Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990)

Although I put it off for many years, and didn’t hear anything from people who might want me to prioritise this as a viewing option, I decided to finally watch the last of the films that make up the original Psycho film series. Considering the obvious diminishing returns of each instalment, although that is not to dismiss the greatness of the second film, I hoped that this would still provide me with some fun.

Listening to a radio show, about killers who have committed matricide, hosted by Fran Ambrose (CCH Pounder), Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins once again) decides to call in and share his own informed viewpoint. He doesn’t agree with the views expressed by one of the guests (Dr. Leo Richmond, played by Warren Frost), and decides to give listeners the benefit of his life story. This allows us to then see a young Norman (Henry Thomas) living with his mother (Olivia Hussey).

Written by Joseph Stefano, this is a largely disappointing finale for a very unlikely film series. I am not sure that any of us really wanted to see Norman’s childhood (not until they found a better way to do it anyway, with the Bates Motel TV show) and the third act tries to add suspense and twists that fall completely flat. Having said that, it still partially succeeds as an ending for the character of Norman, giving him a closure that feels deserved, for both himself and fans of the series.

Director Mick Garris doesn’t do anything great, although he’s slightly hampered by a script that feels very comfortably within the TV movie parameters it was given. Things feel as if they are being marked off a checklist, from character details to shot choices, but there’s some fun to be had as viewers watch the important moments that turned Norman into what he is/was.

Perkins is very good once again in the main role, but he’s consigned to a supporting role in his own story, setting the scene for the other main players. Thomas and Hussey do well enough, although both are a bit over the top at times, and the focus is on familiar references and touch points ahead of natural and realistic characterizations. Pounder is perfectly fine as the DJ, Frost doesn’t get to do much (seemingly only there to have a character similarly named to someone else from the very first film), and Donna Mitchell plays someone pivotal to the whole plot, but also disappointingly undeveloped. Maybe giving her a bit more material instead of making time for a John Landis cameo could have helped things slightly, but what do I know?

I can’t say I hated this though. It was a bit of a chore at times, and some moments came close to being laughably bad, but I was ultimately won over by a cast all trying hard with very uneven material. I might never rush to rewatch this, but I am glad I finally got around to it. There’s an inevitable sense of satisfaction after joining Norman for the full journey.

5/10

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Pet Sematary: Bloodlines (2023)

Although I didn’t feel optimistic about Pet Sematary: Bloodlines, I figured that it didn’t have to do too much to be an improvement upon the previous instalment in what has become another unnecessary expansion of a Stephen King property. Look, we all know that nobody was crying out for a prequel, but the premise always has potential for macabre fun.

Set decades in the past, of course, the tale focuses on a young Judson Crandall (Jackson White). Of course. He is keen to leave his home town, set to start life anew with his girlfriend (Norma, played by Natalie Alyn Lind), but things conspire against him. There’s a grumpy dog, to put it mildly, and a very grumpy young man who has recently returned from war (Timmy, played by Jack Mulhern).

Directed by first-timer Lindsey Anderson Beer, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jeff Buhler, a lot of Pet Sematary: Bloodlines is easily enjoyable as a standard riff on the central idea. Unfortunately, as soon as you start to think about everything fully, about how the situation would affect the central character of Jud, the whole thing falls apart. The main idea of Pet Sematary can be reworked, but it feels wrong when viewers are shown a character that we know ended up voluntarily putting himself in the same dire situation more than once in his adult life. Fool Jud once, shame on you. Fool Jud twice, shame on Jud. The other big problem that the film has is the fact that a fair chunk of the final sequence is filmed while someone forgot to get the lighting right. I peered at one dark and murky scene after another while I tried to maintain consideration for characters who might be in peril. Or they might have gone off to do their weekly grocery shopping. I don’t know. Because I couldn’t see a damn thing.

There’s nothing else that stands out, for better or worse. The rest of the visuals, the effects, and the score are all perfunctory. Nothing feels cheap or rushed, nor does it feel like a nervous debut (I hope Beer is given a better opportunity with her next project), and it is helped by a cast that would all shine if the film around them was better.

White and Lind are both easy to root for, although we already know certain facts about their fate already, and there are also good turns from Forrest Goodluck and Isabella LaBlanc, two other “youngsters” who end up in serious danger, while Mulhern has to look mean and moody as everyone around him starts to realise how much he has changed. There are welcome supporting turns from Pam Grier, David Duchovny, Henry Thomas, and Samantha Mathis, each one doing their best to distract you from the flaws inherent in the screenplay.

Those flaws are unavoidable though, ensuring that this could never be viewed as a great film. If it wasn’t connected to other films then it might have fared a bit better, but it is, and it subsequently suffers from the connection that undermines it. It’s still better than the last film to have Pet Sematary in the title though, which allows it to be both disappointing and also a very minor success.

4/10

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Mubi Monday: Gangs Of New York (2002)

Despite owning Gangs Of New York for at least a decade, I have a strong suspicion that I haven't actually rewatched it since first seeing it on VHS back when it was first released. I believe my opinion was one shared by many other people then. Daniel Day-Lewis was brilliant as the main villain (well, sort of the main villain, I'll expand on that soon enough), Leonardo DiCaprio was good, but not great, and Cameron Diaz was the weakest of the stars onscreen. The film was typical Scorsese, forming another chapter in his ongoing series about violent people creating things that then become bigger than them. Goodfellas is about a man making himself into a mobster, and a monster. Casino is about the mob building Las Vegas. Gangs Of New York is all about the thuggery and violence that was used to shape, I'll give you two guesses, yep, New York.

DiCaprio plays Amsterdam Vallon, a man we see returning to the bosom of New York many years after watching his father be killed in a huge street battle. The man who killed him is Bill 'The Butcher' Cutting (Day-Lewis), a figure who basically runs the city. Amsterdam has to bide his time before avenging his father, which allows him to get closer and closer to Bill, but he also gets closer to a young woman named Jenny Everdeane (Diaz). It might take a village to raise a child, but it takes some rough time on the streets to make a man. Or something like that.

It's easy to see why director Martin Scorsese would have been drawn to this story/script, written by Jay Cocks, Steve Zaillian, and Kenneth Lonergan. It shows a bloody chapter in history that did just as much to help some people as it did to destroy many others. What is more surprising, especially when rewatching the film today, is just how it stealthily leads you towards an overview of a whole system that is imbalanced and riddled with injustice. People like Bill are able to hold on to their positions because they help those who are in official positions of power. Respectability is a mask, and often worn by those who can quickly call on others to do their dirty work for them, and for a ridiculously low price. And no matter where you think you are in the pecking order, your position is only there as long as those with much more money and power allow it.

Day-Lewis steals the movie, and rightly so. His character is a perfect blend of great writing matched by a flawless performance, and he's always a believable threat to those around him. While DiCaprio isn't as assured or memorable, he does enough to make his part work, and he just about manages to hold his own when sharing the screen with such a formidable co-star. Diaz isn't terrible, but she struggles to convince anyone that she was one of the best picks for the role, although she's not helped by a script that is much more confident with the many main male roles than it is with the lone woman. Elsewhere, the cast is stacked with great actors giving their best attempts at the accents (mainly Irish American). Brendan Gleeson and Gary Lewis are highlights, but you also get to enjoy John C. Reilly, Stephen Graham, Jim Broadbent, and Henry Thomas in some plum roles.

Where this succeeds is in the way it cuts into the corpses that helped to build a city, and also helped to build America, and then starts to show how even the strongest figures were so often puppeteered by those with limited patience for them. Where is falls down slightly is in the way it feels exactly like a film from the early 2000s. This comes through in the casting, it comes through in a score and soundtrack that is not up there with the best work of either composer Howard Shore or Scorsese himself (who often has a great ear for the best tunes to use), and it is there in a couple of moments that I would argue remain some of the most disappointing work from the usually flawless editor Thelma Schoonmaker. I am not a complete moron though, and there are still plenty of moments here where she shows off her consummate skill, but one or two big battle scenes are marred by editing choices - changes in the speed of the action, a lot of cross-dissolving and overlaid imagery - that feel very much from this time.

Despite these minor criticisms, and they are based on very conscious choices by the director, Gangs Of New York easily holds up as another absolute cracker from a director who has rarely put a foot wrong throughout a long and impressive career. And, despite very stiff competition, it’s quite possibly the best performance that Day-Lewis has ever given.

8/10

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Doctor Sleep (2019)

I don't think anyone was overly excited when Stephen King announced that he was releasing a belated sequel to The Shining. It was a story that was all done, and nothing else needed added to it. Yet King wanted to know more, he wanted to check in on the man that young Danny Torrance became, the man who must have struggled throughout his life to process all he had gone through. We'll come back to this point in a minute.

Directed, and adapted into screenplay form, by Mike Flanagan, one of my favourite people working in the horror genre lately, the movie version of Doctor Sleep is like a box full of hyperactive kittens. There's a visual appeal, there's a worry as things keep moving and you think one or two might run away and hide somewhere, and there's a transition from happiness to slight discomfort as tiny paws produce tiny claws while a brave little body starts to climb up your legs.

Ewan McGregor plays Danny Torrance, a man still battling ghosts and demons of his past. He's aided in this by the spirit of Dick Halloran (played this time around by Carl Lumbly). He also tries to aid himself with lots and lots of alcohol. While making a serious attempt to straighten his life out, and finally passing some years in relative contentment, Danny ends up on the receiving end of some messages from a young girl named Abra (Kyliegh Curran). Abra also shines, and shines strong, which brings her to the attention of Rose The Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) and her friends, a group of powerful entities who increase their lifespan by taking the lifeforce from those who shine. Danny needs to put himself back in a position he thought he would be able to avoid for the rest of his life, and that may also involve a trip back to The Overlook Hotel.

The more I think about Doctor Sleep, the more I find to like about it. Flanagan gave himself the unenviable task of tying together The Shining movie, The Shining novel, and the main source material (which I have yet to read), in a way that would try to please everyone, but could end up pleasing no one, and he's done a remarkable job, in that regard.

I always say that Stephen King tales are harder to adapt when most of the content belongs in the heads of certain characters. See Dreamcatcher, for example. Or, y'know, don't. But Flanagan proved that he could work around that with his superb adaptation of Gerald's Game, and he tries hard to make this work. It's a bigger challenge this time. Different people have different headspace environments here, and psychic conversations are always tricky to convey without either the actors looking silly or the momentum of the movie grinding to a halt.

The other challenge is, of course, reworking the famous imagery film fans all know and love from The Shining. Making the wise decision to recreate certain moments with new actors portraying the characters in ways that are in line with what we've seen already, but absolutely not just impressions of previous performances, Flanagan gets this all just right. Lumbly is a wonderful Halloran, Alex Essoe is very good as Wendy Torrance, and Henry Thomas is a decent Jack, despite coming closest to imitation (perhaps because Jack felt quite like, well, JACK).

For those giving us all new portrayals of characters, McGregor does okay, but is the weakest link. Whether it's the script or his own take on it (and I usually find McGregor to be a very good actor), he never feels quite right in the role of Danny, and is overshadowed in any scenes he shares with the excellent young Curran, and even Cliff Curtis and Bruce Greenwood, who are both very welcome in small supporting roles. Ferguson makes up for her inconsistent accent with a physical performance that displays her character as one light of touch until it is time to rip open "a meal". The only other disappointment with Ferguson is that her character takes up more screentime than the brilliant Emily Alyn Lind. Lind, playing a young woman who can control the minds of most people around her, is arguably the most terrifying figure onscreen, due to the careless way she will wield her power without a second thought.

A dark fantasy drama rather than an outright horror, in my view (although labels are a constant source of frustration for us genre fans), Doctor Sleep may disappoint anyone looking for proper scares, or some gore, or even a hair-raising atmosphere. Sadly, it lacks all of those things. But it still manages to be a decent watch as you invest in the characters and root for them to overcome the many obstacles in their path.

Which brings me back to what I referred to at the start of this review. King wrote his novel because he got curious about Danny, and what kind of life he would lead. He wanted to check in on him, psychological scars and all. The film starts off with this as a focus. I am sure that Flanagan would argue it never moves far away from that, but it does. I was drawn in to the first scenes with McGregor, already anxious for him as he picked the absolute wrong ways to numb his pain, and that journey leads up to the halfway point of the film, before then veering off to drag us along on a psychic horror adventure. The second half isn't necessarily a worse film, not in and of itself, but it's just a shame that what started as an exploration of ghosts and painful memories becomes a tale of ghouls and fresh wounds, and we already have a lot more of the latter than the former.

For the details dotted throughout, for the many little touches that will please King fans, and for the exploration of the troubled and assaulted mental state of a survivor, this is probably still worth your time, even at two and a half hours. A reserved recommendation.

6/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.

Shudder Saturday: Dead Birds (2004)

Set in the time of the American Civil War, this is the tale of a group of people, led by William (Henry Thomas), who rob a bank and then lay low in a house located, effectively, in the middle of nowhere. While they are all on edge, and with some trying to figure out how to increase their own share of the ill-gotten gains, things start to get a bit creepy. The house has a history, and that history is not staying locked in the past.

There are two great American horror movies that I was pleased to discover in the past twenty years, two that still stand out from so many others that I have enjoyed over the years. Session 9 is one of them, Dead Birds is the other. The former may hold up slightly better, but this one still deserves to be found and loved by horror fans.

The first feature written by Simon Barrett (who started his run of movies with this film and the fun of Frankenfish), Dead Birds is an impressively atmospheric piece that also delivers some impressive moments of gore and decent jump scares. Unfortunately, as decent as they are, it is the jump scares that now hold this back from being closer to a modern classic, with the CGI used and the snap of movement now all too familiar to genre fans who have seen it overdone in the years since this was released.

Director Alex Turner doesn't have too many other movies to his credit (his only other feature so far is Red Sands from 2009 - it's been a decade, Alex, get your finger out) and that's a great shame. Although helped massively by the casting, Turner does a fantastic job behind the camera here. Guided by Barrett's script, Turner takes plenty of time during the first half of the movie to set up the characters and their motivations, allowing the standard mistrust and unease of co-operating criminals to weave through various interactions until more supernatural happenings start to affect everyone. There's also an injured party to be looked after and the memory of an innocent bystander who was killed during the robbery, both of these things, and more, feeding in to the atmosphere and the heady brew of bloodshed and betrayal that has brought these people to where they are, and perhaps where they deserve to be.

Thomas is good in the nominal lead role, although he is matched by excellent performances from Isaiah Washington and Nicki Aycox, both playing characters who seem to cause friction amongst the group just by being accepted as important members. Patrick Fugit is slightly weak, although he works okay while his character physically weakens from injury, but that is compensated for by typically fine performances from Michael Shannon, Mark Boone Junior, and Muse Watson.

Although it stumbles in a few places, Dead Birds generally remains a satisfying, rich, experience. If you somehow haven't heard of it before now, be sure to check it out now. You won't be disappointed.*

*does not apply to anyone who is disappointed

8/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.

Netflix And Chill: Ouija: Origin Of Evil (2016)

I had heard that this prequel to Ouija was actually quite a good horror movie but I just couldn't bring myself to give it a watch before now. Yes, it was directed by Mike Flanagan, who also co-wrote the script with Jeff Howard, but it was a prequel to Ouija, which was just crap. I should have had faith, in both the people who advised me that I would enjoy this film and the talent of Flanagan (who hasn't done anything yet that I have really disliked).

Set in the 1960s, this is the tale of a widow (Lina Zander, played by Annalise Basso) and her two daughters (Alice, played by Elizabeth Reaser, and Doris, played by Lulu Wilson). Lina offers readings to people in order to make money, helped by her daughters (who hide away and help to create the effects that show contact has been made with the spirit world), and it looks like they can add to the whole performance when they find an old Ouija board. Unfortunately, they break a number of the golden rules, which lets an evil force into their lives, communicating to everyone through young Doris.

There are a number of jump scares here, and a number of absolutely predictable moments (one or two repeated from the first film), but Flanagan also knows how to just creep viewers out. Once the opening act of the movie is done, with characters established and the Ouija board made use of, things start to get freaky very quickly. And the scares are all the better because of being grounded in a film that feels close enough to something from at least a few decades ago. This may not be a 100% accurate period film but there are enough touches, from the opening credits to the appearance of the film (even including added "cigarette burns" for extra authenticity), to make it feel like something you would have caught in the early days of VHS.

The performances are all excellent, with Basso, Reaser, and Wilson wonderful in their individual turns and also as a strained family unit, and there's a fine supporting turn from Henry Thomas, playing a priest/teacher who helps the family figure out just how bad things are for them. Parker Mack may be the least of the central cast members, playing the young man, Mikey, who is forging a relationship with Alice, but he is also good in his role.

A couple of visual tricks may be overdone, although the white-eyed and gaping-mouthed look never stops being scary to me, and there's obviously the fact that those who watched the first film will know how things should play out, but none of that stops Ouija: Origin Of Evil being a surprisingly brilliant mainstream horror that manages to hit the beats that it has to while also providing a few hair-raising surprises along the way.

Although you can watch this, and enjoy it, by itself, I still grudgingly encourage others to watch the first film first, if only to give you more appreciation when you then see how Flanagan and Howard tied things together here.

8/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.

Dead Birds (2004)

Modern horrors come in all shapes and sizes, but many people keep trying to insist that they're all unscary and not worth your time. There are many, many fine horror movies still being made and released each year, it's just that the better movies aren't always as easy to hear about and get hold of. Most people will know this already, I'm not saying anything new, but it's always worth remembering every now and again. Especially when you come across a movie like Dead Birds (recommended to me many years ago by the fine folks who used to populate the IMDb Horror board).

Henry Thomas, Patrick Fugit, Michael Shannon, Isaiah Washington, Nicki Aycox and Mark Boone Junior star as a bunch of outlaws who rob a bank in 1860s America. They then hide out at an abandoned plantation before their next stage of the plan - getting to Mexico and splitting the gold. But it's not long until mistrust starts to take hold, as well as a sense of unease about just where they're holed up for the night.

With great acting from all involved, Dead Birds is a horror movie that feels a bit different while hitting a number of familiar genre beats. Henry Thomas is a decent lead, but the real treats come from the supporting cast (especially Michael Shannon before his name was so well known and Isaiah Washington). Nicki Aycox could easily, in a lesser film, be sidelined as nothing more than a token female character in the group, but she's given some decent moments and she does well with them.

The script by Simon Barrett does a great job of making each bit of character motivation clear and also allowing for some flashbacks that provide imagery to feed into the fear-filled present. The main characters may not realise how the fear is building until the second half of the movie, but it is. All around them.

Director Alex Turner also deserves praise for his handling of the material. There are a few jump scares here and there, with some decent CGI helping one or two of them, but he also keeps ladling on the atmosphere like golden honey. The film may blend Western elements with the horror, but it's not trying to be a horror Western, specifically. Oh no, it's just a horror movie that happens to take place in years gone by when there was a shorter life expectancy and bigger divisions amongst men (namely race and allegiance to certain flags). It's a real shame that Turner doesn't have much more to his credit yet.

Do check it out when you get the chance and I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Dead Birds is showing today at The Filmhouse - buy your ticket here - as part of the 20th anniversary celebrations on the run up to Dead By Dawn.

8/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dead-Birds-Nicki-Lynn-Aycox/dp/B0007RUSUS/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1359152412&sr=1-1