Watch It Wednesdays

What I liked: Stake Land.
Why: It's a vampire movie that feels like a zombie movie. There's no seductive quality to the biting and the blood sucking, it's pure monster mayhem and it's scary as shit. No time is wasted in getting you into the meat of the film, we have a quick introduction of each character and then it's off to the races. In general, not a lot of time is spent dissecting the characters or delving into details like their motivations or their hopes and dreams. Why? Because it's simple. They're motivated to kill the damn vampires. Their hopes and dreams are to get far away from the damn vampires. What I like about this movie is that it lays all its cards on the table. You care about the characters because they all operate with such honesty - there is little room for deception when vampires and crazy religious zealots are doing their best to destroy you and everyone you know.

What I didn't: The Day The Earth Stood Still
Why: Annoying characters I don't care about. Stupid stupid choices (honestly, if this is the first encounter that humans are having with an alien life form and it seems entirely peaceful and is about to have first contact with another human being, why oh why would you SHOOT IT?). General frustration with everything that happened in just about every scene. This is one of those movies that was remade because the message seemed particularly important in this decade (basically humans are ruining everything and we need to cut it out or we'll be destroyed by a plague of robot locusts) but it seemed so poorly constructed that the message likely never got through. Because nobody saw this movie. Because it was terrible.
What I liked about it? John Hamm.

I'm On The Fence About: The Possession of David O'Reilly
Why: Ok I'll be honest, I didn't really *dislike* this one per se, but it made some curious choices. I'm gonna warn you, I will get spoileriffic here, but chances are you're never going to watch it anyways so what the hell. To explain my points I'm going to have to give a brief synopsis. So Anna and Alex live together in a lovely little house/flat in London. They go through a whole scene to establish that Alex and Anna have a video security system set up that's triggered by movement. Their friend David rings the doorbell at some ridiculous hour, it appears his girlfriend is cheating or something, so he stays the night. As it turns out, David is able to see horribly disfigured and thoroughly creepy looking monster demons wandering around, trying to get in the house. He pours salt across the door to block them from getting in (anyone who has seen Supernatural knows that this is obviously the correct way to deal with everything) but is still scoring a 7 on the spazz scale the next day. Luckily, the monster things don't come during the day because they don't like light. Alex has a conversation with David and we discover that David is able to see these monster demon things that are always around, but normal people can't see, and now they're after him. For some reason this all started happening 2 weeks ago (WHY did they specify this date? Absolutely no reason. We never find out WHY this is all happening, and WHY it was over the last 2 weeks. We even see a clip of a video that Alex took 2 weeks ago at David's house and nothing suspicious happens. So why is this shown? No. Reason.). The lights go out and David tells them that the monsters have gotten in and are coming after them. There's a lot of confusion and running around and general frantic behaviour. David hides upstairs and finds a neighbour that he spoke to earlier in the movie and they hide together. David realizes (as he's reading blood-stained newspaper headlines about murders and deaths that suddenly show up all over the walls and floor) that the neighbour is actually a ghost. Or a monster? Or something. She starts oozing blood and is obviously dead. If she's one of the monsters, why is it that she can talk to him? Why is she unaware that she's a monster? What is the significance of these newspaper clippings, did this all happen in the house? Are the monster demons the spirits of these murdered/dead people? If they are specifically attached to the house, why is it that David has seen them elsewhere? Through the rest of the movie Alex and Anna are trying to decide if David is telling the truth or if he's crazy. Here are the issues: they have this video security system which recorded a full hard drive of activity that they cannot explain as they were out of the flat running away from monsters all night. They go to the trouble of checking the system and seeing that there is recorded content and commenting on how odd and impossible that is, but they never actually watch it. The whole time they are running from these monsters that only David can see, lights are being shut off only in the room they are in. Unless David is crazy AND telekinetic, that's something suspiciously paranormal right there folks. There's also a scene where David uses a glass and a newspaper like an ouiji board to communicate with the monsters, but they don't make much sense there either. What do you want? YOU KNOW. Useful. They also spell out Sarah's name (Sarah is David's cheating girlfriend) but again leave no explanation or clues or motives. Is Sarah dead? Did he kill her? Is the monster after her? Is SHE the monster? We don't get any answers. We don't even know why David was chosen. The monsters are incredibly vague. Also, how is it that David survived for 2 weeks of hiding from these things and then decided that now would be a perfect time to hide at a friend's house. If you know that salt stops them and they come in through doors and windows, instead of hiding in a house with an unusually large number of windows and doors why wouldn't you go to a cheap motel with only one wall of access points? Get a lot of salt and line it across the wall and you're sitting pretty. Boom. Solved.
Now I give this movie points for being incredibly creepy and causing a lot of tension (I'm a sucker for prolonged tension in horror films. Gets me every damn time) and having a pretty creative premise and ending (SPOILERS AGAIN They decide David is probably crazy, Alex tries to open the door to try to contact Sarah (who is mysteriously not answering her phone), David tries to stop him and accidentally(maybe?) stabs him. Anna, now convinced David is totally nutters, kills him and tries to leave the house. Cut to Anna's dead body torn apart by monsters) but there were so many aspects that just fell flat. Also, they tried to be too creative with the camera work. It was distracting.

What I Want To See: The Silent House
Why: Horror movie filmed entirely in a single take. Think about that. Amazing. Ti West's House of the Dead has a scene that lasts 20 minutes that is one continues shot and the tension is like a damn corkscrew. I watched it with a film buff friend (shoutout to Paul C) and we couldn't stop squirming. It drives you mad! We actually had to pause it to get a break. Scientifically, part of what makes slasher films cheesy rather than terrifying is how many cuts there are per scene. You aren't held in the action too long because it is repeatedly broken up by cuts that switch angle or perspective, which makes it easier to pull back to the "it's just a movie" mentality. When a single shot is held you don't have that release. Take a look at the trailer and just imagine seeing it with no breaks inbetween the action. Also, it's incredible to think of how much time and rehearsal and precision it would take to get every moment timed perfectly! I die.