Thirty One Days of Horror Days 6-9: Dead Snow, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, Audtition, I Saw The Devil

Day 6: Dead Snow

This is a movie that knows EXACTLY what it is and what it wants to do an delivers perfectly. We've got Nazi Zombies, attractive people in a cabin, makeshift weapons, self amputation, and some of the best brush off lines I've seen in a while. The creators on this have made a love letter to Zombie horror and if you're a fan of the sub-genre then check it out. Definitely Recommended.

Day 7: Don't be Afraid of the Dark

Guillermo Del Torro loves two things: Faeries and putting eyes where they don't belong. As he was only a writer and producer on this movie he couldn't force creepy eyes into it but if you're looking faeries then this is the place for you. We've also got all the stock characters for a child against evil movie, from the oblivious dad to the gruff older man who's really looking out for the child, to the mother figure, in this case a girlfriend, who eventually believes the child's story after some research and a trip to the most awesome library ever.

I couldn't find a picture of it so this will have to do.

Despite being a bit paint by numbers it was nicely moody and did everything well. It was a quality film with an unexpected part at the end. I'd recommend it.

Day 8: Audition

This is one fucked up movie. I mean really, really fucked up. It starts pretty innocently with a man whose son thinks he should get remarried. The only problem is that he's not sure how to go about finding his new bride to be. His buddy offers a suggestion: Hold and audition. He'll dig out an old script and they'll audition actresses for the lead, he can try and date the one he likes and hell, if they get financing they can even make the movie. So far it sounds like the set up for a Kate Hudson/Matthew McConaughey romantic comedy. He starts dating her and, spoiler alert, she's insanely fucked up. I mean this woman is the gold medal winner in the what the fuck Olympics.  She was tortured by her dance instructor as a child and now goes around mutilating and killing men. Except for the one she keeps in a bag in her apartment. I don't even want to think about how she feeds him but it does help her keep her figure. The end of the movie cuts between hallucinations and a torture scene in which the widower has his feet cut off. Why his feet? Hell if I know. I don't know if I can recommend this one. I expect you already know if its for you or not.

Day 9: I Saw The Devil

I was torn over wither or not I should include this movie because dispite having a serial rapist/killer, cannibals, torture, and a man hunting another man it never felt like a horror movie to me. But it seems to fit broadly so I decided it counted. Oh, and I god damned loved it. This movie is fantastic. Now I'm the first to admit that I'm a sucker for a good revenge flick and South Korea seems to put out the best of them for a while now. The plot is fairly simple. A man's wife is killed and he hunts down the killer who did it. The killer is played by the fantastic Min-Sik Choi, who you might remember from Oldboy. The man is just built to be abused. No one suffers quite as well as he does or has that perfect look of manic glee when he retaliates. The hunter is played by Byung-Hun Lee. He's nearly emotionless for most of the film, deadened inside by the death of his wife. He's the picture of intensity. I can't recommend this movie enough. 

Thirty One Days of Horror: Day One and Two

Once again I've decided to take part in 31 Days/Nights of Horror, where I watch a horror movie that I've never seen before every day in October. Now I attempted this last year but due to work being horrible I had to drop out about a third of the way in. Thats not going to be a problem this time. So lets get into it!

Day One: Funny Games (1997)

Michael Henke wanted to make a statement with this one, I'm just not sure what it was. He made a home invasion film, normally one of the more indulgent sub-genres of horror, then didn't show any violence. He didn't show any exploitation. When one character is killed we focused on a man making a sandwich. He also peppered it with fourth wall breaking commentary as one of the invaders continuously spoke to the audience about what they were watching.

Seen here, literally winking at the camera.

And overall I don't think that it worked. The audience for a movie like this is looking for the visceral thrills found in the movie, from the violence that we don't see to the satisfaction of seeing evil punished at the end, which doesn't happen at all in this. I think that Cabin in the Woods did a better job of exploring peoples fascination with brutality and making statements about the emptiness of it, and it still functions extremely well as a horror movie. This sets up all sorts of audience expectations then leaves them laying on the floor and tells us we're bad people for it too. It doesn't function as a horror movie, it doesn't function as a drama. It seems to come up short in every direction.

I will say that the ten minute long single take scene in the movie is fantastic. As is the performance by Susanne Lothar. If there's any reason to watch this movie it's to see her perfect rendition of pain and loss.

Day Two: The Possesion

This one is a little more by the numbers. A little girl gets a wooden box at a yard sale and it turns out its got a demon in it. Hijinks ensue. There's a moment in this movie where you can tell the writers decided to say "Fuck it" to subtlety. We change gears immediately from the girl acting a bit off to blood pouring from one of her teachers eyeballs till she throws herself out of a window. Now I know exactly how hard the transition from acting odd to demonically possessed is thanks to my work on Lucifer's Unholy Desire. Part of me wishes that we had just said fuck it instead of trying to play it straight. Here once they jump that hurdle they do give us some great special effects. The fingers escaping the throat shot was awesome, as well as the moths entering the girl under the streetlight.

On a side note I mainly watched this one for Jeffery Dean Morgan

Also known as pudgy Robert Downey Jr.

I'm sure you've got them. Actors that you enjoy but never seem to break through, or even be in a movie that's best descriptor is fun? Jeffery Dean Morgan is one of those for me. If he shows up I've got a solid +10% interest in the movie but I know they're not going to knock anything out of the park. 

I didn't like Gone Baby Gone.

When Marvel started making their movies they didn't rely on star power. I know its hard to remember but before Iron Man Robert Downy Jr was doing supporting roles in movies like Charlie Bartlet and leading Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. Did you remember that he was in Gothika? I didn't. But he was a known talent. And a perfect Tony Stark thanks to his own struggles with addiction. And we can see Marvel make the same choices over and over. Chris Evans, aside from being part of the utterly forgettable Fantastic Four movies had done charming work in a variety of movies that he wasn't the star of. Chris Hemsworth’s biggest role before Thor was playing Captain Kirk's dad in the Star Trek Reboot. The only time they deviated from finding a known actor who is about to break out was their casting of Edward Norton as the Hulk and he fits with their behind the camera approach: Get talented people and let them do their work. Make good movies. And of course when they recast The Hulk after finding Norton difficult to work with they went with excellent indy actor Mark Ruffalo, someone I’ve been waiting to start showing up in bigger movies ever since The Brothers Bloom.

Then there’s DC and Ben Affleck. And before I start in I want to say that I’ve got all the respect in the world for Ben Affleck the Director. He does damn good work. But that’s not who they hired. They hired Ben Affleck the Actor. An actor who’s overly goofy and was taken far, far too seriously a decade ago. An actor whose career tanked so hard that when The Town was released they advertised it as “From the Director of Gone Baby Gone” without ever using his name. And he’s built up a lot of good will since then. But I think that the main reason he was cast was because people know who he is. They think that name recognition will help drive this movie to be a success.

That's extremely flawed, and Marvel has shown us why. These movies aren't a success because of the big stars in them. THESE MOVIES MAKE THESE PEOPLE INTO STARS. If you cast a good actor as Batman, say Christian Bale right off of the moody action flick Equilibrium, and add a Director who fits the material, like say Christopher Nolan, who was just coming off of a mature but ultimately gimmicky Memento, you get a good movie that people will flock to. If you continue like Time Warner/DC is you’ll keep casting once hot lead Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern. You’ll get a director known for his dark and gritty realism for your space opera. Or in the case of Man of Steel you’ll get a director who’s known for his highly stylized approach and lack of depth.

And in the end it's why the Batman/Superman movie is likely going to both be huge and fail. Time Warner/DC is trying to put in pieces without looking at the puzzle. An actor here, a director we know here, Batman and Superman. Fanboys will love it! And if they don’t fuck em. We’ll make enough in the first weekend to cover it.

But we know how that approach ends up. Ask Joel Schumacher about it.

The Best Decade

I'm watching Vampire movies from the 70s today. So far I've seen

A woman put into stocks for dancing on a Sunday

Two women dressed as clowns in a car chase firing on the pursuer.

Christoper Lee is everywhere.

Subtitles drop off the bottom of the screen so you can't read them.

A motorcycle stored in a lighthouse.

Dracula releasing the Bubonic Plague to kill everyone. They even called it out in the movie as not making sense.

Dracula's fur vest wearing biker gang.

Let's sleep in a cemetery tonight! Someones coming, quick, hide in this grave!

Are they vampires or ghosts or... ghost vampires? Didn't they die in the opening scene?

I love the 70s.