RotoDial

This is a review for a film called Dave. I’ve brought Dave up to a few people and they knew exactly what I was talking about, which I almost can’t believe. As a cinephile and fan of films, I legitimately did not know this film existed. I like Kevin Kline and think he’s great in everything he does (yes, even Wild Wild West) - but this film escaped me. My coworker lent me Dave after hearing of my love for Kline and I finally had a chance to sit down and watch it...and oh boy, it sure is a movie!

Dave is one of those inconsequential early 90′s films where there are no real problems or ramifications. No one is really at risk in the film and the plot trucks along with a plucky soundtrack to reassure you that everything will be okay. It goes through great lengths to reiterate just how good of a person Dave is and how he’s here to make everything better and in the end, he kind of does and takes out many of the “bad people” along the way. It’s fluff, and that isn’t bad once in a while. I appreciated how timely my viewing of the film was (where someone in the office actually manages to do good), but that’s something I won’t go into too much detail with.

For years Meg has been trying to get me to watch Halloweentown - a Disney Channel Original Movie released in 1998. This year it was at the front of her list, but finally explained that it was “for kids”, like “Hocus Pocus” and I thought about how much I loved Hocus Pocus, and if this film was anything like Hocus Pocus...I was certainly on board.

Halloweentown is nothing like Hocus Pocus. It might be that I was in the right place at the right time and just have no nostalgia for Halloweentown, but it is bad and should feel bad for somehow being a cornerstone Halloween film for so many people growing up. There are so many lists where Halloweentown is in a top 10 list and honestly it feels more like a low budget studio product cobbled together at the last minute. The fact that it garnered as much success as it has is probably astonishing to the creators -- because although there are great people behind this (one of Lynch’s go-to editors directed), I can see how it came together and all of the seams poking out from within. The film feels like it was hurriedly shot in 10 days in July to release only a few short months later. 

I saw “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” when I was around six years old. I remember watching a bunch of pretty creepy films from the 60′s and 70′s as a kid and gravitated toward classics thanks to influence from my mom. Baby Jane has just been in my life longer now than it has been without it, and much like other beloved classics of that era...doesn’t hold up all that well. It’s certainly odd and it’s certainly a “movie”. Watching it with Meg this October, she had a harder time with some of the more ridiculous moments of desperation (Blanche refusing to call out the window for help, not telling her nurse, etc.) instead of actually trying to put an end to the madness. I told her that as someone who has thought about this film on and off for over twenty years that I could explain away most of the plot holes - but understood where she was coming from.

The pacing of the film is also “classic”. The scenes are long and move slowly, taking its time to stretch out whatever is happening: whether through reactions or interstitial scenes that join everything together unnecessarily. I think back to six year old Nick sitting down, watching this film unflinching and just soaking it in. Not bouncing off the walls or shaking his leg in boredom, but being able to sit through it all. I don’t have the patience I once had, and could feel it getting long in the tooth.

I feel as though like Death Becomes Her, this film might have been better viewed as an extended episode of Tales from the Crypt or The Twilight Zone. Also, by today’s standards, the “punishments” that Blanche was receiving were very tame. Like re-watching The Exorcist as an adult, I can feel how traumatizing the film must have been at the time, but it rolls off of me because of how “of the time” it was. 

After watching Death Becomes Her this week, I realized I had never watched the first 30-45 minutes of this film. It might have been due to missing it through ill-timed broadcasts, but the beginning of this film was a complete blank to me. It’s unfortunate because this film is absolutely amazing. It manages to combine a considerable number of my favourite cult films of the previous decades together (Little Shop of Horrors, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Clue come to mind first). The film is slap-sticky and ridiculous and absolutely a product of the early 90′s, but it is so good. While watching it I just kept gravitating back to Bruce Willis’ performance as the limp Ernest and how badly I wish that Willis leaned more heavily into comedy roles instead of his “leading man” default because he steals the film for me. Speaking of stealing scenes, the extras in this film are also incredible. Even in scenes with a handful of dialogue, Sydney Pollack and Ian Ogilvy are so good. 

I know it sounds ridiculous and that I’m hyping this film up, but it was such a relief to re-watch the film and realize that it is a beloved cult classic for a reason. There are hardly any lulls, and throughout the film there are such great line deliveries that it had me going back to how much I was enjoying myself. The film is by no means perfect - in fact I’d say that it’s a genuinely “bad” film, but it feels like an inside joke that you’re actually in on, rather than viewing from outside. I appreciate when films can pull you into the “joke”, even if that isn’t clearly telegraphed upon your initial viewing. The idea that you could sit in a theatre and watch Bruce Willis and Meryl Streep in these roles is a joke in and of itself.

Halloween H20 is definitely a product of the 90′s and especially a product of Dimension films. Thankfully, H20 avoids heavy computer animation to create a creepier film, it feels very much like other Dimension films of that time, like The Faculty, the Scream series, and Teaching Mrs. Tingle. The heavy emphasis on the teenagers in the film definitely brought me back to a lot of the horror films that were being pumped out at that time. Jamie Lee Curtis is understandably the major draw for the film, but she seems overshadowed by a lot of the teenage storylines that are going on in the film. 

The film wasn’t bad by 1998 standards, but it is just riddled with predictable moments that have you knowing exactly how everything is going to be played out. My biggest problem was Michael’s mask in this film. I can’t say I have a lot of experience with his masks having not seen every entry in the series - but jumping from II to H20, it feels extremely silly and doesn’t fit the same scary presence Michael had in the first two. Looking back now, I can see that so many of the masks over time have actually looked *worse* than this one - which is such a shame. Unlike Jason, whose simplistic goalie mask changes slightly over time, and Freddy’s face who only goes through one major transformation in New Nightmare - changing Myer’s mask so dramatically is such a confusing decision. 

Sitting through a 10+ hour long miniseries released on Netflix over the course of so few days was certainly challenging, but I enjoyed almost every minute of The Haunting of Hill House. From it’s aesthetic choices to its storytelling, the show was able to pull me in much like the titular house. I kept finding myself being drawn in, thinking about the story and getting lost in some of the more compelling moments - itching to keep watching to find resolution. 

The best way for me to describe The Haunting of Hill House is to echo one of the more recent horror titles I’ve watched: Hereditary. Like that film, Hill House manages to tie in family drama and cinematography with storytelling that help elevate the entire piece. Although Hill House didn’t fill me with the exact same dread that I could feel creeping throughout Hereditary, there were certainly moments of terror that it was able to capitalize on. I do wish that Hill House didn’t rely so heavily on most of its “horror” coming from jump scares. There were plenty of lingering moments in the show that filled you with uneasiness and worry, only to be punctuated by a jump scare that seemed cheap and easy. Fortunately the show had enough underlying character development and a hefty length to it that the jump scares came only once or twice per episode - and over the course of ten hours, it didn’t take away from the overall story.

Every October at work we choose a spooky movie or two to watch after hours. This year was tough because we’ve had a lot to choose from and wanted to pick something new and original that we could find streaming. Foreign horror films are often executed in a way that western audiences aren’t as familiar with, so being able to check out something outside of the Hollywood system seemed like an awesome idea. Our office administrator found Under the Shadow, an Iranian horror film from 2016 that had good reviews and we put it on not knowing any of the plot - and it was really good!

The film takes place in war-torn Tehran in the 80′s, which is honestly scary enough as it is. The constant looming threat of the war and missiles being dropped on your house and your family is only the undertone of the film - the real “horror” comes from the psychological torment that is being caused by a djinn that is terrorizing a mother and her daughter. The film gave me some Babadook vibes in terms of its pacing and its use of dread. There is so much build up and tension throughout the film that by the time the real horror kicks in, you’ve been lulled into a false sense of security. 

I’m going to go out on a limb and say “The Purge” has overstayed its welcome. While the first two Purge films did a good job exploring two ends of a nation’s spectrum for the concept, the third was a bit of a stretch. This is now “Purge” number four and I’m kind of over it. With such a highly politically motivated campaign pushing “The First Purge” will allusions to Trump’s 2016 win, I thought that the film would be more tongue-in-cheek about making direct connections to some of the insanity that has been going on in our world. While it did poke “fun” of some aspects, it was still a pretty standard Purge film with lots of eye rolling surrounding character motivations and the loose plot holding everything together.

I don’t think I’m necessarily against the idea of the franchise continuing (and it is - the end of the credits plug was for the Purge TV show airing now), I just don’t find that what is being explored is interesting anymore. I was captivated by some of the truly disturbing ideas that were coming up in the series. The costumes and “performance” of it all was compelling. Seeing how certain people may interact with and take a concept like this and roll with it was original…but the further you go in a franchise like this, you keep repeating yourself. In this film the most “creative” thing were two old women who set up a bunch of dolls with homemade bombs inside of them. It just feel “by-the-books” now instead of inventive and that’s how you know you’re in trouble.

Cherry Falls is not a good film. It is filled to the brim with the very same cliches that Scream tried to deconstruct years earlier - while also being a product of the  genre that was shaped by the same slasher film. It’s a confusing mess, but it all makes more sense after reading the “behind-the-scenes” where you find out the script was originally written as a comedy. Some of the scenes have an unintended humour to them, but from stories I’ve heard, the director did everything in his power to underscore the humour and direct the film seriously. Honestly, I don’t know if humour would have been able to save it -- the film is extremely problematic at points and was enough to kill the career of the director, Geoffrey Wright.

It’s an incredibly interesting time to watch a film like this, where a lot of the horror and tragedy of the film surrounds a single incident of drunken college gang rape lead by the “pillars of society” in the town. It seems too timely - and without directly commenting on the political climate of our time, it was a bit jarring to see take place as the inciting incident for many of the murders taking place. Almost too close for comfort, honestly.

Halloween II answers a question I didn’t have following the aftermath of 1978′s Halloween: “What happened next?” And not just in a theoretical way either; Halloween II opens up on the exact moment the credits rolled in the first film and follows Laurie Strode’s trip to the hospital and Dr. Sam Loomis’ investigation in the case of what exactly happened that night. It certainly raised a fascinating idea for me: we never do see what happens next in a horror film. When all is said and done, the killer is caught or dies and the credits roll. Sometimes there is a time lapse and you see what happened months (or years) down the road, but ultimately you never see the “clean up” of the film. 

The problem with Halloween II is there is a direct lack of resolution and compounded frustration in “answering the questions” of the evening by adding additional fuel to the fire and keeping the story going for longer than it should have. We don’t have the catharsis of knowing that this answered the questions that the first one raised - although this was the film that explained moreclearly why Michael was targeting Laurie, which kickstarted the franchise. 

Much like any film in a franchise like this, seeing the killer get up and get away or disappear at the end of the film (or having the mantle taken up by another killer in a franchise) prolongs everything and allows the film to get away with a longevity that it may not have earned. Michael Meyers kicked off a lot of the craze in the late 70′s, leading up to Friday the 13th in 1980, Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and even Child’s Play in ‘88. 

When The Grudge first came out, I remember people saying it was one of the scariest films they’ve seen. Based on the Japanese “Ju-on”, The Grudge is a fascinating look at the commodification of international films. Not only did Hollywood see Ju-on and think “we need to remake this for western audiences”, but to ensure its success, they ported over every last thing that made the film Japanese except for the main cast – including the original director. The film is this extremely strange time capsule of appropriation of Japanese sensibilities. The excuses to have so many “white” people living in Japan for the sole purpose of selling the film were hilarious, and ultimately I just wish that we could just be “OK” with watching a foreign language film without being so up in arms about it. I felt the same thing about The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo; if you’re telling the exact same story for western audiences, why can’t you go above and beyond for your adaptation? Instead you get a whole bunch of white people pretending to be another nationality in order to get the point across. This has happened for decades, but has slowed down significantly in recent years (thankfully). 

Anyway, The Grudge is definitely not one of the scariest films I’ve ever seen and I think it in large part is due to me just becoming numb to the horror experience. Just as The Exorcist was the scariest film my mom had ever seen when she was young, had I seen The Grudge with less to compare to when I was younger it might have hit me harder. Since it is an adaptation of the Japanese film, the atmosphere and pacing are drastically different. I’ve spoken at lengths in the past about how foreign films get a strange “pass” from me in terms of expectation. I don’t have any way to describe what I’m looking for or what I’m expecting in a foreign film; “bad acting” might actually be good acting in terms of what is culturally acceptable. In the case of The Grudge, I know that Asian cinema is more typically a “slow burn” with less big jump scares and more storytelling. When this happens in The Grudge, I don’t feel as though it fits the tone of the western sensibility, so it feels “off”. If you transpose it exactly the same with an all-Japanese cast speaking Japanese though, everything feels different. Suddenly the expectations shift and you’re able to accept a lot more from the film. It’s a weird frame of reference, but something I’ve become acutely aware of in recent years when watching western films directed by foreign directors: you can feel their sensibilities on the screen.

High Tension was one of many films I brought home for Meg to watch back in my Blockbuster days. I’d just pick up a handful of horror films and drop them off for Meg to watch while I avoided the genre. While not on my list of potential picks this year, High Tension came up as a film that Meg wanted to revisit. 

We’ve watched countless horror films from various nations of the world, but I’m almost certain this was our first French-speaking one. I wouldn’t say that the film is particularly scary: it takes its time and focuses on the (surprise surprise) “tension” of it all by slowly building up its scenes. The premise itself is pretty scary: there’s a home invasion and kidnapping without motivation that leaves you worried and uneasy about the attack. I always appreciate when there is a bit of tie-in in the motivation behind those actions; when someone is “responsible” for the decision to be attacked or at least has a connection with the attacker. There are some disturbing (although heavy handed) moments in the film, but ultimately I think that it is a run-of-the-mill horror film.

Netfix originals are a bit tricky for me to pin down. Meg registered our Netflix account before we started living together so she gets all the emails and I just hear from Reddit when something shows up that’s worth making some noise about. While scrolling around Reddit, all I saw of “The Babysitter” was an advertisement featuring Bella Thorne (one of the actresses in the film) who I don’t particularly care for. Here’s where Netflix’s algorithm hurt them: I didn’t want to see this film because of the person who they were advertising to me. Had I known who else was in the film, or the general tone without reading too much into the plot, it may have bubbled to the surface faster. On the plus side, because I was finally aware that the film had some merit, we got to bundle it into our 13 Days of Halloween, which provided some much needed levity after the nonsense that was Pet Sematary. 

The Babysitter has some decent writing for a comedy/horror film. I feel like we’ve been inundated with that combo in the past few decades but only a few stand out in recent years: Cabin in the Woods, Shaun of the Dead, What We Do in the Shadows - all of these films concentrate on the writing first and then the execution. There are plenty of films that come close to the right tone (Krampus, The Final Girls, Housebound), and even more that just float by as unmemorable (Bad Milo!, Warm Bodies, Hell Baby). The Babysitter sits on the spectrum closer to right tone, but isn’t a home run. The film feels a bit flat and predictable, but some of the writing and delivery is genuinely good. A few of the supporting actors do a great job without hamming it up too badly that it becomes embarrassing. 

Time to go out on a limb: I think I hate Stephen King. I was never much of a reader growing up, but King’s name has been synonymous with some of the most impressive and well-received stories of the past few decades. Spoilers: I haven’t read a single one of them. Growing up as a film fan, I’ve seen a ton of adaptations of his work that vary from good to terrible - but the ones that stuck with me were the ones that were massively adapted and changed from King’s initial vision. Of the “good to great” side of the spectrum: The Shining, Carrie, Misery, and The Mist -- but on the bad side we get: It, The Dark Tower, and pretty much every other film that came out in the late 80′s and early 90′s. Just because Stephen King wrote a book doesn’t make it good and certainly doesn’t mean it should be adapted.

Pet Sematary is so glaringly boring and predictable that although I powered through, I felt like I was playing “Stephen King Bingo” the entire time. It felt like it didn’t do much in terms of anything new (regardless of the time that it was released) and none of the acting or any of the plot drew me in. In fact, almost everyone was so wooden and terrible in the film that I had some second-hand embarrassment. On the plus side, about 20 minutes into the film I realized that I recognized Fred Gwynne and couldn’t realize why until I shouted “Hey, that’s Herman Munster, Meg!” and that was when I realized that Meg had never seen The Munsters before. It took every ounce of my energy to not shut the film off right there and spend the rest of the night watching episodes of The Munsters instead. I wish I had, because Pet Sematary was terrible.

Did you know that there is a film called “Into the Night” starring Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer? I certainly didn’t, and I would go as far as to say that I love Jeff Goldblum. Coming shortly off his success in The Big Chill and just a year before The Fly, Jeff Goldblum did a film with John Landis that feels like a parody of a parody that circles back around and again takes itself too seriously. The plot is almost too by-the-books: Goldblum’s character runs into a dangerous woman at an airport (Pfeiffer) who drags him into a caper that features a considerable amount of cameos from various directors, actors, and musicians. 

The entire time I was watching the film I could only think: “oh no, this is still happening” or “oh weird, here’s another character that stands out like a sore thumb for no reason whatsoever”. The film feels sloppy and thrown together last minute and not even Goldblum could save that. To make matters even worse, Goldblum felt extremely restrained in this film. Prior to The Fly and Earth Girls are Easy, Goldblum wasn’t really turning his personality up to 11 like he has in recent years, but I think that this film could have benefited from that version of him. If he had countered all the weird with utmost incredulity and amped up his performance, it could’ve helped at least bring the film together. Instead we get a subdued Goldblum that tries too hard to act like an “every man” and vessel for the audience to relate to.

War for the Planet of the Apes completes the “Cesar” trilogy of the soft rebooted Planet of the Apes films. I had enjoyed both Rise and Dawn as its predecessors, although Dawn had the difficult task of living up to the unexpected success and entertainment of Rise. War for the Planet of the Apes feels like the necessary next step in the franchise but leans heavily on Dawn as a major informant for tone and style. 

There are so few scenes that feature humans in the film that I had forgotten just how incredible and believable the bulk of the computer animation was. With Andy Serkis and his motion capture team behind the success of the previous two films, it’s no surprise that we’ve now moved past the point where animation looks so authentic that it’s difficult to wrap your head around the process of planning and directing a film of this caliber. The film succeeds if for no other reason than it is unimaginable to set up and execute. I can’t say that it is a particularly strong film one way or another. I wasn’t particularly captivated by the story and found the pacing to be a bit dull, but it capped everything off in a way I felt was satisfactory.

I’m starting to think that I’m becoming a sucker for A24. They have such a high batting average right now that any time they release a new film I know that I have to put it on the list, and watching the trailer for How to Talk to Girls at Parties had me hooked about thirty seconds in: so much so that I shut the trailer off. If I had kept watching the trailer, I would’ve seen that what had captivated and interested me so much about the premise of the film was mostly finished around the thirty minute mark in the film, and the rest of the film felt more like an indie drama sprinkled with some neat ideas.

How to Talk to Girls at Parties isn’t bad by any means; I think it was an interesting film that captured and kept my attention, but just wasn’t what I was expecting going in. I think the film would have felt more at home being released in the year 2000. It reminded me so much of films like The Specials or Cecil B. Demented (neither of which are by any accounts “great films”, but both have something going for them that keeps my brain coming back to them after all these years). HtTtGaP becomes more of a teen love story than an exploration on science fiction at that thirty minute mark, and although it tells a rather sweet story, it isn’t quite enough for it to stand up to how it presented itself early on. I expected something more along the lines of The Green Room in terms of a bait and switch plot, but ended up getting something more aligned with Sing Street.