So before I even begin to talk about Killer Mountain, I'd like to talk about the poster for Killer Mountain. Had it not been for this poster, I never would have watched this movie. The Netflix description is pretty dull, talking about how an ex-mountain climber is brought out of retirement to find a missing research team. Pair that with a title like "Killer Mountain" and I imagine that I'd be about to watch a disaster movie about avalanches or something. However, put "Killer Mountain" on a poster like THAT, where a woman is cowering in fear of what appears to be a bearded dragon with an octopus for a tongue, and my expectations change entirely.
To answer your first question (at least, this was MY first question), no, the movie isn't about a sentient mountain that kills people. I started this up with that tiny glimmer of hope and the film dashed it within the first ten minutes. How I had any hope left at all after seeing the SyFy Channel logo at the very beginning is a complete and utter mystery even to me. Killer Mountain is a bit of a misnomer, in that it isn't the mountain that kills people so much as it is the budget-CGI monsters that dwell within the mountain. I guess it's kind of like "make-out point"; it's not a place that makes out with people, but rather a place where people go to make-out. The difference here being the threat of giant Bhutanese centipede creatures.
As I learned far too late in the movie to care, these monsters are apparently called Druks. One Google search later revealed that Druks are creatures in Bhutanese mythology. Fun fact: studying Bhutanese mythology is just one of many things that you can do instead of watching Killer Mountain. Despite the fact that these creatures are referred to as Druks, I think they look more like the centipedes from the arcade game, Centipedes. When one hears "Bhutanese thunder dragons", one would imagine something that looks a fair bit more impressive than some discarded concept art from Evolve after it had been animated by Ray Harryhausen with half the budget and a quarter of the talent.
But don't count Killer Mountain out just yet. This isn't just another effects-laden blockbuster, all style, no substance. There is an all-star cast of relatable and memorable characters. There's Folksy Cowboy Sidekick, Rich Guy, Rich Guy's Jerk Son, Sherpa, Hispanic Pilot Who Speaks Spanish When He Gets Excited, Ex-Wife, Useless Doctor Who I Literally Forgot Was In The Movie, and of course, the hero of the film, Retired Mountain Climber Who Looks Like If Rory Cochran Had A Baby With Reggie Fils-Aime.
It's also got an amazing story to tell. Retired Mountain Climber is a retired mountain climber who is hired by Rich Guy and his transparently evil corporation to help locate a missing exploration team. At first, he refuses, but eventually agrees to tag along once Rich Guy reveals that Retired's ex-wife was sent in before him. One must wonder what depths the SyFy Channel has sunk to that they would resort to stealing from Jurassic Park: The Lost World, of all movies. However, twists abound! We later find out from Jerk Son that Rich Guy has only doomed countless explorers to death by the millipedes of the mountain in an effort to find Shangri-La. Yes, the literal, physical Shangri-La. Rich Guy hopes to find it, described as a city that grants endless knowledge and riches to those who find it, because he hopes it will cure his cancer. I suppose one could use endless knowledge to cure cancer, or endless gold to fund research, but we're also told that Rich Guy has only a month left to live. This revelation is foreshadowed by Rich Guy occasionally downing random pills out of an orange pharmacy bottle as if they were off-brand Pez.
I don't rightfully see how infinite gold and wisdom is the cure for cancer, but that's because it apparently isn't. No, according to Killer Mountain, cancer can be eradicated by ordinary, run-of-the-mill ancient Bhutanese mountain leech goo. Believe me when I say, the scene in which an actor excitedly squeezes slime out of rubber leeches into a glass jar is the highlight of this movie (it also displays the only tolerable special effects in the entire feature).
Apparently, Killer Mountain was made in 2011. That's the same year that gave us Attack the Block. This is just one of many ways that Killer Mountain succeeds in making me a little sad inside. Nearly every other way is supplied care of the most dull, lifeless collection of people I think I have ever seen on screen. Let's have a little quiz, just to help me prove a point:
1. You're in a deserted base camp on a mountain. Despite the fact that you were supposed to meet up with a team of people, they all appear to have mysteriously vanished. While exploring a tent, you see a pool of red, blood-like liquid. As you look at it, more appears to be dripping from the ceiling. What do you do?
A. Maybe gasp or scream, look to see where it's coming from, alert anyone of what you've found immediately.
B. Stare at it dopily, mash your fingers into the mysterious puddle for a few seconds, leave the tent without looking to see where it's clearly dripping from.
2. You're on a mountain after the helicopter that brought you there crashed. While looking around, you find what appears to be a big, fossilized shark jaw full of sharp teeth. You haven't seen any kind of monster or animal that this could belong to. What do you do?
A. Make a note of it, continue looking for the missing climbers you're there to find.
B. Say "let's get the hell out of here, these things could be all over the mountain", despite having never seen any "things" and having no way to get off of the mountain.
3. You are inside a cavern full of giant insect monsters. These creatures have already eaten several people. Your companions are attempting to rescue someone. What do you do?
A. Offer to help, keep watch for more creatures, contribute in literally any way possible.
B. Wander into a cavern you know to be full of killer centipede things because you want to "look around a little".
If you answered A to any of those questions, then congratulations; you are officially too smart to be a main character in Killer Mountain.
Know that this is not a dumb B-movie like Transformers or The Purge. This is a movie where characters inject themselves with a magical drug (that appears to be nothing but blue Gatorade) to make themselves resistant to high altitudes, yet no one ever wears anything heavier than a windbreaker. This is a movie in which a giant snakebug murders a man with a wooden crate. This is a movie that contains the line "let's get the frack out of here". This is a movie where, after lighting a bunch of monsters and people on fire, our protagonist lets out a dopey chuckle and immediately begins hitting on his ex-wife. If there's one bit of comfort to come out of this movie, it's the knowledge that the surviving characters surely starved to death while making their way off of the titular mountain.
I remember watching a collection of Don Hertzfeldt's animation several years ago with some friends. It was the absolute most insane thing I'd ever seen and I loved it. The imaginative animation and absurdist humor set Hertzfeldt's work apart from everything else I had seen on the internet at that point. Naturally, when I was browsing Netflix and saw that Hertzfeldt had done an entire movie, I knew I had to see it. Truthfully, I think you should too.
It's Such a Beautiful Day is a feature film comprising of three of Hertzfeldt's short films edited together (Everything Will Be OK, I Am So Proud of You, and It's Such a Beautiful Day). The piece follows the story of Bill, a pencil-drawn stick-man who contemplates his own existence while suffering from a potentially fatal mental illness. That is honestly all I can say about the plot without just recounting the entire movie; at 62 minutes, this isn't a particularly lengthy picture. Not to mention that, aside from the short running time, this is a strange, strange film.
For the most part, aside from the core concept, it defies description. This enduring surrealism works to both the movie's benefit and detriment at a few moments; one example of the latter that stood out was a gag involving a leafblower at a bus stop. It went on just a tad too long for my taste and, while one could defend this by pointing out that it is meant to illustrate the tedium of Bill's life, the joke takes place far enough into the plot that we're already well aware of just how dull and repetitive things are for our protagonist.
Thankfully, the good moments outweigh the bad by a good couple of proverbial tons; the humor in this movie is as funny as it is dark. If you don't think you'd laugh at a joke about a little girl who died of Yellow Fever (and also being on fire), then this probably isn't the movie for you. The comedy here is one of the most interesting facets of Beautiful Day; it's so oddball that everyone will take something different away. There are jokes here that will make some people laugh, some people feel sad, and others just scratch their heads. And that's the entire focus of the film; the human condition. What it means to be a person living their life on planet Earth. Just like life, It's Such a Beautiful Day manages to be funny, terrifying, heart-wrenching, utterly baffling, and a million other things over the course of its runtime. Each individual who watches this movie is going to take away something completely unique. We look at Bill's journey and begin to connect pieces of his experience to our own, whether in big ways, small ways, numerous ways, or just one way.
If I had but one thing to say about It's Such a Beautiful Day, it's that it will make you think. It will make you think about life, about death, about the future, about the past, about time itself, about love, and about everything that signifies that you are a member of the human race, orbiting a star on a colossal, blue sphere.
And I think that that's worth something.
Released in 2011, Attack the Block has since transcended its meager beginnings and gone on to become a cult favorite, and with good reason. Directed by Joe Cornish, the film centers on a group of British hoodlums who, after killing an alien creature, must defend their neighborhood from a veritable invasion of extraterrestrials.
The plot is classic sci-fi; hostile creatures invade a town (or in this case, South London) and the only people who know or care about it are the troublemaking kids. The police are oblivious to the real problem and before long it's up to the antihero leader (the aptly named Moses, played by John Boyega) to save everyone from the interstellar scourge. That said, this is a film which takes classic genre tropes and adds a twist to keep things unique and interesting. Just as Alien provided a clever spin on the haunted house/slasher flick, Attack the Block is a modern take on classics like Gremlins or The Blob. The "kids" here aren't portrayed as Dennis the Menace-esque foils to the stuffy adults, but rather as actual teenagers who are really involved in some unseemly stuff. The police don't bust Moses and crew for drag racing or skipping school; the opening scene depicts a young woman (Sam, portrayed by Jodie Whittaker) being mugged and threatened at knifepoint by our so-called protagonists.
And therein lies one of the recurring themes of Attack the Block; at its core, this is a movie about who people really are when the chips are down. In another film, it would be perfectly reasonable to say that Moses and his street gang could be portrayed as villains; as we explore their characters, we see that, despite their criminal activities, none of these kids are really bad people. They act out due to the circumstances in life that they've found themselves in. Once those circumstances change (thanks to some "big, gorilla-wolf motherf*ckers"), they are forced to become heroes in their own right.
However, none of this would have worked upon viewing, had it not been for the utterly spectacular cast. John Boyega is clearly the breakout star; his performance as Moses is just excellent, saying little but getting across so much. Boyega is set to appear in Star Wars: The Force Awakens this December; if he's anywhere near as good in that as he is in this, it'll be a great watch for sure. Truthfully, all of the gang members are really excellent to watch, each one simply oozing with character; the biggest strength of the film lies in the raw chemistry present among the main cast. Jodie Whittaker's Sam acts as the odd one out among the main characters; as the film goes on, the young nurse has no choice but to join forces with her former assailants. She provides good contrast to the group, making for a lot of interesting moments when the only people she can rely on in the midst of deadly chaos are the same renegade teens who pulled a knife on her earlier in the evening.
Rounding out the supporting cast are Nick Frost as Ron (a local drug dealer), Luke Treadaway as Brewis (a local stoner), and Jumayn Hunter as Hi-Hatz (a local drug lord). Each of these characters are fun to watch (especially Hunter's psychotic gangster), but none of them are truthfully as interesting or entertaining as the main group.
Speaking of interesting and entertaining, the monsters in this film are utterly top-notch. Really, these gorilla-wolf-dog things are some of the coolest creatures I've ever seen on film. The aliens in Attack the Block are a sterling example of what can be achieved when practical special effects and CGI are used in tandem. There isn't much gore, but what is present is really good (one instance near the climax actually got a verbal response out of me- not a very easy thing to do). This is an utterly gorgeous film, especially when one considers the indie budget that this movie was made on. The cinematography and music are fantastic, giving everything a unique, dynamic feel. There's as much character in the visuals as there is in the cast.
I have a theory that some of the best films out there take a classic story or idea, then present it in its own unique way. This film certainly succeeds on this front, introducing something wholly familiar and original at the same time. As fun to look at as it is to watch, Attack the Block is a stellar entry into the alien invasion genre, managing to be exciting, scary, hilarious, and heartfelt while never once feeling boring.
Believe.
"If it's in a word, or it's in a look, you can't get rid of The Babadook."
I certainly hope not, seeing as how this horror film from Australia is positively brilliant. Directed by Jennifer Kent and based on her 2005 short film, MONSTER, The Babadook became the critically-acclaimed darling of this past year's Sundance Film Festival. Lucky for us lowly commoners, it's now available in certain super-special theaters and on multiple video-streaming services.
The plot is your standard ghost-type story; a struggling single mother and widow (portrayed by Essie Davis, who gives a performance comparable to that of Nicholson in The Shining) and her slightly disturbed son (Noah Wiseman, playing a kid in a horror movie that I actually don't want to smack) encounter the world's scariest pop-up book and must deal with the terrible entity that is unleashed upon their home.
Make no mistake, this is not a horror movie in the same realm as Freddy vs Jason or Paranormal Activity, where you pop some popcorn and yell at characters who are drinking and sexing themselves into an early, jump-scare induced grave. The Babadook is more in the same category as something like Alien or The Shining, where the emphasis is placed on building suspense and immersing the audience in the terrifying events taking place on screen. There are no multi-billion dollar special effects on display here; Mister Babadook looks and moves like a misplaced extra from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. And that's assuming he's even on screen; the titular monster only has, at the very most, a few minutes of screentime throughout the entire thing. But like the xenomorph in Alien or the shark in Jaws, this scarcity makes his few appearances all the more effective.
And just as in Alien and Jaws, the real star of the movie is not the creature, but the lead actors. Essie Davis gives one of the best horror performances I've ever seen. Her on-screen relationship with Noah Wiseman delves into some truly uncomfortable territory and helps cement this film as an instant horror classic. In the film, she plays Amelia, a nursing home orderly who never quite moved on from her husband's death. As the story goes on, she must face her own demons while conversely dealing with her son, Samuel (Wiseman). Samuel suffers from a constant fear of monsters, even going so far as to construct homebrew weaponry to ward off the horrible things he fears lurk under his bed and in his closet. His father was killed in a car accident while driving a pregnant Amelia to the hospital; this gives rise to a veritable Ouroboros of mental anguish. Amelia is just as responsible for her son's problems as Samuel is for his mother's. By the end of the movie, the underlying theme is pretty obvious, but there's plenty of tiny moments scattered throughout that will illicit several "OH MY GOD, WAITAMINUTE"s on repeat viewings.
The Babadook is a horror fan's horror movie; it's subtle and chilling, showcasing some truly stunning performances. It's the type of movie that will leave you thinking about it for hours after you've seen it, then make you wet yourself when you need to trek down a dark hallway to get to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
