Harefooted Halloween: The Wicker Man

What I Liked: Almost everything.

What I Didn’t Like: The musical segments were a tad annoying at first.  It took me a little while to get into the idea that music (in particular Celtic folk type music) plays a big part in this.  I’m not sure that it quite works in the beginning because the mysterious unsettling mood that’s trying to be set keeps getting interrupted by a folk song.  But I have a feeling this will bother me less with each viewing.

Overall Impression: Even though I had seen the 2006 remake when it came out this is the first time I saw the original and wow, what a totally unique and bizarre movie guys.  I get it now why this film has endured all of these years.  You see, the ending is one of the worst kept secrets in film history and so I figured the whole experience wouldn’t have much of an impact because of that.  Boy was I wrong.

What makes The Wicker Man (written by Anthony Shaffer (Frenzy, Sleuth)) a cool as hell picture is how unabashedly strange it is when it comes to the story and the characters.  It’s labeled as a horror movie but it doesn’t have very many horror film qualities that we normally think of.  This is about a cop (Edward Woodward (The Equalizer (TV))) that goes to a remote island to investigate the disappearance of a little girl.  When he gets there he discovers almost immediately that the townspeople are fucking way out there.  They have orgies outside in public, dace around a bon fire naked, hang human flesh from trees, sell items like foreskin in the local store and etc.  It all stems from their religion which involves a lot of sex and nature.

Since the cop is a devout Christian, and just not from the island, he’s appalled by all of this.  You’re going on the journey with him into this whacked out world and for him it’s a nightmare.  Yes, we all know about the physical pain at the end of the movie but there’s mental and emotional pain throughout.  The cop is slowly being killed by metaphysical means for most of the picture.  And even though he’s kind of an uptight asshole we feel for him and don’t want to see him tortured like this.

This one turns horror on its ear and bypasses the typical spooky atmosphere with dark shadows, gruesome creatures, eerie music and blood.  You know how Eyes Wide Shut feels like a horror movie at times?  The mood is off-putting just enough in scenes like the orgy party and when Tom Cruise is being followed that it seems like you’ve entered into some circle of hell for a moment.  The Wicker Man is like that except it’s pretty much the entire movie.  Combine that with a strong and thought provoking statement on religion and you’ve got a one-of-a-kind viewing experience.

If you haven’t checked it out you probably should.  As I said before, everyone knows the ending but that’s far from all there is to it.  You could write a whole thesis on this thing really.  But most of us aren’t going to do that so sit back and take it in.  If you’re looking for something different, you got it.

Harefooted Halloween: The Fly II

What I Liked: Some of the plot ideas are interesting like picking up the story with Seth Brundle’s kid, Martin (Eric Stoltz (Anaconda, Pulp Fiction)), who’s infected with some fly genes.  He grows up to become a giant humanoid fly naturally without having to be fucked up by the teleporter.  He’s kept as a lab experiment in a giant test facility which feeds into a whole evil corporation movie message.

The fly creature looks fantastic and really imposing.  It’s interesting that they decided to come up with an entirely new design from the first film.  It doesn’t make a lot of sense considering it’s the same family line and nothing different was done to Martin to bring the change on but whatever, it’s gnarly looking.  The creature tends to move stiffly though as I’m sure it needed a lot of puppeteers and technicians to make it operate.  But the filmmakers do their best with different angles, obstructions and editing to bring this monster to life.

If there’s one thing I always remembered about this picture it was the nasty deaths that befall several henchmen.  One poor bastard gets his face melted by fly juice.  The creature spits this white liquid on him and as his face melts he starts tearing it off making it even more horrific.  Think the face melting scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark but meatier giving it a more gruesome effect. 

Another guy gets his head crushed by a descending elevator.  It’s so goddamn liquid-y like cracking an egg.  Jeez.

What I Didn’t Like: While some ideas for the story were good there were others that weren’t.  Having almost the whole movie take place in a corporate lab facility gets tiresome and that could be mainly due to the extremely lacking production design (except for the creature).  Just about everything is so dull to look at.  There isn’t any real style to this giant multi-level space that ninety percent of the movie takes place in.  You would think there would be extra attention spent on shit like the color pallet, crazy looking lab equipment and architecture to make them fairly visually stimulating since you’re going to spend so much time with it.

There’s this one dog that gets turned into a mutated creature when they test the teleporter on it and at first I don’t have a problem with this because they’re establishing that the machine doesn’t work properly yet.  But then they bring this dog-like thing back later in the movie and it’s so incredibly sad because they keep it chained up in a deep dark pit and feed it gruel and holy shit guys.  I found this part of the movie kind of upsetting actually because this fuckin’ dog never hurt anybody.  Well except for the first lab guy that checked the pod after the botched teleportation and got his fingers bitten off.  But if you turned into a disfigured mess you’d be a little freaked out too.  What I really don’t like about seeing the dog later is that the movie makes you watch this thing suffer and be treated very cruelly.  I understand they’re tying shit back to characters and earlier events but they should’ve found another way.      

Overall Impression: The biggest crime here is that it’s just kinda boring.  They tried to do something different instead of purely rehashing the first installment and I applaud them for that.  And while it starts out interesting things quickly become somewhat tedious and there’s a lack of drive from the main characters.

All of the special effects are well done here, especially the fly monster which I totally dig.  The filmmakers weren’t afraid to show it off either.  All too often a neat creature design will become so thoroughly blocked by bad camerawork and glossed over by bad editing that you feel gypped.  Not with this one though which helps the movie a lot.

I put this in the same category with pictures like Predator 2 and Return to Oz, sequels that have been lost to time for one reason or another and that you probably didn’t even know existed.  Unlike the two examples I listed this one is completely unnecessary to check out.  Sure the ending has a few cool things going on but it’s not enough for me to fully recommend it.  As for Cronenberg’s version, if you haven’t see it you goddamn better.      

Harefooted Halloween: What We Do in the Shadows

What I Liked: The dry wit.  It’s totally my kinda humor but, like any comedy it’s definitely not for everyone.  I love how they turn all the day to day stuff that a vampire would have to deal with into something that’s mundane.  A vampire is really fantastical.  So for these guys to be so casual about their powers and habits, more often than not, it comes off as pretty funny.

This was done in a documentary style like The Office or some shit which I personally don’t mind.  But I was surprised and happy to see that there was a nice conscious effort to bring the characters and events together which forms a more cohesive movie.  Like the werewolf characters aren’t just throwaways that you encounter only once.  They pop up several times and affect the narrative along with other plot devices.

What I Didn’t Like: I wished they used the 8,000 year old vampire Petyr more.  He’s a good grouchy bear kinda character that they should’ve gotten more mileage out of.  As I understand it he was expensive to film because of the extensive makeup job (which looks fucking phenomenal by the way) so they had limited time to shoot that particular character.  Well at least the filmmakers realized it was good to have someone like that in the movie, even if it was brief.

Overall Impression: I liked this a bunch.  It’s got awesome production design with all of the old tattered costumes, the cool makeup and filthy set decoration.  I even thought the special effects looked good most of the time with the vampires transforming into bats and flying and all that.  This is a smarter movie than it lets on.  It feels pretty tight and totally gels which is impressive considering most of the dialogue was improvised. 

Vampires get made fun of a lot in movies but this has to be one of the funniest I’ve seen.