Sweet Suffering Pt 2 (Hellraiser: Hellbound, 1988)

Hellraiser: Hellbound picks up right after the first film and we find Kirsty under psychiatric observation.

The police, of course, think she is…well, a bit crazy. Doctor Channard is a famous psychiatrist (he runs the Channard Institute) and along with his protege Kyle, is overseeing Kirsty.

But Channard harbors a secret. The Institute’s basement is full of especially disturbed patients (it is reminiscent of the worst of the asylums that made the news in the 80’s). Kirsty has seen the skinless body of her father begging for her to help him, and she becomes obsessed with the notion. She convinces Kyle to investigate. It turns out that Channard is obsessed with the Lament Configuration and has done a crazy amount of research. He has several of the boxes. Kyle hides and witnesses Channard sacrificing a patient to bring Julia back from the first film. This sets everything in motion.

One of the interesting things is that it is kind of clear that although the Cenobites were the most memorable aspect of the films, the filmmakers wanted Julia to be the central villain. As Doug Bradley himself has noted, Pinhead and the Cenobites are more dispassionate observers. They are simply there to do their assigned duty.

The film delves deeper into the mythology of the Cenobites, or rather, it adds a mythology. Bradley said he had been told by Barker that Pinhead had once been human, and the film establishes he was a soldier in the 1920’s. The film actually attempts to redeem the Cenobites, by having them fight the other threats of the film. It ends up not quite working, but again Bradley’s performance is terrific.

The film also has some really interesting visuals. Hell is a confusing and seemingly lonely place. Pinhead warns Kirsty that everyone is in their own hell. She finds her uncle Frank and his hell is a constant teasing of his lust…beds slide out from the walls, women writhing under a sheet…but when Frank removes the sheet there is nothing their. He is facing an eternity of being unable to satiate his lust.

On the other hand, the film falls into the trap of a punning villain, which feels out of place next to the proper Pinhead.

Hellbound is kind of interesting, but also disappointing in how it deals with the Cenobites at the end of the film.

October 3, 2018 0

Sweet Suffering Pt 1 (Hellraiser, 1987)

Clive Barker pulled off quite a feat as an author…his first directing gig was also a movie adapting his own short story. It opens with Frank Coffin, who is in search of the ultimate pleasures. He is given a strange box (known as the Lament Configuration) with he brings to his family home. It is a puzzle box, but when he opens it, he is taken to a place of torment and pain. The film jumps ahead and introduces us to Kirsty, her father (and Frank’s Brother) Larry and her step mother Julia, who are moving into the house where we last saw Frank. Larry is a decent sort of guy, but Julia is shown as cold towards he and Kirsty. It is revealed her real passion was with Frank, with whom she had a sordid affair.

The house is full of rotting food, and Larry suspects it was Frank that left the house in disarray. When Larry gets a cut and spills blood on the floor of their attic, it starts a chain reaction. The result is that Frank returns from wherever he was…it is a process, and he needs blood to fully restore his body. Julia discovers Frank hiding in the attic and proceeds to help him.

Kirsty also finds Frank and this sets off the finale in which she accidentally calls forth the Cenobites, lead by Pinhead. In a bargain to save herself, she tells them about Frank.

What is interesting here is that this is really not about the Cenobites. They are minions of hell, simply doing their job. The true villains are Frank and Julia. Pinhead, with his leather gown and chalk white skin, a head covered in spikes is a memorable visual. His fellow Cenobites are quite creepy. The film is not particularly interested in setting forth any detailed mythology. Who are the Cenobites? Well, beyond their job, we don’t really know. How does it work? Well, you open the Box…where does it come from? The film is not concerned with this things. And that is fine in this film. It is a bit slow moving and a heavy focus on expository dialog delving deep into answering the mysteries would likely just bog it down more.

Doug Bradley gives Pinhead a regal presence. He is proper, even in his hellish role as a torturer (his primary mode of operation is chains with hooks on the end). While the film is slow at points, it is quite gory when it gets to the horror (though the most squeamish moment is probably when Frank, disguised as her father puts the moves on Kirsty).

Hellraiser is a decent film debut for Barker and Pinhead is a hard to forget addition to the pantheon of horror icons.

October 2, 2018 0

Party with Zachary Levi! (Blood Fest, 2018)

As a child, one of the patients of his father killed Dax’s mother. Dax grew up obsessed with horror movies. He is excited to go to the ultimate horror gathering, Blood Fest.

It all seems awesome when they first arrive…but then Dax and his friends make a horrifying discovery…

The man behind Blood Fest wants to make a real life horror movie…and he has enlisted gamers, psychos and technicians to create monsters and slashers. All the attendees have to do is abide by the rules and they just might survive. Might.

Dax is a huge horror nerd, of course. So they use his smarts and formulate a plan get to an access gate just outside of Clowntown.

Blood Fest does not even try and take it’s premise seriously. This helps to make it easier to ignore the goofier elements (like the scientific creations of monsters) and just pretty much go with the flow of the story.

The cast does pretty well here. Jacob Batalon is primarily the comedic relief, but his character Krill is a likable goof. Robbie Kay and Seychelle Gabriel mesh well together, while Chris Doubek plays the actor embarrassed by his horror icon status humorously and sympathetically.

There are no real scares in the film, but that is fine, it is more a film made out of a goofball love of the genre and that worked really well for me.

October 1, 2018 0

Party Time! (Hell Fest, 2018)

Hell Fest is the story of some college friends who go to one of those Horror Theme Parks and find themselves stalked by a serial killer. This has been done before, but this film plays it straight. This is not a tongue in cheek thriller.

Natalie arrives to visit her best friend Brooke, who informs her they have tickets for Hell Fest, a massive and extremely popular haunted theme park.

Shortly after arriving, they cross paths with the film’s serial killer. Wearing a mask (that is revealed to be a common mask for employees to be wearing in certain sections of the park) he appears to pick victims by watching for those who behave jaded. If you make a big deal about how not scary he is… well, Natalie and her friends are there when he claims a victim. And then he chases our six leads, dispatching them one by one and not being caught, because the rest of the attendees are assuming it is all part of the show.

There are some genuinely tense moments and even one of the better cell phone scares I have seen in horror recently. At the same time, the film is not self aware at all. I mean, it clearly was made by people who understand slashers, but it follows the formula almost to the point of being a bit slow.

The film lacks the enjoyment of horror that the whole premise seems to need…it simply treats itself to seriously.

Seriously though, if I never have to hear the line about how Halloween is the one time of year it is okay for all women to dress slutty again, I will be so thankful.

Oh yeah…and filmmakers? Stop treating Tony Todd like a promotional prop. He is a great actor and deserves to be more than a movie’s “horror cred”.

October 1, 2018 0

Panic Inducement

Hello and welcome to October at Tripping Through Gateways!!! As with Every October, this month is going to be filled with the scary movies. This year’s theme is Satanic Panic. This means all the movies I am looking over will have religious connections. Of course, God and the Devil, angels and demons…light versus dark…all at war with each other. The Exorcist Films and the endless series of films they spawned. The Prophecy movies, the Omen films…countless knockoffs…and also, I am throwing in Hellraiser for good measure.

Hellraiser really doesn’t get all that religious, to be honest, certainly not in the fashion of, say the Omen or the Exorcist. But I have not gone through the series on the blog yet. To be quite frank here, the Hellraiser franchise has one of the worst bad to good ratios of any iconic franchise…often, even when there is a good idea…it gets buried under crap.

So, everybody…let’s panic!

October 1, 2018 0

Slender Story (Slender Man, 2018)

As social media has become a larger and larger part of our lives, film makers have tried to incorporate this into the horror genre. Films have tried to tackle both the fears of the Dark Web and supernatural takes on social media usage. Unfriended and it’s sequel Unfriended: Dark Web actually go both routes. From cyber-bullying to ghosts…they are trying to make it work. So far, there have not really been any standouts. And the general fears of technology that dehumanizes us has been a common trope for Asian Horror for decades.

Slender Man takes the popular Creepy Pasta internet meme and sets him up as the big scary. A bunch of friends go online and perform a ritual to summon the Slender Man. After one of the girls disappears, they attempt to bring her back, back the ritual goes awry and the Slender Man keeps coming for the girls because he wants to drive them mad or send them to the bad place or something.

The film borrows from established lore (such as Slender Man taking people to his home and preferring the young) and also from other horror films (apparently it takes a week for the scary stuff to begin, similar to the Ring’s seven days and then you die). But even when it sets rules, it fails to stick to them. Later in the film, a character apparently goes to the magical website and is freaking out the next day.

None of the characters are that compelling, and we are never given any real deep indication of what drives our leads, so the stakes just do not feel that high. There are a few times where they give visual hints of the presence of Slender Man, but the film really fails to use this as well as it could.

The creepiness of Slender Man is found in him being seen from the corner of your eye, or off in the distance. If the film was going for a “is he real or not” you could maybe justify how little effort there seems to be to make his threat seem real. But the film makes it clear from the start he is a legit entity. As such, the film really would have benefited from playing with the viewers by inserting Slender Man into the background of scenes. Like when the girls are talking, you suddenly realize he is somewhere in the distance. Leave the audience unnerved.

Of course, as I noted the central problem here is that none of the characters have any personality, not even by the low standards of bad horror films. And honestly, I had to fight falling asleep with the film. It just does not do enough with hit’s subject matter to keep the viewer interested in or invested in the characters or possible thrills.

August 30, 2018 0

In the Distance (Always Watching: A Marble Hornets Story, 2015)

A TV crew is doing a new story on a business that clears out homes that were foreclosed upon by the bank. In one house, they are shocked to find the home looks as if the family just vanished. As they start to investigate, they find a box of tapes and find that this is not a story of a mean bank foreclosing on a family or a family that picked up and ran off. They discover that the tapes show that the family was being haunted or stocked by a mysterious person.

At first, they see him in the distance of a video of a child’s birthday party. But the more videos they watch, the more the mysterious (and faceless) figure appears. Always a little closer until he is in the house.

Camera Man Milo starts to study the tapes and this results in him starting to see the figure himself. He is able to convince co-workers Sara and Charlie he is not crazy and they try and solve the mystery. But the mystery begins to take a toll on the three and their relationships begin to break down.

The Operator is obviously mean to be Slender Man, minus the tentacles. Actor Doug Jones (Hellboy, the Shape of Water and Pan’s Labyrinth) mainly has to stand around in the background a lot, but his lankiness and height really sell the idea of the Operator as slightly outside of reality. And the film really makes sure to keep you watching, sure that at any moment he might appear on the screen, in the corner, behind someone or in the woods. It is pretty effectively done.

It runs a bit off the rails at the very end, where it introduces an element we had not really seen earlier in the film, but it is not so much so that it wrecks the creepier vibe from the rest of the film.

Overall, I enjoyed the film, with the biggest setback being that it is a “found footage” film. Admittedly, the fact that our leads are a television news crew makes it fairly plausible that they have access to a variety of cameras, but the format also forces a plot contrivance that since you can only see him on video, they decide they must keep cameras running continuously.

Oh yeah…the film has a great horror icon film cameo towards the end. Smart choice on the film makers’ part.

August 29, 2018 0

Need a Way Bigger Boat (The Meg, 2018)

A few years ago deep dive rescuer Jonas made a critical decision that cost him his job. Jump ahead to the present and a deep sea exploration team has become trapped deep in the ocean after discovering a hidden world teeming with life…including giant Megalodon sharks. They bring in Jonas to conduct a rescue…but after the rescue it appears they are not the only ones to return to the surface.

Is the Meg a great film? No. Like the books it is inspired by, it is cheesy. The film is full of over the top characters (at one point Rainn Wilson’s excitable billionaire notes that Statham’s Jonas has a heroic walk, but seems to have a bad attitude).

This is pretty much…what if Jaws was a big action movie. And you know what? It is a lot of fun. I had a whole lot of fun watching this one. It is action packed and has a rather engaging cast. This second part is important because these characters are not particularly deep, but the cast tends to imbue them with enough personality to make for an entertaining and cheesy ride.

No, it is not a great film. The Meg is not a classic, bt it is dumb and goofy fun.

August 11, 2018 0

First Time For Everything (The First Purge, 2018)

The Purge Franchise is based in a premise of a world where things got so bad, the United States has instituted a one night a year event called the Purge in which all crime is legalized for a twelve hour period. While many people lock themselves away, others dress up and go out to get revenge, steal, murder and cause all sorts of mayhem.

The first film was focused squarely on an upper middle class white family whose walls came under siege. The fourth film moves it’s eyes to the projects. Sister and brother Nya and Isaiah live in a rundown building at the center of the city is being set aside for a small scale experimental version of the Purge concept. The government is paying people to stay, and even offering more payment to those who actually participate.

Nya’s ex-boyfriend is the local drug kingpin Dmitri. He tries to see himself as one of the good guys, but Nya disagrees, arguing the Purge may do damage to the neighborhood one night, but he damages it every day of the year.

As the night progresses, Dmitri and Nya realize that there is something not quite on the up and up, as the Government actually has very dark goals through the Purge. This forces them to work together to survive the night.

The Purge is not subtle, and never has been. The rich and politicians cannot be trusted, minorities are targeted in the Purge to basically reduce the surplus population. On the other hand, what used to feel like “over the top right wing bad guys” seems a little less outlandish in this modern age.

As with all Purge films, there are people with lessons to learn. In this film, it is Isaiah and Dmitri. For Isaiah, it is his attempt to get back at a violent junkie who cut him…for Dmitri, it is whether he is going to look out for himself or his community.

The Purge films has actually managed to be decently entertaining, and some of their sequences feel like they are meant to be a bit cathartic for audience members in a darkly comic way (such as the scene where a black man chokes a white man who is wearing a minstrel mask). As stated, their politics are by no means subtle. But one does not really expect subtlety from a low budget franchise like this.

While not quite as solid as the second and third films, this prequel actually works pretty well, and even includes some nice new touches. One of these is people agreeing to participate wear contacts that film their actions. The contacts give an eerie blue glow to the eyes, which is extra creepy when a person’s face is hidden in the shadows.

For fans of the series, the First Purge should be largely satisfying.

July 16, 2018 0

Family Drama (Hereditary, 2018)

Hereditary opens with a family preparing for a funeral. Annie’s mother has died. Much like Annie, the film feels…distant from this event. we learn that she was, in fact often struggling in their relationship. And death has not changed that.

But things start to escalate as more tragedy hits and both Annie and her family seem to be coming apart at the seams.

Heredity is a horror movie that is very slow and deliberate. Other than a few “is there a ghost” style moments (odd reflections, flashing lights) it really feels like Hereditary is the exploration of a family that is being torn apart by a family history of unacknowledged mental illness.

Of course, the story is more than that. There is something darker lurking under the surface. Ari Aster (in his feature length debut as both a writer and director) moves the film at a very (deliberate) slow pace. He rarely relies on jarring us with a gruesome visual or jump scares (but there are a few). But it works so well. Hereditary is at times painful not through gore or shocking violence…but through it’s moments of emotional despair.

There is a scene at the dinner table that is both horrifying and heart wrenching. And a lot of the emotional weight of the film comes from incredibly strong performances. Gabriel Byrne’s role as a father trying to keep his family imploding is wonderfully understated. He manages to remain sympathetic, even when he seems to be unable to support his belief in his wife’s lost grip on reality. Mary Shapiro is memorable as the young daughter (who was closest to Annie’s mother) who seems to be on the autism spectrum.

Toni Collette and Alex Wolff turn in terrific performances. Collette’s Annie seems to distance herself from her family and the audience. But at at the same time, you get it. Her grief pours from the screen and washes over the audience. And Wolff’s Peter is heart breaking to watch as he and his relationship with his mother seems to disintegrate before their eyes.

The horror of Hereditary is “can you trust the people who should care for you the most”? I mentioned that the film moves at a rather slow pace. And this really benefits the film. Pay attention. Listen in. Every little hint means something and rewards in the end.

June 17, 2018 0