31 Days of Horror: #11 Tales of Terror
Roger Corman and Vincent Price team up yet again to deliver a sturdy take on the tales of Edgar Allan Poe — this time in triplicate. There's no framing story here unfortunately, but we do get some fun narration from Price and the stories all begin and end with cool illustration overlays much like Creepshow would do many years later.
The first story,"Morella" is a classic gothic haunted house tale similar to Fall of the House of Usher. It's a touch too stately, as I find anthologies tend to work best when they kick things off with a shorter and punchier tale, but this is still some good old fashioned fun in the make we have come to expect from the duo. This short also features some great control of color on Corman's part, as the beige of the dead house contrasts wonderfully with the more vibrant costuming.
The middle story, "The Black Cat" (although it's combined with elements from another Poe story), which starts with Peter Lorre as drunk who hates his wife's cat and ends up taking a more macabre direction later on, is the standout of the bunch. For one, seeing Lorre and Price share the screen together and get to flex their comedic chops in this more exhuberant tale is even more delightful than you would expect and I can hardly say who had more fun with their role (the two characters have a wine drinking completion in the middle of the story and just the interplay between their reactions is a comedic marvel). But this is tales of terror after all, so why would a goofy story about the misadventures of a drunk be the standout? Well, once a little light murder gets involved later on this short has just as much fun with the more gruesome elements as it did with the pure comedy. In particular there's a very fun dream sequence that's filled with some enjoyable and disorienting camera effects to go along with a little gore. Even if the other two stories weren't enjoyable in their own right, this story would make the film worth a watch.
The final story, "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," concerns an elderly man played by Price who has turned to mesmerism to ease his pain in his final days, but may have gotten more than he bargained for in the process. Price here is given a more subdued role and is rightfully overshadowed by the creepy Mesmerist played by Basil Rathbone. This story, while not scary, is the closest these tales of terror get to touching on some unnerving concepts when you think of the implications behind them, but it never lets things get too creepy and instead ends up with a very EC comics style ending of supernatural retribution.
This anthology is nothing earth shattering to be sure, but for fans of Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Roger Corman's take on Poe as I am, this is a very enjoyable collection of tales. None go on for longer than they should, are mostly sequenced well (with the comedic segment breaking up the more serious fare), diverse enough in material and tone, and make the most of the small budget. Corman remains an underrated formalist in these B-movie undertakings, with a way of making the cheap sets feel expansive rather than claustrophobic, and a great eye for color. I only wish that this had kicked things off with a bit more of the energy that pervades the film's best segment.
31 Days of Horror: #12 Apostle
Welsh director Gareth Evans made a name for himself with the bone-crunching Indonesian action movies The Raid and The Raid 2, introducing the world to the Silat martial arts style and reinvigorating the genre in the process. Not content to define himself as "the martial arts guy", Evans has returned to Wales and teamed up with Netflix for a film that largely eschews the action he built his reputation on, swapping out frenetic choreography for the slow-boil of a cult horror film. Unfortunately, where Evans' broad strokes and in-your-face gratuity works marvels for the The Raid films, as they color the fast-paced action in easily readable character types and memorable punctuation marks of bodily decimation, in Apostle they transform what should be subtle mystery and unease into a tired exhibition of well-worn tropes. And, sadly, this time the punctuation marks are few and far between.
Much like the folk-horror classic
The Wicker Man, which serves as the main point of inspiration here, the story of
Apostle concerns a man scouring an island-based religious cult for a disappearance of a young woman. In this case, the man (Thomas Richardson, played with clench-jawed intensity by Dan Stevens) is searching for his kidnapped sister, who is being held for ransom by the cult. Where
The Wicker Man succeeded in its trickle of pagan-inflected weirdness, and the idiosyncrasies of its musical digressions,
Apostle gets right to throwing all the usual lexicon of cult horror behaviors at you from the jump: animal sacrifices, generic proselytizing, and scowling enforcers abound. As a result, the cult community never feels like a plausible setting, lacking the verisimilitude and grounding that its key cinematic influence has.
While Evans's eye remains honed to deliver well-framed exploration of all this typical genre fare, it can't overcome the triteness of the material. Clearly considered shots like a reveal that crosses on a hill are actually the masts of a ship, or a spiraling camera inverting a flaming crucifix, far exceed the consideration of the story they help tell. There is little subtlety at play here, and as the mysteries of the cult—such as they are—get revealed, any unsettling obfuscation the film had evaporates in favor of some silly effects-heavy reveals that do a remarkable job of dispersing much of the horror that some earlier moments built up.
The characters are, if anything, even more broadly painted than the genre tropes surrounding them. We have the usual assortment of spittle-spraying prophets, timid doubters, and naïve youths to contend with, and they're about as interesting as you might expect. Their character arcs are prolonged well past their expiration dates before their unsurprising resolutions are sprung upon us in all their grim kineticism (the one aspect where Evans's handling of the material actually feels fresh for the genre).
More disappointing are the roles for the women of the story. What begins as a damsel in distress story ends as one, only the number of damsels in distress seems to rapidly multiply the farther into the film you get. Every woman in the story (and I do mean every) is a helpless captive of abuse. It's another disappointing example of Evans not only not subverting the usual genre building blocks but building the story with multiples of all the most frequently used. Only Stevens, as the drug addicted and perpetually furious lead player, offers a fresh and engaging performance to hold the pieces together. The most we get from the others is some scenery-chewing from the overtly villainous types.
What then is there to recommend in
Apostle? Where it succeeds are the same moments that make
The Raid films as good as they are: the punctuation marks of kinetic violence and the rapidly impending threat of it. It's in the sequences where the film lets us forget about the mystery or lives of the characters and threatens mortal peril where it finally comes to grotesque life. There's a memorably tense chase through underground tunnels that turns from thrilling to horrifying as the location becomes increasingly claustrophobic and the pursuers more nightmarish. Evans also indulges in some brief hand-to-hand combat, and though the actors are no martial artists, they acquit themselves well to the more clumsy brawling these intense scraps involve, and the camerawork is just as vivid and lively as the movement of the performers.
The twin elements of motion in the performers and the camera reinforce one-another to create the unique authorial touch that is distinctly Evans's. Though there was some festival buzz generated about the extremity of the brutal torture devices heavily featured in the film's marketing, they again serve more as brief sequences of successful tension and thrills rather than vectors for gratuitous gore and bodily punishment. These moments of memorable imagery and pulse-escalating action succeed because the broad genre points of the film are transformed from tired narrative devices, into the solid of clarity of touchstones for the viewer to grab hold of in a rapidly-moving rollercoaster of tension (they work for the same reason the comic-book stylings of James Cameron's action-horror masterpiece
Aliens do). It's just a shame then that these successful moments are spread so thin and are over so quick.
Though it's commendable that Evans decided to expand to new genre territory rather than rest on his laurels, the particular cadences of
Apostle apparently do not play to the director's strengths. It's not as though a horror film about a cult is unsteady territory for the director—his short form "Safe Haven" is a superlative found footage horror story about a fictional Indonesian death cult and succeeds in almost every way that
Apostle fails (although we can attribute at least half of that short's success to co-director Timo Tjahjanto)—but the protracted rhythms here are unsteady in his directorial grasp. It's as though Evans wanted to challenge the criticisms he received for
The Raid 2's sprawling narrative ambitions and see if he could make a film entirely around the story of a man behind enemy lines without resorting to the martial arts he knew he could pull off. Perhaps next time he'll find a way to translate his discernible passion for combat to the stories of his characters, and I won't begrudge him to try again, but sometimes artists just have a niche. Hitchcock made a career trading in suspense, so maybe Evans was meant to trade in broken bones?
31 Days of Horror: #13 Friday the 13th Part 2
My first foray into the uncharted waters of the Jason entries of series and, shockingly (read: not so shockingly) this is basically the same movie as the first one. It's largely just as dumb and inept as the first one, and doesn't even have the advantage of having a justification for its premise this go around (Jason didn't drown? Okay...so why was his mom avenging him when they clearly lived in the same spot, and Jason certainly isn't averse to traveling...), but it does have a pretty killer final 20 minutes once the slashing really gets going which ultimately puts this on top I think.
Things started off pretty rough with perhaps the most unnecessary and protracted use of flashback footage from the previous movie I've ever seen (they basically showed almost the entire third act again), but other than that the beginning is actually pretty clever. Slasher sequels seem to be at their best when they're dealing with the trauma of the survivors of the prior film, and this does and okay job at that! The movie even threatens cleverness with playing with objective/subjective camera and our expectations as to what is a POV shot or not (it does this again during the chase sequence to good affect). Of course this is Friday the 13th so any attempt at character depth can't be tolerated and our heroine is quickly dispatched, albeit in a pretty darn great way. I love the fridge scare, this movie should have just been about Jason road tripping with his mom's head and getting into all sorts of hi-jinks as he has to keep her well refrigerated.
After the opening though, it's business as usual. Annoying teens are introduced. Incorrect butt-cheeks are grabbed. Teens tell campfire stories (adding to the charming camp atmosphere which is one of the few things this series seems to have going for it). Teens get naked. Teens swap out perfectly nice underwear for hideous underwear. Teens get it on...
...and then the fun starts. Jason may not have the advantage of the all-in performance his mother gave, but ol sackhead has a great design. In fact, his appearance is so good, and effectively used, that I'm kind of surprised they didn't keep the design. One-eyed hoods are dope, especially when paired with a pitchfork as a weapon. The kills here are mostly stolen straight from Mario Bava's Bay of Blood, but this time on wheels! Better than the kills though, which while good lack Savini's touch, is the excellent chase that makes up most of the film's third act. There's some really good misdirection here (our final girl's choice between holding the bathroom door shut and escaping out to the window leads to a perfectly timed scare) and awesome use of foreground and background as Jason barrels relentlessly towards our hero (whose name I forgot, but she's a bit better than the last one!).
There's still some unaccountable level of charm to the series (is it the location? The sheer lack of ambition beyond no-frills stupid teens getting murdered?) that despite its entirely shoddy foundation makes for a somehow appealing dumb viewing experience. But if further sequels can build on the legitimately good tension that the last act of this has, and somehow extend it through the first half of the movie, I can probably get on board with this series a little more wholeheartedly.
31 Days of Horror: #14 The Monster Squad
Kinda feels like a low-rent Goonies movie but with Universal monsters in it, so all-in-all, not too bad. There's an obvious love for these horror icons present in the film (armadillos in Dracula's castle) and the kids have alright chemistry with one another. It's too slipshod to be real classic, but the 80's kids adventure movie vibes combined with a monster-mash special made for fun holiday viewing. I could have done without the peeping-tom kids blackmailing a girl with naked pictures though.
31 Days of Horror: #15 Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
I haven't seen Tales from the Darkside show yet, but despite George Romero and Stephen King's involvement this movie feels less like Creepshow and closer in tone and look to HBO's Tales from the Crypt television series. There aren't any vibrant comic-booky flourishes to the aesthetics here, and it has a very television look to it in general (although there are some moments of clever framing). Don't let the look and comedic tone fool you though, there are some seriously gnarly gore effect here to offset and goofiness in may lull you into. There are only three stories here (plus the Hansel and...well just Hansel this time...wraparound, which is kinda fun but too predictable) but they're all pretty solidly done thanks to having been all adapted from previously proven material. We've got Arthur Conan Doyle, Stephen King, and--surprisingly--a story from Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan. The Conan Doyle mummy story (which makes good use of a great cast), and especially the King story (about a serial killing cat that has truly fantastic kill to cap it off) work far better with the tone of this piece and Hearn's melancholy story of a man forced to keep a promise to a monster that takes a toll on his marriage to the woman of his dreams.
It's no Creepshow or Tales from the Crypt, as it lacks boldness in its aesthetics and confident unification of its tone, but this is a solid B-tier anthology for those looking for a bit more of the ones in the vein of EC comics tradition.
