The Innkeepers

The Innkeepers

Directed by: Ti West

USA, 2011

Horror, 102 min

I find that I quite enjoy the movies of Ti West, or at least I think I do. I have not seen all of them; I have not even seen half of them. I saw The House of the Devil 2009 and thought it was an awesome example of mimicking a style long gone, and done in a way that wasn’t exaggerated and stale, as many of the grindhouse pastiche movies have become… (Yeah, Hobo with a Shotgun 2010, was fun, but not much more. One-liners should come naturally, not forced out with each line of dialogue.) What West did with The House of the Devil was so skilfully perfected, that if someone had sold me it under the premise that it was a long lost late seventies, early eighties flick, I would have believed it.

Needless to say, I really enjoyed The House of the Devil, and hold it amongst the best of the last decade. Mood, atmosphere, visuals, approach, narrative and storytelling aspects, it’s my kind of movie. Which obviously means that I had a lot of anticipation brewing before catching The Innkeepers.

Claire [Sara Paxton, who I hated in the Last House on the Left 2009 remake, but totally believe here] and Luke [Pat Healy] are two twenty-something’s who are the keeping an eye on the Yankee Pedlar Inn as it slips into its last week in business. There’s only a few residing guests left in the building and even the owner, Rob, has taken off. Luke has an obsession with acclaimed hauntings that are supposed to have taken place at the Yankee Pedlar Inn and runs a webpage dedicated to the legend of Madeleine O’Malley. Clair in an approach that is almost as if she is humouring Luke, helps out to record ambience sounds in various rooms during her night shifts. A fun pastime until she actually records someone playing the piano in the entrance hall… a room she knows is empty.

Much like The House of the Devil, West smoothly approaches his topic with a method similar to that of a crocodile stalking blissfully unaware prey in the waterline. Instead of jumping in head over heels, he builds the tension slowly and merely hints at strange activities in jump scare moments or shorter scene climaxes. Just like The House of the Devil, when it’s time to peak with the culmination, it comes fast and without messing around. Tension has been built up, tweaked and teased for such a long time that the payoff is inevitable. Inevitable, terrifyingly effective and once again, leaving the audience with a bitter pill to swallow. Bitter in the best possible way that is, as the storytelling and the narrative does its job effectively. When that all clicks, you know you are in for a good time. And by then there's no backing out.

Getting there is an entertaining ride. Just as West approached the Satanic Cult in The House of the Devil, there’s several curveballs tossed and sharp turns laid out in the narrative of The Innkeepers too. The legend of Madeleine O’Malley is the main subplot, the ghost story that drives it forth. Luke really want’s to make contact with O’Malley, and even claims to have encountered here in the dark hallways of the hotel one night. Claire is more restrained and doesn’t really believe in it. Regular readers will go aha – the sceptic! - and you are absolutely right. Claire is the sceptic of the movie, as she doesn’t really believe, although through slow delicate transitions she moves into the world where hauntings are possible, and as we identify with her, we go right with her. Claire is a really empathetic character, shown through her gentle approach to things, even apologetic to rude residents, and her total geek vibe when her favourite actress Leanne Rease-Jones [Kelly McGillis] checks into the hotel and the time she spends listening to the love problems of the barista [Lena Dunham] next door – time Claire doesn’t really have, all build our empathy for her. The fact that she’s an asthmatic, tells ghost stories with a flashlight under her face, is really kind of dorky – watch how she reacts when she realizes that she’s in her underwear in the reception area – and somewhat of a slacker, all make her a much more likeable character for me, as she goes against stereotypes.

Oh, one more thing on bringing the audience into the unnatural world. There’s that excellent use of the Internet viral video, which Luke shows Claire early on in the movie. She watches the spartanly furnished room, through the web camera footage, waiting for a ghost to appear and when the feed cuts to a shock screaming face, Claire falls for it big time. This happens four minutes in and set’s a tone for the movie, which stays with me throughout. We understand that she and Luke play these kind of pranks on each other, although where Luke really does want to believe, Claire still only thinks it’s a laugh. Which is why when she straps on the equipment and starts recording ambience audio in the hotel at night, at Luke’s request to help him prove that there’s something else there but them, we start to empathise with her. And it’s through her – the sceptic – which we start to move into the world where a haunting could be possible. Again the viral video and the nightmare shock play into the hand of the sceptic. Not real, but tricks or imagination it gives us the same mind-set as Claire. When Claire starts to hear sounds on the recordings and see things in the dark, we too accept them as we now realize that this is no prank, or a dream. It’s really happening.

A second sceptic is used to manipulate the audience into believing, and that’s what the Leanne Rease-Jones character is for. She’s a healer who doesn’t believe in the ghost either, so when she starts acting weird and more or less orders Claire to get her stuff and get out of the Inn, you know that shit is going to happen.

There’s an everyday geeky kind of humour in the movie, which reflects the characters well. At times it’s almost as if Claire overacts on purpose to prove to the people she’s talking too that’s there’s a ghost in the hotel. Or possibly because there is supposed to be a playful attitude within the movie, even looking at the advance art - above - I can sense a tongue in cheek approach to the movie. Because that is one of the traits that I like with the flick. It’s playful, and joyful and doesn’t take it’s self all too serious. I like that in a genre movie and at time it helps sell me the movie a lot more than the regular tricks of the trade. This is also reflected in the soundtrack, which, in the first half at least, has something of a matineé-ish tone to it. Definitely not what I would have expected from a horror flick at least. Perhaps West want’s us to watch The Innkeepers as a fun, light-hearted film as this makes the flip at the back end so much more harsh, because the laughs will stick in your throat when the horror kicks in and scares that smile off your face.

Endings. Again, like The House of the Devil - which I'm constantly comparing to as it's such an awesome movie - The Innkeepers somewhat challenges its audience. Did it really happen? I know of people who read the ending of The House of the Devil as a possible “dream state/imaginary” space as to say that the movie never really happened… strange yes, and I do not really agree with it either, but at the same time, I definitely feel that The Innkeepers does pose similar questions. Did it really happen or was it in the state of fear and confusion that brought it all on? The last shot lingers on for an eternity before presenting the answer. And I also find that last scene to be part of the intelligent narrative that West uses in The Innkeepers. It's not to unlike the viral video that was seen earlier. He builds to a climax with the exact same tricks that the viral video does. And this is a motif that I find runs vibrantly though the movie. Is it real or all just a trick? During the last half hour, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a scene where Claire wakes up and it all had been a dream. Now this doesn’t happen obviously, but in some strange way there’s a feeling that it could have happened in the last act.

Scares. Yeah, there’s a bunch of them and they get more advanced as the movie goes along. The first being that viral video within the first couple of minutes through the hilarious “I’m standing behind you and don’t want to scare you…” moment, to the atmospheric mood that seeps in when they start to explore the basement, the really effective in-camera tricks, to the straight out grotesque moments which the movie culminates with. Yeah, West does deliver the scares, the shocks and the uncomfortable moments once again… and you know what, the second viewing is more so as you start to add together things you picked up in the first viewing with events in the second.

It’s my humble opinion that this movie will find it’s own audience and will generate a certain cult following. It’s a well-told tale with characters – well mainly Claire - that are totally believable, empathetic. Despite some of the scares being somewhat artificial – and the ghost of O’Malley does look kind of generic – they still get the job done. The power of the story takes over and the magic of storytelling sweeps me into the dark and I find myself fumbling for the light switch. Nothing is as powerful as the suggestive less-is-more approach that makes this a fantastic trip to Scareville.

I like it and I definitely will return to Ti West’s The Innkeepers as I’m convinced there’s so much more to read and explore in that great little movie.

The Sacrament

The Sacrament

Directed by: Ti West

Horror/Thriller, 95min

USA, 95 min.

Ti West. What a rollercoaster of a career he’s taken me on! The House of the Devil was amazing original and really promised something really great. Cabin Fever 2 : Spring Fever was kind of meh, but fun. The Innkeepers was fantastic and equally impressive as The House of the Devil had been. Second Honeymoon, his entry into anthology horror V/H/S was alright and had that classic West twist ending, and M is for Miscarriage, his part of The ABC’s of Death was just a lazy insult and really nowhere near the quality of story that one comes to expect from Ti West… so what was The Sacrament going to be like? Would it be a reclaim of the magic West certainly can deliver, or would it fall into the same disappointing pit that several others have? 

First off, The Sacrament has a great poster as you can see above, a great trailer as you can see below and all great premises that make fantastic movies. But West takes a risk with The Sacrament. Well really several risks, namely that his story has a familiar ring to it as movies like both René Cardona’s Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979), and Kevin Smith’s Red State (2011), and certainly the “swanky” on the edge documentary filmmakers of yesteryear, the infamous Alay Yates and his missing crew of Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust 1980.

 

The basic set up is this; Fashion photographer Patrick Carter’s [Kentucker Audley] former drug addicted sister Caroline [Amy Seimetz] went to live with a religious community at an undisclosed location. Vice correspondent Sam Turner [A.J. Bowen] decides tags along with cameraman Jake [Joe Swanberg] to document the community and the Carter family Reunion in hopes of a new rad story for VICE.

They pack up and take off to a cool very VICE like montage and music, taking us through the opening credits, which I’d possibly have left of and gone right into the story, just like VICE does if I was trying to mimic before setting them down in the unmentioned jungle area. Armed guards meet them at the makeshift helicopter-landing patch in the jungle area before they are shown on the back of a truck and taken towards the camp to meet up with Caroline. At Eden Parish they are met with more hostility. Forced to turn off their camera Sam starts to worry about this gig. When Patrick’s sister Caroline finally show up, she’s fill of, apologizes and explains that the Kalashnikovs are merely a precaution as both government and locals in the area are not to happy about their self-made community in the middle of nowhere.

Still uncertain if they will be granted an interview with either Caroline or the parish’s mystic leader figure Father [Gene Jones] the team get right to work and start interviewing people in the community who all praise the community whist Father delivers messages of peace and love over the P.A. system. Later that night Father  grants the documentary team a brief interview where he answers the investigatory questions in a defensive manner before politely calling the interview to an end and inviting the team to a celebration in honor of their visit. It’s during this late night festivity that Savannah [Talia Dobbins] ay young mute girl, approaches Sam and hands him a hand written not with the sentence “Please help us” written on it. The parish members engage in a creepy religious chanting. Worried for his whereabouts, Sam and Jake look for Patrick, but can’t find him. Tensions build, and it becomes apparent that Eden Parish holds secrets and dark sides that certainly are not commonly associated with Paradise!

Just in case you do not know anything about the movies I mentioned initially, I’ll stop there. I wouldn’t want you feeling that I spoiled anything for you. Instead I’ll get right into the pros and cons of this film a movie that certainly will find its audience, will be a great thrill for some, but at the same time is a movie that could, should and would have been so much better if only a few things had been taken into consideration. At least in my opinion.

Style wise West totally nails it. It is like watching a VICE documentary, and believe me I’ve seen almost all of them. The Sacrament boasts cool hipster vibe, and a cool soundtrack, addressing the viewers and has documentary hosts/journalists breaking the fourth wall whenever possible, dodgy cinematography, candid camera chats shot with extreme dutched angles – because its all ad hock documentary right! Even the font and explanatory texts that add narrative to the piece work just like VICE documentaries do.  The only real difference is that The Sacrament is trying to come off as if you are seeing the unedited footage.

This brings in a definitive Cannibal Holocaust/Blair Witch/Cloverfield tone to the footage, which is supposedly acting as candid material. It works, but being someone who has worked professionally with television for the last twenty years, the somewhat too good and well-edited “raw footage” often takes me out of the atmosphere West is after. This is also where I start to loose interest, because personally I find that the found footage/raw material gimmick is losing it’s shtick and in a movie not to unlike this one, I’ve seen it for real in stuff like Barbet Schroder’s magnificent General Idi Amin Dada (1974) and if you’ve seen enough Mondo movies you’ve seen the Jonestown documentary footage too.

What starts off so perfectly as an authentic VICE report simply fizzles into generic “keep the camera rolling” mode, despite candid from the heart confessions of what Sam and Jake are thinking and experiencing. I’m easily disappointed in movies that set off to be one thing, as in this case, a VICE documentary and then end up being edited found footage movies, where certain angles may have been shot at random by the second camera that they have, but that camera was left behind, and that’s a big continuity error – especially when you end your movie with a text claiming that this footage is the only first hand account of what took place at Eden Parish. I also don’t like the fact that it goes movie drama style when signaling that it wants to be VICE, and that’s also why I’d leave the actor and director credits off the start of the movie if this was my flick. Hell, I would have made it with unknowns, in three segments and put it out there as an authentic VICE documentary. Now THAT would have blown socks off an audience!

Most the cast are the backbone of the Mumblecore movement and there’s certainly nothing wrong with their performances, on the contrary, they are awesome and sell it perfectly. The main problem for me is that they never really manage to generate any real empathy, or concern. There’s so much more that could have been done with the characters. Sam could have been much more cynical, or given a more dimensional approach seen as he has a pregnant wife at home and on several occasions refers to them. There’s something of interest there a cynical TV producer out to exploit and mock something “sacred” whilst having his own strong values even closer to heart. Or why not have cameraman Jake be more push and risk taking? Then there’s Patrick, the swanky fashion photographer who more or less is the initiator of the journey is missing for a huge chunk of the film, why not use his character more, have him being a sleazebag taking photos in that risky borderline sexuality style that VICE photographers do?  There’s a lot more that had been possible with these characters. Caroline could have been used to shed more light into the inner circle and workings of the parish, the one to shed light on why it’s so fantastic there, and all those “dark sides” mentioned at times during the corse of the film. She could even have built the Father character to a bigger, mightier omnipresent, enigmatic or anything person. Instead this is somewhat done through supporting actors in sound bites and interview snippets explaining what and why Eden Parish is heaven on earth, but it doesn’t add anything to the mysticism of Father. He never really comes of as a great leader, despite sporting shades and khaki suit, but just another bloke with a bunch of followers looking to him for salvation. Neither do I sympathize, or gain any kind of emotional recognition with Father and his parish as there’s not really anything unique in there… to be honest, it could be called a re-boot of the afore mentioned René Cardona Jr. flick Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979), because it really doesn’t add anything.  (Just Google the 1978, December 4th  issue of Newsweek and you’ll see certain images that are almost identical to The Sacrament)

With that said, this is certainly precisely what West was after, to recreate a piece of history with contemporary imaging. There’s really no way that you can look at the Newsweek or news reports of that time and not react to the simple fact that they are despite being almost forty years old, still just as exploitative as some of the VICE reports. Perhaps it is all a commentary on how easily manipulated we human beings are in a world where nothing really holds any real value, the infortunes of people following false prophets are reported on every day. It could well be a reflection on the VICE generation where everything is met with a Meh and a witty tweet update. It could also be a comment on how easy we look at the value of others lives in our very busy and cynical world.

There is certainly something bitter in the after taste of The Sacrament, and at the end of the day, I have to say that it did capture my attention, it did draw me in and it did what it was supposed to do, i.e. entertain me, although the final act was a rather big letdown. I was expecting something else, not a low key, simple observing, almost accidentally “caught up in the events” story. Ti West can do better that this, and despite using his familiar tricks of an ordinary world, low key eeriness, and building a magnificent tension within the space of it’ universe, the air seeps out towards the end. The Sacrament is a damned fine piece of craftsmanship and a really anxious movie as it slowly builds, leaving that West trait of creeping unease seep in as it moves towards its climax. Within the Ti West universe, it’s a decent piece that will sit well just below the notches that The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers carved in genre cinema.

This is a movie that has me polarized, there's some really great things going on here, but at the same time, there's several things that bug me. The real down side of The Sacrament is that it doesn’t really explore or bring anything new to the table, at least not for someone who has been around the block a few times and seen a reasonable amount of exploitation fare. The story is overtly parallel with the Jonestown Massacre. The status quo is reinstated, and the down beat, mind fuck ending that comes with great Ti West films is lacking, despite the film presenting a bleak finale. Oh, and there’s one scene that is so fucking stupid that it totally wrecks one of the arcs West has preciously built to that point, and a moment that is totally illogical in the shadow of the events that have taken place. Perhaps it’s my knowledge of the stories and movies that without a doubt inspired The Sacrament that ruin my experience, and that constant desire for West to get back to the magnificence of The House of the Devil and The Innkeepers.

The 20+1 2011 list!

In my feeble mediocrity, it’s time to present you with a list of the movies I feel made some kind of difference, stood out amongst the static or just simply affected me in one way or another during the almost passed year The most of them where released in 2011, and I’m sure that some of them where already out in 2010, but I have them in here anyway as they became accessible to me in 2011. Fred started it all off at his temple of thrills Ninja Dixon, and Wildside Cinema is bursting at the seams with them right now... but I can’t restrain myself to just ten movies! That wouldn't be me. I needed to squeeze forth twenty instead. I need to over do it. I over do everything, I gave you nearly 9000 characters about why Serbian Film is so much more than "that" film, I spent almost 12000 characters to explain why the BBFC where wrong in their decision to ban Grotesque, I've written past 100 000 characters dedicated to explaining the themes and traits of the movies of Jean Rollin, I've spent hours making mixtapes of music from films I like... I over do it. But I'm like that with things I'm passionate about.

So, here it is, the 20+1 for 2011 list! Enjoy, don’t take the numerals as written in stone, I could push several titles up or down the scale at any given moment and watch out for flying superlatives. Oh and highlighted titles take you to the in depth reviews.

20. Rubber

This may be an strange place to start, with Quentin Dupieux’s surreal tale about a tire that possesses psychic powers, but I like when people are creative and flip tiresome genre conventions on their ass. Rubber did exactly this, and the scene when the friggin’ tire rolls up to the doorway and gawks at Roxanne Mesquida as she showers, is amongst one of the most peculiar and innovative scenes I’ve seen in ages. Not forgetting the constant breaking of the fourth wall, and that strange meta sub-plot taking place on the hillside above the town held captive by the psychic tire.

19. Dylan Dog : Dead of Night

Yeah, it might be somewhat pale when held up to Soavi’s classic adaptation of Sclavi’s alternative Dylan Dog character Francesco Dellamorte. Then again it shouldn’t be compared, as this is Dylan Dog, and seen as I’ve been reading Dylan Dog since the nineties so I consider myself to be a Sclavi connoisseur, and Kevin Munroe does the source material justice. Despite hating him in the comics, I miss Groucho, but never the less Dylan Dog was a movie I looked forward to a long time and in a fun, dumb way it lived up to what I wanted it to be. I somehow feel (or wish) that the interest this movie stirred up sparked Soavi’s plan to return to genre cinema with a new Dellamorte movie.

18. Insidious.

Despite climaxing on a conventional bogus ending, I really liked most of Insidious. It grabbed me by the balls, scared me on more than one occasion and really delivered the goods in a way that almost reminded me of the first time I saw Poltergeist. An old style ghost story, with some solid scares, and it got the job done... to bad it got lost up it's own ass along the way.

17. Cold Fish [Tsumetai nettaigyo]

Sion Sono. This guy just moves from darker to darker places. There’s an uncomfortable feeling brewing from the first frame of this movie as competing fish shop owners Nobuyuki Syamoto [Mitsuru Fukikoshi] and Yukio Murata [Denden] paths cross after Murata manages to get Syamoto’s daughter off the hook for shoplifting. Crippled by tradition and respect, Syamoto get’s drawn into a nightmare that there’s only one-way out from. And when he comes back, he’s kicking the shit so hard that everyone’s going to feel the wrath of the frustrated underdog. A stunning movie, with glorious moments of Japanese grotesqueness and a frustration that boils within every scene.

16. Underwater Love [Onna no kappa]

There’s a stupid soft spot inside me for wacky genre bending musicals… I think that all of us who watch horror movies have a soft spot for these movies, that’s why we love The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Phantom of the Paradise, The Happiness of the Katakuris and my guilty pleasure The Phantom of the Opera. Kappa, a spiteful Japanese water spirit is a reincarnation of a young man who get’s a second chance to go back to the human world and rescue the woman he always loved… and it get’s complicated. Comedic Pinku with some songs, some dances and a lot of heart sticks this one right into the list of genre benders with catchy tunes.

15. Attack the Block

I saw both Harry Brown and F., just days before watching this one, and with that in mind, it's easy to write off all hoodied kids who hang around the underpath as hoodlums. True, snot nosed kids aren’t snot nosed kids anymore. They pose a real threat that should be taken seriously, although Joe Cornish manages to make his lot somewhat sympathetic in this tale of space invaders in a British council flat. A surprising and fun movie that delivers some laughs, some shocks and nail-biting excitement, along with some awesome effects, great pop cultural referents and a brilliant Basement Jaxx soundtrack seasoned in John Carpenter sounds.

14. The Unliving [Återfödelsen]

Impressive short graduation film by Hugo Lilja tells the story of a few survivors after the zombie apocalypse. It’s more or less life as normal where the zombies have become part of it. Some work as exterminators with the intention of wiping them all off the face of the earth, some as researchers attempting to recycle them back into society, it’s just all in a days work but at polarizing sides of the spectrum. But one day the restrained living conditions come crashing down when a man finds his mother amongst the living dead. Effective, gripping and definitely a movie that gets my hopes up for Swedish genre again.

13. Trollhunter [Trolljegeren]

You can’t live in Scandinavia and not add Trollhunter on a best movies of the year list. PartBlair Witch, part Ghostbusters, part Scandinavian folk lore, this is a splendid combination and one of the funniest, most impressive and best movies to ever come out of Norway ever. And the Christian kid get’s eaten by a fucking heathen troll which proves the Vikings where right all along.

12. I Saw The Devil [Akmareul boatda]

Fuck that supernatural bullshit that was Tale of Two Sisters – I never really understood why everyone hyped that one of all the movies made at the time – and take a plunge off the deep end with Jee-woon Kim’s return to dark and haunting cynicism. Badass Serial killer vs. Good guy cop storyline done to death. But Kim has them flip roles over and over again taking them to hell and back, erasing conventional boundaries and creating one of the best narratives of this year. Byung-hun Lee and Min-sik Choi bring it all to the screen in this captivating monster of a movie. Just writing about it makes me want to watch it again.

11. We are what we are [Somos lo que hay]

Not to be confused with the elder Jorge Grau of Spain [Director of the masterpiece The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue], but a young director from Mexico who’s debut feature is a fascinating tale of a family in turmoil after the father drops dead in the middle of a shopping mall. Now an internal struggle for dominance arises and the one who brings home the bacon will be the new patriarch… oh, did I mention that they are all cannibals? Impressive drama, high tension, dark comedy at it’s harshest.

10. Kidnapped [Secuestrados]

Spanish home invasion flick Kidnapped is something of a technical masterpiece. From the way the camera flowingly moves thorough the narrative to the elaborate split screens that bring the separate feeds to shocking climaxes and the penetrating tension that the piece builds up is outstanding, this movie kicked me on my ass. Miguel Ángel Vivas twelve scenes manage to make up one hell of an impressive movie that blows the socks off a lot of other home invasion movies in the process.

9. Ratline / Stakeland

Ratline, an intelligent, surprising and powerful movie that has some impressive surprises and hides some devastating punches up its sleeve. Independent filmmaker Eric Stanze changed the way I'll watch independent genre movies this year– needless to say the bar has been raised, and every other independent filmmaker out there should be challenged by the storytelling in Ratline. A dilemma is presented here as I on one side want to scream out Give him a real big guns budget, but at the same time, low budget is where Stanze's heart and soul is, and in all honesty he doesn't need the machinery of the cooperate bullshit slowing him down.

Stakeland holds a utopian approach to its subject matter. The same nihilism found in the zombie genre is finally seeping into the vampire genre. Gone is the pansy lovey-dovey shtick of tweeny Twilight, and back is an almost Cormac McCarthy like gloom, stinking up the earth with an engaging tale of survival against the odds… It ‘s on the list split with Ratline as Eric Stanze worked second unit on it, and I’d like to accredit a lot of the compact atmosphere to his and Ryan Samul's splendid cinematography.

8. The Innkeepers

I totally fell in love with The House of the Devil some years back, and I always feared the movie that Ti West would follow it up with. The horror genre is filled of one hit wonders, I really didn’t want West to become one of them. Give the guy a cigar; The Innkeepers is a fantastic movie that establishes West as a serious player in the shocker racket. This is schoolbook use of sceptics and how they bring the audience into the world of horror… and I love movies that are open to interpretation.

7. Revenge: A Love Story [Fuk sau che chi sei]

Powerful, raw and violent as hell, but poetically gentle, delicate and fragile at the same time, Chin-up Wong’s tale of revenge is one hell of a trip into human darkness. Posing the age-old question “what would you do in the name of love” and using the dramatic motor of emotional recognition, this movie will tear your soul apart more than any other movie has done before. Perhaps the ultimate doing bad for doing good movie, but at the same time much more than just a straightforward chop fest. Writer Juno Mak – who also plays the leading character Kit – tells a story that will leave you sick to your stomached but also with tears in your eyes as horror, thriller and a love story all come together in perfection.

6. Super 8

Yes, a mainstreamer, and a fucking brilliant one too. J.J. Abrams movie simply swept me up off my feet and made me believe in the magic of mainstream movies all over again. Everything I grew up loving about Goonies, Ghostbusters, E.T., Gremlins and Romero’s zombies was contained in this gem. Those dopey kids deliver more insight on storytelling – yeah, that movie within the movie that instigates the entire plot –than a majority of genre filmmakers out there are in their movies. I loved every minute of it, and enjoyed it just as much – if not more – on the second viewing. A movie I can watch with my kids and lure them into the darkside of genre cinema.

5. Inbred

Ok, so if I hadn’t had ever met Fred and Joachim some years back, I’d probably never had gone to the Weekend of Horrors in Bottrop, Germany, and I’d most likely never had seen Alex Chandon’s Inbred... A brilliant and unpredictable “fish-out-of-water” story about a bunch of Londoners who go up North and get what they have coming. The instant you think you are ahead of the movie it flips it head over ass and goes a complete different direction. Superb acting, great locations, and special effects proving that old school with a dab of new tech are just the ticket! Porkscratchings never tasted so good and British violence hasn’t been this grim since Carter went north.

4. Julia’s Eyes [Los ojos de Julia] *

My personal favourite of the recent Spanish “produced by the Godfather of neoGoth, Guillermo Del Toro” flicks. Finally a movie where the real threat is death, adult antagonists taking on adult protagonists and not a single fucking kiddie ghost anywhere to be seen. Definitely a homage to the Giallo genre, a play on Peeping Tom and all things that go bump in the dark. A magnificent movie that shouldn’t be missed. Belén Ruben just goes to show that you don’t need thirtysomethings pretending to be teenagers to make a scary movie; you just need fantastic actress with charisma to bring the audience into a realm of engagement, suspense and fear.

3. The Woman *

Lucky McKee’s fascinating tale of a wild woman captured by a seemingly ordinary family… but slowly, the cracks in the façade start to show, and their dysfunctional reality is exposed just in time for the grand finale. Hell hath no fury like a scorned woman, and this one packs the most bittersweet punch of them all. Following the ponce screaming about violation and what not, during Sundance, I was prepared for a regular generic torture flick. Instead I got something completely different, a mighty tour de force that floored me completely the first time I watched it. I could watch that climax for the rest of time, and if I where a chick, I'd style myself after Pollyanna McIntosh on a daily basis.

2. Red State

I fucking love Kevin Smith. I love his movies and I even find some personal space for Jersey Girl. George Carlin is in it for christ sake and he gives a great performance. Cop Out wasn’t written by him, and just proves that he’s not a gun for hire, he needs to be in control of his stuff if he’s gonna pull it off. But then again that pay-check financed Red State, so back off. As Smith’s movies are something of an anti-thesis to the horror genre, I was terrified when he announced he was making a horror flick. I wont even tell you what I feared he’d come up with… I was wrong on all accounts. Kevin Smith delivered a brilliantly dark, provocative and satirical expose of life within a cult, and the people who want to stop them. From the horny teenagers looking for some ass to tap, to the cult members sacrificing sinners, to the mind fucking bureaucracy of the government, this is a haunting, intense and splendid movie. Smith knocked it out of the ballpark and Michael Parks deserves a goddamned academy award for his portrayal of sect leader Albin Cooper.

1. The Skin I Live In [Le piel que habito] *

Yes, this is easy the best genre piece of 2011, a gripping, seductive and spellbinding masterpiece. Filled to the brim with pulpy references, and impossible to pin down or even predict where it’s going to take you. I take pride in being one of the few Swedish reviewers who wrote about this movie knowing what the referents where all about, and not just what I read on the press release. Nay, yonder Franju, Franco, Clouzot or contemporary genre imagery referrals went wasted on me Pedro. I saw them and I understood them. Almodóvar is a genius and when he dabbles in the dark side of entertainment his most diabolical movies become masterpieces. I love it when an artist shows that horror is a real genre, and not just kids geeking around with corn syrup and food dye. Horror is art, Viva Almodóvar!

There you have it, and just for the record, all titles with an apostrophe are titles that I had either poster or dvd/bluray cover quotes on. Movies that neatly sum up this great and final year of writing about genre movies in print. It’s been a life long dream come true, which now ends with the cancellation of Cinema magazine… But I have other plans for you my pretties. All will be revealed in due time.

You're Next

You’re Next

Directed by: Adam Wingard

USA, 2010

Horror, 94min

Distributed by: Scandbox         

Home invasion films are a sub niche that has grown strong and powerful these last couple of years! Personally it’s among my favorite as I once was a victim of home invasion. A woman I’d never met before was in my apartment in the middle of the night and even though I managed to get her out, call the cops and change all the locks to my doors, the scars left where deep, hence this being the genre that creeps me out the most, which in my book, makes You're Next one of the most tantalizing creep-flicks this year!

A family gathers in a remote house to celebrate the 35-year anniversary of their parents. Outside a band of homicidal predators put the house under siege and start to minimize the number of family members one by one.  What they don’t know is that one person on the inside knows more about survival than they had reckoned on.

It’s clear that Adam Wingard knows how to get an audience to invest in his characters and story, and he does it almost by the book. This is a good thing and a trait that serves Wingard well. It’s definitely one of the reasons this mumble core - horror filmmaker is considered part of the horror genres future. Well, OK, Wingard is a fucking great director, but kudos needs to be given to Simon Barret too, because Barret is a pretty important part of the Wingard success, as Barret writes the scripts to Wingard’s movies. A Horrible Way to Die, Autoerotic, You’re Next, V/H/S, V/H/S/2, all Barret.

You’re Next starts up with a raw initial attack to set the tone; a couple in their post coital state of sweatiness become victims of an off-screen assailant. When we finally get to see the killers, they hide their faces behind childish animal masks. This presents the threat in the outside world, a threat in the dangerous place outside the safety of indoors. The masks make the threat more inhuman, and it also plays on genre convention – , the masked monster, the confusion of an unidentifiable assailant, the defaced killer who we are supposed to guess the identity of. Most likely the use of animal faces made for children is a way to take a harmless object and fill it with danger, doom and death is an ironic decision. Something cute becomes an object of terror.

The title of the film is presented in an Apocalypse Now kind of fashion – scrawled across an object instead of classic graphic vignette, although this time it’s blood on a window. It all adds to building the threat and allows perfect polarization against  the presentation of our lead characters Crispian  [AJ Bowen] and Erin [Sharni Vinson]. Crispian and Erin are on their way to Crispian’s parents, and we quickly understand that this is the first time Erin is to meet them. We also learn that Crispians parents are filthy rich, that family gatherings are few and that there are “certain issues” within the family. Erin is secretive about her background, which will be put into focus later on in the narrative. Cut to mother and father who enter their new home, the same home where the family gathering is to take place at. Paul [Rob Moran] and wife Aubrey [Barbara Compton] step up to the front door of the house only to find the door unlocked! In the following ten minutes the house becomes something of a McGuffin as it groans and creeks, suggestive camera angles show POV shots out of door openings, and windows. The tension builds, eventually sending Aubrey screaming out the front door convinced that there’s someone in the house… Paul does an obligatory and half-hearted check of the house whilst Aubrey cowers outside, giving Wingard a perfect moment to build anticipation and toss the real first jump-scare at us. It’s an effective one and it’s needed as the next couple of minutes are going to be spent branching out the family and cast.

This is time spent building up the hierarchy and dynamics of the family unit consisting of elder brother Drake [Joe Swanberg], complete with bully mannerisms and narcissist wife Kelly [Sarah Myers], hipster chic little sister Aimee [Amy Seimetz], her boyfriend Tariq [Ti West – yes, director of The Innkeepers and The House of the Devil] and baby brother Felix [Nicholas Tucci] and his girlfriend Zee [Wendy Glenn]. Character traits are rapidly exposed and in a way this is almost similar to the obligatory archetype presentations found in generic slasher - and college films, we understand the dynamics and how Drake bullies and manipulates them all, holding an reign of terror upon his siblings, all with the support of mom and dad, who are smugly pleased and teary eyed over the fact the they finally managed to get their children all together – despite all their internal issues and conflicts.  

In all honesty, the family are perhaps not characters that get any sympathies from the audience – after all this is a horror shocker and we just want the carnage to start - but there’s some form of emotional recognition with Crispian and his constant underdog positioning.  We are also pushed towards feeling for Erin, who in contrast to all the others offers to help out I the kitchen and is the one to take command when the terror starts to intrude the privacy of their safe world. So with the basic structure, let us call it “The Ordinary World” established the tableau is set and it’s time to bring on the horror. 

After a bout of “brotherly love” and “guilt tripping” (all great devices to use in horror) the ordinary world is shattered as the chaotic dinner party turns to violent massacre when crossbow arrows start being shot through the windows at the family, who now are reduced to a bunch of sitting ducks. There’s a shot of an arrow smashing into the framed photograph of the family sending shards of glass allover the place, a great metaphor for the destruction of the family unit, which this film is a representation of in more than one way. The realization that there’s an antagonist on the outside of the house sees the inhabitants start their fight for survival, and this could have been good enough to get the game underway, and wind tension up. But we know that there’s someone inside the house too, which increases the threat and makes the narrative even more suspenseful… when will they pounce and how hard will they hit!? 

Oh, if they’d only listened to mother!   

The masked assailants hit hard and ferocious and at times the violence is really sadistic and grim. At the same time there's a dark comedic undertone that flows through the film, something that one could consider a trait of Wingard and the mumblecore horror scene. Not slapstick or schtick, but more small things in life that are funny in their everyday way... or absurdity such as a blender to the brain!

After the dining room attack the movie really shifts gears and goes “all in” on the Survival Horror themes. Classic protagonist vs. antagonist traits presenting characters to root for and others to question, and manipulating the audience into each now shock/gore/death scene. Our voyeuristic sadism gets what it’s craving and at the same time we find a strong protagonist in one of the characters. Perhaps it’s not all that original, considering the conventional genre roles in horror, although this one has a logic and backstory to it that I found satisfying. Nobody becomes a superhero in the flash of an eye, it’s all planted along the narrative, as is reveals of what really is happening to the family. Tidbits of dialogue dropped along the way and seemingly unimportant acts all tie into the movie further down the road, and this is where I find the skill of the Barret/Wingard cooperation as details all come together as rushes of insight hit the audience.

An interesting scene is found somewhere in the second half, where a specifically violent and sadistic axe to the head beating, sees the masked killer almost being nauseated by his own acts. He gags, grunts and has to sit down on the sofa after the deed. This was fascinating, as I never earlier have seen a scene of violence where the dark hearted antagonist almost instantly is quenched by his/her own guilt. That’s what I kind of liked with the way the movie climaxes to as it forces characters to question their morale and judgment, just as it makes the audience ask the same questions. How far can you go in doing wrong for a good cause?

You’re Next is a spectacular example of contemporary horror. It takes the familiarity of the home invasion sub genre and brings a number of interesting new ingredients to it, and for once I’m actually glad to knowing what drives the killers, why this is happening, and watch a movie that does deliver some kind of closure at the end. All truths are revealed, and the truth hurts! With that said, You’re Next is in no way a movie that holds back on the nihilism, rather the opposite, it is dark, unpredictable, ominous and will make you think twice about attending family reunions for the rest of your life!

A slice of horror cinema served up in the best possible way, You’re Next hits Swedish cinemas 15th of November! Go see it, because we don't really get this kind of genre fare on screens here all that often!