The Grudge (2004)

As of now, I've escaped the surge of J-horror and the assorted remakes the USA is producing with an alarming rate... until now, that is. For today, I shall watch my second J-horror flick. Or should this still be considered to be my first one? The first product of Japanese terror I ever watched was Takashi Miike's Imprint. So... let's just call this my first full-length J-horror flick.

The Grudge.
It never forgives. It never forgets.


The movie informs us that, when someone dies in the grip of powerful emotions, a curse is born that will haunt the place where it has been created. Given that Bill Pullman (playing college-teacher Peter Kirk) commits suicide within the first seconds of the movie, I can't shake the feeling that he has something to do with this mysterious curse... and damn, I am right.

Speaking of Bill Pullman: I can't remember when I last saw the man in a decent movie. He seems to have fallen on hard times these days. But suffice it to say that he actually has a role beyond that of moodily throwing himself off a balcony in The Grudge. He's actually important, although the reason why he is important (and why he throws himself off his very own balcony) is revealed much later in the movie. I can't blame Takashi Shimizu (who wrote and directed this movie, and is also the guy behind the Japanese Ju-On) for the late reveal, though - any movie that features Bill Pullman as the romantic love-interest would have to try and hide this fact as long as possible from the audience. I mean, I do not dislike the guy and don't think that he is... weird or something, but... romantic love interest? That's quite a stretch.

So... Sam Raimi presents: The Grudge. With Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar). Which sort of pisses me off - her presence means that she's not the one who suffers terribly and then goes insane and dies (because that's what I want to happen to her). She's death proof by virtue of being the female lead. Yikes.

Buffy and her boy toy Doug (played by Jason Behr) have moved to Japan (from the US of A), apparently because they're studying (though it's hard to picture Buffy in a lecture - nigh impossible, even). And for some reason, I don't believe her when she's going all philosophical about Buddhist rituals - not that I doubt that what she says is true, but it just seems that she's a bit retarded and reads the facts off some sheet of paper. And I don't buy her being able to read Japanese either. Dear Mr. Raimi or whoever else thought it would be a good idea to cast Buffy as the lead: Don't. Just... don't.

But this movie has Ted Raimi as well, which maketh me happy. One appearance by Ted Raimi can make me forgive all the major flaws of a movie.

I know, I know... this is just a movie... However, seeing Buffy doing chores makes me feel as if my soul is being lifted up by invisible choirs of angels. Because I hate doing chores, and just had to do some of them and will probably do the rest of them after this review/after I finished eating this pizza (spinach and cheese topping), of which Rincewind has taken a healthy bite already (which translates to "I gave him a slice of pizza in order to befriend him"...).

It has kitteh!*

And so, we hop back in time, just in order to arrive at this dark place as it was in the past - just in time to see Matthew Williams (William Mapother) and his family (Emma appears to be his mother) as they buy the accursed house - and Emma feels that something is wrong... but greed and assorted emotions do not just exist in The West(TM) - also the Japanese are affected by it, and so they buy a haunted house. Gosh darn, that's what I call bad luck.




What The Grudge manages to do is showing us how lost someone can feel in a strange, new land, without knowing the language OR being able to read the script. I've been lost in France without the ability to speak or understand the language, but at least English is something even the French should admit to know, and the script is still our Latin script. But losing both, script and language... I imagine that would be tough. Hell, it would make me nervous.

Kitteh! Going "meow"!*

Creepy kid. But not creepy enough - I keep thinking about its hair rather than how threatening it appears. But maybe that's just me... although, strictly speaking, children should be the ideal monster for me - other people are traumatised to death by clowns, bacteria, viruses, disease, snow (I just mention that because it's snowing outside), ponies, death... with my inherent dislike for small human critters (aka "children"), the movie-world could scare me into submission, theoretically speaking. But it never does, no matter how creepy the creepy small human critters are.




Oh dear. Buffy feels that there is "something" in the house she was found in. Oh dear. Oh dear. My mind automatically made that into "MY BUFFYSENSE IS TINGLING!"... great. Now I can't take the movie seriously anymore. Curse you, sarcasm-muscle!

One thing that I simply have to mention is that I totally approve of the use of teh intarwebz in The Grudge. All too often in movies, you see some nameless search machine showing up on a computer, or some sort of eye-cancer inducing website that seems to have escaped from the early to mid-nineties, complete with animated .gifs and colours that just make you want to die (the alternative would be to slowly torture the person to death who actually came up with such a desaster in the first place). Here, we get so see the familiar face of yahoo and the (to me) less familiar face of some Japanese newspaper, the Daily News Japan (which is, of course, fictional but really conveys a feeling of "it's good, this site can exist"... Font-recognition can be something comforting).

The concept is interesting: When dying in extreme rage and/or sorrow, at death, that part of the mind is imprinted in the area the death happened. Death becomes part of that place, and kills whoever it touches. Sort of like an infection - you can run, but you can't hide. The curse will get you, no matter where you are.




I am not familiar enough with Japanese mythology, fairytales, sagas and assorted things. It's occasions like these that make me want to learn a bit more about Japanese culture and mythology - whilst the concept is interesting, I wonder how differently it impacts Western audiences than it would with a, say, Japanese audience. I know from my own experience that horror movies based on figures or stories that I am familiar with have a much deeper impact on me than a movie which deals with something I have no single iota of knowledge of.

Anyways... the camera is, as could be expected, very good. It's not perfect, it's not flawless, it's not too original... but it's solid, and a few shots managed to really impress me. Most of them were the claustrophobic ones I have come to like in Raimi's work. As I haven't watched the original Japanese Ju-On yet, I can't say how much he, in his role as co-producer, has influenced this aspect of the movie, as I don't know Takashi Shimizu's style... but no matter who it is that is responsible for them - I still like them.

Award 3 points for unnecessarily long and complicated relative sentence serving absolutely no purpose other than making this review longer.

The sound of kittehs routinely used in The Grudge makes me happy - I love the critters far too much to be able to feel anything but love and loyalty to the race of my feline masters**.

Something that didn't exactly help with my enjoyment of this movie was the American cast. I think my feelings on Buffy are already clear enough - but in case my dislike has been too subtle, I shall make it abundantly clear: I don't like Sarah Michelle Gellar, for she is stupid and her acting is about the quality of a dead slug. She is routinely outplayed by everyone in everything I've ever seen her in - and that includes the more obnoxious characters in the Buffyverse.




Besides for Ted Raimi, whom I adore because he's so full of win and awesome, the whole rest of the American cast appears wooden and artificial. I enjoyed the scenes in which there were only Japanese actors around - by comparison, they are much better and ....livelier than the ones in which we are nearly drowned in a puddle of American-ness. I don't know why this movie was re-done for Western audiences - unless you count using wooden actors and cutting down on the plot.

Speaking of the plot... I really don't know whether it's good or bad. As I already stated, I like the idea behind the curse - the "infecting" of others with it by sheer localised contact. But the rest... *shakes head*
It's really not bad, and I can't talk about it without giving away everything... suffice it to say that I feel a bit ambivalent towards it. But judge The Grudge for yourself...***





5/10 awesome scenes with a dislocated lower jaw.



* This is proof that the ability of cats to drastically lessen human intelligence through mere close proximity also works through the medium of film. xkcd speaks truth.

** Only people who are owned by one or more cats will understand this.

*** See what I did there?! O_o

The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

I have probably watched this movie a gazillion times since it came out, and because I felt in the mood for an ACTUAL good movie tonight (and I didn't intend to make the same mistake as with The Plague this time), I chose to do the right thing, aka, watch something that I know to be good. Also, I felt that this little blog could use more movies that are good (I think the crappy movies are a bit in the lead at the moment, although you know that I don't think they are crappy... well, not in the "they are crappy" way anyways, if that makes any sense), and as I consider The Hills Have Eyes to be a treat... there you go, I'm biased.

Oh... the plot? An American family en route to California drives through the desert of New Mexico (because of the stubborn pater familias), has a mysterious car breakdown after taking a shortcut (it's a horror movie - we ALL know that shortcuts are BAD!), and... well. Is being hunted down by a group of cannibalistic mutants.

Between 1945 and 1962 the United States conducted 331 atmospheric nuclear test. Today, the government still denies the genetic effects caused by the radioactive fallout...

Combine this nifty line with sound effects/music (if it was in my playlist, it'd probably be classified as Dark Industrial Ambient or something like that...) that is pulsing on and on and drilling into your mind. The combination of the footage of nuclear testings, deformed babies/fetuses/people with this music is something I love far too much. We are just barely done with the credits, mind you, and I am already bathing in joy. Kudos to and two thumbs up for Alexandre Aja.

A propos Alexandre Aja: The first French director that I actually appreciate. I intend to watch Haute Tension as soon as I can get my greedy bony fingers onto it.

The camerawork in this movie is, for all means and purposes, astonishing - the shots are creepy and truly make the movie what it is. The kind of camerawork we often find in B-Movies or... well, worse movies is not helping in any way to establish a sense of desolation or creepiness. In Aja's remake of Wes Craven's original, every single shot fits. This is truly more than just solid directing. This is awesome directing, and I want to see more of it.

In short: Cinematography A+++, Mr. Aja. The pictures are astonishing. Thank you. Thank you for (re-)making a great movie.

Our victims (errr... I mean the cast of Good People) are a pretty good (forgive me the repetition) bunch of actors. Nowhere do I detect over-the-top acting, and yet the characters are stereotypical enough so that we don't need an hour of character development to understand what is happening. Still, what character development we get (little snippets we glean from conversations) helps to make the characters appear less shallow and more like real people. However, it's pretty obvious from the second they are introduced who our survivors are going to be. Surprisingly enough, it's 3.1666667/6.1666667 (I count babies as 0.1666667 persons, and not even an awesome movie as this one will make me believe that a baby will be killed onscreen... *sighs*). Not a high body count, but trust me... The Hills Have Eyes makes up for it in gratuitious violence and a lot of gore. And I mean "A LOT OF HIGH QUALITY GORE"... or have I gone soft on my old days? You decide.

I also want to add at this point that the two German shepherds that our victims possess are very intelligently named. If I needed any convincing that the guys are from the USA, naming your pair of male and female German shepherds "Beauty" and "Beast" would do it.

Desert.... desert.... desolation... wonderful. Perfect. The beautiful shots emphasise the utter loneliness in those hills (and remember... the hills have eyes...).

One of my favourite scenes is when the, err... Christian Americans decide to pray before looking for help.
"Dear God, please send us your guardian angels...." - and what do we get after that? The camera slowly zooms out... to show us this:

Heheheheheeeeheheheheeheheheeee....

I don't know why, but this brings me immense glee and joy. Note the gleeful cackle that I tried to express in written form above, which ALWAYS escapes my lips when watching this movie.

There are only 2.5 problems I have with Aja's The Hills Have Eyes:

- Plothole #1: Young Bobby doesn't tell anyone that he found one of their dogs gutted and with removed intestines as well as, apparently, a missing leg (see exhibit A below). No one in their right mind doesn't tell anyone that they found their dog GUTTED. The excuse "I didn't want to upset mom..." wasn't exactly believable either... but I shall forgive Mr. Aja and Grégory Levasseur. It's just a minor thing, really.



- Plothole #2: Why does the guy from the gas station keep a severed ear in a lunchbox?! He doesn't seem to be related to the cannibalistic mutants I love so much, but still he keeps that stupid ear in a freaking burger box. Why? Can someone explain his logical thought processes to me?

- Idiocy #0.5: IF you happen to come across a crater full of abandoned cars in the middle of the desert, your instincts should tell you that SOMETHING. IS. WRONG.

But those were/are my only three complaints, and compared to other movies, this is not a lot. Also, those things actually didn't really bother me, I just wanted to point them out (honestly, I didn't really care about them, but no review of mine, besides that for Cannibal Flesh Riot! can be without minor criticism. So... there you go, that was my official criticism of The Hills Have Eyes (2006).

Aside from that: I genuinely love this movie. No matter if you root for the cannibalistic mutants (like I do) or not... you HAVE to admit that they have superb tactics. They use psychological terror in a way that leaves me awestruck, scatter their prey... the desolate surroundings also play a big role of this, as does their use of - le GASP! - technology. Yes. These cannibalistic mutants use Walkie Talkies. That is why they rule so much (funnily enough, it's also one of the reasons why I won the book "The Summer I Died" in a horrorwatch.com contest...).

Also, this movie features my favourite cannibalistic mutant of all times: Lizard. He has a chain that brings me joy. And eats birds. Drinks them, rather.

I approve of that. Totally.

I also want to note one important thing: Lizard is sort of hot (yes, yes, I know, I am a freak) and I would marry him. I also think that the topic of cannibalistic mutant-sexuality should be approached more openly in horror movies, or movies in general. One other scene that I totally approve of is when Lizard draws Pluto off the generic blonde girl Brenda that he (Pluto) is raping, with the immortal words "You gotta be a man to do that!", all the while beating Pluto. Poor Pluto. I know it's probably terribly wrong to approve of that and find joy and awesome in that scene, but I do. I apologise for being a terrible human (?) being.

Okay, back to the normal review. I will drool over the spiky chain of death and desaster and despair as wielded by the awesome Lizard in the privacy of... well, of not typing up a review whilst going all fangirl over the poor guy.

The soundtrack and music are effective, tasteful and, if I might say so, AWESOME.

Also, the blood is really good. The consistency is pretty much correct (aka 10/10 on my "blood-realism"-scale), and the colour is also pretty much perfect (could at times have been a tad darker, but my general impression was that it was one of the most realistic depictions of blood I've seen in... in... well, since I started watching horror flicks, and that's quite some while). And it dries on people and things! We actually get to see realistic dry blood. You know, when it has that brownish colour. Nearly every movie gets that wrong - but not Alexandre Aja in this remake. Nope. He gets it right. And I approve of that. Mightily.
Also, the gurgling sounds in one death-scene are just ....awesome doesn't even begin to describe it. Genius. Perfect. Wonderful. Loved it.

The dialogues are, surprisingly enough for a horror flick, good as well. At no point was I forced to giggle or just think "Oh dear Gods, who wrote THAT crap?!". Another thumbs up here.

In short... good pacing (a bit slow in the beginning, but that just serves to heighten the suspense in the more, erm, gory parts of the movie), awesome music, unexpected twists, awesome directing, the camerawork makes me nearly orgasm with joy, and there is quite an unexpected amount of jump scares. This, ladies, gentlemen, ghouls and others, is what I call a good movie. A really good movie. Plus, I like gratuitious violence, if I didn't already say that (if I already did, just think of this as me trying to be explicit and driving the point home).

And just because I can: Lizard is SO AWESOME, you can't even begin to believe it. He could only be better if he was a ghoul. But hey, I don't want to give the impression that I'm nagging.

Still, Lizard and his spiky chain bring me joy. A lot (no, not THAT kind of joy, your perverts!). Still probably far too much.

Oh, and... I approve of cannibalistic mutants. Seriously.


9.5/10 cannibalistic mutants with spiky chains.

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Well, I am pleasantly surprised. I honestly went into this movie expecting nothing at all, besides maybe a boring zombie flick. Let me uniformly state that I have been reformed. As of now, I like zombie movies.

Now, this movie has managed what only very few horror movies manage to do - it kept me on the edge of my seat for the whole time, and sometimes, my jaw just dropped.

Now, I guess everyone knows the premise of the movie (even I did, and I had never seen the original): During a zombie outbreak of magnificent magnitute, a group of survivors hides in a mall. Doesn't sound too interesting, mh? Well, that's what I thought as well.

BUT...

From the beginning on, Dawn of the Dead keeps a fast pacing - not too fast, mind you, and I really enjoyed it. There are hardly minutes in which nothing happens - fast, tight, and good. I am refraining from making a quickie-joke now.
Also, the introductory scenes - when everything is still "normal", that is, without the living dead running around - provide a very good contrast to the terror that follows. Especially since you know exactly that all hell is going to break lose, if you have ever seen a horror movie. I was gleefully thinking "enjoy your last peaceful hours... you won't have any for a long time."




I will never be able again to see that without instantly thinking of this:

AWESOME! It's the End of Days! I love it.

And I want to reiterate again that running zombies are just so much better than slow, shambling zombies. I don't care how many of them are running around, if I can out"run" them with a leisurely pace, I just don't feel threatened. Running zombies, however... creepy as hell. And the noises they make are awesome and just all around perfect.

Also, it's the small details that really enhanced the movie-experience for me.

Greater Milwaukee Area - YOU'RE SO FUCKED.

And now... the opening credits start, complete with Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around". Awesome. I already am hooked on the movie, and it hasn't even started properly.

Also, I am apparently psychic when it comes to horror flicks. The second I saw the pregnant woman I was wondering how the baby would be affected by an infection. Because that's stuff I am thinking about. Far too much, some might say.

As soon as our survivors have arrived in the mall and cleansed it from zombies, the movie starts to show the side that I consider to be its main strength: The emotional impact of their situation is superbly played by the actors. Even the annoying characters were portrayed really good. Blame it on my usual fare of indies and obscure B-Movies, but the acting was superb all the way through.

Dawn of the Dead really managed to capture the social dynamics of our group of survivors par excellence. In a world where there is nothing but your own survival, humans become what they essentially are: Wolves at each one another's throats. Add to that the ever-present feeling of distrust and the dynamics of power, and you're in for a ride through the darkness of what humans are willing to do to survive in rough times. And I guess a zombie apocalypse counts as "rough times"...

And I want to add that I have a soft spot for Ken Foree. He delivered the classic lines that pretty much everyone knows with an eerie intensity. You all know what I'm talking about.

"When there's no more room in Hell, the Dead will walk the Earth."

And oh, Andy. Andy is stranded alone in his gun store across the mall's zombie-infested parking lot. And when I say "zombie-infested" I mean "fucking hell, that's...OMG...".
I got to love Andy. The genuinely oppressive mood of the movie actually gets a bit of a lighter touch through that guy (and he's one hell of a shot as well). I had to laugh out loud when he and Kenneth, the police seargeant, played chess. It was a much needed moment of lightheartedness, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Things start to get downhill from there. Another group of survivors of humanity's collapse before the zombie apocalypse arrive - one of them an extremely ugly woman who is so obviously dying that I had to wonder why anyone would care to do anything else than mercykilling her. Well, of course that fat lady was infected - and our "heroes" (I use the term reluctantly) finally find out how the epidemic spreads.

Again, it's the small details that made this movie shine for me. After the fat woman dies, no one knows her name. You'll know what I'm talking of when you see it.

Also, the zombie-shooting with Andy was awesome. "Burt Reynolds!" I was giggling uncontrollably.

I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but a few more points: The first use of fire against the zombies down in the underground parking garage was unsettling and really powerful, in every way this can be taken.

Of course, I shouldn't forget the pregnancy. If you're anything like me, you'll know that a pregnant woman in a horror flick is pretty much game. Unless it's one of those tame PC-movies. Dawn of the Dead gives us exactly what we expected from the beginning: Zombie pregnancy! At which point I have to confess that I didn't manage to keep my suspension of disbelief up. I mean, look at this:




Does that look like anything else than a zombie baby to you? No? Well, that's what I thought. The question is... how long have they been trapped in the mall? We don't get to know how long it is, but judging from the fact that Andy was trapped alone in his gun store across the parking lot, not THAT long, because even a gun-toting awesome guy like Andy can't possibly have had that much food stored in his house.

So, the question is... when did the baby die? And as it doesn't look as if it died only when its mother finally went to heaven or something like that... shouldn't it have tried to get out of the womb or eat its way out? I am still pondering that.

Anyways, the pregnancy really made me squirm uncomfortably. There's something about bloated bellies that just makes me feel slightly sick.

Now those were the pros.

Cons?

The blood was too bright and looked clearly fake. It never appears to dry on people's faces/arms/wounds/whatever either, and the consistency is a bit too... squishy and fluid.

Also, there were three characters that just annoyed the shit out of me. One was Andre, a young black man (and, incidentally, batshit insane and father-to-be of zombie-baby), the other one his stupid Russian wife, and the teenage girl (who really doesn't look like a teenager - I look more like a teenager then her, and I'm 24).

Those are pretty much the only negative points I can bring up... asides from a few WTF?!-moments.

First - how the fuck does the zombified neighbour girl get into the house? Don't people in the US lock their doors? That was a big WTF? for me.

Another point was the utter obliviousness of the characters to horror movies. I mean, granted, it would have taken some of the tension away if they had figured out that the ...people, and I use the term loosely, they are up to are zombies. But good Gods, at least ONE person should have mentioned something like zombies. Movies don't happen in a cultural vacuum... Also, good plain logic? If someone who only has one arm left and looks pretty much dead runs at you with frighteningly high speed, I'd figure to shoot them somewhere else than in the leg. Like in the head. Or maybe I have watched to many movies or am far too interested into undead things that go bump in the night.

Also, where did crazy "I'm going to be a daddy!"-guy get his ammo from? The guy generally cracked me up, in a negative way. With his stupid wife.

"We need to go to the hospital!" - HELLLOOOOOOOOO?! ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE?!

But yeah, those were the only things that pissed me off a bit, and they were obviously outweighed by the sheer awesomeness that is the remake of Dawn of the Dead.

A truly nerve-wrecking hell of a ride, with a superb soundtrack and score. And make sure you sit through the credits! This movie deserves bonus points for severed zombie head and lots of more zombie goodness. Gory enough to satisfy gorehounds, and it delves right into the mayhem, destruction, brutality and hopelessness that such a Dawn of the Dead would produce.
Awesome.

9.5/10