Hereditary

Posted on June 28, 2018 by C966939529

Frightening, Fun and Fantastic!

This film has been hailed as this generations “The Exorcist” and “The Shining”, the biggest compliment a horror film can get. As two of my favourite movies I was holding so much expectation for this film and boy did it deliver.

Just like the other films this is a slow burn, this builds up the tension and suspense. Aster admit this was a deliberate choice. “I wanted to make a film that demanded a certain amount of patience from the audience, but one that intended to pay that off. The challenge for the audience is to sit tight, and the challenge for me is to make sure that they’re satisfied at the end.” (Wilner, 2018)

Ari Aster on Set

Even the way it is shot with slow panning shots gets the audience on the edge of their seats waiting to see what is revealed. The director, Ari Aster, has done a fantastic job especially as this is his directorial debut. In a way it reminds me of James Wan and SAW. SAW started out as a small project that excelled Wan into cinematic history. Since then he has gone on to so many projects which use his distinct style. I can foresee the same happening to Aster.

James Wan on The Conjuring Set

So back to the film! This film revolves around a family who turns out has a dark secret and almost a prophecy to fulfil. I don’t want to give too much away because you have to experience it for yourselves! So, this is a SPOILER FREE REVIEW!

This film is a typical horror yet not a typical horror at the same time. Let me explain, you have a low light, use of candlelight, quick flashes of light, and the teenagers being the centre of the action. Although it may not be a typical jump scare film it does constantly have you thinking and trying to jump to the punchline before the end of the film. This shows how entranced the audience is, they are hanging on every word, not just a good thing from a horror film but just from movies in general.

In many horror films you don’t get to understand the characters because they are basically just pieces of meat waiting to die. The actors really draw you into the characters and you care about them. This can only be done with clever writing – well done Aster!

The last thing I want to discuss is the symbolism used throughout the film. I am a massive fan of hidden easter eggs and films and just like in many horror films foreshadowing is big here.

Number 1: The miniatures of the families lives – symbolism of no escape, everything has been predetermined

Number 2: The symbol on the necklace – don’t want to give anything away but it is important!

Number 3: Pictures with eyes crossed out – eyes are the window to the soul

Number 4: Family dynamics – and you thought you had it bad!

Number 5: Charlie….just Charlie….

For the rest you have to see it for yourself!

This is a clever, entertaining film that I already can’t wait to again. If you love horror see this film! I can’t wait to see what else this director has in his back pocket!

5/5

Director: Ari Aster

Cast: Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, and Gabriel Byrne.

Crew: Ari Aster (Screenwriter), Colin Stetson (Music)

Genre: Supernatural Horror

Rating: 15

Works Cited

Wilner, N. (2018, June 8). Interview: Hereditary director Ari Aster talks horror influences. Retrieved from Now Toronto: https://nowtoronto.com/movies/features/interview-hereditary-director-ari-aster/

A Quiet Place

Posted on April 10, 2018 by C966939529

Woohoo! It is one of my favourite genres for this week’s review: Supernatural Horror is back on a high note after Winchester missed the mark. (Sorry Dame Mirren!)

The first point I want to mention is the cast of A Quiet Place. There are only 6 actors in the entire film! It focuses on the Abbott family played by John Krasinski (Lee), Emily Blunt (Evelyn), Millicent Simmonds (Regan), and Noah Jupe (Marcus). The only other actors are Cade Woodward, who plays Beau and Leon Russom, who is the aptly named Man in the woods!

This film is clearly a metaphor for family and parenthood. The parents are faced with wanting to protect their children from all the bad in the world but still finding time for themselves. There is a very touching moment where they dance wearing headphones and this is something that you need as a parent – Balance. Krasinski stated “I was like a wide-open nerve…You have all these fears of keeping her safe—am I a good enough person to be her dad?” (Berman, 2018) I believe that as soon as you are handled that bundle of joy you are constantly focused on keeping them safe and being the best for them, and you will sacrifice anything to protect them.

You assume that it is easier for the cast to work on a film like this that has a limited speaking element throughout the film but, it is actually trickier as facial expressions need to express a lot more, especially with these strong familial routes and terror to portray. Not having any screaming was the worst part for me and I don’t want to make a sound in empathy with the characters on screen. There is something unnerving about seeing so much terror on someone face but unable to hear it.

The cast learnt American Sign Language for the film, although Millicent Simmonds is actually deaf herself. She helped to get over the expression in the signing. In an interview John Krasinski was talking about learning how to sign.

“Millie … pointed out that: my character is very shut off and just wants to survive, he’s lost the ability to know and love the beauty in the world. And [his] signing is very curt, it’s very small, it’s very immediate and direct….Emily’s character is all about, we can’t just survive, there has to be beauty in the world. …she’s very warm and she’s bigger and she’s more affectionate in her signing. And Millie’s character….very defiant, it’s very teenage defiant.” (Loughrey, 2018)

The use of silence is used in a lovely way throughout the film. The little details from leaving the crisps on the shop shelves because they are loud to eat, and completely muting the sound when Regan is on screen. Although we aren’t having a Point of View shot, we have a POV sound bite, or lack of. This was created by using “sound envelopes”. The sound editors, Ethan Van Der Ryn and Erik Aadahl, are used to loud pieces, doing the sound for film such as “Transformers”, “Godzilla” and “The Shallows”, but they were up for the challenge. (Murphy, 2018) These Sound Envelopes reflects what each character can hear such as the trees, the leaves and the breeze. This really brings the audience into the film. If you closed your eyes you could feel that you were there, in a similar way to guided imagery works.

The last point I wanted to make was about the Monsters. I think the best way I would describe them is a cross between Alien and a Giant Spider, which is terrifying enough for me, but the poor actors just had to use their imaginations. The monster was not properly designed until post-production. This creates yet another hurdle for the cast to conquer. I was really impressed to learn that the bathtub scene was done in one take! How?!?! I have no clue but fantastic work Mrs Blunt!

I really liked this film from the concept through to completion. The cast are fantastic and with horror as a genre doing well over the past few years, could Oscar nominations be insight? Definitely! This stands up to other films such as “Get Out” and “The Shape Of Water” (Tapley, 2018).

4/5

Works Cited

Berman, E. (2018, April 5). John Krasinski and Emily Blunt on A Quiet Place, Parenting and Their One True Movie Obsession. Retrieved from TIME : http://time.com/5228564/john-krasinski-emily-blunt-a-quiet-place/

Loughrey, C. (2018, April 5). John Krasinski interview: From The Office to horror sensation A Quiet Place – what inspired his surprising career. Retrieved from The Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/a-quiet-place-horror-film-interview-john-krasinski-director-cast-inspirations-emily-blunt-a8291026.html

Murphy, M. (2018, April 5). Making the Sound of Silence in ‘A Quiet Place’. Retrieved from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/05/movies/a-quiet-place-john-krasinski-interview.html

Tapley, K. (2018, April 8). After Oscar Winners ‘Get Out’ and ‘The Shape of Water,’ Could ‘A Quiet Place’ Tickle the Academy’s Genre Fancy? Retrieved from Variety: http://variety.com/2018/film/in-contention/a-quiet-place-oscars-john-krasinski-the-academy-1202747069/

Director: John Krasinski

Cast: John Krasinski, Emily Blunt, Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe

Crew: Michael Bay (Producer), Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (Screenwriters)

Genre: Supernatural American Horror

Rating: 15

Winchester

Posted on February 5, 2018 by C966939529

Washed out and wimpish

This horror film (and I use the term horror very lightly), is “Inspired by true events” (Spierig, 2018), based on the Winchester Mystery House in San Diego California. This mysterious house was built between 1883 and 1922 continuously, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 38 years. Why you may ask? This is because Sarah Winchester, the heiress to the Winchester Rifle fortune from her late husband, believed she was being haunted by the victims of the rifle. Looking back at the unfortunately luck that followed Sarah Winchester.

HISTORY

1866 – First Winchester rifle created

1866 – Annie Winchester – Born and died at 6 weeks old

1881 – William Winchester died

1883 – House was started to be built

1884 – Sarah Winchester bought the unfinished house

1906 – San Francisco Earthquake

1922 – Sarah Winchester dies and construction stops on the house.

HOUSE

According to folklore, Sarah Winchester kept building the house because she consulted a Boston medium who said when channelling her husband “He says for me to tell you that there is a curse on your family, which took the life of he and your child. It will soon take you too. It is a curse that has resulted from the terrible weapon created by the Winchester family. Thousands of persons have died because of it and their spirits are now seeking vengeance.” (Taylor, 2013)

The film is set in April 1906 just before the San Francisco earthquake on the 18^th April. Before the earthquake the house was 7 stories high, the earthquake brought it down to the 4 stories we know today.

The house itself has 161 rooms and it includes a varied use of the number 13.

There are 13 bathrooms with 13 steps on the stairs that lead to the 13th bathroom and 13 windows found inside. There are also 13 wall panels in the room preceding the 13th bathroom. The Carriage Entrance Hall is divided into 13 sections. There are 13 rails by the floor-level skylight in the South Conservatory, 13 squares on each side of the elevator, 13 holes in the sink drain covers, 13 glass cupolas on the Greenhouse, and 13 gas jets on the Ballroom chandelier. What’s even more interesting than all of that is that there are 13 parts to her will and she signed it 13 times. (Group, 2011) In the film the number 13 is described as a divine number instead of the traditional idea of it being the devils number.

In the film the house is represented as a stereotypical haunted house, with the dark gothic appearance and spooky ambience. I must admit I did expect more from The Spierig brothers. Their last film was Jigsaw last year and I enjoyed that a lot more than this film. I was jumping during that film!

That is my main problem with this film. It is classed as a horror film, so I therefore expect to be scared or at least jump at some point. The one thing I noticed in the cinema was that there was more laughing than jumping. The main “scares” had already been advertised and were in the trailers. WHAT IS THE POINT TO SEE THE MOVIE!?!?

For this reason, I can’t give it a high rating. Not even Helen Mirren can save this picture. Boring, bleak and just plain bad.

2/5

Director: Michael and Peter Spierig

Cast: Helen Mirren, Jason Clark, Sarah Snook

Crew: Michael and Peter Spierig and Tom Vaughan (Writers)

Genre: Supernatural Horror

Rating: 15

Works Cited

Brothers, S. (Director). (2017). Jigsaw [Motion Picture].

Brothers, S. (Director). (2018). Winchester [Motion Picture].

Group, H. H. (2011, October 19). Haunted Travels: The Winchester Mansion. Retrieved from HRS Hotels Group: http://hrshotelsgroup.com/blog/haunted-winchester-mansion

Robinson, J. (2018, February 2). Winchester: The True Ghost Story Behind Helen Mirren’s Haunted House Thriller. Retrieved from Vanity Fair: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/02/winchester-helen-mirren-haunted-house-san-jose

Spierig, M. a. (Director). (2018). Winchester [Motion Picture].

Taylor, T. (2013). THE WINCHESTER MYSTERY HOUSE The Haunted History of One of America’s Strangest — & Most Haunted — Houses. Retrieved from The Prairie Ghosts: https://www.prairieghosts.com/winchester.html

Williams, J. (2018, January 17). The Legend Of Sarah Winchester. Retrieved from Winchester Mystery House: http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/blog/legend-sarah-winchester/

The Shape of Water

Posted on February 3, 2018 by C966939529

A Mesmerising Del Toro Classic

Before I even start my review, lets just go through the nominations this film has achieved already:

13 Academy Awards nominations
7 Golden Globe nominations – (Won BEST DIRECTOR and BEST ORIGINAL SCORE)
12 BAFTA nominations

From this alone I already had high expectations.

The first thing you will notice from this film is how the main character Elisa is a mute, but that doesn’t mean she is a flat character. Sally Hawkins (a brit by the way!) has amazing emotive energy and definitely deserves her Best Actress nominations. The on-screen chemistry between Elisa and the Amphibian Man – or as he is referred to in the film, the Asset, is a marvel. Having two characters that are mute makes every move they make that much more meaningful and emotive.

In an interview with IMDB Del Toro stated that “words lie but looks don’t” and this is why he focuses a lot on the fingers. Psychologically our hands can give away our true feelings and this film uses that. At the beginning when the two characters meet, we see them touching fingers through the glass of his tank. This develops throughout the film to a full touch of the hands. The full touch is warm and affectionate whereas touching fingertips shows less affection.

There are also a lot of noticeable similarities between Del Toro’s most well-known 2006 film Pan’s Labyrinth. Both stories are told in the style of a fairy-tale about real life times of struggles. Pan’s Labyrinth is set in the time of Spanish Civil War and The Shape of Water is set during the height of the Cold War in the early 1960s. This is a trait of Del Toro’s cinematic storytelling and is a refreshing insight into telling a story, giving a childlike wonder and the cool tones of the colour pallet.

It is clear where Del Toro got his inspiration for the character of the Amphibious Man. Originally the film was going to be a reboot of The Creature From The Black Lagoon, and you can see the similarities between the Asset and Gill Man. I personally hate reboots and I am glad they took a different route.

I give this film 5 out of 5. It gripped my attention, I loved the characters and the story. Typical Del Toro film.

Works Cited

Arnold, J. (Director). (1954). Creature from the Black Lagoon [Motion Picture].

IMDb. (2017, December 13). Guillermo del Toro Explains Symbols in ‘The Shape of Water’ | IMDb EXCLUSIVE. Retrieved from Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb-MzoMFtWo

Toro, G. d. (Director). (2006). Pan’s Labyrinth [Motion Picture].

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Cast: Sally Hawkins, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Octavia Spencer.

Crew: Alexandre Desplat (Music) Dan Laustsen (Cinematographer)

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 15

Lights Out

Posted on August 22, 2016 by C966939529

“Takes your childhood memories and makes you think…what if?”

This is my kind of film! Horror is one of my favourite genres IF its done right, and this is a great example of it. I have seen other horror films this year but none that really caught me and left a lasting impression. This one did.

I think as a child everyone is scared of the dark and this film really plays on this fear of the unknown. I think at some point everyone thinks they have seen something moving in the shadows and this films makes you think what if it’s not my imagination?

This film is based off a 2013 short film also called “Lights Out”. (Sandburg, 2013)

This is David F Sandberg’s first major film and what a starting point. I really loved the homage to the original short film. The first film starred Sandberg’s wife Lotta Losten so of course he had to include her in the film and even in the same sequence of events turning the lights on and off repeatedly.

(Butler, 2016) (Goethe, 2015)

There was one major difference that he wanted to make with the full feature film. He said

“Early on I felt it was important that we have these rules that we stick to. When we made the short, we just had fun with it, so she turns up in the light and we didn’t really care. It felt like to really have this movie work we need to have these rules and stick to them, which made lighting the movie very difficult. You have someone you can’t light, and I didn’t want to cheat and have rim lights or stuff like that. I wanted her to be a true silhouette.” (Giroux, 2016)

I think doing this took the horror to another level. I loved the use of light and dark and the different types of light. There was a use of candlelight, regular light, and black light. One scene sticks out in my mind of watching Martin the young boy packing his bag. You can see him through his door with the light and the next door is in the dark and you can see his reaction to the dark. Its very pleasing aesthetically.

I have to admit that Diana scared the shit out of me. As a child being scared of the dark was my thing. I had a secret door behind my wallpaper which we never opened. I always used to think I saw a women in the shadows so when I saw the trailer it brought back all those emotions and I knew I had to see it! Fred Topel from Nerd Report gave it high praise calling it “The most inventive horror movie of the year”. (Topel, 2016)

Another reason I was really looking forward to this film was the involvement of producer James Wan. Wan is famous for his horror films, including The Conjuring, Insidious and of course Saw. I love these films and his style. He is influenced by his Japanese heritage and has said,

“Being born in an Asian country and growing up hearing Asian ghost stories and superstitious tales – I think in some ways, without realising it, it affects the way I make my movies. It has a big effect on the way I design my spectral entities, my ghosts, and stuff like that.” (Dawson, 2016)

In this film I noticed a big similarity with the Japanese urban legend of Teke Teke. Teke Teke is about a young girl or women who falls on to the train tracks and get cut in half. She hides at night (in the dark) and she is named Teke Teke as that is the sound that she makes running to catch her victim.

(Teke Teke, 2014) (Warner Brothers, 2016)

As well as the shadowy silhouette similarities I noticed the tapping noise as the vengeful spirit Diana attacks her victims.

The film leaves a lasting impression on you and during the film I kept searching in the dark corners and even around the cinema. I kept looking at the empty seat next to me and wondering if I was safe! I actually waited until the lights came up fully before I left my seat, and I am not ashamed to admit it. This film made me shrink into my chair, jump out of it, let out a yelp and cover my eyes. I did guess the ending but it was kind of inevitable with horror.

I am not looking forward going to bed tonight…might need to keep the light on.

4/5

Works Cited

Butler, M. (2016, April 4). How I turned my short horror film into a major movie. Retrieved from WOW 24/7: http://www.wow247.co.uk/2016/04/04/lights-out-david-f-sandberg-how-i-turned-my-short-horror-film-into-a-major-movie/

Dawson, A. (2016, August 13). Malaysian director James Wan: billion-dollar filmmaker and laksa lover. Retrieved from SouthEast Asia Globe : https://sea-globe.com/james-wan-malaysian-director/

Giroux, J. (2016, July 26). Interview: ‘Lights Out’ Director David F. Sandberg on Subverting Expectations and Not Overstaying Your Welcome. Retrieved from Slashfilm: http://www.slashfilm.com/lights-out-david-f-sandberg-interview/2/

Goethe, K. A. (2015, October 8). 31 Days of Horror Part II: Day 8 – Lights Out (2013). Retrieved from Almighty Goatman: https://almightygoatman.wordpress.com/2015/10/08/31-days-of-horror-part-ii-day-8-lights-out-2013/

Sandberg, D. F. (Director). (2013). Lights Out [Motion Picture].

Teke Teke. (2014, November 24). Retrieved from Scary For Kids: http://www.scaryforkids.com/teke-teke/

Topel, F. (2016, June 9). LAFF Review: Lights Out – Ambitious Horror. Retrieved from Nerd Report: http://www.nerdreport.com/2016/06/09/laff-review-lights/

Warner Brothers. (2016). Retrieved from Lights Out: https://www.warnerbros.co.uk/movies/lights-out

Director: David F Sandberg

Cast: Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman, Lotta Losten, Billy Burke, Maria Bello

Crew: James Wan (Producer)

Genre: Supernatural Horror

Rating: 15

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