As Above, So Below (2014)

A fortnight ago, I was several hundred feet under the streets of Paris, wandering through endless tunnels walled with human bones, holding my video camera in one hand, and finding myself surprisingly regardless of the camera screen. I was focused on the real, what was going on around me in the place that I was at this very time. The footage was incidental; it could be looked at when I got home. For now, I was going to really have fun and learn a lot exploring the Catacombs. Having been alerted to the release of As Above, So Below from its exciting enough but rather usual marketing campaign last year, but not having seen it yet, I thought a lot about the idea of a handheld picture being made down there.

The Paris Catacombs only allow 200 people down at any one time, hence the often lengthy queue. The strange thing was, the place was so vast that we only saw perhaps six or eight other people the entire time we were down there. The majority of the time, we were alone. That sheds a little light on how huge the tunnels are, and that's the guided route. Visitors will observe alternative routes leading off of tunnels, the tourist route marked out by gates. Some of these alternative tunnels ride off into complete darkness. If people arrogant and intrusive enough to be found in a movie like this were to cut the locks and skulk off, it could most definitely end pretty disastrously.

What would make a movie like that even better, I decided, was my realisation that I paid no attention to what my camera was capturing, but what was in front of me. This offered massive potential for forces/creatures unseen to the characters but acknowledged by the audience. This could be really chilling. It was obvious: the Catacombs made for a brilliant horror film setting.

In fairness, As Above, So Below ended up going in a somewhat unexpected direction towards its conclusion, and although a bit messily constructed, it is a highly researched film. Respect must be paid for effort made. There is a lot of mythical and legendary namedropping, such as the philosopher's stone and Nicolas Flamel, and a lot of that irritatingly vague cryptography that the characters must battle their baffled little selves through. There is also a lot of jaw-dropping stupidity from one solitary character.

Leading lady Scarlett (Perdita Weeks) is a middle-class parent's wet dream. She looks no older than 25, yet she holds two PhDs, a Masters degree, and speaks six languages fluently (two of those being dead), and to top it all off, she is a university professor! She is everything I aspired to be at the naive age of 13. She is like Lara Croft. Because not only is she a painfully qualified academic, she is also a badass (which in this instance is synonymous with moron). She doesn't have the sexual prowess and ridiculously tightly clad bod, but she unlawfully trespasses on an Iranian cave system that is minutes from being demolished by dynamite, knowing the legal ramifications, and presumably, just how mindblowingly stupid and death-welcoming the decision is. All the warning alarms are blaring, and she finds the Rose Key, a large relic that her scholarly father sought his whole life. Lo and behold, explosives start going off all around her, and there is a frantic, and admittedly tense, run-for-life back to the exit, via helmetcam.

This is the format for most of the movie, plonking it in the increasingly cloudy subgenre I know and love...the Found Footage. The more people make this kind of fad movie, the more audiences ask, 'Who finds the footage?' The early and more classic examples of FF offered explanations as to the recovery of the materials, but of late, the genre is straying from being 'found', and settling as 'homemade'. There no longer has to be a barely-believable reason that this footage, exactly as it is presented to us, was recovered from some unsurvived crime scene or tragedy. It is now more of a medium, just a different narrative perspective, which continues to be exercised to varying levels of success. The premise for filming the incidents we witness are ever up for question: it helps if one or more persons has some kind of professional business in filmmaking or television; those assholes who just inexplicably film every mundane thing that he and his asshole friends do, with seemingly limitless battery power, are far less likely to keep our attention.

Scarlett is the subject of a documentary being filmed by Benji (Edwin Hodge) about her uptake of the search for the philosopher's stone, which drove her father to self-destructive madness. She seems minimally deterred by the stone's blatantly negative psychic affects, or by anything else for that matter. She breaks into demolition sites, churches, large underground tombs, and when her old flame George (Ben Feldman) is reluctantly recruited on her latest mission into the Catacombs, where she is convinced the stone is hidden, we find out that her shenanigans formerly resulted in the couple's incarceration in a Turkish prison. She is irritatingly relentless in her carelessness, which she masquerades as determination and adventurousness.

George speaks Arabic, which is why he is recruited for the various translations needed on the quest, and his skills are centre stage as he gives the English form of an Arabic riddle. And whaddaya know?! It still has perfect rhythm and rhyme, as though it were originally written in English, although this is surely impossible. Then, in a Paris nightclub, Scarlett ropes a semi-suave looking dude named Papion (not sure where the 'butterfly' symbolism occurs in any part of the film -- his parents must have seen in him some gentility which we do not). He is en garde, and swaggery, and he can show the group a non-official route to the treasure. And old Pap is a package deal: he brings relatively professional cronies along, who are experienced climbers, potholers, etc. Seems like a fairly safe setup for what is inevitably doomed to at least partial failure. Scarlett will still have her documentary regardless, we can concede early on.

It follows a fairly standard pattern at first: caves collapse, no way but forward, group leader arrogantly insists they take the tunnel of doom rather than the legit ones, a whole bunch of rather juvenile-feeling clue-busting, which Scarlett continuously solves quickly and inexplicably. It's always one of those things that could refer to fucking anything, and that only Jonathan Creek could solve, and only after several days of non-active conversations and thoughtful stares in a duffle coat. But then, a few peer-deaths down the line, things start getting... I dunno...not theological, not existential, perhaps a little spiritual. In another problem-solving scenario, and probably the most risky one yet, Scarlett concedes that the reason the world is going crazy and rooms are shifting and weird cloaked figures are stalking them, is that each of the survivors has some guilt, some personal demon which haunts them, that they must release before they are to get out. With a little Inferno referencing and a generally Abrahamic Damnation style, things steer away from the lower-market FF movies with many quick flashes of ghostly faces, and go in a far more big-budget direction with its ideology, leaning more toward the likes of Insidious and The Possession.

The plot and setting seemed relatively original for a movie of its kind, but it constantly felt like something was missing. We had the slow and subtle build-up, with plenty of calmness and establishment of plan and walking and talking, and the first few 'encounters' are typically ambiguous in nature, warranting the characters to shrug them off or not recognise them at all until shit really starts going down. And for the first hour or so, I believed that some kind of dramatic peak was imminent, but this movie left me totally blue-balled. All great (or good...or even just mediocre) horror movies must have at least one moment of forceful impact, the Oh Shit moment, in which everything that you have watched so far comes to fruition, and you feel thrilled. You need the moment in which everyday existence is turned upside down, and the hapless characters find themselves within a scenario that they never imagined they'd experience. We need the world to fall away.

And the crazy thing is that in this movie, it quite literally does, yet it is never enough. It's like 100 minutes of digital foreplay followed by the light going out...and not even a cigarette to conclude. It's all good stuff, but it didn't have any real climax. And moreover, the ending leaves everything unnervingly unanswered. From the course of action they've given us, we all make assumptions about the condition of the world the few survivors escape to. It's no real conclusion. But the movie is far less shaky and so more watchable than a lot of its kind, and gets some interesting shots, and some pretty great atmosphere from its sets.

I feel like I want to give As Above, So Below more credit than it truly deserves: the use of the Parisian catacombs is brilliant, themes are interesting and performances and camera work is somewhat above average. But the scary bits are far too diluted, and most of them turn out to have been contained in the trailer, which is one of my pet peeves. It seems unfulfilled, and that's how it left me feeling. Not all that I had expected. It's worth seeing, and it's fun enough, but if you're looking for a Found Footage movie that packs a punch, go for the Blair Witch Project, or even low-enders like Crowsnest and Grave Encounters 2. If you're strong of stomach, go straight to Cannibal Holocaust.

Cabin Fever: Patient Zero (2014)

 What is Sean Astin - former Goonie who pulled off the most convincing regional English accent perhaps ever performed by an American in Lord of the Rings - doing starring in the under-the-radar third installment of the Cabin Fever series? Perhaps the answer is: bringing a shred of respectability to the movie. The answer is most certainly: absolutely going to town on it! My very initial reaction to his involvement was pity - the poor thing's prospects must have dried up pretty sharpish since LOTR, as often happens in Hollywood. And that would have been a shame, as there is no doubt Astin is a very good actor. But quite honestly, after a mere minute of watching him perform in this picture, sympathy melted into admiration.

Astin stars as the titular Patient Zero, a.k.a Porter: a medical lifeline whose natural immunity to the virus he carries is of great interest to a sinister team of scientists. He wakes to the chilling news that his child has been claimed by the flesh-eating virus sweeping--- well, sweeping some area or other. It's sweeping enough to have killed off all that Porter knows, but contained enough for a runaway labmouse to cause unwitting terror to a yacht-driving stag party.

Now it is not an uncommon premise for a character to be held against their will with the knowledge that their former lives and companions are gone forever, but it's far less common to see such a role performed with a tangible nihilism. From his first delirious jabberings about having to buy school supplies for his little boy to his final questionable actions of the finale, Astin encapsulates a wretched man with about as many reasons to carry on living as methods of doing himself in.

Right?! Classic laboratory get-up!

Thankfully, for supposed PhD-holding medical research professionals, Porter's captors are remarkably stupid. Not only do the females wear full make-up, stiletto heels and blouses unbuttoned to their breastbones in a sterile lab environment, and drop infected labmice without even attempting to recapture them; they also reply "with my life" when their sleazy superior orders them into the cleanroom to restrain contaminated patients while he hogs the only bunnysuit and menacingly asks, "Do you trust me?" Needless to say, this particular scenario holds some rather disastrous and contagious consequences which were a probable joy for the F/X guys.

Now while all this is a fairly decent plotline, particularly given Astin's performance, one may actually wonder what the movie would have been like if solely focused on Patient Zero. As it happens, a full-length sci-fi feature seems beyond the makers. After all, fake blood and brains is easier to produce than meaningful scientific dialogue and plot. All good Cabin Fevers must have young and relatively attractive idiots to consume from the outside in: first it was college students vacationing in the woods; then it was high school students getting eaten up at a remarkable rate whilst attending Spring Fling. This time we have a stag party, containing groom Marcus (Mitch Ryan), who of course is being forced to grow up by his straitlaced wife, much to the despair of his Stifler-like friend Dobbs (Ryan Donowho) and brother Josh (Brando Eaton), whose girlfriend Penny (Jillian Murray) once fucked Marcus but that's their annoying secret which warrants her casually whipping her top off in front of him. We already have her down as 'the dead slut'.

They have done one of those The Beach things of paying a local fisherman to take them out to a supposedly deserted island. When the group question the huge institution looming on one side, the fisherman assures them "nobody home." They settle into their tropical paradise with tents, beers, snorkels and a bag of the local good stuff that looks more like ground-up tea leaves than any ganja. The couple go swimming and find a piscine graveyard. The girl flips out about it, and storms off to the tent where she soon notices weird grazes which quickly turn into gross lesions. Her helpful boyfriend first produces a whopping black dildo (complete with suction cup) which some weirdo brought along, and then reassures her that the skin condition is just a reaction to the local grass they smoked (ambitious idea). Then they treat us to a hardcore homage to the first Cabin Fever movie...

Remember when Karen and Paul are getting intimate and his bloodied fingers set the whole gruesome ball rolling? Well didn't you always want to see a guy's head emerge from between his girlfriend's thighs  to be sporting a bloodbeard with rotten bits of labia dripping from it? Didn't we all? And we anticipate it horrendously when Penny shoves Josh's face into her crotch with a squelch. It's a bit of a money shot in terms of shock and gross-out value, and it works hilariously well, producing a simultaneous gag and giggle.

Well, with Soon-to-be-Dead Slut's pussy dropping off like Danniella Westbrook's septum, the fellas decide that perhaps they need to seek medical attention, especially as the grazes are now starting to show on Josh. The girl waits at the tent patiently and quite calmly for someone whose sex organs are disintegrating. Exploring the bowels of the huge building on the other side of the island -- which in places is a fully functioning structure, and in others, nothing more than a cave complex -- the guys come across the remaining idiot scientists, who are pissed to be dealing with the escape of their prized subject. The cleavage-exposing blonde who dropped the mouse and said "with my life" tries to con the guys into assisting her, covering her deformities with a face mask (yes, the face is gone, but that rack is still perfect -- praise the Lord!).

Her boring colleague Camila (Solly Duran) warns the guys that the blonde is contagious and hasn't taken kindly to her newfound state, so shouldn't be trusted. Camila is perhaps the one true drawback of the film. Although I see that Solly Duran currently has 10 acting credits to her name, it feels as though she couldn't deliver a natural line of dialogue if you held a gun to her head, let alone paid her a moderate low-budget production wage to do it. Her presence is grating, her every word mechanical and painfully unconvincing. Typically, she is the irritating bitch we are stuck with til the end, as the female half as the Remaining Couple.

Which means, naturally, that the other dicks have to die. Only the two-in-one is memorable. The diseased scientist with the still-perfect titties is well and truly on the rampage, and escapes the clutches of the group, fleeing to the beach. Except by this point, Penny has grown tired of being left behind with decomposing genitals, and so goes on a little rampage of her own. Ding-ding-ding -- CAT FIGHT! Scratch that -- CAT FIGHT OF THE CENTURY! You know how brown paper bags go when you get caught in the rain...gradually drooping off in great piles of beige slop? As two girls, both in the later phases of a deadly flesh-eating viral condition, set about each other in a ferocious wrestle, bits and bobs start sludging off all over the place, and it's a fight to the death, until there's nothing left but a rapast fit for a vulture king. Awesome.

Cabin Fever: Patient Zero is apparently a prequel to the whole series, and is a semi-interesting way for the thing to go. Just like the laughable Hostel Part III, this movie is also, to quote my earlier review, "emaciated from Roth deficiency". There is little trace of the creator's original zest, and what we're left with in terms of memorability, is a show-stealing performance by one actor who deserves much better, and a beach that looks like a butcher shop fell of the back of a truck. Not bad, but not necessary either.

Spring Breakers (2012)

Advertising is a cynical business, isn't it? Whether they're using specific words like "appears" to protect themselves against lawsuits, or downright lying about there being "liquid calcium" in toothpaste, nothing is ever as it seems. Several times over the past few years, I have been completely rocked back on my heels by a movie whose trailer painted it in a completely different light. Summer in February and My Old Lady are a few devious examples. Spring Breakers is another...

When all the movie and its promo stills are so electrically coloured with neon blues and pinks and yellows, and feature the grinning faces upon the bikinied bodies of several young beauties, Disney girls Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez among them, we are set up for an American Pie-like scenario, where hot college girls have a few weeks of crazy, loud, booze-fuelled fun that's likely to end up on YouTube. Even with the knowledge that the girls hold up a restaurant to fund their trip, I figured that this would be played out comically, and that nothing would require being taken too seriously.

But several things really disturbed me about Spring Breakers, the first starting very early on in the picture, and others taking a little longer to show themselves. The girls are Candy (Hudgens), Cotty (Rachel Korine) and Brit (Ashley Benson), who are trouble-seeking party girls and for some reason hang out with church-going resident-downer Faith (Gomez). They decide to bugger off for spring break, as sexy American teens with inexplicably infinite cash sources tend to do. But these girls are broke, so plot to rob a diner, do it, and run off to the beach for a fortnight of fun. The kind of fun they end up having, whether it is really fun or not, and what kind of fun the audience are supposed to be having are all up for question. In particular our part as the audience.

Only a few minutes into the movie, all four girls are fooling around in a darkened corridor, only wearing their underwear. They do handstands against the walls, and eventually fall about on the floor, wiggling their asses in the air as the camera grooms them like an overly-forceful cat lady. I felt uncomfortably voyeuristic watching this, not even voyeuristic, more predatory. Because never in a thousand years would a stranger pass by, happen to peek into the window of this corridor, and have a scene like this playing out by coincidence. The girls aren't doing all this gyrating for their own amusement -- they're doing it for the audience, and it's contrived as hell. The weirdest thing is, as a female of about the same age as the actresses and the girls they are portraying, I still felt wrong watching them. There was just something so obviously wrong with the scene. And from there, it continued down the route of 'Male Fantasy'.

Spring break is fun, and they drink, and snort coke off of other girls' boobs, and get off with slobs. Brit finds herself in a really gross situation, in which she is high as hell, in a bathroom full of guys, sluggishly ripping her bra off and teasing that "you'll never get this pussy." Then the action cuts back to what the other girls are doing. I rather feel that it's because if it'd hung around any longer, it may have subjected us to a gang rape scene. It was upsetting to watch a girl degrade herself in such a dangerous way, especially knowing that this sort of behaviour is really quite commonplace among my generation. I get that this is an adult film, with an 18 certificate, and that there are many movies I have praised that have contained similar incidents, but it's just not what I was up for. It felt cheap and fantasised.

Just when I was starting to wonder how teens managed to rip buildings apart, cause more mayhem than Martin and Charlie Sheen at a father-son picnic, and ingest a steady current of substances without attracting outside attention, the girls are arrested, and stand in a courtroom in their bikinis (honestly, I don't think any of them wear anything more than that at any point). There, they are eyed-up and eventually bailed out by the slimiest geezer I've come across in film since the Duke in Moulin Rouge. In place of a nasally sneer from behind a perfectly waxed moustache, we have cornrows and gang tattoos on a white guy played by James Franco. This dude has named himself Alien, as a result of a lifetime of egotistical self-philosophy that Kanye West holds the record for.

The girls go back to his skeevy place and repay him for his kind bailing. And yep, it is exactly as creepy as it sounds. Only Faith has a problem with weirdo crackheads drooling over her shoulder and groping her. The other girls, in a completely whacked state of mind, it would seem, totally get off on the underground superstar lifestyle that Alien leads, which involves being constantly surrounded by pale, skinheaded gangsters, swaggering around with guns wearing only underwear (which naturally works for the girls) and having sex. Faith is the first of the girls to realise that something seriously dreadful is going to come of this situation, and hops on the next bus home, never to be heard of again. Weird.

The rest of the movie documents the remaining girls' moral and personal deterioration as Bikini Bitches of a questionably-successful white gangster. Lots more sex, drugs and abuse. They get dragged into a violent rivalry with another, far less white, gangster. It is an unsettling, dark underworld story, with not a speck of the comparative joy that the earlier days of their trip involved. Franco, punctuating his frequent stoner collaborations with Seth Rogen, reminds us of his often dormant ability, creating a sinister facade that deemed him unrecognisable to me for several minutes. His cited inspiration from rapper Riff Raff helped him to become a silly wannabe hardman who never matured past the age of sixteen, but whose subsequent years have instilled in him a dark idiocy, and a masked neediness.

The entirety of Spring Breakers plays out in an almost pornographic way; not in the sense that anything explicitly and unsimulatedly sexual is shown, but in the sense that its whole being is played strictly to a male fantasy. Young, slim girls in bikinis, complete exhibitionists, who are putting on a constant stripper act for their unacknowledged audience. It plays out with intention to titillate -- the main factor that can see art house movies such as 9 Songs and Antichrist separated from mainstream pornography. Not only does it titillate the audience with gratuitous young flesh, it also teases its less mature viewers with the idea of the lifestyles of drug-ring prostitutes being the dream life. Eighteen year olds are still perfectly corruptible with stupid ideas, and so I really would question what creator Harmony Korine (surprisingly, not a female) meant by this movie. It doesn't really present any good ideas, but doesn't present itself as a cautionary tale either. The girls who do decide to get out are completely forgotten once they're gone. Faith, and later Cotty, are never seen again, and this seems indicative of the entire attitude of the film. In this sort of crazy lifestyle, not a thing matters.