Top Five Friday - Horror Films You Might Have Missed

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!

You lookin' at me?

It's that time of year again!  Ladies brave the cold weather to dress in skimpy costumes like Sexy Bert and Ernie, you feel obliged to bring orange-dyed sweets into your office to get gobbled up by your colleagues, and worse of all, you run the risk of getting your front door egged by disgruntled trick-or-treaters not happy with mini-toothpastes and snack size Bountys!

Almost makes you feel like staying in instead, right?  Well that's where I come in!  Last year I recommended five great horror films that focussed on different movie monsters (which you can check out here).  However this year, I'm here to recommend five horror films that you may not have seen, that will still scare the pants off you (hopefully) and leave you remembering why this night is supposed to be so terrifying.

Let's start with one of my favourite horror films of the past few years...

THE BAY

Set among a picturesque American waterfront town as they celebrate the 4th of July, you wouldn't imagine anything to go wrong.  Oh, but it does.  A water-born parasite begins to infect the local fishlife, and then the town's drinking water.  And then the townsfolk themselves.  And the results are gruuuuesome!

The Bay is made up of several live CCTV feeds and handheld personal cameras, which has become a bit stale since The Blair Witch Project, but The Bay manages to still feel fresh and original. Directed by the creepy creature-loving Barry Levinson, famous for the Men In Black films, and the producers of Insidious and Sinister, The Bay manages to create a eerie, disturbing and horrifying image of what damage a parasite like this could do in real life.

Similar to how Jaws made you not want to go in the ocean, The Bay will make you not want to go in the shower or drink a glass of water!

THEM (ILS)

Similar to The Bay, the French film Ils (Them in English) was released with the tagline "You'll Never Feel Safe In Your Home Again" and boy, does it unsettle you and make you lock the front door. Released before the similarly-themed The Strangers, You're Next and Eden Lake, this film is based on a true story of a French couple living in Romania that got terrorised and attacked one night for no reason.

The scares are relentless, the unknown terrorisers are creepy and malevolent with their torturing techniques and the senseless violence is non-stop.  Don't let the fact that the film is in French put you off; hardly any dialogue is spoken in this, as the main couple quickly learn that they must be silent to survive the night.  The final chase sequence definitely will leave a knot in your stomach, as it left a definite impression on me.

SESSION 9

I wasn't a huge fan of abandoned insane asylums before I watched Session 9, and I definitely am not since.  Session 9 tells the story of an asbestos removal crew who begin to experience growing tension whilst working in the aforementioned abandoned asylum.  Whilst working in a back room, one of the crew stumbles across the audio recordings of a former patient who seems to share a connection with one of the ever-decreasing crew members.

Using the method of creeping terror, atmosphere and tension instead of jump-scares and gore, Session 9 truly surprised me in how unsettled I felt without noticing it.  The film is filled with iconic images, like the sunlit wheelchair in the above poster and the magazine clipping-covered bedrooms of the asylum, which will affect you in a more psychological way than at a cheap jump-scare level.

Featuring a fantastic performance by the always-great Peter Mullan and an early role for Josh Lucas, the cast is what makes this film feel so real.  Their arguments and chemistry makes you care and feel for them, especially in such a creepy setting.  The incredible asylum begins to feel like a character in it's own right by the end, creating a definite slow-burning favourite.

WOLF CREEK

Now this film is one that also stays with you after the credits roll.  Starting like a normal backpacking adventure film, two female British tourists and their Australian friend are exploring the Australian outback, culminating at the titular Wolf Creek.  Whilst there, their car breaks down and the helpful and iconic Mick Taylor decides to help them out.  After drinking some of his water, they awake in his trailer park bound, gagged and being tortured.

From there the action really reaches it's peak and doesn't stop until the end of the film.  The film is truly raw and unforgiving in its depiction of violence, making for some truly hard-to-watch scenes. The villainous Mick Taylor has become a cult icon in his own right since the film's release and his psychopathic portrayal is truly worth noting.  The actor John Jarratt makes him initially likeable, before turning ultimately disgusting, all with a gleaming smile and seemingly having the time of his life.

Probably the most wince-inducing and hard-to-watch film on my Top Five Friday list, but the parts you can stand to watch are still a worthwhile thrill-ride.

TRICK 'R TREAT

In keeping with the holiday spirit, it's only fitting that I finish this list with a Halloween-themed film such as Trick 'R Treat.  The fact that Trick 'R Treat is an anthology film, comprised of four short stories centred on a single Halloween night, is what drew me originally towards it.  Anthology horror films such as V/H/S or The ABCs of Death can be handled very poorly and I was curious to see how it compared.  Thankfully, this is one of the best anthology films I've seen in a while.

Every story manages to intertwine with each other, and contains a fairly scary and impressive story in their own right.  Alongside a decent cast of Anna Paquin, Brian Cox and Dylan Baker, the film doesn't hold back in the gore or scares, whilst never taking itself too seriously.  With it's tongue firmly in it's cheek, there are serial killers, undead children, werewolves and sinister, pumpkin-headed 'trick-or-treaters' all out for blood in this blood-splattered romp.  A guaranteed favourite for those who love this macabre holiday.

Until next year folks, thanks for reading and Happy Halloween!

If you enjoyed what you read and you'd like to be kept more up to date with my posts, I can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mike-Dunn-Reviews and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MikeDunnReviews - if you want to help the site grow, give them a 'Like' or a 'Share'!

Don't have nightmares ;)

Lucy

In The Sky With Diamonds

I watched an interesting film recently.  A lovable loser stumbles upon a mystery drug that manages to unlock their brain's full potential.  They are able to learn new languages, skills and become more powerful than they ever have before.  Whilst the film has its problems with nonsensical plot-lines and unnecessary characters, the film is balanced with effective performances from the cast, an amazing soundtrack and an overall interesting idea, which probes certain aspects of science-fiction but doesn't lose it's way. Yes, Limitless was a fantastic film.

Luc Besson must have thought the same thing, as he has basically taken that premise, replaced Bradley Cooper with Scarlett Johansson and turned everything up to 150% for his newest release, Lucy.

In present day Taiwan, Scarlett Johansson plays the titular ditzy blonde American, who falls in with the wrong crowd. After making a drug drop to the amazing Min-sik Choi's crazy-insane crime lord, Mr Jang, Lucy is kidnapped and has a bag of brand new drugs surgically inserted into her body, with the intention for her to be a drug mule into America. However the bag of drugs begin to leak inside her and 'unlocks her brain's full power'.  (God, how I hate that phrase) Eventually her mental capability begins to grow and she starts to gain previously unknown levels of power, whilst steadily losing her humanity.  Morgan Freeman plays an expert conveniently in this exact science, who Lucy contacts to help her control her new-found abilities.

The main problem I had with Lucy was the extent that Besson pushes ScarJo's growing powers and the repercussions that follow.  Whilst Bradley Cooper's failure of a writer in Limitless uses a drug to use his brain's full potential, the film never leaves frames of reference the audience's brain can handle, such as questioning metaphysical theories and entering the veritable minefield of time travel.

The central myth about mankind failing to use more than 10% of their brains gives screenwriters a huge blank canvas of possibilities when the idea of a fully 100% used brain is brought up. A screenwriter must therefore not go completely over the top and make a person a god as Besson does with Lucy. Limitless kept it short and sweet; a person is able to recall every single one of their past memories and therefore have an infinite knowledge of facts they have ever stumbled across. They can master foreign languages in days rather than months. They can make the stock market their bitch.

Lucy's universe, on the other hand, theorises any person capable of achieving 100% brain power is somehow capable of anything, such as being able to control radio signals, regrow limbs and most incredibly time travel. Besson probably knew that the audience wouldn’t believe what they were seeing and so decided to give the straight role to Morgan Freeman to add credence to the claptrap being spouted.

Lucy is the classic case of a film being fantastic until it isn't, and unfortunately it stops pretty early. Halfway through the film, Lucy worries that she is slowly losing her humanity as she becomes more and more powerful. She saves a random French police officer and makes him her pseudo-sidekick to keep her grounded, However, this is barely touched upon again and as a result, Lucy starts becomes uninteresting. The audience cannot connect to her plight and apparent struggle as her powers become too unnatural and her plan to overcome everything is never fully explained.

Despite all these shortcomings, the greatest flaw of the film is its under-use of its villain, Mr Jang played by personal favourite, Oldboy's leading man Min-sik Choi. His vendetta against Lucy reaches ridiculous proportions (similar to the rest of the film) and despite providing entertaining gun fights, he feels wasted as a two-dimensional villain who is just evil for evil's sake. Besson once gave the world memorable villains such as Leon's Stansfield and The Fifth Element's Zorg, played with such glee and sadism by Gary Oldman. Now he resorts to a drug kingpin with pride issues.

If it weren't for it's heightened sense of importance and ego, I would have recommended Lucy as a mindless action film with a kick-ass heroine, but it tries to be too smart and overly-complicated. The film would have benefited from gaps in the action for the audience to wrap our collective heads around the nonsensical development in Lucy's powers, but of course modern-day Luc Besson doesn't believe in gaps in the action. This is why Leon (The Professional in other countries) is considered such a classic.  Character development and empathy is essential in films such as this and that's where Lucy fails in large amounts.

My recommendation? Stay in and watch Leon or Limitless instead.  I wish I had.

Rating - 3/10

Until next time folks, thanks for reading!

If you enjoyed what you read and you'd like to be kept more up to date with my posts, I can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mike-Dunn-Reviews and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MikeDunnReviews - if you want to help the site grow, give them a 'Like' or a 'Share'!

Gone Girl

Amazing Amy

Every so often a film is released that has a plot quite difficult to explain to others.  Sometimes it is due to misleading trailers, such as the interesting documentary Catfish that was hyped as a 'Hitchcockian thriller'.  Other times, a film's confusing plot structure lets it down, like the recent release Sin City: A Dame For Which To Kill. However sometimes a film's ineffable plot is to purposely swerve the audience and provide an unexpected change in narrative.  Gone Girl definitely fits into that final category.  And therefore I am not going to delve too deep into the film's plot, but focus on it's pluses and negatives.

Ben Affleck plays Nick Dunne (what a ridiculous surname), who on his fifth anniversary to his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) discovers she has disappeared in suspicious circumstances.  Since Amy is a celebrity due to her successful child-author parents, media attention begins to grow around her disappearance and slowly Nick becomes the main suspect.

Now I reiterate, I am going to attempt to not reveal any details about what happens later in the story, but all I can tell you is that Gone Girl is a fantastically crafted, suspenseful thriller that keeps you guessing all the way along.  Similar to the David Fincher-directed Se7en, Zodiac and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, Gone Girl's plot is slowly revealed, like a child opening a Wonka chocolate bar and it is obvious that Fincher's masterful hand has been hard at work creating a recognisable and yet hyperbolic world.

I know what you're thinking... But bear with me...

Ben Affleck plays his part well of the not-so-perfect husband at the centre of a media scrutiny, who alongside relative-newcomer Carrie Coon impressively performing as Nick's twin sister Margot attempt to clear Nick's name.  However the plaudits all belong to Rosamund Pike in a career-redefining performance as the titular 'Gone Girl', Amy Dunne.  I have never seen Pike act this well. Honestly she steals this film and if she consistently performs in these sorts of roles, then I see a very different career ahead as opposed to the one where she has been restrained to 'blonde eye-candy'.  But whilst I feel like Pike needs singling out, every single actor and actress delivers an impressive performance, even Tyler freaking Perry outperforms as the dry-witted, wife-murderer's best friend, Defence Attorney Tanner Bolt.  Yeah, the guy who dresses up as the old woman.  Him, he's really good in this!

The director Fincher reunites with Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor and his producing partner Atticus Ross who scored The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Social Network, of which they won the Academy Award for Best Score, and they have created another atmospheric and subtle musical accompaniment that assists in the mysterious and suspenseful plot throughout.  Like their scores before, I am definitely buying it and chilling out to the ambient and peaceful tunes in my spare time.

I hate it when my missing wife photobombs me...

The score is just one way that is evident that Fincher has crafted a fantastic film.  Everything in the film looks pristine and there for a reason.  It's a strange thing to mention but Fincher has a history of always using space well in his films, making scenes claustrophobic when he needs to or turning scenes on their head with the slightest touch or hint to the audience and Gone Girl is definitely one of his strongest films to date.  Switching focus from mass media's current obsession with tragedy, to the importance of outward appearances in today's society, and always commenting on the hidden disappointment most marriages suffer with, the film is definitely suited for current audiences.

Whilst the film is an 18-certificate, hopefully it will still gain enough box office to prove a success.  The only downside I would give it would be the 150 minute running time, however when you are having this much fun, I doubt you'll mind.

Please go see this film. Not only will it hopefully surprise you in that ways it did with me, but then I will be able to discuss it with someone! Oh My God! So much to talk about! It will no doubt be in my Top Ten films come December.

Rating - 9/10

"What have we done to each other?  What will we do?"

Until next time folks, thanks for reading!

If you enjoyed what you read and you'd like to be kept more up to date with my posts, I can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mike-Dunn-Reviews and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MikeDunnReviews - if you want to help the site grow, give them a 'Like' or a 'Share'!