Absentia2

This is an update of a previous post, with some screen captures.  I originally watched Absentia on Netflix Instant.  Now I have the DVD.  I continue to think that this is one of the most brilliant horror films of the decade. 

I have posted a lot of horror movie reviews over the years, but not so many of late.  I just haven’t seen very many films interesting enough to review.  I am happy to say that I found one on Netflix Instant Watch: Absentia.  This independent film was written and directed by Mike Flanagan.  I hope he has more where this one came from, because it is one of the best horror movies I have seen in the last decade.

The film begins with a woman (Courtney Bell) replacing a weathered missing person notice on a poll with a fresh one that she pulls out of a large leather bag.  Tricia’s husband disappeared seven years prior.  Though she is in the process of applying for a death certificate and is in fact pregnant, she is clearly having trouble letting go.  Her younger sister Callie (Katie Parker) arrives to lend moral support.  Callie is almost but not quite drug free.  These items of emotional baggage are the material which the fine cinematography and haunting score can work on.

In view from Tricia’s front stoop is the opening of one of those pedestrian tunnels that run under a highway.  If you have ever walked through one, you may recall that they are ominous enough all on their own in broad daylight.  Callie has brought a gift for the baby: a copy of the Three Billy Goats Gruff.  In case you are wondering, that’s a clue. 

I won’t reveal any more details, for this is one film that tells its story efficiently and effectively.  An event that occurs about a third of the way through ratchets the story up to another level.  It ratchets up again a bit later into full bore horror.

I have had an affection for spooky stories all my life.  I am not alone, to judge by the volume of horror cinema produced each year.  I like the tension produced by wanting and not wanting to see what is just out of sight.  The film keeps this tension perfectly balanced all the way through.

I also like the way that a good horror films explores the architecture of human fear and the way that cultures have managed and exploited those fears.  At its best, the horror genre affords new ways to see and map that architecture.  Evolutionary psychology has noted that phobias form around things that tended to kill our ancestors.  That is why we fear spiders but not automobiles or tobacco.  A fear of tight spaces, darkness, and being dragged away not only haunted our ancestors but also haunted our ancestor’s ancestors.  These are the stuff of fairy tales.  Absentia is a modern fairy tale, as dark as the unexpurgated versions of those that emerge from the darkness of Europe and other places.

More than one character in the film articulates the modern view of such stories.  In addition to being entertaining, they are one of the ways that we manage our fears of what we cannot predict and what we cannot secure ourselves against.  That is a rational, scientific interpretation of the supernatural and it describes how things really are.  I don’t believe in real demons or malevolent ghosts.

However, once you step over the line between world time and dream time, as you must to enjoy the story, the relationship between myth and rational interpretation reverses itself.  In horror land, the rational interpretation is the lie that we tell ourselves in order to avoid facing very dark realities.

One very neat trick that the movie pulls is to give us different visual accounts of the same event.  First we see something horrifying happen that leaves no doubt about the supernatural forces at work.  Then a character will see in his or her mind how it might have happened a different way, with only ordinary forces at work.  For a moment the viewer has to wonder which view is the real one; but only for a moment, happily.  The rational interpretation is self-deception.

So long as you know the difference between fiction and reality, it can be enlightening to see what the world looks like the other way round.  It is a useful reminder that reason and common sense are not the same things a knowledge, even if they are the best guides to truth and practice.  It is certainly entertaining, if you like the spooky tale.  Absentia is an almost flawless horror film. 

Baby Blood

Japanese horror films reveal a lot of angst about children and families.  I haven’t watched enough French horror to make a sample, but Baby Blood may be an indication of the same.  I would add that it presents a very dim view of men.  The film also gives us a grand global backstory.  As the credits role we get a voice describing the beginning of life on earth. 

In the beginning, the earth was no more than a cooling star.  It was covered with hideous vegetation and grotesque gargoyles, all of them fighting for sustenance beneath the star speckled sky.  It was then that the first life forms appeared, somewhere around the forgotten edges of a forsaken hole in Africa’s swamp and all those life forms started to reproduce, all but one.  For me, only one thing was needed… to be born. 

If that sounds incoherent, it is.  Yet it has resonance.  If “us” means all life descended from a common ancestor, is there something other than us? 

Emmanuelle Escourrou plays Yanka, a young woman who works in a circus.  Escourrou has a superb face for this kind of cinema.  She has a kind of Natassja Kinski vibe going for her, if she is a bit filled out for that.  Her teeth are set apart, which makes her appear rather homely in many shots.  Still, she is alluring.  

Yanka suffers the brutal attention of the circus owner, Lohman.  A truck arrives with a new animal, a leopard.  The other cats are very disturbed by the new arrival.  In short order the remains of the leopard are discovered, exploded as it were from inside.  While Yanka is sleeping, a phallic worm finds its way to her and penetrates her.  She is impregnated by a monster. 

Her baby talks to her, mostly about his need for blood.  A string of goofy no goods will line up to play the victim.  If there are any good men in France, they don’t show up.  

Baby Blood is worth watching, if you are a horror fan.  The dialogue between Yanka, increasingly exhausted, and her Gollum like embryonic possessor is pretty clever.  Unfortunately, the story line after she leaves the circus is pedestrian.  Still, there is a good idea here.  What if there are two distinct lines of life on the earth, competing for mastery?  That is worth another movie. 

Trick 'r Treat ****

Rue Morgue’s 200 Alternative Horror Films led me to a treasure that I somehow missed when it was released.  Trick ‘r Treat (2007) is a fine piece of horror film making and a great addition to your October 31^st list of libations. 

The film was written and directed by Michael Dougherty.  It stars Dylan Baker, Brian Cox and Anna Paquin.  I would note also the presence of Britt McKillip and Christine Willes, who played Reggie Lass and Delores Herbig (“her big brown eyes) on one of my favorite TV series, Dead Like Me. 

TRT gives us Halloween in a town that loves Halloween, but probably ought not to.  Four stories are skillfully interwoven as the film progresses.  The action switches from one story to the other and back again.  In one we see a face at a window.  Later, we see what is happening on the other side of the window.  When that sort of thing is done well it is delicious.  It is done well here. 

Some of the story elements are just predictable enough to give you the satisfaction of having solved a riddle.  Others give you the satisfaction of having been totally wrong about who the victims are and who the monsters are.  All the stories are tied together both by the locale and by the presence of a perfect Halloween MC: a child-sized person with a jack o’lantern shaped head concealed by a burlap hood.  Don’t worry; you get to see what is under that hood. 

The genius of Trick ‘r Treat lays mainly in the way that the stories are stitched together and in the brilliant use of light.  Contrary to the usual procedure, almost every scene is a feast of yellow or orange glow.  I have affection for cinema that gives me appalling visions in beautiful light.  There are also a powerful lot of exquisitely carved jack o’lanterns.  I kept wanting to push pause and copy the patterns. 

This is one for the collection.  I am keeping it for next Halloween, but I would warn you that it is not safe for children.  There is a bit of nudity and more than a few kids get gobbled up.  If you want something to satisfy your Halloween jones, this would be it. 

The Hole Wasn't Deep But Wasn't Bad

One well-explored subgenre of horror might be called the Home Alone Horror (not that Home Alone is an example).  In such a film, the action centers on characters in their teens or younger (and usually with a mix of teen and pre-teen characters) with adults strictly out of the loop.  The Gate (1987) and Spielberg’s Super 8 (2011) are typical examples and are typically disappointing. 

This weekend I watched The Hole (2009).  There wasn’t a fresh idea anywhere in it; still, it wasn’t half bad.  Mom and her two sons move into a new house in a new town.  The teenager Dane (Chris Massoglia) is obviously unhappy and insecure.  He takes it out on his younger brother Lucas (Nathan Gamble).  One bright spot in Dane’s dark mood is Julie (Haley Bennett), the girl next door. 

The two brothers discover a wooden door in the basement floor with dozens of padlocks securing it.  Below it is a dark, apparently bottomless pit.  Once the “darkness sees you” you are in big trouble. 

At the risk of a small spoiler, this is basically a “defeat your fears by confronting them” plot.  Like most Home Alone Horrors, focusing on kids has the result that the movie is mostly fit for kids.  I have to say, however, that I did enjoy this one.  If the story telling was unimaginative, the strength of the actors and the dialogue were enough to carry it.  We also get a delicious bit part by Bruce Dern as Creepy Carl. 

I like the idea of the hole in the basement.  If you want something wholesome and fun, this movie will fit the bill.  It is pretty safe for children.  I do long for something more serious in the genre, something more like the bits in Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot (the novel, not the movie) that focused on the boy.  Horror movies with kids could stand to be a bit more grownup. 

Rue Morgue's 200 Alternative Horror Films

My favorite horror magazine is Rue Morgue, just as my favorite podcast was Rue Morgue Radio until they stopped producing it.  On the stands now, the folks at Rue Morgue have a special issue: 200 Alternative Horror Films.  This is one of my favorite kinds of things: a guide full of suggestions for my Netflix queue.  The only beef I have ever had with the folks at Rue Morgue (besides killing RMR) is that their movies reviews are so frequently devoted to telling me what not to watch.  Offering me two hundred films that I should watch is a treasure. 

I just got it yesterday, so I can’t report any major finds yet, but judging from the films listed that I have already seen, their judgments are trustworthy.  I just wish that they had found room for a lot more.  If you are into horror, don’t let this one disappear on you.  

While Rue Morgue Radio is no more, the Rue Morgue Podcast is still going strong.  Today I listened to a marvelous interview with Roger Corman.   Rue Morgue is the place to go for horror nerds like yours truly.