10/31: Triple Feature! The Host/A Nightmare on Elm Street 3/The Taking of Deborah Logan

True to form, I never caught up! So here's yesterday's horror flicks from what is becoming a Binge tradition: the Halloween Triple Feature. I tried to run a bit of the gamut of horror subgenres, so here's my mix:

The Host

The first movie for Halloween was the South Korean creature feature The Host (not to be confused with the Stephanie Meyer dreck of the same name). Halloween often becomes the day of the Binge when I realize all my gaps from the month and a glaring one this year was a severe lack of creature features. To remedy this situation I turned to The Host, a movie I've had on my list for years and that I had heard rave reviews calling it one of the best monster movies of all time. To that assertion I respond... did we watch the same movie?

Like... this movie is pretty solidly bad. It has some moments I guess, like some commentary about the nature of family and half-baked political commentary on the nature of US politics, but overall? This thing is a damn boring, horribly CGI-ed mess. I spent the middle section of the movie pretty well tuned out and I don't think I missed anything. I don't know if it's a trend in South Korean film to be insanely overly long, but I found the exact same thing when I watched The Wailing last year.

There's nothing in this movie that I haven't already seen in a monster movie and all these things have been done way better. Everything from the characters down to the monster are pretty cliched and uninteresting; the main character is a loser dad who by the end of the movie learns to be a good dad; the grandfather patriarch of the family is killed half way through (spoiler); the government is inept and laughably ineffective; the monster is slithery and fast and created by dumping crap in the water (in this case, formaldehyde?). And, look. I know I shouldn't judge a horror movie based on it's special effects or CGI, but c'mon with this one. The CGI is so damn awful that everything becomes comical. Which brings up another important, related question: what is this movie? Is it a campfest or sharp socio-polictical commentary? The movie itself can't seem to decide, something I saw a lot of positive reviews lauding. Making a weird tonal mishmash though is not a sign of greatness; it's a sign of a film ineptly and forgettably made.

Like, seriously though... can someone who liked this movie explain it to me?

4/10

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors

With creature features covered, I turned to a classic 80s slasher that has somehow slipped past my watching all these years: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. I've always particularly liked Freddy Krueger as a slasher king as his realm of dreams allows him to bend the genre in really interesting ways. So, where does Dream Warriors rank against the Elm Street movies that came before? Well, it never quite measures up to the first which is a naturally tall order. As for 2: Freddy's Revenge? Well, that's an incredibly short order (is that even a phrase? I don't care. I'm making it one. My blog my rules), as, gay subtext aside, 2 was a pretty atrocious film. Dream Warriors holds it own though as a pretty solid entry in the Elm Street saga.

The idea behind Dream Warriors is a cool one: the last of the Elm Street children find Freddy haunting their dreams. Nancy returns from the original film, helping the teenagers enter the dream space together to fight against Freddy. Dream Warriors never fully delivers on the potential of the concept (I wanna see some super rad dream warrior fights, damn it!), but it does still give a perhaps slightly too-subdued take. Add into that an awesome soundtrack by Dokken and some sweet, quintessentially 80s kills, special effects, and dream warrior-ing (I am the Wizard!) and we have a pretty good time with Freddy. Elm Street movies are at their best when they let Freddy get his most gleeful and over-the-top, and for the most part Dream Warriors gives us that fun time with the slashers.

8/10

 

 The Taking of Deborah Logan

To close out Halloween night we had to turn to a haunting/demonic film, because isn't that what the holiday dictates? To tick that off the list we turn to The Taking of Deborah Logan, a found footage film centered around a film crew documenting a woman's struggle with Alzheimer's. Through their observations the crew ends up finding something far more sinister lurking behind the disease.

Now, I know what you're thinking: found footage is completely played out. I agree. But I would also argue that there's a reason that found footage worked in the first place: when used correctly, it can be terrifying. Luckily, for about three quarters of the movie, The Taking of Deborah Logan does just that. You, as the viewer, watch as the crew documents a horribly tragic and relatable situation. If you've experienced first hand Alzheimer's or dementia, you understand how horribly insidious the disease is. It's not just forgetting things, it's losing who you are. The confusion, the cloudiness, the wandering through existence aimlessly, is a horrifying and deeply tragic thing to watch. This is something the film captures in raw and accurate detail with Deborah as we watch her uncontrollably slip mentally and physically away.

Then the whole "there's also a demon involved here" thing. Ok, I'm not... completely adverse to that as an idea, especially with this being a horror film. I get it. You gotta amp the scares, even if the plain idea of a woman with Alzheimer's was scary enough on its own. For the most part, the film sticks the twist. We see this possession that Deborah is afflicted with matching her descent into her disease and it's deeply unsettling. Then, for the typical mind-boggling horror reasons, the movie switches in the last quarter to being every other average found footage/possession movie. 

It's a solid bummer too. There was something truly original happening here and then squandered it on an ending we've all seen before. This is the dangerous pitfall of horror thinking: you gotta throw the kitchen sink at the climax, even if it's disingenuous to the rest of your film. You don't always need the kitchen sink of scares; sometimes, it's more sophisticated to give us something more simple. There's a bunch of wandering around in caves, being scared at shadows and interrupting the final ritual. I've seen it; give me something different. Although I'll hand it to the movie: there's a shot during the climax that is pretty damn unsettling; yes, it does involve unhinged jaws and children's heads. You guessed it!

What The Taking of Deborah Logan leaves us with an unsettling, original idea that falls into the pitfalls of an average, predictable horror ending. I'm leaving this with a mostly positive review based on the 3/4s of good here, dings for the 1/4 of crap at the end.

8/10 

That's a wrap for this year folks. I'd like to say I'll have the wrap up post out in the next few days, but let's be real... I'll probably see you next September.