Rosemary's Baby (1968)

1968
Directed by Roman Polanski
Starring Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy and Angela Dorian

a.k.a. Netflix Part 2.

This is one of those movies that is in weird Exorcist/Evil Dead territory with me.  I can't say that I HATE the movies, per se, but I also don't see why everyone else thinks they're so awesome.  I should also point out that it's taken me three tries over a period of 17 years to watch this entire film, the last of those attempts taking place just last week via Netflix streaming.  Folks, it was a struggle.

For whatever reason, this movie just doesn't grab me.  More specifically, the characters don't.  A significant chunk of the success of a movie like this depends on the strength of your bond with the characters.  The situation itself is such a slow burn that you're spending LARGE amounts of time with them, and if they aren't a good hook, your movie is toast.  This flick was an enormous hit in 1968 when it was released and is ranked #9 on the AFI's best thrillers of all time list, and for good reason, because it's got some great sequences of dread and tension combined with director Roman Polanski's soul-crushing atmosphere, but those characters...man.  With that, let's get to some glorious plot description.

Rosemary Woodhouse (Farrow) and her husband Guy (Cassevetes) are at a crossroads in their life.  Guy is an actor struggling to make it, and it's time to move into a new apartment.  Despite the misgivings of one of their friends, they decide to take a room at this ancient old place in the heart of New York City despite its troubled past.  The first act of the film focuses on setting things up, as all movies should, with plenty of dialogue cluing us in as to Guy's acting career and his insecurities about making it.  We also meet the majority of the young couple's neighbors, including a young drug addict who throws herself to her death shortly after being introduced.  Yikes.  There's also a drenching scene where Rosemary wakes up in the middle of the night and hears curious chanting coming from the next room (and I just realized that the phrase "curious chanting" sounds like something from a Goosebumps book), all of which meant to establish that there are things not quite right with this apartment building.

To be sure, Mia Farrow is quite excellent in the title role, a little mousy and occasionally playful enough to qualify as moderately likable.  She was also very nice to look at in her 1968 form, which never hurts.  Cassavetes is the weak link in my mind, although plenty of other people slather on the praise for this guy's silent intensity.  Acting-wise, I give the leads a B+. 

The relationship that really defines the movie is our main characters' connection to the Castevets, Minnie (Gordon) and Roman (Blackmer).  Upon learning that the Woodhouses want to have a child, they take an active interest, giving our young heroine a cup of chocolate mousse.  Great idea alert.  After drinking it, she passes out and has a strange dream where she is raped by a demonic presence with Guy and other apartment tenants also present in the room.  It's some sequence, accompanied by dreadful dreary music that ups that Polanski atmosphere quotient to unseen levels.  Unfortunately, after this, we're right back to Rosemary and Guy relationship drama alert.

You know, every time that I've tried to watch this movie (and even last week when I finished it), this is where the movie loses me.  It's got a pretty nifty setup...but, I don't know, from this point on I just expected something grander than the actor husband kinda-sorta selling out for advancement in his acting career.  The script (and by proxy the novel that it's based on, which Polanski supposedly cribbed from almost word-for-word) piles on the curious pregnancy story from this point on, with the Castevets convincing Rosemary to consume a daily drink called Tannis Root and to see a doctor that they recommend very strongly.  And the movie loses me a bit more.  There's a heavy amount of exposition as Rosemary discovers the Castevets' connections to Satanism via the use of anagrams, and I start to think about those neglected dishes about 20 feet away.  It's really something.  I know I'm supposed to be interested here, but...I'm not.  And by the time the wholly expected downer ending arrives, I'm just past the point of caring.

Depressing review, huh?

Don't get me wrong.  There's a lot that I admire about this flick, both way back when during my initial viewing with the legendary Joe Bob Briggs and just last week as a slightly stuffy and more-than-a-little-annoying 32-year-old.  Farrow is both a sight and sound to behold, Polanski's camera work and atmosphere are amazing, and the soundtrack (as sparse as it is) is the stuff of nightmares.  It's in a lot of the actual story content that I just can't connect with Rosemary's Baby the way I should. 

I don't know.  As awesome as Polanski is, I think it's pretty clear that he's a WAY better director than screenwriter.  This movie, and his alleged page-by-page rewrite of the book is the proof.  Chinatown, his Patrick Bateman-esque undisputed masterpiece, had skilled script guru Robert Towne backing him up.  I think this is one of those books that probably could have used some dressing up, because following books TO THE LETTER...sometimes, it just isn't the best way to go.  And the proof of that lies with Steven Spielberg and a little movie called Jaws, a film that differs greatly from its source novel and is about 10 times as effective.  What did Spielberg change?  He made the characters more quirky and likable.  Funny how that worked out.

** 1/2 out of ****.  It's got atmosphere, acting, and some occasional scares, but the characters are weak sauce.  I'm not quite as harsh on it as that 2/5 Netflix rating (seriously), but I can confidently say "avoid."

Sadako 3D (2012)

SADAKO 3D
Directed by Tsutomu Hanabusa
Starring Satomi Ishihara, Koji Seto and Yusuke Yamamoto

It finally came to this.  In order to do this review, I did something that I swore that I would never do.  And we're not talking some fly-by-moment stance.  It was something I was dead set against for YEARS.

I signed up for Netflix.

Now, my legion of (six) fans out there may or may not be aware, but I'm a hardcore advocate of brick-and-mortar video stores.  Going to great video stores as a kid is one of my precious childhood memories, with the famous store appropriately named "Mall Video" located in my hometown mall still holding its place as the Greatest Video Store I've Ever Set Foot In.  A close second would be the chain Hollywood Video in my college town.  Both places had something in common - a stock that went way beyond stuff from the last two years, and a copiously stocked old school horror aisle.  It's an experience that I never thought could be replicated typing stuff into a screen on your TV.

I expected to be blown away by Netflix much like High-Definition TV (don't ask me why I was against that - it really was a moronic stance).  But, really folks...I'm a little underwhelmed.  I certainly don't HATE Netflix, but it's nowhere near the life-altering experience that I thought it would be now that I've gotten over this bizarre hatred.  Who knows, maybe it would be different if I was into more modern TV shows.  But I'm not.  Eat me, story arcs involving large groups of "complex" (read: unlikable) characters where the satisfaction comes from some sort of cathartic "just desserts" that the characters in question get.  Where was I?  Oh, right - Netflix.  What it DOES have going for it is a decent horror section, and the means to review a few horror movies without having to, you know, do what I've been doing for all these years and blindly buying DVDs.

And the first movie I checked out was...Sadako 3D.  Epic story, I know.  I'd heard of this movie and was VERY stoked by the prospects of it, because people, I am a HUGE fan of the Ringu/Ring movie franchise.  Moreso the Japanese series, but even the American ones are fine - even that godawful second movie with the hilarious CGI deer attack sequence.  The series has gotten me through some rough times in recent years, as they rank in second place (a distant second, but second nonetheless) behind Friday the 13th as my favorite "horror movie falling asleep whore" series.  There's just this calming quality about the movies that makes me forget about everything in life and puts me right to sleep.  In the good way, I promise.  The whole premise of Ringu seems tailor-made for 3D, so maybe I'm biased watching it from home, but this movie was also a little...underwhelming.

First off, I was surprised to find out in my extensive Wikipedia research that, much like a couple of the original movies, it was based on a book by Koji Suzuki.  Makes sense, I suppose.  The story involves some a string of teen suicides all connected to a video shown on a prominent web show - nutbag artist Kashiwada Seiji sitting alone in a room who stares into the screen and says "you're not the one."  Foreshadowing alert.  Since we need a bit more character connection, the introductory phase of the movie takes place in an All-Girls' school where Akane Ayukawa is our star teacher who takes on the role of trying to stop the death from spreading amongst her students. 

Satomi Ishihara takes the reins of playing our main Ringu girl in peril, and she's got some stiff competition from the past, because Nanako Matsushima is legit one of the five or six best horror heroines of all time in the original flick.  And Naomi Watts is no slouch, either.  Ishihara is...there, I guess.  She does alright with the material that she's given, and that's an interesting statement in and of itself, since she actually WROTE THE SCREENPLAY for this movie.  Some of her lines are a little suspect, but in a movie series that demands that it's main heroine be likable to carry a movie where we don't see the main villain for the VAST majority of the running time, this character needs to hold our attention.  And she really doesn't.  So -2 points there.

Let's see how fast I can wrap up this dog and pony show.  There are also a couple detective characters who don't figure much into the plot aside from moving it along whenever we need to find things out, but it turns out that Kashiwada (the aforementioned nutbag artist, for those keeping score) dealt with one too many trolls while conducting his web show and has decided to take revenge on the entire human race by resurrecting Sadako Yamamura, the dangerous psychic who has the power to kill victims from beyond the grave after watching her cursed video tape.  But since video tapes are a little archaic, he had to resort to other methods - like killing random women and dumping them into the well that Sadako was thrown into.  Seems like a sound plan to me.  This plan does not succeed, and instead, Kashiwada is forced to find a new human host for Sadako.  Since our main heroine ALSO has psychic powers, I'll give you three guesses as to who that turns out to be.

A big part of why I felt so underwhelmed by this movie is in that story.  If you were confused reading it, I don't blame you, because I feel that it's too complicated for its own good.  The prospect of a 3D Ring flick seems to write itself to me.  You've got a movie series about a cursed video tape that houses a vengeful ghost who kills anyone who watches it.  To me, this is a screenwriter's dream if you're given the reins.  Take a group of vacationing teens/college kids.  Send them to the inn where Sadako's well is located.  Have them find one of those old, antiquey VCRs on site, make a few jokes about just how old and decrepit this technology is, and throw on that curious unmarked video laying nearby.  Maybe one of the kids throws the video up on Youtube as a joke.  Simple.  Less is more.  Instead, we have way more anciliary characters than we know what to do with and a big, complicated setup that takes WAY too long to get going and reveal itself.  As such, there's not a whole lot of tension to be had here.

Now, I will admit that the movie DOES kind of redeem itself in the final trimester, with Akane running from an army of imperfect Sadako clones (the ghosts of the women thrown into the well by Kashiwada) and a showdown with Sadako herself that is pretty much perfectly laid out and written.  But everything that leads up to that point is pretty paint-by-numbers, and it's a damn shame, because this is one of those movies that seemed like such a can't-miss that it boggled my mind that no one in the States was interested in the concept.  I guess I can still hold out hope for RinGrudge, but who am I kidding, that ship has sailed.

** out of ****.  Got its moments, but overall a miss.  Avoid.

Fright Night (1985)

1985
Directed by Tom Holland
Starring Chris Sarandon, William Ragsdale, Amanda Bearse, Stephen Geoffreys and Roddy McDowall
This was another one of THOSE weeks.  Every once in a while, I really struggle to come up with a movie to review.  Call it selective mental block.  I open up the ol' DVD cabinet, and every movie seems to be screaming "NO."  I type up "classic horror films" in Google, and everything has already been hashed and rehashed.  With nowhere else ot turn, I almost did something way, way out there for the Lick Ness Monster.

I almost reviewed The Evil Dead.

Now, I've pretty much done everything but outright promise that I'll never review Raimi's cult classic trilogy.  Partially because I'm just not the biggest fan of them, but mostly just because what I actually have to SAY about them really isn't that interesting in the first place.  All it would be is bitching for the sake of bitching.  I know this, and so does pretty much every unfortunate sap that I've talked to in real life about these flicks.  But with nowhere else to turn...folks, I almost annoyed the holy f**k out of everyone this week.  Fortunately, an old friend showed up last weekend with a few horror DVDs, chief among them a fun little movie from the '80s that I didn't discover until college.

Fright Night was a pretty big hit upon release, grossing $24 million at the box office and eventually becoming successful enough to get a sequel and a pretty slick remake a few years back with Colin Farrell and Toni Collette.  That movie was pretty good in its own right, but the original film is a prime slice of '80s cheese in the best way.  Writer-director Tom Holland is one of my favorite horror movie guys, having also helmed Psycho II, the original Child's Play and a bunch of Tales From the Crypt episodes, and this is yet another movie that just GETS horror from beginning to end.

William Ragsdale stars as Charley Brewster, cool kid who is only cooler because he's into old-school horror movies.  Despite also having hot girlfriend Amy Peterson (Amanda Bearse) to play around with, he still spends a bunch of time watching a horror movie marathon show hosted by Hammer-style actor Peter Vincent (Roddy McDowall).  The flick does a really good job establishing Charley as a likable and relatable guy, an art form that I'm sure I've mentioned several times is sadly lost on most modern film-makers.  And I'm not just talking about horror movies.  It's amazing to me that I can watch action movies with budgets the size of a small nation's GDP, and yet the stakes still feel so damn LOW.  Reason: I don't give a s**t.

Anywoo, back to this dog and pony show.  The movie's big complication: Charley's new neighbor, Jerry Dandridge.  The coincidences and similarities seem incidental at first, but Charley is soon able to deduce that the guy next door is, in fact, a vampire.  The irony.  Once this discovery is made, the script doesn't waste any time raising the stakes, either, as Jerry has an offer for this inquisitive teen - "Forget about me, and I'll forget about you."  Alas, Charley doesn't forget, and Jerry is soon making it his mission in life to f**k up Charley's personal world.  Folks, Chris Sarandon is a legendary character actor, and he really gets to show it in this role.  He's slime to the nth degree, a very different interpretation than the one we would get from Colin Farrell in the remake (who was much more badass and powerful), but it's one that is refreshing and quite simply evil.  In between '80s dance sequences, of course.

A large part of this movie's appeal is the characters, and it speaks volumes that almost every single one got recreated by name and theme in the remake.  Charley also has a nerdy friend named Evil Ed (Stephen Geoffreys), and this kid is Jerry's first target after the movie's introductory phase.  With his best friend as freshly converted vampire, his girlfriend falling under Jerry's spell and his mother refusing to believe his claims, he turns to his hero.  He turns to Peter Vincent.  Just like every other main role, McDowall is pitch-perfect as the former Gothic horror star who feels that today's teenagers are too "impatient" for vampires, and I've got to hand it to Tom Holland's scriptwriting prowess here - the idea of a modern (in 1985) teenager and a Hammer-esque horror actor hunting down a strong bad was a fantastic concept, and it's pulled off very well.  Ragsdale and McDowall have a great master-and-sidekick chemistry thing going on, and the second- and third-act chase sequences actually manage to have a decent amount of suspense due to our emotional investment.

I'm honestly struggling to think of flaws to bring the grade down.  I suppose the only thing that I don't particularly care for about Fright Night is Geoffreys - the character of Evil Ed is very well-formulated, but the guy's performance just seems a little off.  Christopher Mintz-Plaase was a HUGE improvement in the remake.  It's also a little dated in some areas (Bearse's hair-style, the aforementioned '80s synth dance scene), but then again, Holland's concept here is remarkably timeless.  The evidence of this is in the remake, where the story essentially gets re-done beat by beat with only aesthetic changes, and today's audience of kids absolutely lapped it up.  Kinda like blood.  (dodges tomatoes)

*** 1/2 out of ****.  Check this one out, kids, it's loads of fun.

And I promise that I'll never review the Evil Dead trilogy.

"Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" musings

Retold from folklore.  You know the drill.

We're in the dog days of summer, which means I just plain don't feel like watching movies.  That means it's time for more musing on books this week.  Yeah, yeah, I know - it's Lick Ness Monster's Horror MOVIE Mayhem.  But it's my blog, I make the rules, and nobody reads it anyway. 

Alvin Schwartz' "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" books were right up there with "Goosebumps" for kids in my age bracket.  There were only three of them, but the impact that these things had were huge.  Everybody at my grade school had checked out these well-worn babies at some point or another.  And weirdly enough I always thought these books were BRAND-NEW in the early-'90s.  The THIRD one was, but I was surprised to learn that the first book came out in 1981, with the first sequel following in '84.  With the subject matter of these books, it really is reaffirming that the art of the campfire scary story is something that truly does know no age bracket.  Which is why we need a remake of Are You Afraid of the Dark, stat.

What these books were all about should be pretty apparent from the covers.  Mr. Schwartz went around the country gathering folktales and urban legends, modernized them as much as he could, and turned the stories into book form.  It seems like such a no-brainer that I can't believe no one thought of the idea before this guy, so kudos to Alvin here for actually having the balls to do something about it.  It is actually thanks to this book that I know a lot of the more popular urban legend stories.  Just about everyone and their mother has heard the story of the young kids out on a date who hear about a serial killer on the loose with a hook for a hand.  Yup, in here.  Another classic is the story involving a woman driving home and being terrified by a vehicle repeatedly flashing its high beams, unsuspecting that a crazed killer is in her back seat and that the motorist is doing his best to save her life.  Heard about it for the first time in here.

Take my word for it, if there is a scary story that made its rounds in the urban areas throughout the twentieth century, it is likely repeated in this book.  Although the source of that "Where is my toooo-e-e-e-e-e-e?" story is a little sketchy.  Leafing through these books today, I'm still amazed just how many of these things stuck with me through the years.  One of them in particular, "Me Tie Dough-Ty Walker," traumatized me as a kid.  Picture this - a kid makes a bet that he can spend a night in a haunted house where it's rumored that a severed head falls down the chimney every night.  Yikes already, but stick with me.  He brings his dog with him, and after midnight begins hearing a voice out in the distant woods.  His dog begins singing back, giving up his location.  And then the severed head falls down the chimney, and...brrrrrrr.  Words cannot convey just how much this story affected me when I was young; nothing, bar for maybe a few segments of Unsolved Mysteries, had ever frightened me so profoundly, but it didn't get much better with some of the others.  The second book has "One Sunday Morning," a story about a young girl who wakes up and goes to church only to find out that she is attending a service for the dead and summarily chased out by a group of mummies who shout "you don't belong here!" at her. 

Complete with soul-crushing illustrations.

The illustrations in these books by Stephen Gammell are the probably the MAIN thing that kids who read them remember.  They are, simply put, amazing.  The black-and-white, abstract images conjure up just...nightmarish images in your mind, keeping the tension high even when the stories weren't quite up to snuff.  There are all kinds of superlatives that I can come up with for these drawings, but take my word for it - Google image search "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" and get ready to be amazed.

Perhaps my favorite feature of the books was the closing chapters, focusing on more humorous entries and research notes.  I tended to read the books cover-to-cover over the course of about three days, and it was always nice to wrap up with a few stories about friendly ghosts that ended with a snappy one-liner.  And I could spend HOURS perusing the Notes section, where Schwartz goes into detail about where each story comes from, the respective years that they are believed to have been birthed, etc.  There are also some good bits of advice about how to, you know, TELL these stories that are meant to be told in the dark.  I can't say I ever used any of them, but they're there.

I'm not going to close this particular blog with any kind of "Top 10" list of my favorite stories because, truth be told, they're all pretty interchangeable.  A lot of urban legends tend to be pretty similar - scary stories meant to teach a moral lesson, which is where these books differed greatly from the "Goosebumps" series that I reviewed last week.  Suffice to say that these books were omnipresent in grade school libraries for a reason, and still stick around these days for that same reason.  Scary stuff lives forever.  Fear knows no date on the calendar.  Thus, I would advise any horror fans out there to pick up copies of these books, because you can find them dirt cheap these days.  You'd be hard-pressed to find a better collection of urban legends and scary campfire tales than this.

"Goosebumps" retrospective

Reader beware...you're in for a scare...

If you're a '90s kid like me, you're more than likely VERY familiar with that tagline.  The original "Goosebumps" book series, written by R.L. Stine and potentially a few ghost writers, were downright ubiquitous during my formative years.  Good, creepy stories meant for pre-teen audiences, these things were EVERYWHERE.  I vividly remember more than a few book trading sessions on the school bus, and during the series' 1993-94 era heyday, each new installment was rabidly anticipated and then hashed over during the school lunch conversations that I wish were still a reality.  Folks, doesn't it suck when you get older and you have to fake interest in things like current events and economics?  In my ideal world, everyone still talks about creepy ghost stories and Nintendo games.

Which brings me to the stories themselves.  Are they great horror literature?  No.  But that's not the point.  For example, there is an excellent, high-traffic blog about this series that I thoroughly enjoy reading.  No, I'm not going to give you an exact link, but surely anyone with a little Google know-how will be able to find it.  As much as I enjoy reading this blog from time to time...I just think it is FAR too negative.  Looking at these books from the perspective of a 30-year-old English major is not what they were all about, nor was it EVER intended to be what they were about.  R.L. Stine's goal with "Goosebumps" was one simple thing - get kids excited to read.  At this, he succeeded in SPADES, because I owe my love of reading to this series. 

No moral lessons, and oftentimes with no discernible endgame in mind, the stories all unspooled in an easy-to-digest 120-page format.  All of which did one thing - it whet my appetite for more horror and more words on a printed page.  "Goosebumps" brought me to Stephen King, Stephen King in turn brought me to more real-life horror and true crime...the list goes on and on.  By giving kids just a touch of the forbidden in the form of good scary stories, he made us feel like we were in on this very special secret.  Again, one that damn near EVERY kid seemed to be talking about.  This also added to the series' coolness.  Kids still do read, but it seems like everything that they read (Harry Potter, Hunger Games, etc.) is also what adults read, cutting off the "me and not you" aspect of it.  I miss those days.

Of course, I would also be remiss to add that I don't find a few of these books to be extraordinarily effective.  I can still vividly remember some of the series' infamous twist endings to this day...even if I can't remember any of the characters' names.  Some of the long-running sub-franchises within "Goosebumps" became pop culture icons, with the "Haunted Mask" and "Night of the Living Dummy" series getting the full-on sequelized treatments on the TV show of the same name.  Some of the more memorable sequences from the books cropped up in my dreams during my fifth and sixth grade years, particularly a lot of the stuff from the series opener "Welcome to Dead House" (easily the darkest and goriest book in the series).  Amazingly enough, I was almost always emotionally invested in the stories, with the always-ordinary and always-milquetoast characters serving as perfect icons for the countless kid readers lapping up the new entries. 

So yeah..."Goosebumps" pretty much ruled.  It was a way of life for 11- and 12-year-old Jon Lickness, and while I haven't read any of the books in almost twenty years, that still doesn't change my appreciation for what they managed to do to my life. 

With that, let's look at my top five books in the "Goosebumps" series.

5.  "Night of the Living Dummy"
The book that started a fantastic sub-series, the strange story of dummy Mr. Wood and two young girls competing over who has the better ventriloquist dummy is one that not many kids can relate to today, but it doesn't matter.  Dummies are creepy.  At least they are if you're in grade school.  From what I can remember, Stine pulls off a really good slow burn with the reveal of Mr. Wood's coming-to-life sequences, with twin sisters Lindy and Kris managing to come off as surprisingly relatable kids caught in the wake.  Gotta love that sequel-launching twist too...

4.  "Welcome to Camp Nightmare"
Ah, yes, the book where they all turned out to be on another planet.  Oh yeah, spoiler alert.  Without a doubt, "Camp Nightmare" has the best twist ending in the ENTIRE series, one that feels like a bit of a cheat if you're looking at it as an adult.  To the unjaded soul, though, this book's ending absolutely floored you.  I also remember the excellent red herring that Stine pulled with the main character's counselors and that mysterious beast known as "Sabre," all of which made that ending pop all the more.

3.  "Calling All Creeps"
One of the later books in the series, I discovered this one LONG after the point where many other kids had stopped reading.  The plot concerns a nerdy kid working at the school paper.  His classmates call him "Sicky Ricky," and we get various scenes of this poor sap getting bullied.  But then he gradually discovers that his enemies are really reptilian monsters - no joke.  The genius here is that the plot actually gives this kid the means to get one HELL of a revenge, and it all plays out perfectly in the twist ending.

2.  "Let's Get Invisible"
This is the first "Goosebumps" book that I remember reading in one sitting - it enthralled me that much back in the day.  This one is really the perfect marriage of a lot of the best books in the series.  It's got a plot device involving a twisted mirror that gives the kids invisibility powers, it's got a very excellent slow burn in the form of the kids staying within said mirror longer and longer, and it's got an ending twist that shows the source of the mirror's power that knocks your socks off.  A+ stuff all around.

1.  "A Night in Terror Tower"
This is the only book in the series that I actually remember reading twice during its initial run.  Folks, this book is simply epic, taking the simple setup involving young siblings taking a tour of Terror Tower and turning it into a very well-crafted adventure.  Time travel is involved, but just bear with it - it all makes perfect sense.  What made this book so special to me back then was how it blended suspense with edge-of-your-seat adventure sequences, and it's no wonder that this is the book that got a two-part TV episode treatment.

Now, to be fair...the series had quite a few stinkers.  The "Monster Blood" series, in particular, was pretty dire - even before I grew up and knew better.  But as an introduction to the horror genre, a way to get your feet wet without diving in all the way, it was hard to imagine a better starting point than "Goosebumps."  Fun to collect, fun to talk about, and always an easy read, these things are the highest-selling children's book series of all time for a reason.  Mr. Stine, thank you for the memories.

Kaidan (2007)

2007
Directed by Hideo Nakata
Starring Kuroemon Onoe, Kumiko Aso and Asaka Seto

We're smack dab in the middle of summer movie season...which means that this is the time of year that I usually get deeper and deeper into the Japanese section of the horror collection.  Don't ask me why.  It's not like it's a tradition that got PLANNED or anything - it just sort of happened.  Some people associate summer with outdoor activities, I associate it with long-haired demon ghosts.  Different strokes and all.
 
Kaidan is a flick directed by the undisputed king of Japanese ghost movies, Hideo Nakata.  From Ringu to Dark Water, he's done it all.  And folks, it simply doesn't get more ghost-y than this movie, a callback to a movie that I reviewed a few weeks ago called called Kwaidan, but these movies share a lot more than just the same name apart from a "W."  Obvious joke alert.  It takes a traditional Japanese folktale, but unlike that classic, Nakata extrapolates his story to the nth degree, making it last for 120 depressing minutes.  I LOVED this movie when I first saw it, but after a few years and many more Japanese horror films, it's lost some of its luster.  With that, let's get to it.

First things first, the movie has a pretty lengthy back story that I'm not going to summarize.  Consult Wikipedia if you're in desperate need of that information.  Suffice to say, there's all kinds of implications for the characters as kids crossing over into their lives as adults, and something about everything coming full circle or such nonsense, but you go to English majors for that kind of analysis.  I'm going to focus on the present (or rather the movie's present, since this film takes place in feudal Japan), where we meet Oshiga, teacher at a school for young girls in Edo.  She meets and eventually falls in love with a charismatic tobacco vendor named Shinkichi, and the two of them agree to live together as husband and wife.  I've said this before, but those last two sentences are like 40 minutes of this flick condensed.  Japanese horror films certainly do love their PACE.

This is a very acting-heavy movie, with Kumiko Aso and Kuroemon Ono taking the roles of Oshiga and Shinkichi, respecively.  There is precious little information out there on the interwebz about these two, but I've got to commend them for being able to take a situation that is't terribly appealing and be able to hold your attention for pretty long stretches of time.  They've also got distinct traits that are fleshed out much better than they are in, say, Jurassic World, with slight hints of Oshiga's obsession bubbling underneath the surface from the get-go while Shinkichi comes across as an affable guy (initially) who nonetheless always wants more than what he has.  This is represented when he begins to flirt with one of Oshiga's students, and this is the beginning of the end for the "happy" section of the movie.  Commence shit hits the fan section.

During a heated argument, Shinkichi accidentally slashes his wife's face with a samurai sword.  They reconcile, but she becomes ill from the wound and eventually dies, making Shinkichi promise to never re-marry or she will haunt him till his dying day.  Ignoring the warning, he immediately runs off with the student he was attracted to.  (Lick Ness Monster cliche time) I think you know where we're headed from here.  The movie manages to get some decent scares out of the premise, however, as vengeful Oshiga's sudden appearances happen at some very unexpected moments.  Nothing that will cause you to conjure up images after the movie is over, but solid stuff nonetheless.

The movie has a lot going for it in the atmosphere and acting departments, but unfortunately, this just isn't a very fun flick to watch.  Not in the way that you'll hate watching it or anything, but there are LONG stretches where you will be desperately trying to think of something else to do.  This was something that didn't leap out at me when I first watched it.  That was 2009, when J-horror as a genre was still something that amazed me on such a deep level after a youth spent devouring slasher flicks that I had yet to apply any sort of scrutiny to the genre as a whole.  Whoa, that last sentence made me vomit.  Kaidan is a different kind of horror movie from, say, Ju-On.  It's a long story of tragedy and loss with no real breaks of coolness to speak of.  In addition, the Shinkichi character is kind of a douche who brings all of the bad stuff to happen upon him, and by the time the final credits roll, what happens to him come across as just desserts.  But not especially in the satisfying way - more of an "it's about time" way. 

If you get the impression that this movie drags, you're right.  There's plenty to admire about this movie, but man, is it a chore. 

*** out of ****.  The flick is worth taking in, but you DEFINITELY have to be in the right mood to watch it.  Preferably in a VERY good mood to give yourself some buffer space.

The Woods, the Isolation, and the Pepsi Generation

Ok, kids, it's time for another countdown in the 2015 Friday the 13th retrospective countdown series.  Here in Southwestern Minnesota/Lick Ness Monster Land, summer time has officially arrived.  A 4 1/2 hour drive coupled with scorching 90 degree heat left me with plenty of time to daydream about stuff.  Coupled with the smooth musical stylings of Motley Crue, AC/DC and Prince, of course.  Most prominent among them was just what kind of movie we're going to get with the upcoming new Friday the 13th feature film.  Since it's being produced by the fine folks at Platinum Dunes, odds are overwhelmingly in favor of it being a paint-by-numbers not quite suckfest, but that's beside the point.

Instead, I'm very interested in what the LOCALE of said movie is going to be.  The 2009 remake had the right idea - the woodsy, woodsy woods, but the presentation was just a little off.  Instead of total isolation, we had barns, farmers, and the weird insinuation that Jason was some kind of pot cultivator.  Upon crafting the screenplay for the first film, Victor Miller explicitly stated that his goal in creating his own horror film to rip off Halloween and make loads of cash consisted of three parts.  (1) Introduce cast of good-looking kids, (2) put them in an environment where no adults can help them, and (3) kill them off one by one.  Those three edicts really did make the movie just as much as its gory violence and fantastic ending twist, as the summer camp/woods location would be endlessly duped by the crop of slasher films that would follow in the years - and sometimes even decades - to come.  None of this information is coming to a surprise to the vast majority of people reading this, and that's just fine, because this is an aspect of Friday the 13th that SHOULD be rammed down people's throats.

When I first discovered the Friday the 13th series, it was the location that initially grabbed me almost as much as the dude in the hockey mask.  And I'm betting that's the case for a lot of people out there.  I'm ALSO willing to bet that some of the less popular movies in the series owe at least part of their notoriety to their "different for the sake of being different" settings.  Read: Jason in Space. 

I occasionally want different, but I also want tried and true.  So say it with me, gang.  Crystal Lake/Jason in winter time. Make it happen, Michael F**kin, because Victor Miller knew what he was talking about.  It's such a simple formula, and it's also a huge reason why the F13 series would become arguably the most important horror franchise...there ever was. 

Enough masturbation.  It's countdown time.

THE FIVE BEST LOCALES IN FRIDAY THE 13TH
5.  Shepherd Family home
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood
Now, it's well known to series aficianadoes that the primary slaughter ground of an F13 film is the deep woods.  And this countdown is going to stick with that trope, for the most part.  But it's the slight differences where the movies really hook you, and I remember being terrified as all hell of some of the events in this movie as a kid.  The Crystal Lake woods seem to have a much better roaming quality in this film that its counterparts, with victims in tents, houses and in the back seats of cars.  It truly did seem like this was Jason's homeland and that he was stalking a pretty expansive property.

4.  Pinehurst
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning
It's well known by now that ANB isn't exactly my favorite movie in the series, but I've come to appreciate it more in recent years despite its many flaws.  One of the things that it has going for it in spades is atmosphere, and a big part of that is the semi-clever hook that it has for the usual "group of kids in the woods" trope.  Instead of camp counselors or vacationers, this time we've got a cast of crazies gathered at a wooded halfway house.  The idea is original (I think)...and if only we could have gotten reasons for some of these characters being there, we would have a had a home run on all fronts.

3.  Cruise ship
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
This is likely to be an unpopular choice, but hell, there's like a grand total of 10 people that read this blog anyway.  The fact that a movie called Jason Takes Manhattan takes place primarily on a cruise ship full of vacationing high schoolers likely ranks high on the list of reasons why people napalm the movie...but I actually dig it.  It was an interesting twist on the "trap a bunch of good-looking kids" idea, and it damn sure made it difficult for these kids to escape their predicament.  Jason has some classic stalk-and-slash moments in this big hunk of floating metal.

2.  Higgins Haven
Friday the 13th Part III
We're getting into the heavy hitters now, the classic remnants of the classic "Human Jason" cycle of films.  Spoiler alert for what is to come.  By the series' third entry, the formula had been well-established, and we knew to expect when it came to how an F13 movie would look.  But the family-owned lakeside home was actually a big departure at this point.  The movie still manages to pack in the memorable stuff, making excellent use of the property's barn, bridge and backwoods trails to perfection.  The climax taking place in the barn's loft is classic stuff up there with any of the movie's murders.

1.  The Counselor Training Center
Friday the 13th Part II
While the original movie made the template, the first sequel perfected it.  Folks, this is THE summer camp horror movie, with an actual campfire scary story being told, the counselors staying in different cabins, and the main cabin itself being the center of the action for all of the movie's money scenes.  It also makes excellent use of lighting, the surrounding woods, and eerie ground floor windows.  Everything about the way Steve Miner and his set designers dressed up Ginny's Final Girl chase sequence is just utter perfection, and it makes this easily the best pure horror movie in the franchise.

That should about do it for this round.  I don't know exactly how many more of these are to come this year.  Three, maybe?  Yeah, we'll go with three for now.  This series is like an onion - peel back the layers, and you're constantly left with something slightly more delicious, although slightly pungent.  With that horrible analogy...see you next week.