This kind of film lives and dies by its performances and atmosphere, and it does have a strong cast. Steve Le Marquand is very good as Jay, alternately welcoming and menacing, kind and reptilian. He does a great job of portraying how such a dark personality can appear so seductive to others while keeping Jay from tipping over into caricature. Director Matthews, a longtime cinematographer making his feature directing debut, and cinematographer Jody Muston establish an intuitive visual shorthand to separate the present storyline from Travis’s memories that both lets the audience know where they are in the storyline and provides much of the film’s most interesting images. The present of the story is a little drab and flat, but that seems like a conscious choice against the flashbacks’ grain and bright colors. Despite its solid cast and technical merits, though, the film never really falls into a satisfying rhythm after its slow opening scenes, and some of the events in the final act feel severely under explained. One Eyed Girl is a solid dramatic psychological thriller, but this territory has been mined so thoroughly and expertly in the recent past that it never feels as compelling as its best contemporaries.
The Ones Below (2015)
Originally published on Film Monthly 9 September 2016
Motherhood has been the subject of some of the most compelling horror films in history. Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby immediately comes to mind of course, and French filmmakers Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury put a memorably gory handprint on the subject with their instant-classic debut feature Inside in 2007. The style of 60s and 70s psychological thriller Polanski kickstarted with Repulsion has been a popular reference point recently for horror filmmakers. Debut feature writer/director David Farr’s The Ones Below aims directly for both motherhood and “psychotic women,” but ends up falling somewhat short.
Kate (Clémence Poésy) and Justin (Stephen Campbell Moore) are expecting their first child when new neighbors move in to the flat below theirs. As it happens, the new neighbors are also expecting. Theresa (Laura Birn) and Jon (David Morrissey) seem to have everything under control, unlike Kate and Justin. But during a dinner party, the couple behaves strangely, and the evening ends in a tragic accident. Theresa and Jon move away for a while, and after they return things seem to have more or less returned to normal. But soon Kate notices there may be something sinister in the kindness of their neighbors. Is she losing her mind, or are they trying to make her think so?
The main problem with The Ones Below is that there is never really any question as to whether or not Theresa and Jon are devious villains. From the second Jon appears on screen, he’s an imposing threat–it doesn’t help that he’s played by David Morrissey, a fine actor but one whose presence lends Jon an air of casual menace even when he’s supposed to be engaged in meaningless small talk. Worse, the two characters are never defined much beyond the audience’s initial impressions of them. They’re both so obsessed with children that it’s all they talk about, and their disdainful reaction toward Kate and Justin’s uncertainty about starting a family seems wildly out of proportion. There’s precious little information given about their history, and what there is seems tangential to the action at best.
This odd approach to doling out information extends to the backstory of Kate, ostensibly the film’s protagonist. There seems to be an ominous incident in her family’s history, but what exactly it was is never directly addressed and the audience is left to figure out for themselves why Kate’s mother is so bizarrely standoffish. Ambiguity and allowing the audience to figure things out on their own is fine, of course, and can be a satisfying narrative strategy. But here, so much is left unsaid that the film becomes somewhat frustrating from a basic narrative standpoint. Thankfully the cast is solid, especially Poésy’s work in the last act as Kate’s world unravels. Farr gives her plenty of unnerving close-ups, and the whole film has a cold technical precision that feels more like Cronenberg than the Lifetime Original movie it occasionally recalls. It’s technically sound, but The Ones Below suffers from a lack of suspense that ultimately prevents it from being the thriller it could have been.
Orphan (2009)
Originally published on Film Monthly 26 July 2009
I feel compelled to offer a confession right up front: I consider 2005′s House of Wax remake a guilty pleasure. I thought it had some interesting ideas and some visuals that were creepy and imaginative, and certainly a notch better than most of Dark Castle Films’ output up to that time. It’s been a while since Dark Castle has released a new horror film (after taking a genre detour with last year’s RocknRolla), and to my surprise they brought back House of Wax director Jaume Collet-Serra for an original take on the “killer kid” subgenre, Orphan. Being a somewhat closeted fan of Collet-Serra’s previous film, I thought his new one would be worth a watch.
And it definitely is– Orphan is a surprisingly effective take on the “killer kid” film. In some ways it plays like the pulp answer to 2007′s Joshua, not least because both films share a cast member in a major role: in both films, Vera Farmiga plays a troubled mother. However, if Joshua plays more like a modern take on Rosemary’s Baby, Orphan is more along the lines of an updated Devil Times Five, although it takes itself a bit too seriously.
Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard play Kate and John Coleman, a married couple with two children who are looking to adopt some time after Kate suffers a miscarriage. Their trip to a school for girls leads them to meet Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman), a precocious Russian girl whose American family perished in a fire, leaving her alone in a strange country. Esther, however, has thrived, and speaks perfect (if slightly accented) English and spends her free time painting. Kate and John are immediately drawn to this unusually bright little girl and soon she is joining the family– at which point some bad things start to happen.
Serra smartly leaves a lot of questions open as the film establishes the family members’ relationships with each other and spends a lot of time with the family as the film ramps up. If anything, he gives this part of the film a too much time– Orphan clocks in at a little over two hours, which is a bit longer than this type of film usually asks of its audience. However, all the setup pays off once Esther launches into her inevitable reign of terror. For a big studio film, Orphan gives Esther some pretty brutal and unsettling action, especially toward the (somewhat anticlimactic) “big reveal.” While the film’s ads insist “You’ll never guess her secret,” most horror fans will probably have guessed it before they walk into the theater.
Still, even if the results and some of the action are familiar, Orphan gives the “killer kid” film a nasty spin. It still pales in comparison to Tom Shankland’s The Children, which as far as I’m concerned is the new Gold Standard for “killer kid” movies, but there’s no question that at the very least Dark Castle has provided another guilty pleasure for horror fans.
Otis (2008)
Originally published on Film Monthly 22 June 2008
Horror comedy is always a tricky proposition. Tipped too far in favor of comedy, it loses its teeth. Err on the side of horror, and a film risks becoming something even more unsettling than a standard horror film (Bob Balaban’s Parents immediately comes to mind). Otis is a strange film, one that veers wildly from a tone and atmosphere of genuine unease to scenes and dialogue that are so wacky, they seem carted in from another film entirely. The concept of the film is solid, but the execution is sadly lacking and wildly uneven.
Otis (Bostin Christopher) is a pizza-delivery man who kidnaps blonde teenage girls and tries to get them to act out his dream prom date with “Kim” (what he calls all the girls) in his spare time. He’s built a basement room with girly stuff, cameras, and powerful heat lamps so he can watch his victims and punish them if they stray from the script. One night, Otis delivers a pizza to the home of the Lawsons and meets his next victim, Riley (Ashley Johnson). Riley’s family is mildly dysfunctional–her brother Reed (Jared Kusnitz) has problems at school and tries to videotape Riley in her underwear to post on YouTube. Her parents, Will
(Daniel Stern) and Kate (Illeana Douglas), are a frustrated contractor and an obsessive health nut.
The family hasn’t been getting along very well lately, but they come together after Riley disappears. Soon, we meet Otis’s abusive brother, Morton (Kevin Pollak), and the disgusting FBI Special Agent Hotchkiss (Jere Burns). Morton terrorizes Otis with verbal tirades, while Hotchkiss constantly insults and talks down to the Lawsons (along with everyone else in his path), all while Otis is trying to get Riley to get with his program and obtain approval from her parents for their upcoming “date.” Riley quickly realizes that her only way out of her captivity is to do what Otis wants, and she becomes Otis’s best “Kim” yet. Once she manages to escape, the story changes course drastically as the Lawsons decide to deal with Otis on their own rather than give Agent Hotchkiss the chance to screw up the arrest and let Otis go free, but their plan hits a major snag thanks to Morton.
Writers Eric Jendresen and Thomas Schnauz take a few satirical jabs at media sensationalism and victim exploitation, mostly using the incredibly off-putting Agent Hotchkiss’s constant seeking of the limelight as a base. This would have been fine in a film that didn’t actually have Otis as a character in it–he’s genuinely creepy and other than Riley, Otis is easily the most likable character in the movie. Bostin Christopher’s excellent performance as Otis makes him scary and funny but also unnervingly convincing, and in a film where the tone often dives into slapstick territory he doesn’t really belong. Otis and Riley seem like characters unwittingly dropped into a genre parody, especially when the Lawsons decide to take justice into their own hands in a series of scenes with some painfully “ironic” character turnarounds and some all-out faux-Beetlejuice on the film’s score.
There’s a lot to like about Otis, but the constantly shifting tone and the distracting 80s-pop soundalike soundtrack make it tough to keep watching. Additionally, the characters of Morton and Agent Hotchkiss are both so spectacularly hateful that it takes a concerted effort not to stop the movie every time they appear. There are some fun plot twists throughout Otis, but too often they lead somewhere that just doesn’t make sense. Otis starts out promisingly enough, but soon becomes another victim of the old curse of the horror comedy: Otis himself tips too far into the horror direction while everything else in the movie goes the other way. It’s worth a look for horror fans looking for something a little different, but mostly Otis feels like a missed opportunity.
P (2005)
Originally published on Film Monthly 22 October 2009
During the opening credits for P, one name stood out rather conspicuously. That name is Paul Spurrier, the film’s writer/director. Spurrier is the first westerner to make a film in Thailand in the Thai language– he’s from the UK. While Spurrier may have a solid grounding in Thai culture, the idea of a westerner writing and directing a film about Thai people smacks rather uncomfortably of exploitation, especially since the bulk of P takes place in a brothel and offers plenty of female flesh on display.
Aaw (Suangporn Jaturaphut) is the granddaughter of an old woman who fellow villagers believe is a witch. Grandmother has passed her knowledge down to Aaw, but their spells can’t help when Grandmother falls ill. Aaw is persuaded by a woman in the village into going to Bangkok and taking a job in order to get money for medicine. She arrives in Bangkok and immediately meets up with Pookie (Opal), who takes Aaw to her new place of work, The P Bar. The Bar is run by Mamasang (Manthana Wannarod), who gives Aaw the new name of Dau because her real name would be unpronounceable by westerners, and the girl’s job is to entertain western tourists. P Bar is basically a brothel, where the girls dance on stage until a tourist picks them out and takes them out for the night.
Dau and Pookie become friends as Dau awkwardly learns how to dance and has the traumatic experience of losing her virginity to a creepy white guy. It’s not long before Dau is using some of her Grandmother’s magic, despite being warned that the consequences may be dire. Soon Dau’s rivals are having serious accidents and Dau herself becomes the most popular dancer at the bar, but using her magic has unleashed a monster that hungers for human flesh. That’s the sort of thing that would put the damper on anyone’s career.
P is relatively tame as a horror film, and almost all the violence is loaded into the second half of the film. The first half is a lengthy setup, and the film’s pace is already pretty slow before the supernatural hijinks start in. Once Aaw/Dau starts using her spells, the pace slows even further to allow the introduction of the monster, whose presence is often unsettling. It would probably be even creepier if it didn’t get so much screen time, though– after staring it down for a while, the seams start to show in the makeup and special effects. The old line about leaving the audience wanting more is blatantly ignored in this area of the film.
Ironically, it’s followed to the letter in regards to the film’s depictions of sexuality. Despite taking place in a dance club/brothel, there’s not much nudity in the film although there are many dance scenes that show off plenty of socially acceptable female flesh. Aaw/Dau and Pookie are hinted to be lesbians, but the film coyly avoids any overt depictions of homosexuality. Despite this, the feeling of exploitation on the part of the writer/director is unavoidable: he’s written a story that seems to depend strongly on western ideas of the exotic Asian, a girl who knows magic spells and is hypnotically seductive whether she realizes it or not, and is naturally bisexual.
If you can ignore all that, P does offer some creepy moments and is definitely an unusual take on the Asian/J-horror genre, even if it is a bit too long– although that is a common complaint about many films in this style. Spurrier is reportedly at work on another film in Thailand that may give viewers more context as far as his knowledge of Thai culture and his intentions with making films in Thai.
Paranormal Activity (2007)
Originally published on Film Monthly 25 September 2009
Until a few weeks ago, writer/director Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity was one of the most infamous film festival disappearing acts of the last few years. Snapped up by Paramount/Dreamworks after gaining huge festival buzz, the film completely vanished. Occasional rumors would circulate, most notably that the studio had bought the rights in order to remake the film with a name cast, but even the rumors didn’t last long in the face of complete silence on the part of the studio. Now, finally, Paramount is giving the film an unusual release strategy: rolling it out in different cities as demanded by fans. All of which means simply that the rest of us– those not lucky enough to see the film during its brief festival run– finally get to see it and decide if it was worth the wait. And the answer, as with any film arriving with this much hype behind it, is complicated.
Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston play Micah and Katie, a couple who have recently moved into a house together. The film opens with Micah playing around with his new camcorder, which he has purchased for a very specific purpose: turns out Katie forgot to mention to Micah that some sort of supernatural force has followed her around her entire life, and lately some weird stuff has been happening in the house. Micah hopes that by documenting it they can figure out what exactly they’re dealing with, and so sets about “taping” the couple constantly, mostly while they sleep. A paranormal researcher warns Micah near the beginning of the film that his attempts to document the force may be interpreted as an attempt at communicating with it, and strongly discourages Micah’s mission.
Naturally, Micah completely ignores this warning and the film quickly settles into a pattern: Micah sets up the video camera on a tripod and we watch as the couple sleeps in time lapse, until something weird happens, and then the couple deals with it. This repetition becomes exhausting as the film goes on, no doubt mimicking the grind that the characters are experiencing with their lack of rest and confusion, and the film spends a lot of time with the characters before anything too crazy happens. In fact, this is actually the film’s biggest flaw: we spend too much time with the characters as Peli errs on the side of res
traint and character development.
However, like The Blair Witch Project (to which the film is often likened due to its camcorder/”handheld horror” aesthetic), the film eventually devolves into a long series of increasingly tiresome scenes of the couple bickering in between the bouts of supernatural unpleasantness. Once the film gets going, however, it ramps up fast and hard. There’s no question that the last ten minutes or so are among the most unsettling and frightening moments in horror film history. Unfortunately, there’s also no question that the very end of the film is one of the most frustrating moments of any film in recent memory.
Still, there’s a lot to admire here. The performances are solid and the film builds an impressive atmosphere of claustrophobic dread– we never venture away from the house, and there are only four speaking roles in the entire film. Peli’s willingness to spend time with his characters instead of just making them punching bags for monsters is refreshing, even if you wish he had trimmed and tightened the film a bit more (Peli also edited the film himself). If ever there was a film tailor-made for watching in a packed theater of people willing to get the wits scared out of them, Paranormal Activity is it. How well it would hold up watching at home on DVD late at night, I don’t know, but I probably wouldn’t recommend it if you thought you could stay up for the whole thing. Those last ten minutes are a killer.
The Unrepentant Cinephile Page 54
