Horror Movies
I'd never been a fan of horror movies in the past. If a year ago someone were to ask me my favorites, I'd probably cite a handful of safe, canonical picks--Murnau's
Nosferatu, maybe Herzog's too, some Hitchcock,
The Shining, and, oh, I liked
The Blair Witch Project--and confess that horror wasn't really my thing. Recently, however, Teresa's managed to get me more into scary movies, primarily of the Asian variety.
The other night she asked which ones I'd liked best. I mentioned Shinya Tsukamoto's haunting (and haunt
ed)
Vital as one candidate. She immediately begged to differ; it's one of her favorite films, but, she insisted, it's not a horror movie. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Either way, it lead to some heated discussion of what exactly constitutes horror (and, in turn, inspired this post).
The Eye and its loosely, thematically related "sequel" certainly qualify. The first film is an initially creepy, eventually overly convoluted outing centering on a blind woman who receives functional eyes. Unfortunately, the used pair formerly belonged to a troubled Thai gal who haunts our heroine's vision. The "be careful what you wish for" morality tale has been handled far more effectively in countless other movies, but the Pang brothers bring enough sleek style to keep the proceedings fun throughout.
The Eye 2 is a decidedly more exceptional effort, with not just more style but more provocative ideas thrown in the mix. Some are only flirted with and quickly ditched--for a little while, I suspected this might daringly tread
Dumplings-esque value-of-life territory, but then Shu Qi's protagonist opts not to have her planned abortion--yet this is, at any rate, a horror movie that will leave you thinking about more than just whether a goblin or serial killer is waiting outside your bedroom window. Plus, the Pangs here pull off one of the most breathtaking, exquisitely orchestrated sequences to ever grace the genre: It involves an emergency delivery in a hospital elevator and a ghost swimming ominously through the air, toward the exposed vagina.
Ju-On (The Grudge) and
Dark Water are also unambiguous horror entries. I haven't seen either of the Hollywood remakes, but both Japanese originals have their merits. The former is notable mostly for its episodic, nonlinear structure, or more specifically, for how well director Takashi Shimizu handles the conceit. What at first feels gimmicky and unnecessarily confusing ultimately elevates what might've otherwise ended up your run-of-the-mill haunted house flick. Teresa informs me that the remake retains its Japanese setting, and merely plugs in SMG and (of all people) Bill Pullman. The fact that Shimizu helmed it as well peaks my curiosity: Did he rise to the challenge of Westernizing his J-hit? Might the latter version--regardless of whatever else it has to offer--serve as an interesting companion piece to
Ju-On, a sort of essay on what English-speaking audiences find frightening versus what works in Japan?
I'm less curious to check out
Motorcycle Diaries director Walter Salles' J-Conn-starring
Dark Water retread, partly because I already know the original falls apart in its final act--and not in an enigmatic, Lynchian sort of way, but in the lazy "where the hell do we take this thing" sense. It's a shame, as up until the last twenty minutes or so, Hideo Nakata's film runs smoothly as an exercise in mood and memory (with some worthwhile things to say about parental responsibility, to boot). There's no debating Nakata's knack for getting the most out of creepy, cold urban locales, but narrative clearly isn't his strong suit. Personally, I'd like to see the generic J-horror ghost eliminated from the equation, the focus locked on the titular water seeping into the apartment (plus seemingly constant rainfall), and the material handed over to Tsai Ming-liang.
Yuichi Sato's
Pray has the same problem--strong atmosphere, tense build-up, squandered pay-off. The biggest difference is that this one spirals out of control progressively rather than the bottom simply falling out at the end. The school building setting is inspired, and Sato's discipline in isolating almost all the film's action there is admirable. I only wish he'd thought
Pray's plot out a bit before putting it together.
The most disturbing film I've seen recently can't be nearly so neatly pinned down, as horror or any other format. The most dead-on description I can think of for Terry Gilliam's underappreciated
Tideland is the American
Pan's Labyrinth; both movies concentrate on young girls who create detailed fantasy worlds for themselves in order to cope with the harsh circumstances of their everyday life. Where
Pan's' Ofelia awakens the terrifying "pale man" by copping some fruit,
Tideland's Jeliza-Rose dolls up her dead junkie dad (Jeff Bridges!) with make-up. Right, "unpleasant," a word dropped plenty in the film's numerous pans, definitely applies, but there's an entirely unique vision--appalling, claustrophobic, and in its way, beautiful--shot through this clearly personal affair. Excellent performances by Jodelle Ferland (better than Ivana Baquero in
Pan's, compares favorably with Anna Paquin's Oscar-winning turn in
The Piano), Brendan Fletcher (chewing major Gilliam scenery, a la Brad Pitt in
12 Monkeys), and Janet McTeer (a far cry from
Tumbleweeds) also make this one very worth a viewing. Repeat visits might be reserved for Gilliam obsessives and morbid souls.
Neither feature in
Grindhouse is scary, and only one of the two is any good. Robert Rodriguez's double-bill opener,
Planet Terror, is ostensibly "horror," a fanboy's homage to Romero and Carpenter. It's really just a useless piece of dull fake camp where every action, line, and gesture comes packaged in painfully hip quote marks. Tarantino's offering,
Death Proof, on the other hand, uses the dubious project concept merely as a starting point for some fruitful meta hijinks. The winking self-parody--
Reservoir Dogs's around-the-table small talk, QT's use of abrupt narrative fractures, and even his notorious foot fetish are each touched upon--is funny, the (extensive) girl talk surprisingly credible, and the final jolt of feminist payback exhilarating.
No question:
Volver isn't a horror movie, despite the involvement of multiple murders and a ghost of sorts. Had, say, Bergman or the Dardenne brothers inherited this material we'd no doubt be discussing a very depressing movie. There are some dark, difficult subjects mined here, to be sure, but Almodovar handles it all impeccably, expertly straddling a narrow path between melodrama and slapstick, Greek tragedy and tv sitcom. The result is a luminous, poignant portrait of female camaraderie, family crises, and the symbiosis of community. It's my favorite Almodovar to date.
Another Public Enemy, the sequel to--yup--
Public Enemy from South Korea's Kang Woo-suk, doesn't qualify as horror either, and isn't intended as such. This is an old-fashioned crime yarn--in the best sense, really. The film does suggest, though, a bogeyman ready made for the 21st Century: the white collar sleazebag. As a smarmy, silver spoon-fed tycoon/crime lord, Jeong Jun-ho's charismatic performance perfectly embodies the solipsistic sense of entitlement that haunts today's
Forbes-certified global marketplace. Our hero (a passionate populist prosecutor who Alberto Gonzalez would've surely fired without batting an eyelash) nabs the villain just before his planned relocation to the United States. It's a good thing, too: The last thing we need here is another Donald Trump.
