Shelter a.k.a. 6 Souls

Adam, a young psychiatric patient with multiple personality disorder, seems to be exhibiting personalities of those who actually lived - all murder victims.  As his doctor, Cara Harding, digs into his pasts, it starts to appear less psychiatric and more supernatural...

This film was made in 2008, released in Japan in 2010 as Shelter, then released in the U.S. in 2013 as 6 Souls.  Apparently it was considered so bad that a name change was warranted before release in its home country.  I agree.

Shelter a.k.a. 6 Souls
2010, 112 minutes, directed by Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein

Horns

This film is sad.  You should know this going in.  Beautiful, angelic Merrin (Juno Temple) is dead, and her long-time boyfriend Ig (Daniel Radcliffe) is out on bail, awaiting trial for the crime.  With the whole town presuming him guilty, he has no hope to find the real killer and clear his name - at least, not until he wakes to find horns sprouting from his head.  As anyone who sees them starts to share their innermost confessions, and take suggestion to do bad, Ig must imbrace his inner devil to trace the events leading to Merrin's death and find the real killer.

Horns

2013, 123 minutes, directed by Alexadre Aja

"Revenge is all-consuming"

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

The anachronisms in this film are astounding.  They'd be okay if the plot wasn't trite, the characters shallow, or the dialog horrid.  Hansel and Gretel, having survived the witch house in their youth, grow up to the witch hunters for hire.  They're brought in to a small country town with a growing witch presence, where something terrible is on its way.  Only they have the guns and technologically advanced rapid-shot crossbows to stop it.

I'm struggling to say anything nice about the film.  Watching it via Netflix on my iPad while jogging at the gym was better than watching a basketball game on ESPN.  I guess it has that.

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
2013, 88 minutes, directed by Tommy Wirkola

Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons

Tang isn't a very good hero.  He's a demon hunter, sure, and he's good at finding them, but his book of children's nursery rhymes don't seem to stop them so much as turn him into a laughingstock, especially when an action-oriented demon hunter or two show up and steal the show.  Far more, then, about his inner demons, the film shows a comedic slapstick journey to become one with Buddha.  And fight the Monkey King.  It's pretty cheesy, yeah.

Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons
2013, 110 minutes, directed by Steven Chow and Chi-kin Kwok

O'Apostolo

Based on Spanish Catholic mythology, O'Apostolo delves into the story of a cursed village, where the dead walk the streets at night, claiming the souls of traveling pilgrims.  Ramón, an escaped prisoner, just needs to slip in, grab some stashed loot, and make his escape toward a simpler life.  It won't be that simple.  Steeped in Catholic mysticism, corruption, and occult, and wonderfully animated in clay and ink, the film hits all the right notes for an excellent story.

O'Apostolo
2012, 80 minutes, directed by Fernando Cortizo

Las Brujas de Zugarramurdi (a.k.a. Witching and Bitching)

This Spanish film really wants to stir up gender hatred.  It starts with a robbery: a group of street actors - and one young boy - steal a huge bag of old gold from a local store.  As they flee, their motivations emerge: alimony, custody, disdain.  All they need to do is make it across the border to France and they can start anew, but first they must pass through Zugarramurdi, a town known as the seat of witchcraft, occupied entirely by women with a deep-seated hatred for men.  Seems simple enough, right?

A lot of action doesn't make up for a weak plot, but it does make for an engaging midnight film.  It was fine, stupid in places, but I have no interest in seeing it again.

Las Brujas de Zugarramurdi (a.k.a. Witching and Bitching)
2013, 115 minutes, directed by Alex de la Iglesia

It's not really a comedy, but I needed something to tag it with to convey the comical nature of the plot.

V/H/S/2

Having acquired a heap of knowledge and a pile of leftover tapes from their first outing, this second installment of the V/H/S horror line feels more polished and... boring... than the first.  Sure, everything tied together better in a central theme: private detectives are asked to look for a college student who's been missing for a few days.  At his house, they find lots of static-y monitors and piles of VHS tapes.

This time, it all feels more predictable in its narration.  There's a story with ghosts, one with zombies, one with occult, and one with aliens.  It's all nice and tidy.  And that's what makes it boring.

V/H/S/2
2013, 95 minutes, directed by Simon Barrett, Adam Wingard, Eduardo Sanchez, Gregg Hale, Timo Tjahjanto, Gareth Huw Evans, and Jason Eisener

The Paramount was already running an hour late after their first film.  I stayed in line for Evil Dead for two hours, but when the film was supposed to have started and the previous screening was still letting out, I bailed for dinner and a sure spot at this midnight film.  Knowing now that some people made it (barely) to both thanks to V/H/S/2 also being inexplicably delayed, and knowing that I didn't care much for the midnight film, makes me angrier at the Paramount and SXSW for being unable to keep their schedules even remotely on time.

Here Comes the Devil

The devil knows no depths he will not sink.

Here Comes the Devil
2012, 97 minutes, directed by Adrián García Bogliano

The Conspiracy

Two Canadian directors set out to create a documentary film about a local conspiracy theorist.  But when their subject goes missing a few months into production, the filming doesn't end.  Tracking down his work, the filmmakers continue to put the pieces together, tying -everything- together and to a mysterious world cabal.

The film explores how conspiracy theorists create un-refutable positions to ensure that no reality can interfere with their beliefs.  Then the film shows how far the conspiracy really goes...

One of the director's comments was particular interesting.  As he said, if athletes dressed up in the woods and conducted pagan rituals, the media would be all over it.  But when the people who actually run the world do it (e.g. Bohemian Grove), the media is generally silent.

The Conspiracy
2012, directed by Christopher MacBride 

La Memoria Del Muerto (The Memory of the Dead)

Three films in one day?  Why yes, it is the start of another Fantastic Fest!

As the director puts it, La Memoria Del Muerto (The Memory of the Dead) is not a horror film; it's a love story.  Or, as I see it, a story of horrible love.

Five friends of Jorge reunite with his widow to remember his life.  And when the dead start to return, it seems the reunion is something more... Be prepared for emotional scars to be ripped off and eaten as the guests reunite with the ghosts of their pasts.

La Memoria Del Muerto (The Memory of the Dead)
2011, 89 minutes, directed by Valentín Javier Diment

Lovely Molly

In Lovely Molly, director Eduardo Sanchez (of Blair Witch fame) follows the same trend as the [REC] franchise, moving away from first-person "found footage" back to a mix with traditional camera work. Molly and her husband, newly married, move back into her childhood home. The demons of her past - drug use, insanity, the memory of her father - quickly reemerge as she struggles in her new old setting. Are the demons all in her head, or does her father's legacy live on? SXSW bills the as "what happens before the exorcist arrives". I think of it as Paranormal 4: Less Scary More Nudity.

Lovely Molly
2011, 95 minutes, directed by Eduardo Sanchez

Sinister

SXSW's not-so-secret screening was the first public screening of Sinister, exactly as everyone thought.  While I appreciate all the effort they went to for the film to screen here, it just didn't work for me like I'd hoped.  Ellison (Ethan Hawke) is a true-crime writer seeking his second Big Novel, having suffered several unspecified failures.  He moves his family - wife Trace (Juliet Rylance), son Trevor (Michael Hall D'addario), and daughter Ashley (Clare Foley) into the house of his latest focus, a family of five where four members were hung from a tree in the back yard, and the final member, a daughter Stephanie, disappeared.

Very quickly the scope of the crime grows when Ellison finds a box of "Home Movies" in the attic, along with a Super 8 film projector.  The first film shows the murder of the family - a film the police never found.  The other four films show the deaths of similar families, each killed by a different method, each in a different state, and each (as he later learns) with a missing child, stretched out over the past 45 years.  At the same time the supernatural events in the house lead him to believe that maybe the killer never left...

I didn't think Ellison's actions were plausible, something admittedly I can overlook (as I often must) for horror films.  The real problems though were in the ending.  I have BIG SPOILERS below the film info below.  Read on only if you have seen the film or have no intention of doing so.

Sinister
2012, directed by Scott Derrickson










THESE ARE SPOILERS!  Things that just didn't work:
1. The biggest problem is the slow, all-cards-on-the-table ending.  We just didn't need everything spelled out like that in passionless film.  First the kids should not have already been mindless automatons when they killed their families.  It would have been better if they were doing it scared shitless and crying, while being forced to by the Boogie Man.  And what Ashley does after Ellison dies seems redundant.  Who cares that the kids live in the film?  The movie should have ended the instance Ellison was killed, his family dying first.
2. When Ellison learned that one dead family previously lived in a home that was itself the scene of an earlier film, it was obvious the same would be true for all the other murders.  It also meant that "family piles into the car and flees" would never be a suitable ending.  Either they'd need to fight and win, or they wouldn't make it.  That's all fine, except that the phone call from the deputy at the end where he explains all of this is completely pointless.  I got it already, thanks, don't slow things down.  Maybe the only useful bit is the deputy's comment that his action might have "accelerated the schedule" which was somehow true but really never explained.  Why'd they need to die the day they moved?  The other families clearly lived at least a little while in their new homes based on the films.
3.  Why did the Boogie Man switch to Super 8 in the 1960s?  Was that when he stopped using photographs?  During the course of the film - which could also double as an Apple product instructional video - Ellison proves the editing superiority of digital cameras and a computer.  I think it would have been more satisfactory somehow if Ashley was filming on her dad's digicam at the end, with a USB stick dropped in the Home Movies box if that clip isn't cut (as it wouldn't be I guess if they want a sequel segue.)  The Boogie Man needs to keep up with the times or else he'll be stuck with a family that doesn't even know what the Super 8 projector is.

[REC]³ Génesis

 When you're whole premise - demonic zombie infestation film with shakey cam - becomes a cliché, what should you do?  For Paco Plaza, the answer is kick it out, literally in this case, and fortunately not that long into the film.  This leaves the third installment of the [REC] franchise (Quarantine per the U.S. remake) with a very different feel than the first two.  It, too, has lost the claustrophobic charm of its predecessors, set this time in the spacious buildings and grounds of a reception hall.  It's her wedding day, and nothing is going to keep the bride from her groom.  This isn't a demonic zombie film.  It's a love story.  With demonic zombies.

[REC]³ Génesis
2012, 80 minutes, directed by Paco Plaza


Scott, people don't ask questions during your Q&A for a reason.  First off, you ask 60% of the questions yourself.  Then when you cajole a question from the audience, you take the gist of it, come up with a different question of your own, and "restate" it to the director so he'll answer your version.  And you interrupted the director while he was talking to put words in his mouth!  Twice!

The Cabin in the Woods

Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon don't want anyone to talk about this film.  It's hard not too because it was fucking awesome.  You think you have it figured out?  Oh no you don't; check out this.

What happens when five young college students set off for a weekend alone in the woods?  Mayhem of course.  If you would ever watch a horror comedy, make sure you watch this one.

"This came from a place of love.  Joss and I just love horror movies." - director Drew Goddard at the world premiere Q&A on opening night of SXSW 2012.

The Cabin in the Woods
2012, 105 minutes, directed by Drew Goddard




"No, no, no.  It's not an angry raping tree.  It's an angry molesting tree." - Drew

Paranormal Activity 3

I saw the first installment of this franchise at Fantastic Fest back in 2009.  It was formulaic and clinical in its execution, which left me wanting more.  Alas, this was not it.  (I never saw the sequel.)  This wasn't nearly as frightening as the first film.  All the setups are now so obvious.

It was really strange watching commercials for this over the next few months and thinking to myself, "Wait, that scene wasn't in the film!"  Yes we were told that the version we watched wasn't 100% done, but seriously half the scenes in the commercials weren't in the movie itself.  Either they used cutting-room scraps to promote the piece, "not 100% done" meant "half the scary bits aren't in yet", or, just maybe, they read bad reviews like this one and choose to spruce it up with the more mildly frightening bits.  It's unlikely I'll ever bother to watch it again to find out if any of that extra film made the final cut.


Paranormal Activity 3
2011, 84 minutes, directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Shulman

Before the film began, I had a brief one-on-one conversation with Elijah Wood which went something like this:
Me: "Glad you came this week and glad you stayed.  Usually the stars all leave."
Mr. Wood: "Fuck all that."

Awesome

Calibre 9

All hell breaks loose when a gun, possessed by the soul of a dead hooker named Sarah, decides to use a mild-mannered city planner named Yann to exact revenge on society, corruption, and anyone else who gets in her way.

This is just what the festival has so far lacked and I greatly needed - glorious, glorious, violence.  With guns.  Well, one gun, named Sarah.

Calibre 9
2011, 84 minutes, directed by Jean-Christian Tassy

Penumbra

Again, like the last film, this was not at all what I was expecting.  This was a dialog-driven film more than anything else.  Fortunately the lead actress Cristina Brondo pulls it off.  As a Spanish realtor, she spends a few months each year handling business in Argentina, including for an old apartment she inherited with her sister.  A prospective tenant is running late, but when he arrives, his motivations are suspect.

Penumbra
2011, 85 minutes, directed by Adrián García Bogliano & Ramiro García Bogliano

Director Adrián García Bogliano and a member of the production crew during the Q&A.

This has nothing to do with the film, but I wanted to point out the suckling pig display at the Highball during the opening night party.

El paramo (The Squad)

This was not what I expected.  When I think "military squad" and "horror" images of Predator waft through my mind.  Instead of a murderous rampage with an alien/occult foe, The Squad is very close up, very suspenseful, very introspective.  If such a film sounds appealing, look for this in 2012.

El paramo (The Squad)
2012, 107 minutes, directed by Jaime Osorio Marquez

Director Jaime Osorio Marquez of El paramo.  My sister-in-law called him "hot".

The director during the Q&A.  He sat near us during our subsequent screening, but my sister-in-law wouldn't go talk to him.  Not that he spoke English...

Director BenDavid Grabinski of "Cost of Living", a short film that played before the feature.

"Cost of Living" production crew.

Bones

This film makes for great background content while doing my taxes.  Highly recommended for this.

Bones
2001, 96 minutes, directed by Ernest R. Dickerson

Legion

You know, this wasn't all that bad.  Sure, the religious stuff is over the top, but that's part of the premise.  Yes, the special effects budget was too low - a few big monsters but most just shambling extras - but the action is decent, the story consistent, the acting okay.

If you watch B grade action, check it out.

Legion
2010, 100 minutes, directed by Scott Charles Stewart