Red State

Written and Directed by: Kevin Smith

There's a lot I want to say about this movie, but very little of it is cohesive. Here goes anyway.

1. This film has two distinct halves. The first half is ostensibly a "horror" film, but the pacing slow and deliberate for that to work. The second half is more action-drama oriented, and better overall.

2. There was a lot of drama regarding Kevin Smith's strategies for funding and promoting this movie - most notably his attempt to auction it off at Sundance. That's all well-documented elsewhere. My only comment is that, although Kevin Smith may have felt he needed to be a bit of a showman to sell this movie, I feel that the movie was pretty darn good on its own.

3. By far, "Red State" is the most cinematic of Kevin Smith's films. The camera actually moves in some sequences (contrary to his usual stationary style), and some scenes use interesting angles to add to the effect. I mean, I'm not some kind of cinema snob, but as a Kevin Smith fan these changes and effects were very noticeable. It's nice to see him work outside of his comfort zone.

4. The climax of the film is fantastic. I can't comment on it much without giving it away, but I will say that it's not predictable. At all.

5. There are a couple of pretty gruesome sequences, though the actual gore is limited. Rather, it's the idea of what is being done which is what is most disturbing. This film is not for the faint of heart.

As a Kevin Smith fan, I recommend this movie. It's pretty good (hard to say "enjoyable"), though it does fall short of being great. Being prepared for the movie is key, especially knowing that the slow beginning pays off later, so keep that in mind.

Carriers

Written and Directed by: Alex Pastor, David Pastor

What if, in the future, a disease wiped out most of the population? What would you to survive? What if Hollywood produced a low-budget horror movie with that exact premise?

This movie takes place after a biological apocalypse, where we meet up with the Green brothers Danny (Pucci) and Brian (Pine), who have developed rules to help themselves and their girlfriends survive on the road to an elusive beach paradise.. The rules are constantly bent and broken, though, as they encounter other survivors, such as Frank (Meloni) and his infected daughter (Shipka). The pressure to survive weighs heavily on Brian, who slowly begins to lose his sanity and his humanity.

It's regrettable that the film took such an open-ended (though recently overused) premise and failed to take it anywhere. This movie didn't do anything that hadn't already been done by other films to more effect. The filmmakers' message was hard to pull out, and even then it was rather vague.

One scene in the movie stands out as being a cut above the rest of the movie: the scene at the "emergency hospital" set up at the abandoned high school with the doctor. That single scene managed to be unsettling, disturbing, and filled with tension without the need for graphic gore. The character's interaction with the doctor - and the terrible choice he and the group are forced to make - is fantastic, while there's also great tension with what's going on in the car outside. I can't say enough about how that one scene showed how great the rest of the film could have been.

Overall this movie had too much going on. There were too many settings left unexplored, too many characters left undeveloped, and too many stories that were left untold.

I simply can't recommend this movie. If you do watch it, simply watch it through the scene with the doctor at the high school (you'll know the part), because it's all downhill after that. (And, in my own defense, the only reason I watched the entire movie was because I was over halfway through by the time I realized how bad it was.)

The Birds

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock

Written by: Daphne Du Maurier (story), Evan Hunter (screenplay)

Most people are at least passingly familiar with "The Birds" and some of its more famous sequences. Few people have actually seen the film from beginning to end, and I now count myself among those lucky few.

Intrigued by the mysterious Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) after he hits on her at a bird store (really!), Melanie Daniels follows him to his home in Bodega Bay under the auspices of delivering a pair of love birds for his younger sister's birthday. Chaos ensues as the local birds begin coordinating violent attacks on the people of the town, leaving several dead and the rest to wonder if they will survive the night.

What surprised me most was how long it took for the action of the film to develop. For the first half of the film (give or take), the story is merely merely one of cat-and-mouse romance between Brenner and Daniels. Of course, this adds to the tension - knowing that at some point, somehow, the birds are going to start attacking. (Although, this raises the question - if one didn't know that the birds were going to attack, would that tension exist at all? Or is that prior knowledge essential to the film?)

The effects are cheesy. Hitchcock, although a master of suspense and horror, worked best when relying on his actors to pull off the drama. It was hard to be afraid of a bird that either didn't look real, or seemed to be spliced in from stock footage.

The climax is a masterpiece, though. Considering that almost everything that makes the scene scary is happening completely off camera, it's amazing how terrified the film made me feel. The sounds effects, and small but important visual effects, make this scene. Knowing that all the birds are outside the house trying to get in (and that they occasionally find a weakness in the home's exterior) was absolutely frightful without needing any blood and guts. (OK, so there's a little blood and guts - but nothing like a slasher film).

The other great scene in the film occurs in the local diner, when the birds begin their first major attack on the town. The way the different personalities in the diner interact with each other and react to the situation is priceless. Although the dialogue isn't the strongest, the scene feels very real - as though that what normal people would do given some kind of avian apocalypse. That scene alone makes the film worth seeing at least once.

Although I'm often a fan of the "No explanation given; no explanation needed" philosophy, I'm afraid "The Birds" relied too heavily on that concept. We have no idea why the birds are doing what they're doing, how they're communicating with each other, or, well, anything. It's basically senseless violence. (Although, as I type this, now I'm wondering if there may have been a message about senseless violence in our society sewn into the film? I will ponder further.) The lack of explanation and the slow pacing of the first half of the film are definitely the major flaws and hinder the film from really taking off (pun intended).

Although I enjoyed the movie, I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point for Hitchcock. It's not one of his strongest films, nor even emblematic of his work in general. It's worth seeing at some point because of the two scenes I mentioned, and because of it's place within the canon of American horror, but that's as much as I'll say for it here.

Night of the Living Dead

Directed by: George Romero

Written by: George Romero, John Russo

This is it. The film that spawned a million spin-offs and imitations, and began an obsession with the undead.

When the recently deceased begin to return as cannibals, chaos ensues and people enter survival mode. The government's top scientists struggle to solve and explain the problem of the roving bands of flesh-eaters, while most people are in a fight to stay alive. The film follows one motley group of people who hole-up together in a country home and try to survive the night. Tensions rise immediately among the survivors, though, as they debate which strategy will give them the best chance to make it to dawn - barricade and wait, or make a run for it. Each person's personalities and motives are pushed to the breaking point, leading to the dramatic and surprising conclusion. (And yes, I realize that this description is vague and could even be loosely misleading, but if you've seen the movie, you know what I'm working with.)

Everyone should see this movie at some point. And when they see it, they need to see it in the original black-and-white style. Although the colorized version adds to the blood and gore, the black-and-white is thematically important. (Again, I can't say much more without ruining things).

Even without color, this movie is gritty and graphic. I refuse to see it at night, even though I've seen it several times.

In the canon of the history of film, "Night of the Living Dead" should stand as the representative of the horror genre.