Movies
The Wailing (곡성) (2016)
Horror movies with subtext are good, and horror movies with metaphysical and/or religious subtext are the best. The Wailing is the latter, and it's a whip-smart one at that, operating not just as an impressively dense, twisty horror narrative but also a frightening religious fable about the seditious nature of evil and, if I'm not mistaken (I might be—I don't know nearly enough about Asian history/politics), a pretty piercing political allegory about xenophobia. It's a movie that, in depicting a single South Korean village, envelops the totality of the world stage without ever violating the reality of its small-time setting, suggesting the far-reaching consequences of the way that mythological and social powers engage with one another. What I'm saying is that The Wailing is pretty much brilliant. Grade: A
Inland Empire (2006)
One of the things that's helped David Lynch maintain such a devoted following is that as odd and experimental as his work tends to get, there's usually a concrete narrative to be sussed out upon repeat viewings—in other words, viewed in a certain way, they're puzzles. At least, until Inland Empire. I have no earthly idea what's going on on a narrative level in this movie, and I doubt that repeat viewings will help clarify this; for all the talk of that "dreamlike" Lynchian atmosphere, Inland Empire may be the only film of his that's completely untethered from from a grounding reality, its events progressing with the rhythm of a nightmare: the same actor plays an entirely different character in two consecutive scenes; a door in Poland opens in Hollywood; human figures contort into horrifying distortions; clips of incongruous music float in and out of the mix. Which is not to say that it's a haphazard film in the least. All its scenes circle around iterations of similar themes of violence, filmmaking, identity, and ambition, and it's almost as if Lynch is building a collage out of the tenuous logic of whatever narrative each moment gives us. The movie has the feel of something monstrous bursting through the barrier between subconscious and conscious, and as such, there's an elemental power to the film's cumulative effect, even if on a moment-by-moment basis it's kind of ugly and baffling. Plus, Laura Dern deserves all the awards for her performance here. Come for her, if for nothing else. Grade: A-
Them (Ils) (2006)
This movie's greatest strength is just how coy it plays with its antagonist(s)—basically, a horror movie of the home invasion variety in which the shots are specifically constructed to obscure what exactly it is that's afflicting our protagonists (for a long time, it's not even clear whether or not it's human). The effect is almost abstract, and it's mesmerizing in its obliqueness. Unfortunately, the movie throws all that down the toilet in its final minutes with an epilogue that not only reveals far too much but then punctuates it with several screens of explanatory text. I know, "based on a true story," blah blah. But come on—this was building to something great, and instead, it's just pretty good. Grade: B
Body Snatchers (1993)
When I was in elementary school, we lived on an Air Force base. My mom wanted to grow a vegetable garden, so she, my siblings, and I planted one with the help of my grandfather. It all went well enough until one day, we got a knock on the door. It was an officer telling us that we couldn't have a garden because the soil was filled with toxic chemicals that would get into the vegetables. So we had to destroy the plants. I say all this to explain why Body Snatchers, the third film adaptation of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, now relocated to a military base, resonated with me, perhaps even more than the revered 1978 version. My experiences on the Air Force Base were largely positive, but there's no denying the vague disquietude of living in a location where everyone dresses alike, where toxic waste resides in the soil beneath your feet, where armed guards and cement barriers greet you each time you leave and return, and where, in a heartbeat, you could be caught and quarantined within the small confines of the base (as actually happened on 9/11/01). It's not hard to imagine my warm childhood memories twisted into horror like that on display in this film. I'm a little iffy on some of the stuff that happens toward the film's end, but in general, it's a fantastic iteration on the Invasion evolutionary chain. Grade: B+
The Slumber Party Massacre (1982)
Nearly every review I've found of this movie talks about the way it makes a virtue out of the typical slasher movie fake-out cliches, and that's absolutely true; the jump scare has never been so perfected as when this movie lampoons its essential silliness and twists it into a metaphor for the violation of women's bodies through non-violent means (before the actual violent violation, of course). This is not a horror comedy, exactly, but it's very funny. The fake-out gags, sure, but there is a lot of the reverse, too, where we know something very bad is happening while the characters remain almost comically ignorant of it—in particular, one scene involving a refrigerator that seems to have heavily influenced the early main-character-clueless-of-horror-in-front-of-his-face goings of Shaun of the Dead. Even with all this genre subversion, the movie still hews a little closer to slasher tropes than I'd like—we're still dealing with scantily clad women being cut up, and while this is written/directed by women, which is a relief, I still wonder if this plays too much into the hand of the genre pitfalls. Regardless, mild trepidation aside, I enjoyed this quite a bit. Grade: B+
The Ghost Ship (1943)
The big joke about this is that there are no ghosts, nor anything even close to resembling one. So the RKO-mandated title is a gigantic bit of misadvertisement; what we're left with instead is a sort of thin psychological thriller about a ship's officer whose worried that his captain is insane. It's got some pretty good atmosphere and a few nicely tense scenes ("There are some captains who would hold this against you"), which make it entertaining enough that it's not a waste of time. But there's nothing all that remarkable about it, and the beginning portion of the movie is super weak. Grade: B-
Music
The Sugarcubes - Life's Too Good (1988)
I think, if we're being honest here, the only reason most of us still talk about The Sugarcubes is that the group was a jumping off point for Björk, who has totally Beyoncé'd the other fine members of this group with an all-eclipsing solo career. Life's Too Good, The Sugarcubes' debut, is a good record of post-punk energy, but I'm here for Björk, and, with apologies to the rest of The Sugarcubes (who I am sure are talented in their own rights), Björk totally steals the show here with her soaring vocals. The rest is fine. Grade: B
Horror movies with subtext are good, and horror movies with metaphysical and/or religious subtext are the best. The Wailing is the latter, and it's a whip-smart one at that, operating not just as an impressively dense, twisty horror narrative but also a frightening religious fable about the seditious nature of evil and, if I'm not mistaken (I might be—I don't know nearly enough about Asian history/politics), a pretty piercing political allegory about xenophobia. It's a movie that, in depicting a single South Korean village, envelops the totality of the world stage without ever violating the reality of its small-time setting, suggesting the far-reaching consequences of the way that mythological and social powers engage with one another. What I'm saying is that The Wailing is pretty much brilliant. Grade: A
One of the things that's helped David Lynch maintain such a devoted following is that as odd and experimental as his work tends to get, there's usually a concrete narrative to be sussed out upon repeat viewings—in other words, viewed in a certain way, they're puzzles. At least, until Inland Empire. I have no earthly idea what's going on on a narrative level in this movie, and I doubt that repeat viewings will help clarify this; for all the talk of that "dreamlike" Lynchian atmosphere, Inland Empire may be the only film of his that's completely untethered from from a grounding reality, its events progressing with the rhythm of a nightmare: the same actor plays an entirely different character in two consecutive scenes; a door in Poland opens in Hollywood; human figures contort into horrifying distortions; clips of incongruous music float in and out of the mix. Which is not to say that it's a haphazard film in the least. All its scenes circle around iterations of similar themes of violence, filmmaking, identity, and ambition, and it's almost as if Lynch is building a collage out of the tenuous logic of whatever narrative each moment gives us. The movie has the feel of something monstrous bursting through the barrier between subconscious and conscious, and as such, there's an elemental power to the film's cumulative effect, even if on a moment-by-moment basis it's kind of ugly and baffling. Plus, Laura Dern deserves all the awards for her performance here. Come for her, if for nothing else. Grade: A-
This movie's greatest strength is just how coy it plays with its antagonist(s)—basically, a horror movie of the home invasion variety in which the shots are specifically constructed to obscure what exactly it is that's afflicting our protagonists (for a long time, it's not even clear whether or not it's human). The effect is almost abstract, and it's mesmerizing in its obliqueness. Unfortunately, the movie throws all that down the toilet in its final minutes with an epilogue that not only reveals far too much but then punctuates it with several screens of explanatory text. I know, "based on a true story," blah blah. But come on—this was building to something great, and instead, it's just pretty good. Grade: B
When I was in elementary school, we lived on an Air Force base. My mom wanted to grow a vegetable garden, so she, my siblings, and I planted one with the help of my grandfather. It all went well enough until one day, we got a knock on the door. It was an officer telling us that we couldn't have a garden because the soil was filled with toxic chemicals that would get into the vegetables. So we had to destroy the plants. I say all this to explain why Body Snatchers, the third film adaptation of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, now relocated to a military base, resonated with me, perhaps even more than the revered 1978 version. My experiences on the Air Force Base were largely positive, but there's no denying the vague disquietude of living in a location where everyone dresses alike, where toxic waste resides in the soil beneath your feet, where armed guards and cement barriers greet you each time you leave and return, and where, in a heartbeat, you could be caught and quarantined within the small confines of the base (as actually happened on 9/11/01). It's not hard to imagine my warm childhood memories twisted into horror like that on display in this film. I'm a little iffy on some of the stuff that happens toward the film's end, but in general, it's a fantastic iteration on the Invasion evolutionary chain. Grade: B+
Nearly every review I've found of this movie talks about the way it makes a virtue out of the typical slasher movie fake-out cliches, and that's absolutely true; the jump scare has never been so perfected as when this movie lampoons its essential silliness and twists it into a metaphor for the violation of women's bodies through non-violent means (before the actual violent violation, of course). This is not a horror comedy, exactly, but it's very funny. The fake-out gags, sure, but there is a lot of the reverse, too, where we know something very bad is happening while the characters remain almost comically ignorant of it—in particular, one scene involving a refrigerator that seems to have heavily influenced the early main-character-clueless-of-horror-in-front-of-his-face goings of Shaun of the Dead. Even with all this genre subversion, the movie still hews a little closer to slasher tropes than I'd like—we're still dealing with scantily clad women being cut up, and while this is written/directed by women, which is a relief, I still wonder if this plays too much into the hand of the genre pitfalls. Regardless, mild trepidation aside, I enjoyed this quite a bit. Grade: B+
The big joke about this is that there are no ghosts, nor anything even close to resembling one. So the RKO-mandated title is a gigantic bit of misadvertisement; what we're left with instead is a sort of thin psychological thriller about a ship's officer whose worried that his captain is insane. It's got some pretty good atmosphere and a few nicely tense scenes ("There are some captains who would hold this against you"), which make it entertaining enough that it's not a waste of time. But there's nothing all that remarkable about it, and the beginning portion of the movie is super weak. Grade: B-
Music
I think, if we're being honest here, the only reason most of us still talk about The Sugarcubes is that the group was a jumping off point for Björk, who has totally Beyoncé'd the other fine members of this group with an all-eclipsing solo career. Life's Too Good, The Sugarcubes' debut, is a good record of post-punk energy, but I'm here for Björk, and, with apologies to the rest of The Sugarcubes (who I am sure are talented in their own rights), Björk totally steals the show here with her soaring vocals. The rest is fine. Grade: B
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