¡QUÉ HORROR! 2016

Candidate #3

WHY HORROR?

(October 2014)

"Horror has come a long way since it first got its hooks into me. As a devout fan, I used to feel like an outsider, but these days, I meet fans everywhere I go.
“Horror is now more popular than it’s ever been.”

--Tal Zimerman

I could be wrong and memory is f*cking with me right now, but I think this is the very first actual doc that’s made its way to ¡Qué horror! Candidacy (as opposed to the occasional faux doc that’s made the rundown).

Rob Lindsay and Nicolas Kleiman’s Why Horror? follows long-time horrorhead Tal Zimerman as he explores his life-long fascination with the genre, asking the titular question, “Why horror?” of art historians and literature experts and language professors and psychologists, as well as a host of familiar genre faces, from the old school vanguard (John Carpenter, Don Coscarelli, George Romero) to current established names (Alexandre Aja, Simon Barrett, Eli Roth, Ben Wheatley).

For any audience member who happens to be a kindred spirit to Tal, the game-changing benchmarks of a lifelong horrorhead of a certain generation--such as the socio-political horror of Romero’s original zombie trilogy, giallo, the home video boom, the self-referential metahorror of Scream, J-Horror, found footage, and the digital revolution sparking the current wave of global horror--are all touched on in the great animated section “A Way Too Brief History of Horror Cinema” (with VO from one of our all-time favorite hobbits, Elijah Wood).

There’s even the acknowledgement that, yes, Virginia, there are actually female horror fans (who make horror films too!), with appearances by the Soska sisters and Karen Lam.

For the more critically-minded horrorheads out there, or, for those who, at the very least, are curious to dig at the possible roots of their fascination with the genre, Why Horror? is an excellent and highly recommended watch that smartly encapsulates just how deeply horror is entrenched in our humanity, and how it’s really a universal language that we all know.

The question is, just how fluent are we willing to be in it?

“I like ‘smarts.’ I just like intelligent views of the world. And I am deeply committed to finding ‘smarts’ where other people don’t think to look for it. And I think horror is the perfect place.”

--Dr. Susanne Kord

European Languages, Culture and Society

University College, London, England

(Why Horror? OS courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year

[5 of 13]

CREEP

(March 2014)

The set-up: Aaron (feature debut director Patrick Brice) is a videographer-for-hire, who goes to work for Josef (Mark Duplass), without initially knowing any pertinent details other than how much the job’s worth, and that “discretion is appreciated.”

That’s really all you need to know too, and I’ll leave Mr. Brice himself to say why.

“I wholeheartedly agree that Creep is a better, more full experience the less you know going into it. We were really trying to make something that a large part of the enjoyment would be the discovery of the film itself.”

Suffice it to say that Creep is pretty much a two-man op. Or, at least, a two-man op with some invaluable help from Blumhouse maestro, Jason Blum.

Working from a rough treatment, Brice and Duplass went off to shoot a majority of the film, which, under the guiding hand of Blum (whose input was, in Brice’s words, meant “to make [Creep] marketable as a horror film”), has resulted in a piece that’s both disturbingly intimate, and intimately disturbing.

“If you want to see a movie like Creep it's because you have two very relationship-oriented filmmakers, guided by Jason Blum, so what you're going to get is a movie that does not follow all of those rules of what a horror movie is. When Jason saw this, he told us, I've seen every piece of shit found footage horror movie, because I'm the guy they came to, but he liked we were not horror filmmakers, that we got the performances right, the relationship dynamics right.”

--Mark Duplass

Parting Shot: As much as Creep impressed (and disturbed) me, I honestly don’t know how to feel about hearing there are plans for sequels…

(Creep OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡Qué horror! 2015

Candidate #12

CREEP

(March 2014)

The set-up: Aaron (feature debut director Patrick Brice) is a videographer-for-hire, who goes to work for Josef (Mark Duplass), without initially knowing any pertinent details other than how much the job’s worth, and that “discretion is appreciated.”

That’s really all you need to know too, and I’ll leave Mr. Brice himself to say why.

“I wholeheartedly agree that Creep is a better, more full experience the less you know going into it. We were really trying to make something that a large part of the enjoyment would be the discovery of the film itself.”

Suffice it to say that Creep is pretty much a two-man op. Or, at least, a two-man op with some invaluable help from Blumhouse maestro, Jason Blum.

Working from a rough treatment, Brice and Duplass went off to shoot a majority of the film, which, under the guiding hand of Blum (whose input was, in Brice’s words, meant “to make [Creep] marketable as a horror film”), has resulted in a piece that’s both disturbingly intimate, and intimately disturbing.

“If you want to see a movie like Creep it's because you have two very relationship-oriented filmmakers, guided by Jason Blum, so what you're going to get is a movie that does not follow all of those rules of what a horror movie is. When Jason saw this, he told us, I've seen every piece of shit found footage horror movie, because I'm the guy they came to, but he liked we were not horror filmmakers, that we got the performances right, the relationship dynamics right.”

--Mark Duplass

Parting Shot: As much as Creep impressed (and disturbed) me, I honestly don’t know how to feel about hearing there are plans for sequels…

(Creep OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡Qué horror! 2015

Candidate #7

THE TAKING OF DEBORAH LOGAN

(October 2014)

The following film includes a partly edited medical documentary, outtakes, and surveillance footage from the scenes of the crime.

Adam Robitel’s feature debut takes the real life horror of Alzheimer’s disease and mashes that up with some supernatural goings on to produce a potent title in The Taking of Deborah Logan.

Here, medical student Mia Hu (Neighbours’ Michelle Ang) sets about centering her PHD Thesis film on the titular Deborah Logan (All My Children’s Jill Larson), hoping to document the effects of the disease, not just on Logan, but on her daughter Sarah (Anne Ramsay, from Mad About You and The Secret Life of the American Teenager), as well.

While there are some heavy hitters in the mix here (the film is produced by Bryan Singer--the closing credits actually declare it a “Bryan Singer Presents” production) and some familiar genre figures are thanked in the end credits roll (Bryan Cranston, Guillermo del Toro, Michael Dougherty, James Wan, to name some) the onscreen MVPs here are definitely Larson and Ramsay, who ground the proceedings in a very real mother-daughter relationship, warts and all.

“I do all my little puzzles. I do crosswords. I’m lifting weights. I am doing everything that I… I have read will help to stave off the progression of this disease. Stave it off! There’s no cure. And so, when I am in the middle of something and suddenly, my mind just… leaves the premises…. There are no words to describe how distressing it is.”

Much of the potency of the film is rooted in the awful deterioration that sets in with Alzheimer’s, and as the narrative unspools, there are shades of The Exorcist, in that we are also witness to the horror when modern medicine finds itself unable to deal with a patient’s condition, when the doctors are just as in the dark as the besieged victim and family.

There is also at least one instance of a quick cut “subliminal,” again, ala The Exorcist.

Admittedly, the title mines all that it can from the horror movie idea of the Creepy Old Lady, which is sadly quite unfair to all the Nice Little Old Ladies out there, but the end result is nonetheless an effective little found footage-y humdinger.

(The Taking of Deborah Logan OS courtesy of cineemcasa.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year

[13 of 13]

THE POSSESSION OF MICHAEL KING

(August 2014)

This is the world we live in today*: the only real found footage films** that should merit attention are those that A) prove to be something unprecedented within the genre, pushing the envelope, or tearing right through it, or B) are noteworthy examples of the genre’s “traditional” form.

The Possession of Michael King (from director David Jung) falls squarely in the latter category. It doesn’t have any ambitions of showing us anything particularly new. But, while it does colour within the lines, the hues and shades are decidedly of a rather dark and sinister persuasion, as compared to the bland palettes of the hordes of average run-of-the-mill found footage films out there.

The titular Michael King (Shane Johnson) makes a New Year’s resolution: he’s going to make a documentary about his family, to show the world just how lucky and blessed he is as a human being (even if, as he so pointedly admits very early on in the film, he doesn’t believe in God).

But tragedy strikes, and the documentary instead becomes one where Michael sets out to prove once and for all whether the supernatural exists.

Unfortunately, his grief fuels his brazenness, and he unthinkingly calls out far more than he bargained for…

Again, though this is not a found footage game changer in any way, shape, or form, there’s still some disturbing imagery in this one, and a notable performance by Johnson.

(Though you have to wonder why characters in these kinds of movies never seem to listen during the supernatural infodump early in the running time; if they did, they’d realize everything that would come in horrifyingly short order is all outlined right there…)

* The fact is, we've been living in it for quite awhile now.

** Please note that this also goes for zombies on film, whether on the big screen or small...

(The Possession of Michael King OS courtesy of impawards.com)

¡Qué horror! 2014

Candidate #12

THE POSSESSION OF MICHAEL KING

(August 2014)

This is the world we live in today*: the only real found footage films** that should merit attention are those that A) prove to be something unprecedented within the genre, pushing the envelope, or tearing right through it, or B) are noteworthy examples of the genre’s “traditional” form.

The Possession of Michael King (from director David Jung) falls squarely in the latter category. It doesn’t have any ambitions of showing us anything particularly new. But, while it does colour within the lines, the hues and shades are decidedly of a rather dark and sinister persuasion, as compared to the bland palettes of the hordes of average run-of-the-mill found footage films out there.

The titular Michael King (Shane Johnson) makes a New Year’s resolution: he’s going to make a documentary about his family, to show the world just how lucky and blessed he is as a human being (even if, as he so pointedly admits very early on in the film, he doesn’t believe in God).

But tragedy strikes, and the documentary instead becomes one where Michael sets out to prove once and for all whether the supernatural exists.

Unfortunately, his grief fuels his brazenness, and he unthinkingly calls out far more than he bargained for…

Again, though this is not a found footage game changer in any way, shape, or form, there’s still some disturbing imagery in this one, and a notable performance by Johnson.

(Though you have to wonder why characters in these kinds of movies never seem to listen during the supernatural infodump early in the running time; if they did, they’d realize everything that would come in horrifyingly short order is all outlined right there…)

* The fact is, we've been living in it for quite awhile now.

** Please note that this also goes for zombies on film, whether on the big screen or small...

(The Possession of Michael King OS courtesy of impawards.com)

¡Qué horror! 2013

Candidate # 4

THE BAY

(September 2012)

“My name is Donna Thompson. For three years, I and a few others have been trying to speak out about what happened in Claridge, Maryland, on July Fourth, 2009. But sometimes, words have no impact.

“But now, with the help of a website called govleaks.org, all of the digital information that was recorded that day has been obtained. All of the digital information that was confiscated.

“Now, I don’t know if anyone is gonna be watching this. I don’t know if anything is gonna happen to me as a result of me putting this out there, but I do know that I… can’t move on with my life until this story is told.”

I love Barry Levinson for having given me both Diner and Wag the Dog. He’s also brought us Rain Man, Good Morning, Vietnam, Bugsy, and The Natural, to name just a few more.

So when news broke that he was doing a horror film titled Isopod, I knew I needed to pay attention. And I kept track of this baby, watching its title morph into The Bay, all the while wondering whether Levinson could deliver the scares.

Now, the closest Levinson ever came to the weird sh!t in the past was probably Sphere, and that was certainly not a horror film. Or at least, not a horror film in the way The Bay most certainly is.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Levinson was asked if he was interested in doing a documentary about the “40% dead” Chesapeake Bay.

But after realizing there were already well-made documentaries on the subject, Levinson instead took the scientific facts and placed them in a fictional context. With the help of writer Michael Wallach, what came of this creative choice, is the wildly disturbing ecological horror of The Bay.

“The term now is ‘found footage’ but it never occurred to me. I wasn't thinking that way, I guess.  I thought, if something catastrophic like this happened in a small town and there was no media, what was going on?  Then you say, this is the first generation that records every intimate moment.  They've got cell phones, they text, email, Skype and this is the very first time you get an intimate look at the people, basically, at the core of where a catastrophe is going on around them.  I thought it was a cool idea--I could tell multiple stories and a lot of people won't have an overview because they don't know what's going on.  So, that was kind of scary, too.” *

Told across a broad spectrum of today’s varied means of communication--Skype, FaceTime, cell phones, email, text messages--as well as through video and audio recordings, The Bay has elements of both the found footage and viral outbreak genres, but in the end, isn’t really either.

In the end, what Levinson and company have given us is a terribly effective chiller with one of the ookiest parasites ever brought to the screen, a parasite that just happens to actually exist in real life.

Sure, Levinson’s isopod is a mutated version of the real thing, but still, they do occur in nature, so you really gotta wonder…

Hands-down the freakiest and most viscerally disturbing of the ¡Qué horror! 2013 candidates thus far, The Bay is a gruesomely welcome surprise from the 70-year old Levinson, and a solid piece that should nestle comfortably with its fellow eco-horror titles.

* Barry Levinson, from an interview with shocktillyoudrop.com

(The Bay OS courtesy of impawards.com)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2012
The Wrap-Up

As promised, here’s the rundown of all the other horror films I saw between October 1, 2011 and September 30, 2012, that I felt deserved some ¡Qué Horror! love, but I just didn’t get the chance to write about in their own ¡Qué Horror! Candidate posts…

Apologies to all concerned that I didn’t get to talk about your films more, but for those of you who frequent the Iguana, here are some other titles to seek out…

Imago Mortis (January 2009), dir: Stefano Bessoni

The Dead (August 2010), dir: Howard J. Ford

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (November 2010), dir: Troy Nixey

Retreat (February 2011), dir: Carl Tibbetts

The Innkeepers (March 2011), dir: Ti West

Some Guy Who Kills People (April 2011), dir: Jack Perez

The Moth Diaries (September 2011), dir: Mary Harron

Livide (Livid) (September 2011), dirs: Julien Maury & Alexandre Bustillo

Exit Humanity (September 2011), dir: John Geddes

El Páramo (The Squad) (October 2011), dir: Jaime Osorio Márquez

Rites of Spring (October 2011), dir: Padraig Reynolds

Piggy (May 2012), dir: Kieron Hawkes

So the field this year consisted of 46 titles, from which the final list emerged.

Plus, I should also mention One Hundred Mornings (July 2009, dir: Conor Horgan), which isn’t strictly a horror movie, but it’s positioned quite firmly in apocalypse cinema, and is a horrific title nonetheless (I should mention that I find it quite interesting that amazon.co.uk simply classifies One Hundred Mornings under “Horror”)…

Detention (March 2011, dir: Joseph Kahn), which, alongside The Cabin in the Woods, is, hands-down, the most entertaining film I had the awesome privilege of seeing this past year…

Chronicle (January 2012, dir: Josh Trank), one of the best found footage titles from the past year, and a powerful argument for the flexibility and versatility of the superhero film…

and the harrowing Wake in Fright (May 1971, dir: Ted Kotcheff), which gained a well-deserved revitalization after it was selected by Martin Scorsese as a Cannes Classic Title for the 2009 festival.

Like One Hundred Mornings, this isn’t strictly a horror movie, but it is, nonetheless the sort of disturbing tourism-killing cinematic experience that will put you off traveling to the particular corner of the world it’s showcasing; in this case, the Australian Outback.

To one and all, have a Happy Halloween, as I settle down to begin the search for next year’s ¡Qué Horror! hopefuls.

(One Hundred Mornings UK quad courtesy of dnotes.info; Detention, Chronicle, and Wake in Fright OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 (plus) Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year
[13 of 13]
The Found Footage Slot

And we wrap up the 2012 list with a three-way tie!

I love these films, particularly since I had to slog through quite a number of mediocre and uninspired found footage titles this year. These are the ones that stood far above the rest of the shakycam horror hordes…

Please welcome them into the ¡Qué Horror! fold…

V/H/S

(January 2012)

Brought to us by a crowd of familiar genre names (most of whom are also quite at home on the ¡Qué Horror! front) and tied together by a concept from Bloody Disgusting’s Brad Miska, V/H/S takes on two standard horror sub-genres, one (found footage) currently more popular in the mainstream than the other (horror anthology), and does both of them exceedingly proud.

Surrounded by the preponderance of mediocre and derivative found footage titles in this day and age, V/H/S crashes the party and kicks all of the bland and terribly unimaginative pretenders in the ‘nads, planting a decisive flag to prove that the form isn’t just a way for Hollywood to make a quick profit from a low production cost, but can also take the audience to some really strange and interesting places. (Even when you may guess where the story’s headed--which happened to me a number of times--the end result is still worth seeing and still holds some startling moments.)

The segments are, to wit:

“Tape 56,” directed by Adam Wingard and written by Simon Barrett, who brought us fellow ¡Qué Horror! 2012 title, A Horrible Way To Die, and who also both appear in the fragmented segment which acts as the connective tissue of the anthology;

“Amateur Night,” helmed by one-third of The Signal directing team, David Bruckner, and written by Bruckner and Nicholas Tecosky;

“Second Honeymoon,” written and directed by Ti West, who brought us past ¡Qué Horror! title, The House of the Devil, as well as The Innkeepers. This one stars Joe Swanberg, from A Horrible Way To Die, who also directs another V/H/S segment (see below);

“Tuesday the 17^th,” written and directed by Glenn McQuaid, who brought us I Sell the Dead, a previous effort I must confess, I wasn’t too overly fond of;

“The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger,” directed by Joe Swanberg and written by Simon Barrett;

and “10/31/98,” written and directed by the Radio Silence collective of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez, and Chad Villella, who also appear in the segment.

Truly exceptional work from all concerned, and I, for one, am excited to see what all these gentlemen have up their sleeves next…

EVIDENCE
(March 2012)


These days, the found footage film is like the zombie film: ubiquitous.
Seemingly, all I have to do is turn around, and there’s at least one making the rounds, there’s at least one waiting to be released, at least one that’s deep in post-production, at least one that’s filming, at least one that’s being cast, at least one that’s in development, ad nauseam.
Given the sheer amount of terribly mediocre titles that quickly begin to blur into each other, it’s sometimes quite the task to find the ones that deserve to be noted, to be set apart from the rest of the hordes.
Well, allow me to honour Howie Askins’ Evidence with that distinction.

What begins as an amateur documentary about camping gradually becomes what initially seems to be a rather good “strange goings-on in the woods” shakycam horror deal, then, ultimately, becomes something more.
I’ve always greatly admired found footage films that are not only well-made and well-executed examples of the form, but are also ambitious pieces in their own right, and Evidence is certainly that.
Like [REC] before it, there’s a certain point in Evidence’s running time where the constricting walls of the found footage genre are blown wide open as the audience is given a glimpse of the bigger picture within which the film’s POV narrative exists.

As always, I don’t wish to spoil anything for the potential viewer, so let me just leave it at that: the ¡Qué Horror! seal of approval on Evidence.
May that be enough for you to check it out.

A NIGHT IN THE WOODS

(August 2011)

September 3^rd 2010.

3 walkers disappear on Dartmoor.

The footage they left behind has been edited to tell their story.

This is what the film’s opening tells us, and so far, so found footage familiar.

But here, writer/director Richard Parry services the form in the most excellent manner by proving that you can make a shakycam horror film that adheres to the genre’s “classic” template that’s actually worth watching.

Is the scenario familiar? Yes. Nonetheless, A Night in the Woods is a gripping and nastily effective found footage scarefest that will once again prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that the outdoors is a very, very, very nasty place.

(V/H/S OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com; Evidence DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.co.uk; A Night in the Woods UK quad courtesy of impawards.com.)