The Witch (2016)

Genre: Witches
Director: Robert Eggers
Availability: Still in theaters

In the past, horror movies seemed marked by the decade they were made. When having a conversation about genre and appeal, many can state that they're drawn to a certain period of time which is reflective of the style of movie they tend to like. The gore and camp of the '80s. The psychological and Gothic horror of the '60s. The science fiction horror of the '50s. The teen screams of the '90s. The story-driven slow burners of the '70s. And it's this latter one that The Witch so harkens back to. Dripping with atmosphere, tension and dread, The Witch is a movie out of time, belonging stylistically in the past and thematically in the present, it is not only a complex piece of cinema for today's horror genre, but an important one.

The Witch never tries to be something its not. Instead its understated in almost every way. A sexuality runs through the veins of it without being salacious. There's a sense of impending doom in almost every scene, every wide angled shot that lords over the family, hovering with menace but never shouting in your face for a cheap jump scare. There is some blood and violence but it feels as necessary and natural as the violence of nature itself. And then there's the hysteria, which is the true terror of The Witch.

In a time where the whisper of witchcraft was enough to hang innocent young women, a family is struggling with loss, isolation, and starvation, and the only thing holding the threads of their humanity together is their fervent beliefs. Their damnation is real because they believe it to be, and so do you, and you fear for them. They pray with power, with urgency, with conviction. And any misstep in their day, in their manner, in their speech, is enough to offend God and shake their entire foundation of existence. And so after tragedy befalls them again, and again, there is a whisper of witchcraft in the form of a child's malicious musings, and it's enough to damn them all.

Stylistically The Witch is brilliant. Wide shots of the forest and of the family in prayer build the importance of both elements, while narrow shots of suffering and suspicion add to the claustrophobia that surrounds them as they are trapped by their own inability to survive. The music here is full of strings and vocal crescendos that was so prevalent in the Italian giallo horror of the '70s. This method of music has a way of filling a scene so completely with dread that it's a relief when the inevitable terrible thing that follows finally happens.

There is a strong theme of female empowerment that seems to supersede its witchcraft origin, and that is of a young girl slowly owning her womanhood and realizing there's a power and freedom that she may seize if only she has the will to. The father, who starts out tall and strong with a ruling fist and a voice like velvety gravel, slowly loses both his authority over his children and the love of his wife. The women here rule. With their grief, with their manipulation, with their disobedience, and finally with the sheer magnitude of their will. Breaking every shackle imposed upon them. Even with the small twin siblings, the boy twin seems as dull as background furniture as the girl twin sends chills up our spines with her taunts and her creepy nursery rhymes. It is only Caleb, the eldest boy, who is strong and good even though he is damned by his nature.

The entire cast here is outstanding. Performances that are so good you feel like you're catching a glimpse of the past, as it happened. The set, as simple as it is, is soaked in despair with mud and failing crops and the dark, looming wood that surrounds them. It is a movie that makes you wonder why genre movies aren't ever (or extremely rarely) nominated for the prestigious awards. It is that good.

Oh God my Lord I now begin. Oh help me and I'll leave my sin.
For I repent and thou shall be. Thru evil I will turn to thee.
Whom ever shall destroy my faith. For I repent and thou shall be.
Oh God my Lord I now begin. Oh help me and I'll leave my sin.
For I repent and thou shall be.
Thru evil I will turn to thee.

bah bah bah

5 out of 5 stars

Cooties (2015)

Genre: Horror Comedy, Zombies, Evil Kids
Director: Jonathan Milott, Cary Murnion
Availability: Amazon Instant Video

I know it makes me a terrible person or something, because kids are precious (and a gift! and the future! and innocent! and pure!) but oh. my. god. children are on my last nerve right now. I work in retail so I lay witness daily to their predictable, repetitive nature of manipulation, greed, destruction, and ability to go batshit crazy on a dime. Also, I'm officially the cranky old lady that lives next door to your idyllic family. All of that youthful playing outside with the laughing and the yelling and the screaming and the chasing and the crying... let's just say I'm missing the gene that finds all of this charming. Much like my feline friends I like things quiet and peaceful. I will most certainly be telling them to GET OFF MY DAMN LAWN in about thirty more years. Or tomorrow. Whichever. This is all to say that wow, was I in the mood for Cooties!

Being an avid reader of the horror magazine Rue Morgue I catch wind of certain movies sometimes years before they finally make it to a wide release. Those damn Canadians and their amazing horror film festivals. So I'd been looking forward to this one for some time. Especially with this awesome movie poster taunting me...

Well, I loved it. It was funny, disgusting, smartly written, and has a great cast. It was more of a comedy than I had anticipated but I'd read an article that said, "the great thing about comedy: it allows you to do so many outrageous things. As long as you can get a laugh, you can get away with them. It raises the bar of censorship." And when you have kids eating teachers and babies and then getting gruesomely killed, I suppose dressing it up in humor helps the medicine go down.

Elijah Wood is once again giving back to the genre that nourished his love of film at a young age - horror. Cooties marks the sixth movie that his film company SpectreVision has produced, and it is the fourth horror movie that he has starred in. Way to go Mr. Frodo!

Circle, circle, dot, dot now you have a cootie shot!

5 out of 5 stars

The Old Man and the Goblins (1998)

Genre: Animation Short
Director: Mark Caballero, Seamus Walsh
Country: USA
Availability: YouTube

This little gem was one of my top favorites that played at this year's H.P. Lovecraft Short Films Festival. It was made by Screen Novelties as an homage to Ladislaw Starewicz, the creator of the first puppet-animated film (The Beautiful Lukanida (1912)). Check out Starewicz's work here.

The Old Man and the Goblins (shown here in its entirety) was made in 1998, which is astonishing given that it looks like an authentic piece of film from the early 1900's.  It certainly brought to mind many of the Silly Symphonies black and whites I loved as a child.

5 out of 5 stars

All Cheerleaders Die (2014)

Genre: Witchcraft, Teen Screams
Director:  Lucky McKee, Chris Sivertson
Country: USA
Availability: Netflix Streaming

Writer/director Lucky McKee likes to make horror movies about strong (albeit sometimes insane) women. Common themes in Lucky McKee movies are lesbianism, rape, outcasts, revenge and witchcraft. All Cheerleaders Die has all of these themes, and so much more. Think Jennifer's Body but with an entire cheerleading squad.

I mean, the plot is ridiculous, don't get me wrong. Four hot cheerleaders come back from the dead because one hot Wicca is pissed that her girlfriend just died. And once the babes are back in uniform, only one thing will satisfy their blood lust - football players. This movie could have been a complete disaster but lucky for Lucky, he found a dynamite cast. These actresses not only pull off being powerful, but they manage to hit comedy right on the nose. So grab your pom-pons bitches, and get ready for a bloody good time.

5 out of 5 stars

The Exorcist III (1990)

Genre:  Satanic
Director: William Peter Blatty
Country:  USA
Availability:  Amazon On Demand

Last night I watched one of my top 5 favorite horror movies of all time, for about the tenth time, The Exorcist III. A movie that, despite familiarity, still gives me chills when I watch it. I debated whether or not to put up a trailer because every "official" trailer that there is for The Exorcist III is misleading. Yet another example of how the studio tried its damnedest to market this movie as a scary horror movie about demons, instead of staying true to what the movie is really about, which is scary enough. More on that later.

There are no less than three different official trailers for The Exorcist III. All of which are mostly a slight variation of each other, none of which show what the movie is really about therefore maintaining its misleading expectations for new viewers more than twenty years later. While perusing YouTube for a fitting trailer to show you I came across this fan made trailer here, which is by far the best Exorcist III trailer out there, if not a little too long and a little too revealing.

The Exorcist III isn't about an exorcism. It's not about the head-twisting, split pea scares that made the first Exorcist movie so memorable. It's not about screaming and crying or chaos or shock. It's quiet. It's stark. It's compelling in its mysteries and it's chilling in its restraint. It's about old friends, and old demons, and a dead serial killer who seems to be back from the grave and killing again. And it's one of the scariest and most satisfying horror movies ever made.

But The Exorcist III was not born easily. It was first conceived as a movie idea by the author of The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty. Upon trying to write the script, the creative team dismantled due to conflicting opinions and the project fell apart. Blatty then decided to take his idea for The Exorcist III and turn it into a novel called Legion. It was a bestseller. After the book's success he decided to turn the story back into a screenplay and make the film. And then the real problems began.

After the film was complete the movie studio said, "An exorcist movie with no exorcism? Well, we can't have that. Redo! Redo!" And so Blatty had to reshoot the ending to add in a new climax scene of an exorcism. And then came time to market the movie and release it. After the commercial and critical failure of The Exorcist II (a film which had nothing to do with either the first nor the third movie and was not done by Blatty), Blatty requested that his new movie be called Legion. But, the studio insisted that the title maintain the word "exorcist" in it, and so it was done. The Exorcist III did poorly at the box office and was initially met with mixed reviews. It's not until some time has distanced us from its release that The Exorcist III succeeded in creating favorable impressions on its audience. Now it's a movie that you'll often see on those random "Best Horror Movies" lists that are so popular come October. And by all means, it has every right to be there.

The Exorcist III is gorgeous. Blatty, who also directed, had a way of capturing a scene that made something like, a building, look ominous and looming, the entire movie has Presence. And then there's the scenes of the religious iconography that solidified the film's religious overtones, giving feelings of security and yet overwhelming menace. There is also a sense of pacing that is like listening to the long whining of the wind through a small crack. It's hypnotic, sensual and eerie. It's calming in its fluidity and yet maddening in its relentlessness. The effectiveness of this measure of film making is remarkable. And it's only for the few impatient horror movie watchers that long for blood and violence and SCARES! that find fault with this method. And it's funny! Intentionally. Man, the dialog in this movie just snaps with sharpness. The characters are aware and don't miss a beat and the chemistry between George C. Scott and Ed Flanders, who play old friends, is a dynamic that helps makes this movie so rich. And you don't get any more original in an idea than you do with The Exorcist III. It's solid and daring story telling at its finest which makes not only for a fantastic horror movie, but for a timeless film.

5 out of 5 stars

The Theatre Bizarre (2011)

Genre:  Anthology
Director:  Douglas Buck, Buddy Giovinazzo, David Gregory, Karim Hussain, Tom Savini, Richard Stanley
Country:  USA
Availability:  Amazon On Demand

Being a regular reader of Rue Morgue Magazine and of various horror movie websites it's always rather a surprise when I come across a new horror movie that I haven't heard of, especially one of such quality like The Theatre Bizarre. I stumbled upon this gem while watching trailers for new horror movies on Amazon On Demand in preparation for my weekly horror movie night with my best friends. Sure, the trailer looked awesome, but so often we are fooled in the horror world by fancy trailers when in reality the movie ends up being nothing more than a regurgitated, underwhelming mess. Not so with The Theatre Bizarre - we get what we paid for, and so much more.

The film contain six stories, each inspired by Paris’ legendary Grand Guignol theatre. Each story is roughly 20 minutes long and each is directed by a different director. The movie begins with an odd looking woman walking into an abandoned theatre only to discover that on stage is a strange looking marionette man that comes to life and starts to perform for her. He begins by telling the story of "The Mother of Toads", which in turn is our introduction to our first film. After each story we come back to the theatre where we watch our host bring out new and unusual marionette people who usher us into the next story. The theatre scenes are all beautifully done and sufficiently creepy, and sometimes it's so dreamlike that they start to remind us of a nightmare we're sure we had once.

The six films, while vastly different in style, all contain the same currents of theme running throughout - betrayal, comeuppance and addiction. Sure, we've all watched these topics surface and resurface time and time again in our entertainment. For the most part they're tired old themes, but they're human themes and the emotions that orbit them - like passion, rage, despair, sorrow, penance and need- are powerful tools for storytelling.

These six films: "The Mother of Toads", "I Love You", "Wet Dream", "The Accident", "Vision Stains", and "Sweets" (probably my favorite) - are all done with such style, force and disgusting gore that they leave you horrified and breathless and wanting for more. Bizarre indeed.

5 out of 5 stars

The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

Genre:  Slasher

Director:  Drew Goddard

Country:  USA

Availability:  Theaters

I'm actually not going to post a trailer for this one. When the trailer hit online a few months ago I watched about half of it, until shit started looking peculiar and intriguing, then I was afraid of learning too much and I shut it off. After seeing Cabin last night and watching the whole trailer today I'm thankful that I never watched the whole thing prior to the movie. It gives away too many of the surprising twists that, while may not be meaningful without context, you still go in expecting to see those scenes.I think the less you know about The Cabin in the Woods, the better. Which is why this review will be very short. And no spoilers, I promise!

The Cabin in the Woods is probably the best horror movie I've seen in a very long time. It's well written, for starters. Its smart and funny dialog does not hide the fact that Cabin was co-written by Joss Whedon. It's got great characters that we actually don't want to die. It's got Thor. THOR! That man IS a god. It's got one of my favorite horror movie elements - beautiful teens pile into a vehicle and go on a road trip! And then suddenly their cell phones don't work! And there's a creepy gas station they have to stop at! It's also got gore galore. It's insanely creative. And the end... well, I was like a kid in a candy store. SO MUCH FUCKING FUN! (And it's getting 92% on Rotten Tomatoes!)

Of course what makes this movie really unique is the commentary that it makes on horror movies. In the beginning it gives us the cliches in spades but it's not without purpose. We're forced to examine the exploitation that horror lovers expect and want to see. And then it all turns itself on its head and you start wondering about the genre as a whole. Is it a fuck you to the horror genre, or what it's become? Perhaps. But it's the finest middle finger I've ever seen.

I am going to go out on a limb and say that even if you don't like horror movies, you should see THIS movie. It's spectacular. It's phenomenal. It's... wait. Am I building the hype too much? Now you're going to be disappointed, aren't you? Well, I take it all back. This movie blows. It's overrated. It's abysmal. But go see it anyways. If you like things that suck, you'll probably like this.

5 out of 5 stars (omg! it was so awesome!)

The Divide (2011)

Genre:  Apocalyptic
Director:  Xavier Gens
Country:  USA
Availability:  DVD

The opening scene of The Divide gave me chills. We see the world catching fire and falling down all in the reflection of a woman's eye, tears falling, while she stares out of the window of her apartment building, one hand on the glass as if she could stop it all if only the world would abide her. On September 11, 2001 I stood on the 14th floor of my office building in downtown Manhattan about 15 blocks or so from the Twin Towers. The wall that I looked out from was made of glass, my view - two burning, smoking buildings. I stood there, watching them burn, watching them fall, with tears streaming down my face and one hand on the glass, as though I could stop it all if only the world would abide me. It's rare that I ever identify with a horror movie. It made my blood run cold and my heart beat faster. Yeah, I was hooked.

After this gorgeous opening scene that, in my opinion, doesn't last nearly as long as it should, we're thrust into the chaos of an evacuation. An entire apartment building in the middle of a city, flushing its bowels onto the streets and into the basement when the shit hits the fan. Those who chose to run to the basement are now locked in with about 10 other residents. And it is here we are faced with your typical man vs. man scenario. We've got the man in charge, the men who threaten his authority because they're dicks, the whimpering scared woman, the tough chick, the wimpy dude and a few other fillers that will no doubt not last long.

We face the standard threats and concerns given the circumstances and each one is met with hostility and argument from our key players. This is not a fun movie to watch. It's all about being shut in a basement while the world is falling down above you. You're trapped with people you don't like and don't trust. You're trapped with little to eat, little to drink, and an unknown threat of radiation or war or god knows what. And then things go from bad to worse. After a while, the crazy starts to show.

The Divide could have been a mediocre movie at best, and a terrible movie at worst. But it's done so phenomenally well that instead it was translated into this sad, heavy, barren piece of cinema that just, takes all of the air out of your lungs. Aside from the terrific casting, the movie had two strong elements going for it 1.) the score - it's beautiful and haunting and hangs in the air like the poisonous dust they're trying so desperately to avoid. 2.) the art direction - every scene of The Divide is a dark, twisted piece of art. The devil is in the details, indeed.

I read in an interview with the writer/director that much of the dialog was improvised by the actors. That essentially every day the actors would go to him and present him with new ideas for their character, new lines to say, new directions to go. And that he did them all, he rarely said no to them. Old ideas and dialog were thrown out, people's lines were cut, new focus was drawn to what may have once been a minor character. This contest and popularity atmosphere caused a lot of hostility among the actors, which translated well into the movie.

To say this movie is bleak is an understatement. If you need for things to work out in the end, steer clear. But if you like your horror movies to kick you in the balls and slap you around a few times, The Divide may just be your cup of tea. It's intense and gory with great actors and a fucked up plot. And it doesn't play it safe. Which is just what this seasoned horror movie lover admires.

5 out of 5 stars

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Genre:  Slasher
Director:  Tobe Hooper
Country:  United States
Availability: DVD

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - for a film that is now 38 years old its reputation for being brutal and horrifying still precedes it. The history of the horror movie genre is just as long and as rich as any other genre in movie making.  There have been scary movies that have tested the tolerance of its audience since the silent film, and the controversies surrounding their violence, gore and gratuitous sex and nudity are just as old still. Thousands of movies have been made under the blood-soaked umbrella of the horror genre and yet to this day there remain very few that are remembered past their shelf life. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one such movie.

The first scene that we're introduced to is completely surreal. We're forced to look at a decaying, gooey corpse posed awkwardly atop a tombstone in midday as we listen to a radio broadcast play. The unsettling part comes in when you realize that you're so caught up with listening to what the broadcast is saying about the recent brutal murders and the discoveries of bodies that you forget that you're staring at this horrifying, unwavering statue of death and decay for over a minute. And for all of you horror movie buffs out there you'll note that the opening sequence of the photographs being taken introduce us, perhaps for the first time ever, to that creepy camera sound effect (later to be reused in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake as well as other slasher flicks that follow).

The movie setup is one that is tried and true - a carload full of friends on the road to somewhere end up in the middle of nowhere and soon after tragedy befalls them one by one. The characters aren't particularly remarkable, nor is the dialog, but the places where TTCM shines makes all the difference - like the gritty home video feel; the complete helplessness and clumsiness of the wheelchair-bound brother; the utter unpredictability of the hitchhiker; the atmosphere of all of the buildings and so forth. And that's all before we even get to Leatherface. The terror truly starts when Leatherface makes his first appearance, bursting through the rusty metal door like some faceless Frankenstein's monster, swallowing you up before you've even had the chance to scream. The violence starts from there and while it's horrific it's practically bloodless, your terror is born with the endless screaming and flailing and running and ... screaming. There is a lot of screaming. Let's talk about the screaming.

The performance given by Marilyn Burns, who plays Sally - the main female character, is unrelenting and intense and one of the most remarkable elements of the movie. She goes from zero to one hundred in moments and never stops, never lets up. Her fear and her reaction to that fear just grows and becomes more manic and desperate, in the end she more resembles a tortured, mad, blood-soaked wild animal than anything resembling a person.  And the final scene is so iconic in horror movie history that even if you haven't seen TTCM you're probably familiar with the image of Leatherface standing in the road, chainsaw raised over his head as he spins wildly in circles. To this day, 38 years later, TTCM is still regarded as one of the most important and influential horror movies ever made. And having only just seen in for the second time in ten years, I might just have to agree.

5 out of 5 stars