Movies of 2014, Horror pt2

            Hey I managed to catch up on some horror movies I missed when doing my initial rundown of the horror movies of 2014.  So I decided to just do these here and continue my track record of reviewing movies that nobody really cares about.

Dracula Untold

Overall: 3/10

            What a turkey.  And what a Turkey.

            A strange complaint that will be limited to me and a very small class of history enthusiasts: this movie is kind of racist, and very historically incorrect… And not within the bandwidth of, “it is just fiction you can fudge the numbers a bit”.  It is actually more off base than “300” with its bull shit.

            The start of this movie portrays Vlad Tempest as having been raised in the Janissary tradition of the Ottoman Turks and having been a participant in their military campaigns.  That is mostly true… But they leave out a lot, like his brother staying in Turkey as a friend of the future Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror.  In the movie there is no brother and instead Vlad sees Mehmed as his brother.

In the movie they talk about how, "There are no pictures or statues of the man."  Trying to pull the, "He isn't the hero we need, but he is the hero we deserve" Dracula should be more like Batman bullshit.  And considering that is a picture of Vlad from Wikipedia, I find this movie again... Really stupid.

            To compare with “300” again.  In real life Vlad, as a way of turning away peace with the Turks… Had the envoys murdered by nailing their turbans to their heads.  And he did this to lay the groundwork for a crusade he anticipated happening in a few years which would have drawn the bulk of the Ottoman forces away from his lands.

            The issues in here deepen as in 3 days the Turks bash into the country, and if it were not for Vlad gaining demonic super powers they would have won handily, even though the war lasted for 3 years in real life and was brought to a close by treason against Vlad which resulted in his beheading… INSTEAD THEY HAVE HIM KILL MEHMED THE CONQUEROR.  I know that most people have no idea who Mehmed is from a historical standpoint, because Middle East history is not looked upon with all that interest by US classes, but having Mehmed die in this way would be the equivalent of having Mao die fighting the Japanese during World War II and never take power in China.  (By the way, the final confrontation is just crap, Vlad has annihilated the entire army even if Mehmed had killed Vlad he would have been totally fucked so the whole final fight comes off as meaningless).  This is such a divergence from history that it breaks the movie for me.  And there are obvious ways around it.  I am leaving out huge problems with everything from the lack of characterization of the bad guys, the stupid battle tactics, how swarms of bats are used to create massive crashes that kill dozens of Turks at a time… The freaking bats in this movie are just ridiculous.

            There are good things in the movie.  Most of the acting works, Charles Dance is a great master vampire, but overall the movie is just really weak with its plot.  You have Vlad gain the power to kill a thousand men single handedly… and nobody bats an eye, but 24 hours later they are trying to burn him alive because he is a vampire… What?  They already know of him as a mass murderer of innocents, they already know he has started a war with the local expansionist super power, he has forced them to abandon their homes… and they decide to turn on him because he has temporarily gained superpowers?  And has yet to use them to harm any of his own people. 

So he is also the Hulk.  He is Batman mixed with the Hulk.

           How would I fix this movie?  How about instead of it happening over the course of a few days it instead happens over a few months, Vlad drinking little sips of vampire blood to gain temporary power, but also demonic cunning, using his small forces and limited vampire powers to stage daring raids and traps for the Ottomans (like what happened in real life) and eventually drives them off but in having done so has been permanently transformed into a monster, his allies turn on him for fear of his now uncontrolled power, he is forced to fake his death and escape disappearing into legend as a local myth, hunting those who betrayed him.  That way there is no obvious breaks from the reality of real world history, you have a character that is established as not only strong but smart and capable of leadership.

            I could easily see this and “I, Frankenstein” existing in the same universe.  A crappy universe of bland, “I am so emo” monster movies.

 

And the final battle with Mehmed is backwards.  Mehmed being a mortal fighting a super strong, super fast, shapeshifter has to use cunning and a careful allocation of limited resources to pose a threat... Something the hero of the story is usually expected to do.  God, this movie is so stupid.  It comes off like the boss battle of a video game.  (Poster)

Horns

Overall: 5/10

       I initially had no enthusiasm to see this.  The premise seemed like “The Crow”, a movie I have never really liked.  Daniel Radcliffe was still (in my mind) the guy who had stared in “The Woman in Black” which was an uneven letdown of a film.  And the advertising of this movie either emphasized the darker stuff or the sillier parts, and so I did not understand what to expect.

       In general what I got was an uneven and messy film, but it wasn't a disappointment.  The funny parts were funny, the idea of the horns is pretty cool, and they do a lot to develop everyone in the movie as characters.  The problem comes with tone, in which it swings back and forth between comedy, tragedy, and horror so fast that there is some mood whiplash.  Do they want the movie to be a dark tale of revenge that shows a character embrace darker impulses to punish the sinners who have ruined his life?  Or does it want to be a farce, the main character stirring up a series of sight gags as he takes a tour of a small town filled with assholes as he figures out a mystery?  The serious sentimental ending suggests the former, but much of the movie’s scenes of irreverent violence suggests the later.

       I really like the idea of the horns, that they compel people to confess their deepest sins, act out their vile impulses, can make them psychically experience suffering, and nobody remembers it.  That is pretty cool, and leads to a lot of scenes of people screaming at each other, fighting, or being gluttons for drugs or food.  As far as low-key-magical-realism super powers go this is a good one.

I was afraid the movie would pull punches, but it didn't.  It has boobs and blood and cursing.  Since it didn't shirk from those things I might be giving it a bit more credit than it deserves.  Really the premise works on paper, and with a more focused script, either serious or farcical this thing could have been pretty good. 

Also, it is good to see that all of Danny's practice working with CGI stuff in his movie career helps him here.  (Poster)

Housebound

Overall: 7/10

            A movie I had not heard of and I am surprised has not received more attention.  “Housebound” is a horror comedy with roughly the premise of “Disturbia” or “Rear Window” in that a young woman cannot leave her house (she is a criminal) and discovers strange happenings in her home, ultimately discovering it was the scene of a murder and it is now haunted.  She unravels the mystery with the help of the security official who makes sure she stays under house arrest, and putting up with her Mom and Step Dad.

            It has a lot of good foreshadowing and wraps up rather tightly by the end.  The action is fast, it makes a lot of quick little jokes that show the characters are human, and the mystery resolves in a satisfying fashion.  It isn't going to touch you on a deep and personal emotional level, but it is a good bit of fun.

Another movie in which characters with motivations react and act in accordance with the plot.  Why does that seem like such a hard thing to find in movies?

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Movies 2014, Uncategorized (Some More)

            And of course after writing the last blog which included a large section detailing many movies I had not seen and the reasons why I had not seen them, now I have seen a one of them, and one I had not mentioned.

Fury

            If I had known this movie was from the director of "End of Watch" and "Training Day" then I wouldn't have bothered to see it.  His movies are full of bullshit 'be a man' toxic masculinity that I find disgustingly out of place in modern cinema.  The sort of crass sentiment that should be derided but always comes across as lauded in his work.  His bad guys in this and "End of Watch" lack depth or characterization beyond 'Nazi' and 'gangbanger' which would be fine if the movies were trying to be light popcorn fair, but they instead put on airs as being some how "real".  Pretentious is the best way to describe the subject matter.

            Beyond that the movie is poorly made.  It starts with a good cold open as Brad Pitt surprise murders a guy, and we are introduced to the crew... The people we think are going to be the protagonists... They aren't, they are the supporting cast... This is so strange, they just lost a machine gun operator, and the replacement rookie is the main character, he is the one we identify with and follow thru the story, but since we are introduced to these guys first and never knew the now dead previous machine gunner the animosity the tank crew holds toward the new guy comes off as obnoxious.  Here is an idea, why not have us introduced to the original machine gun guy, have him played by a big name actor like Jake Gyllenhal or Matt Damon, feature him prominently in the promotional material, and then kill him off in the opening act, and then introduce the rookie.  The audience will feel the loss of the big actor whom they had assumed would be in the rest of the movie, the shock death will alienate the audience toward the new guy so that we can sympathize with the crew who now have to make due with the rookie.  It is meta-textual.  Then when Brad Pitt forces the rookie to murder a helpless prisoner, in what is certainly a war crime we will see where Pitt is coming from having seen how much worse off they are with a raw rookie on their hands, rather than feeling sickened by Pitt's violent villainous behavior.

            Then there is also the lighting.  I do not know why they felt the need to have this thing look like it was filmed inside Satan's asshole, but it is so dark and lit by flame that I assume it had to be intentional.  The pacing is terrible, at one point the movie stops cold for 20+ minutes so that Pitt and the rookie can have tea and breakfast with a couple women in a captured village (SPOILERS: Even though "Immanent RAPE" is practically written in neon lights over the scene it never happens and mostly it serves to illustrate the differential personas of the various tank men.  However, afterword the women they have tea with are immediately killed by an artillery strike in the cheapest attempt to pull an emotion I have seen in a movie of this type.  Why not just have them play with a dog and then have a Nazi shoot the dog?  YOU KNOW, TO MAKE US FEEL SOMETHING.)

            There is also this odd thing with the bullets.  America's tracer rounds glow a different color than the Nazi's.  One is green the other is red.  So it looks like a battle from "Star Wars".  Was that a real thing?  I can't find info on that, I thought tracer rounds just had magnesium on them that burned white.

            And the last battle.  Unless you are Wolverine or Audie Murphy... This battle is horseshit.  Five guys in a broken tank kill 100+ bad guys who are too stupid to just go around the tank thru the numerous open fields.

            Here is my only two real compliments, I have not seen a movie about tank operations, and the idea of teaching the audience about how tanks worked thru practical demonstrations is interesting, and the fact that the new crew guy was there served as the obvious character to have to explain operations to, but most of it is too 'meh' and 'yeah that makes sense' to be seen as really informative (while I felt the science fiction of "The Final Countdown" was weak, the presentation of naval operation and function was actually pretty informative for its time).  I wish the movie had been more about giving informative to the audience.  The cast was great, Shia LeBeouf and Brad Pitt especially (Though it is odd to think that Pitt is now old enough to portray a character that could have fought in WWI as well).

Overall: 4/10

 

"More Gloom.  Cause it's war.  No battle has ever been fought on a cloudless day.  And besides if we don't use the color scheme to make people feel like shit... well, the story ain't gonna do it for us."

What If (The 'F' Word)

            As a romantic comedy it has by default an incredibly hack plot.  But, you can look past those sorts of things if the other aspects of the production are good.  This one has good production.  The characters are likable and the dialogue is snappy.  I would have preferred a different ending (something less pat and happy) and I think that there are parts of this movie that could have taken a different turn to make it a more memorable and interesting movie, but it is fine for what it does in the context of a hack plot.  I do feel this movie would have benefited from an R rating, allowing the nudity that is featured in the script to be featured on the screen instead of it just being glanced or hinted at, but that is a minor gripe.  I was too hard on this movie while watching it and I imagine that if you enjoy quirky comedies it will appeal to you much more deeply than it did to me.

            I also find it very strange how short Danny Radcliffe is.  I thought he was working with giants, but really he is just itty bitty.  Good enough actor, guess he would have to be with the decade of practice and growing up in the industry, but I guess I can see why he hasn't been in a Marvel movie.  He is a foot shorter than Thor.  I am getting hung up on this and I don't know why.  Maybe because I get tired of people making fun of Tom Cruise who is taller than Radcliffe, and now I am just reacting in the other direction.

            Major contrast to "Fury" in that regard.

Overall: 6/10

 

The international title is "The 'F' Word" which doesn't really make any sense.  Honestly I would have called it 'Fool's Gold' which will only make sense if you watched the movie.

Movies of 2012, Horror Awards

            Scary movies are not really my bag.  I am frequently too far from the characters in the story (because they are assholes) to really care if they live or die.  But occasionally a horror movie comes along and really works for me.  One of those made it into my top 5 this year.  Here are the other three horror movies I saw, some awards I chose to give them and the arbitrary numerical score to help express my complex opinion.

            There is a movie missing from this list because I have decided to throw it into a different hopper (for what I would normally call a bad reason to do so), unless you know to look for it you won't notice it is missing but I am mentioning it now because I want to.

The Award for best Unlikable Protagonist: "Sinister" (Trailer)

            A washed up alcoholic writer moves his family into a potentially dangerous situation, but at the same time he has a really valid perspective on his life and you commiserate with him about his plight.  As he sees more and more grisly images and is drawn into what appears to be a series of cult murder/kidnappings you wonder if he is being haunted or is going nuts.  Yeah it is pretty good, and I really liked the ending.  There is graphic content that is shocking in subject matter and presentation.  There is good pacing.

            The only thing that is really of issue is that there is no mystery, at no point does the main character appear to be homing in on some sort of answer or manages to change the course of things through his actions.  He and his family are ostensibly doomed and at no point do you feel they can escape.  I compare this to "The Ring" in that there are haunted movies with disturbing images, but "The Ring" (Trailer) had the main character unraveling the history of the video, the little girl ghost, and then takes proactive steps to save herself and the audience follows her on that journey.  What I am saying is, in "The Ring" the characters have agency, in "Sinister" they don't.  (They both even have a scene in which the main character dramatically burns a movie in a fire-place/fire-pit and is unsure if such an action has any impact), though to be fair, in "The Ring" the cause of the murders is obviously magical in origin and the idea of undoing a curse makes some sense, in "Sinister" you are unsure if the main character is cursed or just losing his mind, that helps defuse the sense of helplessness.

7/10 (Worth seeing as it is a better than average movie of its type)

The Award for Ruining Good Tension with a Jump Scare: "The Woman in Black" (Trailer)

            This movie has style in spades, there is a good 10-15 minutes in which this thing has next to zero dialogue and is just Danny Radcliffe running through a haunted mansion nearly shitting his pants as truly tense and creepy things happen, and he acts his heart out, even though he still looks in the range of a 15 year old I kind of bought him as a single father trying to be a professional.

            The movie has lots of scary images and disturbing scenes that have very little blood and instead have just a very creepy vibe to them.  However, all that good stuff out of the way, it has issues all over the place with structure (I really have no idea what the timeline looks like for this haunting; the ghost that seems to be causing the problem is of a woman who killed herself in the mansion, or was she away in a nuthouse, was her son being kept from her, or did he die and they not tell her until later, there is a lot of confusing stuff in there).

            And the Award winning flaw is the jump scares, some work, but the one that I really remember and hate has to do with Danny Radcliffe looking out of a window and a handprint appearing on the window, then a screaming face appears, it is loud and effectively blows the tension load all over the place.  I guess it was supposed to be the payoff, but it just sucked and retroactively poisoned a lot of the good stuff that led up to it, which is too bad.  The ending is also rather bit of a letdown as it is sort of telegraphed and "tasteful" in its own way, which makes it a little tonally confused.

            Also, if you are one of the fuckwits yelling expecto-my-dick or whatever at the screen, you are not funny, you are a child, grow the fuck up and respect that he is not that character.  He is an actor, you diminish for yourself and all others Danny Radcliffe's ability to work his trade by stupidly tying him to that boring ass character.  GROW UP.

4/10 (still worth watching if you like ghost stories)

There, now that I have in part ruined your childhood, let's all move on.

The Award for Worst Cinematography: "V/H/S" (Trailer)

            I will give this movie many props, it is not afraid to be bloody, nude, and frequently shocking, it is not in any way shy.  It has a lot of good ideas chief among them is the framing device, a group of guys break into a house to steal a bunch of VHS tapes that they are told are very valuable, each part of the movie is a tape they are watching.

            All that good stuff being said: "V/H/S" is offensive to my eyes.  The entire film is done in a level of shaky camera that made me actually ill.  "The Hunger Games" (Trailer) did this to hide violence, these guys do it because... for whatever reason... they decided to be too "realistic" with how these video tapes would look.

            I am a bigger lover and defender of "Cloverfield" (Trailer) and the style of found footage than most people and I think it can add to a movie's sense of immersion.  A really good movie that came out this year was "Chronicle" (Trailer) and it is basically the gold standard for found footage movies.  BUT, while I do not mind the found footage concept of many movies, this was so rocky, so ugly that I had to cover my eyes numerous times. This film really needs to be remade with a lot of tweaking, a lot of artistry, and some stronger casting in a few roles.  But if I had to choose one thing to fix: at the very least don't have the framing device be found footage, you can have each of the movies-within-the-movie be found footage, but have the overall framing be in a traditional style, if for no other reason than you would get a chance to rest your eyes.

3/10 (Don't watch this movie, and warn others away from it)