Grimm Attempt

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2

Director: Tod Williams

Writers: Michael R. Perry, Christopher Landon, Tom Pabst

Starring: Brian Boland, Sprague Grayden, Katie Featherston

2010 | United States | R | 91 mins

½★

Horror used to rely on well constructed suspense, connections to characters, and the haunting notion of impending doom or frightening situations to truly scare audiences. Frankenstein is frightening because it connects with the viewer with the idea that we create evil. Rosemary's Baby is absolutely terrifying because it takes the idea of pregnancy and shows us the turmoil of a woman who is frightened by what could be inside her. The establishment and attachment to these characters in their dire situations is what gives us nightmares and what makes us cover our eyes with our hands in sheer terror. But today's idea of scary has drastically changed, and instead of a true sense of mortal dread we are shocked into jumping out of our seats by nothing other than a cheap jump scare.... BOO!

Daniel (Brian Boland) and Christie (Sprague Grayden) are new parents to a new baby boy, Hunter. Also living in the home is Ali, Daniel's daughter from a previous marriage, their nanny, and their loyal German Shepard. Upon returning home one afternoon, the family discovers their home is in complete shambles but no evidence of intruders or anything stolen is present. To ensure the safety of the family and the home, Daniel has multiple security cameras installed throughout the house. However Christie feels something is not quite right and mysterious and unexplainable happenings begin to happen and are captured on camera. Soon something far more sinister surfaces as a dark family secret emerges targeting their one-year old son, Hunter.

Paranormal Activity 2 fails miserably at being a horror film. The characters are all one dimensional and no depth is given to any of them other than their adjective description - jerk dad, scardie-pants mom, know-it-all daughter, spiritual nanny, etc. Getting to the scares, Paranormal Activity 2 relies on exactly what the first film generated and that is nothing but cheap jump scares. You don't get to really know the family, you cannot connect with the characters, it's just a series of the same camera angles over and over where nothing happens. And then a low grumbling sound slowly builds, that obviously doesn't actually exist in the scene otherwise the characters would suspect something is about to happen, and so you already suspect the BOO! coming. And when it finally arrives it really only wakes you from your sleep since you've nodded off because of how incredibly boring the film is. How this passes as "scary" these days doesn't make any sense... If your friend gave you the same type of fright in real life you are not left thinking "Oh my god! I won't sleep tonight because that was so scary!", no, you're thinking "You're such an asshole!" and you're now pissed off at your friend. Paranormal Activity 2 is that friend.

Oh, and Paranormal Activity 2 is not a sequel, but a prequel. The explanation to tie-in the film with the first, and this is not a spoiler, is that Katie is Christie's sister. And when the film expands on the demon haunting them it takes any of the unknown terror that actually existed in the first film and throws it out the window because now we have an idea of what it is and what it's motives are. And not only that but it's straight out of a Grimm fairy tale and it's completely ridiculous! The entire twist at the end is poorly thought out and heinously laughable. Paranormal Activity 2 is nothing but dull jump scares targeted at teeny-boppers who don't have the attention span to understand plot or characters.

All contents copyright 2010 Tyler Baptist

Gasping for Air

BURIED

Director: Rodrigo Cortés

Writer: Chris Sparling

Starring:  Ryan Reynolds, Robert Paterson, Samantha Mathis

2009 | Spain | R | 95 mins

★★★★★

We all have our worst fears; being stranded in the middle of the ocean, a plane crash, death by a thousand cuts, and so on. Phobias, paranoia, and nightmares all contribute to a climax of terror that is unique and personal to each one of us, and quite possibly the scariest thing we can each imagine. When filmmakers prey on these fears and we're daring enough to watch them they can be quite unsettling entertainment, such as Open Water. Trapping an individual (or individuals) in a confined location (or as vast as the ocean) that they cannot escape and where hope of rescue is slim to none is terrifying. Quite difficult to pull off continued suspense in such capacity, director Rodrigo Cortés and writer Chris Sparling invite us into the smallest and most claustrophobic of fears - waking up in a small wooden box buried alive.

Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds), an American truck driver working in Iraq, wakes up to total blackness. It's hard to breath and he has confined movement. Upon igniting a lighter Paul discovers he is buried alive in a coffin, and where exactly he is or whom did this is completely unknown, and fear immediately takes hold. To his shock, a cell phone at the base of the coffin starts vibrating and on the other line he discovers he is being held hostage and will die buried alive if he does not get the kidnappers five million dollars by 9 PM, and that's only an hour and a half away. Now Paul is running out of oxygen, time, and cell phone battery power as he must figure out a way to let the FBI, his family, or whomever he can get a hold of on the phone, find out where he is and rescue him before it's too late.

Buried takes a giant cinematic risk and confines the whole film's running time to one terrifying location - inside the coffin with Paul Conroy. Not once do we leave the claustrophobic space as we are forced to endure the same paralysing terror and frustration as the character. Rodrigo Cortés' direction is unflinching as he masterfully creates an unending sense of dread where the audience is literally white-knuckled to their seats not moving an inch in their seats, eyes and ears completely locked onto what is going on, for the entire film. Ryan Reynolds, being the only on-screen actor the entire film (aside from a few short clips displayed on the cell phone screen), is heart wrenchingly brilliant and truly makes Paul's worst fear ours as well, as we are emotionally wrung through fear, terror, sadness, hope, and anxiety. Eduard Grau, quickly becoming a masterful cinematographer who so beautifully painted love and death through the camera in A Single Man, inventively takes us directly into a cinematic coffin we cannot escape for 95 minutes, and so claustrophobically captures the essence of what it must feel like to be buried alive.

Emotionally exhausting, anxiety onsetting, and fear taking hold, Buried is an absolutely perfect showcase of realistic suspense. Ryan Reynolds' performance is flawless and electrifying and not once do you not believe the situation unfolding onscreen. Cortés and Sparling have created the cinematic equivalent to our worst fears and locked us in that very box. Making the audience endure one character's inescapable horror for an entire film is a daunting and near-impossible task to pull off, and here the filmmakers successfully nailed it. Buried is a white-knuckled experience that will leave you gasping for air and hoping for survival until the lights in the theatre finally come up.

All contents copyright 2010 Tyler Baptist

Devouring Youth

DUMPLINGS

Director: Fruit Chan

Writer: Pik Wah Li

Starring:  Bai Ling, Miriam Yeung Chin Wah, Tony Leung Ka Fai

2004 | Hong Kong | Not Rated | 91 mins

★★★½

The pressures and forced notions of staying young, looking young, and youth as we age becomes a grotesque mockery as time takes its toll. Society itself generates an image that we must all look the best we can if we want to succeed in life or attract the attention of others, a perceived ideal that doesn't always bring out the best in people. Obtaining the Fountain of Youth is a myth that too many of these companies and products sell to consumers to establish a hip culture that everyone must be a part of if they are to be somebody. Fruit Chan plays with not only this theme but many more disturbing controversies in a tale about consuming youth in Dumplings.

Mrs. Li (Miriam Yeung Chin Wah) is an aging actress past her prime who is losing the interest of her rich husband (Tony Leung Ka Fai). They are living in a five star hotel while their home is being renovated, and Mr. Li is too busy to pay any attention to her as he's off on "business trips" and taking a fancy to the hotel's young masseuse. To attract the attention of her adulterous husband and regain her youth Mrs. Li is secretly going to Aunt Mei's (Bai Ling) home-run dumpling shop, where the supposed special dumplings turn back the clock. But more than just special spices and mixtures, the key ingredient to consuming this Fountain of Youth are the fetuses of aborted babies.

Dumplings is a deeply disturbing and thematically heavy horror film. Dealing with abortion, adultery, greed, cannibalism, and societies distorted views on beauty and youth. The reveal of the key ingredient is not a spoiler as the fetus-filled dumplings are shown being prepared in the opening scene. This is not the main ingredient to the horror, but a symbol of the true horror that the film represents - that the corruption of the idea of youth as pressured by society as we age can make people do ugly, evil things just for perceived beauty and power. Bai Ling is fantastic as Mei who's character contrasts Mrs. Li as being this slithering mockery of youth, a conniving devil, who fully represents societies demands to look and act young. Miriam Yeung Chin Wah is detestable and someone we like less and less as her character Mrs. Li slowly consumes her innocence and naivety until she's nothing left but a corrupted ideal and is forced to be the face of evil Aunt Mei represented.

Not for the squeamish, or easily disturbed, Dumplings contains some shocking images that elevate its controversial and disturbing themes to darker places. Fruit Chan paces the film slowly and steadily as the dread and terror lingers from scene to scene creating an extremely unsafe and haunting atmosphere. Dumplings was also cut down and re-edited as one of the three short films in the also recommended Asian horror experience Three... Extremes, which features two other terrifying tales by Japan's Takashi Miike and Korea's Chan-Wook Park. Dumplings is a disturbing main course of horror that's after taste will linger long after you've finished it.

All contents copyright 2010 Tyler Baptist

Ancient Weird Religious Rites

BLOOD FEAST

Director: Herschell Gordon Lewis

Writer: Allison Louise Downe

Starring: William Kerwin, Mal Arnold, Connie Mason

1963 | United States | Not Rated | 67 mins

★★★★

Blood! Guts! Grue! Gore! All these wonderfully gooey, splattery, and deep red markings of violence became a horror staple that continues to upset stomaches to this day and has effects wizards coming up with ways to kill someone that outdoes the previous. But violence in film has never always been extreme and it wasn't until the 60's when David F. Friedman, a carnival barker working in film, and his business-savy partner Herschell Gordon Lewis decided they needed a new approach to get people to the drive-ins and make a quick buck off their low budget films. Prior to creating the splatter genre, or gore film, the two had been working in nudie-cutie flicks, but with market saturation they needed a new angle to hook young and daring audiences, and that angle was on-screen death and blood - lots of wet, messy, and deep red blood! 

Fuad Ramses (Mal Arnold) is a caterer who caters to all his customers' needs, specializing in the very unusual dining experience! Fuad is currently carving up women in increasingly gruesome fashion as he prepares his sacrificial offering to Ishtar, an Egytian Goddess he is trying to bring back to life, using his victims' body parts as the main ingredients. When Mrs. Fremont (Lyn Bolton) chooses Ramses to cater her daughter Suzette's (Connie Mason) party it'll be more than just an Egyptian Feast as s detective (William Kerwin) tries to stop the madman before he completes the main course of the Blood Feast!

Blood Feast ushered in a new experience in horror that audiences had not experience before: the shocking visual overload of grisly and gruesome violence and death. Limbs are cut off, eyeballs removed, bloody lashings, scalping, and more! Lewis, who also shot the film and scored the wonderfully atrocious "thematic music", splashes on bucket after bucket of bright red blood. The colours are so vibrant you almost need to be wearing sunglasses while watching the movie. But don't go in expecting masterful filmmaking, Blood Feast is the epitome of low-budget drive-in fare, but it's so bad it's good. The acting by all is so gloriously overacted you can't help but laugh and some of the dialogue is pure comic genuis. Police Captain: "Ramses was the killer we've been looking for. Mrs. Fremont, I'm afraid this feast is evidence of murder!" Mrs. Fremont: "Oh dear! The guests will have to eat hamburgers for diner tonight."

You really can't have a campier time at the movies then with Blood Feast. And with its short run time the movie is jam packed with blood and gore but you don't feel stuffed after this feast of gruesome excess. Bad acting, bad writing, bad cinematography, and bad music somehow come together to shock viewers into wincing while chuckling out loud and becomes a horror classick. Herschell Gordon Lewis, the Godfather of Gore, created a new movement in repulsive and sickening horror filmmaking that would influence the likes of John Waters and Peter Jackson and Eli Roth and ensure that cinema would never be the same again, one where the silver screen gets soaked by sprays of the wet crimson red and would have audiences squirming in their seats. And possibly throwing up into the vomit bags provided by the theatre ushers prior to showtime.

All contents copyright 2010 Tyler Baptist