P2

Year: 2007
Director: Franck Khalfoun
Writer: Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur
Genre: Horror

P2 is a film which betrays nothing with a title. Unlike more descriptive, if banal, titles such as Slumber Party Massacre and Cheerleader Massacre the movie P2 is an enigma. What is the P about? Is it a sequel? Somehow, despite even seeing the cover of the film (and reading nothing of it) I had no idea what it meant. This may be the best way to go into the film but I would have probably still enjoyed it if I knew the creative location.

P2 takes place almost entirely in an underground parking garage. So, of course, P2 is one of the floors of the place. In my mind, it seemed like it would be difficult to keep a story interesting and scary when you've got such a small, and mostly empty area to make use of. Of course, other horror films have taken on much more claustrophobic sets so why not a parking garage?

If you're expecting a massively horrific film then you probably won't find it. There's still some creepy stuff going on, yeah, but nothing incredible. Part of that comes from the fact that the antagonist is goofier than he is creepy. He was obviously meant to be a crazed guy but despite the horrible acts he does... it mostly seems like he's still a goofball. In a way this makes the movie more enjoyable though as it turns into a sort of black comedy.

There's some truly unexpected gore and creative situations but beyond that the film's location really is the only stand out piece about it. I enjoyed it but it certainly wasn't a revelation. Some people have definitely gotten more out of it than me though so who knows how it'll affect you. Checking this film out with friends is recommended because of it's meta-goofiness going on and may make you at least a little bit nervous about walking through parking lots.

The Blob (Remake)

Year: 1988
Director: Chuck Russell
Writer: Theodore Simpson, Kay Linaker
Genre: Horror: Sci-fi

The Blob has always seemed like something that just isn't appealing to me. Despite never seeing the original or any of either film, they both just seemed super cornball. I mean, come on, you've got a big glob of slime terrorizing a town. What is meant to be truly scary about that? It just seems too funny. Although there's nothing wrong with funny horror based on weird living/non-living entities I just wasn't ready to watch.

Grabbing The Blob I wasn't sure what version I had but popped it in and started watching. As it turned out it was the remake and while it was excellent it may have forever tainted my future opinion of the original. I say this because the remake is so fun and has great effects that the original may just seem completely dull in comparison, which is really too bad. I guess I'll find out when giving it a watch.

Anyway, The Blob is a great, goofy film. It starts out with a meteor crashing in the forest. Aliens don't pop out or anything, but instead we see some weird pink goo bubbling in the rock. A homeless man pokes at it, gets it stuck on his hand, and is rushed to the hospital by the lead teens. Everyone watching the movie knows how bad this is, but the film lets it build up for a little bit... making you wonder just when something will happen. Once it does, though, boy it lets it out.

Like I mentioned earlier, the effects are fantastic. They are so perfect and if there is another remake in the future they will probably be ruined with computer graphics. What we see from this late 80s film is pure artistic skill of putting skeletal people inside a pink blob, which is somewhat translucent. It's super effective to watch a face slide into the front of the blob, or see the remains of people terrorized by it.

As far as acting and storytelling goes it was well done too. It all helped progress the ridiculous story forward and get you into the world. The way the organism was depicted made it seem actually fearsome as well, instead of as just some funny-looking goo. I wouldn't say it was actually menacing, but there were parts that were slightly nerve-wracking. Overall, it was a tremendously enjoyable film.

Frozen

Year: 2010
Director: Adam Green
Writer: Adam Green
Genre: Drama, Thriller

Frozen is not a movie I've been dying to see for a long time. In fact, it was something that only recently came across my radar. Apparently I missed out on it completely around it's arrival in 2010. Basically, the film is about a group of three twenty something young adults who are having a day out on a snowy mountain. Between two men and one women, the men are best friends, while one of the men is dating the woman.

So, they all spend an awkward day together skiing and snowboarding then are finally ready to come on home. When they do, they somehow manage to get stuck on the chair lift back down the mountain. They came on a Sunday and the mountain won't be open again until Friday....

That's all 30 minutes in or so. For basically the rest of the movie they are stuck in a very small location. I worried that the film wouldn't be able to carry itself just on character interaction. However, it managed to showcase these three real-seeming characters who I cared at least a little bit for. Their reactions to the situation they found themselves in was the most important thing though. It's what kept me interested. If people were in this situation you might expect them to react in some of these ways.

Of course, everything goes wrong at every turn. Although it wasn't overall a gory movie there were some really intense scenes. For the first time in a while, at one point I found myself having to only half watch a certain scene. It just got into me (probably because the situation was realistic enough). I was a bit annoyed by some of the stupidity of the characters but after watching hundreds of slashers it shouldn't be surprising.

Overall, I think Frozen shared a strong experience. It's not the best film ever, or even all that great, but it makes you wonder about what could happen in all our lives. If you're someone who regularly plays around in the mountains though I would suggest you stay far away as it would probably be an especially tough film to watch.

Sisters

Year: 1973
Director: Brian De Palma
Writer: Brian De Palma, Louisa Rose
Genre: Horror: Mystery, Black Comedy

Coming into Sisters I had no idea of what to expect other than, well, sisters. What I ended up seeing was a wholly enjoyably odd feature. However, try and tell me to peg exactly what about it was so good and it might be hard to say.

At the start of the film you see people competing in a simple gameshow. Two of the people featured in the game show decide to come home together and from that slightly unusual introduction things get much weirder. On the next day, the man wakes up to hear the gal from the show arguing with another woman. Although he wants to sneakily leave, the woman then finds him and begs him to stay, so he does. Unfortunately, he ends up being murdered by the creepy other girl. This kicks the whole film off.

What I enjoyed so much about the film was that it was hard to get a clear idea about what was even going on. Was the woman who witnesses the murder making this whole scene up or did it really happen? Are there really two girls or is there only one? Who is the other girl - is she the sister as the title suggests? Is it actually someone else who is pulling the strings? I loved being in a weird sense of reality and never being sure of what was what. Despite this description though, it was a fairly straightforward film. It wasn't all trippy or reality-shifting like some.

Perhaps the most unexpected thing about Sisters is how funny it is. There's no doubt that the desire when making this film was to have a lot of amusing stuff along a seriously messed up mystery. I consider it black comedy since it shouldn't really be as funny as it is that there was what was at one point called a  "racially-charged murder". Despite a lot of things that aren't at all funny about the movie the characters managed to be big jokes sometimes. I really enjoyed the dichotomy.

Sisters is a movie I'd happily recommend. After seeing it I now want to watch a lot more of Brian De Palma's work. Beyond this, I've only seen Carrie, Phantom of the Paradise, and Scarface.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

Year: 1984
Director: W.D. Richter
Writer: Earl Mac Rauch
Genre: Sci-Fi: Comedy

With a massive name like The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension how can you possibly go wrong? The film seems to really divide the film community and unfortunately I was not someone who will now be singing its praises. I didn't think it was awful by any means, but it just never managed to hook me in to the weird narrative.

Honestly, I'm not sure what was even going on. Despite that I still was able to enjoy the characters, costumes, and aliens. The film centers around Buckaroo Banzai (and his crew) as they fight against some alien menace. Apparently not all the aliens are bad though, as they are helped by a "Blackleckloid". I have no idea if that's the real name but that's what it sounded like they said.

So you've got some weirdly dressed men fighting against aliens who lust for some Earth technology and somehow it plays out as entirely normal. It's not really surprising that in this place that a musical star (which Buckaroo is) would be helping the government with its alien issues. Why not?

Although I wasn't grabbed by the strangeness of the whole thing I was interested in how many famous faces were a part of the film. The most surprising to me were Jeff Goldblum and Christopher Lloyd. It took me a while to even recognize Lloyd as he spent half the film in an alien mask and the other half in... human face.

I'd say it's worth watching Buckaroo Banzai because it is such an odd little film. However, it may very well be something you can't stand. On the other hand, you might be someone who will be singing its praises and quoting its goofy lines for a long time.

PS: The credits are wonderful for both the song and accompanying video. Don't watch if you don't want the purely 80s goodness spoiled!

Insidious

Year: 2010
Director: James Wan
Writer: Leigh Whannell
Genre: Horror: Possession

Insidious is exactly the kind of movie I steer clear from. First, it's modern, which always throws me into an angry fervor just because I've felt especially let down by films that everyone says are so great when they're out in theaters. It's the typical reaction for me... Don't believe the hype, in fact, don't even listen to the hype because if you do it's deadly. Even though I don't remember Insidious having a massive wave of interest when it came out, it still is a modern film so it got lumped in with all the rest. Against everything I was telling myself, I decided to watch it anyway.

With all that said I did actually enjoy the film, and much more than I expected. For about half the movie I was paralyzed on my couch. I just sat there staring with a knot in my stomach. The tension was built up quickly, but mostly free from "BOO" scares. I couldn't stand how well the film was put together and it kept me on edge completely. The people who worked on this movie most definitely have a sense of how to string viewers along without giving them relief.

You might have noticed I said for "half the movie". At some point, the film shifts in tone and it's for the worse.  Insidious is about a family who moves into a new home and feels a little bit odd about the whole place. Then, one of the children goes into a coma and things get amped up from there. It was initially a very tight work which didn't focus on showing you shocking things as much as it was about what you didn't see - it made you wonder. This was great.

Then the film starts to show you. It shows you things which are going on and explains reasons why this all is going on. Sure, it's got an otherworldly edge to the explanations, but it's still an explanation. IT's not always bad as it could have been played off as still entirely creepy but something else happened... They filmmakers started to show off what I assume they thought were their big guns and just went crazy with slamming things at the audience.

They weren't simple scares but they were just showing far too much. It felt like the movie completely shifted gears into a different, and far less subtle/frightening tone. It ruined the film for me in a way because it was just so persistent I lost all sense of fear. Scary things were going on, sure, but they weren't viewed as scary by me anymore. They were just ham-fisted and trying to get a rise out of a more typical Hollywood audience.

Perhaps they couldn't figure out how to bring the film to climax in any other way. However, I'm sure with the skill they exhibited earlier on they could have certainly done something better. Instead, they went with the easy route to shock moviegoers. I'm sure many people enjoyed it overall, but I'm left displeased. If you haven't seen the film, check it out and see how you feel. See if you sense the "shift" too or if I'm just being silly.

The Toolbox Murders

Year: 1978
Director: Dennis Donnelly
Writer: Neva Friedenn, Robert Easter
Genre: Horror: Slasher

Here's one of those early slasher classics that I've avoided watching seriously for a while. It must have something to do with he name... Toolboxes aren't all that interesting and the name is pretty uninspiring. As I watched the first twenty minutes or so it totally seemed that my fears were founded in something tangible too. When you start watching The Toolbox Murders you feel like it's something very dull and that you've probably seen a million times before.

For the first few minutes you're party to watching woman after woman getting herself killed by a murderer who uses tools from his toolbox to kill them. If you turned it off right after the second or third murder I wouldn't blame you. However, it's worth watching past the supremely slow introduction as the film snaps out of it.

After the big murders have been committed then people must work to figure out what's going on. Detectives and friends/family of the victims are all trying to discern what is going on and why. Things get weird, the murder isn't just some faceless unhuman being, and overall the movie is pretty neat. It doesn't do much incredible but for the time period it was at least distinctive.

I'd recommend the film to those who care about slashers but have also avoided it. I found myself pleasantly surprised and hope that others will too. It might also be fun to watch with some friends because there are some strange segments which could definitely get people joking about.