Horror Off-Season: Devil's Due

Devil's Due was released in early 2014, directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett who did one of the more fun shorts in V/H/S, it's writer Lindsay Devlin's debut film.

It's a found-footage movie focusing on newlyweds Zach and Samantha McCall, who become pregnant after their honeymoon.  The initial camera is a small handheld bought by Zach so he can document their new life together, but is then upgraded to a multi-camera setup hidden throughout the couple's house.

Before I dive in, I should say that this should probably be read with a spoiler warning in effect.  I don't know how much of this movie was intended to remain a mystery since the trailer was pretty front-and-center, but I don't want anyone mad I spoiled this so...be warned.

What goes on in this movie is basically: While on honeymoon in the Dominican Republic, the aforementioned newlywed couple wind up in an underground party where they're taken and some ceremony is performed on the wife.  Waking up with severe hangovers they assume they partied too hard and hurry to make their plane home.  A few weeks later Samantha discovers she's pregnant.  Strange things begin to go on and she has a lot of issues somewhere between "rough pregnancy" and "insane demonic possession things are not alright why am I carving symbols on the floor and beating up my cousins?".  As things progress, a cult inhabits the abandoned house at the end of the street and places multiple hidden cameras in the McCall's house to monitor Samantha as they wait for her to bring the anti-christ to term.


In a lot of ways I feel like Devil's Due is like a modernized, really crappy take on the Rosemary's Baby-type story.  The found-footage aesthetic being one of the things most responsible for bringing down the movie.  All the individual pieces feel like they could have come together into a decent story.  The Rosemary's Baby story is a really good place to start from for a horror movie because it is an alien and scary thing.  You'd need to trust people who've done this before, but what if you feel like they're not on the level?  Devil's Due does get points for a minor plot element where the original OB/GYN is replaced after the first appointment.  While it's cheese stuffing added to the cult plot, it definitely ramps up the wife's paranoia and it's nice to have a reason for the woman's increasing paranoia in a horror movie.  Some of the character and relationship beats are a bit over the top, but it doesn't stick with me nearly as much as the execution.

All the elements present are pretty stock and glossy, but it feels like the movie was never planned to be a found-footage movie, or at very least whoever decided to do it that way didn't really feel committed to it.  The problem is that found-footage movies, when they work, work by bringing the audience into the small world of the characters.  You stay set in a smaller location...a room, a single house, maybe the town.. When it feels natural that this could be someone's home movies happening to catch something going horribly wrong, found-footage works.  This is why Cannibal Holocaust worked, this is why Paranormal Activity worked, why Europa Report worked, etc.

When found-footage doesn't work, more often than not, it's because something's broken immersion.  This tends to be the "Why is he filming that?" or "How is he still holding the camera up?" moment where you tend to wonder why any rational person would film certain really uninteresting or awkward things, or you're amazed at this person's dedication to holding a camera up at eye level and facing forward while running for dear life.  Also, found-footage movies almost always have some pretext under which the footage was actually found.  However, in Devil's Due the footage comes from wherever it needs to come from without rationalization.  The footage sources in this movie are:

• Husband's camera
• "Adventure Camera" mounted to husband's chest
• Hidden cameras placed in the house by the cult
• Security camera in a grocery store
• Interrogation camera in a police department
• Some random kids' camera
• Another vacationing couple's camera

And there might even be another I'm forgetting.  So how did we, the audience, get to see these?  Who found them?  Did the cult collect it all?  If they did, how did they get the police department footage?  Do they have agents there, well that doesn't make sense since the cult is implied to move around following whoever their target couple is.  And at that, even though I gave them points for it if the cult just follows couples around...how did they manage to plant a doctor in a hospital so quickly?  What about the grocery store security footage?  The cult is really crappy about spying inconspicuously so how would they even have known something weird happened at the grocery store?  At one point in the movie they stole all the husband's camera's footage up to that point, but what about everything he recorded afterwards, or on the adventure cam?

All the questions just make it feel like they were lazy and wanted to do it as found-footage because it's cool and not because of any of the advantages the style gets you.

Makes me sad.

October Horror 2012: Chain Letter

Chain Letter is a movie.  Ok, seriously.  Chain Letter is a 2010 horror movie written by Diana Erwin, Michael J. Pagin, and Deon Taylor.  Also directed by Deon Taylor.


The movie is about a group of friends in a highly technological suburb who inadvertently attract the attention of a serial killer that determines his victims by seeing who fails to forward a chain letter.  He also kills all his victims using chains.

The story is a bit silly, but the characters and acting are alright.  We dislike who we're supposed to dislike, we're suspicious of who we're supposed to be suspicious of, etc.  Unfortunately the characters who are supposed to be long-lived enough that we're supposed to root for aren't very well developed so it feels bit flat.  Also, I'm not entirely sold on Keith David as the heroic cop figure.

The kill scenes are mostly creative and always very gruesome, which plays in the favor of this sort of movie.  I do like that they illustrate sometimes the killer having to haul his victim elsewhere to make the kill because the original location where he abducted the teen wouldn't do.

There is an oddly heavy-handed social message about the faith we place in telecommunications, which given that this is an election season comes off as political and makes me reflexively dislike it.  The movie's so obvious about it in the beginning and during a few moments with Brad Dourif's character, but aside from that they're pretty calm about the whole thing which is nice.  The overall ideas are somewhat interesting, but I didn't realize the true nature of the killer until reading the wikipedia page on the movie which made the last act of the movie feel like it was leaving something out.

Non-linear story telling is used to surprisingly entertaining affect to connect the opening of the movie to the final scene, but there are a few steps to set that scene up that are a bit contrived.

While I imagine the movie doesn't have much to offer repeat viewings it's entertaining enough as a stock slasher with a technological twist to serve the first time through.

Tomorrow, internet week continues with Devour.

October Horror 2012: Cthulhu

Cthulhu, released in 2007 and directed by Dan Gildark is a vague adaptation of The Shadow over Innsmouth.  Their use of a gay protagonist is often discussed, but thankfully the film doesn't entirely hinge on it.  It's just a point.



The story is moved from Innsmouth to a small coastal town in Washington state called Rivermouth and begins when Russel Marsh receives a phone call informing him of his mother's death.  He's now living on the East coast with his partner, but drives home to attend to funeral and help his father put her affairs in order.

While there he spontaneously shaves his head, gets involved in uncovering a deep secret about his family, rekindles some old relationships, and gets drugged by Tori Spelling.  It's a bit weird.

I liked the movie, the 1st and 3rd acts where both really good.  It was disturbed, kindof creepy, mysterious, and uncomfortable.  The psychology was good, the imagery was fantastic, and everything going on was pretty interesting.  I guess it had a cliff hanger ending but the action building up to it was fun.

The 2nd act was where I wasn't enjoying myself.  It was weird in all the wrong ways.  Mainly the amount of time spent with Tori Spelling character was too damn high, and it was monumentally awkward because her and her wheelchair-bound husband effectively date rape Russel so that they could have a child.  I understand that the fact the he's a Marsh and needs to have a child for the good of the cult, which most of the town are members of, but it just seemed really out of place and tasteless for a movie that for the most part was being really even and real about how a gay man might be treated when returning to his conservative and highly religious small town home. Yes, it's a religion based around Deep Ones and immortal half-breeds, but still a religion.

It was a good movie, I liked it, but that middle bit was just a bit off-putting.

Lovecraft week draws one step closer to its inevitable end, but before that comes the classic Reanimator.

October Horror 2011: Day 7 - The Ninth Gate

The Ninth Gate is the most modern feeling movie of the season, although The Order was released 4 years after it.  The Ninth Gate was released in 1999, along with a slew of other Satanic stories, and stars a pre-Burton Johnny Depp.

The premise here is that there is a book, written in the mid 17th century by Aristide Torchia called The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows.  There are 3 surviving copies of the book in 1999 and one is in the possession of a Boris Balkan, who hires Dean Corso (Johnny Depp) to authenticate the book against the other 2 copies for him.


Corso is a rare-book buyer and dealer who operates on the shadier side of things, often conning people out of collections in order to sell them at a profit.  He smokes like a chimney and drinks like a fish, to the point where it's a bit ridiculous.


Corso's investigation into the books leads him into a massive conspiracy involving a secret society of very rich and powerful people who are attempting to use the book to summon ultimate power or commune with the devil or something.


The writing in this movie is probably the best we've had all week.  It's very focused, but very natural and quite witty when it needed to be.  It was mostly a mystery with a few supernatural elements sprinkled in for effect, but would've been just as entertaining without them.  The excellent character writing and acting actually helps you relate to these characters as people, that sort of thing is important when you're watching a movie where the majority of the characters are eccentric and absurdly rich book collectors.

The only real points playing against the movie are the ending, which was just a bit confusing, and the soundtrack.  They'd managed to explain everything up to that point without a painfully obvious exposition dump but just kindof dropped the ball in the last 5 minutes.  I had no idea who the girl was supposed to be or how she related to the rest of the plot, except to haul Depp along when he lost the trail.  The soundtrack had some great moments where the orchestral score really complimented the epicness of what was going on, but other times it dropped into this funky bassoon and trumpet based theme which was very reminiscent of bits of Ghostbusters or those black & white "industry!" Disney cartoons.  It really did the atmosphere the movie was trying to build a disservice.


Children of the Corn was probably the best "horror" movie so far, but this I think is the best movie in general.  It was just really fun to watch even if the supernatural elements were superfluous and without them this would have no right belonging in October Horror Season.


I guess that's a back handed endorsement: It's not horror, but it is creepy at a few points and a good movie, watch it anyway.


With this movie, Cults week is over.  Kicking off Re-rererererererereerere-whatever will be 2004's Dawn of the Dead, a remake of the 1978 Dawn of the Dead.

October Horror 2011: Day 6 - Children of the Corn

He wants you too, Malachai!
Children of the Corn was first shot in 1984 and is based on a short story by Stephen King.  It stars Linda Hamilton and Peter Horton.


Children of the Corn is another classic horror movie and is based on a cult of children in a rural Nebraska town that murders the adults.  They take over the town and spend 3 years murdering any outsiders who happen upon it while practicing a bizarre "Coming of Age" ritual when the children turn 19.  All in the name of "He who walks behind the rows".  Effectively a "Corn God".

I like that Children hints at the powerful nature gods of ancient pagan religions, something that was also poked at in an episode of Supernatural starring Paris Hilton.  Children of the Corn is a pretty good movie that is very well constructed and beautifully cast.  It suffers a bit when screened to modern audiences because some of the cinematography that was probably pretty atmospheric and creepy comes off as kindof cheesy and schlocky.  Likely, this is due to the success of the Horror genre in the 80s leading to a lot of poor imitations over the last 20-30 years.

The actor that was cast to play Isaac, the original leader of the Children, suffers from a Growth Hormone Deficiency.  The effect of this is that at age 25 he had the body of a 12 year old boy, while having a very unique voice and facial features that were subtly "old" looking for the age of the character.  It also meant he wasn't a child actor and could pull off the part more convincingly than a child could.  The character was "off" in so many slight ways he almost fell into the uncanny valley and was very unsettling to watch.

The movie isn't exactly "scary" in the sense of modern movies, but it's very good and well constructed.  There's a large amount of creepiness that I can really appreciate and I like that it doesn't depend on gore or shock like a modern play on the concept probably would.  Although I will admit that a more modern take on the story would appeal more to modern audiences and be scarier to those audiences who expect more visual thrills rather than depending on shear psychological "THESE ARE FREAKING KIDS" WTF-ery.

I think there is actual a modern remake, but I haven't seen it.
Either way the story on this original is very good and well worth watching if you're a fan of the genre, but don't expect to be scared by it, just pretty unnerved.

Closing out Cults week is "The Ninth Gate"

October Horror 2011: Day 5 - The Collective

The Collective, a 2008 independent "paranoid thriller".



The Collective has a list of credits that usually worries me.  The cast is very small, 12 names in total, and most of those only have 1-2 speaking lines if they have any.  The worrisome part is that most of the cast also have several other credited positions in the production.  The 2 lead actors also wrote the movie, directed it, edited it, and helped score the soundtrack.  Now, I'm not trying to imply that all indy movies like that are bad, it's just that it's often a red flag because of how just terrible Tommy Wiseau's The Room is.  It can turn into the one person who's the protagonist, writer, director, producer, wall-paper artist just fellating themselves for the entire movie's runtime.

Thankfully,  The Collective isn't one of those movies.  It's actually very competent and everyone involved is a pretty decent actor.  The soundtrack isn't particularly interesting, but it's serviceable.  The writing isn't quite as taut as you'd want this sort of movie and there are a few scenes that don't add much and probably should've been left on the cutting room floor.

In the movie, Tyler gets a terse voicemail from her sister, Jessica, using someone else's phone asking for help.  Tyler hops a red-eye flight to New York City immediately to try to find her sister.  Everyone Tyler speaks to is secretive, evasive, and paranoid.  Tyler eventually discovers her sister has become involved with a group of elite Manhattanites that have formed a secret society in an old cathedral, where they attempt to explore faith and the power of the spirit by mishmashing different cultures' religious ceremonies.  Things go horribly wrong during one of these and a member dies.  Naturally, this leads to a cover-up and the whodunnit is the central mystery of the plot.

Unfortunately the movie really failed hook me into caring about the mystery, and really doesn't offer clues or any explanation.  By the end I didn't know if they had actually solved it correctly, and I really didn't care.  The way the characters were reacting seems to imply they didn't care either.  It just didn't seem like there was much at stake, and even the rescue of the sister seemed to just go perfectly even though there were problems along the way.

It's kindof like marketing a movie as a Police Drama, and then it's just a movie about a traffic cop writing tickets all day without any issues except one driver got a little angry but then backed down when the cop threatened to arrest him.

Next up is Steven King's Children of the Corn.  This one is actually movie length, we checked.

October Horror 2011: Day 4 - Suspiria

I finally got my Xbox to play the English dub of Suspiria directed by Dario Argento.

Released originally in Italian in 1977, Suspiria is not only considered a classic horror film but one of the best movies ever.

The premise of this movie is that an American ballet dancer decides to take her career to the next level by going to study at an ultra-prestigious German ballet school.  Unfortunately the school is a front for a coven of witches who derive power from torturing and murdering the students.

I really liked this one, it's probably the best movie of the season so far.  Even with the elements that I really had a hard time enjoying this was supremely creepy and very focused, which are qualities everything else this year has lacked.  It's heavily atmospheric, very bloody (for the 70's, anyway), and very imagery heavy.  The soundtrack has what might be one of the best horror motifs I've ever heard next to the Halloween soundtrack.

Unfortunately the soundtrack is also the first thing that I found somewhat distracting.  It has a tendency to get absurdly loud during the tense scenes, especially during the murders.  And it's not a typical modern soundtrack that's built around being melodic or rhythmic in a traditional sense, it's a 70's style synth, sample, and noise soundtrack.  It also has the peculiar tendency to cut off abruptly during a scene change from scary night time to a daytime scene.  It makes the dialog very hard to understand since it's so quiet in comparison.

I'm also pretty sure they got a lighting director who was used to working in the theater to design their lighting.  It's definitely a unique look but compared to more modern movies that have done that it looks a bit too strong.  The movie is overwhelmingly red.  Everything is bright red.  So bright red my eyes hurt a few times.  The lighting is red, the walls are red, the wine is red, the blood is red...all the same red.  There was one scene where a character dumped some wine down the sink then had to scrub it off the bowl because it was pretty clearly red paint.  They also have a heavy green light at certain times, and sometimes they even pull out blue lighting towards the end.  At times it serves the atmosphere very well, others it's "MIEN EYES THAT IS SO RED".  Thankfully it seems to serve the atmosphere most of the time, just when it doesn't work it pretty glaring.

The ending sprint is absolutely glorious, and the sound design was just great.  The noises and the voice the witch queen was using were truly creepy in the most visceral sense.  It made my skin crawl.

Definitely a must-see.

I'm heading out of town for a few days for a friend's wedding so the next few movies might have to get back dated, or I'll just post multiple reviews per day if I have to catch up since I might miss a few.

On deck: The Collective

October Horror 2011: Day 3 - The Believers

The Believers is a 1987 horror mystery starring Martin Sheen and Helen Shaver.



The film opens with a family of 3 getting ready for the morning when the coffee machine boils over and Martin Sheen spills the milk.  Then the mother dies in a freak coffee/electrical/spilled milk accident as Sheen and his son can do nothing but watch in horror.  After a brief scene of an African tribal ceremony involving goat sacrifice we return to Martin, who's moving into his new apartment/office in New York City.  We figure out much later in the movie that this cutscene actually takes place decades ago, but there's no indication of it.

That's one of the problems with the movie.  There's really no sense of the flow of time around the events that are depicted, which leaves the story feeling like an aimless meander.  The peripheral characters come in and out and are hard to keep track of, even when they come bearing important information.  The soundtrack cues aggressively, it's even funny at times.  They seriously played an "Evil Music" cue for barely more than a second because a character picked up a black magic Santeria artifact, then shrugged and put it back down.  They also heavily featured windchimes.

There were some good creepy moments towards the end, with snakes and spiders.  It was a pretty lackluster delivery of a sparse story, there was a fair twist ending though.  But it wasn't enough pay off for how uninteresting the rest of it was.

Tomorrow continues with Suspiria, in English this time.

October Horror 2011: Day 2 - The Omega Man

Day 2 is The Omega Man, released in 1971.  It stars Charlton Heston and Anthony Zerbe and is based on the 1954 novel I am Legend by Richard Matheson.



The Omega Man is the 2nd film adaptation of the story, the 1st being 1964's The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent Price.  The 3rd being I am Legend in 2007.  I know it comes as a surprise since it's black & white, but I've actually seen the 1964 film.

The basic story is that some disaster has taken place, which kills most of the world's population, leaves some as some sort of monstrous creature that is highly sensitive to light, and very very few unaffected.  Dr. Robert Neville (Robert Morgan, in the case of Price) is an army doctor who is for some reason immune to the disaster and now lives completely alone in a ruined city, surrounded by the monstrous "others" trying to find a cure for the affliction and save humanity.  However, the others are just as intelligent and have formed their own society in the ruins of our society.  I am Legend is one of the classic examples of the "The real monster is us" idea that often shows up in some of the more adventurous horror that attempts to have societal commentary


There are various differences between the 3 representations of the character being doctor or eradicator in various proportions.  It's also very interesting how each treats the others, but I'd like to keep this short.


The movie is solid, but plays as action/survival and less horror.  Unfortunately, this focus on action makes Omega Man the least interesting in the group.  Any and all moral ambiguity is gone, it just comes down to Heston as "Good" vs. the "Evil" leader of the others, Matthias.  Heston represents the modern world, technology, electricity, artificial light, guns and Matthias represents a movement deliberately away from these modern ideals.  Add in a sprinkling of 70's era racial dynamic ("honky paradise" is one of the funniest lines in this movie) and you've got the movie.  There's nothing to think about, it's just Heston vs. Matthias and Heston's eventual downfall as brought about by the fact the he helps the rag-tag jive-talkin' survivors and some of them betray him.

It's definitely entertaining, but for my money I think I am Legend with Will Smith tells the story best.  It's just as fun to watch as Omega Man, but focuses more on drama and horror.  It's got some very excellent creepy moments when Neville questions his sanity, some very good emotional moments with Neville and his dog, and some very good action moments.  It's just more well rounded than the others.

Omega Man isn't a bad movie, and definitely worth watching on its own.  It's just a bit flat compared to the other two.  It offers a much stronger cult than The Order did.

Next up is The Believers (1987).

October Horror 2011: Day 1 - The Order

The first movie of this year was supposed to be the horror classic Suspiria directed by Dario Argento.  Unfortunately my Xbox couldn't play the English dub included in my copy of the movie, and I don't know Italian.  So as a backup we watched The Order, released in 2003 and starring Heath Ledger, Mark Addy, and Peter Weller.



The basic plot of the movie follows Ledger and Addy, the final remaining members of an obscure order of Catholicism, as they attempt to unravel the mystery surrounding the death of their mentor, an excommunicated priest.  They meet creepy demon children, The Black Pope (Chirac), and the Sin Eater.

The beginning is pretty strong, story wise, and actually quite creepy several times.  However the narrative kindof loses focus shortly after the meeting with Chirac, and meanders a bit before finally latching back onto Ledger's character and the Sin Eater.  The end is also fairly strong, though not nearly as interesting.  The unfocused middle bit kindof ruins the possibilities and the film ends without having explored all the various threads of the mythology that were introduced in the first act, leaving me feeling a bit short changed.

Definitely entertaining, and with some very interesting moments and concepts, but just a bit lost in itself and finally unable to deliver.  Not a bad movie by any means.

Next up: The Omega Man