The Dunwich Horror

The Dunwich Horror (1970)
Dir. Daniel Haller
Written by Curtis Hanson (?!) and Henry Rosenbaum and Ronald Silkosky
Starring Dean Stockwell, Ed Begley, Sandra Dee, Talia Shire

    Loosely based on the H. P. Lovecraft story of the same name, this schlocky 70s Roger Corman / Arkoff/Nicholson production finds a young Dean Stockwell as a strange young man who is a little too interested in getting his hands on the unabridged copy of the nefarious Necronomicon that the local college conveniently stocks.

    If there ever has been a film adaptation that truly lived up to Lovecraft’s talents, I’ve never seen it. Stuart Gordon has had some good attempts, and of course there’s that NECRONOMICON anthology I watched earlier this month, but to really capture that epic, almost philosophical horror that makes Lovecraft unique is a hard thing to do, in the same way it’s so difficult to capture that romantic melancholy which has thwarted so many who try to adapt the works of Poe. Corman tried both many times, and I’ve never seen one which I thought really succeeded. Director Daniel Haller is not the guy to beat the odds, but he does bring some nice touches which ensure that this one isn’t a total wash.

A nice spot for a romantic picnic/sacrifice/demon impregnation

      For one thing, even though the adaptation is loose most of Lovecraft’s fundamental ideas are still pretty well represented. You still got Stockwell name-dropping Yog-Sothoth, still got the insane mom impregnated by an extradimensional demon, still got an aspiring young hellraiser seeking out the Necronomicon in search of the the secret recipe for cooking up the return of an Elder God. The details are there, and I think it was a genuinely earnest attempt to adapt Lovecraft’s world to film (its biggest alteration is its decided non-Lovecraftian tendency to remember that women exist). But really, more of it’s DNA comes from its Corman/Arkoff/Nicholson production than from the land of Cthulu. That means pretensions of gothy atmosphere mixed with swinging 70’s psychedelia and amateurish production elements. That can sometimes be a fun time on it’s own, but mostly it means inert productions which mostly consist of iffy acting in overlit but impressively constructed castle sets. Which is the case here.
   
    Stockwell, actually, is quite good as the not-quite human Wilbur Whateley, bringing a sort of understated anger masked by softness to the role. Problem is, he’s kind of a cypher and usually up to no good, but there’s not really any other character for the viewer to identify with. Ed Begley (in his last role!) crops up from time to time and ultimately has to save the day, but really he mostly just delivers exposition and sits around. Sandra “Gidget” Dee falls under Whateley’s spell early on and spends most of the rest of the film in an undressed stupor. Talia Shire is her friend who briefly seems like she’s going to try to put a stop to the madness, but it’s Talia Shire so we're not entirely shocked to see her raped to (spoiler) death by a many-(spoiler)tentacled (end spoiler) monster. I mean, I guess we’re a little shocked. Maybe the fact that it’s shot in alternative negative gradients to show us how Ca-raaaazy it is helps soften the blow. Which ultimately leaves us with just Stockwell, far and away the only compelling character anywhere in sight. We even kind of understand why he wants to destroy mankind when we see how fucked up the local Christian villagers treat him (they even interrupt his impromptu funeral for his own grandfather to tell him he can’t bury the old guy in a “Christian Cemetery”). But we’re not supposed to be rooting for this guy, are we?

Isn't technology amazing. This is where Stanley Kubrick got the idea for 2001, no question about it.

    Ironically, my fellow horror-marathoner Dan P. thought it unraveled at the end, whereas I though it actually picked up some steam. After a grueling expository slog* of mildy entertaining but overlong psychedelic mumbo jumbo which is only occasionally weird enough to be interesting, the end seems to get a little bit of life as the editing quickens, the photography gets more focused, the monsters get loose, and people start getting eaten and/or raped to death. For a second, it seems kind of like Stockwell may pull it off and you start to get a little excited to see where this is going. Unfortunately, the whole thing gets defused so easily it ends up feeling a little disappointing. How do you defeat a half-demon madman summoning an elder god into Gidget’s womb? You just yell some nonsense at him, and that takes care of that. Oh, I guess we needn’t have worried.
   
PS: I do like it’s Saul Bass-inspired credits sequence, however, which plays like a mix between the opening credits to VERTIGO and THE PINK PANTHER. If the rest of the movie had been that stylish and playful, we might really have had something

See Dan P's take here, as Abbot and Costello do something with something else etc..


*Most of the movie, by the way, is spent gradually discovering the “secret” which was the movie’s tagline. Not a great move.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2012 CHECKLIST!

LOVECRAFT ADAPTATION: Yeah, and semi-faithful as far as this type of thing goes.
BOOBIES: Yep, but Gidget keeps her top on, dammit.
> or = HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS LEVEL GORE: No memorable gore.
SEQUEL: No, although arguably part of "Cthulu mythos"
OBSCURITY LEVEL: Mid. B-movie, but readily available.
MONSTERS: One so awesome that even though he's invisible we still sometimes see him.
SATANISTS: We're way past Satan here.
ZOMBIES: No.
VAMPIRES: No.
SLASHERS: No.
CURSES: No.
ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: N/A.

Slugs

Slugs (1988)
Dir. Juan Piquer Simon
Written by: Juan Piquer Simon, Ron Gantman
Starring Slugs, white people

This poster is closer to accurate than many I've put up this month, and as an added bonus: Best font ever.

Alas, not the inevitable movie adaptation of the horribly racist arcade Arab-slaughtering side scroller classic "Metal Slug"; instead it’s a horror movie. About Slugs. It’s not a metaphor or something, the movie is actually about slugs. Scaaaaary slugs that eat human flesh and, in one particularly amusing scene, attempt to bite a guy’s finger with big monster teeth.

These slugs have invaded Smalltownamerica, NY (well, the exteriors, anyway. It appears to be the only American town where the inside of buildings are located in Spain) and are always up to nefarious business like swarming up from the cellar and eating an angry drunk, causing an old dude to blow up his own house, swarming onto the floor while a naked couple fucks, etc. That much you probably assumed. What you and I never suspected, though, is that this low-budget Spanish production about killer slugs would actually be a pretty-entertaining-often-stupid-but-rarely-boring success. The cast is likeable, the slugs are numerous, the gore is chunky, and the gimmicks are memorable. One guy falls into deep slug-infested water and it suddenly turns into a frothing fountain of blood, as though the slugs suddenly started thrashing about like piranhas. What more could you possibly want from a movie called SLUGS which is about slugs?

The only real problem I have with this movie is that --like Aja’s PIRANHA 3D-- for some reason it spends a good bit of time making us like certain characters and hate others, but never allows those feelings to pay off in the kills. Why bother establishing that the Sheriff is a prick and that the Mayor who refuses to close the beach --sorry, the sewer!-- is corrupt, if you’re not gonna give them some satisfying slug-related comeuppance? Why spend time making sure we like a couple major characters if they’re just going to be killed offhandedly and never mentioned again? The worst offender in this regard is a young woman we meet at the beginning who seems kind of nerdy and unpopular (which means that anyone who would ever watch this movie immediately identifies with her). She doesn’t appear again until the end, when she attends one of those high school parties they have out in the woods with red cups and dancing and awesome 80’s jams. Some asshole tries to get in her pants, she says no, he gets mad and storms off. Then he comes back in a mask and tries to rape her! Holy shit, what a fucking prick. Can’t wait to see how the slugs fix his metaphorical wagon. Guess what. No dice. Instead, she falls to her death and gets eaten by slugs, and he walks back to the campfire and talks shit about her. The fuck is that?! I think this is the only horror movie I’ve ever seen where they actually go out of their way to punish a girl for not putting out!* It’s so egregious that I actually sat through the credits in the hope that there would be an after-credits scene where this guy gets what’s coming to him, but nope. So audiences, please insert your own scene where he gets his dick bitten off by a slug or something.

Other than that, though, a pretty good one here. Guess I’ll have to read that novel it’s based on.

*I guess I should have expected that once I realized it was from the director of PIECES, one of the more unpleasant misogynist slashers I’m personally aware of. But don’t worry, most of the movie isn’t like that.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2012 CHECKLIST!

LOVECRAFT ADAPTATION: No, but based on a novel.

BOOBIES: Definitely.

> or = HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS LEVEL GORE: Solid, including defleshings and a hand lopped off.

SEQUEL: No, although obviously there should be one. 

OBSCURITY LEVEL: High.

MONSTERS: Just slugs.

SATANISTS: If so it's not very clear.

ZOMBIES: Nope.

VAMPIRES: None.

SLASHERS: Nope.

CURSES: None.

ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: Woke up for 30 or so minutes in the middle, then back to sleep.

The Devil's Rain

The Devil’s Rain (1975)
Dir. Robert Fuest
Written by: James Ashton, Gabe Essoe, Gerald Hopman
Starring oh boy, you got William Shatner, Tom Skerritt, Ernest Borgnine, Keenan Wynn, with John Travolta and Anton LaVey in small roles. Can you beat that?!

What the fuck is even happening here? It hurts the eyes just to look at it!

    THE DEVIL’S RAIN opens with some of the best horror imagery ever devised by man, the phantasmagoric hell-scapes of Jheronimus van Aken, better known as Hieronymus Bosch. It’s a nice touch, because there’s nothing in the movie that specifically makes reference to Bosch or his work. They’re just setting an appropriately nightmarish tone, which after a strong start gradually declines but still manages to eke it out to the end of the movie. But man, what a start. After the camera menacingly probes the perverse details of Bosch’s Christian bad acid trip visions over the credits, we cut right to a tense William Shatner pacing around his home while rain pours down outside. He’s waiting for his father, who seems to be out on some unspecified dangerous mission. Finally, his truck pulls up outside --ah, thank god he made it! But the figure that knocks on the door isn’t him at all, it’s a ghoulish doppelganger with gouged-out eyes who suddenly melts into a festering pile of goo. Before you know it Shat’s mom has been kidnapped by Satanists, and he’s off to a cool Mexican ghost town to face the cult’s leader, Jonathan Corbis (Ernest Borgnine, all grinning menace). And all that’s in the first 20 minutes! We haven’t even seen Tom Skerritt yet!

    RAIN can be a little cheesy at times, but I think it’s got a very underappreciated screenplay which take some genuinely unusual and successful turns. It’s almost like PSYCHO in that it doesn’t turn out to be about the characters that first appear to be the protagonists, and gradually sort of ends up being more about the villains. It throw you off guard right away by dropping you head first into a obviously high-stakes situation which you don’t entirely understand, and then keeps you from getting too comfortable with a few sudden directional turns (including a fairly long flashback to Puritan times, how often do you get to see that?). It also successfully --and almost casually-- manages to blend Western iconography, period horror, satanism, family drama, and slimy gore effects into a particularly intoxicating concoction which is always strange but somehow never seems disjointed or chimerial.

This is the direction my career will go.

The screenplay does suffer from under developing its protagonists, (which make it hard to care too much what happens to them) but compensates with some pretty neat production design and horror setpieces. The satanists all have creepy burnt-out eyes* (except Borgnine, whose naturally crazy eyes are still a horror highlight) which definitely freaks my shit right out. Their weird waxy melting is an usual and nasty touch, and --more than anything-- Borgnine just seems so brazen and gleefully psycho that he’s legitimately intimidating. You really believe this guy might just be too powerful to stop. But the film’s real stroke of genius is the object of it’s title. Corbis stores souls of the people he’s defeated in a kind of glowing jar --the Devil’s Rain-- where we disturbingly get a glimpse of them scratching pitiably at the glass in front of vast expanse of pouring rain and black nothingness. It’s a pretty unique and bleak take on hell, and I appreciate that in a movie which often thrills on going way overboard (at one point Borgnine gets so full of devilish power that he transforms into a not-especially-convincing man-goat hybrid).

    There are things which are a little too amateurish about this one to call it a lost classic, but it’s definitely a uniquely strange one with some great ideas. Borgnine is classic as the cult leader, but I also like the odd anti-coupling of Tom Skerritt and William Shatner as brothers. Shatner is all old fashion bravado, which is perfect for a film which seeks to evoke medieval high drama from its credit sequence onward. But Skerritt is all 70’s counterculture swagger, at odds with the earnestness of the rest of the characters. It makes sense, though, because we discover that Skerritt was somehow not hip to his family’s involvement with these Satanic goings-on, so he’s a confused outsider trying to figure out exactly what’s going on in a world which seems completely alien not only to his intellect but to his basic temperament. It would work better if Skerritt was trying a little harder or the movie had more interesting things for him to do, but still it’s another lively and unique dynamic in a film which is chock full of them (by the way, try and spot Travolta, who has one line as a eyeball-less extra).

This movie honestly has more melting than THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN. And that is literally nothing but melting.

Director Robert Fuest had previously directed the well-regarded AND SOON THE DARKNESS, as well as both the DR. PHIBES films, which are considered to be minor horror classics. Unfortunately, this movie was so poorly-received that it effectively ruined his career. too bad, because he was obviously working hard on this one, even going so far as to hire Church of Satanism founder and Rolling Stones fan Anton LaVey as a “technical adviser” (I guess he also appears in the film, although I didn’t spot him). LaVey was by this time already solidly Hollywood --becoming a scene figure as cults like the Process Church and Scientology began to take off in the area and attract the interest of entertainment icons-- but you gotta appreciate Fuest’s boldness in selling the film with a figure who was genuinely shocking to conservative America. It brings a welcomed bit of sleazy disreputability to the film, although presumably not much gritty reality (unless melting, blind goatmen were a bigger part of LaVey’s religion than I am assumed). 

I wanted to put sexy robed Borgnine in here, but you owe it to yourself to click here for Borgnine Goatman!

By the end the film sort of runs out of steam, failing to build to a suitably impressive climax and stumbling on one too many silly moments. But it’s still sort of worth it for the amusingly egregious final sequence where Corbis’s followers all melt in the rain. For like 15 minutes. It’s the goopy horror equivalent of the famous ally fight fight from THEY LIVE. It just keeps going and going, and just as you think they’re puddles, they couldn’t possibly melt any further, well, they just keep melting. It goes against all sense and good taste, outrageous enough that you can’t help but laugh. And then, out of the blue, it ends with a genuinely disturbing twist. A fitting way to go out for a movie which is stubbornly --sometimes wrongheadedly, but always entertainingly-- it’s own unique mix of sleaze, strangeness and genuine gothic horror

* In fact, this movie is most famous for a single prop -- the William Shatner mask with burnt out eyes went into storage along with the other props, neglected until 1978 when a young unknown Indie filmmaker named John Carpenter came along...

Look Familiar?

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2012 CHECKLIST!

LOVECRAFT ADAPTATION: No.
BOOBIES: I think I remember some in there, but I wouldn't swear to it. Shatner gets topless, anyway.

> or = HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS LEVEL GORE: Lots and lots of melting, and I believe there's a sacrifice in there.
SEQUEL: Not yet.
OBSCURITY LEVEL: High. Despite it's cast, it's been out of print.
MONSTERS: Goatman!
SATANISTS: Dozens!
ZOMBIES: No
VAMPIRES: No
SLASHERS: No
CURSES: Yeah, Shat and Skerritt's family is cursed by Corbis.
ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: Awake up to the part where Shatner gets to the church. Never saw Tom Skerritt.

Planet of the Vampires

Planet of the Vampires (1965)
Dir. Mario Bava
Written by Mario Bava, Alberto Bevilacqua, Callisto Cosulich, Antonio Roman, Rafael J. Salvia
Starring Barry Sullivan, Ivan Rassimov, Norma Bengell

Literally nothing on this poster has anything to do with the movie. There are no giant chameleon men, no windmills, no vampires, and what's the deal with this "10,000 years ago..." text?

So, this is kind of a psychological horror sci-fi that Mario Bava did in 1965, five years after BLACK SUNDAY, but still six years before he would change horror forever with TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE. It concerns a bunch of indistinguishable Italian actors landing on a planet which would have looked laughable in an episode of Star Trek and mostly hanging around their bland white spaceship wondering what will happen next. And for some reason, decades later Ridely Scott decided that it would be a good idea to remake it for 130 million dollars and call it PROMETHEUS, so I guess in retrospect it’s some kind of cultural icon. But even if he hadn’t, it’s a movie which is extremely odd and even sort of good in a shitty kind of way. I sort of liked it.

It concerns two crews of identical middle-aged Italians (as far as I could tell, all named “Carter” although later I learned from wikipedia that the captain is named “Mark Marky”) who get sucked down by mysterious forces onto a seemingly dead planet of paper mache rocks and dry ice. Mysteriously, they immediately go into a violent trance-like state, saved from slaughtering each other only by the convenient fact that a good punch in the face (for men) or a hard slap (women) wakes them up. They set out to discover the mystery of the planet (which does not turn out to have any literal vampires, leaving one to assume it's named after its discoverer, Sir. Reginald S. Vampires) but, finding no sign of life, resort to a strategy of assigning single crewmembers to isolated guard duty (what they’re guarding is never clear) and then returning to find them mysteriously killed. This turns out to be an unexpectedly effective strategy because eventually the mysterious evil forces of the Planet of the Vampires just come out and explain everything.

We don't later find out this was just a suit, making this alien race clearly better than the pale bald dudes from PROMETHEUS.

All things considered, this is a ludicrous, hilariously inept film which generally feels like the campiest TWILIGHT ZONE ever. But somehow it’s also kind of good. The sparse, expressionistic and minimalistic sets and general lack of music gives it an austere, almost darkly absurdist feel (it could easily be staged as a play, should anyone care to attempt it) and it has a few genuinely good ideas and cool images. Most memorably, a few crew members explore the interior of another ship marooned on the planet, finding it filled with gigantic skeletons (don’t worry, they leave a guy by himself outside as a guard). There’s something evocative about the discovery of this other mystery ship, united with our crew by their common predicament but bizarre and alien in every other way. I can see why Ridley Scott would want to rip it off more successfully in ALIEN and less successfully in PROMETHEUS. Most of it is simply too bland and slow to be worth your time, but the film has its moments, including a pleasantly silly dark twist at the end. Probably more valuable as a cultural artifact that lead to better things, but surprisingly not entirely without its own charms. 

Every conversation in this movie. One of the dramatic highlights of the film comes at the turn of the third act, when someone puts on a new outfit.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2012 CHECKLIST!

LOVECRAFT ADAPTATION: No.

BOOBIES: No, it’s rare enough that these ladies even take off their hats. You call this an Italian film?!

> or = HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS LEVEL GORE: A little corpse mutilation, but not much considering it’s Bava.

SEQUEL: No.

OBSCURITY LEVEL: Fairly high.

MONSTERS: Aliens, if that counts.

SATANISTS: Religion is not mentioned.

ZOMBIES: Reanimated corpses, but not traditional zombies

VAMPIRES: None, oddly.

SLASHERS: No, only shooters.

CURSES: None

ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: Almost. Mostly.

Intruders

Intruders (2012)
Dir. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Written by Nicolás Casariego, Jaime Marques
Starring Clive Owen, Carice Van Houten, Daniel Bruhl, Ella Purnell

INTRUDERS is a gorgeously photographed, cleverly written, well acted, classically produced horror film from one of the most promising directors out there right now. It looks beautiful, and it has a unique construction following two families in two different countries as they deal with a shadowy, hooded phantasm named “Hollow Face.” Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo directed the excellent, crazy INTACTO and directed what I consider to be one of the best single horror sequences in recent memory (albeit in a movie which was only OK) with the opening of 28 WEEKS LATER. Since then, he seems to have been on the list of possible directors for just about every major project Hollywood can snatch up, but in the meantime he did this. A sumptuously photographed psychological horror story starring Clive Owens, which in theory is about the best you could possibly hope for. And indeed, the movie is really great in every way except the only one that really matters, which is the scares.

But tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a phone call... if you're unable to speak?

I don’t know if I am just immune or what, but something about these scary guys in black coats with hoods that cover their faces just doesn’t do anything for me at all. Wasn’t scared of the fisherman from I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, wasn’t scared of the TALL MAN, wasn’t scared of the dementors from HARRY POTTER, wasn’t scared of Jawas. And unfortunately, if that particular horror trope doesn’t do anything for ya, the movie doesn’t have much else. If you’re not creeped out by a guy in a hood skulking around menacing people but never really actually doing much to them, man, you’re going to be checking your watch a lot. It’s a good reminder that horror can be a lot like comedy, in that if it doesn’t sync up with your particular distinct sensibilities, it doesn’t matter how hard it’s working cuz it’s never gonna reach ya.

And it’s a shame, because there’s a ton I admire here. I love the idea of these two parallel tales about the same monster, subtly different in their tone and execution. I love Clive Owen and his well-meaning but awkward relationship with his daughter who is getting too old for him to relate to anymore. I love seeing Carice Van Houten (so fantastic in BLACK BOOK) get work, even if she’s mostly wasted here. I even sort of love the twist in the way the two seemingly parallel stories interact with each other. And I can see good horror ideas in here. The opening scene of the film has a little kid simply watching in shock and disbelief as this hooded, creepy thing climbs up the railing outside his apartment out of fucking nowhere -- no context, no warnings of any kind. There’s a fun scene where the same kid climbs fearfully out of bed, sensing that the monster is around somewhere. We turn with him as he looks feverishly 360 degrees around him, still feeling anxious but convinced that the danger is nowhere in sight. But Hollow Face is right behind him, moving exactly as he does so as to stay just outside his vision. Great horror idea, well executed, just does nothing for me. I wanted to love this one, and it’s definitely worth some love by someone better suited for the kind of scares it’s selling. That just ain’t me.

Put Ernest Borgnine in the hood, then we'll talk.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2012 CHECKLIST!

LOVECRAFT ADAPTATION: No
BOOBIES: Yep, Van Houten and Owen have a brief sex scene
> or = HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS LEVEL GORE: None.
SEQUEL: No:
OBSCURITY LEVEL: Mid. Got a 33-theater release this year.
MONSTERS: Sort of.
SATANISTS: No.
ZOMBIES: No.
VAMPIRES: No.
CURSES: No.
ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: No.

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.