1965 psychological horror film
Rating: 18/20
Plot: A genophobic gal loses her mind when her horny sister goes on a vacation with the guy she's currently banging. Thankfully, she's got a heavy candlestick and a razor.
Maybe it's the upcoming Halloween holiday, but I've been in a horror mood lately. This movie is profoundly creepy, but it probably can't be classified as a horror movie exactly. It's more like a character study of a deeply troubled individual. This is the first Roman Polanski movie in English although Catherine Deneuve, that hottie from Bunuel's Belle de Jour, can barely speak the language and is almost a distraction. The best moments in this movie are when there's no dialogue at all. It's amazing to me (and maybe boring to others) how this movie can be so powerful with so few words. The best scary movies, horror or otherwise, are the ones that have a subtext. Here, the sexual repression thing that would ordinarily be the subtext comes to the forefront. Phallic symbols abound, friends! Polanski does such a good job creating a palpable insanity, and the view can't help feeling--through the use of sound effects, trick shots, claustrophobic cinematography--a little of what Deneuve's character is feeling. The opening credits over an eyeball with background music that I could probably play set the mood well. I was also enamored with a street band that pops into the movie twice. The banjo-spoons-and-spoons trio had to be a big hit on the streets of wherever this was supposed to take place. Also great--a mirror scare that makes you jump even if you expect it and a rape scene that is completely soundless except for a clock ticking. Great movie!
2012 found footage anthology
Rating: 11/20
Plot: Burglars bust into a house looking for a VHS tape and watch a bunch of disturbing VHS tapes in a room with a dead guy in it.
This has, I think, eight directors who are dicking around with the found footage sub-genre. I consider that to be a guilty pleasure of mine and thought I'd check this out. It kind of works as a horror movie. There are a lot of moments that will make you either jump a little bit or shit your pants (I did both), but none of this makes a lot of sense as either a large story where burglars are watching tapes (Seriously--tapes?) or individual stories within the tapes. There's some creativity here and some really good special effects, but it just kind of feels like they're clobbering this found footage thing into the ground. You get a webcam thing, people videotaping themselves on vacation, and a guy wearing glasses with a hidden camera for reasons that aren't fully explained. The frame story, directed by Adam Wingard, makes very little sense. Why are criminals videotaping their shenanigans--breaking windows and exposing the breasts of women in parking garages? The latter, by the way, isn't the only excuse to show naked women. Oh, no. It's actually kind of funny how they find ways to squeeze nudity into each one of these little stories. The stories did manage to keep me interested. There are bat women, lesbianism, fuzzy woods monsters, alien children, and a guy in a bear suit. I just wish the whole thing made a little more sense, and although there are plenty of scary moments, you have to get through a lot of nonsense to get to them. I'd probably recommend this to people who like mindless horror movies, but you don't want to think about it too much.
2012 horror anthology
Rating: 13/20
Plot: Twenty-six different directors take a letter from the alphabet, pick a word, and explore death.
I thought this was a very interesting idea. I'm not sure I'd classify this as a straight horror movie either. A lot of the shorts are just kind of surreal vignettes that don't even attempt to bring the fear. Some, in fact, are supposed to be funny. I like the variety of this thing even though it seems obvious that a lot of these directors are just trying to out-shock or out-weird the other twenty-five. But there's stylistic and cultural variety. And the Japanese prove with a few what-the-hell shorts that they still have the world's most insane minds. See "F Is for Fart" if you need proof of that. Farting Japanese school girls. That's all I can say. With this collection, you also get a Mexican snow creature armed with a pizza cutter, some time loop fun that feels way incomplete, a man boxing a dog, a spider getting revenge on the worst actor of all time, first-person perspectives of surfing and a werewolf, Furries in a wild piece called "H Is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion," a hilarious hari-kari short, animated poop, squished kitties, the worst claymation ever, and a whole lot of penis. I think my favorites were a really disturbing short featuring some kind of forced masturbation contest (the "L" one) and the "N" one in which romance turns to murder thanks to a bird. I also liked the poetic and experimental "O" one--"O Is for Orgasm." Unfortunately, as you'd expect, a lot of this is really unpleasant. I'm not sure what the "M" director was going for. Shock value, I guess, but it feels like the most unpleasant joke you've ever heard. "I" feels like the longest five minutes of my entire life. "R" was gross and pointless. The person behind "W" and V/H/S's Wingard go meta with varying results. I'm glad that I watched this for the good ones. Unfortunately, the bad ones brought it down quite a bit.
I can't rate it above a 13/20 because of the poster, by the way. I'm not sure if that's fair or not.
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