Tag Archives: Horror

#59: The Sixth Sense (1999)

25 Tuesday Nov 2014

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A patient troubled by his lot
Sneaks into Malcolm’s home, distraught
And furious that he forgot
His promise; Dr. Crowe is shot.
 
The next fall, Malcolm’s hoping he
Can fix his past mistake and free
The young Cole Sear, who tends to see
And hear dead people and their plea.
 
Cole’s mother worries for her son
And wishes he would speak, not shun.
Though Malcolm doubts like everyone,
Soon his acceptance Cole has won.
 
Though growing distant from his wife,
Crowe posits that the spirits rife
Want Cole’s assistance with their strife
To move on to the afterlife.
 
As Malcolm’s guesses recommend,
Cole finds out what the ghosts intend,
Confiding in his mom and friend.
Don’t worry; I won’t tell the end.
________________
 

The Sixth Sense was not only M. Night Shyamalan’s ticket to Hollywood fame but also remains one of the best horror movies ever made. So many horror films are preoccupied with blood, gore, the occult, and finding the most inventive way to deprive characters of their lives and/or limbs. Some are more tasteful than others, and some manage to combine their frights with comedy or action elements that still make for enjoyable entertainment. Yet few horror films reach the dramatic depths of The Sixth Sense.

The acting truly is phenomenal, from Bruce Willis’s tortured Dr. Crowe to Oscar nominee Toni Collette’s overwhelmed Lynn Sear. Yet Haley Joel Osment shines brighter than them all. Truly great child actors are rare; as much as I enjoy Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone, his comedic and dramatic antics are clearly those of a likable child who has simply memorized his lines. Nothing about Osment’s performance feels forced or artificial. He displays convincing anxiety, melancholy, mental distress, and phasmophobia, not just for selected scenes but throughout the entire film. If ever an under-12 actor deserved an Oscar, it was Haley Joel Osment for The Sixth Sense. (He lost to Michael Caine for The Cider House Rules.)

In addition to its famous quote (see below), the film is well-known for its infamous twist ending, which (along with Fight Club that same year) re-popularized such surprise conclusions. Sadly, the surprise was spoiled for me, thanks to a Ken Jennings trivia book, but in 1999, audiences were thoroughly blown away by Shyamalan’s clever tactics, which made The Sixth Sense a film to be studied rather than simply watched. The same effect has since been attempted with varying success by the likes of James Wan, Christopher Nolan, and Shyamalan himself, who has never quite reached the zenith of his first big hit.

Eschewing gore, The Sixth Sense still has the jump scares and tension that make for a good horror film, but everything is more subtle than usual scare fare, with a greater eye toward characters, clues, and color, such as the repeated presence of stark reds. Not everything is explained, such as the details of Cole’s first ghostly intervention, but the raw emotions and refined storytelling make up for any weaknesses. Another thing that sets this film apart from most horror films is its mostly positive outcome. There’s no evil triumphing, no unforeseen threat that might return for a sequel, just relieved reconciliation and bittersweet peace.

The Sixth Sense is Shymalan’s masterpiece. Unbreakable and Signs are Shyamalan’s only other films on my list, and it’s a shame that his reputation has fallen from such early heights. He seemed to do his best work with Bruce Willis, and they’re currently working together on Labor of Love for next year. Here’s hoping it will be a return to dramatic form for both of them.

Best line (the obvious): (Cole Sear) “I see dead people.”

 
Rank: 56 out of 60
 

© 2014 S. G. Liput

255 Followers and Counting

#84: Aliens (1986)

31 Friday Oct 2014

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When Ripley and her dormant cat are woken from their sleep,
She learns that decades have elapsed while she was counting sheep.
The Company through Burke assures her everything is fine;
The hostile sphere she visited shows no unfriendly sign.
Though she insists an alien originated there,
Burke tells her that a colony was founded with no scare.
 
But when contact is lost with it, Burke wants to check it out,
Convincing Ripley to advise, despite initial doubt.
She meets some swaggering marines, all eager for offense,
And android Bishop, whom she hates from past experience.
The colony is empty, though there clearly was a fight,
And only Newt, a shaken girl, survived the violent fright.
 
Their search for captured colonists in dark and sticky halls
Soon threatens their survival as the creatures climb the walls.
Their numbers are diminished, and when they attempt to leave,
Their landing ship is totaled; it’s game over, they believe.
Retreating to the building where they hole up to prepare,
They learn that Burke had other plans he did not want to share.
 
He tries to salvage his whole plan and traps Ripley and Newt
With two facehuggers in a room with nothing they can shoot.
The two are rescued just in time for everything they feared,
Which thins the herd to only three when Newt is commandeered.
The complex is about to blow, but Ripley follows Newt,
Retrieving her and ticking off the alien queen to boot.
 
Though Bishop swoops in just in time to clear them of the blast,
The queen appears on board the ship to menace to the last.
Within a power loader, Ripley fights the ugly face
Until she blows the giant nightmare into outer space.
The few survivors settle down for travel stasis then,
And Ripley’s free of aliens…until she wakes again.
_________________
 

How convenient that a sci-fi horror should fall on Halloween! Just as James Cameron turned his unnerving The Terminator into a slam-bang actioner, he traded the ominous chills of Ridley Scott’s Alien for all-out combat (and added an s) for its sequel.  In doing so, he created one of the best of all three genres: action, horror, and science fiction. Aliens has reckless gun fights, punk Marines, and giant explosions, coupled with claustrophobic interiors, spidery stalkers, and a terrifying addition to the lineup of giant movie monsters. All of it combines to keep hearts racing in every scene (and perhaps a little the following night as well).

In films like this, most of the characters are mere afterthoughts meant to be exterminated, but Cameron succeeds in creating memorable individuals amid all the hysteria. Bill Paxton’s panicky Hudson, Paul Reiser’s weasely Burke, Jenette Goldstein’s brawny Vasquez, and Michael Biehn’s level-headed Hicks feel like real characters amid all the action, even though they lack the mundane setup of the first film’s victims. Lance Henriksen’s Bishop tows the line between creepy and reliable, thankfully offering the opposite of the original’s Ash. Above all, Sigourney Weaver continues her compelling role of Ripley and gets an opportunity to display motherly tenacity as she bonds with the traumatized Newt. Her fierce performance even gained her an unforeseen Oscar nomination.

For still being a fairly new director at the time, James Cameron brilliantly recaptures the mood of the original while intensifying it in some ways. How do you enhance a creature feature? Answer: by turning one monstrosity into hundreds. What’s more affecting for an audience than a cat in danger? Answer: a child in danger. Although it’s much more fast-paced than the original, there’s still plenty of nightmare fodder, particularly some now iconic scenes, like the aliens crawling through the ceiling or one rising up behind Newt.

Aliens also stands in my memory as the first film in which I heard the F-word. That could have been cause for me to dislike it, but ignoring the profanity, the chest-bursting, and the character being torn in half, the movie’s thrilling entertainment value makes up for these negative aspects and leaves the first film in the dust. My VC also loves the film, even though she had to check under her bed after first viewing it. This was the Alien franchise’s high point (don’t bother with the other sequels) and a high point in multiple genres.

Best line: (Hudson) “That’s it, man. Game over, man! Game over!”

 
Rank: 54 out of 60
 

© 2014 S. G. Liput

236 Followers and Counting

 

#95: Signs (2002)

18 Saturday Oct 2014

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Crop circles appear in the field
Of Reverend Graham Hess, who’s not healed
From the loss of his wife,
Which has emptied his life
Of meaning and faith he can’t wield.
 
Both Merrill, his brother, and he
Know someone’s outside, who must flee.
Odd things start occurring;
Graham’s kids are concurring
An alien force it might be.
 
Graham’s sure that it must be a hoax,
Some puerile, fame-seeking jokes,
But when, in his scorn,
He goes out in the corn,
His calm rationality chokes.
 
He thinks of the sad accident
That left his wife pinned ere she went.
She spoke of nonsense,
Which left Graham in suspense
Till he realized what little it meant.
 
Afraid, Graham tries taking command
When he learns of the danger firsthand.
They don’t run away
But instead choose to stay
In the house as more aliens land.
 
The Hesses aren’t caught unawares
Yet flee to the shelter downstairs.
Graham’s asthmatic son
Needs a drug but has none,
And Graham still denies any prayers.
 
They get through the torturous night
And think that it might be all right.
They hear at the dawn
That the creatures are gone,
And venture out into the light.
 
With heart-stopping horror, they find
One last hostile guest left behind;
It’s then that Graham sees
The divine expertise
That saves them and comforts his mind.
_________________
 

Most filmmakers start off weak and improve with practice, but then there’s M. Night Shyamalan, whose artistry burst onto the movie screen with the flair of a virtuoso and has since diminished to an unfortunate nadir. Everyone hails The Sixth Sense as his greatest achievement, which it is, but forgets or downplays his second stroke of genius in Signs.

A cornfield used to be just another bucolic piece of acreage, but Steven King’s Children of the Corn and this film forever made it a foreboding lair to be feared. When James Newton Howard’s suspenseful score plays, the tension builds; when the score is nonexistent, the cinematography and quiet discussions of unnatural circumstances and potential invasion reinforce the tension even more strongly. In certain scenes, such as Graham’s cornfield exploration and some jump scares toward the end, the anxiety comes to a head with bloodless encounters from which other horror films could learn and which I and my VC certainly appreciated.

Amid all the suspense, there are examples of Shyamalan’s unique framing technique, subtle and profound performances from Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix, and unexpected moments of welcome humor. Above all, it boasts one of the most reserved yet God-affirming messages of any recent Hollywood flick. Graham’s loss of faith and anger at the Lord are understandable, for he sees his pain as meaningless; but, even at that time of greatest distress, God was sending him messages he had yet to interpret. There’s a moment near the end in which everything clicks: Merrill’s eagerness to swing in baseball, Bo’s water fixation, Morgan’s asthma, details that added to their characters but seemed like trivialities, even nuisances, in their day-to-day lives. It reminds me of the passage in Isaiah in which God explains how superior his ways and his plans are above our own, and when Graham recognizes this, he realizes he is not alone (in a good way). Note how Graham tells God “I hate you,” just as Morgan had to his dad, yet in the end both father/child relationships are restored.

A coworker of mine once decried Signs as among the worst movies she had ever seen, and I suppose its appreciation depends on the viewer. What I saw as contemplative, portending, compelling, and well-crafted, others viewed as self-important, tedious, implausible, and manipulative. Others have criticized the under-explained alien invasion and the invaders’ preposterous weakness, but I enjoyed the film’s more personal take on such a crisis and could compare the creature’s undoing to the aliens’ germy downfall in War of the Worlds. In many ways, Signs is the antithesis of Independence Day; everything is smaller, with no explosions, no bombastic victory, no clichéd relationships, and all for the better. It’s a tense, non-gory thriller with hardly any profanity and an uncommon theme of finding lost faith and recognizing God in what seems like coincidence.

I dare anyone to watch Signs and then enter a dark corn maze without being a little nervous.

Best line: (Graham Hess) “See, what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you? Are you the kind that sees signs, that sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way: Is it possible that there are no coincidences?”

Other best line: (young Bo, waking her father up one night) “There’s a monster outside my room, can I have a glass of water?”

 
Rank: 53 out of 60
 

© 2014 S. G. Liput

229 Followers and Counting

 

Ghostbusters II (1989)

28 Sunday Sep 2014

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Dana Barrett has a baby,
But out on the street one day,
Oscar in his baby carriage
Very nearly rolls away.
 
Though the former Ghostbusters
Were forced to locate other work,
Dana asks them to inspect
To see if any dangers lurk.
 
Working at an art museum,
Dana feels uneasy toward
Vigo the Carpathian,
Whose portrait is to be restored.
 
Peter Venkman and his cohorts
Dig into First Avenue,
Where Ray finds a ghastly river
Full of pink slime flowing through.
 
Once the ‘Busters prove they’re sane
By vanquishing two apparitions,
They begin to find more business,
Fueling slime-induced suspicions.
 
When the slime tries grabbing Oscar,
Dana flees to Venkman’s flat,
While the others check the sewers,
Where the moody slime is at.
 
Egon, Winston, Ray, and Peter
Are arrested once again,
And poor Oscar soon is kidnapped
To the art house, Vigo’s den.
 
Once he starts his reign of terror,
All the Ghostbusters are freed,
And they use a certain giant
Statue in their time of need.
 
Crashing evil Vigo’s party,
They destroy his floating head.
Having rescued Dana’s baby,
Peter fills her ex’s stead,
And the Ghostbusters are honored
As defeaters of the dead.
___________________
 

Most probably disagree, but yes, I like the second Ghostbusters more than its predecessor. Perhaps it’s because I saw it first for some reason.  (Similarly, my VC saw Superman II first and prefers it to the original).  Ghostbusters is always hailed as being full of hilarious lines and incidents, but to me, Ghostbusters II is even more so. The pathetic birthday scene seems to indicate the franchise’s fall from grace early on, but it just keeps getting better and better. From Venkman’s side-splitting looks on his psychic TV show to the courtroom scene with Louis Tully’s awkward reappearance to the inversely scary and funny effects of the pink slime (long before the whole ground beef controversy), the hilarity just keeps coming.

Some critics complained that the sequel didn’t add anything to the franchise. Though it doesn’t try to exceed its predecessor, it continues its clever script with even more potent quotables.  For example: “Doe, Ray, Egon.”  In addition, Venkman’s baby banter makes him much more likable than in the first film, and while the villain Vigo is just as soberly menacing as Gozer was, he has a welcome addition in Peter MacNicol as Dr. Janosz Poha, whose Eastern European accent inevitably elicits crack-ups. Plus, while the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man was a fictional character, the climax with the Statue of Liberty not only looks more realistic but has the desired uplifting effect on the audience as well as the characters.

I may be in the minority, but I feel that Ghostbusters II was an improvement on the first film, with a similarly absurd plot and lovable characters spouting lines worthy of repetition. There may not ever be a third film with the original cast, but Ghostbusters II is an outstanding swan song for the franchise. Though it may soon return from the dead…with women….

Best lines (so many): (the mayor) “Being miserable and treating other people like dirt is every New Yorker’s God-given right.”
 
(Venkman, upon being asked why they drilled a hole in the middle of the street) “Well, there are so many holes in First Avenue, we really didn’t think anyone would notice.”
 
(Egon, analyzing Oscar’s nursery) “Cozy. My parents didn’t believe in toys.”
(Ray, later on) “You mean you never even had a Slinky?”
(Egon) “We had part of a Slinky. But I straightened it.”

 

Artistry: 7
Characters/Actors: 9
Entertainment: 10
Visual Effects: 8
Originality: 8
Watchability: 10
Other (language): -1
 
TOTAL: 51 out of 60
 

Next: #111 – The Matrix

© 2014 S. G. Liput

213 Followers and Counting

 

Ghostbusters (1984)

07 Sunday Sep 2014

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Peter Venkman, Ray, and Egon
Study strange phenomena,
ESP and ghostly sightings,
Things to make you drop your jaw.
 
When they lose their college funding,
Business is their next endeavor,
Catching floating apparitions
With devices odd and clever.
 
Soon they get an early nibble
(Which they then put off till later):
Dana Barrett’s seeing creatures
In her home refrigerator.
 
When they capture their first specter,
Calls begin to flood the lines.
New York seems to be attracting
Unexpected eerie signs.
 
He and Dana hit it off,
More or less (it grows with time).
They confine all ghosts they find,
Fighting through recurrent slime.
 
When the EPA comes calling,
Blasting them for violations,
They turn off the storage system,
Loosing phantom infestations.
 
In the meantime, Dana’s fallen
To the demon Zuul’s possession.
She and neighbor Louis Tully
Plan for Gozer’s near aggression.
 
As an otherworldly portal
Helps the ancient god appear,
All Ghostbusters block its way
Until it makes a friend a fear.
 
As a mountainous marshmallow
Wrecks New York, they roast it well,
Rescuing New York and Dana
From phantasms raising hell.
“Who you gonna call” for hauntings?
We all know the famous yell.
________________
 

Many, including my VC, will probably scoff at my not including Ghostbusters in my top 100. I know it’s extremely popular, utterly quotable, and uniquely entertaining, but it simply is not among my top comedies. The best explanation I can give is that I find the film more often amusing than laugh-out-loud hilarious.

Nonetheless, the story of apparition exterminators has rightfully earned a place on countless other top lists, including #28 of AFI’s top comedies. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis are in their prime with a clever script by the latter two, and Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts, Rick Moranis, and Ernie Hudson add to the prodigious star power. A few rather dated effects are luckily overshadowed by some impressive pyrotechnics and a few haunting effects that look admittedly real (exploding eggs, flying library cards). Amid all the comedy are also some authentically frightening scenes, such as Dana’s armchair seizure. The refrigerator scene even possibly inspired a later horror film The Refrigerator about a chilled portal to hell. (“Generally, you don’t see that kind of behavior in a major appliance.”)

Some may insist that Ghostbusters ought to be higher, but I still enjoy its blend of comedy and bloodless horror, though I don’t care for its more demonic elements. I do have to include Ray Parker’s “Ghostbusters” in my End Credits Song Hall of Fame. Thirty years later, Ghostbusters remains as classic a haunt as ever.

Best line: (Ray, after they accidentally fry a maid cart that startled them) “I think we’d better split up.”
(Egon) “Good idea.”
(Peter) “Yeah. We can do more damage that way.”
 
VC’s best line: (Ray) “What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God-type stuff.”
(Peter) “Exactly.”
(Ray) “Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!”
(Egon) “Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…”
(Winston) “The dead rising from the grave!”
(Peter) “Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!”

 

Artistry: 7
Characters/Actors: 9
Entertainment: 10
Visual Effects: 7
Originality: 9
Watchability: 10
Other (language, demonic elements): -2
 
TOTAL: 50 out of 60
 

Next: #126 – The Music Man

© 2014 S. G. Liput

198 Followers and Counting

 

#130: Alien (1979)

04 Thursday Sep 2014

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The crew of the Nostromo are awakened from their stasis
To check an odd transmission on a purely routine basis.
When Kane discovers eggs inside an otherworldly ship,
One hatches and attaches to his face with quite a grip.
The creature later disconnects but leaves a hostile guest:
A small, elusive alien that bursts from poor Kane’s chest!
 
The crew, including Parker, Lambert, Brett, and milky Ash,
The science officer with whom one Ripley has a clash,
Attempt with Captain Dallas to detect it and pursue,
But, as the beast matures and grows, some casualties ensue.
Then Ripley learns that Ash is hiding secrets cruel and grim
And, with a little help, succeeds in neutralizing him.
 
Deciding to destroy the ship and flee aboard a shuttle,
The final three are dropped to one by Double-mouth’s rebuttal.
The ship’s computer’s counting down and Ripley cannot stay;
She clears the ship before Nostromo blows itself away.
Though stowaways are sticky, a blown air lock’s all it takes
To rid herself of aliens forever…till she wakes.
________________
 

There aren’t many scary movies on my list, but I couldn’t leave out this classic blend of sci-fi and horror. Ridley Scott’s Alien may have had myriad source materials (The Thing from Another World, Forbidden Planet, etc.), but it’s also terrifyingly original, with an interrupted dinner scene that ranks among the most shocking and memorable ever filmed. With a crew of relatable everymen, Oscar-winning visual effects, and some impressively realized sets for the Nostromo’s interior, Alien also marked the breakthrough success of director Ridley Scott.

When the film was first released, no one expected an alien to pop out of someone’s chest, and no one knew who would survive the frightful encounter, least of all newcomer Sigourney Weaver, who gained much of her fame from this first starring role as Ellen Ripley. The entire film is thick with tension, which slowly builds from the empty corridors at the beginning to the misty alien world on which the crew lands. Once the alien is released upon the unsuspecting humans, almost every scene is suffused with dread that some hideous thing could be around the next corner or camouflaged somewhere in the dark. The ambushes of Brett and Dallas are enough to give anyone nightmare; my VC has seen the film more often than I have, and she was still shaking during those scenes.

Adding to the obvious horror aspects of a hidden monster, many critics also pointed out a sexual subtext that I’d never thought of, namely that the life cycle of the alien tapped into the fear of rape, or more specifically non-consensual reproduction. It was not lost on analysts that it was a man that “gave birth” and that a woman was the hero. This served to frighten men and women alike out of their wits on multiple levels and gave women a remarkably strong example bucking the usually helpless horror archetype.

Though the film is full of language, which, along with the infamous, bloody chest-bursting scene, gained it an R rating, the rest of the movie is actually pretty restrained. Aside from Kane’s, all the other deaths are either off-screen or quickly cut to keep the audience wondering what it was they saw. It’s certainly not for kids, but it’s at least nothing like the outrageous gore fests I steer clear of. I don’t mind being scared, just being grossed-out for the sake of cheap frights.

Though the Alien franchise was run into the ground with Alien: Resurrection and the Alien vs. Predator films, the original remains an icon of both science fiction and horror, a film that countless others have tried to emulate.

Best line: (Ripley) “When we throw the switches, how long before the ship blows?”
(Parker) “Ten minutes.”
(Ripley) “No b***s***?”
(Parker) “We ain’t outta here in ten minutes, we won’t need no rocket to fly through space.”

 

Artistry: 9
Characters/Actors: 9
Entertainment: 9
Visual Effects: 8
Originality: 9
Watchability: 7
Other (language, violence): -2
 
TOTAL: 49 out of 60
 

Next: #129 – Regarding Henry

© 2014 S. G. Liput

195 Followers and Counting

 

I Am Legend (2007) / World War Z (2013)

13 Thursday Mar 2014

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Robert Neville is the last
Survivor of a medicine
That wiped out most three years ago;
The rest are mutants with pale skin.
 
He drives through New York’s empty streets,
His only friend a dog named Sam.
Although he tries to find a cure,
So far his efforts are a sham.
 
One day, while scavenging for food,
He has a close call with the freaks,
Who cannot live in broad sunlight
And only let out yells and shrieks.
 
He captures one of them as well
To test a new experiment.
He thinks his serum doesn’t work
And starts to doubt his efforts spent.
 
A mutant traps him, and, in fleeing,
Robert sees Sam get a bite.
He takes her home to try his cure,
But he must strangle her that night.
 
At first, he’s numb and wants revenge,
Which fails as well, but he is saved
By healthy Anna and a boy,
The company that he has craved.
 
He doesn’t share her faith-filled hope,
But he defends her when night falls
And mutants come to storm his house.
The three then hide behind glass walls.
 
When Robert sees his serum works,
He sacrifices his own life
To stop the creatures and let Anna
Carry it to end the strife.
Or:
When Robert sees his serum works,
He gives his test case back, unsure.
When all the mutants let him live,
The three of them leave with his cure.
_________________________
 
Gerry Lane’s a family man
Amidst a breakout of disease
That turns infected ones into
A zombie horde that will not ease.
 
His family narrowly escapes
A Newark rooftop just in time.
They’re safe aboard a U.N. ship,
But Gerry’s course turns on a dime.
 
If they stay safe, he has to go
And help a doctor find a cure.
They go to South Korea, where
The doc is killed, and they detour.
 
In Israel, a wall’s been built;
They had the foresight to prepare.
But sound attracts the zombie crowd
And makes them climb without a stair.
 
Jerusalem is lost, it seems,
But Gerry saves a soldier girl.
They manage passage on a plane
And fly above the hostile world.
 
But there’s a zombie on the plane,
And things get quite out of control.
Yet Gerry throws a live grenade
And blows the undead out the hole.
 
The plane goes down somewhere in Wales,
But Gerry and the girl survive.
They find a W.H.O.,
Which verifies that they’re alive.
 
Then Gerry wants to test a theory
Which may help with quarantine.
The zombies may ignore the sick;
Disease may keep us all unseen.
 
They have the samples of disease,
But that wing’s filled with the infected.
He sneaks by zombie-crowded rooms
And almost gets through undetected.
 
Trapped within a small glass room,
He gives himself a bad disease.
He opens up the door again
And walks through zombie hordes with ease.
 
Once cured of what he gave himself,
He spreads the news he chanced to find.
This helps the soldiers to fight back
And saves what’s left of all mankind.
_____________________
 

I’m not big on the genre of zombie movies. I’ve never seen Night of the Living Dead or The Evil Dead or The Walking Dead or any movie or show with “dead” in the title (as far as I know). Thus, most of what I know is based on things I’ve read or heard, but one common factor that has mainly kept me from such films is its penchant for violence and gore. The concept of the living dead is interesting to me, but it’s not worth slogging through buckets of blood or body parts. Therefore, I’ve included these films as two of the most restrained members of the zombie genre.

I put I Am Legend and World War Z together because, after seeing the latter, I was struck by several similarities between the two. Both are based on well-received science fiction horror novels. Both involve several startling jump scenes and a worldwide pandemic of a mysterious disease that turns many or all of its victims into mindless monsters that throw themselves wildly against windshields. Both include a sympathetic family man trying to find a cure, and both end with the protagonist locked in a glass room.

I Am Legend is a melancholy picture of an empty New York, starring Will Smith as Robert Neville. Unlike Gerry Lane in World War Z, Neville loses everything in his search for a cure, and Will Smith makes the pathos of his situation very believable and touching. The film includes both one of the most intense and one of the saddest scenes ever, namely Neville’s first encounter with the infected (which feels like an edge-of-your-seat first-person-shooter video game) and his killing of his beloved dog, on his birthday no less. This sad scene ranks up there with Old Yeller as far as traumatic canine deaths.

A main problem with I Am Legend is the end. There was no need for Neville to kill himself, since he could have fit in the little niche in which Anna and Ethan hid. I much prefer the abovementioned alternate ending, which is much less depressing, though it diverges from the book on which the film is based.

World War Z features actual zombies, rather than the more vampiric mutants. While some people have stated that fast-moving undead are a cliché now, the sight of the rushing zombie hordes is admittedly unnerving.

Though my VC refused to see it because of her dislike for Brad Pitt, I thought he did a decent job as Gerry Lane, though not as good as Will Smith’s performance. Yet, while I Am Legend has many scenes that dwell on what he has lost, World War Z is a much more straightforward action movie (with most direct acts of violence thankfully offscreen), the pace of which hardly slows down enough to let the implications of this global disaster sink in. Yet Gerry’s family survive, unlike Neville’s, and so does he, which makes the end a little happier, if equally ambiguous. On the other hand, Neville actually found a cure for the disease, whereas Gerry’s solution is just to prevent its spread, leaving everyone already a zombie to just be exterminated. Plus, unlike I Am Legend and a similar epidemic film Contagion, we never learn where the zombie outbreak came from. (I blame the Sumatran rat monkey.)

Both have some language and violence, and the very concept of a disease wiping out most of the world’s population is inherently sobering, but both manage to excite, thrill, and believably create these frightening what-if situations.

Best line from I Am Legend: (Neville, speaking of Bob Marley) “When they asked him why – he said, “The people, who were trying to make this world worse… are not taking a day off. How can I? Light up the darkness.”

Best line from World War Z: (Jurgen Warmbrunn in Israel) “Most people don’t believe something can happen until it already has. That’s not stupidity or weakness, that’s just human nature.”

 
Artistry: 6
Characters/Actors: 6
Entertainment: 7
Visual Effects: 7
Originality: 5
Watchability: 6
Other (language, violence, and subject matter): -6
 
TOTAL: 31 out of 60
 

Next: #297: Horton Hears a Who!

© 2014 S. G. Liput

 

Psycho (1960)

29 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by in Movies

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Marion Crane is in love with a man
But has not the money to wed her dear Sam.
So, after a tryst, she endeavors to scram
 
With 40K trusted to her by her boss.
She leaves town before he’s aware of the loss.
While driving, her mind starts to worry and toss.
Her guilt soon becomes an unbearable cross,
 
So she stops for the night at the old Bates Motel.
The young Norman Bates, who can scare or compel,
Checks Marion in to the lodging from hell.
They chat, and he shows her her quarters as well.
 
He tells her his mother is mentally ill.
That night, in the shower, Miss Crane’s cries are shrill
As a figure appears with a knife meant to kill.
When Norman arrives, Miss Crane’s body is still.
 
So both her and her car, Norman sinks in a lake.
Soon, Marion’s sought for her stolen loot’s sake.
Sam and Lila, her sister, think there’s a mistake;
It’s hard to believe she would lie, steal, or take,
 
So she’s being searched for by the sleuth Arbogast.
He finds the motel, where he thinks she was last,
And Norman is spooked by the questions he’s asked.
It seems that he feels he is being harassed.
 
The detective sneaks into Bates’ home, but is slain.
Then Lila and Sam, who grow close in their pain,
Go also in search of poor Marion Crane.
While Sam distracts Norman, who seems less than sane,
 
Young Lila goes into Bates’ house with aplomb.
The tension builds up like a volatile bomb.
She goes in the basement and loses her calm
When she locates the dead corpse of Norman Bates’ mom!
 
Then Bates, dressed as mother, attacks with a knife,
But, lucky for her, valiant Sam saves her life.
A doctor tells them Norman’s internal strife,
 
The death of his mother, which Norman had done,
The messed-up relationship of mom and son,
 
Caused Norman to take on her psyche and traits
And murder, believing he was Norma Bates.
But, now that he’s stopped, an asylum awaits.
___________________
 

Psycho was the new height of violence and shock value when it was released in 1960. While the “surprise” ending is almost as well-known and unsurprising as Darth Vader’s I-am-your-father revelation, this Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece is still as creepy as ever, and the shower scene still just as traumatic.

I haven’t seen many Hitchcock movies, and what I have seen (Notorious, North by Northwest) hasn’t really impressed me. Yet Psycho is not a mostly boring spy yarn but the original slasher film, which, unlike more recent examples, is restrained enough in its violence to still be watchable. Buoyed by unique camera shots that cleverly hide Norman’s schizophrenic secret and an amazingly evil performance by Anthony Perkins, Psycho manages to retain Hitchcock’s artistic touch while still delivering the horrors in which he so reveled. What is it about playing psychopathic killers that brings out the best in an actor, from Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs to Kathy Bates in Misery? Whatever it is, Perkins is certainly the best part of the whole movie.

Best line: (Norman, while in custody at the very end) “I’ll just sit here and be quiet, just in case they do… suspect me. They’re probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of a person I am. I’m not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching… they’ll see. They’ll see and they’ll know, and they’ll say, “Why, she wouldn’t even harm a fly…” (one of the best evil grins ever)

Artistry: 7
Characters/Actors: 9
Entertainment: 4
Visual Effects: N/A
Originality: 6
Watchability: 3
 
TOTAL: 29 out of 60
 

Tomorrow: #336: The Perfect Storm

© 2014 S. G. Liput