After the surprise critical and commercial success of "Barbarian," people were ready to declare former Whitest Kid U' Know Zach Cregger the next great horror director. I always have a "wait and see" attitude with these kinds of things. "Weapons" proved that Cregger is a distinctive voice in the genre, willing to tackle big ideas without sacrificing thrills and hollers. I was disappointed to hear that his next project would be an adaptation of a mega-popular, long-running video game series. "Resident Evil" has already spawned somewhere between seven and twelve feature films. There had already been a new movie and streaming series, after Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich moved on to ruin another Capcom video game, and the response was unenthusiastic. Were we losing a bold new voice in the genre to the franchise machine? Or was this an example of an auteur leaping onto a familiar property because he was genuinely a huge fan? Well, the movie is out now so it is time to decide.
Bryan is a simple medical courier. He makes one more delivery for the night before heading home to his newly pregnant girlfriend, the two uncertain about whether to keep the fetus. While at the hospital, he's asked to take on another rush delivery. He's promised a bonus to deliver an insulated package to Raccoon City General Hospital. It's snowing and the roads are perilous but he takes on the mission anyway. While driving the back roads, a strange woman walks in front of his car and is struck. This is the first sign that something crazy is going on. Bryan has unwittingly been chosen to deliver part of an anti-virus that can stop an unleashed bio-weapon in the process of ravaging the world.
It's an interesting approach to a big problem often facing video game movies. Namely, the vastly different pacing needs of each medium. Cinema is telling you a story, while gaming is about you enacting that story or experience. Most games keep things novel and challenging by throwing new enemies or puzzles at the player, the kind of perpetual escalation that film can't usually support. By attaching solely to one guy's trek, Cregger hopes to emulate that structure while still making "Resident Evil" feel like a movie. Bryan is repeatedly running through new areas with obstacles unique to them. The longer "Resident Evil" goes on, the more this approach strains. He crawls down into a sewer and sees some freaky shit about to attack him. A run through a city street is hastened by zombies falling from the rooftops. By the time he's clinging onto an elevator slowly being chipped away by acid from overhead, "Resident Evil's" attempt to latch a video game's framework to the flow of a motion picture is clearly favoring one style over the other.
Cregger's film is often cheeky about what it's doing. There's a few shots clearly emulating the perspective of a first-person shooter. The script outright acknowledges that real life doesn't work like a video game. The film definitely seems to be asking us what we would do in these situations – the best of which involves a dismembered torso being dragged further into the darkness – if the controller was in our hands. That question of "How would you do it?" is furthered by the film's hero not being a highly trained special agent or super-powered zombie killer. Instead, Bryan is just a guy, pasty and stubbly and in way over his head. He has no expertise with guns, a good running joke. His only extraordinary quality is his sheer determination to keep moving forward, of staying focused on that mission of delivering this package. Star Zach Cherry doesn't play this as indomitable courage. Instead, it feels a bit like Bryan is too stupid to know that he doesn't have to run towards danger. It's a funny way to approach your horror movie hero, someone so laser focused on simply doing their job that they accidentally become brave. I guess this kid really needs that extra paycheck. Don't we all?
If you were to perform an internet search for the horror film series with the most installments – or, god forbid, ask an LLM – the answer you’d get would probably be wrong. Seventeen “Witchcraft” movies and fifteen or so “Puppet Master” films are certainly achievements of some sort. If one were to tally up all the movies with “Amityville” in the title, which I hesitate to call a “series” exactly, the number would surely be staggering. Such view points are distressingly English language centric, however. A look to Asia reveals several fear franchises that dwarf most American long-runners. A 1997 Hong Kong film called “Troublesome Night” has spawned 19 sequels. Another contender is “Shake, Rattle & Roll.” That is a Filipino anthology series that began in 1984, with the seventeenth and most recent installment having been released just last year. The stories are often inspired by the Philippines’ rich local folklore, with new installments usually coming around Christmas time. It would seem trying to run the entire series every December is an annual tradition among Pinoy horror fans. While the films remain frustratingly unavailable in my corner of the world, I was able to find a copy of the original with English subtitles.
“Shake, Rattle & Roll” begin with “Baso.” Paolo, his partner Girlie, and their mutual friend Johnny gather in a spooky old house to play Spirit of the Glass. That’s an Ouija-like game of divination performed with a scroll of paper and a drinking glass. They unwittingly summon the restless spirits of three people, trapped in a love triangle, who died during the Spanish colonial era. In “Pridyider,” Lorna and her daughter Virgie move into a home that includes a fancy new refrigerator. Maid Nelia is seemingly crushed to death by the refrigerator's door. This is the first of several bizarre incidents involving the appliance. “Manananggal” is about Douglas, a lad living with his grandmother and younger brothers in the Visayan jungles. He is attempting to court Anita, despite his granny’s warnings that she’s a manananggal. Upon seeing Anita separate her upper body from her waist and flying through the night with bat wings, he realizes that this is true.
The second episode has to overcome what is a silly premise on its face. Refrigerators are not especially mobile devices, nor do they present many options as a murder weapon. “Pridyider” seems somewhat aware of this and attempts to derive horror from visions of dismembered body parts around the fridge instead. Once again, the effects are a bit rubbery, which does little to dispel the notion of goofiness around this one. However, director Ishmael Bernal and cinematographer Ely R. Cruz take the material seriously. “Pridyider” is shot with a patient, quiet intimacy and eroticism, as if the heat coming off the vents of the fridge is making everyone around it hot. When the absurd finale arrives, in which the household appliance seems to develop a sense of lust, it actually feels like a logical extension of the segment’s style up to that point. It makes for an unexpectedly intense finale, despite how difficult it is to take the premise seriously.
The main reason I’ve decided to seek out international horror movies is to expose myself to other cultures. As horror often does, “Shake, Rattle & Roll” is obviously reflecting the social mores of the country that birthed it. “Baso” is a story about how violence and class separation are reoccurring patterns throughout Filipino history, as it is in history everywhere. “Pridyider” seems especially focused on the plight of young women, at the mercy of predatory men. The possessed fridge seems to act on the most violent impulses of the perverted groundskeeper or Virgie’s handsy boyfriend. Director Bernal seems mostly known for his social dramas, often focused on the struggles of women in Manila, making this angle unsurprising. While “Mananangal” is largely a straight-ahead adaptation of the folklore that birthed it, it’s speaking to social issues as well. Douglas and his family are practicing Christians, often praying to a small religious alter. The eponymous monster is a symbol of native paganism, linked to lust and mystery. This makes the story an encapsulation of the conflict between the Philippines’ extremely Christian modern existence and its still lingering shamanistic roots.
Before "A Song of Ice and Fire" made him a literary superstar, George R.R. Martin was a humble science fiction and horror writer, struggling to make a living. After one of his earlier novellas received a low budget adaptation, Martin found a contact with the film world. That's how he got a regular gig writing for the 1985 revival of "The Twilight Zone." He provided teleplays for five episodes, mostly in the second season, and the best regarded of the lot seems to be "Toys of Caliban." It concerns Toby Ross, a boy with a developmental disability. He is seemingly in his late teens but with the mentality of a toddler. His elderly parents, Ernie and Mary, isolate the boy from the world within their apartment full of toys. This is because Toby has the ability to "bring" – physically manifest – any object he sees in a photograph into the home. Any attempt by Toby to manifest living creatures only results in corpses appearing. His parents are fearful of what his powers could do with any more exposure. After "bringing" too many donuts one night and getting a serious tummy ache, Toby's parents are forced to take him to the emergency room. The boy is fine but he catches the attention of a Child Protective Services agent who believes Toby is being abused. This brief glimpse of the outside world has tragic consequences for the family.
Once again, this autistic adult is forced to tango with one of my least favorite writing tropes, the inelegantly named "Magical Disabled Person." I would prefer to use another word for it but understand that some are offended by the term, even if I'm not. This episode is not so generous and refers to Toby as a word that rhymes with leotard several times. Yes, "Toys of Caliban" is another offering that portrays neurodivergent individuals in a patronizing, dehumanizing manner. Toby's parents are depicted as the ones who are suffering, while their overgrown infant of a son lives in a world of blissful ignorance. He is so dangerous that they have no recourse but to lock him away forever. Alexandre Borrie's CPS agent points out that resources and classes the elderly Rosses might be unfamiliar with are available to help their son. Toby's dad knows better and insists the kid stay in a windowless home forever. This is still not enough to protect the family and the final scene of "Toys of Caliban" offers a frankly offensive solution. The poor, pathetic simpleton, the only way out for them and their beleaguered N.T. sires is to put them all down like a sick dog. (The penultimate scene has the dad rubbing Toby's head as he kneels at his feet and calling him a "good boy," making the dog comparison fairly literal.)
Richard Mulligan gives a good performance as an exhausted, heart-broken father and Anne Haney has a sad fragility about her as the mother. (Even if her big monologue essentially boils down to, once again, how hard Toby's condition is on his parents.) There's two decent shocks in this episode, when Toby's literalness results in him teleporting two bits of fleshy horror into the home. However, , it's difficult to regard "Toys of Caliban" with anything but aghast grimaces and bemused bafflement that such a hilariously insensitive portrayal was ever acceptable. I don't hold it against George R.R. Martin though. All writers gotta eat, even if it means turning someone else's horrible story into a coherent screenplay. [3/10]
The seventeenth episode of "Friday the 13th: The Series" does not feature a C-list Batman villain. Instead, it's an entry into the eighties' most minor of horror trends: Stories about murderers who return from a sit in the electric chair to kill again, sometimes with electricity-themed superpowers. The condemned is Eli Pittman, a dental student wrongfully convicted of murdering his girlfriend in 1978. Despite getting two jolts in Ol' Sparky, Pittman survives. Since you can't legally execute someone for the same crime twice, he is set free apparently. (I'm not a lawyer but wouldn't they be able to further detain him for the standing murder conviction?) A decade later, Pittman has reinvented himself as a dentist in a halfway house for troubled teens. He's held onto the electric chair intended to kill him, actually one of Lewis Vendredi's cursed artifacts. Now, Pittman shocks orphaned teens no one will miss in the chair and, in return, gets electric shock powers. He's using those to seek vengeance on all who convicted him. Micki, Ryan, and Jack are on the case.
"The Electrocutioner" was written and directed by Rob Hedden. Presumably, it was this episode that convinced Frank Mancuso Jr. that Hedden was the right man to make "Friday the 13th Part VIII." "Jason Takes Manhattan" is probably my least favorite film in the series and it's largely because of the melodramatic direction, childish screenplay, and a tone indecisively placed between self-aware camp and ostensibly a serious attempt at horror. All of these flaws are apparent here. The episode starts with a fairly well done flashback to Pittman's execution, which is shot in grainy black-and-white and features some stylized camera angles. However, as the execution attempt begins, Pittman screams towards the heavens. This is the first of many very silly touches in the episode. Any time Pittman plots his revenge, we return to that flashback, now presented as everyone pointing and laughing at him. One shot has his screaming face superimposed on the image, a very cheesy looking choice. All of the murder scenes are made laughable because the actors playing the victims make goofy faces as they contort around. There's also an inexplicable jump scare involving a plume of steam shooting out of a wall, a gag I'm pretty sure Hedden repeated in his Jason movie.
The half-assed, senseless quality to the writing is most clearly seen in the villain. Angelo Rizacos plays the dentist-turned-electrocutioner and it's a hammy performance. He looks like "Weird" Al and generally acts like a nerd, which is not the most intimidating of choices. Mostly, I'm baffled by the decision to make the villain both wrongfully convicted and a remorseless killer. The way he callously kills random teenagers is obviously a writing choice to void any sympathy the audience might feel towards him. I guess Pittman was only pissed because he was charged with a crime he didn't do, not by the concept of murder itself. Those visions of being laughed at and persecuted are clearly designed to make him look unhinged. I get why he would be pissed but, also, he survived execution and was let go. He even got superpowers out of the deal! Kind of makes you wonder what is driving his need for vengeance. Is the implication that the cursed electric chair – which he makes no attempt to disguise as his dental chair, something you'd think his regular clients would comment on – has driven him mad? But it's not like he was willingly placed in the chair in the first place either. I did like the ironic, final fate of the villain. Hedden does have one or two interesting ideas but this episode is, overall, very silly and juvenile. I'm going to presume that it was not Hedden's creative skills that impressed Mancuso but some quality – his ability to shoot fast and cheap? His personality? His soft and moist lips? – not apparent in that episode itself that got him the feature gig. [4/10]
No comments:
Post a Comment