Kristen Connolly as Dana Fran Kranz as Marty Chris Hemsworth as Curt Anna Hutchinson as Jules Jesse Williams as Holden Richard Jenkins as Gary Bradley Whitford as Steve
Release Date
2012
Running Time
95 minutes
Since I was re-watching my favorite horror movies for my best horror movies of the past decade list (to be released soon) , I decided to watch Cabin In the Woods one more time even though I saw it recently in my Halloween Marathon challenge. I’m genuinely happy I did because wow, did I come away with so much more than I initially saw. All the issues I had with the movie before were ideas that the movie directly criticizes and looking at the movie again with the knowledge of how it all ends proved a humbling experience. Goddard and Whedon have written one of the most ambitious and intelligent horror movies of all-time, let alone the last decade and I’ve never been so excited to have been wrong before.
I’ll keep the review spoiler free like before because this movie is best experienced knowing almost nothing going in. Even now, I think my previous review might have said too much, so I’d suggest only looking at it after watching the movie. It’ll make it even funnier. I have a lot of thoughts about the movie that I’ll write in the spoiler section here and in a piece I’ve been brewing up. Now that that’s out of the way, the movie follows a group of 5 friends: Dana, a shy nerdy girl. Typical final girl status; Marty, the fun stoner of the group who drops nuggets of wisdom; Curt, alpha but intelligent cool guy of the group; Holden, a book smart nice guy; Jules, the fun outgoing girl who’s in a relationship with Curt. Every character feels familiar at once because they’re similar to archetypes we’re all familiar with in horror, but are distinct enough to stand out. The attention to character details really shines through and makes reveals later in the movie more satisfying.
If you’re a fan of horror, you owe it to yourself to watch the movie just to see all the different homages. Now that I’ve watched more horror and expanded my palette (primarily due to this past October) I could recognize more of the mise en scene. There’s a lot of love present from the attention to detail to the way the plot unfolds. The movie deftly navigates multiple tropes, simultaneously using them, making fun of them, and being in something in addition to them. Every single actor/actress gives their all in their respective performance and the movie wouldn’t be the same without their dedication to the script. You can tell they’re having a lot of fun with the subtext at play and it makes every moment memorable. I was surprised at how much of the movie I remembered as I re-watched everything. It has a way of sticking with you because the entire experience is something wholly unique.
This is a meta- movie that requires a lot of self introspection. When I said in my opening paragraph that my re-watch was humbling, I meant that I realized that during my first viewing, I had been so caught up in perceived issues that I never considered the point of what was being said. I missed the forest for the trees. It’s not that I think my analysis of the themes before are wrong. It’s just that that my former analysis only operates one level removed from the movie and the movie goes a lot further than that. The beauty of The Cabin in the Woods is the more you think about what it says about you, the more you get out of it. It’s a movie that rewards familiarity with horror in general, but also the way that the horror market works. If you know your place in that market, you get a lot more from this movie than someone watching just for the sake of scares. The movie isn’t just meta. It’s meta-meta and it’s done for the sake of seriously critiquing the way horror is conceived of and consumed.
Thankfully, if you’re not into all of that “meta nonsense”, there’s a fun story that works purely at the level of function. Watching the tale of the group is still scary. It’s just scary in a horror comedy sense, more so than a typical slasher movie. There’s a lot of blood and gore. There are gruesome kills and serious moments. However, the nature of the movie might make those moments less scary than one would expect. Going into the movie with an open mind and no expectations and knowledge of it gives you the best chance of enjoying a fun and unique experience. I laughed myself to tears more than once and found myself genuinely admiring how diverse the layers of humor were.
Report Card
TLDR
The Cabin in the Woods is a movie that ages with experience and time. The more you think about your place in the horror industry and your own expectations, the more you appreciate the decisions Goddard and Whedon made. On the surface level there’s a lot of humorous scenes and gory fun to be had. If you’re looking for subtext or enjoy meta-content then this movie is for you. It’s unique in that it gives viewers exactly what they put into it. As a result it can work for a variety of audiences. If you enjoy horror at all, you owe it to yourself to check this out.
Rating
10/10
Grade
A+
Go to Page 2 for the spoiler discussion. Go to Page 3 to view Version #1 of this review. Go to Page 4 for Version #1’s spoiler discussion. Go to Page 5 to view this review’s progress report .
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.
George Romero’s 1968 piece of art, Night of the Living Dead, tells a gripping tale of a group of survivors fighting against a horde of “living dead” zombies encroaching the house they’re hiding in. However, the real, more insidious enemy plaguing the group are their ideological divides. The film feels so much like a social commentary and, surprisingly, seems incredibly pertinent to the status quo.
The first scene into the bait-and-switch into the lead character was unexpected and genuinely surprising. We start off with a view of Barbra (played by Judith O’Dea) and her brother walking towards the cemetery to pay respects to their father. From there we go on an almost absurd journey, as Barbra tries to escape an undead chasing her. As she finds shelter, we get introduced to the real main character, Ben, played by Duane Jones. I’ve seen a lot of horror movies, and I can only count on one hand how many black leads I’ve ever seen. Especially thinking about the fact that this movie was released in 1968, Duane’s portrayal of a strong, steady, calm, and resourceful black man taking charge and holding off the undead is incredibly subversive.
Eventually as we’re introduced to the rest of the cast, we see the signs of ideological fracture among the group. Harry, played by Karl Hardman, serves as the chief foil to Ben and they both represent different outlooks on relation and responsibility. The clashes between them serve as a kind of commentary on the costs of survival and the extent of our obligation to our fellow people.
Romero is phenomenal at showing and not telling. Yes, there are exposition dumps woven throughout the movie, but the a lot of the information describes events that we, as the audience, have already seen. This helps create a really dynamic viewing experience which is only amplified by the use of slanted camera angles and amazing lighting choices. The shadows are really accentuated which ramps up the tension, but more importantly the constant use of fire and flames through the movies really pops and creates an impact. Special effect design is also great – the gore effects are visually disturbing and accentuate the depravity of the creatures enough to make them scary even now. However, despite using so many of the above to create a scary spectacle, never once, does the focus of the movie feel like it’s too “away” from the protagonists. The monsters are there – but they’re there to highlight issues and serve as catalysts – the focus is always clearly on the characters.
I would go into more but I don’t want to risk spoiling anything so I’ll end the spoiler free section here.
Rating
TLDR:Night of the Living Dead is a dark take on humanity’s response to an terrifying threat. Although it’s a zombie movie on the outside, on the inside it’s a fascinating journey through the darker canals of the human mind.
Final Rating: 9.5/10. If you’re someone who keeps up a lot with social issues and the news, watch this movie. It’s surprisingly though provoking now, five decades later. Anyone who likes psychological films or zombie films should also give this a go.
Who would win? A group of punk rock musicians or a gang of violent Nazi’s/white nationalists. Jeremy Saulnier’s, Green Room, follows a the band, the Ain’t Rights, as they play a gig at a far-right venue and come witness to a murder. What follows is a heart-pounding thriller that’ll keep you on the edge of your seats as you witness the group try and get out with their lives.
What makes the movie feel so tense is the normality of the characters. Obviously, I don’t mean the fact they’re musicians that take questionable gigs – rather, it’s because none of the characters have some unexplained skill set that’s perfect for the scenario. No one is actually a secret combat veteran or a perfect shot. Instead, the group is made up of normal human beings who are placed in a terrifying situation and have to use their collective wit to try and escape. The best part? For the most part, their actions and decisions are pretty believable.
This effect is achieved in part by great acting and dialogue choice. Pat (Anton Yelchin), Sam (Alia Shawkat), Reece (Joe Cole), and Tiger (Callum Turner) all play off each other great as band mates and their chemistry and sense familiarity helps create tension and investment in their characters. Amber, played by Imogen Poots, always feels a bit off-mysterious and strange- which helps keep the intrigue. Finally, Patrick Stewart as Darcy, the film’s villain, is incredibly sinister. You can feel the calculations and his performance really sells how meticulous his planning is. On top of the acting, a lot of the dialogue seems natural and makes sense. This helps create a sense of immersion so when the group makes a decision, it doesn’t feel like it comes out of the blue. This also helps a lot of the outcomes feel earned. between the viewer and the character on the screen.
The film is also gruesome and doesn’t shy away from more gory and bloody moments. This in combination with the darker color scheme, create a gritty and intense feeling that only amplifies the suspense as the movie goes.
Problems mainly occur more prominently in the latter half of the movie. Although most of the plot threads or character threads get developed, there are others that are just raised because? They feel almost like they should be important, but they never really go anywhere. The characters also seem like they all became less intelligent as the plot goes on so the ending doesn’t quite stick the landing.
Rating
TLDR:Green Room is a 90 minute heart pounding suspense film that has great twists and turns. The dialogue and characterization is mostly believable, and though some issues prop up in the second half of the movie, the journey is still a hell of a lot of fun.
Final Rating: 8.3/10. A great movie with some like-able and grounded characters – you should check it out if you want an adrenaline rush or want to feel more alive.
The moment I saw Diane’s(JoBeth William) reaction to the initial infestation of the haunting/poltergeist infestation, I knew I was in for a different supernatural movie experience. Tobe Hooper’s, Poltergeist, follows a suburban American family as their house is taken over by outside spirits. Though the haunting/infestation starts off as innocuous furniture re-arrangements, it quickly descends into a nightmare, as the family struggles to deal with make it through the ordeal
The first thing I really loved was how early on in the film the haunting is set up and its consequences foreshadowed. For example, the opening scene opens up on a television set playing the American anthem. The camera starts zooming into the TV, as the screen starts flickering. The focus on the flicker in the blue light highlights the association between a boundary flickering on and off, and is commonly used to amp up the tension of scenes or to highlight the absolute presence of the paranormal.
There also seems to be a critique of violence and appearances. As the first act continues to unfold, we see Carol Anne (played by Heather O’Rourke), watching a blank flickering screen. A scene exemplifying this that stuck out in my head occurred when Diane sees her Carol Anne watching a blank screen, calls it bad for her daughters eyes, then switches the channel to a war movie with violence on the screen. It felt like foreshadowing, as though Carol Anne would think something bad was good for her. But more importantly, it felt like a critique of how normalized violence can be. Diane immediately also turns away from the television, signalling she may not have seen what she put on for her daughter or know what the content was. This felt like a criticism of assuming the safety of common procedures- like sometimes the seemingly innocent, might have a malevolent undercurrent.
Effects wise, the movie is gorgeous. Some of the special effects seem corny now, but I’d assume they looked a lot scarier back at the release date. However, this only happens a few times. For the most part, some of the visual scares were downright disturbing. They looked real and alive, as though they actually came from some demonic realm.
Most of the problems I had with the movie stem from some early characterization which may or may not be unfair. I felt like some of the actions the characters took felt out of place with the events unfolding, but thankfully these moments were few and far between.
Rating
TLDR:Poltergeist was a beautiful film with great visual effects and an well-developed and fleshed out exploration of a family dealing with the unimaginable.
Final Rating: 9/10. This seminal work deserves a watch from crowds old and young. There’s something in it for everyone and no matter how scared or not scared you are by the end, you’ll have been entertained.
What’s real? Who can I trust? Does it matter? Stanley Kubrick’s ,The Shining , dives headfirst in its examination into the inner workings of the human mind. This story of an isolated family, forced to man and take care of an otherworldly hotel, tackles issues associated with violence, dependence, and isolation-making sure to weave a narrative that highlights each of the above in nuanced and diverse ways.
The first shot sets the tone and really drives home how isolated the main environment of the movie, the Overlook Hotel, is from society. As we follow Jack Torrance’s, played by Jack Nicholson, car driving up the long, winding, mountain road we get to see he how far away the area is from the rest of society.
As he enters the hotel we’re greeted with one of many “timeline” narration cards. I loved how they were used frequently to give a sense of progression of time in the movie, but more interestingly, they made the movie feel more like a novel. I haven’t read the Stephen King novel, this adaptation is based on, but the structure of the acts and their respective lengths made the movie feel like a visual book, as opposed to a normal movie. Almost like it wanted to convey the sense of progression and growth a book can do. The effect felt really impactful in highlighting character progression/regression. Furthermore, the use of one-point perspective for a lot of the scarier and more visually striking shots helped the more intense moments of the movie feel haunting. I couldn’t avert my gaze, and a lot of the times, the “lead up” to the eventual reveal was as if not more intense than the final image, due to the amount of tension and anxiety it created.
The family dynamic present between him, his wife, and their son serve as the catalyst for a lot of important plot points. Paying attention to their interactions at the beginning of the movie, you can tell despite the initial strain, there’s an attempt at kind of coming together and connecting. But as more information gets revealed, the faces slowly reveal fear and paranoia, and a fuller picture of the family comes up. Watching Wendy’s (played by Shelley Duvall) expressions to her husband’s continued eccentricities was simultaneously engrossing and petrifying. I did find it interesting that despite being most intimately connected to the “shining,” Danny (played by Danny Lloyd), doesn’t play as big a role as I thought he would. He was believable in the sequences he was in though, and I enjoyed his other voice/performance.
However, any discussion of the acting in the movie would be remiss if it didn’t go over Jack Nicholson’s performance. He stole the show here and really helped sell the mood and theme of the whole movie. From the moment we meet the Torrance patriarch, he seems like a man on the edge of a see-saw, almost like he’s teetering on the edge of madness. From his facial expressions, to his responses to scenarios he feels like an volcano, ready to blow. As the events of the movie progress, we see him desperately try and maintain a sense of control-of not only himself, but his grasp on reality.
Thankfully, for Jack , Kubrick wants the audience to join him, by casting doubt about everything. Characters say things that contradict previously understood information. Then something happens to confirm the contradiction. Then something happens that maybe throws that previous thing out of the water. Or maybe not. That’s the beauty of the movie. It leaves a lot open-ended, but it does so in a way that feels earned and not sloppy. Camera angles, transitions, and brief still images constantly kept me on edge, wondering if I really did have a grasp on what was going on.
Rating
TLDR:The Shining is a haunting tale of the effects of isolation and dependency. By using an already strained family as the main characters and splashing in elements of the supernatural, it takes its themes and questions to some of their most interesting destinations.
Final Rating: 10/10 Beautifully paced, shot, and executed. I’ll be thinking about the ending for a while and who was actually telling the truth
From the opening shot of the John Carpenter’s masterpiece science-fiction horror film, The Thing, I knew I was in for something different. After all, the first real thing we see is a UFO crash into the Earth before a great transition to the title card. Then immediately after, we cut into a helicopter chasing around a dog in the Antarctic, desperately trying to gun it down. The best part? This is only the beginning, and the story that follows is even grander and raises even more questions.
The story follows a group of American scientists, their encounter with an unknown alien creature that can imitate any organism it consumes, and their subsequent struggle to survive and eliminate “the Thing.” The acting is phenomenal from the entire cast . It genuinely feels like everyone is certain that they’re a “good” guy and everyone else is suspicious or corrupted by the alien creature. . Lighting and perspective are played around with a lot to amp up the feelings of paranoia. Furthermore, Kurt Russel as MacReady was captivating. He took charge of the scenes he was in, much like his character did during his movie. His serious reaction to a lot of the more imaginative scenes in the movie, really sell the impact and gravity of what’s going on.
However, what makes the movie truly mesmerizing and in turn, genuinely disturbing is attention to detail. From set design, to lighting you can tell a lot of the choices were done intentionally to seed additional doubt over the status of certain characters and to constantly cause the viewer to feel uncertain. The visual effects on display made me actually lean back in fear. The monster was disgusting and didn’t even feel out of place compared to special effects in movies today. I was shocked to see that this movie was actually almost forty years old. It’s aged phenomenally! There’s one scene in particular that I’ll go into more detail in the spoilers section, but after reading on how much work went into it, I appreciated how much more it actually scared me. This does come with a warning to my more squeamish friends- some of the visual scares are a bit bloody and there’s some really out there imagery, so be warned.
Put together- the elements of the movie present, at least in my opinion, a pretty bleak interpretation of human affairs and left me with a sense of nihilism. I can see why critics at the time weren’t huge fans. But despite, the seemingly bleak nature of the movie- it’s beautiful in it’s portrayal of the costs of survival and the things we’re willing to do in its name.
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise or horrors so the spoiler free thoughts end here.
Rating
TLDR:The Thing is bleak and ambiguous, leaving a lot up the viewer for interpretation. From the effects to the cast, the story will constantly keep you on edge, nervous, and paranoid, just like the characters.
Final Rating: 10/10. It’s good. Real good. Take the deep dive. I know I know. A 10 in the first 3 days? I promise- it’s well worth it.
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.
Text appears on the screen, presumably written by the movie’s in-universe director, indicating to us that the movie to follow, the story of the disappearance of a painter named Johan (Max von Sydow) , is informed by both a journal formerly owned by him and a personal verbal account of the events leading up to the same by his wife, Alma (Liv Ullmann). As this information is presented, stage direction can be heard in the background. Is this the director giving instructions for the movie that’s about to start? A voice yell, “Quiet.”
The expository text gives way to the introduction title sequence, during which stage directions can be heard from the background. In this way, the “real” world and the movie world bleed into each other, revealing the duplicity of the barrier between our conscious and unconscious worlds. As if to confirm the point, upon saying “Action”, the screen fades from “Svensk Filmindustri” to
As “Action!” is called the screen dissolves to a small cottage where Alma resides. She comes out of the abode to answer some of the “director’s” questions. She talks directly at the camera presumably to the director, but her direct approach feels more like she’s addressing the audience. Her eyes, however, can rarely meet our gaze for more than a few seconds. As she talks about her missing husband, it’s clear to us that not only does Alma not know what has happened but that whatever she has witnessed is something that escapes her explanatory capabilities. Unable to continue conversing she stares down and the camera dissolves to black once more, bringing us to the world of the “real” narrative.
These first six minutes are a light serving of what’s to come. First, this introduction, both the text and Alma’s testimony, reveal the ending of the story. We know Johan is missing and is not coming back and we know that Alma will make it to the end, ready for a new life with her soon to be born child. By giving us this information, we can focus on the why and how of the upcoming surreal imagery as opposed to the what which primes us to be more involved in deciphering the hallucinatory events culminating in his disappearance. This also has the double effect of pushing us towards Alma’s corner because we start the movie with her and know we’ll end with her, a move that becomes quite important as it gives us an anchor to hold onto as wade through the torrents of meaning.
Second, the inclusion of stage directions during the title sequence demonstrates the constantly fluctuating border between art and reality. The initial text message is written by the “real” director of the movie. We know the real director is Ingmar, but the second level of an in-world director taking charge of the movie adds another level of intrigue. This is exacerbated by the nature of the movie’s sources- testimony. Testimony which we know is in fact fiction. It’s no wonder then why the nature of the surreal sequences provokes so much confusion as the nature of what’s happening is up to interpretation- what reality does it belong to?
Third, the shift from an “objective” textual account of the overall story to the “documentary” like interview with Alma to the story “proper” demonstrates the way perspectives bleed into one another on top of imbuing the movie with a misty dreamlike quality. At a structural level Hour of the Wolf is a movie within a movie, the former of which contains both interview footage and what we’d normally consider a movie. It’s told from an “objective” perspective which seeks to synthesize two experiences of a person – one from a diary and another from word of mouth, both equally subjective. What does subjectivity mean if we can encapsulate the experience of another in such a way as to inhabit it? Likewise, what does objectivity mean if our experience of ourselves is one that slips outside of our understanding? Thus, the stage is set for the story to take place.
The couple makes their way to the deserted island.Bergman has the camera focus on the tip of the boat for an inordinately long time to emphasize the length of the trip .Johan (Max von Sydow) spends a long while removing his belongings from the boat indicating this outing to the island is one meant to last. As Johan (Max von Sydow) and Alma (Liv Ullmann) walk up the rocky shore, they almost seem like they disappear. It’s almost as if the island is consuming them. Johan (Max von Sydow) and Alma (Liv Ullmann) make their trek to the supposedly deserted island. The camera lingers both on the front of the boat as it travels and on the couple as they remove their items from the same. This is done to emphasize the length of the journey and the distance from civilization the couple are trying to reach. As the couple makes their way through the rocky shore, they almost seem to disappear, almost as if consumed by the island itself, a sign of things to come.
We start with the couple making their maritime trek to a supposedly isolated island. The trip is long and the camera emphasizes its length by focusing on the bow of the boat. This is a long way from civilization. As the couple makes their way to shore, it becomes evident that they’ve come here for the long haul. Johan’s general dislike of people has led the couple to seek out a place to be alone.
However, it isn’t long before the two of them realize they’re not the only inhabitants on the island. As the couple’s path crosses with other people, their idyllic island life begins to come under siege. One hand, the other islanders exacerbate Johan’s anxieties, constantly probing into his status as an artist and relationship with art, leading him to become more aloof and distant. Despite being apparent fans/patrons of his work, these “others” spend most of their time mocking Johan and the supposed value of art in the world. On the other hand, Alma’s concerns and attempts to understand something about Johan’s mental state led her to places of utter desperation as she struggles to maintain stability between her husband and herself. She constantly strives to make a genuine connection with Johan in spite of his apparent apathy. Meanwhile, Johan finds himself besieged on all sides and is unable to find any respite, most of all during the hours between midnight and dawn, for it is during this “hour of the wolf” where nightmares are born, people die, and babies are born – a liminal place where anything and everything can happen.
In this way, the narrative can be read as a demented ménage à trois depicting an artist trying to run away from any investigation or prodding (outside of what he desires) being chased by his partner who wants nothing more than to understand him at his most intimate who are both being harangued by a mob that seeks to explicate the couple’s motivations and decisions. Both parties, Alma and the others, want to gain an understanding of Johan. The former wants to do it through intimacy, carving out a path for mutual understanding through love. The latter wants to do it through domination, carving out an interpretation of Johan according to their own ideas of what he ought to be. Johan stands in the middle, caught in a whirlpool of torment. Every gambit on Alma’s part designed to save him is met by an equally brutalizing action by the part of the other islanders designed to condemn him – a tug of war for the direction of his soul. Every question any party asks is met by a surreal answer that feels more like a question than the original inquisition. Issues of identity bleed into questions of art bubbling into the movie’s primary question: is it possible for a person to truly ever know another person – art or otherwise?
Johan (Max von Sydow) holds Alma (Liv Ullmann) next to the tree near their house. The scene is serene and calm. Shadows cast both a literal and figurative doubt over Lindhorst (Georg Rydeberg). The scene becomes bathed in a near blinding light as Johan (Max von Sydow) encounters an unwanted “intruder”. Cinematographer Sven Nykvist is given full carte blanche to explore a variety of different lighting styles. When the couple first arrives on the island the lighting and positioning of the camera is stable and grounded, engendering a loving feeling of peace. However, as the couple are forced to interact with the “others” on the island the visual style of the movie changes. Shadows crawl over the characters faces reinforcing earlier visual motifs and casting doubt on the nature of who’s who. At another point, hyper saturated white light is used to create an almost blinding encounter that feels like a fever dream come to life. The constantly changing styles makes the “reality” of the movie impossible to grasp as we, along with Alma, are forced to piece together the nature of the situation.
This indeterminacy in exemplified in the visual style of the movie. When Alma initially starts her narration, the lighting is calming and feels natural. Her initial encounters with Johan are serene and warm – an Earthy grounded feeling. However, as the couple are made to interact with the others, the Earthy comfort gives way to Gothic terror. The lighting in these moments is exaggerated and more impressionistic, suggesting a break with reality. The cheerful face of Alma gives way to the sunken and sneering faces of the others. The stable camera associated with Alma gives way to a swerving, arcing camera completely unbounded and out of control. This change from calming to chaotic is also reflected in the soundscape which goes from sedated to disjointed and erratic. Multiple moments of the macabre are accompanied with an unnerving droning noise or characters voices completely disappearing as the background noise takes full control.
By modulating the appearance and presentation of each spectacle, Bergman is able to keep the carnival of terror going in an authentic, yet opaque way. Early on, Johan describes a series of grotesque drawings – a women with a removable scalp, a menacing bird-man, and so on – to Alma. These descriptions prime our minds to look for certain visual clues and serve as the starting “motifs” for the horrors to come. Later on, we get to explore excerpts from Johan’s journal. These mental excavations add to the texture of the motifs we have access to. When these projections bleed into the “real” world of the story, we’re never fully shown whether or not Alma and Johan are viewing the same thing or something different. Has Johan lost his mind and is Alma just humoring him? Has Alma been able to interpret Johan so much as if to share his delusion?
In the grander context of Bergman’s filmography, Hour of the Wolf is Bergman’s first movie after Persona, which makes sense given how many of themes and image archetypes the former continues from the latter. Both movies deal with a character named Alma who deals with a character they can’t seem to fully pin down. Both movies tackle the ways memory, cinema, and reality effect and bleed into one another. Both movies employ vampiric imagery in association with identity to probe the limits of what it means to know oneself and to know another. However, Hour of the Wolf feels far more autobiographical. Johan feels like a doppelgänger for Bergman himself. Among other things they’re both artists who bemoans themselves and the place of artists while continuing to create pieces that move people. Some of the monologues given by Johan are close to quotations given by Bergman verbatim, both in person and in previous films like The Magician. Watched in this way, Hour of the Wolf takes a paradoxical quality as Bergman’s psyche becomes both the movie’s subject and its object of fascination. It’s no wonder then that my appreciation of the movie has only grown over time as I’ve become more devoted to Bergman and the worlds he creates/created.
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TLDR
Hour of the Wolf asks the question, “Can we every really know anyone else?” and answers in a cascading series of surreal nightmare sequences that never fail to captivate. This narrative ménage à trois features an artist, his wife, and his patrons and fans. He seeks solace in ignorance. She seeks union in transparency with him. They seek, what seems to be, nothing more than the utter humiliation of the artist despite consuming his goods vociferously. Issues of identity bleed into issues of the nature of art which bleed into issues of intersubjectivity culminating in a melting pot of utter delirium. Those seeking a haunting time with no easy answers need look no further.
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 .
This year I’ll be watching 31 horror movies- 1 for each day in October. I haven’t watched most of these movies or don’t remember watching them because I was too young to comprehend them at the time, so most of my thoughts to them will be pretty raw.
After watching and thinking about the movies, I’ll be posting my review/thoughts up on here. I’d love it if you left your feedback and experiences as well. Or if you want to lurk and follow along- that’s cool too. The more the merrier.
NOTE(10/3/19): I might move movies around, but if I do, the list below will be updated to reflect the change. The movies themselves will not change, however.
NOTE (10/28/19): After a few friends of mine pointed out that Joker is not officially categorized as a horror on any mainstream sites like Wikipedia , I’ve decided to add a bonus horror movie as a substitute. I do think the Joker movie is a horror and will address that concern later, but I think the arguments against it are decent enough to warrant a bonus movie. As such I will be watching Hell House LLC for a bonus 32nd movie.
The Selection Process
Most movies were picked off of the Dreadit Movie Guide. I usually watch a lot of supernatural movies and shy away from anything that has even a little bit of gore which is why I tried to “face my fears” on this list and add them on . I also wanted a bit of variety which is why there’s a healthy mix of sub-genres. I wish I could add more foreign films – goals for next year.
