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2010s, 2015, Grade, Horror, mystery, Past, psychological, Review, review-movie, S, supernatural, Thriller, Year

Film Review: The Blackcoat’s Daughter – 2015

January 25, 2020 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Osgood Perkins
Principal Cast	Emma Roberts as Joan Kiernan Shipka as Katherine Lucy Boynton as Rose
Release Date	2015
Language(s)	English
Running Time	93 minutes
Report Card	Click to go to Review TLDR/Summary

An evocative, yet disturbing song plays: “Deedle, deedle, Blackcoat’s Daughter, what was in the Holy Water? Went to bed on an unclean head, the Angels they forgot her.”

While these ominous lyrics fill the aural setting, a quick title card using the same iconic blue font of The Shining informs us that this story will be a haunting one; when approached within the context of the devious ditty, this allusive shorthand portends something wicked waiting to come.

We cut to a young girl, Katherine (Kiernan Shipka), who sleeps with her hands clasped as if in prayer — the “Blackcoat’s daughter” praying while the “Angels” forget her. What thoughts lie in her head?

The film intercuts between her still sleeping and a tracking shot moving towards a snowy landscape shot — a white abyss, another callback to the snowy mountains which serve as The Shining’s primary location.

Why does this vision, her apparent prayer, percolate in her “unclean” head?

We cut to an alternative take of her still sleeping, her hands now laying by her side — has her call been answered?

A black shape, a counterpoint to the white environment, obscures the foreground and walks past her, disguising a cut which pushes in closer to her face: is this the dream come to life?

She wakes and looks up at the figure which obscures half the frame, isolating her to the opposite side and rendering her alienated: she’s held completely within this entity’s purview.

Then, she innocently addresses this being: “Daddy. You came early.”

There’s a palpable tension as the unknown is rendered familiar, begging the question as to whether our assumptions were wrong or if Katherine has become ensnared in something deeper.

Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) walks forward.

Suddenly, Katherine walks in the same snowy landscape from her vision, a chimera standing on the interstices of dream and prayer. Another cut to the same tracking shot still pushing forward on the wintery backdrop, confirms that she’s in this unidentifiable location. An eerie foghorn type noise cuts through and ratchets the feeling of unease permeating the moment.

But we cut back to her, still asleep in her bed, her hands now split apart with one of them outstretched — a half-prayer or a call for companionship?

She’s back in the snow walking by this black figure, her “Daddy”.

Then we’re back in her bedroom; the camera is focused on her other hand grabbing a teddy bear, an act of childlike innocence which evokes dread in the grander schema of the intercutting.

She asks the figure: “Daddy, where’s the car?”

We cut back to the snowy wasteland, over her shoulder, and see a crumpled vehicle, shot out-of-focus such as to render it a black blurb in the background; the foghorn comes back. She looks at this wreck in shock while the black figure, her supposed “Daddy”, stands right by her side with its visage still cut out of the frame; what is this creature’s nature and what does it desire?

The outstretched hand starts to tremble as the droning noises get stronger and more invasive. Terror begins to seep in and Katherine calls for her “Mommy” presumably trapped in this wreckage. But then how did “Daddy” make it out and come to her, calling her from her bedroom to the scene of this crash? The loud sound of static is the only response she receives: a non-answer that somehow conveys everything.

The car is finally in focus and we can peer into the wreckage. There are splatters of blood on the front of the car. There are no apparent survivors. There is no explanation to be found.

A resolute cut to black. Are we somehow trapped in the figure from Katherine’s oneiric experience or in another void altogether?

Before we can ascertain the answer, we see Katherine, now cast fully in a black silhouette, sitting up and gazing; the direction she faces is hidden by the shadows; is she looking towards us, the audience, or looking out from the window at the now retroactively signified wintery hellscape, the place of her parent’s demise?

Her harrowing visions, a perverse answer to her prayers, unheard by any but this shadowy figure, a being which given the opening song we can figure is anything but an angel, seemingly overwhelm her.

She slowly turns her head to the side, revealing that she was in fact staring directly at the audience without us being aware, and looks up a calendar; the days of the month are crossed out in red “X” ‘s with a heart symbol tacked onto a day not yet gotten to.

A closeup of her harrowed face as she goes towards it.

A close-up of the heart symbol and the words inside: “Mom & Dad Here.”

We’re not sure of her vision but we, like Katherine, feel despair knowing that her prayer for the family’s happily ever after will not happen: her parents will die before making it to this encounter; that much is certain.

We cut to a new view of Katherine that starts from the back of her head which is placed in the lower part of the frame, an intentional geographic choice which ties us into the idea of descent, the subconscious, the id, hellish recesses far from the gaze of angels. This shot, a formal choice that film will repeatedly utilize, reinforces the film’s preoccupation with the psychological, unknowable zones of its characters, the oneiric chasms where images can convey meaning only through their interstices, forcing us to put the pieces together in a desperate attempt to understand why the characters do what they do, why they think what they think.

The moment passes as Katherine is called into the Dean’s office. We learn from the Crucifix on the wall that this is a religious educational facility. The ominous opening referencing the silence of the divine sinks even deeper.

Meanwhile, the film’s shot-reverse-shot rendition of the conversation between Katherine and her dean, Mr. Gordon (Peter James Haworth) reinforces the abundant alienation she experiences. She’s framed next to an empty seat while the Dean is framed next to the Crucifix. She’s utterly alone and her small talk reveals the extent of that loneliness as she desperately attempts to make a connection, one that is rebuffed as the Dean explains that he will be absent for her musical performance due to the upcoming school break.

A cut to a wide of the room emphasizes the distance she feels and her desperation to bridge it; she changes her focal point of attention from the person in the room to the spot occupied on the other side of the religious symbol, a gaze qua prayer that she knows falls on deaf ears. There are no Angels or humans waiting to give her company. But she smiles in this moment. What has she seen? Was it “Daddy”?

Gordon attempts to gather an explanation for the oddity but Katherine deflects the inquisition. There will be no answers. Fittingly, the film cuts to black once again, the color thus far imbued with perverse ambiguity.

We cut to an empty doorway which the camera slowly repositions to better capture and watch another young woman, Rose (Lucy Boynton), who walks through the frames of this entryway in slow-motion. The eerie ambience transforms into a musical interlude that evokes a sense of jazzy melancholy.

Meanwhile, the camera tracks on Rose who continues to walk slowly down a hallway to a blue, cloudy backdrop — an evocation of heaven. She sits down and gets ready for a school picture. This paradisal backdrop fills the frame and we see Rose, center frame, lower quadrant, break out into a smile for the picture: this is the ideal image.

But the shutter clicks and the screen fades to black once again, formally imbuing this color and the editing refrain itself with the powers of the camera ascertaining and fixing a subject into position.

We see Rose again in a bathroom, this time in the iconic shot used earlier on Katherine; her face is partially turned away from the camera and she’s positioned in the lower half of the frame. There’s something running through her mind as she stares into a mirror. While she ponders, one of the film’s three character titles, the first of which is aptly titled “Rose”, appears in the same blue font used in the title card.

It’s a curious choice indeed to open the film on a character and spend time with them, then cut to another character and quickly use a title card to introduce them more formally to the audience; we’re left wondering why Rose’s story can only be understood once we’ve seen Katherine’s circumstances.

But before the question can linger for too long, the film cuts and shows Rose at the nurse’s office acquiring medicine and treatment for an apparent headache. The nurses are obviously suspicious of the circumstances but let nothing slip.

We cut again to Rose smoking a cigarette, clearly a contraband action given the school’s religious depiction, while she talks to her friend (Emma Holzer) in coded terms that imply that she’s scared of an impending pregnancy. Suddenly, her trepidation in the bathroom earlier makes sense.

This vantage point of Rose directly runs in contrast to the pure, saintly image of her shot for the yearbook; we learn that she enjoyed sex with her boyfriend, takes responsibility for her possible pregnancy, still hopes for her period to come, and is unwilling to talk to her parents about this newfound issue.

We cut to her in an assembly and learn this is an all-girl’s school, one that prides itself on the stock of its students, women who are meant to represent with honor the women that have come before them and the women who will come after them at the hallowed halls of the Bramford school. Here, Rose’s actions become registered in a different, symbolic light: her shameful pregnancy, the proof of her sexual actions, an act marked as deviancy by the rules of conduct, becomes elevated to a sin which will bleed into the student populace at general. She half-asses an affirmation to the school’s call to maintain such a code reinforcing this normative schism outwardly while she deals with traversing it internally.

With the current session of school now at an end, we see parents’ cars pulling in to pick up their kids and are forcefully reminded of the terrible visions from the film’s start.

Right on cue, we cut from a wide shot which shows the majority of the students walking one way, presumably to their parents, while we see Kathrine hauling herself the other way, desperate to ascertain whether or not her nightmare was true or not. Intense strings accentuate this movement away from the crowd, a desperate attempt to find connection where we know it doesn’t lie.

As foretold, Katherine stares out into the snowy wasteland, a tear streaming down her eyes, and is framed completely alone against this environment.

Rose (Lucy Boynton) looks at Katherine’s performance.

Finally, we see our two primary characters enter one another’s circles when Rose enters the auditorium and sees Katherine play her aforementioned musical number. There’s a wonderful shot of Katherine partitioned in the frame again, the piano in the foreground and out-of-focus acting as a delimiter between her and the rest of the space. She looks out the audience and sees two empty seats, places where we know her parents should have been. The scene cuts when she sings about “hope”; her desire that her premonitions of the future are false finally fade away and she’s forced to accept the cold reality of what she’s seen.

These two girls, one whose parents we are certain are dead and one who wishes to actively avoid her parents for other reasons, are seated next to one another as the administration attempts to figure out what to do with them.

Katherine is questioned about whether or not she’s received a call on her cell-phone from her folks, but she reveals that she doesn’t have such a device, a means by which to communicate with her loved ones, and the group focuses their attention on Rose who lies through her teeth and explains that she told her parents the wrong day to come.

The dean attempts to assuage the girls’ concerns, real and fictional respectively, and jokingly mentions that their parents have to come get them because the girls can’t “live” at the school, a statement which utterly gets under Katherine’s skin because of her forbidden knowledge: where will she end up if she has no home to go to and can’t stay at this educational abode?

There’s an attempt made to get Rose to look after Katherine in the interim period before the duo’s parents are expected to arrive, and the girl’s exchange glances at one another while they’re framed in their singles; it’s a moment of hope on Katherine’s part, a potential connection amongst the darkness, and a moment of irritation for Rose, a potential impediment to the plans she has to resolve her own issues. The latter deflects responsibility, calling back to her illness as an excuse and the principal attempts to wash his hands of the situation and tasks the nurses with getting things back in order before forcing responsibility onto Katherine to do the bare minimum and call to her parents once more.

Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) tries to call her parents again.

Per this request, Katherine makes phone-calls, communicative gambits she is certain will fail, to her parents and pleads with them, though we know she’s really begging the forces that be, to provide an answer back to her. Her eyes dart around the frame as she waits with baited breath for any possible response.

As she puts the phone down, we cut to a wide shot that highlights the abject distance she feels between herself and others; the nurse in the room feels miles away even as she sits right besides Katherine.

The effects of this isolation become more explicit when the girls and nurses go down to eat dinner. There’s clearly something wrong in the air and there’s an intense, unpleasant droning noise that continues to intrude as Katherine fixes her plating arrangements. Initially, she places her spoon at a slightly diagonal angle, a seemingly small mistake in the grand scheme of things but one that she obsessively pores over, staring at the deviant ordering with enough intensity to bore a hole through the whole arrangement; it’s a moment of psychological estrangement that feels right out of Travis Bickle’s playbook in Taxi Driver, warranting a comparison to the infamous and off-putting Alka-seltzer scene. It’s only at the apex of the aural discrepancy that she slightly re-adjusts the spoon back into place, a seemingly minute action which takes on a life far larger than it would desire, but the sounds only continue to reverberate, overpowering the “grace” that is said by the parties present at the table.

Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) talks to Rose (Lucy Boynton) who is out-of-focus in the foreground.

Afterwards, in the dorm rooms, Rose curtly informs the underclassman foisted upon her by the authorities that she will not be “babysitting.” Katherine protests and repeatedly brings up Mr. Gordon’s edict, an attempt at channeling authority, which is quickly brushed aside by Rose, someone who we know couldn’t be bothered to follow the school’s regulations let alone a command given during supposed vacation time.

Katherine attempts to at least figure out what Rose is going to do but is given nothing as the latter informs her that she is going “nowhere.” In lieu of any meaningful information, Katherine instead spreads sordid hearsay in regards to the nurses, sisters who she claims are devil worshippers.

From her view, this diatribe is meant as a prank, a way to keep Katherine on her toes and away from her business, but we know that the latter, one who Rose herself described as a “freaking recording” when she repeated Gordon’s request, will play this haunting tale in her isolated mental landscape over and over again; given the fractured state of mind we know Katherine to be in, we know this malefic narrative’s pervasive influence won’t end well.

Rose, however, is blissfully ignorant of the consequences of her actions, an ironic position to be in given that she’s gone to meet with her boyfriend to deal with the unintended results of their lovemaking, and leaves Katherine with no comfort, refusing to answer the freshman’s questions about the source of this rumor, and leaves her with a warning to stay away from her room and possessions.

The elder girl leaves, goes through the snowy surroundings, and enters her boyfriend’s car where the two lovers embrace one another with a jovial warmth, a communicative interplay that Katherine desperately longs for and stares at unnervingly from above as she’s framed alone, isolated in a large window, physically restrained from this moment of connection.

It’s at this moment that the terrifying ambiance seeps back in and we see her slowly open Rose’s door as the camera pushes in on her, enter the room she was forbidden from going into, and then pick up and touch Rose’s belongings; she gazes down at Rose’s hairbrush and then stares at Rose’s school photos, the artificial Edenic images, with the same intensity that she directed at the spoon earlier at during dinner.

A tear rolls down her face as she cries out for this lost moment to connect with an upperclassman who could assuage her worries but a new moment for communion presents itself as we cut to a silhouetted telephone ringing in an empty hallway. If Rose qua “the Angel” refuses to respond, then whomever is calling on the line will have to do. Right as the terror of the situation settles, we cut again to black — a confirmation of the morbid realization.

Joan (Emma Roberts) stares into a bathroom mirror.

Finally, at near the 19-minute mark, our final character, a third young woman (Emma Roberts), appears and walks into a facility, cautiously looking around as if worried that she’s being followed.

She goes to a bathroom and stares at a mirror while discordant noises begin to play and we see a quick peak into her mind, a distorted flashback comprised of short bursts that hint at a medical facility of sorts. She rips off a wristband and confirms that she’s an escaped patient yet the circumstances surrounding her are kept private.

With quarters in her hand, she quietly attempts to use a payphone; the camera obscures her visage as she holds the phone to her face, desperate to hear her desired contact on the other side; but she receives an error message instead and dejectedly puts the phone down. This disturbing moment serves as a counter-point to the communicative misfires that we saw Katherine experience and the cut from the call happening with her to this call failing to go through connect these seemingly disparate settings and characters into a larger tapestry exploring attempts at connection.

These moments are then more explicitly connected when this escapee wanders the facility, finds a map, and stares at Bramford’s location. The cartographic image, a representation of how to traverse (literal) distance, dissolves to the film’s iconic shot of the young woman, who’s positioned in the lower quadrant of the frame with her head facing away from the audience; whomever she’s looking for is at the school we’ve been made privy to and her thoughts are singularly focused on this point in space even as we wonder what she seeks.

Katherine (Kiernan Shipka) looks up at this black figure which obscures half the frame.

While she waits outside, an elderly gentleman, Bill (James Remar), questions her on whether she’s waiting for someone and offers her a ride East. He partitions the frame as his black-coat, shot out-of-focus, takes up more than half of the space and ominously calls back to the opening moment where Katherine’s anointed “Daddy” fulfills an analogous aesthetic function. The two images look like reflections of one another when presented side-by-side and projects these persons in an alike light or, to be more precise, in a similar shadow. We’re left to wonder then if Bill is the same as the shadowy specter which guides Katherine through her visions or if his position on the opposite side of the frame codifies him as a corporeal comrade meant to help the young woman navigate reality.

It’s at this point that the young woman gives up her name: Joan — a contextually charged moniker that alludes to the great saint herself, Joan of Arc, a woman who was immolated for her faith, a spiritual gesture which we’ve been informed by the opening is doomed to fall on silent ears: the failed phone call is transformed into a moment of divine contemplation. Is this car ride a holy answer to her call to get to Bramford? Has her “prayer” been answered in a way she didn’t expect? Or is she walking down a path that will lead to her ultimate demise?

She accepts the help offered and gets in the car. We see the back of the vehicle drive away and we fade to black once again before fading back to another vehicle belonging to Rose’s partner, which is driving back to Bramford Academy; the edit ties Joan’s journey to Rose’s as well, using the ominous black which the film has cut to as a transition multiple times as a ligature between two different journeys, two different spaces which both lead to the same location.

Thus, the stage is set for the convergence of these three women’s respective desires coming into contact with one another as they try and resolve their respective problems, some of which we’re privy to and others which we’re left more ambiguous about; but all of their issues stem from and are intimately related to: communication and the manner in which it both bridges and causes alienation.

The song which acts as prologue to the film proper and the supernatural opening frame these questions in a religious context, one that evokes the meditations of Ingmar Bergman’s spiritual works ruminating on the silence of God and the meaning of faith in such a world, while using the trappings of the horror genre, both supernatural visuals and psychological interplays, to dramatically raise the stakes of and render the results of these ruminations viscerally explicit.

The constant refrains to a black frame, a plane of unknowability which takes on a plethora of associated functions as the film continues, alongside the film’s shifting spatial chronologies, split amongst the three aforementioned women, give director Oz Perkins the chance to contemplate the same action or lack thereof from multiple perspectives, effectively keeping the narrative engaging even as it circles on itself like an ouroboros, devouring seemingly everything it proffers in search of an inner meaning which is only made explicitly clear as the final narrative domino drops.

The aesthetic decisions, both the choice to focus on the character’s visages — lower quadrant shots and close-ups of their faces — and their unknowability — deep shadows and constant silhouettes obscuring possible information — along with the Antonioni-like framing of the character’s against persons and backdrops that render them isolated in the frame, exposing their inner-most thoughts visually through the mise-en-scène, have a psychological effect that compliments the narrative as it shifts through space and time, accentuating moments of uncertainty and unease which make the unnerving progressions chilling to experience and render the set-pieces, few and far-between, an absolute terror to witness.

In spite of its aesthetic and narrative withholdings, Perkins never “cheats” the viewer, carefully presenting all the details along the way in such a manner that one finishes the film and realizes that the twists were truthfully presaged and the disasters were dutifully portended. Caught under the film’s spell, the viewer is left entranced and befuddled until the moment of divine revelation is rendered, leaving them as chilled as the wintery backdrop that serves as the film’s milieu.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	The Blackcoat’s Daughter is one of the truly great debut films, utilizing the horror genre to explore deep-seated questions about faith and meaning without sacrificing the bite and terror one would associate with it. The film deftly intercuts between different perspectives, delivering a cartography of the psyche that will leave attentive viewers truly haunted.
Rating	10/10
Grade	S

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2010s, 2017, A, Drama, Grade, Horror, mystery, psychological, Review, review-movie, Year

Review: mother!

January 24, 2020 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Darren Aronofsky
Principal Cast	Jennifer Lawrence as mother Javier Bardem as Him
Release Date	2017
Language(s)	English
Running Time	121 minutes

NOTE: The review contains minor spoilers for the movie. They’re nothing that would spoil your entertainment of the movie (unlike trailers which will mislead you). Everything I spoil is fairly obvious and necessary for me to give a more coherent review.

I love both Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan, the latter of which I found so entertaining that I wrote my first (and currently only, I promise I’m writing more) piece of analysis on it. So when I saw Aronofsky was directing another horror movie with Jennifer Lawrence as the lead, I was all in. Unfortunately, after my first viewing I was kind of let down, especially after I read the director’s interviews about the movie. I just felt like the experience chalked up to a whole lot of nothing. A year later, I came upon the movie again and just ended up watching it on a whim – maybe it was the Hunger Games binge I was on, but that’s a story for another day. Anyways, I watched it again, this time fully aware of the allegory and the authors intent, but this time I liked it a lot more. It was strange how much I ended up enjoying certain sequences. I could swear it was like I was watching a different movie. Aronofsky ‘s allegory is a lot more interesting and provocative than I first thought, even if it feels a bit myopic, but it requires a certain frame of mind.

The story of mother! follows her (mother) and Him, the latter being a famous poet trying to finish his a new work and the former being the keeper of the house, decorating and furnishing it. As mother goes around the house she sees a strange heartbeat in the house. Soon afterwards, a guest comes over and slowly all hell breaks loose and mother finds herself dealing with unwanted visitors. The movie is allegorical- that’s not a secret. There’s the story of Adam and Eve, Abel and Cain, the old vs New testament, the birth of Christ, and everything in between. The imagery is obvious and incredibly visceral, leaving a deep impact on the viewer. Him is God and the mother is Earth, so the movie is also an allegory of the relationship of Earth to religion and people. If this summary seems too pretentious or full of itself, then skip the movie. You probably won’t like it. The psychological horror in the movie is subtle and slowly evolving until it crescendos in the third act. If you don’t like “slow burners” you might also want to skip this one. For those of you left, you’re in for something gorgeous.

I love weird movies like this. I think my initial irritation with the movie came from the mis-marketing of it ( I thought it was going to be some kind of normal home invasion story) and a misunderstanding of the cool interactions between the different themes in the movie. Yes, there’s the obvious one that Aronofsky tells us, but if you take that together with other smaller moments you get a neat looking picture. The connection between religion, sin, forgiveness, and the environment is provocative. My only real issue is that it all feels a bit too nihilistic. If there was a bit more characterization during certain parts, then I think the movie could’ve done something truly masterful, but as it is, it paints a pretty pessimistic picture of the world with no way out.

This movie is definitely a horror movie. I’ve seen a lot of people saying the opposite, which I think is kind of ridiculous. There are harrowing sequences that are both grotesque and intended to disgust and shock the audience. The pacing and editing in the latter half of the movie create a real tension. Yes, you know where the movie is going to go but it does a hell of a job at ramping up the absurdity of its allegory at every turn. The movie is mainly shot from the perspective of her – either behind her or looking at her face. The audience is along for the ride, so as mother gets more tense and harrowed, so do we. It’s confusing, chaotic, and disturbing, and in its own way beautiful. You really feel for her. Sound design is the main reason this works so well. It’s minimalist, so the normal barrier erected between the audience and the screen feels gone. The sounds of the house are what come out distinctly. Put together, the experience puts you directly with the character in horrible situations. If you let yourself experience the movie, instead of just watching it, you may enjoy it a lot more. I think that’s why I liked the movie a lot more the 2nd time.

The main problem with the movie is it only works at the level of allegory. I wish it was more a home invasion movie or even a psychological horror in the more traditional sense with the allegory working on less “literal” level. The best movies can tie in a fully formed plot and tap on the allegory/metaphors as another layer – so the movie can be viewed in a traditional sense, and also in whatever subtext the director/viewer extracts. This movie only works as the latter which is why it may not work for a lot of people.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	mother! is a thought provoking allegory about God, the environment, humanity and the way their respective relationships intersect. If you like purely allegorical movies then this should be straight in your ballpark. I wish it was less nihilistic, but I’m nonetheless impressed with the creativity on display.
Rating	9.2/10
Grade	A

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2010s, 2018, A+, Adventure, Drama, Grade, Horror, mystery, Review, review-movie, Science Fiction, science fiction horror, Thriller, Year

Review: Annihilation

January 23, 2020 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Alex Garland
Principal Cast	Natalie Portman as Lena Oscar Isaac as Kane Jennifer Jason Leigh as Dr. Ventress
Release Date	2018
Language(s)	English
Running Time	115 minutes

If you haven’t already seen this movie, avoid the trailer because it spoils so much of the movie that I don’t understand why or how it was released.Now that I got that out of the way, Annihilation is one of the most ambitious science fiction movies I’ve seen in recent memory. The story follows a group of 5 scientists as they’re tasked with entering a zone enveloped by an alien aura known as “The Shimmer”.

This movie is a big discussion on creativity and its relation to the death drive. The Shimmer is filled with mutations that are either beautiful, horrifying, or some mixture of both. These creatures are not only meant to be horrifying, but are also used to provoke discussion on the nature of the alien substance. There are answers to its nature (the movie is fairly up-front about it), but the end of the movie is open enough to allow discourse on the meaning of it all. It’s a great movie to watch with friends and talk about afterwards because the movie does a great job of balancing giving direct answers and hinting at answers with multiple meanings. You could watch the movie straight up as a horror sci-fi movie with crazy sequences , but that would be a disservice to the layers going on. I’m not going to pretend to act like I got all of this on my first view. Honestly, the first time I saw this movie I really disliked a subplot focused on Lena, our protagonist. But on later viewings, I came to appreciate how it added to multiple themes in the movie. I still think it could’ve been done better, but I appreciate the reasoning behind it. Big Lovecraftian energy.

For those of you who are looking more for the sci-fi or the horror in the movie, don’t worry. The movie has them in spades. The movie might start off slow for some. There’s a lot of character work done (mainly exposition and introduction) here that pays off later, so I think it’s worth it, but I can see how it can feel grating. Thankfully, the movie soon transitions into “The Shimmer” and everything goes off the wheels. The visuals are jaw-dropping and watching the alien substance interact with everything is something you can’t stop looking at. Not to mention, the movie has one of the scariest creature moments in recent memory. It really stays with you. Once the 3rd act is underway, everything gets amped up another notch. The story and its themes come together in an audio-visual experience that’s wholly unique. In fact, the climax of this movie is a moment that’s stuck with me from the moment I watched it. It feels like a vision fully realized from the visual effects, to the art design, to the way that dialogue gives way to otherworldly tunes.

Every scientist feels developed and the audience gets a good insight into each of their personalities (even if some of that is done via the characters analyzing each other)They’re all good enough for the story and I could remember bits and pieces of them after I had first seen the movie. The cool thing about them is how the movie uses them all as foils to Lena which not only makes her decisions more interesting, but also nicely develops the themes.

The only issues with the film are some strange narrative choices. There’s a really odd framing device that’s used to explain a lot of the narrative. It feels almost like someone didn’t trust the audience to put the pieces together (which is false), so a lot of the movie comes to a painful standstill so that Lena can explain what we just saw to a room of people. It makes the movie feel bloated and I really wish it wasn’t there at all. The ending also feels odd – like it was tacked on to please audiences (which based on what I’ve read about production seems true). I don’t dislike it now, but I remember really thinking it was wonky on my first viewing.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Annihilation is a thought provoking look into humanity’s destructive and creativive capacities. The eye popping visuals are there to augment, not distract, from the cerebral sci -fi mystery. There are some story issues that make pacing a bit wonky, and the story takes a bit to start up, but once it does you’re in for something that can’t really be explained.
Rating	9.6/10
Grade	A+

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2010s, 2015, A+, Action, Art House, Drama, Fantasy, Grade, Horror, mystery, Review, review-movie, Science Fiction, Thriller, Year

Review: Tag

January 22, 2020 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Sion Sono
Principal Cast	Reina Triendl as Mitsuko Yuki Sakurai as Aki
Release Date	2015
Language(s)	Japanese
Running Time	85 minutes

One day while randomly browsing YouTube, I found an raw trailer for this movie and was left in shock. It looked cutesy but then devolved into seemingly disparate situations of violence. I knew that I had to see what it was all about, so I waited till it came out with subs and proceeded to experience an audiovisual piece the likes of which I’ve never seen before.

The story picks up on Mitsuko, a shy high-schooler who’s busy writing poetry as she and her classmates head off on a trip. However, soon after this start, a gust of wind comes through and kills everyone on the bus besides Mitsuko. Streams of blood and guts envelop the screen and Mitsuko is forced to run away from the wind to survive.

What follows is a story that never lets up with WTF moments and sequences. Every time I thought I had a grasp on what the movie was, it went in a completely different direction, each as violent as the one preceding it. If you’re someone who likes having answers immediately, then this movie is going to get under your skin. Answers only come near the end of the third act and they’re still ambiguous at that. It’s a movie that assaults the senses with gore and absurdity while dragging the audience at breakneck speeds through a story that seemingly makes no sense. However, once things start clicking, the movie becomes something else entirely. I was floored with everything I had seen. The movie takes a lot of risks and I thought they more than payed off by the end.

Without getting into spoilers, I can say the movie’s analysis of agency is interesting and provocative. Just like Mitsuko, the audience never has a stable foundation to begin to determine what is and isn’t real. That’s because those perceptions are conditioned not only by our perspectives of ourselves but by the perspectives of those who control the levers of society. If we’re taught that certain protocol is the only way forward, then it becomes easy to see how true freedom can become hidden away. Sono takes this idea and then wonderfully infuses both a queer and feminist subtext into it, giving the idea a sense of nuance that most movies can only dream of. Multiple people can watch this movie and all of them can come away with different interpretations (outside of the blatant message of the movie). Even now the ending gets to me and makes me really think both of the meaning of the story and the way I contribute to a society that strips people of agency.

Now for my more squeamish readers, you might want to watch this one with a friend who can let you know when the gory stuff is over. The movie is filled with splatters and grotesque murders. The first time I watched it, I had to look away a few times because of how visceral the experience would get. I think it gives the movie a really distinctive feel, but I can see how it could turn people away.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Tag is a movie that deserves to get seen by more people. It’s a masterclass in storytelling and has one of the most unique plots I’ve seen in a story. The way the mystery builds and resolves itself is shocking and thought provoking. If you like gore or art-house movies, you owe it to yourself to watch this.
Rating	9.8/10
Grade	A+

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2010s, 2013, A, Grade, Horror, mystery, Review, review-movie, supernatural, Thriller, Year

Film Review: The Conjuring – 2013

January 22, 2020 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	James Wan
Principal Cast	Vera Farmiga as Lorraine Warren Patrick Wilson as Ed Warren Lili Taylor as Carolyn Perron
Release Date	2013
Language(s)	English
Running Time	112 minutes
Report Card	Click to go Review TLDR/Summary

The camera pushes out on the Annabelle doll.

We open on a shot of a doll, Annabelle, staring directly at the us. The camera pushes out as we hear a pair of nurses recount their story regarding the doll to two unseen figures who flank them from both sides. The nurses explain that the doll asked for permission to move in with them, they gave that permission thinking the doll was a ghost, and then they experienced hauntings due to it. Unfortunately, despite their best efforts, they cannot get rid of the doll. They ask the unseen figures to help.

These figures, Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) Warren finally come into frame; they explain that the nurses are dealing not with a ghost but with a demon. We see a repetition of the first shot; the nurses are still being flanked by the Warrens on both sides, but this time the Warrens are visible. Their presence has come into effect and they’re in “control”. We cut once again to the face of the Annabelle doll before the screen gets grainy, and it’s revealed that what we’ve been watching is actually a tape recorded by the Warrens for presentation purposes in a classroom setting. Without knowing it, we’ve adopted the Warren’s point of view and been sucked into their world.

Under the title card resides a window encased in shadows.

It’s at this time the title crawl pops on the screen, informing us of the Warren’s history and the fact that what we’re about to watch is “based on the true story”. The camera continues tilting down past the title of the movie to a window right beneath; a seamless transition that lets us know that we’re entering the horror immediately. The darkness around the window fades away while the camera pushes forward, revealing a car and a moving truck driving towards the house. We see a the Perron family come out; we know that their upcoming journey will be one of terror. The camera tracks left to follow the family as they make their way in through the front door; the way the camera moves from the window to the door makes it feel like the house is alive and waiting for its upcoming owners.

Most of the family, a set of parents and five daughters, makes their way into the house. However, their dog, Sadie, refuses to come in. The camera moves down towards the floor, and hones in on the dog who refuses attempts to be coaxed into the house. Even if you didn’t know about the horror tropes regarding dogs being able to sense the supernatural, this disagreeable behavior is more than enough to confirm what we already know: bad times are coming.

Cindy (Mackenzie Foy) calls out to April.

The Zombie’s “Time of the Season” plays in the background as Wan employs a fantastic tracking shot showcasing the family moving into the house. The eerie mood that’s been set up gives way for a few moments, while we get a “tour” of the entire house. One of the kids, Cindy (Mackenzie Foy) looks around for her windchimes to place at the front of the house; an source of music tries to establish its place . As she puts them up, she calls out to her younger sister, April (Kyla Deaver), to come into the house. Unbeknownst to her, April found a music box hidden under an ominous looking tree. She plays the music box at which point “Time of the Season” stops and the lighting becomes much darker; a nefarious source of music usurps the light and takes control.

The girls eat dinner and then play a variant of clapping hide-and-seek where the seeker has to place a blindfold on and gets to ask the hiders to clap up to 3 times to figure out where they are. The innocuous game meant to facilitate the girls finding one another fails, as instead, the girls end up finding the dark curse embedded in the house by cracking a barrier sealing the basement. This dark, grimy, underbelly of the house is thus unleashed and the “fun” truly begins.

Like his previous foray into the supernatural genre, Insidious , director James Wan’s The Conjuring also functions as a facelift of an older titan, or in this case titans, of the supernatural horror genre; this time he’s updating The Amityville Horror (1979) and The Exorcist instead of Poltergeist. From The Amityville Horror, he takes idea of a haunted house terrorizing a family, the theatricality of the haunting, and the subtext of economic plight in relation to haunting. There are multiple comments from the the father of the family, Roger (Ron Livingston) indicating that the family’s money is tied to the house and they have no way out, which solves any practical concerns we could raise to the family staying in such a location. From The Exorcist, he takes the notion of treating the supernatural as grounded and the idea of a metaphysical evil fighting a metaphysical good. Especially by the ending, it becomes clear that Wan is trying to introduce a notion of God and “true goodness” as a way to elevate the status of the haunting. The end result of combining all these factors would be a serious haunted house story with plenty of subtext to go around.

However, the end-result lands a bit ajar from this expectation. Unlike The Amityville Horror, The Conjuring is missing a scene of “honest” drama that ties the Perron family’s financial woes directly to the nature of the haunting. As Stephen King says, “Everything which The Amityville Horror does well is summed up in that scene,” whose implications make the connection between the haunted house and the financial troubles of the family clear. ^[1] King, S. (2010). Danse macabre. Gallery. Furthermore, the gravitas of The Exorcist arises from both the documentary-like shooting of the movie, which helps ground the horrific nature of the haunting and the honesty and severity by which it wrestles with the ideas of God and the divine. The theatricality Wan is going for runs against this and makes the depth he’s trying to achieve feel forced especially near the end of the film which is more focused on spectacle rather than spiritual catharsis.

But by pushing these ideas together and presenting them with his knack for dynamic set-pieces, Wan has still ended up creating one of the best horror movies of this side of the century and a blockbuster at that. By grounding the possession story via two families – one regular and powerless and the other spiritual and powerful – Wan is able to ensure that the hauntings, while not as thematically rich and textured as their base ideas would allow, have enough of a thematic throughline to develop on.

Wan spends a just enough time letting us breathe with the Perron’s, namely the girls, as they get try and adjust to the house. We get to hear some of their bickering and get a feeling for what their sisterly dynamic looks like. By the time the supernatural rumblings start, we have a good understanding of their personalities along with a few of their quirks – just enough to latch onto when the theatrics take hold.

The crux of the character work comes from the other family, the Warrens, who are given nearly as much, if not more, screen time than the haunted family themselves; this move is an improvement on even Insidious, whose attempts at giving the “exorcist” type character a more textured backstory is one of the better narrative pivots in the supernatural genre. The reason this usually never happens ,sans the best cases like The Exorcist, is because movies usually wants to spend their time building up our attachment to the subject of the hauntings so we care about what’s happening to them. As a result, there’s usually never time in the screen-play to develop the spiritual-type character to a level we care about.

Wan side-steps this issue by splitting screen-time between the two families and having their stories run in parallel to one another: usually, when something horrific happens to the Perron’s, we cut back to the Warrens. These cuts not only give the time needed to get to know and care about the Warren’s involvement in the story but also give Wan a way to neatly exposit to the us without it feeling ostentatious. He disguises the rules of the supernatural genre in scenes like interviews and college lectures; these movements not only give Via Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, the movie’s best two actors, time to show their chops, but they also help make sense of the hauntings proper. In one key scene transition, the Warrens explaining the sequencing of a haunting: infestation, oppression, possession; this is a perfect mapping for the three act structure of the movie and helps clue the audience in on how to interpret the “why” for the spectral occurrences.

Now, while I personally don’t enjoy the more grandiose spectacles The Conjuring goes for, I can appreciate the craft behind them, especially in the way they’re built up. By using longer than average takes and moving the camera along with the characters as they venture the house, Wan is able to generate a sense of constant paranoia; the stakes are apparent but there’s no way to escape the stifling tension. When the theatricalities begin, there’s little reliance on the distracting CGI that plagues many similarly plotted movies with many of the sequences utilizing in-camera tricks and practical effects. These make the the monstrosities feel like they have a physical presence which in turn exacerbates the feeling that the characters are always in a genuine danger.

This commitment to genuinely scaring the audience is why The Conjuring endures almost a decade after it’s release as a common favorite among the masses. In spite of narrative issues, the film manages to follow a distilled horror formula that emphasizes authenticity in the spectacle while remaining fun throughout it’s runtime. Wan knows how to distinguish the movie in just the right places, ensuring that the scares are well-earned and leave a lasting impact.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	The Conjuring is confirmation of Wan’s talent in the horror genre and is proof that highly polished horror blockbusters are possible. The movie is technically precise and features gorgeous camera work that one can’t help but admire and get wrapped up in. Though the story isn’t Wan’s most memorable, it manages to serve as a more than serviceable vehicle for lulling and scaring the audience; in other words, it’s a great time.
Rating	8.8/10
Grade	A

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2010, 2010s, A, Grade, Horror, mystery, Review, review-movie, supernatural, Thriller, Year

Film Review: Insidious – 2010

January 22, 2020 The Critic 1 Comment

Director(s)	James Wan
Principal Cast	Patrick Wilson as Josh Lambert Rose Byrne as Renai Lambert Lin Shaye as Elise Rainier Ty Simpkins as Dalton Lambert Andrew Astor as Foster Lambert
Release Date	2010
Language(s)	English
Running Time	110 minutes
Report Card	Click to go Review TLDR/Summary

We open on a large lightbulb before the camera flips itself around 180° – the world we’re entering is not one that plays by our expectations. The camera tracks revealing a young boy sleeping before moving right to traverse the rest of the house. Discordant strings rise in the background as a shadowy figure shows up on a wall – a confirmation that we’ve entered a whole new world. Finally, the moves past the figure to reveal a Woman in Black, smiling and standing still in the center of the frame; in her hand, she holds a red candle with a bright flame – the only light in a screen full of darkness.

The screech of the strings reaches its apex as the bright hellish red title card comes onto the screen. Every other image after in the title sequence features a black-and-white image of a location and red font that slowly fades away as an ethereal gray wisp spelling the same words comes out of the initial word, almost like the spirit of the words taking leave. Many locations and objects show up multiple times, priming the viewer for their future appearance’s. Some of the frames reveal ghostly figures hiding in the shadows while others showcase spectral happenings like chairs moving by themselves. This seemingly innocuous presentation is anything but and primes the audience for spectral encounters to come by sowing the seeds with an assortment of images whose meanings are yet to be shown.

Eventually the montage ends and the camera pushes in slowly on a clock surrounded by shadows before the screen turns completely black. A woman, Renai Lambert (Rose Byrne), happens to be sleeping. As she wakes up, the color in frame gradually returns. Sleep is over and the time for waking is here.

Renai (Rose Byrne) stands with a clock behind her.

Renai goes down the stairs. Behind her is the clock that’s been featured multiple times already – a harbinger of doom. She takes out some books from the moving boxes scattered around the cluttered study and puts them up. The title of the book in front reads: “Self-Healing Through Music.”

After putting the books up, Renai has to deal with her 3 children: Dalton (Ty Simpkins), Foster (Andrew Astor), and Kali, the infant in the group. She gets their affairs in order during a hectic kitchen scene where her husband, Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson), offers very little help. However, upon leaving the room she sees her books have now been scattered on the floor – a sign of things to come. Frustrated, she confronts her family who claims they had nothing to do with it. Unable to get any answers, she asks Josh to help with the kids and school – a request he denies to be apparently being busy. Her exasperation grows and the scene concludes with an establishing shot of the house, tracking from left to right.

Afterwards, the camera tracks onto Renai playing the piano. The books have now gained an additional purpose besides source of first supernatural sign: they are Renai’s work tools. She’s a musician trying to compose. Immediately it’s clear: this moment of musical creation is the overworked matriarch’s reprieve from her daily duties. Unfortunately, the specters seem to understand this as well and refuse to let her have her time. The baby monitor which has been creeping on the frame in the corner takes center place as the cries of the child interrupt the music and force Renai to come upstairs.

Upon ensuring Kali’s safety, Renai sees a door that draws her forward. She opens it and goes up to the attic of the house where she sees both a ladder and a lightbulb. A lightbulb starts the film and it appears here once again, enticing Renai to turn it on. She climbs the ladder and tries to grab the switch; upon doing so, the rung she’s standing on breaks. Immediately, a bright red-hot fire starts on its own from a furnace near the bottom of the floor. Just like the opening, the presence of a bulb is followed by the presence of an ominous red fire surrounded by blackness. It’s no coincidence that the bulb is above and the furnace is below; the use of red is evocative of hell and the flames associated with the damned location. Coming up here was a mistake – now the fire has started.

Nighttime comes and with it comes the start of the Lambert family problems. Dalton goes upstairs to the same room while wearing a red superhero cape. As any hero would do, he tries to bring the light; just like his mom, he gets up on the ladder to reach the switch, but unfortunately for him, the broken step in the ladder gives way underneath him and he crashes, falling unconscious momentarily. His parents realize he’s missing and run up to him to find him conscious but in pain. They get him all fixed up and put him into his bed before themselves retiring for the night. The couple finally unwinds as Renai talks about her music and her hopes for the future. The two laugh and call it a night.

Then the ticking of the clock starts; a momentum builds as the hypnotic rhythm cascades through the house. We see a series of images as the clock’s pulse continues: a leaking faucet, Foster asleep in his bed, Kali asleep in her crib with an ominous red light illuminating the room, Renai and Josh soundly asleep. Finally, we cut to Dalton and the hypnotic lull of the ticking clock stops. The camera pushes in slowly towards him and the darkness surrounding him. All the while the sound intensifies transforming from a low buzzing to a violent set of discordant noises – a callback to the title card’s ominous arrival.

The next day comes and Josh comes in to Dalton’s room to wake the still sleeping child. He repeatedly asks Dalton to awaken but comes to realize his son is unresponsive. A quick hospital later confirms that the aspiring superhero is in a coma like state with no apparent medical explanation. The narrative jumps forward 3 months as the camera tracks on the house again this time from right to left – the situation for the Lambert’s has changed once again as they find themselves taking care of their still-comatose son while eerie and supernatural events continue to pile up in their everyday lives.

In 20 minutes, Insidious has established a family dynamic with nuances in the main members of the grouping and set in motion a series of visual motifs – the color red, lighting up dark spaces, the baby monitor, music, the “presence” of the house – that will build to patterns of terror all while never jumping the shark. Similar to Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers, the driving force propelling Insidious is based on the anxiety that the “modern” family is unable to secure itself against outside forces that threaten it; in this case, the parents are unable to protect their son.

As the opening shows, the couple has made the move to provide a new start for their family. Renai is overworked but hopeful for change, Josh is supportive of his wife and children but isn’t the most helpful partner at home, and Dalton is a young boy looking to be an purveying hero. In spite of their struggles, they hold on to the hopes for a better tomorrow. This is why their son’s condition and the family’s subsequent trials are so cruel and poignant: the journey delves into dark places where the failures and traumas of the family, left unresolved, will come to roost among their unsuspecting children.

These fears are allowed to roost because Director James Wan is more than content letting the feeling of unease build up slowly in service of letting the genuine moments of fear terrorize the audience in poignant fashion. By setting up patterns and building up the tension and letting the spectral occurrences linger in ambiguous contexts, forcing the audience to stew in their nescience, Wan gives his film that quality which all the best horrors have – the ability to get under the skin without one being aware of the same. Motifs become patterns which anticipate a future without giving it away, so Wan is able to employ them in tandem to keep building up just until the right moment. This is also why Wan can go against expected evaluation of some of these patterns; because their teloses are unknown, they can be repurposed to pull off unpredictable story moves. By the end of the film, all these moving parts become intimately linked with one another and act as puzzle pieces for the viewer to finally piece together to come to an understanding, an understanding whose ambiguous underpinnings allow Wan to pull a Silence of the Lambs style moment that truly has to be witnessed first-hand.

It’s funny because despite borrowing so much from Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist, Insidious does much of what the former film did: offer a breath of fresh air on the “haunted house” story. Like Hooper, Wan pushes the boundaries on what hauntings can entail and do. In fact, I would argue that Insidious is a breath of fresh air for the genre and offers an overhaul on the “haunted house” story in much the same as Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist did. Hooper’s film offers a positive interpretation of the supernatural alongside a negative one and demonstrates the way that specters operate and link up in parallel with one another. In this way it ties the nature of its families hauntings to social happenings in a larger sense, serving as a larger take on the American Dream and the powers of family. As evidenced above, Insidious does much of the same but focuses less on the social commentary of the hauntings than on the metaphysical breakdown of how those hauntings occur and interact with the world.

The film’s key contribution to the cannon is its exploration of “The Further”, the film’s term for the supernatural realm that houses specters. At one point, the Lambert’s ask a psychic, Elise (Lin Shaye), to help them with their son and her crew, method of investigation, and treatment procedure which involve “The Further”. These scenes and the ideas visually present in them are distinct and evocative all at once, giving Insidious a wholly unique aesthetic and set of rules for supernatural engagement. There are more ideas regarding the supernatural in here than in 5 other lesser movies put together. Despite using Poltergeist and its ideas as a base, Wan and screenwriter Leigh Whannell don’t remain complacent and push the boundaries on what hauntings can entail and do.

Alas, Insidious is unable to fully tap into the potential its framework allows and settles for oddities that feel like they would have benefited more from structure. Ambiguity is great, but tying that ambiguity to thematic purpose on top of setting up narrative surprises helps those moments play more effective. They gain an emotional resonance because they speak to something larger and end up being more memorable. While Insidious does a great job at navigating the contours of its family’s personal struggles, it lacks the depth to make those struggles touch on other issues, reducing the story’s reach. Given just how much leverage “The Further” gives Wan and Whannell, it feels a tad disappointing that they don’t probe into larger questions.

Yet, Insidious has to be applauded trying something new and doing it with such technical fluidity. There’s a propulsion to the way the narrative unfolds and the pressure constantly ratchets up. Recurrent motifs and discordant strings help make the journey towards the eventual scares all the more dreadful as Wan allows the anticipation to build to a fever pitch before giving the audience a chance for release. There’s no cheap throwaway moment here and even if not all the pieces line up the way they should at all times, the extended durations showcasing when they do work more than make up for any disgruntles.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Insidious’s propulsive narrative, technically sumptuous filmmaking, and innovative takes on the “haunted house” story sets new benchmarks for what audiences should expect from “mainstream” horror films. Director James Wan effectively utilizes ambiguity in relation to genre trappings to prime the audience for spookier scenes which are further accentuated by the film’s distinctive mystical and metaphysical stylizations. *Even now they give the film a distinctive texture and weight that helps Insidious* stand against the crowd.**
Rating	9.2/10
Grade	A

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2010s, 2017, Comedy, Grade, Horror, mystery, Review, review-movie, S, Thriller, Year

Film Review: Get Out – 2010

January 21, 2020 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Jordan Peele
Principal Cast	Daniel Kaluuya as Chris Allison Williams as Rose Armitage Bradley Whitford as Dean Armitage Catherine Keener as Missy Armitage Caleb Landry Jones as Jeremy Armitage Lil Rel Howery as Rod
Release Date	2017
Language(s)	English
Running Time	104 minutes
Report Card	Click to go Review TLDR/Summary

Danny (Danny Lloyd) and Wendy (Shelley Duvall) walk in the hedge-made labyrinth.

We open in a suburban neighborhood sidewalk. The camera tracks forward slowly as a young black man, Andre, (Lakeith Stanfield) walks onto it talking on his cellphone about how the location is disorienting or as he puts it: “a creepy confusing ass suburb.” The mise-en-scène hearkens back to similar shots from Kubrick’s The Shining, namely that of the characters walking through a hedge maze. Like those characters, this labyrinth is not a safe location for inhabitants unfamiliar with it.

Andre realizes that a car is following him and tries to escape it but is caught unaware by an assailant donning a knight’s head of armor. As the latter chokes out the former, we can hear the lyrics to Gay and Butler’s song “Run Rabbit Run”; the happy sounding song warning rabbits to run is jarring in feeling but lyrically contextual, warning us of things to come. His body is unceremoniously dumped into the back of his pursuer’s car as the opening credits play in blue font color. This reference to The Shining, which also uses the same light blue color in its opening sequence text, is made even more explicit in the next cut to a tracking shot of a forest.

Peele doubles down on *The Shining* references by directly referencing the opening of movie through the use of a similar light blue opening credit font along with a shot of an ominous forest. It’s the aural differences (and similarities) that set the scenes apart as Kubrick’s

While Kubrick’s masterpiece starts on aerial shot of a mountain range and surrounding forest as foreboding droning noises with indigenous chants punctuate the soundscape, setting up the subtext regarding the genocide of the native populations. Peele keeps the view of the encroaching forest but trades the cries of the indigenous, whispery African voices puncture the soundscape and give a warning to be careful of impending danger. ^[1] Weaver, C., & Peele. (2017, February 3). Jordan Peele on a Real Horror Story: Being Black in America. GQ. https://www.gq.com/story/jordan-peele-get-out-interview. It’s no coincidence that the jovial track warning rabbits is swapped out for an moody and foreboding Swahili song, “Sikiliza Kwa Wahenga ” which similarly warns its recipient of impending danger.

Finally, the movie cuts to a striking black and white photograph, neatly framed against the wall; no longer in the forests, we’ve transported to the inside of a photographer’s apartment. The song changes again to Childish Gambino’s funky ethereal track “Redbone” which warns its audience to stay alert for creepers looking out to get them, the audience, while unaware. We get to see the interior of the apartment before finally getting to see our protagonist, a black photographer Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), getting ready for an outing with Rose (Allison Williams) , his white girlfriend.

We learn that he’s getting ready to meet Rose’s parents, Dean (Bradley Whitford) and Missy (Catherine Keener), for a weekend visit at the latter’s residence. He asks her if they know that he’s black. She says “no,” but assuages his concerns by ensuring him that her parents are super liberal going so far as to mention how her father would vote for “Obama a third time if he could.” It’s the perfect comedy set-up; well-to-do white liberals in their efforts to seem inclusive end up reinforcing racist tropes in comedic fashion. However, everything up till now has primed us to be more suspicious and be on alert. We know being in an unfamiliar neighborhood is dangerous news for black men and we’ve been warned now 3 times to stay vigilant.

The immediate effect of this opening sequence is a persistent vertigo effect that makes every interaction impossible to pin down as our interpretations of what’s happening is constantly being ripped out from under; innocuous moments turn uncomfortable turn horrifying as we along with Chris are forced into questioning every interaction. His reception starts innocent enough, but as his stay continues little moments build up into bizarre microaggressions which transform into horrific realizations culminating in what I can only describe as the horrific ideology of “post-racial”^[2]By post-racial I am referring to the idea of a post-racial America where the United States is free from racism and discrimination related to the same. The idea came heavily back into fashion with the … Continue reading equality come to life.

Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) shows both fear and unease perfectly as he cocks his head and intensifies his gaze in regards to Georgina’s odd behaviours.

This is obviously helped by the fantastic performances of the cast which Peele shows off by filming in close up, letting their faces envelop the entire frame. Moments that are already unnerving become blood chilling as we’re forced to confront faces that seem to give away everything and nothing simultaneously (in particular scenes with Betty Gabriel who plays Georgina) ; every muscular twitch, every pinching at the lip, every shift in the gaze becomes heightened forcing the audience to figure out what is trying to be revealed. While I can’t get into nuances of every actor for fear of spoilers, I can say that the multiple roles that a host of the characters play make it impossible to gauge certain moments for what they are until the end of the movie only for them then to then gain another layer of meaning on subsequent watches.

Chris (Daniel Kaluuya)talks about his evening with Missy with Rod .

Obviously the topic of racism (and it’s relevant nuances) is hard to tackle in a way that keeps its target audience ^[3]One only has to look at the currently “critical race theory” debate breaking out right now – … Continue reading, people who have drank the “post-racial” Kool-Aid, in their seats while also seriously reckoning with the issue. Peele solves this at a structural level with the introduction of Chris’s best friend, Rod (Lil Rel Howery), who calls in at various points of the movie and offers comedic takes on the situation. It’s not that what he’s saying is incorrect or off base; Rod is actually correct in his own ways about most of what he says if you want to connect the dots. It’s that Howery’s delivery of certain “assessments” helps ease discussion of more serious topics in a more accessible and less severe manner. On top of giving the audience time to catch their breath and compose their thoughts, the technique allows certain thematic ideas to be cemented in a more innocuous way allowing their more developed forms to more easily take root; simple anti-black racism turns into a discussion on the harms of post-racial ideology which turns into a meditation on the importance of black art as a survival strategy.

This is why the horror movie of an interracial couple meeting white parents features the black boyfriend of the couple being a renowned photographer known for his unique “eye”. Peele has explicitly come out and said “Black creators have not been given a platform, and the African-American experience can only be dealt with by an African-American.” Therefore, it is imperative that Chris’s is a black artist He can “see” the best shots. However, this sight is not limited to just art but also to the way the levers of power operate around him. From his first comment to his girlfriend, we know he’s aware of racial dynamics; springing a black boyfriend to a white family that’s only known white boyfriends might go poorly. This is an example of what W.E.B. Dubois called “double consciousness”, where a minority party identifies themselves according to a trait which they know is being surveilled – black flesh- and have thus internalized judgements associated with the same. ^[4]Scott, J., Franklin, A. T., & Higgins, K. (2006). Chapter 3: Double Consciousness and Second Sight . In Critical affinities: Nietzsche and African American thought. essay, State University of New … Continue reading Chris knows what could happen because he can predict what a white set of parents might think of him because he’s been conditioned by similar treatment from an early age. This vantage point is traumatic but can be transformed into a spiritual “second sight” through an understanding that the debilitating judgements one is casting on oneself are a result of a problematic world; in the case of Chris, this sight has literally manifested in artistic vision. ^[5]Ibid.

Because the horror is related to the ideological nature of racism and Chris has the ability to detect the “lines” of that ideology, he naturally makes intelligent decisions that we can get behind. We get behind him because it feels like he knows what he’s doing. That’s why when things get flipped on their heads, we realize that we’ve been caught as well – unaware of the true depths of the horror we’ve been led into. The manifestation of this horror in relation to Chris (and his photography) then brings the themes of the movie to full circle, forcing us to reckon with the value of black art, not just as a vision but as a way of survival in society that seeks to erase black subjectivity.

For a genre whose most famous connection to black characters is in its notoriety in killing them first, it’s a breath of fresh air to have a movie in which the black character is intelligent, artistic, and the protagonist. Far from running away from the genre (I’d argue the deference to The Shining shows an immense respect for the genre), Peele runs towards it with open arms in an attempt to use horror to examine racial dynamics in a way previously unexplored. Never once is tension or suspense traded for the sake of a theme and never once is a theme left unexplored in favor of pushing out a new scare. Instead, every element works in tandem to deliver a though provoking thrill ride that will force you to question the nature of status quo ace relations.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Get Out is a horror classic in the making, demonstrating that the genre has more than enough in its wheelhouse to tell captivating stories about issues as nuanced as the terrors of post-racial ideology. It’s a movie that stays committed to both scaring and teaching, never foregoing entertainment for nuance or vice versa. With a healthy number of The Shining references, the evocative soundtrack spanning musical genres, dark comedy built into the structure of the narrative, and a protagonist who you can’t help supporting, it’s hard to find a reason not to recommend the movie to someone.
Rating	10/10
Grade	S

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2010s, 2019, A, Black-Comedy, Comedy, Grade, Horror, mystery, Review, review-movie, slasher, Thriller, Year

Review: Ready or Not

January 20, 2020 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Matt Bettinelli-Olpin Tyler Gillet
Principal Cast	Samara Weaving as Grace Le Domas Mark O’Brien as Alex Le Domas Adam Brody as Daniel Le Domas
Release Date	2019
Language(s)	English
Running Time	95 minutes

As someone who loved Samara Weaving’s performances in both The Babysitter and Mayhem, I knew I had to watch this movie. I didn’t even watch a trailer – I just went in expecting to see a fun Weaving movie. I got that and so much more. Ready or Not is funny, clever, and brutal all at the same time.

The story follows Grace as she’s made to play a game of hide-and-seek after marrying into the wealthy Le Domas family. Except in this game, getting caught means being killed. What follows is an intense cat and mouse situation where Grace and the Le Domas family constantly seek to out maneuver the other party. What keeps these moments fresh is the circumstance under which the game is played and the family operates. I won’t spoil it, but the movie keeps you guessing on what’s really going to happen the whole time. Up until it was over, I didn’t know what was actually going to happen.

Even after having only seen the movie once in theaters and once for this review, I can remember most of the characters and their personalities fairly well. This movie, unlike a lot of other ones with big casts, doesn’t feel like it wastes any of its characters. There are clear motivations for each member – which is even more impressive when you realize how large the Le Domas family actually is. Yes, some of the arcs or backgrounds aren’t amazing or profound, but the fact that they are there at all is impressive.

Weaving absolutely kills it in her portrayal of Grace. She’s funny, wide-eyed, resolute, bad-ass, desperate, and everything in between. Her energy shines through and makes it really easy to root for Grace. It gives you a reason to care about the story and I found myself invested in the outcome. I think Brody’s performance as Daniel (Grace’s brother-in-law) was also fairly well done. He showed complexity and nuance and has some of the best character moments in the movie.

The movie’s discourse on families is interesting and doesn’t feel ham-fisted. Grace wants to be in the family because she’s always been alone- so for her family is a safe place. Meanwhile, her husband Alex resents his family for the practices they engage in so he wants to run away – but he still feels the need to follow tradition- which highlights just how strong family can influence the ordering of our desires. The way the parents evaluate their children’s’ spouses speaks volumes in what qualities they consider valuable. The perversion of family values is where the movie shines and the way it frames that discussion in relation to wealth adds another layer to think about.

Now for the problems. There are some character decisions in the third act that feel a bit off. They’re not incomprehensible, but they feel like they could have been developed a bit more so they wouldn’t feel as sudden. There are also some procedural issues I had with what knowledge what characters had about the mystery at the core of the plot. It feels like certain people should know things that would radically change their actions, but they don’t. Finally, there are moments where the camera feels/is handheld which takes away from the grandiose aesthetic. I wish the shots were stable throughout/moved only during more action-y scenes. This issue felt even more prominent on my second viewing. None of these problems are enough to make the movie bad, but they do lessen the themes the movie builds towards.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Ready or Not is a clever twist on the comedic slasher genre. The plot is well-paced and will keep you guessing about what’s going to happen up till the very end. There are some story issues that creep up in the third act, but they can’t detract from the absurdly fun journey/ending. If you enjoyed Knives Out, you may also like this. It’s weird – but this movie feels like a spiritual horror version of that one.
Rating	9.0/10
Grade	A

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2010s, 2017, C+, Grade, Horror, mystery, Past, Review, review-movie, supernatural, Thriller, Year

Film Review: Annabelle: Creation

January 18, 2020 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	David F. Sandberg
Principal Cast	Talitha Bateman as Janice Lulu Wilson as Linda Stephanie Sigman as Sister Charlotte Anthony LaPaglia as Samuel Mullins
Release Date	2017
Language(s)	English
Running Time	110 minutes

A man begins to create the infamous “Annabelle” doll introduced in The Conjuring. He gets to work crafting the different parts of the toy; its hollow face takes center frame as it waits to be filled in and made whole. The finished doll is put into a box which the dollmaker, Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia), brands with his seal.

As he finishes, a note is slipped underneath his workroom’s door: “Find me.” Samuel gives chase; the note marks the start of a hide-and-seek game with his daughter, Annabelle (Samara Lee). He finds the young girl and promptly showers her with affection along with his wife, Esther (Miranda Otto). The loving parents dote on their daughter; the Mullins family is whole and their residence radiates with warmth.

The camera rotates and sweeps around the church…

But these happy times are doomed to come to an end. The camera whips and flips around a church signifying the shift in fates while the family makes their way out of the service. On their way back home, their car stalls out and the trio waits on the road; something awful is about to happen.

A car approaches in the background. We notice it creeping in. Esther calls attention to the vehicle. The horrific realization of what’s to happen begins to dawn. Yet, when Annabelle runs in front of the car to retrieve a stray bolt and is promptly killed, the shock is all the same. Her broken doll occupies the frame: innocence has been destroyed. The title card is “branded” in with flames; the seeds of this horror story have now been sown. Then, the film cuts to 12 years later on a view of Annabelle’s grave-marker, and a bus of young orphaned girls passes by on route to the Mullins residence. Their crossing of the tragic threshold signifies the something sinister approaches them as well.

However, the girls inside the vehicle are none the wiser to the horrors that await. They’ve struggled to find a place to stay while waiting to be adopted and the group’s caretaker, Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) sees the invitation from the Mullins to stay as a blessing from God. Meanwhile, a duo within the girls, Janice (Talitha Bateman) and Linda (Lulu Wilson), sit with their own dolls closely in hand, hopeful that the Mullins residence is just a stop on the road to their dream of being adopted together by a nice family.

They make their way into the residence and director David F. Sandberg gives us a tour of the abode in a James Wan-esque one-shot that sees the girls traverse their newfound home. At the end of the house tour, Janice gets into a stair-helper machine meant to help her manage her polio-related mobility issues and get around the house. Excitedly, she gets onto the machine and heads up the stairs to explore her new environment.

But as the camera pans from a hellish red-stained glass balcony that envelops the frame to reveal Janice emerging from the end of the structure, it’s clear her journey is going to evil places. The next shot confirms as much as a young girl that looks like the deceased Annabelle shows up in the looming dark space to the right of Janice which threatens to envelop her.

Far from being a godsend, the Mullins residence is a malevolent location fraught with demonic forces that seek Janice out from the outset. It’s from this backdrop that Sandberg and writer Gary Dauberman seek to not only explain how the Annabelle doll came to be within the larger context of the The Conjuring franchise while making sense of the convoluted logic of the previous franchise entry, Annabelle (also written by Dauberman), that attempted to do the same but also tell Janice and company’s story in a compelling manner in its own rite. Juggling one film is difficult enough but course correcting a former entry while maintaining a tonal consistency with it is a whole other task, and Creation deserves praise for mostly succeeding in its efforts.

The film improves upon its predecessors failures in two distinct fashions: first, it engenders a sense of goodwill towards its protagonist, Janice, by showcasing her personal struggles and developing her interactions with other characters to make her feel sympathetic; second, it streamlines the narrative to focus on Janice and her personal battle to furnish faith in a seemingly desolate world instead of trying to posture and tack on additional overarching, possibly conflicting thematic ideations.

By keeping the narrative and thematic throughlines easy to keep track of, the film is able to bracket its more generic supernatural set-pieces around a story that’s emotionally compelling enough to hold interest; simple parallels serve as markers that make tracking Janice’s journey through the otherwise contrived horror trappings easy to comprehend. Her friendship with Linda serves as a counterpoint to the potential possession by the Annabelle-like specter; one girl represents a path towards a fantasy while the other gestures towards nightmares. This dichotomy is extended through the presence of the film’s different dolls. Both girls have their own more innocent dolls and see them as extensions of one another. These figures represent a faith in a future where they’re together in the same home. Meanwhile, the Annabelle doll represents an evil that seeks to take refuge within, making a home out of its victim – an inversion of the idyllic dream shared by the girls.

However, the film does stumble occasionally when it shifts focus to the other girls – far less interesting characters who serve as little more than reminders of Janice’s alienation. Their segments create moments of temporary visceral engagement that leave little lasting impact, especially in the context of what the film sets out to do; the constant barrage of them, especially in relation to such tangential characters, end up raising questions regarding why the demonic forces present have not swiftly dealt with whatever they needed. When we see the evil entities wreak obscene havoc in spite of safeguards, it becomes hard to ignore when it then then pulls punches and leaves like the most obnoxious “practical joker” after getting a reaction. Cutting out these bloated sections would help the narrative maintain its momentum and avoid undermining the tension generated by the supernatural set-pieces related to Janice’s story.

Thus, while Creation is a step up from its predecessor and does a much better job at establishing the foundation for the Annabelle doll, it never becomes greater than the sum of its parts – a shame given Sandberg’s competence at building the set-pieces proper.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Annabelle: Creation, sees Director David Sandberg tasked with righting the mythos surrounding the Conjuring franchise’s Annabelle doll. While he manages to establish a background story that works, both as explanatory mechanism and narrative in its own right, the constant barrage of temporarily upsetting but overall unmemorable horror set-pieces drag the better parts of the movie down. It’s competently put together and features performances that will get viewers to care, but it’s a disappointment given the skill hinted at.
Rating	7.3/10
Grade	C+

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2010s, 2019, F, Grade, Horror, mystery, Review, review-movie, supernatural, Thriller, Year

Review: Annabelle Comes Home

January 18, 2020 The Critic Leave a comment

Director(s)	Gary Dauberman
Principal Cast	Mckenna Grace as Judy Warren Patrick Wilson as Ed Warren Vera Farmiga as Lorraine Warren Madison Iseman as Mary Ellen Katie Sarife as Daniela Rios
Release Date	2019
Language(s)	English
Running Time	106 minutes

I didn’t like Annabelle. I did like Annabelle: Creation. Both Wilson and Farmiga have been great in the other Conjuring movies they’ve been in, so when I saw the trailer for this movie I had real hope. The Warrens and Annabelle – maybe it could be as good as the movies in the main franchise. The movie even starts off with a bait, introducing Ed and Lorraine as they’re on their way back home with the Annabelle doll ready to be stored away. They get it in it’s iconic case and emphasize its power. Then they disappear from the movie and we get to the absurd mess that is the main story line.

The movie follows Judy, the Warrens daughter, and the mishaps that occur when her parents go off…to do something? Anyways, she’s left with her babysitter Mary for the day. Mary’s friend Daniela then comes over and opens and touches everything in the Warren’s demonic possession room. Then Annabelle gets loose and releases OTHER DEMONS to be menacing to the girls and the movie chronicles their miserably boring endeavors to fight them off. Another Annabelle movie where Annabelle doesn’t do anything of her own account. It’s like what’s the point of making these spin-off movies if you’re not going to actually expand on the character or make them more menacing in their own right.

Speaking of menacing- nothing in this movie is. All the “monster of the weeks” are poorly set up through lazy exposition and have no meaningful significance to any of the characters. They’re all just cheap attempts at recapturing the magic of creatures like the Nun or the Crooked Man but they don’t work. It’s sad because the movie is actually shot pretty well. There are some nice tracking shots that amplify the tension. If the scares took advantage of those the movie could have been so much more effective. There are plenty of great scenes early on where there are just scary apparitions in the background waiting- but the movie doesn’t know how to deal with them outside of fake-out jump scare. It gets repetitive which makes the 3rd act of the movie feel like the same scene happening in succession.

The whole movie just feels like a missed opportunity. So many cool ideas don’t get teased out properly.Exploring the life of a child ostracized because of her parents demonology background is interesting and I thought the movie would be a family drama centering around that issue. Instead, it’s ignored and never develops into anything meaningful. Exploring the Annabelle doll’s actual power? Nah, let’s let her summon other spirits instead. Have a good reason for someone to enter the room and do anything? Nah, we can just skirt around the issue and give her some vague sad backstory. It’s all just unsatisfying, especially when all the pieces to resolve these questions are present in the story. Heck you could even have the babysitter and her friend- just introduce them naturally and have the inciting incident be more believable. I don’t know – it just feels sloppy.

REPORT CARD

TLDR	Annabelle Comes Home feels like a series of missed opportunities wrapped up into a generic feeling horror movie. The Warrens are barely in the movie , so don’t hold your breath if your expecting this to feel like The Conjuring. It’s just a sad imitation.
Rating	4.8/10
Grade	F

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