Earlier this year, a friend of mine wanted me to sit through the horror movie Hatchet written and directed by Adam Green. She had worked as the publicist for the movie and told me how popular the movie was. After sitting through 90 minutes of laughable acting (when Kane Hodder -- the former Jason Vorhees -- is giving the most nuanced performance in the film, that's saying something), derivative plot, REALLY bad special effects and over the top gore, she asked what I thought. I didn't want to be rude so I tried to find something positive to say and the best I could come up with "Well....the director kept the camera in focus most of the time".
Thus, it's understandable that she was not really looking forward to hearing my comments about his followup movie Frozen. Because she was also involved as the publicist for this movie, I can understand that she was afraid that I was going to trash this movie as much as I did Hatchet and I did for the trailer for the sequel Hatchet II. But, I was very happy to point out to her that my reaction to this movie was much different. While it did have some flaws, overall, I found it to be a very disciplined and well directed motion picture and one that shows that Adam Green does in deed have potential.
Frozen is, basically, a winter version of Deep Water (the wonderful film about a couple who get stranded in the middle of shark-infested waters with no hope in sight). In this film, 3 kids (Emma Bell as the cute, perky blonde, Kevin Zegers as her boyfriend and Shawn Ashmore as the wise-ass best friend) go on a skiing trip. They spend most of the day on the bunny slope because of Emma and convince the lift operator to allow them one last trip up to the top of the hill before the resort closes for the week.
Unfortunately, due to a series of misunderstandings, the resort shuts down while they're still in the lift approximately 50 feet in the air. As a result, they are stuck in a lift, freezing to death and it turns out that there are wolves wondering around ready to feast on them should they decide to come down from the lift.
The movie plays less like a horror movie (there's only a few scenes of actual violence) and more like a "dread" movie. From the moment they get stuck in the lift, the movie quickly develops a sense of helplessness as the characters make various attempts to save themselves and find the situation getting worse with each attempt. Throughout the film, the characters remain plausible and react in ways that most people would, first joking, then angry before moving onto shock and despair. Because of the believability, it keeps the story interesting.
What is most impressive is that Adam Green chose to avoid the senseless violence that he used in Hatchet and kept the most violent acts off screen. During one particularly violent scene, we see just the very beginning of it (so we know what is about to happen) and then the camera focuses on the reactions of the helpless onlookers. By doing it this way, he allows the audience to imagine the horrific acts and lends the film a tension that wouldn't have existed had he centered the camera on the attack itself. It's an idea that I wish more directors would think of using.
What is most surprising to me is how little of a release this movie was given. I remember seeing an ad for it last year (and was looking forward to it because it looked original and had the possibility of being good) but, for reasons that my friend told me about but escape me now, it was only released on 106 screens and was given almost zero publicity. That is a shame because, like Trick 'R Treat (another film from a new director that is much better than you would expect), this is a film that could find an audience if given a chance. Hopefully it will on DVD. I know that I for one will have no problem giving it a recommendation and it makes me look forward to the next film that Adam Green wants to do (as long as it's not Hatchet III).
Grade: B+
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
Saw 3D -- Boredom in more multiple dimensions
I have a confession to make -- I have a love/hate relationship with the Saw series and own the first 6 movies. The reason for that is that I do admire what they set out to do. When the first movie came out, it attempted to be different from other mad slasher films. Unlike the standard mad slasher (where you have a killer slowly stalking horny teenagers), you have a killer who was different in that 1) he didn't actually kill anyone (theoretically, it was possible to survive his traps if you were willing to undergo a great degree of pain to do it); 2) he had a strong code of ethics (he hated murderers and his traps were designed to teach the victim a lesson). And, unlike most horror films, there was an actual plot and mystery to the first movie with a genuinely surprising ending. Thus, as ugly and violent as the movie was, I had to give the film credit for being different and original -- something not often found in horror films.
The rest of the series carried on with that trend. What became fascinating is that the plots became even more complex and the twists more surprising (Saw IV being the best example with a twist I genuinely didn't expect in terms of the chronology of events in the movie). Thus, the complicated nature of the story had to be admired. And, I admired the films for legitimately killing off characters but still finding a semi-plausible way to bring the actors back. Unfortunately, it was often undone by shoddy acting and the increasing requirement of the audience to accept that the killer had the wealth of Bill Gates to create such elaborate Rube Goldberg-esque traps (I wish they had, even once, in all 7 movies said that he was a millionaire to explain how he could afford to create the sets he did).
Which now leads us to what is, reportedly, the final film in the series (though the door is left open enough at the end to continue it if the grosses are high enough). Like previous films, the movie mostly consists of one guy walking through a series of traps involving people in his life (since this is the fourth film to try that storyline, it feels extremely redundant). In this case, the victim-du-jour is Bobby, a supposed survivor of one of Jigsaw's traps. He is on a speaking tour for his new book, detailing how he survived the trap and became a better person for it, when he is abducted and forced to undergo a series of trials.
Meanwhile, in the B-plot, Hoffman (the surviving heir to the Jigsaw legacy) is hunting down Jill, Jigsaw's ex-wife, in order to get revenge on her for her attack upon him at the end of the last movie. Out of the two storylines, this is the more interesting one and the one that I wished they had explored more. The better approach to the story would be to have the two of them attacking each other in a series of Jigsaw-style traps leading up to a showdown at the end. Unfortunately, Jill spends most of her time locked up and the showdown between them feels rushed.
As for the ending (the films became popular for their twist endings), I don't want to go too much into it for fear of spoiling it but it has the combined ability to be predictable and make no sense at the same time. Essentially, they have a character act in a way that makes no sense at all based on what we saw of them previously. They try to explain it in a series of rushed "flashbacks" but it still makes no sense for that character. Of all the twists in the film, this one was the lamest of all.
But, the film is not entirely flawed. There is one sequence at the beginning that was genuinely entertaining. In this sequence, the victims, instead of being locked up in a dank dungeon, are enclosed in a glass booth surrounded by people going to and from businesses. What is fascinating is not so much the trap (it's a standard "choose who dies"-style trap) but the reactions of the onlookers. Some try to help but most stand by gawking or snapping pictures on their cell phones. What is truly sad is that, if such a trap DID occur in real life, the reactions we see here are probably very realistic. It's a pity the rest of the film didn't have such a smart commentary on life. Then we would have had a smart ending to the series. Instead, we get one that is merely marking time until the end.
Grade: D+
The rest of the series carried on with that trend. What became fascinating is that the plots became even more complex and the twists more surprising (Saw IV being the best example with a twist I genuinely didn't expect in terms of the chronology of events in the movie). Thus, the complicated nature of the story had to be admired. And, I admired the films for legitimately killing off characters but still finding a semi-plausible way to bring the actors back. Unfortunately, it was often undone by shoddy acting and the increasing requirement of the audience to accept that the killer had the wealth of Bill Gates to create such elaborate Rube Goldberg-esque traps (I wish they had, even once, in all 7 movies said that he was a millionaire to explain how he could afford to create the sets he did).
Which now leads us to what is, reportedly, the final film in the series (though the door is left open enough at the end to continue it if the grosses are high enough). Like previous films, the movie mostly consists of one guy walking through a series of traps involving people in his life (since this is the fourth film to try that storyline, it feels extremely redundant). In this case, the victim-du-jour is Bobby, a supposed survivor of one of Jigsaw's traps. He is on a speaking tour for his new book, detailing how he survived the trap and became a better person for it, when he is abducted and forced to undergo a series of trials.
Meanwhile, in the B-plot, Hoffman (the surviving heir to the Jigsaw legacy) is hunting down Jill, Jigsaw's ex-wife, in order to get revenge on her for her attack upon him at the end of the last movie. Out of the two storylines, this is the more interesting one and the one that I wished they had explored more. The better approach to the story would be to have the two of them attacking each other in a series of Jigsaw-style traps leading up to a showdown at the end. Unfortunately, Jill spends most of her time locked up and the showdown between them feels rushed.
As for the ending (the films became popular for their twist endings), I don't want to go too much into it for fear of spoiling it but it has the combined ability to be predictable and make no sense at the same time. Essentially, they have a character act in a way that makes no sense at all based on what we saw of them previously. They try to explain it in a series of rushed "flashbacks" but it still makes no sense for that character. Of all the twists in the film, this one was the lamest of all.
But, the film is not entirely flawed. There is one sequence at the beginning that was genuinely entertaining. In this sequence, the victims, instead of being locked up in a dank dungeon, are enclosed in a glass booth surrounded by people going to and from businesses. What is fascinating is not so much the trap (it's a standard "choose who dies"-style trap) but the reactions of the onlookers. Some try to help but most stand by gawking or snapping pictures on their cell phones. What is truly sad is that, if such a trap DID occur in real life, the reactions we see here are probably very realistic. It's a pity the rest of the film didn't have such a smart commentary on life. Then we would have had a smart ending to the series. Instead, we get one that is merely marking time until the end.
Grade: D+
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