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: Evil Dead (2013)

It's probably no surprise that I'm a fan of the original Evil Dead movies.

For what it is, that first movie is amazing.  But it's also terribly dated, and a little silly.  Let's be honest here, folks.

Still, it's a landmark film for the genre.  It was really only a matter of time before it got remade.  So here we are in 2013, and we get that remake, so naturally I had to see it.

The biggest problem the movie has is, trying to be an Evil Dead movie, and try and do yet another movie about a bunch of kids in a cabin that gets attacked.

This subgenre is a little tired, and I'm not sure this movie brings enough new to the game to escape the trappings.  But that said, it doesn't seem to care about any of that, and still manages to be a pretty good movie, if you don't mind seeing another movie about killer beasties clawing away at an abandoned cabin.

If you've seen the first two Evil Dead movies, you have pretty much seen this movie.  Or at least 60% of it.  The plot is almost identical, with a lot of identical occurances.  The big difference comes in why the gang is at the cabin in the first place.  Everyone has gathered there to help Mia get clean after her latest drug overdose that left her dead for a brief period of time.

This seems like some incredible lengths to go through for this, but okay, fine.  I can go along with some unbelievable stuff to get us going. And it does give the group a good reason to not immediately get the fuck out of Dodge when things get weird, since they can just brush it off as Mia having bad withdrawls.  That's a good way to deal with that, really.

Sadly, Mia is the only character to really get any time spent on her to build up a personality.  Her brother David gets some, as her brother, but the other three cast members are pretty much ciphers to varying degrees.  You really don't care much about anyone besides Mia, and a little bit of David.

This is a shame, since the first 30 minutes or so are a slow burn building up to what we all know is coming.  That time could have easily been spent building the others up a little bit more.  But since Mia is the lead character, and Jane Levy is likely the best actress in this movie, it's also not entirely unexpected this happened.

Once the shit hits that fan though, the movie does not let up.  The original movie has a reputation for being pretty damned bloody and set a standard to be matched.  The remake blows it out of the water.  Or more accurately, drowns it in all the blood this movie throws at you.  I used to say movies had almost as much blood as a Tarantino film, in recent years.  Now it shall be 'almost as much blood as the Evil Dead remake.'  This is a compliment.

I am about to get into spoilers here, so if you don't want to know how things end, turn back now.  This is stuff I wish I didn't know going in, and it was inadvertently ruined for me by the press for the movie.

They hyped up Jane Levy as the movie's new lead, it's new Ash.  I really wish they had not done this.  It became quickly apparent that nope, she was just this movie's new version of Ash's girlfriend.  She gets locked in the basement for much of the movie.  So I was disappointed on that front.  But then she escapes, she gets cleansed, and then she very quickly goes down the TRUE road to Ash-dom in the last few minutes of the film.  So the news was accurate, but it took way too long to get there, and it felt like they rushed through making her the new Ash.

If they had never said anything, and just said that Jane was cast in the film as the female lead, well, then I would have had the thrill of going through the movie and seeing her actually become this movie's Ash.  Instead, I was expecting it, NOT getting it, but then having it quickly thrown at me.

Still, she does a great job protraying Mia trying to come off her drugs, then being possessed, and she has a few minutes of badassery at the end, so it all ends up good in the end.  I just hate how they were pushing the Ash angle so much, so soon.

The infamous tree scene is still there, so that might be one reason some people might want to steer clear of this.  Also, I was a bit disappointed in the other two females being the least developed, and the quickest to be killed off.  They really were just there as nothing more than fodder for the meat grinder, which is a shame these days.

But leaving aside my expectations, the movie is decent enough.  It is a solid remake, does enough for the old fans, and enough new stuff to be it's own thing too.  It takes the solid story we are familiar with, and updates it for modern times.  It is still a little silly at times with the effects and monsters but...it's an Evil Dead movies.  Those Deadites always were a bit odd, weren't they?

I did really like it, despite it's flaws, and it is worth seeing for fans of the original.  It honours the source material and does things mostly right you would want from a remake.  Check it out!

And stay through the credits!!

J
If I learned one thing from this movie: After 30 years, people still do not realise that you do not speak Latin in front of the books.

What I'm Watching: Mother's Day 2012

Or is it 2010?  I'm really not sure, what with how long this movie got delayed.  I'll go with 2012, since the DVD finally found it's way into my hands.

ANYways.

I was obviously going to review this a few days ago, but since our newest in depth review went up that same day, I figured I would spare people.

Now, before diving in, I should note that I have never ever seen the original, but I know a little bit about it, and considering it was from Troma, I can kinda guess about what sort of quality it was.

That leaves me coming to this movie pretty fresh, and giving it a view on its own merits.  And on that front, you know what?  It is reeeally good.

The story centers around a group of friends riding out a tornado in the rather lavish basement game room that the owners of the house have made.  There are worse ways to wait for the tornados to pass, right?  Anyways, things go terribly wrong when three criminals, bank robbers from a botched job, come barging into the house...because it used to be theirs, and they missed the memo that the house was sold after a foreclosure.  Oops.

So, the Sohapi family, and their friends, end up the victims of a home invasion by the very insane Koffin family.  Hilarity ensues.

The rest of the movie is about the victims trying to escape, while the Koffins try and find out what happened to their house, their money, and how the heck they are going to walk away from this.

The acting in this is great.  Top notch performances from Rebecca DeMornay as Mother Koffin, Jaime King as Beth Sohapi, recovering from the loss of her son, and Frank Grillo as her husband.  All three are great, show good range, and really make you feel for them.  All the Koffin kids are great too, and you find yourself almost sympathising for them at times.  But then they go and stab people, so that sympathy is short lived.

There are some good twists to the story, some obvious and some not, but all handled well and make sense within the narrative.  You find yourself rooting for the victims to escape, and the few moments when they do get the upper hand are amazing, and I was almost cheering when they were taking out their captors, it was that satisfying.

This is...NOT a happy movie.  Holy crap it gets pretty dark.  Not Saw levels of torture porn dark, but there are some cringe-worthy moments that show just how wicked and twisted Mother Koffin is, and how much her family means to her.  So yeah, be ready for a ride into the darker places.

Everything comes together well at the end, and the final twist of the knife is good, even though it stays with the dark tone of the movie.  Like I said, it is not a happy movie, and it does not have a happy ending.

Another movie I highly recommend from Darren Bousman, and this is probably the better movie.  I prefer the story of 11-11-11, but this is simply better made, and closer to what Darren wanted.

J