Tag: horror

PREVIEW: The Shining

avameester Leave a comment

On January 21st, Michigan Theater offers a very special and spine-chilling event: a one-time late-night screening of The Shining. When it comes to psychological thrillers, no film will have your heart racing like this cult classic.

Loosely based on a real setting, the 1980 film follows a family that moves into the snowy mountains to act as caretakers for a seasonally empty hotel. Without much to keep them busy, the family encounters an array of sinister forces, falling victim to the darkness of the hotel’s history; from psychic powers to hallucinations to isolation-induced insanity, the horrors accumulate as the winter progresses.

The film has gained a large following since its release, bits and pieces of it permeating pop culture. From the quote “Here’s Johnny!” to the image of two ghostly-looking girls standing in an empty hallway, each moment of The Shining offers a memorable piece of artistry that stands the test of time. Everything is intentional; after watching this film a handful of times, I still notice delicately placed details with each watch— and the electrifying acting (or was it even acting?) of Shelley Duvall and Jack Nicholson will never fail to keep me on the edge of my seat.

Experiencing a cult classic and visual masterpiece on the big screen is a rare opportunity that can’t be passed up. The lavish interior of Michigan Theater slightly parallels the elegant atmosphere of the film’s infamous hotel, adding another dimension to the immersive experience. If you enjoy horror, snowy days, big hotels, and human villains who convey demonic evil, you’ll love seeing The Shining at Michigan Theater. Grab a couple of friends and spend your Friday night celebrating an old gem.

PREVIEW: Titane

Nellie Shih Leave a comment

Titane, the most recent recipient of the Palme d’Or, has been declared by the BBC to be “the most shocking film of 2021.” The film follows an unconventional love story and a series of unsolved crimes, and falls under the horror genre – but specifically body horror. Titane is a French film by director Julia Ducournau (director of Raw), with the title’s English translation being “titanium.”

I’ve heard this film described as “kind of gross” which makes me a little nervous, but I am curious about how tasteful the film’s gratuitous nature is. The film’s description on several websites is accompanied by a blurb about how titanium is biocompatible and therefore often used in prosthetics, and I think I know what kind of body horror that would involve. I am simply not a fan of doctor montages and surgery scenes in films, but there is something about watching such a shocking and possibly controversial film that is a little exciting to me. Wish me luck!

Titane opens on Friday at the State Theater. 

REVIEW: The Haunting of Bly Manor

Nellie Shih Leave a comment

The Haunting of Bly Manor is the latest installment in The Haunting anthology created by Mike Flanagan for Netflix. The series consists of nine episodes, and follows the story of an au pair who arrives at the haunted estate of Bly Manor.

The series uses horror elements in a very understated way; it elects to hide ghosts in the background that often go unseen rather than to have jumpscare after jumpscare. It has an overall eerie tone – a large, old house and two children who advise their governess not to roam the grounds after dark – but it is very slow burn, which becomes one of its faults. The series takes several episodes before a cohesive storyline begins to unfold, but once the inklings of an intriguing plot emerge, it becomes too complicated. Bly Manor has a massive cast: the au pair, the two children, their uncle, the housekeeper, the gardener, the cook, the dead parents, the previous governess, and many other characters introduced through flashbacks. What Bly Manor does well is showcase the talent of the many actors, however it fails to set up a clear, main storyline supported by the side characters. Instead, it gives each character a subplot and while all of the characters are genuinely well-written and interesting, the show does not give itself enough time to fully flesh out each subplot and tie them each into the main storyline.

The second-to-last episode, “The Romance of Certain Old Clothes,” is the weakest episode even though it is supposed to serve as the explanation as to why the estate of Bly Manor is haunted, what happened to the current governess’s predecessor, and why any of this is relevant to the current staff of Bly Manor. It comes across as a filler or even throw-away episode, and it adds another layer of confusion to the story. I understand that Flanagan wants to retain an air of mystery to keep the audience engaged, however when the story is so confusing for so many episodes, it becomes frustrating to watch. Ultimately, the series wastes a decent amount of time keeping the audience in the dark, resulting in a rushed conclusion of the ghost story before moving on to conclude the ongoing story of love and loss. That being said, one thing that Flanagan does well is create a bittersweet ending that emulates the central theme that to truly love someone is to accept that loving them is worth the risk and pain of losing them. However, though the last 15 minutes of the final episode carry the entire show, it cannot be ignored that the majority of the show is too slow, and that Flanagan adds another subplot in the second-to-last episode that only opens up more plot holes.

Finally, I cannot review Bly Manor without discussing its predecessor, The Haunting of Hill House. Hill House is overall a tighter and cleaner story that does a better job of balancing horror and very human themes – grief and guilt, in this case. Flanagan ties in fear as a projection of guilt and trauma in this series – rather than a separate and debatably related aspect – with a satisfying conclusion addressing family and forgiveness. However, Hill House also falls into a lull with the two episodes before the finale, but those episodes act more as a set-up for the finale rather than an entirely new addition to the story like in Bly Manor.

Overall, I expected both series to come to a huge, dramatic, maybe even disturbing conclusion, but what Flanagan choses to do instead is to subvert expectations and craft two conclusions that that are empathetic and wistful. The last fifteen minutes of Bly Manor and the finale of Hill House showcase Flanagan’s ability to depict compelling stories of human relationships, which is ultimately what draws a large fanbase to the two shows.

REVIEW: A. M. I.

Emma Pinchak Leave a comment

I knew this movie was going to be sort of bad before I watched it; Netflix doesn’t put brand-new horror movies on their site unless they’re fairly sub-par. However, for whatever reason, I’m a bad movie junkie: I love anything campy or a little trite and easy to consume. Movies that make you analyze them have a definite place and value, but I’m doing enough schoolwork already.

So objectively, this is not a good movie. The acting was flat, the main character was cast way outside the actress’s age, the fairytale structure that A.M.I. followed to tell Cassie to kill everyone was completely out of place. It’s a step above a soap opera only in that the background music and sound quality are all right. Overall, the thing would have fit better on the Lifetime channel, where it belongs.

But the concept is still interesting; that’s why it caught my eye in the first place. Besides all of the actual cinematic qualities of this movie, the reality that technology is filling every inch of space in our lives is a startling truth, and it’s happening so fast we don’t have the time to reckon with it. Classes on Zoom, delivery of anything via an app, conveniently equipment-free workouts on YouTube, and virtual meetings have made leaving the house a necessity of the distant past. I feel like my body can’t handle sitting in temperatures below 72 anymore; I venture into the outdoors like a Floridian explorer going out into the Antarctic wilderness. I might snag a lungful of fresh air when I go for a jog long after the sun has gone down, but I come crawling back to the comfort of my computer in no time at all. Of course, all of this is amplified by the virus, but it is just a tilt upwards in a long trend with no endpoint. 

For a moment, I’d like you to imagine this movie was done by the producers of Black Mirror, and casted with actors like Daniel Kaluuya and Bryce Dallas Howard instead of a side character from iZombie. All technology-based horror has the potential of becoming gimmicky, and definitely dating itself in a few short years (the first movie in the Unfriended series, which came out in 2014, now looks like a relic of yesteryear with its old Skype interface). Simplicity is everything. It allows imagination to fill in the rest, just hinting at the depth of something gone wrong. If under different direction, and with a different cast, this movie could have made Cassie slower to blindly accept that her dead mother’s personality was captured in a cell phone she found. Her friends could have been a little less one-dimensional; I would have liked less overt direction in whom I should root for. Adding in some good nature or innocence to her victims would make their murders more chilling. Cassie could have periods of lost consciousness, showing us only hazily the work of her disintegrating mind. The audience should be just as bewildered by the events as she is, confusing justice and tragedy. I wanted flashes of the murders, just the creeping edges and muffled violence. Instead I got one or two camera angles of uninspired stabbing. 

I’m sure there will be many more movies like this one in the coming years. Maybe they won’t try to go beyond what they need to in terms of overtness, and will start straying farther from tired story structures. Here’s to hoping.

PREVIEW: A.M.I.

Emma Pinchak Leave a comment

Between online classes, meetings, schoolwork, and arts events, most of us are beginning to resent our forced bond with technology. Still, somehow, staring lovingly at our screens on Netflix remains our go-to pastime (or procrastination habit, if we’re being honest here). Lucky for us all, I have a movie suggestion that might just marry the two conflicting sentiments: A.M.I.

It’s about a gal mourning the loss of her mother, then happening upon a new app with customizable artificial intelligence personalities. She forms a deeply emotional relationship with the voice, but it soon turns much more sinister than sweet mother-daughter talks…

This sounds like an interesting concept, but still an easily consumable slasher flick perfect for the Halloween season and our stressed brains decaying from midterms.

 

REVIEW: The Killing of a Sacred Deer

Emma Pinchak Leave a comment

I always try to go into movies (and, well, most other events in my life) completely blind–I hate to watch trailers or read plots; just knowing basic facts ahead of time, like which actors are in the cast, upsets me. This has become a self-enforced law in virtually all areas of my life. So it wasn’t until a few minutes in that I realized that Colin Farrell, the very man who enchanted me in The Lobster played a main character (I found out later that the director was also the same in both movies). Exactly what I didn’t want to happen happened then: based on this new knowledge gained early in the movie, I began forming expectations. When I first watched The Lobster last year, alone in my dorm room in early spring just before the sun went down, I was floored. After it ended, I walked outside and hung onto a stop sign to keep from blowing away, though the air was still.

The result of comparisons like these is almost always disappointment. To regard a piece only as a continuation of a body of work, rather than its own autonomous thing which works in cooperation with itself, is a mistake that typically cannot be undone. This is probably why I didn’t exit my house at the end to clutch at a telephone pole or something. In fact, I forgot how it made me feel almost directly after, which is completely different from my relationship with other movies. 

Still, at some parts I was taken back to the old feeling, that sick gut high-pitched thing stuck somewhere in a nasal or orbital cavity when your mind bends a little painfully. I got this towards the end, as the children begin competing to be spared. Nothing else was starkly shocking in the same way. Not when Steven forces donuts down his son’s throat, or Anna flatly suggests it’s only rational to kill one of the children. When nothing really strikes, there is nothing to grab onto, nothing that connects us to the story.

Nicole Kidman, despite her brilliance in drama, was out of place in this movie. She thrives in hard-hitting, emotional film, not parts where she needs to seem totally unfeeling. Similarly, the presence of Alicia Silverstone got my goat at first, until I separated her from her Clueless days: as she’s grown up, her glazed-eye stare has shifted from strangely flirtatious boredom to something closer to slightly-conscious paralysis. The way her face moves can be disconcerting, bringing about an inexplicable sense of panic in my chest. And all three of the kids were perfect for this kind of acting, as all children are.

It was also clear the crew put thought into how they played with lighting. Much of the time, scenes were engulfed in golden light, sometimes artificial, but warm all the same. Maybe it was just the presence of Kidman, but it gave me some Eyes Wide Shut sensations. Rather than acting as a contrast to the coldness of the characters, it invited me into readily accepting the social norms of the world Lanthimos creates.

The movie wasn’t bad, but it was forgettable. Instead of still thinking of the questions it raises (it is morally wrong to have a favorite child? Who is most responsible in medical malpractice situations? What kinds of guilt can we handle, and how much?), I’m just flashing back to Martin messily eating spaghetti with a white shirt on. Unfortunate, maybe, but it’s the truth.