Burying the Ex - 1/31 Days of Halloween

Hello again!  I am participating in the 31 Days of Halloween Challenge, except I'm making it extra hard on myself by abiding by two additional rules.

#1 I'm only watching horror films I have never seen before
#2 I'm reviewing all of them here.

I'm aware this is absolutely nuts.  But last night I kicked it off by watching the camp horror-comedy Burying the Ex!

The movie has a simple but ridiculous premise: a dude's controlling girlfriend dies before he has a chance to break up with her, and when he finally starts to move on she zombies back into his life.  I have a few issues with the way they chose to portray the controlling girlfriend.  She's a yuppie vegan who works for a Green Life Blog and bullies him into making his life more sustainable.  Not all of her claims are unreasonable (ex: stop letting your brother use your living room for weird sex parties when I'm staying over at your place... it makes me really uncomfortable). but the way she communicates is vicious, manipulative and ultimately abusive.

After a horrifying display of jealous outrage from his girlfriend, our main character decides to break up with her.  Except she dies first.  This leads to a lot of feelings of guilt from our main character.  This is the film at it's most poignant.  How do you react to your abusive partner, who you did love, dying?

Eventually, he starts to move on, with a more laid-back girl who shares all of his interests.  She's a little on the manic pixie dream girl side, but I also kind of love her.  Also, wherever it is in Hollywood these characters live, I want to go there.  Because it their community supports not only a year-round horror store, but a horror-themed ice creamery.  Best neighborhood ever!

Right as our main character starts to move on, his never-quite-became-ex comes back from the dead, rotting and zombified and ready to be together FOREVER.  This is a great allegory.  What do you do when you escape a bad relationship and then your abuser suddenly shows back up at your house?  When time and space have made them repulsive to you, but you're still too terrified to resist their advances?  When (due to size or strength or crazy zombie powers) you know they could kill you if you don't do exactly what they want?

What I love most about this film is that becoming a zombie isn't what makes our antagonist horrifying.  She was horrifying before.  Now she just has super strength and has become physically repulsive to the hero (which is a common feeling for some survivors).  I really wasn't expecting this movie to mirror abuse in relationships as much as it did, and the more I think about it the more I really respect that about the film.

So what does our lead do?  How does he deal with the abuser who used to be so enticing now that the spell is broken (or cast, in this case)?  What do you do when "letting someone down easy" is both impossible and a genuine risk to your physical safety?  When you are finally aware that there's better relationships out there but getting involved with someone involves risking both of your lives because your ex is murderously jealous?

Well, in real life it works a little differently than in the movies.  But this one is worth seeing.  It's campy, has some fanservice bra scenes, and relies on a cast of lily-white California hotties, so it's not super exciting in that way.  But look a little deeper and for a camp horror comedy there's surprising depth. 

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Entertaining 4/5        Intelligent 2.5/5        Unsettling 1/5
 
Scary 2/5        Gory 2/5        Funny 4/5         Artistic 2/5
  

Representation of Minorities 0/5        Representation of Women 2/5
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Things Withered by Susie Moloney

Okay, seems like about that time again... time for another book review!  I read this little piece for the Nightmare Factory Book Club, which is hosted every month at BookPeople here in Austin.  If you're in the area, I highly recommend it.  This review is definitely informed by the wonderful conversations I had with my fellow book club members, so I wanted to be sure to give a shout out.

This book contains several short stories focusing on the horrors of suburbia, all written by Susie Moloney.  Honestly, that's probably it's greatest weakness.  With a single author and a tightly constrained concept, it's hard to maintain stories that feel original back-to-back with one another.  I feel like she either needed to make a general horror compilation of her writing or have this specific suburban theme mettered out through a few different authors.  As it was it got a little repetitive for my taste.

However, I think a lot of the stories still had great merit.  None of them really scared me, but some did disturb or horrify me.  More than a few made me laugh a little.  And all of them had heavy-handed messages about what femininity, masculinity and conformity mean within a suburban setting.  I couldn't help but picturing all of the stories as being set in the 50s or 60s (in spite of Beiber references and other obviously modern moments).  I couldn't shake that dated feeling from it.  At book club we talked about how revolutionary this book would have felt if it had come out in 1965.  But it didn't.

It's clearly a second wave feminist piece, and thus gets boring for the modern reader.  These are mostly stories about a specific kind of woman - mostly middle-class, by definition suburban, in a long-term relationship with a man.  These are mixed in with stories about men suffering from acute toxic masculinity and old ladies struggling to adjust to their surroundings.  It gives the book as a whole a sort of flat, stereotypical feeling.

There are a few stories, however, that really seemed to shine.  For me, the standouts were as follows:

The Windemere: a slowly creepy story about an aging real estate agent who needs a stroke of luck.

Truckdriver: the slow decent of a man who defines hinself by his new truck, his physical manifestation of toxic masculinity, which he allows to define himself by sexualization of young girls, fantasies of violence and a the idea of strength.

The Last Living Summer: a surprisingly realistic post-apocalyptic tale about a little old lady on the beach.

The Audit: a classically creepy tale, about everyone's greatest adult fear: the IRS.

The others aren't bad, but if you want to just skip around, I'd say those are the strongest.  The Human Society is actually a phenomenal story as well, but I'd call it a tragedy, not a horror story.  I suppose it is horrific, but it didn't make me scared, just really sad.

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Entertaining 2/5        Intelligent 3/5        Unsettling 4/5

  Scary 2/5        Gory 1/5        Funny 1/5         Artistic 3/5
  

Representation of Minorities 1/5        Representation of Women 3.5/5
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The Visit

I had very mixed feelings about even going to see this movie.  M. Night Shyamalan has tricked me (and so many others) into seeing quite a few bad films.  I was 14 when The Village came out, and I was so excited to see it.  But the ending was so drab.  After that his films just seemed to plummet further.  And then we have this.

This is a campy self-aware faux horror documentary from the perspective of teenagers.  Also (see above) they case actual teenagers, which does wonders for the film.  It's the sort of weird, funny little film I'd expect to see to a newcomer to the genre.  It's the sort of film you see and think "it has it's issues, but I feel like this director has promise".  Which makes the fact that it was made by a big budget, almost universally panned director confusing.

It's a surprisingly ballsy film.  It's a slow burn, taking advantage of "old people are just weird" for as long as possible.  It's filled with weird half-explanations that would genuinely be believable to the teenage main characters.  And it has a twist that I at least did not see coming (I knew there would be a twist of course, but I didn't think it would be what it was).

It struck me as honest in a way I rarely see.  The main characters are irritating and lovable, and really work as actual teenagers.  The older daughter sees herself as very grown up and cultured, she wants to make this a poignant documentary about the family she's never known, tying it into her mother's past and her present in a way that creates meaning for herself and her whole family.  But of course, she's a teenager, so she's often really bad at it (though she is treated to a few touching scenes).  She's a very believable 17 year old girl.

The brother, 13, is a tiny puffed up cultural appropriating, misogynistic little asshole.  But it's completely obvious that he is the way he is because he's trying to compensate for his father's disappearance, for his scrawny frame, for his awkwardness.  He's lovable because he has absolutely no idea what he's doing.  He's probably the most believable teenage boy I've seen in a movie in years.

And the core family: brother, sister & mother... they really love each other.  They fight and make mistakes just like normal people, but they're a good, loving family.  The sister calls the brother out on his misogynistic bullshit, the brother gets the sister to take him more seriously, and the mother is hopelessly confused by the world that is adulthood but loves & protects her children as best she can.  It's a shockingly positive depiction of a single-parent family.

When we get to the meat of the movie it's uneven.  There are both laughs & jump scares.  But I'd say it's closer to a comedy than a horror film.  The self-awareness helps a lot to mitigate this though.  It's solid entertainment, with interesting "villians" and a commitment to the realism of it's heroes (though significantly less commitment to the realism of Nana and Pop Pop).

Were this a movie by a director new to the scene, it would be easier to praise it, to call it daring and funny, to give it a B+.  But while Shyamalan has made a significantly better film here than he has in more than a decade, I still don't think he deserves a newbie bonus. 

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Entertaining 4/5        Intelligent 2/5        Unsettling 3.5/5
 
 Scary 3/5        Gory 1/5        Funny 5/5         Artistic 2/5
  

Representation of Minorities 0/5        Representation of Women 4/5
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Creep

I just want to clarify, this review is for the 2015 found-footage film Creep, not the 2005 train-station supernatural thriller Creep.

This is a weird movie.  I appreciate that.  The set-up is simple.  A man answers an ad on Craigslist that offers $1000 for a day's worth of filming at a remote cabin.  He's not sure what to expect, and jokes on the way about meeting up with a creepy older woman who wants a massage.  It's a cute little subversion on classic tropes (not that there's many women left who'd answer a message from a man who wants to meet alone in the woods with a videocamera, but hey).  When he arrives, he's greeted by a weird, creepy dude, Josef, his boss for the next few hours.

At first his new employer is just weird.  Unsettling, creepy, very overly friendly, appears to have mental issues, but mostly just weird.  Suffering from terminal illness, depressed, seems to need a friend.  The protagonist is naive enough to buy it.  But for me this was the best part of the film.  Because I don't buy it, even though the protagonist does. 

I see Josef as a man who quietly manipulates, always pushing the boundaries to see how far he can squirm in, always sitting on the edge of uncomfortable, the line of "oh I was just kidding".  This is something women experience from creepy men day in and day out, and men don't believe us when we say we have something to fear from these quietly manipulative creeps.

But the truth is, there's something to fear.  From my analysis, Josef isn't actually "slow", he's brilliant.  His moves are all calculated to elicit the response he wants.  He uses faux friendliness, a push to have just one more drink, a hug that lasts too long, to get his victim to submit to him, all under the guise of "not understanding boundaries" even though the grin he gets when he breaks them shows all to well he understands.  The main character, being another dude, gives him the benefit of the doubt for far too long.

And without spoiling too much, let's say that wasn't the best idea.  For a movie that is literally just two white guys, I feel like this had a surprisingly feminist message if you just dig into it a little.  Obsession, stalking, and abuse are rarely portrayed as happening to men, even though they do.  And this film in particular showed how the things we tell people in those situations are actively harmful.  "Just be nice to him", "Oh, he's just a touchy-feely type!", "Don't be rude"... when your gut tells you something is "off" about a dude, it's terrible advice.

When your gut says "this dude is a CREEP", do the right thing.  Run.

Dark Summer

I liked this film both more and less than I expected to.  I went in with low expectations, fueled by an abysmal Rotten Tomatoes score & Netflix' prediction that I'd give it 2.5 stars.  But the actor who plays the main character caught my attention as the scrawny love interest in It Follows, so I decided to take a chance on the film.

It wasn't a total waste of my time.  The movie is about a young cyberstalker sentenced to house arrest for his crime.  He's obviously mentally unstable and still dangerously obsessed with the object of his affections.  He's been strictly prohibited from any contact with her, but the first thing he does when he's alone at his house is stare longingly at her icloud login screen wishing he could figure out the password.  Creepy.

He's quickly joined by two friends who visit him during his arrest, somehow effortlessly sneaking past the guards (he's not allowed visitors).  Also his mother is out of town, and seems totally fine leaving her ankle-braclet-guarded-stalker-creep-son alone in the house.  The friends are Blatantly In Love With Main Boy and Oh Look A Black Friend!  They have little to no character development.  The girl exists to pine after the main character and the friend exists to say "ghosts aren't real" and then hint that girl is pining after the main character.

The movie is basically entirely about these three people, only one of whom has anything resembling a character (the protagonist/antihero).  This causes some serious issues with the film, 'cause it's hard to care about any of them.  In any case, the main character experiences some trauma and starts to see scary shit around the house.  Bumps, cracked glass, weird dreams, standard spooky stuff.  His friends don't believe him of course.  This is a strong point in the film, when it's just the main character, dutifully taking his psych meds and still seeing terrifying things.

When the whats-what gets revealed, there's a lull.  And a lonely seeming montage.  This does not work to the films advantage.  What is supposed to come off as a spooky interlude falls flat, and ends up seeming like the world's most boring filler music video.  There is lots of typing on computers and scrolling.  It's a big yawn.

But I'm glad I decided to finish the movie, because the twist was quite clever.  I really didn't see it coming.  And the ending was decent, especially considering the slow middle section.  This movie didn't scare me really, but it had enough intriguing moments to offset the dull sections.  It's not something you must see, but if you're bored one afternoon it's not a total waste of your time.

The Den

I was not expecting to be freaked out by this movie.  I heard from a friend that they found it scary, but they thought it was mostly because they work on webcams.  I do not work via webcam.  But I found this pretty freaky anyway.

 First off, this is a found-footage film (ish).  But it's done in a surprisingly refreshing way.  The entire film is viewed through webcams (primarily on computers & cell phones).  This was a surprisingly refreshing twist on the found-footage genre.  It follows a young graduate student who is doing her thesis on the way people interact with strangers on the internet.  She does this primarily using the ominously named "The Den" (which is really just an amalgamation of Skype, Chatroulette & Omegle).  This gives a lovely excuse for her to film herself 24/7, but also to film her interactions with random strangers.  We also get to see her chat logs/emails/youtube videos, because it's primarily oriented as a "screen capture".  We see what she sees.

At first it's mostly normal internet stuff.  Some of it is even quite funny.  She's trying to figure out why people do the things they do online, and keeps hilariously simple notes including "exposed penis for entire length of "conversation".  But she also has a few good conversations with normal seeming, interesting people.

Then she starts to encounter things that are... darker in content.  Some of them are obviously hoaxes, jump scares and the like.  Some of them, however, might not be.  But because of the high prevalence of trolling, police don't take her seriously when she thinks she sees a real threat.

What I found really drew me in was a really effective portrayal of gaslighting via a technologic medium.  Stalkers do sometimes hack into people's computers and use that access to make the computer owner feel like they're going crazy.  Files being deleted, webcams turned on and off, and secret recordings being made and downloaded are all totally possible.  While I'm not convinced there's actually people out there killing strangers on camera for fun, there are real people who exhibit a lot of the early behaviors shown in this film.  And that's what makes it downright terrifying.

There's really not much more I can say (or show) without giving something away.  But I'd say if you want a good creep-out I can recommend this.  And for being about webcams the nudity & sexual content was kept to what I found to be a very reasonable minimum.  There's a lot of graphic violence (some meant to be fake, some meant to be real) but not any particularly sexual violence, which was refreshing.

If you would like further evidence that I found this film genuinely spooky, let me present some photographic evidence.  (the photo below is from my life, not the movie)

This is a photograph of my computer 10 minutes after watching The Den

I watched the film on my TV, not my computer, or it probably would've been sooner.  As you can see I have used a chip clip & a sock to cover my webcam (I made sure the clip's edges aren't touching the lens, so don't panic!).    I'm not sure I can give a lot better review for a horror film than that.

Dark Skies

I have been waiting for a good alien horror movie for a while now.  It was such a trope in the 90s & early 00s, with Signs being the last good thing M. Night Shyamalan ever did (thus ruining Night as a badass middle name forever).  

But I digress.

This is a very solid movie.  It's suspenseful, and the jump scares worked well (at least on me).  It kept the tension high by keeping the antagonists of the film in the shadows.  So many modern horror movies try to scare you with brightly lit, finely detailed creatures.  While often these are beautifully constructed, they're never as terrifying as something you can just barely see in the dark.

The film stars a young couple and their two young boys.  It fails the Bechtel test spectacularly, managing to have three named female characters who never speak to each other about anything but their (inevitably all male) families.  It's a straight up old fashioned maternal tale, with a mother who turns to odd explanations and a father who is prone to violent & aggressive outbursts.  This makes a very convenient excuse for why people are suspicious of these folks.  They're also solidly upper-middle class, behind on their mortgage due to the father's layoff from a major firm, being supported by the mother, who lets her maternal instincts get in the way of her doing her job as a real estate agent.  Falling back on these tropes is, to say the least, less than ideal.

In spite of all this, I have to admit the movie is very successful.  It has jumps and bumps in all the right places.  There's paranoia, social rejection and blackouts.  There are creepy kids and sleepwalking.  There are conveniently blurred security videos, though (thank god) it is not a found footage film.  It has a lot of traditional horror aspects, and really brilliantly blends them together into something that feels coherent.  That's not easy to do.

The oldest son is the most dimensional character, followed by his mother.  He's young and naive and believes pornography is a representation of how dating actually works and has an older friend who's not a good influence.  In spite of their stereotypes the actors still manage to pull off seeming like a real, if troubled, suburban family.

Is this movie groundbreaking?  No.  Did it successfully evoke emotion towards it's main characters, build suspense and then make me jump out of my seat?  It most certainly did.