Been watching a lot of horror flicks this month. Unmarked spoilers within the tags.
1.
The Blair Witch Project (yearly rewatch)
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Every single year I watch this movie again, and every single year I discover something new and undiscovered about it. Sometimes it's a single line of dialog that reveals more about a character than I knew before (this year, there was a line said by Heather that made me think she didn't want to leave the woods as badly as I originally thought), or it's some piece of audio that I didn't notice before (on my first few viewings, I couldn't make out the crackling in the woods or the childrens' voices.) Sometimes its foreshadowing or picking up on a new plot element (make sure you really, really pay attention to everything before they get to the woods.)
And so, every year I'm reminded why this movie is a ritual for me and why I regard it so highly. I might never stop writing things about The Blair Witch Project every year, I truly feel it's that good of a movie. It has an unrivaled escalation of suspense and terror. A lot of people talk about the final scene, and it is quite amazing. However, it's everything that leads up to it that gives it potency. The interviews with the locals, the piles of rocks, the crackling and children voices at night, the stick figures in the trees, the bundle of sticks, the loss of Josh, the fallen tree they should not have rediscovered after walking in a straight line all day. All of these unsettling things form a maelstrom of dread that chills me even 15 years after release.
No other found footage horror film has stood the test of time like this one. I hoped Paranormal Activity would, but its effectiveness is waning on new rewatches. It looks a little too good, it sounds a little too perfect, the effects are a little too Hollywood. But most of all, it shows a little too much.
But The Blair Witch Project? I'll probably be watching it again in October 2034 and enjoying it just as much as I do now.
5 / 5
2.
[REC]spoiler (click to show/hide)
Really good movie (I mean, obviously, it has 96% on RT.) Very effective, and a sterling example of how to do found footage right. The decision to mix science and religion felt fresh, I think. Was a pretty creepy idea that possession can mutate to the point of being contagious. Effects were on-point and I was never taken out of things, and the final few scenes of the movie were ridiculously nail-biting. And I have always loved "bottle episodes/movies" where the characters are trapped in a single location the entire time, so definitely props for that.
Some complaints I had were the main reporter woman, she was cute but kind of schizophrenic I think. At times she was taking charge and doesn't afraid of anything, at others she was "We need to get out of here OMG how do I breath right now" levels of too-scared-to-do-anything. Also, it was annoying how in the last act of the movie they're finding all the clippings and listening to the recording and they're both saying "WTF DOES THIS ALL MEAN!!!" every five seconds. Well honey, if you calmed your tits and actually listened to the damn thing I'm pretty sure you'd find out.
4 / 5
3.
Irréversiblespoiler (click to show/hide)
This movie is the closest any has ever come to making me physically ill. As mentioned earlier, it's not a "horror" film, but the brutality and cynicism it puts on display easily outclasses almost any "horror" flick I've seen. From the uncomfortable droning of the soundtrack by Thomas Bangalter (half of Daft Punk) to the absolutely nauseating camera work, Irréversible is a film that is meant to disorient and disturb you, and it only succeeds too well. I'm not even sure I can recommend this movie to anyone because of its depraved content, but despite that I do think it's a "good" movie. It's well-crafted, well-acted and definitely managed to elicit a response in me, so on that level it succeeds as a film and as a work of art. I'm just not sure if anyone should actually watch it.
3 / 5
4.
Evil Dead IIspoiler (click to show/hide)
I'm actually not sure if this was my first complete watch of this movie. For years I've absorbed so much of the film from cultural osmosis and being linked to various scenes over the years, very little of this watch felt "new." But I also feel like I've watched it before, possibly in the last year. It's an odd feeling.
Regardless, this movie is the gold standard for horror comedy. Despite the low budget, the effects are top notch and Raimi's camera tricks are just a hell of a lot of fun to watch. I think the movie loses a bit of steam and specialness when the other group shows up, but I also understand it probably would have been difficult to keep things interesting if it was just Ash. Still, I feel like that's the movie I most want to see. Even still, this movie is creepy and funny and inventive and very nearly perfect.
5 / 5
5.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)spoiler (click to show/hide)
I'm really quite split on this movie. The way it pulls of its horror is more effective than many movies, even today. On the other hand, the writing and some of the acting is either way too hammy or just plain bad. The hamminess is probably what the director Tobe Hooper was going for, as his sequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 was an outright black comedy, but it really took me out of things. It's a shame because the atmosphere, setting, and the actual kills are all completely on point.
What I hate about latter day slasher flicks is that each death is built up in such a meticulous and unbelievable way that it's more like watching a grim Rube Goldberg machine than something you believe is actually terrifying. (The Final Destination franchise takes that and runs with it, and is all the better for dropping the pretenses.) In this movie, there's none of that. All the kills are believable and I believe they all lack any musical cues or score as well. The wind rustling softly in the background when Leatherface suddenly appears in front of a doorway and hammers a dude's head is far, far more effective and chilling than a constant "dun dun... dun dun DUN!!!" that many slasher movies go for.
My final complaint has to do with the ending, which turns the hamminess up to 11, and includes a final few minutes which don't really feel like a payoff and are just plain hard to follow. Otherwise, this movie definitely earns its place in horror cinema history. I just wish Tobe Hooper had kept the cheesy parts confined to the sequel.
3 / 5
6.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)spoiler (click to show/hide)
When Michael Bay gets involved, subtlety flies out the window. Not that the original was very subtle, but the main points I liked about it (music-less realistic kills) are gone in this remake. Instead, director Marcus Nispel focuses on delivering as much frenetic, noisy grit as possible. Long story short, he does a decent job of it.
Gone is the cheesiness I disliked in the original, but in its place are some of the most stupid and unlikeable characters I've seen in a horror movie yet. I give it something of a pass since it was 2003, before movies started getting really bad with it.
As for the remake aspect itself, it has enough "new" in it to feel pretty fresh and enough "old" in it to definitely feel like a Texas Chainsaw movie. What I most liked in this remake is Leatherface himself, he's just an ugly, hulking, monstrous motherfucker that doesn't mess around. While I sort of like the original's simpleminded, dimwitted charm, I was more terrified seeing the new version run around. What sort of ruins it is how much the movie shows of him, with numerous shots of him looking through cracks or holes in the wall at the protagonists. I know it was deliberate but it took some of the menace away for me personally.
I'll give a nod to the sheriff, as I think he was supposed to represent the "cheesy" aspect from the original but the way the actor in particular plays him is a different dimension of horror. He's like a crazier proto-Anton Chigurh (No Country For Old Men.)
A big aspect this has over the original is the ending, I think. It's awesome and ramps up really well, and the climax is very satisfying. In all, I like this movie, and I want to rate it higher, but the first two-thirds or so are really kind of a drag. It starts out a little better, and ends much better, but the icky center just doesn't live up to the original, nor do the kills.
2 / 5
7.
The Sacramentspoiler (click to show/hide)
What I like about Ti West's horror films (the ones that I've seen anyways, those being The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers, and the V/H/S short Second Honeymoon) is that they're 100% human. No zombies, no vampires, no demons or ghosts or magically-resurrecting killers. They reveal that the worst horror is that which we do to ourselves as humans.
Thus, The Sacrament, a more elaborate and dramatical take on the real-life Jonestown Massacre with a fount footage spin. The movie starts off incredibly strong with a fun and tense intro before moving onto the standard "We're making a documentary so lets interview people who say varying degrees of ominous things before interviewing the leader, who threatens us." (The first half of the movie feels eerily similar to a short in V/H/S 2.) The movie takes place over the course of an evening, a night, and the morning, and things don't really kick into gear until daybreak.
What disappoints me about this movie is how it can sometimes play with convention and tropes and then three minutes later fall into some itself. For instance, the main guy has a pregnant wife. This is brought up about five times in an incredibly cynical and transparent way to get you to care about him more. But then on the other side of things, the movie spends quite a bit building up a young mute girl who needs to be saved only for her throat to be slit at the end by her own mother.
This duality extends into the final act. It plays like Red State done right and is almost nauseatingly difficult to watch (if only because it taps into your knowledge that Jonestown did in fact happen, although Jonestown's body count was around eight times larger.) But it also includes the stupidest parts of the movie.
To wit, the guy evacuating the team gets shot, but is still not only OK to fly the helicopter, but waits around for an entire hour for the whole team instead of just taking the camera guy. Speaking of, I'm not sure if the script said the camera guy should be running back to the compound or not, but it felt like he was walking as slow as he could. I could get him wanting to be stealthy, but he wasn't being stealthy at all - basically walking slowly upright through open areas where he knows men with guns are trying to shoot him. He also passes some of the men with guns who have died, BUT DOESN'T TAKE ONE OF THE GUNS. This guy also lets the leader figure soliloquize at length about how the camera team fucked everything up, instead of running up to the guy and punching him in the face before he takes out his revolver.
I also have to say the third act contains some of the most forced and nonsensical "found footage" I've seen yet. Walking past an open door, turning the camera and then zooming into the open door to show the bodies. Like, we already got it at that point, the houses are full of dead people. What was the point in using such cheap and unrealistic camera work?
Just a bunch of stupidity that soured me at the last second on a movie I was really getting into. Like The Innkeepers, this movie is worth watching yet frustrating in how it came so obviously close to greatness before falling apart.
3 / 5
8.
Jacob's Ladderspoiler (click to show/hide)
It's fascinating watching a piece of media that's influenced so much and seeing those influences traced back. This is a tremendous film, expertly shot, written and acted. It's also quite a dense film, with several plot threads rising and falling in sequence and throughout the movie.
Personally, I liked that there was an explanation given but it takes a way a bit from the horror for me. "Oh, it was just a drug that made y'all crazy." The ending was also kinda cheesy (well, the end-end is just depressing of course.) I wish the horror aspects had been at play in the entire movie as well, instead of being mostly front-loaded in the first half.
But this movie easily stands the test of time. It's a disorienting, emotional watch that I couldn't look away from.
4 / 5
9.
The Thing (1982)spoiler (click to show/hide)
This movie had it all. A great creepy location, amazing practical effects, great score, John Carpenter's expert direction, and best of all, Kurt Russell.
This movie has the most outright disgusting special effects I've ever seen. When the dog-Thing's face split open it was a massive "HOLY SHIT" moment for me, and the effects don't disappoint from there. The claustrophobic environment and pervasive paranoia heighten the tension to palpable levels, and on top of all that the pacing is absolutely on-point. The Thing shows itself to the team fairly early when in typical films of this nature it would have stalked and killed a couple people before being known. But nope, Carpenter blows your balls off less than half an hour in.
Every single time I would have rolled my eyes in a "normal" movie was pulled out from under me, like when the head-Thing almost manages to crawl away in the background. But then it gets noticed and toasted in a "HELL YEAH" moment. Lesser films would have had the head-thing be the third-act antagonist or something.
My one complaint is that it isn't very scary. It has a suffocating atmosphere filled with dread, and a couple decent jump scares, but that's about it. But any point I could have knocked off for that nitpick is negated by Kurt Russell's awesomeness. Seriously, he's great in this movie from his first scene (where he casually pours his drink into the "cheating bitch" chess-playing computer.)
5 / 5
22 more to go.
