Handful of Hallowe'en Horror

Handful of Hallowe'en Horror

Fun:
Tucker and  Dale vs. Evil
Frat kids travel to West Virginia only to meet crazy hillbillies. OR, perfectly harmless country folk are harassed by suicidal college kids. Only you can decide the truth. I wanted to catch this at SXSW but missed it.

Fun:
Dead Snow
Norway. Dead. Nazi. Zombies. Snow. Lots and lots of snow.
This horror film follows some typical genre tropes, in fact reveling in some of them, but some of the scenes are very fun and impressive, especially all that costume and makeup in the snow. I can't imagine how long it took to  do some of those scenes. May have to see the how did they do that behind the scenes at some point.

Blue:
Melancholia
Earth. Sister Planet. Armageddon.
Lars von Trier delivers an utter embrace of despair starting an impressive Kirsten Dunst who takes home an acting award from Cannes after the director is excommunicated due to his big mouth.. It is unfortunate that some of the bet ten minutes of cinema I have seen in a long time are split by 2 hours of rather pedestrian cinema. Watch back to back with the Tree of Life for true trip.

 Gets under my skin:
The Skin I live In
Almovodar directs a horror/thriller that is unfortunately weak. This thing is full of poor decisions. Revenge? Sadism? Infatuation? Megalomaniacal?  A lot of it makes little sense. The great thing is it stars one of the most beautiful actresses in a long time in Elena Anaya. Unfortunately....

Oldie but goodie:
Bruce Campbell vs. Army of Darkness 
Some additional scenes that were cut from the US distribution and great commentary from Rami and Campbell. And hey, that Henry the Red guy kicks ass.

Minimalist Meek

Sparse.

Barren.

Quiet.

Hushed sounds.

Strained listening.

Did they say what I think they said?

Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff is not for everyone, judging by comments on the web. This western is based on the true story of a wagon train to Oregon that is led by a guide, Stephen Meek, who attempts to bypass the route through the Blue Mountains where an attack by Indians is rumored to await, leading the train into a harsh desert.

Things become desperate. Meek's leadership is question.

An Indian is captured who now becomes an enigmatic guide through the harsh terrain.

Michelle Williams plays a strong-willed woman, Bill Patton as her husband, and Bruce Greenwood as Meek in a small cast that reduces the true story's large group of hundreds of wagons to just three.

This reduction serves the story well and the cast does a great job with a sparse script.

As alluded to above, the sound design is purposefully designed so that dialog is difficult to understand in some cases. Meaning is what is made of words misheard. Or missaid.

The framing is 4:3, designed to mimic the women's bonnets and the wagons themselves, where a narrow field of vision is only available to the viewer.

This does not prevent some amazing cinematography being put on display of the barren Oregon landscape.

Much has been said of this allegorical tale on politics, untrustworthy leadership, and current events.

Everyone should see this movie.

Alternate Takes
imdb
official

Twenty Five Years Of Criterion Collection

Bringing esoteric, arthouse, independent, and sometimes shlocky DVDs and Blu-Ray discs to you for 25 years.

This video from 1985 (with Leonard Maltin) when viewed amidst today's digital abundance is sort of sad and sort of amusing: