Mirrors

Mirrors
Starring: Kiefer Sutherland, Paula Patton, Amy Smart
Directed by: Alexandre Aja

Style: Supernatural Haunting
Blood and Guts: 4
Fright Factor: 4
Laugh Factor: 0
Weapons of choice: Sharp objects
Overall rating: 4 out of 5

In New York City, the historic Mayflower department store remains as just a husk of its former glory. After a horrible fire, years go by as the building sits idle under the hopes that it will be renovated. However, no horrific incident slips by without horrific aftermath. Ben Carson (Sutherland) , on leave from the police force after accidentally shooting another officer, takes a job as the nighttime security officer while trying to regain control of his life and the trust of his wife with whom he is separated. On the job, he discovers the mirrors show him people burned alive from the fire. What's worse, the images have the power to alter reality, making what seems to be happening actually happen. Now Ben must find how to make the mirrors stop and save his family before it is too late.

As with Aja's previous movie High Tension, the power of the story comes from excellent sound work. A lot of tension is provided by distant wails, atmospheric background sounds such as doves and grit on the ground at the Mayflower, and subtle scoring. There is much less of the cheap jump scares and more of a sense of impending doom. Having mirrors stare back at people as they leave the room is creepy, yet Aja does not overuse the technique so that we become accustomed to it. Also, there are only a few moments of violence, which are harrowing and quite brutal, which means the audience never becomes overly sensitized to the gore.

A lot of criticism of the film has revolved around Kiefer Sutherland's acting. While he doesn't offer anything new other than his standard repetoire of muttered lines and cold-eyed stares, he does fit the need of a recovering alcoholic whose life has fallen to pieces. Paula Patton is excellent as his wife and mother of his children who slowly realizes that the madness her husband is talking about is real.

I also credit the story for how well it is crafted. All of the moments lead into each other, so that everything comes into focus piece by piece, and while the audience may be ahead of the characters by a few steps, it still manages to lead the audience places rather than having everything guessed out beforehand. I personally would have liked to have more made of the fact that the mirror world is backwards, especially when it comes to the key word that the entity in the mirror seeks. However, that is not anything major that detracts from the film.

Overall, this a solid horror film that should keep most of the audience on the edge of their seats and maybe even inspire a nightmare or two. A few more movies like this and High Tension and Aja may make a run at being one of the better horror film directors of all time.

I Know Who Killed Me

I Know Who Killed Me
Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Julia Ormond, Neal McDonough, Brian Geraghty
Directed by: Chris Sivertson

Style: Cryptic Kidnapping
Blood and Guts: 4
Fright Factor: 2
Laugh Factor: 1
Weapons of choice: Dry ice, glass knives
Overall rating: 1 out of 5

New Salem is being terrorized by a brutal serial killer who abducts and tortures young women, holding them captive for weeks before murdering them. Aubrey Fleming (Lohan), an aspiring writer, becomes his latest victim when she disappears without a trace during a night out with her friends. Days later, she shows up missing an arm and leg, having apparently escaped the clutches of the killer. However, she has no memory of her life, insisting that she is Dakota, a stripper who came to town after he hand mysteriously started disintegrating. Now, the FBI and family try to make sense of it all while Dakota/Aubrey continues to have nightmares that the killer isn't finished with her yet.

My main problem with this film is that it looks and feels like it was made to be this cryptic puzzler of the horror movie, keeping the audience in the dark as the tale unravels a bit at a time. Instead, the movie is so overt with its metaphor and symbolism that half the time it feels like you aren't even watching a story but a representation of a story. Lohan is decent, but the script never really sets any pace that can drive the film. There are too many facts being tossed around in the hopes of keeping the audience guessing. Instead, I just stopped caring what was happening. The ending appeared obvious, but I was wrong. That is, until I found out that the original ending had been that, but test audiences said it was too predictable, so the film chopped off the real ending. As a result, we get another horror film that just ends suddenly with several unresolved issues.

Horror movies also need to come to the realization that they either have to run in the land of realism or push the fantasy they are creating. If you try to throw a fantastical concept into a film pushing itself as reality, the audience scoffs at you. Without giving away the plot, I am referring to how Dakota / Aubrey loses her hand. Also, never introduce a robotic arm and leg unless you think you are being funny or know how to maintain tone. This movie does not.

Another unfortunate consequence of the director thinking he is the next Fincher or Lynch is the very overt use of red and blue throughout the entire film. Every scene has several objects almost glowing by the mere fact that everything else is so drably colored. The audience in my showing started calling out "Red" and "Blue" to mark just how much it was happening.

This movie is bad. It has potential, but the director and screenwriter do not have the talent to make anything of this very sloppy movie. Surprisingly, I don't blame Lohan for anything other than wanting to be more of an adult actor, so she chose the stripper movie. It's destined to be reshown at many late night crap fests for years to come.

The Mother of Tears

Mother of Tears
Starring: Asia Argento, Daria Nicolodi, Moran Atias, Udo Kier
Directed by: Dario Argento

Style: Pandora's Box
Blood and Guts: 5
Fright Factor: 4
Laugh Factor: 2
Weapons of choice: Knives
Overall rating: 5 out of 5

An ancient urn is discovered during a dig outside a Rome graveyard. The priest examines its contents and decides to send it along to an expert in the occult at the Rome Museum of Ancient Art. As expected, one of the expert's assistants manages to accidentally summon the evil within, a terrible witch named The Mother of Tears. The Mother sets about stirring up chaos in the world, leading people to fight in the streets and commit horrendous acts merely because she is now loose. The only one who may be able to stop the Mother's rampage of chaos and evil is Sarah (Argento), daughter of a now deceased white witch. Sarah must discover her own power before finding the secret lair of the Mother of Tears and end her reign of terror.

Dario Argento is considered by many to be one of the greatest horror directors ever. His ability to blend surreal imagery with horrific sequences is a talent not seen elsewhere. There is an artistic quality to his approach. This film has suffered much criticism for being less than his normal artistic venture, yet the film perfectly blends horror and the surreal, leaving the audience unable to guess from moment to moment what might happen, and there lies the strength of this film.

The story does wander a bit, but the experience is much more of a ride that the audience is dragged along with. From the opening murder of the museum assistant to the abrupt ending, the entire film functions in a nightmarish dream, with moments so visceral that even hardened audiences might find themselves shocked, yet many things also left the audience giggling and the oddity of it all. For example, Sarah has a few sequences where she is being pursued by a howler monkey. It is funny, yet there is a sinister undercurrent to it, as we don't know what will happen if she is caught. Everywhere Sarah goes, people who assist her are brutally murdered, frequently with a overtone of disbelief from the audience. Did she just lick her tears of fear? Oh, and now she's horribly murdered! The direction is so masterful that even when a scare is telegraphed during one sequence, the entire audience still leapt from their scenes and screamed.

Overall, there are very few films like this one. It creates an entire world that is so surreal it makes the audience both laugh and scream, and by the end, you cannot believe what you just saw. It's a rare treat to get that from a horror film.

Open Water 2: Adrift

Open Water 2: Adrift
Starring: Susan May Pratt, Richard Speight, Jr., Niklaus Lange, Ali Hillis
Directed by: Hans Horn

Style: Survival Horror
Blood and Guts: 1
Fright Factor: 3
Laugh Factor: 0
Weapons of choice: The ocean
Overall rating: 3 out of 5

A group of high school friends now grown up decide to spend a day out on the ocean courtesy of the yacht owned by their friend Dan. He brings a new girlfriend Michelle, while Amy brings her husband James and their new baby. Amy also conveniently brings her fear of the ocean, which she has had since her father drowned when she was a child. While out on the boat, everyone goes swimming except Amy. Dan decided to help her get over her fear of the ocean by pulling her into the water. The only problem is this leaves nobody on the yacht except a baby, and nobody thought to deploy the ladder.

The strength of the story lies in the fact that safety is always just out of reach. None of the characters can get high enough to pull themselves back on board, and a series of schemes each fall short. In fact, the movie gets quite a bit of drama out of people floating through the ocean. Each of the actors show quite a bit of range as they turn on each other. However, it feels as if the friends start panicking too early, probably in part to condense the story. They are barely in the water an hour when they act like they are on the verge of murdering each other. This is an instance of being larger than life is overdone. It's jarring in the film, and once they have reached that level of fear, there isn't much farther that the film can go. The film's best moments are when the characters aren't afraid but are taking turns emotionally breaking each other down because it is the only way to deal with the fear.

Also, for those looking for a film like the first Open Water, there is very little similarity other than it is about people trapped in the water. Whereas Open Water was about surviving against the ocean itself, Adrift is more about surviving the fear the ocean inflicts upon us. The title Open Water 2 is used more to link it in the audience's mind. It was probably a separate film before the marketing department got a hold of it.

Finally, there is the ending. I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't speak of the specifics. However, I really have a problem with films that abandon all the work it has done up until that point just to try and throw ambiguity into the mix. Clearly, the director wanted to spark debate, but it doesn't come off as a clever or smart choice. Instead, you have an ending that will have people griping about how the story remains unfinished. You can be ambiguous if the story is finished being told, but this is not the case for Adrift.

Adrift has some good moments of drama and character interaction. There are hints that this film could have been good. However, as the director's first big film, his inexperience in storytelling shows, and the film cannot hold itself together no matter how hard the actors work. This movie is probably good for a lazy Saturday afternoon, when you might be able to overlook its failings to appreciate the drama it contains.

Terrible Thursday: Lake Placid 2

Lake Placid 2
Starring: John Schneider, Sara LaFleur, Sam McMurray, Chad Collins
Directed by: David Flores

Style: Creature Feature
Blood and Guts: 2
Fright Factor: 1
Laugh Factor: 4
Weapons of choice: Firearms, biting
Overall rating: terrible

Anytime your town suffers from an attack by some giant killer animal, odds are that you should just nuke the entire town afterwards and start from scratch. Why? Because there are always offspring, and these offspring will inevitably seek revenge, even if the people from the original incident pass on appearing in the sequel. This brings us to Lake Placid 2.

Once again, giant killer crocodiles have returned to Lake Placid. Once again, the sheriff (Schneider) and Fish and Wildlife Services (LaFleur) must do battle with these killers to save a town too stupid to move away from the lake, even though people continue to disappear there for years. Throw in an ornery old woman, who happens to be the sister of the ornery old woman from the first movie, and a big game hunter (McMurray), and you have yourself a race to see who can be the last one chewed on.

For the most part, this film is terrible from beginning to end. All of the characters lack any sort of enthusiasm or intelligence at all, to the point that the first ten minutes talk about how everyone is vanishing on the lake. One character even strips off her clothes and goes diving in her underwear, and she is the EPA / Fish and Wildlife person. I was hoping for some sort of skin infection to punish her with. Everyone else has one goal and will ignore all sorts of rational thinking to achieve it. For example, the sleazy reporter is led to the edge of the dock and left there as an old woman runs away, yet he fails to be suspicious.

The crocodiles are decent but look so out of place. All of the violence is from people writing on the ground pretending to be eaten as digital blood and croc mouth surrounds them.

To give you an idea of what this film is like, the characters just happens to have a grenade launcher lying around. And then, they try to not use it as much as possible. Terrible.

Lake Placid

Lake Placid
Starring: Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, Oliver Platt, Brendan Gleeson
Directed by: Steve Miner

Style: Creature Feature
Blood and Guts: 2
Fright Factor: 2
Laugh Factor: 3
Weapons of choice: Firearms, biting
Overall rating: 3 out of 5

Lake houses are generally seen as peaceful places, especially if your lake is called Placid. However, if people suddenly start disappearing or showing up in pieces, that is usually a good sign to move to a city where all you have are lunatics and not giant savage beasts.

Alas, someone has to deal with those creatures once you are gone. That someone is Fish and Game officer Jack Wells (Pullman), sheriff Hank Keough (Gleeson), and paleontologist Kelly Scott (Fonda). Together they must find a way to deal with the giant crocodile, as neither lake nor land are safe from this hunter.

Overall, this film falls on the favorable side of the comedic horror line. There is enough of the bickering between the different leads and with an eccentric crocophile played by Oliver Platt to keep the movie clipping along. As for the horror aspect, there are never any truly suspenseful moments, but the movie can be forgiven for that as nothing ever feels really weak or out of place. The creature effects add a sense of realism to the movie, as the CGI blend they are using isn't half-bad. All too often a movie like this will put together a junk creature with bad special effects, but this film managed to get it right.

As for the violence, the film barely squeezed on an R rating. yes, there are a few mutilations, but most of it feels like something you would see on a late night movie on TV with a few extra seconds of gore added to tip the scales. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but the movie also doesn't have the suspense factor to back it up. All of the tense sequences feel tired, with other films doing it better.

It is hard to fault a film like this, as it delivers exactly what it promises up front: a well-paced, fun adventure with a giant killer crocodile. The reason this film isn't better is mostly because to never achieves anything beyond that good time. A movie like this that can provide a great time is what makes something into a cult classic. As it stands, Lake Placid doesn't have the snappy script or originality necessary to be one of those movies that everyone tells their friends about. It's fun, but don't expect much else.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
Starring: Nathan Baesel, Robert Englund, Angela Goethals, Kate Lang Johnson
Directed by: Scott Glosserman

Style: Mockumentary Slasher
Blood and Guts: 3
Fright Factor: 2
Laugh Factor: 3
Weapons of choice: All sorts of pointy things
Overall rating: 5 out of 5

Everyone has a dream growing up. Some of us want to be astronauts. Some of us want to cure cancer. But for Leslie Vernon (Baesel), he wants to be remembered as the next great serial killer. He enlists the help of a college documentary crew to record the preparation for his rise as a serial killer, and even allows them to attend his night of carnage. However, lead reporter Taylor (Goethals) doesn't want to stand by while people die. Can she stop Leslie's quest for infamy, or will she be just another tally on his knife handle?

Every once in a while, a horror movie comes along that truly understands the horror movie experience. It understands that audiences usually have seen a number of the slasher films and have high expectations and standards for what constitutes a scary film. In this case, the film is about what goes into being the perfect horror villain. The first half of the movie is all about preparation and setting the stage for the night of carnage, and the film goes so far as to acknowledge its roots outright.

The selling point of this film is Nathan Baesel. He brings charisma and enough sly humor to the character that we overlook the fact that he is brutally murdering people. We sympathize with his quest for perfection, even if it is slaughter. There is one moment where Leslie is sitting in the dark waiting to begin, and he is so overjoyed that his plan is about to become reality. The humanity of that moment is heartfelt and genuine, and it is such a rarity among the horror genre.

The second half of the movie plays out the way any other slasher film would, except because we have such an attachment to both the killer and the film crew, their conflict carries us through to the end. We've already been told what will happen, and so when the crew interferes and changes the game plan, we are surprised anew. Even if those surprises still follow the clichè, they feel new to us because we have been guided the entire way.

Everything about this film shows much planning and forethought, as well as an understanding of how horror films function, and the result is one of the best horror films to come around in a few years.