Post-slasher

I love the slasher genre of movies. I have watched a lot. Historically the genre took place between 1978-1986. For me it starts with Halloween (1978, John Carpenter) and ends when The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986, Tobe Hooper) decided to be a comedy. Okay also, I'm not saying that makes Chainsaw 2 a bad movie by the way, I love Bill Moseley as CHOP TOP, so many great one liners he has: "Dog will hunt," and "Naaaam flashback," spring to mind. Ironically the main reason I love slashers though is because they are really fun.

I've wondered why everyone says Black Christmas (1974, Bob Clark) is the first slasher, mainly because Blood and Black Lace (1964, Mario Bava) is about a masked killer murdering several beautiful young women in a fashion house. Why isn't that the first slasher? I've learned that it's probably because Black Christmas added the final girl device, and takes place on a holiday. Good enough for me. But since none of this is official, I still call Halloween the first slasher because of the final girl + masked killer + takes place on a holiday formula, but adds nudity and graphic violence, (with a cool synthesizer score).

To switch topics, Jason Blum's Blumhouse production co. has had a really good 2017 for horror movies, partnering with Universal releasing Split (2016, M. Night Shyamalan) and Get Out (2017, Jordan Peele).

And since it's October and I watch a lot of horror movies when this time of year comes around I couldn't resist going to the theatre yesterday on Friday the 13th.

Happy Death Day (2017, Christopher Landon) is a fun PG-13 post-slasher with a Hollywood life-affirming message built in. That title works.

I just wanted to report that I had a good time and found the whole endeavor emotionally effective. Happy Death Day takes place on a college campus and involves the insolent, witty teen milieu found in Heathers, Clueless, and Mean Girls, but in a sorority. From the first frames, as the poster tips off, the Universal logo resets itself several times to set the tone.

The craftsmanship of the narrative is well done and reminded me of my favorite teen genre-defying movie Detention (2011, Joseph Kahn) in ways; there's even a girl killed in a way as spectacularly designed as the murder of TAYLOR FISHER. And I have no complaints about the lack of explicit scenes of violence. Coincidentally I rewatched Blood and Black Lace the night before and was surprised at how little was actually shown on screen when its murders occurred. So what we get is Groundhog Day as a springboard into a deliriously exhaustive tale of final girl TREE on a mission to figure out how to escape her catastrophic time loop.

And lucky for me I resisted looking at my watch out of curiosity to know when it would end, because I got sucked in and was genuinely surprised at the development of the narrative. Another great thing about Happy Death Day is how many different places it goes and how fast, if that makes sense. I feel like most traditional movies often take place in only a few locations, during the span of a short period. Or at worst there are those 12 Angry Men types--mostly all in one place in near real time has never struck me as an impressive innovation. Happy Death Day covers a ton of ground and like at ADHD speed. And for me that's one of my favorite novelties found in some newer movies. Although it still doesn't hold a candle to Detention in this regard.

Happy Death Day isn't a masterpiece or anything. But it never sucked, and I took away a lot from its ambitious re-envisioning of the slasher. As far as it fits into the post-slasher canon, it's not as dark as Scream (1996, Wes Craven), but the Booji Boy-looking masked killer gave me some jumps.

Alien: Paradise Lost

This summer brings the 2nd entry in the Alien prequel trilogy. The prequel trilogy is great. I'm especially into this reboot because after Alien (1979, Ridley Scott) that whole franchise is a mess; and, because Ridley Scott is directing.

Alien: Covenant (2017, Ridley Scott) is a Gothic nihilistic sci-fi horror thriller exploitation vfx blockbuster. The plot begins with a ship on a colonizing mission that quickly descends into a faster than the speed of sound plummet into disaster.

Two things are going on with the plot: DAVID (Michael Fassbender) gets more evil while the crew get into more trouble. A drawback here is that after all the questions raised in Prometheus (2012, Ridley Scott), Covenant answers almost all of them, quickly. It's realizing that this serialization took all those potential plot discoveries about who created us and instead replaces them with a narrative that says David single handedly killed SHAW, enacted genocide on the entire planet of ENGINEERS and through chemistry genetically engineered the alien, his "perfect organism."

But that's cool. I mean what kind of sucker actually watches a Ridley Scott Alien movie to find out where humans came from?

So maybe it's not so much a drawback. David is the protagonist of the prequel series. And Covenant depicts the shift where we see the inquisitive android turned into some unholy mix of Hitler and the Devil. After more than 10 years since the ending of Prometheus, David has raped and murdered Shaw, exterminated the race of an entire planet; and if we can think of the Engineers as divine creators, David has effectively chosen to leave an existence serving under them to rule a world as leader of his own demonic legions--although, David has an affectionate relationship between himself and the alien.

I empathize with this mad evil monster because we saw him start out so sensitive and brilliant, so full of potential. David is also a character who resonates profoundly with me because I remember once when I was in my teens and I couldn't figure out why someone invented computer viruses that crash other innocent victims' computers. It hadn't happened to me, but I just couldn't imagine what the creator of the virus gains. I'd never come close to an answer. And David for a moment evocatively portrays this type of evil as he becomes obsessed with creating over the point of any boundaries of moral decency. Yet these are the most archetypal parts of what makes David so sympathetic. This is a strong modern horror villain. He's like a shut in serial killer, but desperately reaching out to connect with WALTER or DANIELS.

Katherine Waterston as Daniels really does Hollywood magic with her doughy cute cheeks face with girl next door bedroom eyes and bad goth homejob Dorothy Hamill in fun space costumes along with requisite iconic no bra tanktop outfits.

Do you know what movie Ridley Scott directed just prior to Alien: Covenant? The Martian (2015). The Martian is a Hawksian comedy about the crew of a ship's courageous resourcefulness and teamwork on a rescue mission to save one of their own. How fun it is to contrast that with Alien: Covenant's horror about the crew of a ship's helpless bad luck in a string of excessively imaginative evil disasters.

Now that all that quality plot and character development has been covered, on to the good stuff: the set pieces. You know, I love the terraforming exploration, that's always fun, seeing the green mountainous landscapes. But the Gieger-fetishized black S&M rubber monsters impaling victims amid a general backdrop of flesh, limbs, and fluids are what I come to Ridley Scott-directed Alien movies for. Getting to see lots of the alien is fun (no sarcasm here). But the kills felt a little redundant. Maybe it's just the woman alone in the lush garden shower getting murdered by the alien, followed by the woman alone in the shower who starts to have sex with a guy but gets surprise attacked by the alien. (The final shower is artfully ridiculous in how much water is gushing out and from what angles, I mean it's just like imaginary decadence.)

I loved the scene where David horse whispers the Xenomorph. That was really cute.

And I mean I hate to say it but most all of the miniature Neomorph stuff is just cheesy and killed parts of this movie for me.

But in closing I have questions:

1. What planet was the Engineer on who drank the black liquid in Prometheus?
2. Does the black liquid always turn into an alien if drank by a host?
3. Does the black liquid affect humans and Engineers differently?
4. Does the Covenant crew just coincidentally happen to find the one planet with Engineers on it (aside from the moon LV-223 in Prometheus)?
5. If aliens were present in Prometheus what changes did David's experiments result in?
6. What exactly does David think he's "created"?

Oh man I'm turning into such a sci-fi nerd. Stay tuned to Ridley Scott's Prequel Series for more sexy evil sci-fi horror.

The Ring 3

I spoke in haste my last post when I said the only current franchise I'm invested in are the Underworld films because I very much enjoy the Ring film series. Even though I have a voracious movie watching habit I have eliminated TV from my tastes. The big difference between movies and TV is that most movies are stand-alone but TV series are serialized. Even the TV shows that aren't serials, the stand-alone or episodic ones, are of no appeal to me because I feel obligated to watch whole seasons. There're just too many and it takes up so much of my time I cut them out like video games. I have a TV but anytime it's on it's playing a movie.

There's a maybe in poor taste analogy I've always used likening movies to a one night stand that once it's over you don't owe anything. But TV shows start harassing you with hey aren't you going to watch the next one this isn't over. Don't leave me. And I'm obsessive. If I have a favorite movie I might watch it more than 5 times which is still maybe 9 hours over the course of years, but I don't even want to think about the math on how much time it takes to rewatch a season of a TV show I really liked.

I just want to commend the Ring movie series because the simple effective narrative device of a blank VHS tape of a few weird black and white images that kills whoever watches it 7 days later because SAMARA MORGAN is an evil child who wants others to watch how she died then she wants them to die and she never stops. Serial is her curse. She's made it okay.

Rings (2017, F. Javier Gutiérrez) is the third film in the series that started with The Ring (2002, Gore Verbinski) and is a reboot of the series. I saw The Ring when it first came out in theaters and it's easily been one of my favorite horror movies of the past twenty years.

Rings brings back the green art direction from the first one and commits to it well. It also returns with a sizzler pre-credit sequence that really jumpstarts the proceedings--the rings on a plane bit wasn't as cheesy as I'd worried it being from the glimpse in the trailer. But most effectively Rings is about Samara and Samara is evil. I once had a new way of seeing Ichi the Killer (2001, Takashi Miike) where I realized it caught the pulse of the crime genre brilliantly by populating Shinjuku with the most disturbed criminals imaginable and pitting them against each other with no heroes even visiting the narrative. And Ichi the Killer doesn't ever give any of its characters what they want/the goals they pursued. You don't need a white hat showing up to say crime doesn't pay, there are other ways to say so. So I see a coincidence that the Ring franchise is based on a Japanese series of novels and movies that began in the late 90s. Ring thrives in the horror genre because Samara was abused by evil parents so she's evil and even when the protagonist tries to help her we inevitably learn you shouldn't help Samara.

The grainy black and white VHS shot of the well in the forest never gets old.

Samara belongs to a lineage of the wet girl, a Japanese horror subgenre, and at the end of The Ring, when that spooky little kid has that close-up and looks in the lense all terrifyingly-cute saying: "And I'm sorry. It won't stop," that is the final touch of expert craftsmanship. That little girl will always be coming out of that well. And because this all feels earned, I don't object to the franchise's intentionally open ended nature. At least not yet.

Another quality built into this material is the plot device which drives the psychological supernatural horror, the tape itself. We know it's two minutes and we've seen the images several times, but they still remain captivating. Part of it is the high contrast black and white film grain transferred to VHS texture of surreal images that look like if Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel shot a late 80s MTV video (for me the standout is always the woman falling off the cliff seen from behind with the grass flowing in the wind and the tree in the background and the crane move, so dreamlike, so nightmare like).

I think ultimately Rings taps into the nuances of the role of spectator and the blend of emotions that go into wanting to see more into someone's disturbing psyche and the consequences; that go into wanting to see a horror movie; that go into knowing you won't understand what you'll see and maybe no one ever will but you still watch. And while that has all been established earlier in the franchise, Rings adds the moral aspect of the college bio professor GABRIEL (Johnny Galecki) who uses his students as a network of transmitting the curse to others (if you make a copy of the tape and give it to someone that watches it you don't die). Gabriel calls the person who is arranged to watch the copy a tail and now that he has converted the VHS tape to a digital file people can share it over the internet.

Matilda Lutz who plays JULIA is great. The scary scenes are exciting. The opening where Gabriel watches the ring while smoking a joint that the fly emerges from's cherry as the rain in his backyard falls upward awesome cracked me up. But the best scene in Rings is the kill scene when Samara comes out of the flatscreen TV holy shit. The new images in the nightmare are impressive: the snake eating its own tail, crucifix of ants, the church with the books floating up into the ceiling, and the human skeleton burning in flames. And I just thought this was really creepy disturbing and a whole lot of fun.

Underworld 5

Okay so I'm a latent goth. In the middle of my sophomore year I transferred to a small high school and my only friends listened to Marilyn Manson, Tool, Nine Inch Nails and all had long hair and sometimes used black lipstick, nail polish and fishnet Hot Topic clothes. None of these habits rubbed off on me. I was trying to dress like a prep because I thought it would help get chicks and definitely a little wannabe gangster, but I listened to Björk, Melvins, Pavement and Yo La Tengo. A few months ago I started wondering what Nine Inch Nails' "Broken" EP would be like to listen to, then I started watching Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993, Henry Selick), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Alice in Wonderland (2010), Dark Shadows (2012), and Frankenweenie (2012). Then I realized I've only worn black for the last 7 years and a month ago I had a compulsion to watch the Underworld movies for the first time.

Underworld: Blood Wars (2016, Anna Foerster) succeeds in character. SELENE has lost her love, her daughter, all the vampires are hunting her and there's a new even tougher werewolf named MARIUS organizing an attack on the vampires; which she expertly diffuses, while gaining even more special powers, and learns that Michael Corvin was killed by Marius as her daughter pops up for a surprise visit at the end to set up Underworld 6.

But I don't go to Underworld movies for character development. I go for overblown melodrama, assorted vampire and werewolf action, night shots cast in blue grey snowy Polish country castles, and a few shots of Kate Beckinsale's ass in a leather catsuit or shots of Kate Beckinsale shooting 2 automatic pistols.

My main complaint with Underworld: Blood Wars is that it seems to be missing all the relentless fight scenes with graphic violence. Most of the movie is just waiting for the showdown between Selene and Marius, which is an amazing set piece awesome fight, but that's basically like it for like the whole movie. It happens during a brief werewolf siege that typically would have been longer with a higher body count, but does have a great shot of DAVID coming out from underwater while simultaneously slicing a werewolf in half thrown in.

It felt like the kills were sparse but more thoughtfully crafted. Which, again, I'm not fond of. Right now Underworld is the only contemporary film franchise I'm entirely invested in, and aside from Beckinsale what's won me over is that these popcorn genre hybrids are rated R. And part of the reason they're rated R is because of all the bloody butchering of vampires and werewolves--that's been established. So why shy away from it?

I've been able to root for Selene also because there are no ties between her and any other characters that matter. For example, her daughter EVE from Underworld 4 shows up here at the very end and she will matter in part 6, but in Underworld: Blood Wars she is written out of the entire movie just like they did to Michael Corvin since Underworld 4. I love that they just hire a look alike actor and come up with an explanation why these characters are absent because it gives Selene more of an edge. And obviously there's the real life convenience of not having to bring back actors but still involve their characters in the plot.

But like I said I think I'm goth. So I can't excuse the anti-goth plot device invented for Underworld: Blood Wars, the Nordic fortress of Vador with its bleached haired white furred inhabitants and magic waters. Oh yeah also when Selene gets to Vador it's got some kind of Northern Lights going on and SEMIRA later describes its vampires as "pathetic peace loving cowards." Worst of all the magic waters give Selene the special powers she needs to defeat Marius while bleaching her tips! Like I said Beckinsale is the majority of my reasons for watching the Underworld movies, with her black hair, ghostly complexion, and cool sexy black leather fashion so the fact that she ends up with highlights in her hair and a white fur coat just upsets me.

This pretty sums up all the main points

Little Cthulhu


-d.d.