It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine! Cowabunga!
Click the pic to hear the tunes!
“Goodnight Mommy” REVIEW (2015)
With its haunting and cryptic trailer, its word of mouth hype and extremely limited release, Austrian horror film Goodnight Mommy couldn’t have been presented more tantalizingly if it tried. Miraculously, it wound up playing a small theater not far from me — so I biked over like a giddy schoolkid, grabbed a beer (the theater serves beer, by the way), and took a seat.
The film centers on two brothers, Lukas and Elias, living on a remote plot of land in a sprawling, modern home with their mother, a noted Austrian TV personality. The film begins when the mother returns from a brief stay at a hospital where she has just had some cosmetic surgery done. Puffy, red-eyed, and wrapped in bloody bandages, the mother looks like something from a horror movie, and her behavior upon returning home is less than maternal. Almost immediately the brothers become suspicious that perhaps this actually isn’t their mother after all, and from that point on they do everything in their power to find out who this mysterious stranger really is.
Goodnight Mommy is a very sparse film, one that relies on taking its time to build suspense. Some might call it drawn out or a super slow burn, but it’s a very visual film so it never feels long, necessarily. At times it feels as though it’s simply comprised of a series of disturbing and beautiful images, strung together in order to relay a story — and that makes for a very interesting watch. Even the most innocuous shots — the brothers following a combine harvester and swatting away the dust; the brothers jumping on a trampoline while it hails outside — still seem to be hiding something. It’s all very artfully done and manages to build an incredible sense of unease, despite how innocent it all seems. To me, that’s good filmmaking. I mentioned in one of my last reviews how a lot of time the way a film is shot actually takes precedence over the material contained therein. This is a fine example of that. Yes, the story here is interesting and keeps you guessing — but if it were shot any other way it would lose a lot of its punch.
Now, watching Goodnight Mommy I was immediately reminded of another film — one I won’t name lest I spoil some of the fun (if you insist, though, you can find numerous threads on IMDB that are blatantly titled.) But that unnamed movie and this one merely share an obvious plot point that average reviewers seem to keep getting hung up on. What these viewers appear to be missing is something I found far more interesting: the theme of the imagination of youth. I was reminded of movies like The Reflecting Skin and The Spirit of the Beehive — films where the child leads are so wrapped up in their developing imaginations that it affects their sense of reality. To these kids, their daydream visions are real; To Lukas and Elias, their mother is a monster, no matter how she explains or defends herself — and that’s terrifying. The fact that we’ve all experienced that sort of thing when we were growing up — real monsters under the bed, real monsters in the closet, real monsters — makes it a much more real and jarring watch.
In the end, Goodnight Mommy manages to pay homage to several films — whether knowingly or not — but thankfully they all happen to be wonderful, beautiful, and truly scary movies indeed. I don’t think you’ll find another film this year that will fill you with so much dread and edginess and just flat out fear as Goodnight Mommy. From the moment it starts up until the last scene, it’s nothing but bad vibes and foreboding. This is a do not miss, for sure.
CINEMANIACS MIX!
Wahoo! Excerpts from all your favorite horror movie scores and soundtracks in one convenient mix! Just don’t play it backwards, lest you wanna party all night with Satan and his demons (they’ll drink all your beer, but man you’ll have stories to tell for years to come!)
Click the pic to hear the tunes!
“Knock Knock” (2015) REVIEW
Eli Roth seems to be making his long overdue comeback in a major way this year, and he’s doing it by tackling ultra specific horror and thriller subgenres. Last month saw the release of The Green Inferno, Roth’s ode to the Italian “cannibal boom” which took horror audiences by the throat from the late-’70s thru the mid-’80s. Now, barely 3 weeks later, he’s back with Knock Knock, a remake of the 1977 horror flick Death Game, which starred Sondra Locke and Colleen Camp (both of whom produced Knock Knock; Camp also has a cameo).
Now, Knock Knock may be Roth’s take on a little-seen exploitation flick, but to me it feels more like the “Yuppies in Danger” subgenre that flooded the early-’90s. Films like The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Single White Female, Pacific Heights, The Crush, Unlawful Entry, Fear, and many more. And how exactly do you put a yuppie in danger? Well, the formula is pretty simple. It goes something like this:
- Introduce lead character: a yuppie. Make sure their life is pretty perfect (isn’t it always?)
- Introduce outsider who infiltrates yuppie’s life. Outsider should seem harmless enough at first.
- Outsider shows true colors and turns yuppie’s life upside down in a dangerous way.
- Outsider will make yuppie look like the dangerous/guilty one before attempting to murder them.
- Outsider is done away with, yuppie’s life is saved; lots of sweaty hugging of characters, with eyes closed. The end.
That’s it, that’s the formula. A more specific sticking point of the Yuppie in Danger film is infidelity. There has to at least be sexual tension — if not an overt act of adultery — to really shake things up. And so with all that in mind, onto Knock Knock.
Evan (Keanu Reeves) is an architect, happily married and a father of two, who has to spend Father’s Day alone at home working on a project while the wife and kids head out of town on vacation. That night (ominously rainy, of course) he gets a knock (knock) at the door. There stand two young, drenched coed types — Genesis and Bel (Roth’s real life wife Lorena Izzo, and Ana de Armas, respectively.) They’re lost and unable to find the party they were supposed to attend, and now the rain has left them without phones. Evan takes them in, gets them some fresh towels, and even allows them to dry their clothes. That’s when the girls start to snuggle up to Evan. And then…Yuppie in Danger!
Eli Roth has found the perfect “handsome nice guy” in Reeves. From the opening scenes with his wife and kids, to the scenes where the girls start being a little too flirty, Reeves just exudes this genuine niceness — a good, decent guy who you immediately invest in — and it really helps sell the character (and what eventually happens.) The girls are perfectly cast as well. They play crazy in a very realistic, innocent and playful way that really ratchets up the suspense. They’re so gleeful in their insanity, you really don’t know what they’re capable of or what’s going to happen next — and that’s great for building tension.
One of the things I loved most about Knock Knock was the way the girls gain entry to Evan’s home (and essentially, his life): a single, minor, fleeting line spoken by Izzo’s Genesis. When they show up at his doorstep in need of a phone, they immediately run into a snag — neither girl knows their friend’s phone numbers, because who remembers phone numbers anymore? So Genesis asks: “Can we use your computer?” It’s such a wonderfully on point update to a familiar horror trope, one that feels very natural and doesn’t feel like it was shoehorned in.
Of course, the movie isn’t without a few speedbumps (what movie is?) While he’s great at playing the kind, affable good-looking dad type here, Reeves stalls occasionally in the “holy shit, my life is in danger” department. There were a few scenes where his wooden delivery kinda killed the tension. But I’m a sucker for Reeves, baby. He’ll always get a pass from me. I mean, have you seen River’s Edge?
I’d say the biggest flaw with the movie is its sort-of “story with a moral” approach. Going that route leaves a lot of big holes in the 90 minutes leading up to the climax. The aforementioned Yuppies in Danger movies I named all took the simple road: the infiltrator is crazy. No rhyme or reason, no backstory. Perhaps a little bit of motive, but no ultimate plan in the long run. And that’s where Knock Knock stumbles: it tries to give too much meaning to the events instead of letting them retain a little mystery.
One part Poison Ivy and one part Fatal Attraction, Knock Knock plays like a female version of Funny Games — and like all of Roth’s stuff, it’s a fun and entertaining watch. Next up for Roth is his take on the “natural horror” subgenre with the killer sea creature movie, Lake Mead. I’m excited to see where he goes from there. Might I suggest the “killer kid” genre, Eli?
Final things to note:
- In the film, Keanu says he is 43. In real life, he’s 51. I find it funny that he looks so damn good for his age, that he had to go lower to make it more believable for his character.
- I wonder if Roth was inspired to write this when he wrote the two sleazy female leads in Hostel. This almost feels like it could’ve been a spin-off for those characters.
- “It was pizza! It was free-fucking-pizza!” is not only one of the greatest lines ever growled on film, but one that caused a weird emotional stirring inside me. What can I say: when Reeves is on, he’s on.
“Deathgasm” (2015) REVIEW
Horror and comedy have been partners in crime since Abbott and Costello were being chased around by the Universal Monsters way back in the 1940s. But no decade helped solidify this magical marriage of genres better than the ’80s. A deluge of funny and scary flicks saturated the market and pretty much perfected the art during this time: The Evil Dead, An American Werewolf in London, Gremlins, The Toxic Avenger, The Return of the Living Dead, Night of the Creeps, The Monster Squad, House, Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Beetlejuice. And that’s barely a third of them. I mean, just absolutely everywhere. And while Gremlins may have been the only massive blockbuster among the group, there is no doubt in any horror fans mind the importance of all the aforementioned titles to the history of the genre.
When the ’90s rolled around, however, horror comedies were a little harder to come by. And by the ’00s they barely made a blip on anyone’s radar, save for the crud that was the Scary Movie franchise. Sure, there are some hits buried in that first decade — Club Dread, Shaun of the Dead, Slither, Zombieland — but I still only need a hand and a half to count the passible releases from those 10 long years.
The good news is: horror comedies have slowly been making a comeback! Beginning with 2012’s sleeper meta hit The Cabin in the Woods, horror comedies have been steadily gaining traction once again — which brings us to 2015’s Deathgasm
The movie follows Brodie (Milo Cawthorne), a gawky teenaged metalhead who has to go live with his ultra-conservative aunt and uncle after his mom is institutionalized. He also has to attend a new school where he immediately falls for a flaxen-haired dreamgirl named Medina (Kimberly Crossman). To help integrate himself, he starts a metal band with a few classmates and a local badass, Zakk (James Blake). Meanwhile, he’s continually picked on at home and at school by his cousin David (Nick Hoskins-Smith).
Soon, Brodie and Zakk come into possession of some mysterious sheet music written in Latin, and decide to translate it and have their band cover it. In doing so, they (somewhat) unknowingly open the gates of Hell — turning many people into horrific demons and ultimately summoning the D-man himself (I’m talkin’ about Satan, you sapheads.) Now it’s up to the timid Brodie, his crush Medina, and their motley crew of metalheads to stop the demons.
I’d seen a few mixed reviews from friends online, so I was a little leery about watching it, but let me just say: I loved this movie. It’s the perfect love letter to splatstick flicks like Raimi’s The Evil Dead and Peter Jackson’s Braindead. Plus, it has a cinematic prowess that recalls the techniques of Raimi, and even Edgar Wright: lots of kinetic cuts, lots of fluid edits, and director Jason Lei Howden makes sure that every shot counts. This last part — the way it was shot and edited — may be the most important aspect of all, above the rampant blood and guts. It’s always a terrible idea when horror movies let creative direction take a backseat to whatever story they’re trying to tell, since most horror films rarely have anything new to say. In fact, I’d argue the way a horror film is shot is possibly the most important aspect above anything else. Recent indie faves like It Follows, The Babadook, The Boy, Spring, The Canal — all lauded, yet each story couldn’t be more different from the next. The one thing they have in common? They’re all gorgeously lensed. And that really, really matters.
Ultimately, Deathgasm is just a really fun film that doesn’t take itself — or anything else, for that matter — seriously. The jokes are sharp and they never linger on a punchline too long. Plus: the gore is gore-geous! Split heads, torn limbs, intestines, and blood-puking that makes the cherry pit scene from The Witches of Eastwick look positively tame. I mean, how can you go wrong with a movie about a group of metalheads in corpse paint trying to save their town from demonic hellspawn? You can’t.
Deathgasm is currently on VOD and I say CHECK IT OUT!
What’s in Doc’s Candy Bucket?
I’m far too old to go trick-or-treating anymore (according to everyone but me), but the trade off is that, as an adult who earns a paycheck, I can go to the store and buy as much Halloween candy as I want, whenever I want. And no one can tell me I’m too old to do that. So there.
The thing I miss most about the prospect of free candy was the random hodgepodge assortment that would be unveiled at the end of the night. Sifting through the sweets and chocolates, the hard candies and wrapped mysteries, the cheap stuff and the primo stuff. That is an element I long for. But as I said before, I’m adult now and I can do whatever I want (wahoo!), so I’ve decided to compile a list of treats I haven’t had in decades. This is what grown up Doc would want in his candy bucket. Continue reading What’s in Doc’s Candy Bucket?
Camera Viscera 