The Fortress abandoned

I haven't written here in awhile. Writing here was taking away from time I could be writing my novel in November. Now that the novel is done (first draft, anyway), I want to write at least one more soul-bearing entry here.

Anyone who has spoken to me about weighty issues knows I have struggled with the idea of the God-shaped hole for years. This is the idea that we all have an emptiness inside ourselves that can only be filled by God. People fill it with drugs, alcohol, over eating, etc. Well, for various reasons, God doesn't fit in the God-shaped hole so I have been struggling with just what it will take for me to be happy with myself.

Lately, I have come to the conclusion that I have too much love. When I focus it on one woman, it is just suffocating, stifling and unpleasant for her. And I'm not talking about sex here, I mean emotional attention, full blast. I've started volunteering more and trying to let my friends know more how much I love and care for them. This helps alleviate the excess love I have built up. Once I get my body to a place I am happy with, I think I will finally be able to think about dating again. I think I am finally in a place to offer strong, solid support without being needy and desperate.

The other thing I am focusing on is presence. This sounds totally cheese ball but it works for me. The past got me to where I am right now, which is pretty content. So, I try to take a moment each day and gratefully acknowledge all the good and bad things that led me here. The hard part is letting go of the future. I live there most of the time.

I hate bad surprises. I mean, more than most. I can anticipate most of the ways things can go wrong and be ready for them. When life throws me something I absolutely wasn't expecting, I fall to shit for a little while. This is because it is a terrible shock to me when I am reminded I'm not that smart. So, to avoid bad surprises, I dwell on possible future permutations and outcomes. I am trying to let that go. It is the hardest thing besides changing my diet that I can imagine.

I am focusing on the Buddhist ideals I read about last year, letting go of hope and fear to live in the present. I am trying to be more mindful but it is an uphill struggle. I am already thinking about certain friends of mine reading this and what their reactions will be. Giving up the future is going to be tough but, I think, the healthiest move I can make. Besides, what really matters except right now?

I hope everyone reading this finds a way to improve your life in the coming year or a way to appreciate your life if it doesn't need improvement. I don't know a single person without potential for greatness in them. Next year, I'm leaving the Fortress of Solitude and joining the world.

Spooktoberween #23 and 24 The Conjuring and The Roost

Tonight, I am looking at the latest from a not-great director and the first effort of a pretty damn good director.

James Wan burst onto the scene with Saw back in 2004. I quite liked the movie and I think it gets unfairly lumped in with the endless torture porn sequels it spawned. The original was a clever little burst of paranoia and evil. I never saw Dead Silence (Wan's "creepy puppet" movie) nor did I see Death Sentence (his break from horror and attempt at a revenge thriller). Hearing the latter two films were kind of suck, I didn't drop back in with him until Insidious. The first half of that movie has some great little scares and creepy moments that make a horror movie really work. I understand he ran short of money before the end and it does lose a lot of narrative impact once his characters start roaming around the dream world.

I had heard good things going into The Conjuring. My cousin didn't like it but he admits he went in ready to hate it. Watching it apart from all the hype, I still have to rate it as an exceptionally well made horror movie. Even though a lot of scares in the movie are the same old, same old from other haunted house movies, Wan manages to keep things feeling fresh and tense. I had my jaw clenched almost the whole time.

Apart from effective staging, the movie has a couple of other strengths: casting and structure. The film begins with the story of the Warrens, real demonologists in the 1970s. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson bring the perfect mix of off-kilter likability (her) and manly stoicism (him) to work as protagonists. Set up almost like The Exorcist, we follow their lives as they debunk hauntings and teach classes while the main story simmers in a completely separate storyline. Ron Livingston (who I have loved since Office Space) and Lili Taylor (inspired casting due to her role in The Haunting) have five daughters and a dog being terrorized by an unknown force in their new farmhouse. All the adult leads are believable, likable and sympathetic. The dual structure allows the audience to grow attached to both the Warrens and the Perron family (those who are terrorized) so that the stakes are raised for all the characters once the forces of evil attack.

The corruption of childhood games can be terrifying if used well (see the knocking game from The Orphanage for a perfect example) and The Conjuring employs a great variation on Hide and Go Seek that allows the audience to know that things are going very wrong while the characters are oblivious. Once the explanations start coming out of just how many different entities they are dealing with, I marveled at how Farmiga (in particular) could keep a straight face while talking about witches pledging allegiance to the devil. The movie tries to mix up a straight up ghost story with a demonic possession (a la Paranormal Activity) and mostly succeeds. With touches of The Amityville Horror and The Exorcist, you could do much worse if you are looking for a late night scare.

As Wan seems to be gaining control of his abilities, Ti West seems to be improving as a horror filmmaker. I first saw his work with House of the Devil, the super slow burn movie about a Satanic Cult. I liked it quite a bit. He has contributed little segments to horror anthologies like the ABCs of Death and V/H/S which don't really affect my opinion of him one way or the other. Once I saw The Innkeepers, I was totally sold on his talent. One of my favorite haunted house movies of all time, it might actually surpass Session 9 as my favorite horror movie. I won't say why but it just hits all the right buttons for me.

My friend, Marcus, let me borrow West's first movie, The Roost. The running time would not qualify for a feature without the framing sequence of a late night creature feature show (a la Fright Night) that stars Tom Noonan. The frame feels like a bit of padding/an afterthought except for one intrusion into the story that could be read as a Funny Games style critique of pop violence or the filmmaker covering his ass by undoing the one bit of heartfelt emotion that slips into the movie.

To add another layer, there is a Halloween radio show being performed and listened to by all the characters as they drive around in the middle of nowhere. These radio voices usually provide some ironic commentary on the action and reminded me a little of Kevin Smith's title cards between the scenes of Clerks. These little loving homages to horrors of the past are delightful but also the only bits of the movie that worked for me.

The main meat of the story felt like a nearly impossible slog (I had to keep stopping it tonight to get all the way through and it is only 81 minutes) as four unlikable, completely undefined characters wreck their car and then wander into a farm filled with rabid bats that turn people into zombies or something. There is an implication that this may be a doomsday scenario. Unfortunately, I did not care what happened to any of these people and their agonizingly slow decision making felt like a time filler rather than anything useful or character building. When things don't happen in House of the Devil or The Innkeepers, it is usually to ratchet up the suspense or get us inside the mindset of people who are truly frightened beyond belief. Here, it just seems as if any action taken would resolve the conflicts too quickly.

I would say this is for Ti West completists only. A lot of the criticisms that were unfairly levied against his later work would be totally legit if used against this. The amazing choices of Tom Noonan just serve to underscore how little any one else is doing in this flick. Thank goodness West and Wan have both gotten better.

Spooktoberfest #s 20, 21 and 22: The Mummy, Gravity and The Chair

From the sublime to the ridiculous, I've ingested three more horror movies.

I have to admit that I am a closet fan of the Mummy remake from the 90s with Brendan Fraser. It was one of the few post-Indiana Jones movies that actually recaptured a little bit of that same fun (I would argue that the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie was also pretty snazzy in that regard). Adventure movies are hard to come by. It was, by no means, a horror movie.

Sitting down to watch the original Mummy from 1932 with Boris Karloff for the first time, I was shocked by how much of the basic plot was identical in the 1999 remake. Besides adding in a bunch of chases and special effects, the story is that of Imhotep, a priest buried alive for the crime of loving the daughter of the Pharaoh. He wakes up in the 1930s and seeks out both the soul and the body of his lost love. There is a hero and a female protagonist who happens to have the soul of Imhotep's love. There are a couple of supporting players who don't make it all the way through the movie. Whereas the remake parlays every plot development into an action set piece, the original is truly a horror movie (laced with tragedy). Karloff is great at portraying the yearning desire of Imhotep. "No man has suffered for a woman as I have suffered for you," he says with the weight of 3000 years behind his words...and you believe him. He can't vomit sandstorms or control flesh eating scarabs but Karloff has the power of dark arts and ancient curses on his side. At a little over an hour, this movie moves quickly and never really slows down. I would recommend it to horror fans who don't need gore or special effects.

Gravity, on the other hand, is nothing but special effects...and it is pretty breathtaking. I know, you are asking how this is horror. If movies like Frozen (three kids stuck on a chair lift) and Open Water (a couple stranded in the middle of the ocean) count as horror, I don't see why Gravity wouldn't. Two astronauts find themselves with no obvious way home after a satellite is destroyed, creating a chain reaction of debris that is whipping around the Earth at 20,000 miles per hour. Like the sharks in Open Water or the Wolves in Frozen, the debris field is a recurring threat that you dread to see coming.

Clooney gets the better role as the experienced astronaut on his last mission. He knows how to handle pretty much anything and can size up a situation very quickly. He is also charming because...Clooney. Bullock has the thankless task of being the newb on her first mission having to deal with seemingly insurmountable obstacles between her and a return to Earth. I have read some reviews that say Bullock can't really carry all the emotional weight that is placed on her in the movie but I think her acting is fine. The dialogue is so damn cheesy at times that there is no way to deliver it where you come off sounding believable.

The person I saw it with wasn't really that impressed but I enjoyed the movie, overall. I was clenching my jaws the entire film. As the pair leap frog from one ruined vessel to another, their chances of missing a handhold and just drifting off into the void get higher and higher. The central metaphor of the movie is also one I am very in tuned with right now. When you are adrift and things seem hopeless, how do you go on? I thought the movie had some decent things to say about this but this is one of those rare times I wanted a little more ambiguity. There are several moments in the final sequence where the film could have just cut to black. Yes, the mainstream audience would have been angry but I think the point of the movie would have been better made. Regardless, Cuaron has crafted a cool thrill ride with some horrible dialogue. I saw this in 3-D Imax and that was totally worth it.

Finally, I watched a video a co-worker let me borrow called "The Chair." It is a low budget horror movie from 2006. Directed by the editor of Ginger Snaps (and the director of Ginger Snaps 2), I have to admit this had a decent enough premise. A girl moves into a sublet old house to work on her Psychology thesis. She has had mental issues in the past. She starts being pretty aggressively haunted and then possessed by a convoluted back story. The execution is somewhat...ok, very...lacking. The acting is subpar, the script goes into at least one completely unneeded twist (did her professor's identity even matter?), the titular chair makes no sense and the decisions made by everyone in the last ten minutes are just really stupid. The guy I borrowed this from likes to pick apart horror movies and tell how he would do them differently. I can't imagine how he likes this movie. So, yeah, not really worth watching but I could totally see a competent remake of this.

Spooktoberween #19 Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

I can't always count on Guillermo Del Toro. Directing, yes, he is my kind of storyteller. The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth are two of my favorite movies. Blade 2 is my favorite of the Blade movies (not a high bar to cross). Pacific Rim and the Hellboy movies are a lot of fun. He put his production stamp on Splice and directed Cronos, both of which I just thought were so-so. The Orphanage is another of my favorite horror movies. So, all in all, more hits than misses, even if he dabbles in genres I don't have a big interest in.

I had heard bad things about Don't Be Afraid of the Dark and that kept me away for a couple of years. Firstly, I am no Katie Holmes fan since she usually talks out of the side of her mouth like a stroke victim. She actually acquits herself well in this one. Guy Pearce overcomes a ridiculous haircut to do a decent job, too. The little girl is not one of the more sympathetic actresses that could have been cast but she kind of grows on you after awhile.

It was odd that I watched this right after The Hole as both are about families split by divorce and moving into a new house with a portal to unspeakable horror in the basement. While Dante keeps things light and devilish, Troy Nixey (in his big screen debut) makes things slightly more sinister and grotesque (fitting, given the subject matter). Although Arthur Machen gets a shout out, Lovecraft's The Rats In the Walls feels like the obvious ancestor to this story of a little girl who finds a race of fairy folk living in her basement. That they only eat the teeth and bones of children is no nevermind. In fact, I was kind of hoping this movie would tie into the Hellboy mythos since he fought these same fairies in Hellboy 2 (although they were designed very differently).

Pearce plays the disbelieving father, too wrapped up in his work to pay attention to his child. Holmes is Pearce's new girlfriend, who is trying hard to win the bratty little kid over. The creatures are creepy enough but seem as menacing as the Gremlins (which could get slightly nasty when needed). Their aversion to bright light also reminded me of Joe Dante's little beasts.

Not a bad movie. Of course, if it is Del Toro, don't expect a rainbows and lollipops ending. Worth a watch if bored and if you want to delve deeper into Del Toro's world.

My Spooktoberween reviews to date:

#18 The Hole
#16 and 17 Nine Dead and The Awakening
#14 and 15 Red State and The Bay
#13 Hatchet 2
#12 A Horrible Way to Die
#11 VHS 2
#10 The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh
#9 The Corridor
#8 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
#6 and 7 Atrocious and Fright Night
#5 The American Scream
#3 and 4 Transylvania 6-5000 and The Pact
#2 The Dunwich Horror
#1 Room 237

Spooktoberween #18 The Hole

Joe Dante has more than earned his stripes in the filmmaking world, he doesn't have anything to prove to me. I would also call him the king of family horror, if such a genre exists. The Hole is just creepy enough to not suck to adults but feels like something I should have seen on HBO in 1986.

The story involves two kids moving into a new house with their mother. The brothers make a new friend in the teen hottie next door and, at the same time, discover a hole in their basement that leads to...something. I really think Dante would want me to use that "When you stare into the abyss, the abyss also stares into you" line but that is a bit high-falutin' for a movie that rips of Stephen King's Cat's Eye. Eventually, manifestations of the three kids' fears begin emerging from the Hole and terrorizing them (including a Japan-approved, jerky motioned dead girl and a jester doll where they use a practical effect instead of CGI). The lead kid has the emotional range of a toaster but the other actors do pretty well. Some Joe Dante favorites pop up in small roles, as well.

I don't think this will scare you too terribly but it may be a good horror movie to share with a younger family member this Halloween season (I would say ages 9 and up should have no problems with it).

Spooktoberween #16 and 17: Nine Dead and The Awakening

I decided to add some more movies to my watch list and work my way through them for the Halloween run. The first is the Melissa Joan Hart vehicle, 9 Dead. It is a cool little premise (not miles away from the Cube) in which 9 strangers find themselves abducted and locked in a room. A masked dude comes in and tells them that one will die every 10 minutes unless they can figure out why they are in the room. As people start getting offed, it gets harder and harder to figure out what they have in common. This is especially true as the first 20 minutes or so are wasted with people distrusting the premise or plotting to escape.

As the captives start spouting every sin they can think of to confess, a picture finally starts emerging. There is a Chinese woman, an insurance agent, a priest, a pedophile, an assistant DA, a gangster, a thief, a cop and an actor in the room so not a lot of immediate connections. Some revelations go nowhere and one character, in particular has a change of heart at a weird time. The ending is kind of weird and ambiguous when it doesn't need to be. All in all, not the worst way to waste 90 minutes but not a particularly compelling way, either.

Much better was The Awakening. Rebecca Hall (the not Scarjo chick from The Prestige) is a ghost debunker in 1920s England. Dominic "McNulty" West comes to her to ask her to investigate a ghost sighting at the school were he works. I liked the debunking aspects of the movie (as I wish Red Lights had stuck to the same idea a little better) as Hall's character is a like the Sherlock Holmes of fake hauntings. When the really creepy stuff starts going down, it doesn't reach super scary levels. The very British production kind of works as a cheeky bodice-ripping romance as West and Hall smolder at each other in between ghost sightings. The aggro groundskeeper was a subplot too many but there is a decent enough twist that is hard to see coming because they cheat it a whole lot.

If you like period romances or haunted house movies, you could do worse than The Awakening.

Spooktoberween #14 and 15 Red State and The Bay

I had this whole big preamble in my head about the different types of directors. The gist was that, after awhile, you get kind of pigeon-holed into certain categories. Often, directors look to break out of these constraints by taking a trip into a specific genre ghetto (Tarantino and Rodriguez both went Grindhouse and have yet to return). Today, I watched two flicks that provided their creators a chance to spread their wings a bit and try something outside their comfort zones.

Kevin Smith is mostly known for his dick and fart joke movies (which are, in my opinion, very funny). He puts just enough pathos in them to make them work as character pieces but they are mostly just delivery systems for intricate scatology. With Red State, he decided to branch out into "horror." Despite the first 30 minutes or so having a horror feel, this is really a movie about some of Smith's pet peeves. He has issues with the Westboro Baptist Church so he fictionalized them and extrapolated a Branch Davidian scenario wherein they are wanted for violating gun laws.

This ground was covered with a little more slickness in the Robert Sean Leonard movie Standoff and (even separated by 10+ years) this movie suffers by comparison. It is stuffed with fine actors and, as always, Smith has a great ear for dialogue. Melissa Leo, John Goodman, Anna Gunn, Badger from Breaking Bad, Stephen Root, Kevin Pollack and Michael Parks all turn in top notch performances (even if some amount to glorified cameos). Unfortunately, the movie doesn't hang together as a coherent statement. It feels more like Smith running down a checklist of "Points I Want To Make" regarding Christianity, Homosexuality, Government Incompetence, Government Evil and maybe a smidgen of "can't we all just listen to each other" thrown in. 

Three horny teen boys are lured out to a trailer with the promise of four way sex with Melissa Leo (which...really?). They are soon drugged and awaken to find themselves in a bit of a nightmare. There is a very long sermon from Michael Parks as the head of this extremely violent church. The events that lead the ATF to the compound all arise logically enough but a lot of the impact in the second half of the film relies on dramatic irony and actions from a character we barely even see in the first half of the film.

There are moments where Smith's wicked sense of humor can't help but peek through, but he mostly plays it straight. I understand he ran out of funding and had to ditch his originally ending, which could have played so much better than the talkathon that does serve as an overly-long coda. Some editing, some script tightening and just a tad more money to carry the whole thing through would have done this movie a world of good.

Barry Levinson has not been stuck in as narrow a niche as Kevin Smith but he has not been known for working in genres outside of drama and comedy. With The Bay, he jumps into found footage horror and proves he can handle it pretty well.

The Bay is a very ambitious found footage feature in that it is culled from a variety of sources. At several points, Levinson apparently just says "fuck it" and goes for old-fashioned third person filmed shots (there is a long shot at the end in particular that breaks the rules). Also, one of the perks of the found footage horror genre is that you don't get to lean on music cues to ratchet up the tension, but Levinson employs some here.

Presented as a compilation of classified footage that the government has worked to keep hidden for the past few years, it tells the story of a deadly outbreak in a small Maryland town on the 4th of July. Now, why the outbreak happens then, I am not entirely sure. The conditions that resulted in the outbreak were present for a long time before hand but I guess this is dramatic license?

Plot holes aside, the development of the affliction (I am purposely being vague because finding out the true nature of the problem is one of the better aspects of the movie) is handled with the strong hand of a master storyteller. I was worried, initially, that there were too many characters and plot threads to follow but Levinson keeps the balls in the air pretty well. We follow a family with a new born as they sail their boat into the bay, the mayor of the town, the police force, a local reporter who was just there to do a fluff piece on the 4th of July festivities, two researchers who are found dead two weeks before the events of the movie, a local doctor, a teen girl face-timing with her best friend and a variety of other sources that come and go as they are needed. At about an hour and a half, Levinson keeps things moving at a good clip. Of course, with all the characters and the low running time, you never really get to know any of them very well (so that drama such as a police standoff or the final fates of any of the characters don't have much of an impact). It won't tug at your heartstrings but it just might keep you entertained for 90 minutes.

Like Red State, The Bay has some finger pointing to do at the government as well as big business. When the immoral collides with the incompetent, evil wins the day. Both of these non-horror directors had something to say along those lines. One just said it a little better.

Spooktoberween #13 Hatchet 2

This is a title that has been hanging out in my Netflix queue for a minute so I decided to finally give it a spin. The original Hatchet (along with Behind the Mask, which gets a nice shout out here) looked like they might spark the rebirth of the slasher genre. That rebirth never really happened but the original Hatchet was (from my memory at least) a tongue-in-cheek gore fest with a likable cast. It was a bucket of fun, in other words. Adam Green (the director) went on to do one of my favorite man vs. nature horror movies, Frozen. So, I know he is capable of genuine scares.

This movie picks up at the precise second the last one ended. Anyone who survived the first movie is back (as well as the "brother" of one of the characters from the first). The set up is a little bit Aliens to the original's Alien in that, instead of a group of hapless tourists, we get to see a bunch of hardcore hunters and rednecks facing off with Victor Crowley (the monstrous wielder of the titular Hatchet). Tony Todd (Candyman) gets a bigger part in this one, which is always welcome. AJ Bowen (from Spooktoberween #12) appears as one of the hunters and he is quickly becoming one of my favorite horror actors. He should be way more famous than he is.

What would Freud say about this chainsaw?

The execution is pretty much in keeping with the first movie. There aren't any real scares or moments of high tension. The fun is in seeing the goofy ways the characters meet their fates at Crowley's hands. Outboard motors, belt sanders, wooden tables, gigantic chainsaws and, of course, the trusty hatchet are all employed to dispatch the cast in novel ways. The sense of humor is still firmly there (Bowen's sex scene with Alexis Peters is a particularly funny scene up until the gross out ending) and even a little less juvenile than the first movie. This movie won't change your life or make you appreciate horror if you don't already but it is a nice little love letter to fans of the genre. Above all, it should not be taken seriously.

Oh yes, and the Director of Fright Night has a role in this, just FYI.

Spooktoberfest #12 A Horrible Way To Die

I am slowly becoming aware of a group of upstart horror filmmakers who are all friends and appear in each others' movies. I was first hipped to their existence through Ti West (House of the Devil, The Innkeepers) who led me to VHS. That led me to Joe Swanberg and Adam Wingard. Swanberg directs a lot of indie comedy but appears in indie horror flicks as an actor. Wingard (and Simon Barrett, who seems to be his writing partner) are all tied up with this group, too. I have been trying to sample their wares and see what this little group is all about.

That led me to tonight's movie A Horrible Way To Die. In it, we follow Amy Seimetz (from Upstream Color) as she goes to AA, works at a dentist office and tries to forget that she once dated the most celebrated serial killer in the US. As she begins a relationship with a new guy (Swanberg), we also follow her ex as he crosses the country, killing pretty much anyone he runs across. The ex is played pretty wonderfully by AJ Bowen. His serial killer is one of the better takes that I have seen. More than charming, he keeps insisting his victims will be just fine even up to the moment he kills them. He is soft-spoken and gentle. He never reverts to the easy cliche of the killer who is seething with rage just under the surface. Great character work by Bowen.

Unfortunately, he is not really the main character. When he is onscreen, his dark antics are dreadfully entertaining. When we are following the awkward, blooming romance between Seimetz and Swanberg, the movie loses a lot of the narrative drive. This is mostly due to the fact that there is a "big twist" in the plot that I hope to God you see coming like a bullet train. It is so clumsily telegraphed in both the script and some of the performances that you can't help but get there waaaaay before the movie. Situations like that make movies hard for me to watch when you are waiting forever for the characters to catch up with what we know.

Really, the whole thing plays better as relationship drama than as a horror movie. One bit I found super annoying was the overuse of handheld cameras and using extreme close-ups on light sources to signal scene changes. I wish the movie had been called A Horrible Way To Edit. I hear You're Next (by the same guy) is pretty darn good but it is kind of hard to see the potential here. Skip it.

Spooktoberfest #11 VHS 2

Anthologies, difficult to execute in a satisfying manner, even if you gather the best collection of collaborators ever. Invariably, there will be some weak links in the chain. VHS was the seeming apex of the found footage horror genre. Even with Adam Wingard, Joe Swanberg and Ti West, the first movie presented a mixed bag of horror. The pedigree is kind of even more impressive this time out. Eduardo "Blair Witch Project" Sanchez, Gareth "The Raid: Redemption" Evans, Jason "Hobo With a Shotgun" Eisner, and...well, Adam Wingard again...these are the directors gathered for the four segments and the wraparound this year.

The wraparound is called Tape 49 and it follows pretty much the same pattern as the wraparound in VHS. This time, a private detective and his assistant break into a kid's house (on the orders of his mother) to find out why he has vanished. Unlike the wraparound for the first movie, this one actually makes sense by the end and creates a mythology for the franchise (if they wish to continue it). I would give this one a B-.

The first movie is called Phase 1 Clinical Trials (Wingard) and it is based on a Twilight Zone worthy idea. A guy who lost his eye in a car accident gets a cyborg eye implanted that records everything he sees. Unfortunately, he can now see dead people. The whole deal is very rushed and builds to an awkward ending. This is an idea that could have used more time to create a slower burn. C-.

The second film is called A Ride in the Park (Sanchez) and it also features a really novel idea. A helmet cam mounted atop a bicyclist records his transformation from hapless victim into full blown zombie. Although there is very little acting required in this one, what little there is rates below amateur. The actual arc of the main character is pretty well-written and conceived for a horror short but the actors can't quite pull off some of the emotional pathos required to make the ending resonant. B-.

The third film is Safe Haven (Evans) and is the longest out of any of the two movies so far. It follows a documentary film crew as they go inside a doomsday cult. The crew has some interpersonal drama going on and the leader of the cult is particularly delighted they are present. Things get super grim by the end but it all seems to end with a wackity-smackity-do punchline that doesn't fit the dire tone of the rest of the short. I will say, it seems to be a better Silent Hill movie than either of the actual Silent Hill movies. B.

The final film is Slumber Party Alien Abduction (Eisner). This one was pretty much all screaming, loud noises and confusion. It kind of highlights the worst aspects of the found footage genre (unclear action, undeveloped characters, bizarre filming choices). The first VHS saved the best for last but this one fizzles out. The title pretty much says it all as some prank happy teens find themselves the target of an alien invasion. I did like the design of the aliens (like huge, bestial versions of the usually fragile greys we see on shows like X-Files) but that is the best I can say for it. D.

Mainly, I think this one fails by focusing more on gore than scares. The haunted house story in the first movie marks the high point of the series for me, still. Maybe, if they keep cranking these out, they will hit a sweet spot. I mean, at least I didn't have to watch 20 minutes of a kid running through a garden maze at night. I would say skip this one unless you are a genre fanatic, like me.

The Life Trap

Taking a break from Spooktoberween for the moment to write about something that has been taking up all my mental energies lately. Thinking about The Life Trap has kept me from writing any of my fiction or really enjoying myself too terribly much.

I get the phrase "The Life Trap" from some issues of Mr. Miracle comics written by Grant Morrison. It doesn't really matter what it meant in the context of the comic but I would be willing to bet 95% of my readers are feeling themselves caught in it right now. The Life Trap is created by a series of decisions that leave you unable to alter your destiny in any real way. Maybe you have children, maybe you have signed a contract, maybe you owe a butt ton of money...whatever it is that limits your ability to just go and do whatever you want...that is your Life Trap.

A few nights ago, I sat down at work and figured out a budget. I have been avoiding this because I knew the results would be horrific. Sure enough, if I don't buy any gifts for anyone ever, don't do anything fun ever and live off of $10 a day of food, I can pay off my credit card in a little over 3 years and then start thinking about buying a car.

So, for me, debt is the trap and low wages don't give me the tools I need to escape the trap. I have been thinking about joining the Peace Corp, helping others while I travel the world, but...the trap is insidious. I know if I just leave a job to go gallivanting, without paying off my debt first, the debt will grow in the interim and things will be worse than before I left. There is also a domino effect with my credit score. If I fall behind on payments, my score lowers. This will make it harder in the future to buy a car or a house (both of which I will need if I ever want a family of my own).

These responsibilities to my future self and my creditors keep me chained into a job with a horrible schedule, low wages and no future. I am not generally happy with the way my life is going right now and I feel like I need a major shake-up. A change in location or vocation, a change in diet and exercise, a change in the amount of time I spend doing what I love (writing, consuming pop culture and being with the people who mean the most to me)...all of these things feel necessary. I just don't know how to get there from here. Constant rejection from job applications (averaging three to five a week) is discouraging, I won't lie. Any one else feel trapped?

Spooktoberfest #10 The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh

This...this was a weird one and kind of fitting with how strange The Corridor was. Like The Pact, it is about a child going to the home of their deceased mother and finding more to the house than meets the eye (including secret rooms). Unlike The Pact, it moves in an entirely more ambiguous direction. This is the first full-length for the writer/director (Rodrigo Gudino). It shows he has a lot on his mind besides just horror.

Aaron Poole (a poor man's Aaron Paul), has the burden of carrying the entire movie himself. He never appears on-screen with a real person throughout the 80 minute runtime. Vanessa Redgrave is the main draw here, providing the titular voiceover that guides the action of the movie. I was really caught up in this movie and the slow reveals. You get a good sense of the strained relationship between Redgrave and Poole as well as some top notch creepiness in the form of Redgrave's stuffed-to-the-rafters house of angelic knick knacks. Statues move, cross-stitches predict the future and the whole place is like a locked room puzzle with clues that lead Poole deeper and deeper into the world his mother inhabited up until her death.

The ending is one of those that might actually negate the entire thing you just watched but, seeing as how the whole narrative was operating on a metaphorical plain rather than a literal one, I didn't really mind. It is thought-provoking, has some interesting things to say about faith versus despair and doesn't wear out its welcome. You could do worse, is what I'm saying.

Previous Spooktoberfest reviews:

The Corridor
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Atrocious and Fright Night
The American Scream
Transylvania 6-5000 and The Pact
The Dunwich Horror
Room 237

Also, if you are looking for horror movie recommendations on  Netflix, check out Resolution. It is low budget but nice and creepy.

Spooktoberfest #9 The Corridor

No horror yesterday, only a concert. The night terrors haven't started yet, so I really need to get this October into high gear. Tonight, I watched The Corridor.

I have to give it points for being unique and having some kind of message (modern technology is bad? growing up is hard? Ok, so it wasn't super clear). Regardless, the movie starts with some childhood friends stumbling into a horrific scene wherein they find a fourth friend gone psychotic and stabby while his mother lies dead on the floor (but he can still hear her voice in his head). From this, we jump forward to the friends getting back together with the psycho to help him spread his mother's ashes and move on. Unfortunately, there is a lot of mistrust (since one of them, you know, stabbed several of the others) and lingering resentments that have carried over from their youth.

The psycho discovers a weird, shimmery wall in the woods and thinks he is losing his mind again. When he takes the others out to find it, things start getting freaky. There is a touch of horror movies like The Signal or even The Thing here. As the five friends turn more aggressive and violent, the movie goes to some dark places. I particularly liked how innocuous lines from the first half of the movie are repeated in sinister ways in the second half.

Unfortunately, the ultimate nature of the threat is a little vague for my tastes. The final confrontation is seriously hindered by some amateur hour special effects. Here's a hint, if you are filming a low budget movie, maybe don't have it hinge on a special effect. Couple the ill-defined threat with the shitty CGI and this movie fails to stick the landing. In the second act, it really hits a high note of wrong but I can't say the pay off is worth the journey.

Spooktoberfest #8 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Firstly, I would like to take this space to officially say "Go fuck yourself" to the old Nintendo game, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The idea was that you are Dr. Jekyll, walking through jolly old London, dealing with yapping dogs and various muggers. You have a cane with which to poke your enemies (but the lag time between pressing the attack button and actually impotently thrusting your cane at a dog made even this attack staggeringly inefficient). If your frustration meter filled enough, you became Mr. Hyde...who was a total badass. You could jump farther and kick people's asses with ease. The problem with the game was, if you got further with Mr. Hyde than you did with Dr. Jekyll, you lose. And it is so much easier to get somewhere with Mr. Hyde. Yeah, anyway, fuck that game.

This movie is the 1920 silent version with John Barrymore as the titular duo. His performance is pretty fun to watch as he alters his appearance and body language depending on which personality he is exhibiting. I can see why people thought they were two separate people in this version. My patience with silent films runs out after about an hour. I get restless and just want the slow scenes to move faster. I almost made it through this one before I had to fast forward a bit.

The story is simple. Dr. Jekyll is a do-gooder who helps heal the poor for free. The father of his love interest kind of pulls a dick move and tries to tempt him into boinking a stripper (essentially). Jekyll, already looking for a freaky experiment, decides he will separate his sinfulness from his chaste personality using "science." Hyde is born and basically just goes whoring a lot and smokes some opium. The famous trampling scene is handled about as badly as you could imagine.

By the time Hyde straight up kills a motherfucker, you just want him to really cut all the way loose. It was a fun enough story, well-acted by silent film standards. The title cards were well written and the effects are pretty cool. Not essential viewing but not a bad silent movie.

Spooktoberween #6 and 7: Atrocious and Fright Night

Atrocious is another entry into the found footage cannon of horror from Spain. You already know if you are intrigued or not just from that. Lots of people hate the found footage gimmick because it has been over-used and is a crutch for lazy filmmakers (or just those without a mega-budget). I, personally, like a well-done first person horror movie. Blair Witch kicked it all off and creepy features like Rec, The Last Exorcism (until the last two minutes), Trollhunter, Paranormal Activity and Cloverfield have all entertained me to some degree.

Atrocious decides to play a bit with the conceit by fast-forwarding or rewinding so that important bits of info are held back until the very end. They could have done this a little more, actually, but it works in the small doses here. The idea is that a family of five (and their dog) are headed to a disused vacation home. There is a Shining-style labyrinth in the backyard that the children are forbidden to enter. The eldest son and the middle daughter fancy themselves amateur filmmakers and set out to investigate the local legend of a ghost named Melinda who may be a helpful spirit or might rip your ass out of your mouth (depending which version of the local tales you believe).

The usual found footage problems crop up (why would they film that?) but if you go along with it, it can suck you in. There is a seemingly interminable stretch of just one character running through the labyrinth at night, breathing heavily and passing the same shit over and over again. Despite that one low point, the rest moves along at a healthy clip and it has one of those endings where you don't want to be right but you totally are about what is going on. In fact, you will probably be one step ahead of the movie the whole time.

It is a solid but unremarkable horror movie, worth a watch if you like found footage stuff.

I had my inaugural viewing of the original Fright Night tonight, as well. I don't know how I missed this one growing up as it is an essentially 80s movie. The guy from Herman's Head and the neighbor from Married With Children play two horny teens whose attempts at going all the way are thwarted when Chris Sarandon moves in next door and is a vampire. The black guy from Die Hard 2 shows up for a funny bit as an incredulous police detective, by the way. Roddy McDowell is very delightful as a horror movie actor/late night movie host who is called upon to put his fictional vampire killing skills to good use.

The movie just jumps right the hell in and doesn't really let up on the plot. Nowadays, this would be a slow burner but Herman's Head is going to the police within the first fifteen minutes or so, accusing his neighbor of multiple murders. This is both a plus and a minus as the plot moves quickly but the final confrontation seems to drag on and on.

There is a campy humor to the whole thing, as if everyone in the movie is having some fun. The usual sexual subtext of vampire movies is right there on the surface when you watch this. The problem with the fast and loose approach to the whole thing is some inconsistencies in the plot (how does Sarandon's Renfield walk around in the sunlight? Why can Roddy McDowell sometimes use a cross effectively and other times he can't?) but it isn't a movie to be taken too seriously.

I had fun watching it and felt I was laughing with the movie most of the time (rather than at it). I just wish I has seen it when I was a kid.

Spooktoberween #5 The American Scream

This was a nice little documentary about people who create elaborate haunted houses in their backyards for Halloween. It played a lot like King of Kong for me in that it is about a niche interest that people really pour their hearts and souls into. The main guy's story was very moving as you really feel his frustration and triumph as Halloween approaches and then occurs. The secondary story is just fucking heartbreaking as it follows a middle aged dude and his father (both of whom seem to be mildly mentally challenged) as they make their kind of shitty backyard haunt. The lonely lives they lead and the casual cruelty of the son to the father is kind of hard to watch at times. The third family is the least interesting as the man is not a perfectionist and not a sad example of humanity. He just seems to make pretty cool attractions and enjoys himself.

Look for me and some friends to be launching our own haunted amusement next year. And in the meantime, check out this movie.

Spooktoberween #3 & 4: Transylvania 6-5000 and The Pact

Watched two today in an attempt to catch up a bit. One was a childhood favorite, Transylvania 6-5000. It...does not hold up well. Comic books sort of primed my imagination for the idea of a shared fictional universe. If Spider-Man and Iron Man can exist in the same world, why shouldn't Frankenstein and Dracula? The Monster Squad movie made all my childhood dreams of a shared monster universe come to life with a touch of the Goonies magic. Apparently, I was really into watching Transylvania 6-5000 because there is a vampire, a wolfman, a Frankenstein, a mummy and a...contortionist? Anyway, it was meant to be a comedy vehicle for Jeff Goldblum and Ed Begley Jr. Goldblum's low-to-the-point-of-comatose energy does not fit well with all the frantic mugging and sub-vaudeville routines enacted by a supporting cast of Jeffrey Jones, Michael Richards, Carol Cane and Geena Davis (among others).

The physical gags by Michael Richards were the only things I recalled about this movie before seeing it again and they were the bits that made me chuckle this time around. It is sort of ironic that Richards plays a character who doesn't know he isn't funny because he relies only on pratfalls and slapstick. A few years later, those same pratfalls would make him America's sweetheart as Kramer on Seinfeld.

I would also like to point out that Geena Davis jump started my puberty with her super revealing vampire costume. I also found myself wanting to see more of the Wolfman, because his schtick was kind of funny.Every time Carol Kane and John Byner appeared on screen as a bickering couple I prayed for a death that would not come.

Yowza!

Despite the stellar cast, I can't recommend this movie in good conscience.

The Pact, on the other hand, was a neat little horror movie and the first of the month to give me the creeps. Unfortunately aping the plot of my own screenplay I was working on, two sisters come back to their family home after the death of their abusive mother. One immediately vanishes and shit gets weirder from there. The haunted house shenanigans change into something else entirely in the third act, which was a pleasant surprise. There are some horrific images and moments of high tension. A lot of the haunted house cliches are used up in the first 10 minutes, leaving the filmmakers to find a new route.

The director worked on Starship Troopers, which may explain how Casper Van Dien shows up here as a schlubby cop who helps the remaining sister uncover the secrets of the house she grew up in. In some aspects, you will easily be ahead of the characters and, in others, you will be making discoveries along with them that you couldn't have guessed. Some of the secrets are spelled out and some are implied. It was almost as if Nicholas McCarthy (the writer/director) couldn't decide if he trusts the audience to get it or not so he split the difference.

You could do worse looking for a solid haunted house movie on Netflix.

Spooktoberween #2 The Dunwich Horror

Based loosely on HP Lovecraft's story of the same name (with a heaping helping of Rosemary's Baby thrown in), this 1970 movie follows Dean Stockwell as he tries to enact a plan to bring "The Old Ones" back to rule the world. His plan consists of stealing a book from a library, giving roofies to Sandra Dee and allowing his monstrous twin to terrorize the country folk of Dunwich.

The acting is kind of chintzy. Talia Shire and Lloyd Bockner bring some class to the whole thing but it doesn't help that the weird editing makes some of the exchanges very stilted. Sandra "Gidget" Dee doesn't have much to do except channel Mia Farrow at her loopiest.

As with all Lovecraft stories, the hard part is somehow showing the unshowable monster. This movie chooses to invert the color schemes a lot and, in one inspired bit, demonstrate the movement of the monster by showing wind whipping over water.

Not really a horrifying movie (unless you count sex with Dean Stockwell horrifying). It isn't the best thing I've seen.

Spooktoberween 2013 #1 Room 237

Every October, give or take, I try to watch 31 horror movies or do lots and lots of horror-oriented things. This year, I am kicking things off with a documentary about a horror movie which is, in itself, only scary when you think about how much life the people featured here have wasted trying to find deeper meaning in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. I will get into why I chose this movie later.

Kubrick was one of those genius filmmakers who put tons of detail and attention into everything he created. Set decorations and tiny background details all feed into the thematic meanings of his films. The five people interviewed for this film believe they have found keys to unlocking the hidden meaning of the Shining. One guy argues that the movie is about the slaughter of Native Americans, another says it is about the Holocaust, another says it is his filmed confession that he staged the Apollo moon-landing, one thinks you need to watch it forwards and backwards at the same time to understand it and the last person is obsessed with Kubrick's use of space in the movie. The last person is actually the only one that makes any affective arguments, to my mind.

There is a psychological concept called Confirmation Bias. Your mind bends facts to fit theories instead of the other way around. Like Verbal Kent says in The Usual Suspects, "You have a dead guy, you think his wife killed him, you're gonna find out you're right." The Holocaust guy, the moon-landing guy and the Native American guy all make huge leaps in logic (my favorite might be the moon-landing guy trying to argue that the key for "Room No. 237" is a secret message saying "moon room" because a lot of the letters are the same). They want their theories to be right so every continuity error or prop choice becomes part of Kubrick's master plan. While he did exercise extreme control over his movies, I don't think that Nicholson reading a Playgirl (that you can't even see) while eating lunch was meant to imply Danny was sexually abused. The fact that Ullman's assistant has dark hair doesn't make him a stand in for subservient American Indians. Lots of this was just pure bullshit, to be honest.

I mean, I'm gonna try to kill ya, do we need the implication of kid diddling, too?

The guy who watched the movie forward and backwards at the same time sounded exactly like a stoner burnout trying to explain why The Dark Side of the Moon and the Wizard of Oz were made to be seen together.

One thing I do agree with is that Kubrick very much controlled the idea of space in the movie. The only two scenes I found convincing were one in which Danny's big wheel ride around the hotel is shown to be a ride through the psyches of his parents (due to where he encounters weirdness) and that the window in Ullman's office is impossible. These, I can believe were Kubrickian touches (especially the window) meant to create a sense of unease in the viewer. Hell, the whole movie casts this sort of pallor on your soul as you watch it (The Shining, that is, not this one) from the soundtrack to the color choices. No one mentioned it but I noticed that the movie starts with shots perfectly balanced in frame and, as Jack's madness progresses, the balance is lost more and more. That seems like a smart, artistic choice. Making the carpet look like the launch pads in Florida? Not so much.

I can practically smell the orange groves.

Anyway, I chose this movie as my first for the season because I want to dissect these horror movies I watch both alone and with friends. Really great horror, like every kind of great story, is about something besides the plot. I think the guys who believe the Shining is a metaphor for the slaughter of Jews or Indians are partially right in that Kubrick is trying to say that human history is flush with acts of barbarous evil. The evil in Jack is the potential evil inside anyone. That makes The Shining scary.

I know I will see a lot of BS and low-class productions with nothing on their mind besides a cheap scare but I hope to see something that tries to transcend the genre, too. Join me, won't you?

But you can skip Room 237.

I say, just enjoy the goddamn thing and quit picking it apart.

Breaking Bad versus The Wire: A Tale of the Tape

Maybe it is my fascination with comics, but I love a good struggle for supremacy. As a nerd, I categorize, rank and label all facets of my pop culture diet. My favorite movies change as new ones are introduced. My favorite bands battle it out with each new release. And my favorite comics, don't get me started. I wrote a facebook note over a year ago that posited my top two favorite television shows as The Wire (#1) and Breaking Bad (#2). I said, "depending on how it ends, Breaking Bad might beat out the Wire." Well, now is the time to see if that actually happened.

You have the right to remain...smoldering.

Firstly, let me say that comparing the two shows is difficult. The Wire is about a city, Breaking Bad is about a man. Both series deal with corruption and the loss of innocence but The Wire demonstrates how institutions are flawed while Breaking Bad shows how people are flawed. Also, there is no central character in The Wire. Jimmy McNulty is, hypothetically, the main character. However, he is pretty much absent from Season 4 (which is also, arguably, the strongest season). And it isn't like his absence is a theme of the show, he isn't missed or discussed. Breaking Bad has been the story of Walter White from the first episode. And, although the show grew to encompass a pretty large cast of central characters, the creators made a specific effort in the final episode to bring it all back to one man.

Uncertainty personified.

Let's look closer at the implied goals of each series and how well they achieved these goals. The Wire was five seasons long (60 episodes) and each season dealt with a different aspect of life in Baltimore. The first season was all about the drug war with a group of police officers from narcotics and homicide being brought together to take down a drug lord. This first season was a very balanced look at life on both sides of the law. Perhaps the biggest innovation was in portraying criminals as three dimensional humans with insecurities, failings, pride and a position in society that did not offer them many alternatives to crime. Season 2 (most people's least favorite) placed the drugs and the police on the back burner, focusing on corruption in a dock workers union. This update of On the Waterfront had plenty of pathos and had a statement to make about employment in the city. The third season brought the cops and drug dealers back to the foreground but managed to work politics into the mix. The bureaucracy that hamstrings the police while allowing crime to flourish was the major target of the season and also brought the McNulty/Stringer Bell plotline to a close. Season 4 looked at the educational system in Baltimore. With four young men introduced and followed as they found themselves tempted by the easy money of a criminal life, this season still had police and criminals but it dug even deeper into how the city produces such violence and loss. The fifth season is usually labelled as being the most ridiculous. The institution being targeted is the media and how facts take a back seat to sensationalism. This is all tied back into public policy and a pretty outrageous scheme by McNulty to keep his department funded while they attempt to target the newest player in Baltimore's drug scene. The ending of the series is one of the most compelling I have seen as all the surviving characters are shown falling into their various fates. Just like in real life, there are happy endings and sad ones. Not everything gets resolved and life just continues.

One of these kids ends up just fine, the others...

Say what you will about the second and fifth seasons of The Wire but I always found it to be a very watchable, compelling show. The struggles of Bubbles, a homeless heroin addict, moved me to tears at least once. I was emotionally and intellectually invested in the characters on the show. My cousin says that Breaking Bad was more entertaining, but I would be hard pressed to agree. I was thoroughly entertained by the sprawling cast of characters in The Wire and completely caught up in their lives. The body count was high and heartbreaking on several occasions. Although lots of the series dealt with the machinations of police commissioners and school boards, it never felt like you were being educated. It was all highly watchable, is what I'm saying.

You speak so much truth.

There is a serial killer plot in the fifth season that seems to be the target of any disappointment aimed at the show. Moments strain credulity and  some fans argue that the show stepped off the path from realism and into satire with that season. The scariest bit, to me, was that it didn't seem all that far fetched and (when read as a satire on the Bush administration's excuses to go to war) it wasn't out of place in the zeitgeist. True, maybe the tale of a Baltimore cop isn't the right place to try and tell big socio-political allegories but I was willing to go for the ride.

Also, what a lot of people forget is that there are other plotlines going on in that same season that do work pretty well. The strain on realism was the largest flaw here.

 

Breaking Bad never really had that problem. From the bath tub gag in Season 1, the show announced that some crazy shit was probably going to happen. There was a heightened reality to the show that made giant magnets and plane crashes seem reasonable. Perhaps it was this non-reality that kept several characters at arms length, emotionally. The only grounded character, to me, was Jesse Pinkman. Introduced in order to die right away, Aaron Paul managed to work some depth into his portrayal and (in my estimation) made the writers push themselves to round him out. His work on the show created some of my favorite emotional moments.

Yo, Bitch, etc.

Breaking Bad started from a character deficit. Most of Walter White's friends, enemies and family were cliched, cartoonish or one-note. As the show progressed, characters like Hank and Marie developed while others (like Junior or Skyler) stayed static, or worse, floundered for direction. One of the main ideas of the show was to demonstrate how everyone's life is affected by this one man's decision to become a criminal. The stronger a character was, the more specific the effect of Walter White on them. A lot of people reference Ozymandius (the third to last episode of the final season) as their favorite episode of Breaking Bad but it is just the most plot heavy. More "stuff" happens in that hour than in previous hours but there is almost no emotional impact. Bryan Cranston has to do the heavy lifting of playing a man who is angry, devastated, wounded, lost and scheming all at the same time. He pulls it off well but no one else sells their awkward character changes in that episode with as much grace.

Not an image from Breaking Bad, just a pic from my phone when I tried to get Cranton's autograph.

This, then, is the weakness in Breaking Bad. Shaky writing gets wall papered over with Big Action or Crazy Ideas. The sheer lunacy of the Ozymandius episode couldn't hide the flaws in the characterization. Both shows take a few episodes to find their voice. I wasn't hooked on either The Wire or Breaking Bad until about episode 4 of each. That is a lot of time to devote to shows you are only lukewarm about at first but you get to be glad you gave them a chance. Almost all shows have to be embryonic in their pilot forms, so I can't fault either for their initial weakness. However, Breaking Bad was guilty of skipping over story elements that didn't make much sense (how did Brock get poisoned, exactly?) and carrying the viewer through with gusto.

"So, if I were to just...hand you some berries, you would go to town on them, right?"

The seasons in Breaking Bad don't really break down into different ideas so much as different threats or arcs. The first season was famously cut short by the writer's strike so it is about Walter White creating Heisenberg as a legend. The second season of Breaking Bad featured a flash forward gimmick in the cold open of a few episodes that teased some horrible event at the White household. Once it was revealed, the knowledge was underwhelming and not really worth the wait (it did mark the biggest repercussion of Walter's selfishness but this show works better on a small, intimate scale). The next use of flash forwards (in Season Five) have a much better affect and resolve into a secondary cliffhanger of sorts that pays off better than, say, the last season of Lost. Season 3 and 4 follow the ascent of Walter and his deadly game with Gus Fring. Season 5 is about the cost of maintaining one's power and the consequences of becoming the bad guy.

I don't know if you were gay but you were scary as hell.

I think the strength of Breaking Bad will be remembered as the actors more than anything. The work of Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Dean Norris, Bob Odenkirk, Betsy Brandt, Anna Gunn and RJ Mitte was continuously top notch. They elevated the material which was, at best, pulpy and engaging. Finally, I think this is the one idea that makes the show not as strong for me as The Wire. It is a character-driven show that was better at plot. There were jaw-dropping twists and white knuckle thrills but most of the characters were pushed and bullied into life by the cast rather than a guiding vision by the writers. When the whole show is centered on one man, and his characterization is almost perfectly realized, the faults in the other characters seem less glaring.

As an entertainment, I would say Breaking Bad entertained me more than The Wire. Just like Die Hard entertains me more than Magnolia. However, I love Magnolia more than Die Hard because it makes me think and the situations that arise seem to do so from character (even when external events influence a character in Magnolia, their reactions are very human). When characters in The Wire bounce off one another, they all tend to do so organically. They are all given little moments to shine. The plots (mostly) take a back seat to the people. In Breaking Bad, the people (mostly) take a back seat to the plots.

I guess I am just a character guy. The Wire is safe for now in my heart but you could do much worse than watch Breaking Bad. It is still pretty damn amazing.