Howl

Image credit: IMDb

Moving a step away from the natural monsters that can disembowel us, but still opting for a horror in which everyone makes bad choices and thus create a fun film to yell at, the most recent Friday night couch movie Partner and I did was Howl.

Train guard Joe (Ed Speleers) has been having a rough day: the promotion he wanted went to a jerk who then dumps the graveyard shift onto him, the coworker he fancies declines his invitation to a drink, and the passengers on the last train are rude, belittling, and judgmental. But his day gets a lot worse when the train hits something on the track and the driver goes missing when out investigating. After hearing chilling howls, one of the passengers is attacked, and it falls to Joe to try and keep the peace as they run through their options on how to survive. And all the while there is a terrifying creature trying to get in.

What we’ve got here is a British werewolf movie set on a train. At the very least, this movie has a number of characters who you immediately hate and can’t wait to see dismembered. Having worked in customer service, there is a satisfying edge in watching movies with unreasonable, arrogant, and distasteful customer-characters who you know are going to meet a gruesome end. For Howl, it would have been even better if the lead character didn’t have the personality of a wet blanket. Strike one of this movie is that there are no characters that audiences are inspired to root for.

Strike two is the panicked and desperate script. The visual part of the screenplay is fine with a good number of disturbing monsters attack scenes that turn the stomach and jolt the heart. But the central narrative is weak from the beginning, the chosen environment limits creative solutions for escape, and there is an exposition dump in the middle that raises more questions than it answers. Not to mention the haphazard backstories of a couple of characters that comes to light under the pressure of the outside threat.

And strike three, the monster is revealed way too early. I think this is what caused the already wobbly plot to be completely derailed, as it didn’t work to increase the suspense or spark any sort of narrative development. If anything, it removed a good chunk of the suspense and put the writers into panic when they realised they needed some sort of explanation as to why there’s a pack of werewolves in this England woodland.

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I would only recommend this movie if you are looking for something to get mad at. It’s a film that begins with only the vaguest plot destination in mind and then gets completely derailed through its own lack of creativity. And sin of sins, there’s not even a good ending that brings any sort of closure.

Director: Paul Hyett, 2015

Cast: Elliott Cowan, Rosie Day, Calvin Dean, Sam Griffiths, Shauna Macdonald, Duncan Preston, Ania Marson, Amit Shah, Ed Speleers, & Holly Weston

It Chapter Two

Image credit: Wikipedia

Adaptations are an interesting phenomenon. On the one hand, they can result in some truly amazing pieces of cinema. On the other hand they can make all manner of audiences mad as hell. Adapting a book into a film is a slippery slope lined with all sorts of risks: the director’s interpretation conflicting with the readership’s, will certain aspects translate as well on screen, and many more. Some books have famously been labelled as ‘unfilmable’, while others lend themselves 100% to cinematic interpretation.

Then there are some that are a mix of column A and column B. It is a classic example.

I went and saw Chapter Two last week. Following on from It, the film follows the group of childhood friends known as ‘the Losers’ Club’, as they reunite in Derry to put an end to a horror that has plagued their hometown for decades. Ben, Bill, Eddie, Beverly, Richie and Mike all find themselves right back in the nightmare that haunted their childhood with Pennywise the clown snapping, snarling, and terrorising their every step.

It is one of the most interesting cases of the adaptable-unadaptable book debate because, on the one hand, the book in its entirety is jam-packed with stuff that simply does not translate to film, but on the other hand, the central story is classic monster movie material and pretty hard to screw up. Though I have to say that It Chapter Two definitely gave it a red-hot go.

Perhaps it was the literal time gap between the two films or maybe it was that it was filmed as the kids’ story and then the adults’ story, but there was a definite jarring effect happening here, like the two films were not actually linked to one another. The adult versions of the children were unimpressive and relatively mundane, definitely not inspiring any sort of emotional attachment and their relationships (and by extension cast chemistry) was really strained.

The suspense was cheap, the scares were cheap, and even Pennywise had lost his edge. There’s a whole new aspect added into the plot, which I don’t remember in the original or the book at all so *inhales breath* not of a fan of that creative license and there was nothing really new or groundbreaking in terms of the genre or special effects that made it worth my time.

I will say that I kind of, maybe would give it snaps for its anti-bullying (?) message and I definitely enjoyed Stephen King’s cameo, but at the end of the day It Chapter Two was just a boring and tactless adaptation of a story that’s been done before.

Image credit: TNP

It makes me wonder what was the thinking behind remaking It? The original with Tim Curry, while very camp, is still perfectly creepy and entertaining. There’s an endless stream of original content out there, studios just won’t touch it for fear of losing money if the film doesn’t work. Instead, they opt for remaking the franchises that have worked in the past because, even if the film is awful and a blight on an artistic and expressive medium, the studio already has its money guaranteed because people are going to be like ‘well I liked the original’.

I have to say I feel that this attitude is poisoning the industry and while there are studios and filmmakers out there who are trying to make good films for their audiences, they just get bogged down amidst so much crap.

While I love the story of It and didn’t mind the first part, Chapter Two falls under the aforementioned umbrella of crap.

Director: Andy Muschietti, 2019

Cast: James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, Andy Bean, Bill Skarsgard, Jaeden Martell, Wyatt Oleff, Finn Wolfhard, Sophia Lillis, Chosen Jacobs, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Teach Grant, and Nicholas Hamilton

Rogue

Image credit: Blu-Ray.com

While I didn’t start my cinematic journey as a horror fan, through working my way through The Book, I have discovered a real love and appreciation for the genre and, it’s funny, one of my ‘guilty pleasures’ (I guess is the right term) has spawned from this odd fascination: eco-horror.

For those who might not know the term, eco-horror refers to that subgenre of monster movies that take place in nature and feature nature as the villain (Jaws being the most widely recognised). I couldn’t tell you why I’m fascinated by this genre (as honestly most of the films in the repertoire are pretty horrendous), there’s just something particularly entertaining about how it can either be really good (like Jaws) or really bad (like Razorback). The other night, my partner and I indulged and checked out Rogue.

Set in the Australian outback (where else?) Rogue tells the story of a group of tourists that get stranded on a swamp island and laid siege to by a giant croc.

While I can totally understand the desire to make monster movies featuring crocodiles, they are amongst the nastiest predators around, being dangerous on both land and in water, I’m yet to find a movie that truly gets them right. One of the most satisfying things about eco-horror movies is when the filmmakers get the behaviours of the ‘monsters’ right: believability is vital for a good eco-horror flick, though a lack of understanding can make for a hilariously bad one too.

Rogue was kind of there, taking into account the crocs’ natural territorialism and aggressiveness. But this is where the believability stopped.

While we all know crocs can grow to be quite large, this one kind of pushed the limits, being so huge it wouldn’t be able to support its own weight in reality. The suspense of the water attacks and underwater shots are one thing, but as soon as we see the monster itself, the fear diminishes somewhat, especially when we see it on land (like Bruce the rubber shark).

Image credit: FlixList

But while the physical fearsomeness of the monster doesn’t last long, the film does a relatively ok job of maintaining suspense and depicting the breakdown of social cohesiveness under times of great stress. Like any classic monster movie be it Night of the Living Dead or Jaws, the ugly side of human nature, when put under threat of extinction, comes out and this is no different for Rogue with a large portion of enjoyment coming in the form of yelling at the characters’ idiocy.

The performances are all fine, though for a film like this I don’t think audiences are expecting much, and despite a few behavioural tweaks regarding crocs’ eating habits, Rogue is not an altogether terrible film. It’s just not altogether great either.

Director: Greg McLean

Cast: Radha Mitchell, Michael Vartan, Sam Worthington, Caroline Brazier, Stephen Curry, Celia Ireland, John Jarratt, Heather Mitchell, Geoff Morrell, Damien Richardson, Robert Taylor, Barry Otto, and Mia Wasikowska

Godzilla

Image credit: Wikipedia

I’ve mentioned before that one of my (of the many I have) favourite things about cinema is the fact that there is a certain level of enjoyment and satisfaction one can get from watching a bad movie and then analysing why it’s bad. When it’s brought up in conversation, a ripple effect starts and fantastic discussions ensue, bringing more thoughts, opinions, and analysis to light.

We had such a discussion the other night after revisiting 1998’s Godzilla.

This American monster movie (that completely misses the notion of metaphors) tells the story of a giant, dinosaur-esque monster, the product of French nuclear testing, who travels to New York to nest and threatens to overrun the city with miniature monsters. Those trying to defeat it are the unlikely team of the US Army, the French secret service, a reporter’s assistant trying to forge a career, and a biologist.

I’m sure, back in its day, this movie was something cool, but nowadays it’s just become a really annoying and cringing piece of cinema with a laundry list of personality disorders. The first being that the filmmakers really didn’t grasp the point of Godzilla, or indeed the concept of metaphors, full stop. Upon discussing this with friends, one person came out with the best response to this: “the ‘90s didn’t metaphor.” A large portion of the film’s problem is that it’s a monster movie where there is no deeper point to the monster. Just a big animal doing animal things: not very engaging.

As more scenes play out, it really becomes apparent how much the film takes from Jurassic Park (and one scene from Jaws). While cinema is all about reflecting what’s trending, there’s a difference between referencing other popular blockbusters and straight up plagiarising them.

Image credit: Vulture

Then we have the immaculately boring characters and a completely ridiculous romantic story. The central romance between the reporter and the biologist really is like a man’s fantasy that his gorgeous, blonde ex is still totally hung up on him (even though she broke it off) and will some day come back. Even in cinema today it’s apparent that some screenwriters cannot write female characters, but back in the ‘90s it must have been like learning a whole new language. The central female character in this movie is weaker than a biscuit that’s been left out in the rain, her role being solely for the writer to live out his own ‘romantic’ daydreams.

While Jurassic Park did it better, a polite round of applause still needs to go to the monster design team because Godzilla was still pretty cool, though how he could vanish completely and then sneak up on the army so silently really requires you to suspend your belief.

At the end of the day, this movie really doesn’t hold up (if it ever really did).

Director: Ronald Emmerich, 1998

Cast: Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Kevin Dunn, Michael Lerner, Arabella Field, Vicki Lewis, Doug Savant, and Malcolm Danare

The Meg

Image credit: Roger Ebert

There are many types of films that make for a good movie experience. There’s the critically acclaimed, or Oscar-bait movie; that groundbreaking flick that awes you with everything from writing to costumes to performances to special effects. Then there are the blockbusters, those highly anticipated movies that get the adrenaline pumping and the excitement flowing. Then there are the popcorn films that don’t promise to be anything other than stupid fun that you don’t need to think through. Mindlessness can be just as much fun as high intensity superhero films or Oscar-bait dramas; ask the Scarecrow. Friday night, for a little date night, me and my partner decided to treat ourselves to exactly this kind of movie experience; our film of choice, The Meg.

A return to the classic B-grade monster movie, The Meg tells the story of an exploration mission that takes a turn when three members of a crew descend to new depths and get besieged by an enormous prehistoric shark: the Megalodon. Rescue diver Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) is hired to rescue the explorers, but the mission takes a turn when the Meg manages to follow them to higher depths. Now it’s out in the open ocean and heading towards populated beaches and it’s up to the exploration crew at Mana One to stop if before hundreds of people become its dinner.

Based on the book Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror by Steve Alten, this movie is everything you could want in a fun monster flick. A simple story made complex by the science fiction element of prehistoric animals still somehow still living and threatening our survival, The Meg is both unbelievable and highly enjoyable. While the well-placed jump scares successfully provide a fair chunk of the scares, a fair level of terror is achieved through the mere fact that this monster is a predator and unbelievably huge. One of the scariest scenes is its attacking a shark cage and while there characters aren’t in the least bit concerned that the cage will break, it never occurred to them that the shark is so huge it could merely swallow the thing! Just through scale and natural behaviour alone is the prime tension and horror created and it’s really quite exciting.

Image credit: Variety

There are various recognisable characters and tropes that add to the delightful mix of excitement and suspense that is this film. Characteristic of the genre, a large level of the film’s drama is caused through man’s greed for fame, money, status, which of course comes back to bite them (literally). Along with this The Meg is a movie made for certain audiences and its inclusion of Chinese actors as well as on location scenes is a pretty heavy nod towards its target market.

However, the financial and strategic agendas do not get in the way of the fun movie experience that is The Meg and while the whole thing does look a ludicrous film, it doesn’t try or pretend to be anything more and this is where the genuine fun comes from.

Director: Jon Turteltaub, 2018

Cast: Jason Statham, Bingbing Li, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis, Winston Chao, Shuya Sophia Cai, Ruby Rose, Page Kennedy, Robert Taylor, Jessica McNamee, Olafur Darri, Olafsson, and Masi Oka

A Quiet Place

Image credit: Vox Cinemas

As you all probably know there’s a lot of hype surrounding Josh Krasinski’s horror film A Quiet Place. So far I’ve heard nothing but praise and stories of audiences being so scared of making noises that no one dares to eat their popcorn! Last night –like an idiot- I bought into the hype and went along to the movies to see what the fuss was about. What I got was bitter, bitter, bitter disappointment –thank goodness I had a free ticket!

Set in a remote wood in a world where the majority of humanity has been wiped out by horrific blind monsters with a heightened sense of hearing, a family struggles to survive. Communicating through sign language they lead a simple life: doing laundry, preparing for the arrival of a new baby, and engineering stronger hearing aids for their daughter. But a spanner is thrown into the works when a series of noises brings the dreaded beasts right to their front door.

Like my movie experiences with The Greatest Showman, Wonder Woman, and La La Land I really wanted to like this movie because everyone else was praising it and I just couldn’t… because it’s not good. In a nutshell A Quiet Place is a novelty horror flick: ooh a horror movie without dialogue. There’s hundreds of these films already around, they’re called silent movies and I don’t mind saying that I would watch Phantom of the Opera or The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari over this movie any day of the week. Hell, I’d even opt for Metropolis over this flick.

The film’s central problem is that it literally has no point. Most horror movies have some deeper, allegorical aspect to them that makes them worth our time and this film had nada. Because of this there was –for me at least- no immersive component of the film, which made me feel disjointed and forced to see everything that is wrong with it. And there was a lot. The story’s lack of stakes is what really brings it down because it dampens the tension and suspense that a film like this thrives on. The only bodily and emotional tensing that I indulged in was when I knew there was a jump scare around the corner. Another problem. Jump scares can be good when they are timed perfectly and work to heighten the fright factor. These ones were just there to make people jump. It’s so annoying when a horror movie relies on this trick because it’s a quick cheat that triggers a reflex response rather than establishing actual fear. If a jump scare is thrown in just for that purpose, I don’t feel scared I feel jibbed and it’s a breach of the unspoken contract between film genre and its audiences. You go to a horror movie to get scared not simply have your nerves startled. If I wanted that I would just stay at home and give myself electric shocks!

Image credit: Rotten Tomatoes

Then there are a lot of questions that your mind’s screaming because you’re not immersed in the film. Questions like ‘how can a creature with super sensitive hearing hear a raccoon treading on sand, but not hear a woman breathing through labor even when they’re in the same room?’ Not to mention the question of the amount of electricity this family has without a generator –and I didn’t see any solar panels- or the gaping plot hole that comes to light towards the end. The problem is that we’re expected to hand wave a love of these issues away for some reason, but the film doesn’t establish what that reason is and I just can’t suspend my belief if there isn’t a reason to.

Even with the monsters themselves! We have to assume they’re some sort of underground creature or inter-dimensional being that has surfaced because –despite their resemblance to the Predator and xenomorphs- it would make absolutely no sense if they were aliens.

But to give credit where it’s due the film has a good pace and its timing is more or less on point, the performances were solid and I appreciate that it attempted to establish certain relationships between the characters –not quite hitting the dramatic high notes, but still working well- and there is definitely a fascinating novelty to the plot.

Starring: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, Cade Woodward, and Leon Russom

Rampage

Image credit: Blu-Ray

Nothing better on a Saturday night than to get together with some friends and watch a mindless popcorn flick starring the Rock. Cue Rampage: a new action-packed monster movie that is nothing but wondrous testosterone-fuelled chaos.

A fusion of the monster movie and the disaster flick Rampage tells the story of the relationship between primatologist Davis Okoye (Dwayne Johnson) and an albino ape named George, which is suddenly put under terrible strain when a weaponised pathogen falls into George’s enclosure –along with one in the wolf enclosure and one in the crocodile den- and causes his genes to mutate and turn him into a violent and indestructible monster who then goes on a rampage through Chicago. With the help of a disgraced scientist and an arrogant agent, Davis must find the antidote to save George and the city.

Everything about the story screams B-grade monster movie horror, which I love because they don’t promise what they can’t deliver. Right from the beginning you know exactly what you’re in for –as well as how everything is going to play out- and while some might argue that it’s predictable and doesn’t make for a good movie experience I disagree because there’s no way in which you can be disappointed. People go to see ‘bad’ films because they offer an escape from serious thinking and this film definitely falls in with that crowd. Rather than be a ‘horror’ movie, Rampage treads the boards of the disaster flick, showing off its big guns in the multitude of buildings collapsing, firepower, and its explosions budget. From the first scene the entire film is dominated by action-packed special effects, which are definitely overpowering but so right for the experience.

Image credit: Rotten Tomatoes

But of course it’s far from a perfect film. As I mentioned, the story is hells predictable: all you really need is the trailer and the first scene to know everything that’s going to happen. There’s also a lack of any real chemistry or animation in any of the performances: the love story is non-existent, Johnson’s interactions with the CG George are funny but not really convincing, and the villain really didn’t have a shit to give.

But filmic criticisms aside this movie was not made to win an Oscar or gain critical acclaim: it’s an unashamed monster romp that does not take itself seriously and doesn’t ask to be taken seriously. Rampage is the perfect choice if you’re out with friends for a mindless night at the movies.

Starring: Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Akerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jake Lacy, P.J. Byrne, Jack Quaid, Breanne Hill, and Matt Gerald

The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues

Image credit: Amazon

What would modern horror movies be without the terrible B-grade flicks that pepper the genre’s history? As with anything we need to take some time to appreciate the terrible so that we might really admire the great. With that thought in mind, I draw attention to The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues…

This independently made monster movie tells the story of a mad scramble for a uranium deposit on the ocean floor and a marine scientist’s experiment gone wrong. After a fisherman’s corpse covered in radiation burns washes up on the beach a marine biologist and federal detective rally together to uncover the mystery. The theory is that a uranium deposit on the ocean floor is the culprit, but that changes when the biologist discovers a terrifying creature in the depths. Suspicion then turns to a local marine scientist and his mysterious research.

It may not be the flashiest or stylish monster move ever made –in all honesty it’s actually pretty terrible- but this movie really does make you appreciate other monster movies, especially older ones you watch as a modern viewer. This film in all its non-budget, B-grade splendor can actually give you a cute little history lesson. Celebrated cinema nowadays does not necessarily stem from the classic and sophisticated monster movies of the ‘30s, ‘40’s, and ‘50s. Case in point, there was a moment in this movie that strongly reminded me of Jaws. The lesson is that you can take something bad and improve upon it: make it bigger, faster, better. And watching a film like this hammers home that point.

Image credit: Titans Terror Toys

As a film this is pretty terrible. Everything from the uninspired performances to the papier-mâché monster that manages to overturn a boat simply by floating to the surface and booping it with its head is ridiculous.

I’ll give them snaps for trying with the story though. To compensate for the lack of money to spend on makeup and special effects the writers actually tried to concoct a story with some serious intrigue and came up with a fun –though probably wholly unrealistic- science-fiction war weapon plotline that opened the doors for a wide cast of characters and multiple storylines. Snaps.

If you can see the beauty in bad monster movies as well as good, then watch this. If not, you can live a full and happy life without it.

Starring Kent Taylor, Cathy Downs, Michael Whalen, Helene Stanton, Phillip Pine, Rodney Bell, Vivi Janis, Michael Garth, and Pierce Lyden

The Gorilla

It may come as news to some people that many of their favourite movie subgenres are older than they think. Take the horror movie spoof for example. While they seemed to make a resurgence in the late 90s and all though the 2000s with Dracula Dead and Loving It (1995), Shaun of the Dead (2004), and of course Scary Movie (2000), the genre itself has been around since the 1930s. The films from that day may not be as clever or witty as some of today’s spoofs, but they still do the job with classics like One Body Too Many (1944) and The Gorilla still getting the laughs. 

Beginning with a dramatic opening of flashing headlines about a maniacal murderer, The Gorilla tells the story of rich man, Walter Stevens (Lionel Atwill) receiving a threatening message from the killer, targeting him as the next victim. With only 24 hours to live, Stevenson hires three bumbling detectives (Jimmy, Harry, and Al Ritz) to solve the case before the killer strikes. But then he disappears. Stevens’ niece, her fiancé, the butler, and the maid are trapped in the house with the detectives in a race against the clock to find the Gorilla. 

Despite the predictability of its plot as well as a few of its gags, The Gorilla is still a clever little whodunit horror spoof. With an aesthetic more akin to a Bogart noir thriller, the film doesn’t rely on expositions and scripted red herrings to throw audiences off the scent. Rather, lit ets its characters do all the work. 

Each one is a certain sort of stereotype and plays the role perfectly, commanding all your attention and distracting you from any clues there are in the mise-en-scene. We’ve got the three bumbling detectives, reminiscent of the Marx Brothers or the Three Stooges but with words rather than slapstick. Then there’s the pretty and helpless heiress and her handsome, cynical, and enquiring fiancé. Add to that the humorously loud and wisecracking maid and the sinisterly smiling butler (played by Bela Legosi for further irony) and it’s a good recipe. 

Like with any great whodunit mystery, the entire film takes place in a single space (a mansion) with only three rooms being the sites of drama. This minimalism is made complex by the added gothic tropes of hidden passages as well as the appearance and disappearance of characters in the blink of an eye. 

While it’s not the most clever, exciting, or groundbreaking movie to grace screens, The Gorilla certainly has something that hasn’t expired over the years and is worth a watch for anyone remotely interested in older cinema, spoof movies, or cult classics. 

Starring Jimmy Ritz, Harry Ritz, Al Ritz, Lionel Atwill, Anita Louise, Joseph Calleia, Edward Norris, Wally Vernon, Paul Harvey, and Bela Lugosi 

Rating PG 

Year: 1939

Monster From a Prehistoric Planet

There’s a certain type of fun to be had watching B-grade horror movies, especially those done really badly. However, there are those that just don’t translate or age that well and Monster From a Prehistoric Planet is definitely one of those ones. 

The film tells the story of a Japanese expedition that travels to an island in the South Pacific with a mission to bring back exotic birds and animals for a magazine’s theme park in development. But they get more than they bargained for when they discover a huge, prehistoric egg that hatches. The team take the baby reptilian monster back to Japan to study it, unaware that the parents are not deceased, as they thought. Soon baby’s mother and father are terrorizing the cities of Japan and will stop at nothing until they find the infant. 

It could be because I have seen that many movies or it really could be because this film is so horrendously dated; both are likely reasons for my lack of interest in it from start to finish. The story is hugely predictable: you know exactly what dramas are coming within the first ten minutes. There’s a lack of any interesting or unique characters that aren’t clinging to a cheap stereotype, and whatever other stories are happening underneath are buried by the ‘dramatic’ scenes of the monsters wreaking havoc on civilization (which go on way too long). 

But on a more annoying note, this movie really does not translate well. It’s a Japanese film, Daikyoju Gappa, and I’m not sure you can get the original because the one that I have (part of a collection of 50 B-grade horror flicks) is dubbed over in English, really badly. It’s not just the lack of sync between the actors’ mouths and the dialogue dubbed over the top, but the difference in cultural attitudes. The film has a clear cultural attitude towards women, which I don’t agree with but is reflective of the time and culture. But these lines about women spoken in English with an American accent just brings this misogynist tone to certain scenes and rubs me the wrong way. 

The datedness of the movie is pretty self-explanatory. It’s a film where the ‘special effects’ are toy boats in fish tanks and lumbering robots that couldn’t scare or impress a dead person let alone cause the amount of damage and destruction that they do. It’s all in the same vein of ye olde Godzilla, but just not cool in any sense. 

You can live a full and happy life without watching Monster From a Prehistoric Planet. 

Starring: Tamio Kawaji, Yoko Yamamoto, Yuji Kodaka, Koji Wada, Tatsuya Fuji, Keisuke Inoue, Zenji Yamada, Bumon Koto, Saburo Hiromatsu, Binnosuke Nagao, Masaru Kamiyama, Kokan Katsura, Shiro Oshimi, and Yoko Oyagi 

Rating: PG 

Year: 1967

It

We all know there is something seriously wrong with Derry. But is it wrong to tell the town’s morbid story to a modern audience? Absolutely not! Stephen King’s chilling tale of a town plagued by a great child-abducting monster has been revamped and put back onto big screens with director Andy Muschietti coolly steering audiences down a highway of classic horror. 

Beginning with that memorable scene of the clown in the storm drain, the film is the first chapter in the story. A year after the disappearance of his brother Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott), Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) is still grappling with the mystery. But when he and his friends each start to see horrifying visions featuring a creepy clown, the question of who, or what, took Georgie becomes clear. There is something seriously wrong in Derry. As Bill, Bev (Sophia Lillis), Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor), Richie (Fin Wolfhard), Stan (Wyatt Oleff), Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer), and Mike (Chosen Jacobs) go over the town’s history, they discover that their clown is really a horrible monster that is responsible for every massacre and bout of strange disappearances in Derry. Only coming out once every 27 years, It’s feeding again, abducting children left, right, and centre, and the group takes it upon themselves to rid the town of It for good. 

It proves to be a good horror movie for a number of reasons. Firstly, it’s a great multidimensional story, puffed up by layers and layers of horror, both supernatural, and real. At its core, it’s a story about kids dealing with evilness: the power of their fear, but also the power of their innocence and sense of right and wrong. Whilst the monster is the physical beast that must be slain, it’s also a manifestation of each character’s worst fears: ones which they are constantly trying to combat day-to-day and this duality works overtime by being a compelling physical story that audiences can watch, and shaping the characters and developing them within a feature-length runtime. 

Secondly, the source material largely lends itself to cinematic interpretation and adaptation. The tropes of classic horror are all at work: the sinisterness of children being abducted, domestic violence, abjection (classically for King, in the form of wicked parents), the Uncanny, and practically every form of monster you could want. On both the written and visual level, It delivers, with the special effects wizards really getting to have some fun with the revamping of Pennywise. 

Thirdly: the villain. Whilst Pennywise is a manifestation of fear itself, he’s one of the most recognisable villains in horror movie history. A little reminiscent of John Carpenter’s The Thing, in that we don’t get to see It’s actual form, he’s more than just a clown with creepy makeup. Pennywise is probably one of the best examples of the Uncanny within the horror genre: we associate clowns with laughter and the entertainment of children, but this is completely flipped around and made unfamiliar with the clown suddenly having rows and rows of razor sharp teeth, which he uses to latch on to kids and dismember them. Bill Skarsgard’s rendition of Pennywise steers away from the camp-but-still-scary performance of Tim Curry (It, 1990) and delivers a little more horror than humour, though he doesn’t shy away from dropping a good real estate gag. There’s still laughter and sweet-talk to the kids, but there’s a distinct sinisterness behind everything Skarsgard says, which makes him a much creepier Pennywise. 

And fourthly, the film is an example of going back to basics. Classic and nowadays, overdone, genre tricks are used throughout It, but what’s nice is that it’s all done in a relatively tasteful way. Whilst one can get sick of the haunting music crescendos and the slow camera roll down the dark and empty corridor leading to only still toys or a room void of any monster, the suspense is built up really well and the movie does not rely on jump scares to get the thrills. Don’t think that there aren’t any jump scares in the movie, there are plenty, but they’re not used as a cheat to get a quick scare. 

It proves to be a solid horror movie, doing practically everything right. Does the choice to tell the kids’ story first and then tell the adult story second benefit the tale or hinder it? We’ll have to wait for the next movie and see.

Starring: Bill Skarsgard, Jaeden Lieberher, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Nicholas Hamilton, Owen Teague, Jackson Robert Scott, and Stephen Bogaert 

Rating: MA 

Year: 2017

A Monster Calls

Of all the different types of movies that inspire an emotional reaction, none is more interesting to consider than the drama that makes you cry. Crying in a movie is a very impressionable, oftentimes harrowing, experience: eyes stinging as tears well up and leak out, mouth aching and quivering as you work it to fight back the tears, and chest getting sore from hard-hitting sobs or the struggle to not let them out in public. Going through this awful experience will definitely make you remember that movie. With an idea of the experience in mind, let’s talk about A Monster Calls. 

Based on the original idea by Susan Dowd and written by Patrick Ness, the film tells the story of a boy named Conor (Lewis MacDougall) struggling to find peace in both the schoolyard and at home. Tormented by bullies at school and a terrifying nightmare at home, Conor’s stress reaches breaking point as his mother’s health begins to deteriorate after a session of medication and the time to face some hard truths draws near. As though hearing his internal call for help, a twisted tree monster comes to visit Conor with the promise of telling him three stories if he’ll tell it his nightmare afterwards. At first the tales seem to make no sense, but as things spiral out of control in Conor’s life, they become the only outlet for his fear and grief and the monster, the help he needs to get through what’s to come. 

Films such as Billy Elliot and Finding Neverland have dealt with kids in that difficult stage between childhood and manhood having to cope with something that most adults can’t even cope with. It’s an incredibly complex stage of biological development to depict and film often has to heighten it by throwing numerous logs on the emotional fire. This is definitely the case with this film and whilst it’s all done relatively well with the metaphor of the monster making the complexities of humanity a little more accessible to a wider audience, it’s not 100% airtight. 

Like the monster’s tales, there are three stories that the film chronicles: Conor’s struggle to cope with his mother’s illness, his encounters with schoolyard bullies, and his flaky relationships with his father and grandmother. The film puts more emphasis on the mother-son story, which is important, but somehow manages to make the other stories clumsy and not as well-handled. The bullying story doesn’t really get any satisfactory payoff and the father just goes around in a circle. This is a shame because both stories are meant to represent the reality of the situation and impress upon the protagonist how life is not split into good and evil, happily ever after and not, and whilst the point does still come across in forced dialogue and inactive authoritative characters, the stories are left a little up in the air. 

But aside from one or two glitches in the narrative side of things, the film is a visual treat. The monster himself is both frightening and gorgeous and the watercolour animation used to depict the stories he tells is simply mesmerising. 

And then we have the performances. Lewis MacDougall, whilst a tad dramatically brooding, is a wonderful lead and delivers such an engaging and moving performance that perfectly displays the complexities of his character’s struggles. He’s kind of amazing. 

It’s a sad movie to be sure, but A Monster Calls is also very beautiful and tells a lot of hard truths about reality. Pixar made feelings accessible to kids with Inside Out and The Babadook opted for the monster metaphor for grief; this movie sits somewhere comfortably in the middle, triggering strong emotional reactions that are sure to make us remember it. 

Starring: Lewis MacDougall, Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, Toby Kebbell, and Liam Neeson 

Year: 2017 

Rating: PG