Between a Rock and a Hard Place

(Click image for trailer)

127 Hours (2010), by Danny Boyle                       8.5/10

     There are films that by knowing some of its details before it comes out everyone knows if it will be successful or not. Big franchises, for example, usually do extremely well in the box office even if the film turns out to be a disappointment (which is not always the case); fans are usually fans forever and no matter what. Other people, though, are more interested in style than in genre. What I mean with this is that when people are familiar with very acclaimed cult-film directors, most of the times we also know what to expect of the film; in this case, the fans fall in love with the director’s style and influences not with a particular movie or the other. Among these directors, some examples I could mention could be Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrik, Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton, Quentin Tarantino (and of course his buddy Robert Rodriguez), Danny Boyle, and most recently, Darren Aronofsky.

However, for the purposes of this blog post, I want to talk about Danny Boyle.

     Although Danny Boyle has made a huge success of most of his films, like Trainspotting (1996), 28 Days Later (2002), and most recently, Slumdog Millionaire (2008), his style is most clearly not tied to any genre in any absolute way, contrary to other great directors who, while original and unique, their style depends on their most influential genres. Some examples could include Tim Burton’s dark humor, fantasy/horror style, Tarantino’s exploitation movies, or Wes Craven’s long list of C-list horror films. Boyle, on the other hand can jump between genre’s extremely easily and still mark his films with his unique upbeat, non-stop action style and make a success out of his films. From a film about junkie life in London, to a story of fallen utopia in an estranged island, to a classic cult-zombie-horror classic, to an Indian version of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?”, to one of the most unique movies of the last year. This way, Boyle has proven many times what it takes to make a good film that is both entertaining, stylistic and heartbreakingly emotional at the same time, and 127 Hours is absolutely no exception.

     The only things that kept me skeptical (and very interested) about this film before I finally saw it were two magical phrases that pretty much always guarantees an enormous box office, but not always guarantees a successful movie. These magical words are:

1) Adaptation.

or

2) “Based” or “Inspired on a true story.”

The story and plot of the film was pretty well know before the movie was even made. Aron Ralston, the film’s protagonist, wrote a book called “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” about the terrible events that lead him to lose an arm while rock climbing the Blue John Canyon in Utah and how he survived the whole ordeal. And that’s pretty much the whole plot of the movie, there is nothing else to say about it.

(No.)

Or so I thought. I kept thinking, “Man, this movie’s going to be lame and boring. A dude stuck between rocks for a whole movie?” But do not worry, Boyle has proven me wrong, and I am proud to admit it.

(The real Aron Ralston and James Franco.)

    James Franco did an amazing job acting as Aron Ralston, and came up strong with a spectacular, tear wrenching performance as a man who strived for life, experience and adrenaline more than anything in the world has to face the death and destruction of all of it in the most terrible manner. To my surprise, the movie was not about him losing his arm at all, it was about growing up, accepting your mistakes and overcoming your pride; it was about holding tight onto life and onto everything and everyone that you love at all times, no matter what. This movie shows us that no matter how terrible and scary things might seem to us at a certain moment in our life, there is still so much to live for, and we have all the strength we need to overcome our problems.

     The script was excellently written, shows perfect balance between action and drama, and it really proves how important character development can be in any narrative. And that’s all this film is: character development. When we finally give up hope for Aron, when he gives up hope himself, he jumps off into a dream state that takes him backwards in time. His memories and hallucinations become his only friends, and in the meantime, we understand why he is the way he is, and why he feels the way he feels, and most importantly, we see him grow and change as this experience affects his life in every way. When we think Aron has gone insane, and he feels he cannot trust his own sanity, that is the exact moment we see who Aron really is and in which ways he is changing. And when the most gruesome, most disgusting scenes are shown to us, we don’t even care, and neither does he, we just want him to survive for the his sake and ours!

(Stress can be very serious business.)

     If this film is something, boring is not it. This film is exciting and terrifying and stressful and, in many ways, beautiful all the way through until the end of the credits. With amazing nature shots and great surreal scenes that are almost poetic, 127 Hours is a film about hitting rock bottom, literally, and finding your inner strength to overcome every single obstacle in your way and grab onto life with all your might, survive and live. And that, my friends, is a message that every single person can relate to. I rate it 8.5/10.

     Until next time, this is Freddy Lizardz with Words on Film. Peace.

Thanks for sharing and commenting!

Love and Other Drugs

(Click image for trailer)

Love and Other Drugs (2010), by Edward Zwick          8.5/10

     Remember that Romantic Comedy you watched the other day? You know, the one with Katherine Heigl in it? No, not that one. I mean the one where she falls in love with the man she would despise in ordinary situations, but then that thing happens and she’s forced to spend more time with him, resulting in a series of comedic mishaps and a cheesy love story ending. Yeah, you know the one that I mean. Or have you seen the one with that guy who’s in a bunch of movies? You know the one where he’s a ladies-man but can’t get the girl he loves to like him and when she does, he naturally does something stupid, ruining the chances for a great relationship with the girl of his dreams, but then he has a change of mind and heart and does something very romantic and wins the girl, yet again, resulting in yet another ‘happily ever after'?

     (Yep. That one.)

     I will not criticize any movie for following the rules of its genre, especially since I actually have enjoyed some romantic comedies quite a bit. Knocked Up is hilarious and mostly realistic, Sandra Bullock is amazing in The Proposal and Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher, well, come on, two great actors always striving to appear more of a dumbass than their last movie, comedy doesn’t get better than that. But the truth is that most of these movies, Hollywood movies in general, not only romantic comedies, follow simple formulas to attract audiences, usually with extremely attractive actors and actresses appearing naked or in their underwear at some point in the movie. And don’t get me wrong, we all fall for it all the time. Yes, we might see a movie for more reasons other than eye-candy, but let’s be real, who would watch The Ugly Truth, for example, if instead of Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler the movie starred, I don’t know, Courtney Love and John C. Reilly?

 

 

 

(You get the point.)

 

 

 

In any case, there’s nothing wrong in following an overused formula when writing screenplays. The only big problem with that is that it gets too old too fast. And romantic comedies have been going on since forever, that’s why it is so challenging to make one and be taken seriously (like most genres, anyways); because there is nothing new about it. It’s like watching the same movie with different good looking actors and actresses in different times over and over again. And we are used to seeing the same thing happen, it’s hard to even care for these characters, for these stories, at all. Actors like Michael Cera, Katherine Heigl, Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Anniston, Hugh Grant, Ashton Kutcher, Ryan Reynolds and Matthew McConaughey , and many others have struggled with the “romantic comedy tool” stamp at some point or another because of this reason; they became real life archetypes of their characters, which in effect, starts making people yawn, close their eyes and drool all over their popcorn.

     That’s why Love and Other Drugs is so successful. Not only does it manages to fit every single romantic comedy rule and stereotype (incredibly attractive male protagonist for the women and an extraordinarily sexy love interest for the male audiences, both in the peak of their acting careers and getting naked even in the trailer; basic romantic comedy plot) but it brings out the reality of the plot and forgets all about perfect, ideal love stories.

     The film introduces Jaime (Jake Gyllenhaal) an electronics salesman in the year 1996. His cool-guy charms and good looks makes him very good at his job, but he throws it all away when he sleeps with the boss’s girlfriend during his shift. Emotionally shunned from his family of successful doctors and medics, Jaime decides to find a job in an area closer to medicine, so he gets a job in Pharmaceutical sales selling Zoloft, direct competition of Prozac at the time. But things are not as easy as they seem, so he has to count on his good looks to get what he wants yet again. When he finally bribes an acclaimed doctor (Hank Azaria) to let him talk to some of his patients, he meets Maggie, Anne Hathaway’s amazing performance as a very sick 26 year old woman with Parkinson’s disease; a performance that will make you both laugh with her quirky personality and immediately sympathize with her; it’s a great example of how good screenplays and amazing acting can make a character real in an instant. Jaime is immediately attracted to Maggie and pursues to get her attention. Their first actual encounter results in an extended, purely sexual relationship, while discussing the issues of a modern relationship and the dilemmas that complicated diseases like Parkinson’s can have in people’s psychology, and therefore, in people’s relationships. With an ugly looking ally, Jaime and his antithesis  brother later partake in the adventures of selling the new best-selling sex-drug of the late nineties…

(The blue pill.)

… and being very damn good at it. Meanwhile, Jaime realizes that Maggie is the only person who really gets know him, even better than his own family and friends and that she’s the only thing that he’s ever wanted, but her frustrations with her illness leads her to make self-destructive decisions, depressions and alienation, separating herself from him, not wanting to fall in love with Jaime, pulling him into her tragic life. Jaime, then, has to decide if he wants to proceed in life unloved and misunderstood, or take his chances with the one he loves and sacrificing everything for her.

     Though this movie sounds terribly cheesy, like all romantic comedies, it completely works and does not comes out as cheesy at any moment. Yes it has its inevitable cheesy moment a couple of times, but it does not ruin the movie at all, it actually boosts the drama and moves the plot in a very realistic way. The screenplay was very well written, and Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway  proved that great acting sometimes is everything to make an amazing movie. Their characters are as real as it gets, and everyone can relate to them at some point. Their story contemplates and disambiguates modern relationships and sees into their soul. It also spreads awareness of a most terrible disease, like Parkinson’s, and ironically shows us that real life is never like in the movies.

     Overall, the movie is a fun time, it has many good laughs, is well acted, well directed and well written; a good, meaningful variation in the romantic “dramedy” genre. If you’re looking for good eye-candy and/or sex scenes…

…you will definitely get it in this film. A lot of it, and it actually plays really well with the plot; nothing vulgar, too graphic or excessive (it’s not like we’re watching an episode of The Tudors or Spartacus). In fact, their sexual relationship and the way it portrays is actually the most meaningful part of the plot other than Maggie’s disease and Jaime’s success in selling Viagra. Would definitely recommend it, even to people who are not fans of the genre. Very good movie. 8.5/10.

     Until next time, this is Freddy Lizardz with Words on Film. Peace.

Thanks for sharing!

Death and Freudian Nightmares

(Click image for trailer)

Enter the Void (2010), by Gaspar Noé           Rating: 9/10

     As a fan of Foreign and Independent Films one gets used to expect the un-expectable, the weird and the avant-garde. In my opinion, it is the unconventional styles independent filmmakers sometimes decide to take what attracts me more towards the independent film scene. Larger scale movies almost never have any intention in bringing us something new and innovative, they just follow a certain filmmaking formula to make money-making movies. That does not mean they’re not good or worth seeing, it just means that these films are usually made for other purposes. Independent filmmakers striving for acclaim and recognition are the ones who have the guts to bend and break all rules to bring something new and different to the filming arts. It is in the independent film scene where we can find true art in the film industry. When I first saw Enter the Void  for the first time, that was exactly what I encountered: the weirdest,  most mind-blowing form of art I have ever experienced.

(Scene from Enter the Void)

     Director Gaspar Noé breaks all filmmaking rules, bends reality in a way that will leave you questioning what you are experiencing as you watch the film; it will hypnotize you from the credits to the end, it will capture you and forcefully take you into the most horrifying, yet mesmerizing, of nightmares that are as peaceful and soothing as they are disturbing and terrifying. It might as well can be considered one of the best, most successful films in the Indie Film scene in the recent years. It is also one of the hardest films for anyone to watch.   This film takes the concept of taboo and makes love to it. We experience the character’s most dark, intimate secrets as if they were our own.

(I assure you, it gets weirder than this)

     Orphaned as a child and recently reunited with his estranged younger sister, Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), an American young man, is living in Tokyo, Japan and working as a drug dealer. Oscar’s sister, Linda (Paz de la Huerta), works as a stripper/prostitute in a popular nightclub called “The Void." A friend recommends him and old Buddhist book called “The Tibetan Book of the Dead,” which explains the whole concept of death and what happens after you die all the way until reincarnation. Very early into the film he decides to smoke a hallucinogenic drug called DMT. After a while, he gets a call from another friend asking for some drugs, and tells him to meet him to make the transaction. In an unexpected turn of events, Oscar gets shot and killed thirty minutes into the movie. The rest of the film is Oscar’s out of body experience, revisiting terrible moments from his past, exploring his most dark, private secret desires, stalking his sister into her nightlife as a prostitute in “The Void” and witnessing the effect his death had on the people he knew, all in an successful attempt to closely study Oscar’s psychology as if it was our own. But that’s not all, and the plot is definitely not what makes this film so amazing. What marks this film as a work of filming art is Noé’s unique style and it’s filmmaking itself. Since the very first second of the movie you will be wondering “How the hell was this movie made? How was this script written? How was it even filmed?” You will be questioning every technical aspect of the film, almost as if you were trying to figure out  a magician’s magic trick.

(Oscar staring at his sister, Linda)

(Oscar stares at his bloody hands and gunshot wound)

(Oscar’s stares down at his dead body)

     The movie is literally seen through Oscar’s eyes to the point that you can only see his face when he looks at himself through a mirror. You see him blink, you hear him think, you hear his voice a little louder than the rest of the characters, as if you were listening to your own voice, hearing your own thoughts, seeing through your own eyes. Noé literally (and purposefully) makes voyeurs of the film’s audience. It is the most uncomfortable and awkward sensation ever. Now think back when I said that Oscar gets high on the hallucinogenic drug, DMT. Now, dear reader, try to imagine how this particular style could work in that scene. Exactly. Noé goes as far as to literally make the audience feel the sensation of getting high as Oscar gets high: his vision gets blurry, thoughts echo randomly into his head, time slows down, colors blur and merge, then suddenly, darkness. Then, the film gives us fifteen minutes of mesmerizing, mind-blowing visuals of colors and designs that will leave you hypnotized, not wanting to look away, wanting to experience every second of it.  As amazing as that may sound (or not), Noé not only gives you the most amazing high yet on film and forcefully makes you mind-rape a person, it also forces you to experience death itself, turns you into a ghost and makes you witness the most intimate aspects of all the film’s characters. By the end of the movie, you will end up feeling like a big supernatural pervert.

(Psychedelic visuals in one of Oscar’s flashbacks)

     Crane shots of the city of Tokyo as Oscar’s spirit flies through the skies will make your jaw drop. Scenes of graphic sex and hard drug use and incestual desire will disturb and haunt you forever. The highly psychedelic and drug-inspired visuals of the city of Tokyo, Oscar’s mind and the spiritual world will keep you mesmerized even in the most suspenseful or intense scenes. The plot will both make you fall in love with the movie and despise it at the same time. This exceptional movie is a visual poem full of symbols of the worst Freudian Nightmares one can imagine. Like it or not, one must admit that this movie strives to change film narrative as we know it, and in many ways it accomplishes it with great success. Noé challenges his audience and purposefully makes it as difficult to watch as possible for the viewers. He breaks every rule to capture the viewer and make him part of his film. He gives you an unforgettable experience that you will never see anywhere again. Every aspect of this film is innovative and unforgettable. With just a small amount of unconvincing acting and an extreme length in movie time (161 minutes), the rest of the movie is simply a successful experiment with visual narrative, a masterpiece of the filming arts. I rate it 9/10, an amazing, yet terribly challenging, odd  and controversial experience.  

    Until next time, this is This is Freddy Lizardz with Words on Film. Peace.

Thanks for sharing!

Sucker Punch: Girls, Dreams, Guns and Lobotomies

Sucker Punch, by Zack Snyder        2/10 – 8.5/10

     When I first saw the trailer for Sucker Punch I was very excited for it to come out, and all I could think of was “This looks so good!” just because of how odd it seemed to be. And odd it is! And for that I have to give the movie credit. But at the same time, it is exactly because of that same reason that Sucker Punch barely comes close to being a good movie at all.

      Like many comic book fan-boys, I really came to admire director Zack Snyder in the last decade. His first movie was the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, and it turned out that it was a lot better than everyone had expected. That movie contains probably the most tense, most suspenseful and terrifying movie intros in zombie-film history and he came to be very acclaimed for it. His next two movies turned out to be two of the most remembered in the pop culture of our generation. Of course I am talking about his adaptation of two of the most famous graphic novels ever: 300 and Watchmen. 300 is, as we all know, Frank Miller’s version of the battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartan soldiers, commanded by King Leonidas, battle against thousands (or a million?) of Persians to try and protect Sparta and the rest of Greece from invasion and colonization.  As famous and good as this movie was, it still kept many film critics and historians skeptical of the unrealistic battles and concepts that the film brought to screen. However, he got a lot of praise for it because the movie shows all the hard work, thought and motivation Snyder put into the movie. Excellent battle scenes, excellent actor, excellent makeup and costumes, excellent CGI effects, and most importantly, excellent storytelling.

[Insert famous quote here]

     But his most bold film yet is, and always will be, Watchmen. Everyone agrees that Watchmen turned out to be way better than everyone expected, nothing against Zach Snyder, but for a very long time the graphic novel Watchmen was thought of an impossible book to adapt into film. In fact, Alan Moore, the writer of Watchmen, wrote the graphic novel in such a way that it would actually be impossible to adapt into film, and when Snyder did adapt it, Moore wanted nothing to do with the film’s production. To this day, Moore still insists in never watching the film at all.

(Just a little joke.)

Still, Snyder’s adaptation of Watchmen was amazing in every aspect of it, and though slightly different than the graphic novel, I think many of us fan-boys agree that no one could have done a better adaptation than Snyder did. It is simply brilliant.

     But perhaps Snyder is lacking originality. Let me clarify: Snyder is lacking originality in story and concept, not in style. His style is definitely eminent in every single one of his films. But his first actual original film turned out to be:

(Yep. You got it right.)

Sucker Punch. (sigh) Yes. Sucker Punch was the first film that Zack Snyder made that was not an adaptation, that he not only directed, but also wrote and produced. In other words, his first original movie.

     Sucker Punch can be described as every fat, slobby, acne covered, virgin  fan-boy’s fetishized dreams. But this can be argued. The film seems to have no point at all, and it certainly makes little sense all the way through. And this is why it’s so hard to take it seriously. The plots revolves around Babydoll (Emily Browning), a teenage girl who witnesses the death of her family by the hands of her evil stepfather (yes, they do not only exist in fairytales, they also exist in Zach Snyder films) who wants to lobotomize her so that she’s unable to turn him in. Disturbed by her situation, she gets institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital, which Babydoll imagines is an early 20th century burlesque whorehouse under the tyranny of a violent pimp (who is actually another patient of the hospital, or is he?). Meanwhile, Madame Gorski (Carla Gugino), teaches Babydoll, and the other crazy girls in the hospital “how to survive” by performing an erotic dance that the audience never sees. Instead, what we see is a trippy dream-like dimension where Babydoll and the other girls fight ruthlessly against terrible, nonsensical situations like giant dragons, armies of alien robots  and German soldiers and gargantuan samurai demon machines. These fight sequences are presented as a quest to obtain the tools needed to escape from the hospital before the doctor comes to give Babydoll the lobotomy. Without saying much, I am pretty sure everyone can agree that  the movie has a lot of great ideas and intentions, but even reading it’s synopsis or hearing about it sounds awkward and confusing. In the end, Sucker Punch turned out to be absolutely nothing at all how I expected. And I guess, in that sense, the movie really was a Sucker Punch.  Then again, it was way worse than I had expected.

     The plot makes absolutely no effort in explaining what all these strange battle scenes and  the burlesque  whorehouse  concept meant or symbolized. It makes the story confusing to understand or most importantly, care about. The acting did not help at all either. The only effort those girls made was to look cute or hot, which is fine, especially for us fan-boys, but it did not help the movie one bit. Snyder kept the movie PG-13 supposedly so that younger audiences could see it as well, therefore, in  his theory, a larger box office ($$).  But I feel that the movie was more of a PG rating for a concept that desperately screamed for an R rating. While Sucker Punch is promoted to be about girls in tight, short clothes fighting ruthlessly against monsters, robots and evil stepfathers in anime/videogame style by six girls living in a whorehouse, there is NO blood, NO sex, NO nudity and NO curse words. Besides the battle sequences that are not actually happening but in Babydoll’s pre-lobotomized head, NOTHING happens in this movie.

 

     All of that said, this movie was a tremendous experience to sit through! Yes, I know it’s contradictory, but it is the honest truth. The battle sequences were actually very well done, and like Snyder’s previous movies, the CGI effects and action sequences are spectacular. But that’s not all, Sucker Punch  has the best original soundtrack I have heard since Watchmen by far. Snyder definitely has an amazing taste in music and he really knows how to incorporate it  into his movies. The Sucker Punch OST contains in its majority electronic remixes and covers of the most surreal and/or psychedelic songs from the last forty years. From The Pixies and The Smiths, to Bjork and Eurythmics, to Iggy Pop and Queen, and most surprising of all, Tomorrow Never Knows by the Beatles and Jefferson Airplane’s famously spooky White Rabbit. All of these songs are put together in a mix of mind-blowing, psychedelic combination of sound that emphasizes the dream state of the epic slow motion fantasy action sequences. In a way, the movie seems to be a very long music video, and in that sense, the movie was an excellent experience to sit through.

     I still have hope for Zach Snyder’s next original films, and I really do admire him for his style and success of his previous movie adaptations, and I also think that Sucker Punch still shows that Snyder is one gutsy filmmaker, because Sucker Punch definitely shows originality, let’s face it, there is nothing else like Sucker Punch out there right now. Perhaps Snyder still has to learn how to organize all of his original ideas in a more coherent way (film-wise), so that his originality can be taken more seriously next time. However, the only real bad thing I really see with this film is really the most important when making a movie: the plot, the story, the screenplay. It simply sucks all the way through. In other words, besides beautiful visuals, music and action sequences, the story behind it makes absolutely no sense, which in effect makes the audience not care one bit for any of the characters or the story. There’s no moral to the story either, there is hardly a story at all, and that was the biggest sucker punch Snyder gave us with this film. I would definitely recommend watching it, but do not expect a lot from the story, but you will definitely have a lot of fun watching it anyways. I rate it 2/10 as a film, and 8.5/10 as an experience.

     Until next time, this is Freddy Lizardz with Words on Film. Peace.

Thanks for sharing!

Insidious is Insidious

(Click image for trailer)

Insidious (2011), by James Wan                7.5/10

     No matter where I go, what I do, what I read, write or watch, I will always have to admit that the horror genre is probably my biggest influence and the factor that it triggered my interest in literary and visual narrative. As a little kid I often stumbled accidentally upon many movies that freaked me out. It first started with the Wicked Witch of the West sabotaging the Munchkins’ gleeful parade in a ball of red smoke and her horrifying screeches as she melted away. Don’t get me wrong, I loved that movie as a child, I still do, but nevertheless it still gave me nightmares. Often I found myself restless at night imagining an evil green witch with warts all over her face flying on a crooked broom circling my room and reaching to grab me with her long bony fingers, showing me her black teeth as she cackled. But this did not stop me from watching The Wizard of OZ repeatedly. I enjoyed feeling that way because I found amazing the amount of power that a piece of fiction could have on me, and not only fiction, art in general. I was always a creative and imaginative kid, and being scared of the Wicked Witch of  the West is just one example of how I came to  understand the power of my imagination and all that I could do with it. That’s why I started compulsively watching many other fantasy movies as a child, often with a dark overtone over it, like Labyrinth, or Legend.

(Tim Curry as the Dark Lord in the 1985 PG rated film Legend by Ridley Scott. Yes, this is a family fantasy film about saving the nearly extinct unicorns.)

     Later in my life I stumbled upon a very famous, very haunting movie: The Shining. It was then when I was introduced to the world of horror, and of course, Stephen King. And although I don’t consider Stephen King the greatest writer in the world, my loyalty is and always will  be towards him because watching his movies and reading his books since when I was twelve completely mapped my future and my present. I immediately wanted to be a writer and share my imagination, my glories and my horrors with the world.

     That being said, I think everyone agrees that horror, like many other genres and things,  has become conventional and mundane and a very hard trick to pull of nowadays. Still, I am always seeking that thrill that shook me off my knees that the old dead lady in the bathroom gave me while reading (and watching) The Shining, that thrill that that terrible, wickedly ugly, evil witch gave me when she tried to grab me from my bed. The same insidious thrill I feel and enjoy when I am at the most climactic point of a long fast rollercoaster. Horror, though, is not really a fictional attempt to mimic the true horror of our reality, not even the ones that say intend that. Horror is a genre that’s supposed to fool our imaginations into believing, at least for a moment, that it is possible, and most importantly, it has to force us  to ask the million dollar question, “What if this was possible? What if I was part of this story?”. It is the same science of any superstition; we know it’s not true, yet we fear it anyway.  This is what a successful horror story/film does. In the end, horror as a genre will always lie in our imagination, and our specific enjoyment of it.  This is the reason why it is so hard to make a successful horror fictional work, because in many ways, horror has lost the innovative factor that makes something memorable.

(Old dead child-eating lady from the famous bathtub scene of the 1996 mini TV series version of Stephen King’s The Shining.)

     There are many classic, unforgettable horror films in the past, many of them large franchises that still remain big in popular culture today. For example, Freddy Kruger will always haunt our dreams, and Jason Vorhees will always stalk us at night after we’ve been naughty[ ;) ], Michael Myers will keep stabbing babysitters in lonely houses and the devil will keep possessing children into projectile vomiting and self-raping. This does not mean that these movies are good in their totality, though, but they’re memorable, and though many times stupid and (very) unrealistic, they’re still haunting and imaginative. This, of course, lies in the eye of the beholder, but no one can deny a classic. My hate towards Jane Austen and most Victorian literature, for example, is perpetual, yet nevertheless, I have to acknowledge and admire the factors of that literature and their effect it had in history. On that note, making a successful movie these days is very hard, mostly because people feel like they’ve seen everything before, and let’s face it, being original these days is very hard and in effect great horror epics from the last decade can be picked up with tweezers to separate from the bunch of other lame horror films.

     Director James Wan (Saw, Dead Silence), though, was a lucky man. Not only was he the director of one of the cheapest, smartest and possibly greatest horror film from the last decade (Saw), he managed to pull of a franchise out of it. Smart, indeed. This is not to say that most of those sequels were not as good as the original film, some would argue they were  not good at all. Still, a classic’s a classic. Immediately after Saw’s success Jigsaw became the voice of our conscience, the constant narrator of the sins against ourselves. The big ‘fail’ in the rest of the franchise was that after Wan and the rest of the collaborating filmmakers who continued with the franchise managed to pull of a smart psychological horror film, they wrongfully fell into the assumption that horror also needs the presence of excessive gore or visual shock. Gore and visual shock can be  great tools for horror, but it is not a necessity, it completely depends on the concept of the film and the style and intention of the filmmaker, and there must certainly always be a balance with stuff like this. This, in effect, caused that people who like  gore in their movies not appreciate well enough the plot, so that in every sequel filmmakers were indirectly pushed into making the plot more ruthlessly obvious, and the people who might actually appreciate the psychological aspect of the plot to find a misbalance between gimmicky  gore and smart plot. This also shows in other of Wan’s projects like Dead Silence, and even in his movie Death Sentence with Kevin Bacon and John Goodman. Still, I personally give Wan credit for a successful, though sometimes gimmicky, franchise. A lot more successful than other failed franchises from the last decade like The Ring or The Grudge or any other creepy-Japanese-psycho-ghost-child-with-black-long-hair-that-croaks-a-lot franchise from the last decade.

     Insidious (finally to the main point!) was definitely a surprise for me for several reasons. This film for me is proof that James Wan and the rest of his collaborating producers learned from their small mistakes with their previous franchise. Sort of. Still, I saw more roots of their first film success (the original Saw) than from the rest of the franchise. My next surprise was that the movie was in collaboration with the producers of Paranormal Activity, a concept very different that anything that Wan had ever done before. And to be honest, when I first saw the trailer, I did not think that was a good thing. Fortunately, I was wrong. This might be my inner horror-fan-boy talking, but the retro-horror influences injected into this movie tickled the fan boy out of that little kid hiding under the covers from the evil green witch.

     Insidious has everything I love from old-school horror films from the seventies and eighties. At first it starts off as common haunted house story, then it turns into dramatic irresolvable mystery, then it turns into a ghost story, then it turns into a possessed kid horror film and ultimately a fantasy horror film that can be taken out of any Stephen King novel, with a desperate high tension conclusion that will rape your imagination vigorously. I have to admit, I really liked this movie.

     When the poster says that “Insidious is insidious,” let me tell you, it is not lying. I looked up the definition of the word ‘insidious’ and it goes like this:

insidious: Producing serious harm in a stealthy, often gradual, manner; Intending to entrap; Treacherous.

That very definition can be used to describe the way the screenplay was written. It constantly fools you into a different kind of story. It obviously also describes the way the supernatural works within the film. By the end of the movie, while inconclusive, it still leaves no plot holes unexplained. The story develops in the perfect pace, the very believable characters go through a perfect character development that will have you sympathizing with them from the very first second they appear. Not only did James Wan decided to take out the exaggerated gore and leave the movie rated PG-13, he also proceeded to cast great actors like Patrick Wilson(Phantom of the Opera, Watchmen), Rose Byrne (28 Weeks Later), and Barbara Hershey (Black Swan, 11:14).  The style of the movie echo great epic horror classics like Poltergeist, The Exorcist, and in many ways even Nightmare on Elm St. The haunting dissonant music will keep you on your toes, looking for possible ghosts or poltergeist signs in every frame. The eerie way the camera moves throughout the lives of this family is as creepy as it is beautiful, almost as if watching the haunting beauty of a moving painting. 

             

(Old-school horror influences can be noticed even the movie’s poster art. Left: Insidious [2011], Right: Suspiria [1977])

    Despite my praises for Insidious, I do also have to think objectively about it. The only big flaw I saw in this film, as well as many other critics and reviewers have, was that when the time came to actually see the thing that makes the story so horrible, it doesn’t seem as horrible as we might have imagined. Another lesson for Wan to learn: sometimes (and this is just sometimes) it is better to trust your audience’s imagination instead of giving them what they want. The problem I have with this is that the way the movie ends, it really seems like Wan actually understands this concept really well. Like I said before, the ending is absolutely inconclusive, yet that is what I found so excellent about it, because that is what’s actually terrifying, the not knowing, the incertitude and the imagining the terrible possibilities. I only hope that he’s not intending another franchise because 1)it will be annoying for everyone starting with myself, 2) it will flop, and 3) it will once again prove the falseness of Hollywood ($$$$$$).  Anyways, the point is that we can’t see ghosts in reality, not the way we see them in movies at least, depends on your beliefs, and for movies to be scary they should seem at least a little bit real, even in an unrealistic genre like fantasy or horror. Although we want to see some ghosts in our ghost movies, don’t show us too many ghosts. That scene where Samara comes out of the TV, that was enough for the whole movie, wasn’t it? By the last act of Insidious, the story got too gimmicky, not enough to ruin the movie for me, fortunately, but unfortunately enough to ruin the movie for many others, especially movie critics and over-analytical, skeptical film watchers. What I mean by gimmicky is the fact that not only there is a definite overload of ghosts, but they seem quirky, often not even scary, and although that is not the case for all of the ghosts, it is true for most of them. However,  it still does have many bone-chilling images which makes it very fun to watch.

     Nevertheless, I think Insidious is an excellent  improvement on Wan’s part, and it stands out to me from all the rest of horror movies in the past months. In the end, Insidious is an example of good original filmmaking with echoing influences of horror cult-classics of the past. Still, Insidious will probably not haunt your dreams nor be remembered for very long, but it will definitely give you those rollercoaster thrills we look for in scary movies while it lasts, and it definitely makes you appreciate its filmmaking. It is unsettling all the way through, sometimes in scary ways, sometimes in bizarre ways, but nonetheless unsettling. It is a very well acted, filmed, edited and very well written movie, and I would  definitely recommend it to all fans of good cult-horror and good storytelling. I rate it 7.5/10, very good.

     Until next time, This is Freddy Lizardz with Words on Film. Peace.

Thanks for Sharing!