Movies
BD Review: Fresh ‘Super 8’ Perspective; Write Your Thoughts on ‘Super’ & ‘The Ward’
Watching Twitter over the past two weeks has been quite interesting. People either seem to love JJ Abrams’ Super 8 or hate it. It’s evolved into an escalation of insults like “I don’t know why they liked/hated it…” The good news is that it has people talking, the bad news is that it isn’t tracking very well. That’s disappointing considering it’s one of the sole movies arriving this summer that isn’t pandering to the franchise crowd.
Anyways, while I already reviewed the film a few weeks back, David Harley has chimed in with his thoughts that can be viewed inside. In addition, it’s now your turn to write your own reviews to tell all of Bloody YOUR thoughts. Good? Bad? I’m the one with a gun (whoops, wrong movie.)
Also now available on VOD is John Carpenter’s return to horror in The Ward, a psychological horror film I considered to be highly disappointing. Again, it’s your turn: write your reviews and tell all of us what you think. Am I wrong? Do you think it’s a solid flick?
Amblin is a name that is synonymous with film geekdom. Started in the early 80’s, the production company run by Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall has produced some of the most memorable and timeless films around during the decade of its conception. Most of the stand-out productions are multi-layered stories dealing with characters in the most formative years of their lives as an unexpected danger helps create a string of moments that will come to define who they are. But, most importantly, they give viewers a sense of wonder and amazement as they’re drawn into the situation to watch the characters grow. They have a very distinct feel and formula attributed to them, yet they rarely feel stale. Super 8 delivers on this for the most part from the moment Elliot flies across the screen on his bicycle in the opening credits, but it loses the sweet, whimsical feel somewhere along the way.
After the untimely death of his mother, Joe (Joel Courtney) and his distant father, Deputy Jackson (Kyle Chandler), are having a hard time adjusting to the gaping hole in their lives. With his father filling the void by working around the clock, Joe spends his free time building Moebius models and helping his ragtag group of friends work on aspiring director Charles’ (Riley Griffiths) zombie film. While sneaking out one night to shoot a scene at the train station, with Alice (Elle Fanning) in tow, the crew witnesses a train crash to end all train crashes. Given a cryptic warning by a survivor, the kids hightail it from the wreckage when the military shows up, eager to canvas the area for something unknown to the townsfolk and local authorities. But, the truth is soon made apparent as appliances are stolen, mysterious cubes are found scattered at the crash site, and Charles’ super 8 footage is developed.
Abrams makes good on the Amblin name by focusing on Joe’s transformation throughout the film. Still feeling the shockwaves of his loss, his budding – and forbidden – relationship with Alice is a form of rebirth for him, alleviating his loneliness by giving him a new connection to life and easing the pain of his father’s passive aggressive abandonment. While it gives the film its level of summer-sized fun, the creature is merely a catalyst for him to deal with his grief. The entire cast is superb (and the rapport between the kids reminds me of The Goonies), but Courtney really sells it, giving Joe the adolescent awkwardness needed to make the situation feel as authentic as the 1979 way of life portrayed on screen.
But not everything rings as true. Abrams crafted the creature as equal parts E.T. and the invaders from War Of The Worlds, two Spielberg films that couldn’t be more different from each other, and the result is sort of confusing. The script presents the visitor as curious and extremely aggressive (with more of an emphasis on the latter) throughout most of the film, and then attempts to make the audience sympathize with it as it continues to tear through the small town. Its reason for having a disdain towards humans is justifiable, but it’s hard to feel bad for something that is constantly causing destruction and death.
Super 8 will bring waves of nostalgia crashing down over those who cherish Spielberg’s directorial and producing output of the 80’s. Even though it doesn’t quite follow through on the warm, fuzzy feelings it seems intent on delivering from the get-go, Abrams’ coming-of-age tale is more about the journey than the destination, which is worthwhile. The snapshot of Americana 1979 feels as real as possible with the help of Michael Giacchino’s score and fantastic casting, but if there’s one thing the mysterious director needs to work on, it’s conceptualizing his creatures better, both design and personality-wise.
Score: 4/5 Skulls
Editorials
‘Malevolence’: The Overlooked Mid-2000s Love Letter to John Carpenter’s ‘Halloween’
Written and Directed by Stevan Mena on a budget of around $200,000, Malevolence was only released in ten theaters after it was purchased by Anchor Bay and released direct-to-DVD like so many other indie horrors. This one has many of the same pratfalls as its bargain bin brethren, which have probably helped to keep it hidden all these years. But it also has some unforgettable moments that will make horror fans (especially fans of the original Halloween) smile and point at the TV like Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Malevolence is the story of a silent and masked killer told through the lens of a group of bank robbers hiding out after a score. The bank robbery is only experienced audibly from the outside of the bank, but whether the film has the budgetary means to handle this portion well or not, the idea of mixing a bank robbery tale into a masked slasher movie is a strong one.
Of course, the bank robbery goes wrong and the crew is split up. Once the table is fully set, we have three bank robbers, an innocent mom and her young daughter as hostages, and a masked man lurking in the shadows who looks like a mix between baghead Jason from Friday the 13th Part 2 and the killer from The Town That Dreaded Sundown. Let the slashing begin.
Many films have tried to recreate the aesthetic notes of John Carpenter’s 1978 classic Halloween, and at its best Malevolence is the equivalent of a shockingly good cover song.
Though the acting and script are at times lacking, the direction, score, and cinematography come together for little moments of old-school slasher goodness that will send tingles up your spine. It’s no Halloween, to be clear, but it does Halloween reasonably proud. The nighttime shots come lit with the same blue lighting and the musical notes of the score pop off at such specific moments, fans might find themselves laughing out loud at the absurdity of how hard the homages hit. When the killer jumps into frame, accompanied by the aforementioned musical notes, he does so sharply and with the same slow intensity as Michael Myers. Other films in the subgenre (and even a few in the Halloween franchise) will tell you this isn’t an easy thing to duplicate.
The production and costume designs of Malevolence hint at love letters to other classic horror films as well. The country location not only provides for an opening Halloween IV fans will appreciate but the abandoned meat plant and the furnishings inside make for some great callbacks to 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. All of this is buoyed and accentuated by cinematography that you rarely see in today’s low-budget films. The film is shot on 35mm film by A&E documentary filmmaker Tsuyoshi Kimono, who gives Malevolence an old-school, grainy, 1970s aesthetic that feels completely natural and not like a cheap gimmick.
Malevolence is a movie that no doubt has some glaring imperfections but it is also a movie that is peppered with moments of potential. There’s a reason they made a follow-up prequel titled Malevolence 2: Bereavement years later (and another after that) that starred both Michael Biehn and Alexandra Daddario! That film tells the origin story of our baghead, Martin Bristol. Something the first film touches on a little bit, at least enough to give you the gist of what happened here. Long story short, a six-year-old boy was kidnapped by a serial killer and for years forced to watch him hunt, torture, and kill his victims. Which brings me to another fascinating aspect of Malevolence. The ending. SPOILER WARNING.
After the mother and child are saved from the killer, our slasher is gone, his bloody mask left on the floor. The camera pans around different areas of the town, showing all the places he may be lurking. If you’re down with the fact that it’s pretty obvious this is all an intentional love letter and not a bad rip-off, it’s pretty fun. Where Malevolence makes its own mark is in the true crime moments to follow. Law enforcement officers pull up to the plant and uncover a multitude of horrors. They find the notebooks of the original killer, which explain that he kidnapped the boy, taught him how to hunt, and was now being hunted by him. This also happened to be his final entry. We discover a hauntingly long line of bodies covered in white sheets: the bodies of the many missing persons the town had for years been searching for. And there are a whole lot of them. This moment really adds a cool layer of serial killer creepiness to the film.
Ultimately, Malevolence is a low-budget movie with some obvious deficiencies on full display. Enough of them that I can imagine many viewers giving up on the film before they get to what makes it so special, which probably explains how it has gone so far under the radar all these years. But the film is a wonderful ode to slashers that have come before it and still finds a way to bring an originality of its own by tying a bank robbery story into a slasher affair. Give Malevolence a chance the next time you’re in the mood for a nice little old school slasher movie.
Malevolence is now streaming on Tubi and Peacock.
You must be logged in to post a comment.