Enough To Die For

The Hamiltons:

A family of serial killers tries to survive, now that their mother and father are gone. It has the twists that you'd expect, and features actors who aren't Crispin Glover or Rose McGowan, but would like to be. Victims go to amazing lengths to die, but my main issue with the film is how terribly psychopathic most of the family is. Whether you root for or against the family, the kill-crazy brother has to die, and the movie never twigs to that fact.

Gravedancers:

This starts off as a very typical going-for-creepy film, and if you're going to watch it you ought to skip the rest of this paragraph. Anyway, dancing on graves with your drunken buddies is bad. Our hero and is wife become puzzled over a mysterious stalker who keeps rattling the water pipes and turning invisible. All standard stuff, until they visit their screwup friend who was smart enough to hire Tchéky Karyo, paranormal scientist extraordinaire. The movie shifts directly into adventure mode, and then the fun starts. While the movie will does dive into the glorious excess of driving a humvee through a mansion while being chased by the giant floating head of a piano teacher, the rest of the film is played mostly straight. So now that you're expecting this sudden shift, the movie's going to lose a lot of its punch. Sorry. You can still enjoy Tchéky Karyo.

But it also raised two points in my mind: First of all, this was the only movie where some of the characters who are utterly screwed react in ways that, you know, normal people would. It really can't be that hard to do in a movie. Secondly, people being trapped on opposite sides of a door is boring.

In the end, I did enjoy watching all of the films, except for Penny Dreadful. What I can't do is recommend them to you without knowing how many flaws you're willing to put up with.

I'll go out on a limb and say that if you thought Descent was a genius piece of filmmaking, you should see all three. If you hated Silent Hill, then none of them. If both of those are true for you, then I foresee many disagreements in our future.

Krigeworthy

You would think a movie where Henry Rollins wears pink sweatpants and is used as a battering ram would have a recommendation coming to it. Especially if that movie contains the quote: "Monster cock stuck in the door!" (I may be paraphrasing that one. You try Googling "feast" and "monster cock.") But the same should be expected of a horror film set in an all-girl's school from the director of May.

The characters in Feast are shot from the waist up in almost every frame. That might not sound distracting, but Henry Rollins spends half the movie in pink sweatpants...and you can't see them. It was like watching a bunch of manananggals trapped in a bar with a floating head that was supposedly a kid in a wheelchair.

The Woods was a disappointment. Imagine Suspira with too much mystery revealed instead of too little. On the upside, any one of the teachers could have brought enough dignity to Alice Krige's Argento-worthy role in Silent Hill that Mr. Bile wouldn't have to defend it anymore.

What more can I say? Mediocre movies don't fill my criticism meter. Feast wasn't clever enough to forgive its amateurish production. (The alternate ending--the monsters are hurt by sunlight!--reveals a huge continuity error in the final cut of the film, just in case you missed it.) As for The Woods, evil roots aren't enough anymore.

There was one surprising thing about The Woods. Bruce Campbell was damn good in it.

A Few Of My Favorite Things

Feverishly written in the night, and hastily edited in the morning, I reveal my champions of monsterdom! None of them come from my own head, nor did they come from folklore. This makes me sad, especially since I entirely forgot about kappa until it was too late. Speaking of promises I may never keep: A future edit of this might contain helpful links. (Edit: there are no good, helpful links. I'm just going to have to hope you know what the hell I'm talking about.)

Pyramid Head:
Luckily, now that Silent Hill the movie is out, I’m much less likely to have to explain where the hell the character comes from. The downside to this is that I now get to spend that time defending the film.

Many of the touches Pyramid Head has (and Silent Hill in general) are reminiscent of Clive Barker’s work. You get the feeling that there’s a complex mythos that explains why the hell everything is going wrong, and there are just enough explanations to keep you satisfied. But there is never much in the way of definitive proof, and you’re left wanting more. The fact that Pyramid Head never returns is almost certainly a good thing, since the later games start reminding me about the bad things about reading Clive Barker. Also, the character design goes a long way to cementing my love for it, with a nice blend of creepiness and improbability.

Dracula:
While I just assume Pyramid Head justifies itself, I feel almost embarrassed to list Dracula here. The story keeps getting recycled in books and film, but rarely in a satisfactory way. Even worse is when the character is dropped into other stories. I honestly don’t give a fuck about the mid-series introduction of “The Historical Dracula, Who Is Possibly The First Vampire.” Give me the historical Renfield any day.

But in the original book, there was a lot about him that just worked. Dracula's slow boat ride to London is one of the best examples I can think of for a scene that draws its power from happening offscreen. In London, his behavior is inhuman to the point that characters are left baffled how he can be so brilliant one moment and such a fool the next. Finally, the book’s climax drew all of its drama from the vampire hunters racing to butcher Dracula in his sleep, because you just can’t fight a vampire at night. That's what seperates them from mummies. All of these are lessons that were quickly forgotten by following vampire authors. Also, I love The Monster Squad.

Mister Quimper:
This might be cheating, because I suspect real monsters don’t wear elevator shoes. But not being human probably makes up for most of this. Mister Quimper wears a good suit, a stylish mask, and gets some of the best lines in The Invisibles. Also, he represents perhaps my favorite kind of villain: the secondary character who upstages its compatriots with pure moxie.

The strange thing about my favorites is that I wouldn’t feel comfortable sending you to any of the “source works” that they spring from. I love Silent Hill 2, but I can’t blame someone who flees from its gameplay mechanics. Meanwhile, if I’m not willing to re-read Dracula, how can I insist you should? As for The Invisibles…well, I only suggest it to people once I think they can work past its flaws.