Notting Worm

I’ve never thought myself to be much of a Hugh Grant fan (namely because the man spent enough time with Elizabeth The Demon Hurley to probably be one knicker in hell already). But put him in a Ken Russell-directed horror film about ancient worm things where the fluffy Brit gets to make jokes about how his slutty maids should be wearing ancient chastity belts, and I’m kind of sold.

Quick Plot: A young Scottish archaeologist-in-training named (of course) Angus is sifting through the yard of a quaint bed and breakfast run by sisters Eve and Mary. The ladies have been spending the summer searching for their missing parents, while Angus is all about excavating a dinosaur. Meanwhile on the more mansion-y side of town, Eve's rich boyfriend John (Grant) is throwing fancy dance parties to celebrate the local legend of a giant worm.

It's a way more happening place than Dogpatch, especially when the mysterious 

Sylvia Marsh arrives in town to make a whole lot of double entendric statements about snakes. See, as you'll find out near immediately, Lady Sylvia is a bit of a worm devotee, a reincarnated or really ancient evil thing that sacrifices virgins (obviously) to the famed worm of John's fiesta happenings. Surely she has NOTHING to do with the disappearance of the wait a minute! symbolically named Mary and Eve's parents (and eventually, Mary and Eve themselves).

Directed by the generally much more experimental Ken Russell (The Devils, Tommy, Gothic), The Lair of the White Worm is an odd little hybrid that has justifiably earned a minor cult reputation. Aside from the future Divine Brown Toy For a Day, I imagine a good deal of its appeal comes from the simultaneously light-hearted and gruesome tone. 

Despite being based (loosely, I'm guessing) on a Bram Stoker novel, The Lair of the White Worm is horror comedy in its truest form. Yes, there's nun-rape, but it's so theatrically presented that it's hard to think of the scene as disturbing. The blossoming romance between Mary and Angus is sweet and without irony, while Grant's take on the wannabe detective John is never dull. The effects haven't exactly aged well--any scene that lingers on the titular monster ends up feeling more Bert I. Gordon than Tremors--but the violence has an entertaining gooeyness that nostalgically holds up.

High Points

It's quite easy to see why Hugh Grant went on to success with slightly morally askew but lovably fumbling British gent roles. As the rich but not cruel playboy, he brings a wonderful dryness to the part, proving that few men could deliver a line like "I like Mr. Flint’s hole. It's rather fascinating," with the same naughtiness

Low Points

Sure, there's something to the whole displaced knight thing, but it would've been a tad more interesting and modern to not have to watch the two female characters spend the last third of the film cowering in fear and crying through gags

Lessons Learned

Contrary to popular belief, Romans did not keep pet dinosaurs

Snake cultists are incredibly creative when it comes to dildos...land I mean Tetsuo levels of creativity

In order to play the bagpipe, one must don a kilt (duh)

The Deadly Doll's Dating Advice

And to anyone (most likely male) who has been made to sit through other Grant fodder like Notting Hill or Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, might I recommend proposing this to the missus for movie night? Simply sell it as "A young Hugh Grant!" and offer to nuke the popcorn yourself. You will get some (of what I dunno, but you know....some).


Rent/Bury/Buy

The Lair of the White Worm isn't a masterpiece, but it has a wonderfully cheeky charm about it that has aged well. Sure, the bargain priced practical effects are somewhat analogous to the terror of cheap modern CGI, but the actors--Grant in particular--understand how to spread the humor, making it feel almost in tone with a British version of Fright Night. Sadly the DVD is barren of any special feature (including subtitles! and isn’t Scottish its own language?) but if you haven't seen the film, it's certainly worth a rental.

Sometimes They Come Back...Wrong

I imagine few tragedies in life can ever come close to losing one’s child. It’s devastation on the most primal level of humanity, and a concept that has, not surprisingly, yielded some of cinema’s most touching, tragic, and haunting films to date.

The premise of Wake Wood, one of the newly restored Hammer Studios' releases, seems poised for inevitable sadness. Stop me if I’m wrong.

Quick Plot: Grieving parents Patrick (The Wire and Blackout’s Aiden Gillen) and Louise (The Children’s Eva Birthistle) move to the quaint rural town of Wake Wood after the their daughter Alice is mauled by a German Shepherd. When a citizen is accidentally killed by a lamb (go with it), town mayor Arthur (a refreshingly understated Timothy Spall) offers the couple something very special, a gift only Wake Wood can give.

There’s magic in the town see, dark, scary, but incredibly cathartic magic open to a select few. Arthur can resurrect Alice for a period of three days, after which she’ll again be gone forever and Patrick and Louise must then remain in town for the rest of their lives. This being a horror film, we know that a) Patrick and Louise will take the offer and b) something...won’t...turn...out...right.

At this point, you’re probably having intense flashbacks to Fred Gwynne’s ankle slicing in Pet Sematary. Wake Wood is indeed in that canon of sad parent horror, and has a similar feel. Once Alice is back, the film toys with sweet happiness before slowwwwwwwwly revealing something amiss. 

I’m delving into mild spoiler territory here. While I won’t give away the ending, I do want to discuss a very specific turn Wake Wood takes at the halfway point. If you plan on seeing the film--and I do recommend a rental--then you may want to exit at this point. I won’t be hurt.

Much.

Once we learn that Alice didn’t come back as planned, Wake Wood becomes, more ore less, another darned kids horror flick. Now as anyone familiar with my adoration for Bloody Birthday and Who Can Kill a Child? knows, I do enjoy that subgenre with the same enthusiasm I generally have for nachos or mint chocolate chip ice cream. With that in mind, shouldn’t the sight of a yellow slicker wearing seven year old punching people through the stomach have made me squeal in joy?

Well sure, if that’s all I thought the film needed. But Wake Wood sets itself up as something so much deeper. When you have a whole town chasing a little girl with torches, it’s something of a disappointment.

High Points

The opening five or so minutes do an excellent job of establishing Louise and Patrick's tragedy and subsequent move with the perfect level of show and tell

I’m not normally prone to jump scares, but there were at least two such moments in Wake Wood that did indeed make me gasp, certainly a sign of effectively developed tension

Low Points

The idea of an entire town having experienced these kinds of resurrections is quite haunting, and when we get those glimpses, incredibly powerful. Though Wake Wood is essentially the story of Patrick and Louise, it feels like there could have been a little more exploring of how such an ability would affect--both positively and negatively--a whole community

SPOILER ALERT

The final beat of Wake Wood has a menacingly mean black humor ring. I actually found it horrid. The film has brought us to a sad, but finished place, one where Louise is happy in the afterlife with Alice as she waits for a new child to be born in death. For our last shot to be a threatening layout of C-section items and a straight-at-the-camera wink from Patrick feels shocking for the sake of shocking and ultimately, a punch in the pregnant belly of characters we’ve come to truly care for.

THUS ENDETH SPOILERS


Lessons Learned

Always dress your child in bright colors, particularly if you’re going to be chasing her around in the dark woods for the bulk of your story and a shimmery yellow raincoat improves visibility tenfold

Stray Observation

In the three things I’ve thus far see actor Aiden Gillen in, the man always seems to get explicit sex scenes. Just pointing that out.

Rent/Bury/Buy

Wake Wood is a chilling film, one with a fantastically sad premise and some extreme tension. Personally, I was let down because it just feels as though the material was denser than what it produced, but it still manages to be a worthy rental. The DVD includes a batch of deleted scenes and nothing else, a disappointment as this film screams for more discussion from its creators. 

Lucky Dearest

I've made no secrets about my enthusiasm for the work of Jack Ketchum and likewise, my frustrations with the general off-target film adaptations of his work. While I think both The Lost and The Girl Next Door have merit, there seems to exist some wall between cinema fully capturing what makes Ketchum such a powerfully horrifying writer. After the lackluster Offspring, I didn't expect much to come from his savage clan series but when a filmmaker as unique as Lucky McKee steps up, I take notice.

The Woman, a pseudo-sequel to 2009's Offspring, is now slowly making its way to randomly placed theaters and film festivals. It's a powerful film, one bravely oozing in the ugly examination of sexual violence, domestic abuse, misogyny, enslavement, and power washing. Naturally, such accusations make it prime grade meat for the Girls On Film to tackle, bibs in place and homemade sauce ready to go. Our discussion is quite spoilery, so you may want to save it until The Woman grunts her way to your television. The episode is waiting on iTunes or at over yonder.

On a more fashionable note, my GleeKast cohostess Erica and I recently sat down with The Podcast Podcast/Spread TB’s Fozziebare and his future husband George to watch an amazing little slice of cinema you might know as Mommie Dearest. Loyal readers wil know that I have a special relationship with this film...

And so it was more than a pleasure to share a viewing with others. You can download the commentary at iTunes or stream over here. We tell you when to press play, so listen along in your best red carpet ready gowns and remember to hang them up properly when finished.

Wait, you mean there are SNAKES on this 'Snake Island?'

Some people are simple-minded. Give them giant 3D robots or Paul Blart: Mall Cop and they’re happier than my cat Mookie sleeping inside a tiny box.

If he were a dog, his tail would be wagging with enthusiasm and pleasure.

What I’m getting at, you see, is that as much as I like to look down those who throw hard-earned cash on films that give me headaches or rashes, I’m someone who audibly squealed in joy when I discovered there was a movie called “Snake Island” streaming on Netflix.

Quick Plot: A gaggle of tourists embarks on a luxury vacation in Africa. Destination: Snake Island, a newly opened resort headed by the superbly named Jake Malloy (played by director Wayne Crawford). Sure, (deepen voice) Jake Malloy has a steamy late night sexy flick name and all, but we can’t call him the main attraction when William Katt’s on call! The blond heartthrob plays Malcolm Page, a famed novelist stuck on vacation with a pair of stiff British newlyweds, a smart and sex-ready lawyer named Heather, and a whole lot of hotel employees (the female type of which are really excited to get naked).

You should probably worry about your investments when your resort has more staff members than guests, but if you count the snakes, then there’s no vacancy whatsoever. 

Because by golly, thar be LOTS of snakes! Red ones, green ones, skinny ones and fat ones. Cobras, anacondas, lil squiggly ones and slytherines (that’s a type, right?). 

You might think ‘WOW! So many snakes! This is awesome!’ But we haven’t even gotten started. See, the snakes really display their charm during one of the stranger montages I’ve seen in recent times, one involving two topless women dancing with a slowly shirt unbuttoning William Katt while the polygamist employee chuckles, the lawyer gets it on in the water with (deep voice) Jake Malloy, and the portly snake-shooting assistant gets attacked by snakes...and then more snakes....and a few more snakes. So apparently, it’s either female nipples or the very threat of William Katt’s nipples that awaken the aggressiveness in the serpentine kingdom. 

You would think this is the high point of the film because frankly, when a scene involving dancing loose women, William Katt’s bare chest, water sex and a snake attack plays to techno music, WHAT ELSE COULD POSSIBLY BE BETTER? I was ready to turn Snake Island off at that point for fear of its next hour failing to POSSIBLY match that potential (witness Drive-Thru) but after a bunch of other snakings, something else wonderful happens. And it’s even better than snakes dancing to club music.

Because it’s a snake singing. SINGING! SNAKINGING! And making up his own lyrics as such:

“We hate people yes we do

As far as we’re concerned, 

They’re just something to ...

CHEW!”

Isn’t that ADORABLE? Positively Shel Silverstein in style! Sure, the snake throws in a token ‘bitch’ jibe just because snakes are known for being natural misogynists, but it’s still a singing snake and I’m still in love.

Then our lawyer with pleasant boobs and common sense (though not enough to not sleep with the rather daft Jake Malloy) wakes up and the snake stops singing and I start being sad.

There’s a climax, and it involves snakes. Lots of snakes. Because in case you haven’t caught on, there are about as much snakes in Snake Island as there were chains in Chain Letter. 

That epiphany suddenly seems like the most important discovery since a stoner listened to Dark Side of the Moon while his grandmother watched The Wizard of Oz.

High Points

Sometimes they’re rubber and sometimes they’re made from computer pixels, but for much of Snake Island’s big snake scenes, we’re treated to living and slithering genuine snakes, the kind that make the ASPCA visit the set to ensure their safety if the producers want a disclaimer in their credits. Neato.

Low Points

It’s more a personal pet peeve than actual detriment of the film, but I simply despise people who take a bite of something mysterious, savor its deliciousness, then spit it out in disgust when they discover it’s something as odious as snake. Really lady, I’m sure you’ve had eel stuffed in your sushi. What’s the difference?

Lessons Learned

In Africa, things bite

Having five wives makes you an expert on all things women-related

Resort employees have a wonderfully audience-convenient habit of talking to themselves in great detail

African blonds get incredibly offended when no one will sleep with them. They also dress in the kind of Sexy Policewoman costumes generally reserved for Halloween stores or adult shops

Repeated Phrase of the Philm

A drinking game could easily made to coincide with how many times a character utters the disclaimer “I’m not an expert in ______, but...” Fill-ins include snakes and malaria, though I imagine one could easily find in the deleted scenes a montage of characters substituting the following at different points in the film:

running a hotel

tying knots

snake dance styles

montages

Rent/Bury/Buy

Look, I’m not saying Snake Island is any any possible way a good movie, but heck, it’s set on an island and it has a lot of snakes. And they kill. And they’re colorful. And occasionally, they sing and dance. And then kill. 

What else have you done in life?

All Quiet (Because They’re Dead) On the Western Front

(And no, that’s not one of those Sixth Sense-like spoilers I tossed in for a headline. There are soldiers in this movie and lots of them die. Settle down.)

It’s an odd thing to say, but there truly aren’t enough war-set horror films. You would think that the very nature of mankind’s most powerful, negative, and scarily constant action would breed a richer subgenre than torture porn or giant creature portmanteaus, yet the output is surprisingly small. I imagine there are a lot of buried treasures of war hidden under mobs of slashers and zombie overpopulation, but considering the ripe themes and simple terror of battle, there just simply should be more.

Thusly do we have Deathwatch, a 2002 British ghost story of sorts set in the trenches of World War I. Is there a scarier place to set your film?

Quick Plot: It’s a rough day at the Western Front as a troop of English soldiers chaotically flee their trench in a shrapnel storm. Without them knowing when night turned to day, the group finds themselves in eerily abandoned territory, eventually discovering a German trench filled with three soldiers. The men shoot two and imprison the third as each Brit develops his own slow descent into cabin fever.

The soldiers are a mixed bag, ranging from the innocent and bright eyed 16 year old Charlie ‘Shakespeare’ (Jamie Bell) to the grizzled, one-step-away-from-going-Gollum sadist Quinn (Gollum himself, Andy Serkis) who may find world war the best excuse to blow off steam since the invention of the stress ball. In the middle are an edgy chaplain, sympathetic doctor, dying (and oft forgotten) private, stuffy and bureaucratic captain, and token horndog played by the token horndog in Love Actually.

Some people get typecast in any genre.

Deathwatch is essentially a haunted house film...just a haunted house film placed in a rat-infested, mud-covered trench that’s already overflowing with corpses of war. It’s a brilliant and all-too perfect premise for a horror film, one that writer/director Michael J. Bassett doesn’t waste. Opening in the middle of gunfire is hugely effective as we instantly feel the horrors these men are living every day. The transition to the foggy, ghost-like world set in the trench is creepy without being overly obvious, slowly revealing some mini-nightmares waiting to wake up. Though some of the CGI effects stand out in a bad way, Bassett makes excellent use of much of his imagery. A camouflaged soldier in mud, the barbed wire-imprisoned dead, and the no holds barred approach to showing the human body as it deteriorates from battle go far in making Deathwatch something that horrifies from several angles.

Performances help immensely, with each British thespian doing a solid job. The film doesn’t quite have the same male fraternity as, say, Dog Soldiers, but that’s more because the nature of the horror here is more divisive than uniting. A few go a little mad,  but in different ways and for different reasons, making their descents interesting in their own ways. Others find their haunting from more physical--and blatantly evil--manners, including one truly nasty rat-inspired death that will probably make even a cousin of Splinter squirm.

High Points

Somewhere in the third act, as the action was exploding in every which way, I found myself a tad frustrated, wondering if there’d be any explanation other than the tried and true ‘war is hell.’ Without spoiling anything, I can assure you that the final beat of the film won me over by putting the whole story in a specific moral context that felt earned and effective.

Low Points

It’s natural for a film that primarily takes place at night to be quite, you know, dark, but sometimes the whole ‘I can’t really see anything’ness can be irksome

Lessons Learned

All it really takes is a single cloth mask to protect oneself from poisonous gas

Always be kind to bilingual German soldiers

Chekhov’s Law: If a homemade mace is introduced in the first reel, you best use that homemade mace by the fifth

Rent/Bury/Buy

Deathwatch is a refreshingly solid horror film that isn’t really perfect, but sure makes the most out of its vast potential. Currently streaming on Netflix Instant, it’s a great turn-the-lights-off kind of evening for a different and occasionally rather frightening time. I’d make some kind of cute military call to watch it here, but I feel like such a pun would warrant my face to be wrapped in barbed wire or for Gollum to wave a mace at my head, so just go watch it and save me the trouble.

Do Doot. Doo Dooot. Doo Doot Doo Doot Doo Doot (hummed with an Australian accent)

When Hurricane Irene began her slow waltz up the east coast, I found myself in a very specific movie mood. I wanted disaster, and I wanted it of the natural sort. Hence my queuing up of the Instant Watch thriller The Reef, a ripped-from-the-headlines tale of ill-fated sailors teasing the sharks in Australia.

Quick Plot: Meet Luke, a decent-looking (see Low Point) young man who invites his pal Matt, pal’s galpal Suzie, and Luke’s ex Kate (who Matt generously introduces to the audience as ‘his sister’ so we’re all fully clear on the dynamic) on a weekend sailing trip. As is standard with most overturned yacht disaster films, we get a good 30 minutes or so of character development in bikinis, pretty underwater shots of coral, and the token break-up/make-up conversations screenwriters seem to adore.

What’s up with that? I understand relationships are complicated (trademarked by Facebook) but why do filmmakers believe that makes them interesting? Kate and Luke, you see, broke up some time ago but still have strong feelings for one another. That’s nice. But I really don’t care.

See, I’m watching a film called The Reef because I want to see people eaten by sharks. It’s shallow, perhaps, but c’mon. Sharks. 

Thankfully the director heard my yawning and crashes the yacht in time for a few ominous fins to cruise on by.  As the upside down boat begins to sink, shipmaster Warren holds firm while the other four decide to swim towards land. A passing slain turtle and what I imagine are 12 rounds of 99 Bottles of Beer On the Wall later, we get our first shark feast and it’s rather glorious.

So that’s good. Shark attacks (apparently an alternate title in the Philippines) are important if your movie is an entrance in the shark attack subgenre. You might even say it’s the reason people watch such films. You know, for the shark attacks.

The Reef is a quite competent film, one filled with gorgeous camerawork and strong performances. The first sharking is scary and sudden, one that rewards your patience for watching relationship drama unfold. The problem with the film is that, well, there’s really only so much one can do when your actors are in the ocean surrounded by sharks. Unlike say, Chain Letter, which found about nine dozen different ways to have a chain kill someone, The Reef can only really show sharks swimming by and quickly grabbing a chunk off of someone’s skin. You know, because that’s what sharks do. 

High Points

It’s nice to see a film finally acknowledge the fact that climbing up a cliff is REALLY hard

Low Points

As I explained on this week’s episode of Girls On Film, the caliber of male hotness in this film is direly lacking. Forgive me if that sounds shallow, but how many horror films can you think of that feature unattractive females? Few. Very few. So when you set your movie in the oceans of Australia, wouldn’t you think to match the pretty blonds with something a little more sexy than this?

Lessons Learned

Sharks love seals (and really, who doesn't?)

Dead turtles are an incredibly unpleasant sight

Sleeping in water won’t do you any favors in the morning

Rent/Bury/Buy

As an Instant Watch stream, The Reef is more than adequate. It’s essentially a more brutal version of Open Water with better lighting, less overhead shots of clouds, and more blood. My qualms with it lie more in the genre’s limitations than director Andrew Traucki’s execution, particularly since he’s working from a ‘based on true events’ story that kind of naturally breeds a tad of the familiar. If you like sharks and want a nice remember of why they’re terrifying, one could do a lot worse than throwing this on a cool summer night.