La Casa Muda

La Casa Muda is a really interesting horror film. Similar to the idea behind Hitchcock’s Rope, La Casa Muda(aka Silent House) is supposedly done in one whole take. Many skeptics believe that this is in fact a fudged claim, but there is no getting around that this film (if it is true that the film is actually done in two shots) had some seriously fancy camera work going for it. There had to have been a lot of practices to get this movie right, and it shows that the camera man is really competent when it comes to framing the shot. I could only imagine how hard it must have been to make this movie happen, and there is a definite need for applause for this one. (WARNING: spoilers below)

Though the movie wasn’t all too creative in plot, and moreover the plot is sometimes actually confusing, I really enjoyed watching this movie. At times, I didn’t even remember it was done in one take. I really enjoyed the real time aspect to it, but I fear that it could have possibly hindered on the film’s plot. The film is shot mainly from the perspective of the daughter, Laura, who [SPOILER ALERT] we discover is the psychotic killer. This is discovered when the POV of the story is cleverly switched over to Nestor (which btw I LOVE his name). This clears up what’s going on a little bit more, like why Laura doesn’t want to leave to house and also why she also doesn’t seem to be injured, but for some reason has a good amount of blood on her face.

The film’s story definitely needed some improvements. It is not particularly satisfying to be in the dark when it comes to the story. The climax needed to be drawn out longer. I also feel like [SPOILER] the audience needed to know what happened to the daughter and why Nestor and Laura’s father were having sex and documenting it upstairs in the old house. It would have been nice to know these plot holes, if you can even call them that.

La Casa Muda was an interesting trial. The single shot horror film placed the audience directly with the protagonist, and increased tension well. It was very creative, but I am not so sure that other horror films should follow suit. The first person perspective muddles the story, and while the film is aesthetically pleasing for the most part, there were still some old horror tricks throughout the film (ex. camera flashes for light =REC).

But do not think this means you shouldn’t watch this movie. If you are a lover of film, and especially the horror genre, this one is a definite must-see. The story need not be the reason to rent this film, but the mirror shots, lighting, and staging in a single 80minute shot is worth a watch. It’s an incredible feat.

La Casa Muda: 3.5/5

The Woman in Black

You can locate it at my horror movie blog: http://gore-tastic.tumblr.com/post/17049561343/thewomaninblackreview

Dream House

Dream House -- 2/5

This movie could have been a mediocre horror/thriller that would probably have fair amount of people watching it on syndication around the Halloween time...if the ending didn't dive into the deep end of "WTF is going on in this movie?"
The plot in the beginning in simple -- from the trailers we all know it's about a guy who supposedly killed his family in this pseudo-magnificent house a few years back. Sounds simplistic enough, and could lead to some very interesting, but possibly predictable twists in the end. But just because a horror movie has the Naomi Watts and Daniel Craig approval apparently does not mean it's going to be pretty okay, but far more terrible than you could even imagine.

I should have known -- September is where movies go to die. It's always been that simple.

The really big problem with this movie is that it did not know its ending. Or rather, it did know it, but it was poorly set up and poorly executed. Once the third act arrived, I honestly didn't care for anyone anymore. They could have all burned up in the house and died for all I cared, at least the world would be a little more at ease without these psychos running around. The bad guy's motive wasn't discovered til a flashback at the very end, nor was the villain even a threat the whole movie. I'll give the flick credit for not having me guess the ending, but it didn't even give me a chance to. The ending sort of surprised you, which is probably why it needed so much exposition and explaining at the end. I felt like I had watched two separate movies by the time the credits rolled -- one a mystery about a man whose family was supposedly killed by him, and another about a psycho jealous ex who yearned for custody over his daughter (both of whom have minimal screen time).
By the end of the film, I had a way better ending thought up in my head that would have made the movie flow a lot better, and have most fun-twist action:
After Daniel Craig discovers his true identity, he runs over the the beautiful blonde neighbor Naomi Watts, who seems to know more than she lets on and genuinely cares for Mr. Craig. Every time Craig leaves the house to visit Naomi, we see his ghosty wife (played by Rachel Weisz) look stony and somewhat angered (possible jealousy alert!!). Well, all this plays out and in the end we discover that Craig was having an affair with Naomi, which made Weisz go insane, and she kills her children, attempts to kill her husband, and then he kills her in self defense.
This all would explain:
- Why Naomi was always worried about Craig and why she visits him in the insane home
- Why Naomi's husband wants a divorce, and custody over the child (because as he sees it: she slept with the crazy neighbor who killed his family AND still looks after him)
- Why Craig was shot in the head and why he shot his wife
- and Why Weisz always looks so angry when he speaks to Naomi

In conclusion, I have come to realize that after this month of crazy-dumb horror movies (Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, Apollo 18, and Dream House), I should just run off and create my own production company called "Awesome American Horror Movies." Maybe Lionsgate will fund me!

Martyrs and Inside

As an attempt to possibly gain 2 1/2 more pages to my 8 page term paper, I thought of the brilliant idea of discussing it as a casual blog. Seeing as I'm having the up-most difficulty expressing my words at the moment in formal, maybe this will work, who knows!

So the 2 films I'm writing over are the French (extremely gory) films Martyrs and Inside. Both films share a common thread of feminine ideals, blood soaked and unbearably hard to watch torture/stabbing scenes, and a common phobia of the outside finding its way to harm the inside (oh ahahaha, that's even a title of one of the films, how clever of me).
Probably the real reason I chose these films is that they are the only 2 movies within the past few years that have actually scared me first time watching (we will discount the fact that The Human Centipede gives me the chills every time I see that damn trailer, but that's not because it's scary, I just find it so gross).

So, here are the trailers for those who are not familiar with the films





Both films have an interesting new twist on the beast in the boudoir motif that circulates many horror films. While Inside is a little more traditional with the home invader being the antagonist, Martyrs has us following one of their 2 protagonists, who acts as the home invader. The switching of the roles is very crucial to what the film stands for. By flipping the patriarchal nuclear family as the enemy, rather than the one being harmed, the audience's sympathies lie then with the invader herself (who is everything but the norm). With Inside, the home invader wins, which is also a switch on the normative ideal that the victim inside the house winds up saving the day and defeating the evil from the outside.
Another really interesting thing these films touch on is the allusion to France's xenophobia. Specifically with Inside, the Paris house represents France, while La Femme (the home invader) represents the unstable outside trying to find its way in. This situation is also a parallel to the ongoing 2005 riots that happened in suburban neighborhoods in France. Interesting, no? The film also revolves around the riots as well (the protag's a photo journalist, the police officers who attempt to protect her mention them...etc), but this is just so the audience hopefully understands what the film's actually trying to say about the riots in the end when the outside wins over the inside.
If Martyrs is very explicit with symbolizing France's xenophobia, it's really hard to find. However, something I can mention on my blog which I can't mention in my essay due to the fact that I can't seem to actually get more the the online article than the title, is the idea behind Martyrs metaphorically defiling and neutering it's lead female. Though I can see where the article is going, mainly from the 2nd half of the film's horrible torture scene, I'd have to disagree. I feel like the second half of the film is an "exploration of female empowerment" (look at the fancy quote I have from a article you can find here." Sure, they cut off all her hair (which is the sheer essence of femininity) and they torture her until she has successfully transformed into a martyr, but I feel like this is way more empowering to women (oddly enough, don't make fun). The significance of a female martyr is essential to the film's overall meaning. Why is it that a man cannot be a martyr, hmm?? To even emphasize that women are much more biologically capable than men, the film has a series of photographs that are all of women. Sure enough, even this gigantic women, named Mademoiselle, is in charge of the estranged cult.

And why is it that femininity has to be all flowers and pink? La Femme, the antagonist of Inside, is total masculine, and even has this witch-like quality to her (which I've learned from analyst Doty that apparently totally means lesbian). Further, La Femme in french means woman. So, why would a character with such sheer lack of feminine qualities be named "woman"??! Could this mean that the writer wanted to take a stab at what their version of feminine actually is?? Well, I would like to think that. Maybe what both of these films tell their audiences is that femininity and masculinity are not so opposite as one would think...hmmm. Not only that, but that it's possible the females are in fact stronger than males, both films having examples of this (martyrs can only be females, La Femme kills every man that attempts to save Sarah).
As to not reveal everything I'm writing about in my term paper (I mean really, so far it's 6 pages long) I will stop here. But maybe one should think about what I wrote about and then possibly take another look at both the trailers (especially the Inside one, which I'm super glad I found because now I will totally be using it as back-up argument in my essay).

Super glad if you actually read my rant, and watch more foreign films :)

Scream 4

Scream 4: 3/5

The movie that every horror fan has been waiting for has finally arrived, and doesn't disappoint -- well, almost. Scream 4 tries to be this super smart and sleek and fully self-aware horror film that exploits the mechanics of all the new horror franchises and remakes that have become popular in America over the past decade the Scream films have been on hiatus.
Within the first 5 minutes of the movie, Saw has already been name dropped and there has been a comment on J-horror remakes. This is alright for a set-up to a film that supposedly "dissects" the horror genre and exposes all the world for it to see, but unfortunately it comes across a little too Scary Movie-like. I also felt a little annoyed with the Anna Paquin cameo, because it almost felt forced to be there at all, and I was the most excited for that one.
As the film pushes through, it starts to actually feel like a Scream movie and not its cheap knock-off. Ghost Face is a little more logical on his horror film deconstruction, knowing that Peeping Tom was the first of the voyeuristic stare and slasher craze, plus many of the high school kids are supposed horror film geeks as well (their film club itself seems to revolve around classic 70's horror films) and they all love the Stab franchise. However exciting this is for a person like me who is currently in a class that specifically studies horror films, the characters in their entirety still lack one important element that even in the beginning one of the cameos states isn't in torture-porn franchises these days (ironic, huh?) - character development.
You can try all you want to defend it, but every single one of the characters that lasts until the final bloodshed doesn't have one distinct quality that separated them from each other. Maybe this could be seen as a continued exploration of the Internet generation's inability to relate to each other, but I see it as poor story telling. Every high school kid seems so unaffected by the stabbings, it's almost insulting. They prank call their friends and ask them "What's your favorite scary movie?" constantly throughout as they make googly eyes at the town's returning celeb - Sidney Prescot. However, the lack of character development could be as simple as there were too many characters that could have been called the protagonist, and not enough to call the supporting cast.
In the beginning you have the trio of semi-popular girls (Emma Roberts, Hayden Panettiere, and Marielle Jaffe) who have 2 boy-stalkers (Rory Culkin and Erik Knudsen) and an evil ex (Nico Tortorella); plus if that's not enough you have 3 returning cast members (Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, and David Arquette) and one new police officer who has a mad crush on Dewey (Marley Shelton). All totaled up, that's 10 people to keep track of, and at least 7 of them are prime suspects to be Ghost Face.
Another fault in this movie is the timing of the killings. Once the killer is revealed, and you go over all the killings in your head, it almost seems impossible that no one ever discovered their identity, especially Sidney.
A lot of the movie also tries to mirror the first and best Scream to the exact, and they also mention a few times in Scream 4 that it's impossible for any movie to "fuck with the original." Maybe the writers tried to use it as an excuse for it not being as great, but I just found it a cop out to attempt to make it fantastic.
It just feels like I'm simply complaining about the movie at this point, but I actually did like it. If any new character had any potential to be a new favorite, Hayden Panettiere sure was the best candidate. Also, the twist ending (though I found it a little obvious who the killer was) was still so brutal and sweet, but I don't want to spoil anything :). As far as slashers go, this one is an enjoyable and mindless remake, or continuation (whatever the forth movie wanted to play itself as) that could beat up Saw 4's trickiness any day. Some feel there isn't much room for a slasher film these days, but I see it differently. People want stabbings now more than ever while the torture porn industry is swaying slightly to the unpopular (but not for me, of course). I say, we should just bring back the good old 2nd half of the 90's horror films like I Know What you Did Last Summer and Urban Legend for the pure enjoyable creative stabbings they had to offer. Everyone still loves a psycho killer with a crazed mission and Scream 4 shows just that.

My First Post: Hanna, Bride of Re-Animator, Crossing Borders

So I suppose since this is my first blog, I will tell you a little about it :) I'm an avid movie watcher. I love all things film, which explains why I'm a film major at UNT and also work at the local movie theater. I get to see a lot of films a week, and I love talking about them, so I figured I'd start a review blog! My hope is to open up people to movies they haven't seen or ever thought of seeing, with of course the occasional blockbuster movie that hits theaters :)
The title of my blog comes from the Japanese word 映画館 ("eigakan"), which means movie theater. I chose the title not only because of my minor in Japanese, but because I have the weakest spot for Asian film.
Even though I see at least 3 films a week, there are still my off days where I don't watch anything. Possibly I will then review movies that I have seen in the past and love, or TV series that I have finished a complete season of. Whichever! Today since it's my first, I thought I'd do a trio of films I saw this past week. 1 at work, and 2 from my film classes. Enjoy!



Hanna (2011): 3.5/5
Beating out 3 of the 4 movies to release this weekend with $12.2 million, Hanna is a remarkable film with tense action sequences. However, what makes this film a step above many 2011 films so far is the remarkable characters intertwined in the intense plot.
The main character, Hanna (Saoirse Ronan), is the most unique at best. She is as strong and super as any rouge-man-on-the-run I've ever seen. Hanna takes names and breaks normative child boundaries not so different from Kick Ass's Hit Girl. She's totally hero material. Not only does she beat down bad guys ever so easily, but she also speaks multiple foreign languages which makes her even more of a super awesome hero.
But Hanna is not my favorite character in this film. That award would have to go to the little girl, Sophie (Jessica Barden), who is Hanna's best friend. She's so adorable with her spunky "I'm-too-good-for-this-world" attitude and her subtle pop cultural references. Not only that, but she's an excellent supporting character who perfectly balances Hanna's rough-and-toughness.
I should also mention how the movie's music is fantastic. The Chemical Brothers made a perfect techno score that went along with every beat of the film, doing something that I feel Daft Punk's Tron: Legacy score could not do.
Usually movies of this type do not interest me. I'm not one who is super excited to sit down and watch a rouge hero run from The Big Bad American Wolf (which speaking of children stories, I loved this movie's unique parallels to Brothers Grimm fairy tales). However, I feel this movie creeps out of the cliche of these usual thrillers and creates a world all its own.



Bride of Re-Animator (1990): 2.5/5
This film was a little hard to pay attention to after a long class of lecture. The beginning and the end feel a lot more well-paced than the exhausting middle. The allusions to famous classic horror films are also easy to spot (Bride of Frankenstein being the obvious one from the title).
Some perks to watching this movie would have to be the gore. A couple of my favorite creations were five fingers with an eyeball connecting them which ran rampant around the doctors' house while a police man was interrogating them. Another hilarious creature was Dr. Hill (David Gale), a head brought back to life, who in the 3rd act of the film is able to fly because bat wings are fused to his head and creates chaos for the doctor buddies Cain (Bruce Abbott) and West (Jeffrey Combs). You can never go wrong with the non-threatening flying head. The body of the bride was also unique, showing many veins and muscle rather than skin and body, which was pretty cool for the gorehound in me.
Another perk to the film is Dr. West's quirky little one-liners ("My God...they're using tools!") which come in handy to describe the action always when needed.
All in all, I feel this film only skims the surface of funny allusions that Gremlins made use of so well.


Crossing Borders (2009): 3/5
This documentary, unlike many my teacher has shown in my International Documentary class, was light-hearted and easy to watch. It's about 4 American students, that while on their their study abroad trip to Spain travel over to Morocco and meet up another 4 Moroccan students there. I feel this film doesn't go as deep as it should with regards to how most Americans view the Islamic world, but after meeting the director post screening, I realized he only wanted to skim the surface and spark the imaginations and encourage others to go abroad and see the world for themselves, to become more cultured. This documentary does what it wants to do, and nothing more. It's essentially an advertisement of sorts for his non-profit study abroad organization.