Hard Candy (2005)

 

What if...? is the central question to any writer. First you write what you know, then you ask 'what if...?'. I never thought a seriously thrilling psychological movie would - at least in my mind - spawn from an episode of To Catch A Predator. It is difficult to make a movie with a moral or societal message that doesn't come off as biased or preachy, and given today's climate, it is probably suitable that a movie like Hard Candy was made in the mid-'00s, just on the precipice of artistic expansion, mere years before the populace apparently became too precious to take a joke, or to acknowledge genuine social commentary when it presents itself. I cannot imagine a movie like Hard Candy being made either today, or even five years ago. It is sometimes terrifying how quickly the societal landscape evolves, and often not for the better, especially when it comes to freedom of artistic expression.

Hard Candy is an amazingly intelligent, sensitive and thrilling movie that is effectively a 90-minute  two-hander of intense conversation, like Educating Rita or Venus in Fur. Elliot Page plays Hayley, a fourteen-year-old girl who meets middle-aged photographer Geoff (Patrick Wilson) on a chatroom, and gets together with him at a local coffee house. They hit it off and she talks him into taking her back to his place, where things take an unusual and *SPOILERY* turn. Hayley roofies Geoff and he wakes up in a slightly less horrifying scenario than the fellas in Hostel: tied to a chair, threatened with bodily harm... and accused of child abuse. Hayley has targeted Geoff as a predator, but once he is subdued, the identity of the predator is suddenly up for question.

I thawt yew wawnted to be shayved... down thayr

It is rare, as the writer and director of this picture both remarked, for a movie to be so succinctly summarised, but as is often the case with character-driven pieces, plot is not necessarily pertinent. Almost Famous and Me Without You are two examples that spring to mind of one-line-plot movies that find their momentum in their immensely detailed characters, who feel like real people. Although Hard Candy is much harder-hitting material than either of these movies, it is essentially a character profile with genuine dramatic tension. Hayley is a vigilante and Geoff is a sinner of the worst kind who tries to spare his reputation the truth right until the end. It could work well as a stage play in its excellence with dialogue and characterisation, and purposeful use of literal frames to reflect the photographic lens through which Geoff allegedly sees the world. 

Hard Candy hangs heavily on its two leading actors, and they carry it with simultaneous ease and torment. Page, given the duality of Hayley, is required to craft a base character, and an alter ego masquerading as a naive teenager, and it is eerily effective. She shows little glimmers of flirtation and precociousness, while maintaining an adolescent naivete; later she suggests entirely through facial expression that her character was molested as a child, and sees this whole ordeal as retribution for not only herself, but for every other young person who was ever victimised. Wilson, meanwhile, runs the gamut of emotion, and is essentially the characterisation of the audience itself, reacting to the each new twist of the ordeal he finds himself in. Importantly, he never once shows true evil to anybody. He goes through flirtatious manipulation, lust, confusion, anger, mortal fear, rage, guilt, submission, but he never lets us see the side of him that caused Hayley to target him in the first place. He is a real, complex person with many layers, and Wilson's performance is nothing short of athletic.

For tonight is the night that my beautiful
creature is destined to be born!

Not only is this movie an intense emotional ride, but it is like wandering through a chic, minimalist art gallery to look at. Everything has a sleek Scandinavian flavour to it, with expressive pops of colour hinting at some thematic undertone. Indeed, the opening credits are a simple shifting of a single red shape among a variety of white backgrounds, suggesting a small but lingering figure stalking just beyond the periphery. And not for the first time, we are forced to consider who this figure really is. Perhaps their identity depends on what sort of a person is looking. Those with devious skeletons in their closet may see that figure as the reason they still look over their shoulder every day. Those of a more innocent nature might consider it the unremarkable perpetrator of terrible cruelty. 

Urban Explorer (2011)

Andy Fetscher's Urban Explorer was one of my several cheap DVD store punts that turned out to be, as Roger Ebert once called Last House, "about four times as good as you'd expect". I am a keen urban explorer in real life, and am always totally compelled by movies that use it as a subject. Truth is, amazing suspense can be conjured on the screen simply by having characters be in places they shouldn't, such as in Area 51. The likes of As Above So Below and Chernobyl Diaries keep me coming back again and again, and while Urban Explorer has a lot in common with them, it delivers on the visceral horror aspects that the other titles may be lacking. I discovered this movie by chance about a year ago, and have since snagged a wonderful boyfriend who lived in Germany for many years and is fluent in the language, so I was eager to watch this movie again for his input, if nothing else, for his unique insight into the language and translations. He didn't disappoint.

Still I think he's raather tastyyyy!

A very cosmopolitan movie, Urban Explorer follows the journey of Denis and Marie are a couple ready to snoop around the undercarriage of Berlin for their anniversary, along with other couple Lucia and Juna, under the guidance of local Kris. Naturally, all seems well at first, before things go disastrously wrong, and they are stranded miles beneath the surface where nobody knows they have ventured. However, one of the cool perspectives that this movie offers is the lack of supernatural interference. There are no radiation zombies like in Chernobyl Diaries, no Dante's Inferno like in As Above, and no time-travelling Soviets like in Devil's Pass. All we have to fear this time around is a truly maniacal German fellow with huge teeth, huge eyes and a beard that even I don't find sexy, and isn't a real person always that much more frightening than a monster?

The group are fairly unremarkable, but can all be defined by one trait. Lucia is the dumbass who causes the whole disaster in one absent-minded moment; Juna is the Asian chick who may be into other chicks and wears a dangly earring that will later explain her fate when found on the floor of the Maniacal German's lair. Marie is a Venezuelan nurse and the girlfriend of Denis, who it later transpires once studied in Berlin, and is actually quite a competent German speaker, despite insisting that he only speaks it "a bit". Kris is the shifty German guide who we decide early on must be the antagonist because he's just so damn shifty and German, but we later find out he's the very least of our issues.

I was told I was in a Bob Clarke movie!

Midway through the movie, weird hermit Armin (Klaus Stiglmeier) literally drops into the story, offering suspiciously convenient help to the injured party and his desperate comrades. It all takes a turn that we don't tend to see in these movies, and paces the story in a more patient way, not to its detriment. This is a longer movie than many of its kind, but it works well. There are sequences in which silence and space are drawn out to excruciating lengths, crafting a proper sense of suspense. Urban Explorer is a great and slick-looking picture, and it throws some new ideas into the ring. It also wisely avoids the temptation to format itself as a found footage picture, and by doing so allows itself maximum cinematic freedom. It is not constrained by what the characters would be filming themselves, and has fun with the space and angles this allows. It really is about four times better than you'd expect.

"It's the gayest show in the fucking world!"

Sure, the characters are nothing special and this is no piece of high intellectualism, but it offers a fucking good viewing experience of its type, and goes above and beyond to deliver an engaging show that isn't just a dime a dozen. It also has that typically European ballsy attitude to conclusions that mainstream American audiences don't appreciate: the horrors are man-made, and even when it looks like the nightmare is over, this significantly powerful and relentless human being wipes away all hope in the way that true criminals do in the real world. There is a boldly hopeless tone to the film, and I truly admire a movie that dares to lean into this sort of theme, with no happy ending and no unrealistic escapes. It's a tense and unnerving experience that never lets up, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

(Incidentally, my boytoy advised me that the hermit speaks very colloquial German and that Denis' conversation is suitably amateur for his character, so it is even a carefully written movie.)

A Serbian Film (2010)

How bad can a movie themed on
mid-century communist propaganda possibly be?!

A Serbian Film is one of those controversial movies you get once in a blue moon that the creators insist there is deeper meaning to, much to the disagreement of audiences and critics. Mark Kermode disputed there being any legitimate allegory being made by the movie, and it has gone down in recent history as one of the most horrifying films ever made. Having finally subjected myself to its uncut version, I am baffled as to how anybody can not recognise the statements being made. I know virtually nothing about Serbia, except for it having a history of severe unrest in many senses, but I could very explicitly identify what the movie was trying to convey. Despite what one might expect having heard the grisly keywords associated with it, A Serbian Film is a devastatingly effective movie with plenty of angst.

Miloš is a retired porn actor who has settled down with a wife and child, but given up a good income and lavish lifestyle in the process. Struggling to get by and realising a quiet part of him misses the guy he once was, he is informed by a former colleague of a filmmaker who is producing a new high art form of pornography, and wants Miloš as his star. Coddled beneath several layers of armed security guards is Vukmir, a sinister and eccentric multimillionaire with a chip on his shoulder about the state of modern Serbian society. He is well practised in his prophetic rhetoric, ranting at length about what real art is, and what it is to feel and live. He wants to sign Miloš for big bucks, but is unwilling to tell his actor exactly what he will be performing, as part of some pornographic method acting school of thought or something.

No autographs, please.

Miloš is dubious about the unspecified nature of the work, but his wife Marija is heavily swayed by the money he will receive in return, so he decides to go for it. First day on set, Miloš is directed by Vukmir via an earpiece while flanked by several armed heavies holding cameras. Some odd domestic is going on between a mother and her adolescent daughter, both of whom go on to be central co-stars in this weird improv. By the second day, Miloš' convictions are being tested too hard by Vukmir's depraved setups, and he decides the next day to throw in the towel.

Suddenly Miloš awakens, hungover and bloodied, and it is three days later. Haunted and unable to find anybody he knows, he racks his brain for scraps of memory and tries to piece together what the hell happened to him. Through flashback and footage on a stolen camera, the movie takes us through Miloš' dreadful search for the truth, and we know things will somehow never been the same for him again.

Fans of Last House on the Left may recall that the original draft of its script was a more pornographically-oriented take on things, and as A Serbian Film was wrapping up, I couldn't help but compare it to Last House. It ultimately tells the same story, of an innocent and loving family torn apart by cruel outsiders, and how the family members react and are irreparably damaged by the ordeal. It is hard to classify either movie as horror, because they are really more like hard dramatic tragedies; they show us relatable and likeable characters whose terrible experiences stir emotional reactions in us as viewers. If I felt anything at the end of A Serbian Film, I felt sadness.

This is the greatest show!

Another element that these two movies have in common is that they narrate from the perspective of the family while framing them visually from the voyeuristic view of the aggressors. A Serbian Film is a very slickly produced picture, with sharp and very precise camerawork and sound. As we follow Miloš through this dark chapter, the camera always follows him like a stalker: we see him from over the shoulders of the people he converses with, or the corners of rooms. The feeling of being watched is intrinsically woven into the style of the movie, while sound forces the foreboding atmosphere upon us like a millstone, with inventive use of string plucking, static-like electronics and even what sounds like tearing paper. An incredible tension is created, starting with small tugs and stirs, and finally climaxing (eh-hem) in the film's closing minutes as an unbearable outburst.

This film is nothing short of ballsy. Srđan Todorović gets to show off an incredible range in the role of Miloš, and wouldn't work so well were it not for his courage to do exactly what the character requires of him. Were his performance to lack a certain emotion and vulnerability, we would not be able to feel for him anywhere near as much as we do by the time his nightmarish ordeal finally ends. I cannot imagine any of the roles in this movie being easy to fill for a director or for an actor, and every single person gives it their all, and absolute sincerity. Sergej Trifunović as Vukmir grasps just the right note of villainy and cunning. He is eccentric without being cartoonish, and measured enough for us to never quite peg him as a straight-up bad guy; he genuinely believes in what he does, and there is more to his motives than simply enjoying causing pain.

If this scene doesn't turn you on, you
clearly don't understand high art.

There is a great scene early on in the movie in which Miloš and Marija are in bed together watching one of his old skinflicks. They have the old "difference between love and fucking" discussion and Marija tells him that she quite fancies just being fucked once in a while. So he tries on the rough, underwear-tearing persona that he hung up years ago, and while she seems somewhat turned on by it, he clearly is not. The action cuts back and forth between the couple fucking, and Miloš' onscreen performance, before he recedes, turns his wife back over, starts to kiss her, and goes on to actually make love to her. This tells us so much about Miloš, and about his relationship with Marija. Although he clearly has the capacity (and from what we all hear, quite the knack) for your classic porn-style fucking, it is a compartmentalised section of his personality that he realises he doesn't like to open out into other sections, and just maybe, he has grown to dislike that side of himself.

Many an exploitation flick is accused of doing exactly what it says on the tin: exploiting suffering. More specifically, they are accused of 'glorifying' violence. A Serbian Film has definitely met its fair share of this vein of criticism, but it never once looks at violence through a rose tinted filter. Every second of pain is depicted as cruel and senseless, and despite its inherently sexualised framing, is never presented for titillation or kicks. It wants us to look at its content in the harsh, brutal way that it truly exists in the world, and ultimately, it wants our understanding of Miloš to grow as a result. The impact of the movie hinges on how we feel for the characters being wronged, not how gross and sensationalist it can be.

Uh... no homo.

The casual moviegoer is unlikely to accidentally stumble into this picture without any prior understanding of what they are getting themselves into, but let it be known: this is a gruesome and hard-hitting picture which in its uncut version uses some very disturbing imagery. It is stuff you won't shake off easily, but if you feel you can handle it, it is very worth seeing. I got so much more from watching this movie than I had anticipated, and am still somewhat surprised to be declaring it a moving and very effective piece.

I wonder what Roger Ebert would have made of this movie. Although he was still alive and critiquing when it came out, he never reviewed it. I feel like his 70s self - the same one that commended Last House - would have seen redeeming qualities in it, and perhaps even recommended it, much to the horror of the average moviegoer. In his mid-80s, Siskel-centric era, he may have decried it for its sexually-oriented violence. I know that by his twilight years, he had grown pretty damn tired of the hardcore exploitation flicks. That was his taste. I love me a hardcore exploitation flick, and A Serbian Film is as extreme as it gets in terms of content and context.

Hostel (2005)

The 00s was an era of reimagining horror. 9/11 had a profound effect on almost every facet of modern life, and movies were far from immune. Not unlike the way the Vietnam war influenced a new chapter of horror in the early '70s, 9/11 brought real-life terror and gore to the forefront of the public conscience, and changed what viewers looked for in entertainment. Although action movies and TV serials scrambled to rearrange into a less close-to-home format, the horror genre leaned into it, and a new wave, later dubbed Torture Porn, was born.

The two key figures in the Torture Porn movement were Saw (2004) and Hostel (2005), each of which divided audiences in their ultra-visceral depictions of violence. Nobody around in the '00s can forget people asking "Did you see Saw?" before chuckling at their own comic brilliance, and talk of Hostel was hot on its heels. As a younger teenager during this period, I had to wallow in hearsay until each of the movies was released on DVD, and I clearly recall my first viewing of each. Hostel I acquired by taking advantage of my older boyfriend, and we watched it at his house with my sister. At the time I deduced it to be one half softcore porn and one half slasher gore with a nice memorable eyeball schtick, and have gone on since to develop a real fondness for it.

Each Eli Roth movie is a real character; some people can't stand his sophomoric blend of blood and humour, while others revel in his silly, in-your-face approach to making films. My sister and I have always been firm fixtures in the latter group, and share a particular fondness for the most divisive aspect of any Roth movie: the dialogue. If your patience is stretched by Roth's style, Hostel will be far from your cuppa soup, but those who enjoy a bit of silly humour in place of the pointless ramblings that usually open up earlier slashers find his style refreshing. Of course, Roth is also fond of elaborate practical effects, with which he likes to have a lot of gory fun. Anti-TorturePorners point out that violence doesn't equate to scare, which is certainly true, and that a good movie wouldn't have to resort to explicit violence, which I don't believe is true.

Beanie hat! 

Now what I do think is that violence and other forms of cruelty can be absolutely necessary to properly tell a story. Hostel doesn't deliver much real narrative to 'justify' its gore, as we are ultimately not really supposed to like or relate to any of the characters (another Roth trademark), but this doesn't mean there is no thought or perspective to it. Even if the audience doesn't explicitly notice that the movie's style is deliberate in its depictions of violence, they notice the effects.

Roth is far from a tactless filmmaker, and I think that his childlike enthusiasm for every single frame he shoots is his real strength. His work is always more than competent on a technical level, and all gore considered, he makes really good-looking and engaging movies. He is not looking to win any prestigious awards or merge his way into the Hollywood elite, but simply wants to have a really good time making the sorts of movies he would watch himself, and for other people to have fun watching them. For sheer entertainment value, Roth is always a safe bet for me.

World's most trustworthy travel agent

There is not a lot to say about the plot of Hostel, as the fun is in the experience as a whole, but let's give it a try. Paxton (Jay Hernandez) is backpacking across Europe with his meek friend Josh (Derek Richardson), and other tourist Oli (Eyþór Guðjónsson) has been picked up at some point in their travels. We meet them in Amsterdam, where they are busy doing what all good Roth characters do: partying. They get thrown out of clubs, dip in and out of whorehouses, and of course, refer to many things pejoratively as "gay". They come across a seriously weird-looking fella named Alexei, played by Lubomir Bukovy, who tells them that if they want the pure shit from source, they need to trek through the Slovakian wilderness to a village that is populated entirely by Page 3 girls and child thugs. The guys are all pretty stupid, so do they consider this trip a good idea? Of coursh, ma horsh.

While on the train to Slovakia, they are buttonholed by some geeky old dude (Jan Vlasák) whose defining characteristic is eating chicken salad with his twitchy fingers. When said fingers get a little too close to Josh's junk for comfort, the guys throw an all-American freak-out at the gayness of it all, and the Salad guy skulks away apologetically. In response to the sexual assault of their buddy, Paxton and Oli throw a few more homo jokes out for good measure. They arrive in the whore village and stay at a...*dun-dun-duuuuun* hostel, where they lament the lack of English dubbing on local television and how very gay it is that they have to share a room at a hostel. It soon becomes clear that the situation isn't quite so guy-on-guy as they had anticipated, when two hot women in their room invite them over to the spa.

The only time Paxton hated having balls in his mouth

So the partying is in full swing, but after the first night, Oli has disappeared. Paxton insists that this shouldn't spoil their fun, so they do some more partying, and the next day Josh is gone too. Curiouser and curiouser! All the locals are kinda shady, and a gang of kids mug people for such riches as bubblegum, but hey, it's probably just be because they're European.  In the course of trying to find the friend that actually matters enough to rouse his suspicions, Paxton is also set upon, revealing that this quaint little village not only has hot women and kid thugs, it also has millionaires who pay to torture foreigners in an abandoned building. And what's worse... they're all in on it! Ooh, faced!

What got under people's skin about Hostel and Saw was that they were more than just corn syrup and condoms full of sausage meat - they were presented in a vivid and immersive way that felt inescapable. Scores of slasher movies from yesteryear would throw lots of blood around, but rarely focused so hard on the suffering of those being minced. Hostel lingers on the victims of the situation, emphasising the experience of being tortured, tears and blood and vomit. None of the characters is a big badass who just tells their assailant what a "sick fuck" they are while having their limbs removed with table cutlery. They behave like real people, and show violence for what it really is - long, slow suffering.

It's the gayest movie in the fucking world!

Roth's tongue-in-cheek style does require a somewhat turbulent tone that may not make for comfortable viewing by all, but it functions as his charming little take on the genre that I can never help but enjoy and watch repeatedly.

Jeepers Creepers (2001)

Monster movies become more difficult to pull off as the years go by. When we think of a monster, almost all of our perceptions rely heavily on pre-existing stories - werewolves, vampires, swamp things - or misunderstood ferocious friends - Monsters Inc., Gremlins. On top of this, the horror movie scene has gone a long way since the respective heydays of Universal or Hammer villains, and a lot of moviegoers find the more humanly-based frights scarier. Monsters are something that kids fear are lurking under their beds; adults fear other people.

What Jeepers Creepers proves is that a scary monster movie relies not only on a creature that regular adult viewers can actually find terrifying, but on crafting a terrifying viewing experience. The suspense created by Victor Salva and his amazing crew has made this movie stand out in my mind for the past fifteen-odd years. The way they construct realistic yet engaging dialogue is an added bonus. I understand that this may be a controversial opinion: the movie may be lumped in with Juno (2007) and found obnoxious and irritating by some people because of the script style, but for someone of my generation and sense of humour, it is a very welcome departure from normal horror dialogue.

What is Michelle Duggar's vagina doing here?

Trish (Gina Philips) and Darry (Justin Long) are siblings driving the long way home from college at the end of the semester in a fucking sweet vintage automobile. Trish is riding home with her dumbass kid brother because she has broken up with her boyfriend, and Darry is riding home with a bag full of his dirty drawers for his momma to wash. They are cruising along the empty dirt roads somewhere in the Corn Belt of the US when they encounter an aggressive driver in a startling rusty slaughterhouse truck. After being run off the road, they drive right past the same truck, and a darkly shrouded figure dumping bloody-sheet-wrapped shapes down a giant pipe outside an abandoned chapel.

That youthful sense of morbid curiosity masked as morality that only those under 30 can muster (or at least I hope so) sees the two turn around and investigate. Darry insists that if his sister were at the bottom of that pipe, she would hope that someone like him would go back and possibly save her life, while we somewhat suspect that the testosterone and adrenaline rushing through his freshman veins is what is truly motivating him. She relents and they drop in on the chapel, and soon come across a weirdly sophisticated cavern of carnage. Medieval-style demonic figures are intricately carved into wooden furniture, and the ceiling is adorned with a mass of preserved bodies "like the fucking Sistine Chapel!"

Deez nuts!

The movie has already got the action going at an incredible rate, and it is not so low as to insert one of those the killer comes home while the kids are rummaging around it and we wonder if they will get caught and killed scenes. The kids get the fuck out and rush to call the police at the first backwoods diner they find. The movie also rises above the we've seen horror and none of the other people believe us scene at this point, clashing our main protagonists and the authoritative character parts together when our monster is finally revealed. The narrative of Jeepers Creepers makes an incredibly fluid job of abandoning cliche from beginning to end, without ever making it seem humorous or ironic like Scream.

Along the way, Trish and Darry come across two women. At first, they come across a house inhabited by a crazy old cat lady, played by veteran Eileen Brennan, which leads to perhaps the most amazingly sinister sequence of the movie. Later, at the police station, a woman named Jezelle barges her way in, acknowledged by the coppers as the unofficial psychic of the force. She is terrified, and knows information about the siblings' ordeal that nobody but the audience could. She explains that there is a local creature that wakes from hibernation every twenty-three years to feed on parts that it "likes", being drawn to the fear it smells in people. Even Trish tries to dismiss Jezelle as a creepy nutjob, but Darry's experiences at the bottom of the pit sees him fall hopelessly into her metaphorical arms.

Tree Surgeon, Have Axe, Will Travel

So what makes the Creeper, as played by Jonathan Breck, such an effective monster? Although the costume design is fabulous, Salva's intent for the character and its embodiment by Breck are the making of a true monster. The DVD features show the director conducting auditions for the antagonist as a "sniff test", and Breck's audition tape sees the actor snap into character before even entering the room. He even turns the door handle creepily, and darts his head around the door, sniffing and snarling like a beast, before literally rubbing cheeks with his stand-in actor, sniffing for life blood. It is such an audacious audition that intrudes entirely on the personal space of even actors, and Breck brings every ounce of this energy, and more, to his every move.

Not only does Jeepers Creepers start and continue strongly, but it manages one of the most memorable horror endings in 21st century cinema, which I shan't spoil here. I fear no dark winged beast that will eat my tongue in the non-sexy way, but the tension conjured by this movie makes me feel, time after time, like I'm standing on a trapdoor with a sack and noose over my head. It's like watching a guitar string being slowly and gently tightened, or even a harpsichord like in The Haunting, knowing that at any second that strip of steel will lick across your face before you even realise you've lost an eye and a quarter of your hair. Regardless of how I know this movie shot-for-shot and line-for-line, the imagery and pacing never fails to suspend my nerves on a knife edge. As long as you are the type of person that would tell your younger brother that he is a "ball licker", you will be in your element.

Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003)

Victor Salva has managed to keep his controversial status surprisingly quiet. Many years after having seen, fallen in love with, and watched hundreds of times, his modern horror classic Jeepers Creepers, I did some reading about him, and found out that he had been convicted and incarcerated for raping a young male actor on his debut movie Clownhouse. By the millennium, he was out, back to directing and doing a darn good job of it. Now I maintain that the personal lives of artists should bear no consequence on our freedom to enjoy their material, and Victor Salva has a lot of talent, regardless of his poor choices and criminal record. So here comes a positive critique for his production Jeepers Creepers 2. 

The sequel picks up the day after the ordeal of Trish and Darry, and centres on two separate parties whose paths eventually cross: one is an old farmer and his teenage son, whose youngest boy has been dragged to his doom by the Creeper; and a high school football team and their girlfriends and coaches, on their way home from a victorious game. It is Day 23 of the Creeper’s season, making it his last day of human smorgasbord before he gotta sleep it off for another twenty-three years. And hey, this is like the day before the diet begins, so he’s gonna binge the fuck out, right?!

The Creeper on the bus goes...

The original Jeepers Creepers drew the perfect balance of visibility of our antagonist. The Creeper, a dark Reaper-type figure, was almost always cast in deep shadow and we saw fractions of his features, or simply his silhouette. The sequel takes the opportunity to get us better acquainted to that fabulous villain, and he is serving up demonic realness hun-ty! A standout sequence from within the bus sees the Creeper stalk the vehicle, before hanging upside down and staring straight into the camera, into the eyes of each dumb teenager on board. The first hour of the movie is a hardcore suspensefest that kept me absolutely hooked.

Consider the sequence in which the busload of kids realise they are up against a malevolent unseen force. The bus tyres have been shredded by unusual throwing stars decorated with human remains, and their coach sets about setting a string of flares up the road to warn any oncoming vehicles of their predicament. Despite the entire ensemble of no less than twenty five people standing right there when it happens, not a single person is looking at the split second in which coach suddenly disappears into the sky. Most of them notice the flare that inexplicably falls from mid-air moments later. The ways in which the characters baffle over, and try to make sense of, what has just happened are golden realism, and even when the same fate befalls the bus driver minutes later, they are in no hurry to ascribe the events to the paranormal. But they are understandably scared.

The action implores the audience to sit right within that bus, and engage in the frustration. Although we know more than the characters on-board about the fates of their coach and bus driver, the plausibility they try to address the situation with is so very believable, and makes their ordeal the more terrifying. They could move beyond this point had their missing disappeared in more mortal ways, but every sign indicates they flew away, as the only witness of the driver’s demise insists. They are clearly dealing with more than a mad hillbilly, but they are living in the real world, and how else could these events be explained?

Creepiest figure on a cross since Carrie

The thread of the farmer and his son is not so tangible, especially when it comes to the movie’s penultimate sequence that involves the farmer bringing out some OTT harpoon contraption mounted on the back of his battered pick-up truck. The anticlimactic battle that ensues adds unnecessary length and dilution to the picture, and weakens it overall. I mean, had the farmer shown this kind of proficiency in the drawn-out chase of the creature snatching his kid – instead of repeatedly screaming the boy’s name, running and doing nothing with the rifle in his hand – he could have saved himself one stressful retirement. Just sayin’.

However, this is somewhat compensated for by the closing scene, set another twenty-three years later, in which some local kids stop by the farm to see the attraction they have heard so much about. In response to the inevitability of the Creeper’s return – which he expects ‘any day now’ – the farmer mounted the thing’s body on the wall of the barn years before, and sits in front of it night and day, armed and ready for round two. The ending makes me all the more surprised that the third Jeepers instalment took so long to materialise, despite years of rumours, plans and Development Hell, and ended up being so unbearably dreadful.

The movie is not only well conceived, well directed and made with fabulous visual style, but is acted exceedingly well for what is more or less a dead teenager movie. Standouts come from Garikayi Mutambirwa and Ray Wise, an entertainment veteran whose work I really enjoyed in the short-lived series Reaper, delivers the maddened, grieving father almost better than the movie requires of him. He is a real treat. And Jonathan Breck reprising the Creeper is even better than before, going to town on opportunities to get up close and personal with the camera and scare us silly.

Hey Creeper, how's your head?

Jeepers Creepers 2 is solidly entertaining. It is absolutely absorbing, and the kind of movie that you have to commentate: “Stop yelling ‘Bobby’ and just shoot the fucker!”, “Oh my God, no, don’t stick your head out through the roof, no no NO!” It is, by far, one of the strongest horror sequels I have ever seen, in terms of action, quality and scariness. It is a rare thing for me to get the feels from a horror movie these days, and the unflinching tension that Salva and his actors create – particularly in the first hour or so – is contagious. I scold myself for waiting so long to finally watch this movie – it is a right treasure.

The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009)

The Human Centipede is as bleak as a decent movie can get, and that is very much to its credit. I vividly recall the cultural hubbub that was The Human Centipede when it first reared its ugly head in 2009, and I found out about it through outraged and disgusted social media posts by friends. Of course, knowing me, when that much outrage has been generated, I simply have to see what all the fuss is about. On first viewing, I experienced the retching and hilarity that was expected, but years later, after two sequels have been made, and the Siamese triplet of a film series has been completed, I was surprised to see that it not only held up surprisingly well, but was a genuinely well done film.

Your basic premise is that two American girls, Lindsay (Ashley C. Williams) and Jenny (Ashlynn Yennie), are on a European road trip, and for some reason are making their way down woodland roads en route to a nightclub. Well, their car breaks down, and they exchange some terribly delivered bitchery, while trudging through the rainy forest in shorts and high heels. They happen across the house of one Dr Josef Heiter, a retired specialist in separating conjoined twins. He promptly drugs the girls and intends to expand his surgical repertoire by creating a conjoined triplet that is connected via a single gastric system. In layman's terms, they are sewn mouth to ass. Also along for the worst ride since It's a Small World, is Akihiro Kitamura, who at least garners the privilege of being the front part of the centipede.

As a thoroughly cosmopolitan movie in terms of production, we are treated to no less than three spoken languages, and the version I just watched didn't have subtitles. This made for interesting viewing, particularly as I have previously seen subtitled versions, and know the gist of the dialogue, but mainly went by the emotions being conveyed. The good Herr Doktor does the girls (and the audience) the courtesy of mostly speaking English, but the general lack of communication between characters plays nicely into the idea of alien parts being thrust together.

Does this centipede taste funny to you?

I have noticed an interesting phenomenon within the small-time acting community: many an actor can play fear or hysteria quite well, but delivering natural, conversational dialogue seems beyond them. This is certainly the case for our two American leads, whose earlier scenes are poorly delivered, but are saved by strong direction and production values. However, the shining star of this dim and grimy production is Mr Dieter Laser, who was just made to play a part of this kind. His sinewy figure, soulless eyes and boundless physical delivery make for a sinister and utterly unpredictable villain.

What really struck me this time around about The Human Centipede was how well it conveyed total and utter hopelessness. In some ways, it feels like it belongs in the '70s with the other low budget, somewhat artistic exploitation horrors, in that it stirs the most basic of instincts in the audience, by tugging the nerve of vulnerability. The recurring shots of Jenny and Lindsay holding each other's hands in desperate mutual comfort are some of the many silent and bitterly poignant visuals used by writer/director Tom Six, who pulls off a deeply macabre atmosphere from beginning to end.

This movie is oddly absorbing, and it is easy for a new viewer to expect 90 minutes of faecal torture porn, but The Human Centipede is so much more than that, as becomes apparent after the whole 'eating shit' money shot has been and gone. In fact, the concept of being forced to not only eat the faeces of another person, but also to survive solely on it, is remarkably minimal as a focus of the narrative. The real horror comes in being put into such a horrific and vulnerable situation that requires a miraculous combination of team effort and good fortune to survive even for a day, and the idea that this is not a situation that will soon end with death, but could go on for a very long time.

Honestly, best shot of the entire movie

It is hard to ignore the evident inspiration (for lack of a better term) taken from Josef Mengele for Heiter's character. In fact, it would not surprise me if the likes of this movie took place in Mengele's basement somewhere in Brazil after the war. This connotation also forces us to remember that the likes of this gross movie are not merely the twisted imaginings of some Dutch nutter, but that humans have been devising cruel and unusual ways to punish each other since the dawn of time.

The Haunting of Sharon Tate (2019)

Making films, music and literature based - either loosely or otherwise - on real events, and more specifically, on true crime, is far from a modern trend, and yet it is still a divisive topic on moral grounds. The better known serial killers, such as Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, continue to inspire recreations of their lives and crimes, and the human condition of morbid curiosity keeps ensuring return on profit is seen. The question of whether it is ethical to rehash such crimes for 'entertainment purposes', and how such recreations can impact the survivors and their loved ones, continues to be asked, yet it seems to have little effect on the industry's production of such movies, or on audiences' viewing of them. Monster and The Girl Next Door are serious and well-made productions based to varying degrees on true crime, but for every Monster, there are easily a hundred The Haunting of Sharon Tate.

Critics have been slamming this movie for many reasons, and Lionsgate have been pulling out all of the damage control stops to ensure people still give their movie the benefit of the doubt. Not only is this not a well-made film, but it is a very inconsiderate one. It doesn't seek simply to recreate the crimes of the Manson family in 1969, but to put a supernatural twist on things, and perpetuate dismal rumours first circulated by the media mere hours after the news broke fifty years ago: talk of infidelities, open relationships and devil worship somehow being the cause of those events is tasteless and speculative at best. What, I ask you, could possibly be gained, or added to this story, by the suggestions of Roman Polanski (who is not portrayed onscreen in this movie) 'cheating' on his wife, or Gibby Folger and Wojciech Frykowski manipulating Sharon into a position of vulnerability? It drags this whole sorry tale to the depths of tabloid fodder in the least tactful way possible.

The media spin that continues to embody the Tate-LaBianca murders could be an interesting way to tell this story, but this is clearly not what the makers had in mind. If nothing else, its only real goals are to paint Sharon and her friends as people they were not, with an aim to add a sense of suspicion and tension that never existed. And this is not to say that this movie manages to achieve even the slightest feeling of suspense. It consists primarily of repetitive sequences of Sharon creeping wide-eyed around her dark house, convinced that she is in danger but for some reason doing nothing about it.

For some reason, Hilary Duff 'stars' as Sharon Tate, and we are suddenly and rudely reminded of why her repertoire never really expanded beyond Lizzie McGuire and being Steve Martin's stroppy teen daughter in Cheaper by the Dozen. She looks and sounds nothing like Sharon Tate, despite her fleeting attempts at some sort of regional accent. Duff is very strangely directed throughout this picture, in every way from accent to emotion and mindset. There are odd moments at which she seems to react to things in ways that just don't match the action, and her character's thought processes are sloppy. This heavily pregnant woman, whose several friends are literally in the next bedroom, keeps creeping around this dark house when she suspects intruders. No guns, no phone calls, she doesn't even turn on the lights or scream for someone. She just keeps skulking around in the dark.

The main narrative bookending this piece is what pissed me off the most. The movie opens in black and white, and purports to show us Sharon giving an interview in 1968. The interviewer asks her if she has ever had any experiences she considered psychic. Now this in itself is not crazy, as there was quite a trend for metaphysics, spirituality and psychedelia in the '60s and '70s, and this could have been an interesting approach in more competent hands. But Sharon responds that she had a nightmare in which she and her friends are murdered, which "I guess you could consider a psychic experience". We are given no other indication at this point in the story's timeline that could give weight to this idea that a simple bad dream is some form of premonition, and the narrative only seems to show Sharon come to recognise this much later on. This terribly contrived plot device is the frayed string from which the entire narrative precariously hangs.

Now when I did some basic research into this film (which I did when I got to this very point in writing my review), I made a striking discovery about the resume of writer/director Daniel Farrands. Not only is his filmography comprised almost entirely of horror sequels and true crime movies, but he actually wrote the aforementioned The Girl Next Door, which was a very good and considerately handled movie. Interestingly, that was more or less the first thing he wrote in twenty years, preceded by Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers in 1995. This in itself makes me wonder why and how Farrands' ability to craft believable dialogue that propels a difficult narrative seems to have evaporated. On top of this, his more recent credits include another dreadful Amityville movie, and production on an upcoming piece titled The Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson. There is a definite pattern there, which I might not take such a distaste to if not for Farrands' sharply declining standards. In 2007, he proved himself capable of taking a horrific true crime, dramatising it in a way that gives context to the behaviours of its characters, and approaching what is essentially an exploitation picture with utmost dignity, respect and care. Somehow, he is now a shadow of his former professional self.

Farrands' habit of running with the scrag ends of existing narratives smacks of commercial and artistic cynicism. He demonstrates little ability to create original material, and he has absolutely forgotten - or neglected - the way real people speak, which is so crucial to his line of work. Often when we hear of true crime stories, particularly those in which people are somehow convinced or manipulated into committing crime by others, the mind really boggles at how things get from A to B. What does a person have to say, and how do they have to say it, in order to get another person to commit such cruelty on innocents? With The Girl Next Door, Farrands showed us just how an evil adult could have manipulated neighbourhood children into torturing and killing a young girl, and it was his way with dialogue that made these unimaginable events believable. Now, he can't even convince us that a woman is trying to tell her friends she thinks she is being stalked. I mean damn, that's not a lot to ask of a writer who has previously shown his mettle with conveying difficult ideas on screen.

Although The Haunting of Sharon Tate is nowhere near as technically inept as I had expected it to be, it is just a sad, sorry and puzzling excuse of a film. A film doesn't have to be a masterpiece to be redeemable, but this is just the laziest form of 'retelling', and is not entertaining, scary, intriguing or compelling. As unethical as it can seem, it is undeniable that our nature as humans is to find curiosity in the extraordinary, in the things we don't see every day or have never seen before. Whether this is a motorway pileup or a murdered film star, we can't help but be fascinated. But there are so many elements of the Manson crimes that actually warrant elaboration and exploration, that don't disrespect the memories of the victims, and better filmmakers have explored these. Cult mentality, the transition to a life of crime, the death of a social movement; these are all insights that can be gained from these awful events that people can learn from. We gain nothing from 60 minutes of Hilary Duff creeping around in the dark and 25 minutes of crass crime scene recreation. This movie is utterly worthless.

Terrifier (2016)

Several years ago, I wrote here about a movie my sister got me for Christmas, having seen it at an LA film festival. I wrote about how Rell told me that it was the scariest movie she had ever seen, and how I concurred, and how I had actually had trouble sleeping the night I watched it. This movie was All Hallows Eve by Damien Leone.

In 2017, he made his second movie from the Art the Clown universe, entitled Terrifier. It is very clear from the off that Leone was working with a much higher budget this time around, as well as a more liberal deadline. All Hallows Eve was infamously amateur while being well made, and Terrifier is slicker, cleaner (so to speak) and more polished in its presentation, from framing to credits. The single element of the movie that jumped out at me was use of colour. The whole picture is perfectly coloured, with Art's black and white suit blending seamlessly into the nighttime shadows in an urban street. Every sequence is so aesthetically pleasing that it's as if it has been painted on a canvas rather than storyboarded, and in this way the movie is outstanding.

For putting me through this, you are the middle piece!

The narrative of Terrifier is entirely more conventional than that of its predecessor, with the entire film manifesting through a straight, chronological storyline captured by a traditional invisible camera. Because of this, and the lacklustre plot and action, Terrifier is underwhelming on the heels of the traumatising All Hallows Eve. It is not particularly scary, and of all things that I took away from what should have been a scary movie, it was "Wow, that use of colour was fabulous!" I mean, this movie is not trying to be a Tarantino or an Argento that expects the audience to say, "Wow, this disgusting violence is being presented in a very picturesque manner!" I have a feeling it was trying to be disturbing and gross, like the first movie was, but it just doesn't pull it off, despite a single sequence that was slightly darker than the rest of the movie was willing to be.

Apart from the blatantly higher production values, the other thing that slapped me right in the face within the first few minutes of Terrifier was that we were no longer dealing with the same Art the Clown. This Art is obviously trying to be the All Hallows Eve Art, as played by Mike Giannelli, but he is considerably skinnier, and is just... not... Art. I don't know why Giannelli didn't reprise the role that he played so menacingly, but this time round, David Howard Thornton is trying to carry the movie, and not managing to do so.

I thawt you was in a hurry!

Terrifier has its moments, in particular a demented sequence inspired by Buffalo Bill's darkest fantasies, but on the whole, it is an entirely conventional horror movie, and while it is artistically worthy of Damien Leone and his hard working crew, its narrative is not. Leone proved with his humble origins, from YouTube favourite short film maker, to learned devotee of horror with All Hallows Eve, and managed to creep out two hardcore horror fans, which is no mean feat. I see him developing a career like that of Adam Green: he may try his hand at other stories, but will probably continue to expand with Art the Clown on the indie circuit. He definitely has the craft and the passion, but I hope that for his next project, he develops a stronger scripts, and frames it as powerfully as he did with his first feature length film. I have my eye on this fellow.

Hatchet II (2010)

When it comes to post-millennial independent horror series, I don't think Adam Green's Hatchet can be beat. It's not just their technical and artistic proficiency, but the spirit behind them. Green, a kid of the slasher reign of the '80s, is one of those rare artists whose creativity is absorbed in childish imagine, bringing equal measure of excellence and adolescent thrill that no good horror fan has ever really grown out of.

In a Friedkin-style sound jump, Hatchet II jumps straight back in where the first left off, with Marybeth (now scream queen Danielle Harris) neck-deep in grimy swamp water at the hands of the still-not-fucking-dead Victor Crowley (Kane Hodder). A good old-fashioned thumb to the eyesocket sends him toppling overboard the boat and into the water with her, where she is inexplicably saved by old piss-drinker himself Jack Cracker.

He takes her back to his cabin and serves her a refreshing warm cup of piss (and this is before he realises he hates her!) When Marybeth reveals her recently-deceased pappy was Samson Dunston, old Jack cocks his shotgun and tells her to get the hell off his property, and that if she got any questions as to his sudden reversal of attitude toward her, to take it up with Reverend Zombie (Tony Todd).

She makes it back to town somehow, and drops in on Zombie, who reveals to her that her own beloved pappy was one of the three young hoodlums that threw firecrackers at the Crowley house that fateful Halloween night, and is basically directly responsible for the brick-shithouse of a mutant terrorising Honey Island Swamp. He summons his colleague Justin (the wonderful Parry Shen), who it turns out is the brother of Shaun, the hilarious fool whose illegal and "ONLY haunted swamp tour" *smacks with top hat* was the vehicle of the previous night's massacre - and whaddaya know, the guy is the spitting image of his recently-deceased tourguide brother.

Zombie sends him into town with a list of personnel to call to the shop, claiming if he is going to head out into the swamp, there are certain people he'd rather have there for backup. He also tells Marybeth that if she doesn't bring a relative (knowing full well that both her pappy and brother are dead), he will not agree to take her. So she enlists the reluctant help of Uncle Bob, and we are still not sure just what diabolical scheme is behind Zombie's insistence that her family member comes along for an imminent bloodbath.

Having had a fabulous but underexposed cameo in the first Hatchet, adding a few good points to its ensemble of horror icons, it is great to see Tony Todd take Zombie into a feature-length and central character in this sequel. He brings an interesting secondary villain role to the mix, and plays it sinister and yet oddly charismatic, to the point that we are never certain exactly what he's plotting. And naturally, after all of his scheming, he has wiggled his way to the front of the 'creatively horrible death' queue.

So an hour or so later a big old motley crew descend on the Zombie abode, ranging from beefy grey-bearded bikers with confederate flag patches on their denim waistcoats, to slutty girls, to unattractive redneck sex pests. They are all offered $500 a head to supposedly retrieve Zombie's boat, but he promises $5000 for the head of Crowley. Those who are not instantly scared off by the mention of Crowley swagger off into the swamp with guns a-blazin', certain that they needn't fear a 'children's story'. Famous last words.

The real joy of the Hatchet movies is their youthful vigour, with Adam Green at the helm. Dedicated to old-school effects and a zero-tolerance policy towards CGI, Green's series is characterised by its wickedly creative death scenes and its tongue-in-cheek freshman comedic style. For any good horror fan, it is the ultimately enjoyable combination, that makes for fully-loaded entertainment that allows us to laugh hysterically while marvelling in all the really gruesome FX.

All Hallows Eve (2013)

Season's greetings to all! Having just returned from my mum's house for the winter festivities, with a collection of horror movies bestowed to me by my sister, I have much new to write about, and today's is for a movie my sister declared one of the scariest things she's ever seen, and as I have documented here, she is a hardcore fan like me, and does not crack easily. It is All Hallows Eve by one Damien Leone, who research informs me has been developing something of a YouTube following with his short horrors. Two such pictures he incorporates into this anthology feature, his directorial debut.

The movie opens on Halloween night, at a house where Sarah (Katie Maguire) is babysitting two adolescents Tia and Tommy, and they have just returned from trick or treating. Turning out their candy bags, a VHS tape falls out, and the kids manage to wrangle Sarah into letting them watch it. Most definitely ill-advised, but where would a horror movie be without a clueless babysitter who is surely old enough to know better? In a cross between The Ring and Creepshow, the video (as this is one of those few households like mine which actually has a working VHS player hooked up to a TV) ties together the short films of Leone into a feature plotline.

That being said, the plotline is somewhat evasive, and the significance of the tape is dropped on us in the closing minutes. The finale of this movie is thrilling. As is the third of the three shorts on the tape which leads into the finale. The first short involves women kidnapped from a train station by Leone's signature character Art the Clown, played menacingly by Mike Giannelli, and taken to a satanic cult for rape and/or sacrifice. I'm pretty sure I spotted Eden Sher from The Middle as one of the girls, though I have not been able to find anything to back this suspicion up. This short is decent enough - fairly college project-y - and an obvious mark of a decent filmmaker in the making.

The second is somewhat silly, but again, research enlightens me. Poor Leone had some pretty severe monetary and time restraints whilst trying to pull this feature project together, and needed to produce both the middle short film and the core storyline in a frantic rush. And, having been involved in several indie productions, to various capacities, I could totally understand his plight. He said the middle short just didn't come together like he'd imagined. My first year film class project, which I did entirely by myself, was great and got an A, and I was really proud of it. My second year project was interrupted by various difficulties, and despite getting a B, I knew it was a piece of shit. Sometimes creative projects (particularly those with a deadline) just don't work out on paper the way they did in your head, and at least Leone was accepting enough of that to admit it.

Now don't get me wrong - the second short is not bad. It's just... flaccid. It starts well, consequences are dire, things are getting kind of creepy. A woman is moving from the city to an isolated house in the country with her (presently away) husband, when all electronics suddenly shut down and something crashes in the backyard. I think the real error comes with the on-screen acknowledgement of the creature. It's an alien. And a really, really typical looking alien. And it's a guy in a suit. And not only do we see him, but he becomes a very visible second character, which is majorly off-putting. The unknown is often scariest. Art the Clown appears again, quite inexplicably, in the last shot, as the painting the unseen husband has been obsessing over. At this point, I was groping for a link between the character, these two scenarios, and the 'real life' in which a babysitter and two kids are watching.

The third and final short on the tape is the first of several Oh Shit moments in the homestretch of All Hallows Eve. The first two films are really very tame in terms of horror or gore. They could probably both pass for a 12 certificate (or PG-13). The third goes all out, and involves a woman stopping for gas in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. As she pulls up, the attendant is kicking Art out of his joint for smearing shit on the bathroom walls. The attendant gets a pretty raw deal. The girl, however, after thinking she's escaped time after time, suffers one of those fates that you come across every now and then that sears its way onto your brain for life. Although this site carries a hefty Spoiler Alert throughout, this is one element I shall not give away. Because it is probably the shock of it that makes it such an effective bridge to the finale of the Babysitter thread.

And as for the actual ending... what will become of the babysitter and the kids? Again, I shall restrain myself and leave it vague, but I must comment upon what a clever piece of filmmaking it is. In the years that I have looked at film journalistically, I have learned to separate myself from the fiction created by consenting adults working a sometimes challenging job for varying sums. But this ending is one that really got inside my head and played with me, and actually left me struggling to sleep. I very nearly gave in to the trick and turned the movie off prematurely. I tell you, I felt twelve again, struggling to sleep because of a movie! It was almost nostalgic.

Although it's not particularly consistent, All Hallows Eve has a stellar payoff, which justifies its slow build up. It's a really good scare, and that is something I find harder and harder to come by.