Werewolves of London (well, France that sounds like London)

I am as passionate about the belief that we should have more historical horror as I am that we should have less werewolf movies. 

This makes The Cursed an even draw. 

Quick Plot: A World War I prelude introduces us to a French captain in the trenches. His injuries land him in a medical tent where a doctor extracts a few German bullets...and one silver.

Back in time we go! It's now 1881, and a colony of awful French(?) men with British accents are trying to take over land occupied by the Romani. With their supposedly generous financial offer rejected, they fall to plan B: full-out massacre, along with a public crucifixion and live burial of the tribe's leaders.

It's a genuinely horrific sequence, one that puts us in the audience firmly on the side of whatever monster will be unleashed by the dying words of an elder covered in dirt.

Unfortunately, I don't think the movie quite understood that. 

Written and directed by Sean Ellis, The Cursed is a handsome film that has an appealing grandeur to its style. It's filled with sprawling country estates and candlelit mansions, and occasionally, fairly disappointing CGI werewolf creatures that feel better placed in an Underworld universe. 

Yes, we know my lifelong ambivalence around lycanthropy on film (it just always looks silly). The design of The Cursed's creatures is actually fine, though every time they have to move, the gothic undertones are pretty much undone by 21st century graphics. 

Ultimately, that wasn't my issue with The Cursed. The film starts incredibly strong. The sequences of violence are not only brutal to watch, but succeed in laying such inarguable groundwork of who our villains in this story will be. Yes, it's awful that these men's actions will haunt their innocent children, but considering we just watched them murder a whole village, the price seems sadly reasonable. 

There could have been a fascinating tale to tell in exploring the morality here. Instead, The Cursed brings in what I guess is a leading man (Boyd Holbrook's John McBride) to come in and try to save the children. McBride had his own dark history with the Romani werewolves, having lost his wife and daughter to their curse some years earlier. So...I guess we're supposed to be back on team WASP?

At 111 minutes, The Cursed suffers from its second half pacing. Had it maintained its focus on the children or allowed anyone to discover and reconcile with just WHY their fathers brought such horrors upon them, it could have been something challenging and special. Instead, it seems to just turn its back on the instigating crime and hedge its bets on a handsome, bland werewolf hunter with zero charisma. 

High Points

The early sequences where we see the settlement's children experience collective Nightmare On Elm Street-like dreams packs some unsettling scares

Low Points

...which unfortunately sets us up for a major disappointment when the children get pushed to the background and we're left with unlikable or dull adults as our stars

Lessons Learned

Any girl who has brothers should know to never keep a diary

Women wore a lot of eyeliner in the late nineteenth century

Just when you thought the Victorian era couldn't get any worse, it doubles down: to be a good house guest, one must listen to your host's teenage teenager struggle for high notes she can't reach

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Cursed has generally positive reviews, and it's hard to call it a bad movie based on the production values alone (especially considering the last thing I watched was narrated by Billy Blanks). That being said, a near-two hour movie that fizzles after 45 minutes is hard for me to recommend. If you're curious, find it on Netflix. 

Not to Be Confused With the Killer Cat Movie

 

Netflix no longer has the prime reputation it used to when it comes to horror, but it does manage to obtain some interesting genre films (for the most part, so long as they're not actually made in the US or directly for Netflix). So that's how we come to today's "Netflix Original".

Quick Plot: The London-based Cheryl is, in her words, "in a dip." She's tired of asking the government for assistance and even more exhausted with the looks she gets when she does. She deserves better, and exits her life in order to get it.

Years pass, and we're re-introduced to our lead now living as Neve Williams, deputy head mistress at an English suburb's most prestigious private school, wife to the successful insurance expert Ian, and mother to typical teenagers Sebastian and Mary. Neve seems to be extraordinarily successful. She's run out of room to shelve her academic medals and is proudly throwing her first charity gala at 500 pounds a plate. 

If only her weaves weren't so itchy.

Neve's confidence seems to take a bit of a hit when two young black people enter her family's orbit. First is Carl, her school's new janitor and Sebastian's new weed-supplying best friend. Then there's Abigail, Ian's new receptionist who quickly discovers the way to Mary's heart is proper hair braiding technique. 

To say more about The Strays would give away a big mid-way reveal that reconfigures the rest of the film, so I'll sum up my thoughts before diving into the spoiler deep zone. The Strays is the kind of movie that will likely leave more viewers frustrated than satisfied, and while I don't think it fully delivers on its potential, I found it the kind of ambitious, messy debut that makes me excited in my own confusion. It's a cautious recommendation on my side. 

And now...

The signs are all there for the big twist: Neve left more than just her name behind. The revelation rightfully shakes her clueless family, while Neve/Sheryl continues her focused path to pay off her secret children and continue the life she prefers. The final act takes us to home invasion territory, which is probably the main reason The Strays shows up in the horror section at all. What's fascinating for us as the viewers is that as much as Mary, Sebastian, and Ian are innocent, it's probably a deep rorschach test to see what we actually WANT to happen as Carl and Abi/Dionne let loose. 

Ultimately, writer/director Nathaniel Martello-White never seems to have all of his ideas readily lined up. At just over 90 minutes, there's not quite enough time for us to understand any of the characters (Neve aside) to really know what Neve's actions are doing. Ian displays multiple layers when it comes to his feelings on race (perhaps showing a bit too much liberal pride in employing a black woman, while also giving a fast honest reaction to the idea that he would have raised two black children) but there are simply too many other things going on at once for us to digest it. Mary clearly craves more understanding of her own black identity but how the discovery shifts her world isn't given a single line. And a subplot with Sebastian's basketball bully is left hanging in such an odd way that I had to go back and check some plot rundowns to make sure I didn't miss something. 

So no, The Strays doesn't add up to a solid film. At the same time, there's a LOT here that stews well, plus an ending that feels like absolute perfection. Overall, I didn't get what I expected, but it's something I'll think about for quite some time. 

High Points

The Strays is definitely a case where its cast elevates the material. As Cheryl/Neve, Ashley Madekwe toes a difficult line in playing a woman who has made decisions that are indefensible to everyone but herself. Even more intriguing are Jorden Myria and Bukky Bakray as Carl and Abi, channeling a lifetime of system abuses and abandonment with justifiable rage

Low Points

Aforementioned messiness

Lessons Learned

British waitresses are very bad at reading the room

You don't have to be a dysfunctional family to be further divided by a game of Scrabble

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Strays is an odd duck of a film with no real genre to call its own. I saw it recommended as a Jordan Peele-esque horror movie, but it's probably better paired with something like The Killing of a Sacred Deer than Us. I was riveted and ultimately left a little frustrated, but it still made me excited to see more of what Nathaniel Martello-White can do. 

Hell Is Dinner Theater

The wonderful Station Eleven (both Emily St. John Mandel's novel and the underseen HBO miniseries adaptation) makes great use out of a powerful Star Trek line: survival is insufficient. The same concept is expressed more than once in today's original Netflix horror movie (courtesy of Norway) which also takes place in a sad apocalyptic universe and features a band of traveling actors performing for a depressed, starving audience.

I think the similarities end there, but I'll take any excuse I can find to recommend Station Eleven.

Quick Plot: A world war is in full force, with nuclear attacks devastating Europe. We focus on a sad corner in Norway where stage actress Leo and her husband Jacob are struggling to protect their 10-year-old daughter Alice. Food is in short supply, and hope is even scarcer. 

One day, a traveling showman passes by announcing a one-night-only performance complete with a hot meal in the town's grand hotel. With little to lose, Leo convinces Jacob to make it a family outing. Despite being told that children aren't allowed, the trio find themselves seated at a table with another little girl and her oddly nervous parents. Before they can continue their awkward wartime small talk, it's showtime!

Producer Matthias provides the instructional overture: the stage is the entire hotel, and the audience is to wander the interior grounds wearing gold masks and following the actors as they play out various stories, which range from sexy to homicidal. 

Yes, it's basically Sleep No More.

Jacob is immediately ill at ease while the more theatrically seasoned Leo is willing to go with it. Of course, right as Jacob reluctantly agrees, Alice disappears and things get weird.

Well, weirder than an already unusual apocalyptic dinner theater production.

You can't say too much more about the plot of Cadaver without giving some key directions away. As you can guess from the setup, a good chunk of the tension comes from wondering which of the two paths it will go: either the cast is murdering the audience, or the cast is so good that our protagonists will THINK they're murdering the audience and discover the truth too late. This ain't my first time at the high concept horror rodeo!

I won't say where Cadaver goes, but I will say that with its lean running time and solid commitment to its own theatrical nature, I found myself enjoying the heck out of this Norwegian thriller. Writer/director Jarand Herdal makes good on his odd little premise, and production designer Ondrej Lipensky nails the spooky decadence of a luxury hotel with as equal amounts trap doors and oil paintings. It looks exactly as it should, and it goes a long way in sustaining the theatricality. 

High Points

Herdal makes a smart decision in just how little detail he gives about the current state of the characters' world: there's a vague WWII tone but no clarity in terms of time, location, or politics. It works well, making the landscape of Cadaver an instantly recognizable wasteland without any distractions. 

Low Points

Leo proves to be a formidable force, but for much of Cadaver's runtime, it's hard to break the "has this lady never seen a horror movie?" frustration as she makes terrible decision after terrible decision

Lessons Learned

Never trust a dinner theater production where the food is actually good

When in doubt, taste the blood

Yes, the eyeball of any creepy painting is always watching you. Just accept it

Rent/Bury/Buy

Cadaver doesn't quite get everything it could out of its neat premise, but it's an enjoyable, unique ride well worth its quick 90 minute length on Netflix. Have at it. 

An Annabelle By Any Other Name...

Welcome to the Annual February Shortening! In honor of the shortest month on a blog written by a short woman, all posts are devoted to stories about vertically challenged villains. If you, reader of any height, have your own mini-horror to share, do so in the comments and I'll include you in a final post roundup as the calendar changes!

Horror trends don't die easily. In fact, once they prove viable, they spread through every budget and corner of the world. 

When Annabelle's formula became a bona fide success, low budget horror directors must have squealed with glee. "You mean we can make a killer doll movie WHERE THE DOLL DOESN'T MOVE?" 

Cue Robert, and its dozens of sequels or loose remakes sitting still on some of the free streaming sites. As I do every year in anticipation of February, I'd been circling various sources to find some new porcelain blood. Surely I haven't watched EVERY killer doll movie made with a budget over $10, right? Tubi is positively dripping in the genre, and while I'm sure there are some pearls in those bargain oysters, I don't always have the stamina to risk watching something less well-made than my kittens' artwork. 

Hence this year's safer bet. Netflix has particular standards when it comes to video quality, meaning most of its offerings these days have a higher budget than your typical Tubi find. Indonesia's The Doll (of which there are three installments and counting) has been on my radar for a while and the day has finally come to see how another part of the world sees immobile doll horror. 

Quick Plot: Much like The Conjuring, our story begins with a quick side tale that won't really have much bearing on the rest of the film. A trio of siblings get stuck with a mysterious doll who seems to love playing hide-and-seek. When it inevitably turns violent, they seek out Laras and Rendi, Indonesia's own Ed and Lorraine Warren variants. 

 
You're probably best off forgetting what I just said, since after the credits roll, we're reintroduced to that very same doll, who will indeed be reacquainted with Laras an hour later (though she seems to have no memory of this). Ah well, moving on!

Meet incredibly attractive young couple Daniel, a construction worker, and Anya, who fixes up dolls. Daniel's new promotion moves them into a high end rental but on his first day on the job, he's stuck in a pickle: his crew refuses to cut down a tree that marks the spot where a family was recently murdered. It doesn't help that there's a familiar looking baby doll attached to it. But orders are orders and before you can be friends to the end, the tree is down and the doll somehow ends up in Anya's hands. 

It doesn't take long for things to go downhill. Strange events befall the couple's new home. Friendly neighbor Niken insists it's supernatural and links Anya up with Laras, who gathers that the doll is holding the angry soul of the murdered little girl. 

Up until the final act, The Doll is pretty darn beholden to the Annabelle blueprint but thankfully, the film takes a rather shocking turn for its grand finale. It's a fairly slow roll into its big climax but I'm happy to say it's worth the ride. Yes, this is ultimately more "haunted ghost child" than "fun killer doll", and yes, I certainly prefer the latter, but hey: this ain't bad. 

High Notes

Some of its CGI style does fall flat, but there are plenty of refreshingly creepy setups (a raincoat comes to mind) that manage to be effectively unsettling in just the style you want for this kind of ghost story. Plus, DUMMY DEATH!

Low Points

My stance on "we can cut to a reaction shot of a creepy doll and call it a killer doll movie" has not changed, even if some films manage to make that aspect work. The doll of The Doll (I don't think she's ever even named) isn't even visually interesting...let alone active. 

Lessons Learned

Evil doll activity smells quite a bit like very bad farts

It doesn't matter if the doll is ugly: what matters is that a boy likes you enough to give it to you

People who love fiction love to make up stories

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Doll probably sits comfortably (obviously: the thing doesn't move) in the middle shelf of my favorite subgenre. I wouldn't revisit this particular film, but it whetted my appetite more than enough to continue with the series. So we say it here: The Shortening 2024 will begin with The Doll 2! (sets Google alert as reminder). 

Maybe by then the damn thing will do more than blink. 

Sister Sister

I keep rooting for Natalie Dormer to find that next big project that serves her talents. In Darkness certainly wasn't it, and while I liked the Picnic At Hanging Rock miniseries more than most, it seemed to have faded from memory. So how about that thing all young attractive actresses do after their first big project? Lead a PG13 studio-produced horror film! SURELY that'll do it?

Quick Plot: Sara feels a disturbance in the force which can only mean one thing: her twin sister Jess is in danger. Without hesitation, Sara flies to Tokyo where Jess was teaching ESL, much to the chagrin of her boyfriend who's seen this pattern before. 

See, Jess has grown up with some demons. When they were eight, the girls' father shot their mother and then himself as they watched a movie with their grandmother in the next room. Jess was the first one to the scene of the crime and saw their bodies, while Sara looked away. Twenty or so years later, the idea that Jess might have ventured into the infamous Aokigahara Forest to die by suicide isn't hard to fathom. 

But Sara is convinced that her sister is still alive, primarily because she knows she would feel it in her body if she was wrong. She catches the eye of travel writer and fellow American Aiden at her hostel bar and convinces him to take her into the woods with his local guide Michi. 

Ignoring the warnings of every single local she's met about the yurei that haunt the woods and disorient travelers with hallucinations, Sara goes deep. When she finds Jess's tent, she insists on spending the night. Aiden reluctantly does the same. 

Things do not go well.

Let's address the biggest criticism about The Forest first: this is one of those films that probably shouldn't exist in its actual form. Aokigahara Forest is a real place that witnesses dozens of deaths by suicides every year. Producer David Goyer (an association that always gives me pause) apparently conceived the story when he learned about this on Wikipedia (and yes: I got that information from Wikipedia) and couldn't believe no one had made a movie about it. Naturally, he assembled a very western team to do so. 

It's one thing to put Americans (or Brits playing Americans) in Asian stories. The  remake of The Grudge does so to smart effect. But The Forest can't seem to resist pointing out cultural differences without feeling, well, racist. We're two decades into the 21st century, yet The Forest needs to make a dumb "sushi is GROSS" joke? 

Putting some of that aside, The Forest isn't a total abuse of time. Director Jason Zarda shows some good instincts with a few surprisingly effective jump scares. He builds tension well, though the film's overuse of dream sequence reveals becomes tiring. By the time horrors are actually happening, it's hard to actually care. 

High Points

Natalie Dormer isn't doing anything overly special here, but she remains an intriguing presence that makes Sara--someone who's actually pretty terrible--still hold our sympathy

Low Points

I know it was 2016, but weren't we already past the point of American J-horror hybrids relying on grainy quick shot CGI ghost faces being utilized as a film's major scare?

Lessons Learned

Water flows down, not up

If you ever have trouble telling identical twins apart, remember this simple rule: the troubled one has black hair

Violence followed by gunshots followed by silence is generally a scene that you should approach with caution and more specifically, not with the presence of sensitive children

Rent/Bury/Buy

Meh. The Forest is a slightly better movie than its dismal critical consensus would have you to believe, but it still feels like it just never gets to be the movie it could have. Also, you know, it's pretty icky. So have at it on Netflix if that sounds appealing!

I Choo Choo Choose Not to Die

 

In the ever-growing realm of streaming services, Netflix probably has one of the lesser track records for original horror movies. Sure, there are a handful of successes (Fear Street, There's Someone Inside Your House, the Mike Flanagan train) but it just doesn't seem to have much invested in marketing its genre offerings. Maybe that's why so many diehard horror fans seem ready to pounce on its exclusive titles and tear them apart. 

Quick Plot: As Tolstoy once said, all happy families are alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, and in the case of Choose or Die's prologue characters, this one is being driven to monstrous self-harm inspired by an '80s computer game. 

Three months after a particularly violent incident, our action shifts to Kayla, a talented aspiring programmer who can't seem to catch a break. Her job applications get rejected, the eviction notices pile up, a drug-dealing neighbor continues to threaten, and the memories of her drowned baby brother keep haunting. No wonder Kayla's agoraphobic mother is hanging on by a thread.

Enter Kayla's nerdy pal Isaac with a trash pile of techware, including a game that looks suspiciously similar to something we saw three months (or ten minutes) earlier. It's called Curs>r, and the basic graphics entice with a $100,000 prize. Working late, Kayla gives it a spin at an almost-empty diner and in the process, tips the lonely waitress by inadvertently programming her to eat broken glass. 

See, Curs>r is a very simple challenge: at 2AM, you find yourself in front of a screen that asks you to "choose or die." The choice in question is a Scylla and Charybdis of pain aimed not at the player, but someone close to them (physically or emotionally). Kayla enlists Isaac to help trace the location of game's signal and they begin to unravel a mystery that yes, involves evil computer code.

Choose or Die is a silly, silly film, but I found myself having a darn good time. Part of that may stem from my general enjoyment of techno-horror, be it cellular, landline, or social media-based. Choose or Die makes plenty of self-aware commentary about the differences (and our obsession with) the 1980s, seemingly NOT aware how of-THIS-time the film's own story and style feel. It's kind of charming!

Directed by first-timer Toby Meakins, Choose or Die has a fresh, young energy, something I love to see in my tech-based horror but many broader genre audiences seem to reject (Countdown and Unfriended spring to mind, but there are probably a dozen more in the last ten years). In the particular case of Choose or Die, I wonder how much the particular timing of its release fed into the movie's poor reception. It dropped the same weekend Netflix's sagging numbers were made public and its CEO suggested the future was to bring on the advertising. Suddenly, to the horror internet, it was also the worst movie of the year.

I'm not going to throw myself into traffic defending Choose or Die, but I found it to be exactly what I was looking for in a horror movie about a homicidal computer game. It moved quickly, centered itself on a likable lead, and managed to throw in a few surprises in its execution of rather ridiculous sequences. It's Black Mirror's Bandersnatch for the popcorn crowd, only actually fun to watch. 

What's not to enjoy?

High Points

Maybe I'm a softie or maybe I just have too many deep-rooted memories of watching fictional family die in flat Oregon Trail graphics, but I found the scene where Kayla has to navigate her mother through a black-and-screen 2D screen to escape invisible rats surprisingly creepy

Low Points

There are aspects of the third act showdown reveal that are surprising and intriguing, but there's something a little too style-over-substance in how the film treats a certain trio of characters that leaves the ending a little muddier than I would have liked. I'm all for keeping horror movies short and quick, but it feels like we're missing a little bit of explanation right when we could use a clearer setup

Lessons Learned

To be pregnant implies you're both stupid AND lazy

Never pick red

Hell is a karaoke brunch spot that makes you sing for a menu

Rent/Bury/Buy

Unlike the majority of the vocal horror community online, I really liked Choose or Die! It's 90 minutes of creative kills wisely weighted by an emotionally committed cast. I'll take it.