Horror We, How's By You? More Movies I've Watched.

I don't know why, but this afternoon while doing some long-neglected yard work, I thought I'd sit down and type some thoughts about some of the movies I've watched recently (or fairly recently, in some cases). Sometimes I like to process my thoughts about them because it allows me to think about story and decision-making without screwing up one of my own scripts (I'm brain-deep in thinking about Beasts of Burden lately and really want to clear the drawing board so I can finally get back to writing it). Also, I just like bullshitting about horror movies (or movies in general, although as you no doubt know I've been on a horror movie kick for some years now, with no end in sight, for good or bad). Anyway, here's some fairly random thoughts about some random movies.  

I'm going to go get something to eat now. Hope you enjoy the typing.

SOLOMON KANE (2009, Czech Republic, UK, France)

A perfectly fine period action-adventure, fantasy-horror movie based on the Robert E. Howard pulp character. It takes itself seriously but isn't puffed-chest pretentious, has a straightforward story with well-acted, if standard characters. There's decent if unmemorable, unspectacular action sequences. The cinematography and art direction are very nice, a lot of atmospheric landscapes, ravaged villages and majestic castles, beneath which are suitably claustrophobic tunnels and foul dungeons. There's one sequence that captures a real sense of horror, dread and violence befitting Howard's pulps, the rest of the movie is pretty basic rapier and flintlock stuff and a lot of stiff talk. There's a plot reveal that's isn't too much of a big deal, so you won't be too disappointed when you figure it out early on. I'd ding the movie for establishing a main villain but not having the character appear until the very end of the story. There's just no two ways about it, you're just not invested in a character mentioned a bunch of times but never shown. This leads to another sour note, where a very typical final boss CGI creature appears at the end in order to up the stakes. There are other ways to provide a solid action set piece to satisfyingly end a movie, especially when occult magic has been established. Think of the skeletons at the end of JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963), they up the ante without feeling like they came out of left field on the whim of a studio note. It didn't feel organic here, especially with the creature's poor design that doesn't mesh with the rest of the film. The movie turns into a video game during this scene, it feels tacked on. Still, overall I thought this was a solid movie, no more, no less. A movie movie, if you know what I mean. Nothing amazing, but a throwback to when they routinely made movies that you could follow, not feel like a schmuck for watching, and then pretty much forget you watched it. Maybe I'm giving it more credit than it deserves because it was nice to just sit back and watch a movie. It does have that going for it. Call it an example of Retro Fantasy. Actually, no, don't.

THE FOG (2005)

Wow. Just, wow. This was bad. Apparently it's regarded as a bad movie by a lot of folks who saw it. I'm so on their side. Because it's pretty damned bad. Textbook budgeted-horror bad. Cliched characters, idiotic dialogue, stupid ideas, everything bad kind of bad. THE FOG (1980) isn't my favorite John Carpenter horror film, but, wow, it does a hell of a lot more with way less than this fiasco. It's got atmosphere, it's creepy, it sets up a traditional ghost story, it's got memorable scenes, it's fun! Watch this to study how not to accomplish any of those things, how things can go very, very wrong, how not to write a script, how to be anti-good, in short, how to make a bad movie with resources at your fingertips. It's a case study. You don't have to watch the original to compare them, this thing is a perfectly terrible stand-alone test case. It can't even make fog creepy and atmospheric. How do you fuck up fog, for fuck's sake? The fog you see in real life outside your window is creepy as hell! How? Well, you go big, with giant swaths of fog done up in phony-looking, overblown CGI, slapped onto everything like gravy over bad meat. It looks fakey as hell and cuts the legs out of almost every scene it's used in. The rest of this movie is a bingo card of shitty, formulaic horror tropes, bad screenwriting, slick but poor direction, lousy characters and terrible dialogue. The ending is especially embarrassing. All in all, a slick, sorry, synthetic piece of junk. There is some entertainment value in it, if you like to laugh at cinematic train wrecks. Woof.

MOUNT CHIAK (2023, South Korea)

Some friends go to a cabin on a mountain to make videos of themselves riding mountain bikes. A forgettable mix of found footage and traditional filmmaking, with some very annoying characters going through some pretty basic Evil Dead-type possession stuff. I had to look it up to remember anything about the movie, which is usually a bad sign.

THE LIGHTHOUSE (2019, US/Canada)

I'm late to this game, I'm assuming a lot of you folks already saw this one. I liked it quite a bit. The acting, the visuals, the atmosphere, the tension, the discomfort, the strangeness, the confusion, the craziness. Pretty much what I was hoping for, and exactly what I got. I can see people not liking this, or even hating it, it's an experience more than a story, although there's enough story for me in the characters and their relationship and unfolding madness. Not all movies have to be plot-heavy or laid out in neat steps. As long as I am aware of where my footing is, or isn't, even, if that makes sense, I can lock in and enjoy the ride. I have to say I've forgotten all the metaphorical stuff – that is, any of it that I actually understood – but that's okay. I enjoyed the experience, and will likely watch it again someday.

SHIN KAMEN RIDER (2023, Japan)

It felt like four episodes of a Kamen Rider series, updated with a lot more blood and craziness and some better, if still iffy, special effects. Which was all I really wanted out of it. Sure, you can pick it apart, if you want to. It was some Kamen Rider guys fighting weirdos in goofy costumes. If anything, the costumes could have been goofier. I enjoyed it.

SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIME BOWL-O-RAMA (1988)

How the hell have I not seen this cable TV favorite until now? I feel like every nerd my age has seen this decades ago. All I knew about it going in was that it starred scream queens Linnea Quigly, Brinke Stevens and Michelle Bauer, and that there's be female nudity and maybe sexual situations. I didn't know it was directed by David DeCoteau, otherwise I might have made it to the grave without seeing it. He's made a few films I've turned off (THE KILLER EYE, 1999) or sat through but mostly ignored (DREAMANIAC 1986 , SHRIEKER, 1998), and I tend to watch almost everything with my full attention, no matter how bad a movie is. DeCoteau is known mostly for churning it out and he's on my cinematic no-fly list. This was early in his career, and while it's stupid and terrible, it's perfectly acceptable stupid and terrible. It isn't boring terrible. But, still, it's pretty stupid. And terrible. It's also known as THE IMP, because there's a shitty imp puppet in it. That was a surprise. He's the villain! I also didn't know the Slime Bowl-O-Rama was just a regular bowling alley that the characters break into (it's too stupid to go into). For decades I thought it was some kind of sport or fighting event in another dimension or world or something. Which involved female nudity and maybe sexual situations. Movies like this wouldn't have been as popular as they were if pornography had been easy to access back in the day. Just imagine.

BROADCAST DEAD (2022)

Terrorists take over a Hong Kong broadcasting station to accomplish something and they accidentally release a canister of their zombie-making crap. Do I have to tell you what happens? It all takes place inside the broadcasting building. Our hero is hotshot filmmaker Samuel Leong, playing hotshot filmmaker Samuel Leong, who kicks zombie and terrorist ass and saves the day. I don't know who the hell Samuel Leong is and I'm not looking him up. This is a miserable vanity project with bad acting, terrible dialogue, rotten zombie makeup, crappy ass-kicking action, piss-poor gore – just bad, bad, horrible everything. It was apparently made in the United States. Is that interesting? Who cares, I'm not looking this movie up again, my eyes have suffered enough, fuck it, this is a film not worth knowing anything about. An hour and seventeen minutes I threw away like an idiot, now I'm spending more time to warn you to stay away from this “movie”. It's not even good for a laugh. Steer clear.

BECOMING (2020)

A demonic possession story, but not the typical religion-based bit with the floating bed and the junk flying across the room and the vomiting. It has some ideas (one really interesting one concerning generational domestic violence, which I thought could have been better ingrained) and it has ambition. There's okay character work and decent enough acting, but I didn't take to the male lead. Admittedly, that's a personal thing, sometimes we just don't click with an actor -- but I think if the role was better written, it would have helped a lot. There's also some real tension and bits of effective weirdness here and there, especially in the early set up scenes while our bearings are still off and we're still wondering about what's actually going on. But things wobble badly in the second act, the script grasping at plot straws and things feeling very choppy, both story and storytelling-wise. Information is hidden from characters in unsatisfying ways plot payoffs that feel necessary don't appear, things don't feel focused enough. It's a somewhat difficult concept that needs careful, creative attention to keep the plate spinning, and while there are some effective moments and details, overall it just kind of stumbles along, ultimately becoming very frustrating as characters make bad horror movie decisions so the inevitable violence can kick in.

PRETERNATURAL (2016, UK)

Two filmmaking friends are working on a found footage horror spoof, but events take a turn and they find themselves in a film dictated by a script they didn't write. The concept is interesting, and it started fairly well, but it never actively engages with itself, it doesn't take advantage of the concept. There's a few laughs in the beginning as the partners run auditions and start working on the film (which itself feels unfocused). There's a few scenes towards the end, after things go pear-shaped for the characters, that almost create some atmosphere. But the comedy never breaks out, and neither does the found footage horror spoof or the “real” horror story. There's a lot of walking in the woods, but nothing really funny or scary comes of it. There's a half-baked, lackadaisical quality to the movie. I kept waiting for it to get into gear, but it just puttered along until it sputtered out.

ROB ZOMBIE'S HALLOWEEN (2017)

I tried. I really tried. I went in with my eyes wide open, ready and hoping to be pleasantly surprised. But I fucking hated it. It's a loud, stupid, crass and boring slog that misfires on every level. Twenty pounds of Rob Zombie tropes, fanboy nostalgia, terrible characters and Chiller Convention cameos shoved into a five pound bag. It keeps the basic plot, the original Shape design and a lot of the original soundtrack, keeping everything familiar, while adding nothing new of value whatsoever. Michael Myers is a hulk, everyone has a foul mouth and the budget allowed for a multiple 70's hit songs to establish the period. All surface, all shit-stained sheen. Personally, I could give a shit about Michael Myers' childhood (especially if it's a typical Rob Zombie freakshow childhood), so the first, extended act just sits there like I'm babysitting a dirty kid trying to get a rise out of me by saying “fuck” over and over. It's a tedious stretch, followed by adult Michael's by-the-book assault on a batch of terribly underdeveloped characters. Zombie can't stretch an inch in service of the characters, dialogue or direction. All he does is ratchet up the noise, violence and body count. I liked Brad Dourif, but his character barely registers. None of the characters make a dent, not even Malcolm McDowall's Dr. Loomis, which is a shame. It's an inhuman film about an inhuman killer. It's all about Extreme Michael Myers. The movie huffs and puffs to blow your house in, to no effect other than boredom. An empty, exhausting experience.

VERONICA (2017, Spain)

Apparently there's some arguments in some horror circles about this film, because it was hyped as incredibly scary, which led to a lot of underrating and overrating and all that. I missed all that “controversy”, I just stumbled over it and watched it and thought it was pretty good. It's not very scary, but I don't really care about horror movies being scary or not if they're good. And like I said, I thought this was pretty good. Nothing earth-shattering, but a good enough reason to sit in front of a screen for an hour and change. Good characters, good imagery, some stylish filmmaking, some creepy stuff, an overall good atmosphere of dread, helplessness and doom. Catholics might find it creepier than I did, that's an angle to a lot of religious-themed horror films I've have never been able to understand, because as far as I can remember, I've never been a believer, and I've never absorbed any of the teachings from Hebrew school (which I got thrown out of) or through my religious relatives or heritage. How effective religious-themed horror films can be to people who are religious, or were brought up to be religious, is something that I can only read about. When I was a kid, a lot of my friends went to Catholic school on Staten Island, they told me stories, but the actual, palpable fear of damnation and devils and all that could never translate. So, it might be scarier for some people. Overall, I think it's worth seeing. It's really not that scary.

BEYOND THE INFINITE TWO MINUTES (2020, Japan)

I enjoyed this very cute, fun and winning movie that feels like it was made for TV. I'm too tired to look up if it was actually made for TV. Does it matter? It doesn't, trust me. Anyway: It's a comedic science-fiction story that involves a restaurant television screen that suddenly begins transmitting images from the near-future. What seems like a flat Twilight Zone scenario quickly turns into a funny, clever and complicated story when the characters start interacting with their future selves through the TV and a computer that's in the apartment of the restaurant's owner. There's also romantic subplot. That's all I'll say about the plot, you should watch it and let it unfold in real time. A nice, little treat featuring some creative storytelling.

THE MONSTER PROJECT (2017)

A found footage movie that has more ambition than most but mostly fails in the execution. The high concept: filmmaker jerk gathers several filmmaker friends (who he's not on very good terms with) to interview three people who have responded to an ad looking for “real monsters”. These people include a vampire, a young woman possessed by a demon, and a shape-shifting skinwalker. The concept feels forced and the set up pretty clumsy. There's an attempt at some character work to ground things, but it's bogged down in the usual character arguments, along with some choppy romantic drama and a character's backstory of drug addiction that doesn't really add anything to the movie in a satisfying way. We're not sure who our focal character is during the set-up, or why we're not moving things forward once the second act is laid out, there's a coyness or an ineptitude to the proceedings which helps tip off the major plot twist at the end. The conceptual twist – that monsters are real – is pretty much telegraphed by the fact that you're watching something called THE MONSTER PROJECT, and there's monsters on the poster.

So, yeah, unlike most found footage films, we get some actual monsters, and they don't skimp on their appearances. There's a lot of monster action happening towards the end. There's a good central location for the action, a dilapidated and maze-like old house that allows the characters to scream and run through doors, stairways, holes in walls and basement archways as the monsters chase them around.

As the monsters reveal themselves and the shenanigans come into play, it almost comes off as a found footage ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, behind every corner or entrance way pops up a werewolf, a vampire or a demon, everyone screams and yells and runs or fights, people start getting turned into monsters and they start popping up – it gets to a point where it's hard to take things seriously. The only surprise on hand is the practical effects work, which is fun and overall very well-utilized. The skinwalker werewolf adds a lot of visual oomph to the usual shaky night-cam footage stuff. The CGI effects, used mainly for the demonic entity, are a lot less impressive (also, the demon being a long-haired Sadako-type entity wearing white, with the young woman being Japanese-American, is derivative to the point of distraction).

I liked that they tried to do a big spook show rather than just have people on camera reacting to cold spots and shadows. There's some fun running around and fighting stuff here and there, although too often things get confusing when things go into shaky, confuso-camera mode. There's also some actual stuntwork done while the cameras keeps rolling that's fairly impressive. A for effort on all that. But on the whole, it's just way too much of the usual found footage stuff. The script doesn't build a decent scaffold to support its goofy premise. There's cardboard characters, poor acting and terrible dialogue. It's full of dumb situations and actions. And there's just too many empty scenes that go on for too long in order to pad out the running time, a condition that plagues the found footage subgenre. Basically, it just fails on almost every level to be convincing. Your werewolf shouldn't be more believable than your characters and storyline.

THE LAPLACE DEMON (2017, Italy)

An entertaining and oddball labor of love, about a group of people invited to a mysterious scientist's island home to discuss his research findings. If that sounds like a throwback, classic Old Dark House sort of plot, it's intentional, and reflected in the movie's style – shot in black and white on greenscreen, with stylized, shadowy sets and locations created in CGI. This is a realized world, a filmic world, with touches of film noir, Val Lewton, classic Universal horror films and other stuff I'm sure I'm unaware of. The actual plot involves a theory of causal determination as postulated by Pierre-Simon Laplace, who stated that “An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past could be present before its eyes”. Basically, our characters are in the thrall of a man who believes he has figured out every move they will make, and predict every event that will play out as he puts them in danger. It's more science-fiction mystery than horror, if you wanted to argue the point, but there is a horror element there, in the presentation and the way the “And Then There Were None” angle is played out. I enjoyed it.

DIGGING UP THE MARROW (2014)

I thought HATCHET was lousy, and I thought HATCHET 2 was awful. Which is why I avoided DIGGING UP THE MARROW and anything that had Adam Green's name on it. It was recommended to me recently so I decided to give it a shot. The high concept involves Adam Green playing himself, a successful genre filmmaker and horror geek who loves monsters. When someone sends him information inferring the existence of real, actual, factual monsters existing (near where he lives in California, most fortunately), Green and his real-life filmmaking partner decides to follow up on this, interviewing the man and going on a search for the monsters. Basically, the movie's a fake documentary/found-footage movie where the footage is actually never lost, and the documentary never feels real. A lot of the movie rests on Green, as character, actor and writer. That's pretty much why the movie fails on every level. As a fake documentary, it mixes reality and fiction well enough in the opening scenes, shot at horror conventions and featuring interviews with industry professionals, some of whom are well-known in horror fandom. This illusion is strained by Adam Green's twitchy, awkward acting (as himself), and it's shattered when we meet the mysterious man who says he has proof of monsters being real. This character is played by Ray Wise, the well-known, easily-recognizable actor from TWIN PEAKS and ROBOCOP (and over 200 other credits!), and while he's good in the role, we're always aware that it's a role. This kills the film's high concept right off the bat. There's no going back from it. I have no idea why Green cast a recognizable actor as a fictional character in a fake documentary, especially when everyone else in the movie is playing themselves. Kane Hodder, Mick Garris, Tom Holland and Don Coscarelli appear as themselves in the movie, as does Green's wife and associates. It's a fatal, dunderheaded decision, and not the only one. Once the plot begins rolling, the movie becomes repetitive, dull and obvious. There are no surprises. The initial concept is fine, but it sinks into mediocrity and lands at the bottom of the dregs.

Green centers himself and that's another bad idea, because he's a lousy actor, and becomes more and more irritating as the usual found footage tropes are trotted out. Green is obviously a fan, that's part of the movie's spine, and why his character keeps digging at this fictional monster story. But he does nothing to upend or play with the horror tropes or the found footage cliches. He's digging up extremely familiar ground, to no great effect. There are some fun scenes at the horror conventions, but you can see that sort of stuff on Youtube. There are some fun creature designs, seen most effectively as actual Alex Pardee artwork, but used to very little effect in actual scenes as the movie rushes through a few jump scares (and ends on a few ridiculous notes). It's dull, incredibly unsatisfying and surprisingly lazy, made the more surprising because Green wears his horror nerdiness on his sleeve, and has access to resources that the average found footage filmmaker could only wet-dream about. But all you get is a lot of talking around the same plot points and a lot walking around the same woods, just like most every other film of this type.

Unlike most of those films, though, this one's true subject is the filmmaker himself. Only not in an interesting, reflective way, like how something like BUTTERFLY KISSES (2018) focuses on it's main character. Marrow's objective is much more reductive and self-indulgent. It's really all about Adam Green. And if you watch the film, you can't help but realize that Adam Green is very into Adam Green. Maybe he's dealing with some inadequacy issues, maybe a bout with authorial anxiety, his constant need to remind the viewer that he's Adam Green, the creative genius behind Hatchet, Frozen and a TV series I forgot the name of. I've never seen such a self-indulgent, self-promoting horror movie. Most of the cast wears production t-shirts from Green's projects, there are posters for his movies all over the place, characters constantly drop forced mentions of his films and accomplishments, we get to see him at conventions signing autographs for his fans, and he gives himself most of the dialog and screen time. There's some feeble attempts to examine his character flaws, but they boil down to his being a headstrong dreamer rather than anything interesting (again, see how Butterfly Kisses handles its main character of director Gavin York, as well as the two other directors involved). We mostly get to hear him talk, plug his work, and see his wonderful life, wife, car, house and fans. It's a little much. It's actually a lot much, especially if you didn't like HATCHET and hated HATCHET 2. Both were easier to stomach than DIGGING UP THE MARROW, an awful vanity project posing as a horror movie.

CLOWN (2014)

A busy father puts on a vintage clown outfit, wig and nose in order to entertain at his son's birthday party. He finds he can't remove the outfit, even the nose is stuck to his skin and the wig won't come off. The suit starts to affect his behavior and even begins to change him, to the point where he becomes a menace to local children. There's a folkloric background to this high concept which doesn't really work, but it slides by is at least an attempt to kick things up beyond “guy in clown suit kills people”. Sound kinda promising, right? I say that as someone who hates and avoids killer clown movies (as opposed to Killer Klowns). But this was recommended, and I gave it a shot, and for about twenty minutes I thought it was going to work out. It doesn't waste much time to set up the silly conceit and get weird. But it doesn't get weird enough. And what could have made for an insane black comedy or an outright horrorshow – or both, if the filmmakers were really on their game – turns into nothing much at all. Unfortunately, it shoots for the middle, with a plodding pace and a dull, lifeless approach that just deflates the entire thing like a leaking balloon. The characters are threadbare, too many stupid decisions are made, and the child actors make you wish they'd be knocked off and eaten quickly. There's gore, but like the movie itself, it just kind of lays there. There's no wit, style or tension. It's not funny or horrifying. It needed a shot of oddball adrenaline, real thrills, kills and laughs. How do you fuck up a movie about a guy possessed by an ancient demon clown that kills and eats children? The movie starts off on the right foot, slips on a banana peel and never gets back up.

LASERBLAST (1978)

I saw this in the theater as a kid, and always meant to revisit it to see how bad it actually is. It's bad! But it's bad in an approachable way, a bad comfort movie that passes the time and offers some laughs. The plot is simple (outcast finds alien laser gun, uses it to get back at those that mistreated him, laser gun changes him, blah blah blah) the execution simple-minded (slow, aimless pacing, cartoon characterization, point and shoot direction, lots of padding, bad comedy relief). It's one of those movies that feels so awkward that you wonder if there's an actual script. The effects are where this janky thing has some hold on nerds like me. Like a lot of B-movie fans I'm attracted to and charmed by anything that features stop-motion animation, so Dave Allen's lizard space men are a highlight of this lowlife movie (they're responsible for the laser gun being left in the desert for our anti-hero to find). Like a lot of 70's crap they're some Psychotronic footnotes to this thing, Keenan Wynn and Roddy McDowell are the marquee stars who wander through this dreck for a few short minutes and a quick paycheck. Cheryl Smith is the female lead with nothing to do, and I have a small crush on this sad lady who died fairly young, partially owing to complications of heroin addiction. It's the debut appearance in a movie by perennial geek character actor (and real-life creep) Eddie Deezen. And it's the first pairing of Dave Allen and Charles Band (I didn't remember Band made this clumsy quickie). A lot of things blow up, a lot of explosions are shown multiple times to excite thirteen-year old kids. Even as a thirteen-year old kid I knew this was terrible, but I have a soft spot for this kind of terrible. It isn't very long. There's a cheap dig at Star Wars. It's of it's time. Your move.

HAUNT (2019)

A Halloween haunted attraction premise that defies logic to the point of negatively affecting the entire film, it's not the worst thing you'll ever see but it's nowhere near as clever or fun as the filmmakers think it is. You have to believe the age-old pulp/comic book trope of villains spending ridiculous amounts of time and money to victimize people for no real reason. And without local authorities or citizens noticing that someone's building an intricate murder factory on the outskirts of town. The usual contrived group of contrived victims argue and banter in a contrived manner before they make their contrived way into the contrived house of horrors, where they're picked off in contrived ways. By contrived masked killers, of course. If you yell at the characters in horror movies not to do certain things – make sure the attacker is dead, don't drop your weapons, don't go in there, don't do the dumb shit you're about to do, etc – you'll go hoarse during this one. By and large it's an exercise in admittedly decent gore effects, but the murders are forced, in some cases to the point of lessening their overall effect. The killers seem to border on a supernatural existence, there's one strange aspect to them that I won't spoil, but they act like base, if perverse, criminals, with largely mundane motivations (and to make the movie possible). So the need for bizarre make-up designs for their faces seems to just be indiscriminately throwing more stuff into the soup. Like in so many other modern horror movies, they make for better action figures than characters. You could do a lot worse than watching this dopey thing, it's competently manufactured, if not competently realized. You could also do a lot better, though.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010)

People like to say remakes are unnecessary, as if any movie is really necessary. Some folks also take remakes as heresy, and clutch their pearls at anyone or anything that might bring down the legacy of their beloved favorite movies. That urge to be outraged can extend to defending the original filmmakers, the original actors, the people in the monster makeup, the composers, the person who took their goddamned tickets at the theater they first saw the movie at. I get it, to a point. But let's be real about it. Everything about a horror franchise is exploitative, mutable and up for grabs. It's all business. When a good film is made it's a miracle, when a sequel or remake is made of it it's a bigger miracle. Even a more personal horror film like Hellraiser is ultimately a cog in the great wheel. I'm not a Wes Craven fan, I like some of his movies, but overall I think his work is calculated and unfocused. His best is scary, brutal and intriguing, his worst clumsy, dull and dumbfounding. I like A Nightmare on Elm Street a lot, although it's effect has weakened a lot over the years, it's an inventive,original and involving film. It's also scary. I don't demand a horror film be scary, but one of the most tense experiences I ever had in a movie theater was seeing Nightmare in the theater. I'm an easy scare but this was beyond the pale, because the dream logic and audience manipulation meant you didn't know where the hell anything was going. There was no safety net, no railings, anything could happen at any time, and the villain had access to his victims in a way no other screen monster had up until that time. The ride is so good you don't notice the ending is terrible until a few minutes after you get off the rollercoaster. It's full of surprises, and characters you care about, both essential to a good film, both missing from the majority of attempts. And it spawned a more interesting franchise than the average hamburger helper that Hollywood churns out to exploit a property. And it has a remake. The reason I'm talking so much about the original is because this movie utterly pales in comparison. I'm not enough of a purist or ding-dong to get worked up about it disgracing the original movie, or affronting Wes Craven's legacy, or insulting Robert Englund. This is Hollywood, these are movies made to make money, calm down, kids. A bad remake or sequel doesn't tarnish the original film. That being said, the remake is a terrible movie, both as a remake and as a film standing on its own merits. I have a feeling it might play well for people who never saw the original, but as it's own thing it's a mess. As a remake, it rides piggy-back on the original, taking so much from it and adding nothing interesting or original. It's incredibly tepid. It lacks originality, creativity, surprises, characters to care about (I can't even remember them). It reeks of studio notes and cowardice. It falls back on additional backstory and explanations for the franchise fans and tries to trick those fans with a few weak swerves from the source material. These additions and retcons opens the movie up to logic gaps so obvious a ten-year old would have questions. Like some of the subsequent sequels, the remake tries to cover up the Freddy Krueger incident, and they do a terrible job of it, with all the high school characters losing their memories and blocking out their childhoods. I was waiting for an explanation, that Clancy Brown's character or someone had hypnotized the children to forget what happened to them. That would have been stupid as heck, but what they do is even stupider. On top of that, the idea that Krueger's stomping grounds were left unexplored (let alone intact) by citizens and authorities is exasperating. There's a lot of dumb moves in the movie. Krueger himself is a weird pastiche of old and new. He's basically the same, he quips, only he quips slowly and more quietly. I don't really care that Englund was replaced, it's a mug's game to step into a role that is so well defined by a single actor, but, again, this is Hollywood. This is how you get Bela Lugosi in the Frankenstein's Monster getup (but at least FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN is fun). The remake feels lost, insecure and indecisive in the shadow of the original. The original film was thrilling, shocking and a lot of fun. It was a theme park ride. This thing is a carny ride that just goes through the motions. The people who built it are fans, but they don't understand what makes the theme park rides spark. In their attempt to emulate them, they're confined by executives and their own fan impulses. It's just a bad movie, ignore it if you can. And if you do watch it, you'll probably forget it. It doesn't affect the original in any way unless you let it.

ELOISE (2016)

Eloise is the name of a real institution and asylum in Michigan, which, like any decent old asylum has a reputation for being haunted. This movie is about four people who break into the abandoned asylum for reasons that are unrealistic and illogical. There are many reasons for why protagonists find themselves trapped in some horrible old house or castle or insane asylum so that a horror movie can take place. This is one of the stupidest kick-offs I've seen. Things never get any better. Big surprise, the asylum has terrible secrets and the main characters have terrible secrets. Even the screenplay has a terrible secret, which is revealed early on in the movie: it stinks. Awful characters doing and saying stupid things, excessive plot-hammering, ridiculous set pieces and kills, time travel mishegas, multiple prologues and epilogues, etc. A thick wad of nothing you can easily avoid. Your life will be all the better for it.

THE LONG WALK (2019, Laos)

A unique slow-burn, contemplative ghost story that I thought was terrific. There's a lot of visual information and texture here, a lot to take in and a lot to think about as the story moves forward (in it's own way). There's a science-fiction angle as well, involving moving through time, and the film takes place in the near-future. But it's not far-flung and it doesn't involve anything super futuristic or exotic as far as the SF elements go, it's generally recognizable as our world, and certainly recognizable in terms of human frailty, grief and regret. I would like to watch this again someday. Recommended.