¡QUÉ HORROR! 2016

Candidate #1

TALES OF HALLOWEEN

(July 2015)

"Do you know what would perk up this candy-ass display?

“Some motherf*ckin’ blood!”

With ten stories in its 97-minute running time, The October Society’s Tales of Halloween has a pretty darn good batting average for a horror anthology, in that--at least as far as I’m concerned--there really isn’t any segment in here that’s a particular stinker.

Naturally, you will like some stories more than others, but it’s a pretty good bet that you’ll come out of this thinking, “Sh!t, yeah, that was fun!”

And that’s what Tales of Halloween is, really.

From the “SNL sketch as directed by old school splatter Peter Jackson” insanity of Mike Mendez’s “Friday the 31^st” to the stylized horror of Lucky McKee’s “Ding Dong” (with Pollyanna McIntosh!), from the blackly comedic commentary of the ultimately pointless debate between old school horror and the more modern black metal splatterpunk aesthetic in John Skipp and Andrew Kasch’s “This Means War” (with James Duval!) to the bizarro horror of Neil Marshall’s “Bad Seed” (with Pat Healy as “Forensic Bob”!), Tales of Halloween is some awesomely fun Halloween horror viewing.

“Are you kidding me?! My nuts were viciously assaulted by a monster, dude!”

Plus, there’s a whole bunch of familiar genre faces in here, including Greg Grunberg, Lin Shaye, Noah Segan, Sam Witwer, John Landis, Adam Green, and Joe Dante.

Alex Essoe (from ¡Qué horror! 2015 title, Starry Eyes) and Drew Struzan (as “Rembrandt”) are in here, too, along with Adrienne Barbeau, who basically echoes her Stevie Wayne character from The Fog as the very loose bridging element of “The Radio DJ”.

Originating from an idea by Axelle Carolyn (who also happens to be Neil Marshall’s wife), Tales of Halloween is a mighty fine addition to the ranks of horror anthologies out there.

So be sure and stuff this one into your Halloween candy sack!

“Go bag me some of those horror freaks!”

Parting Shot: The film is dedicated to the memory of Ben Woolf, who recently appeared as Meep in American Horror Story: Freak Show.

(Tales of Halloween OS’ courtesy of aintitcool.com & bloody-disgusting.com.)

DOOMSDAY
(Review)

“It’s human nature to seek even the smallest comfort in reason or logic for events as catastrophic as these. But a virus doesn’t choose a time or place. It doesn’t hate, or even care.
“It just happens.”

That bit of voice-over, courtesy of the one and only Malcolm McDowell, helps kick off Neil Marshall’s third feature, Doomsday.
With streaks of Escape From New York, Aliens, and Mad Max storming through it, Doomsday could admittedly have been a spot of fun, if only, A) like Marshall’s debut, Dog Soldiers, it didn’t feel so damned derivative, and B) I didn’t know it was also from the man who gave me the crackling, claustrophobic intensity of The Descent.

On April 3, 2008, the Reaper Virus spreads across Glasgow, its devastating effects leading up to Scotland’s quarantine, and an impregnable wall being put into place some two and a half months later, isolating the hot zone, and leaving the unfortunate—infected or otherwise—to their own miserable devices.
It’s in this opening sequence where we see the traumatic childhood events that get little Eden Sinclair (Christine Tomlinson) out of Scotland, and turn her into the bad-a$$, eye patch-wearing Major (Skinwalkers’ Rhona Mitra) we see 27 years later.
It isn’t long though before a potentially catastrophic turn of events sends Eden back over the wall, the fate of what’s left of England, in her rough and ready hands.

Now, despite some bits that may recall more recent fare as 28 Days Later (only in so far as seeing the disastrous effects of a virulent outbreak hit England, hard; sorry, no speedy, pseudo-zombies here), Doomsday is very much a nod to the cinematic brand of ‘80’s post-apocalyptic action, where the taciturn hero—whether he be named Gibson, Russell, or Van Damme—travels through a blasted land where technology and civilization have gone the way of the dodo, and the law of the land would make Darwin both proud and suitably horrified.
There are the blatant Road Warrior bits, of course; there are the explosive moments of bloody gore; there are even a number of ‘80’s tunes you may recall from your wayward youth (that is, if you, like me, lived through that fashion-challenged age of hairspray and shoulder pads).
All of this is fun, yes, and there’s nothing terribly wrong with that, but somehow, Eden doesn’t make a very magnetic protagonist. Sure, she’s got the eye patch, and she’s certainly easier on the eyes than Kurt Russell, but she’s definitely no Snake Plissken. There simply isn’t enough mystery or intrigue surrounding the character to make her interesting enough to keep the audience focused and invested in the on-screen goings-on.

And whether this is fair or not, on the heels of The Descent, Doomsday is a disappointment, at least to me. As I recall, I believe I had a better time watching Dog Soldiers.
For all its shortcomings, Dog Soldiers was a much smaller and modest production than Doomsday, and given that it was Marshall’s first feature out of the gate, it showed tremendous promise, promise that was fulfilled with apparently impudent ease in The Descent.
To return with a film that revisits decades-old material without actually working to revise or reimagine it seems such a missed opportunity, it both disappoints and hurts. Not even the presence of Bob Hoskins (as Eden’s superior, Bill Nelson), and the aforementioned McDowell (as Kane), does much to liven up the achingly familiar party.
Tragically, Doomsday doesn’t even achieve the level of derivative fun which can be found in Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy or David Twohy’s Pitch Black. Instead, it just seems to cycle through a whole load of bits and (set)pieces we’ve all seen—and enjoyed much more immensely—before.

I am so terribly sorry, Mr. Marshall.
I wanted to love this, but ultimately, the best I can say is, It had its moments, and it was much better than Mitra’s other recent genre effort, Skinwalkers (review in Archive), but it just didn’t rev my engine.
I do look forward to Sacrilege, though. I mean, in your own words, “… Unforgiven by way of H.P. Lovecraft”; I am so there. Hopefully that will knock me back on my a$$, where The Descent left me.
(And yes, I realize Drive will probably come barreling my way first, but I’m not entirely sold on that one at the moment… Again, sorry about that.)

Parting shot: I will be there for The Descent 2 though, Mr. Marshall, despite your absence at the helm.
I can’t say I’m even actually thrilled with the idea of a follow-up to The Descent’s brilliance, much less the impending reality, but I am curious to see Jon Harris move from the editing bay to the director’s chair.
(Harris has edited Snatch., Stardust, as well as The Descent, to name a few, so seeing what he can bring to the table as a director, that should be something to see…)

(Doomsday UK quad courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com; images courtesy of doomsdayiscoming.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (9)

9.1 Congratulations to Neil Marshall, whose film The Descent (or more precisely, its trailer) nabbed the award for Best Thriller at the 8th Annual Golden Trailer Awards. The Descent also won for Best Horror Poster.
Other notable winners:

Trailers
Best Action: 300
Best Drama: The Departed
Best Documentary: This Film is Not Yet Rated
Best Voice Over: Grindhouse
Best of Show: 300
Best Sound Editing: Little Children
Best Motion/Title Graphics: Transformers: Teaser
Best Anime Trailer: Paprika

TV Spots
Best Comedy: Stranger Than Fiction: Cards

Movie Posters
Best Thriller: Hard Candy
Most Original: Premonition*
Best International: The Prestige

Congratulations to all involved, particularly the companies and ad groups responsible for the trailers, teasers, and one sheets. Check out the complete list of winners at the official GTA website.

9.2 So, after that song-and-dance by Edward James Olmos and David Eick (see Afterthoughts (7) and (8): Archive: May 2007), it seems that Battlestar Galactica really is cruising off into the great beyond at the end of season 4.
Ah well, there’s still 22 more episodes and that Pegasus TV movie before I have to break out the mourning veil…

* Yes, this is one of those cases where I liked the one sheet a hell of a lot more than the movie itself. (This also happens with trailers, where that minute and a half is sometimes so much more kick-a$$ than that excruciating hour and a half plus change.)

(OS’s courtesy of horrorphile.net [The Descent, Hard Candy] and wildaboutmovies.com [Premonition, The Prestige].)

WILDERNESS (Review)

Survival horror has a new contender in Wilderness, a nasty little number directed by Michael J. Bassett (who also helmed the World War I-set Deathwatch).

Racing along at a fast clip right out of the gate, Wilderness takes some ten minutes or so to set up Callum (Toby Kebbell), the New Kid on the (Cell)Block at Moorgates Young Offenders, where some prison bullying leads to a bunch of inmates being sent off to “The Wilderness,” an isolated, supposedly uninhabited island where the prison system’s worst offenders can be sent for “character building” and “rehabilitation.”
Shepherded by Warden Jed Wyler (Sean Pertwee, from Neil Marshall’s Dog Soldiers), the lads soon find that they aren’t alone on the island. Among the unexpected guests, are Louise Dow (Alex Reid, from Neil Marshall’s The Descent; a little Marshall lovefest going on, eh?), of Temple Park women’s facility, with some young charges of her own.
Of course, there are other, more unwelcome guests, some of whom have brought highly trained and vicious attack dogs for a spot of fun.

There’s a fair amount of blood and gore in this production, but all that grue is firmly supported by a script by Dario Poloni that doesn’t stop for a breather, and excellent performances from the young British thesps (among them Lenora Crichlow from TV’s brilliant Sugar Rush) who play this rag tag bunch of sociopaths and sex offenders, who are also, by the way, the protagonists we’re asked to sympathize and identify with.
It’s to the credit of these actors and the script, that we actually do (well, identify with some of them, at least).

Wilderness is the sort of brutal tale where the descent into savagery is all too quick and easy; the kind of film that shows you how flimsy the mask of civilized man really is.
Look alive, this one’s got some teeth on it. And a couple of cracking the-sodding-maniac-was-in-the-bloody-frame-the-whole-time! shots that are guaranteed whoppers.

AFTERTHOUGHTS (3)

3.1 My sincerest apologies to Neil Marshall and Neil Jordan.
In my review of Blood and Chocolate (Archive: March 2007), I completely forgot to mention Dog Soldiers and The Company of Wolves as quality lycanthrope cinema.
And really, the only reason why that is, is due to the fact that Marshall’s subsequent film, The Descent, blew Dog Soldiers away. A very dark and brutal yin to Dog Soldiers’ testosterone-laden yang, The Descent is always at the forefront of my thoughts when it comes to Neil Marshall, so Dog Soldiers often gets overlooked, thus my failure to recall it when I was writing my Blood and Chocolate review.
For those who haven’t seen it, it’s about British soldiers running into some hairy opposition in the Scottish boonies.
It’s also spawned a sequel, Dog Soldiers: Fresh Meat, though this one is being helmed by Rob Green, who brought us the World War II-set The Bunker.
Now, as for the Jordan oversight, absolutely no bloody excuse except senility. So very sorry. His adaptation of the late Angela Carter’s work is dark and phantasmagoric and a must-see for any werewolf completists out there.
(I have also yet to see the Ginger Snaps films, so who knows, there could be some gems there too.)

3.2 In my review of Season 1 of Showtime’s Dexter (Archive: March 2007), I made mention of its brilliant opening credits sequence.
Well, it ended up as #3 on A.V. Club’s list of 22 TV Opening-Credit Sequences That Fit Their Shows Perfectly.

(3) Dexter
According to Showtime’s engrossing series Dexter, being a serial killer—even a serial killer who preys on his fellow killers—is all about hiding. Hiding bodies, hiding slides of blood in the back of an air conditioner, and hiding a pronounced lack of human emotion. But mostly it’s about hiding those pesky sociopathic tendencies that seethe just underneath the surface. Dexter’s opening credits hint heavily at those tendencies, with a highly sensory sequence of Michael C. Hall going through the motions of his morning routine. Hall swats a buzzing mosquito on his arm in extreme close-up, then smiles. From there, the fine line between morning routine and homicide gets blurrier and blurrier. The most graphic scenes come when Hall prepares his breakfast. He slices ham with a sharp knife, butter sizzles in the pan, a blood orange is sawed in half—all shot in the heightened style often referred to as “food porn.” Here, it’s closer to “food snuff film.”
(coloured text from avclub.com)

Check the list out. It’s got links to YouTube, where you can see the sequences yourself.