Review: The Boogeyman (2023)

This movie needed to be rated R.

Almost every critique I have of this movie comes back to the PG-13 limitation placed on this (on a Stephen King adaptation!  After IT had already come out!).  It works within that limitation well, but it is fighting a losing battle against that PG-13 rating.

To give a clear example of how that rating cut this movie off at the knees: Only 3 people die in the entire film (not necessarily a bad thing), and 2 of those are within the first 15 minutes of this roughly 100 minute movie and both are offscreen.  You cannot have a child-murdering monster movie where nothing happens for a large chunk of the movie.

Even calling the titular Boogeyman a child-murdering monster is a bit of a stretch.  Unlike the aforementioned IT adaptation, this movie pulls its punches to a severe degree when it comes to actually endangering the children.  It's almost as if the Boogeyman is going out of its way to not kill the child and teenager it is terrorizing.  It doesn't matter how many scenes you have of the creature slowly menacing Sadie and Sawyer (Sophie Thatcher and Vivien Lyra Blair) - even if they are well-done escalations of the creature's threat - if ultimately the creature doesn't do anything other than scare them, it loses quite a bit of its mystique.

And it's frustrating because the movie is actually good despite this.  Both Thatcher and Blair give  strong performances, as does Chris Messina as their father and Madison Hu as Sadie's friend Bethany.  Hu might just be the best performance in the film even if it feels like a decent chunk of her character was cut.  David Dastmalchian also makes a cameo appearance as a previous victim of the monster and spins quite a bit of gold within his shortened screentime.

As mentioned above, director Rob Savage does effectively build tension throughout the film, with a major assist from cinematographer Eli Born.  Lighting is especially important for this movie, and genuine effort was put into making the scenes dark while still allowing the audience to see just enough of the monster to let the imagination run wild.  The final full reveal of the Boogeyman is a bit disappointing, but they do build up to that reveal masterfully.

So yeah, this is a pretty decent movie that just needed the the handcuffs taken off of it to be great.  Ah well, I think I'd still recommend it, but never as a first choice.

6.5 out of 10

Review: Bulbbul (2020)

There's always a danger when watching a foreign film that something will go over your head that is obvious to the intended audience.  Having said that, I will attempt to review this movie on the merits,  even if I am fairly certain I have missed some sort of commentary or trope that would be obvious to the Indian audience this was made for.  Apologies in advance!

Bulbbul, set in the 1800s, follows the titular Bulbbul (Trupti Dimri, Ruchi Mahajan as a child), flashing back between her childhood marriage to Indranil (Rahul Bose) along with her childhood friendship with Indranil's brother Satya (Avinash Tiwary, Varun Buddhadev as a child) who is much closer to her in age; and 20 years later, as Bulbbul has taken over the duties of her husband's estate due to his long absence.

It is in the latter scenes where we learn that a 'chudail' or witch, has been terrorizing the area, killing multiple men.  Satya, returning home after being away for five years, sets about trying to find the murderer while also trying to figure out what has caused Bulbul's personality to have changed so dramatically in the interim.

This is a movie where the colors on the screen reflect the mood of the same.  A bright violent red, or a cold blue saturation instantly prepares the viewer for what is to come, setting them on edge with nothing but a color swap.  It's an effective tactic, and it adds the the hyper-realism that permeates the movie.

The performances are topnotch, with Dimri giving the film its best performance, followed closely by Paoli Dam as Binodini, the scheming wife of Indranil's twin brother Mahendra (also played by Bose).  Dam gives an outright poisonous portrayal in the flashbacks, coupled with a frightened paranoid performance after the time jump.

This film has mood for days, and while it has elements of horror, it is much more of a tragedy once the story finishes.  I don't think the plot would be terribly surprising for anyone - the film goes to the places you expect it to - but it tells its story well, and I am glad to have watched it.

Would I recommend it to others?  Well, the film is in Hindi, so you unless you already speak that you would need to be prepared for subtitles, but it is engaging enough in its visuals that I think most would enjoy it even if that is a drawback to them.  I would warn that there is sexual violence for those that would be triggered by such a thing.

7 out of 10

Review: Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995)

I don't think we give Billy Zane enough credit as an actor.  He might not go down as one of the legends of cinema, but he does solid work and is very good at modulating his performance to the film he is in.  It's an undervalued skill, particularly in genre movies where Zane has made quite a career for himself.  I'm sure he has had bigger showcases than Demon Knight, but this might be his best performance.

Some might read that as shady, but I am sincere in this comment.  He distills his interpretation of The Collector, a demon trying to get an artifact to end the world, into an impossibly charismatic monster and takes what might have been a watchable but forgettable movie into a gem of a film.  It's frankly magnetic, and while I have commented in other reviews about actors or actresses giving their movies more effort than called for, Zane manages to give the exact perfect amount of energy that this role needs to work.

Which isn't to say that the other actors are slouching - Dick Miller, another stalwart of genre films, matches Zane's energy without really sharing any scenes with him.  Thomas Haden Church is also amazingly scummy as Roach, the primary antagonist amongst the humans trying to survive The Collector.  CCH Pounder and Jada Pinkett aren't quite as strong, but they do a good enough job that I don't feel the need to nitpick.  For a movie based off of the a TV series, even one from HBO, the cast is more than game for the challenge.

The setting - a church converted into a boarding house for a majority of the movie - works pretty well, and director Ernest Dickerson gives the audience a good feel for the space and uses the building to create some interesting shots.  The effects are also fairly well done, with the makeup of the various demons suitably grotesque and the special effects used judiciously.

I'll also give some credit to the script, written by Ethan Reiff, Cyrus Voris, and Mark Bishop.  So many random asides, or seemingly unnecessary plot points end up not only being referenced later on, but tie into the main plot in unexpected ways.  The character of Wally (Charles Fleischer) mentions being fired from his job fairly early in the movie, and you will be surprised at how relevant that is during the run towards the climax.

Would I recommend this film?  Yes.  It's a fairly 'popcorn' version of horror that most would enjoy, and the extra effort put into making it an actually good movie pays dividends.  I doubt it will make too many people's Top Tens, but I would expect most to enjoy it.

7.5 out of 10

Review: Event Horizon (1997)

It is of no surprise to me that the director of Event Horizon is also the director of 1995's Mortal Kombat and several of the Milla Jovovich-starring Resident Evil movies.  Which isn't to say that it is the same as those movies, but that it has the same energy as them.  Whether or not you can vibe with that energy will probably determine whether or not you enjoy this film, and as a fan of some of his other work, I think it is safe to say I do vibe with director Paul Anderson's dynamism.

While watching this with my brother, we both made comparisons: he mentioned similarities to the Warhammer 40K novels and how space travel works within them, and I said this was a more thoughtful Doom - and let me tell you, I never would have imagined saying Anderson would direct the more thoughtful version of anything.  Not in a negative way, mind you, it's just that his forte tends to be on the popcorn side of the moviemaking experience.

To give a brief summary: Event Horizon takes place in 2047 (oh, the optimism of where science would go during the 90s) and follows a rescue crew sent out to Neptune to save the crew of a previous mission (onboard a ship called Event Horizon, thus giving us the title) that disappeared 7 years prior.  Captaining the ship is Miller (Laurence Fishburne), with Dr. Weir (Sam Neill), who designed the missing ship, traveling with them.  They find the ship, the remains of the crew, and quickly realize that something is wrong.

One of the things that really worked well for me was how well this movie subverted my expectations.  A character that I had pegged as one to make it to the finale ended up being the first to die, and another character that I was sure was going to die first ended up surviving!  Other subversions occurred, but these were the most notable to me given my penchant for correctly calling out who would live vs who would die in genre films.

Another high point is the design, both of the titular spaceship and the rescue ship.  They are distinct from one another while still feeling as if they came from the same original source.  Even better, the directing gives the audience a fairly good idea of the layouts of both ships, which allows for the more horror-focused scenes to disorient the audience as well as the characters.

My one big criticism of the film would be that it really wants a more violent version of itself.  Apparently it did at one point, but executives forced Anderson and editor Martin Hunter to cut the film down from a 130 minute version to a more reasonable 96 minutes, with the gore effects the biggest victim.  Now, I don't think this movie needed a two hour version, but 3 to 7 more minutes of gore would have gone a long way towards increasing the impact of the story.

However, the 96 minute version that we do have is very much something special, and I can see why this film not only developed a cult following, but is now considered amongst the best horror films ever made.  It is definitely impactful.

Would I recommend this film?  Not to everyone: I think this is more of a horror movie fan's horror movie than anything.

7.5 out of 10

Review: Pulse (2001)

You know, writing these reviews every day in the month of October, I sometimes forget that these movies are meant to be scary.  I might wax poetic about childhood nostalgia, or brutally mock the decision-making of a film, or even talk about my love of the more terrible attempts at making a horror movie, but I seldom talk about movies that are scary.  Looking back at last year's list of movies, I can only count Shelby Oaks, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, The Taking of Deborah Logan, and maybe Wolf Man as movies that were actually frightening - even the more respectable classics I watched were viewed more with a sense of detachment given how well versed I was in their histories.  So it was quite nice to go into this movie blind and be genuinely unnerved by it at various points.  It makes sense that this movie is credited with starting the J-horror movement alongside Ringu.

Pulse is a 2001 Japanese techno-horror movie with dual storylines:  One following Michi (Kumiko Asō), a plant shop worker whose coworkers start disappearing; the other following Ryosuke, a college student who sets up his Internet and immediately starts having weird things happen on his computer.  The characters go through similar experiences as strange things start happening to them and the other citizens of Tokyo.

The first 45 minutes of this movie are damn near perfect: the first scare is set up so perfectly that when the shock comes - not as a jump scare, but as a horrified reaction - you are left questioning what has happened just as much as the character.  It's filmed with a hazy, dream-like quality that makes every movement or dialogue feel like it can go in unexpected directions.

The movie goes further by setting up what seem like traditional scares, then somewhat letting the air out of them (both the audience and the characters relax, if only briefly) before hitting us when something truly horrific.  The movie doesn't use jump scares for any of this, but keeps the tone, the color, the mood of the film in an ever-foreboding state so that when we reach these moments relaxation, we cling to them that much harder for relief.  It's astoundingly effective even now, 25 years later, even though this movie is very much about 2001.

With every potential relief ripped away from the audience, they begin to feel the same exhaustion and lethargy that begin to affect our protagonists.  When we finally get a moment where a character screams, it feels as if she is screaming for all of us - a primeval wail that is one of the rare moments where the audience gets a brief release.

Everything about this feels deliberate:  Writer-director Kiyoshi Kurosawa makes every moment of this movie count in ways both big and small.  The terror can be present in front of us, or just out of sight: around the corner or on the other side of the door.  He is guiding us through this story he wants to tell without it feeling manipulative, but making sure we feel what he wants us to throughout.

I will recommend this movie to everyone.  It is in Japanese, so make your peace with subtitles, but this is what great horror is meant to be.

9 out of 10.

Review: The Boy (2015)

A breakdown of The Boy - no, not the one you are thinking of

The Good:

• David Morse and Rainn Wilson are both very good in this movie
• This film has atmosphere for days, and it serves the movie well
• There is some startling and effective imagery scattered throughout
• The Boy has a pretty cool poster

The Bad:

• While I understand why it is classified as horror, I would not consider it a horror movie
• This movie is slow - apparently trying to be meditative and instead being soporific
• Far too much of the plot doesn't really go anywhere interesting
• Much of this film rests on lead child actor Jared Breeze, and his is not the most compelling performance

The Ugly:

• Though I haven't seen it, I am willing to bet the 2016 movie of the same title is a better film
• Several scenes are outright tedious and none of them are short
• It's bad when your movie is a reasonable 105 minutes and still feels like it needed to be edited down
• The poster, while cool, sells a very different movie then the one you get
• I would only recommend this to someone who is either pretentious or I disliked

3 out of 10

Review: The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972)

Sometimes, a movie is pure nostalgia, a comforting blanket that - even if scary - takes you back to childhood, sitting around a campfire or in a dark room and telling your friends creepy stories, each of you trying to outdo one another.  Nothing too terrible, but tales of creatures in the woods, or ghosts in the attic, something that doesn't cause you to jump, but instead works its way into your skin and settles there.  It fades, as does childhood, and though it might never again cause you to stay up all night terrified of every sound, the memory of it lingers, striking you at random moments and making you feel like a scared child again, if only briefly.  The Legend of Boggy Creek is such a film for me.

Made by the legendary regional director Charles B. Pierce, The Legend of Boggy Creek is a shot in a documentary style, interviewing residents of Fouke, Arkansas as they talk about the local Bigfoot-like creature that wanders the area and the terror it causes.  Several reenactments of encounters are displayed, guided by narration from Vern Stierman, as the viewer learns of the ever-escalating appearances, and later attacks, that petrifies those who encounter it.

This low budget film - made for $160,000, eventually grossing over $20 million - used local residents, often portraying themselves or relatives, to give the movie an air of authenticity, and it works wonders.  A child watching this - and indeed, I was a child the first time I saw this movie - would readily believe this tale as only a child can: Woods are mysterious, and who's to say something monstrous doesn't live somewhere deep into them?  And if parts of it look fake, or threadbare, well this is just a tale of the monster, not the actual thing.

It really is amazing that this is a first film.  Pierce, who would direct thirteen other films and assist in the making of others, shows a natural talent for setting up shots, building tension, and using his location.  He actually worked many behind-the-scenes roles, serving as cinematographer (and nailing it) and as producer.  This movie feels instinctual, almost as if the camera just accidentally caught something magic, which speaks to the talent and effort of everyone behind the camera.

Rewatching it some 30 years later, I am amazed at how well it holds up.  I talked of the effect of this film in the first paragraph, and all these years later I can still feel the terror of the night after I watched this movie - like a scar I had forgotten about and then noticed in the mirror.  Everything about this film works, and things that would normally be a strike against it - some wooden acting or the look of the creature - somehow instead work in its favor to make it seem that much more authentic.

I really cannot recommend this film enough, to anyone.  It is very much in the same vein as 1963's The Haunting or The Conjuring, more creepy than scary, but damn if it doesn't work just as well as those other films.

8.5 out of 10