Incarnate (2016)

DECEMBER 1, 2016

GENRE: POSSESSION
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

January comes early! Incarnate may have gotten released today, December 2nd (in the US at least; it came out overseas last year - it was shot in 2013, mind you), but it feels like a typical January horror offering, in that it's perfectly watchable but nothing more, and sounds like an interesting movie on paper but either didn't get the money, time, or talent (or all three) to really come to life. Movies like Legion and The Rite fit into this category, and it's interesting how many of them deal with exorcisms and other biblical-minded scenarios - why no faith in the sub-genre that produced the most successful horror movie of all time? It's the sort of thing you can wonder about while watching this movie, since it's fine but doesn't demand much of your attention to follow along, nor will you be rewarded for giving it your all.

Hell it doesn't even have a lot of scare attempts, which to me personally is a blessing since this stuff doesn't work on me anyway (there's a halfway decent one in the opening sequence, with someone/something fluttering by the camera without the would-be victim seeing, but there are only a handful of others), but will likely be a bummer for the younger audiences who might be enticed by the fact that we haven't had a big horror movie in a while (Ouija 2 was six weeks ago), and allowed in because of the PG-13 rating. And it's got Two-Face and Melisandre in the cast, so that might also be a selling point, but it's definitely more adult-leaning, opting for character-driven intensity over traditional scares. Again, this is all perfectly fine to me, but the problem is these attempts aren't very successful - it might be for adults, but the execution is remedial.

The biggest problem is that it feels like a first draft of a script, where the writer got all the beats and expected plot turns down (and did a fairly decent job with them as well), but never went back and fleshed things out. Aaron Eckhart's character is being haunted by a demon named Maggie, but there's precious little time given to explaining where she came from and why she has nothing better to do than make his life hell. Maggie's newest target is a little boy with divorced parents, and what could have been an interesting approach (an abusive father having to regain his son's trust and love) is discarded almost instantly, nor do the parents get much of a chance to talk about the situation. See, the boy is obviously quite endangered because of the demon, but the mom (Carice van Houten) doesn't even tell the dad, because he got drunk one night and accidentally broke the kid's arm - that's kind of a dick move on her part, really. Not that I wanted them to magically fall in love again, but when we're told that the demon finds the weak and downtrodden because it's easier to possess them, you realize that the dad being cut out of the kid's life was part of that sadness, and the mom was partially to blame - and there's no real consequence to her for that. Hell I'm not even sure if she realizes it, which just adds to the movie's overall failure to really dig into its more interesting elements.

The script's lack of follow through extends to the production design, sadly. The movie's coolest idea is to treat possession/exorcism with a more sci-fi approach, allowing Eckhart's character to enter the possessed person's mind and help them break free of the demon's hold. These scenes start off with settings that are unique to that person's dreams and fantasies (a park and a carnival for the kid, a fancy nightclub for a lawyer that Eckhart is working with when his character is introduced), but ultimately end up all looking the same - Eckhart asks the person their favorite color and then a door appears, in that very color! And beyond that door is... uh, an empty small room, with a window that they have to jump out of in order to break free. We're told these areas are constructs of the possessed person's mind, so why are the three we see all exactly the same after the first room or two? Is the demon actually constructing this place, and if so, why do they only imagine what looks like a generic hotel in downtown LA? There's a real world location in the film (a friend of Eckhart's who collects artifacts) that has more visual flair than these dream world ones, which seems like a real missed opportunity to give the film some arresting setpieces.

But, again, it's not really that bad. The Inception-y concept may not be fully realized, but it's certainly more interesting than watching the millionth priest shout at the millionth Regan wannabe (and yes, they throw in an Exorcist reference to make sure we know they've seen it too), and I like that Eckhart's character treats it from a completely scientific approach instead of a religious one. In fact he's hired by the Vatican to help out on this particular case, a fun inverse of the usual "when science fails turn to god" approach for these films - it's the little touches like that this that keep the movie treading water where so many other possession films (let's go back to January stuff and invoke Devil's Due) have sunk. In fact I'd be curious if the script WAS more ambitious but scaled back when it got sold to Blumhouse, who refuses to spend any of the money it makes on its giant hits (the average budget is like 6m and their average gross is about 50m). To be fair, it doesn't seem as reshot/re-edited like some other Blumhouse movies, where the second guessing is apparent and frustrating, though some of that test audience-dictated action rears its ugly head near the climax, where they had a visualization of the demon that either looked silly or fake (or just didn't fit with the otherwise grounded movie) and thus tried as hard as they could to cut it out entirely, leaving only a (confusing) arm in a couple of brief shots.

I also liked how Eckhart dove into schlubbing it up for his role, something I wasn't even aware of until it happened in the movie (I only saw half of one trailer for the movie, a while back, so I wasn't even really sure what it was about beyond possession stuff). When we first see him, he's in total handsome suave guy mode, i.e. what you expect Aaron Eckhart to look like on any Saturday night on the town. But that's a dream, and in reality he's got long hair, borderline homeless guy clothes, and he's also paralyzed from the waist down - he goes from Tom Cruise in Cocktail to Tom Cruise in Born on the Fourth of July, basically. Given how much flack he took for being a "sexy" version of the monster in I, Frankenstein, I liked that his return to the horror genre was lacking any of that vanity (be it his or the producers') except for when the plot required it. He's also not even all that sympathetic, flat out telling van Houten that he didn't care as much about saving her son as he did getting revenge on Maggie - you know the movie won't actually get so dark that he'd let the kid die if it meant taking out his tormentor, but the sentiment was still appreciated. Basically there was just enough to hold my attention (I stayed awake despite it being a late show!), and in fact I suspect if I was still living up to the "A Day" part of this site I'd like it even more, because I'd be more worn down by all the movies that couldn't be bothered to add anything unique or interesting at all.

This one comes from the BH "Tilt" label, but got a wide release anyway (most of the others, like their Town That Dreaded Sundown remake, went more or less straight to VOD), though I can't imagine it really paying off. According to Thursday preview numbers it won't even make as much as this year's fellow castoff The Darkness, which is a shame since it's better and worthy of a followup if the interest was there (and since Darkness is their lowest grossing wide release genre film, that means this will take its place). Ironically, it'll probably find its audience on VOD and Netflix, where people will throw it on for background noise and end up finding it a bit more interesting than they might have expected. Eckhart gives a fine performance and the supporting cast is solid, and it's got thankfully very few silly moments (the potential for one is raced past before we can react to it - someone dies during an exorcism attempt and the body is taken away by uniformed medics, yet none of them or a cop can be seen asking for an explanation). And it's always nice to see Blumhouse moving the fuck away from ghosts for a change, so props to that as well.

What say you?

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The Witch (2015)

FEBRUARY 18, 2016

GENRE: POSSESSION, RELIGIOUS
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

Of all the independently produced horror movies to be granted a wide release after being acquired out of a festival (Sundance, in this case), there is none less likely to become a huge hit than The Witch. And even if I'm wrong (which would be great), that will just mean more people hating it because it's not the kind of typical horror movie they expect to see at their multiplex. The trailers aren't misleading in any way, but I'm sure there will be a healthy percentage of ticket buyers who expect more scares, more gore, more of the title character, etc. - and will be angry that the film is actually thought-provoking, deeply unsettling, and (not saying this as a bad thing) slow-paced, drawing you into its narrative with carefully laid out plot developments. It is the sort of movie that you can expect to see "Worst movie ever!" type "reviews" from people who are used to live-tweeting Sharknado movies instead of paying attention, and fans like myself will certainly be accused of "overhyping" it.

(NOTE - at this point I should note that this review is mostly a month old, based on my press screening in January. I never had time to complete the review due to finishing up the HMAD book, so I went again over the weekend to a normal AMC multiplex for a refresher. And now as I go back to the review, I'd like to marvel, however sadly, at how right I was in the above paragraph, written four weeks ago and left unchanged today. Obviously I know I was not wrong, though an $8m opening weekend for something like this is FANTASTIC and kudos to A24 for taking a chance on such a film.)

Oh, and it's in English, but not the modern kind - writer/director Robert Eggers used old texts and court transcripts to make sure he offered an authentic 17th century voice to his script, making some lines a bit hard to grasp (thick accents don't help) if you're not giving the film your undivided attention, which it richly deserves. Given how I've ended every review on this site (for reasons I can't even recall) I was delighted to hear "What say you?" a few times, but that's probably also the easiest line to mentally translate into what's being asked - during heavy arguments it's likely you'll miss some of the particulars if you let your mind wander a bit. During a low-key scene I actually considered (as a joke) the idea of dubbing the film into a more familiar version of English for the eventual Blu-ray. It would, I think be the only bit of levity you'd find on the disc unless the commentary is uncharacteristically rambunctious.

Because that's the other thing - this is a dark movie. I knew I was going to be in for some trouble just from the trailer, when a young woman playing peek-a-boo with a baby (her little brother, as I discovered in the film - not her son as I originally assumed) is horrified to open her eyes and see that the little guy had been snatched by an unseen presence. I don't like to spoil new movies but to fellow parents I should warn you that he doesn't come back, and his fate can only charitably be described as vague - we are spared any killing blow, but there's enough aftermath to more than make up for it, including the naked witch scattering his remains around as she collects his blood. It's pretty traumatizing, and it's only 15 minutes into the movie - with worse things to come. In the first scene, our protagonist family of seven (two parents, the four older children, and the baby) are driven out of town for being TOO religious (by Puritans! It'd be like someone being considered too conservative for Fox News, or me accusing someone of being way too into Shocker), and once they arrive at their home well outside of the civilized area, they're the only ones we see besides the title character (in brief moments). So with the cast limited to a family and an R rating for graphic violence, you don't need much of an imagination to know that the baby gets off easily in the grand scheme of things.

But again, this isn't a movie about kill scenes or jump scares. These startling moments of violence are meant to be as shocking to the characters as they are to the viewer, and thus there isn't usually much buildup or "traditional" scariness about them. Instead, Eggers devotes his energy into getting under your skin the old fashioned way - long shots, ominous music, and careful editing that delivers the shocks as quick buttons to long buildups. In fact, this movie could have easily been made in the 70s, as it would sit rather comfortably next to occult-driven movies like Satan's Skin and of course The Wicker Man, albeit not as batshit as either of those (for modern films, it reminded me more than once of Sauna, which shares more than the gloomy look). The unsettling tone is established before they even get to the house - you can go in completely blind to this movie and before a single "horror" thing happens (the baby being snatched is the first) you'll probably know you're watching a horror movie, just from how uneasy Eggers is able to make the audience feel with just a few scenes (mostly exposition to explain why they're leaving town).

Another thing setting it apart from most modern horror movies is that the acting is award-worthy across the board. The parents are familiar faces (both from Game of Thrones, in fact - Kate Dickie was Lysa*, and Ralph Ineson played Dagmer Cleftjaw), but the four children were totally new to me, and they were all terrific. Anya Taylor-Joy plays Thomasin, the oldest daughter (the one playing peek-a-boo) who the family starts to suspect is a witch and is thus to blame for all of their bad luck as of late. She's in just about every scene and has to toe a rather tough line (IS she a witch?), but she sells it 100% and pulls off her character's horrible late-film ordeals with ease. But possibly even better is Harvey Scrimshaw as Caleb, the 2nd oldest child who is currently questioning how strong his faith is, worried that his baby brother has gone to Hell since he (like everyone, per their beliefs) was born in sin and never got the chance to atone. Both of them are so good at handling the heavy dialect and just general LOOK of this bygone era that if I didn't know better I'd swear they had teleported from the 1600s and placed as is in front of the camera. Not that the parents were any less authentic, but since I recognized them from other films/shows they couldn't quite escape that disconnect - when they were on-screen I was reminded that I was seeing a (very good) movie, whereas when focus stayed on the older children I was able to get totally immersed in that time and place.

Indeed, I wasn't surprised at all to discover Eggers was primarily a production designer before switching to directing (he has done some shorts, but this is his first feature), as well as a costume designer - he worked on YellowBrickRoad, in fact, making him the go-to guy for creepy New England horror (YellowBrickRoad was shot in New Hampshire; Ontario subbed in here but apart from Canadian horror staple Julian Richings' brief appearance as the judge who orders them out of town, you'd never know it was anywhere but some gloomy New England farmland). Nothing felt out of place, and he and his crew kept things to a minimum inside and out. Sometimes you see a period movie (not just horror) where they pack in old timey props in every nook and cranny of the set as if to hammer home the fact that this was a long time ago, but here they were smart enough to know less is more. And apart from the brief excursions to the woods (and the opening), pretty much the entire movie is set inside their house, so they could (should?) easily pack up the whole prop department and turn this into a stage production.

Then again, if told on stage they'd likely have to drop Black Phillip, the goat that is much loved by the younger children (I know I haven't talked about them, but that's for a reason - I want you to remain blind to their storyline). If the movie has any lightness, it's the unavoidable fact that goats are kind of funny to look at, especially when they're not doing anything in particular and yet they're getting closeups and given silly names like "Black Phillip". I can only pray that a few months after release, when we've all seen it and enjoyed it untainted by anything, some bright spark does a mod to that Goat Simulator game and makes it about good ol' Phil. I would maybe even try to play it again (good lord, that game is terrible - I don't know how people can possibly enjoy it even on an ironic level).

One final thing I want to say without spoiling specifics - you know all of those Return of the King jokes about how many endings it has? This movie has not one but two points where you think it might end and you'd be OK with it, but keeps going and makes things even more satisfying. I loved that! It's almost disappointing when credits come up and you realize Eggers wasn't going to take it a step even further, but I guess I shouldn't be greedy. Needless to say, if you thought the movie lacked what you came for, the last 15 seconds or so should, if nothing else, send you on your way smiling.

I originally ended this review with a plea to see the film theatrically, but after doing just that (and now that it's a success anyway) I would actually rather you, intelligent reader, waits to see the film at home on VOD or Blu-ray, unless you are somehow guaranteed of seeing it in a theater with absolutely no one else around. I have never in my life witnessed such an awful group of people seeing a movie as I did this past Saturday, and I saw plenty of tweets and FB posts that echoed mine. Because the movie is genuinely good and not filled with jump scares, audiences are quick to turn on it, if the language didn't turn them off even sooner. I saw at least four couples walk out in the first half hour, each just as if not more distracting than a cell phone going off (which also happened) or some asshole MST3k-ing the damn thing (ditto). Add in the guy next to me who inexplicably brought his 4-5ish daughter along and had to keep assuring her that it was almost over (he also pulled his cell phone out several times, and after realizing he wasn't going to listen to my requests to put it away, I moved up a row. He kicked my chair in response. Because I'm the bad guy here.) and you have pretty much every moviegoer sin in the world at one screening. Had I not seen the movie already I would have been too distracted to enjoy it or even follow the damn plot (again, thickly accented olde English), and I'd hate for that to happen to you. Dumb people will ruin too many experiences of seeing this terrific film, so it is with a heavy heart that I ask you to wait until you know that the only one to blame for distractions is yourself if you keep your cell handy while watching from the couch. Let the movie whisk you away to its setting, and let it get under your skin the way so few modern genre films ever manage (mostly because they rarely try). If you hate it, that's fine - but at least give it the respect of a proper viewing, one you're sadly not likely to find anywhere that has Star Wars playing in the adjacent screen (yep, I also heard lightsabers and explosions during the quieter scenes, of which there were many). Sigh.

What say you?

*Curiously, there's a horrifying breastfeeding scene involving her character. Weird niche this actress has.

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The Exorcism Of Molly Hartley (2015)

OCTOBER 26, 2015

GENRE: POSSESSION, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

The original Molly Hartley isn't exactly a movie people love and have been demanding a sequel to; it was a low budget programmer aimed at teens, shot cheap, directed by a producer (never a good sign), and while it turned a minor profit, no one seems to ever remember it existing. In fact it was "famous" in these parts for being one of the only theatrically released horror movies I missed while still living up to the "A Day" part of Horror Movie a Day, which is perfectly fitting for such an anonymous movie. So when Fox announced The Exorcism Of Molly Hartley, I assumed it would be more or less a remake of the original - why would they continue a storyline no one seems to remember?

Well, oddly enough, that's exactly what they did. Molly is played by a different actress (Sarah Lind from Wolfcop), but it dives deep into what that film established, and more significantly, actually makes up for that film's weirdo (admirably so) ending. In fact, the only thing I really remember about the original, seven years later, is that Molly turned herself over to Satan at the end, and had zero drawbacks from it - she got more popular, her grades improved, etc. But there was no "Just one thing..." twist or whatever - the ending couldn't be construed as anything but a fully happy one. She didn't even get possessed (read: all black) eyes! In retrospect I think it might have just been a nod to The Legacy (also admirable), but it was still a weird way to end a movie aimed at impressionable teens. Satan is good!

Screenwriter Matt Venne must have agreed, as the movie wastes no time in establishing that there IS, in fact, a downside to her life-changing deal. When we first meet back up with Molly she has just made partner at her firm, the youngest person to do so in fact, and is out celebrating that and her birthday. By now she's used to getting everything she wants and life just kind of working out great for her, and thus she does what anyone in that position would do - encourages her male pal and his girlfriend to get drunk and then go back to her place for a threeway. Alas, she starts seeing things and blacks out, and when she wakes up her new pals are very much dead. The cops take her to an institution, and the steady march toward living up to the film's title begins!

But an exorcism needs an exorcist, and that's where Devon Sawa comes in (and yes, we're at the point where Devon Sawa is now old enough to play weary priests). Curiously, the movie doesn't show us Molly until the 15 minute mark - we spend that first chunk of the film with Sawa as he attempts an unrelated exorcism that goes badly, killing the victim. He is defrocked and sent to the same institution Molly will find herself in later, which allows the movie to pack in a number of allusions to a number of religious-themed supernatural classics: The Exorcist AND Exorcist III, plus a bit of Emily Rose (a shrink played by longtime HMAD crush Gina Holden is tasked with deciding if Molly is possessed or crazy), an out of nowhere homage to The Omen, and a touch of Rosemary's Baby for good measure. You might read that and think the movie is nothing more than a series of ripoffs from better movies, but honestly I found it to be a fairly enjoyable stew, combining familiar elements in a way that may not surprise you all that often, but isn't necessarily bad.

The dual protagonist aspect works well; Sawa's priest and Molly have about equal screentime, and Venne's script finally has them meet at the exact right time (about halfway), when we've gotten invested in both of their stories and can watch their scenes with far more interest than the average Exorcist wannabe allows for. By establishing that exorcisms can be deadly (something we rarely see, in fact), we're worried that Molly could be next to die under his watch, but we're also rooting for him to redeem himself. It's the rare case where the recasting of a character actually works in the movie's favor - had Haley Bennett returned, it might be somewhat annoying that the movie devotes so much time to a different character, but as we're kind of meeting her for the first time here (and the movie opens on Sawa first), their equal importance is always balanced. Holden doesn't get to do a whole lot (dammit), but she serves a good function in the 2nd half, breaking up the exorcism attempts, and also doing some of the backstory heavy lifting.

And it's in these scenes that the movie kind of stumbles; there's a REALLY terrible bit where Molly quotes Paradise Lost and both Sawa and Holden discuss how she could have known that sort of thing, with Holden saying she'd look into her school records to see if she ever read it there. I mean, when a character starts speaking Latin out of nowhere, sure, that might be possession. Quoting a damn book that you can find at any bookstore, not so much. And while I guess it's unavoidable to draw comparisons to Linda Blair's profane outbursts, some of these just sound completely silly, mocking the "The crow cocks three times" story, among others. Some of the other Exorcist lifts work well though; the obligatory pea soup callback is wonderfully icky, with poor Holden getting completely drenched in the crap instead of just taking a little dribble on her face. But why is it pea soup? Why do they have to go with green whenever someone has to projectile vomit in these things? I know some folks think so highly of Exorcist that they automatically dismiss every other exorcism movie as a ripoff - I'm not among them, but even I wish they were a little less overt.

Otherwise, I have to admit, for a movie that shouldn't exist, it's pretty enjoyable. The actors are good, the music is REALLY good (quick: name all the good scores in DTV movies. Yeah.), and the mix of Rosemary's Baby-esque "she's the chosen one" stuff and good ol' fashioned exorcism motifs works well more often than not. Oddly, this is sort of Venne's thing: scripting a DTV sequel to a lousy theatrical release and somehow making the better of the two films (he also did Mirrors 2 and Fright Night 2, which was actually yet another remake but still miles better than the stupid Colin Farrell one it was tied to). He's not infallible (Bag of Bones, though he had a lesser King book to work from and the most indifferent director on the planet shooting his pages), but that's a pretty decent track record, far as I'm concerned, and he's definitely the guy to hire if you're planning on making a sequel to, I dunno, Whiteout or something.

The Blu-ray comes with a few bonus features; you can skip the director diaries and "surveillance" footage (just long takes of shit we see on monitors at the hospital), but the look at exorcisms in the real world is fairly interesting if you're interested in the subject. For starters they spend more time talking to real priests and psychologists than the actors or director (who also gave us the I Spit On Your Grave remake and its first sequel; oddly enough the 3rd film, which he skipped, was released on the same day at this), so it actually has a little more to say than the usual fluff piece, where it'd usually be window dressing for movie promotion. Here it almost seems like they added the actors in later just to tie it together. Like the film itself, better than you'd probably expect out of something so seemingly unnecessary. Speaking of unnecessary, a digital copy is included in case you want to watch a pixelated version on your iPad or whatever.

I won't keep this disc; it's a perfectly OK movie that I'll never feel the need to watch again and nothing more. But the fact that it actually paid off/made up for the wonkiest thing about the original really tickled me, and (spoiler?) I liked how they set up a 3rd film, showing that Molly might still be possessed or whatever, AND also showing another girl seemingly being picked to be next. Hell maybe they can branch off and do both - do a series of "The Exorcism of ______" films and more ______'s of Molly Hartley. The Death of Molly Hartley, The Resurrection of Molly Hartley, The Inquisition of Molly Hartley... the possibilities are endless! And, apparently, potentially enjoyable!

What say you?

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The Vatican Tapes (2015)

JULY 25, 2015

GENRE: POSSESSION, RELIGIOUS
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I can give The Vatican Tapes some props for two things. One is its score from Insidious/Conjuring composer Joe Bishara, which does what the movie itself fails to do and never recalls The Exorcist, instead opting for its own ideas and pulling them off quite well (I even stuck around to listen to it during the credits). The other is that, despite what the trailers suggested, the movie isn't found footage. Not even close to it, in fact. I thought it'd be like a Lovely Molly kind of situation where it divides its time between traditional filmmaking and POV stuff, but apart from a few scenes in the beginning and a rarely used (unmanned, mounted) camera during the exorcism, it's shot like every other movie.

Alas, that's pretty fitting, since the script itself is like every other movie, at least the possession/exorcism ones. It saves its most (only?) interesting elements for its final moments, perhaps setting up a pretty intriguing sequel that we're likely never to see, as the film's sub-million opening weekend take* isn't exactly going to send producers scurrying to get Vatican Tapes 2 off the ground. Instead, director Mark Neveldine (half of the team responsible for Crank and then 3 terrible movies after it) and the script by too many people to remember (though one was Chris Morgan of the Fast & Furious series) spend the majority of the runtime on the same old shit we've seen a million times. Girl (Olivia Taylor Dudley from the also "Wait, it's NOT found footage?" entry Chernobyl Diaries) has an encounter, weird things start happening around her, hospitals get involved, answers are not given, and finally a priest is called in. Would you be surprised to learn that the film's climax involves two priests, a worried parent, and a possessed girl strapped to a bed?

Now, just a few days ago I gave Inner Demons some love, and in many respects it also commits some of the Exor-sins this movie does - so why is one OK and not the other? Well the approach the Inner Demons team took is a big one; the idea of the demon being held at bay by drug use is an intriguing one, and it also justified its POV aesthetic with the inclusion of the reality show team. Here, they can't even use the sparingly used camera properly, with the boyfriend inexplicably filming Angela as he takes her through the house and outside "to show her something" (a surprise birthday party, one she secretly knows about, which at least explains why she doesn't ask why he's filming her walking around). And the narrative has no such hook; there's a brief bit where she appears to be in two places at once at the hospital (sleeping in her bed, and in the nursery, attempting to drown a baby), but it's largely a go nowhere subplot, with Neveldine and his writers content to race through this stuff and get back to ripping off Friedkin and Blatty.

Except for when they opted to rip off ZAZ, of all people. There's a scene at the top of the exorcism sequence where Angela starts to gag and the priest reaches into her mouth, pulling out an egg. Two more follow, and it's basically one of the movie's big "scary" setpieces - and all I could think about was the same scene being played for laughs in Airplane! Somehow the 1980 movie parodied this one 35 years earlier (if the Airplane gag was supposed to be making fun of anything specific in that moment, I never caught the reference, and some Googling didn't help), and it sticks out even more when you realize it's the closest the movie really gets to finding a pulse beyond those final 5 minutes. Neveldine also throws in some GoPro type footage during a brief out-of-control-bus scene that will remind you of the Cranks, and I couldn't help but wonder if there was a disconnect, with him being hired to make the "EXTREME" version of an Exorcist movie and him taking the job to show he could do something besides that sort of thing (kind of like when, with both seeking to do something new, Wes Craven signed on for an Eddie Murphy comedy and Eddie Murphy signed on for a Wes Craven horror movie). These brief moments belong in that hyper-silly/exciting world, not the world of the rest of this interminable affair.

It also wastes the cast. Michael Peña is one of those guys who shows up and makes any movie better (he's great in Ant-Man, the sounds of which were occasionally booming into this tiny screen at the local multiplex), but the script gives him very little to do, particularly during the exorcism sequence where he mostly just stands around and lets the older priest do the fun stuff. Dougray Scott has some fun "overprotective dad" stuff going on with Angela's boyfriend, and the backstory of her mother is fairly novel, but like Peña as the movie continues he is reduced into the background more often than not, and the antagonistic relationship with her boyfriend has no real payoff. Plus (MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD) both he and the boyfriend die during the climax with little fanfare, as if they were never important to begin with. Peña at least gets to survive and be the hero of the sequel that exists only in our dreams, as he gets drafted into the secret cabal of Vatican personnel who go around investigating cases like these, while Angela, now revealed as the Antichrist, goes around healing people for some sinister, never to be known agenda.

With the movie offering very little to excite me until that point (the lovely Kathleen Robertson shows up for a bit during the hospital sequence, but these scenes are ultimately inconsequential), I spent a lot of time wondering why so many exorcism movies are content to follow Exorcist's template so rigidly. Here it's even more frustrating since the post-exorcism scenes are the film's best - what if they skipped over the usual crap involving "freak accidents" (birds seem drawn to her) and "The Catholic Church does not perform exorcisms lightly!" type padding where the skeptical priest has to be convinced, and got to where any intelligent audience member knows it was going by the 45 minute mark? Then they could use the rest of the movie on something new, leaving our Exorcist memories largely behind. It's almost comical how, 40+ years later, the most prominent examples of these sort of movies not going by the numbers are the actual Exorcist sequels. Hell, the 3rd one didn't even have an exorcism at all until reshoots were demanded. And then there are The Last Exorcism and The Exorcism of Emily Rose, two that also go off the beaten path and were rewarded with huge box office, as if the public was saying "Yes! Thank you for doing something new!" and were then rewarded with more of the same old crap (Last Exorcism 2 notwithstanding, offering a different kind of crap).

Oh well. I admit I was hardly excited about the movie, as its trailers did nothing for me and I'm no fan of Neveldine's (even Crank is really a one-time only deal for me; I had a lot of fun watching it but never the desire to see it again). But I can be won over when I have low expectations (see, again, Inner Demons, and, keeping with the possession theme, The Atticus Institute from earlier this year), so I could have just as easily walked away a fan of this one if it was putting enough effort into the proceedings. But alas, when your title sequences offer more chills than the movie itself, there's a big problem, and ultimately the film just continues this year's vastly underwhelming output for horror (It Follows might be the best theatrical release and I saw it in 2014!). Nothing is really hate-worthy, but after all these C- types, I almost long for a loathsome piece of shit - at least then I could be engaged on some level.

What say you?

*To be fair it's basically a limited release, at 427 screens or something like that, but the number of theaters isn't as important as the number of people IN those theaters, and that's where the movie's poor showing is plainly evident, with an average of less than 80 people showing up per day at each theater - not even enough to fill one screening. Someone on Twitter told me they were the only person in their theater and the manager tried to get them to leave so they wouldn't have to show it at all!

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Inner Demons (2014)

JULY 21, 2015

GENRE: POSSESSION
SOURCE: STREAMING

If you roll your eyes at nine found footage movies in a row, but enjoy the 10th, does it make it all worthwhile? Inner Demons is not going to challenge Blair Witch or Paranormal Activity as the go-to example for how these movies can be effective, but it's still one of the very few of late that I didn't want to slap, so that's gotta be worth something, right? And it's even more notable when you consider how many possession-driven found footage movies there are (2nd most popular after ghosts, I think); the movie could have been doubling down on its uselessness, but it actually struck a minor chord with me. I'll be seeing The Vatican Tapes this week; if I actually like that one MORE than this I'll be fairly stunned.

Part of what makes this movie work is, thankfully, a decent reason for the cameras to exist. Sure, by the end they're using them in situations where no real human being would (and I think I spotted a few impossible cutaways) but like I've said in the past - you just have to meet us halfway on that one. Give us a solid reason for filming in the first place (many don't) and maintain that movie-logic for a while, until we're hooked into the story, and then it won't really matter as much as long as you're not going overboard (i.e. people standing there filming a zombie biting their friend's face off). This one is particularly interesting - it's presented as the footage from the crew filming an episode of an Intervention-type reality show, with their subject being a formerly sweet, good Catholic girl who started dressing goth and using drugs. As it turns out, the drug use isn't for recreation - she is shooting up in order to control the demon that's taken up residence inside her. When she is sent to rehab, and thus unable to use, her conditions actually worsen.

If anything I wish they had stuck with the intervention angle longer. Given their religious background there's a good reason for a priest to be there, and they could have had the demon dishing out dirt on her friends/family who had assembled to help her, rather than random other patients at the rehab facility. The movie's logic also takes a hit here, as there is plenty of fairly concrete proof that the girl is possessed (or SOMETHING) thanks to the facility's security cameras that give the movie much of its footage during these scenes, but no one bothers to check the tapes I guess. It's only when one of the intervention crew guys gives her a fix to control the demon that things get back on track, as she is kicked out of the rehab center and sent home in time for the big climax. The rehab scenes are fine on their own, but since the other addicts don't get much involved with the story it seems like a missed opportunity for some Bad Dreams/Dream Warriors style character moments, and they could have just locked her in her bedroom and brought a doctor in to serve the same story points.

But the attention to detail is what really makes it work. Director Seth Grossman actually has a background in reality shows (including some work on the actual Intervention), and it serves the opening well, giving us authentic reality show footage along with the behind the scenes dealings in between it (i.e. asking a subject to modify their reply and start over so it's more sound-byte worthy). Grossman did a pretty good job of assembling a believable history and backstory for its fictional characters too - old photos, acquaintances as character witnesses, etc. Horror movies in general (meaning, not just these kinds) tend to suffer from a lack of world-building, where the characters all seem to have been willed into existence moments before the movie began and seemingly have no lives beyond what they are doing in the 80 minutes we're spending with them, so it's nice when a filmmaker takes the time to make his characters a bit more fleshed out and lived in - ESPECIALLY when they're doing it under the guise of "reality".

Another boon: Lara Vosburgh is great as Carson, the infected girl. The Venn diagram of "found footage movies" and "great performances" doesn't have much of an overlap, so it's definitely another happy surprise. She's got a tough role to play - especially when she begs for a fix in order to keep the demon at bay (a literal fix!), as it's kind of heartbreaking that she'd rather risk her own body/mind than become a monster that everyone hates. Throughout the film you see these tiny glimpses of the very sweet girl that's being eroded by both the drugs and the demon, and Vosburgh handles these moments perfectly, never swinging too far into one direction. Grossman keeps the usual possession visuals to a minimum (black eyes, some minor contorting... nothing particularly eye-catching) and wisely let Vosburgh herself be the effect - damn fine choice.

I saw this movie because I was tagging it for Netflix, and my heart sank when I saw it was another FF movie. So I began just kinda keeping one eye on it while I started filling out the form (if you missed previous explanations - tagging is basically plugging in all of the data that allows their computers to make recommendations, in this case it'd probably come up if you liked Last Exorcism), but after 15-20 minutes I realized I was doing myself a disservice by being so technical with my viewing - it deserved a legitimate viewing! It's not the funnest way to watch a film, because you have to be on the alert for things that might not register if you're not actively looking for them (like drinking; if someone has a beer with their dinner it's gotta go on the form - this is not something you notice when you're watching a movie to enjoy it), and that robs you of the experience a bit. Fine for a documentary or maybe even a comedy, but horror is a different beast. Watching it that way is no different than someone pulling out their cell phone in a theater - it's distracting you with reality, and the movie can't get under your skin as effectively. In other words, the movie earned my respect, and after those 15-20 minutes I closed the tagging form and watched it like I would any movie, going back to double check whatever I may have missed later. Sure, it took longer, but I got to see a pretty decent movie as a result! And you guys got a new review, something I can't usually do for the aforementioned reasons.* Win-win.

What say you?

*That might be kinda funny though, review a movie based only on its clinical data. "The problem is, the movie offers plenty of profanity and smoking, but not nearly enough drinking or live music performances. Furthermore, the setting is nondescript..."

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