Movie Appraisal: Deathwatch (2002)

Deathwatch is an interesting take on the psychological horror genre. I won't say that this is the psychological horror film to end all psychological horror films, nor will I say that it's better than a ton of the mainstays of the genre like Jacob's Ladder, 1408, and Sauna, but I will say that this is a good film for satisfying a bit of a psychological horror junkie.

The film takes place in World War I in the trenches and follows around soldiers from Great Britain as they fight their way through the Germans. The movie has an interesting cold opening followed by a very different kind of set piece altogether. You might think that this is a film about war, and to a point you would be correct, but this is a film about war like Sauna and The Objective are movies about war. There's no real war that we see on screen, rather most of the movie shows us imagery of war and the horrors one could see, from madness, to losing limbs, to forgetting God, to being shellshocked, and others. I feel that this movie shows a decent psychological approach to war, especially World War I and its trench warfare and lack of good medicine.

The barbed wire imagery is especially telling, and I feel it makes this movie even better. I'm not going to praise this movie up and down. There's a lot wrong here even if some of it is done pretty well. The acting is decent, but some of the actors are better than others. Andy Serkis really stands out in his part, blowing away the other actors in this by a long shot. The CGI stuff (I suspect it's CGI at least.) looks pretty fake, but then again this is a 2002 movie, and I guess I can forgive it a bit, since it alternates between looking really good and looking pretty bad. The fog effects are sometimes very good and other times pretty awful.

There are gore effects well, and I do understand why they're there, but I also think some of it was completely gratuitous. I feel that the filmmakers really shied away from very visceral imagery, but at the same time seemed to revel in gore, which makes absolutely no sense if you haven't seen the film. I almost feel like they showed us the wrong scenes as gory save one towards the end that I felt was especially justified to show. Most of the gory scenes felt tacked on and needless where a lot of the scenes that should have had gore shown in them really did shy away from the gore. It really made no sense to me, especially in a horror movie like this.

The cinematography is decent, but not amazing. This is not a masterful psychological horror movie, just an interesting and decent one. Most of the scares come early on in the movie as does most of the atmosphere. By later on the movie really kind of loses all suspense and becomes a glorified slasher film which really took a lot away from this film. It was too predictable, too easy to figure out. There were no interesting twists or turns, no huge revelation, no interesting plot. If you've seen any given psychological horror movie, you've seen this one. The thing going for this one is that it's different. The characters are interesting, it takes place during World War I, and it has a lot of war imagery when most psychological horror doesn't. That's not necessarily a huge plus in my mind, but I do think this movie really does work decently and was kind of enjoyable if not even close to the best film of its genre.

There's not much more I can really say. The ending was silly, the story moved slowly despite being a short film, and I never really felt engaged with anything besides Andy Serkis who was playing, like always, a crazy person.

Man, if I could I would just make a movie about Andy Serkis flipping out. I could watch that guy flip out all day. The best parts of the movie for me were him flipping out at people. I can't stress that enough. If you have some kind of deep Andy Serkis flipping out fetish, this is the movie for you, otherwise just go watch Jacob's Ladder since it's a better war-driven psychological horror movie by far.

Movie Appraisal: Inception (2010)

Okay, I have to collect my thoughts after watching this film. Wow. Just wow. I'm almost speechless. This film was beautiful and extremely well done. This is the kind of movie that every single movie should be. It was wonderful from beginning to end. It surprised me... no, it stunned me. I was expecting something decent and kind of watchable, something like the other films of Christopher Nolan (the director), like Memento or, God help me, The Prestige, neither of which I liked very much. This film was sublime. It was long, but never felt long. It was beautiful and always felt real even though most of it took place within dreams.

It was an exciting experience from beginning to end. The storytelling was top-notch even if it was predictable. (And it was predictable, incredibly predictable.) That's not necessarily a bad thing though. I thought that the film going the way it did was the only way the film could have possibly worked. Any deviation and the film would have been phenomenal and especially not to me.

I'm not saying this is a perfect film, and sure I can criticize and nitpick some small things. The beginning of the film goes very slowly. Some of the characters feel a little thin and kind of unreal, and the whole science-fiction premise is kind of barely based in real science at all. Despite those tiny... and I do mean tiny... flaws, the film is wonderful. Due to the nature of the film and the interpretations you could come out of the film with, the characterizations could make PERFECT sense, as can the slow start, and even the science-fiction premise.

I like films like this. Actually these are the films I not only like, but really love. They are vague and have a huge amount of interpretations and conclusions. This is why I love Jacob's Ladder and 1408 and speak of how good those films are at every turn. Those films have multiple interpretations. They both have such odd things happening that it's hard to believe they are happening in reality. Inception is exactly the same even if it isn't a horror film. It deals with the same arguments of fantasy versus reality and the real versus the unreal. It doesn't show all its hand, and it proves, in my opinion, that even a popular movie can be intelligent and philosophical, unlike drivel like The Matrix.

The story is basically one of a man, Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), trying to find a way back to a normal life after finding himself in a bit of a bind. He is a professional dream thief with his partner Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). They essentially try to steal information from people in their dreams by making a dream world and breaking down a person's mental defenses.

The story unfolds and we find out that Cobb wants to reunite with his children whom he is estranged from for various reasons that I'm not going to spoil. Cobb isn't allowed into the United States for a certain reason and soon after Cobb and Arthur's job fails, the person who they were supposed to steal information from, Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe), approaches them with a new contract. They accept and the story unfolds from there, bringing other characters into the fold such as Eames (Tom Hardy), Yusef (Dileep Rao), and Ariadne (Ellen Page). (I like how they named her Ariadne since she's "spinning" the web of the dream. Really big pun there, folks.)

The story is labyrinthine and beautiful, a tale being woven together through dreams. As the characters go deeper into the dreams, we, the audience, go deeper as well. We learn the secrets as characters learn the secrets... we feel their pain, know their confusion, fight their fight. It's beautiful and satisfying in every sense of those words. I found myself utterly taken in by the plot, following it as closely as a deer follows headlights. What I'm trying to say is that the story is wonderful and brilliant. It's incredibly hard to find something I dislike here. I love the vagueness of it all. I love how some things don't seem to make a ton of sense. I love how some things aren't explained.

Hell, this movie can make a great comparison piece to Black Swan. This movie succeeded where that one failed. This movie left me wanting so much more whereas Black Swan told me way too much. This movie was visually stunning, but didn't rely on that alone, whereas Black Swan only had visuals to fall back upon because its psychological and plot elements were badly done. The film is so much better than Black Swan that it's hilarious. To me this isn't so much a comparison as it is a slaughter. Inception wins by a landslide.

Another obvious film to compare this to is What Dreams May Come, a beautiful movie that shares some similar elements to this film. I don't even really want to go into it that deeply because both films are so beautiful and stunning that I'd rather not spoil anything about them. If you've seen both films, you already know what my comparisons are, and if you haven't seen both films, then go see them immediately, you stupid fool.

There I go calling my readers "stupid fools". Oh, well... can't do much about it now. It's not like I can just erase it or anything... well, I can, but... then I'd have to move my finger and everything... *sigh*... I simply can't be bothered.

I'm going to gloss over the visual effects here. The movie is beautiful, enough said, but it's not the visuals of this movie that make it beautiful, it's the story, the subtle art of the cinematography, the wonderful editing, the great direction, and the amazing acting. Everything comes together and creates a world and a story that I find hard to look away from. This is a movie I didn't want to end because I wanted to see more. I wanted more to happen... and yet it ended exactly where and how it should and left me smiling.

I do have to mention the acting again. It is superb. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Leonardo DiCaprio both really did an amazing job, as did Ellen Page. I've never even seen her in anything before, or Joseph Gordon-Levitt for that matter either, and they both do a wonderful job. It was wonderful to see Ellen Page's awe as she descends into the dream for the first time. And watching Joseph Gordon-Levitt was fantastic. He had an interesting character with a unique outlook. He was pretty cool.

Okay, I'm practically gushing over this film... but, to me, it really is that good. I would happily watch this Inception over and over again, like I would do with Jacob's Ladder, 1408, and Stay if I had the time. It's such a beautiful piece, both psychologically and emotionally, as well as visually, and it's kind of inspiring to know that a film like this can go on to not only be made, but to do well in popular opinion. I haven't even touched upon some of my favorite sequences, as the team, gradually decreasing, goes from a dream into a dream within a dream and into a dream within that dream and so on. It works out so well, showing the tension  on every level of the different dreams. Some of the emotional bits towards the end are absolutely fantastic and beautiful (I keep using that word!) and work so well in my opinion. Again, I don't want to spoil anything, but if you have a heart at all you have to empathize with Cobb and maybe even want to cry a little bit... not that I did for I am a man, but it does get kind of sad, you know? And I wouldn't necessarily blame even a manly man for crying a little tear out of his eye a little bit at the ending sequences... Yeah...

Anyway, I'm going to stop gushing. Go and watch this film. It's really good and really fun and pretty darn wonderful. It was a great film experience. It made me happy.

Movie Appraisal: Black Swan (2010)

So, I went to my annual movie theatre trip tonight and saw Black Swan. It's actually great timing that I saw it when I did because I can compare the movie to Pandorum which I saw earlier today.

Black Swan is a film that has received critical acclaim. The critics absolutely love it. It has cinematography of an art film, but the genre of a psychological film, and some very good acting performances. What I have to ask is why. Why does this film get such good ratings and Pandorum doesn't? This film was well done, but certainly nowhere close to perfect. Darren Aronofsky is a good filmmaker, but he does seem to have issues with certain things. I can safely say that the man likes making his movies into art, and also that I really don't like the endings of the man's films.

The plot here doesn't really even matter. There's a production of Swan Lake by a ballet company and Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman) is a quiet ballet dancer who really wants the role as the Swan Queen. That's about all you need to know about the plot. We're introduced to a few issues throughout, such as some possible emotional problems Nina might have, as well as the demanding pressures of her part and how she wants herself to be perfect.

The psychological aspects of this film come out as Nina changes from the person she has always been to somebody else. Certain themes pervade the film, such as sexuality and lust, a darker half of oneself, and going mad. The sex theme is probably the most interesting to explore. It seems that Nina's introduction to "exploring" herself releases something inside of her, maybe something that had long been hidden away. She becomes empowered as she finds her lusts, but also self-destructive. This is an almost purely psychological film, showing madness as something that can warp one's own reality. I find the idea fascinating, but the execution seems to be lacking.

The acting was very well done. The cinematography was superb. The dancing was beautiful. Hell, most of the scenes in this film look more beautiful than real life. My problem is that the actual film is all over the place. Hectic would be a good word to describe it. The film doesn't have the focus it should have. It focuses on the plot rather than Nina's psychology, which actually takes away from the message the movie was trying to get across. The psychological elements in this film are where the real interest lies, but they're often not really touched upon, or very vaguely shown. I feel like this kind of film needs to either embrace the psychological elements of the film or scrap them... and I feel this film took a very middle of the road approach, which didn't work out.

I look at how wonderful Pi was. It explored the human psyche and the insanity of the mind, and if this film were more like that this could have been great... but instead this film focused too much on an uninteresting plot and psychological details that either went nowhere or were done badly.

I do have my complaints about this film about what it should have done... as well as what it did wrong, but I did enjoy it, maybe not as much as Pi or even Pandorum, but it was really well done. The shots were beautiful. The actors looked like real people in a real story. I liked it... well, I liked it pretty decently until the ending. I don't know what it is about Aronofsky, but any movie he makes I hate the ending of. The last fifteen or twenty minutes of this film was kind of stupid. I loved the last shot and some shots in between, but I found the whole ending sequence fairly stupid and easily predictable. I'm not going to spoil anything. I'm simply going to say that I didn't like it and do not think it worked at all. At a basic level, with a movie with as much realism as this movie showed, the ending should have been better than what they had come up with.

I did like the different aspects of Nina shown in this film though, as well as the beautiful and creepy shots involving mirrors. I thought those were extremely well done. The whole dual nature really was wonderful to see and easily one of my favorite parts of this film. My favorite part of this movie was honestly some of the shots that felt derivative from other, better films... one in particular that I swear was stolen straight out of David Cronenberg's The Fly. I also liked the creepy little man on the subway. Man, he was awesome... and I also felt he was indicative of Nina's own sharp madness by that point in the movie, brought out by newly found lusts, a darker nature, and her own loss of innocence.

This film could have been so much better. It could have been better than Jacob's Ladder, and yet it fumbled in the end-game. The ending made me cringe when it should have made me cry.

I would rather see Pandorum again over this movie any time... and that's why I feel that the critic rating system fails. Yeah, this was a very well made movie, but at times it didn't quite hit my enjoyment center. It didn't speak to me like Jacob's Ladder did. After seeing this film I told one of my friends that I saw it with, "This movie would have been excellent if it had been more like Jacob's Ladder." and I'm sticking with that thought. if Jacob's Ladder is the pinnacle of psychological films then this film is a nice little peak far under it. It's not that it's bad. It's only that there are many other films, especially psychological films, that are better. Go watch Jacob's Ladder if you want a fantastic psychological film. Go watch this film if you want to see some top-notch cinematography. Again, I'd still watch Pandorum over this movie any time.

Critics are morons.

Movie Appraisal: Below (2002)

What a strange movie. I'm not entirely certain how I should review Below. Should I review it as a World War II movie? A submarine movie? A horror movie? A psychological horror movie? A ghost movie? Or some combination of all of those? I just don't know. I don't know what genre this movie is trying to be besides regular creepy.

Below reminds me of Event Horizon in many ways, except it's not even close to as good and is a bit more psychological in some aspects. I don't think it's a bad film per se, but it isn't a great film either. The acting shouldn't even be talked about. The characters were forgettable. The plot was a bit ridiculous. The horror wasn't fantastic (although it was decent), and the best thing this movie had going for it was the claustrophobia.

As a World War II movie, this one has just enough of that era's plot to get by. Honestly though, I can see a movie like this taking place during any era. The few parts that are really World War II era specific aren't done incredibly well. I like the era talk and what I'm supposed to believe are the era's clothing, but besides that this movie really has nothing to do with the era it supposedly is in.

As a submarine movie, it's not a bad flick, showing the claustrophobia and nervousness in such tight quarters. I actually think that the claustrophobic elements in the film are the best things in the film. Most of the imagery involving the limited space is quite well done.

This movie is not really a horror movie. Oh, it has elements of horror, but it's more a thriller... and even that is being generous. It does have a jump scare from time to time and it wants you to believe it's building up the scares for the climax, but it's not. It's just playing games and pretending to be something it isn't. Sad really.

Psychological horror? Ha! This is weaksauce psychological thriller material at absolute best. This is the kind of film that would make Jacob's Ladder laugh with rage! Anybody who even compares this film with a gem like Jacob's Ladder is confused and probably insane.

I guess there are ghosts? I don't really know... It's never explained, which is fine, but it's also not done well which isn't fine at all. I do like the banging coming from outside the submarine. I thought the sounds were very well done, but the imagery really does leave something to be desired. As a horror film it falls apart, but I think it would stand up fairly well if it were a creepy radio drama. As I said, the sounds are actually fantastic.

This is not a great film and I don't have much to say about it. It's decent, but there are so many better films out there... why would somebody watch this over any other given movie? Hell, I only watched this because I was going to watch and review The Beyond by Lucio Fulci and I couldn't because my television was in use. So, I had to freaking settles for watching this on my laptop. Yeah. That's my story for watching this piece of crap movie... Anyway, it's not unwatchable, just not great. Watch it in the background while you're doing something else and you'll have much more fun than if you're watching it.

Movie Appraisal: π (Pi) (1998)

"...Press Return"

π or Pi is a movie primarily concerned with knowledge. It is a very good film, reminiscent of some of the greatest films I've ever seen. It is a great film, full of imagery and emotion. It is about a man who is crazy in the  obsessive kind of way. He probably suffers from some kind of autism. He shows his descent into something beyond madness. It is a fantastic film to watch even if it makes very little sense.

It reminds me of Jacob's Ladder sometimes, especially the scenes that take place in the subway and his room. Quite a few scenes are also heavily reminiscent of Eraserhead (1977) and Un Chien Andalou (1929). There are quite many surreal images throughout the film, and there is also plenty of body horror to go around. Another reason this film reminds me of the two latter films is because of the way the film is shot. It is in black-and-white, and tends to look like a much older film. Some of the filmography looks a bit more recent, but on the whole it is hard to see how this movie wasn't shot in the 1970s. It is very well done. I loved the imagery and the way the character is shown as going increasingly insane in his search and eventual finding of a very important number.

This film is confusing. The soundtrack sounds like some kind of hardcore science music, which is actually quite fitting, although I've never heard a soundtrack quite like it before. The narration from the main character, Max, is fitting, but also out of place in some areas of the film and a bit distracting. I've never been a person who loves narration in film. I think that the film should speak for itself, and if this film was allowed to speak for itself and would let go of its narration, it would be a better albeit more confusing film.

It's also a very disturbing film. The body horror is there. It may not be prevalent, but it does exist. Some of the ant imagery and the slime-goo stuff is kind of creepy, if not downright disturbing. The issues with migraines throughout also are very different. I have migraines, but I never get the hallucinatory and very hardcore migraines that Max has to suffer through. It can be hard to watch at points, and a lot of the more gruesome imagery does very much remind me of Jacob's Ladder. Honestly, that movie and this one seem to be almost like siblings to one another. Jacob's Ladder is the better film, but this movie is trying very hard to be as memorable, as exciting, and as bat crazy as Jacob's Ladder and it does a very good job.

It's not perfect. The shooting of the film seems a bit amateurish, much like the filmography of Eraserhead. But it does a good job showing Max's life falling apart into some kind of insanity. The other characters throughout the film do a good job of changing. They become likened to monsters at points in the films and it's a little terrifying to watch. I must say that the acting throughout the film is one of the reasons to watch it. It has some absolutely fantastic acting. The acting really does make this movie quite a good film.

I did mention that I do have a few issues with this film though. Mostly simple things that kind of bug me. Lenny, a friend character of Max, whom he meets in a diner early on in the film, is a Hasidic Jew who studies the Torah for the true name of God. He works on number theories for finding the name in the text. But he's never heard of the simple Fibonacci Sequence, something that I would think anybody working in number theory would know. I understand the filmmakers were trying to explain the sequence and the patterns seen throughout the film, but that bothered me to no end. I don't study number theory and yet I've heard of that sequence. Hell, I heard about it when I was taking Algebra II in high school. So, it seems that anybody actually studying this stuff would have much more reason than me to know and recognize the term. Some of the other simple explanations bother me as well, but again, they make sense. I was a little confused by some of this movie, and the jump-cuts didn't make it any easier to follow, but I understand. That's the kind of movie the filmmakers were trying to create and it works even though it sometimes makes no sense.

I like the ending of this film, but again, it makes no sense. The thing that leads up to the ending is actually hard to watch... and then the movie ends on a... note? I don't want to spoil it, but it is reminiscent of the beginning of the film. I liked it, but again, it was confusing. This whole movie was confusing, and yet I liked it, and I think anybody who watches this film would like it too if they don't mind being confused.

This film is surreal-horror, of the same genre a movie like Eraserhead would be. It's like a David Lynch film without the David Lynch. It's good, but I could see David Lynch making it both better and more confusing. Great film altogether though. If you enjoyed any of the films I mentioned throughout this review, you'll probably like this movie too.

Movie Appraisal: The Machinist (2004)

The Machinist is usually best known as the movie that Christian Bale lost a ton of weight for. It's a little unfair to the movie honestly. Sure, it's quite an accomplishment to go and nearly become anorexic for a role, but I don't think that an actor being skinny is what a movie should be known for. I guess that's my opinion. I mean, directly afterward Christian Bale had to put on a ton of weight to play Batman... so, I guess what I'm saying is that this movie is only ever known (and most people don't even know the name of the film) because Christian Bale had to gain weight to play Batman after losing weight to be in this film.

This is another of my favorite film genre: psychological horror. I guess the genre can be known as psychological thriller too, but I never liked that term. A thriller implies something different to me than horror, and this film seems very much like a horror film to me... there are some scares, and some genuinely uncomfortable parts... it doesn't quite strike me as a thriller in that regard... I guess maybe it's because I think of a thriller as something by Alfred Hitchcock or a movie that is very much like a Hitchcock film or has a Hitchcock kind of plot. This film, from my own definition, is certainly not a thriller, but a horror film. It's a argument of semantics, but, I think, in this case, it's an argument worth making. Actually Jacob's Ladder has the same problem and I'd argue it even more strongly with that movie and some of the horrific scenes therein.

This movie is a great one to watch at this time of year. It just works so well as a psychological film. I mean, if Jacob's Ladder emphasized both horror and a psychological aspect than this one plays things a little differently. The psychological aspect of this film is much stronger, actively screwing with both the main character's perceptions and the audience's as well. It makes this film a bit of a mind screw, which, in my book, is a good thing.

I like this film. I don't love it. It's not one of my favorite of all time, but I do think it is good. I think it is worth watching. The story and acting are excellent, but I do feel the visuals are not as stunning as other movies of this genre such as Jacob's Ladder (Which was made fourteen years before this one.) or 1408. This movie takes a lot from Jacob's Ladder, either intentionally or unintentionally, and those parts make it interesting if not unique. It's main story is quite fascinating and works out to be quite the puzzle.

I actually think I might have liked the film for one particular reason: The main character suffers from a terrible insomnia that has kept him awake for a very long time. It was this insomnia that caused him to lose a ton of weight. I can sympathize. I have pretty bad insomnia (or something like it) and seeing a movie portray insomnia as this movie does... which is accurately... or semi-accurately... makes me happy. It means that there are still some cages of a life that are terrifying even today, in this age of cell phones, laptops, and very little real horror... the horror of being trapped in your own mind... or trapped by your own emotions... or sleeplessness... is one that really strikes me as genuine.

There you go.

Movie Appraisal: Jacob's Ladder (1990)

Jacob's Ladder just so happens to be my favorite horror film of all time. Why is this? Because it is a damn good film.

I'm not going to explain much about its superb plot, but I will say that it is single-handedly the best psychological horror film I've ever seen, and when my genre of choice is psychological horror, that is saying something. Now, I understand, a lot of people don't know about this movie. A lot of people don't care either. What I'm saying is that people should care. This is one of the few films that people should watch and go, "Wow, I... I don't know what to say... but I like it!"

The chances of that happening are low though. If you don't like David Lynch of some of Cronenberg's trippier movies, don't watch this one. Seriously. It's much more... out there than a lot of movies, and that's not a bad thing, but it's something that most seem to find highly disagreeable.

This film has a story, but it is really weird, and as I said before, I kind of would like to avoid getting into it. instead I'm going to talk of the fantastic visual effects and... well, the look of the movie. It pioneered a lot of psychological horror tropes, including the fast-shaking head kind of deal used in many games and movies afterwards, as well as introducing some of the creepiest scenes in a mainstream type of movie ever.

Yeah, I know there are some trippy films out there, but how many of them are mainstream? How many of them are Adrian Lyne who also happened to direct Fatal Attraction and Indecent Proposal? Actually seeing the other movies he did, it's interesting to note just how different Jacob's Ladder is from the rest. It's actually quite fascinating, especially because Lyne did a really good job with the movie despite not exactly having a background in making movies like this.

I guess this movie can be hard to follow. Honestly, it took me watching this movie twice to actually get some parts of it. It's complicated and there is heavy symbolism in almost every character, situation, and visual.

The film is put together beautifully. I can't help recommending this film to everybody I meet, but I will give a warning: This film is not for everyone. It's tough to watch at points, and it is also very much a horror film despite some beautiful visuals and filmography.

I could watch this film over and over again and never get tired of it. I find that I literally cannot find any real flaws to this movie. I wish all movies were this movie or like this movie because then I'd be happy and wouldn't have to rant about stupid freaking movies like Cast a Deadly Spell.