All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006)

I have to admit, slasher films are a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. Watching horror films as a teen, slashers always seemed to provide the right mix of gore, sex and shocks my still-developing mind craved. When I began to study films, I felt secretly justified to discover how surprisingly complex the slasher film can be. When it comes to slasher films, even the worst of the worst have some interesting psychological quirk that usually make viewings bearable. Thankfully, there are still excellent slasher films being made these days and even some that manage to do something new.

Although this film is clearly in the slasher genre, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane never feels like a typical slasher film. The structure and pacing fits the established pattern but director Levine manages to keep things feeling fresh with interesting visuals and a terrific soundtrack. The look of this film is polished but not over-produced (a hard balance to find) and there’s enough good gore to please the genre fans without becoming gratuitous.

Amber Heard plays the title role fairly well with a good mix of girl-next-door and object of desire. The others do a decent job, with no-one particularly bad or good. As supporting characters they serve their roles well, increasing tension and threat as they’re systematically killed off around the main character.

This film helps to bring a little spark back to the fading slasher genre, a new take on an old story. Though not as revolutionary as some believe, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is entertaining, scary and sexy and makes me love the slasher genre even more.

Tags: slasher

[Rec] (2007)

Even though The Blair Witch Project was released almost ten years ago, we’ve yet to see many films try to emulate the low-budget, point-of-view filmmaking techniques seen in the successful horror film. Recently, however, several high-profile films have attempted to contain their action to (ostensibly) a single camera and POV perspective; two of these films were moderate Hollywood successes (Cloverfield and Diary of the Dead) and the third is a terrific and frightening little Spanish film called [Rec].

Whereas the two Hollywood films attempted to expand the scope of their action (the whole of New York City in Cloverfield and across Pennsylvania in Diary of the Dead), the directors of [Rec] make the smart move of containing the majority of the film to one setting, an apartment complex in Barcelona. Not only does this help to reduce production costs, a constant setting helps to both create familiarity and break that familiarity, greatly increasing the potential for shock and horror. Nothing elicits more terror than an aggressive element crashing in on a previously safe place.

I can’t help but compare this film to George Romero’s recent zombie POV effort, Diary of the Dead. Both concern similar outbreaks and both are depicted primarily through POV camerawork. [Rec], however, is both more entertaining and captivating and, importantly, a much scarier film. The frenetic pace and tension in this film is incredible; once the action starts, it doesn’t let up until the end credits. When discussing the use of POV in both films, the rationale for the technique in [Rec] (that a TV camera crew is following firemen through a typical night and they get involved in a mysterious outbreak) is more believable and realistic than that in Diary of the Dead (a driven film student seeks fame and glory through documenting a zombie attack). The POV in Diary feels like a gimmick, whereas it feels natural in [Rec].

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this film has already been remade in Hollywood as Quarantine. After viewing [Rec], I keep thinking that this is the film Romero should have made: a fast, grim, unrelenting zombie film. [Rec] is easily one of the most impressive and frightening horror films I’ve seen for a long time.

A Snake of June (2002)

Standard rules of film criticism don’t tend to apply to the films of Shinya Tsukamoto. Controversial and groundbreaking from the start (with interesting and complex films such as Tetsuo), Tsukamoto’s work is always filled with difficult imagery and challenging themes. Constantly moving between avant garde and mainstream cinema, Tsukamoto focuses on issues of sexuality, gender and repression within Japanese society. A Snake of June is an interesting (if potentially problematic) snapshot of the lives of a “typical” Japanese couple and their encounters with a voyeuristic stranger.

I say problematic because the events in this film are either misogynistic or empowering, depending on your point of view. Tsukamoto offers no simple explanation because he deliberately seeks to provoke, to invite discussion on issues of sexual repression and identification in Japanese society. Perhaps tellingly, Tsukamoto places himself in the role of primary antagonist, playing the potentially dangerous voyeur who inserts himself into the lives of the Japanese couple. Rather than retreating behind the camera, Tsukamoto takes ownership of his position and attempts to highlight the inherently voyeuristic nature of cinema.

Though the film is filled with provocative images, A Snake of June never descends into titillation or gratuity. His use of stark blue-filtered black and white help to ground the film, lending it both realism and, somewhat ironically, surrealism. This dichotomy resurfaces in several bizarre voyeuristic sequences, seemingly from a different film. This mix of reality and surreality, a trademark of Tsukamoto’s films, serves to unnerve the viewer and helps to create a lasting impression.

Is this film misogynistic or does it promote female empowerment? Is it arguing for or against the loss of sexual identity in Japanese society? Though there are no easy answers offered in this challenging and often disturbing film, A Snake of June and director Tsukamoto are not afraid to ask difficult questions. After all, isn’t that the basis of interesting filmmaking?

Diary of the Dead (2007)

Almost forty years after his original genre-defining zombie film was released, George Romero returns for a fifth film in the genre he helped to pioneer. After so many subsequent films have adapted and re-defined the zombie genre, Diary of the Dead goes back to the beginning, with a re-imagining of the original cataclysmic outbreak, retconned to modern day. The resulting film is a mix of old and new, traditional lumbering zombies amongst a Youtube world, filmed in handheld POV. While Romero has delivered an interesting film (for a number of reasons), Diary of the Dead is ultimately disappointing and never quite manages to deliver on its potential.

One of the film’s strengths (and ironically, weaknesses) is the POV gimmick. Shooting from the camera’s point of view is an excellent technique for horror films, creating an extremely tense atmosphere that puts the viewer right in the events on screen. There are some genuinely frightening sequences in the film, aided immensely by the POV shooting. However, Romero seems too restricted by the POV gimmick. The film’s narrative doesn’t flow as naturally as it does in other films that use similar techniques (Cloverfield, for instance). The whole idea of a film-within-a-film feels forced as well, especially with the use of incidental music (a technique used to create tension, according to the editor of the film-within-a-film).

Diary of the Dead also lacks a genuine documentary feel, something present in The Blair Witch Project, clearly one of Romero’s inspirations for this film. The acting and characters seem especially over-the-top and borderline melodramatic. Strangely enough, the camera work also seems a bit too professional and high quality for student filmmakers. The composition is generally too staged to be believable (although there is a subtext in the film relating to authenticity and whether or not a documentary filmmaker can be objective and 100% truthful).

There are many interesting elements to Diary of the Dead but I feel Romero doesn’t quite meet the standards set by his previous zombie films. The film’s rhetoric about media propaganda risks heavy-handedness and the pseudo-documentary techniques employed do more harm than good. While still an interesting modern revision of Night of the Living Dead, Diary of the Dead fails to deliver on its ambition.