horror

Green Room

Posted on by Charlotte_Sometimes

An intelligent and electrifying horror

Usually me and horror don’t mix particularly well. Almost two months on and I am still occasionally haunted by visions of Black Phillip the goat from The Witch and I still feel a bit twitchy when I think about what I would do if I were to be trapped in a basement 10 Cloverfield Lane – style (is it normal to worry about that as a hypothetical scenario..?) But then again, Green Room isn’t your typical horror film. Yes there is gore (I’ve become very aware of my hands for the past hour since watching) but it is never overused. Whilst the narrative follows a ‘well-that-escalated-quickly’ structure it is founded in a series of cause-and-effect plot points that seem both believable and terrifying in equal measure. Then when you chuck in the superb pacing, swift editing, nerve-shredding soundtrack and  some superb character performances…well you’re in for a great time!

“The Ain’t Rights” are a punk band who are travelling through the Pacific Northwest, playing gigs and scrummaging whatever they can to get by.  The band – formed of Pat (Anton Yelchin), Sam (Alia Shawkat), Reece (Joe Cole) and Tiger (Callum Turner) – end up playing a gig in rural Seaside, Oregon to a club filled with Neo-Nazi skinheads.Upon seeing their Anti-Semitic surroundings Pat jokingly suggests they play a cover of The Dead Kennedys “Nazi Punks Fuck Off!” The band play the song during their set to  a less than receptive audience. Set over and cash in hand they make a move to leave, a move which the show organiser hastens to speed up, when Pat has to run back to grab the band’s mobile which they left charging. He stumbles across the scene of one of the skinheads leaning over the body of a young female punk with her still-alive friend Amber (Imogen Poots) rendered numb in disbelief. The band are then locked in the green room with the pair and the dead body. Reinforcements are called in the form of club owner Darcy (Patrick Stewart). The band have seen too much. Will any of them make it out alive?

There are so many reasons to like this movie. I want to say enjoy but considering the subject matter and content the verb ‘enjoy’ seems in rather poor taste. Semantics aside this is a cracking horror film. The slow-build of tension, the overwhelming sense of inevitability and the shock factor of many of moments. This is a film made with an equal blend of style and substance. The film looks damn good – the shots are well chosen with some excellent lighting choices that make for truly memorable sequences.

All of these factors would be pointless were it not for the excellent performances that drive the story. The characters are presented in a way that is a balance between wanting them to live but not really knowing them well enough to mourn any losses that occur on the way. You experience a degree of ‘oh no!’ because you care about them when certain things may or may not happen but are detached enough from them to not feel too aggrieved should/when something happens to them. Yelchin is superb as the accidental leader of punk trope. Poots is truly kick-ass as a female character who is not just cast to the sidelines, doesn’t spend the entirety of the film in shades of hysteria and who is capable of holding her own in certain situations. This is definitely/hopefully  showing a changing of the tide in Hollywood horror as her character is in line with that of Mary Elizabeth Winstead in the aforementioned 10 Cloverfield Lane. And then there’s Patrick Stewart as a properly scary baddie – whose calm and collected demeanor is unbearably (in a good way) unnerving to watch.   

Tense and taut (clocking in at 94 minutes) with some powerfully acted performances along with an admirably well-written script that is black humour laden this is definitely worth a watch.

4 stars

10 Cloverfield Lane

Posted on by Charlotte_Sometimes

The low budget “spiritual successor” to Cloverfield

Cloverfield was a serviceable found footage horror film that did well at the box office predominately due to its marketing strategy which featured things that took the burgeoning viral marketing to a whole new level. MySpace accounts were created for each of the characters, websites for the fictional companies that featured in the film could be trawled through for clues and the film itself was announced only as a series of numbers which formed clues that were eventually revealed to the release date. Cloverfield appeared in a few films of the year lists and that was about it. Producer J.J. Abrams would regularly be hounded for details of a possible sequel but appeared not to be able to give a definitive answer. When the upcoming release of 10 Cloverfield Lane was announced early this year there was real surprise as no-one had known that it was even filming let alone finished. This was due to the fact 10 Cloverfield Lane had not been filmed – originally based on a script called ‘The Cellar‘ it was adapted and linked to Cloverfield it was filmed under the codename ‘Valencia’. Here we are in March 2016 and 10 Cloverfield Lane has been released and it bares little resemblance either in tone or story to its predecessor. And it’s good. Very good indeed. So good that it’s definitely in the running for my end of the year top ten list.

Fleeing New Orleans and her fiance, intentionally leaving her engagement ring behind in the process, Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) drives far away from the city. In the process she ends up in a nasty car accident. Next thing she knows she wakes up in a basement, her injured leg is handcuffed to the wall. She desperately does all she can to escape but all attempts are futile. The locked door opens and she is greeted by Howard (John Goodman) who explains that he saved her life and yes he is keeping her trapped down in the basement but it’s for her own good. His rather menacing nature and pointing out of how much Michelle owes him hugely unsettle Michelle who is desperate to leave. She also meets the other resident of the bunker, Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.), who has known Howard for most of his life and is certain that Howard is a conspiracy nut but fundamentally a good guy. Time passes before the pair admit to Michelle why she cannot leave the bunker, a chemical attack has taken place in the outside world contaminating  the air and killing the world’s population in the process. The unknown assailants have made the outside world unlivable and the trio’s only hope to stay alive is to remain in the bunker. All of life’s comforts are there, as Howard has spent most of life preparing for such a situation, but Howard’s increasingly controlling and menacing behaviour makes Michelle desperate to leave. Taking matters into her own hands Michelle soon realises the truth of what has happened.

What is truly impressive about this film is how cleverly it terrifies the audience. Considering it is a 12a (something I have an issue with concerning the themes and some of the moments of the film) it manages to do so much with so few of the big violent scares of other horror films. Two of the film’s tensest moments are when Michelle crawls through the ventilation shaft, twice. Through a brilliant combination of editing, camera work, sound and acting they were both sequences I had to watch through my fingers whilst desperately hoping for the best possible outcome. There are a few moments of big and jumpy scares, many of them coming from loud noises that have never sounded so scary, but most of the moments are slow-building subtle fears that build to genuine terror. This is through the fantastic storytelling and narrative. Information is so carefully withheld then slowly realised to the audience. Every new revelation requires a reassessment of what we know and what we expect will happen next.

We know little about what has actually happened outside and we have little reason to trust our primary source for that information. John Goodman is truly terrifying as mysterious Howard whose character gains murkier and murkier added depths with each conversation. He’s a dangerous blend of menace and deluded altruism with every sequence in which he appears forcing us to eye him dubiously, wondering how much he says is actually the truth and how big a threat he plays towards Michelle. The slow revelations that follow only complicate our distrust and unease of his character. Gallagher Jr.’s Emmett is a much-needed comic foil into the tense mix, when tension hits sky-high level it is masterfully lowered with  a dose black humour. Winstead’s performance as Michelle is the best of her career, making a character who is truly sympathetic and one which we are desperate to succeed. I’d even argue that, in a year which saw Brie Larson win an Oscar from Room in which she played a woman held in captivity, that Winstead’s performance rivals Larson’s. Winstead’s blend of determination to leave and her struggling to accept the awareness of its possible futility may have resulted in one of the finest acting performances of the year.

If you’re looking for a film that clocks in at one hour and a half, that will drain you of every emotion possible, make you jump out of your seat and shield your eyes in concern, then you’ve come to the right place. Well worth seeing, if you dare…

The Witch

Posted on by Charlotte_Sometimes

Moral of my story: Don’t go see this on your own in an empty cinema.

What makes a horror film a horror film? In the past week or so I’ve heard both praise for this film and a good degree of backlash. Many felt that it wasn’t a horror film, that it wasn’t scary enough and that it was too slow. As a dedicated Wittertainee I’d heard Mark Kermode champion the film stating that ‘the greatest strength of The Witch –that the audience will see in what they want to see, or believe’  So, when a bit of free time opened up in my schedule I thought ‘why not?’ Even after three nights where by sleep has been haunted by a goat called Black Phillip I do not regret my decision, as The Witch is an immensely rich watch and an outstanding debut from its director and writer Robert Eggers.

In 1630 a farmer called William (Ralph Ineson) and his family are excommunicated from their New England community due to the crime of “prideful conceit”. He and wife Katherine (Kate Dickie) must raise their children away from the community they came with when they left England and now live in exile in a forest. They have five children – teenage daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy), on the cusp of adolescence Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw), fraternal twins Mercy (Ellie Grainger) and Jonas (Lucas Dawson) and new-born Samuel.  One day, when Thomasin is looking after ber youngest sibling and playing a round of peek-a-boo, Samuel disappears. The family is utterly devastated and grief takes its toll, bringing tensions to the surface and testing both the love and loyalty of each of the family members. Is a supernatural force of evil haunting them or is it all imagined?

The greatest choice, of many, that this film makes is to show Samuel’s disappearance to the audience. The audience gets to see a witch, possibly the witch of the title or possibly not, drag poor little baby Samuel into the forest with her. The characters, however, do not get to see this. It’s a classic case of dramatic tension that is oh so effective – this comparatively small piece of information alters how we view the characters and makes us assess then repeatedly reassess what we are seeing. The knowing what actually happened to Samuel lets us watch the consequences with a layer of cynicism, as the family falls apart at the seams. How the dynamics of the family shift and tear creates a deeper level of both atmosphere and tension as we know something they do not. When the blame shifts to teenager Thomasin we automatically defend her. For her family she is the obvious target of blame, after all she was watching him when he disappeared, yet we know that she isn’t. Or is she? As the film plays out the audience is forced to question what they actually know, or if what they actually know is not the whole story.

All of the cast are fantastic, not a single weak link. Ineson is solid as the righteous father who may have let his ego take his family onto a path of destruction. Dickie is wonderful as the grieving mother who doesn’t know where to turn. Taylor-Joy is an extraordinary presence as a girl who has come of age, and how this very fact will change her life. The Witch is rich for cinematic analysis, most obviously the treatment young women which is seemingly reflective of how life would have been for someone of her age in 1630. Scrimshaw possess the kind of face and aura of someone who has lived a thousand lives, a real one-to-watch. The twins are as creepy as you would expect from a film of this sort. That just leaves us with the aforementioned Black Phillip. I’m even going to add a picture here of the beast, just to prove my point.

BlackPhillip

Look at him. Just look at him! I genuinely believe there should be a category added to the award ceremonies next year for, ‘scariest performance by an animal’ as Black Phillip would be a solid contender. At this point I’m not even going to tell you what he does, nor will I hint. I don’t think I could even describe it in a manner that would reflect in a  succinct enough manner the terror this beast is capable of. Just like the rest of the film, he gets under-your-skin and into-your-brain.

The Witch is a spooky, slow-release terror that is well worth seeing. Few newcomers could create a film with this depth of atmosphere and tension. I already look forward to what Robert Eggers has to offer us next.

Spotlight

Posted on by Charlotte_Sometimes

A subtle masterpiece of an exposé cinema

This film is proof, were it truly needed, that to invoke emotion from a viewer you do not needed to forcibly bulldoze them emotionally. You do not need people screaming at each other about how they really care about something and think it’s important; you do not need violence to prove someone’s inner rage; you don’t need monologues that reflect on social injustice. This film will grab you and drain you entirely. You will experience burning anger for those who used their positions for powers for unimaginable crimes; hopelessness at how dire at how things have and continue to still be; and cheeks so sodden with tears even when you hadn’t realised you were crying. All of these responses were generated without needless melodrama. Instead the absence of overwrought sentimentality  puts the events of the movie and the subsequent emotional response in bold, underlined and italics. A truly crucial and powerful movie. The fact that these are true events is the ultimate sucker punch.

In 2001 Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) joined the Boston Globe as its new editor. The fact he is Jewish was viewed as something of a notable scandal, considering the influence of the Catholic church. In his early introductory meetings with his new staff he meets Walter ‘Roddy’ Robinson (Michael Keaton) who is head of  the Spotlight team, a small group of journalists who undertake investigative projects that take months to research and publish.  The rest of the team is made up of Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James) and Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams).  In his new editorial role Baron urges the Spotlight team to follow a lead, a lead which suggests that the Archbishop of Boston knew of a priest who was sexually abusing children and doing nothing about it. A small-time lawyer called Micheal Garabedian (Stanley Tucci) is seemingly the only person doing something about it. However Garabedian is on his own against the entire Catholic church, so after his initial reluctance and a lot of persuading he agrees to work along with Spotlight. A terrifying prospect soon becomes clear, this is not just about one priest but is instead about a huge cover-up of far more and dating back longer than can be imagined. But these secrets have been hidden for so long,  and with so many desperate to keep them,  it will be far from an easy journey.

Within all of that, and the remaining 3/4 of the movie, there is only one scene of loud, embittered shouting. Only one scene where one character, haunted by the true horror of what has gone on, lets rip at the hoops he will have to continue to jump and dive through. That one scene is made all the more climatic and devastating as a consequence, packing more potency than the entirety of Joy. The storytelling here is superb, the way each revelation unfolds is shown not told. The information is not forcible spoon-fed, instead delivered with little fanfare or fabrication, and is all the more absorbing for it. The suspense created is unlike much of recent cinema, with an awful sense of inevitability and foreboding that doesn’t take away any viscerality from watching the character’s gradual comprehension of their story’s terrible breadth.

However, the emotional impact of the script would be nowhere near as traumatising were it not for the performances of the cast. ‘Ensemble cast’ is a phrase too easily banded-about, but the cast of Spotlight is a true ensemble. Every actor gives the role their all. ‘All’ does not mean flapping your arms about and saying how angry you are. ‘All’ is, and perhaps should be, a simple look at another person that reveals unobjectionable horror. A gaze into the distance with eyes that expose a haunting that will never be forgotten. The ‘heroes’ of this story are not embellished, nor martyred or hero-worshipped. They are real human beings, forced to comprehend and expose systematic abuse from an institution that had such an intrinsic role in all of their lives.

Though it may have only been released in the first month of the year, this will be one of the greatest films of 2016. A fact-based thriller with a beating heart.

Krampus

Posted on by Charlotte_Sometimes

The gift that keeps on creeping…

Christmas is a time of festive cheer,

for singing loud for all to hear.

But what if good ol’ Saint Nick was nowhere near?

Instead Krampus came to fill you with terror and fear…

Max used to love Christmas. He used to love wrapping presents with his sister and parents whilst watching ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’. He used to somewhat enjoy when his extended family of aunt, uncle and four cousins made their annual visit from December 22nd to just after Christmas. But every year it’s gotten worse. His parents are growing apart, his sister spends all her time with her boyfriend and his cousins use him as a play toy to amuse themselves. Only his paternal grandmother Omi can see how his Christmas spirit is fading. When his extended family arrive once more the four adults, and surprise guest Aunt Dorothy, clash over the dinner table whilst his cousins brutally tease him for still believing in, then writing a letter to, Santa Claus. It’s the final straw for Max. He rips up the letter in anger and throws it out of the window. That’s when the storm starts, a snow storm like no other. Under the cloak of the blizzard Krampus and his villainous cronies start to arrive…No-one is safe. 

What a pleasant surpise this film was! It’s far from perfect and the pacing of both the first and third act is slightly off, but overall this film is a superb antidote to the kind of movies that some of the little-known Sky channels have been showing since mid-September.  It’s properly funny, has some jump-worthy moments and holds your attention for most of the 98 minute running time.

The story itself is deceptively clever. Though the myth of Krampus is centuries old it feels incredibly immediate and relevant.  The film opens with a sequence that has become unsettling familiar in recent years – a supermarket opening it’s doors for pre-Christmas sales. The crowds rush in, rioting, pushing, shoving and shrieking in their quest for unnesscessay discounted purchases. The fact this is soundtracked with Perry Como’s ‘It’s being to look a lot like Christmas’ successfully exemplifies the increasing commercialism of Christmas. It sets a great tone for the upcoming penance that will have to be paid.

The characters who will soon endure Krampus’ house invasion are well pot rated.  They are the right amount of unlikeable, each given just enough reason to warrant the inevitable onslaught but redeemable enough that you start to care what happens to them. The film doesn’t treat the adults any differently from the children – they have been just as naughty as their parents so need to be punished. As a secondary school teacher I can’t actaully say that Max’s two tween female cousins deserve to be punished,  but I can say that I hope they learn from their mistakes.

Krampus’ and his squad, made up of evil-looking reindeer, scary elves, oh so creepy toys and hilariously horrific gingerbread men own this film. The portryal of the homicidal gingerbread men would be my standout favourite, their evilish giggles haunting the house and they haunt it’s residents.  In fact they did somewhat remind me of Christmas horror-comedy classic ‘Gremlins’ which would make an excellent double movie feature with ‘Krampus’.

If you’re looking to briefly escape the festive season , or see and Old Testament-style backlash against it, or you just want a movie for laughs and a few scares, then this is well worth a watch.