Jacob's Ladder (2019 remake)

 

Jacob’s Ladder (remake) (2019)

Dir. David M. Rosenthal

Written by Jeff Buhler, Sarah Thorpe, “story by” Jake Wade Wall, Jeff Buhler, based on a screenplay by Bruce Joel Rubin

Starring Michael Ealy, Jesse Williams, Nicole Beharie

 

 

Since the original JACOB'S LADDER is one of my very favorite horror movies of all time, I can't say I approached this (loose) remake with a lot of optimism; more like morbid curiosity. Unfortunately it doesn't even offer much to be morbidly curious about. It's not bad so much as it fails to ever be even a little good, and the ways in which it fails to be good are mostly pretty boring. It's rarely outright incompetent, but at the same time there's just no evidence whatsoever that anybody involved wanted to be here or had any clear idea why it would be worth telling this story other than to ride the coattails of a more famous movie which still isn't even that famous.

 

That is, anyway, the only reason I can think of that this would be called JACOB’s LADDER. It vaguely echoes some plot elements of the original –the titular Jacob (Michael Ealy, MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA) is an American soldier back home after a foreign war (Afghanistan rather than Vietnam) and gets mixed up with an experimental drug that leads him into a paranoid, hallucinatory journey. Similar enough that you’d probably notice, but not specific enough that they’d have to worry about lawsuits if they just ripped it off. But let’s be honest here, it’s not like someone came up with a brilliant story and just later realized it kind of superficially resembled the scenario for a cult flick from 1990. Obviously somebody picked up the rights to the remake, grabbed some gigging writer (Jeff Buhler, already responsible for THE GRUDGE REMAKE [2020] and PET SEMETARY REMAKE and the screenplay for MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN and THE PRODIGY and recently STUDIO 666) and said “write a story we can title JACOB’S LADDER so that a small percentage of people will watch it thinking it’s the good version, and a handful of horror die-hards will check it out due to a sense of morbid curiosity.” And then when they needed re-writes and the original guy didn’t want to bother, they handed it to a personal trainer or niece or somebody that the producer knew (Sarah Thorpe, no other credits) and just said “try and cut out the stuff that sounds expensive.”

 

This is not the type of scenario that one could reasonably expect to produce great art. But it could still probably be better than this. Mostly the movie as a whole is just sort of drab and pointless, but I guess the script is maybe weak enough to qualify as outright bad, although in a bland way rather than an exotic one. The story itself is built around a pretty tepid mindfuck (and pretty nonsensical should you be inclined to try and ask pissy questions like "wait, if that's what was happening, what have I been watching up til now?") though at least it's a different mindfuck than the original. (I said "different," not "better" although I'll readily admit that the twist in the original is the worst thing about it). The fact that it's very stupid is a problem for a movie this relentlessly dour, but the bigger problem is more fundamental: it fails to ever establish a convincing baseline reality --starting with Jacob and his wife’s (Nicole Beharie, SHAME) pristine, antiseptic home with its demure, compliant newborn (!) who cries exactly once and never while anyone is sleeping-- which renders its later attempts at surrealism a dismal nonstarter. Can't disrupt reality if I never for one second believe in these characters even at their status quo.

 

And it doesn't get more convincing as the situation escalates. Early on, Jacob watches as his brother Isaac (Jesse Williams, CABIN IN THE WOODS --yes, their names are Jacob and Isaac) dies in front of him. Years later, Isaac turns up alive, apparently within walking distance of Jacob's house! And Jacob's response is... mild surprise and annoyance? He basically just drops him off at his house and goes about his business. At no point does he or his wife freak out or seem to find this shocking and inexplicable and demanding of answers. He mumbles something that the paperwork must have gotten mixed up and that's that. And Ealy (who I consider to be a terrific actor, but obviously needed a little more direction here) doesn't help matters with his disappointingly tepid performance. Very quickly, this guy is experiencing totally insane shit, and his reaction never seems to rise above "mildly perturbed." I'm sorry, but putting a five-o'clock shadow on Michael Ealy does not make him look tormented, it just makes him look hotter. And he's already borderline too hot to take seriously in the first place.

 

So yeah, it's a bad script, but it's at least committed to its dumb twist, and could, maybe, have been salvaged by some real directorial flair. But if any director was going to be able to pull that off, David M. Rosenthal --who must be a real charming guy, considering how often in his career he's been able to pull amazingly overqualified casts for completely anonymous DTV genre fare-- ain't the one to do it. The original JACOB'S LADDER is a masterclass in gritty, nightmare-fueled paranoia; this has a perfunctory sort of visual slickness that makes it feel like a gloomy car commercial, and the best it can manage in the nightmare department is that lame thing where someone's face will suddenly distort into a SCREAM mask and they’ll shout "boo!" (a trick I was already mocking as shamelessly unimaginative back when DEAD BIRDS did it like a thousand years ago). Creating a paranoid thriller is all about using the tools of cinema to create a heightened, anxious mental state, and this is just utterly, woefully unable to do it, instead drifting between hacky jump-scare scenes and languid, clunky backstory which is so rigidly built to service the goofy twist that the movie can barely even pretend to be a straight horror movie. Its problem isn't really that it's a lunkheaded cash-in trading on the good name of a classic; it's that it's just kind of boring.

 

Props for the scene near the end where he has sex with the Angel of Death, though. If the whole thing were that eccentric and melodramatic, we might actually have something here.

The Tripper

The Tripper (2006)  aka PRESIDENT EVIL (Germany, which I'm slowly learning has all the best titles)

Dir. David Arquette

Written by David Arquette, Joe Harris

Starring Jamie King, Lukas Haas, Thomas Jane, Jason Mewes, Paul Ruben

It’s comforting to know that even in this age of gutless cynicism and soulless corporate pandering, there remain some people truly in it for the art. Such is the case of celebrated auteur David Arquette (actor, 8 LEGGED FREAKS, SCREAM 2), who originally made this delightful slasher to be part of the 8 Films To Die For horror festival. That would have been a smart business move, and this movie would probably be better known than it is now had that deal had gone through as originally conceived. But Arquette knew, in his heart of hearts, that the only morally upright time to premiere the film would be on 4/20. When he couldn’t make that work out with the festival organizers, he was faced with a hard choice. I’m sure he was tempted to compromise; just like anyone would have been, I’m sure he had sleepless nights, tossing and turning, that voice of Satan in his head whispering to him what’s the harm in making just this one, small concession? But deep down, he knew that there is no such thing as a small concession; there is only truly great art and compromised corporate bullshit. He knew he had to follow his vision. And so, he was forced to amicably part ways with the festival and strike out on his own, into the uncertain (and, it turned out, not especially lucrative) future. But he got his wish: the movie premiered 4/20/2007, and the Muses were satisfied. That’s a commitment to craft, right there, and as telling a sign as one could ask for that Arquette knew exactly the movie he was trying to make. If you don’t know why that date would be so important, this is probably not the movie for you.

This is a slasher, and a pretty delightful one at that, but the 4/20 release date was so necessary because it’s equal parts drug movie, placing it squarely in a subgenre of mind-altered horror films I’ve dubbed Narco Horror. It concerns a cadre of drugged-up hippies (Jaime King [SIN CITY], Lukas Haas [MARS ATTACK], Jason Mewes [JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK], Brad Hunt [FIRE DOWN BELOW, MAGNOLIA], Balthazar Getty [LOST HIGHWAY] and others) attending a big hippie party thrown in the deep forests of Northern CA by a shady promoter (Paul Reubens, PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE), only to be subjected to the slashings of a mysterious hippie-hating killer wearing a Ronald Reagan mask. So not only do they have to contend with an ax-wielding maniac throwing out one-liners which are all Reagan quotes, but they have to do it while high as balls. (Hence, the movie’s torture pun of a title, which combines drug tripping with “The Gipper.”) Not that they do it that well, or anything.

The movie manages to flank the usual hackey slasher burnout and deliver a wallop on mostly no budget at all, thanks mostly to the actors --presumably all friends of Arquette, since I doubt any of them were paid much for this. The whole script and scenario are absurd on their face, but this cast, unlike the usual body count meat wagon, has genuine charisma even when their lines are (intentionally) ridiculous. Mewes, for example, is no one’s idea of a classically great actor, but he still manages to command your attention without seeming to expend any particular effort to do so. He has “it” -- he’s just entertaining to watch, totally independent of anything related to the technical craft of acting, or even the schlocky genre trappings. Most of the cast is like that; they’re a sturdy collection of lively and charming actors mostly just fucking around and having some fun with it. Arquette has a rock solid sense for his intended tone, and gets all the actors on board; they’re all exaggerated right to the border or pure parody, but not quite over. It’s corny and excessive in exactly the right balance with its genuine desire to be a legit horror film: not so much that it’s alienating or so little that it stops being fun to see them get hacked up by the Gipper. Thomas Jane (THE PUNISHER, THE MIST) in particular is a hoot as the town’s mustachio’d tough guy cop. He’s a funny stereotype of corny aviator-sporting square police, but also kind of likeable and imbued with a snarky sense of wit.  

The drug stuff offers plenty of wild, trippy visuals, and the film boldly goes out-and-out psychedelic on a few occasions. But Arquette doesn’t skimp on the horror staples either, providing plenty of gnarly murders, mutilations, a whole fuck of a lot of tits, a handsomely crafted finale, a lovingly crafted gimmick killer with an appropriately ridiculous backstory, and as if that weren’t already richer bounty than we deserve, the great ska/punk/metal/funk/soul band Fishbone appears out of nowhere for a huge concert and even contributes quite a bit to the soundtrack, ensuring that this hippie theme stays nicely funky. Heck, singer Angelo Moore even has a scene where he gets yelled at by Paul Reubens. And dear old Wes Craven has a cameo as a top hat-sporting wise old drifter. THE TRIPPER, you didn’t have to do all that just for me, you had me at Axin’ Ronnie Reagan. But it sure is appreciated.

For a movie about a rampaging Reagan --and especially one made during the dog days of the Bush administration-- the film handily eschews partisan bitterness. The hippies are our protagonists, and obviously the point of view that Arquette is the most sympathetic to, but they’re not always saints. They’re completely dismissive of the redneck locals (including Arquette in a cameo) whose town they’re flooding into, and even of the police, who are trying (not especially successfully) to keep them alive. As is appropriate for a movie about a killer Reagan, the Republicans are definitely the villains, but the movie isn’t entirely unsympathetic to them, either; they get a chance to explain their bitterness, and the movie even backs them up to a degree. A lot of modern lefty movies seem like they’re made wholly as vehicles for progressives to vent their pent-up frustrations, and as such they stack the deck in their favor in a way every bit as disingenuous as DEATH WISH or VIGILANTE stacked it in favor of the Angry White Males of the 80’s. I was one frustrated motherfucker during the Bush years, so I understand that urge, but it tended to result in works of art which were bitter and self-serving in a way which doesn’t hold up very well. THE TRIPPER feels a little more genial than that; it gives both sides a good-natured and well-deserved ribbing, saves its real disdain for hypocrites, and punishes them appropriately. My one complaint is that the ostensible main character doesn't do drugs and spends the whole movie whining that other people at this hippie nude fest are on them. Yes, your "final girl" is supposed to be the responsible one, but does she really have to be such a scold? Anyway, a minor point and it does kinda pay off at the end, but why not let your final girl in this ridiculous movie have a little more fun?

This one also gets bonus points for being one of the rare Chainsawnukah horror movies to feature an actual chainsaw

For something so cheap, the movie has a nicely muddy, slightly grainy look to it which makes it kind of visually distinct (it actually reminds me of the similarly curious look of the David-Arquette-starring overlooked 1997 indie DREAM WITH THE FISHES). The look of the film gives it a nebulous ambiance of 70’s z-grade indies without especially emulating it, setting it apart from the majority of slick modern thrillers without seeming deliberately retro or kitschy. There are some moments of regrettably 2006 datedness (rapid Avid farts with loud horror stings abound, especially early on) but a brisk pace, offbeat tone, strong cast and some striking images (I love Paul Rubens’ big speech in front of a giant American flag, evoking PATTON) more than make up for any first-time-filmmaker amateurishness. Reagan once said, “You can tell a lot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating Jelly Beans,” (a quote which, happily, is referenced in the film). Well, I like jellybeans OK, but in my opinion a better measure of a man is his way of making slasher movies.* You’ve got your slick, corporate Platinum Dunes guys (PROM NIGHT REMAKE); your regional horror enthusiastic amateurs making adorably incompetent weirdness (THE TOWN THE DREADED SUNDOWN, SATAN’S BLADE); your nasty, misanthropic (or flat-out misogynistic) exploitation (PIECES); your campy, crazy gimmick-stuffed bloodletting (SLEEPAWAY CAMP, HATCHET); your by-the-numbers unimaginative genre retreads (PROM NIGHT ORIGINAL, THE PROWLER). And then there’s this: a little arty, a little silly, maybe even a little topical, but with plenty of lovingly-crafted blood squirts from ax wounds, and also Fishbone is in it. I don’t know if Reagan would have agreed, but as far as I’m concerned this guy Arquette is A-OK. He hasn’t directed another film since this (some TV movies and stuff, though he’s been acting quite prolifically) but hey, great art is never appreciated in its own time. If the man ever lets Arquette make the much-deserved sequel (set in a slaughterhouse and subtitled: THE DUTCHER) you can count me in for the trip.

*I use “man” here in the sense of “mankind,” and apologize for the male-only pronouns. I struggle with this because it can get cumbersome to always write “person” and his/her in long sentences, but I don’t want the ladies to feel excluded, obviously plenty of women have directed hacky slashers too. In this case I decided to simply follow Reagan’s explicitly gendered example for stylistic reasons, but come on people, can we finally get on making that “Ze” non-gendered pronoun a real thing so I don’t have to make Sophie’s choice here?

Man, why hasn't Thomas Jane ever fronted Fishbone? They must at least have asked, right?

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2015 CHECKLIST!

Play it Again, Samhain

• TAGLINE: Sex, Drugs, and Rock'N'Ronnie!
• LITERARY ADAPTATION: No
• SEQUEL: No
• REMAKE: No
• DEADLY IMPORT FROM: USA
• FOUND-FOOTAGE CLUSTERFUCK: No
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: Thomas Jane for sure; I dunno, Courtney Cox or David Arquette have cameos, are they A-list? Maybe Lukas Haas, he was in WITNESS?
• BELOVED HORROR ICON: Wes Craven
• BOOBIES: Tons
• MULLETS: None that I noticed
• SEXUAL ASSAULT: No
• DISMEMBERMENT PLAN: Lots of chopping, including a hand and a head.
• HAUNTED HOUSE: No
• MONSTER: No
• THE UNDEAD: No (unfortunately, the killer is not the reanimated corpse of the late 40th president.)
• POSSESSION: No
• SLASHER/GIALLO: Most certainly.
• PSYCHO KILLERS (Non-slasher variety): No
• EVIL CULT: None. Well, Republicanism, maybe.
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS: None
• EGYPTO-CRYPTO: No
• TRANSMOGRIFICATION: None
• VOYEURISM: Nah
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: Medium. Had a theatrical release and everything but not a major one.
• MORAL OF THE STORY: "Your guilty conscience may force you to vote Democratic, but deep down inside you secretly long for a cold-hearted Republican to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule you like a king."
• TITLE ACCURACY: Oh yeah
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: N/A.

Banshee Chapter

Banshee Chapter (2013)

Dir. and written by Blair Erickson

Starring Katia Winter, Michael McMillian, Ted Levine

This weird, quasi-found-footage cheapie (it starts out as explicitly found footage, but then the rest is shot the same way even though there’s no one actively filming) mixes conspiracy thriller with Lovecraft and a dash of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and comes out with something which is less than a sum of its parts but is nonetheless kind of interesting and effective.

Our protagonist is Anne (Katia Winters, Dexter season 7), a nice young lady who decides to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her old friend James (Michael McMillian) after he leaves behind a found-footage mess explaining that he’s taken experimental drugs and that something is coming for him. Her research leads her to a mysterious numbers station broadcasting creepy calliope music all the time (is this really what our tax dollars pay for? My god, Grover Norquist was right!), secret government MKUltra experiments from the 60s, hidden desert labs in abandoned fallout shelters, mind-snatching ultradimensional conspiracies, and a mysterious countercultural novelist named Thomas Blackburn (Ted Levine, NOWHERE TO RUN, also I guess SILENCE OF THE LAMBS if you want to get technical).

Though I appreciate her desire to save electricity, this is exactly the sort of situation where I'd switch the overhead light on. But I dunno, I've never snooped around a creepy basement looking for evidence of a sinister conspiracy before, so who can say what I'd really do in her situation.

It’s a pretty cool idea for a horror/thriller, but a lot of the payoffs here are pretty disappointingly conventional. Nearly every horror scene in the movie is built around the same tiresome found-footage gimmick where people slowly walk around seeing nothing and then suddenly they catch a glimpse of a scary face or something, there’s a loud musical sting and then the camera starts shaking around everywhere as everyone runs for cover. Effective, admittedly, but a little unambitious and unimaginative for something with such a weird plot. There’s a nice incorporation of real-life conspiracy stuff (mysterious radio broadcasts, MKUltra, COINTELPRO-like disinfo campaigns) but despite a comfortably slow build, almost nothing is really expounded upon in any meaningful or interesting way, they’re just name-checked and then we move on to something else. For a super-secret multi-pronged conspiracy that stretches back decades, it’s also remarkably easy for a plucky young blonde to uncover on her own without any serious research. Usually to uncover a conspiracy you gotta spend agonizing hours going through yellowed government records; here, you just have to drive to the place where the conspiracy is and you’ll see it. Boy, how come no one thought to do that sooner?

Even so, the film has a weird sense of unease about it. It’s not really justified by the filmmaking or anything, but I think the mix of drug movie, conspiracy thriller and Lovecraftian horror is simply too potent and strange to really entire shrug off, even when the actual specifics are a little threadbare. Even though the scares themselves are run-of-the-mill, the tone and the locations (isolated Colorado deserts at night) are unusual enough that it sort of works, it sucks you in for awhile and builds to an effective paranoid patter. The long wait for the scare actually works, even if the scare itself doesn’t*. In that sense it actually gets right what most adapters of Lovecraft bungle: creating a fear of the unknown, a fear that whatever the fuck this is, it’s bad bad bad in a way you may not be ready to handle. Lovecraft usually didn’t really describe the horrors in his books either, leaving your imagination to fill in the details. This one sort of gets that, and to some degree reproduces it visually with its inky black spaces full of malicious potential, occasionally punctuated by a fleeting glimpse of some unnamable horror.

Gaaaah! It's... something!

Various internet sources claim the movie is specifically based on Lovecraft’s The Beyond, (already adapted by Stuart Gordon into a delightful body-dysmorphia horrorshow in 1986) and there are some similar ideas, though it seems like a stretch to call it a direct adaptation.** As far as I noticed, neither Lovecraft nor his story are explicitly credited on-screen, but the vibe is definitely there. In fact, it probably ranks among the very best Lovecraft-inspired films, not that it really has a ton of competition in that regard. It’s less successful as a drug movie; although drugs are a big part of the plot, the actual filmmaking is resolutely literal and as a result can’t do much with the intriguing concept of altered perception in the midst of horror. Someday someone will make the great American Drug movie/horror movie hybrid that I prophesied in my ALYCE KILLS review, but this isn’t it. Oh well, at least it’s trying.

It doesn't seem very scary now, but what if it suddenly appeared out of the blue, accompanied by a sudden loud noise, and then the camera freaked out and shook around a whole bunch. You'd be losing your shit, my friend.

There are a few moderately effective setpieces as the finale looms, and even a few pretty nifty-looking creature effects (though of course you can’t see much of them thanks to the faux-found footage camerawork). But by far the best thing about the movie actually has nothing to do with ultradimensional conspiracies or Lovecraftian horrors. The best thing turns out to be Ted Levine doing an absolutely delightful Hunter S. Thompson impersonation. Oh, his character is named “Blackburn,” but it’s so nakedly and so accurately Thompson that you can’t help but love it. Levine may even top Johnny Depp’s classic take on the famed gonzo journalist, matching Depp in eccentricity but adding a touch of Thompson’s Southern Gentlemanly charm as well.

This brings us to an odd question, because although Levine’s performance is far and away the best thing in the movie, I’m not sure it should be there. Like Guy LaPoint in TUSK, this broad, funny characterization feels like a very odd  --if not out and out irreconcilable-- mix with the otherwise serious conspiracy thriller. I’m conflicted about how well it works; on one hand, it’s hugely entertaining, but on the other it’s also a huge, weird distraction in a movie which is already a little overpacked with different ideas and directions. The movie is otherwise absolutely grim, making Levine’s lively and comic performance a welcome relief but also a dismaying tonal shift. Levine seems to find the right tone in his performance to bridge the gap, but it’s unquestionably a weird idea that sometimes at the very least teeters near total disaster. The world is definitely better off for having this performance, but I’m not sure the movie is.

We can't stop here. This is hat country.

Still, for all my gripes, this is a pretty good one. If I’m hard on it it’s because it’s so close to being a genuine classic that it’s a little disappointing that it can’t quite make it. It’s an honest attempt, though, and despite any missteps it manages to take a really cool idea and pull it off even with what must be a torturously low budget. If this guy Blair Erickson can hire an actual cameraman next time, I think he may well have what it takes to make some real honest-to-god scary films. Or at least a better version of The Rum Diaries. Maybe with a dash of PREDATOR or something thrown in there just for fun. Boy, I’m obviously against ultradimensional mind-control conspiracies, but when ya type a sentence like “The Rum Diaries meet PREDATOR” I gotta admit, it’s hard not to see the appeal.

PS: The poster for this one claims: “From the producer of MARGIN CALL.” Kinda weird to assume there’s a ton of crossover of people who loved MARGIN CALL and also would be interested in a found-footage Lovecraftian conspiracy thriller with drug elements, but that’s technically true. The weirder part, though, is the producer they’re referring to is Zachary Quinto! You know, that new Spock who instead of being like old Spock is sexy and angry all the time! Guess he’s putting that STAR TREK money to good use as penance for being part of such a desperate cash grab. But hey, if he keeps producing movies this interesting, I’ll forgive him for it.  

PPS: Wow, apparently this is the first movie ever to have an Oculus Rift Virtual Reality edition. I could really see it working for this one, since the virtual reality element would sit nicely with the otherwise unexplained point-of-view footage and really immerse you in the action. When I get an Oculus Rift in 20 years or whenever they become affordable, I’ll totally check this out again!

*Which --counterintuitively-- is arguably better than the inverse, because you’re going to spend way more time in the buildup than you ever will the payoff.

**It also hilariously bills itself as a true story, presumably because there was such a thing as MKUltra (by that same logic, Seagal’s SUBMERGED and SHADOW MAN are also true stories).

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2014 CHECKLIST!

The Hunt For Dread October

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: Arguably loosely adapted from Lovecraft's The Beyond.
• SEQUEL: None
• REMAKE: No, although there is a 1986 Stuart Gordon version of THE BEYOND.
• FOREIGNER: Nein.
• FOUND-FOOTAGE CLUSTERFUCK: Yes. Explicitly so at the beginning with a few bits scattered throughout; otherwise, it just mimics the style without specifically having a camera present. Why they would do this I do not know, I just watch 'em.
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: Ted Levine isn't exactly A-list, but it's still cool he's in this.
• BELOVED HORROR ICON: None
• BOOBIES: Nope
• SEXUAL ASSAULT: No
• DISMEMBERMENT PLAN: Top of skull sawed off.
• HAUNTED HOUSE: No
• MONSTER: Some kind of Lovecrafty thing, you can't see it really but I bet it's cool.
• THE UNDEAD: Nah
• POSSESSION: Yes, there is a strong implication of possession here, though not the usual ghostly kind, more of a mind-control deal.
• SLASHER/GIALLO: Nah
• PSYCHO KILLERS (Non-slasher variety): No
• EVIL CULT: Nah
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS: Nope
• TRANSMOGRIFICATION: Yeah, I think there's a suggestion of that here.
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: Mid. Got tiny theatrical release apparently, but it's been on Netflix ever since.
• MORAL OF THE STORY: Just say no to alien drugs.
• TITLE ACCURACY: Absolutely, 100% inexplicable. No Banshee, no chapter, nothing that would even remotely indicate what in the hell that means.
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: N/A

Alyce Kills

Alyce Kills (2011)

Dir. and written by Jay Lee

Starring Jade Dornfeld, Tamara Feldman, Eddie Rouse, James Duvall

So what we got here is a really solid, drugged up losing-your-sanity movie that slowly, almost imperceptibly, evolves from a grounded psychological horror to a more familiar genre bloodletting. It’s kinda bold, when you get right down to it, and I imagine it’s gonna put off a lot of people who would prefer either a dramatic, psychological story or a horror show bloodbath, but won’t necessarily like the two stuck together in a haze of psychedelic drugs. To me, of course, that sounds great, and I’m sure you’ll love it too.*

Basically, this is the story of Alyce (Jade Dornfeld), who you should immediately assume is some kind of sociopathic monster because she spells her name with a goddam y. Even that evil little shit Alice from ALICE SWEET ALICE at least had the decency to use an “i” like a decent, god-fearing sort of person. But Alyce seems ok at first, she’s sort of mousy and nondescript, a nice gal but an obvious hanger-on to her best friend, the much more confident and dynamic Carroll (Tamara Feldman, HATCHET). The two of them enjoy a night of wild excess --clearly the most genuine human contact Alyce has experienced in a long time-- during which they find out Carroll’s boyfriend has been cheating, get wasted, take a bunch of drugs, and end up on the roof of Alyce’s building. Not alway the most promising sequence of events, and by the end of it, Carroll takes a dive off the roof and Alyce finds herself lying to the cops about it. But did Carroll fall in a drugged out stupor, or did Alyce give her a push? And if so, why?

The smoking gun

With her one friend gone, Alyce plunges into a nightmare of spiralling addiction and guilt-ridden paranoia, relying on Carroll’s former drug dealer (Eddie Rouse, AMERICAN GANGSTER, mesmerizing here) to dull her pain, even as he shamelessly exploits her needs (financially, sexually, and through the medium of delivering rambling Tarantino-esque monologues). But gradually, her breakdown causes her to refocus herself, and without the boundaries of her old life her inclinations take on a worrisomely murderous timbre.

Frankly, I find it bizarre that this is the first movie I’ve seen in a very long time to attempt to meld a drug movie with a horror plot. They seem like they ought to go together so well -- horror movies, like drug movies, are so much about tearing away the mundane trappings of consensus reality and exposing the bizarre things that spill out of the human brain when it’s not properly constrained. After all, the horror that arises from being uncertain about reality goes back to Poe’s stories of madness and unstable narrators -- the altered perspective brought on by drugs seems like a completely intuitive mirror for this kind of psychological adventurism. In fact, a lot of the best horror are almost drug movies already; giallos especially are rightly famous for their surreal, expressionistic imagery and lack of narrative logic. Throw in a scene at the start where everyone does mushrooms and it would almost let them make more sense. Yet, you just don’t see this attempted much. There’s POP SKULL, which is terrible but at least is trying. There’s SHROOMS, which I haven’t seen. I guess LOVELY MOLLY does have a drug element, but it never seems like that’s responsible for her hallucinations or whatever. Hmm. Internet says TOAD ROAD (I haven’t seen it) and BLUE SUNSHINE (haven’t seen it). Somebody needs to get on this, I swear to you it’s gonna be golden someday.

Anway, Jay Lee (director of, holy shit, fucking ZOMBIE STRIPPERS?!) does a fine job cultivating a sweaty, hallucinogenic tone here, and is rewarded by a fine lead cast (Dornfeld, Feldman and Rouse are all terrific, the second-tier cast is noticeably less so). The movie has a kind of grim cartoonishness to it at times, but it also finds quite a nuanced protagonist in Alyce, who, I think, means well on some level but eventually snaps from her own isolation and feelings of powerlessness. She’s sympathetic, even pathetic, but at the same time there’s a wheedling strand of real gleeful sadism there too, perhaps an understandable reaction to a world which seems to constantly reject her but nevertheless more than enough to make her unstable and dangerous. Even before her real drug-fueled slide from sanity documented in the movie, she at least considered murdering her best friend, even if maybe she never imagined she’d actually do it (and maybe she didn’t, but still knows enough to feel guilty about it). So she’s a complex character; someone who we feel for, but also see is perhaps much more capable of violence than even she realizes.

One wonders, is this actually a story of female empowerment through domination and violence, a la KICK-ASS or WANTED? I mean, Alyce has a lot in common with the rejected, frustrated male protagonists of those movies, and her eventual self-confidence boost from brutal violence is exactly the same. The only thing it lacks is those movies’ labored efforts to put their protagonists’ violent empowerment in a more morally safe context (don’t worry, the movie tells us, they’re murdering people for truth and justice and shit! Everybody wins!). ALYCE KILLS is somewhat more honest than that; Alyce feels disempowered and unfairly maligned, and eventually lashes out just to show she can. And you gotta admit, the movie doesn’t entirely condemn her for it, after all, the people she kills really are total assholes. And she really does seem much happier this way. Maybe director Lee is trying to crack open the darker aspects of that famously unpleasant nerd-empowerment narrative by putting a more emotionally vulnerable woman at the heart of the story and letting the results speak for themselves? I dunno, I guess it doesn’t really feel like some kinda meta commentary, but you gotta admit the familiarity of these story beats is interesting. KICK-ASS is almost identical, except that the people he kills are criminals, instead of emotional bullies (making it totally morally acceptable in the eyes of the film, and making him into a hero while she’s a psychopath).

Food network needs more shows like this.

Regardless of the intent, it’s nice to see a woman at the heart of a story like this, and it’s even nicer to see her presented as a complex, flawed character. There’s a pleasing ambiguity to it all, too; once the drugs enter the picture you never really know for sure what exactly is real, and you never get a full backstory on Alyce either, so although you learn a lot about her from how she reacts to the events of the movie, there’s never any explicit (read: lazy) answer for how she ended up this way. There’s no flashback where as a child she saw her mom having sex with a sailor and that explains why she turns out to be a killer, like you would get in a giallo. The movie’s more or less narratively direct, but it gives you plenty of space to try and muse over some of the details here, and never feels the need to overexplain or psychoanalyze out loud. Surprisingly confident move there for a guy who named his last movie ZOMBIE STRIPPERS.

ALYCE KILLS is at its best early on, when it luxuriates in a guilt-ridden hallucinogenic slide into madness. At about the last quarter, it turns a little pulpier (and a whole lot bloodier), which is fun, well-executed genre payoff but maybe not quite as affecting as the more internalized, psychological horror of the three quarters. I mean, it’s got some top-shelf gore, a nice streak of jet-black humor, and a genuine tension about where things are gonna go. But I liked it better when it was playing a bit more earnestly. Alyce is too interesting a character to ever get completely overwhelmed, no matter how much goopy red stuff she gets covered in, but come on, lots of movies have blood. Few movies have the ambition to crack open the kind of chaotic, intriguing mind we see gradually tear itself apart here. Maybe Lee should have trusted that to take us all the way here. Either way, though, an enjoyable attempt. The great American horror/drug movie has yet to be made, but ALYCE KILLS is a real solid attempt, and full of pleasures both prurient and a bit more ethereal.

*Warning, certainty on my part should not be confused with the recommendation of a person with good judgement. Talk to your doctor to see if madess, ultraviolence and mild-altering drugs are right for you.

So, this is the German cover for ALYCE KILLS. Notice anything different?

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2014 CHECKLIST!

The Hunt For Dread October

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: No
• SEQUEL: Nope
• REMAKE: Nope
• FOREIGNER: Nope
• FOUND-FOOTAGE CLUSTERFUCK: No
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: None.
• BELOVED HORROR ICON: None.
• BOOBIES: Yes.
• SEXUAL ASSAULT: Some pretty borderline stuff, anyway.
• DISMEMBERMENT PLAN: Significant limb loss, body blended into goo.
• HAUNTED HOUSE: No
• MONSTER: None.
• THE UNDEAD: Alyce gets a few visits by Carroll's ghost, but its never clear if this is real or a drug-induced hallucination.
• POSSESSION: No
• SLASHER/GIALLO: No
• PSYCHO KILLERS (Non-slasher variety): Yes
• EVIL CULT: None
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS: No dolls.
• TRANSMOGRIFICATION: None.
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: High, little indie
• MORAL OF THE STORY: Drugs, rooftops, and emotionally unstable friends are not a winning mixture.
• TITLE ACCURACY: 100% confirmed, accurate.
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: N/A