Movie Review—Lord of Tears

So, I've helped fund 3 movies so far on Kickstarter. I'll get to reviews of the first two once they're out, but it IS kind of amusing that the one I helped fund most recently is the first one that I've seen. Now, Lord of Tears had a leg up on the others since it was already done and the Kickstarter campaign was mostly to secure distribution and marketing for the movie, but still.

So! As you can see from the pictures, Lord of Tears is about the owlman. But there's quite a bit more going on here than that, and despite how creepy the owlman looks... by the time the movie's over, you realize that it wasn't really about the owlman at all. The movie itself has a pretty simple plot, and it's not going to impress with a huge cast, and the monster doesn't do a lot more than stand around and watch... but as it turns out, when you've got such an incredibly haunting and scenic location to shoot in like the highlands of Scotland, things like plot and cast and super-dynamic monsters aren't all that necessary. Especially when you couple that with an incredibly dream-like style of shooting and then edit the movie so that the whole thing increasingly feels like a strange nightmare.

There's some cool twists to the story as well, one of which I saw coming early (and enjoyed nonetheless) and one of which kinda surprised me in a good way. I'll be somewhat vague about those. The movie's plot, as I mentioned, is pretty simple. A man inherits a house after his mother's suicide—but in her will, she says words to the effect of, "Something at that house drove you crazy and made you almost drown yourself—don't go back there today!"

And so, of course, he goes back there to find out, if he can, what caused him to repress a year or so of memories as a child. Because after that setup, what self-respecting horror movie character WOULDN'T go? (To be fair, the character comments on this in the movie, noting, more or less, "Why would Mom tell me to stay away like that, when she should know a warning like that would only intrigue me all the more?") Of course, once he arrives, he starts having strange dreams and seeing visions of a frightening creature watching him from the the surrounding hills and woods—was an encounter with the owlman what terrified him so as a child?

Or was it something far worse?

A very good reason to turn around and find your way down a different, less horror-filled hallway...

Lord of Tears ...

• ... is relatively slow paced and deliberate in getting where it wants to go, but it's never once boring to look at. The movie made me want to go visit Scotland!
• ... gets a lot of mileage out of the owlman suit. It doesn't need to do much but stand there to send chills up the spine, and the scenes where you don't realize immediately that the owlman is in there, watching you, blending in to the background, are pretty effective. Makes you start imagining owlmen in scenes where there aren't any.
• ... feels like being trapped in a nightmare. Not every part of it makes logical sense, and a fair amount of the imagery  is there only for symbolism and because it just looks creepy.
• ... uses a large number of public-domain or free sound effects, many of which I've heard a LOT in video games. That's always distracting to me, since those sound effects tend to be overheard a LOT in video games over and over... kinda took me out of the nightmare-induced fugue the movie was putting me in now and then.
• ... arrived in the best packaging ever—wrapped in black crepe paper, with an owl feather affixed to the front and no other indication as to what was inside. Owlman doesn't need to sign his name to leave his mark!
• ... incorporates themes of Slenderman and the tones of Lovecraft. No wonder it felt like a nightmare!
• ... is a refreshing throwback to older British horror movies where mood and tone rule all. Fittingly, the director dedicated the movie to Christopher Lee.

Grade: A–

Monster #16—Alp

As a kid, I used to have night terrors. These aren't just nightmares. These are visions of such unrelenting horror as you sleep that you simply can't do anything but shriek and scream. I can hardly imagine what it's like for a parent to have to deal with a child who has night terrors. I get them still now and then today, particularly when I'm overstressed... the best way to handle them is to get up, walk around, grab some water, and take 10 minutes or so to reinforce the fact that you're fine, you're in your home, you're safe.

Night terrors have tormented us as a race from the START of the race. But they aren't the most frightening form of nightmare to me. The most frightening would probably be what's called "sleep paralysis." I've never suffered from this type of nightmare, but plenty of people have... it's the type of dream where you wake up, hallucinate, and simply can't move... and all that comes with an overwhelming feeling of terror and dread. It's from experiences like these that all manner of notorious legends and myths have evolved, from the succubus and incubus on up to the more contemporary aliens who supposedly abduct folks to perform experiments.


One such creature in this category is the alp—a creature from German mythology similar in some ways to a vampire, in others to a ghost, and in still more to an incubus (although the legends generally don't include a sexual element in the alp's case).

Yet, if I've never had sleep paralysis before... why am I suddenly all intrigued by alps? Well, I just finished playing a VERY good video game earlier today—a tense and stressful thing called Outlast. In the game, you play a reporter who gets a tip that there are strange goings on at an old asylum, and so you head up there one night to investigate, armed only with your video camera. This camera is also your only way to navigate the darkest parts of the asylum, by letting you use the night-vision mode to do so. Of course... there are ALL SORTS of horrific things going on in the asylum for you to run from and hide from; crazy people, deranged doctors, naked deranged orderlies, deformed lunatics, mutants... and as the game progresses, something called a "walrider." Which is, of course, another name for the alp.

The game's a piece of work. Made me jump back from the computer several times. Highly recommended. Just don't play it late at night, especially if you're prone to the terrors! Check out the gameplay footage/trailer below... IF YOU DARE!

Movie Review—Evil Dead

I remember the first time I saw The Evil Dead quite clearly. My dad, my best friend, and I were at the Point Arena General Store back in the mid-80s. It was a Friday afternoon, and we were looking for a movie to pick out and rent and watch that night; my dad told my friend and I to pick out one. I wanted to rent Movie A, while my friend wanted to rent Movie B. We argued about which one to get long enough that my dad was getting frustrated, and then one of us (I like to think it was me) saw a third movie. Something called "The Evil Dead" that had a blurb from Stephen King on the cover and showed a half-naked woman being pulled into the ground by a zombie hand. We decided to rent that one.

Later that night, after the movie finished, I was thunderstruck. I'd seen plenty of horror movies already, but I'd never seen one quite like The Evil Dead. Its over the top gore combined with its over the top energy made me an instant fan... even if my dad hated it. He likes movies where the good guys win.

A few years later, I was at a DIFFERENT store (Rollerville Junction, near the Point Arena Lighthouse) looking for a movie to rent, and I saw something that I couldn't believe. A sequel? To Evil Dead? Yes please! And then in college, I remember seeing Evil Dead 2 in the theater despite being sick as a dog, and seeing Army of Darkness in the theater where no one but my friends and I seemed to realize it was a comedy.

So yeah. I'm one of those Evil Dead fans who's been waiting for decades for a new installment in the series, and who was watching nervously as word of the remake became confirmed. It wasn't until the red-band trailer that I started to let myself hope.

Evil Dead is not the same movie as "The Evil Dead" or "Evil Dead 2." It is not better than those two movies.

That said, it probably comes as close as possible to being as good as those two movies as you can get.

Breaking Bad is no longer the holder of the "Most Horrifying Box Cutter Scene" trophy.

In fact, in some areas, it exceeds the original. The music's better. The effects are better. And I frankly think that the setup for the storyline is better. But it's lacking the final magic spark of Sam Raimi directing and Bruce Campbell acting.

That said, it's also a drop-dead serious movie. There's no comedy in Evil Dead, just as there wasn't any in the original. The movie knows you've seen the original, and while it throws in some delightful touchstones (a necklace making a skull shape on the ground... a line of dialogue here and there... a chainsaw in a woodshed...), there's quite a few significant changes from the original's plot that are actually quite welcome and cool.

The effects, in particular, are worth mentioning. I can't remember the last time I saw a horror movie where pretty much every single gore effect was done practically—there's no CGI gore in this movie. There's barely any CGI in the movie at all, in fact. And with the physical effects done so well... it's kind of like a wake up slap-in-the-face as to how visceral and powerful movie magic can be. CGI is well and good, but you know how they do it. There's some effects in this movie that I simply do not know how they pulled them off without killing some people.

And one last thing. While I kind of wish they'd gone a bit farther and a bit more over the top with some of the effects and story elements... I have to admit. I'm flabbergasted that this movie ONLY got an R-rating. It's easily one of the goriest movies I've seen in theaters in a long, long time.

Evil Dead...

• ... has the best soundtrack of the year so far, and it's gonna be a hard one to beat.
• ... is, apparently, not a remake or reboot as much as it is an actual sequel. They're working on Evil Dead 2 already, as well as Army of Darkness 2, and plan to do Evil Dead 3... and supposedly Evil Dead 4 will bridge the remakes and the original into a single storyline!
• ... had one day where they used 50,000 gallons of blood in one scene. It's pretty obvious which scene that is when it happens, trust me.
• ... has real vomit in it.
• ... features Sam Raimi's car, so you KNOW it's legit!
• ... is not "The Most Terrifying Film I Will Ever Experience." That honor probably goes to Martyrs or Paranormal Activity or The Blair Witch Project or Frontier(s) for me... probably Martyrs, since the fear has faded for the other three for me somewhat.
• ... has a cute little stinger at the very end of the credits, so make sure you stay to see it!

Grade: A

(And if the above trailer wasn't gory enough... check out the red band trailer below, but don't say I didn't warn you!)

Story Review—Casting the Runes

"'... I do hope that horrible man won't find out that Mr. Dunning had anything to do with the rejection of his paper... Karswell won't know his name, for Dunning hasn't published anything on the same subject yet. The only danger is that Karswell might find out, if he was to ask the British Museum people who was in the habit of consulting alchemical manuscripts; I can't very well tell them not to mention Dunning, can I? It would set them talking at once. Let's hope it won't occur to him.'

However, Mr. Karswell was an astute man."

—"Casting the Runes," M. R. James

Another entry from The Century's Best Horror Fiction, this time from the year 1911. M. R. James's horror stories tend toward ghostly subjects, but my favorite of his stories, "The Ash Tree," is about something with far more legs than most ghosts. Likewise, the story this review is focused on, "Casting The Runes," isn't as much about ghosts as it is about magic. Black magic. The kind of magic a bitter man, after you tell him his writing isn't up to par for publication, might use to place a certain kind of curse on you. A curse that might just end up with you torn limb from limb, so that those who find your savaged body might mutter and talk of "...savage dogs, and beasts escaped out of menageries...".

I've not read nearly as much M. R. James as I should have. He's a huge inspiration of two of my favorite writers*, after all! And while I'd thought I'd read "Casting the Runes" before, I didn't remember it unfolding quite the way it did—there's a sort of detached, scholarly feel to it, as if you're reading a reporter's take on the events. The story frequently breaks from scenes with announcements like "This much in the way of prologue," or "It is not necessary to tell in further detail the steps by which Henry Harrington and Dunning were brought together."

The handsome star of Night of the Demon

The way the curse created by the casting of the eponymous runes plays out is pretty fun, and those who have played Pathfinder #26's adventure, "The Sixfold Trial" will doubtless find some of the plots of "Casting The Runes" familiar... as might those who have viewed Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell or the old British movie Night of the Demon. Which makes sense... since all three of those stories are based on "Casting the Runes" to a certain extent. Of those, only Night of the Demon (re-released in the USA as Curse of the Demon) is a relatively faithful adaptation of the original story.

Anyway... yeah. "Casting the Runes." Good times!

"Casting the Runes" is ...

• ... the only one of M. R. James's stories to have been adapted into a significant motion picture.
• ... more frightening if your job duties include rejecting the writing of people who may or may not have access to black magic.

GRADE: A –**

*For those playing the home game—H. P. Lovecraft and Ramsey Campbell

**It strikes me that if I keep reviewing stories from The Century's Best Horror Fiction... there's probably gonna be a lot of As given out...