The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2022: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), directed by Edgar Wright

 

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: 'Garbage Truck' by Sex Bob-omb

       Scott Pilgrim has been hanging over my head for years. As someone who was coming of age during the rise of youtube, and consumed large amounts of video game based content on that platform, I was inundated by talk about Scott Pilgrim. How cool it was, how it incorporated video game references, how people were seeing it two or three times, and so on and on. You’d think it was the biggest cult film of the age, and maybe it was, but that still didn’t make me see it. Not because of any adolescent ‘hate what’s popular’ behavior, I just didn’t get around it at the time, and not doing something is always easier than doing something. So let’s do something now.

       Released in 2010, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was directed by Edgar Wright, written by Wright and Michael Bacall, and produced by Wright, Eric Gitter, Nira Park and Marc Platt through Marc Platt Productions, Big Talk Films, Closed on Mondays Entertainment and Dentsu, based on the graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O’Malley. Michael Cera stars as the titular Scott Pilgrim, a 22 slacker living it up in the greatest city on Earth, Toronto. Scott’s life is a simple one; fooling around with his garage band Sex Bob-omb, and hanging out with his 17 year old Chinese girlfriend Knives Chau, but everything changes when he meets the literal girl of his dreams, Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead). Now he’s all about Ramona, and she’s kinda about Scott too, only there’s a catch. 7 catches actually, in the form of The League of Evil Exes, a parliament of prior paramours dedicated to destroying any new figures in Ramona’s love life, namely Scott. So if Scott wants to get with Ramona, he’s going to have to defeat all 7 exes in mortal kombat first. Can Scott succeed in his quest of romance? Can Sex Bob-omb win the Battle of the Bands? Probably.

       After building up a respectable resume in British TV, including the cult classic series Spaced, Edgar Wright made a successful jump onto the silver screen in the mid 00’s with Shaun of the Dead and later Hot Fuzz. Both films, and Spaced, established what would become known as Edgar Wright’s filmmaking ‘style’ to the world at large: sharp use of montage, highly choreographed action sequences, surreal even absurd humor and protagonists who firmly fall into the ‘loser slash outcast’ territory. Scott Pilgrim follows that trend while also pushing the envelope firmly with both hands, resulting in one of, if not his most visually ambitious film. There had been other comic book films before Pilgrim but none that had really played with comic books, using visual representation of sound effects in gags, cutaways and such. Similarly there had been films that were based on or referenced video games before Scott Pilgrim, but none that felt as giddy about it as Pilgrim. Scott’s getting power-ups, he’s got an on-screen score, defeated characters explode into quarters (or loonies I guess), and fighters move like they turned on god-mode. Watching Scott Pilgrim it comes as no surprise why there was such a buzz for Edgar Wright to direct Ant-Man for so many years, because Wright had shown that could pull off super hero level action when he had the budget.

       This is also yet another movie with some pretty good music attached to it. The score was done by Nigel Godrich, most famous for his work with Radiohead, and the soundtrack is a who’s who of alternative rock. Metric, Broken Social Scene, Frank Black, Beck (who also wrote Sex Bob-omb’s songs), and so on and on. Going from garage rock explosions to 8bitcore and back again, it’s one of the best soundtracks of its day. In fact the closest I had gotten to Scott Pilgrim before this was hearing the soundtrack, because it was getting generous amounts of airplay at my college radio station long after the film left theaters.

       Beyond the music and impressive effects though, I’m not sure I actually really liked the movie? For example, the film loves speed and so there’s a lot of quick wordplay and sight gags, but there’s an artificiality to how the characters interact with each other during these moments that kept me from connecting to it, like I became very much aware that these were ‘actors’ rather than ‘people’. Also I hate Scott Pilgrim? Yes the whole idea is that Pilgrim is an asshole who grows out of it but he’s been such a whiny, neurotic douchebag for the past two hours it’s hard to care when that change does come, or care whether he succeeds in his goals at all. And no disrespect whatsoever to Mary Elizabeth Winstead, but Ramona Flowers doesn’t seem like the kind of person you’d kill seven people for. If at the end of the movie it turned out that they actually were incompatible after all and they grew as people by separating maybe I wouldn’t have minded, but as it is I had no investment in how this romance would pay off. Wallace was pretty cool though.

       Scott Pilgrim vs. the World gets a mild recommendation. I can definitely see why the film had such a cult following when it was released, and Edgar Wright is still someone worth keeping track of in Hollywood if he keeps making films like Baby Driver, but this one just wasn’t it for me. For those comic book geeks, anime geeks, music geeks and video game geeks out there, or for those who just watched Pixels and need a palate cleanse you’ll likely find something of value, but for those others I don’t think hipster relationship drama is going to hold their attention. Maybe if I moved to Toronto…

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2021: Frozen (2010), directed by Adam Green

 

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune - "Frozen" by Daniel Lanois

       Oftentimes the scariest things in horror movies are also the simplest. When Tim Robbins is watching the subway pass by at the beginning of Jacob’s Ladder and and we see the ghastly passengers glaring back at him, or when Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween is walking around Haddonfield and we suddenly notice Michael Myers in the background,watching her, those are often the moments which resonate most with audiences and make those films as iconic as they are.

       Those are scenes though, it’s different when that mindset is applied to the premise of the films themselves. Christine is a movie about a car that kills people but because of the direction of John Carpenter it’s been elevated to a great film, but most people probably wouldn’t say the same about Rubber, the movie about a killer tire. The Birds is a movie about birds that kill people but because of the direction of Alfred Hitchcock it’s been elevated to a great film, but I doubt many people would say that about Frogs or Slugs or any of the other deluge of animal swarm horror films. Of course of all the genres of film horror is also the one that requires subtlety and depth the least, so even if they are simple on the surface you can never really count them out. So I remember years ago watching the Angry Video Game talk about a movie that seemed to be just that: bare bones and a simple premise. And instead of watching Chronicles of Riddick like I was originally planning, apologies to all you Vin Diesel fans out there, I decided to watch this one instead. Can it live up to the nonexistent hype? I dunno actually, I write these intros before I watch the film itself.

       Released in 2010, Frozen (not to be confused with the Disney film, or the 3 or so other movies called Frozen) was written and directed by Adam Green and produced by Peter Block and Cory Neal through A Bigger Boat and ArieScope Pictures. Shawn Ashmore plays Joe Lynch, a young college student who has decided to take impromptu ski trip with his best friend Dan (Kevin Zegers) and, reluctantly, Dan’s girlfriend Parker (Emma Bell). It’s an eventful day of water sports, but as night falls Lynch convinces the two to take in one last ride on the powder, despite the ominous foreshadowing. During their trip up the slope however, a series of unfortunate events leads the chalet staff to shut down for the night (and the week, as it turns out), trapping them on the ski lift. As the reality of the situation sets in, tensions start to flare out of control and the three start contemplating rather drastic plans for escape. Will Parker, Lynch and Dan manage to make it off the mountain alive, or will they end up…………………………….Frozen? You’ll have to watch to find out.

       Talking about simple films, you can’t get much simpler than Frozen. A handful of people for the cast, set in one mostly static location, it’s practically Waiting for Godot with some extra steps. Unlike The Birds however, which works in spite of itself thanks to the director, Frozen really works because of its simplicity. On the surface it seems quite mundane, just some people stuck on a ski lift, but it’s the reality of it that makes it terrifying. You’ve probably never been attacked by a bird before, but chances are that you’ve been on an elevator and had an errant thought of what would happen if the power went out or the cable snapped. Or ridden on a plane and wondered if the technicians were on the ball when they were making sure the thing could fly. Being stranded on a ski lift is something that could and probably has happened to people in real life, and it takes those things that we take for granted in our everyday lives, access to food, water, air conditioning, bathrooms, and magnifies them to matters of life or death. At its best it can be downright excruciating to watch, more than anything involving Michael Myers or Freddie Krueger, and that’s pretty damn impressive given how much of the film’s runtime is dedicated to seeing people sitting down.

       Credit where credit is due though, because those people sitting down do a damn good job. I’m not really familiar with any of their work, although they all seem to have had recurring roles in various TV shows like The Walking Dead over the years, but I would hope that this performance helped to open some doors for them. You can wholeheartedly believe that these poor fuckers are slowly freezing to death, each scene radiating this aura of hopeless misery as they struggle against their situation. Shawn Ashmore as Joe Lynch is probably the standout, as his character is given the most material to work with, but it’s really an ensemble film. Lynch’s third wheel bitterness really works because it clashes against Parker’s fish-out-of-water helplessness, all of which is contrasted by the need to cooperate and help each other to ensure mutual survival. There’s no stupid betrayals or hidden psychopaths to throw a wrench into things, just the struggle for survival.

       If my description of Frozen makes it sound like a misery porn movie, then unfortunately I’m going to have to confirm that assumption. At first it doesn’t seem so bad, these people are stuck on a ski lift not on a cruise ship after all, but as the film goes on apparently Adam Green believes that almost freezing to death isn’t enough tension and keeps upping the ante, to the point that the tension is lost and starts becoming a dark comedy. When they introduced the wolves, because apparently New England just has packs of wolves roaming the countryside, it led to me laughing more than anything else. Like, how much more fucked do these people need to be? Their limbs freezing solid and falling off isn’t enough, having to piss yourself because you’re stuck 20 feet in the air on a metal bench isn’t enough, you have to add being mauled to death on top of it. By the end of the film I can’t even say I felt catharsis, just this sense of ‘yep, it’s over’, and I don’t know if I would have felt that way if they had just pull themselves back a bit. 

       When Frozen is good however, it’s the first film I’ve seen in a while that made me feel genuinely uncomfortable watching it, so for that it gets the recommendation. While I think Adam Green’s writing choices are overindulgent and ultimately undercut the emotional impact of the story, it’s also a great example of how you really don’t need much in order to make an effective film, especially when it comes to horror and thrillers. No 100 million dollar budgets, no A-list actors, just a good idea and a good crew. So if it’s a little chilly outside when Halloween rolls around pop this one in and see where it takes you. You’ll probably never want to go skiing ever again, if you’re one of those weirdos that go skiing, but hey, there’s always SSX Tricky.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2019: The Precinct, or Sahǝ (2010), directed by Ilgar Safat

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Girls on Film", by Duran Duran

       As the years have gone by and the Marathon has grown to be pretty much the only thing I do on this blog, the decision of what movies I want to cover for the list has undergone some changes as well.That the Marathon be open to genre films other than horror was the first and perhaps most obvious choice, but another that I’ve decided to adopt permanently is that the final 10 films would be dedicated to foreign films, meaning ones not from the U.S., Canada, or Great Britain. We’ve seen attempts at it back in Marathon ‘16, and again in ‘18, but this is hopefully going to be the full and proper debut of it. As for why I decided that this was to be how it is, besides to honor the fact that many of my readers tend not to be from the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain, it’s simply because it’s interesting to me. It’s interesting to see perspectives and cultures other than my own, and it’s especially interesting to see how that is filtered through the medium of film, genre films in the case of our blog. So why not celebrate it, even if being the top 10 on an obscure blog in the bowels of the internet is the worst kind of celebration? Why not, if it’s there to be seen? 

I dunno, I’m feeling very philosophical tonight I guess.

Released in 2010 and former Oscar contender for Best Foreign Film, Ilgar Safat’s Sahǝ, or The Precinct, is the first film I’ve covered from the country of Azerbaijan, a country I’ve never visited but am sure is lovely. Zaza Bejashvilli stars as Garib, a well-known photographer of the artful and erotique. Garib is engaged to be married to Sabina, another artist, but an unexpected letter from London about work in Africa threatens to derail their relationship, until they are actually derailed and their car careens off of a cliff. The two are picked up by a passing pair of police officers, but instead of being taken to a hospital, they are taken to ‘the precinct’, a dingy place that seems to contain no one but their boss. The boss seems equally uninterested in the couple’s plight, seemingly taking great pleasure in harassing the two and charging them with illegal and immoral behavior. Soon however, it goes beyond mere accusations and insinuations: The boss knows Garib, knows things about him that he thought he had left behind years ago, the sins that he had tried desperately to forget. A story about a young Garib, a woman named Alina, and the sordid tale that unfolds.

       The first thing that comes to mind when watching The Precinct is probably the 1990 Adrian Lyne film Jacob’s Ladder, or more accurately the Silent Hill series of video games that were inspired by that film. I mean the protagonists are taken to a dilapidated building with strangely threatening people, which leads into the protagonist exploring their past mistakes set to ominous music, throw in some monsters and the Konami logo and you’d be all set. The Precinct never goes full on horror though, as the focus (and a good chunk of screen time) is centered on the flashback to Garib’s past. Comparisons could also be made to A Christmas Carol or some other kind of morality play, where the sinner (Garib in this case) is put face to face with their sins thanks to some kind of supernatural force, with the intent of having them repent and mending their ways. Personally I would’ve liked to see some intense surrealist visuals, as has been made clear with Wild at Heart and Die Farbe previously, but then it probably wouldn't have gotten that Oscar nomination, so I guess it was best to stick with the depressing childhood trauma.      

I also like the fact that The Precinct felt, at least the version I watched, like it was filmed on actual film, rather than the digital stuff we’re used to nowadays. I could be wrong about that, I don’t know how prevalent the technology was in 2010, but I hope I’m not because I’ve always enjoyed the feel of ‘analog’ films. Maybe it’s because I grew upin the waning days of VHS tapes and CRT televisions, but there’s a metaphorical layer of dust movies back then that gave them a sense of reality when compared to the cut and dry, laminated movies of today. Which might all come across as pretentious drivel, as how the film was made was not by choice but by necessity, based on the equipment available to them, but either way I like the look, so I felt like mentioning it. People like to say that the best art is made under rough conditions, although that might just be the excuse they use not to pay artists.

       It’s definitely the movie to watch if you care about Garib in particular Sabina, by contrast isn’t much of a character, and who doesn’t seem to care much for anything beyond Garib marrying her. Not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things I suppose, as is it a story about Garib and how he came to be who he is today, but considering that there are only four named female characters in the film; A nude model named Janet (who has the most awkward dialogue in the film), Sabina, the man-hating mother-in-law, and Alina (who has her own set of problems as it turns out). Not the strongest cast, in that case. I mean if the film is trying to make a point about the degrading nature of pornography, and it’s brought up too many times for it not to be, it seems to be from a distinctly male-centric point of view, of how making it and selling it affects the male characters, and the women are neutral figures in the process. I mean you could even attribute Garirb’s ultimate actions in the film to base guilt over actual remorse, although that might be me getting a little too analytical.

       To be honest, going into this I was expecting something with a few more bells & whistles, but what I got was still a decent little mystery movie. Good music, good acting, a couple thrills and a slightly eerie vibe in what ends up being an engaging drama. I don’t know if it would have won the Oscar even if the film that had won it wasn’t there, but it was nonetheless an entertaining film. It gets the recommendation, throw it on a double feature with Jacob’s Ladder or maybe even Lost Highway this Halloween.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2019: Die Farbe, or The Color Out Of Space (2010), directed by Huan Vu

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Colors in Space", by Explosions in the Sky

       While the works of H.P. Lovecraft have been enormously influential on a good portion of the world’s pop culture, inspiring comics, cartoons, novels and the occasional anime, it’s never had as much like when it comes to cinema. There’s been many a movie that’s made the claim to ‘Lovecraftian’, it’s true, but many of those movies only go as far as the body horror or fleshy tentacles before they grab their ball and go home. Even Re-Animator, a movie I’ve heaped no small amount of praise over the years, is guilty of this to a degree, although the sequels take it to another level. They’re all so obsessed with bringing visuals to indescribable beings that they forget the essence of Lovecraft’s work. The paranoia, the feelings of absolute despair and isolation, the inability to trust one’s own senses, that’s just as important to the idea of ‘Lovecrftian’ fiction, if not moreso, than a giant frog with an octopus head. Which conveniently enough leads directly to our film today. Who would have thought?

       Known in its native country of Germany as Die Farbe, Huan Vu’s The Color Out of Space is an adaptation, naturally enough, of H.P. Lovecraft’s classic short story of the same. A search for his missing father leads up-and-coming scientist Jonathan Davis to a small village in Bavaria's border. While there, he meets a man named Armin who has in fact seen his father; Not as he is in the present day however, but as he was during his days in the U.S. military during the postwar period. Quite a coincidence, and yet that coincidence was merely a part of a much larger tale. A story of a meteorite that crash-landed on a farm not too far from the village they’re in now. Not just a rock from the heavens, but one with the texture of plastic, the ability to endlessly generate heat. A rock that holds deep within its core a color. A color unlike anything ever seen on Earth before, one that grows brighter and brighter as everything around it withers into ash. Plants, animals, people, nothing is safe. Nowhere is safe.

       The Color Out of Space has been one of my favorite of Lovecraft’s stories for a long time now, and I think a part of that was due to its seemingly unfilmable nature. The scares in this scary story don’t come from a horde of rats scurrying about in the walls after all, or some giant monster rising from the sea. They come from a color, something natural and yet completely alien, and the things that happen to people and the world just by being close to it. The horror is in how non-discriminatory it is, extremely malevolent and yet seemingly as neutral as the sunset. In a world familiar with nuclear fallout, pollution and other such silent killers it hits much closer to home than it did in the time it was written. It’s also the only bit of horror literature I can recall that’s ever significantly unnerved me, so that’s another reason I hold it in such high regard. 

       Luckily, Huan Vu seems to be coming from the same direction as I am, as he treats the story with great care. The slow build from curiousity and confusion into despair and their ultimate fates is done quite well, I’d say an equal balance of show and tell. I also think the choice to film in black & white was also the correct choice. Not just in the fact that you’re covering a story from the 20s, but it gives the titular Color that much more prominence when it finally appears, even if pink isn’t a color that is inconceivable to the human mind. It’s also rather subtle, but I like the way the Color’s influence works in black and white as well, from the dark grey of life to the dusty, almost white grey of death. In look and tone, Die Farbe gets Lovecraft right.

       That being said, I found myself not really caring much for the Jonathan Davis plot, which never breaks from feeling like it was bolted onto the story in order to give an excuse for why the story is taking place in Germany rather than America. There’s also some prominent examples CGI near the end which brought me out of the film a bit. Now of course practical effects can be a strain on time and budget, and is useful for things that would be extremely difficult or impossible to do otherwise (such as the climactic last scene with the Color), but when I see something on screen that’s running at 1080p while everything around it is 720p so to speak, then I am divorced from the reality of the scene. I am made aware that this is a film, that this is an actor pretending to be scared of an empty room, and the fear and tension of the film up until that point is seriously diminished, if not killed outright. You could argue that practical effects wouldn’t look much better, but the point is that there’s a difference when something has ‘weight’ and when it doesn’t, it comes through in the performance and and ultimately in the way that the mind processes it. In my opinion anyway.

       Ultimately I did enjoy Die Farbe/The Color Out Of Space though, in spite of the times the seams were showing. The films looks great, as you’d expect from rolling countryside, the music is haunting, even overwrought at times, the cast does well (special props to the guy who plays Past Armin, as he does much of the heavy lifting), and as I said before the tone is captured right, so there’s no choice but to recommend it. Human powerlessness and insignificance in the face of an uncaring and dangerous might be a myopic and perhaps defeatist worldview, but it does make for some spooky stories as it turns out, and if that’s what you’re in for this Halloween then this is the right film for you. And remember to always stay hydrated.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2014: Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010), directed by Eli Craig

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Skin A Buck", by Nine Pound Hammer

     Horror as a film genre is one that tends to repeat itself. Horror fan or not, you know that there are certain tropes and situations that constantly assert themselves in seemingly every film. Groups that split up even though there’s a god damn murderer/monster on the loose, the couple having sex getting killed first, the girl either running upstairs while being chased by a killer or tripping on flat ground, and so on and so on. As the years have gone by, there are many films that have played on those horror tropes ,often for the purposes of comedy. The first Scream film was a slasher flick that celebrated the formulary of old-school slasher flicks like Halloween, and films like Young Frankenstein and Cabin in the Woods were able to shine a satirical light on horror while being able to stand on their own as good movies. Occasionally it falls flat, like every single iteration of Scary Movie past the first two, but that’s to be expected. Dying is easy after all, comedy is hard. #catchphrase.

     Tucker & Dale vs. Evil lets you know right from the title screen that tongue is being placed firmly in cheek with this movie. The film details the story of Tucker and Dale (obviously), two country boys who have journeyed to an obscure and possibly not actually real lake in West Virginia to take in some fishing at Tucker’s new ‘summer home’. As fate would have it, their journey crosses paths with that of your typical group of dumbass college kids on a camping trip, who are totally convinced that T&D are the type of insane murderous hillbillies that are so common in horror films nowadays. When Dale saves Allison (the main college girl) from drowning, the college kids assume that she’s been kidnapped and taken to the creepy rape barn, and starting freaking out in typical horror movie fashion. The ensuing conflict between Tucker, Dale, and the dumbass college kids shall be one of gruesome violence, horrific deaths and revenge, and exactly who is ‘Evil’ in this scenario may buck a trend or two.

     I’m generally not a watcher of more modern horror films, partially because most of them look like polished up turds shat out by the Syfy network for a quick buck and partially because there’s so many older horror movies that I have yet to see, but I had a lot of fun with T&DvE. Not only does it strike a good balance between horror and comedy, but I also found myself really liking Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) as characters. They have a great chemistry working with each other, good sense of comedic timing, and they’re by far the most interesting and emotionally vibrant characters in the film. If you’re a person who likes to laugh more than scream on Halloween, consider putting this on your film queue

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2017 - Trollhunter (2010), directed by Andre Ovredal

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Don't Feed The Trolls", by Jonathan Coulton

     Some of you diehard fans of the blog might remember a little write-up I did back in the day of a Scandinavian film called Rare Exports. Released in 2010, directed by Jalmari Helander, Rare Exports was a weird little combination of a Christmas movie and a horror film, involving a young boy and his father combating terrible trollish creatures who just so happened to have inspired the legend of Santa Claus. It’s not a perfect movie by any means, in fact I seem to recall the child protagonist being something of an annoying little shit, but it was entertaining, and a nice reminder that the U.S. is not the be all end all when it comes to cinema. Other countries may not have the same film budget or the resources of the States, but they have the imagination and the determination, and that’s really all you need when you’re making movies. Especially when it comes to the horror genre. A big budget might actually be a detriment in that case…

     Now the Marathon has come around again and I find myself back in Scandinavia, Norway to be specific, for a film that was released the same year as our Xmas horror flick: Trollhunter. It’s a movie that’s been on my radar for a while actually, I’ve thrown it in the first drafts of two prior Marathons, but I’ve held off on watching it until now. I’m not sure there’s a concrete reason why, other than there are a whole bunch of movies out there and my mood changes like the tides. It can be rough at times, it lead me to watching Flesh for Frankenstein and Beyond Re-animator after all, but it’s to Trollhunter’s credit that it’s always been on the backburner, always in consideration. With a name like that it was only a matter of time.

     Presented to the audience as found footage, Trollhunter presents the story of three journalism students from Volda College (an actual school, by the by), Thomas, Johanna and Kalle, as they film a documentary about a rash of bear poaching that has struck the area. What little evidence there is seems to point to a man known only as Hans, a mysterious fellow who constantly travels the land in a battered jeep and a small trailer home. When confronted with these accusations Hans ultimately reveals that he’s not a bear poacher at all, he’s a troll hunter, a conservationist of sorts employed by the TSS (Troll Security Service) to kill trolls that wander outside of their respective territories. Yes, trolls exist. Yes, the Norwegian government is aware of their existence and is engaged in an elaborate conspiracy to hide the truth. Yes, the Norwegian people apparently have never noticed 20 foot tall monsters walking around in their own backyard. Sounds like a groundbreaking and horrifically dangerous scoop if you ask me. Might as well film it!

     Modern movie audiences are no stranger to the concept of the ‘found footage’ subgenre of horror films. Ever since the whirlwind success of The Blair Witch Project, you see these types of movies pop up every now and then and try to ride its coattails. Paranormal Activity, Cloverfield, Monsters (by Godzilla director Gareth Edwards), you know the kind of movie I’m talking about. A cast of ‘real’ people, shaky camera movements like it’s a ‘real’ camcorder, more shots of things rustling in the background and people filming the ground as they run than showing the monster, and so on and on. I can understand it considered something of a change of pace, the ‘horror movie as documentary’, and that not seeing the monster is a major tenant of horror, but a glance at some CGI while the camera whips back and forth like it’s in a Home Depot paint mixer or watching a door open is not my idea of a good time.

     Trollhunter still suffers from running sequences from time to time, but it counters that by devoting a lot of screen time to actually showing off the titular trolls. A very diverse collection of trolls too, from the squat, hairy Mountain Kings (who look like those one aliens from Bill & Ted’s Bogus Adventure) to the office-building sized, Marvel’s The Mighty Thor style Jotnars. All pretty obvious CGI of course, the choice of blockbuster and indie films alike, the the fact they do actually show the trolls and human interaction with the trolls heightens the realistic, documentary feel that the movie is going for. A bit like the Jurassic Park movie we all wish we had, rather than most of the Jurassic Park movies we got.

     Of course the characters aren’t exactly what you’d call...interesting, or engender any emotion that would endear them to you in any way, except for Hans, whose multi-layered personality is covered in pounds and pounds of stoicism. Also I’m not entirely sure of the logic behind trying to define trolls in a naturalistic way, even giving a scientific explanation for why they petrify (or explode) in sunlight, but then also give them the ability to smell ‘Christian’ blood and react to Christian imagery. Which never gets explained at all. Two major scenes revolve around this Christian thing too, including the climax, so I don’t know why they would go to the trouble of explaining their gestation and eating habits and all of this real biological stuff and then throw some magic in there for shits and giggles. It’s bad writing. If you’re trying to make the supernatural into the natural, don’t stop halfway through.

     Did Trollhunter live up to two Marathon’s worth of hype? No, not really. It was a fun little film for what it was though, and like Rare Exports, gives us a little glimpse of how our Scandinavian brothers reimagine their folklore for the modern age. Not really scary, which is something it has in common with most found footage films, but I give it points for a good concept. If you can avoid feeding the trolls, you just might something to watch this Halloween.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010), directed by Jalmari Helander

Here's the Christmas entry.When you have no sense of schedule to speak of, obviously you have to keep up with the holidays. Obviously.

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "The Night Santa Went Crazy", by Weird Al Yankovic

     For some reason it’s taken me way too long during this writing process to convey this basic concept: Christmas movies are hard to do. Or rather, they’re hard to do if you’re actually trying to make a good, as you could literally do the Scrooge McDuck-swim through the mountains and mountains of shitty Christmas movies that have amassed throughout the years. Hell, ABC Family had so many schlocky flicks in their back-catalog of made-for-TV nonsense that they started showing them before we had even hit December. Which has been increasingly baffling to me as of late, the fact that as soon as Thanksgiving is over we need to see Rob Lowe and some nameless actress find love again through the power of Christmas ad nauseum over the period of a month, not a scant 24 hours after stuffing my face with several different types of pie. There’s no need for so many movies, December is still 31 days, Christmas is still on the 25th, and yet for some unexplainable reason society (or mayhaps the Reptilians, controlling everything from their secret underground lava bunkers) has decided we need to push the issue until everyone is burnt out on holiday crap long before we even get to Christmas at all. I don’t know who has poisoned me against Rob Lowe with their cyanide candy canes, but I don’t appreciate it.

     Of course the qualifications for what makes a ‘Christmas classic’ is as subjective as any other when it comes to films, that’s a given. It’s A Wonderful Life, perhaps the most universally praised Christmas film of all time, was actually a commercial flop when it was first released, and really only came into its status through it’s continued television appearances after falling into the public domain. Nightmare Before Christmas has the artstyle going for it, at least before Hot Topic coopted it, as well as appearing during the non-hackneyed period of Tim Burton’s career. How the Grinch Stole Christmas had animation legend Chuck Jones behind it, as well as Boris Karloff’s chilling yet soothing voice in the narrator spot. Some people even consider Santa Claus Conquers the Martians to be a holiday classic, and even if I don’t really understand the thought process behind that, I can understand the unique appeal that could draw some people in. Maybe there are even people who love these greeting card vomit parties, and if those are the movies they associate with Christmas, so be it. Everyone has to hold their own opinion, after all.

     Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is a strange case in that I didn’t think it was too bad of a film in general, but as a Christmas film it misses the mark. Coming from the frigid north that is Finland, this is another entry in the ‘holiday horror’ subgenre, joining the ranks of such films as Santa’s Slay and Jack Frost. One of the least interesting niche horror genres honestly, of which there are many, which admittedly might have biased me a bit against the film on the outset. RT at least takes the major cliche of the Christmas horror subgenre, Santa killing dudes for whatever reason, and presents it in a fairly interesting way. The jolly old elf is no mere Myers-esque serial killer this time around, but is in fact an enormous Satanic abductor of children (and also gives them toys I guess) with a taste for gingerbread. Which isn’t actually that far-fetched at all, as the concept of a monstrous Yuletide figure that punishes naughty children is quite commonplace in Scandinavian folklore, the most dour of all folklore. Those non-europeans might know the legend of the Krampus, the demonic kidnapper that consistently makes the rounds on comedy websites and quirky facebook posts, and that’s probably the closest comparison to what passes for Santa in this film. No presents this time around buddy.

     The plot of the film is nothing too daring, revolving around the classic scenario of rich asshole digging up some mysterious thing (in this case Santa and his naked bearded elves), thereby tampering with forces beyond his control. Because plot-induced stupidity is endemic to these sort of things, the only one who knows that bad stuff is going down is Pietari, the only child of a butcher/widow/reindeer hunter. When children and household appliances start to go missing, it’s up to Pietari and a trio of bearded men with hunting rifles to save the day, and also kidnap and blackmail people. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, after all.

     While I’m not entirely sure how Scandinavian countries view the roles of children, I found myself disliking Pietari as a protagonist more and more as the film went on. Aside from his carrying around a stuffed animal, he doesn’t really behave like a child so much as he does the world-weary warrior, forming up battle strategies and forming contingencies and what have you. I can understand why they did it that way, you need somebody to be the hero and who better to combat Santa than a child, but if it’s not made somewhat believable than the entire thing falls through. Aside from maybe one or two moments of pure interaction between Pietari and his father, you’re not really given the feeling that he’s a child at all other than that Santa wants to put the hickory switch on his ass. Maybe I’m mistaken in thinking this, or I’m underestimating the relative maturity of Finnish children over those I’m familiar with, but I don’t think you should be able to replace your child character with Keanu Reeves or Bruce Willis and have virtually nothing change plotwise. It’s a B-movie sensibility in a movie that doesn’t really feel like a B-movie at all, killer Santa notwithstanding.

     For a movie about monstrous elves, this is a surprisingly bloodless movie as well. There is some violence of course, but very little of it is actually shown, the film preferring the tried-and-true ‘screaming dude offscreen’ method of insinuating gruesome death to the viewer. Something that was a big ‘fuck you’ to the audience even way back in the Trolls 2 era of horror when directors figured out it was cheaper to just say that the monster had killed somebody instead of actually showing it happen, which is what everyone paid their money towards seeing. There’s really no excuse for it this time in this era though, if your special effects budget is going to CGI then show some CGI death, throw in some more random dudes if you’re afraid the public doesn't want to see Santa killing kids, whatever you want. It’s not even that I particularly want to see Santa’s elves murdering people either, don’t get me wrong, but it removes the a lot of the danger that should be explicit in the film. Why do I really care if the elves are going after Pietari and his entourage if I don’t have any reference for what happens when things go south? It’s a flaccid sense of fear.

     All that aside, Rare Exports was not what I would call a bad movie. The folkloric Santa was a direction that could have been interesting were it explored more, and it was even funny in spots, even when it was dipping into Syfy movie territory. It’s a middle of the road sort of movie: Worth a watch if you’re interested, quirky enough to set itself apart from the crowd, but nothing to really go out of your way for. Definitely not what I would call a Christmas classic, but give it a try for yourself and see how it takes. Who knows, maybe you’ll find a new holiday tradition. Hopefully one that doesn’t involve The Hebrew Hammer, at least.

Result: Recommended