Movie Diary

1) Black Sabbath: Band > movie. The first story in this horror anthology is actually good, about a ghost who haunts the woman who stole her ring. It's got a strong sense of the uncanny about it. But the rest of the movie is, per usual for Bava, pretty slow. I don't know why I keep watching his films other than that they always have a couple of really good shots. And it does look great. It's just paced like molasses.

2) Sometimes They Come Back: Jared liked this more than I did, but it explains a lot about its extreme lameness that it was made for TV. Also, I guess Stephen King is scared of trains. The idea's not so bad here, and, in theory, neither is the idea that it jumps into the story with both feet from the very beginning, but it's over the top in a way that doesn't really work. Even William Sanderson is wasted, sigh.

3) Tales from the Hood: So if you're wondering which of the two African American-helmed horror anthologies that came out in the mid-90s is the good one, it's this, not Def by Temptation, which is horrible. Not that this is genius by any means, but it has its moments, and its political content is heavy, which you'd think would be a bad thing but actually ends up making the film stronger. I mean, when you've got evil white cops named Strom and a racist southern senator named Duke Metzger, you know it's not really going for subtlety. It's also got Roger Guenveur Smith in a (too) small role.

4) Friday the 13th (2009): Well, right after I'd vowed to watch all of these, they promptly expired from Netflix instant, which, what is the sense of that in October, y'all? If there is any time when people are itching to watch Jason disembowel some teenagers, it is this time of year. Anyway, we still had this one on the DVR, and I have to say it was pretty effective and well done. Sure, it got negative reviews. Saying it's a good Friday the 13th movie is not the same thing as saying it's a good movie straight up. For one thing, it's supposed to be gross and unpleasant. The characters aren't supposed to be particularly appealing. Or developed, other than chestally. It doesn't have the vintage appeal of the early ones, in terms of fashion and nice, bright lighting, but it's smart enough to take important elements from them, such as Jason's mother worship and habit of bursting through windows. It also adds some new stuff, like giving our favorite hockey-masked antihero the ability to run, which you'd think would have gotten old by now, with all these speedy, athletic zombies, but is actually a little bit scary. Wikipedia tells me the creators didn't want this one to be self-referential, and I can appreciate that, but it might have been more awesome if the victims were aware of the legend because of the previous movies. I'm a sucker for meta-art, though. Derek Mears also does a nice job as Jason, and he appears to have thought about it a lot:

When Mears went in to audition for the role he was asked, "Why do we need an actor as opposed to just a guy in a mask?" As Mears explained to them, portraying Jason is similar to Greek Mask Work, where the mask and the actor are two separate entities, and, based on the scene, there will be variate combinations of mask and actor in the performance. According to Mears, it is all based on whether someone realizes that everything is made of energy. If an actor is thinking something then it will transfer to what the camera picks up.

Also, Travis Van Winkle is like the new William Zabka.