Shudder Saturday: In Search Of Darkness: Part II (2020)

I was quite clear when I discussed In Search Of Darkness last year, a lengthy documentary about the horror movies of the 1980s. So many people loved it, and the only reason I can think of for that love is the shared affection for the genre, and a large helping of nostalgia. A lot of the contributors offered nothing more than the most basic opinions, there were very few films mentioned that weren't already very well known, and they angered me by crediting John Carpenter with that fine score for The Thing which came from Ennio Morricone.

Why would I dive into this sequel then? Well, I was hoping they might do better. 

The format is pretty much the same. You get a lot of the same selection of talking heads (some better than others, and some make you question why they were chosen for involvement in the first place), you get plenty of clips from the movies being discussed, and you get some attempts to contextualise individual entries within the bigger picture of what was happening to the horror genre throughout the decade.

First of all, although the titles picked here are generally a bit less "mainstream" than the titles in the first instalment, this still almost steadfastly refuses to dive into the really dark recesses of the video selections from the '80s. A whole section could have been dedicated to Gremlins rip-offs, but instead they're simply name-checked by Joe Dante, who gets to state that he doesn't rate Ghoulies, but considers Critters the best of the bunch that came out about that time. Every time the camera shows a number of movie posters (or I guess they are supposed to be video covers), you get to see some more obscure titles before it zooms in to focus on the next film up for discussion, which is most often one that most horror fans will be familiar with. And a horror documentary full of movie clips spending some time discussing a previous horror documentary full of movie clips - Terror In The Aisles - seems both meta and also completely unnecessary.

I won't try to list some of the many notable omissions, as that would just be too depressing, but things are saved this time around by some sections that allow stars to discuss their careers. You get Nancy Allen On Nancy Allen, Tom Savini On Tom Savini, Robert Englund On Robert Englund, and Linnea Quigley On Linnea Quigley. These, alongside a section that looks at the horror movie videogames of the era, offer up just enough insight and enjoyment to make this a better film than the first instalment. It's also bittersweet to see some on-camera contributions from the late, great, Stuart Gordon.

If you enjoyed In Search Of Darkness then you're bound to enjoy this. It's more of the same. If, like me, you were in the minority then this at least improves things slightly. I have no doubt that a third entry would be possible, and it would be the same yet again. And I'll be bemoaning the fact that we horror fans seem to be so easily pleased sometimes by stuff put out there with minimal amounts of care and real insight. 

4/10

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Shudder Saturday: Exorcismus (2010)

Sophie Vavasseur plays Emma, a young woman who ends up worried as she starts to have increasingly dangerous and violent episodes that seem to suggest she is maybe becoming possessed by an evil spirit. Her parents (played by Richard Felix and Jo-Anne Stockham) are initially as sceptical as you would expect, but eventually decide that it's best to get help from a priest (Stephen Billington). Things get worse and worse, with real harm occurring to those around Emma.

Directed by Manuel Carballo, making what I believe is his first English language feature after some shorts, as well as TV work and one other film, in Spanish, Exorcismus is decidedly more impressive than it should be, thanks to the fact that it doesn't really try to make things more complicated than they need to be. Carballo directs well enough, and there are some moments of good tension as you see people fail to become aware of Emma about to potentially lash out at them, and he keeps himself within a comfort zone for anyone familiar with this subgenre.

Writer David Muñoz probably helped with that, obviously. The script has some cheesy moments, and certainly falls a bit flat during the many moments in between the actual possession drama, but it works well for laying everything out and simply aiming to entertain viewers. And it all builds nicely, with Emma initially suffering from fits, progressing to pushing her best friend away and having horrible visions, then moving towards the expected third act reveal of the full horror of the situation.

If the script and direction are surprisingly good, in the way that both manage to settle into the expected beats while somehow avoiding that feeling that it's all just rehashed from better movies (I think the very Britishness of the presentation helps to make it feel a bit fresher than it otherwise would), the acting is a bit more of a mixed bag. Not terrible, but not good enough to help elevate the material further.

Vavasseur isn't great when acting normally, unfortunately, but she does better when it's time to start the eye-rolling and growling. Felix and Stockham try hard, despite being the main characters who are given the weakest dialogue. Billington is earnest enough in his role, it's a decent performance from him, and there's a minute or two of screentime for Doug Bradley that treats him a lot better than so many other horror movies I could name. The other person worth mentioning is Isamaya Ffrench, a young actress who makes a strong impression in her feature film debut (and who has since gone on to develop a career as an interesting and talented makeup artist).

There are one or two plot turns that you may or may not enjoy, nothing that stops the whole film to emphasise how much they're veering from familiar territory though, and there are no moments I can single out as absolute highlights (well, there's one that surprised me, but I won't spoil anything here), but Exorcismus does what it sets out to do, and doesn't overstay its welcome with a runtime that clocks in at just under 100 minutes. I say it's worth a watch, even if it is unlikely to become a new firm favourite.

6/10

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Nightbreed (1990)

"Everything is true. God's an Astronaut. Oz is Over the Rainbow, and Midian is where the monsters live"

Nightbreed is a typically ambitious piece of work from horror maestro Clive Barker. It's full of strange monsters, moments of impressive bloodshed, and a mythos that is quickly set up and invested in, to an impressive degree. I wish I had seen it a long time ago, because it's a new favourite of mine.

Craig Sheffer plays a troubled young man named Aaron Boone. Aaron has been seeing a doctor (David Cronenberg) for some time, due to his dreams about monsters and a place named Midian, but has finally started to feel better. Unfortunately, a bunch of ugly murders have occurred that seem to match Aaron's fantasies. The doctor claims to want to help Aaron, but it soon becomes apparent that he may have another agenda. And then things start to get REALLY interesting after Aaron finds out that he's not as mad as he thought.

Setting things up quickly, and rarely flagging as the plot unfolds, Nightbreed is a film I can't find too many faults with, much to my surprise. Yes, you have to buy into the main premise, but it's never a bad move to trust Barker when he's attempting to provide horror fans with smart, unique, adult entertainment. If you think that monsters are things to be imagined, and feared, by children then you should be thinking again after the first few scenes of this movie. Not only does it present the main monsters as outcasts from society, not necessarily meaning harm to others, yet willing to stand up and fight back when it's called for, but it also takes great pains to show different types of monsters, with a couple being in the more usual human guise.

I know that fans of this movie can recall all of the different names of the monstrous characters, and know who played who, but I'm not going to pretend that I was always able to keep track of such details. Give me one or two repeat viewings, and this is a film I plan to rewatch a number of times, and I'll retain more of the details, but for the time being I'll just admit that a lot of the wonderful creatures all blended together into one impressive group for me. That's not to say that they didn't have individual personalities and characteristics. They really did. I was just overwhelmed by so many wonderful details catching my eye in almost every scene.

Sheffer is fine in the lead role, although he's never been my favourite actor (sorry, I just couldn't ever really get over his fine turn as a major asshole in Some Kind Of Wonderful), and Anne Bobby is cute and sweet as the woman who cares for him. Cronenberg is a bit of a strange casting choice, so you may think, and his early scenes feel slightly frustrating and out of place, but that's all forgotten when he hits his stride after the first 15-20 minutes. Hugh Quarshie is yet another authority figure, a role he seems to have played for the majority of his career, but he's good at it, and Charles Haid is entertainingly over the top as a Police Captain. Catherine Chevalier and Hugh Ross are two main monsters I enjoyed watching onscreen (see, I did manage to keep track of some of them), and pretty much everyone onscreen, whether or not they end up covered in prosthetics, does a great job helping to realise the world and characters envisioned by Barker.

It's not often that work adapted from Barker's material ends up falling flat (who said Rawhead Rex? Hold your tongue) and Nightbreed holds up as a fine reminder that when the man is allowed to translate his vision from mental imagery to page to screen . . . . . . . . . . we horror fans are in for a major treat.

9/10

http://www.amazon.com/Nightbreed-Directors-Bluray-Combo-Blu-ray/dp/B00LMBUR6S/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1413707229&sr=1-1&keywords=nightbreed

Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines (2012)

Before we begin, here is my review for Wrong Turn.
And Wrong Turn 2: Dead End.
And Wrong Turn 3: Left For Dead.
And, of course, Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings.

The Wrong Turn franchise has proven, surprisingly enough, to be a consistently enjoyable series of movies. Each film takes the standard killer hillbilly horror archetype and just has fun with it, which makes for something hard to hate, even when standards slip below par.

This instalment has writer-director Declan O'Brien back in the main role, a man who may have made a mis-step with the third movie, but has shown how suited he is to the series since he started working from his own scripts.

The plot is as slight as it is illogical and enjoyable. A bunch of young folk turn up to enjoy the Mountain Man festival in West Virginian one Halloween and end up getting busted by the local Sheriff (Camilla Arfwedson). That would be bad enough, but they also end up being targeted by some killer cannibals. Their chances of survival may improve if the leader of these particular mountain men (Maynard, played by Doug Bradley) is released from the jail cell alongside their own.

The cast aren't too bad. Arfwedson is a little weak as the Sheriff, the group of youngsters (including Simon Ginty, Oliver Hoare, Paul Luebke, Roxanne McKee and Amy Lennox) all do enough to get by and Bradley has a lot of fun in his best role in some years, from the few that I've seen anyway. The script gets slightly carried away when it comes to his ramblings, but that's forgivable.
With a cast of disposable characters, the setting of a small town in which everyone not involved in the main story disappears within the first 20 minutes and gory set-pieces, this is a movie that puts fun ahead of everything else. Some of the deaths are quick, standard fatalities, but some are truly memorable, either due to nastiness or inventiveness or both.

If handled properly, I see no reason why this franchise can't squeeze out an extra one or two instalments. Who knew that all these Wrong Turns would make something right?

6/10

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Killer Tongue (1996)

There are many reasons why I love the insane, and insanely entertaining, Killer Tongue. Melinda Clarke being in the lead role is the main one but none of the other reasons really make much sense. It’s just a matter of personal taste (no pun intended).

Melinda Clarke plays Candy, a loving woman who we see pulling off a successful robbery with her beau, Johnny (Jason Durr). Unfortunately, Johnny is then caught and has to do some hard time in the company of people like Wig (Doug Bradley) and under the ever-watchful eye of the sadistic prison director (Robert Englund). Candy goes into hiding in a nun but when the time comes to move on she’s out of there quick-sharp. Taking her three dogs along, she leaves just in time – a newspaper photo reveals her location to the two men she and Johnny ripped off in the aftermath of their big score. While she waits for Johnny, Candy makes soup for her and the dogs and, wouldn’t you just know it, a killer tongue from outer space lands in the soup and gets into her body, transforming her into a black-haired vixen with an appetite for . . . . . . . . . more than soup. And her dogs are transformed into three camp young men (including one Jonathan Rhys Meyers). Johnny is trying to get to Candy, upset criminals are trying to get to Candy, a determined nun is trying to get to Candy but Candy is probably best left alone while she struggles with her new, lively tongue.

Yes, you read the above paragraph correctly. Killer Tongue IS that insane. It’s also got some laughs here and there, a few blood-spattered moments and a layer of eroticism as Candy grapples with the tongue.

Writer-director Alberto Sciamma is clearly a little bit bonkers, but the good kind of bonkers. He elicits over the top performances from most of the actors onscreen (Nigel Whitmey, as Chip, gets arguably the best moment with one explosive fit of anger revolving around clothing) and fills the screen with equal parts colour and grime. Clarke is a good sport in the lead role, and as gorgeous as ever, and the other big presence in the movie is Robert Englund, brilliantly portraying a character who is all sleaze and nastiness.

 

Top things off with a cheesy, bouncy soundtrack and a couple of amusing conversations between a woman and an alien tongue and you have something that’s certainly not for everyone but that should be enjoyed by more warped individuals. Like myself.

7/10.

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