Insidious, dir. James Wan (2010)

Some critics and horror fans have complained that Insidious, recently released to theaters, isn't much more than a mash-up of various "haunting" films from the past: Poltergeist (1982), The Amityville Horror (1979), Paranormal Activity (2009), etc. But as far as I'm concerned, any movie that can pull great elements from those films and provide decent characters and a near-constant supply of suspense, is a success. It's not as though this is the first horror film (or film, in general) to borrow heavily from predecessors; and Insidious works much better than a lot of recent remakes and throwbacks.

The opening credits, which feature a quiet, creepy score over still images, sets the tone. The title card--INSIDOUS--takes up the entire screen; its font is distinctly from the 1970's. In many ways the rest of the movie takes a traditional approach to its material; director James Wan (Saw [2004], Dead Silence [2007]) utilizes long takes and a decidedly non-slick style. And there's no distracting pop music anywhere in the soundtrack. Definitely an old school sort of vibe.

But Insidious doesn't build slowly, like most films of its sub-genre. We're given a spooky and suitably vague pre-credits scene, and after the credits we meet the family, the protagonists who are already being visited by some otherworldly presence in their home. Things get pretty intense in the first twenty minutes, and really, never let up until the film's end. I checked the time about forty minutes in, thinking more time must have passed, because there was no way we had more than half a movie left, with all that had taken place.

That said, the second half isn't quite as good as the first. The setup is so good that it's hard to imagine any filmmaker could fully deliver on its promise. Wan does a decent job of it, and while I wasn't blown off my feet by the final scenes, they're certainly competent, and the ending is a respectable one.

Animal, dir. by Adeel Abbasi and Rafiqul Alam

Animal, directed by Adeel Abbasi and Rafiqul Alam, makes much use of the close-up. Indeed, most of the short film's six minutes are comprised of close- and medium-close-ups, a fitting choice for the subject matter, about a man with a split personality confessing a violent crime to himself. The film was shot in London, from a screenplay by Noel J. Rainford, and is currently viewable on youtube (link below). The filmmakers know how to work a camera; this is ceratinly a step above a lot of the content on that site. Arrival features some pretty good camerawork, and has a cool atmosphere, building to a solid payoff. If you've got six free minutes, check it out. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZYkEwt2YS0

My Fantoms by Théophile Gautier (1830s - 1870s)

Richard Holmes's 1976 translation.

Mark and I talk about books.

Mark Rooster:  I have some thoughts on this book, but I'm not sure I have them in order here, so I'll just start.

I like the similarities in the titles of these stories. They're all connected thematically, and the simple titles, "The Poet," "The Priest," etc. fit with that.

The writing style is pleasant to read, very poetic but with some quite direct humor mixed in. I love the ending of "The Painter," where the narrator declares, "The reader will think, no doubt, that this is a very commonplace ending to a very unusual story. But he must take it or leave it. I would not utter a single false word. I would rather cut my throat."

There's another line that made me laugh, but I can't recall which story it was from. It's a line regarding a dog, whose sole purpose in life was to provide a shaggy black foreground over a green background.

Many (or all) of these seven stories deal with madness, insanity, and the possibility of supernatural interference of a romantic nature. I feel like with a couple of the stories, rational explanations might be acceptable, and in the others there are most certainly supernatural things going on.

"The Adolescent." There's less discussion in this one about the possibility of hallucination or madness, and it's told more directly, a woman climbs out of a painting, to come to the narrator.

"The Priest." Here the storyteller says quite plainly that he is unsure whether the events he describes happened in a dream or real life. But it seems more like he's saying that as a last-ditch sort of effort to deny what's happened. Because even his superior by the end believes he's been courting a demon.

"The Opium Smoker." I take this one as simply a drug-induced hallucination.

"The Actor." In this story, the Devil himself is involved, and there isn't much discussion about the reality of events.

"The Tourist." This one could go either way. And lastly, "The Poet"--this story threw me off a little bit. It seems less like the others. I'm only halfway through Richard Holmes' introduction (I wanted to save that for after reading the stories, as sometimes the intros in these collections give away more than I want to know prior to reading), but I saw in there that this one is nonfiction?

M. Buozis:  I agree. The thematic connections between the pieces seem to be twofold. First, each, with the possible exception of "The Poet," deals with the dark power of desire. Secondly, there is a supernatural element that is questionably created by the arousal of the protagonist. I was never sure whether Gautier meant his fantoms to be anything more than the manifestation of his desire for women.

Even the Devil in "The Actor" seems like just an extension of the narrators strange uncontrollable utterances. It's almost as if he's created the devil to explain his own devilish behavior. In "The Priest" I never thought of the demon woman as an actual spirit, but only as demonic in the eyes of a holy and celibate priest. Her retinue is described in a supernatural way, but I think the priest is just seeing Africans for the first time and thinking they are the demon's otherworldly helpers.

While Gautier has a fun, relaxed way of telling a story, I thought many of the stories lacked a compelling resolution. This must have been a great lead up to modernism, where the plot is not necessarily integral to the success of the story, but here I was expecting more of a satisfying development of each story. He brings his characters to life in such a vivid way and then lets them drop at the end like puppets who've been abandoned in mid-line.

"The Poet" is not strictly non-fiction. I think it's something like a fictionalized eulogy for his poet body Nerval. In this respect, the piece reminds me of Borges in its radical blending of reality and fiction. Its really meant to be read as truth, and reminds us that in order to enjoy any piece of literature we have to suspend our disbelief and live in the world of the story.

M.R.:  You've got a point there about the resolutions in these stories. They all kind of end in a similar manner. But I like the openness regarding the possibility of supernatural occurences.

After reading the introduction, I have a better understanding of the last story. Did you read the introduction and afterword? I found both to be pretty informative. I guess the afterword is from the original book published in the 70s and the intro was done later on?

M.B.:  Yeah. I read both the introduction and afterword. I think they shed a lot of light on Gautier's importance and the autobiographical nature of many of his stories. You also get a great sense of the romantic nature of his life, and the translators life while he was translating the stories. It helps to further bring together the collection.

I'd also like to discuss, a bit more, Gautier's writing styles. He always creates wonderfully fleshed out settings and characters without ever using showy language or lingering too long on a particular description. It's rare that you find such precise and great writing from a 19th century writer.


M.R.:  I definitely wouldn't figure this for mid-1800's if I didn't know beforehand when it was written. The writing is very fluid, poetic in some places, but also rather modern. Probably the "easiest" to read of any of the classic French authors we've looked as so far. And the humor too; I laughed a few times reading this book.

M.B.:  I'd agree. Despite the dark subject matter, this was a pretty light read, something I wouldn't mind taking to the beach, if I ever went to the beach.

Related Links:

1.  Joy's Blog Review
2.  Bookslut Review

Miscellany: The Best Post-Modernist

Barry Hannah's fiction blows away all the other mid-century American post-modernists.  He makes John Barth's narrative trickery look like utter masturbatory nonsense.  He makes Robert Coover's plays at authenticity seem like a little city boy playing a country part.  (Basically, he makes them look like the hipsters they were, and still are for the most part.)

Hannah died about a year ago, but his fiction has yet to receive its due revival.  Always under-appreciated during his lifetime, Hannah's work deserves another, closer look.

Richard Ford told the AP, “Barry could somehow make the English sentence generous and unpredictable, yet still make wonderful sense, which for readers is thrilling. You never knew the source of the next word. But he seemed to command the short story form and the novel form and make those forms up newly for himself.”

Here's an excerpt from Hannah's story "Water Liars".

My sense of the past is vivid and slow. I hear every sign and see every shadow. The movement of every limb in every passionate event occupies my mind. I have a prurience on the grand scale. It makes no sense that I should be angry about happenings before she and I ever saw each other. Yet I feel an impotent homicidal urge in the matter of her lovers. She has excused my episodes as the course of things, though she has a vivid memory too. But there is a blurred nostalgia women have that men don’t.

You could not believe how handsome and delicate my wife is naked.

I was driven wild by the bodies that had trespassed her twelve and thirteen years ago.

Related Links:

1.  Oxford American Interview
2.  Bomb Interview
3.  Vanity Fair Retrospective
4.  New York Times Obituary

Die Farbe, dir. by Huan Vu (2010)

I recently received a copy of Die Farbe, a black and white German film from filmmaker Huan Vu. The film is based on H. P. Lovecraft's "The Color Out of Space". Lovecraft stories have been adapted many times, often to great effect (Re-Animator, From Beyond, Dagon, etc.). I've read a lot of his stories, but wasn't familiar with this one, so I looked for it and read it before putting on the movie. Some people have a hard time watching a film version of a book or a story they just read, but not me; I like to line em up as close as possible, book, then movie.

"The Color Out of Space" has been adapted a few times previously, including "Colour From the Dark," a 2010 production from Italian filmmaker Ivan Zuccon. I haven't seen that one or David Keith's 1987 The Curse, but I'm familiar with the Boris Karloff-starring loose adaptation (very, very loose, really) Die, Monster, Die! from 1965. That film doesn't have a hell of a lot to do with Lovecraft's story, though it's entertaining in its own strange way.

Die Farbe tells just about all of Lovecraft's tale, and provides a new bookend, as a man hears the story of what occurred in a town his father once visited long ago. The long ago is the end of World War II, and the bookend takes place about thirty years later. The man finds that his father, an American in Germany, came upon a house and property that had been ravaged by a mysterious alien force a while back.

This is the "color" of Lovecraft's story, in which he describes the visual qualities of the alien "light" as being completely unknown, a color never seen before (on Earth anyway). After crashing to earth inside a meteorite, the mysterious presence fixes itself in every organism on the property: vegetables, animals, and eventually people.

Vu's direction is patient and focused, with lots of long, brooding shots of the house and land where the alien force takes hold. A sequence involving a psychotic woman succumbing to her neuroses, alone in an upstairs room, pacing back and forth works quite well. There are a number of eerie scenes and moments; these are accompanied by an effective, haunting score.

If there's anything I'm not quite sold on, it's the way the "lights" are presented towards the end of the film. Using color distracts somewhat from the beautiful black and white picture we've been seeing for the last seventy minutes--although I'll add that I don't have a better suggestion as to how to visualize what Lovecraft wrote.

This is a good film, whether you're a Lovecraft fan or not. The acting is decent, and as I said, some of the cinematography is very striking. Vu has an engaging style, and I look forward to seeing more from him in the future.










www.die-farbe.com

Fireflies by Lacey Reah (2011)

Lacey Reah's Fireflies opens with the narrator, Linda, walking through Central Park, captivated by the fireflies that come out at night. There she is willingly seduced and transformed by a vampire-like creature known as a nymphomite.

The book gets off to a quick start, and from the Central Park scene jumps right into Linda's new life as a nyphomite. These creatures drink blood from their victims, but can only properly feed if the victim is in the throes of an orgasm at the moment of feeding.

Linda holds no grudge against the creature that changed her; she doesn't, in fact, hold onto any kind of nostalgia for her life as a human, and goes through a nightly routine of hunting, seducing, and feeding, and she is, if not happy, at least occupied.

This changes when she meets, and transforms, a woman named Jesse, who subsequently lashes out at her, condemning her for turning her into a nyphomite, instead of simply killing her. For the first time since being changed, Linda feels something human within her, and is forced to contemplate what she left behind in her first life.

Reah keeps the action moving along at a fast pace, while exploring the various moods and emotions Linda struggles with in her new form. It's about halfway into the 95-page book that Linda is confronted with Jesse and what she's done to her. Soon, the complacent but active character we've been with for the first fifty pages transforms, and what we have is a wounded, suddenly regretful vampire, who even takes a shot at going home, knowing there's no future for her there.

It isn't easy to make a sympathetic character out of someone who happily sucks the blood out of anybody who looks like easy prey, but Reah pulls it off pretty well. Linda is pretty much doomed from the beginning, and by the second half of the story, you wish there was some way out for her, despite her easy adoption of her new bloody appetite.

Fireflies is available in paperback and e-book formats, and can be purchased at the folowing links. The Lacey Reah/Fireflies myspace address is listed below.

http://www.amazon.com/Fireflies-Lacey-Reah/dp/145028163X
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Fireflies/Lacey-Reah/e/9781450281638/?itm=1&USRI=lacey+reah+fireflies

http://www.myspace.com/lindafireflies

Horror Film Director Feature #2: Mick Garris

Known for his Stephen King adaptations, and for creating the impressive Showtime Masters of Horror (2005-2007) series, Mick Garris has been working in television and film for about thirty years, as a writer, producer, and director.

His first horror feature was Critters 2 (1988), and Garris has been working steadily in the genre ever since. I'm not sure how many people would care enough to argue, but I'm going to go ahead and say that Critters 2 is the best of that series. Expanding upon the first in nearly every way, the outerspace-bred Krites move past the farmhouse they first terrorized, and this time take on the entire town, during Easter. The action culminates with an enormous "Critter Ball," made up of hundreds of the little bastards, rolling over townsfolk, immediately shredding their skin, turning them into skeletons (there's a good deal more blood in this movie than you can get away with in a modern PG-13-rated film).

For my money, Critters 2 is as good as it gets, far as horror-comedy B movies go.
Garris followed that one up two years later, with the TV movie Psycho IV: The Beginning. Not exactly a career highlight, but not a bad film. Another two years, and Garris came out with Sleepwalkers, his first Stephen King adaptation (based on a King-written screenplay). A crazy story about incestuous mother and son shapeshifters.

He got a good deal of shit from horror (and Kubrick) fans for his update of The Shining (1997). I'd argue, though, that the faults with the second movie version of King's novel, lie mostly in the screenplay, written by the author, which sticks very close to his book but never quite builds tension the way Kubrick's film did.

There's more agreement on his 1994 TV movie The Stand. I never could get into this one, both before and after reading the novel. It's hard to say exactly what it is about it that I don't like, except to say that in every scene, it feels like I'm watching television. There are moments in Tommy Lee Wallace's TV adaptation of It that make you forget you're watching network television. I'd say the same for Garris's Quicksilver Highway and Desperation (2006), but The Stand always looks and feels like it needs a bigger budget, and some of the acting and dialogue is pretty limp.

But the movie does have its admirers, a pretty big fanbase actually, and is by no means a bad film. I just wouldn't suggest it as a good example of Garris's best work.

One of his more curious adaptations is the under-appreciated TV movie Quicksilver Highway (1997), which features two forty-minute stories, one an adaptation of Clive Barker's short story, "The Body Politic," the other based on King's short story, "Chattery Teeth." Both stories are representative of each writer's best short form material, and Garris's film is worthy of the source material. The first half deals with a man whose hand has suddenly become possessed, and the second with novelty store chattery teeth attacking a menacing hitchhiker.

Masters of Horror was a good series, and in addition to holding a "created by" credit, Garris has directed a couple episodes himself. Check out Valerie On the Stairs. It's available on Netflix Instant View. Garris followed this up with the network television series Fear Itself. From the little I saw of that show, it didn't seem to capture the energy of Masters of Horror (2008-2009), but when you start trying to combine horror and the three-letter companies, ABC, NBC, CBS . . . it probably isn't destined to work out.

I'd like to see him get back to something with a bit of humor in it. Critters 2 and Quicksilver Highway stand as two of his best works, and while Garris's later work has its share of great moments, some dark comedy might be in order.

Maybe something to top that giant Critter Ball?

Garris is currently in production on an adaptation Stephen King's Bag of Bones as a television series. Look for that later this year.