The Abandoned

I have no idea how I’ve missed this, but The Abandoned (2006) is one of those rare movies that riveted me.  It helps if you’re not of the group that expects explosions or flying body parts every 2.3 minutes.  This movie gives a slow, but continuous, build of tension.

It stars Anastasia Hille as Marie and Karl Roden as Nicolai.  I really enjoyed the work of both of these actors in the movie.  So much so that, by the end of the movie, I really wanted to see more of them.  The locale (set in Russia, filmed in Bulgaria) is both beautiful and subtly ominous.   The film’s soundtrack is another rare work of being non-intrusive, yet aiding in building the tension.

Marie had been adopted by an American couple when she was a baby.  She returns to Russia to visit her family’s home (which she inherited after her mother died several years before and which she finds out about through a notary in Russia).

Her arrival at the notary’s office is when things get weird.  And wonderful.  And creepy.  And confusing.

Marie meets Nicolai (the brother she didn’t know she had) at the family farm and their dive into family history begins.

While it’s unclear just what the overall story is (zombies, ghosts, undead, an unending time loop???), it’s a trip worth taking.  It’s fascinating and keeps you watching and, at the end, leaves you wondering.  There may be cultural beliefs/legends that might fill in the blanks that, as an American viewer, I don’t know.

Several notes of caution:

There is some brief nudity.  There is one particularly disturbing scene regarding Nicolai’s death.  And, while this isn’t a first-person shaky-cam movie, shaky-cam is used to effect in a couple of scenes.  One of those scenes goes on for a bit.  While I normally hate it, it was well-done and added to a sense of disorientation.  I was surprised to not mind it.

If you like a decent, suspenseful thriller, you won’t be disappointed.  There are some wonderful moments in it, it’s well-acted, it delivers (except for the storyline), and the actors bring something to it that you don’t often see.  They just are perfect for their roles.

Dario Argento’s Dracula 3D

Before delving into the review, I should make a disclosure:  I really enjoy Dario Argento’s movies.  While that’s a topic for a separate, long post, suffice it to say that there’s something about his use of color, proportion, and scene setting that resonates with me.   In fact, in terms of “bad” movies, Argento is the high standard to which all other bad movies are held by this reviewer.  Seriously.  I love his stuff and, at least subconsciously, it figures into how I judge other bad horror movies.

Last night, I became overly excited to see Argento’s Dracula 3-D available on iTunes.  I read the reviews on iTunes and went ahead and rented it.  (Note to self: iTunes movie reviewers are, generally, idiots.)

Some warnings:  this is an adult movie.  There’s nudity and one graphic sex scene; it is also violent and gory – there were a couple of scenes that bugged me.  One scene in particular:  the scene after Lucy Westenra is dispatched.  Nothing is shown on screen, yet it’s a rather uncomfortable moment.

Dracula doesn’t quite rise to the same quality (in terms of color and proportion) as Argento’s other movies ( such as Suspiria or Inferno).  The movie also doesn’t follow the traditional storyline of Dracula.  Well, it does, I guess.  In a rather mixed up way.  Argento has always had his own take on these things.  All the traditional characters eventually show up in some form or another.  And there is what seems to now be the standard line indicating “this is a Dracula movie”, to wit:  “The children of the night…what music they make.”  Beyond that, it’s more of a movie inspired by Bram Stoker’s novel.

The movie opens with a peasant girl, Tania, helping to lock up the house and then taking off to rendezvous with her married lover.  At which time, there’s a rather extended scene of them copiously copulating.  There is nudity.

As is wont to happen after hot barn sex, the couple fight, Tania takes off and is bitten by a vampire owl (yes, I know that’s not how you spell “bat” because…well…it wasn’t a bat) that transforms into Dracula.  Dracula is played with a sublime air of creepiness by Thomas Kretschmann.  He did a nice job with the role.

Tania becomes a vampire and then Jonathan Harker shows up in town to work for Count Dracula as his librarian.  Harker cuts his hand, Tania show up to suck it.  Later, in an objectively horrible scene of seduction (more nudity, no sex), Tania attacks him, Dracula appears and attacks her, then he attacks Harker.  Later Harker escapes.  Just to get eaten by wolves.  Which is OK because the entire time Harker is on screen, all I could think was “Would someone please cut that poor bastard’s hair!”.  Sure, getting eaten by wolves is extreme.  But, hey, no more hair!

Mina comes to town and visits with her friend Lucy.  Lucy gets sick, dies, comes back, attacks a kid – pretty much the standard storyline.  Somewhere along the way, Van Helsing (played by Rutger Hauer – which you’d think would help things, but it really doesn’t) shows up and gets to work.

A bunch of other stuff happens (OWEMYGAWD! the leadership of the town was in cahoots with Count Dracula all along!) and eventually Dracula gets killed by Mina.

While there’s nothing to especially recommend this movie, I was still entertained.  There were some new takes on the Dracula mythos (e.g., the owl and watch out for the praying mantis scene) and a rather faded sense of Argento’s color/proportion/blocking is present.  The story is choppy (yet leaves one with a feeling of having been told a good story); the acting is…well, I kind of had the feeling that no one really knew their lines and everyone had had too much wine at lunch, breakfast, and dinner; there are some CGI effects that may elicit laughter.

There are some very nice scenes in terms of photography and blocking.  Most of the scenes have just the right touches of color (the scene of Mina and Lucy in the landau is a nice highlight of that).

If you’re a fan of Argento’s work, I think you’ll like it and also see a fading of the talent.  If you don’t like Argento’s work, well why the hell are you even reading this?  Go play in the snow!  Have some fun.  If you’re new to Argento’s work, you’ll get his best work in Suspiria and, to an extent, Inferno (I also really liked Opera and Giallo).  To American audiences, a good description of what you might expect is “spaghetti horror” (reminiscent of the spaghetti westerns of the 1960s and 70s).

I also have a feeling that, to an American viewer (specifically, to me), that Argento’s work might be more intelligible if one had a better background of Italian life.  I have a feeling that there’s some cultural context that would add some depth or, at least, fill in some gaps that always seem to be present in his movies.

Bad Kids Go to Hell

Bad Kids Go To Hell. (According to IMDB, it is “Based on the best selling indie comic book series/graphic novel of the same name.” If that adds anything.)

TL;DR: Just watch it. Unless cockroaches terrify you.

Slightly longer TL;DR: This may be the best bad movie ever. At least of 2012.

Full-blown OMGSTFU already review:

The movie kept coming up in Netflix “recommends” but the cover art and the description just left me blah. “Oh, hooray. <yawn> Another scary movie about teenagers possessed by demons during a visit to the local Pepperidge Farms store and now their nostrils glow before they kill someone.” Or: “Oh, hooray. <yawn> Another shaky-cam movie about teens trapped in a haunted house/mental asylum/forest.”

Well, that should teach me to prejudge things. (If I had a nickel for every time I said that!)

This is a comedy/mystery (maybe a bit of horror) somewhat along the lines of the Scary Movie franchise. Based upon some reviews, you’d think this movie sucked tailpipe. However, on its merits in that small sub-genre, it’s actually pretty subtle and pretty well done. Many reviews are “Oh, har. A horror version of Breakfast Club.” Those people fail at life. There’s also a lot of “this movie’s a mess” reviews. Because, I guess, people don’t pay attention because it’s all spelled out PRETTY FUCKING CLEARLY IN AMERICAN ENGLISH IF YOU WOULD PUT DOWN YOUR PHONE AND WATCH IT YOU FUCKING MORONS. It saddens me that a movie like Bad Kids Go To Hell is, apparently, too deep for a lot of people. I mean WTF Fred?

Don’t get me wrong. We’re not talking about some Ingmar Bergman-like reductive reflection on life and the misery one endures by silently plucking out one’s own pubic hairs on a remote island in Finland. It’s a comedy/mystery movie that, even if it weren’t supposed to make sense, still does make sense if you’re paying attention and graduated from 8th grade. There’s no deep message. No meaning of life will be found here. It’s called relaxing your goddamned anal sphincter, kicking back, and just enjoying it for what it is: a pretty well done B-movie.

Much like ice cubes on your nipples, the points are: (1) not every movie has to be a work of art that causes one to cut one’s self out of a sense of loss and existential angst; and (B) some people just don’t know how to have fun. Whew. That’s out of my system.

The movie is set at Crestview Academy (a ritzy school for rich kids), where a group of kids will be spending their 8-hour detention in the library. Turns out Crestview was built on land stolen from a Native American and it’s cursed! (Maybe.)

Our plucky kids (actually, high school seniors in the movie), locked in the library on their own with no internet (but they very specifically and clearly have “intranet”) and no cell phones and NO SMOKING!, decide to hold a seance. Stuff happens and death starts its march through the detained. I am compelled to point out that, since this school is an Academy, that that means school uniforms.

The movie does pluck a bit heavily upon the Breakfast Club theme (right down to Judd Nelson appearing). But there are subtle tips of the hat to quite a few other teenager movies from Breakfast Club to Carrie. Done pretty well. It’s enjoyable just for those little homages.

The young cast is quite competent – a pleasant surprise these days in terms of young actors. Everyone seems to be having a good time with it (which, IMHO, counts for a lot of the reason the movie is enjoyable).

There is some funny and very politically incorrect humor. This movie is not recommended if you’re having your vegan-heart liberal friends over for the weekly “tofu and wilted cardboard dinner with a piquant rosé from that charming winery in Argentina we visited last year”.

There is a bit of blood and gore. The soundtrack is actually pretty cool. And between it and the movie, I bought the soundtrack.  It’s kind of hard to describe kind of “happy goth” maybe? (The last time I bought a soundtrack was the one to Empire Records [without seeing the movie] and I still stab myself from time to time over that mistake.)

And, finally, the stripper scene. Yes, there is a stripper scene. A stripper scene that even I, a non-heteronormative red-blooded American man, found to be enjoyable. I was honestly sad when it was over.  The actress who does it (Amanda Alch, I believe) just has fun with it. Plus, the way it’s filmed is just a hoot. (Full disclosure: if a man had done that with the same level of appeal and talent, I’d feel the exact same way. It’s probably one of the funnest, most enjoyable stripping scenes in a movie that I’ve seen.)

This movie is so goodly bad that I may actually buy it, too.

Absentia

Occasionally, I get lucky and stumble across a movie that I actually like.  It is at those moments that I question my sanity.  But that’s a topic for another day.  Plus, you won’t get regaled you with the crap I’ve seen (like the abysmal, disjointed, predictable, poorly written, bland, and uninteresting Side Effects with Jude Law – so bad that it may never get reviewed by me because…well…I don’t think there’s a way to verbally convey how bad it is).

Absentia is a really nice little movie.  It fits, to a T, the first line of the Wikipedia definition of suspense:

Suspense is a feeling of pleasurable fascination and excitement mixed with apprehension, tension, and anxiety developed from an unpredictable, mysterious, and rousing source of entertainment.

The movie was funded via Kickstarter (I did not fund this movie and have no ties, financial or otherwise, to it), and the cast members are newer and somewhat unknown.

It starts off slowly, but I found myself engaged pretty quickly.  Courtney Bell stars as Tricia. Katie Parker co-stars as her sister Callie.  Tricia’s husband Daniel has been missing for seven years, and she’s in the process of having him declared dead when Callie comes back into her life.  Callie had also been absent for a long period – different rehab places in different states, maybe some other wandering during that time.

Callie is a recovering addict who seems to be clean.  She’s found a little religion (a very minor theme which also plays off of Tricia’s Buddhism prayers) and healthy living; one day, while out running she encounters a man in a pedestrian tunnel.  Someone that appears to be your rather stock “homeless” guy, even though she’s a bit freaked out by him.  And things slowly start getting weirder and weirder.  Piles of small things (buttons, watches, etc.) show up first on their doorstep and, later in Callie’s bed.

Then, Daniel reappears.  Which kind of throws a monkeywrench in Tricia’s relationship with the detective she’s been seeing.   Eventually, Callie discovers that people have been disappearing in that area for a long time.

The best thing about this movie is the technique.  Most of the reactions of the people involved seem like “now, that’s how most people would react in that situation”.  No overblown emotional shit; no stoic “nothing can phase me” shit; no flying karate kicks to the Adam’s apple shit – the actors made the characters believable.  There is one excellent “gotcha!” scene.  I’m sitting on the edge of the sofa with a nice bowl of ice cream.  You know it’s coming.  Yep.  Yeah.  Yes.  Come on alreaBAM!  My spoon goes flying across the room.  Just perfect timing.  Several times, I was sitting on the edge of the sofa actually caring about what might happen to the characters.  Because they did a great job with building suspense both in the movie (things happen slowly, up to a point) and with the soundtrack. While there are a couple of loud moments, mostly the soundtrack is minimal and is there to add to the sense of suspense.  When was the last time you saw a movie and found yourself suddenly at the edge of your seat?

Another nice touch was showing possible logical explanations, from a logical police officer POV, for everything that happened.  Although it may not necessarily be what really happened.  A “well of course there’s nothing supernatural going on because it can all be logically explained (unless there is something supernatural going on)” thing.  The movie serves up a little something to think about without being “this movie has a message”.

All of the actors were really good.  I found myself liking their characters and wanting to see the actors in other work.

Definitely a nice pick for Halloween time.

Absentia poster