28 Days (Of Horror Films) Later… #28 28 Days Later

In 2012 director Danny Boyle surprised pretty much everyone with an Olympic opening ceremony that actually proved to be quite watchable, which flew in the face of cynics and pessimists by celebrating the history and culture of the British Isles and lauding the progress we’ve made as a species over the ages. It’s funny how time changes people – it was only ten short years earlier that Boyle, along with script writer Alex Garland, were damning the people of Britain to destruction by our own design, our pursuit of “progress”, when a genetically engineered virus escapes from a lab and subsequently turns most if the population into bloodthirsty, slavering zombie-like creatures.

Don't make them angry, you wouldn't like them when they're angry...

I say “zombie-like” because these aren’t the living dead but normal, living humans infected with a virus that induces extreme rage, inciting its victims to kill indiscriminately. Of course the hero of the piece, Jim (an impressive career launching turn by Cillian Murphy) is oblivious to all of this having spent the first twenty eight days of the outbreak in a coma. We join Jim as he regains consciousness in a world he no longer recognises and which he struggles to come to terms with.

It’s a notable film for a few reasons. Made on a relatively tiny budget it’s an early example of a film shot entirely on digital cameras (well, almost entirely), it’s shuddering, almost spasmodic quality as the infected swarm the screen a direct result of using these cameras as opposed to standard 35mm film. It’s a great example of a low(er) budget genre film that successfully broke through into the mainstream. Most importantly it caused a stir in (and a revival of) the whole “zombie” genre.

Filming Lomdon as a deserted wasteland involved lots of early mornings and some filmmaking craftiness. The results are extremely effective.

Let’s say you decided to forget, for the moment, that it made international stars out of Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris, or that it also stars Christopher Eccleston and Brendan Gleason, there’s also the fact that it’s bloody good. Bloody being the operative word.

It's all this little fella's fault. Assuming you discount the scientists who infected it with a rage virus!

While Boyle cites Romero’s dead trilogy as inspiration, if you ask me 28 Days Later has more in common with his rough and ready Crazies or even Dr. Jekyll And Mr Hyde, with the danger coming not from some unearthly force but from a simple tapping of our potential as humans. The virus, amplifying our capacity for rage, becomes the tipping point that brings civilisation to its knees. Boyle and Garland seem to revel in mankind’s capacity for destroying itself and throwing its principles out the window at the first opportunity (as evidenced by the animal rights protestor who very quickly decides to beat a crazed chimpanzee to death with bolt cutters when his life’s on the line).

As it turns out, Jim and the handful of survivors he meets on the way offer a glimmer of hope for humanity, but only just. It’s amazing how much people can change in ten years…

28 Days (Of Horror Films) Later… #27 Rosemary’s Baby

Paranoia. There’s a word to strike real fear into anyone’s heart. That feeling of being the victim of some secret conspiracy, the frustration of not being believed when you voice your fears, which compounds the sense that everyone else knows something you don’t and are trying to keep it from you. That’s Mia Farrow’s issue in Roman Polanski’s classic horror film, Rosemary’s Baby.

After moving into a flash new apartment, Rosemary and her husband Guy (John Cassavetes) discover that not only is the building a bit odd, but so are the neighbours. When Rosemary falls pregnant she is consumed with paranoia over the well being of her child and haunted by feverish nightmares that suggest something serious is amiss.

As her predicament worsens she becomes convinced that the child inside her isn’t hers at all, and perhaps there have been sinister forces at play in her pregnancy, and no amount of expert opinion or reassurance from her husband (or indeed the strange couple next door) can quell the growing fear that there’s something seriously wrong.

Polanski takes his time turning the psychological screws keeping you guessing as to whether the problem is in Rosemary’s mind or if she’s genuinely the victim of some baroque conspiracy. Guessing that is, right up until the conclusion where he settles on one or the other with a certain panache.

Understated as it is, it relies on the performances to work its sinister magic. Mia Farrow is simply magnificent as the unfortunate Rosemary, becoming increasingly strung out as her ordeal intensifies. She is completely convincing, her anxiety palpable in a performance that’s as powerful as it is subtle.

As her ordeal worsens it takes its toll on Rosemary both mentally and physically. Farrow’s performance is simply superb.

Polanski proves that the best way to scare people isn’t with garish special effects, buckets of gore or ghost train theatrics, but with the quiet, deep rooted fears that people can easily relate to. In this instance, the natural fear of something going wrong with a pregnancy coupled with that intangible paranoia that we’ve all felt to some extent at some point in our lives. Polanski harnesses these natural fears and amplifies them with his masterfully crafted cinema to guarantee we feel every agonising moment of Rosemary’s ordeal. Subtle, sophisticated, elemental even – but most definitely scary in that deeply unsettling sense of the word.

28 Days (Of Horror Films) Later… #24 The Monster Squad

So far this list has been very much adult orientated and while there have been some films that would certainly be accessible to the young ‘uns, none have been directly aimed at them. At least, not so much as 1987’s The Monster Squad, a sort of Goonies meets the Universal horror films of the thirties and horror and sci fi B-movies of the fifties mash up that approaches the concept of the monster movie with an affectionate sense of fun.

The Monster Squad in question are a group of school kids who are pretty much regarded as loser geeks by their peers but who would rather be in their club house reading horror comics and discussing the finer points of movie monsters than being popular anyway.

Dracula is gathering the world’s monsters together for some sinister purpose. Can the Monster Squad foil their dastardly plans?

When their hometown is rocked by the sudden appearance of legendary creatures (including, among others, Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolfman and an ancient Mummy) it seems that their obsession with monsters is actually rather useful, the kids becoming the last line of defence between the supernatural beasts and world domination.

It’s fantastically good fun. Clearly the makers have a lot of love for classic creature features and they’ve actually put in rather a lot of effort to the monster makeup. Some of the creatures look far more impressive than their counterparts in more serious movies, not bad for a film made on a relatively tiny budget.

It’s a little bit Goonies, a little bit Lost Boys and Shane Black’s influence is fairly apparent throughout. Ridiculous, yes, but fun with it.

I’m quite sure that a lot of the great stuff in here is down to the input of none other than Shane Black, who co-wrote the film with its director Fred Dekker (who would go on to pretty much cause Orion pictures to go bust with the risible Robocop 3). Black manages to dip into some darker territory (I particularly like the bits with the creepy German neighbour) without ever treading too far off the kid’s adventure movie path.

Frivolous and silly it may well be, but The Monster Squad is bundles of fun and a great tribute to those classic monster movies of old.

28 Days (Of Horror Films) Later… #22 Kill List

Two hitmen, ex military types doing the old private contractor routine, accept a job to dispose of three targets. Jay (Neil Maskell) is struggling with the psychological effects of a previously botched job but is coaxed back into work by his partner Gal (Michael Smiley). What begins as a simple task spirals into something altogether darker, although perhaps the pair should have taken the hint from the peculiar way in which they were enlisted.

Ben Wheatley’s film is a masterstroke of troubling atmosphere – a disarming, superficial mundanity giving way to the dark, rotten heart that lies beneath. The first twenty minutes play out more like a kitchen sink drama than a horror film, Jay’s marriage straining under the weight of money troubles due to his lack of work and his PTSD fuelled outbursts of rage. It’s a great piece of characterisation and a wonderfully disarming set up. It feels so normal, so everyday and it lulls you into a false sense of security for the unpleasantness to follow.

Jay’s struggling with events from the past and it takes its toll on his domestic life. Not the best basis for his line of work.

It lulls Jay and Gal into a false sense of security too. So confident in their abilities, in their training and experience and yet nothing they have done can prepare them for what they’ve gotten themselves into.

You could argue that Gal and Jay deserve an unpleasant fate, given the brutality and immorality with which they live their lives. Certainly the “work” we get to witness is about as horrific as it could be (even if their “clients” essentially get what’s coming to them) but these acts are the tip of a lifelong iceberg of savagery.

Jay has no problem pulling the trigger, but he’s a little bit confused by his client’s reactions on this job.

What’s really interesting though is how Wheatley weaves in folk-horror concepts with the contemporary, urban setting. Whatever it is that’s behind the conspiracy of which the pair have unwittingly fallen foul it’s a pre-Christian, paganistic thing. Jay has been chosen for this fate by powers he doesn’t understand and which Wheatley doesn’t feel the need to explain away with painful exposition. It’s bizarre to see shades of The Wicker Man crop up in a setting like this, but this dissonance only enhances the creepy otherworldliness of the film.

Like Wheatley’s other films, its potency lies in its characters (and obviously the performances by the leads). Maskell in particular is extraordinary as Jay. There’s nothing over the top here, just subtle, naturalistic performances that are utterly convincing, which of course makes the film all the more disturbing.

Would you take a job from this man? Before too long Jay and Gal are both wishing they hadn’t…

I love it when filmmakers make the decision not to patronise their audience by spoon feeding exposition and explaining every last detail to them, instead just presenting a story and its characters and imagery and letting us work it out for ourselves. Wheatley is great at this (check out his feverish A Field In England if you don’t believe me) and by preserving the sense of mystery and the paranoia of an unseen conspiracy, he makes Kill List all the more compelling.

28 Days (Of Horror Films) Later… #20 Carrie

Carrie, Stephen King’s novel about a teenage girl, the victim of mass bullying at school and an abusive, religious fundamentalist mother at home who develops telekinetic powers with which she wreaks revenge on her tormentors is, in my opinion, one of his best. The book is superb, high praise from me considering I’m not much of a Stephen King fan, but equally superb is Brian De Palma’s 1976 big screen adaptation.

Carrie is so much more than a horrific story of a girl doing unspeakable things with only the power of her mind. You’d be forgiven for thinking, in the heat of the culmination of her supernatural vengeance, that this is the horror of the piece. Her violent retribution is certainly gruesome, there’s no doubt about that, but the true horror of Carrie’s story is not her telekinetic power. It’s the horror of the abuse she suffers from those around her who have no special powers, or indeed anything unusual about them at all.

Nancy Allen is the ringleader of the school bullies who are making Carrie’s life hell. Like all bullies, she’s unable to accept responsibility for her own actions, an attitude which proves rather costly…

What King and De Palma both capture with laser precision is the sheer despicability of human beings, the vile, grotesque way in which we treat each other for no real reason other than they’re different in some way. The bullying she suffers at the hands of her school mates is one thing, dehumanising and undignified, and the lengths her school nemesis is ready to go to in order to make her suffer are sickening. Here’s the reality of all human evil, an inherent need by some to see others suffer.

Worse still are the abuses handed down to her by her mother, a woman screwed up by her own demons, unable to get over her abandonment by her husband and who has chosen to channel this self loathing against her daughter. Domineering, brutal and unforgiving, Mrs White (an intensely sinister performance by Piper Laurie) personifies the evil that grows from weakness and selfishness, a woman who seems to survive by oppressing her daughter and making her suffer.

Carrie’s mother is at the root of her problems. Her maniacal religious fundamentalism is its own brand of evil.

Given the abuses visited upon her, it’s little wonder that Carrie reacts the way she does, her rage and frustration manifesting themselves via the medium of her particular gift.

The performances are excellent throughout, Sissy Spacek is excellent in the lead and Nancy “Lewis From Robocop” Allen is equally good as the vindictive leader of the pack of school bullies who is hell bent on making Carrie’s life a misery. John Travolta manages to make an appearance too in this damning indictment of the cruel and vindictive nature of human beings, and the everyday horrors we visit upon one another.

A pre-Scientology John Travolta manages to get a look in too…

In 1999 we were treated to a dreadful attempt at a sequel (read: rehash) and this year sees a “reimagining” starring Chloe Grace Moretz in the lead which might be alright, but does seem a trifle pointless given the quality of the seventies original. I’ll reserve judgement on that one until I see it. In the meantime, De Palma’s film will do just nicely thanks.

28 Days (Of Horror Films) Later… #19 The Butcher

Torture porn. Two words that strike terror into my heart, but perhaps not for the reason you might think. It’s a subdivision of horror that came to prominence with the Hostel and Saw franchises, the common denominator being films that feature individuals in extremis at the hands of some assailant and characterised by an emphasis on graphic depictions of the physical harm the victims experience.

As a direct result, the majority of torture porn movies are bereft of all the things that I consider are essential for a film to be truly horrific. There’s no subtlety, ambiguity or atmosphere here, just a game of chicken between what a viewer can take (in terms of gruesomeness) and what the filmmakers are prepares to dish out. And here lies the issue at the heart of the torture porn debate – most examples of the genre don’t really get the job done.

POV cameras capture the action from the victim's eyes, putting the viewer in the hotseat with them. It's pretty effective, and creates lots of opportunities for inferred, off-screen unpleasantness.

That’s not to say that I enjoy watching people being tortured on screen but rather if the goal of the genre is to make you experience some vicarious suffering in sympathy with the victims, the majority of torture porn is too safe, sanitised and gleeful to achieve that goal.

Not so The Butcher. Kim Jin Won’s film is so shocking and extreme that it’s banned in his native Korea and hasn’t received a BBFC certificate in this country (As a result your best hope of seeing it is via a region 1 import of an unrated US cut). His ethos with the film seems to be “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly” and boy oh boy has he done things properly here.

The plot is pretty straightforward. A snuff film maker working from some remote farm buildings kidnaps his leading men and ladies, straps cameras to them and then tortures them to death for the benefit of his clients.

This couple form the centre of the plot. Don't expect any dashing heroics from the boyfriend. He's more of a self preservation kind of guy.

Sounds horrible? Well, it is. This is endurance cinema at its most challenging. As if the P.O.V. cameras forcing you to experience the horrors the director has in store for his victims weren’t enough, it’s a film that revels in the bleaker aspects of mankind. There are no heroes here, the closest thing to one being a would be escapee whose only impulse is self preservation at the cost of anything else.

It would all be disgustingly gratuitous if it didn’t have something to say. It’s message is pretty clear, echoed in the rants of the director character, that the torture porn genre is devoid of originality and, well, balls. I can’t help but get the feeling Kim Jin Won is challenging the very essence of the genre with his film, questioning why it exists at all. Certainly the horrors of The Butcher go far beyond anything American studios would get away with, even if much of it is inferred (although to be honest these off-screen moments are the most excruciating) rather than explicitly shown. It certainly shows up the usual torture porn fodder as being surprisingly safe and sanitised, rather than the gruelling exercises in horror they usually claim to be.

The Pig does most of the donkey work for the snuff films. Can you guess how he got his nickname?

Gruelling is certainly a word that applies here though. It clocks in at just under eighty minutes but it seems like a lifetime when you are experiencing the unpleasantness on show. Why would you want to experience it? To be honest, I’m not sure you do but if nothing else, at least The Butcher serves a purpose – it highlights the fraudulent nature of the torture porn genre by contrasting the lightweight laughs of Hostel with its own genuinely horrible, visceral self.

Let’s face it, if you’re going to make a film about someone being tortured it seems only fair it should be a little tortuous itself.

28 Days (Of Horror Films) Later… #18 The House Of The Devil

Samantha is a college student eager to escape the misery of dorm living by renting her own place, the only problem being she lacks the necessary finances. She replies to an ad for a baby sitting job and after an aborted attempt eventually gets the job. When she arrives at the client’s house its all a bit odd. She is met by the peculiar Mr Ulman (Tom Noonan on fine and sinister form) who explains the baby sitting job is not what it seems and he in fact requires someone to stay in the house with his elderly mother while he and his wife attend to some important matters. She reluctantly agrees, not realising that the Ulmans have other plans for how her night is going to play out.

It’s a slow burning tale with a careful, gentle build up culminating in a last act that is tense and startling. Its a pleasure to watch a horror film, particularly an American one, that is not afraid to take its time to build the atmosphere. The girl, seemingly alone in a strange house, is uneasy about her predicament but tempted to stay by the promise of money. As her night progresses she realises that all is not what it at first seemed and it soon becomes obvious that there is sinister work afoot.

Mr Ulman isn’t creepy at all. Noooo, of course not. Perfectly normal…

Once the fright genie is out of the bottle the climax is a series of fairly typical but deftly executed slasher style moments. Her struggle for freedom is impressive, her decisions good ones. Especially satisfying is the way her survival instincts kick in and she defends herself well. Her bloody, eye gouging, throat slashing attempts to escape feel like a victory for the viewer because for once you aren’t screaming at the screen in an effort to prevent suicidally stupid decisions being made. It’s a subtle departure from horror convention but a satisfying one.

The whole film has been given a vintage eighties feel with muted colours and post production added graininess to help give it an authentic vibe. It is clearly a tribute to the films of the likes of Argento and Fulci, in both look and feel, and in this the film makers have succeeded admirably. The extra grain seems a tad pointless on the Blu Ray though, the effect appearing grossly out of place and looking bizarrely sharp due to the heightened definition. It may well have been more sensible to dispense with it entirely for the Blu Ray transfer but its a minor complaint with an otherwise excellent looking film. There are a handful of minor anachronistic issues over the course of the film too, most notably the sound of a distant, very modern sounding car alarm in the background of one scene which threatens to shatter the illusion but they more or less get away with it and to be honest the story is engaging enough that it doesn’t matter.

Samantha has enough sense to know that if she really must go exploring a spooky house in the dark, she should get tooled up first…

Spawned from the mind of Ti West, one of the figures at the crest of the new wave of horror film makers, The House Of The Devil is an excellent introduction to his particular style of film, where character and atmosphere take priority over cheap theatrics or genre conventions and where he rewards viewers’ patience with spectacular pay-offs, a technique he also uses to great effect in The Innkeepers (which is also well worth watching). His work in Cabin Fever 2 (a rare breed indeed, being a horror sequel that surpasses the original) and the anthology film The ABCs Of Death are also well worth checking out.

28 Days (Of Horror Films) Later… #17 The Plague Of The Zombies

 

Hammer is a name synonymous with a golden age of British cinema, their prolific and often garishly gruesome output churning out some real horror classics throughout the sixties. Back in 1966, a full two years before Romero would reinvent the humble zombie forever more, Hammer produced this classy little number featuring the lumbering, reanimated dead.

Set in a small Cornish mining village, a big city Professor is called in by  the village doctor (a former pupil of his) to consult on a mysterious illness that’s claiming the lives of the villagers. When there are sightings by the locals of the dead walking the investigation turns to the occult and the door of local land owner Squire Hamilton.

Altogether now… “HE’S BEHIND YOU!”

Plague Of The Zombies is my favourite Hammer film and it embodies the ethos that was behind their very best work. The period setting, the gore and grotesque effects, the wry humour and the vibrant colours that characterise the better Hammer films are all here in abundance.

As far as the zombies go, these are the real deal. Forget meteor radiation, toxic waste or “rage” infections, these shambling corpses have been raised by good old fashioned voodoo to be the unwilling slaves of a dark high priest. There are a handful of zombie movies from around this era that deal with “proper” zombies but it was shortly after Plague that the origin of the idea of the zombie would be all but forgotten in favour of Romero-esque (or even, these days, Boyle-esque) reanimated corpses or infected.

Andre Morell is simply superb as Sir James Forbes, the intrepid Professor determined to get to the bottom of things.

There’s just as much social commentary here as there is in Night Of The Living Dead though. It explores the class system in Britain and the exploitation of workers by the land owners, the poor by the rich and even dabbles in feminism with the inclusion of the Professor’s willful daughter Sylvia who isn’t afraid to get stuck in to the mystery along side her father.

It’s a rich, intelligently written and wonderfully performed film that manages to capture the creeping dread of the notion of raising the dead as mindless slaves. It’s home to an early zombie swarming scene too, where one character is left to the mercy of a group of shuffling zombies, overwhelmed by their numbers rather than speed in what turns out to be an intense and surprisingly scary moment.

Sylvia’s got lots of bottle, and doesn’t shy away from the dangers of the situation. (The day-for-night shooting is a classic Hammer technique).

The film recently got the full restoration treatment by Hammer for a simply beautiful blu ray release. I was lucky enough to get to see the restored version at the GFT in Glasgow on the big screen with a wildly appreciative audience, a screening that I think will remain one of my favourite cinema experiences for a long time to come.

28 Days (Of Horror Films) Later… #15 Blood On Satan’s Claw

I’ve mentioned “agrarian horror” already in this rundown (for a quick recap check out the entry for The Wicker Man) and how it is a small but ideas rich sub genre of horror, peculiar to the British Isles that deals largely in Paganism and the more ancient myths and legends of these fair isles. As examples of the genre go, you’d be hard pushed to find a better one than this 1971 Tigon production, set in 17^th century rural England.

When a farmhand unearths some disturbing remains with his plough it sparks off a series of mysterious happenings in a small village, most of which seem to be centred around a teenage girl, Angel, who appears to be the ringleader of a group of youths who seem to be playing some rather unsavoury games. Meanwhile, the villagers find themselves afflicted with a strange plague and as the talk of witchcraft and devilry reaches fever pitch, they discover the horrible truth behind what’s happening.

It’s the unearthing of this misshapen skull that kicks off the unpleasantness in the village. Some things are best left buried…

The conflicts here aren’t just between the god fearing villagers and the evil force poised to destroy them – here we see small town superstition versus big city rationality, youth versus age, class conflict and even gender politics as the simple sensibilities of village life are thrown to the four winds by its newest arrival.

Angel Blake (on the right) becomes the ringleader for the cult of village kids serving a darker power.

Particularly disturbing is that horror film staple of creepy kids (in this case, teenagers in the main) as the cult that forms around Angel consists predominantly of the village children. There’s something about children that is inherently creepy anyway, but add in the sinister occult intentions of this particular group and you get a recipe for something altogether more ominous. It’s made all the more sinister in that it takes place, in the main, in the cold hard light of day. The usual sources of comfort – daybreak, the church, safety in numbers – all are usurped by an evil that’s unconcerned with such things.

It’s not entirely without its flaws – the monster makeup is more than a little bit sketchy for example, but hey, they were on a budget and let’s be honest, you can get away with such things when the story itself is good and Blood On Satan’s Claw is as gripping as any.

28 Days (Of Horror Films) Later… #13 Dead Snow

Zombies. They’ve pretty much been a horror movie staple for about fifty years or so, their mindless, soulless carcasses lumbering after their victims with an unquenchable hunger for brains. It’s not often that we encounter cinematic zombies with intelligence and ideology though.

That’s exactly what’s in store for us in Dead Snow though. In this Norwegian ode to Evil Dead and early Peter Jackson a group of exuberant youths on an adventure to a remote cabin in the snow bound mountains unwittingly put wheels in motion that brings a battalion of Nazi zombies back from the dead.

NAZI ZOMBIES!!!

Yes, you heard me, Nazi zombies.

I could just stop there, after all that should more or less be sufficient to make any right minded person want to see the film, but as not all Nazi Zombie films (and with all the copycats and the popularity of Call Of Duty it’s a surprisingly crowded field) are created equal here’s some further qualification.

What’s brown and sticky? A stick. What’s red and sticky? A stick that’s just burst through a Nazi Zombie’s eyeball. Yusss!

Wearing its influences on its sleeve Dead Snow manages to blend savage humour with wonderfully crafted practical special effects and rivers and rivers of gore. The Nazi zombies are particularly impressive creations (and much cleverer than your average dead head) and actually pretty scary, especially when you consider they pretty much run on hate alone. After a fairly concise set up, all hell breaks loose and the fun really begins as blood, guts and bullets all start to fly.

Is it derivative? Yes. Is that a bad thing in this instance? Hell no. And for gore fans, the crisp, white snow of the mountains is the perfect backdrop for the orgy of viscera that set the bar painfully high for the Nazi zombie sub genre.