freak, and a LOT more I can’t even remember. I’m not telling you this for bragging rights, I’m telling you this because I want you to know HOW MUCH I love horror movies.

But recently, my love has soured.

Yes, I know I am not making movies and at least they tried. But did they? Really?

They just don’t please me anymore–I’ve grown up, matured, and see the world differently: political corruption, panpidemics, ecological disasters, economic hardship, the aging of my friends and family, all are things that affect me directly and indirectly. I don’t watch FOX News and shit my pants every time they use the scary voice, but there are bigger things in the world than me and I’m aware of it.  ‘Growing up,’ it’s called, and the darkness under the bed or in the closet isn’t scary anymore because there might be a monster in it, but because my fears have become larger, more abstract than just monsters. My fears have grown with me.

Horror movies, by and large, haven’t.

There’ve been a few in recent years that scare me, certainly. The Ring (US and Japanese version), a few Asian horror movies, El Orfanato, The Devil’s Backbone, The Audition, Pan’s Labyrinth (not overtly a horror movie but still has its moments) and a moment or two in the Silent Hill movie (which has nothing on the games for scares–or if you’re REALLY into frightening games, check out the Fatal Frame series, if you can find it), British submarine movie Below.

This is a Cheap Shot--I'm sure this is hilarious in the right context. But still, my point is valid.

The point is, there are still good horror movies being made, it’s just a slog to find them sometimes. Especially since I have such a weird viewpoint of what makes a horror movie good. I don’t expect filmmakers to please me–I’m just one internet critic with a lot of time and a lot of opinions. But instead of seeing films and bitching about them, I’ve made my own little list of what takes a horror movie from something that makes you wonder if it’s a money laundering operation for the mob to something watchable. It”s a somewhat subjective list since I am very snobby about the horror movies I watch, but at least I know what I like.

1. Likeable, or at least compelling characters

Recently, I started watching ‘Incident On and Off a Mountain Road,’ Don Coscarelli’s entry to Showtime’s Masters of Horror series. It opens on a woman driving on a secluded road, who crashes into another car. She gets out to check on the other person, and sees blood.  Then we flash back to a date the woman went on with a man. The man is talking about economic hardships faced by children in other countries, (I think it was Thailand or India). The woman responded ‘Do I look like the kind of girl who cares about kids in 3rd world countries?’

I turned it off.

Being an entitled bitch doesn’t make her an interesting character, and we still don’t know what kind of person she is, so this is her introduction, not the scene in the car. I read the summary of the rest of the movie, and she has a lot of horrible shit happen to her, which makes me suspect that the whole movie is just a punishment fantasy.

Even if your character isn’t likable, they can still be compelling. And even if not, then having bad stuff happen to them should be HARD for you to write.

2. Understand your Limitations

If you want to make a huge effects-driven film with lots of monsters and elaborate sets and production pieces and it needs to take place in a series of four-star hotels, and your budget is somewhere around that of a used Honda, then guess what kind of movie you probably aren’t making.

Can it be done? Most Certainly. Necessity is the mother of invention, and more has been achieved cinematically in the last 35 years with less. Some of the biggest, most evocative horror movies were shot on a fairly low budget. Being creative, and flexible, makes things happen. I like watching a movie that isn’t afraid to make do with what they’ve got–Gothic, the film about scary things happening the night Shelley, Byron, Polidori and Shelley got together to write their horror stories, got a RIDICULOUS amount of mileage out of a ghilly suit and a rubber mask. It Can Be Done.

3. Broaden Your Worldview

Challenging yourself makes you a better person, which makes you a better artist, which makes your art better. If you grew up in an upper-middle class white neighborhood, then do something outside of your comfort zone. Go to a shitty flea market in a rough part of town. Hang around an ER waiting room and watch the people going in. Read non-fiction books dealing with social and political upheaval that take place in a country you’ve never been to. See documentaries, talk to people you have nothing in common with.

The point to this exercise is learning that what scares you probably isn’t what scares other people. True, vampires might pale in comparison to genocide in Rwanda, but understand that in the right context, a good metaphor can scare the shit out of people. There’s a reason District 9 was so good–it was about something real. I like movies that take me not just out of my life, but puts me somewhere else that’s interesting, that I want to explore more. Session 9, a new horror cult classic followed a HAZMAT crew as they removed asbestos from a haunted insane asylum. No bullshit, just some blue collar guys doing their jobs.

4. Learn From Others

Study the Masters–not just people you admire, but EVERYONE. If someone is a great filmmaker, find out why.  Read books that AREN’T about film, see movies in languages you don’t speak.

I hear young filmmakers say things like ‘Why should I study someone that everyone else thinks is so great? I’m trying to do something new!’ Guess what, precious, people were doing this before you were born and some of them ACTUALLY knew what the hell they were doing. There is a wealth of human knowledge for the taking, all you have to do is want to learn.

In short, Welcome To Earth, it was here before you were born.

You’ll notice that nowhere in my list did I include guts, blood, torture porn, or teenagers in their underwear. That just isn’t what I’m looking for. Also, it’s stupid–horror movies in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s were known for also functioning as softcore porn delivery devices, since real porn was kind of hard to get hold of. In this day and age, when you can get porn on your phone, it seems quaint to include gratuitous sex in movies. It says of the filmmakers ‘God! These people are paying to see our movie instead of jerking off for free at home! We have to include lots of sex scenes otherwise we’re wasting valuable wank time!’  The logic is lost on me.

True horror is at best a suggestion rather than an insistance.

Anyhoodle, there’ve been a few horror movies in recent years that really caught my eye and I thought were worth mentioning. I’ll be doing reviews of them as I can, starting with Session 9.

Every time I see a good horror movie I want more, I want to overdose on them as I did that one glorious summer–alas, there’s only enough to go around for a really good hit now and then.

Spotlight: Inception’s Tom Hardy

When I saw the box cover in our Instant Watch queue I thought from it’s Tom Of Finland look that it was a gay documentary of some kind, and wondered if my boyfriend had put it in the queue for me, as he sometimes does.

Man, I was really, really wrong.

Midway through Inception I finally realized why the actor playing Eames was familiar–it was Tom Hardy, who I’d seen a few months before in the brutal, brutish and brilliant documentary Bronson. I just didn’t recognize him because he was urbane, dressed and not covered in mud and policemen!

Who wants a terrifying mustache ride?

Bronson is the stylized  biography of English career criminal and ‘most violent man in England’ Charlie Bronson, who changed his name at an early age when he decided he wanted to be famous (but didn’t know for what).

When I saw the box cover in our Instant Watch queue I thought from it’s Tom Of Finland look that it was a gay documentary of some kind, and wondered if my boyfriend had put it in the queue for me, as he sometimes does.

Man, I was really, really wrong.

Bronson is still a marvelous film–just not the one I thought I was watching.

It’s genius lies in the fact that you realize early on that you are being charmed by a sociopath–what it took the Sopranos almost three seasons to address, Bronson manages to explore in about 2 hours. It shows Bronson the man as a stifled artist, a man with a rich inner life but no tools to express that other than violence. Violence became his art, and we the audience have a duty to remember that no matter how he convinces us to cry, how he charms us or shows us he just wants to be understood, he is still a dangerous animal.

Do Not Trust This Man.

And the engine powering this complex, manipulative machine  is actor Tom Hardy.

Many biopics seek to paint a picture of their subjects not quite aligned with reality. They often overplay their sympathy–especially in the case of serial killers or psychopaths–while leaving out the inhuman cruelty such a person visits on their victims. No matter how ugly the portrait of a disturbed artist is, it is still attempting to humanize the subject enough for the audience to empathize with their plight. After all, who wants to sit and have their stomach turned for 2 hours by how revolting a human being can actually be?

Which is where we come back to Tom Hardy. His witty, sometimes funny portrayal of Bronson charms and entertains us, but never lets us forget that we are not to trust him, never to think that he’s ‘safe.’  He has depth, certainly, and there is something heartbreaking in watching someone who might have been a great artist founder on the tides of his own passions–but you must never, ever turn your back on him. Not for a moment.

Remember to brush your teeth, because this picture is just candy. Plain and Simple.

(BTW, I’m not dissing Hardy’s appearance in Star Trek: Nemesis–it’s just I saw that when it came out, it’s not on Instant that I know of, and as a vehicle for Hardy’s acting talents it wasn’t that engrossing.)

Bronson is not a movie for everyone, but now that you’ve read a little about it (and perhaps will watch the trailer) you will appreciate what a marvelous range Tom Hardy has.

I point that out not because I am creepily fangirling him, but because MOST actors have a range they never get to explore, because they are typecast from the start. Although his depiction of Eames was spot-on, it is not the limits of his ability and I hope filmmakers in the future remember that.

“You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, Darling.’ – Eames

Rip-roaring Rakish Entry: Plunkett and Macleane

The whole movie is a hoot–Carlyle is perfectly cast as a highwayman with a heart of gold with his soulful eyes and quick fists, and Miller as a debtor-turned-bandit with aspirations of nobility provides a compelling narrative. Alan Cumming appears as foppiest of the fops Lord Rochester, whose libertine attitude is only matched by the fantabulousness of his giant hats. This WAS the era of the Antoinette wig, after all, and giant wigs are ubiquitous. No little boats in them, though.

Yes. Yes You ARE having fun yet.

I’m a sucker for a good period piece–and when that period piece combines a contemporary music score, action, comedy, and a stellar cast including Robert Carlyle, Liv Tyler, Alan Cumming and Michael Gambon, I’d be sure I was hallucinating if I wasn’t already drunk.

I’ve been a Carlyle fan since ‘The Full Monty,’ and I’ve seen a large body of his work, both mainstream (Goldeneye, Trainspotting) and off the beaten path (Go, Now; that one about the dancing academy whose name I have forgotten–I missed the one about talking dragons though). Carlyle plays Plunkett, a former-apothecary turned highwayman with an opportunistic eye and a pragmatist’s spirit; though he is excellent at robbing the wealthy English of the 1740’s setting, he sees his crime career as a means to an end: he wants to get enough money to leave England and move to America where he can make a new life for himself. His talents for chemistry are a nice flourish for his character, giving an otherwise violent and calculating man some depth.

MacLeane (Jonny Lee Miller) is a dapper former gentleman with a penchant for fancy vests and an absolute curse when it comes to games of chance–we meet him in the famous debtor’s prison and his crappy fortunes at cards and games don’t change much.With his connections, he is able to get into fancy dress parties (marvel at the hats! OH THE HATS!) and find out who is carrying obscene amounts of largesse, and when.

Liv Tyler, who I’d always thought was capable of more than the pretty-girl roles she wound up with, plays the Lady Rebecca, ward of the Chief Justice and a romantic interest for Maclean, although she herself is more interested in the Gentleman Highwayman, as he comes to be known.

The whole movie is a hoot–Carlyle is perfectly cast as a highwayman with a heart of gold with his soulful eyes and quick fists, and Miller as a debtor-turned-bandit with aspirations of nobility provides a compelling narrative. Alan Cumming appears as foppiest of the fops Lord Rochester, whose libertine attitude is only matched by the fantabulousness of his giant hats. This WAS the era of the Antoinette wig, after all, and giant wigs are ubiquitous. No little boats in them, though.

All it needs is a little boat. You know what I'm talking about.

I have to admit, I love costume dramas with modernist spins on them. After all, any reproduction of history will be refracted through the modern filmmakers subjective viewpoint–why fight it? I find techno soundtracks or postmodern sounding quips less anachronistic to the film and more acknowledging of the inherently subjective nature of filmmaking. Within reason, it’s supposed to be entertainment, after all.

Though Plunkett and Maclean might have been intended as a historical drama, I found it to work well as an action film. Carlyle’s presence, and the presence of explosions and character actor Tommy Flanagan, with his renowned ‘Glasgow Smile’ facial scars, ups the butch level quite a bit.

I can't be the only person who wants to see this man in a lead role. Perhaps a romantic comedy involving British gangsters.

I absolutely adore Flanagan, who’s been seen in films like Braveheart, Gladiator, Sin City, and others. Apparently the scars are from a mugging that nearly killed him–yet his friend Carlyle encouraged him to try acting anyway. Although relegated to various tough guy roles, I hold out hope he’ll be randomly cast as a kindergarten teacher or florist some day, assuming he’s cool with that. I just hate to imagine that the only scripts he gets are tough guy roles and he yearns to play the Queen’s gardener or something. You just never know with people.

Those kinds of scars–think of the character Kakihara from Ichi the Killer or The Joker–are known as a ‘Glasgow Smile.’ The victim’s mouth is cut open at the corners, then he’s kicked in the stomach so that the scars tear wide and are difficult to stitch shut, leaving the infamous ‘smile.’ Never underestimate some people’s drive to ruin another person’s life–you will always be disappointed.

Anyhoodle, Plunkett and Maclean is a grand old time. I remember seeing it when it came out in 1999 on home video and for some reason being disappointed–I remember it as ‘everyone dies’ for some reason. Even though it’s kind of spoilery to say so, the good guys do win, and the bad guys are punished in the version I saw last night. I have come up with a rule–if a movie’s over a decade old, spoilers are much less of a concern unless the movie has a major twist or something. I don’t think it makes anyone throw up their hands in disgust to know a film they are watching entirely for fun doesn’t end badly–but there I go underestimating people again.

Another movie where people get really, really dirty. But it's cool. It was the 18th century in Europe.

For an added bonus, keep an eye out for cameos early on by David Walliams and Matt Lucas of Little Britain fame! Actually, I think they were extras as this point, but now that they are famous they made ‘cameos.’ I am hip to the lingo, yes?

Nugget: Inception

When I have neither the time nor inclination to write a full review, I write a nugget. Sometimes its because what I saw needs percolation time and to try and write a full review doesn’t do the film justice; other times its because the film isn’t quite worth all the work of a full review.

Nugget: Inception.

This. This right here was worth the price of admission.

Everything you’ve heard is true: this is the best movie of the summer and you should see it immediately. It warrants seeing two or three times, but I’ll have to wait for video for that.

It is continually amazing to me what Christopher Nolan is doing with movies. How is what he does and what, say, Uwe Boll does the same medium? How?

But yeah, see it.

See it NOW.

‘Jesus Christ bananas’ entry: Tommy Wiseau’s The Room

Logic has no place here. The film staggers to its conclusion less like a picturesque and drunken Irish poet than a paralytic hobo whose palsied fingers can barely hold onto his bottle of methyl alcohol.

I like a bad movie every once in a while.

There was a time when I spent a lot, a LOT of time on bad movies. Then I realized that my time on earth is finite, and that I’d rather fill that time with earnest films made by talented and creative directors than with films whose own makers were either slumming geniuses or complete whackos.

That said, I still like a bad movie once in a while.

The Room came at me sideways like a crack addict waving around the razor-sharp skeleton of a dead large-mouthed bass.

There was no way to see this coming. No warning, no review has yet captured exactly how execrable this film is. Nostradamus might’ve seen it coming, but he would have written it down as some vague ‘and there will come a stringy man of taut thews and stygian hair who is either madman or genius, who shall entertain and terrify in the same fell swoop. And that man shall not speak truths but mumbles.’  That could refer to any number of filmmakers. Hell, that could be Joaquin Phoenix’s recent dabblings with madness.

Yup. That's about it.

Anyhoo, I’d heard a few things about ‘The Room’ and when a friend invited us over to watch, I went willingly. For some reason I thought it was a horror movie.

I wasn’t completely wrong.

‘The Room’ is the story of Johnny (Tommy Wiseau, who is also writer, director, and executive producer), a man who loves his fiancee Lisa, has a job where he makes good money, and seems to be the risen messiah in every other aspect of his life. He ‘rescued’ a troubled youth and is sending him to college, no one can shut up about how great he is, and the only time people don’t like him is if he doesn’t loan them money. Otherwise, the rest of the cast stand around singing jeremiads for the man.

The inciting incident of the story is that the aforementioned fiancee suddenly decides she doesn’t love him anymore and that he is boring. The rest of the film unfolds (or maybe ‘metastasizes’ is a  better word) in a bitter lovers’ triangle with Lisa cheating on Johnny, having long boring conversations with her mother about it, and Johnny’s best friend Mark being sort of conflicted about diddling Johnny’s fiancee.

Logic has no place here. The film staggers to its conclusion less like a picturesque and drunken Irish poet than a paralytic hobo whose palsied fingers can barely hold onto his bottle of methyl alcohol.

Consider this scene: There’s Johnny (Wiseau) talking to his friend Mark (colleague Greg Sesteros) about Lisa.

Johnny did not hit Lisa, she just got him really drunk and then tried to convince him he did, and Mark is the guy she’s cheating on Johnny with. The acting on display here is on par with the rest of the movie. Erratic tonal shifts, bizarre dialogue, nonsensical actions taken by the actors, plot threads that never pan out or are abandoned (Lisa’s mother offhandedly  mentions she has breast cancer once and this is never again addressed) and sex scenes that make one reach for a bottle of Purell are all part of the package.

But while the movie is indeed embarrassingly awful, I can’t get into the spirit of mocking it as much as others have.  Mr. Wiseau spent five years of his life raising funding for the film, and it’s suspected he did so through ‘less than legitimate’ means: there’s a story about him importing leather jackets from Korea that sounds fairly shady, and other people have suggested the movie exists as an elaborate money laundering scheme for the mob.

Although now he promotes the movie as a Rocky Horror Picture Show-like parody and travels to midnight screenings where people throw spoons and footballs (it’s in the movie), some of the actors from the film indicate that Mr. Wiseau was absolutely earnest in his intent when making it in 2003 and that there was nothing tongue-in-cheek about his attitude.

I can’t help but imagine someone who managed to make his creative dream come true witness his film be reviled by the few critics who saw it, then embraced by an audience whose self-professed love of shit is damning praise. Maybe at that point he decided that any publicity is better than none. It’s my own secret dream (as it is most critics’) to make a film of my own, and since I don’t have the courage or means to pursue such a dream and I consciously know this, I can’t help but feel bad bashing the product of someone who managed to pursue it themselves. Even so, this is one incredibly bad movie. Let’s be absolutely clear on that.

There's a reason you always see this image in connection with the movie. You just have to see it.

I’m not someone who enjoys laughing at the efforts of others, unless they really want me to. If Mr. Wiseau convinces me of his earnest effort to create a black comedy, well, I guess I can laugh at his film then.

‘The Room’ is not available on Instant Watch but can be rented from Netflix or GreenCine. Check it out, but for God’s sake, know what you’re getting into!