Quite a few years back, for reasons that surely must’ve seemed important, I embarked on a time-consuming project. I looked up as many movies, TV shows, books, or other works of fiction set in every American state. At the time, I was thinking maybe I could make some sort of book out of this long, long list. What I mostly learned from this project is that lots of stories are set in California and New York… But other states are less popular. South Dakota and Wyoming are not often utilized, for two examples. On the east coast, Delaware is probably the state with the fewest cinematic stories. Maybe that's because it's the seventh-least populous state, best known for its shitty corporate tax laws. When you look up Delawarean movies, you're mostly going to find the last act of "Fight Club" and a great gag from "Wayne's World." If you dig a little deeper, you'll discover "Trigger Man." Ti West's second feature, he wrote it to take place in his home city of Wilmington.
Three friends gather for the first time in a long time, piling into a van and heading into the Delaware woods for a hunting trip. Reggie is looking to get away from a clingy girlfriend, Ray wants to do some day-drinking, while Sean seems determined to successfully shoot a deer. After spending most of the day fruitlessly walking through the forest, the trio decide to cut loose and relax... That's when a bullet rips through the silence of the trees, striking one of the men dead. The boys are being relentlessly pursued by an unseen sniper, who is looking to hunt humans, not beasts. A fight for survival ensues, until only one man survives.
As tedious as “Trigger Man” can get, the overwhelming slowness actually does serve a purpose. After about a half-hour of these dudes shooting the shit and being bored in the forest, one of them steps out to a take a whiz. And then his head explodes. It's a shocking act of violence, catching the audience off-guard as much as it does the characters. “Trigger Man” successfully lulled us into a sleepy state, leaving us unprepared for the sniper attacks. From there, “Trigger Man” is a non-stop barrage of tension. The frenzied direction becomes an asset, capturing the panic the heroes are feeling. Somehow, West pulls off the same trick each time, each murder being a shocking, violent incident. The climax is a tense shoot-out, as the last man standing finally identifies the person who has been killing his friends.
It seems “Trigger Man” is among Ti West's most divisive movies. Many viewers dismiss the movie for its laborious pace, lack of action, and unpolished visuals. I agree that these elements are a problem. However, I did find the second half effective. It's clear that West's interest in building a painfully mundane atmosphere is sometimes at odds with his ability to create suspenseful shock scenes. Even at only an hour and twenty, the movie could've been improved by trimming ten minutes or so. When it works, it works. When it doesn't, it's uncomfortably slow. West would master this balance in “House of the Devil” and “The Innkeepers.” It probably took finding the bumps in the road with “Trigger Man” to figure that out. [6/10]
Furcht
Conrad Veidt's status as a horror icon is unquestionable. His roles in “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and “The Man Who Laughs” loom large over cinema history, their influences felt across pop culture. Unfortunately, owing to age and World War II, many of Veidt's horror flicks are probably lost forever. “The Janus Head,” the adaptation of “Jekyll and Hyde” he starred in for F.W. Murnau, is the most sought-after of these titles. Yet there's also the 1920 adaptation of “The Count of Cagliostro,” Veidt's directorial debut “Madness,” and the depraved sounding “Figures in the Night.” Sometimes something turns up though. Two years before making “Caligari,” director Robert Wiene and Veidt would collaborate on “Fear.” The only complete print is kept by the Swedish Film Institute. Luckily, a mostly intact copy circulates as a bootleg. It's right there on Youtube for anyone to watch.
Count Greven returns to his mansion after years abroad with a new piece for his art collection: A priceless statue of Buddha that he stole from a temple in India. The Count is gripped with suspicion surrounding the statue, fearful that the Indians will hunt him down and punish him for this theft. After weeks of paranoid terror, a Buddhist priest does arrive on the castle grounds. He places a curse on Greven, saying he'll die seven years to the day from now at the hands of the person he most loves. Determined to make the best of the time he has left, the Count spends the next few years throwing parties, seeking fame, and falling in love. Yet the fear of the statue's curse is never far from his mind.
“Fear” has a lot of interesting ideas, even within the widely available, abbreviated hour-long cut. After the death curse is placed on him, the Count decides he's going to make the next seven years count. He gambles and drinks until the daybreak, his castle constantly full of partying. Yet this soon proves unsatisfying, so he instead seeks fame via creating a cure for world hunger. He succeeds, attracts massive amounts of attention, and then smashes the potion in front of everyone. Finally, the Count decides finding love with a pure maiden will bring him satisfaction. All of these scenarios raise the question of what, exactly, makes a life worth living. Is a lifetime of hedonism how you live life to the fullest? Or is changing the world or experiencing love with another person the greatest goals we can aspire to? These are big questions to ask and they add considerably depth to “Fear.”
The print of “Fear” circulating online is in poor condition. It's obviously sourced from a VHS tape, as there are scan lines and static throughout. The images are murky and blurred. The title cards are written with a very ugly, digital font and include several typos. The score is mostly the same two classical compositions, including “Night on Bald Mountain,” blaring over everything regardless of what's happening on-screen. Despite this less-than-ideal presentation, I still found myself loving “Fear.” It's campy performances are a joy to behold. It tangos with some surprisingly deep ideas. That sense of creaky creepiness that I love so much about vintage cinema is present and accounted for. Hopefully a properly restored version, perhaps working from that complete Swedish print, emerges some day. Even in its compromised state, “Fear” is strong stuff. [8/10]
When selecting episodes of “The Twilight Zone” to review, obviously there's a whole list of iconic episodes I could talk about. Yet everyone knows the twist endings of “To Serve Man” or “Time Enough at Last.” That's why my eyes were drawn towards some of the more underrated episodes of the series. Such as “The Masks,” from season five. Jason Foster is a self-made millionaire who is near death. While the city outside celebrates Mardi Gras, he invites his family to one final celebration. Each one attends only because they are eager to claim their slice of his fortune. As a condition of the will, Foster insists everyone wears special masks until after midnight. Each masks reflects the family member's ugliest instincts. After Foster passes on, his heirs discover a horrifying ritual has taken place.
“The Masks” falls into a proud literary tradition of stories about money-grubbing vultures getting what's coming to them. We never learn how Mr. Foster made his fortune, only that he's a good man who is facing death with dignity. His family members, meanwhile, are all cartoonishly awful people. There's the hypochondriac daughter, the idiot grandson, the greedy son-in-law, so on and so forth. When Foster presents each one of them with their masks, he says the grotesque masks represent the opposite of their personalities... But he's actually accurately describing each of their principal flaws. Forced to sulk around a mansion in ugly masks, while the city parties outside and they wait for an old man to die, would probably be humiliation enough in real life. This is the old man's last chance to tell his terrible children exactly what he thinks of each of them.
In the season one finale, all the different subplots “Chucky” has been developing come crashing into each other. Andrew Barclay and Kyle quickly close in on the murderous doll but soon find their efforts defeated by a make-shift bomb. Having successfully convinced Junior to become a murderer, Chucky can activate a new voodoo ritual: One that transports shards of his soul into a small army of Good Guy dolls. Jennifer Tilly/Tiffany engineers a plot to ship these dolls all over the country. Meanwhile, at a charity screening of “Frankenstein,” Chucky goes on a rampage. Jake, Devon, and Lexy will confront the killer plaything and his disciple there.
This is what season finales of these shows are always like: A whole mess of storylines abruptly brought to some sort of conclusion. The insertion of a massive bomb into this plot really does seem like an excuse to leave a whole bunch of characters' fates up in the air. We have big dramatic confrontations between heroes and villains, alongside lots of climatic carnage. Some of this stuff is compelling. Jake's final confrontation with Chucky is fairly satisfying. Some of it comes off as merely more contrivances. Jake and Lexy being drugged by Kyle and taken out of the plot for a while is really an awkward bit of writing. The subplot involving Lexy and Caroline's greedy mayor mom simply comes to an abrupt ending, that is far from a gratifying payoff.
It's not that I don't care about the show's young heroes. Jake and Devon's queer romance continues to be adorable. Their reunion here is a sweet little moment. Alyvia Alyn Lind has managed to take Lexy from a mean girl stereotype to a more complex, likable character. Her confrontation with Junior, torn between his love for his girlfriend and his loyalty to his murderous plastic mentor, provides a decent moment. Season one's themes come into sharp focus here. Recalling the original “Child's Play,” Chucky's scheme is ultimately to corrupt something innocence. The teens he tried to influence ultimately choose to go their own path, suggesting all of us can resist temptation and rise above our struggles. That's nice.
It's totally expected that this finale also leaves a number of plot threads dangling, for season two – coming soon! – to pick up on. Season one of “Chucky” definitely had its highlights. Yet I think you could've cut out all the bullshit and told this same story in a pretty good two hour movie. But that's what I think about most TV shows. [6/10]
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