Tusk (2014) Review

Tusk is a comedy horror directed by Kevin Smith (the guy behind the Clerks series). For a guy who usually focuses on comedy and comic book related media, it was super interesting to see his dark side. This movie was brought to my attention by my dad, who claims it was one of the most disturbing movies he's ever seen. That's saying something given the history with scary movies he's had. Even my brother backed him, and he's tough as nails. It would take something pretty edgy to weird him out.
The movie focuses on a podcaster who goes to Canada and ends up in an interview with an old man who has a history at sea. This man as it turns out, survived on a deserted island for quite a while with the help of a walrus who saved his life. As his time went on, he eventually was forced to eat the animal, who he had named Mr. Tusk. Now, he seeks to give his friend another chance at life. By which he means surgically turning our protagonist into a walrus.
Now, this is the part where people would nervously laugh or just stand up and leave the movie. The first thing that comes to mind is that Tusk is basically Human Centipede with a walrus instead. Did Kevin Smith really write and direct this?
But its really not. Human Centipede is arguably the most unwatchable torture film ever that tries way too hard and lingers on every detail that would be best left up to audience interpretation. I went into Tusk expecting a movie like that, but left completely underwhelmed.
As strange as the movie is, its actually somewhat decent. It's not too focused on the torture and gory details and saves the shock factor for the walrus man...thing reveal which will effectively burn itself into the viewer's memory. In short, it's basically a man who has his legs removed and arms stitched to his torso. Then his femur bones are sharpened akin to walrus tusks and attached to his face. He is then sewn a walrus suit made from human flesh.
It's not just his physical transformation that is emphasized, but also his mental. This poor man's mind begins to break and he loses grip of his humanity and becomes more like an animal, a walrus. At the same time, his friends from the podcast are looking for him.
Of course, there is some dark comedy thrown in the mix. But depending on who you are, it may not be laughable as it is rather horrifying. For me, it was a little bit of both.
Tusk isn't the best thing ever, nothing I'd write home about. It's understandable that some people find it hard to watch, but that's part of its appeal. It's one of those movies that you have to give a bit of time to appreciate. Also remember, there is much, much worse that the movie industry has to offer then this.
As it turns out, Tusk is also the first part in a trilogy of movies that Kevin Smith has planned. The common theme is Canada, as weird as it sounds. The second movie is in progress, which I don't know a whole lot about. The third movie is apparently titled 'Moose Jaws'. And as Smith puts it, "it's Jaws, but with a Moose."
Say no more, I'm on board.

Horror Icons: Tobe Hooper

Tobe Hooper, every horror fan should know him. He's up there with the greats like John Carpenter and Wes Craven. If you're not familiar with him then you might better remember his 1974 picture, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. If it's bloody and edgy, then Hooper's name is attached to it. Here I'll be running down his movie career, not the whole package just some of his that I've seen and am familiar with.
We'll start with Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Hooper directed completely under a low budget and independently. Before its release, the only monsters we had were demons and the classical likes of Frankenstein and Dracula. Horror was taken to a whole new level when this movie came out as it brought gory bloodshed and sometimes hard to watch scenes. What made it truly scary was the fact that the beginning set up a documentary like setting before diving in. This set up the illusion that the events were true. They weren't really, but it could happen. There's nothing supernatural about a family of maniacs living in the backwoods and killing people after torturing them. The villain, Leatherface, would become one of the future faces of horror with his chainsaw.
The sequel, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, was released 12 years later in 1986 with Hooper returning to direct. Not really much to say about it except it upped the bloodshed and took an aim for a dark comedy. A really, really dark comedy. It wasn't as good as the original, but still has that Tobe Hooper feel. From there on out, the series would receive a number of other sequels, each one worse then the last. Then an ok reboot, I guess.
Before Texas Chainsaw 2, Tobe Hooper directed The Funhouse in 1981. My dad saw this movie with his parents while it was in theaters when he was a kid...I think he left the auditorium shaking and traumatized. Its really a lesser known movie and is often included in compilations of underrated horror movies. The plot focuses on a two teen couples attempting to spend the night in a carnival's dark ride funhouse. The attraction is run by a strange man with his son who always wears a Frankenstein monster mask when out in public. I won't give away too much, but the face reveal of the killer will burn itself into anyone's mind, regardless of how it ages.
The following year in 82, Hooper would work alongside Steven Spielberg and bring us Poltergeist. This is a supernatural horror story at its finest. It's also fair to mention that it was rated PG, even though there are some scenes that pushes it into the R territory. Spielberg then got the brilliant idea to suggest a rating that ran between PG and R, and we all know what came of that; the PG-13 rating. So, in a way, Tobe Hooper helped create PG-13. Poltergeist would also go on to be nominated for three Oscars, a rare case for a horror movie. We also got a Poltergeist remake earlier this year...yeah, but why though?
The last Hooper film I remember watching was The Mangler from 1995. Yes, based on the Stephen King short story about a possessed laundry pressing machine. This wasn't the first time Hooper did a King story, he directed a TV movie of Salem's Lot back in the 70s. The movie starred Ted Levine (Buffalo Bill from Silent of the Lambs) and Robert Englund (Freddy from the Nightmare on Elm Street series). For such a short story to be adapted into a movie, new material had to be added. The gore and scare factors play well here and it has the Hooper fib to it, but I guess it didn't work out in the long run. Despite it, it actually stays pretty faithful to the short story, about the same as Children of the Corn did. IMDB is way too harsh on this movie, giving it a 3.9. I say its worth about a 5.5. Its no masterpiece, but its worth a watch. As for the two other sequels, throw them in the garbage.
A few honorable mentions are Salem's Lot (1979), Eaten Alive (1976), and Spontaneous Combustion (1990). Tobe Hooper continues directing today, but all his work is a bit under the radar and don't see a theatrical release unless its big budget. I would agree that Texas Chainsaw Massacre is his magnum opus and heavenly contribution. He made his impact on horror and continues to be referred to as one of the masters of the genre.

SOMA Review

When I last discussed Frictional Games, it was during my revisit to Amnesia A Machine For Pigs, the sequel to The Dark Descent (said to Frictional Games' magnum opus). Unknown to me, is that during that time in September, Frictional Games released a new title, SOMA.
I'm late to jump on the band wagon here. It took me sometime around to actually get the game, then another month or so to complete it. SOMA is another survival horror game, masterfully done by Frictional Games. What sets it apart from the other titles is that it sinks a bit into the Science Fiction genre with its extremely immersive setting.
The game puts you in the role of Simon, a Toronto native, who suddenly finds himself in the underwater lab, Pathos II in the far, doomed future. I'm going to keep this spoiler free, because if you were to play the game knowing everything, then the entire experience would be ruined.
The world of Pathos II is super immersive, everything can play a role in advancing forward and the whole plot isn't explained to you up front. There's interactive objects throughout the levels that elaborate the hidden lore. The gameplay borrows several elements from the Amnesia series. There's no methods of fighting back or attacking, all you have is a light and a certain amount of health (usually its two hits and you're dead). You have to entirely use your wits to continue.
Each of the levels are designed as mazes with certain puzzles that must be completed. The jump from an old dark house to a desolate undersea lab creates a much more claustrophobic feel. If the brain teasers aren't enough, then the robotic monsters will drive any player from taking a break.
The monsters of this game are kind of mixes of barnacles and machinery. They're huge dark blobs for the most part, but it starts to get pretty freighting when they take on humanoid shapes.
Seriously, imagine walking down a dark hallway and the screen starts to become disorienting and you could just make out a human shadow at the end, that's this game. And if your stomach hasn't dropped yet, then the creatures actually break out in a full sprint towards you. You can run all you want, but eventually they will catch you.
But they really appear in every other level. The true essence of SOMA is in its level design and immersion. You can use computer terminals throughout Pathos II to solve the puzzles most of the time, the game heavily stresses this. The hidden lore also has a certain charm to it, like uncovering the mystery about what happened to Pathos II. There's also points in the game where you can make your own decisions and take a break from the linear path, don't worry they don't seem to effect the ending.
So in short, SOMA is another great game released by Frictional Games. And from my time with their library, it's better then Amnesia A Machine For Pigs and slightly falls beneath Amnesia The Dark Descent. Primarily because SOMA doesn't really have a good replay value while The Dark Descent does. Once you know everything, it loses its novelty. But give it one play through and its like being apart of a really good movie.

Tales from the Crypt, A Short Revisit

I'm not talking about the TV series that most people are familiar with, I'm talking about the comic book series from the 1950s which the episodes are based off of. Now, the show didn't draw its inspiration from just the Tales from the Crypt books, but also its running mates (lack for better words); The Vault of Horror and Haunt of Fear. Each of these presented their own collection of stories. Each one had their own mascot-like character, the Crypt Keeper was for Tales from the Crypt, the Vault Keeper was for The Vault of Horror, and the Old Witch was for the Haunt of Fear.
Now, aside from the television series, these comics also inspired other horror classics such as Creepshow and its various sequels. I can't talk about the comics without addressing the stir that they caused. The 1950s was the hay day of creating stereotypical images of what a nuclear family should look like and it was believed that these comic books were unhealthy for kids to read as it would leave bad impressions on their minds. Sort of akin to today's myths that video games and movies would provoke kids to commit violent acts. I beg to differ since people such as R.L. Stine, Stephen King, and George Romero bought and read these as kids and look at them today.
Each issue had three stories within them, each one being from the three different story tellers. As the side bar on the title suggest, they all had something to do with that theme. Tales from the Crypt tried to provoke terror, Vault of Horror was horror, and Haunt of Fear was fear. Some of the best stories arguably came from the Vault of Horror.
They can be enjoyed by anyone since they have been reprinted numerous times since the 50s. I, personally have a few issues from the time they were reprinted in the 90s and the whole set of Tales from the Crypt issues within the three volume set of hardcover books.
I've read a fair amount of the stories, and I can honestly not see why there was such a fuss over them. The stories are extremely well thought out and there isn't a whole lot of emphasis on gore (for better or worse). If anything, I can honestly say that they can provoke creative thinking.
Despite the demise of these comics, numerous revivals have been made to keep them alive.

Crimson Peak Review

Over my Fall Break I was able to see Crimson Peak. I have to be honest, I was super hyped for this movie when it first got announced on IMDB. Maybe it was because a big time director like Guillermo Del Toro was attached to it or there were familiar actors like Tom Hiddleston (Loki from the Marvel Cinematic Universe) and Mia Wasikowska (Alice from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland). But I think it was because it was advertised as a haunted house based plot taking place in the 1800s and early 1900s. I'm a sucker for ghost stories in the older ages, in fact, my favorite horror film from the millennia is The Woman in Black. Movies like these go back to films like Dracula or Frankenstein in a Gothic Victorian era setting. It kind of reminds me of Amnesia The Dark Descent at times. I won't try to spoil it, but I have to go into it a bit to do it justice. So, I guess, sort of spoiler alert.
When the trailers came out, it was no mystery that this was going to be a horror movie. After all it was marketed as such, highlighting the house itself and jump cuts of the ghosts (whose designs scream Del Toro's name). It seemed like just a mundane horror movie that would meet too much expectations and only horror junkies like myself where drawn to it. After seeing the movie, I can now say that I went in and got something completely different.
The movie centers around a girl named Edith Cushing (Wasikowska), a daughter of a businessman in early 1900s America. She's also a rising writer it seems, since its only mentioned as a side note and doesn't play a huge role (so you'd think). An English Baronet, Thomas Sharpe (Hiddleston) arrives in America with his sister (Jessica Chastain) seeking an investment from Edith's father to assist him in his clay mining projects. He and his sister live in a mansion outside of their native town and is located just above a mine of particular red clay.
Edith spends time with Thomas during his visit, despite her father rejecting him and even bribing him to leave and they fall in love. When Edith's father is murdered by an unseen killer, she marries Sharpe and moves in with him.
That's all back story and at this point you might be wondering, well where are the ghosts? Isn't this a ghost story? There may or not be a debate on this, is Crimson Peak a horror movie? Wikipedia has it listed as a gothic romance film. I will never in a million years pay money to see a romance movie and it certainly didn't feel like one. However, the movie appears to be aware of this. Edith is said to be in the process of writing a book, we never get to see what its about but everyone who looks at it calls it a ghost story. To which Edith replies that its not and the ghosts are merely metaphors of the past.
She just described the movie, this blew my mind. Edith first began seeing ghosts as a young girl, in fact, it was that of her own mother warning her of Crimson Peak. So, she isn't surprised in anyway that ghosts are real and there's no tedious build up to there appearance.
So what's the point of the movie? If its not about the ghosts, then what is it about? I think its a mystery, like Amnesia The Dark Descent its someone trying to figure out what the deal is with the house they find themselves in.
We associate ghosts with death and haunting, meaning that they were once living people who passed away and now haunt the house of Crimson Peak. There's quite a few ghosts in that house, all of which are young women and there's even one of a baby. How did they die? Why is Thomas and his sister always acting so weird?
So, gothic romance or horror, Crimson Peak is one of the smartest movies in the genre I've seen in a while. And yes, I believe it falls into the horror category. For all I know, Dracula was a gothic romance and that went on to become an horror icon. As for a Guillermo Del Toro movie, it definitely feels like one with its creature designs and some actors who appeared in his earlier Pacific Rim also pop in and out. If you liked Pan's Labyrinth, then you'll like Crimson Peak.

So...We're Getting a Friday the 13th Videogame

I couldn't believe it myself when I first heard it. Gaming sites all around at least have some small mention of a Friday the 13th game in development for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. As you would it expect, it is based on the slasher series of the same name. It's hard to imagine that it would be possible to make a game of such. The last time they tired it was back in the 80s for the oldest of game consoles when cartridges were still a thing. The same happened to A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and even Halloween (all of which didn't work out too well since they were just advertising the films that were recently released. The Friday the 13th game, released in 1989 was infamous for being a horrible game.
This time, the people who were involved in the movie seem to be supporting the release of this game. Tom Savini (the special effects director) and Kane Hodder (the actor who played Jason in parts 7-10) are reported to have some involvement.
However, the main hype about this game comes from the fact that Jason will actually be a playable character. In the 1989 game, you played the role of a camp employee rescuing campers while at the same time, avoiding and fighting Jason. It's also announced to be multiplayer with some players taking the role of counselors while one plays as Jason and must kill them all off, just like in the movies.The premise kind of remind me of Evolve released just last year, in which four players take the role of monster hunters while one is the monster. The game ends with the monster killing all the hunters or vice versa. The monster, being against four other people, is given more powerful abilities and more to work with. Jason, being the hard-to-kill machete wielding maniac we all know and love, might take some effort to defeat. When it comes to the methods of killing, we can expect a lot. Since Tom Savini, the master of gore himself will be designing them.
There's not a whole lot to tell about the game since it hasn't been released yet. What we do know is that it is being funded by Kickstarter and is being developed by Gun Media. A final release date has yet to be announced.

The Haunting of Hill House (1959) by Shirely Jackson Review

I'm starting to get a bit lazy with these posts. Instead of reviewing something I've seen or read recently, I'm covering something I read sometime in January. Now, the only other time I've heard of Shirely Jackson was in 7th grade when we read her short story, The Lottery. It came as a bit of shock to me, seeing how she decided to write a horror story sometime in her career. However, who am I to judge a book that is considered to be one of the best ghost stories of the 20th century and a finalist for the National Book Reward?
The Haunting of Hill House is known for incorporating terror rather then horror to ensure a unique reading experience. It's really your classic haunted house story, taking four outsiders and placing them into this house. We have Dr. Montague (paranormal investigator), Eleanor (the main focused character with mommy issues), Luke (the heir to the house), and Theodora (an artist). There are also Mr. and Mrs. Dudley (the caretakers of the house who always leave at nightfall) and later on they are joined my Mrs. Montague and Arthur (a headmaster of some school). All the characters are unique in their personalities and all seemed to be developed well. They're all staying in the house by the request of Dr. Montague to see if the rumors of Hill House really being haunted are true.
Throughout the book, they all encounter something paranormal but Eleanor is the only one who experiences it more with the others not knowing a whole lot. These events are your classic haunted house scenarios; shadowy figures roaming the halls, writing on the walls which no one claims to have done, and things moving on their own. Of course, the house's history is explored. Hill House had a past of deaths and suicides since the time of its construction in the late 1800s. Death related events within a facility usually point to reasons why it is haunted in most instances. Crimson Peak, coming out soon this month and I plan it to see, seems to have drawn a bit of influence from this book it seems.
For me, I don't think my reading experience of this book wasn't what it should've been. I felt that it moved at a slow pace, mostly lingering on the interactions between the characters rather then the hauntings at hand. In fact, I really can't recall a whole lot happening within the first one hundred twenty pages, and the book is only two hundred forty six. What really is the most elaborated on is Eleanor and Theodora's relationship, even more so then supernatural forces inhabiting the house. The book really amps up the terror factor by the end. It's not one of my favorite books, but I'm well aware of the place it holds in the history of horror. I may not have enough evidence to back this up, but could this be the book that started the trend of a group of people venturing into a haunted house? I'm not sure since some of the Vincent Price movies from the fifties explored the same territory. He was in a movie called "House on Haunted Hill" in 1959, the same year Shirely Jackson published The Haunting of Hill House, is there a connection? Probably not.
As for more media adaptions, two movie forms of The Haunting of Hill House were made. There was the 1963, which is the proclaimed "good one", being faithful to the book, and the 1999 one which was met with negative reception despite having big time actors like Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Owen Wilson.
So, The Haunting of Hill House, is it worth a read? Yes, but don't expect it cutting right to the chase. It's best to give it a little bit of time to let it wind up.