Movie Review—Maniac

It's one thing to cast Elijah Wood, best known of course for his portrayal of Frodo Baggins, as a stone-cold evil maniac of a serial killer. This movie, aptly titled Maniac, goes one step further. Nearly the entire movie is filmed from the point of view of the killer as he stalks his victims one by one to collect their scalps for his collection of mannequins in an attempt to replace the loss of his horrific and horrible but recently-deceased mother. There's some really impressive camera work here, to be sure, especially in the shots where you see direct-on views of the killer's reflections in mirrors and windows and the like, and the few points where the camera pans away from the killer's POV are really effective in giving you a moment to observe what's going on in a more standard way. They're like gasps for air, in a way, these opportunities to step out of a killer's body, especially since these tend to occur at the more violent or creepy points in the movie.

There's not an awful lot in the way of plot in this movie—it's pretty much all about the killer's methodical collection of victims while he tries to juggle a growing for-real relationship with a woman who wants to use his mannequins for her photography (the ones he restores, not the ones he keeps secret in his bedroom with scalps stapled to their heads). Of course, as one might expect, keeping your serial killing separate from your love life is a recipe for disaster, and eventually these two worlds collide in a relatively spectacular chase sequence. The two main characters—the serial killer and his would-be girlfriend—are relatively interesting, and the special effects are realistic and horrific and well done, but in the end it's the unique POV of the camerawork that is Maniac's real star.

Lord of the Rings would have been a very different movie had this been Frodo...

Maniac is ...

• ... yet another excellent example of how creepy mannequins are.
• ... a remake, but I've not seen the original so I can't say if this is better or worse.
• ... proves that as violent as a movie can be, filming the violence from the POV of the perpetrator makes it all the more disturbing. It's pretty hard to watch at times.
• ... has a lengthy scene that features the song "Good-Bye Horses," that, much like its use in The Silence of the Lambs, does an unsettling job of making an already creepy scene even more so.
• ... will change how you see Elijah Wood as an actor... he pulls off the serial killer really, really well!

Grade: B+

Movie Review—Thor: The Dark World

So. Thor: The Dark World is a really well-made movie, with incredible special effects, really cool characters, some fun dialog, and the way it fits into the expanding cinematic Marvel universe is really cool.

It's also the first of the various Marvel comic book movies where I started feeling like things were starting to feel a bit repetitive. I mean... how many times can the world and/or universe ALMOST get destroyed only to be saved at the last minute by a superhero before the bad guys give up? Especially since this time, the bad guys just seem like a downgrade in menace from all that's come before.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm eager to see some of these superheros get into a smaller plot. Something that allows for character growth rather than just excuses for special effects. And know what else? I'm kinda ready for there to be a big-budget superhero movie about a non-white guy superhero. They exist. I know they do. And movies about them have been made before. I just want to see one done that is done to the level of quality of many of Marvel's latest movies.

Enough with Thor. Let's get a Sif movie! Hey... they could show it at SIFF!

Thor: The Dark World ...

• ... reminds me of how important it is for a superhero movie to have a really awesome and memorable soundtrack. DC's comic book movies seem to get this. Why doesn't Marvel?
• ... has a DELIGHTFUL cameo by Captain America.
• ... left the Asian guy out of the movie for no real reason, which was disappointing.
• ... should have given Ray Stevenson more to do.
• ... made me want to see Rene Russo in more swordfighting scenes!

Grade: B

Movie Review—Sound of My Voice

So, Netflix seems to be pretty good at guessing what sorts of movies I'll like, and so I'm always delighted to see it suggest a movie I haven't heard of before. All I knew about Sound of My Voice going in was that it had something to do with a couple who decided to infiltrate a cult in order to get proof that said cult was up to no good. Of course... things don't quite go as planned, and that's all I'm going to say about this movie so as to not spoil the surprise! Actually, since the trailer and the fact that I tagged this post as "science fiction" is already a spoiler, I'll say this much. The leader of the cult the investigators infiltrate claims to be from the future. And that's the rub. How do you PROVE you're from the future if you really are? Or how do you make people BELIEVE you're from the future if you really aren't? And... why would you do either?

The movie is not particularly gory or violent or even profanity-filled... but it IS pretty dang thought provoking and intriguing!

What's going on here? Has something to do with apples. I'm not gonna spoil it!

Sound of My Voice...

• ... is a quiet, slow-moving movie that really draws you in by expanding what's going on in steps that seem tiny at first but are really huge leaps.
• ... makes you think that something is going on, then reverses things to make you think something else is going on, then goes back to what you thought was going on, again and again. 
• ... feels like the tip of the iceberg; it's supposedly the first in a trilogy. Here's hoping the next two get made!

Grade: A–

Movie Review—Kon-Tiki

I've felt that the story of the Kon-Tiki would make a great movie for a long time. And while this movie was not great... it was still pretty good. The story of Thor Heyerdal and the journey he and his crew made across the Pacific Ocean is pretty awesome, one fraught with peril and adventure and beauty. It's not one that needs to be "amped up," and had this been a full-on Hollywood-style production, I'm sure it would have had gunfights and car chases.

It wasn't a Hollywood-style production, but the scenes I'd been most interested in seeing were either "actioned up" or cut altogether, and some scenes that didn't exist at all were put in there just to liven up the pace. That, and some shots of sharks and stuff not really behaving the way sharks behave were a bit unfortunate.

Still a well-made and entertaining movie. Just didn't manage to meet the expectations I'd built up for the movie over the past, oh, three decades or so. I'm not sure anything could, though.

Awww! Poor little guy got left on the cutting room floor! Just because he's ugly!

Kon-Tiki is...

• ... missing the scene where the snake mackerel jumps in bed with one of the crew.
• ... has the scene with the whale shark (it kinda HAD to) but it was over way too quickly.
• ... did an incredible job with realizing the world; great cinematography and for the most part great special effects.
• ... made me want to re-read Thor's book to remind myself of which parts the movie made up and which parts really happened.
• ... didn't spend long enough time at sea.
• ... has a shot that goes from the surface of the ocean, up into orbit around the earth, then back down to the sea that is really rather awesome.

Grade: B+

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 #17—Owlman

The concept of humans with animal heads is one of the classic monster tropes. Want a quick and easy way to make a person scary and strange? Give them a wolf head or a tiger head or a snake head. Or, as it turns out, an owl head.

The Owlman isn't a monster I'd heard much about until earlier this year, when a Kickstarter project caught my attention—a movie called Lord of Tears was seeking some money to secure some additional funding for last minute additions and reshoots, but primarily so they could pay for distribution of the already pretty-much-complete movie. After seeing Absentia come to life thanks to Kickstarter, I'd been keeping an eye out for other interesting and promising horror movies to help fund, so I probably would have kicked in some cash for Lord of Tears even if the movie hadn't yet started filming.

Now, while the Owlman of the movie was a very specific monster with a very specific tie to history, the "real" Owlman is a figure that haunts the area around Mawnan, Cornwall. He hasn't been sighted all that often, which may be why I've not heard about him in my relatively extensive monster researching lore. Variously explained as a manifestation of energy from prehistoric ley lines to sightings of rare eagles or other birds, I think my favorite explanation remains that he's a sinister demigod from antiquity. Which is, as you'll see in my next post, what the movie went with!


Recommended Viewing:

• Lord of Tears, dir. Lawrie Brewster

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!