Iron Man 3

 

Most modern superhero movies are devoid of culture and don't have as much of what I love about superhero movies which is heroes saving people. Most modern superhero movies are more individualistic and deal with these cosmic villains and the heroes fighting them in some abandoned field. There is no culture and no heroes interacting with people in the real world. Iron Man 3 was made back when these movies had more heart to me. There are some great action scenes that check all of the boxes. Tony Stark saves people. The action scenes when his house is destroyed, on the oil freighter, and the action scenes in Tennessee are all scenes that would be in normal action movies. That is Shane Black's influence where every action scene has stakes and set pieces. It also has buddy cop elements and Shane Black's trait of sassy children. While it does not have the most Christmas ambience, Tony Stark goes through a journey that characters normally go through in a Christmas movie and he narrates the story. While some of the twists involving the villains still aren't executed well I do like how this movie shows that someone like the Mandarin is never as scary as just a television broadcast shows him to be.

Synopsis: Plagued with worry and insomnia since saving New York from destruction, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), now, is more dependent on the suits that give him his Iron Man persona -- so much so that every aspect of his life is affected, including his relationship with Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow). After a malevolent enemy known as the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) reduces his personal world to rubble, Tony must rely solely on instinct and ingenuity to avenge his losses and protect the people he loves.

The movie starts with a narration of Tony Stark talking about his past. I enjoy this because other Christmas movies such as A Christmas Story and It's a Wonderful Life do things like this. They tell a linear story letting you know you are in the past with narration. It couldn't be more obvious that Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) will end up being a villain just because he starts off as this obsessive fan of Tony Stark and Tony leaves him abandoned on the roof of the building. Tony talks in the narration about his past coming back to haunt him and that is a big part of this movie. Tony goes through a journey. We see the party animal, playboy side of him in 1999. We see the more PTSD ridden, irresponsible version of him in the present. Lastly, he goes through a journey of showing woh he really is without the suit and the isolated, billionaire house near the water. While I used to not enjoy how much he was out of the suit in this I now see it as a positive. Tony is more relatable in this movie. He is a workaholic using his suit and hobbies to mask his issues and his inability to cope with them. On date night with Pepper he sends up his suit that he isn't in to talk to her. While he has a nightmare his suit comes to interfere and sees her as a threat. She is mad because he can't seem to separate himself from the suits and he thinks he can use them to solve all of his problems.

Early on in the film I like how they show Tony to be impulsive. As soon as Happy is attacked and made comatose by an explosion he gives an interview telling where his home address is and that he will kill the Mandarin. I do like this early storyline of Happy first, and then Tony being detectives. Happy getting the license plate off of Killian's car and then following his henchman, Savin (James Badge Dale). At the explosion scene he points at the dog tags, which Tony then reconstructs the crime scene digitally and sees that. Tony uses the outlying result of military people being killed with the extreme heat signature to deduce that another Mandarin bombing happened in Rose Hill, Tennessee which is where the suit is programmed to go. Around this time another figure from Tony's past, Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall) shows up. She was in the flashback sequence and she was talking about trying to create a way for the body to heal itself called Extremis. She worked with Killian to create it. At this point gunships lead by Savin come to Tony's house and destroy his house as he gets into a prototype Iron Man suit and survives. What I liked about this scene was how it felt like a real action movie scene. I enjoyed the slow-motion editing when the magnet suit attaches to Pepper to save her from the explosion. Just like Lethal Weapon 2 another Shane Black action scene with gunships near a seaside home. I also enjoyed seeing Tony improvise, like launching the desk at one of the helicopters to destroy it.

The next part of this movie I find fun as well. The suit goes to Tennessee because of the programming. Tony takes shelter in a shed near where a kid, Harley (Ty Simpkins), lives. Like the kids in other Shane Black movies, Danielle Harris in The Last Boy Scout immediately comes to mind, this kid is sassy but he also acts as a way for Tony to seem more relatable. He needs help repairing his suit and Harley helps him. He shows him the location of the explosion. Tony eventually tracks down the dead soldier's widow and one of the Extremis agents goes to that meeting and handcuffs him but Tony is able to fight her to standstill inside a restaurant and uses dog togs in a microwave to blow up the building and kill her. Savin shows up wanting the same file the other agent was after and Tony, with help from Harley is able to knock him out. This was the second great action scene in the movie. I enjoyed the town setting and some of the small town culture it brought to the film. This was the sequence with the most Christmas ambience because of the lights, decorations, and snow. I do like how Tony has one of his arc-reactor beams left and uses it against Savin. Same thing goes for the weapon he gave Harley and using that to distract Savin. Shane Black just knows how to put those action-fist-pump moments in at the perfect time.

Tony tracks the Mandarin's broadcast location to Miami. I enjoy Tony getting primal and building some quick weapons like potato guns and these electric shocking gloves on the fly. I thought him going into a building with a bunch of armed guards and taking them out like a ninja was a bit much. One thing I don't think of Tony as is stealthy. I have to get on Killian for this also. If you want to protect your anonymity why not have Extremis soldiers guarding the person that helps you be that way? These guards seemed like they were less equipped and less able than me to guard this place. While this is going on, Pepper is found by Killian and the first of two twists happen in this movie where Maya is revealed to be in league with Killian. She wants Tony to help complete her formula so that Extremis will no longer have the side effects and be more controllable. Killian reveals a plan to capture and kill the President because his administration disapproved of his research. Me, having seen a lot of movies, seeing Miguel Ferrer as the Vice President let me know immediately he was the bad guy and planned to betray the President. In a cameo by a young Jena Ortega, playing his daughter, we see she is missing a leg and Extremis can help her get it back. Tony's friend Colonel James Rhodes, AKA War Machine and now the Iron Patriot is tricked into getting captured at the hands of an extremist agent.

Tony finds the Mandarin and he reveals himself to be an actor named Trevor Slattery. This whole scene is funny because you see that he is just a man living his best life with women and beer all around him. I have not read Iron Man comics. Some say that they were not doing the real Mandarin because they were afraid of political incorrectness and the reception it would get in China. I actually like this twist because it shows that things and people like the Mandarin are never as scary as we make them out to be. It is scary when someone can hack into all of the televisions across America but that is not what that person is like all of the time. What they were doing could have been a response to the Christopher Nolan Batman movies as well because those movies never made this subject matter comedic in any way.

Hansen is killed by Killian after threatening to kill herself as Tony had changed her mind about wanting to fix Extremis. Tony eventually escapes and rescues Rhodes. The two of them find out where Pepper and Killian are going from Trevor. Tony uses one of his suits to get on board Air Force One. Savin has all ready taken the Iron Patriot suit and captured the President. Tony kills Savin by blowing a whole through his torso with an arc reactor blast. Tony however, manages to save the other workers. I really enjoy this action sequence. As I said before I enjoy heroes saving people. I like how Tony uses Jarvis to identify who the people are and how many he can hold onto and how they all hold on together. The only thing that takes away from this is I wish he had actually been in the suit. The twist is cool but not having him in the suit lowers the stakes a bit. Now for something that Shane Black does best: an action scene on a giant oil freighter.

Tony calls in around 30 other suits from his house and has many of them fight the other Extremis agents. I do like this sequence and how Tony runs around on different parts of the freighter to get to a suit. Rhodes throughout this movie does some really cool action stunts. The scene where he hangs on the crate, shoots the cable and holds on to the wire and saves the President who is tied up in the air and then repels and shoots the cable so they don't fall, is an awesome sequence. I like how Extremis is shown to be so powerful that it can break through an Iron Man suit. Tony going to fight Killian and then sliding so he can get the suit is awesome. The final fight is cool as Tony uses his new magnet technology to attach to Killian, and then blows up the suit. Since Killian is so juiced up on Extremis that he is like a Resident Evil villain he comes back and now Extremis-Pepper fights him and kills him with an explosion. Tony blows up all of his suits and gets the shrapnel taken out of his heart as he wants to show he doesn't want to rely on technology to live. He also sends Harley a bunch of money and gifts.

I haven't even talked about some of the Shane Black elements I enjoyed in this. The buddy cop moments and some of Tony's lines are better than they have ever been because of his writing. I enjoy the moment on the freighter when Tony is using a gun and asks for another magazine and Rhodes says he has another gun that his magazines won't fit his. Tony also says he can't hit the spotlight the guards are near from where they are proceeds to rise up and shoot it with ease. Some of the banter between Harley and Tony is fun like when he asks for a sandwich and when Harley talks about his Dad leaving. Tony in response that says, "Dads leave, no need to be a pussy about it." Later when Tony is captured he asks the guards how many miles between Tennessee and Miami and holds his hands up for his armor which does eventually come. When he fights the Extremis agent in the restaurant there is a great exchange where she says "that's all you got, cheap tricks and a lousy one liner." Tony says back, "sweetheart that could be the name of my autobiography."

I remember really enjoying this movie when I saw it in the theater. I had cooled off on it in more recent viewings but this time it just clicked for me. It doesn't go as hard on incorporating other superheroes into the story like more modern Marvel movies do. It is primarily about Tony. It has culture and superheroes doing heroic things. It reminds me of Spider-Man 2 in that it is about a hero trying to find out what makes them a hero more than just their abilities and persona. It makes Tony more relatable than the genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist that he is. It fits as a Christmas movie because it is a character learning a lesson, going back into their past and ending with them appreciating what they have, which is what Christmas is all about. The Maya Hansen twist is pointless. The Mandarin twist is pointless though I still like what they did with his persona and how they made him ridiculous. Guy Pearce is good but the character isn't great. Those are the weaknesses but they aren't bigger parts of the movie than Tony's journey so they never seem to drag the movie down much.

Rating: 9/10

Trivia: The first day Robert Downey Jr. and Ben Kingsley met on set they took a picture to send to mutual friend, Richard Attenborough.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLorLVa95Xo

To All a Goodnight

 

While thin characterization and uneven pacing prevent this from being one of best Christmas horror movies, it is still a decent one. I enjoy the sorority house setting and how quickly the kills come early, though at the sacrifice of some character development. This is the best looking killer Santa suit in any of these kind of movies. This movie also does something that most slashers don't. Midway through the movie some of the people find out what is happening which causes some interesting developments and conflict. Well before Scream wowed audiences with a twist, this movie does something too that makes the killer much more explainable and well written. Give me any slasher involving younger adults and teens getting together in one locale and getting killed off one by one and I will enjoy it. This one though does have a high body count, some bloody kills, and a thrilling conclusion, though it has flaws. 

A look at the killer Santa suit in this movie

Synopsis: A group of teenagers at a party find themselves being stalked by a maniacal killer in a Santa Claus costume. 

The movie starts with a typical slasher movie prior evil where a woman falls off a balcony at a sorority house as she is hazed by other women. Two years later, days before Christmas the house is being cleaned out. Five women: Nancy, Melody, Leia, Trisha, and Sam stay behind to meet up with their boyfriends for the weekend. Nancy is presented early on as the typical shy, wholesome girl you see in slasher movies and the rest of the girls convince her to give the house mother, Mrs. Jensen, her milk laced with sleeping pills. One other student, Cynthia, and her boyfriend, are killed outside while the other girls have dinner. 

The men, T.J., Alex, Tom, and Blake are met by the girls at the airstrip. They all go back to the house. Melody and Tom are killed quickly. Later that night Blake and Sam are killed while having sex. This is the issue with this movie to me. There are seven kills in the first 30 minutes or so, eight if you include the prior evil. While some are bloody, they really compromise any sort of character development. I wish this movie had just started with the men showing up so that we could get to know these people more. Melody has a cute British accent, Sam makes sounds like animal while she has sex, and they are making out in front of everyone that night before everything starts. While I like those quirks I'm not really given anything to work with. Cynthia and her boyfriend are complete body count characters. Other slasher movies have done this better. Think of Annie in Friday the 13th or Claire in Black Christmas. They both had more personality than any of these first six characters killed, combined. 

I said in the thesis that I enjoyed the setting. The sorority house is shown to be big which acts as a good tool for blocking out the screams of people in the house and how people don't hear anyone die. I do like the use of muted lighting and how dark the movie is at times. That adds to the atmosphere. The music has some insane Cassio sounding work. It is bonkers. The day for night shooting adds to the charm. While none of the women are particularly drop dead gorgeous they all look real. Jennifer Runyon as Nancy gives me Jennifer Jason Leigh vibes and might be a bit prettier. The foggy camera lens at the beginning made it feel more like a flashback and gave it a dreamy vibe which this movie has. 

The movie does start to flip at the midpoint a little. Melody looks really hot in a bikini and I enjoy her seduction of Alex and how he acts all sporty the next day instead of talking about molecules and science like he was the day before. At this point Ralph, who is the gamekeeper is found dead. Ralph is a harbinger of doom. This movie was actually released about four months before Friday the 13th but the similarities are interesting. Once Ralph dies, three cops show up. Two are assigned to stay at the house for the night, which breaks the traditional slasher element of the characters not knowing what is going on until late in the movie. There is not much of an investigation and more just the characters doing what they do. I like that because in most slasher movies an investigation messes up an all ready fun movie. This still keeps being a fun sorority sexcapade movie. This moment also divides the characters as TJ strongly believes nothing is going on. Leia keeps banging anyone that moves including one of the cops. Alex and Nancy both think the others are dead and whoever killed Ralph is still around...

Spoiler Section

That is perhaps why Alex and Nancy make it to the end. Even before Friday the 13th T.J. and Melody are promiscuous characters who get killed because of it. The kills in this movie are actually quite good. The first two people to get killed aren't killed notably. About as notable as their characters are. Sam and Tom get killed by the killer in a knight suit using a bow and arrow to shoot Tom and decapitate Sam with an axe. That was good. The garrote wire kill on T.J. was great. The blood splash on Melody was a nice touch. Melody goes and finds the helicopter pilot at that point, played by the porn king himself, Harry Reems. They are killed when another killer Santa shows up and activates the plane propellers. That kill is silly. The shot just cuts to some blood hitting the plane. While this happens, at the house Nancy is confronted by the other Santa killer who reveals herself to be Mrs. Jensen. She is the mother of the girl who fell from the balcony. There is a great suspense sequence where Nancy looks for her and she waits for her on the other side of a wall in the hallway and tries to stab her. Jensen chases Nancy up to that same balcony and falls from her death. Some questionable editing here as we only see her lunge toward Nancy but never show what Nancy does to make her fall. She just screams and we see her on the ground. At this point the other killer Santa reveals himself and it is the lead cop who showed up to investigate, Polansky. He reveals himself to be the father of the girl who was killed. Alex kills him with the bow and arrow that was used earlier. Leia had been caught by the killer earlier and went hysterical and is now left on the balcony dancing and humming like someone invading your dreams humming in the background. What an ending as Alex and Nancy just leave her there. 

There is some clever and different writing from what you would expect in a slasher movie. Early on of Mrs. Jensens's friends who hates the students shows up for one scene and anyone who has seen these types of movies might assume she could be the killer. She never shows up again and never gets killed. Making Mrs. Jensen the killer was less obvious. Seeing this movie now, she never is shown drinking the milk that Nancy gives her, making that more interesting. Now, Polanksy never shows up until the middle and the end, but because he is an authority figure I never thought of him being the killer. I expected Melody and Alex to keep hooking up but he instead takes up with Nancy about midway through. They have a cute relationship as Alex at one point calls her cute and she says she isn't. Later they dance after Alex says she is cute again, to which she says, "I would rather be beautiful." To that, Alex says, "you are." Leia is found by the killer in the bathroom after sleeping with the first cop. The cop then has a knife in his back while opening the door and I had expected to see him get killed. So there are directions I thought this movie would go and things I would see that went the opposite way and I appreciated that. Leah and Cynthia get topless in this by the way which adds to the typical slasher feel. The two killers twist was great because that made me wonder who did what. If Polansky did the kill with the bow and arrow his end is a sort of poetic justice. David Hess directed this movie and he was no stranger to some blood so I think the bloodier kills could have been his influence. I would have liked this movie even more if he had played Polansky or one of the other cops. 

SLASHER MOVIE ANATOMY:

• Prior Evil: A woman fell from a balcony and died during a sorority event. Now her parents want revenge.
• Body Count: 15
• Whodunit: Yes
• Mask or outfit: Santa Claus
• Locale or organizer: Sorority House
• Best Kill: Axe decapitation

INSTRUMENTS OF DEATH AND SLASH COUNT

• Falling : 2

• Knife: 4

• Crossbow: 2

• Offscreen Head Wound: 1

• Garrote wire: 1

• Axe: 2

• Rock: 1

• Propeller blades: 2

SLASHER MOVIE TAXONOMY

•         Kingdom: Post Halloween, Pre Friday the 13th, which is interesting because it has similarities, 1980s. One location.
•         Phylum: Serious, with some levity provided by the characters and the typical characters that want sex.
•         Class: Slasher set in a sorority house at Christmas time.
•         Order: 1980
•         Family: Full Upper body and full side boob shown from two women
•         Genus: Just as much of a fun setting and location as the slasher elements,
•     Species: High body count, moderately bloody kills and FX work, a few standout kills, trademark look with the Santa suit. Nice two killer twist.

Rating: 7/10

Trivia: Jennifer Runyon didn't know Harry Reems was a famous pornstar until someone on set told her.

Making him just the pilot was a good choice as the guys would have had no girls to bang had they let him come to the house.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Fc_rTBnzQg

Kill Count: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqZzPGQepfY

Silent Night (2012)

  

Silent Night is a throwback slasher. It mixes elements of a police procedural and a slasher like Maniac Cop and the sleazy, high body count, Christmas-themed slasher like Don't Open Till Christmas. While this is said to be a remake of Silent Night, Deadly Night it is much closer to Don't Open Till Christmas. Different people who dress up in Santa suits being killed or being red herrings, and sleazy pornography photoshoots remind me more of that movie. Silent Night benefits from a genuine small town setting atmosphere, well-timed use of slow motion, bloody kills and a lot of them, a colorful look, and fun supporting performances from Malcolm McDowell, Donal Logue, and Curtis Moore as the sleazy Reverend. 

Synopsis: A vicious killer dressed as Santa Claus hides in plain sight during during a small town's annual Christmas festivities.  

I like how this movie starts. Time is given to show a small downtown and you meet a lot of characters like all of the cops, the Mayor, the Reverend, and the parents of our main character, Deputy Aubrey Bradimore (Jaime King). The cinematography in the opening kills is great because one of them is in a basement where all you can see is the Christmas lights tying up the person who we later find out is another Deputy. After the Deputy is killed it is assumed the woman he was with is killed also. This killer "punishes" people for immorality much like Billy in the original movie but the similarities end there. 

Bradimore starts to investigate and she eventually finds the bodies of Deputy Jordan (Brendan Fehr) and the married woman he was seeing, Alana (Ali Tartaryan). She eventually suspects three different men. A cynical, drunk Santa portrayer named Jim Epstein (Donal Logue). A sleazy Reverend (Curtis Moore). Lastly, the former mill worker turned drug dealer, Stein Karlsson (Mike O' Brien). I enjoy some of the early scenes where you meet both Epstein and the Reverend. The Reverend makes the most creepy advances on Aubrey saying he is always here for her and if there is anything he can do, in the most creepy way ever. He later takes perverted pictures of several women dressed in Santa costumes and is finally killed when the killer goes into the church and slices off his fingers before stabbing him several times. Epstein was called in as disturbing the children as a Santa in the park and he plays wise real well. He talks about how he is Santa now and the Easter Bunny and then something at Halloween but he goes by Jim Epstein. Donal Logue is great at playing characters like this. 

The killer Santa goes on a killing spree of anyone he deems immoral. This includes two pornstars at a photoshoot, as well as the photographer. He later kills the Mayor's daughter, also part of that pornstar group, and her boyfriend. He surprisingly kills a young girl at the beginning who was begging her Mom to go shopping which shows no one was off limits. I like that mean spirited stuff. The effects and kills in this movie are top notch. While some of the effects do look like CGI and most of them are different cuts from the actor, they didn't skip on the blood. The wood chipper scene where Maria (Cortney Palm), the pornstar who had escaped is killed is the highlight of the movie. She is also topless which is nice. Something that most modern slashers skip on is the nudity which I'm glad this movie didn't, though most remakes do have it. The scene with the boyfriend and the Mayor's daughter is good. The kill where his face is split apart by an axe is great. The kill with the daughter is an homage to the Linnea Quigley kill where she gets pinned with the deer antlers is decent, but not as good as the original. I'm not just saying that because she didn't get completely topless, I think there was some CGI on the aftermath shots. 

Apart from some of the FX shots I enjoy the authentic locations. The police station looks real. I like the little American flags on the desks, the long, tall counter near the reception desk, and the name tags on the desks. This movie has some great color to it as well. I all ready talked about the opening scene with the lights, which is repeated through the movie. I also enjoy the contrasting Green and Red colors that are in some scenes. The bar chase and the climax at the end in the police station where the neon red and green just scream Christmas colors! There is a great looking black and white sequence where you see the color red mixed in for the American flag and the Santa Claus suit. There is some great slow-motion during one headshot where the blood splashes all over a wall and a kitchen sink. There is another great slow-motion moment where the killer Santa throws an axe at someone's achilles heel. From a technical aspect I like a lot about this movie besides some shaky cam stuff during some close-up physical moments. The music was done by a person who mostly does video games though I like the music for Gears of War and Aliens: Colonial Marines, which are games Kevin Riepl did the music for. 

The police procedural aspects are fun too. The relationship between Aubrey and Giles (Andrew Cecon) is fun. Early on in the film the dispatcher and front desk woman, Brenda (Ellen Wong), tells them the complaint about Epstein. Giles brings up that maybe he got a boner because of the kids sitting in his lap and Aubrey is repulsed and you know these conversations have happened before. After Aubrey finds the results of the first murder, her and McDowell, who plays the Sheriff, start talking about who to question next. Later in the movie Aubrey starts doubting the suspects and McDowell gets in some great lines like "Don't put avocado on the burger!" He thinks Aubrey is overthinking everything. I enjoyed some of the Silent Night, Deadly Night references like the Mayor's boyfriend's grandfather saying everything the Grandfather did at the beginning of the original. The garbage day reference from Giles was great too. 

Spoiler Section

During a chase scene later in the film Karlsson gets the jump on Aubrey. She is saved by the Sheriff. While at the town's annual Christmas parade they try to track down the Santa and arrest Epstein when he runs away. Aubrey goes after Karlssen again and is forced to shoot him at his home, which is where the slow-motion gunshot happens. She recognizes a present and unwraps it to find coal. She realizes that the killer is marking his victims and that her father had received the same gift earlier. She goes home to find her Father dead and disemboweled while her mother was locked in the closet. The Santa meanwhile, shows up at the police station and kills Giles by stabbing him in the face, burns the Sheriff to death with a flamethrower, and beats Epstein to death with brass knuckles. Aubrey shows up and saves Brenda. She fights the Santa until she burns him with the flamethrower. Some time later it is shown the killer Santa survived. He is revealed to be Ronald Jones Jr. He is the son of Ronald Jones Sr. who showed up in the same town at his wife's Christmas party years ago and burned her to death with a flamethrower. Aubrey's father responded to the call and gunned him down. His son was watching in the car. This is shown in the black and white flashback sequence earlier. This movie is setting up a sequel that I wish we had gotten because I really enjoyed this. It feels like a great combo of yesteryear slasher with police procedural with a nice location and great kills. 

SLASHER MOVIE ANATOMY:

• Prior Evil: A son witnessed his father kill his mother with a flamethrower while being dressed as Santa.
• Body Count: 17
• Whodunit: Yes
• Mask or outfit: Santa Claus
• Locale or organizer: Christmas in a small Wisconsin town
• Best Kill: Wood chipper 

INSTRUMENTS OF DEATH

• Electrocution via Christmas lights: 1

• Tasered and stabbed with fire poker: 1

• Dismemberment: 1

• Scythe: 2

• Wood Chipper: 1

• Flamethrower: 3

• Disembowelment: 1

• Axe: 2

• Headshot with Handgun: 1

• Knife: 1

• Brass Knuckles: 1

• Strangulation with Christmas lights: 1

• Mounted antlers: 1

SLASHER MOVIE TAXONOMY

•         Kingdom: Post-Scream, Remake, 2010s
•         Phylum: Serious, police procedural vibe with some levity provided by the characters and some pathos provided by them as well. A lot of Santa red herrings.
•         Class: Slasher set in a small town at Christmas
•         Order: 2012
•         Family: Upper body and rear nudity from one woman
•         Genus: Just as much of a fun setting and location as the slasher elements, location seems genuine
•     Species: High body count, a lot of blood, some FX work, a few standout kills, trademark look and weapon with the flamethrower.

Rating: 9/10

Trivia: At one point Malcolm McDowell references CSI: Miami. Brendan Fehr who played Deputy Jordan played a main role in that show. This is also the third horror remake Jaime King has starred in after My Bloody Valentine and Mother's Day.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhLw3GmHQqA

Watch movie here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pLEHon8NDo

Kill Count (Credit to Dead Meat): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpOyVeqWpGM

Inside AKA À l'intérieur (2007)

 

No movie has ever encapsulated the two words "beautiful violence," better than Inside. Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo along with their cinematographer Laurent Bares craft a movie violent enough to make Halloween Kills look like a cartoon. I have never seen the intricacies they go to. Not quite as over the top as the blood you would see in a Takashi Miike movie and not as fantastical as the blood in a Lucio Fulci this is the best that intense violence has ever looked on screen to me. It is made better by the dim natural lighting throughout the house, the predominant setting of this movie. That contrasts with the bright lighting in the bathroom which is another big set of the movie. The horror is terrifying. This has one of my favorite scenes ever where villain looks like a ghost floating away in a nightmare...except it isn't a nightmare. Scissors, guns, needles, and fire have never seemed so scary and devastating in a movie and that is also punctuated by the suspense this movie has as you wait in anticipation for the next violent moment as the movie never relents. I wouldn't want this movie to be any less visceral considering the subject matter. No movie has ever looked better to me. 

Synopsis: Four months after the death of her husband, a woman on the brink of motherhood (Alysson Paradis) is tormented in her home by a strange, scissor-wielding woman (Beatrice Dalle) who wants her unborn baby. 

Right away the style is seen and the atmosphere is felt. In the opening car accident scene I enjoy the little details. The windshield wipers that are still running. The blood on Sarah (Alysson Paradis), some of which is dried and dark red and black because of coagulation. The rain added to the ambience. That goes on into the opening credits where we see the titles with a background of blood being washed back and forth and you can see details like how thick it is and the bubbles and stuff. I can't think of any other movie that shows blood like this. I may sound like Michael C. Hall from Dexter talking about the blood patterns throughout this movie but that is part of why I enjoy it so much. I do like how we get to know Sarah early on. She has a turbulent relationship with her mother Louise (Nathalie Roussel). There is a great scene of her going to take pictures in the park and seeing a family together and you see a close up of her with the scars on her face and that is a reminder of what she went through and how her husband is dead. Her baby is overdue and she turns down her mother's offer to come stay with her on Christmas Eve. Her boss, Jean-Pierre (Francois-Regis Marchasson) offers to drive her to the hospital the next day. I do enjoy the nurse in the hospital coming over to her and saying how hard the first baby is. Though nothing in the world is going to be as hard as this birth is going to be for Sarah...

When Sarah gets home she develops some of the photos she took in the park and has a daydream sequence of sorts where she has a romantic moment with her husband holding her and her baby. She also has a nightmare where the baby comes out of her mouth. While these scenes aren't necessary they add to a nightmare logic atmosphere early on. That pays off more when the intruder, the Woman (Beatrice Dalle) shows up. She at first knocks on the door asking to come in and use the phone. Sarah shows some intelligence by not letting her in as she is defenseless in her situation. The baby is priority to her. Just as the woman is about to leave she calls Sarah on her lie about her husband being home asleep and says that her husband is dead. Sarah later sees the woman standing by her backyard window. Again the rain adds such an ambience to this. You can almost feel that 40 degree December rain here. There is another great visual when she lights a cigarette revealing part of her face. Beatrice Dalle is one of those women like  Bonnie Aarons who can look attractive, but she's also quite strange looking and they shoot her like she's something out of a nightmare. The dim lighting combined with her dark hair and black outfit are a good combination for making her look like a monster. Before she leaves again she punches the window making a crack in the glass. Sarah eventually calls the cops but when they go to check on her there is no sign of the woman. 

When the kills come in this movie they are brutal, bloody, and a great payoff of suspense. There are some scenes that are surprising, others where the weapon is lingered on for a second before the kill happens. The woman manages to get a gun at some point and during a sequence in the dark she manages to put the gun against someone's head before they can react. That is one moment we don't actually see, we just hear what happens. There are two great kills with needles, one being a knitting needle. One amazing headshot where the side of someone's face gets blown off. There is one awesome moment with fire where the results are some awesome burn effects. There is one great kill with scissors, and one great kill with a knife. Both of those are great because they do different things I haven't seen. The person who gets killed with the scissors gets stabbed in the leg and the throat, which has a bloody result. That doesn't kill them however, and the woman suffocates them with a pillow and stabs through it. The result is a bloodied face that is all red after and it looks awesome. The same thing happens to Sarah when someone is shot in front of her. This movie was shot in sequence and that works for how messed up the wardrobe and the location gets. Throughout the movie Sarah's face gets redder and redder. Her dress gets redder and redder. I've never seen such attention to detail because there will be certain spots of blood I notice whether it is on her dress, the olive green walls, the white bathroom with the bright lighting, and the stairs where the blood just gets more and more and shooting in sequence allows for those details. I love the music in this movie too. There are some great stingers during suspense scenes where someone is attacked and that is when the stinger plays to pay off that tension. The piano and string music throughout is great. There are some droning type of instruments that are great as well. 

An example of how Sarah's dress looks throughout, and also the blood effects on her face and the door. Note the bright lighting in the bathroom I was talking about. 

A look at Sarah's face later in the movie after the headshot she gets the splash of.

Beatrice Dalle as the Woman. Note her magnetic and also dark look with hair and clothes and also the blood all over the walls. 

One of the best headshots ever. Enough said. 

Spoiler Section

Sarah at one point wakes up from a dream. The woman is standing right behind her and you don't hear her move away and she moves away slowly like a ghost and into the shadow of the room behind her. It's one of the best scenes ever. Sarah had called Jean-Pierre to come over to look at the photos to see if he could enhance them. She notices that the Woman had been stalking her while developing the photos she took during the day earlier. Sarah goes to sleep and the Woman attacks her with medical scissors, trying to cut into her belly button where the baby is. This scene is so intense that it always makes me cringe. Sarah wakes up and gets her face cut but manages to barricade herself in the bathroom. Jean-Pierre eventually shows up and the Woman has to do some clever maneuvering of his questions. He asks questions like what does it feel like to be a grandmother? The Woman had lied about being Sarah's mother. At some point Louise shows up and Sarah has grabbed a needle of some kind in the bathroom There is a great suspense build up where when Sarah's mother opens the door she is stabbed in the jugular by Sarah. There are some dark things in this movie, like Sarah killing her own mother that actually can't be elaborated on because the movie just keeps moving. As I have said before, being shot in sequence makes this movie better for the small details. You see Louise's body later and there is a giant pool of blood around it. 

While Louise goes up the stairs that is when the Woman kills Jean-Pierre. Eventually the cops show up saying earlier that they would send a patrol car throughout the night. Sarah is still barricaded in the bathroom. Two cops come in and are killed, one with the needle, and one with the gun she takes. Sarah eventually makes a hole in the door and in another scene where you see the devastation of the scissors the Woman stabs her hand to the wall. That is when the cop and the prisoner from the same car come in and she surprises the cop and shoots him with the gun. The criminal is stabbed in the head and it is a haunting moment when his brain is making his limbs move in different ways before he dies. The Woman eventually says that she wants Sarah's baby and that she was the other person in the car accident and she lost her baby. I do like other unanswerable questions this movie has too. 

Since this takes place four months after the accident in the beginning you start to think of this from the Woman's perspective a little. She probably stalked Sarah around finding out how far pregnant she may have been, knew the aftermath of the accident with her husband being dead, maybe had a key made to the house or knew some other way to get in. Either way she dedicates herself to getting Sarah's baby. What makes her villainous though is not just that but also everyone else she kills along the way. When other people and cops show up she doesn't have the baby yet so she just figures okay I gotta kill them too. I could see people questioning just how effective she is at it, but you could say the same thing about slasher-killers in any slasher movie. I think the accident must have scrambled her head too because no sane person would do this. Yeah she lost a baby but she can still have one right? She doesn't need Sarah's baby. 

I love some of the bloody moments and effects in the second half of this movie too. The blood spray during the kills with the needles is perfect. It never goes into over-the-top Takashi Miike territory. I love the bubbly pouring blood when Sarah gives herself a tracheotomy. That final fight is awesome because Sarah finally steps up. In an ironic twist the Woman's cigarette, something that proves she isn't right for motherhood, is what does her in. Sarah uses an aerosol spray to light her face on fire. I love those FX. I love the zombie looking effects when that one cop comes back and because his brain is scrambled tries to kill Sarah. At that point Sarah only wants to save the baby and has the Woman do a C-section. Something she was going to do the whole time, but Sarah will die. Sarah's water had broke when the cop hit her in the stomach before the Woman came in and killed the cop with an improvised spear of sorts Sarah had made.  I always have to turn away from the screen during this moment as they show everything. The movie ends with a dark red color filter and the Woman holding the baby in a chair. I love that color filter because by the end of this movie with all the bloodshed and bleakness nothing feels more right that darkness and redness. 

Rating: 10/10 MY SECOND FAVORITE MOVIE OF ALL TIME!

Trivia: The address on Sarah's house is 666

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FKVN4JxvlE

Better Watch Out (2016)

 

The first third of Better Watch Out sets up a great home invasion movie that quickly turns into a hostage situation film, and not one you would expect. The theme of the movie is affluence. If Kevin McCallister from Home Alone was turning 13 and an only child the character of Luke from this movie would be him. Luke is the type of kid whose parents think he is the greatest thing since sliced bread and can do no wrong, that his friends he has a bad influence on are having a bad influence on him. He is the 13 year old version of someone like Brock Turner and even shows tendencies toward being that type of person as the film goes on. There are many twists and turns along the way and the film is bolstered by standout performances by Olivia DeJonge and Levi Miller. While not necessarily the most Christmas-like film the decorations in and around the house give it that atmosphere. The movie in a way feels like a deconstruction of something like Home Alone with some of the myth busting and references it has to it.

Synopsis: On a quiet suburban street, a babysitter must defend a 12-year-old boy from intruders, only to discover it's far from a normal home invasion. 

The red and fancy font in the beginning gives the movie a certain feel. The scenes with children destroying snowmen and getting into snowball fights goes with the rest of the movie as it is about a child not being as innocent as he seems. The story focuses on Luke (Levi Miller) the son of Robert (Patrick Warburton) and DeAndra (Virginia Madsen). Luke has a crush on his babysitter, Ashley (Olivia DeJonge). He has plans with his friend Garrett (Ed Oxenbould). to try to woo her that night when she comes to babysit. 

When Ashley comes over Luke starts to make his move. He grabs some champagne from his parents stash and starts drinking in front of her. She tries to take it from him but she is preoccupied with texts from her boyfriend, Ricky (Aleks Mikic). Eventually Luke tries to kiss her but she rejects him and says it is inappropriate. There are signs of a home invasion. They start getting phone calls and eventually the door is left open. The phone lines and internet go down. A pizza delivery shows up when no one ordered one. There are some suspenseful sequences and great payoffs where Ashley finds an inflatable Santa near the window that wasn't there, or they set off a toy in Luke's closet while hiding. I really like how this home invasion is set up and watching it again you try to look for foreshadowing of the twist that comes. 

Early on I liked some setups and foreshadowing for later. The pencil near Luke's door which according to DeAndra will tell if he sleepwalks or not. DeAndra says that Garrett is a bad influence on Luke, which is laughable by the end of the movie. There are some fun moments between Virginia Madsen and Patrick Warburton, two experienced actors giving this movie some pathos. The scene where he shows her these little Christmas socks he has and he makes a reference to it being "meterosexual," and she corrects him saying "metrosexual," is amusing. 

Spoiler Section

As Luke and Ashley are hiding in the closet, Ashley notices something odd about the height of the intruder and what he is wearing...Luke's clothes! She believes the intruder is Garrett and their cover is blown. Luke had staged the break in hoping it would make Ashley scared and get her closer to him after he saved her. Luke makes these mistakes throughout he movie where his plans seem smart on the surface but very amateur. Later we see the toy they rigged up when Garrett is shot and it almost seems funny that you couldn't predict what was coming. As Ashley walks off mad at Luke he slaps her and she falls down the stairs. She is tied to a chair, a place she will be for the rest of the movie. Eventually Luke and Garrett call Ricky whom Luke eventually kills by doing the Home Alone myth busting with the paint cans. Luke wanted to know if someone would just get pushed back like they did in the movie, but the cans make his head explode upon impact. The way the red blood mixes with the yellow paint is a nice touch. Makes it look like mixed ketchup and mustard on a burger which may be what it was. Luke then calls Ashley's ex-boyfriend Jeremy (Dacre Montgomery) and stalls him by making him write an apology that Ashley apparently wants. He kills him by tying a rope around his neck near a tree and driving the lawnmower, hanging him. Ashley eventually convinces Garrett to help her escape but Luke shows up and shoots him. There is some really clever writing here as Luke's handgun from earlier didn't have any ammo...but Garrett's shotgun does. Luke eventually stabs Ashley and makes everything look like a break in, being careful to make sure the pencil stays up near his door, taking his pills, and turning on his white noise machine. Ashley, however uses the duct tape she was confined with to seal the wound on her neck and she gives Luke the finger while going onto the ambulance. The movie ends with a post-credit scene of Luke wanting to go see Ashley in the hospital. 

There are more things I enjoyed about this movie. Luke and Ashley are both resourceful. Luke seems to underestimated by everyone. Everyone thinks he is innocent until it is too late. He manages to hit Ricky with a baseball bat. That is a funny scene because the first hit doesn't do the trick and Luke gets all scared when Ricky gets up and is able to best him physically. Ashley relies more on knowledge and cleverness to take advantage of Luke. During the scene where they play truth or dare she brings up that Luke killed Garrett's hamster. Something he said was an accident later admitting he enjoyed it. Luke shows many signs of progressive sociopathy throughout the film and by the time the stuff happens with the paint cans he is so consumed with what he is doing that he only worries about what his parents could find out. He isn't concerned about murder, but with the smell of marijuana in his house. I do enjoy how anytime Levi Miller has to raise his voice, his voice cracks. The sequence at the end with Luke having to make sure everything checks out is great. Again, resourceful he uses a tracker to track his parents' phone. He substitutes a different pencil from the one near his door to compensate for the wound in Ricky's face. He climbs out the window near his room and into it from the roof in order to keep the pencil up. Everything Luke does during the home invasion sequence is creepy in retrospect. The way he keeps touching Ashley during the whole thing is gross as you see it again knowing what happens. She even calls him out for it saying what kind of kid thinks saving someone from a staged break in gets you to second base. 

There is even more to some of these characters too. Ricky and Jeremy, especially Ricky don't seem like bad guys. Just teens going through typical teen stuff. I do like the moment where Ricky uses the flowers as a way for Luke to open the door so he can get in. Luke wasn't letting him in saying Ashley was sick and Ricky to his credit says he doesn't care if she is sick and wants to help so he does care. Luke seems to know everything from the internet as he had researched that women get scared during scary movies because it releases dopamine. The Home Alone homage where Ashley is scared by the tarantula is great. The relationship between Luke and Garrett feels like a real serial killer and accomplice type of relationship. There is an innocence to this movie because it involves kid characters. Turn them all into adults and this would become something like The House on the Edge of the Park or something. It also has similarities to something like The Girl Next Door as it inverts the idea of the safety of suburbia.

Rating: 8/10

Trivia: Every actor in this besides Virginia Madsen and Patrick Warburton is Australian. 

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BDxAsaoM1Y