The Bay (2012)

What I'll Tell You At the Bar:

The Bay doesn't make it out into the deep waters it sought, but it doesn't drown in the shallows either.

B-

What I Really Think:

I went on a family trip to Green Bay, Wisconsin, last weekend. On our way to dinner one night we drove over the Hwy 54 bridge which spans the Fox River. The Fox River flows out into Green Bay and eventually is carried out into Lake Michigan. I happened to look out the window as we crossed the river and took a long look upstream toward the southwest. The river was dotted with a few small marinas and individual docks, but mostly the shore was dominated by looming mining companies and a large paper mill. I suppose there is nothing inherently dangerous about either of these industries, but I couldn't help but wonder when it was exactly we, as a civilization, thought it was a good idea to build huge industrial facilities next to the resource that all life depends upon.

This feeling also lies at the heart of The Bay, an eco-horror film that is now available on demand and DVD. In this film, a large industrial facility is under investigation for polluting the Chesapeake Bay to high levels of toxicity. As a couple of scientists discover the havoc that this pollution has brought to the Bay, the results of the pollution wreak havoc on the coastal town about to celebrate the opening of tourist season. You know, like Jaws.

When bacteria attack!

Initially, the attack manifests as a violent illness the resembles a biological weapon, but that spreads and the organism grows into a more visible parasite. The best theory the scientists in the film can come up with is that hormones from the chemical pollution accelerated the growth and life cycle of some of the bacterial life which live in the bay. Less dramatic and violent events like this have actually been documented, so it's not that far-fetched. The Bay is much closer to science fiction than horror.

You know it's a found footage film when the ceiling takes up a full third of the shot.

The Bay is presented as a found-footage film, ostensibly presented by a young reporter who is finally able to face the horror she lived through in 2009. Her story provides a view of the outbreak as an outsider would see it, and she has access to other media which document the attack from different points of view. Police dashboard cams, a vacationing couple's iPhone, hospital security cameras, video blogs and many other electronic eyes all help show the destruction and gore. The film handles these sources in a fairly straightforward way, which helps give the film an authentic feeling but also makes the film feel disjointed. There are times where the camera's faults limit the tension and weaken what otherwise might be terrifying scenes. The tropes of found footage filmmaking are given their due, too, and that doesn't help much either. If you've seen many of the recent movies in this niche, you'll recognize the "surprises" before they unfold. The Bay does little to become an exception to the sub-genre, which is obviously something it was trying to do.

Taken as scenes, parts of the film provoke alternating chills and disgust. The initial breakout is depicted very well and with "realism". Rather than forcing some faux documentary approach, the camera is left to watch as an inexperienced documentary filmmaker would approach it. At a distance, not really knowing where to focus and lacking an instinct for what may happen next. These scenes have something of a 70's feel to them; recalling both The Andromeda Strain and Cannibal Holocaust. As the creatures get larger, we lose that influence and start to drift closer to eighties creature films like Night of the Creeps or Humanoids from the Deep. This is something that will entertain horror fans, but ultimately it diffuses the general dread that the first part of the movie created. After this, the film shifts into survival horror mode, more closely resembling the recent found footage films. This is also when most of the energy leaves the film and we are left to watch what is a rehash of an escape scenario we've seen many times before.

Horror fans have a general distrust of the mainstream filmmakers that occasionally make trips into the rough neighborhoods that genre films thrive in. While many horror filmmakers have gone on to mainstream success, there are very few examples of established Hollywood filmmakers who have never made a horror film being able to make a good horror film. Frank Darabont is one example of a filmmaker who moves pretty well between mainstream and genre productions. Strangely, Barry Levinson, known for films such as Bugsy, Diner and Good Morning Vietnam, occupied the director's seat for The Bay. Honestly, this is the only reason I decided to watch this film, given that little else made it stand out as something other than improved SyFy Saturday fare. I was intrigued that Barry Levinson would even make a horror movie, and I was equally curious how he would approach it.

Judging from the format and style of the film, it's clear that he and his crew did their homework. There is plenty of imitation by way of homage throughout. Many filmmakers will study earlier films to help them conceptualize the current work, and Barry Levinson makes no effort to hide his master's study in horror film history. Sadly, this doesn't make for a horror masterpiece, but instead a disjointed pastiche of style and effect that leaves the viewer feeling confused and disconnected from what could have been a deeply troubling film. Poe believed that horror should aim for a "singular effect" and The Bay insrtead strives for many simulteneous effects.

Most of the performances are naturalistic and believable. The supporting actors don't overact and betray that this is not really a found footage project. Unfortunately, the segments narrated by Stephanie (Kristen Connolly) do feel fake, and it is very hard to tell if she's overacting because she is an inexperienced news reporter, or because she is actually overacting. This acting undercuts scenes which were critical to sustaining the singular fear and horror The Bay needed to succeed.

Stephanie (Kristen Connolly) shows us around town. 

Overall, The Bay doesn't completely reach the high standard it set for itself. Maybe it gets in its own way too much, because I had the feeling that Barry Levinson had a story he wanted to tell about eco-disaster and thought he had the right vehicle to do it with. To his credit, the film avoids the really pedantic kind of lessons which often infect the films of M. Night Shyamalan, but it puts such an emphasis on the big themes that the supporting details are lost.

This is all unfortunate, because it's clear that Barry Levinson took this film seriously and sought to elevate the genre that is often seen as the lowest common denominator in filmmaking. This outside filmmaker has shown, in some ways, a clearer understanding of what this kind of movie can be than many of the regular practitioners. He set his sights a little too high though, forgetting or not seeing the small details that propel a solid horror film. He gets things right that many genre filmmakers don't even seem to think about, but along the way he neglects the basics. Like the Chesapeake Bay itself, the film is infected by ambitions that exceed its capacity.

The Mad Monk

I am beginning to fear there is no more room in this world for the writer who would prefer to be locked away in some spiny castle, shadowed attic or forlorn ruins. My sympathy runs closer to this fevered breed of scribe. Some things are best seen in the dark and alone.

In Between

Median

never before
the burning mote between
never again

Present and accounted for.

Yeah, I am still here! Day job has consumed me over the last month or so, but I expect to get back into the writing business in the next week. Look for reviews of Hemlock Grove and The Bay.

Evil Dead (2013)

What I'll tell you at the bar: Evil Dead will thrill splatter hounds old and new, as it dishes out levels of gore unseen in theaters for some time. Don't expect many surprises, though, as the plot never strays from the known or expected.

Grade: B

What I really think:

First of all, let me make it clear that this isn't a zombie movie, okay? A long, long time ago, before the dark cloud of the undead trend swept across the suburban shopping malls and sports bars of America, there was an elite cadre of occultists who understood that walking whilst deceased was only a symptom for any number of unholy conditions, the very least of which was that of being an undead servant. To be fair, Romero himself muddied this up a bit with his kind of walking dead. With the odd exception of  films like Plan 9 From Outer Space, before Romero the walking undead were made by all manner of dark incantations and workings. They had no singular will and they were usually the tools of a profoundly dark master. Zombies were enslaved by evil masters, and corpses possessed by demonic forces were another matter entirely. The dark spirits which possess and transform the hapless living in Evil Dead are far more spirited than the shambling rot of zombies old and new.

Evil Dead is, of course, a remake of The Evil Dead (1981), the low-budget sensation which launched the careers of Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and may have given a boost to a young filmmaker by the name of Joel Coen. Both films concern a group of five friends who uncover an arcane leather-bound book while visiting an isolated cabin in the woods. This book, written using human blood and skin, summons a horde of demons when its contents are verbalized. The original summoning is slightly more innocent, as the voice which raises the demons is a recorded section of the cabin's original resident reciting the satanic passages. In this updated version, a school teacher with an interest in arcana willfully reads the text out loud, despite all the bloody warnings to the contrary.

If only someone had tried to warn them!

There's more gravitas to the remake, too. While the original film fueled the emergent genre of stupid kids doing dumb things in the face of supernatural horror, this remake gives them real problems to deal with before they take on their own small squad of darkness. The group of friends isn't there to party naked in the woods, they're going to get David's (Shiloh Fernandez) drug addicted sister Mia (Jane Levy) sober by turning the cabin into a rehab clinic. So when Mia starts acting possessed, her bizarre actions are seen as no more than detox side effects. I expect this is something co-writer Diablo Cody added to the project.

Mia (Jane Levy) don't wanna go to rehab, no.

One by one the demons consume the visitors, leaving the others to fend them off and try to find a way to contain the evil. Unlike the original, the creatures in this version are just as content to finish off their host's body as they are to kill the others. They just need five souls to finish the ritual, and it doesn't matter how they get them. Because of this, the dynamic in the cabin is a little more complicated than the "Tom and Jerry" style antics of the original film. The horror is two-fold as the decision to help their friends is weighed against self-preservation. With the realization that the only way to save their friends is to destroy their bodies, Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) and David are forced to weigh future repercussions against immediate survival. A few moments of oblique dialogue and performance are all it takes to show this, a level of performance which is higher than most of what genre films offer. This kind of subtlety was not even in the same part of the woods as the original The Evil Dead.

Overall, the performances are a cut above the standard for theatrical horror films. Relative newcomer Fede Alvarez allows the actors to invest a little more humanity into the roles, without making them bog down in dramatics which would only distract from the real tension in the story. Actors in a film like this have to walk a fine line between playing it for laughs and playing it straight; a balance that the original didn't completely achieve, but this version gets a little closer to the right equilibrium. David scrambles to cover yet another wound with duct tape, it is supposed to be funny and is delivered as a joke.

Olivia (Jessica Lucas) knows how to handle the demons some addicts have.

Pure expression of unquestionable terror is another hallmark of the better fright films which preceded The Evil Dead. Those late seventies films were sold as much on the merits of the screams as the threat itself. Evil Dead carries this forward, as the horrified reaction of the trapped cabin dwellers undercuts any sense that this is being played all for laughs. There is no doubt that when the monsters come, there will be blood and no one will be unscathed. They know it, and they let the audience know it.

She thinks it's funny, anyway.

The Evil Dead was the standard for low-budget practical effects for some time. Not Hollywood low-budget, but DIY-make-it-in-your-basement really low-budget. Hundreds of Super-8mm and 16mm filmmakers took it as proof that you didn't need to have Dick Smith on your crew to make a good fright flick. Sadly, most of these filmmakers also missed the other things you need to make a good film, but the doors were opened to directors who were a full decade ahead of the indie boom of the early nineties. Executive Producers Raimi, Tapert and Campbell wisely chose to honor this by avoiding CGI gore effects and going all-in for old-fashioned latex and blood tubes. While some of the innovative charm of the animated bits from The Evil Dead is missing, the no-holds barred visceral mayhem is improved by the thirty years between the films. Like an adult who finally gets to play with the toys they were denied as a child, these filmmakers had lots of fun with their grown-up budget. Fans of the original will share their maniacal glee.

Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) discovers what happens when you read books!

The bigger budget also allows for more camera angles, more close-ups and better blocked scenes. Sam Raimi did a whole lot with not much in 1981, but modern audiences want more visual stimulation than a single roaming wide shot. Lighting for horror film has grown up too, most audiences aren't impressed by the one or two light set-ups which Raimi and Tapert made work in the original. Cinematographer Aaron Morton benefits very much from the larger investment, and the atmospherics of the cabin is made more potent. Likewise for production design, make-up and wardrobe. You can see the effort was made to not just remake The Evil Dead, but to renovate and update it.

This is not a zombie.

Some things are missing, though. The raw low-budget energy is absent, of course, but so is the sense of occult discovery which made The Evil Dead work. The "evil book" device certainly wasn't original at the time, but it was fairly dormant. With the growth of the movies' cult status, the nearly zombie-like interest in Cthulu, and the many imitations over the years; the Necronomicon isn't as creepy as it once might have been. Likewise, while the possessed demons look really cool, they also look really Linda Blair-Pazuzu. This makes it pleasantly clear they are not zombies, but misses an opportunity to dazzle and shock audiences even more. For fans of the original, Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness, there may be few surprises and the film suffers from being too faithful to the original. Viewers new to the world of Evil Dead will likely enjoy it more.

Unfortunately, the Evil Dead soundtrack is completely overwrought. Gone is the plain but effective instrumental hints of the The Evil Dead's score. The soundscape of Evil Dead is unfortunately dominated by an inappropriate and ill-timed orchestral sound. Soaring strings, epic chants and driving percussion make this sound like an overblown religious horror film and not the claustrophobic trap it is meant to be. This isn't a world-shaking battle of good vs. evil, really, it's about trying to survive a satanic onslaught with your soul intact. Ash survived The Evil Dead by getting down, dirty and mean, there were no angels on his side. His character arc was closer to that of a noir hero, or maybe even Travis Bickle. While the arc in Evil Dead is less maniacal, it still ends in a bloody, wet, and fiery mess. Lavish and distracting music only deflates the danger and doom which circles around this cabin in the woods. Sadly, the score pushes the scale of the film's tone closer to camp than it should be.

Just keep telling yourself those are only branches.

All but the most canonical horror fans will enjoy Evil Dead. Audiences looking for a gory thrill ride will be rewarded by everything hiding in this backwoods cabin. Those of us who were hoping for a film which would fully develop the scary parts of the franchise will have to keep looking. While the shock and tensions was ramped up for this "re-boot", the omnipresent sense of occult prescence is mostly absent. Perhaps the filmmakers thought audiences wouldn't buy that kind of spook story, as inundated as they are by soulless zombies and mechanistic serial killers.

There is a saying that the Devil will fool you into believing it doesn't exist. Maybe the Devil has been too successful in this regard, maybe it is time to open that cellar door and take a long look at what waits in the lower chambers of our isolated homes. Evil Dead doesn't make it all the way down, but it points a failing flashlight towards the bottom, shines just enough light to make you wonder if what you saw is worse than what waits unseen. Article first published as Movie Review: Evil Dead (2013) on Blogcritics.

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