CinemaBeach: I Watched the Tape

V/H/S 2

Year: 2013

Director: Simon Barrett, Adam Wingard, Edúardo Sanchez, Gregg Hale, Gareth Huw Evans, Timo Tjahjanto, Jason Eisener

Cast: Lawrence Michael Levine, Kelsy Abbott, Adam Wingard

Run Time: 1 hour 36 minutes

MPAA Rating: UR

Electronic crackles and pops fill the air. The screen goes fuzzy until… a burst of blue and the word “PLAY” appears in block letters in the upper right hand corner. You’re not watching a home video. You’re at the beginning of indie horror’s new installment of the found footage anthology series V/H/S.

While the original film made a splash with its exploration of how people actually find “found” footage films and segments directed by big indie stars, it was a mediocre effort – haphazardly done and unnecessarily misogynistic.V/H/S 2 follows more or less the exact same structure – a series of found footage short films by a variety of prominent indie directors linked by a not very coherent story that takes place in a supposedly abandoned apartment. Yet somehow this one works just so much better.

Note: For clarity’s sake, I’ve split my review into five parts – one for each segment of the film.

“Tape 49″ (dir. Simon Barrett)

Simon Barrett produced both films and co-wrote several segments, so it only makes sense that his story should be the one to provide the overarching narrative. Larry (Lawrence Michael Levine) is an unscrupulous private detective who was hired by a woman to break into the abandoned apartment and discover what happened to her son. He drags along his girlfriend and accomplice, Ayesha (Kelsy Abbott). They come across an abandoned set of VCRs and a pile of unmarked VHS tapes, and Ayesha sits down to watch some of them to see if they contain any evidence while Larry investigates the rest of the dwelling.

This story largely follows the same beats of the previous movie and although it is somewhat chilling as it is (the couple is most definitely not alone), its only real purpose is to glue the other segments together and we don’t get to spend a lot of time with these two.

The biggest flaw is one that is prevalent throughout the segments – there are far too many different recording devices being used. Larry has a button camera and a professional looking handheld with a lamp. Ayesha has a little still photo/handheld hybrid, and a webcam also records her every move. The segment cuts between shots from all four sources, which practically destroys the core concept of “found footage” from the get go. It is far too heavily edited to seem like something that somebody just discovered in an abandoned camera. This is forgivable, but for the keenest of observers it can tread a little too far into Hollywood unreality.

“Phase 1 Clinical Trials” (dir. Adam Wingard)

The You’re Next director also stars in this short as Herman, a man who lost his eye in a tragic car accident. The doctors fit him with a bionic eye, but this technology is only in its early stages, so they are taping everything he sees as a test run for the beta system. The eye works maybe too well, and when he gets home he begins to see things that shouldn’t be there, like a dead man with blood smeared on his face standing in the bedroom. A fellow patient (whose bionic gift restored her hearing) named Clarissa (Hannah Hughes) barges into his home uninvited. Clarissa explains it all, and Herman learns that if he interacts with these beings, they will only get stronger.

Wingard has already proved that he can flawlessly marry laugh-out-loud with whiplash-inducing shocks in his previous film so the humor is at a low ebb in this segment, but he can’t resist throwing in the odd silly line reading or self aware joke. This short is mostly a straight horror piece, but the light tone is just about the only pleasantness we’ll get for the rest of the film and the segment’s crash and burn ending is a portent the dark world we are about to enter.

There’s another conceptual issue here – there is a slight musical score that, although subtle, absolutely does not belong in a found footage movie.

A Ride in the Park (dir. Edúardo Sanchez & Gregg Hale)

The director and producer of the now-classic The Blair Witch Project return to found footage with this clever twist on the genre craze they helped to ignite. A biker (Jay Saunders) puts a camera in his helmet so he can film his wild ride through the local park’s twisting paths. With little preamble, he finds himself smack dab in the middle of a zombie outbreak. He doesn’t last long, but the tape doesn’t end there. The camera is still attached to his head as he rises up, just another member of the undead horde.

That’s right, this is a first-person zombie movie, something I don’t think has ever been attempted before. It is a fascinating and wholly original angle that makes do with a criminally low effects budget. Perhaps less scary than its companions, it more than makes up for that with its incredibly clever premise.

Leave it to the Blair Witch guys to completely turn the concepts of two genres on their heads simultaneously.

Safe Haven (dir. Gareth Huw Evans & Timo Tjahjanto)

This segment centers around a documentary crew’s efforts to interview a notorious cult leader in his compound. Evans, the director of the Indonesian action superhit The Raid: Redemption teams up with another Indonesian director for a segment that is shot mostly in – you guessed it – Indonesian. These two are given the largest slot in the anthology and have more time to thoroughly explore their premise and crank up the slow burn.

Eschewing the jump scares of the other entries for horrific body horror, this segment is a clear standout in a crush of amazing horror short films. I’d rather not say much about this one for fear of spoiling the atmosphere of dread it creates.

Slumber Party Alien Abduction (dir. Jason Eisener)

Birthed from the mind of the director of Hobo With a Shotgun and directly based on his childhood nightmares, this short is relentless and adrenaline-pumping. A group of preteen boys at a slumber party are left at home alone in the care of a big sister (Samantha Gracie). Naturally, the second her parents leave, her boyfriend (Rylan Logan) pulls up for a little playtime of his own.

The kids pull a prank on the couple in the middle of a particularly steamy session and record the whole thing. The boyfriend threatens to kill them, but the enormous foundation-rumbling screech that comes from outside proves he might not get there first. Filmed mostly from the perspective of a dog with a camera tied to his back, the group panics and attempts to escape what turns out to be a group of highly committed alien abductors.

Despite the heavy subject matter, this segment is easily the most fun because it is filmed with a sort of childish glee by Eisener, who makes great use of his parents’ property in Nova Scotia. In a setting he is intimately familiar with, he has free reign to have as much fun as he wants and it clearly shows through the shocks and the screaming.

V/H/S 2 pulls so far ahead from V/H/S that it’s almost not fair to compare the two films. Alas, they are inextricably connected, but this film does a mighty job of steering the franchise onto the right path. Although it is susceptible to the flaws of most low budget found footage films (namely, some mighty poor acting and a couple less than convincing make-up effects) and has some struggles with the overall concept (how on Earth did the recordings of a bionic eye end up on a VHS tape?), the flick was so frightening that I sometimes wondered why I was doing this to myself.

It’s really quite astonishing how much better it is than its ancestor in terms of pacing, horror, creativity, and, well, everything. The gross misogynist undertones are abandoned and the terror levels are ramped up to 11. And though a few make-up effects left something to be desired, there is a particularly gruesome and lovely first-person shot of a severed carotid artery and the best throat-slitting ever committed to celluloid.

If you read that last sentence and were disgusted, this movie is not for you. If you were intrigued and want to see the keenest horror film out today (and second only to [REC] as the best found footage film I’ve ever seen), take a look atV/H/S 2.

TL;DR: Featuring a cadre of prominent indie horror directors, V/H/S 2 is miles ahead of its predecessor and makes the most of its premise.

Rating: 8/10

Should I Spend Money On This? It was hardcore - I regretted bringing Sergio to it. So only if you're really committed, but I loved it.
Word Count: 1512

Haunted Mansion

Year: 2013

Director: James Wan
Cast: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Lili Taylor
Run Time: 1 hour 52 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

James Wan has found a niche and he's sticking to it. The Conjuring shares many of the same triumphs (and failures) as its predecessor, Insidious. Although, because it has an R-rating, it is necessarily one step above its baby brother.

The Conjuring serves up a tight PG-13 type haunted house movie that compiles iconography from sources as varied as The Amityville Horror, The Twilight Zone, Paranormal Activity 3, The Exorcist, and even the 2013 megaflop Dark Skies. And for a while, it is content to run along much on the same track as Insidious - having multiple obvious sources but being a good enough compilation of classic elements to not feel like a complete ripoff. And, like I have mentioned previously, nobody is making good haunted house movies anymore, so maybe a return to basics is what we need right now.

Unfortunately, this is basics.

Based on the true case files of the Warrens, a married team of paranormal investigators, this movie takes place in the fall of 1971. Carolyn Perron (Taylor) and her husband (Ron Livingston) have just moved into a new house in Rhode Island with their five daughters. As if having to take care of five rambunctious girls wasn't horror enough, they begin to hear strange noises in the night.

A variety of ghostly things happen - mysterious odors, clocks stopping, pictures falling of the walls - and it's enough to make Carolyn seek out the help of Ed and Lorraine Warren (Wilson and Farmiga). Ed just wants to return home to their daughter but Lorraine has a giving heart and convinces him otherwise. Despite Something Horrible that happened to her on a previous case, she is determined to save this family (the girls have stuck a chord in her heart).

Without giving too much away, it turns out that a bevy of terrible things have happened on this very plot of land. Basically this house has a bloodier backstory than Jigsaw himself. I was well on my way to giving this film a 6/10 review (competent but uncreative) when the story took a sharp left turn and went from a halfway decent haunted house flick to an actually pretty good exorcism movie.

Now, it still owes a lot to previous movies but the tension is ramped up as sh!t really starts to hit the fan.  Unlike Insidious, the extended third act is what really holds this film together. If this means that James Wan's powers are only getting stronger, I am very excited for Insidious: Chapter 2's release in September.

So. Based on a true story. This gimmick is used quite a lot in the horror genre (off the top of my head we have The Blair Witch Project, The Exorcist, and The Amityville Horror) to add an extra dimension to the fear. If the audience thinks that what is happening really occurred to some poor family, we're entering pants-soiling territory here.

Although we may never know what actually happened, this film is in fact based on a true family. The Warrens were a team of demonologists that practiced for over 50 years. In fact, they were the pair that investigated the original Amityville Horror. Basically this couple is Zelda Rubinstein from Poltergeist for a living.

Now is it true? Are there demons in our universe trying to infest our souls? Maybe. Maybe not. Nobody will ever know for certain, but if not there are still enough bizarre disturbances to keep the Warrens in business, so that means there's gotta be something, right? OOOOoooooOOOOoooooOOOOOO.

Author's Note: As I write this, there is a mysterious knocking coming from upstairs. I believe somebody is hammering some kind of manly woodshop project, but I am entering Stage 3 Heebie Jeebies.

If you wanna check out the Warrens' website, click here. It is a spectacularly awful example of 90's web design (replete with terrible "spooky" MIDI music and - notably - one page with musical accompaniment by a group of Gregorian monks chanting "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"). It's actually a comfort, because it's much harder to take them seriously this way.

Although if my sources are correct, Ed Warren is what is known colloquially as a "babe."

TL;DR: A notch above Insidious, The Conjuring is content delivering effective but routine scares before it veers into a far more interesting arena.
Rating: 8/10
Should I Spend Money On This? Yes, absolutely. Especially because most modern audience members are less jaded than I am and will get a kick out of it.
Word Count: 775
Reviews In This Series
The Conjuring (Wan, 2013)
Annabelle (Leonetti, 2014)
The Conjuring 2 (Wan, 2016)
The Nun (Hardy, 2018)
The Curse of La Llorona (Chaves, 2019)

Welcome to the Shatterdome

Year: 2013
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi
Run Time: 2 hours 12 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

If you'll allow me to name drop for a minute, I had the unspeakable pleasure of attending a Q&A session featuring Guillermo del Toro himself and it was very clear that Pacific Rim was a product of love. He didn't discuss it so that he could sell it - he couldn't care less if we saw it, just that it was made to the best of his ability. Now, it's certainly not his best film by any stretch of the imagination, but all that time in his childhood spent avidly watching Japanese imports paid off.

Not content with just making a movie about giant robots punching big monsters in the face, del Toro has created a world that has grown accustomed to monster attacks, something which hasn't really been thoroughly explored. After a series of attacks on major cities by ravenous Kaijus (in Japanese - "strange creatures"), humanity dropped their disputes and banded together against the common enemy. The invention of the massive monster-fighting machines called the Jaegers (in German - "hunter") has allowed the world to carry on as normal. By this point in 2020, the monsters are a normal factor of life. Kaiju figurines fill toy store windows, Jaeger pilots are worshipped like rock stars, and Kaiju bone powder makes entrepreneurs a fortune with its Viagra-like qualities. There is even a slum in Hong Kong built inside a massive ribcage.

Humanity has grown confident in their abilities to beat back the Kaiju menace (they appear through a portal at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean about once every six months) but things have begun to change. Kaiju attacks are getting more frequent and the monsters are becoming more powerful.

Commander Striker Pentecost (Elba) rallies all the remaining Jaegers to launch one final defense of humanity. There are four; Cherno Alpha, a Russian behemoth operated by a husband and wife team (hooking a single person up to the machine proved too much for the human brain's capacity, so Jaeger pilots hook their brains together and work in tandem); the Crimson Typhoon, operated by a set of Chinese triplets; Striker Eureka, the most advanced model to date, run by an Australian father son team; and Gipsy Danger, an American Mark 3 model without a pilot.

Pentecost brings in the only living Mark 3 pilot, Raleigh (I could have sworn the said Riley, but IMDb never lies) Becket (Hunnam) and assigns his top agent, Mako Mori (Kikuchi), to find him a new partner. He is still traumatized by his brother's death five years ago. They were in the Jaeger with their brains hooked together and he could feel his brother be torn apart, which left him understandably a little shaken.

There's actually even more plot than this (it's two and a half hours, a lot happens), but I'll leave it at that for now. This is a good point to bring up the characters anyway. Every one of the mains and most of the supporting characters have a backstory that provides a motivation for their participation in this final showdown, like revenge for their family, duty to their culture, or even unbearable cockiness. Maybe the characterizations aren't as deep and complex as some of del Toro's artier Spanish works, but their backstories all resonate in the same simplistic, primal way as the monster fighting and as such, are a good tonal fit with Pacific Rim.

And of course, this being del Toro, there are some parts that generate actual feelings in the audience. Several scenes brought me close to tears, even. In a monster movie! With whatever flaws the movie had (including being far too long), it always had a solid emotional foundation to fall back on. It proves that although it can be tremendous fun to watch a monster level an entire city, human lives are ever expendable.

And yes, unfortunately, there are several flaws. While we're used to our giant monsters looking kinda fake (come on, Godzilla was a guy in a suit), there is something a little shabby about the CGI here that necessitates most scenes being shot at night so it's harder to notice.

This is one of the few daylight(ish) scenes and... well, it leaves something to be desired. 

Really, this isn't a huge complaint because, again, we don't honestly expect our monsters to look hyperrealistic. And how could a monster look real anyway? We don't actually have any to compare the Kaiju designs to. There's just something inescapably computer generated about them that you stop noticing after a while, but it is worth mentioning.

But hey, things get crushed, robots punch them in the face, and everything is fine. 

Let's talk about Charlie Hunnam. To my (and many people on tumblr's) astonishment, the lead character is played by the same guy who played the British womanizer Lloyd in Judd Apatow's 2001 college sitcom Undeclared, and boy has he grown. How a man could go from this...

to this...

is one of the great mysteries of the world, but I thank the Nondenominational Gods every day for it. Perhaps you've noticed that he's a British actor playing an American. Frankly, it shows. Many of his lines sound like they were spoken with a mouth full of dental instruments. But hey. You won't catch me complaining.

And that brings us to the other Charlie. It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia's Charlie Day plays a neurotic scientist bent on discovering the secrets of the Kaiju anatomy. It's a comic relief role, yes, and he plays it well. But his character is given much more importance than that and his dramatic scenes are incredibly credible. This isn't Oscar-worthy acting by any means, but I'm pretty impressed with Day's range.

So. Robots punching monsters. Mostly human characters. Actual emotional moments. Guillermo del Toro. It's just a popcorn movie, but it has enough of the good stuff to be a step above the rest of the box office bait out there at the moment.

TL;DR: Pacific Rim is fun, creative, and has emotional resonance despite some shaky CGI work.
Rating: 7/10
Should I Spend Money On This? You already know if you are going to like this movie, you don't need me to tell you.
Word Count: 1059

The Road to Hell is Paved With Hair Extensions

Year: 2004
Director: Paul Etheredge
Cast: Dylan Fergus, Bryan Kirkwood, Hank Harris
Run Time: 1 hour 24 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

You gotta hand it to a horror movie that has token straight characters.

By far the best thing about Hellbent is that, despite its reputation as the "gay slasher film," it does not use its characters' homosexuality as a gimmick. This is a routine slasher following the tried and true formula that happens to feature a cast of all gay characters. Being gay is a part of their lives and is intrinsically connected with their personalities and behavior. It is essential to the story, and this particular tale of bloody mayhem could not exist in its current state if its characters were anything other than queer.

That said, Hellbent is not a good movie.

Although this screenshot alone guarantees that it's not a 100% bad one.

It is the night before Halloween and two young swains are pulling up to Makeout Point for some steamy action that would make Grindr blush. Before they are too far along however, the night ends just about as poorly as any night of clubbing can with both paramours being decapitated by a sickle-wielding madman in a devil mask.

Yes, he's shirtless. What were you expecting, overalls? He's no basic b*tch.

The next morning, Eddie (Fergus) who is some sort of police intern is sent to put up flyers about the murders in the neighboring village of West Hollywood. He is bumbling and charming and falls madly in lust with Jake (Kirkwood), who he sees outside a tattoo shop on a smoke break between ink stabbing sessions. Ignoring the red flag that he's getting cheesy angel wings on his back, Eddie tries and fails to strike up a conversation. 

His work done for the day, he meets up with his friends at a local diner. At least two of them are his roommates, but the movie isn't too keen on making that clear. There's Chaz (Andrew Levitas) the slut (gotta have one), Joey (Hank Harris) the lovable nerd, and Tobey (Matt Phillips) who uses bravado to hide his insecurities. Now, they are more developed than that, but notice how nicely they fall into our slasher archetypes with Eddie as our resident Final Girl.

They traipse through the West Hollywood Forest (note to self: check to see if this is actually a thing) to get to the Halloween party and discover they are being followed by a mysterious masked stranger. Nothing much comes of it, and they quickly forget about it, caught up in the festivities.

Joey goes after a jock crush of his, bolstered by Halloween Spirits and Chaz's encouragement. Eddie falls in with Jake after winning him over with a personal stories about... well, this is the one spoilery type thing about the movie so I'll give that one a rest. Tobey is left to fend for himself and he learns that it's hard to pick up gay men when dressed as a woman.

Do I even need to say that the Devil Killer begins picking them off one by one?

The enormous phallus of death approaches.

The film doesn't offer much in the way of shocks or gore, although some story elements that come into play are quite unique for the subgenre. Made for pocket change, there's not much in the way of production values but there is one artistic element to speak of - the lighting. Although undoubtedly this is only the case because of the shoestring budget, most every scene is awash in sickeningly bright red light that is reminiscent of Dario Argento's Suspiria. Intentional or not, it draws to mind the characters' descent into Hell from the candy wonderland of a West Hollywood Halloween.

The film is ultimately forgettable, but it is filled with enough silly decapitations, actual character development, and sleazy shots of shirtless men to keep it interesting.

Hellbent is a trashy slashy flick, just like the ones I've come to love. But for once it is populated with characters I can relate to and that's all I ever wanted from it.

Body Count: 5
TL;DR: Hellbent is a bad slasher film, but with gay dudes. This is praise.
Rating: 5/10
Should I Spend Money on This DVD? Naw, you can just borrow it from me because of course I own it.
Word Count: 728

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, and Something Red

Year: 2011
Director: James Wan
Cast: Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Ty Simpkins
Run Time: 1 hour 43 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

When people find out I'm a horror buff they almost always ask if I saw Insidious, and until now my answer was no. I was much too caught up in the annals of 80's horror to be bothered with the new ones. My movie-watching field has since expanded and I found that I had missed out on one of the essential horror experiences of the year.

Did my experience live up to the hype? Well, yes and no. Insidious is chock full of borrowed elements and visual quotations from much better haunted house movies that were produced decades ago. At times it seemed like the filmmakers had bitten off more than they could chew, just throwing every ingredient in the pot and calling it a stew. Happily, it turns out that they were much more clever than that and even the most far-fetched elements fit into the narrative universe with very little manhandling and quite a bit of subtle foreshadowing.

Likewise, borrowing from other films isn't necessarily a crime. Many famous horror pictures wouldn't exist without standing on the shoulders of giants. And reintroducing classic elements to a modern horror audience was somewhat of a gift in the bland, chalky horror environment of the time. While Insidious didn't necessarily break any new ground, it was a step in the right direction for horror.

But let's throw all that analysis out the window for a moment. The most important thing Insidious does - and does well - is the rather impressive accomplishment of making a PG-13 horror film actually scary.

With frames like this, it's really not all that hard.

Josh (Wilson) and Renai (Byrne) Lambert have just moved into a new home with their three kids. Renai is a stay-at-home mom with dreams of becoming a successful musician, and the move was partially orchestrated so she can focus on her work. Her dreams are dashed for the moment when her son Dalton (Simpkins) falls into a mysterious coma and things start to go bump in the night.

It's easy to dismiss these early occurrences as stress or the house settling or what have you, but when she starts seeing mysterious people infiltrating her kids' rooms, she wisely decides that maybe they shouldn't be living in that house no more. To her dismay, the entities don't give up that easily and she calls in a medium (Lin Shaye) and her assistants (Leigh Whannell and Angus Sampson - who I recently saw in the delightfully wacky Aussie flick 100 Bloody Acres).

The third act is where things start to get a little rocky as the parents try desperately to save their son. The climax is extended far beyond its capacity, the main villain is turned into a mockery of his terrifying self, and Josh exhibits some truly embarrassing Stupid Horror Movie Character behavior. This sequence is repetitive and features numerous false endings which drag the film on a good fifteen minutes longer than it needs to.

It's almost like being in a coma.

Despite the finale's shortcomings, Insidious is a well-crafted thriller that provides a lot of bang for its buck. Cheap haunted house movie scares don't get much better than this, and the red-faced demon that provides the film's major antagonist is unforgettable.

The film works within its PG-13 rating and thus manages to avoid being neutered by it. There's no need for profanity - this is a family with young children. There's no need for buckets of gore - that's not what this domestic horror film is about. It is about the fear of the things that go bump in the night. The fear of those dark corners in a place you know so very well. And the fear that your child has become ensnared by something so sinister that you have no possible way of saving him - whether it be a coma or a cherry red minion of the Antichrist.

Not to mention we are thankfully spared the torture of child actors.Yes, the main victim of Insidious is a young boy, but the film is truly about his parents' relationship and their attempts to save his life. Both adult actors are tremendous in their roles and Josh's fear of being inadequate for his family and Renai's fear of being trapped in her role as a housewife are the driving forces behind the most hard-hitting horror sequences.

This is a horror film populated by uniquely human characters that uses a classic haunted house framework to further explore the dynamics of its central family. It does have some unique spins on the genre tropes, but it mostly relies on tried and true methods to tell a story larger than itself. If it weren't for the ending, this movie would be much higher on my list. But it does have it and while it doesn't diminish the overall effect of a very good scary movie, it does knock it down a peg or two shy of being a modern classic of the genre.

TL;DR: Insidious is clever, insightful, and - most importantly - scary.
Rating: 7/10
Should I Spend Money On This DVD? Yes, this movie is great for slumber parties. Scary enough to have actual impact but not so much that you'll never sleep again.
Word Count: 899
Reviews In This Series
Insidious (Wan, 2010)
Insidious: Chapter 2 (Wan, 2013)
Insidious: Chapter 3 (Whannell, 2015)
Insidious: The Last Key (Robitel, 2018)

In the Dark, Nobody Can See You Scream

For our Scream 101 podcast episode about this film, click here.

Year: 2005
Director: Neil Marshall
Cast: Shauna Macdonald, Natalie Mendoza, Alex Reid
Run Time: 1 hour 39 minutes
MPAA Rating: R

I'm just gonna come right out and say it. The Descent was so terrifying that Henri and I had to watch all of The Truman Show to feel like normal humans again.

This UK film follows a group of thrill-seeking girls who decide to go spelunking in a cave in the mountains of Appalachia. There's Holly (Nora Jane Noone), the bold and experienced (and possibly lesbian? Maybe I just hoped she was) adrenaline junkie. There's Juno (Mendoza), a brash and tactless woman. And there's Sarah (Macdonald), who lost her husband and daughter in a tragic accident, and for whom this trip was orchestrated - in an attempt for her friends to reconnect with her.

Also there's Sam (MyAnna Buring), Beth (Reid), and Rebecca (Saskia Mulder) who share approximately .16 personality traits. One of them is Sarah's best friend and one of them is her sister. And one of them is a nurse, I think it's the sistery one. For the life of me, I could not keep track of them.  It's really not important because the film is less about developing character (for the non-leads at least) than it is about balls to the wall claustrophobic torment. It is a mainstay on many people's lists of "Best Horror of the Decade" and it is plainly obvious as to why.

The girls are nervous but excited when they drop into the depths of the cave, but things quickly start to go wrong. This is a horror movie, after all. After a cave-in separates them from the main cavern, the girls desperately seek an alternative exit as they delve deeper and deeper underground.

I think that one in the front is Beth. Or Becca. Or... screw it.

The movie is hard enough to watch as it is, with the girls crawling through tunnels scarcely wider than their skinny little bodies. Unfortunately, things go from bad to worse as it slowly dawns on the unlucky spelunkers that... They're Not Alone.

I won't give too much away except that the film starts losing it's sh!t at about the 50 minute mark and doesn't take a break. An early scene almost made me fall off the back of my bed, and at one point I even said "holy blap!" because I was too out of whack for real words.

Not only is it like a jackhammer to the spine, it is actually remarkably well composed. Very often, there are shots in which objects in the foreground are juxtaposed with objects in the background to shed meaning on both items in frame. Now, this isn't exactly a groundbreaking concept in film, but for a low budget horror picture, this is Citizen Kane level stuff we're talking about.

There is also a repeated motif about the loss of Sarah's child and it's hard to say more without giving things away, but suffice to say it does make you think, even if its primary goal is to electrify your nerve endings. The sets are stupendous, the darkness is oppressive, and the presence of an overarching theme is enough to launch the film into the upper stratosphere of 2000's horror.

The strength of the film lies in its all-female cast and their interactions shed light on the nature of women's friendships, the morality system of society at large, and just how much butt a single girl can kick. Regrettably, the girls do sometimes fall prey to Stupid Horror Movie Character-itis (for the love of God, stop shouting), but that can all be explained away by extreme claustrophobia, which as explained early on can cause panic attacks and... well, basically everything bad that has ever happened to anyone ever.

I am muzzled by my desire to have people go into this movie with no major preconceptions, but I will end this too short review by saying that I'm jumping on the bandwagon. I absolutely agree that this film is without a doubt one of the top ten of the 2000's, and almost definitely the best horror film of 2005.

TL;DR: In spite of a lack of major characterization for half the cast, The Descent has quite a large amount of artistic merit and will flay the skin from your bones.
Rating: 9/10
Should I Spend Money on This DVD? Yes, please.
Word Count: 735
Reviews In This Series
The Descent (Marshall, 2005)
The Descent Part 2 (Harris, 2009)

Something About Much Ado

Year: 2013
Director: Joss Whedon
Cast: Amy Acker, Alexis Denisof, Fran Kranz
Run Time: 1 hour 49 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

When Sergio and I saw the trailer for Joss Whedon's Shakespeare adaptation Much Ado About Nothing before The Great Gatsby, he leaned over and whispered "It looks like it was filmed in somebody's backyard." The thing is, it was.

Joss Whedon gathered a group of his friends at his home in Santa Monica and they spent twelve days shooting during his break from The Avengers, and it is very clear that they had a lot of fun. That sense of whimsy and friends just screwing around is present in every frame of Much Ado, one of Shakespeare's most domestic and low-key comedies.

Side Note: Whedon's wife suggested that, in lieu of taking a vacation for their twentieth wedding anniversary, he stay home and film this movie, which had long been a passion project of his. Wife of the Year Award right there.

Although summarizing the plot is somewhat of an undertaking, I shall give the short version. The Prince Don Pedro (Reed Diamond of Dollhouse), his brother Don John (Sean Maher of Firefly), and their friends Benedick (Alexis Denisof of Buffy and Angel) and Claudio (Fran Kranz of Dollhouse and The Cabin in the Woods) arrive home from the warfront and stay at the home of Leonato (Clark Gregg of The Avengers), his daughter Hero (Jillian Morgese of The Avengers), and her cousin Beatrice (Amy Acker of Angel, Dollhouse, and The Cabin in the Woods).

Side Note #2: Fran Kranz is a hunk, and Claudio's shirtless scene was absolutely a standout. In my research for this review, I realized that he played the weedy stoner (pun not intended, but I like it) in The Cabin in the Woods. I have no idea how he got so handsome but I would like a copy of his workout regimen.

Anyway, Claudio falls instantly in love with Hero, as men in Shakespeare's plays are wont to do. The Prince decides to woo Hero for him and speaks with her father, setting up their wedding for next week. Remember they just met. Anyway. Don John is a mustache-twirlingly evil man and he hates his brother with such a passion that he makes it his project to break Hero and Claudio apart.

And while the wedding arrangements are being, well, arranged, The Prince gets bored and decides to trick Beatrice and Benedick (both of whom view each other with frequently expressed contempt) into falling in love with each other, and enlists the rest of the household to help him out. The Prince is basically a twelve year old girl.

Hilarity ensues.

Obviously, because it's Shakespeare, the language proves a challenge, but Much Ado is one of Shakespeare's least linguistically complex plays and it's easy enough to understand that even kids would be able to grasp the basics of the situation. Amy Acker is certainly the best with the iambic pentameter dialogue, delivering her lines in a totally natural, modern woman type of way. Alexis Denisof is another standout and, since they are the closest to what we could consider leads in the film, this is a great benefit to both understanding and entertainment.

Totes adorbs. -William Shakespeare

Most of the other actors are game, but some struggle with the archaic wording. Reed Diamond especially sounds like he's chewing on molasses while trying to cough up a marble. Luckily he grows into it (either that or you get used to it) and you can sit back and enjoy the situations unraveling without wanting to take a hole punch to your eardrums.

Whedon was very faithful to the original text; The only alterations he made were some abridgments and one understandable switch ("If I do not love her, I am a Jew" to "...I am a fool"). Although another offensive line about Ethiop's is used to great effect in a visual gag.

And, like most textually faithful Shakespeare adaptations, this is where the comedy comes in full force. The visual comedy is tremendous, with some inspired slapstick on the parts of Acker and Denisof (man, that dude is spry), and sight gags involving iPhones and Sprinkles cupcakes. These touches save the film from being another plodding retread of a much-repeated story.

Two of the most laugh-out-loud funny scenes of the movie revolve around the inept constable Dogberry (Nathan Fillion of Firefly and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog) and his partner Verges (Tom Lenk of Buffy, Cabin in the Woods, and my wedding fantasies). These characters are the comic relief (from the other comedy) and their timing is impeccable. Also in on the fun are the two watchmen, played by Brian McElhany and Nick Kocher (of the web comedy duo BriTANicK who have worked with both Joss Whedon and Nathan Fillion previously). I seriously can't get enough of their timing, and I'm just gonna move on before I say "timing" again.

Now it's time to talk about another standout, Jillian Morgese. Her story is one for the film history books.  A struggling New York actor, she got a job as an extra on the set of The Avengers as a waitress in the scene where the city is being destroyed by an army of rampaging aliens. Joss Whedon asked her if she could be scared. She said yes. He asked if she could break down and cry. Of course.

"Now I just need you to look back at the destruction and give up on your life."

She impressed Whedon so much that he cast her as Hero in his film. And it's easy to see what he saw. She has an inherent star quality that just draws you in. As Hero, she is meek and virginal and she is totally believable in those qualities, but her manner has such a strong presence that your eye is drawn to her in every scene she appears in.

Good job, Mr. Whedon.

The film is shot in slick black and white, with classy white fadeouts in between each act. The production values are incredible considering that it was shot for approximately the price of a Big Mac. The one element that isn't as consistently strong as the rest is the camera work, which is mostly fine but occasionally shudders as if the cameraman tripped and nobody bothered to fix it.

However, this doesn't happen quite enough to be a major flaw, and the movie is a lot of fun for Shakespeare and Whedonverse fans alike. It doesn't take itself seriously at all, so it's hard to ascribe monumental artistic value to it, but it is a project of such unflagging joy that it's almost impossible not to like.

TL;DR: Much Ado About Nothing is a piece of fluff, but is one of the best modernizations of Shakespeare to date.
Rating: 7/10
Should I Spend Money On This? Yes, because Joss Whedon and his friends doing anything is worth a peek.
Word Count: 1161

CinemaBeach: Bye Bye, Bayou

Hatchet III

Year: 2013

Director: BJ McDonnell

Cast: Danielle Harris, Kane Hodder, Zach Galligan

Run Time: 1 hour, 22 minutes

MPAA Rating: UR

Since 2006, Adam Green’s Hatchet movies have been the go-to source for old school American horror. The legend of Victor Crowley has seen a veritable who’s who of horror veterans including Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street), Joshua Leonard (The Blair Witch Project), Tony Todd (Candyman, Final Destination), AJ Bowen (You’re Next, A Horrible Way to Die), Danielle Harris (Halloween 4, Halloween 5, both Rob Zombie remakes), and of course Kane Hodder (Jason Voorhees in four consecutive films) as the murderous Victor Crowley.

And that’s the short list. I cut many actors out so as not to bore you with a laundry list of films. Obviously the franchise is very in touch with its roots, and the (supposed) end to this trilogy is no different. Danielle Harris and Kane Hodder both return for Hatchet III, alongside Derek Mears (the Friday the 13th remake), Zach Galligan (Gremlins, Gremlins 2), and Caroline Williams (Halloween II, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II, Leprechaun 3).This film isn’t messing around, and it has no prentensions that anybody would want to see it except for its cavalcade of in-jokes and fountains of blood. That is all it does, but there is no doubt it does them well.

The most surprising thing about Hatchet III is its integrity concerning its predecessors. Written again by Adam Green and directed by BJ McDonnell (who worked closely with Green on the previous two films), this film works in much the same way the other two did – mixing offbeat meta humor that manages not to be too on the nose (jokes about “contrived decision making” and reusing actors that are somehow subtle enough not to bludgeon the audience) with masterpiece practical effects – and here’s the kicker – no CGI was used for any of the gore effects in the entire trilogy.

The entire notoriously bloodthirsty franchise features horrific, stomach-turning sequences of bones being crushed, jaws ripped off, skulls split in half, and violence too intense to even describe without putting a NSFW tag on this post, and all of this was achieved with prosthetics, make-up, latex, and silicone. What is lacks in artistic merit it makes up for in pure foolhardy skill.

The plot follows Marybeth Dunston (Harris), the only survivor of two blood baths perpetrated by local urban legend Victor Crowley (Hodder), a deformed boy who was bullied by teens who accidentally set his house on fire, killing his father, and who now seeks revenge on those who enter his New Orleans swamp. Most recently, she has shot, chainsawed, and otherwise incapacitated Mr. Crowley and is arrested when she wanders into the local police station covered in blood, toting a shotgun, and muttering something about “I killed him.”

The paramedics arrive to find a massacre on Honey Island Swamp and Victor Crowley winds up on the mortician’s table. As it turns out, he’s not quite dead (apparently he’s a ghost who is doomed to regenerate and repeat his night of sorrow every time the sun goes down) and Randy the paramedic (Sean Whalen) ends up on the wrong end of an autopsy. The rest of his team manage to call for backup before getting summarily slaughtered (a good seven deaths in about thirty seconds – I had been trying to write down how each person had died before this point and quickly decided to just give up).

A team of officers led by SWAT commander Hawes (Mears) and featuring the least odious comic relief character in history (Cody Blue Snider) attempt to find the perpetrator of the carnage as Marybeth is enlisted by the sheriff’s ex-wife (Williams), a reporter with a strong fascination with the Crowley legend, to help end the torment once and for all. You see, Marybeth is the only living relative of one of the boys on whom Crowley wants revenge and to defeat him,  she (and only she) needs to present Crowley with what he wants – the body of his father.

The theme of the film (Yes, it has a theme. How quaint!) is being unable to escape your destiny and the film drives that point in with a sledgehammer. One of the most likable characters is given the most gruesome death of all three movies just to show that nobody is safe, and that this film is the end-all (unless, of course, they make another). It is bleak and it is brutal, but it is also a solid horror picture that features, among other things, Kane Hodder’s ability to vomit on cue and two ex-Jasons squaring off against one another. It is scary, bloody, silly, and although it is almost by necessity weaker than its two previous entries, it is one of the best ways to end (maybe) a beloved cult franchise.

Hatchet III is only for the most invested of horror viewers, but if you fall into that category it’s definitely worth it and, for this reviewer at least, it’ll be hard to say goodbye to Victor Crowley.

With a concise 82 minute run time, this films tears through the plot so it can get to the killings – and what a gloriously rendered series of killings it is. This film is only for the steely genre faithful, but the gore is over-the-top, almost too realistic, and tremendously fun if you’re into that sort of thing.

Body Count: About 30, but some come so fast it could be even more. That's an average of two deaths every five minutes.

TL;DR: Hatchet III is more of the same bloody mayhem, only for the most hardcore fans of the genre.

Rating: 6/10

Should I Pay for This? I can think of maybe only one person reading this who might even be able to stomach the gore in this film - even Kyla, a veteran like myself, had trouble sitting through it. So maybe not.

Word Count: 1008

Min(ion)ority Report

Year: 2013
Director: Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud
Cast: Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Benjamin Bratt
Run Time: 1 hour 38 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG

We're not even pretending that people care about things that aren't minions anymore.

Now let's make this very clear - this movie is definitely for kids. Forgive me for laughing like a lunatic during Gru's scene in the wig shop. Or awww-ing with the rest of them at anything the minions did - which was a lot this time around, Illumination Entertainment knows what's up.

Despicable Me 2 picks up within a year of its 2010 predecessor and Gru (Carell) has turned from the Dark Side of supervillainy to father the three adorable little girls who have stolen his heart. Aside from a subplot involving Gru being overprotective of the oldest, Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), these girls are shunted aside for most of the movie so we can watch minion antics.

Honestly, this is great. You go, minions. Do your minion thing.

Gru is contacted by the Anti-Villain League because, as an ex-villain himself, he is the perfect man to go undercover and discover who stole a secret transformative serum that turns adorable little animals into ruthless killers. It's basically a G-rated version of the Hannibal Lecter/FBI thing. What follows is a stock spy narrative in which red herrings are tossed halfheartedly about and Gru grows closer with his partner, Lucy (Wiig).

Really the plot doesn't matter except as a framework for us to watch the lovable Gru and his incompetent minions interact with the world in ways that sometimes veer in the too-childish fart jokes direction but frequently shine with more wit than is necessary for a kid's movie. Now, it's no Billy Wilder screenplay, but it's harmless and doesn't actually feel like a sequel. This movie, aside for a few character details could absolutely work as a standalone and that is one of its greatest strengths. It just doesn't feel like a followup to the beloved Despicable Me, and thus isn't beholden to comparison, which would only do it harm.

Watching the film is like blowing a soap bubble. It'll pop soon enough and you'll never think about it again, but you can't help but gaze in wonder at its ascent into the sky. The tangible joy behind the creation of this film is even enough to justify the creation of a character that could only be a ploy to sell more plushies.

Sergio wants me to mention that they're Laker colors.

Unfortunately, plumbing the depths of this film does not yield pleasant discoveries. The film's villain is a grotesque Mexican stereotype that isn't necessarily offensive but is so knife edge close to crossing the line that it can be rather distracting at times. Also featured is a somewhat less contentious (if only because he's in less of the movie) Asian stereotype played by Ken Jeong, who is one role away from being cast as a poorly driving, violin playing mathematician.

But by far the single worst element in the film is one that is only featured prominently in two scenes, but both flies in the face of the original movie (the only time I'll directly compare the two) and is just small-minded. The youngest daughter, Agnes (Elsie Fisher) is rehearsing for her school's Mother's Day pageant and laments the fact that she doesn't have a mother.

Never mind the fact that her real mother abandoned her, and she adores Gru as her father, a fact which is explicitly stated later in the movie. She is not complete without a female influence in her life and, as a gay man, it is heartbreaking to see this idea make its way onto the big screen and into kids' minds. The scene is meant to be a setup for Gru's eventual romance (Spoilers? No.) but the film veers from peddling mildly un-PC racial sterotypes to straight up pointing at single fathers or gay dads and saying "You're inadequate."

Despite its two major flaws, Despicable Me 2 is too earnest and well-meaning to be truly malicious and is still a completely watchable and, at times, quite funny film. I would rate it 7/10, but I do have to dock a point out of fairness to my people.

Also there's two Pitbull songs in it. Minus 1,000,000 points.

TL;DR: Although it walks a tightrope in terms of being politically correct, Despicable Me 2 is solid and clever children's entertainment.
Rating: 6/10
Should I Spend Money on This? Yes because minions.
Word Count: 756

Diplomatic Immunity

Year: 2013

Director: Marc Forster
Cast: Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz
Run Time: 1 hour 56 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13

A good sign that this film has been in Production Hell for far too long - there are about eleven different logos displayed before the movie starts.

World War Z's now notorious production process involved numerous rewrites, additional shooting, a complete rework of the original ending, director/cast/writer musical chairs, and just a whole lot of Hollywood red tape that would pretty much guarantee a supremely uneven film. So you can imagine my surprise when it turned out that World War Z is actually pretty solid. 

Now it is by no means a new direction for the genre, but its success hinges on one thing - fast zombies are freaking terrifying. Goodness knows why we've spent so much time with the sluggish shambling ones. We've already sucked that juicebox dry, and there's something wicked unsettling about the feeling of a thousand twitching sprinters coming your way.

You might have a helicopter, but they have hella zombies.

World War Z follows the adventures of an ex-UN investigator, Gerry Lane (Brad Pitt) as he tries to save his family from this year's, what, seventh zombie apocalypse? Thanks to his old connections, he gets his wife (Mireille Enos) and his poorly acted and thankfully mostly offscreen children (Abigail Hargrove and Sterling Jerins) to safety on an aircraft carrier 100 miles from the coast.

Poorly Acted Child #2: (somehow shrieking and deadpanning simultaneously) Daddy I'm scared!

Audience Member: Oh shut up!

I feel you, man.

But his superiors aren't about to let nonessential personnel on board without compensation and Lane is sent to South Korea to accompany Dr. Andrew Fassbach (Elyes Gabel, who is another Game of Throne pursuing a cinematic career) as he attempts to discover the source of the virus - Patient Zero. Unfortunately, Fassbach slips on a banana peel (you watch the movie and tell me that doesn't happen) and is incapacitated, sending Lane slingshotting across the globe in search of an answer.

On his travels, he encounters a toothless man, an Israeli soldier whose name I forget but whose hair is reminiscent of Sinnead O'Connor, zombie apocalypse grocery shopping, and inexplicable giant 1990's cell phones.

Nothing Compares 2 Emergency First Aid at 20,000 Feet

Perhaps the biggest flaw in the movie is that there is no possibility whatsoever that Gerry Lane will die. I mean, he's Brad Pitt. When his character is put in mortal danger, this lessens the overall impact somewhat, but hey, it's a Hollywood movie. We want and expect our protagonists to survive. In that nature, and in some other aspects of the plot, the movie is relatively predictable. It follows all the beats one would typically expect of a zombie movie without really transcending them in any way.

However, the movie is so relentless and pounding that the audience mostly just gets swept up in the action. At the heart of it all, World War Z is hair-raising. Sure, it may lack the social commentary or overall philosophy of a Dawn of the Dead. It's not going to be remembered years from now as a classic of the genre. But the truth is, I came in as a hardened genre fan expecting to be cynical and disappointed and was served up some action setpieces that can only be described as "awesome."

Large scale zombie mayhem. What more could anybody ask for?

It's hard to not be entertained by the gee whiz action spectacle, even if it never really does get you thinking. And despite its weaknesses, the film does have quite a few strengths to its name as well.

The plot does focus on a single family, but at the beginning of the second act, it expands its scope globally and we get to see how the rest of the world has reacted to the crisis, from India to Israel to South Korea to Canada and Wales. Grand scale reactions to the virus are highly uncommon in zombie films and greatly intriguing. This film does everything I always The Purge to do with its central concept.

The aspect I was most impressed with from a filmmaking standpoint was the editing. From a great  rule-setting sequence in which a child's toy counts down the time it takes for a bite victim to "turn" to an utterly gorgeous shot that follows a zombie's path from a helicopter back to our protagonists (setting the scene and establishing the relative locations of every important character) to a really cool opening montage to a rather excellent bit of business with a shopping cart, the editing was the strongest and most consistent single technical element throughout the film.

Maybe it's just an action movie.

Maybe there's more brains in the zombies' stomachs than there are in the screenplay.

Maybe there is no high philosophy behind the production.

Those aren't necessarily flaws to begin with for a movie like this, but they're insignificant when compared to the one key flaw; one that permeates the celluloid like the zombie plague itself.

Brad Pitt really needs to cut his hair.

TL;DR: World War Z might be different from (and less intelligent than) the book, but it gives you all it has and presents a not half bad post-Danny Boyle zombie thriller.

Rating: 7/10

Should I Spend Money on This? Yes, because it's better than most of the hodgepodge of a summer season this is turning out to be.

Word Count: 918