I Want To Play a Game

I've been trying very hard to break the devastating cycle of spending more time picking a movie than watching one. Peacock, one of the skimpier streamers when it comes to horror, makes that fairly easy. Something vaguely new pops up on the list? Just hit play.

Or in this case, dial.

Quick Plot: Chris Mitchell has just moved to Willow Falls following some kind of personal trouble. The first friend he makes is Tonya, a troubled fellow high schooler with a vendetta against presumed witch Edith Cranston.

Some years before Chris arrived in town, Tonya's little sister disappeared from Edith's daycare center. Suspicion surrounded Edith and her husband Edward, but their lawyers ensured the circumstantial evidence ended the investigation. Still, it's 1987 and the Satanic Panic is in full roar. The Cranstons lost the trust of their community.

Tonya has vowed to keep that hatred alive. On Chris's first weekend in Willow Falls, she drags him, boyfriend Zack, and Zack's brother Bret over to the Cranstons' home for some mild bullying. Edith, now a shell of a woman played by genre royalty Lin Shaye, doesn't take this well. Despite husband Edward (Jigsaw himself, Tobin Bell) proclaiming his love for his depressed wife, Edith finishes the evening hanging from a noose.

Chris feels terrible when he sees the obituary, and worse when Edward mysteriously invites him and his pals over for some intriguing news: Edith has bequeathed $100K in her will to the group, or rather, whichever one can - you guessed it - win her game.

Which means that yes, we get to hear Tobin Bell say "play a game", and yes, you will immediately find yourself realizing Tobin Bell simply cannot be expected to say these words without us all reacting as such.

There are no reverse bear traps in sight, but that doesn't mean the kids are getting off easy. One by one, they must enter a room and place a call to the phone that has been buried with Edith. If they stay on the line for one minute, they'll collect. 

Naturally, it's more complicated than that. Everyone has some darkness in their past ready to cross over with Edith's connections. 60 seconds can be a lot longer than it sounds. 

It's an interesting ambition to set your low budget film in the 1980s. The Call's story doesn't necessarily require a period piece, but I suppose the draw of suburban witch hunt fervor helps round out the rationale for Edith's position. Director Timothy Woodward Jr. and writer Patrick Stibbs can't resist a few obvious references, but for the most part, they're wise to downplay 1987 as simply the time that something like this could happen.

It obviously helps that we have two great actors anchoring the horror of The Call, even if we don't get as much of them as we'd like. The young cast members mostly hold their own, and Woodward Jr. finds some creative visuals to take them all down to their personal hell. 

The payoff isn't quite there, but I found The Call to be far more satisfying than its humble backing suggested. The story works in the hands of this cast, even if the details are a little messy.

High Points

It's Tobin Bell and Lin Shaye. What did you expect here? 

Low Points

I've said it before, and I'll probably say it for another 17 years: the deep demon voice is stupid

Lessons Learned

Nice guys take you to Dairy Queen

Moving to a new town can be lonely, but maybe don't rush into the first group of friends you meet when they're all at risk of committing felonies

Tobin Bell cannot say the word "hello" without his audience frantically montaging to all the times he did so at the end of 9 Saw movies

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Call played better than I expected, considering my expectations for a Peacock-streaming horror film I'd never heard of were basically non-existent. It's not going to win over anyone without a certain supply of grace for low budget horror, but if you're reading this, you probably are not one of those people. Give it a try. 

It's Cookie Time

Has any chunk of pop culture made in the last 30 years aged more weirdly than mid-'90s sexy corporate thrillers? I say this with all the affection in the world. 

Quick Plot: Peter is a high level marketing manager at a cookie company with a little darkness in his past. Estranged form his wife (a young and banged Maura Tierney) and son due to some "Mr. Hyde"-esque behavior, he's now focused on climbing the corporate ladder with a new plan to relaunch oatmeal raisin cookies. He'll have to work his damnest to impress his boss Charlene, played by Faye Dunaway with the exact level of business aggressiveness you'd come to expect. 

His work day takes a turn when his assistant has to exit for maternity leave, opening up a new position for the titular temp. Enter Lara Flynn Boyle in full '90s working girl fashion as Kris, a way-too-good-for-her-job secretary who immediately drops Lady MacBethian vibes all over the workplace. 

Before you can boil a bunny, higher level employees standing in Peter's way begin dropping like flies (or rather, Chekhovian wasps stinging highly allergic Oliver Platts). Meanwhile, Kris continues to impress the rest of the office and find her own name on the shortlist for VP. What's a hotheaded yuppie businessman to do?

The answer to virtually any late '80s to mid-'90s thriller is to get sweaty, tear at his floppy hair, and watch his comfortable existence slip away as his sexier rival gets what she's been working far harder for...until, inevitably, the moral patriarchal majority decides she needs to be punished.

Directed by Child's Play and Fright Night's Tom Holland, The Temp is a the definition of "product of its time," right on down to its muddled re-shot ending which leaves a HUGE plot hole or asks its audience to believe that Kris has insanely high faith in her former boss-turned-rival's ability to drive like a Nascar champ on a mountaintop highway. More importantly, this, THIS, was the initial climax:

As originally shot by director Tom Holland, the climax showed Peter (Timothy Hutton), a young company executive, inside the bakery fighting for his life with the temp (Lara Flynn Boyle). Hutton's character is dipped in dough, sent to the sugar room, falls onto a conveyor belt and finds himself heading straight at the "whopper chopper." They go into the chopper and as he desperately tries to drag himself out, she grabs his leg, the chopper comes down and cuts off her hand. The last we see of the temp, she is sliding toward the cookie oven--Source. 

I mean, why even set your film in a corporate cookie landscape if you're NOT going to incorporate a deadly Child's Play 2-esque factory chase in a violently robotic bakery setting? More importantly, why cast the (admittedly complicated) goddess that is Faye Dunaway if you're not going to make up your mind on her own trajectory until a weekend before opening?

It's a letdown, but in fairness, this remains a movie where a character roadblock is dispatched of via a carefully curated paper shredder accident. It's hard to fully pan such a flick, especially when it also gives us Lin Shaye as an embittered veteran secretary and, you know, Faye Dunaway at Network level intensity but constantly saying the word, "cookies."

High Points

Like many, I remain an extreme sucker for some early '90s corporate fashion, and a documentary (probably more riveting than this) about Lara Flynn's Boyle hair skills could have been Oscar-worthy

Low Points

Confused ending aside, the real shame of The Temp is that much like Fatal Attraction, it squanders its best asset by constantly undercutting her motives. Kris is smart, sexy, and resourceful, and occasionally, the script allows her to make genuinely deep and ahead-of-their-time comments about how she's learned to master the game on such an uneven playing field. A movie about her would have been far more interesting than an unexceptional white male protagonist trying to balance his middling career skills with his libido

Lessons Learned

In the '90s, everyone wanted to go back to the '50s

Much like hot air, success rises to the top

The birthing process is like an NBA game: nothing happens until the last two minutes

In case you haven't figured it out, you can cram a LOT of similes into your corporate speak in the first five minutes of your film

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Temp is available on HBO Go, which makes sense considering it's the kind of middling thriller that would have aired in rotation with The Hand That Rocks the Cradle throughout 1994. It's worthwhile as a product of its time in both a fascinating and frustrating way, but only those with a serious interest in that area need queue it up. 

Parts of a Whole

In a time of uncertainty, let us take comfort in the things we know we can always count on: the sun shall always rise, Law & Order shall always air in reruns on at least two channels at any given time, and Darren Lynn Bousman will always make ambitious and heavily styled horror movies. 

Quick Plot: Julia is a low level real estate reporter who harbors deep affection for crime ledgers and 1940s detective noir. With blood red lipstick and a wardrobe curated by the most precious of all ModCloth stylists, she spends most of her time avoiding her kind ex-boyfriend cop Declan (The Ruins Joe Anderson) or dining with the only family she has: her older sister Amanda and ailing young son Charlie.

Also, one assumes, accumulating a LOT of style tips from Pinterest.

One night, Amanda's family is brutally and seemingly nonsensically murdered in their home. Ever the investigative reporter, Julia becomes immediately suspicious when the house is sold less than a week after the massacre, and even more unhinged when she discovers the room in which the murder took place has been completely removed.

A little plucky journalism leads Julia to learn that many a "murder room" has been sold over the last 60 years, and all to the ominously named Jebediah Crone (Sons of Anarchy's Dayton Callie, now with hair). All leads seem to point towards a ghost town of sorts called New English, which perhaps not coincidentally turns out to be the birthplace of the adopted Julia.

With Declan at her heels, Julia takes a visit to New English and meets to always welcome Lin Shaye, playing a loopy townie who reveals some of the town's dark secrets. More are to come, of course, but that will involve the ultimate haunted house, decently rendering CGI ghostings, and a dash of violence that isn't entirely unpredictable.

Abattoir is directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, a filmmaker who embodies some of the best and worst qualities of 21st century horror. Bousman cut his teeth on some of the better Saw sequels (parts 2, 3, & in my mind, the underrated 4) before making one of the most polarizing genre movies I can think of, Repo! The Genetic Opera. Unlike his Saw predecessor James Wan, Bousman seems content to stay in the horror genre, continuing to dabble in everything from ambitious remakes (Mother's Day) to horror musicals (The Devil's Carnival).

I genuinely respect Bouseman, and certainly appreciate both his affection for the genre and his energy at telling new stories. Written by Christopher Monfette (who works on the quite good 12 Monkeys TV SyFy Channel series) Abattoir is a genuinely unique tale that, while clearly influenced by common horror tropes, is telling a completely original story.

I just wished I liked it more.

This isn't a bad film by any (genre fan) measure, but it just doesn't fit together as nicely as, say, a mansion in a ghost town composed of a dozen murder rooms. The core concept of a town that was suckered into selling its soul to a false prophet is great on its own, just as the ultimate haunted house made of 60 years worth of violent crime nooks could easily make a decent thriller. Maybe Bouseman's problem lies in the combination. The story has a LOT of big chunks (murder room mystery, ghost town history, adoption secrets, relationship trouble, little boy dying of disease that doesn't mean anything once he's brutally murdered, etc.) and the final product feels as though it never got the script edits needed to make each component count. The cast is adequate (Anderson has always been a fine presence in the genre, and at the risk of sounding cruel, Lowndes is stunning enough to somewhat make up for her fairly bland energy as an actress). Like most of Bouseman's work, there's a lot of visual style that's not quite fully realized in a way that works with the overall tone.  

It's...messy.

And yet, I find myself giving the film a mildly passing grade simply because I've never quite seen anything fully like it. It's an admirable attempt to put a spin on a hybrid ghost/detective story, and I certainly appreciate that. 

It just doesn't mean it all works. 

High Points

I mean hey! THE ULTIMATE HAUNTED HOUSE MADE UP OF DOZENS OF MURDER ROOMS

Low Points

I mean, ugh, it doesn't add up to much

Lessons Learned

In the south, a common expression you might find is "come on in"

Realtors don't have myths

For the many Mad Men fans who've always wondered what became of Sal the art director, worry not: he's comfortable toiling away as the editor of a New York tabloid that nobody reads

Rent/Bury/Buy

Look, for all the complaints about modern horror being stuck in a rut, you have to give a guy like Darren Lynn Bousman some credit for constantly finding new angles in. Abattoir is a highly flawed film, but it certainly gives its audience something new. You can find it streaming on Netflix Instant Watch, so for 90 minutes, why not give it a low expectations try?

The Insidiousest

The general consensus at the announcement of 2015’s Insidious: Chapter 3 was an apathetic “oh, they made another Insidious movie.” As we’ve learned from American politics, much of humanity is horrible and awful and is often completely wrong.

Quick Plot: A few years before the actions of the first Insidious, other ghostly happenings occur. Quinn Brenner is a nice young high school senior hoping to make it into college on an acting scholarship. This will take her far away from her well-meaning but typically overbearing dad (Dermot Mulroney) who has put her in charge of the home and her younger brother following the death of his wife.

The only thing Quinn wants more than a killer monologue is to reconnect with her mother, who she believes to be present in her life in ghost form. Quinn reaches out to familiar face Elise Rainier (the one and only Lin Shaye), but the Insidious veteran has been having some problems of her own when it comes to entering The Further.

Elise, you see, recently lost her beloved husband. In trying to reach him, she has instead bumped into that familiar black-veiled senior citizen that once (and in the future) tortured two generations of the Lambert boys. As a result, Elise is a tad gun-shy when it comes to connecting with that other plain of existence.

Quinn, however, doesn’t really have a choice, as she’s somehow awakened an angry, homicidal spirit who’s trying to take her down into his hellish version of limbo. 

Insidious: Chapter 3 is written and directed by new wave horror veteran Leigh Whannell, who’s served as a screenwriter for most of James Wan’s projects. Whannell (who also shows up onscreen as the divisive pre-tie wearing ghostbuster Specs) clearly learned a whole lot from shadowing Wan over the last few years. Chapter 3 fits right into the series, and even offers some improvements.

While I enjoyed Insidious, the first sequel left me fairly disappointed, with the convoluted story getting in the way of the actual horror. Chapter 3 wisely simplifies things. Quinn’s haunting is straightforward and as a result, the film’s jump scares and visual chills hit quite well. We don’t have to know every detail about Quinn’s stalker. He’s just creepy.

The key ingredient in making this film work, however, is something far more special. Lin Shaye is the definition of a veteran character actor. She’s been in the business for decades but rarely seemed to get the spotlight. How nice is it that Leigh Whannell seemed to decide her time had finally come?

Shaye is wonderful in Insidious: Chapter 3, and more importantly, the movie pops because it has her at its center. Quinn’s story is fine on its own and young actress Stefanie Scott connects well, but around the halfway mark, Elise gets to take over and kick ass. It helps that the film develops her story, introducing the tragedy of her husband’s suicide (plus an adorably loyal golden retriever sidekick) to add weight to her psychic visits to The Further. 

This isn’t a game changer for horror, but it’s a solid, enjoyable, and whaddya know, actually scary entry into a successful franchise. This makes me eager to see more Whannell behind the camera, and equally eager to see the upcoming fourth film directed by The Taking of Deborah Logan’s Adam Robitel. 

High Points

34 years of watching horror movies has made me fairly immune to typical jump scares, but dangit, I gasped at least twice at simple scares that just worked exactly as they were designed to. Well done Mr. Whannell

As I said about the first Insidious’s devotion to having its characters NOT make the token cliched mistakes found in every haunted house flick of years past (not moving, not turning on the lights) it’s also refreshing to see Chapter 3 make a clear point of NOT having Quinn’s dad waste screentime doubting his daughter’s hauntings. 

Low Points

Much in the way the first Insidious included a baby sibling purely for the convenience of using a creepy baby monitor, this one seems to include a younger brother just for, well, help with the internet?

Lessons Learned

If you’re food shopping for a teenage girl in any movie made after 1995, always assume she’s a vegetarian to avoid the well-meaning offering of jerky only to have her tell you what I just did

Save the word "literally" for when you're literally being literal (thanks, millennial best friend character who cements her status as the secret mini-MVP of this movie)

You might think you’re tough, but trust me: you’re not as tough as Lin Shaye

Look! It’s--

James Wan cameoing as the director overseeing Quinn’s audition. That’s cute.

Rent/Bury/Buy

I’m genuinely shocked by how much I enjoyed Insidious: Chapter 3. It’s scary, it’s funny, it’s familiar in some ways and incredibly fresh in others. I found the film via HBO Go, but if it turns up near you, give it a go. You don’t necessarily have to watch the first two (and certainly not the second) to enjoy this one. Just enjoy it as a strong little ghost story. I think you’ll be pleased. 

Farther Into the Further

As I mentioned a few months back in my review of The Conjuring, I will always root for James Wan. 

Even if he continues to deny me gratuitous shots of Patrick Wilson’s rear. 

Quick Plot: When we last left the Lamberts, astral projectionist Dalton was safely returned to the realm of the living, but dad Josh might have brought back something ominous and aimed it squarely at Lin Shaye's psychic investigator Elise. Before picking up at that fateful night, Chapter 2 takes us back to 1986 when an adolescent Josh was first learning how to forget his supernatural talents.

Let's just get this out of the way: the scariest thing about the occasionally scary, occasionally silly sequel is in how it shares something in common with A League of Their Own.

THAT IS NOT GEENA DAVIS IN OLD LADY MAKEUP

THAT IS NOT LIN SHAYE IN YOUNG LADY MAKEUP

SO WHY DO THEY SOUND SO MUCH LIKE THEIR ORIGINAL ACTRESSES?

Look, I understand that both Lin Shaye and Geena Davis have very distinctive voices. Asking a young (or old) lookalike to capture that timber ain't easy, so dubbing over replacement actress's voice makes sense. 

It's just also really freaky.

Anyway, the flashback just reminds us that Josh Lambert has some astral talents, although the Josh Lambert we see now might actually be possessed by Parker Crane, a troubled serial killer who met young Josh when his doctor mom (Barbara Hershey in the present, House of the Devil's Jocelin Donahue thankfully not dubbed by Barbara Hershey in flashback form) took him to the hospital where Crane committed suicide. Or maybe it's Crane's even more deranged mother, the kind of Sleepaway Camp-esque harpie who never met a makeup cake she didn't love.

Still with me?

With the full Insidious team returning, Chapter 2 is a genuine continuation of the story first begun in 2010. That installment proved quite fruitful at the box office making it something of a no-brainer to slap on a sequel. Thankfully, Wan and screenwriter/actor Leigh Whannell put some effort in expanding the story, rather than, as so may horror followups are want to do, simply repeating the formula beat for beat.

I will never forgive you, Home Alone 2: Lost In Let’s Just Substitute Every Detail People Loved About Our FIrst Film With Something Similar And Waste The Talents of Tim Curry.

Yes, we still have Kali’s baby monitor providing ambient scares, old houses opening creaking doors without help, and controversial comic relief in the form of Whannell and Angus Sampson’s ghostbusting team. The trademarks continue, but the story has a new direction to take in going both forward and back. 

Does it work? That question will probably most depend upon where you fell on Insidious. For me, I found it refreshing in how Wan managed to avoid so many genre cliches (i.e., characters turning on lights when entering dark rooms and moving out of houses that are clearly haunted) and genuinely unnerving in its first hour of unique jump scares. Its surreal ending didn’t work for me, but I could still appreciate the overall product as solid entertainment.

Chapter 2 has the same tone as its predecessor but works quite hard to develop the ghosts that have been hunting the Lambert males with typical Wan creepy clues. Eerie dolls show up in abandoned hospitals, a grand piano mysteriously plays a haunting tune, and a bitter Bette Davis channeling ghost screeches at anyone with the nerve to investigate her otherworldly crimes. This all reveals something of a Psycho-inspired serial killer backstory that feels a little too complicated for the fairly simple ghost story it’s supporting.

Once it establishes its premise, the film cuts between Renai (the very worried Rose Byrne)’s attempts to protect her children, Josh’s creepy is-he-or-isn’t-he-possessed mystery, Barbara Hershey & the ghosthunters (band name pending) investigating the past, and flashbacks (or maybe ‘furtherbacks’) to Josh’s initial meetings with Parker and his mommy dearest. It’s a lot, and as a result, the Parker stuff doesn’t have enough time to register much. Considering it’s ultimately the device meant to fuel the scare-factor of the end, it’s a minor shame. 

High Points

Joseph Bishara, who also did the music for Insidious and The Conjuring, really makes his score count. The screaming violins are used in a unique and extremely eerie way that manages to feel fresh despite being, you know, the jump scare accompaniment to a ghost story

Low Points

Aforementioned lack of focus in the Parker Crane backstory

Aforementioned lack of Patrick Wilson’s hiney

Lessons Learned

Abandoned hospitals keep impeccable hard copies of their records

Likewise, baby dolls made in the '80s have remarkable power supplies

The living version of someone is always better

Rhode Island Reds are the manliest of dollhouses

Rent/Bury/Buy

Insidious: Chapter 2 is a true continuation of the first film's story, which is somewhat refreshing in comparison to other sequels that simply repeat their predecessors' formulas without exploring anything new. That being said, it doesn't feel quite as sharp or disciplined as The Conjuring, though some of the scares might still register the desired effect if watched in a dark and quiet room. Fans of the first film might find some enjoyment in this installment, but it’s ultimately fairly unnecessary and unremarkable.