¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

Candidate #23

CLIMAX

(May 2018)

Gaspar Noé’s* self-described "catastrophe movie with dancers," Climax is an interesting entry in the “Cinematic Experience as Endurance Test” horror movie category.

In it, we witness a group of dancers have the Worst. Night. Ever. thanks to an external trigger that shall remain unidentified here.

The fact that the trigger is a very real and possible occurrence also makes Climax the kind of horror film that doesn’t need ghosts or demons or vampires or masked slashers or (Heaven forbid) zombies to make its case, but instead, is a chillingly disturbing example of Sartre’s observation "L'enfer, c'est les autres!" (“Hell is other people!”).

Hell is also a gradual, hypnotic, dizzying, alluringly repulsive descent into chaos.

But while all of the above may be true, it must also be pointed out that Hell has a slammin’ soundtrack!

[Climax is] all about people creating something together, and failing in the second half. It’s like the story of the Tower of Babel. Mankind can create big things. And then with the influence of alcohol, or some accident, everything falls.

--Gaspar Noé

* Noé has pointed to titles like ‘70’s disaster films The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure, as well as David Cronenberg’s Shivers as some of the inspiration that fueled Climax.

(Climax OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

Candidate #22

HEAD COUNT

(September 2018)

A HISJI is a vengeful thing

five times its name you never sing

with skin pale white and eyes of green

it’s something you’ve already seen.

Taking the urban legend horror trope of that extra someone/something tagging along with a group of unsuspecting soon-to-be victims*, Elle Callahan’s** feature directorial debut, Head Count is an effective paranoiac horror-thriller that sees Evan (Isaac W. Jay) visit his older brother Peyton (Cooper Rowe) out in Joshua Tree.

The trip of course, soon veers into horror movie territory after Evan joins a group that the brothers meet while out on a hike, and unwisely reads a random story found on anonymousnightmares.com.

Moral of this story?

The Internet can be a very dangerous place… so do NOT, under any circumstances, just read off some random bit you find on a website you are not familiar with…

Ugh.

Kids today…

  Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?

--T.S. Eliot

The Waste Land

* I like to think of that trope as the 21^st century Creepypasta take on T.S. Eliot’s “Who is the third…?” thus, the seemingly rando appearance of the above quote here.

** Callahan also executive produces, handles (the excellent and unnerving) sound design, and is credited for the story, along with Michael Nader, who wrote the screenplay.

Parting Shot: Along with Callahan’s sound design, DP Sean Bagley’s camerawork, Nick Wright’s editing, and Hannah Parrott’s score contribute tremendously to the film’s atmospherics.

(Head Count OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

Candidate #21

PET SEMATARY

(March 2019)

“There are places in this world... that are older than either of us. Places that a rational doctor brain like yours will never understand.

“Nobody knows what that place is, what happens in that stony ground.

“But the soil of a man’s heart is stonier, Louis.”

For the record, I’ve never read the original Stephen King novel.

My only exposure to a complete narrative of Pet Sematary was the 1989 film adaptation directed by Mary Lambert.

At least, until now.

Now that I’ve also been exposed to the new adaptation from Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer, who broke onto the ¡Qué horror! 2015 main list with Starry Eyes. (While I would have probably checked out a Pet Sematary remake anyway, based on my familiarity with the 1989 film, Kölsch and Widmyer’s presence at the director’s chair(s) sealed the deal.)

Clearly, there are marked deviations from Lambert’s version, though given that, again, I’ve never read the novel, maybe these deviations bring the narrative closer to the original source material. (I was always under the impression that Lambert’s adaptation made changes to the original text, as is par for the course with any adaptation, really.)

 

All I know is, with death as a major theme and reality of Pet Sematary, it’s a bleakly harsh vision of a parent’s perhaps vain struggle to protect a child from the brutal truths of existence.

And another thing… what I am sure I miss from Mary Lambert’s adaptation?

The original Ramones title track.

Sorry, Starcrawler…

“Yeah, they knew the power of that place. They felt its pull.

“They came to believe that those woods belonged to something else. That the ground was bad.”

(Pet Sematary OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

Candidate #20

BRIGHTBURN

(May 2019)

“Maybe we need to talk to somebody. He needs, uh, like a, specialist.”

“What?! And say what to ‘em?”

“I don’t know!”

“‘Hello, this is our son. We found him in a f*cking spaceship in the woods. Now what?’

“No! We should have done something a long time ago! This is on us!”

The above quote shouldn’t be a spoiler for anyone who’s seen Brightburn’s trailer. Hell, even the one sheet gives the game away.

Take The Bad Seed, the idea that a child can be a scheming, conniving killer, and graft some spandex superhero origin story onto it, and you get Brightburn.

Or, to use 21^st century Hollywood pitchspeak, it’s Superman as an evil child horror movie.

What if a loving yet childless couple finds an infant under bizarre circumstances?

What if that child (which, after 81 years of conditioning, we’re led to believe will grow up to be a paragon of virtue) turns out not the way we hope or expect?

For longtime comic book readers, this is certainly not a new and novel concept.

But in this day and age of the box office supremacy of superheroes, any story that carries even the whiff of subversion (such as, say, Amazon’s adaptation of The Boys, which doesn’t so much as carry a whiff but reek of it) is certainly welcome, if only to mix things up and offer decidedly different flavours to the cinematic buffet that very quickly tastes all the same, all the time.

And while there is some effective horror and some brief, yet standout gore, what really sells Brightburn are the performances of Elizabeth Banks and David Denman, who play the loving yet childless couple, the Breyers.

Instead of rearing a superhero for the ages though (and through no real fault of their own), they find, to their horror, that their little bundle of joy is anything but.

(Brightburn OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

SELECTED 'VERSE TITLES NOW AVAILABLE ON MERVSTORE! [UPDATED]

So these 12 'Verse issues

DAKILA: Lumilim

Issues 1 & 2

David Hontiveros / Elmer Cantada

DAKILA: Makadaot

Issue 2

David Hontiveros / Carl Corilla

DAKILA: Makadaot

Issue 3

David Hontiveros / Carl Corilla

DAKILA: Metronom

Issues 2 & 3

David Hontiveros / Romnick Magbanua

DAKILA / KADASIG: Balat

Issues 1 to 4

David Hontiveros / Romnick Magbanua

DAKILA / MASKARADO: Silver Like Dust

David Hontiveros / Reno Maniquis

KADASIG Volume One: "The Skeleton at the Feast"

Issue 2

David Hontiveros / Rafael Gumboc

which I talk about in more detail here, are now available to order at the Indie Komiks Market section of mervstore.

So if you haven't read some (or all) of these, then please click on down to the link(s) above and check them out.
And if you're so inclined, please feel free to spread the word and these links, to show your support for the local comic book scene.

you can’t drink just six,

Dave