[Freya-dæg] Shocktober Pt.4: The unconventional arc of The Convent

{The Convent's movie poster, found on IMDb.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

In today's entry, we take a look at the Mike Mendez' horror flick, The Convent. With its low budget effects and costumes, it's a great film for the end of October (and Part 4 of Shocktober) since the best Halloween costumes are often made on a budget.

So, let's see if the same is true of B-Horror movies, as we settle into weighing the good and the bad of this flick,

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Plot Summary

In the middle of the 20th century, a convent of nuns ran a school - until one of the students went mad and slaughtered them all before setting the place aflame.

Come 2006, it's tradition for the local universities' sororities and fraternities to try to paint their letters on the old convent's bell tower. Clarissa's troop of newly minted preppy friends is new exception, and everything is going great for her until an old friend from a past she'd rather forget asks to go with them to the old, burned out convent.

In the end, Clarissa's old friend Mo (Megahn Perry) comes with them, and they all wander through the convent. However, instead of finding the bell-tower, they find Satanists who are trying to bring forth the devil himself. Instead, chaos is brought into the old hilltop religious building - unleashing a demonic deluge that surely no-one will survive.

Clarissa and her friends are about to find out that no matter how hard you pray, you're damned when you enter The Convent!

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The Good

This movie wastes no time whatsoever setting things up or putting things in motion.

The opening scene gives us one perspective of the urban myth about the titular convent, and from there we're immediately introduced to Clarissa's trying to gel with a new set of friends. This quick and dirty introduction is appreciated, because it gives the movie a great deal of room to expand things - maybe introduce competing perspectives on what happened in the convent, or really get into why Clarissa is looking for new friends when the old ones still seem to be around. But more on that later.

After this quick introduction things move along at a steady clip. The spooky convent and the woman responsible for the shooting at it are visited, and a great deal of tension is built up around the old burned out building. There's also quite a bit of humour and self awareness involved in these first tens of minutes. Some examples are:

{A black cop who delivers the mad analogy: "I'm gonna lock yo ass up so tight, they gon' have to have a combination to visit yo' nuts...white boy."}

{The group's blonde complaining about how a criminal record isn't: going to look good on my application to fashion school."}

And, without pictures, an exchange between the group's men that ends with the conclusion that they need to go back for the druggie's stash; plus a brief and direct Scooby Doo reference.

All of this humour and self-awareness make the movie feel like it's getting to something, like it's really on its way to telliing a horrific story that plays with the audience's expectations.

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The Bad

However, The Convent never gets that far.

After the movie's introductory moments are gone, they're never revisited. Instead, we're left with two thirds that could double as a Benny Hill sketch with just a little bit of redubbing.

Now, this shift to true b-movie stuff wouldn't be so bad if the start of the movie hadn't been so promising.

If the movie opened with cheesy lines and demons trying to convert the living, then that's being the focus of the last two thirds wouldn't be an issue. What's worse though, is that once the movie's big bad demons appear it becomes terribly uneven.

One minute, we're skulking about the convent with one of the gang, trying to find the others, the next we see the demons traipsing about and doing whatever it is that demons do in this movie (their workings/weaknesses being explained not being one of these things).

By the time the final scenes of the movie show us some genuine b-movie badassery, things have been too incoherent for anyone other than the most diehard of horror fans to have lost interest and dismissed this movie as nothing more than a disappointment.

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Judgment

The Convent is simply a letdown. It's a movie that clocks in at just slightly over an hour, and opens with such snap and self-confident ease. But that confidence erodes by the time the demons appear.

However, the erosion of a movie's confidence and atmosphere is one thing, frustrating an audience's expectations only to later follow some of the laziest horror tropes is the mark of nothing more than a bad movie.

There's really no other way to say it. If it had gone all out on its tropes or been as original as possible within the limits of its story, then it could have been a great bit of entertainment like Leprechaun in the Hood, or a neatly layered horror tale as was Silent House.

So, Freya, there's no need to skim the stinking Field of Fallen Films for the sake of The Convent. Let it be where it lay, and may its name be reluctantly whispered even among midnight cauldron stirrers.

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Closing

Check back here tomorrow for Annotated Links #23, a collection of five links that share some common thread and that are also pretty cool!

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[Freya-dæg] Shocktober Pt.3:Making some Noise about Silent House

{Silent House's movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

Based on Gustavo Hernández's independent horror film, Casa de Muda, this week's movie is a chilling one.

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Plot Summary

Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen), her father (Adam Trese), and her uncle Peter (Eric Sheffer Stevens) have returned to their old vacation house to prepare it for sale. But, if working in a big, old house isn't bad enough, there are stories of people who have been squatting in this vacation home while Sarah and her family have been away.

What's more, Sarah hears things as she works her way through sorting old possessions. Her father and her uncle say it's just an old house, but Sarah's ears aren't the only thing deceiving her when she begins to see people who, on second glance, appear not to be there at all.

When faced with strange stories, noises only you seem to hear, and things that only you can see what could be worse than a Silent House?

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The Good

The overlooked indie horror movie of 2012, Silent House, has quite a bit to offer.

Much like The Screaming Skull it shows its mastery of atmosphere early on, but rather than pumping up the tension to the point where our patience bursts and we wind up with something comedic rather than horrific, Silent House knows how to moderate its tension. In that regard, this movie is to The Screaming Skull as Edison's DC electrical system is to Tesla's AC system.

Helping to maintain this atmosphere is ace camera work by Igor Martinovic. His handling of angles and long shots is not only effective but convincing when it comes to showing us what perspective we're seeing everything through. Much of the movie is shot so that Sarah is the focus, and paired with the single camera approach, this is a dynamite movie for cinematography. In fact, it should definitely be looked at as a reference for communicating perspective through film.

{Throughout most of the movie the camera focuses on Sarah; putting Peter in front of her fantastically expresses his protective role.}

Of course, the bread and butter of any horror movie couldn't be moderated by cinematography alone. The movie's script and direction are also great at stringing out just enough frights throughout the movie to release excess tension and to make way for more.

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The Bad

However. Silent House's strengths are met by its major flaws.

As an experiment in what I'd consider first person film, we aren't given the same information that we'd get if we had different character perspectives or even a script that allowed for omniscient (or near omniscient) story telling/filmography. Because we lack the sort of information that could only be delivered explicitly if we were privy to another character's perspective, we're given an ending that is a shock, but not in an expected way.

At the risk of spoiling the ending - here I go - rather than a final moment that sends shivers up and down your spine (as Paranormal Activity did for me), we get something softer, more akin to the ending of Shutter Island, or Inception even.

It's not a bad ending in and of itself, but it's not what's expected from a horror movie, especially one that tries so hard to combine jump scares with more psychological frights. Ultimately, however, the movie's attempt to balance these two makes it much more lopsided.

It also doesn't help that one of the actors simply has a presence that suggests his/her involvement in some unsavoury activities.

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Judgment

Silent House is a sleek, and considerable horror/thriller.

It makes effective use of camera work to tell its story and to create atmosphere.

It withholds a little too much information, and its ending suggests that the next scene could be more interesting than everything that came before it.

This movie's a strange beast because it's really quite a strange movie when considered. Much like Shutter Island it plays with perspectives, and there are twists throughout, but the thing is that despite its admirable attempt to be a story told mostly in the first person, what's lost as a result leaves us to piece far too much together.

This challenge that Silent House presents is a welcome one, and can make for an engaging movie experience, but it's not engaging if you're not willing to do some speculating throughout your watching of it.

Nonetheless, it still offers some chilling scares and an ending that, as far as soft, conversation-generating endings go, is better than Inception's. And for that, as well as Igor Martinovic's masterful work behind the movie's single camera, this is one to save, I say, Freya.

So swoop low and lift this one from the muck and mire - it's a movie to be seen and to be talked about for what it does right as much as what it loses in trying to do too much.

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Closing

Check back here tomorrow for Annotated Links #22!

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[Freya-dæg] Shocktober Pt.2: Is Leprechaun in the Hood any Good?

{Leprechaun in the Hood's movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

Welcome to Part Two of Shocktober - a look into the litanous Leprechaun series. Specifically, as requested, this week's review is a foray into the fifth movie in the Leprechaun franchise: Leprechaun in the Hood.

Interestingly enough, after four previous movies, this one's picked up the label of "comedy" as well as "horror," so let's just see how this freestyle film fares.

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Plot Summary

It's the 1970s and the man who will soon be known as "Mack Daddy" O'Nassas (Ice T) strikes it rich when he finds a stash of gold and an ugly statue of a leprechaun. He learns the secret of the two, and uses a magic flute found in the leprechaun's (Warwick Davis) gold to drive himself to fame and fortune.

Flash forward 20 years. The rap trio of Postmaster P. (Anthony Montgomery), Stray Bullet (Rashaan Nall), and Butch (Red Grant), are trying to get on the hip hop scene but just aren't that great. Down on their luck, and looking for some quick promotion to earn money they need to repair their equipment, they turn to rap mogul Mack Daddy.

But Mack Daddy's help will come at a cost: the trio will have to change their entire image! The trio's de facto leader Postmaster P. objects, and they're thrown out. Having no other alternative, the three plan to steal the medallion they saw hanging on a grotesque leprechaun statue in Mack Daddy's office.

Their heist is a success, but when they remove the medallion, the leprechaun comes back to life and begins hunting down everyone the trio's pawned his gold to. On top of that, Mack Daddy starts after them as well to get back the flute that they stole - the very source of his fame and fortune.

Will the trio figure out how to use the flute to cause their own meteoric rise to stardom? Will Mack Daddy catch up with them and bust a cap in each of their asses? Or will the leprechaun succeed in stealing back his gold as he leaves a trail of bodies in his wake?

The only thing that's sure is that nothing can be good when there's a Leprechaun in the Hood!

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The Good

First off, because this is a Leprechaun movie, it's an Irish exploitation movie to some degree. Add in the hood, and you get a modern blackspoitation film. Take them both together, and we get a heaping helping of rhyming lines. And any form of entertainment with rhyming couplets is as good as a cellar full of fine wines.

Additionally, we're treated to turns of phrase like this one:

{"Kinda like Robin Hood, 'stead we gonna be robbin' in the hood."}

Further, we get to see Ice T show off his acting chops. For example, we see him reacting to his friend's death:

We also see him scrounging around his afro for another weapon:

And, we see him (for much of the movie) acting pretty full of himself:

It's not an Oscar-worthy performance, but it ups the comedy and campiness of the movie. These things are important ingredients for its potency because they really help to carry it along. After all, being the fifth in the series, it can't really be expected to be as terrifying as the last four movies. So, instead it goes for the base comedy so often found in B-movies. As a result, this movie's like a bag of popcorn: you take one handful and then by the time you actually check to see how much is left in the bag, you find it empty.

Beyond the movie's B-qualities, it has some surprisingly dark moments. These are both major plot points, but definitely work well both to bolster the movie's characters and to buttress its comedy and campiness by adding some variety.

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The Bad

However, it can also be said that the movie's darker moments are there to make up for its lack of a "horror" element in general.

Leprechaun in the Hood follows the formula of a slasher or serial killer movie well enough (one person or entity is out to kill a group of people or an individual), but we're told right off the bat why the leprechaun goes after who he goes after. Because we know that whoever has the leprechaun's gold is going to buy the farm, the movie musters very little tension.

It doesn't help matters that the movie's titular villain isn't very menacing either. He's definitely brutal in the pursuit of those who have his gold, but otherwise he's as comedic a character as Ice T.

The other issue with the movie is that it doesn't really answer many of the questions it raises. Questions like: how did Mack Daddy know enough about the flute to only be interested in it when he first comes across the leprechaun's gold? Why is the flute's power selective in certain scenes? And how does the leprechaun manage to escape and hypnotize someone at the end?

Why all of these things happen is clear (convenience, convenience, and to leave it open for the next one), but the "how" is just as important because without that the movie loses its depth.

Explaining how the leprechaun's magic (and magic in general in the movie work) would add such depth, and help to build more tension as audiences tried to figure out the leprechaun's weak point for themselves based on what we're told. Instead, we're told nothing, and the movie becomes just a bit of light entertainment.

However, the worst part of the film is that the leprechaun isn't even really the main focus - instead, it's "The Hood." Since both things are in the title, both should share the spotlight, but the leprechaun is used as little more than a plot device.

He spouts off some dope rhyming couplets, makes cheerful threats, and then follows through with them. But he's really just the impetus for events, he never really gets into them. For example, the whole conflict between the rap trio and Mack Daddy barely involves him at all - he's just a third party that sometimes interferes with either side's plan.

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Judgment

Leprechaun in the Hood is an light romp that mixes comedy, camp, and exploitation style film into one entertaining blend. But if you're looking for substance, you've got to go with an earlier Leprechaun movie, or an older horror film. This one's as substantial as blown smoke.

That said though, Leprechaun in the Hood is well-paced, and it does offer some rather surprisng twists near the end.

So, Freya, dust this one off, and lift it up (but be sure to set it along the lower seats of Filmhalla).

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Closing

Check back here tomorrow for Annotated Links #21!

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[Freya-dæg] Shocktober Pt.1: Some Screaming Skullduggery

{The movie poster from The Screaming Skull, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

Well, it's October proper now, and so there are a few movies that I've scared up for the month that hosts Halloween that I've just got to check out. First up in the four part Shock-tober film fest is the 1958 fright-fest, The The Screaming Skull.

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Plot Summary

Eric Whitlock (John Hudson), now happily married to his second wife Jenni (Peggy Webber), returns to his estate after some years away.

Everything within it is just as it was left, and the gardener has been keeping the grounds as if Eric - or his late first wife Marian who tragically died near the property's pond - never left. But as strange things begin to distract Jenni and she starts to see and hear things that Eric assures her are not there it seems that the estate is not yet finished with sorrow.

Bumps in the night become real reasons for terror, but is Jenni truly seeing and hearing things as they are? Or is Eric right and there's nothing at all the matter in their freshly minted marriage?

When it comes to matters of creepy gardeners, strange noises, and bizarre appearances of skulls everywhere, nothing can be certain - even the cry of a peacock could be the sound of The Screaming Skull!

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The Good

For better or worse, this movie has one thing going for it: A 1950s car with seagull doors!

Neat props aside, The Screaming Skull definitely has its moments of mild fright. But what the movie does best is create atmosphere. The colonial estate on which the film is set already lends itself well to this, but the tension is also ratcheted up through Jenny's constant edginess.

Much like another ill-thought of movie from the middle of the 20th century - a little picture called Manos: The Hands of Fate - the best character in the movie are those who are on the sides.

The Reverend Edward Snow (Russ Conway) and his wife (Tony Johnson), are interesting, if static figures, but just as in Manos, the greatest character in the movie is Mickey (Alex Nicol), the estate's gardener (and the film's director). Just like Torgo, Mickey's motivations and personality are the most developed and worked through, and so likewise, he is always a curious figure to watch.

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The Bad

However, the big problem with The Screaming Skull is that it fails to establish real relationships between its characters. The one between Mickey and the memory of Marian is the best in the film, but even it is terribly thin and shallow. We're basically given a Catelyn Tully/Petyr Baelish situation (if I may be so bold as to jump genres), but nothing as complex develops from it.

Worst of all, though, the one relationship that the movie really needs to make us care about, that between Eric and Jenni, gets no development whatsoever. Eric mentions once (once!) that she's moneyed, and she gives no real indication as to why she's interested in the man.

Despite the insistence of the script, this is not a good show of a madly in love married couple. That most of their scenes come across as reads rather than actual conversation between any truly in love couple does nothing to help their case.

{"We need someone outside of the confusions of our love for each other."}

What's more, the characters of Jenny and Eric, again, those whom we should be made to care about the most, are pitiably underdeveloped. All we know about Eric is that he's been away from the estate for 3 years, he's re-married, and he must have some kind of job (right?).

To be fair, we do learn quite a bit about Jenny's past, but we don't get enough early on to really relate to her. Eric's under-development is disappointing, but with Jenny's downright terrible.

But why are relatable characters so important to horror movies?

Well, horror movies require characters that their viewers can relate to, since when those characters are in danger, or in tense situations, or scared, then we can feel those same emotions.

Jenny, as the new wife who is being introduced into the way of life that Eric is planning for, is the perfect audience proxy character. She, just as those watching, is being brought into a brand new scenario. But, because we're not able to really make a connection with her due to the mysteries of her background and attraction to Eric.

As a result, what is supposed to be a largely sympathetic genre becomes instead a plodding tense fest that comes across as comical rather than scary not because of the era's effects, but because without a character to see ourselves as or to empathize with, we the audience become objective observers, coldly removed from a movie whose genre requires emotional investment on at least some level.

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Judgment

The Screaming Skull and Manos: The Hands of Fate are definitely of the same ilk.

Both movies are low-budget, poorly executed horror movies that are just plain bad.

Yet, the difference between them is that Manos is so bad that it's good - it can show people the absolute worst way to make a movie in all of its aspects.

The Screaming Skull on the other hand is badly done, but lacks the main thing that redeems Manos: Interesting characters that have dynamic relationships and that are fascinating in their own right.

Because The Screaming Skull is missing such characters the house in which much of it happens is a perfect self-reflexive metaphor. The estate house is frightening in its own right (it is a horror movie after all), but absolutely empty - and therefore entirely uninteresting. What's more, aside from two throwaway lines, we're never given any clear reason for Eric's actions - unless he is, in fact, bound for the loony bin.

So, Freya, leave this one below as you fly over the field of fallen films. Oh, and don't get too close, you might fall into its bubble of boredom and tumble to the ground.

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Closing

Coming up tomorrow - Annotated Links #19. So be sure to watch for more wacky news and information!

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[Freya-dæg] Indecision while Meeting Evil

{Meeting Evil's's movie poster, found on IMDB.}

Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

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Plot Summary

John Felton (Luke Wilson) is a father, husband, and realtor floundering in the trough of the housing crash.

He's lost his job, his self-respect, and his passion for living. But on his birthday he crosses paths with a strange character known simply as "Ritchie" (Samuel L. Jackson). As John's attempts to help Ritchie lead from one thing to another John slowly realizes that something is terribly wrong - everywhere they go it seems that people are being killed.

Will the killer eventually strike out at John himself, or the family that he holds dear? Or will John eventually comprehend that in each encounter with Ritchie he's been Meeting Evil?

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The Good

For a movie that looks like it was filmed on a steady, many mega-pixel handycam, Meeting Evil has some great cinematography and editing.

For example, after one of the murders, the body is splayed on the road and we get this transition to a convenience store where the scene's opening shot is of a barbie doll splayed out on the floor in the same way. And later in the movie when John is being questioned by the police we see some great use of lights and shadows. And in a similar vein, near the movie's climax there's one shot where the shadow of the falling rain looks like blood dripping down Joni's face.

But, the greatest thing that this movie has to offer is Samuel L. Jackson. He brings all of his chops to the table and really conveys a powerful sense of menace in so many of his scenes.

Just as he's bald in the role, you could say that he's been shorn of all of the ridiculous over-the-top-ness of his role as Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction. He still does push things, but each foray into the depth of feeling starts from a calm and centered performance as Ritchie who seems to be as in control of his personality and himself as a martial arts master in a Hong Kong action flick.

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The Bad

Yet, at the same time, we're never really told much about Ritchie.

Near the film's end we get a tentative motive for his actions - but it comes from his own mouth, and one of the biggest things that we've learned over the course of the movie is that Ritchie is quite duplicitous. However, this opens up an important question for horror stories based on a single-entity: Is it more terrifying to know the evil that you're encountering, or to not know it at all?

On the one hand, if you know the horror in a clinical, or unremoved way, then it can become less of a threat. That sort of technical knowledge could lead to a technical way to destroy it, or be rid of it and so the threat might be diminished.

Though if the horror was known in a more personal way, then it can seem even more insidious, since it can leave us feeling defenseless and vulnerable. After all, it sets everything on its head.

On the other hand, if you don't know anything about the horror, it gains the element of more widespread surprise. It could come from any direction, it could come in any form, it could do anything. If your imagination has already been slapped across the flanks and sent running, then all of these possibilities give it ample springy space on which to sprint into wild frenzies.

One of the major problems with Meeting Evil is that it never really decides which way to go with its antagonist, Ritchie. It withholds a lot of information until near the end (if what he says about himself can be trusted), but there's also a vague suggestion throughout (made quite clearly as we hear him whistling Dixie throughout the movie and over the end credits) that he is the Devil.

Yet even that possibility isn't fully explored though there's a great set of scenes in which it could be very clearly, but indirectly, established.

Throughout the movie we're shown a little girl wearing red wellington boots who seems to be out walking a little dog. In our first encounter with her, she foils Ritchie's plan to shoot John outright (which is also kind of comical, at least for Ritchie's reaction).


Then, as we look back at the house throughout the movie the girl's always there - like some sort of guardian angel or lurking demon. But even when she and Ritchie speak before he returns to John and Joanie's (Leslie Bibb) house in the last act, all we get out of the interaction is that the girl's dog sometimes bites. So, it's possible that she's an angel working against him, or a demon working with him, but that's all we're left with: a possibility.

The movie also doesn't do quite as much as you'd expect with the fact that John is a victim of the housing crash, and living in a neighbourhood that has been almost entirely cleared out.

In one sense, placing John in this situation might just be a super context-sensitive way to establish how depressed he is and the dire straits of his family, but since it's just there and taken as a given we don't really gain that sense of impending doom that would make Ritchie's confession of motive that much more believable. <*spoilers*>Though, if we really believed what he says about Joanie wanting to kill John, then the ending where they slip into bed and she just asks "everything is going to be okay, right?" before they flick off their lights would make no sense at all.

While we're at it, the way the American family is depicted in this movie is also a little strange. John and Joni are fit and attractive people while their children are both statistics in a survey on childhood obesity. Though the movie does suggest why childhood obesity is such a problem in America right now:

{Just look at all that mac and cheese.}

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Judgment

Meeting Evil is the sort of horror movie that lends itself well to discussions of the genre, what works, what doesn't, and what the merits are to either side of the "know the horror/don't know the horror" debate.

In spite of the movie's lending itself to discussion, it doesn't really offer up what a horror needs to: a solid scare that will make your skin crawl each time a stranger knocks on your door to ask for help with their broken down car, or each time you hear someone whistling "Dixie."

What's more, aside from some nice editing and camera work, Luke Wilson and Samuel Jackson not only make up the lion's share of the movie's acting chops, they also seem to have taken up the lion's share of the movie's budget.

So, Freya, it is without any sort of indecision at all that I say let this one be where it lay. Keep it in mind, that we may all discuss and dissect it and its situation in the great Halls of Filmhalla, but don't bother bringing it in from the Field of Fallen Films.

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Closing

Check back here tomorrow for the next "Annotated Links," and on Sunday for a look back and a look at the week ahead.

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[Freya-dæg] All-Request August Pt.3: Squirm

{Squirm's movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

The movie Squirm is one among many in the "nature-strikes-back" sub-genre of horror movies. And perhaps, since the part of nature striking back is none other than the humble worm, the surprise is supposed to horrify as much as the premise itself.

But is this movie really so horrible as to deserve the 30% (from critics) and 28% (from audiences) that it has over at Rotten Tomatoes? Let's find out whether those tomatoes are rotten or just soft because they're worm-eaten.

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Plot Summary

Mick, a young man from the city, comes to Fly Creek to meet with a girl he met at an antiques show named Geri. However, the idyllic Southern setting of their romantic rendezvous is ravaged by a storm the night before he sets out and one thing after another goes wrong.

First, he has to wade through a swamp and forest to reach Geri's house when the debris blocks his bus' path, then he's accused of hijacking his egg-cream at the local lunch counter. But things get really weird when Mick and Geri go looking for old man Beardsley, the best antiques dealer in town. Of course, just Mick's presence alone is enough to leave Roger, the hopeful for Geri's heart, seething.

What happened to Mr. Beardsley? Why are worms cropping up where they shouldn't be? And to what lengths will Roger go to to make sure that Mick is taken out of the picture?

Sit back and relax - but, also, be ready to Squirm!

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The Good

The acting in this movie is fine, but the accents - the accents are so bad they rebound into the comical.

Everyone except Mick has a Southern drawl of varying intensity. Some of these are light and breathy like those of Geri, her sister and her mother, while others are as heavy as the hillbillies' from Deliverance.

To top off the overdone characters, Mick plays up the role of red-hot lover to a ridiculous extent.


Yet, despite shots like the above, Mick's act is also restrained enough to keep things from going over the top.

The cinematography at times is also fairly well done, considering the movie's genre. Take this excellent dutch angle shot for instance:

{In this shot Geri's mother is saying "Something evil about it."}

For a B-horror flick, Squirm is a good example of the genre. It takes its scares very seriously, and unlike many of the horror films put out today, it relies more on psychological horror than shock horror.

A prime example of this in the film is a scene where Mick and Geri find the Sheriff eating spaghetti with a woman. They tell him about a skeleton they've found, and mention worms a number of times. The woman seems to be there as the audience proxy as she slows herself down and at one point even puts down her utensils - eating spaghetti while talking about worms is never an easy task!

But, the expected scare never happens. None of the spaghetti bits turn out to be the movie's starring monster.

What's more, the movie clearly establishes the potential for the worm-as-spaghetti scare when, earlier in the film, Mick finds a worm in his egg cream (soda) - the next logical step is to have one on a plate of spaghetti, but it never happens. Although it's a relatively small detail, the film is much stronger for leaving this cheap, expected scare out.

Further, even when it doesn't build up the scares, the movie can be down right terrifying. Things get into spoiler territory here, so skip the next paragraph if you're worried about such things.

When Roger gets attacked by the worms we expect them just to kill him. Just to leave him a skeleton as they did the others they've destroyed. Instead, the worms seem to, well, possess him, making him a strange (undead?) worm-man hybrid. This is terrifying visually (thanks to Oscar-winning make-up artist Rick Baker), and also conceptually as we see the worms wriggle up under the skin of Roger's face, leaving welts in their wake.

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The Bad

But, why Roger gets possessed while the worms kill everyone else they attack is never explained. This lack of explanation exposes the films' major weakness: its premise is never given any kind of detailed treatment.

Granted, Roger does tell us that when his dad started the worm farm he tried to use electricity to get them out of the ground and that this enraged them (to the point where they bit most of his thumb off), but we don't get any information on how these enraged worms operate.

Case in point, the worms knock down a tree, late in the movie, destroying the dining room in Geri's house while her family and Mick are in it. But this is the first they've knocked down - such a tree's being selected and knocked down suggests some level of consciousness. It seems that they're out to get Mick, and maybe Geri as well.

The other thing that's ill-explained is the worms' being dispersed by "light." This makes little sense because they couldn't have attacked Roger if such was the case, having done so in broad daylight. However, the way that they react to light later in the movie suggests that it's the heat they don't like, not the light. And if this were established as the worm deterrent rather than light when Mick voices his realization, it would help the movie as a whole make more sense.

Now, the same narrow miss at sense is present in the case of Roger.

Because he had his thumb mostly eaten by worms before, it's possible that he has some kind of bond with them. Pair that with his hatred for Mick as competition in the romantic field (though Geri's mother seems to have the hots for him, for some reason), and you have yourself an explanation for his becoming a weird quasi-zombie after the worms' initial attack on him. But this connection is never clearly established. It's strongly implied, but nothing explicit is ever said about it.

Perhaps, though, this is the result of the scientist character being left out of this movie. There's no one in it to say "don't you see...?" or "Of course!" This character could also point out how why, in the world of the movie, this works:

{I've heard of people being oily - but this is pretty ridiculous.}

In fact, a scientist character would be incredibly useful at the movie's end where there are so many loose ends that you could bait all the fishing hooks in a salmon derby with them.

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Judgment

Squirm is the kind of movie that drive-in theatres would show back when there were more than a few handfuls of drive-in theatres left within the Western world. It's got it's cheesy moments, it's acceptable acting, and its genuinely terrifying bits (so it's also the kind of movie any real life, mack-daddy Mick would approve of). But there are no drive-in theatres anymore.

Times have changed, and the horror genre has changed.

The modern horror movie genre is divided into two sides: One that relies almost entirely on shock horror, and another that relies on human psychology for its scares. Squirm falls in between these two, and so were it to be released now it would probably fall into complete obscurity.

Yet on it's own it does still do what a horror is supposed to do: frighten, scare, and induce a kind of contained paranoia or fear.

However, a truly good horror movie leaves this fear, this paranoia lingering in your mind so that when you flick off the lights that fear can manifest in the darkness of your own home.

Squirm does not manage to do this because it doesn't explain itself well enough. Is Roger possessed? Can Roger control the worms? Does the whole town wind up dead? After the power's fixed and the electricity is no longer running into the ground do the worms go back to being docile?

It's a horror movie that scares, but at the same time forgets that it also needs to tell a complete and coherent story.

So, Freya, fly low if you like, but leave your hook empty for another of the movies in the Field of Fallen Films - this one seems too comfortable where it is, down there in the dark with its worms for company.

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Closing

Next week this blog is going to be left to fallow. I'm going to take some time to recalibrate my writing activities so that I can get some of my larger fiction projects moving again and so that I can tidy some things up with my translation blog (as well as with this one).

For full details of the temporary stoppage, check back here tomorrow.

But, though I'm not going to be updating Monday-Thursday, I still plan on finishing All-Request August with a look at the TV miniseries loosely based on the work by Ursula K. LeGuin: Earthsea. So, watch for that review in one week's time, and for tomorrow's fully detailed temporary blog stoppage guide.

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[Wōdnes-dæg] The E-Book Shades and the English Classics

Introduction
The Article Summed Up
A Classical Fixation?
Fan-Fiction and a Possible Future
Closing

{All three books in the Fifty Shades series, covered. Image found at the telegraph.co.uk.}

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Introduction

Fifty Shades of Grey and its sequels are exploding all over the internet. Though some might be too shy to buy it from brick and mortar stores, they will soon be able to use convincing cover stories when buying other racy reads.

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The Article Summed Up

In today's Globe and Mail, Russell Smith reports on Total E-Bound's announced e-book series of re-vamped literary classics.

These re-releases aren't abridged versions, or copies re-written with androids, zombies, or werewolves (that's all been done, after all), but instead will have "graphic sex scenes" added to them. Rightfully so, this series of e-books will be called "Clandestine Classics." According to Total E-Bound, the series was planned before Fifty Shades came out.

Smith ultimately regards the re-release of classics with addition prurient bits as positive as it potentially brings new readers to the English classics.

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A Classical Fixation?

Smith definitely has a valid point in his closing paragraph. Total E-Bound's altered classics do have the potential to draw new readers to the established classics of English literature. But is that really a good thing?

Some might say that the English classics are horribly under-read nowadays, and as a result the Western world's literacy and taste are slowly slipping. Genre fiction is eroding what was once a great literary tradition.

But what the apparent manipulability of English classics suggests is that they're anything but un-read.

Back around 2009 and 2010 we saw nineteenth century novels re-written with horror and science fiction elements added to them. Now, sex is being explicitly added to them, and they'll be read anew.

At its heart, the desire to see the classics read and thus to add things to them to entice new readers seems like a sound strategy. But, it also seems like sugar is being added to medicine. English classics are considered classical because they speak to various aspects of human nature in a rather direct way, and shed light on much of the foundation of Western society. Yet, there's no end to new books that do the same, both those considered genre fiction, and those considered regular fiction.

And that's where the focus needs to be. Nineteenth century classics are a fine literary cornerstone, but that cornerstone has plenty of sound material built on top of it as well. Why not look up?

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Fan-Fiction and a Possible Future

Although Smith only mentions it briefly, fan-fiction, a form that often involves the "a gleeful uncapping of [established] texts’ repressed fountains of desire" merits expansion.

Fifty Shades of Grey started out as Twilight fan-fiction. Many young writers cut their teeth writing fan-fiction under an alias or anonymously. Projects like Total E-Bound's "Clandestine Classics" are definitely a variety of fan-fiction.

Yet, they're obviously something more - most people on fanfiction.net aren't getting paid for their efforts, after all.

And so, the question that we need to ask is: To what extent does the success of Fifty Shades of Grey and the existence of a project like "Clandestine Classics" validate fan-fiction?

Ultimately, though industry-validated fan-fiction might see success and may open for more in the future, the track that some publishers seem to be on now seems dangerous. Re-hashing classics by adding what is essentially fan-fiction portions seems to be a perilous few steps away from going the way of Hollywood and making a senseless number of sequels and re-makes rather than focusing on original ideas.

Though, at the same time, were the mainstream to become more predictable, all of the vibrancy and life that's to be found in genre fiction would get more and more exposure.

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Closing

Don't miss tomorrow's Annotated Links #11, or Friday's Nicolas Cage Month finale featuring Seeking Justice! Watch this blog!

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[Moon-dæg] When the Guard is Down

{A figure, a silhouette, a being - but with what intent and purpose? Image from the Minecraft modding site mcmodding.com.}

Context
Still Not Saved
Closing

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Context

This piece of flash fiction (or scene from a longer work) came from a writing exercise, that, as far as I remember, just involved a phrase. The idea of the exercise is to take a phrase and then to write a piece that starts with that phrase.

So, once the phrase "She could hear them living all through the house" came up, I just took it and ran.

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Still not Saved

She could hear them living all through the house. She felt herself sink deeper into the bed, all of the muscles in her arms and legs loosening for the first time in weeks. Mathias' plan had worked. And he was right about them not wanting to get into this room.

A quick glance to the window still showed a pillar of smoke rising from somewhere below the lintel. And the sky remained filled with the kinds of clouds that brought drabness but no rain.

Yet she knew that they were all living beyond the door and down on the first floor. The still silence confirmed it. Silence enough to hear someone's walk. It's brisk, she mused. A word she hadn't been able to use to describe anything's walk for far too long.

She relished the sound of shoes squeaking on the floor. A stop! Low voices. Low voices that only survived as undulations of sound full of pitch and intonation - but measured and easy - after they crossing through walls and even floors.

But then, a scratching. A scritching against wood that forced Emma back into the fore of her mind. She closed her eyes and tried to melt into the mattress. The memory faded, but the sound did not. She put her feet on the floor, faced the closet and walked over to it.

Her hand reached for a knob of the folding door. Her hand's steadiness caused her no surprise - she knew the door led only to a closet. And nothing terrible had ever come from a closet. They had never seemed to get into them.

The scritching subsided and air rushing through the corner of a canine mouth could be heard.

How on earth did he wind up in there?

She turned the door knob. The hinge creaked and the colour of clothes formerly worn only by shadows rushed to get through the crack of light.

A low growl followed.

Her arm continued to push the door outwards. But before the panel door snapped into place a weight latched onto her neck and she fell backwards.

"No..." she managed, as low as the voices that had now resumed below and around her. But teeth and flesh would not part. "No...bad. Bad...Dog-uugh!"

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Closing

On Wednesday, come looking for an editorial on some of the newest news, and on tomorrow and Thursday be sure to watch for annotated links #8 and #9. Plus, don't miss part three of Nicolas Cage month on Friday, featuring his 2011 thriller Trespass.

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[Moon-dæg] A Childhood Horror

Context
Vous Allez Dormir (You'll Be Sleeping)
Closing

{A child's tombstone in Boldre Church, Hampshire, England. Image from geograph.}

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Context

This is another thing that's come out of the local writing group. If you've got one in your town, then I heartily recommend attending it. Writing groups are a great way to boost your productivity and to find inspiration through challenges and through sharing perspectives.

Anyway, the exercise that resulted in this piece of writing comes from Pat Schneider's Writing Alone and With Others, a guide to getting into the writing habit and to starting a writing group.

What the specific exercise that lead to tonight's piece involves is simple: take a song or prayer or poem that you know by heart, and use its lines as a refrain for whatever it is you write.

My own result is a short horror story, but the same song in another's hands might have lead to something a little more innocent and pitched to the audience of the song that I used. Also, Wikipedia was used as a reference for the full song.

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Vous Allez Dormir (You'll Be Sleeping)

Frère Jacques...

The sound spewed out from the top of the door jamb, an empty space of just a few centimeters – but enough for the sound wiggle through and into the room. Clarence held his fingers in his ears and hoped that it would mute the sound enough to let him think. To come up with a way out.

Frère Jacques...

It didn't seem to be working. The melody pinned all of his muscles to the spot and made his arms feel as heavy as the furniture he had pushed up against the door. At the time he hadn't considered the use of the towel that Joyce had offered, screaming as the song ate at her from the inside out, turning her every movement into a concentrated step and swing in time with the schoolroom chant.

Dormez vous?...

Clarence wondered how much more pressure his inner ear could take before it burst. He cursed himself for refusing the ear plugs, though by the state of the house, it seemed like no one here had taken them either. And why would they?

Dormez vous?...

Who would have believed the news reports and status updates and tweets? That there was a song in the air and it was out for human blood?

Clarence was beginning to feel woozy, and he staggered backwards, his elbow striking a lamp, the thing bursting on the floor.

Sonnez les matines...

It was getting clearer now, trying to pour its whole essence through the crack at the closed and [fortified] door's top. Clarence imagined that he could see the vibrations as each recognizable word lilted through the air, tugging at his own childhood memories of its recital like French Canadian nuns pulling at taffy.

Deafness was better than this.

Death was better than this.

Sonnez les matines...

Clarence forced his fingers harder against his ears, until he could feel both digits compressing the ears' inner chambers. It felt like two walls were being pressed down into the same room – he wondered which would top which.

Din, dan, don...

He wondered and pressed.

He pressed and wondered.

Din, dan, d-

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Closing

Check back here on Wednesday for an editorial on some of the newest news, and on Friday for a hunt for the good in the 1993 Nicolas Cage film noir, DeadFall. Also, be sure to come by the blog tomorrow and Thursday for more Annotated Links.

And, if you'd like to leave me some feedback on today's story (positive or negative, but only constructive, please), feel free to add a comment below.

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[Freya-dæg] Handling One of the Worst -- Manos: The Hands of Fate

Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

{No B horror movie is complete without a picture of Frank Zappa during his experimental mustaches phase. This image is a self-made screen grab.}

There is a handful of movies that are truly and absolutely terrible movies, but Manos: The Hands of Fate definitely puts up a good fight for the title of worst. Nonetheless, this blog’s not about reviewing things only on reputation, or even on the general common sense that guides most other reviewers. No, sir (or ma’am). So, let’s just get right to this piece of American cinema history and see what good we can find in it.

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Plot Summary

This plot summary contains spoilers. You have been warned.

Mike (Harold P. Warren), Margaret (Diane Mahree), and their daughter Debbie (Jackey Neyman) are driving through the desert of Texas on their way to a fabulous summer home vacation. However, they get lost and instead wind up at a creepy old house watched over by a hunched up man named Torgo (John Reynolds). After some convincing Torgo allows the family to stay the night even though Torgo fears that it will displease his Master (Tom Neyman).

Strange things start happening to the family in the house, and eventually it is revealed that The Master is the leader of a cult that sacrifices hapless men that stumble onto the house and that takes the women that come to the house as his wives.

The family makes a daring attempt at escape, but will it be enough to break free from...Manos: The Hands of Fate?

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The Good

In spite of this movie’s reputation, it’s low production values (if you ever graphically represented them, you might have to answer to some angry mole people), and its amateurish cast and crew, there are some things that shine through.

The character of Torgo is a strangely intriguing one. Perhaps this is because he is the one character who’s given the most story. It isn’t a complex one, but it’s much more background information than we’re given for any other character. Simply put, Torgo is upset with The Master for leaving him out of the wife acquisition game. Torgo’s lusting after a woman is made more poigniant by the factoid that he was originally supposed to be a satyr (according to Wikipedia).

Further, the conflict between Torgo and The Master is the most interesting one in the movie because it can be related to (we’ve all had bosses that we feel mistreat/don’t appreciate us), and because they're the two most competent male actors in this movie.

Now, as a B horror movie it’s a backhanded compliment, but this movie also has some moments that are just so bad they’re funny. Frank Zappa was charmed by the cheesiness of 1950s monster movies, and Manos is definitely a nod in this direction, intentionally or otherwise. In either case, you're likely to bust a gut watching this one, maybe even two if you watch the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 riff track version of the movie.

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The Bad

As hinted at above, this is a movie filled with amateurs. Of course, according to Wikipedia that’s exactly who was behind this movie from its conception through to its handful-of-theatres release. Warren directed on a bet, wrote it, and hired locals from a modelling agency to fill parts. He filmed it on a wind-up 16mm Bell-Howell camera that could only record video or audio and just for 30-32 seconds at a time. All of these factors, and possibly more (Hotel Torgo might enlighten further) work together to make this an all around bad movie.

It’s dully written and has some stilted dialogue that’s delivered so monotonously you’ll wonder just how desperate the Emerson Releasing Corporation was as its first distributor.

It has terrible cinematography that is limited to two shots: a tight zoom on speakers (and even those that are just supposed to be looked at in certain scenes), and a wider shot that shows the actors in the same way that they’d be viewed from the front row of a playhouse. The camera itself is of poor quality, and artificial lighting is virtually non-existent.

But, most egregious of all of its faults, is that its story is so disjointed and poorly told as a tale of terror. Instead of blending the story of the family on vacation, the kooky cult, a pair of constantly necking teenagers, and the cops that try to nab those crazy kids each story is off on it’s own and the only connection appears to be coincidence - not fate.


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Judgment

So, Manos, the hands of fate. There’s menace in Torgo’s performance, and in The Master, but there’s so little background provided.

Why does the cult of Manos perform human sacrifice? What are the powers that one of The Master’s wives is constantly on about? Why are these powers supposedly weakening? How is it that this house is hidden from the rest of the world, or, why does everything think the road leading to it ‘goes nowhere’? Why would a family want to vacation in the desert?

You need to assume so much just to be terrified, and the terrifying shots are held for far too long.

Terror and horror are based on the unknown. Something that we’re supposed to be afraid of needs to be on the edge of our knowledge or understanding either because it’s so bizarre (think David Lynch) or because it’s obscured (literally or by other elements of the story/setting/characters/description) but still just barely visible. So much of the horror genre relies on our own imaginations, and giving no information at all is just as bad as giving too much.

That said, if you ever have a spare hour and eight minutes and are looking for some laughs, or if you have a strange drive to find out what a 1960s insurance and fertilizer salesman thought was scary, then watch this movie. If you want to be a film critic or even just a casual reviewer, watch this movie. It’s a bad movie in every respect, and that’s exactly why you should watch it. It is a great movie to use as a “zero position” for any ratings scale.

So, Freya, grab this one and bring it up to the hallowed halls. For even a place of eternal battle populated with the worthy needs to have a jester in attendance - and on that note, make sure that The Master’s robe isn’t damaged, he might not be fated to find another one like it.

{Dat robe! Image from The Enemy Below.}

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Closing

Come back next week for a new take on the four part series of the past, an article on the newest news, and a hunt for the good in the 2011 remake of The Three Musketeers.

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[Freya-dæg] A Dim Light in the Darkness

{Survival horror in 3D--this could go either way. Image from Filmofilia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing





Introduction

The Darkest Hour is a movie that had quite a bit of buzz going for it. A slick preview, the promise of some spooky effects, and suggestions of a new take on the old survival movie genre. Plus, it originally came to North American theaters on December 25th.

Let's see if it fulfills these holiday promises and lives up to its hype.

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Plot Summary

Five young people come to Moscow for various reasons. One pair (Ben and Sean (Max Minghella and Emile Hirsch)) for a business deal that will make them overnight millionaires, another pair (Natalie and Anne (Olivia Thirlby and Rachael Taylor)) for...reasons, and the other (Skyler (Joel Kinnaman)) for reasons related to Ben and Sean.

However, from the business deal to human supremacy on the planet earth, things go wrong for these young people after strange invisible aliens invade the city and they find themselves stranded in Moscow.

The movie follows this group of five as they find each other, avoid the aliens, and learn how to defend themselves and how to survive. However, as one day bleeds into the next, and the aliens are ever in their path to safety and salvation the group's only hope is to live through...(you guessed it) The Darkest Hour.

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The Good

Olivia Thirlby being an otherworldly attractive brunette who might just be the best actor in the bunch to boot is a fixture for the good in this movie. However, being the best actor in this bunch isn't as meaningful as it could be.

However, that fact makes this movie slightly more rewarding. Unlike most other survival horror movies, this one seems rather merciless in who it kills off. Because seeing just who lasts until the end is part of this flick's fun, nothing will be spoiled on this front, but rest assured that you're in for a ride if you watch this one.

The science fiction elements in the film are rather soft, given the movie's focus on alien invasion, but to its credit the movie brings the basic principles of electricity to bear on how the aliens (made up of waves of electricity) act quite nicely. For example, the aliens are blinded by glass since they see people by their electrical charges, and they are also blinded by a special kind of cage that holds a charge, or blocks it, or some such.

The scientific details aren't always perfect, but at least nothing ridiculous (like doing a load of laundry without a dryer sheet) is part of the solution to the alien problem.

Speaking of aliens and slightly sketchy details, one good thing about the aliens is captured in a character's explanation of their simultaneous disregard for and lack of interest in human activities: "we're just in their way."

Even though it's just a subtle nod, this line is still acknowledgement of the fact that a true alien race should be one that is completely different from us, and that nod is more than most movies of this caliber offer.

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The Bad

Sticking with the aliens like socks fresh from the dryer, they're also one of the lamer parts of the movie.

They're invisible throughout most of it, but become visible in the final fights of the flick - and their visible form is not really worth the wait. Plus, the animation used for their true forms is far too polished, or rather, too unpolished to look truly realistic. The animation of the aliens' bodies needs to be roughed up, they need more texture, to look realistic.

Again, aliens would be different from us, but it seems unlikely that the movie's director extended this to the aliens' actual appearance - aliens that actually look like obvious CGI would be curious beings indeed, but that's giving this movie too much credit.

The way that the people in the movie interact with the aliens is also somewhat unrealistic.

This is because, like many allegedly "survival horror" video games, the emphasis on the movie drops from "survival" to "destroy all aliens" rather quickly. After all, instead of developing character or overall plot through the hardship that our heroes face, they learn the aliens' weakness and exploit it to blow them to bits. Unfortunately, this appetite for destruction is so great that it also cracks the movie's premise.

And those cracks leave questions. The people behind this movie must have been expecting a sequel, though movies that are made with just the possibility of a sequel and not the expectation of one are much more likely to get said sequel.

This expectation of a sequel comes across in the absolute lack of an answer for questions about immediately important details. For example, questions like why one character freaks out so much (almost as if she's been in this sort of situation before), or why another character just up and ran over to Moscow for some guy, or why Skyler is found giving Ben and Sean's presentation entirely unannounced remain entirely unanswered.

Survival might be reason enough to run from aliens and try to find their weak point, but that survival becomes more meaningful and audiences can become more engaged if it's for a clear reason and even better if that reason is personalized for the lead characters.

The Darkest Hour, however, does not give a reason for these characters to want to survive beyond it being necessary to meet with other survivors and fight back.

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Judgment

The Darkest Hour is a movie that has some definite strong points. But it's also a movie that seems better suited to a science-fiction TV channel or a direct-to-DVD/Blu-ray release than to a theatrical one.

However, this isn't because the movie itself is bad, rather it's because the movie itself is unpolished - things seem like they were rushed.

The relationship between Ben and Sean, for example, is something that could have used just a bit more straightforward clarification; the aliens could've used more work in the animation shop; and Veronika Ozerova (playing the "tough" Vika) could have had more direction than "you're playing a bright-eyed, naive, tough Russian girl."

Nonetheless, the movie at least shines dimly. So, Freya, drag a net over the field of fallen films to bring this one up, for even a dim light is still a light.

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Closing

Next week, check out Monday's stream of consciousness entry on wind farms in Ontario, an article on the newest news, and a hunt for the good in Johnny English Reborn.

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[Freya-dæg] Peeking into an old Jeff Goldblum Hideaway

{Image from Movie Screenshots}

Introduction
Plot Outline
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing



Introduction

Hideaway is a movie that went the way of its featured musical acts: around in the 90s and now long since forgotten. But, it starred such 90s stars as Jeff Goldblum and gave Alicia Silverstone one of her early roles. And it's based on Dean Koontz's New York Times bestseller by the same name.

Given that sort of pedigree, let's see where the movie takes us.

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Plot Outline

Hideaway is the story of a father (Hatch Harrison, played by Jeff Goldblum) who is killed in an auto accident. But, despite being dead for over an hour Hatch is resuscitated - just as he's settling into the afterlife. Unfortunately, something follows him back into the physical world, and Hatch finds himself psychically linked to a crazed satanic serial killer known as Vassago. Eventually this serial killer sets his sights on Hatch's daughter Regina (Alicia Silverstone).

So, as Hatch struggles with the apparent madness brought on by the shock of his psychic connection, he also works through its repercussions with his family (his wife Lindsay is played by Christine Lahti) and ultimately strives to protect his daughter from a threat that only he can see coming.

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The Good

It's a hard sell, but this movie gets really good after the first hour. Around that time Hatch is fed up with his visions and becomes recklessly intent on gunning down this serial killer himself, since the police have proven ineffective. So, he does what any god-fearing American in the 90s would - he grabs a shotgun and drives around, following his visions to Vassago.

The action starts at about the 1:08:00 mark, and involves an awesome chase section in which all aspects of the movie's scenario finally come together. The section then ends around the 1:33:00 mark, some 10 minutes before the movie ends.

Thirty minutes before this chase section starts, the movie finally begins to explain things in a relatively clear way, drawing connections and covering plot holes. But it's also around this time that Hatch begins to do some very light Goldbluming. Not up to Jurassic Park levels, but it does begin and come back on and off throughout the rest of the movie.

For the 90s, the animation in the scenes of the afterlife are also fairly well done. The tunnel sequence and the "soul" animations are pretty smooth and look quite clean. If you're thinking that the animation's like that in the game Microcosm, you're way off.

And, although he might not have been a name on any theater marquis where this movie was playing, it also stars Kenneth Walsh as a hardboiled cop. His performance here isn't as madcap as his Windom Earle in Twin Peaks, but he's still fun to watch.

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The Bad

This movie is an unfortunate sufferer of Mistaken Suspense Syndrome. The first hour is spent slowly and awkwardly establishing the psychic link, the serial killer, and the impact of the link on Hatch's sense of self and home life. During this hour it also confuses itself for a melodrama as character's go from calm to furious in seconds, and relatively small incidents are made out to be bigger than necessary.

In fact, aside from that golden 25 minutes near the movie's end, the most action packed sequences of the film are tight zooms on circling and underlining.

{Two of the dramatic high points in the movie.}

Of course, as a horror film it's necessary to build suspense, but the entire movie is sandwiched between two cgi scenes that suggest that it's really about some kind of spiritual psychic battle between light and dark. Thus, suspense around the outcome of this battle isn't really built up at all but meandered around as if the writers didn't know how to fill the first two acts with interesting build up.

Audiences are prepared for the excellent pursuit of and clash with the serial killer when it comes at the movie's climax, but the hour spent establishing everything could be trimmed down to 30-40 minutes with ease.

After heaping so much praise on the movie's climax, it might seem odd to mention it as one of the movie's failings, but the climax could also be shortened. Right around the hour and thirty three minute mark, in fact - why so precise? Because that's when the 90s animation comes into full, crappy effect as a dark and light creature are animated into the real world to fight it out.

The CGI in the climax's end is so obvious that it completely destroys any suspension of disbelief you might've had going and changes the movie's tone so radically from searing psychological thriller to campy horror monster fight that the film implodes.

But, the final nail in Hideaway's coffin comes when, after the credits, Hatch and Lindsay are in bed and share a good laugh after Hatch dreams that they've resuscitated the serial killer. Because there's nothing like a good, lighthearted joke after living through a psychically and psychologically terrifying event, right?

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Judgment

Ultimately, Hideaway fails to offer coherent storytelling, suspense, or resolution except for those shining 25 minutes near it's end. If that was released as a short film, I would gladly say, Freya, raise this one up, but since it's trapped in an hour and forty seven minute long maggot-ridden corpse, you can, lady of the Valkyrie, leave this one to fester in its pit.

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Closing

Next week there'll be more in this space - Monday's update is the last in my four part series on freelance writing (I'll be considering it in light of teachers college acceptances), Wednesday's will be all about the newest news, and Friday's is set up to be another attempt to resuscitate a 'terrible' movie.

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