Blu-Ray Review: Orphan (2009)

MAY 16, 2024

GENRE: KILLER KID
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I recently was a guest on the Screen Drafts podcast where myself and screenwriter Penny Cox had to draft the top 7 horror movies of 2009, which was a surprisingly glutted year for the genre. I could have picked seven films just myself and not included everything that's a "must-see", and I only got three of the seven picks (the way the show works is, since there's only seven slots, you can either have four picks OR only get three but one of them is the #1, so it kind of evens out). Well as you can perhaps guess by now, my #1 pick was Orphan, though for its makers I'm guessing "Being added to the Scream Factory library" is a bigger honor than "Horror Movie A Day guy liked it a lot."

The funny thing is, I re-read my original review and I wasn't as glowing at the time as I often feel now. 15 years ago (Christ...) I said it was a bit too long and I was also mixed on the twist, which surprised 2024 me. I can only assume (and here I'll warn about spoilers if you're somehow still in the dark) I just really wanted a genuine evil child movie and was a bit disheartened that she was an adult the whole time, but whatever the reason was then, I've changed my tune. Not only is it just awesome through and through, but if it WAS just a standard evil kid movie, we probably wouldn't have gotten the equally insane/delightful prequel Orphan: First Kill, which would have to have recast Isabelle Fuhrman (booo) and hire some other kid in order to work since so much time had passed. Plus the "Now we know she's an adult" element gave the movie more areas to explore, whereas a typical prequel about Esther the twist-free killer kid would just come off as a repeat.

As for the length, OK, yeah, two hours for this kind of thing is a bit much, but the time is used wisely. One great thing about this movie is that it'd actually be interesting even if Esther didn't show up (or at least, wasn't evil) because of what's going on with the dysfunctional family unit. The recovering alcoholic mom wracked with guilt over an accident that left her daughter deaf, the dad who had an affair a decade ago and is still being punished for it, the son who is trying to be a rebellious cool kid but is actually a meek soul... this is not the usual "perfect family gets undone by new member" approach we've seen in other such movies. Learning these developments throughout the movie and seeing Esther use them to drive everyone further apart is a big part of the movie's appeal, and it wouldn't be possible if they were making everyone a stock character just so they could get to the fun stuff earlier.

Long story short, its "flaws" are actually strengths, and 2009 me was a moron. It's a shame so many more people read what I was saying back then than they do now!

Anyway, when the film came to Blu-ray it didn't have a lot of bonus features; just a handful of deleted scenes (some pretty good!) and a piece on the sub-genre that failed to mention Cathy's Curse, so it is worthless. For its Scream Factory debut (which is not on 4K UHD, alas), which carries a terrific new transfer along with those original supplements, they've tracked down composer John Ottman to provide an interview that is mostly more of a select scene commentary, playing a scene as is and then he talks about his approach for that particular moment. Honestly, I've seen the movie probably five times by now and I still couldn't recognize a cue in the wild, so this wasn't the most exciting thing for me, but score junkies will probably enjoy.

The only other new features are four (4) commentary tracks by critics and podcasters. As much as I love this movie I don't quite see the need to have FOUR of these things from people in more or less the same line of work, because you end up hearing the same observations, comparisons to the same movies (The Good Son—the very film I compared it to in the first line of my old review—comes up a lot across the board), etc. Also none of them pronounce the director's first name the same way (Hwa-may, Jah-mah, Jaw-may, etc.) so if you don't know yourself you won't get a straight answer here (if memory serves from when I did the junket, it's "Hwa-may") It was also weird how some of them don't even seem to love the movie or know it very well; one guy confesses to only seeing it for the first time to prepare for the job he'd already been hired for, and another pair of them somehow manage to forget that (spoiler) the father is killed during the climax, as they inexplicably spend a minute or two debating whether or not the audience would be OK "IF" he died due to him being an imperfect husband who didn't believe his wife (who they believe to be drinking again, even though it's a plot point that she bought wine but did NOT drink it). Another one notes that in the script Esther was said to be blonde and blue-eyed, "very Children of the Corn." Yeah man, Isaac, that blonde blue-eyed legend.

Some also start nitpicking the movie's logic and even MST3king it to a degree, which rubbed me the wrong way (though it's possible I was just getting commentary fatigue; I doubt they expect anyone to watch all four tracks more or less back to back, but I have a review to write!). It's one thing to make a little joke here and there at a movie's expense, but when it's seemingly the focus—and there isn't a single person involved in the movie to offer a track of their own—it starts to feel like they hired people at random just to fill up the list of special features and make it sound like a better deal. There are of course some good insights on each track, including some information about a "real life Esther" and how she worked with another sociopath to torture some children, and one thankfully points out Vera Farmiga's seeming infatuation with being in evil/creepy kid movies and shows. And as a fan myself, it was nice to hear them all wax nostalgic about Guitar Hero/Rock Band when the son is shown playing a couple times. But overall, I think they could have just had 3-4 critics on one track and the podcast team on the other and had all bases covered, while removing some repetition to boot.

But in a way it's actually just another bit of proof of how good this movie is, that I could essentially watch it four times over a week-long period and not be tired of seeing its visuals (again, the transfer is very good; I usually tend to think there isn't much room for improvement across the same format, but it's far better looking than the original Blu from 2009). And with First Kill kind of reviving it in the eyes of genre fans who maybe missed out back then (or simply didn't get on board due to the twist), with a potential third film on the way, there's no better time to give Esther a first or second chance, and I can't imagine there will be a better option than this disc anytime soon.

What say you?

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Abigail (2024)

APRIL 19, 2024

GENRE: KILLER KID, VAMPIRE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

(THIS REVIEW ASSUMES YOU'VE SEEN THE TRAILER OR AT LEAST KNOW THE PREMISE! IF YOU DON'T, STOP READING!)

I've often wondered if anyone ever got the opportunity to watch From Dusk Til Dawn without knowing it was a vampire movie. For the first 45 minutes or whatever it was, there's nothing in the film to indicate anything supernatural would be happening; it's just a straight ahead hostage thriller with some humor, with the vampire stuff being sprung as a total surprise. But naturally, the marketing focused on that, so there was no way for us 90s kids to go in blind. But perhaps there's a better chance for it happening with Radio Silence's Abigail, which similarly doesn't tell you you're watching a vampire movie until about the halfway point and may frustrate some viewers who were sold on that very premise.

Luckily for me, I enjoyed my pre-vampire time quite a bit, as the film was loaded with actors I enjoy watching (Dan Stevens, Kathryn Newton, Giancarlo Esposito, and - my man! - Kevin Durand) and their Reservoir Dogs-esque dynamic, where they've been assembled for a job under strict rule not to reveal anything personal about themselves and have been given code names (Joey, Dean, Frank, Sammy... either you'll get the theme or you'll need further explanation than I have space for here if I were to spell it out) to address one another. Joey is Melissa Barrera from the last two Scream movies, continuing her partnership with the Radio Silence team, and she's never been better, I must say. She's the requisite "criminal with a heart," as she has a young son that is currently with his father after she lost him due to a drug addiction she picked up during her time as a combat medic, using the money from their job to hopefully start a new life with him. Hard not to root for that!

Of course, if you're watching unaware then you can't root for her either, as the job is "kidnapping a little girl and holding her for ransom in a scary house." It's an odd disconnect; I never once really felt bad for the girl even when they have to knock her out to finish the kidnapping process, because I knew she was a little demon that could have killed them all right then and there if she wanted, but again, if some hypothetical person goes into this movie completely unaware, they'll probably have a tough time feeling for Joey even with her sob story. And the rest don't even have anything noble to even it out; an ex-cop, a mafia enforcer, a rich girl hacker... get em, Abby!

Even beyond that, the marketing and casting also kind of tips us off that despite the RD-esque setup that this won't be a movie about the team's paranoia turning them against each other. We know from the trailer that this house they all go to is actually HER house, and that their boss (Esposito) picked it specifically. And since Esposito exits after his first scene, we know they didn't cast him for that one rather thankless part, so basically while you're waiting for Abigail to show her true nature, you're also kind of waiting for the "reveal" that they were all set up by Esposito from the beginning. Amusingly, when Abigail explains why they were chosen, it comes off as a giant homage to another '90s crime classic - which Esposito was also in! So I can't help but wonder if Radio Silence intentionally cast him as tribute, only for the marketing to kind of gum up what also plays as a surprise reveal.

But like I said, it's fun to watch the group hang out, take shots at each other, attempt to bond (the late Angus Cloud, as the wheelman, gets plenty of laughs from his very terrible attempts to woo Newton's character), etc. And even though there are no specific "she's a vampire!" kind of things until she bares her fangs, there are some in-jokes that tell us what we're watching: she's introduced during her ballet routine set to "Swan Lake", and when Dan Stevens forgets to put on his mask when entering her room, he quickly tries to hide it by pulling his jacket over it, in a manner exactly like the not-Bela Lugosi guy in Plan 9. So there's plenty of amusement to be had, and while there might be a genre switcheroo (from thriller to vampire), it's *fun* from start to finish, which keeps it from a tonal inbalance. I feel an audience can go with anything a lot easier as long as the tone remains consistent, so it's only the severely impatient that should really have an issue.

Plus, it's not like they don't make it worth the wait. While the Screams made a lot more money we shouldn't forget that this is also the team that gave us Ready or Not, and whether they wanted to pay tribute to their first big success or just absolutely love doing it, there are once again very bloody body explosions in this movie, allowing nearly character to be drenched in blood at some point before they either die later or walk off into the sunrise. The compact cast (the six kidnappers, Esposito, and Abigail herself are the only people on-screen for 95% of the runtime) means the body count is obviously not going to be very high, but Abigail's pint-sized attacks means she doesn't always land a kill shot as quickly, so, yeah. Blood. Lots of it.

I also liked their take on vampires, where rather than just get the standard fangs she gets a row of sharp teeth over her normal ones, giving it a more monstrous flair than the typical bloodsucker. Her skills also involve flying, contortion, and (I think?) shape-shifting (there's a scene with a rat that suggests she turned into a cat? Unless I was just processing it wrong), but they never forget the fact that she's a ballerina either. So instead of just running she often twirls and Grand Jetes* her way towards her victims, a sight that never stopped being funny to me. And (spoiler that the trailer only offers a quick glimpse of) she does turn someone at some point, giving that actor even more fun stuff to do while also showing off a "puppet" skill where dance comes into play again, and the whole thing is set to Danzig's "Blood and Tears" for good measure. It's a truly awesome sequence.

It's also consistently funny, with very few duds in the attempts. Stevens' delivery of "F***in onions" (another character thinks they're a protective garlic) had me laughing for quite a while, and the reveal of his character's actual name is a funny little easter egg that pays homage to another filmmaking team he's worked with. And Kevin Durand is an absolute scene-stealer as a big lug who is a little slow to understand things but seems like perhaps the only genuinely decent person in the group except for Joey (his size and slow intellect kind of led him down the "bruiser" path more than any inherent malice), making him even more endearing than she is at times. His very late understanding of why they got the code names they got had me reeling. He's the main villain in the new Planet of the Apes movie too, so despite the mocap stuff obscuring his face I hope it catapults his star power a little; dude's been killing it for like 20 years now and deserves his due. If you can manage to entertain an audience during the insufferable Wolverine Origins, you deserve the world, far as I'm concerned.

OK ONE LAST SPOILER, I promise. Skip this next paragraph and the little one after it if you've been successfully hidden from some dumb social media bickering about the film's former connection to a certain vampire film of yore.

This movie was announced as a reimagining of Dracula's Daughter, and that information remains as current on the film's Wiki page, leading some lazy critics to accept it as fact. But she most certainly is NOT Dracula's daughter in the movie, because her dad shows up and I'm pretty sure they'd say his name if that's who he was (it's Grazer or something like that). However, those who have followed this movie from the time it was announced know that it only got its name very recently, and for a while was just referred to as "Untitled Radio Silence Universal Monster Movie." The fact that it took so long to say what it was actually called suggests to me that maybe the Dracula element was removed fairly late in the process, and that until then it was going to go out with that title OR they would call it whatever (including Abigail) and reveal her dad was Dracula when he showed up. Further, one could assume that since this is another comedic vampire movie from Universal, that said Drac would be played by Nic Cage, reprising his role from Renfield. But that film's total (undeserved!) failure probably would have put a stake into those plans even if that was indeed the case. Still, when her dad appears, it's an actor you might recognize, but he's hardly a big name worthy of a surprise appearance (though if you want to maybe grasp at straws, it IS kind of a funny bit of casting if you think about the title of this film that he starred in, but that's all I got). Nothing against him, he's not someone that the audience is going to be blown away by their sudden appearance, like Statham showing up at the end of Fast and Furious 6, or Sam Jackson in Iron Man, though the reveal plays like such moments.

(Ironically I had my money on someone even less exciting to a general audience: Henry Czerny, who appeared in Scream 6 and Ready or Not and even makes a random appearance in the film with his photo on one of the walls the characters slowly walk past. I would have cheered, anyway. Love that dude. But they shot the movie in Ireland, so maybe he was still in Prague.)

Besides that, my only issue is that the climax dragged, though that's been an issue with their other movies too so I can't say I was surprised. It's one of those things where things could have been wrapped up in the next five minutes, but instead they introduce another element that keeps it going. And then another element on top of that, so that what looked like the climactic scene ends up being almost an act onto itself. It also meant making one character I kind of liked as an anti-hero into a full on villain, so that was a bummer. It's mostly made up for by the final line from _______ to ______ before they explode (if you've seen it, the one involving "the cool s**t"), but it still could have been tightened. I know most people will complain it takes too long to get to the vampire stuff; I was mostly fine with that (if somewhat surprised at the delay) but weird ol' me started checking their watch during a bloody, stunt-filled battle. Just one turn too many for me.

Otherwise: total winner. I was sad but not particularly stunned to see that the box office wasn't all that great (better than Renfield at least), though I took solace with the decent Cinemascore (B, above average for horror) so maybe word of mouth will help out and it'll be a minor hit. But audiences just never tend to flock to see these kind of movies even in better theatrical times (even From Dusk Till Dawn, with a red-hot Clooney from ER and Tarantino's first script since Pulp Fiction, didn't perform all that well), and like Disney+, Universal has done itself no favors for its theatrical output (outside of major blockbusters) by training audiences to expect that they'll be on Peacock in a few weeks. You'll enjoy it just as much at home, I'm sure, but man. It'd be nice to see something like this get the "surprise smash" label, if only to ensure we get a few more before every decently budgeted (so, not Blumhouse, which keeps spending to a minimum) original horror goes extinct or streaming only. A friend of mine, who has been involved in some very gigantic movies (meaning: his stuff doesn't go streaming), believes that in 20-30 years, theatrical releases won't exist at all. *Theaters* will, but purely as a repertory or specialty thing, while the studios gradually lose interest just as audiences seemingly do, and put their slates on streaming (or whatever the next thing is) for mass audiences. People kept saying "superhero fatigue" led to the failure of the last couple Marvel movies, but if audiences want new things, they're not showing up for those either. I've stopped doing the bullying "YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS!" kind of thing that I used to, so see it or not, your call. But just know, the writing on the wall is getting easier to read by the day, and expecting to be able to go to the multiplex and seeing films like this alongside the "IP" stuff forever is perhaps misguided optimism.

What say you?

*I had to look it up, I assure you.

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Children of the Corn (2020)

JUNE 20, 2023

GENRE: CULT, KILLER KID
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Stephen King’s short story “Children of the Corn” is only 30 pages long, and yet it has somehow inspired a lengthy short film (retitled Disciples of the Crow, and worth seeing!) and three (3) feature films, not to mention all of the sequels. The 2009 version was more faithful to King’s story than the 1984 one, but both suffered from being clearly drawn out from a 30 page story (Disciples had no such issue, as it ran the same length in minutes). The two best films in the series were both sequels; 1994’s Urban Harvest and 2018’s Runaway, which was curiously a sequel to the remake despite being part of the Dimension brand (the 2009 film was a Syfy one), as if being free from King’s not particularly expansive story allowed the filmmakers to come up with something that worked as a genuine feature film. But in Children of the Corn (2020)’s case, writer/director Kurt Wimmer tossed out King’s story entirely in favor of something that… doesn’t work as a feature film. Weird tack.

To be fair, the one line synopsis is close enough: the kids in a Nebraska town kill all of the adults and worship a corn-dwelling monster called He Who Walks (the “Behind the Rows” part is dropped). But this all happens within the present day timeline of the film, as opposed to something that happened years ago like in the story/previous movies. The unsettling idea of stumbling into a town that’s been adult-free for the better part of a decade is a big part of what gives the story its power, so to toss it in favor of having it happen within the story (and without any outsiders) is an odd choice. And maybe it’d work as a prequel of sorts, fleshing out the briefly seen events from the other movies as a film of its own, but with the different town name (Rylstone) no Malachi or Isaac, etc. it doesn’t fit into anything, so it stands alone as a total reimagining.

Which would be fine if it was, you know, any good. But even though it’s reworked from the ground up it feels more padded than ever. The film opens with an older teen walking into an orphanage and killing all of the adults who work there, which prompts the sheriff and some local “good ol boys” to pump some lethal gas into the place to take him out, shrugging off that it’ll also kill the children who were staying there (and not being targeted by the older boy). The lone survivor, a 12ish girl named Eden, then rallies the other kids in town to wipe out their parents, but they attribute their anger to the parents ruining the corn with some experimental growth hormone, killing the town’s economy and now planning to take a buyout from the government, which (per the kids) “steals their future.” An interesting idea, sure, but… why the orphanage massacre, then? It’s basically forgotten after the first few minutes, and robs the film of a dozen potential cult members. Then again the whole “angry at the parents for selling the town out” angle barely factors into anything either after a while, so it’s just part of the random plotting that Wimmer keeps relying on throughout the film’s seemingly endless 93 minutes.

My favorite example happens around a half hour in or so, when our hero Bo (Elena Kampouris) and her brother decide to have a mock trial at the town hall to plead their parents not to agree to the government buyout. To do this they tie their father’s hands together while he sleeps, then wake him up and tell him he needs to come to the town hall (added hilarity: they keep saying the trial is at 10pm, but don’t even wake him up until 10:30, so they will be an hour late for their own idea. Stupid lazy kids), adding not to wake up their mother, who they’ve already bound as well, But then they cut outside and the mom is with them anyway, with both of them just sort of wearily going along with this kidnapping the way a parent might humor their kid by laughing along with them at Paw Patrol or something. Then they see signs of violence, and do they cut their parents loose? Nope, they just act like Eden’s being a little weird, despite crashed cars and the like. It’s like ten straight minutes of the film where no one acts like a human being, all so the plot can work. That it’s never clear what Bo was going to do if Eden hadn’t already started killing everyone in town just adds to the “Why are we watching this?” feeling.

It doesn’t help that Kampouris is noticeably older than the character she’s playing. We’re all used to seeing much older actors portraying teens (Kampouris was 22, 23 at the time of the production, playing 17), but it has a much different effect in this particular story, where the kids are the evildoers. Bo and her two friends (same age, if not older) aren’t on board with Eden’s wrath of terror, but it should come off as same-aged kids (KIDS) realizing right from wrong. Instead it’s like a trio of camp counselors catching their charges in the act of wrongdoing – of course they’re not going to go along with a bunch of 10 year olds! They look like grad students! Not that I hold Carpenter’s Village of the Damned up in high regard (though it isn’t nearly as bad as its rep), but David’s hesitance to join the others always played out perfectly, because you could feel his struggle between knowing what was right and wanting to fit in with his peers. There’s no such suspense here; Bo and her pals just kind of fret for nearly an hour until they finally do something. At least if they were the same age as Eden and the others, it could read as “well she’s a little kid too, she doesn’t know what to do!” but it’s impossible to believe such a thing when the character seems old enough to go ahead and have a kid of her own.

And as an Isaac substitute, Eden isn’t particularly scary – the most intense she gets in the entire thing is early on, right after the orphanage sequence, when she freaks out over being unable to fit a piece into a jigsaw puzzle. She also dons a “Red Queen” persona for a bit, which amused me because it reminded me of the Resident Evil movies, and it was all the interference on Ultraviolet (also starring Milla Jovovich) that led Wimmer to retire from directing for a while. Why he came back for this is beyond me, but I couldn’t help but wonder if the Red Queen thing crossed his mind as well. Either way, it’s dropped after about thirty minutes for some reason; I was kind of into the idea of Eden having two personalities (a more innocent one and the more sinister “Red Queen”) but it, like most of the movie’s odd plot points, ultimately doesn’t mean much.

I also thought of Deadly Friend, though not because of any particular wacky death scene (it’s actually a pretty tame movie; most of the carnage occurs off screen and when we do see something it’s usually pretty phony looking anyway). At the end, a character seemingly wins the day and escapes, only for a burnt/decaying Eden to reappear for one final scare, and it’s just as absolutely WTF as the ending of Craven’s misfire, where the robot tears itself out of Kristy Swanson’s body. Eden looks like some kind of messed up Good Guy doll in the scene, and it makes zero sense whatsoever, but honestly it’s probably the best part of the movie, since it’s at least kind of memorable. It’ll take years before I forget that shot, whereas I’m already hazy on the film’s interminable middle section. And as for the villainous corn god, he basically looks like an Asylum Mockbuster version of Groot, which is kind of amusing at least but they (as is often the case in this series) only show him in brief glimpses, so he fails to become much of a genuine threat. Wimmer ought to have gone full Sharknado and embraced how silly it looked so we could at least generate some “get drunk and laugh” entertainment out of his scenes, but they’re so brief they only remind us of how plodding the rest of the movie was (and also wonder how it is the adults managed to ruin all these crops with this genetically engineered stuff without encountering a 15 foot tall beast that is angry about it).

It's a shame too, because there are glimpses of an interesting movie here and there. The shots of the dying town, the idea that the heroine actually agrees with the villains but just doesn’t want to go about fixing the issue the same way (her ideas are much less murdery), the occasional moment where the kids are just being kids among all the atrocities – this all works! And I applauded the use of a particular Twilight Zone clip, even if it was kind of on the nose it was still funny. But Wimmer’s screenplay continually settles for introducing interesting ideas only to drop them just as quickly and revert back to the protagonist being kind of dumb, or at least not proactive enough (though the former takes precedence; at one point she tasks Eden – who is currently painting the crops with fresh blood from *something* – to meet the reporter coming to town that has promised to help, instead of asking one of her friends who were part of the plan to get her there in the first place). I kept thinking that it felt like the first 20 pages of the script were tossed out, which would explain/help some of the film’s issues, but not the fact that its hero stands around doing nothing for most of the runtime and the villain rarely delivers any real menace. There are certainly worse entries in this series, but they tend to suck from the ground up – it’s far more frustrating to see one that seemingly has some ideas (and Wimmer has done some good work in the past!) but never do anything with them. I suppose it’s possible he got micromanaged or even replaced by producers (reshoots would certainly explain all of the dropped ideas; did anyone who saw it in 2020 notice anything different when it was finally released for the rest of us this year?), but I can’t imagine there was much second guessing on Children of the Corn 12, during a pandemic no less.

There are two deleted scenes of zero interest and a trailer reel for RLJE releases, including Mandy which I found amusing – it’s been like four years since that came to disc and they’re still pushing it! But who can blame them, it’s a great movie and they probably want to remind folks that they put out good stuff, too. I bought the disc at Target because I was just tickled that they had it at all in their increasingly tiny movie section (which is otherwise just pretty much blockbusters and TV show boxed sets) and I liked seeing in my cart next to bananas and cat food, but if you’re somehow still curious enough to watch the damn thing, it’ll be on Shudder next week. I doubt it’ll help increase subscriptions. Speaking of buying it, even though it was already on clearance, it still cost more than this site has generated in revenue all year, so it's very possible that this is the last time I ever write a Children of the Corn review, which makes me kind of sad in a weird way. Whenever I make self-deprecating jokes about what I do, I frequently make the Corn franchise the target (i.e. "I haven't seen Raging Bull, but I HAVE seen all twelve Children of the Corn movies, so it evens out."), so it's like the end of an era, possibly!

What say you?

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FTP: Children of the Night (2014)

MAY 29, 2023

GENRE: VAMPIRE
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I don’t know what the oldest movie in “the pile” is, but Children of the Night (aka Limbo) has to be in the running, as it came out in October of 2015 (and, since it was sent for review consideration, means I probably got it a month earlier). My life is very different now! Since this film has been sitting there waiting for me to watch it, I’ve moved, gotten a new (used) car, published two books, lost two side jobs (typical layoff and covid shutdown, respectively), and helped turn a baby who only just started walking into a 9 year old who has his own TV and can figure out Zelda bosses easier than I can. Kind of crazy, at least in a low key way that's probably not interesting to anyone reading.

But I bring it up because I wonder if I would have enjoyed the film as much then as I did now. My thoughts on “evil” children movies have gone through the wringer since I had my own child, but here’s one where the kids – who are all vampires – are actually the good guys. Sure, they need human blood and can be pretty creepy, but they also just want to do kid things and eat curry (a drug to their vampiric kind – a delightfully odd idea I must say), as none of them asked to be vampires. And they’re all being hunted by a group of black-clad men who believe them to be the devil spawn or whatever, so it’s not hard to, at the very least, hope they take down the hunter jerks with them.

Caught in the middle is Alicia (Sabrina Ramos), a writer who got a tip about the retreat where all of the children live, believing them to all be suffering from some kind of illness with no cure. At first she’s confused, then scared once she realizes what they are, but then comes around to being an ally, thanks in part to the fact that one of the children is actually her girlhood bestie. As vampires tend to do, he hasn’t aged since she last saw him when they were adolescents, so she finds herself weirdly drawn to this now-man trapped in a child’s body, and of course wanting to protect him so she doesn’t lose him again. It’s a potentially icky plot point, and has a few eyebrow raising moments (they don’t *do* anything, I should stress – she just acts charmed by his seemingly inappropriate comments instead of overly concerned), but it’s ultimately a rather sweet unconventional (and, again, physically platonic!) love story.

But it’s also a vampire movie, and while there isn’t a lot of action, what we get is pretty entertaining, since it’s… well, a bunch of kids taking on grown men. At one point a kid literally kicks the head off one attacker, and the other kids momentarily kick it back and forth like a soccer ball – it’s delightful. The music accompanying these scenes is also top notch, as it weirdly reminds me (of all things) of the music in Tetris Effect: Connected, where it’s exciting but also kind of relaxing? Hard to explain unless you’ve also played that game (and you should! It’s the best version!). I also like how they handle the usual tie-in to pop culture vampires, as it proposes the idea that Bram Stoker was a self-loathing vampire who wrote his book to expose the (real) Dracula, who as it turns out is the grandfather of one of the children there. Silly? Sure, but I’ll take it over the usual corny line about Bela Lugosi “getting it wrong” or whatever

. Honestly the only real flaw, besides running a little too long, is that the low budget is occasionally far too apparent on screen. The video/soap opera look I eventually adjusted to, but there are a number of scenes where it seems like they tried to hide a mistake with a superimposed black oval? For example, in one scene, it seems one of the child actors missed their cue and just stood there while the others ran around, and they tried to hide it with one of these ovals, but another actor crosses in front of them, so the oval disappears and we see the kid just standing there – it’s seriously far more distracting than it would have been to just not draw our attention to it in the first place, though I’m sure it could have worked if the oval in any way matched the color of the rest of the image. There are a few other lo-fi “fixes” like that in the movie that kind of keep calling attention to how under budgeted it was, distracting away from the surprisingly involving story. For some reason there’s a remake of One Cut of the Dead coming, but I feel something like this would be a far better option to remake, as the low budget (which was part of One Cut’s charm, not a handicap) actually harms it here and it deserves a polished presentation.

Director/writer Ivan Noel provides a commentary where he notes some of their budgetary issues and thanks the many people who did favors (CGI shots of a moon eclipse, for example), making it a fine track for those who might feel they can’t pull off their own ambitious projects due to a lack of resources. He also notes that the movie was an hour longer at one point (I’m sure he meant his first assembly as opposed to a “director’s cut”; people who don’t understand the difference make reporting on such things an incredible nuisance), though the only other bonus feature is a 20ish minute behind the scenes where we can see everyone was just enjoying the experience and having a sort of summer camp vibe during the proceedings. Since the movie was still too long, I can’t say I need MORE scenes from the film, but if this stuff was in any way elaborate I can’t help but wonder if he tightened his script in the first place perhaps some of those limited resources wouldn’t have been spread so thin.

That said, what’s left is still much better than I would have guessed after the first few minutes (my heart sunk when I saw that video look), so he pulled it off! It has a lot of tones (sweet and nostalgic! Dryly ironic! Kind of scary!) but Noel balances it out fairly well, and Ramos is an engaging presence (as is Ana María Giunta as Erda, the childrens’ caretaker, wearily dealing with things like one of the children sleep-flying). And then I had to laugh that since the movie’s ten years old now, all of the kids in it are now adults. Such is life in the pile!

What say you?

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Orphan: First Kill (2022)

AUGUST 25, 2022

GENRE: KILLER KID
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Even if it was the year 2010, I would write this same sentence: I am shocked that I am about to review another Orphan movie. Even a prequel, which Orphan: First Kill is, would have been a surprise, as the film (which ended pretty definitively with regards to its eponymous killer) was only the sort of mid-level hit that probably makes everyone happy but doesn't have them rushing to make more. Plus that era of horror was moving in different directions, which is why even some of that year's bigger hits (i.e. Friday the 13th, My Bloody Valentine) didn't get followups despite being tailor made to launch new franchises. Orphan was, for all involved (including me, a huge fan of it) seemingly a one and done.

And then last year they announced a prequel with the now adult Isabelle Fuhrman reprising her character, and my eyebrow raised higher than it has in quite some time (even weirder, it's a different studio - so it's not even a case of a desperate exec looking at their library and finding something to milk). And while I would have loved the return of Jaume Collet-Serra, I feel replacement William Brent Bell is a solid choice; I know folks are still (pointlessly) mad about Devil Inside, but apart from the misguided Boy sequel I've been a fan of more or less everything else he's done, and as the original Boy proved, he's a director who wasn't afraid to make an audacious reveal, which is what an Orphan film needs to deliver.

But how do you do that when we all know the first film's twist by now? (If you don't, stop reading!) Even if Esther survived for a sequel, we still know that she's really an adult with a gland disorder, so we can't really do the whole evil child routine again in any meaningful way. So they smartly go the prequel route, getting the explanation out of the way in its first sequence (acting as a recap even though it's chronologically earlier) and putting Esther in a different situation. Thanks to one new employee and a guard who has icky designs on her (you can almost hear some neckbeard in the crowd saying "But she IS an adult, so it's ok!") she is able to escape the institute and find a new family.

This time, instead of being adopted (speaking of which - yes, the prequel does smooth over the original's gap in her "institute to orphanage" transition), she pretends to be the long-missing daughter of a wealthy family, after finding her picture online and deciding that she could pass for the child if it's x number years later. Naturally there are some hiccups: she "forgets" that a grandmother died, the real Esther (yes, that's where she got the name, as her real name is Leena) didn't like to paint but she does, etc. But of course the real fun is seeing her murder her way out of a situation when necessary, such as when the cop who investigated the real Esther's disappearance seems to be suspicious of her story.

Up until that point, it's basically hitting a lot of the same notes as the original. I love that film enough to not mind too much; it was like getting a solid cover version of a song I loved, in that it wasn't going to replace the original anytime soon but it was enjoyable enough to have a fresh take. But then there's a plot twist, at which point I full on howled with gleeful laughter at the sheer insanity of what I realized the movie was actually going to be about. I wouldn't dream of spoiling it here, but suffice to say that my fear of a new Orphan being unable to measure up in sheer "wtf, are they really doing this?" were dispeled the second a certain character entered a scene and fired a gun.

Alas I can't say much else about the movie without tipping off the twists, so I'll just say that Fuhrman delivers another chilling performance, and the attempts to make her look like a little girl again are mostly successful. Her face obviously shows her age a bit, but since there's no need to hide it when she's alone (or with someone she's going to kill anyway) it mostly comes down to how well they pull off the size discrepancy, and they're on point there. Fuhrman is only five inches shorter than Julia Stiles (playing the real Esther's mom), but through the usual trickery (apple boxes, doubles, etc) you'll never notice. There's a shot here and there when the scale seems to be a bit off, but usually in moments that you can easily forgive it (i.e. exciting stunts). And even when she's surrounded by the characters who believe her to be a child, her adult face almost kind of works - more often than not they think she's weird or (in the parents' case) believe they've gotten back their toddler daughter after all these years, so naturally they're going to have that "you've gotten so much older!" reaction even if she WAS the real Esther. Long story short, it works just fine. Thank Marvel for the de-aging advancements.

I was also charmed that, despite being a prequel, it felt very timely with regards to a couple of rich prick characters who think they're invincible. Every now and then in the real world we see these sorts being held accountable, but not often enough, so in the same way Saw VI was cathartic for anyone who ever had to deal with health insurance companies, there's something quite enjoyable about seeing a rich prick get what they deserve. It's not like you're ever looking at Esther as the hero, but (unlike the original, in which she only killed innocent/good people) the script smartly lets us smile a little about a few of her deeds. And knowing the twist frees the filmmakers to have a little fun, like when she steals a car and blasts "Maniac" as she drives along. If it was the original (pre reveal) we'd just be rolling our eyes at the idea of a 9 year old being able to drive, but now we know she's been around long enough to learn, and we can just enjoy the scene for what it is.

Honestly I have no real complaints here; the only "problem" with the movie is that it's also debuting on streaming, which means it will be shown to half-focused eyeballs. The first half's relative samey-ness (though not without highlights, such as her escape) will almost certainly have people looking at their phones figuring they "got it", and the midway turn won't register as well. Being a traditional sequel (i.e. copying the beats) is exactly the point, to lull you into a sort of comfort zone only to pull the rug out from under you, but that might be lost on those who aren't giving it their full attention as they (presumably) would in theaters. Hopefully I'm wrong, but *looks around at the world* yeah, optimism is misguided these days. However you see it, I hope you agree that it's practically a miracle that it's even watchable given the long delay/seeming pointlessness of following up a movie with that particular twist. That it's within spitting distance of being just as good as the bonkers original? I bow to everyone involved.

What say you?

P.S. Can't spoil the particulars, but the climax features a visual reference to a rather "iconic" evil child movie that's actually a total snooze (hint: the title is ironic), and I can't help but feel the much different outcome is the filmmakers showing that tepid chore who's the boss.

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Fantastic Fest: Day 2

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

GENRE: KILLER KID, POSSESSION, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: FANTASTIC FEST!

This was the first year I was able to attend the opening night of the festival, so it was nice to not have to rush for once. In years' past, when I'd always be arriving on day 2, I'd sometimes have to go from the airport straight to the theater (dumping luggage into a generous pal's car) before I miss any more of it, but this time around it was kind of lovely to head into Friday with a piece already written. But as others WERE arriving on this day, today felt a little more like a typical day at the fest, albeit still with more empty seats than I'm used to seeing and much less revelry/chaos in the surrounding area.

Anyway:

MOVIE #3: THE INNOCENTS

An evil child movie out of Norway, I reviewed this one properly for WhatToWatch if you want to head there and read my full thoughts. For those who don't want to click over, I'll sum up by saying it was very good (if a touch long) and featured terrific child performances, which is the sort of thing that can sink this type of film, so: well done, casting folks!

MOVIE #4: AGNES

I reviewed this one too, but I realized later I should have added that the very thing that turned me off might be what makes others most excited about the film. I forget that due to my relatively late arrival to the Exorcist table, I tend to enjoy demonic possession movies more than my peers, who are often scarred by adolescent Exorcist viewings and walk out of similar films feeling like they were complete crap, unable to even come close to matching Blatty/Friedkin's power. So by abandoning the exorcism angle halfway through, such folks might be relieved by Agnes' switcheroo. Alas, ultimately this was a "not for me" after an engaging first forty minutes.

MOVIE #5: BLACK FRIDAY

I had a ticket to see Let The Wrong One In at this time, and it turned out to be an apt title, as I myself let the wrong *theater* in to my schedule - the film was playing a half hour away at a different Alamo Drafthouse (normally the fest is entirely set at the South Lamar location, but thanks to covid nonsense this year forced them to spread it out across three venues). Since I had no car and didn't want to rely on Lyft or friends to get me elsewhere (and then back), I opted to just flat out ignore the non-Lamar entries on the schedule, but somehow I got mixed up with this thankfully one exception. Luckily, there were seats available for Black Friday, which I wanted to see anyway, so it all worked out in the end.

Alas, the movie itself is kind of disappointing; on paper it sounded like it was delivered straight out of my subconscious: the employees of a toy store (including Devon Sawa and Bruce Campbell) have to take on a zombie outbreak on Black Friday, a ridiculous "event" I happily partake in every year. And it was filmed in Boston for good measure, so this had the potential to be one of my favorite movies of the festival and perhaps something I eagerly revisit every holiday season. But unfortunately, it seems they had to pare down a more ambitious script (financing horror comedies is never going to be easy, so I can't hold it against them), and what was left simply never found a proper groove.

It's not a total waste of time; the zombie makeup work by Robert Kurtzman is solid and the supporting cast is pretty good (Michael Jai White is a highlight), and Sawa is in fine form, but there's just no real ENERGY to the proceedings. Every time it seems like the movie is going to ramp up and kick into higher gear, things slow down again - there's an awful lot of chatter in between action scenes. And while I've never worshiped the man like some of my peers, even Bruce Campbell's most loyal fans should be able to admit that he's kind of on autopilot here, playing a role that doesn't cater to any of his strengths as an actor. Not that I want him tossing out one-liners (honestly, that'd be worse) but the role seems written for someone more nebbish (I kept thinking Mark Proksch would have been a good fit), and rather than dive into the challenge he opted to just kind of become anonymous. And since he likely didn't come cheap, I couldn't help but think that the movie might have been better if they put his salary toward other things.

It also might have helped if the store wasn't so generic (and the Boston setting has no bearing on anything, I don't think they even specifically say it's there and there's only like two exterior shots anyway). I'm sorry, but what exactly were the shoppers so excited about to line up at midnight to obtain? The things we see on the shelves are like, nutcrackers and bouncy balls and things of that nature. The lone licensed product I noticed (besides Wise potato chips, an east coast brand) was an Xbox One (yes, the older model), which wasn't even much a doorbuster option even when it was new, let alone now when it's a generation old. Plus, they shoo pretty much all the shoppers out of the store almost instantly, so there isn't even much in the way of zombie fodder, which had me thinking that they should have just leaned into it - what happens when a crappy store is open on Black Friday and no one shows up? Then they could have a built in excuse for the minimal zombie action AND avoided the impossible to buy premise of dozens of deal hungry customers lining up to buy jump ropes.

(That they do almost nothing with the "Black Friday shoppers are zombies anyway" kind of joke is another disappointment, but luckily we have that one 1978 zombie movie to cover that idea to a degree.)

Again, it's not a complete misfire - there are some good gags and performances in there, and the finale involves something I was certainly not expecting, but it ultimately felt like a movie almost specifically designed for streaming audiences, in that you're fine to look at your phone for most of it, looking up only when something exciting happens, and then tweet that it's "fun!" before forgetting everything about it. For folks who seemingly prefer that their movies not demand too much of their attention, they will love it, I guess.

What say you?

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Blu-Ray Review: Plague Town (2008)

DECEMBER 6, 2020

GENRE: BREAKDOWN, KILLER KID
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

"Since the audio was a bit blown out, I may rent the DVD just to hear the music again, [and] it’s also on Blu-ray, so I may check it out just to see what a Super 16 movie looks like on the format."

That's from my 2009 review of Plague Town, and if you're a longtime reader of my stuff you'd know that anything I say I'll do soon in a review is something I won't do for years, if ever. So it shouldn't be a surprise that by the time I did watch the film on Blu-ray I no longer remembered much about it at all, let alone whatever audio issues it had when I saw it. The film (slightly retitled to A Slaughter in Plague Town) has been re-released on Blu courtesy of Severin (director David Gregory's company; it was originally issued via Dark Sky), carrying over all the old supplements as well as premiering a new retrospective documentary that runs a couple minutes longer than the film itself.

It was something of a scary revisit for me, because I included the film in my book without seeing it a second time, so I was worried it didn't hold up (I've certainly been "off" in my initial assessments of many films) and people have been spending their hard earned money to get a book where I tell them to spend more hard earned money to check it out. Luckily, I agree with 2009 me: this is a solid little creeper, and in one way it actually holds up better than I remembered, since it was shot on film at a time when low budget films of this sort were always digital. As anyone who watches a lot of movies can attest, digital technology continues to improve, so older stuff shot on the format tends to look uglier and uglier as time goes on, so other movies from that year would not be very pleasing to the eye now, over a decade later (in my opinion they looked bad then too, but that's a matter of opinion). Now that even major films are also pretty much all shot digitally, it was wonderful to see a relatively modern film in glorious Super 16, presented in a solid transfer here. Also, I was amused to see comedian Erica Rhodes as the brattier of the two daughters, as I would have had no idea who she was when I first saw it (this was her first film) and usually when a comedian is in a movie they're not far removed from their stage persona, but her character is a total 180 from her standup work.

But beyond all that time capsule-y stuff it's just a really well done little chiller for the most part (the abrupt ending still irks me; I DID remember that much), proving Gregory is just as adept at making scary movies as he is making documentaries about their production (if you haven't seen Lost Soul yet, about the ill-fated 1996 Dr. Moreau, get on that). His simple tale of a family (plus one hanger-on) getting lost in the Irish countryside and running afoul of a group of murderous children doesn't skimp on the scary stuff (there's one moment that's downright hard to watch, in fact. It involves a hubcap) but is also drenched with atmosphere, and I remain impressed that they shot the film in Connecticut, not Ireland - it is a much more than adequate fascimile. Someone get David Gregory to reshoot Jason Takes Manhattan! He can pull it off! And the idea of a town trying to breed out a curse is the right kind of icky, where their intention is more or less understandable but they're going about it in the worst way possible.

And it's all even more impressive when you watch the supplements, which prove that this was a far from easy shoot. The location, while they pulled it off just fine, was not always well suited for their needs, and the budget was (as always) very tight for what they wanted. Makeup issues kept cropping up throughout the shoot due in part to inexperience and optimism on the part of the designer (there's a painful bit in the longer documentary where you see Gregory's heart just fall when he sees the first appliance being done), who in turn would get frustrated when he'd be told to apply makeup on the children by a certain time and it would be falling off their faces by the time they were finally needed on camera, 7-8 hours later. Even the older, shorter doc showcased a few of the various production issues, but the newer one (which, again, runs longer than the film) really gets into it, with plenty of candid interviews from both the original production and newly shot ones.

I should note that the new footage is mostly via Zoom and Facetime type applications (yay, Covid!), except for Gregory who utilizes his professional setup. Just about everyone from the movie is around to share their memories, but the technical qualities (which are addressed straight away via text disclaimer) can be a little rough on your ear muscles, particularly for producer Derek Curl who not only shot himself portrait mode (!) but is out of sync as well. He's a pretty fun guy to listen to, as the commentary can attest (he's possibly the MOST candid of the lot, including about his own shortcomings) so it's a bummer that I got the idea he probably would have been featured more often if the quality was better. The only ones you don't hear anything from are the Dark Sky guys, who apparently had no faith in the film and put no effort into helping it get into festivals and the like. With that in mind, I assume the team is very relieved that they were able to get the film back and give it a fresh coat of paint.

This sort of thing is why I hate that supplements are becoming extinct. I got a new genre film the other day, relatively high profile and from a studio whose name any genre fan would recognize, and the only bonus feature on the disc is a (sigh) Zoom Q&A with two of the actors, which naturally didn't explain much about this or that confusing story point or why all the digital blood in the movie looked so terrible. We can give the benefit of the doubt, sure, but this movie has actual production footage showing exactly why this or that thing in the movie that didn't quite work, so there's no reason whatsoever to just assume they're bad filmmakers. A little honesty goes a long way, and even in technically flawless movies it's always interesting (to me, anyway) to hear someone defend and explain their creative choices. As time goes on, we're less and less likely to get this glimpse behind the curtain, making me appreciate discs like this all the more.

Also Rosemary is still creepy AF and should be a common Halloween costume.

What say you?

P.S. The Severin version of the disc was a Black Friday exclusive, and I'm not sure if it will be available again. Keep an eye on their site HERE for a hopeful re-release (perhaps without the soundtrack, which was included on a separate CD). The below link is for the older release.

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Mikey (1992)

SEPTEMBER 4, 2020

GENRE: KILLER KID
SOURCE: STREAMING (AMAZON PRIME)

I remember reading about Mikey in Fangoria (Dr Cyclops, if memory serves) when it came out in the early '90s, but despite my affinity for the evil child sub-genre I never got around to seeing it until now. But I'm kind of glad; after seeing so many underwhelming ones over the nearly thirty years in between, I could fully appreciate how trashy and demented it was. Given the respectable cast I figured it would be something more like The Good Son (i.e. violence-free) or, at best, maybe a Bad Seed kinda deal where only one or two minor characters are offed, but nope! Our boy (Brian Bonsall) racks up an impressive body count of seven, including those among the top billed performers!

And one of his weapons of choice is a bow and arrow, so it would pair nicely with the equally sublime Bloody Birthday, another one where the makers were too crass to allow for those aforementioned films' lack of carnage. In the first five minutes, Mikey has wiped out his entire family (including a younger sister), already topping those other kids' entire body counts just in the damn prologue! That said, as the movie proceeded I couldn't help but wonder if the opening was a late addition, because he gets a new family and acts like a normal kid for a while after, having fun with his new bestie (Whit Hertford from Elm Street 5) and being a good son, while Ashley Laurence's character spends a chunk of the movie trying to find out what happened to his previous family as if it was something we were supposed to be discovering as well?

If so I'm glad they did, because it told me right off the bat that he wasn't messing around, buying the movie some goodwill as it went through the routine: meeting the new family, trying to adjust, showing the occasional cracks, finally snapping. The plot is said to be about Mikey falling in love with the neighbor girl (Josie Bissett), but she doesn't even enter the movie for over a half hour and then they have to bond for a bit, so a little patience is required. That said, the final 20-25 minutes are just kind of insane as he wipes out a chunk of the cast, including a character I didn't think would get as much as a scratch, so if the middle sags a bit, the bookends more than make up for it.

It's got a pretty interesting cast, starting with the unusual distinction of John Diehl playing the most normal and wholesome character. He's one of those character actors that excels at playing hardasses and/or weirdos, but he's basically Ward Cleaver here, constantly being optimistic and smiling and trying to quell his wife's growing concerns that "something isn't right with Mikey" (one parent always has to be more aware than the other, it's evil kid movie law). And the wife is Mimi Craven, another Elm Street vet (the nurse in the original), as is Lyman Ward (Elm Street 2), which made me laugh when Mikey explains (to Ward, in fact) that Freddy is his favorite horror character. Well shit, if that's the case aren't you weirded out by how many people in your life resemble the characters from those movies?

(As a bonus, screenwriter Jonathan Glassner wrote a few episodes of the Freddy's Nightmares TV show.)

Another good thing about waiting so long to watch it was that it functioned as a fine time capsule. A character owns one of those clear phones that were so popular in the late 80s/early 90s, Mikey is able to kill someone with a boom box tossed into a pool (nowadays it'd be a portable bluetooth speaker that wouldn't harm anyone), and when a character gives another one a gun, they both take great pains to hide it from the other people around, because once upon a time having a gun in America wasn't so normal (indeed, the film's Arizona setting makes it even more ironic - as of 2010 you don't even need a permit there). It also displays some of the stranger home design choices of the era; at one point Mikey approaches his adoptive mother as she bathes in what seems to be a tub that is placed in the middle of the living room, with carpeting all around it for good measure. She scolds him for not knocking, but I can't for the life of me figure out what he was supposed to knock on since there was no door or sectioning of any kind. The '80s!

No matter when I saw it I'm sure I would have laughed at one of the death scenes due to what appears to be a miscommunication between the filmmakers and the actors. Mikey fires a ball bearing from a slingshot, and the ball flies toward the camera like a shot of one of the Phantasm spheres. I'm thinking it'll hit the victim and he/she will be momentarily stunned enough for Mikey to rush over and finish the job with a deadlier weapon, but nope! They cut to the actor slamming full force into a wall and then dropping to the ground, leaving a huge blood smear on the wall.If you were to just watch this shot on its own, you'd assume at the very least they were pummeled by a 50 lb weight or something, but when it's the result of a damn slingshot pellet it becomes high comedy.

Let's face it: the sub-genre is one where a bit of schlock is a requirement. Some are made with more class than others, of course (Joshua comes to mind as an example), but at the end of the day you have to have a twisted sense of humor to enjoy them. And with that in mind, there's nothing wrong with just going for broke in that department and making them as gonzo as you wish. When the 11ish Mikey drags an adult body across a room, you're either gonna be the kind of person who says "Oh come on, no kid could do that, this is stupid", or the the kind of person who is possibly still laughing from how ridiculous the murder was in the first place. I am, obviously, the latter, and if you are too then there's no reason to think you won't enjoy this B-grade junk.

What say you?

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Demon Witch Child (1975)

JANUARY 17, 2020

GENRE: KILLER KID, POSSESSION
SOURCE: DVD (BORROWED)

I saw Demon Witch Child during last year's New Beverly all night horrorthon, but as it played fifth in the lineup (starting around 4 am) the idea of me seeing the entire thing was absurd, and even when awake my mind was more concerned with, well, trying to stay awake than letting myself get caught up in the movie's shenanigans. So I missed a chunk of the middle and had rather hazy memories of most of the rest, and so I asked my friend (and trivia teammate) Amy to borrow her copy so I could see what I missed. And in true BC fashion, I didn't get around to actually watching it for almost three months, which means by that point I barely remembered what I saw, either.

But it's fitting that I finally finished "rewatching" today, because as I write this very review there's a bunch of folks at the Alamo Drafthouse in Houston watching Cathy's Curse with a video intro from yours truly, and Demon Witch Child is very much in the same vein, in that it's an Exorcist wannabe that retains the foul mouthed child but none of the quality. It's actually much more of a ripoff of Blatty and Friedkin's film than Cathy's was though; while that one was basically just "evil kid who swears now", this one has the head spinning, the priest, the mom going to see the priest to ask for an exorcism after doctors fail... hell, they even went so far as to hire the girl who dubbed Linda Blair's voice for the Spanish release to play the titular child. There are certainly more shameless Euro knockoffs of certain films, but this still serves as a prime example of a producer seeing a big hit American film and hiring some folks under the strict rule of "do the same thing, but cheaper and in 90 minutes!"

That said, there's one big difference: witches! The plot is a bit fuzzy due to weird dubbing, a very beat up print (from what I understand, the print we saw at the Bev was the same one they used to make this Code Red DVD), and the usual liberal approach to things like logic and coherency that these films offer, but from what I can understand there's a witch who is the prime suspect in a child's disappearance, and after being harassed by the cops she jumps out a window and dies rather than go to jail for her crimes. And so the rest of her coven does what anyone would do - transfers her soul into the still living and healthy body of a 12 year old girl, who - in fulfillment of the scriptures - starts swearing and killing those she considers responsible for the witch's (so, her) death.

And that's all well and good, but the movie can be a bit on the slow side, and somewhat repetitive - she gets fully possessed by the witch (she shapeshifts into the crone, and while the effect itself isn't good, I must say they did a great job of casting as the little girl and old woman share enough of a body resemblance that it does a chunk of the heavy lifting for those scenes), kills someone, goes home, turns back into the little girl, swears at her mom, and then the cycle begins again. In between these scenes are several (read: too many) of the girl's dad, a cop, a newspaper asshole, and a priest all trying to figure out what's going on. The father's political ties almost make it seem like they're cribbing from The Omen, too, but this actually came out a year or so before that one, so they're strictly aping Pazuzu.

One thing they took from that film, not often one of the copied elements, is Regan's ability to mimic voices. She only used it to freak out Father Karras, but our girl Susan uses this superpower to really mess with people, like calling her mother's lover and using her voice to get him to meet her somewhere for a rendezvous, only to kill him. She also does it to a cop while talking to him, prompting him to angrily yell "Hey that's my voice!" in the same manner one might shout after someone who just stole their car or something. These things, along with some other choice bits of nonsense (like the priest's old flame, who became a hooker after he decided to leave her to pursue a life in the clergy) help offset some of the film's slower elements, but - to be fair, like Cathy as well - it can try your patience from time to time in between goofy highlights.

But it's still an enjoyable way to kill 90 minutes; it might never actually be scary or suspenseful, but its gonzo charms more or less make up for it as long as you're not sitting down expecting to be frightened or tense in any way (that said, the ending is a bit of a downer, and she does attack a baby at one point, so be warned). I wish they could find a better print (and perhaps the original audio) to give it a proper presentation, but since we still don't even have Blu-rays of director Amando de Ossorio's far more famous Blind Dead films, I wouldn't hold my breath. Instead, it's packaged with a movie called The Possessed, which is amusing/confusing since DWC itself is also named The Possessed. The other one is about a guy who whips women and cuts their legs off, which sounds real lovely (sarcasm), so I don't know if I'll be getting around to that unless I hear it's worth my while and possible post-viewing shower. Granted, the best way to watch the movie is when you have no idea it's coming and are surrounded with fellow sleep-deprived (read: loopy) horror fans, but not everyone can have that, and the same version from the DVD is on Prime, so that's the next best option if you'd like to see for yourself. Double it with Cathy's Curse - it'll act as a form of birth control!

What say you?

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The Prodigy (2019)

FEBRUARY 5, 2019

GENRE: KILLER KID
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

Just this week I once again had to defend Orphan again, as it somehow landed on some site's list of the 20 worst twists in movie history or some nonsense. My only theory for why that reveal (which I'm gonna have to spoil in this paragraph so skip ahead if you inexplicably still haven't seen it) gets dragged so often is because people don't take the time to consider that it was a brilliant way to circumvent what seems to be a rule at the major studios, which is that evil children can't really do anything vicious. By making Esther (still played by a child actress) into an adult with a growth deficiency, the filmmakers were able to get away with letting her cut loose (the nun!), while cinematic cousins like Mac in The Good Son didn't really do much of anything beyond toss a dummy off a bridge (with no one being seriously hurt, we're assured). The Prodigy ends up somewhere in the middle of those two, but overall lands closer to Orphan on account of how surprisingly dark it is.

The plot is pretty straightforward: suburban parents have a son named Miles (the usual way, i.e. not adopted) and in addition to his heterochromia (different colored eyes) he seems to be gifted; he speaks early, he can figure out complex toys as a toddler, etc. After checking in with him a few times as he grows, we get to when he's eight, and his behavior starts leaning toward the disturbing side of things - including a possible attack on his babysitter and a definite attack on a schoolmate. Mom (Taylor Schilling) starts taking him to different specialists, but as soon as Colm Feore shows up you know he's gonna be the one to crack the mystery, because you don't get Colm Feore to be in your movie to be another cog in the wheel. The trailers have part of his explanation, but in the full scene he also explains how Miles can be cured of this new development.

Unfortunately that's at about the halfway point, and there are no other wrinkles to the plot. Worse, the opening scene (which I won't spoil here) gave us almost all of the information we needed anyway - a peculiar match cut in the first five minutes spells it out to any audience member with half a brain, so Feore isn't revealing so much as he is confirming the problem. It's a strange choice for this sort of thing, to the point where I wondered if they were purposely trying to lead us astray so they could pull out a more surprising reveal later. Whether or not they do is again something I won't spoil here, but either way it's odd to spend so much of the movie being ahead of its characters, watching them discover things we already learned for ourselves in the film's first sequence.

And that adds to my ongoing curiosity regarding the film's script and if it was reworked at a late stage. Not only is the information doled out earlier than necessary (and occasionally even repeated) but there are a few dropped story points that struck me as odd. Early on Miles causes a babysitter to fall down the stairs and cut up her foot (and perhaps break a bone or two) but the scene ends with her calling for the boy, unaware that he was at fault - and then it just cuts to later, with Miles saying he can't remember what happened. The babysitter's fate is never confirmed, nor is she ever mentioned again (same goes for Feore's character, who makes a phone call to give Schilling some more info and seems to be setting himself up to play a bigger part, only to never reappear). Likewise, he attacks one of his schoolmates at his fancy genius school, and later we see him attending what seems to be a regular public school - did he get kicked out of the other one, or did they decide it was best for him to be in a more normal environment? Schilling and her husband are also drawn with as much depth as a slasher victim - we're never told what they do for a living or anything like that, and a hint about a miscarriage or something ("We weren't sure we'd ever have you" she tells baby Miles) is never fleshed out either.

Yet, it still works for the most part! Maybe I'm more lenient given my well documented love of this particular sub-genre, but I had a good time watching it all the same. The trailer spoils one of its two best scares (and yes, it's swiped from Shock, but I suspect unlike Annabelle this is an intentional tip of the hat as there are some other similarities), but the other got me good and is more of the "Gah! CURSED IMAGE!" variety than a jump, and there's another more subtle one involving a simple line of dialogue that delighted me in its surprising harshness. Indeed, the film as a whole is shockingly dark/unsettling at times, particularly in the Feore sequence when Miles (in evil mode) tells him how the rest of their little session is gonna go. And the end is also less studio-friendly than I was expecting, which is always a plus.

Speaking of Annabelle, like that film I suspect it will work better on parents than non, because it plays on those very particular emotions albeit in very different ways; that one juiced up its scares by putting the kid in danger, this one opts for a "Would you do this if it was YOUR kid?" kind of thing though again, no spoilers so no details (I blame Pet Sematary's trailer debut for being so spoiler conscious - people were legit crying "spoiler!" at a trailer. Incidentally, same writer! Jeff Buhler wrote Pet and this). I also got some of the same creeped out vibes I get from body horror movies at times, and when you think about it it kind of makes sense. Someone once compared not knowing where your child was to having one of your own organs out in the wild somewhere, and it's true even for fathers who, as you hopefully know, never actually had the child inside of them and attached to them the way mothers do. So when Schilling starts suspecting the kid is evil and noticeably bristles when he tries to hug her or whatever, you really feel how skin-crawling and conflicting it must be for her, to be afraid of her own child's touch. There's a bit where he climbs into bed with her and tries to snuggle - it's one of the most unnerving things in the entire movie, without the need to have any violence or jump scares.

So I guess your mileage will vary depending on how much you enjoy this sub-genre. Nicholas McCarthy (whose movie The Pact is one I highly recommend, and am happy to see him getting a wide release) checks all the boxes one expects from this sort of thing, but the screenplay as presented on-screen is almost too mercenary at times, as if they didn't want to distract the audience with pesky things like "subplots" or "complications" or even "other characters" (these people have no friends or neighbors, apparently; even a brief Halloween scene seems to exist in a world with no other people). It'll scratch your itch if you have one, but goes no further than that, making it hard to recommend in general the way I could for the likes of Orphan or Home Movie. But whatever may have happened to the script or finished cut along the way, what we got is still effective at what it does, and a good way to tide us over until the seemingly more ambitious Brightburn comes along later this year.

What say you?

P.S. Hover at your own risk because it enters spoiler territory, but the movie also shares some DNA with this pet fave of mine, so that was a fun realization. However it'd be a huge red flag for most people (and again spoils some things) so let's keep it on the DL for now. Just feel free to tell me you agree (without using the name!) on Twitter or in the comments, I like to know who my peeps are for this particular film.

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