Zombos' Closet

Husk (2011) Not All Dried Out

 

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good

"Stop me if you've heard this one, but there's this movie with an abandoned farm house in the middle of a cornfield and--" I started to say. I was preparing Zombos' tax information, and my library desk was littered with receipts, scraps of paper notations, vexing forms, and two bone china cups of cold coffee. I decided to take a break. 

"--You mean Dead Birds?" interrupted Zombos without looking up from his New York Times newspaper. 

"What? No! The cornfield has this smelly, burlap sack-for-a-head decrepit scarecrow--"

"Dark Night of the Scarecrow, then? He turned a page.

"No! If you let me finish, it's a more recent movie. There are these five college people--well, really they're too old to play college kids unless they just love to hang out there, but for the sake of the movie you've got to go with it--traveling down a country road in an SUV and--"

"Oh, Hallowed Ground, then."

"No way. Their SUV crashes when a flock of crows bury their beaks deep into the windshield and bleed their guts all over the car."

"Kakashi, that Japanese horror movie?"

"Definitely not."

"Scarecrows?"

"Fun movie to watch it's so bad, but no! Can I finish? All right, then. The movie's Husk."

"Oh, one of those After Dark entries." Zombos turned another page.

"Why aren't you using the iPad Zimba bought you for Christmas? It's got the Times on it," I asked, changing the subject.

Zombos ignored me. Some old people can't seem to shake the habit of smearing black newsprint ink on their fingertips and crushing pulp paper into awkward folds, I suppose. 

"Anyway, getting back to Husk, it's one of those good After Dark movie entries," I said. "I mean, if it weren't for the careless day-for-night lighting used in every supposedly dark scene, I'd even go as far as saying it's very good."

Zombos continued to read his newspaper, but he did it with much less crinkling noise and his lips had stopped moving, so I knew he was listening. I continued.

"The crash knocks them all out, but when they wake up,  the jock (Wes Chatham) and the nerd (Devon Graye) go looking for help and their missing friend (Ben Easter) , while the cool guy (C. J. Thomason)--it's his  SUV that got slammed by the birds--stays by the car and waits. We don't know much about their missing friend, but the jock's girlfriend (Tammin Sursok) stays behind, too. She and the cool guy don't get along. One of those, she's-getting-all-the-attention-now kind of sticky buddy-buddy situations, you know?"

"I am not sure I would," said Zombos. "What is a five letter word for 'corny' and 'artificial'?

"Hokey," I answered. "Leave the Jumble alone for a minute and listen. And there's no hokey in Husk, by the way, but a few good twists around familiar characters; the nerd doesn't die first and he actually figures things out; the girl isn't kept as a screaming foil; the jock actually acts fairly smart and doesn't wuse out when the terror starts; and cool guy turns out to be not so cool.

"Natalie, the jock's girlfriend, gets antsy waiting, so she goes for a walk and finds a scarecrow lying on the ground."

"It does not sound overly taxing in the terror department so far," said Zombos.

"The scarecrow, when she pulls the burlap sack back, has teeth. That's pretty much when things perk up. The mystery involves the upstairs room with the foot-pedal sewing machine, dead people walking and sacking up, and flashbacks the nerd, Scott, experiences. Those flashbacks involve the former tenants of the farm house and what happened to them.

"Action kicks in when they try to leave through the cornfield; they can't; turmoil erupts when the jock won't leave without his girlfriend, but it's a moot point, though I won't spoil it for you by explaining why; and there's a frantic escape attempt by the formerly cool guy now acting like girly man, which leaves much blood on the ground but a clue as to the limitations of the scarecrow creeps.

"Director and writer Brett Simons, with the help of his actors and production design team, whip up a nifty ghost slash scarecrow monster slash terror-in-the-corn story with a backstory that adds familial, country-gothic depth to the mayhem. The only stretching of credulity comes into play when everyone gets so battered, you wonder how they can keep going with all their blood leaking out like that."

"So what do the scarecrows do to bloody them up, throw corn husks at them?" asked Zombos, dryly.

"Don't be silly, of course not. The scarecrows pound long metal nails into each of their fingers, giving them quite a terminal grip."

Zombos put his newspaper down. "Perhaps we should do a marathon viewing of scarecrow-related horror movies. What do you think? It has been a while since we last saw something in the cinematorium."

I looked at the pile of papers waiting on my desk and thought about it. I jumped up after a brief moment of reflection. "Definitely! We can start with Husk and go backwards. I'll have Chef Machiavelli bring the coffee cart. This will be an all-nighter for sure."

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

ZC Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

The revelation of the serial killer in The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo brings with it the most chilling line delivered onscreen since Silence of the Lambs' Chianti and Fava beans culinary mashup: a starker revelation that being a victim is one part maniacal killer, two parts victim's mistake. When it's added up, demoralizing insult is heaped on potential injury for journalist Mikeal Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) in this strong R-rated mystery.

Because it is a mystery you will need to pay attention. This is the second time I was asked for an explanation of a film's story in the theater's men's room after the film. "You saw Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, right?" "Yes." "What the hell happened?"

The labrynthine investigation of Henrik Vanger's (Christopher Plummer) family tree and the living and dead closet skeletons inhabiting the island, where relatives avoid each each, can be vexing enough, but the story is not only about them: it's about Blomkvist being successfully sued by a financial predator he was investigating; it's about that girl who likes tattoos and hacking into people's personal lives, Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara, who looks a lot like her name sounds). She's preyed upon by a social worker who can't keep his pants zippered; then there's a 40 year-old disappearance, complicated by more Nazi-skeletons rattling in that closet and a serial killer who may still be active.

I could go into detail, but it's better to watch it unfold. Just stay alert. It becomes dicey when Lisbeth teams up with Blomkvist. She did a very thorough background check on him. He knows about it. She was so good at it he figures she'd be a perfect assistant. She can't seem to keep her pants zippered when he's around, so he reluctantly lets her investigate that, too. The movie's a hot roll in moist bedsheets. It's a study in predator types. It's a downbeat, whitewashed landscape of cold days and nights, and dangerous revelations. It's also a puzzle involving not only the pieces but how they're fitted into place, one by one, and the unsavory picture those pieces create. Craig doesn't muscle-up his Blomkvist and Mara doesn't muscle-down her Lisbeth. The roles stay brittle: they get beat up, they get even.  Lisbeth is a lot better at getting even. 

She's one victim who knows how to exact revenge that's also economically rewarding. My guess is this is the part that capped the confusion the guy in the theater's men's room had. It's a little drama after the stage's main event has played out, so it's natural to drop your attention a notch at this point. Don't. It's even more fun to watch Lisbeth play with her mice. I'd wager if Lisbeth made it into a Bond movie she'd better play Bond's sister. Otherwise he's going to get his ass kicked but good.

The Darkest Hour (2011)

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good

Watching The Darkest Hour reminded me of the 1954 movie, Target Earth. The similarities would be sparsely marauding alien invaders, standardized and blandly irrational and frenzied survivors looking for a way out of a desolate city, and dialog written and delivered with the emotional intensity of one hand clapping.

Unlike Target Earth's robots from Venus (actually only one was ever shown menacing the survivors), The Darkest Hour has a few more CGI aliens conveniently rolling around in their protective invisible balls of armor, incinerating anyone in their path. I don't recall why the robots invaded earth in 1954, but these ball-o-fire aliens of 2011 are plundering our planet for its natural resources in a drill, baby, drill paroxysm of destruction. You could do better for a holiday movie, but you could also do worse.

The alien-vision POV as people are hunted down conveys other-worldliness well enough on a budget, and the actors are only poorly written into their characters, although the stoic militia leader (Gosha Kutsenko) grinds out his "Moscow's got our back" patriotism badly enough to make you groan. Given more to work with, I'd expect more acting, too.

Two young entrepenuers, Sean and Ben (Emile Hirsch,  Max Minghella) wind up in Moscow after being fleeced by Skyler, a corporate wolf (Joel Kinnaman) who steals their idea for a mobile app that guides travelers to local hotspots of iniquity. So, of course, when survivors are surviving, Sean and Ben find themselves holed up with Skyler. Cue the we-hate-your-guts-but-let's-get-through-this-first turmoil. Now add two girls, Natalie and Anne (Olivia Thirlby,  Rachael Taylor) the boys run into in one of those hotspots, a resourceful old codger of a scientist who figures out the aliens can be toasted with a homemade microwave gun, some flimflam about a Faraday Cage to support the need for making their way to a nuclear sub waiting for survivors in the harbor--survivors with radios, anyway, who heard the broadcast--and a ragtag militia for comic relief (very little relief) fighting with their wits and whatever else they find will work against the aliens, and you've got almost a complete story, give or take some beats; enough to be watchable and guiltily enjoyable (like those Roger Corman Syfy movies).

That's pretty much it. Chris Gorak directs the action with gusto, but he dozes during downtimes, and lighter moments aren't deftly handled. Everything else, like the by-the-script bickering, the standard, doing stupid crazy tricks to get yourself killed moments, the not so surprising finding-by-accident ways to avoid the aliens, and a token patriotic ferver that makes Independence Day look like a masterpiece of rousing nationalism in comparison, will keep you waiting for more, which, in the long run, keeps you watching. Go figure.

Always Underfoot But Not Out of ReachDon't Be Afraid of the Dark (2011)

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good

One criticizes Guillermo del Toro at one's peril. He's become a savior to fans of the Cinema Fantastic, the horrific, and the arabesque in movies, wielding his creative sword to smite mainstream naysayers into acquiessence with tales of morose children imperiled by Baroque situations. This is another such tale, although it's based on the television movie that frightened del Toro and many other genre fans--myself included--when it first aired in 1973.  The criticism I'll dare to level here is del Torro's glossier version tries very hard to impress, but never actually does because he builds it on familial relationships overused in horror movies: the displaced, unhappy kid with separated parents and an unwanted stepmom; and he replaces simple, old-fashioned mystery-building with letting the CGI boys run wild. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is a good monster movie, it's just not a good scary one.

I'll lay some of the blame with director Troy Nixey. The opening shock-drop--what I call those brief, jarring scenes often used at the beginning of straight-to-DVD-movies--of Blackwood (Gary McDonald), the house's first tenant desperately trying to get his missing son back, robs the suspense we needed as Sally (Bailee Madison) pays a forced visit to her architect dad (Guy Pierce) and his live-in, interior designer girlfriend (Katie Holmes). They're renovating a brooding Gothic mansion surrounded by intimidating formal gardens and filled with dark hallways and subterranean pests. Shades of Arthur Machen's forestry horrors and startling Pickman's Model revelations are hinted, but del Toro gives them fan-boy nods instead of plumbing deeper while Nixey's CGI animators and production designers direct the action out from under him. It all looks fantastic, but doesn't play fantastic. 

Transitioning the original danger of threatened adult (Kim Darby in the televised version) to threatened child--we're told the underground creatures love to eat children's teeth after terrorizing them--should have pumped up the quotient for eldritch terror dramatically, but it doesn't. We all ready know the threat looming after the opening few minutes and must wait for sullen Sally and everyone else to catch up;  except for the laconic groundskeeper (every brooding mansion must have one) Mr. Harris (Jack Thompson). He knows about the nasty buggers waiting behind the ash pit grate in the hidden basement, but damned if he'll tell anyone before they slice and dice him to a bloody pulp. Which brings me to another pet peeve I have with laconic groundskeepers in horror movies: namely that they're always laconic when they should be screaming bloody hell warnings, and they always spill the few beans well after the time they really needed to spill them ahead of. You can call it script contrivance, or even crafty planning depending on how it's used, but its use is often counterproductive, like the shock-drop that reveals much of the mystery before any detection can begin. I will call them cheap shots. I expected more from del Toro.

I also expected less. Suspense gives way to too much CGI conflict between Sally, the adults, and the evil goblins living beneath the mansion: brief scenes of eyes looking through keyholes, being threatened by pointy objects poised to strike from the other side; longer scenes of straight-razor dalliance at ankle level; and an encounter with a toolbox worth of pointy objects aiming through the darkness, capped by close-ups of goblins wreaking havoc, illustrate the story like a fairy tale book's pictures without embellishing its emotional contextual ambience.  Nixey knits scenes together with little suspense building: the house is creepy dark, got that; the basement's one of del Toro's nightmarish wetdreams, got that, too; but so what? More feeling and less seeing would have elevated Don't Be Afraid of the Dark to scare the bejesus stature. 

It's a shame del Toro wasn't able to recapture the terror he felt when he  first saw Kim Darby being victimized by the goblins. That sense of terror needed to be here. It isn't, although it looks like it is.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good 

“I simply do not buy Penelope Cruz in the role of Blackbeard’s daughter, Angelica,” said Zombos, stretching his long legs and leaning back in his short chair. We had just finished watching Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides at a local theater; in 2D not 3D, since the movie was atmospherically murky enough.

I started crossing my short legs, but in the process tipped over the gigunda-sized popcorn bucket I had barely touched, spilling its contents all over Zombos’ expensive Mezlan Giambis. Those are frightfully expensive shoes by the way. He alternated shaking his feet, but the buttery kernels stuck fast. He grimaced and swung his legs away from me.

He continued. “With her diminutive presence, she hardly holds her own between Ian McShane’s smoldering Blackbeard and Johnny Depp’s conniving, roguish Jack Sparrow. She looks so blow-the-man-down fragile. How can anyone possibly believe she is the daughter of a demonic pirate? Missed the casting boat on that one I dare say.”

“Aye,” I said, “and quite a demonic pirate Blackbeard is. I’ll say this movie careens into darker territory, bordering horror, and shows less of the loaded to the gunwalls playfulness  toning the other movies."

"Where would you say the horror elements come into play?" asked Zombos, continuing to shake his shoes every now and then. I pretended not to notice.

"The mermaids for one, when they need to get a single tear from one for the Fountain of Youth to work. Vampire-like fangs, frisky evil intent; they're seductive yet monstrous as they seduce the sailors, then drag them under to drown and devour. It's a well-choreographed fight. You've got Blackbeard using his crew as bait to bring in the mermaids, and when they come it's every man for himself. Just like in a horror movie."

I continued. "Then there's Blackbeard's quiet but deliberate entrance during the mutiny on his ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, with his hair coils glowing red and smoking at their ends, a stark contrast--his sinister demeanor I mean--against Jack's grog and looping swagger deportment. Blackbeard's voodoo powers, his zombiefied men--a nod to the popularity of zombies more than a properly fitting story element--peg him more as supernatural horror threat than did Captain Barbossa's curse in the first two movies."

"Yes," said Zombos, " waving his cutlass to control the ship's cordage to entangle his mutinous Jack Tars and stop them, Blackbeard does cut a strikingly horrific figure: evil to be reckoned with or avoided. And seems there is always a prophecy to spur on the wicked: a one-legged man to spell his doom. I wonder how he found it out?

"Geoffrey Rush's Barbossa is almost as sinister and callous as Blackbeard, a departure from his earlier helm at captaincy," I added.

"Well," interjected Zombos, "if you had to cut off your leg to save yourself from Blackbeard, I  suppose you would become quite soured and surly yourself. Superb way to carry a rum bottle, though."

"True, but since the story's jury rigged from Tim Power's On Stranger Tides, I'd guess that's another  reason for discrepancies in characters from the first three movies and this one. The lower budget keeps it less ambitious in swashbuckle and six pounders, too. Or maybe the tempo is off because Gore Verbinski didn't direct his pirates this time around."

"Budget may be another good reason, since it was filmed in Hawaii instead of the Caribbean. Pirates of Hawaii does not sound as imposing, does it," quipped Zombos, stretching his legs out again. "Given all the computer enhanced scenery, I am not sure location matters all that much anymore." 

"The coach chase through London didn't seem budget-restricted," I said.  "Lots of clamor and mayhem." 

"Still, there is plenty of fodder for another go round," said Zombos.

"Right," I jumped in. "There's the voodoo doll of Jack--glad we stayed past the credits to see the teaser with Angelica--the Black Pearl shrunk and pickled in a bottle, along with all the other ships Blackbeard had captured. And the possibility of a merman popping up, given the romantic entanglement between Philip (Sam Claflin) and the fetching mermaid Syrena (Astrid Berges-Frisbey). Enough elements for Jack to sail round the seas again should the Hollywood winds take him."

"With Kevin McNally as Gibbs by his side I would hope. He personifies the pirate wannabe in all of us even more than Jack," Zombos summed up.

I crossed my legs the other way. I didn't see the gigunda-sized Coke I had bought but hardly drank--too many trips to the bathroom with that one--and tipped it over. Zombos almost caught the wave, but managed to scrunch into a ball before it reached his shoes. He slowly unfolded his legs away from me. Again.

"You guys done?" asked a pimply-faced kid holding a carpet whisk almost as thin as he was. He dropped the bucket with determination and began sweeping up the spilled popcorn.

"You may need to swab the deck here," I told him, pointing to the floor in front of Zombos. " I spilled some Coke."

He grimaced at me, too. 

For pirate lingo translation, go to http://www.pirateglossary.com/.

 

Season of the Witch (2010) A Short Season

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good (in spite of itself)

There is a lot to dislike about Season of the Witch. For one,  the disenchanted knights awol from the Crusades, Felson and Behmen (Ron Perlman and Nicolas Cage), left their acting bleeding on the battlefield. I like Cage and Perlman. They are capable of much better.

Then there is the flippantly modern dialog, which grates against the grittiness of Medieval grime and Black Death Plague. Felson and Behmen might as well have been taxi drivers picking up fares in Wormwood Forest the way they banter. I don't know when English language contractions first took hold, but given my understanding of the Dark Ages, their speech oft vexed my ears. Not that I expected Shakespearean diction, mind you, but I question director Dominic Sena's undermining of his historical illusion in this way. Thankfully he didn't add a thumping rock score.

Black Swan (2010) A Monstrous Bird in Aronofsky's Hands

ZC Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

While other directors choose to infuriate and nauseate their audiences with outrageous human centipedes, Darren Aronofsky goes to the ballet instead to unleash Black Swan, a movie that releases the repressed demon within through restrained gore and unrestrained pirouettes.

Natalie Portman plays the emotionally crippled Nina Sayers, a New York City ballerina whose repressed sensuality and domineering mother (Barbara Hershey) keep Nina's bedroom crowded with pink, stuffed animals, and her social life as busy as the one the little dancing ballerina in her music box has.

When offered the chance to play the dual role of the White and Black Swans in Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake, Nina's descent into madness, and ascent into freedom, begins. Goading her on is her director, Thomas Leroy (Vincent Cassel), who, like the evil sorceror, Von Rothbart, wants to control her passion. It is this transition from White Swan, which Nina dances flawlessly, to Black Swan, which requires her to unleash a sensual side long repressed that makes Black Swan almost like watching Carrie's Carrie White dressed in a tutu. It is an engrossing and jarring farandole macabre, one filled with horrific moments for Nina and us as her mind splinters into paranoia and hallucination, and feeds on its fears.

Much of Black Swan is filmed in uncomfortably unsteady and confining closeups. Rarely do we see beyond what Nina sees or imagines. Like the mechanical ballerina confined to her music box, Nina's world is confined to her apartment, her bedroom, and the ballet hall where she brutalizes her body with constant practice. A real or imagined rivalry between her and Lily (Mila Kunis), an unbridled ballerina whose sensuality makes her a natural to dance the role of the Black Swan, erupts into more self-torture for Nina. Her obsessive compulsive behaviors grow into waking nightmares. In a scene reminiscent of the nasty face peeling in Poltergeist, Nina picks at a scab until the blood flows red. Her self-scratching leaves bloody tears she's not conscious of making. Her paranoia leads to a smashed and bloody dressing room mirror.

Aronofsky doles out gore to emphasize the physical punishment Nina is going through, and lavishes it on in one queeze-inducing hallucination: a closeup of a cracked and bloody toenail; skin-peeling; blood flowing from under a door. I wonder how the older audience in the theater felt (I was in Florida when I saw Black Swan) seeing these common horror movie images in a movie marketed as a drama and thriller?

Black Swan is a triumph of technique, tension, and metamorphosis as Nina becomes the Black Swan. And it is a horror movie. Make no mistake about that.

Case 39 (2009) This Social Worker Needs Help

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good (but formulaic)

It almost seems every horror movie this year has shown a kid hugging a pillow or a crucifix hanging on a wall--or both. Case 39 shows both, and adds Renee Zelwegger's puffy-pouting cheeks and coy eyes, which are better suited to her romantic roles. It also shows a little girl named Lillith (Jodelle Ferland) whose suspense-killing name is an obvious clue to her demeanor for any devout horror fan watching.

The 39th case in question concerns overworked Emily's (Renee Zelwegger) new assignment. Emily is a social worker who hates the overwhelming case load she struggles with but can't ignore any child in need. Lillith is Emily's 39th case and appears to be in need. Her parents want to kill her.

They almost do, but Emily's persistence manages to get Detective Barron (Ian McShane) involved just in time to stop them from roasting Lillith in the oven. Her parents head to the psychiatric ward while Lillith does a little social work of her own to eventually convince Emily to look after her. After Lillith moves into Emily's home is when those puffy-pouting cheeks work overtime with growing worry. Emily finally notices all those quirky things you should never ignore in a horror movie like: Lillith's parents locking themselves in their room at night with big honking bolts on their bedroom door; an ominous looking scratch in the wood floor; people start dying when phone calls are made from Emily's cell phone late at night; Lillith tells Emily she better provide lots of ice cream and nice things to say or else.

Here is where I take note of my disappointment. I thought Case 39 would try a different direction  for a change.  I hoped for a kid plagued by demons, not a demon-kid plaguing adults. We've seen evil kids before: pony-tailed Rhoda Penmark in The Bad Seed, sinister little Damien in The Omen, long-haired Samara in The Ring, and tightly-wound Esther in The Orphan. Ferland can hold her own against any of them, but the formula here ignores interesting possibilities an innocent child cursed by demon playmates can muster. Instead we have typical, all-purpose, no-seasoning-required scares coming from Emily's growing realization she was wrong about Lillith and her parents.

Some tension is here, but it is straighforward and builds predictably, although Christian Alvart directs us through it with strong imagery as shown in the oven-stuffer attempt by Lillith's parents--which shows another use for duct tape I bet you never thought of--a jaw slamming hard enough into a refrigerator door for both to crunch, sparingly used (until the end, anyway) CGI-enhanced demonic features playing across innocent little Lillith's face when she gets mad, and token growls and voices not of this world. True to Hollywood Horror Think, Zelwegger even gets a chance to run screaming in the rain wearing little more than raindrops. She does have great gams, though.

Ray Wright adds a subtle twist to the story: how will Emily, a social worker, deal with a kid-looking monster everyone else sees as an innocent angel? But he never brings it to a boil after the simmering set up. If you've seen The Crazies and Pulse remakes, you already know his approach. It's adequately underwhelming, lacking any finer points of fear-making, like making us guess what's going to happen next instead of worrying about how creatively he can make people die.

The breakout point should have come at this scene: Lillith sitting across the table from psychologist Doug (Bradley Cooper); he thinks he's talking to a little girl who's scared, but she makes him fearful for his own safety. Wright follows the path of least resistance and uses the moment to set up a nasty death later. It's a wasted opportunity for mounting real tension,  just so the CGI boys could gimmick up another corpus exitus?

Still, those gams are worth a look.

 

The Last Exorcism (2010) The Devil Is One Busy Soul

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

I once wanted a TV ministry. Now all I want is health insurance. (Cotton Marcus in The Last Exorcism)

Religious motifs in horror movies have been explored as far back as the 1920 movie, The Golem, the story of a rabbi using sorcery to bring a giant clay man to life. Usually what's involved are questions of faith (either too much or too little), questions of spiritual morality (again, either too much or not enough), and nasty demons chewing on souls and scenery with equal zeal (you can never have too much of that).

Often there are also important tests of faith when vampires--remember Fright Night's vampire and cross confrontation?--Satan, assorted minions of Satan, and especially Uwe Boll are involved. Strong characters--or at least heavily stereotypical ones--are essential for selling all that flashy Hell and licking flames of damnation mumbo-jumbo convincingly enough to seal the deal, too.

Minister Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) does the mumbo-jumbo in The Last Exorcism "like nobody's business" as his wife would say, only he doesn't have faith in what he does. Coming from a family lineage of exorcists--they even have an old Latin guidebook with illustrations to identify those pesky minions of Hell--he's the last exorcist, but only in showmanship, not spirit. He knows it's simple quackery, on a par with snake oil, sold with hidden string pulling and MP3 recording playing. He explains his showy casting out of demons "gets all the press because they got the movie" and okay, maybe it does help those who believe in the devil's Hellfire of possession; but for him it's another payday after an easy salvation sale is made.

Devil (2010) Shyamalan Didn't Make Him Do It, Thank God

ZC Rating 3 of 7: Good

John Erick Dowdle (Quarantine) locks us in a stranded elevator with five strangers and the Prince of Darkness in Devil, a tidy traditional horror movie that works well by balancing its terror with its Ten Little Indians' mystery: Who are these five people? Is one of them the Devil? Why are they being tormented?

It is a minimal premise delivered with a 1970s tempo and plotline, propelled less by gory acrobatics and more by the increasing antagonisms within the tight space as Ramirez (Jacob Vargus), a religious and superstitious security guard, whose mother told him stories of how the Devil would appear unexpectedly in odd places to claim souls, is the first one to recognize what's happening.

Brian Nelson's (30 Days of Night) screenplay, based on a story by M. Night Shyamalan, evenly mixes the interplay across the helpless people inside the elevator with the equally helpless rescuers outside, led by Detective Bowden (Chris Messina). Dowdle and Nelson underplay the drama to keep Devil from becoming pretentiously silly and preachy, dropping the pedantic sledgehammer Shyamalan has been pounding us with in his more recent efforts.

Ben (Bokeem Woodbine), Tony (Logan Marshall-Green), Sarah (Bojana Novakovic), Jane (Jenny O'Hara), and Vincent (Geoffrey Arend) are trapped between floors when Elevator 6 goes into inspection mode. The inocuous muzak warms tempers and attitudes as time passes while the engineer finds out why. Vince, the swarmy mattress salesman tries to convince Sarah she needs a good night's sleep on a new mattress. Ben, the temporary security guard, doesn't like to be confined: as kids, his brother locked him in a trunk for hours. Jane, the irritating woman with a can of mace from the 1980s, jangles nerves. Increasing everyone's frustration is the one-way communication with the outside world: they can hear the security guards but the guards can only see them, and the camera in the elevator is not very good for reading lips.

Ramirez's opening narration explains what to look for when the Devil comes calling, and when a suicide leads the police to 333 Locust Street, he's the only one--he even makes sure he's right by dropping a slice of toast with jelly to see how it lands--who knows it won't end well. Detective Bowden, who shares an important connection, unknowingly, with one of the five stranded passengers, identifies each person, giving us clues as to why they're in their current predicament, and alternate reasons for what's happening; but the alternatives are for Bowden to investigate, not us: the Devil is in the details and remains so as he takes souls, one by one, when the lights go out.

I hope the heavy marketing campaign that pegged Devil as an M. Night Shyamalan movie does not deter its potential audience: given his recent movies, it might. Devil is a thoughtful, low-throttle horror that easily avoids inciting snide remarks about going-down in an elevator.

[REC] 2 (2009) Divinely Horrific

If Prince of Darkness married The Exorcist and they conceived a bouncing bundle of terror while watching Bava's Demons, its name would be [REC] 2.

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

[Rec] 2 picks up immediately where [REC] left us, only this time we are with a 4-man SWAT team waiting to escort another Ministry of Health official, Dr. Owen (Jonathan Mellor), into the locked-down building. Only he knows more than they do.

With one skittish hand-held camera and three helmet minicams worn by the heavily armed police, directors Balaguero and Plaza criss-cross the action across apartments and up and down the stairwell with reckless abandon, informing us and terrifying us with what we fully see, partially see, and don't see.

Under Dr. Owen's insistence they head to the attic, stepping over pools of blood as they climb the staircase, guns poised. When they reach the attic, he tells them to record everything, including the newspaper clippings taped to the walls. A frightened voice played from a reel to reel tape recorder hints at an experiment gone out of control. Distant screams prompt an argument when the police want to investigate and Dr. Owen tells them not to. Over the doctor's protests and warnings, Martos heads down the staircase and enters one of the apartments. We see what he sees as his helmet minicam switches on. What he sees in the dim light rushes towards him with ill-intent, leaving his helmet on the floor and him fighting for his life. They rush to his aid but it's too late--"He was fine a couple of minutes ago. What kind of a virus does that?"--He's now infected and attacks them. Dr. Owen stops the attack in an unexpected way and they lock Martos in another room.

How the doctor did it leads to an explanation for what is going on, who lived in the attic apartment, and why they must return there to find a potential cure. The police officers are incredulous and fraying at the seems by the minute. The infected tenants want to pry those seems apart even more. Patient Zero, hinted at in the last minutes of [REC], is also in the attic. Only they need to figure out how to find her...And she's not alone...And the old reliable gimmick of using an air duct big enough for an elephant to fit through is used for a scare. At least it's grimy like it should be and the scare is worth it.

[REC] 2 is an old school horror show dressed up with enough exuberantly creative point of view camerawork to keep you dizzy and jumpy at the same time. Unlike its Americanized version, Quarantine, which resorts to a more "plausible" terrorist-weapon plot line to explain the source of contagion, [REC] 2 unabashedly returns to the roots of cinematic horror to overwhelm the apartment building's tenants with a supernatural malevolence that will not be stopped. By kicking old school for their modus operandi, while playing with our perspective  to the point of disorientation, [REC] 2 maintains a freshness and exhilaration that many American horror movie sequels fail to do.

Better keep the popcorn and soda safely cradled while you watch this movie and your seatbelt fastened at all times. It's a bumpy-in-the-night ride, the ending of which leaves [REC] 3 a strong possibility. And if that happens I'm definitely taking Dramamine before I see it.

Frozen (2010): Minimalist Horror Best Served Cold

ZC Rating: 5 of 7 (Excellent)

I noticed I was shivering when well into watching Frozen. Granted it was the first show of the day in a chilly theater (outside it was below freezing), but a few of those shivers came from my fear of heights and a persistent memory of the one time I rode a ski lift. I become uneasy every time I think back to that experience; how I kept wishing the long ride would end faster, how I gulped and closed my eyes each time the ground sloped farther away from me and silently cheered when it came closer, how that small seat and flimsy security bar made me wish, even harder, I'd staid back in the warm lodge nursing a hot chocolate like I'd wanted to.

Director and writer Adam Green fills the first half-hour with youthful banter and playfulness. Parker (Emma Bell), prodded on by Dan (Kevin Zegers) and Joe (Shawn Ashmore), convinces the ski lift operator with cash and a warm smile to let them ride without tickets. People are everywhere, the sun is shining, and Joe meets a girl and scores her phone number after her ex-boyfriend gets jealous and knocks him down.

They should have ended the day eating pizza and drinking hot chocolate in the lodge instead of going for one last run on the slopes, but Joe makes Parker and Dan feel guilty for wasting his time earlier keeping pace with Dan's girlfriend, Parker, who, being a beginner, fell down a lot. They hop onto the ski lift just as everyone else is finishing up or heading home. An all too plausible misjudgment leaves them stranded with a storm approaching. When the ride stops they complain. When the lights shut off, one by one, leaving them swinging in the cold wind, they realize the worst has happened: no one knows they're up their; and the resort will be closed for the week; and it's getting colder.

A closeup of the ski lift switch being pulled to turn off the ride and a long shot of those comfortingly bright lights slowly winking out in back of the three skiers, provide two of the most chilling moments in this minimalist horror. Parker, Joe, and Dan's decisions from this point on provide the rest.

Paranormal Activity (2007) Lean and Mean Scares

The idea for the film came about when Oren Peli began to experience "weird things" at the home in which he was living and wondered what would happen if he were to set up cameras to capture what happened as he slept at night. The vulnerability of being asleep, he reasoned, tapped into a human being's most primal fear, stating, "If something is lurking in your home there's not much you can do about it." (Paranormal Activity on Wikipedia)

Rating 5 of 7: Excellent

Paranormal Activity surprisingly frightens more with less scares as odd as that may sound. With a razor-thin budget, a cast of only four people, and events taking place entirely in one location--Katie and Micah's home--director Oren Peli's ingenious movie is a distillation of simple spook show tactics escalating in intensity. It is the Blair Witch version of home invasion-styled horror, understated but unrelenting.

Katie (Katie Featherston) has been haunted by paranormal events since she was thirteen. Micah (Micah Sloat), surprised by this revelation, is annoyed she did not tell him this before spooky sounds begin to keep them up at night. Micah sets up his camera in their bedroom, facing the bed, and hooks it up to his laptop so it can record while they sleep. We see everything through Micah's camera: the bedroom they sleep in; the rest of the house as he carries it into the bathroom, or the living room, or the kitchen during the day. We mostly see Katie as Micah holds the camera, which is probably why she grows more annoyed with his insistence on tackling her problem with his typical, and insensitive, guy attitude of technology-can-handle-it. I admit I would have tackled it the same way. While his constant recording and EVPs appear to give him control over the situation, he becomes increasingly frustrated because all he can do is observe events after they have taken place. How many of us, like Micah, feel powerful by all our techno-gadgets, yet, like him, all we do is watch, listen, wait, worry, and yearn for more sleep?

LOTT D: Pick a Post Sensation 15 Jennifer's Body Autopsy

Beware! The members of the League of Tana Tea Drinkers dig six feet deep to bring you the Jennifer's Body autopsy, to share their varied views on this girl-eats-boy horrorfest.

I Love Horror -- "While the plot certainly leaves something to be desired, nearly every problem associated with Jennifer’s Body can be directly contributed to Diablo Cody’s dialogue."

Kindertrauma -- "The trick is to not think of it as a horror film because the horror elements are really just decorative. This is more of a black comedy like HEATHERS with a bit of THE CRAFT thrown in..."

Dinner With Max Jenke -- "It doesn't reinvent the genre but it's distinctly different from its competition and that alone is commendable. The advertising campaign is totally misleading, though."

Day of the Woman -- "I seriously have always wondered what happens if someone sacrifices a girl to Satan and she wasn't a virgin." (And, on a tangential note, DOTW takes on PoppaScotch regarding the reality of feminist horror films.)

TheoFantastique -- "In the discussion Poole notes that Jennifer’s Body includes a subtle attempt ”to sneak a feminist message into the cineplex, subverting the paradigm of horror films in which women are merely the shrieking victims of male violence.”

Zombos' Closet of Horror -- "Jennifer's Body has artistic touches that come from how it uses dialog, its characters, and its story to create a familiar but stylish rhythm scored with traditional horror tropes."

Orphan (2009) Hell On Heels

ZC Rating 4 of 7: Very Good

Kids may say and do the damndedest things, but little orphan Esther is hell to be around. In Orphan, a movie that will do for adoption services what Jaws did for the summer beach trade, young Isabelle Fuhrman chills the scenery.

Dressed in Old World frilly finery, speaking with a European accent that would make Bela Lugosi blush, and harboring a dark secret that makes her a dicey addition to the Coleman family, Esther's talent with a claw hammer and penchant for surreptitious mayhem is a solid B-movie thrill ride not seen in a while. The twist-ending will also make anyone currently seeking adoption double-check that paperwork again and again.

Kate Coleman (Vera Farmiga) has a rough time of it after her third child is stillborn. Hitting the bottle she loses her teaching job, and her drinking almost costs the life of her second child, Max (Aryana Engineer), who is deaf but knows what people say with the help of her hearing aid and by reading lips. This puts a strain on Kate's relationship with husband John (Peter Sarsgaard). I should note that many horror movies begin with a severely strained relationship that leads to much more strain (usually from bloodletting and death, of course), which in this case is precipitated by the adoption of sweetly sinister little Esther from St. Mariana Orphanage.