The Last Circus (2010)

The Last Circus is a return to roots for Alex de la Iglesia, much more Accion Mutante than The Oxford Murders. Made for the midnight circuit, it boasts plenty of weirdness and dark humor for the fans, but a fairly standard love triangle plot keeps it too predictable.

Burke & Hare (2010)

John Landis has been absent from feature filmmaking for over ten years. He’s kept pretty busy with various television programs over this time, but Blues Brothers 2000 is lamentably the last film he’s made. I have to admit that I picked Burke & Hare up because of Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis. Only twenty minutes into the film did I take a look for the director and was pleasantly shocked to discover it was Mr. Landis, the man behind films such as Twilight Zone, Trading Places and American Werewolf in London.

A film is certainly more than the work of the director, especially with talents such as Pegg, Serkis, Tom Wilkinson, Tim Curry and Christopher Lee in the cast. Yet, the blend of comedy and horror is a return to form for Landis. Even the comedy is layered; clever wordplay, dark slapstick, and historical satire are all in the mix. There are no scares to speak of, but there is plenty of gore and internal organs to be seen. The humor is obviously morbid, given the grave-robbing scenario that propels the story, and people who are unable to laugh at murder will find no joy in this skulk through the back alleys of London.

Burke & Hare is no low-budget romp, either. Shot on practical locations with an eye toward period details, the setting is rendered well and offers much to see. The cinematography, as shot by John Mathieson, offers plenty of gritty Victorian sights as well as some of the elegance of the age. In many films like this, the imagery tends to take a second seat to the physical antics of the performers, but in this case (like Landis’ other genre films) the photography sells the humor as well as the talent. This is also real filmmaking, not a series of static shots left wide for the comedians to inhabit. Landis closes when he needs to see the expression, pulls back when we need to see the movement.

In a film that is at times very broad, the criterion for performance is different than a dramatic one. For the most part, the actors aren’t reaching for nuance but precision. In some ways, the filmmakers and the actors act as a cartoonist might, trying to find the perfect mix of exaggeration and recognition for any given mood or moment. Serkis and Pegg are both up to this challenge; Serkis has done most of his work behind a digital mask so it is refreshing to see him inhabit his own skin, and Pegg gets far enough away from the fanboy goofball that has made him famous. The supporting players are given enough room to inhabit their roles with personality, but there is only as much depth as is needed. Their persuasions are simple but effective.

I should say it is pretty clear, after surveying other critics, this film is something you have to “get”. Many say this doesn’t live up the standard of American Werewolf in London, to which I can only ask, “Have you seen American Werewolf in London lately?” That film has a little more character development, but the broad strokes, the occasional dark humor, and the production value of that film are at least equal to Burke & Hare. Films like 48 Hours and Animal House just don’t apply here, and to expect that is to miss the subtleties of genre. This film is better suited to a double feature with Young Frankenstein, Feast, House, or Return of the Living Dead.

Burke & Hare is not a film for everyone, which shouldn’t be a surprise for a film whose protagonists are cold-blooded killers for cash. This is a dark comedy that concerns a time in London when life was cheap and desperate. We should find this world distant and easy to laugh at, closer to the shocks and giddy giggles in Sweeney Todd than The Hangover. However, given the mixed reaction and uneasy responses to this film, perhaps many still feel closer to this time than we might admit. After all, some illegal body parts still fetch a pretty penny, and the goals are often much less noble than the advancement of science.

Article first published as Burke and Hare on Blogcritics.

Silent House (2011) [Spoiler]

Silent House (2011) is a found footage movie without the found footage gimmick. As the camera clings to Sarah’s (Elizabeth Olsen) every move, it works much the same as a POV shot common in those kinds of films, and places the viewer into the action in an intimate way. For the most part this works to raise tension and provide ample opportunity for closet-jumpers and similar haunted house sorts of scares. The pacing is about the right tempo; just as I was wondering if we were going to have to watch Sarah alone for the rest of the movie the situation and drama changed to a more dynamic one.

Elizabeth Olsen’s performance is solid, many ways echoing Martha Marcy May Marlene  in portrayal of a character on the edge of being completely unhinged. She presents a range of terrors and frights, keeping her reactions interesting, but the total range of required emotions are pretty limited in this story. Unfortunately, when she shifts personalities, a la Sucker Punch, the acting feels inauthentic and stock. She’s like a high-performance machine that can’t handle slow speeds.

Much has been made of the film’s single gimmick; that the story unfolds in real-time and it was shot in one take. The first is true, the second not. There are many reasons the second one isn’t true, some of them technical, but any viewer who is paying attention will notice several edits in the film (thankfully). The film was clearly shot on DSLR, and puts the limitations of that camera to good use. The very shallow depth-of-field is used to great effect, as the image often blurs or loses anything which is too far from Sarah. This creates claustrophobia and threat. The only weakness appears during  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre inspired flight through the woods. The DSLR is clearly struggling to keep up with the motion and the filmmakers have opted to use an effect to disguise the problem. This feels like a cheat and is too distracting.

There is, of course, a twist ending. I’ll avoid a complete spoiler, but I’ll say that this twist felt a bit forced and too much out of what is expected for the film. An ending like this works best when it is cleverly seeded from the beginning to the end, and Silent House lacks that level of plotting or detail. This doesn’t quite feel like someone just tacked on a WTF ending to have it, but it is close enough that the though occurred to me while watching. About half the audience I saw this with didn’t get it either. They didn’t buy a ticket for a mind-bending horror film; they wanted a simple slasher flick. Their loss, but this will happen a lot and limit the appeal to a wider audience.

Probably worth seeing the film that inspired this remake; The Silent House (2010)

Original The Silent House (2010)

Article first published as Movie Review: Silent House (2011) on Blogcritics.

Huxley vs. Orwell

Huxley's advice to Orwell

Point

For every shadow, there is a source of light.

Priest (2011)

Priest gets a few things right: religious dystopia, genre-bending, and post-Matrix action scenes. For a film with so much iconography, the lack of spiritual influence is worth celebrating. Unfortunately, it stumbles when it tries to bring various relationships to life and rings emotionally hollow.

Alien: Redux

I saw Alien (Director’s Cut) on the big screen last night at a midnight screening. Ridley, Giger, and O’Bannon’s masterpiece sits close to the top of my favorite films, if not the top. So, I’ve seen the film many times and expected this viewing to reinforce everything I knew and loved about the film. Seeing this new print on a big screen was a revelation.

There is a common notion, mostly correct, that the most effective part of Alien is that the monster is kept in the dark during so much of the film. It is the idea of the Alien out there killing that provides more terror than the actual creature itself. (Although Giger’s Alien is plenty terrifying, for sure. I had nightmares after seeing a model of it in the toy department at Dayton’s in 1979.)

This notion isn’t entirely correct, though. On the big screen, with a clean print, the fact is you can see the Alien is everywhere. In some shots, it is hiding in plain sight, in others it is merely suggested by the shapes in the walls and halls of Nostromo. When Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) meets his doom, there is an overhead shot of him entering the space. The Alien is right there, takes up most of the screen, and unless you know what the Alien looks like, you have no idea that overhanging machinery is going to climb on down in a few seconds. Even after the cut, when we look up past Brett to the ceiling, there is little to announce the shape is the Alien, unless you know what it is already. This begins a visual motif that carries throughout the film. It’s like a paranoiac Dali painting (something Giger was no doubt familiar with) where a central image repeats itself in multitudes of images and shapes through the rest of the frame.

Look closer.

Seeing it on the big screen provides other insight too. Shrunk down and compressed for a DVD, even a Blu-Ray, you lose some of the latitude and gradation that the film retains. There is more color subtlety in the ship than video would suggest, and a lot more color work in the various scenes with the Alien. The presence of the Alien cools color temperature down, presumably, as scenes with it develop an icy cast, and the brief close-ups of the creature are near total desaturation.

Cold blooded killer.

Also notable is the subtle changes in contrast ratios between the dark spaces of the ship. Except in the safe domestic spaces, the key light is always much brighter than the fill or base light. Yet, unlike a noir, all of these lights are motivated by the ship’s interior. Why did they have no overhead lighting in most of the ship?

Safe.

Descent.

Shadows arrive.

Shadows consume.

(These are video screen caps, of course, so much of the effect is lost.)

The effect is part of the charm, but I think part of the anxiety created by the film is the fact that most of the Nostromo is very uncomfortable to behold. There is no escape, and what light there is on this ship merely enhances and deepens the darkness.