Masterpiece of Horror Theatre- Scream

     In August of 1990, a Shreveport, Louisiana man named Danny Rollings murdered 5 college students in Gainesville, Florida. The sheer grisly nature of the murders and the meticulousness by which they were committed caught national headlines. When the show Turning Point did an episode on the incident in 1994, it caught the attention of a struggling actor and screenwriter named Kevin Williamson. Williamson, then shopping around his script Killing Ms. Tingle (later Teaching Ms. Tingle, which was released in 1999 with Williamson himself as director), got inspired to write about a killer who stalks and taunts a young women in her home. Eventually, taking influence from his childhood love of slashers (especially the first Halloween), Williamson proceeded to add meta-elements alluding to the cliches of horror movies. Williamson's agent put the script, then titled Scary Movie, on sale in 1995, where it became the subject of a massive bidding war. Emerging victorious was Dimension Studios, a division of Miramax, owned by Harvey and Bob Weinstein. The Weinsteins, as per usual, made some changes to the script to increase the killings and give at least some of the killers motivations, but also remove some of the gorier moments. Wes Craven (already beginning to tire of the horror genre he had helped define for 20 years) read the script and had some interest, but was pre-occupied with a remake of The Haunting he was involved with. When that project fell apart (and star Drew Barrymore signed on), he subsequently accepted an offer by Bob Weinstein to helm the director's chair. At this time, the title was changed to Scream, an allusion to a song by Michael Jackson. Craven and Williamson resisted the change, marking one of several conflict they'd have with the Weinsteins during production (including whether to shoot in the US or Canada, a conflict that almost got Craven removed from the film). Ultimately, the film was shot in some California suburbs. For effects, the killer's mask was a 1991 design by Fun World, which was dubbed "Ghostface" before the debut of the film. The film used 50 gallons of fake blood. After further cuts to get an R rating, the film was finally released on December 20th, 1996 (meant to be for horror fans during the drought of the holiday season), and while the initial weekend earnings were disappointing, word of mouth made it a massive box office success. It was a critical success, but it was also embroiled in controversy due to some copycat murders and especially in the controversy over media violence after the Columbine Massacre.

    Teenager Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore) is idly making popcorn and preparing to watch a horror movie, when a mysterious caller (Roger L. Jackson) begins to pester her, asking her about various horror movies. The caller soon escalates the stakes, saying he's just outside, and showing Casey's boyfriend Steve Orth (Kevin Patrick Walls) tied up in his backyard. Eventually, the killer breaks in, and after a struggle, kills Becker and hangs her as a warning to others. The killings make local news, and in particular impacts Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) whose own mother was killed in a similar fashion only a year earlier, despite the killer, Cotton Weary (Liev Schreiber), on death row. While her father Neil (Lawrence Hecht) is out for work, Sidney is left home alone, her boyfriend Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich, and given the debt this has to Halloween, the name was likely intentional) sneaking in every now and again. The two pal around with friends Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan), Tatum's policeman brother Dewey (David Arquette),Stu Macher (Matthew Lillard, sadly not playing it in his Shaggy voice), and Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy, being obnoxious as per usual). One night, the killer targets Sidney in her home, but manages to evade him. As she is besieged by the media, including Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), who wrote a sensationalist book about the murder of Sidney's mother, she must figure out who is trying to kill her, especially when the principal of the high school (Henry Winkler. Yes, the Fonz is in this) is killed.

     First and foremost, Wes Craven remains a very effective director of horror. He uses tracking shots, subtle blocking, and lighting to make the kills and attacks even scarier and more effective. It helps to make it effective as a slasher, and keep the viewer interested. The mystery of Ghostface does provide a compelling impetus for the plot, and it does pay off with a good twist that is well explained (and does tie into slasher tropes of all types.) Some of the kills are pretty creative, and some of the jokes funny.

     Perhaps the metaness of the film was fresh in 1996, because the slasher boom of the 80's was starting to subside by then, but a lot of the tropes satirized is so spelled out that it comes off as tedious. Characters will literally stop and explain horror movies and their tropes and how it relates to the plot. It ruins any of the meta subtext working or even the scariness itself working in its own right. Sometimes, they'll explain movies, despite them being well-known or at least somewhat known. At one point, they describe the film The Howling. There's the famous scene of Jamie Kennedy describing horror tropes, which completely stops the movie cold. This is a big enough problem, given the whole film is centered on this aspect, but it also doesn't help that Ghostface is just not very intimidating as a villain. His phone voice sounds like I do at 6 AM, when I've got 2 hours of sleep, and he runs around like he forgot his keys. Sometimes, his deaths are entirely accidental, and he just runs with it. I thought he was going to be like a Wile E. Coyote type using gadgets, and he kind of is, only Wile E. Coyote mostly used inventions, and didn't alternate techniques.

    This is a very 90's movie, with a very 90's sense of postmodernism and irony lathered all over it like barbeque sauce on a pair of ribs. In this case, it's a good period piece for that particular point in time, and how a horror movie used it to comment on its predecessors. So, even if I didn't necessarily care for the film, it works to give what was the new horror of the 90's. So, if you're interested in 90's films, it might be some good viewing. Otherwise, I can't say this was a particular good slasher or a good deconstruction. A lot of it was just too blunt or tedious to really work.

  Tomorrow, we look at Brian de Palma's reinterpretation of the Phantom of the Opera with Phantom of the Paradise.  

Current Film Review- Bohemian Rhapsody

        The main criteria for whether I review a film or not is "Is there enough for me to say on it?" and "Is there an interesting spin to it?" There are films I strongly like or dislike, but don't really write a review, because I can't really find anything to really say about the film in detail, or say something that hasn't already been said before. In the case of this film, it has gotten notoriety ... actually for most of its production history. With the conflicts between original actor Sasha Baron Cohen and the surviving members of Queen, to the further conflicts caused by the notorious instability and unreliability of director Bryan Singer, it was not really an easy transition to the screen. Not helped by the fact that early versions of the script downplayed Freddie Mercury's bisexuality and AIDS diagnosis (I'll get into that later.) With this extremely troubled production, it really is something of a surprise that this is as banal and unremarkable as it is.

       The film follows the life of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury (Rami Malek), from his origins as  Zanzibar-born Parsi immigrant Farrokh Bulsara joining a band named Smile with guitarist Brian May (Gwilym Lee) and drummer Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy) in Imperial College (later joined by bassist John Deacon ( Joseph Mazzello), to their rise under the new name Queen, to the seminal album A Night at the Opera (or rather, just "Bohemian Rhapsody"), eventually ending at their iconic performance at Live Aid in 1985. All the while, Mercury deals with various relationships, both romantic, including Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton), Paul Prenter (Allen Leech), and Jim Hutton (Aaron McCusker), and professional, with the other band members dealing with his more ostentatious, volatile nature.

       The hype is true: Rami Malek is absolutely fantastic in this role. He manages to get the accent down, he gets the stage presence so perfectly, it's a tad unnerving, and manages to imbue his performance with both loud rocker style and the quiet, nervous presence Mercury was reported to have in private. The physical resemblance also helps. If there is one reason to see this film, it's for his performance alone, especially during the Live Aid segment. That segment is also probably the best scene in the film, a near perfect recreation of the event, where we actually get to focus on Malek's performance as a musician and Queen playing music ....

      Which brings me to my first problem: there isn't really a full Queen song until the end. They play some of their iconic songs, sure, but not in full or they're background music. You'd think they'd focus on the various innovative, memorable songs that are still played and remembered today, but the film basically rushes through them, going from one to the other without really exploring them or having the decency to play the whole song! Even the titular song (while its production is explored in full) isn't played in its entirety. Seriously, in a Queen biopic, you'd think they'd play more Queen in it. The point about how they rush through their discography is really emblematic of the film's central problem. It is so standard and by-the-numbers that one can predict how it'll go even with the bare bones synopsis I provided. Filmmakers ought to be screened Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story before they make music biopics, because they haven't really learned to go beyond the tropes and plot structure that film satirized very acutely. This film is very Walk Hard in how its plot is structured and how it portrays its lead figure. It doesn't help that the other band members are cyphers that just don't have personalities and largely exist to just react to Mercury's antics. John Deacon especially, who barely gets anything to do. (This might be because Brian May and Roger Taylor are producers, so the filmmakers might not have wanted to offend them). The script for this is really overcompensating for the controversy centering around it, to the point of changing the sequence of events to fit it all in. I understand the controversy around straight-washing his bisexuality (and, to the film's credit, it does explore his complicated sexuality, but since the characters aside from him aren't fleshed out, it still doesn't fully work), but, since his AIDS diagnosis came years after Live Aid and they were always planning on ending its there, it does make sense that they wouldn't really cover it except for an after epilogue text(unless they were planning on ignoring it entirely, which is pretty bad). Minor spoiler, but the film moves his diagnosis to before Live Aid, and portrays his performance as some last testament. Also, the band broke up years before and Mercury gravels to them to reunite and Live Aid is their big comeback (something that never happened, and Queen had toured regularly in the years prior.). I understand that liberties need to be taken in order to make an entertaining story, but this level of revision seems only to exist as to get another cliche "musician is too difficult, band breaks up, band makes up" moment that feels like a scene straight out of Walk Hard, and again, feels like it's overcompensating for not dealing with it in the original drafts.

    I'm a huge Queen fan, so this being as boring and cliched as it is is disappointing, given how versatile and ecletic Queen was and the massive influence they've had on music. Even if you just want to hear Queen songs, they don't play a full one until the end, and the film is two hours! Just stay home and play those songs online. Still, Rami Malek's performance is good enough that I kind of recommend it if you're interested in seeing that. However, the rest of the film is just mediocre and really doesn't deserve his performance or the great Live Aid scene towards the end.

Current Film Reviews- Billionaire Boys Club

         So, given that I did another film that was released to VOD before it was to hit theaters (November Criminals), starring Ansel Elgort, when I learned this Ansel Elgort feature was coming to online streaming before theaters, I figure I might as well do it. Though, this has a legitimate reason that it is being dumped. This was going to be released last year, but was shelved because.... Kevin Spacey plays a fairly large role in the film. I'll be upfront with this: if you feel uncomfortable watching a film with Kevin Spacey, don't watch this at all. I will not discuss his role except in the synopsis. That said, I understand a little why the distribution company Vertical Entertainment decided to ultimately release this. They couldn't really do a All the Money in the World, and have Spacey removed entirely. He plays a large role in the story, and by most accounts, they didn't have the budget to anyway. At the same time, as Vertical stated upon announcing the film's release, they didn't want the hard work of the rest of the cast and crew to go to waste.While I (as you will read) ultimately didn't care for the final product, I can understand that, since film is a collaborative process, and the other hardworking members of the cast and crew deserved the chance to see their own work on the film released, despite the actions of Spacey tainting most of it. Still, once again, Kevin Spacey is in this, and if you don't want to watch him, I recommend not watching it. Even you don't, do not watch this.

       Based on a real-life incident (as many of these films are), in 80's Beverly Hills, Dean Kearny (Taron Egerton) and Joe Hunt (Ansel Elgort), friends since their school days, have grown dissatisfied with their position in comparison to their richer friends, including Charlie Bottom (Thomas Cocquerel) and the Biltmore brothers (Jeremy Irvine and Ryan Rottman), so decide (with little explanation as to how they came to this conclusion) to do get-rich quick scheme involving gold investment. With the help of Ron Levin (Kevin Spacey), they have some minor initial success, which enables their wealthy associates to also invest. While Gold goes down, thus causing them to lose money, Hunt and Kearny decides to pretend that they were continuing to gain money, whilst using the money from previous investors to pay new investors. Whilst Levin seems to help them out at first, they find that success on these grounds is tenuous.

       A couple minor good stuff in this. Taron Egerton has a flawless American accent, and his performance is probably the best in the film, easily making him an ambiguous character whose motives and backstory are not clear. Ansel Elgort is at least trying, and he's better here than he was in November Criminals. Emma Roberts (oh, yeah, she's in here too) does fine as Elgort's love interest, though she isn't given enough to work with. Judd Nelson as Elgort's father also has some standout scenes. 


      I've made it clear before that one of my least favorite genres is the "Criminal American Dream". I should probably call it by what it is, the "Scorsese knock-off". I don't hate all movies that utilize it, nor am I inherently against the genre, but my main problem is how homogeneous these films tend to be. They all have the same style, they basically have the same characters, and basically have the same plots, beat for beat. Ultimately, you eventually can just predict the entire plot of one of these just based on how they frame the story and what the plot is about. This is like if they took the essence of these films and made another one based solely on it. Let's see it is 1.) Based on a true story, 2.) Stars one or two people dissatisfied with their lack of wealth and seek to rectify it, 3.) Features their success in some faulty, non-legal manner, 4.) Sees tensions rise, 5.) features a tragedy that ultimately precludes their decline, and 6.) set in the 80's. It even has a voice-over. That is my main problem, really. This is just another Scorsese Knock-off, atop a bunch of other Scorsese knock-offs that just aren't fresh and original anymore. Not helping is the confusing plot, which doesn't make what the characters are doing clear, so their dealings just come off confusing and convoluted (I had to look up later what had actually happened to make sense of it.)

     This really isn't worth watching. Whether Kevin Spacey was in this or not, it wouldn't be a film that would really be entertaining unless you've never seen Goodfellas, Casino, Lord of War, Wolf of Wall Street, American Hustle, War Dogs, or American Made. If, regardless of its unoriginality, you enjoy this genre, than maybe you'd find some entertainment in this, but it doesn't add anything to the genre, nor does anything another example hasn't already done. Just skip this, whether on VOD or when it comes out in theaters next month.

(If you're curious on the remake tag, there was technically a 1989 TV film, starring Judd Nelson in the Joe Hunt role, which is why he is here incidentally, so this is technically a remake.)
      

Current Film Reviews: American Animals

           There are two reasons I haven't done any reviews in the past two months. One is simply I was busy with finals and the like at school, and immediately after, I went on vacation. So, with all that, I couldn't really write anything. Another major factor is that I couldn't really find anything to say about certain films. I considered Deadpool as a potential candidate, but I realized that detailing the plot would involve big spoilers. I considered Upgrade, but I couldn't quite muster much material for a full review, nor did Hotel Artemis. So, given it's been two months, I'll just do a review of a film I saw a couple days ago, that I don't have much material for, and might be out of theaters at this point.

           This film is based on the real life 2004 robbery of rare books at Transylvania University in Kentucky, done in a docudrama style, with the real participants interviewed along with a dramatization of the events.  Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan) and Warren Lipka (Evan Peters) decide to abandon their hum-drum lives and commit a robbery of the rare books collection at their university in Kentucky, which includes the original folios of John James Audubon's Birds of America (estimated at $12 million) as well as other rare books. After Warren secures a buyer in the Netherlands, they recruit acquaintances Chas Allen (Blake Jenner) and Eric Borsuk to help, planning an elaborate heist to extract the books and gain the money. However, they find that committing a robbery is far easier in the movies, than it is in real life.

          I thought of two films watching this: Richard Linklater's Bernie and I, Tonya. The former because of its docudrama style (though this, unlike Bernie, uses mostly the real participants in interviews), and dark themes, and I, Tonya due to its focus on unreliable narrators and uncertain events. Both work to make a very fractured narrative, and not in a bad way. It helps builds to the unstable nature of the robbery itself, and how people tend to recall minor events differently, when compared to more intense one. The film is concise, with everything inside building to some sort of theme or contributing to the plot. Everything always builds the plot, or deals with the theme. The interviews help give more insight into the minds of the characters, and helps make this event more real. Going off that, it also deconstructs heist movies, as their plans for the heist slowly go awry thanks to different factors, and their overestimation of their capacity. Thus, it goes horribly wrong during their final heist. It gets hard to watch.

     The first half drags a little. I understand that it builds up, but it sort of drops us into the action, with no real exposition, other than the interviews. It never really establishes itself in a satisfactory manner, and thus, the build-up feels off constantly. It manages to re-adjust itself once they begin to actually plan the heist, but it should probably have been a bit longer. The interview/dramatization ratio decreases towards the second half. Whilst this allows us to absorb the magnitude of their failure, I honestly would've liked some commentary on what actually happened during it.

     Like I said, not much material I could gain from this. Overall, though, this is a recommendation. It's probably out of theaters, but if it's still playing or coming on DVD or home video, I'd say seek this out for fans of Indie films or heist films or true crime. 

    Next time, I will delve into Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and something a little different.