Ezekiel Z. Swinford as Shane Elizabeth Maxwell as Amber Kelsey Pribilski as Chloe Don Daro as Mike Evan Michael Glover as Nelson Michael Morford as Billy
Release Date
2018
Language(s)
English
Running Time
94 minutes
Virgin Cheerleader in Chains. I originally couldn’t believe the title of the movie when I saw it. All I knew was that I had to watch it. At only 94 minutes, it wouldn’t be that much of a time commitment. Even if it was bad, it might have some cheesy moments. However, after having watched the film, I can say I was pleasantly surprised with Paulo Filho and Gary Gannaway’s meta comedy horror movie. It’s smart, quirky, and fun enough for fans of the genre to give it a whirl.
The movie follows a group of friends as they try and film a low budget horror movie and end up getting more than they bargained for. But the plot really isn’t the main focus of the movie – it’s just a tool to allow the story to do clever and witty things. The way the film is cut together constantly forced me to pay attention to see how resulting scenes would play out. A good example, is the on the point dialogue. A scene will have characters kind of lament and make fun of horror cliches and then within the scene or the next scene, something will happen related to that initial commentary. It’s intentionally over the top and in your face about it, which for me made it all the funnier. It was a risky decision, but I thought it came off just right. Think closer to Scream than the Scary Movies. My only issue is that this incredibly direct set-up only happens a few times during the run-time, and I thought it was the best part of the movie. There are attempts at jokes made through more conventional meta jokes (whatever that means), but it never feels as unique as the more over the top scenes. There was one scene in particular where I had to go and pause the movie because of how much I started laughing , which I was surprised at.
Aesthetically the film is hit or miss (mainly hit). Most shots are well composed and look professional despite the low budget of the movie. However, certain shots stick out like a sore thumb. In particular, the nature traversal shots look out of place and more amateur. There are also these weird nightmare sequences in the first act that wonky and last too long. They didn’t creep me out as much as ruin my immersion in whatever was going on. Thankfully, the practical effects are great. There’s a lot of blood and a lot of moments of in your face violence. I’m more squeamish, so I had to look away at times, but fans of splatter films should rejoice. Set design is also great, and I appreciate the attention to detail. In particular, the house used for the third act oozes creepiness and I loved the way the way the rooms felt.
Finally, let’s talk about the acting. There are some performances in this movie I absolutely adored. Elizabeth Maxwell’s performance as Amber was amazing and she restored my faith in film after some shaky performances from others in the first act. Her “audition” scene had me crying in laughter after its conclusion and I appreciated it. Kelsey Priblinski is also great at Chloe and really starts to come to life when she gets “certain” suspicions about other characters. The scenes they have together were some of my favorite and oozed personality. However, there’s one one character that made me irritated in almost every scene they were in. Billy. I have no idea why he’s in the script- none of his jokes ever land, and he just feels like a walking racist caricature. I can’t blame Michael Morford too much for his portrayal of Billy, because it felt like the script forced the character to just be horribly unfunny. The accent probably made it worse, but that feels like a script decision. Otherwise, outside of some weaker performances in the first act, the acting is pretty good and believable.
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TLDR
Virgin Cheerleader in Chains is funny and smart ,despite feeling uneven at times. I appreciated it’s meta-commentary and wish it had just gone further with it, but the incredibly fun third act was well worth it. Go out and support smaller movies, so we can continue to get cool innovative stuff.
Rating
7.3/10
Grade
C
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Adrienne King as Alice Peter Brouwer as Steve Laurie Bartram as Brenda Kevin Bacon as Jack Mark Nelson as Ned Jeannine Taylor as Marcie Robbi Morgan as Annie
The full moon appears. The campers sing at Camp Crystal Lake in 1958. Campers gather around the campfire while singing. A POV shot through the the children’s cabins.The moon gains prominence. A young couple starts to make love while being watched by an outside party. The couple is killed. The camera freezes the frame on the victims face, pushes into it, and then fades to white. The title screen breaks through the glass along with score. The opening scene evokes shades of John Carpenter’s Halloween. A POV camera stands in for a killer who murders a couple after they’ve begun to intimate as the track whispers “ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma” in the background to the swell of an orchestra. It’s effective, to the point, and a perfect encapsulation of what the movie is about.
Clouds go over the full moon as the camera tracks down from the celestial object to a campground, Camp Crystal Lake. The year is 1958. People inside one of the cabins sing a cheery camp song. The film cuts away to an POV shot. It’s subject wades through the campground and looks at the children. Meanwhile, the cheery diegetic track gives way to a more foreboding non-diegetic set of orchestral noises accompanying a whisper-like chant: “ki-ki-ki-ma-ma ma”. The film cuts back to the cabin where the cheery song is being sang and the ominous track dissipates for a moment.
After the singing is done, two of the camp counselors sneak off to enjoy the indiscretions of youth. A close-up of the foreboding moon comes up for a brief moment before the film cuts back to the couple as they vacate to a empty cabin and go upstairs to enjoy more sensual pleasures. However, just as they start getting intimate, the film cuts back to the POV shot and its subject. The non-diegetic chant comes back in and continues to increase in intensity. Suddenly, the subject is face to face with the couple who realizes they’re being watched. The two of them get up and make some excuses to the figure – clearly someone they both know. However, the subject slashes and kills both of them. The camera pushes in on the final victim’s face, cementing the expression of fear before the screen dissolves into an intense flash of white light; the title card shoots forward and breaks the glass screen.
Now, the year is 1980 and the story picks up on a group of camp counselors who have been hired by the owner of the Camp Crystal Lake campground, Steve (Peter Brouwer) to help him with his attempt at re-opening the location. As each of the youthful characters makes their way towards the camp, they run into locals who inform them of site and its terrifying reputation. The townspeople try and warn the new counselors of previous incidents at the camp like a drowning in 1957 and the murders of 1958 to get the youthful bunch to quit, but the youngsters refuse and set-up shop at camp with Steve, getting the campsite ready for a grand re-opening. Unfortunately for them, the movie’s opening moments has informed the viewer of the threat of murderer, so the seeds for the carnage are now allowed to bloom.
If the structure of the opening feels familiar, it’s because the movie intentionally emulates the footsteps of John Carpenter’s seminal classic, Halloween. There’s a scene of conjugal innocence interrupted by a killer whose point-of-view becomes the camera’s view. There’s an iconic theme and music profile associated with the terror; composer Harry Manfredini’s “ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma” whisper replaces John Carpenter’s terrorizing synths. This is all intentional; director Sean Cunningham and screen-writer Victor Miller wrote the film explicitly to ride on Halloween’s success and capitalize on what they thought were its strong points for as cheap as possible. [1]Kennedy, M. (2019, December 7). How Halloween directly inspired Friday the 13th. ScreenRant. Retrieved October 2, 2021, from https://screenrant.com/halloween-movie-inspired-friday-the-13th-franchise/.
However, it’s precisely where the movie openings diverge from one another where the issues effecting Friday the 13th can be made clear. Halloween ends its opening sequence by revealing that its killer is a young boy, Michael, shocking the audience and setting it’s story’s dark tone. The film’s use of the P.O.V shot disguises the identity of the killer but reveals their modus operandi and points of focus. However, once the initial act of murder is done, the P.O.V shot is flipped to a traditional view of the subject and the viewer is aghast and made aware that the killer is not normal and is out of synch with the “morally righteous” world. Because the killer is treated as a heinous monster the film is able to focus less on developing their character; through just their screen presence, the killings are made terrifying enough and the tension stems from following the victims that have to deal with the killer who is beyond any reason or comprehension. This creates multiple points of interest and tension.
But Friday the 13th treats the identity of its killer as the driving force of the narrative, generating tension from the possibility of the killer being any of the characters. Yet, because the story gives no clues about the nature of the identity of the killer till late into the third act when the reveal is all but inevitable and also doesn’t make any of the victims interesting in their own right outside of being possible red herrings, there’s absolutely no narrative momentum. Given the movie’s release context and the nature of its killer, it makes sense that Miller wanted to ensure there was no chance the killer’s identity would be revealed. However, because the focus is so stringent on maintaining “perfect” mystery until the moment of the reveal, there’s no reason to care about the movie, sans bits of gory fun, until that moment happens. Naturally, this puts the brunt of the thematic and emotional weight of the narrative on the killer’s reveal and reasoning for acting as they did, but Friday the 13th’s set-up is convoluted to say the least and does not spend nearly enough time laying the seeds for these revelations to feel earned.
Even within the context of the violence, there’s no effort made at establishing any kind of clues regarding the killer’s psychological profile. While Halloween spends little time characterizing its killer, it does relish in showing off its killers macabre decisions to give the viewer room to think about the nature of the killer’s thoughts; there’s an unease generated by trying to and and eventually making sense of the grim choices being made. Friday the 13th doesn’t even try to show personality behind the butchering; while the nature of the kills sequences are all creative by the standards of the time, there’s no connective tissue between them that would lead even a diligent viewer to gleam any meaningful information about the killer’s identity or reasoning for acting in the way they do.
This means the movie, up till the killers reveal, is functionally irrelevant character interaction and nicely put together gore sequences. No character, sans the killer, has a motivation that the viewer can latch onto as a reason to root for anyone through their trials and tribulations. While the group of “protagonists”, though calling them that feels like a stretch in itself, is generally likable, nothing inventive or fruitful ever happens because of or between the characters to distinguish them in meaningful fashion. Unfortunately, this makes the murderous moments ones with low stakes and subsequently renders the characters’ deaths as nothing more than beautiful bits of carnage candy.
But even without stakes, delightful gore with no narrative fat is certainly appealing, depending on the viewer, in its own right and that’s what Friday the 13th excels at delivering. The characters become blood-soaked paintbrushes in makeup designerTom Savini’s hands, conjuring up visions of the macabre and grotesque. Cunningham relishes in the sensuality of the violence and setting up the bodies in cruel and tragic fashion. This effect is accentuated because the movie only shows a few of the murders; selective moments of mutilation engender a matrix of fear which makes the reveal of other bodies all the worse. Because the moments of brutality are incorporated selectively, they actually manage to be shocking. This is why in spite of being light on plot, the film still manages to unnerve. While the characters may not be all that relatable, the way their bodies are violated certainly makes one a bit squeamish concerning their own flesh. It’s no wonder then that in spite of its own inception as a Halloween clone, Friday the 13th has managed to leave its own indelible mark on the slasher genre, demonstrating that good enough gore can make up for a lot.
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TLDR
Friday the 13th functions more as a vehicle for slaughter than a deeper foray into the human condition, providing the audience little more than momentarily evocative carnage candy until the explosive reveal of the killer’s true identity and motivations. Though there’s little subtext and the mystery driving the heart of the story is unfairly withheld from the audience until its reveal, the ride the movie takes viewers is fun even decades after its initial release in theatres. For those fans looking for quick, brisk, and to the point slasher-fare, Friday the 13th more than holds up.
Rating
7.4/10
Grade
C+
Go to Page 2for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
As a child nothing scared me more than “Bloody Mary.” I was only in elementary school when I heard the tale, and the “true stories” of the awful bloody things that happened to their second-cousins-brother’s friend (you know what I’m talking about) , and I promised myself I would never play the game. Even now as an adult, I respect that oath out of the fear of what could happen. After watching Bernard Rose’s supernatural-slasher, Candyman, I have one more name to add to the list of names never to utter in front of any mirror.
The story follows a pair of graduate students, Helen (Virginia Madsen) and Bernie (Kasi Lemmons) as they write their thesis on urban myths. As luck would have it, the Cabrini-Green housing project near them , has experienced a death, supposedly at the hands of the urban myth, Candyman. A murder and a community believing in that the murder was caused by a spirit? That sounds like the perfect location for students writing about urban myths and Helen quickly springs into action learning all about Candyman. Like Mary, he can be summoned by anyone who chants his name 5 times in front of a mirror. Upon being summoned he will brutally eviscerate the one who dared to summon him. Helen, being a firm non-believer, treats the rumor as a myth and proceeds through with the ritual. What follows is a tightly knit tale about gender, race, gentrification, and the mystical nature of belief.
What helps the story work is how real it feels. The community at Cabrini-Green aren’t caricatures of our worst fears of what the “hood” is. They’re heterogeneous and breathe life into a community that gets demonized, not only in the movie, but in real life as well. The shocking reality of social imbalances set in, and the way that characters react and approach different situations highlights those fears. When the cleaning ladies talk about how Ruthie Jean called the police twice about someone coming for her she gets ignored. It’s palpable and reveals just how warped the system has become. Violence becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in a community when they’re arbitrarily relegated to the periphery for no other reason than their skin color.
Furthermore, the juxtaposition of Helen, a young white women, and Bernie, a young black women going into a black community was magnificent. They respond to different scenarios in ways to highlight not only character differences, but also social differences. When they enter the downtrodden community, Helen’s primary concern is finding information about the myth, while Bernie scared for her life. The whole way their first interaction plays out during this act only amplifies the way their positions change the way they think about themselves and what can/cannot happen to them. This becomes even more interesting when Helen goes through multiple revelations that complicate her relation to both the community and the legend of Candyman.
Speaking of Helen, Virginia’s performance is nuanced and emotionally resounding. The long reaction shots on her eyes help convey the depth of her emotional state. She goes from confident, to resourceful, to mystified, to paranoid, and so on. At no point do any of these shifts feel out of place or odd. They all feel authentic and make emotional beats in the story feel that much more poignant. After doing some background reading, I appreciated the extra effort she put in. For certain scenes, she actually let herself get hypnotized so that she would look dazed and mystified. Although, after witnessing Tony Todd’s performance as Candyman, and hearing his authoritative but hypnotic voice, I could see how someone could be entranced by him. But make no mistake, he is sinister.
The film is also shot well. The use of long pan transition shots makes the dread feel like it’s moving along. But the most interesting thing the movie does is insert stills constantly. Iconic images from the movie appear at key moments. They don’t feel intrusive, but are provocative and help foreshadow the meaning and metaphysical positions of key characters.
Rating
TLDR:Candyman, is a well-woven tale that analyzes multiple pressing social issues without ever feeling preachy or patronizing. It’s provocative and aesthetically haunting.
Final Rating: 10/10. Anyone who wants to experience a beautiful commentary on social positions/issues while also being scary, in a more visceral way should watch this movie. It’s a masterpiece.
When the narration started at the beginning of the movie I knew I was in for a rough ride. The expectation is set – you know what you’ll see will be heinous and grotesque- and then the camera goes from a series of camera flashes over a series of red disturbing images, before cutting away to a decomposing, grotesque cadaver sculpture. Through this immaculate progression, Tobe Hooper was able to set the pace and tone of the movie, while creating an initial shock to get the viewers ready for the slasher horror to come in his seminal independent movie, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
We follow a group a of young 20 something’s with no care in the world as they attempt to check on the graveyard of the titular character Sally’s (played by Marilyn Burns) grandfather. After they check and leave the station, they end up picking up a hitchhiker and everything starts to go downhill from there. The unsuspecting and happy-go-lucky group are forced to endure nightmarish events and visuals.
When everything goes to hell in a hand-basket, the camera really helps amplify the tension and induces a panicking feeling. The camera dips and turns, slants sideways, quickly zooms in, and constantly keeps the viewer on edge. It perfectly highlights the chaos and disorientation of later scenes, creating a morbid dread. The lighting is also incredibly interesting. A lot of the horror/scenes leading up to those moments have a lot of sunlight in them. The juxtaposition created with the grotesque and inhumane acts with a sunny background, really highlighted how nefarious and isolated the main environment is. It helps highlight the hopelessness, which along with some early foreshadowing, really makes some character fates tragic.
All of this is even more surprising, when you realize the movie, unlike its titles suggestion, isn’t especially gory. The violent scenes aren’t scary because there’s tons of blood and guts, or a lot of loud bumps. The movie is scary because it puts you in a paranoid and disturbed state of mind, and forces you to confront the way you’ve normalized and participated in “violent” actions.
The way the movie introduces it’s villain and their subsequent actions really drives the point home- humanity is capable of awful, violent things. From the way it parodies elements of family life, to its commentary on our relationship to food, the movie constantly makes it clear- humanity is its own worst enemy. What we see as depraved, is merely those undercurrents amplified. The movie honestly feels like it’s bringing to light the worst subconscious traits and tendencies we have as a species, and forcing us to really confront those things.
I felt scared and uncomfortable the whole time the film. From the opening scene to the very end, I never felt “safe.” That kind of feeling is rare and unsettling. It’s also really surprising because I saw Poltergeist earlier last week, and after realizing that Hooper directed both films, was in a positive shock. Some of the visual effects in that movie make a lot more sense now that I know it came from the same mind that made this nightmare. It also made me appreciate how well he, as a director, could capture different moments of horror.
Check out my spoiler thoughts where I go in more intensively on some themes and why the movie felt as unsettling as it did.
Rating
TLDR:The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is an incredibly frightening and grotesque look at the undercurrent of our psyches.
Final Rating: 10/10. Chilling. Innovative. Revolutionary. If you want to feel scared, genuinely scared and off balance, watch this movie. People who like slashers or artistic takes on the dark undercurrents of humanity should also check it out.
Based on a true story text. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) is tucked away within frames in the frame. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) is lost in thought. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) turns to answer the landlady. The landlady (Dee Wallace) wants Samantha to take the apartment. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) stares down at the place’s listing. The price is out of her range. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) walks back to her dorm room as the title card drops. The opening sets the tone with its healthy sprinkle of 70’s and 80’s horror homages and references to the Satanic Panic gripping the times. The milieu sets expectations, so we know what to expect. Samantha’s good luck is going to very quickly run out.
The film opens with text claiming that it’s based on a true story regarding the Satanic Panic of the 80’s. The text fades to black which then fades into to a view of a room. A young woman, Samantha (Joceline Donahue), can be seen framed by a set of doorways and shadows; she’s tucked away within the space. The camera slowly zooms in to get a better perspective of her; she’s lost in thought and the long zoom only exemplifies the intensity of her deliberation.
Suddenly, an older woman (Dee Wallace) approaches Samantha from behind and asks the latter if she enjoys the apartment unit. Samantha snaps back to reality, turns around, and claims it’s perfect. The landlady is enthused by the response. She claims that she didn’t like another applicant who seemed like trouble and would rather Samantha, someone who reminds her of her own good-natured daughter, move into the location instead.
But while the residence appears to be perfect, it’s clear there’s an issue. Samantha gazes apprehensively at the listing’s price and the reason for her earlier indecision simultaneously becomes apparent: she doesn’t have the funds needed to afford the location. When she mentions her financial struggles, the landlady decides to waive some initial fees and put off the first payment; helping out a daughter surrogate matters more than making a higher profit. With some financial wiggle room, Samantha hops off to her dorm room.
While she traverses, the opening sequence proceeds in gusto with loud yellow credits, diegetic music introduced by Samantha’s Walkman, and a few freeze frame shots. If the opening’s “true story” homage to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Amityville Horror wasn’t enough, this sequence makes the 70’s/80’s horror milieu that the film is placing itself within clear and sets expectations of where the story is going to go, cueing the viewer to focus in on the smaller details on the journey as opposed to its destination.
Samantha (Jocelin Donahue)sees a sock on her door. A babysitter ad is surrounded by notices about an upcoming eclipse. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) takes the first slip with a callback number for the ad. The add uses the “$” symbol as a replacement for “S”.With an awful living situation in her dormitory, it’s no wonder that Samantha is desperate to escape. Getting money to leave is the only thing that’s on her mind which is why a babysitting ad provides to be so tantalizing.
But at the end of her trek, Samantha sees a sock hanging on her door, a telltale sign that her roommate (Heather Robb) has the room occupied for carnal purposes. Frustrated, she knocks on the door and reminds her roommate that it’s morning, implying that the latter’s “adventure” has been ongoing since the night and has prevented Samantha from being able to enter her own living area. What should have been her private reprieve from the world becomes an uninhabitable space occupied by antagonistic “others”.
Unwilling to walk in and deal with her roommate and her roommate’s partner in the nude, Samantha walks off and leaves the dormitory. She passes by a bulletin board plastered with flyers: in the center is an ad for a babysitter job and surrounding it are calls to join in watching an upcoming eclipse. The camera lingers on the board with the ad positioned center-frame even after Samantha passes by it highlighting the importance of what it conveys.
Then, Samantha walks back into frame and re-reads the babysitting ad. She checks around to make sure no one’s watching her and takes the first of the slips containing the number to call. She leaves the frame and the camera zooms in on the ad, emphasizing that the “S” in “Sitter” is written with a “$” symbol; Samantha’s desperate desire to find a new residence necessitates a quick stream of cash and that’s all she can focus on now.
Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) calls the number. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) wallks away from the phone. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) responds to the caller. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) stares suspiciously at the phone. The paranoia sets in as Samantha experiences a strange phenomena with a public phone. She calls the number on the ad but gets no response, so she leaves a message with a proper call-back number. Yet, as soon as she begins to leave the area, the public phone begins to ring. Somehow, the client managed to track down which public phone Samantha was using and call it all well under a minute. The feeling of being watched becomes palpable as Samantha looks back at the phone as if anticipating a presence to be lurking.
She gets to a payphone and calls the number only to hear the answering machine; she leaves her name and number and asks for a callback if the opportunity is still available. The camera stays in place as she walks off, framing both her and the phone against one another; the visual importance given to the inanimate object generates a slight unease.
But then the phone starts to ring. Samantha is as surprised as us and walks back to receive the seemingly impossible call. Accordingly, she asks the caller, who is revealed to be the babysitter client, how they got the payphone number and called it; the sequence of events implies that someone had to have been watching her put the call in to call back the phone quickly enough so that she would be able to hear it and pick it up. Yet, the client sidesteps the question and presses on with the opportunity, ascertaining if Samantha is still interested. She quickly pivots; money is more important than strange coincidences and she can’t afford to question a gig offering a nice payout.
The caller asks to meet at a building in the university and Samantha agrees. She walks away from the phone again and the composition from earlier is replicated. This time, she turns around and looks at the phone quizzingly. The strangeness of the call still lingers on her mind.
Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) hesitates before opening the door. Samantha wades through a minefield of clothes. Her roommate’s partner hits on her. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) waits in front of the student building. A dissolve of Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) waiting. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) decides to leave. The empty building fades to a sign of……the Eclipse PieSamantha (Jocelin Donahue) vents to Megan (Greta Gerwig)Even when Samantha can get into her room, she isn’t allowed to rest as she’s immediately accosted by her roommate’s lover of the day. Desperate to get out of the location, but immediately and in the long run, she waits for a long time for the client to come and meet her to no avail. She expresses her frustrations about her situation to her friend later that day all while the upcoming eclipse lingers in the backdrop.
She treks back to her room and sees the sock removed from the door knob. She hesitates for a moment, accepts the possibility of walking on her roommate having sex, and then opens the door to go in. Yet, what she enters into isn’t that much better. Her roommate’s side of the room is absolutely filthy with clothes littering the floor. After traversing the cloth minefield, Samantha tries to pack her bag but is promptly hit on by her roommate’s partner. It’s no wonder why she wants to leave as soon as possible.
Yet, things only proceed to get more frustrating for Samantha as she waits for her caller to approach. Even though she puts her Walkman on, the music is barely audible; she can barely focus on it in preparation for what’s to come. A dissolve showcases time passing her by. When she realizes that in the time she’s waited an entire class has finished, she decides to abandon the endeavor. The disappointing scene dissolves into a sign for “Eclipse Pie” – another mention of the eclipse.
It’s at this restaurant where Samantha finally divulges the frustrations building up in her up to the point to her best friend Megan (Greta Gerwig). Her fears about not having the money to get to a place she can call home swell up and threaten to burst. The babysitter job was the perfect opportunity to get cash quickly and under the table.
Megan tries to lift Samantha’s spirits up. First, she assures Megan that the latter will be taken care of if she can’t find any money. Megan comes from a family of wealth and at the very least will help her friend with a place to stay. Second, she highlights that the job could have been awful: “the kid could be from hell.” This call-back to the opening text’s mention of “Satanic cults” adds to the unease surrounding the situation. Perhaps, it’s a good thing Samantha didn’t get the job.
When Megan offers to help Samantha get revenge by finding and tearing down all the potential babysitter ads put up by the no-show client to ensure that no one responds to their call, there’s a part of us that wants Samantha to agree and prevent the seeming inevitability. However, Samantha, the upstanding girl the landlady characterized her to be, refuses her friend’s offer to retaliate and goes back to her room to figure out what to do.
Samantha tries to get a moment’s rest. The faucets cover up the noise of Samantha crying. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) is frustrated in the stall. The water swirls around the drain, accumulating faster than it can be removed. The sound of water from the faucets covers up the sounds of Samantha’s frustrations while making the weight of her misery apparent: her problems are piling up faster than she can possibly get rid of them.
Unfortunately, while her roommate’s nighttime visitor is now gone, her roommate is still very much present and her constant snoring makes catching even a moment’s rest impossible. Samantha seldom places her head on a pillow before giving up and going to the bathroom. She flips all the faucets on. The noise generated by the streams covers the sounds of her crying. She’s isolated in the bathroom stall and the seemingly insurmountable pressure she feels is perfectly encapsulated by the image of the drain in the sink overflowing with water from a never-ending tap.
Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) writes down the Ulman address. The moon begins to get covered in shadows. Megan (Greta Gerwig) and Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) drive to the residence. The cemetery lingers. The camera lingers on the front door. An unseen man opens the door for Megan (Greta Gerwig) and Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) . When the babysitter opportunity presents itself again, Samantha immediately decides to give it a shot. The eclipse takes a bigger prominence as a shot of the moon is shown after her decision is made. Her journey to the residence amplifies the feeling of unease as the camera lingers on a cemetery and withholds as much information about what she’s walking into as possible.
But back in the room, Samantha is greeted with unexpected news from her roommate who informs her that someone called and left a message regarding a babysitter job. Immediately, Samantha jumps on the opportunity, gets the number, and calls the client once more. She quickly forgives his excuse for not coming: he had a hectic morning and found himself unable to come. He mentions that he had another sitter lined up but they backed out and gave him trouble and thanks Samantha for calling back in spite of his treatment of her. Just like with the landlady, it appears that the upstanding Samantha is here to save the day and take the place of another deviant woman.
He asks her to come in for the night and babysit till a little after midnight in exchange for double the rate of pay. With no hesitation, Samantha agrees and calls up Megan for a ride. The film cuts to a shot of the moon, a reminder of the coming eclipse, as Samantha gets into Megan’s car. During their long drive up to the client’s household. Megan admits that she took down all the ads she could find; Samantha realizes that her opportunity was a result of this interference as the client had no one else to reach out to. Megan, for all intents and purposes, got Samantha her position for the night.
This revelation is accompanied by a lingering shot of a cemetery the girls drive by – a sign of things to come. The cemetery dissolves to a shot of the girls finally making it to the house. They get out and make their way to the front door and knock. A long zoom on the door handle raises the stakes on what’s to follow, creating an anticipation to discover the truth behind the job opportunity. The door opens and the girls look up as a pair of long arms extends out to greet them; the client’s face is withheld from the frame and the viewer amplifying the mystery and beckoning both the viewer and the girls to discover what lies in wait. But as the night goes on, Samantha finds herself embroiled in a dark mystery that threatens to completely destroy her life.
While the nature of the mystery, presaged by the film’s opening text and multiple subsequent clues, offers little in the way of genuine surprise, it gives director Ti West the perfect backdrop to explore the anxieties of the time and present an almost mythological depiction of the horrors associated with the respective culture shift. Like the films whose styles it pays homage to, The House of the Devil uses the literal struggle its protagonist undergoes to identify the stakes of the culture war of the era, revealing that the true horror of the “other” side stems not from their perverse desires but from the way those desires seem to mirror and pervert traditional desires.
Samantha’s journey seems to be a slow one, but its meticulous construction gives West ample time to set up her archetypal innocence and establish threats, unseen to her but visible to us, which bubble underneath the surface until the final few minutes of the film where the violence finally erupts. It’s when the struggle finally comes to its climax that the cinematography shifts from the slow and meticulous to the rapidly shifting and handheld, reflecting the transitional state resulting from the horrific conflict. When the dust finally settles, the camera regains its composure and documents the aftermath of the battle, tying the thematic and narrative strands up in a nice, neat, mortifying package
REPORT CARD
TLDR
The House of the Devil perfectly encapsulates the best qualities of 70’s and 80’s horror films, capitalizing on cultural anxieties to elevate macabre sequences into terrifying nightmares. This is a Satanic Panic story that simmers in wait until just the right moment before bursting into a bloody hellscape that no fan of horror should miss.
Rating
10/10
Grade
A+
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Neve Campbell as Sidney David Arquette as Dewey Courteney Cox as Gale Weathers Jamie Kennedy as Randy
Release Date
1996
Language(s)
English
Running Time
111 minutes
” Movies don’t create psychos, movies make psychos more creative! ” No sentiment could better describe, Wes Craven’s 1996 slasher film/satire Scream. The movie chronicles the journey of Sidney Prescott, portrayed by Neve Campbell, and her friends as her small town is struck by a series of gruesome and horrific murders.
The opening scene of the movie really sets the pace of the whole film and I was shocked by the end of the movie, at how brilliantly the themes of the beginning shot are kind of followed through. Casey Becker, played fantastically by Drew Barrymore, starts her night off nonchalantly, and playfully entertains the phone-calls from her soon to be killer. But within the first few moments, the mood turns sinister and a Dutch angle is used to exemplify the tonal shift- something’s wrong.
Skip to 30 seconds to see what I’m talking about.
Introduction to Scream
This is repeated through the movie. There’s always a shift in perspective when something is off.
The visual effects were also amazing. Watching the movie, I never felt like I was watching something aged. The deaths were just as gruesome and I was blown away with how intricate some of the early deaths in the movie were portrayed.
Complimenting the narrative is one of the most imaginative scores I’ve heard in a horror film. There were a lot of songs that either served to foreshadow scenes there were to come or were just impactful because they didn’t feel like something that’d belong in a horror movie. For example, Youth of America, which sounded awesome, just felt really high octane like something you’d hear in an American Pie-esque movie, but after listening to the lyrics it just works.
Finally, the plot is amazing and filled with twists and turns, as you desperately try and figure out who the actual killer is. There were multiple times where I thought someone was the killer, just like certain characters on screen, but then the movie would do something to caution me against that belief. Then when I would least expect it, new information would be revealed that eroded my previous certainty in the situation. This describes the whole movie and that’s what it makes it genuinely scary. You honestly feel unnerved. You’re never certain what’s going to happen
The constant stream of horror references really reinforces the point and makes the movie that much more enjoyable if you consider yourself something of a horror buff. Whenever a movie is referenced, the movie usually tries to parody an element from the same which gives you cool Easter eggs. But more importantly, those allusions create expectations of certain rules characters should follow and constantly subverts them which only adds to the tension.
Unfortunately, the number of references also feels like kind of a problem at times. This may just be because I’m trying to watch the movie years later or because I haven”t seen a lot of the movies, but it almost felt like the movie kept trying to drop more and more names, and I became less interested because it started feeling too convoluted. This wasn’t a serious issue, but was something that I started feeling near the end of the movie.
Tone also felt a bit mishandled at some times- almost as if the transitions were a bit rough. The film does try to be scary, a satire, and a form of black comedy, but the serious feel of some of the scenes make comedic bits feel a bit out of place. It did work well most of the time, so I don’t think it’s too big of an issue.
Report Card
TLDR
Scream is filled with twists and turns and brilliantly pokes fun of and subverts tropes. You may feel a bit lost, but no matter what you’re in for in for a phenomenal mystery and a great time.
