Bridge Over Troubled Daughters

FILM:


Maria, Leonora, Theresa - 2014
Written by Keiko Aquino
Directed by Wenn V Deramas

I doubt I'd ever think to call myself a "foreign movie buff" because I don't feel that the preconceptions of what that means necessarily apply to me, but I do greatly enjoy experiencing other cultures through their pop culture.  There's just a whole layer of textures that you can't possibly get through travel and cooking shows, no matter how well-intended.  On that note, I'm happy to have added the Philippines to my United Nations of cinematic experiences with Maria, Leonora Theresa.

I was pretty nervous as the scene was being established.  It seemed might bright and manic at first as it established the characters of the three young schoolgirls (see title) and the families that loved them.  Then a ghost boy starts popping up, similar to a lot of Asian horror... and then the girls all die in a bus crash.  It's fair to say that things get a lot darker after that.

The girls' families are all in abject mourning, each coping in their own ways, some more poorly than others.  That's when a psychologist working on an experiment in loss shows up with a life-size doll of each girl, promoting the theory that these items will decrease the sense of loss.  Maria and Theresa's mothers are mortified at first, but when they see how it's helped Leonora's father (he's gay and has no other family) to feel less alone, they gradually decide to give it a try.  Now, this definitely takes a certain suspension of disbelief because it's obviously A HORRIBLE IDEA.  Nevermind how creepy the dolls are; it's just completely terrible psychology and the absolute opposite direction from the real path to healing, but okay, just hold on to that discomfiting creep factor, because there's good cause for it.

At first, the mothers and father start to feel better; comforted and more aware of the presence of their late beloveds.  But others around them are (appropriately) creeped the eff out.  The dolls start popping up in areas of their houses other than where they were left and so on.  It's not long before those who threaten them start turning up dead.  The process of figuring out what's going on, and accepting who, or what is responsible takes a little longer than it should, and in the meantime, the psychologist who was so keen to do this "experiment" is nowhere to be seen.  This all leads into the third act uncovering of the greater mystery and what it has to do with the ghost boy from the beginning.

I ended up really liking the story, balks at the psychological explanations notwithstanding.  Sure, the production values are middling and the performances aren't particularly naturalistic, but that's some of that cultural texture that you pretty much have to accept at the buy-in level.  Despite its senselessness, the doll conceit works to serve the story's recurring themes of managing loss.  Also the creepy.  SO creepy.

Maria, Leonora, Theresa combines elements that are familiar to horror with aspects unique to Philippine spiritual beliefs, thus adding some completely fresh ingredients to a favorite recipe.  Yum!

Orphan - 2009
Written by David Johnson & Alex Mace
Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

The family in Orphan is also dealing with loss.  In their case, they lost their daughter before she was born through miscarriage.  Determined to share that love, they decide to adopt another daughter to bring into the fold that already includes a son and daughter.

Going into this movie, I initially expected to be offended by the taint that it would put on the concept of adoption, which I hold to be a value.  Kids need loving parents, and there just don't seem to be enough to go around.  Fortunately, Orphan distances itself so completely from reality with such a far-fetched club sandwich of improbabilities that anyone it might discourage from adopting probably isn't mentally cut out for it in the first place.

When John & Kate head on down to the good ol' fashioned Catholic orphanage (do they even make those anymore?), naturally they skip right past all the jolly and sociable young girls clambering for attention and head right for the "different" girl who prefers to hide up in the classroom painting.  In less than five minutes they've made up their minds and begin the process of adopting the clever little girl from Russia, Esther.

Esther is intelligent and creative, displaying a facility for learning, a wisdom beyond her years and her own peculiar style preferences with include a dollish fashion sense and ubiquitous ribbons around her wrists and neck.  She's really rather charming and I'd probably adopt her myself, in the early stages.  But it's not long after they get her home that she starts to reveal some odd tendencies.  She's a bit of a lurker, not terribly forthcoming about her past, and soon demonstrates a matchstick temper and a cold pragmatism toward life and death.

When another little girl's leg is broken in a playground incident (Esther's doing, but not provable), Kate snaps into suspicion and accusation mode rather quickly.  She's given plenty of fuel for her suspicions, and Esther is rather quick to escalate matters.  Things ramp up with increasing rapidity, but John is unwilling or unable to see it, and the other kids have been intimidated into silence.  So just what IS Esther's deal and will Kate be able to uncover it before it's too late?

A thriller called "Orphan" really doesn't leave a lot of mystery about who the bad guy is going to be and in which direction the mysteries lay.  I didn't find it terribly surprising, although there's a twist or... nah, there's just the one twist that others may not see coming.  Nevertheless, the film packs considerable tension, even if it's just to find out who's going to survive it all.  Isabelle Fuhrman, the girl who plays Esther is extraordinary in the role and really sells the entire premise.  She's both charming and alarming, with stops in between.

Well, THAT Was Different

I decided it was time to try some of the more oddball items in my inbox, so stay on your toes, batters, there's some wild pitches coming your way...

FILM:


Thale - 2012
Written & Directed by Aleksander Nordaas

This low-key tale from Norway centers around Leo and Elvis, a couple guys who seem ill-suited to bio-hazard clean-up work, given how much they (but mainly Elvis) vomit throughout the film, but there you have it.  They're doing clean up in a house deep in the forest; evidently the site of some grisly murder, given the amount of blood and gore they're mopping up.  In the process, they discover a hidden basement full of cobwebs, old lab equipment and corroded canned foods.  There's also a tub filled with something like milk.  A young woman emerges from the tub capturing their attention (but mainly Elvis).  She doesn't speak, and it's impossible to tell how long she must have been in there, given the lab's state of disrepair.  Elvis in particular is compelled to care for her, possibly in connection to his feelings about recently discovering that he has a child, but possibly for a more direct and mysterious reason.  The mystery becomes who is she, what is she, and why is she in this strange environment?  When Leo and Elvis' superiors send in an armed response team, the answers become deadly.

It's a very slow-paced movie, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but one is bound to notice it.  Given that it's rooted in Norwegian folklore, I might have appreciated the developments more if I had been familiar with the legends, but I'm going to leave that to you to decide whether or not that's something you'd want to know.  The story is, frankly, on the spare side, which again, isn't inherently bad, but having been introduced to this legend and character, I would have enjoyed seeing more done with it.  The actress who plays Thale (TAH-leh), the young woman is convincing as a strange and otherworldly beauty.  I would definitely have preferred for her to have more to do, as opposed to the two depressed Norwegian dudes.  It wasn't a mind blower, but it was far from a bad movie, and made for a very welcome change of pace.

Lo - 2009
Written & Directed by Travis Betz

Now this I loved. 

Justin, a heartbroken young man summons a demon to do his bidding, and his bidding is the return of his lost love, April.  The demon, Lo, is antagonistic if not outright threatening and questions Justin's motivations, putting off the job at hand with traded tales about Justin and April's past, and questionable suggestions that Justin may not have known his beloved as well as he thought he did.

The film was clearly made on a shoestring budget, but it is at all moments entertaining and enthralling.  Set almost entirely in the nether-space between Justin's apartment and Hell (in other words, the dark), Lo could easily be produced as a stage play, and indeed frames its flashback sequences as though they were.

It's not strictly horror, in that it's not really scary, but by that measure you could discount 80% of the genre.  It's an effective hybrid with moments of tension, humor, romance and even a couple musical numbers.  It's really remarkable what they were able to accomplish in terms of story and emotion with such a minimalist approach.  Joyless viewers need not apply.

WNUF Halloween Special - 2013
Written & Directed by Chris LaMartina & co.

If Call Girl of Cthulhu was Chris LaMartina's homage to the 80s, the WNUF Halloween Special is his attempt at an identity theft.  The entire production is made to look like a bootleg VHS copy of a news broadcast and special from Halloween, 1987, including commercials.

First there's a hokey local news broadcast covering the requisite Halloween stories -- the dentist with warnings about tooth decay, the fundamentalist Christians who claim it's all devil worship, etc. -- all hosted by the bland and corny anchors.  Their broadcast feeds right into the on-location special with a reporter at the house which was once the scene of a horrible double murder and has been notoriously rumored to be haunted ever since.  Crusading reporter Frank Stewart means to go inside with a husband and wife (& cat) team of paranormal investigators to hold a seance and determine once and for all whether the house is truly haunted.  Frank also has a Catholic priest in tow, just in case an exorcism should become necessary.

This is what you call "committing to a bit."  The top priority is making the whole thing look like an actual UHF-band broadcast from the 80s.  As such, much of the humor is derived from "Ha, the 80s, what were they thinking?"  The commercials are all terribly produced (on purpose) and several are for equally terribly produced programming on Channel 28.  There are a few places where the video fast forwards past boring parts, although I could have done with a lot more of that.  The joke, frankly, gets stretched pretty thin long before anything really starts to happen.  The other source of humor is Frank Stewart getting fed up and frustrated when things don't work the way they're supposed to, like opening the phone lines for questions during the seance and getting the totally predictable "MAIDEN RULES!" calls.

While I generally felt that the whole thing got stretched too thin, I did, ultimately, feel modestly rewarded with an emergent narrative from seemingly unrelated elements throughout the broadcast.

Creatures of the Night

The primary linking element between these two movies should be instantly apparent, but it turns out that they have more in common than the titular professions involved...

FILM:


Dead Hooker in a Trunk - 2009
Written & Directed by Jen & Sylvia Soska

After the brilliance of the Soska sisters' American Mary and the crime against humanity that was See No Evil 2, I wanted to check out their ultra-low budget debut to see if I could figure out more of the equation.

One of the last lines in the movie is "I can't believe there aren't any repercussions for all the things we did."  That goes a long way toward describing what kind of movie Dead Hooker in a Trunk is.

While it's classified as "Horror" on IMDb, it struck me as much more of a dark comedy crime thriller, but that's essentially semantic.  Rather than making their movie despite a $2500 budget, they embraced the low budget, squeezing every penny out of it, and more.  Dead Hooker in a Trunk is all about DIY, both as an aesthetic and a value.  It is exactly the punk rock exploitation flick that it set out to be.

In addition to writing, directing and probably making sandwiches, Jen & Sylvia star as Geek & Badass, respectively.  That's not me calling characters by their type, as I am wont to do, but the Soskas naming all their main characters according to type.  While running errands with their friends Goody Two-Shoes & Junkie (after another hard night of partying for Badass and Junkie, natch) they all discover -- you guessed it -- a dead hooker in the trunk of their car.

The ordinary logic of human behavior does not apply in this film.  Badass refuses to go to the police because, frankly, she and Junkie can't remember much of the night before.  Even less logically, everyone else goes along with this, albeit some more begrudgingly than others.  What follows is a spastic black comedy of (t)errors.

The girls and guy (Goody Two-Shoes is a guy, just a really wussy, religiously inhibited one) have to evade horny cops, a perverted hotel manager, various drug dealers, a cowboy pimp and the real killer while they try to figure out what happened and what to do about it.  Geek loses an eye, Junkie loses an arm (stitched back on, it's surprisingly resilient), Goody Two-Shoes loses his lunch (repeatedly) and Badass loses her clothes.  Considering her role in making things much, much worse, Badass gets off pretty easy.  Despite discovering that they didn't kill the hooker (the first time anyway) they do kill several people, only most of whom tried to kill them first.  All things considered, there were very few repercussions for all the things that they did.  As Badass says after surprising everyone by being alive after a run-in with the real real killer, "Death can't kill me!"

I cannot in good conscience recommend Dead Hooker in a Trunk in a general sort of way, but I liked it for what it was.  This is very definitely niche viewing for fans of exploitation film.  It's a bleakly funny, no-budget wail of pure street fighting adrenaline.  Like a first live gig for a punk rock garage band, they probably could play it again the same way if they wanted to, but they played even the flat notes with total commitment.

Despite my disappointment with See No Evil 2 (if a dry-heaving sense of loathing can be classified as "disappointment"), DHIAT gives me hope that they will indeed redeem themselves one day.  It really highlights the importance of them writing their own material.  No amount of glitter could gild the turd that was the SNE2 script, and no absence of budget could still the primal scream that was Dead Hooker in a Trunk.

Call Girl of Cthulhu - 2014
Written by Jimmy George & Chris LaMartina
Directed by Chris LaMartina

If Dead Hooker in a Trunk was a no-budget homage to the grindhouse cinema of the 70s, then Call Girl of Cthulhu is a low-budget homage to the splatter features of the mid-80s that you'd never really hear about until you saw them at the VHS rental.  If you want to be negative about it, you could say that it's crude and gruesome, but if you want to have fun, you could say that it's hilarious and raunchy with a bounty of the things that you rented videos (or stayed up late watching cable) for in the 80s.

The film is remarkably generous in most everything that it has to offer.  It combines Lovecraft mythology with raunchy sex comedy and splatterrific practical effects, often at the same time.  It's filled with inside jokes for Lovecraft fans.  My personal favorite is the condom brand, Deep Ones, but real fans are apt to catch more than I did.  The humor is silly and will make your inner 12-year-old-staying-up-late giggle until your parents tell you guys to tone it down in there.  Where so many movies from back in the day had to be stingy with their effects budgets until the finale, Call Girl of Cthulhu is able to keep 'em coming at a furious pace, and it's packed with silly, gross and raunchy creatures and mutations.

The premise is that our protagonist, Carter is a 20-something artist so socially inept that he can barely even talk to the women he knows, much less make of the lovin' to one.  Then one day he runs into call girl Riley (R'lyeh to you, nerds) on the street and is instantly smitten.  He decides to hire her for a little help with a certain matter.  Meanwhile, a Cthulhu cult is searching for a prostitute with a very particular birthmark and killing off the ones who leave them disappointed.  I'll give you one guess who has the birthmark.

Meanwhile that same meanwhile, a small group is working to prevent the cult from getting exactly what they want, and they steal the sacred Necronomicon from the cultists.  Seeing Carter's work in the weekly indy paper, they go to him to copy the book so they can give a powerless decoy back to the cultists.

Carter is so timid that he can't seal the deal with Riley, and she, moved by his vulnerability and contrast to her usual customers, takes a shine to him as well.  They start dating, but once the cult catches up with her, she pushes him away to protect him from the terrible thing inside of her.  She doesn't push away her regular clients, and all sorts of horrors befall them.  Riley has become one big walking STD from Hell -- more or less literally.

Of course the big climax involves the birth of Cthulhu and the opening of a portal to wherever it is that portals open to in Lovecraft's world; Tentacle City, evidently.  It's gory and hideous and triumphant and doomed and NEVER NOT FUN.  Except for the one part that's a total bummer, but that's kind of what you sign up for with Lovecraft.

Cheesy?  Sure.  Corny?  What else?  Light on characterization?  Not as much as you might think.  Poorly acted?  Only where it's funnier that way.  Tacky?  Look, there are boob-eel monsters AND a mutant dick creature.  If you can't enjoy that, that's on you, my friend.

Between these two prostitute-themed low-budget throwbacks, I definitely preferred Call Girl of Cthulhu.  It's still a case of taste whether this is something you can be open to enjoying, but buy-in is much lower and the reward much higher for the willing viewer.  Unlike poor Riley, it delivers something you won't want to kill as soon as it wriggles free.

Houses of Pain

Unless you're paying stalker-like attention to my lonely little blog, you probably haven't noticed that this week's postings have had an unofficial theme that I call Homegrown Horror.  In the interest of cleaning house, so to speak, I'm going to hit and run on a few stupid home-based movies that it's my own damn fault for thinking they wouldn't be.

And yet, rich white people keep buying country houses

I'm just going to get this out of the way now because it applies to all 3 of the following movies.  It's just bad writing when the only back story that characters have -- indeed, the only character that characters have -- are the things that will suddenly become convenient to their survival when the unlikely and unpredictable happens to them.

Those creepy rednecks you ordered are here!

FILM:


The Last House on the Left - 2009
Written by Adam Alleca & Carl Ellsworth
based on the 1972 Film by Wes Craven
Directed by Dennis Iliadis

This is more or less a home invasion horror crossed with a straight-up revenge flick.  A photogenic, rich white family heads up to their lake house to get away from the pressures of being so damn pretty, but Mom remains a worrying fussbudget anyway.  Teen Daughter needs a break so heads into town to visit an old friend.  Nervous Mom continues to worry.  The girls cross paths with an escaped convict and his trashy family.  Teen Daughter gets raped.  Teen Daughter's Teen Friend gets murdered.  Teen Daughter runs away and dives into the lake, swimming for freedom.  She takes a bullet and is left for dead.

Whoa, that wine went straight to my head!

Trashy criminals stagger to the nearest house for help (car crashed in the girls' escape attempt) which just so happens to be photogenic rich white family's lake house.  They get patched up and once the rains starts, are invited to stay in the guest house despite Nervous Mom's misgivings.  Thanks to Teen Daughter's established swimming skills, she's able to limp home, except, you know, the swimming version of limping.  Thanks to Doctor Dad's skills, he's able to patch her up.  Nervous Mom and Doctor Dad kill off Escaped Convict's Trashy Family, except for his Soulful Teen Son who totally switches teams.  The Money Shots are Aaron "Jesse Pinkman" Paul getting his hand shredded in a garbage disposal and Garret "The dad on Raising Hope" Dillahunt gratuitously getting his head 'sploded in a microwave.  The End.

Particular Set of Skills: Teen Daughter's championship swimming.  Doctor Dad's doctoring.  Nervous Mom's mistrust.

Dumb.

I'm not saying I would...

It's a family affa-a-air, It's a family affair

The Loved Ones - 2009
Written & Directed by Sean Byrne

Out of curiosity, I looked up what the Australian equivalent of the word "redneck" might be, and evidently the most popular response is "bogan."  I mention this because, had The Loved Ones been made in America, it would have been set somewhere where the suburban verges on the rural (Texas, Indiana, West Penn, etc) and the villains would have been rednecks.  But it's a Australian film, so the key differences are the accents and that the Big Dance is called the "End of School Dance" rather than "The Prom."

The Loved Ones opens with Rocker Dude and his Dad getting into the car accident that will takes Dad's life.  While the events that will befall Rocker Dude six months later are unrelated to this event, it's entirely responsible for creating his Particular Set of Skills that come to bear later in the story.

Who knew Judas Priest could save your life one day?

Bam, six months later and without introduction, Odd Girl asks Rocker Dude to the Big Dance.  He declines, as he has plans to attend with Girlfriend.  Because Rocker Dude's Dad died, he's having emotional issues that he won't discuss (because dude), and channels his stifled feelings into cutting (with the rocker-appropriate razor blade necklace he wears) and going out to walk his dog and rock climb to have his feelings in an acceptably masculine way.  Then he's knocked unconscious by an out-of-focus man.  Fade to black.

I'm not sure why the movie bothers to hide the identity of his captor from us, since we don't know him yet and they go ahead and show us before Rocker Dude regains consciousness anyway.

Still less creepy than those Father/Daughter Purity Dances

These are details that are not understood by people who paint by numbers.  The captor is the Creepy Daddy of Odd Girl, and in addition to a date, he's brought her a new dress for her own very special End of School Dance.  Cue incestuous overtones.

Rocker Dude awakens at the Formica dinner table with Odd Girl, Creepy Daddy and what I can only assume is Mommy Who Tried to Leave and Got a Homemade Lobotomy for her Troubles; otherwise known as Bright Eyes.  Torture, torture, torture.  Incestuous overtone become incestuous overtures. 

It's a good thing that Rocker Dude has A) a high tolerance for pain brought about by cutting, and 2) a razor blade necklace.  Cuts ropes, fights back, shoves Creepy Daddy into cannibal pit of former victims before surprisingly conscious Odd Girl shoves him in too.

Have you guys seen The People Under the Stairs?

Subplot Cop shows up to open the cannibal pit before being added to it himself, giving Rocker Dude enough bodies to stack so he can get a handhold and pull himself out (remember the rock climbing?).  Rocker Dude and Girlfriend kill Odd Girl with Subplot Cop's car.  The End.

Playing mix and match with things you've seen in other horror movies is not strictly the same thing as having an original thought, and equipping a character with no more than he needs to survive your implausible situation isn't anything like good writing.

Particular Set of Skills: Rocker Dude's resistance to pain, rock climbing ability and razor blade necklace.  Girlfriend's knowledge of Odd Girl's invitation.  Subplot Cop's missing son.

Dumb.

We just HAD to choose the forest with Klieg lights...

Just hangin', how 'bout you?

Treehouse - 2014
Written by Alex Child & Miles Harrington
Directed by Michael Bartlett

In this Ozark-set survival horror, even the good guys are rednecks, which I guess makes the bad guys hillbillies.

After a teenage girl and her young brother are abducted from their home in a nearby town, the kids are sent home early from school and the big festival is canceled.  That won't stop Cool Brother and a reluctant Weenie Brother from setting off fireworks with friends deep enough in the woods to avoid attention.  When their friends don't show up, they decide to set them off anyway, illuminating a treehouse built high up in the trees, and clearly not a place for fun-loving childish hijinks.  In the treehouse, they discover the missing girl, hurt and exhausted.  Cool Brother takes off to find help while Weenie Brother stays to take care of Missing Girl.  Almost as soon as he's gone, he stops responding to his walkie-talkie.

I can't believe he made that hanging joke either.

When the walkie-talkie does finally chirp up, it's the friends who were late meeting them.  The snuffling and branch-rattling noises outside the treehouse disappear, and soon after the radio bleats with the sounds of their terror, only to fall silent again.  By morning's light, Weenie Brother and Missing Girl discover the bodies of Cool Brother's friends dangling from the trees and something watching them from nearby.  It could be aliens or bigfoots... bigfeet... Sasquatches, but really it's just hillbillies, because why else would you set a movie in the Ozarks if it's not going to be hillbillies?

The young 'uns sneak out under cover of the night and try to make their way out of the woods.  A close call with a bear trap convinces them to stay put until the sun comes up.  It turns out they've been spittin' distance from a house the whole time.

BBQ! SUPERSTAR! Who in the world do you think you are?

Seeking aid at the house reveals that it's the home of the same hillbillies who've been hunting them, complete with Dead Mama in the bed and the suggestion of inbreeding in their unglamorous physical appearance.  The house is scattered with Polaroids of them with various victims, including Cool Brother and Missing Kid.

Thanks to Weenie Brother's history with the now-deceased Redneck Soldier Daddy, he knows how to throw a knife and fire a gun, and doing so not only helps his to survive and escape Homicidal Hillbillies, but redeems him to the memory of his hard-assed and abusive father.  Lucky him.

Make sure to empty the clip!  There's another one coming!

After causing a sheriff's truck to swerve off the road, possibly fatally, Weenie Brother and Missing Girl become Weenie MAN and Missing WOMAN when they find they have access to a couple of semi-automatic rifles (Dear gun nuts, I don't give half a shit what they're really called. That ain't my kink, son).  They start spouting hyper-masculine non-sequiturs like they're John Mc-fucking-Clane and head off to exact some "Second Amendment Solutions" on the final Homicidal Hillbilly (who already has a sucking chest wound).  So make sure to arm up, America!  You never know when you might accidentally kill your rescuer.  The End.

Particular Set of Skills: Weenie Brother's knowledge of knife-throwing & shooting and his desperate desire to prove himself to his dead abusive father & dead protective brother.

Dumb.



I am officially done giving chances to these kinds of movies.