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Clown (2014)
Smarter than most killer clown films
Horror movies have made something of a comeback in the last few years. After studios realised they'd ruined the slasher reboot into submission the space was open for some creative old fashioned spook stories like 'Babadook', new takes on the classic home invasion flick like 'You're Next' and suspenseful chase movies like the wonderful 'It Follows'. 'Clown' is a return to the transforming body horror nightmare.
The plot is simple, but well told. A hardworking father fills in for a clown at his sons birthday party only to discover that the costume won't come off, worse yet, it seems to be filling his mind with bloodthirsty urges and making him spit out teeth. What follows is a slow journey as he slowly looses his mind and people around him loose their lives. The reveal of the clown suit and its horrible purpose is fairly flat, but I'll take it over any of Stephen Kings 'it was a thing from another dimension' cliché.
What makes the movie actually fun and quite special is the main performance. Andy Powers feels natural as a parent, and horrifying as a monster. The scenes of him trying desperately to make a curious child get away from him feel like a dark take on someones horrifying urges. The supporting cast is also great, with the panicked wife, and surprisingly good child actors all coming in well.
A lot of slow horror films tend to let themselves down on the gore, but Clown delivers on that too. Since the Clown is mostly out to eat few children you'd be forgiven for thinking it would be a cutaway film, but there's tons of well done gore effects.
Whilst it never quite reaches the heights of the other films I mentioned, its a fun horror film I fully intend to see again. It's getting a bit of a beating for being even remotely connected to Eli Roth, but ignore that and enjoy it for what it is.
Addams Family Values (1993)
A Black comedy with a ton of style!
'The Addams Family' originating from the mid of cartoonist Charles Addams have always been a delightful mash-up of Gothic horror and Americana imagery. Whilst their best known for the excellent black and white TV show, 'Addams Family Values' captures the spirit of the Addams at their best.
It's a well paced and witty script, nailing the friendliness of the mad family right alongside their morbid obsessions. By splitting up the family for a good portion of the film, they really give the a chance to shine. Whilst the first film suffocated from having too many characters in the same scenes, this one takes the chance to go crazy. If there is a criticism it's the main plot once again follows Uncle Fester. He's fun to be sure, but the highlights go the b-stories.
The cast are once again on excellent form. Raul Julia and the others are clearly having an absolute blast playing the macabre characters, and the addition of Joan Cusack as the nanny/serial killer is played to absolute perfection.
So with a great script and a flawless cast, why is this only a 7? Strange as it may be, the production values do seem a tad lower this time around. Whilst the set design is all top notch, it did feel a lot more studio like in many scenes. Also the humour may go a little too dark for some. The blacker the better in my opinion, but this is obviously aimed at getting kids in front of it and the horror does amp up a lot at times.
But at the end of the day what you have here is a film that managed to go above and beyond it's status as a product of the Hollywood production line and just be plain old fun. Worth checking out for the cast alone!
Scream (1996)
Overrated and criminally dull
'Scream' hit theatres in the mid 90's, and alongside 'Clerks' and 'Pulp Fiction', quickly became a shrine for smug Generation X teens to gather around and worship as visionary new icons of cinema. Of course the irony was that all of said films simply thrived on stealing scenes and ideas from older films the creators had dug up on VHS.
The difference is that whilst Tarantino and Smith crafted their films as loving tributes to what had been, 'Scream' is content to just pretend to be clever.
The set-up is the typical slasher fair, teenagers are getting knocked off one by one and there is a very vague plot about one of them being the killer. What stood out at the time was that occasionally, one of the characters would reference a classic slasher movie, stopping just short of staring into the camera and winking. It's a lousy attempt at being self aware, and does little more than con the audience into believing that what their seeing is a satire rather than a rip off.
Our actors are a typical mix of unlikable, drop dead gorgeous teens who make it absolutely impossible to see them as anything other than victims in waiting. There's few with any personality or emotional impact, and shamefully most don't even die in interesting ways.
Production wise it's all well and good. Wes Craven knows how to direct a film and there was clearly a budget to this. The problem is that the world feels far too glossy. Even the worst slasher films that crawled out from beneath the 80's felt raw and intense. This film with it's hyper clean look and flawless inhabitants is too fantastical to take as horror. Even the gore is lit in just the right way to show off the actors.
Overall it's really just boring. Now that the self aware horror film has been beaten to death, resurrected, and beaten some more the whole fascination with 'Scream' is gone. If you were a teen in the 90's you might find it a bit of gleeful nostalgia, but for Generation Y it's a stale formula with a head-scratchingly large following.
Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
What more could we ask for?
The ending of 'Jason Lives' promised us that the iconic Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krugger would one day cross paths. After years of rewrites, stalled productions and studio politics, we finally got 'Freddy vs Jason', and it was everything it needed to be.
The plot of course is nothing special. Think of this as a Nightmare on Elm Street film with a guest appearance by Jason. Freddy has grown weak, and dupes Jason into heading to Elm Street to put fear back into the hearts of teens. Eventually the two rub each other the wrong way and it's time for arms to be ripped off and sharped gloves to gouge eyes. It's a set-up, but one that serves its purpose, and actually offers more than the typical Jason movie. In a rare case for a crossover movie it would have suffered if you swapped Jason out for 'generic slasher'.
The cast are the typical line up of victims, but thankfully no-one ever gazes into the camera and quotes another film like 'Scream' would have done. Robert Englund is great as Freddy (as always), and Ken Kirzinger makes for a great lumbering Jason. Some may have preferred Kane Hodder, but Ken is clearly having a blast wielding the machete.
The film is also directed better than your average slasher. The careful use of colour tint, two excellently staged battles and a superb party massacre are all a blast to watch. Considering the studio could have handed this to anyone and made a profit it's a pleasant surprise.
So if your a fan of either of the two characters check this out. If your not, you'll lose out on most of the fun, but it's still great to see a burnt man with knives for fingers battling an undead titan. Switch your brain off and enjoy this roller coaster of a film
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Stunningly unimaginative
The first Nightmare on elm street brought some much needed creativity to the slasher franchise, bringing some great special effects, innovative kills and a fun new villain. The fact that the remake kills all three of these within the first half an hour of viewing is testmony to how low the remake culture has brought horror. Characters are flat and unintresting, the cgi looks conciderably cheaper than even early 90's films, and whilst Freddy was given the perfect casting, he was given so little to play with that a legendary horror icon comes across as simply dull. The additiion of realistic burns only make it even harder for freddy to be expressive or interesting.
Almost nothing in this movie comes across as scary, randomly playing out loud noises when the killer appears isn't frightening by most films standards, and simply strings together sequences as the director ticks off every horror cliché in the book. Its almost impossible to shake off the feeling that the movie was written by someone who had heard of the nightmare on elm street franchise but never bothered to sit down and watch it.
The nightmare franchise gave horror in the eighties a much needed kick up the arse, sadly its not the franchise to do the same to stagnating torture and remake cuture today, avoid.
The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear (2004)
Brilliant Television
'The Power of Nightmares' is not only an amazing documentary, it is a fantastic piece of entertainment and an example of how to make something truly watchable and informative. The program documents the rise of both the Al-Quida and the Neo-Conservatives and draws worrying and powerful comparisons between the two. The program is a masterpiece of editing, superb narration and soundtrack, and most importantly, it breaks information down in a way that is easy to understand without dumbing it down so much that it looses its point. I would easily count the opening montage of this program as one of the best i've ever seen.
I don't like to think of myself as a liberal or a conservative, and that is probably part of the reason I find this show so fascinating. Right-wing groups and bloggers have been quick to scream about liberal conspiracies and demonising the United States, but the show simply reports the tale through simple facts. The idea of the liberal dream in the 60's is held as responsible as the conservative dream of the 80's, and terrorism is demonised for what it truly is, a murderous and totally wrong idea.
The interviews are similarly conducted in a simple and factual way. There is no need for quick edits, sound effects or clever angles in these sections, the interviewer simply asks a question and allows the response to speak for itself. The interview when a US intelligence officer admits that he truly believes that having no evidence of Soviet weapons was evidence in itself is easily one of the most disturbing things to come out of this documentary.
No program is perfect however, large portions of the story appear to have deliberately sliced out to keep the pace and length down, the Arab-Israeli conflict is totally omitted and the facts start to become a bit too speculative towards the ending, with predictions taking the place of narrative.
Overall this is one of the best political documentaries ever commissioned, I urge you to see it, even if you view it as a piece of propaganda the productions alone are well worth enjoying, as is the superb soundtrack and use of some brilliant stock footage.