What I'm Watching: Maniac (2012)

Happy Thanksgiving!  Here's something tasty for y'all today; three years ago today I reviewed the original slasher classic, Maniac.  I thought it would be appropriate to finally give a quick look at the remake starring Elijah Wood.

Yeah, Frodo starring in a horror movie.

And y'know what?  It works.  It REALLY works.

This may be the single best remake I have ever seen, and it actually does different things, thus giving it a fair justification for existing.

The story is very much the same, with just a few differences, but the way in which its presented is wholly different.  This movie is done in first person, through the eyes of the killer, through those large, emotion filled eyes of Elijah Wood himself.

And again, and this was surprising to me, it totally works.  Doing an entire movie from the first person perspective, LITERALLY inside their head and looking out, sounds like a trainwreck, but this was SO well done, and manages to put you inside the killer in a way you never have been before.

Alexander Aja directed, and with help from the cameramen and Elijah himself being right there behind the camera for nearly the entire shoot (Save for a handful of shots) they really create a unique vision, and turn the camera into a character.  All of those people needed to be on the same page to create this performance for Frank, and that is a large part of why this works.  Elijah's skill at acting, a skilled cameraman, and a great director all came together as a unit here.

The brilliance of it comes when you find yourself getting into it during the more character driven moments, accepting that you are Frank, feeling his awkward shyness, just believing the role you yourself find yourself in...and then have it violently ripped away when you see your hands brutally murdering someone.  It is off-putting, and done so brilliantly...in some ways this is a must see movie, and in others some people should avoid it at all costs, because it can be very uncomfortable, to downright unpleasant, and yet that's the entire reason it works...

Don't ask me which version of Maniac I enjoyed more, because they're both so similar, yet SO different, and do things differently that both films truly can exist side by side.  I'd say the first one is a little more gory, but the remake has its moments.  The remake is more creative in some ways, but the original set so many other things in motion.

The only thing I didn't like in the remake was how Anna figured out Frank was a killer.  He mentioned other girls being killed and wanted to make sure she was safe (It's been awhile since I saw the movie, so I might not be 100% accurate on that, but it's close), and it freaked her out, because how could he know that girls were being killed??  Well, gee, I dunno.  Maybe because he watches the news?  Reads a paper?  Talks to people?  It just came off as SO false that it came dangerously close to ruining the movie for me, but fortunately the rest of the movie is so strong, that the lone stumbling block there doesn't totally ruin things.

The one other thing that didn't always work was Elijah's voiceover.  It's perfectly moody, it sets the scene, and works for what it is, but it just doesn't SOUND right.  And this is hard to get across until you see it for yourself.  It sounds like it's been recorded elsewhere via ADR, and a lot of it probably was.  The words are good, but you get that awkward distance you sometimes have when the audio isn't 'live'.

Still, I really loved this movie, and it stands on its own, and is a worthy successor to the original.  Casting Elijah as someone the exact opposite type from the original Frank, and because of Wood's normal image, and innocent face, is some of the best casting ever.  The brief appearances of Elijah in mirrors really helps sell things, even when the audio might be faltering.

It's a great slasher flick, with a lot of nods to the original (Watch for an homage to the infamous movie poster when Frank's in the car park!), and is a truly unique experience.

I have a slight fear that this will spawn a whole raft of copycats, like the wave of found footage movies we've had since Blair Witch, and I really think that's a mistake.  This is a trick that can only work once, maybe a handful more times, but the more people try to do this same thing, the less the creators invovled will get what made this work, they'll miss the whole psychological aspect, and just put a camera atop some hands with a knife, or whatever.  This is lightning in a bottle, pure and simple.

What I'm Watching: Hallow's Eve

And now it's time to wish all the ghouls and goblins a happy Halloween!

So of course, I have this little treat for you, and what more appropriate movie to take a quick look at than the aptly titled, Hallow's Eve?

This is one of this month's independent movies I've never heard of that I got drawn in by an intriguing trailer, and once again, the presence of Danielle Harris.

Oh, the movies I will sit through for her...but I digress.

Hallow's Eve follows the story of a young girl who gets seriously injured on her farm as a kid, when a bunch of kids tease her and chase her into the path of an oncoming tractor.  She survives, but is horribly scarred by the event, both physically and mentally.

Several years later, the kids are once again coming to the farm, to partake in the yearly Halloween haunted farm event the family throws.  It's not long before bodies start dropping, and you start wondering just what is going on.

Straight up, the best thing about this movie is Harris.  She puts in one HELL of a performance as the girl's mother, and brings much needed emotion and character to the film.  Everyone else never quite clicks for me, and that just makes Danielle's performance stand out all the more.

The haunted house like setting on a farm is also a highlight, as it gives lots of creepy places to kill people off, and it strikes me that there haven't been more Halloween themed movies set in places like this.  You would think a dark farm, with corn fields, and creepy decorations, and eerie characters would be a huge trope, but no.  The fact that the setting is most refreshing is another good reason to watch this movie.

This all leads to a pretty hefty body count, with some really good effects and deaths, so there's that at least.

But it all leads up to an ending that is...at the same time, somehow completely obvious, mind boggling, and satisfying all at the same time?

It manages to give a little bit of a twist of presenting two killers, which I always like.  It allows you to throw suspicion off everyone and keep people guessing, and that actually works really well.  One of the killers is exactly who you think it is, and the other is...somehow logical, but never quite set up well to my satisfaction.

Still, there's enough here to like, and even the parts that are wince worthy are mostly in good fun, and given with a wink and a nod to the audience.  This movie knew it was campy, and it hit the mark pretty well.  I may have thrown my hands in the air in the last few minutes, but the movie wasn't ruined by the ending, so that's always a plus.

Hallow's Eve is a fun little bit of campy Halloween fun, and if you get the chance, I actually reccomend giving it a chance for your late night Halloween watching.

What I'm Watching: Beautiful Creatures

Hopefully this won't be as long as the Man of Steel review!

This is a *little* off the beaten path for Trisk, but there's magic, there's witches...sorry, 'casters' as the movie insists on calling them, and curses.  I can work with that.

Beautiful Creatures suffered a bit from coming out at the same time as Twilight fever.  Which is understandable.  Supernatural love stories are super huge right now, so everyone and their dog wants to make one and cash in on that.  Which there's nothing wrong there, but the movie probably was hit by some backlash from the sparkly vampie abominations.

Which is really a shame, since this movie wasn't bad.

It doesn't blow me away, but it was a fun two hours.  The cast is solid, mostly.  The biggest problem was everyone having to do Southern accents, and not everyone in the cast should be allowed to do that, in this movie.  Some were better than others, and some were just painful, to me, and got on my nerves.

But dialect aside, the performances still come through just fine, especially Jeremy Irons who can be known for chewing scenery with the best of them.  Yeah, I'm looking at YOU, Dungeons & Dragons...

The story resolves around a kid haunted by dreams, until he meets a girl whose family is spoken about in hushed whispers and rumours.  He's intrigued, and finds out everything rumoured about the family is true.  He gets sucked into their crazy world of magic, destiny, and curses, and does his best to help his new girlfriend not turn evil.

I was a little uncomfortable with the movie's mythology that established how every caster reaches a point where they go either to the light or the dark.  The women are forced into the role by their 'true nature' and have to stay that way.  But the males are able to choose at will, being good or evil whenver they want.  Gee, that's not too sexist, is it?  I'm probably being too harsh, but it did make me roll my eyes.

The movie's use of magic was creative, and sexism aside, it have some good mythology to it, that built for a unique view of magic in this world.  And setting it against a Southern backdrop and the Civil War gave it a bit of history and substance to it.  The Vampire Diaries does much the same with its initial mythology, and it works well.

There were a few moments that made me wince though, and it was usually during any sort of magic battle.  Partly because of effects, and partly because of acting.  Magic is a tough thing to sell, magic battles even more so, since actors have to act big to sell whatever they're doing, while having no idea WHAT it is they're doing, and it sometimes comes across as silly.

Still, there's a good story here of trying to find your place in the world at that awkward time in your life known as high school.  It's something we all go through, and a common source of supernatural allegory.  Beautiful Creatures might not be the most unique take on a crowded genre trope, but it does a fair job, and is worth a look.

What I'm Watching: Iron Man 3

In the category of, "Hey, that's not horror!" Iron Man 3 premiered today!!  And hey, it's science fiction, and it's my damned site, and I love comics.  I'm allowed to write what I want!

It goes without saying, but just in case...there be spoilers beyond this point.  Run away now if you don't want to know stuff.

Every time I walk out of a movie, the first question I get asked is, "What did you think?"  As is the norm, I suppose.  I normally have a quick, one word answer.  Not so much this one, and I can't *quite* put my finger on it.  I *did* like IM3.  But I would probably stick it down amongst my least favourite of the IM movies.  Which is not a bad thing.  As I say, if you're rating a group of good things, someone is gonna come up last, right?

If Iron Man was a 10, and IM 2 was a 9, I would give IM 3 a solid 8, or 8.5.  So it's really JUST trailing the pack.

First up, some random stuff I did like.  LOVED the opening.  So many movies start with that semi-pretentious quoting of something, and this movie undercuts that instantly.  Which is so perfect for the tone of Iron Man.  It tells you *immediately* who Tony Stark is, before you even see a frame of him on screen.  Also, it sets up the running gag of quoting people, usually for comedic effect.

RDJ is back as Iron Man/Tony Stark, and if you loved him in the first two movies and Avengers, well, then you get more of the same here.  In fact, you get a bit more Tony than Iron Man, so that's good for some people.  In fact, he even gets to play a bit more with emotions this time, and is given a bit of a character arc to work through.

The villains were good, and I quit enjoyed the movie's take on the Mandarin.  There were some very good twists in the story with him, and AIM, and a few other characters.  I legit did not see a few of them coming, and that's always a good thing.

Ben Kingsley...  Well, he's Ben Freakin' Kingsley.  I don't need to say anything about him at all.  He brings such gravitas to the role, and then some.

I absolutely loved, LOVED Pepper getting to wear the armour, and some serious contributions to the action.  Her moments of stupid in the second movie ALWAYS sat poorly with me, and were my biggest complaints with IM2.  This was a bit of service in rectifying those moments, IMO.  She still had a bit of damsel in distress, but they at least had her not be an idiot staring at an about to explode robot.

Finally, a movie that did not culminate in the bad guy wearing a suit of armour all his own to fight Iron Man!  That drove me up the wall, that Whiplash needed to do that in the sequel.  Just because Tony wears armour, his villains don't all need to wear armour as well.  The movie DID put some of the baddies into metal forms a few times, but they were not the main goal of their plots, more diversions than anything else.  I appreciate this so damned much.  The Extremis abilities really worked as a good counterpoint to Tony's armour.

Now, for the bad.  Don't worry, it's not that bad!

Was the humour...off, for anyone else?  It felt like it got a little goofy at times?  Tony being Tony was fine, but something about anyone else trying to be funny didn't quite work.  Justin Hammer had a little bit of that awkward humour in the second one, but it felt more prominent here.  I dunno.  Maybe it was just because this movie had a darker tone in its narrative that made the gags stand out all the more.

The first act felt a little slow, but I'm not too perturbed by that.  After the mind-blowing craziness of the Avengers, the movie kinda needed to take a breath, and it's always good to give the characters a chance to breathe.  But you do sometimes get antsy waiting for the action to start in an action movie, yeah? ;)

I mentioned Tony's character arc, and while I appreciate the attempt, I felt it was a little weak.  He's having a crisis of something, and he's having anxiety attacks!  They give some reasons in the form of gods and aliens, but it felt REALLY glossed over, and I never really bought into that side of the storyline.  "I fell through a hole in space...AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH! *flails and hyperventilates!!*"  It felt like it needed more thought put into it, and more time spent building it up.  I like that Tony was affected by the Battle for New York...I just didn't buy into it.

Also, the resolution to it was equally as hasty.  "Well, just build something!"  "OK!"  If you're going to take time to slow the movie down and build character, go for it.  Don't start, then rush through it in the end zone, guys!

I do wonder what it is with trilogies ending with the hero seemingly hanging things up.  Yeah, I'm looking at you, Dark Knight.  That was an odd way to end this movie, with Tony almost getting rid of all things Iron Man.  I know it won't last, and it does have that bit of coming full circle, and completing his growth begun in the first film...but with more movies to come, it is a weird place to leave the character.

I also wasn't a huge fan of the kid, but it still gave me some good laughs, so the good outweighs the not so good there.  Also, it gave us time to get to know Tony, and develop him in ways the previous movies never quite got around to.  He really starts to come out of his playboy tropes at last, with this movie.

So, for the most part, I enjoyed it.  It's flawed, but it's more Iron Man action, with the same smart writing for Tony, with a solid plot, and stuff for everyone to do.  They don't make the mistake of overloading the movie with characters, stick with the few mains and the villains, and more sequels need to remember this.  You don't need all the same characters back from your previous two movies plust six new people.  It's a good way to tie up the Iron Man trilogy for now, and is a good action movie with some solid attempts at humanising Tony Stark.

And of course, stay through the credits for your usual surprise.

In the shadow of Avengers, I don't think anything would have been truly satisfying 100%.

What I'm Watching: Dredd

Today on the 'finally got to see' pile, I've got a healthy heaping of Dredd.

Now, I'm a fan of the original Stallone Dredd movie.  Yes, it's cheesy as hell, and it's pretty bad at parts, but it has its fun about it.  But it is a poor representation of the concepts of the actual character and original comics.

It goes without saying that there is great trepidation going into this movie.  In fact, memories of that first movie are so strong in people, I would wager that as a major factor in why Dredd did so poorly in the theaters this time around.

Which is a shame, because this movie is actually really good.  Or at the very least, leaps and bounds above the original film, and much closer in tone and ideas to the comics.

This is the Dredd movie we always should have had.

The plot is very straightforward.  Dredd is breaking in a rookie, Psi-Judge Anderson, and on a routine call to deal with a little case of murder in a mega-block (Picture an apartment complex of doom), they discover a drug-running project, get locked in, and have to fight their way through a couple hundred floors of thugs to take them down, before they end up as another pair of bodies on the pavement.

There's no huge twists, like I said it is very straightforward, and you know what?  There is nothing wrong with that.  Heck, it is almost refreshing.  It's just Dredd and Anderson fighting to survive and get to the bottom of the crime family, while fighting to the top of the building.  It's a simple story of crime and survival, and it does it really well.

The movie is very pretty, using some amazing colouring, design, and slow motion effects to make for some very well done action sequences that never feel overblown or too much style.  Each one moves the story forward, and is there for plot.  And coolness, but they serve purpose as well.

Karl Urban is amazing as Dredd.  He's a far cry from Stallone's over the top performance.  He's stoic, to the point, and very direct in everything.  They also wisely never have him remove the helmet.  Dredd should be this faceless, grim, visage of fascistic order and law, and that is exactly what he is.

This was an enjoyable action movie in an interesting universe, with a fulfilling storyline that is just pure entertainment for 90 minutes.  It deserves better than it got, and you should check it out.

J