The Conjuring

The Conjuring

Directed by: James Wan

Horror, 112 min

USA, 2013

James Wan is the king of mainstream horror! That is FACT! Gone are the days of the independent sleazy exploitations flicks that I grew up with. Films today try too hard, and if they are sleazy they always end up being pornographic, if they are horrific they usually tend to go over the top and settle up for a hand of god bogus fix in the last act, if they are violent, they more than often tend to be brutally nihilistic and dark and end with a funny ironic tune as the credits roll. Nothing is naïve and inventive anymore… it’s all preprogramed and calculated and formulated… at least in the mainstream.

But, James Wan get’s in there and does his thing. Yes, the films may be considered mainstream and feel somewhat predictable, but Wan goes his own way, reinvents his shock tactics and keeps delivering, and I’m surprisingly excited way above expectation when watching his stuff. That’s just the way it is. Rack them up, SAW, Dead Silence, Insidious and now The Conjuring. Blam, Blam, Blam, three damned effective horror shows that have left an impression. (Even if Insidious had a somewhat dud ending, but I’m holding out for the sequel to see if they bring it all round full circle) All of them films that gave you precisely what you wanted. Heart stopping scares; freak out moments and an entertaining story told in a somewhat new fashion. There’s a reason James Wan’s films spawn imitators, cash-ins and multiple sequels. They are highly efficient pieces of horror cinema that will make you choke on your popcorn, and then go back for more.

The Conjuring bases its tale upon the real life characters of Ed and Lorrain Warren (played by Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson). Now if you don’t know of them, they where American investigators of the paranormal and their biggest claim to fame were investigating the Amityville Horror case. The Conjuring tells the story of the foregoing case; one where the Perron family are up against a sinister entity that only the Warrens can save them from. As you see, The Conjuring is basically classic haunted house/possession turf. All done with the ever-deceptive, slight of hand, smoke and mirrors trickery of shock meister James Wan.

The way the story moves is traditional storytelling 101. First off, establish the threat through a smart initial attack. In its short form, the opening shares the story of haunted Raggedy Annabelle, a dolly inhabiting an evil spirit. Now this is a cunning way to establish the force of antagonism, as it introduces us to the fact that ghosts exist and at the same time the story is told to the Warrens, hence introducing them. The world famous demonologists, paranormal researchers, and exorcists, Ed and Lorain Warren. With all this established, key the titles, run the old “True story” card and get things started.

The wraparounds, as in the opening story of Raggedy Annabelle and the final lines of dialogue referring to the Amityville case, give credibility to the tale of the Perron’s. The two cases are “actual” cases and therefore there’s no reason to doubt the main narrative either. If you are anything like me, you’ll do some research straight away when hearing that “the conjuring is based on true events”. The first two cases you’ll come up with are Amityville and Raggedy Annabelle… a smart way to convince sceptics that the story was a real one.

The Perron family (with Lili Taylor making a great return to genre as mother Carolyn Perron) move into their new house, or rather mansion, and the moment their youngest daughter April finds a musical box hidden away in a tree we are miles ahead of the story - because that’s partially what that opening scene and the information that the “Doll was a vessel for a demon” dialouge was all about!

The hauntings start that same night as family dog Sadie is snuffed by unseen forces. Slowly, slowly the tension builds –rooms are cold, funky smells are experienced, hidden basements are disclosed and a cute childish game of clap and seek is used to give some serious scares. Wan begins to manipulate the audience into vulnerable territory as he sets us up for scare after scare! Reintroducing the Warren’s into the piece, their everyday life and profession as demonologists is intercut with the events in the Perron house. Eventually the Perron family is left with no other alternative than to contact the church about the strange events in their house, which in turn leads to the Warrens and how they come face to face with the case so haunting and disturbing that they have it secret until now…

But what really fucks you up with The Conjuring is that Wan sets you up for the shock moments all according to the book of convention, but never guarantees that he’ll deliver on that tension! Yes, it may sound flakey, but it’s terrifyingly effective and I shit you not when I say that a good damned half of the scares and wind-ups in The Conjuring are all your own doing. Wan only moves his camera, dollies in, set's you up and builds an expectation. Now and again he’s got something up his sleeve to scare you stiff, others he’s going to make you get all wound up just because he can! Less is more, and The Conjuring is creepy as hell!

The Conjuring builds an amazing tension, delivers some really great scares and once again confirms that James Wan is a fear-monger to rely on! Opens on Cinema screams everywhere on Friday the 6^th!

The Haunting of Helena

The Haunting of Helena [QuickFix]

Directed by: Christian Bisceglia & Ascanio Malgarini

Italy, 2012

Horror, 84min

Single parent. Single, female, parent.  Kind of like the archetype of possessed child flick parent. It’s true, just go check! Anyhow, The Haunting of Helena tells the story of Sophia [Harriet MacMasters-Green], who just got divorced from her hubby and now has moved to Italy with their kid Helena. Needless to say it’s only a matter of minutes before weird shit starts to happen when they move a huge cupboard that they find in the basement up into their flat!

Backstory tells us of a man who brutally tortured his wife and pulls out all her teeth before shoving her in the cupboard to slowly bleed to death… yeah, that cupboard! On the eve of Helena loosing her first tooth, the ghost in the cupboard reveals itself and the movie is off to a raving start... this is why that opening sequence of the creepy cupboard and bloody room was all about, to set this threat up!

The movie shifts into kind of a ghostbusting investigation plot as Sophia tries to figure out what the spirit wants and how to stop it trying from haunting them. But things are never quite as easy as we think they will be. The unexpected spin on the piece I will say is probably due to Bisceglia and Malgarini’s Italian genre heritage. The movie has a bunch of cool effects, some really well timed scares and does a lot with small means, just as Italan genre cinema always does.

One of the most disappointing aspects would be the Tooth-fairy angle on it. The Tooth-fairy being a sinister old bitch out to take souls instead of kiddie teeth is pretty much done! Should have just stayed with the “haunting” angle and used the “tooth-fairy” as a metaphor for the adults skepticism about the hauntings. That would have been cool considering that the Tooth-fairy angle has been done one to many times…

But, what I really liked about this flick is that there was a genuine interest in what they Bisceglia and Malgarini where trying to tell, and do with their story. There’s a lot going on in this film and repeated viewings could probably lead to alternative interpretations… after all Sophia and Helena are in a pretty serious car crash early on in the movie. It’s during her “close encounter with death” that Sophia first see’s the child ghost that figures in one of the several subplots. Just as the strange old man on the top floor, is an intriguing part of the puzzle of subplots that come together in the final act. On several occasions Bisceglia and Malgarini flip the expected scenario on its ass and go off somewhere completely different. So what started off looking as being another mimicry of US conventions actually managed to become something delightfully creepy with an authentic Italian genre aura to it.  You know it will get the job done and that will be satisfying enough!

With that fact at bay there’s quite a lot that I'll let a filmmaker get away with, and I’ll always be more tolerant to genre under those conditions. If nothing else, it’s great to see that there’s still a somewhat active stream of horror themed flicks coming out of Italy and that they are keeping the flame alive! 

The Possession

The Possession

Directed by: Ole Bornedal

Horror, 2012

USA/Canada, 92min

Many many years ago, there was a little movie that scared the pants off its audience, and showcased some of Denmark’s most promising talent. A young Kim Bodina and an even younger Nikolaj Coster-Waldau saw their breakthroughs in Ole Bornedal’s first feature (not counting his two earlier TV movies) Nattevagten (Nightwatch) 1994. The critics loved this dark thriller with obvious horror traits and solid performances, as it won a variety of global awards and became an international success. Bornedal finally made his way to Hollywood and even saw his breakthrough success remade at his own hands as Nightwatch with a star cast of Ewan McGregor, Patricia Arquette, Josh Brolin and Nick Nolte… Big, bucks, big names, big trouble…

Never the less, Ole Bornedal, has constantly released movies every now and again, and they are well worth the time checking out, and several of them are well awarded pieces. So what should to expect when one starts to watch a possession film directed by the guy responsible for one of the finest Scandinavian genre films ever?

Well it goes something like this… starting off with a classic “based on a true story” moniker Bornedal wastes no time at all as he establishes the threat of this piece, a wooden box. Or rather the contents of same wooden box, which contains a sinister power so strong and evil, that it makes the old woman who’s about to smash it with a hammer twist and turn violently as she flips and flops around the floor before smashing her face into the glass table.

Gym teacher and divorced father of two Clyde [Jeffrey Dean Morgon], has his two adolescent daughters for the weekend. It starts off as a great weekend, as he surprise them by taking them to his brand new house, sharing a pizza, complaining over IKEA assembly instructions and visiting a yard sale to pick up stuff for his new pad. It’s at this yard sale that Emily, also known as Em finds a wooden casket with strange carvings on the outside of the box. Yup, you guessed it, it’s the same wooden casket from that demonic opening, and to make sure we really understood the connection, the old woman- now severely bandaged and beaten starts to scream at Em when she sees her with the casket from her sickbed by the window…

So far it’s been established that Clyde is a great dad, doing his best, and he also has a fairly good relationship with his wife Stephanie [Kyra Sedgewick]. It’s fair to assume that there’s a longing for reconciliation between the two, especially in the way they interact with each other at the hospital, and in a strange moment when Clyde helps Stephanie delete a spicy home video from her computer…

All right, we know that these are all good folks, well, perhaps not so much Stephanie as she’s already got her new boyfriend, posh high end dentist Brett [Grant Snow] on frequent visits, which bothers Clyde… She’s clearly moved on, and he’s still hurting… See it’s all trickery to help us empathise with him! So with the real world established, the horror can kick in. A force of antagonism has been established, a family with values has been presented, now time to demolish their ordinary world and turn it into a nightmare ridden one instead.

So let’s get to the scares… Emily opens the box and discovers the contents within, Bornedal continues to explore the family as the possession starts. Dead moths from the box come to life, strange contents awaken our imaginations, and through dialogue we learn how the girls really feel about their parents divorce. Cue classic weird possessed behavior and strange midnight events here, some which are really neat, some just to generic to cause any effect. There’s also a sinister little subplot where Clyde is up for a possible job in a different state, hence “abandoning” his daughters. 

Act two starts with metaphoric “Loss of control” as Clyde discovers his eldest daughter now has braces to straighten out her “disfigured” teeth, braces suggested by their mothers new boyfriend, and dentist, Brett. It’s the first time Clyde really reacts to something, and this is merely the beginning of the shift into the unnatural world. Second is the obvious one, his youngest daughter, owner of the strange wooden box Emily, starts acting strange. Where they previously had a beautiful and touching relationship, it changes drastically when the possession starts.

Bornedal takes us to horror convention country. Swarms of moths, small child blurting out potty-mouthed catchphrases, walking weirdly, and growling deeply. The malicious demon may not necessary affect its host, Em, but it certainly does have its vicious ways with those who interfere with Emily and the bond to the demon. Violent death is waiting! What’s interesting is the decision to go with something else than the classic catholic guilt trip and Old Nick lurking in the shadows. The Possession sees Jewish religion being at the core, the box has Hebrew inscriptions and the monster is a Dibbuk, an unruly demon from Jewish folklore. A spot of cool casting sees Matisyahu the Hasidic reggae/rock musician as the bold exorcist that dares take on this evil force no other rabbi will go near.

The Possession may not be super scary, but it is a rather original story, and if nothing else Bornedal gets some fine, solid performances out of his cast. It’s interesting to see a possession movie that takes a different path than the usual one taken when the devil haunts the victims. The movie moves slow and builds some decent characters, even though Grant Snow’s Brett get’s off a bit too easy, and you know from square one that the whole movie will build towards one climactic exorcism, although this one may surprise you as it takes something of a different path there too! At the end of the day, it’s all about family values and how the resurrection of the American nuclear family is a must… oh and last minute twists of fate.

All in all, an entertaining little piece that proves that Bornedal still has it, he can still tell a decent creepy story, an entertaining popcorn horror, but also that studios still care more about cash than presenting genre fans with a terrifying ride. There are two versions of The Possession, make sure you watch the R-Rated version and not the seriously watered down PG-13 version.

EVIL DEAD

Evil Dead

Directed by: Fede Alvarez

Horror, 91min

USA, 2013

What’s up with all kids in US horror being recovering junkies these days? Ok, never mind, here we go and let’s start out with a quick fix to establish characters and stuff. Mia [Jane Levy] and her friends have gathered at the cabin in the woods to help her kick her dirty drug habit. Her alienated brother David [Shiloh Fernandez] swears never to leave her and they all start their happy quest to help Mia go cold turkey.  Briefly into detox Mia starts to seriously complain about the foul stench and hey presto they find a trap door leading into the basement. Eric [Lou Taylor Pucci] and David venture into the hole whilst nurse Olivia [Jessica Lucas] and Natalie [Elizabeth Blackmore] await upstairs with Mia. Downstairs in the murky dark cellar the two chaps find not only the remains of loads of gutted and stung up cat carcases, but also a book wrapped tight in a black plastic bag and barbedwire. Guess what it is?  Ok, we don’t really need to take it any further than that. It’s Evil Dead, you know it – or should know it by heart. From that point on some serious demonic possession kicks ass, goo and gore splash all across the screen and the audience is left breathless at the end of the ninety-one minute run.

In the pre-build to watching this new Evil Dead film I re-watched the original. Yeah, I know, possibly something of a bad move before seeing a remake, but I have always recalled Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead films as more horror comedy than horror scary, and during the course of all the interviews I’ve conducted with filmmakers last year, a majority claim that Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead was the movie that made them want to get into filmmaking. So I had to watch it, and Oh boy has time deceived me. The original film was certainly much grimmer than I remembered it and suddenly all those censored versions made sense… where I’ve previously said, “What the heck is there to censor in The Evil Dead?” I now went, “Whoa, no bloody wonder this thing had problems getting through the censors!”

With that in mind, I stepped into the preview of Fede Alvarez take on Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead… the one that proudly has boasted that’ it’s cutting the comedy and going straight for the kill in one of this years supposed best horror films.

True, it does go straight for the kill. Even before the opening credits we are presented to a grim initial attack that even in its short form plays with what to expect. Then again, we’re all fans of the original, so we know what to expect. Roll the credits, send in the new flesh. Filmmakers are getting better at playing off audiences empathy for characters the Fede Alvarez/Rodo Sayagues screenplay (based on Sam Raimi’s motion picture, The Evil Dead) manage to win a few points with a family torn apart, mother with history of mental illness, sister with drug habit, brother with abandonment issues subplots hidden away in the backstories. Oh, and the horror genre’s BFF, Guilt, is very present too. David has some heavy guilt issues that make him go to some grueling lengths to rid himself of that guilt of haunts past. Although despite this I’d say that there’s not really an Ash protagonist to cling onto… which may be something of a problem. There are two, three very obvious characters to cheer for, and a last minute switch which shouldn’t work but does work that gives a final grab tight to the armrests of the chair in the dark when the shit hits the fan kind of character… but it’s not as familiar or close to us as Ash.  I need a person to identify with to make it an investable journey. Hell, that’s why Ash is such a cult icon. We could identify with him in all his klutziness.

There are several nods to the original film, sometimes as lines of dialogue reused in a kind of new context, sometimes in pure visuals and yeah, someone on the production had the great taste to include a 1973 Oldmobile Delta 88. Nice one! The movie blasts forth without leaving much space to catch your breath and the film is a gritty, raw, adrenaline rush of a movie. And I guess they where right to some extent, this is possibly the most fun you can have being freaked out in a dark cinema so far this year!

But now for the tricky stuff…  It’s Evil Dead, the third out of four films that more or less plays along the exact same beats as the original two, so I know pretty much what is going to go down. Sometimes remakes become checklists of what they used from the original and what they didn’t. Sometimes they check the list off perfectly sometimes they miss key moments. Almost all the classic moments are here but in new guises. Oh, something great is that Alvarez never even bothered to talk cellphones. There’s never any discussion and we never have to reach that awfully insulting “Oh no coverage” moment. That’s worth a lot for me.

Ok, Effects, well hell yeah it’s an Evil Dead movie there has to be special effects, loads and loads of outlandish special effects and they deliver en masse. The only problem I really have is that the possessed have become so god-damned mainstream that all possessed look the same! Remember the first time you saw The Evil Dead or Evil Dead 2 or Army of Darkness and just how impressed – or freaked out - you where with how the possessed looked! Well to be honest all that originality has become convention. The possessed – despite succeeding in freaking out the audience – in Evil Dead look like the possessed in every possessed film for the past couple of years. Hell I’ve even seen chicks as horror conventions sport the exact same look, even the possessed in Swedish “evil deadish” flick Wither that hits cinemas after the summer look like this! So I was kind of bummed by that, and then there’s a real REAL huge curveball tossed at full speed into the face of the audience during the last act that actually kind of lost me. It yanked me completely out of the movie - let me explain. Back in the day, we could watch horror, extreme horror and all that kind of stuff because it was at the same time pretty comedic in its exaggerated approach. Anything could happen and did happen, and things got gory and violent as hell, but it worked because it was all kind of naïve and over the top. Remakes and genre today generally tend to go for a more realistic approach and a darker more gloomy tone. Gone is the comedic relief and instead there’s only hard realistic violence. So when this moment comes around it was kind of out of place. It didn’t suit the rest of the universe that the film had built. You’ll know the moment when it comes, and I’m sure you will react the same… But thank the devils underground and all things sinister that Alvarez fixes his way out of that situation by delivering what may be amongst the most intense and blood drenched last ten minutes of a horror flick ever! It really just goes absolutely insane and that makes up for any flaws I was thinking of before this spectacular finale unleashes

So the short answer is Yes, despite some small flaws, Fede Alvarez’s reworking, rebooting or whatever the hell you want to call it, Evil Dead did leave me with a big dumb grin on my face. So it certainly works, get’s the job done, hits the right keys and proves that Fede Alvarez isn’t messing around. He’s here to make an imprint, first with that awesome CG Sci-Fi short, now with Evil Dead. It may not be the most terrifying film I will ever experience as the promotional materials boast, but it certainly is wild, ferocious, definitely hit the beats at all the right times, has some fantastic effects, and entertained the heck out of me, and again, those last ten minutes are so intense that they will drive you completely insane!

Evil Dead opens in cinemas in Sweden on Friday.