Drop

Date Expectations

Drop
Directed by Christopher Landon
USA/Ireland 2025
Blumhouse
UK Cinema Release Print

I have to admit, I saw the abominable trailer for Drop and decided to give the movie a wide berth, even thought it’s directed by Christopher Landon, who made the brilliant Happy Death Day (reviewed here), Happy Death Day 2U (reviewed here) and Freaky (reviewed here). However, I then found out the score is by one of my favourite living composers, Bear McCreary (who I am seeing in concert a the O2 in London in four days from now) and, yeah, I don’t see or watch many of the projects to which he’s attached so it seemed worth it to go and check this out for the music.

I was not disappointed, either. And when I say that I mean... I was really surprised because, the trailer made it look like a thriller relying on a very old, clichéd plot which, to be fair... it absolutely is.

The story set up is about a domestic abuse survivor called Violet (played brilliantly here by Meghann Fahy) who, after a year or two, leaves her young son (played by Jacob Robinson) in the care of her sister (played by Violett Beane) at home while she goes on her first date in a very long time. So she meets her prospective ‘match’ at a very expensive, high up in a skyscraper restaurant but, soon she starts getting message drops on her phone showing her house broken into and the lives of her son and sister under threat... with increasingly intimidating instructions that she must kill her date (played by Brandon Sklenar) before the night is out. So, yeah, told you it was an old plot. The last time I remember this being done just recently was the 2018 movie The Commuter with Liam Neeson (reviewed here) and, yeah, I really wasn’t looking forward to this for the story, for sure.

But, as I said above, this one surprised me. I mean, it’s one thing to be revisiting the same tired old ground but it’s quite another when the execution of the concept and the way in which the film is directed, shot and edited is so immaculate and gripping, as this one is. For example, the phone drops are presented as texts which are superimposed with the correct perspective onto various elements of the photographic compositions as the restaurant bound protagonists go about their business. Which is nicely done, for sure (and I bet there were some hard choices made by the director about placement and duration made with these on screen messages).  

But the real brilliance of the film is the sweeping photography, taken from various unusual angles to push the story along. Now, I rarely use the term Hitchcockian for many modern movies made past the 1990s but, this one certainly would earn that title. This does look and feel like something Alfred Hitchcock would probably enjoy if he saw it and I don’t even mean that in a second-hand Brian De Palma way, which would be stylish enough. This one just felt like something Hitch would possibly do or, as I said, certainly approve of.

And the acting on this one really holds up too, which certainly helps push the cinematography and shot design into ‘great’ rather than ‘good’ territory. Fahy and Sklenar really help sell this as two innocents who are fighting for their lives (one of them not even aware of what is going on) and the chemistry between them is so good that it really sells the idea that these two people are just wanting to go on a fun date. And their co-stars are very good in this too, with special shout outs to Gabrielle Ryan and Reed Diamond in this.

And then there’s that Bear McCreary score. I hope this one, someday, gets a proper, physical CD release so I can hear it as a stand alone piece (and not the stupid digital only version which I won’t be downloading) because it’s really incredible and supports the visuals in the best way. He’s not pulling a Bernard Herrmann here, which is a direction he certainly might have gone in and it would have been valid... but it does have the kind of sweeping tones which, while being completely contemporary sounding, a 1950s suspense movie might have had and it really complimented, supported and enhanced things very nicely.

So yeah, that’s me done and extremely surprised by Christopher Landon’s Drop. My expectations were low but I really had a good time with this one and will certainly be picking up a Blu Ray when it becomes available so I can show my folks. Catch this one at the cinema if you can because it looks great on a big screen.

Freaky

Freaky Friday
The 13th

Freaky
USA 2020
Directed by Christopher Landon
Blumhouse

Warning: Big spoilers on this one so,
if you want to go in cold then don’t read this yet.

Okay, so this is kinda bizarre but, less than an hour after I came up with a title for my review of Freaky, I found out that one of the original working titles for the film was... Freaky Friday The 13th so... yeah, I guess I joined the dots maybe. Either way... this one wasn’t initially on my watch list (I hate the word Freaky, just one of those things) and I had decided to ignore it but then I found out that, not only was one of my favourite living composers, Bear McCreary, doing the score but that there was also a limited edition CD release (which I obviously pre-ordered). Then my cousin, who moved to Australia, saw it and recommended it to me so, yeah, I caved in and watched it (and then waited 10 months to post this review because it’s only, finally, just come out at the cinema over her in the UK... if I'd had known it was going to get a proper cinema release here then I would certainly have waited for it). Frankly, all the marketing people behind the movie would have needed to do was let me know that the film is written and directed by the same guy who made the truly brilliant Happy Death Day movies (reviewed here and here) and I would have been on board straight away (we need a third movie in that series guys!).

So, just like the first Happy Death Day movie (and, to some extent, the second) was a remake of Groundhog Day, so too is Freaky another ‘horrified’ remake of a popular classic. In this case, the tie in is specifically the Walt Disney movie (and all the other remakes) of Freaky Friday (a film I’ve never watched in either of its incarnations because it has Freaky in the title... see last paragraph) but, those were in turn based on the novel Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers which was, as I’m sure most of you know, cribbed itself from the English literary classic body swap novel Vice Versa: A Lesson to Fathers by F. Anstey, which in turn was made into TV shows and movies called things like Vice Versa and, of course, the famous Tom Hanks movie using the same concept, Big. So... a movie with a long lineage but, as far as I know, this one has a slightly unique take on the concept in terms of the characters.

In this one we have the main protagonist, Millie, a high school girl played by Kathryn Newton and we also have Vince Vaughn as the Jason Vorhees style serial killer known as The Blissfield Butcher. The Vaughn character initially doesn’t speak, just gives penetrating stares through his hockey mask and, in a pre-credits set up to show how much of a bad person he is, visits violent death to a group of four teenagers in quite gory ways. That’s one of the things which is interesting about this movie in that, although there were stabbings and any manner of deaths in the Happy Death Day franchise series, this film really goes back to late 1970s/1980s slasher levels of goriness. For instance, in this film you will see people stabbed in the eye with packing hooks, split into two pieces by a buzz saw and, in a particularly memorable death in the pre-credits sequence, a person has a broken bottle forced into his mouth and down his throat until we see the shards of glass bloating his neck out and trying to force themselves out again. So, yeah, I don’t know what rating this movie has but it’s definitely got the kind of 'old school 1970s' levels of violence which you just don’t really see done well in slasher movies these days (I’m not sure, at this point, if all this made it into the UK cinema print).

That being said, I really find films with gruesome deaths unwatchable and less than compelling unless  it's either a) an Italian giallo or b) there is substantial other stuff going on in the film to hold the interest and, thankfully, Freaky has that second thing in spades. Just like the Happy Death Day movies, it has a very strong, self aware sort of broad humour running through it and, much of the time, it falls into the realm of comedy more than anything else.

So, anyway, due to an old Aztec (I think) knife, when The Blissfield Butcher tries to stab Millie, he gets chased away but, at the stroke of midnight, Millie and The Butcher swap bodies. And that’s where the real fun begins, as it transpires that the real Millie, inside Vince Vaughn’s body, has to recover the knife from ‘police evidence’ and find The Butcher (inside Millie’s body) and stab him/her before another 24 hours is up or the change will become permanent. Comic shenanigans ensue as Vince Vaughn, effectively playing a teenage girl with a crush on one of her/his classmates, tries to convince his friends of his real identity while hiding from the police. Meanwhile, Kathryn Newton takes on the minimalistic, cold dead stare of a serial killer and starts murdering various people at high school in various, imaginative ways.

And it’s a real pleasure. The film actually feels a little like those Happy Death Day movies so, I’m assuming that this is a certain amount of the director’s style coming to the forefront and he does familiar stuff like the long, sweeping establishing shots following the leads and also splitting the story into chapters by day, counting down from the night of the pre-credits killings until Friday the 13th, when everything is destined to come to a conclusion, one way or another.

Everything’s pretty cool and, like the director’s previous two movies, the teenagers who Millie hangs out with are mostly nice people and so you’re invested in the characters more. Vince Vaughn really plays the comedy routines well and truly lifts the film with his presence. However, Kathryn Newton certainly matches him all the way and switches from teenage angst to deadened psychopath really well... there’s a lot to enjoy in the performances of this movie. And, of course, the great Bear McCreary’s score is another mini masterpiece. This guy writes compelling music for pretty much all of the films he touches, really helping to glue the edits together with his riffs and elevating the movie to another level... this is top notch stuff.

So, yeah, not much else to say other than, Freaky is a great film I can recommend to most lovers of the comedy horror genre. I do look forward to seeing a sequel at some point (although it would be nice to see Vaughn come back for that, somehow, without giving too much away here). If I had a choice I’d really want to see a third Happy Death Day movie before this one though, or, actually, even a double sequel which ties the two franchises together might be nice. Either way, good movie, worth a watch, give it a go.

Happy Death Day 2U

Bury My Heart
At Wounded Tree

Happy Death Day 2U
2019 USA Directed by Christopher Landon
UK cinema release print.

Well this was an unexpected surprise.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the first Happy Death Day movie (which I reviewed here), especially since I only really went to hear Bear McCreary’s score and found myself caught up in what I personally think is a bit of a modern phenomenon of a teenage slasher movie... the premise of which was that it was another version of Groundhog Day but with the central character, Tree Gelbman, having to relive the same day over and over until she can figure out who it is who’s killing her at the end of the day so she can kill them and reset her life back to normal. It was such a nice idea with a great cast and some neat directorial and writing flourishes that I really didn’t see how they could go anywhere on a sequel which wasn’t just a rehash of the first movie and, yeah... I wasn’t expecting too much from this follow up, truth be told.

Which why it’s such a pleasure to be taken by surprise here because, yep, despite the central concept and the slightly clichéd but nicely handled expansion of that idea of a narrative being based on a repeat loop structure... Happy Death Day 2U is one of those rare film sequels which, while maybe not being quite as good as the first film, certainly lives up to any expectations of what a second part should look and feel like. So yeah, this movie in no way lets the first movie down and is a thoroughly entertaining ride.

Once again the insanely talented and charismatic Jessica Rothe plays Tree and back for the ride are pretty much all the main actors from the first film (and I do mean all) such as Israel Broussard, Phi Vu and Ruby Modine... but the fun doesn’t stop there because the writer/director manages to bring in a new bunch of characters and throws them into the mix too, played by people like Suraj Sharma and Sarah Yarkin. Frankly, it’s a testament to Landon that none of these characters feel like unnecessary add ons and they have a proper place in the continuing story of Tree and her ‘time looping’ dilemma.

And, like I said, the concept is expanded just a little so that we’re following some of the same stuff, in a way but... with different elements thrown into the mix.

So, for example, the film starts off focusing on Phi Vu’s character and as you twig right away, he is obviously going to start off in a loop because, right from the outset, you can see the director putting those little memorable incidents into his walk to his room mate’s bedroom on campus so the audience can pick up on these anchor points for the next time around... which is obviously why they’re there. However, rather than just run with that, Landon very quickly moves you into the next phase of the movie where some other freaky stuff starts happening and... yeah, the beauty of this movie is that, while it still very much uses a repeat structure to tell its story, it doesn’t do it in as static a way as the first and every time you think you’ve got the hang of how the movie is going to go for the rest of the running time, he manages to pull in another slightly different element and this keeps things fresh throughout the whole of picture, I’m glad to say. He even, at one point, manages to bring an audio element in from the first film,  just for a second or two, which acts as a kind of sound flashback to remind the audience of what the next part of a specific cycle should be, without having to add in a visual element to go with it... which impressed me greatly, I must say.

So I don’t want to give away too much here but, yes, you will find out exactly how (if not yet why) the incident in the first film took place and, although in some ways it would have been nice not to have to peek behind that curtain, the catalyst for all this stuff is a story element which has a lot of use to trigger different outcomes throughout the film so... I guess what I’m saying is, if they had to do a sequel, well this one is definitely a good way of solving certain problems. Also, it’s nice to see actors playing very specific character stereotypes in the first movie being given a chance to play their same characters in a different way at certain points. So there’s a lot on offer if you liked the first one and are happy that this isn’t just a repeat. And that includes the opening Univeral logo too... which was in a repeat loop at the opneing of the first movie but for this one... yeah, I'm not giving that away here either.

The film is pure fun from start to end and, surprisingly perhaps, manages to also be quite moving in certain moments. There were tears in my eyes during a specific scene and that’s just not the kind of emotional level that you would normally expect from something that, on the surface, masquerades as just another teenage Hollywood slasher movie. Like the first one, this movie has a lot of heart with the kind of strong, moral centre you’d not necessarily expect to be witness to in this kind of cinematic territory. And once again we have Bear McCreary picking up on the themes and ideas he used on the score to the first movie and expanding on them, enhancing the emotions just as you would hope. He does another great job here and I just wish this sequel score was put out on a proper CD instead of a low quality electronic download (at time of writing this article... I’ve still got my fingers crossed for some kind of physical release in the near future).

So, yeah, I managed to get through this review completely spoiler free, it looks like but, if you are reading this and are thinking of seeing the movie, please make sure you stay through the first part of the end credits. There’s a mid-post credits scene here and it’s fairly lengthy, explains the not so common sensical ending a little better (although I’m still a little baffled by the mechanics of the resolution scene... need to see it again). This sequence also sets up a much bigger picture for the third movie which, given the identity of a character unmasked early on in the film and which at first I thought might be a loose end the writer had forgotten about, might mean that the third film in the series (which I’m very much hoping is inevitable now) will have a much bigger scope to the first two. We shall see.

In the meantime, if you’ve not seen the first film then don’t see this one yet (and in fact don’t even watch the trailer) as it reveals the end of the first movie in a handy recap sequence. So go watch that once first because... well... it’s kind of brilliant. If, however, you’re already an admirer of the first film then Happy Death Day 2U definitely doesn’t fall too short of what your best idea of a version of a continuation of the story could be, I suspect and, frankly, it’s a fun ride all the way through. So go see it.

Happy Death Day

Day To Day Dying

Happy Death Day
2017 USA Directed by Christopher Landon
UK cinema release print.

Warning: Very mild spoilers to do with the structure of the movie.

Happy Death Day was the first of a cinematic double bill I treated myself to on Saturday... both showing at different cinemas... to feature a score by one of my favourite contemporary composers, Bear McCreary (the second of the two I saw was a pretty important movie called Unrest... and you can read my review of that one here). I hadn’t seen a trailer for this one but, what little I had heard of it would maybe have drawn me towards it by itself... with McCreary’s name attached to it, though, it was something I didn’t want to miss. As it turns out... and much to my surprise, it’s a really cool little thriller.

The film starts off with University student Tree, played really well by Jessica Rothe, as she wakes up in another student’s dormitory room on a different part of the campus. The other student is called Carter (played by Israel Broussard) and he is Tree’s companion, kinda, when things start happening later although, as of that morning, this is the worst situation she wants to be in. And then we see this absolute brat of a student return to her absolutely (for the most part) bratty friends and go through her day, which also happens to be her Birthday and then... as the night wears on... she gets killed by someone wearing a baby mask. And, frankly, I hated the character so much at this point that I was glad that she got killed. The end... except...

The film restarts off with University student Tree as she wakes up in another student’s room on a different part of the campus. What the?

Oh yes... this is basically a remake of Groundhog Day... or at least a movie which totally ‘borrows’ the central premise and transformation of the main character. Tree keeps living through the same day over and over again and, although she changes things, learning from experience each day to take a new approach to the problem at hand, she still manages to get killed each repeated cycle, only to find herself waking up in Carter’s bedroom at the start of the same day again. And, I have to say, it’s a really neat little film because the script is quite well put together and the acting is superb, especially from the main protagonist. In fact, Jessica Rothe, just like Bill Murray’s character in the aforementioned Groundhog Day, convincingly changes for the better as she relives each day, trying to find out the identity of the killer who is ending her life so she can maybe, somehow, break the cycle by surviving and making it through to the next day. Some of the teenage dialogue is a bit repellent at times but I think that’s kinda the point and, by the end of the film, I was certainly rooting for Tree to survive and find out who the killer was. Taking of which...

The identity of the killer is actually something I guessed very early on in the movie. There’s even a big visual clue about two thirds of the way through which, having now watched the trailer retrospectively on YouTube, I’m amazed to find they have even put into the advertising campaign. That being said, I didn’t feel too upset about figuring out who the killer was because, the genius of this thing is that they do something to change your mind about who it is later on, in a fairly long protracted sequence which made me assume I’d been dead wrong all along. In fact, there’s a wonderful sequence near the end of the movie where you think everything is done and dusted and the credits are about to roll and then... the character wakes up with the same day to relive yet again. The big question is why and, when she figures out the answer, the killer is revealed and... okay, so it turned out to be who I thought it was all the way through but I had such fun getting there that I actually didn’t mind.

And it really is a hoot. The idea that the character runs with to find the identity of her killer by sticking close to a different suspect each repeated day to see if she gets killed by someone else is a nice idea and, just as you get used to this, a new crimp in the ‘rules of the game’ is revealed when Tree spends some time in hospital and a new ‘time sensitive’ twist is added into the mix. It’s a good idea to do this too because the film does need some variation to the plot line at some point. Like Groundhog Day, the writer and director put lots of memorable, eye catching moments in the course of Tree’s day to day so she can revisit these little anchor points to help the audience navigate where they are in that time period. Also like Groundhog Day, most of those moments are front loaded to the first part of the day because, each time Tree changes things, she strays from the events of the previous cycle to the point that later stuff doesn't happen for her... apart form her inevitable demise. There’s even a nice, brilliant touch when a reoccurring phenomenon which happens each day is actually used by Tree to give her a tactical advantage over someone who is trying to kill her at one point. I’d been wondering why a certain thing was happening with no story relevance until a specific scene later in the film where the punchline to this particular moment is suddenly thrown into the mix in a pretty cool way. I should have seen that one coming, to be honest but... I didn't so, moving on...

Visually the film is more than competent and, although there are a few little stretches where you’re more or less seeing the same things play out in front of Tree, the film handles the mechanics of the situation (which are never explained, of course) in a visually interesting way. This starts even before the movie and while we’re still on the Universal logo (which is not the Universal logo opening you are expecting) and there’s lots of nice ways of showing the repeats in variations which never get boring. There’s a beautiful shot, for instance (and it’s in the trailer) where Tree gets hit over the head and, as she falls to the ground she just gets relocated in time and space mid-shot to land in bed in the dorm room to begin the next repeated cycle. It’s an amazing little moment and it really made me appreciative of the director (which seemed somehow strange when I found out he was responsible for directing the absolute worst of the Paranormal Activity movies, The Marked Ones).

Bear McCreary’s score is also awesome in this and he really gives the film some lift in all the right places. For instance, on the very first day there’s an obvious moment when you know there’s going to be a jump shock coming.... you are totally prepared for it but, because Bear’s musical stinger is so loud and over the top in its ferocity, you end up jumping out of your skin anyway. Without this score on it, I doubt if I would have even breathed irregularly at this moment. As a stand alone listen... I have no idea but I suspect it will be a fun spin when the CD arrives. At least this one has a CD release, so I’m grateful to the studio for allowing this one out on physical media.

The ending of the film is pretty good and you do get the feeling that Tree has grown and learned from her experiences (no matter that certain consequences of her condition are somewhat swept under the carpet by the end) although, it has to be said, having now heard about the original ending this screened with for preview audiences (who weren’t happy about the film’s last ‘twist of the knife’, so to speak), I would have much preferred the director to have kept the original conclusion to the movie. Also, one slight criticism in a near perfect slasher movie is that the montage sequence, where Tree is dying and crossing off another name on her list after each death is... well, that list wouldn’t exist in that form after the first death so you wouldn’t actually see the names being crossed off one after the other as she goes down the list... especially not with the exact same markings on as the previous version. It would just reset itself to a blank piece of paper at the start of the day. So that’s a bit of a silly error, I would say...

But everything else about this is absolutely right. The film is a very light on gore but it makes up for it with a witty script, great performances, great scoring and there’s even a nice bit of post-modern, meta-textual shenanigans as one of the characters likens Tree’s account of her experiences as being like the movie Groundhog Day... which is a good way to get me on your side if your movie is halfway decent but derivative. Wear your inspirational template on your sleeve like this and you have at least made an attempt to not insult the intelligence of the audience. So knowing winks like that really help.

If you are a fan of American slasher movies and you want something slightly different with glossy production values then Happy Death Day is right up your street. I really don’t care for the genre too much unless it’s maybe directed by Brian De Palma (I much prefer the Italian gialli of the late 1960s to mid-1980s for a more stylish and interesting product) but this one really impressed me and I would thoroughly recommend it. Don’t let this one pass you by. 

Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse

DYB DYB DYB Of The Dead

Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse
2015 USA
Directed by Christopher Landon
UK cinema release print.

Ha! You know, if I’d have known this film had the same director as the only bad Paranormal Activity movie, The Marked Ones (reviewed here) then I would probably given it a wide birth... then again, maybe not. It’s pretty hard to fail with a movie that has the title Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse and, as it happens, I was rather glad I gave this one a try. It’s not too terrible, actually.

The film comes from a long line of movies which pitch occupations or stereotypes against a set of B-movie style monsters such as Zombie Strippers (reviewed here), Cockneys VS Zombies (reviewed here) and Strippers VS Werewolves (reviewed here). Like a lot of those kinds of movies it’s a mostly hit and miss affair (the exception being Cockneys VS Zombies... which is pure class all the way) with a lot of emphasis on fun and as much in the movie that works as there is that doesn’t.

The story is about the last three boy Scouts in a small town about to participate in what two of them think will be their last night wearing the uniform. They plan to tell both their best friend and also the Scout's leader (played by David Koechner) about their decision to leave the Scouts after this last campout... after sneaking out to a party in the middle of it... at least that’s the plan. However, zombie shenanigans are afoot and it doesn’t take long before their chief is the victim of a zombie deer which was accidentally run over by two of the guys earlier. So it’s up to the three remaining buddies played by Tye Sheridan, Logan Miller and Joey Morgan... and a cool as heck, firearms skill-set stripper they befriend, played by Sarah Dumont... to rescue whoever is left in town who isn’t a zombie and get out of there before the military bomb the whole place in two hours time. So there’s your plot set up... simple but absolutely effective for this kind of movie.

The film is a bit uneven in that there’s a lot of crude or vulgar humour in it and, to be honest, I’m not sure I’m quite the target audience the writers were aiming at. That being said, there’s also some clever stuff and, frankly, the writers had me on their side as soon as I saw that the name of the local strip joint was called Lawrence Of Alabia. When the puns are that strong and sexy... I’m in for the duration, for sure.

Luckily, as it happens, the movie also has a lot of heart and though the adolescent shenanigans of the sex hungry Scouts are used to drive certain parts of the narrative, the four lead characters are all fairly sympathetic people who most people will be rooting for and who you wouldn’t, in all honesty, mind hanging out with for a few hours in a pub... so there’s some strong writing in here too, bolstered up by some sterling performances from the main cast.

There’s also the fact that the writing of the characters follows through on their initial set ups rather well, which is something Hollywood doesn’t often do very well these days. Okay, granted the intentions of two of the characters have changed by the end of the movie but that’s kind of understandable in that they’ve grown somewhat, arguably, from their high energy, zombie crunching adventures... so that’s to be forgiven. However, for example, we also have the great stripper character Denise, played by Sarah Dumont. Yes, she’s initially treated as eye candy to a certain extent but, ultimately, she proves to be probably the strongest, most confident character in the film... not only rescuing the three male protagonists regularly but also using a smattering of her sexuality to imbibe Tye Sheridan with the confidence to achieve something he wants to get out of life (yeah, I’m trying to leave out the spoilers here so pardon me if that’s a cryptic reference). All the time, though, her character follows through on not being that interested in hooking up with any of the male leads and, ultimately, not letting herself become a figure of ‘happy ending’ lovers syndrome which plagues so many movies... her character finishes out the movie with her sexuality intact and uncompromised by any of the male protagonists in the film... and that’s a good and confident arc for any character to have, I think. Dumont really nails the performance too... it has to be said.

Some of the jokes do fall flat and are a bit crude in places, often involving various zombie body parts like the breasts and penis under extreme duress... but the film is also inventive in some places too. While there is frequent blood and gore, like all the best zombie movies, there’s also some creative variations on the violence too... one of which, involving the top end of a broken off bottle and which got a big laugh from the audience I was with, is something I definitely didn't see coming. Also, the weapons the Scouts ‘MacGyver up’ at the end in the obligatory pre-showdown ‘tooling up’ sequence, while seemingly a little long in terms of content for a time limit of a town that’s going to blow up in less than two hours, also throws some interestingly gory moments into the mix.

All in all, there’s not a hell of a lot more I can say about Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse other than, unlike most zombie movies, where everything is usually left completely unexplained, there is a scene at the start of the movie which does at least clarify where and how the zombie outbreak starts... even though there’s still not too much in terms of explanation as to why it’s been started in the first place, depending on how you decode the intent of a laboratory technician at the start of the picture. This aside though, the higher moral pitch of the characters more than makes up for any off colour humour, which may or may not seem in bad taste in certain sections of the movie and everything's done with a certain sense of fun which comes across, almost by osmosis, to the audience. It’s not exactly a classic movie but it certainly is going to hold your attention and make you smile a lot. This flick would definitely play well to an 'all nighter marathon' kind of crowd and, if you are already a zombie movie fan, then this kind of ‘something versus zombies’ movie is definitely an event kind of film. Certainly check it out if you are into horror comedies with a lot of goriness to them... or your DYB DYB DYB may come to a DOB DOB DOBBY end.

Paranormal Activity - The Marked Ones

Marking Bad

Paranormal Activity - The Marked Ones

2014 USA

Directed by Christopher Landon

Playing at UK cinemas now.

Warning: There will be some spoilers in here.

Okay... so if you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ll probably know that I adore the Paranormal Activity films, at least the ones which were made in the USA... I’ve not been able to get a subtitled copy of the Japanese sequel to the original movie, Paranormal Activity 2: Tokyo Night due to, presumably, the Hollywood studios suppressing a release in English speaking countries (I can only, at time of writing this article, track down versions with Italian or French subtitles... so please let me know if you have any leads to picking up a decent, English subtitled DVD of the same).

This sixth (depending on how you choose to count them) entry into the series is a sideways swipe of a movie, shot as a fill in to bridge the release gap between Paranormal Activity 4 and the next one in the series, erm, Paranormal Activity 5... although my understanding is that Paranormal Activity 5 was done and in the can before this one was even made. Is that correct? Maybe the producers don’t have much confidence in it.

Anyway, up until now, although I loved the first in the series... I always considered that movie to be the weakest of the films, not because it wasn’t any good - it was. It’s just that the first one wasn’t scary like the other ones turned out to be. However, now I’ve seen this installment, I’d have to say that this is now my least favourite of the series, not because it isn’t scary... it really is. Scary as hell. The usual high blood pressure and heart attack inducing shenanigans ensue, especially if you are going to see this in the company of a young, impressionable audience at the cinema. However... I did have some really big problems with this movie too.

My biggest problem, though, is that I didn’t sympathise with any of the main protagonists of the movie and, frankly, I didn’t care what happened to them. One of the two main guys is fresh from his College graduation and, frankly, I just assumed that a lot of his time before the spooky goings on were happening, and all through the film, would be about getting himself a job and becoming an upstanding, working citizen.

Nope.

He and his friends are just, basically, thugs. Lazy teenagers who just seem to think its fine loafing around, acting goofy, playing mean pranks and doing nothing to help themselves. Seriously, this lot are worse than the kids in Attack the Block but, whereas in that film the issues inherent in the chemical make up of the so-called “heroes” was addressed at various times in the movie, here it’s just accepted that these are typical teenagers somehow... and presumably the film’s primary target audience of cinemagoing teenagers is supposed to identify with them. Lord help us if they do!

Another big problem is that the found footage style of film-making, which has served the series so well right from the start of the franchise (before they even figured out this would be scary, cheap and profitable enough to be a franchise) is adhered to as it should be... but with absolutely no apparent reason for this to be the case. Seriously, at least the other films in the franchise made a passable effort to justify the use of found footage media. Using surveillance cameras and switching to different sources to build a picture where the use of video of camera equipment would be justified. Here the main protagonists don’t even have a camera fetish like a couple of the characters in the past films. Here they just seem to be intent on recording stuff when they obviously are not interested in the camera in the slightest and will even remember to pick up the camera when they are running for their lives.

Seriously? The producers expect us to believe this?

The actions by various characters in this film defy credibility and that means I didn’t buy into it the way I would in a film where that layer of super-realism was deliberately used. I would have thought this is something the film-makers would have realised. The [REC] films abandoned this style a little way in to the third entry in that series and, although I didn’t agree with that departure from the format myself, if the writers couldn’t have written what they wanted to show credibly within that found footage format then you can see why they decided to rid themselves of those shackles. Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones is a good film to use as an example of why you wouldn’t continue with that format if you can’t write convincingly for it.

There are some good moments in this one though. The scenes where the old hand held electronic game Simon, which was popular for a year or two in the late 1970s, is used as a variation of a ouija board, is fun but, this also brings problems of its own. If this film is aimed at teenagers, and I’m pretty sure it is, they’re probably not going to remember an old toy which was briefly popular nearly 40 years ago. So... nice idea but maybe a little too low tech for the teenage audience Hollywood producers tend to target.

There are also a fair few cameos from previous episodes in the series, which is nice, including the surviving daughter from Paranormal Activity 2 and, most interestingly, Katie (a regular character in all the US installments in the franchise) and Micah, her husband who was killed at the end of the first film.

Wait? What?

The film is set in 2012... so how does this happen?

Well, if you’re paying attention during one of the “young thugs doing research” sequences of this one, you will hear references to time travel, when talking about the demon spirits and, presumably, the witch army we have seen the coven recruiting for in previous episodes. And, yeah, there’s a sequence right at the end of this one which dovetails straight into the first movie, via time travel. And I have to say that this is the tackiest writing choice I have seen in the franchise. Also a self defeating one because, if you’re building a demon army, you might as well do it in the past and there you go, it’s already done before you know it. Yeah, I know. First born sons etc need to be waited for... but then they can be whisked back in time and still exist then, I would guess... whether they were born or not. In fact, if that’s the case then the demons already know the outcome of their work, surely? It’s all very confusing and I think this element is something which is going to trip the franchise up later on down the line. But they’ve committed to it now so there’s not much anyone can do about it. Kind of a hard element to overlook in the grand scheme of things.

And that’s about it as far as Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones goes. As you would expect, the film is well acted by all the performers. Yes, acting really unsympathetically most of the time but at least you can kinda believe in them. I do think the franchise has taken a bad step with this one though. Of course, if you’re into these films, you really do need to see this one as it’s another jigsaw piece of the overall story... but I’m hoping the next one is better than this mess of a movie. The first “not so good” entry in the series.