October Horror: Mini Reviews

As is the convention, October means Horror movies and even though that is not exactly my forte, like last year, I wanted to take this opportunity to strike out some names off my watch-list. Below are mini reviews of some of the horror films I saw this month. I guess I will watch few more in the 10 days to come including my Blind Spot this month but it seems like you will have to read about them in the monthly wrap up post. Let’s get to it then!

The Changeling(1980): George C. Scott is one of those people who have impressed me in every single role I have seen him in. Arguably, I have only seen his legendary stuff in pre-Patton(1970) era but with that he has become a name that I am instantly drawn to regardless of much else in the movie. I would have easily been satisfied by that but that’s not the only pedigree this movie came with. It also came highly recommended as one of the best Horror movies and I decided to give it a go on the occasion of this month. After losing his daughter and wife in freakish car accident composer John Russell, played by George C. Scott, is slowly returning back to his normal life. He moves to Washington State to teach and rents out an old mansion to find some peace. Soon he experiences some paranormal activities in the house and as he digs deeper, with the help of Claire Norman who helped him finding this house, uncovers a terrible secret guarded heavily for more than half a century by very powerful person.

It certainly did impress me with its traditional horror elements but what elevates its status a bit more in my eyes are the non-Horror aspects of it. As a non-horror fan, I find most of the horror movies fixate on the gory stuff unnecessarily leaving most of the basic film stuff unattended. Story is usually non present or at best can be expressed in couple of lines, characters tend to do inexplicable things that even a 4-year old would not otherwise. Where The Changeling scores is in being a decent film even when it’s not a horror film. In John Russell and Claire Norman trying to find out the reasons for paranormal experiences in his house, it gives us a good background story and takes some time and pain to explore it and moreover to come to an intelligent, satisfying conclusion. It starts off and also ends on traditional horror notes but in between the two, it provides an engaging human story which works almost like a detective work. Even with the horror elements, it mostly stays away from relying on effects and does more with atmosphere which makes them work even after more than 30 years. Decent story, good performances and horror elements that can do their thing even today definitely made it a worthy watch for me this October.
Rating(out of 5):

Suspiria(1977): Now to the elephant in the room, Suspiria, my first ever Argento film. I often try to challenge myself and watch something that I normally wouldn’t. These horror mini marathons in October are part of that exercise as I rarely go out of my way to watch a horror movie for the rest of the year. I look at it as a part of my growth as a film lover. However unfortunately, more often than not it turns into me hating on a classic. I had been meaning to take a look at some of his films almost since last Halloween and off course, what could be better than starting off with one of his most famous films right? Apparently a lot, because I seriously could not get into this film. At All. Sorry everyone but so not my cup of tea. Everyone in the film was weird, creepy and loud. Way too loud. Everything is needlessly spooky, suspicious and most of what happens is without any reasonable justification; a random sequence of events that just happen to involve the same characters. I guess a lot of these things are done purposefully, maybe because of the limitations of the era or to give it more jarring look and feel but either way, it took me out of the film time and again.

Even though I knew Suspiria by reputation it turns out that I really did not know anything about it because I had no idea it had anything to do with ballet school or even Germany. However that does pose a small problem for me because I don’t know if I missed something but it doesn’t really use that setting. For all you know, it could have been set in any girl’s hostel in Africa somewhere and it would still work fine. There are few other details as well that we are privy to but don’t really add anything to the story. Like Olga vanishes completely after her brief spell early or Daniel’s dog randomly starts killing people. Were we suppose to forget that happened and move on? Probably one of the reasons why I don’t like horror movies particularly is because I don’t give them a free pass on everything else as long as they fulfill the scary requirements. I still look into them some kind of sensible story, character development as story progresses and most horror movies fall short on these bars. And most of them don’t really scare me. They make me jump once or twice but nothing further. Suspiria created similar sense of dread with its score, surrounding and bright colored sets but after a while it gets so heavy-handed that I was completely turned off by it. Sorry, I Guess!
Rating(out of 5):

Sunshine(2007): I know this is probably not the most conventional horror film, much more on the lines of a thriller but if we can include TheThing(1982), I think there is no reason why not include this one as well. And for my money, The Thing is one of the best horror films I have seen. Like Ang Lee, Danny Boyle is another director praised for venturing into different genre with his every film. This is him primarily trying his hand in sci-fi. I have kind of love-hate relationship with the director. I don’t have a very high opinion of two of his most revered films, Trainspoting(1996) or Slumdog Millionaire(2008) but 28 Days Later...(2002) and 127 Hours(2010) are saving graces. Considering all this, I wasn’t really enthused about it going in but I have to say that this is my favourite Boyle so far.

Set 50 years into the future, our Sun in beginning to die. A team of 8 astronauts is set on the mission to reignite Sun and save mankind from extinction. Seven years ago, similar team underwent similar mission but they failed. So this is our last hope. On their way to Sun, they pick up signals from previous ship on the mission and decide to take a detour and look for them. As you would expect this is where things start getting south but as I did not expect it to, it kept me on my toes almost throughout its length. Right from the expository voice over narration at the start, it takes a deep, serious tone which slowly becomes menacing by the end. There is a sense of dread, of looming storm from the start which added a lot to it. Though not as drastic a change as 28 Days Later..., in the last 30—40 minutes even Sunshine turns into something else entirely. Parts of it didn’t make much sense to me and can be construed as weak link but it had scored enough brownie points by then and maybe it will make a little more sense on re-watch. Gorgeous shots of Sun, well acted, well written story and ability to keep me engaged till the very end is what makes this my favourite Boyle.
Rating(out of 5):