Horror films - 2013

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The Conjuring is a genuinely creepy film. It's creepy for two reasons: first, it's directed by an experienced horror film director, James Wan (Saw, Insidious), second, it's purported to be based on actual events. As I watched, I kept wondering about where the line existed between fact and fiction.

The Conjuring was released in the US in July of 2013. It stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren. The film has been critically well-received and from a budget of a mere $20 million has already grossed over $300 million. It is no surprise that a sequel is in the works.

The approach Wan takes to telling the story is interesting. We are first introduced to the Warrens as they examine one of their cases - an apparently possessed doll terrorizing a pair of young roommates. Ed is the occult scholar and seems to be very mechanically-minded. Lorraine is the psychic who follows her feelings. We are shown the Warrens' home storeroom of cursed artifacts reminiscent of the cursed item shop in the old Friday the 13th TV series. We get a glimpse of their home life, their child Judy, and their shared commitment to their work and each other.

We are then introduced to the Perrons (Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston) and their five daughters who have just moved into a 100-year-old house in the country. Inexplicable and frightening events escalate from the "infestation" to "oppression" stages until the Perrons eventually call in the Warrens.

So, how was it? I will appraise the film in two ways. First, as a horror film and second, as to its purported veracity.

On count number 1: As noted above, the film is genuinely creepy. Just as stories about aliens have standard cliched tropes, so do stories about hauntings - cold zones, visions, strange noises, moving objects. Oddly enough, though it's not original, these elements cue the audience to what they should expect, but of course never quite when or how to expect it. Wan seems fond of a newer "jump scare" tactic - having a relatively quiet scene and then suddenly inserting a loud noise to induce a shock to the listener. I guess they wouldn't allow him to electrify the seats in the theaters. Like John Carpenter's old trick of suddenly moving a character into frame, we will learn to anticipate this one too. But overall, I felt the film did a good job of providing a frightening threat, maintaining tension, and providing interesting characters to face it.

Which leads us to count 2: How real was it? According to one of the Perrons' daughters in an interview, many of the phenomena actually occurred, just not exactly as depicted in the film. She added that the events which did occur stretched between 1971 and 1980, not within a brief period. The demonic doll wasn't a grisly-looking black-eyed creature, but a harmless-looking rag doll (but still with a disturbing history). The Warrens' daughter, depicted as a child between 10 and 12 would actually have been 25 in 1971, when the film's action takes place. It's very clear that the writers and the director took what may have been actual phenomena and used them to fabricate a story. I don't actually mind this. I wasn't expecting a documentary, but I wish they had bothered to mention that aspects were fictionalized as other films have.

The Warrens' cases have actually led to several films. There is a throwaway line about them being asked to check out a case near Long Island (an allusion to Amityville, one of their cases). I look forward to where they take what could become a film series from here. Surely it would be preferable to many of the others we've seen in the genre.

I'm just realizing I watched this film at 3:07 AM . . .

- JC

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Who would have thought when Night of the Living Dead (1968) was released that the concept of zombies would become the vast genre it is today? Wikipedia has a page where it lists 641 zombie films made between 1920 and 2013. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_movie) AMC's The Walking Dead television series has just finished its third season. It is both a critical hit and among the most popular programs on cable. There are the typical horror treatments - there are zombie-oriented action movies, zombie comedies and even zombie romances. It would be fairly safe to say the genre has been fully explored. No, wait. We didn't have a Brad Pitt zombie movie.

World War Z offers us both a microscopic and macroscopic look at a zombie apocalypse and I have to admit that is a welcome change. The overwhelming majority of zombie films have featured a small group of people trying to survive in a zombie-overrun environment. We rarely get to see a world government response or even those from particular governments. In World War Z, we see the zombie apocalypse from that classic street-level, "in the middle of it," perspective, but we also get to see a US/UN military view and interesting approaches taken by a c couple of individual nations.

Brad Pitt plays Gerry Lane, a former UN investigator. He and his family are in Philadelphia traffic when a zombie wave strikes the city. Later, Lane is essentially blackmailed back into service to help identify the source of the threat and to find a way to deal with it. It would have helped the believability of the plot if they had said or shown more as to why Lane was so uniquely qualified to investigate the problem. Though he is plainly brave and resourceful, he is neither an accomplished warrior nor scientist, so it's a bit implausible that the remaining viable government on Earth would trust their salvation solely to him. Pitt's portrayl of Lane is fine, but the character never seems like anyone besides Pitt himself in that situation.

The portrayl of the zombies themselves is a bit unique and worth noting. Different from the slow, shuffling zombies as commonly depicted, these creatures are fast, rabid berserkers. In scenes from a distance, where they attack en masse, climbing over one another, they seem less like human or zombie, but more like swarming army ants with human proportions. This is unnerving to see, but also undercuts the film's believability. They look like cgi. In addition, in close-quarters shots of the zombies, I felt there a bit of over-indulgence in allowing the performers to overact. There was too much spasmodic movement; too much chomping and clicking of the teeth. At times, it bordered on comedic.

World War Z isn't a particularly notable addition to zombie lore. Its main contribution is its viewpoint on government responses. All in all, it may be a sign that it's time to start writing stories about something else.

- JC

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Mama, a film produced by Guillermo del Toro and directed by Andres Muschietti, is the story of two young girls 8 and 6 years old found by their uncle after five years apparently alone in a cabin in the woods. When the girls are first found they are practically feral creatures, but they are taken in by their artist uncle and his rocker girlfriend, with assistance from a curious psychiatrist. The early scenes make it clear there is a supernatural force present which has taken an interest in the lives of the two girls and in fact was responsible for their otherwise unlikely survival.

The early and middle parts of this film are definitely creepy and suspenseful. The director does a marvelous job of letting the mystery unfold of just what's going on while also showing "Mama's" growing presence in the family's home. This part of the film kept me guessing and concerned about the characters the entire time.

The suspense builds to a final confrontation between the two adults who had suddenly had parenthood foisted on them and this frighteningly powerful, quite demented, yet maternal spirit. I felt that the film-makers may have utilized a bit too much cgi at the end. Other films with malevolent spirits - The Ring, The Grudge, Darkness Falls - kept the spooks out of sight most of the time, only revealing them briefly for the big scares and even then we would only got a good look near the end of the film. The reveal on "Mama" at the end was extended enough that the audience loses the shocking aspect of her appearance and just starts thinking of her as an animation.

It was also interesting how much emphasis was placed on the concept of motherhood in Mama. Annabel (Jessica Chastain) begins the film as a free spirit who cares about her boyfriend, rock music, and being free to live as she pleases. But she bonds with the girls as the story progresses and develops a strong maternal side, as implausible as this may seem given the short time frame. By the end of the film she reminded me a bit of Ripley protecting Newt in Aliens. The message I chose to take from this is that times and fashions may change, but certain core values such as the bond between a mother and child supercede these more superficial aspects of our lives.

All in all, in spite of the quibbles, this film is enjoyable, suspenseful and very well made. It's definitely worth seeing once.

- JC

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