Madman / *1/2 (1981)

The unpleasant, dreary and humorless “Madman” is frequently cited among a handful of early 80s slashers as a genre standard, but it operates on one level that seems lost among its most loyal admirers: as a workshop for Darwinian selection. It was the great naturalist who first suggested the human race was the byproduct of centuries of inherent culling – that over time, a species was destined to conform to the environment it lived in while the inferior genetics would simply be forced to die out. One can argue a horror movie buried in the framework of the dead teenager standard always plays right into this theory, but rarely has it been so obvious, or indeed as unfortunate, as what filmmakers freely put on display here. The characters that populate the foreground of Joe Giannone’s film are suspiciously stupid, even by the measuring stick of his own premise. They barely function as humans, seeming lost in a haze of thoughts that are mechanical and uninformed. Their faces are frozen in confusion. They engage one another like they have no sense of individualism. Their dialogue is forced beyond comprehension, as if assembled by frequent trips down the greeting cards aisle of the Hallmark store. And that of course means they will be ill-prepared when they are required to react during a confrontation with a local legend, a deceased farmer who has returned to form to do away, I guess, with anyone that wanders into the woods he used to live in. Is he a maniac at all, or merely a soldier for evolution?

Red Eye / *** (2005)

Wes Craven’s “Red Eye” begins with an abundance of strategic visual cues that recall the framework of some of the more sensational Hitchcock endeavors: shots of a stolen wallet, a crate of ice aboard a fisherman’s boat, urgent feet peddling through an airport terminal and news broadcasts about vague threats to homeland security. As isolated devices they seem far too fragmented to be congruent, but those well-versed in the language of movie thrillers know they must add up to something – in this case, a plot that must match urgency with underlying political intrigue. But what horrors are we inclined to contemplate, really, when the most threatening exchange occurs in a hotel lobby between an inexperienced clerk and two disgruntled guests? How are we to assume such menace is around the corner when the two leads, a pair of people who seem to meet incidentally at the terminal, share drinks in the bar and exchange stories that seem more like precursors to romantic interest? The genius of Craven’s long-standing affinity for such premises is that he knew exactly how to throw his audience off the scent of the danger, even though his most loyal viewers knew it must be inevitable. How many astute people consciously thought of ensuing violence, mind you, after Drew Barrymore answered a call from a wrong phone number at the beginning of “Scream?”

Cabin Fever / *** (2002)

Most directors of horror films are notoriously suspicious of human behavior. Eli Roth chuckles unsympathetically at their stupidity. That is not unfounded wisdom on any of those in the audience, who must approach a handful of his endeavors from a perspective that must accept the characters as casualties long before they are brought to elaborate slaughter. To see them is also to sense the impassive perspective of young adults in the 21st century, most of whom usually find themselves thrust into dire situations that would normally require years of therapy to recover from (assuming they were to stay alive long enough to book an appointment). Ironically, their director’s goals are much more singular than the contemplation of a reaction in a face: they are more an opportunity for his images to capture the ambitious dexterity of makeup and visual effects artists, many of them credited with some of the most brutal undertakings ever seen on a big screen. And yet one can’t help sense the delightful grinning going on behind the scenes, or the suspicion that crew members look at it all as a devious way to play the audience. There is pleasure in the violence, not any sense of serious deliberation. The approach might be admirable in a Sam Raimi sort of way if it also didn’t feel so utterly nihilistic.

Candyman / ** (1992)

The opening shot of “Candyman” drips with the devious enthusiasm of a great ghost story. During a rather intricate voice-over that suggests ominous meaning for doubters of an urban legend, the sky behind the cityscape of Chicago is seen filling with swarms of bees – a jarring shadow cast over civilized procedure. They symbolize something foreboding: specifically the coming of an entity that once fell victim to them, a young black man at the end of the 19th century whose love affair with a white girl resulted in his merciless death at the hands of violent racists. Those are details that come to light, however, in an investigation nowhere near as compelling as the establishing visuals portray it; told in a style of filmmaking that doubles down as an investigative mystery, what we eventually find ourselves joining in on is an excursion through the lurid nightmares of the low end of the class system, a parable about how belief in the impossible allows it to become an applicable facet of fear and suffering in the modern world. And yet the movie never really has an understanding on what the real evil should be: the villainous visage standing in the shadows, or the social elements that have given him power over the meek and superstitious.

Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II / * (1987)

Mary Lou isn’t some innocent teenage girl caught in the throngs of high school lust and deception: she’s a vixen preordained to be one of those homicidal sorts frequently seen in mainstream horror movies. Or at least that is what the early trajectory suggests in “Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II,” until a disgruntled boyfriend tosses a lit stink bomb down the rafters and sets her on fire, forever cursing her to an afterlife without a prom queen’s crown. But as is the virtue of any living force destined to undo the happiness of others, goals so devious are only delayed instead of thwarted. And though it takes nearly 30 years of death to recharge her vengeful spirit, inevitably she will return to the sight of her demise and exact justice on others, whether they were participants in the tragedy or not. Audiences come to expect that sort of excursion ad nauseam in these sorts of pictures, but for a sequel that follows the footsteps of a rather ordinary teenage formula, what would have been the harm in changing it up a little? The scene of her death is so frustratingly passive that it creates rather persistent paradoxes: no one standing at the site of her demise seems eager to show the slightest interest in rescue, much less mere shock. Perhaps it would give too much credit to a teenage mind, but if I was killed in a fire and all of my classmates just stood by and watched me become a cinder, you can bet that every last one of them would be high priority on a revisit list the moment my ghost form returned to reality.

Prom Night / **1/2 (1980)

I am often amazed at the foolish tricks of absurdity that filmmakers play on their audiences, some of them so obvious that even lesser minds can see through their clichéd reasoning. Think for a moment about this predicament and then dial your mind back to “Prom Night,” one of the early slashers of the 1980s. Here is a movie about a group of kids who wander into an abandoned building, play a rather vindictive game of hide-and-go-seek and then spook the youngest girl into a situation that causes her accidental death. Surprised and dismayed about their situation, the remaining four swear an oath to never speak of their involvement in her fall from an upstairs window, and venture back into their ordinary lives in total silence. The camera briefly spies a shadow standing over the girl’s body to suggest a living eyewitness, and then abruptly advances six years to revisit the participants as they are preparing for their high school prom. Each of them receives an ominous phone call: a voice on the other end offers low growls of doom, and a hand is seen crossing their names off on a checklist. And somehow the audience is expected to believe that all four kids – some of them likable – could actually walk through life for this long without ever confessing their sins, or that their one witness has the patience to wait to a single moment so many years later to exact revenge on them.

The Entity / *** (1982)

The horror always arrives in rather dramatic waves. It is never predestined or planned, although isolation appears to be the catalyst for its shameless persistence. “The Entity” by Sidney J. Furie, one of a plethora of forgotten horror films from the early 80s, deals with this scenario on a narrative bedrock that defies mere convention: it tells the story of a woman – ordinary, single and straddled with three young children – who arrives home one evening and finds herself assaulted by an invisible presence in her bedroom. And it is no simple attack she undergoes, either: the nature of it is sexual, and the intensity of the incursion is such that she emerges from it shaken to the core, as shocked as she is violated. Others regard the incident with displaced uncertainty – how can anything happen if no one is in the room? – but here is a woman relatively sane by the measures of her peers, forcing added considerations. Maybe someone was in the room all along that simply waited in the shadows. Maybe the culprit rushed out of sight before witnesses could spot him. Maybe those strange incidents of doors slamming suggest a stalker is hard at work. Or maybe, just maybe, there is something transpiring in her world that defies mere convention, ultimately setting her up for the obligatory guffaws of friends and professionals who assume she is either making it up or acting out from some buried subconscious reasoning.

Don't Breathe / *** (2016)

Theft of one’s property is a usually inspired by some external dilemma undermining the lives of the culprits. Seldom is the conviction spurred by mere greed or foolishness – it often comes from a place of desperation, an inkling to believe there is no way to escape a situation unless another’s money or assets can paint clearer paths through the confusion. Consider, for instance, what it means for young Rocky (Jane Levy) to belong to a trio of professional burglars in “Don’t Breathe” – though her team contains a token tough shot and a shy third wheel with a persistent crush on his female peer, all of her motives lead back to a necessity to escape a troubled family life filled with drugs, abusive stepfathers and prostitution. A ransacking of a stranger’s house is not so much an illegal act as it is an extreme measure that must lead to somewhere other than the cold mean streets of the Midwest, and though brief moments of self-awareness paint those deeds in ambiguity, there is no skepticism strong enough to keep her from that destiny. Surely a middle-income family in the suburbs can do without a few worldly possessions, after all, if it means an unlucky girl in the slums might use them to buy her way out of her own pathos.

Halloween / *** (2007)

Masks are an integral device for the characters in Rob Zombie’s films, a tool that allows their dark agendas to manifest in the comfort of an elaborate masquerade. They seem to be, to them, a protection ward of sorts: to possess one implies that a victim may never be able to connect with the face of the person harming them, an essential function of holding power in a moment of violent aggression. A more revealing display would undermine the point of the pain they inflict. This is not elusive wisdom to any filmmaker that has ever overseen a vehicle involving murderous maniacs who wear such disguises, mind you, but almost always they were simply a ruse to keep audiences from discovering the identity (or at least the face, usually disfigured) of the culprit. But as we gradually move our way through the career of one of the more notable horror film impresarios of the 21st century, deeper reasons behind the implication are now at the forefront of discussion, and the line separating a dependable gimmick from its underlying psychology is gradually fading into the reveries of the past. Now it is hard to watch any film about such villains without instantly thinking of how thoroughly the façade unleashes a beast rather than hides it.

The Tree of Life / *** (2011)

Five years ago during a brief moment of inspiration, I sat down at a computer keyboard and pounded out the following words about Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life”: as ambitious as it is pretentious, the movie is as much a statement about the arrogance of its director as it is about one’s place in this world, which seems to be all about behaving childishly as a response to strict parenting rather than, you know, anything as profound as the images that surround it. That essay was never finished – among many others in the quietest writing period of my life – which may have been a blessing in some oblique manner. If hindsight is the tool that changes the way we look at things, then it became a valuable asset during a recent revisit of said opus, many moons after I had made a point never to see it again. Had I been wrong in my observations? Or just naïve? Perhaps the definition of my reality had given me cause to question what the director’s obligations were to his own thesis. For me, the broad context of the universe meant more than the idea of a mere kid moving in between attitude problems and parental persecution. But now I see that our little space is as relevant as we make it, and to deny the small things that make us who we are is to negate the point of asking the broader questions.

Blair Witch / *** (2016)

And so once again I find myself confronted by the unnerving horrors of the Black Hill Forest, the site of a fable that haunts visitors who wander in for a glimpse of the evil hidden between trees. That legend is of course the notorious Blair Witch, a cursed demonic entity that rose to infamy in the whispers of superstitious townsfolk over two centuries and then gained added footing when three young filmmakers disappeared in search of her existence. It’s been over 20 years since those famous events transpired in the frames of a documentarian’s handheld cameras, but little has dissuaded the curiosity of outsiders – including the brother of one of those missing three, who comes of age and decides, perhaps justly, that there is still validity in wondering about the strange events. What happened to his sister all of those years ago? How come her footage was found, but not a trace of her or her two peers? Is she really dead, or does she remain in the woods as an eternal slave to the demonic energies of the witch? You’d think that nearly two decades worth of time would calm the turbulence of those suspicions, but I guess some malevolent spirits never lose their potency when they know cameras might be rolling.

Kubo and the Two Strings / ***1/2 (2016)

One of the lost pleasures of the movies is going into a theater and gaining the sense that you have been absorbed in the far reaches of a new imagination. Just 16 years into a century of technical breakthroughs and creative dexterity, so few endeavors ever deal with concepts as novel as they are thorough. But “Kubo and the Two Strings,” a new stop-motion animated film from Laika Entertainment, is the antithesis of that belief, a film of nourishing visual insights and visionary storytelling that inspires as thoroughly as it dazzles. And that’s a surprise worth noting when one becomes aware of how taxing the endeavor must have been on its visual artists, who logged countless hours on building elaborate sets and crafting intricate details for a story set in medieval Japan. What inspired them to take the route they did, especially when the premise they were working with felt tailor-made for the styles of Hayo Miyazaki? Helmed by Travis Knight (who was among the skilled animators of “The Box Trolls” and “Coralline”), what pulsates on screen is nothing short of a remarkable artistic achievement, willfully empowered by clever facets in the edges and characters that have the adventurous spirit of some of the classic Disney heroes.

Watchmen / ***1/2 (2009)

A single character in “Watchmen” sits above the procedure of a superhero plot, and when he speaks the dialogue reflects a self-awareness that treads deeper waters than what is expected of these sorts of cinematic excursions. Known by his colleagues as Dr. Manhattan, he is the byproduct of an experiment that inadvertently liberated his spirit from the constraints of flesh and bone, and throughout the movie he is seen hovering through space like an ethereal body builder: sculpted, naked, trapped in a glow, never seeming to be more than an apparition in a fantasy version of reality. Perhaps it is his destiny to rise to the status of deities, or transcend the common knowledge of the race he was born from. But there is a wisdom in his observations that seems derived from more than the mere philosophies of Arthur C. Clarke or Stephen Hawking. When he speaks of walking across the surface of the sun or regarding the death of the human race as nothing to the context of a vast universe of possibilities, some part of us shrivels down to our bare defenses, sensing the painful truth of the statement. So elusive is the opportunity to extract such morsels from the fabric of a populist vehicle that they hit hard and swift, ultimately changing the trajectory of our embrace when most might have considered this little more than an ambitious and colorful – if pessimistic – story about masked crusaders attempting to function in a rather bleak human society.

Florence Foster Jenkins / *** (2016)

The blessing of talent is a wonder undermined by self-doubt, while those created from a strong work ethic tend to discover the tenacity not often afforded to their peers. “Florence Foster Jenkins” is a movie about a woman who loves musical theater so dearly that she rises to notoriety because of her loyalty to the industry, far beyond the realization that she is also can be a rather bad singer. Friends and loved ones have shielded her from that reality out of an unconditional loyalty that stretches past the mere acceptance of great vocal range; everyone allowed in the room knows what they are hearing is tone-deaf meandering, and yet her impassioned confidence on stage silences critical ears and earns unanimous praise. But how does no one (at least up to a point) take a moment to be honest with the kind and gentle soul standing in front of the piano? Couldn’t she only benefit from the wisdom of a good ear instead of being crushed by it? Not all souls can easily escape the fragile nature of their history, and the context of Ms. Jenkin’s blissful ignorance is best summed up in a pair of scenes involving the reaction of a feisty female audience member, who in an early moment laughs hysterically at the performance and then in a later one silences countless others doing the same – “At least she up there singing her heart out!”

Ghostbusters / *** (2016)

Dialogue was one of the key strengths of Ivan Reitman’s immortal “Ghostbusters,” and when contrasted against special effects that were destined to become dated paradigms of the past it resisted the contextual erosion of most mainstream comedies. To hear the characters discuss their problems now is to sense two certainties: 1) the thorough skill of its writer, Harold Ramis, who was perceptive of human behavior beyond the momentary jabs of a punchline; and 2) the realization that the characters were responding to the material exactly as they needed to, regardless of how funny or whimsical their approach may not always appear. That’s because they were smart and had the foresight to explain themselves in the logical circles they routinely found themselves trapped in, where most would ordinarily be reduced to shrieks of terror or displaced from coherence. No one – least of all the Ghostbusters themselves – knew exactly how to regard a world where they were being consciously haunted by a series of bizarre specters, but to lose your sense of humor in the thick of all things weird might have been more damaging to one’s focus. No satisfactory resolution would have occurred with this sort of premise if those at the helm weren’t driving through it with a keen sense of awareness.