Starring: Elijah Wood, Stephen McHattie, Garfield Wilson, Madeleine Sami, Martin Donovan, Michael Smiley, Simon Chin, Ona Grauer, Ryan Beil.
Based on the idea from William Shakespeare, ‘The sins of the father are to be laid upon the children,’ Come to Daddy has city boy, Norval (Elijah Wood) dragging a silver suitcase through the woods to visit a father who abandoned him when he was five years old.
Dragging his suitcase, he loses his hat.
It’s the beginning of his exposure as being, ‘Full of shit.’
He knocks on the door, ‘Dad, it’s me. Norval.’
And I wondered how many layers there would be to Norval, to the story, as the mystery of this, Dad becomes more obscure.
What we get is a violent kooky comedy that skirts the line between mystery and weird, the screenplay like a story written by a uni student with father issues. Which is fine, but it translated like a bad dream rather than a story for a movie because of the many red herrings.
Elija Wood as Norval does a lot of the heavy lifting, being the only ‘normal’ character in the film.
Including a cop describing liars as having ‘raisin eyes’, and a coroner who has ‘no filter’ and no real role in the film. But I guess that’s true to life, the random strangers that make an appearance, then exit.
I don’t want to give too much away as there are unexpected turns making the film feel original.
But there are more strange moments as the mystery of this unpredictable and alcoholic father are revealed, that don’t quite add up, taking away the already tenuous grasp on that suspension of reality.
To add to that strangeness of gore and obscure, the scenery and setting is beautiful; the beach house, a stilted house overlooking the sea, my favourite part of the film, and aptly described by Norval as, ‘A UFO from the 1960s’. Cool, right?
And some moments are kinda cool and funny – I say skirting, because the film doesn’t completely cross the line into the bizarre, but there just isn’t enough to stack-up making, Come to Daddy more puzzling than surprising.
Produced by: Jason Blum, p. g. a., Kylie Du Fresne, p. g. a.,
Executive Produces: Leigh Whannell, Couper Samuelson, Beatriz Sequeira, Jeanette Volturno, Rosemary Blight, Ben Grant
Starring: Elisabeth Moss, Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid, Harriet Dyer, Michael Dorman and Oliver Jackson-Cohen.
‘He has figured out a way to be invisible.’
Watching waves from behind as they crash towards a dark shore gives a forboding sense of what’s to come.
The Invisible Man conjures thoughts of ghosts and the supernatural, yet writer and director, Leigh Whannell, known for his taste for the otherworldly (Insidious: Chapter 3) and horrific (Saw franchise) has given this new version of the invisible a modern twist.
I’m not going to give too much away, but the focus here is more about Cecilia Kass (Elisabeth Moss) escaping from Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), her optics guru, very rich and controlling boyfriend.
I was taken back to the 1991 film, Sleeping With The Enemy, as Cecilia prepares her escape from the imposing architecture of a cold and clinical space on top of a cliff overlooking the ocean, hiding her bag, planning the moment only to be haunted by the memory of Adrian telling her he would always find her.
And with a steam of warm breath in the cold outside from someone not visible, we see the invisible Adrian as he continues to stalk.
It’s these moments that impressed, the new and inventive creation of the invisible man.
The film could have turned twee, yet the idea felt new as the sound becomes muffled, dropping Cecilia into a world where an invisible man can exist.
I can’t say I was ever really terrified watching this film, but those silent moments waiting for the invisible to make good on the next threat shows restraint, allowing the gaps in between sound to ramp up the tension; the sound absent, like the man, yet the absent becoming something else, becoming the threat.
Composer, Benjamin Wallfisch (Blade Runner 2049, Shazam! and the It franchise) manages to add that extra layer to the story with the soundtrack which is such an important factor in a scary movie.
And Elisabeth Moss was made for this role, drawing strength from the bruised and battered, running from the one who would control her very thoughts; to show strength in a world where she sounds insane.
However, I feel like the story gets a bit loopy – getting confused about the relationships, like the single dad and best friend, James (Aldis Hodge). I originally thought that James was the ex of Cecilia’s sister, Emily (Harriet Dyer). And what made James and Cecilia such good friends?
There’s some great AHA! moments, but there’s times I questioned an obvious strategy like Cecilia’s obsession with ladders…
But the way the story’s shown is tight and restrained with the timing of those tense moments just right.
Who would have thought panning to a blank space on a wall or corner of the room could be scary?
Doctor Sleep is the sequel to Stephen King’s famous novel, The Shining (1977).
The film here, follows on from director Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 classic, never-to-be-forgotten interpretation featuring the axe-wielding Jack Torrance (Jack Nicolson) – ‘Here’s Johnny!’, opening in Florida, 1980, where Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor) lives with his mother far away from any snow, far away from the Overlook Hotel.
But the Overlook Hotel hasn’t forgotten him or his Shining.
Using his magic tricks Danny manages to keep the monsters locked away. But he can’t escape his own demons or the rage he inherited from his father.
Like the novel, addiction continues to plague Dan. Except this time, we see his addiction and his journey to recovery.
Running away Dan can’t escape from himself but he finds compassion and through compassion he finds himself.
Looking for another bright light, Abra (Kyliegh Curran) finds a shining kindred spirit in Dan. She introduces herself, writing, Hell😊
Following the detail of the novel we find Rose The Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) and her crew of empty devils who are the, True Knot who are also looking the next bright shining light.
This band of monsters are hunting those most pure. Children.
‘Live long, stay young. Eat well,’ says Rose The Hat.
And Abra might be the most pure and brightest of all.
So there’s addiction, then redemption, compassion and all the grime of child-killing-devils contrasting to give the horror more kick.
But it’s not all black and white.
Screenwriter and director Mike Flanagan has captured the different layers of character that Stephen King writes so well (and why I’m such a fan), so Dan has his dirty deeds and the evil Rose The Hat is somehow likable in her loyalty to those in her inner circle.
And it’s a good story. Shown well.
The soundtrack is restrained yet powerful as a heart beats steady, creating a suspense in the waiting that hangs when the beat stops so I could feel and hear my own heart, waiting for the next door to open, the next magic trick.
The stars wheel, gravity shifts, turning a room to slide into another place.
Yet the trickery isn’t over-done.
Flanagan has managed to get the detail of the novel without losing sight of the story.
I really enjoyed the book and have read it twice so I was hoping for a worthy adaptation.
Directed by: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett
Written by: Guy Busick & R. Christopher Murphy
Produced by: Tripp Vinson, James Vanderbilt, William Sherak and Bradley J. Fischer
Executive Producers: Chad Villella, Tara Farney, Tracey Nyberg and Daniel Bekerman
Starring: Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, Mark O’Brien, with Henry Czerny and Andie MacDowell.
The family known as Le Domas has been playing Le Bail’s Gambit since Great Grandfather Le Domas made a pact with Le Bail himself.
Marrying Alex (Mark O’Brien) and into the ‘dominion’ that is the Le Domas family (that fittingly made their fortune out of board games), the pact demands that initiate Grace (Samara Weaving) (and any new addition to the family) must play a game at midnight on the night of her wedding.
She loves Alex despite his weirdo, super-rich family.
So playing along with strange traditions to get along? Pft! Sure, why not?!
But when she draws that, ‘Hide and Seek’, card; and that playful, ‘Hide and Seek’ record starts spinning, the weirdo family hunting the new bride through the gothic rooms and corridors of the house, to capture her as a sacrifice, takes issues with the in-laws to a whole new level with each armed and at the, well, ready:
Mother to Alex and kinda sweet, Becky (Andie MacDowell): Bow & Arrow
Rich and crazy dad, Tony (Henry Czerny): Winchester Rifle
Tormented and alcoholic brother, Daniel (Adam Brody): Rifle
Ops, I did it again, sister-in-law, Emilie (Melanie Scrofano): Pistol
How does this work again? Fitch (Kristian Bruun): Crossbow
I was born evil, Charity – there’s the irony (Elyse Levesque): Spear Gun
The adage that people look like their pets but here I look like my weapon, Aunt Helene (Nicky Guadagni): Battle Axe.
If you’ve read this blog before you’ll know I like a good bloody horror with a dry sense of humour.
I can say there’s certainly some bloody moments here, tending to the visceral.
And the humour, although slightly over-done, had me smirking with a few snorts (not unlike Grace herself who isn’t against a snorting laugh when called for): brother in-law, Fitch Googling, ‘getting to know your crossbow’ before his attempt to murder his new sister in-law. And then there’s death-stare Aunt Helene giving the salutation to niece, Emilie (Melanie Scrofano), ‘You continue to exist’.
Perhaps not a laugh-out-loud tickle (more WTF is going on but I guess I’ll just have to roll with it), there’s a lot of fun here, played with wide-eyed and cool appreciation from Samara Weaving as the fighting-for-her-life and screaming-when-necessary, Grace.
And there’s a decent storyline that edges towards some twists but really more about the beautiful and self-deprecating, Grace. You want her to get out alive, which is the kinda the point of the movie.
‘That one extra bit of summer fun was going to take Bobby through hell.’
Violence Voyager had its Australian Premiere at the recent MIFF – I thought it would be a good idea to review something different for upcoming Halloween. And yes, Violence Voyager is certainly something a bit different.
Set-up like a childhood adventure story, Bobby (the foreign American kid) tells his sick mother he’s going out to find flowers for her empty valse sitting on the windowsill. But really, he’s going to the mountain with his best buddy, his blood brother (sporting stitched cuts on their hands to prove it) Akkun – who also, strangely has what looks like scars on his forehead.
Added to the childlike voice-overs and the adventure aspect that includes Bobby’s cat, Derrick who tags along, the whole film is painted cardboard cut-outs with static facial expressions, the movement made by hand like kids playing with a shadowbox filled with toys.
But when the trio, Bobby, Akkun and Derrick-the-cat find a run-down Fun Park, the film becomes a nightmarish hell where kids never escape: they either become modified with all their nerve endings on the outside and their eyes pulled out of their sockets and placed on horizontal sides of their now square face, or they get dissolved to become food for half-robot hybrid human monsters under the command of park-owner but really scientist, Dr Binobo and daughter and navigator, Siori.
There’s a deceiving simplistic feel about this film, the voice-over slow and deliberate, the timing of the dialogue giving the most affect.
But there’s plenty of splattered blood and vomit and naked kids hung like hocks – the theme horrific and the images of those cardboard cut-outs bizarre.
Definitely not one for the kids to watch this Halloween. I wouldn’t classify Violence Voyager as ‘Family’.
Yet, for all its horror, the film was palatable because I was always delighted to see another clever technique giving texture to this bizarre tale like blue vapour rising around the cardboard Dr. Binobo making him look evil, a rising shadow over the cardboard Bobby to depict a pending doom and the kids armed with a super-soaker and dolphin water pistol squirting real water onto those monster robots giving the scene another dimension like those pop-up books I read in primary school.
And that juxtaposition lent another layer to the bizarreness of this simply, horrifically clever film.
With a bat, monkey and cat on your team, you can’t lose – well you can still become a deformed robot, humanoid monster, but in the world of Violence Voyager, that’s a win.
Screen story by: Guillermo Del Toro and Patrick Melton & Marcus Dunstan
Based on the series by: Alvin Schwartz
Produced by: Guillermo Del Toro, p.g.a., Sean Daniel, p.g.a., Jason F. Brown, p.g.a., J. Miles Dale, p.g.a., Elizabeth Grave, p.g.a.
Executive Producers: Peter Luo, Joshua Long, Roberto Grande
Starring: Zoe Colletti, Michael Garza, Gabriel Rush, Austin Abrams, Dean Norris, Gil Bellows, and Lorraine Toussaint.
“Sarah Bellows, tell us a story.”
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark pieces together the fabled fiction of Alvin Schwartz (who wrote the series), where screen story writer Guillermo Del Toro (along with Patrick Melton & Marcus Dunstan) hang the film on the idea that: “Stories can hurt, and stories can heal”.
Set in 1968 where, ‘If it’s in the newspaper it has to be right,’ but really there’s a lot wrong, like the Vietnam War and the fact Stella’s (Zoe Colletti) mum has left her with her dad (Dean Norris); Stella’s only friends in the world, Chuck (Austin Abrams) and Auggie (Gabriel Rush).
But having buddies makes life easier to live until they decide to show new-kid-in-town Ramón (Michael Garza) the Mill Valley haunted house. On Halloween.
The story of the haunted house being the young daughter, Sarah Bellows was a child killer. That she killed the children of Mill Valley who listened to her scary stories on the other side of the wall of her locked room.
Her family hid Sarah away because they said there was something very wrong with Sarah.
So when Stella finds Sarah’s book of scary stories in the haunted house, she thinks it’s a good idea to take it home to read. She’s a writer too.
Then new stories start appearing in the book. New scary stories like, ‘Who took my toe?’. It’s worse than it sounds. Particularly when the stories start coming true.
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark feels like one of those coming-of-age movies but really, it’s a scare-fest with body parts that come to life and bugs crawling out of empty eye-sockets.
The monsters are impressive with director, André Øvredal not holding back on the nightmarish imagery, while adding subtle details like the skin chewed around Stella’s fingernail.
I was absorbed and surprised as monsters came to life in cornfields and glaring red-lit corridors… But then the film became a crusade.
The story still holds and hey, it had to go somewhere; but I just couldn’t put myself into the shoes of Stella because there didn’t seem to be any fight or build to the strength of her character. How did this kid suddenly get to be so strong?
Starring: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Will Poulter, William Jackson Harper, Vilhelm Blomgren, Archie Madekwe, Ellora Torchia, Hampus Hallberg, Gunnel Fred, Isabelle Grill, Lars Väringer, Henrik Norlén, Anders Beckman.
‘I’m sure it was just a miscommunication.’
Following the success of his debut feature, Hereditary (2018), director and writer, Ari Aster shares the same attention to the discord of strange ritual in a modern time.
The more ritual involved, it seems, the darker the deed.
Midsommar focuses on the pagan celebration and nine-day feast the small community of the Hårga partake in every ninety years: the purification ritual.
Before we’re introduced to the slow corruption (purification) of the idyllic village in Hälsingland, filled with wildflowers, people tending gardens, getting high on magic mushrooms and dancing around in white tunics, we see a relationship falling apart. We see Dani (Florence Pugh) clinging to the only stability left in her life after a family tragedy, Christian: her boyfriend who’s been thinking of breaking off the relationship for a year.
Christian’s mates don’t understand why he’s still with her.
All the boys want to do is live the life of students, go to Sweden to sleep with as many Swedish chicks as possible, while Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren) shares the unique ritual of his home, a once-in-a-life-time experience with his friends while Josh (William Jackson Harper) writes his thesis about the celebration of the Summer Solstice.
So when Christian invites the distraught Dani to come along on the trip, the awkward tension of the relationship becomes the undercurrent of a journey that unravels like a bad trip. A trip that keeps getting darker played-out in the constant sunshine and reassurance of the Hårga explaining this is what we’ve always done. This is our tradition.
It’s the out-of-control pull of the constant bizarre behaviour of these villagers, that twists the perception, to see the warp of reality as the visitors are seduced into a culture so different to their own, to be swept along into the trance, helpless to stop what comes next.
It’s the subtle details that drew me into this new world, Aster and his creative team piecing together the culture of the Hårga based on James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough, paganism and the spiritual traditions of philosophers such as Rudolf Steiner. The team created a culture with its own language, history, mythology, and traditions. Bizarre and violent traditions with the added trip of seeing grass grow through feet, to see the trees breath; to see flowers open and close in time with a heartbeat.
There’s brutality and beauty, like the extreme of long nights and never-ending days. The beauty cloys. Like blood clotting. It’s too bright. The flowers are too pretty.
Yet, the ritual makes the violence seem natural.
‘It does no good, darling, looking back at the inevitable. It corrupts the spirit.’
The many shades of darkness and light are used like a theme through the film, like a reflection of the person telling a lie, the truth shown in the focus of foreground. Showing the shades of Dani and Christian’s relationship is these subtleties is the genius of the film for me – the deliberate pulling away, the discord when Dani tells Christian, ‘That was just really weird.’
And Christian replying, ‘Was it?’
Then there’s the artwork and paintings and symbols hinting of what’s to come in the story, making me wonder how dark the film will get.
However, I didn’t find the film too confronting, the film not horrific because the senses have been saturated with sunlight and flowers and flutes and song; like the characters, I felt a little drugged by the grassy fields, lulled into the natural progression of the wrongness because the village becomes closed-off, the modern world, shut-out.
Without the outside world to compare the behaviour, the ritual becomes embraced, so the violence doesn’t hit as hard. I guess making it all the more disturbing. But for me, more thought-provoking because eventually, all those subtleties add up to show an interesting truth of human nature.
I’ve been thinking about writing this article since watching the thought-provoking horror, Us (2019).
Featuring doppelgängers, the film shows the horror of a reflection taking the place of our self. Scary stuff. But what I enjoyed most about this film was the humour.
The film juxtaposes normal behaviour set in a bizarre world where a copy of self is killing all the other selves.
Seeing a family fighting for their lives to compete to sit in the front seat of the car, the winner based on who has killed the most people/doppelgängers? Hilarious.
There’s also the additional delight of husband Gabe with a tissue stuck up his bloody nostril stating things like, ‘Almost looks like some kind of fucked-up art instalment.’
Director, writer and producer Jordan Peele states, “Horror and comedy are both great ways of exposing how we feel about things […] The comedy that emerges from a tense moment or scene in a horror film is necessary for cleaning the emotional palate, to release the tension. It gives your audience an opportunity to emotionally catch up and get prepared for the next run of terror.”1
Winston Duke really nailed the father character, Gabe; and I appreciated this layer of bizarre humour to lighten the strange – as Jorden states above, to, ‘clean the palate’.
But what does this ‘clean the palate’ actually mean?
And what is it about gallows humour that I find so funny?
An article published in Nature Reviews / Neuroscience, ‘The Neural Basis of Humour Processing’ (Pascal Vrticka, et al (2013)) concludes there are, ‘two core processes of humour appreciation: incongruity detection and resolution (the cognitive component); and a feeling of mirth or reward (the emotional component). Whereas the cognitive component seems to rely principally on activity in the [temporo-occipito-parietal junction] TOPJ, the emotional component appears to involve mesocorticolimbic dopaminergic pathways and the amygdala.’ 2
Yu-Chen Chan, et al summarize and further research the comprehension-elaboration theory of humour in their article, ‘Segregating the comprehension and elaboration processing of verbal jokes: An fMRI study’ (2012)3. Highlighting that ‘not all situations involving the detection and resolution of incongruities are humorous.’
They go on to quote Wyer and Collin’s comprehension-elaboration theory of humor (1992), where ‘The elaboration follows comprehension, involves the conscious generation of inferences of features not made explicit during comprehension as well as further thoughts stimulated by the newly understood situation, and elicits the unconscious or conscious feeling of amusement. These elaborations effectively involve appraising the stimulus event for their humourous content.
The amount of humour elicited is a function of the amount of elaboration of the event and its implications that occur subsequent to its reinterpretation.
The affective feeling of humor results from, and may overlap with continued elaboration of the event.’
So, humour in the setting of a horror evokes further elaboration not just because of the incongruent, it’s the nature of the incongruent: normality in a setting of the horrific.
The elaboration, further cognition of the joke makes the humour darkly funny.
In the setting of a horror film, there’s also a layering to dark humour that sparks the cognitive on the foundation of a previously evoked response, like fear.
As stated in the article, ‘The role of the amygdala in human fear: automatic detection of threat’ (Ohman. A (2005))4, ‘Behavioral data suggest that fear stimuli automatically activate fear and capture attention. This effect is likely to be mediated by a subcortical brain network centered on the amygdala […] When the stimulus conditions allow conscious processing, the amygdala response to feared stimuli is enhanced and a cortical network that includes the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula is activated. However, the initial amygdala response to a fear-relevant but non-feared stimulus (e.g. pictures of spiders for a snake phobic) disappears with conscious processing and the cortical network is not recruited. Instead there is activation of the dorsolateral and orbitofrontal cortices that appears to inhibit the amygdala response. The data suggest that activation of the amygdala is mediated by a subcortical pathway, which passes through the superior colliculi and the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus before accessing the amygdala, and which operates on low spatial frequency information.’
This is interesting with the view that further processing of a scene in a scary film, provoked by an incongruent behaviour, will break the activation of the amygdala and be, ‘mediated by a subcortical pathway, which passes through the superior colliculi and the pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus’ and would give the effect of tension relief (‘cleansing the palate’) and therefore, humour.
The article goes on to describe the activation of the fear response, like increased heart-rate and respiration (as we’ve all experienced in particularly scary movies): ‘The amygdala consists of several separate cell groups (nuclei), which receive input from many different brain areas. Highly processed sensory information from various cortical areas reaches the amygdala through its lateral and basolateral nuclei. In turn, these nuclei project to the central nucleus of the amygdala, which then projects to hypothalamic and brainstem target areas that directly mediate specific signs of fear and anxiety.’
You can imagine sitting in the cinema, immersed in a scary scene that has evoked the fear response: the rapid heart-beat, sitting on the edge-of-your-seat. That automatic response has kicked in.
So, those jumps you get in a horror are from that ingrained automatic response – like a reflex.
With conscious processing the fear is either enhanced through a clever script that gives layers to the idea of the horror (mediated through the amygdala), or is consciously processed as being, just a film (activation of the dorsolateral and orbitofrontal cortices that appears to inhibit the amygdala response): this isn’t real.
So either the data is further processed, where, ‘a cortical network that includes the anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula is activated.’
Or isn’t: ‘the initial amygdala response to a fear-relevant but non-feared stimulus (e.g. pictures of spiders for a snake phobic) disappears with conscious processing and the cortical network is not recruited.’
I think dark humour occurs somewhere in this cognition. In the further elaboration.
The fear response is already activated, through something that automatically evokes the fear-response, doppelgängers for example; then the data is further analysed when the setting is incongruent to the behaviour of the character, leading to a release of tension on the background of an already evoked fear response. With further cognition and elaboration the incongruent is resolved by processing through memories, past experiences, so the data is personally related in the context of a horror making the humour: darkly funny.
So, humour instead of a fear response including that extra processing leads to tension release and to a layered emotional response giving a fear response, mirth, therefore creating dark humour that tickles because of its complexity, its, elaboration.
But dark humour isn’t just humour in horror.
Dark humour can be satire. Dark humour can be about a cop trying to perform a dance in memory of his lost mother… At her funeral.
I recently reviewed the film, Thunder Road (2019), finding the performance and script from writer/director/lead, Jim Cummings genius. I’m still giggling about this cop falling apart because the character is so sincere and so tragic, it’s funny.
Jim was interviewed on a Podcast by Giles Alderson, and he talks about his intention to straddle both the tragic and humour of this cop having a breakdown, stating the audience will reward you when more than one lobe of the brain is engaged.5
The writing and performance of this film is brilliant because of the empathy evoked by seeing this guy grieving against the incongruity of his abnormal behaviour.
It’s the processing involved while seeing this super-nice guy, doing his absolute best in the worst of circumstances, then just lose his grip that tickles: standing, about to throw a child’s school desk, the teacher subtly pocketing the school safety-scissors included.
His mother is dead, his siblings don’t show at the funeral, his wife has left him, his daughter can’t stand him and is acting out, making statements like, ‘I hope I get mum’s boobs.’ And his job as a cop is emotionally draining and stressful.
His life is eating him alive.
But Jim continues to try to do the right thing only to end up with ripped pants.
Don’t get me wrong, the humour here is subtle and complex – like the way Jim is described, ‘Everyone grieves differently. Everyone’s unique.’
You can just see it – how the nice people describe someone losing the plot at a funeral.
I’m still giggling because the film shows how difficult life can be and how ridiculous.
So based on the same principle of processing the incongruent on the foundation of a fear response, here the emotional centre is engaged, in empathy for this guy at his mother’s funeral.
The humour is based on the incongruent because this guy is not functioning as a normal human being.
Then the nature of his behaviour is elaborated, because of the sadness and tragedy and empathy for this guy doing his absolute best.
The sadness and tragedy is modified by the incongruent behaviour, leading to further cognition, coming back as humour on a foundation of sadness that leads to elaboration creating that dark humour.
It. Just. TICKLES.
Taking the idea further: if there’s not enough tension for humour to release through incongruity, or if the difference isn’t enough; and if there’s no attachment to the character (leading to further elaboration), the attempt at humour will miss the mark.
The response will be flat: it’s just more data that flows through, marking time.
And if the humour doesn’t require further processing, and really misses that tension relief, it becomes simple. Like slapstick. And that’s if there’s a good performance from the actor.
If not, the end result will turn the audience against the storyline because the film will be a boring experience or the laughter will be directed at the film, not with it.
Watching a film that gets dark humour just right, for me, is a genuine pleasure – who can forget the gloriously funny, bad luck of, O. B Jackson (James Parks) in The Hateful Eight (2016)?!
Tarantino is definitely one of those writers and directors who knows how mix up the violent, the unexpected warmth and intellect with the incongruent.
Think about the relentless violence in John Wick 3 (2019) that saturates to the extent it’s funny.
It’s the unexpected bloody action happening to a well-liked character that absorbs with the incongruent of a deadly killer who loves his dog making John Wick a memorable and likable character adding those touches of joyful dark humour.
I acknowledge that not everyone enjoys this style of (sometimes bloody) humour – and there’s further research about the different theories of humour; think of humour used as aggression (and why people will feel superior and laugh at a movie, perhaps) and humour used in sexual selection (I found that funny too! Maybe we should go out…).
As a side note, the sexual selection theory is a concept well illustrated in the Coen Brothers’ film, Burn After Reading (2008), with the character Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) taking online matches to the movies to see if they laugh at the same joke.
A nice illustration and frankly, not a bad filtering method to find the right partner.
Whether you like dark humour or not, I’m sure all would agree that those added complicated interactions of cognition and emotion make watching a film a more rewarding experience, and one that certainly keeps me coming back for more.
2. Vrticka P, Black J. M. and Reiss A. L. 2013 ‘The Neural Basis of Humour Processing’ Nature Reviews / Neuroscience, Science and Society PERSPECTIVES 14 860 – 868.
3. Chan Y, Chou T, Chen, H and Liang Kl 2012 ‘Segregating the comprehension and elaboration processing of verbal jokes: An fMRI study’ NeuroImage Dec, 61: 899-906.
4. Ohman. A, 2005 ‘The role of the amygdala in human fear: automatic detection of threat’ Psychoneuroendocrinology, 10: 953-958.
5. Giles Alderson (2019) ‘Jim Cummings On Writing, Directing and Starring in Thunder Road’, The Filmakers Podcast May 29, available at: apple.co/2EydVIz
Starring: McKenna Grace, Madison Iseman, Katie Sarife, Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga.
‘Not all ghosts are bad, right?’
In this third instalment of the Annabelle series, we find Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) taking the doll, Annabelle off the hands of some very frightened nurses – circa the end of The Conjuring (2013).
The relationship between Ed and Lorraine is as always, close and personal and sweet – unlike their life’s work of containing the demons infesting the lives of those still of this world.
It’s a familiar feeling, seeing the Warrens return, and the doll, Annabelle.
James Wan (director and co-writer of, The Conjuring 2 (2016) and also co-writer of the original, The Conjuring) co-wrote this instalment, along with Gary Dauberman. But the direction is all Dauberman – his debut after successfully writing the two previous Annabelle films.
And the atmosphere is tense.
There’s something about Lorrain’s eyes that’s used so well here – the expressive concern compared to the doll’s wooden cracked stare. This is just one of the many techniques used to ramp-up the tension.
The demonologists leave their young daughter Judy (McKenna Grace) in the hands of the ever-reliable baby-sitter Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman) while they venture out to another job.
Most of the film is set in that 70s style house of laminate kitchen, low hanging lights and orange and brown decor. Back to the house holding the room with three locks and a sign asking, Do Not Touch Anything; filled with all the objects touched with evil, to have a priest pray over every week to keep the demons where they’re supposed to be: contained.
This is the focus of the film, the Occult Museum and the misguided friend, Daniela (Katie Sarife) who releases all within in it.
The film isn’t about Lorraine and Ed, this is about the three young girls fighting for their souls and sanity while the demon that controls the doll Annabelle acts as a beacon that calls all the other spirits.
The suspense is built on the creepy atmosphere of the house, bit by bit – the sounds of static and touches of orchestral sounds keeping up the edge. And the turn of light through blue, green, yellow and red cellophane revealing hidden spirits turn the house into something like a freak show – all set to a sometimes still silence while you wait and wait for that next scare.
There’s some lightness to break the tension, ‘Don’t touch her, you’ll get obsessed,’ says one kid at Judy’s school.
And there’s a kind of sweetness to the relationship between the girls and the want-to-be-brave boyfriend that manages not to be cheesy, making Annabelle Comes Home not horrific but still scary because of the suspense.
Some of the objects in that room really get the heart pumping – who would have thought a reflection seen in an old tube TV could be so creepy.
So there’s plenty of tension but the violence doesn’t evolve. It’s more the threat that kept me on edge.
In the end, the film felt more like a homage to the Warren family, with the recent passing of Lorraine Warren: 1927 – 2019.
I wonder if she’s still floating about, haunting anything – like ringing her spirit bells, just for fun.
Produced by: Seth Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg
Executive Producer: Chris Ferguson
Starring: Gabriel Bateman, Aubrey Plaza, Brian Tyree Henry and Mark Hamill as the voice of Chucky.
‘Are we having fun yet?’
‘I guess.’
‘Yay!’
Child’s Play (1988) is a classic horror movie I remember watching when I was about twelve-years old.
I remember it was about a doll and it was scary; and I remember cringing and trying to get to sleep after seeing feet hanging out the end of a bed getting sliced by a knife.
So, I knew I was waking into a movie about a killer doll. But was somehow surprised by the horror, meaty horror at that, where the writing and the performance of single mom Karen (Aubrey Plaza) and son Andy (Gabriel Bateman) suspended reality enough to get a decent scare going when this life-like Buddi doll, doesn’t get possessed or start off being evil, but becomes a serial killer by mimicking what people do; by doing what he thinks his best buddy Andy wants him to do.
Afterall, he is a Buddi doll.
Chucky would do anything for his best mate. Including ripping the skin off faces, hanging people, stabbing and setting up angle grinders to saw pesky people in half.
Child’s Play re-imagined manages to give a classic horror, but somewhat hard to swallow concept, a believable hook.
Here, we have ‘Chucky 2.0’ based on the technology of today – where electronics are interconnected, wireless and activated by voice command.
So all we have to believe is that Chucky is an animated doll capable of responding to commands like Siri or Alexa.
Sure there were contrived moments like a person with broken legs, bones broken through skin, still able to crawl rather than writhing in agony; and rope around a neck suddenly loosened when a body falls to the ground. But it still kind of hung together.
And that had a lot to do with the tone of the film, director Lars Klevberg balancing the gore and horror with some dark humour that really hit the mark, like the question of why is there fruit involved?!
Just think watermelons being a similar shape to a decapitated head.
Yep, Child’s Play is gory and funny with Mark Hamill voicing the evil doll that is Chucky, surprisingly effective on so many levels – childhood, Star Wars, evil doll. Why not? If the voice fits.
There’s enough essence of Chucky-the-original to keep fans happy, while the fresh take lifts the original concept somewhere the audience can laugh with and not at – a close call for me at the beginning of the film, saved by the wry performance of Aubrey Plaza and the likable Brian Tyree Henry as Detective Mike who lives down the hall.
