Linda Cardellini as Anna Tate-Garcia Raymond Cruz as Rafael Olvera Patricia Velásquez as Patricia Alvarez Marisol Ramirez as La Llorona
Release Date
2019
Language(s)
English
Running Time
93 minutes
Boring. Uninspired. Dull. These are the first words that come to my head when I think of The Curse of La Llorona. Despite having seen the movie only a few days ago, I can barely remember large portions of it because of how uninspired and hollow the characters and their story are. It’s a shame, because as a huge fan of the Conjuring franchise, I wanted to have a fun time with Michael Chaves debut in the same.
The movie follows Anna, an recently widowed social services worker who’s life is subsequently haunted by the titular weeping women, La Llorona. Even though the plot unfolds exactly like how you think it would, the performances are never awful. Caddellini does what she can as a worried mother fighting for the sake of her family but the plot never lets her flesh herself out more in an interesting way. The child actors also do their job. There was almost a moment where I felt myself caring for their struggle. Unfortunately, the film never builds on that feeling and by the time the terrifying events start ensuing I had to struggle to find a reason to watch.
The real issue is how underdeveloped the plot feels. There are some initial stakes and interesting situations set up- but then instead of letting those threads play out naturally everything just gets pushed to the periphery in favor of a generic series of jump scares. This movie has all the tell tale signs of a generic supernatural horror story- random noises, the camera suddenly “revealing” the threat, characters doing incredibly out of place things despite knowing the danger of everything, and magical solutions working or not working depending on what the plot necessitated. As such, nothing ever feels scary. Every scare is telegraphed from miles away.
Add on to this the feeling of coincidence- nothing ever feels like an authentic character decision and everything feels out of place. There’s this whole subplot with child abuse and misdirection but instead of doing something interesting with that and doing a nuanced commentary on how certain bodies are demarcated and judged without getting a fair shot to present their stories- everything is glossed over for a new scare. It makes every moment feel hollow and empty.
I would have been more okay with this if the scares were at least interesting or terrifying , but the special effects and actual scare reveals lack any meaningful buildup and failed to ever elicit any kind of real response from me. The only thing that separates this movie from the random horror movie you’d stumble on in the middle of the night on a streaming service is the higher production values. It helps the movie at least feel more refined, but its just like putting lipstick on a pig.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
The Curse of La Llorona is a disappointing story that squanders a lot of the potential of its source material. You should think of the film as a vehicle for cheap jump scares- elements like characters or the score almost feel like afterthoughts to the scare set-ups.As someone who even had fun with The Nun, the fact that I couldn’t find anything to latch on in this movie says a lot. Watch it if you feel a special connection to the myth and are okay with watching a bland enactment of the horror from the same.
A blinding white flash …… is revealed to be coming from a street light…The street light illuminates……a textiles factory. The film opens with a burst of bright light that sets the tone.
The film opens on a burst of white light. As the camera pulls back, the source of this light, a post outside a textile building, is revealed.
A shadowy figure stares at Esther. Esther (Lotta Losten) can’t see the figure in the light. The figure gets closer to Esther as the lights go out again. Esther notices a figure that gets closer to her as the lights flicker between on and off.
A worker in the building, Esther (Lotta Losten), goes to finish off the last of her duties and notices a woman’s silhouette standing in the doorway. She turns on the light to get a better look and the figure disappears. Esther tests the phenomenon by flicking the lights on and off, but immediately stops and runs off when the silhouette moves closer to her during an intermission between the light switches.
She promptly goes to warn her boss, Paul (Billy Burke), who pays little heed to her warning as his focus is preoccupied on a conversation with his step-son, Martin (Gabriel Bateman); Paul tries to assuage Martin’s concerns about some personal affairs and then gets ready to leave the office.
Paul (Billy Burke) sees the shadow figure. The figure leaves Paul’s (Billy Burke) corpse in the spotlight. The title card flickers on. Paul sees the same shadowy figure but isn’t as lucky as Esther at getting away from it. It eviscerates him and leaves him on the floor. The camera fades out to a darkness – the light is gone. Then, the title card flickers on.
But the silhouetted figure makes her appearance once again and stops him. Suddenly, he finds himself being chased through the warehouse; the creature manages to injure him when in shadow but can’t seem to touch him while he’s under a light source. Unfortunately, the shadow demon seems capable of turning out the lights and manages to kill him under the guise of the dark. She throws his corpse and the scene fades to black – a counterpoint to the intense light that opened the scene. This is a clash between light and dark with deadly stakes. The title card flickers onto the screen, breaking through the darkness and the battle continues.
A domesticated vision of horror. Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) and Bret (Alexander DiPersia) talk about their relationship. Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) stares into a mirror…Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) tries to steady herself. From a poster of a domesticated horror figure, the camera moves to a young couple, Rebecca and Bret, navigating their relationship with one another. Rebecca is more hesitant to commit and is clearly dealing with something; she stares in the mirror as if to center herself from the echoes of something else.
The camera pulls out from a poster of a vampiric entity, a domesticated rendition of the shadow entity from before. It moves from the poster to a young couple, Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) and Bret (Alexander DiPersia), getting up from bed. Bret attempts to establish a more explicit relationship with Rebecca but she rejects his attempts. She’s dealing with her own set of issues and as she gazes into the mirror, it’s clear she’s trying to affirm herself. She reassures Bret of her feelings but explains she can’t be as forthright as he is.
A photograph of Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) and Martin (Gabriel Bateman) in Rebecca’s room. A photograph of Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) and Martin (Gabriel Bateman) in Martin’s room. Photo’s of Paul (Billy Burke) with Martin (Gabriel Bateman)Martin (Gabriel Batemen) is terrified in bed. A neat matching transition from Rebecca’s room to Martin’s room reveals their sibling relationship and makes apparent the depressing cascade of events that seems to be surrounding Martin – a series of events which looks to become even more unfortunate.
As he leaves for the night, the camera pans to Rebecca’s shelving unit and pushes into a photograph of Rebecca and Martin, the boy from opening talking to Paul; the two of them are siblings. The camera pulls back from the photograph, pulling us to a new room – Martin’s. From the photograph of the siblings, we track from additional photographs of Martin with Paul and his mother, Sophie (Maria Bello) to an obituary photo of Paul to Martin sitting on his bed with an expression of fear: a trail of familial darkness coalescing in one scared boy.
He gets up out of his bed to check on his mom and notices her talking to a “Diana” (Alicia Vela-Bailey) hidden in the shadows. He tries to get a better look at her but experiences terror as he feels something inhuman gazing back at him. He hides in his bed, utterly petrified of the situation and unable to close his eyes.
The next day, Martin, suffering from sleep deprivation, is brought to the nurse and calls Rebecca to come pick him up. From there, she learns that Martin has been sleeping in school for days on end, seemingly unable to get any rest at home. Rebecca, with Bret in tow as chauffeur, drives to Sophie’s house to get a handle on the situation. On the way, Martin mentions to Rebecca that Sophie has been speaking to someone named Diana, and a chilling realization sweeps through Rebecca’s eyes. She tells Martin that “Diana” came to their mother a lot during Rebecca’s youth as well – a harbinger of the debilitating depressive phases Sophie commonly went through and is currently going through.
With the context of Diana, Rebecca goes in to confront Sophie and comes to the realization that her mother has fallen into a depraved state, neglecting therapy and medication in favor of communing with Diana in a perpetually dark house with the lights out. The loss of Paul has sent Sophie reeling into an abyss that threatens to take her family along with it. Thus, Rebecca and company are tasked with figuring out a way of to deal with the darkness and the despair that comes along with it.
From this angle, Lights Out is an allegory about depression much in the vein of Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook, utilizing the trappings of a supernatural horror to explore the way dark thoughts lay roost and come to consume not only oneself but ones entire family as well. As Sophie suffers the people closer to her – Rebecca, Martin, Paul – are forced to deal with and suffer the consequences of depression imagined as supernatural infiltration. By mapping depression to darkness and healing to light, director David F. Sandberg sets the film up for frantic battles where characters have to desperately scramble to find the light in the darkest of situations to keep themselves afloat, nailing the metaphor on its head.
Yet, this reading of the film is rendered formally suspect by the opening sequence at the textile factory. Having Esther deal with Diana makes the latter less a representation of familial grief and more a general demonic entity, and the film leans into this idea repeatedly, having Diana engage in creepy maneuverings typical of something more akin to The Conjuringfilms. Instead of being tied to Sophie’s thoughts and inner circles, Diana is allowed to be a loose cannon only tangentially tied to depression and is able do whatever the plot needs her to do. This conflict in identity contributes to a disconnect in the narrative and its emotional arcs as the story refuses to commit to either being an horror motivated by intimate family drama or horror motivated by the machinations of an evil creature.
Instead of this combined approach, the story should have committed to one haunted vision over another: either go for a more traditional supernatural demon story with an explicit threat or go for an allegory about grief. As is, the narrative feels like it wants to be the latter story but is forced to deal with intrusions from the former story.
Consequently, even though many of the more shocking sequences are technically competent and incorporate creative uses of lighting to keep the tension palpable, they are transformed from being evocative representations of the characters’ inner turmoil to run-of-the-mill jump-scare sequences. There’s still fun to be had, but it’s a far cry from what the ideas and sense of sequence design should have allowed for.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Lights Out is a technically proficient horror that knows how to set up a scary sequence but its story is torn between wanting to be a character-driven supernatural allegory and a ghost story about a spectral menace. This lack of direction pervades the narrative and makes it the well-executed scare sequences nothing more than temporary frights with no staying power after watching.
Rating
7.7/10
Grade
B
Go to Page 2for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3to view this review’s progress report .
Naomi Watts as Rachel David Dorfman as Aidan Martin Henderson as Noah Daveigh Chase as Samara Brian Cox as Richard Morgan
Release Date
2002
Language(s)
English
Running Time
115 minutes
Gore Verbinski’s iconic remake of Ringu, The Ring, was my first horror movie and I have a soft spot in my heart for it. I remember as a kid, I watched the beginning scene of Scary Movie 3 and got so scared of it that I had to run out of the room. Yes, young me was so afraid of everything that even a horror parody could get me breathing heavy. Looking back on the moment I have no idea why it was so scary,but I knew that I had to avoid the film. Imagine my horror, when I realized what I had seen was a comedic take of a much scarier scene from an actual horror movie . I wanted to get over it, but I was also just scared of it. Thankfully, in my early teen years, I decided to conquer my fears and take the plunge. The Ring absolutely terrified me and I couldn’t look at my T.V for weeks after my first viewing. Even now the movie holds up suprisingly well and should provide more than the meaningful scare for those ready to take the plunge.
For those of you not familiar with the original , the story follows Rachel a journalist who starts to investigate a series of mysteriously connected deaths. After doing a bit of digging she uncovers a rumor of a tape said to kill anyone who views it in 7 days. Desperate to get to the bottom of the mystery she locates and watches the tape falling under its curse. With a 7 day timer, Rachel has to uncover the mystery before falling victim to the curse. Just the premise itself is terrifying in its simplicity. TV’s are ubiquitous and the idea a program on it could end up killing someone is horrifying. It’s tangential and something that could happen to anyone who happened upon an unnamed VHS, which growing up could totally happen.
Given that it’s a remake, it’s surprising to see how much Verbinksi managed to add to the film to breathe new life into it. I love how the color palette is dark and blue which keeps the mood bleak and ominous. The story deals a lot with water and murkiness so the colors thematically tie everything together. It’s such a distinctive feeling and stays with you long after watching it. On top of this, Hans Zimmer’s score is absolutely chilling and feels inseparable from the story the moment it starts playing. It’s a one of a kind horror soundtrack that I’ve never felt from anything else in the genre and I think that’s commendable. Just listen to “The Well” and you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Furthermore, the deaths in this movie are a lot more chilling and scary than the deaths in the original. When we see our first victim it’s like a sucker punch to the face. I can still remember the nauseous uncomfortable feeling that ran down my spine. They linger on the screen briefly – just enough to disturb the viewer without giving us enough time to inspect the damage. What makes it all the worse is we’re never told how it happens. We see our soon to be dead victim perfectly fine, reacting to the horror of the tape, and then see their body. It gets you thinking as to what horrifying events they went through to go from healthy and happy to their ultimate fate. Despite having seen this film at least four times, the scares still get me each viewing. The changes to the contents of the cursed tape are also great. It’s a lot scarier in a visceral sense and some of the images made my stomach churn. The images are incorporated well throughout the story and I appreciate how much effort went into exploring the way the tape is created and the ramifications of such a process.
One surprising change is how much more agency the lead character is given in comparison to her counterpart in the original. Rachel feels more humane. In the original movie, Reiko (Rachael) wants to investigate the deaths because she’s a journalist. Her personal relation to the case is secondary. Meanwhile, in this movie, the situation is reversed for Rachel, and she only investigates because her sister asks her to look into deaths. It makes Rachel feel more sympathetic and her plight more tragic as a result. Watt’s acting also helps her character feel relatable. She’s a no-nonsense get down to action person so when she shows terror after watching the cursed videotape you know something awful has happened. The terror of the tape feels real ,like it’s come out into the world around. The movie does a good job of getting you attached to her and rooting for her to win.
I didn’t like how the mystery of the tape was handled in this movie compared to the remake. The way characters come to key discoveries feels undeserved and more luck based which takes away from the realistic portrayal of events. In particular, Aidan is used as a plot tool more than once and it makes his entire character feel like a device to set events in play. This is indicative of a larger problem with the movie. Certain moments are carried over from the first film, but because this movie skips certain subplots, those moments don’t feel as emotionally charged. For example, the removal of a lot of the psychic subplot removes a lot of the rich commentary on how we treat and inflict violence on the Other. It also makes the decision to keep Aidan a psychic feel strange and unneeded. It’s never done to do anything cool and its inclusion actively makes certain plot elements more confusing. The scope of his powers and knowledge of the situation also don’t line up properly, so it just makes more trouble than necessary.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
The Ring is a faithful remake of Ringu that manages to add enough new and interesting material to appeal to fans of the original. The film isn’t as thematically strong, but its scares and chilling atmosphere more than compensate. This is one of the few good remakes of a horror movie I’ve seen and anyone who wants a atmospheric, clever, scary movie should watch this.
Rating
9.5/10
Grade
A+
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Ana de Armas as Marta Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc Christopher Plummer as Harlan Chris Evans as Ransome Jamie Lee Curtis as Linda Michael Shannon as Walt Don Johnson as Richard Toni Collette as Joni Lakeith Stanfield as Detective Elliot Katherine Langford as Meg Jaeden Martell as Jacob Riki Lindhome as Donna K Callan as Great Nana
Release Date
2019
Language(s)
English
Running Time
130 minutes
I’ll be honest – I love a good mystery. As a kid I loved watching Scooby-Doo and trying to figure out what was going on. Some of my favorite book series were The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew. I loved BBC’s Sherlock (at least the first two seasons). When I first saw the trailer for the movie and saw the cast list, I knew I had to see it to satiate the mystery fan inside of me. I’m more than happy to report back that Rian Johnson’s star-studded mystery, Knives Out, is charming and filled with great twists and turns.
The film follows Detective Blanc as he helps the local police determine if the death of popular mystery writer, Harlan Thrombey , was a suicide or something more nefarious.Honestly, what surprised me the most about the movie was how well it balanced humor, mystery, drama, and tension. No element ever feels like it feels out of place. Combined with the beautiful shot composition, the aesthetic and makeup of Thrombey’s house, and a riveting score and you have a formula for success. I laughed out loud more than once with the audience and also had my share of white knuckle moments.
What makes the film more interesting than the traditional mystery plot is the information revealed to the audience. I didn’t expect to get the gleams of info I got, and I was amused with the way the plot’s focus and scope changed. It made the movie more interesting and the way the movie plays with mystery tropes is a delight. There was more than one moment I didn’t see coming and watching all the pieces come together by the end of the movie was great. There are quite a few elements that are set up through the movie and I was thoroughly satisfied with how they were explored by the end of the movie. Pay attention – I promise the payoff is more than worth it.
The acting in this movie is great and there are a few stand-out performances that were really fun to watch. Besides his accent ( which I think is deliberately over-the-top to drive in the point), I loved how much Craig owned the screen. He’s confident, witty, and feels charismatic in an endearing way. His ability to go from hard ass to comedic observer helps keep the tone of the movie consistent. Ana de Armas’s performance as Marta is also phenomenal. She plays off Craig well and does great in her own light. Watching her innocent character try and navigate the contours of the Thrombey family was a delight and made me want to cheer her on. Speaking of the Thrombeys, every member of the family feels distinct and the members that get more fleshed out are quite interesting. As someone who loved Toni Collette in Hereditary and The Sixth Sense getting to see her as a liberal lifestyle guru was a treat. The issue with so many characters however, is that a few of them become one note characters that are associated with nothing more than a gag. It’s a shame because there are hints of moments that could be developed with them, but they’re never explored to their full extent.
Although the movie is a fun adventure, it feels lacking thematically. There’s a surface level discussion of politics- immigration in particular- and besides some cyclical gags in relation to it and some minor drama it’s never handled in a way that makes it more meaningful. It’s obvious that the film is a criticism of opulence, but so many of the other elements of the movie are so intelligently written, so the lack of depth feels like a huge missed opportunity. Likewise, there’s this underlying discussion of family and obligation that’s mentioned a lot in the movie, but is really mishandled. In particular, certain character reactions betray where the movie could have gone with this meaning in favor of being more generic. There’s also one glaring character decision that doesn’t make sense in the 3rd act of the movie which is kind of a big deal in how the plot unravels. I might just be nitpicking here but it felt out of place with how well thought out everything else in the plot was.
REPORT CARD
TLDR
Knives Out is fun take on the whodunit genre that changes the focus from how the murder happened to why the murder happened while retaining all the charm and wit associated with a traditional murder mystery. Though not every member of the ensemble cast gets time to develop or feel wholly relevant, it’s fun enough watching all of them interact because it’s clear they’re having so much fun with it. If you’re looking for a gorgeous looking mystery, look no further.
Rating
9.2/10
Grade
A
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Note: This review contains spoilers regarding the first 30 minutes of the film as opposed to the site’s usual benchmark of 10-20 minutes. The same effort towards sustaining the intrigue and momentum of the film, especially in its second and third acts, is maintained in this review, and all plot details revealed are just meant to be a springboard to discuss the scope of the work in better detail. Nothing discussed should undermine the “best” portions of the film or the many mysteries that keep the story engaging.
Waves churn in the sea.The waves slowly dissolve and become….… a screen of pixels…which end up “becoming” a baseball game. From left to right: Masami(Hitomi Sato) and Tomoko (Yûko Takeuchi) have the baseball game playing in the background. Masami(Hitomi Sato) tells Tomoko (Yûko Takeuchi) about the cursed videotape. The clock ticks ominously. The happy mood between Masami(Hitomi Sato) and Tomoko (Yûko Takeuchi) dissipates as the truth comes out. Masami(Hitomi Sato) and Tomoko (Yûko Takeuchi) answer the phone downstairs and are relieved upon hearing Tomoko’s parents. The television turns on behind Tomoko ( Yûko Takeuchi) as if by its own volition. Tomoko ( Yûko Takeuchi) stares at the screen in fear. Tomoko’s ( Yûko Takeuchi) face freezes as the negative image takes hold of the frame. The domain of technology is shown to be home to forces beyond human comprehension as the sea’s waters become the pixels which comprise the television’s image, looming ominously in the background while Tomoko and Masami talk gleefully to one another. Far from being alone, the girl’s are seen by a force of nature, an emissary of the sea. When Masami mentions the tale of the cursed VHS tape, it’s as this presence is named. Somehow, there’s a connection. Tomoko mentions she’s watched the tape and the sound of a phone call confirms that something is wrong. Far from being a rumor, the threat of a specter becomes a genuine possibility. When Masami leaves Tomoko under the assumption that everything is fine, the threat manifests as real, taking Tomoko by surprise and snapping a photograph of her, a negative image in contrast to the film’s positive image.
Ambient rumbles and the sounds of the churning waves mix as the camera pans over a tumultuous sea. The uncanny waters become grainy before dissolving into the static dots of a television set; thus, nature and technology merge in unholy unison. A pathway is formed. Static transforms the sea into a baseball game.
It’s revealed that two young girls, Tomoko (Yuko Takeuchi) and Masami (Hitomi Sato), have the game on in the background, as a source of background noise to a conversation they’re having. The latter mentions an urban rumor regarding a cursed VHS tape which supposedly kills its viewer after exactly 7 days. Apparently, after watching the tape, the viewer receives a phone call confirming their doom and then they succumb a week later as consequence. Tomoko displays an unease and asks where Masami heard about the rumor before revealing that she’s seen the aforementioned tape. Suddenly, the clock on the wall becomes a menacing presence, a death knell counting down towards Tomoko’s inevitable end. Terror takes its hold and the jovial mood in the room dissipates as demise makes itself known. It’s at this point Tomoko breaks the tension by claiming she’s joking and the girls laugh once again.
However, this moment of relief is ripped out from under them. The ominous ringing of a phone pierces the soundscape and casts a spell of doom, silencing the girls’ laughter. Both girls go downstairs towards the phone which beckons them forward. Masami picks it up and expresses relief upon hearing Tomoko’s parents on the other side. She hands the phone to her friend and goes upstairs, assured that the crisis is averted.
Unfortunately, this reprieve is also revealed to be temporary; despite being clearly off before, the television set near the phone turns on. The baseball game from earlier which marked a peaceful change from the sea now casts an ominous electric blue light. The relationship between sea and television has now been reversed: the television itself imposes presence of the blue, tumultuous waves come alive in the form of a similar colored light.
Tomoko attempts to turn the television off, but the technological apparatus initially refuses her commands. Finally, she succeeds in her endeavor and turns around assured that the issue over. But as she gets a drink ready, she hears a presence making scratching noises behind her. She turns her head to confront the presence and her face breaks into absolute terror. The frame freezes and the colors invert; a negative image takes the place of a positive image as if the unseen presence has taken a picture of Tomoko’s reaction to its abject aura – a snapshot taken from and by the void.
Thus, the film allows for a film to be born from within its structure – the start of a series of negative images that serve as an undercurrent to the positive appearance which will dominate the majority of the film. Far from being just a diegetic element, the spectral nature of the rumored VHS tape permeates into the non-diegetic layer and suggests that Ring itself shares the same uncanny characteristics as the cursed video that serves as the heart of its narrative proper.
A young girl is intervied by Reiko, captured in a positive image by the camera. Reiko(Nanako Matsushima) asks about the cursed video tape. The group of schoolgirls talk about the urban rumor regarding the VHS tape. In contrast to the negative image image of Tomoko, a positive image of a young girl fills the frame. This time the camera is controlled by a human force, Reiko, who is reporting on the urban tale of the cursed VHS tape. Though the news segment she’s filming appears to be some small news, the introduction alerts us that this otherwise innocuous sounding gossip is anything but.
This dichotomy between film and the reality it frames and captures is doubled down in the next scene which follows our protagonist Reiko (Nanako Matsushima), a news reporter, as she interviews young schoolgirls about the rumors swirling around the cursed tape. In contrast to Tomoko’s spectral encounter whereby reality gave way to negative photographic capture, Reiko’s news report transforms reality into positive photographic capture. In her case, she films to get footage for a news report which calls to question what the negative image and the cursed VHS tape are being/have been produced for. A matrix is made present through the juxtapositions of images caught between the planes of the living and the otherworld.
Yōichi(Rikiya Ōtaka) sits facing the television, waiting for Reiko to come back home. Yōichi(Rikiya Ōtaka) helps zip up Reiko’s (Nanako Matsushima) dress in preparation for his cousin’s funeral. His questions about why his cousin died are answered in unsatisfying fashion. Reiko leaves Yōichi with his grandfather. Yōichi’s cousin is revealed to be Tomoko ( Yûko Takeuchi), the young woman who saw the tape at the start of the film. Yōichi(Rikiya Ōtaka) sees what appears to be Tomoko running up the stairs. The lighting switches from dark to light momentarily as a young girl, presumably Tomoko, runs up the stairs. Yōichi(Rikiya Ōtaka) walks up the stairs which are dark once again. Yōichi is led to Tomoko’s room, the place where the sea became the television. Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) finds Yōichi(Rikiya Ōtaka) in the room and takes him out before anything can transpire. Televisions litter the mise-en-scène, becoming gradually more unsettling as the film continues. When we see Yōichi sitting innocuously by one while waiting for his mother, Reiko, the unit seems benign. However, it ultimately becomes an malevolent force as Yōichi comes face to face with the television which first marked the encounter with the sea qua uncanny. Furthermore, he is led to this encounter by none other than the victim of the tape’s curse, his cousin, Tomoko. The re-appearance of the young woman suggests that the business with the tape is far from being over.
Reiko returns to her abode post interview and is greeted by her son,Yōichi (Rikiya Ōtaka), who helps her get ready for a funeral. While zipping up her dress, Yōichi asks Reiko why his cousin, Tomo-chan, died and if kids die in general – serious issues to deal with, especially when asked by a child. His mother answers both questions matter-of-factly, that is to say in an unsatisfying matter, and brushes off the gravity of his existential distress, telling him instead to keep such thoughts quieter around her sister, Tomo-chan’s mother, as to not distress her. Angst about death is pushed underground in favor of keeping an appearance of peace.
The mother-son pair arrive at Reiko’s sister’s place where Reiko’s father (Katsumi Muramatsu) takes Yōichi aside to give Reiko time to help with the funeral arrangements. It’s at this point Reiko’s journey and the film’s opening intertwine as it’s revealed that Tomo-chan is none other than Tomoko, the first on-screen victim of the cursed VHS tape. Yōichi stares at her picture on the wall longingly. It’s clear that her absence is troubling him.
While he stands at the foot of darkly lit stairs, he suddenly sees a young girl’s feet running up them, the darkness momentarily replaced by light. If Tomoko’s absence brings darkness to his life, then this change in lighting suggests he feels her presence. Is this a psychic vision, manifestation of his loss, or a mixture of both? No answer is given.
Yōichi follows this potential “Tomoko” up the stairs before coming face to face with the television in her bedroom, her apparition now missing. Paranoia builds as the horrors of the opening rear their head more viciously here – a TV, the presence of something supernatural, and someone left all alone. Thankfully, Reiko, who had been looking for Yōichi , finds him alone in the room and whisks him out promptly; the confrontation with the abyss is averted momentarily.
Outside of the house, hosts of schoolgirls stand looking both solemn and uncomfortable. Reiko notices them as she’s getting ready to leave and goes to question them. She naturally gets the girls to open up and explain their concerns without fear of judgement. Like the schoolgirls she interviewed earlier, these girls mention a cursed video tape and confirm that Tomoko and friends of her not only saw the tape while on a trip to Izu but died on the same day in similarly incomprehensible circumstances. Once again, the tape comes up as the source of everything. Now caught at the intersection between her investigative pursuits and family tragedy, Reiko’s dance with the abyss has come. The tape and her are on a collision course with one another.
Footage of two of the victims, who were both discovered dead in a car with no sign of foul play. Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) and her co-worker analyze the footage. The victim’s face is frozen in abject terror. As Reiko analyzes footage of other apparent curse victims, the viewer is drawn into the process of analyzing the minute details of the film. The faces of the victims look frozen as if caught at their most scared.
Drawn by the enigma presented by the situation, Reiko goes to work and begins investigating the deaths of Tomoko’s friends, analyzing the footage documenting the discovery of two of their deaths. One of their faces, that of a young girl, is frozen in abject terror as if scared beyond comprehensible limits. The moment is demarcated and framed, captured in a moment to be investigated, replayed, and reinterpreted. Photography captures the present and transforms into a discretized unit of time, capable of being reactivated with new perspectives.
An gust with no apparent source helps Reiko notice a note. Reiko’s (Nanako Matsushima) sister (Kiriko Shimizu) comes into the room unnoticed and struggles to describe how Tomoko died. Tomoko’s (Yûko Takeuichi) body lays crumpled in her closet. Tomoko’s ( Yûko Takeuichi) face is contorted into absolute terror like her classmates who died. Tomoko’s face matches the face of the other victims of the tape calling to question what exactly could be so terrifying that people would die with an expression of utter terror on their face. Reiko is headed on the course to find out as the force responsible for these deaths seems to edge her towards finding it, pointing out Tomoko’s note in an effort to lure the reporter.
While the mechanics of how the students died remains a mystery to Reiko, the confirmation that the entire group died around the same time as Tomoko drives her towards investigating her family connection more stringently. She goes to her sister’s house and investigates Tomoko’s room. Initially unable to notice anything, she discovers a folded piece of paper as it’s brought to her attention by an unseen presence, a small wind with seemingly no in-room source which moves the note. Written inside is a date along with the name of a photo processing store. It seems that Tomoko’s’ vacation pictures from Izu have yet to be picked up – a new clue for Reiko to follow.
Just as Reiko turns to leave the room, her sister shows up from behind, expressing a demonstrable trauma in the shattered look on her face. The latter looks at Tomoko’s closet and finds herself unable to describe the manner in which she found her daughter’s corpse. Instead, the film shows us this horrific discovery flashback. The closet door opens and Tomoko’s body is shown crumpled in a corner, her face frozen in the same terrifying manner as her similarly deceased friend. Both girls look scared to death, their faces trapped in absolute horror.
The photos of Tomoko and her friends appear normal. Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) looks at the photographs and seems relieved. By a certain date, the images become distorted. The students’ faces are now warped and indiscernible. The plot thickens as the photographs of Tomoko and her friends look markedly different before and after a certain date. Their faces go from joyous and jovial to distorted and indiscernible, as though something is effacing the camera’s ability to directly capture their images. It’s like an unseen filter clouds the camera’s eyes – another spectral technological event.
Later at the photography store, Reiko discovers that the photographs of Tomoko and her friends have a marked difference before and after a date in time. While their early photos in Izu are marked with smiling faces and cheery dispositions, the latter photos are marked by distortion and disturbances. Once again, technology has been rendered uncanny from a previously domestic state; an unseen force returns and inhabits the technology which formerly worked as tool for the living and turns it into a tool for the spectral. Happy faces become distorted, but we know they’ll end up breaking into a blood-chilling terror that will remain forevermore etched onto the faces of the victims. But the cause of this metaphysical transformation is still to be discovered and Reiko is determined to get to the bottom of it.
Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) sends Yōichi to school, choosing, once again, to not answer his questions. Instead, she chooses to go to Izu to investigate the cursed tape. A visual marker with the time and date along with a strange aural cue come up on the screen as she makes this choice, marking the occasion. Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) is unable to find anything in the cabin the students rented sans a notebook that guests can write in. As she flips the pages, she comes upon a drawing of a child and their parents with a statement indicating that a child’s traits are a result of their parents’ traits. Reiko scans the tapes that customers can borrow. An umarked VHS tape takes control of the frame, giving it a grainy filter similar to the pixels of a television screen. Like the gust of wind from earlier, a presence is calling Reiko. Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) puts the television on. Reiko (Nanako Matsushima) prepares herself for the tape to start. Reiko’s confrontation with the tape is marked by increasing intrusions, first in the form of a textual and auditory marker signifying the date and then by the cursed tape itself which applies a grainy filter to the image. Far from just being an object in the plot, the tape seems to exude control over non-diegetic elements and choices in the story.
The next day comes and Reiko prepares to trek to Izu in order to find more pertinent information. While she cooks food for Yōichi to warm up and eat later at night during her absence, he comes up to her and informs her that Tomoko watched the curse tape. Obviously upset that her son has knowledge of such matters, she asks him where he learned about such a fact before then beseeching him to not mention the issue at school. Once again, Reiko skirts the uncomfortable topic broached by her son in favor of idyllic appearances that taper over the abyss.
It’s at this point that the date and day of the week- Monday, September 13th – comes onto the screen accompanied by a disconcerting, yet melancholic set of sounds. Like the spectral snapshot taken of Tomoko, this non-diegetic feature becomes open to diegetic possibilities. If a specter took a “photo” of Tomoko, who’s to say it’s not documenting Reiko until she meets a similar fate? Viewed in this way, the text marks the starting date of Reiko’s confrontation with constitutive void hiding at the heart of the tape. This audio-visual interruption dissipates and Reiko departs towards the inn Tomoko and the other students stayed in.
Inside the inn, her attempts at investigation come up nil. There appears to be no hints or clues towards foul play of any sorts. Opposed to any clues, Reiko only manages to find a notebook filled with quotes and drawings from previous guests. A sketch by a child catches her attention. It depicts a obese mother, father, and child figure. Written near the drawing is the child’s declaration that they are fat because their mother and father are fat. Thus, the qualities of the child inhere from the qualities of the parent; if something is found in the former, it is due to something from the latter. Seemingly benign, this observation will come to play a pivotal role in deciphering the assemblage of terrors lying in wait.
At a surface level, films are the children of creator-parents that give birth to them and disseminate them into the world. Choices like framing, editing, sound design, camera movements, and the like are decisions that play a decisive role in determining the genetic make-up of a film and what it “grows” up to be. Given this, Reiko’s upcoming confrontation with the VHS tape will bring to question the nature of its “parent” and the tape qua child’s place in the world.
While questioning the front desk about Tomoko and her friends, Reiko notices an unmarked VHS tape in the rental stack of tapes available for those staying in the inns. The tape calls out to Reiko, directly transforming the film. Its presence forces a close-up and the camera’s filter becomes grainy and textured as if unable to fully contain the presence manifesting in the moment. The pull is enough and Reiko rents it. She takes it back to her cabin. The time has come. Reiko puts the tape in and lets it play.
A view of the clouds from a well. A woman(Masako) brushes her hair in the mirror. A girl(Rie Inō) with hair covering her face The woman(Masako) looks over at the girl. The word “Eruption” erupts through the frame, manifesting in a variety of shapes and sizes. Men crawl and rumble in disorienting fashion. A man with a towel over his head points towards our left. “Sada” appears in an eye which stares at the screen. A well appears. The contents of the cursed video tape prove to offer very little immediate meaning. The montage seems to lack any throughline, but the grainy, ambiguous presentation of each scenario creates a palpable unease.
The tape and the film become one as the viewer and Reiko view the cursed footage from the same proximity, that of minimal distance. A view from a well cuts to a mirror’s reflection of a woman brushing hair. Another mirrored reflection, this time from framed on the right of the screen instead of the left, comes in momentarily, depicting a young woman with hair covering her face. The initial woman’s reflection stares at the other woman before text ruptures the screen. The word “eruption” appears all over. Blurred people crawl along a hillock while the ambient whispers present in the soundscape erupt into what sounds like guttural chanting emanating from an abyss. A man with a towel on his head points towards the left of the frame as sharp noises jolts the auditory precession before an eerie silence takes hold. A blinking eye gazes at the viewer. Letters seemingly appear in the pupil. Finally, a well appears on the screen and the camera lingers as if waiting for a presence. But nothing comes.
Reiko(Nanako Matsushima) notices a specter’s(Rie Inō) reflection on the television. Reiko(Nanako Matsushima) picks up the phone and hears nothing. The clock ticks, announcing her future time of death. The television sits even as Reiko leaves, marking the site of her confrontation with the world beyond. Its presence as a conduit between the worlds is confirmed one and for all. Reiko’s confrontation with the tape, marked by both a visit by a specter along with the dreaded call at the end of it all, confirms that the curse of the tape is real. Far from a tool of humanity, the television set has rendered a site for the immemorial to take hold again, as forces from beyond make their presence felt on the world of the living. The television set sits as though representative of an sinister agency that far exceeds its boxy frame.
Suddenly, the film cuts back from the tape to Reiko watching it, granting the viewer a distance, a mercy it does not extend to Reiko who spots in her reflection against the television screen a specter staring back her. A haunted tape featuring reflections played on a television which becomes a mirror depicting the tapes viewer and creator. The TV set becomes the site where the immemorial clashes with the contemporary – technology serves as a conduit for both the human and non-human and allows the planes to interact with one another.
Right on cue, the phone rings and the doom sets in. Reiko gets no answer on the call, but she as well as the viewer know that her date has been set. Seven days exactly till she meets the same end as her deceased niece. Now the battle has come to head and the textual interlude marking the date – Monday the 13th – and the clock marking the time – a little past 7:05 P.M.- becomes a time of death cast exactly 7 days in the future. Understandably frightened by the encounter, Reiko runs out of the room, but the camera lingers and stays focused on the television, reminding the viewer of who’s currently winning the battle. With the clock ticking against her in the most literal of senses, Reiko is forced to trek back home and call upon the help of her estranged ex-husband, Ryūji (Hiroyuki Sanada), to get to the bottom of the mystery before her untimely demise.
Given its set-up, it’s no wonder that director Hideo Nakata’s Ring legacy has endured since its inception; the film injects the terror of horror as genre into the structure of the film itself, creating a loop wherein the diegetic and non-diegetic elements intertwine with one another, informing each other. At one level the viewer is watching a film about characters watching a film (of sorts) which the viewer also gets to watch. The viewer is then made to analyze the structural choices of this film within the film, as Reiko and Ryūji do minute analyses behind the creator’s choices to figure out how to unravel. Simultaneously, the structure of Ring proper- it’s editing choices, freeze frames, textual interludes describing the day, and the like – gives the film a feeling of returning on itself. It’s as if a film is being made from within the film about a film – a circuit whereby the spectral and the technological intertwine with one another in a constantly shifting dance of meaning. The same questions and methods of analyses used on the cursed footage leaks over to the film proper, begging the question of where the VHS tape ends and where the film begins.
Ring constantly seeks to probe this sense of discomfort via its demonstration of how same channels humans use to communicate with one another can give to an unhuman force. Phones which help connect family members across geographical boundaries now connect the spectral and corporeal, rendering the boundaries between the human and nonhuman bare. Televisions which provide entertainment and a respite from the drudgery of the day became channels by which the other world can reach out and curse the living. Technology becomes a marker of the trace between humanity and its attempt at demarcating itself against. No one is safe…not even the viewer who is subject to the same “cursed” footage that victims and Reiko have seen. It becomes clear that if such a phenomenon were to occur in our world, we’d be just as doomed, just as trapped as Reiko. We watched the tape too. Thus, spectral intrusion is demonstrated to be as insidious as it is terrifying. It can’t be taken seriously until it’s too late.
Not since Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom, a film about a serial killer who kills women and photographs their contorted dying expressions, has a film so brilliantly captured the perversity inherent in photography and the way it captures the subject within its frame. Despite utilizing a different sub-genre as vantage point, supernatural and cosmic over slasher, Ring manages to traverse into the same uncanny territories Peeping Tom does in revealing the terrors inherent within humanity. The films’ shared focus on capturing dying expressions is a result of their investigative focuses: the liminal point at which humanity renders unto itself unhumanity.
This is why Ring is and will always continue to remain eerie, if not outright terrifying, long after the age of VHS tapes. It preys on the terrors lying at the heart of the horror genre – the peripheries and vestiges of that uncanny which we feel in our mythos and the world around us but can’t even pinpoint. It takes the act of viewing horror media itself as the basis of its investigation, forcing the viewer into an intimate encounter with the subject matter. Nakata’s film is demonstration that fear is a result not of loid noises or shocking violence but of making the viewer investigate the difference between reality and the abyss that seems to follow it.
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TLDR
While Ring‘s legacy is more so remembered today for its impact in making J-Horror a global phenomenon both in terms of exports and westernized remakes, it goes without saying that the film itself a bona fide horror classic of the highest caliber. Hideo Nakata’s disturbing investigation into the ways technology renders the world from beyond to investigate with the world we inhabit is not only eerie in the way it renders some of our most used tools (televisions, phones) conduits for the supernatural but also reaffirms the power of the horror film and its ability to force encounters with the uncanny. By focusing the film on the power of horror film itself and taking those ideas to the extreme, Nakata is able to deeply unsettle and render even the medium the movie is playing on disturbing. It’s no wonder then that so many people find it hard to watch their television after watching this film. It’s hard to take the screen as trustworthy ever again.
Rating
10/10
Grade
S+
Go to Page 2for the spoiler discussion and more in-depth analysis. Go to Page 3 to view this review’s progress report .
Ryan Jennifer as Sara Danny Bellini as Alex Gore Abrams as Paul Jared Hacker as Tony Adam Schneider as Andrew “Mac” McNamara Alice Bahlke as Diane
Release Date
2015
Language(s)
English
Running Time
83 minutes
When I decided I had to do a bonus movie to meet my 31 “horrors” in 31 days, I thought might as well kill two birds with one stone and review this. Stephen Cognetti’s found footage flick, Hell House LLC, is a well acted, tense, and genuinely eerie story that manages to provoke and scare in spite of its low budget. While it doesn’t change up the game, it’s more than competent in all the places that matter and should entertain any horror fan looking for a quick, easy, and effective scare.
The film , which is shot and edited like a documentary, chronicles the creation and subsequent tragedy of Hell House, a haunted house attraction. Clips are taken from found footage the staff that renovated the dilapidated hotel into Hell House took while they were working, faux YouTube videos about the subsequent tragedy at the location which ended up killing fifteen people, and interviews referencing the same. Earlier portions of the movie which contain news clips and YouTube videos of the tragedy grounds the mystery and makes it feel like something that might have actually happened. There’s a gravity to the carnage that elevates the movie about the standard camp you would expect. Cuts (especially from certain interviews) foreshadows events in a way that creates tension without explicitly telling the audience how things will play out. It’s a unique use of the documentary style to set up scares that gives the movie an elevated feeling compared to other found footage contemporaries.
Every member of the main cast feels real and well grounded. Their decisions make sense and their skepticism to the supernatural is justified given the way key events play out. You can feel the tension between the group members grow as things in the hotel get more intense. Schisms and party lines break naturally and feel like power dynamics many of us encounter in our own social groups. In particular Gore Abrams performance as Paul creates moments of levity which simultaneously makes the descent and fracturing of the group more pronounced.
I enjoyed that the film presents a lot of subtle clues about certain character motivations and the nature of the supernatural elements of the movie. These looser “rules” and general associations with satanism are more than enough to engender a creepy aesthetic I loved that there were not many , if at all, stupid jump scares. We see scary things from the corner of our eyes and that in end of itself is the scare. Character reactions to the unseen spooks do more than enough at provoking audience imagination to think about the severity of the events that are transpiring.
Unfortunately, the end of the movie leaves some critical questions unanswered which stands out more than normal because of the sense of realism in editing and decision making had made a lot of sense before. Some of these decisions create cool scares, but I think they ruin some narrative integrity and make the movie feel less intelligent than it had been up till that point. The movie also makes constant usage of a “glitch” (random glitchy bars show up in random places on the screen to indicate that something is messing with the cameras waves) effect which felt like unnecessary visual flair that distracted from what was actually going on.
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TLDR
Hell House LLC is a deceptively fun found footage horror film, that stays believable and creepy for the majority of it’s run time. The characters are relatable and the scares feel natural and well-earned. Despite the bumpy ending, I was left satisfied at the end of the movie.
Rating
8.2/10
Grade
B
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.
REPORT CARD
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 .
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/.
