John Dies At The End: The Movie

What feels like ages ago, I wrote a short bit on the David Wong book John Dies At The End, and while I feel I couldn't quite capture what I liked so much about the book in writing, it'll have to do. The reason I'm bringing it up again is because, as I mentioned, I had heard rumors that Don Coscarelli was working on a movie. Of course, my long and bountiful... well, long, career as a nerd have taught me one thing, not to get overly excited as to rumors such as these. At this point, it's very tempting to go on a little rant about Guilermo Del Toro and At The Mountains Of Madness, but this isn't the time. This is the time for discussing actual tangible evidence that Coscarelli is making this happen, yes, a trailer. 

So yes, that will probably seem pretty incomprehensible to anyone who haven't read the book, but from what I can see, it seems very faithful to the original. As a fan of the book, I'm pretty excited about this, but it could also backfire, there are some parts of it that might not work as a complete transplant. I'm interested to see how they do the pacing, since the book was a mite unusual in the dramaturgical department, but at least there's an escalation all in all.

As I mentioned in my initial post, I believe the story is very much in good hands, since JDATE seems like a story that Coscarelli could do well with. The Quirk-To-Serious ratio kind of reminds me of Bubba Ho-Tep, a story of an aging Elvis and a wheelchair-bound, dark-skinned John F. Kennedy (or two old men convinced they are Elvis and JFK, depending on your interpretation) fighting a mummy in an old folks home, only replacing the melancholy of Ho-Tep with my favorite filling, horror. The horror elements also seem similar to his most famous film, Phantasm, being some less bleak version of cosmic horror with a strong focus on how knowing or seeing certain things will attract attention you really don't want.

So, here's hoping this thing pans out well.

Before And *After*: YellowBrickRoad

Oh, hey, I had almost forgotten about this thing. Blame shenanigans if you feel like it. But anyway, I finally got around to watching YellowBrickRoad. First, some corrections, our heroes are apparently a mix of cartographers and scientists, and this is the reason they go for the expedition, both to figure exactly what happened and to map the area. You wouldn't think the latter part would be much of an issue in this age of  ridiculously detailed satellite pictures all over the place, but I'm no cartographer, maybe it's a "woods" thing, I don't know.

So, my fears of this being a stupid slasher is certainly assuaged. Sure, there's a couple of kills, but something about the way they're done makes them more surreal than indulgent, in retrospect that'd probably be an interesting direction for a slasher to go, but never mind, that's not this movie. So yeah, the kills are odd, somehow, although I can't quite put my finger on why. Probably an editing thing. It doesn't work well as far as immersion goes, since it kind of draws attention to the fact that somebody made it this way. If that was the filmmakers' intention, way to go.

As for story, I'm not sure, I get the impression there's a lot of underused potential here. The expedition psychologist tapes everyone, doing interviews for reasons that frankly escape me at the moments. You'd think this would be a nice horror element, but as soon as things really starts going south, the point where such video logs would be interesting, there aren't any.

When it comes to horror, there's clearly a tendency towards slow build horror, and atmospheric freakyness, but I feel there's something missing. I don't really have a problem with the threat being vague, being a Cosmic Horror fan, I'd be a strange duck if I had, indeed, but there's something about the threat that doesn't quite work  in my eyes. Don't get me wrong, there are elements that are very interesting, and the one that chiefly comes to my mind is the use of sound.

See, as our heroes come closer to their destination, to the degree that they get any close, there's some possibly non-euclidean shit going down here, the sound of music from a LP player somewhere keeps haunting them, and the way our heroes react to it seems to hint that there's some nebulous other influence going on. Fairly clever, as long as you like things Lovecraftian. As I mentioned before, I do, so no complain from me, the music bit is probably my favorite part.

(SPOILERS HERE... MAYBE)
On the other end of the spectrum, the ending is just... ugh. I have no problem with endings spinning into wild metaphor as the climax approaches, as long as it's interesting, it can work, just look at Paprika, for one, but this one? Not so much. Of course, I don't know how I'd end this thing, but honestly, if you're going to end it up with some sort of vague hell/purgatory metaphor.... I hope you're aware that doing so may be the most cliched ways to wrap up a story I can think of, save that oldie but goldie "It was all a dream" chestnut. Granted, I could be wrong here, and if the ending's supposed to be something else, then egg on my face, but I still maintain that the ending's pretty bad. I might end up writing about the "WTF ending" phenomena at some later point, but that's it for YBR. I was pretty set to enjoy this film, but I feel it didn't quite measure up. Granted, there were some interesting ideas and some creepy atmosphere, but it wasn't quite enough, thinks I.

BlackBoxTV

I've got a couple of movies lined up, but I wanted to take a small break from the feature length game to talk about short films. I'm a fan of horror short films, as they occasionally manage to fill me with more dread than entire feature-lengths, and in much shorter time. I'm not sure why, perhaps because short films usually pack the horror tighter, and the short duration makes it easier to sustain a thoroughly disturbing atmosphere for the entire thing. It doesn't hurt that your average short film is made by amateurs with inspiration rather than professionals who need to make a buck. 

Well, here I go with my anti-capitalism again, but nevermind, on to the subject of today's discussion, namely a webseries called BlackBoxTV. This series is a horror anthology type thing that occasionally dips into Sci-Fi, every video being an unconnected bit of horror with a similar creepy-as-hell atmosphere, the topics are ranging wildly, from life after death, to loss & forgiveness. They aren't all hits, sure, but they never quite elevate, or should I say descend, to the point of badness, at worst, they are somewhat meh. I

One of the good ones is called "Final Exit," a very unusual look on the afterlife. Well, not very unusual, in that it's more or less a flip of the symbolism, but it's not often you see that the very thing our hero have been trying to avoid is, quite literally, the thing he needs to do to stay alive. It also plays with our expectations quite nicely for that very reason. It's not the most atmospheric of them, but it's still pretty good, atmosphere-wise. It's also nice in that it acknowledges the symbolism of what's going on in-story, but that could be the lazy literary critic in me speaking.

One of their longest films, for they are all rather short, surprise surprise, is "Three Way," which is a valentines tale with a good bit of a twist, to say the least. Granted, you can see the twist at the end coming, but it's not directly obvious enough that it becomes annoying. Also, the reveal and ending was quite chilling in that low-key way that non-supernatural horror manages to do some times. Could almost be a feature length, but it also works well short.

I honestly could write a good bit about any of these, but I feel like I've spoiled enough already, go check out BlackBoxTV, and bring a really tiny bucket of popcorn.

Norwegian Horror Spotlight: Fritt Vilt 3

Alright. It's time to finish this thing off. Fritt Vilt 3 is, strictly speaking not a sequel, but a prequel Yes, that's right, we're going to the prequel well already at the third part of this thing. You can say a lot of of things about Fritt Vilt, but the concept didn't really need further elaboration or discovery. Now, I saw a preview screening of this, and I didn't really like it, which I suppose is understandable, since the rough first-draft workprint of any movie is bound to be unpolished. Let's see how it's improved.

So, for the story. Our heroes are, yet again, college-age kids, except it's the 80's now, oh joy, the 80's. Anyway, the kids seek out the hotel from the first movie, at this point infamous for the disappearance of a young boy and, shortly thereafter, his parents. Of course, this, like many other things in this movie, doesn't go anywhere, as they strike up camp somewhere away from the hotel, and get kidnapped, killed and in general mistreated by our friend, the Cold Prey Killer, striking some sort of wibbly balance between being a tragic manchild monster and a regular thrill kill monster.

Pictured: Our Antagonist. Scary fellow, isn't he?

Hoh yes, this is one of those prequels, ladies and gentlemen. The movie quite shamelessly tries to win our sympathy for the killer by giving him an over-the top abusive father. I mean, seriously, I tried to sort out the heads and tails of the logic behind the father's actions, but the only reason I can see him acting as he did was because the screenwriters needed him to be, and writing a descent into darkness is hard. That's another thing. One has to wonder exactly where the filmmakers wants the character, if it can be called that, of the Cold Prey  Killer to go. To Wit, in this movie, is he a victim continuing to strike back after his abusers are dead, or is he a  potentially preternatural devil-child who does what he does for the giggles of it? The inconsistencies seem to be pretty large, but it's possible I'm overthinking this. Wouldn't be the first time.

Group Shot!

Anyway, our main cast. I don't really know what to say about these people, except that they annoy me. They all talk in a way that may have seemed typical of the 80's, as a 90's child, I wouldn't know, but to me only makes them sound like tremendous douchebags. Also, the somewhat stilted and unnatural-feeling dialog and delivery doesn't really help. The characters are given precious little depth, and they don't really emote all that well until they start being scared, running for their lives and the like. For what it's worth, there's a good bit of running and screaming in this movie, though.

Also, this movie has a nasty habit of setting up things that ends up having no significance whatsoever. For example, it's revealed that one of the characters is packing an AG-3. Nothing inherently wrong with packing something with automatic fire capabilities in your horror movie, perhaps an odd choice when it's a given that your killer has to survive, but hey. Of course, that's assuming the gun has any impact on the plot at all. You see, except for painting the guy carrying it as a complete nutcase, and his friends surprisingly cool with the possible sociopath packing heat, the gun literally does nothing. The guy owning it gets killed off-screen, one assumes because choreographing a kill with two armed opponents was too hard, and the thing was never brought up again.

I call it Vera

A perhaps more grievous unfired Chekov's Gun is that of one character, a doey-eyed blonde who gets captured by the killer and kept locked up by his mentor-ish hillbilly friend. You see, our blonde friend survives a lot of shit, including multiple failed escape attempts, what seems to be attempted rape, and of course being locked up by a guy who could easily have played a part in Deliverance. Her fate? Finally freed for about a minute before being shanked. First time I saw this movie, I thought it felt rather pointless, although I by now realize she served a role in the plot, a very flimsy role, yes, a role that, strictly speaking wasn't necessary, but a role. Still, it doesn't sit right with me. The whole thing seems... exploitative, even for a slasher.

For all it's flaws, though, there's one bit of this movie I did not dislike. Sure, it's pretty much only this bit, since this movie at almost 100 minutes felt unbearably long  for several reasons, but still. The ending is actually kind of clever in how it wraps it all up without letting the story of the killer loose upon the world, which would make some continuity issues at best and make the first two movies utterly nonsensical at worst. That said, while I can actually recommend the first movie of this series for a good, cheesy slashfest, the second one did not improve, and by the third one, the quality degradation seriously started to show. You may have noticed that I haven't talked about the scares, and the reason why is that they're pretty much nonexistent. A few jumpscares and jumpscare fake-outs at first, and then pretty much nothing. Sure, there's danger, but no real horror, yet another sign that the creative minds behind this might need to call it a day soon.

Norwegian Horror Spotlight: Fritt Vilt 2

Next up in the Fritt Vilt (Cold Prey) trilogy, another one of those horror trilogies that only in the loosest possible sense can be called a trilogy, a rant for another day, is Fritt Vilt 2. This one follows pretty closely to the second one, and the main mission seems to be expanding on the incredibly deep Masked Ice Pick Killer mythos from Fritt Vilt 1. I'm not sure if this is a sequel that needs to be, but well, re-watching the original did lead to a surprisingly positive review, so who knows, maybe it's a repeatable success.

This is seldom the start of anything good.

Fritt Vilt 2 follows up on Fritt Vilt 1, obviously, where the shell-shocked survivor of the original stumbles into town, earning her a stay in the hospital that's a few days from shutting down, inhabited only by a bare minimum of staff, an elderly lady and a sorta creepy mature-beyond-his-words kid. Yeah, I can't see this going horribly wrong at all. Anyway, the local police recover the victims of the original movie together with the killer, who, surprising nobody, recovers from this whole "being dead" business and quickly expands his franchise of recreational murder. The fuzz proves to be inadequate for dealing with a lone mountain man armed only with melee weapons, and once again it's up to our tomboyish heroine to save the day.

You'd think this guy would be a plot element, but not quite.

The characterization in this movie isn't as strong as in the original, and it seems somewhat awkward or directionless at times, which might be just as well, considering most of the characters given much of it is killed relatively early, leaving only our heroine and Ms. Whatsherface for the final. On the topic of said survivor, she is, as I mentioned above, shell-shocked like all hell, but I feel it's overplayed a little bit. I'm no expert, but I get the impression that it's hammed a bit more than necessary, both in writing and acting, although she shapes up well in the end, which I guess is character development of a sort.

Ah, the road to recovery.

Now, on account of the killer, his backstory is expanded upon, but we're still not given much of a consequence to explain what he's about. The story clearly has some places it wishes to go, what with implying some supernatural, or possibly preternatural resistance to... well death, but it doesn't come together. Don't get me wrong, I don't have to have an answer, in fact, I'm perfectly content with not having one, but there's clearly an answer in the making in these films, but it seems to be so keen on preserving the mystery that it doesn't know what foot to stand on. Maybe I'm overreacting here, but the vagueness as to if there's anything supernatural or just someone stupidly resistant and some dodgy medical science is kind of getting to me.

When it comes to the kills, this movie doesn't bring much new, except possibly a piece of somewhat questionable logic. One of the victims gets knocked out with a fire extinguisher, and we think that's all from her. Until, that is, she wakes up in another room and gets to scream and squirm at the killer for about twenty seconds before getting bludgeoned to death with the extinguisher. Now this seems odd, since the killer, up until this point, did not seem to be of the sadistic kind. In fact, more times than not, he seemed to have a more practical outlook on the killing, like it was a 9-5 job but with more screaming. It seems inconsistent, 's all.

Kinda getting Irreversible flashbacks here.

Again, like the first one, this movie has one scene I really liked. Our heroine finds herself traveling through a dark hospital, encountering such sights as a bloody hand on the other side of the door, withdrawing back in the dark, general hospital creepiness... oh, and the killer rushing at her. Of course, at the reveal of the last bit there, we're greeted with a "it's just a dream" resolution, but it's still pretty cool, since it's dreamlike and creepy in a slightly Silent Hill-esque way before that. Of course, the scene doesn't do much, but it's a nice sneak peak into the protagonist's brain, and also, creepy as all hell.

No comment necessary.

Now, this movie isn't quite as good as the first one, I think, and the fall in characterization is probably the biggest problem, together with it, with one previously mentioned exception, not being very scary. It raised more questions than it answered, and although that's not in itself a bad thing, it does hint at a bit of an unfortunate trend. That said, I'm at least willing to give it points for having the hero actually doing a double tap of the vilain in the end, just in case, although some minus points for having the opportunity to do so without actually doing it earlier.

Thank you, godnight.

Norwegian Horror Spotlight: Fritt Vilt 1

So, ladies and gentlemen, it's time for some more Norwegian horror with your friend Slowzombie. This time, I will be having a look at Fritt Vilt, or Cold Prey, as it's known internationally. Faithful readers of this blog might remember that I had a couple of none too kind words about the movies, and while a lot of my criticisms still stand, the movies have come to be regarded somewhat higher in my mind since I first saw them. If this is just optimism or nostalgia or sheer boredom on my part, I can't tell, but I suppose we will find out.

First out is the original, Fritt Vilt I, a very Norwegian slasher, in that it follows a gang of five twentysomethings on a skiing trip in the Norwegian mountains. One of them manages to break a leg, and they shack up in a creepy abandoned hotel. Now, I'm not so sure there are all that many creepy abandoned hotels in the mountains of my motherland, but otherwise, it's pretty perfect for slashers, especially since there are some areas of the countries with precariously poor cellphone reception, in addition to being very remote, obviously. Needless to say, the creepy hotel isn't entirely abandoned, and our heroes find themselves chased by a masked maniac with an ice-axe. Fun times are had by all.

Our heroes

Now, despite the things that are kind of iffy with the film, I do mean that the characterization is way above average for a slasher. As far as I'm concerned, there's only one disposable satellite character, and although there's no high drama, one does get the impression that the characters actually have a purpose other than walking high-pressurized blood bags, which is nice. They even have a bit with the resident alpha male jerk having a bit of a sympathetic side, but that could also be viewed as a nice way to get him into trouble in a convenient time, if one were a cynical sort of person, that is.

There's pretty much no way this could turn out to be a bad idea

Now, when it comes to scares, you'd think this'd be right up my alley, what with it being in an isolated place with halfway sympathetic characters, set in a hotel even. Yes, my old horror nemesis, the hotel returns. I don't have no idea why, but I find hotels unnerving at best, and utterly terrifying at worst, or possibly best. However, the dilapidated nature of the hotel kind of takes the edge off things, for whatever reason. There's also a bit of our old friend, the jump scare and the blink-and-you'll miss it flyby, which is par for the course, this is a slasher after all.

No way, no how, no sir.

 However, there's a pretty cool horror moment where the blonde, Ingunn goes to take a shower , but notices something, and, not knowing the basic rules of slasher movies, poor thing, goes to investigate. Of course, the "something" is the killer, and he's out to do some killing. I don't really like the resolution of this scene, but the buildup is pretty cool. The foot shot is rather unusual, and I don't know why I find it so fascinating. Had I shared certain tastes with Mr. Tarantino, it would have made sense, but I chalk it up to it being somewhat unusual for a slasher to try to build tension like that. Oh, and surprising nobody, the blond girl dies first.

Pictured: The foot in question. Can you feel the tension?

On the topic of scenes, there's also one surprisingly funny one playing around with some tried but true slasher tropes and a can of something red. It's always a bit depressing when horror movie writers understand comedy better than so called "comedy" writers, but I won't get into a rant about my least favorite writer/directors right now. What I will say, though, is that it makes it a bit jarring when the next scene with blood, which is the very next one has blood that looks a bit less than blood than the canned goods, or maybe that's just my Hollywood-addled mind.

Badum-tsh

The biggest problem with this movie is probably the villain. The killer has no name, and pretty much no personality past the little backstory he's given, and the backstory is that particular kind of vague that doesn't build up around the menace of the villain as much as it raises so many questions as to distract from the horror, a problem I seem to remember persisting  into the sequel. The killer has precious little personality or uniqueness, even for a masked killer, which is a shame, because the characterization otherwise is, as mentioned before, pretty good. It's to the point that I'd almost be more interested in some weird 127 hours-esque scenario where the only killer is the environment. Still, slashers gonna slash, and all that. Oh, and may I add that a slasher movie using "All My Friends Are Dead" by Turbonegro for the closing credits is kind of clever.

Play us off, Hank.

This certainly is going to be a Thing

So, another horror sequel is in the works, well, to be precise, a prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing. This time following the decline into paranoid murder in the Norwegian camp our heroes from the original does visit at some point after being visited by a stir-crazy Norwegian. Those who accompanied me through my Very Carpenter Christmas may recall that I was less than impressed by the ... uh... Norwegian from that movie, but it looks like horrible accents won't be this movie's problem, since they've gotten themselves some actually Norwegian actors, among them Trond Espen Seim, who fans of Norwegian cinema no doubt will recognize as professional PI and trainwreck Varg Veum.

That isn't to say this looks to be a particularly Norwegian affair, no sir. The main character seems to be Kate Lloyd, played by none other than Mary Elizabeth Winstead, of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World fame. Kate heads a team of Americans, surprise surprise, who's sent to have a look at what these cheese-eaters have found in the ice, the eponymous thing, of course. Now, as much as I do like Winstead, I have to wonder, does all American movies have to feature an American main character? I mean, I can see the appeal of it,  but you'd think it wouldn't be necessarily. Still, it's not like it messes with canon to any mentionable degree, so I guess it could be worse.

On that topic, though, I'm actually a bit excited for this movie, and I hope they do something exciting with it. From the look of things, they're running with the paranoia angle on this one too, although the trailer makes it look a good bit more action-y. I'm a little bit dubious about trusting trailers, though. Well, judge for yourselves.