The Innkeepers (2011)

Based on viewings of The House of the Devil and now The Innkeepers, I feel prepared to weigh in on writer/director Ti West.

He’s certainly a talented visual stylist; there is some awesome, unsettling snake-crawling camera work in The Innkeepers. He knows how to build tension; his films are painstakingly set up, as the female protagonists become ever-so-slowly enmeshed in a deadly web fueled by their own curiosity.

My beef with West is that in both cases, the payoff falls short. It’s as if he’s used up all his tricks in the first three-quarters of a slow-burning movie before deciding to end the thing with … I dunno, ghosts or some shit. It’s really frustrating.

Nutshell: Claire (the plucky Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) are stuck with desk duty for the last weekend of business at The Yankee Pedlar, a century-old hotel somewhere on the east coast.

Luke has a paranormal website that tracks “supernatural” events from the hotel, as it’s rumored to be haunted by a jilted bride who hung herself several decades earlier.

For the final 48 hours, the bored employees double-down on their investigations in order to get hard evidence of an actual spook.

There is a definite post-modern vibe to The Innkeepers (sassy pants celeb Lena Dunham even has a cameo as an overly chatty barista), that’s somewhat distracting. Luke and Claire are funny and likable, but in a generic, woefully underdeveloped way, and they come across as “types” rather than characters.

Paxton gives it her all, but the film’s transition from meta, self-aware horror movie to genuine horror movie is clumsy. When the ghosts start to make their presence known, I honestly didn’t know whether to prepare myself for scares or to just keep the action at an analytical arm’s length, as I’d done up to now.

The first half of the movie is so … tame and lightly goofy, it could almost be a spooky after-school special or latter-day Disney film. And then there’s ghosts.

This probably isn’t my most articulate review, as I’m still debating the merits of the Ti West oeuvre. What I can say for sure is that there’s something crucial missing from his films, perhaps a willingness on West’s part to commit to either tongue-in-cheek hipster amiability or full-tilt frights.

He’s trying to have his cake and eat it too, and his work seems disjointed, neither fish nor fowl—and his finales are decidedly unsatisfying.

In the words of Mrs. Sharky, who watched this one with me, “That’s it? Hell, this movie could have been 20 minutes long and you wouldn’t have missed a thing.”

In other words, your patience is not rewarded.

Chromeskull: Laid To Rest 2 (2011)

Pardon me while I spill my gushing guts. I admired the heck out of the original Laid To Rest, but the sequel is everything the second installment of a film series should be: bigger, artistically bolder, and rife with disturbing implications. (See Evil Dead—Evil Dead II. )

Like the Raimi films, LTR2 is an evolutionary leap beyond its predecessor, as it takes virtually the same story and creates a whole universe for it to live in. And like Romero’s zombie epics, Chromeskull has the chutzpah to place a modern horror film into the larger and more provocative context of a thoroughly corrupt and predatory society—one that bares a striking resemblance to our own.

Even though writer-director Robert Hall’s sophomore effort isn’t quite in the same league as the aforementioned films and folks, it’s still a bloody good time.

The second film opens just moments after the conclusion of the first: The relentless killer known as Chromeskull (Nick Principe) is apparently kaput after having his noggin pulverized by a pair of plucky survivors, but modern science can do amazing things these days.

The mutilated maniac is heroically raced to a hospital and sewn back together by the finest surgeons money can buy and so embarks on a three-month convalescence. See, it turns out Chromeskull can afford top-drawer health care—he’s friggin’ rich, the CEO of his own shadow corporation.

Like any successful man, he’s got disgruntled employees and ambitious rivals, or in this case both, in the person of his right-hand flunky Preston, played with gonzo panache by 90210‘s Brian Austin Green!

While the boss gets his head back together, Preston entertains ideas of moving up in the company.

Naturally, another woman is methodically stalked and many people are gutted, carved, and filleted in excruciating detail. A big round of applause should be directed to the special makeup effects team of Cris Alex and Joe Badiali, who seem to be cut from the same gruesome cloth as the master himself, Tom Savini.

Laid To Rest 2 is a rockin’ righteous bloodbath. The kills are teeth-gritting in their unfettered savagery, as Chromeskull is clearly a man(?) who loves his work and has a near fetishistic reverence for his tools—which should serve as inspiration to his ungrateful underlings.

Seeing the boss working the line and getting his hands dirty is an increasingly rare thing in corporate America.

The Tall Man (2012)

Is The Tall Man HINO (Horror in Name Only)? Sure, it takes place in a brooding rural slum ala Winter’s Bone (except this one’s on the West Coast—Washington, to be exact), and it’s about a prolific bogeyman who abducts children in a dried-up mining town. But what ensues is a provocatively ambiguous thriller (and yes, it is thrilling) with a fairly blunt social agenda.

Cold Rock, Washington is a mildewing husk of a town decomposing in the overgrown backwoods of Washington. The local Chamber of Commerce undoubtedly has its hands full trying to lure tourists to such a cheerless gray community where 18 children have disappeared over the past few years.

A focused and fascinating Jessica Biel plays Julia, a recently widowed nurse living in the area who tends to the medical needs of the hapless hillbillies in her sector. Shit gets personal when her beloved toddler gets snatched from her house by the legendary “Tall Man.” Julia channels her inner Ellen Ripley and sets out to get her bambino back.

The tag line should have been: “Who’s The Monster Here?” The Tall Man is a brisk, well-crafted, and shifty film that never allows you to get comfortable from any perspective.

And while the supernatural elements are mostly of the red-herring variety, there is a very real horror at its heart—namely are we becoming a society that might require fantastically drastic social engineering in order to survive?

Echoes of P.D. James’ Children of Men and Dennis Lehane’s Gone Daddy Gone bubble to the surface. You have been warned.

Fear Island (2009)

A low-wattage variation of I Know What You Did Last Summer, in which a handful of amoral dirt-bag twentysomethings, who once did a terrible thing, end up paying the piper on a remote island.

Not very bloody, no nudity, and only one plot twist, that’s immediately obvious to anyone who’s seen The Usual Suspects.

What else is there to say? Haylie Duff is in it. Pass.

The Reeds (2010)

Boy, I hate it when my tranquil weekend of boating with friends turns into a blood-soaked nightmare.

After thousands of movies in which a back-to-nature retreat results in death and dismemberment, you’d think people would just stay the eff home. Watch Nature Channel, or some shit. But noo-oo-oo!

Three unexceptional couples hit upon the brilliant idea of renting a boat for a river excursion through a remote British waterway that’s choked with (cue the title) reeds!

So what form of doom will they encounter on their nautical getaway? Ruthless delinquents as in Eden Lake? An insidious beastie from the depths? Piranhas? Killer kelp?

Nope, the crew gets mired in a tragic feedback loop between an angry loner and a bunch of scruffy mute kids, who are seemingly locked in an eternal spiral of antagonism—despite the fact that the rugrats have been dead for decades. Talk about holding a grudge…

The claustrophobic spell cast by the forlorn, colorless landscape gives The Reeds a crucial boost of atmosphere, and the silent band of urchins are a creepy lot. And while director Nick Cohen is possessed of sufficient skills to keep things relatively interesting, it’s a glacially-paced affair without much in the way of action—though the anchor impalement scene was a welcome highlight.

The Reeds is worth a viewing, but only if it’s a slow news day and all your chores are done.

Dread (2009)

A beastly unsettling adaptation of a Clive Barker short story by writer/director Anthony DiBlasi, Dread doesn’t require supernatural elements—other than bad dreams—to really make us squirm in our seats.

Sure, Barker’s psycho-sexual hot potatoes (blood, sex, domination, and cruelly testing one’s limits) are in play, but it’s a character-driven nightmare first and foremost, as a student film about mapping out the territory of fear runs amok and lives are annihilated in the process.

Film student and Johnny Deppleganger Stephen Grace (Jackson Rathbone) meets Quaid (Shaun Evans), a charismatic loner, who wastes no time in reeling his new pal into exploring the roots and boundaries of real fear, and soon a student film project is born.

With the help of Cheryl (Hanne Steen), a fellow film studies major, the young auteurs interview a range of students about their earliest and most profound memories of fear.

Quaid, who seems to be majoring in villainy with a minor in degradation, believes their project lacks juice, so he takes it upon himself to “take things to the next level.”

By the way, never trust anyone who uses this expression.

Dread succeeds on the strength of its well-drawn characters, particularly in the homo-erotic jousting between the curious, but virtuous, Stephen, and the increasingly deranged and manipulative Quaid, a fellow who was obviously, in the words of the most articulate sociopath in the world, Dexter Morgan, “born of blood.”

DiBlasi takes his time, slow-cooking the horror till it’s falling off the bone. And in Quaid we have a charming sadist with his own terrifying baggage, who actually believes he’s helping people “confront the beast” by tormenting them with the things they fear the most, in the hope that they be destroyed and born anew, as fearless warriors.

Needless to say, his victims don’t appreciate the effort. There’s gratitude for you.

The Burning (1981)

Probably the best way to describe The Burning is that it’s a post Friday The 13th knock-off and an interesting conversation piece.

It features a gonzo Exorcist-meets-Yes score by Rick Wakeman, a script that was doctored by future scumbags Bob and Harvey Weinstein, and some recognizable actors in teeny teen roles—and in the case of Holly Hunter, make that downright microscopic.

Yes, that’s Seinfeld foil Jason Alexander as Dave, a wisecracking camper (with a full head of hair!) who miraculously doesn’t get his jugular severed by Cropsy (Lou David), the hideously scarred former camp caretaker out for bloody revenge.

Nutshell: A bunch of snotty boys at summer camp punk Cropsy, the alcoholic caretaker, by placing a burning skull next to his bed. Things get shitty real fast as the clumsy bum catches himself on fire and spends the next five years fuming in a hospital while doctors point and laugh at his freaky face.

Eventually Cropsy leaves, kills a hooker to get warmed up and goes back to camp to carve up the current crop of kids. His weapon of choice is a deluxe pair of hedge clippers.

Were the writers inspired by Cropsey, the legendary Staten Island boogeyman? Well, duh!

Seeing the likes of Alexander, Larry Joshua (The Rundown, NYPD Blue), Leah Ayers (Bloodsport), Fisher Stevens (Short Circuit) and Brian Backer (Fast Times at Ridgemont High) pay their dues as Doomed Campers is worth a giggle or two, but sadly, The Burning is slower than Granny’s bowels.

It takes a whole friggin’ hour for the first camper to get carved! Note to the writing department: we do not now, nor have we ever given a shit who has the hots for whom—unless it leads to a nude scene.

Too much yakkin’ and not enough whackin’ is no way to create horror history.

Fortunately, director Tony Maylam had the good sense to leave the gruesome special effects to the best in the business, namely Tom Savini (Friday The 13th, Dawn of the Dead, Maniac, and so many more).

So by the time Cropsy finally gets around to some serious slicing and dicing, the blood arrives in buckets, including a sensational canoe sequence where he wastes five kids in a flurry fit for a ninja.

Worth a look.

Silent House (2011)

Seldom have I had such a thoughtful and productive conversation while sitting through a “haunted house” movie. For this I should thank my brainy friend Kaja Katamay who chose to watch it with me. Since there’s very little dialog, we were free to analyze, theorize, and hypothesize all through Silent House and not miss a word. (And no one told us to STFU!) Our observations about the characters proved uncannily accurate: I suggested that Sarah (Elizabeth Olsen, fetching younger sister of Ashley and Mary-Kate) behaved as though she’d suffered a traumatic episode, and Kaja suspected the supporting cast of treachery. Right on both counts.

Nutshell: Sarah meets up with her father, John (Adam Trese), and Uncle Peter (Eric Sheffer Stevens) to help fix up and hopefully flip the family summer house. Things don’t work out quite as well they do on Property Brothers, as Sarah becomes increasingly anxious while wandering through the rambling hacienda. Just so you know: the house is completely boarded up to discourage vandals. There’s no electricity. Cell phones no workee.

Directors Chris Kentis and Laura Lau—who previously helmed Open Water, chose to film Silent House in real time as if it were one continuous shot. It wasn’t, but this audacious gambit definitely adds a sense of first-person urgency to the events as they unfold, especially as Sarah gets closer and closer to the heart of darkness. By the way, Elizabeth Olsen acquits herself quite well in what must have been a demanding role. As Sarah, she’s a 21st century upgrade to the Scream Queen: she’s a victim who tries ineffectually to keep her fear buried in the sub-conscious, until she has no choice but to fight back—and emerge triumphant.

Devil (2010)

I missed the memo on why exactly M. Night Shyamalan is now considered such a lame-o. I didn’t see Lady in the Water and I started to watch The Happening but bailed out for some mundane reason unrelated to the quality of the film.

So what happened? Did these two movies suck so unbelievably badly that they reduced the Shyamalan brand to a punch line? And now I’ve built up such a load of anxiety that I can’t bring myself to watch them.

I didn’t realize Devil was co-written and produced by Shyamalan or I might have steered clear, but I’m reasonably glad that I didn’t. Sure, it’s rife with his trademark glib spirituality (or Old Testament as folklore) with a side dish of “you just gotta believe sometimes.”

Even so, it’s a modestly effective thriller about five people trapped in an elevator—one of whom might be Lucifer.

Taking place in a thoroughly modern skyscraper in a thoroughly modern metropolis, five seemingly unrelated people get into an elevator car and become trapped between floors. A dramatic storm sent by obviously sinister forces moves into the area and messes with the electrical system, so getting them out proves complicated.

Detective Bowden (Chris Messina) is the cop on the scene who attempts to organize their rescue, with some help from Ramirez (Jacob Vargas), a particularly devout building security guard who doesn’t like what he’s seeing on the video monitor from the stranded elevator.

Devil offers legitimately frightening scenes as the trapped characters begin freaking out from the steadily increasing paranoia, claustrophobia, and growing suspicion that one among them is not what he/she seems.

More than just a morality play (although there are similarities), the story hangs on a basic Twilight Zone premise that Satan is real, and that from time to time he likes to go out amongst the people in the guise of a particularly unpleasant collections agent.

Seriously, if you’re on this list, you have very few options.

Creature (2011)

Lucky me! I was in the mood for a good ol’ monster matinee and I found one.

It ain’t exactly Ingmar Bergman, but it gets the job done; the horror movie equivalent of a shot and a beer. Creature more than meets the minimum daily requirement of gore and casual nudity, with just enough plot to complement, rather than complicate, the visual carnage.

A half-dozen camping buddies pitch their tents in a remote patch of the Louisiana bayou (“They’re dead already!” I shouted gleefully at the dogs) after being told the tale of Grimly, a local legend that haunts the vicinity searching for food—and a bride.

Note to Doomed Campers: Is your skepticism really more powerful than the possibility that a local legend has some basis in fact? Use your heads people!

Anyway, Grimly is a monstrous human-gator hybrid worshipped by the indiginous population (hillbillies swamp rats), who pass the time of day steering tourists toward the wonders of the bayou.

I’m not sure what the swamp rats get out of this arrangement, but Grimly has a well-stocked pantry and uh, lots of brides. Yes, I am fully aware that the suggestion of a gator-man impregnating some unfortunate lass is going to be a deal-breaker in most households, but the concept does goes back to Greek mythology.

Fortunately, there’s no onscreen miscegenation. And in the interest of full disclosure, I’ll also mention there’s a recurring subplot about incest. Taboos mean nothing when you live in a swamp, I suppose.

The campers are actually a better lot than the usual walking cliches, thankfully eschewing the typical Jock-Nerd-Stoner-Slut-Virgin hierarchy.

Instead, we get a pair of not-too-stupid veterans from Afghanistan, a weird brother and sister team (sshhh!), and the soldiers’ nubile girlfriends, who have no qualms about doffing their duds when the mood strikes them.

The swamp rats include name actors Sid Haig (Chopper) and Pruitt Taylor Vince (Grover) who both lend dependable gravitas to Fred Andrews’ often distracted direction. Speaking of Sid Haig, there’s even a Spider Baby reference!

As for the monster itself, after suffering through an endless parade of shitty CGI creatures that look like they were created on an old Amiga computer, a big guy in a halfway decent rubber suit works just fine for me—even though at times Grimly suspiciously resembles an off-duty Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sans shell.

I’d also like to give a shout-out to the Louisiana film industry, who seem to be doing a bang-up job of luring horror movie companies to bayou country, pumping needed money into local economies.

Strong work, one and all!