It's been a long time since the Messed Up Movies project saw some play over here on RtH. No excuses, I'm just an inconsistent person and I liked writing about baseball and playing Magic more. But I've been binging horror movies lately, and accidentally came upon a few that fit the criteria for this series: that is, movies that get inside you and won't leave. There's no "Funny Games" or "Inside" in this set of five, but that's like saying not every sci-fi movie is "A New Hope". These are all worthwhile if you like seeing things you can't unsee and thinking things you can't unthink.
Audition (1999): I watched this one soon after my last post in this series and don't remember it too well, but lucky for me Past Dave wrote it up. Take it away, Past Dave!
In another of Takashi Miike's best regarded films, a lonely widowered film producer decides to use the audition process to find a new wife. This goes about as badly as it could possibly go. The last half hour of the film is a red nightmare, the rules of space and time go out the window, and we're put right into the psychotic mind of Asami (Eihi Shiina). I give it high marks for acting- Shiina is a great psycho. The film's pacing is agonizingly perfect, establishing so much while opening up new questions, the critical mass of which sends everything spiraling out of control. While it's not as easy to follow or cartoonishly entertaining like Visitor Q, the script and the acting are better. It gets a B-.
Thanks, Past Dave! And now, to the movies I've actually watched during my current binge...
Maniac (2012): In this reinvention of a 1980 slasher, Elijah Wood plays Frank Zito, a guy who restores mannequins when he's not taking scalps off of women. When he falls for Anna, a French artist who wants to use his mannequins in her show, the movie takes us inside Frank's head and shows us his perspective, and it doesn't let us out. He takes pills to quell his psychosis, but they're mostly ineffective to begin with and eventually they don't do anything. He lives in a delusion that his mannequins, wearing his gory trophies on their heads, are alive and part of a bizzarre harem. He sprays Raid in his back room obsessively in a futile attempt to keep the flies away from his 'girlfriends'. He has flashbacks of his mother (played by America Olivo with a very high sexy-creepiness-to-screen-time ratio) turning tricks and doing cocaine. It's not clear if we're witnessing Frank's final descent into madness or if he's been in this place for years, but it's tense, unnerving, and unrelenting. "Maniac" owes much of its existence to "Psycho", but it brings some original twists to the old Oedipal tropes, and Elijah Wood is more sympathetic and captivating than Anthony Perkins ever was. America Olivo as party-girl Norma Bates is a huge mark in "Maniac"'s favor as well. I'm giving this one an A-. One of the most intense and believable movies I've seen thus far in the project.
Spring (2014): This is one I don't want to spoil too much, because what it's really about is something very powerful that's best left as a surprise to the viewer. The plot follows Evan, a young American man who loses his father to a heart attack and his mother to cancer. He gets in a bar brawl the night of his mother's funeral, and believing the police are after him, he hightails it to Europe, where he meets British hooligans, exotic femme fatales, and a kind old man whose orchard has trees that grow both lemons and oranges. That's all the plot you're getting from me. This movie is as beautiful as it is disturbing, an inspired fusion of classic Hollywood backdrops and pacing with 21st century cinematography and characters. I'll give it a solid B.
Cheap Thrills (2013): As the title suggests, this one is distinctly American in its sex-drugs-violence theme. The one thing that makes it worthwhile is David Koechner, of Anchorman fame, playing the role of the mysterious millionaire who pits two childhood friends- down-on-his-luck Craig and mob debt collector Vince- against each other in an escalating series of dares for ever increasing sums of money. I didn't expect to write this one up as a messed-up movie. Half an hour in, I was pretty sure it was going to be forgettable stock horror, but strange things happen when you give David Koechner enough cocaine. The bluntness of his commands- proposing self-mutilation in the same tone of voice as when he offers $300 for the first man to make him a vodka tonic, while his gorgeous wife (Sara Paxton) watches with avid interest- ratchets up the unpredictability. The resulting chaotic spiral is a good ride that keeps you guessing. That said, the movie acknowledges its low ambition early and often, and it winds up being as close to a popcorn movie as anything I've written about here. It delivers exactly what it promises, and that makes it a C.
Creep (2014): While I enjoy the cocaine-and-strippers vibe of movies like "Cheap Thrills", there's something about minimalism that I take very seriously. My favorite movies in this project are small-cast, small-setting, limited timeline. With no distractions, every facial expression, every vocal tic, every extended silence becomes relevant and fascinating. This is why "Creep" is good. Written by the two actors and directed, found-footage style, by one of the two, it's the story of a filmmaker named Aaron who's hired by a guy named Josef. Josef is dying from a brain tumor and wants to leave his unborn son a video to let him know who his father was. As you might expect, Josef is a real piece of work. It's the suspense equivalent of "awkwaaaard" humor. While that cringe-y effect doesn't work for me in comedy (Seriously. Zooey Deschanel needs to stop immediately and take Kristen Wiig with her.), it's a completely different experience when it comes to horror. You're never quite sure how damaged Josef is, and in what way. You're sympathetic because he doesn't realize normal people don't call it Tubby Time, or put on wolf masks and sing the Peachfuzz song, but you're screaming at Aaron to get the hell out of the house regardless. It's going to take a while for me to be sure how I feel about "Creep", but no matter what, Josef is an original and compelling character who defines the film. I'll give it a B+, and that might be a little low. There's something very special about this film.
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