Shocktober Review: Trilogy of Terror

 The Cap'n was a little young for Dark Shadows, so for the most part my only experience with the long running horror soap opera was through reruns on The Sci-Fi Channel (back when it was called that) and maybe USA. It seems like I saw it before The Sci-Fi Channel existed, but I know that it was always in the early afternoon and that I rarely caught every episode in a given week. My experience with it tended to include some member of the Collins family being pulled back in time (the Salem witch trials run stands out in my mind) and then being sidelined / imprisoned so the show could immediately begin telling the soap opera lives of their ancestors, often not involving monsters. It led me to pick up a tape called "The Scariest Moments from Dark Shadows," which was (no joke), a 60 minute compilation of monster reveal scenes with no sense of context whatsoever.

 All of this is to give you some sense of context that the name Dan Curtis doesn't mean to me what it did to a generation younger than the Cap'n. Uber producer and director, on an intellectual level I know he's responsible for Dark Shadows, The Night Stalker and Night Strangler, both House and Night of Dark Shadows movies, and that he adapted Bram Stoker's Dracula with Jack Palance. I know this, and his role as producer and director is well known, if you're just a little bit older than I am. As a result, I've long known Trilogy of Terror, and I'm positive I've seen it, but I'd never associated Curtis with the anthology of stories. Watching it again, it's funny, because he directed the whole thing, cast Karen Black to appear in all three stories (playing four characters), and brought in William F. Nolan (Logan's Run, Burnt Offerings) to adapt three Richard Matheson stories.

 The end result, as anthologies often are, is mixed. While I'm fond of the movie overall, there's no arguing that two of them barely muster "terror." Two of them are kind of conventional stories, one - "Julie" - about a student (Robert Burton) who seduces and later blackmails his teacher (Black), only to find he's in over his head. The other - "Millicent and Therese" is about a pair of sisters (both Black) who are at odds after the death of their father, but is there more to their rivalry than it seems? The final segment - "Amelia" - is probably the most well known, as it features Karen Black at the titular character being stalked by a Zuni fetish doll in her apartment. It easily has the most energy and comes the closest to being suspenseful / terrifying, if sometimes amusing as a result of the noise the doll makes.

 Maybe I give Trilogy of Terror too much grief - we are talking about a made-for-TV horror anthology from 1975. It's not as though it's any more or less tame than an episode of Night Gallery or some (emphasis on "some") of the Amicus films. In order to get more specific, I'll have to venture into SPOILER territory, specifically about "Julie" and "Millicent and Therese." Continue accordingly.

 While I chuckle at the Zuni fetish doll (or, rather, the low-fi way Curtis and company bring it to life), "Amelia" is easily the best segment and the closest that comes to horror. "Julie" is, technically speaking, about a serial killer, although there's a bit of bait and switch about how she "implants" the idea of pursuing a teacher into Chad (Burton)'s head. I honestly thought it was heading in a supernatural direction, but nope, Ms. Eldritch just lures students in, lets them think they're in control, and then murders them when she gets bored. It seems like a horrible idea to have a scrapbook filled with nothing but articles about college students who died under mysterious circumstances, but that's how Curtis, Nolan (and, I guess, Matheson) wanted to end it.

 "Millicent and Therese" is horror / terror in the most tertiary sense - Millicent accuses Therese of using witchcraft and being a demon, and then kills her with voodoo magic. The only problem is that it's abundantly clear that since we never, ever seen them occupy the same space that Millicent IS Therese. Possibly this wasn't as easy to guess forty years ago, but it's not exactly subtle in foreshadowing, and by the time Millicent's doctor (George Gaynes) interacts with both of them (separately), it's easy to figure out the "twist." Split personalities makes for an interesting challenge for Karen Black, but it's hardly terrifying.

 That said, Karen Black is easily the main draw of Trilogy of Terror - in the span of 71 minutes, she plays four completely different types of characters and never draws attention to the gimmick of having one actress headline the entire anthology. She's so different in behavior, in delivery, and in body language from one segment to the next that it's easy to overlook the shortcomings of the rest of the movie. "Amelia" is essentially a one woman show, and she sells the fact that a mostly stationary doll is stalking and violently attacking her. When it bites her neck, the moment should be patently ridiculous, but instead it's quite tense. Black even makes the ending, which could be laughably bad in less capable hands, ominous.

 I'm a sucker for anthologies, even ones that barely qualify as horror, and Trilogy of Terror delivers just enough and doesn't overstay its welcome. Yes, Chad is possibly the most loathsome protagonist (?) you're going to see in any horror movie, but it's nice when he gets his. The second segment is at least atmospheric, if not very predictable. For a TV movie, the production values are pretty good. And, again, Karen Black is the main draw here, and she goes for broke to elevate Trilogy of Terror beyond just another TV movie. You can find creepier, or more violent, but for entertainment value, Trilogy of Terror is just the kind of anthology to put on for friends at a Halloween party.

Shocktober Review: Curtains

 Curtains is (by some) a much beloved slasher / thriller from the "first wave" that came in the wake of Halloween and Friday the 13th. Had I not known the story behind the film before watching it, Curtains may have been more confusing. Characters are introduced and then disappear at random, there are abandoned subplots and radical tonal shifts, and at least one kill that defies the laws of physics. And yet, I really, really enjoyed the movie. Frankly, considering its tortured production existence, I'm amazed the movie works at all, let alone as well as it does.

 Originally, director Richard Ciupka and screenwriter Robert Guza, Jr. designed Curtains to be a psychological thriller, one built around director Jonathan Stryker (John Vernon) casting his film Audra. His original choice for the lead, Samantha Sherwood (Samantha Eggar) went so far as to have herself committed to an asylum for "research," but Stryker grew tired of her erratic behavior while locked away. He invites five women to audition at his secluded mountain home: actress Brooke Parsons (Linda Thorson), figure skater Christie Burns (Lesleh Donaldson), ballerina Laurian (Ann Ditchburn), comedian Patti O'Connor (Lynne Griffin), and aspiring actress Tara DeMillo (Sandra Warren). His sixth choice, Amanda Teuther (Deborah Burgess), never makes it to the house - she's murdered inside of her apartment.

 It seems like much of Curtains was supposed to be about Stryker's mind games with the girls, particularly after Samantha (who escapes from the asylum with the help of a woman whose face we never see) crashes the auditions, hoping to reclaim the role. Traces of that film are still in Curtains, but producer Peter R. Simpson was unhappy with Ciupka's early cut of the film in 1980 and brought the cast back together in 1982 to reshoot large portions of the film, in the hopes of making a more commercially viable slasher movie. The credits actually feature two separate production crews, and Ciupka had his named removed from the film (instead crediting Curtains to "Jonathan Stryker"), and while the seams are at times painfully apparent, somehow the bastardized hybrid of Ciupka and Simpsons visions works.

 Throughout Curtains, there is a palpable sense of tension, even during the prologue (introduced, as many transitions are, by curtains framing the image). Samantha is onstage, and clearly not impressing Stryker, so the two cook up a scheme where she goes "insane" and he sends her away for her own good. Unfortunately, being left to her own devices among actual mental illness does Samantha no favors. Whether Stryker expected her not to be able to leave or if it's just another game on his part, he simply gives up on his part of their charade. We never find out who helped Samantha escape - the scene is clearly designed to set up either a red herring or an accomplice - but her presence at Stryker's home doesn't amount to much by the end. There's some dramatic satisfaction on her part (contrast her first scene with Stryker with her last), but it's much ado over nothing.

 Similarly, the inclusion of Michael Wincott as Matthew, Stryker's groundskeeper, seems to be more important than his character ends up being. It's possible he never existed in Ciupka's cut - Matthew is mostly there for a sex scene with Tara in the hot tub and then to disappear for the middle of the film, only to show up (SPOILER) dead in a cut-away. There's even a scene where the masked killer watches Matthew ride off on a snowmobile that hints at a kill we never see*.

 After watching Curtains, I thought I had some idea of what was Ciupka and what was Simpson, but after watching The Ultimate Nightmare: The Making of Curtains, it turns out I had it all backwards. The opening and closing 15 minutes were all added by Simpson, which means everything in the asylum and all of the "prop room" scene in Stryker's garage weren't originally part of the film. The latter, I suspected, but the former was a little bit of a surprise. Apparently the dead giveaway in the very last scene is that one character's hair is considerably shorter, so I missed that. Chalk it up to me being invested in the story, or just no eagle-eyed enough.

 Ciupka explains that his Curtains begins with Amanda's dream sequence, but he isn't clear about any of what happens to her before the dream starts. Amanda's section in the film is limited to two locations (her apartment and the side of the road) and nobody else from Curtains appears. Most of the scenes play close to the "slasher" angle: Amanda is stalked by a man in a mask who, it turns out, is her boyfriend (she has a weird "rape" fetish that admittedly makes the scene a little uncomfortable), and wanders around drinking wine and reading Stryker's script. In what turns out (SPOILER) to be a dream, Amanda is driving to Stryker's house when she notices the creepiest doll ever in the middle of the road. She stops to pick it up, but it grabs her and won't let go, and then her car pulls forward and hits her - smash cut to waking up. The creepy doll is still next to her bed, and she's stabbed mysteriously by a stranger.

 It's odd, because it feels like this part was included post-completion, but according to Ciupka most of the middle of Curtains is his cut of the film. I had thought that Simpson used the reshoots to include doll and the mask Stryker has Samantha put on as the "tools" of the murderer. The doll shows up buried in snow when Christie goes to practice, and the killer is wearing the mask in every scene other than Amanda's death. It seemed like since we're introduced to the mask before we know what's it's in the house for, you can either take it as a red herring or a dead giveaway of the retroactive adjustments made in rshoots. But apparently that's not the case. Instead, quite the opposite. I'm looking forward to watching the film again and try to figure out how the original narrative worked (Ciupka doesn't mention his original ending, or beginning, for that matter, only the changes). A mystery inside an enigma wrapped in of a puzzle box, this Curtains.

 That said, I really don't have many problems with Curtains. It may seem like the jumbled nature of its production would stop the film dead in its tracks, but the truth is that Ciupka creates an off-setting tone, where it's unclear what is and isn't happening, and Simpson's more over, "slasher" sections are dripping with tension. At a certain point I didn't even mind the mishmash of styles, and despite the fact that much of the cast and crew don't have kind words to say about the end result, I really thought Curtains worked. It's the exception rather than the rule when it comes to this much interference and revisionism, but somehow, some way, it prevails as a pretty damn good entry when slashers were a dime a dozen.



 * Technically, Ciupka / Simpson intended for Matthew to be a body introduced near the end of the film, but not in the hot tub. His snowmobile-related death was replaced, in a manner of speaking, by making the Stryker's physically impossible fall out of one window and into another.

2013 Recap: Closer and Closer to the Top (Part Three)

 Continuing in the seemingly never-ending "Middle" section of the Recap-o-Rama-Rama, you'll be happy to know that Cap'n Howdy is finally getting to some horror movies. I didn't see a lot of the new horror movies this year, although I certainly will check out (in order of interest) You're Next, The Conjuring, Insidious Part 2, and The Lords of Salem at some point in the New Year. What I did see, I mostly enjoyed (Evil Dead aside), and will cover more thoroughly in just a moment. And some other stuff, but who am I kidding? This site is called Cap'n Howdy's Blogorium, and you came for the horror, so let me give it to you!

Found Footage, Zombies, Dolls, and Learning the Alphabet for the Last Time.

 One could suppose that if Warm Bodies was a zombie movie for teenage girls, then World War Z is a zombie movie for people who vaguely know the word "zombie" in popular culture. It's not even really a horror movie - more of an action / disaster hybrid with a redesigned third act that inches towards suspense but still ends up like a tamer 28 Days Later. And I watched the "unrated" version, for the record. I can only imagine how toothless World War Z must have been in theaters. Still, it has a scrappy, amiable charm for a big budgeted blockbuster studio "tent pole" movie.

 Based almost not at all on the book of the same name by Max Brooks, World War Z is the story of Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt), a retired UN investigator living with his family, until the zombie outbreak begins, that is. Then the Deputy Secretary General Thierry Umutoni (Fana Mokoena) brings him back in to travel around the world and see what caused the outbreak, from South Korea to Israel and eventually to a World Health Organization research center in Ireland. Separated from his family, and with continually dwindling support, Gerry finds that the zombie outbreak is capable of overcoming even the most fortified of cities, and unless they can find a cure, humanity is doomed.


 World War Z is essentially a travelogue designed to show off various big action set pieces, which director Marc Forster (Finding Neverland, Quantum of Solace) does fairly well, and which Brad Pitt responds to with a reasonable sense of urgency. The zombies are sometimes people in makeup but are usually great swaths of CGI mayhem, particularly during the siege of Jerusalem. The movie makes an abrupt turn in the section in Ireland, due in large part because the delay in World War Z's release had everything to do with the third act not working, so they scrapped the original ending in Russia and went with a more sparse, claustrophobic ending. It works, although you can see loose threads of plot line in the film as a result - the main example is Matthew Fox's UN soldier who doesn't seem to serve much of a purpose other than to help move Gerry's family around, but who in the original version "takes" his wife and daughter as his own. Now it just seems like an oddly high profile casting choice for a minor role at best. Doctor Who fans already know the prescient casting of Peter Capaldi as the WHO Doctor (that IS how he appears in the credits).

 There's not really much else to say about the movie. I thought it was watchable, if mostly average. The story behind the movie is more interesting than the finished product. The survival bits near the beginning and towards the end are good, but have been done better before. All of the big action sequences are bombastic and if you like explosions and zombies and some degree of violence, the unrated cut is certainly worth your time. It's popcorn fare through and through, which is fine and dandy every now and then, but I can't imagine that I'd be all that enthused for World War Z 2.

 I already have some degree of coverage for V/H/S 2, Curse of Chucky, and The ABCs of Death, but it doesn't seem fair to have a section devoted to horror that only covers a movie that isn't really a horror movie, so let's talk about them some more, shall we? I saw The ABCs of Death at the Nevermore Film Festival, along with The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh and The Casebook of Eddie Brewer, both of which I'm pretty sure are movies from 2012 and don't count, but feel free to click the ABCs link to read about them. Rosalind Leigh is out on video now, and I'm not sure about Eddie Brewer, but I'll keep an eye out. Good independent horror is always worth checking out, especially when there are so many bad ones clogging the shelves. Or queue, or Redbox - whatever it is you modern kids use these days.

 Oh, right, I was talking about The ABCs of Death, which is now getting a sequel that I'm cautiously looking forward to. Not because I'm worried about quality, necessarily, but when I say there are things in the first anthology you can't un-see, I mean it. Not just in the "you literally saw it and can't un-see something you saw, dummy," but in the "great, I'm not going to be able to forget that, hard as I may try." Believe me, if I could go back in time and take a bathroom break during "L is for Libido" I would. Or "Pressure" or whatever "Z" was. Twenty six shorts films means there are some terrible ones mixed in with some genuinely inspired ones, and there are some truly bizarre entries (like "Fart" or the Harakiri one), and a surprising amount of toilet humor, probably more than one movie needed. If you're interested in the concept, the first film allowed people to vote for "T" and you can find many of them on Vimeo or YouTube. For The ABCs 2, the voting is for "M." So far I've seen some pretty interesting entries ("Masticate" might be my favorite) and they're fairly easy to find. If you'd rather wait for the movie to come out to see what wins, they should still be around afterwards.

 It's no secret that I like anthology horror films (that's probably a sentence I've written more times than I'd care to admit), and V/H/S 2 is a better one at what it sets out to do than The ABCs in construction, if not ambition. The more I think about it, the less it really has anything to do with "found footage," especially VHS tapes, as someone would have to go through extraordinary effort to edit most of the digital footage they "found" and then transfer it to a VCR in order to fit into the wraparound narrative's gimmick. I've heard that the WFUN Halloween Special does a better job of actually using the "VHS" conceit, but since I have not been able to watch it, I don't want to comment definitively. That said, I still think V/H/S 2 is an improvement in every way over the first film and will be keeping an eye out for successive entries into whatever you want to call this anthology format. Also, I need to get that special edition that has V/H/S 2 on VHS, just because.

 And Curse of Chucky. I've already gushed over it twice, because as mentioned with Furious Six last time, by the time you make it to six movies in a series, it's usually something terrible like Freddy's Dead, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, or Hellraiser: Hellseeker. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives is the exception to that rule, and now it has some company with Curse of Chucky. (Sorry, I don't think I ever saw Children of the Corn 666 or, uh Puppet Master 6 if there is one. All of the Saw movies sucked, so it's not like VI was any better or worse, but I guess the whole "health insurance" thing was pretty dumb.) I think it would have had a pretty good shot in theaters, and I wish I had seen it with an audience, but DTV it was and the crowd at Horror Fest ate it up, so I can't complain too much. Let's just hope there isn't another eight year gap between Child's Play sequels.

Novel-less Adaptations

 Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine)'s The Place Beyond the Pines feels like his Great American Novel adaptation, but without a book to be based on. It's a sprawling, multi-generational story of small town America, of politics and crime and the sins of the father(s). At nearly two-and-a-half hours, it still feels shortened, as though there were threads of the story that were left out, chapters unvisited. While not altogether successful, the ambition to make such a dense story is nevertheless most impressive.

 The Place Beyond the Pines is broken up roughly into three sections: the first involves Luke (Ryan Gosling) a circus motorbike stuntman who decides to visit Romina (Eva Mendes) while in Schenectady. They hooked up the last time he was in town, and he figures maybe they can again, but when he arrives at her home unannounced, he discovers that he's the father of her infant son, Jason. Luke, despite being something of a drifter and generally shady character, immediately quits his job and decides to stay in town to help raise Jason, even though Romina is with Kofi (Mahershala Ali) and makes it clear that Luke isn't needed.

 The drifter ends up staying in the trailer of mechanic Robin (Ben Mendelsohn), who mentions he used to rob banks when Luke asks for work. The adrenaline junkie in Luke takes to robbing banks, and he uses the money to help Jason, despite Romina and Kofi's protests. When Luke turns violent, Robin abandons him and destroys his bike, giving the stuntman less to work with when he insists on robbing two banks in one day. While escaping on a faulty motorbike, Luke is pursued by Officer Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), with violent repercussions for both men.

 Without spoiling too much (because you really should see The Place Beyond the Pines), the focus of the film shifts from Gosling to Cooper as he navigates the Schenectady Police Department, corruption, and his own ambitions. We're introduced to his wife Jennifer (Rose Byrne), his own infant son, A.J.,  his father, Jude Al Cross (Harris Yulin), fellow officers Scotty (Gabe Fazio) and Deluca (Ray Liotta), and District Attorney Bill Killcullen (Bruce Greenwood), and the ways that they intersect with his crisis of conscience following the encounter with Luke and his new reputation as "Hero Cop."

 The film then jumps ahead fifteen years and picks up with Cross running for New York Attorney General, when Jennifer drops off the teenage A.J. (Emory Cohen) with his father. Avery transfers A.J. to a Schenectady high school for his final year, and the drug enthusiast teen quickly seeks out the first kid who acts like him, the quiet Jason (Dane DeHaan). Neither know their histories are intertwined, but A.J.'s negative and bullying presence soon brings Jason more trouble than he wanted while at the same time introducing him to a father he never knew. Romina and Kofi are helpless bystanders as Jason realizes a whole piece of his history, of who he is, has been withheld from him, and the path to discovery takes some dark turns.

 The Place Beyond the Pines' success for you is going to hinge on how you feel about the somewhat abrupt transition between protagonists midway through the film. The Bradley Cooper section of the film is compelling, but not as immediately gripping as the early stretch with Gosling, and the Avery Cross "chapters" of the movie take a slow, but deliberate, change of pace in developing the characters. Things pick up again when we meet A.J. and Jason as teens and see that much of The Place Beyond the Pines has been building to their stories, but the middle stretch might be too jarring for some. I personally felt that the beginning and the end are more than enough to make up for it, and that the middle leaves something to be desired (Avery Cross simply isn't as interesting a character as a young cop), but in laying the groundwork for Jason's story, it's a necessary detour. It still feels like there are a number of unresolved issues from the middle section of the film that seem like setups which are never paid off. Maybe they were never meant to be addressed again, but it does feel like reading a book and seeing the movie that needs to drop some critical moments for the sake of time or narrative flow. The end result is epic, but simultaneously intimate, and a welcome change of pace from conventional storytelling.

 There's no easy way to say this, but To the Wonder didn't really do anything for me. The Cap'n isn't alone in this, and apparently 2013 was the year of declaring that "The Emperor Has No Clothes" about Terrence Malick. Maybe it is possible to have too much of a good thing; up until 2005, when he released The New World, Malick made three films in three decades (Badlands, Days of Heaven, and The Thin Red Line), which gave audiences plenty of time to anticipate his next film, to pore over the last one, and the mystique of the reclusive director grew. But since The New World, Malick has been on a tear (comparably speaking) releasing The Tree of Life in 2011, To the Wonder in 2013, and Knight of Cups later this year. That's four movies in nine years (with another one underway), and perhaps Malick hit a saturation point none of us knew was coming, or could come.

 Critics were split on To the Wonder, and audiences mostly seemed to reject it as "pretentious" (which is not a new pejorative for a Malick film) and "empty." His films have, at least since Days of Heaven, valued the experiential over narrative structure. He tends to introduce themes that ask "Big" questions, like "what should humans follow, the path of nature or grace?" and as Malick gets older, the characters in his films become less important than the cosmic issues. You have to take it or leave it, because I don't think we're ever going to get something like Badlands again - the characters in a Malick film are merely cyphers for him to work out philosophical issues. To the Wonder isn't really any different, in that regard. I think the problem was that, for once, I didn't really connect to the issues he was grappling with.

 That is, at least, one of the problems I had with To the Wonder, and it's a fundamental one that kept me from letting the film wash over me (as they usually do). I can understand grappling with doubts about love and faith, but they don't personally engage me in any way, so the visuals were all I had to hang on to. Coupled with this is the fact that I'm not sure Malick knew what he wanted to say with To the Wonder, other than to put the issue out there and repeat it over and over again. Father Quintana (Javier Bardem) only seems to exist in order to provide (subtitled) narration about God's absence from his life, and to ask how to find spiritual enlightenment again. His role in the story is perfunctory, as the emotional travails of Neil (Ben Affleck), Marina (Olga Kurylenko), and - very briefly - Jane (Rachel McAdams) eat up most of the film.

The plot is bare bones, even compared to The Tree of Life. I can boil down into three sentences: Neil and Marina meet in Paris, and she agrees to move back to Oklahoma with him, where he works. She has doubts and returns to Paris with her daughter, and in their absence Neil reconnects with Jane, a childhood friend. When Marina returns, they marry but struggle and seek assistance from Father Quintana, but is it already too late?

 By the way, I only know their names because of the credits, because if someone says them in the film, I missed it for every character. Affleck mentioned in an interview that Malick films with a script and dialogue for the actors, and then tends to remove most of it during editing, and increasingly relies on narration to bridge the imagery (Sean Penn indicated something similar while disparaging his diminished presence in The Tree of Life). Neil says almost nothing at all in the film - he's really there more for Marina and Jane to project onto, and Affleck has, undeservedly I think, been shouldered with much of the blame for its failure in execution. In truth, it's not really his fault - the film, in its finished form, is a meditation on the inability of Marina to connect to Neil juxtaposed with Quintana's spiritual crisis. Marina is, for all intents and purposes, the main character - it's her we hear speaking in narration (subtitled, this time from French), and when she leaves the story for a while, McAdams steps in as a surrogate lover, but it's not long. Affleck is understated, largely because it isn't his story. It's not his crisis to deal with - of the cyphers in the film, Neil is the one we're left with to project all of our doubts on.

  I can't decide if the reason that the visual fallback doesn't work is because this is the first time Malick isn't working at all in period. It's such an odd thing to get hung up on, but To the Wonder is the only film he's made that's set entirely in the present, and once Neil and Marina leave Paris, it settles into a very flat, somewhat drab Midwestern location. The open sky is always nice to look at, but there was only so much of Kurylenko twirling in the "magic hour" light that can sustain a movie, and the sterility of their home in America didn't help. I realize that's the point - comparing it to the Old World of Europe, but for the first time it didn't feel like that was enough. Being visually boring isn't something I ever thought I'd equate with Terrence Malick, but I did check the running time of the movie midway into the film which is the first time I've ever done that with one of his movies.

 So To the Wonder is the punching bag that naysayers have been waiting for, and I don't want to add any more fuel to the fire, but it didn't really do much for me. It's disappointing, but these things happen, unfortunately.

 In the absence of the critical acclaim for Terrence Malick, critics suddenly found themselves scrambling to name the director's heir apparent, and it seems they've settled on David Lowery's Ain't Them Bodies Saints. I can certainly see the appeal, as Lowery (who edited Shane Carruth's Upstream Color, a film you'll be hearing about before this recap is over) crafted a tale of Texas in the 1970s that's bound to remind viewers of Badlands. It opens with a title card that states "This Was Texas," and drops us right into the lives of Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) and Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara).

 We don't know much about them, other than Ruth helps Bob and his partner Freddy (Kentucker Audley) rob someone and make a getaway with police in hot pursuit. During the shootout at an abandoned Muldoon family farmhouse, Ruth shoots Office Patrick Wheeler (Ben Foster) in the shoulder after Freddy is killed. Because Ruth is pregnant, Bob takes the blame for the shot and is sent to prison for 25 years. Four years later, Ruth is raising her daughter, Sylvie (Kennadie and Jacklynn Smith) with the help of Patrick and Skerritt (Keith Carradine), a man with ties to Bob and Freddy. That is, until Bob escapes, and everyone anticipates he'll make good on his promise to come back for Ruth...

 Ain't Them Bodies Saints is more narrative driven than anything Malick's ever done, but otherwise I can see the comparisons to Badlands. It's a lush, atmospheric film, one that slowly reveals information, leaving plenty of open-ended plot lines throughout the early stretches. Bob's letters to Ruth are read in narration (as well as Ruth's one response), and much of the latter half of Ain't Them Bodies Saints is conveyed visually rather than with dialogue. The title itself is something of a mantra, not meant to symbolize anything in particular, but to put you in the frame of mind to experience the film. Affleck, Mara, Foster, and particularly Carradine turn in great performances, as does Nate Parker as Sweetie, Bob's friend on the outside that helps him when he returns to Meridian to find Ruth.

 It's a fine film, and I look forward to seeing more from Lowery, although I'd hesitate to call him the next Terrence Malick. For one, I don't see that such a title is necessary for an emerging director, and may in fact be more burdensome than laudatory. Ain't Them Bodies Saints has everything it needs to stand up on its own without crowning the director as the successor to another director's legacy. Taken on its own terms, there's more than enough for you to enjoy Ain't Them Bodies Saints.

Apatow in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush (Or, a Tale of Two Apatows)

 It feels like there are three camps in the "Apatow Productions" industry: there's the Judd Apatow camp, which sort of ties things together but are mostly relationship based movies that go over two hours and have lots and lots of improv. Then there's the Adam McKay / Will Ferrel Gary Sanchez Productions / Funny or Die group, that focuses by an large on outlandish roles for Ferrell and company (Talladega Nights, Step Brothers). And then there's the Seth Rogen / Evan Goldberg camp, that brings us weird genre hybrids like Pineapple Express, Observe and Report, and Superbad. Sometimes they overlap and you'll see actors from one film in another of the camps (actually, more often than not, you will) but they seem to remain distinct entities unto themselves.

 As Apatow did not have a movie out this year, having released This is 40 in 2012, the Apatow Production brand fell into the capable hands of the Rogen and McKay camps to release two of the funnier movies I saw this year: This is the End and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (respectively). Until Anchorman 2, I don't think I'd laughed harder at anything all year than This is the End (although there's one other movie I'll get to next week that's pretty close). They're very different types of movies, and I won't pretend that blatant vulgarity is a large part of their appeal, but laugh I did, and repeatedly.

 It never really occurred to me, but there was a very good chance that This is the End could have been a disaster. For lowbrow comedy, it's strangely high concept: a group of well known comedy actors play versions of themselves in the middle of the apocalypse. Actually, save for a few people in the background of the party and at the convenience store, everybody in This is the End is playing themselves, or an exaggerated version of their on-screen "persona"'s. Having seen actual interviews with Danny McBride, it's pretty clear he's not just Kenny Powers, but the "Danny McBride" in This is the End is absolutely a variation on that. Seth Rogen is the amiable stoner, Jonah Hill is the eager to please guy, Craig Robinson is the unflappable man about town, and James Franco is the weirdo. Well, okay, the last one might not be an exaggeration at all, but the screenplay by Rogen and Goldberg takes most of its shots at the "lesser" films on Franco's resume.

 I haven't really seen enough of Jay Baruchel outside of supporting roles in other Judd Apatow productions to know how close his "Hollywood Outsider"personality is to real life, but beneath all of the dick jokes and nonstop profanity is the simple story of two friends who grew apart. It's really the only thing that holds together the otherwise episodic nature of This is the End. Beyond the story of Seth Rogen (Rogen) and Jay Baruchel (Baruchel) trying to figure out where their friendship in compared to the Hollywood lifestyle, the movie is mostly a series of set ups that put Hill, Rogen, Baruchel, Franco, McBride, and Robinson in bizarre situations.

 And don't get me wrong, it's all VERY funny while you're watching it, and afterwards to boot, but don't go in expecting some kind of sustained story. It's more like "okay, it's the apocalypse - what do they have to eat? what drugs will they do? what happens when they run out of water? hey, Emma Watson survived and wants to stay with the guys - who's going to screw that up?" Even the ending feels like, "well, how are we going to end this movie?" and the answer is with the Backstreet Boys, paying off something we didn't even realize was a set up from earlier in the movie.

 In the meantime, there's a lot of improvisation, lots of poking fun at themselves (particularly Franco, who in the movie saves memorabilia from all of his films, leading them to have the prop gun from Flyboys as their only weapon). The party at Franco's house (where the movie takes place) is loaded with cameos, many from Apatow veterans who meet horrible ends. Michael Cera makes the best impression playing the coked out asshole from hell that we all know he is, but my favorite might be Paul Rudd accidentally crushing a woman's skull with his foot when the apocalypse starts. And yes, that's exactly how that happens.

 For those of you looking for consistent and raucous laughter, This is the End is a guaranteed winner. It plays like gangbusters with a crowd, too.

 After the first trailer, I must admit that I was worried Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues was going to suck. The long in development sequel (that almost didn't happen) just didn't look very funny from the ads, and to be honest some of what I saw made me groan. "Oh no, not Ron Burgundy being accidentally racist at the dinner table..." Fortunately, I had nothing to worry about. Like the first film (which I saw on a whim, also assuming it would only be intermittently funny), it's even better than you could have expected.

 With that much time to work on it, Adam McKay and Will Ferrell found plenty of time to hone the screenplay to perfection, and with a cast that clicks so well together, the improv doesn't stick out at all amidst the actual story (there is, apparently, an alternate cut of the film that replaces every single joke with a different one being released on Blu-Ray). The callbacks to the first film are limited, but well placed, and the new cast members fit in like a glove.

 Since Anchorman 2 is still playing at the time I'm writing this and I highly recommend you go see it, I won't say too much about the plot. It involves the News Team joining GNN, the first 24 Hour News Network (run by a psychotic Australian millionaire), but Ron (Ferrell), Champ (David Koechner), Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd) and Brick (Steve Carrell) aren't there to headline - no, that's for Jack Lime (James Marsden), the big time anchor. The Channel Five boys have the graveyard slot, and they decide to fill it with the news audiences want, not what they need, to the dismay of producer Freddie Shapp (Dylan Baker) and manager Linda Baker (Meagan Good). But it works!

 Make no mistake - Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues may be rated PG-13, but it's so close to an R that I would have sworn it was one. In fact, I had to look, because I thought it was an R. The "shit"'s fly almost as frequently as the non sequitur(s) do, and the film is loaded with sight gags you might not catch on the first viewing (and yes, I've seen it twice already). The use of a Simon and Garfunkel song near the end of the movie had me laughing so hard that I almost missed the subtitles from Baxter. Oh, and Kristen Wiig is a great addition as the love interest and only person dumber than Brick Tamland. The less I say about the "rumble" in this film, the better, because not knowing who's going to show up makes it even better, but I will say keep a close eye on the ghost of Stonewall Jackson...

 I'm not sure this is going to be as immediately quotable as the first film, but honestly I don't care. It's funny, and that's what is more important in a comedy. Not only did McKay and Ferrell not drop the ball, they carried it across the length of the field for a touchdown. Or do I mean "Whammy!"? Oh, and the bats... Oh, the bats. I'm trying hard not to spoil this movie for you, but when I think of it, there's so much that comes to mind.

 At any rate, both This is the End and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues have tremendous replay value, and I'm looking forward to watching both yet again in the coming year(s).

 We're very nearly done with the middle, and as you can see my enthusiasm is growing as things progress. If you think these are getting ecstatic, just wait until you see the "Best Of."

Horror Fest VIII (Day Two): Curse of Chucky and Trick 'r Treat

  After an episode of Tales from the Crypt ("Beauty Rest," for those curious) and waiting for some attendees to run to get some food, it was time for the double feature "main event," the unveiling of Curse of Chucky for audiences who barely knew it existed and the return of Trick 'r Treat for the first time since Horror Fest IV: The Final Chapter! As I expected, neither disappointed, but other than Demons, Horror Fest VIII has (to this point) been quite the success.

 Like All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, attentive readers are no doubt aware that I already reviewed Curse of Chucky to kick off Shocktober. Unfortunately for those of you reading this, I don't have much to add to that review (feel free to click on that link, I'll be here when you get back), but as it's been a few weeks since the beginning of the month, I'm comfortable spoiling a little bit of the movie and describing how it plays with a larger crowd.

 As the Cap'n suspected, Curse of Chucky works very well with fans and relative newbies to the Child's Play series alike. Some long time fans came in with trepidation, but Don Mancini's willingness to play with expectations goes a long way towards easing any doubts about Curse's "direct to video" stigma. The misdirect about who the nanny was "shtupping," about how Nica's family fits into the Charles Lee Ray back story (and how that retcons into Child's Play), and the kills in particular were big hits, but the cameos that close out the film really sealed the deal. Aside from having to explain why Jennifer Tilly appeared as Tiffany (again, if you haven't seen the ending of Seed of Chucky in a while, you might want to jog your memory), that was the most welcome of the two.

 It was a little trickier with the post-credits Alex Vincent reprising Andy Barclay, mostly because you don't immediately recognize him (for obvious reasons). They do a pretty good job of catching you up quickly, but the interaction between Chucky and Andy is so brief and the final cut so abrupt that I almost with Mancini had left it out. Yes, it helps set up an inevitable Child's Play 7 or Chucky 4 or however you like to keep track of them, but the actual, post-Jennifer Tilly ending with the "hide the soul" and grandma is a more effective way to close out the film. It also leaves you with the question about whether Chucky did transfer his soul or not, because there's no way that little girl would know who Andy was.

 But I'm picking nits, here, folks; Curse of Chucky is not only a better movie than any of us thought we'd get, but probably up there in the Child's Play series overall.

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 While several people had to split after Curse of Chucky (it was getting late and we're getting old and boring, what can I say?), I had the distinct pleasure of watching Trick 'r Treat with one person who had seen the film and one person who hadn't. The nice thing is that both of them still saw the movie a new way.

 Looking back at my Horror Fest IV coverage, I noticed something: the recaps were a LOT shorter. Take a look at this and see if you can come away with much of anything about Trick 'r Treat of substance. I couldn't, and I wrote it. And that was four years ago, when I had the stamina to watch all of those movies and get reviews together before going to bed (oops... *SPOILER*). Well, it's been four years and the Cap'n is nothing if not long winded these days, so let's give you a more "proper" look at Michael Dougherty's excellent addition to the Horror Anthology pantheon.

 I still contend it's better not to know all of the twists and turns of Trick 'r Treat going in, because the construction of the anthology is such that it rewards the uninitiated. Watching it a second, third, or fourth time, even when you know how the chronology works (SPOILER: the movie isn't told sequentially, and the overlapping stories aren't always intercut to reflect that), you're going to catch things in the background that give you some idea of where the beginning of the movie fits in with the school bus story, the Principal's story, Mr. Kreeg's story, and the girls' night out story.

 The trickiest editing is actually right after the prologue, where two stories (not going to spoil which ones) cut back and forth when a major character overlaps between the two and they seem to take place hours apart. In fact, I'm only a little fuzzy about how early in the story Principal Wilkins' story is supposed to take place (it has to happen before the prologue and during Kreeg's fight with Sam), but it also has to take place well before the pumpkin collectors take Rhonda (Samm Todd) to the quarry. Why? Because there's a direct spoiler to the "twist" in the Laurie (Anna Paquin) / "vampire" story - while they're in the elevator going into the quarry, Rhonda identifies the howling well before we cut back to Sheep's Grove (as is evidenced by the fact that Sam made it back from the quarry and is watching the girls party). It makes sense in a fashion, but Wilkins (Dylan Baker) and his son (Connor Christopher Levins) must have taken care of Charlie well before the news report about the Halloween parade downtown.

 Every time I watch Trick 'r Treat (and I try to every year near Halloween), I pick up on some other detail in Dougherty's insanely planned narrative. It's quite a draw to revisit the film, even if it weren't already a fun, suspenseful, and at times downright creepy experience to begin with. Some day, I'd love to see this in a theatre with a really big audience; I bet it plays like gangbusters.

 One final note that came up during a post-movie discussion: both of the guys who stayed late to watch Trick 'r Treat have kids, so we ended up talking about what a shame it is that parts are so violent / disturbing, because the movie does a great job of explaining why Halloween / Samhain is important culturally, but also why there are "rules." There may be no better demonstration of why you should always check your candy than the beginning of the Principal Wilkins story, why we decorate our yards and dress up, or why respecting the dead is important. They're packaged in a supernaturally charged fashion that is, almost without fail, exceptional, but underneath everything is a celebration of why Halloween continues to be such an instrumental holiday, and why October is the best month of the year for a lot of people, the Cap'n included.

 Up Next: Why am I still awake? Oh, right, because Day Two closed out with The Haunting and The Woman in Black! I may never get to sleep...

Shocktober Review: Curse of Chucky

Well, it's October, which is the best month of the year as far as the Cap'n is concerned. Not only do I have license to watch horror movies more than I already do, but it's encouraged! So why not kick it off with a sequel many of you didn't know was on the way?

 I have to admit that I was a little worried about Curse of Chucky when first I heard about it. My concern came less from the nine years since Seed of Chucky - a movie I happen to like, if that informs your reading of this review - but that Curse of Chucky was being unceremoniously dumped in the world of "DTV" horror. The Cap'n has seen his share of direct to video horror films, and with very few exceptions they tend to look cheap and offer nothing in the way of scares, atmosphere, or story. This was not how I hoped to see the next film in the Child's Play series, so I put it on with trepidation.

 It turns out that I didn't have anything to worry about, because Don Mancini - who wrote every Child's Play / Chucky movie and directed Seed of Chucky - was clearly also aware of how shitty most direct to video horror films are, and he was determined to make a sequel to Child's Play first and a low budget horror movie a distant second. Not only does the movie not look like crap, but on top of generating some legitimate atmosphere and really nice kills, Mancini adds to the series in a way fans are going to enjoy immensely.


  Nica (Fiona Dourif, daughter of Chucky) lives with her mother, Sarah (Chantal Quesnelle), who take turns taking care of each other. Sarah is an emotional wreck and Nica is paralyzed from the waist down. One day, a large package with no return address arrives with a familiar "Good Guy" doll inside. Not long after that, Nica wakes up to find her mother dead and Chucky no longer in the trash can. Her sister Barb (Danielle Bisutti) arrives with husband Ian (Brennan Elliott) daughter Alice (Summer H. Howell), and nanny Jill (Maitland McConnell) in tow, along with Father Frank (A Martinez), who hopes to rekindle Nica's lost faith. Alice takes a liking to Chucky, even if he whispers strange things to her, but as a storm threatens the power, they're in for a long night with a killer doll...

 For those of you who don't like the "camp" qualities of Bride and Seed of Chucky, I have good news for you: Curse of Chucky is considerably more straightforward in tone, resembling the first Child's Play in structure. It's a bit disarming at first, because I really wasn't sure if he was trying to reboot the series - Chucky looks like he did in the first an second film (with minor redesigns to the doll when he stops being a "Good Guy"). Mancini is clearly playing with the fact that audiences know what Chucky's really up to, but we don't hear Brad Dourif's voice until halfway into the film. Up until that point, Curse of Chucky plays a LOT like Child's Play, but with a more playful sense of "okay, what's he up to?" for long time fans.

 Much to my surprise, about an hour into Curse of Chucky, Mancini reveals that this isn't a reboot or a spin-off and is a continuation of the story - minus some questions about what happened to Chucky after Glen / Glenda got "axe happy." Beyond that, Mancini develops the Charles Lee Ray back story to boot, tying it into Nica's family history. Is there some debatable retconning? Maybe, but I have to admit it was intriguing to see Dourif on-camera again for the first time in 25 years.

  As horrible as it is to say about a movie, I feel like it's worth pointing out how good Curse of Chucky looks. Mancini's camerawork is fluid, playful, and designed to augment the story, rather than just capture what's going on and get to the next kill haphazardly. Maybe I'm just burnt out on how horrible movies like the Wrong Turn sequels look or the barely competent releases from The Asylum, but Curse of Chucky doesn't look like nobody gave a shit about it looking like a movie. Even when the budget does show (and it isn't often), Mancini works to maintain a spooky ambiance in and outside of the house.

 Two camera tricks are worth pointing out, neither of which spoil too much: the opening credits play out as the camera tracks around a rocking chair Chucky's sitting in, but as it moves from one side to the other and back again, Mancini pulls what I suspect was some in-camera trickery to transition from night into the following day. The second instance follows the audience's discovery that Chucky poisoned one of six bowls of chili with rat poison. We know somebody at the dinner table has it, but not who. Mancini sets up an overhead shot of the circular table, plates arranged like the chambers of a revolver, and slowly spins the camera around. It's a nice visual metaphor of the edible "Russian roulette" to come.

 While we're talking kills, anticipated or otherwise, Curse of Chucky has a better than fair share of practical gore effects that satisfied a "been there, seen that" hound like me. Gouged eyes, severed heads, crushed jaws, and a stabbing or two are the tip of the iceberg. What's really effective, it turns out, is the way Mancini uses Nica's paralyzed legs to generate some truly visceral blows. Just because she can't feel it doesn't mean I didn't react. To be sure, there's no doubt some digital trickery in there somewhere, but keeping both Chucky and most of the kills practical are a big plus in my book.

 If Curse of Chucky has any serious problems, they come at the end: Mancini rushes through the climactic showdown between Nica and Chucky in a way that doesn't quite resolve the build-up, even if the subsequent scene brings the story closure in a clever, twisted way. One can't help feel a bit cheated, especially as Mancini moves along to reintroduce two characters, effectively tying the first three Child's Play films into the "Chucky" trilogy. (Minor Spoiler: It might help to refresh yourself on the end of Seed of Chucky for the first cameo to avoid confusion). I actually enjoyed both surprises, although the second one initially seems to be a set up for a seventh film that quickly collapses into an "ah, nevermind" - watch until the end of the credits for that one. Had Curse of Chucky ended with the final scene in "grandma's house," I think the film would be stronger for it.

 Still, Curse of Chucky was not only better than anything I'd hoped for in a "DTV" Child's Play sequel, but it's a pretty damned good horror movie in its own right. There are plenty of novel or rarely used gimmicks, effective misdirection, and I have to once again stress really good practical gore effects. It's almost a shame Universal didn't feel confident in releasing this theatrically, because even with the time since the last film, Curse of Chucky is the kind of throwback people are often complaining they don't see on the big screen.