The Old Dark House

Directed by James Whale

72 Minutes

Adapted from J. B Priestley’s novel Benighted (1927), James’s Whales The Old Dark House (1932), later remade in 1963 by William Castle (which is not meant to be the best) is an atmospheric, social horror. Straightforward in narrative, it is camp and funny in dialogue. In the obvious sense the secluded house and harrowing wind comes across like a cheesy horror flick. This doesn’t help that from 1968 the only version available is a poor film negative. (Universal Pictures lost the film’s rights). Adjacent to this, is its dark tones. Exploration of class and social degenerates is very The Texas Chainsaw Massacre  (Tobe Hooper 1974), but in the same sense, the monster here, is handled with delicacy and believability.

The Old Dark House opens in the worst possible weather conditions. Driving, Philip Waverton (Raymond Massey), his wife Margaret (Gloria Stuart) and friend Roger Penderel (Melvyn Douglas) is stuck in the rainstorm. A landslide occurs and a lit house appears. Hoping to board for the night, the threesome leave the car and arrive at the doorstep. A mute butler (Boris Karloff), pompous man (Ernest Thesiger) and a deaf unsociable woman (Eva Moore) allow them to enter. This is not a cozy house though; it is regulated with rules and ideologies. The setup becomes awkward and uncomfortable as the guests struggle to understand the family’s behaviour. Then another knock occurs and a new couple Sir William Porterhouse  (Charles Laughton) and Gladys DuCane (Lillian Bond) arrive. They too are invited in.

The Old Dark House is a tale of order and anarchy as the five guests learn the secrets of the household and its hidden agenda.  

On the surface The Old Dark House is a horror film through its atmosphere and gothic characters. Proving he is no stranger to this, Whale who had previously made Frankenstein (1931) uses Boris Karloff again and reoccurring themes of destruction. With this in-depth commentary, it could easy be classed as a documentary. Whale challenges both sides of the spectrum but seems to soften the inner persona of the monster. In this case, the family may look odd and have conflicting views to the others guests, but it is these guests that harm and disrupt the household. In a similar but not so nuanced look, Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) and his family of cannibals are perceived as strange. They live in a ritualistic house, removed from society. Besides the fact, the victims are a group of annoying, middle-class teens, we still root for them to escape. The monsters however, are presented as deranged and harmful, a collective that society needs to escape from. They are never challenged or seen as maybe the victims themselves. 

The Old Dark House resists clichés and laziness. I know this film is before the more obvious horror tropes you can witness now, but it is interesting to see a narrative that doesn't have any. For example the group stays together something that has become formulaic in the genre. Hearing, “You’ll have to come with me” rather than, 'I’ll be right back' is quite logical and goes against the one-by-one-the group- is-slayed. Since you don’t get this here, on cue timing or events leading to suit an outcome isn't the point. The narrative is deadpan and heavy explored giving you well-articulated characters and a narrative worth thinking about. 

The Old Dark House is an honest and confronting look at some of the monsters and clashes we have through our relationship with class. It may lack in quality, but charm certainly makes up for it

Poltergeist

Poltergeist (2015)

Directed by Gil Kenan

93 Minutes

There’s always a part of me that says, why would you remake this. Going by this general rule of thumb doesn’t mean I’m not curious to see what’s different or perhaps the same. Upon hearing and viewing the trailer for the new Poltergeist (Gil Kenan 2015), I tried to stay open minded. As we know, the original Poltergeist (1982) directed by Tobe Hopper and written by Steven Spielberg is a benchmark horror film and great collaborative piece. Spielberg’s whimsy and Hopper’s terror, why would Kenan want to try his luck?

Seeing this new take, I did find (some) good elements.  Nevertheless, even if I did like this version better it wouldn’t be a convincing argument. I know this because when I praise the remake of Carrie (Kimberly Pierce, 2013), I get weird looks. For many, the real audacity here, is remaking a ‘classic.’ I too, shutter at the thought of certain films being remade. However, I have this belief that it shouldn’t discourage people from seeing a different take on things. Therefore, this review is not to dwell on the original, because you know, that’s pointless, it's, its own film. But it does feels right to compare Carrie and Poltergeist collectively. What these remakes do is enhance the narrative through the use of 3D. Although, I did not see Poltergeist in 3D, I really enjoyed Carrie's (Chloë Grace Moretz) telekinesis powers. In much the same way, the inside world where young Madison (Kennedy Clements) is sucked into, is shown. The viewer gets to witness an endless sepia, quite beautiful and very haunting vortex. Had I seen this in 3D, then i'm sure it would have enhanced the film's visual world.  

Yes. Things are amped up and nothing is left to our imagination, but it works, well, for a while anyway. If you can deal with campy ghost hunters and the times too many characters are in the same household, then sure. The inclusion of Sam Rockwell (Eric Bowen) is very Rockwell. Perhaps though, it does feels like he's taking the piss out of the film. As a couple Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt (Amy) bond well and do add some much needed spark to their character's story-lines. Where the film falls flat, is through Madison. Madison is just too cute and while this does make you feel sorry for her, she doesn't project her ability to communicate with spirits. Heather O’Rourke (Named Carol, than Madison) was memorable. Not only having that ridiculous blonde hair, but that smirk at the end of the film alludes the poltergeist hasn’t left and she likes having this power. O' Rourke is still sweet but highly manipulative. If this is a comparison, then Madison fails. Or as much Kenan doesn't give any reason as to why this supernatural force is attached to her. This doesn't have to be presented in dialogue but something should be suggested. Unfortunately the major concern here is producing scares, nothing to do with characters or evoking atmospheres. 

Hey, I lied. I didn’t enjoy this version. I did tried though. Had I mention this at the start of my review then you wouldn’t have read on. Overall, Poltergeist is flat and jumps the gun just like Madison is sucked into the TV. From the original, we learn that this is a key moment. It drives the narrative forward and the characters concern of getting her back, but here, this key, empathetic moment is thrown away. 

Initially yeah, scares are well executed. But these scares however, result to obviousness. *Insert creepy clown.  There may be a similar doll is in the original, but this clown, is just too mean.  

I suggest not watching Poltergeist angry or with any expectations of the original, if you do this, then maybe, just maybe, you might find something good.

Transamerica

Transamerica

Directed by Duncan Tucker

103 minutes

Transamerica (Duncan Tucker, 2005) is an independent drama that is warm hearted and dark. It tells the story of a once Stanley, and now Bree (Felicity Huffman). A change both physical and psychological. After Bree is informed of her long lost son Toby, (Kevin Zegers, who looks a lot like Edward Furlong) who’s been jailed for drugs and hustling, Transamerica becomes a story on parenthood. Bree pays the bail fee, unrevealing her identity, and convinces Toby to ride with her to the West Coast. This is in order for Bree to drop Toby at his stepfather's. However, when violence and hidden secrets are revealed, this plan is thwarted. Toby and Bree must seek each other's true identities to resolve family tensions. 

Transamerica is a wholesome, natural film the sort you would struggle to dislike. This is well packed and (somewhat) explicitly shown. Qualifying itself above the rest and definitely a challenge to normative subject matters. Helping to unpack this, is its fun attitude. Like you're watching a John Walters film with hideous pink frills and matriarchal characters it has serious matters like sexually abuse. What I like here, is it's banal and natural it feels like a supportive space to reach out too.  Perhaps in hindsight though, this taboo does pops out of nowhere and I can't help but to think it's being deliberately controversial, that's probably just me. But where Transamerica really excels is showing transsexuality (or  gender dysphoria as it is termed here). Not many narratives show this, and when a character is transexual, it has comedy or tragedy attached to it. The film does have these elements though, but the difference is we are not laughing at Bree, we are laughing with her. Bree is an everyday protagonist like you would see in a hetro-normative role, that's the difference.

As it happens Transamerica has some minor disappointment. My reasoning’s may be more cynicism.  Likewise it has nothing to do with the above mentioned themes or attitude the film displays. It’s about the way the film reached, or not reached potential audiences. Transamerica did won awards in various film festivals and Felicity Huffman won best actress at the Golden Globes, however it seems the film feeds only to an exclusive audience. This is still good, but perhaps these audiences may already be comfortable with these themes, It’s hard to say and I shouldn't generalise. I suppose my biggest gripe, is that the film warns you to bring an open mind. To me, having this display only gives people the opportunity to bypass the film. This is a shame.

The other factor I find strange, is why not use a person who has been through this change? In fairness to Felicity Huffman, her performance is great and convincing to say the least. It’s just that, it would have been more interesting and given the sort of realism it needed. If it managed this, maybe it would have taken these themes and unconventional characters to the next level. In that case then, you would need to bring an open mind. 

It Follows

It Follows

Directed by David John Mitchell

100 minutes

It Follows (David Robert Mitchell) is a new horror film that’s found much attention in its explicit and terrifying context. Directed and written by David John Mitchell, the premise comes from a recurring nightmare he had, whereby someone is following him. In much the same way the main character Jay (Maika Munroe), and somewhat ‘final girl’ becomes trapped inside her own nightmare. This is when Jay sleeps with boyfriend Hugh (Jake Weary) who passes on a sort of STD. Jay becomes plagued by strange visions and like Mitchell’s dream someone follows her.  The carrier can only see the follower(s) and break the curse by sleeping with the next person, exactly what Hugh had done. This proves difficult and challenging since the followers evoke personal trauma to the beholder. The social commentary is what makes this a disturbing experience. The bodily associations such as STD’s that could occur from a ‘one night stand’ or the darker monstrosities like rape and molestation are all very real. This is fused with tragedy, which makes you have empathy and connect to these cases. Jay’s followers are either sinister or victims themselves. Physiological scenarios like mental illness or the battered wife syndrome are cases we understand and handled with thought and respect. Besides, it has been awhile since these themes have been tackled in the horror genre in such a delicate way.

As it turns out though, I found myself enjoying the ambience, more.  It Follows is a minimal, yet pretty grim film but violence and past trauma are only implied. Mitchell, much to my delight distances himself from the “splat pack” (a term associated to directors such as James Wan), but recreates his own version of John Carpenters, Halloween (1978). In the lead-up and night of Halloween, a follower prowls a neighborhood. The follower (Mike Myers) is not a disease, but someone sick. A monster Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) sees and not till the very end others see him, too. In much the same way, Laurie is a final girl, needing to overcome the (masculine) nightmare.

The use of wide shots, voyeurism, and hand held camera not to forget the stripped back and effective score makes this a very haunting and realistic experience. What It Follows manages to do differently, is take out the slasher madman element and present taboos. Even though, Myers does present a form of societal monster, the film is very traditional to the slasher genre and doesn’t budge in that regard. In much the same way, Jay as a final girl is quite different to Jamie through appearance and being sexually active. This is a great juxtaposition, since traditionally, final girl’s don’t have sex. Jay is a beautiful concoction of a victim and an aggressor, with much vulnerability and trauma but at the same time strength and power to overcome her nightmare.

It Follows is a subliminal film that does feels like being, perhaps inside Mitchell’s recurring nightmare. It is very floaty and ambiguous and has the sort of sexual energy of Twin Peaks (Mark Frost, David Lynch 1990). This is not flawless but pretty close to the mark. It does feel like, It follows over stays its welcome, again the more I think about it, the more it works as an anti- narrative that doesn’t give you the answers. Perhaps, because of its dream like narrative there are some awkward moments that don’t seem to work or make sense. However, if you stay with the film then this incoherence and eclipses, kinda work. Meaning, this is a film that can be reevaluated in a different context, or soak up its fragmented truths.

Jacob's Ladder

Jacobs Ladder

Directed by Adrian Lyne

113 minutes

If you’ve heard of the phrase Jacob’s ladder, then this gives you some kind of meaning to the film of the same name. Jacob’s Ladder (1990, Adrian Lyne) is a physiological horror with Tim Robbins playing the character, Jacob Singer. The film starts in the Vietnam War where Jacob is an American Solider. Visually and acoustically the film hasn’t dated, it is pretty damn menacing. Comrades are shot, if not wounded, while Jacob himself, is stabbed in the stomach with a bayonet. At this stage it seems logical to make the assumption Jacob is dead or at least, rescued. Flash forward to a little later, and it is 1975. Jacob is still alive and sitting on a subway wearing a New York postal uniform. As he tries to leave the subway in a normal, orderly fashion the station becomes a series of endless tunnels. Jacob cannot find his way out and is nearly killed (again) by a train. Every event now, in Jacob’s life is fighting and coming to terms with his presence state.

One-way of looking at Jacob’s Ladder is through time and the characters who define that. Jacob at present lives with his girlfriend Jezzie (Elisabeth Pena). Jacob is a post traumatic solider with a guilty conscience and Jezzie is unsympathetic towards Jacob’s panic attacks, which is a little odd. But then, in different stages of time, as in the past, Jacob was married with children and talks about Jezzie as a made up character from his dreams. This is confusing when these truths occur in the narrative space. But after a while you learn that Jacob has a cloudy mindset and cannot distinguish between past and present. In one tensely present moment, Jacob witnesses his friend blown- up, but his friend has already been killed in Vietnam.

Jacob’s Ladder is a bombarded with flashbacks and psychological black outs, once you get used to, it gets tedious. It also requires you to go with the narrative and trust Adrian Lyne like you would with David Lynch. But unlike the dream like nature of Lynch it is quite heavy handed and leaves you with too much closure, not to mention any opportunity to be symbolically charged or get its point across. Lyne takes on mental illness through posttraumatic stress, which is nuanced and convinced through Robbins. Sometimes you feel sorry for Jacob and then other times, he’s selfish, absolving his grievances.

This is a film that uses a twist to resolve and add closure. Whether this is clear, or not, it got to the point that it lost impact and boredom comes. When you step back a little and revaluate Jacob’s Ladder in today standards, not that films these days are employing the same mindfuck style (yes, it is a genre!), it has dated. Personally, we’re too savvy for Jacob’s Ladder. In the sense, too prepared. I mean watching Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999) or The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan, 1999) now, I recon I would get the ‘twist’ better than when I first saw these films at the time of release. Perhaps because of this I battled to fully enjoy Jacob’s Ladder and know to never trust a character with a cloudy personality or a narrative that isn’t in chronological order. Dead give away!

A Girl Who Walks Home Alone at Night

A Girl Who Walks Home Alone at Night

Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour

99 minutes

A Girl Who Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014) has been tagged the “The first Iranian vampire Western”, director Ana Lily Amirpour has no trouble bringing Lynch and Jamursh-isms to screen, but at the same time, this is exclusively fresh.

Arash (Arash Mrandi) belongs to the film’s bleak industrial setting, known as “bad city”. He’s a good-looking James Dean- esque figure with a slick convertible and a lonesome swagger. Although Arash doesn’t give change to the local street kid (Milad Eghbali), claiming his money has been spent on his car, Arash is a nice guy who looks after his junkie father (Marshall Manesh) and tubby cat. Arash comes into contact with the film’s antagonist, the town’s vampire. The vampire (Sheila Vand) known as, “The Girl” resembles a vintage Natalie Wood that works as a moral guider, removing badness from the town. Eventually Arash and the girl fall in love.  Their first affectionate encounter is demonstrated listening to a 80s synthy record and a disco ball flickering. Showing their love is telepathic than words. Although, Arash is no step closer to finding out the girl is a vampire he takes the next step towards their relationship and his father’s drug abuse.

A Girl Who Walks Home Alone at Night is minimal and relies on familiarity. When I was watching this I could see Lynch’s surreal industrial world in Eraserhead (1977), or as much the nightmarish mood he does so well. Adding to this is the existential character that belongs to the frontier like William Blake (Johnny Depp) in Dead Man (1995) or the romanced bound vampires in Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive (2013). While this is a great use of congealing these directors and using black and white timelessly and aesthetically pleasing, at times it felt that A Girl Who Walks Home Alone at Night is more interested in ticking the right boxes in the art- house department and came across as a postmodern redux. This is because the film is unique, when it isn’t Lynch or Jarmusch and really elevates its awesomeness through the senses. Again highlighting the moment between Arash, the girl and the 80s synth, this is such an affective moment without words or sexually contact. The scene is a full embodiment experience that leaves you feeling their desire and your body tingling. The choice of 80s beats resembles nostalgia, taking you too a scenario that can be relayed or only dreamt off. This is what A Girl Who Walks Home Alone at Night does exclusively well. 

It also ticks the right boxes in cultural coding, such as the girl’s androgynous body, which challenges gender compared to the voluptuous Atti, (Mozhan Marno) in heels and a dress.  Equally, Arash’s white t-shirt is simple yet a statement in itself, bringing the idea of youth culture from the 50s and anti conformity, which both these character’s address. These ideals make it up to you to work out, like codes of the past. Just like deciphering an American Apparel advert, it could mean obviousness, or subtleties, making this the coolest place to dance too, or the worse place to come down from.