¡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.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (36)

36.1 PIMP MY BOOK (5)
Chapter 10 is up at the Pelicula website, where you can find out exactly what goes on at all those Manila Basketball League games. Mosey on over to the website to see what the frak I’m blathering on about.
And thanx to everyone who’s checked Pelicula out.

36.2 BETTER WATCH THAT SAG 2008
Unlike the Golden Globes, which is on shaky ground with the on-going WGA strike, next year’s 14th Annual SAG Awards (scheduled for January 27), looks to be a go, though whether or not nominees will cross the picket lines to attend the show remains to be seen.
At any rate, the SAG award nominees that got my attention are:

Motion Pictures

Away From Her:
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role (Julie Christie as Fiona)

Eastern Promises:
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role (Viggo Mortensen as Nikolai)

Juno:
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role (Ellen Page as Juno MacGuff)

Lars and the Real Girl:
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role (Ryan Gosling as Lars Lindstrom)

Television

Dexter:
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series (Michael C. Hall as Dexter Morgan)

Entourage:
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series (Jeremy Piven as Ari Gold)
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
Rhys Coiro / Billy Walsh
Kevin Connolly / Eric Murphy
Kevin Dillon / Johnny Drama
Jerry Ferrara / Turtle
Adrian Grenier / Vincent Chase
Rex Lee / Lloyd
Jeremy Piven / Ari Gold
Perrey Reeves / Mrs. Ari

SAG has also established a new stunt award category for both film and TV, with the respective categories looking like this:

Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture
300
The Bourne Ultimatum
I Am Legend
The Kingdom
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series
24
Heroes
Lost
Rome
The Unit

Congratulations, one and all, and hurrah for the stunt people!

You can check out the entire list of nominees for the 14th Annual SAGs here, a list which features a frighteningly thorough fact sheet, and the SAG Award histories of the nominees. So if you always wanted to know whether or not George Clooney won an Actor for his work on ER (he won four Actors as part of the show’s ensemble, but failed to win Actor in a Drama Series the two times he was nominated; sorry, George), this cheat sheet is the place to go.

36.3 TO RATE THE UNDERRATED
And congratulations to C.S. Lee (of Dexter and Chuck) and Pushing Daisies’ Orbit, for making zap2it.com’s The Underrated of 2007 list.
Recognizing the sometimes overlooked supporting players of our favourite shows, the list did well to note Orbit’s very tangible contribution to Pushing Daisies, as Ned’s faithful golden retriever, Digby.

Yeah, Orbit! Break down those gender barriers! You go, girl!

The complete Underrated of 2007 list can be found here.

(Image from Pelicula website, website designed by Carl Vergara, Habagat icon designed by Ian Sta. Maria; other images courtesy of variety.com and SAG [SAG crest]; and zap2it.com, showtime, and abc [C.S. Lee and Orbit with Kristin Chenoweth].)

THE REAPING
(Review)

Stephen Hopkins’ The Reaping has a number of elements that could have made for an effective horror film: Biblical plagues, a little girl who could be the spawn of Satan, a twist ending. It’s even got a nifty end credits sequence. Oh, and a double Oscar winner. Ultimately though, all these elements don’t really gel into one cohesive, kick-a$$ whole.

Katherine (Hilary Swank, she of the double Best Actress Oscars) is an ex-minister whose faith is shattered by the deaths of her husband and daughter during missionary work in the Sudan, and now spends her days as a professional debunker of miraculous phenomena.
She is first contacted by Father Michael Costigan (a severely underutilized Stephen Rea), who believes he is being sent warnings by God regarding Katherine’s safety. No sooner has she scoffed at and rebuffed him, that an emissary from Haven (“the best kept secret in the Bible Belt”), Science and Math teacher Doug (David Morrissey, Basic Instinct 2) arrives to ask for her help. It seems that Haven’s river has turned into blood, an event the townspeople fear is the first of ten plagues, plagues caused by the purportedly diabolical presence of Loren McConnell (AnnaSophia Robb, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Bridge to Terabithia); the little girl allegedly killed her older brother at the river’s edge, the heinous crime that caused the water’s transfiguration.
And true enough, Katherine and her assistant Ben (Idris Elba, HBO’s The Wire and 28 Weeks Later) arrive in Haven just in time for the rest of the plagues to come a’knocking. Is Loren truly the evil presence the townsfolk of Haven claim she is, or is there some deeper, darker malevolence at work?

From a screenplay by Chad and Carey W. Hayes—off a story by Brian Rousso—director Hopkins (whose second feature film was 1989’s A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child, but has more recently given us the original Traffic mini-series, as well as being instrumental in 24’s astounding success) delivers a horror film that certainly has moments (particularly when the plagues are concerned), but ultimately fails in delivering the goods.
The script itself is an inconsistent affair, stretches of it actually well-paced, but sadly (heh) plagued by bothersome interludes—the Father Costigan sequences seem to be nothing more than the build-up to the convenient expository sequence that could tell us exactly what’s going on, and which culminates in a tragedy that displays the awesome power of the tale’s evil, thus apparently reinforcing said exposition—and revelations that are pulled out of thin air with the flourish of a Las Vegas magician (or a stricken priest who’s boned up on his religious texts offscreen).
That, coupled with a climactic effects sequence that degenerates into a morass of CGI sound and fury, and you have a film that fails in a most annoying fashion.

Which is too bad, really.
As I said, it had some of the makings of a good horror movie. And cinematographer Peter Levy (a frequent Hopkins collaborator since the director’s debut, Dangerous Game) knows how to get the shot without crossing the line into that MTV-slick territory a lot of Hollywood horror loses itself in these days.
No matter how great the film looks though, the story itself gets a bit clunky, and the heavy-handed attempt at misdirection plays more like a stall to rack up the film’s running time than an actual significant twist in the plot.
The script is also not entirely successful in exploring the theme of faith lost and how that can change a person. Yes, we see how it affected Katherine, but we don’t really feel its effect on certain other characters in the story in any potent sense. There’s some talk to that end, but no honest emotion to back it up and give it any weight.
Parallels between characters and situations also aren’t delineated well enough for a proper appreciation of the tale’s layers, leaving the film in an embarrassing lurch; it’s the kind of movie that gives the impression of a flimsy façade when there’s actually something going on within its structure, mostly left unseen by muddled storytelling.

Ultimately, this one is a sad disappointment, as I’d hoped this could be a solid exercise in horror that had nothing to do with either gorno or the Asian horror scene (two predominant trends in Hollywood horror du jour).
Instead, it’s a hit-and-miss affair (largely a miss) that ends up a right bloody mess, like a locust on the sturdy windshield of a horror fan’s fervent expectation.

(The Reaping OS’s courtesy of wildaboutmovies.com; note the original 2006 release date on the first OS.)