Halloween time and so my top 5 horror films of the 21st century.
House of the Devil (2009)
One of the most promising directors around is Ti West. He filmed House of the Devil in a faux early 1980s cinematic style and the delivery is entirely plausible, down to the opening titles, music and overall feel of the film. West manages to overcome any sense of self awareness that might have befallen a lesser director. The theme is also reminiscent of the era – When a Stranger Calls springs to mind – with its central character accepting a bizarre babysitting job and consequently becoming trapped in a rather unwholesome household.
House of the Devil is an impressive horror with an unsettling ending reminiscent of Rosemary’s Baby. It’s also worth mentioning Tom Noonan as the weird Mr Ulman, outstanding in an unashamedly creepy role as the head of the demonic household. Ti West has recently followed with the slightly more sober but no less interesting The Innkeepers. Next up, he appears to be working on a couple of portmanteau horrors with other directors: V/H/S and The ABCs of Death.
The Mist (2007)
Adapted from a Stephen King story by Frank Darabont, the director who was also responsible for The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. This is firmly back in the usual King territory, and the setting is both familiar and horribly terrifying. A group of people take refuge from a sudden and oppressive mist inside a supermarket; some resorting to religious mania, other braving the unseen monsters outside and other fighting off the giant insects that get in.
The cast are very good and feature the excellent Marcia Gay Harden and the British actor Toby Jones. The Mist reminds of the later Monsters with its apocalyptic air, although this a much more impressive feature. The painfully ironic ending is one of the best and most shocking in modern cinema.
[Rec] (2007)
The best of the found footage genre, the Spanish film [REC] is the first of our top three 21st century horrors which are all interestingly foreign language films. Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza deliver one of the most claustrophobic films ever made, set inside a dark and labyrinthine apartment block where an emergency team investigate some unusual, dark and violent goings on. Add to that a film crew, lock the doors and light the blue touch paper.
[REC] has now spread into a trilogy, with the second film being released in 2010 – also excellent – picking up exactly where the first left off. It introduces some fresh ideas into the tired found footage theme (look out for two cameras on the go here) and attempts to explain what is exactly going on without laboring the point too much. The third film, [REC] Genesis, spins off in another direction entirely with a wedding setting and, whilst bizarre indeed, received some very unkind reviews when it was released in 2012. The whole trilogy is essential viewing and the fourth, [Rec] Apocalypse, will be most welcome.
Switchblade Romance a.k.a Haute Tension (2003)
As we get to the top of the list the films now do get decidedly weirder. Strangely, with these last two I do think that the less you know about them will actually enhance your viewing. Switchblade Romance is a French horror directed by Alexandre Aja and the film has received some criticism for its audacious ending. Indeed it is difficult to digest, and apart from Michael Haneke’s Funny Games perhaps, I can think of no other film that is such a challenge to the viewers notion of cinematic rules.
However, I found Switchblade Romance engrossing, and the unexpected twist makes perfect sense if you watch closely and notice the clues. Aja is quite a master of pace, and the films edges quite comfortably into full on mayhem, and is essentially a story of obsession that focuses on the two lead female characters. The last scene is very effective, which plays a final subtle trick on the now exhausted viewer.
Martyrs (2008)
Finishing with another French horror, which was incidentally found too shocking in its native country and banned, Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs is an uncompromising masterpiece. Where my jaw hit the floor for the last two thirds or Switchblade Romance, it was there for the duration of Martyrs. The film is a series of unexpected twists and awful detours, and for this reason I would dissuade anyone from reading a synopsis of the film or finding out any more than the merest details before viewing. Believe me, it’s better that way.
The greatness of Martyrs is how it leads the viewer into totally unusual territory, and it is almost incomprehensible how anyone could actually think of such a nightmare series of scenarios. There’s also some similarity to Switchblade Romance in the dual female leads. Laugier has recently been snapped up by more conventional producers to revive the Hellraiser franchise. Perhaps he’ll do something interesting with it.
It was likely that any sequel to The Wicker Man would be a disappointment, especially after nearly 40 years of waiting. But the news that Robin Hardy would once again write and direct, and that Christoper Lee would star, added some possibility that this had the makings of a cinematic treat.
But unfortunately I feel like I should cut to the chase and tell you the bad news, that The Wicker Tree is an awful film. The premise has some similarities to the original, with heathen goings on and ritual sacrifice in Scotland but the comparisons really end there. But what’s lacking is the excellent soundtrack of the original and much of the quirkiness of the film. The main problem with The Wicker Tree is that we don’t really care about the protagonists. The reason for this is that Hardy provides two excruciatingly gormless American born again Christians. Five minutes into the film, I was rooting for them to be bumped off.
Sadly, Christopher Lee only supplies a cameo, and it’s a vague scene tacked on to the film that makes little sense. Graham McTavish who plays the Lord Summerisle type role, Lee’s in the original, is a poor actor by contrast. Little more to add about this, other than it veers so far off track that the ending is something of a tribute to the far superior Carry on Screaming.
The themes of the original Wicker Man haven’t really left cinema, with usually the more obscure films carrying on the tradition of heathen cults. The latest, and possibly the best British film of the last few years, is Kill List. Ben Wheatley’s second feature as director has received some polarised views from its audience. It’s an unusual, high original blend of domestic drama, mob thriller and horror film that has teased some to the point of anger. The film is admittedly confusing, although watching it twice allowed me the opportunity to make more sense of it, although I advise that this is viewing for the stronger constitution.
I enjoyed Kill List. It is genuinely unsettling because of the uncertain narrative structure, and like the best cinema doesn’t guarantee that all of the answers posed in the film can be answered. Kill List and its predecessor Down Terrace place Wheatley as the most interesting director currently working on British cinema. Both are highly recommended as he has a signature to his film making style. Also both are very complementary and share many of the same actors, including the excellent Michael Smiley. I eager await Ben Wheatley’s next film Sightseers.
I found it hard to relax during Prometheus. Not because it was particularly frightening, although it does have its moments, but because I’ve been living in fear that this film would be a disappointment. It is slightly, and whilst it really inhabits a different universe entirely to Ridley Scott’s original Alien, there’s no real justification to condemn it too much. Perhaps there are too many comparisons to make, not just with the 1979 film but the countless other science fiction movies made since then which inhabit our memories and challenge any new offering with appearing unoriginal or dated.
Oddly, Prometheus reminded me somewhat of Mario Bava’s 1965 Planet of the Vampires with its tight fitting and uncomfortable looking leather spacesuits. This is a quirky coincidence, although I was forced to make comparisons with other films because there is nothing original in Prometheus to take away, the most memorable aspect of it being merely reconstructions of H.R.Giger’s original designs.
But there are good things in Prometheus. Despite a ropey script, Michael Fassbender is excellent as the android David, who is seen early in the film modelling himself on Peter O’Toole in Laurence of Arabia with dyed blond hair and clipped English pronunciation. An amusing touch, although I think Trevor Howard in Lean’s Brief Encounter would have been even better as a starting point for him. And I’m not sure where Guy Pearce is coming from in this film, appearing only briefly and made up as a very old upper class man (in looks at least, it feels like he’s hobbled in from the end of 2001).
Idris Elba and Rafe Spall are also good in support and Noomi Rapace is satisfyingly suitable in the Ripley-ish role, although there is a general lack of tension throughout. The best parts, where Rapace is in peril, are fairly sparse and Fassbender’s role in her fate is a little muddled. We never really find out if he’s a dastardly baddie or benign in a confused android way.
Overall the film does appear to lack some clear thinking, most notably the opening and closing scenes, which attempt to explain the role of the space jockey (glimpsed at the beginning of the original film) and what exactly he was up to. And fails at this really, unless I wasn’t paying proper attention. Or if that’s for the next film to properly iron out. Best of all probably is the scene involving Rapace and a self-administered Caesarean which does cleverly draw on Alien lore to make its effect felt. Other Alien-isms are scattered throughout, and I hope I’m not giving too much away when I ask this: you’d think by now that they would be able to fix an android’s head a bit more securely to its shoulders…
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