The Exorcism Was the Easy Part

Netflix Instant is always abuzz with interesting horror titles, but when one involves William Demon Knight Sadler and Carol "The Goddess" Kane, I'm a pretty easy target.

Quick Plot: Ava has just undergone a successful exorcism after being possessed by a wily demon for over a month. Unfortunately, recovery is a little more challenging than Regan MacNeil ever revealed.

Turns out, while possessed, Ava did some rather unpleasant things, including, but not limited to, sleeping with her friend's boyfriend, pissing off a pimp, indecent exposure, and criminal assault. Her fairly understanding lawyer has come up with a plea bargain that puts Ava in a sort of AA-like support group instead of prison.

It doesn't take long for Ava to learn that moving past a demonic possession is almost as hard as the process of hosting a demon. It's especially challenging when Ava tries to fill in some of the holes in her memory, tracking down the owner of a watch (and possibly, massive blood stains) she finds in her apartment. The investigation leads her down a dangerous path, and not just because it involves Carol Kane.

Written and directed by Jordan Galland, Ava's Possessions is more black comedy than horror, and it equips itself well. Lead actress Louisa Krause is quite engaging, and it helps that she's surrounded by genre vets like William Sadler, Spring's Lou Taylor Pucci, and Monsters' Whitney Able. Rarely is the humor full-out belly laugh, but it's built on small moments that set a very clear and specific tone. When Ava sadly discovers the fate of her pet fish or asks if anyone thought to call in sick to her job while a priest was working her over for a few weeks, it gave me a chuckle.

Over the course of 40 years, we've all seen our share of movies about possession. Ava's Possessions smartly builds on that, wasting no time with its audience in rehashing what we've come to expect from the genre. Instead, it takes the event we've seen done dozens of times and says, "what's next?", exploring it with a solidly playful tone. It falters a little in its ending, partially because that endearing levity gets a tad too bogged down. Nevertheless, it's a fun and breezy watch that brings something new to well-worn territory.

High Points

Garland does an excellent job of establishing such a clear and consistent tone from the start

Low Points

The aforementioned ending, which twists things a little too darkly for the lighter tone the film had set

Lessons Learned

Pregnancy is probably prettier than possession

Nothing celebrates being demon-free better than an ice cold glass of Orange Crush

Marijuana is a gateway drug ... to hell

Rent/Bury/Buy

Ava’s Possessions isn’t perfect, but it’s a fun little slice of genre mixing that makes for a lightly enjoyable 90 minute watch. Give it a go when you want something on the fluffier side. 

The Invention of Caller ID

When a Stranger Calls is one of those mild genre classics that has somehow eluded my 31 years on this planet. Despite my mother's constant quoting of "The call is coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!" at several opportune moments in my life, I just never got around to Fred Walton’s 1979‘s's thriller.

Quick Plot: Everybody's favorite sugar-voiced dame Carol Kane plays Jill, a young babysitter whose charges are fast asleep when she reports for duty and supposed to stay that way all night. Before you can say Jamie Lee, Jill is stuck fielding creepy phone calls asking, very simply, "Have you checked the children?"

Now most responsible babysitters would take the deep breather's words to heart, but since Jill was told that the kids should not be disturbed, we'll give her the benefit of the doubt, especially after a police officer on the line assures her that since the door is locked, everything will be fine.

Ahhhh, the 70s.

When a Stranger Calls is probably most well-known for its opening, and it's easy to see why. Director Fred Walton sets a simple, incredibly tense tone as Jill sits in dim lighting, a villainous telephone never too far from her shaky reach. From those first twenty minutes, When a Stranger Calls earns its place as one of the decade’s most memorable thrillers.

It’s a shame that the rest of the film can’t sustain that energy. Charles Durning (not to be confused with Charles S. Dutton, unless you’re me and can’t EVER remember which is which) takes over as John Clifford, the policeman who collared the phone killer, an insane Brit named Curt Duncan. Seven years later, Duncan has escaped and John is on the case as a private detective to track him down. The film rotates between John’s investigation and Duncan’s hobo-like existence as the latter spends his days hitting on Colleen Dewhurst and getting into bar fights.

This isn’t uninteresting. Played by then-ailing actor Tony Beckley, Duncan is not your typical horror slasher. He’s scrawny and weak-looking, the kind of character you might smell from two cars down on the subway and walk a little closer to the street to avoid on the sidewalk. On one hand, he’s far less intimidating in nature than the kind of mad man we usually meet in these kinds of films. Made just one year after Halloween changed the film industry, When a Stranger Calls isn’t yet a slave to the formula that would come to define the genre. While Duncan is somewhat easily knockdownable, he’s also unsettlingly real.

The downside of not working with an established formula is that sometimes, you just don’t know where to go. The film starts out as a taut thriller, transitions into grizzled detective yarn, flirts with psychological drama, and finally ends on a note akin to Lifetime horror. 

High Points

Enough can’t be said about this film’s opening, which was incredibly tense even if I knew what the final punchline was going to be. I could only imagine how effective the reveal would have been for fresh eyes in 1979

Low Points

Focusing on three different characters--Durning’s detective, Duncan the killer, and Kane’s Jill--could certainly work, but the film spreads out the coverage so oddly that it’s hard to ever latch onto whose story this is

Lessons Learned

It's nice to offer your babysitter free reign of the fridge, but emphasizing that it includes low-FAT yogurt might be taken the wrong way

The best thing about having Charles Durning pursue you on foot is that even if you haven’t eaten in a few days, you’ll probably be able to outrun him pretty easily

When someone keeps asking you if you’ve checked the children, maybe it’s time to, oh I don’t know, CHECK the children

Rent/Bury/Buy

When a Stranger Calls isn’t necessarily a genre classic, but it’s well worth a visit if you’ve never seen it. Though the opening sets a tone that the rest can’t come close to living up to, the film features strong, interesting performances from the type of cast you just won’t normally find in this type of story. Director Fred Walton (who went on to work primarily in television movies with the affectionate exception of April Fool’s Day) knows how to build suspense, and while it’s not maintained in a typical way, When a Stranger Calls still manages to make for some tense and worthwhile viewing.

Killing 9 To 5

It’s been seven months since I last watched Severance and nearly one year since I began my first actual office job. Having now suffered through dry meetings scored to the buzz of overhead lighting and office scandals regarding lunch orders, I’m truly shocked by the lack of horror films that utilize a corporate setting. Where’s the weapon arsenal sponsored by Staples and uncomfortably ill-defined relationship barriers riddled with career-climbing ulterior motives? 

Hence, when the 1997 issue of Fangoria I recently bought at a yard sale featured an article about Office Killer, I rearranged my Netflix queue faster than you can say coffee break. Directed by famed photographer Cindy Sherman and starring an impressivey miscellaneous cast, Netflix defined it as “a thriller with surprising hilarity,” which should have quickly warned me that a genre film I had never heard of was buried in time for a reason.

Quick Plot: The always intriguing Carol Kane plays Dorine, an efficient copy editor (and if my boss is reading, allow me to assure the world that ALL copy editors are efficient) who lives a lonely existence with her invalid mother and chubby cat. At work, supervisor Jeanne Tripplehorn (who may have been in 65% of films released in the mid-late 90s) hands out downsizing slips instructing employees that they’ll now have to work part-time from home, much to the horror of the workaholic Dori. Meanwhile, surprisingly non Jersey accented Michael Imperioli (yes, Christophuh himself) puts in some IT hours installing this revolutionary new office tool called "email" on the employees' home computers. The world is a changing place.  

While working late to meet a deadline, Dori’s verbally abusive and hair abusing boss electrocutes himself while trying to fix an internet connection. Instead of calling 911, Dori decides to break the all sorts of rules by stealing the ultimate office supply--the corpse of her supervisor.  


A few days later, Dori once again finds herself alone with a rude and authority drunk superior, this one an asthmatic chain smoker with a dangerous comfort level in pleather evening wear. Spike an inhaler with a little butane and Dori is on a killing roll, always in less than expected manner and with a slight comic edge. Corpses pile up in her basement to be posed, dismembered, and Febrezed. Only Molly Ringwald as a cynical secretary with poor fashion sense suspects the suddenly confident grammar expert of being less than a model employee.  

Everything I’d read about Office Killer made it seem like a film I would love. Unfortunately, nearly everything about it just doesn’t work. Sherman has a definitive visual stle, casting the entire film in a sad and stale orangey brown that makes everything inside look rusted. By today’s standards, such a choice feels stuffily uncomfortable but also, oddly outdated a mere 12 years later. Instead of the icy uniformity done so well in films like Office Space, Office Killer’s title setting just feels messy. Even a low level publisher heading into the red wouldn't feel as if a retirement home was converted into magazine headquarters.  


More troubling is the tone, or lack thereof. Most of the characters are flat stereotypes which could certainly have worked had the film known what to do with them. Instead of forging ahead into campy wickedness, Office Killer sits on its unpleasant cast without any intrigue. Sometimes it seems as though Tripplehorn is our heroine, while Kane’s manic Dori bounces back and forth between sympathetic shut-in and psychopathic murderess. It’s fun to watch her chide the corpses of Girl Scouts, but when we have no idea why she killed these little girls in the first place, why should we care? Fuzzy narration and a few flashbacks hint at sexual abuse (and hey, if said sexual abuser was Eric Bogosian, I too would probably grow up with more than a few issues) but nothing’s really done with that thread. Ultimately, it feels as though the script presented a premise that called for sharp black comedy, while the director treated it straightforwardly with a static eye. It’s hard to laugh at jokes that feel flatter than the page they were typed on and even harder to fear for characters that lack the slightest hint of depth.  


High Points 
While she seems to have no idea what to do with her poorly drawn character, Kane is still an intriguing presence in just about any film she's in

Following her divaliscious turn in the Aussie slasher Cut , Ringwald has convinced me that she should henceforth only accept roles that call for serious bitchery 


Low Points 
What’s the point of featuring a motorized Gremlins stair chair if you’re not going to use it?

Um, the rest of the movie?  

Lessons Learned 
The Internet might occasionally kill you, but it’s pretty easy to hack


Masking tape is great in a pinch, especially if said pinch involved holding in a corpse's intestines

Never feel up your daughter while driving

Like mace, a silk headscarf with an elaborate and too colorful print can indeed be used against you


When in doubt, always say no to pleather


Rent/Bury/Buy 
The female factor of Office Killer makes it interesting in concept, but this is sadly one of duller 90+ minutes I’ve recently endured. I have the slight feeling that it may, like many dark comedies, improve a bit on repeat viewings but I have absolutely no desire to revisit this film and unless you’re nursing a Carol Kane crush, I’d skip it. The DVD contains no special features, so despite the fact that this film feels deliberately cultish, it seems nobody involved in its production cared enough to come back.  

I know how they feel.