Before I Wake (2016)

Yet another title that's been on my list for some time - I can't remember how I even came to add it? Perhaps because it's Mike Flanagan (Oculus, Hush, Gerald's Game, The Haunting of Hill House series and the forthcoming Shining sequel, Doctor Sleep).  I like Flanagan's "voice" and style - Oculus being the weakest I've seen, and I feel like I'm in the minority there - and was eager to see where this one fell in my personal spectrum of hits and misses of his work.

Some spoilers incoming!

We join Jessie (Kate Bosworth) and Mark (Thomas Jane) as they near the end of an adoption process, after the tragic accidental death of their son. The little boy they bring into their home is named Cody (Jacob Tremblay) and he has a special gift: when he sleeps, his dreams and nightmares manifest as tangible apparitions in the vicinity. 

At first this is something spellbinding, but soon the bogeyman (known as the "Cancker Man") who stalks Cody's nightmares appears, and we learn that it has the power to hurt and kill.

This reads as quite a basic plot, and it is, but there are some little touches to it that kept me invested. Jessie goes through a spell of manipulating Cody's gift in order to see her dead son again; filling his mind with anecdotes and visuals then drinking coffee all night to stay awake in case an apparition appears.

Her decision to give Cody sleeping pills and make excuses to husband Mark how this was helping them was so cold! And Jessie is the one who ultimately survives! Poor Mark (and poor Thomas Jane for having to wear that bad wig, honestly) didn't have much to do but manages to be both common sense and conscience to Jessie, before being startlingly "absorbed" by the "Cancker Man".

Two moments stick out in my mind after watching this. That of a vision of the deceased son Sean, eyes wide, repeating the same words over and over again; and the scene of Cody's previous foster father hugging a vision of his dead wife - only, as the camera shows her face, his voice over explains how Cody was too young to remember (and therefore dream) her correctly. The woman we see is a terrifying facsimile of a human.

Flanagan has a lot to impart about grief, doesn't he? Oculus and ...Hill House were both heavy with sadness along with chills. Before I Wake fits into his oeuvre pretty well, with muted tones of set design and characters listless in beautiful houses that feel too cold and somehow too big for their occupants. 

I did call the reveal about 5mins before it was explained, but the flashback was heartbreaking enough for me not to mind. Maybe because I lost my dad to a terminal illness, I don't know... Adults can barely deal with that reality, so I can't imagine a small child trying to comprehend it. Your mileage may vary on this aspect of the film especially, but I found where it could have lost me with a potentially silly and/or overly sentimental explanation, this was awful in just the right way.

For a movie that comes across a little Conjuring-universe in its marketing, I enjoyed this more than I expected to. There are some moments that lean into the "simple summer blockbuster" horror vibe (as ever, no judgement, it has its place) like jump scares and eyeless ghosts... but there's also an interesting story woven through this. It's a great concept, and even if this didn't reach its full potential, it was still absorbing enough to keep me watching.

Streaming on Netflix at time of writing!

Cherry Tree Lane (2010)

Not NW10...

This is an English movie, even if one variation of the artwork clearly shows an American-style house and a white picket fence. It's actually set in North West London, and was written and directed by Paul Andrew Williams (another of his horror outings was darkly comic The Cottage).

That's... better...?

Cherry Tree Lane reminded me of both Funny Games and Eden Lake, and though it's neither as cerebral as the former nor as devastating as the latter, it still manages to be pretty riveting and successfully create tension with "only" a mostly one-room setting and a lot of dialogue. 

It never truly reaches heights of being scary (or at least, it didn't for me) but home invasion is always going to be unsettling... and here the invaders are not dramatic, masked, silent ghouls of unknown motive; they are loud kids with bad attitudes, little empathy, and when it comes to leader Rian (Jumayn Hunter, who actually starred in Eden Lake also) a real streak of cruelty.

The plot couldn't get much simpler; married couple Christine and Mike (Rachael Blake and Tom Butcher) settle down for an evening in - if I had one complaint, it was that the setting up of their dislike for one another was done so painstakingly, we were led to believe something would happen later to explain this, but it doesn't - and while they're eating dinner, a group of teens ring the doorbell and push their way into the house, taking the pair hostage. They say they want to speak to Sebastian, Christine and Mike's son. He's due home within the hour and they're going to wait. They assault Mike to subdue him and tie both up with gaffer tape.

What follows is a slow, stressful climb in unease as time passes, tempers fray and cruelties heighten. Much is done with off-screen violence, using the classic "we'll just have you hear what's happening and imagining far worse than we could ever show/afford to show" to great effect. Screaming and thumping reverberate through the house on a couple of occasions, and it makes up the nastier moments of the film as both the audience and other characters grimace and think about what's happening.

Even though this is a white middle-class couple up against working class kids, it never particularly feels like A Statement On Class. Honestly it feels more straightforward than that. It feels real in the sense that you can imagine Sebastian (whom we wait the entire runtime to see and barely catch a real glimpse of, a touch that I liked) is a mouthy little shit who acts like he's a big deal and got caught saying the wrong thing about the wrong person. I have known people like this - I think we all have. 

As nasty as Cherry Tree Lane gets, it never feels over the top. There are also some stand-out singular moments and shot compositions; watching one of the gang browse the DVD shelf in slow motion, tossing them aside, and the appearance of Christine in the foreground towards the end.

This one was a bit of a grower, but ultimately it left me feeling satisfied that I'd checked it out. I've been feeling pretty uninspired by horror movies of late... or locked into a perpetual scroll of streaming services through fear of wasting time on something shitty. There's so much shit out there! This piqued my interest - the clincher being it runs less than 90mins - and I'm glad it did. Oh, and anyone remember UNKLE? They did the music!

Cherry Tree Lane is currently streaming on Tubi! Honestly, Tubi is making me re-evaluate some life choices. It's free, their catalogue is MASSIVE and even if you have to wade through some crap, they have gems hidden in there too. 

I'd recommend giving this a spin if you want a short, sharp, English take on home invasion.*

*I feel I ought to say, however, CW: sexual assault. It's handled without exploitation, or lingering on the abuse like many movies tend to, but heads up that it happens here. 

I ❤ U The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The Blair Witch Project hits Shudder US today! To celebrate, I thought I'd jot down a Zombie Cupcake "take" on the movie, since I never actually have. After a recent re-watch I've been having some feels about this one!

For years I felt kind of embarrassed admitting I loved this film, but not any more. Watching it through recently, and then again with the thoroughly entertaining and informative commentary track, it clarified that this is definitely one of my favourite horror films for a few reasons. Over the years I confess feeling a tinge of embarrassment whenever I've been asked to name the scariest film I've ever seen... because honestly, nothing has ever come close to terrifying me as much as this did when I saw it in '99.

Yes, it's been something of a divisive movie ever since its release. The "slowness" of the story; the shaky-cam; the "why are they still filming" aspect and Heather being a "bitch"... Ugh, I don't agree but I get it. Like I said in my Blair Witch review though, whatever your opinion of The Blair Witch Project, you have to admit it was a milestone in horror history. 

Coming out of nowhere, successfully creating mystery around itself - the cast’s IMDB profiles had the actors labeled as "missing, presumed dead" for a full year! - and using the internet in a way that was unheard of at the time. This shit went viral before viral even existed.

"Missing" poster as marketing for the film.

Written and directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, the movie is a beautifully crafted piece of cinema where the more you learn about it, the more impressed you'll become. 

Compiled, as it claims to be, from the footage taken by Heather, Mike and Josh (Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard) The Blair Witch Project was mostly shot over six days as the actors camped and hiked in the woods, working off of personal "this is your motivation" prompt notes left by the crew. What we see today is thanks to intelligent guidance, expert editing (the Sundance screening apparently showed a different cut) and immersed, improvised acting. The breaking-point exhaustion we see as the film advances was real, and by the final days the three were only given bare minimum food rations to increase their irritability and encourage more anxiety and conflict on film.

Heather (Heather Donahue)

Heather Donahue's casting is called the single best decision of the entire project, and is a powerful but often maligned force of a character in this film. I always had a fondness for her, but my appreciation of the depiction of her has only grown as I've gotten older. Heather is something of a control freak, and she knows what she wants and how she wants it (umm, I can relate). The word "project" is right there in the film's title, and it's her project. Much of the movie is taken from her point of view as she's the one that insists on keeping her camera rolling, even after things take a sinister turn.

Mike (Michael C. Williams)

We meet Heather as a pitch perfect self-righteous film maker, and we leave her running through that house screaming - the audio accompanying her footage coming from Mike's camera making it all fantastically disjointed and unreal - and finally, she's on the floor of the basement. Fade to black.

Much we take for granted in this movie was actually a decision made by the actors (or a happy accident) as they were left to their own devices. If, after reviewing the day's footage Myrick and Sánchez thought someone needed guiding in a slightly different direction, then that was done. But generally they took what the actors gave them, discarded what they thought didn't work (much more, much nastier bickering between the men and Heather found its way to the cutting room floor in an effort to make the audience more sympathetic towards them) and then they spun indie horror movie gold with the rest.

Josh (Joshua Leonard) who lost that sick tooth necklace in the woods :(

Did you know that some of the townspeople at the start were real townspeople from the area? The actors presented themselves in-character so they got natural reactions from the public. Some were plants, too; actors hired and given a story to tell. The stand-out, the lady with the little kid who says "no!" was a real person who made her tale up on the spot (and had to be tracked down to sign a release form!).

Many clever shot set-ups were accidental or actor-driven, rather than anything suggested by the directors. Heather's iconic confession was self-scripted, and the framing of this shot was by mistake. The Blair Witch Project is a wonderful combination of glorious group effort and luck.

As for my personal reaction, marketing and trivia aside, it still creeps me out to this day. When I first saw it I don't remember necessarily thinking it was real, but I did get completely sucked in by the found-footage approach - and remain to this day a fan of imaginative found-footage movies. Whether I was just unaccustomed to horror (or this kind of horror) on the big screen or whatever the reason may have been, I was in full foetal position in my seat with a pounding heart by the end of the movie. Definitely one of those moments you love/hate and spend years trying to recapture!

Even watching the collection of alternative endings (spoiler: none of them work as well as the one they chose) spooked me. There's just something about that final sequence; the hysterical screaming, the house, that basement... I still find it frightening.

It's so cool that Shudder is adding this to their catalogue. But don't forget that there are some great extras on the Blu-ray if you feel like owning it permanently. There are so many amazing little details given in the commentary (the "taco" code word if anyone needed to break character; the stick-man affectionately named Chewbacca) so if you are a fan, it's an excellent investment.

The sequel, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 also hits Shudder today. I remember not being wholly convinced when I saw it, thinking it felt too much like a studio cash-in. Kind of excited to watch it again and see if that still stands.

What's your opinion on the original, or even that 2000 sequel? Lover, hater? Let me know!

The Stuff (1985)

I've never really given much thought to The Stuff, but this artwork gave me a flashback to seeing its VHS cover as a child and feeling repulsed and fascinated - a vibe I still chase to this day, within the genre!

Anyway, The Stuff, written and directed by Larry Cohen, is a satirical, campy, if slightly untidy B movie sci-fi/horror/comedy.

The "stuff" in question is a mysterious creamy dessert that's taken America by storm. The pink and purple signature colours and neon are seen everywhere: billboards, delivery trucks, street vendors... as well as sexy TV commercials and its claim of "Enough is never enough!".

A few people are rightly convinced that something sinister is going on, though. We have David 'Mo' Rutherford (Michael Moriarty), an industrial espionage expert hired to find out about this enigmatic product; Nicole (Andrea Marcovicci), an advertising executive who up until now has been peddling it to the masses; 'Chocolate Chip' Charlie (Garrett Morris), the face of another once-popular snack whose business got swallowed by the Stuff grabbing so much market share; and a young boy by the name of Jason (Scott Bloom) distrustful of the creamy goo after witnessing it moving around his fridge on its own, then being forced to run away from home when his parents and brother (played by his real brother: they both have crazily striking blue/green eyes!) all go nuts and try to attack him.

At one point Jason comes home to find all other food in the house tossed in the rubbish, and his mother serving a huge dish of Stuff to the family, in a bizarre take on a family dinner. 

Where did this delicious and dangerous treat come from, though? We're never told. The closest we get is in the opening scene, with an old geezer finding it oozing up from a hole in the ground. He tastes it(!) and decides that it's delicious enough to sell. Then it's back to present day (in 1985) with the immersion of the dessert into everyday culture and Stuff-induced mind-control of the population well underway.

We follow the aforementioned group of level heads as they travel around trying to uncover what the Stuff actually is, and then attempting to get the word out about its dangers. Their adventures even have them crossing paths with Paul Sorvino, chewing the scenery up as a military dude.

Effects are either goo or body-horror based, taking the form of practical (upside down and miniature sets, crazy fake heads, and just plain ol' pumping the stuff into and through things) and CGI (now laughably dated looking green screen). There are some inconsistencies with exactly how the Stuff affects a human body; sometimes people appear to bleed it when attacked, and others appear to be empty vessels after the alien pudding has left them. This isn't the worst thing in the world (this is a B movie after all) but it's a bit confusing.

I'm pretty sure I used to conflate this and The Blob, for obvious reasons, and it's not unlike it, of course. But the 1980's Blob brings nastier gore and a sense of its substance being actually dangerous. The Stuff, despite clearly turning people into zombies and occasionally (and far too seldom) oozing its way out of bodies, never really feels like a palpable threat in the moment. Everyone is obsessed with it, but ultimately the tide turns in public opinion and we're even shown riots against it, by the end of the movie?! It got one thing right: humans are fucking fickle.

The slightly chaotic plot seems to be the result of edits made from the original cut. Formerly longer than its now 87min runtime, edits were demanded to help with pacing. And help the pacing it did... only, it sacrificed anything the film ever had in the way of the art of crafting a story. Whereas presumably the longer cut fleshed out character decisions and actions, this version bounces speedily from one sequence to another with no time to lose!

According to Cohen the studio still wasn't too happy with the finished film, despite the cuts:

"New World wanted a straight-up horror film, and, in retrospect, The Stuff had more comedic aspects to it than the executives were perhaps expecting. They thought they were going to get a flat-out horror movie with a lot of gore and scares, and we made a film that was more satirical and had a lot of humour and commentary in it."

He's right, this definitely plays as a silly satire with occasional nasty moments, rather than an all-out "let the bodies hit the floor" horror movie. And that's cool! It's perhaps better viewed in company rather than alone, as it's so nonsensical it'll have you exclaiming out loud as it all plays out. Even the score sounds like it would be more at home on a chirpy Spielberg movie than this.

Streaming on Shudder at time of writing. Watch while eating something creamy!

Tony (2009)

Have you ever gone days without speaking to anyone? Maybe you didn't leave the house for a bit, too. It definitely leaves you feeling slightly disconnected from the world, and aware of everything continuing on around you, regardless. This is basically how our titular main character in Tony exists.

Tony (Peter Ferdinando) has no job, no friends, and his only reliable company is action movies on VHS. He's... an odd chap, so he finds it hard to meet new people; his manner seeming to irritate and/or scare anyone who does ever get particularly close. It's this detachment from people, and the anonymity of London and its boroughs, that makes it easy for Tony to do what he does (kill, keep, and eventually dismember and dispose) and - as far as we know - get away with it.

As someone who spent may years living in London, seeing it displayed in a less than romantic light is really great. The truth of London life, if you're living there as a normal person earning a normal wage, is housing estates, shady looking neighbours and dilapidated buildings. On his many wanders, Tony passes closed down pubs, shop-fronts and unappealing looking blocks of flats (as well as more harmless sights like launderettes and kids playing in the street). 

In amongst the more suburban stuff, we catch glimpses of big London landmarks in the background, like the "Gherkin", Canary Wharf and BT Tower. The city exists all around Tony, the ant hill rumbling along behind it all as he walks, and stalks, and kills. I found this a beautiful and terrifying way of illustrating just how removed from "normal life" an individual can become in a city, with little to no problem (though there is an amusing moment toward the end where Tony is getting grief from the dreaded Television Licence man). This receding back from civilization can work in a loner's favour, as a sort of protection - and this theory is certainly backed up by Tony successfully navigating various situations by either killing his way out or being saved by pure dumb luck.

Tony's kills do become more desperate rather than opportunistic toward the end of the film though, which makes us wonder how much longer he has before someone finally puts two and two together. That said, he's such an invisible presence as he moves through the world, it's also possible that he could continue for years to come. How many killers are operating at any one time in any city? How many have been caught only through fluke or because they wanted to be? Here, Tony does not seem anywhere close to remorseful about what he's doing (he commits murder with a demeanor of pure detached matter-of-factness) so his end will likely come about through being caught, or perhaps killed himself by an underestimated victim.

To make Tony's story even more uncomfortable, Gerard Johnson (who wrote and directed) gives us multiple instances in the film where you kind of feel bad for the guy?! For the most part he's treated like shit if he's noticed at all, and this frustration and sense of further being removed from "normal" people undoubtedly fuels his urge to kill.

The first time we see him he's trying to make small talk to an uninterested DVD seller on the street, and his earnestness and complete inability to read social cues is on full display (see also: watching the arguing couple in the pub). I think this is meant to show him as someone not inherently "evil", it's just that he wants to be part of something... to make a connection, but he lacks the skills to do so successfully. If this is reminding you a little of a serial killer named Dahmer, then yes, there are definite parallels. I'll let you see for yourself to discover just how far those similarities go.

My one gripe about this film is the renaming to Tony: London Serial Killer for certain markets. It's cringe-worthy in its obviousness, and way too on-the-nose for a film so quiet and mundane. "Tony" is one word, one short word, and not even a particularly interesting name... its normality suits the unembellished horror much better.

See, the beauty of Tony is its simplicity. User comments I read (don't ask me why, it's always a mistake isn't it) complained that it was "boring", and "nothing happens". And that's pretty close to being true. If you're the kind of horror fan who needs something to jump or shriek or otherwise spike your blood pressure every few minutes, then this is not going to be an enjoyable movie experience. However if, like me, you love a slow, almost ordinary-feeling film punctuated by violence, Tony is definitely worth checking out.

Streaming on Shudder (I'm doing a 30 day free trial) at time of writing.

Honeymoon (2014)

Both of these are for the same film, isn't that crazy? Look how much they vary, and give completely different ideas about what you're in for.

Equally, the tagline "After the ceremony, comes the ritual" is something I am sure someone in the marketing department was very proud of, but it too gives something of a false impression.

For what it's worth, I prefer the left poster. And now that I've seen the film, happen to think it suits it a whole lot more. Artwork choices for movies really fascinate me, I talked about them at the end of my review of Teeth, too, if you're interested.

Anyway, Honeymoon is an interesting little suspense film. Its concept isn't anything new: spouse finds partner doing something weird in the middle of the night; behaviour gets increasingly odd until finally the why is revealed. However, it carries itself well - though I will say if not for some icky scenes and a bit of bloodshed, it maybe falls closer to thriller than horror.

Bea (Rose Leslie) was my favourite thing about the film. She and husband Paul (Harry Treadaway - you may recognise him as Dr. Frankenstein from Penny Dreadful!) both start the film as you would imagine: happy, giggly, insatiable newlyweds.

They have come to spend time at Bea's family cabin and all is right with the world... until it isn't. Of course, their journey throughout the film gradually erodes both of them, but it is Bea's transformation that I found most interesting. Hair and wardrobe help, of course, as her spark dims, then goes out completely... 

But Leslie is great at conveying this change, too. Her body language shifts from being open, loose and free, to guarded and curled inward. It really does appear that something awful has happened to her.

Bea quietly carries herself as a victim, but won't tell Paul why. What happened in the woods that night? What are those marks on her legs? She flat out denies anything is wrong, but is clearly not herself as she forgets certain words and how to do simple things, and acts uncharacteristically impulsively all of a sudden.

She also stops responding to when Paul wants to have sex. Now... I do understand where they were going with this... I get that they are just married and on their honeymoon, so the sex we see them have in the opening scenes establishes that they are a happily sexual couple...

The problem I had was Paul. Even after Bea has been acting increasingly odd, and something is clearly amiss, and her inner thighs seem sore... he continues to come on to her in a way that ultimately comes across as a power thing rather than a sex thing. 

Thinking about this, and the act of writing of this review and has led me to the conclusion that we actually aren't meant to like Paul. Ultimately, all of the sympathy from the viewer is intended for Bea.

Honeymoon was written (co-written, along with Phil Graziadei) and directed by Leigh Janiak, and it's her directorial debut. It's an impressively strong film when you take that into consideration, and knowing the the writing and directing comes from a female perspective makes sense to me. 

Paul may be the character we follow around more, the one we have most in common with (in that he's clueless as to what's happening and so are we...) but he's not a particularly nice guy when it comes down to it. I thought that was a rather interesting way to spin this strange little tale.