Over the course of October, I shall be watching one horror movie a day and reviewing it right here for your reading pleasure. I haven't seen any of the films I'll be watching before and you can find the full list here.
Blimey.
The above was my instant reaction as the credits rolled and to be perfectly frank, I've been having a hard time coming up with anything majorly coherent since. However, as writing about the films I'm watching over the course of this month is pretty much the entire point of the exercise, I shall attempt to get my thoughts into some kind of order. Also, I'm going to endeavour not to spoil the film for those who haven't seen it because going into Audition without any prior knowledge is absolutely the thing to do.
Based on the novel by Ryu Murakami, Ryo Ishibashi plays Shigeharu Aoyama, widowed seven years and father to a teenage son who encourages him to get back into the dating game and find someone to marry. Aoyama shares his problems with his friend, Yoshikawa, a producer in the film industry who comes up with what he believes to be a clever idea; they will hold auditions for the prospective bride under the guise of producing a romantic movie. Aoyama is immediately drawn to the application of Asami Yamazaki and the pair form a tentative relationship with Aoyama wilfully ignoring the warning signs that she may not be all she says she is.
First of all, I'll repeat the blimey. The last half an hour or so of this film is possibly one of the most intense cinematic experiences I've had, thoroughly drawn in by the weird, trippy quality that permeates plenty of the scenes to the viscerally nasty torture scenes that had me peeking through my fingers. Takashi Miike's direction uses the power of suggestion masterfully, knowing exactly when to cut away and also when to linger deliriously on the events unfolding, working beautifully with the dream-like cinematography of Hideo Yamamoto. It's the kind of film that you're desperate to see end because you're not sure you can take that much more tension whilst at the same time loving every second of feeling so on edge.
The work from Ryo Ishibashi and Eihi Shiina in these scenes take their already very good performances to the next level, pushing their characters to the very extremities of their personalities without losing what made them compelling in the first place. Shiina is particularly good, embodying Asami with a coy femininity that is never lost even as the violence ratchets up and one which also manages the tricky task of eliciting sympathy for a character who, in the wrong hands, could have easily been a caricature.
The relationship between Asami and Aoyama is the glue that holds the film together as it traverses genres, feeling ostensibly like a romantic drama for much of its run time. However, the narrative is peppered with moments that sound alarm bells for the warnings to come. The audition process itself is a horror show of male entitlement and sexism as Yoshikawa asks deeply personal and invasive questions as if it's the most ordinary thing in the world. It would take more time and space than I have to here to analyse all of the gender politics at work, but it's a film rich in social criticism as well as providing the thrills you expect from the genre.
To go into further detail would do a disservice to anyone who hasn't yet seen it, but if you are a fan of the genre, you must see Audition. It's the first of two Miike films on my list for this month and anticipation has ramped up considerably for Lesson of the Evil.
Blimey.
- Becky
You can find my other Shocktober '15 reviews here.
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Over the course of October, I shall be watching one horror movie a day and reviewing it right here for your reading pleasure. I haven't seen any of the films I'll be watching before and you can find the full list here.
Often hailed as one of the major films of folk horror (along with Witchfinder General and The Wicker Man), The Blood on Satan's Claw tells of a village corrupted by demonic possession. Ralph Gower, a farmhand, is ploughing a field when he finds the remains of a human head, still in full possession of one glaring eye. The discovery sets off a series of unfortunate and creepy events as the young people of the village slowly find themselves overcome by the devil. Patches of fur grow on bodies, claws appear where hands should be and slowly, people begin disappearing. The villagers turn to a local judge to attempt to stop it and he is convinced something satanic is at work.
Folk horror has made something of a comeback recently, via the work of Ben Wheatley with the decidedly trippy and elusive A Field in England and there's a colonial take on the way with the much anticipated The Witch. The Blood on Satan's Claw wasn't a success on release and has never quite reached the same critical acclaim or notoriety as its generic counterparts. It's an uneven film, one which manages to make its bucolic setting feel claustrophobic and threatening and shows us plenty of horrible situations, but it never quite gets its audience to tap into those emotions. It's a light chill, rather than one which sets deep into the bones.
That it was originally intended to be three separate but related stories, now reworked to take place within the one village, is apparent throughout the film which never quite smooths out that separation. The only character that connects the disparate threads is Ralph, the farmhand who finds the human head remains that begins the possession of the village. It's not quite enough to ensure the story feels like a cohesive whole. It interrupts the rhythm of the film and the tension that is built up in one sequence is lost before the next manages to build it again. As a result, it never quite manages to succeed in keeping up the chill that it promises early on in the proceedings.
The individual sequences themselves though do carry a great, sinister quality, though some are more successful than others. The drowning of a potential witch is undermined by knowing that the woman in question has been involved in an earlier ritualistic scene. That ritual though is easily one of the most effective moments, luring one of the film's more innocent and romantic characters into a situation we see largely from her perspective. The camera looms over her threateningly one minute, then becomes her terrified perspective the next, creating a dizzying effect throughout. It's combined with her erstwhile lover trying to find her after hearing her screams and is the most emotional it gets throughout the narrative.
The Blood on Satan's Claw does have one cohesive element that is easily the film's greatest strength and that is the score from Marc Wilkinson. It perfectly marries the combination of pastoral strings, evoking Elgar and Williams in its simple romanticism, clashing with the almost discordant undercurrents to produce a brilliantly unsettling effect. Even in the film's quieter moments, the lullaby-like refrain and the jarring notes that punctuate it echoes the corruption of the village's youth, their innocence dying as the demonic possession runs rampant.
A fascinating if uneven example of the folk horror sub-genre, The Blood on Satan's Claw never quite gets to the giddy heights of sickening dread that The Wicker Man achieved, but there are moments of greatness within it and a score that more than makes up for the moments in which its tension is lost.
- Becky
You can find Becky's other Shocktober reviews here.
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Over the course of October, I shall be watching one horror movie a day and reviewing it right here for your reading pleasure. I haven't seen any of the films I'll be watching before and you can find the full list here. Minor spoilers here.
Humans, as a species (particularly us Westerners), are spectacularly afraid of our own extinction, especially if it comes at the hands of monsters we don't know or understand. It's always been there, but recent centuries have seen this fear explode with the advanced knowledge that scientific research has afforded us. Way back in Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's eponymous creator feared that providing a female mate for his vengeful creature wouldn't keep to his promise of a peaceful life, but would instead create an army of likeminded creatures intent on wiping out the human race. Post-Charles Darwin and his Origin of Species, the idea that some random biological adaptation could take over from humanity as the dominant species began to run rampant throughout fiction.
Darwin's ideas of adaptation gave these fears scientific weight; humans were no longer at the top of the food chain by deific design, but by sheer, dumb luck. What would happen if a new adaptation came along? One which is smarter, faster, more deadly. Dracula is fraught with this idea that humans could soon be locked in what Darwin termed a 'struggle for existence' with a species that was much stronger and capable of consuming humanity in the form of the vampiric Count. It isn't enough to be scared of extinction, but we're also scared of losing our humanity, becoming something monstrous that may look human but is anything but. As 20th century horror and science fiction progressed, so did this idea of humanity's extinction, brought about by monsters who had adapted themselves into the ultimate killing machines.
Not only did scientific research make this feel like a more distinct possibility as the 20th century advanced, so too did the political situations that humanity found themselves in. The biggest science fiction boom since HG Wells arrived in the 1950s, a decade defined by uncertainty and paranoia thanks to the arrival of the Cold War and McCarthyism, forcing everyone to question their neighbour. The first adaptation of Jack Finney's The Body Snatchers capitalised on this dread in 1956, its protagonists unable to know who to trust as their friends and family are slowly subsumed into the emotionless pod people. The alien invaders are a unseen threat, benign in their evil and intent on eradicating humanity quietly and peacefully.
Phillip Kaufman's updated remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers doesn't have McCarthyism to infuse its scares with, but with an audience still reeling from the events of the Watergate scandal, it isn't without its own fitting context. One of the running themes throughout the 1978 film is that of the San Francisco infrastructure working against the remaining humans. Donald Sutherland's Matthew repeatedly contacts the police for help only to find them unresponsive and later, entirely taken over. City Hall becomes the base from which the duplicates distribute their pods to further take hold in the city and the wider governmental safety net is non-existent. It's a population let down by the infrastructure that is supposed to protect them, but is instead working to corrupt them in its efficiently systematic way.
Kaufman mounts the tension beautifully, layering on the odd circumstances steadily to produce a slow burning dread that never really lets up. It's a methodical approach to the story, much like the invasion itself. Little hints that something odd is going on build into more unnerving moments before the film crescendos into outright horror. He also uses a sense of the uncanny to render seemingly innocuous occurrences into something more disturbing; the blinking light of a ringing phone distorted through frosted glasses or footsteps on a pavement, gradually quickening into a sprint as a chase begins.
The low-key performances of the cast, all keeping their internal hysteria just bubbling under the surface, are essential to producing this unsettling effect. Sutherland's Matthew and Brooke Adams' Elizabeth are pragmatic heroes, attempting to solve the mystery and stay alive long enough to fight back provide an emotional core to the narrative. Leonard Nimoy and the additional baggage from his most iconic role is also well used as the apparent voice of reason, a sinister satire on self-help culture and humanity's hubris. A young Jeff Goldblum is also a lot of fun in his supporting role and his neurotic tics provide some nice jitters.
Its pessimistic ending, famously opposite to the more hopeful novel, feels inevitable after the the weight of despair that permeates the rest of the narrative. It speaks of a population disaffected by those leading them and fearing that their culture and way of life has been taken from underneath them. And for a film that tells the story of how humanity is lost, these emotions - the hope in the face of adversity, the despair at being let down - make it feel very human indeed.
- Becky
You can find my other Shocktober '15 reviews here.
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Over the course of October, I shall be watching one horror movie a day and reviewing it right here for your reading pleasure. I haven't seen any of the films I'll be watching before and you can find the full list here.
And now for something completely different.
Yesterday's film, The Babadook, was an evocative film that relied on its subtly. Deep Rising? Well, Deep Rising is anything but. You can pretty much tell this straight away from the hilarious "Full scream ahead" tagline.
Treat Williams' Finnegan and his crew have been hired by a bunch of mercenaries to take over and rob one of the most expensive cruise liners in the world. However, when they get there, there are no passengers to be found except a smattering of crew and captured jewel thief, Trillian (Famke Janssen). The characters begin to disappear in that traditional one-by-one way of most horror creature features and it's soon revealed to our surviving band of anti-heroes that they're being consumed by giant, spiky tentacles. They have to find a way off the ship before they're served up next on the menu.
No matter the creature, the feature or the characters lining up to be consumed, there's something quite comforting in a B-movie effort such as this. Everything has a slightly naff quality to it, which just makes it all the more adorable in its goofy way. The now-ropey effects are a big part of that, every tentacle carrying the kind of CGI sheen that all late 90s special effects now seem to have. The make-up effects and practical work is better; the half-digested body is displayed gleefully by the camera, lingering on an acid-consumed face in what amounts to a staring competition with the audience. The feeding area is a gory delight as we pan across liquified viscera and skeletal remains.
The energetic cast, all fully aware of the kind of feature they're in, approach their various roles with gusto. The ever-reliable Wes Studi goes overboard on his cutthroat mercenary captain, snarling his way through even when all seems lost and he's ably supported by a bunch of "oh, it's that guy!" actors as his crew. Treat Williams gets to do the roguish scavenger and does it well, almost begrudgingly taking up the sort-of hero mantle. I particularly enjoyed that the tentacles were kind enough to give him time for a one-liner before every attack.
Refreshingly, none of the characters are outright heroes so the film doesn't really waste any time on getting us to like people who'll be killed off pretty quickly as the film goes along. The most development we get for any of them is a quick sketch of an archetype so that any comeuppance needed feels like a suitable pay-off. It also means that, apart from sort-of hero Treat Williams and wet vest-wearing Famke Janssen, you're never quite sure who's actually going to survive. Arguably, there's only really one character who signs his death warrant early on by going full snivelling weasel. The rest are fair game.
In keeping with its general adorable naffness, the dialogue is decidedly on the silly side, relying on repetition to ensure we, the audience, understand the kind of peril they're in (a cry of "they won't be looking for us for 24 hours" is met with "you mean we won't even be rescued for a day or two?"). There's a character who spouts of marine biology at great length to explain what these creatures are, despite the film making it quite clear he's a ship builder. It's never quite as quotable as say Lake Placid or Deep Blue Sea, but the dialogue is knowing enough that it remains consistently entertaining.
Deep Rising is the kind of B-movie fare that sometimes you just need in your life. It's ridiculous, silly and entirely predictable but it scratches that creature feature itch. Stephen Sommers may have produced some rubbish in his time, but it always errs on the side of entertaining, though he'd find more success with The Mummy after this.
- Becky
You can find my other Shocktober '15 reviews here.
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Previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Spike has taken a right royal ass-kicking in both Sunnydale and LA. Oz has been worried about his werewolf-y side getting out and taking over and Willow has noticed he's grown more distant whilst she's been getting into Wicca more and more.
After a visit to The Bronze, Willow notices Oz's attraction to lead singer Veruca even more as Buffy also realises what's worrying her best friend. On the night before the full moon, Oz escapes from his cage and chases Maggie Walsh down only to meet another werewolf. We soon learn that it's Veruca and during their full mooning, Oz sleeps with her, betraying Willow and scaring himself in the process. Meanwhile, Spike has returned to Sunnydale; the "Big Bad is back" but he finds himself tasered and captured by the commando guys who have been lurking in the shadows for the first few episodes of this season.
I don't like this episode. Not because it isn't good. It is. It's heartbreaking. Oz leaves. And it's a departure that I've never quite gotten over in all these years because it's Oz and Oz is awesome and now we're going to have to do without his witty one-liners which made Quote of the Week that bit easier. Stupid Oz. Whilst his leaving does lead to one of the most revolutionary relationships on TV with Willow and Tara, it also deprives us of the lovely little romance that was Willow and Oz and the last real link back to high school-bound Buffy in that first flush of romance.
Change has been the big theme of the season so far as the characters adapt to their new setting at college whilst the show attempts to do the same. The opening scenes at The Bronze are a great example of this; Willow comments that it's like a "big comfy blanky" and works because it's familiar. It's handy too for the audience to visually link back to what the show was, even if the presence of Giles is as jarring for us as it is for the characters. It also struck me this time how the gang has changed with the lack of Angel and Cordelia at The Bronze suddenly very noticeable, which brings me back to what I was saying about Oz being the last real link back to high school for the main Scoobies.
Oz has never been at the forefront of many stories, except the werewolf episodes, but he's developed well and quietly in that time. Fear, Itself showed us a more emotional side to the character, one which was hysterically terrified of the creature that resided within him and the loss of control that could potentially happen, harming Willow in the process. Seth Green doesn't need to do much to convey Oz's emotions and it's always great when he gets chance to flex his muscles with a more complex storyline such as this one.
It's another example of the show flirting with the idea that supernatural power is something of an addiction to be managed rather than anything positive. We've seen it already with Faith and Angel, but Oz has always been seemingly in control, losing it at the point that Veruca threatens Willow, killing for the first time. Veruca represents the what Oz could become, someone who gets off on the power she wields and the reason why he leaves at the end of the episode. Oz leaves to regain the control that he feels he's lost.
The other side of the episode is how Willow copes with the change that's going on around her. The scene in which she finds out is as heartbreaking as anything Buffy has done. Most of the season so far has focused on how Buffy hasn't acclimatised and Willow hits the ground running, mostly because of the stability that Oz provides. Now, Oz is leaving, Buffy is achieving academically and Willow is floundering. It's the first time she resorts to magic as a way of coping with her emotion, but crucially steps back from it before she goes too far. It's another little moment of foreshadowing, not only for the way in which magic becomes her emotional crutch, but also in the way she deals with heartbreak. Oz almost functions as the preliminary event before Tara and the arrival of Dark Willow.
I'm an emotional Buffy watcher and it's something we've been through before, but I'd truly forgotten how sad this episode is. It feels like a real line in the sand, the moment that Buffy properly sheds the high school trappings and starts confronting the kind of adult heartbreak we didn't see too often outside of mid- and season finales. I already miss Oz.
Quote of the Week:
Willow: Oz, don't you love me?
Oz: My whole life... I've never loved anything else.
Inventive Kill: Wolf Oz takes down Wolf Veruca and rips her throat out.
Let's Get Trivial: The love triangle between Oz, Veruca and Willow was initially supposed to continue for most of the season, but Seth Green decided that he wanted to leave the show to focus on his film career. That abruptness was channelled into the episode and Whedon admits Willow got her heart broken precisely because that's how everyone was feeling behind the scenes.
- Becky
You can read Becky's look at previous episode, Beer Bad, here. If you really want to. It's still a terrible episode.
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Over the course of October, I shall be watching one horror movie a day and reviewing it right here for your reading pleasure. I haven't seen any of the films I'll be watching before and you can find the full list here. Mild spoilers ahead.
Directed by Jennifer Kent and starring Essie Davis and Noah Wiseman, The Babadook was one of the most critically acclaimed horrors of recent years, bursting on to screens to near universal enthusiasm. The film follows Davis as Amelia, a single mother who is still mourning the death of her husband, killed in a violent car crash as they made their way to the hospital for the birth of their son, Sam. Sam's life and her husband's death are inextricably linked with Sam's difficult behaviour plaguing Amelia's already fractured mental state. When a mysterious book, Mister Babadook, appears on Sam's shelf, Amelia is forced to confront the troubles she has been running from in the form of the sinister, ever-present Babadook. It also happens to be one of those movies that unsettles you to your core in that spine-tingling, shivering way that makes for a truly disturbing experience.
Much of that is due to the way in which the film uses the Babadook itself. It's a nebulous, almost formless presence, skittering across ceilings and looming out of the shadows without it ever really taking shape. The black space it creates becomes a locus of Amelia's terror but also a useful tool for any thematic analysis of the film. The Babadook represents her grief for her husband, taking his form and forcing her to relive his death. Other readings of the film have seen it as emblematic of depression, the symptoms of which Amelia experiences throughout the film, as well as maternal fears on behalf of her son; she is unable to cope with his strange behaviour and the Babadook gives that focus.
Kent's sparing use of the creature is an excellent move, allowing the attention to remain on the human characters at the heart of it. The best horror is always rooted in that idea of humanity, building on our most primal fears and giving them a voice that has the power to corrupt. Amelia's arc over the course of the narrative has similarities with The Shining's Jack Torrance, the Babadook representing the demon she must overcome just as the Overlook Hotel acts as the malevolent force manipulating Torrance. Both are responsible for their family's safety, their resilience tested.
The focus on the mother/son relationship feels somewhat refreshing for the genre and the intensity is maximised through their characterisation. Kent remembers that we must care for these characters in order for the shocks to land successfully, that the scares must be earned rather than forced. Essie Davis' marvellous performance is the heart of the narrative, a powerful mix of vulnerability and strength that never devolves into baseless histrionics. Even in the early scenes, her fragility is bolstered by an innate determination to keep everything going without admitting that she needs help.
Her relationship with her son is a tempestuous one, born out of the link between Sam's birth and her husband's death, which muddies the waters somewhat in how she treats him. Noah Wiseman's wide-eyed innocence and heartfelt desire to protect his mum deepens the emotion at the heart of the film. It isn't a simple case of maternal protection, but a mutual one; she comes to realise that she needs him just as much as he needs her. It isn't something that is neatly resolved by the end of the film either, another aspect that feels genuine. Their troubled relationship has improved, but their experiences are something they will always live with rather than something that can be vanquished entirely.
It is inevitable that a certain amount of caution is needed when approaching a film as praised as The Babadook was last year; although I endeavour to ignore other views when sitting down to a film, the commentary around it inevitably colours expectations. And for this particular film, my expectations were particularly high, a mix of my own excitement and others' enthusiasm. Fortunately, Kent's film more than met them, providing an eloquent exploration of grief, crumbling relationships and depression.
- Becky
You can find the full list of Shocktober films here - links will be updated as reviews go live.
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