House of the Devil

House of the Devil (2009)
Dir. Ti West
Written by Ti West
Starring Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan, Mary Woronov, Dee Wallace 

    Wow, so here it is. I’d been waiting to watch this movie for 3 long years -- waiting for the right moment. When you watch as many horror movies as I do, the number of truly great ones that you haven’t seen dwindles down and down, until finally there are just a few left. Sure, sometimes you get surprised and blown away like I did this year with ABSENTIA and RED LIGHTS and to some extent TALL MAN. But you can’t count on that. Mostly you’re gonna get a few things which mildly impress you, a few things which mildly disappoint you, and mostly things that are exactly as middling as you’re afraid they’re gonna be. I hope it’s obvious from my output up til now that I am both willing and able to find plenty of things to love about almost any middling genre junk, but sometimes you just want something great. So HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, which everyone with any sense has been raving about since the day it opened, was my ace in the hole this year, the thing I knew I could count on to blow my mind just when I was getting to the summit of my Chainsawnukah 2012 adventure and I needed a surefire win to take me over that final peak.

That’s a lot of pressure to put on a micro-budget love letter to cheapie 80’s Satanic Panic era horror films, but after seeing THE INNKEEPERS (and his segment of this year’s V/H/S) I was convinced that Ti West was up to the task. Guess what. He was, and then some. Turns out everyone was right, this movie is fucking awesome, a perfect mix of clever black humor, meticulous production detail, slow build, and genuine horror. It tells a simple tale: A feather-haired collegiate babysitter agrees, against her better judgement, to hang around an isolate house all night while Tom Noonan and and Mary Woronov (who are suspiciously enthusiastic about astronomy) go watch a rare and almost certainly evil eclipse. Nothing much happens at first, but you know this isn’t gonna end well. Gradually, the hints that something sinister is going on start to pile up, and the tension mounts to a great climax.

Some people, I suppose, find the long buildup too slow, but of course they’re wrong, it goes at exactly the pace it needs to to gradually build our anxiety. And just like THE INNKEEPERS, it’s not like it’s boring or purposefully trying to test our patience. This isn’t THE BROWN BUNNY or something, it’s just a horror film which is secure enough that it doesn’t have to throw in phony jump scares every five minutes. Star Jocelin Donahue (She’s the female lead in THE BURROWERS, but “best known for her work in Zune and Levi’s commercials”) is immediately likeable and gives a funny, ingratiating performance so she’s entertaining even when she’s just ordering a pizza or dancing around to The Fixx’s “One Thing Leads to Another.” And the fact that we know this is all building someplace bad adds an additional layer of dread to keep you interested. If you’re impatient to figure out what the hell’s going on, it’s because West wants you to be, you jerk. It’s called suspense. Here’s a link to the definition, since if you got annoyed with this movie for taking too long I can be pretty certain you’re not the kind to look it up for yourself.

I was a little more worried about the 80’s trappings here, but as usual West was right on the money about that, too. As you know from my review of HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, I’m not necessarily the biggest fan of the GRINDHOUSE-inspired subgenre of jokey b-movie parodies like PLANET TERROR, DEATH PROOF, and MACHETE. All those films have their merits, but they mostly come from their actual content, and are in my estimation actually held back by their overly cute conceit of mimicking the technical follies of cheapie films from another era. PLANET TERROR, for instance, has some inspired gore and wacky gimmicks in it, and as far as I’m concerned it’s a shame that it openly admits that it’s not actually a real film, but a goofy parody of a low-budget zombie b-movie. Given that, I didn’t know what to make of the opening credits to HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, with their solid yellow titles over zoomed-in freeze-frames. Seemed a little on-the-nose to me. But it quickly became clear that, thank god, this is not a parody of slow-burn 80s Satanism movies, it just is one. Setting this in modern days would just not have worked, you would never buy the main character’s adorable naivete, nor the movie’s genuinely earnest concern about the dangers of Satanism lurking beneath a facade of normality. You’d have to make it hip and self-aware, the character would have to comment that this is just like those old movies, and so on. Which would totally kill the vibe that the movie needs to get you to take it seriously. That, and no one lives in those spooky old Victorian houses anymore. Like HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, setting it in the 80s is not a gimmick, it’s just the only way to tell this particular story. And having done that, it actually seems less obtrusive to simply include all the trappings of that era so the whole experience seems complete.

This is the point in my positive reviews where I usually say something like, “that having been said, the film isn’t perfect.” But actually, this one is kind of perfect. There’s not a false note in the whole thing, it’s just a elegantly simple slow march to a final hysterical finale. It’s assured, effortlessly entertaining, occasionally shocking, and they even got Tom Noonan in there in maybe his best villainous role since ROBOCOP 2*. There’s plenty about it that could be analyzed, plenty of parts that could be broken down to see why they work so well. But honestly, it’s a film which I suspect is best left as an experience, something to simply sit back with some red wine and let yourself get immersed in. And an excellent reminder that it’s possible to craft something riveting and scary from nothing more than a lone, likeable character in a big, empty house. Ti West you handsome devil, you’ve done it again. 

*Which I sincerely hope reads as the complement I mean it as. Someone, I think maybe Mr. Majestyk, once told me he briefly ran into Tom Noonan somewhere and all he could think to say was “Good job in ROBOCOP 2!” which he thought Noonan read as sarcasm, even though it was intended as genuine. Which I think we can all agree is a pretty heartbreaking tale. So Tom Noonan, if you’re reading this, you were awesome in ROBOCOP 2 and also this one. I’m glad we had the chance to put this matter to rest. 

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2012 CHECKLIST!

LOVECRAFT ADAPTATION: No.
BOOBIES: No
> or = HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS LEVEL GORE: Ehh, a little blood, but not really.
SEQUEL: There's a 1984 movie called THE HOUSE OF GOD, but as far as I can tell this is not a sequel or spinoff.
OBSCURITY LEVEL: Mid. Well-known to those who know about these things.
MONSTERS: No.
SATANISTS: Heck yeah, and "based on true events!"
ZOMBIES: No.
VAMPIRES: No.
SLASHERS: No.
CURSES: No.
ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: Awake and entertained!

The female lead and the landlady talk about their renting situation.

V/H/S

V/H/S (2012)
Dir. Adam Wingard, Ti West, David Bruckner, Glen McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, Radio Silence
Written by: David Bruckner,Glenn McQuaid,Ti West, Chad Villella, Justin Martinez, Matt Bettinelli-Oplin, Nicholas Tecosky, Simon Barrett, Tyler Gillett
Starring: It’s hard to tell....

Ah, the horror anthology: because critics love writing the word “uneven.” Time was, it was a big enough gimmick to just have a horror anthology where different directors helmed different segments with some preposterous wraparound story sandwiched uncomfortably between them. But nowadays, kids can’t even stay awake through a single sentence that has only one paltry gimmick, so you’ve gotta up the ante with the ever-reliable double gimmick. So what we’ve got here is a horror anthology which is composed of different takes on that tiresome found footage trend we’re all so sick of, which is gradually turning films into reality TV and photography into unintelligible bullshit.

    But! I had reason to be hopeful about this one. For one thing, two of the directors (Ti West and David Bruckner) are not usually known for this sort of found footage chicanery, and in fact have in the past made mostly excellent films. I haven’t seen any of Adam Wingard’s films, but I hear A HORRIBLE WAY TO DIE is pretty great and POP SKULL is pretty awful, so could go either way there. The other guys, who knows, but three outta six ain’t bad, right?

    OK so I was already going to go see it, but the thing that pushed my expectations into positive territory is actually the combination of horror anthology and found footage. I think that horror, more than any other genre, might benefit from a found-footage bent, or at least a certain kind of horror might benefit. I mean, you’re not gonna be able to recreate the atmospheric lushness of a 60’s Hammer production or a well-made Giallo without the kind of sumptuous camerawork and production that gives them that unique gothic flavor. But, it might well be able to recreate the oh-shit-oh-shit-they’re-after-me grimy realism of films like TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE or THE HILLS HAVE EYES. Those films have a reputation for being grueling crucibles of punishment without respite, and I have a feeling that a well-executed found-footage story might be able to recreate that unrelenting nightmare feel pretty well. More than anything, the found footage conceit gives good reason to construct long, unbroken takes which deny the viewer the relief of having editing swoop in and save them. It’s certainly possible to do this with conventional photography (see: CHILDREN OF MEN, KNOWING) but with the found footage gimmick it seems to so naturally insert itself into the way it’s filmed that you get the benefit of the immersive long take without the distraction of the director rubbing your nose in it (see: ENTER THE VOID).

It's just that they're terribly comfortable. I think everyone will be wearing them in the future.

    And even though found-footage films will never be pretty like traditional films, there is a certain advantage to using the fixed perspective and the limitations of the media to keep your horror hidden. Most films have to rely on darkness or deliberately evasive photography to keep you in fear of what you don’t see -- here, it’s a natural effect of the shaky cam and glitchy video quality. That certainly opens up some new possibilities for good fright scenes. So all that, plus it’s a found footage anthology, meaning that they can pretty much cut right to the good parts! The granddaddy of all found footage clusterfucks, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, has a couple genuinely frightening moments, but to get to them you’ve got to wander around the woods with three iffy actors ad-libbing for hours on end. Here, they’re forced to trim the fat and just give you the bloody meat. No ad-libbed filler, just enough time for a setup and payoff.

    So I went in with all this stuff in my head, thinking this was a real chance for these six boundary-pushing young horror directors to really take the conceit and use it to do something we’ve never seen before in the horror genre. It turns out to be a moot point, though, because mostly what we get here are pretty conventional horrorshow antics with the very slight twist of being on video. But hey, they’re pretty damn entertaining anyway, so who the fuck cares. Most of the directors disappointingly don’t do a whole lot with the found footage gimmick, but they tend to have strong enough horror fundamental that they do fine anyway, or at least are only marginally hurt by the ugly photography.

    We start with a wraparound story about a bunch of hooligans who videotape their idiotic crimes and get paid for the video evidence by unnamed collectors. They break into a scary house which they’re told contains a tape that will net them a big cash windfall, but they don’t know which one it is so they (and the audience) start watching them. I’ll be honest, the wraparound story (by Adam Wingard) is pretty much tepid junk, empty of scares and full of terrible acting and unlikable characters. But fortunately it’s over quickly and we can move on to the good stuff.

Ghosts never wash their hands.

    The good stuff begins with David Bruckner’s (THE SIGNAL) excellent tale of three drunk douchebags who buy a pair of webcam glasses* in the hopes of getting a sex tape out of it. In a bar, they encounter Lily (Hannah Fierman) a decidedly odd, shy young woman who is troublingly --almost supernaturally-- quick on her feet. And the rest writes itself. Bruckner does, in fact, utilize a long unbroken take throughout most of the second half of this short, but the quality of the video is so glitchy that it almost doesn’t matter and barely registers. All is forgiven though, because Hannah Fierman’s Lily character is a remarkable, funny, scary, and memorable creation brought to life by excellent characterization and top-notch makeup. Could this have been better if it was shot conventionally? Maybe, maybe not, but this way works fine and probably ends up the strongest segment, overall.

    Then we move on to Ti West’s (THE INNKEEPERS, HOUSE OF THE DEVIL) segment, which concerns a sulky, passive-aggressive couple (V/H/S/ director Joe Swanberg and Sophia Takal) traveling through the Southwest and staying at motels. When they encounter a mysterious female hitchhiker, things quickly turn strange. West does well with the prickly characterization of his leads, using subtle clues to tell us everything we need  to know about this relationship. But his cleverest trick is using the unexpected neutrality of found footage to fuck with the audience. There’s a scene which genuinely caused the audience of hard-core horror folks I saw the film with to gasp, and it’s not exclusively because of the creepy concept, but rather the off-kilter nervousness which comes as a result of not having editing or music to tell us how we should feel. When a knife appears out of nowhere, the audience is genuinely on edge, not sure how far West is going to go with this. And then he turns it into a joke, throwing us off again. West’s segment is short, but among the most memorable uses of this particular visual style.  

Doesn't matter, got laid.

    Next up we have Glenn McQuaid, with a really awful, embarrassingly amateurish FRIDAY THE 13th parody. The less said about this turkey the better, but it manages to completely negate the point of using the found footage style and fail to deliver anything even mildly interesting or memorable, despite the fact that it’s the only segment that tries to get some mileage out of gore. It’s a disastrous mix of bad acting, ugly photography, unimaginative scares, derivative gore, poor pacing, and incoherent storytelling which is a good reminder of just how bad horror movies can get when they’re in the hands of less capable directors.

    Fortunately, we rebound with that asshole Joe Swanberg from Ti West’s segment, which is probably the most interesting and boundary-pushing section of the film. It’s shown entirely as a Skype (or google video or whatever) conversation between two people: the somewhat childish, vulnerable Emily and her medical-student boyfriend James. Emily begins to experience strange things, and tries to rope her out-of-town buea into helping her solve the mystery. What follows isn’t the most elegantly told horror story, but it’s an interesting attempt to do something different with the medium, and includes some welcome creepy details so it’s not purely an exercise in style. I wouldn’t want to watch a whole movie like this, but as an anthology short it’s a refreshing experiment which mostly works pretty well.

Not in the top 100 scariest things on the internet.

    Finally, we have the last segment by the mysteriously named “Radio Silence,” which turns out to be four guys names Chad, Paul, Justin, and Matt who also star (as themselves?) as four drunk douchebags on their way to a Halloween party. They arrive at the wrong haunted house, but don’t realize it until much too late. Although by this point we’re getting a little sick of drunk douchebags, the segment is unique enough to bring us to a strong ending. Most notably the whole thing is, essentially, one long shot, which does, as I postulated earlier, help cultivate the feeling of being trapped along with the characters. It doesn’t hurt that the end erupts into a pretty spectacular haunted house effects show, including some colorful touches like creepy hands reaching out of the wall to grab us. Actually the thing that it most successfully evokes is the feeling of having gone through a really awesome homemade haunted house -- which I think it probably a good horror equivalent of an action movie being described as “a roller coaster ride.” It’s fun, it’s immersive, it’s a unique experience. That’s a good way to stick the landing.

Overall, anyone who was, like me, sort of expecting V/H/S to be a proving ground for bold new horror techniques which will shape the next generation is gonna be disappointed. This could have been that, but mostly it isn’t. Still, there’s enough fun horror ideas in here to excuse the missteps and mostly work as a fun, occasionally surprising anthology which doesn’t overstay it’s welcome (an impressive feat at almost two hours). I really sort of hope that this found footage thing goes away, or at least ends up in the hands of people who are more interested in exploring it’s nuances than these six directors (mostly) seem to be -- but with its quick payoffs, varied style, and handful of genuinely memorable ideas, I think V/H/S is among the most tolerable examples of this dubious genre I’ve seen, definitely on par with [REC] or TROLL HUNTER. I know my buddy Dan P. didn’t have as much fun with it as I did, but I’m betting most horror fans will. I love horror and will always be excited about the next time someone does something really daring and unique, but until then I’ll be happy to settle for more films as solid as this one.

PS: Speaking of Dan P, check out his take on this one! 

*Which i guess somehow got dubbed onto a VHS tape so the crooks could watch it? Pretty weird.


CHAINSAWNUKAH 2012 CHECKLIST!

LOVECRAFT ADAPTATION: No.
BOOBIES:Oh yeah, in at least three separate segments, and twice in one, all gratuitous.
> or = HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS LEVEL GORE: Some gore, but nothing too major.
SEQUEL: No.
OBSCURITY LEVEL: Mid. Playing in arty theaters now.
MONSTERS: I'm split as to whether its a particularly colorful vampire or monster.
SATANISTS: It's not entirely clear what the cultists in the last segment are up to.
ZOMBIES: At least one.
VAMPIRES: You could argue yes, but I'm sort of drifting towards monster.
SLASHERS: Yep.
CURSES: If so, it's not very clear.
ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: Yep.

The Innkeepers

The Innkeepers (2011)
Dir. Ti West
Starring Sarah Paxton, Pat Healy, Kelly McGillis

    Ti West is a director that entered my radar when everyone and their creepy parents went googoo gaga nuts over HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, an 80’s horror throwback which won raves from people whose opinions matter thanks in a large part to its very slow, gradual build and authentic 80s productions trappings. It sounds so good I haven’t watched it yet. When you watch as many movies as I do, there just aren’t that many truly great ones floating around left to be discovered for the first time, so I’m saving it for a special occasion (presumably the capstone to this year’s Halloween Scotchtoberfestival of Frights*). But I’m assured that it’s great, so when Ti West’s new one THE INKEEPERS came calling, I figured I’d better jump on the bandwagon. Little did I know before I started this review that the bandwagon had actually been rolling for some time -- West had already written and directed four low-profile horror films before HOUSE, including, if wikipedia can honestly be believed on this, CABIN FEVER 2. 


    INKEEPERS is not what you might expect from the director of CABIN FEVER 2, or from the reputation of HOUSE OF THE DEVIL. Actually it’s not the kind of film you might expect from anyone. It’s a sort of odd fairy tale/slacker comedy/horror movie hybrid, told in three portentously-titled acts with an epilogue. You know, like, Um. Wasn’t there a SAW sequel kind of like that?


    I knew HOUSE OF THE DEVIL famously took its time building up to a big payoff, so I wasn’t surprised, at first, that this one doesn’t start throwing ghosts at us right off the bat. But it IS a horror movie, right? I mean, we will get to them? The movie very cutely keeps hinting that it will, and then never seems to get around to it. So instead, what we get is our two leads Claire (Sarah Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) as early-20 and early 30s (respectively) clerks at a supposedly haunted hotel on its last weekend of operation. They talk about ghosts a good bit (Luke is creating a website about the hotel and supposedly looking for “proof” of supernatural activity) and every once in awhile the music gets spooky to remind us that something scary is incipient. But then nothing ever happens. And at about halfway through, you suddenly realize that it’s all some sort of weird tease. When the first genuine shock scare happens, you almost can’t believe your eyes. Did that really happen?!


    And that’s the odd magic this thing works on you. It’s the filmatic equivalent of hanging out with your friends, telling scary stories, and finally working up enough courage to peek into the old abandoned house down the road. You’re gonna be scared, but nothing’s really going to happen. And that’s OK. Because it’s fun wasting time with friends and freaking each other out. And you’re going to think of Claire and Luke as your friends, or at least your friendly co-workers, by the end. There’s a real honest charm to their performances and to their unique relationship. I can’t think of another film that really ever explored this particular dynamic with the depth that this one does, and yet it’s something I’m certain every person can relate to. They’re not exactly friends in the sense that they have much in common or would spend time together outside work -- but being stuck at the same boring job all day breeds a kind of easy camaraderie. If they weren’t stuck there, they wouldn’t be together, but they are, so why not spend the time making jokes, giving each other grief, getting drunk, and talking about the issues. The rapport between them feels exceedingly easy and natural, and both Paxton and Healy are utterly believable and likeable. Paxton, in particular, is spunky and adorable in a way which makes her endearing, vulnerable, and hilarious all at once.
   

Given the relaxed and ingratiating vibe of hanging out late nights in an almost-empty hotel with these two, it’s almost a shame when --with maybe 30 minutes remaining-- West remembers it’s actually a horror movie and has to provide some ghosts. The horror is nothing to be embarrassed about, but it’s a little generic for an otherwise genre-defying film. I’d have been perfectly happy for the whole thing to be a giant tease, but if you’re going to build to a horror climax from such a unique and extended setup, I’d say the horror needs to be a little more shocking than this. What’s more, there seems to be the suggestion that all this has something to say about the inability to escape fate which isn’t exactly backed up by the rest of the narrative**.

It’s not a disaster by any stretch of the imagination, it’s simply that the end of the film changes direction enough that it doesn’t quite capitalize on the strengths of the particular dynamic it has built so stealthily during most of the runtime (except that your fondness for the characters makes you want them to survive). Which is not to say that the ending comes out of nowhere; the seeds are being sown since frame one. But the sudden change in tone is a bit jarring, and the scares, though earned, are straight out of Scary Ghost Faces 101. They’d be filler scares in INSIDIOUS 2 or something like that. Creepy, but maybe not flashy enough to hang a horror finale on.

That said, there’s something elegant about the way the film weaves its apparently conflicting tones together, in and out, throughout the whole of its runtime, veeeerrrrryyyy gradually shifting us from normal consensus reality into supernatural horror. And because the characters feel so likeable and real, putting them in scary situations has a different vibe than your usual scenario with six-or-seven disposable attractive thirtysomething college students. Here, the thirtysomething is actually playing a thirtysomething, and the fact that he’s working this job allows him to be sardonic and nonplussed, but with an undercurrent of desperation that his life has taken him here. There are undercurrents of unspoken sadness and resignation all over the film, actually. And it’s grim resignation to fate --more than terror-- that seems to be the aim of the horror. Like all the characters in the film, we’re haunted more by our own lives, our pasts --and maybe our futures-- than we are by spirits. And if the spirits get us in the end, it’s only because they’re the ultimate expression of their own pasts. The real horror is not being eaten by ghosts, but being stuck with them. Or becoming them.

PS: Also, this film has a really boss Poster.


PPS: Also, I suddenly realized that I didn't include this on my best-of-2011 list. I knew I forgot something important. So yeah, It should be there. 

Super Secret PXPS: Also longtime friend of the show Dan P. wrote a little about this one awhile back on his blog, check it out. Read this now.

*working title.


**Although interestingly, I think you can probably read something into the three guests staying at the hotel, and the different ways they are attempting to escape being trapped by their lives. Arguably there’s kind of a REAR WINDOW thing going on here, where we can imagine the stuck central characters becoming any of these people, or maybe all of them. Still don’t quite see how fate factors into it, though.