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The House of the Devil (2009)
Does what it sets out to do
A comely cash-strapped college student (Jocelyn Donahue) agrees to do a few hours of house-sitting for a creepy couple (Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov) on the night of an eclipse of the moon. That is the simple set-up in this inspired imitation of an 80s "satanic panic" horror flick.
This film works better understanding that it essentially strives to reproduce, in a strictly un self-aware manner, the best qualities of 80s horror films along with their quaint quirks and rough edges. The clothing, technology and music all tip you off that it's set in the early 80s. Fortunately, West cleverly avoids many of the horror movie clichés that that era passed down to us, while celebrating the overall style. Light on jump-scares, the horror mostly involves the building dread of a young woman in a strange house coming to realize that she's not there alone.
House of the Devil (even the title sounds like an 80s film) is it's own film, without any overt inspirations, save for maybe Rosemary's Baby. If this film had come out in the 80s, it no doubt would have spawned a few knock-offs- that's how well it was crafted.
There are some aspects that I could count as flaws if I weren't so inclined to forgive them as homage. There is a miraculous astronomical event that doesn't seem exactly necessary. There are a couple of incidents of questionable logic (why would our scream queen not be more suspicious, what would the antagonists have done if she hadn't ordered pizza, etcetera). This film looks like it's set in the late 70s-early 80s, but the real peak of the satanic panic would be several years off. If it really were made in the 80s, I suppose the scream queen heroine would be played by Jessica Harper or Jill Schoelen and Tom Noonan's role by Christopher Lee.
So if you are planning a 80s horror film fest for your friends, why not toss House of the Devil into the mix to see if anyone is fooled?
Star Trek Continues: Fairest of Them All (2014)
This episode couldn't be better
The Star Trek Continues endeavor is like a dream. This sequel to Mirror Mirror truly feels like what TOS would have done with it and every aspect of the mimic production seems to be clicking into place with this episode. The primary actors are delivering their lines more convincingly and let's face it, that's most of what their job is. With Spock's more prominent role in Fairest of Them All, Todd Haberkorn did a pretty good job of stepping into his shoes while distinguishing himself from Nimoy. On the plus side he gives the character more of a sage-like feeling, but on the down side he's a bit too restrained, clearly lacking Nimoy's brilliant expressiveness in conveying Spock's inner struggle. Vic Micnogna is channeling William Shatner beautifully and you can just imagine how much fun this is for him. Scotty is working out fine and the recasting of McCoy won't hurt. Grant Imahara seems to be giving a decent performance.
The writing, the direction, the sets and costumes: everything is firing on all cylinders, here. Honestly, watching this I felt kind of like I was in a cool dream about watching a lost TOS episode and I can't wait to see what they'll do to top themselves. Bring on the Gorns!
American Horror Story: Continuum (2013)
Fizzle....
Feh. This show has taken every wrong turn imaginable in the last couple episodes. Kit, Alma and Grace we find living in domestic tranquility with no attempt to bridge that with the previous episode. Then, after Alma encourages Kit to pay more attention to Grace, she suddenly develops an insatiable desire to chop her up with an ax. I guess, in the mind of the writer, everyone is a potential ax-murderer.
Lana on a book tour for her smash success book, finds herself taunted by visions of her serial- killer rapist baby-daddy and her lover, who left Lana to rot and who was killed by said serial killer, and yet in Lana's mind they are now in league because she feels soooo guilty about embellishing her book and covering up her lover's homosexuality (which they were covering up when they were together, anyway, because they didn't want to commit career-suicide by outing themselves. Duh!). Yeah, right. And she's hallucinating all this, so I guess she really was nuts all along.
Jude imagines the new inmate as the angel of death coming to get her, but no, another hallucination. While she's also hallucinated that the last 3-4 years didn't happen. Pointless filler.
Alma is shipped off to the now extremely infamous Briarcliff, and Kit has nothing to say about it. And then she just dies of natural causes (unless we learn otherwise in the last episode). Naturally, when Kit is there as a visitor, he gets to walk around among all the inmates so he finds Jude sitting at the jukebox.
Pepper is unceremoniously killed off off-screen, the writers obviously too bored with it all to bother tying loose ends, anymore. And the Santa killers fate is similarly left to the imagination. All we know is that he continued a killing spree of nuns around the country and is the topic of Lana's next book. Pfft.
Another scene with neo-Bloodyface expositing his hatred of his mother. I know! This is not new information! Are we to be surprised that he intends to kill her, or has that point been driven home in every episode since he's appeared? No, it's just more padding.
The word for it is FUBAR. Next weeks episode will either be the greatest comeback in television history, fitting all the wildly disparate pieces together, or the least necessary season finale in television history.
American Horror Story: Spilt Milk (2013)
Not what I was expecting....
Season 2 of American Horror Story established itself with me as classic horror television as early as the first episode. I thought the dangerously swerving "out there" attitude of the scripting was just what was called for. To me, a horror story shouldn't be concerned with a basis in the rational world, like a documentary or even science fiction. That's what has me a little let down with this (and, I expect, the last) episode. Instead of a scene of fiery conflagration and the full expression of horror I expected for the climactic episodes, it's like all of the basic subplots and characters are being carefully filed away. Even in the previous episode, I wondered at the quiet, dignified end of Dr. Arden, when traditionally only the most spectacularly gruesome of deaths are reserved for evil mad scientists. It seems like the obvious choice would have been for him to be torn limb from limb by his monstrous creations. And Sister Mary Eunice's end seemed similarly inappropriate to the build-up of her sub-plot. I never would have guessed that Thredson, after all the gore and mayhem left in his wake as Bloody Face, would end up being shot in the back while enjoying a martini at home. That never happens to serial killers in horror movies! Lana Winters has being trying to escape from the asylum since the first episode. So naturally, she drives off in a taxi after being let out the front door by a nun (who scarcely even appeared in the show). This episode was the definition of anticlimactic, to me, considering what went before it. So I can only give it a six. I wish I could hope for a redeeming explosion of carnage in the final episode. But what is there really left to do? This might just as well have been the concluding episode.
And what's with the breast-feeding thing? Is that horror or does it just sort of fall under the heading of TMI. I vote TMI.
Ghost Voyage (2008)
Unseaworthy.
"You don't have a clue what's going on here, do you?" our heroine is heard to ask at one point during this floating "Sci Fi Original" slapped-together crap of a movie. A better question is, who cares? Nine strangers wake up aboard a colossal cargo ship in stormy seas finding no one else aboard but an Asian steward who prepares them for their strange voyage with a list of ship "rules". Naturally, we soon see the price of transgression as each thinly-drawn passenger in their own own way steps over the line and is stalked by seemingly random ghosties (all without being properly introduced). By the time the purpose of all this familiar and predictable spectral terror has been revealed the viewer should be struggling mightily not to start surfing from this aquatic embarrassment to another channel.
The eerie interiors are the best part of this movie for me, though a lot of them look more like they belong to a submarine than a cargo ship. The plot is as old as seafaring history and the dialog could have been written in an internet chat room. The characters aren't clearly motivated for a second and every other actor is saddled with an atrocious accent for no apparent reason. The performances range from listless to laughable but that's hardly worth mentioning since these actors have clearly been punished enough by having to read those horrifically infantile lines.
A few trolls might take some amusement from the sheer amateur ineptitude of this movie but I can't honestly recommend it to horror enthusiasts or even horror-at-sea completests. DIVE DIVE DIVE!