Horror

The Shining Review

November 18, 2016 by JD Hansel

MINOR SPOILERS

One of the tasks I’ve taken up recently is familiarizing myself with more classic horror cinema. I’m usually not the type to enjoy being anxious and afraid, so it’s taken me a while to see the classics of this genre. Fortunately, The Shining is an easy one for me to appreciate. While it is scary, it’s not all about jump scares and other cheap tricks – it’s classy, as one would expect from Kubrick. It’s fun, it’s clever, it’s thought-provoking, it’s suspenseful, and it’s memorable. Even though it may not have totally sucked me in, I must say that I was consistently impressed with the cinematography, the editing, the acting, and the fascinating story. I think that Scatman Crothers’ character (Dick Hallorann) could have been a little less creepy, because it’s very important that the audience likes this character, but I still rooted for him at the appropriate time. It’s not entirely clear to me what everything in the movie meant exactly – and I do think some parts are meant to be open-ended – but that doesn’t affect the story too much.

It’s not my favorite film, but it’s one of my favorite Kubrick films, and I highly recommend it come next Halloween – just don’t expect it to be anything like the book . . . .

The Birds Review

July 13, 2016 by JD Hansel

With High Anxiety being my favorite Mel Brooks film, one would expect that I would be well-versed in the works of Alfred Hitchcock. Quite contrarily, after watching Strangers on a Train for a film history class I took a few years ago, I was turned off by Hitchcock. I felt like whenever he was trying to have me waiting in suspense, I found myself just waiting. I put off watching his films for another day, simply because I didn’t feel like being bored, but I eventually felt like I may have been missing out on some important films. I decided to give him another go, trying out one of the films he’s best known for, if not the film he’s best known for, The Birds.

While I had a little bit of a hard time getting into it at first (since its pace is almost annoyingly slow at times), I was quickly impressed more than I thought I would be by the characters and dialogue. The conversations that the characters had when they weren’t dealing with a bird attack were actually very interesting for the most part, and it’s always good when character interactions are enough to keep me interested. Then, during the now-cliché panicked bar scene – that scene in all the disaster movies with the flustered witness of the attack, the bartender who tries to keep things under control, the skeptic who happens to be an expert on the subject, and the lunatic who believes it’s the end of the world – I was delighted by how Hitchcock had perfected this kind of set-up. The addition of the panicky mother made the scenes in the bar that much better.

Oh, and I suppose the scary elements are sort of an important part of this film, being its mark on the history of cinema and all, so I’ll briefly say that I liked them. The scary scenes weren’t exceptionally terrifying in the sense I’m used to, but maybe that’s a good thing. I despise jump scares, so it’s nice that Hitchcock did a good job at keeping me on the edge of my seat and fearing for the well-being of the characters I’d come to really like, all without relying on too many cheap gimmicks. While the ending somehow manages to be both gripping and underwhelming at the same time, making for a movie experience that feels a little awkward, I think that this picture is nicely crafted work of cinema that’s creative, fascinating, and supplies just the kind of experience it needs to to make it into the film history books.

Phantom of the Paradise Review

May 23, 2016 by JD Hansel

Whoops. I only meant to watch the first few minutes of the movie before going to bed, so I wonder, how did I end up staying awake into the middle of the night to finish it? Oops. I meant to return it to the library after I watched it, and yet somehow it stayed in my computer with PowerDVD running different scenes from it everyday, which I accidentally kept watching. Oh, poopy – I had other music I meant to listen to, so why have I been listening to this soundtrack so much over the past month? Uh oh, it looks like a Blu-Ray copy of this movie somehow became a priority on my birthday wishlist, even though I had more important needs than another Blu-Ray for my collection. Crap! I wasn’t supposed to be happy that I actually got the Blu-Ray for my birthday instead of an external hard drive!

And to think, horror isn’t really a genre I go for, so I wasn’t even supposed to like this very much. Whoops-a-daisy. By gosh, it sure is amazing what mistakes can be made because of something nearly flawless.

But seriously folks, I can see the movie’s mistakes. I see the inconsistency in the camera quality, and the continuity errors with the Phantom’s makeup. I can tell that the editing isn’t always entirely professional, like when it accidentally indicates that Phoenix has noticed a gun, even though she hasn’t. Somehow, I find these little blemishes to make the movie a little more human, and to make it all the more fun. It is no surprise that this is a ’70s cult classic. It’s a movie I’ve been meaning to see for a while since Paul Williams is always talking about it, and I’m a big fan of his, but I just wish I’d realized that I needed to see it sooner so I could immediately start preaching the good new of Phantom of the Paradise to all the world. I can’t help but feel as though this ignorance was a big mistake on my part.

Whoops.

The Witches Review

October 31, 2015 by JD Hansel

Freaking Roald Dahl.

This article could be focused on any of a few potential rants about this writer. It is no secret that children’s authors always seem to end up being very . . . difficult people (for lack of a better term), and in a way, Dahl was to Henson what Travers was to Disney. I could just give Dahl a hard time for being a pain to poor Jim, but that’s not good for a review. I could instead choose the more obvious rant about how awful it is to make a profession out of terrifying children, but the problem with that is simply that children sometimes like to be scared. I think it was Walt Disney who said, when accused of making the villains in his animated films to scary, that children enjoy it if they can peek through their parents’ fingers. For this reason, I am not against putting a good scare in a children’s film.

My bone to pick with Dahl is a problem with a particular type of scare that is not necessarily limited to stories for children (although that is the genre in which it’s most common): The Awkward Terror. The Awkward Terror is what I call those moments when there is a misunderstanding concerning the way one should respond to a bad scenario, but rather than making it into awkward comedy, it’s played as horror. Don’t get me wrong – discomfort has an important place in storytelling: when done in comedy, it leads to the awkward realization that the character forgot to wear pants, and when done in drama, it leads to a good scare when the shadow of a man with a knife is on the shower curtain. However, when an uncomfortably awkward situation (one in which people can’t figure out how to respond appropriately) meets the uncomfortably chilling spook, I have found that the different types of enjoyment that come from these discomforts cancel each other out, leaving me only uncomfortable with no element of fun.

Now it’s example time. In an episode of R. L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour, a boy finds himself in a circus tent dressed as a clown, unable to remove his makeup or attire. As several other clowns surround the boy (who has always had a fear of clowns) he finds his parents there, and rather than displaying the appropriate response of feeling bad for him, they gleefully take off their human disguise to reveal that the boy and his family have always been members of the clown species. This is terribly awkward as there is no comprehensible response to someone realizing he’s turned into a clown, just as I would not know how to react if someone standing in front of me were to suddenly become a fruit. There is no reaction to such a bizarre, unnatural phenomenon, and one would be foolish to expect people to enjoy seeing a spectacle like someone turning into a fruit.

Roald Dahl is stupid enough to turn someone into a fruit. Not in The Witches, of course, but in his more famous book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in which Violet memorably becomes a giant blueberry. If everyone in the scene responded with sheer terror and tried to save her right away, perhaps the scene could have worked better, but the way people just stand there confusedly as Wonka remains calm and the Oompa Loompas sing in a circle around her makes me squeamish to this day. Not in a fun, spooky way – in a way that’s just nauseating. This is the kind of thing Dahl does often that rubs me the wrong way, so I should have known I would dislike the film adaptation of his book that’s practically an ode to the Awkward Terror, The Witches.

Imagine if a whole movie was centered around something as awkward as a person turning into a fruit, but instead of being in a setting of fantasy (in which it might almost be permissible), it’s set in a realistic, normal, everyday place. That is what Witches is all about: a boy goes to a hotel where he is turned into a mouse. When different characters see these mice that used to be the boys they loved, their reactions are inevitably incorrect no matter what they are since there cannot be a realistic reaction to such an intangible scenario, which is a clear sign that this whole concept should have been avoided altogether. It makes the entire film both uncomfortable and unbelievable, without offering a strong plot, strong characters, strong dialogue, or strong morals to make up for it.

To get to the point of this review, the film is a waste of time. It seems that there are some Henson productions that Muppet fans joke about because of how odd they are, and others that we simply do not address. Although this is the last film for which Henson was a producer of any sort, he’d had so little involvement in the story that he couldn’t save it, so we Henson fans honestly never give it as much thought as we give The Jim Henson Hour, or even his failed Little Mermaid series. I cannot fathom how anyone could enjoy a film so tedious that it doesn’t get to its inciting incident until halfway through the running time, so dull that it makes Rowan Atkinson’s character a bore, and so idiotic in theme that I cannot believe it was ever released. If this flick is watched for any reason, it should be watched for the puppetry, effects, and other excellent elements of the visual style that make this film wickedly impressive as visual art (which is what earned the film as many stars as I’ve given it). While critics may praise it on the grounds that it will give children quite a scare, I berate it because it offers a big scare instead of a good scare. If a movie wants to scare people, it should make sure the emotion it’s grabbing is fear, not disgust.

Edward Scissorhands Review

October 22, 2015 by JD Hansel

Ah, now this is a movie for Halloween season. It’s a classic tale of a man-made monster, and like most good monster stories, it shows us that the real monsters are always people. Naturally, I was very excited about seeing this movie, and I had high hopes because it’s a Tim Burton film. Burton was, visually speaking, the best director out there (until he abused his CG privileges), and Edward Scissorhands is as gorgeous as one could hope. Between the unique setting, the strong characters, the delightful soundtrack, and the perfect cast, it really has an atmosphere of its own, making it entirely unforgettable. I was pleased by the superb performance by Johnny Depp, and thrilled to see Vincent Price in the role he was born to play. Everything is just for the story being told.

If only the story itself were better, this would be an excellent motion picture. Alas, the story is almost entirely lacking in conflict or plot (a.k.a. “story”) for the first half. It takes a very long time to get going, and once it does, it’s rather cliché and predictable. The pace is absurdly slow for much of the film, with only some scenes toward the end feeling particularly exciting, and the ending is not entirely satisfactory. However, we do see the main villain defeated, and we do learn the lesson that we all knew from the get-go we were going to learn, so I suppose the movie offered everything it promised. Because of the issues with the screenplay, however, it just didn’t offer everything I would have wanted.

Carrie (2013) Review

July 17, 2015 by JD Hansel

I have extremely high standards for the handling of this particular story, even though I haven’t read the book, or even seen the 1976 classic. What I have seen is a theatrical production of the musical based on the book, which was performed a couple years ago at a nearby community college. That performance was one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and it is that show, along with the Broadway production of The Lion King and the StarKid musical Twisted, which makes me fear that I may never be moved by a film in the way I have been moved by musicals on stage. I now must compare a film with a rating of 48% on Rotten Tomatoes with one of the most moving moments of my life.

Amazingly, this movie was just what the story needed.

In all honesty, here is what went through my mind as I watched it: from the moment Carrie drops into her school’s swimming pool, we are plunged into a pool of fiery pressure, where we must quietly wade as the gates of Hell creak in the distance. We know it’s only a matter of time before Hell breaks loose, so we watch anxiously to see which flame will be the one to push open the gates, allowing the fire to consume us all. But that’s not the scary part; the horror is in our powerlessness to do a thing about it.

So what is this fire? That’s simple.

High school.

I have absolutely no interest in the average horror film, which tries to make what’s on the screen terrifying. I have no patience for a film that flashes scary images on screen or makes me anxious about a fictitious terror. (I already have to deal with plenty of fear in my real life, so I don’t need anymore of it in my entertainment unless it’s really worth it.) What excites me is a film that makes me detest reality and fear life itself. To do this, one must capture the essence of powerlessness, and high school is the perfect setting for achieving such a thing. The scenes that show the inadequacy of the school principal, the misguided punishments enforced by the gym teacher, the subtle mockery provided by the English teacher, and the overall inability of the school system to handle abused students are the ones that have a lasting sting and send shivers.

The scenes with Carrie’s mother truly strike fear and rage into my heart, since I know that similar households could easily exist perpetually without anyone ever raising an eyebrow. The portrayal of the mother, in my view, is spot on, making me cringe and nearly scream. It is that particular character that stirred me up in a way few other characters in film have before, particularly with her relentless superstitious attribution, forcing the world to meet her particular worldview just so that she can process it. That is perhaps the most despicable element of religion, and it brings to mind the philosophical question of Sam Harris’, “If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?” The line in this movie that really sticks out to me is when Carrie retorts some of her mother’s nonsense by saying, “That’s not even in the Bible! It doesn’t say that anywhere!” There are thousands, or maybe millions, who similarly display vehement dedication to their own imaginary edition of the Bible that happens to conform perfectly to their worldview, and this film is a delightfully horrifying reminder.

This story can be, when done right, a masterpiece in cynicism and disgust. I think it ought to be contrasted to Disney’s Tomorrowland, largely because Carrie‘s strength is Tomorrowland‘s weakness – the resemblance to reality. When one considers the much beloved 1976 Carrie movie, which I must confess I analyze based on the trailer alone, it seems to have a surreal, theatrical, otherworldly style. Generally, this is the style I greatly prefer in film, and I think that the ’70s film has shots in it with an an outstandingly fantastic look . . . just not for this story. I can’t look at a very ’70s movie about a girl with a goofy accent and take it seriously, especially if it goes so far as to cast John Travolta as the highschool hunk, which just sounds like a parody of ’70s movies (although casting Ansel Elgort may be the modern equivalent). Frankly, the trailer to the 1976 film makes me laugh, which is exactly what should not happen. This story must be portrayed as close to reality as possible, which does not become the issue it did with Tomorrowland since it’s so obviously a fantasy story.

The movie has the same Tomorrowland-like goal of shouting its message to the world, but it does so by bluntly displaying our society’s detestable ugliness. This, in turn, makes it beautiful. As a visual experience, it’s just fine (even though it’s not my style). As a story though, it is stunningly gorgeous, with a build up that screeches with the scraping of Hell’s gates pushing against the floor in fractions of a centimeter, expelling “nails on a blackboard” from the phrasebook, only to reach an immensely satisfying conclusion to drive its point home. It boldly declares to everyone, “Your world is so miserably broken that only so much as one little tweak to the laws of nature could end hundreds of lives and destroy cities.

“Fix it.”