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

[11 of 13]

OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL

(October 2016)

There's something to be said for well-crafted traditional horror cinema and Mike Flanagan’s Ouija: Origin of Evil, is certainly that.

A prequel to Stiles White’s Ouija--the 2014 film based on the Hasbro game (which I never got to watch)--Origin of Evil follows the Zander women, mother Alice (Elizabeth Reaser), her high school daughter Lina (Annalise Basso, who also featured in Flanagan’s Oculus), and 9-year-old Doris (Lulu Wilson), as they try and get by in Los Angeles, 1967, after the loss of their husband and father.

Alice’s business name is “Madame Zander,” and she and her daughters perform a community service by giving their clients closure through faux séances, or at least, that’s what Alice tells herself and her children.

Things go awry of course (because let’s face it, they have to, given that this is a horror movie) when Alice purchases a (gasp!) Ouija board.

The premise sounds dopey as hell, but Flanagan and co-writer Jeff Howard (who also tag teamed on the screenplays for Flanagan’s Oculus and Before I Wake) wring it for all the creeptasticness they can muster.

Parting Shot:

Oh, and look! Doug Jones and Elliott, errr, I mean Henry Thomas, are in it too!

(Ouija: Origin of Evil OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2017

Candidate #3

OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL

(October 2016)

There's something to be said for well-crafted traditional horror cinema and Mike Flanagan’s Ouija: Origin of Evil, is certainly that.

A prequel to Stiles White’s Ouija--the 2014 film based on the Hasbro game (which I never got to watch)--Origin of Evil follows the Zander women, mother Alice (Elizabeth Reaser), her high school daughter Lina (Annalise Basso, who also featured in Flanagan’s Oculus), and 9-year-old Doris (Lulu Wilson), as they try and get by in Los Angeles, 1967, after the loss of their husband and father.

Alice’s business name is “Madame Zander,” and she and her daughters perform a community service by giving their clients closure through faux séances, or at least, that’s what Alice tells herself and her children.

Things go awry of course (because let’s face it, they have to, given that this is a horror movie) when Alice purchases a (gasp!) Ouija board.

The premise sounds dopey as hell, but Flanagan and co-writer Jeff Howard (who also tag teamed on the screenplays for Flanagan’s Oculus and Before I Wake) wring it for all the creeptasticness they can muster.

Parting Shot:

Oh, and look! Doug Jones and Elliott, errr, I mean Henry Thomas, are in it too!

(Ouija: Origin of Evil OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)

¡Qué horror! 2013

Candidate #7

JOHN DIES AT THE END

(January 2012)

It’s been awhile since Don Coscarelli’s Masters of Horror episode, “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road,” but he’s back now with the wildest and most gonzo ¡Qué horror!  2013 Candidate thus far: his adaptation of Jason Pargin’s John Dies at the End.

There’s a whole lotta crawesome weird shit here, yo! And any attempt on my part to give you a taste of this film’s strangeness would just be counter-productive.

Let’s just say if you love bizarro cinema, you should check this out.

Not to mention that the supporting cast ain’t nothin’ to sneeze at either: Paul Giamatti (who doubles down as Executive Producer), Clancy Brown (Best. Luthor. Voice. Ever.), The Tall Man himself, Angus Scrimm (as Father Shellnut!), and Doug Jones.

Oh, and Bark Lee, too!

Before this, I already loved Coscarelli for A) scaring the crap out of the 11-year old me with Phantasm, and then B) giving us the tough yet sensitive, animal-loving barbarian who is The Beastmaster.

And now, he’s given me John Dies at the End.

Brilliant!

Don’t forget: The Soy Sauce chooses you.

(John Dies at the End OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

QUARANTINE
(Review)


Being the Jaume Balaguero slut that I am, I really tried my darnedest to see [REC] when it was first unleashed, but that just didn’t happen. Then, I told myself that I’d see [REC] first before I would ever be unfaithful and lay eyes on its English-language remake, Quarantine.
Yeah.
That didn’t happen either.
And finally, it came about that I simply couldn’t keep putting off Quarantine in favour of its progenitor any longer, so, here I am, with my thoughts on Quarantine.


This very nearly breathless exercise in first-person, handheld POV horror sees Angela Vidal (Jennifer Carpenter) and her cameraman Scott Percival (The Practice’s Steve Harris) doing a piece for The Night Shift, where Angela gets to live her dream for a night—being a fireman.
Well, actually just shadowing a crew of firefighters, first in the station, during their downtime, and later on, when they’re called in for what turns out to be a medical emergency with horrifying ramifications, gradually turning her dream, yes, you guessed it, into a nightmare…


Under the very able and deft direction of John Erick Dowdle (assisted by his brother Drew, who’ve made the example of the Coen brothers their own career template), the palpable tension of a collection of people trapped in a building under very intense conditions is only too evident, as events spiral out of control and hysteria steadily escalates into maddening terror.
And while this is a piece of ensemble horror, credit needs to go to Carpenter, who should be familiar to you from Scott Derrickson’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose, as well as Showtime’s Dexter. As Angela, she’s practically onscreen for the entire length of the film, and is the audience’s “in” to the chiller’s narrative, the gamut of emotions she runs—excitement to anger to indignation to anxiety to balls-out shivering hysteria—mirrors our own, as things rapidly go from bad to oh-so-very-frakking-worse.


Though this doesn’t have the Cloverfield advantage of a cast of relative unknowns (thus heightening the suspension of disbelief), we do get Johnathon Schaech as the 70’s porn-mustachioed fireman Fletch.
And that’s a pretty fair trade-off, I think.
It’s also a credit to everyone involved with Quarantine (including DP Ken Sang and editor Elliot Greenberg, for making the cinematic sleights of hand invisible) that the film’s scares outshine that mustache, ‘cause it truly is a scarifying one, people.
There’s also a very neat Doug Jones appearance in here; trust me, you’ll know Dougie when you see him…


It’s interesting to note that the Dowdles co-wrote the Quarantine script working off [REC]’s Spanish script, since the adaptation began while [REC] was still being completed.
It was in the same week that they completed and presented their Quarantine script that they first saw [REC], and though it did then inform the subsequent development and shooting of Quarantine, this didn’t tread the usual path most remakes take.
And now that Quarantine has proven to be a very effective film in its own right*, it only makes me even more eager, to see both the original [REC], and its impending sequel, [REC] 2, which is said to give the material an Aliens spin, as camera-mounted military types enter the picture to clean up the bloody mess.
Woo-hoo! Fun times!!


* It’s a testament to the achievements of the Dowdle brothers—whose tag-team work on The Poughkeepsie Tapes got them the Quarantine gig—that they were handpicked by M. Night Shyamalan to kick off the “Night Chronicles” with Devil.
The Night Chronicles will encompass three horror films that will find their genesis in original stories by Shyamalan, to be scripted and directed by individuals chosen by him as well.
Devil is to be scripted by Brian Nelson, who’s worked with director David Slade twice, helping to adapt 30 Days of Night for the big screen, and before that, on Hard Candy.


Parting shot: Incidentally, Quarantine—and of course, [REC]—plays like an early Cronenberg mash-up, taking the setting, an apartment building, from one of his films which I haven’t seen (Shivers), and releasing the threat from one of his films which I have seen, and which is reviewed here at the Iguana.
Other films’ reviews accessible in the Archive are shakycam POV horror titles that followed in [REC]’s wake, Matt Reeves’ Cloverfield and George Romero’s Diary of the Dead; Jaume Balaguero’s features Los sin nombre, Darkness, and Frágiles; as well as films featuring Jones (Guillermo del Toro’s El laberinto del fauno and Hellboy II: The Golden Army) and Schaech (Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation).
Schaech’s work on cable TV’s Masters of Horror is also tackled in the Archive.

(Quarantine Spanish OS courtesy of impawards.com; images courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)

HELLBOY II:
THE GOLDEN ARMY
(Review)

If you give the Iguana a visit every now and again, you’ll most likely know that I love me my Guillermo del Toro.
The initial blush of curiosity with which I greeted his odd little vampire tale Cronos, has over the years blossomed into a reverent admiration for his exquisitely-told tales of dark, macabre fantasy.
The thing of it is, though, the original Hellboy holds the dubious distinction of being the film I least like in del Toro’s oeuvre. The clunky, ill-paced script and the disappointing, anti-climactic wrap-up, left me with a cinematic experience that suffered terribly when put up against his other popcorn effort, Blade II. (Even del Toro’s first Hollywood foray, Mimic, compromised as it was, was still a lot more fun than Hellboy turned out to be.)
Thus, coming into Hellboy II: The Golden Army, all I really hoped for was that it would at least be better than the original.
Thankfully, it is.
On the downside though, it displays some of the same problems Hellboy had.


Unlike the original (which was adapted from the Hellboy comic, Seed of Destruction), The Golden Army springs from a script penned by del Toro, centering on the Elven Prince Nuada (Blade II’s Luke Goss), who seeks to wage war on humanity by loosing the titular, purportedly indestructible, army upon the world.
The problem with del Toro’s script isn’t its premise though (which is serviceable enough), but rather the manner in which its myriad parts—most of which work rather well, I should note—interact with each other.


The action set pieces—particularly those which feature the bada$$ Nuada—are certainly better than those in the original.
The character bits are—again, as with the original—the best sections of the entire film.
Even the climax, which turns on a decidedly emotional pivot, works far more effectively than Hellboy’s.
But as much as most of the individual narrative pieces do their work, del Toro never quite finds the right rhythm to make the whole a smooth, flowing ride. Comedic bits—a few, sadly strained—blunder into character moments, which then bump up against explosions and fisticuffs.
The erratic pacing of the whole then results in a two-hour running time that ultimately seems longer.


Script problems aside though, The Golden Army is still a worthwhile cinematic experience, and there’s a number of folk that need to be commended for that.
First, the familiar del Toro stalwart, cinematographer Guillermo Navarro (who shot the original Hellboy, as well as Cronos, El espinazo del diablo, and El laberinto del fauno, for which he took home an Oscar, as well as a whole bunch of other honours), who captures all the wonder evident in the costumes of Sammy Sheldon (who also worked on Stardust, V For Vendetta, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), and the production design of Stephen Scott (also on the credit roll of Hellboy).


Secondly, there’s the supremely kick-a$$ fight sequences, courtesy of Jackie Chan cohort, Bradley James Allan, who also choreographed The Chronicles of Riddick.
Here, Allan’s work manages to give Blade II’s fight sequences a decent run, while avoiding any overt CGI flourishes (which slightly mar some moments in Blade II).
And hey, Allan also did stunt double duty on the Chan-produced Dak ging san yan lui (Gen-X Cops), so that’s a doubleplusgood in my books.


Thirdly, there’s the amazing creature work by Mike Elizalde’s Spectral Motion, who likewise did time on the original Hellboy (and whose work can also be seen in Monkeybone, Altered, and Lady in the Water, as well as the upcoming Seventh Moon and the live-action Blood: The Last Vampire adaptation).
Realizing in practical terms creature designs which originated from del Toro’s sketchbook, Elizalde supplies 15 creatures for The Golden Army (as compared to the mere 5 for Hellboy), including the incredible Angel of Death.
With the astounding work done here Elizalde proves that genuine characters may be found in the midst of latex and animatronics, and with the effects legend Stan Winston recently departed, it’s comforting to know there are others who can fill the void of his passing.


Giving invaluable assistance in the discovery and realization of those characters, we should also note the contributions of Doug Jones, whose physical performances do much to inform the costumes he wears with a vital and potent substance, and Family Guy/American Dad creator Seth MacFarlane, for bringing bags of amusing levity as the voice of by-the-books BPRD operative, Johann Krauss.
Sadly though, while Goss once again brings a palpable level of pathos to his character, as he did in Blade II, Anna Walton, who plays Nuada’s twin, Nuala, isn’t given much to do beyond looking suitably princess-like. Worse, the script stymies her character on occasion just to get to the next action set piece, or to move the narrative along. If she’d only immediately said, “You should really stop that jumping bean from reaching water,” or “Oh, by the way, since Nuada’s my twin, he can find me wherever I am,” then the film’s characters would have been spared boatloads of grief…


Ultimately, what The Golden Army seems to prove is, if del Toro must do a popcorn movie, then he really should be kept away from the script, or at the very least, have a co-writer by his side (Blade II was written by David Goyer, and Mimic was co-written with Matthew Robbins, who also penned Dragonslayer and *batteries not included).
It seems as if del Toro’s storytelling is better suited to films like El espinazo del diablo or El laberinto del fauno, where action set pieces aren’t required to punctuate the narrative, and the only real fuel that’s needed is his rich and seemingly boundless taste for the fantastic.

Parting shot: Reviews of del Toro’s Blade II and El laberinto del fauno can be found in the Archive, alongside reviews of Mutant Chronicles and The Last Winter (which star Hellboy himself, Ron Perlman).

(Hellboy II: The Golden Army OS [design by BLT & Associates] and Angel of Death character OS courtesy of impawards.com; images courtesy of latimes.com [Guillermo del Toro and Mike Elizalde, photos by Egon Endrenyi]; kungfucinema.com; mtv.com; and shocktillyoudrop.com.)

Thanx to Rej and MeAnn of New Worlds, for the cool headgear, the reading material, and of course, the tickets to the Troll Market, and to Jeb, for coming along for the ride…

FANTASTIC FOUR:
RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER
(Review)

If you’re a comic book fan who loves a good film adaptation of your favorite hero—and what self-respecting fanboy doesn’t?—the 80’s were not a kind decade to you.
DC’s Superman franchise was running on empty with Superman III, and that particular flight ended in a messy crash with Superman IV: The Quest For Peace. Meanwhile, Tim Burton was yet to redefine the superhero film at the tail end of the decade.
But for all the misfires DC had at the time, Marvel was by far the more evil villain in that scenario.
There were low budget attempts at Captain America and The Punisher, and inept TV stabs at Thor and Daredevil, all of them not particularly good, and some, downright dreadful.
Funnily enough, these days it feels like a Marvel renaissance, with most of their efforts falling squarely into the not-particularly-good-and-some-downright-dreadful category.
Granted, the effects and costumes are way better, but a lot of the plots and scripts, and some of the performances, could very well have traveled here on a time machine from the good old 80’s to leave us comic geeks with sleepless, rant-filled nights.*

At this point, I should establish that Marvel’s latest, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, is actually better than some past turkeys like Ghost Rider, Daredevil, and Elektra. FF:RotSS is even better than its predecessor (see reVIEW (1); Archive June 2007).
That doesn’t make it a good film though.

The plot is just as threadbare as the original’s: the Silver Surfer (frequent Guillermo Del Toro collaborator Doug Jones, voiced by Laurence Fishburne) arrives on Earth to prepare it for the coming of the dreaded Galactus (in this incarnation, a planet-devouring cloud), thus disrupting the fourth attempt at a proper wedding by Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) and Sue Storm (Jessica Alba).
The U.S. Military gets Reed to help them, Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon) crashes the party, Galactus arrives, but is thwarted by our heroes.
In the midst of all this, what I can only assume are attempts at “fun” and “funny”—schtick that barely manages to be juvenile hi-jinx—pepper the 92 minute running time like fleas on a mangy dog. (And though it’s good that all the power-switching becomes a climactic plot point, the bachelor party dance is still a particularly atrocious bit.)

Just as in Fantastic Four, where there was no joy to be found in a plot, we also don’t really see much in the way of characters again.
Even Chris Evans, whose superficial Johnny Storm was the highlight of the team in the first film, doesn’t seem as convincing as he once was. And what could have been an interesting character arc (as Johnny learns some much-needed lessons in responsibility) is not fully explored.
There’s some conflict with Sue wanting a normal married life away from the media spotlight, but it’s pretty much lip service and doesn’t have the ring of authenticity.

It’s really only when the CGI takes center stage that the film becomes halfway decent, particularly when Galactus arrives to devour the Earth, ironically, the sequence that could potentially piss off countless fanboys with its depiction of the Jack Kirby planet-eater as a roiling cloud.
With visual effects by Weta, The Orphanage, and a handful of other effects houses, the spectacle is certainly not too shabby. But without any honest emotional underpinnings and real characters, the film cannot generate any genuine tension and is grossly unsuccessful in involving its audience in its story. Without characters to truly care for, all we’ve got here that merits any sort of attention are pixels; pixels that are sure pretty to look at, but certainly not pixels worth any sort of emotional investment.
Did it look impressive? At times, it actually did.
Did I feel for once that there was any real danger, that the Earth stood on the brink of total destruction, and that all life as we know it was in jeopardy?
Certainly not.

If there is any triumph to be found here, it’s that director Tim Story managed to deliver a better film than the sad-a$$ original. (At the very least, Story’s got a better track record than Mark Steven Johnson. Already guilty of inflicting Daredevil upon us, Johnson outdid himself with the horrible Ghost Rider; review in Archive March 2007.)
But it’s a hollow victory, as FF:RotSS is nowhere near being a good comic book film adaptation; it’s the kind of comic book film where the heroes still have time to do some goofy skywriting even as Venice is sinking into the sea.
It’s all ultimately very inconsequential and disposable, like a planet that’s had the life sucked out of it by Galactus. And where’s the fun in taking an hour-and-a-half long round through lifeless territory?

* The other thing that’s different about Marvel’s current crop of stinkers is that a lot of them are making money. Ghost Rider is actually the 13th biggest film of the year at the moment, with a total gross of $115, 802, 596. FF:RotSS is 10th, with $128,879,368! (And these are just the domestic figures for the U.S. box office.)

(Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer OS courtesy of kinopoisk.ru.)

HELLBOY ANIMATED: SWORD OF STORMS (Review)

Mike Mignola’s Hellboy is one of those comic titles that seems tailor-made for the animation treatment, and true enough, Sword of Storms is quite possibly the best of the recent crop of animated adaptations of comic book heroes.

Taking Japanese myth and folklore, Mignola, Phil Weinstein (director), Tad Stones (on story), and Matt Wayne (on the script) craft a rollicking yarn that is populated by a whole slew of beasties from fox spirits to kappas. (My personal favorites though, were the floating vampire heads, reminiscent of the penanggalan—the Malaysian cousin to our own manananggal. Of course, the traditional penanggalan have their intestines dangling from their bloody neck stumps, but this is a cartoon after all…)
Considering I have a serious yen for weird sh*t (including weird Asian sh*t), I think it’s fantastic the way the writers and artists approached the material. This isn’t one of those cases where the legends are just chewed up, swallowed, and excreted in a form that degrades and diminishes the myth. Despite the over-all fun mood of a Hellboy adventure, you still get the feeling of proper respect for these ancient tales.
Everything gets thrown into Sword of Storms, including the samurai journey where the young warrior encounters all sorts of mystical ne’er-do-wells, and the ghostly love affair which must find a final resolution. All that, and dragons too!

I must guiltily admit this: I actually enjoyed Sword of Storms a lot more than the live action Hellboy movie. (Sorry, Senor Del Toro.)
All I missed from the live action version were the vocals of David Hyde Pierce for Abe*, and Selma Blair in the flesh. Ah, well, can’t win ‘em all.
Here’s hoping Blood and Iron (the next Hellboy Animated adventure), and the live action Hellboy sequel, will be just as fun as Sword of Storms was.

* David Hyde Pierce did not take credit for voicing Abe since he felt Doug Jones deserved full credit for the character. Jones has frequently collaborated with Guillermo Del Toro since he first appeared in Mimic; Jones portrayed Pan and the Pale Man in El Laberinto Del Fauno. He is also appearing in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, as Norin Radd (a.k.a. the Silver Surfer).

Thanx to Reg.

(Originally posted 030107)