Category: Narrative

By Joe Bendel. Finally, the two greatest Draculas are together in one film. It is a posthumous collaboration between Bela Lugosi and Sir Christopher Lee, but that is all the more fitting. Many of the greatest voices in horror cinema bring to life five classic Edgar Allan Poe stories in Raúl García’s Extraordinary Tales, which opens this Friday in New York.

Between 2004 and 2014, former Disney animator García unleashed his inner fanboy producing a series of Poe short films that paid tribute to the dark bard of Baltimore, as well as other icons of classic horror cinema and graphic art. They are now finally collected and connected by a framing device naturally set in a gothic cemetery. Poe’s spirit now resides in a raven, but an anthropomorphized Lady of Death tries to convince the writer to accept his final resting, by using his own stories as grim object lessons.

The figures of García’s interstitials and the first tale, The Fall of the House of Usher, are a bit blocky, but the backgrounds are wonderfully atmospheric. Usher is also stratospherically elevated by the late, great Sir Christopher’s drippingly macabre narration. He sounds as sonorously sinister as ever, which make Usher a delight.

However, for classic monster fans, nothing can top García’s The Tell Tale Heart, which was Oscar short-listed as an animated short in 2005. Using a non-professional proof-of-concept recording taped by Lugosi’s agent in the late 1940s when he was trying to package a Poe-themed stage show, García truly taps into the psychologically perverse essence of the story. Rather than phoning it in, Lugosi fully draws out all the twisted drama. With all its hisses and pops, it rather appropriately sounds like some sort of ghostly spirit broadcast. Visually, García’s stark black & white animation, conceived as an homage to Argentine comic artist Alberto Breccia, is also absolutely arresting.

Julian Sands does not exactly have the same stature, but the Warlock and Arachnophobia actor is certainly no stranger to a horror movie set. His narration for The Fact in the Case of M. Valdemar is right on the money, yet he is completely up-staged by García’s visuals. In this case, he renders the story in a style that evokes the pulpy look of EC Comics. It is definitely cool looking, but the master touch is the mesmerist narrator, who bears a surely not coincidental resemblance to Vincent Price.

Frankly, Guillermo del Toro is not a natural born voice-over artist, but the Mexican auteur sounds duly authentic narrating arguably the most faithful English language adaptation of Spanish Inquisition-set The Pit and the Pendulum to date. In fact, the entire film remains remarkably true to Poe’s source material. The expressionism of Pit also makes it one of García’s most sophisticated looking and psychologically engaging tales.

With The Masque of Red Death, Extraordinary ends on a mostly wordless high point. Roger Corman himself, the self-made mogul who helmed all the great Poe adaptations starring Price, has only one line of dialogue as Prince Prospero, but it is worth the wait. Instead of chatter, García builds tension and foreboding by showing the silent figure of death glide through the Prince’s hedonistic bacchanal.

García has truly assembled a horror connoisseur’s dream team by incorporating the work of Poe, Lugosi, Lee, Corman, del Toro, and sort of Price and Breccia into one enormously satisfying film. Even though it is distributed by GKIDS, Extraordinary Tales might be too intense for youngsters, but kids old enough to stay up for Corman classics on the weekends should enjoy its spookiness. García maintains an impressively eerie mood, but older fans might just get caught up in nostalgia for our old midnight movie idols. Either way, it is thoroughly entertaining film. Highly recommended for horror and animation fans, Extraordinary Tales opens this Friday (10/23) in New York, at the IFC Center.

LFM GRADE: A

Posted on October 21st, 2015 at 10:55pm.

By Joe Bendel. Madison is a conscientious mother, but since the death of her emotionally disturbed husband, she has been saddled with a difficult mortgage and a problem child. Unfortunately, she cannot sell her son Jacob, because that would be wrong, or her house, because it is haunted. The family is stuck between a rock and a supernatural place in Alistair Legrand’s The Diabolical, which opens this Friday in select theaters.

By now, Madison, Jacob, and his younger sister Haley fully accept they are living in a haunted house. They have simply seen too much, too frequently, to remain in denial. Madison has brought in paranormal researchers, but they have all beat hasty retreats. So who’s she gonna call? Maybe Nikolai, Jacob’s cool science teacher, who she has been seeing on the sly.

Unfortunately, when it rains for Madison, it pours. Just as Jacob was finishing his mandated counseling sessions for his last “incident,” he launches into another fight at school. Ostensibly, she seems to catch a break when her mortgage company offers to buy back her house at favorable terms as part of a dodgy development scheme. However, an unseen force refuses to let Jacob and Haley leave the property, attacking their nervous systems as soon as they advance past the front porch.

Actually, things are not what they seem in Diabolical, but it would be telling to explain how so. Technically, we have seen all the elements Legrand eventually reveals in some form or another in any number of previous films, but he gives them all a deeply sinister twist, while telegraphing absolutely nothing. His execution is unusually tense and creepy. With co-writer Luke Harvis, Legrand taps into the current mortgage-based economic anxieties, without overplaying the topicality card. Viewers just get a visceral sense Madison is physically and emotionally trapped in that house.

Despite still looking like a supermodel, Ali Larter is quite compelling as Madison. Frankly, her work as the anxiety and guilt-ridden mother compares favorably with Essie Davis in the over-hyped Babadook. (The Diabolical addresses similar themes, but does a better job taking care of the genre business.) Arjun Gupta’s work as Nikolai is also notable for its subtlety and intelligence, especially when grading on a horror movie curve.

This is turning out to be a very strong season for horror films—and The Diabolical definitely reinforces and advances that trend. Larter and Gupta show actors can still ply their craft in genre films, while Legrand maintains a distinctively uncanny atmosphere. Recommended with enthusiasm for horror fans, The Diabolical opens today (10/16) in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema and also releases on iTunes.

LFM GRADE: B+

Posted on October 16th, 2015 at 1:59pm.

By Joe Bendel. After a long, hard semester of sun & surf, Kaylee and her friends can finally enjoy spring break. So far, there has been less reality in their lives than a typical episode of Friends, but karma, if not realism, is about to catch up with them. Something hatched during their bon voyage blowout and it has turned the beach deadly in Isaac Gabaeff’s The Sand, which releases today on DVD from Monarch Home Entertainment.

There was a lot of drinking and hooking up the night before, but nobody will be embarrassed, because Mitch had the foresight to collect everyone’s phones and smart devices. He will spend the night consoling Kaylee over her ex now hooking up with her former bestie Chandra, but that is as far as he gets. It is already awkward when Kaylee and Mitch wake up in the life guard station twenty feet from the convertible where Jonah and Chandra still slumber. However, things really get awkward when they realize there is something horrific lurking under the sand.

Kaylee only needs to see a few seagulls sucked under to draw the right conclusions, but Mitch, Jonah, and Ronnie in the backseat, will have to watch her boyfriend die a gruesome death before they accept the situation. Unfortunately, Jonah the knucklehead drained the battery over the course of the hedonistic night. Things will get uncomfortable for them as the sun starts to beat down, but the convertible trio is still better off than their pal Gilbert, whose tubby butt was stuffed in a barrel.

Do not jump to conclusions based on the bikinis. The Sand might sound like a silly Cormanesque beach monster mash-up, but it is really a surprisingly credible lifeboat thriller, executed with Kevin Williamsonesque attitude. Granted, these are all nauseatingly privileged airheads, but by horror movie standards, they are extraordinarily proactive. Following Kaylee’s lead, they start taking productive steps as early as the first act. Unfortunately, the beach patrol blowhard is played by Jamie Kennedy, so no help there. At least, it is his funniest screen appearance in years.

It turns out Gabaeff is quite adept at staging their halting attempts to shimmy around the sand. It is sort of like a lethal game of twister in which both feet must remain on a hard surface. He rather sparingly shows the monster itself, which is just as well, since the big CGI spectacles are not so hot looking. However, whenever someone falls into the same, the resulting gore is totally satisfying. While it is conspicuously obvious why Brooke Butler, Meagan Holder, and Cynthia Murrell were cast as Kaylee, Chandra, and Ronnie, they never give the sort of awkward line-readings you would expect to find in 1980s direct-to-video gems. Seriously, they are all pretty solid. Yet, it gets downright painful (in the right way) to watch Cleo Berry’s Gilbert sweltering in his barrel.

If you are the sort of person who approaches every new low budget horror movie with optimism, The Sand is the kind of film that justifies your faith. It has a knowing fondness for all the piranha and crab monster creature features that came before it, but it still gets down to genre business quite effectively. No kidding, this is a cool film. Recommended for anyone looking for Halloween viewing with a lot of beach bodies, The Sand is now available on DVD and VOD from Monarch Home Entertainment.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on October 16th, 2015 at 1:59pm.

By Joe Bendel. Being a scientist is sort of like a form of original sin in horror movies. Linda Wade inherited that sin from her parents in the form of a very sinister artifact. For years, she tried to protect her own family, but when her well-meaning husband starts snooping into her past, he stirs up a ferociously powerful force in Nathan Hendrickson’s The Hollow One, which screens during this year’s Toronto After Dark.

Michael Wade had two daughters with Linda, but he literally did not know the first thing about her past. You might think he would figure she had her reasons, but instead he hires a private detective at the urging of his youngest, Anna. What he gets is a manila envelope full of field notes and a pepper grinder from Hell. It seems Linda’s medallion fits rather snuggly in the artifact. Unfortunately, Wade will not have much time to peruse the material before dark malicious figures start tormenting him.

At least the Wade sisters were not around when darkness fell over their home. Linda Wade tries to contain the damage, but to no avail. Ironically, she will be fatally injured when she dashes in front of Matt Hoffman’s car. He and Rachel Wade were a heavy item, but she refuses to forgive him for her mother’s death. However, the tragedy leads the Wade sisters away from the rural Washington State town for several years. When they finally return, they find the place a veritable ghost town. What few zombie-like people remain, including their apparently deranged father, have bizarre, ancient metal disks affixed to the back of their necks. To get to the bottom of it all, they will have to work with Hoffman, who was just finished serving his sentence for the accident.

Although Hollow has not played a lot of the big genre fests, it is one of the scariest films currently in circulation. The ominous forces threatening the Wades are not merely malicious. They are malevolent in a greater, metaphysical kind of way. Probably the last horror film that dared to suggest an equivalently big, evil picture was H.P. Mendoza’s I am a Ghost.

While the implications of Hollow are massively unsettling, the execution is also wickedly effective. Hendrickson’s macabre visuals and the Exorcist-esque sound design are profoundly unsettling. Honest to gosh, if this film does not give you the heebie-jeebies than you must have absolute nerves of steel. Still, it is not quite the pinnacle of perfection. Hendrickson often resorts to glaring contrivances for the sake of advancing his narrative. Frankly, there are a few “oh, c’mon” moments in there.

Still, we can forgive such micro shortcomings, because the macro whole is so blasted creepy. When the sisters and Hoffman start investigating the wreckage of their former home, detail after little detail will just set you on edge. Production designer Lisa B. Hammond and her team did terrific work crafting the distinctive look of the film. The cast is also uniformly consistent and credible. It should also be noted how much Tonya Skoog and Kate Alden’s Rachel Wade look like mother and daughter.

A lot of scary things have come out of Washington State, like Microsoft, so it is nice to see one that is frightening in a good way. Hendrickson’s film will truly get into your head and under your skin. Therefore highly recommended for horror fans, The Hollow One screens this Sunday (10/18) as part of the 2015 Toronto After Dark.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on October 16th, 2015 at 1:58pm.

By Joe Bendel. Ever since Silent Night, Bloody Night, it seems like there are more horror movies set during Christmas than Halloween. While there is something appealingly subversive about some Killer Kringles, the exploitation of a holy day remains less than edifying. Finally, eleven filmmakers (two working in tandem) put horror in its proper season—Halloween. By the way, that is sixteen days from today. All sorts of malevolent monsters and men come creeping out in the multi-director anthology film, Tales of Halloween, which opens this Friday in select theaters.

Adrienne Barbeau will guide us through the assorted stories and give us warm nostalgic feelings as the voice of the radio DJ working Halloween night. When she warns us this town goes nuts on Halloween, she is not kidding. The film starts with Dave Parker’s Sweet Tooth as a candy-themed warmed up. It is a pretty traditional bogey man-is-more-real-than-the-stupid-teenagers-using-him-to-scare-a-naïve-kid sort of story, but like many of the constituent tales, Parker’s execution is strong.

Frankly, The Night Billy Raised Hell might be Saw franchise veteran Darren Lynn Bousman’s best work to date. Again, a young trick-or-treater is led astray by older siblings. Peer pressured into pranking their rarely seen neighbor, Billy discovers the hard way he is a rather Mephistophelean gent. Alas, the lad is whisked off into a bacchanal of mischief and violence that will definitely leave a mark. Seriously, you have never seen Barry Bostwick this evil before, but it is worth the wait.

Adam Gierasch’s Trick easily boasts the most sinister twist of the entire film. It starts out reminiscent of Bruce McDonald’s Hellions, with its Hellspawn trick-or-treaters, until it isn’t. It’s the sort of story that depends on the reveal, but Gierasch totally pulls it off.

Finally, the bullies start to get their comeuppance in Paul Solet’s The Weak and the Wicked. Grace Phipps and her two sociopathic running mates have tormented their meek victim well past reason—until tonight. Cue the gruesome transformation effects. Again, this tale is relatively conventional, but Solet gives it a distinctly creepy vibe.

Perhaps the weakest link, Grim Grinning Ghost, comes from the film’s conceptual organizer, Axelle Carolyn. When a Halloween party guest is so freaked out by her host’s story, she bolts for home, where she will be completely alone and vulnerable. We pretty much know what will happen beat-by-beat, but at least fan favorite Lin Shaye gets to tell the spooky yarn.

In a twist, it is the trick-or-treaters that are in jeopardy in Lucky McKee’s Hansel & Gretel riff, Ding Dong. Let’s just say an unstable middle aged woman without children is a little too eager for Halloween each year. It is not the best in show, but it is certainly a weird little bauble.

Andrew Kasch & John Skipp’s This Mean War is a mere trifle about rival neighbors and their Halloween decorations. However, things really heat up with Mike Mendez’s Friday the 31^st. What starts out as an homage to old school slasher movies quickly goes totally nuts. There will be Claymation and delirious gore. It is a total treat.

The same is true of Ryan Schifrin’s The Ransom of Rusty Rex. Yes, as a transparent horror take on O. Henry, we know exactly where this is going, but Schifrin (son of Lalo, who scored the film) keeps the energy and attitude cranked way the heck up. The voice of John Landis gleefully declining their ransom demands is the icing on the cake.

Neil Marshall ends Halloween strong with Bad Seed, a sort of “Attack of the Killer Pumpkins” story that is considerably moodier and far less campy than it sounds. It also features the highest density of cult movie cameos, with Joe Dante getting the most screen time.

Anthologies are always uneven, but since it all happens in the same put-upon town on Halloween night, the constituent tales mostly share a consistent look. Frankly, the score card is pretty good: four really strong tales and maybe three or four that are mixed bags, but still have something interesting to offer. Recommended for horror fans, especially those who follow the assorted filmmakers and cast-members, Tales of Halloween opens this Friday (10/16) in select cities, including the Littleton Alamo Drafthouse in Colorado.

LFM GRADE: B

Posted on October 15th, 2015 at 2:45pm.

By Joe Bendel. It is both his cover and a euphemism for what he does. Ostensibly, he works for a neighborhood laundry service, but he specializes in removing “stains” from clients’ lives. He is a coolly dispassionate hitman, with support staff to help with the cleaning. However, he will have to seek professional help of a different sort when his recent victims start haunting him in Lee Chung’s The Laundryman, which screens during the 2015 Chicago International Film Festival.

His boss A-gu is the rainmaker and he does the dirty work. For years, this arrangement has worked for “No. 1, Chingtian Street.” Yes, that is what he is known as, to the few who know the contract killer (it is a long story that will be revealed in due time). He leads a rather solitary life, but that makes it easy for the stunningly beautiful A-gu to manipulate him. They go way back, in an ambiguous way. When he finds himself genuinely haunted, she refers him to nightclub psychic Lin Hsiang. Despite her hipster style, she is legitimate enough to see the abusive self-styled ladies’ man he just offed and the old couple he whacked before him. However, he has no idea who the silent young woman ghost is or was.

With Lin’s help, he will track down the customers who paid for their hits, in order to satisfy their curiosity and hopefully move them along into the spirit realm. Complicating matters, a sinister party seems to be trying to thwart them. The resulting chaos also attracts the attention of a soon to retire police inspector. It gets to the point where a hitman doesn’t know who to trust.

Although Laundryman starts out as a comedy, it gets real serious, real fast. Lee and Chen Yu-hsun have written a surprisingly complex tale of betrayal and dark secrets from the past, freely incorporating all kinds of genre elements cafeteria-style. It is a wild ride, but they keep us safely buckled into the roller coaster.

Rising star Joseph Chang Hsiao-chuan has the perfect brooding physicality for No. 1, Chingtian Street, not unlike his quietly ominous work in Soul. He also develops some radically different but equally credible chemistry with Sonia Sui Tang as the particularly fatal femme fatale A-gu and Wan Qian’s Lin, the increasingly sober and freaked out party girl psychic. These are not your standard genre film types, even before Lee thoroughly disrupts their worlds.

Lee fully capitalizes on the cinematic creepiness of A-gu’s laundry facility, settling into a zone best described as supernatural noir. Yet, despite the general moodiness (heightened by Yao Hung-i’s eerie cinematography), he maintains a vigorous pace. Frankly, The Laundryman is exactly the sort of foreign film that feels ripe for a wildly inferior Hollywood remake, but it would be especially daunting to follow in Sui’s compulsively scene-stealing footprints. Highly recommended as a first class supernatural mystery, The Laundryman screens Friday (10/16) and Tuesday (10/20), as part of this year’s Chicago International Film Festival.

LFM GRADE: A-

Posted on October 15th, 2015 at 2:44pm.