I've seen both You're Next and The Innkeepers recently and seeing as though there seems to be some kind of friendly connection between the directors, (they both directed segments of the dire V/H/S and Ti West actually appears in You're Next) I decided to pit them against each other. Both films suffer from some failings of current (and past) horror films: a reliance on loud noises for scares, characters who split up and go into dark rooms armed only with a torch, and worst of all not being horrific or scary in the slightest. Now let's get to the differences.
You're Next bucks the trend of having a heroine who starts off weak and then increases in strength throughout the film. Erin (Sharni Vinson fromHome and Away)is a different character altogether. She goes to a dinner party with her partner Crispian at his family's home. They have a bit of snap accompanied by some not too pleasant chat - Crispian gets accused of baby-snatching by his brother - and then the film turns into a house under siege type affair as the family gets attacked by blokes in white animal masks.
Erin is a strong character right from the off. Problems are thrown her way and she just sorts them with ruthless efficiency. Normally I would be applauding the use of a strong female character (let's face facts, Hollywood seems to have forgotten all about them in Prometheus and Gravity) but here she's too strong, almost to the point of being super powered. It's as if kryptonite didn't exist in the Superman universe. I never felt that she was in any danger. It's more along the lines of Rorschach being sent to prison in Watchmen (and indeed Daredevil in The Devil, Inside and Out), he's not in prison with them, they're in prison with him. In those examples, it's completely cool, but here it kills any tension and destroys any chance of this being scary in the slightest. (It doesn't help matters either that the other female characters run around screaming at every single minor thing that happens.)
Two other problems I have with You're Next are the colour palette and the severe lack of gore. This has to be one of the most beige films going. Hearing the director talking to the colour grader must have been a thrill-a-minute, "No, that's way too much colour. I can actually see a blue pixel there. Make it more beige. Ah, that's better. Nice and bland." Then the gore: it feels more like a slasher from the eighties where severe censorship was rife. It looks like it's been cut badly and that somewhere out there is a director's cut that has all of the juicy violence reinstated. I doubt this is the case though.
The Innkeepers suffers massively from the stupid characters syndrome also but it gets away with it due to a fantastically likeable performance from Sara Paxton (a distant relation to Bill Paxton). Her reactions to scary occurrences are priceless and had me chuckling away at the sheer quirkiness of it all. It distracted me from the low quality of the actual scares.
Claire (Sara Paxton) works at a soon to be abandoned hotel with her friend Luke (Pat Healy) and they are trying to investigate stories of a ghost that supposedly roams the hotel for Luke's new website. Funnily enough, spooky things start to happen.
Ti West's film suffers from the same thing as his previous film The House of the Devil: a great central performance that has the viewer caring for the main character, a fantastic slow build up that lasts for the majority of the film, and then a useless ending that is over way too quick. In the finale things start to kick off, there's a bit of running around (with the obligatory torch) and then she hits a problem. One problem. That's your lot. She doesn't overcome successively difficult trials to reach a thrilling climax. No. Just the one. If Ti West can put together a slow burning start with a meaty ending he may be able to produce a cracking film. As it is...
If I had to sum up You're Next in one word it would be 'smug'. There is a pervasive sense of smugness to the whole production. Whereas, the word I would use for The Innkeepers would be 'charming'. Shame about the ending which badly cripples the overall rating but I would still watch it again. Anyway, let's see the final score for these two horror offerings. You're Next - 2/10 The Innkeepers - 5/10 evlkeith If you like these you could also try: A Horrible Way to Die, The House of the Devil.
This is another film that I got for a quid. So I wasn't expecting much. In fact, on recent form, I was expecting it to be dire (Dying Breedwas pretty useless and I only got five minutes into Scarce before I turned it off). I was even preparing a witty They Wait... For Paint to Dry gag. I'd already hit gold with Shuttle, another pound shop wonder, so I couldn't see it happening again anytime soon.
After living in Shanghai for some years, Sarah (Jaime King) goes back to America with her husband and son to attend a family funeral. It's a ghost story so ghostly stuff starts to occur very quickly. Not as creepy as The Ring, but vaguely similar.
It's not another Shuttle but it's not too bad. This is a film that is definitely more than the sum of its parts. The acting isn't the greatest. Jaime King veers from acceptable to completely unconvincing and the rest of the cast are a mixed bunch. Easily my favourite is the wise Pharmacist (Henry O). Like the shopkeeper in Gremlins he brings a mysticism to the film that raises it above the average useless ghost story (The Entityis a prime example). Michael Biehn is in it too but only plays a (very) minor role and is instantly forgettable. What is he going to do though? He's only given about a minute of screen time.
The cinematography is pretty good and everything looks suitably filmic. The director allows the film to play out without any flashy editing or stylistic choices. Which is good. The special effects meanwhile, are not the greatest. Just the usual low quality CGI, perhaps a bit lower than normal. One of the best effects, involving a minor cleaver in head accident, is a practical effect funnily enough.
For a ghost story, it's not scary. Well, it could be scary if you've never seen one before but for seasoned ghost story professionals it's a walk in the park. Apart from one scare. Yep, one bit made me jump. There are not that many films that can claim to do that nowadays. Well done They Wait, go and get yourself a 10p mix.
The end sequence elevates the film from a low average to mildly interesting. Sarah has to take fairly extreme steps to save the day and there is some audience participation to be had as she nearly gets drawn into hell for eternity. Not brilliant but fun nonetheless. That's pretty much the film in a nutshell: Not brilliant, but fun. 5/10 evlkeith
If you like this you could also try: The Haunting, The Ring, A Tale of Two Sisters.
It was all going so well... then Derverlar Kirwans makes an appearance. No, give it a chance Mr Keith, it might surprise you. Okay then, let's have a look at it...
Derverlar Kirwans plays TV psychic Ruth Peacock, on a trip to a site where some people were killed in Russia. Her film crew hope that she finds something interesting to bolster their ratings. Suffice to say some ghostly occurrences happen.
So it's a ghost story. What's the first thing that springs to mind? Scary jumpiness. Yep. Well forget that, you'll not find any of that here. What you do get are loud noises (yawn) and the camera being thrown about in wild abandon. Confusion instead of shocks. Useless.
The fact that the director said that Paranormal Activity was an influence and how it made tonnes of money shows how cynical this film is. Sadly, the director can't even get a jump out of a still camera focussed on a room, a technique central to the above film. All you need to do is get something to quickly move, accompanied by a bang and Robert's your mum's brother. Nope, they didn't even get that right.
Now, I was willing to give Derverlar Kirwans a chance but her character is so devoid of character that I was hoping that Derek Acorah might pop up and take over. The presenter of the fictional programme 'Darkest Secrets', Kate (Charlotte Riley) is moderately watchable but suffers badly at the hands of the script. Another character advises her that they need to get out quickly. She acknowledges this and then proceeds to faff about on her laptop for ten minutes (using her quality 'Darkest Secrets' proprietary editing software).
The TV programme premise leads to the next problem: the film intercuts between proper footage and footage that the fictional camera operator is taking. The only difference is that one is handheld, the other isn't. It really jars as there needs to be a greater difference between the two types of footage. The 'found footage' style shots are fine but the proper supposedly filmic footage just doesn't look good enough.
The overly spelt out ending doesn't help matters either. You're told at least three different times what's happening. I'd got it the first time, thank you very much. Plus, the ending doesn't link back to the theme of the film, it's simply a way to end the whole sorry mess. Add to that the fact that the first section of the film looks like it was filmed in the little forest outside the back of my house (Russia, my bottom) and virtually every element of the film is designed to pull you out of the experience and remind you that you're watching a film. Not good for building tension.
While Dominic Brunt has got a future in horror, either in front or behind the camera. Derverlar Kirwans hasn't. The best thing about this film was that I had a really good rant with a pint afterwards. This is a dire film, not as bad as V/H/S, but still really bad. Avoid like syphilis. (There's a quote to put on the poster.) 1/10 evlkeith If you like this you could also try: Paranormal Activity, Lake Mungo.
A mysterious radio message is received by a South Korean base in Vietnam 1972. Problem is, the message is from a unit long assumed to be dead. Lieutenant Choi Tae-in (Woo-seong Kam) is sent to investigate accompanied by a group of eight other soldiers...
Early on, a gravestone acts as the film's 'Crazy Ralph', warning quite cheerily, that everyone is going to die. Good news for Co-op Funeralcare then. But is the threat psychological or supernatural? Have the horrors of war affected the soldiers so entirely that their paranoia and mental trauma cause them to start offing each other (sounds dodgy) or is it a ghostly presence hell-bent on vengeance?
My main concern about R-Point is the virtual complete lack of characterisation. Apart from the Lieutenant and Sergeant Jin (Byung-ho Son), who are barely sketched, the other characters are so ill-defined that you lose track of who is who and why you should care about them. From watching the Special Features it is clear that the actors knew their characters but it doesn't come across in the final edit of the film. The script seems to revolve around the soldiers calling each other 'assholes'. I counted at least 15,000 uses of the word. In one minute.
Given that, there are some genuinely creepy moments: the first shot of an abandoned mansion wreathed in mist is absolutely gorgeous and the sight of a silent unit moving steathily (and ghostily) through long grass before disappearing into the ground hints at some spookiness to come. It never really delivers on this promise though, with the final third descending into a blood-bath, with not too much blood: it is only rated 15 after all (I know, the cover at the top states 18, but my version is definitely 15 and it doesn't warrant being an 18). The ending doesn't answer all the questions I had and actually seems to confuse the issue. The Director wished that he had included an epilogue to answer some of these questions. Me too.
R-Point has potential but ultimately fails due to its lack of characterisation and scares. It's not all doom and gloom though: there is a scene of some quality crazy dancing which goes some way towards justifying the cost of the DVD. The Special Features are fairly extensive detailing the film-making process and showing the heat that the crew and actors had to work in. As a whole package it's quite enjoyable, but the film on its own... 3/10 evlkeith
If you like this you could also try: Deathwatch, Outpost, The Bunker.
I saw this nearly two years ago at the Celluloid Screams festival in Sheffield. It's only just come out on DVD. I can't believe it hasn't been picked up for release sooner.
It's been worth the wait. Most horror films now aren't scary in the slightest. Perhaps I've seen too many. Possibly. Lake Mungo sent actual shivers down my spine at least three times. When I first saw it, there was one massive shock that stuck with me. On second watching, I was expecting what I remembered, rather than what actually happened and it didn't have the same effect. I will have to try watching it again.
Lake Mungo is a ghost story. A family is devastated by the drowning of their daughter (Talia Zucker). The film follows their life after the event and how they cope with their grief.
The documentary style to the proceedings gives the film verisimilitude (always wanted to write that, probably haven't used it properly on account of me being a thick northerner). The acting is perfect throughout the film. It would have only taken one duffer to pull you out of the film but it doesn't happen. The dad (David Pledger) is truly excellent, smiling at times that seem wholly inappropriate, but you do see people in real-life do this as a coping mechanism. The actors who don't actually have massive speaking parts are also great. For example, the granddad sits looking down and nervously playing with his fingers whilst his wife speaks to the camera. Exactly what you'd expect.
As a mystery, it doesn't work quite so well. The revelations are all unnerving and get darker towards the end but they are not necessarily linked. I was initially disappointed by this, as I've been conditioned by other films to like mysteries where events have a knock on effect. Doesn't happen here. Now, I think it makes the film more realistic. In life, events are not always connected.
Rumour has it that there's going to be an inevitable remake. Why? Surely the fact that it's Australian adds even more to the reality of the film. Watch this rather than wait for the sub-standard version. A welcome break from insipid overly shiny HD horrors. 9/10 evlkeith
If you like this you could also try: Paranormal Activity, Rec, The Silent House.
