Category Archives: Horror

Deerskin

Deerskin                              4 stars

I heard about Deerskin from a magazine article of some recent good movies that are available online so I picked this one out, a rather dark comedy. To call this movie offbeat and bizarre might be something of an understatement and it probably won’t appeal to a wide audience, but I was very entertained by it. It’s one of those movies that is funny just because it is so absurd, like Damsel which I saw a few weeks ago. It happens in a small French Alpine village where Georges (played by Jean Dujardin of The Artist), a middle aged man arrives. Georges, just divorced, answers an ad for an old deerskin jacket and buys it from an old man. He spends all of his cash for the jacket and receives a video camera as part of the deal. Georges is so impressed by the ‘killer style’ that it gives him he starts to imagine that the jacket is alive and carries on conversations with it. (Does that sound bizarre yet?) Then Georges meets some women in a local bar and makes up a story of how he is a filmmaker and is there for a shoot. (His crew happens to be working in Siberia.) Denise (Adele Haenel of Portrait of a Lady on Fire) falls for this act and agrees to help Georges out including helping him pay for the making of the movie! (Georges’ credit card has been canceled by his ex-wife leaving him with no money.) Thus, the two proceed to put together a movie based on the random scenes that Georges films of various people he runs into on the street. This odd movie succeeds in keeping your attention by making to wonder just where is this all going. I have not even told you the strangest parts of the movie, so you will have to see it to find out. The story and the excellent acting by the two leads make Deerskin something to see for fans of the bizarre. You might even call it murderous madness. This gem is not even 80 minutes long so you can get through it all rather quickly.

Relic

Relic       4 stars

The last time I was at Sundance I saw several good horror movies, but at the end of the festival ran into one moviegoer who said he had one more to see called Relic that was supposed to be pretty interesting. I finally sat down to watch Relic as it was just released and I wasn’t disappointed. The movie is by a new filmmaker and concerns the effects of a loved one’s dementia on their family. The movie is set in a big house is an Australian town that is home to an elderly woman, Edna (Robyn Nevin). Edna is reported missing which brings her daughter (Emily Mortimer) and granddaughter (Bella Heathcote) to the house to investigate. After a few days of searching, Edna suddenly reappears without explanation of where she was. Although she is physically fine it’s clear something is wrong here. As daughter and granddaughter stay to take care of her, the house seems to mysteriously decay as a black growth slowly appears on the walls. This coincides with Edna hearing strange noises and having conversations with someone that’s not there. She behaves in ever increasing erratic and violent ways that confuses her family. The large house is full of cluttered hallways and mysterious doorways that helps to add to all the confusion the family members are experiencing. There is a background story about an ancestor who had a horrible death that offers some explanation of the seemingly supernatural happenings, like all good horror movies need to have. The movie does a slow moving buildup to an eventual frenzy of frightening events that will overwhelm the viewers. Although the movie is not quite at the level of The Babadook or of Hereditary, it’s good if you are up for some good family horror and clicks in at only 90 minutes long.

The Rental

The Rental                          4 stars

With The Rental, actor Dave Franco shows that he can direct an effective thriller/horror film that will keep you on the edge of your seat. It’s hard to describe this movie without giving away spoilers so I can’t go into great detail. In the movie, a group of four friends decide to celebrate Dan’s successful business venture by renting an oceanside house for the weekend. Dan, his wife Michelle, his brother Josh and his business partner Mina travel to the house they found online planning a drug fueled fun weekend. Josh and Mina also happen to be starting their own relationship with each other. Tensions start to mount when they meet the caretaker who has racist tendencies toward Mina who has a foreign name. As in a good thriller, things get progressively more tense as we see that some of the characters are less than honest with each other. Suspicions arise when Josh’s dog, Reggie suddenly disappears. When one pair of our friends discovers evidence that someone has been watching them, the fear of revealing secrets set in and accusations are made. It is here that what starts as a character driven thriller suddenly transforms into something more sinister and the violence finds its way into the story. The movie is aided by effective cinematography, some well placed foggy night scenes and four good performances by the actors portraying some rather narcissistic and not so nice people. As in most horror movies, the characters make some very questionable choices that only make their situation worse. The Rental is good entertainment that takes its time to develop and does not rely on sudden scare scenes, but it will only work for true horror fans.
 

Underwater

Underwater                       2 stars

While watching Underwater, the movie about a deep sea research facility that is suddenly attacked by strange sea creatures, I had the distinct impression that I had seen it before. Much of the elements of it are taken from The Abyss and Alien, both about mysterious creatures attacking a small group of survivors. This does not bode well. In Underwater we have a group of six survivors that must crawl their way through the wreckage of the laboratory that happens to be seven miles below the surface. As you would expect the suspense comes in as you wonder which one will be the next to die. The sets and effects look very authentic so this was an expensive movie to make. We know little about the characters as they try to stay together to protect each other and maintain sanity. The movie was derivative and you might say boring.

Alien Covenant

Alien: Covenant                 4 stars

Alien: Covenant I believe is the fifth movie in the franchise and sees the return of Ridley Scott as the director. You may recall the original trilogy of the seventies and eighties in which Sigourney Weaver battles killer aliens found on a distant planet. This installment set two decades before the original Alien is just as horrifying and is aided by the modern CGI effects common to science fiction movies today. The movie is set on a colony spaceship with over 2,000 people on a multi years journey to a planet that is to be a new settlement for humans and occurs ten years after the events of Prometheus, another doomed space mission. A constant in the Alien movies is the presence of a synthetic, an artificially created humanoid who serves his human creators. The role of the emotionless but curious synthetic Walter is filled again by the amazing Michael Fassbender. As a result of a mishap on the Covenant in which the captain is killed, the crew learns of a previously unknown nearby planet that can support human life, so the new captain (Billy Crudup) decides to alter the plan and investigate and possible avoid years of hypersleep. Of course, this is the first mistake of many. The planet happens to be the same one of the events of the ill-fated Prometheus! When the landing party including the captain and Walter arrives, other than and intense storm, things seem normal enough. That is, until the pathogen born creatures start to show up and kill off the crew! The synthetic, David (also Michael Fassbender) who was the only survivor of Prometheus finds the crew and explains to them what happened here. Unfortunately, he leaves out a few key details that would explain what happened here. The movie is perhaps less original than Prometheus, and more like the original movies thanks to Scott. It is heavy on the interactions of the characters and an action driven plot. The scenes involving two Michael Fassbender’s are especially intriguing. Also, as expected the movie is heavy on blood and gore, so be forewarned! (This one is far better than last week’s Underwater.)

28 Years Later

28 Years Later                    5 stars

It has been a long time since Great Britain was overrun by hordes of infected rampaging humans hungry for flesh in Danny Boyle’s (127 Hours and Slumdog Millionaire) 28 Days Later. That movie was a survivalist story of a few remaining sane humans trying to survive against the angry zombie like creatures that inhabit the island kingdom. Fortunately, humanity was able to limit the disease from spreading to the rest of the world, leaving Britain in a state of quarantine. In the just out sequel, 28 Years Later, Boyle and his collaborator Alex Garland bring us back to this hellscape to see what has transpired in the intervening years. But first we must be brought up to date with scenes of what happened in the first place when the rampage started. We visit a house where the infected overrun a family and one young boy named Jimmy escapes only to see the village priest torn apart by the horde. Scenes of battling and destruction are accompanied by a horrifying 1915 reading of a Rudyard Kipling poem with a steady escalating beat. (You should look up the trailer on YouTube.) Finally, we come to the present on a small island off the coast of Britain where the inhabitants carry on isolated from the rest of the world, constantly on guard against the threat on the mainland. In this community we meet 12-year-old Spike (newcomer Alfie Williams), his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson of Nosferatu and Bullet Train) and mother Isla (Jodie Comer of The Bikeriders). It is time for Spike to go on his first hunt on the mainland, with his father to hunt down and kill the infected. They are told that once they leave the island there are no rescue parties. On the mission, we find out that there are now varieties of infected people. There are the sprinting dead who rush madly at their target. There are the starving dead who look like skin covered skeletons. There are the crawlers, who are extremely overweight and can only crawl on the ground and eat worms, but still attack people. Then there are the Alpha’s who are like a new superior species of humans who only flinch when they are hit square with an arrow. After this brief adventure when father and son return to their island having killed a few of the loonies, Spike is very concerned about his sick mother and learns of a legendary old doctor who stayed on the mainland. Since there is no such thing as a doctor on the island, Spike believes that finding this doctor could save his mother from dying, so off to the mainland go Spike and Mom, unknown to poor Dad. Eventually after surviving more attacks, they do find the old doctor whose name is Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes of Schindler’s List) who brings a sense of wisdom, morality and politeness to the movie. Even his monuments to the dead, built out of human bones, bring us a reassuring feeling. Up to this point it was all paranoia as the characters had to endure one frenzied attack after another from the crazed infected beings who are always naked. (After 28 years nobody wants to deal with putting on clothes anymore.) The doctor’s outlook brings a sense of hope and optimism to the crazy world we see in the movie. Before 28 Days Later, zombie movies were something of a rarity being restricted to the George Romero variety. Since then, they have become quite commonplace. But 28 Years Later applies a real sense of art to the subject even if the choices made by the characters often make little sense. I have read that 28 Years Later is to be followed up with two sequels starting with The Bone Temple next year. So, let’s see what Danny Boyle and company have planned for us. I’ll be watching for it!

Amulet

Amulet                 4 stars

Besides giving us a deadly pandemic 2020 has also brought us a new wave of horror movies made by women. This year we had Relic, Shirley and She Dies Tomorrow, all made by women directors showing us they can be as creepy as men. Now we have Amulet, by actor Romola Garai in her first effort as writer/director. In this slow moving horror movie, we follow, Tomaz, a homeless ex-soldier who finds himself in a hospital in London. A Catholic nun (Imelda Staunton) takes pity on him and arranges for him to live in a house where a young woman, Magda, is caring for her aged mother. We see Tomaz doing small home repair jobs in the very rundown house and being fed great meals by Magda. It’s hard to place the period of the setting. It could be anytime in the eighties or nineties. Periodically, there are flashbacks to his time serving in a foreign army where he sees himself as a protector of a woman in the woods. Things take a long time to develop, but eventually he makes his way up to the attic with Magda to see the mother that requires so much care. She turns out to be a wretched horribly disfigured being in great pain who turns on Magda when given a chance. Suffice it to say this mother is not human at all, but something supernatural. Naturally, there are other secrets that Magda and the house hold that are gradually revealed, just as we expect to see in a well written horror movie! Tomaz then sees himself as a sort of savior who must free Magda of this prison, but he will find out that evil can be found in unexpected places and what happens when it is not properly dealt with! This being a horror movie written by a woman we get an interesting take on things to be most afraid of including a view on what childbirth is like! (Hint: It’s bloody and painful.) If you can make it through the first half of the movie you will appreciate the eventual payoff.

The Blazing World

The Blazing World            3 suns

Three years ago at my first Sundance I saw a short film program that included a short called The Blazing World. It concerned a young woman who enters a door into an alternate reality. It was a most unusual film with some startling images. Now, three years later, the creator and director, Carlson Young, has returned to Sundance with her full length feature film based on the same idea. Young, who is only 30 has been quite an aficionado of classic horror movies which must have influenced much in her movie. She also stars in the movie as Margaret, a young woman who lost her twin sister in an accident when they were children. She is interested in the idea of alternate dimensions and encounters a strange man who invites her through a door to this new world. She enters with the idea that her sister may exist in this other dimension. What follows are some of the most bizarre sequences I’ve seen in the movies, much of it of a dark and decaying place with alternate versions of her parents. The movie had more form to it than the short on which it was based, but steers away from your more conventional horror movies. I’m glad I saw it, but I would recommend it only for the more hardcore horror fans. Interestingly, it was completely during the pandemic in 2020.

Sinners

Sinners                 5 stars

Ryan Coogler’s new movie, Sinners, about vampires invading a small rural Black town in 1930’s Mississippi, defies genre. While it certainly is a horror movie, it is also a gangster movie and a musical featuring an assortment of Blues numbers with varying styles. It’s hard to believe that this is only Coogler’s fifth time directing, previously directing Creed, two Black Panther movies from the Avengers universe and Fruitvale Station. This time it is in a setting he truly makes his own and is something that could only be made by Coogler. And it is also the fifth time he has featured Michael B. Jordan in a prominent role; this time actually making it two roles with Jordan playing twin brothers, Smoke and Stack. The pair were gangsters in Chicago having acquired a fortune during prohibition, and before that were soldiers in World War I, but now they have returned to their hometown and plan to open a juke joint and make more money. The pair are unsavory, certainly and won’t hesitate to hurt someone who crosses them. Smoke is the serious one of the two, while Stack is more flamboyant. The twins buy an old sawmill from a white man, paying cash, being assured that the Ku Klux Klan is a thing of the past, words that will haunt them later in the film. They link up with Sammie (Miles Caton), a young preacher’s kid who is a master Blues player on the guitar and will play a major part in the events to follow. The brothers reunite with a number of the townsfolk they knew from before and it is clear there is a long history at play here, especially with the women that includes Mary (Hailee Steinfeld) and Annie (Wunmi Wosaku). The recruiting of musicians, cooks and patrons for the evening’s entertainment takes a good hour of the movie during which we get a taste of the music of the time. It’s apparent to me that the Blues figures highly in Ryan Coogler’s background. It is only after the party starts that we get a hint at the bloodbath that is to come. But first we get a massive display of the music and dancing created here where we see figures from beyond the present dating back to old African culture and future entertainment with musicians on electric guitars and DJs. After the first of the vampires arrives at the venue, it occurred to me that this resembled Quentin Tarantino’s and Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn, the vampire movie from the nineties. As the action filled killing progresses, the characters are not sure who they can trust and suspicions fall on those who were previously close. This was a familiar element that I remember from John Carpenter’s The Thing, when a blood test was used to clear the suspects. Here the act is the forced eating of garlic, a plant fatal to vampires. Everything leads to a final confrontation that leaves few survivors. Not only is Sinners easily the best horror film of the year so far, it gives us an impressive collection of cultures that were a part of the South in the 1930’s including Black, Chinese, native American’s and Irish. I don’t know how long Coogler worked on this soon to be classic, but he certainly had a lot to say. Be sure that you stay all of the way through the credits and don’t miss the multiple endings.

Crimson Peak

Crimson Peak                    2 ½ stars

Crimson Peak, a gothic horror movie, was written and directed by Guillermo del Toro who brought us such master works as The Shape of Water and Pan’s Labyrinth. Although the movie is filled with striking visions, elaborate sets and outstanding costumes and camerawork, the story just doesn’t match up to his other works. Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska of Alice in Wonderland and Piercing (and whom I saw in person at Sundance)), the daughter of a wealthy businessman in 1890’s New York has an unusual interest in ghosts and likes to write ghost stories. She is swept away by the visiting Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston of Thor movies, Avengers movies etc. and I Saw the Light), an English inventor and baronet, and quickly agrees to marry him and go to live with him and his sister in England. The sister, Lucille (a sinister Jessica Chastain of The Tree of Life, Zero Dark Thirty and Molly’s Game) obviously has less than trustworthy intensions toward her new family member. In England the scene shifts to one of the most elaborate and creepy haunted mansions seen out of Hollywood. It is immense with long corridors and underground chambers that hold old secrets. It also has a decaying roof, is full of moths and is built on a field of red clay that gives the structure its red color that seems to symbolize blood. Edith’s gift of seeing ghosts leads to her horrifying visions of blood covered spirits that both terrify her and give her clues about what the more human demons have in store for her. The movie is great to look at, but I didn’t find the story to be anything special. For more interesting horror movies check out Relic or Amulet or even The Rental. You could also go back and see del Toro’s The Shape of Water for a real treat.