New adventures in genre-bending

Clockwise from upper left: Werewolves Within, 

Love & Monsters, Yellowjackets, and Spontaneous. 

Since 2022 began, I’ve had the good fortune to watch some pretty spectacular examples of genre-bending movies and TV. Wasting no time, on Jan. 4 I saw Spontaneous, which I figured would be good but ended up leaving me a weeping mess. One way a film can genre-bend is by starting out in one place, genre-wise, and ending up somewhere very different. Spontaneous starts with — forgive me — a bang that feels decidedly horror-comedy (specifically, teen comedy with bloody explosions), but by the end it’s been both a coming-of-age drama, an involving sci-fi-ish thing, and a genuinely moving romance, all mixed with some truly artful philosophizing about the importance of taking risks and recognizing life’s transience. 

That’s a lot of lifting for one kicky dark comedy, but thanks to both a brilliant screenplay and the two leads’ lovely performances — though for me Katherine Langford is the beating heart of this movie — it really comes together, and even the crazypants free association of the ending feels earned because of all the great stuff that came before. The scene with Mara and her boyfriend’s mom in the cemetery at night, in its context, is one of the best single scenes I’ve watched in quite some time.

Then there’s Yellowjackets. Unlike with most of what I watch, I didn’t realize at the beginning how far into horror this one would lean. It could have been pitched as “Lost meets Lord of the Flies meets Mean Girls,”  but none of those possible inspirations channels quite the sense of foreboding and menace that Yellowjackets manages to from the jump. That opening scene, of the hunt through some pretty Blair Witch-y woods, stays with you throughout the consistently excellent first season; its themes of brutality, tribalism, and maybe even cultism never really go away, no matter how mundane the settings and situations get. 

There have been countless “flash back/flash forward” movies and series that examine characters in childhood and adulthood along parallel tracks, but Yellowjackets packs a bigger wallop than most in its depiction of trauma’s many and varied aftereffects as well as the pain, guilt, and in some cases ruthlessness that seethe beneath the surface of some people’s polished family lives. Even for those of us who didn’t survive a plane crash and resort to cannibalism and God knows what else, a placid exterior doesn’t mean there isn’t turmoil within. And Yellowjackets does particularly wise work in its exploration of female friendship, which it depicts as capable of both immense strength and alarming fragility. 

Next, Werewolves Within is up-and-comer Josh Ruben’s adaptation of, apparently, a 2016 VR game of the same name? We live in weird times, man. Sam Richardson is terrific as buoyant park ranger Finn Wheeler, and Milana Vayntrub shines as manic-pixie-dream-girl-with-a-dark-side-who-is-also-a-letter-carrier Cecily Moore. (FWIW, for anyone out there with a raging crush on Vayntrub, this movie won’t help you shake it.) By the film’s midsection I began to feel like it wasn’t more than the sum of its parts, which isn’t a huge problem when the parts are funny and diverting. At the same time, I quickly tired of the film’s gay male stereotypes that seemed more rooted in the 2000s than the 2020s, and the requisite band of dumb yokels that surround Richardson and Vayntrub feel a bit worn out, too. 

Compared to Spontaneous, Yellowjackets, and the also excellent Love & Monsters (how many sci-fi comedies feature a male hero choosing peace and empathy over violence in the climactic battle?), Werewolves Within comes across as above-average horror-comedy, but not transcendent — not an all-timer. They can’t all be, though, and if you’re staying in on a snowy February night, you could do a lot worse.

Tweaking the watchlist

I keep a running list of horror films I'm interested in. Some are already in circulation; others are coming out soonish. I recently realized that intriguing but ostensibly feel-bad titles like "A Dark Song" and "The Devil's Candy" (both on Netflix) might not be what I'm actually into these days.

I think I went through a phase with horror similar to my trajectory with indie and foreign films: At first, if a film was dark thematically, and maybe even hard to watch at times, it struck me as unquestionably deep. How could it not be? Human suffering, man -- that shit is deep. And since I was doing plenty of suffering, due to a lively combination of anxiety, depression, and disordered eating, I found a lot to relate to in movies like Catherine Breillat's devastating "Fat Girl" (2001), whose shocking ending is one of the few vivid memories I have of it.

These days, life is generally much sunnier for me, despite the chronic sleep deprivation that comes with being the parent of a toddler and working two part-time jobs. My wife is a big fan of genre film and TV, be it science fiction, fantasy, or relatively light horror ("Cabin in the Woods," yes, but probably not "We Are What We Are" or "We Are Still Here"). Much of what we watch together is "genre" in one way or another, though we also share a love of quirky and/or dark comedy ("You're the Worst," "Big Mouth," etc.).

In any case, I'm trying to modify my genre watchlist to reflect what I actually want to see. I just started watching "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri," intrigued by a local filmmaker acquaintance's praise for it and my appreciation of Martin McDonagh's previous work (chiefly "Six Shooter" and "In Bruges"), and though it isn't genre, it's quirky dark comedy, and it's an award winner -- serious cinema, if you will.

I think something that's been missing in my life, along with time to write for this blog and Spokane Faith & Values, is ambitious, "prestige" film. Before my son's birth in June of 2016, I squeezed in a few last Oscar winners, knowing my days of watching what I wanted when I wanted were numbered. Most notably, I watched and loved "Spotlight," "The Big Short," and "Room."

I remember how wonderful it felt to watch these thoughtful, complex movies, which, despite the difficult themes they highlight, I experienced as life-giving and inspiring. Because that's what outstanding, memorable films have always done for me: They've helped me keep believing in the human race rather than cynically focusing on our worst qualities and retreating into misanthropy.

In my view, a species that can artfully and poignantly reflect on its own weaknesses is one that may still have hope of becoming better over time. Especially in the era of Trump, perhaps humanity's most prominent and least inspiring example, I think I need more high-minded, well-crafted film -- whether it's "genre" or not.

Our robot overlords

Not sufficiently terrified by the now-infamous Boston Dynamics robot dog that can open doors?



In that case, you'll definitely want to check out two short horror films that predict an even gloomier future for us puny humans. It seems we're just lambs to the slaughter once our mechanical, AI-powered Frankenstein's monsters decide they're done putting up with our bullshit and turn on us. But don't take my word for it; see for yourself below!

Blinky™ from Ruairi Robinson on Vimeo.

ABE from Rob McLellan on Vimeo.

Simplicity and ambiguity: The horror short as flash fiction

Back when I was but a wee adolescent aspiring to become a fiction writer, in the summer of 1996, I attended Interlochen Arts Camp for a month of intensive writing instruction. Peter Markus, our quirky and charismatic teacher, introduced us to "flash fiction" -- very, very short stories. Some of these micro-tales were a couple pages long; some consisted of just a few paragraphs. Discovering this precise, economical subgenre inspired us to be wildly imaginative without setting ourselves the daunting goal of cranking out some arbitrary number of words or pages in order to feel like we'd written a "real" story.

I thought of flash fiction when I watched "Curve," a 10-minute horror/suspense short with a premise so simple, some young filmmakers are almost certainly kicking themselves for not coming up with it. (This was the effect flash fiction often had on us young writers.) I don't want to expound at length about a film so simple and effective, but I should also note that it features the kind of ending that drives some cinephiles absolutely bonkers. There's no clear resolution: Not only do we not know what ultimately happened, we don't know how whatever happened happened. But what the filmmaker was going for, I think, was primarily a chilling mood of uncertainty, mystery, and, yes, dread. If that was writer-director-cinematographer Tim Egan's goal, then mission accomplished.


CURVE from Lodestone Films on Vimeo.

"Creep 2" is perfect mumblegore for our post-truth era

Indie horror-comedy sequel "Creep 2" (currently on Netflix) boasts funny, disquieting performances by Mark Duplass and Desiree Akhavan, slowly building tension, and a nice twist at the end. However, it also includes a scene that, intentionally or not, speaks to our misbegotten age of alternative facts. Well into the sprightly 80-minute film, psycho killer Aaron (Duplass) informs web series creator Sara (Akhavan) that he "never lies." He clarifies that of course he plays with the truth at times, as Sara just has with him (hence the little speech). But Aaron emphasizes that he senses in her a truth that transcends the paltry matter of whether mere facts are true or false.

This put me in mind, when I later reflected on it, of the way in which so many Trump supporters seem to hear certain truths, and often reassurances, beneath or within the cavalcade of outright lies he delivers on the daily. The idea of an appealing truth that's deeper than facts seems especially dangerous in the context of the film, since Aaron elects to lie to Sara, late in the game, about his very nature, even after starting their relationship with honesty about his history as a serial killer so pure that Sara, a la "American Psycho," finds it impossible to believe. 

Aaron's decision to reassure Sara that he's harmless precisely so that he can move closer his violent goal -- which I'll leave viewers to discover -- smacks uncomfortably of the current president, who seems willing to say, and unsay, anything to keep things going his way -- to double down on falsehoods in such a nihilistic way that the whole thing, much like "Creep 2" itself in the end, feels like a waking nightmare. 

Oh, and what's mumblegore, you ask? Take a gander. 

No sleep tonight

Sleep paralysis -- so hot right now. You'd think so, anyway, if you had come across the Vimeo staff pick horror short "Paralys," a polished-looking, seven-and-a-half-minute scarefest that combines the aforementioned sleep condition with hints of Santaphobia (when you think about it, what's not scary about the Jolly Old Elf's annual B&E?) and a heaping dose of "The Ring" -- or "Ringu," if you're a purist, as one of the film's minor characters seems to be.

On Netflix alone, there's also the "documentary/horror" film "The Nightmare," which has a solid Rotten Tomatoes rating and looks well worth exploring; and the much less promising-looking "Dead Awake," starring highbrow scream queen Jocelin Donahue (from "House of the Devil" and the superior "Father's Day" segment of the otherwise forgettable "Holidays" anthology film). Vimeo offers another docu-horror hybrid, "Devil in the Room," so far unwatched by me.

For those seeking to write some kind of master's thesis on the subject, or simply for completists, there's "Be Afraid," the Maggie Q-starring "Slumber," and the probably abysmal "Sleep Paralysis," whose absurdly uncreative title hints at deeper creative voids within. There's also the "Dear David" Twitter thread, which apparently emerged quite recently and may still be making waves. Whaddaya wanna bet a "Dear David" movie hits sometime in 2019, with David F. Sandberg directing?

So why did it take filmmakers, especially in the horror genre, so long to seize on an actual condition that 1) paralyzes you, and 2) can subject you to terrifying hallucinations? I may need to do a little digging to find out why sleep paralysis seems suddenly to have become the genre's fright du jour. Maybe an increase in research on the subject has increased knowledge, and media coverage has placed the condition more squarely within mainstream cultural consciousness?

According to Google Scholar, fully 12.5 percent of published research on sleep paralysis has occurred since 2013. Consider that Scholar lists articles going back to the beginning of the 18th century, and you get a sense of how hot a topic it seems to be in the last five years or so.

You gotta have heart

I'm more than midway through "Slasher: Guilty Party," the second season of the Canadian horror series whose debut season I praised, and I feel a sense of nausea creeping in. Like season one, "Guilty Party" includes graphic violence done by a merciless, mysterious killer. Also like that debut season, entitled "The Executioner," season two features morally ambiguous characters who have done bad things but seem sincerely remorseful, or at least had decent reasons for doing the bad things.

What "GP" lacks, to its serious detriment, is likable characters. Retreat center co-founder Antoine may be the series' closest thing to a hero, and that shows you how dire the situation is. Sure, Antoine killed a dude once, but that dude was a murderous homophobe, and Antoine practically killed him in self-defense. Not surprisingly, Antoine's commitment to nonviolence and serenity breaks down just as easily in the presence of the titular guilty party, a group of onetime camp counselors who return to the scene of a crime -- now the site of the commune-like retreat center -- to bury their big secret once and for all.

Most slasher films deliver gory comeuppance to characters in an as-you-sow-so-shall-you-reap, Old Testament kind of way. Antoine pays for knocking off a gay-bashing asshole and concealing evidence of another crime he didn't commit by ... getting drilled alive, chopped into pieces, and stowed in the same trunk where he had stashed that evidence? C'mon. It seems even less fair when Gene, the grumpy but otherwise reasonable snowmobile driver who escorts the ex-counselors to the retreat center, gets chainsawed in half at the start of the whole bloody story.

"The Executioner" satisfyingly combined the typical slasher morality play with the engaging puzzle of figuring out whose sins were bad enough and biblical enough to get them splattered. "GP" may be trying to say something grim and unpleasant about human nature, or an uncaring universe -- or something -- by making some kills so random and awful, but Lord knows what. After watching several of the ex-counselors suffer excruciating fates, I'm actually rooting for the remaining amoral bastards to escape with their lives, so that at least the whole damn season isn't red-smeared nihilism writ large. I definitely have "Slasher" fatigue. 

Enter the widely lauded PG-13 horror-comedy "Happy Death Day." Recognized quickly by critics as the cinematic love child of "Scream" and "Groundhog Day," "HDD" is playful, good-natured, and populated with a mix of nice people, somewhat bitchy and superficial people, and genuinely bad people -- just like, y'know, the actual world. Also, unlike "Guilty Party," whose artistic intentions aren't particularly clear (is it trying to be a dark meditation on human nature? Or just a mashup of gnarly kills and hippie cliches?), "HDD" is clearly out for a good time. Jessica Rothe has It Girl written all over her throughout a funny, captivating, and even moving performance as Theresa "Tree" Gelbman, a bratty sorority sister with, it turns out, not only untapped depths but some bad-ass inner strength.

Overall, "Guilty Party" and "HDD" are quite the study in contrasts. The latter, with its goofy day-on-repeat premise and sweet romantic subplot, succeeds in being undeniably fun. "GP" engages some serious ideas and themes, like homophobia and rape, but considering its lack of a moral center, I don't know that it earns the right to do so. Season one of "Slasher" had plucky Sarah and genial real estate agent Robin, and it riffed on religious themes about as skillfully as season six of "Dexter." In "GP," there's no true protagonist. "HDD," for its part, is fashioned around Tree's gradual transformation from insufferable queen bee to empowered, relatively humble quasi-feminist. Thanks to Rothe's talent and likability, Tree's journey of self-discovery feels real.

Like other notable horror-comedies (e.g., "Tucker and Dale vs. Evil" and "Cabin in the Woods"), "HDD" flips the script on some horror tropes while employing others to delightful effect. This film loves slasher movies, college flicks, and movies in general. The inevitable, "Groundhog Day"-inspired sequence in which Tree parlays the lessons of repeated death and revival into a personal campaign to be a better person, set to Mother Mother's irresistible "Love Stuck," works like an IV drip of unfiltered sunshine. I couldn't help but grin.

Some of the finest horror films out there ("28 Days Later" and "Let the Right One In" come to mind) deal frankly and unabashedly in emotion. You gotta have heart if your movie is gonna stick with viewers; ripping characters' hearts out of their chests ain't enough.

"Slasher" is more than the sum of its (bloody) parts

I'm almost at the end of season one of "Slasher," an approximate cross between "Seven" and season six of "Dexter," with plenty of "Scream" thrown in. It's not a highbrow show, but it's grown on me quite a bit, despite having the kind of markedly bland protagonist/final girl that far too many horror movies and series seem to find necessary. It's not even so much the secondary characters who won me over, though plucky/unlucky artist Sarah Bennett's gay best friend, Robin, adds a bit of spice to the show's largely vanilla set of performances. And Erin Karpluk, of "Being Erica," brings a goodly amount of fire and fury to the role of grieving mother Heather Peterson.

Nonetheless, it's the twisty, turn-y plot that done hooked me, and that's as it should be. "Slasher" is the TV equivalent of an airport paperback thriller, and as such it delivers generously. Other series might have called it good at the close of the season's penultimate episode, when the serial killer is revealed and a courageous survivor vows revenge. "Slasher," to its credit, instead adds a meaty epilogue that proves much more exciting, and interesting, than the usual victim-takes-down-killer slasher movie denouement tends to be. More than halfway through the episode, it hit me: I do care who lives and dies, and I do want the killer stopped, one way or another. I'm more emotionally invested than I expected to be, and probably more than "Slasher" deserves.

All in all, this scrappy, semi-trashy show (with, it must be said, impressive special effects throughout) ended up showing more humor, and more genre savvy, than I anticipated. Even though season two's "I Know What You Did Last Summer"-esque premise doesn't intrigue me per se, I'll give it a try. After all, season one is considerably more than the sum of its parts -- no pun intended.

Canadian horror story

The jokes are too easy. A Canadian horror series, even one called "Slasher," conjures up images of a polite serial killer courteously asking potential victims for their consent before he slices them to ribbons. If the rampaging murderer has a snappy catchphrase he utters right before bringing down the knife, you can bet it'll end with "eh." Right? Because Canada. Also, somehow there's gotta be a Timbits reference. There's just gotta be. Killer's favorite snack?

As it turns out, the more interesting story about "Slasher" is that it revives a genre that came roaring back in 2011, with FX's "American Horror Story," but has at this point gone seriously to seed. After the daring, emotionally gripping, at times deeply unsettling second season of "AHS," Ryan Murphy's gory, over-the-top anthology series drifted into gratuitous blood 'n' guts, borderline-tasteless exploitation of topics like slavery ("Coven") and disabilities ("Freak Show"), and, worst of all, a near-fatal lack of scares.

I gave "Roanoke" a try after giving "Hotel" a hard pass, and you know what? Four episodes in, Murphy & Co. couldn't resist a graphic disemboweling, just 'cause. Doesn't help when the disembowlee is one of the season's most entertaining characters. Sure, dead people often come back as ghosts in the "AHS" universe, but I don't need my "Murder House"/"Blair Witch" knockoff mashup with a side of "Saw," thankyouverymuch.

"Slasher," despite its forehead-slappingly dumb name, feels fresh much the way "Murder House" did, though showrunner Aaron Martin doesn't bring the funny, or the provocative, or the downright weird, as reliably as early-run Murphy did. But hey, "Slasher" uses one of my favorite TV premises of all time -- person takes job as editor of small-town newspaper, paper serves as convenient vehicle for all manner of snooping and gossip-mongering and ethical dilemmas -- and combines it with the tried-and-true "Scream" formula (young woman returns to small town where parents were brutally murdered, looking for answers). Almost can't lose with that setup.

"Slasher" doesn't have the wildness of "AHS" seasons one and two, but it has likable-enough characters and is willing to surprise us from time to time. For example, not everyone stalked by season one's killer, the Executioner, ends up expiring. This keeps us guessing in every scene about who's going to make it and who's going to croak. Gore isn't overused, and the show's casual racial diversity puts to shame American TV, which is aimed at a considerably more ethnically diverse population. Are Canadian small towns really this Benetton-colorful? Who cares! This is fiction; give black actors some work.

After the pilot, I was uncertain about whether I'd keep going. But as in Britain, Canadian TV seasons aren't obligated to hit some arbitrary 12-episode mark. Season one of "Slasher" has eight episodes, and partway through ep No. 2, I'm hooked enough. Katie McGrath is compellingly tenacious and tough as Sarah Bennett, whose parents the Executioner did away with so viciously so many years ago, and "Being Erica" alum Erin Karpluk is well cast against type as the homophobic town loon who may or may not be capable of murder. As Halloween recedes in the rearview and the holidays beckon, one could do a lot worse than to quest along with Sarah as she turns over every last rotten rock in Waterbury in search of the horrible truth.

Nightmare fuel

Last year my thoughtful wife, knowing I love horror, sent me a Buzzfeed roundup of "16 Terrifying Horror Movies You Can Watch In 20 Minutes Or Less."

Yeah, they weren't kidding. Some of those puppies are friggin' TERRIFYING.

Short film is a busy parent's friend. Got 90-120 minutes to watch a feature-length film in one sitting? Ha! Got 10-15 minutes to watch a short by horror auteur Rob Savage? Indeed I do, thanks for asking!

So anyway: Many of Buzzfeed's picks are unsettling. "Vicious" and "I Heard It Too" are very, very unsettling. I'm kind of afraid to rewatch them this year. That's how much they freaked me out the first time.



And yes, some of these mini-movies rely a bit too heavily on jump scares, as too many horror films in general do. But some of these little bastards set up enough suspense and spooky mood to make your skin crawl.



Happy Halloween!

Bullies

Josephine Livingstone's excellent review of "It" for the New Republic wisely zeroes in on the theme of trauma, which the film explores throughout its two-hours-plus running time. Livingstone notes: "Children are the powerless recipients of generation[al] trauma, the violence and perversion which haunt any human settlement, but which are denied and therefore left unaddressed." While she is right to point up the story's powerful parallels between supernatural and human-caused trauma, I'd go further and focus on a very specific kind of trauma: bullying.

Pennywise the Dancing Clown, the interdimensional being who likes to prey on children when they're at their most afraid, is a bully of legendary proportions. But underneath, or alongside, the Losers' terrifying battle with Pennywise are some less otherworldly trials that, in the moment, may feel just as harrowing. Ben has to endure the violent predations of Derry's premier pack of bullies, one of whom, Henry, carves the letter "H" into Ben's ample belly, as if marking his territory, or branding a bull. Fortunately, Ben escapes before Henry can form the other four letters with his knife.

Mike, one of Derry's few black residents, has to cope with bullying at home from his grandfather. The old man insists that Mike take up the family business, which requires him to stun sheep with a captive bolt pistol prior to their slaughter -- a nasty business that reliably leaves Mike queasy and drenched in sweat. He also has to put up with the same band of bullies who harass Ben and the other Losers, but who tell Mike to get outta town with a savagely racist flair. Never mind that Mike's family has lived there for generations -- the implication is clear: Black people will never belong in Derry, no matter how deep their roots. (Though Chosen Jacobs, who plays Mike, doesn't get as much screen time as the other Losers, I hope his adult stand-in has more to do in director Andy Muschietti's follow-up.) Derry is a small town, and one quickly gets the sense that if you're unlucky enough to become the target of bullies, there's almost literally nowhere to hide.

That's especially, horribly true for Beverly Marsh, whose father calls her "his girl," and not in a sweet, caring way. Worse, he becomes highly territorial upon discovering that she has same-age male friends. For me, Beverly's story of resilience, and eventual self-liberation, in the face of bullying was the film's most compelling. "It" reminds us chillingly -- and necessarily, in this age of the neo-Nazi next door -- that evil isn't out there somewhere. No, evil lives beneath, within, and among us, in our history and present, in our perceived safe spaces, in broad daylight.

In the film's opening scene, evil comes out of the dark and snatches little Georgie away from a perfectly normal street in a normal town on a normal day. As we were reminded so painfully by the recent shooting at Freeman High School, bullying has invaded our schools and our online lives. For some children dealt a particularly awful hand, it waits for them also at home each day, in the place that's supposed to be the safest of all. In "It," newcomer Sophia Lillis gives a wonderful performance as Beverly, capturing her strength, wit, and beauty as well as the fear and desperation she feels under her abusive father's roof. Many fans have advocated for Amy Adams or Jessica Chastain as the grown-up Beverly, and either would be a fine choice. When it matters most, Beverly summons her inner resources and is fearless. Her righteous vengeance is a sight to behold.

I was bullied as a kid. It's no picnic. Stephen King's work often deals with the horrors and consequences of bullying, perhaps most memorably in "Carrie." But "It" takes a broader view of the subject. Where "Carrie" provides a detailed exploration of one girl's response to severe bullying, on the part of both her insane mother and her cruel classmates, "It" examines many types of bullying -- including the harsh treatment Henry, himself a bully, gets from his father, who seems to delight in humiliating and demeaning him. I appreciate it when movie bullies aren't one-dimensional monsters (so to speak). Plenty of children who do unkind things to their weaker, gentler peers have been victims themselves -- bully-victims, as they're called in the counseling literature.

In a way, Henry, a classic bully-victim, is at the center of the film. He represents the link between cause and effect; he is a living embodiment of the uncomfortable fact that evils of the past don't stay buried, that suffering is intergenerational and persistent, not static and ahistorical. I haven't read the novel that inspired "It," though I'd like to do so before Muschietti's sequel comes out. But after seeing the topic of bullying treated more thoughtfully, and with more empathy, in "It" than it often is in pop culture, I look forward to seeing how Muschietti, his screenwriters, and another terrific cast explore the longer-term, and even lifelong, effects of childhood bullying.

Curative power

Gimmicks, tropes, and why we love them

Two horror trailers have grabbed my attention this year, but not because they're teasing some kind of innovative, genre-busting, or intellectual take on scary movies. It's because they demonstrate a combination even more addictive than Trader Joe's peanut butter cups: high concept and lowbrow. "Wish Upon" and "Happy Death Day" both set up either marginally likable or somewhat unlikable heroines using a tried-and-true trope, and it's catnip to me.

"Wish Upon" re-configures Richard Matheson's old "Button, Button" premise in which protagonists get their wishes granted, at the price of someone's death each time. Richard Kelly's "The Box" made something heady and fairly interesting of Matheson's concept, as befitted the writer-director of "Donnie Darko," but "Wish Upon" is aiming decidedly lower: at teens, and maybe even tweens who somehow sneak a horror rental into a sleepover, if those still even happen.

Star Joey King is best known for playing Ramona Quimby, fer chrissakes, so she's pulling a Selena Gomez-in-"Spring Breakers" and darkening her rep. Based on the trailer, pro tip for poor Sherilyn Fenn: Keep yer damn braid away from the garbage disposal next time! Anyway, King's character goes from zero to popular girl, lotsa people die in gratuitously gruesome ways, etc. I likely won't actually watch this dreck, but why do gimmicks grab me -- us -- so persuasively? Why do I even slightly want to watch this movie?

Maybe the answer can be found in the trailer for "Happy Death Day." Meet Tree, played by Jessica Rothe. Tree is a popular, bitchy, probably somewhat vapid sorority-type college student. Tree has a big birthday, everyone who's anyone attends, and somebody in a super-creepy mask kills her dead.

Roll credits? Nah.

See, Tree is stuck in a "Groundhog Day"-inspired time loop. She dies, she wakes up the morning of her "death day," and the whole kit and caboodle starts all over again. Fun fun! Tree has to solve her own murder, etc. ("I Don't Know Who Killed Me" -- alternate title?) Anyway, this one looks targeted at a slightly more sophisticated audience, in light of the fact that Blumhouse produced it. And it might be good fun, especially since bitchy vapid Tree gets help, evidently, from clean-scrubbed, geeky male classmates with whom I have to believe, if anything is sacred, she will mightily hook up with once he helps her save her own life from Masky McStab-Stab. But again, why is this trailer taunting me with its movie's theoretical entertainingness? Why do I want to see "Happy Death Day"?

I suspect it's mostly this: Tropes = comfort. When Blumhouse waves this particular product in front of our figurative and collective nose, we know what they're selling. So we have a general sense of the likelihood that we'll like it. That's something that's distinguished mainstream film from so-called art film for at least a few decades now. "Tree of Life" guarantees views nothing except multiple WTF moments. "Boo 2! A Madea Halloween"? The trailers are pretty much two-minute versions of the movie, and a bargain at the low, low price of free.

And yet... a movie like "Happy Death Day" also promises to have some wit up its sleeve. I wrote about horror-comedy recently, and how it's an ever-loving hassle to pull off. Well, "Happy Death Day" promises us it'll mine the existential-comedy antics of "Groundhog Day" while also tapping into the popcorn-y meta-horror of "Scream." As prepackaged products go, that sounds mighty tasty. Most moviegoers, I hope, don't want total paint-by-numbers gruel when they go to the theater or illegally download or whatever. But a familiar formula shot through with some offbeat humor -- or at least humor that's somewhat funny -- and an intelligence level that exceeds what is fundamentally necessary to plot and dialogue a film, well, that's sometimes exactly what the cinedoctor ordered. (In action, see: "Kong: Skull Island.")

We who love originality and realism in movies can also love watching old beats being skillfully hit. Not every horror movie needs to be "Get Out," and even there, Jordan Peele played with tropes. How can you not? Horror is one of cinema's tropiest genres. The worst horror flicks are built with tropes, zip ties, and fake gore. The best are much classier and, sometimes, sassier, but they're not from an entirely different family. Jump scares are scary! Shadows are shadowy! Icky-looking figures wandering slowly but unswervingly toward you are very unsettling!

Even arguably the best horror movie of the 21st century, "Cabin in the Woods," paid loving homage to the tropes it was upending. Ultimately, Pauline Kael was right: "Movies are so rarely great art that if we cannot appreciate great trash, we have very little reason to be interested in them."

"Watch Out" and the way humor works in horror

Humor and horror can make for a queasy mix. Too many straight-ahead horror movies treat human lives like trash, thanks in part to the "Saw" and "Hostel" franchises but going back to Z-grade slashers and gorefests from many decades past. Trying to blend humor with horror tropes can make a fairly insensitive, dehumanizing horror flick seem downright mean-spirited.

When dark humor works well in horror, however, the results can be thrilling, as in remarkable films like "The Cabin in the Woods" and "Get Out" and honorable mentions such as "Ginger Snaps" and "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil." In the best-case scenario, humor makes the horror more palatable while also developing and humanizing the characters and delivering a more memorable, and meaningful, narrative. When horror-comedy works, it really works; when it doesn't, well, sometimes we get "Leprechaun in the Hood."

"Watch Out," a short film available on Hulu via the NBCUniversal Short Film Festival ("a bicoastal program seeking the next generation of writers, directors, producers and actors, while celebrating innovative storytelling from diverse backgrounds"), isn't "Cabin in the Woods"-level awesome -- but hey, few movies are. However, it deftly presents itself as one thing -- straight horror -- before downshifting to some surprisingly light-on-its-feet comedy, then lingering in the Venn diagram overlap space for a bit longer than you expect.

"Watch Out" takes a simple premise -- definitely a "Why didn't I think of that?" kind of setup -- and makes considerable hay. The film succeeds primarily because it follows the No. 1 rule of horror-comedy: Violence itself is rarely funny, but people's responses to violence, and its direct aftermath, definitely can be. Situational and/or character-based dark comedy goes a much longer way, most of the time, than trying to make plain ol' gore hilarious.

"Dawn of the Deaf" is quite something

British filmmaker Rob Savage's 12-minute short "Dawn of the Deaf" is gutsy, efficient, and hard not to think and talk about. It swiftly winds together four separate narratives that converge when a mysterious pulse has a devastating effect on the hearing population of a city. I want to avoid giving away more than I need to, as the film's brief run time includes a remarkable number of surprises and twists. It's not for the faint of heart, more due to some difficult subject matter than because of gore, but if you're a horror or sci-fi fan, it may well be worth your time. Also worth checking out: Savage's other shorts "Absence" and "Sit in Silence," both similarly refreshing takes on familiar horror subgenres.

"Ouija: Origin of Evil," or: The Horror Trope That Really Freaks Me Out

I'm not sure why, but distorted faces freak me out. I learned this the hard way back in 2003, when a friend and I rented the American remake of "The Ring." Note to self: Don't watch a horror movie on DVD if it's about a cursed VHS tape. It doesn't take much for a "Ring"-addled mind to worry that a DVD has just as much power to kill its viewers as any videotape. I insisted we take the foul object back to the Blockbuster store (remember those?) whence it came. To be specific, here's what did me in: the film's jolting, unexpected, second-long reveal of the corpse of the teen girl killed in the film's opening minutes: cowering in a closet with, as my friend put it, a "boiled face." Just thinking about it still gets to me a little.

Distorted faces in horror movies still freak me out, damn it. "The Ring" was only the beginning. In 2005, a different friend basically dared me to see "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" in the theater. Like the "Ring" remake, "Emily Rose" has its flaws, but it's genuinely creepy at times. The moment that a recently possessed Emily glances at a classmate and thinks his face is melting? 😢 To my supreme chagrin, for quite a few nights after that fateful trip to the theater, I woke up at 3 a.m., supposedly the terrible hour that possessions happen (because Christ was crucified at 3 p.m. and this is the inversion of that, hence Satan's time, blah blah).


And then there's "Ouija: Origin of Evil." At this point, I think it's safe to say I'm a Mike Flanagan fan. I've now seen three of the writer/director's horror movies: "Hush," "Oculus," and "Ouija," and at some point I'll figure out how to watch "Absentia," an earlier work. Like the rest of his oeuvre, "Ouija" features smarter writing and better character development than the average horror film. It also includes a chilling scene in which an unsuspecting teenager is reaching for something inside a basement wall while a possessed little girl watches intently, standing just far enough away to be a little out of focus. And then her face gets all weird and her neck bends and her mouth starts opening and closing ghoulishly.

Stupidly, I watched this while my wife, Liz, was out and the baby slept in the nursery -- at night. The moment her possessed, distorted face started moving around, I stopped the movie, but it was too late -- I was freeeeeaked out. Later, in the kitchen, I looked over my shoulder nervously as I did some dishes. I glanced at the darkened window between the kitchen and laundry room. I hoped my wife would get home soon.

Why do distorted faces freak me out so much? Why are the one of the only reliable horror movie tropes to really get under my skin? I talked about this with Liz once. She suggested it might have something to do with the baseline unnaturalness of seeing a human face warped into strange, boiled, stretched, or otherwise out-of-whack variations. True, it's unnatural, but so are a lot of things you see in horror movies: compound fractures, whitened eyes, flesh-eating -- that sort of stuff.

What is it about melty faces that gets me? I'll have to keep thinking about it. For now, though, I wish the MPAA would consider making an addition to its rating reasons. Can't you just picture it? "Rated R for violence and disturbing images, including melty and/or stretchy faces."

Home Invasion 101

I recently watched two home-invasion horror/thrillers that focused on homeowners with significant sensory impairment: "Don't Breathe," about a blind military veteran who lives alone in a broken-down part of Detroit, and "Hush," about a deaf author (who also can't speak) who lives in the woods with only a cat and a few neighbors for company. "Hush" is the superior film, not least because it doesn't go for over-the-top shockeroos but instead focuses on the basics of a prolonged but suspenseful cat-and-mouse pursuit.

That said, "Don't Breathe" boasts sharp performances from "13 Reasons Why" star Dylan Minnette and Jane Levy, who went from the smart sitcom "Suburgatory" to the grisly horror of Fede Alvarez's "Evil Dead" remake without missing a beat. Alvarez also directed "Don't Breathe," and the newer film shares the remake's willingness to take the audience to uncomfortable places. As the vet, whose mind has been twisted by sorrow, Stephen Lang gives a chilling and very physical performance. It's tautly directed and well acted, and not too predictable, but its secrets end up being perhaps a bit more unsavory than they needed to be.

The twist of making the homeowner in a home-invasion thriller the villain and the invaders the protagonists is interesting. Nonetheless, as a Detroit-area native, I was sad to see yet another stereotypical depiction of urban rot. Detroit seems to have been chosen as a setting (I doubt the film was shot there), as it has been so many times before, to convey blight and emptiness. Within the horror genre, "It Follows" used (actual) Detroit locations in a more nuanced and less cliche way.

"Hush" may or may not be writer-director Mike Flanagan's best film so far. You could make an argument for "Ouija: Origin of Evil," which is much more lavishly produced than the bare-bones, pedal-to-the-metal "Hush," which looks like it was filmed on a budget of about a buck twenty-five, some fake blood, and a few donated prosthetic and makeup effects (albeit very good ones). As others have noted, Flanagan knows two things that are key to making good horror: 1) Developing actual characters, about whom we have actual feelings, matters; 2) It's a very good sign if partway into the movie we'd be enjoying it even if it weren't a horror movie, and if it's actually hard to tell what genre it belongs to. (Another good example of both points: Ti West's "The Innkeepers.")

"Hush" thumbs its nose at some horror and home-invasion conventions while adhering, in a lively and imaginative way, to others. Two moments in the film are standouts for me. In the first, John Gallagher Jr.'s truly upsetting psycho killer threatens the life of a cat, with delightfully unexpected results. In the second, the killer thinks he has Kate Siegel's deaf fiction writer, Maddie Young, right where he wants her: His hands are, at long last, around her throat. Though we pretty much know what the outcome of the scene will be, Flanagan uses a flash of images to suddenly add great poignancy and weight to what might otherwise have played out as a routine thriller finale.

Siegel took on a great challenge in playing a deaf woman who also can't speak, due to an adolescent case of bacterial meningitis. She co-wrote the screenplay with Flanagan, her partner in life as well as filmmaking. So this is very much the story both of them wanted to tell, told in the way they preferred. "Hush" has much in common with "Wait Until Dark," "The Strangers," "You're Next," and other noteworthy home-invasion films, but it avoids falling into some common traps of the subgenre. For one thing, it doesn't treat human lives as worthless, as many movies with much higher body counts do.

"Hush" also refuses to turn the main character's mistreatment at the hands of a monstrous villain into an excuse for all-out, stomach-turning gore -- the kind of thing we saw, or maybe turned away from, in "The Last House on the Left," "I Spit On Your Grave," and other such bloody revenge fantasies. Maddie needs to defend herself, and that does mean trying to harm her assailant, but she isn't a merciless sadist (unlike her attacker). She's just a traumatized woman trying to survive.

At first I questioned the calm note the film ends on, thinking that someone who had been through what Maddie had would be hypervigilant, unable to relax for even a moment, and would make a beeline for the approaching police cars. But, after some reflection, I'm not sure I know what the survivor of such an ordeal would think, feel, or do in its immediate aftermath. I do know that "Hush" provides well-matched opponents, a consistently tense mood, and a resolution that's considerably more satisfying than those of many thrillers that operate on a similar premise.

"XX"

The buzzed-about new horror anthology film "XX" recently made its way to Netflix, and I jumped at the chance to finally see it. Like pretty much all anthologies, it's uneven, but unlike "Holidays," it isn't wildly, maddeningly inconsistent. It's closer to "Southbound" (but not as memorable) and "V/H/S" (but not as scary). Creepiest: "The Box," which will surely join the new (non-horror) Marti Noxon film "To the Bone" as part of some film studies course on disordered eating and body image in cinema. Most compelling overall: "Her Only Living Son," which melds a feminist take on single motherhood with the "Something's terribly wrong with Billy" horror subgenre (see also: "Joshua," "The Omen," etc.).

Not every film in the set packs a wallop, but all show signs of having been made thoughtfully, which is more than one can claim about, say, Kevin Smith's awful contribution to the aforementioned "Holidays." As all the hype assured us it would, "XX" does showcase some talented/promising female writer/directors in the genre. I was especially pleased to see work by Karyn Kusama, who directed both the excellent "The Invitation" and the unfairly panned "Jennifer's Body." It also leaves out a few notables who might be a great fit for "XX2," including Leigh Janiak ("Honeymoon"), Sarah Adina Smith ("The Midnight Swim"), and Jennifer Kent ("The Babadook").

The rest of "The Monster"

So, between work, baby/family time, and sleep, I finally finished watching "The Monster." Zoe Kazan and her young co-star, future Anne of Green Gables Ella Ballentine, really do act the holy heck out of this movie. And for me their acting really elevates what might otherwise be a very routine exercise in genre tropes. (Admittedly, the film includes one age-old cliche that caused me to do an internal facepalm and say, aloud, to no one in particular, "C'mon!") Reviewers have noted that the movie isn't as profound as writer-director Bryan Bertino seems to want it to be, and I think that's accurate. However, it's much less shallow than it could have been.

Fortifying the standard monster-movie beats is the wrenching relationship between Kazan's Kathy and her young daughter, Lizzy, played by Ballentine. Critics have rightly noted that the title could refer just as easily to Kathy, who is by turns abusive and neglectful toward Lizzy. However, as I noted in my last post, it's really a triple entendre: monster, mother, and addiction. What makes "The Monster" a tragedy, and truly one of the saddest horror movies I've seen, is Kathy's fervent, almost palpable regret about all the emotional and psychological crud her behavior has heaped on Lizzy.

I don't leave this film thinking Kathy doesn't love Lizzy, or Lizzy doesn't love Kathy. I do come away with great sadness -- that their relationship was so broken, and that it took such extreme circumstances to move them both toward healing.

What makes horror matter

I'm only about a half-hour in, but, thus far, Bryan Bertino's "The Monster" has many of the qualities I look for in horror: real character development, strong acting, an emotional connection to one or more characters (hence: emotional stakes for what comes later), and a gradual (but not slow) pace that effectively builds suspense. Zoe Kazan, who made a lasting impression in 2009's "The Exploding Girl," has made a graceful transition from indie ingénue to screenwriter (2012's "Ruby Sparks") and careful selector of projects. Her Kathy, an alcoholic single mom whose irresponsibility puts her daughter in the position of having to parent her, is broken enough to evoke pathos but not so broken as to alienate us completely.

A scene in that first half-hour in which Kathy fights to resist the magnetic pull of alcohol, after we see a message her daughter has scrawled on the kitchen whiteboard ("You can do it, Mom!"), and then succumbs, provides an emotional oomph that will likely make the bumps-in-the-night to come a lot more meaningful than they otherwise would have been. (The scene concludes with Kathy, having been sick, lying on the bathroom floor. Her daughter finds her and, instead of angrily walking away or bursting into tears, sweetly lies down beside her, spooning her.) Once I'm done with this one, I'll try to finish this review.