Don't Tell Mama (What CGI You Saw)

Feral kids and messy crayon drawings, amiright?


Quick Plot: A frantic car radio news report informs us that the financial crisis has led an executive (played by Game of Thrones Jaime Lannister, who shall be known as The Kingslayer until further notice) to shoot his wife. The Kingslayer drives home and grabs his two young daughters, Cathy's Curse-style, for a dangerously speedy drive through snowy terrain. An accident leads them on foot to a mysterious cabin in the woods (waaa-oooooo--oo--oooh), where The Kingslayer tearfully plans on shooting his precious little girls in one of those horrific murder/suicide/family slaughter sprees. Before he can fire, a ghostly figure storms in, saving the day.

Oops. Wrong one.

Nailed it.

Flash forward five years to The Kinglsayer's twin brother (we'll call him Jaime and leave it to our fan fiction minds to wonder if these twins are as close as the Kingsguard member and Cersei) has been searching for his missing nieces while living in a cramped apartment with his girlfriend Annabel (Jessica I'm In Everything Chastain), a member of a rock band. We know Annabel is in a rock band because, in addition to her sleeve tattoos and raccoon eyeliner, characters are constantly referring to the fact that she is indeed, and I quote, "in a rock band."

The girls, Victoria and Lilly, are eventually discovered living out a quiet life like Jodie Foster in Nell but with more dirt and less tay in da winds. A psychiatrist with ulterior motives takes charge of their case and places them with Jaime and Annabel in a suburban home. Before you can compare definitions of Insidious to Sinister,  Jaime Lannister is sent to the emergency room while Annabel attempts to fry Spaghettios, bond with two near-feral children, fight off the plot convenience/uptight sister-in-law seeking custody, and defend her new family from a supernatural, supermaternal force the girls affectionately call Mama.

Directed by newcomer Andres Muschietti and produced by genre cinema fairy godfather Guillermo Del Toro, Mama is a good film polluted with some devastating visual choices. The cast is marvelous, from Chastain's sympathetic (at least to me) child-fearing musician (rock band style) to the wonderfully creepy/sweet little actresses cast as the children who should indeed be feared. The nature of the monster has some tragic and genuinely new roots, making the mystery something that's easy to care about.

Then there's the monster itself.

On the Blu Ray extras, one featurette includes an interview with Del Toro describing how they decided on a less-is-more approach with the character of Mama. I'd hate to see the original more-is-more plan.

The concept of Mama is eerily effective: the ghost of a woman suffering post-partem depression in the 19th century trying to make good by adopting a new family? That's great stuff! Having a little girl first describe her appearance with "Daddy, there's a woman outside and she's not touching the floor?" Brilliant! Ultimately showing the ghost as a pixelated J-horror villain who can't move without causing a giant sound cue to menacingly violate us with her presence? Ugh.

Mama is a creepy story. It's got feral children, awkward crayon pictures, things hiding in closets, characters who are virtually blind without easily breakable glasses, quiet-speaking librarians with long braids, and high cliffs with precariously placed branches just waiting to stab jumpers. It's like a perfectly cooked steak that an overanxious chef decided would be improved by adding a bacon-sage-ranch-passionfruit dressing. That's a shame.

High Points
I will never argue with the use of children's crayon drawings to generate creepiness

Low Points
The aforementioned abominable CGI designs aren't the worst put to screen, but the fact that an otherwise atmospheric film relies way too heavily on shoving them in our faces is a tragedy

Lessons Learned
Never trust a moth. When it comes to horror movies, those things never have good intentions

There’s a place for human remains and it’s not on a shelf in a government building

You know it's getting late when the sun is shining brightly through your windows

Rent/Bury/Buy

Mama is a frustrating film. I enjoyed so much about it, which made some of its failings more personal.Still, those who enjoy a good old fashioned ghost story with minor twists will find something of interest here, even if you wish you were occasionally wearing foggy glasses to hide some of what's onscreen. The Blu Ray comes loaded with an impressive batch of special features, including a commentary, the original 3 minute short film, and a making-of documentary that's worth a watch simply to hear a whole lot of grownups say "maMa."

I Wish the Goblin Things Would Take You Away

Before I even dare to discuss Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, allow me to describe the episode of Law & Order: SVU that the lead child actress Bailee Madison guest starred on. Madison plays a girl named McKenzie who runs away from her adoptive mother Joan Cusack to catch a train at Grand Central with someone the cops initially assume to be a child molester (played by the sexy Scott Henry Ian Cusick, who SPOILER ALERT two episodes later turns out indeed to be a child molester) only to discover McKenzie was actually meeting up with her former foster brother to escape crazy Joan Cusack who’s gone off the deep end ever since her first daughter went missing on an upstate camping trip and since adopted McKenzie to recreate her birth child, complete with a hair dye and nose job. You’re still with me, right? We’re only halfway there. Because now the detectives are convinced Joan Cusack is KARAZEE and decide to investigate her for the DEATH of her first daughter. Some poking and prodding (including at a Thai massage parlor where a former underage porn star works) leads them back upstate where they discover that the first kid WAS INDEED kidnapped by a backwoods mountain man who made the kid his slave wife. The shivering shell of a woman gets reunited with a still-crying Joan Cusack at the end, the forgotten adopted daughter silently nods at Olivia, and Dick Wolf’s name comes up to the sound of a gavel).

Now what was I talking about again?

Quick Plot: Sometime 100 years ago or so, a desperate man yanks his maid's teeth out as an offering to something mysterious in his basement that has apparently taken his son. The donation doesn't get the desired result.

Flashing forward to the present, 10-year-old Sally is moving to that same lordly estate with her estranged architect dad Alex (Memento's Guy Pearce) and his art historian girlfriend Kim (Mousy Holmes). It doesn't take long for Sally to discover they're not alone, as mysterious voices call out to her from behind the bolted basement ash door in a playful whisper.

Surely they mean no harm! Yes, they got naughty with Kim's fancy dresses but for the lonely depressed-in-the-making Sally, these things seem like possible fairy friends...until they stab the house's caretaker in the back with scissors and proceed to torment the poor girl whenever the lights go out.

You’re wondering what the villains look like I assume. Appropriately short, or else they wouldn’t be invited to The Shortening. They’re gray little bat things with glowing eyes or, if it helps, the spitting image of the goblin from Goblin -

but with big ungainly hunchbacks --

and shrunk down to the size of Barbie dolls.

It's a problem, because for a good deal of its buildup, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark does a decent job at being scary. "Her name is Salllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyy," whisper the creatures in a fairly unsettling tone. It's not until we--and Salllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy--catch a glimpse of the rugrats in their full CGI glory that we say 'eh, that's pretty stupid.'

In fairness, one of the films that terrified me the most as a child--and fine, still kind of does--is Stephen King's Cat's Eye. Putting aside the first two 'grownup' segments, it's the third story starring Drew Barrymore as an innocent child TORMENTED by an ugly gray goblin living in her bedroom that always made me hug my Pound Puppy. In part it's Barrymore's performance and the idea that a little kid could be put in such danger. The design of the villainous troll has certainly aged by 21st century standards, but a recent rewatch made me no less unnerved. It's the pure ugliness of the creature (wearing a ragged jester's cap no less!) that made me believe--then and now--that this thing liked to murder innocents in their beds.

The problem with Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is that the 'things' to be afraid of are, plain and simple, executed poorly. The idea is fine, with them resembling a cross between emaciated humans, vampire bats, and mothballs, but when pixelated and thrown in closeup, they look SyFy Channel ready. I understand the physical and financial limits of puppetry. But I also understand the basic fact that building your horror movie around something that is supposed to be horrifying then delivering something from an early 1995 draft of a failed PBS kids show set in Gollum's day care center is generally not the way to make your audience happy.

And another thing about Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark: it’s not the worst genre film to enter theaters last year. But 10 hours after watching it, as I sit here and type out a review, I kind of can’t believe how many little problems it has overall. I submit:

-An early scene where Sally is trying to convince the adults that there are creatures behind the ash door. Dad bends down to investigate. Director Troy Nixey’s camera gives us a sexy shot of Guy Pearce’s earlobe as still-mysterious tiny hands slide a sharp poker through the door’s slits, aiming it straight at the part of Guy Pearce’s body that would hear even the slightest beat. Of course he stands up just before the spear could stab him to triumphantly announce “I don’t hear anything.”

Which would be fine if the movie’s soundtrack didn’t BLAST the scraping sound of the poker sliding over metal. WE heard it, and our EARLOBES weren’t aimed DIRECTLY AT the SOUND. 

-Why is the fairly useless housekeeper an old British woman? Is it because a) they liked that actress b) they thought it added to the atmosphere or c) the filmmaker forgot that he was making a movie about a haunted New England home and decided to honor Old England?

-Any time a character hears another--often a child--SCREAMING FOR DEAR LIFE just a few rooms away, said character (usually an adult) reacts as such: 

1. Stops

2. Tenses up

3. Looks around towards the source of noise

4. Opens mouth 

5. Widens eyes

6. Sprints towards the action

Now I’ve never had to save anyone from carnivorous goblin people, but I’m going to make a bold assumption and say you can generally skip steps 1-5

-The world’s most helpful librarian explains plenty of useful exposition to Kim, including the fact that these nasty creatures have to feed on ONE body to keep them warm and toasty until the next time they emerge. But judging by the first scene, these dudes have a pretty intense appetite that isn’t sated by devouring the artist’s child. Yet SPOILER ALERT by the end of the film, the things have presumably made a Thanksgiving feast out of rail thin and buttless Katie Holmes and seem content to hang out downstairs until the next tenant. Consistency please?

That's the kind of film this is. When watching it, there are sparks of intrigue. Then you apply the slightest sense of logic and realize that just about nothing in the film works. 

Except for the fact that it’s about creepy little things and thereby a supporter of The Shortening!

High Points

Considering my recent issues with modern genre cinema’s obvious choices in sound design, I have to give credit to Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’s first major jump scare. You probably saw the leadup in the trailer, as Sally slowly unfurls her bedsheet to see what’s nipping at her feet. Most films made today would tell us the EXACT moment of reveal with a soundtrack crescendo, but this one is smart enough to catch us off guard. Even if the payoff is a tad underwhelming (Hunchback Goblin Barbie didn’t do much for me), the execution of the scene is smart

Low Points

The fact that nobody in the movie seems to have the common sense to turn the lights on

Lessons Learned

Things that won’t endear you to your prospective stepdaughter: talking teddy bears, scone baking

Drawing is easy

Either people in movies are really vulnerable to the effects of falling down the stairs or I am a superwoman. Do you KNOW how many times I’ve tumbled down or up steps? Do you KNOW how many times I’ve passed out or died from doing so? In 30 years, the answer thus far is zero. 

Terrible Parenting Alert

Poor Bailee Madison can’t catch a break with her cinematic parents. After Joan Cusack’s near brainwashing, the kid has to deal with Guy Pearce’s apathetic fathering and worse, Katie Holmes overeager stepmother-to-be incompetence. My favorite example of such involves Sally falling asleep on the grownups’ bed--because she is terrified of being eaten--Katie Holmes waking up and CARRYING THE TERRIFIED KID BACK TO HER OWN ROOM. Poor unloved Sally wakes up to plead with Kim not to leave her, which Kim kindly promises. Once the kid is out, Kim stands up, smiles, throws the god awful talking teddy bear under the covers with Sally (who has already expressed hating the stupid thing) and LEAVES THE KID TO BE ATTACKED BY CARNIVOROUS MONSTERS. I know kids say the darndest things, but when they’re paralyzed by fear, can’t you just humor them for a night?

Rent/Bury/Buy

As flawed a film as I think Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is, I still didn’t necessarily hate it. The house looks terrific and the idea of vertically challenged goblins eating children’s teeth kept me entertained enough for a good deal of its running time. I can’t recommend it to the kind of genre fan who’s bothered by logic holes and cruddy CGI. I don’t really recommend it to anyone, but I think there are those with a more forgiving attitude towards modern theatrical horror (if you exist) that will find it more enjoyable than some other mainstream releases. Or not. 

Killer Klowns From Outer Spain

If like me, you had a decidedly American education when it came to social studies, your knowledge of Spain’s history is probably about as rich as a bag of sodium-free rice cakes. It’s a shame of course, but thankfully, there are some pretty fascinating filmmakers today toying mightily to create surreal metaphors that play as historical(ish) horror movies. Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth is the obvious example, but with The Last Circus, director Alex de la Iglesia creates his own odd--though those three letters don’t really do this tale’s bizarreness any form of justice--spin on Franco and the Spanish Civil War...

or maybe he’s just telling a dramatic love story...

or imagining what Taxi Driver would’ve been like if Travis Bickle were a circus clown (aside from it being renamed ‘Comically Undersized Car Driver,’ of course)

It’s not an easy diagnosis.

Quick Plot: When a peaceful children’s circus clown is dragged into battle and immediately thereafter, hard labor military prison, his son Javier grows up sad...sad CLOWN sad, you might even say. After an ill-fated rescue attempt involving some mighty heavy horse shoes, Javier is orphaned. We revisit him some years later in the 1970s, well after peace is declared and Javier (now played by Carlos Areces) has evolved from an awkwardly skinny teen into an awkwardly chubby boy-child starting his first day of work as, you guessed it, a sad clown.

At the circus, we’re introduced to the typical carny lot, from Ramiro the elephant keeper to a bickering couple with doggie training issues to a vertically challenged daredevil biker. Most of note is Sergio, the superstar head clown who’s great with kids but terrible with alcohol, particularly when it’s drunk in the presence of his beautiful acrobat wife Natalia.

A love triangle ensues, following the typical light-hearted rom-com tropes of spousal abuse, sad trumpet face smashes and dead baby jokes. For reasons that won’t be spoiled here, Javier is forced to flee the circus and survive naked in a forest ditch on raw deer meat before becoming a servant dog to the man who killed his father.

Got that? Trust me when I say there’s a whole lot of story points that I can’t cover, some of which includes presidential assassination and Kojak strip shows. At a certain point, Javier undergoes a horrifying self-imposed transformation terrifyingly teased by the tragically underachieving American poster art:

Irons and sulfuric acid are involved. So are squirms.

It all leads to a frantic finale set atop a 500 foot high cross, which Wikipedia was kind enough to tell me was The Valley of the Fallen, a controversial monument ordered by Francisco Franco--himself a supporting player in The Last Circus. As Javier chases Natalia, Sergio chases Javier, the police chase Sergio, and some of the beloved circus folk watch while the soundtrack roars...and roars...and roars.

Subtlety ain’t served at this circus.

The Last Circus is, as you might imagine, an odd bit of cinema. If it were a pizza, you might say the circus is a historical metaphor for 20th century Spanish history, the cheese is pure horror movie, sauce composed of a typical love story and toppings an eclectic mix of circus tricks, some terrifying and others hysterical. 

Stay with me on the food thing. I promise it will make sense (maybe). I liken The Last Circus to a pizza not because I’m hungry but more because a pizza is easily defined by its parts. You know what works or doesn’t work on a large cheese pie, be it a burnt crust or the deliciously fresh mozzarella. Each ingredient is a separate entity, unlike soup or stew or even the more fluid Pan’s Labyrinth, where everything mixes more seamlessly. The Last Circus--a film I do quite like--stumbles a tad in its (perhaps inevitable) disjointedness. Javier’s journey covers everything from sweet puppy love literally coated in cotton candy to playing the role of a mute slave serving a military sadist. Were I more familiar with Spanish history, I imagine I’d be able to better analyze the story and probably appreciate Iglesia’s use of cinematic metaphor. Putting that aside, does The Last Circus hold up as a mere film narrative?

Absolutely. Though the chaos reigns with the furor of a Von Trier talking fox, The Last Circus is something special. The opening 1930s clown-on-the-battlefield feels like a piece of absurdist theater set on cinematic fire, while Areces’ rotund sadness lends the center an unusual heart. The love story works because the actors are interesting and the relationships are clearly about more than just love. Javier is sufficiently sympathetic before being transformed into something insanely frightening, although unfortunately, his Falling Down-like rampage doesn’t quite deliver on the horrifying promises it seems to make. It’s forgiven when the film’s funniest scene closes things out. 

So The Last Circus is also funny, something that I believe will prove more evident upon a repeat viewing. It’s scary, simply because civil war and clowns and mutilated faces and fascism are...you know, SCARY. To call The Last Circus a horror film is a compliment to both the movie and genre. It’s not quite as good as I wanted it to be, but it’s something truly different that delivers on a few--if not all--its fronts.

High Points

Much like A Serbian Film, The Last Circus makes absolutely phenomenal use of its sound, both in the brilliantly composed score to the chilling sound effects

As my undying adoration for the Lou Diamond Philips’ classic The First Power proves, I do love me a good horse stomping

Low Points

Considering some of the pretty incredible visuals at play in The Last Circus, we certainly could’ve done with a more imaginative poster design eh?

Lessons Learned

The greatest war tactic of all time might indeed involve unleashing your secret weapon upon the enemy, and by secret weapon, I am of course referring to a clown armed with a machete

Few skills are less dismal than the gunfire aim of mid-20th century Spanish police officers 

Female elephants are, in a word, possessive creatures

There is no mother. No. Mother. Got that?

See/Skip/Wait It Out Impatient Jerk

The Last Circus is not a perfect film, but it’s something truly unique and incredibly confident about being so. There’s a chance a whole lot of viewers will hate it, but even if the major narratives don’t click for you, the visuals and sound might well be enough to keep your senses sated. Sadly I doubt the film will make a stop at most major theaters, but if the circus comes to your town, it’s absolutely worth the trip. 

Someone Famous Presents Something Less Famous

“From the special effects masters behind Hellraiser and Hellbound” reads the tagline for the strategically titled 1989 horror film Hellgate. Aside from the titular first four letters, Hellgate would never, under any circumstances in this or any other dimension, be confused with Clive Barker’s visionary nightmare soon to not be remade by Pascal Laugier. Hellraiser and its first and best sequel Hellbound utilize innovative costume design, gooey yet restrained makeup, and grandly horrific sets that put the cheap puppetry and Disneyesque ghost town of Hellgate to shame. 

I didn’t rent Hellgate for its pedigree (my real motive was the fact that it was on a double DVD with The Pit, a surprisingly lesser film that featured an evil teddy bear and forest trolls) but I did end up quite happy with the Scooby Doo feel and spontaneously combusting sea creatures it featured. That being said, the desperate ad line for Hellgate got me thinking of how some films--particularly horror--are buttered up for prospective audiences using a randomly hot industry name that may have stopped by the set one day to snag a Kraft Service donut. The most recent examples to my knowledge:

Craven Something Better

Wes Craven is something of the Krusty the Klown of the horror industry: a fine entertainer in his own right, but a little loose when it comes to lending out his name. For these reasons, the man owes me $11.50. Yes, I was one of those six people that attended the opening of Wes Craven Presents Dracula 2000, a limping update of Bram Stoker’s classic starring a pre-300, pre-personality Gerard Butler. This is only slightly less offensive than the $4 I lost renting They. Don’t bother looking for it and getting confused by its similar title to the classic giant ant movie and recent terrifying French thriller. This bland little film came and went in 2002 with less impression than leading man Marc Blucas ever made as Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s most despised love interest Riley. Yes, Wes Craven presented another opportunity for Marc Blucas to dig deep into his soul for some serious lip biting emoting. The horror is there, just not the way you expect it.

It’s Good to Be King

Stephen King has been associated with quite a large pile of...less than stellar film reels, but even he has his limits when it comes to using putting his name on unsanctioned adaptations. While he takes full credit for gleefully bad missteps like (he even cameo’d in Thinner, King tightened down on quality control in the early 90s. Thus poor Jeff Fahey’s starring role as a landscaping savant in 1992’s The Lawnmower Man may have lost a bit of its prospective audience when Maine’s most prominent author sued the producers for associating the film with his original short story. One year later, the country’s most ubiquitous horror writer’s name was nowhere to be found on Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice, the not that terrible sequel to one of his most popular pieces-turned-feature. A good deal of the King film canon may not be good, but at least we generally know it came with his lawyer stamped approval.

The Unborn of Whom?

The trailer for this early 2009 release (the third Un -titled film of the month) was fairly promising until Michael Bay’s name made its bow. I suppose there were a few hungry Transformers fans lured to theaters by the Pavlovian connection, but did The Most Hated Man By Critics In America really have that much say in the making of this film? At least “The writer of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight” directed (although David Goyer does get a mere story credit for the more popular sequel). Having not yet seen The Unborn, I’m not qualified to say whether either marketing ploy is accurate. It was, however, extremely timely and convenient. 

Trust In the Toro

Guillermo Del Toro is a man whose name most genre fans trust, and thankfully, he wields his power well. A few years back, you may have found yourself explaining to a less cinematic friend that the new creepy looking Spanish film about kids in sack masks was not actually directed by that cuddly hobbit-to-be who made such an impression with Pan’s Labyrinth. The Orphanage is one of the better--almost best--horror films of the last ten years and shares a lot of the spirit found Del Toro’s masterful The Devil’s Backbone. It is, however, directed by a lesser known, but very talented Juan Antonio Bayona...whose name generally appears nowhere on the cover art. Still, Del Toro’s producing credit--milked for all its gooey attraction--is at least fitting and probably helped to make this little import a box office success. 

These are just a few forced to natural marketing connections of recent years. I imagine the list is unending, so please share you own discoveries and disappointments in the misadvertising of genre film. And by the way: unless my skimming and scanning skills are failing me, I can't seem to find a single connection on IMDB between Hellgate and its much more prominent near namesake.