July 2009

July 2009

[REC]  (Balaguero/Plaza, 2007)     4.5

Not bad and better than I expected. It successfully becomes more intense as it goes along, and the climax is excellently atmospheric and despairing. The religious angle that is brought in all of sudden at the end is a bit too obligatory of Catholixploitation, and is ultimately rather simplistic oogie-boogie backstory, but the quasi-mysticism provides undeniable atmospherics and it offers the viewer a somewhat evocative little tale of religion's rose-colored exploitation of facts morphing into terrifying science, with the final menace being a specter of disconcerting biological, anatomical decay.

The Tenant (Polanski, 1976)     7.5

Not as visually eloquent and crisply dynamic in expressing visual ideas as Rosemary's Baby, but it is much more expansive thematically, with much to intimate about the selfsameness of experience - the experience here being alienation due to the pressures and hypocrisy of apartment-dwelling life. It reminded me a bit of Inland Empire, both being about psychotic emanations of shared emotional existences under specific circumstances (Inland Empire: method acting, The Tenant: apartment living, both: Polishness).  Well, by "Polishness," I really mean "foreignness," which I suppose only The Tenant is particularly about.

Eaten Alive (Hooper, 1977)     6

* Spontaneous Combustion (Hooper, 1990)     5.5

Escape from L.A. (Carpenter, 1996)     5.5

Brüno (Clark, 2009)     4.5

Good for what it is: an outrageous stunt film with, just barely, the rhetorical purposes of making gayness prominent in a piece of mainstream entertainment, as well as a cornucopia of other topical stuff like [talking penises, and] absurdist mock peace talks... all of it surely weak and little-researched (it takes a while to realize these films, Borat and Brüno, are actually not trying to be like classical documentaries - their "mockumentary" status is weak in a way because they're more like mocku-"diary films"), but strengthened by the sheer novelty and daring-do of Baron Cohen's schtick.

* Scream (Craven, 1996)     4.5

* Death Proof (Tarantino, 2007)     9.5

* Tobe Hooper's Night Terrors (Hooper, 1993)     6

* Dead-Alive (Braindead) (Jackson, 1991)     8

The Sentinel (Winner, 1977)     3

The Sentinel is occasionally beguiling - Chris Sarandon's sturdy but two-sided, ultimately prosecutable lover; the moment where Cristina Raines insists a book is inscribed in Latin when it's not - but this is quite the woefully misguided film, that only deals with its rather implicative religious tale in the manner a cheesy horror movie would. And this is undoubtedly a cheesy horror movie. It's quite the representation of holy callings, and what exactly is it's correlation between its innerly troubled super model heroine and the gauntlet she's forced to take up?  Sexual trauma as sure enough conditioning for the life of monastic diligence? SPOILER The final shot of this beauty Cristina Raines relegated to a habit and the suddenly weathered skin of the cloistered does ring with sort of tragedy.

* The Fog (Carpenter, 1980)     5.5

A beautiful-looking and strikingly photographed film, that boasts the creepiness desired by Carpenter who aimed to create simply an old-fashioned ghost story. But it's perhaps too modest for its own good, its small-scale, slasher film approach and prop-costume, smoke machine aesthetic being inadequate for its story about a town damned by its ancestors, and not matching up to the smarts it occasionally possesses. The film ultimately comes off feeling rinky-dink and frivolous, especially considering Carpenter's film in its original print ran so short, the opening campfire scene (a good scene, though) and the autopsy room walking-dead scare (a bad scene) were shot after initial wrap in order to pad out the running time.

* Escape from New York (Carpenter, 1981)     6.5