As a subcategory of the horror genre, the exorcism film does not have the best reputation. For every The Exorcist, there are a dozen Posessed’s and Beyond the Door’s. Yet, when done well, there is rarely something as profoundly [...]
The days of animation resting in the children’s film genre is officially over. Dashing aside all conventions for the “cartoon,” Fernando Trueba’s Chico & Rita transcends its medium with a magically adult and sensual story about relationships, music, culture, and the importance of passion.
The film centers on three characters: Chico (Eman Xor Oña), an aspiring pianist; Rita (Limara Meneses), a singer with an incredible voice; and Havana in the year 1948. When Chico sees Rita performing in a nightclub, he immediately sets his sights on her for his partner in a competition that would bring the musical duo to New York City. Naturally, their partnership extends beyond piano keys and microphones, and their romance must battle the cultural and emotional obstacles characteristic of a classic love story.
Rather than being defined by the art, Chico & Rita’s animation and art style (spearheaded by illustrator Javier Mariscal) supports the story beautifully. The objects and characters seem to float through the sketched Havana without gravity, an effect that lends itself to scenes of dancing and music. Rita in particular is gracefully portrayed, a curvy temptress that floats from foot to foot, her body constantly shifting from one shape to another in a demonstration of extraordinarily illustrated femininity.
Perhaps the most impressive portrayal, however, is that of the city. The drawn images are remarkably detailed and richly colored. Due to the trembling animation style, the buildings appear to shift and shiver in the background, giving the impression that the city is living, breathing, participating.
This surrounding sense of color, movement, and energy goes on to support the generally vibrant tone of the film. The melancholy of the couples’ ballads, following in the bolero tradition, juxtaposes perfectly against the city’s frenetic energy. We can see from the calm elegance of their music that their love is something set apart from the hectic lives that exist in the background. The result is a very carefully painted picture that is balanced and engaging.
That Chico & Rita is a beautiful movie is clear from its opening frames; that it is a good movie is developed through every scene until the very end. While it may not add much to the classic romance formula, it works with the narrative devices that have served so well through history. In the end, it is a wonderful story of desire, both intellectual and physical, and the nature of the world, in which nothing comes easy.
Troma Entertainment has by now established an impressive reputation for heedless gore, nudity, and tackiness in the horror genre, so it is no surprise that when Troma royalty like Trent Haaga makes a film, the expectations are high. Sadly, Haaga’s Chop is a lackluster try at the horror comedy trend that fails both to amuse and terrify.
The film centers on the detestable Lance Reed (Will Keenan), an ex-druggie that is tortured and mangled throughout the film by a stranger (Timothy Muskatell) in a vague revenge plot. Lance, it seems, has committed some heinous crime against the stranger, of which he has no recollection. As the stranger, and the viewer, uncover more of Lance’s distasteful past, the stranger chops off more and more of Lance’s expendable limbs.
Playing Lance, Keenan is an over exaggerated clown channeling Robert Downey, Jr. in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, playing panic, fear, love, disappointment, depression, annoyance and all other emotions in neurotic fast talk that lacks the wit to entertain. It is difficult to determine whether it’s Adam Minarovich’s script or Keenan’s acting that makes Lance so utterly difficult to watch. He is objectively despicable with no charm or intrigue to temper it, and no matter how many ways Keenan can move his eyebrows, nothing can make us care even remotely about the character.
Naturally, if we judged every horror film over its unlikable or badly developed central characters, we’d have to throw the whole genre out the window. Perhaps if Chop supplied something decent to support its genre categorization, we would forgive it for Lance. But instead, Chop misses the mark constantly. As a horror film, it is nearly mislabeled: there is no suspense, no pop out scare tactics, and only one scene of laughable gore. As a comedy, the jokes consistently fail to land, often coming off as trying too hard or simply alienating rather than funny.
Perhaps the greatest error of Chop, however, is its resistance to committing itself too fully to one thing. It seems that Haaga and Keenan, both from Troma backgrounds, have failed to learn the lesson taught by Troma films: when it comes to blood and laughs, more is better. If Chop really committed to the absurdity of its concept -– for instance, if the premise of the movie was simply a man who woke up to find himself missing an appendage every time he fell asleep –- there might be more life in this. If the filmmakers embraced the brutality of its subject, and actually showed some of his limbs getting chopped off, maybe the giddy gore would at least elicit an emotion from the audience.
Instead, Chop doesn’t commit to anything, making it hard for the viewer to commit to even watching the film through to its dissatisfying ending. Movie watchers would do well to skip this in favor of the Troma catalogue for a bloody good time instead of a bloody mess.
The greatest critics of the horror genre will make definitive statements about its reliance on formulas and tropes, cliches and repetition, and cheap tricks to garner gasps and shrieks from the audience. While these observations may be true for most of the Blockbuster hits that will spike adrenaline in theaters, this trend has also given birth to a delightful breed of satirical horror masters. Let it be said that Ti West is royalty among them, and his new film, The Innkeepers, does not disappoint.
Set in a retiring hotel, The Innkeepers is a neat horror package. Skeleton crew of the hotel staff, Claire (Sara Paxton) and Luke (Pat Healy) are self-fashioned ghost hunters, intent on capturing evidence of a haunting in the Yankee Pedlar Inn’s final days. Naturally, rumors of an apparition related to a death on the property forms a classic origin story for the haunting, and the vast open spaces of the near-empty hotel provide a perfect setting for a suspenseful ghost hunt.
Writer/Director West is not an artist to conjure up tales of unique creativity or edgy insight; instead, he works with the existing tropes, cliches, and repetitions to create something acutely smart and cheeky. Gripping the classic haunting film by its edges, he crinkles it up, adds a few lines, and smooths it out again. The result is charming, and impossibly fresh.
This is in no small part due to Claire. Paxton is a child-faced pixie with a petulant attitude. She stomps around the hotel, growling at Luke, flinging her tiny body from one activity to the next like a possessed rag doll. Her comic timing is impeccable, and armed with West’s writing, she is charmingly off type for a horror heroin. Playing against the grumpily aloof Luke, she makes one of the most engaging horror characters ever to grace the screen.
Most of the film consists of following Claire around the hotel as she attempts to contact the ghost and subsequently gets severely “freaked out.” These sequences are full of typical horror scare tricks, with birds flying in faces and clomps and clunks turning out to be harmless tinkering. Yet, the film is not undone by the feeling of phoniness to which these tricks often doom a horror project; instead, they seem like deliberate, playful winks at the audience. Got you, West is saying. And you know he’ll get you next time too.
The Innkeepers is a lot more than a few bumps in the night, however. West’s inclusion of home recording techniques and amateur ghost capturing technology is an obvious satire of the trends in horror toward handicam and low-fi. With each one of these sniggers at modern horror, West supplies a throwback scene, reminiscent of campfire scary stories and 80s haunting films that relied on story and tone to draw chills rather than film student gimmicks. Perhaps the greatest appeal of West’s work is that it is visceral, enjoyable, entertaining, and doesn’t give you the impression of degrading your intelligence. He knows exactly what is going on, and so do you.
Unfortunately, this self awareness tends to remind the watcher that this is just a film, and so it fails to lead to anything truly frightening. The spirit as represented doesn’t terrify (in some scenes, it’s unclear as to whether she’s even malevolent), and nothing feels high stakes. But perhaps this film, unlike The House of the Devil and its chilling suspense, or Cabin Fever 2 and its revolting gore, is not meant to garner such a physical reaction. Perhaps West aims for something more intellectual with this one. The mind is the most dangerous weapon.
Even tongue in cheek, his films continue to delight not just horror fans, but those that desire good story and characters on their screens. In the end, The Innkeepers is a classic and simple formula that yields a charmingly classic and simple result.
Writer/Director William Brent Bell appears to have an acute understanding of exorcism film’s successful attributes and its traditional flaws. Recycled trademarks like unnaturally contorted bodies, speaking in tongues, and sexual threats are all present in The Devil Inside, but they do not feel old or tired. The film also avoids any preachy religious characters, and overly elaborate makeup. Bell brings freshness to the subject by approaching it from a different angle; he does not follow the linear progression of a possession, but rather approaches the subject of possession from a distance and narrows upon several victims through a nonlinear narrative. As a result, the film does not carry the standard exorcism film formula, where the viewer knows exactly when to rest in safe boredom, and when to tense in preparation for the climax.
More important than his approach, however, is Bell’s portrayal of the actual exorcisms. Too frequently in films of demonic possession, there is thematic discussion without satisfying horror scenes to back it up. The Devil Inside does not shy away from its subject; each exorcism and possession is examined in full, grotesque detail. The effects are seamless, careful, and tastefully explicit. One victim breaks her own bones and contorts wildly, as exorcists Ben (Simon Quarterman) and David (Evan Helmuth) attempt to drive out the demon. The scene is disturbingly authentic and the details are obsessively precise. For the first time on screen, exorcism feels real.
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| Crowley plays the possessed Maria |
The lackluster story creates more of a foundation upon which to build a study of exorcism than a structure for the film. Emotionally, the viewers become much more entranced with the activities of the cynical priest Ben, and his reluctant partner, David. Their conversations over the morality of performing illegal exorcisms and unravelling the truth behind Maria’s questionable possession are well written and intellectually stimulating, giving the film a feeling of depth that the main storyline doesn’t supply.
With the exception of a particularly cliche “horror movie” ending, The Devil Inside is a horror film that will intrigue even the most discerning horror fans, and terrify those less acquainted with the genre’s staples. This one definitely deems a rewatch–but this time, we’ll keep the lights on and the Bible close.
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