Just Another Teen Movie

When the second spoken line of a film is “There’s no service!” you as an audience member has to know what you’re getting into. Otherwise, why don’t you just go investigate a strange noise or take a sexy bubblebath or assume that guy who’s been chasing you all night is actually dead after you put a puny bullet in his chest.

Pff. Amateurs.

Quick Plot: Credits roll over a photo montage of pretty young people partying it up at a Mardi Gras, because that’s where pretty young people party and get outstanding tax breaks on filming locations. We see the gang hop in a car—presumably intoxicated, though if so, these are the fastest recovering-from-drunkness humans in the history of mankind—only to get into a horrific accident on an abandoned road. Wedged behind their tires is an escaped hospital patient, which turns out to be quite convenient when an ambulance immediately hits the scene to recover him and hall in the group to clean up their scratches.

The average IQ for a character in a horror film is never high, but even the dumber ones should notice something amiss when the ambulance attendants roughly drag a critically injured man onto a stretcher then both hop in the driver’s seat to roll along. The kids never seem suspicious by the fact that the accident victim is clearly losing blood by the minute, something that is mildly forgivable if a) they are indeed drunk (though don’t act like it at all) or b) one of them wasn’t a former medical student.

The hospital, of course, turns out to be mostly empty save for a few creepy employees. In addition to the orderlies (Michael Bowen from The Lost and Deadgirl and Poolboy’s  Robert LaSardo) we meet a very southa’hn belle nurse (genre royalty Jenette Goldstein) and a suspiciously old fashioned doctor (her Terminator 2 costar Robert Patrick). The kids remain as such:

-The Main Girl whose name I only remember because it’s my own

-Her Boyfriend

-Their Blond Friend

-A Russian Guy Hitting On Their Blond Friend

-The Guy Who Always Has to Take a Leak

Before long, all are escaping or experiencing extremely graphic stabbings, scalpings, and autopsies, all in the name of saving the good doctor’s cancer stricken wife through, shall we say, alternative treatment. In terms of originality, Autopsy is extremely bare bones. You knew that the second “No signal!” was shouted three words into the film.

But putting things like creativity aside, Autopsy has one vital strength: practical effects, and lots of them. This is a film more excited by visuals than silly things like ‘character’ or ‘story,’ and if you know that going in, it’s a surprisingly good time. Organs are tossed around like pizza dough, heads bashed in Irreversible style with a fire extinguisher, and intestines canopied on a ceiling like a baby mobile by way of Tarsem’s The Cell.

As for the rest of the film, it happens in a competent but never inspired way. The young cast is pretty and unmemorable. Veterans Goldstein and Patrick have mild fun, but it feels more like a paycheck job than any form of vacation. The biggest issue comes from the inconsistent tone, which occasionally finds chuckle-worthy humor in the macabre but more often than not reverts to a serious Dead Teenager heaviness. Had director Adam Gierasch (who also did the not terrible Night of the Demons remake) had a little more confidence in his abilities to get laughs, Autopsy could have been genuinely special.

High Points

The aforementioned gore truly is executed with gusto

Low Points

Who are these kids again?

Lessons Learned

Even the coolest hospital orderly isn’t going to just give you a roomful of free experimental drugs

Family illness can be one of the great life altering experiences

Louisianan hospital walls are extremely soundproof

Rent/Bury/Buy

Autopsy is one of 2009’s AfterDark’s 8 Films to Die For, and while it’s fairly unexceptional, it’s also not a bad way to kill 90 minutes of Netflix streaming time. Ignore the fact that you can predict the big picture five minutes in and sit back for some creative kills, at least if that's the type of movie you're in the mood for. You won't care about anyone or thing onscreen, but as lightweight eye candy, one could do worse.

Ya Gotta Get a Gimmick

Silent House is one of those films that might be impossible to thoroughly discuss without spoiling. Though there is plenty to say about the gimmicky “single shot” illusion of the filming style, I can’t go into any detail whatsoever without erupting into a fit of how the major twist negates everything that makes the film annoyingly unique in the first place.

So here’s the non-spoilered review of Silent House: it’s a mildly new, occasionally unnerving haunted house(ish) tale with a great central performance and stupid filming gimmick that completely undoes everything about itself in the final act. One could do worse than watching it for 90 minutes, but one could also save his or herself a momentary spike in blood pressure when some things are revealed.

Now open that expired gallon of milk: we’re going to get spoilery.

Quick Plot: Sarah is a spacey young woman spending time with her dad and uncle as they clean up their old summer house, an isolated little property that has apparently been hosting angry squatters during the offseason. On this particular afternoon, our pretty heroine is visited by a mysterious girl claiming to be her old childhood pal. Sarah doesn’t seem to actually remember the woman, but she fakes it well enough before returning upstairs with her dad to throw away some childhood mementos and breathe in some wall mold. Everything is fine and dandy in a poorly lit manner until Sarah’s dad leaves the room, a giant bang is heard, and it becomes increasingly clear that someone has ominous plans for our leads.

Directed by Chris Kentis and Laura Lau (the same team that brought us Open Water), Silent House is occasionally effective, particularly in its first hour or so. Having absolutely no clue what menace is tormenting our star works incredibly well, and Elizabeth Olsen has the kind of glassy wide eyes to sell true fear. But much like Open Water, this is a film built more on gimmick than substance, and in that exists two problems:

1-The ‘one shot’ illusion doesn’t really add much to what we’re watching, making us instead constantly distracted by the fact that we can’t really see anything

2-Once the film’s twist is revealed, it negates everything, primarily, the entire one-shot illusion

I’m going to spoil Silent House. And I am not going to feel bad about it:

About halfway through the film, I thought to myself, “I wonder if this is one of those ‘the victim IS the killer’ twists.” But then I said, well, that CAN’T be the case since everything we’ve thus far seen has been this “one continuous (not really) shot” and our eyes have been on Sarah the entire time. So if she is indeed the killer, that means I just watched absolutely nothing.

And then, like a pixie cut sporting French woman wielding an axe in the early 21st century, little Elizabeth Olsen proves to be starring in a nonsensical J-horror of sorts meeting Law & Order: SVU.

Oh yeah: and she did it.

Right. She, this character whom we’ve had our eyes on straight for 90 minutes, somehow managed to take down two much bigger men when we weren’t looking. Except, you know, we WERE looking. For the entire film. Which was “one-shot.” Meaning “one-shot where our eyes were on Sarah the entire time.” But she’s the killer. You missed that I guess.

Much like the better, but still innately flawed High Tension, Silent House doesn’t really deserve to exist as a movie in its current state. See, think back to ANOTHER film with a twist I’m about to spoil, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village.

Gandalf is working HARD today.

In The Village, the audience gets a twist ending that has no effect on the characters whatsoever. Bryce Dallas Howard’s heroine learns about the twist, but then other factors come into play that negates them in her mind so therefore, the only character actually affected by what happened onscreen is someone played by the director in his signature unnecessary cameo in the final scene. We spent 100 minutes watching something that ultimately has no effect on anything.

Sort of like how in High Tension--

(Sorry dude)

We watch (admittedly, a much better) mess wherein what we think we’re seeing isn’t actually happening in the least. 

Had Silent House been told through more conventional filmmaking techniques, it would not have been a great film but it could have been a good one packing a strong lead and some effective scares. But because it’s based on a well-received Uruguayan film that made waves due to its style, Kentis and Lau have created the equivalent of a stylish rain coat made of shaving cream. Yes, it looks neat, but as soon as you dare test it out for its purpose, the whole thing evaporates.

Silent House is scary at times. I’ll give it that. But once you discover its secret, what you REALLY discover is that every minute of its running time is a fantasy of its makers. The one-shot trick means we can’t even chalk up Sarah’s psychosis to a second personality. How could someone else exist in her mind when we’ve watched her in REAL TIME? 

I am perfectly fine and encouraging of filmmakers using new means to tell stories, just as I am positively okay with token twist endings. But when you pair the two together in a way that doesn’t make sense, it’s like putting hot chocolate on unicorn steak. 

Well, maybe not that analogy since hot chocolate covered unicorn steak sounds positively delicious. My point is this: if you want to use a filming gimmick, you have to be sure it makes sense for the story you want to tell. A one-shot film could be perfectly fine. But when you apply that trick to a script like Silent House, you are annulling the very film you are trying to make. 

In case it’s not clear, I am angry. 

High Notes

As she demonstrated earlier last year with the complexity of Martha Mary May Marlene (or Mandy Melissa Marie Megan Marcia Marcia Marcia, I give up), Olsen is proving to be one of the most interesting actresses to emerge from her generation. Yes, the role is a written like a mess, but Olsen does the best she can to make us not hate Sarah, even when the script calls for her to hide under yet another table

I’ve said this time and time before: it is easier to fight the forces of evil with your hair out of your face. So thank you, Sarah, for grabbing that hair tie amidst the threat of attack

Low Notes

Oh well, I don’t, I mean, what can I say about A MOVIE THAT GETS FAMOUS FOR ITS GIMMICK EVEN THOUGH THE GIMMICK MAKES THE MOVIE NOT MAKE ANY SENSE

Lessons Learned

When in doubt, hide under furniture. Your sociopathic subconscious will NEVER think to look there

Though production on the actual film has now been discontinued and the far improved technology of the digital world has rendered them obsolete, one should still always keep a Polaroid camera on hand. If nothing else, it’s a mildly effective source of short spurts of light

If you’re worried about the audience not being able to know who a character is in relation to another, be sure to have one constantly acknowledge said relationship in every bit of dialogue, i.e., “My brother can really get on my nerves!” or “I’m not leaving my brother!” or “Look, little brother…” and so on.

Rent/Bury/Buy

Silent House made me very angry. In the words of Project Runway’s spectacular contestant Dimitri, it is a one way monkey but I shall add, it is a one way monkey without directions to that one way. Olsen gives a better performance than the script deserves, and while there are occasional shots of intrigue, there’s also the whole “the camera seems to be lingering on that empty space. I bet there---oh, there goes a shadow” moments that make for a great trailer and predictable movie. If you’re easily infuriated by bad endings, stay away. I imagine the complete nonsense of the twist is what warranted Silent House an “F” grade from theatrical audiences, and while this is certainly a better film than some other Friday night junk, it is indeed built upon a premise that ultimately damns it to a realm of boos hisses.

The Staten Island Horror

Every now and then, I stumble upon a low budget horror film that I just want to hug. Not in the way that it’s so lovable I must squeeze or that it’s made of cashmere; more that I picture myself embracing the film, nodding my head over the shoulder of it while making eye contact with someone else in the room and mouthing “I know.”

Knock Knock is that kind of movie.

What I mean to say is that this hard-working little slasher is kind of adorable, but not actually good. We’re not quite in Haunted Boat territory, but filmed on Staten Island—and trust me, you’ll figure that out the first time a young character opens his or her mouth—with a script possibly written as the process went along, Knock Knock earns its merit badge.

Quick Plot: In the kind of fictional movie high school that only exists onscreen, a diverse little assortment of jocks, Goths, and stoners hang out while the man-child janitor who might as well be named Red Herring watches. One by one, the kids are murdered in brutal (and surprisingly well-executed) styles that seem to be inspired by their fathers’ professions. A ice distributor’s son is ice picked, a meathouse owner’s daughter is filleted, the mechanic’s daughter is…mechanic’s daughtered, you get the point.

See, WE get the point, but the investigating detective is a blond woman who apparently does not get any point ever. Hence, despite body after body turning up with a clear connection, she never really thinks to question the murdered kids’ parents. Thankfully, a grizzled retired cop trying to reconnect with his granddaughter (this will be important 5 minutes into the film and 5 minutes from the end, so put a reminder in your smart phone and continue) is happy to help out, primarily by pointing out the fact that the killer must be strong and right-handed. Together, they let a lot more spoiled teenagers die and eventually save the day.

Let me be frank about this film: it is terrible.

Let me be franker about this film: I loved it.

Written and directed by Joseph Ariola, Knock Knock is somewhat joyous in both its effort and incompetence. Ariola is clearly a tried and true slasher fan who understands the basic ingredients—boobs (see: his name), blood, prank-gone-wrong, masked villain (that sort of resembles a Tourist Trap look done via origami)—but somehow lost the actual recipe. Observe:

-The fact that our token final girl has about two lines a few minutes into the film, then disappears until the last scene

-That even though characters are clearly defined by their ‘thing’ (one even refers to another as “The Pothead”) we as the audience—or at least, me, who watched—still can’t remember them well enough to even know who’s dead and who’s about to be

-After the first murder, one character meets up with his friends in a diner to spoil their appetite with the news that seemingly only he knows. Except once he gives the media’s theory, one of the gang replies with “I heard the killer was after something else,” yet the scene seemed to be set up to have the party crasher REVEAL the fact that there was a murder. Oh, and everyone then proceeds to eat anyway because who doesn’t like a goat cheese sandwich?

-That the town sheriff looks like he snuck out of detention and got cast in a movie, or is possibly filling in for his dad and nobody thought to take in his uniform

-That the gratuitous nudity scene involves a pretty blond taking a shower in the manner no woman could fathom, i.e., turning on water, entering, and lightly splashing her hair. NO WOMAN WOULD MIST HER HAIR IN THE SHOWER I TELLS YA 

Now all of these things do not a good movie make, but when you add in a librarian dressed like a streetwalker, the fact that no female character owns a shirt that meets her waist, and a scene wherein Red Herring cuts out yearbook photos to put on Barbie dolls then has them hurt and kiss each other while his mother looks on adoringly, and you have a pretty satisfied customer.

High Points

It’s a nice surprise to see some pretty decent practical effects utilized for the kills

Low Points

Well, um, I suppose, the movie itself if you want to think of things like THAT. Take for example, the moment where, following the death of at least four stereoty—er, students, one of the characters mocks the fact that the town is trying to issue a curfew for its youth. At this point, I actually said out loud, “Guys, seriously: half of your prom limo is DEAD.” So I *suppose* one might fault the fact that no actual human being exists in this film as a sort of, how do you say, problem

Lessons Learned

Telling a few kids that their friends are dying based on their parents’ professions would take WAY too many man hours

A football team is a large group

Staten Island pep rallies get about the same size crowd as a screening of the Oogieloves

Rent/Bury/Buy

I can’t remember what brought Knock Knock to my instant queue, but I’m sure happy the universe deemed it there. Anyone looking for quality needs to hop back on the Staten Island ferry and head elsewhere, but if you’re in the mood for a dumb ol’ slasher with the kind of exposition laden script that STILL doesn’t make sense, this is the film for you. Despite its logic faults, there’s a real heart and positive energy to Knock Knock, coupled with some excellent gore and a clear understanding of the genre. I don’t predict a Rosemary’s Baby in Joseph Ariola’s future, but I certainly look forward to what he does next. 

Party Like It's 1999 (by way of 1974 & 2001)

It's the end of the world as we know it, so let's talk.

The mighty Jake McLargeHuge has assembled a powerful trio to tackle the apocalypse on his latest episode of Podcast Without Honor and Humanity. Join Jake, Action Attraction's Metal Mikey, and yours truly as we roundtable with the fury of giant slugs, mass draughts, evil Internet demons, cannibalism, mutant babies, speedwalking children, and green fungus...a lot of green fungus.

That's right! We delve into the horror of dial-up to cover Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse...

And in more obscure territory, Tosio Masuda's 1974 epic oddity The Prophecies of Nostradamus.

This little-seen Japanese treasure is something truly special, and I'm not JUST saying that because it has giant slugs.

So head on down to Libsyn or iTunes or that new annoying podcast ap or wherever it is that you feed your inner ear with Jake's latest episode.

Also in the news: it's a new Paracinema!

Don't even think of not following this link to go get some. Otherwise, I just might throw some giant slugs at you, and NOBODY wants giant slugs thrown at them. 

They're really heavy. And smell weird. And in some cases, eat people's faces off.

So really, you should just pick up an issue already.

Free Healthcare At Its Not So Finest

In case you haven't noticed, it's October! That means this!

and stuff like this!

and some of these!

to go with these!

Also, horror movies! They're back! See for yourself:

Quick Plot: 1979 was six long years before the advent of DNA testing, something The Clinic tells us IMMEDIATELY so as to serve as a constant reminder of why the characters will later do some of the icky things they’ll later do. Got that?

Cut to the happy and exceedingly pretty lookalike couple Beth and Cameron, an engaged pair en route to visit Beth’s parents for Christmas. To do this, they have to drive straight across Australia and since this takes place 26 years before Wolf Creek, you can’t blame them for not knowing only very bad things happen to pretty people who dare drive through the outback.

After a Jeepers Creepers-y incident with an angry truck, the very pregnant Beth and Cameron stop for the night. Having trouble falling to sleep on Christmas Eve at a fleabag motel, Cameron takes a midnight stroll only to return to his room to…nothing.

The local yokel cops are no help, eventually arresting Cameron for getting too fired up about their lack of policing. As he struggles to find Beth, the action shifts to a large warehouse and factory farm facility where Beth wakes up in a tub of ice with a new belly scar in place of her baby.

Before long, she stumbles upon three other women who have recently been subject to unwanted C-sections. All are dressed in plain robes with Roman numeral name tags, and none have any idea how they came to end up in such a place. All they really know is that whoever took their babies also took the time to sew their wounds, although such a minor reprieve isn’t much consolation when a) your newborn is missing and b) there’s a fifth woman on the hunt for all of you.

Before I delve into spoiler territory—something I simply have to do to discuss some of the film’s strengths and weaknesses—let me say that first-time writer/director James Rabbitts is definitely one to watch…as a director.

The performances, design, and pacing of The Clinic is all top-notch. These factors go a long way in helping you forgot some of the positively misguided plotting of the script.

Spoilers will commence. Movie virgins can skip down to Rent/Bury/Buy for the big finish.

For the rest of you cinematic sluts, here goes:

In a twist that seems to call to mind Martyrs meets Battle Royale, we discover that the ladies are part of a twisted adoption agency that kidnaps highly successful pregnant women and pits them against each other in a battle to the death. Whoever survives gets the honor of having her baby adopted by a wealthy couple that then seals the deal by shooting the winning birth mother. 

Now just imagine what these parents will later do to get their kids into a good kindergarden!

As far as horror third act twists go, it’s not a terrible one. Just rather ridiculous, especially considering the ADDED twist that Beth (who was a last minute replacement in the wrong place at the wrong time) is actually a graduate of the infant program, thus explaining mysterious nightmares she’d had her whole life (because somehow, we retain everything that happened in our first week alive) and her surprising survival instincts.

I could STILL forgive The Clinic, logic be damned, if it didn’t make such a mess out of Cameron’s subplot. The late Andy Whitfield (he of Spartacus fame) is perfectly fine in the role, but Rabbitts never quite figures out how to make it work. His side story in trying to find Beth is so erratically timed, taking us away from the warehouse at key moments and ultimately frustrating our focus. I suppose the purpose is for Rabbitts to show just how far up the conspiracy (to, you know, steal rich and famous women’s babies) reaches. But it doesn’t go anywhere and when Cameron, I guess, dies in a car accident, I honestly didn’t even quite realize (or care) that his story was over.

More irksome to me was the glaring unanswered question: what about the five other newborns? One would assume all healthy infant children of well-educated or talented women would still fetch a fair price, but The Clinic never addresses that question. Worse, Beth makes a promise to one of the dying women that she will absolutely care for her baby, but during the final coda, we get nary a whisper of the fact that were other children. Sure, it’s a 90 minute movie and I can assume scenes were deleted for pacing issues, but FIVE ORPHANED NEWBORNS is a pretty sizable hole.

High Notes

As someone who can’t tell one baby from the next, I appreciate The Clinic’s assertion that all newborns pretty much look the same

Low Notes

I know life was different in the ‘70s and that Australia still entered the age of reason, but it’s sure hard to get behind a highly pregnant young woman driving cross country and not wearing her seatbelt

Lessons Learned

Cows make outstanding alarm systems

Australian men children sound an awful lot like your overconfident friend doing a lame impression of Christopher Walken

Just because you had an unwanted C-section 2 hours ago is no reason not to be able to climb fences, flee dingoes, or fight elite athletes in hand-to-hand combat

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Clinic is a frustrating film in terms of its storytelling, but as an independent horror movie coming from a first-time director, it’s not half bad. The actors all equip themselves admirably and the tension is raised with each scene. The film’s problems come from its scattered plotting, but for a 90 minute dark ride, it’s well worth a stream on Netflix. Just leave your brain at the hotel.