I’m a sucker for low
budget horror movies. Everyone has their “thing” right? The movie version of
comfort food, the visual version of your favorite album, that thing you can
watch constantly and never get tired of. For some folks it’s romantic comedies,
or cartoons, or Stallone movies, or Mystery Science Theater. For me, it’s indie
horror.
90% of
low budget horror is awful. I’m the first to admit it. But the thing is, when I
find that good one, it makes watching those 9 terrible ones worth it.
This
week I played Streaming Roulette and came up with two notable movies; one
notable in the good way, the other in the bad way.
Absentia
In a
quiet neighborhood, a dark force lives in an underpass. It’s not a fearsome
looking tunnel, just an innocuous, run of the mill walk through. But there is
something inside it, something that makes unearthly clicking noises,
accompanied by hellish screams.
A few
houses down the street, Tricia is under a lot of stress. She is very pregnant,
and in the process of having her husband Daniel declared dead in absentia. He
has been missing for 7 years, having simply vanished from the face of the
earth. And as much stress as she thinks she’s under, her blood pressure would
be a lot higher if she could see the ghostly image of her hubby stalking her.
Her
sister Callie, a recovering junkie, has come to stay to Tricia to help her out.
But she knows something is wrong with the tunnel. As she starts to investigate,
the weird occurrences start escalating, and then…
Well,
I don’t want to say anything else. This is an indie movie, so it takes its time
building tension before any real weirdness jumps off; but the plot turns come
unexpectedly, and although the story moves deliberately, there is never a dull
moment.
Writer/director
Mike Flanagan hits this one out of the park, and he does it the old-school way:
very little violence, very few special effects, earning the fear with
characterization and atmosphere. Keep your eye on this cat, he’s got the skills
to take him to the next level.
The
film is well scored, as well. If only those poor folks in the neighborhood
could hear the background music, they would KNOW to avoid that damned tunnel.
Speaking
of terrifying music…
Don’t
Go in the Woods
A
group of hipsters take a camping trip deep in the forest, trying to get away
from distractions and focus on writing some new songs for the band. With no
cell phones, no girlfriends, and no way out, it is the perfect spot to kick out
some wimpy jams. And kick they do! Song after song they sing, until they are
interrupted by a big group of victims… err… girlfriends, who come to surprise
them.
All
the while, a masked figure lurks in the shadows, ready to breathe heavily and
hack off fake-looking limbs.
OK, so
you have all seen a movie like this before. Hell, you might have even seen a
movie with this exact title before (Don’t Go in the Woods was one of the
greatest Friday the 13th rip-offs of the 80s). What makes Don’t Go in the Woods
different is that it’s all about the music, bro.
This
isn’t a long movie, less than 90 minutes, and over half the run time is
comprised of these hipsters singing and earnestly playing their guitars. And
it’s not good. Perhaps in the context of sitting in a coffee house in a black
beret, these would be good songs. But in the context of “hey, I want to watch a
movie about idiots being chopped into kindling by Paul Bunyan’s insane little
cousin” they are damn near insufferable.
And
then when you wade through the songs (which feels like an eternity of wading)
you are only rewarded with amateurish special effects, Z-grade gore, and
off-camera kills. The biggest gross-out moment comes before the opening
credits, and remains, sum and total, the best thing the movie has to offer.
The
movie was directed by Vincent D’Onofrio, one of my favorite character actors.
He’s got this great Christopher Walken/Willem Dafoe quality of being
effortlessly creepy, and I love him for it. And so when I say he needs to stay
in front of the camera, and never direct anything ever again, I say it out of
love.
Love
you Vince! But seriously, don’t go streaming Don’t Go in the Woods.
“What the hell did I just watch?” Said incredulously.
Have you ever muttered that when the final credits roll? Not in the bad way, like with Wolverine Origins or Lords of Salem, but in the good way, because you are stunned into quietude by witnessing something you are still trying to process.
David Lynch set the baseline for these kind of movies; they oft left me dazed and confused, with the distinct feeling there was a larger story at play, and I just hadn’t figured it out quite yet. I could go back and piece through the film again and again, look for clues, and try to understand it all.
Admittedly, these movies aren’t for everyone. But for those of us who dig this kind of challenge, it’s like unwrapping a Christmas present that turns out to be the Lament Configuration filled with hipster Cenobites.
Upstream Color may be the deepest, darkest, most intriguing and perplexing movie this side of Lynch. Writer/director Shane Carruth has wowed audiences with a twisty-turny narrative before, in his debut film Primer, but with his second film he’s operating on a level all his own. He claims that Upstream Color is “un-spoil-able” and he’s right. I could sit here and tell you everything that happens in the movie, and yet the movie would still surprise you.
Impossible, right?
The truly impossible thing would be to explain the film to you without you having seen it. It’s the type of movie that demands – nay, COMMANDS – long discussions about themes, motives, and what the hell actually happened.
A woman is dosed with a drug made from a strange worm with mind expanding qualities. While under the influence, the woman is in a hypnotic state, and a strange man directs her to empty her bank accounts, go into debt, and in all ways ruin her life. Then he leaves, and she has no memory of what happened or why. She meets a man who seems to have gone through the same experience.
They are also both mentally linked to pigs on a remote farm, tended to by a composer who makes music with people’s emotions and memories.
I could go on, but the point is these are details that outside of the context of this beautiful, bizarre, utterly unique film, make no sense. Inside the film, they seem to make sense, but Carruth leaves it to you the viewer to fit the pieces together and look at the big picture.
If you love puzzle-box movies, Upstream Color is can’t miss. It makes Memento seem as simplistic as the Berenstein Bears.
John Dies at the End is an entirely different kettle of weird fish. Director Don Cosscarelli has created a beast that can’t be fit into any box – it blends elements of horror, science fiction, action, and comedy with a heavy dose of philosophy and a healthy disregard for conventional plot structure. This is a movie the likes of which has never been seen, and likely will never be seen again.
Dave and John are low-rent ghost hunters. They drink beer, hang out, and occasionally do battle with demons made out of meat. After a party one night, John tries a drug called Soy Sauce. The Sauce gets you high, but side effects include hallucinations, heightened senses, time displacement, and possible infestation from an inter-dimensional demonic force.
To say any more would take away from the fun of exploring undiscovered country. The film is utterly unpredictable, with fresh onsets of clear-minded lunacy emerging every few minutes to constantly keep you off kilter. The biggest surprise is that the second time through, John Dies seems a lot more linear and easy to understand. But the first time through, you will hardly be able to keep up with it.
Special recognition goes to the cast, who create such endearing characters they manage to make the story feel engaging no matter how crazy it gets. Clancy Brown, Doug Jones, Paul Giamatti, and Glynn Turman are all wonderful in their supporting roles, but the movie really works because Chase Williamson (Dave) and Rob Mayes (John) make you care about them.
Weird, bloody, violent, esoteric… John Dies at the End is one of a kind, in the best possible way.
Weird isn’t always good, of course. Take Rubber, for example. On paper it sounds delightfully weird – a malevolent car tire with mental powers terrorizes a small town – but out on the road it’s nothing but a flat.
Just being weird isn’t good enough, you see. Anyone can be weird. Just look at basically anything on Youtube for confirmation of this. What makes films by creators like Coscarelli, Carruth, David Cronenberg, and David Lynch so mind-bending is the weirdness acting in concert with a good story, and good story-telling.
Rubber plays more like “say, wouldn’t this be weird and cool?” instead of using the medium to make a unique and original film.
With Upstream Color, you may not “get” it, but you can feel you are watching something deep and profound. With John Dies at the End, you’re just trying to keep up with the barrage of the bizarre, but the characters are alive and the script is sharp. But with Rubber, you’re just watching a bunch of weird shit that doesn’t matter. Big difference.
Huge difference.
Binging
on food is bad. Binging on booze is bad (allegedly). Binging on credit card shopping sprees is bad. Basically, anything you can do that can be described with the word “binge” is frowned upon. Except for watching TV and movies, in which case binging is considered a selling point.
I prefer to watch TV shows after they run on TV. This way you get to skip the blasted commercials, watch at your own pace, and basically take control of your own entertainment schedule. This works for me.
But what doesn’t work for me is binge-watching. Maybe it’s a young man’s game, or maybe I broke my binge-bone, but in any event I have come to the realization that binging out on TV is no bueno.
You Don’t Chug Champagne
Remember those wonderful nights in your youth where you and your pals would just chug Boone’s Farm wine straight from the bottle? More than likely in a parking lot of some kind? Even though it’s a fond memory, you still know better than to try the same thing with a magnum of fine bubbly.
Champagne needs to be savored. You sip it, you admire the taste on your tongue, the way the fizz tickles your throat, and the way it gets your light headed with surprising quickness. Guzzling out of a beer bong would only detract from the experience.
And how, pray tell, is Breaking Bad any different?
It’s a textured show, with intricate plot lines, unpredictable stories, and mind-blowing acting (don’t take my word for it, ask Sir Anthony Hopkins; if he were any more of a Breaking fanboy he’d be wearing Aaron Paul’s face as a mask). Why on earth would anyone not want to savor its excellence?
Sure it’s great, and sure you can watch an entire season in one sitting… but Snickers bars are great too, and
common sense tells you not to eat 12 of them in one sitting.
What happens if you do? You stop enjoying them, and start forcing them down your gluttonous maw mechanically, with no more joy.
And that, my friends, leads to the death of loving something great.
It’s Great and I Just Don’t Care
Netflix has two very, very good original shows that I have yet to finish watching. Orange is the New Black, and House of Cards. I won’t give plot summaries for them, because I assume you do not live under a rock. But you know the ones I mean.
Both shows were met with a wave of critical success, and a tsunami of binge-watching. Caught up in the swell, I grabbed onto the bandwagon and climbed aboard.
Both experiences were uncannily similar – on the first exposure to these excellent shows, I binged. I watched 3 episodes of House of Cards in one sitting. When the credits rolled, on instinct I hit NEXT to start the following episode.
About five minutes into it, I paused it. That was three weeks ago, and I haven’t gone back yet. It’s not that I didn’t like the show – in fact I’d be hard pressed to give a negative assessment of any of what I saw – it was just too much of the same thing.
Soon after, I sampled Orange. What a treat that pilot was; smart and funny, yet still well conceived and dramatic. I immediately plowed into the second episode, and the third…
I was chugging the champagne, and it gave me an Orange headache. As I finished that third episode, I said “maybe from here on out I’ll just watch one a week.”
Just because you live in America, and are used to over-indulging, doesn’t mean that you should. And while there are many good reasons to avoid binge-watching tv shows, ultimately there is only one that really matters:
What’s the damn hurry?
Unlike champagne, and unlike Snickers bars, truly great tv shows are not in infinite supply. There are not dozens of warehouses filled with pallets of great stories. They are actually pretty rare.
They are so rare that even shows which are merely “decent” or “pretty good” will get lumped in with
the great ones, simply to shore up the numbers. There are 100 episodes of Fringe, and there won’t be any more. Breaking Bad and Dexter, Twin Peaks and Sopranos, are all finished and finite.
If you chug them now, you’ll be left with nothing good to drink for a while. So why not slow down the pace, savor every episode, and enjoy them while you can.
And when you run out of champagne, then go back to chugging the Boone’s. Or in this case, Revolution.
