¡QUÉ HORROR! 2020

The (Premature) Wrap-Up

So.

We really don't need a recap here of what's been going on in TFNY 2020.

We’re all living in the same waking nightmare, after all.

Deep diving into that here seems repetitive and pointless, given that it’s everywhere you look.

This is what I’d like to say here:

I’ve always made it a point at the Iguana to give my ¡Qué horror! recommendations without making any overt references to what’s going on in my personal life.

And that’s because, as far as I’m concerned, we’re here to celebrate horror, and these films and TV shows that get the ¡Qué horror! seal of approval? They’re meant to exist outside of time, to be appreciated today, and years from now, regardless of what’s going on with me.

But, as brutally proven by TFNY 2020, this has been a year of many, many firsts, precious few of them, if any, good.

For the first time, my Watchlist queue has backed up not because I haven’t had the time to sit down and watch something (we have, after all, in TFNY 2020, an overabundance of time, all COVID-melty and oddly exhausting though it may be), but rather because, for the most part, the all-too-real horror happening all around us has been enough for me, thank you very much.

I didn’t need some fictional horror story to narratively induce fear and worry and anxiety because we were all already marinating in that particular stew of dread…

And as October began to loom (October? October?!) and the number of Candidates hadn’t even hit two digits, much less 13, I realized I had little choice but to write this post.

So.

If you’re still in the mood for some ¡Qué horror!-approved horror this fast-approaching Halloween, then please, feel free to consider the 7 Candidates thus far as Finalists this year. (Plus, an additional two-ish; see below.)

In the meantime, I should also say that, at this point, I can’t tell when my current attitude towards horror will shift, or revert back to its usual Lifelong Horrorhead levels.

It will, of course, depend greatly on how TFNY 2020 continues to unfold.

I’d like to think that, every once in a while, I’ll try and make a dent in my Watchlist queue, which continues to lengthen, given my recent neglect of it…

I just don’t know if I’ll be doing the whole ¡Qué horror! Candidate posts thing (as I said, COVID time is oddly exhausting)…

For the time being, I think I’d like to use the Iguana to highlight what’s been keeping me sane these days, and that’s the comics side of my life.

That side has never really been “easy” (and the logistics end of self-publishing comics in TFNY 2020 has become exponentially more difficult), but there’s something to be said about spending time in the headspace of characters who are meant to be inspirational, about writing and telling stories that hopefully move and uplift…

So I’ll continue to make ‘Verse comics announcements here whenever there’s any news (and yes, there should be a ‘Verse post coming up soon-ish), that, I’m certain of.

In the meantime though, to close out this (Premature) ¡Qué horror! 2020 Wrap-Up, two more titles you can safely consider ¡Qué horror! 2020 Finalists…

one of which, I viewed quite a while back…

THE HUNT

(March 2020)

“What is this Avatar sh!t?!”

Director Craig Zobel (who helmed three episodes of The Leftovers, including the pivotal “International Assassin”) reunites with Nick Cuse and Damon Lindelof to gift us with absurdist levels of gory, over-the-top violence in The Hunt.

Despite the premature “controversy” in the wake of the trailer’s initial release, this title insists on equal opportunity ribbing, as shots are taken at both sides of the American sociopolitical divide, with a notable cast that includes Hilary Swank, Betty Gilpin, Emma Roberts, Amy Madigan, Ethan Suplee--as “(Shut the F*** Up) Gary”--and an uncredited Justin Hartley.

“This seems a little obvious, like, like maybe they wanted us to find it.”

“Depends on whether they’re smart pretendin’ to be idiots, or idiots pretendin’ to be smart.”

and the other, one I viewed a lot more recently…

ANTEBELLUM

(September 2020)

“Accept what you are. You are nothin’!”

If you’ve seen the trailer for Antebellum, then I’m spoiling nothing here by saying this:

Whatever the plot mechanics may be as to how the narrative bridges the Civil War and present day scenarios, the film is clearly about race.

And even if you see the trick coming, that doesn’t make Antebellum any less harrowing, opening as it does with a particularly difficult 13-minute section.

As she proved in the second season of Homecoming, Janelle Monáe is a potent lead, but I’d also like to point to both Gabourey Sidibe and Jena Malone, for bringing interesting textures to their supporting roles.

Antebellum is the feature debut of co-writers/-directors Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz, and it’s a provocative first shot.

I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next for the duo…

“This doesn’t end here. We’re nowhere… and everywhere…”

and for the -ish… something I also viewed quite a while back, and it qualified as an -ish since it’s a single episode of a TV series…

Osgood Perkins’ blackly comic, entertainingly biting indictment of human consumerism, “You Might Also Like,” his contribution to the second season of Peele-era The Twilight Zone.

This Perkins-described “bacon-wrapped hotdog” of an episode may not look it at first glance, but the connection the writer/director makes between the particular emotion that so consumes Gretchen Mol’s Janet, and consumerism itself… well, that’s horror right there…

“The Egg will make everything okay again. And this time it will be okay forever.”

So.

There we are.

I truly hope you’re all keeping safe (and sane) out there.

And have a Happy(?) and safe-slash-responsible Halloween, however you choose to celebrate it.

(The Hunt OS’ courtesy of impawards.com; Antebellum OS courtesy of screenanarchy.com.)

THE TRIPPER
(Review)

“A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah.”
-- Ronald Reagan

After a brief prologue set in 1967, in the Northern California lumbertown of Carlisle, we flash forward to the present, where Carlisle is set to host the Free Love Festival, a weekend bacchanalia of sex, drugs, and rock and roll organized by one Frank Baker (ol’ Pee-wee Herman himself, Paul Reubens).
Throw in a bunch of modern day hippies (among them Jay himself, Jason Mewes), Carlisle’s “de facto peacekeeper,” Officer Buzz Hall (the Punisher himself, Thomas Jane), and a mad Ronald Reagan mask-wearing killer, and you’ve got The Tripper, co-written and directed by Deputy Dewey himself, David Arquette.

Given that this is a film that kicks off while the fires of the Vietnam war rage, set during a time when the war in Iraq continues to drag on with no apparent end in sight, and featuring a killer who dons the visage of a President who reigned over an America characterized by excess and conspicuous consumption, it’s obvious that Arquette is attempting to use the slasher film as a stage for some biting socio-political commentary.
Anyone who’s visited the Iguana before knows I love me a good horror film that actually says something, and though what The Tripper is saying is not necessarily anything new, my main problems with it are its ill-paced script, and the fact that a majority of the narrative’s characters are dope fiends who don’t really seem to deserve any audience sympathy.

Thus, not only does the film meander badly (I’d love to have used the adverb “trippily,” if the experience had been entertaining, which it ultimately wasn’t), but the gorehound in me found himself blasted back to the bad old days of the slasher film, when all I ended up doing was wait impatiently for the next victim to wind up dead. These are characters who are in a perpetually fraked-up state, and sympathy for these sorts is pretty hard to come by.
It’s always a challenge to get an audience to take a ride with characters like this, and when the film is a Trainspotting, or a Spun, or a Requiem for a Dream, you know all involved did their jobs splendidly. In films like these, you end up caring for and sympathizing with individuals you probably wouldn’t want to be seen in the same room with in real life.
Now, the average slasher film does have sex, drugs, alcohol, and wayward youth as some of its conventions. Not only does The Tripper up those particular antes exponentially, but Arquette asks us to spend most of our time with this host of druggies who seem to display no redeeming qualities at all. In the end, I don’t see why I should care for these people in the slightest.
And yes, we do have Samantha (Jaime King; from Sin City and TV’s Kitchen Confidential and The Class), who is currently abstaining from drugs because of a recent Bad Experience, and who is clearly the Last Girl-in-waiting, but she’s one out of six, and not a particularly compelling, charismatic screen presence. (Hey, if you’re gonna be the Last Girl, you better have some chops to deserve that honour.)

It’s also sad that some interesting actors (Balthazar Getty and Lukas Haas) are in this but aren’t really afforded anything meaty to chew on. Jane’s is perhaps the most noteworthy performance as the sane voice of authority, but of course, it’s a voice that’s drowned out by all the chemical hi-jinx going on.

One of the things The Tripper seems to be saying—an idea reinforced by the film’s end credits roll—is that while the American Powers-That-Be are evil, ineffectual passive resistance to that towering monolith is not really any better either.
Where The Tripper fails, I feel, is in not really presenting us with an alternative; in what is perhaps a gross oversimplification, the narrative doesn’t really put forward a stance between the ultra-left and the ultra-right which would make any sort of sense in this day and age.
I realize this may not really have been Arquette’s ultimate intent in the first place (this is, after all, a slasher film and not a Michael Moore documentary), but if you’re gonna get into this particular sandbox, you should at least play the game, right?

I wanted to have fun with this one, but in the end, it just didn’t float my boat.
Maybe if it had been funnier, or gorier, or more thrilling, or if it had had something more substantial to say, then The Tripper might have been worth the time and the price of admission.
As it is, re-watching a double feature of the Masters of Horror episodes, “Homecoming” and “The Washingtonians” (review in Archive: September 2007)—both effective exercises in horror as socio-political commentary—would be a far better prospect.

Parting shot: For those interested, Arquette also appears in the film as the redneck Muff, while the missus produces and has a teeny cameo.
Another name of note on The Tripper is comic book writer Steve Niles, whose 30 Days of Night has been adapted for the big screen and is just about to be unleashed on all of horror geekdom.

(The Tripper OS courtesy of wildaboutmovies.com; DVD cover art courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)