Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here.
One of the strangest justifications I heard over and over and over and over in e-mail and talkback when recently discussing ROB ZOMBIE’S JOHN CARPENTER’S HALLOWEEN was that Zombie might as well have done it, since “someone was going to.” And it struck me... we have created a generation of filmgoers that completely passively accept and internalize the idea that originality is overrated. They simply accept that it must happen... that there is no alternative. Remakes and reimaginings and reboots and updates and sequels and spinoffs have become the bedrock the business is built on now.
So if you’re a fan of original horror, then you sort of owe it to yourself and to the genre to check out original horror when it manages to get a theatrical play date. If it gets a theatrical play date.
You know why Rob Zombie’s film had a $30 million opening? The title and the shrewd targeted marketing. They spent to open that film, and they spent right. It’s obvious that when the Weinstein Company wants to, they can figure out how to open a film. So what happens when they buy a movie and then decide they don’t know how to sell it? Well... you end up with ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE, a movie they almost dumped.
You won’t get a chance to see ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE until next spring, though, because when the Weinsteins started to dump the film, the producers scrambled and managed to find someone to buy it back from them, someone that will actually take the time to try and nurture the film in theaters. You know... the way the Weinsteins used to be able to do. That’s where the Weinsteins made their reputation and their money. They were great at finding a small film, buying it for the right price, then figuring out how to imbed it in the public consciousness so that it would actually open. These days, they seem to only care about Oscars or about easy sells. If it seems like it might be difficult, it’s beyond them. I’ll be curious to see what happens with their company in the months ahead because it feels to me as an observer that they have finally run out of gas.
The French film ILS was released in the UK this spring as THEM, and I remember seeing posters everywhere for it when I was there to visit the sets of THE GOLDEN COMPASS and INKHEART. It’s just now opening in the U.S., and I had a chance to check it out last week. It’s very similar in some ways to THE STRANGERS, the Bryan Bertino film starring Liv Tyler that is opening here later this fall. Basically, you have a couple in a house being terrorized by faceless intruders with mysterious motives. There’s very little in the way of story or characterization in THEM. It’s just one set-up for a suspense sequence or a scare followed by another followed by another. And it’s a tight little exercise, too, running just under 80 minutes. It obviously did the trick, too, since co-directors David Moreau and Xavier Paludo were hired after this to direct the U.S. remake of THE EYE. Sort of brings us full-circle, doesn’t it? Seems screwy to me to create your own original horror film just so you can get a job working on remakes, but that seems to be the way it works.
Once again, someone uses the “based on a true story” lie to get a gullible audience revved up, but THEM is barely a story. There’s a sting at the beginning involving two women whose car runs off the road during a rainstorm, but most of the movie deals with Clementine (Olivia Bonamy) and Lucas (Michael Cohen), a couple who live in a country house. They spend a quiet evening at home, then go to bed. At first, noises catch their attention and creep them out, but it gradually becomes clear that someone... or more likely, many someones... are outside the house, looking for a way in.
And that’s pretty much it. The entire movie builds up to a punchline that most audiences will find underwhelming, and it seemed to me that the filmmakers didn’t really know where they were going when they started writing. It doesn’t make much sense. Still, there’s a good deal of technique on display here, and their sound design in particular is very canny. The film may rely primarily on cheap scares and jumps, but there’s no doubt that with an audience that’s in the right mood, there’s some fun to be had here. “Fun” is an important word when talking about these films, too. Some of you took me to task because I didn’t think HALLOWEEN was fun, but isn’t that part of why we watch these films? They’re like emotional rollercoasters, and fun’s certainly part of it.
A great example would be Franck Khalfoun’s P2, co-written with Alexandre Aja, a filmmaker who seems to me to have a real fondness for the genre. This is Khalfoun’s first time as a director, and he exhibits a genuine understanding of how to build a real movie, and not just an empty gore machine or a pointless collection of cheap shocks. Like THEM, this is a simple film. Rachel Nichols (from ALIAS and THE INSIDE, as well as THE AMITYVILLE HORROR where she played the smokin’ hot babysitter) is Angela, a girl who finds herself the last one working on Christmas Eve in a huge office building in NYC. She has an awkward moment with a co-worker who got a little grabby at the office party, and she fields a few calls from her family in Jersey who are upset that she’s still at the office, but the film starts quietly. It’s the slow accumulation of detail that makes it persuasive. All she wants to do is wrap up her work, get in her car, and make it out of the city. But one thing after another goes wrong, and in ways that seem pretty realistic. It’s amazing how much faith we place in our cell phones and our elevators and the basic services in modern buildings. And when those things fail us, things can turn to shit fast.
Here’s a good example... a few weeks ago, I went to a screening of THE KING OF KONG with Henchman Mongo. As soon as the film was out, he wanted to step outside and grab a smoke. We spent a few minutes talking about the movie, and then as soon as he was done, we tried to walk back inside. The front door of the building had locked behind us, though, and so we went around to the entrance to the garage. It’s an automatic door, though, that can only be triggered from the inside, and there was no one around to open it for us to let us into the garage. So all of a sudden, I found myself wondering how the hell I was going to get my car out of this garage at 9:45 on a Wednesday night and how I was going to get home. The situation resolved itself quickly, but there was that moment... and moments like that are what this film is built on at first. Angela’s situation isn’t contrived to put her in peril.
See, someone’s been watching Angela. And Christmas Eve turns out to be the moment when that someone finally makes their move, taking advantage of those little moments, turning them into something larger, something much more sinister and dangerous.
Has it really been eight years since AMERICAN BEAUTY? It’s about time someone figured out something to do with Wes Bentley again. He plays Thomas, the security guard in charge of the parking garage on Christmas Eve, and his work here is menacing at times, funny at times, and even somewhat sad in places. It’s the kind of performance that reminds you why you liked someone the first time you saw them, and for it to appear in what is ostensibly a simple cat-and-mouse thriller is sort of a shock. He strikes some real sparks with Rachel Nichols, and the two of them elevate the material with the way they commit to it. Thomas may be crazy, and he may have nefarious plans for Angela, but this never devolves into a film about cruelty. Instead, Khalfoun focuses on the suspense. This is the sort of film that is perfect for a date because of the way it’s constantly tweaking the audience, playing off your expectations, and scaring you without insulting you. The film’s never about heaping on the violence, either. There are a few moments that pushed the film from a PG-13 to an R, but it’s more about the fear than it is about actual damage done.
I think what I found most refreshing about P2 was the lack of pretense. The film knows exactly what it’s trying to do, and it does it well, and then it’s done. It is a thriller that actually thrills, a horror film that contains some real scares, and the characters in it make smart choices, which I think only makes it more suspenseful. I hate when people do stupid things in horror films just to keep the film moving forward, but here, things go wrong even when Angela does the exact right thing. When it opens on November 9th, I’m hoping audiences will give it a try even though it’s not the eighth in a series or the third version of this particular film.
I think P2 is an easier sell than ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE, though. MANDY LANE is a slasher film... sort of. It’s a teen drama... sort of. It’s a horror film... sort of. Jonathan Levine’s already wrapped his next film, which seems to be getting a lot of attention because Ben Kingsley kisses one of the Olsen Twins in it, and it sounds like he’s already branched out into a totally different genre. That doesn’t surprise me, since MANDY LANE studiously avoids easy categorization. This film plays it real even when offering up its twists on the slasher genre, and that reality makes this one harder to shake off than I expected.
Most slasher films are so removed from reality that they’re like Teflon films; you watch them, but nothing sticks. I’m not afraid of Jason Voorhees because there aren’t a lot of seven foot tall undead redneck mama’s boys running around my neighborhood. Or any neighborhood, for that matter. But MANDY LANE is about the real face of evil, banal and pedestrian and possible. In the film, Mandy Lane (Amber Heard) is the one girl in her circle of friends who doesn’t randomly fuck around, and her friends all put pressure on her to give up the good-girl act and join in the hook-up culture. They decide to take an overnight trip to the ranch owned by the father of one of them, determined to party hard. One by one, though, they start turning up dead, with Mandy seemingly at the center of things.
Whatever you expect from the film based on that description, though, you’re probably wrong. MANDY LANE isn’t perfect. The last 20 minutes or so in particular will divide audiences, and I’m not sure I think they really nailed the ending. But the way the majority of the film unfolds, it doesn’t treat death as something cool or neat-looking... it makes each and every death ugly and painful. It makes each one of these teenagers count, and there’s something subversive about that in a genre where death is just something to watch while you shovel popcorn into your face. The film works as a mystery, since you’re not sure who is doing the killing or why, or how any of it ties into the opening scene at a party. Jacob Forman’s script is smart, and there’s a loose, improvisational feel to a lot of the film. So much attention has been paid to fleshing out this cast that it almost seems a shame to categorize this as a horror film, since that will turn off some people. Instead, this is just a film, a good story told well. When Senator Films opens this in February of next year, I’m hoping audiences take a chance with it.
In fact, I’m hoping audiences take a chance on all three of these films. Please... if you love horror movies, you need to vote with your dollar. Maybe you won’t like all three of these movies. Maybe you’ll only like one or the other or the other, or none of them at all, but if you don’t at least try them in theaters, then the next time there’s an original horror film looking for distribution, it may have an even harder time finding someone willing to take a chance with it. Me, I’m hoping that Screamfest next month will bring some new titles to light, and I’m hoping that Fantastic Fest gives some original voices a moment in the spotlight, and I’m praying that Fantasia in Montreal or FrightFest in Scotland or the fests in Brussels and Sitges all continue to support the new voices in horror. I think people who only like the familiar aren’t real horror fans at all. Horror is about making you uncomfortable, and remakes are all about comfort. They work at opposing purposes, and I’m tired of watching horror movies that are safe and brainless.
If I had to rank these three from best to worst, I’d say P2 was the best, MANDY LANE was second, and THEM (ILS) was third, but all three offer up enough moments to recommend that you head out to a theater to see them when they open. THEM is playing now in some markets, P2 opens on November 9th, and MANDY LANE will be next year. These movies give me hope, and I hope they encourage more people to express themselves in fresh ways in this genre. We need it.
I've got a ton of reviews to post this weekend, including EASTERN PROMISES, DECEMBER BOYS, THE BRAVE ONE, and Johnnie To's EXILED, which is rolling out in limited release. I'll be writing all weekend, I'm guessing, so I'll see you guys then.
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles
