Updated Tuesday's post about Monday with a like to my EFC review of Once in a Summer.
Much rain to start yesterday before it cleared up and got humid. It was a horror-themed Friday the Thirteenth, with ghost stories from Thailand and China, gore flicks from Quebec and Ohio, and an offbeat musical comedy about circus performers who want to kill you and eat your liver from Korea.
Not much else to say, as I was in the theater all day, but walking home at 2.30am, I came upon a head-scratcher: Le Festival Juste pour Rire is set up along Rue Maisoneuve, and along with stages and concession areas there are what look like stationary parade floats of some of the great comedians: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Laurel & Hardy, the Marx Brothers, Jacques Tati, Mister Bean, Mike Myers...
Wait a minute. Mister Bean, I'll give you, especially as his silent comedy is pretty universal, but Mike Myers? Seriously? I think Myers himself would ask that you show Peter Sellers some respect first, and Myers probably thinks he's done something funny in recent memory.
Anyway, back to seeing movies. I can recommend The Matrimony if you're at the festival today. My plan is the Death Note & Death Note: The Last Name double feature before heading across the street for Puritan, Isabella, and Midnight Ballad for Ghost Theater
The Unseeable (Pen Choo Kab Pee)
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 13 July 2007 in J.A. De Sève Théatre (Fantasia 2007)
Wisit Sasanatieng isn't exactly a secret that die-hard film buffs are keeping to themselves; his films have just been hard to stumble upon in the west. Miramax, unable to figure out how to market a garish Thai Western, sat on distribution rights for his first, Tears of the Black Tiger, for years before Magnolia bought them out; his second, Citizen Dog, managed to be even more peculiar. The Unseeable, however, is pretty straightforward: A good old-fashioned story of a creepy house with a creepy mistress and creepy servants.
Nualjan (Siraphan Wattanajinda) comes to this place looking for her husband; he left several months ago to take care of something in Bangkok but has yet to return. The very pregnant Nualjan stops at the estate for the night, only to find the next morning that taxis won't sop at the place because of the various dark magics that seem to haunt the house. She winds up staying in the servants' quarters, and her talkative new roommate fills her head with stories of vampires and the twisted old woman who lives in the shed. Nualjan sees strange things herself - a little girl who seems to disappear when she rounds a corner, an ominous chest that housekeeper Somjit (Tassawan Seneewongse) screams at Nualjan for approaching, and all the rules Somjit lays down. There's no need for supernatural explanations to find Madame Ranjuan (Suporntip Chuangrangsri) off-putting; she's been a recluse since her own husband vanished, and her behavior around the baby after Nualjan give birth is rather odd.
As you can see, there's a bit of an "everything including the kitchen sink" feel to Kongkiat Khomsiri's story. Nualjan encounters nearly every type of supernatural entity known to film (with a couple of ice queens thrown in for good measure, receives cryptic warnings, and has disturbing flashbacks. Gratifyingly, it doesn't feel like overkill; Khomsiri and Sasanatieng prime and tease the audience by contrasting the unnerving things Nualjan sees with how laughable things sound when her excitable, superstitious roommate Choy describes them to her. It's clever reverse psychology; we go in expecting a ghost story, and we get things that look supernatural, but we're inclined to look for a rational explanation because they make the alternative sound like superstitious nonsense.
Full review at EFC.
The Matrimony (Xin Zhong you Gui)
* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 13 July 2007 in J.A. De Sève Théatre (Fantasia 2007)
The Matrimony takes the gothic romance out of storage, puts a (relatively) modern coat of paint on it, and lets it loose. The result is surprisingly appealing: A ghost story that for the most part delivers everything this sort of film should be while at the same time feeling new and exciting as opposed to played-out. It falters a little toward the end, but the meat of the story is prime stuff.
Xu Manli (Fan Bingbing) is a stylish modern woman in 1930s Shanghai: She's got a Louise Brooks haircut, a job as a disk jockey playing jazz on a local radio station, and she knows her boyfriend, cinematographer Shen Junchu (Leon Lai) is about to propose to her. Just before he can, though, she's killed when a car plows into her on her bicycle, killing her instantly.
A year later, Junchu's mother has arranged a marriage to country girl Sansan (Rene Liu), but he shows her no affection, saying he will never think of her as more than a guest in his house - whose attic is filled with Manli's things. It's while investigating this that Sansan encounters Manli's ghost, who proposes a deal: Seeing Junchu sad hurts her too, and when Manli touches someone as a spirit it makes them ill. If Sansan allows Manli to possess her body on occasion, Manli will teach her how to make her husband happy. Sansan agrees - she really does love him - and at first it seems to work, but Sansan should have realized that deals with spirits always have a higher price than appears at first glance.
The basic story here wouldn't seem too far out of place if it were set in a stone mansion somewhere out in the foggy English countryside - big house, new young wife, jealous ghost, attic filled with old memories covered in sheets. Instead of being set in a remote place bound by restrictive traditions, though, it takes place in a bustling, prosperous city: The house is well-lit and full of modern amenities such as radios and even a film-editing station, Sansan is an active participant in her story rather than just a naif assaulted by the forces around her, Manli is an independent woman rather than someone who only exists as Junchu's one time lover. The costumes and production design are sumptuous: Shanghai looks like an exciting place that would naturally produce someone like Manli, the house is both intimidating and a place Sansan would want to become her home. The flashbacks of how Junchu and Sansan met are perfect, too, with a snow that is both a fitting backdrop to what Sansan considers a magical first meeting and a reminder of her humble origins. Rene Liu's performance in those scenes is especially important, since otherwise a modern audience could look at Sansan's arranged marriage as a job and think less of her; instead, we want Junchu to really love her, not just treat her better because she's nice and also thrust into an uncomfortable position.
Full review at EFC.
End of the Line
* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 13 July 2007 in Théatre Hall Condordia (Fantasia 2007)
Maurice Deveraux is a perennial favorite at this festival, a local filmmaker who has always had more ambition than his low-budget slasher flicks have let on. This movie could be his ticket to bigger things; it's another horror movie, sure, but it's a smart, well-made one.
Karen (Ilona Elkin) is a nurse in a Montreal psych ward who is feeling a little bit unsteady herself; a troubled patient (Christine Lan) who had visions of demons attacking has just killed herself by jumping onto the subway tracks. When she heads home for the evening, she encounters a couple of men on the subway platform: Patrick (Robin Wilcock), who comes on too strong, and Mike (Nicolas Wright) fakes being an old friend to keep him at bay. That's not the worst trouble they'll face; also on the train are a bunch of well-dressed, clean-scrubbed types who have just been to an evangelist's rally. Midway through the ride home, those God-fearing people will get a call on their pagers: The apocalypse is coming tonight, so save as many people as you can.
And by "save", Reverend Hope (David L. McCallum) means "stab them to death with your cross-shaped daggers before the demons I say are coming get to them".
Devereaux could have gone the route of having the folks with the knives be this oncoming wave of effectively brainwashed zealots, but he does something a little more interesting: He lets them have doubts, for various reasons. Some get squeamish about killing people. Some are sociopaths using this as an excuse to rape and kill. Teenage Sarah (Nina Fillis) makes out with her boyfriend John (Tim Rozon) and has big-time doubts about the whole program. One guy is only a member of the sect because his wife was. What doing this does, aside from provide some exposition to the band of survivors trying to make their way to the surface, is make the marauders a little scarier. In part, it's because it means these people have all chosen to do something horrific individually, which is a scarier prospect than one central puppet master. But in part, it's because the people who have decided to switch sides aren't sure, while the others remain resolute - maybe these guys really do know something.
Full review at EFC.
The Fox Family (Gumiho Gajok)
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 13 July 2007 in Théatre Hall Condordia (Fantasia 2007)
The Fox Family vexes me; I'm not sure who the audience for it is. On the one hand, it certainly feels like a kids' or family film with its songs and fanciful story about a family of foxes wishing to be human. But how many kids' movies would have a subplot about a serial killer? Maybe it's not really for kids... Or western kids and/or their parents are just wimps. Still, I'm not quite sure who out there is going to really love this movie.
A "kumiho" is a sort of fox spirit in Korean mythology, and is the name a group of them take when they assume human form. They're a family - father (Joo Hyeon), son (Ha Jeong-woo), older daughter (Park Si-yeon), younger daughter (Koo Joo-yeon) - and they've assumed human form, posing as a circus until a once-in-a-century eclipse when they can become human for real - if they each eat a human liver. Meanwhile, a grifter (Park Joon-gyoo) stumbles upon their camp looking for a spot to hide from some mobsters he owes money, and takes an interest in the older sister, and there's a serial killer preying on women with small dogs - the kind whose livers the younger sister finds particularly delicious - and a sad-sack detective (Yongnyeo Seon-woo) is on the case.
It's a bit tough to connect with the Kumihos in part because they really do feel non-human. The writing has them kind of oblivious to the everyday world, and their circus act scares children in a hilariously bloody way. There's a very peculiar amorality to them when they talk about their plans to kill people and eat their livers in order to become human; they just don't give any thought at all to how this is really would not be a particularly auspicious start to their lives as humans. I'm also a little unclear as to how long the family has been in human guise; sometimes, the subtitled dialog makes it sound like it's been for a long time, although they seem kind of ignorant of human society to have been around that long.
Full review at EFC.
The Rage
* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 13 July 2007 in Théatre Hall Condordia (Fantasia 2007)
If you like horror movies, you've probably liked some of Robert Kurtzman's work. The "K" in KNB, he's created some of the bloody and otherwise great make-up effects for scores of movies over the past twenty years or so. As expected, he serves up a heaping helping of the nasty stuff as a writer/director. As might also be expected, when it comes to everything else, there's a good argument for sticking to what he knows.
So, you've got these two groups of people. One are a bunch of teenagers in a fan heading somewhere; the other is a mad scientist (Andrew Divoff) who is experimenting with a rapidly mutating virus that causes rage, enhanced strength, craving for human blood/flesh, etc., and his subjects. One of the subjects from group B gets loose but doesn't last long. The real trouble starts when the vultures go for his body, get infected, and... well, you know.
When Kurtzman has his make-up effects hat on, he is really good. The raving, flesh-eating infectees look good and nasty, with sores and pustules and cracks appearing in the skin, sunken eyeballs, and icky stuff coming out of the mouth. People get hit with all manner of blunt and sharp objects, or cut up for all sorts of nasty wounds and viscera being torn out. If all you're looking for is gross-out stuff, this is close to a five-star movie.
Full review at EFC.
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