20131117: Horror Review--The Theatre Bizarre

 The Theatre Bizarre

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American/French/Canadian live action feature length film, 2011, NR, 113 minutes, horror, anthology.
2. IMDB: 4.9/10.0 from 1,923 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 43% on the meter; 37% liked it from 940 audience ratings.
4. Netflix:  3.0/5.0 from 88,374 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Douglas Buck.
6. Starring: Udo Kier as Peg Poett, Virginia Newcomb as Enola Penny. 
7. For more credits see imdb full cast and crew ; it's a long set of lists.


2. Setup and Plot
1. This is an anthology.


2. Theatre Guignol: the overarching segment.  A young obsessed sleepless woman goes across the street in the dead of night and goes into a theatre lightly populated with life sized puppets.  The puppets introduce her to the following six stories.


3. The Mother Of Toads: Set in Mirepoix which is near the Pyrenees in southern France.  A young couple takes pictures of wood carvings of pagan gods.  The woman wants a pair of earrings, which depict an image from HP Lovecraft's works.  The vendor claims to have a true copy of the Necronomicon at another site.  They drive there; Katrina goes to a nearby spa while Martin talks to the vendor, samples the local (drugged) wine, and leafs through the book.  Katrina's return is not a happy one.  The next day, Martin has a glimpse of what he spent the night with.  He goes looking for Katrina.


4. I Love You: Set in Berlin, Germany.  Axel wakes up with a bloody cut on his hand.  He has no idea why.  Mo shows up to get a few things before she leaves him.  They talk; she's a multiple betrayer, he's a controlling idiot, she's too young for him. Did I forget lying witch?  It does not end well.


5. Wet Dreams: Donnie accidentally slugs Carla when he wakes up from a nightmare.  Dr. Maurey asks him about the nightmare of a beautiful girl who coaxes him to bed, only to emasculate him with her 'Lovecraftian' vagina.  The Dr. tells him a strategy for interrupting the nightmares, so Donnie tries it.  It fails; instead, he dreams of the other times he's hit Carla, and of her suicide attempt.  The doctor's wife Maxine and Donnie did some things together; the doctor and Carla settle scores.


6. The Accident: Mother talks about death with her young Daughter: growing old, being in accidents, Old Yeller.  Sad tale, nicely done.


7. Vision Stains: Junkie girl shoots up in an alley.  The writer uses a surgical procedure to steal the dying visions of the junkies she murders.  In this short, she first murders the junkie girl, and writes up her experiences.  Then she murders an old homeless woman.  The writer despises men, and kills women only, because the women have suffered more and better, somehow.  Right, sure, whatever your excuses are for serial murder.  The writer gets quite a surprise when she injects fluid from the belly of a pregnant woman.


8. Sweets: Estelle and Greg are a couple drowning in sweet food.  Estelle created the circumstances in which they find themselves; now she rejects it.  Greg's hopelessly in love, and cries a lot while trying to bargain his way out of this trap.  Estelle and a new friend Antonia go to an exclusive food club and talk about moderation.  The club kills Greg, guts him to general applause, then eats various parts of him raw.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Five of the six shorts were good in this horror anthology.
2. Four stars of five.  I was tempted by 5/5, but 'Vision Stains' was just so bad in so many ways.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Excellent.


2. Sound: 9/10 Fine.


3. Acting: 8/10 Enjoyable, by and large.  I liked Udo Keir in particular.  The Mother and Daughter actors in 'The Accident' were wonderful.


4. Screenplay: 9/10 Well-made horror anthology.

20131109: Horror Review--VHS 2

V/H/S/2

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, rated R, 95 minutes,
2. IMDB: 6.1/10.0 from 10,042 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 72% on the meter; 56% liked it from 7,954 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.4/5.0 from 80,326 audience ratings.
5. 'Two private eyes investigating the disappearance of a student discover horrific content on a collection of VHS tapes in his home.'
6. Directed by: Simon Barrett.
7. Starring: Lawrence Michael Levine as Larry, Kelsey Abbot as Ayesha, L. C. Holt as Kyle, Simon Barrett as Steve, Mindy Robinson as Tabitha, Monica Sanchez Navarro as Hotel Maid.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Tape 49
2. Two PIs (Larry, Ayesha) investigate the disappearance of a student.  They encounter masses of VHS tape and other media to traverse to look for clues.


3. Phase I Clinical Trials----Ayesha watches this one.
4. A man has a bionic eye implanted.  Great, a new type of anti-steady camera.  The company who is testing it records every thing he does.  When he gets home, things go bump in the night.


5. A Ride in the Park----Ayesha watches this one as well; Larry continues with the kid's notebooks.  They agree that the kid on the tape is the client's target.
6. Yet another fool.  This one listens to loud music while biking in a wooded park.  He has a web-cam on his safety helmet.  Why have a safety helmet if you choose to ignore all auditory clues to your environment?  Makes as much sense and listening to loud music while driving.  He gets attacked by zombies.  End of interest.  I've seen much better zombie material.


7. Safe Haven-----After the zombie tape, Ayesha has a nosebleed, but has left her meds at home.  Larry goes to get something for her at a nearby drugstore.  This seems like a mistake.
8. Set in Indonesia.  Intrepid journalists observe a cult and interview its members for possibly improprieties and or felonies.  The lead, Malik, is engaged to Lena, but she has gotten pregnant by another man in the crew, Adam.  What could possibly go wrong?  The celebration of cliches is strong here.  Mass suicide, zombies, demons, cults, gore fest.


9. Slumber Party Alien Abduction---Larry returns with OTC painkillers, but Ayesha has shot herself.  Oi.  Instead of calling the paramedics or the cops, Larry looks at a VHS tape near Ayesha scrawled with 'WATCH'.
10. Family of four in the slightly upscale suburbs.  Late teen daughter, early teen son.  Mom and Dad leave, friends of both children arrive.  The house is near a lake; hijinks with water (pistols loaded with urine, water balloons, splashing) ensue.  Younger group is put down, but not all that harshly.
11. Later, the younger group crash one of the couples starting intercourse.  Sigh. Reprisals are inevitable by the older teens.
12. In the middle of this, the bumps in the night start, and any originality vanished.  This time the cliche is alien abduction, and it is done badly.  Worst looking aliens I have seen in years.


13. Tape 49 wrap up: Larry finds his client's target, plus he and Ayesha find their places in the tapes.


3. Conclusions
1. Netflix review: 'Low budget, not as weird as vhs1, In comparison, gory replaces creepy and thematically it's unforgivably unimaginative.'
2. That covers a lot of the comparison.  The other part would be that VHS2 had close to acceptable video and audio.
3. One line summary: One hundred times better than V/H/S, but still a mediocre zombie movie.
4. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 6/10 So much better than VHS since many minutes were shot with stationary cameras of reasonable quality.  Still, there were also many minutes of hand-held but not steady-cam.  Weak focus, lighting, framing, and so on.


2. Sound: 7/10 Reasonable, but sometimes as bad as the weaker parts of the video.


3. Acting: 6/10 There was some acting here, as opposed to V/H/S.


4. Screenplay: 5/10 The stories were better since I could make out what was going on.  The difference with V/H/S was more about better equipment, and better acting, not about better writing.

20131109: Horror Review--VHS

V/H/S

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2012, rated R, 116 minutes.  Spoken language is English.
2. IMDB: 5.7/10.0 from 24,860 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 55% on the meter; 41% from 12,868 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.2/5.0 from 420,630 audience ratings.  804 users posted reviews.
5. Directed by:  Many, see below.
6. Starring, Tape 56 (the connecting arc): Calvin Reeder as Gary, Lane Hughes as Zak, Kentucker Audley as Rox, Adam Wingate as Brad.
7. Starring, 'Amateur Night': Hannah Fierman as Lily, Mike Donlan as Shane, Joe Sykes as Patrick, Drew Sawyer as Clint, Jas Sames as Lisa.
8. Starring, 'Second Honeymoon':  Joe Swanberg as Sam, Sophia Takal as Stephanie, Kate Lyn Shell as Girl, Graham Resnick as Local DJ.
9. Starring, 'Tuesday the 17th': Drew Moerlein as Joey, Jeanine Elizabeth Yoder as Samantha, Jason Yachanin as Spider, Bryce Burke as The Glitch, Norma C. Quinones as Wendy.
10. Starring, '...Emily...': Helen Rogers as Emily, Daniel Kaufman as James, Liz Harvey as The New Girl, Isaiah Hillman as Boy Alien, Corrie Lynne Fitzpatrick as Girl Alien.
11. Starring, '10/31/98': Chad Villella as Chad, Matt Bettinelli as Matt, Tyler Gillett as Tyler, Paul Natonek as Paul.


2. Setup and Plot
1. This is a collection of shorts.  In the ruling arc, thieves are hired by an anonymous third party to steal a rare VHS tape from an isolated house.  The thieves find a dead body plus a host of VHS tapes.  They watch the likely tapes to find the target that will get them money from their employer.


2. Tape 56 (directed by Adam Wingate):  The opening shows a small crew of petty thugs filming while: forcibly exposing a woman's breasts in public, vandalizing an abandoned building, being intimate with a girl friend who does not know about the camera.  They discuss rates.  Fifty bucks for each porn incident, and so on.  One of the crew recommends jump shifting to loftier crimes that pay better.  
3. They line it up, and that starts the adventure of finding that one special tape.  They find a dead older man plus a great deal of television equipment for viewing.  Beyond that, they find a supply of video tapes that they decide to go through to get the target.
4. As the film goes through the segments, the thugs meet problems that they cannot solve.


5. Amateur Night (directed by David Bruckner): Shane and Patrick setup Clint with 'video glasses' so he can record what is in front of him.  They go to a bar and pick up Lisa and Lily and proceed to a motel.  Lisa soon passes out.  Patrick seems terminally drunk, and only sits and laughs.  Lily wants to do things with Clint, who shies away from the opportunity.  Shane takes off Lily's dress, which was all she was wearing.  Clint gets enough courage to record Shane and Lily.  Patrick is still wobbly, but he takes off his clothes so he can sandwich Lily with Shane.  Clint runs away again; Lily bites Patrick.  Lily is straddling Shane as Clint approaches again.  She's morphed into a vampire.  Things end very badly for Shane, Patrick, and Clint.  Oddly, these large hulking fellows (Shane and Patrick) do not even try to defend themselves against the 90 pound Lily.


6. Second Honeymoon (directed by Ti West):  Sam and Stephanie go on a road trip in the desert of the American West for their second honeymoon.  They are recording a tape for future memories.
7. These are two germaphobes on a field trip who stop at cheap jack motels.  Clever.
8. Sam wants to record Stephanie while they are making out; she demurs.  Sigh.  Turn the camera off and record later.  Knock at the door; it is some girl who asks for a ride the next day.  The figure Sam saw earlier quietly breaks in, steals 100 USD from Sam, nearly cuts up Stephanie's underwear while she's still in it, but makes a clean, silent getaway.
9. The next day they discuss the loss of 100 USD, but do not figure it out.  They do some sight-seeing and plan the remaining parts of the trip.  That night, they get a visitor who films them again.  This time, she kills Sam, and records herself kissing Stephanie.  Ah, pro-lesbian PC, plus anti-male PC.


10. Tuesday the 17th (directed by Glenn McQuaide): Joey, Samantha, Spider, and Wendy are on a field trip.  They stop by a lake for a drug smoking break, then go swimming.  Wendy tells a story about a killer who took out four people by the very same lake.  Then she laughs it off.  Spider and Samanthe get a giant knife through their brains.  Wendy gets the camera, then returns to Joey, and asks him to have sex with her.  Things do not turn out well for Joey or for Wendy.


11. The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger (directed by Joe Swanberg): Weird things happen as Emily and James have a video conference.  She refers to a time when she and James were apart when they were young, and bad things happened to her.  He should have recorded their chat the second time when the weird noises start.  She uses a Kodak on her living room and catches the figure of a child. 
12. She asks the super of her apartment about previous deaths in her apartment.  No such thing; the only renters were students without children.  That night he records, and several figures are captured on the chat.  They start a partial dissection of Emily.  James is in cahoots with them.  James keeps communicating with her, and never lets her know what a complete traitor his is.  How can this turn out?  Was Emily the only one James is abusing?


13. 10/31/98 (directed by Radio Silence):
14. Four young adult males (Chad, Matt, Tyler, and Paul) go to a Halloween costume party.  They bring a nanny cam.  The house where the party is to be held has an unlocked door with the lights on.  No one is at home.  They keep looking for the party.
15. They call out for their friend Justin, who should be there, but no such luck.
16. They hear voices in the attic, and think that is where the party is.  They find several men torturing a tied up woman.  At first they think it is the party, but the torturers very much convince them it is not.  They run away at first, but decide her trouble is for real, and go back to save her.  That sort of works until she leads them into more problems.


3. Conclusions
1. This is one of the worst films I have ever seen.
2. One line summary: Thieves review ever more horrifying tapes in order to get paid.
3. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 2/10 Features low-end cameras, bad framing, insufficient light, bad focus, and terrible lack of contrast.  Then of course, there are shaking camera movements, anti-relevant POV, and old bad recording media.  One of my least favorites is where the camera is left on to record time going by in a room where nothing moves, often in complete darkness.


2. Sound: 5/10 Who cares?  More often noise than anything else: audio chaos to go with the video chaos.


3. Acting: 0/10 The only actor of note is the camera.  The camera trumps the efforts of all actors.


4. Screenplay: 2/10 Boring.  Short on plot.  Badly executed with next to zero motivation.  Worst of all, not the least bit scary.