The Dead (2011)

    In one of the stranger things to happen to horror films during the past decade, the lowly zombie has become one of the monsters-of-choice for independent horror films. Ignored for years as the poor cousin of much more prestigious monsters like the vampire and the werewolf, the zombie has slowly gained in stature until he now even has a television show, The Walking Dead, devoted to him. While the mad slasher (the original go-to-guy for B horror movies) went upscale in films like Seven, Saw, and The Silence of the Lambs, the zombie crept in slowly and became the poster boy for low budget horror. Unfortunately, this has also resulted in overexposure, with more than a few of these movies closely resembling their monsters: slow-moving, full of holes, and completely missing anything like a brain. Nowadays, if you want your zombie movie to stand out, there has to be something different about it.

     The Dead is definitely different. Where most zombie films take place in urban settings, usually in Western countries, The Dead takes place in Africa, out in the bush and far away from any cities. This, and the fact that much of the film takes place in broad daylight, gives the film a unique feel. The unnamed country in the film is in the midst of a civil war that has only been halted due to the zombie outbreak. Our main protagonist is Lt. Brian Murphy (Rob Freeman), an American soldier who narrowly survives the crash of the last plane out. Stranded in the back country, Murphy is just trying to find a way home to his wife and child. Eventually, he finds a companion in Sgt. Daniel Dembele (Prince David Oseia), an African soldier who is trying to find his son, who may have been taken to a safe haven in the North. Together, they head across the desert, trying to make their way through the slowly growing numbers of the living dead.
     Though the story at its center feels familiar, the film has a feeling that sets it apart from your typical zombie movie. The slow-moving zombies of this film are ominously silent, their whereabouts signaled only by a breaking branch or the swish of high grass. The characters have to listen carefully for their approach and the film emphasizes this with long stretches of silence that feel haunted by an unseen menace. The main characters are also men of few words and bear a passing resemblance to the professional soldiers and gunslingers who populated the work of director John Ford.
    At times, the dialogue is a touch clunky and occasionally obvious, with few surprises in the story. Yet despite its shortcomings, the film manages to remain effective and interesting. An almost hallucinatory night drive along dirt roads with zombies appearing and disappearing in the cars headlights feels a bit like the nightmare world of David Lynch. And the film has a subtext that harkens back to the films of George Romero, though the directors (Howard & Jonathan Ford) prefer not to spell it out too bluntly. The perception of America as both defender and destroyer in the Third World is remarked upon in passing, but the film never becomes a political screed decrying Western imperialism. At its heart, The Dead is an old-fashioned zombie movie with more than enough brains to distinguish it from its empty-headed cousins.

Kill List (2011)
     Horror films are currently big business in Hollywood, but you'd be hard-pressed to find one that seemed interested in scaring you. The Twilight films are so concerned with their central romance, they don't have any interest in scaring their audience. The Saw films (and their offspring) just want to gross you out, like little kids showing you a mouthful of chewed food. Right now, a lot of the films that carry all the familiar indicators of horror seem safe and conventional, like an amusement park ride where we know something will pop up in the dark every ten minutes. It can be fun, but it isn't scary.
     Kill List, which is not conventional, is scary. Yet for much of its running time, it doesn't seem like a horror film. A description of the plot reads like a British kitchen-sink realism film crossed with a mob picture. Jay (Neil Maskell) is an ex-soldier with a wife and son. He hasn't had a job in eight months and the money he's put away is running out. He's drinking too much, he's having shouting matches with his wife Shel (MyAnna Buring) every night, and his anger is getting out of control. When his best friend Gal (Michael Smiley) comes to him with a job, it's not only a way to make money, it's a way for Jay to keep his sanity. It's here that we get the first twist in our story: Jay & Gal are hit men and the job they're hired to do is to kill three men. Still, we seem to be on fairly standard ground, there are a lot of films about hit men and the jobs they do. But it becomes obvious that this isn't a standard job when their employer insists on sealing the contract in blood. And then there's the fact that their first assignment, a priest, thanks them before dying. Even for killers like Jay & Gal, this is a dark road and it only gets darker.
     I don't want to talk too much about the plot here. There are already several reviews that give away parts of the story just by referencing some of the films antecedents. That isn't to say you've seen this film before, you haven't. Just that like many films, it takes ideas from other ones and uses them to very different effect. It's all about the destination, and Kill List arrives in a very dark place that is far away from the safe and conventional Hollywood horror playing at the multiplexes.
     Make no mistake, this is a brutal film. Jay becomes increasingly dangerous as the job goes on, inflicting pain with a fervor that troubles even Gal. And the violence he commits feels real in a way that the cartoonish gore of so much modern horror doesn't. As Jay, Neil Marskell does excellent work playing an increasingly unhinged man who becomes so wrapped up in his work, he can't see the danger he's walking into. As his friend Gal, Michael Smiley brings a fine touch to a fellow who seems like he'd be a great mate, as long as you overlooked his work.
    There is a distinct feeling of unease running throughout Kill List. Scenes go to black abruptly and dialogue from one scene overlays footage from the next, creating disturbing juxtapositions. Director/writer Ben Wheatley uses sound to great advantage, filling the soundtrack with harsh, discordant white noise that seems ready to swallow the characters (and the viewers) whole. The film feels like a nightmare and Jay is implored at several points to wake up. The horror is that by the time he does, it's already much too late.

Movie Review: The Innkeepers (2011)
     So anyone who has known me for very long knows that I'm a BIG fan of horror movies. I have been ever since I was little and saw "Horror of Dracula" on TV. But let me tell you, being a horror movie fan is NOT easy. Despite some critical strides forward, horror remains one of the least respected genres in film. For some people (especially film critics), it's only a little bit above porn as a genre. And the films don't always make it easy, either. There are a lot of bad horror films out there and wading through those to find the gems can be a frustrating task. And when you find a gem, you sometimes worry that you're mistaking something that's not very good as great, just because it doesn't suck as badly as the last 10 horror films you saw. It's also possible to have the opposite reaction. I've heard horror fans tear apart a perfectly fine film because it didn't live up to their expectations of what "horror" is supposed to be. This (I think) is simply because a horror film, not unlike a comedy, won't work for everyone. We all tend to have a different idea of what's scary, just like we all tend to laugh at different things. I think that "The Blair Witch Project" and "Ringu" are scary, but I know there are people out there who don't. I'm not a fan of the films of Rob Zombie (or Adam Sandler), but they make money, so somebody must like them, right?
     All this is my kind of long winded way of introducing a review of "The Innkeepers", the new film by director Ti West. This movie is not going to be for all tastes. Unlike a lot of the big budget horror remakes out there, it's a slow build without a lot of in-your-face gore effects, pointless jump scares, or hyper-kinetic editing. It's a quiet film with a small cast, set in one location and, for much of the time, very little happens. The premise is simple: two desk clerks for the hotel The Yankee Pedlar are spending the closing weekend trying to find out if the hotel is actually haunted. Just about every hotel has a ghost and this one has Madeline O'Malley, a woman who hung herself in her room after being stood up on her wedding day by her fiance. Outside of a couple of guests, the desk clerks are the only people in the hotel, so now seems the perfect time to find out if the ghost is real. Since this is a horror film, we're pretty sure there really is a ghost, but the film isn't interested in telling us right away. Instead, West spends his time building his characters and having them engage in a low-key kind of comedy built around the boredom their job induces. They play tricks on each other, bitch about the guests, get drunk, and, when they can't think of anything else to do, play around with the ghost-hunting equipment. This is not a film for people who demand a scare scene (or gore effect) every ten minutes.
     During the course of the film, the female desk clerk, Claire (played by Sara Paxton), repeatedly asks why the ghost of Madeline O'Malley hasn't moved on, why she's chosen to stay at the hotel. The same question could be applied to Claire herself. Claire is a twenty-something who is currently drifting aimlessly through her life. When one of the few guests at the hotel, an actress-turned-New-Age-psychic (played by Kelly McGillis), asks Claire what she does, Claire is stuck for an answer. Her job is the only thing she has. Her male counterpart Luke (played by Pat Healy) isn't much better. His sole driving passion seems to be the paranormal website he's trying to put up about The Yankee Pedlar. That and being an arrogant jerk to the hotels guests. These aren't especially likable characters and its mainly due to the excellent performances of the lead actors that we remain sympathetic to them, especially once things start taking a turn for the worse.
     This is Ti West's second film, following his debut picture "The House of the Devil". That film was disliked intensely by a number of people, mainly because of the slow pace West employed during the suspense-building middle section of the film. "The Innkeepers" is unlikely to win those people over, since he once again chooses to use a leisurely pace that will probably frustrate them just as much. And, in the end, the film doesn't go anywhere that surprising. It's a simple ghost story, but that's no bad thing. The acting is very good, the story compelling, and the film delivers the scares it has well. And the film has a touch of melancholy to it, a sadness about how people drift through life, drawn to places that they attach themselves to, sometimes because they can't think of anything better to do, sometimes because they have no choice. Ghosts may be the saddest of all monsters, if we can even call them monsters. They are trapped in places, unable to move on, forced to watch others do the one thing they can't do: live. Maybe it's no wonder some of them would be just angry enough to want someone, especially someone wasting their own life, to join them.