Prime Time: Crooked House (2008)

Originally shown on TV in three episodes over three subsequent evenings, before being packaged presented as one omnibus a few days later, Crooked House is a polished and handsome ode to the classic horror anthologies of yesteryear. It's a blend of Hammer and Amicus with a nice spoonful of the M. R. James classics also mixed in. It's only real problem is being a bit too precious about the material, erring on the side of the classy when it could have been fun to have some more ridiculousness and bloodshed on display (if you're going to do an ode to Amicus, in particular, then it feels like a missed opportunity to not involved a dismembered hand at some point).

The tale is simple. Ben Morris (Lee Ingleby) has found an antique door knocker. When he takes it to a local museum, the curator (Mark Gatiss) recognises it as having once been attached to a notorious, cursed house, the recently demolished Geap Manor. He tells Ben a couple of tales from the history of the door knocker, one involving some poorly-chosen wainscoting and the other involved a ghostly bride, but those end up being nothing more than light distractions once the third tale starts to unfold. The third tale isn't one that Ben is told. It is one that he is part of, and he soon realises that a horror may be trying to reach through the many years of the past to get to him in the present.

Also written and co-produced by Gatiss, which is obvious as soon as you start to hear some of the wonderful dialogue being delivered, this is an interesting film, one that feels as if it is overstretching slightly while trying to straddle the large gap between the past and the present day. It's either coincidence or clever meta writing that has the content reflected by the presentation (knowing Gatiss, I would lean towards the latter there), but the fact that the end result ends up being successful is just as much down to the cast as it is to the writing and direction (from Damon Thomas).

The first tale has the most treats. Philip Jackson is the man having his home renovated, after making a fortune in a deal that ruined others, and drove one to suicide. The wainscoting that will drive him to distraction is made all the more effective thanks to the great performance from Jackson, who is full of bluster and self-importance. He is joined in a number of scenes by Andy Nyman and Julian Rhind-Tutt, both a lot of fun in their roles, and Beth Goddard steals a couple of moments as a widow pointing a finger of accusation at Jackson's character. The second tale doesn't really have any standout performances, and is the least enjoyable of the three we get here, but it does well with the atmosphere and imagery. Thankfully, Ingleby and Gatiss do great work, and Daniela Denby-Ashe also helps things along with her pivotal supporting role.

Although I wish there was a bit more here, in terms of the scares and blood, I also recognise that this is being crafted in line with the more traditional, and restrained, ghost stories that form the bedrock of a wonderfully spooky tradition (the ghost story at Christmas, which is why this was first shown on TV at that time of year). It's just a shame when the film/episodes veer between feeling like a wonderful homage and feeling like an academic exercise, the balancing act proving to be occasionally too much for Gatiss.

ALSO, a minor note, it would have been nice to see one of the tales have more of a seasonal feel. Not essential, but an extra layer of autumnal chill would have been most welcome. Maybe that's just me though, and maybe not helped by me watching this in the midst of summer.

7/10

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The Commuter (2018)

One of a number of generic action vehicles that director Jaume Collet-Sera made with star Liam Neeson, The Commuter has very little to recommend it. And yet, surprisingly, there are treats hidden away within it.

Neeson plays Michael, an ex-cop who now works for a life insurance company. Well . . . worked for them. He is let go, which means his train ride home may well be his last commute for a while. He ends up engaged in conversation with a woman (Vera Farmiga) who makes him a hypothetical offer of thousands of dollars to identify an individual on the train. The offer is less hypothetical than it first appears, however, and Michael ends up trying to find this person while also trying to save the lives of everyone on the train.

As preposterous and predictable as you think it’s going to be, The Commuter is also, like a number of other Neeson-led action vehicles, easy entertainment when you want something pretty brisk and silly. A lot of that is thanks to Neeson himself, of course, and many people will know in advance whether they want to see another action thriller barely indistinguishable from the many other action thrillers he has made over the past decade.

The script is nonsense. It’s hard to believe that three people - Ryan Engle, Philip de Blasi, and Byron Willinger - came together to complete this. Engle is the one with a few other decent titles to his name, including another Neeson vehicle, but this is very much “paint by numbers” around the star, and Collet-Sera directs it as one. There’s one genuinely tense moment, involving Neeson being stuck under the train at one point, but everything else plays out in a way that people will find completely unsurprising. Which may make it a comfortable viewing choice, as it was for me. 

The supporting cast is where you get some treats to make this worth your time. As well as Farmiga, there’s a supporting role for her long-time onscreen hubby (Ed Warren), Patrick Wilson. Sam Neill has a very small role, and he is always welcome. Jonathan Banks is as good as ever, as are both Andy Nyman and Florence Pugh. Clara Lago, Ella-Rae Smith, Roland Møller, Colin McFarlane, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, and Adam Nagaitis all do well enough, playing a variety of characters put in peril by the wild scheme that has Neeson at the heart of it.

Absolutely inessential, absolutely forgettable, and absolutely ridiculous, this is also a film that is absolutely easy to choose to watch when you are searching for something that won’t challenge you or cause you to overthink anything. You could even watch it during your own commute, if you have the time. 

4/10

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Ghost Stories (2017)

Ghost Stories is a live stage experience, written by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman, that I am saddened to have never experienced. It was supposed to be quite terrifying, and I do enjoy being scared witless. Thankfully, although I have no idea how closely this adaptation sticks to the source material, I now have this film version to help contribute to my underwear laundry bill.

Having heard Nyman discuss the long road from stage to screen for this project, it seemed clear to me that the story was one full of classic horror movie genre tropes that everyone knew couldn't just be transferred back from the stage. What was intense and terrifying in a live production would just feel hokey and cliched when placed onscreen. Thankfully, that didn't stop them working hard until we ended up with this, a film that feels both very traditional and yet also, somehow, fresh and lively.

Nyman stars as Professor Goodman, a debunker of supernatural phenomena who is asked to investigate three cases that are believed to offer absolute proof of another world around us. Those three cases involve Paul Whitehouse as a night watchman encountering spookiness in an abandoned building, Alex Lawther as a teenager who regrets the choice of route on his late-night drive home, and Martin Freeman as a businessman who claims to have felt an evil presence in his own home while his pregnant partner was hospitalised.

Yes, essentially a portmanteau film (once the prime stomping ground of Amicus back in the heyday of British horror cinema), Ghost Stories manages to break the problems often associated with those films - a weak link here and there, pacing issues, building and sustaining tension - by weaving details, some subtle and some more obvious, throughout each tale, as well as the material bookending the film.

I always tell people, if I am forced to choose, that my favourite type of horror movie is a zombie movie. Put a zombie in it and I will watch it. Which means I have watched a LOT of awful zombie movies. But the only type of horror movie to really affect me is a good ghost film, and Ghost Stories is certainly a good ghost film. After a fairly light start to the proceedings, the atmosphere starts to build, and the frights start happening, in a way that reminded me of that classic horror story all about the house where nobody had ever survived the night. You know the one? It's a creepy little tale that builds to something quite intense, and this is the cinematic equivalent of that, although there are a multitude of other influences and nods, from The Turn Of The Screw to The Signal-Man.

But for anyone wondering if this would be TOO literary or stagey, or sedate, fear not. There are plenty of jump scares, some very sudden and some coming along as the required pay off to sequences of sustained tension unlike any I can think of in modern horror cinema. There are also some images that will, to use the technical term, freak you the fuck out. And the dread, don't forget the dread. It's the atmosphere of dread that makes the film almost unbearable at times though, seeping through almost every frame once things get going and never letting viewers relax, despite the very occasional moments of humour that provide a fleeting respite.

The writing and direction from Dyson and Nyman is fantastic, which you would expect from the two men who would surely have been so close to this material for many years already, but the performers also deserve praise. Nyman has always been a great presence onscreen, and turns in yet another great performance, but Whitehouse gives the kind of everyman performance necessary to drag viewers swiftly into the first fully-fledged segment of terror, young Lawther adds another great turn to his impressive roster of credits, and Freeman manages to twist his usual perceived happy-go-lucky demeanour into something, well, rather different.

A brilliant, heady brew of the classic and the modern, Ghost Stories is to be applauded for the way it gives fans what they want, even if they didn't realise what they wanted. It's smart, it's steeped in the history of the genre, it's bloody audacious at times (in ways that some might balk at), it freely mixes stylistic touches in whatever way best serves the narrative, it keeps drawing together the main connective tissue on the way to "the grand finale", and it's one of the scariest films I have watched in years.

Highly recommended, and I'll be very impressed if we see a better horror movie this year.

9/10

Ghost Stories is probably a while away from shiny disc form, but keep your eyes peeled for it when it gets a wider release (in cinemas and then in stores).

The Brothers Bloom (2008)

The more I see and hear of Rian Johnson, the more impressed I get. I saw Brick a few years ago and didn't know what to make of it before it just kept growing and growing on me. I enjoyed Looper even while discussing the many flaws that became obvious as the end credits began to roll (flaws that didn't stop me from buying the movie as soon as it was released on Bluray). And now I have been utterly won over by The Brothers Bloom, a charming con movie with a great cast and a taste for the theatrical.

Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody play the brothers, two characters who discover the art of a good con at a very early age. Ruffalo is the elder of the two, Stephen, and he loves to plan things so well that when they happen it's all real. His perfect con would be one that really unfurls itself in a completely natural way and one where everyone involved gets what they want. His brother Bloom, on the other hand, wants to put his conning days behind him. He's confused and unhappy, despite the exciting life he leads with Stephen and their near-mute accomplice, Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi). Stephen doesn't want to lose the company of his brother and so he comes up with that movie standard, one last big job. The mark this time around is Penelope (Rachel Weisz), a rich young woman with far too much time on her hands and not enough to hold her interest. Bloom, despite himself, warms to the idea and it's not long before he's in character once more and helping a beautiful woman to get some excitement in her life while losing some of her money. Because everyone should get what they want.

Over the years, a great con movie has ultimately become as hard to pull off as any actual con scheme. I suppose it can easily be argued that the con movie is always a con anyway, attempting to wrong-foot the viewer whenever possible, but still leaving them entertained and feeling good about having one pulled over on them (everyone gets what they want). The grandfather of the con movie is, of course, The Sting, but there are many other greats to check out, with personal favourites of mine being The Grifters (if you haven't seen it already then do so ASAP), Matchstick Men and House Of Games (the directorial debut of the great David Mamet). These movies all do a fantastic job, but they also add to the pile of references that movie viewers have to choose from, making each subsequent con movie that little bit harder to get right. People know what to look out for, they know to stay mistrustful of everything and they know how things have panned out in the past.

This is why writer-director Johnson excels with his own contribution to the subgenre. The Brothers Bloom seems to acknowledge right from the very beginning that the well-known history and film presence of cons can make it hard to come up with anything completely fresh, but then it ploughs ahead anyway and wins you over thanks to the performances, the style of the film and a real sense for the theatrical. Mark Ruffalo may play a character who wants to tell a great story, and wants that story to unfold as if it's a natural thing instead of a story being told, but he feels very much like an outlet for the director to voice his hopes and dreams. He's a storyteller in search of the perfect story, which is surely what every writer-director seeks throughout their career.

Mixing comedy and some drama with some wonderful characters and great set-pieces, The Brothers Bloom won't be for everyone, of course, but it's a beautiful, intelligent and cine-literate piece of work that I'm surprised isn't given more praise.

Brody and Ruffalo work very well together and are very believable as brothers, Rinko Kikuchi gets to play one of the coolest characters I can think of in the past decade and Rachel Weisz has one of the best roles of her career. Her character starts off as someone who may just be annoyingly quirky, but soon becomes someone with an infectious joy that viewers won't want to see come to any harm, physically or emotionally. There are fantastic little supporting turns from the likes of Robbie Coltrane, Maximilian Schell, Andy Nyman, Nora Zehetner (onscreen for one brief scene only) and Ricky Jay (narrating). And eagle-eyed fans of Joseph Gordon-Levitt can spot him in the background of a party scene during the first 10-15 minutes. He has no actual dialogue or role, he's just there, hanging out and being cool.

People judging a con movie by how effectively they were conned may rate this one lower than I did because, ultimately, it's not that surprising for most of its runtime. Clues are littered throughout the script and design of each scene. However, they may be missing one important factor. The con works. Viewers will find themselves, as I did, watching for the twists and turns and enjoying each revelation and when the end credits roll they'll realise that, actually, they just enjoyed a great story. Which is what Johnson intended and what left me with such a warm glow inside and an urge to buy the film as soon as possible. Everyone gets what they want.

9/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brothers-Bloom-Blu-ray-Adrien-Brody/dp/B003YUBZ66/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1364353176&sr=8-2

The Woman In Black (1989)

Remade and released to great box office success in 2012 (that review is here), The Woman In Black is a very traditional ghost story adapted in a very traditional style from the novel by Susan Hill. Directed by Herbert Wise, and written by the very talented Nigel Kneale, I had high hopes indeed for this one. Sadly, it turns out that even though I didn't love the remake as much as some people did I have to say that I found it a more enjoyable experience than this version, overall.

That's not to say that there isn't plenty here to enjoy. It's a solid piece of work with at least one or two memorable scares. Adrian Rawlins stars as Arthur Kidd, a young solicitor who is sent by his demanding boss to settle the affairs of a deceased old woman. This means quite a journey and a few days away from his loving wife and children but Arthur must do what seems like the best for his career with the firm. When he gets to his destination he soon finds out that the old woman had no friends and that nobody will be attending her funeral, bar legal representatives. However, when Arthur turns around during the funeral service he spies one mourner - a woman in black (Pauline Moran) - but he seems to be the only one seeing her. When he goes to the house of the deceased woman to start sorting through her effects he soon finds himself scared out of his wits by strange noises and the occasional presence of . . . . . . . . . . The Woman In Black.

With a cast that also includes Bernard Hepton, John Cater and Fiona Walker, this isn't a TV movie full of big names but every role is perfectly cast. There are even great supporting turns from Steven Mackintosh and Andy Nyman (two of my favourite British actors). No, there's no denying that this is an earnest and handsome attempt to provide an intriguing story with a number of chills on a limited budget. It's not as terrifying as the infamous Ghostwatch or even as constantly eerie as The Stone Tape (another fine example of Nigel Kneale's writing) but it's still a very nice slice of spookiness that makes for perfect viewing on a dark, winter evening.

Director Herbert Wise doesn't do too badly, it's just a shame that the whole thing has to be kept well within the limits of what was acceptable for UK TV work back in the late 80s. With things ever so slightly amped up throughout, this could have been a terrifying experience. As it is, there is at least one scene that still haunts many people to this day (pun intended) and there's a very good ending but the rest of the film isn't all that memorable.

6/10

Sadly, The Woman In Black isn't available at a bargain price at the moment but if you have money to burn you can pick up a copy here.

Thankfully, you can also view it on YouTube for free here.