Movie Review - Carnival Of Souls

Carnival Of Souls

1962

The Cast

This is one strange little weird film, which balances between the brilliant and the awful.  Though this is listed as a Horror flick it's more like a Dark Fantasy as there's no real horror here.

I really liked the story.  A girl, Mary (Hilligoss), involved in a fatal drag race is the sole survivor of the accident where the car she's travelling in crashes off a bridge... only she emerges from the river, a long time after the accident.  After her recovery, she leaves the town to take up a new job as a church organist.  However, there's a strange force lurking in her new home and it's quite shortly after she begins to believe she was surely drawn there...  for some dark reason.

What makes this a great movie is the direction.  Though the majority of the film is shot in a fairly standard style, it's when the apparitions start to appear where it starts to get interesting.  Herk Harvey does a good job of creating an eerie atmosphere.  His style had me reminiscing about Nosferatu and The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari.  Even the way that the spirits move and act is very striking.  They never speak and they actually move in a similar fashion to actors in the old silent movies.  This has the element of adding a strangeness to the scene and it works well.

Then there's the story.  I particularly liked the scene where Mary walks around the abandoned carnival.  There's one section where she looks at and stands in front of a billboard... the woman on the add bears a striking resemblance to Mary.  This adds to the strange atmosphere, which makes the film stronger.

The only real drawback is the lead actress Candace Hilligoss who is so over the top hammy she quite nearly kills the film by herself.  This type of acting works brilliantly for the spirits and adds to the power of the movie.  However, in reality, where everybody else is normal this appears very poor.  It's a shame that she's in the majority of the film.  Had this role been given to a finer actress or she had been directed better this movie would have been so much improved.

If you've not seen this one yet then I'd recommend you check it out.  I'd also implore you to check out Nosferatu and The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari also.  If you liked this film you would love them.

I give this a Darkly Pleasing And An Eerily Spooky 5.75 out of 10. 

The Trailer

Video Nasty - Possession

Possession

(1981)

Gaumont / Oliane Productions / Marianne Productions / Soma Film Produktion : Anchor Bay Entertainment / VTC Entertainment

4 / 10

Back in the days, directors like Andrzej Zulawski (who also wrote the story and screenplay) were still able to experiment and this movie is one of those experiments.  Unfortunately today it no longer holds it's power.  It just seems to be strange, awkward, annoying, and presumptuous.

Both of the main actors are strong in their characters and roles.  Sam Neill is Mark, who comes back to his wife after being away for months on work.  He returns to find things have changed.  His wife has been having an affair and now wants a divorce while seeming to be in the grip of a mental breakdown.  This sets Mark on his own course of mental illness and Neill does a good job of portraying anxiety and depression.

Isabelle Adjani as Marks wife Anna is, for the most part, brilliant at portraying her character's breakdown.  She rushes about agitated, unable to complete even one simple task.

Though the actors do exemplary jobs it's Zulawski that makes their illnesses a weakness to the film by overplaying them.  There is just too much of them "spazzing" (Sorry for not being PC but when you watch the film you may forgive me) out to create a relatable atmosphere.

Then with the unveiling of Anna's lover, the truly unbelievable self-righteous and pompous Heinrich, superbly over-acted by Heinz Bennent, that the film falls further into implausibility. 

The only realistic anchors in the film are the secondary characters, such as Heinrich's mother played with feeling by Johanna Hofer and Anna's friend Margit Carstensen portrayed by Margit Gluckmeister.

Having said that, Zulawski does an impressive job of creating an unease through all the insanity.  You get the feeling that there's something more, something darker, which is bothering Anna and Mark.  When this is finally revealed the revelation is startling and is the reason why this was originally banned.  It also shows why Carlo Rambaldi was one of the great special FX artists.

This is a long two hours and four minutes.  There are sequences that didn't need to be so long, and others that didn't even need to be in at all.  Had this been at least fifteen to thirty minutes shorter with tighter direction, it may have lasted the time and be relevant today as it was then.

I enjoyed parts of this film and loathed others.  Because I didn't love any part of the film I cannot recommend for people to view.  There are better wastes of time out there.

Had I Watched The Trailer I Probably Wouldn't Have Watched The Movie,,,

Movie Review - Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance

Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance

(2011)

Columbia Pictures / Hyde Park Entertainment / Marvel Entertainment /Avi Arad Productions / Marvel Knights : Warner Bros / Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

5.25 / 10

This is the apotheosis of a hit and miss movie.  There are as many things wrong with it as there are right.

The most disturbing factor in the movie is Nicholas Cage's acting.  He doesn't even appear to be playing himself (as is the case with most of his movies).  For the entire movie, you get the feeling he would rather be elsewhere as his performance appears lackadaisical.  There's no conveyance of any character and no chemistry between Cage / Johnny Blaze and any of the others involved.

Then there are the soul-taking sequences.  These are way too long.  By the time the Ghost Rider starts to pull out a soul and actually remove it from its body completely, the bad guys have enough time to, get in their vehicles and drive to the nearest army base... overthrow the soldiers... hack into the weapons room... decrypt the nuclear missile codes... and launch them at The Rider... as I said, way too long.  These scenes verge on the ridiculous and I nearly turned off at this point.

Which would have been a shame because I would've missed some of the good things about this movie.  The concept of whatever The Rider rides becomes his hell on wheels is inspired as this allows for the transformation of a van and a drilling machine.  These are pretty awesome scenes.  The last chase scene is pretty decent and packed with action.

It was also pretty nice to see Christopher Lambert as the mad monk Methodius.

Apart from Nicholas Cage, the rest of the cast were okay.  Not outstanding by any means.  Though the strongest actor was Idris Elba as Moreau, and even he wasn't at his best.  This could have been down to the direction of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who did a great job of all the action sequences but weren't too hot when handling the acting and there are too many sequences that feel "thrown in".

If you enjoyed the first Ghost Rider movie or enjoy the Comic Books then you may enjoy this but I would not recommend it to anybody who wasn't a fan of The Ghost Rider.

Movie Review - Red Riding Hood

Red Riding Hood

(2011)

Warner Bros / Appian Way / Random Films : Warner Home Video

8 / 10

This is a nice update on the "Little Red Riding Hood" fairie tale.  Instead of a wolf terrorising the local village we have a werewolf.  This adds the dimension of mystery to the tale for who could be the dreaded werewolf.  The writer David Leslie Johnson and director Catherine Hardwicke do a fantastic job of playing people off people and putting them into situations where you can never quite figure out who the killer is.  This makes for quite an enjoyable movie which the audience can have a stake in; there's not many of those around today.

I also liked the fact that the writer and director kept the story in the faerie tale spirit.  The setting of the Ye Olde Village is brilliant, it gives a close knitted community that, pretty much, lives in each other's pockets.  So when it's revealed by Solomon, played by Gary Oldman, that the beast could be one of them a personal fear and distrust of neighbours starts to spread.  There is something very haunting about the village and the surrounding forest as it stands upon a bed of snow, which constantly falls from the overcast sky.  All of this just adds layers upon layers to the film making it stronger.

On the whole, I loved this film, though there are a few drawbacks which made it drop a few points.  

I don't understand why Oldman tried to do a German / Bavarian accent as the rest of the cast didn't bother.  The worst of it was, his accent kept slipping and this became annoying.

Most of the cast were excellent in their parts giving believable performances.  Though there were times when both Max Irons, who played Henry, and Julie Christie, as Grandmother, came across as lacking in substance... sometimes Henry just looked doped up... and Grandmother was as wooden as her luxurious forest home.

Then there was the music at the celebration of the killing of the beast.  We heard modern rhythms and instruments (especially synthesisers) when the musicians were playing horns and drums.  Also, the dance we see between Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) and her friend Prudence (Kacey Rohl) wouldn't be out of place in today's nightclubs... but probably not for a religious community. 

Lastly, the main sections of the story that people know and love - "Oh Grandma, what big eyes you have" and the wolf in grandma's clothing.  These are taken as two separate scenes, which I can understand, though they appear to have been thrown into the story and film and this is a waste as they are pivotal to the original story and should have been used better to draw the audience further into the tale.  I hate waste and this was an extreme waste of a good idea.

This is a beautifully written, shot, and acted film that I would recommend to all as there are elements of mystery, thriller, horror, and fantasy, as well as a pretty decent love story.  Worth a watch at least once.

Movie Review - The Babadook

The Babadook (2014)

Screen Australia / The South Austrailian Film Corporation / Entertainment One :  IFC Midnight / ICON Film Distribution

3 / 10

This is one of those films where you shouldn't believe the hype.  After all I'd heard and read about this movie I was really looking forward to it.  However, while viewing I soon became aware this was not going to live up to its publicity... and it didn't... it fell woefully short.

Here you have a story of a single widowed mother and her peculiar son who are going through life in a stagnant haze.  Her son, Samuel (played by Noah Wiseman) is an intelligent child who has a knack for constructing weapons, for which he is reprimanded at school.  Samuel is a solitary child who finds it hard to make friends and keep them.  He also has a temper that makes him violent, both physically and vocally, when he's confronted.

Samuels mother, Amelia (played by Essie Davis) works at a care home and dealing with the close to death cronies has its effect on her.  She holds onto the memories of her seven-year dead husband, Oskar, in a proverbial death grip, even her own sister has given up on her.  Amelia won't let Samuel have his birthday on the date of his birth as Oskar died driving her to the hospital.

Even before the Babadook rears its head, the family is troubled and broken.  This should lead to well-rounded and deep characterisations.  Instead of this, we get depressed and moody bad parenting from Amelia and shouty stomping belligerence from Samuel.  This makes for two very unlikeable characters.  If the viewer cannot sympathise, empathise, or in some little way, relate to the main characters then the story and film will not hold their attention... it failed to hold mine... and to be bluntly truthful, I was only watching in the hopes that the Babadook had its evil way with them...  I was upset when it didn't.

These two characters are both worse than the snot filled blubbering idiot in The Blair Witch Project.

The there's the story, which in my eyes, tries to say and be too much.  It's not sure if it's horror, there are elements of horror in here, though too little for me to put it in the genre.  There's drama with all the elements of relationships in tribulation.  The film would've been a lot better if some of these elements had been trimmed back and some removed altogether, and the director chose a direction in which to take the film.

So that's what's wrong with the film in my opinion.

So what was right?

The acting from Essie Davis was pretty good especially, later in the film, when her temperament instantly changes.  This sent a chill up and down my spine.  Noah Wiseman was brilliant in the son's role.  I cannot fault the actors, the fault lies with story and direction, which falls on the head of Jennifer Kent who wrote and directed.

That said, apart from the direction of the characters and the story the film was well directed, and at times gave a few chills with prolonged shots of opened wardrobes and corners of rooms, where clothes were hung; the tension created was palpable.  So we know that she can direct.  Maybe she should've given the story synopsis, which was brilliant and well thought out, over to a writer!  I say this as the ending of this movie is why I've placed this into a Dark Fantasy, that and the reason of the Babadook ending up being wimpy (sorry for the spoiler) - this was the biggest let-down of all... a horror movie that tells you there's really nothing to be scared of.

I wouldn't recommend anybody watching this film; there's nothing to get out of it.  By the end, I was disheartened.