D Is For Denoument

Hello friends!

Today's Blogging A to Z Challenge Post is a goodbye. CinemaBeach, the indie web publication for which I have written reviews for some time is no more. Perhaps it's for the best, because in the last few months I hadn't been contributing as much as I'd like to thanks to my soul-eating course load at school.

But nevertheless, I'd like to thank everybody who supported the site, it means a lot to me and the Southern California movie blogging community. Even if you hate what we have to say, it's always a great thrill to find out that somebody is reading work that you produced right out of your brain.

It's a trip.

Anyway, now begins the fun part! Organizing!

I'm moving all of my old CinemaBeach posts onto this blog. For those of you who have been following me for some time, there's not gonna be much new for you here unless you're a big fan of alternative formatting. But if you haven't had a chance to read some of my more professional, less personal (but still awesome) reviews, here's a handy dandy link list for you!

'100 Bloody Acres' Is Gory, Clever, and Kind of Adorable

'Hatchet III' Is Gory, Gorier, and Goriest

Killer Waves: Part II - A New Beginning

The Slash Register - Slumber Party Massacre II

'V/H/S 2' Is A Severed Head and Shoulders Above Its Predecessor

Cinema Du Mort: Twitch of the Death Nerve

'The Act of Killing' Fails to Cut Deep

'Blue Jasmine' Offers Questions But No Answers

'In A World...' Will Have You In Stitches

The 10 Most Well-Used Songs In Horror Movies

The Slash Register - Prom Night IV: Deliver Us From Evil

'Escape From Tomorrow' Serves Up Nostalgia and Melts Your Brain

Brennan's Five Scariest Movies For Halloween

'Here Comes the Devil' Intrigues But Doesn't Possess

Brennan's Best (And Worst) Horror Films of 2013

'Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones' Isn't As Stupid As It Looks

I'm really gonna miss writing for CinemaBeach, but at least we'll always have the memories, right? And the word count.

Word Count: 346

CinemaBeach: And A Scary New Year

My CinemaBeach roundup of the best and worst in horror in 2013 is up! Check it out!

This is but a taste test for my massive end-of-the-year roundup that I'll be posting on New Year's Eve, covering topics all over entertainment including television and music and everything you've ever wanted. I'm very excited and you should be too.

In the meantime, here is this! Yay!

As the year draws to a close, what else is a self-respecting horror blogger to do than create a list of their favorite genre films of 2013? Unfortunately for many, mainstream horror was an absolute bust with only one bland wide release horror film (the Carrie remake) in the whole of October. I’d at least prefer two bland wide release horror films, thank you very much.

But fortunately for us here at CinemaBeach, the indie world has been filled with vibrant and exciting films, both excellent and terrible. With a couple wide release films thrown in for kicks, here’s the Five Best and Worst Horror Films of 2013!

THE BEST

#5 Stoker (dir. Park Chan-wook)

Although Stoker‘s narrative was flimsy at best, South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s first English language film is filled to the brim with his remarkable visual style. Under his strong guiding hand, Stoker is a mini masterpiece of atmospherics.

Read my original review here.

#4 V/H/S 2 (dir. Simon Barrett, Jason Eisener, Gareth Evans, Timo Tjahjanto, Edúardo Sanchez, Adam Wingard)

Although it still favored jump scares over true horror, V/H/S 2 is an adrenaline-fueled found footage nightmare anchored by Gareth Evans’ 45 minute demonic cult opus “Safe Haven.”

Read my original CinemaBeach review here.

#3 The Conjuring (dir. James Wan)

James Wan’s style is utterly derivative but he pulls from so many sources of such quality that this film becomes something new and exciting in and of itself. And the fact that he’s bringing classic haunted house movies to modern audiences in a big (and mostly terrifying way) is a great benefit to the horror community.

Read my original review here.

#2 100 Bloody Acres (dir. Cameron & Colin Cairnes)

This Aussie flick is simultaneously a loving sendup of the backwoods torture genre and a hilarious horror flick that derives as many laughs from the characters as the buckets of blood.

Read my original CinemaBeach review here.

#1 You’re Next (dir. Adam Wingard)

You’re Next is the film that restored my faith in modern horror. Simultaneously terrifying and sharply satirical, this nostalgic slasher revenge home invasion flick doubles as a biting family comedy and features one of the most memorable Final Girls of the form.

Read my original review here.

WORST

#5 All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (dir. Jonathan Levine)

One of the most hotly anticipated slashers of 2013, Mandy Lane had been struggling to get released since 2006. Unfortunately it turns out that the reason it wasn’t being distributed is a good one. It’s an OK slasher throwback, but it is underwhelmingly written, performed, and acted.

Read my original review here.

#4 The Purge (dir. James DeMonaco)

Another of the biggest disappointments of the year, The Purge had a creative premise and lots of potential, but squandered it on a routine home invasion pic that was tiring even by the standards of that genre with writing too hamfisted to even be worthy of a soap opera.

Read my original review here.

#3 Texas Chainsaw 3D (dir. John Luessenhop)

Rife with plot holes (my favorite being that, according to the prologue, the teen protagonist is about 39 years old) and a bothersome cast picked for solely aesthetic reasons, Texas Chainsaw 3D is one of the most inscrutable films of the year and isn’t even redeemed by the gore, which is rendered in cheap 3D CGI.

Read my original review here.

#2 Insidious: Chapter 2 (dir. James Wan)

An utterly utterly stupid movie. James Wan and Patrick Wilson must have used up all their “good haunted house movie” juju on The Conjuring. Despite two or three very effective scare sequences, Insidious: Chapter 2 utterly fails to recapture the PG-13 magic of the admittedly flawed original.

Read my original review here.

#1 Escape From Tomorrow (dir. Randy Moore)

A brief look at my online history would show that I gave Escape From Tomorrow a halfhearted but mildly positive review. I did so because I didn’t hate sitting through the film, having amused myself by deciding which parts were shot in Florida and which in Anaheim (my hometown). But the story itself is a hallucinogenic travesty of a narrative that managed to convince critics it must have deep themes because of the sheer amount of work that went into its production. Unfortunately, this is not true. It is shallow tripe and I have yet to come across a single audience member who had a nice thing to say about it.

Read my original CinemaBeach review here.

As the infinite promise of 2014  approaches (including, count ‘em, two Paranormal Activity films), dust off your resolutions, think of all the great films you have to look forward to and the mass of garbage you’ll leave behind in 2013, and face it all with a smile on your face. Happy End of the Year, everybody!

Word Count: 887

CinemaBeach: The Kids Are All Wrong

Year: 2012
Director: Adrián García Bogliano
Cast: Francisco Barreiro, Laura Caro, Michele Garcia
Run Time: 1 hour 37 minutes
MPAA Rating: N/A

Because thanks to CinemaBeach, I'm technically a member of the press, I was allowed to view an advanced screener of a cool little indie Mexican horror film, Ahí va el diablo (Here Comes the Devil).

Mom and dad, I'm finally getting somewhere! When you were looking at me in that little hospital room in St. Joseph's, I just know you were hoping that one day that bouncing babe in your arms would be allowed to watch Mexican horror movies a couple weeks in advance.

When a horror movie opens with a lesbian sex scene, you think you know exactly what you’re in for, but in this manner Here Comes the Devil is surprising. This Mexican independent psychological horror film doesn’t quite land its psychosexual leaps, but makes a good argument for allowing a bigger budget production of the same story.

Married couple Felix (Francisco Barreiro) and Sol (Laura Caro) are on a trip to Tijuana with their two young children, Adolfo (Alan Martinez) and Sara (Michele Garcia). When the children go exploring on a looming hill overlooking the motel, their parents do a little exploring of their own. When Sol and Felix awake, night has fallen and the kids still haven’t returned. When they set off to resume the search in the morning, the police pull in at the last second with their offspring in tow.

They’re delighted, but Sol soon realizes that things aren’t quite… right with her children. They whisper to each other and share private glances and wander around with blank stares like automatons. Their psychologist suggests that perhaps they were victims of sexual trauma but once mysterious happenings begin, well, happening, around the house, Sol sets out on an investigation of her own.

A roiling sexual undercurrent drives the whole thing like a watermill – the childrens’ disappearance is timed with their mother’s orgasm, the entire incident is incited by Sara’s first period, Sol needs to discover whether the children are victims of sexual assault, demonic possession, or both. In fact there is so much sexual implication that it’s a real shame it doesn’t quite adhere to the plot in any particularly meaningful way.

It’s clear that there was a grand master plan with all of this, but unfortunately it gets lost beneath a massive pile of exposed breasts. With the opening lesbian sex scene, multiple shower scenes, a mysterious force pulling Sol’s shirt open, and a babysitter opening her blouse to show bruises on her chest, all combined with the shallow lighting and under-decorated flat sets, it all feels more like an exploitation film than anything with a true intellectual purpose.

It’s a real shame, because there is a lot to respect in Here Comes the Devil. We can forgive the film its predictable ending for the amount of tension it builds in the lead up to it. Here Comes the Devil has a foreboding atmosphere baked into it by the blazing Mexican sun and the oppressive heat that emanates from every frame.

It’s not often that a film almost completely devoid of shadow or darkness can be described as atmospheric, but there is real talent behind this film, despite the limitations of its budget. The real masters here are the sound designer and makeup artist, who more than make up for the limitations of the cinematography and production design at least in the scenes where their work gets to take center stage.

In some of the more intense moments, the audio goes out of focus, swimming in and out in a way that reminds one positively of the moments in [REC] where the camera is struck during a scuffle. It is immensely effective and creepy, and when combined with the hard rock music cues and some creative use of tribal drums, makes for the best scare scenes of the entire film.

The single most impactful moment of Here Comes the Devil, which I won’t spoil here, is a tremendous gore scene that seems to demur at first, but then throws itself full tilt into a truly disgusting, squelchingly visceral, immensely fun sequence that is the reason anybody will remember the film and it deserves it.

Because when it comes down to it, the film is all potential. The atmosphere, the curious but effective reliance on rack zooms, and the creative psychosexual spin on a genre that hasn’t been fully explored are all bogged down by the film’s microbudget, straining to escape but ultimately unable to rise above the mire.

This one gore scene contains everything that is right about the movie, and on the strength of that sequence Here Comes the Devil shows its worth as a piece of cinema. Although I am loathe to say it, this is a film that could flourish with a big budget American remake if helmed by a director dedicated to the project, much like The Ring in 2002.

Ultimately it’s definitely worth watching for fans of Mexican cinema, but if you’re just a casual horror fan I’d suggest not making the trip out to one of the few theaters that will be showing it. Here’s to hoping they have a good producer who’s shopping it around in Hollywood as we speak. ¡Buena Suerte!

TL;DR: Here Comes the Devil has good tension building and one terrific gore scene, but it is betrayed by its low budget.
Rating:  6/10
Should I Spend Money On This (When It Comes Out)? Pretty much no. Not unless you like technically dubious Mexican child thrillers.
Word Count: 962

CinemaBeach: Scare Yourself To Death

My newest article on CinemaBeach has been posted, just in time for the scariest day of the year!

Here's my top five scariest horror films! Half classics, half modern, this list should have something for everybody!

Happy October, everybody!

The holiday season is upon us, and if you don’t agree with that statement what are you doing on a horror blog anyway? The month leading up to Halloween provides the general public a chance to live like I do every week – watching scary movie after scary movie until the 31st.

Unfortunately, because Paranormal Activity 5 has been pushed back, the only wide horror release this year is theCarrie remake, which I am still excited for (see: Julianne Moore), but by no means can carry the entire horror genre on its back for all of October. Luckily, some cool indie horror is hitting cinemas this month (like Skinwalker Ranch, Haunter, and the long awaited All the Boys Love Mandy Lane) but some people don’t have time to rush out and see a film during the one week it sticks around.

So for those of you stuck at home with nothing but Netflix or (who am I kidding?) the local video store, you’re S.O.L.

Thank goodness I’m here, because I’m prepared to steer you in the right direction with my personal

TOP FIVE SCARIEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME

First, a caveat. Horror, like comedy, is highly subjective. What scares me might not necessarily scare you because we come from different backgrounds and worldviews. Or we may simply be affected by different things. We may both look at The Exorcist and be scared, you from the idea of demonic possession, me from the idea of a mother unable to protect her child.

So, like all lists on the internet, take this with a grain of salt.

But you should keep in mind that I’ve been at this a long time, sifting through the dreadful sludge of the horror genre to find lasting gems of terror. If something scares me, it scares me bad, and my jaded self is not easily perturbed. Read on with caution and have a happy Halloween.

#5 The Birds (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

I often find that I’m in a minority on this one – I much prefer The Birds to Alfred Hitchcock’s other horror masterpiece, Psycho – but the idea of nature rebelling against its human tormenters strikes fear deep into this suburban heart.

#4 The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (dir. Tobe Hooper)

A proto-slasher movie so brutal and intense that people just straight up imagined that it was incredibly gory. Tobe Hooper’s down and dirty shocker is light on the blood but heavy on savage and unrelenting horror.

#3 Suspiria (dir. Dario Argento)

Perhaps not one for the twelve-year-olds in the audience, Argento’s quasi-giallo magnum opus combines stunningly beautiful death scenes with jangling music and startlingly vivid colors that beat the audience into submission.

#2 The Descent (dir. Neil Marshall)

A perfect illustration of the twin fears of the dark and enclosed spaces. Marshall’s heroines are trapped in a subterranean cavern where the encroaching shadows are even more blood-curdling than their monstrous adversaries.

#1 [REC] (dir. Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza)

My number one favorite horror film of all time. This Spanish found footage epic proved simultaneously that cinéma vérité could still pack a punch and that modern horror was still relevant, all in one fell swoop and on a sock drawer budget.

BONUS SHORT FILM: Mamá (dir. Andrés Muschietti)

In two minutes, this short film (that piqued producer Guillermo del Toro’s interest) wrings more low-fi scares than its American adaptation did in an entire feature. Hands down the scariest short form picture I’ve ever seen.

You can watch Mamá here.

I hope everybody has a happy and safe October being scared witless by zombies, vampires, serial killers, and ghosts!

If you take up one of my suggestions and love it (or hate it), please feel free to comment below!

Happy Halloween!

Word Count: 1108

CinemaBeach: Never Never Land

Year: 2013

Director: Randy Moore

Cast: Roy Abramsohn, Elena Schuber, Katelynn Rodriguez

Run Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

MPAA Rating: N/A

Because it's uncouth to tell personal anecdotes on official review sites: Sergio and I got a chance to see a sneak peek of this movie at the Cinefamily Theater with the cast and crew for free because I have connections.

Namely, being on an email list. (Shhh, don't tell anyone.)

It was a really exciting experience, especially considering that we almost didn't get in at all.

See the notepad in my pocket? That's how official I am, yo.

Also we got free Mickey and Buzz Lightyear masks, which make everything worth it.

For those of you not in the know, Escape From Tomorrow  is a psychological horror film that was shot guerrilla style at Disneyland. For over 45 days, the cast and crew snuck around Disneyland and Walt Disney World (each of them were given a year-long park-hopping Disney pass which must have accounted for about half the budget), shooting on a handheld camera and keeping their scripts on their iPhones so as to avoid detection by the Disney police.

You see, Disney is a ruthless corporation that rules over exhibition of its trademark images with an iron fist. If caught (and they very nearly were on several occasions), the consequences could have been dire, ranging from being shut out of the parks permanently and thus being unable to complete the film (or ride Splash Mountain ever again) to being sent to jail. Shots has to be extensively choreographed using sun charts to most effectively utilize natural light. Out of fear of being found out, director Randy Moore even took the measure of editing his film in South Korea, far from the watchful eye of The Mickey Mouse Chain Gang.

The film premiered at Sundance and reviewers and doubts were raised that the film would ever receive a release, limited or otherwise. At this moment in time, Escape From Tomorrow is slated for a simultaneous  limited release and Video On Demand release on October 11. Disney wisely has decided to avoid taking legal action at this time, hoping not to inadvertently drum up publicity for the film.

The film opens on Jim (Roy Abramsohn) on a Grand Floridian balcony (one of the film’s few manufactured setpieces) receiving news that he has been let go from his job. Determined to nevertheless make the most of his final day of vacation, he drags his nagging wife (Elena Schuber) and two kids (Katelynn Rodriguez and Jack Dalton) around Walt Disney World, only to be haunted by disturbing visions (like glaring evil eyes sprouting from the “It’s A Small World” dolls). A pair of young Parisiennes (Danielle Safady and Annet Mahendru) capture his imagination and his increasing obsession with them is mirrored by his decreasing attachment to his family and the candy-colored World around him.

While the first act of the film is largely aimless, it charms with nostalgic trips to the classic rides that have defined American youth for decades (a personal joy of mine was deciphering which sequences were shot at Walt Disney World and which were shot at Disneyland – a geography I am intimately familiar with, having grown up in Anaheim). There is some simmering family drama at work here, but the joy is found in little moments (little by necessity, due to the nature of the filming) of snappy wit and infrequent but gleefully weird effects sequences.

The mostly pleasant but meandering first two thirds of Escape From Tomorrow spends its time spewing up intriguing symbols and subplots like a bad flu outbreak, a mysterious and hypnotic evil witch, and eerie premonitions. This all promises to tie up if not totally neatly, at least in an enjoyable and unstrenuous manner but then all hell breaks loose.

The plot points that have until now been gliding along smoothly begin to smash into each other, piling up in a devastating fiery wreck as a panoply of grandiose setpieces and ambitiously inscrutable symbols come crashing down on the relative peace of what was an otherwise totally workable narrative. Not one single loose end gets any sort of closure and the film resolutely refuses to end, sprinting along and leaking psychotropic absurdities for a good fifteen minutes past the natural endpoint.

But man, what a method of filmmaking. It might be just a gimmick, but here in the Happiest Place on Earth the gimmick is everything. Filmed in crisp black and white to accentuate the nostalgic aspects of the exploration of Disneyana, the film is buoyed half on fond memories of the theme parks and half on slack-jawed utterances of “How did they do that?”

Because there certainly isn’t much more to it than that. The acting is wooden across the board (pun absolutely intended) and the film suffers unduly from a lead actor who is content to mug at the camera in feeble attempts to approximate human emotion. The only standouts are Alison Lees-Taylor who chews the scenery as an evil witch and, of all people, young Katelynn Rodriguez, an actress who hasn’t even made it to double digits yet who outshines every single adult member of the cast.

It’s a shame such detailed work went into making what turns out to be a rather scattershot mess, because it very clearly means something important to Randy Moore. Unfortunately his immense passion for complex themes and symbols far outweighs his ability to communicate them. Attentive viewers can maybe glean some subtextual analysis of the artificiality of the Disney Empire, but that would be giving too much credit to a man whose ambition knows no bounds and is not bound by the laws of narrative clarity.

There’s a terrific movie in there somewhere, but it would take a much less green filmmaker to dig it out of the muck. Nevertheless, Escape From Tomorrow is an undeniably fun film to watch. Whether you’re there just to stick it to Disney or to see some top notch cinematic tomfoolery, this film should be your October go to. If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, take the money you would have spent on the movie and buy yourself one tenth of a Disneyland ticket instead.

TL;DR: It's a miracle that Escape From Tomorrow Exists at all, but coherence is sacrificed to radical methodology.
Rating: 5/10
Should I Spend Money On This? It's definitely worth seeing for film buffs or bad movie lovers. The guerrilla style is fascinating and the brain-melting twists reek of camp.
Word Count: 1100

CinemaBeach: God Save the Sluts and the Whores

Prom Night IV: Deliver Us From Evil

Year: 1992

Director: Clay Borris

Cast: Nikki de Boer, J. H. Wyman, Joy Tanner

Run Time: 1 hour 32 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

The Canadian Prom Night franchise is one of my absolute favorites. Having dedicated my life to watching a series of weird and terrible movies, these films always deliver. Why, you ask, did I decide to write about the fourth one when you, dear reader, almost certainly haven’t seen all of the others? Because, in the true tradition of direct-to-video slasher madness, Prom Night IV: Deliver Us From Evil has absolutely nothing to do with any of the previous films.

The original Prom Night is about Jamie Lee Curtis’ friends being killed one by one at Hamilton High’s prom on account of a crime they committed as children. Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II completely ignores that, instead opting to be about the ghost of a Prom Queen who died in 1957 who returns to get revenge on her killers and reclaim her title. Prom Night III: The Last Kiss, the only film in the franchise with a returning character, features Mary Lou (still a ghost) stalking a cute boy and killing his enemies. This film takes a long look at its venerable and thoroughly bizarre history and decides to instead be about a mad preacher killing people who have sex in a secluded house in the woods.

Which, to be fair, is a pretty solid slasher concept.

Prom Night IV opens on Hamilton High’s prom in 1957 (a hopeless leap at continuity with the Mary Lou movies that actually muddies up the timeline even worse than before), where a crazed clergyman, Father Jonas (James Carver) kills a couple who are making love in the backseat of a car. The church decides it is more pious to sedate him for the rest of his life and keep him in a dungeon instead of calling the cops.

When young Father Colin (Brock Simpson, the only actor to be in all four movies of the franchise) is given the task of watching over the captive in 1991 (though the film was released one year later), he fails pretty much immediately and is killed by the stigmata-sprouting Father Jonas, who escapes to a mountain retreat that used to be an old monastery.

The monastery is now a house owned by Mark (J. H. Wyman)’s parents, and as fate would have it, he and his friends are having an anti-prom party (this is the film’s only connection to the “Prom Night” idea beyond the 1957 sequence) there that very night. Also in attendance are Mark’s girlfriend Meagan (Nikki de Boer), an overly pious and thoroughly annoying goodie goodie who is without a doubt our Final Girl for the evening; Laura (Joy Tanner), a naughty blonde Catholic schoolgirl who loves sex and rebellion, in that order; and her horndog boyfriend Jeff (Alle Ghadban).

Father Jonas takes the “sex = death” rule of slasher movies far too seriously and starts killing them one by one while whispering harsh diatribes against sluts and whores. The gross misogyny of the film is only leavened by the fact that we’re obviously not supposed to agree with the killer, but still it feels extremely unnecessary. Plus, whispering killers tend to be pretty cheesy.

Complaining about minor details is useless though, because even changing most of them wouldn’t alter the fact that Prom Night IV is a terrible movie. The most obviously direct-to-video Prom Night venture yet, the camera work is grainy and shaky and Paul Zaza’s score is characterized by sharp stabs of music that seem incidental to what’s actually happening on screen. The movie is bloodless, characterless, there are lengthy stalking scenes that go nowhere, a jump scare is so halfhearted that not even the characters are scared, the climactic chase scene spends about two minutes on a character in no danger climbing up a staircase, and the Final Girl is a shrill harpy who is stupid enough to take off her boots before entering a wine cellar where she has already cut open her foot on a shard of glass.

There are major plot holes, my favorite of which is that the killer has been in a coma for 33 years, meaning he’s probably around 60 years old. There is also an obvious body count padding death when Jeff’s little brother shows up outside, spying on the couples only to become the first victim of the angry Father. However, he has no car and the house in the woods is an hour’s drive from where he lives. It’s not worth it to put any thought into how he got there, because clearly the filmmakers didn’t.

Providing the cherry on top of the Sundae of Tears that is Prom Night IV, there are loads of missed opportunities that could have made this film better, perhaps even good. There is a cool shot of two characters’ heads as seen through loops in a statue, but nothing ever comes of it. Evidently the director saw an opportunity to make at least one artistic moment, but didn’t see fit to make it resonant with anything like a theme.

The most lamentable of these missed opportunities is Father Jonas’ stigmata. Whenever he enters a religious fervor, his hands and feet start to bleed, mirroring the body of Christ on the cross. This is a fairly well-known religious phenomenon, and an important part of the extremely prevalent Christian imagery in the film. At one point early on in the film, Meagan cuts her foot on glass and does the same thing again later in the film when she is hiding from the hissing Father Jonas. In the movie as is, this just shows Meagan is much too stupid to have somehow survived.

However, she could have utilized her injuries to convince Jonas that she has stigmata too, convincing him that she is as pious as him and allowing her safe passage. The fact that this doesn’t happen will forever be an annoying thorn in the side of the movie.

So, to conclude, Prom Night IV is flawed. But in spite of its many many many problems, I still love it wholeheartedly. Being a grubby cash-in slasher film is exactly what I expected of it, being the fourth film in a chain of increasingly low budget movies. This level of mediocrity and insipidity is something I expect and demand from most every slasher film I watch and it delivers in full force. This is a film only for the genre faithful, but it a prime example of the depths to which the slasher could sink but still exist in its purest form.

Killer: Father Jonas (James Carver)

Final Girl: Meagan (Nikki de Boer)

Best Kill: Father Jonas puts on a wig (or possibly a scalp) to look like Laura, kisses Jeff on the mouth, then crushes his skull.

Scariest Moment: When Mark is about to fall off the roof, he must hold onto the Father Jonas’ weapon as it pokes through the tiles, cutting his hands in the process.

Weirdest Moment: Father Jonas starts spraying holy water and things catch on fire!

Champion Dialogue: “Here’s to Prom Night!” “To Jamie Lee Curtis!”

Body Count: 8; 2 killed in 1957, the rest in 1991

1. Lisa's throat is slit with a crucifix.
2. Brad is stabbed in the chest with a crucifix.
3. Father Colin is garroted with cord.
4. Dave is killed offscreen.
5. Jonathan is stabbed in the chest with a crucifix.
6. Laura is scalped with a crucifix. 
7. Jeff gets his head crushed.
8. Mark gets a crucifix thrown into his chest. 

TL;DR: Prom Night IV: Deliver Us From Evil is a disaster, but a pretty fun by-the-books slasher film.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1292

Reviews In This Series

Prom Night (Lynch, 1980)

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (Pittman, 1987)

Prom Night III: The Last Kiss (Oliver/Simpson, 1990)

Prom Night IV: Deliver Us From Evil (Borris, 1992)

Prom Night (McCormick, 2008)

CinemaBeach: Music of the Night

My newest post on Killer Waves is up!

It's called The Ten Most Well-Used Songs in Horror Movies.

One of the most important aspects of any film, especially a horror film, is the music. As this video exemplifies, the background score can make or break the mood of the scene. Most movies, especially low budget ones, use an original score to avoid copyright issues, but sometimes movies utilize pre-existing songs already recorded by other artists to enhance the mood or ground the film in a particular era. Sometimes this is a complete disaster (think of any film that used a Duran Duran song in the 80′s) but sometimes a perfectly chosen song can make for a historic scene.

Horror movies are notorious for finding the creep factor in innocuous songs, so here are the best uses of pre-recorded songs to date.

10. Mr. Sandman, The Chordettes (Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later)

Now, this song works the best because it was already previously used during the closing credits of 1981′s Halloween II. Halloween H20 was Jamie Lee Curtis’ way of wrapping up her character’s story arc and as such, it spent a lot of time hearkening back to the previous movies in the franchise that featured her character Laurie Strode. Although smell is the sense most associated with memory, sound is a close second and the use of this song in the opening scene immediately brings any fan of the franchise back. Also, its innate cheerfulness is an unsettling juxtaposition with the brutal stabbings it precedes.

9. Something to Die For, The Sounds (Scream 4)

Yes, Scream 4 might be an uneven movie. But nothing can beat that opening sequence. Sidney is returning for the first time to her hometown of Woodsboro after the bloodbath. Now a successful author and an empowered woman, she sweeps into town with a newfound confidence, accompanied by the pulsing rhythm of this chick-led Swedish rock band. “Something to Die For” isn’t used to scare – it’s used to inject the film with energy as we are reintroduced to a protagonist we haven’t seen in a decade.

8. Vudú, Carlos Ann ( [REC] )

[REC], otherwise known as the Spanish found footage film that Quarantine is based on and my all-time favorite horror film, is the grueling story of a small time news anchor and her cameraman who are tailing a team of firefighters when they get trapped in an apartment building with a horde of rage virus-infected zombies. To preserve the authenticity and realism of the film, no soundtrack is used until the final scream fades and the screen goes black. The credits burst onto the screen to the opening chords of this song, which can only be described as Spanish rockabilly. The perfect credits song, it provides us with a sense of relief that the film is over and punctuates the energy of the film in an indescribably perfect manner.

7. Tiptoe Through the Tulips, Tiny Tim (Insidious)

Do I even have to explain this one? Not only is the song outrageously creepy on its own, it accompanies a scene where absolutely nobody should be in the house. Horror movies figured out pretty early that cheerful songs can stab you like a knife with the right visuals, and James Wan’s recent works are nothing if not for calling upon classic moves like this. And boy this one is a doozy.

6. American Girl, Tom Petty (Silence of the Lambs)

Don’t tell me you’ve never been afraid when pulling up to your parking spot in the middle of the night. This is the quintessential American nightmare. A normal night, a normal girl, a normal song playing on the radio, a night stalker lying in wait to harvest your sking.

5. Don’t Fear the Reaper, Blue Öyster Cult (Halloween) and Gus (Scream)

Death stalks, silent, almost invisible. In the original Halloween, the original Blue Öyster Cult song is playing softly on the radio as Laurie Strode and her friend Annie Brackett are being followed by a madman in a William Shatner mask. Wes Craven’s postmodern mid-90′s horror masterpiece Scream has a similar scene when Sidney is visited by her creepy boyfriend in the middle of the night in a direct homage to John Carpenter’s seminal classic.

4. Don’t Stop Me Now, Queen (Shaun of the Dead)

In the funniest scene of an outrageously funny horror comedy, Queen’s classic song is used to great effect in the rhytmic destruction of the shambling undead.

3. Singin’ in the Rain (A Clockwork Orange)

If you’ve seen Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ classic novel, you know exactly what scene I’m referring to and I’m not about to link to it from here. Here’s the original song, in case you need a cheerful break from this list.

2. The Star-Spangled Banner (Poltergeist)

The famous TV sign-off that signaled that the night’s horrors were about to start. I’m so glad televisions don’t do this anymore, because I don’t think any of us would ever sleep again. They’re heeeeeeeere.

1. Turn Around, Look At Me, The Lettermen (Final Destination 3)

The Final Destination films are chock full of foreshadowing and in jokes. Usually, when the spirit of death is about to claim another soul, he is accompanied by a song. In the first film, it’s John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High” (because he died in a plane crash, which is a major plot point) and in the fifth it’s Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind” for obvious reasons. However, despite the third film’s lack of grace, this song is a masterpiece of unintentional creepiness that brings a huge amount of atmosphere to a film that desperately needs it.

Word Count: 928

CinemaBeach: Raise Your Voice

In A World...

Year: 2013

Director: Lake Bell

Cast: Lake Bell, Demitri Martin, Fred Melamed

Run Time: 1 hour 33 minutes

MPAA Rating: R

Modern women are still struggling to find a voice in a lot of male-dominated industries. In In A World…, Lake Bell’s Carol Solomon is struggling to sell her voice. The daughter of a famous movie trailer voiceover artist, she is having a hard time following his footsteps in the business, which has historically been a boys’ club.

However, after the death of number one voiceover artist (real person and coiner of the phrase “In a world…”) Don LaFontaine, a void must be filled. In honor of his passing, the trailer for the first film of The Amazon Games, a quadrilogy based on a bestselling young adult series, will resurrect his famous phrase for the first time under a different artist. Carol becomes embroiled in competition with young hotshot Gustav Warner (Ken Marino) and her father, Sam Soto (Fred Melamed), the industry veteran with a golden voice.

While the plot is just a variation on a story you’ve seen a thousand times before, In A World… offers a glimpse into a fascinating undiscovered realm – voiceover acting. This is an industry with its own celebrities, struggling interns, and even awards shows (The Golden Trailers, which I was fascinated to learn are actually a real thing) that the general public has almost certainly never heard of or even thought existed.

Lake Bell’s directorial (and writing and production) debut hits the jackpot with a world of fascinating characters and concepts that has been heretofore completely unmined territory. In addition to giving us a fresh look on an industry we often take for granted (as well as Lake Bell’s career, which up to this point hasn’t exactly been anything to write home about), the film is a wickedly sharp comedy with snappy dialogue, several actors and actresses turning in career best performances, and an unending sense of fun with a little bit of heart thrown in just for good measure.

Although Fred Melamed’s performance as Carol’s loquacious father is a little bit much for my tastes, Lake Bell and Demetri Martin (a stand-up comic who plays Louis, her coworker and love interest) are perfectly natural in their roles and run the show with their fabulous timing and interplay. Just what is it with comedians lately? First Louis C. K. shines in Blue Jasmine, then Demetri Martin blows us away. There must be something in the water at the Laugh Factory.

In A World… is a feminist comedy, but it won’t go down in history as the movie that changed everything. It is an iridescent soap bubble, absolutely beautiful and perfect for what it is, but likely to be fleeting in its overall influence. It is well-meaning and full of optimism for the way the tides are turning, but it is more content to play around than to deliver a hard-hitting message. However, that does not mean that it is not a superb film, and in fact it is the best comedy I have seen in years, definitely the best of 2013 so far. No movie in quite some time has been so continuously effervescent and laugh out loud funny with scene after scene packed with genuinely funny gags and lines.

Bell is a revelation, taking what could be a stock indie movie character and absolutely owning it, turning voiceover work into a fascinating tapestry of human experiences. The entire cast is clearly excited to be there, with a plethora of notable performances from main actors and bit parts alike. Nick Offerman turns in a hilarious performance as a crude recording studio owner and Eva Longoria proves she’s game in a role that’s essentially a parody of herself in possibly one of the funniest scenes of the film. I say “possibly” because the scenes tumble over one another in a tremendously lively script, each vying for position as the funniest thing you’ve ever seen. And they are, until you see the next scene. And the next.

Although the film sweeps one up in the comedy, it never forgets its heart. At its center, In A World… is a story of women stepping up and taking risks. They don’t always succeed, but that’s life. It breaks down traditional gender roles and boundaries and even a potentially cliché character, Sam Soto’s much younger second wife, comes into her own and takes charge in her own way. It’s truly heartwarming to see such a tender depiction of friendships, relationships, and women and men alike learning how to balance their independence, their love lives, and their families.

In A World… is the best comedy film available today, wide release, independent, or otherwise. But don’t take my word for it. See for yourself.

TL;DR: In A World... won't change the world, but it is a hilarious and heartwarming feminist comedy.

Rating: 8/10

Should I Spend Money On This? Yes, always. And then maybe it will get a wide release and the entire world can appreciate its glory.

Word Count: 845

CinemaBeach: I Lost My Mind In San Francisco

Blue Jasmine

Year: 2013

Director: Woody Allen

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Sally Hawkins

Run Time: 1 hour 38 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Blue Jasmine barreled onto the scene, giving Woody Allen the all-time biggest box office debut of his career and sweeping up critics in its wake, but now that the tide has settled, a closer inspection reveals that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Not that it’s not a good movie, not by a long shot. Blue Jasmine has a strong sense of style that shines under the hand of a veteran director. The cast is mostly superb and it is never boring, but it has big ideas about class divisions and interpersonal relationships that never really crystallize by the time the credits roll.

Cate Blanchett plays Jasmine, a wealthy socialite whose husband (Alec Baldwin) is arrested for shady corporate dealings. She loses her house, her money, her stepson, and her husband and has to move in with her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins), a working class city girl whose romantic life consists of a revolving door of lowlife guidos. Having never held a job, she’s not quite sure what to do with herself and after several unsuccessful ventures, she manages to convince the worldly (and handsome) Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard) that she’s an interior designer, thus beginning a professional (at first) relationship.

Her road has frequent ups and downs (literally – her life is a haze of Xanax and high-functioning alcoholism) and we encounter frequent flashbacks to her life before. The higher the peak, the less we see. The harder the fall, the more time we spend in Jasmine’s dreamland of bubble baths and diamond bracelets.

Taking on what could be a deliriously campy role (Jasmine has a habit of talking to herself as if she were still at an extravagant dinner party) and moderating it perfectly, Blanchett is a rock in a briskly moving river of fast-paced cuts, flashbacks, and branching side plots. Baldwin, Sarsgaard, and Hawkins are quite at home in their roles as well, as is Louis C. K. in a surprisingly rich turn as a bumbling sound engineer. Unfortunately the movie suffers under the lesser efforts of a bloated supporting cast (Andrew Dice Clay as Ginger’s ex-husband is a particular disappointment).

Various thematic threads are picked up, held onto for a while, and summarily dropped as the movie spans across such topics as reinventing oneself, the hypocrisy of the laments of the rich, and the futility of trying to change someone who is already lost. Each of these themes valiantly vies to anchor the film and each of them is quietly buried and forgotten.

Disregarding the subtext, the text itself is a little shaky on its feet with its share of minor but niggling plot holes. The largest of which is that Jasmine is apparently so utterly computer illiterate that she can’t even Google “online design school,” even after months of computer classes. One could argue that she is deliberately causing herself to fail because of her guilt over her husband’s fate but one would be reading far too much into a film that doesn’t quite find its thematic footing throughout its 98 minute run time.

Blue Jasmine is definitely worth seeing if only for Blanchett’s wonderful performance, but remains in the mind about as long as a pleasant dream upon waking up.

TL;DR: Blue Jasmine is interesting and pretty but empty.

Rating: 7/10

Should I Spend Money On This? Yes, but only because Cate Blanchett is a treasure.

Word Count: 590