Downrange

Downrange (2017 premier, but 2018 for non-festival-goers)

Dir. Ryûhei Kitamura

Written by Joey O’Bryan, story by Ryûhei Kitamura and Joey O’Bryan

Starring Kelly Connaire, Stephanie Pearson, Rod Hernandez, Anthony Kirlew

            As they’re driving down a bucolic country highway, a group of those damn college kids pop a tire and roll to a stop. The girls pile out, chit-chat, and relax on the car’s shady side while the guys nervously eye the flat tire, poke at it, agree that, yup, that’s definitely a flat tire that needs to be fixed, all right. The spare doesn’t look great and they idly discuss whether to divert to get a new tire, which Jodi (Kelly Connaire, THE END OF THE TOUR [uncredited]) would rather not do, since she’s on her way to a surprise birthday party for her sister. While the new tire is leisurely installed, they make fun of social science majors, take bathroom breaks in the woods, discuss whether or not the hunky guy whose name no one can quite recall (Jason Tobias, apparently set to play hunky Jesus in the upcoming THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST [!]) is flirting with Jodi, post pictures on beloved utilitarian social media app “Socialize” and attempt to amuse themselves while they wait.

            And the longer they dawdle, the more unbearable the tension becomes, because the characters naively do not realize something that the audience knows only too well: they’re in a horror movie called DOWNRANGE. This idyllic afternoon is about to take a sudden and highly unfortunate turn for them.

            It’s almost a relief, then, when suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, they find themselves under lethal sniper fire from a hidden gunman somewhere in the surrounding countryside. They can’t drive away because of the tire, but the bullets cannot pierce the mighty hide of the imposing SUV (the gunman must be using an older rifle, speculates “army brat [from a], hunting family” and good final girl prospect “Keren” [sic] [Stephanie Pearson, 14-year-old Michelle Monaghan in KISS KISS BANG BANG]), leaving the survivors stuck -- unable to run without becoming targets, but temporarily protected while crouching behind the vehicle. And of course their cell phones get no signal.

            This, then, is to be one of those survival-thrillers I spoke about so unethusiastically in my review for THE RUINS, where a small group gets stuck in a dangerous situation from which they can’t escape, and must endure a crucible of suffering to survive and get out alive (or not). These films seem to be something of a recent phenomenon; I first noticed the trend with 2010’s FROZEN (not the “Let it Go” one, the “Stuck on a ski-lift” thriller from HATCHET director Adam Green), but there’s also BURIED, HIGH LANE, THE CANYON (not the Lindsay Lohan/Paul Schrader debacle, but a 2009 lost-hikers deal), BACKCOUNTRY, BLACK WATER, the upcoming THE WELL, and an ever-increasing number of shark movies (OPEN WATER, OPEN WATER 2, THE SHALLOWS, 47 METERS DOWN, THE REEF). You might even make a case for 127 HOURS. As I pointed out with THE RUINS, these movies tend to be tense, and sometimes downright grueling, which are definitely elements of a horror movie, but something about the essential problem-solving nature of the conflict seems to undermine the most fundamental essence of the horror genre. These are films about being helpless, about a spiraling loss of control, which, at least to me, instills the experience with a fatalism which is more disspiriting than terrifying. It’s the difference between the visceral fight-or-flight adrenaline rush of a slasher movie and the punishing slog of a torture movie. Both subgenres find colorful villains imaginatively mutilating pretty young women, but the mechanics of the conflict --and, consequently, the horror-- are so different that they’re nearly antithetical.

            Fortunately, DOWNRANGE has two significant advantages not usually enjoyed by this genre, which make it much more my pace. First, the danger menacing these kids is not some faceless, irresistible natural force; somewhere out there is a villain, someone who can be fought, and, just maybe --if they’re clever enough-- beaten. That adds a galvanizing personal element to the usual formula, focuses the danger into a single malevolent antagonist. You can’t really hate hungry sharks or cold weather, but when the danger takes the shape of a single, discreet adversary (however obscure), we have an object on which to focus our anxiety and our rage at being made helpless and vulnerable. That helps immensely, --at least in my book-- to solidly locate the film’s narrative and emotional landscape into a distinctly horror mode.

            That’s all well and good, but plenty of total pieces of crap have clear antagonists. Fortunately, DOWNRANGE has a second major advantage: it’s directed by AZUMI, GODZILLA: FINAL WARS, NO ONE LIVES and MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN director and certifiable madman Ryûhei Kitamura --the man who once knocked Ted Raimi’seyeballs out of their sockets directly into the camera in slow motion*-- who is constitutionally incapable of not being outrageous and entertaining. He’s on his best behavior here, mostly yielding to the script’s insistence on tense, gritty realism (it's written by Joey O’Bryan, co-writer of Kitamura’s LUPIN THE 3rd and Johnnie’s To’s FULLTIME KILLER), but you know you’re in good hands early on when Kitamura is unable to resist zooming the camera into a gaping bullet wound, through someone’s skull, and out the other side. That kind of irrepressible exuberance is absolutely crucial to the film’s careful balance of tones, livening a scenario which could very easily slide into gloomy misery-porn. The situation is dire, certainly, but the films never gets dour; it stays focused and nearly fanatical about insisting upon a new wrinkle every few minutes which subtly inches the story forward and the tension higher. Grueling it may be, but it’s never a grind.

            It’s clearly Kitamura’s intent to keep this one grounded and plausible, banking on the victims’ vulnerability and the could-have-happened-to-anyone paranoia of the scenario. Most of the action scenes center around small-scale, practical efforts (pulling open a car door to grab a bottle of water, using an improvised dummy to distract their tormentor) that draw their impact from clean, clear execution and effectively communicated stakes. But even restrained Kitamura is still Kitamura, and every now and then, he simply cannot suppress the urge to indulge in some kind of over-the-top tick. That serves him well with the violence, which is lavish, squishy and lingered upon with the kind of pornographic joy that only a true horror director could summon.*** It serves him less well when he gets into showy frenetic editing, or kinetic camera chicanery. There is one POV shot from a rotating tire nut which is worthy of Scott Spiegel --and obviously I mean that as a high compliment-- but also some whooshy drone stuff and choppy wham-bang editing (by Shôhei Kitajima, second editor on LUPIN THE 3rd) which seems unnecessarily insecure about the film’s ample ability to maintain excitement in its microcosmic single setting. It has a whiff of desperation about it -- at its worst, it smacks of the kind of flop-sweat editing kineticism you’d see in a low-effort DTV Steven Seagal money grab, to paper over how little action there is-- which is a shame, because DOWNRANGE is anything but lacking in whammy. There’s not much of that kind of tomfoolery, and it’s certainly not too dire even when it happens, but it’s a noisy distraction from a movie which is mostly tightly controlled, and a good example of how Kitamura’s kitchen-sink ebullience can get in its own way. Case in point: his worst instinct of all is to show the killer. If you’re going to commit to the single-location, boxed-in concept, it’s folly of the worst kind to leave your characters’ perspective and reveal to the audience something they can only wonder about, and even more dire folly to do it for so little meaningful payoff (the killer is just some guy, it’s not like he’s a bigfoot or a giant spider or something that we’d be glad to get a look at).

Never one to worry about overreaching, Kitamura also adds to the pot a few gestures towards poignant human drama, with lulls in the savage assault filled with some quieter existential reflection. I tend to favor embracing the inherent absurdity of a good horror premise, but can also appreciate some genre fare done up as earnest character drama (THE MONSTER, SPRING) given the right execution. DOWNRANGE walks the tightrope between those poles, at times seeming to really commit to the idea that this is a heart-wrenching drama, at times giving in to pure splatterhouse glee. It’s a tough dance to get right, and for my money it stumbles just a few times into maudlin melodrama it can’t possibly support. Though the actors commit to it with a laudable sincerity, the film simply isn’t built to handle lachrymose soul-searching; we need to care about these characters enough that we root for them and fear that they’ll come to harm (which the movie handily accomplishes) but this is a machine build for ratcheting up tension, not morose eulogizing. Its brief forays into earnest pathos are well-enough executed, but are too tangential to have the kind of emotional impact that would justify them, and moreover they sit uneasily with the film’s impulses towards anarchic, irresponsible provocation.

Fortunately, it mostly eschews this kind of hubris; in fact, considering everything it attempts, it’s almost miraculous in its ability to thread the needle between serious, focused tension and occasional moments of over-the-top flamboyant grand guignol spiked with pitch-black gallows humor (particularly in the climax, wherein the devil on Kitamura’s shoulder clearly wins the day and allows him to give in to pure horror movie zeal). It’s not always elegant, but it gets the job done, managing to expound a minimalist scenario into something thrilling, visceral, and wholly absorbing. If it’s not always immaculately tuned to the right tone, it compensates with the gusto it applies, and that’s certainly a trade I’m more than willing to approve.

DOWNRANGE opens 4/26 (that’s today!) in select theaters, including NYC’s Nitehawk Cinema, where the director will be in attendance this weekend. For the rest of us slobs, it starts streaming on the horror streaming service Shudder which it’s probably time to start subscribing to.

* And then another victim slips on the eyeball, and then there’s a decapitation from the severed head’s POV! If I could identify the single most heartbreaking tragedy of the entire modern horror era, surely it is that this scene was not shot in 3D.

** Or, OK, you can, but then it’s GODZILLA: FINAL WARS, and you’ll probably want to lie down and moan for a while afterwards.

*** At one point, I noticed a severed head demurely lying on the bloody ground in a wide shot, whose original owner I could not identify with any degree of confidence. That alone would be sufficient to make this movie an easy one to recommend.

The Ruins

The Ruins (2008)

Dir. Carter Smith

Written by Sam Smith, adapted from his own novel

Starring Jonathan Tucker, Jena Malone, Laura Ramsey, An Ashmore, Joe Anderson

What makes a horror film? Blood? Terrified teenagers? A mysterious hostile antagonist? Ominous settings? The intent to instill unease and fear?

Ordinarily, this is exactly the kind of film theory semantics black hole that I try to avoid. I had a whole semester-long class in college about film genre, which sounded fun in the abstract, until I realized that the whole thing would just be an endless, soul-crushing death march of various egghead film theorists who all had their own personal list of Five Things A Western Should Be, which were all equally arbitrary and contradictory and could only lead to a permanent nonconversation about whether or not Gary Cooper crying means HIGH NOON isn’t technically a Western, or if the gender reversals in THE LONELY PLACE make it an anti-Noir instead of a Noir. This is, of course, the very opposite of meaningful. Genres, like so many categories which rigidly define the way we think of the world, are artificial inventions, merely ways of helping us conceptualize content and purpose, and useful only to the extent that they aid us in that regard. The idea that we need precise definitions of exactly where the border of “Noir” ends and “Crime movie” begins is not only an absolutely stultifying sisyphysian torment, it’s simply absurd. A story is just a story, nothing more. We can talk about similarities it shares with other stories --style, content, in tone, in intent-- but to demand each and every story line up neatly with our predetermined list of criteria is folly on a whole multiverse of levels. Since the entire discussion centers around whatever arbitrary set of definitions you want to dream up, it’s inevitably a discussion of apples and oranges -- my Slasher might not look at all like your Slasher; heck, you might not even agree that the Slasher is a separate genre from Horror, or from Thriller. What common ground to we even have to begin arguing at that point? And really, it’s worse than comparing apples and oranges, because at least those two things actually exist. Genre is merely whatever we say it is. So why bother arguing about it?

Consequently, I usually avoid this entire category of argument like I would an uncomfortable relative at Thanksgiving who wants to tell me how Trump is finally going to lock Hillary up. But unfortunately I can’t avoid it in this case, because I had an odd reaction to THE RUINS. THE RUINS has blood. It has terrified teenagers. It has a mysterious hostile antagonist. It has an ominous setting. And it largely has the intent to instill unease and fear. And yet, for the life of me I could not shake the vague sensation that it does not feel like a horror movie.  

fucking terrifying.

Let us begin, though, with what it is: THE RUINS is the story of five pretty white teenagers (OK, technically young adults in college, but you and I both know these same five 30-somethings would play the 19-year-old versions of these characters too, so let’s not start picking at each other’s nomenclature just yet) on vacation in Mexico, who get stuck on top of a undiscovered Mayan temple, menaced from below by a gang of uncomfortable ethnic villains who won’t let them leave, and from above by… well, some kind of mysterious hostile force. It’s pretty much a single-location thriller whereby our ostensible heroes have to discover what forces are aligned against them, battle the elements, and find some way to survive and escape.

It sounds like a horror movie, but I simply can’t resist using that word thriller instead. This feels to me like it belongs in a mildly burgeoning subgenre that I would call the survival thriller, things like OPEN WATER, FROZEN (not the one with “Let it Go,” the one with the guys who get stuck on the ski lift), THE SHALLOWS, 47 FEET DOWN (a lot of these are about sharks, come to think of it), where the protagonist is trapped in a hostile location and has to use his or her ingenuity to survive against the elements. Most of these movies don’t have a supernatural or even exotic element, just the normal hostile forces of nature baring down on them with all their natural fury. These movies are tense, certainly. But then again, so is THE GREY, so is CASTAWAY, or THE REVENANT. An experience can be harrowing without ever being, exactly, scary. And even with the somewhat colorful details here (SPOILER -- carnivorous plants who can replicate human speech on an ancient mayan temple END SPOILER), I can’t seem to get around the fact that this seems oddly grounded and literal-minded to qualify as horror.

These protagonists are put in danger, no doubt, but the emphasis of the storytelling is on their problem-solving ability, not their raw fear. That’s what throws me off, I think. There is, admittedly, one solid and unambiguous horror sequence involving a dessicated corpse and the mystery antagonist’s first real aggression towards our heroes, but other than that, the tone has as distinct and arguably self-defeating inclination towards the practical. Throughout the movie, a problem arises, our heroes put their heads together and figure out a solution. A new wrinkle arises, they modify their plan and overcome it. Found a subterranean lair? Well, let’s make some torches and lower ourselves down there. Rope broke? Well, let’s McGuyver a stretcher for the guy who fell and tie strips of cloth together to extend the rope. Rope still won’t reach? Well, let’s decide if it’s better to pick the guy up and move him or wait til we can add length to the rope somehow. It’s very task-oriented, and these people prove, generally, to rally in the face of extreme odds and work together to come up with logical solutions to each new hurdle that arises. Only problem is, despite their best efforts, things get worse and worse. They don’t really make any huge mistakes, don’t really have any tragic flaws, they’re just fucked, and there’s not much they can do about it. This bestows the movie with a kind of grim fatalism that you usually only encounter in a torture movie or a survival flick. If there’s really nothing the protagonists can do to save themselves, where is the actual tension? It’s more depressing than terrifying.  

It’s well made, of course, like all modern horror movies are, very professional and all that. Way-too-good-for-this-dreck veteran cinematographer Darius Khondji (who’s worked with Roman Polanski [admittedly on THE 9TH GATE, but still], Danny Boyle [THE BEACH], Neil Jordan [IN DREAMS], David Fincher [SEVEN, PANIC ROOM], Alan Parker [EVITA], Michael Haneke [AMOUR*], Sydney Pollack [THE INTERPRETER], Bong Joon-Ho [OKJA], and a whole raft of Woody Allen and most of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s movies)** makes the film look great, racking up one nice-looking shot after the next. To no real benefit for the film, of course, but damn, it does look nice. And again, like most modern horror movies, the cast is all much better than they need to be. You got Jonathan Tucker (VIRGIN SUICIDES, IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH), Jena Malone (THE NEON DEMON), Laura Ramsey (who, I have to concede, became famous for starring in THE REAL CANCUN, but since then at some point it seems like she’s become a real actress and we’ve all agreed that we’re OK with this) at least one of the Ashmore octuplets (possibly but not certainly Shawn, who would be familiar with this sort of thing from having starred in 2010’s FROZEN), and Joe Anderson (who I liked a lot in HORNS). They all work real hard and seem real intense, and because the script was adapted from the novel of the same name by its author (Sam Smith, who also wrote the novel for A SIMPLE PLAN!) they all get a little dusting of character movements and drama and stuff. Again, to no real benefit for the film, but hey, credit where it’s due.

But technical proficiency doesn’t equate to quality, at least not in the nebulous genre in which we now tread. Who needs professionalism, anyway? Is there anyone on Earth who would refuse to watch a crappy, amateurish version of this movie but who would watch a version shot by Darius Khondji? If you want your movies to be good, you’re probably interesting in things which are still better than this. So I just don’t see where that elbow grease pays off. That’s the trick with genre; if it’s about anything at all, if it has any meaning at all, it’s about something subtle. A feeling, a mood. Irish novelist and moonlighting ghost story purveyor Elizabeth Bowen (The Heat of The Day) wrote in 1968, “Fear has its own aesthetic...and also its own propriety. A story dealing in fear ought, ideally, to be kept at a certain pitch. And that austere other world, the world of the ghost, should inspire, when it impacts on our own, not so much revulsion or shock as a sort of awe.” I cannot in good conscience say that I think THE RUINS meets that definition. It’s a movie about a series of escalating inconveniences to be overcome, which focuses its attention on gorey details but not unknowable horror. It seeks to inspire revulsion much more than a sort of awe. It’s a movie with believes it can frighten with vivid grit, rather than lurking darkness.

And it’s so serious about it! When did we all decide horror movies had to be no fun? Only Joe Anderson has a bit of straight faced playfulness, playing the arch Teutonic accent of his German character riiiiight up to the Boris Badenov line. The movie otherwise has absolutely zero sense of humor or fun, which is probably part of the problem. It even fails to deliver the correct ironic final punchline! (SPOILER: You dorks, the joke isn’t that some other people are going to show up and have to endure the same thing, the joke is that even though our heroine escaped, she’s now likely going to contaminate the whole world! If I have to explain to you what the dark irony is in your own movie, I’m gonna go ahead and assume you just don’t quite get the genre. END SPOILERS).

Still, for what it is, it’s solidly constructed and seldom boring. It’s probably a good movie. Just not the kind that I’m really looking for.

“I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out.” -- Stephen King, Danse Macabre

*Perhaps by way of apology for also shooting the American remake of FUNNY GAMES

**Man, putting this man’s skills to this gloomy b-movie creature feature is just an insult, like asking Michelangelo to help you paint your front porch.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2017 CHECKLIST!

The Discreet Charm of the Killing Spree

TAGLINE	Terror Has Evolved. Not really sure what that means
TITLE ACCURACY	There is a ruined temple which features prominently.
LITERARY ADAPTATION?	Yup, of the novel of the same name by Sam Smith
SEQUEL?	None, though it seems possible
REMAKE?	No
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN	USA, though shot in Australia (filling in for Mexico. Is it really cheaper to shoot it halfway around the world than in an actual Maya area?!)
HORROR SUB-GENRE	Survival Thriller
SLUMMING A-LISTER?	Jena Malone?
BELOVED HORROR ICON?	None
NUDITY?	Yeah, but I appreciate that there’s some gender equity. Laura Ramsay has a little extraneous getting-dressed sequence, but I think both Ashmore and Tucker get some leering ass-shots, and the camera spends a while absolutely drooling over their killer abs. Director Carter Smith is also a fashion photographer, so I think he just likes pretty people.
SEXUAL ASSAULT?	In a nice gender reversal, one of the drunk girls starts hanging on one of the guys more or less against his will
WHEN ANIMALS ATTACK!	When (spoiler)... plants attack?
GHOST/ ZOMBIE / HAUNTED BUILDING?	Nah
POSSESSION?	This is weird, it seems like the Ruins are putting the whammy on one of the characters after awhile, but she may just be cracking up from stress, it’s a little unclear.
CREEPY DOLLS?	None
EVIL CULT?	None, unless you want to assume this is the fault of some kind of devilish ancient Mayan ritual. But I see no reason to believe that.
MADNESS?	Yeah, even split between this and “possession” since it’s a little unclear exactly what’s going on
TRANSMOGRIFICATION?	Nah
VOYEURISM?	Oddly none really, which seems weird.
MORAL OF THE STORY	Sometimes life just up and fucks ya, and it wasn’t your fault, really, and there’s nothing you can do.