13 Slots for the Best Horror I've Seen in the Past Year
[5 of 13]

CAM

(July 2018)

“... I don't do public shows, I don't tell my guys I love them, and I don’t fake my orgasms.

“My rules.”

So says Madeline Brewer’s Alice Ackerman (AKA the cam girl who goes by the handle “Lola_Lola”).

Living her secret life without her mother’s knowledge, struggling to break the Top 50 on FGL (FreeGirlsLive), Alice’s world is turned upside down when a doppelgänger steals her online identity.

“Oh, tonight went so well! I told you people are craving crazy shows!”

“They are! Those guys get so nasty!”

“Yeah… What the f*ck was that?”

Director Daniel Goldhaber’s feature debut, Cam sees Brewer (exceptional as Janine on The Handmaid’s Tale) portray a simple working girl earnestly trying to make it big in her line of work, which involves constantly keeping her "guys"' attention fixed solely on her, lest their libidos wander and turn to the competition literally just a click away.

There is no judgment in the screenplay Goldhaber works from (written by former cam girl Isa Mazzei), no moralizing. Alice’s ordeal isn’t punishment for doing something wrong. If anything, the chilling scenario Cam presents suggests that cam girls are particularly susceptible to this very specific (and very insidious) form of horror film identity theft.

“We were brought together for a reason. Unexpected things happen… to test us. That’s what this is. You’re being tested, but… you’re strong. You’ll make it through.”

After all, we live in a world of Instagram filters, deepfakes, and the persona curation that goes on all the time on social media platforms, where nothing you see online can be assured to be genuine, to be “real.”

Where images, snippets of video, quotes or posts, can be taken out of context, co-opted, and used for purposes entirely divorced from their original intent.

Mazzei and Goldhaber’s tale takes that reality and pushes it into identity horror territory, where a girl who works under an obviously fake name is ousted from her online life by another fake, and can’t seem to get help from anyone other than herself.

“I’ll take care of you, my chickadee.”

Cam is an unsettling and haunting tale of identity and truth in the 21^st online century, where both can simply become mutable commodities on the web, and perhaps the only weapon that can be used in their defense, is our own personal agency.

““I’m, like, this f*cking close to breaking Top 50! I can taste it!”

(Cam OS courtesy of screenanarchy.com.)

13 Slots for the Best Horror I've Seen in the Past Year
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POSSUM

(June 2018)

Look at Possum, there he lies

Children, meet his lifeless eyes

See his nasty legs and tongue

When he wakens, watch him run

Drenched in tone and atmosphere, dotted with mysteries (a bag and its hideous contents; a perpetually closed door), Matthew Holness’ debut feature Possum is subjective, oblique horror at its finest.

In it, Sean Harris (notable to this film and music geek for portraying Joy Division’s Ian Curtis in Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People) plays Philip Connell, who returns to his now squalid childhood home in an attempt to rid himself of his figurative (or perhaps literal?) demons.

And since we’ve mentioned music, certain aspects of Possum put me in mind of a particular track from The Cure’s Disintegration.

If you take a gander at Possum, and are a Cure fan, you’ll know which track I’m referring to…

And even if you aren’t a Cure fan, and are also somehow opposed to horror films that don’t rely on over-exposition, surely the eponymous Possum is a creature of deep, dark nightmare that, at the very least, demands to be seen, so its insidious presence can stain even your most innocent, sundrenched dreams…

Wait a while, my little child,

For what is playing dead

Possum, with his black balloons

Will eat you up in bed.

Parting Shot: Sean Harris also appears in Billy O’Brien’s excellently repulsive Isolation (review here).

(Possum OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

13 Slots for the Best Horror I've Seen in the Past Year
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The Danse Macabre Slot

So yes, since both these films have dance as a central narrative element, they're sharing a slot...
 

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.

SUSPIRIA

(September 2018)

"They are professional performers. Illusion is their craft.”

The best word I can come up with for Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria (billed as “Six Acts and an Epilogue Set in Divided Berlin”), is reimagining.

While the opening credits tell us that the script by David Kajganich is still “Based on the Original Screenplay by Dario Argento and Daria Nicolodi,” this Suspiria takes the bare narrative bones of a young American accepted to a dance academy that hides a sinister secret, and lushly fleshes it out, in both theme and character, giving us something at once familiar, and yet bracingly, beguilingly new.

Or, to use the appropriate metaphor, it’s generally the same dance, but it’s set to a different tempo, so it’s got a different rhythm, and it boasts some new, brazenly daring choreography.

“When you dance the dance of another, you make yourself in the image of its creator. You empty yourself, so that her work can live within you.

“Do you understand?”

Some of those new steps are immediately introduced to us.

Even before Susanna Bannion of Ohio (Dakota Johnson) is welcomed into the Helena Markos Tanzgruppe, we meet Josef Klemperer (“Lutz Ebersdorf”**), psychiatrist to Chloë Grace Moretz’s Patricia Hingle (a name that should ring some bells from the original).

And while Argento bound himself largely to the dark fairy tale setting of the Tanz Academie, Guadagnino and Kajganich choose to frame the action against historical events in a “Divided Berlin,” tossing politics (including sexual), societal upheaval, and the long, twisted shadow of the Holocaust into this witches’ brew.

With a full hour more running time than the original, this Suspiria uses that additional time masterfully so motivations come more clearly into focus, and dance becomes even more pivotal and central to the narrative.

“Movement is never mute. It is a language. It’s a series of energetic shapes written in the air like words forming sentences.

“Like poems.

“Like prayers.”

Dance as magick.

Movement as vector for intent and desire, unleashing power more potentially destructive than bombs.

These come forcefully to the surface in this reimagining, as does Argento’s Three Mothers mythology.

As Klemperer recounts:

“Patricia wrote about ‘Three Mothers,’ lost in time, predating all Christian invention. Pre-God. Pre-Devil.

“Mother Tenebrarum, Mother Lachrymarum, and Mother Suspiriorum.

“Darkness, Tears, and Sighs.”

We may not be treated to the added layer of their three Houses just yet, but the basic mythological foundation is here for our inspection.

All these, and more, all discrete steps in this shadowy dance, which builds steadily, crescendoing in a completely batsh!t Grand Guignol finale, before segueing into a surprisingly moving Epilogue.

(Plus, Argento’s Suzy Bannion, Jessica Harper, makes a crucial appearance!)

While it’s safe to say that this was clearly another very serious instance of “Manage Your Expectations, Space Monkey,” I am relieved to announce that this is a dance I was very glad to have witnessed.

“You can give someone your delusion, Sara. That’s religion.”

** I could go on about the whole Tilda Swinton of it all (and she is amazing here, as always), but that would just detract from the whole, so let’s just leave that where it is, and simply bathe in the witchy glow of this powerful and potent “reimagining” without those added distractions.

Parting Shot: Reviews for Argento’s original “Three Mothers” trilogy can be found here, here, and here.

Given my opinions of Inferno and La Terza Madre, I honestly wouldn’t mind some more reimaginings of this type.

Parting Shot 2: Kajganich also wrote the script for The Invasion (review here), but that was butchered thanks to studio/test audience interference, so we’re not holding that against him.

He also co-wrote the script for the Pet Sematary remake, from Starry Eyes’ Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer. (Definitely another case of “Manage Your Expectations, Space Monkey.”)

(Climax & Suspiria OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

13 Slots for the Best Horror I've Seen in the Past Year
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HOUSEWIFE

(September 2017)

“Let's go back to where it all began.”

After gracing the ¡Qué horror! 2016 rundown with Baskin, Can Evrenol is back with his sophomore feature, the English-language Housewife, which follows Holly (Clémentine Poidatz), who is haunted by a terrible childhood tragedy.

Things take a turn for the worse when Holly finds herself at the seminar of a “… crazy, world-famous cult that actually believes in the Apocalypse happening pretty soon.”

There’s only you and your dreams – ULM slogan

The cult, described as “… like Scientology with astral travel,” is called ULM (Umbrella of Love and Mind), and is led by Bruce O’Hara (David Sakurai), who comes out on stage at said seminar to the tune of KC & The Sunshine Band’s “I’m Your Boogie Man” (a homophonically apt title, natch).

It really isn’t much of a spoiler to say that the “rock star” entrance (with an umbrella, right, ‘cause, well… ULM) masks something far more sinister.

“Accept the mystery.”

In Housewife, Evrenol trades in most (but not all) of the batsh!t insanity of Baskin for a mystery cloaked in dream, memory, and cult madness, the deep psychological scarring of the eponymous protagonist, and some frank, adult sexuality.

It’s a truly excellent follow-up, that also serves as a tantalizing promise of more dark and disturbing visions from Evrenol.

“Let me take you to your destiny.”

Parting Shot: The female artist working in miniature in a horror film has apparently become a recurring motif these days.

Or what the kids would call “a thing.”

Hereditary, Michael Tully’s Don’t Leave Home, and now, Housewife.

Yeah.

“A thing”…

(Housewife OS’ courtesy of impawards.com.)

13 Slots for the Best Horror I've Seen in the Past Year
[1 of 13]

THE CRESCENT

(September 2017)

“You never know how rich life is until you’ve lost it.”

Seth A. Smith’s sophomore feature, The Crescent, is a sedate and gradual descent into the deep trenches of oblique horror, as Beth (Danika Vandersteen, in her feature debut) retreats to her mother’s seaside home in Shoal Harbor, to hopefully heal from a deeply felt personal tragedy.

But while the going is generally measured and slow, sound and the atonal score--likewise composed by Smith--effectively build a sense of creeping unease and disquiet, fortifying the work with the kind of atmosphere that you really don’t find in your regular mainstream Hollywood horror.

For those of you who’ve grown tired of the Sturm und Drang jump scares-on-a-schedule state of contemporary widescreen horror, then The Crescent may just be right up your alley.

“It’s too late for you. The water won’t take you back.”

Parting Shot: I am so looking forward to Smith’s follow-up feature, Tin Can, for which he consulted with Brandon Cronenberg on the screenplay (co-written by Smith with Darcy Spidle, who penned The Crescent’s script).

(The Crescent OS and banner courtesy of facebook.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

The Preliminaries

So it's October 1 once again, and ‘round these parts, that means 3 things.

1) The window for ¡Qué horror! 2019 candidacy has officially closed;

2) The window for ¡Qué horror! 2020 candidacy has officially opened, and will stay open till September 30, 2020; and

3) The ¡Qué horror! 2019 main rundown will start today and continue over the next few days.

Before we get to that though, a “Sniff. R.I.P.” must go out to two Netflix shows that were brutally cancelled in the past few months… (Why you gotta be that way, Netflix?)

Santa Clarita Diet and

The OA

I ask again: Why you gotta be that way, Netflix?

Sigh.

Okay.

One more thing before the main rundown kicks off.

STARFISH

(September 2018)

“Wanna know the saddest thing about everybody being gone? Everybody being dead, I mean.

“The lost stories.

“People are gonna die anyways but… their stories don’t have to.”

There’s a shot early on in Starfish: a key on the palm of a hand, joined by a tear, and then a drop of blood.

It’s a striking image in a singular film about love, guilt, and the Apocalypse.

Written, directed and scored by A.T. White, Starfish (his feature debut*) sees Aubrey Parker (Virginia Gardner**) struggle with loss and grief, as well as what could be the end of the world.

With a narrative that transforms a private, personal apocalypse (the death of a loved one) into a public, global apocalypse, and back again, Starfish is a film that, while featuring horror elements, ultimately doesn’t play like a horror film, thus its mention here, outside of the main ¡Qué horror! rundown.

And while it may not have enough “horror” for some, it should nonetheless be lauded for sprinkling the Apocalypse with a bunch of interesting needle drops***.

If one must endure the end of the world, then it may as well be an Apocalypse with excellent taste in music…

“I’m alone at last with every other me…”

--The Notwist, “Gloomy Planets”

* Among the short films White has directed in the past: Spider-Man: Eclipse.

** Gardner should be familiar to comic book geeks from Hulu’s Runaways, and to horror geeks from ¡Qué horror! 2019 Candidate Halloween.

*** WHY?, The Notwist, and Grandaddy--whose “Stray Dog and the Chocolate Shake” underscores the “raiding the empty grocery for supplies” scene oh-so-painfully familiar to aficionados of apocalypse cinema--are some of the acts that accompany this particular end of the world…

And there we have it.

Preliminaries all done.

Main rundown about to start in 3.

2.

1.

(Santa Clarita Diet & The OA OS’ courtesy of impawards.com; Starfish OS’ courtesy of screenanarchy.com & impawards.com.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2019

Candidate #26

SEEDS

(March 2018)

“I'm not well, obviously.”

There is something wrong with Marcus (Trevor Long); he seems to be taking some kind of pills for whatever it is.

There’s also something decidedly uncomfortable about his relationship with his teenage niece Lily (Andrea Chen).

Oh, and there seems to be some kind of creature lurking in Marcus’ (now deceased) parents’ house. Or maybe it’s all just in Marcus’ head. (There is something wrong with him, after all. And we’re not even going to get into his obsession with the old house’s wiring…)

These are the roots from which the twisted tale of Owen Long’s Seeds grow, as domestic circumstances dictate that Lily and her younger brother Spencer (Garr Long) stay with their “Uncle M”, while things steadily progress from Not Good to WTF is Going On Here?!

By turns upsetting, confounding, and disturbing--three things a horror movie should be, even though most (particularly those from the Hollywood assembly line) aren’t--Seeds is definitely the kind of horror film that isn’t for everybody, given the sensitive subject matter and the partially oblique narrative approach.

For those who are open about how they define “horror” though, Seeds may very well be worth a look.

“Uncle M, fairy tales aren’t just for little girls.”

(Seeds OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)