Harefooted Halloween: Pet Sematary

What I Liked: The story about a husband/father (Dale Midkiff (Love Potion No. 9)) who keeps bringing dead family members back to life is pretty fuckin’ cool.  However you just gotta roll with how they unfold everything and not think about it too much.  If you can do that then you’ll be rewarded with an interesting riff on Frankenstein.

Yet another movie with a killer kid in it.  This one is by far the youngest too at like three years old or some shit.  The combination of the child being preposterously young and the obvious use of a stunt doll in some shots makes this infant murderer comical.  It was impossible for me to take that tiny bastard seriously.  In that regard it was amusing and sorta fun to watch, well up to a point.  More on that in a minute.  And on a side note what the hell’s up with the films I picked this year having adolescent slashers in them?  Such a peculiar trend to accidentally inflict upon myself.

What I Didn’t Like: The acting is not very good all around especially Midkiff who plays it too monotone.  Fred Gwynne (Fatal Attraction) is alright I guess but his exaggerated accent, which I can only assume is supposed to be a Maine one, is incredibly distracting.

Two scenes of “Nooooooooo!”  Once is really pushing it but two?  I’m calling foul.

There’s a bunch of superfluous shit in here like the laundry lady who hangs herself and is never mentioned again, the wife’s backstory involving a sick bed-ridden demon-possessed-looking sister who she hated, the ghost that tries to guide and help the family out at various points but ultimately doesn’t have any real impact on the story and etc.  Maybe this stuff had more meaning or worked better in the book but in the movie it’s thrown in without any thought of why it’s there.

Midkiff doesn’t learn his lesson that he shouldn’t reanimate dead creatures which is very frustrating.  Sure it’s a little funny because he’s such a stupid person but after all the horrific shit he goes through he still doesn’t see anything wrong with putting folks six feet under in that old supernatural Indian burial ground.

Overall Impressions: This was a mixed experience.  On one hand I enjoyed the general premise and how we ramp up from evil dead cat to evil dead person.  It’s a natural progression that you want to see and the filmmakers give it to you.  On the other hand the story becomes predictable which causes Midkiff to come off like kind of an idiot.  Of course whatever you lay to rest in the Indian cemetery, sorry, sematary is gonna come back all fucked up bent on murdering everything in its sight.

And I can’t believe they actually went for the homicidal scalpel wielding toddler full on.  I mean his own father has to take him down making this even edgier.  The whole thing has a Child’s Play feel, particularly Child’s Play 2 when Chucky has that switchblade towards the end, with how relentless and vile the kid becomes.  I wonder if there was any influence but the timeline don’t quite add up so it’s unclear (Sematary book (1983), Child’s Play (1988), Sematary movie (1989), Child’s Play 2 (1990)).  The big notable difference however is one is a doll and one is a human child.

This is a tough recommendation.  It’s so well known that if you’re a horror fan you should get around to checking it out at some point.  If you’re not I don’t know if there’s enough here.  The odder things like the wife’s ghastly sister haunting her and the final twist at the end are completely unnecessary but at the same time kinda neat on their own merits.

Stephen King’s done worse and better.  This one is fairly typical of him in that there are good ideas but he has trouble fitting them all together.

Harefooted Halloween: 31

What I Liked: In spots this can be very pretty to look at like the big theater type hall where the 31 game is introduced and of course the gorgeous black and white intro scene.

Richard Brake (Hannibal Rising) gives a really good performance as the psychotic Doom-Head.  Unfortunately he’s not in the movie a whole lot and there isn’t much dimension to his character but his enthusiasm rubs off big time.

What I Didn’t Like: The dialogue is incredibly asinine.  It’s overloaded with bad dick jokes, unsubtle sexual come-ons and a large helping of pompousness.  Rob Zombie wrote this and has the actors deliver the lines like he thinks they’re so damn clever.  This is probably my number one complaint with the movie in general.

None of the protagonists are particularly likeable and the bulk of that has to do with the terrible dialogue I just mentioned.  It’s not that they’re bad people it’s that they’re annoying.  They think grinding on an old man gas station owner is a funny joke or that putting on a show centered around a guy in a gorilla mask is the greatest idea.  I don’t care about any of these people.

The shaky cam with quick cuts during the fight scenes is inexcusable today.  Thankfully that shitty trend went out a number of years ago so to see it pop up in 2016 is a head scratcher.  Maybe Zombie shot it this way to sneak in more carnage and still get an R rating.  Or maybe he genuinely thought it looked good.  Either way it stinks.

Overall Impressions: Essentially this is a Running Man rip off.  You have a group of people taking part in a game against their will that are let loose in a controlled environment and pursued by a “stalker”.  If they survive for a certain amount of time they win.  31 is nowhere near as good though.  The gore is amped up prominently and the stalker characters are ghouled up to push this into horror territory.  Oh and by the way 31 refers to Oct 31, you know, Halloween.  It’s when the movie takes place.

What’s most disappointing is Zombie was improving on his filmmaking skills and this feels like a step backwards.  31 goes in a more broad horror direction with generic shit like the filthy boiler room/factory setting, chainsaw wielding clowns, bland characters, etc (to be fair though the little person Latino Hitler stalker is certainly a memorable bizarre standout).  The premise is also much more basic than anything he’s done since the 2007 Halloween remake.  It’s just uninteresting and not the best made movie which is a shame considering Zombie’s shit has always been captivating for one reason or another.

The film Zombie did before this, Lords of Salem, is his strongest visually.  And even though I didn’t care for the story all that much at least it was a different weirder tale about witchcraft.  The Devil’s Rejects remains his best piece though and a great horror picture in any regard.

31 isn’t a total wash however.  The intro that’s shot in stunningly crisp black and white and showcases Blake’s gripping performance is fucking tremendous.  It seems tacked on compared to the rest of the film and maybe it really was a short that Zombie decided to throw in there, but it’s my favorite part.  That scene is definitely worth checking out.

“I should apologize in advance for not sharpening this thing.  It might take a couple of extra whacks.”

Harefooted Halloween: The Boy

What I Liked: When Greta (Lauren Cohan (The Walking Dead, All Eyez on Me)) is introduced as the new nanny to the little boy Brahms who is revealed to actually be a doll made me laugh out loud.  The parents treat the doll like a real human son so they’re acting sincere the whole time.  And the filmmakers must’ve realized this was an unavoidably silly moment because they had Greta laugh as well.

A lot of the movie is like a one woman show with Greta in the house by herself suspecting the doll is alive and playing games with her.  This is a somewhat demanding role and Cohan does a serviceable job.  Not really great but solid.

Spoilers from here on out

What I Didn’t Like: The twist with Brahms being an actual grown person living in the walls is incredibly fucking stupid.  Putting aside the terrible fact that we’ve seen this done many times before, I have a lot of questions.  Here are a few:

How did Brahms and his parents come to the agreement that he would live inside the walls?  Even if it was only for the couple of week period seen in the film that still seems like it would take some hard convincing.

With being a huge six foot plus dude living in the walls how did Brahms exist back there without making tons of noise in his movements and shenanigans like shifting the doll around the house and stealing Greta’s clothing and all of that?

Why do Brahms’ parents bother putting on the charade that the doll is their son in the first place?  They’re clearly all completely insane and the parents could’ve gotten a girl from anywhere nearby to throw to their son.

Why did the parents commit suicide?  They couldn’t handle taking care of Brahms any longer?  They could’ve left and never come back without killing themselves.

What exactly was Brahms’ plan anyway?  Was he ever going to reveal himself if the doll wasn’t smashed and Greta’s life wasn’t threatened, or was he going to continue to live in the walls for the rest of his life?

Overall Impressions: It goes without saying this is a dumb fuckin’ movie (shit, why did I just say that then?).  Everything from the exceedingly generic title, to the asshole boyfriend character that’s only in the film to get killed, to the odd plastic CGI looking doll design, it’s all pretty bad.  If you’re scared of dolls there might be something for you (personally they’re not for me) but you can do much better with something like Child’s Play 2.  At least that has personality.

I was hoping this would be funny based on the awkward introduction of the doll sitting in a wingback chair but that was the only part that gave me a chuckle.  It doesn’t go on to be like a serious version of John Oliver’s Harding trailer that stars a wax mannequin in the titular role.  No, unfortunately the rest was boring and filled with crap you don’t really care about.

Harefooted Halloween: Possession

What I Liked: The performances by Sam Neill (Event Horizon), Isabelle Adjani (The Driver) and Heinz Bennent are totally in-fuckin’-sane.  They were committed absolutely.  Every scene is filled with so much emotion, physical self-abuse and lots and lots of primal out-of-body yelling.  This is the reason to see the movie.

Most of the ballsy camera moves work where it’ll spin around at different speeds, go to strange angles and ride out a scene until the bitter end.

The look of this is everyday cinematic which is a new term I’m coining.  Nothing about the lighting, exposure, art or production design is beyond the normal boundaries of what you see in your everyday life.  But it’s a damn pretty and crisp version of how you might see everyday life.  (This isn’t to say the plot elements and character actions are ho hum everyday shit, all of that is entirely abnormal)

What I Didn’t Like: This is more of a minor gripe but the story is kinda hard to follow.  That’s probably just me though.  All of the shit in here has meaning I’m sure but fuck if I know what it is.

Overall Impressions: Possession is notorious for being difficult to pin down.  Is it horror?  Is it straight drama?  Is it fantasy?  I’m not sure myself.  There are certainly elements of horror sprinkled throughout but it doesn’t really feel like a horror movie.  Is this woman possessed by the devil or is she simply out of her goddamn mind?  The title implies there’s a demon involved and sure, there are wiggly slimy alien creatures to be found, but then again the picture could only be about divorce or falling out of love with someone.  Or this lady could actually be having an affair with Satan.  However you wanna see it.

This is a tough one to talk about partly because I don’t know how to interpret this thing but also because you’re probably better off not knowing very much going in.  At the same time I would be remiss if I didn’t bring it up to you guys.  It’s just…so…fucking…weird.

Seriously though the acting is some of the craziest and best I’ve ever seen.  Everyone’s all in.  And if you’re daring enough to check it out proceed at your own risk.  Shit’s gonna get pretty out there for a little while.

Harefooted Halloween: Vamp

What I Liked: This movie doesn’t take itself seriously.  There’s a lot of fairly well done sarcastic humor as well as a few clever sight gags.

A lot happens in only ninety mins.  Our hero Keith (Chris Makepeace (Meatballs)) has to battle an entire town full of vampires in one night traveling through the streets, sewers, back alleys and various buildings so you really feel like you’re on a journey.

The wacky extreme pink/purple and green lighting grew on me the more I saw it.  There’s a somewhat fantasy angle to the entire piece and this use of lighting is one of the main aspects.

Everyone’s performances are infused with the right amount of horror, confusion and levity.  They all ham it up to some degree and the combined effect is fun to watch.

What I Didn’t Like: It’s a little confusing and unnecessary that the protagonists somehow spin their car out into this sleazy and possibly imaginary vampire town.  This element doesn’t come back around again like they have to spin themselves back to reality at the end or that it was all a dream.  So why even go there?

There were times when it seemed like the filmmakers didn’t quite know what to do next and things stall.  This has a very stream of consciousness type of vibe but it doesn’t flow the easiest.  The story, characters and how everything fits together could’ve been thought out more.  If this thing didn’t have so much charm it would be hell to sit through.

Overall Impressions: Ok, tell me if this plot sounds familiar: a group of people go to a strip club off the beaten path only to discover everyone working there are vampires.  The club members hide it at first and entertain the crowd for a while but then they let the charade go and their faces transform into hideous demon beasts out for some eats.  Yea it’s From Dusk Till Dawn only this came out ten years earlier.  I tried to find out if there’s any connection between the films but the only thing I could dig up was Vamp producer Donald P Borchers (Children of the Corn, Crimes of Passion) on YouTube claiming Quentin Tarantino stole the idea.  So who really knows?  The films are plenty different though other than the main premise.  Both can be a good time if you’re in the right mood.

And Vamp is definitely the weirder of the two.  From the awkward strip Grace Jones (Boomerang) performs all dolled up in exceptionally striking makeup, to the killer elevator scene, to the sewer rat guy, to the love interest’s inexplicable upbeat energetic attitude throughout the entire ordeal, it’s all sorta bizarre.  But it’s a good kinda bizarre I think and if anything it certainly stands out in the pack.

Writer/director Richard Wenk didn’t have much luck with the directing part after this picture but he ended up being a big Hollywood screenwriter with shit like The Equalizer, The Expendables 2, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back and 16 Blocks to his name.  It’s too bad Vamp fell into the abyss with no one remembering it today ‘cause I liked it.  It’s pretty out there and absolutely not for everyone but if you’re feeling adventurous give it a shot.

Harefooted Halloween: Halloween III: Season of the Witch

What I Liked: Cochran’s (Dan O’Herlihy (RoboCop)) plan to kill thousands or even millions of children on Halloween is really fuckin’ crazy.

The John Carpenter and Alan Howarth soundtrack is ominous, driving and beautiful.

The last five minutes is one of the most memorable and best endings ever.  It gets so intense and I love that they left the fate of the children ambiguous.

What I Didn’t Like: Cochran’s plan to kill any kid that buys his Halloween mask is deeply flawed.  It’s gonna be pretty damn obvious what all the deaths have in common so Cochran can’t possibly get away with the crime.  The way this works too is there’s a little piece of Stonehenge in every mask and it somehow putrefies someone’s head into bugs.  It’s unbelievable how the movie is so casual not only about the fact that Stonehenge can work this absurd magic but also that Cochran stole a fucking piece of Stonehenge and broke it into pieces to place inside his goddamn Halloween masks.  You can’t just fuckin’ do that man.  I have so many questions.  Like how the hell did he steal that massive piece of stone from one of the most famous and visited sites on earth and bring it back to California anyway?

Oh my God guys the acting and dialogue is atrocious.  Like cringe inducing at times.  Some of the editing gets bad too with an awkward cut showing up every so often.

Overall Impressions: Jeez this is not how I remember this one going down.  At first the whole thing has a mediocre TV movie vibe but then it dares to dip below that to become just flat out terrible.  Almost every aspect feels cheap and thoughtless.  What makes this particularly weird is the very end is amazing.  How did they come up with such a cool finish but botch the rest?

I like the idea of turning the Halloween franchise into an anthology series where each new film is completely different and doesn’t have to involve Michael Myers.  But they really got off on the wrong foot here.  No wonder they said fuck this and called Mikey back into action.

Harefooted Halloween: The Good Son

What I Liked: Killer children is a tough topic to tackle in any medium.  Getting the right age, look, method of killing and motivation is so hard to nail down.  How do you convince the audience that this very young person can do something as awful as premeditated murder?  I’m not sure but the filmmakers ended up doing a decent job of presenting us one nasty ass kid.

Macaulay Culkin (Party Monster) as Henry does a really good job of emitting an unsettling aurora.  There’s something about his facial expressions and the way he delivers his lines that you know he can’t be trusted.  I can totally understand some folks finding his smirk heavy performance grating and/or comical but I didn’t get either of those.  This shows Culkin had range at an early age and if you can sense there’s something wrong with this kid even during the scenes when he’s not acting like a creep and only doing normal twelve year old stuff then that’s kind of impressive.

The movie wastes no time with getting to the bad seed shenanigans you came for.  There’s a sharp escalation in unscrupulous behavior which doesn’t let up until the end.  Like Henry starts off by breaking windows at an abandoned factory but then he kills a dog and that quickly leads to endangering the lives of dozens of people by throwing a dummy off an overpass into heavy traffic (the movie tries to downplay it by telling us no one got seriously injured but that’s impossible with the huge pile up they show us, like an RV completely flips onto its side).  There isn’t very much room to breathe because you have to keep up with a constant increase of horrible events.

This thing is shot beautifully (John Lindley (Father of the Bride, Shakedown, Pleasantville)).  The “Maine” landscape (really Minnesota, Massachusetts and New Hampshire) is wonderfully captured with nice big wide angles and sweeping ocean shots.  The small town and huge house where this takes place look so picturesque with water facing windows everywhere and a roaring fire constantly going.

Spoiler on this last point

The ending is absolutely perfect with Henry and Mark (Elijah Wood (Sin City)) dangling off a cliff and Henry’s mother is holding onto them and has to decide between her disgusting son and her loving nephew.  This is one of the most fitting endings to any film ever.

What I Didn’t Like: Most of the dialogue doesn’t sound like kid dialogue.  But I can’t be too hard on the screenwriter for this (Ian McEwan (Atonement (the book))) because it’s difficult enough to write regular child sounding lines.  And in this case you’re piling on a battle of good vs evil.  They tried their best to make the leads sound tough and menacing but it sounds too much like adults.

The score is too damn cheery for the first twenty mins.  It’s distracting how much it doesn’t fit.  Sure you might not wanna go for a plotting-a-malicious-scheme theme right off the bat but there needed to be something more neutral.  The upbeat almost carefree music that legendary composer Elmer Bernstein wrote for the beginning was not a good choice.

Holy shit, that's edgy!

Some scenes were clearly cut heavily where it’ll end abruptly or intensify suddenly and others must’ve been deleted altogether.  The last half hour specifically moves at a breakneck pace.  I know I said I liked that the film doesn’t give a lot of room to breathe (and I’m always for shorter runtimes, this one’s under ninety minutes) but at the same time it could’ve benefited from slowing down a touch and building some more suspense.

A kinda major problem I have with this picture is it promotes the idea that someone is born evil.  You see we never find out what triggered Henry to act the way he does.  They don’t go for any supernatural or revenge angle or hint at the parents being awful people that do similar despicable acts either.  Henry’s simply evil and that’s all there is.  And I take issue with that because I don’t think someone is born evil.  Yes everyone’s predisposed to certain diseases, disorders and other genetically transferrable health issues but not the urge to kill those around you for no reason.  It was a cheap way out for the movie to not approach the topic.  I wish they would’ve given some sort of explanation of this kid’s motivation no matter how flimsy.

Overall Impressions: I know this is another non-horror entry but thrillers are a closely related cousin.  Plus you have to hand it to the filmmakers on this one.  They definitely delivered on the killer kid idea.  Henry attempts to eradicate his entire family so he’s out there giving it his all.

And I just wanna say I find everything about Macaulay Culkin being in this movie fascinating.  At first it may seem like an odd choice (actually his father pushed extremely hard for the role even to the point of holding Home Alone 2 hostage) but very quickly you realize he’s totally got this.  It turned out to be a good casting decision even if it was by force.  And the filmmakers must’ve came around to feeling the same way because just look at the poster.  It’s a close up of Macaulay smirking into the camera with the tagline “evil has many faces”.  They knew that’s all they needed to sell you on it.  The boldness of that decision kinda blows my mind.  I mean this was only one year after Home Alone 2: Lost in New York for fuck’s sake.  Wow.

This is a divider.  If you can get over adorable Kevin McCallister being a murderous little shit then that’s half the battle.  The trouble is you still have to accept that this kid can do all the terrible stuff you witness.  It’s a mixed bag, some things work others don’t.  I guess I cautiously recommend this one.  It’s a tough sell though.