The Kings Of Summer (2013)

2014-07-26

Real world Fruit Ninja wasn't half as much fun. — Real world Fruit Ninja wasn’t half as much fun.

Twitter Plot Summary: A trio of friends head out into the woods and build their own house, away from their parents.

Five Point Summary:

1. Oppressive home atmosphere.
2. Ramshackle home in the woods.
3. Parent search.
4. Girl trouble. Standard.
5. Snaaaaaaaake!!!!!

Two best friends and a slightly creepy kid (they don’t want to get rid of him because they’re scared of what he may do if spurned) decide to get away from their oppressive home lives and build a house in the woods. In one instance it is a genuinely oppressive atmosphere – Joe struggles in his relationship with his father who maintains strict discipline following the death of Joe’s mum. His best friend Patrick, meanwhile, finds himself oppressed by his parent’s cloying niceness. The third kid, Biaggio, is quite small compared to the others, and very weird to boot. We don’t get as much of an insight into his life beyond his friendship with Joe and Patrick, but there’s enough there to know that, despite his weirdness, he appreciates their company and they appreciate his, to an extent.

Kings of Summer perfectly captures the spirit of a summer break from school, albeit one taken to its extreme by escaping to the woods. The friendship between Joe and Patrick is believable, more so when they come to blows over a girl. As they spend more time in the woods Joe falls foul of his own rules (he goes to a minim-mart for food rather than hunting wild animals, for example) and the friendship fragments, it occurs almost exactly as it would in reality – hormones getting in the way of everything else, true to form. It’s also easy to see on this basis why both Joe and Patrick have such an adverse reaction to their parents as they are very similar in personality which naturally leads to conflict.

The script is nicely offbeat and amusing throughout. Why else would Biaggio be there other than to provide a palpable sense of weirdness? In fairness he does also act as a counterpoint to Joe and Patrick, able to see their friendship from an outsider’s perspective and offer his thoughts, whether they’re taken on board by the others or not. Nick Offerman is a deadpan delight, finding the right balance between slightly stand-offish parent and clearly caring for his son yet trapped in his own circle of grief.

Further support is provided by Mary Lynn Raksjub and Thomas Middleditch as police officers investigating the boys’ disappearance, and they provide further deadpan funnies alongside Offerman. A scene where they herd a group of local parents together to search through the woods maintains that offbeat tone and clearly wouldn’t happen like that in reality, but it works within the context of the film so it’s easy to let this one slide.

If you can level any complaints against the film, it’s that the resolution is a little too convenient for what precedes it, and everything is tied up a little too neatly. The reaction of the parents to the boys’ disappearance too seems like an afterthought and you don’t get the impression that they are really too bothered about finding their sons. Still, this isn’t a huge complaint and doesn’t detract too much from the enjoyment that Kings of Summer provides.

Score: 4/5

Sabotage (2014)

Simon Prior

2014-07-25

Twitter Plot Summary: A crack DEA team are bumped off one by one after they steal $10 million from a drug cartel.

Five Point Summary:

1. Arnie rocking a funky haircut.
2. Big explosion! Then… lots of not much.
3. They’re getting dead. Or something.
4. More of them getting dead.
5. Ahh, there’s a sting in the tail.

There are two aspects to Sabotage’s plot. The first has that old school 80s action movie vibe, which occasionally rears its head amid a flurry of gunfire and well structured action sequences. The other side of the story is more ponderous, a slow burning thriller as Arnold’s grizzled veteran commander John “Breacher” Wharton, with the assistance of Olivia Williams’ agent Caroline, tries to work out who is killing off members of his team. They are part of a DEA task force who don’t quite play by the rules – they kick things off by stealing $10 million from a cartel, after all.

These two disparate styles often act entirely at odds with one another, creating a disjointed film punctuated by brief moments of action. If it had made efforts to be one or the other then the final result would have been much better. When the action sequences kick off they’re rather good indeed, blood splattering everywhere and lots of people, in the words of Terrence Howard’s Sugar, getting dead. Between those moments are what is on face value a well structured thriller, but to combine it with the big action beats in this way doesn’t work at all.

The fact that the team are being bumped off one by one isn’t so much of a problem, it’s that we don’t get any chance to know the characters in any depth before that starts happening. The best defined relationship is between Sam Worthington’s “Monster” and his on-screen wife Lizzy Murray played by Mireille Enos, but that’s only because they’re married. If that hadn’t been a defined relationship then they would be as equally two dimensional as the rest of them.

If you're FBI, you always wear cool shades. — If you’re FBI, you always wear cool shades.

Olivia Williams is strong in her role (as she is in everything else) but is wasted in this film – she needs something with more consistency to get her teeth into. The rest of Breacher’s DEA team are as you would expect, competent but nothing spectacular. There will be a few faces you recognise from other things, Sam Worthington and Terrence Howard most notably, but there’s also Josh Holloway in a token “he hasn’t done much since Lost ended” appearance, and Max Martini who some will recognise from Pacific Rim. Mireille Enos meanwhile shows up as the obligatory tough female member of the team, and has a surprisingly solid story arc throughout.

On a more positive note, the antihero Arnold is something we’ve not seen him do before, and roles similar to Breacher are perhaps the best type of character he can play at this point in his career. Furthermore, Breacher is damaged goods following what recently happened to his family, and whilst Arnold doesn’t have that much depth, he manages to carry the emotional weight of this incident without too much concern. Arnold looks like he’s having a bit of fun at least, even if the material he’s given is perhaps not quite on par with his action roles of years gone by. And that’s perhaps the biggest problem with Sabotage: the ideas are there but it falls slightly short of where it was aiming for. A worthy effort, but ultimately it misses the mark.

Score: 2/5

Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)

Simon Prior

2014-07-24

Corey Feldman has let himself go a bit... — Corey Feldman has let himself go a bit…

Twitter Plot Summary: There’s more shenanigans going on around Crystal Lake as Jason returns from the dead and starts killing folks. Again.

Five Point Summary:

1. What’s Fackler doing in this?
2. Why does anybody spend time near Crystal Lake? Seems like a ridiculously bad idea.
3. Crispin Glover’s dancing should never be seen in public.
4. Tom Savini’s effects are always worth seeing.
5. Corey Feldman. Legend.

Things certainly stepped up a gear in the fourth and, apparently, final chapter in the Friday The 13th series, but not because the script, acting or production values are particularly higher than previously, because they’re not. No, what we have here is an improvement in terms of relative star power. Not only does The Final Chapter star 80s icon Corey Feldman, but Crispin Glover also makes an appearance and the special effects are from the hands of Tom Savini. Even if the rest of the film was terrible, which it kind of is, these three names alone make The Final Chapter a film worth seeing.

Once the obligatory recap of the previous story is out of the way (again serving no purpose), this time covering all three previous films and a montage of the better deaths so far, Jason is dead and his body lies in the hospital morgue. For about five seconds, that is. Before you know it he’s inexplicably back on his feet, resurrected and slashing his way through everyone in his way. In other words, it’s business as usual.

In a series first, it’s not just the teens who are keen to get it on, and it’s apparent that Mr Voorhees objects to carnal pleasure from people of all ages, not just those pesky teenagers. In fact it’s enough to make him come back from the dead and turn into an unstoppable, impassive killing machine. Other than these initial deaths (including a rare non-Police Academy appearance from Bruce Mahler, aka the accident prone Fackler), Jason once again focuses on the youths who are currently holidaying in a cabin on Crystal Lake. Seriously, given the short amount of time that has passed between each film thus far, you’d think the entire area would be cordoned off for further investigations by now. There’s a real health risk involved with any activity around Crystal Lake, so why go there?

Crispin Glover dancing. Can not be unseen.

This is perhaps the point where the franchise started to create its own identity rather than ripping off earlier grindhouse pictures. Unlike the Elm Street series which had its history and identity sewn up from the start, it took three films before anything improved for Jason. Even the method of titling this film series lacks consistency – are you going to use numbers, Roman numerals or text subtitles to describe the films? Oh that’s right, you’re going to use all three. With that said, the improvements are once again only minor – a slightly better calibre of actor makes up for the now obligatory cliche story. Rather than make any serious effort to explain why Jason returned from the dead, it just gets down to business – that of Jason killing people in a variety of inventive ways.

It’s here where the special effects genius that is Tom Savini comes into play, as the deaths and method of dispatch are fantastic in every respect. Savini knows exactly how to get the most out of a brief spurt of violence, none more so than the final assault on Jason – it’s as gruesome and super cool as the series has managed thus far.

Whilst originally intended to draw a line once and for all under Jason’s story, the finale leaves it open for another sequel (of course) and subsequently ensures that the likelihood of Crystal Lake ever achieving five minutes of peace and quiet are highly unlikely. The Final Chapter also lacks that funky 80s theme song used in Part III, which is perhaps the biggest crime of them all besides Crispin Glover’s dancing.

Score: 2/5

Friday The 13th Part III (1982)

Simon Prior

2014-07-23

Twitter Plot Summary: Not only does Jason finally put on his iconic mask, but he also does so in THREE DIMENSIONS!

Five Point Summary:

1. Stop poking sticks at me, bro.
2. The motorcycle gang are bad.
3. The fat guy is annoying. Really annoying.
4. Nice groin-related death.
5. Jason unmasked! Gnarly.

In what apparently became a standard aspect of the franchise, Part 3 opens with a replay of the final scene from Part 2, with Jason Voorhees seemingly defeated… temporarily at least. Events continue shortly from that conclusion as yet another bunch of teens arrive in the area – and this time there are even more of them who are no doubt all going to die in the next 90 minutes. Unlike the previous two groups of unfortunate teens, a few of this group do at least have some defining characteristics. One of the guys is overweight and a bit ugly, for example, and insists on playing silly pranks as a coping mechanism for his poor genetics.

There’s a couple of new elements added to the mix, most notably a motorcycle gang, more relationships between the young cast – both good and bad – and the introduction of the now iconic hockey mask, although that doesn’t stop the film from being filled with cheap jump scares and shrieking musical cues. Literally everybody in the film is a potential target, and odds are that in the same tried and tested formula that all but one of them will die.

Part 3 was released in 3D, which was no doubt absolutely awful in 1982. This results in a number of moments where the filmmakers are clearly giving the audience 3D moments, although in the least dramatic ways possible – a TV antenna and a washing line prop are two early examples of characters pointing things towards the audience, and a yo-yo is introduced later on just to show off the 3D effects. They’re all the more obvious when not watching it in 3D, and with few exceptions little of it relates to Jason’s killing spree.

As for the killing frenzy he embarks on, it does raise the question as to why he continues with it at this stage, other than initially seeking revenge for the death of his mother. Maybe he just objects to teenagers having fun? In any case, he’s dressed a touch more appropriately for the situation this time around, and now he can at least see where he’s going. The series lacks any consistency beyond the teen deaths in this respect – you never saw Freddy Krueger undergoing this many wardrobe changes.

In a couple of areas that Part 3 does get right, there’s a good third of the film without any killing after the opening death salvo, and the subsequent build-up of suspense is actually rather well done. The various deaths are a step up in terms of variety and style, and even the climactic showdown with Jason has a bit more to it – there’s even opportunity to prove that he can be stopped with a little bit of lateral thinking and good luck. Or the writers trying to dig themselves out of a hole of their own creation, of course.

If you can’t take any other positives from Friday the 13th Part 3, then take this: the funky 80s theme song, whilst cheesy, is actually quite good. In fairness, you don’t even have to watch the film to enjoy it.

Score: 1.5/5

Friday The 13th Part 2 (1981)

Simon Prior

2014-07-22

Twitter Plot Summary: It’s more of the same, but this time Jason shows up to do a bit of killing instead of letting his mum have all the fun.

Five Point Summary:

1. Oh look, another group of innocent teenagers.
2. Oh look, more gratuitous female nudity.
3. So… are we just repeating the plot of the first film here?
4. Yet more blood and screams…
5. Nice fashion sense, Jason. Pillow cases over your head are all the rage.

Friday The 13th Part 2 opens with an extended montage which covers the final moments of the first movie, which seems a touch excessive given the 86 minute run time of this mostly unnecessary sequel. Still haunted by the deaths she witnessed at Camp Crystal Lake, sole survivor Alice gets a few minutes of screen time to establish her mental anguish before she’s swiftly bumped off by an unknown assailant. Sorry anybody who was expecting a surprise in this respect, but it’s typical slasher horror territory and you should know by now that anybody who returns from a previous movie will die. It seems that despite everyone dying, there is still unfinished business at Crystal Lake for Jason Voorhees.

We then move quickly on to the new batch of nubile teens who are either so young and pert it’s nigh-on intolerable or so ridiculously stupid they deserve everything that happens to them. They are all training to be counselors at a lakeside camp not far away from the infamous Camp Crystal Lake. Predictably, another killer has reared their mostly obscured face and begins to bump off the new counselors. As if they didn’t have enough on their minds beyond learning a new job and trying to keep their hands off each other.

The grindhouse horrors are still predominant throughout with each death being typically violent and slightly gory, and wisely this sequel doesn’t outstay its welcome – there’s only about 75 minutes of new material if you ignore the opening montage and the end credits. This is for the best, as to stretch it out much further would be spreading an already thin story too far. There really isn’t enough here to warrant a feature length running time, and compares quite unfavourably to the original. In fact it’s basically the same story but with a burly male killer rather than the rather meek-looking Mrs Voorhees. Any and all attempts to explain events are thrown out the window in favour of following the same template as part 1 almost to the letter. It gives the impression that they didn’t write a new script, just crossed out the old character names and put new ones in.

Despite suggestions she should take her top off, she quickly realised that keeping her top ON was the only thing keeping her alive.

If there was any doubt about the franchise being nothing more than cheap exploitation, then Part 2 cements it. Women regularly strip down to nothing for no reason at all other than to demonstrate they’re young enough for things not to sag, and libidinous teens are killed just for thinking about having sex – they receive a far more violent punishment if they’re actually caught in the act.

It’s abundantly clear that Friday the 13th only really stepped into franchise territory once Jason put on the now iconic hockey mask and morphed into the unkillable machine he would become in later franchise efforts. These early productions either don’t feature him at all or show him running round looking like some incompetent yokel killer who has signed up to become a member of the Ku Klux Klan. In this guise Jason is a frankly incompetent killer. Perhaps he should have focused more on perfecting his killing techniques rather than fashioning a mask out of an old pillow case, he might have been something worthy to write about that way.

Score: 1.5/5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7Uq0GUcZlM

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

Simon Prior

2014-07-21

Twitter Plot Summary: It’s been ten years since the simian flu wiped out most of humanity. A commune of survivors butt heads with Caesar’s ape community.

Five Point Summary:

1. As soon as you say you’ve not seen a human for a while, it’s obligatory for them to show up.
2. CGI apes look good. Almost too good.
3. The ape commune is a great piece of design.
4. Apes on horseback… with guns!
5. So what does Gary Oldman’s character have going for him, other than an old iPad?

Following on from the events of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, where humanity was crippled by the spread of a simian flu virus, some 10 years have now passed and the apes have formed a primitive society in the forests near San Francisco. It’s been 2 years since the apes have seen any humans, but just as they start thinking they may all have been wiped out, a small group of humans show up and one of them happens to get a bit trigger happy when confronted with an ape. This sets off a sequence of events that you know will ultimately lead to a face-off between human and ape.

The plot is very well structured, the action escalating naturally and doesn’t get padded out any more than is needed, running for a not unpleasant 2 hours 10 minutes. It’s all designed to get us one step closer towards the original Planet of the Apes movie, and does so without sacrificing the tension or reducing the stakes for either side. Indeed, all signs point towards a bust-up of epic proportions in the next film, although Dawn is not light on well designed action sequences. Whilst there aren’t any scenes nearly as powerful as Caesar’s first words in Rise, the sight of apes carrying guns and riding horses is one that will stick in the mind.

The CGI effects too are simply fantastic. Matt Reeves’ decision to film the motion captured sequences on location rather than restricting them to a sound stage not only marks a step forward in technical innovation but also immerses the audience in the situation and easily permits us to suspend disbelief as the apes communicate via sign language and, as the story progresses, more and more verbal dialogue.

If there’s one area that could do with improvement is the characterisation of the surviving humans. Jason Clarke does plenty with the limited amount given to him as ape sympathiser Malcolm, and there is some competent support from Keri Russell and Kodi Smit-McPhee as Malcolm’s girlfriend and son respectively. Gary Oldman leads the human settlement but isn’t given nearly enough to do. Other than one brief scene where he laments the family he lost, his character is almost so two dimensional he’d disappear if he stood sideways on. There is also one further character who is given the role of “monkey hater” despite his reasoning for hating them so much not getting beyond “it was simian flu”. Never mind that humanity brought about its own extinction, blame it on the apes. Despite the best efforts of Malcolm and Caesar, draws parallels between humans and apes and reveals that, despite best intentions, there is ultimately very little that differs between both species.

"Hands up , gimme all your cash or the woman gets it!" — “Hands up , gimme all your cash or the woman gets it!”

But then, this is really about the burgeoning ape society and the power struggle between Caesar and Koba, the scarred and very angry ape who was imprisoned alongside Caesar in Rise. These two motion-captured performances from Andy Serkis and Toby Kebbell are powerful and easily make you forget that they’re CGI-covered actors. For performance alone they deserve award plaudits, but you can almost guarantee that won’t happen.

In terms of gender equality on both sides, there is none – female characters are given short shrift in both the ape and human communities, with only Keri Russell’s medic having the odd moment where she isn’t stood around waiting to be given something moderately interesting to do. Despite all its many positives, this is still a reasonably sized sticking point. To an extent this can be forgiven how right it gets everything else, but one can only hope that some balance is provided in the next instalment. At least in a summer filled with blockbuster extravaganzas there is at least one that has a brain and isn’t afraid to tackle some heavy themes.

Score: 4/5

Friday The 13th (1980)

Simon Prior

2014-07-20

Just a harmless old lady, right? Right?!

Twitter Plot Summary: A group of teenage counselors are systematically killed at Camp Crystal Lake.

Five Point Summary:

1. Killer-POV cam is always a winner.
2. Running out in the rain dressed in barely anything is apparently normal.
3. The camp should have stayed closed to be fair…
4. If you have sex, you die. Slasher movie 101.
5. After all that, it turns out to be… well, that particular person? Rilly?

Drawing inspiration from the success of Halloween a couple of years previously, Friday The 13th marked the first in what was a series of ten films (eleven if you count Freddy VS Jason) before the series was rebooted in 2009. It marks yet another entry in the unseen slasher killer horror genre, where a group of nubile teens are bumped off by a killer who remains at large until the final act, their identity hidden from the audience until the very last minute, thanks primarily to experiencing the killer’s perspective in first person.

The story opens with a killing taking place at Camp Crystal Lake in 1958. Fast forward to the modern day of 1980 where the camp is about to be reopened with a brand new group of youngsters taking up residence, despite the previous problems experienced at the camp, and the doom-laden words of warning from a slightly mad local man. It goes without saying that things do not end well for this batch of youngsters.

Friday The 13th will never be classed as a well made film, but historically it marks a changeover period where the old Grindhouse sub-genre made its way towards the mainstream having been released by a major studio to a wide audience. By modern standards the gore is quite tame, and the various deaths have now become cliche, but at the time they had the potential to genuinely scare the audience.

The score by Harry Manfredini is used well, with the music only ever kicking in when the killer is nearby. Whilst this does tee up the audience for when the scares will happen, it does also help build up the suspense again as you know something will happen, you just don’t know when. On the other hand, it’s worth mentioning that the score does rip off Psycho and Jaws on several occasions, so perhaps it’s not as good as you may initially think.

Place your bets now on who out of this group of unlucky teens will survive.

It’s no wonder the killer is able to bump everyone off so easily – they take forever getting to their destination, wherever that may be (a short jog to the toilet leaves enough time for someone else to be bumped off), and they’re constantly going places by themselves, so they do themselves no favours. Bearing in mind the camp has been closed for twenty years following a tragedy, you’d likely expect them to be a little more cautious, especially when they start noticing that other members of their group have not been seen for a while.

Kevin Bacon marks the biggest name in the cast, although at this point in his career he was still to hit the big time. Much like fellow slasher movie teen Johnny Depp, this was the start of a long career for Mr Bacon, although in this case his role is to snort derisively a couple of times and fondle a female member of the cast before being unceremoniously bumped off. He did better than everybody else anyway, all of whom have faded into obscurity in the intervening years. In hindsight, that’s probably for the best.

Score: 2.5/5

Snakes On A Plane (2006)

Simon Prior

2014-07-19

He's had just about enough of those mother loving snakes on this mother loving plane! (The actual line has been modified to protect the innocent.) — He’s had just about enough of those mother loving snakes on this mother loving plane!
(The actual line has been modified to protect the innocent.)

Twitter Plot Summary: What’s the best way to stop someone testifying against you? Fill his plane full of snakes, naturally.

Five Point Summary:

1. Mile High Club snake fail.
2. Where’s the autopilot from Airplane when you need him?
3. Not the dog!
4. Big snake, bad man.
5. There’s that line.

If you think about it, maybe Snakes On A Plane is the reason why The Asylum and the creature features of B-movie schlock producer Roger Corman have seen a surge in popularity in recent years. The notion of a film being so bad it’s good is an oxymoron in itself, but then we as the movie audience are often suckers for mediocrity. How else would you explain the careers of Michael Bay and Uwe Boll? Snakes On A Plane sets the template for all the mockbusters that have ensued since 2006 – cast a big name star, a moderately well known star, or a star of years gone by who has since faded into obscurity, and hand them an absolutely ridiculous premise. They spend a couple of weeks on the film, get paid, and it usually gets released direct to DVD.

Except that’s not quite the same formula for Snakes On A Plane. The film received a wide cinematic release, and last minute reshoots were ordered to bring it more in line with what fans on the internet wanted to see. Whilst it underperformed against the studio’s expectations, it has become a cult classic in its own right.

Snakes has the same tone as an early WWE Films production, played (mostly) straight but with the understanding that its audience are only here because of the Ronseal title (it does what it says on the tin) and for Samuel L Jackson saying “that” line. You know – the one where he swears. The script, in a rare and shocking moment of a studio movie showing self-awareness, knows that the premise silly so concentrates on providing 100% entertainment. Filling the plane with a vast array of badly drawn stereotypes and an even bigger variety of snakes, villain Eddie Kim (Lawson) is intent on stopping Sean Jones (Phillips) from testifying against him. What he didn’t count on was the presence of Samuel L Jackson.

Much of Snakes’ appeal would be lost if Samuel L Jackson hadn’t signed up to play FBI detective Neville Flynn. He’s the glue that makes all of this work, a one man army and bad-mouthed quote generator who retains a knowing nudge-wink in his eye every time he’s on screen. It would be half the film it is if he wasn’t in on the joke.

Bumping off your target with a plane full of snakes is probably the dumbest idea anyone has ever had, but it makes for an entertaining film at least. What better way to spend 100 minutes than by watching snakes bite into people in a variety of amusing ways? The snakes themselves are mostly CGI, with a few real life snakes used where appropriate and/or necessary. Not that it makes much difference in the grand scheme of things, of course.

Despite the work of the esteemed Samuel L Jackson it’s actually surprising that the whole thing remains as thoroughly entertaining as it is, and that can mostly be attributed to the script that, whilst completely insane, still manages to maintain a decent pace and only seems to start showing signs of weariness after most of the people likely to be killed off have been killed off. By that point you’re already in the home stretch and you can forgive what is ultimately a minor blip. Let’s face it – you’ll have already got your money’s worth.

Score: 3/5

Only Lovers Left Alive (2014)

Simon Prior

2014-07-18

When you're a vampire, there's nothing better than leaning on a wall looking melancholic. — When you’re a vampire, there’s nothing better than leaning on a wall looking melancholic.

Twitter Plot Summary: A love story between two ancient vampires and the near-constant existential crisis they face every day.

Five Point Summary:

1. Vampire films always have an obligatory scene where someone cuts their finger.
2. What if Christopher Marlowe really did write Hamlet?
3. Too many literal references may make you look like a pretentious fool.
4. Shots of blood and blood lollipops look fun. If you’re a vampire. Or like blood.
5. Is it possible to cast two more perfect vampires than Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston?

If you had the opportunity to cast anybody as a vampire then where would you place Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston on that list? Ignoring the fact Hiddleston is a hot property following his multiple appearances as Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, both he and Swinton just look the part and it’s surprising that they haven’t been called up for vampire duties before now. Ignoring the obvious religious aspects of their character names, because apparently that was unintentional, she’s called Eve and has moved with the times (she uses an iPhone to FaceTime him, Adam, from her current residence in Tangier), whilst he’s a depressed musician clinging to the past and using a vast array of older, analogue technologies – his side of the FaceTime conversation is completed using an old CRT screen and what looks like a dial-up connection to the internet.

Directed with some funky verve by Jim Jarmusch, darling of the wry indie movie scene, the film charts the relationship between two ancient vampires – the aforementioned Swinton and Hiddleston – who must contend with many existential concerns including the arrival of her younger sister, rock fans and life eternal. Within the story questions are asked about what a person would do if they could live forever, and more importantly what you need to do to avoid boredom and getting stuck in a rut, finding and defining your reasons for waking up every day. Or rather, night. Eve, through her continued use of modern technology, is happy to move with the times and enjoy each new experience as they occur. Adam meanwhile has tried his hand at being a musician and is now depressed and bored, having seemingly burnt out on new experiences some time previously and is now in a permanent state of atrophy when we first meet him.

There’s a darkly comic edge to the script, not afraid to have a bit of fun with things like making note of the fact a vampire has no need for a toilet, or how vampires survive on blood without actually killing anybody, because drinking directly from a living person has an air of the 15th century about it, darling. There’s also some rather enjoyable literary references for those aware of the works of Christopher Marlowe in particular, and John Hurt even shows up as the author who, it turns out, was responsible for some quite important works of literature other than those already attributed to him.

Jarmusch manages to capture the essence of what drinking blood is like for vampires, an almost drug-like ecstasy befalling them with each sip. The vampire attitude towards regular humans – they call them zombies – is a wry piece of observation, and also a point that directly affects our diffident undead lovers – clean blood sources are running out thanks to humans contaminating everything, including now their own blood. Whilst we see little in terms of the wider vampire culture, this is no doubt a pressing concern for their species and causes its own set of problems in addition to their usual aversion to sunlight.

It’s clearly a film that’s a little too out there in its indie sensibilities for a mass audience to appreciate, more so because there’s no action and it’s very deliberately paced, but if you look beyond this there’s a fun take on the vampire genre awaiting you.

Score: 4/5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TbxI_oRSKI

Byzantium (2013)

Simon Prior

2014-07-17

Well that didn't quite go as expected... — Well that didn’t quite go as expected…

Twitter Plot Summary: Female soucriant Clara and her daughter Eleanor (also a soucriant) hide themselves away from the rest of their kind.

Five Point Summary:

1. A world in which female vampires are the minority is not a world I want to live in.
2. People are much too trusting in quiet seaside towns.
3. Not sure what accent Caleb Landry Jones is doing, but it doesn’t make much sense given how very English his family is.
4. Staring absently into the middle distance does not make you otherworldly.
5. Isn’t anybody in the real world the least bit concerned about all of these random killings and house fires?

In this post-Twilight era it’s perhaps difficult for people to understand that vampires weren’t always sparkly. Director Neil Jordan has previous experience of the vampire movie having directed Interview With The Vampire, another decidedly non-sparkly interpretation of the mythos. Here Jordan takes a slightly different approach to vampire mythology by drawing inspiration from Caribbean folklore. The main difference compared to our western perspective on blood sucking creatures of the night is that blood is taken from victims via an extending thumbnail rather than the usual “having a nibble with their teeth” cliche. They can walk around in daylight, but have no discernible dislike of garlic nor a penchant for gloomy gothic mansions set in the middle of nowhere. Oh, and they call themselves soucriants, so it’s a little bit off the beaten path in terms of its source material.

The two central performances from Saoirse Ronan and Gemma Arterton perfectly capture a mother/daughter relationship that has lingered on for decades and works despite the small age gap between them in reality. It’s interesting to see their two differing approaches to surviving over the years, Arterton’s mother Clara resorting to lap dancing and prostitution to make ends meet whilst Ronan, the daughter Eleanor, sups only on willing victims and wants to lead a quiet existence. They are contrasting opposites and not in the way you would expect – Clara is, ironically, full of life whilst Eleanor spends much of her time moping and staring wistfully into the middle distance.

In support are a male cast who are clearly secondary to Arterton and Ronan but still play an essential role. Sam Riley and Jonny Lee Miller are the key figures in their past as two naval officers who forged Clara’s life. Caleb Landry Jones, sporting a most peculiar accent, adds some frisson to Eleanor’s modern existence. Restricting the modern day part of the story to a small seaside town gives it a quaint English feeling, almost entirely at odds with our usual thoughts on what a vampire film should be, and works alongside that Caribbean influence to create a strangely unearthly tale. The more traditional style of vampire story is seem in the numerous flashbacks to Clara and Eleanor’s past before they were turned, although this has more to do with the period setting rather than any conscious desire of the characters to cling to a bygone era.

She spends most of the film like this. It's 50% creepy, 50% irritating. — She spends most of the film like this. It’s 50% creepy, 50% irritating.

Byzantium works mostly because it’s very much from the female perspective. Traditionally vampire tales focus on the male vamps, with the females limited to snarling a bit or seductively approach one of the male leads, who would either succumb to her sexually charged advances or put a stake through her heart. To say that gender equality is missing from much of vampire cinema would be an understatement. Here, the two female vampires are looked down on by their male counterparts, a “males only” club who are determined to hunt down these errant women. Clara and Eleanor represent a threat to their order simply because they are women. It doesn’t really help their cause given that Clara insists on being a lady of the night rather than doing something more productive to bring in the monies.

Jordan has an eye for scouting the odd decent location, the waterfall of blood is a particularly eye-catching moment, and the links to Byzantium, both in the name of the hotel and a couple of other points where it’s referenced by the characters, is an indication of the longevity of vampires and perhaps a reference to the inevitable downfall of all great empires sooner or later – at the hands of a woman or otherwise.

Where Byzantium fails is in not fully exploring some of its themes and by maintaining a dreamlike quality that detracts from the story’s impact. That and the vampire tendency to set fire to buildings and casually walk away as the fire fighters arrive is borderline parody territory. In any case, the best advice for this vampire tale is to just go along with it, enjoy the world in which it exists, but try not to fall asleep. Because, y’know, if you do a soucriant might give you a bit of a nibble.

Score: 3/5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zu2cW7AhO8

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