Tag Archives: horror movies

The More The Thing Prequel Changes the More it Stays the Same

October 24, 2011 Andrew Hamlin

[Just in time for Halloween, SunBreak contributor Andrew Hamlin took in the just-released prequel to the 1982 John Carpenter sci-fi-horror classic, The Thing. Here’s his assessment.–Ed.]

Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr.,’s The Thing ends, or nearly ends, with a female face behind a windshield. She’s exhausted. She’s stranded. Her future is to put it mildly, uncertain. But she’s reasonably confident that she’s won the battle she ventured out into the Antarctic cold, to wage. If death overtakes her, here, and now, she could say to herself, “I’m reasonably sure it was all worth it.”

She’s Kate Lloyd, played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead. And her presence in this sequel/prequel/pre-make gave me hope for the whole business. In case you’ve been following Occupy Wall Street or doing something else crucial with your time, the new Thing shows what happened just prior to the action in John Carpenter’s The Thing. And if you haven’t seen the Carpenter’s take, you’re missing out on one of the most phenomenal horror films of the American 20th century. Go watch it right now.

Winstead’s the poster girl for fortitude and even grace under pressure. Carpenter’s film had it over this one in claustrophobic atmosphere, slowly mounting horror, and sheer insanity of the special effects (kudos to Rob Bottin and Stan Winston). But here Winstead stands out, not only as one of the few women on a male-dominated expedition, but as the voice of reason and sensibility. That becomes all the more important as the Thing unfreezes and her expedition-mates start sprouting new limbs, eyes, ears, fangs, claws, and assorted appendages both useful and simply gross.

I’ve had a soft spot for Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr., since he worked as a set decorator on The Lift, a film about a killer elevator, a film one of my friends objected to so strenuously that he fastened his hands around my throat and squeezed. This Thing‘s his first feature film as director and he manages perfectly competently, except for that whole bit where the Thing gets lose from its block of frozen ice for no reason at all. I repeat: No reason at all. Somebody feel asleep at the Microsoft Word on that one, and I should probably blame writers Eric Heisserer and Ronald D. Moore, but van Heijningen, Jr., let it pass on his watch.

The new Thing has taken a lot of slag for recycling the old Thing (ignoring the really old Thing from 1951) and guess what? Said slaggers have a point. But guess what again? The new Thing makes a point by refusing (except for Winstead) to change. Birth, death? Cyclical. Parasitic invasion? Cyclical. The bubble and the burst of economies large and small? Cyclical. Government corruption? Cyclical. Financial corruption? Cyclical. Outpourings of people onto the street because they can’t take it anymore? Cyclical.

The “Thing” of it, you see, is that inventing a new plot or new twists would run contrary to the principles of society, history, and culture. By this bold stance, the latest Thing must be counted a bold commentary on everything that counts: Although if you want something inconsequential like a great film, stick with Carpenter.

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

Thirteen Revelations From Lovecraft’s Visions at SAM

October 14, 2011 Guest Contributor

[Last weekend, guest contributor Andrew Hamlin attended Lovecraft’s Visions, the Seattle Art Museum‘s festival of art and films inspired by the works of noted horror author H.P. Lovecraft.-Ed.]

Thirteen Revelations from Lovecraft’s Visions:

1. This festival devoted to Howard Phillips Lovecraft–misfit, misanthrope, master of cosmic horror fiction, dead in 1937 at the age of 46–attracted a healthy percentage of females, as well as…

2. not one, but two Betamax video collectors.

3. I rubbed shoulders with William F. Nolan, co-author of Logan’s Run (which became an iconic ’70s film, a not-so-iconic TV show, and which will soon become a new film starring Ryan Gosling).

4. S.T. Joshi, the world’s leading expert on H.P. Lovecraft and author of a two-volume biography of the horror master, fielded questions right at the front desk of the SAM’s auditorium.

5. The Haunted Palace (a 1963 Lovecraft-derived film written by Charles Beaumont and directed by Roger Corman) presented eeriness in bold color schemes, but not nearly so much gore as became standard in later years. The movie came complete with…

6. Vincent Price. Compulsively watchable in almost anything, here he played two men–one young and kind, one impossibly old and impossibly malevolent–switching beween the two with nary a make-up change, only a narrowing of the eyes and a sly smirk.

7. Stuart Gordon’s 1985 movie Re-Animator delivered gore, bondage, and bone saws, showcasing Jeffrey Combs as an amoral scientist convinced that his re-animation potion should work perfectly given only a little more research…a little more this…a little more that…just hold on a minute…(reminiscent of U.S. nuclear power policy).

8. Die Farbe (The Color), an elaborate feature film from Germany, proved that Lovecraft fandom knows no borders.

9. SAM presented an extremely rare director’s-cut work print of The Ancestor, a film directed by Dan O’Bannon (screenwriter for Alien and Total Recall). This film, drastically re-edited and commercially released as The Resurrected, stems from the same tale which inspired The Haunted Palace, but hews closer to Lovecraft’s original, with slow but steadily-mounting unease culminating in a gaudy but gut-punching duel to the (un?)death.

10. The Whisperer In Darkness, from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society and directed by Sean Branney, won my vote for the best serious-minded (i.e., non-Stuart Gordon) Lovecraft film ever, a tale of human collaborating with monstrous “from beyond” entities to further their own agendas, selling out humanity to assist in humanity’s destruction, only to find their betrayals damn them in the end (reminiscent of the George W. Bush administration).

11. The art show curated by David C. Verba, feauring works from Verba and Bryan K. Ward, sent cosmic horror leaping at the viewer from the page and canvas, plus…

12. steampunk horror, Lovecraft-inspired graphic novels, and last but not least…

13. a deck of Lovecraft playing cards. The man/myth himself, cast as the Joker.

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

Hell Hath No Fury Like The Woman Unleashed

October 14, 2011 Tony Kay

If you’re looking for a well-made, well-acted exploitation-horror movie engineered by someone absolutely intent on repulsing and unnerving you, get thee to the AMCs at Pacific Place and Southcenter this weekend to see The Woman, cult director Lucky McKee’s newest feature. Whether that statement’s a recommendation or condemnation rests squarely in the eyes of the beholder; such is the nature of the strange and frequently repugnant beast to which McKee’s given birth.

The Woman follows the saga of Chris Cleek (Sean Bridgers), a lawyer who kidnaps a wild-eyed feral woman (Pollyanna MacIntosh) wandering the woods around his home. Cleek imprisons the woman in his cellar, ostensibly to program/civilize her, and he enlists his family to help. Soon things take a really deranged turn, thanks in large part to the base impulses that surface in some of the woman’s captors.

McKee’s movie has touched nerves, and then some, in the last four months. The Woman‘s first Sundance screening reputedly inspired vomiting and fainting spells from audience members, and one Sundance filmgoer vaulted into an on-camera screed against the movie that’s damn near gone viral. Such controversy ain’t new, of course (people fainted–and nurses were stationed–in theaters during the 1931 Frankenstein‘s original release, folks). But the fetid aroma of forbidden cinematic fruit hasn’t been this overpowering in a good few years.

So is the movie at the center of this torrent of hubbub any good? Well, yes and no.

Technically and visually, The Woman‘s made at a level way beyond your average grotty grindhouse feature. McKee actually takes care to build suspense and atmosphere at first, unfolding the movie’s first third at a deliberate pace that gradually adds layers of uneasiness while Cleek’s ugly side surfaces. The director also elicits a couple of genuinely great performances from Angela Bettis as Cleek’s worn-down and abused wife; and from Bridgers, whose psychotic Ward-Cleaver earnestness suggests Will Ferrell gone seriously depraved. As sick as The Woman sometimes gets, McKee’s no misogynist: he’s much more concerned with exposing the sickness living in his male characters than he is with extracting titillation from the suffering of his female subjects.

That said, McKee sells his characters short with a screenplay that sketches out their motivations and backgrounds far too vaguely. The director hurtles unpleasant things at the camera with childish impulsiveness, and the movie’s absurd final act loses its shit like a tourist in Mexico battling Montezuma’s Revenge. Lucky McKee’s new movie ain’t dull for a split-second, but when a genre flick presents these kinds of provocative ideas without thinking them through to the end, it can’t help but feel like a missed opportunity; a movie that could’ve been as truly great as it is unsettling.

The Woman also plays The Grand Illusion November 25.

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

Can’t Look Away: The Lure of Horror Film in All its Gruesome Glory at EMP [Review and Slideshow]

October 6, 2011 Tony Kay 1 Comment

[‘Tis the season for all things spooky and sinister, so expect SunBreak Music Editor Tony Kay to be throwing on his informal mantle of Resident B-Movie/Horror Film Evangelist frequently this month-ed.]

Just in time for the Hallow-days, EMP vaults squarely into the exquisite abyss of horror cinema with Can’t Look Away: The Lure of Horror Film, the museum’s latest exhibit. The presentation opened October 2, and happily it gets an awful lot right–whether you’re a horror hardcore or a shuddering terror neophyte.

Exhibit curator Jacob McMurray scored a major coup by securing some highly-qualified help. Veteran B-movie filmmaker Roger Corman, American Werewolf in London director John Landis, and Hostel director Eli Roth cherry-picked the influential horror movies forming the presentation’s nucleus, and these guys know their stuff. Corman’s got nearly sixty(!) years of experience as a producer/director of genre flicks to draw from, and Landis and Roth are both dyed-in-the-wool fanboys with encyclopaedic knowledge to back up their filmmaking chops (no pun intended). Masters of Horror co-creator and film director Mick Garris also served as a consultant.

The broad demographic of these men reflects positively in Can’t Look Away, which chronicles the last one-hundred years of horror cinema’s evolution with a resolutely even hand. Seldom does the twain of expressionistic silent horror afficionado and Saw-loving gorehound meet in geekdom, but EMP’s creation does its best to trace those pathways coherently, without feeling like it’s pandering too extremely to any one demographic. The horror timeline along one exhibit wall follows cultural and historic shifts that coincided with the releases of many of Can’t Look Away‘s selected horror movies. And the helpful monster classification chart on one wall is as funny as it is creepy.

The memorabilia on display covers a huge swath, with something to make most any fan salivate among the couple-dozen items. It’s hard not to be awed by the oldest piece–the original, unbound typewritten manuscript for Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula (initially titled The Un-Dead). And if it’s flashy-scary you want, the original Alien costume from Alien and Freddy Krueger’s blade-encrusted glove beckon.

An American Werewolf in London display at EMP. — The Coolest Model Kit You'll Ever See: An American Werewolf in London, homaged by the EMP. (photo by Tony Kay)

Seeing some of the items, up close and under glass, alternately demystifies and inspires an onlooker. I cultivated a deep and abiding love for the Universal Golden Age horror flicks of the 1930’s and ’40’s as a kid, so viewing the iconic cane head ornament from the 1941 version of The Wolf Man feels like the horror-nerd equivalent of peeking at the original Dead Sea Scrolls. The piece looks like what it is–a humbly-carved wooden figure of a wolf, no longer than two cigarette lighters–but it spins a dark spell that defies its modest origins.

Kudos to the exhibit’s designers, who get a lot of visual mileage out of atmospherically-backlit slats of black foam. In a wonderfully geeky touch, they’ve also created giant wall mounts that look like plastic trays from old monster model kits. Kiosks in the middle of the exhibit showcase mini-documentaries on a handful of the selected films, with the exhibit’s famous consultants (as well as other filmmakers and journalists) waxing rhapsodic and academic about each movie’s genesis and impact.

The interactive portions of Can’t Look Away include a Scream Booth and an incredibly fun Philip Worthington installation called Shadow Monsters. In the latter, museumgoers watch their silhouettes morph into sometimes whimsical, sometimes horrific distortions of themselves. It’s the kind of headtrip that could keep a stoner fixating on the shadow of his right hand for hours.

Can’t Look Away‘s minimal faults seem rooted in the exhibit’s time and space limitations. A few of the props on display look cool, but aren’t given context to justify their presence (yeah, the split-skulled demon from Constantine looks great, but it’s a prop from an unremarkable Keanu Reeves flick, for God’s sake). And the mini-documentaries screening in the kiosks are so good, they make you wish there were a lot more of ’em.

All told, though, McMurray and his team have crafted a solid exhibit that ably balances genre basics with die-hard geek fodder. And that’s a special effect as impressive as anything you’ll see in any horror film.