DROOL

Filmmaker Jeremiah Kipp was nice enough to pass along a few of his short films. Their style is of the more difficult path to travel - they contain very little to no dialogue. It is up to the visuals alone, as well as the actors' expressions, to carry the story. For what must be low budget affairs, they are all beautifully done. The cinematography, especially, is worth calling out. And Kipp definitely gets points for getting Friday the 13th composer Harry Manfredini on board. His brief score for Crestfallen is somewhat reminiscent of Psycho, which is always a plus.

One of Kipp's short films, Drool, is embedded below. Kipp has been vetted by many of the genre's more offbeat filmmakers. The day you have kudos from both Frank Hennenlotter and Larry Fessenden is the day I stand up and take notice.

Drool is most definitely NSFW.

Drool from Slick Devil Entertainment on Vimeo.

LEVITY

THE DOOR OPENS

Finally got around to see The Woman in Black. A nice, old-fashioned Gothic ghost story. It was refreshing to see a horror film for adults.

Marco Beltrami's film score work is pretty hit and miss with me, but I rather liked his stuff for TWIB.

My favorite track:

THE DEVIL ALL THE TIME

Reading The Devil All the Time is like watching P.T. Anderson’s Magnolia, but instead of your characters yearning for new, misplaced, or rediscovered love, the residents of Donald Ray Pollock’s sophomore novel are only looking to murder, betray, or fuck (both literally and metaphorically). Like the aforementioned film, the characters of Devil are all connected in some way, and most of those ties are built on something depraved and awful. The novel drips with blood, violence, sex, and everything else that makes Pollock's world go around.

The first character we meet is Willard Russell, a veteran of World War II on his way home, memories of his fellow soldiers crucified by the enemies in the South Pacific still weighing heavily in his mind. Despite this morbid recollection, Willard meets a pretty waitress in a diner – and knows on the spot that she will become his wife. It’s a pleasant and even romantic way to begin a novel that soon devolves into acts of depravity perpetrated against both the innocent and the deserving: Animals – even childhood pets – are nailed to crosses in a half-cocked offering to the gods. Hitchhikers are forced to participate in a psychosexual photo shoot, spearheaded by a completely conscienceless couple. Lives are taken for little to no reason.

Taking place in both West Virginia and a charming-sounding town called Knockemstiff, Ohio (both the title and setting of Pollock’s other work – a short story collection), the story spans several years and mostly follows the growing son of Willard Russell, a boy named Arvin who as a child suffered through his father’s mental breakdown after his mother began slowly dying.

While not every character in Devil is a complete sociopath, those that show acts of kindness and grace are quickly punished with a life-shattering occurrence—the death of a loved one, the manipulation of love, or a life of isolation. In Pollock’s world, there is no hope and no love, and if there is a God, he simply doesn’t care.

The chapters are short for what’s most assuredly an adult read—so short in fact that in the book’s 290-something page count, there are over fifty chapters. While I’m sure this was to carry on with the book’s vignette-like depiction, I’m sure it was also to give the reader a break. I doubt there is one sole chapter in the book where a character does not perform an act of evil against another human being, or reflect on one previously committed—and that character’s lack of humane reaction to it.

The Devil All the Time is certainly not for everyone, but for those who aren’t scared of lifting the veil and staring hard into the darker side of life, the journey to Knockemstiff is terribly and disgustingly rewarding.

SHITTY FLICKS: THE RAVEN

Shitty Flicks is an ongoing column that celebrates the most hilariously incompetent, amusingly pedestrian, and mind-bogglingly stupid movies ever made by people with a bit of money, some prior porn-directing experience, and no clue whatsoever. It is here you will find unrestrained joy in movies meant to terrify and thrill, but instead poke at your funny bone with their weird, mutant camp-girl penis.

WARNING: I tend to give away major plot points and twist endings in my reviews because, whatever. Shut up.

 

T h e R a v e n

By Edgar Allan Poe,

by way of Ulli Lommel

Once upon a midnight dreary,

while I pondered weak and weary,

I, not thinking, brought back

The Raven from the movie store.

While I watched, I wished for napping,

to save me from this horrid crapping,

As Ulli Lommel's vicious trapping

made me feel like his dirty whore.

"Tis god awful," I muttered, "this movie I abhor-

I wish I had rented something more."

-----

Ah, distinctly I remember,

this would have offended famous Edgar,

as he clawed the lid of his coffin,

deep below the graveyard floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow;

nothing's brought me greater sorrow,

had I just been somewhat stronger,

I'd've thrown this out the door...

Perhaps shook it off and ascended to the store,

but I stayed for Ulli's hellish tour.

-----

What this movie was about, I can't be certain,

It filled me with boredom-

a boredom I'd never felt before.

An hour's time, the cast sat eating--

and only talking, ain't that cheating?

With nary a reference to Edgar Poe,

what was this movie made for?

If not to honor a genius,

why suffer through this chore?

This it is, and nothing more.

-----

"Damn this movie's scent of farting!

Damn it all!" I shrieked upstarting-

"This movie doth much offend me,

I wish to hear me snore!

Does Ulli think my brain is broken,

perhaps a boob who is soft-spoken,

As to not see in this 1800's sequence

a very modern bedroom door?"

I pressed fast forward; the movie soared,

thought of watching; held it more.

Qouth the Raven – "I'm a bore."

-----

And The Raven, so unfitting,

please leave sitting, PLEASE leave sitting,

It can't bore you if it stays unseen,

sitting in the movie store.

Late at night, it haunts my dreaming,

I even sometimes wake up screaming,

And shake away haunts of Ulli's movie,

filled with nothing but corny gore.

Nightly I pray o'er us all,

my knees tucked 'neath me on the floor,

I pray to God that no luckless soul ever lift

The Raven from the movie store.

Quoth the Raven – 'I'm a snore.'

 

Tim Burton was glad he was able to bond with Jack Nicholson,
even if it was over their stupid '80s punk hair.

AN INSIDIOUS AGENDA

You were about eight. You suffered night terrors - these awful fits of pure fear. You were terrified of an old woman you said used to come visit you at night.

I dismissed your stories. I told you to grow up.

Then I saw her for myself. 

 

At first I thought it was a camera problem. Then I saw her again.

  In each photo, she got closer...

...and closer...

 ...and closer to you. 

In the back of your mind, you're still afraid to have your picture taken...

... aren't you?

HAUNTED CHANGI (2012)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a group of filmmakers set out to make a documentary about a creepy, isolated, abandoned location where ghosts and ghoulies and long-legged beasties are said to romp and rave and eat human skin…and then the filmmakers find out that stuff is all true OMG! In that regard, Haunted Changi is nothing new. Following The Blair Witch Project beat-for-beat, we meet our filmmaker characters, they interview locals about the legends of Changi Hospital, and then the investigation begins.

Good news, though: Haunted Changi, shot entirely on location at the real titular hospital in Singapore, is actually pretty decent. It won’t knock your socks off with its originality (or lack thereof), and except for a few scares, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. But found-footage fans should find it a worthy addition to the sub-genre, as it produces some nice scares and features a lot of pretty Asian women.

Andrew is our director. He seems down-to-earth enough, and isn’t nearly as bullheaded as Heather from The Blair Witch Project. Sheena is the producer/narrator of the project. She may or may not be completely, head-over-heels in love with Andrew. Farid is the soundman. If ever there were a Singaporean surfer hipster, it’s definitely him. Lastly we have Audi, our cameraman who handles the bulk of the documentary’s filming.

Their project is a documentary on Changi Hospital—once a military barracks during the 1930s/40s, and subsequently a military prison camp before finally becoming a general hospital until closing in 1997. It’s a legitimately creepy place, and once you hear the stories of all the horrors that took place within its crumbling walls – namely the torture of prisoners and the mass beheadings of Chinese natives – the place becomes even creepier.

As is always the case with premises like these, shit gets real.

The Good

For the most part, our characters come across as real kids. They crack jokes and mug for the camera. They are fledgling amateur filmmakers determined to make a documentary on a very creepy legend that has permeated their home since World War 2. That includes walking the long-abandoned hospital’s hallways and tunnels…

Haunted Changi tells the story in a different way—this time, the characters don’t walk into their creepy location never to come out again; likewise, the characters go in and out several times. But what sets Haunted Changi apart from its brethren is the psychology behind it all—what their entrance into Changi Hospital does to our characters’ psyches. And the movie allows us to see that—it no longer becomes a case of screaming “don’t go in that room!” at the screen, but rather, “don’t go back inside that place you moron!”

The movie opens with a well-done snippet from the documentary that the kids are working on, which is an interesting and unique start to the film. It’s a brief, five-minute introduction that provides the audience with all the back-story they would need on Changi Hospital to appreciate the creep that is soon to follow. Part of me wishes the entire runtime of Haunted Changi had actually been an expanded version of this introduction, as it was well done and morbidly fascinating.

One of the joys of watching films from another part of the world – horror especially – is the inclusion of unique and culturally specific legends and myths you’d otherwise not have previous knowledge about. In this case, I speak of the “pontianak,” a vampire ghost, which is said to haunt the hospital…

Begin Spoilers.

…in the form of a Chinese native who has made the old hospital her home. For part of the movie, Andrew is the only one among them to have met this character. To him, nothing about her is strange or aloof. He has no inkling of what she really is.

The pontianak does pretty much what you’d expect it to—attaches itself to a host and gradually sucks the life from it…but because it’s a ghost, there’s no way to fight it. It is this creature that begins to affect our characters in different ways: Andrew falls victim to her first, and becomes a mumbling, giggling fool toward the end of the movie. He begins to go almost mad, having totally fallen under her spell. Farid, too, becomes sick—too weak to even leave his home. Sheena, however, becomes furious at the notion that Andrew seems to be “involved” with this Chinese native, and the group nearly disassembles by film’s end.

End Spoilers.

The Bad

While Singapore is a territory that utilizes twenty different languages, their primary language is English. Despite this surprising fact, our English-speaking cast does not speak 100% comfortably in this tongue. To avoid sounding like a complete ignoramus, I disclose that I am clearly not from Singapore, so I can’t speak with great confidence as to the languages our actors know and don’t know. All I can say is this: their English isn’t the best – not their understanding of it, but their delivery of it – and at times it became a disservice. For a movie like this, the characters have to seem absolutely genuine, or else it just won’t work. Because it’s shot to look real, it has to feel real, and when it becomes clear that some of the actors aren’t entirely comfortable with some of the English dialogue, it takes you right out of the movie. Based on the cast’s delivery of their lines, it leads me to believe that they normally utilize another native language with which they are more comfortable. Perhaps shooting in English was a decision made early on in an effort to make the movie more appealing to a wider range of territories. (Let’s face it, us ‘Mericans don’t like to read.) If that’s the case, then it’s a forgivable decision. But let’s just say I’m glad the DVD came with subtitles.

My only other real complaint about the film would be the ending. It’s not a bad one—not at all…but I wanted more. Found footage movies tend to throw everything and the kitchen sink at you during their last five to ten minutes. And while Haunted Changi does show you more during the ending than it did previously throughout the movie, it leaves you feeling unsatisfied. For instance, the groundwork for mass beheadings has already been laid—and while this is exploited during the movie for a clever and creepy scene, it feels as if it could have been exploited just a bit more. I’m not saying include a scene of a headless body chasing our characters down the hallway with blood shooting from the neck…but maybe – far, far down the hall – have the kids see a barely visible headless specter quickly pass from one doorway through another.

But that’s just me. I like dudes with no heads.

The Low Down

Found footage movies all follow one basic framework to tell their stories: meet the characters, learn the history of their investigation, see the characters die. It is a tried-and-true formula that, to me, is generally a recipe for success. Are all of these movies basically the same? Sure, you could say that. But as far as I’m concerned, a decent movie is a decent movie. If it’s a concept I’ve seen a hundred times, I don’t care—so long as it’s well told, written, and acted. Also, creep helps.