Tag Archives: Horror

Movie Review: Train to Busan

Oh the movies and their zombies. From way back in the pre-code era with Bela Lugosi starring in White Zombie and transformed forever by George A Romero with Night of the Living Dead, the zombie has been a favorite for films. In more recent decades the sub-genre has exploded internationally and now available for rent and purchase via iTunes and other portals from South Korea comes Train to Buson.

I was quite lucky and in that I did not watch this on my home television but rather I got to see it in the 46 seat micro-theater Digital Gym here in San Diego and if you get the chance to see this properly in a theater you should leap at it. (If you are in San Diego it plays through Thursday January 13th.)

The story is about a father, Soek Woo (Played by Yoo Gong) and estranged ten year old daughter Su-an. (I am guessing at her age as I don’t remember if that specified it in the film even though it opens on her birthday.) He is the typical hard working corporate ladder climbing parent who has let the career displace family and Su-an desperately want nothing more for her birthday than to take the train to Busan and see her mother, who is also estranged the father. The zombie outbreak erupts and their journey becomes one of survival.

For long time zombie fans, these are more akin to 28 Days Later, fast moving and fast transformation that Romero’s slow implacable marchers.

This film is no low budget knock-off affair. The actors, from the leads down to the smallest supports, were selected with care and fit perfectly into their parts. The director makes excellent use of the tight and closed confines of the setting to created a situation of terror, dread, and claustrophobia. The writers manages the often difficult task of upping the stake continually without either becoming predictable or shattering disbelief by racing too far too quickly. The film is bright and full of colors but retains an essential darkness born of the dread and danger while never slipping into cynicism.

Aside from a few fairly minor editorial quibbles, like submarine films I think this would have greatly benefited from no shots outside the train and never allowing the viewers a moment of relief from the claustrophobia, this movie works beautifully. It was horrific, exciting, engaging, and by the end deeply touching, go see it if you can, rent if you must.

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Revisiting John Carpenter’s They Live

Released in 1988, towards the end of Reagan’s second term, They Live is a film that I often jest represents the moment in time when John Carpenter lost his talent. There has not been a Carpenter film that followed where I did not feel robbed of my money and time for having viewed it, while before They Live there are several movies that I enjoy repeated showings.

HBO is currently showing They Live and through the gift of streaming I rewatched the movie to see if I had been too harsh in my earlier appraisal or if time would confirm my conclusions.

The film still does not work. The front half of the movie works, mostly, and the second half is a jumble of confused and clichéd scenes. The concepts and ideas behind this movie are strong, powerful, premises which are applicable today as they were in the late 1980s. The film has a viewpoint critiquing rampant capitalism, consumerism, and economic inequality. Granted the handling of this message is heavy-handed, no one can accuse Carpenter of subtlety, and setting aside if you agree or disagree it is good to see a film that takes a stand and a viewpoint. It is better to have something to say than to simply fill the screen with riotous color and explosions such as any Michael Bay franchise flick. There are better and slyer critiques on these themes, you need look no further than the original RoboCop for that, but the failure of They Live is not the stand it takes but the technique by which it takes them.

Most glaring is that the film  establishes itself with a slow pace that reveals bit by bit menacing dread but then suddenly it changes into an action film that requires absurd coincidences and idiotic enemies to reach even a marginal resolution.

How does Gilbert find the boys in their hotel? How does Holly find the resistance? Why didn’t the police secure the parameter before assault the resistance? Why is the door leading to the most important device in the enemy’s possession unlocked?

None of this makes any sense.

The problems only go deeper when you try to unravel the world building. Listening to the audio commentary by Carpenter on his film Prince of Darkness illuminated for me that Carpenter doesn’t do backstory or world building and this is a great flaw for his scripts. If the aliens are here to ravish our world of wealth, then why are so many of them in common shops and stores, working as tellers in banks or regular patrol officers?

It makes even less sense the more you try to work out exactly how this functions. This movie is a series of ideas, many of them powerful, but slapped together in a manner that undercuts all of them.

I would love to see a real remake of this. Not a quick cash grab that has been done to other Carpenter properties, yes I am looking you The Fog. This could be a franchise starter. The issues, a secret alien subversion of our world, our economics, our lives, is too big for one movie. This could be a great dystopia series for adults instead of teenagers.

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Failures with Frankenstein

From what I have seen a lot of film Frankenstein adaptations repeat the same flaw in bringing the material to the screen. It doesn’t matter if they are bring a fresh adaptation of the Shelley’s classic novel or a new take on her timeless story this same fault continually reappears -too much time spent detailing why Frankenstein is obsessed.

Look, Frankenstein is one of the best know pieces of fantastic fiction and people who go to a movie with Frankenstein in the title know what they are going to get; a scientist, possibly mad, an artificially created man, possibly monstrous or possibly sympathetic, and a tale of human hubris. Doctor Frankenstein obsessed with creating life is a given, it’s right there on the tin.

Despite that fact that everyone in the audience already knows this  often these films will still spend 30 minutes, 40 minutes, or even more stepping us through the doctor’s backstory, time that the audience will generally better spend getting a refill on their popcorn or necking.

As a counter example take a look at James Whale’s 1931 film, the Universal Classic that launched Karloff into stardom. The movie hits the ground running, our hero is already robbing fresh graves and cutting down the corpses of criminals, he’s  possessed by the vision and the knowledge to do it, we’re coming it just before the moment of creation. Bang! That’s starting a story. We aren’t wasting acts and pages on the doctor’s relationship with his mother or whoever else’s death it is that provoked his obsession. (Which often looks like an overreaction. I now tend to think of Rocket’s line from Guardians of the Galaxy ‘Everyone’s got dead people!’ We have all lost loved ones, that usually isn’t enough to spur mad genius.)

The better stories and adaptations leave the backstory in the back, referring only to the bits that we have to have and nearly always then in a conversation or a flashback. (Though the flashback is another device that gets overused, much like a prolog.)

When I showed my hubris and tackled a Frankenstein tale I started at the moment of epiphany when the character  realized it could be done. Granted, it is a little earlier than Whale’s work, but I had my reasons. (That has sold and when I have a publication date I’ll let everyone know.)

The point is backstory is important, but heaven’s sake it is not story, in film and in prose please skip it and cut the action.

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Happy Holidays

Whatever holiday you may or may not celebreate/observe this time of year. I hope it is everything you want it to be. Mine is quite nice and I am happy with life.

So the themed reviews are done and here’s is the source of the theme. Each film reviewed was mentioned in the following song.

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Themed Review: Night of the Demon

Depending on the country where you saw this movie, if you have seen it, the title may have been Curse of the Demon.

Dana Andrews plays Dr. John Holden and American psychiatrist and expert in cults who is traveling to England in order to help a friend de-bunk a local witches cult led by Julian Karswell, plays with malevolent charm by Niall MacGinnis. When Holden arrives he discovers that his friend has died in an auto accident that few see as mysterious save for his friends niece, Joanna played by Peggy Cummins. Who is certain that Karswell and the cult are responsible. Holden, a good and devote skeptic, refuses to believe in hocus-pocus and approaches the issue as a rationalist. Karswell, insistent that he and his followers be left alone claims to have placed a death curse on Holden and the battle of wills between the two men starts.

While I do not yet have a copy of Night of The Demon in my library I do hope to add it soon. I recently re-watched it on the horror streaming service Shudder and the film still plays quite well. The movie was directed by Jacques Tourneur who also directed the classic genre feature Cat People. Turneur wanted to make this film also an ambiguous one where the exact nature of the threat could be seen as either psychological and demonic but he was overruled by the producers and the threat’s nature is fairly explicit from the opening reel.

This is not a great film, but it works and is well worth at least one viewing.

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Themed Review: Doctor X

Okay, I want to get this out there straight away, I do not think that this movie belongs on this listing. Oh lots of people think that it’s part of the secret theme but I disagree. However in the spirit of inclusiveness I will write a few brief words about this oddball movie.

Doctor X is a pre-code thriller/horror/sf/comedy movie and it works about as well as a mash up of such disparate genres can be expected to function. It star Lionel Atwell, who also appears in one of my favorite of the classic Universal Frankenstein film, Son of Frankenstein. It also stars Fay Wray of King Kong fame. This is a film that deals with murder, prostitution, and even cannibalism. Since it was made before rigid enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code it is more daring than many classic films but is rather tame by modern conventions.

The monster important take away from this film is that a not point in it does the titular Doctor X create a person or any sort of creature. He does create synthetic flesh with which he creates artificial limbs and masks, but not living, independent beings.

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Themed Review: It Came From Outer Space

1953’s It Came From Outer Space could have been a very low brow affair. Alien invasion stories in the paranoid 1950s were often thinly disguised expressions of the cold war and reaction to the recent World War. However Universal contacted celebrated author Ray Bradbury to help them make this SF film and with his touches and concepts the story became something richer and something more personal.

Directed in 3D by jack Arnold who also helmed The Creature From the Black Lagoon for Universal, It Came From Outer Space is a story of first contact, the gross prejudices humans carry around with them and the hope that we can become something better than ourselves.

I have the good fortune to see this movie for the first time on the big screen. back in the 1980’s the Ken Theater was a revival house, playing a different double feature every night with occasional film festivals. One weekend evening I rode the bus out to the theater and watched this movie and Creature From The Black lagoon, both projected in 3-D. That was a treat. The 3-D effect worked flawlessly, Arnold shows real restraint in its application with very little of the ‘it’s coming right at me!’ shots, and both films had strong script performed by competent actors.

I recently got a copy on DVD. Not on the big screen, not in 3-D, but still a fine film and look forward to sharing it with people who have not seen it before.

 

 

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Well, This Was Kind of Cool

Recently I posted an essay where I broke down the classic film Alien into a five-act structure. Now I am sure that Dan O’Bannon likely thought in three acts, but acts of artificial anyway. The common audience member isn’t looking at the story as it unfolds and trying to work out a structure, ideally they are swept away by the characters and events, forgetting that it is even fiction. However as a writer I am always taking plots apart to see how they work or did not work. (I think you can learn a lot from a failed story if you can work out why it failed.) So the essay was just me sharing my thoughts on act structures and using Alien as an example to illustrate my ideas.

Now, I am also a member of the local chapter of the Horror Writers Association. We have productive meetings each month and I have met some rather cool people there. One of the members has asked that I give a presentation on using an act structure in novel writing. I’m excited by the prospect. I already use both three and five act structure when I plot out a novel and sometimes ever for short stories. Putting it down in a formal presentation would be helpful to me and hopefully helpful to whoever is present when I give it.

Time to get proficient at PowerPoint

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What Do You Call this Creature?

This is a topic I have visited before and for those who have experienced the earlier ranting you can skip this post.

Alien and images are copyrights of 20th Century Fox

Alien and images are copyrights of 20th Century Fox

I saw the film Alien on its initial theatrical release. It is a movie of stunning power and with a tremendous legacy. To this day people are still copying the plot and making rip-off version more than 30 years later, Consider this, since Alien, the crew of trained and experienced explorers has been abandoned as a trope for SF films.

Of course central to the movie was the monster itself, a terrifying parasite that gestated inside its victims and possessed seemingly unstoppable agency. The story, images, and themes resonated so well that sequels and prequels continue to this very day.

But what do you call the monster at the heat of this experience?

For years the term of I heard most was simply The Alien, you could practically hear the capital letters in a person voice when the subject was discussed. Slowly though that fell out of favor for the generic sounding Xenomorph.

I have issues with that name. First, it sounds generic, and it is generic. The word itself simply means ‘other-shaped.’ The character Lt. Gorman uses the term when briefing the squad saying, “…A xenomorph may be involved.” He can’t be referring to this particular type of creature as at this point in the story no one, except Burke, believes Ripley. He’s using the word to say in a fancy way that an alien of some type is involved. However fans have latched onto this word as a proper name for the monster.

For decades I have been a gamer and gamers steal from books, TV, and movies for  monsters to throw at their players, including the terrifying creature from Alien. I have been no exception and I needed a name, between the films Alien and Aliens, I landed on what works for me.

In Alien when they crew awakens early they discover that instead of being home, at Earth, that they are in fact just short of Zeta Two Reticuli. one half of a binary pair about 39 light years from Earth. Now I saw the film in theaters, before VHS and DVDs and Blu-Rays and misheard the name. For years I called it Beta Reticuli, but eventually I learned the local stellar neighborhood and the proper name for the star. My name for the creature is the Zeta Reticulian Parasite. Yes it is long but I think it has a ring to it and it sounds like a real bit of nomenclature.

I know I will change no one’s mind on this. I am the lost voice in the wilderness screaming at the horrid tag ‘xenomorph,’ and everyone will ignore me, but hey, your mileage may vary.

For me it is The Zeta Reticulian Parasite.

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Don’t Do Mix-and-Match Mythologies

1995 gave us the film The Prophecy, a rather forgettable horror film about the war of the angels coming to Earth as angels battle and search for the most evil soul born to humanity. The film had few redeeming qualities, and both of those were name Christopher Walken and the angel Gabriel and Viggo Mortensen as Lucifer. In the climax of the film the heroes turn to a Native American shaman to save the day.

This really bugs me.

I have nothing against anyone’s religious beliefs. Personally I hold that all religions look whacky from the outside. If yo want to craft a story around a religion and its mythos, go ahead. I love The Exorcist but I am in no stretch of the imagination either Catholic or Christian, doesn’t mean I can’t accept the ‘world-building’ for the lack of a better term to allow myself to submerge into the story. To me it is no different than accepting the ‘truth’ of the Force while you watch a Star Wars movie.

What bothers me is when you do a grab bag of mythologies, or ignore the clear implications of what you are putting down on paper or up on the screen.

If the Christian world-myth is true to the point where angels are moving amongst us calling humanity ‘talking monkey’ and are jealous of God particular love for us then that means the other religions are wrong, mere myth and superstition. Bringing in other magic to save the day is simply dodging the real story consequences of the choice you made in setting up the world.

Let me give you another example: Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

In the pilot episode Gliles, as exposition man, explained that ‘contrary to myth this world did not start out a paradise.’ The bible and its creation myth are false. Demons were here naturally from the start. Okay I can buy that, but why do crosses repel vampires?

Oh I see you in the back waving your hand in the air all ready to quote ‘Fright Night’ that is it about the faith of the person holding the cross. In the story Willow Rosenberg is at best an atheistic Jew and later she becomes a pagan, but hey that cross works just fine. Oh it’s the faith of the vampire now? You mean the faith of the demon that know the truth of creation, or the person corpse the demon is possessing? So a vampire sired from an Hindu would flee from a cross or not?

The fact is that vampire lore, coming from the Victorians, have them repelled by crosses and so did Joss, but the Victorians took Christianity as a given and Joss rejected it in his world-building.

I say if you are going to accept the cross’s action then you need to put on your grown up writer clothes and accept the rest of it as well. The same is true for whatever real-world myth or religion that forms the factual basis for your fiction. You need to know it and own it, but please do not treat the world’s religions as a buffet.

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