Hello Dollies

In 2008, Pascal Laugier unleashed Martyrs on the world, gaining a whole lot of love from the horror crowd. His followup, 2012's The Tall Man, was a good film that fell flat to an audience that went in expecting more flayings and came out with something far more positive. 

Now on Shudder, Incident In a Ghostland is Laugier's third film, and seems to dip deep into his bag of tricks. How does it work? Let's see.

Quick Plot: Single mom Pauline is driving her teenage daughters to their new home, an antiques-stuffed remote estate left to her by a late aunt. Oldest Vera is a bit of a brat, while younger Beth is an H.P. Lovecraft-obsessed bookworm with big dreams of being a horror novelist, even if she also happens to be scared of her own shadow.

The ladies haven't unpacked their first suitcase when a pair of violent, rapist murderers barge in. Vera is assaulted as Beth runs for cover and Pauline valiantly battles through multiple stab wounds to save her girls.

Flashing forward, Beth has gone on to make good on her childhood goals, becoming a celebrated novelist (a "master of horror," no less) with a supportive husband and happy young son. Vera, on the other hand, remains in that terrible basement, reliving her trauma over and over again.

Much like Martyrs and The Tall Man, Incident In a Ghostland has a very clear stopping point for a plot synopsis because, what do you know, there's a huge twist that changes everything and makes the film impossible to discuss further. 

This guy, you might say, has a few patterns.

I'll tread around spoiling Ghostland, a film that I can't decide whether to recommend or roll my eyes at. As he's shown before, Laugier knows how to stage an effective home invasion. His villains are unsettling in a slightly new way, but at the same time, do we really need another tale of pretty young woman being raped in a basement?

Yes, Ghostland has some surprises in store. At times, the little reveals are cool, especially in how they stop your eyeballs from rolling all the way to the back of your head once you realize that hipster typewriter has a hidden meaning. But when you sit back and start to add up the sum of Incident's parts, it's hard to find much there to justify some of the easy violence.

Laugier can direct a genre film. Incident In a Ghostland is beautifully shot and very well acted. And maybe that in itself is what makes it a disappointment. He can do so much more without falling into the trappings pretty woman running from rapists. Let's hope for something more interesting next time.

High Points

Look, I don't particularly love the nature of some of Incident In a Ghostland's violence, but as he's proved time and time again, Laugier knows how to make a sequence hurt

Low Points

There's an added awfulness to Incident In a Ghostland's legacy: actress Taylor Hickson, then just 19 playing the young Vera, was injured on set due to, by most accounts, some very irresponsible behavior on the part of the production company (Laugier included). It's one more reason to look at a film about the abuse of teenage girls with some pretty cloudy eyes

Lessons Learned

There's no better reason to write than to keep from going insane

Never underestimate the usefulness of an antique baby doll as a hand-to-hand combat weapon

Rent/Bury/Buy

I have a hard time explaining whether you should actually see Incident In a Ghostland, because I honestly don't know how I felt about it. This is a film FILLED with random creepy antique dolls, and yet I find myself wrinkling my nose trying to figure out whether I should feel some disgust at what's on and offscreen. Ultimately, it's pretty unsatisfying. 

Friends Forever

Pascal Laugier's Martyrs remains one of the most discussed, most celebrated horror films to come out this century. On the surface, it was packaged like a just another example of the French extremity and torture porn movements that had become the subgenre du joir. Look closer and you see a potpourri of styles, from ruthless home invasion to J-horror ghost story. Watch the whole film and take a breath and you get something completely different: a philosophical conundrum that asks deep questions it refuses to answer. It's truly something special, and one that even gets better upon rewatch.

Hollywood being Hollywood, it naturally got remade and dumped into DVD bins right as the world stopped buying DVDs. Naturally, I rented it via Netflix disc. Because there's always one...

Quick Plot: Young Lucie escapes some kind of torturous warehouse, ending up in the care of St. Mary's Orphanage where she is quickly befriended by the kind Anna. Ten years later, Lucie makes a standard homicidal home invasion call to a seemingly normal white collar family. Anna swings by to help and finds herself in shock at Lucie's shotgun violence, believing her friend to be delusional. As she tries to help clean up the mess, she soon discovers a sprawling torture chamber and trapped little girl named Sam, thus proving Lucie right.

So far, so Pascal Laugier's Martyrs. Written by Mark L. Smith of Vacancy, The Revenant, and the very clever Overlord, Martyrs stays extremely close to its source material until a very specific character decision. If you want it revealed, stop now. If you're one of the eight people in the world who care how the American remake of Martyrs turns out, continue.

Unlike Laugier's original, Lucie survives her attempted suicide only to be re-kidnapped by the philosophical torture gang (is there a better way to describe them?), here led by Kate Burton's Eleanor. Anna gets a few rounds of electro-shock torture but proves a victim rather than titular martyr, though her survival instincts kick in to save her from being buried alive, free young Sam one more time, and display some rather impressive hand-to-hand combat moves in an attempt to save her BFF.

Where Laugier's Anna was flayed full body to the point of martyrdom, Lucie gets what seems like a minor scraping. While it's a ridiculous way to nod to the most powerful image of the first film, the final moments of Martyrs actually have something slightly new to say. 

Anna's love of Lucie was always a fascinating aspect of Laugier's film, so if directors Kevin and Michael Goetz were going to do anything different with their remake, centering that certainly works. Anna has a different arc here: initially dismissed as too weak for martyrdom, she reaches it via a different path and seems to ascend side by side with Lucie.

It's an interesting twist, even if it confuses some of the ambiguity of Laugier's film. In 2008's Martyrs, Anna seems to reach the point the torturers seek. When she whispers what she sees into Mademoiselle's ear, the woman reacts by shooting herself in the head. We're left to wonder what Anna said. Was it so beautiful that Mademoiselle couldn't wait to get there? A condemnation for all her sins? My theory has always been that there was nothing there, because what could be worse than realizing the years of hell you've put innocent children through was for naught?

In the Goetz's remake, Lucie whispers something to a different character, who promptly shoots himself in the face. Anna then puts a bullet in Eleanor's head. There's something...odd about that. 

On one hand, sure. Kill the woman in charge who oversaw the torture of your best friend. On the other...what does that really mean? Should we feel vindication that Eleanor never gets to know what martyrs see? 

My point, I suppose, is that there is something to Martyrs 2015 in how it tried to take the original film and explore some different angles within it. Unfortunately, it doesn't really get too far. 

High Points

I hate a lot of the decisions made in Martyrs 2015, but I do think it's important that Smith's script recognizes the connection Anna has to Lucie to be a hugely important element in their story

Low Points

The amount of Bond villaining that keeps a character alive so that she can hear dastardly plans before being almost executed in an elaborate manner is more ridiculous than the sentence I just wrote

Lessons Learned

When burying someone alive, take a few extra seconds to make sure there's no exit route

Or, if the main goal is to kill said person, just kill them

New weapon of choice: a shotgun, which is apparently extremely easy to aim, deadly to use, and fast to load

Pretty Little Final Girls

And with Martyrs, thus do we complete the first unofficial (of what I hope will be many more) round of Pretty Little Liars in horror films. Lucie shares some of Spencer Hastings' determination, so in its own way, it's kind of fitting that Troian Bellisario (who definitely deserves better) finds herself here.

Rent/Bury/Buy

Look, I'm not going to tell you to spend much energy in tracking down and watching 90 minutes of the mediocre Martyrs remake. That being said, I went into this expecting the pits, something akin to the American Pulse. The Goetz's Martyrs will never make the list of best reimaginings, but honestly, it's very far from the worst. While it certainly feels a bit neutered, it also offers a slightly different point of view on the original material. If you're going to recreate one of the best genre films of the last twenty years, you better have some kind of reason other than "Amurikans don't read." There is something here. Is it worth a watch? Not necessarily, but I appreciate the effort. 

Free Healthcare At Its Not So Finest

In case you haven't noticed, it's October! That means this!

and stuff like this!

and some of these!

to go with these!

Also, horror movies! They're back! See for yourself:

Quick Plot: 1979 was six long years before the advent of DNA testing, something The Clinic tells us IMMEDIATELY so as to serve as a constant reminder of why the characters will later do some of the icky things they’ll later do. Got that?

Cut to the happy and exceedingly pretty lookalike couple Beth and Cameron, an engaged pair en route to visit Beth’s parents for Christmas. To do this, they have to drive straight across Australia and since this takes place 26 years before Wolf Creek, you can’t blame them for not knowing only very bad things happen to pretty people who dare drive through the outback.

After a Jeepers Creepers-y incident with an angry truck, the very pregnant Beth and Cameron stop for the night. Having trouble falling to sleep on Christmas Eve at a fleabag motel, Cameron takes a midnight stroll only to return to his room to…nothing.

The local yokel cops are no help, eventually arresting Cameron for getting too fired up about their lack of policing. As he struggles to find Beth, the action shifts to a large warehouse and factory farm facility where Beth wakes up in a tub of ice with a new belly scar in place of her baby.

Before long, she stumbles upon three other women who have recently been subject to unwanted C-sections. All are dressed in plain robes with Roman numeral name tags, and none have any idea how they came to end up in such a place. All they really know is that whoever took their babies also took the time to sew their wounds, although such a minor reprieve isn’t much consolation when a) your newborn is missing and b) there’s a fifth woman on the hunt for all of you.

Before I delve into spoiler territory—something I simply have to do to discuss some of the film’s strengths and weaknesses—let me say that first-time writer/director James Rabbitts is definitely one to watch…as a director.

The performances, design, and pacing of The Clinic is all top-notch. These factors go a long way in helping you forgot some of the positively misguided plotting of the script.

Spoilers will commence. Movie virgins can skip down to Rent/Bury/Buy for the big finish.

For the rest of you cinematic sluts, here goes:

In a twist that seems to call to mind Martyrs meets Battle Royale, we discover that the ladies are part of a twisted adoption agency that kidnaps highly successful pregnant women and pits them against each other in a battle to the death. Whoever survives gets the honor of having her baby adopted by a wealthy couple that then seals the deal by shooting the winning birth mother. 

Now just imagine what these parents will later do to get their kids into a good kindergarden!

As far as horror third act twists go, it’s not a terrible one. Just rather ridiculous, especially considering the ADDED twist that Beth (who was a last minute replacement in the wrong place at the wrong time) is actually a graduate of the infant program, thus explaining mysterious nightmares she’d had her whole life (because somehow, we retain everything that happened in our first week alive) and her surprising survival instincts.

I could STILL forgive The Clinic, logic be damned, if it didn’t make such a mess out of Cameron’s subplot. The late Andy Whitfield (he of Spartacus fame) is perfectly fine in the role, but Rabbitts never quite figures out how to make it work. His side story in trying to find Beth is so erratically timed, taking us away from the warehouse at key moments and ultimately frustrating our focus. I suppose the purpose is for Rabbitts to show just how far up the conspiracy (to, you know, steal rich and famous women’s babies) reaches. But it doesn’t go anywhere and when Cameron, I guess, dies in a car accident, I honestly didn’t even quite realize (or care) that his story was over.

More irksome to me was the glaring unanswered question: what about the five other newborns? One would assume all healthy infant children of well-educated or talented women would still fetch a fair price, but The Clinic never addresses that question. Worse, Beth makes a promise to one of the dying women that she will absolutely care for her baby, but during the final coda, we get nary a whisper of the fact that were other children. Sure, it’s a 90 minute movie and I can assume scenes were deleted for pacing issues, but FIVE ORPHANED NEWBORNS is a pretty sizable hole.

High Notes

As someone who can’t tell one baby from the next, I appreciate The Clinic’s assertion that all newborns pretty much look the same

Low Notes

I know life was different in the ‘70s and that Australia still entered the age of reason, but it’s sure hard to get behind a highly pregnant young woman driving cross country and not wearing her seatbelt

Lessons Learned

Cows make outstanding alarm systems

Australian men children sound an awful lot like your overconfident friend doing a lame impression of Christopher Walken

Just because you had an unwanted C-section 2 hours ago is no reason not to be able to climb fences, flee dingoes, or fight elite athletes in hand-to-hand combat

Rent/Bury/Buy

The Clinic is a frustrating film in terms of its storytelling, but as an independent horror movie coming from a first-time director, it’s not half bad. The actors all equip themselves admirably and the tension is raised with each scene. The film’s problems come from its scattered plotting, but for a 90 minute dark ride, it’s well worth a stream on Netflix. Just leave your brain at the hotel.

Lottos and Torture and Boars, Oh My!

The time has come.

Kind of.

On May 23rd, the world said goodbye to something very special. Scoff at unexplained physics, the mere presence of Nikki & Paulo, and the weekly questioning of “Why are you telling me this?” but for six years, LOST gave us a weekly viewing experience unlike anything else ever seen on television.

So how to fill that Hurley-sized void in your Island-less heart? One way ticket to Hawaii? Pricey. Enlistment in the Dharma Initiative? Perilous. New career as a con man/spinal surgeon/fertility doctor/rock star/protector of golden light? There has to be an easier way!

And naturally, there is and all you need are a few great horror movies. So dear Islanders and Tailies, Sideways inhabitants and Others, I give you a few key elements of your favorite ABC show and how you might fill them.

1. Terry O’Quinn

Even Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof couldn't let go of one of the industry’s longest underrated actors, a bald and enigmatic presence so vital to the universe that he took on a whole new role as Evil (maybe) Incarnate in the final two, post-dead John Locke seasons. So where does one go for that sparking blue-eyed smile that never quite feels right? The late 80s, naturally. In 1987’s The Stepfather (and its first sequel), O’Quinn plays--wait, who is he again? We’ll call him Jerry, the name he takes to woo a lovely widow and later, attempt to kill her and the family she has left. By far the second best way to see this charmer wield an oversized knife.

2. Torture

Sayid, you scamp! From the Iraqi National Guard to Sawyer’s fingernails, everyone’s favorite curly-haired loveboat was quite the expert when it came to inflicting pain. Life won’t quite be the same without his sad puppy dog eyes seeking validation or that petite Benjamin Linus accepting that sweaty fist in his cheek, but thanks to the 21st century trend of torture porn, you can at least pretend their spirits live on. Sure, you could go standard and find a cheap boxed set of Saw or Hostel, but why not make like Charles Widmore sipping aged scotch and go classy with the philosophical genre twisting Martyrs. Yes, you’ll have to read subtitles (unless you decide to wait for the American remake, brought to you by the people who made Twilight which is sure to be the best thing you can possibly ever in your life witness) and yes, the film isn’t for everyone, but much like Lost, Pascal Laugier’s Martyrs takes viewers on an ambiguous, poetic, and post-death journey (maybe) that happens to be accompanied by a whole lot of blood and beatings.

3. Crazy French Woman Trying to Steal Your Baby

Danielle Rousseau, we hardly knew ye, but one thing we were sure of was just how much you missed your little girl. Left alone for 16 years with nothing but surprisingly tame bangs and a rifle, this shipwrecked mother wanted nothing more than her child back in her arms...even if (briefly), she had to take someone else’s. Where to find that special mother with a hole in her heart? Easy: Inside. Beatrice Dalle’s La Femme. Basically, it’s the same exact thing. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

4. Surgeons Under the Influence

From Jack’s shaky pain medicated hands to his dad’s functional alcoholism, Lost was never a role model for hospital interns. Now that Dr. Shepard squared has gone on to a better, hopefully less accident-prone place, where will we fans ever find our illegal and falsified prescriptions of malpracticing hunks? Canada, naturally. In David Cronenberg’s 1988 masterpiece Dead Ringers, Jeremy Irons plays--whaddya know--two related gynecologists slowly slipping into a drug addicted depression. While wielding medical instruments. On women’s vaginas. Wow. This makes a mere 18-hour spinal cord rebuilding look like a romp on the beach.

5. Undoing the Past

“What happened, happened!” shouted so many an island survivor, but Lost’s final season tried awfully hard to put us in a reality where it didn’t. For a somewhat similar plot thread, check out 2004’sThe Butterfly Effect, an ambitiously flawed sci-fi love story of sorts that also shared a few random Lost ties: leading men temporarily bound to wheelchairs, likable dogs, surprise bombs with devastating results, and black-and-white journals that also serve as vouchers for time traveling.

6. Boars

John Locke instantly proved his worth by serving up porkchops his first week as a castaway, but Gary Oldman found himself on the wrong side of dinner when his wheelchair-bound--whoa! double link!--millionaire molester reunited with Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lector.

7. Smoke Monster

Gray precipitation that moistens the air and summons ghosts? Call your lawyer, John Carpenter! Though Smokey, aka The Man In Black When Mobile didn’t have a whole lot in common with the pirate ghoulies of 1980’s The Fog, there are plenty of random links: shipwrecks, radio towers, Maggie Grace (a few steps removed of course). But hey. It’s John Carpenter’s The Fog. Do you really need another reason?

8. The Lottery

Ever say to yourself “If my numbers would just come up, all my problems would be solved!” Then you watched Hugo “Hurley” Reyes lose his friends, grandfather, and sanity in a pile of green and said, “Well, A LOT of my other problems would still be solved!” Maybe you need a harsher lesson in the fickle nature of Lady Luck. If that’s the case, queue up Final Destination 2 for a reality check, where one newly minted motorcyclist learns the hard way that money may buy gold rings and frozen dinners, but it won’t pay off Death to spare you from an eye gouging via fire escape.

9. Plane Crash

First class or coach, passengers on Oceanic Flight 815 started the series with a horror movie of their own, a crash that had the nerve to menace them even on land (pity the poor sucked-into-engine pilot). For the big screen, few films have ever quite matched the chaotic horror of 1993’s Alive, a crash made all the more terrifying by the fact that it actually happened.

10. The Numbers

Though we never learned the true significance of 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42, just knowing such digits held mystical and/or electromagnet powers was enough to keep us constantly ruminating on their place in the world (and on our own lottery tickets). What better companion piece is there then, than Vincenzo Natali's low budget 1997 mystery Cube, a film which shares Lost’s penchant for ambiguity, mismatched people forced to work together, and characters named after something they vaguely represent (in this case, American prisons). Also, savvy mathematicians (which thankfully includes one of Cube’s leads) are quick to latch onto the numerals found inside each cubic doorway, decoding their meaning and thus providing Losies with their own fan-fiction fantasy answer involving square roots and booby traps.