Creepshow

There are a few people who will dispute me on this, but 2010's Insidious is one of the most frightening, best-made modern mainstream horror films of the 21'st century. Within a sea of found-footage Paranormal Activity clones, the brainchild of Saw (just the first one) director James Wan was surprisingly moody, atmospheric, and well-acted for a budget film, delivering some of the best scares in recent memory. Add in being a money-making machine, and you've got all the ingredients for a sequel, which is due out later this year. But in the meantime, Wan put together this new horror which apparently has been trying to get the big-screen treatment for more than twenty years.

The Conjuring is based on the true story of Ed and Lorraine Warren, who for decades investigated paranormal instances around the United States. Ed was a demonologist and the only non-Catholic priest allowed to perform exorcisms (at least according to the movie), while Lorraine was (and still is today) a clairvoyant and medium who could communicate with dead spirits. The pair are perhaps best known for their study of the infamous Amityville Haunting, but they also claim to have taken part in over 10,000 investigations during their career. This film is based on one of those cases, as Carolyn and Roger Perron (Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston) and their five daughters find themselves haunted by a particularly vengeful spirit in their new home. With their lives a living hell and no place else to go, the family calls on the Warrens (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) to find out just what's happening and to stop it. What they find however might just be the most terrifying event the pair have ever discovered.

If the recording equipment wasn't clue enough, that sweater just SCREAMS the 70's

From moment one, when we see an earlier investigation into the case of two nurses haunted by a possessed doll, Wan's skills as a modern master of terror are established. This is a man who not only uses darkness to his advantage (because any decent horror director can do that), but can make something scary when fully illuminated through timing and not showing too much. A pair of undead legs peeking out from under a table or some kind of creature peering out from atop a tall dresser are absolutely terrifying under the right circumstances, and Wan is an expert at keeping that level of atmosphere prevalent throughout the entire film. As a result, you can be assured that The Conjuring is meant for horror aficionados and anybody who can use a good scare. If you balk at the tiniest of frightening moments however, this title (or in fact any scary movie) is not for you.

Yeah, we might just have a haunting here.

For those whose lives cannot consist of chills alone, The Conjuring also possesses a stellar cast led by Wilson and Farmiga. Wilson is of course a Wan veteran, also having starred in Insidious. While his performance here is certainly more low-key than it was in that scare-fest, he's an effective lead and moves the story forward more than most of his co-stars. While Wilson plays the Warrens' logic, Farmiga is the soul, effortlessly playing the mystical half of the investigative pair. Hers is an esoteric performance, full of life and emotion that leaves the rest of the actors in the dust. In doing so, she also happens to put in one of her best performances in years, even better than her Oscar-nominated work in Up in the Air. From the supporting players, the best is definitely Lili Taylor, who steals the screen with her classic wife/haunting victim on more than one occasion. Ron Livingston puts in more of an everyman performance, but that's all the script calls for from him, and he does so well enough. Their five daughters contrast between well-known genre actresses (White House Down's Joey King and Twilight's Mackenzie Foy) and ones not quite as recognizable (Detention's Shanley Caswell, Lie to Me's Hayley McFarland, and newcomer Kyla Deaver), but all are effective when called upon to perform, although with such a big cast it's not as often as I would have liked. Still, it's a more-than-effective cast that Wan has brought forth, and they really sell the horror of what is happening on screen.

Yup, I think there might be spirits here.

Unfortunately, what you see in the theater is pretty much what you've witnessed in any classic Exorcist-type film in the past twenty years. Wan might make it terrifying, but that doesn't change the fact that every single horror trope we've come to expect from the genre is back, even if it is with a vengeance. Obviously, for a story from over forty years ago, you can expect that details would leak into other, newer horror films of franchises. But while Wan's Insidious was instrumental in reinventing the budget horror classic, here he's just doing what everybody before him put on, and the result is definitely less than you might expect. It's actually kind of surprising that Wan and his crew didn't take discretionary control of the story, as "Based on a True Story" has never limited any director's ability to put interesting content first.

And she would have gotten away with it too, if not for those meddling kids.

Still, despite The Conjuring's less-than-original premise, you can't help but be scared out of your pants by Wan's effortless atmosphere and the horror that you are made to see through his lens. That and great performances can achieve quite a bit, and while there's no reinventing sliced bread here, it's still a VERY scary product that can be enjoyed by just about anyone looking for a cheap scare. Is The Conjuring the scariest movie out there? No. But it IS the scariest movie so far in 2013, and right now that definitely counts for something.

Safety First

Denzel Washington has worn dozens of hats in his storied Hollywood career. In his numerous films he's played soldiers, detectives, reporters, gangsters, incarcerated boxers, football coaches, men on a mission, and civil rights activists. Arguably the most well-known and respected African American actor in Hollywood history, you can't walk into a theater playing one of his films and not be astounded by what he puts forth, even if the rest of the movie isn't necessarily worth watching. One of Washington's biggest career turning points was when he played dirty cop Alonzo Harris in 2001's detective film Training Day, a role that won him his second Academy Award (the first was for his supporting role in Civil War drama Glory). The upside was that Washington got the attention he deserved, not a mean feat for a nonwhite man in this industry. The downside was that his work in Training Day was so effective, it became difficult for audiences to accept him as anything outside that brand of gritty character, or that type of downtrodden universe. That's what made 2007's American Gangster so popular, as Washington played a legitimately bad dude in real-life mobster Frank Lucas. Meanwhile, more uplifting, dramatic films like Antoine Fischer and The Great Debaters were moderately successful, but not the hits this prolific actor has been known for. Well, Washington is back after a slow couple of years (The Book of Eli and Unstoppable were fun excursions if nothing else), and Safe House looked to be very Training Day-like in the bad-boy portrayal of its star performer. Even if the film doesn't live up to his unnaturally high ability, it would be worth it just to see this great performer in action.

Nope, this isn't the waiting room for the Oprah Winfrey show...

Tobin Frost (Washington) is a former CIA operative who went rogue several years ago, selling State secrets to interested parties around the world, and earning the ire of his former bosses in the Central Intelligence Agency. He's remained invisible for years, until a mysterious group comes hunting for him, and the only escape he can make is to surrender himself to an US embassy in Cape Town, South Africa. Meanwhile, Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) is a young CIA agent who is stuck babysitting a Cape Town safe house, unable to qualify for a more active posting due to a lack of field experience. His life is sitting in an empty building, where nobody ever visits and nothing ever happens. That is at least until Frost is extracted from the embassy and placed into his custody. Very quickly, the people who have been hunting Frost track him down and start killing anyone who gets into his way. Responsible for keeping Frost out of enemy hands, Weston must escape the safe house, get in touch with his agency handlers, and figure out why Frost is being hunted, and by whom.

"No, Tobin, this is a bad time to try and teach me the Vulcan neck pinch!"

There's no doubt soon after the opening credits that this is an action film, and Swedish filmmaker Daniel Espinosa (in his American directorial debut) was definitely a good choice to take advantage of that. He obviously has an eye for the detail necessary to make an action story work, and manages to turn any location - from a high-end urban sprawl to a football (soccer, for the uninitiated) stadium to a disheveled shanty town to a rural farmhouse - into a believable set piece of epic violence and imminent death. None of these things feel regurgitated from one another, either; each scene is fundamentally different and exciting in its own unique way, with only the overarching story binding it all together. One thing I hate about modern action movies is the director's decision to focus so closely on the action that we the audience cannot tell exactly what is going on. Safe House does unfortunately suffer from this affliction, but thankfully not as often as it could have. For the most part, action sequences are clear, fun, and without any doubt as to who has the upper hand.

If you want to avoid drawing attention, you probably shouldn't have the black dude drive.

Of course, it's that storyline that is the real problem with Safe House. For all the fun excitement that it throws out there, the premise is very much Training Day meeting a modern-day 3:10 to Yuma. The entire story revolves around the straight-laced Weston getting the Frost from point A to point B, with all the obstacles both in between and at the destination. It's thanks to a well-paced screenplay that this doesn't become completely obvious until the final act, but the derivative plot points do get slightly troublesome after a while. Worse are the sudden-but-inevitable betrayals (thanks, Wash) which are visible a mile away and provide absolutely no surprise. Its here that the film's lack of character depth becomes a problem, as everyone reacts pretty much exactly as you would expect, with nothing so shocking as to be a game-changer.

All these TVs and no HBO? What has the world come to??

At least the acting talent of this ensemble cast makes up for the lack of real characters. Washington of course is amazing, but that shouldn't be unexpected to those who have seen him in just about anything else. Tobin Frost is not a good guy. For those out there who thought his betrayal was a coy misdirection shouldn't get their hopes up, as you'll be disappointed. But playing bad is no new skill for the actor, who still will manage to be the "hero" to many watching him on the big screen. Smart, efficient, and utterly without compassion or loyalty to any but himself, Tobin Frost succeeds as a character due to being incredibly detailed, a trait many of the rest lack. Ryan Reynolds is almost surprising in that he's nearly as good as Washington, something most folks won't be expecting. Like Ethan Hawke in Training Day, Reynolds' Weston is a rookie ripe for life lessons, and Frost is, well, maybe not "happy" but able to impart his wisdom as an ace agent. Weston is shown to be physically capable, however, and able to hold his own against the living legendt, in an important distinction to Hawke's character, who was more over his head than anything else and survived thanks to luck rather than skill. Between Washington and Reynolds is a constant see-saw of control between the two characters, and Reynolds, who is out of his comedic comfort zone, proves here that can handle a serious piece. The rest of the cast is less able to evoke anything akin to emotion or believability. Brendan Gleeson doesn't get a whole lot of attention in America (probably because he's a big, ugly Irishman), so when he gets roles in big movies, he goes all out but generally isn't given much to work with. I'd love to see him in last year's The Guard, in which he was epically praised, but here he's smarmy and normal. The same goes for Sam Shepard as a plain Jane CIA Deputy Director. Vera Farmiga and Nora Amezeder play the film's only two substantial female roles, and they are pretty much at opposite ends from one another. Farmiga is a senior CIA operative who can learn anything about anyone in an instant, while Amezeder plays Weston's girlfriend, a nurse who doesn't even know Weston's real occupation. Neither play a major force in the film, and are just foils for the male characters in the room. And seeing Robert Patrick so old just makes me want to go back and watch Terminator 2 again.

Sure, it's not a .44 Magnum, but do YOU feel lucky?

In the end, Safe House is a fun, if derivative, thriller that utilizes better talent in the final production than it did in the early, formative stages. Washington and Reynolds carry this film to new heights, and while it's no piece of perfection, it does come in at #4 when ranking the year's best releases. While I'd love to see Washington get back into Oscar-hunting territory with his film choices, I certainly won't complain when he takes an otherwise dull retread and turns it into something I'd eagerly recommend. Enjoy.

Attack at the Source

This past weekend was a fairly good one for films. While it's true that the box office was dominated by the debut of the horrible-looking Easter animated film Hop, there were two more new releases to whet the appetite of moviegoers over the age of eight: the creepy horror film Insidious and the sci-fi thriller Source Code. Of the two, the Duncan Jones-helmed Source Code held the most interest, as it had a cast of considerable talent alongside the same directorial skills that brought us the fantastic science fiction drama Moon. This isn't to suggest I thought the fit would be perfect; Moon was Jones's debut, so there was every chance that the second film by David Bowie's kid would see his promise fall back down to Earth somewhat. Also there's the Gyllenhaal factor to consider; star Jake Gyllenhaal isn't necessarily known for picking the best films, not with clunkers like Prince of Persia, The Day After Tomorrow and Brothers on his resume. Still, the film's premise was unique enough to be truly intriguing, and if everything went right Source Code had the chance to be one of the more memorable films of 2011.

Unfortunately, the bomb happened to be on the 8:45 train, NOT the 9:15

Gyllenhaal plays Captain Colter Stevens, an Army helicopter pilot who suddenly finds himself on a train outside the city of Chicago. He's traveling with a woman he's never met named Christina (Michelle Monaghan), and soon after discovers that the face in a restroom mirror does not even belong to him, but someone else entirely. Soon after this revelation, a bomb explodes on the rail car, killing everyone aboard. Stevens then wakes back up in his own body, sealed into a man-made chamber with a video feed that puts him in communication with his superiors at a top-secret military program. Though he has no memory of volunteering for this mission, his liaison by the name of Captain Goodwin (Vera Farmiga) briefs him that his vision on the train is from his entering a computer simulation known as the Source Code. In the program, the user assumes the identity of a particular person (in this case teacher Sean Fentress) in the last eight minutes of his life. In this way the program directors hope to discover who blew up the train, and to prevent future bombings with that information. And so Stevens must constantly go back, each trip bringing him closer to discovering the truth not only about his mission, but also about himself.

They won't be serving the Jabanero Voodoo Peppers in the snack car anymore

If you mixed Groundhog Day with a thriller like that of a James Bond flick, you pretty much have an idea as to how the story here works. Stevens is constantly thrown into the same situation and must change his approach every time to whittle away at the mystery before him. It's definitely an original concept, and that alone is worth the price of admission. But unfortunately it's not nearly executed so nicely as Jones has been capable of doing in the past. While the director does a fine job - and with a limited budget besides - there isn't a lot to love here. The constant traveling back to the same point gets tedious after a while, and no amount of variation can really make up for that. The story does have some humorous elements and one-liners, but more often than not they are overshadowed by the far more serious main tale. The film also lacks any real character development, at least for the secondary characters. Most, like Christina and the other passengers on the train, are learned in bare minimum, while the military characters who are not Stevens get little to work with. It doesn't help the viewer when we simply don't care who the actual terrorist is when we barely learned anything about them up to the point when we learned they were the evil mad-person.

Let's play a game of "Guess where I'm Staring?"

The film does have good acting to make up for the lack of development however, and Gyllenhaal rests atop that field as the best of the bunch. While Colter Stevens is given the benefit of actual character growth, Gyllenhaal makes it all worthwhile with his convincing portrayal of a somewhat amnesiac soldier willing to do anything for his country, but wishes he knew why. After impressing me with last year's Love and Other Drugs, Gyllenhaal makes another strong big for action hero status with this title. Unlike say, James Franco, Gyllenhaal is undeniably a different person in most of his roles and is not simply playing another variation on himself. Michelle Monaghan is surprisingly strong as Stevens's main love interest, though there's little for her to do besides react to the main character's apparent eccentricities. It was still a nice step up from what I thought was the weak link in Gone Baby Gone, and perhaps proving Monaghan has a real future in the business despite lacking what might be considered Hollywood brand beauty. Vera Farmiga might never get as good a role as good as Alex Goran in 2009's Up in the Air, but she still shows enough personality to make her military divorcee likable. It's a shame when an actress of her talent gets stuck in a do-nothing role, but sometimes the best you can do in that situation is to work it as best you can and hope good things come of it. The same might also be said for Jeffrey Wright, who is only slightly more interesting as he scientist who created the Source Code itself. Wright, who has to hobble on a cane for two hours a la Gregory House, has played much better characters in far better fare, but that said he comes out like the rest of the cast and does his job satisfactorily.

"This is your mission, should you choose to... oh, who am I kidding? You don't have a choice!"

By the end, we are left waiting for the narrative to finally peter out, as a great concept didn't quite have the staying power needed to remain interesting from beginning to end. As almost an added slight, the finale reeked of post-production test audience interference, and was far too overlong. Still, I can't help but like the things Source Code does right, even if those may seem few and far between. Well paced, well acted, and with strong effects and camera work despite a lesser budget, Source Code pulls in at #9 for 2011. It may not be Duncan Jones's best work, or anybody's for that matter. However, what really makes it count is the courage to take on an original concept and stick with it as long as it takes to finish.