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.

All About Evil

Is a campy horror movie in the tradition of midnight horror films everywhere. Not a perfect movie by any stretch, but it does nicely thread it's way between outright ridiculous extreme and corny melodrama. A librarian inherits a local cinema from her recently deceased father, famous for his taste in horror films. The woman, Deborah Tennis, begins showcasing homemade horror movies of her own. Unlike Be Kind Rewind, there is no possibility of a sequel for the actors in these horror shorts, which quickly become popular with the locals, including a high school student who loves horror films and dreams of one day becoming an animation artist named Steven. The ending with Steven and Deborah wraps up the film nicely.

The campiness was fully brought to life by the fact that the director goes by the alter ego of Peaches Christ, a drag queen from San Francisco, who also makes more cameo appearances in the film than Hitchcock in his entire filmography and has some of the best one-liners since Schwarzenegger.

The full song and dance number put on by Peaches and many of the actors in the movie before the screening made it a highlight.

IMDB
All About Evil

Paranormal Activity

This movie is an independent filmmaker's dream scenario.

Take your own house. Remodel it a bit. Spend time finding the two actors that are perfect for the part. Shoot a movie in 7 days using claustrophobic handheld camerawork and very simple and effective lighting.

Profit.

The box office is approaching $100 million. Made for what is routinely reported as $25 K, this film has become the most profitable independent film ever.

A Blair Witch Project for 2009.

A sequel has already been announced.

The film is constructed simply and yet is very effective. With only two main characters, a newlywed couple that are investigating paranormal activity by recording the events, a camera (which almost becomes a character), and realistic dialog, the film forces the viewer along for a very uncomfortable ride. The suspense builds very effectively not by showing everything, or using the hyper-editing style that is favored by those with ADHD, but by simple leaving the camera still and using very effective sound to use the viewer's imagination against them (the sound design is impressive). Hitchcock would have been impressed.

Recommended both as entertainment and as a lesson.

IMDB. Wikipedia.

The Tagline For Thirst

States that this film is "A Mad Love Story".



That it is indeed.

From Chan-wook Park, the director of Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance, this film plays with expectations and morally ambiguous characters just as the director's previous films have.

I am not sure the whole works: romance, vampirism, horror, a greater sense of the violation/worship of the body than just about anything Cronenberg ever imagined, murder, guilt, and especially religion.

Plus there are definitely some uneven performances from the actors, especially the female lead, Kim Ok-vin playing Tae-ju, who seems to swing wildly, perhaps intentionally so, from innocence to non-innocence.

And some questionable cinematography and a very video feel to the whole that did not seem to match the exquisite framing of the previous films.

But I still felt extremely engrossed in the film even when laughing/crying at the boundaries being pushed both in terms of genre and taste.

Would I recommend it?

Yes!

With a warning: be prepared!

IMDB.