Halloween 2026: October 2nd

 

Stigmata (1999)
 

It has been observed that horror fans, once they watch one installment of a film series, feel the need to watch the remaining entries, no matter how dire they may become. I am like this too, as the guy who reviewed all eleven "Children of the Corn" movies. It's an impulse I'm trying to fight, so as not to waste any more of the dwindling time I have left on this earth on excessively stupid bullshit. However, sometimes you have to complete the mission you start. "Stigmata" is not a part of a series. It is, however, the last remaining corner in a tetralogy of religious horror movies made around the turn of the millennium by major studios. M-G-M put this one out in September of 1999, Universal released "End of Days" that November, with Paramount's "Bless the Child" and New Line's "Lost Souls" following in August and October of the next year. None of these movies are good  but I have written about the other three already, so it is my destiny to write about "Stigmata" – a title I must always pronounce like Peter Murphy – as well.

Frankie Paige is a hairdresser, living in Pittsburgh, with no religious convictions whatsoever. She receives some rosary beads in the mail from her mom. After which, while in the bath, Frankie has an intense hallucination and awakens with deep punctures through her wrists. While on a train, Frankie goes into a disassociated state again and seemingly has her back violently whipped by invisible forces. Her case is brought to the attention of Father Kiernan, a Jesuit priest who investigates the validity of miracles for the Catholic Church. Kiernan believes Frankie may be demonstrating the stigmata, the miraculous re-creation of the five wounds Christ suffered on the cross. Frankie's state escalates, with her speaking and writing in Aramaic and the violent wounds on her body becoming more severe. Father Kiernan is concerned that, should her condition progress, she will die. His fears are further effected by an attempt by the Catholic Church itself to stop him from uncovering what Frankie's condition seems to be pointing towards...

“Stigmata” deserves some points for being a religious horror movie about Catholicism that isn't concerned with demonic possession, the Anti-Christ, or devil worshipers. Its horror arises from an easily observed but perhaps under-reported aspect of heavenly interaction: That they would probably be horrifying for a non-religious person to experience. This undermines my belief that the Old Testament is one long folk horror story. The idea of bloody, torturous wounds appearing on the body spontaneously certainly allows for lots of gory special effects too. Unfortunately, while the idea of “Stigmata” isn't without merit, it ultimately backs away from the elements that make its premise interesting. Rather than grapple with the idea that gospel revelations border on cosmic horror, “Stigmata” settles for its religious visions being intense but good intentioned. The tension in the story ostensibly comes from the threat of, should Frankie's stigmata conclude with a spear wound to the abdomen, she'll die. The original plan was that she would die at the end, perhaps raising questions about the price of martyrdom and why must such tortures be inflicted on a random innocent woman. Is that God's plan? If so, how does that reflect on this allegedly loving creator? But the script doesn't do that, ultimately draining any suspense from the material. 

“Stigmata” attempts to compensate by playing up the threat of the Catholic Church performing a cover-up of what Frankie's visions are bringing to light. The implication that the Catholic Church, as an institution, perhaps does things that do not benefit the well fair of their congregations would be a bold angle for a horror film to take. Especially a few years before certain information about the Church would become a news story. This idea is also backed away from before the end. The villains of the film are depicted as misguided but never dangerous, nor as representative of the Church's direction overall. Instead of being about how“miracles” might be more horrifying than awe inspiring, that God is kind of an asshole, or that the Catholic Church is an active participant in criminal cover-ups, “Stigmata” is one long advertisement for the Gospel of Thomas, a Biblical deleted scene that was formally denounced by the Vatican in 1945. And that's a lot less interesting, isn't it? 

The timidness of the script in addressing any of the genuinely intriguing ideas it presents still isn't the main reason I dislike “Stigmata” though. The film was directed by Rupert Wainwright, who came to fame for his music videos. Though Wainwright's music video work was with artist like MC Hammer or NWA, I think he was taking inspiration from different artists for this one. “Stigmata” is another late nineties horror movie that decided the grungy visuals, frantic editing, and quote-unquote “disturbing” imagery of the heavy metal and industrial rock videos of the time was the de-facto look for the genre. Aside from the largely washed-out and overcast palette of the entire movie, “Stigmata” often features harshly edited cut-away sequences. These, for one example, depict flickering close-ups on the bloody wounds of the main character, accompanied by harsh sounds on the soundtrack. It is, at best, a played-out style and, to be much more honest, very annoying. It is also the only real attempt at scares the movie has, making “Stigmata” even more of a tedious experience. 

With a script afraid to confront its own layers and its idea of scariness molded by Marilyn Manson videos, what does the film leave us to latch onto? Not much. Patricia Arquette makes for a decent enough lead. She's always been good at balancing physical intensity and a certain tenacity, that is both vulnerable and sexy. That makes her a good choice for a role like this. The scenes that largely revolve around her interaction with Gabriel Byrne as Father Kiernan are the film's best. The two have decent chemistry together, with a certain lightness in their interactions and the smiles they give each that I like. It made me wonder if screenwriter Tom Lazarus – fitting name for this project – hadn't conceive of the film as a romantic drama that he then converted into a horror movie. The relationship between the leads is the sole hint of heart in a otherwise trite motion picture. 

This still makes “Stigmata” the best of the religious thrillers released around the same time. It doesn't pile on the shitty CGI like “End of Days.” It's not as hilariously misconceived in its theatrics as “Bless the Child” nor as utterly lifeless as “Lost Souls.” It was also the most successful of the four films and, outside of Arnold Schwarzenegger sound boards, the only one people seem to remember any. I would not call it good though. Considering Wainwright's other horror credits include a lame remake and a mediocre TV episode, I suspect his heart was not truly in the game. But all these movies focus heavily on the most irritating visual cliches of horror at the time, without finding anything new of their own to say. [5/10]

Killed the Family and Went to the Movies (1969)

Matou a Família e Foi ao Cinema
 

The point of watching fifty horror movies made in countries other than my own, shoved into a two month period, is to broaden my cinematic taste and discover new faces, names, and styles than what my narrow American palette has been previously exposed to. Okay, so who is this Júlio Bressane guy then? He's an acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker, an active force in the country's underground cinema scene in the late sixties and early seventies. His work is experimental and anti-establishment. Okay, okay, that's cool. Every capsule biography of the guy I read mentions how he made six feature films in six months with his loose, improvisational, provocative style. Hmmm, you're starting to lose me, man. Do these movies have points or are they just art-school kids fuckin' around? Alright, alright, I'm gonna give this stuff a fair shot. Bressane kicked off his most productive period with 1969's "Killed the Family and Went to the Movies," which is considered a horror movie by multiple lists of highly regarded world cinema. I'll try it.  

"Killed the Family and Went to the Movies" concerns a young man who... Kills his family and goes to the movies. Specifically, it's a young man living in Rio de Janeiro who slices his abusive father and obnoxious mother's throats with a straight razor before leaving the apartment and visiting the cinema.  Actually, the movie is about two young women, Márcia and Regina, who batter one of their own mothers before shacking up in a desolate apartment over an unspoken amount of time, during which they shoot guns or drop a chicken in a bathtub while contemplating life and their feelings for each other. Actually, "Killed the Family and Went to the Movies" is a series of disconnected vignettes, contrasting conversations both philosophical and mundane with music and senseless acts of violence performed in a country experiencing turbulent times. 

"Killed the Family and Went to the Movies" is a title that places a shocking, life-changing act alongside an ephemeral leisure activity. Clearly, anyone who would murder their parents/spouse/children and then casually stroll down the street to watch a motion picture is disconnected from the consequences of their own actions. It brings to mind tabloid headlines about cold, emotionless psychopaths who leave an apartment full of dead bodies behind and later is caught yucking it up at the latest Jerry Lewis joint. By juxtaposing familicide next to the act of viewing a film, the title also brings to mind our own relationship to cinematic violence. Are people, possibly bored or distracted, watching a fictional depiction of murder on a movie screen any different than the sociopath imagined in the above scenario? Does putting a screen between us and horrible events make us dispassionate towards them? We are not prompt to act but merely to watch. Is this commentary on how the media is a tool of a brutal government, making us numb to the daily horrors occurring around us? Or does it speak to an overall sense of disaffection among the populace, so ground down by the hardships of modern life that they are rendered unable to feel anything, even when presented with deeply personal tragedy? Does society make all of us unfeeling killers, more likely to massacre the people closest to us and then shrug it off with a bag of popcorn and an extra large Sprite Zero? 

Well, it certainly means something. Most of the people at the center of "Killed the Family and Went to the Movies'" scenes are on the younger side. They strike the viewer as teenagers or college students. They don't seem to be working and have time to lay around and gaze into each other's eyes or silently listen to the radio while regarding a straight razor. The principal victims of the early scenes are their immediate authority figures, their parents, who seem disinterested or even hostile to their own offspring. Mom and dad senselessly argue with each other, watch the TV, make dinner, or nitpick their kids' lives. Does that make their eventual violent acts retaliation against the stifling conformity of the previous generation? The presentation of the film is rough, shot on grainy and monochromatic 16mm that was then blown up to 32mm for cinematic presentation. The dialogue strikes one as largely improvised, as do the multiple scenes of its characters singing along to music, mindlessly humming, or just hanging out. The acts depicted are destructive, senseless ones. Slashing dad's throat, beating your mom to a bloody pulp, or taking a bath with some plants and a chicken represent a breakdown of established order. The two girls also seem to be romantically inclined towards each other, making them outcasts in a conformist environment that criminalizes homosexuality. In that case, is the film's violence a rebellious activity? Is Bressane's film a punk rock rejection of the society created by the older generation? Unsurprisingly, also given the context of the title, the activities on-screen eventually move towards acts of self-destruction. When the world is this fucked-up, designed to constrain and consume you, why not burn it all down? This isn't senseless violence and unprovoked suicide, it's a bloody insurrection against the everyday forces meant to control us.

Okay. Maybe it is. Or maybe I simply lack the cultural context to truly understand what Bressane's film is getting at. One of the more chilling sequences of violence in the film is devoted to a man being restrained and tortured by several other guys in an apartment. They make vague references to some sort of information being uncovered, so presumably they are government secret police. Does this point towards “Killed the Family and Went to the Movies” being a reaction to the paranoia of living under a military junta? When your friends and family can disappear at any point, un-person-ed overnight, the threat of random violence has a different meaning. The film is at its most upsetting when centering its carnage against common-place settings. Many long scenes are scored to pop songs on the radio, another contrast between fluffy pop culture and bloody death. One scene has an assassin with a pistol sitting quietly before a corpse and what looks like some kids at a birthday party. At the same time, the film also escalates in its provocations until a sequence at the end that is predictable in its transgressions. Alright, so is this simply a primal scream, an explosion of anguish and horror at what was happening in Brazil at this time?

These are but three interpretations and more surely exists within Bressane's film. I imagine the queer content lends itself to further readings. The finale adds another meta loop to the material, the two girls discussing a film they just saw that seems to depict a version of what they are about to or just did. Assuming any of the reoccurring faces – which includes the screen debut of Renata Sorrah, who would go on to star in the Confused Math Lady meme – are meant to be the same characters from scene-to-scene. I've seen some reviews of the film that describe it as featuring the same actors playing different characters. “Killed the Family and Went to the Movies” is so detached from the people it's depicting that I didn't pick up on this. That's, ultimately, my big problem with the film. All the events are watched from a chilly, impersonal perspective. There's no emotional in to this story to me, making me wonder why I should care about these events. Perhaps that is my indifference to on-screen violence at work. Either way, the film's reputation among Brazilian cinephiles as an underground classic, so beloved and established it got an in-name-only remake in the nineties, is clearly secured. However, this one might be a step too removed for me to truly engage with it. I do think it qualifies as horror though, but maybe I prefer my Brazilian horror to feature Coffin Joe jabbing people's eyes out than this. [5/10]

 

 

Chillers: Something You Have to Live With
 

Usually, anthology shows pull from multiple literary source materials for their ideas. It's a lot easier to pick and choose the best, or most easily adapted, short stories from a selection of writers if you hope to build a compelling program. However, single author anthologies have cropped up over the years. Writers in this exclusive club include Zane Grey, ol' Ray of course, Stephen King, and Patricia Highsmith. You'd be forgiven for missing that the mother of Tom Ripley had her own TV show though. A French/English co-production, “Chillers” only ran for twelve episodes in 1990. I'm not sure it ever aired on U.S. television. It's rarely mentioned when the topic of Highsmith adaptations come up. A separate anthology series with a nearly identical title would air five years later. “Chillers” owes whatever little infamy it has to the Highsmith connection and Anthony Perkins serving as host, during the last few years of his life. That has been enough to get it a DVD release and, if I'm going to sample the show, the same year as watching all the “Psycho” movies seems like a good time to do it.

“Something You Have to Live With” revolves around married couple Jessica and Stanley, who have recently moved into a new home in the country side. After Stanley installs new locks on the door, he's called away to France to attend to his sickly mother. Jessica's only company is Cassie, the house cat. That changes when a man in a mask breaks into the house. He's strangely conversational, if vulgar, and repeatedly ignores Jessica's pleas for him to leave. After he cruelly snaps Cassie's neck, Jessica has had enough. She bludgeons him over the head with the oar she bought Stanley as a gift. She's quite surprised to find that the man is now dead. The police clear her actions as self-defense. Despite that, Jessica can't stop thinking about it. She begins to mention in passing, often at dinner parties and almost compulsively, that she has recently killed a man. 

There's an interesting undercurrent to “Something You Have to Live With.” Stanley is presented as largely incompetent in the first scene. He struggles to install a simple lock and, as the home intrusion makes clear, doesn't do it correctly. The burglar dismisses Jessica's husband as nu-masculine simply from looking at a photo. He also threatens to tie her up, commenting on the sexual connotations of the act at the same time. Tuesday Weld plays Jessica as clearly unsettled by the intrusion yet the sexual chemistry between them remains. Her obsession with the man after she kills him could suggest a few things. Is it merely guilt or trauma over killing someone? Or a lingering fascination over a more interesting man than her husband literally barging into her life? Her husband's reaction to her sudden impulse to continuously mention the homicide could be concern over his wife's well-being... Or it could be akin to a wife constantly mentioning an ex-boyfriend, to repeatedly remind of her partner's inadequacies as a man. No wonder he gets fed up of hearing about it.

It's an interesting promise, able to be played for dark humor or a slow sense of suspense. “Something You Have to Live With” attempts to go for both, not entirely successfully. It's a little better as comedy, if only because laughter is the natural reaction to someone busting out the “Remember when I killed a guy?” chestnut at every social gathering, no matter how inappropriate. However, the episode is not able to derive any tension from the slow build-up of resentment in the married couple's relationship. With Stanley being away for a big chunk of the episode, we never get a real sense of what this couple is like. The direction is fairly flat throughout. Tuesday Weld is a likable presence in the lead but her stunned quality becomes increasingly harder to take seriously as the episode goes on, leading to a shrug of an ending. Perkins is a decent choice to be a host but he isn't able to give “Chillers'” wrap-around segments any sense of identity, which an anthology series really needs. [6/10]

Friday the 13th: The Series: Badge of Honor
 

A rotund police detective, Russ Sharko, botches a sting operation, out of his thirst for vengeance against mobster Victor Haas. His actions get a fellow cop killed and Sharko thrown off the forces. That is when he randomly comes into the possession of the expected “Friday the 13th: The Series” cursed antique. It's an old west sheriff star, which causes the guilty to die upon contact. Meanwhile, an ex-boyfriend of Micki's named Tim shows up at Curious Goods. It turns out that Tim is an undercover cop, working to bring Haas down through official channels. Ryan is suspicious of the guy and, upon finding a gun in his bag, suspect he's up to no good. 

“Friday the 13th: The Series” obviously isn't an anthology series but the elasticity of its premise allows the show to jump into different genres fairly easily. Which makes me wonder if some of these episodes didn't begin life as spec scripts for other shows, retro-fitted to this program because someone had it laying around. “Badge of Honor” feels more like it would belong to an eighties cop show than “Friday the 13th.” Call it “Kill Street Blues” or “Toronto Vice.” The outfits Ryan and Micki wear through most of this one – a white sports jacket over a high-collared polo shirt? A red halter top with mint green jacket and micro-skirt? –  certainly made me think of Crocket and Tubbs' questionable fashion choices. All of which is to say that the many scenes here of an undercover cop making terse negotiations with a mob boss, while coke is being sliced into rails or strippers who pointedly do not take their clothes off, feel out-of-place in this show.  Director Michelle Manning would actually make two episodes of “Miami Vice” a year after this, so I'm guessing she was basically auditioning for the show. Her use of slow-motion or a sax-heavy score feel very mawkish and out-of-place here. 

Further alienating this episode from the show it is a part of is that Ryan and Micki, once again, feel tangential to the actual story being told. Here's another installment where events would have played out more-or-less the same without their involvement at all. The duo don't actually participate in the action until the last act, where they spend several scenes comically sneaking around behind the cops. Micki's past relationship with Tim is the only element actually dragging them into this plot. That subplot also feels weird. John Stockwell is a handsome enough guy, sure. It still feels weird for her to immediately start sucking face with an ex the minute he walks into the shop. Did I miss when she officially broke up with her lawyer fiance or have the show writers forgotten about that? Either way, the presence of another man still causes Ryan to be jealous. He is referred to as Micki's cousin, as if to remind us of how weird it is that he's so territorial around another man. 

Attempting to shoe-horn some typical cop show thrills into this episode is an odd fit for another reason. The horror elements here are two-fold: The curse sheriff's badge at the center of the plot causes its victims to contort and jerk around violently before expiring. The mechanics of “Friday the 13th's” MacGuffins usually require some sort of exchange, the wielder getting something in exchange for the murders. I guess Sharko already wanting revenge on these men is payment enough. Either way, the induced seizures look very silly. Sharko keeping his wife's corpse under a shower curtain in his bedroom is kind of fun though. Val Avery – also played a cop in “The Amityville Horror” and “Cobra” and a dozen other things – makes the guy such a pathetic, hard-drinking, sweaty old dweeb that it's hard to take him seriously as a vigilante. You would expect this premise to bend in an A.C.A.B. direction. A cop extra-judicially executing criminals is obviously treated like a bad thing. While the rogue detective suffers for his actions, he still gets the bad guy before the end so I don't think the script disagrees with what he does that much. Also, if you think Sharko is a funny name for a character, be prepared for how many times somebody named “Cooder” is brought up in this hour. [5/10]

 

Halloween 2025: September 21st

 

Nang Nak (1999)

Every corner of the globe has their own monsters. However, it does seem certain ideas catch on within specific geographical spaces. Practically every Eastern European country has their variation on the vampire. La bruja seems to be the dominate bugbear in Latin American cultures and the djinn is prominent in Muslim majority countries. Meanwhile, multiple areas in East Asia tell tales of ghostly women who seek vengeance on unfaithful men. Sometimes while having long, stringy black hair and wearing white burial gowns. Japan has been fascinated with the story of the ghost of Oiwa for two centuries. The equivalent figure in Chinese myths is called a nü gui while the Korean version is usually known as cheonyeogwisin, the virgin maiden ghost. In Thailand, they have the supposedly true legend of Mae Nak Phra Khanong. A shrine to the phantasmic bride and her unborn child stands in Bangkok to this day. Wikipedia mentions at least 24 film adaptations of the folktale. This meticulously researched Letterboxd list points to a 1936 version as the earliest cinematic take on the story. Of these many retellings, the most well known in the West is 1999's “Nang Nak,” from director Nonzee Nimibutr. It was, for a time, the highest grossing Thai film ever made. 

For those unfamiliar, this is how the story goes: Mak has been drafted to fight in the Siamese-Vietnamese War. He leaves his small village behind, his devoted – and very pregnant – wife Nak being left alone. While on the battle field, Mak suffers a near fatal injury. He is rescued by a monk and his assistant, who insist he leave behind his old life and devote himself to the spiritual path. Mak refuses to abandon his wife and child though. He returns home, joyously received into his wife's arm. While haunted by dreams of the war, Mak notices that Nak is starting to act strangely. He also notices that no one else in the village wants anything to do with him and that many of their neighbors are dead. An old friend tries to convince Mak of something that seems impossible to him: Nak died during childbirth and now exists only as a ghost, terrorizing anyone who dare tries to separate them. Mak refuses to believe at first but soon can no longer deny that his wife is an undead spectre.

 

Most folk tales persist because they tell a moral that speaks to the values of the surrounding culture. Admittedly speaking as an outsider looking in, it would seem to me that the story of “Nang Nak” contains a specifically Buddhist message. After nearly dying and being saved by a monk, Mak is told to leave all his worldly possessions and passions behind. He can't do it because he loves his wife so much. Similarly, Nak herself cannot move onto the hereafter because she remains utterly attached to her husband. The idea of refusing to accept death as a part of a natural cycle and trying to escape the cycle of rebirth runs throughout the whole film. Unsurprisingly, the same Buddhist monk from earlier emerges as the story's hero by the end. It's as much a lesson about the tenets of Buddhism as any story of a vampire being warded off with a crucifix is a message about how awesome Christianity is. No belief exists in a vacuum and stories are reflections of the people that birthed them. 
 

It reads, like most folklore that is at least a hundred years old, as melodrama to modern eyes. The emotions on display in “Nang Nak” are quite oversized. The first ten minutes of the film involves characters' names repeatedly being shouted, amid dramatic partings. Nang and Mak often declare their love for one another. The guy is so excitable that, simply seeing an old friend is enough to make him leap naked from a lake. When the ghost business takes precedence, the villagers are soon wielding torches and promising to drive out the evil. Nak's threats of supernatural vengeance against those who are trying to separate her from her husband are similarly overblown. However, despite the sweatiness of the emotions in this story, it still worked for me. This is mostly because the love story, one-note as it may be, is quite sweet. Intira Joroenupra and Winai Kraibutr have strong chemistry together as the couple. We never learn much about their history together but scenes like a flashback, in which they flirt in the field and share some betel leaf, are genuinely sweet. By the end, when yet more operatic declarations of love are being made, I admittedly found myself effected by them. The idea of loving someone so much that you refuse to live without them – despite being dead – is a powerful one. 

Given the story its telling, Nimibutr's film functions more like a supernatural romance than a horror movie. However, the other villagers have good reason to be afraid of Nang Nak. When enraged, she summons a fire storm. In the legend's most famous moment, she stands upside down on a ceiling above a group of monks plotting her destruction. The special effects in “Nang Nak” are often quite cheesy. Another pivotal moment in the story, when Mak realizes his wife is a ghost when he sees her stretch her arm out to pick up a fallen piece of fruit, looks fairly silly. However, there is a classical eeriness to much of what follows. A thunderstorm billowing through a thatch hut, a dead body washing up in a boat, a shaman forced to bash his own head in: These are all striking moments that appear as mythic and old as they actually are. The period setting and ancient rites that seal the ghost make this the folkiest of folk horrors. Nimbutr's film is a respectable, stately retelling of these events that speaks to their power. 

Much of “Nang Nak” seems to function as a historical lesson. An opening narration establishes the period setting. An epilogue expands on the legend of what happened to the ritualistic artifact that ultimately contains the ghost. I have no idea how this “Nang Nak” compares to the many other tellings of the story. Older Thai genre cinema is still almost impossible to find on the English language web and largely undistributed on disc. However, it is easy to see why this legend has endured for such a long time. It is a story of undying love and supernatural rage, of rejection and acceptance and unbreakable bonds. It's highly culturally specific, that should go without saying, but these themes are also universal. It is hard to call “Nang Nak” scary. It's almost better described as corny. However, as an argument for the value of folkloric tales such as these, it makes its point. [7/10]

The Ear (1970)

Ucho

I'm not an expert. I know very little. But: In the sixties, De-Stalinization started in Czechoslovakia and a more liberal government began to take shape. During this time, distinctly Czech and Slovakian voices emerged from the country's literary and art scenes. This is when notable filmmakers like Miloš Forman, Juraj Herz, Jan Švankmajer and František Vláčil started to draw international attention. Today, this movement is known as the Czech/Slovak New Wave and produced some of the most acclaimed movies to be made in the country. It all came to an abrupt end when Soviet forces invaded the country in 1968. The previous period of protest, reform, and liberalization was shoved back into the closet and stricter government censorship was reinstated on all sectors. The films made right at this turning point were some of the most inflammatory in Czech cinematic history up to that point. The likes of Herz' “The Cremator” and Forman's “The Firemen's Ball” were quickly banned by the in-coming administration. Perhaps no film captures this time better – he says, not really knowing what the hell he's talking about – than Karel Kachyňa's “The Ear.”  The fusion of domestic drama, paranoia, ice cold absurdist humor, and an overarching tone of nightmarish dread would remain largely unseen until the nineties.

Ludvik is a low ranking member of the ruling Communist regime in Prague. He attends a work party with his wife, Anna. They hobnob with various government officials. Upon returning home, the drunk Anna realizes she left the key to their gate behind. The couple sneak into their own house. That is when they notice apparent government agents standing outside. Ludvik obsessively goes over his memories of the evening, becoming convinced that him and his wife are being targeted for elimination. As the two scour their home for hidden electronic listening devices – ears, you could call them – their already tense relationship begins to fall apart. Every minor slight and long-held complaint rushes to the surface. The night grows stranger and more distressing as they argue endlessly, burn documents, and repeatedly wonder how much they are being watched and listened to. 

“The Ear” is not a traditional horror film by any means. Despite its presence on many lists of acclaimed scary movies, it resides on the margins of the genre. The horror present in this motion picture is strictly of the psychic variety. As Ludvik becomes increasingly convinced that every aspect of his life has been under surveillance, he reflects on everything he's said and done. The threat of living in a totalitarian state is that nothing is private. You are held accountable for every thought you have. Every grumble, whisper, and yawn can be held against you. Throughout “The Ear,” Ludvik and his wife move from room-to-room in their house. Private sanctums like the bedroom and bathroom slowly become violated as they are revealed to be bugged too. Their mental state slowly cracks up under the pressure of constantly being listened to and watched, any and all personal feelings being flattened out and kept private by a state that demands constant and complete submission. 

One of the scariest suggestions in “The Ear” is that it doesn't truly matter whether this governing body, policing everything the characters say and think, exists or not. Throughout the film, Ludvik and Anna frequently argue about the degree of observation they are under. By the end, there is this creeping suspicion that the bugs in the house aren't hooked up to anything. The events of the next morning, coming at the very end and only after the endless night, leaves the protagonists wondering if they've done anything “wrong” at all. That perpetual uncertainty is exactly where the state wants them to be. Never sure when the hammer might come down, always fearful that they could slip up at any moment and be unpersoned the next day. Whether the structure of control exists or not is irrelevant The mere suggestion of it is enough to shake the duo to their core. The last line in “The Ear” is simply “I'm afraid.” When everything you say and do may or may not be evidence against you, it creates an unending fear of the inevitable punishment. Because we are all guilty of something, after all, aren't we? 

In such an environment, what role does interpersonal relationships play? From the opening minutes of “The Ear,” it's evident that Ludvik and Anna's marriage is not a happy one. He seems to regard her with contempt. She seems to drink to help deal with the repressed feelings of resentment towards her husband. The two have a child but he never appears on-screen, only existing as a voice and a concept to be argue about and bargained over. A reoccurring thread in “The Ear” is how these two have never actually known each other, how both have sides they refuse to show. Not unlike how they must keep some thoughts and feelings secret from the government's ever-listening ears. They clearly dislike each other far more than they've ever cared about one another. However, they stay together anyway. In an oppressive country such as this, all relationships are mere tools for the government. More than once, Anna shouts out to the ears, eager to reveal (real or imagined) betrayals her husband has inflicted on her. “The Ear” gets quite a lot of suspense out of how far this unraveling of the relationship will go, supported by a properly frantic performance from Jiřina Bohdalová as Anna and a far more contained Radoslav Brzobohatý as Ludvik.

I say all of the above as if I actually have a clue what the hell I'm talking about. Much as I did when I watched "The Devil" last year, I must concede that I lack the proper cultural context to truly get my brain around "The Ear." Kachyňa's film is not only specifically Czech but also very relevant to life in the country during this particular moment of transition. Which means everything I wrote above is mostly me grasping in the dark. However, that doesn't mean I didn't find value in "The Ear." Josef Illík's black-and-white cinematography is extremely moody. The shadowy images establish an eerie tone right away. When the lights come on for the first time halfway through the movie, it feels almost akin to a jump scare. So much of "The Ear" is about secret deeds done in dark rooms, that the presence of brightness feels like an intrusion. The camera often assumes the point-of-view of the film's characters, furthering a paranoid feeling of being watched. Svatopluk Havelka's eccentric score creates a deliberately surreal atmosphere. A sequence where the government officials begin doing a strange dance at the party is when "The Ear" properly captures the sense of a nightmare. When Ludvik's "friends" from work arrive at the house and refuse to leave, it continues the feeling that we are stuck in a bad dream that simply won't end. When the sun comes up and the night finally concludes, the characters are stuck with the realization that their nightmare of paranoia is far from over. 

I'm definitely too dumb to fully understand "The Ear." I think I would have to watch a lot more Czech New Wave movies – plus read a few books about the Prague Spring, the resulting Warsaw Pact invasion, and life under Soviet rule – to truly appreciate this one. I'd also argue that its classification within the horror genre is more metaphorical than literal. Not that the spectre of constant government surveillance, the resulting de-personalization, or the crushing paranoia isn't pretty scary. It simply doesn't scream Halloween spookiness to me. Nevertheless, the chilly atmosphere, the creepy visuals, and entombing tone of suspicion did work for me. It's kind of funny too, in that extremely dry and very absurd Eastern European way. Probably best recommended to the serious art house crowd and not your average Fangoria reader, unless you're working hard to expand your boundaries like I am these days. [7/10]

 

Darkroom: Uncle George
 

Looks like it was about six years ago when I last watched an episode of NBC's short-lived 1981 anthology “Darkroom.” I wasn't much impressed with what I saw but the James Coburn hosted program does have its defenders. Let's give it another shot, shall we? “Uncle George” concerns the Haskells, a nice old couple who live in a simple home out in the woods. Since Bert had a heart attack, he can't work the way he used to. Margo devotes her days to taking care of Uncle George, the bed-ridden relative in the upstairs bedroom. When Uncle George passes peacefully in his sleep, it is more than simply an emotional loss. Old George received a pension check every month and it helped the couple pay their bills. Bert buries George in the basement and drives over to the local bar. He finds Dixie, a homeless man. Bert takes him into a bar, buys him a drink, and makes him an offer: Dixie can live in their home for free if he poses as Uncle George, insuring that the household still gets that check every month. It seems like a sweet deal and Dixie happily accepts it... There's a serious catch though. 

IMDb lists 16 episodes of “Darkroom.” However, this was one of those hour-long shows that usually included two segments per episode. Meaning the whole series actually only lasted for eight installments. The other “Darkroom” stories I've seen have been tales of supernatural horror. The one paired with “Uncle George,” for example, is a monster movie riff from ol' reliable Robert Bloch. For the majority of “Uncle George's” runtime, it seems to be an exception to that rule. It's a thoroughly sentimental story. Bert and Margo are happy to take care of their Uncle George, simply because he's family. It wasn't until Bert's injury that the checks became essential to their survival. When he picks up the old drunk off the street, it's basically a charitable act. Dixie describes how he's never had a family of his own, never been much valued by anyone around him. Here a complete stranger is, giving him a roof over his head and a bed to sleep on. There was a part of me that was wondering if this wasn't “Darkroom's” “Kick the Can” or “The Messiah on Mott Street.” Ya know, a break from the usual macabre subject matter for something more whimsical. 

However, all throughout the episode, there is an underlying sinister intent. Claude Atkins and June Lockhart are as warm as can be as the couple. However, they approach what they are doing like it's a serious crime. I mean, it is a swindle but they are rather grave about it. The hushed tones they carry themselves with leaves the viewer guessing, wondering what exactly is up with these two. When that reveal comes, it's literally minutes before the end credits roll, the truth being held off until the final second. It's a hell of a swerve too, that changes the entire tone of the episode and successfully moves an otherwise sweet story into the realm of grisly horror. I don't know if “Uncle George” would have much value at all if it wasn't for that dynamite ending. However, sometimes that's all you really need to bring a half-hour episode together. Maybe “Darkroom” was better than I thought? James Coburn isn't a bad host either, with a wry winkle in his eye as he delivers grandiose, Serling-like introductions. [7/10]

The Addams Family: Pugsley's Allowance

If you'll allow me to, once again, compare and contrast America's two favorite families of the macabre once again:. It is a common observation that, while the Munsters are a working class family, the Addams family are rich. Herman was often at his day job at the funeral home. I think there's been exactly two episodes where Gomez' profession as a lawyer has been relevant at all. I bring it up because the Addams' philosophy towards employment is central to “Pugsley's Allowance.” The eldest child comes to his parents with a strange request: He thinks it's time for him to get a job. Gomez and Morticia are horrified at first, wondering why an Addams should have to work at all. The boy refuses offers of an allowance or an easy job with his dad. Instead, he seeks out a series of odd jobs, none of which are particularly suited to his eccentric personality. It comes to a head when Mr. Henson, frequent season one antagonist and the normie next door, hires the kids to clean out his attic. 

“Pugsley's Allowance” does feel a bit like an episode where the writers looked around at some elements they hadn't used in a while and decided to do something with them again. Pugsley hasn't truly been the focus of an episode since that time Fester thought he turned him into a chimp. Mr. Henson is brought back, for the first time since “Gomez the People's Choice,” to once again fill the role of all-purpose antagonist. Now, he's the Addams' neighbor and ends up threatening to sue the family after Pugsley and Wednesday blow his attic up. That is when Gomez' knowledge of the law come back up, planning on counter-suing the guy. Ya know, for all the hardcore “Addams Family” nerds who are closely following the continuity of this silly old sitcom. 

This episode does have a good number of funny bits. Pugsley repeatedly being sent back home by his employer every time, because of his unusual perspective, makes for an amusing running gag. It reaches an ideal climax when Pugsley's final attempt to find work outside the home – being the assistant to a bookie – results in another visit. Lurch reaching for guests' hat also gets a good repeat here. The direct way the kids did with Henson's dirty attic is a joke you see coming. But it's a strong one, specifically because it plays off the differing values between the Addams and stuffy, regular suburbanites like Henson. This episode also shows one of the few times in the series when Morticia gets genuinely angry, when her children are threatened. You definitely don't want to piss her off! “Pugsley's Allowance” also features Gomez being chained and padlocked by his wife. He remains tied up for most of the episode. Looks like these two are altogether freaky, am I right? [7/10]

Director Report Card: Danny Boyle (2008)

 

12. Slumdog Millionaire

This is right around the time I jumped off the Danny Boyle train. "Sunshine" disappointed me so much that I immediately became skeptical of his involvement in any other project. When his follow-up was announced, I can vividly recall narrowing my eyes and thinking "Oh, so it's a movie about "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?" Who cares about that?" A lot of people, it turns out. We all know now that "Slumdog Millionaire" would become a sleeper hit, grossing 375 million worldwide against a 15 million dollar budget, making it the biggest film of its director's career by a large margin. "Slumdog Millionaire's" success did not end there, as it also swept through most of the big award shows. The film's list of accolades include eight Oscars, seven BAFTAs, four Golden Globes, three Grammys, and plenty of others. This did nothing to dissuade my notion that Danny Boyle wasn't on my wavelength anymore. Though I like to think I've mostly outgrown my teenage contrarian attitudes, I'll admit this marks the first time I've actually sat down to watch "Slumdog Millionaire." 

Jamal has the chance of a lifetime. He is appearing on "Kaun Banega Crorepati," the Hindi version of "Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?," and he's very close to winning the grand prize. He's so close that the show runners think he is cheating and Jamal is brutally interrogated by law enforcement. This is when he recounts the journey that has brought him to this place: Jamal and his brother Salim grew up in the slums of Mumbai. After the death of their mother, they fell in with a gangster who trains children to be beggars... Usually by crippling or wounding them, so their increasingly pathetic state will receive more hand-outs. There, they meet Latika, a young girl who also grew up in the slums. While escaping their master, Latika is separated from the boys. The brothers do whatever they can to survive but Jamal remains determined to find Latika. They discover her being prepared to be a prostitute, resulting in Salim murdering their former caretaker and pushing his brother away. Years later, Jamal works as a gopher in a call center, Salim is an errand man for a high-profile gangster, and Latika is now the kept woman of the same mobster. Jamal has worked to appear on the game show in hopes of contacting Latika and winning enough money to change their lives forever. 

The thread most connecting "Slumdog Millionaire" to Boyle's earlier work is its brutal depiction of poverty. You can find a line from the junk houses of "Trainspotting," the vagabonds of "Strumpet," and the post-apocalyptic wanderers of "28 Days Later" to the homeless kids here doing anything they can to survive. The film doesn't pull many punches. It starts by literally covering the protagonists, head to toe, in human feces. Somehow, this is only the beginning of the challenges the boy faces. That children are the focus of the first half of the film only makes these events more harrowing. In life under the poverty line, in the shadows of Mumbai, even little kids are another potential cash source to be exploited. Whether that's via prostitution or burning their eyes and breaking their arms to make them more effective beggars. The people who claim to want to protect and care for these kids are only manipulating them for a chance to make more money further down the line. Cash is the only thing that seems to matter to the majority of people in this world, Jamal being propelled by love making him an outlier in a thoroughly cynical world. 

"Slumdog Millionaire's" depiction of life as an unhoused child around the city formally known as Bombay attracted considerable controversy. This is a film partially made by Europeans about marginalized brown people in another country, bringing with it the expected subtext of othering different cultures and races in order to score points as a properly aware white person. This would make the film typical "misery porn," made by white storytellers for a white audience, about how bad those poor people have it in some far away place. A tokenized and simplified version of life in another country designed to make rich people thousands of miles away feel bad on the route to making themselves feel better. That Jamal speaks with a British accent in the latter half of the film also suggests an uncomfortable need to align the Anglo viewer with the dark skinned protagonist. Indian critics have accused "Slumdog Millionaire" of painting an overly negative depiction of India, some going so far as to call it an "anti-Indian film" or an assault on the country's self-esteem. These are obviously very serious accusations, not without foundation, that deserved to be considered. 

I'm merely a pasty-skinned dumb-ass on the internet and any contribution I could make to this debate is unneeded. However, it's not as if any of the things depicted in the film – child exploitation, prolific poverty, criminal empires – don't actually happen in Mumbai. "Slumdog Millionaire" does not depict India as a country without kindness, love, or joy. However, it does accurately reflect India as a country crippled by a caste system designed to keep the disadvantaged poor and the rich ever more powerful. Crime or falling into money is depicted as the only way to achieve true upward momentum on a culture that values currency more than it values people. If this is seen as an unfair criticism of Indian culture, then it must be an unfair criticism of places all over the world. It's not as if the film was made without an Indian perspective, as Loveleen Tanden receives a co-directing credit on the film. I'm far too dumb and white to contribute meaningfully to this conversation. I would say an outsider making observations on Indian culture is worthy of criticism but it would seem to me that most of the problems depicted here are very real and this is an honest handling of them.

As much as "Slumdog Millionaire" is a gritty drama about life on the streets, it is also paradoxically a fairy tale of sorts. This is designed to be the underdog-iest of underdog stories. By sinking Jamal into a pool of literal human excrement in the first act, our hero begins in about as low a situation as can be imagine. From this, he pulls himself up to being a literal millionaire. He escapes adversity and then learns to survive through his own wits. There's a sort of frantic, youthful energy to scenes of him and Salim riding the rails of a train way, stealing food and goods from the rich, that is delivered like a child enthusiastically telling an exaggerated story of their adventures. When he starts to con gullible tourists into believing he's a tour guide to the Taj Mahal, it has the impish feeling of getting away with something, pulling one over on the snobs. There's no doubt that actually living this life would be difficult, full of hardships, starvation, and misery. "Slumdog Millionaire" acknowledges that while also playing like someone joyfully recounting the misadventures of their younger days. 

In fact, that's exactly what "Slumdog Millionaire" is. The majority of the film is told in flashback, Jamal relating his story to the cops interrogating him or reflecting on past events while in the middle of the game. He recalls events with such specificity, the circumstances he has lived through leading so directly into the questions he is asked on the game show, that the movie comes dangerously close to feeling contrived or corny. There's a real “Dewey Cox has to think about his entire life before he plays” atmosphere to the way the film is structured. Human memory doesn't actually work like that and, on account of all of us being human hopefully, we all know this. You have to buy into the improbable likeliness of that set-up to enjoy "Slumdog Millionaire" or else you'll be incredulously shaking your head the entire time. This is why the film invokes that fairy tale like tone throughout most of its runtime. It allows for contrivances that would otherwise drop you right out of the reality of the story. 

And what would a fairy tale be without a princess? Throughout the life time of events "Slumdog Millionaire" depicts, it looks like Jamal and Latika meet only a handful of times as adults. One of those meetings includes him seeing her from a far-off distance, the woman waving at him. Over years, Jamal remains fixated on Latika, making it his life long mission to find her, rescue her from the situation she is in, and be with her forever. The film ends soundly on the note of "And they lived happily ever after." This premise never once addresses if Latika wants Jamal to "rescue" her from the life she has. If being the moll of a Bombay gangster is an existence she might actually have become accustomed to. In fact, the character is never given any sort of interior life at all. She exists exactly like a princess in a tower, a goal for the hero to work towards, a reward for triumphing. The script takes it as a given that the girl wants to be with the boy. She is an enshrined ideal, a perfect sweetheart, whose presumed life of affiliation with criminals is only passingly acknowledged. Latika remains oddly virginal for someone nearly sold into sexual slavery, untouched and unsullied like a prim princess in a children's tale is supposed to be. 

Like I said, "Slumdog Millionaire" is knowingly invoking this tone, allowing it to get away with tropes that might otherwise have been deemed problematic. We simply have to take the film on its word that Latika is a fully-formed human being who has understandable reasons for everything she does. I guess the kid you knew briefly in grade school who is suddenly a millionaire is probably the preferable choice over a grouchy crime boss, despite him kind of stalking you for a decade. That Boyle and his team can get away with this is because "Slumdog Millionaire" is partially a homage to the greatest format for improbable tales that has ever been devised: The motion picture. The character establishing moment for Jamal is when he wades through shit to get an autograph from Amitabh Bachchan, a beloved icon of Bollywood cinema. Stories shown from a projector or a television screen are depicted as whimsical escapes from the characters' harsh lives. It is the medium that ultimately provides Jamal an out from this hard life. I am woefully unfamiliar with Hindi cinema but, from my understanding, fantastical stories of heroes escaping adversity, brothers becoming enemies, strangely chaste romances, and random song-and-dance numbers are reoccurring tropes of this world. "Slumdog Millionaire" is clearly invoking these ideas in a self-aware way, most blatantly in the subplot of Salim's rise and fall within Mumbai's underworld. The movie makes the viewer wait the entire runtime for the dance number, that most expected of Bollywood cliches, and it acts as a much awaited exhale right before the credits role. Those who are familiar with India's national style of filmmaking primarily through cultural osmosis can still recognize the tools Boyle and Tandan are intentionally working with. (This also explains why the Academy loved the movie so much, as odes to the magic of the cinema are among their favorite topics.)

Ultimately, "Slumdog Millionaire" is using these ideas in service of a story about destiny. Though perhaps not from the angle you are expecting. Throughout Jamal's recollection of his life, he comes across events that very specifically prepare him for the questions he has to answer on the game show. Some of these function as quirks of happenstance, the answer he needing in that moment appearing as a minor background detail during a pivotal memory. Other times, they appear as acts of divine intervention, such as when a vision of Rama appears to him as a boy. It would be easy to assume that "Slumdog Millionaire" is telling a cheesy story about a protagonist who happens to have lived the exact correct circumstances to bring him to this moment. However, the retrospective aspect to the way the film is constructed gives me another reading instead. We are all results of the lives we have lived. The choices we make in the future are an accumulation of the events we have lived through, the people we've known, and what we've learned in the past. If you see "Slumdog Millionaire" as simply a fairy tale, Jamal gets his cash prize as his "Cinderella" reward for living through a shitty life. If taken as an pondering on the nature of life and fate, the film can be seen as showing us that each of us are constructed by everything that has come before us.

For all the interesting ideas inside the film, this easily could have still come across as a coy and overly calculated attempt at sentimental story telling, with a possibly patronizing tone towards another race. However, what I think truly holds "Slumdog Millionaire" together is Dev Patel's lead performance. As Jamal, he is a bundle of utter sincerity. You believe that he truly loves Lakita because Petal makes the guy seem so utterly enraptured by this woman he's only talked to a few times. The absolute sincerity Petal brings to the character makes him easy to root for. You want to see the guy succeed, against the adverse circumstances he's lived with. The entire movie truly belongs to Patel, as his youthful energy and charm keeps the viewer compelled during the more improbable narrative choices the film makes. When the final question, the climax of the story arrives, the look of dumbfounded luck on Patel's face goes a long way towards selling the emotion of not only that moment but the entire film.

This would mark Boyle's fifth collaboration with Anthony Dod Mantle, the director of photographer ultimately winning an Oscar for his work here. The gritty, digital style Mantle is known for, that be brought to "28 Days Later," is certainly present here. Much of "Slumdog Millionaire" is characterized by a dark and muddy approach. However, this is paired with some colorful visual exclamation points, pauses in the chaos that stand out. While I'm not the biggest fan of Mantle's cinematography, it is considerably enlivened by Chris Dickens' editing. Dickens previously worked on Edgar Wright's first two features and, funny enough, that high-energy style of cutting recalls the kinetic approach of Boyle's earlier films. This means, visually, "Slumdog Millionaire" represents a fusion between the approach that defined his earlier work and the digital graininess that had come to dominate his last few movies.

Having now seen “Slumdog Millionaire,” I think I can safely say that there were probably better movies released that year, that arguably deserved to sweep the Oscars more than this one. However, it's also not a bad movie. A strong leading man and an interesting approach to its material makes the film a pleasant enough watch. If this represents Boyle's shift from indie weirdo to mainstream crowd-pleaser, I suppose worst fates are possible for directors. The film will soon become a Broadway musical, proving that this certainly isn't the most forgotten of Best Picture winners from that decade, no matter how divisive it remains among the serious film fan crowd. Corny but energetic, calculated but sweet, “Slumdog Millionaire” does manage to entertain decently enough for the time you spend watching. [Grade: B]

RECENT WATCHES: Saw VI (2009)

The common wisdom is that the first entry in a long-running horror series is some sort of critically acclaimed genre classic while the endless sequels were increasingly derided by the mainstream press as nothing but senseless gore. This is sometimes true but I was actively reading a lot of critics in the 2000s and recall the original "Saw" as being considered pretty dumb by most professionals even then. Once the moral panic around "torture porn" kicked in, the yearly "Saw" sequels became an excuse for writers to clutch their pearls and search their thesaurus for as many synonyms for "mindless drivel" as they could find. That was certainly the case by the time we got to "Saw VI," which Liongates did not bother to screen for critics. However, to considerably surprise, the sixth film actually received some better notices than the previous sequels by incorporating some social commentary into its explicit violence. The installment is also beloved by fans, with many considering it a late-in-the-series highlight for a franchise that was terribly close to being totally wrung out by this point.

With the FBI agent on his tail dispatched, Mark Hoffman has officially established himself as the successor to the mantle of the Jigsaw Killer. He tries and frames his dead nemesis for his crimes while harassing John Kramer's widow, Jill, for hints about the latest game. Director Erickson and Agent Perez – who survived her encounter with an exploding Billy the Puppet doll in part four – are quickly putting the pieces together about Hoffman's deception. Meanwhile, Jigsaw's most elaborate game is getting underway. William Easton, the health insurance executive who denied John's policy, awakens in a labyrinth. His colleagues are strung up in fatal devices that will force Easton to confront the life and death decisions he makes every day up close, as he moves towards rescuing his family in the maze's center.

As I remember it, horror fans were very receptive to the annual tradition of new "Saw" movies. I seem to recall posters on the Bloody Disgusting and MovieManiac.net forums enthusiastically accepting Hoffman as the new Jigsaw. This is funny as the sequels themselves increasingly seem to regard him as unworthy of this legacy. Maybe the clear gulf in charisma between Tobin Bell and Costas Mandylor was more evident to the producers. Either way, "Saw VI" agrees that Mark Hoffman sucks. While John Kramer kept the authorities fumbling around in the dark for years, Hoffman seems to have screwed up by the start of his second "game." Rather than attempting to teach people the value of their own lives and push their will to survive to the limit, Hoffman acts more directly as a vigilante punishing criminals. More pressingly, Hoffman is using the Jigsaw identity to destroy his enemies, get revenge, and get himself promoted at work. Incoherent and contradictory as his philosophy was, John Kramer was a fanatic with a mission and a point to make. Hoffman is a self-interested bully, a power-hungry supervillain, and kind of an idiot who has given himself a lofty, unearned sense of superiority. 

Saying this engineer of sadistic torment machines is morally sounder than this other torture master is ridiculous, of course. While the initial hook of the "Saw" series was that Jigsaw's justification for his crimes were unreasonable, the sequels have aligned himself more and more with his twisted mission. Now, in this pitch black moral universe, we are rooting for one serial killer to fail to confirm himself as the heir to another serial killer's title. I have to wonder if this isn't Kevin Greutert – promoted from editor to director – making some sort of commentary on the different audiences for these movies. Is he comparing the gore hounds who show up every October merely to see more elaborate methods of mutilation to Hoffman, who uses Jigsaw's games for selfish or petty purposes? As opposed to those that actually engage with the twisted lessons John Kramer was trying to teach his victims? Horror villains becoming fan favorites is basically impossible to avoid but Jigsaw becoming an antihero this admired suggest somebody's wires got crossed along the way. Or maybe this is Twisted Pictures throwing shade at the other "torture porn" films that imitated "Saw" and deeming them unworthy. Whatever the purpose, "Saw VI" is clearly distinguishing one type of bloody maiming as holier than the other. 

Whether this was intentional or not is debatable but "Saw VI" clearly does have weightier ideas on its mind. The sequel came out five months before President Obama signed the Affordable Healthcare Act into law, prompting unfounded fear mongering from the right-wing noise machine and endless debate about how healthcare is distributed in America. A humble horror sequel has no deep reflections on this but clearly communicates one message: Health insurance workers are fucking assholes. Jigsaw turns his wrath on the executives and pencil pushers who cynically decide who lives and who dies, forcing them into grisly challenges as a metaphor for their own corporate greed and lack of empathy. Literally, as Jigsaw has Easton decided whether a healthy young man with no family is more worthy of life than a woman with pre-existing conditions and several kids. In this current era, where Luigi Manigone can become a folk hero overnight for capping the CEO of UnitedHealthcate, it's not hard to be on Jigsaw's side here. The sequel's most stirring moment isn't any of its brutal gore sequences. Instead, it's when Tobin Bell goes on a fiery rant about the callousness of insurance companies, ending by directly comparing them to predatory fish. 

Taking target at the kind of real life villains that probably do deserve some torturous lessons in humanity brings something back to the "Saw" series that hasn't been present since the second film. There's a kind of joyful ridiculousness to the grim traps that are thought up this. A Billy the Puppet doll swings towards a glass window, as if the protagonist is venturing through a jump scare filled haunted attraction. The central set piece of the film involves people tied to a rotating platform with a shotgun pointed at it, a very silly set-up that actively invites the comparison to a carnival spectacle. While the traps in the last two movies could get a little too conceptual at times, Greutert cuts the scenarios down here. Having to chop off a literal pound of flesh or navigate a corridor full of spewing steam are straight forward enough concepts. The climatic murder device is so over-the-top that it pushes "Saw," for the first time, almost into the realm of campy gore comedy. It's not only CEOs and insurance agents that are punished here but also some predatory lenders and a gossip magazine columnist, all played as thoroughly despicable characters by leaning on overwrought emotion. 

Not that this was an intentional move on "Saw VI's" behalf. As always, these movies take themselves very serious. The degree of continuity between sequels and the number of past events to keep track of remain dense. Whenever "Saw VI" focuses on Jill trying to fulfill her husband's twisted plans or Hoffman's manipulative tactics, we've definitely reached soap opera territory. The level of melodrama, when added to the grim subject matter, does result in the first decent twist ending in a while and a finale that puts a novel spin on one of the classic "Saw" gimmicks. Greutert sticks to the hyper-grim visual palette that has been long established by now. Admittedly, the spastic montages and dingy lighting aren't utilized quite as much, these visual clichés starting to fall out of popularity by 2009. 

Honestly, one has to wonder if Lionsgate and Twisted Pictures themselves weren't aware of how silly this series was starting to get. Before "Saw VI" went before cameras, there was an accompanying VH1 reality show entitled "Scream Queens," in which the winner got to be a special guest victim in the sequel. Competing to be graphically tortured in a horror movie strikes me as a weird premise for a game show but I guess that was the state of both the horror and reality TV genres at the time. (The winner, by the way, was Tanedra Howard, who does a decent job of hacking her own arm off in the opening trap.) Whether "Saw VI" knowingly started to embrace the overly edgy element of the series for humor or at least incorporate a tiny bit of social relevance, it did inject some energy into a horror series that was starting to run its course. [7/10]