Friday the 13th

Its Friday the 13th again and that means its time to don your favorite hockey mask and go on a murderous rampage, killing any and all fun-loving teens you find.

Being that it's Friday the 13th, the recent films Wolf Creek and Hostel have got me thinking about Occidental Horror. I'm excluding Asian films (for now) because they don't share a lineage with horror from the US, Europe, and Australia. I'd like to not stick to Occidental countries but we seem to share most of our horror themes.

And that is what horror is all about... a population's shared fears.

I'm only going to lump the first three decades of horror films because, from 1910 up through the 1940s, most films dealt with human abominations functioning within society.

The Golem (1915)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919)
Nosferatu (1922)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
Dracula 1931)
Frankenstein (1931)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
The Mummy (1932)
The Invisible Man (1933)
The Wolf Man (1941)

The films of the 50s, with the Cold War and giant leaps in technology, were all about Alien-Invasions-As-A-Metaphor-For-Communism and Science-Backfires-and-Creates-A-Monster-That-Destroys-Humanity.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
The Thing From Another World (1951)
The War of the Worlds (1953)
The Quatermass Experiment (1955)
It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955)
Invasion of The Body Snatchers (1956)
It! The Terror From Beyond Space (1958)
The Fly (1958)

Enter the 60's with Women's Lib, Mainstream Psychopaths, Thalidomide, and the end of the Production Code of America. The reaction to Women's Lib brought us the whole 'bad-girl' element (Janet Leigh as Marion Crane being the poster girl). Psychopaths, fronted by winners like Eddy Gein and Charley Manson, introduced maniacs into horror films. While this laid the groundwork for the coming slasher flicks, it directly influenced the likes of Roger Corman and his "Splatter Fests". Thalidomide made us take note of all that could go wrong with human biology. We now understood that two arms and two legs weren't a given and that, sometimes, dead and buried doesn't mean gone forever.

Psycho (1960)
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962)
The Birds (1963)
Blood Feast (1963)
Repulsion (1965)
Wait Until Dark (1967)
The Devil Rides out (1968)
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Sexual and cultural revolution, the introduction of birth control, Nixon, Nam, everybody cool dying from drug overdoses, and a new crop of adults that were kids during Manson and Thalidomide... in the 70s, we were our own worst enemy. Be it our faith, our children, our classmates, our parents, or our ability to reproduce... the focus was inward. It wasn't the threat of nuclear annihilation from another country, it was our own government. It wasn't a complete stranger, it was family.

The Exorcist (1972)
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Jaws (1975)
Carrie (1976)
The Omen (1976)
Suspiria (1977)
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
The Hills Have Eyes (1978)
Halloween (1978)
Alien (1979)
The Brood (1979)
Phantasm (1979)

The narcissism of the 80s made us feel invincible and, as a result, afraid to get hurt. It didn't matter what was doing us in or why, only thing that mattered was that you were about to die. Someone or something wanted you dead and would stalk you to the ends of the Earth. There was no escape.

The 80s also marks a shift in the way film reacts to its audience. Toward the end of the 70s, special effects technology took off and audiences wanted more. Some 80s films were rehashes of plots and themes from previous decades, just with more flare and gore than ever before. Also, some people just couldn't be scared so filmmakers started playing to that audience. Enter the 'campy' horror flick.

The Shining (1980)
Friday the 13th (1980)
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
The Thing (1982)
The Evil Dead (1982)
Poltergeist (1982)
Videodrome (1983)
Children of the Corn (1984)
Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
The Toxic Avenger (1985)
Reanimator (1985)
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
Hellraiser (1987)
The Evil Dead 2 (1987)
Bad Taste (1987)
Child's Play (1988)

There are four sides to the 90s. On one side was the endless stream of sequels-to-hit films from the 70s and 80s. On the next side is the rise of the PG-13 (gore-less and less intense) horror film. The third side is self-aware and makes fun of it's own conventions. The last side is the Gen-X stamp on the horror genre... the terror of a killing spree is short-lived and fairly unintelligent, but a serial killer is methodical and can work for years.

Silence of The Lambs (1991)
Candyman (1992)
Dead Alive (1992)
Kalifornia (1993)
Se7en (1995)
Copycat (1995)
Demon Knight (1995)
Bordello of Blood (1996)
The Frighteners (1996)
Scream (1996)
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
Blair Witch Project (1999)
The Sixth Sense (1999)

In the 00s, horror filmmakers almost seem to be out of ideas. We've seen a lot of the reissuing of older material and the importing of horror from eastern countries, most notably China and Japan. Some films, however, do seem to point toward horror's future. The immerging trend revolves around torture. The vic will still die, but the death will be slow and the pain will be great.

Also, as a continuation of the self-referential films of the late 90s, victims are becoming smarter. It's nothing new that someone will survive the onslaught and banish the evil (Halloween, any Nightmare on Elm Street, any Friday the 13th, the Scream trilogy), but these new, smart, vics are escaping, maybe getting a little bit of revenge, but failing to banish the evil completely.

Final Destination (2000)
Jason X (2001)
Resident Evil (2002)
28 Days Later (2002)
The Ring (2002)
High Tension (2003)
Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Saw (2004)
The Amityville Horror (2005)
The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)
Wolf Creek (2005)
Hostel (2005)

The thought that sparked this little riff was of horror's immediate future. What's next? Do we extend out from Saw and Hostel to a place where people are forced to hurt others? Or do we move from High Tension and Wolf Creek to a place where it doesn't matter how smart you are, you are fated to die a screaming death? What scares people these days? Will the next step be political? Is horror going to head off in a The Man in the High Castle or 1984 direction? Maybe some bizarre equilibrium between Fight Club, Battle Royale, and Death Race 2000 where people are so dissatisfied with their lives that they willingly enter televised kill-or-be-killed last-man-standing competitions that take place in a convienently-empty cul-de-sac in a posh neighborhood?

Odd... that sounds, suprisingly, like the plot to Series 7: The Contenders (pops).

The First Batch From '06

The Producers
It was a movie. Then it was a musical. Now it's a movie again, but not a movie about the movie - it's a movie about the musical. I suspect it will soon be a documentary about the movie of the musical or even a documentary about the transition from movie to movie with a brief musical interlude.
It's all so very greedy.

Really, my only problem with this film is Matthew Broderick. Nathan Lane makes Bialystock his own. It's clear they wanted Lane to look like Zero Mostel but he didn't *just* do Zero, he made it his own. Broderick, on the other hand, spent the entire movie doing Gene Wilder and failing miserably. There's a good reason Gene Wilder is 'the one and only' Gene Wilder.

Also, Broderick is stiff in this roll. Yes, I understand that he plays an uptight accountant and that Bloom will never be loosey-goosey, but Broderick looked like he had a metal rod for a spine during the dance numbers. Even at the end, once he's discovered fun and had sex with Uma Thurman (Ulla), he is still stiff as a board.

I give concession to the fact that he is dancing next to Nathan Lane and anyone would look bad next to Nathan Lane, but Broderick's brand of stiff doesn't even come off as anxious or petrified (a la Wilder's 1968 performance)... the man just can't dance with grace. You can almost see him moving his lips while he counts the steps.

If you REALLY wanted to see the Broadway show but couldn't finagle tickets... this, according to my mother, is a fine substitution. For the record: She also thinks Matthew Broderick did a "wonderful job."


The Ringer
I don't really know what I was expecting when I went to see this one. Part of me thought they would cop out and spend 90 min making fun of the disabled cast, but knowing that The Ringer has the blessing of the Special Olympics, part of me hoped they would turn it around and have Knoxville be the butt of most jokes.
That latter was the case.

This film does a fantastic job of making sure EVERYONE is portrayed as a person. In fact, the humor in this film doesn't linger on the differences between Knoxville and the Olympians. As soon as Knoxville is in the Olympic dorms it becomes an ensemble comedy. And, damnnit, this movie is funny.

It's not going to go down in history as one of the greats but, most will agree, it's funnier than Club Dread (albeit wit fewer titties).


Fun with Dick & Jane
It's a formulaic remake and an adultish vehicle for Jim Carrey.
He and Tea Leoni play well off of each other, but there isn't anything special in their chemistry (the robbery scene with the funny voices is pretty good).
This movie does make a solid jab at the recent Employee Pension Theft scandals. Although, they set the movie in the mid 90's so they could make lots of 'ironic' jokes about how the dirty crook from AmeriBank (the company in this movie) is going to go be a VP at Enron.
meh.


Wolf Creek
It takes WAY to long for stuff to go wrong. There is a romantic subplot that doesn't need to be and a bunch of character building that is wasted on a slasher flick.

I have to give credit to the three types of heroes/victims depicted in this movie. No one is embarrassingly stupid, though one girl can't stop panicking and it, of course, gets her killed.

Once she gets rolling, Wolf Creek does okay. There are some don't-run-upstairs moments but, overall, a reasonably solid horror flick.


Bloodrayne
I've said it before and I'll say it again...
Fuck Uwe Boll!
Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, and Michelle Rodriguez... who did you piss off that this is the only work you could get? If your agent told you to align yourself with Uwe Boll before he 'blew up'... stab your agent in the eye with a spent Sharpie, kick his son in the balls, fire his ass, and move back to Nebraska. You're not allowed to act anymore.

Guinevere Turner... how the hell were you involved in writting the screenplay for American Psycho!?! The only thing worse than Uwe Boll's directing was the writting. Be ashamed.

I leave you with a sign of the apocalypse... Uwe Boll's next film.
I know they aren't A-list, but, how the hell is Uwe Boll getting actors, of even this quality, to make his movies?!?

In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (pops)


Hostle
Another horror film that takes days to get to the horror.
The first act is over 45 minutes long.
This film isn't so much about people getting hacked up as it is about people getting tortured before they get hacked up.
Hostel isn't the great film that people are saying it is. This is the first horror flick that uses the world's hatred for Americans as a plotpoint. That, and Tarantino's name, are why people are shitting themselves over this movie.
It's good, but it's nothing to write home about.


Grandma's Boy
By all accounts, this movie should have sucked HARD.
It, as I'm sure you've inferred, doesn't.
I think this is the second crude-sex-comedy-for-adults (the first being The 40-Year Old Virgin). If you liked T40YOV, then you will probably dig G'sB. If you grew up with the Happy Madison stuff... you will also probably enjoy yourself.
This is pot jokes for the 30+ crowd.

Rumor Has It
I love the premise for this movie (a woman discovers that her family was the basis for The Graduate). It's too bad such a great premise only functions as a catalyst for a mediocre romantic comedy.

Some of the laughs are solid and the use of music for comedic effect is superb, but the romance stuff and the plot stuff are really lame.