Retrospective Review: Frailty

" May God welcome you, and keep you."

Frailty is a film that crept under my skin over time. At first I remember being very impressed, even taken aback by how good it was, but I had to allow for the fact that I watched it alone at 2AM in otherwise deserted house. So I had to factor in a tired delirium and a favoring atmosphere. But the more I thought about it, the ideas it had played with and how strong the performances were, the film's reputation within the confines of my mind was rising, until I'd has all the mental chinese whispers I could take and watched it again. And do you know what, I'm tempted to call this film the forgotten great of the 2000's, a film so enjoyably rich that despite rough edges, is worth going to the mat for. Maybe because it pushes so many of my movie going buttons, I'm inclined to be a little kinder to it then it possibly deserves, although to be clear it deserves a lot of kindness. A fantastic southern gothic noir fused with a slasher movie, it manages to be a horror story about its characters, that gets you to invest in them and their journey. Violence is present, but its gore is not the point. Its about a family that loves each other, and how violence tears them apart. As far as I'm concerned that's the best kind of horror movie, where the horror serves the story rather then being the point in and of itself. It allows me to forgive whatever roughness around the edges there are in Frailty. And if I'm being honest there are a few, possibly an entire storyline, But if anything deserves to be more then a sum of its parts its Frailty, a film with more balls then most and evidence that Bill ' YOU CAN COUNT ME OUT!' Paxton may be this generation's Charles Laughton.

To explain that obnoxiously obscure reference, Laughton was an enormously successful actor back in the day, most famous for playing Henry VII, when movies were as old people wish they could be forever. The man took one stab at directing, and came out with the dark, southern Gothic masterpiece 'The Night Of The Hunter', A movie I love to the point where it might be inadvisable. Featuring a career best Robert Mitchum as psychopathic preacher, Rev. Harry Powell who pursues two children through the wilderness after killing their mother. It was ahead of its time, made abundantly clear by the way nobody saw it, it was a gigantic flop and Laughton vowed to never make a film again. And he didn't. I'm not quite ready to say that Frailty is as good as that film is, but of the many films that played on it, Frailty comes closest to achieving its success, becoming a dark look at the values of the south, from Religion to family to morally justified violence.

" You're my son, and I love you more than my own life."

Paxton plays single father to two sons, living out an unassuming life in which he's a mechanic and they get C grades from school. But one night, Paxton wakes his kids up and tells them that he's been given a mandate from God, told by the almighty the end is coming and its his job to hunt demons as judgement day approaches. Whilst his younger son Adam buys into this entirely, his older son Fenton begins to think his loving attentive father has gone insane. Horror is often about the break-up of the family unit, but what I love about Frailty is that Paxton's religious mania doesn't take away his positive qualities, in the eyes of the viewer and of his children, he's still the same great man. Just now he kills people. A trick it pulls by placing you in Fenton's shoes, and taking that real life moment of when you realize your parents word isn't gospel, and twisting it to create something horrifying. Taking a safe place and invading it with corruption and dread. But alas, nobody saw it and Bill Paxton fucked off to play a Mormon on HBO's Big Love.

Paxton is an easy actor to mock. There's his endlessly quotable role in Aliens of course, which the world has kind of turned on in the last decade. There's a couple of vapid attempts an leading man in things such as Twister and Vertical Limit, sure. But there's also his terrific, psychopathic vampire Severen in Near Dark, there's his solemn and affecting performance in quote Sam Raimi's best film A Simple Plan unquote. One could even point to True Lies and say he's the best thing about a colossal mess of a movie. He's a much more interesting actor then people realize, and that's never more apparent than his performance in Frailty. Which has no precedence, even if you're a fan of the man's work. It's such a thoughtful take on crazy, a man torn between what he believes and what he loves, and Paxton gives the character such a sense of dignity, of sincerity, that you can't help but empathize with him. If there was a time when Bill Paxton deserves an Oscar nomination was ever at its least ridiculous, then it was here. A word too for Matt O' Leary, who gives a very strong, mature performance in a difficult role as Fenton. Even Reign Of Fire's Matthew McConaughey turns in a good performance, yet again demonstrating if he wasn't such an all purpose paycheck whore he can be a very good actor.

" Are We Superheroes Dad?"

Frailty is not without its flaws though. The film is split up into two narratives, there's the flashback to young Fenton's dilemma, whilst we see the elder, McConaughey shaped Fenton detailing the story to and FBI Agent. I think film would have been stronger if it had entirely ditched the McConaughey stuff. Not because there's anything wrong with him, but because it does take away some of the urgency and claustrophobia out of the film that we can keep cutting away to the FBI Office whenever things get too intense. In a way it shows a lack of conviction, and I'm certain that if this film had been solely about its central narrative, without the need to dress it with a flashback structure or a well-written but entirely superfluous voice-over, it would have been even more effective. Similarly the film has an ending that will certainly polarize, I found it to be effective if a little unnecessary, but I imagine it will ruin the film for some. And that's an understandable response.

But Frailty is such an ambitious, bold work that I can forgive some structural woes and wheel-spinning. I can forgive that it got slightly caught up in the early 00's Sixth Sense fueled twist phase, in which gut-punching your audience became more important then telling a coherent story, or the fact that maybe one or two more drafts of the script might not have hurt. As it stands, the execution probably doesn't match the ambition, the ideas perhaps more gripping than what is done with them. But in spite of that, whenever its in that house with that family then it becomes one of the most potent, intelligent horror films simply because the nightmare is set against normalcy and they do everything we do. Its a film that is vastly more concerned with character then scares and thus becomes a unique, disturbing experience exactly because it let it evolve out of something honest. Or just because its awesome.

Rating: 8/10

Horror Week: Top 10 Episodes of Buffy The Vampire Slayer

The next horror orientated post is a tribute to the show that made me fall in love with television, or at least marvel at how much it can do. Buffy The Vampire Slayer may not be the best show ever, but it sure was the most imaginative and when it got it right, well. Melts your face. So, without further ado.

Honourable mentions: Lover's Walk, The Wish, Innocence, The Gift, Chosen, Storyteller, School Hard, No Place Like Home, Who Are You?

10) Superstar, ( Season 4, Episode 19)

This episode is everything I love about Buffy The Vampire Slayer, granted its messy and perhaps judging stringently on quality there are better episodes, but none so thoroughly representative of everything the show did so wonderfully and innovatively right. Some backstory. This episode's protagonist Jonathan - imagine the nerdiest most pathetic being you can - began the show as an extra, a kid who almost died in season 2 episode 'Inca Mummy Girl', and whose survival was a punchline. A punchline so hilarious it lasted about 2 years, in which the fact that someone so inherently pathetic as Jonathan would continue to survive in this universe, brought many meta-chuckles to loyal fans. Some depth was finally brought to him in 'Earshot', but this episode was such a wonderful antithesis to a guy who existed to be laughed at by both the audience and the characters, pretty much a sight gag, and turn him into the most awesome guy in the universe was just inspired.

Our titular hero casts himself into an alternate world where he is a superhero, a millionaire and starred in The Matrix. In which he can do everything perfectly and everybody loves him, hell they even redesigned the credits to feature 100% more Jonathan, and its capped off by one of the best guest performances in the series run by Danny Strong. I think they lucked out that he was such a strong actor, because all he'd done previously to this was whimper in the corner. This is could have been an abysmal high-concept mess, but largely thanks to Strong, its one of the most fun hours the show ever produced. Innovative, hilarious and even a little affecting.

9) The Body ( Season 5, Episode 16)

The lowness of this positioning is probably heresy to the learned Buffy law, as laid down by a thousand terrifying Whedon fanatics, but fuck it. Here's the thing. The Body is undoubtedly a fantastic episode of television, its a calm meditation on death on a show that rarely slows down to stop, Its a wonderfully subtle example of just how thoughtful Buffy can be when it wants to be, something that often gets lost amongst tales of musicals and resurrections, to a level that almost exceeds any of its peers. Can you imagine Supernatural doing an episode like this, or Lost. Or anything? Why its not higher is that I would say that at times the acting doesn't match the writing, but its still a barn-stormingly revelatory episode of television in that its not afraid to be quiet. Because that only amplifies the despair.

8) Villains ( Season 6, Episode 20)

Season 6 of this show is something that everybody brings up when they mention bad seasons of great TV shows. It usually goes something along the lines of where's my mystical bad guy, where's my sense of fun, and why is Spike such a whiny bitch. Remember when he was a badass, coz I sure do. But in a way I'm tempted to say Season 6 is the bravest year of the show, far from the best obviously, any season that features the hideous 'Doublemeat Palace' can't claim anything of the sort. But its so balls out in its darkness, so unrelenting in breaking the camaraderie of our heroes, and sending them all of into spiralling pits of despair. A lot of it doesn't work, but when it did it was like nothing the show had done.

I'm tempted to say that Warren was the year's secret weapon, with a great slow burn performance by Adam Busch, as a villain who started out as light comic relief -as part of 'The trio' three nerds who band together to be supervillains - when the darker stuff was all Buffy's internal struggle and shit, but by the end turned into a pretty twisted, nasty fuck. And that culminated in villains, where Warren killed Willow's adorable girlfriend Tara and turned Willow, who before this season was surely high in the running for most morally upstanding character in TV history, into Psycho-witch, who promptly tracks him down, ties him to a tree and skins him alive. The fucking end. Happy Thursday night America. Villains works so well because, in a way that the show only bettered once it goes further then you think it will dare, and ends up being one of the most morally ambiguous hours of Superhero TV ever, and certainly one of the darkest. So say what you want about season 6, but it was worth it for how it built up to this hour.

7) Graduation Day ( Season 3, Episodes 21 & 22)

Buffy was never afraid of being operatic, not by a long shot, but I think this still stands as the Grandiose episode the show ever produced, in tone and execution, finale be damned. Sure this was before the show discovered decent special effects and before it could blow up cities and such, but in pure good guy versus the bad guy terms, in sense of adventure and awesomeness terms, Graduation Day is just the shit. I'm perhaps less of a fan of the Faith arc then some, I liked it in places, particularly once they aligned her with Mayor Wilkins, but Eliza Dushku as a lot of Dollhouse fans will attend to, is not necessarily the strongest actress. But again it was a story wonderfully told, and the writing of her character worked perfectly whether the performance did or not. Graduation Day saw the pay-off of The Buffy Vs Faith, or if you want to be a douche the battle between one's good and one's evil, and it worked like the best comic book movie rivalries do, all epic knives at dawn and shit.

And that's just part one. Because part two gives itself over to the afore-mentioned Mayor, and while perhaps there's less meaning, there's more awesome. I'm tempted to call Harry Groener's performance as the mayor my favourite performance of the series, just because the character begins as such a one-note 'what if Ned Flanders was a super-villain' flunkie, and became such a rich character, in spite of us knowing next to nothing about him. And Graduation Day let him take centre stage in a way the show had resisted previously. Then he turned into a snake and rinsed everybody.

6) The Zeppo, (Season 3, Episode 13)

Of all the episodes of this show, even the ones higher in this list, I would rather watch this then any if them. I'd rather watch this then do anything else in the world. Comedic hyperbole style. But I digress. Buffy The Vampire Slayer is the show that it is because it took its emotional reality seriously, even if it didn't take its reality seriously. Things mattered, our characters could get hurt and were vulnerable. Its this sincerity that allowed it to reach the heights it did, but it also meant that when it did occasionally dip into that irreverent well wholeheartedly, it usually came out with something golden. Too much irony is a bore but just the right amount can allow for something special to happen and here it kind of did. Call it Buffy The Vampire Slayer's 'Modern Warfare' only a decade before.

There's two things that make it such a stellar episode, first because its a meta-piss rip of the show, done in a way that neither degrades the show nor glorifies it. Although I did appreciate the show making light of the numerous emote-a-buffy scenes we got during the show's early years. And secondly because its pure entertainment, 40 minutes of television dedicated to nothing but making you smile, and leaving you happier then the most feel-good movie can leave you. Its just awesome. Xander kind of got jipped in the Buffy long-run, having frighteningly few episodes to take centre stage, but that kind of only makes this one better. Benched by the evil-fighting team, Xander ends up on a side-adventure with a undead street-gang, each in varying states of decay. While the rest of the crew are of preventing a apocalypse, gloriously reduced to a contextless 10 minute sub-plot, what is Xander to do but save the day. Watch out for the mailbox.

5) Becoming ( Season 2, Episode 22 & 22)

I would imagine more has been written about this episode then any other. Its one of those ones that's brought up in a it changed television kind of a way, and in a lot of ways I think it did. Its also a testament to how far the show had come in its second season, one of the strongest examples of a show finding out what it wants to be one mind-boggling and game-changing step at a time. And by the time we reached Becoming, the show had matured so much, done so much that nobody would think it capable of, that no-one was expecting it to just blow the top off the high peaks it had already reached. Of the two I like the first more, sketching in the character of Angel with flashbacks and contrasting that with the demonic Angelus of the present.

But more then that it was just so fucking elegant. It turned a show about a girl who kills things with a stick into one of the finest examples of storytelling in its medium, and Becoming was the fitting conclusion to the most daring season of TV in history.

4) Restless ( Season 4, Episode 22)

The one with all the dreams, as it has become aptly known. Joss Whedon's ode to dreamscapes came as a footnote to a batshit fourth year, which contained much of the worst and much of the best Buffy had to offer. Not one to sit on his laurels, the show broke its usual the bigger the better finale policy and turned in the dream episode. Something that every TV show does at one time or another, but none so emphatically as this. I should say that at this point that I think that Restless works because of not only how contained, inventive and the majesty of some of the imagery. But because its a final chapter. Its the point that Buffy isn't about teenagers any more, and in a way its a perfect way to say good-bye to that chapter, because isn't high-school all some horrific hallucination really? Another fine example of how many things the show does well, equally at home in absurdity as irreverence. In melodrama as in horror, and in a way this episode has all of these things. Unforgettable, truly.

3) Hush ( Season 4, Episode 10)

If it wasn't for stupid Riley this would probably be higher, but c'est la vie. It might surprise a person non-acquinted with all things Sunnydale how little the show dipped into fairy tale mythology, preferring to dwell within the lore of 19th century horror lore instead. But there's something about the innocence of fairy tales that lulls you in, so the darkness is all the more horrifying. This statement has never been more true then for Hush, what I'd submit as the scariest episode of the show by a long shot. The Gentleman were such a wicked invention, looking like a ghost crossed with a zombie, only with perfect etiquette and 3000 dollar suits, they glide down corridors on air and gently applaud each other when they cut out your heart. Oh and did I mentioned they steal you're voice, so when all that other shit happens you'll have nothing to scream with? Good times.

It was also quite the statement too from the Buffy team, often accused of leaning on pre-Diablo Cody dialogue to patch over the cracks, creating an episode that works on such a magnificent level where nobody says anything for half an hour of the running time is a mark of genius. And watching this for the first time is akin to that moment you know you're watching something special as it unfolds in front of your eyes, and after it clicks, it proceeds to blow your mind. Love it.

2) Once More With Feeling ( Season 6, Episode 7)

Its tempting to rag on this episode because amongst other things, it had a large hand in the existence of Glee. But you can't, because its quite possibly the most ambitiously original episode of TV of all time, well it was anyway, with the quality to match. These aren't just empty musical numbers, empty karaoke. Each song comes from character and there has never been such a raw episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not in all seven seasons. Its more evidence that Whedon's characters are at the most honest when they're not talking, and forced to express themselves in other ways. Music it turns out, is the perfect medium for Buffy The Vampire Slayer. In a way it always was an opera, and all the stuff it did best involved going full out for something until its gone further then you could imagine. Once More With Feeling does this and then some, where you go from thinking how awesome the music is to how dark this is, to how I want to be that awesome singing red demon thing. To Holy shit. And nothing quite did that like Once More With Feeling. But...

1) Passion, ( Season 2, Episode 17)

Believe me when I told you the only reason we got past 6 episodes of this show was because of the Buffy/Angel romance. Twilight before Twilight was Twilight, it was a vampire/girl in the middle of nowhere romance that brought viewers rushing in, prepared to tolerate all the creatvity and inventive genre writing that came with. In the early years I found this aspect to be not far of unbearable. It was so painfully trite and treacly it was beneath the rest of the show. But then something amazing happened. The snapped the relationship in a half at its most intimate (after they slept together, Angel lost his soul. Best not to question these things.) not only breaking up in the Dawson's creek sense of the word, but Angel, that soppy cheerleader's wet dream of a character who was simultaneously spineless and kick-ass but so utterly feeble, and turned him into the most black-hearted psychopath the show ever saw. Intent on breaking Buffy's world bit by bit. Imagine if Edward Cullen suddenly started to killing Bella's friends because it makes him happy.

And Passion, well holy shit. It may not be the most creative episode or pitchable. But at its essence, it is the show at its best, done at its best. Dwelling in dark emotional worlds that seem to spiral further into the black whilst you're still reminiscing about the light. And Passion, that journey was at its most brutal, you were watching a kids show one minute and then. You weren't. What works about it is seeing a character that was a poster boy for handsome vacuousity, turns not only into a monster, but a fascinating one. Serial killer language put into the world of the supernatural. And there's that scene. And bearing in mind this is a time when major characters were never killed in TV, its one of the most brutal things I've ever seen. Movies or TV, because of how fucking stark it is. It doesn't prepare you or soften you up. Jenny Calender is just there and then she isn't. Sick genius.

But it's that shift in tone, that catches you off guard but doesn't feel cheated. Buffy was a show that did things no other show has done sure, but some things it has simply done better. And Passion, there's never been anything like it, before or since. It works best in context though, trust me. Horrifying in the best possible way..

HORROR WEEK: The Nightmare Before Christmas

" Kidnap the santa Claus, beat him with a stick."

I hated this film when I was a kid. It was such a favourite in my house I probably saw it three times before my 3rd birthday, and to a simple naive child with undeveloped ideals in regards to movies and Christmas, movies where there to make me happy, while Christmas was there for me to score tons of free shit off relatives and friends, plus so I could worship at the altar of Santa Claus (Brought up on American Television so didn't do the British version) . Yet here is a movie that has a three minute song/setpiece devoted to the many ways in which one could dismember, immolate and otherwise kill Santa Claus gruesomely, for fun. 3 year old me would not stand for this, so any time the idea of watching this film was brought up, I would cry, wail and scream, I would make deals and comprises (usually involving watching Labyrinth instead, which I simply hated and not terrified by. I stand by that. Because its shit.) You want to watch this film? Well I want to take my custom edition playpen cricket bat to your antique Victorian Piano, how about that?

Once I got to an age of proper consciousness, I passed a movie embargo and didn't watch it for like ten years. I would always be tired or sick, or have to study the next day, or go and kill the president of Panama with a fork, things like that. It got long beyond my petty little reason and became one of those things you just do, perhaps because I mistook stubbornness for awesomeness, although the line does blur. But eventually once I got into film in a big way, it became an blemish that needed to be rectified and I watched and realized something. This film was awesome. Beyond awesome. And I'd hated because of how good it was at its job, which was of course scaring the shit out of me. Its a kids horror movie with a soul, with a point, it looks nothing short of beautiful and at the same time its deliciously twisted and fucked up enough that Adults can see entirely different movies from their kids. In many ways it is a traditional Christmas movie, in which everyone comes together in tolerance, in celebration and in learning the true meaning of Christmas (LOL at getting to type that in a sincere context) but its darkness allows for these messages to actually have some value. Its not about good people learning how to be even better at Christmas time, its about monsters, literally, learning it. Its a true fairy tale precisely because it doesn't whitewash evil and darkness out of its world. And that is a rare thing indeed.

" What? Snake Eyes!"

I don't think anyone's going to argue that the main appeal of the movie, is its look but more then that, its feel. Its so rare to see an animated world come to life like this, and while CGI films and traditional Disney style animation can be both be magnetic and ascendant in their own ways, there's something to be said for having something real to hold onto, and the stop-motion does just that. It feels so much less synthetic and so much more organic. You get the idea that director Henry Selick (not Tim Burton, so suck it all of you who got that pub quiz question wrong) takes particular pleasure in crafting Halloween Town, and the varying monsters within. Some of which, scratch that, all of which, are kind of horrifying. There's the zombie boy lead by a chain, there's the goo-monster made from an uncomfortably coloured brown liquid, there's a fairly realistic werewolf. More so then the ones in Buffy anyway. There's a great effort made in not sanitising the threat, the fear of the things. Yes they can be funny. But no doubt is in my mind, just as there wasn't when I was three, that these are gross looking monsters that kill people. Similarly Jack Skellington, our anti-hero, though clearly more accessible then some of the others, is no slouch in that department either. Like a cross between a scarecrow and a skeleton with added spindlyness, the look of that character in and of itself is enough to entirely love this film.

But for me the greatest stroke of genius was whoever decided that this should be a musical. Particularly because the spoken dialogue at times has that 'bare minimum' feel about it. And yes, that could have led into some dangerous Andrew Lloyd Webber territory but thankfully the music is good enough to avoid that ( See that, Andrew Lloyd Webber just got slammed by implication. By implication.) and frankly, one would be tempted to call it Danny Elfman's finest hour, in spite of Edward Scissorhands. In song the story gets to soar as much as the visuals, and because of this it has 3 or 4 scenes to put it up against anything that ever came out of Disney, or even Pixar. The Oogey Boogie song is that perfect blend of hilarious and menacing, and again, whose ever idea it was to make the boogeyman a psychotic '20's gambling man who sings like a member of the New Orleans rhythm and blues revival deserves an Oscar. Love the sequence if only for Santa Claus' hilariously limp replies.

" Oh how horrible our Christmas will be."

But the movie belongs to Jack, and its appropriate then that so do most of the stand out moments, from the graveyard atop ledge extending whilst he sings to the wonderfully rich scene where he discovers Christmas land, which is as one would expect for this movie, heart-warming whilst incredibly creepy at the same time. Its just great to see a kids movie where the hero is so decidedly misguided that he spends 2/3 of the film making a colossal, hubris driven mistake that probably gets many innocent children killed yet is somehow still impossible not to root for. Its the mark of a great character that you're behind them when they're doing terrible things, and that's certainly the case of this movie. Henry Selick went on to make the excellent Coraline last year, and I think what makes both of these films work so well (although I'd say Coraline is perhaps the better film) is that the come from a great storyteller, a director of animation who cares about more then just how a film looks, meaning his films are as refreshing to the brain as they are to the eyes.

I'm not the hugest Tim Burton fan. I think he's made more bad films then good ones, and the good ones all seem to be a very long time ago. Ed Wood is probably the best, perhaps because its Burton moving away from all the things that Burton does. Yet this is probably the best iteration of what Burton came here to do, and ironically it was done by somebody else. Animation seems the perfect place for his mind to cut loose, yet when he tried it with The Corpse Bride it came nowhere near this. A stand alone film in cinema history, both for making stop-motion accessible and for being a seminal kids movie that scares the shit out of them. Even Pixar have never done that. There's flaws, its perhaps a little too simple and characters can speak their intentions a little too literally. But, you know, just look at it.

Rating: 8/10

HORROR WEEK: Pitch Black

" I'm not dying for them."

I don't think anyone is really going to argue that David Twohy is some kind of great film-maker. Dude wrote Waterworld. Any attempt he has made to write and direct a film outside the comfort zone of tried and tested genre material hasn't just been a failure, its been a catastrophic one. There's the Waterworld thing, which was a daring and novel concept that got everything so colossally wrong, it would have been much easier and required much less effort to be a much better movie. Then there's the Chronicles Of Riddick, which was Twohy's attempt to infuse political allegory and a transcendental air to sci-fi. Do you know what else tried to do that? Star Wars episode 1. And this was just as boring, arrogant and stupid as that movie. And frankly, you can't make a smart movie if you're stupid. So I guess the conclusion to take is that if you see the uniquely identifiable name Twohy on a film its best to go and see something less ambitiously awful.

And yet, the guy made one of the most exciting, surprising and even subversive horror movies of the last decade. Why and how, you all are no doubt asking in harmonious unison? Because the stakes are lowered, the grand ideas are gone and any and all attempt to be Stanley Kubrick has vanished, but what remains is Twohy's all consuming obsession with originality and subversion. And while his discernible lack of talent and ability to be coherent perhaps got in the way of that being best exploited in bigger films, with Pitch Black set against the rigid and familiar architecture of the sci-fi horror, and speaking to a generation with Alien and all the films that came after entrenched into their bones, that pursuit of originality feels starker, more satisfying and ultimately so much more successful. He knows the material so well that he knows what we expect at all corners, knows how the character dynamics usually play out and who usually dies and when. its this love and knowledge of the genre that allows him to do things in it that have never been done before, so if its occasionally brash, if its occasionally crude or inelegant, its vital enough to be forgiven. This, ladies and gentleman, is how a bad film-maker makes a great movie.

" Somebody's gonna get hurt one of these days."

What's great about Pitch Black for me, I think more then anything else, is its depiction of selflessness as something that is difficult to do. Its a horror movie cliche to have people sacrifice themselves to save the group, often without prior context, thought or difficulty. Say, Walton Goggins in Predators, an entirely selfish character who just randomly decides to die for strangers he has no reason to care about. Not only does it make no sense and so often betray character, but it reduces the gesture for when it should matter. In a way Pitch Black is a film entirely about correcting this. The film opens with a fantastically executed crash sequence, where pilot Fry's (Radha Mitchell) spaceship is crashing down to a planet, and she attempts to jettison all of her sleeping passengers into space to righten the course, in other words killing forty people to save herself. And this is the heroine of this story. She is stopped by her co-pilot, and lands the thing right anyway. What's great about this sequence, aside from it being exhilarating, is the cold logic of that act. Its horrific but understandable. Detestable, but somehow humanizing. This isn't the superheroine, the incorruptible badass chick archetype. Its a character we are asked to follow after we witness her doing the worst thing she'll ever do in her life, and frankly that's kind of awesome. I'm not saying Fry is some super fascinating, multi-layered character or anything, but she's flawed, so when her heroism does come, it is so much more affecting because selflessness doesn't come easy, and precisely because it doesn't is what makes it such an admirable act.

Riddick, the breakout character who has since had two video games and a terrible movie about his misadventures, is that dangerous psychopath that always seems to come along on these asides so they can be hysterically insane and get a really nasty death, kind of goes past that. He keeps his shit together and reacts to the situation better then anybody, perhaps because he doesn't care about anybody. He's calm, rational and considered, and although he's a constant threat, he's not dumb and doesn't attack people just because you know, he's crazy and that. Vin Diesel, whose subsequent career has made him kind of difficult to compliment, is terrific. He's both awesome in the conventional sense and an intriguing character, but there's an intelligence to him, which I think was brought by Diesel rather then Twohy. But again, the selflessness doesn't necessarily come from him, but the situation around, meaning we get to see the context in which it is brought out of him and thus it isn't trite and meaningless.

" Did not know who he was fucking with."

Like the equally successful Cube, a lot of mileage is got out of shifting character dynamics, and people doing things you don't expect. Twenty minutes in one would assume that Cole Hauser's mercenary Johns, is going to be the hero of the piece and Riddick the antagonist. But as we progress, the worst it brought out of Johns and the best out of Riddick. Watching the two compete for the status of alpha-male is probably the movie's strongest suit too, because Mitchell's performance can be a little flat at times, particularly when she can't contain her Aussie accent, both Diesel and Hauser are having a ball, and its a shame they both went on to be so associated with bad acting, because they're both great here. Twohy is also acutely aware of which of his characters you're expecting to die first, and because of this you're genuinely caught of guard by kills at least three times. Claudia Black's 'Shazza' (because she's Australian, dummy) goes way before you expect her too and extreme British stereotype Paris (get it) sticks around longer then you'd expect him too.

But the greatest trick Twohy ever pulled is who dies last, in a way that it makes such perfect sense, yet catches you off guard by a mile. As Fry gets carried off into the darkness by the CGI Bat monster thingies, its a legitmately emotional and affective moment in a survival horror film. And you can count those on one hand. The thing isn't perfect of course. Twohy's dialogue always feels a little too on message, and the scenes post-crash and pre-bat annihilation kind of plod along, and while I appreciate the minor characters being real people rather then hot models in space, they can be kind of annoying, particularly tomboy Jack and the aforementioned Paris. I kind of dug Keith David's Imam character in spite of the writing and not because of it, and there are moments of clunkiness scattered about.

" It ain't me you've got to be afraid of anymore."

But its a movie with such balls, such intent, and one that genuinely cares about its characters for the most part, rather then just looking at them as pawns to be rinsed in awesome ways. Its tense, appropriately scary and mostly thanks to Diesel, deceptively subtle. Its not Shakespeare, but its a great example of how great horror movies can be when they're on their game. The clunks, fumbles and missteps are forgiven because Twohy's focused the ambition that far exceeds his talent to an area where that is an attribute. But sure enough that's such a specific area that he'll never be able to do it again, but I'm happy that he pulled this one out at least.

Rating: 7/10

HORROR WEEK: Night Of The Living Dead

" They know we're in here now."

A while back I wrote a review of The Searchers on this website, which pretty much circulated around the idea of how well a movie ages is pretty much a testament to its original quality, and that holes that seem clear as day now, were masked by originality and just a little bit of awesome. To be honest I think you could lay out a similar argument against Night Of the Living Dead. Some things are a little creaky, some things show their age and maybe not all of the acting is what it should be. But there's something so consistently innovative about it, and it might be the ultimate example of a movie rising so completely above its station to the point where it doesn't just exceed it, it transcends it. The first modern horror movie, that redefined the genre in so many ways its not even funny and not even time can take away the anger and the audacity at the centre of it.

The funny thing is of course is that Night Of The Living Dead kind of starts out exactly how one would think it would and I think most of the people who come out against this film do so based on this opening fifteen minutes or so. Yes the film opens with a deserted country road set to creepy pre-synth music, yes the opening sequence is set in a graveyard and features a helpless woman being chased by a monster of the night, so far, so 1950's drive-in that no-one really pays attention to. But the thing that stands out about this, and this being probably the weakest section of the movie, is that much of the camp, the old horror movie atmosphere where everything is heightened just enough to let you know its a movie is gone. It feels fucking real and doesn't stop. After the attacker/zombie kills Barbra's brother Johnny in a moment that just happens, no frills no fuss, it immediately snaps you out of the conventional horror movie you thought you were watching. When Barbra runs off into the countryside, there's no intrusive music, no jump scares, no distractions. Night Of The Living Dead doesn't take you to a horrible place, it brings that place to you and doesn't let you go.

" We'll see, We'll see who's right when they come begging to let them down here."

It gave birth to the modern horror movie because it brings realism to the mix, it and its sequels are the most potent and thoughtful examination of what an outbreak of zombies would actually do to the fabric of society, how we would respond to it and how it would affect everyday people, rather then cops and soldiers. And once we get to the farmhouse, this dynamic is explored in full, in all its revelatory power. Characters are not heroes or villains, but all struggling to stay above water and the fear they all feel eventually manifests in anger and violence. And eventually their downfall. Its a fantastically bleak outlook, and in many ways is the first horror to pose the notion that extreme situations don't always bring out the best in people so effectively. Particularly the war between Ben, a young black mechanic, whose race is never mentioned but felt immensely, and Harry, a middle-aged family man whose daughter lies dying in the basement. Each believes himself to be the most capable, which in Harry's case is just arrogance as he's pretty much the Jack Lemmon character from Glengarry Glen Ross. I think the character of Ben, perhaps mostly through the performance of Duane Jones whose talent lends a real humanity and authenticity to proceedings, is the most resonant. Its a performance of such understated, assured dignity set against a character that is best an anti-hero, another virtue of Romero's complex universe. At one point the guy shoots someone in cold blood, yet he is still a character you entirely root for. There are no easy answers in this film, and if anything the message of this movie is that humanity doesn't need zombies to destroy itself, they just speed up the process.

Its a testament the quality of this to how little I've thus far mentioned the zombies, but this film works as a horror film in its own right, without all that awesome subtextual shit us bloggers love to preach about. But the movie's tone, which is that off removing horror cliches and create a universe where anyone can die, characters you thought were important get wasted and the most despicable characters don't necessarily die the worst deaths. If anything the nastiest stuff happens to the innocents, a mother is killed by her child with a trowel, a sweet young couple get immolated and then consumed on mass by the living dead and Barbra, well. It redefined horror by making it something beyond scares and gore, the horror is in the tone and in the message. The trite sense of horror movie karma is entirely gone and it makes it one of the most striking films, and for me that hasn't been lost. The zombie scares sure. It ain't no 28 days later. But its more then that. The sixties was probably the first generation to understand the world through its television sets, and having the horror invade these sacred pillars of comfort and information is almost the most horrifying thing in the film, the ongoing newscasts as stations gather more information on the epidemic, from the outbreak of what they describe as 'mass murder' to the revelation that the dead are re-animating, to the poignant depictions of governments officials dodging questions and redneck national guardsmen taking to the countryside with their guns, news reporters in tow.

" Yeah. They're dead. They're all messed up."

All great horror ends in tragedy of course, as otherwise its just a theme park ride, in the final images of Night Of The Living Dead are amongst the most resonant of any film I can remember seeing, horror or no. I won't spoil it, but it packs a powerful punch. The film is a great work, because to an extreme unlike almost anything else, its a film about human beings and how they fail each other. As well as a pretty sick and awesome horror movie. Yes it looks a little cheap, and not all of the acting is top notch, but as the movie encapsulates you you'll find its strengths too much too ignore. That was my experience at least. If a movie is judged by its ambition then Night Of The Living Dead is a masterpiece. If its judged by its merits, it can't be too far behind that yardstick either.

Rating: 9/10

Horror Week: Part Trois

For the third successive year I'll be doing a Horror Week, which somewhat remarkably given how it sounds, its a week's worth of posts all about horror. Starting on the 25th and ending on Halloween. Because that's awesome how the dates match up. Be afraid.

10 Days of Horror: 7 Classic Horror Movies Made Obsolete By Rip-Offs

Everybody starts the creative process with a source of inspiration, something that makes them do what they do. Personally I rephrase random crap I find on other movie websites in a slightly more rambling and slightly less hilarious way. As far as the motion pictures are concerned, if you somehow by some glorious accident make something that has been deemed to be original, then it as an absolute certainty that movie after movie will pilfer, rob and generally do everything just to the right of plagiarism until your once unique idea has its only distinction being that it was the first. Which is something I guess, but through no fault of their own the movie becomes a lot less impressive then it was thanks to countless cash-ins.

7) Psycho
Sure it remains a good movie, Anthony Perkins is awesome and it created a critically reprehensible sub-genre but almost every part of it his been dissected and re-applied to some film or another, dramatically reducing its impact. Killers with mother issues, slasher set-pieces and nice guys that aren't all that nice appear in almost every movie of a similar tone, and then there's Brian De Palma who quite possibly made eight different veiled rip-offs of this movie. Now its something that can only be appreciated rather then enjoyed, Perkins aside.

6) Saw
As far as I can tell, the alpha of the painfully derisive torture porn genre, the horror movie of choice for this decade, has been almost made redundant within six years or so of its release. Its actually a good movie, and in a bizarre way The Dark Knight owes it a lot. But partly by its own exceptionally greedy hand, seeing as Saw 6 is currently robbing suckers blind nationwide, and partly by other countless Captivity's and The Collector's trying to get in on the game, Saw doesn't look half as clever as it did in 2004.

5) Alien
In space no-one can hear you scream. But after 20 years of rip-offs, it probably isn't that much of an issue any more. Granted the John Hurt scene still lands, but otherwise the once great idea of ten little Indians in space looks a little tired now. Particularly because my generation went into this film having previously seen Event Horizon. Which didn't look so good.

4) Texas Chainsaw Massacre
To be fair, the inbred hick wasn't getting much in the way of press but after this film we've had three decades of deformed and frightfully uneducated residents of the American south hacking those nice libertarian college kids from the north to bits, with wearing their skin as a trophy being entirely optional. To think this was once an original concept that scared the bejesus out of people.

3) Halloween
Watch this now, and I challenge you not to be underwhelmed. Still defended by today's critics who aren't ready to sell out their childhood cinematic milestones just yet. But the problem is Halloween is a decidedly average movie, with originality the only thing going for it. Now we've seen this film done better by millions of others it no longer has any purpose. Sometimes quality, like in the cases of Psycho or Alien can get you through losing impact, but if you never really had it in the first place..

2) The Sixth Sense
M. Night Shyamalan. Or the man who made the twist cool again. And the one in this movie is a killer ( Not as good as the one in usual suspects though, which will remain the best twist of all time forever.) but aside from the fact that this is one of the most spoiled movies in history, every 'Psychological' horror from here to the I inside felt a twist was an absolute necessity. Thus as the twists got weaker and more contrived people began to get sick of being constantly duped and started telling M Night to go screw himself, and because the man became so synonymous with the twist ending, it cheapened the experience compared to when it happened organically.

1) Blair Witch Project
This real footage horror movie was one of the best high concept horrors ever made. There's nothing quite like seeing something you've never seen before done this well. Sadly, many less savvy film-makers thought so too and so My Little Eye, Cloverfield, Quarantine and many thousands more inferior knock offs were born. Making this brilliant concept as tired as anything else on this list.

10 Days of Horror: 5 legendary horror characters/species that are actually incompetent

After my last post which contained many long words chosen for their longness rather then their relevance, I need a post to get me back into the laid back half-assed swing of things. And after many painful moments of deliberation, I believe its time to expose all the great horror heroes and villains you all love so much for the incompetent losers they are. Whether it be killing teens inadequately, getting friends killed or just generally being stupid. Re-evaluation is upon them.

5) Jack Torrance, The Shining

Our boy Jack might be good at chewing the scenery and getting spoofed on the Simpson's, but in terms of being an effective psychopathic killer, this one's all talk and no action. Repeatedly bested in physical confrontation by a 20 pound Shelley Duvall, and repeatedly outsmarted by a ten year old boy. Jack just isn't up to snuff when it comes to actually paying off some of his grandstanding.

4) The Zombies, Zombieland
When zombies fail to bag themselves a single major or minor character in a whole frickin movie, they don't deserve to be called zombies. Embarrassment to their kind they are.

3) Ash, Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2
Fine, dude kills a lot of possessed people. But in the course of two movies, he loses all of his friends, two separate girlfriends and gets transported back to the 14th century. Whats the point in having a chainsaw for a hand if you just let every one around you die. He can self-preserve but he's the kind of leader that gets all of his men killed and considers it a victory.

2) Inter-dimensional giant monsters, The Mist
This is a neat little movie, but its monsters suck beyond belief. The big ones are pretty much Godzilla in size and fail to figure out how to bust through the single-glazed glass super-market wall which protects our survivors. They may be big but they are not clever.

1) Shaun, Shaun of the dead
This is the big one, because Shaun is one of the fictional heroes for the lower middle-class. The slacker who came good when the situation called for it, right? Wrong. Shaun is a moron, and does things that are ridiculously stupid again and again. Example 1: Choice of location, pulls his girlfriend out of a high rise flat, a high rise flat for fuck's sake, one of the safest places to hold down in a zombie apocalypse. To go to a ground floor pub with several entrances and exits that's its impossible to defend. Example 2: Stubborn assholism. Upon seeing the pub is already surrounded by zombies, continues in anyway. Getting his Mum, his best friend and two other innocents killed in the process. All so he can prove himself to his girlfriend. Which worked though, to be fair. Still an idiot though.

10 Days of Horror: What's the draw?

Said straightforwardly it seems like a remarkably simple question. The obvious response is to say that they're the fictional equivalent of the roller-coaster or the bungee jump. Selling you the illusion of danger from a place of complete safety. But in many ways, the origin of the genre comes from a place much less to do with adrenaline and more to do with psychology. Horror movies act as a safe environment in which our darker impulses and fantasies can be released, exorcised and eventually cleansed. In most horror movies, our surrogate is rarely the hero of the piece, rather we enjoy and are entertained by the terror and violence the villain unleashes and often we are on his/her side until the finale in which our moral indiscretion is appropriately chastised with the villain being defeated by someone who nine times out of ten is virtue incarnate, or at least becomes that way during the course of the movie. The villain punishes us for who we are and the hero is who we aspire to be.

So in that sense horror movies, or at least the less complex mainstream ones, represent our own guilt and need to be punished for all our sinful and impure ways. In the same way victims are often representations of wrong doing we experience in reality, rather then the exaggerated monsters that punish them. They may be promiscuous, amoral and jerks in some shape or form, not black and white evil, but the guy with the knife, or the ghost in the closest or the zombie that walks the earth is out to cleanse all forms of human imperfection until what is left is only the most resourceful, most noble and virtuous. In many ways horror films act is a compartmentalized version of a biblical judgment day, in which the villain is subtextually not the villain at all and instead a version of Loki, who in the context of a movie is perfectly justified in killing of whores and bullies.


We only change allegiance when the villain goes after our final girl, our final boy or whatever. The character who represents what we in the audience are supposed to aspire to and thus by passing this twisted form of judgment they defeat it. This is to say that horror movies, in their own indulgent way, are conservative morality tales, tauting age old Christian values and grotesquely punishing those who don't follow them. Just as the Bible does. The simpler horror movies at least. The Halloween's, The Scream's and the Nightmare on Elm Street's of this world.

But its clear that these movies only explore darkness and malevolence in order to exorcise it, and in that sense are much less subversive then they appear. We see these movies because whether our intellect and rational consciousness agrees or not, we subconsciously crave punishment for our indiscretions and thus seeing this done in horror movies is quite cathartic, however childish that world view might be. But the thing is once you've seen this play out more then a few times, it is inevitable that you are going to clock on to this not so subtle form of moral conditioning. Thus to ensure its own survival, the simple horror movie discovered post-modernism and irony, in a display of resourcefulness to put Neve Campbell to shame. By making light of itself, with horror comedies and spoof's and even to the particularly well educated satire's ( Although a satire is basically a spoof with the addition of subtlety, but usually their making the same points.) They could secretly push the same agenda under the guise of self-deprecation, its like Stringer Bell says, if product goes stale you don't start anew you just repackage. I may be the first person to compare the selling of drugs to horror movie subtext, and I feel good about it. Anyways, People are stupid and you should treat them as such. Meaning we can take what we always took from these films and have our own familiarity appeased too, thus selling us the same thing and allowing us to feel superior about it. The greatest trick that a perpetuator of morals or business can pull is making the individual thinks he matters, because they are much more likely to bite your ideology/merchandise if they think that they do.


With more complex horror films, however, its a different game entirely. Rather then trying to put you in your place, ethically speaking, they are more about exposing uncomfortable areas of your psyche and dis-affirming formula and the comfort that it brings. they're about making you realize things about yourself and what you believe that leave you in a place much less entertaining and much more terrifying. Both in terms of what's on screen and the crisis of identification you have with the monster rather then then hero, and in many cases the revelation that the hero is secretly the monster all along. Or they are forced to become one. There is morality in these kinds of films, but its more convoluted and the right choice isn't paved in bright lights. For example in Rosemary's Baby, forced to choose between her love for her child and the knowledge that it is very very evil. She chooses love over right and wrong. And can we really condemn her for this? Not in all honesty anyway. Similarly in films that focus solely in the villain, and there is no redeeming hero to speak of, American Psycho for instance, or Portrait of a serial killer. We are given no choice but to experience the world through a monster's eyes, and in many ways we are behind them every step of the way. It acts as a particularly twisted form of wish fulfillment that nobody wants to openly acknowledge, but every-one feels. There's a reason why a large percentage of all fiction, rather then just horror, focuses on violent confrontation in some shape or form, it just sugar coats it with moral justification. Batman beats up bad guys because its the right thing to do. Neo and Trinity kill shitloads of cops because it the right thing to do. Jack Bauer tortures and kills millions because its the right thing to do. We create this double standard because violence is something we all want to experience but don't because of the icky moral complications. So in our fantasies we create worlds where there are no implications and violence is the right and just thing to do. The horror genre is the only one to openly and consistently call bullshit on this, because in these worlds violent fantasy has consequences. People bleed when you cut them, and scream when you hurt them. They don't coddle you for what you experiencing and force you to face it and what it means.

So, for all the criticism it gets and all the protestations of crassness and inadequacy, quality horror films present a fantasy that does not exalt or celebrate or rationalize your dark impulses. A mirror is held up to all the twisted shit you allow you inner sicko to enjoy and you're forced to face up to this, so by facing darker desires honestly, and not burying them in a pit of moral panic like the Hostel's and the thousand other generic horrors out there, they have a much more valid point about the nature of human darkness and in a tribute to our own weirdness, we appreciate them for their honesty.

10 Days of Horror: More to come.

In tradition with the pointless religious holdover of resting on a Sunday, I am going to do a slightly shorter post today, which is more of a teaser for whats to come over the next week or so. Once my snark, my list making methodologies and Rolodex of horror movie thoughts regather, more shit will be coming at you. Tomorrow is the big one, where I attempt at least to get all analytical, psychological and sociological on why we do so enjoy having the shit scared out of us. Its going to be long, pretentious and 100% awesome. So be there or have a good excuse, like you were giving blood or something. Flu season is round the corner you know. After that, more lists and hopefully the next entry in my movie countdown which entirely coincidentally will tie in to my whole horror theme. Gotta love serendipity. The act of destined inevitability rather then the movie with John Cusack. Which sucked.

10 Days of Horror: The Best British Horror Films Of The Last 20 Years

I would go so far to say that generally speaking I have a less then passing interest in the British film industry. The majority of its output is uninspiring and we seem to get outdone by countries of similar global relevance. But in the spirit of the psychological process of denial, I have decided donate an entire post of this horror marathon to what my countrymen have given us during the course of what is roughly my lifetime. The best British horror films of the last twenty years then. Interestingly, not one of them is from the nineties. But I guess everybody gets a decade off here and there.

6) Severance
After trashing Christopher Smith's latest the other day, it seems fair to cut him some slack on this one. This film is funny in places, contains some good performances (From Andy Nyman and Tim McInnerny) and some clever black humor. Its far from amazing, but it for what it is it works, which is a lot more then can be said for some. Danny Dyer is the worst actor in history though.

5) 28 Days Later
To most people this would be higher, and it certainly is a stylish movie, but I think the second half fluffs it, despite how good Christopher Ecclestone is. Its still a landmark for re-igniting the British horror movie though, and it gave the under-rated Cillian Murphy a career.

4) Dog Soldiers
Its over the top, but the kind of OTT that can be relentlessly enjoyed. High in the running for the most entertaining horror movie of recent years, and its a pretty meanly executed siege movie. Some of the writing and acting may be a bit rough around the edges, but accomplished a super-human feat of getting a good performance of Sean Pertwee, so deserves mad props for that.

3) Shaun of the Dead
I think this is a good movie, don't get me wrong. But its a hell of an over-rated one. It gets by on its unabated love for all things zombie, an affectionate mockery rather then a scathing roasting. Also love about half the cast, Bill Nighy steals the movie with about five minutes of screen-time, and I also enjoyed Dylan Moran even if he is playing a stock douche. It also has a couple of moments of genuine darkness too, which catch you nicely by surprise.

2) The Descent
Director Neil Marshall second appearance on this list, after Dog Soldiers. The Descent is darker, more mature and contains some genuinely disturbing imagery. Marshall, proving himself a deceptively skillful master of pacing and possibly the best director of 'group of people get picked off one by one' movies that ever was. Probably the best out and out horror movie on this list given the fact that number one is a bit of a cheat.

1) Dead Man's Shoes
Yes its an arthouse movie about character but its also a slasher movie about bloody revenge too right. People get picked off one by one by the awesome Paddy Considine, who gives a performance here that will stay with you. A great example of why the best horror movies are made by non-horror directors. They just bring something else to it.

10 Days of Horror: 7 horror films that aren't really about what there about

Allegory is a one-stop port to credibility for the 'genre' movie. I say genre because it seems the polite and dignified way to put it, and has none of the implied ickyness that comes the term 'horror' movie. Its a great way for people to talk about horror without having to actually talk about it, not to dissimilar to when zombies are re branded as ' The Infected' or 'Ghouls' to avoid the kitsch factor that inevitably comes to pass when forced to say the word zombie. And seeing as were dealing with allegory, which is the critically appraised habit of speaking in metaphor, that seemed an appropriate way to ice-break. Anyway, the great thing about allegory is that you get the best of both worlds, you get to make important political points and scathing social commentary by means of people chopping each other to bits and getting eaten by monsters. Intellectualism by way of evisceration. The wonder that movies can be. SPOILER WARNING.

7) Aliens
Poor Ripley. You float 85 years in space, get told your kid has died of old age, get manipulated into being an adviser on a mission to save some colonists who tried to settle on LV-426 (Morons.) by everyone's favorite yuppie Carter Burke, watch the force of the American military get destroyed by a mixture of their own arrogance and slimy green things. become a surrogate mother to some random girl with a retarded name like Newt and a girlfriend to Kyle Reese only for them both to be killed in the opening seconds of Alien 3. Girl can't catch a break.

What its really about?

Vietnam. In which America tried to enforce their will on a distant land (read colonists on LV-426), got royally slaughtered (read Alien infestation), sent in the marines to sort shit and leave it to their commie god to sort them out, except it didn't work ( Read the aliens fucking up the majority of the soldiers) and thus Vietnamese and Americans killed each other until America had enough ( Read when Signourney Weaver has had enough) . The soldiers get disillusioned and the civilians disagree with their tactics ( Sigourney Weaver rips Gorman a new one. Oh Gorman.) , believing the war to be about petty political and financial motivation that doesn't have the people at its heart (Read Carter Burke = US Government, selling a good story but secretly just wanting the alien Eggs to make a weapon, and fuck anyone who gets in his way). With patriotism wearing thin the Americans Napalm the shit out of them (SW nukes the whole planet I believe.) and sulk off back to their homeland. And so James Cameron made his Vietnam movie in subtext.


6) Ginger Snaps
This film about two sisters fascinated by all things death, only for their life to take a turn for the ironic when one of them gets bitten by a werewolf. Bloodshed and Gore ensue.

What its really about?

The process of female puberty. Or when a girl becomes a woman, and the kicking and screaming that goes with it. In this movie conveyed by wolfing out. I guess horror isn't really the genre to whine about subtelty, but a biological event that happens every month ( or lunar cycle), leading to mood swings and attacking people who don't deserve it? This is allegory who's point you won't miss. Good movie though.


5) Night of the Living Dead
George Romero loved him some allegory, and every Dead movie is making some sort of sociological point in between, ahem, choking on them. The first one though, is surely just some zombie siege movie. No complexity here, just guys holed up in a farmhouse smacking down zombies with tire irons. Surely.

What Its really about?

Racism in 60's America. Oh come on. That's reaching. Except its not. Admittedly the first twenty minutes maybe is just your standard surface level ghoulfest but once we're introduced to Ben ( Read an educated black generation) , a black twenty-something who's adapting to this whole zombie situation really, really well. First saving Barbra from about 5 zombies and her own high pitched whining, then fortifying the house, figuring out a Zombie Achilles heal , finding a gun and discovering more survivors. Its safe to assume a dude know what he's doing. But White middle-class patriarch Cooper ( Read the racist and backward sect of white America) just can't accept this. He should be the one in charge and making the decisions (Read White resistance to black civil rights movements). Not this jumped up colored boy. To paraphrase. Cooper's conviction that he'd rather die then concede any ground to this man, inevitably leads to everyone getting slaughtered but plucky Ben. Who is duly shot in the head by some white farmer the minute he steps outside. Making the point that racism and hatred runs thicker then blood, or even the need to kill zombies.


4) Peeping Tom
One of the classic serial killer movies. Perverted sicko goes about killing women, filming it and watching it back. To see if he missed anything I guess. Nice guy.

What its really about?

Voyeurism of the storyteller. Sure voyeurism is a theme that Peeping Tom makes no effort to hide, but our man Mark's kind of watching is a stand in for Michael Powell's main theme, which is coming to terms with the voyeuristic nature of his life's work. The fabrication of emotions, characters and situations, often involving suffering, death and pain that he watched in silence while the cameras rolled. This is true of every aspect of storytelling. The writer lovingly creates his characters only to force upon them emotional turmoil and pain from a position of God like omniscience. ( Read Mark making the films of his kills, thus objectifying himself from the act.) The story-teller experiences his characters happiness ( Read the scene in which Mark joyfully gets Moira Shearer to innocently dance for the camera before killing her.) Their fantasies, both light and dark and their eventual destiny be it happy or tragic. Peeping Tom is an essay on the involuntary deity status being a storyteller provides, and the perversions that come with.


3) Misery
In which Kathy Bates smashes someone's leg with a sledgehammer. Other stuff happens too, like in which thinly veiled Stephen King surrogate no. 6 (James Caan) deals with a crazy fan who doesn't like the way he ended his latest novel. Coz she's crazy.

What Its really about?
Fans shutting the fuck up. Because you have to be crazy not to like the way he ends his writing right? crazy. Given that King gets endlessly criticized for his endings, this blatantly is a piece of STFU writing if there ever was one. Guys, did you write The Shining or Carrie. Did you write the script to Butch Cassidy or All The Presidents Men (William Goldman wrote the screenplay, if you didn't get that). No. You didn't. So where the fuck do you get off telling me how to write my books/screenplays. My watch cost more then you make in a year! Fuck you and your opinions. And if you continue to bug me, I will demonize you in literature, have that adapted into a movie, have you played by Kathy Bates and have her win an Oscar for portraying just how wrong you are. Now leave me alone, I have to write the sequel to Pet Cemetery.


2) The Host
This awesome Korean Monster movie is everything that can go right in the horror genre. Its fun, its scary and there's archery. This story of a monster dwelling in a city river coming a shore to feed on some Korean is a tale of a family torn apart and the love that pulls them back together. Only phrased in a way that doesn't make you want to puke all over your own face.

What its really about?

The environment. The Monster is created by the US government (of course) dumping unchecked toxins and chemicals into the city river, and as we all know if you don't take care of nature then nature will give you the finger. So substitute the monster for say as tsunami or a hurricane and you get this movie's point.


1) Dawn of The Dead
Romero mark two. The guy loves allegory what can I say. This movie makes the top spot though because its the smartest, most elegantly executed piece of horror movie allegory that exists, at least to the extent of my knowledge. Surface, its another Zombie siege movie, only taking place on a grander scale, exchanging a farmhouse for a shopping mall. Ken Foree killed enough zombies to earn a reference in Shaun of the dead, the ultimate tribute to zombie killing prowess.

What its Really about?

Consumerism. You see our Romero's zombies are innately drawn to places they felt safe in their pre-zombie existence. So it's little surprise that the corpses are naturally pulled toward a great Philadelphia shopping mall. You see we are designed and programmed by society to believe that certain things are good, some are some aren't. Family, patriotism, capitalism, football whatever. But above all to keep the world ticking we must, on pain of death buy bunch of shit we don't need down at the local mega store. Consumerism is so deeply wound into our system's that it can even survive the zombification process. You are not you're fucking khakis, fool. Only twenty years earlier and with some zombies thrown in.