Double Feature: Frances Ha and The Purge

This weekend is going to be a great one, I can just feel it in my bones. This is the End has already come out. Man of Steel arrives today. And expanded showings of Before Midnight and Much Ado About Nothing, plus the inclusion of The Bling Ring mean that there will be no shortage of movies to watch in the coming weeks. But I'm still playing catch-up on the movies I've already seen, so here are two about which I just don't have much to say.

Frances Ha is a title that makes no sense until the last few moments of a movie that clocks in at 85 minutes but feels much, MUCH longer. It's the story of Frances (Greta Gerwig), a mid-twenties woman trying to make it in New York City as a modern dancer. In the beginning, she lives with her best friend Sophie (Mickey Sumner) and everything is great. But when Sophie moves in with someone else, it throws Frances for a loop, and she spends the rest of the movie moving from place to place trying to find both a permanent residence and a secure life for herself.

Worst. Fight. Ever.

There is certainly a bit to appreciate here, but most of the movie is dragged down by a lack of momentum and the fact that Frances is almost unlikeable as a character. Let's be clear: Greta Gerwig is adorable, and her take on a not-so-young woman who still hasn't found her way in life is pretty much spot-on. Unfortunately, while Frances is at times impeccably introspective (when faced with the faux pas of not having a credit card, her revelatory response is "I'm not a real person"), she makes decisions that make you either hide your face behind your hands or want to reach into the screen and strangle her. The good news is that she's occasionally surrounded by very talented actors who make the waiting more bearable. Unfortunately, this is still a one-woman show that feels lazily directed by her boyfriend Noah Baumbach (Greenberg, The Squid and the Whale), and it seems to be willing to ignore any faults in our heroine while not really making her all that impressive in exchange.

Yeah, I need a drink too.

Frances Ha turns out to be one of those artsy-type films that plays great with reviewers (it's got a freaking 90% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) but most people won't really be able to get into. I can appreciate the sentiment of the movie, and the finale was definitely the happy ending that both Frances and the audience deserve. However, there's way too much boring stuff here to make it all that worthwhile, and so unless you watch nothing but independent movies, this is one you can safely skip.

The Purge, meanwhile, is another in the vein of "human vs. human" horror flicks. In the year 2022, our country has somehow been "reborn" and our new founding fathers have created a new plan to fight poverty and crime. Called "The Purge", it is one twelve hour evening in which all crime - including murder - is made legal, and all emergency services are suspended for that time, as an act of catharsis for the American public. It certainly seems to work; unemployment is at just 1%, and crime outside of the Purge period is at an all-time low. This year, the Sandin family's plan is to stay at home, lock the doors with the latest in home security, and get through the 12-hour period without attracting any attention. But one mistake results in them being targeted by a group of masked intruders, and when state-of-the-art security can't stand between them, the family discovers what they must do if they want to survive the night.

Killing rich whitey; this movie is like the 99%'s wet dream

Director James DeMonaco may have little feature film experience (his only other movie is 2009's little-seen Staten Island), but he definitely paints pretty imagery, especially when you take the idyllic gated community in which our family lives and compare it to bleak, dark nightmare of when the sun goes down. As a the man behind the camera, DeMonaco certainly seems to have an eye for imagery and how he wants to shoot a particular scene. His moods are energetic, and he definitely keeps The Purge at a quick pace on his way to telling of his intriguing concept.

Now I'm going to be seeing a ton of these masks come October.

Unfortunately that's all that's going for The Purge, a horror film that fails at scaring its audience even remotely. There are a few tense moments, but all in all the horrific bits are quick and painless, and never leave anything akin to a lasting impression. That's often because the characters themselves are irritating and unlikeable. Though there are a couple of recognizable B-listers here in Ethan Hawke and Game of Thrones' Lena Headey, the rest are unknowns and act like it, failing to improve upon the uninspired dialogue and ridiculous character designs. It's hard to feel bad for character who make the most ridiculous and idiotic decisions, and that's what happens here far too frequently. The social commentary is also extremely weak. The idea of 12-hours of illegality to battle crime is an inspired concept, especially in the argument it makes that the poor are still at a distinct disadvantage while the rich can hide behind bullet-proof windows, but it fails to hold up over the course of an entire feature. Combine that with a "WTF" ending that is more hilarious than it is frightening, and you can see why this wasn't released in the Fall with the more effective horror titles.

Peek-a-boo!

There really isn't much in the way of scary moves due out right now, with the better-looking ones (including Insidious: Chapter 2, the Carrie remake, and You're Next) not due out for at least a few months. The Purge's job was to fill that empty void until the new stuff came along, and from the box office receipts last weekend it looks like it served that purpose. It's just too bad that it's best recommendation is that it's the only game in town, as it had an idea that would have benefitted from a more polished script to tell its tale.

True Crime Spree

There are few certainties in life but I know at least one thing; if there's a new horror movie coming out, Todd will invariably want to go see it. There are exceptions, of course (she has no interest in the new Paranormal Activity flick), but for the most part if something involving ghosts, demons or poltergeists is on the way, Todd's all in. It's also the main reason Sinister popped up on both of our radars, as a film from the director of The Exorcism of Emily Rose and the producer of Insidious was bound to attract our attention. While the horror genre has seen some love thanks to the animated ParaNorman, nothing else in 2012 has stood out thanks to a sea of mediocre or worse releases thus far. While I AM looking forward to seeing Paranormal Activity 4 this weekend and Silent Hill: Revelation the next, Sinister likely represented the best option for a new, original scary movie this year. I'm quickly learning that I LIKE to be scared, and I'm constantly hoping that this next release is going all out to succeed.

CSI: Middle of Freaking Nowhere.

Author Ellison Oswalt (Ethan Hawke) is desperate. In the ten years since his breakthrough success true crime book Kentucky Blood hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, he has struggled both creatively and financially, with one of his books actually allowing a known criminal to walk out of prison. In an effort to redeem himself and his work, he and his family move into the home of his latest subjects, a family who were found hanged from a tree in the backyard, the youngest daughter gone missing. With the police unable to solve the mystery as to who murdered the family, Ellison hopes to find something to crack open the case and perhaps even locate the missing family member. But a box of 8mm tapes found in the attic forces him to admit that things are not as that at first appear, and that the mysterious force that has been killing families for decades may have found its next victims.

Nothing good comes out of 8mm tape.

This is very much a one-man show. When Ellison is wandering his new home at night, hearing this or that creepy noise, Sinister is at its spine-tingling best. Director Scott Derrickson knows how to use his environments to create mood, and he constantly raises the tension to nearly breaking points throughout the movie, which largely takes place at night within the Oswalt home. While Hawke himself stumbles a few times, he also does more than his fair share in conveying the terror his character goes through and carries the movie's limited story forward. He has a believable relationship with his wife and children, fraught with good and bad moments, and the scenes in which he reflects upon his earlier success (back when he didn't care about success) are charmingly believable and more in-depth than most horror films get with their subjects. It's easy to see how Ellison can get sucked into the horrific nature of his subjects when they are the only things that don't make him feel like a failure.

Checking out his "Best Of" collection...it's not long.

Unfortunately, Ellison's portrayal is about the only thing that feels polished in Sinister. While the film has scares-a-plenty - and even when you know they're coming, they're still effective - just about all of them are in the trailer. The few that aren't might frighten you for a minute, but at one time I turned to my companion and muttered "They're STILL doing this?" One major exception relates to the 8mm tapes, each of which depicts a grisly scene (and one in particular that will freak you out), and are definitely Sinister's highlights. It's been a while since Derrickson made The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and perhaps his definition of scary is different than mine. But while I found the whole thing creepy, I almost never got to the payoff of being actually terrified by a movie that was painfully predictable in its execution.

"Why 8mm?"

Sinister's biggest problem is its complete lack of lore. We eventually learn that the force behind this mess is a pagan demon named Bagul. But while the child-consuming, trapped-in-pictures (and completely fictional) monster has the basis of a good movie in it, Derrickson chooses to completely ignore anything in that vein to focus on Ellison's story. I get the decision, but I believed the movie could have been big enough for both of them, and that by not going deeper in characterizing Bagul (or the just silly Mr. Boogie, as he's occasionally called), or even basic information about his past victims, the director left a lot of opened doors that don't connect to anything. I don't need ALL my questions answered, but how is it that Bagul is trapped in photos, but can manifest a box in his victim's homes? How did his spree get started (the tapes stretch back to the sixties but there's no indication of how it all began)? How does he control or coerce his victims? Why does he abduct the children? What does he get out of the family slayings? Why would anyone ELSE keep watching the tapes? Why wouldn't any of THEM go to the authorities with what they found? There are simply too many open questions, and you get the feeling that some things (like the demon's reliance on an out-of-date film type) were used not because they actually made sense, but because they made the movie as a whole creepier. That's lazy filmmakeing, the type of thing that made The Apparition one of the year's worst.

By far the creepiest kids of the year.

Still, with the emphasis on Hawke and his reaction to the story's elements, Sinister at least manages to slip its way into the realm of "not bad" horror films. It's far too similar to modern (and classic) haunted house fare, and the twists are projected too far ahead and too easy to discern quickly. This was one that demanded a more intricate telling, though at least Hawke gets some acting support from Vincent D'Onofrio, theatrical actress Juliet Rylance, Law & Order's Fred Thompson and The Wire's James Ranzone, not to mention creepily talented child actors Claire Foley and Michael Hall D'Addario. Still, the scares are far too infrequent to be an effective horror movie and the story is far too light to make for a deep character study. Sinister lingers far too long in mediocrity to stand out, and I'm left hoping that the next of its ilk will be more conscious of its narrative, rather than focusing solely on mood just to keep things going.