June 20-23, 2008

Horror movie weekend, Part II! The Revenge of Horror Movie Weekend!

Friday the 13th -

The granddaddy of the slasher film genre. Ok, that's probably not true, as it came out in 1980, but it's the spiritual granddaddy as it really established the themes that we've come to equate with slasher films. What have we learned? If you have sex, you are going to die. If you isolate yourself, you are going to die. If you wander stupidly out into the dark, you are going to die. In particular, this movie combined with last weekends movies and more from this weekend, we learn that if the locals tell you stay away from a place, STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM THE PLACE.

This slasher film is an interesting one. It's the combination of a thriller and a horror film. It builds the tension of a thriller, with the gory finish of a horror film. Did I find this film scary? Not really. There were a couple cheap tricks, jump-out-of-the-woodwork moments, but I consider that amateurish. But I'll tell you what I did like about this film. I really liked the way it built tension. When we look at building tension, we look to the master. Alfred Hitchcock. No one could build tension like he could. But how did he do it? Hitchcock built tension largely through plot devices. Macguffin anyone? Hitchcock would introduce a plot element, and let it just simmer. In his own words, "There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it." But he did this with the plot. There isn't much plot to speak of in Friday the 13th, and what plot there is really isn't directed towards creating suspense. So how did the filmmakers do it? By using the language of film.

Pay attention to the framing of many of the shots in this film, particularly those in which people don't actually die, but you THINK they are going to die. Pay attention to where the people are. Often times, the person is in one extreme half of the frame, the left or right half. The vacant half of the frame is truly vacant. There will be nothing in that part of the frame except darkness or a doorway, and usually the person will have their back to this vacant part of the frame. It creates the open invitation for an attack from that nebulous space. Most times, that attack doesn't actually come, but the sensation is there. The anticipation of it is there. You really have to admire that kind of filmmaking. The suspense in the scene is created simply from the placement of the actor, the placement of the camera, and the placement of the lighting.

I was also very surprised by the use of sound in the film. In most circumstances, there is no sound more suspenseful than silence. It heightens the senses. But this film makes extensive use of rain (and water in general, I'm sure there's a metaphor there but I couldn't tell you what it is). The rain creates a persistent white noise background that serves to cover up the noises of movement, supplying a sonic cover for the slasher. This works particularly well in the setting of the camp because much of the movement is outdoor and therefore subject to giveaways like leaves and twigs snapping.

And I thought the Kevin Bacon death was quite creative.

Grade: B-

American Psycho -

In the words of the Netflix summary: With a chiseled chin and an iron physique, Patrick Bateman's looks make him the ideal yuppie -- and the ideal serial killer. That's the joke behind American Psycho, which follows a killer at large during the 1980s junk-bond boom.

That summary is dead on. It's the "joke" behind the film. I thought this film was about consumerism, and talking with Coyote verified it. Take the 80's yuppie boom as the personification of mass consumerism. A time all about the things you owned, even to the point of the way you looked was a "thing" you owned. The ME Generation. The exact things that make Patrick Bateman an ideal yuppie also make him an ideal serial killer. Attention to detail, callow emotional emptiness, lack of any compassion, the ability to create a false outward appearance. And thus mass consumerism is critiqued in the way that the attributes it spawns are embodied in a serial killer, and in the way that it is so easy for that killer to hide in that culture, that he almost can't get caught if he tried.

To me, the main message of the film is how consumerism run rampant homogenizes humanity, making everyone the same. The point that struck home was how Patrick Bateman was constantly confused for a different person. The way they dressed, looked, ate, created their business cards and such were so similar that one person could be substituted easily for another. This is a fact that Bateman exploits to satisfy his bloodlust, further emphasizing how dramatic it is. When consumerism dictates who you are, you cease to be a person and become a product. And any product can be replaced with another.

I believe we also see in Bateman a certain desire to stand out, though he certainly would not say so himself. I see the bloodlust in him as his individualism lashing out violently against the monotony of his world. In one scene, Bateman returns to the scene of his previous nights crime, an apartment that he left filled with bodies and blood. He arrives expecting a scene, and instead finds every trace of the crime removed and the apartment being shown off to potential buyers. He seems almost disappointed that his actions have been erased. In another scene, he confesses his killings to his lawyer, and later his lawyer not only believes that it was a joke, but that Bateman is someone else entirely, despite Bateman desperately trying to convince him of the truth. His killing, his "pain" as he calls it, is his attempt to be different from the crowd, and he rails against the cage unable to declare his individualism even in this most violent way.

I like to think this film is an indictment of consumerism in general and not just the yuppie culture of the 80's, but I could be wrong in that.

Grade: A-

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre -

This may be the actual granddaddy of the slasher film genre. Five teens go to visit a desecrated graveyard to see if a relatives grave is in tact. On the way home they stop off at a dilapidated family house and get picked off by a chainsaw wielding maniac (aka, your average Texan).

In some ways this film succeeds greatly, in some ways it fails spectacularly. Unlike Friday the 13th, there is very little tension in the film. I think at times it tries to build tension, but it doesn't work. There is little to no lead up to the killings. Things are moving along (usually slowly), stuff is happening, doo doo dooBAM dead teen, back to stuff happening. Seriously. Teen wanders in house, hears some strange noises, counts to 3, Leatherface jumps out, kills them, drags them off, and cut to next scene. The lead up and actual killing take all of 30 seconds of screen time, no tension there. Also, I object to Franklin killing. The guy is being wheeled through the field on his wheelchair, all the sudden Leatherface jumps out and slices him up with the chainsaw. I call shenanigans. The chainsaw is NOT an ambush weapon, ok? Normally you can hear a chainsaw running from a mile away, but these two people in the field are apparently deaf as they can't hear a running chainsaw two feet to their right.

But, like I said, the film does a lot of things right. Mostly, it gets high marks for disturbing imagery. Starting off with the corpse statue right at the beginning of the film, then with Cletus cutting himself. All the stuff they did with bones was just brilliant, really great messed-up imagery using bones. The meat hood scene. And frankly, Grandpa scared the shit out of me. I didn't think that was a person, just another mummy. When he started sucking the blood from the girls finger I nearly pissed myself. The first two thirds of the story wasn't great. Like I said before, it's slow. It's also fairly predictable, though that may be the fault of so many later movies borrowing from it. But when the girl escapes and runs to the gas station, the plot went in a direction I totally didn't predict. Normally, in a slasher pic, I'd never expect the heroine to actually make to civilization, she'd just end up further and further into the wilderness. Not here. She makes it to civilization, and things turn even stranger. I was impressed with most of the plot in the last third of the film.

But I'll tell one thing that pissed me off. The end. First off, no one seems to give a shit about the black truck driver. The guy is trying to help the girl, the girl gets away, but we never find out what happened to the truck driver. Apparently he was left for dead, though he was intact when we last saw him. That was not tidy. Second of all, the film doesn't actually end. It just stops. I complained about the lack of ending in The Hills Have Eyes. This one was worse! Girl speeding away in the back of the truck, covered in blood, laughing hysterically, shot of Leatherface dancing a jig with his beloved chainsaw under the setting sun in a ye olde England faerie dance way, black, credits. Is this typical of horror films, that they don't end? They just stop? Is it supposed to be a device that leaves the audience unsettled, that lack of resolution? If so, it doesn't leave me unsettled, it leaves me pissed off. Fuck you, movie. Fuck you.

Lastly, I could never figure out, was the meat they were eating supposed to be made from the people? If so, that would make the second horror film that uses cannibalism as a plot device. I wonder if there is some deep-seated human fear against cannibalism, like not only is your body being consumed but your soul too.

Grade: B-