Review: "Teeth" (Released in 2007)

Going into this movie, I was aware of two words. The only two words that most everyone else knows about the plot: vagina dentata. Probably enough to scare a lot of people away, while simultaneously attracting the morbid curiosity of just as many. (Maybe more?) I wasn’t sure, though, if this would be an all out campy gorefest or if it would attempt to be a serious movie. I was actually pretty impressed by it.

The first thing you should know is that this is NOT a monster movie. You will not at any point see a scary, fang-toothed ladyparts monster baring its teeth while it seeks out its next victim. (However, there IS explicit penis. Quite a bit of it. Oh, and for the most part, it’s NOT a pretty sight when it appears due to the circumstances, as you can probably imagine.) Anyway, this actually feels more like an indie film with horror elements mixed in than a straight horror movie. According to the ‘net, it actually premiered at Sundance in the Independent Drama category.

The acting is really good. The afflicted character, Dawn, is very sympathetic and multi-dimensional. You feel bad for her, and when she’s introduced as a sweet and innocent vocal advocate for purity rings you cringe because you just KNOW something awful’s going to happen to her, and probably early into the plot. She is absolutely terrified of all things sexual and avoids them like the plague, and this is before she’s even fully aware that she has a full set of choppers inside her. What most impressed me about this movie, (before I even get into all the horror stuff), was the character arc the writer gives Dawn. She goes from a bright-eyed goody two-shoes to someone much stronger and more in control of her own destiny. Of course, she has to go through some pretty ridiculous s*** in order to get there.

Now, for the good stuff. As you can imagine, of COURSE there is dismembering going on. Literally. (Wahh wahh wahhhhhh!) It’s VERY bloody and VERY graphic. Close-ups and everything. So guys, you may want to take a valium with a stiff drink before you watch this. If dudes have issues watching “Hard Candy,” (which I’ll review another time), then I…can’t even imagine their reactions to this one. Fair warning.

Just because the movie is well acted, pretty well written and not overly campy doesn’t mean it’s not funny. It IS, and darkly so. Most of the time intentionally. (I think there were a few moments in which the characters were overreacting to things and it was supposed to be horrific or serious and I personally found it funny, but maybe it wasn’t necessarily supposed to be? Who knows.) A lot of the violent horror stuff was a delightful mixture of revolting and terrible to be witnessing but also hilarious due to the outcome. And oh man, do bad people get what they deserve in this movie!

Interestingly, this screenplay was written by a man. I’m not sure if he has some sort of personal vendetta against his own gender or what, but EVERY male character except one has horrible intentions towards Dawn. (Even a medical professional! Not only is THAT scene really sleazy and gross, but for me that was the least believable part of the whole thing. Even counting the vagina teeth themselves. When you watch it, let me know if you agree.) Dawn’s Step-Father is the only guy in the story who does not want to rape, molest, take advantage of her, or generally stick some part of his body into her no-no place. No wonder she developed those incisors as a survival mechanism! As far as specifically HOW that happened, it’s never addressed. But she does live in a town with a big power plant behind it. So, you do the math.

A couple of brief Negative Aspects:

You have to put up with John Hensley, that kid from “Nip/Tuck” who looks like Michael Jackson. He just bothers me for some reason.

There’s a brief scene in which a dog eats something really gross. That’s all I’m saying.

To sum up, I liked this movie more than I thought I would. It was well done, funny, and not ridiculous. The violent scenes are extremely graphic and satisfying to the horror fan. But if you’re the slightest bit squeamish about genital mutilation, this is not the movie for you.

Four and a Half out of Five Pints of Blood is my rating for this movie.

A Warm Greeting

The heating unit in the room started making a weird noise earlier tonight, and a test revealed that it wasn't really putting anything out. I dialed the number for the front office and there was no answer. As some of you know, it can get pretty chilly in California some nights, so I was about to venture a trip all the way up that weird stony path in the dark to the rickety house to try to find the motel manager there, but before I could exit my room there was a knock at the door. There he was, standing outside. Which was kinda strange. But conveniently well-timed!

He very politely asked permission to come in before he did anything and I said of course, it's his place. He was pretty awkward the whole time he was here. After taking a look around and inside the heater, he flipped some switch or rearranged something or other, (I don't know about these things), and the ancient contraption loudly rattled back to life. He stood up, made a subtle gesture towards the floor near the heater and said, "So there's that." He made every effort to avoid looking into the bathroom for some reason. I chalked it up to eccentricity.

"Hey, thanks a lot for stopping by and fixing that Mr...uh, what was your last name again?" I felt a bit idiotic. As I've mentioned before, he's such a nice guy!

He laughed, but there was a mixture of nervousness and something else I couldn't quite put my finger on behind the laughter.

"There's no need for such stiff formalities," he said. "Call me Norman."

Then he left abruptly, slamming the door closed behind him.

Review: "The Haunting in Connecticut" (Released in 2009)

Okay, confession. The first time I watched this movie, it was a couple of years ago when I was living alone in a very tiny apartment in the South Shore. I watched it alone, at night, shortly before I went to bed, and I figured it wouldn’t be all that creepy based on the trailers and ads. That particular viewing of this movie freaked me the f*** OUT. I should not have watched it alone in the dark, right before bed in a small New England structure. For the first time in years, a movie gave me issues going to sleep.

Cut to: a week ago, when I watched this movie again, for the second time. I was prepared for everything, but watched it in the daylight juuuuust in case. Let’s be clear about something here: I am NOT a squeamish person. I can watch the goriest, sickest stuff without being all that disturbed. But this is not a bloody movie. There are no psychotic killers or hideous monsters. It’s a ghost story. So what was it about this movie that affected me so much the first time I saw it? I was determined to figure it out and see if it still held all that power on the next go-round. The funny thing is, this time I’m living on the first floor of a two story house with a really creepy cellar, which for a movie like this is way WORSE if you’re the least bit impressionable.

Before I actually review this movie for you, I’ll give you the answer: it’s a pretty solid scary movie, but it wasn’t nearly as scary the second time. My theory is, the mental/emotional place I was in when I watched it the first time combined with the fact that I completely underestimated the content made for a bad combination. ALSO, there is one factor in horror movies that does give me the “heebie jeebies,” as they say. (Seriously, you guys. EVERYONE uses that phrase.) You know those moments where everything’s quiet and the room is empty and someone is alone, for example, but then the person turns their head, or glances at a window and there is suddenly something there? Yeah, that is not always cool. It sort of depends on how it’s done, but a lot of the time it makes my heart beat a little faster. (*NOTE: This does not normally include those moments in a bathroom mirror where someone opens the medicine cabinet to grab something, then closes it, and as the door swings shut there is suddenly someone or something behind them in the mirror. Because that has become very clichéd and easy to predict at this point. Or, as Paul F. Tompkins describes it, “He looks up…HIDEOUS MONSTER IN THE MIRROR!!!”)

That “suddenly something’s there in the darkness” scare is done very well in this movie. Have you been victimized by those lame videos online that are supposedly commercials or “funny” clips, but once you’re sucked in and leaning towards the screen a screaming dead girl pops up and you practically s*** your pants? “Haunting in Connecticut” is kind of a long series of those things. (Fair warning!) But, that’s not ALL it is. Like I said, this is a really decent movie. There’s actually a LOT going on plotwise, and it’s no foolin’ this time based on real events, so if I were to go into every single thing this review would be so long that you’d lose interest quickly. (That’s what she said!)

Basic Plot Description: Virginia Madsen plays the mother of a teenage son who has cancer. Matt, (played by Kyle Gallner from uhhhh, Jennifer’s Body, apparently, and the Nightmare on Elm St remake), has an understandably rough time travelling in the car to and from his painful treatments, so his mother buys a house closer to the clinic. (I think it’s in Connecticut?) The family soon learns that the house used to be a funeral home, and the basement where Matt sleeps contains a room where the bodies were “prepared.” Really freaky and violent stuff starts to happen. Everyone thinks Matt is just hallucinating at first, but then it gets worse. Matt and Mary, a close relative he trusts, research the house and find out more about its history. Apparently more was going on than just funerals. The house’s former occupants won’t leave Matt alone, and the evil threatens to harm the family.

Positive Aspects: The acting is good, Virginia Madsen especially. Besides just being a ghost story, there’s a well-developed layer of familial drama and struggle that’s also threatening their wellbeing. Matt may or may not be dying at a young age and his mother tries to remain positive but it clearly tears her apart on a daily basis. The father used to be a raging alcoholic, and all the crazy stuff that happens in the house only serves to bring this behavior out in him again. Also, Matt’s direct connection with the dead inhabitants alters his own behavior and frightens his siblings, making the rest of his family afraid of him in addition to worrying about him. On top of all of that, you also have these violent entities.

The scares, as I mentioned earlier, are pretty solid. A lot of jumps, though. I know those piss some people off. So this movie may not be everyone’s cup of tea. **IF YOUR’RE LOOKING FOR GORE, THIS IS NOT THE MOVIE FOR YOU.** There are lots of creepy and disturbing images, but not much blood. (However, there IS a somewhat brief but revolting scene involving a corpse’s eyelids and a sharp instrument.) This movie also does something I had not scene before involving “plasma” pouring out of bodily orifices during a séance. (See DVD cover/poster image included in this post for a pictorial example.) Very cool and moderately gross!

OH! I must not forget to award this movie for “Scariest Looking Dead People.” Meaning specifically the ones that are up walking around during the scares. I would go looking for images on Google, but frankly I would rather not. Trust me.

Casting Bonus: Casey Jones as a Priest! (That is, Elias Koteas.) I mean, the guy has been in a s*** ton of great projects but I think that most of us remember him most fondly as the hockey stick welding ally to the TMNT. Anyway, I know that the priest angle is clichéd in these movies, BUT, this one doesn’t just show up and say “Hey, I think your house is evil! Want help?” Matt meets him in the clinic while he’s there for his treatments because they’re both there for the same reasons, he’s a nice guy, and once stuff turns really ugly Matt gives him a call to ask for help.

Negative Aspects: There aren’t many. I know this is nitpicky and PURELY personal opinion, (like the rest of this blog isn’t, right?), but Kyle Gallner (Matt) seems to have a trademark move of making a pouty face any time he’s required to show emotion. Kind of distracting.

At first, I found it very hard to believe that Matt would continue to sleep down in the basement after all that scary stuff starts happening AND once they know that the basement was used as the mortuary. But, upon watching it again and learning more about the situation, the reasoning for that is supposedly that he was drawn in and sort of imprisoned in a way by the spirits, so it wasn’t entirely his choice. Why didn’t they just get the f*** out of that house, you ask? I wondered the same thing. They kind of cover that in the movie, but not to a satisfactory degree. I mean, Matt still needs his treatments despite what’s going on, and the family has no money left after buying this place, so they’re stuck financially. Not sure if that’s an entirely acceptable excuse or not, but there you go.

Really cool development! I actually JUST caught a two-hour documentary on the Discovery Channel about the real family and everything that actually happened to them. The movie’s pretty accurate. The entire backstory involving the specific characters of the man who ran the funeral home and his young apprentice, and the activities they did to contact spirits, etc., was entirely for the sake of the movie of course. However, the visual look of the funeral director was apparently based on what the son and other eye witnesses reported. (Eeeeeek.) The evil spirits in the house, (IF this documentary is completely true), really tormented the family a lot more than the movie even indicated. The son was a lot more withdrawn and practically possessed to the point of attacking his own family in the night and he had to be removed from the house. After that, the rest of the family was harassed by the ghosts instead. Also, when they asked a priest to come talk to them, the guy basically said, “I hear what you said, but you should just ignore it.” And then he left. What a douche! So they hired a team of investigators to come check things out and they eventually got permission from the Catholics to do an official exorcism on the house, which seemed to work, and the son’s cancer went into remission and he was okay. The documentary was pretty interesting. Some of the things that were re-enacted seemed a little extreme, but I do believe that things like that can happen so I’m not entirely skeptical. The Discovery Channel wouldn’t LIE to us, right? (…..right?)

The best part of it, though, was that there’s one thing in the movie that happens when someone is attacked in the shower and nearly suffocated by the shower curtain. If this documentary is accurate and not phoney balones, then that ACTUALLY HAPPENED, you guys. Oh. My. God. Remind me to never live in a haunted house.

I give this movie 4 out of 5 pints of blood. Good story, lots of startling moments, and creepy images. Not my favorite sort of horror, but it’s good for the type of movie it is.

Movie Review: "Jacob's Ladder" (Released in 1990)

I was surprised by how many people I know recommended this movie, or have at least heard of it. All I really knew about it was that it’s supposedly “pretty f***ed up.” Well, with a review like that you don’t have to ask me twice!

A very simplified explanation of the plot: A super young looking Tim Robbins plays a guy who was in the army and some really weird s*** happened to his platoon that he can’t fully remember, but now in the present day he’s seeing things that he thinks could be demons or just people trying to kill him in general, while also flashing back to his life before AND during the war. Thus, in a way, there are three different realities that the character jumps between frequently.

This is one of those movies where you really can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t, as the character may or may not be going insane, so you need to focus on what’s going on. (Don’t multi-task, and make sure you pause it if you go to the kitchen or you have to pee. Otherwise, you’ll be even more disoriented when you get back. Also, for my friends who like to get stoned when they watch movies, I highly recommend that you do NOT DO THIS for Jacob’s Ladder.) At least, this was how *I* felt. You might have a much better grasp on psychological film analysis and never ever get lost in the details. To be fair, I was admittedly waiting for more scary things to show up and I was never fully satiated.

Not that this movie isn’t creepy. There are several key elements that make it so:

1.) Scary visuals/makeup. The “things” that are appearing to Jacob are not fully human, and don’t really have faces. Um, some of them have tails. Need I say more? Also, this movie has its share of bloody guts and gore just…lying around places. Scattered and unexplained. Which is unsettling in its own way.

2.) Scary editing. The actors did that thing where they move their heads around slowly, then the footage is sped up to make it look shaky, fast and extremely bizarre. Very effective! Especially when coupled with loud, piercing noises. I learned that this was the first film to use this trick, and it inspired projects such as the Silent Hill games to employ the tactic.

3.) WTF?! Moments. You’ll see what I mean when you watch it. “Why are these people acting like this?” “Is this in his head, or what?” “Where am I? Did I just wet myself?” etc. The scenes on the subway also manage to perfectly capture the feeling that washes over me whenever I take the subway in NYC. It’s only a slight exaggeration, let’s be honest.

I only completely jumped out of my skin once, and it was due to creepy element #2. In my opinion, the scariest scene in the movie happens shortly after Jacob is pulled into a car by two men and escapes that situation, only to find himself strapped to a gurney and slowly wheeled from one room to another, which get progressively more gross, bizarre and unnerving. Yikes.

OH, by the way, holy uncredited Macaulay Culkin performance, Batman! (It’s kind of a downer, though.)

Overall, I give this movie 3 out of 5 pints of blood. The moments that are scary are pretty solid, but they’re brief. And I think the film was over-hyped for me before I watched it. If you’re into political conspiracies, war movies and psychological mindf***s, though, definitely give this a view! (If you haven’t already.)

Checking In

After doing a couple of things I'm not terribly proud of, I decided to hit the road for some personal time. I didn't anticipate one of the most ridiculous downpours in recent years, and my car handles terribly in the rain. At some point I even got off of the main highway somehow, (probably because my eyesight isn't the *best* in storms either), and I ended up at a very out-of-the-way and isolated motel. (That's how far from civilization it is; it's actually a "motel!") It's kind of a s***hole, to tell you the truth. But the guy who runs it is kinda cute, on the younger side, and VERY polite. It's weird...I get the feeling like he dropped right out of 1960 or something, like the place fell through a time warp into present day. Oh, well! Despite the old fashioned charm of this room, (or "cabin," as he calls it), there is actually a moderately sized color television set and a basic dvd player. Nothing fancy, but the guy said he had to "buckle down and join the trends." He offered me a sandwich, but I was pretty tired so I politely declined and instead moved in to wait out the storm. Doesn't look like it's going to let up any time soon. Is it weird for a man in his late twenties to still be sharing a house with his mother? I suppose not. Moving on to these dvds. They're all horror movies, which is pretty sweet. I'll post reviews so that we can discuss them!