Let's Talk About Horror Fiction and Film

[RJDiogenes]

Spaceman Spiff wrote:

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In the comments for the earlier version of the trailer, someone said that they hoped it wasn't going to be a comedy. The response was, "I assure you this is no parody, this is no spoof, we take our monsters seriously!"

That's what I want to hear. Maybe it will be popular enough to start a trend.

[Spaceman Spiff]

For anyone not on Facebook, here's the shot of the monster:




And I don't know how I missed this before:





^ That's a nice little touch.

[RJDiogenes]

That Drac is eerie in more ways than one.

I'm getting the feeling that the Wolfman in this movie is not Larry Talbot....

[starrchild]

I'm getting a Blair Witch Project vibe from the 2nd pic; maybe the lighting?

[RJDiogenes]

The Drac close up? Looks like classic dramatic uplighting to me.

Maybe because of the stark lighting and he looks like he's outside....

[Spaceman Spiff]

The Wolf Man special edition DVD art's been revealed, as well as the additional features.

Link.

Tom Weaver (film historian) contributes a commentary, also look for The Wolf Man: From Ancient Curse to Modern Myth, Pure in Heart: The Life and Legacy of Lon Chaney Jr, He Who Made Monsters: The Life and Art of Jack Pierce, Monsters by Moonlight and The Wolf Man Archives featurettes. There's also a Universal Horror documentary narrated by Kenneth Branagh.

There are several things on there that weren't in the green Legacy set, which makes it tempting. The Universal Horror documentary appears on the Frankenstein, The Mummy and Dracula special editions.

[RJDiogenes]

This looks great. Do we know what the release date is? I don't see it on Amazon yet.

[Spaceman Spiff]

They have it on Amazon, but with the first run art. I assume they'll update it.

Anyway, it says September 15th.

I half expected them to delay it along with the remake, so it's a bit of a relief to get it so soon.

[RJDiogenes]

Excellent. Now if only House Of Wolf Man and Trick 'r Treat would appear....

[Spaceman Spiff]

To pop back to recent efforts for a while, my wife and I had a lot of fun the other night watching [Rec]. For those who haven't heard of it, it's a Spanish zombie movie shot in the cinéma vérité style, like Cloverfield, The Blair Witch Project, etc.

We don't have the most impressive home theater, with just a 27" flatscreen CRT hooked up to stereo speakers, but it still managed to get us to jump a couple of times.

It's sort of the reverse of the Night of the Living Dead-style setup. Instead of trying to keep the zombies out, the characters are quarantined inside the apartment building with the zombies, and desperate to get out.

The plot's a little thin--I saw a review that aptly described it as more of a ride than a story--but it's quite an effective little ride. If you can handle cinéma vérité-style camerawork without getting queasy, and you don't mind subtitles, it's worth a look.

As with most successful foreign horror flicks, it was remade as Quarantine, which I haven't seen, but it has a pretty poor reputation amongst horror fans online. One strike against it right away is casting Jennifer Carpenter in the lead role. She's a great actress, but it affects the suspension of disbelief for this type of movie if you've seen her in any other roles. And being a huge fan of Showtime's Dexter, I most closely associate her with the role of Dexter's sister. I can imagine spending the whole show thinking, "Run, Deb, run!"

[RJDiogenes]

That cinema verite style is a hard sell. It becomes rather difficult to swallow that somebody would keep filming in the midst of a Godzilla Rampage or a Zombie Apocalypse. Blair Witch was fairly reasonable since it was more of a quiet, atmospheric piece. I haven't seen Cloverfield yet, so I can't comment on that.

What sort of Zombie Apocalypse was it? Are they the flesh-eating Romero variety? Shambling or fast? And do they give an explanation for the outbreak?

[Spaceman Spiff]

It's not really said whether it's apocalyptic or not. As far as the movie goes, the first zombie in the building is the first one with the virus, and it spreads from there.

As for the camera, the woman in the lead is a reporter doing a piece on the life of local firemen. When they get a call about something going on in the apartment, she rushes to the scene with them. Sometime after they're all inside, the lockdown happens. From there, the reporter tells the cameraman to keep rolling, to prove that the authorities were holding them against their will, etc.

As for the zombies themselves, it's hard to say. They strike pretty quickly, but the space is so confined that I don't think you really see them running around, jumping, etc. They're definitely not shambling and moaning; it's more like the virus makes them rabid. So in that sense, they're kind of 28 Days-ish.

[RJDiogenes]

Okay, a dedicated reporter as cameraman could be presented believably.

So these Zombies aren't really dead then? They're people with a disease?

[Spaceman Spiff]

Right, like the 28 Days zombies. There's a scene toward the (very creepy) ending where some light is shed on the possible origin of the virus, which is pretty unusual. But unlike a lot of these types of movies, the cause of the virus isn't terribly important. Like I said, it's not the usual apocalyptic situation. The Spanish government wants to keep it contained in the apartment building to prevent it from becoming one, but other than that, it's mostly these characters trapped with the infected.

It's a shame my wife and I didn't get a chance to see it in a theater, because I'd bet it'd be a lot of fun to experience that way. Heck, the crowd with which I saw the Friday the 13th remake made the whole thing a lot of fun, despite the mediocre movie.

[Rec] really was much more of a ride.

[SilentP]

[Rec] is definitely a film I actually need to go about watching. I bought it a while back, but when I watched it, I think by then I had been watching too many zombie films, and after the first attack, my body partially decided it had enough, so I wasn't feeling too good to finish it

As for the cinema verite camera style, while it does occasionally stretch believability about a person filming everything, I enjoy the restriction of viewpoint in puts the viewer in, so the film doesn't do the usual suspenseful music cues when something's going to happen or purposeful shots of where 'nothing' is to raise tension, and instead just leaving us with what the protagonists can see.