It's that time of year again...
Certainly, the cosmology that it posits (Satan is the off-spring of an all-powerful, anti-God who the Church is trying to prevent from entering into our world from the realm of anti-Matter), though preposterous, is deeply disturbing. On the other hand, the mixture of science fiction and the supernatural never quite gels together and the script is, at times, pedantic, explaining too much about the phenomenon and leaving too little to the imagination. Outside of Donald Pleasence's shaken priest and Victor Wong's unorthodox professor, the characters never really come alive. Overall this is a lesser effort from Carpenter but is has lot of creativity and is genuinely unsettling at times.
Score: 7/10
2. The Fog (1980)
The first really "pure" horror film I ever watched was John Carpenter's The Fog (before this I had seen films like Jaws and Predator, whose entry in the genre some might dispute). I've always had a soft spot for it despite some of it's flaws. It's fairly obvious, for instance that the film was extensively re-shot to make it more graphic. Despite this, it manages to maintain a relatively consistent tone and is wonderfully atmospheric. Dean Cundy provides maybe the strongest cinematography of any of his collaborations with Carpenter. It also features one of the director's best musical scores. A cast which includes Carpenter regulars like Adrienne Barbeau, Tom Atkins, Nancy Loomis and Charles Cyphers is buffered by veteran actors Hal Holbrook and Janet Leigh.
Score: 9/10
Perhaps fittingly, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a film of strange dichotomies. On the one hand, it takes the novella's themes about the duality of man in a much more explicitly Christian direction. Jekyll's attempt to separate his bestial nature from his higher self are seen as an abomination, an attempt to blasphemously science to circumvent man's fallen state. At one point, Jekyll cries out, "This is my penance. Do you hear, oh, God?" On the other hand, it is a rather provocative film (at least for the time it was made) in it's portrayal of sexual degeneracy (when it was re-released in 1936, the Code required 8 minutes to be removed before the film could be distributed to theaters). Technically the film is a marvel. It's use of long, tracking shots is especially striking for this period and the make-up used for the transformation scenes is frankly astounding.
Score: 8/10
4. Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead (2014)
Like the first film, Dead Snow 2 delights in its gratuitous violence. The first film owed a great deal to Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead (both feature a group of young people who find themselves under attack from the undead in an isolated cabin) so its not surprising that this one is often indebted to its sequels Evil Dead II (particularly the scenes where Ash's arm begins attacking him) and Army of Darkness (which also features the protagonist summoning an undead army). Like those films it has a more comedic, tongue-in-the-cheek tone then its predecessors. It also (clearly) has a bigger budget. Because of this, some of the low-budget charm of the original is lost but it remains entertaining for those who like this sort of film. With that said I found the intrusion of the stereotypical nerd characters irritating and the ending, which is supposed to be heartwarming, came across as rather perverse.
Score: 7/10
This is basically the Matrix meets the Exorcist. Director Francis Lawrence directs with real panache and Keanu is right in his element as the jaded (but ultimately good-hearted) Constantine. I'm a sucker for this over-the-top demon hunting sort of film (cross-shaped firearms for the win!). Constantine presents a rather muddled cosmology, one tainted with strains of manichaeism: Angels and demons are locked in an eternal struggle for mankind's souls originating in a standing wager between God and Lucifer. Constantine's redemption is highly problematic from a theological perspective, As is a scene where Lucifer "releases" a soul from Hell though I must admit that I'm rather keen on Peter Stormare's portrayal of the fallen angel. His perverse, serpentine presence is contrasted with a petty kind of spite that seems somehow fitting. More troubling is the film's portrayal of the arch-angel Gabriel as a demented, overzealous servant, bent on forcing humanity to become worthy of God's grace by aiding Mammon, the son of Lucifer, in setting up his own kingdom.
Score: 6/10
6. Duel (1971)
Spielberg's first feature-length film remains a gripping thriller. The stripped down plot (man angers a truck driver when passing him on the highway and ends up being hunted down by him) has a surprising amount of mileage (no pun intended). Is it a horror film? I think so. Significantly, the driver of the truck is never really seen, making the vehicle almost a force of nature. This element of an unknown, seemingly unstoppable menace, is at the heart of horror. Dennis Weaver carries the film as the mild mannered business man who must find his inner manhood in order to survive this harrowing ordeal (if the film has a message it is certainly "don't be a simp"). It's a great little film.
Score: 9/10
7. Black Sunday (1960)
The directorial debut of Mario Bava, a Italian director who would go on to direct such classic horror films as Black Sabbath (1963) and Blood and Black Lace (1964). A classic piece of gothic horror, the plot of the film involves a witch (Barbara Steele) returning from the grave after 200 years to exact revenge on the ancestors of the men who put her to death. Black Sunday is a wonderfully atmospheric film, invoking, at times the classic Universal monster cycle. It is also a rather violent and provocative film for its time (in one scene the witch's robe is lifted up, revealing the rotting, undead flesh inside). In this it reflects the contemporaneous films from the British Hammer Film Productions. It also shares those films use of religious iconography as an weapon against evil.
Score: 8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment