Jumping Off The Hype Train

You may recall my previous post concerning the bleak state of "blockbuster horror," how most of what is labeled "horror" in the theaters is either a sequel, or so reminiscent of tired themes and gimmicks that it might as well be a sequel. I came to the conclusion that there is an acute difference between horror fans and people who like scary movies, and both can exist in relative peace with one another, every once in a while meeting in the middle with a movie that even the Academy can appreciate.

I think the only time we're truly at odds is when one gives the other a recommendation, not realizing that their tastes are vastly different. Hardcore horror fans like me get bent out of shape when the world is gushing about a big blockbuster like The Conjuring, a movie I personally found to be overstuffed with cheap, ineffective scares. Meanwhile, general audiences get huffy when they hear The Witch is the scariest movie of the year, only to find themselves watching a molasses-slow period drama with inexplicable flashes of artsy weirdness. My initial reaction to the naysayers was to scoff and say "Well they just don't get it!" But it got me thinking about the effects of hearing about a movie enough to believe it will change everything, and the emotions that can follow after we finally see the thing.

Hype is an abstract, illusory concept. In today's world of social media and websites dedicated to every facet of geekery, it's nearly impossible to avoid hype, even for things you don't care about. Not that into superhero movies? Well, coming this summer, TOO FUCKING BAD. You're getting 400 of them--all over your cinemas, bus stops, billboards, toy aisles, burger joints, soda cans, candy bars, and Facebook feeds. You will either be beaten over the head with how awesome they are by every person you speak to, or have to take a break from your favorite movie websites to avoid the screams of jilted fanboys all over the internet. Just try not to see even a little of our movies, cackles Marvel, now an enormous sentient tower of industry. Just try not to have an opinion on our genius marketing scheme! You will fail! Muahaha! 

Sometimes hype can make or break a movie. There's the idea floating around that the new Ghostbusters movie will be a huge bomb when it's released because so many people are outraged about the very idea of a Ghostbusters reboot that simply no one will see it. (It probably won't totally flop, and hopefully not, because if so many other "childhood-ruining" movies seen out of curiosity can turn a profit, then an all-girl Ghostbusters certainly deserves to at least do okay.) In this case, hype could actually save the movie; if it turns out to be good, word-of-mouth and critical tapping might turn that sinking ship around. Plenty of people were nervous about The Force Awakens too, right? Look how it all worked out! And then there's Avatar, a hype-monster that was inescapable for months before swiftly disappearing into the shadows, never to be heard from again. But that discussion is for another day.

My point is that it's difficult to not let hype affect your verdict of a movie, and the bigger the movie, the harder it is to have a completely independent opinion. Self-loathing hipster compost heap that I am, it's important to me to recognize the difference between movies I genuinely love and movies I like in order to strike common ground with others...or, worst of all, movies I love precisely because they are so hated by others (Spiderman 3, anyone?...anyone?). In my younger days, I was guilty of being a constant contrarian merely for the sake of it--snotty towards critical darlings and sympathetic towards box-office bombs because I was just sooooo individual. I realize now that those opinions were largely shaped by hype, no matter how inverted. Even in my attempt to rail against the Hollywood machine, I was still basing my opinion off that of others. These days I'm more open to everything, and spend less time actively searching for flaws, and I don't really care whether or not someone likes the same things I do (though it is always nice to find that one critic that agrees with your unpopular opinion). But sometimes, even at my most genuine, I can't help but ruin the party once in a while and get really fucking mad about something popular.

Last year, there were two horror movies on the festival circuit that earned massive buzz at pretty much the same time: Jennifer Kent's The Babadook and David Robert Mitchell's It Follows. The two films were almost synonymous with one another following their release, often being listed side by side as the most anticipated films of the genre. They were both purported to be game-changers, with original perspectives and innovative ideas. Neither relied on familiar monsters, but they did address all-too-familiar fears. They even both starred blonde women as their protagonists. I was equally excited for both. Those scales would dramatically tip upon finally seeing the movies.


Here be spoilers.

The Babadook tells the story of widowed mother Amelia raising her young son Samuel. It's immediately apparent that something is off about Sam, and though it's never spelled out, we can at least guess he's somewhere on the spectrum. Throughout the film, we get more and more immersed in Amelia's silent anguish, suffering with her as she barely endures Samuel's hyperactive screeching and his relentless, often hostile energy. Over time, we realize that Amelia's husband died in a car accident on the way to the hospital to give birth to Sam, and the mother-son relationship appears even more uneasy. One day, a pop-up book appears and upon reading, it reveals the tale of a monster called the Babadook that "you can't get rid of." The Babadook slowly begins haunting Amelia and Samuel with more intensity and frequency, eventually possessing Amelia in order to get to Sam. The boy manages to fend off his mother and Amelia regains control of her body, banishing the Babadook to the basement. The end finds mother and son happily on the road to healing, while the Babadook remains locked away, only to be visited occasionally by Amelia, bearing an offering: a bowl of worms.

I tend to get emotional about movies, some may say too much. But sometimes you have such a raw, visceral reaction to a film that it's overwhelming. The worst part about being a horror fan is how you tend to grow desensitized to fear. You enjoy horror for its elements and atmosphere, but so rarely do you get to experience true definite horror--the kind of mad itching in your guts you felt when you were a kid sweating under your covers, trying to convince yourself to ignore that strange sound in the dark. That was the effect The Babadook had on me. It's as if Jennifer Kent reached into my head and strung together series of my own personal nightmares and gave it back to me as a gloomy, brutal, beautiful gift. Every ounce of dread I've ever felt at the thought of becoming a parent was in full color and surround sound. Every anxiety-fueled daydream of something awful happening to my beloved was felt deeply and animated with vivid brutality throughout the film. Even the most vulnerable, childish fear of all, the sense that some thing is watching me sleep, creeping ever closer with long fingers and a gleeful smile...it was all there on the screen, all building upon this ever-mounting sense of dread.

Not enough media explores the idea that some women are not fit for motherhood. Some women, like myself, are aware of the weight and responsibility of motherhood, and for whatever reason we know in our soul that it isn't for us. But some of us become mothers anyway, by accident or coercion, and it just doesn't work. What happens to those families? How long can she fake that motherly love? How long until her resentment consumes her? Mothers have killed their children before, and no one really talks about why, the crime too unspeakable to explain. How much does it take to push a mother that far? The Babadook shows the agonizing buildup to that psychotic break, and it's both glorious and terrifying when you find yourself fitting so easily into Amelia's shoes.

Pictured: my future.

The monster represents Amelia's grief for her husband but also her resentment towards Sam, which becomes an overwhelming force that threatens to drive her over the edge. She traps that force in a locked room with mementos of her husband, treating it with kindness--she doesn't need to destroy or abandon her grief and anger. She can still indulge in her pain, but now she keeps it put away, locked up but safe and unharmed, feeds it in private every now and then, and slowly learns to heal, for her own sake and her son's. It's a powerful message, and the happiest ending you could hope for after all that trauma.

After The Babadook went above and beyond anything I expected and skyrocketed to the top ranks of my favorite movies, I couldn't wait to see what It Follows had in store. It certainly seemed the more widely popular film, being American and paying homage to some of the more beloved aspects of American horror (i.e., shades of John Carpenter's Halloween). And it held a classic horror staple that everyone can recognize and on some level connect to: teenagers in peril.

More spoilers (and a little bitching).

It Follows introduces us to Jay, a pretty high school girl getting ready for a date. She goes to the movies with a boy named Hugh, a guy who absolutely fits the bill for "drinking age guy that dates high schoolers," and soon enough they have sex. Hugh then chloroforms Jay and when she wakes, tied to a wheelchair, he explains that he's passed on a curse to her. She is now pursued by a creature that can look like anyone but is only visible to her. Her friends rally around her and attempt to help with the usual teenage cure-alls: slumber parties, aimless car trips, laying out by the beach, and having casual sex with the neighbor boy. Despite this, the creature keeps closing in on Jay, driving her to more and more desperate paranoia. This all builds to a climax at the public pool involving some Scooby Doo scheme I can't even begin to describe that predictably goes awry, but doesn't quite fail as the creature appears to be dead, or at least wounded. The end finds Jay hooking up with good ol Friend Zone Paul, he (maybe?) passes the curse on to a prostitute, and we leave them listlessly holding hands, while behind them, but not too far behind, a figure slowly follows. Their fate is left up to us, if we think the figure is the creature or just some guy in a hoodie. Actually, a good hunk of this movie is left up to us...a frustratingly large hunk.

It Follows is...nice. It's a more or less a pleasant experience. The whole movie gives off the feeling of a chilled autumn evening--cool and eerily quiet with a certain electricity in the air. That fantastic Disasterpeace score adds a hint of the danger creeping up behind you, building with adrenaline and intensity, before dissolving into a dreamy spacey interlude. The scenery is lovely, with tree-lined suburbia juxtaposing the wretchedness of the overpass where Jay first meets her monster or the coldness of a deserted public pool. There has been a lot of attention given to the ambiguous time period, what with the mix of old timey TV sets and futuristic e-readers, which lends another layer of enjoyable weirdness to the film. The monster itself--a relentless presence with an ever-changing identity that only reveals itself as it's closing in on you--is top notch chilling. Every appearance of It is incredibly scary and perfectly structured.

Apart from one stupid exception.

I will say that on the second watch, I had recently read this article which posited that It is a metaphor for sexual assault. With that in mind, and the assumption that It can look like people it has killed, the creature's appearance is even more interesting...the old woman, the half-naked cheerleader with her teeth knocked out, the little boy...people who may very well have been viciously raped just to pass on a curse. It's a cool theory, and certainly holds more water than the STD-read.

Yet despite effective atmosphere, fascinating camera tricks, and excellent music, the movie just left me annoyed and disappointed with little to chew on as the credits rolled. (More like It's Hollow!) For the sake of fairness to this post, I decided to give it another watch...and I shut it off halfway through. (You can read the full extent of my insane rambling here.) I can appreciate that the director was going for the nightmare aesthetic, because the movie strikes that mood especially well. It is a lucid nightmare, some things concrete and others maddeningly ambiguous, and I will give it credit for that sense of disorientation. But it's more like that kind of nightmare you're having while heavily sedated on a long car trip, and you keep jolting awake with a crick in your neck only to fall back into horribly lifelike bad dreams--you reach the end of your journey shaken but ultimately grumpy with a terrible headache.

The fact remains that the film clearly states its rules and then leaves a frustrating amount of loose ends behind, and besides that I have to endure these morose teenagers all while trying to enjoy a couple of admittedly worthy scares. It just stresses me out, and not in the intended creepy way but the "I'm keeping this one in the collection merely on principle" way.

My feelings on It Follows makes me not so different from those unprepared souls that stepped out of The Witch with nothing but questions and complaints: we expected one thing due to the massive hype, only to get something we weren't anticipating and didn't necessarily like. It doesn't make my opinion any better or worse than anyone else's, it just didn't speak to me. Meanwhile The Witch and The Babadook were personal gifts bestowed on me by the movie gods. But these things are subjective, that's nothing new: critics adore aspects we common folk sleep through, just as young film-fans may see themselves reflected in a character I'd happily see get electrocuted in a pool. 

Liking a movie doesn't make someone a witless drone following the current, and not liking a movie doesn't make someone too stupid to understand it. Maybe the solution really is "Don't believe the hype," despite how impossible that may be in this internet age. As much as I enjoy reading reviews and analysis and spin my own from time to time, I still try to follow my own gut and move on from my days of endearing myself to something for the sake of joining the bandwagon...or my days of thinking that spewing bile at something popular was the superior opinion. There is no superior opinion, only yours. 

And on that note, give Ghostbusters a chance. Believe me, the only way to truly ruin your childhood is to go back to movies you adored as a kid and notice all the problems you have with it as an adult. That feeling is worse than anything New Hollywood could ever do to you. 

In which I state all my problems with It Follows

I decided to cut this from my previous blog, since I realized it was less analysis and more nonsensical ranting about a movie I'd only seen once, and to include it would make it overly long and straying away from the main topic. (I think you can sense my nitpicky rage building as it goes along.) Turns out I have a lot to say about it, worthwhile or not, and I've been holding onto this anger for far too long. And now I pass it on to you.

To be clear, I've watched this movie exactly one and a half times. The first time was breathlessly optimistic leading to a supreme letdown. The half-time was begrudgingly open-minded in respect to the film and this post, ultimately leading to tapping out just before the climax, secure in the feeling that I just don't like this movie. And it sucks because it's far from a bad movie, it's just....not for me.

For as many interesting shots and intriguing moments as there are, there is just as much artsy filler. I am a fan of film and filmmakers and visual storytelling and metaphor and ambiguity and all that crap, but filler is filler. When I'm watching a suspenseful monster movie and I keep getting tripped up by teenagers mumbling about what they used to do when they were kids, I call that filler. When I'm watching a film whose monster is clearly communicating a frightening, ambiguous sexual metaphor (whether for venereal diseases, or sexual assault, or whatever theory you subscribe to), then to see Jay staring down her panties and hyperventilating for no apparent reason (if only to drive it home that her pesky vagina got her into this mess) and never relate back to it, I call that filler. When I'm watching a movie that clearly states its rules and implores me to remember them, only to show me unresolved scenes that leave it up to interpretation whether or not those rules were followed, I call that fucking BULLSHIT filler. (I am very upset about that boat scene.) And when I walk away from a movie loving aspects of it but remembering an overwhelming amount of aimless nothing, I just end up mad. I just watched Halloween with even longer long shots and it was fucking exhausting.

It Follows' biggest flaw lies in a most familiar territory of horror: unsympathetic teen victims. I don't know where down the line teens in horror went from being outwardly stupid and obnoxious to being outwardly pretentious zombies, but I'd like to go back to stupid, please. These kids are the perfect age to think every mundane they say and do is its own kind of poetry, much like the irrelevant lyrical prose clumsily woven throughout the narrative. It's as if all their intense teenagery feelings have gone too deep and imploded into comatose indifference. In fact, the entire movie seems tinged with this teenage sense of wonder--but not sincere wonder, more like "This ant crawling on my arm reminds me how insignificant we all are." That kind of self-indulgent, manufactured wonder, like these kids know they're in a movie and are purposefully projecting those deep vibes and striking those languid poses in order to look alluring. How else do you rationalize that stilted car sex between Hugh and Jay? Sure, he's unloading a terrible curse so his guilt sort of overwhelms his arousal, but Jay responds to his absolute lack of passion with performed tenderness, like she's copying something she saw in a movie. How else to you explain Jay choosing to hide by sleeping in the woods curled up on a car hood like a fucking cat? Because it would make a nice photo on her Tumblr.

 In fact, maybe this movie had the Instagram generation in mind--that would explain all the nonsensical posing, impossibly flattering camera angles, and general self-absorption among the characters. (Not to mention the trappings of another time scattered in the background...hipster kids love retro shit!) The camera indulges these kids' desire to be watched, leering at their vacant pretty faces and careless nubile limbs in a way that's uncomfortably pornographic. With that mood in mind, the kids feel less like characters than window dressing, pretty mannequins that the director can put into compelling poses without the need for logic or continuity, merely the pastiche of a beautiful image.

Jay would have all the followers on Instagram. I mean look at her. The director certainly wants us to. Her closeups are fetishized with glorious slow motion and that dreamy score, which is sometimes compelling but often laborious. I suppose when you have your camera aimed at such a beautiful face as Maika Monroe's, you would want to capture every little microexpression. Yara is speaking to my very soul when she says to Kelly, "Your sister is so pretty, it's annoying." Yes, Yara, it really is. So this whole movie is going to annoy me with her prettiness.

Nice puka shells.

I don't dislike this actress or the performance--I'm betting the script didn't give her a whole lot to work with--it's just that we're being presented with a pretty girl and through the camera's adoring gaze, we are obliged fall in love with her without understanding the first thing about her. That's nothing new for pretty girls in the movies, hardee har har, but I just can't buy into this portrait of a beautiful teenage girl taken at a distance. Its too Virgin Suicides, like those neighbor boys watching Jay in the pool are also the ones writing the script: just keep looking at this angel and the rest will speak for itself. It's kind of icky.

Jay's rising paranoia is hard to follow given she can't crumple her beautiful face too much, aside from a steady knitting of her remarkable eyebrows into an ever-deeper pout. I suffer from resting-bitch-face myself, so I do sympathize, but Jay can't seem to muster an emotion outside of "tense" and "relaxed." Because she's apparently incapable of communicating her feelings, she appears as an entirely passive character throughout the movie. Whereas most final girls have some sort of agency in their fate, Jay's decision-making ends after she chooses to have sex with Hugh (which is just another stick in my craw...more unfeeling punishment for sexually active teens). For the rest of the movie, she's a little wounded kitten: chirping meekly and smiling weakly and taking teeny tiny bites of her beautifully photographed food, just begging someone to wrap her up in a blanket and kiss her forehead.

She's either running away with a baffling sense of direction (the middle of an empty park is the perfect place to hide!), or she's dragged along by her buddies into solving this mystery, all the while staring off worriedly into the distance and being entirely unhelpful, despite being the one whose life is on the line. While Hugh is explaining the intricacies of the curse to her and her friends, she's barely paying attention, apparently too consumed by her own misery to do anything but pick at the grass (that particular gesture--girls absent-mindedly picking or stroking things to communicate a troubled mind, or ya know, boredom--recurs throughout the movie like it's supposed to mean something and I fucking hate it). She turns into absolute dead weight, and given we're supposed to want to protect her and identify with her, she's so closed off in all her ethereal teenage dreaminess that she just does not make contact as a real character. She's the lovely-looking centerpiece to this lovely-looking display.

And an apparent attempt at making peacoats and cutoff shorts a thing.

Meanwhile, her sidekicks are steadfastly at her side. This little team of poker-faced go-getters jumps at every chance to help Jay on the grounds that they're all such besties, but often I get the feeling this group just doesn't have anything better to do. Like, they're good kids so they don't get high or vandalize property (aside from Greg the jauggernaut bad boy), but they're clearly bored enough to drop everything in their lives to help their maybe-crazy friend feel better. It's made fairly clear that even though they believe Jay's fear, they don't really believe there is a monster, (at least until Paul gets beat down by a green screen effect) so it's a bit odd that they would go to such great lengths to indulge in what they largely perceive to be a paranoid fantasy.

But remember that Jay is a pretty, blonde, quiet girl, which is movie language for "She's not crazy, she's on a whole other level." This is reason enough for those boys--Pouty Paul and Sleazy Greg--to trail after her like puppies, both baldly campaigning to be the lucky guy she passes It along to. And to be clear, neither of those guys is the better choice. Greg is a horny teenage boy with a wandering eye, but at least he's honest about it; he makes no bones about the fact that he's in this for the pussy. Meanwhile, Paul is carrying his crush on Jay with this martyred nobility that's nauseating to watch. They're childhood friends, and movie logic tells us they will eventually end up together, and Paul has clearly seen those movies. Despite his gentle demeanor, he bears this obvious territorial resentment towards anyone attracted to Jay. He even snaps at Yara's aforementioned "pretty" comment with "At least she's nice." [Subtext: "Not like all those other fake bitches who won't date me either."]. He's clearly biding his time being the white knight next door he feels he's supposed to be, trying desperately to hide the full body angst-erection he gets whenever Jay's in the room.

May I take your curse, m'lady?

When he and Jay end up together at the end, it feels forced and awkward which was possibly the intention, but it's one of the more hollow images that's selling itself as a payoff moment. The relationship isn't any more romantic than her connection with Greg. It ultimately boils down to sex: Paul that always wanted it, and Jay that wanted to get rid of It. After that, there's nothing left but shallow hand-holding and staring blankly into the distance, as if because they knew each other for years and then silently fucked on a couch while it stormed outside, now they should be in love. Again, just children striking a pose for the camera.

Jay's sister Kelly barely has any purpose besides providing the buffer between Jay and the others. One wonders why Jay doesn't have her own friends....is she so pretty that everyone is intimidated by her? Kelly has little personality outside of staring at Jay with concern, which I guess translates to unwavering sister-love. We sum up their relationship with exchanged glances and call it a day.

And Yara...what the hell are you even doing here, Yara? You're the one bright spot in this whole mess. All you do is read and sleep. You probably haven't made direct eye contact with a single person in your life. Why do you hang out with these people? You know these people are boring as shit, that's why you're always reading to them in an effort to have some fucking thing to talk about. Why do you need friends at all, Yara? You have yourself and your shell-phone books and that's fantastic. Yara, you're a beautiful bedraggled gap-toothed angel and you're the only person I can connect with in this shitshow.

Eat your sandwich, you perfect weirdo.

And most perplexing of all, WHERE ARE YOUR PARENTS? What world are you living in where you can just disappear on road trips upstate to the family cabin with no notice? Do you go to school? Is it summer break? Is it fall break? Is it "I'm really going through some stuff right now" break? How the hell are you not all grounded?

This, and everything covered in the Cinema Sins video is why this one is staying in the DVD collection strictly for show, until the day some unsuspecting guest picks it out for a watch and is subjected to my bitter heckling.

I realize I'm nitpicking things that are microscopic next to the things the film does right. And it does so many things right, which infuriates me most of all! There are superb moments of horror and suspense, lots of hypnotic imagery, and the ever-present feeling that you are not safe. Normally those things would make a perfect horror movie, forgivable for all manner of sins! But I only focus on these aspects because the film seems so focused on them, and it's infuriating because these scenes do not deserve the attention. These slow-moving interludes of banal reality that serve as a story merely make for an over-long series of distractions from the good stuff, weighing down every too-brief moment of fright with a whole lot of boredom and irritation. Maybe I relate more to these teens than I realized: I felt equal parts terrified, sleepy, and helplessly confused throughout the film. Maybe this David Robert Mitchell is on to something I hadn't considered, but I doubt it.

 Obviously a great deal of talent went into this fascinating concept, but it seems they got so caught up in how cool their idea was that they neglected the part about compelling characters and plot structure. Saying after the fact "You can't solve a nightmare" is a poor excuse when really you just couldn't come up with an ending.

Blockbusted, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Just Quit Going to the Movies

The last horror movie I saw in theaters was The Strangers in 2008. After that day, I swore never again to see a scary movie with a crowd. The reason is simple: other theater-goers around me were being obnoxious. Tale as old as time. I particularly remember at one point--during the famous sequence where Liv Tyler smokes a cigarette in the living room in a conspicuously wide shot--the woman behind me was muttering to her friend about something or other, giggling and munching on popcorn. She managed to turn her attention back to the screen just as a masked man came drifting into the shadow of the hall behind Liv--an image splashed all over the trailers, mind you--and proceeded to scream hysterically, causing her friends to laugh at her, followed by a noisy recovery, the whole incident making at least seven minutes of otherwise tense screen time incoherent. It was similar to an incident years earlier, when I sat through The Exorcism of Emily Rose with a front row filled with boisterous teenage boys. Their cackling at the film's most harrowing scenes let all of us sharing the theater know of their bravery and immunity to death. Given the film's subject matter, I hope they all burn in hell.

I realize that in any given gathering of a certain size, it's to be expected that somebody is going to be a jackass. No matter what movie you're seeing, you have to be prepared for the possibility that someone there is going to ruin your good time. I don't want to believe that there are people out there who go to the movies to purposefully destroy everyone's experience, but I know they're out there doing it anyway. So, given my experiences, when it comes to horror, I tend to wait longer for the movies I want to see. The experience of watching them in my dark quiet living room with nigh a teen in sight is well worth the wait.

In any case, that's where horror is thriving: outside of theaters. The best horror released in the last several years has gone straight from the festival circuit to home video and VOD, with a few exceptions making it to wide release. It's encouraging to know that the best content is coming from the more independent market, and even makes us feel proud as fans when a little indie gem becomes a big blockbuster sensation. These days it feels like a new world where horror has become (gasp!) art, untouched by the Hollywood machine. Of course there are still scary movies playing in theaters, for the kids, but the true horrors are lurking in the shadows, waiting on the Blu-Ray release. Maybe it means a bold new direction for scary cinema, a world accepting of all kinds of wacky, terrifying new ideas to pry at our psyches and tease our nightmares. One would hope that as time goes by, the two camps will merge more into one, and the masses can experience what horror can be at its absolute best. Or, they could just make another Insidious.

Maybe I'm just a jaded old crone of a gorewhore, but it is truly baffling to me what "the masses" find scary. There are trends (we seem to be in a g-g-g-GHOST! trend in the last few years), but no matter the monster, it has been a long time since the horror blockbuster struck any new ground compared to what is being done outside of traditional Hollywood. There have been innovations, sure--Paranormal Activity ignited found footage into an industry that just won't quit, and Black Swan was a trippy masterpiece that made it to the Oscars--but as far as content, it's the same shit that's been done to death in a thousand other titles. I'd wager that if The Conjuring didn't have its James Wan pedigree and its passably recognizable cast, it would have been just as easily forgotten as A Haunting in Connecticut.

Speaking of The Conjuring, let's take a second and talk about trailers. Aren't they great? If you just scrolled  through any given website, you'd think our entire society hinges on trailer releases. They've become a type of cinema in and of themselves, a hyper-condensed taste of a movie that is engineered to cause spine-tingling or adrenaline-pinching in the viewer. All of that is wonderful, and I don't know what kind of movie fan I would be if it weren't for so many kickass trailers. However, there are drawbacks to promoting your movie, especially when it becomes a surprise success. The Conjuring was huge when it came out, or at least that's what the utter hysteria of its campaign would have you believe. Every YouTube video had an unskippable trailer attached. TV spots popped up every single commercial break, sometimes back to back. Lili Taylor's candlelit terror-face was splattered all over every website homepage. The ads really wanted us to know this was a scary movie, maybe even the scariest ever, and they wanted us to remember it as we marked our calendars for the release date.

So, as is my style, I waited for the Redbox release, nearly a year and hundreds of breathless reviews later. Now, I try my very best not to automatically shit on something just because it's popular (I am hipster scum, but I'm doing my best), but The Conjuring was trying my patience from the beginning. The ads had beat me over the head to such a degree months before that the images were vivid in my mind. In some way I hoped that finally watching the damn thing would make them stop (an exorcism of sorts)... I also can't stand Lili Taylor even at the best of times. But the buzz was inescapable, and my curiosity was piqued, so I broke down and rented it.

It was the most spiteful movie experience I've had alone in my own house since I rented Avatar. I was outraged. If you didn't realize this, I'm here to tell you right now, they showed the whole movie in the trailers. Every jump scare, every creepy visual, every harrowing moment. Watching the actual movie merely served to lend context to everything I had already been watching on loop months ago. And yet this was the film that terrified audiences all over the country.

Insidious was a similar experience, although at least there was some element of surprise there. I will give credit where credit is due: Insidious definitely had me, but only up to a point. What is a pretty tense and engaging setup starts stumbling in its third act...I was teetering on the fence once Patrick Wilson went venturing into the ghost dimension, and fell right off of it once I recognized the dulcet tones of Tiny Tim.

 While I could definitely understand certain elements and visuals keeping more than a few folks up at night (that one lovely family is the definition of nightmare fuel), the rest was unremarkable. Hell, I don't even remember enough of Insidious to give a scathing review. (I have forgotten most of The Conjuring as well, aside from those few images burned into my brain from rote memorization.)

Now this isn't me saying I'm a big tough girl who ain't afraid of no ghost. I am not immune to the jump scare, or the creepy visual, or the spooky use of ironic music. (And for the record, I am very much afraid of all the ghosts, in and out of the movies.) I'm just saying I wish "blockbuster" horror wasn't so...basic. It's not that these movies aren't scary, they just aren't terribly creative. Moments shine through, but they are few and far between and you can bet you'll see them in the trailers long before they have the chance to properly scare you.

So what does this mean? Maybe it means those Hollywood bigwigs just don't "get" horror. They've seen the most successful scary movies and they take note of what causes them, or the test audiences, to jump or squirm. They often fail to realize what causes slowly-building tension, or how to portray main character that the audience doesn't want to see die. All they see are dollar signs in the bloody writing on the wall. Or maybe it's the audience's fault. After all, aren't we, the filmgoers, the ones who determine a film's success? Clearly, plenty of people found Insidious scary, enough to give it three sequels, while The Conjuring got a less-successful but still buzzed-about spinoff and an upcoming sequel. Why would the masses make these films wildly successful while I found them trite?

Maybe I'm the problem. Maybe snobs like me should realize that the average joe probably doesn't see many scary movies to begin with. It's an occasional interest, just as fleeting as anything to do on a Friday night. So when Average Joe and Jane take in a scary movie, it's fresh to them. Hell, it's fun, interactive, a whole event. For some people, it's even an aphrodisiac. In a way, it may be the closest those folks will get to a live Rocky Horror show.

So, if a basic haunted house flick gets Joe and Jane's blood pumping for a few moments, even if it's laughing at their friends' terrified screams, maybe that's not such a bad thing. It only demonstrates the flexibility of horror. Horror can be spoon fed, or it can be abstract; it can be exploitative or artistic; familiar images can be ripoffs, or homage. A nightmare, or a laugh riot.

I suppose it all really comes down to your perspective. And maybe I need to change mine, and stop getting so angry about okay movies making big money. Because here's the thing: either way, horror is being enjoyed. It's a golden age right now for horror, in a high state of evolution both on the big screen and streaming platforms. Some of the most popular television shows in the last five years have been centered on horror. Horror isn't dead, or cheap; in fact it's more relevant than it's ever been.

If you are someone who goes to scary movies to test your strength or mock your friends, you're still enjoying horror. You're still funding a production team or director who may go on to make something even better. That shouldn't hamper easily-miffed snobs like me and our good time. Those of us who stalk horror sites and keep a lookout for indie gems just enjoy a more exclusive side of horror that is constantly evolving with fresh, original, bizarre material all the time. We can see the rise of horror in popular culture and appreciate it for what it is, but we know a whole world of nightmares is open to us because we've earned it as fans. Honestly, I feel better knowing that something like Under the Skin didn't reach the masses, because it's all that more precious a treasure, and I know plenty of other fans feel the same about some of their own secret discoveries. It's our reward as fans of one of the most fascinating genres in the medium, and our patience waiting for that VOD release.

Let Joe and Jane have their fun at the movies. We're still in the Horror Club.

DO NOT STOP FILMING: In Defense of Found Footage

Horror fans are a loyal and endlessly hungry bunch, almost to a fault. We are voracious in in our consumption and ruthless in their preferences. Every fan is drawn to the genre for different reasons, but in general there are certain things we can all agree upon: practical effects trump CGI, remakes are often (not always) a waste of time, and we all love Brad Dourif and respect his decisions.

He's an artist. He can do what he wants.

But there is one aspect in recent years that at first divided horror fans, but has over time mutated into the basis for actual prejudice amongst ourselves: Found Footage.

I doubt I need to tell you what found footage is because it has been nearly inescapable for the last ten years. Despite its appropriate rise in the age of iPhones and Skype, the technique is nothing new to the horror industry: Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and The Blair Witch Project (1999) have been essential viewings in many a horror hound's education. There are few that argue with the ingenuity and sheer wonder of those films; to this day, they remain genre game changers on par with The Exorcist. Over time, the technique was used more frequently and with varying degrees of success following Blair Witch, but when Cloverfield hit theaters in 2008, and the rise-of-the-franchise Paranormal Activity following in 2009, the potential of the style exploded.

Before we realized what was happening, our video stores and Netflix queues were suddenly gorged with "shaky cam" cinema. As it's evolved, everything from GoPros to desktop livefeeds have lifted moviemaking to a new weird level of immersion. Found footage was once an occasional novelty treat, something you'd stumble upon and be pleasantly surprised by its unique approach. Since PA, we've gone from one or two movies a year to twenty, most of them straight-to-DVD. It didn't take long for everyone to get really fucking sick of it.

Any cynical fan could tell you that found footage is simply cheaper than making a "real movie," hence an upsurge of low-grade filmmakers are cashing in on a trend. This is based on the idea that found footage movies are barely movies at all; that they rarely tell a narrative, opting instead for disorienting visuals and inconsequential dialogue only to pad the runtime until the scares appear. In this view, found footage requires little to no effort on the part of the filmmakers, and instead appears to leave the movie up to whichever untrained idiot is holding the camera, and how fleetingly they can reveal their low-rent effects work. Given the sheer number of carelessly made shaky-cam movies in the last few years, it's not surprising that it has worn out its welcome.

But not with me! Ever the non-conformist, I personally love found footage. Believe me, I am a snobby cynical hipster dumpster fire on a lot of subjects, but when it comes to found footage, I remain naively optimistic. By all rights, I really shouldn't be. I get burned by it all the time simply because I watch a lot of it, and yet I still get excited when a new one pops up on my radar. Why? Why do I keep punishing myself with dizzying camerawork and wooden acting?

Here's the best I can describe the sensation. Picture it: you're on Youtube late at night, and you stumble upon a video that claims to show surveillance footage of a ghost. The video has a 16-minute time stamp, but damn if you're not curious to see that ghost. So you watch the whole thing, waiting on the edge of your seat for something, in the end only spotting a vaguely suspicious shadow in the very back corner. Disappointing, yes, but--oh, look, another link takes you to more footage to decipher. A waste of time, perhaps, but the adrenaline rush of maybe, just maybe, you'll see something you can never come back from.

You may go through a hundred of those videos and be let down time and again by doctored footage or a tuft of dust floating by the camera. Millions of tantalizing links, thousands of lackluster videos, and then...oh, then...you run across the Elisa Lam video. You can't quite explain why, but you'll leave a light on before you go to sleep tonight.

That's the effect of my ideal found footage experience, the idea of mining through hours of shit to finally emerge with a gleaming hunk of gold. What do I consider gold? Well I've broken it down into a few aspects that I particularly enjoy and actively look for in found footage specifically. These aren't necessarily rules, just bullet points that, if done correctly, can come together for a great movie.

ATMOSPHERE:
There is something that feels profoundly unsafe about watching footage that is supposedly real: home movies, security cameras, even recently with Youtube and Vine. Despite our constantly oversharing world, there are still some things that are sacred and should be kept to ourselves. The right kind of found footage gives the feeling that we shouldn't be watching them, either because they are too personal, or too bizarre. We can't tear our eyes away for fear of missing something, but we're also a little afraid of what we might see. (The best don't let you see a damn thing, except for one or two choice moments that you'll never forget.)

The nature of "documenting" something is to give whatever it is absolute legitimacy. And, by its very nature, the "found" tape will be unedited, leaving lots of open space before we get to the good stuff. This means that it might be a slow watch, but it also means that shit could hit the fan at any moment. Combine this voyeurism with the vulnerability of first-person point-of-view, and we get the delightful experience of "being there." That's the basic conceit of most found footage movies, but not all of them succeed in the same way.

For its flaws, Blair Witch Project really impressed the isolation of its characters upon its audience. Even all these years later, sitting safe and sound in my bedroom, I can still watch that movie and feel the utter helplessness of stumbling around in the woods, the vulnerability of being hunted by an unseen evil in an endless, open darkness.

Another movie that "takes you there," though not nearly as memorably, is The Houses October Built, supposedly the last known footage of an RV full of college kids who took a spooky roadtrip in search of the most extreme haunted attraction. The movie as a whole is pretty disappointing, despite it's badass trailer. Any scenes in the RV getting to know the kids are absolutely flavorless, and admittedly the action doesn't get much better even when they get to the haunts. But I have to give it praise for really simulating the experience of going through a haunted attraction: pitch darkness and heavy breathing followed by sudden loud noises and occasional bright flashes of light that may or may not briefly reveal a monster, all with a generous helping of complete disorientation and lots of screaming. I may not remember a single character's name but I do remember the claustrophobic darkness, the distinct flavor of Halloween throughout, and that one super creepy Doll Girl. Its inescapable atmosphere nearly saves the whole thing.

See you in your dreams.

CHARACTERS:
Going all the way back to where it began with Cannibal Holocaust, the trend within found footage has been to use unknown actors, often to lend the film more credibility if it's supposedly based on true events. Because of this, criticism is often brutal to the cast of a found footage movie: either they're too inexperienced to carry a film, or simply too grating for the audience to lend their sympathies. But that's not exactly fair.
 
The point of found footage is to put us in a moment, to get knee deep in an experience, but most of all we are meant to believe that it all actually happened. Unfortunately, things that actually happen are way more exciting with the benefit of things like editing and music. The reality of filming a camping trip with your friends is probably way more boring than you would hope, despite how funny and interesting all your friends probably are. We can only see as far as the camera does, so we really have to take any and everyone at face value and build from there. We don't have the luxury of flashbacks or internal monologue or whatnot, so character building is limited to what we see them do while the camera is watching (or in some unfortunate cases, out-loud exposition). We actually have to get to know them organically.

The Last Exorcism spends a great deal of its runtime familiarizing us with its cast. Rev. Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian), a longtime preacher and renowned exorcist, has commissioned a group of film students to make a documentary that will expose the practice of exorcism as a fraud. Throughout the film, he reveals his bag of tricks--everything from the power of a shallow yet fiery sermon, to rigging his crucifix to spew smoke when it is "possessed" by the demon--and not once does he come off as a charlatan. Cotton has all the charisma and sincerity of a Southern Baptist preacher, but with twice the integrity. He is candidly upfront about his beginnings as a child groomed for priesthood and eventual loss of faith. After learning about the death of a supposedly possessed autistic boy, he wants to bring down the business of exorcism so no more misdiagnosed children have to suffer at the hands of misguided religion. For all his "swindling," he's a pretty great guy.

Cotton picks a letter from his pile of requests and sets out to Louisiana to the Sweetzer farm to demonstrate his exorcism game on the allegedly possessed teenage daughter, Nell. The Sweetzers are a fascinating family. Widowed father Louis (Louis Herthum) has an intense vulnerability behind his icy eyes and set jaw, as if at any moment he could either start weeping or pull out his shotgun. Caleb (Caleb Landry Jones) is magnetic as Nell's protective brother, looming just outside of the action but constantly projecting a dark cloud over the shoot. He projects this intense hostility under a soft-spoken demeanor that is absolutely mesmerizing. Finally, sweet Nell (Ashley Bell) is an absolute angel, a sheltered girl who paints and plays the recorder, and has apparently been slaughtering farm animals at night. She looks as if she's seen terrible things, or stayed up crying many nights, but whenever she smiles, she transforms that haunted, hollow face into that of a gleeful little girl. She is truly heartbreaking to watch, especially as she regresses into a hissing, bone-cracking monster.

All the awards.

Much like found footage, we have collectively gotten over exorcism films in the last few years, and while The Last Exorcism is not perfect (the last ten minutes really go off the rails compared to its previously steady build), it is definitely a gem among its contemporaries. The use of found footage is perfectly executed as a documentary expose, which smoothly transitions to the adrenaline rush of shaky cam action. But the film lives and dies with its great characters and stellar performances. Despite brief moments of cheesiness and somewhat hamfisted motivations, the characters feel so real and compelling that we like them. We are sad to see their fates, no matter how ridiculous that ending is.

REALISM: 
When I say realism in reference to horror, I have no concrete definition. I think it really comes down to the stakes/rules of the situation, the delivery of the special effects, and the victims' reactions to both...not necessarily whether or not "it could really happen."

Found footage has the tricky task of selling the plausibility of fantastical things, whether they be ghosts, aliens or a giant monster attacking New York. But it's still a movie, so the monster can't just come out of nowhere. Reality rarely follows narrative beats, so found footage makes up for this by dispensing little warnings of what is to come before we see the monster, and the effectiveness lies in putting these warnings not only in a real-world context, but also be commonplace enough that the characters wouldn't notice them. The most realistic found footage will either take something real and spice it up to make it scary, or take something fantastical and rationalize it to fit our world. 

The Bay presents itself as a collection of confiscated footage to reveal the "true events" of one small town's Fourth of July celebration turned tragic by a sudden disease outbreak. The movie jumps between so many hands throughout its runtime, from news crews to police dash cams to iPhones to a camera found on the beach. I'd rather not give anything away, since this movie is such a perfect build-up of tension before spiraling out of control, and I would hate to ruin the ride for you. Suffice it to say that it is one of the more terrifying movies I've ever seen, all the more so because its presentation leaves you convinced it could totally, definitely happen. (Spoilers: it's this. I'm sorry.)

On the other hand, we have Troll Hunter, a delightful little gem from Norway. It works similarly to The Last Exorcism, in that a man in a fantastical line of work enlists a young film crew to record his exploits in order to reveal the truth to the world. Hans (Otto Jespersen) is employed by the government to exterminate trolls--literal fairytale trolls, lurking in the woods, hiding under bridges, eating people... the usual troll stuff. Hans is tired of his job and wants to expose the great lengths the government is going to in order to keep the country's troll problem out of the public knowledge. Over the course of the film, we get fascinating morsels of troll trivia, springboarding off storybook lore and given real-world context. They also reference several manmade points in the Norwegian landscape that appear to be bridges and power grids but are in fact secret troll deterrents. It's all very clever, yet quite cavalier about its whistle-blowing theme, not getting too bogged down in its own conspiracy that we forget we're talking about trolls here. The trolls themselves are a marvel to look at. CGI mixed with strategic lighting makes them massive, grimy beasts. Once the science(!!) behind them is introduced, they're just as fascinating as they are scary. Plus it's wicked awesome watching them get turned to stone..


RE-WATCHABILITY:
I watch movies repeatedly, some of them to an obsessive point (re American Psycho). It's a lot to ask of a movie to be fresh every time you watch it--there's only one Edgar Wright--so it is something special when a movie can still surprise you on the second, fifth, and tenth viewing. This is especially true with found footage, since the novelty factor can wear itself out rather quickly if there's nothing to back it up. The right kind of found footage can unnerve or engage you in new ways with repeated viewings, either with a flicker of movement in the background that you didn't notice before, or a foreboding line of dialogue that now has new weight. At the very least, the monster has to be so badass and compelling that you'd sit through the whole mess a dozen more times just for a few more brief glimpses of its glory (re Cloverfield).

I was thrilled when I heard M. Night Shayamalan was making a found footage film, and even more thrilled when it actually got good reviews. I'm one of the few refugees out there that still believes in M. Night, despite everything, and I was interested to see what he would do with the mockumentary technique (he's had a some experience, after all). The Visit did not disappoint.

Presented as a documentary being made by two kids hoping to reconnect with their estranged grandparents, it's unnerving, engaging, and unpredictable as hell. It's hard to describe the plot without giving too much away, but suffice it to say that Nana and Poppop are a little kooky--the question is, is it just the result of their old age, or something more sinister? When the truth is revealed, it's both a gutpunch and a punchline, horrifying one moment and helplessly funny the next. Upon second viewing, the entire movie was new again, offering plenty of subtle clues to the big reveal without ever giving itself away. It's even funnier the second time, which is really confusing for your movie-buddy if they haven't seen it before.

YAHTZEE!

So I've given plenty of examples of movies that offer the strengths of found footage and use it to its best advantage while also being enjoyable films, but is there any one movie that successfully combines all of these elements? Is there a perfect found footage film? I believe there is.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is, for lack of a better word, flawless. Despite its mouthful of a title and low budget, this is one of the finest slasher movies ever made. This was one of those unsuspecting video store finds that changed me forever, and to this day I'm disappointed that more people haven't heard of it. But certainly more people now have heard of it than back in 2006, and it is finally getting its due on various "hidden gem" horror articles. About fucking time!

Presented as a film school project, three students set out to interview a self-made slasher named Leslie Vernon (Nathan Baesel) and learn his process for strategically killing teenagers. In this world, guys like Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger are real, established killers and respected professionals within their field, and Leslie is emulating them while attempting to build his own unique mythology. It's a serious job with a longstanding tradition and it has to adhere to certain rules (your main girl must be a virgin, you must give your victim a way to defend herself, you must give chase but never look like you're running, etc). If Leslie can orchestrate his big debut to perfection, he will be an established slasher villain.

What follows is a lighthearted meta-fiction mockumentary that both satirizes and enlightens nearly every aspect of your typical slasher film. If you're thinking that sounds like Scream all over again, shut up because no it's not. Leslie reveals the many moving pieces within his plan, as well as their psychological impact. He attaches industry terms (red herring, survivor girl, Ahab, etc) to familiar tropes and reveals aspects of elements we have perhaps only noticed in our subconscious. This movie introduced me to the concept of phallic and yonic imagery. It goes that deep. Jamie Kennedy couldn't spew this shit.

So, you can already see I'm a fan of the movie, but does it hold up to my self-imposed criteria?

Atmosphere: Portland, Oregon stands in for the sleepy town of Glen Echo and this is one of those perfect movie towns with woods all around and an ever-present chill in the air. It's a town that you can see going all-out for Halloween. It's constantly overcast and foggy, but the rich greens and reds everywhere lend so much color to the landscape. The place feels familiar and unthreatening, even though we're on the road with an aspiring murderer. Even hanging out and talking murder shop with Leslie's mentor, a retired slasher named Eugene (Scott Wilson), feels like sharing a few beers with your favorite uncle. There's a persistent friendliness to the whole movie, allowing the audience to really let their guard down and get to know Leslie and what he's about. However, when the twist appears, it turns the whole tone of the movie on its head and changes into something far more menacing, and just as effective.

Characters: It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that I love Leslie. How can you not? He's funny, smart, intuitive and full of surprises, plus he really loves his job. He approaches his work with great seriousness without losing his humor, but when he's on the job, he is stone cold focused. It's a pretty chilling turnaround.

Meanwhile, our film crew consists of reporter and face of the project Taylor (Angela Goethals) and two largely unseen guys, Doug and Todd. Taylor is pretty ballsy for doing this project at all, let alone being the one who has to interview the self-proclaimed killer. Despite her obvious nervousness going in, she proves herself to be totally professional and capable, keeping a cool head even when Leslie is preaching his demented philosophy. She never once resorts to the usual tropes of the defenseless girl in the slasher movie (I don't even think you hear her scream) but we can still sense her incredible vulnerability.  I can't get too deep into how great Taylor actually is without spoiling anything, but I think she'll be remembered as one of the more human slasher heroes in years to come.

Also, Robert Englund!

Realism: As soon as you accept the idea that familiar horror movie villains walk among us, everything else is pretty easy to swallow.

Re-watchability: I've watched this movie countless times, and it hasn't lost a single shred of its charm for me. It's endlessly interesting to examine and dissect movies through other movies, especially when such a great character is guiding you through the whole journey. The rules within the slasher agenda are clearly stated with acknowledgement of old tropes and also connects them to literary tradition and psychology. Plus it's fraught with references to its successors. It's a literature student/horror hound's wet dream!

If there can be a perfect found footage film, or a perfect horror film for that matter, my money is on Leslie.

Who could resist this face?

So! That is my long-winded defense in this court of public opinion. I doubt found footage really needs my help, since the industry seems to be chugging along just fine regardless of anyone's feelings about it. Sure, there's plenty of low-budget shaky-cam crap out there, but there is plenty of beautifully-filmed, tightly-written, professionally-acted crap out there too. That shouldn't necessarily give cause to write off an entire area of film just because some are pretty bad. Think where the horror genre would be if there weren't some brave souls out there willing to mine for diamonds. 

Bateman Forever: A Love Story

American Psycho is my favorite movie of all time. I watch it at least twice a year, and I can quote nearly every line, verbatim. The first thing people see when they come into my house is the giant poster of nude, blood-flecked Christian Bale wielding a chainsaw. I can't listen to "Sussudio" on the radio without grinning like a maniac. I've wanted to dress as Patrick Bateman for several Halloweens now, but I just can't find the right raincoat (nor have I recreated that perfectly moussed coif). I am completely devoted to this movie, but it was not love at first sight.

But this shirt certainly was.

I first saw the movie near the end of high school. Following the guidance of Bravo's Scariest Movie Moments series, I had created a list of films to beef up my education in horror. American Psycho had been featured on the show, spotlighting the "Do you like Huey Lewis and the News?" scene. The commentators briefly discussed it as a dark, satiric take on 80's culture. I was already fascinated with serial killers, I liked 80's music, and like any 17-year-old girl, I'd sit through anything with Christian Bale in it, so of course I sought it out as soon as I could.

An hour and half later, I watched the end credits roll by with a thousand-yard stare. I was shaken up and dizzy, as if I'd just gotten off a boat and was struggling to regain my footing. I hit eject on the remote and stated to an empty room, "I don't know how to feel about any of that."

I would realize later that the film really shocked me, and all my teenage "edginess" was completely unprepared for the assault. It was revulsion padded with confusion with a few moments of uncertain, helpless laughter in between. But for weeks afterward, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I went over and over in my head what that bizarre fever dream of a movie could possibly mean. How could a movie I didn't even like completely consume my thoughts?

Before I knew it, I was buying the DVD and watching it again, and again, and then again. Quite out of nowhere, I realized I was in love.

I discovered it was a comedy--a hilariously over-the-top, yet tight-lipped satire--and suddenly the most unsettling moments were seen anew with unhinged glee. I realized that Patrick Bateman was not the suave seductive vampire Lestat, nor the charismatic troublemaker Alex de Large. No, for all his chiseled looks and expensive furniture and restaurant reservations and mountains of cocaine, Bateman's a fucking bore. He really is "an idea of a Patrick Bateman." He's a mass produced, plasticine imitation of a human being, with all the personality of a perfume ad. He is the ultimate poser and the worst kind of hipster, following "the pleasures of conformity and the importance of trends" with unchecked devotion and preaching shallow humanitarian buzz words with saccharine insincerity, before lecturing you about Phil Collins' greatest hits being of works of musical genius. Tell em why, Pat!

And of course he does fit in, so much so that he is constantly mistaken for other people, hence he makes a perfectly elusive killer. But the idea that such a bloodthirsty unstoppable murderer could be hiding in plain sight and also a bit of a buffoon is pretty damn funny. The biggest joke of all is that everyone around him is so self-absorbed they don't notice his murderous behavior even when it's right in front of their faces.

I was in my senior year of college when I finally got my hands on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis, and it only intensified my fascination with Patrick Bateman. I was studying creative writing and still fancied myself to be edgy, so against my professors' tastes, a lot of my writing was influenced by what some would call pop trash, like Chuck Palahniuk or Stephen King. It didn't take much for me to get hooked on Ellis' deadpan style and hostile perspective. The book is a horrifying experience for many reasons, not the least of which that you're seeing everything from an obsessive psychopath's broken point of view, detail by excruciating detail. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Bateman murders his co-worker Paul (Jared Leto) with an impeccably polished axe while Huey Lewis and the News plays on the stereo. It's a shocking, bizarre scene, but it's also one of the film's funnier moments; personally, I can't watch it without a big smile on my face. In the book, the scene is exactly the same, only placed under the psychotic microscope of Bateman's eye, and I was struggling not to vomit.

The novel is notably criticized for its pornographic nature in its vivid descriptions of both sex and violence, and that's not without merit. Every page is hyper-detailed, and it's something akin to torture getting through some of the bloodier interludes (most people point to the rat scene...I'm more squeamish towards the Bic lighter). While the violence is intense and upsetting, it's nothing compared to the agony of listening to Patrick describe everyone's outfit down to the pattern on their socks. For being a book that allegedly outraged the nation when it was first released, it's a fairly thick novel that has spends great lengths being pretty damn boring, with only a handful of violent moments that come and go within a page or two. If it were released today, I feel the criticism would be aimed the other way around.

It certainly helps to see the movie before reading the book, just for a sense of place and tone, or at the very least some sense of separation. It helps to put a face and some hint of personality, however little there may be, to Patrick Bateman before delving into his head. It helps to already be committed to the character before listening to him drone endlessly about Whitney Houston and Louis Vuitton. It makes the idea of this person all a little less terrifying, especially when you find your inner monologue is beginning to sound eerily like his (that goes away once you're done with the book... eventually).  You need to feel safe with him if you want to enjoy his madness, from a literary standpoint, anyway. Enjoying American Psycho is similar to enjoying Paradise Lost, in that if you can humanize and identify with the devil to some degree, you're better able to entertain his philosophies, no matter how blasphemous they may be. In any case, it's not a book I really recommend to people.

For my part, I am empowered by Patrick Bateman. That may seem strange to say, with me being a woman and the book being called one of the most misogynistic novels of all time, but it's true. Being a sullen, insecure English major with a lot of time to smoke pot and brood while reading it, I liked the idea of liking something dangerous, of possibly being something dangerous. I embraced the fantasy of seeming harmless on the surface but being capable of terrible atrocities. Not that I ever wanted to actually kill anyone, but the idea that I was secretly violent gave me a strange confidence, and the feeling of confidence eventually burrowed in and ingrained itself as something more based in reality. My self-image as a predator mellowed into something less threatening, but no less capable. Bateman gave me that taste of the overinflated, unearned, incomprehensible, MALE swagger. For as pathetic and anonymous and inconsequential as he is in his world, his delusional sense of superiority rarely wavers, never questions itself. I strive every day for that kind of resolution with self, though I try not to be nearly as pretentious about it, and with a decidedly feminine touch (and without the murderous streak).

And speaking of gender, I happen to believe Ellis when he said he intended to write a feminist novel. Patrick Bateman is not a tragic hero. He is barely a narrator, he has no redeemable qualities, he's not even cool. He is not an ideal for anyone, hence the presence of "psycho" in the title. Bateman is a pampered, deluded, cruel, and cowardly man with bloodthirsty tendencies. He is just the worst. To me, it's pretty empowering to know that just beneath the high-and-mighty face of that beastly kind of man is a sniveling self-involved loser who will one day end up in pieces on his office floor, sobbing on someone's voicemail.

What a dork.

Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner pulled an amazing movie out of a dense, demented, unfilmable novel. They streamlined it into an elegantly twisted downward spiral and exposed it for exactly what it was: a funhouse mirror of the angry American male. Not just rich yuppies with too much power and free time, but a caricature of the entitled, hateful, greedy, impotent Man. The guy who is angry and ignorant yet wears the facade of the righteous, and sees himself as the ultimate example of what is true and just and all-American. Remind you of anyone?

Despite all that awfulness, I still love Patrick Bateman. I love him the way other horror fans love Freddy and Michael and Jason, with a loyal, fanatic affection. Sure he's a stoic babbling monster, but he's my monster just the same. Sometimes you don't know why you fall in love, you just know when it's right.

Being the theater geek that I am, I've been anxiously following the development of the musical adaption of the film. The show was first developed in London a little over a year ago, and after a great deal of hard work and dedication, really talented people have come together to make something that sounds pretty damn cool, and it's going all the way to the city that inspired it! What seems like a bizarre combination feels oddly fitting, given Patrick's fondness for music, and the fantastic nature of the killings lend themselves to more theatrical staging. The show's first preview performance on Broadway is mere hours away and I wish everyone involved the absolute best. Though I may never make it up to New York to see it, every fiber of my being wants that show to do well.

I am thrilled to live in a time when not only is my favorite guy's name suddenly getting tossed into political articles and satirical videos, not only is a deserving work of literature finally being reexamined, but best of all, I get a rocking new soundtrack to obsess over! Yes, I've pre-ordered it.

(As I was placing the finishing touches on this post, iTunes informed me that my soundtrack had arrived fully downloaded. My weekend is going to be fucking great.)

  

Pedophobic fever dreams: HELLIONS (2015)

I am not good with children. That maternal instinct--the one society will quickly tell you all women have sooner or later--has yet to manifest itself in any way. Kids just intimidate me; their bizarre social skills and complete lack of self-awareness leave my delicate social graces in shambles and I simply freeze up. Anyone who knows me will quickly tell you I'd sooner light myself on fire than be left alone with a kid, and those are the same people who will gleefully hand me a baby at the first opportunity just to watch me squirm. (My friends are mean.) Of course there are choice exceptions, like my nieces or the occasional tiny angelic bookworm who comes into the library where I work, but for the most part I am best left around adults.

Horror movies have only encouraged this anxiety by bringing my nightmares to life on the screen. Creepy kids are always a surefire way to unnerve your audience, and there are few movies that haven't used it against us. There are the kids who see things (The Shining, The Others, The Sixth Sense), the kids that serve as gateways for evil forces (Poltergeist, Pet Sematary), or the kids who are pure evil incarnate (The Omen, The Ring). Even further, and sadly less often, there are the movies that take on the horror of motherhood itself--the invasion and harvesting of one's body for another life (Rosemary's Baby, The Brood, Lords of Salem), the sacrifices one would make for their own child (Grace), and even the possibility of rejecting the one thing you're supposed to cherish most in this world (The Babadook). The movies have only validated my fears, encouraging me that I have made the right decision in remaining steadfastly childless.

But don't worry, I'm sure one day I'll change my mind.

I won't.

As it is, I love creepy kid movies because they are one of the few elements in horror I haven't been completely desensitized to. You can only see so many decapitations before they lose their magic, but those girls jumping rope in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies will always send chills down your spine.

So it didn't take long for me to spot Hellions on Netflix. From what I had heard, this movie had everything I like: spooky kids in crude masks, home invasion, all set on Halloween. I am a big fan of director Bruce McDonald's previous film Pontypool, with its claustrophobic one-room staging and unnerving twist on the zombie apocalypse. It couldn't be more perfect!

It's a Canadian Trick r' Treat!

Quick story: Netflix tried its best to warn me against this movie. The one-star rating wasn't promising, but I dove in anyway under the promise of Blumhouse.com's recommendation. About 15 minutes in, the movie suddenly stopped and returned to the description screen, as if to say, "You've seen enough." I hit play, and about 30 minutes later, it happened again, like, "Okay, there's still time to bail out on this." I grabbed my WiiU controller, screamed "You don't know me, Netflix!" at the TV, and resumed playing once again. In hindsight, I probably could have stopped when it told me to and had a better experience.

The plot is simple (spoilers, sort of): After finding out she's pregnant, 17-year-old Dora spends Halloween night alone when some trick-or-treaters begin attacking her home. Over the course of the night, the children outside become more and more violent--banging on doors, egging windows, quickly dispensing with anyone who could possibly help Dora. The house itself seemingly gets sucked into Hell, and it becomes evident that these creatures have come for the baby. The climax reveals itself in a series of feverish time loops, quick cuts of nightmare imagery, dreams within dreams, and wake-up fake-outs. The film itself ends on a loop, the last sequence being the very place the film began--Dora walking dreamlike down a hospital hallway to gaze longingly at the newborns in the maternity ward.

There's also a weird, roundabout Shining reference somewhere in there.

It should be said up front that this movie is all about atmosphere. It's a perfect Halloween movie, thick with that chilled October feeling like Trick r' Treat or Halloween III. It takes place in one of these sleepy small towns that only seem to ever exist in the movies, where Halloween is treated with the same reverence and decadence as Christmas. Falling leaves, decorations, trick-or-treaters, and jack-o-lanterns abound. There's even a broadcast of the local Halloween parade! Why can't I live here?!

Once the terror starts, the atmosphere only gets more intense. We descend into Hell by way of camera filter and wind machine, the world bathed in a pink and grey haze and harsh gusts of wind that gives the feeling an otherworldly hurricane was about to strike. The power's out, the phones are dead, and who knows when Mom will come home? The child-demons get closer to the house with hatchets and their nursery rhyme death hymns on full blast. Pumpkins come busting through windows, and later an endless field of pumpkins begin to explode like land mines. All the while, Dora is stumbling around the house in a blood-stained angel costume trying to believe that this is actually happening. It's just nuts, and I have to give it an A for eye candy.

The plot....I've pretty much explained everything there is to that.

Hey look! Robert Patrick!

I'd rather not get into the ending, or rather, what is implied by the 3-4 endings we get in a row before the credits finally roll. We are presented with so many "it was a dream--NO IT WASN'T" sequences near the end, that it's fair to say the entire movie was all a dream. It's unfortunate that the "dream ending" is so lauded in popular culture because it isn't always a cop-out. Sometimes the entirety of a movie can be one long metaphoric journey, and in this case, I'll accept that ending.

I will say that the "unwanted pregnancy nightmare" is great for an atmospheric horror movie, projecting Dora's anxieties to us exactly as she sees them in a trippy nightmarish haze. Besides being young, we see she is naturally unnerved by kids (like someone else I know), so the thought of being a mother manifests itself in nasty little brats attacking her house, blood gushing from between her legs, and grotesque abominations clawing out of her belly. And even worse, despite having people she can call, no one can help her. She alone must face this terror. That's a pretty good metaphor for teen pregnancy if I've ever seen one.

If only they hadn't tried to weave in an Antichrist angle into all that. Then it just becomes nonsense.

Overall, Hellions doesn't quite deserve its one-star rating on Netflix. It's got rich atmosphere that pulls you in and lets you deep into the world. Unfortunately, the thin plot does somehow elbow its way into the imagery, leading to a baffling finish.

Either way, I'll probably be watching it again around Halloween. Only, maybe next time I'll bail out early around the halfway mark. (You win again, Netflix, you smug bitch.)




Images come from the film Hellions and are property of Storyteller Pictures and Whizbang Films.