Tag: horror films

Recommendations for Netflix Horror

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As a follow-up to my post on recommended horror podcasts, I wanted to offer a list of my horror picks to stream on Netflix this October, or anytime for that matter! I tried not to include many picks that made my list last year, and I tried to highlight international and independent films.

The Witch (2015): This is one of my favorite horror movies of the last five years. Set in 16th Century Puritan America, this film is a slow burn,  filled with unsettling, bleak imagery. At its heart, The Witch has a lot to say about female empowerment and uses the trope of witchcraft/fear of the female to do so. Oh, and it has Black Phillip! Director Robert Eggers is likely to be a staple in the horror world for years to come. His next project is another horror film entitled The Lighthouse, and he’s working on a remake of Nosferatu.

The Wailing (2016): Netflix has a few solid Korean horror films. The Wailing tops my list. It is loaded with biblical imagery, and even though it’s nearly three hours long, it never feels bogged down. The film takes its time establishing its world and characters, but it gradually builds to a horrifying conclusion. It also has one of the best exorcism scenes.

 

 

Raw (2016): It’s fair to say that the horror genre still needs more female directors. That can probably be said about film in general. Director Julia Ducournau is on my list of young horror directors to watch. Raw borrows a lot from the French Extremity films of the early 2000s, namely in the way that it uses gore and color. This is a film to watch more than once, if you can stomach the cannibalism. Is it a metaphor for rape and survival? A female coming of age story? I don’t have all the answers, but I know that I enjoy this film more each time I see it.

Veronica (2017): Based on a true story about a teenage girl who was allegedly possessed, Veronica is directed by Paco Plazo, who also directed REC and REC 2. Watch them if you haven’t. So far, this has generally been a polarizing film, but I really enjoyed it. You generally feel for Veronica, especially when she’s burdened with taking care of her siblings, due to her absentee father and an overworked single mom.

Hush (2016): This made my list last year, but I’m including it again. The film centers around a deaf woman who is stalked and terrorized by a masked intruder for no apparent reason. What this film does with sound is the most unique aspect of the film, thus making it stand out from other home invasion horror flicks. Oh, and this was directed by Mike Flanagan, who directed “The Haunting of Hill House” series for Netflix, which has been all the buzz and streams later this month.

Under the Shadow (2016): Set in a 1980s, war-torn Iran, the story focus on a mother and a son who confront an evil invading their home. This film is heavy in its imagery and metaphors regarding war. It’s one of my favorite films of the last few years.

The Transfiguration (2017): This takes a lot of classic vampire tropes and flips them on their head. It also references what came before, including Let the Right One In, Dracula, and Martin. The film follows a troubled teen named Milo who thinks he is a vampire. Eventually, he forms a bond with another loner, Sophie. What’s reality and fantasy blurs as the film progresses.

 

Train to Busan (2016): Another Korean horror film makes my list. This is about zombies. zombies on a train! It doesn’t totally reinvent the zombie flick, but it does have characters that you give a damn about, and the setting makes for some unique and creative kills. James Wan plans to produce an American-made remake. We’ll see how that pans out…

The Ritual (2017): A British Netflix horror film based on a novel by the same name. What I really like about this film is its setting, the woods that engulf the group of friends who reunite after the tragic death of a friend. Oh, and the monster that comes in the final act is pretty cool, too.

Classics available to stream on Netflix: Hellraiser, It Follows, The Babadook, Children of the Corn, The Descent, Tucker & Dale v. Evil, The Conjuring, The Sixth Sense, The Strangers, Cabin Fever, Teeth, Seven, Interview with the Vampire

 

Dark Ink: A Poetry Anthology Inspired by Horror

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The fine folks at Moon Tide Press  have put together an anthology entitled Dark Ink: A Poetry Anthology  Inspired by Horror, set for release in October. The collection includes 66 poets overall, including yours truly. If interested in pre-ordering a copy,  just click here. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see the link.

The official book launch is scheduled for Saturday, November 3rd at the Whittier Museum in Whittier, CA. Readers from the anthology will share their poems and the work of others in the book. Copies will be available. Complimentary refreshments and food will be provided.

The Poetry of Oz’ Perkins’ Horror Films

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After learning that Oz Perkins, son of Anthony Perkins, aka Norma Bates, was tapped to direct an adaptation of Paul Tremblay’s A Head Full of Ghosts, one of my favorite contemporary horror novels, I knew that I had to finally view his two previous films, The Blackcoat’s Daughter and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House. There are aspects of both films that frustrate me, especially the pacing of the later, but both films stayed with me days after their viewings. Both are slow-burns that feel like nightmares, heavy on atmosphere, mood, and tone. Both play out as visual poetry.

The Blackcoat’s Daughter primarily centers around two teens, Kat (Kiernan Shipka) and Rose (Lucy Boynton), left behind at an all-girls boarding school during a break.  As the film progresses, Kat becomes stranger and stranger. First, she thinks that her parents are dead, though she has no evidence to support the claim. Then, she acts out towards the nuns and staff members, and she becomes obsessed with Rose. The film also follows the story of Joan (Emma Roberts), an escaped mental patient. At first, it doesn’t seem like the stories of Joan, Katm and Rose are linked, but the narrative clarifies itself in the last 20 minutes or so, and the payoff is worth it.

The Blackcoat’s Daughter has few, if any, jump scares. In fact, it has one of the most low-key, understated exorcism scenes I’ve seen in any horror film. Instead, it relies on tone and mood, a bleak Canadian winter and a mostly gray and white color palate from scene to scene. As I said earlier, visually, the film feels like a long, slow nightmare.

I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House is a film that draws much more from the Gothic tropes of literature, specifically the exploration of how the dead are  not really dead and the past is not really the past. The film has very few characters and focuses on Lily (Ruth Wilson), a hospice nurse charged with tending to Iris Blum (Paula Prentiss), a horror writer. Eventually, Lily starts reading Iris’ most acclaimed novel, The Lady in the Walls, about the ghost Polly (Lucy Boynton), who also haunts Iris’ house.

The film weaves poetry into the film through monologues and some of the visuals. Just check out the opening monologue by Lily:

I have heard myself say

that a house with a death in it

can never again be bought

or sold by the living.

It can only be borrowed from the ghosts

that have stayed behind

to go back and forth,

letting out and going back in again,

worrying over the floors

in confused circles,

tending to their deaths

like patchy, withered gardens.

They have stayed

to look back for a glimpse

of the very last moments of their lives.

But the memories of their own deaths

are faces on the wrong side

of wet windows,

smeared by rain,

impossible to properly see.

 

From there, the rest of the film serves as a meditation on death and the way that the past influences the present. As the film progresses, at a very slow pace, I might add, Lily becomes obsessed with the story of Polly and her influence on Iris’ novel. Polly is often shown visually in the present as a face seen through the wrong side of a wet window, something blurred, but still present, looming in the house, which in itself is quite a character in the film, a living, breathing thing with groaning floorboards and wide, darkened rooms.

Lily, meanwhile, is obsessed with the color white and often wears white through the duration of the film. Early on, she says, “I’m very seldom required to wear white by my employers. But, anyway, I always do. It;s always been that wearing white reassures the sick that I can never be touched even as darkness folds in on them from every side closing, like a claw.”

That white, however, is soiled as the film moves along, especially when Lily discovers a black, moldy substance growing on the wall where Polly was killed and buried by her husband years  earlier. Like The Blackcoat’s Daughter, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House is intentional in its color palate and visuals.  The growing darkness represents death, decay, and rot. At one point, Iris, who has dementia and constantly mistakes Lily for Polly says, “Even the prettiest things rot.”

The ending, like The Blackcoat’s Daughter, is a surprise and both Iris and Lily ultimately succumb to the rot that is Polly haunting the house. My main gripe with the film is the pacing. There are only so many scenes we can take of Lily or Polly walking across creaky floors  before it grows a bit tedious. This should have been a short film as opposed to a full-length.

A Head Full of Ghosts is a book that plays with traditional narrative structure and challenges it. The novel also takes the typical story of exorcism and turns it on its head. Perkins’ first two films challenge narrative expectations and conventions of the genre, so I’m excited to see what he does with the adaptation of Tremblay’s novel.

The Blackcoat’s Daughter is streaming on Amazon Prime, and I Am the Prettiest Thing That Lives in the House is streaming on Netflix.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Revenge and the Power of the Gaze

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I wrote an article on the French film Revenge and the gaze. It was posted over at Horror Homeroom. You can check it out here.

While difficult to watch, Revenge is one of my favorite horror films of the year thus far, especially for what it does with narrative and the gaze. If you do check out the film, prepare yourself mentally. It’s not an easy film to watch. I also encourage you to follow Horror Homeroom. They do a great job covering the horror genre with a critical eye.

 

 

A Little Netflix Horror

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As Netflix moves closer and closer to essentially becoming a streaming service that offers its own content, it can be hard to find good films that don’t hold the Netflix title, and films that are not Netflix content sometimes don’t stay on there for very long.

That said, there are two films recently added to Netflix that are worth any horror movie fan’s time. The first is a Korean movie entitled The Wailing. Directed by Hong-jin Na, this 2016 film clocks in at nearly three hours, but very few scenes feel like they drag. The film follows a police officer who investigates bizarre murders caused by a mysterious disease. People start to wonder if a Japanese stranger is the source of the village’s ills. Eventually, the officer’s daughter succumbs to the disease, and well, I don’t want to give away much more of the plot or spoil anything. The film is atmospheric, heavy on Biblical imagery, and generally unnerving. In fact, it’s the first horror film in quite a while that got under my skin and stayed with me for days after my initial viewing. The film’s use of A-horror tropes, especially the idea of ghosts and the past manifest in the present, is well done. It also has one of the best exorcism scenes I’ve ever seen on film, if you can even call it an exorcism scene.

My second recommendation  is the 2017 French-Canadian film Ravenous. Directed by Paco Plaza, this film generally plays with the zombie genre. At this point, I can understand why people would be tired of the endless barrage of zombie flicks, but this one works. Like 28 Days Later or Dawn of the Dead (2004), these zombies are more threatening. They run. They charge. They seem to be everywhere. The film follows a group of survivors in a remote, wooded town. The use of sound is the film’s most effective technique. This is a low-budget film, but one that employs sound in such a way that it makes it stand apart and above a lot of other recent zombie flicks. You can hear people crying off-screen, either survivors devoured by zombies or people turning into zombies. You can hear the thump, thump of an axe or a pipe wielded by a survivor as they kill one of their best friends who just turned. Unlike other zombie flicks, the movie isn’t as heavy on guts and gore and instead uses sound to establish it scares. When it does use gore, it feels breathtakingly real and gritty, streaked on the face of the survivor’s after they kill one of their friends, for instance. Furthermore, the shots of zombies standing on their porch stoops or standing in fields are just as unsettling. The film is well-worth the time.

 

 

 

Netflix’s Worthy Horror Flick The Ritual

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A Netflix horror flick released this month is catching a lot of buzz. The Ritual, a story about four friends who get lost on a hike in Sweden, has been much-hyped on horror social media pages. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Adam Nevill. For the most part, the film primarily centers around the first half of the book, when the friends encounter something ancient and menacing in the woods, which, for the most part, is unseen to the viewer. In that regard, the film uses some of the same tricks that The Blair Witch Project used- don’t show the monster. Instead, just show their reactions to twigs snapping and other creepy sounds. For a majority of the film, the monster is described only through their dialogue and leaves a lot to the imagination, which works. This allows the viewer to question whether or not they’re actually seeing and hearing something, or, is there something deeper going on. Is the monster a form of madness or grief manifested over the loss of their friend? This question is especially relevant when it comes to the protagonist, Luke (Rafe Spall), who watched their friend get killed by junkies in a convenient store. The hike is in honor of his memory. When the monster terrorizes the friends, Luke often has flashbacks of that moment when his friend was murdered and he failed to act, thus the monster is frequently associated with Luke’s grief.

The first half of the movie is generally suspenseful and has strong character build-up. The long-shots of the mountains and the woods create an eerie, moody atmosphere and makes the viewer feel like the setting is going to engulf the characters. The second half shifts the narrative somewhat when Luke encounters some locals who worship the monster. This half is not as strong, but it does not pull down the entire film.

Overall, The Ritual is a strong entry into the horror genre at the beginning of 2018. It is atmospheric, well-shot, and generally knows how to exercise some restraint regarding he use of a monster as a threat.

Quick Poetry Update

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I mentioned a few weeks ago that in the new year, I would be writing poetry book reviews for 4squarereview.com and more essays for the Schuylkill Valley Journal. My first review for 4squarereview, on Aaron Coleman’s forthcoming book, Threat Comes Close, was published last week. You can read it here.  I also have an essay on Robert Bly and environmentalism in the new online edition of SVJ. This essay was a multi-month project, so I hope anyone interested in poetry or environmentalism takes the time to check it out. You can read it here.

This summer, I’ll be working on a new poetry manuscript, though I  feel no rush to publish it. I am merely going to start the process of ordering the poems. At least one section of the book will contain poems written in response to horror films. Three of those poems were published in the November issue of The Horror Zine and one was published in the debut issue of Rockvale Review. Check them out!

Aside from blogging about film, horror, and literature, I’ll still post poetry updates on here now and then.

 

Can Get Out Snag an Oscar?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xM1YpntE840

 

It’s rare for horror movies to be in the running for an Oscar.  The genre has been around since the early stages of film and underwent its first Golden Age during the 1930s Universal Studios run, which were films heavily influenced by the 1920s German Expressionist films like Nosferatu. Yet, despite its connection to film history, it has largely been shut out of the Oscars. IMDB has a list of horror/suspense films that have been nominated over the years, and less than 50 films make the list. Some of the films do not fall directly into the genre of horror, since the list combines horror with suspense, and some of the films, like Frankenweenie, are questionable. The only horror film to win for Best Picture was Silence of the Lambs. The Exorcist was nominated, but it didn’t win.

There is a chance that Get Out can change the trend and snag a possible Best Picture nomination and win. Some buzz has already been building, including this recent article by Slate. Directed by Jordan Peele, the film grossed over $200 million worldwide and analyzes thorny racial issues in the U.S. It is the perfect movie for the era of the NFL protests and Black Lives Matter. Beyond that, the film rewrites a lot of the horror tropes and conventions.

The film centers around college students Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and his girlfriend, Rose (Allison Williams), as they travel upstate to visit her parents in rural America. On the surface, Rose’s parents act progressive and appear happy that their white daughter is dating a black guy. Her father says more than once that he voted for Obama, as though that absolves him of any racial prejudices. The film is unique in the sense that Peele takes supposedly affluent progressive liberals to task for claiming to be social justice warriors, but harboring their own prejudices. The film has its comedic elements, too, especially through Chris’ best friend, Andrew (Lakeith Stanfield), who constantly warns Chris that a black man visiting a white girl’s parents in rural America is a recipe for disaster. Andrew also reiterates a lot of the horror movie tropes, namely that the black characters are often the first picked off, especially in the 1970s and 80s slasher films. More importantly, the film shows how the past constantly  haunts the present, which is a fundamental element of Gothic literature and film. The plantation-like setting and one of the film’s main plot points showcases that idea.

The film has a methodical pace, building tension scene by scene, from the beginning, when Chris and Rose are pulled over by a white officer  who questions Chris for no reason, to the jarring conclusion that echoes a greater fear that police officers can kill young black men without penalty.

I can’t think of a film that better addresses the current racial tensions than Get Out. Great horror films serve as a metaphor for our social anxieties and the cultural fears. Peele’s film does just that, while adding some humor. Get Out is a film that should be analyzed and addressed for years, just like James Whale’s Frankenstein, John Carpenter’s Halloween, Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. All of those films rewrote the genre, and Peele’s film does that, especially the  conclusion. Normal order is not necessarily restored, a tradition common to horror films, especially during the first wave or two. It is also a film that calls out the progressive left as much as it does the right.

In general, the Academy has had a disdain for horror. IMDB’s list proves that. But every now and then, a film comes along that draws mass appeal and becomes part of the broader conversation. Get Out is such a film.

 

Let’s Talk about It

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Lately, this blog has become a venue for writing about the horror genre, especially horror films. Horror has consumed part of my life as I work on putting together a horror lit and film class for the spring semester. Because of that, all of my reading lately has been a lot of film criticism and re-reads of classic horror novels. I wasn’t going to offer any commentary on It, but the movie is deserving of thought (and criticism) because of the massive opening weekend it had, raking in about $117 million, thus having the biggest opening weekend for any horror movie and the third highest opening weekend of 2017.

I want to theorize on why It is such a draw and also part of a larger trend. I also want to offer some criticism of the film, where I think it fails, what I believe it does well, and what I hope to see in the second chapter, set for release in 2019.

It is part of a trend of 1980s nostalgia,which follows the success of Netflix’s original series “Stranger Things,” which draws on a few of Stephen King’s stories and adaptations, including It and Stand by Me, namely because it too is a coming of age story about a group of less-than-popular adolescents. It  stars one of “Stranger Thing’s” actors, Finn Wolfhard, who plays foul-mouthed Richie. His one-liners drew audible laughter when I saw the movie on opening night. Yet, before “Stranger Things,” there was the success of the independent film It Follows, which is one of my favorite horror films of the last few years. That flick also has 80s nostalgia, not only the soundtrack, but also the set design. There are scenes in the film where it is unclear if we’re watching something David Lynch directed in 1985 or a contemporary horror film. Prior to It Follows, there was 2009’s House of the Devil, also one of my favorite horror films of the 2000s. Directed by Ti West, this film is set in 1983 and follows the story of financially-strapped college student Samantha Hughes, who eventually encounters a Satanic cult. This film is very much Ti West’s love letter to the 1980s period of horror, specially the rash of movies that deal with Satanism, but the film is strong because of its character development, its use of sound, and the unnerving, slow burn storytelling. These are the same reasons that I like It Follows so much (and it also has one of the best on-screen uses of T.S. Eliot’s “Prufrock” that I have ever seen).

It is hard for me to pinpoint why there is such an interest in 1980s nostalgia in the horror genre right now. Some directors may simply feel that the 1980s is one of horror’s last great periods, before the constant rehashes and remakes. It was also a time period pre-9/11, pre-economic recession, pre-Trump, so there may be a fondness for that time period that overlooks some of its real issues (such as trickle down economics, economic inequality, and the Iran/Contra scandal).

This brings me to It. One of my main gripes about the film is that the 80s nostalgia is overdone. There are posters of 80s movies, including Gremlins, that are center frame in several shots. The outfits of the members of the Losers Clubs, the group of geeky outcasts that confront Pennywise the Dancing Clown, are, for the most part, 80s-themed. Yet, none of this really does much to advance the story. Instead, I wanted to know more about the town of Derry, Maine. Why, for instance, does Pennywise even chose to haunt that town? Does he have any relation to it? Why does he emerge after so many years?  Was he tortured or killed by residents of the town? One character, Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor), spends much of his time in the town library, researching local history, but what he finds doesn’t deepen the setting. It also doesn’t provide any context or background to Pennywise. Instead, we’re taken on a 1980s trip, complete with the kids riding around on their bikes in the burbs, similar to “Stranger Things.”

My other complaint about the movie is its lack of character development and its reduction of Pennywise to jump scares and CGI. The challenge of bringing It to the screen is its ensemble cast.  Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) has the most character development, after his little brother, Georgie, is killed by Pennywise in the opening scene, which is also the most effective scare scene in the film because Pennywise is not reduced to CGI. He talks, and he is seductive and terrifying in the way that he plays on Georgie’s fears. Georgie’s death looms over the rest of the film and haunts Bill.

The second film will feature the Loser’s Club as adults, just like King’s novel. Pennywise will return to haunt them, and I hope the film will rely less on CGI jump scares. I would like to see more natural effects. Tim Curry was more believable as Pennywise because of the simplicity of his make-up and his dialogue. He truly could be something realistic from our nightmares.

There are parts of the film I really liked, however. As I stated, the opening scene was perfect, everything from the mood, including the pouring rain in the burbs and the mass of gray clouds, to Pennywise’s introduction. I want to see more one-on-one, unsettling encounters like that in the second film. Let Pennywise linger beneath the surface, in the sewer grate where he lures Georgie to his death. Show us the way he exists beneath the surface, in the subconscious of the characters. That makes him a lot more chilling than over-the-top CGI scenes.

I also loved the coming-of-age scenes between members of the Losers Club, how they bond over being outsiders, how they eventually confront the real-life bullies that torment them. In fact, I wanted to stand up and cheer when they pelt the bullies with rocks and force them to retreat. My favorite scene in the film, other than the opening, occurs in the final moments, where they hold hands in a circle and vow to confront Pennywise as a team if he ever returns, and, of course, we know that he will. I hope that this group of misfits is developed a lot more in the sequel so we can feel for them more individually and not just see them as one group of people that a demented clown wants to kill.

I recommend people see the movie. Buy some popcorn and enjoy the ride because it’s a fun one. I just hope the sequel relies less on rehashed tropes and jump scares and instead develops the Losers Club and their nemesis Pennywise much more.

 

RIP, Tobe Hooper

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Less than two months after the passing of George A. Romero,  horror cinema lost another heavyweight: Tobe Hooper, director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist, and other films. Hooper’s legacy is as cemented as Romero’s and the two share one common trait: both Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Masscare were shot on shoestring budgets and grossed millions. They become two of the most influential films of third wave American horror cinema. Romero’s zombies and Hooper’s  Leatherface are now pop culture icons.

Over the last year, I revisited The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in preparation for a horror literature and film course I’m teaching in the spring semester. It is unlikely that I will teach the film, but its influence is impossible to escape. In any collection of essays on horror film, there is analysis of Hooper’s breakthrough.

What struck me most about the film upon my re-watch is the use of sound, or lack of sound, and how Hooper established an apocalyptic setting immediately. The beginning of the film finds a group of teenagers in a van. As an audience, we don’t know their destination. They laugh and joke with each other, even as the car radio only gives news reports of violence, including robberies and murders. It’s a subtle thing, but pay attention to the juxtaposition the next time you watch the first few minutes . Then, the teens pick up a hitchhiker, who, for no apparent reason, knifes one of them in the hand and laughs maniacally about it. All of this happens before they even meet Leatherface! Hooper didn’t use a traditional soundtrack for the film, which only intensifies the news reports, the roar of Leatherface’s chainsaw, and the flies buzzing around his house.

The scenery is dry and desolate. The sun is blazing, especially in the final scene when Leatherface does a mad, frantic dance with his chainsaw, after Sally (Marilyn Burns), the lone survivor, barely escapes. This is the perfect horror movie for its time period, during the height of Nixon, the cultural wars, and Vietnam. By the conclusion of the film, no traditional order is established, a clear break from the conventional horror movie trope. The bad guy is not defeated, and Sally hardly escapes. The last shot of Leatherface wielding his chainsaw under the scorching sun is a good metaphor for the turbulent times. Things aren’t going back to the way they used to be, so to speak.

Poltergeist, meanwhile, was one of the first horror films I saw. It produced one of the most iconic American horror images, little Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) pressing her hands to the screen of TV static and warning her family, “They’re hereeee.” Poltergiest isn’t  as unsettling as  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and it often feels like a Steven Speilberg movie more than anything else (he did write the screenplay). It employs one of his classic tropes, something threatening the all-American family/burbs. Instead of a shark gnawing on victims at a seaside town, we instead have poltergeist terrorizing a middle-class family who built their house atop a Native American resting ground. I always thought of Poltergeist as a PG horror movie, but it does have some great, subtle scares. My favorite is when the mother, Diane (JoBeth Williams), is in the kitchen and turns around to find the chairs stacked in an uncanny manner. This scene doesn’t involve any blood, guts, or gore, but it works so well. Hooper knew how to show restraint. Even The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has very, very little blood and guts.

There are plenty of great American horror films that have been released over the last 3-5 years. I mentioned a few of them via another post. It Follows, Get Out, It Comes At Night, Green Room, and The Witch are all worth watching. What I like about these films is an idea taken from Hooper’s body of work: sometimes, less is more and the visuals and sound, or lack of sound, can scare an audience a lot more than buckets of blood.

RIP, Tobe.