Hashbrown, Gimmick Alert

Alright, #Holdyourbreath (2012) has kind of set itself up for a few easy zings, no? Hold your breath, because something stinks! Looking for a good film? I wouldn’t hold your breath!

Something smells weird….

And for god’s sake, why the hashtag? In a film that sees every character forfeit his or her phone for the weekend (realistic, man,there’s nothing the youth of today like more than eachother’s company) the hashtag is a lame and obvious plea for popularity. And depending on the version you stumble across, it may or may not be included at all.

One can only expect so much of this Asylum produced flick, that essentially was released in a straight to video format. You have to go into a film like this expecting a hearty helping of cheese. In that respect, it does not disappoint.

The film’s top billed actress, Katrina Bowden, looks cute, but I’m baffled by the reviews I’ve read that imply she has any sort of skill beyond high school drama. Perhaps my standards are high? She coos and giggles and writhes her little hips about, and makes winky and pouty faces, and as far as I’m concerned, her role could probably be played by a series of well timed emojis. The film stars a handful of unrecognizable faces as college kids who meet up for a fun camping weekend, you guessed it, in the scenic locale called The Middle of Nowhere. Unfortunately for them, they’ve chosen the closest possible site to an abandoned sanitarium for the criminally insane and it’s spooky cemetery.

The film opens with a scene set in nineteen forty something at this very asylum. Lighting flashes, thunder crashes, and Pastor Maniac is about to be executed in front of a crowd of heavily 40’s-ified viewers. He’s so super evil, so beyond evil that he manages to wield his razor sharp talons and blind a guard before being hastily strapped in and zapped, all the while spouting a clever little rant about an eye for an eye. You know the one.

Back to the future, and college crew has been assembled, has turned their phones into the head jock for the weekend, and sets off on their trip. Our mystery machine is filled with the familiar faces, sexy couple who can’t keep their hands off of eachother, goofy stoner, nerd/physicist/guy with glasses, Bleach blond surfer guy and the smart girl? I think this may be Katrina Bowden, but it’s really hard to say. As they head out to their destination, the group comes upon a cemetery. Jerry (Bowden) begins a shrieking rant about how we must all hold our breath lest the spirits enter our bodies. Some garbage about how spirits that are too evil for heaven and too evil for hell (but seem powerless over cemetery gates?) linger in wait to slip into your nostrils. Blonde guy must be driving awfully slow to allow this entire monologue before they actually pass the graveyard. The kids submit, all except stoner dude, who is too busy getting stoned to hold his breath. Whoops. Bam. Evil spirit.

The film progresses in all the predictable ways. Soon enough, were all exploring the sanitarium, sexy couple is having gross and unsanitary sex inside, kids are being strapped into electric chairs, camera angles tilt, because a hallway tilted always implies evil is about. The stoner throws the phones away, kills a cop, and does little more than smile frequently.

I won’t go into further details, but the evil spirit passes about anytime a character gets a little winded or out of breath, and it’s evil wisp slip into someone else. And then said characters proceed to be weird and smile a lot and, honestly, do very little else.

It’s a slow mover, and it’s really quite dull. I know this movie is on Netflix and you’re thinking, well, hey, it’s here, why not? It’s your time, buddy, but, personally, I’d like mine back. I like a bad horror movie, but this one wasn’t even all that much fun.

Life lessons:

1. Scrap the hashtag, get off the internet and go outside, ya goon!
2. Hold  your breath….all the time? You never know who’s carrying evil.
3. Get better friends, this kids are duds.
4. Let your hair grow out, Paul Walker blonde doesn’t suit everyone.
5. The middle of nowhere is overrated.

 

Never Sleep Again

Hey, remember me??

I know, I know, I am failing at this whole blog thing, but give me a break, it’s summer, after all!

Well, it was. But now I hear the incessant honking of geese flying over our house and waddling about the fields nearby. Our house is overrun with apples, and thus homemade cider and juice and sauce and pies (ok, ok, that’s for the OTHER blog). School is back in session.

It’s fall.

And as per the usual routine, the crisp in the air every evening, and the early settling dark have me yearning for darker realms; for Halloween, for horror, for a good jump scare, for ominous booming music, for corn syrup.

I’ve perused few horror films this summer (we got Netflix, so much of my time was spent on Mad Men….and…ahem, Downton Abbey. Don’t judge me!).

I did watch Jim Mickle’s We Are What We Are (check out my earlier review of this film’s Mexican inspiration). A slow burn of a film, with glorious cinematography, utterly beautiful design and structure, and a surprising amount of emotion, the 2013 film is maybe more for indie film fans with a horror tolerance, as there’s little in the way of scare and gore until the very end. As I rooted about for reviews of the film, I read Salon’s review, and found it summed the film up perfectly. If all that needs to be said has been said on the first page of a Google search, what have I to add?

I had hoped to revisit A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) as an homage to the late, great Wes Craven, newly departed horror icon who will be surely and sorely missed, but my copy has a glitch and won’t play. Tragic, though, Nightmare is a yearly tradition for me, I have watched it every October for years and years. I know it through and through, hardly needing to see it again to recount it’s glorious, whimsical terror.

I watched this film in my teens, and was immediately struck by the foggy, gloomy 80’s horror landscape. That look that only horror’s of the 80’s have, as though the lenses are just a little dirty, and everyone had amazing volume in their hair. I was immediately terrified by Nancy’s dream, early on, as she dozes off in school. You know the one;

‘……were it not that I have bad dreams……’

The shots of Tina slithering down the hall in her blood soaked body bag still grate on me, but trigger that sense of excitement that you horror lovers know. We get that goosflesh, that prickle of the hairs on the backs of our necks, and we know something horrible, but great is about to happen.

The 2010 remake of this film is an atrocity, barely worth mentioning . It could never live up to the standards of the original.

The world will forever be haunted by Freddy Krueger, his slice and dice tactics, his unsettling wardrobe choices (I’m told the brain has trouble recognizing those two particular shades of red and green when they are next to one another) and his inexplicable ability to, you know, wander into your dreams and kill you. The thick, heavy tones of music in this film still ring in my head, months and months since I’ve last seen it, and the dreamy, whimsical jump rope chant is conjured up instantly in my mind. Who could forget dreamy Johnny Depp and the geyser of bed blood? Nightmare stands out beyond it’s time, as more than just just a cult classic on the shelves of your childhood video store (don’t get me wrong, I remember poring over the cases of this and it’s sequels as a kid, while my sister searched for She’s All That, or some such tripe).

Wes Craven gave us some many classic films, and so many scares. Nightmare, to me, is more than just notable, it is THE Wes Craven film. Last House on the Left, certainly chilling and iconic. The Serpent and the Rainbow, under appreciated and highly unsettling. Scream? The film that brought horror back from the dead in the mid nineties. But A Nightmare on Elm Street?

There’s just no touching it.

This is really, half a review. I’ll be back on my A game, soon, hopefully, and delving deeper into the films we know and love, and maybe some we don’t even know just yet. For now, kudos to you, Wes Craven, and thank you for all the nightmares.