Movie Review: Insidious: The Last Key

My first theatre film of 2018 was Insidious: The Last Key and in the end I had some mixed feelings about it.

The Good: Lin Shaye's performance as parapsychologist Elise Rainer is consistently the best part of these films.  Honestly, I'm thrilled to see any franchise with a female lead older than 40, regardless of genre and her brave, yet troubled character makes each film the franchise much more emotionally involved than I have any right to expect.

In addition, although yes, the film does have a few jump scares and fake outs, (the lack of which were a huge part of why I loved the first film in the series), much of the best stuff happens on the astral plane (called "the further" in the film series), and that exploration is a really interesting journey that I don't see very often in haunted house films.

The Bad: The film suffers from working as a joining piece, stretching in between the events of Insidious Chapter 3 and the first film in the series.  In many ways there are sequences in this film that I wish had been done different (specifically one taking place in the further and an early sequence with a six or seven year old Elise) but I'll shy away from specifics to avoid spoilers.

In the end the film is a functional conclusion to the series and was a fun filmgoing experience, but would not be for newcomers and suffers from a need to reinforce the franchise, rather than telling its own story.

Movie Review: Insidious Chapter 3

Yesterday I went to see the latest entry in the Insidious Franchise, Insidious Chapter 3, and although the film did have some serious flaws, I had a pretty fun time.

Leaving behind (or I suppose ahead, as this is a prequel) the Lambert family, being the main characters from the first two chapters, this one focuses on a new family, The Brenners, and specifically their seventeen-year-old daughter Quinn (Stefanie Scott).  Equally sharing screen time, and effectively stealing the show is Elise Rainier, played incredibly well by Lin Shaye, who I have to say may be my favourite part of all of these films.

The movie works best in terms of the questions it asks, and it's deeper delve into the franchise's world of "The Further" but does lose out as it mostly relies on shocks and jumps, and unfortunately attempts to tie itself too closely to the previous films, but I have to admit, in it's better moments I was definitely unnerved.

If you've never seen the series, definitely check out the first, as it is by far the strongest, but if you find you enjoyed the world and it's characters, the sequels are worth a look as well.

Movie Review: Insidious Chapter 2

I just got back from an advanced screening of Insidious Chapter 2 which was pretty darn great.

Unlike the sequels in the Saw Franchise (the original was written and directed by James Wan and Leigh Whannell, the same guys who would later do Insidious and The Conjuring) Insidious Chapter 2 sticks very close in tone to the first film, rather than turning it into something else entirely.

The film begins the day after the events of the first film, so I would strongly recommend you see the first movie before you check this one out.  I first watched Insidious back in 2011 when it came to DVD, and then rewatched the film last month with my 21-year-old daughter who hates horror films, but was willing to tough out this series so I could have company to the sequel.

In the end the movie is pretty great, works well for what it is, and will almost definitely end up on my DVD shelf next year.

Also kudos to my BFF Mike for getting me the advanced screening pass.

Bookmonkey Saw: Day 30 - The End

Conclusion

So here we are at the end of my month dedicated to an examination of the Saw franchise and what have I learned?

First of all, the 2004 film Saw is an effective, low-budget thriller that impressed me with concept, acting and a few intriguing plot twists.  I think I'll add my copy of the film to my horror DVD collection, and although I have zero interest in seeing the many films inspired by the franchise, I can honestly say the film is worth the watch for thriller fans.

Next, the comic book is a great example of how not to expand a text into another medium and both the Reality TV series and the video game are excellent examples of how to explore the phase space of an original text.  The comic added nothing to the original story and gave no lead-in to the sequel, in addition it could have created the beginning of an entire comic book series (for those of you unaware, horror and comics have a long and involved history together - check out The Horror The Horror: Comic Books the Government didn't want you to read by Jim Trombetta), while the reality TV series and Video game both spawned sequels and introduced new audiences to the horror genre and the original film franchise.

Finally, as a series, the franchise quickly looses steam and soon exhausts it's original concept - by the end of the third film I had seen the basic plot of the remaining four films.  As a long time fan of the horror genre, I can honestly say that unlike fantasy, horror works best in short form.  What horror also does is pack kids in theatres, and like the Friday the 13th's and Nightmare on Elm Street's of the 1980s, the Hammer Horror Films of the 1960s and the Universal Monster Movies of the 1930s and 40's, it ensures a new generation of teens grow up with a series they can call their own, as evidenced by the massive amount of fan fiction and websites devoted to any and all horror series.

In horror films, the two biggest sub-genres are slasher movies (wherein a killer chases teens around until one of the teen girls starts doing the chasing) and ghost movies (wherein a ghostly phenomenon terrifies a family until the Dad embraces the spiritual).  In 2004 Saw found another way (no teen characters and a "Slasher" who wants his victims to live, and to be better people for it) and creators Leigh Whannell and James Wan followed it up in 2010 with Insidious, one of the most effective ghost films I've ever seen, which also turned the tried-and-true formula on it's ear (It's not the house that's haunted).

Bookmonkey Saw: Day 2

Okay, so today let’s look at the first film of the series, Saw (2004).  Created by Australian filmmakers James Wan and Leigh Whannel, the story is actually quite simple.  Two men wake up in an abandoned bathroom, chained by their ankles to pipes on either end of the room.  In the centre of the room is the body of a man who appears to have shot himself in the head.  In its hands are a tape records and a gun.  The two men manage to acquire the tape player and finding cassettes in their pockets which say “Play Me” (Obvious shades of Alice in Wonderland here), are informed that they have approximately 8 hours in which to escape, which will only occur for the one left alive at the end.

There is also a sub-plot focusing on two police officers who are hunting down a serial killer called “The Jigsaw Killer” who places his victims in horrible hurt-yourself-and-escape-or-do-nothing-and-die traps (such as they one our two leads are in).

As with many horror/thriller films, there will be plot-twists and discoveries, but I’m attempting to write without spoilers so I’ll go light on those.

In terms of the Horror genre in 2003/2004 when the film was released at the Sundance Film Festival and later released throughout North America , here is what was going on.

2003 Was filled with a lot of sequels and remakes, Dawn of the Dead (Remake), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Remake), and Freddy vs. Jason (considered parts 8 and 11 of the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13^th franchises respectively), as well as Van Helsing an homage to the classic Universal Monster movies of the 1930s.  Keep in mind that the Horror genre is one made of sequels and remakes; usually the producers and directors are working on their first or second film and horror films have always packed kids into theatres.

Saw worked in a very different way than the other options horror fans had at the time.  To begin, the killer is off screen for almost the entire film, second there is no female lead (one of the two men in the bathroom has a wife, but she is on screen for less than 10% of the film, mostly in flashbacks), and finally, although the story clearly owes concepts to both Mad Max (1979) and Se7en (1995 – which also focuses on cops trying to find an incredibly clever killer) Saw wasn’t an obvious remake or sequel.

Watching it myself I have to admit that the first film is kind of clever.  The on-screen violence is fairly minimal (you don’t see any severed body parts for example), and the story seemed innovative and quite smart for an incredibly low-budget film.  In the end, the movie did so well at the box-office a sequel was ordered with a release date set for the Friday before Halloween in 2005.

Bookmonkey Saw: Day 1

Okay, so lets join your pal Bookmonkey for a talk about the Saw-franchise of horror films.

In 2004 Lions Gate Films released a horror film which would dominate the horror genre in film for the next seven years and touch upon other formats ranging from comic books and video games to reality television.  It all began with...

Wait, first let’s go back to the beginning.

In 1979 Australian Cinema hit the mainstream with the film Mad Max.  The finale of this car-chase / revenge film has ex-cop Max Rockatansky (played by Mel Gibson) come upon one of the villainous thugs who murdered his wife and child early in the film.  Forcing the man to handcuff himself to a car, Max sets the vehicle on fire, brandishes a hacksaw and states:

Max: The chain in those handcuffs is high-tensile steel, it’ll take you ten minutes to hack through it with this. (tosses villain the hacksaw) Now, if your lucky, you can hack through your ankle in five minutes. 

Walking away from the vehicle as it burns, the audience hears the scream of the thug followed by the vehicle exploding.

The creators of the 2004 horror film Saw, Australians James Wan and Leigh Whannell, were both two-years-old when the first Mad Max film was released, but both state that the film, and specifically this scene “...was definitely a big, direct influence”(1) on Saw (2004) which has two men handcuffed to pipes in an abandoned building and facing the same dilemma.  

It is these connections, along with the fact that the Saw franchise had a new motion picture out the Friday before Halloween every year for seven straight years, and that the story expanded into other areas, including significant aspects of popular culture, that drew me to want to make an examination of the series.

As a long-time horror fan myself, but definitely one who prefers the monster movie sub-genre, I was of course familiar with the general idea behind the series, but until this month have not seen any of the central or related texts.  

1. Hartley, M. (Director and Writer) (2008). Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! [Film] Australia: City Films Worldwide.