You might Not Have Seen…Home Movie (2008)

I have to say, from the start, that this is not a good movie. It is, however, a good bad movie, because this movie is absolutely bonkers, but in all the best ways. Sometimes you just want to watch a ridiculous movie that makes you go, “wait, WHAT?!” and laugh. This is that movie.

Home Movie is a found-footage style movie featuring a couple filming their twin children, Jack and Emily, throughout various holidays and events. The “twist” is that the twins are complete evil little psychopaths—making them infinitely more likable than their annoying parents. The father is a priest and the mother is a psychiatrist who is supposed to be monitoring the twins, but can’t seem to admit to herself what crazy little sociopaths they really are, until it’s too late, of course. These parents are idiots to the max—they express unbridled amounts of enthusiasm while their children stare back at them with expressions bordering on open contempt.

From the very start of the movie, these parents can’t get killed fast enough for my taste, they’re just so overly-peppy and clueless. They continuously attempt to engage their children, despite the fact that their children are withdrawn and even actively violent—throwing rocks rather than baseballs at their father, making sandwiches out of family pets, that sort of thing. However, the parents still cling to the belief that their children have manageable behavioral disorders. These are parents who completely have it coming to them, as they ignore their children’s Thanksgiving dinner freakout and instead decide to teach them knot-tying and lock-picking skills, which should turn out just fine (spoiler alert, it doesn’t).

The movie tries so hard to build tension, but because of the fundamental us versus them setup of the movie, combined with the parents’ alarming stupidity, I found myself rooting for the psycho twins. The tone of this movie fluctuates wildly, swinging from fart jokes to crucified animals. Even the found footage style is undermined by editing techniques that do not fit, like intercutting scenes, that completely breaks the illusion. Additional problems that are usual to the found footage genre also pop up, such as characters having little to no motivation to be filming or have the camera on them. The father takes the camera with him for a run, but all that is filmed is when he gets back home, so why bring the camera?

There’s not much redeeming this movie besides the horror misreading as comedy, which is actually pretty entertaining. Everything is so obvious to the audience that the tension building becomes silly, and the kids are the only characters worth rooting for, because the parents are just asking for it. I would only recommend this movie as a companion to several glasses of alcohol, and/or multiple joints, because chemical accoutrements really bring out the humor. This is a movie centered around holidays that can bridge the gap between Halloween and Thanksgiving season—for those who need help weaning off the horror movies of October, this movie could be helpful. So for anyone who enjoys a good bad movie, Home Movie is just right for the season, and though it’s definitely a miss, these filmmakers swung for the fences, to hilarious effect.

You May Not Have Seen… November Theme


The time has come for a new You May Not Have Seen theme for the month of November. This month is going to have a Thanksgiving theme, for obvious reasons. A little on the nose, I admit, but how could I resist? The films I review this month will feature Thanksgiving in some way, though it might not be the main feature of the movie. These movies will range in genre, from horror to mostly dramas, as there are not many comedies to feature Thanksgiving. Obviously the holiday will not be the main focus of my reviews, but in some way they’ll remind you to give thanks; mostly giving thanks that your family isn’t as fucked up as the ones you’ll be reading about. Not surprisingly, a lot of movies to feature Thanksgiving also feature fucked up family dynamics. So let my reviews get you in the mood for turkey, cranberry sauce, and awkward family moments.

You May Net Have Seen… The Shining/Room 237

I had the amazing good fortune recently to see on the big screen one of my favorite movies of all time, The Shining, and it was simply incredible. However, it’s come to my attention lately, that a surprising number of people haven’t seen the movie, which to me is mind boggling. I always considered The Shining to be one of the smartest and most classic of horror movies, reliant on psychological terror rather than gore. I also am a tremendous film nerd and watched the film theory documentary Room 237, devoted exclusively to film interpretations of The Shining, and I’ll be talking about both in this review.

If you ever have the opportunity to see this film in theaters, do so immediately! I’ve seen this movie at least a dozen times by now, but it was a completely different movie on the big screen. I entered the theater right as the film opened, with the booming, ominous Dies Irae requiem playing as we follow Jack Torrance up the mountain towards his job interview at The Overlook hotel. I could probably spend an entire article talking about this opening sequence, but it almost makes you dizzy to see it in theater. The continuous shot, twists and turns along with the winding road leading up the Colorado mountains. This maze-like quality is repeated throughout the film in different forms and sets the viewer up for a movie that is full of fake-outs and confusion.

Although on its head this movie feels like a straightforward horror/thriller, but when the movie is on the big screen, there are inconsistencies and unshakeable images that stick with you long after you’ve left the theater. These are the sorts of things that the five film theorists of Room 237 spend the documentary discussing. Though the hotel is explored onscreen at great length (especially by Dany’s exploration via trike), there are things about the layout that do not make sense and register with the viewer subconsciously. Theorist Juli Kearns talks about the window in the room of the office in which Jack interviews, as an overly bright window and a powerful force in the room. It draws your eye in and is noticeable because it is, in fact, an impossible window—the location of the office seems to be somewhere near the center of the hotel, so how is there a window in the office?

John Fell Ryan, one of the other film theorists featured in Room 237, talks more about the inconsistencies, citing the moment Jack is waiting in the lobby of the hotel, reading a Playgirl magazine— an extremely inappropriate and unlikely choice of reading material given the setting. Theorist Jay Weidner speaks of a moment early in the film when Danny’s bathroom door can be seen plastered with stickers. One prominent sticker is Dopey, one of the seven dwarves from Snow White. It is after the audience sees this sticker that Danny receives his first vision of the Overlook hotel (featuring the iconic blood pouring out of the elevators), and afterwards, the Dopey sticker on the door is gone. Danny’s had his first taste of reality, and he’s not a dope anymore. These are small details, easily missed in a first or even second viewing, because Stanley Kubrick wanted that information to be absorbed subliminally, to generate a vague sense of unease, and that things are not right.

For me, the subtext of this film is about the abusive family relationship on display. From the very beginning of the film, a bottle of Joy dish soap is on display is the background, right next to Wendy’s head. Kubrick’s placement of this seemingly innocuous background prop is pure irony, because the Torrance family is completely joyless. It’s telling that at the film’s opening, the family separated—Jack is driving to his interview at The Overlook hotel, and Wendy and Danny are back home in Boulder. This is not a happy and healthy family unit, they’re fractured before the story even begins. Furthermore we learn that while drinking, Jack broke Danny’s collarbone, leading to Jack’s supposed promise to never drink again. However we subsequently learn that this is false, as Jack laments his five months on the wagon to his ghost bartender. The language Jack uses to discuss his wife is deplorable—he calls her a “sperm bank” and blames her for all his troubles, demonstrating a lack of regard for his family, juxtaposed with the reverence he has for The Overlook and his position as caretaker.

In his role of caretaker, however, Jack does very little to look after the hotel. As Juli Kearns notes, it is Wendy who we see doing most of the work around The Overlook. Wendy is a much stronger character than she seems at first, and even the spirits of the hotel admit that they underestimated her resilience. While she first comes off as a meek and subservient wife, we see her question Dick Hallorann when he uses her son’s nickname, and even presses the issue because she knows that he didn’t overhear her using it since they’ve been to the hotel. This woman is much sharper than everyone around her gives her credit for. At the same time, this is a woman who knows what shape her family is in. She knows her husband’s history and abusive nature that hides below the surface, and she rightfully suspects him when her son is injured at the hotel. She also knows enough to take a baseball bat with her when she goes to confront her husband about leaving the hotel. This is clearly not a woman facing abuse for the first time.

Danny is similarly aware of the state of his family unit, and like Wendy, he knows more than anyone else gives him credit for. Danny sees blood and horror when he “shines” in on his parents arguing, because he knows their dynamic, and what will ultimately come of it. His imaginary friend Tony is really an advanced coping mechanism in the face of an unhealthy family. Tony is the one who shows him what The Overlook is really like, and Tony also takes over after Danny has been too traumatized by entering room 237 to function. Tony is the one who writes redrum on the door for Wendy, effectively waking her up, both literally and figuratively, to the danger they are in.

Upon this particular viewing, I stumbled across another angle of interpretation within the film. As I watched the story unfold, I came to the part of the movie when Wendy pushes Danny out the bathroom window to safety, and later Wendy is stuck in the maze of the hotel, while Danny and Jack are stuck in the actual maze outside. I came to realize just how unlikely it is that Danny and Wendy reunite at the end of the movie, with Wendy running out of the hotel just in time to meet Danny running out of the maze. In a hotel and surrounding grounds as large as The Overlook, how the hell did they manage to run into each other at just the right time to escape? The two climb into Hallorann’s abandoned snowmobile and ride to safety. But I noticed as they rode away, a sheet of fog passes by, obscuring their exit. Did they really escape this nightmare scenario? Maybe. But could they also not have made it out with their lives? Could it all be a dream, and perhaps Jack did kill his wife and son—did they disappear into the fog as ghosts?

Of course, there is no answer to these questions. Stanley Kubrick is dead, and even if he wasn’t, he would never give a definitive answer to these film conspiracy theories. Because that’s what film theory is—it’s all interpretation and guesses, with no distinct answer. John Fell Ryan speaks in Room 237 that movies are like quantum physics, in the way that the through act of observing, the thing is changed. Everyone who watches a movie, passes it through their own cipher of life experiences and overall knowledge. It’s why I can watch The Shining and see a movie about abusive families, and another can watch it and see a film that represents the plight of Native Americans (a surprisingly accurate and well-proven reading). Ultimately the film is a true ghost story, everyone sees what they see, and no two viewers see exactly the same thing, just as Kubrick intended.

Room 237 is a fantastically made documentary that particularly appeals to film nerds and horror movie geeks, or just anyone with a love for The Shining, and happens to be streaming right now on Netflix.

You May Not Have Seen… Hellraiser (1987)

The Rubik’s Cube from Hell.

Hellraiser is not a movie for the squeamish or faint of heart. In fact, I mostly recommend this film to those who enjoy their movies with heaping portions of blood, gore, and sex. This movie focuses on the base urges and repulsions of its characters, mainly sex and decay. The push of repulsion combined with the pull of attraction reverberate throughout the film. Though not necessarily what I would call a classic film, director and writer Clive Barker has a clearly unique vision, and a distinct handle on the realm of fantasy and horror.

Clive Barker is a horror/fantasy novelist, and this film Hellraiser is an adaptation of one of his own novellas, which makes sense once you watch it, because there is a rich undercurrent of lore that unfortunately doesn’t make it all the way into the movie. Let me explain. This movie follows the misadventures of a puzzle box that, when tampered with, opens a portal to a dimension filled with S&M horror demons known as cenobites. With me so far? Good, because as the story introduces our main characters, stepmother, father, and daughter Kristy, we soon learn that the father’s brother Frank, the most recent victim of the puzzle box, was having a fetishistic relationship with the stepmother. Does that feel a little convoluted? It is. However, Barker uses this strange setup to craft a film that draws a direct line between sex and violence, where everything revolves around blood.

Frank is reborn in his brother’s attic when his brother’s blood, stemming from a recent wound, spills across the floor. Frank, “births” himself from the floor of the attic in a glorious scene of disgusting gore and sticky body goo. The practical special effects in this film are absolutely incredible, and the movie is worth watching for them alone. As Frank and the stepmother launch into a killing spree to help Frank reconstitute his body, his form becomes a dripping, oozing, mess of bodily horror, with blood constantly glistening on his face and soaking through his clothes.

The gore and viscera in this film is an art form, and the creature design and makeup are even better. The cenobites are creations straight out of hell, or perhaps the mind of a sadistic fuck (meant purely as a compliment, Mr. Barker!). Unfortunately you’re still left with the feeling that there’s been a lot cut out of this movie, because there has. The final cut of this movie is a bit of a hacked up mess, due to British actors’ lines being dubbed over by Americans, and extensive edits needed to appease the MPAA, leaving me yearning for a director’s cut. The end result here is a sometimes disjointed and inconsistent, but ultimately enjoyable movie.

I’ll leave this warning again, those who are easily grossed out should stay away, because the effects are often utterly revolting, and that is exactly why I happen to like it so much. Few movies achieve this level of excellence in practical special effects, The Thing and The Fly immediately come to mind, so that alone is commendable. Add to this the creation of new horror legends with the puzzle box, Pinhead, and his fellow cenobites, and this film becomes not only worthwhile, but sickly twisted fun.

You May Not Have Seen… Child’s Play (1988)

Long before there was Annabelle, there was Chucky.

Everyone knows about Chucky, the evil doll that’ll be “your friend till the end…” of your life, but not everyone has actually seen Chucky’s debut in the original Child’s Play, which is a shame. It’s a fun movie that started a horror franchise, and was made by the same writer/director team who created Fright Night and Thinner, so the movie never takes itself too seriously—and for good reason, because it’s about a doll.

There are many films that feature creepy dolls as a horror trope, so many in fact, that antique dolls now seem inherently terrifying all on their own. The creepy doll trope is similar in many ways to the fear of clowns, both serve symbols of childhood and happiness juxtaposed with uncanny exaggerated and distorted features of glee. Child’s Play is easily the best of these movie to focus on this theme, because of the way it co-opts these fears and adapts them into the story of a serial killing doll.

I think the movie is at its best in the first half, before Chucky even “comes to life” in front of the audience and characters. The beginning sequences emphasize small, unsettling moments—like the doll disappearing, or TV turning on—playing on the uneasy idea of our toys coming to life. The first half of the movie also casts doubt on Chucky’s owner Andy, rather than jumping straight to Chucky taking center stage. This proves to be an effective decision, because it introduces a level of suspicion, as Andy talks to his “special friend,” who only speaks to him; creepy children are almost as ubiquitous in horror as creepy dolls.

In the second half of the movie, Chucky “comes alive” and ramps up the body count, terrorizing his way around the mother character’s improbably large Chicago brownstone. Once Chucky really gets going there’s great use of a first person “doll cam,” memorable kills (the voodoo man and doctor really stand out), and some truly great quips. Chucky reaches Freddy Kruger status as a wisecracking, foul mouthed villain who becomes more entertaining than the sequels they’ll inevitably star in.

Way too nice of an apartment for a department store clerk.

 

Though this is not what I would consider a great film, or even necessarily a classic, it is still a solid horror movie that delivers fun and scares in near equal portions. There are genuinely creepy moments in this movie, and a moderate amount of gore, and although some viewers might be turned off due to the killer being a realistically unintimidating doll (seriously, grab the feet, and beat the darn thing against the wall!), Chucky as a character is entertaining enough to ignore any improbability.

If you like a side of laughs with your horror, Child’s Play is a solid, fun movie, far more satisfying than some recent doll horror attempts (looking your way, Annabelle), and the start of a rewarding and enduring horror franchise.

You May Not Have Seen… The Amityville Horror (1979)

 

The most distinctive windows in film history

The haunted house is one of the most prevalent horror tropes, one that has lately seen a resurgence in popularity. Movies like The Conjuring and Paranormal Activity have been raking in large profits for movie studios, because who doesn’t love a good haunting story? Family in a house besieged by evil spirits is a simple concept, but I believe the most direct precursor to the current trend of haunted house movies is The Amityville Horror. The film was based off of a book inspired by the “real life” experiences of a couple living in their very own murder-house on Long Island. This (contested) true story spawned multiple sequels, a remake, and countless imitators because it so successfully parlayed our fears surrounding the persistence of traumatic memories and the deterioration of family, into horror.

The film wastes no time hiding the tragic past of the house, and opens with the DeFeo murders that took place before our hero family moves in, so the new family is completely aware of house’s history. James Brolin’s character claims, “houses don’t have memories,” as a way to sweep away traumas of the past, but even though houses may not remember, people do. Jarring shots of the murders are intercut with scenes of the new couple touring the house, to suggest that they are complicit with the truth of their new home. Whether their knowledge of the murders influenced their behavior or not is up to you to decide, but as soon as the new family moves in, strange things begin to happen.

One of the most effective aspects of this film is the slow build of paranormal activity. More recent haunted house flicks tend to ramp up the scares quickly, and things go from zero to 60 relatively quickly, making the family seem willfully ignorant by not leaving the house. The escalation in this film is much more gradual, starting with small events —papers moving, faint laughter, etc. It takes a while for the family to begin to believe there’s something wrong with the actual house, making it much more believable that they would stay for so long.

What this film does so well is merging the paranormal horror with real life fears. As with most haunted house movies, the “spirits” reach out to the children first—Margot Kidder’s character learns of her daughter’s new “special friend.” There are many horror movies that feature a child with an invisible friend, often warning of the mayhem soon to come. Kids in the real world say all sorts of weird things like this. Most of the time parents ignore it, though sometimes they’re left with the lingering thought, “what if it’s not all make believe?”

Of course, the children’s link to the ghosts isn’t the only source of familial terror—that job is also filled by James Brolin’s character, whose slow descent into madness and aggression preceded Jack Nicholson’s role in The Shining by a year. Although Nicholson delivered a more memorable performance, The Amityville Horror grounds Brolin’s character in a more realistic way. It is important to note that the family unit in this film is not “intact,” and Brolin is the stepfather to this family. This is key, because his resulting madness not only plays off fears of the husband who suddenly snaps, but begs the questions, how well can you know someone, and how much can you trust someone you invite into your family?

Though this film at times feels its length (pushing two hours), the way that this film incorporates real-life fears and worries is masterful. Perhaps it’s because the story and characters are based off of real people and, arguably, real experiences, this ghost story feels more grounded in reality. But even if you’re not taking an analytical approach to watching, there’s enough going bump in the night to keep anyone entertained. The walls ooze blood, and toilets bubble over with evil black goop, so there’s really a lot here to like. Haunted houses go with Halloween like chocolate and peanut butter, so before you peruse Netflix for a recent entry into the genre, give the Amityville Horror a try, and enjoy an original.

You Might Not Have Seen… The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

What would you do if you were being chased by a chainsaw wielding maniac? Scream. Scream a lot.

For my first foray into my reviews of horror movie classics you may not have seen, I have selected The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a film ubiquitous with the horror genre and a fantastic representation of 1970s American horror films. From the costumes to the grainy, blown out look of the picture, this movie has groovy 70s grindhouse written all over it. The bell-bottoms are huge, the hair long, and I can’t help but feel like one character’s meat-hook fate was due, in part, to her completely backless halter top.

Director Tobe Hooper, who would go on to direct Poltergeist (under heavy supervision by Stephen Spielberg), used his location greatly to his benefit. Filming took place in Texas for four weeks in the middle of summer, with temperatures regularly exceeding 100 degrees. The cast had to suffer the heat while trapped in sets containing bones, dead animal carcasses, and fake blood. Many characters had blood-stained costumes that could not be washed—several weeks of accumulated body odor made the experience all the more miserable for the actors.  

A sense of the grotesque permeates every aspect of this film. Sets display a general air of decay and desecration through the literal display of animal carcasses, bones, teeth, feathers, blood, and human remains. The film is saturated with death, from the first shots of human corpses and a dead armadillo, belly up in the road.  The camera cuts often to extreme close ups that dissect the image, usually human body parts, into pieces, reflecting the utilitarian view of the human body shared by the villainous family featured in the infamous “dinner scene.”  

And you thought your family was messed up…

Terror in the dinner scene comes not from a silent Michael Myers-type character, but from a crazed, deranged family unit—a family unit that sees human beings as things: meat, bones, blood, and even dining room decor. Humans are indistinguishable from animals to this family, and they attempt to dispose of the “final girl” using the same slaughter method that was espoused by the crazy hitchhiker earlier in the film.

But really, why should you see this movie? Beyond its classic status in the pantheon of horror films, this movie is a solid, well-crafted horror movie that is surprisingly accessible to horror novices and the squeamish. Despite its reputation, the gore in this film is relatively tame—most of the violence happens offscreen or is otherwise obscured from view. The violence exists in the imagination of the audience, so there are scares, but little viscera. When searching for a classic and enjoyable horror movie to watch, you’d be well served with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The film clocks in at just under an hour and a half, with minimal build up before the crazy starts to go down, so it doesn’t take long for the fun to start, and the movie doesn’t overstay its welcome.  

So for your next scary movie night, trip back to the 70s with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a movie that reminds you that maybe your family isn’t so crazy after all.