Harefooted Halloween: The First Omen

What I Liked: When this came out buzz was flying around about Nell Tiger Free’s (Game of Thrones) lead performance and yea, she’s excellent.  It takes a while for things to really get going so in the beginning she comes across affable and a bit naïve maybe but nothing too heavy or special.  It’s when shit amps up in the third act that Free goes all out in being terrorized, traumatized and brutalized by Satan and his summoners.  The sheer physicality she puts her body through and the look of absolute horror on her face at times is astonishing.  Of course the big scene is the homage to the freakout in Possession which is a damn hard task to take on but remarkably Free rises to the challenge.

Interestingly what steals the movie for me is the cinematography (Aaron Morton (Evil Dead (2013), Our Flag Means Death)).  It’s pretty to look at with a mostly locked down camera that also somehow feels floaty.  There’s a sense that you’re gliding through the film and that nothing is completely solid, if that makes any sense.  The techniques used don’t come across show-offy either, just very confident.

What I Didn’t Like: Overall the story is fine, good even, but the first two thirds of the movie are a bit slow.  Things play out like a boiler plate ghost/demon picture with the protagonist seeing weird images or thinking creepy things are attacking her for a moment and so on.  And it’s all punctuated by lame ass dumb ass jump scares.  It’s frustrating because the elegance of the cinematography makes it seem like the film should be above that shit.

The title is strangely literal.  Going into this I thought “so there was another devil boy before Damien?”  Nope.  They’re saying “this is your starting point in the Omen series, this is what happened directly before the original.”  A generic subtitle like “Abomination” or “666” would’ve been terrible though, so at least that didn’t happen.  At the same time what they went with is lazy in its own way.

Overall Impressions: This is alright.  For a part 5 you could certainly do a lot worse.  Honestly, the script is kinda mediocre where I always felt I was one step ahead of it, but the execution is way better than what you would normally see.  Director Arkasha Stevenson does a bang up job here on her first big feature where you can tell she put a lot of care and effort into what should’ve been a throwaway cash grab.  I have to believe that her being a woman brought a fresh perspective to the franchise too.  Like even in a universe where a healthy young woman is absolutely crucial for the devil and his followers’ scheme to succeed she still gets treated like total crap.  I’m very curious to see what Stevenson does next.

So this film is a mixed bag with the first two acts feeling like something out of the dreadful The Conjuring pictures and the much better last act being a combination of The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby and Possession.  With that said I think it’s easily the best Omen sequel.  Parts 2-4 all follow the same formula as the first with folks catching on to Damien being the Anti-Christ and then Damien killing them before they can inform the rest of the world.  This one takes a completely different approach by digging into the backstory of the religious group that wants the devil to walk the Earth.  The filmmakers do some retconning, which may or may not annoy you but it didn’t bother me, and they actually leave the door open for a sequel.  I have no idea where you go from here but I guess I could do another one.

Harefooted Halloween: The Purge: Anarchy

What I Liked: Frank Grillo (Warrior) as the action lead is fine.

What I Didn’t Like: The rest.

Overall Impressions: Guys, I got beef.  After seeing two installments I can conclude I strongly dislike The Purge series.  They’re not fun or clever or artistically well made or anything.  They just stink.  And I know I’m being harsh but these movies are infuriating.

I was hoping Part 2 was going to get me on board after an unsatisfactory Part 1 but nope, still not into it.  The concept of crime being legal for one day of the year while the rest of the time American society is supposedly completely normal is an impossibility that I can’t wrap my head around or accept.  This would need to be a post-apocalypse type scenario to get any sort of traction but that’s not the setup.  In fact hours and even minutes before the purge begins people are out casually driving around, going to the grocery store, calmly boarding up their homes and acting like total mayhem and ruin is not about to occur.  It’s such an awkward notion that these two ideas of society could co-exist that it doesn’t compute.

And I know I said this in the Part 1 review but I believe the legal crime gimmick actually makes these films worse.  Motivation is eliminated.  People kill simply because they can.  There’s no reason for you to get invested.  There’s no depth, consequences or stakes.  Let’s take an example from Anarchy.  At one point we’re shown a ballroom full of elegantly dressed rich folks who auction off kidnapped lower class people to be murdered.  Since this is all above board, and even expected to a certain extent, in the context of the movie there’s no bite to it.  Anything goes, so do what you want.  But if this scene took place in the regular world it would be incredibly disturbing in a Most Dangerous Game type way because it’s an insane underground event that’s completely against all societal and moral norms.

Here's another example (spoilers…who fucking cares?), we eventually find out that the government is covertly purging the population because citizens aren’t racking up enough bodies (meaning poorer people) on their own.  This is intended to be a holy shit moment but again, with the setup presented this is all totally legal so why should I give a shit?  Now if this storyline took place in the regular world this would be some really scary shit and a legitimate conspiracy.

Even though Anarchy is ever so slightly better than the original it’s still bad.  Writer/director James DeMonaco said he went for an Escape from New York vibe which definitely comes through.  Instead of one family defending a single location we have a random group of non-purgers (those that may or may not condone the holiday but abstain from participating regardless) get stuck on the streets of LA and try to stay alive until dawn.  Most encounters go down the same way with little ingenuity where it’s just some asshole with a gun shooting at them.  And a lot of scenes end deus ex machina style with someone coming to the rescue at the last second with a gun of their own.  It gets tedious quick.

This is repetitive, I know, but the core idea of this franchise is too flawed for me to turn off my brain and enjoy.  Even putting aside the major mistake the filmmakers made of having ALL crime be legal for twelve hours (so shit like rape, torture, devastation of food supplies, billion dollar theft, etc. are fine yet the filmmakers didn’t want to touch on these horrible acts in any way (in the first two Purges at least) because they’re, you know, sorta unpleasant), when they really meant only bodily harm/murder is permitted, shit still doesn’t add up.

The opening exposition from the filmmakers, not characters within the film mind you but the filmmakers themselves, states that due to the success of the purge crime, poverty and unemployment are virtually non-existent.  In my mind this conjures up an image of a nation comprised essentially of 100% wealthy blood hungry psychopaths.  But that’s not what we’re shown.  Instead the world outside of the purge hours is revealed to be astoundingly ordinary and recognizable.  We see affluent communities sure, but also plenty of folks that don’t look well off.  Moreover, LA still has a dingy appearance, gangs continue to roam around and financial crimes still occur.  So not the utopia we’re led to believe.  I mean if anything you would think the purge would increase crime because once you let the dog off the leash why would society go back to acting like perfect citizens when the timer’s up?  But amazingly this is what happens.  People are pointing guns at each other, all hopped up and crazy, but then the bell chimes to end the purge and they all put their weapons down and walk away.  They obey instantly.  What the fuck?  I refuse to buy that.

No matter what angle you approach the concept, story or characters from it never makes any goddamn sense.  What sane normal non-purger person would put up with this?  Between the mass death, ravaged economy from the enormous destruction and immensely broken society I would think they would leave the country.  I don’t care that the film attempts to hand wave this away by saying everything is peachy beyond those twelve hours.  You can’t have both at the same time.

Say what you want about the Saws but the soap opera plot twists offer tons of intrigue plus the deathtraps are imaginative, if convoluted, contraptions.  And the Final Destinations with their Rube Goldberg-esque kills and ability to have a tongue-in-cheek attitude are plain fun.  Hell, the John Wick pictures may be live action cartoons where every sequence is over the top but visually they’re beautiful and the creativity put into the jaw dropping choreography makes them treasures.  The Purges on the other hand are ugly productions stuffed with poorly executed horror/action tropes with heavy handed messaging that take themselves way too seriously.  They’re not entertaining which is a shame.  They’re kinda trash.

Full disclosure, originally I was planning on covering the entire series but I can’t do it.  I’m tapping out after Part 2.  You could say I’m purging this franchise from my life.

Harefooted Halloween: The Purge

What I Liked: Nada.  Well ok, that one fight in the game room with the billiard table, the pinball machine and the ax is kinda fun.

What I Didn’t Like: Everything else.

Overall Impressions: Look, I’ve always thought the idea for The Purge was pretty stupid so when I finally sat down to see it I was a little surprised that it was even worse than I expected.  Nothing in the film makes a lick of sense or is all that compelling or suspenseful.

If this were a simple home invasion horror/thriller picture that took place in the regular world would it make a difference?  I argue yes, it would actually improve the thing.  I get that a huge part of the draw (or maybe the whole draw) is the crime-is-legal-one-night-a-year gimmick but in my opinion it detracts from the investment I’m supposed to have.  We know there’s no possibility of anyone coming to help the one family who’s fine with the idea of the purge but doesn’t participate themselves.  We also know there are no consequences for the intruders so again, why should I care?

I mean jeez, I could run down a long list of all the reasons why the framework for the film is total nonsense (which it wants us to take completely seriously by the way) like a good chunk of the country burns to the ground every year making a full recovery never achievable so commerce is basically fucked.  Yet everything seems to be hunky dory when it ain’t purging time.  But probably the biggest fuck up the filmmakers made when they put this crap together is they tell us that all crime is legal for twelve hours when I think they really meant bodily harm is legal.  So to be clear, every single crime on the books is fair game.  Sure, there are some bullshit exceptions like that the highest level government officials are off limits and only “class 4 weapons and lower can be used”, whatever that means, we never find out, but I doubt anyone with a murder boner is gonna give a flying fuck.  Anyway, shit like robbing banks, jewelry stores, cyber crimes, poisoning a water supply, creating your own army to wipe out entire cities (using class 4 weapons only of course), insurrection (without killing top officials of course) and so on is all totally fine!  The picture ignores this extremely ugly stuff even though the parameters allow for it.  What they really had in mind is what they show, physical one on one altercations, mostly murder.  It’s frickin’ weird how this slipped through.  I dunno, maybe they thought crafting very specific rules was going to be too hard for the audience to follow, plus “all crime is legal” has a cleaner nicer ring to it.  Whatever.

Boy, I hate to be this down on what should’ve been a fine thriller that just happened to be teed up on an idiotic, but ultimately ignorable, platform.  Unfortunately the setup and execution are so dumb I can’t get beyond it.  The most unique element of the film is also its worst aspect.  On top of that half the movie’s in the goddamn dark because the lights go out and we can’t see shit and can’t tell what the hell’s going on and every decision every character makes is infuriating and plot points are tediously predicable and the commentary and messaging is ham fisted as hell and, *sigh*, this thing sucks man.

Harefooted Halloween: Q (aka Q: The Winged Serpent)

What I Liked: Now this is a wacky straightforward story I can get behind.  A huge flying creature is going around NYC scooping up folks from rooftops and killing/eating them.  It’s up to the cops and one unsuspecting low-life civilian to stop it.  Sure, why not?

While Michael Moriarty’s (Troll, A Return to Salem’s Lot) character, Jimmy Quinn, is an annoying sleazebag his performance is good.  Quinn is a small time criminal with a checkered past who always blames others for his problems and leverages his unique knowledge about the monster for financial gain.  Moriarty nails this guy.  The way he speaks, his mannerisms and intensity all feel true to life.  I think we’re supposed to believe he has a heart of gold deep inside but we never really see that.  In a completely superfluous scene we find out he can play decent jazz piano which I guess is supposed to add dimension?  I dunno.  My point is while Quinn is irritating I can make a separation in my mind and appreciate the craft that went into the character.  Shoutout to Richard Rountree (Earthquake) who also gives a memorable performance as one of the cops investigating the bizarre deaths around town.

You know I gotta give it up for how they handled the dragon (I’m calling it that; throughout the movie they say “bird” but it has four legs, a pair of wings, a long tail, no feathers and is at least a hundred feet tall).  David Allen (The Howling, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Willow) and Randy Cook (Fright Night, Poltergeist II, The Lord of the Rings trilogy) use every trick in the book to sell it.  Stop motion animation, puppets, models, rear screen projection, POV angles, quick editing, etc.  And the end result doesn’t look half bad.  By that extension it doesn’t look half good either but for a low budget picture like this they did a totally admirable job.

That badass hand painted poster is fuckin’ cool as hell.  Boris Vallejo of Barbarella and National Lampoon’s Vacation fame did an awesome job.

What I Didn’t Like: This was a very rushed production with a relatively low budget so there’s a lot of head scratching in here.  A bunch of the time you’ll be asking yourself why is this person doing this?  Or where are they?  Or what’s going on now exactly?  Or how does no one in NYC notice an enormous flying beast going around murdering people and who nests in the top of the Chrysler Building?  Sure, you’re not supposed to take the film deadly seriously but it’s still a lot to accept.

They give an explanation as to why the dragon exists and that wasn’t necessary.  Supernatural elements in the form of ancient magic are introduced which I personally don’t care for.  I would’ve preferred the creature just exists to leave more mystery.  Asking why could’ve been explored in a sequel (there wasn’t one).

Overall Impressions: Certainly not for everyone.  It’s a mashup of Godzilla, Ray Harryhusen and Jaws with all the positives and negatives that come with that territory.  It’s a B picture so the script, acting and dialogue aren’t the best.  You also really need to suspend your disbelief with the base premise.  However, if you like the 1998 Godzilla there are plenty of similarities.

For what this is though I had a good time.  This is such an effects heavy project and they pulled off a miracle, especially since almost no pre-production was done.  Writer/director Larry Cohen (It’s Alive, The Stuff, writer: Maniac Cop) just shot stuff and worried about all the effects later which sounds like a nightmare to piece together.  But his team pulled through and the end result is a fun watchable creature feature.  Not only that but the score is nice, the cinematography is dynamic with lots of helicopter footage and even some parts that look like they were shot guerrilla style around NYC, the pacing is great with the dragon taking plenty of victims throughout, they got to shoot at the real Chrysler Building including the very top attic that naturally looks gloriously like a garbage dump and so on.  It’s kinda more impressive than an actual good movie.

Harefooted Halloween: Dreamcatcher

*There are going to be some minor spoilers in this one because it’s impossible to talk about otherwise*

What I Liked: Morgan Freeman (The Muppets Mayhem) plays a bad guy which you almost never see.  He can be an intense actor so combining that with his signature calming almighty voice used as a weapon is effective.  Here he plays a colonel who has the resources of the US government at his disposal to kick alien ass which he’s been doing for twenty five years under the radar.  He’s hellbent on destroying every last one that has come to Earth so he’s kinda edgy.  Freeman’s natural command of every scene he’s in works well for this character and makes him a bit scary because you automatically want to trust he knows what he’s doing but really he’s unpredictable.  There are a couple of speeches about how the aliens knocked on the wrong fucking door which are delivered perfectly.  Who knew Freeman is so good at playing a maniacal bastard?

What I Didn’t Like: Pretty much everything else.

Overall Impressions: Back when this came out I remember seeing the advertising and not understanding anything about what was shown.  The trailer, the poster, the title, it was all so cryptic.  Honestly, it didn’t even register with me that this is an alien invasion picture.  They do tell you briefly in the trailer but if you blink you miss it.  So for twenty years I didn’t know what to expect.  The two things I did know are that it’s Stephen King related and it has a terrible reputation.  And yea, I can mostly see why.

While I haven’t read the book I’m guessing this wasn’t adapted very well, which is common for King works.  There’s too much story and too many characters for a single film.  A miniseries or TV show would’ve worked better.  Even still the basic premise comes across as a weaker version of IT.  A group of teenage friends from Derry, Maine with telepathy get together later as adults to fight an evil monster using said abilities.  They gained their powers as adolescents from an autistic kid (ok, technically not autistic but that’s how it’s presented for nearly the whole runtime) who knew the world would be in danger one day (twenty goddamn years later).  Now they’re trapped in the snowy wilderness and need to figure out what in the hell’s going on and fight numerous enemies and learn to use their superpowers in the correct way to overcome the situation.  There’s also Morgan Freeman and his covert alien hunting arm of the military who doesn’t care how many innocent people have to die as long as he eradicates the invaders but at the same time he’s being pushed out by his superiors and alright that’s enough already.  There’s a lot of backstory and several plots happening at once and multiple conflicts and it’s all too much.

Writer/director Lawrence Kasdan (French Kiss) actually does a decent job of keeping all this shit comprehensible somehow.  But there are still times when things don’t make much sense or there’s confusion over how the aliens operate or why they want to take over Earth and we find out they can hijack people’s bodies The Thing style which makes you wonder why they don’t do that more and put themselves in greater positions of power (they’ve been at this for who knows how many decades) and so on.  The filmmakers either needed to streamline the plot or go all in as a multi-part event.  As is it feels rushed so I’m assuming a lot was cut from King’s novel.  On top of this there are simply some strange decisions like the main alien villain randomly using a British accent or when an alien gestates inside a human they heinously burp and fart uncontrollably.

On the technical side there are plenty of issues as well.  The performances are a mixed bag with the actors being fine in one scene but then suddenly awful in the next.  Sometimes it’s the actor’s fault and sometimes it’s the director's fault where they use a weird angle or don’t cut away when they should.  The editing can be a bit obnoxious, especially during the action scenes.  The alien design are these kinda generic big slimy creatures with lots of teeth.  And lastly the effects.  Oh man, not only does the CGI not hold up but the green screening looks bad too.  Plus some of the sound effects are stock shit that tend to lend a cheap feel.

Look, with all of that said this picture isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be honestly.  It’s pretty followable with at least one standout performance.  It’s didn’t really grab me but if alien invasion movies are in your wheelhouse or if you’re a big Stephen King fan then you might get a kick out of it.

And I have to admit that after watching so many Stephen King adaptations for so many years at this point there’s something comforting about them.  Even though Dreamcatcher was new to me I could recognize his style immediately in the characters, plot devices, location and general spirit.  In that sense it’s like hanging out with an old friend.  So while I can’t say this is a particularly good film it’s still familiar in an ephemeral way, like a dream.

Harefooted Halloween: Talk to Me

What I Liked: A somewhat unique take on the horrors of drug addiction, grief and depression.  When you grab a porcelain hand and say certain phrases you see ghosts and can get possessed by them.  Instead of being disturbed the users walk away with an adrenaline rush and euphoric high.  The catch is if you do it for too long it’ll fuck you up.  You’ll start seeing spirits outside of hand sessions and those spirits will trick you into doing bad shit like murder.  The deeper you dive the more past trauma comes to the surface which makes you want to use the hand to search further for answers but you try to quit the hand and you can’t and you get the idea.  While this is all a thinly veiled metaphor it still works.

The actors in this film act way more like actual teenagers than what you normally see in horror movies.  The way they goof around with each other, the subtle yet clear dynamic divide between acquaintance vs friend, everyone’s attitude is either everything-is-a-joke or everything-is-annoying, the predilection to film everything with their phones and post it to social media, the way they put up walls to protect themselves, how cruel they can be one moment and then amiable the next, etc.  If this supernatural hand existed in real life and teens got ahold of it I have no doubt they would use it how it’s portrayed here.  They would get “high” off it and in between “hits” place a joint in its fingers as a gag to take a toke and place it on their crotch and thrust it like a dick.  All low brow (but admittedly kinda funny) shit that feels completely true to life.

And the design of the hand is cool.  It’s open in a shaking position with an attached wrist so it can be propped up on a table or flat surface.  It’s all white but entirely covered in writing and graffiti (another thing teenagers would totally do).  This is a much more alluring look than if it resembled a real person’s amputated rotting extremity.

What I Didn’t Like: While the setup is well done the picture starts to lose me a bit when ghosts begin to appear outside of hand sessions.  It becomes murky if what you’re seeing is really happening.  That can be fine if handled delicately but in this case it tends to clash with what’s been established.  In the beginning the rules for using the hand are nice and simple and easy to follow, but then after a while there’s a certain sense of we’re-making-this-shit-up-as-we-go.  I think the filmmakers knew where they wanted the movie to end but had a little trouble getting there.

Overall Impressions: You can see flashes of other films in here like Brain Damage, The Addiction, The Babadook, It Follows, etc. but that combine well enough to be its own thing.  The first half is more successful than the second half in my opinion.  I like the concept of teens using a paranormal hand to get giddily fucked up on.  It’s a party and they’re having a blast.  That’s a great subversion of expectations because normally these quasi-séance scenes would be played very seriously as the scariest thing they’ve ever experienced, and now the hand must be destroyed but the ghosts are still haunting them and so on.  Here the juxtaposition of going from “haha, this hand thing is the shit!” to later “omg, this hand thing is absolutely fucking up our lives!” is wonderfully refreshing.

Unfortunately as it goes the picture meanders a touch.  It’s not clear where the story’s going or what it’s building up to which could be a good thing.  Unpredictability can be pleasing as long as the payoff satisfies.  This one left me scratching my head a little.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression though, I like this movie.  The camera work, acting, editing and symbolism are all fantastic.  It’s the story and lore that gets hazy after a point.

Harefooted Halloween: Final Destination: Bloodlines

What I Liked: Hey FD is back and most of the deaths are pretty fun.  The opening sequence that takes place in the 60’s at a Space Needle equivalent, called The Sky View, is long and elaborate involving multiple layers of destruction and carnage.  At twenty minutes it’s a short film unto itself.  It doesn’t beat the opening of part2 with the loose logs on the highway (still the best sequence in the entire series in my opinion) but it’s impressive nonetheless for how intricate it is.  Other highlights include the MRI machine and backyard BBQ scenes.  Good buildup of tension and misdirection.  Each payoff got a chuckle out of me.

There are some clever ideas the filmmakers try out that I don’t think were in any of the previous installments.  For example, the Reaper seems to punish someone who is not on his immediate list for interfering too much in the sequence.  Also, at one point the protagonist correctly predicts how events will unfold in quick succession to cause a death.  Another couple of elements are introduced that are neat but that’s spoiler territory.

Tony Todd (The Rock) makes one last appearance as Bludworth and they give him some time to make a farewell speech.  Todd died shortly after filming and it’s sad that visibly he looks so unwell here.  At the same time it’s nice to bask in his performance one last time.

What I Didn’t Like: This item isn’t so much of a gripe but more of a personal preference.  If you read my other thoughts on the previous films you’ll know that I tend to gravitate towards the sillier entries like parts 2 and 4.  This one has a more serious tone that matches part 5.  There are plenty of moments of comic relief, and thankfully they’re handled much better than part 5’s coarse humor, but for me the balance is just not ideal.  With a premise this outrageous either give me the goofy or push the tone into dark ass territory.  Pretty sure I’m an outlier on this though so maybe ignore this paragraph.

Overall Impressions: Yep, we got a Final Destination movie folks.  Initially it may seem like part 6 is a departure from the typical structure we’re used to but it really isn’t.  The movie presents the events to you very slightly out of order in the beginning but then quickly settles into the same old familiar plot points.  A protagonist notices Death is killing those around them in a specific order, they have premonitions, search for a way to break the chain so they can survive, they think they’ve done that and eventually realize they were wrong.  Over twenty years later Part 2 is still the only one that bucks this trend a bit.

The new bloodline aspect injected into the story is both intriguing and nonsensical (which is why I didn’t put it in either section above).  In these pictures Death usually goes after its missed targets right after the establishing catastrophe.  Here he waits several generations before striking.  The backup is due to one survivor outwitting ol’ Scratch by staying alive for decades…somehow.  It’s not really explained.  Self-isolation appears to work somewhat (similar to Clear Rivers taking up residence in a mental hospital in part 2) but there are instances in the other installments of victims still dying when they’re all alone in a house.  Additional supernatural shit isn’t introduced in this one either so I dunno.  Anyway, that one particular survivor has lived long enough to have kids who in turn grew up and had kids of their own.  Whole branches of families should not exist so Death has some major cleanup to do.  This is kinda interesting because a few family members estrange themselves with their constant fear of death leading to fucked up relationships.  Honestly, this could’ve been explored a lot more by delving into mental health and such but I totally understand that’s not the kind of complex psychological/familial-relationship film they were aiming for.  On the flip side the decision to keep Death at bay for so many years comes across kinda dumb because it feels random and contrived to make the story work.

Look, bottom line is this episode delivers exactly what you expect from a FD, nothing more, nothing less.  For me it’s on par with the likes of parts 3 and 5.  What’s amazing is this franchise hasn’t missed a beat in the fourteen year (!) gap since the last one.  Shit picks up right where that one left off.  Weirdly, even the effects look like they’re from fourteen years ago.  But yea, a solid entry.  Nothing to get overexcited about.