UNSUNG HORRORS: COPYCAT

Every once in a while, a genuinely great horror movie—one that would rightfully be considered a classic, had it gotten more exposure and love at the box office—makes an appearance. It comes, no one notices, and it goes. But movies like this are important. They need to be treasured and remembered. If intelligent, original horror is supported, then that's what we'll begin to receive, in droves. We need to make these movies a part of the legendary genre we hold so dear. Because these are the unsung horrors. These are the movies that should have been successful, but were instead ignored. They should be rightfully praised for the freshness and intelligence and craft that they have contributed to our genre.

So, better late than never, we’re going to celebrate them now… one at a time.

Dir. Jon Amiel

1995

Warner Bros.
United States

Copycat had the extreme misfortune of being released in theaters the same weekend as the-perhaps-you’ve-heard-of-it David Fincher-directed powerhouse Se7en. The two films are quite thematically similar, each featuring a serial killer with a gimmick: the former is repeating famous serial killings from years past, while the latter is using the seven deadly sins as his guide when taking lives. While Sigourney Weaver will always be a cinematic legend, she was sadly no match for Morgan Freeman and the up-and-coming Brad Pitt that weekend at the box office. Because the cast and crew of Se7en now currently enjoy a higher level of fame than those affiliated with Copycat (Fincher would go on to direct Fight Club and The Social Network; screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker would write Sleepy Hollow and The Wolfman), it’s easy to assume that one film is superior to the other – and you would be right…just in the wrong order. Copycat exceeds Se7en in every way possible—from the first frame to the last.

While Se7en begins with a gritty, artsy pastiche of trembling letters and icky gooey things, screaming to the audience, “Our movie is so fucked up, OMG, get ready,” Copycat, likewise, merely just begins…with a panning shot of college students lazing about on a beautiful sunny day. Layered over their laughter is the speech being given nearby in the school’s amphitheater by Weaver’s Helen Hudson—one detailing the 25 serial killers cruising for victims at that very moment. It’s a scary notion, and not much else comes from her speech to allay any fears.

Helen Hudson is a serial killer specialist and she knows her shit, having written books on the subject, and even having testified in a trial against serial killer Daryll Lee Cullum (Harry Connick Jr., in a surprisingly effective performance rivaling Kevin Spacey’s own as John Doe.) Cullum isn’t all that happy about Helen’s testimony, and he lets her know that; after having escaped from prison, he stalks her to the college where she is giving her speech and attacks her with a metal zip line noose and scalpel. Helen survives the attack – the same can’t be said for an unfortunate cop – and months later, she is an agoraphobic, unable to set foot even three feet out her front door without suffering a panic attack. Having become a total recluse, she has sworn off the entire outside world, and the world of serial killers with it…until the headlines in the newspaper begin—headlines warning of a possible serial killer haunting the San Francisco area (a fitting place, being that San Fran was previous stalking ground for the Zodiac, a serial killer never caught).

Inspectors Monahan (Holly Hunter) and Goetz (Dermot Mulroney) are soon introduced as partners (and lovers?) in the homicide department of the San Francisco Police. The two achieve an instant level of believability thanks to their onscreen chemistry, and both give career-best performances. They soon become entangled with the psychologically damaged Helen Hudson, who after seeing the headlines in the papers, can’t help but call the homicide department with frustrated tips of the trade. While the two inspectors are stuck following up on Helen Hudson, their colleagues show their distaste for the woman in different ways: fellow officers make jokes at her expense, referring to her “lunar cycle” theory as the “moon bike,” while their superior, Lieutenant Quinn, refers to her as “the shrink who got the cop killed.” Clearly Helen Hudson’s relationship with San Francisco PD is not a stellar one.

Lastly, we have the titular serial killer Peter Foley (William McNamara), plumbing the depths of history for the perfect murders to recreate. McNamara has the hardest job in the film—to play not a “scary” serial killer, but a real one. And what do people always say about serial killers? “He seemed so nice and quiet; always kept to himself.” McNamara is a handsome, but plain looking fellow, and he works very hard to have a commanding presence onscreen. It comes dangerously close to not working at times, but he manages to pull it off. And going further with this idea of the guy next door being a serial killer, the movie cleverly shows you Peter several times during the movie—though never introduces him as a named character for that “Oh man, HE’S the killer!” shock ending. His unnoticed presence drives the point home: he’s been around since the first minute of the film and he was never noticed. He stood in the police station and watched as crackpots confessed to the murder HE committed, even smiling to himself…even saying hello to one of the detectives working the case. This is the point of the movie: Violence exists in our society and we like to think it wears a noticeable face and a sign on its back—that we know where it originates, what the causes are, and how to stop it. But the truth is, we don’t. The violence we live with every day doesn’t exist on the news or in the papers—it lives next door. It wears glasses and tends to a needy girlfriend and says hello when you pass by.

Helen Hudson is Weaver’s absolute best performance to date—she is a character truly damaged by her encounter with the very thing by which she was fascinated. And she did not bounce back like most horror/thriller movie heroines tend to do; instead she has been changed for the worst. While she, Monahan, and Goetz hunt for the serial killer plaguing the San Francisco streets, Helen Hudson is also hunting for the strength within herself to defeat the demons keeping her captive in her own home—she just doesn’t know it at the time.

Interestingly enough, the movie is also viewed as a pro-feministic one, being that the intelligence and the cunning come not from a generic male lead who lets his gun do the talking, but rather two women who have their own drama bubbling just under their surfaces. I say “interestingly” because earlier drafts of the script had Holly Hunter’s role written for a man, who was then supposed to go on to have a quasi-romance with Weaver’s character. The change was for the better, as it helped bring a fresh perspective to an overdone dynamic.

Copycat was written by Ann Biderman, who would go on to write the immensely twisted Primal Fear, as well as find great success in creating the cult hit police drama "Southland." Director Jon Amiel would later direct the crowd pleasers – if not box office/critical sensations – Entrapment and The Core. Composer Christopher Young turns in one of his best scores to date—an amalgamation of hushed chorus, dreamy, almost shallow pond water-like melodies, mixed with the harsh strings we’ve all come to expect from the horror/thriller genre. 

Copycat is a masterful thriller, and though it’s not a bloody show like some of its genre colleagues, not everyone makes it out of the film alive—especially those whose deaths you won’t see coming. It doesn’t need a head in a box to be memorable, and it doesn’t need horrific set pieces filled with mutilated people. It only needs to be, because as it stands right now, it’s perfect.

UNSUNG HORRORS: RAVENOUS

Every once in a while, a genuinely great horror movie—one that would rightfully be considered a classic, had it gotten more exposure and love at the box office—makes an appearance. It comes, no one notices, and it goes. But movies like this are important. They need to be treasured and remembered. If intelligent, original horror is supported, then that's what we'll begin to receive, in droves. We need to make these movies a part of the legendary genre we hold so dear. Because these are the unsung horrors. These are the movies that should have been successful, but were instead ignored. They should be rightfully praised for the freshness and intelligence and craft that they have contributed to our genre.

So, better late than never, we’re going to celebrate them now… one at a time.

Dir. Antonia Bird

1999

Fox

United States

"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster…"

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Eat me."

- Anonymous

I’m not sure how a movie like Ravenous ever received a wide release. It surely wouldn't today – not even with more immense star power. The film’s budget was a moderate one, being estimated at just twelve million (in late 90s terms), and despite the relatively low budget, the film was a box office disaster upon its release. It received warm notices from critics, notably Roger Ebert, who called it “clever in the way it avoids most of the clichés of the vampire movie by using cannibalism, and most of the clichés of the cannibal movie by using vampirism. It serves both dishes with new sauces.”

I applaud FOX for releasing the film, for today they are a studio known as troublesome and bullying; they have gained a reputation for meddling in the productions of some of their tent pole films, neutering some of their harder franchises (Alien, Die Hard ) for the PG-13 crowd, and for being unreasonably fan unfriendly. How a movie like Ravenous ever managed to slip past their radar I’ll never know, but I’ll be forever grateful it did.

Ravenous was one of Guy Pearce’s immediate post-L.A. Confidential roles, and it was certainly a bold one to take on. There is very little dialogue for his character (he does not utter a full onscreen line of dialogue for nearly the first third of the movie), and his role as Captain Boyd, the disgraced war hero of the Mexican-American War, did not stand a chance against Robert Carlyle’s truly maniacal Colqhoun. The role of Boyd is understated and unorthodox – for much of the film he is a weakling coward, and then later, something comparable to a drug addict desperate for a fix.

But make no mistake – this movie belongs to Robert Carlyle. Had Ravenous received more attention upon its release, Carlyle would have certainly been nominated for Best Actor/Supporting Actor (and why couldn't he? Another famous cannibal was honored just eight years prior). His portrayal as the two-faced Colqhoun alernates from helpless and terrified to downright bloodthirsty and savage. Trainspotting’s Begby (another Carlyle role) does not hold a candle.

The rest of the cast is comprised of recognizable and respectable character actors (another detractor in the weird world of cinema, where money talks and bullshit walks). Jeffrey Jones (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off ) plays Colonel Hart (ho ho), the even-tempered and fatherly leader of the U.S. Army outpost where the bulk of the film takes place. He reads world literature, eats walnuts, and has graciously accepted his niche as keeper of a bunch of misfits. This role could have easily been written as the typical overbearing army superior fuckhead, but it wasn’t, and Jones bring a real humanity to what could have been a one-note role. Jeremy Davies (Saving Private Ryan ) plays Private Toffler, a possibly autistic, God-loving ball of nervousness. Neal McDonough (Minority Report ) plays Private Reich, and despite his short crop of screaming blonde hair, he fits right into the role of the soldier with far too much testosterone and very little reason. Finally, David Arquette plays Private Cleaves, and despite being fresh off the success of 1996’s Scream, his part is minor and perhaps underwritten.

Our plot is a relatively simple one: During the Mexican-American war, Captain Boyd fakes dying during battle in order to spare his life. He is thrown into a pile of dead bodies – at the very bottom – and has no chance at escaping, due literally to the dead weight piled above him. However, blood from his commanding officer’s “half shot-off head” leaks into his mouth, and he gains the strength to crawl out from under the dead and take out several enemy soldiers. He is hailed a hero, but military superiors know the truth of his cowardice. He is banished to Fort Spencer under the guise of being promoted, and here he remains with the above-mentioned characters until someone comes calling late one night – someone with tales of wintry survival and inhuman appetites.

A strange man named Colqhoun collapses just outside the fort’s main cabin, freezing from the cold, and ready to drop dead from malnourishment. He is brought inside and cared for by the fort’s occupants. He soon awakens with quite a story:

We left in April. Six of us in all: Mr. MacCready and his wife, from Ireland. Mr. Janus – from Virginia, I believe – with his servant, Jones. Myself. And our guide: a military man, coincidently. A Colonel Ives. He professed to know a new, shorter route through the Nevadas. Quite a route that was. Longer than the normal one. Impossible to travel. We worked very, very hard. By the time of the first snowfall we were still one hundred miles from this place. That was November. Preceding though the snow was futile. We took shelter in a cave. Decided to wait until the storm had passed. The storm did not pass. The trails soon became impossible, and we had run out of food. We ate the oxen. All the horses. Even my own dog. And that lasted us about a month. After that, we turned to our belts, shoes, and roots we could dig up... but, you know, there's no real nourishment in those. We remained famished. The day that Jones died I was out collecting wood. He had expired from malnourishment. And when I returned, the others were cooking his legs for dinner. Would I have stopped it had I been there? I don't know. But I must say. When I stepped inside that cave... the smell of meat cooking... I thanked the Lord! I thanked the Lord!

He goes on to explain that the consumption of human flesh gave him almost supernatural strength…and unnatural appetites. These words give Boyd pause, as he remembers his own experience on the battlefield — when all seemed lost until dripping blood from the corpses above him gave him unnatural strength…

Colqhoun, we soon come to realize, is not who he seems, and when the men trek to the cave to search for survivors, he reveals his true face. With the help of a buried dagger, he picks off the men one-by-one, leaving Boyd for dead. Out of desperation, Boyd slices off some of Private Reich’s dead flesh, gaining enough strength to make it out of the wilderness and return to Fort Spencer. As does Colqhoun…under the guise of Colonel Ives, one of the alleged murdered. No one believes Boyd’s wild stories about murder and cannibalism and he is shackled.

One of the fort’s occupants, Martha (a Native American), warns Boyd that the only way to defeat a wendigo – an evil force that devours men and absorbs their spiritual and physical strength – is to “give” … because all the wendigo does is “take.”

At movie’s end (this should come as no surprise, but, spoiler), Boyd and Colqhoun battle to the death by falling into an awaiting bear trap, which snaps them both together, six-inch spikes stabbing into their flesh. Boyd is victorious, having “given” his life to stop Colqhoun from “taking” further lives. Before he dies, Colqhoun challenges Boyd: “If you die first, I am definitely going to eat you. But if I die first, what will you do?”

What Boyd chooses is ultimately left ambiguous, but I think it’s safe to say he opts to fast.

At the end of the day, the plot of Ravenous is gleefully and unashamedly stupid – it amounts to no more than a bunch of men stabbing each other, getting blood all over pretty much everything, and eating human flesh. The movie really just wants to have fun, and that it does. Director Antonia Bird knows the movie’s true strengths lie in the atmosphere that can be created – that of a stark winterscape draping across a barren military outpost. Despite this – and as unusual as it may sound – none of the murder and the mayhem ever feels mean-spirited. If made today by a different director, the movie would be a bloody show set in dingy basements or laboratories. Men would be locked into rooms and forced to eat each other. And there would be no humor in the proceedings at all. And this is where Ravenous truly shines.

The onscreen events are horrifying – not just the notion of death, but of your earthly body being consumed after you check out – but director Bird keeps the levity going. And she was smart to. (Credit must also be given to screenwriter Ted Griffin, who would go on to write more straightforward comedies like Ocean’s Eleven, Tower Heist, and Rumor Has It…) Most of the humor comes from the wry dialogue between the characters, but also from the film’s score by Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn (a rare foray into film music from the frontman of Blur and Gorillaz). Hillbilly fiddles play as Colqhoun chases Private Toffler through the woods with a dagger, ordering him to “run;" poorly performed military music squeaks in the beginning of the film, during which a hundred men sit down to their post-war meals of bloody steaks, showing just how ridiculous it all really is. The musical score utilizes found audio, native vocalizations, and wildly diverging tones to create one of the most frenetic (and frankly, best) film scores I’ve ever heard. It effortlessly rotates between goofy, to dreamlike, to pulse pounding, to downright creepy.

And creepy the movie is.

Colqhoun’s descent into newfound madness, and his frenzied digging at the dirt where his dagger is buried; the rapidly increasing cuts that begin when Boyd and Reich descend into the cave; the close-up shot of Reich's dead and dirt/blood-covered grinning face, tinted blue under the light of the moon – it's all incredibly and effectively unnerving, even on repeated viewings.

As for the movie’s “moral”? Take your pick: During the film, Colqhoun muses on the idea of manifest destiny—of the infant country’s citizens as they expand across the land with their voracious appetites. And while they are consuming the natural resources of the country, in the end, it is the country that is consuming them. Meanwhile, the backdrop of the movie is set against the Mexican-American war, yet another conflict involving stolen land and the United States, who in an effort to consume even more territory and grow stronger, killed a lot of their own men in the process. And lastly, there is the Native American element (two of whom live in Fort Spencer), and worn of the “wendigo.” Interesting that this warning would come from them, being that it was their people who were displaced when our ships first breeched their shores so many years ago – in an effort to consume, dominate, and grow stronger.

"McDONOOOOOOUUUUUUUGH!!!!!!"

Most importantly, however, is that Ravenous is just a great movie, whether or not you want to dig beyond the surface and examine the themes below. It boasts great performances, great atmosphere, and amazing music. The red stuff flies, as do limbs and bones. The chemistry between the cast is pitch perfect, and it's truly a shame this movie was not more appreciated upon its initial release.

UNSUNG HORRORS: THE CALLER

Every once in a while, a genuinely great horror movie—one that would rightfully be considered a classic, had it gotten more exposure and love at the box office—makes an appearance. It comes, no one notices, and it goes. But movies like this are important. They need to be treasured and remembered. If intelligent, original horror is supported, then that's what we'll begin to receive, in droves. We need to make these movies a part of the legendary genre we hold so dear. Because these are the unsung horrors. These are the movies that should have been successful, but were instead ignored. They should be rightfully praised for the freshness and intelligence and craft that they have contributed to our genre.

So, better late than never, we’re going to celebrate them now… one at a time.

Dir. Matthew Parkhill
2011
Sony Pictures
United States 

The Caller, based on the lazy synopsis on the back of the case, should not have been a good movie. And when I tell you that the starring role was originally given to Brittany Murphy, and that Luis Guzman (whose two previous roles were in Old Dogs and a direct-to-video sequel to Waiting) plays the role of the surly-but-lovable gardener, well, I completely understand your misgiving.  The title alone alludes to something more visceral in nature. It harks back to other phone terror based movies from the past, such as When a Stranger Calls, Black Christmas, and Scream. But the fact is The Caller is a great movie. It has an original premise, and while it's one that could go off the rails at any minute, the smart writing and the believable acting by the cast (including Guzman) keep it grounded. It's a movie more focused on psychological scares, and except for a scene here or there, is never about violence. Really, at its core, it's about the terrible things a person is willing to do to preserve their own self-prescribed idea of a perfect life... and in our protagonist's case, to ensure their own survival.

Mary Kee (Rachelle Lefevr, thankfully replacing Brittany Murphy very early in production) is in the process of divorcing from her abusive husband,  Steven (Ed Quinn), and she moves into a less than desirable apartment in San Juan. The walls are green and the appliances are ancient, but she's finally on her own. Her only company is Dexter the dog, apparently the only thing she was able to salvage from the split with her husband. Her surroundings could be better, but she dresses up her new place in an effort to make it home, and she soon finds company in the apartment complex's gardener, George (Guzman, in an atypical and understated role).

One day, Mary receives a call from Rose, an older woman from the sound of her voice. Rose seems to be looking for someone named Bobby, and is desperate to talk to him. Mary explains that she has just moved into the apartment and that Bobby no longer lived there. And this marks the beginning of what will be a dangerous "friendship" between Mary and Rose. For you see, Rose calls back, again and again. She claims to have driven by the apartment and saw Bobby with her own eyes, which obviously makes no sense to Mary, as she knows she is the only one living in that apartment. Rose breaks down and explains that she and Bobby were to be married right after Bobby returned home "from Vietnam." Mary goes on to ask Rose's age, and she replies 41, which obviously doesn't jibe. The Vietnam war having ended forty years ago, that would have made Mary a mere one year old at the time of the lovers' vow to marry. Mary explains this with frustrated indignation and hangs up. Rose soon calls back...with an idea — a way for her to prove to Mary that through inexplicable events, the two have connected via Mary's apartment phone through forty years of spanning history. Rose claims to have drawn something on the inside of Bobby's apartment pantry in her time and she orders Mary to look — to see what she has drawn. Mary hangs up and checks the pantry. She sees nothing. She scoffs and goes to bed, but finds herself unable to sleep. She goes back to the pantry and this time scrapes away at the wallpaper and reveals a picture...of a rose.

The phone rings. The two women — separated by forty years of time — begin a brief, unlikely friendship. Rose explains that Bobby had always been a womanizer, but she felt too weak to leave him. Mary tells her that for Rose's own good she should simply "get rid of him." Well, Rose takes that advice to heart. She gets rid of Bobby. And the next day, Mary opens her pantry door to see that it's much smaller than it had been the day before, and that a small section towards the back has been bricked off. But the bricks aren't new looking. They look quite old. Forty years old. Rose really took Mary's advice, after all.

Our plot kicks into high gear. A sick game of cat and mouse begins between the two of them. Mary wants only to be left alone, whereas Rose is lonely and wants a friend. And it escalates to a showdown you may or may not see coming. 

The Caller is a remarkable combination of the underrated Dennis Quaid flick Frequency, and your more typical horror fare such as Single White Female or Misery. We can even throw in a bit of Donnie Darko for good measure. And it all works. When working with "time travel" movies, one always runs the risk of falling victim to the plot holes that usually inundate the subgenre. There seem to be an infinite amount of things that can go wrong, or not make sense, or contradict, in movies where time travel is involved. The Caller, knowing this risk, stretches its time travel motif to the extreme without it ever spilling over into the "well this would happen / and that would happen" argument movie nerds love to vilify. As strange as it is to say, the unusual plot of the movie — Mary being stalked by a woman forty years in the past — is handled in a believable way.

This is Lefevr's movie and it's up to her portrayal as Mary to carry the film. And she does, beautifully. Much like many other horror movie leads before her, she had to find that right balance of the terrorized victim and the proactive hero unwilling to lay down and die. Lefevr's Mary is strong, cunning, beautiful, and even ruthless at times. And it all works in service to the film.

This is a movie that plays the slow burn tactic to profound effect. The majority of the movie is Mary and Rose on the phone with each other. The movie hinges on this. And if this didn't work, ultimately the movie would fail. It never falters. This is where the casting of Rose comes into play. Lorna Raver (most famous for her role as the crazy gypsy from the even crazier Drag Me To Hell) had perhaps the most difficult job on the film: finding that balance between sounding sweet, helpless, and even maternal, as well as creepy, sinister, and downright fucking evil. For a large portion of the movie, Rose's villainy can only be exuded through her voice on the phone, and she does so with great skill.

Not helping matters is Steven, who routinely shows up to remind Mary that though she may have moved out, and though their divorce is pending, he will never let her ago. Needless to say, Mary is not having a good year. 

Rounding out the cast is Stephen Moyer as John, who nicely fits the ensemble, and it's refreshing to see him in the role of the protagonist — a man who grows to care for Mary and tries his best to help her when shit hits the fan. Kudos should be given to Moyer for choosing the role he did. The director states that he was originally up for the role of the abusive husband, which he could have played swimmingly. Instead he opted for the less showy role — the one of the hapless male who gets sucked into all the goings-on, all because he becomes fixated on Mary at an early point in the film (and any man would.) We've seen this character type many times before: the disbelieving man who opts to believe the antagonist is crazy until it's too late. Instead, almost from the very beginning,  John is aware of Mary's claims, and while he is not totally on board, he tries to help her make sense of it all. He is clearly aware that Mary is in trouble and wants nothing other than to help. 

SPOILER:

As much as I didn't want to discuss the ending for the uninitiated, there's a particular aspect  of it I feel compelled to bring up. When the ending sequence first begins, there is a brief moment of disappointment. "Oh," you say to yourself. "They're doing this?" There are both pros and cons about the movie's end, but really the cons begin to fizzle the more you consider the mental state of Rose for her to do what she has done. In the last five minutes of the movie, Rose is no longer just a voice on the phone. She is a physical villain, smashing through Mary's door with a machete. And yes, while watching this at first, I myself thought it was a cheap ending. To me it seemed to go against everything the movie had established up to that point: how these two characters could be threats to each other, though they were separated by forty years. But the more I thought about it, the more unsettled I became. Basically, it boils down to this: 1970s Rose dominates most of the film. She is the villain. Only in the last five minutes does 2011 Rose show her face. So what you are left with is the realization that Rose waited forty years from the time she first "met" Mary in an effort to finally kill her, once and for all. For forty years, every single day, I'm sure, killing Mary was the only thing on her mind. It's a last-second twist that you're either totally on board with, or not.

I'm on board. All the way.

END SPOILER:

Not surprisingly, reviews for the movie have been mixed, a sad number of them dipping into negative. Reviewers have accused the movie of having no style,  and being a ho-hum combination of movies we've all seen before.

Reviews like this make me throw my hands up in defeat. If a clever premise, great acting, and psychologically fucked villains can't satiate the horror-craving masses, than I honestly don't know what can.

---

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UNSUNG HORRORS: LAKE MUNGO

Every once in a while, a genuinely great horror movie—one that would rightfully be considered a classic, had it gotten more exposure and love at the box office—makes an appearance. It comes, no one notices, and it goes. But movies like this are important. They need to be treasured and remembered. If intelligent, original horror is supported, then that's what we'll begin to receive, in droves. We need to make these movies a part of the legendary genre we hold so dear. Because these are the unsung horrors. These are the movies that should have been successful, but were instead ignored. They should be rightfully praised for the freshness and intelligence and craft that they have contributed to our genre.

So, better late than never, we’re going to celebrate them now… one at a time.

Dir. Joel Anderson

2008

Lionsgate Films

Australia

“Liked found footage movies” could one day be etched on my tombstone, and not only because it’s true, but also because I’ve spent most of my blog systematically beating those words to death. But I do. I like found footage movies. Except for rare, rare gems like Insidious, it’s become almost impossible to make a traditional narrative film that effectively scares. Most filmmakers, despite their best intentions, just don’t know how to do that. They claim to know. They claim to use “Hitchcockian” techniques (a term I have grown to loathe). Really what this means, however, is that they reenact the Psycho shower scene, but instead of leaving it to your imagination, they show you heads falling off and geysers of blood. Something about the way found footage movies are made easily manipulate the viewer. All bets are off, really. So long as you have a valid reason for why your cameraman hasn’t long dropped the camera in fear instead of stoically filming the gigantic King Kong-sized monster standing above him in Central Park, then you have the freedom to pretty much show whatever you want and get away with it. And not only that, but even the most mundane things seem creepy. You see a dark room, and in that dark room you see a darker shape suddenly move in the corner. Already you can feel the chill ride down your spine. You wait for it to materialize, to be something with malicious intent. Found footage movies are that one scene in your traditional horror movie where a character is walking around the corner and the music is mounting—only it’s like that for the entire running time. Once that first creepy thing happens, anything can happen at any time.

Movies like Australia’s Lake Mungo are a rare bird. Not only are found footage movies still rare when compared to the number of more traditional stuff that gets greenlit every day, Lake Mungo takes it one step further: instead of the movie seemingly taking place in real time as characters stumble around the dark, the movie is comprised of sit-down interviews with the main characters as they reflect on the events that inspired the “documentary”—events that have already taken place. Yes…Mom, Dad, and Brother aren’t risking being possessed by ghosts or sliced in half by zombies run amok. The event that triggered this “documentary”—the horror the characters endured—is already behind them. (One comparison that immediately comes to mind is Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie, a movie about the assassination attempt of Adolf Hitler—something the world knows never came to fruition, yet watching the attempt unfold still manages to be incredibly suspenseful, anyway.) In short, we spend the entire running time with characters that are not in any danger.

And despite that, it never fails to make the movie any less creepy.

The movie begins with the death of sixteen-year-old Alice Palmer (perhaps a nod to Twin Peaks’ Laura Palmer, yet another doomed teen girl whose own death was a mystery) after her drowning at a local lake, her family’s vacation spot (which, before you get ahead of yourself, was not the titular lake). Naturally her family is torn apart by the incident, and with her death taking place just a few days before Christmas, they each walk around in a stupor, unwilling to believe that the worst has happened. Each of them deal with Alice’s death in a different way: Dad goes back to work in an attempt to keep busy; Mom refuses to accept that her daughter has indeed passed on and is instead merely missing (Dad, only, identified the body); and Mathew, Alice’s brother, embraces his hobby of photography more than ever. But despite their different ways of mourning, all of them soon come together when they begin to experience the same thing: the potential haunting of their home by Alice’s ghost.

Lake Mungo plays like your typical “Dateline” special, utilizing the aforementioned sit-down interviews with immediate and extended family and friends, as well as home movies and photographs to tell its story. It honestly all plays out so realistically—even when the supernatural elements come into play—that it really feels like something you might watch one night on a news channel. 

The supernatural elements come into play once Mathew kicks his photograph hobby into high gear. Images of Alice seem to show up everywhere—inside the house as well as outside in the backyard. Because of this, Matt begins to set up a stationary video camera (pre-dating Paranormal Activity) to see if he can capture anything of note. What he captures is Alice.

It’s important to note that while Lake Mungo isn’t a full-fledged horror movie per se, that doesn’t mean it has no intention of trying to scare you, because it does. Again and again. But it chooses its moments to do so, so that when they do occur, it is far more shocking than it would normally be. Five minutes of creepy footage mixed into 85 other minutes of other creepy footage is just footage. It gets lost. But five minutes of creepy footage woven into a narrative about mourning and regret becomes jarring and real. And that’s what this movie is, really: a reflection on loss, and dealing with death, and with facing the notion that you can never truly know someone if they don’t want you to. There’s a great line in the film spoken by Alice’s best friend: “Alice kept secrets. She kept the fact that she kept secrets a secret.” Because as the story unfolds, we begin to realize that Alice was not the person her family believed her to be. And while such a proclamation immediately makes one assume Alice was in actuality a devious character, or a murderer, or something worse, that’s not the case here at all. It’s just that the Palmer family didn’t know everything about Alice they should have…and maybe Alice regretted that. Maybe, in death, Alice wanted her family to know who she truly was—her good faults as well as her bad.

The acting in this film is across-the-board fantastic and convincing. With a movie like this, one false performance can derail the proceedings. Because if you don’t believe what you’re seeing has happened, or could potentially happen, then you, the viewer, are left behind. No one in the film appears as if they are giving a “performance”—they just sell what has to be sold, which is that they are a grieving family undergoing strange events in their home and trying to make sense of it all.

While the movie’s running time is 10% “found footage,” and while a large portion of that “found footage” is simply every-day video taken by various family members over the years, there remains a scene, created with a cell phone video camera, that is extremely unnerving. It is the strength of this scene that demands Lake Mungo be included with the other found footage heavyweights The Blair Witch Project, Cannibal Holocaust, and Paranormal Activity. I know that a lot of folks out there disown movies like BWP and PA because, frankly, “You don’t see anything! They never show you the witch/ghost!” Well, number one, those people are foolish, anyway. And number two, Lake Mungo does indeed show you the villain—the antagonist. It shows you the force that has come and stolen the life of a young girl and left her family in tatters. It shows you death, coming at you from the darkness of Lake Mungo in shaky, blurry two-inch-by-two-inch camera phone video. It’s a scene that will literally chill you, and stay with you long after the movie is finished.

Lake Mungo was released in 2008 as part of the generally terrible After Dark Horror Fest/8 Horror Movies to Die For platform. For the uninitiated, these consist mainly of movies that are basically direct-to-video low-budgeters that are randomly picked and marketed as “the movies they didn’t want you to see.” Well, that’s partly true…because most of them are pretty terrible. And it feels dirty to see Lake Mungo bare the same banner as Lake Dead and Monster Man, two of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. Soon after its release in 2008, it was announced that the producers of The Ring remake would be shepherding a remake of Lake Mungo, due for release in 2011. With 2011 coming to an end in less than two months and the movie not even entering pre-production, hopefully this is an idea long abandoned. While the movie is perfect just the way it is anyway, the damn thing is also in easily understandable, Australian-accented, English. And unless they were to pump recognizable faces into the American remake (which would defeat the whole purpose of this movie trying to feel real in the first place), why on earth would you bother?

I love horror movies. I’ve seen more horror movies than anyone I know. When I was a kid, and other kids my age were watching The Goonies, I was watching Friday the 13th or its derivatives. Whenever our family went to an uncle/aunt’s house for a holiday, it wasn’t long before I was sneaking away to watch whatever horror movies (on VHS, no less) they had in their cabinets. (This is how I first came to see Night of the Living Dead, Re-Animator, and A Nightmare on Elm Street.)

I say this to you because of the quite literally thousands of horror movies I have seen, only three have ever actually affected me: The Exorcist, The Blair Witch Project, and Lake Mungo. That’s pretty good company, I say. And I truly mean it. I look at a movie like Lake Mungo, and I see everything horror fans claim to want—real performances, real terror, intelligent writing, a supreme lack of horror clichés, and absolutely no pandering to its audience—and I wonder why more people do not know about this movie. Frankly, it’s a goddamn shame. It’s an unsung horror. 

(Oh yeah...be sure to watch the closing credits.)

UNSUNG HORRORS: THE INTRO

Horror fans (and I of course am one) are often unfairly maligned by the rest of cinema-viewing society. Because for some reason, we can’t seem to get enough of our beloved genre. The good, the bad, and everything in between, we need it—we need to consume it; and we do, in voracious, uncontrollable amounts. We have conventions and television channels and entire clothing lines; comic books and websites and collectible figures; and every single DVD release of Halloween that’s come down the pike (five so far). We live for it. To quote from "Millennium" (hey, a horror show!), this is who we are. And people notice this, and think us weird. Because, c’mon, who in their right mind walks around in a Freddy Krueger shirt? Who has the Tubular Bells as a ring tone? Who will actually wait two hours in line just to meet the guy who played a bit part in John Carpenter’s The Fog?

We do. Because we’re horror fans.

No one’s going to conventions for romantic comedies. No one has t-shirts dedicated to The Notebook or any of Tyler Perry’s nonsense. And sure as shit is no one waiting in line to meet Rob Schneider—that much I can guarantee you.

Horror, much like life itself, is cyclical. Fads come, we relish in them, we get sick of them, and then they go. After Halloween, we got sick of slasher movies. After Scream, we got sick of teen-casted, pop culture-centered, self-aware who-done-its. After The Ring, we got sick of wet ghost girls crawling out of wells and up walls and across ceilings. After the truly anemic Saw series, we got tired of seeing someone strapped to a table while their fingernails were removed. And could it be…after the poor box office performances of Let Me In, Fright Night, and The Thing…are we finally sick of remakes? (Some would argue that they were sick of them ever since Platinum Dunes saw fit to give us their take on The Texas Chain Saw Massacre back in ‘03, but horror fans’ opinions on message boards are not adhered to as much as they would like to think—it’s the wallets of the mainstream audience that speak volumes.) And sure, while remakes are bad ideas in general, and have only illuminated just how idea-bankrupt Hollywood has become, some of them are just fine. Like that Texas Chain Saw Massacre remake I spoke of earlier. It ain’t half bad. And neither is Zack Snyder’s take on Dawn of the Dead. Sure, your fiercely protective horror fans will lambaste them in some misguided sense of loyalty, and I can understand that. But as far as both of these remakes are concerned, audiences and critics agreed, and the two movies were rightly considered successes. (Entertainment Weekly gave Dawn an A-! Entertainment Weekly! A zombie movie! An A-!)

But what about the other hundreds of remakes and sequels that have come out? Did the world really need Rob Zombie’s truly abhorrent take on Halloween (2007)? Did we really need to find out the back-story of Billy in Black Christmas (2006)? And my goodness, how do you fuck up Friday the 13th (2009) so badly? We’re not talking Shakespeare here, people—we’re talking Voorhees. It’s a pretty cut-and-dried concept, and yet these tepid filmmakers managed to produce a movie filled with annoying characters, boring deaths, and the lazy presence of an iconic figure whose own myth was underrated and disrespected. I’d rather have seen a sequel to the truly ridiculous Jason X than this mess. And speaking of sequels, did you know that with the recent release of the by-all-accounts-terrible Hellraiser: Revelations, there are now more Hellraiser entries that went direct-to-video than were released in theaters? Did you know there are now TEN Children of the Corn movies? Fucking ten! (One of them being a big budget remake in the hands of Dimension Films.) Who the fuck is still renting Children of the Corn ??

So why am I railing on this genre I so claim to love, you ask? What does this have to do with anything? Because I have a problem with horror fans. A huge problem. I love them all, and I count myself as one amongst their flock, but they are a very persnickety bunch. Though they consume every subgenre of horror in bulldozer-sized chunks, they are constantly begging for something new and different; and yet, when something new and different finally comes their way, they ignore it. They claim to desire something fresh and unique, and not just a rehash of everything that has come before, but at the end of the day, they’re sell outs—the same they accuse their beloved filmmakers Carpenter, Romero, and Craven of being for selling off the rights to their film properties for many of the ill-advised remakes that have assaulted our community (and in most cases were not even owned by the filmmakers in the first place). Horror fans speak loudly, but do not carry a big stick. They stay home. They download Hostel 2. They fight on IMDB. But they do not support the original horror that needs to be supported. They instead rent Hellraisers 6, 7, and 8, which has now led us to 9.  Those movies are garbage, and they know they are. And while they claim to want more, they simply don't deliver. Why do they eagerly pony up their money to go see bullshit like The Hitcher (2007), in some cases more than once, but let something like the brilliant Zodiac fall by the wayside (which was released the same god damn year)?

Before finally coming to the end of my rant, allow me to explain what a horror fan is, first, in order to help mend fences: We’re the ones who stick by all the bullshit that gets released. We’re the ones keeping the candle lit for further (pure) adventures in Haddonfield, Springwood, and Crystal Lake. We’re the ones who (used to, anyway, while they still existed) sifted through the bargain bins of mom-and-pop video stores looking for an unheralded little gem to thrill us for 90 minutes. We’re the ones who ultimately ended up dipping into European cinema to grab at their take on the zombie subgenre, whose levels of gore and violence blew our own out of the water. We’re the ones who grin and bear it through tedious franchise pictures (looking at you, Child’s Play ) in hopes that the next installment will actually be good. (We know it’s possible; there have been high points in long-running franchises: Halloween 4 for one, The Exorcist III: Legion, another, and even Freddy vs. Jason—yeah, I said it.) We’re even the ones who every once in a while actually have a bit of power and help shape a movie like, say, Snakes on a Plane. (Sorry about that one, by the way.) And sure, sometimes those “other” people—read: mainstream audiences—dip their toes into our pool and walk away with a Paranormal Activity, a Silence of the Lambs, or a Seven. And good for them. But we remain behind, like ever-loyal soldiers. We suffer through horseshit like One Missed Call and the Resident Evil movies, and my goodness, Prom Night (2009). Because it’s our genre. It’s our family, and like family, you take the good with the bad. For every fun Cousin Dave, there’s a thousand creepy Uncle Chesters with whom you’ve got no choice but to co-exist, and we’ve made our peace with that. Like wedding vows between a bride and groom, we’ve signed on for the long haul—through good and bad, health and sickness, [REC] and Quarantine. For every Dracula, there’s a thousand Twilights. But horror fans need to be more discerning. You want to rent one of the rip-offs produced by the Asylum? Fine. I can't tell you any different. But why not keep an eye out for the movies actually worth your time? Why not keep an eye on message boards, or any of the top horror movie websites out there (ShockTillYouDrop.com, DreadCentral.com)? Except for radical misfires every so often (people love Repo: The Genetic Opera? Really?), these guys are on the money, and they know their shit.

Horror shapes the world—it’s a part of our history, our culture, and our subconscious. Fear is our most primal emotion. As John Carpenter states, we’re born afraid. We die afraid. It’s the only emotion we’re guaranteed to feel as human beings. It’s the first and last emotion we’ll ever experience.

The very first narrative film is believed to be Edison’s take on Frankenstein. To date, there have been more books written about Jack the Ripper than Abraham Lincoln. In fifty years, no one will be talking about The Social Network, "NCIS," or even Snooki. They’ll be talking about Michael Myers, "The Twilight Zone," and George Romero. They won’t be breaking down the events of "House" or "Big Love," but they’ll still be analyzing "Twin Peaks" and "The X-Files."

The horror genre is staggering—it’s an aphrodisiac. It has the power to stay with you long after you leave the theater. It’s that palpable force that makes you cautious to turn off the light—that makes you check your backseat, or gives you pause before flashing your high beams at a passing car whose own headlights are off.

Every once in a while, a genuinely great horror movie—one that would rightfully be considered a classic, had it gotten more exposure and love at the box office—makes an appearance. It comes, no one notices, and it goes. But movies like this are important. They need to be treasured and remembered. If intelligent, original horror is supported, then that's what we'll begin to receive, in droves. We need to make these movies a part of the legendary genre we hold so dear. Because these are the unsung horrors. These are the movies that should have been successful, but were instead ignored. They should be rightfully praised for the freshness and intelligence and craft that they have contributed to our genre forevermore.

So, better late than never, we’re going to celebrate them now…one at a time.

Part one: Lake Mungo. Coming soon.