Author: fenrisfil

The 2022 Year In Review – The Top Ten.

Posted on by fenrisfil

The year is almost at an end so it’s time for my 2022 wrap up and that means a box office breakdown, a look at where the industry has been going in the last year and of course, my top ten movies of the year. Several of these I don’t have full reviews of so it also gives me an opportunity to cover some great films I just didn’t have time to review.

Before I dig in, I just want to point out since I spend more time watching and reviewing older movies I haven’t seen every film released this year that may qualify for best or worst. Notably in regards to best, I haven’t seen “Smile” yet and may even save that for next years October Horror Challenge, nor have I seen likely Oscar winner “The Whale” or the recent remake of “All Quiet on the Western Front”, all sound like they could be on this list.

Anyway, lets get started:

Best Movies Of The Year (That I’ve Seen).

First of all the honourable mentions. The Foo Fighters horror movie “Studio 666” was surprisingly fun and entertaining. There was definitely a bit of a John Carpenter influence going on and with John having a cameo I have to wonder if perhaps he gave a few tips. The band as well showed they are perfectly capable of acting at the level of a horror film. That may not be the most demanding genre for actors but yet many in these films still fail. If you like comedy horror it’s definitely one to check out.

“Black Phone” also narrowly missed the cut. The style serial killer movie with a supernatural twist and two children as the protagonists could easily be mistaken for a Stephen King story but it was a Scott Derrickson original and given this was the project he moved on to after abandoning Doctor Strange 2, he’s come out of it dodging a bullet and smelling like roses. I look forward to seeing what he comes up with next. Hint to Warner/DC he would be an excellent pick to direct a Hellblazer/John Constantine movie or a Swamp Thing movie for that matter. Hire him!

The last honourable mention is Marvel’s “Werewolf by Night“. It’s ironic it’s the pair of throw away specials from Marvel that ended up their only worthwhile output this year (The other being the solidly good “Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas Special”), but sometimes you need a studio to take their interfering eye off of the creative process to get things done right (Which is basically how “The Joker” (2019) happened too). I actually rated Werewolf by Night slightly higher than three on this list, but since it’s under an hour it’s debatable if it counts as a movie, hence it’s just an honourable mention.

10. Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Surprising me once again with it’s quality is the little blue Sega mascot. This time following on from the original with the obvious steps of introducing Knuckles and Tails. I had my doubts Sonic could work, especially after the initially terrible CGI but the studio proved they care what fans think by fixing that error and producing a movie that was both fun and full of the kind of fan service that fits into and enhances the story instead of getting in it’s way (Like most fan service these days). Jim Carey was also a surprise absolutely nailing his role as the villainous Doctor Robotnik.

Going in to the sequel I had my doubts again that adding in characters like Knuckles and Tails would be a step too far, but again I was wrong. Idris Elba did a fantastic job as Knuckles and Tails who I expected to be incredibly annoying was actually quite endearing. This was a fun family movie that also massages that nostalgia muscle in a very pleasant way. The third film it seems moves the story past my time with Sonic (Strictly Megadrive days for me), so remains to be seen if it still holds any appeal for me, but it’s a thumbs up for the first two for sure. This was a 6.5/10. If you are new to my blog, a six or above is good (Fives are average and 4 or below are bad). I like to have more room at the top.

9. The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

Nick Cage popped up on my best lists last year twice, once for “Pig” and again from the cult classic “Willy’s Wonderland”. Nick is an actor I’ve really learned to appreciate in recent years and I’m not surprised a comedy action film where Nick plays a parody of himself managed to creep into the top ten. Cage and his co-star Pedro Pascal were obviously both having a blast with this movie and the fact that Nick has no problem lampooning himself just raised what would have still been a fun action movie onto a new level. I don’t have a whole lot more to say about this one, it’s just fun. 6.5/10

8. Hatching (a.k.a. Pahanhautoja)

Another surprise entry for this year and the only horror to make the list. To be fair, I haven’t seen “Smile”, “X”, “Pearl” or “Terrifier 2”, all of which will probably end up on next years Horrorthon (Not that I don’t watch horror outside of October but it’s always good to save a few up). Not sure any of those would challenge the top ten but I won’t know until I see them.

Hatching was from this years October Challenge and was slipped in as both a new release and a foreign language movie (Finnish in this case) and it really surprised me by having a whole lot more depth than I was expecting. That said, the best body horrors tends to be built around some kind of metaphor so what this showed was director Hanna Bergholm and writer Ilja Rautsi clearly understand the genre. Check out my full review HERE. This was a high 6.5/10

7. Beavis and Butt-Head Do The Universe

A Beavis and Butt-Head movie made the top ten list for the year? The fact that this movie wasn’t as good as their previous outing back in their prime and still made number seven on this list probably says a lot about the declining quality of the movie industry. However, that’s not to say the film doesn’t deserve some accolades. Reviving an edgy animated comedy franchise from the 1990’s when edgy animated comedy was all the rage in 2022 when political correctness has made a lot of that kind of comedy “Problematic” may seem like a bad idea, but in truth it was exactly what 2022 needed. The scene where Beavis and Butt-Head learn about White Privilege (and go on a rampage thinking it will be consequence free) is simply gold.

But it’s not just that, Mike Judge has managed to bring back his characters in a way that both updates them to the modern day while also keeping them true to how they were in the classic series (And in the “Beavis and Butt-Head Do America” movie). He even managed to squeeze in some mild character development (Not that these are characters that should ever evolve that much). The movie largely seems to have existed to allow the series to continue in the modern day with the pair still teenagers. So even though the story existed to get them from A to B via space antics and time travel, Judge managed to work that into a tale that was both entertaining and somewhat paralleled their earlier movie. 7/10

6. Bullet Train

David Leitch’s Bullet Train is a movie I expected to be quite fun, but was still surprised at how well it turned out. It’s presented in a Guy Ritchie style which is a bit of a cheap way to make something seem cool and if the movie doesn’t deliver would lose it further points for cliché, but fortunately this story actually fit that style perfectly. It’s not quite a Guy Ritchie style story though, in that regard it’s probably more Tarintino. The combination makes for a somewhat comic book style (Meaning you could argue this years best comic book movie wasn’t a comic book movie) and I wouldn’t have been surprised to find this was based off a graphic novel or something, but no the work is original screenplay by Zak Olkewicz.

It certainly helps having Brad Pitt in the lead role. One of the few true movie stars the industry has left and his presence does raise the movies quality a bar or two. But despite that his character isn’t actually the most interesting, probably because this is the kind of film that is built around having a colourful zany group of misfit characters thrown together to fight and interact. Aaron Taylor-Johnson as “Tangerine” largely steals the show, but who doesn’t also love a Hiroyuki Sanada appearance? Throw in a Sandra Bullock cameo and you have a fun action classic that will probably stand the test of time. 7/10

5. Everything Everywhere All At Once

Over recent years Michelle Yeoh has been lumbered with doing a lot of garbage and while it’s good to see her continued popularity it has felt like a waste of her talents. Of course Michelle is mostly famous for her martial arts, but she is actually quite capable as an actress in general and as she ages to a point where the fighting becomes less believable it is good for her to establish her acting credentials in quality work. This is perhaps the perfect vehicle for her. Of course she still does some fighting, but that’s not the main focus of the story

Everything Everywhere is a movie full of surprises. You think it is going to go in one direction and it goes in another. You start to feel it’s turned into an action movie and it morphs into an outright comedy and then into something a lot more emotional eventually focusing in on a story about relationships, about family and about love. It is a movie that ends up with excitement and emotion and leaving you laughing your ass off. It also firmly embarrassed Marvel by easily being the best multiverse based movie of the year and doing it on a shoe string budget. This is definitely cult classic. 7.5/10

4. Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio

This has been a year full of surprises and perhaps none more so than this movie. Landing completely out of the blue for me, with very little fanfare is this absolute masterpiece of stop motion animation and story telling from the great Guillermo Del Toro. Arriving in the same year as the critically panned and poorly received Disney live action Pinocchio, this is a completely fresh take on Carlo Collodi’s classic tale of the living puppet. Shifting the time period to World War 2 to set it in Mussolini’s Fascist Italy gives the movie some “Pan’s Labyrinth” (2006) vibes. Clearly dealing with the horrors of war and oppressive dictatorships is something Del Toro is passionate about and it actually works well for this story.

Pinocchio himself has a look much closer to the Gris Grimly’s illustrations of the book than the more human like version in Disney’s classic animation and that not only makes it feel more realistic (As much as a movie about a living puppet can be) it helps to contrast Pinocchio from the stop motion “Humans” in the story who are all of course actually puppets too. Del Toro actually reduced the magical elements to the story, removing other talking animals and marionettes (Though both are sort of covered by by Spazzatura, the mistreated Monkey that is able to talk through the marionettes he operates), but this actually adds to the wonder of the story as it makes the fantastically elements that remain seem all that more special.

This movie is a visual treat and an emotional journey and really shows that even while Disney try and squeeze every drop of life out of their own version of the story, there are still takes on the classic tale that are both beautiful and worthwhile. Absolutely a 7.5/10.

3. Top Gun: Maverick

Perhaps the most important release of the year Tom Cruise proved three things with Maverick. First of all he proved he can still be a huge box office draw in an action movie. Secondly he showed that it is possible to revisit a movie from the 80’s, bring it in to the modern day and do it in a way that is both massively popular and resonates with the original in such a way that no one feels it is disrespected. Last but not least, in fact probably most significantly it showed that physical special effects and genuine stunts are far more impressive to a modern audience than even the most extravagant and expensive CGI. Perhaps it’s time for studios to re-evaluate

As a bonus Tom Cruise coming out before the film (pre-recorded that is and not in all releases) to personally thank the fans for turning up shows a level of audience respect that has been so absent from most major productions people reacted to it like an abused animal finally getting some affection. We live in very strange times when many productions are promoted with toxic campaigns of greeting any and all criticism with insults and accusation, even to the point where at least two of the years major productions (Scream and She-Hulk) actually had attacks on their own audience built into the plot itself. So coming out with such a positive message has won Cruise a number of fans for life.

The film itself is a continuation of Mavericks character development from the first film, using the death of “Goose” as the jumping off point to tie it all together. While doing that story it also introduces a number of new younger pilots and allows them their own character development. Then it provides an action sequence somewhat reminiscent of the Star Wars trench run but provides just enough mission to allow everyone’s story arc to have meaning. Nothing is overdone here except for arguably Maverick’s romance angle, but personally I had no issue with that and Jennifer Connelly had great chemistry with Cruise. Anyway check out my full review HERE. This was a very strong 7.5/10.

2. Violent Night

Jumping in at the very last minute ahead of Maverick is the years most surprising film of all “Violent Night”. I don’t think anyone expected this movie to be as good as it was. Director Tommy Wirkola is mostly known for low budget horror films such as the “Dead Snow” movies (The one with the zombie Nazi’s) and mid budget action films like “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” (2013). While he’s clearly playing with home field advantage here, it’s not like any of his films have been anything beyond moderately good. But I think with this he’s finally made the film he will ultimately be known for. It probably helps that the script for the film was penned by Pat Casey and Josh Miller, the team also behind the Sonic movies (So managed to write two of the years best movies).

The story is effectively Die Hard but instead of John McClane you have Santa Claus. But not just any Santa, this one used to be a Viking and when he takes it upon himself to save a young girl that is on his good list and her family from violent thieves he begins to remember his old ways and use them finally for good. David Harbour is fantastic in this role and I am now of the opinion he was born to play Santa. John Leguizamo also does a fantastic job of playing the movies main villain “Scrooge” (All the villains have Christmas related code names). The pacing is superb and almost every scene stands out with the highlights probably being when Santa fully unleashes his Viking fury and the scene almost immediately after where Trudy (The young girl in question) performs a far more violent take on Home Alone.

The great thing about this movie is it lands as a comedy, it lands as violent action and it lands just as well as the other two as a Christmas movie and I think that is the bit that really surprised me. Pair this up with the first “Bad Santa” movie and the classic Bill Murray comedy “Scrooged” and you have the ultimate evening of Christmas comedies. But if you aren’t into that, you can pair it up with Die Hard and Lethal Weapon instead. This is going to be a long time Christmas favourite and earns itself a coveted 8/10 from me.

1. The Northman

And here we are, my number one movie of the year and if not a surprising one for anyone that knows me. I love the Viking Age and I love Norse Mythology. Most of the shows and movies that get put out with those themes are frankly garbage. The TV series “The Last Kingdom” is the sole exception for TV shows (The “Vikings” shows having pitifully bad historical accuracy both in costumes and events). As far as movies goes there have been a few decent ones (The last one of note being “Valhalla Rising” from 2009). When I heard Robert Eggers was making a Viking story based on an Icelandic Saga and staring Alexander Skarsgård I was cautiously optimistic.

Eggers is somewhat obsessed with historical accuracy and has a unique approach to the supernatural where he invokes the perspective of the believers to leave the audience unsure if what they are actually seeing is real or not. Both these were going to be well suited to this story. The Saga in question is the Legend of Amleth, the story that was also the inspiration for Hamlet. Eggers with the assistance of Icelandic poet and musician Sjón constructed a story that truly evokes the spirit of those Sagas. It is tragic, grim and beautiful and portrays those times with equal amounts of horror and awe. The characters are bold, brave, brutal and fatalistic and ultimately the story feels like it is exactly the kind of movie the writers of those ancient Sagas would write themselves.

But it’s not just the storytelling that makes this my movie of the year. The sets are pure perfection down to the finest detail, the soundtrack is primal and inspiring and the performances on screen are almost all absolutely top notch. Along with Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman puts in a career best performance, Claes Bang nails the role of Amleth’s nemesis and step-father, Anya Taylor-Joy continues to prove why her career seems to have rocket boots and Willem DaFoe continues to be the scene stealer he has been his entire career (But with a bit more recognition for it these days). This movie has earned an 8.5/10 from me, a score I’ve not given since “Joker” in 2019. For my full review click HERE.

Worst Movies of the Year (That I’ve Seen)

This is very superhero heavy this year. I’m going to throw “The Batman” out there as a dishonourable mention. There was a lot of good in that movie but an equal amount of bad. Ultimately the film was a disappointment, but could have been worse. I didn’t feel anything was broken, though I doubt they’ll return to that word with Gunn now in charge at DC.

There’s also a number of apparently terrible movies I totally avoided seeing this year, that includes “Amsterdam“, “The 355“, “They/Them” and Walt Disney’s live action “Pinocchio” (It must be really embarrassing to have that come out the same year as Del Toro’s masterpiece). I suspect all of those would have found their way onto the list had I seen them. Generally I don’t go out of my way to watch bad movies, at least not unless they are obvious B-Movies and I figure they may be fun regardless of if they are objectively good or bad (For example something like “Christmas, Bloody Christmas“, which narrowly missed being on this list despite effectively being a bad Terminator rip off).

I suspect had I seen all the theatrically released movies this year only my top five would have still been on the list, but perhaps higher up.

10 – Crimes of the Future

A disappointing entry in David Cronenberg’s more hit than miss career. It is a film that tries to be highbrow with dense layers of subtext but fails to actually do anything entertaining with it. It comes off as a pretentious mess. Cronenberg’s films are always somewhat dense, but most manage to be fun too and this did not. It’s worth noting he had been messing around this idea for a while, so perhaps he gave up trying to find the right angle and just made it with what he had. Who knows. I don’t have much else to say here, but I have done a full review, which you can find HERE. I gave this a 4.5/10.

9. – Prey

A heavily clichéd movie full of modern tropes (Such as having a guy warning the hero of impending danger only to instantly die to that danger), that spends too much time trying to pointlessly reference the original movie while failing to maintain consistency with it. The movie peaks long before the end with the climax requiring the great hunter alien to be a complete and total idiot.

The movie is not without highlights, such as the first appearance of the Predator (fighting the Grizzly) and it is significantly better than the previous entry (A movie that would have easily made the bottom 3 worst even this year), but it is a long way from a true recovery for the franchise. Unlike that previous entry though this didn’t damage the franchise as a whole and can be casually ignored moving forward without issue. It is however, still a bad movie. 4.5/10

8. Morbius

Morbius is a movie that fails mostly because of what isn’t in it rather than what is. There are some flaws and dumb elements it’s true, but then there was in the Venom films too and they were still enjoyable. Morbius however lacks the positives that were in those films that make you want to overlook those flaws and has some glaring omissions in plot points that weren’t very well developed, relationships that weren’t properly explored and characters that were either scaled right down or cut completely from the main movie.

The movie feels like a skeleton of a much better movie, that had all the meat stripped away from the bone in the edit for some reason. My guess is it involves the last minute new deal Sony struck with Marvel. It’s very likely Vulture was going to feature more heavily in the story (Instead of a post credit cameo) and Agent Stroud would also be more heavily involved and actually be seen using his cyborg arm (This btw, is likely how he got to the roof of the building so fast, but they literally cut his superpowers from the film). Anyway, full review is HERE. This is another 4.5/5

7. Troll

This was especially disappointing for me as I was actually quite looking forward to it, but it turned into one of the most generic monster movies I’ve ever seen. Another film full of cliché’s, in this case the incredibly tired “Scientist of an obscure field that is brought in as a specialist consultant, everyone immediately doubts and ridicules and then turns out to be right”. It’s full of horrendous plot holes and contrivances the whole way through.

They even threw in a moment directly out of “The Suicide Squad” where the abused and undervalued subordinate punches out the bloodthirsty boss person at a key moment to allow the heroes to do that thing the military doesn’t want them to do. That trope likely goes back a lot further, but The Suicide Squad actually did it well, where as Troll just sort of does it because it can. The Troll does look reasonably good but that was the only positive I got from this. This is a 4/10

6. Scream (2022)

This overhyped disappointment hit the screens with the kind of arrogance that usually hails a self indulgent pretentious pile of garbage. Even before it aired it lost points for going with the name “Scream” like it was on par or somehow better than the original. But then it actually made references to doing just that so they can mock fans they knew would make that legitimate complaint. Bad start but then they killed off a key character just for the sake of it and chose the one male character in the mix because in 2022 it’s not enough for a franchise to be female lead it now also can’t have any men around at all because then it wouldn’t be empowering.

The truth is the franchise went off the rails years ago when it stopped being meta commentary on the horror genre and instead became directly self referential, through it’s fake “Stab” movie franchise which represents the Scream franchise. The original movie was about all of horror, but all the movies since have basically been just about the original Scream. worst of all though they basically made the villain “Toxic Fandom”. In other words, their own audience. This is a movie that spends an equal amount of time kissing it’s own ass and simultaneously calling it’s fanbase jerks. That is never going to get a good score from me and honestly I feel a 4/10 is generous. I dread to see what the idiots behind this do with the Escape From New York reboot.

5. The Munsters (2022)

The one movie on this list that wasn’t a disappointment, because I expected it to be rubbish going in. But as someone that watched a lot of Munsters reruns as a kid, I really wanted to give it a chance. I respect that Rob Zombie was trying to recreate the feel of the original film and I have heard he wanted to do it in black and white, but was declined by the studio. he also had a budget that could barely pay for a shoestring.

But even then the fact is the end result is bad and the main reason for that is because of creative choices. Specifically because Zombie chose to make the story a prequel effectively about Herman and Lilly hooking up and moving to the USA. That could potentially have worked with a strong story behind it, but Rob didn’t provide one. Not a strong story. Not even a story. The characters just sort of mill around with very little happening until random events cause them to move. Shame, but not a surprise. Full Review is HERE. I gave it 4/10 originally, I feel that may have been generous.

4. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

The front runner of this years set of entries into the abysmal MCU Phase Snore is the disaster that is Black Panther 2. Holding itself up over the other two MCU entries on this list entirely on the strength of it’s Chadwick Boseman tributes. Moving as they were it couldn’t disguise the fact that without Chadwick as Black Panther I really don’t see any characters worth rooting for in this franchise now. Shuri is not believable and the film goes out of it’s way to push gender and racial politics instead of storytelling and having fun. The fact that they changed Namors origin because they didn’t see the value in an entirely fantasy race shows how little the makers of MCU films these days value imagination.

Then you have one of the worst characters ever introduced into the comics (A character that has the mentality of a classic comic villain but is for some reason considered a hero) randomly pushed into the centre of the story in a way that never really made an sense. The movie is so full of plot holes you have to shut your brain completely off to enjoy it making it exactly what Martin Scorsese accused Marvel movies of being – A fairground ride. But for me this was so goofy a movie it’s not even a very good ride. It’s like a ride that breaks down half way through and you get stuck on the tracks for 30 minutes sweating in the hot sun. 3.5/10

3. Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness

This is perhaps the most flawed Marvel movie ever released. The reason it’s not lower on the list however is as a spectacle it does have some good moments and three scenes in particular actually had the distinct mark of Sam Raimi about them. Specifically Zombie Strange, Wanda attacking people from reflections and the music fight. The trouble is as soon as you insert even those scenes into the whole you see what a horrendously flawed mess and total character assassination of pretty much everyone involved it truly is.

Doctor Strange doesn’t even have a real character arc. Instead the plot is basically that everyone thinks he’s an a**hole and he isn’t. That’s not much more of a character arc than Batman’s “I am vengeance… maybe I’m not just Vengeance” (The Batman didn’t make the worst or best list as the flaws and positives neutralised each other). It should go without saying that the character arc of your main character should be the most important thing in a movie named after that character.

Instead this was primarily Wanda’s movie, secondarily America Chavez’ and Stephen is just sort of there. Add to that the horrible cameo of great characters that are all basically made to look like chumps in their very first MCU big screen appearance and you have a film that I absolutely hate, despite three scenes I legit enjoyed. This is a 3.5/10, one point for each good scene and half a point for the rest of the movie.

2. Thor: Love and Thunder

When discussing Thor: Rangnarok with my friends they were surprised I was uneasy about the film. As I explained to them, while I did absolutely enjoy the film I was very concerned with the direction the franchise was going and that if it goes much further in that direction we’d be reaching “Batman and Robin” levels of goofiness. The movie was followed on with Infinity War which had Thor be a definite badass, but then that was followed by Fat Thor in End Game and I became concerned again. Now it’s pretty clear I was proven right. A lot of people are now referring to this movie as the “Batman and Robin” of the franchise and rightly so.

The trouble is not only did they turn Thor into a complete joke, the joke wasn’t even funny. How many times do we have to do the screaming goats joke? How many times are we expected to laugh at gratuitous sexualisation of male characters while we are also being accused of being sexist for wanting to see attractive women? Why does Marvel want to see all it’s male heroes humiliated these days? It’s no wonder Hemsworth has been hinting he is done with the franchise. There was nothing positive at all to this movie, it’s just trash. 3/10

1. Halloween Ends

I think we can basically guarantee now that any time someone comes to the Halloween franchise and wants to wipe most (sometimes all) the previous movies from canon with the arogent view their vision is clearly going to be superior than what came before, that they will in fact end their run with a new worst film of the entire franchise history. This is the third time in a row this has happened now. First the Loomis/Jamie Lloyd arc was wiped out so that we can see Laurie Strode murdered in an insane asylum and have Busta Rhymes be the man to take down The Shape. Then Rob Zombie comes up with his “Darker/Grittier” reboot and ends with one of the most nonsensical barely watchable Halloween movies ever made.

But now we get a new champion of Garbage. We get a third movie in a disjointed trilogy (That really has no excuse to be so disjointed given it’s all the same writer/director and done over a short period). A movie that introduces a new character out of the blue that the trilogy suddenly revolves around. A Halloween movie that character assassinates the Bogeyman himself and reduces him to a cameo. We have a strode family where the granddaughter seems attracted to psychopaths despite her mother being killed by one and a Laurie that casually moves on from that murder after spending four decades obsessing over the same killer after a 5 minute home invasion and the murder of some friends. Indeed she seems to be acting a bit like a psychopath herself… yet this trilogy retconned her being Michaels sister.

This is a 3/10 and that is probably generous. You can find my full rant filled review HERE.

End of Part One

It’s AI generated, don’t read anything into it.

It’s worth noting that all but two of the bottom ten this year were franchise movies while six of my top ten were original and of the movies that were franchise films, Pinocchio is debatable as it’s just a retelling of the source material and has no links to any other Pinocchio story. Maverick meanwhile only became a franchise with this, it’s second movie and Beavis and Butt-head is a 90’s franchise that has been totally dormant since it’s brief one off revival season in 2011.

The important thing is, while they may not be original they are definitely fresh. Sonic 2 is the only movie in that list that could be argued to be a cynical cash in and it’s at number ten. Meanwhile the two original movies in the ten worst are 7th and 10th placed. There is a clear divide and it to me it shows that these big franchise movies are becoming lazier and lazier cash in’s relying more and more on their bloated CGI budget and spending less and less time finding stories that actually resonate with the viewers.

In Part two I will look at this years box office and we’ll see how well the box office receipts compare to the quality on offer. These things rarely match up and Hollywood only learn if they don’t make money. So we can see if there is really hope for movies moving forward. See you there.

The Terminator: Dead or Misunderstood? – Part One

Posted on by fenrisfil

There has been a lot said about the Terminator franchise in recent years. Recently, even James Cameron has piped back up on the subject, suggesting maybe he wants to give it another try. It’s been declared dead several times and some people have claimed it was never really a franchise to begin with and just a vehicle for Arnold Schwarzenegger. I disagree with both of those positions. I have been a huge fan of the franchise since I saw the original film and I think it’s time to talk about the franchise and look at what went wrong and how it can be fixed.

The Perfect Storm.

As I said, I disagree with people that say it isn’t a franchise. What it definitely is not though is the MCU. It’s not a franchise you can just spam out a movie with a $200m+ budget and expect it to automatically make a profit. The problem as I see it, is that people tend to just focus on the success of Terminator 2 and mark that down as the base level reaction to a franchise entry.

That whole approach is trying to replicate the perfect storm, recapture a specific moment in time and is reducing what is a franchise to something hyper focused on one entry in it. Modern reboots tend to focus on referencing scenes instead of being true to the heart of the franchise and the T2 worship is a version of that problem.

The Cameron Effect.

The thing you have to remember about Terminator 2 is that this was a movie that benefited from the James Cameron effect, or rather ground breaking James Cameron effects! Much like with “Titanic” and “Avatar”. When you are pushing the envelope on visual effects you are going to bring in a much larger audience and Terminator 2 was doing just that with it’s liquid metal T1000.

It would be mad to assume any film about the Titanic will automatically break the $2billion mark, because it’s not the story of the “unsinkable” ship that earned it that box office it was those ground breaking effects. Even with Avatar 2, most people were expecting it to disappoint because it’s just a movie about environmentalist Smurf people… and yet, it’s on it’s way to hitting $2billion again and you can bet that isn’t for the story.

The Unstoppable Force.

Terminator 2 also benefited from the success of the first Terminator film. A movie that as an 18 certificate from a virtually unknown director (Piranha 2 hardly having cemented his name in history) took a while to build popularity to the classic it is now. By the time they announced T2 support for the original was at it’s peak and Cameron was being seen as a Director to pay attention to.

But if Cameron’s star had risen that’s true a thousand times more for Arnold. He had done the Conan movies and was known as a body builder, but wasn’t really a movie star. But by 1991 he was the biggest star on the planet. This of course is part of the reason why some people think of Terminator as just a vehicle for Arnold, but that really wasn’t the case. Last but not least the hottest band of 1991 was Gun’s and Roses and they cross promoted with the movie with their music video for “You could be mine”. There was almost no way the movie could fail.

Earning Potential

All this made for the perfect storm for Terminator 2. But it stands alone in it’s earning potential. Check out the inflation adjusted graph above. You can see each movie earns less than the last, but even that first new entry “Rise of the Machines” is a considerable drop off from T2. The third and fourth movie both actually made money despite having huge production budgets for their day (Inflation adjusted high the highest of the franchise), but they were still considered disappointments.

It’s worth noting Rise of the Machines came out 12 years after T2, giving the franchise a lot of time to cool down. Then you had six years before salvation and another six before Genisys. That’s a very spread out franchise. All four of the movies that followed T2 tried for the big budget, big box office approach and all but “Terminator Salvation” basically tried to replicate Terminator 2 both in story and style. That was never going to work.

The Arnold Factor.

The truth is if you want to look at the franchise potential of The Terminator you need to instead look at the first film and you need to move away from the second and from Arnold. There was actually a moderately successful TV series spin of the show (“The Sarah Connor Chronicles”), that came out around the same time as Salvation. The show gained a second season but was cancelled before the third largely due to backroom dealings over the rights of the franchise and the plans to move forward with a new movie trilogy starting with “Genisys”. It’s a shame because the series was the best thing from the franchise since T2.

On that note, Salvation was the franchise entry post T2 and the show and movie have something important in common, they both attempted to move the franchise away from Arnold Schwarzenegger. Although Salvation CGI’d his face briefly onto a T800 unit, he wasn’t involved in the movie and he didn’t even have a cameo in “The Sarah Connor Chronicles”. Both these proved the franchise is viable without Arnold and IMHO only able to survive if it actively moves away from the actors involvement. The TV series actually showcased three new Terminators all played very well (At least after the not so good pilot episode).

New Models, New Stories.

Garret Dillahunt played the hunting Terminator “Cromartie”(post pilot) and did a fantastic job of it. This is a T-888, which has a bit more psychological skills than the usual T-800’s (For manipulation and intimidation) but is still a stone cold killer. Later in the story the Terminator’s personality is erased and replaced with an AI that John and Sarah had initially presumed to be the future Skynet, but turned out to be more of a rival AI and one that could perhaps learn the value of humanity.

Throw into the mix the gorgeous Summer Glau as “Cameron” a “female” terminator reprogrammed to protect John, who he seems to have very conflicted emotions for (In other words, he really wants to have sex with her) and in season 2 a rogue T1000 with it’s own agenda and you have a very interesting story without Arnold involved. It’s a shame it was axed when the rights changed hands and it left us on a cliffhanger where John travels into the future and in doing so find a world where he is unknown.

End of Part One

This is turning out longer than I expected, so I’m going to break here and follow up with a part two later. In that entry I will look a bit more at where they went wrong and focus in on the greatness that was the original movie.

Avengers Noir

Posted on by fenrisfil

So while “Noirvember” may be over (Meaning November, the month I traditionally watch and review Film Noir I haven’t seen yet), throughout the month I’ve been feeding amusing prompts to Stable Diffusion (An AI art generator) and it seems appropriate to cap off the month by sharing these. This is basically The Avengers and related Marvel Superheroes re-imagined as if the films were being made around 1950 and done for some unknown reason as a hybrid style with Film Noir. Yes it makes no sense whatsoever, especially as most of these heroes weren’t created until the 1960’s or later, but I thought it was fun. So let’s have a look at the cast.

Humphrey Bogart as Iron Man

Th

This is an obvious choice for me. The truth is Bogart is at 5’8”, actually a bit short for Tony Stark, but it doesn’t really matter since the kind of powerful, confident performances Humphrey put out there pretty much makes people just assume he was tall. Certainly I couldn’t pick anyone else for the role as the genius businessman and inventor turned Superhero alcoholic. Bogart of course is most famous for playing “Sam Spade” in the “Maltese Falcon” (1941) and “Rick Blaine” in “Casablanca” (1942), but appeared in many Noirs likely to be seen on top 10 and top 20 lists including “The Big Sleep” (1946), “Dark Passage” (1947) and “In a Lonely place” (1950). The man is a legend and one of the most famous actors of all time.

Glenn Ford as Captain America

Glenn Ford’s most famous Film Noir roles are “Gilda” (1946) and “The Big Heat” (1953). In both he played edgy determined characters that never gave up or backed down. Seems perfect for Captain America. Ford of course actually does have Superhero pedigree, having played Jonathan Kent in “Superman” (1978) and in that film became the man that gave Superman his moral foundation. Still not convinced? Well he also signed up for military service on three separate occasions, refused promotions offered (he thought) for his fame and not service and was frustrated at being kept out of combat.

Sterling Hayden as Thor

At an impressive 6’5” Sterling Hayden has the perfect frame to play the mighty Thor. His looks are just about right too. Hayden’s has strong Noir pedigree including: “The Asphalt Jungle” (1950) “Crime Wave” (1953), “The Come On” (1956) and most famously Stanley Kubrick’s “The Killing” (1956). Of those I have to admit to only having seen the first and the last, but I’ll get to the others soon enough! Sterling was also in the running for my Captain America, but I figured it wouldn’t make sense to cast someone as Cap in 1950 that had been a member of the Communist party (Albeit briefly).

Rita Hayworth as Black Widow

Naturally hair colour isn’t that obvious when it comes to black and white, but there are still a few actresses from the genre famous for their red hair and I wanted one of them for Black Widow. Lucille Ball dabbled in Film Noir with 1946’s “The Dark Corner” (1946), but as great as she is there really is only one actress that for the role, Gilda herself, Rita Hayworth. You can see the AI decided to give her red hair in one of the picture regardless of being in black and white and it looks great. Along with “Gilda” (1946) she was also in the Orson Welles’ classic “The Lady from Shanghai” (1947) and “Affair in Trinidad” (1952). If you don’t like the choice, put the blame on mame.

Edward G. Robinson as The Incredible Hulk

I wanted Edward G to factor in somewhere along the line and I thought it’d a fun choice for the Hulk so here we are. Although more famous for his gangster movies of the 1930’s (Especially “Little Caesar” (1931)), Robinson appeared in quite a few Film Noirs, including one of my personal favourites “Scarlett Street” (1945). He also appeared opposite Orson Welles in “The Stranger” (1956) and had a supporting role in one of the most famous Noirs of all time (Indeed number one on many lists), “Double Indemnity” (1944). Robinson often plays intelligent vulnerable men with a dark burden and aggressive angry men out to prove themselves. Works pretty well in the role for me

Dana Andrews as Hawkeye

Dana’s most famous Noir is “Laura” (1944), but he appeared in several including “Fallen Angel” (1945) and “Where the Sidewalk Ends” (1950). On top of that he was the protagonist in the Horror classic “Night of the Demon” (1957) and played Lt. Ted Stryker in the movie “Zero Hour!” (1957), a mostly forgotten movie outside the fact it was remade into a comedy in 1980, that comedy would be called “Airplane!”. Yes, he was the original Stryker. Andrews definitely deserves a spot on the team. Hawkeye is as good as any.

James Cagney as Nick Fury

Art AI’s can’t do eyepatches to save their uh… programming. But anyway when casting Nick Fury (The original Nick Fury, not the “Ultimate” version, who was basically always Sam Jackson even before the movies), I wanted a veteran that would be a bit older than the rest of the cast and play the elder statesman. Cagney is perfect. Not only is he one of the greatest on screen badasses in movie history he managed to find his way into a couple of Film Noirs late in his career. The fantastic “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye” (1950) and the absolute classic “White Heat” (1949). It’s a shame the AI couldn’t do the picture any better, but you try getting one to draw an eye patch on someone!

Harry Belafonte as Falcon

The truth is there isn’t a huge amount of choice for black Film Noir stars, but there are a couple of really good ones . The first is Harry Belafonte, primarily a musician but also a pretty good actor. He starred in and produced the Film Noir classic “Odds Against Tomorrow” (1959) and the often overlooked post apocalyptic drama “The World, the Flesh and the Devil” (1959). Outside of his music and acting careers Belafonte was an important member of the civil rights movement, making him the perfect person for Falcon. I have no idea why the AI drew a rocket ship on that last picture, but I still like the picture.

Lauren Bacall as The Scarlet Witch

I decided not to go with a natural red head for Scarlet Witch as I really wanted to get a role for Lauren Bacall and I figured she’d look good dressed as Wanda. The AI generated pictures seem to agree so I feel it was a good move. Lauren of course is most famous for her work with Humphrey Bogart (So I should probably have cast her as Pepper Potts, but I needed a Wanda), including the classics “To Have and to Have Not” (1944), “The Big Sleep” (1946) and “Dark Passage” (1947).

Orson Welles as THANOS

Could it be anybody else? Orson Welles is perhaps the ultimate movie villain actor. This is why when casting the voice of “Unicron” in “Transformers the Movie” (1986) there was only ever one choice. But his villains in Film Noir include “Professor Charles Rankin” in “The Stranger” (1946), the legendary “Harry Lime” in “The Third Man” (1949) and “Captain Hank Quinlan” in “Touch of Evil” (1958). Three of the most memorable villains in the genre. So Naturally only he could be Thanos and it helps that he sort of has the right look for the character too. These pictures sort of show degrees of morph between Thanos and Welles but they all look cool.

Sidney Poitier as Black Panther

This is another obvious one. cis a legend whose most famous film is the neo-noir “In the Heat of the Night” from 1967. However, he was actually in a couple of proper Film Noirs (i.e. ones between 1940-1959) too, ” No Way Out” (1950) and “Edge of the City” (1957). While not the first black actor in Hollywood to lead a mainstream movie (That would be Sam Lucas way back in 1914) he was arguably the first to become a true movie star. For decades he was the symbol of what could be achieved by a talented and determined black actor and he inspired generations of actors that followed in his footsteps. Oh and he wasn’t just dealing with racial prejudice, in an era ruled by musicals he couldn’t sing due to being tone deaf.

Barbara Stanwyck as The Wasp

You can’t do Film Noir casting without having Barbara Stanwyck involved somewhere. I haven’t actually cast Ant Man (Maybe if I do a part two some time), but back in the 80’s when I was regularly reading Marvel comics I preferred The Wasp anyway. Barbara is most famous for being the most famous of all femme fatale in “Double Indemnity” (1944), but she has appeared in a large number of Film Noirs including: “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers” (1946), “The Two Mrs. Carrolls” (1947), “Sorry, Wrong Number” (1948), “The File on Thelma Jordon” (1949), “Clash by Night” (1952) and “Witness to Murder” (1954). If there is a Queen of Noir it is Barbara Stanwyck. I think part of what made her so great was her ability to play broken and flawed women and if you know the comics, you know that does somewhat resemble The Wasp.

Robert Mitchum as Doctor Strange

Another actor that I simply had to include is Robert Mitchum, but it helped that he actually looks perfect for the part of Doctor Strange. At 6’1” he is no Asgardian but tall enough to look imposing and Mitchum’s intense features and world weary eyes really make me thinks of the Sorcerer Supreme (Which will always be Doctor Strange as far as I’m concerned). Mitchum’s biggest Noir roles are “Out of the Past” (1947) and “Night of the Hunter” (1955), but he appeared in a huge number including: “Crossfire” (1947), The Big Steal (1949), Where Danger Lives (1950), The Racket (1951), Macao (1952) and Angel Face (1952). He also took on the mantle of Phillip Marlowe in the 1970’s with “Farwell My Lovely” (1975) and “The Big Sleep” (1978).

Peter Lorre as Loki

Peter Lorre is another legendary Film Noir actor and I couldn’t help but feel he would actually be perfect as Loki (At least if you ignore that he is 5’3”). If anyone was born to play a trickster god it is probably Lorre. The AI seemed to agree because it did a great job with him. Peter’s first villainous role of note was in a sort of Proto-Noir, the Fritz Lang masterpiece “M” (1931), but he went on to appear in what many consider the first official Noir “Stranger on the Third Floor” (1940) and followed that up with the “The Maltese Falcon” (1941) and “Casablanca” (1942) along with a several more Noirs over the next decade. On top of this, he is in one of my favourite comedies of all time “Arsenic and Old Lace” (1944).

Sydney Greenstreet as Odin

After I cast Peter Lorre as Loki really it was no decision at all to cast Sydney Greenstreet as Odin. Though I have to admit he also looks a bit like Prince Vultan from Flash Gordon here, but I’m happy with it. Sydney of course appeared alongside Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. After the success of those movies the studio naturally tried to pair as many of them together again as possible and so Sydney went on to do “The Mask of Dimitrious” (1944) and “Three Strangers” (1946) with Lorre and “Conflict” (1945) with Bogart.

Robert Ryan as Red Skull.

Another Film Noir regular, though he played a mixture of protagonist and antagonist I thought he would make a good Red Skull. I’m not sure if these pictures are still recognisable as Ryan but they do look pretty cool. Ryan’s noirs include: Crossfire (1947), “The Set Up” (1949), Clash By Night (1952), and “Odds Against Tomorrow” (1959). His characters were often brash, bitter and aggressive. Not the perfect fit for Red Skull but it’ll do.

Richard Conte as The Kingpin

I really wanted to throw another villain into the mix and one that made a lot of sense to me is Richard Conte as The Kingpin. Conte has played several evil mob bosses over the years perhaps more famously in “The Godfather” (1972) as Don Corleone’s rival, Barzini. But he also played crime bosses in the Film Noir’s “Cry of the City” and “The Big Combo” (1955). All of which make him the perfect pick for this role. His other Noir’s include “Somewhere in the Night” (1946) and “The Sleeping City” (1950), “The Blue Gardenia” (1953), “The Big Tip off” (1955).

John Garfield as Spider-Man

Last but not least, I had to add a Spider-Man. Even though he is my favourite superhero, he wasn’t my focus for this little exercise in AI creativity. However I felt that John Garfield would be a good pick (especially given he shares a surname with an actual Spider-Man actor). Garfield was an actor famous for playing brooding, rebellious, working-class characters. Not that Spidey is really a brooder, but can be pretty rebellious and is definitely working-class. His roles in Film Noir include “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1946), “Body and Soul” (1947), “Force of Evil” (1948) and “Jigsaw” (1949).

Marvel Noir movie poster, apparently for a new hero called “Marnorr”.

That’s All Folks

I hope this was an amusing bit of randomness for you. I figure whether you enjoy Film Noir, AI Art or Marvel Superheroes there is something here to amuse you. I didn’t originally intend to make this a post, but after generating so many imagines I thought it would be nice to share

Raw Deal (1948)

Posted on by fenrisfil

For today’s Film Noir review I’m going for 1948’s “Raw Deal”. A movie that is about as Film Noir as the genre gets. It’s not a greatest hits though like “The Big Combo”, this is more about the story and the characters. But we’ll get into that. The movie is public domain now so can be found at the Internet Archive and various other websites. It’s also on Amazon.

The movie is directed by Anthony Mann, who directed T-Men a year previous in 1947. Mann has directed several Noirs, but the only other one i’ve seen is T-Men (and I liked it). The movie is written by Leopold Atlas and John C. Higgins (Higgins having also worked on T-Men) and stars Dennis O’Keefe, Claire Trevor and Marsha Hunt. O’Keefe was a Film Noir regular and the lead in T-Men. Claire Trevor was also a regular to the genre having appeared in the likes of “Murder My Sweet” (1944) and “Key Largo” (1948). The film also features a key role for Perry Mason/Ironside star Raymond Burr in one of his earliest appearances.

I Want To Breath.

The movie starts with Joe Sullivan (O’Keefe) in prison having taken the fall for some unspecified crime. He is visited first by his good intentioned legal caseworker Anne (Hunt) and then by his girlfriend Pat (Trevor), who quietly informs him of the plans to bust him out, supposedly assisted by his partner in crime Rick Coyle (Raymond Burr) who had promised him $5000 as his share for taking the fall for the crime. Rick however doesn’t expect him to escape and is hedging his bets on him getting gunned down.

Joe does escape however and decides to hide out with Pat at Anne’s apartment before heading out of town and to his meet up with Coyle and to his eventual escape from America via boat. Unfortunately for him though Coyle has no play of paying up and instead plans to send his henchmen to kill him. Through all this Anne, initially kidnapped by the pair starts to fall for Joe. Pat notices this and reacts bitterly, though when Annes life is threatened by the gangsters she must decide if she loves Joe enough to tell him about the situation or have it forever on her conscience and never know if he truly loves her.

This Is What He Wanted.

This is a traditional film noir with tragic characters and an air of fatalism. Joe was a good person once, but allowed himself to be broken down by life and found himself in a life of crime. But even as a criminal he he was willing to take the fall for others, true there was meant to be money in it for him but that is upstanding for a criminal. However, he yearns for freedom and this likely reflects the attitude that lead him to a life of crime in the first place. Feeling trapped where he was and not able to get ahead. But the loyalty he showed Coyle was repaid with treachery and violence. Such is the fate of criminals in the 1940’s. On a side note, Raymond Burr is a real scene stealer in this movie, it’s a shame his appearances are all so brief.

Claire Trevor’s Pat is a tragic character too and this is presented to us mostly through her voice overs, which are admittedly a little strange mostly due to the use of a Theremin whenever she does it. I am probably too used to the instrument being used in horror and science fiction so it makes her narrative sound a little otherworldly. However her words are one of a woman that is desperately in love but seems to know deep down, even from the start that it will never really work out. When faced with her final choice of going away with Joe and living a lie or admitting the truth and probably sending him to his death she opts for the later. Not an easy decision, but her final voice over suggests she felt it was always going to end this way.

RAW DEAL, Dennis O’Keefe, Claire Trevor, 1948

I Never Asked For Anything Safe.

Anne is a bit of a strange character. From the start she sees the good in Joe and it is why she was so keen to work on his case. Throughout the film she moralises about the situation and admonishes Joe for taking the short cut of crime instead of being brave enough to go straight. But despite her complaints she comes to Joe’s rescue when the assassins pull their trap and she then confesses to Joe that she loves him.

Having been kidnapped by him earlier it’s not the best part of the story, suggesting a bit of Stockholm syndrome and perhaps a bit of a silly crush she had before she even got to know him. But she is there because Joe needed someone good to believe in him. Pat by contrast was an enabler for his life of crime and was never going to stand in his way. Indeed, she couldn’t even do it to save his life.

Life Begins With 50G’s

The plot itself moves rapidly and doesn’t waste much time filling in the blanks, like you never find what exactly it is that Joe did, instead we move frantically from location to location with the group nearly being caught at each one to keep the tension up. One key moment involves another man fleeing the police and coming to the same hideout that Joe is at. Joe takes pity on him but ultimately he gets gunned down in front of the house. This doesn’t drive on the story so much as it does the characters and of course teases Joe being captured to keep tension high.

That tension basically drives the entire movie. On one side you have the police trying to capture Joe and on the other the criminal gang that helped break him out, planning to kill him to avoid paying him his cut. The audience knows right away that he will be betrayed so we spend the whole movie waiting for Joe to meet his end at the hands of one group or another and that is about as Film Noir as you can get. Eventually Joe finds an amount of redemption before meeting his end which is about as happy an ending as he was ever going to get (Partially because of the genre, but also of course the Hays code).

Conclusion

The movie has suffered visually and socially due to deterioration of film. It’s worth noting the movie is public domain and while that means it’s easy to find a copy to watch it also means no one has really invested much time over preservation or restoration. Sadly this is quite common with Film Noir, especially for ones from the 1940’s. Still, it’s not as degraded as “The Red House” was and it’s not too difficult to see things in the darker scenes. That’s good because the film features a lot of classic Noir light and shadows, pretty typical lighting and cinematography for the genre, though with the odd flurry of creativity. Some parts work, some not so much.

Overall this is an above average Noir. Quality wise it’s not in the conversation for “best”, but it may be for quintessential. Thematically, there aren’t many movies that nail the genre so perfectly. It’s not a greatest hits like “The Big Combo”, it’s more of a template. If it wasn’t for the degraded film quality this would be a great genre primer. As it is, it’s probably not a good choice for a first noir but it’s definitely worth checking out. This just about hits 6.5/10. Had the audio/video quality not deteriorated this would be a 7, but as always I have to rate for what it is now, not what it may have been back in the day.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

The Enforcer (1951)

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Today’s review is the 1951 Humphrey Bogart movie “The Enforcer” also know as “Murder Inc.” in the UK and based off the real life Murder Inc that committed around 400 murders between 1929 and 1940. A Bogart movie I haven’t seen before is a rarity in itself, but a Film Noir with Bogart in I haven’t seen is pretty much unheard of. Yet here we are. So let’s dig in!

The movie was directed by Bretaigne Windust and Raoul Walsh, not as one unit though, the movie was Windust’s but after he fell ill Walsh was brought in to finish the movie. Walsh refused to take credit, but still a good portion of the film was his work. It was written by Martin Rackin. The supporting cast includes Ted de Corsia and Everett Sloane (Both appeared in “Lady From Shanghai”) and Noir regular Roy Roberts (“He Walked By Night”, “Force of Evil”). It was Bogarts last movie for Warner.

Death of a Witness.

The story begins with a close escort and guard of Joseph Rico (de Corsia) a star witness on a trial that is due to start the following morning. The witness is scared though and after an assassination attempt, tries to escape from the precinct only to fall to his death. As the only witness to the case, District Attorney Martin Ferguson (Bogart) is left with no choice but to spend the night going over all the case notes to try and see if he can find something he has missed that may lead to a second witness or some other piece of evidence.

What follows is a series of flashbacks following the police investigation and the story of the gangsters as they come into contact with the police and Ferguson. It follows them unravelling an organisation created to sell murder, taking out “Contracts” on “Hits”. Eventually leading them to the ringlead Albert Mendoza (Sloane) and the original assassination, the only he carried out himself. There was something they missed though, something that can change the entire case when they figure it out, if they figure it out before the villains….

Cops and Killers.

This is very much a film whose strength is in the plot and not characters. While Bogart’s performance is top notch I’d be hard pressed to tell you much about his characters personality outside of “determined to get his man”. While he is the lead, he actually has very little screen time since the majority of the story is told via flashbacks where his character is not present. As a result it’s sort of a selection of short stories where a selection of criminals basically get centre stage.

Fortunately they aren’t just two dimensional hoods, but none of them especially stands out. The best of the bunch is Ted de Corsia’s “Rico”, who due to the way much of the narrative works in reverse chronological order, goes from terrified coward, to cold blooded mob boss and then street level thug. The films real antagonist though, Sloane’s “Mendoza” is unseen for the vast majority of the movie.

Right From That First Crazy Day

The plot though is interesting and unique in how it unravels the mystery. The majority of the story is told in flashbacks, bookended by fairly action heavy sequences involving the two key witnesses. We start out at one point in time, near the end of the story, but after they lose their witness and start going through the police files we see a police investigation from the start through to the current time. However, that investigation unravels the story of criminal events (Though witness statements) from the end, back towards the start. The final reveal being how the whole thing started off and what ultimately the investigation is all about. Effectively there are two timelines, the police and the criminals, one going forwards and the other going back.

Of course flashbacks are heavily utilised in the Film Nori genre with many of the most famous Film Noir’s being almost entirely flashbacks (Occasionally narrated by a dead guy), so it’s not unusual, but effectively having flashbacks within flashbacks is a little different. One of the nice touches is because they go out of their way to not show you Mendoza during the opening, so between that and the slow unravelling the audience is very much in the same position as the cops and the clue to bringing down Mendoza is there for all to see but small enough that most won’t. It’s well played out.

Everything But Himself.

Visually the film has it’s moments, such as Rico’s foolish attempt to climb a ledge of a building. But mostly the high pace and relatively short length of the movie gives little time to really indulge in that aspect of noir. Really it’s not surprising some critics don’t even consider this movie a Noir, but I would argue that as the film is built largely around flashbacks of people revealing the story of their own undoing it is very much a noir, even with the police framework. The police, even Bogart’s D.A. Ferguson are barely characters in this, they are just a narrative device to tell the story of the criminals self destruction. So it works for me.

Conclusion

Overall the film is solid and has a great plot, but lacks interesting characters and provides little in the audio/visual department that I found memorable. Bogart does a good job but has nothing to work with, making this one of his least interesting performances and not quite enough to raise the movie to the upper tier of Noir. I do like that plot though, it’s interesting both narratively and for the subject matter (Loosely based on the real life Murder Inc.). So with that in mind I’m giving this a narrow 6.5/10.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

The Big Combo (1955)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Today I’m reviewing a movie that I should really have watched years ago, “The Big Combo” from 1955. If you’ve ever found yourself googling “Film Noir” (especially images), you have definitely come across some of the films visuals. Indeed quite often if you see a heading that says “Film Noir” in some kind of article or book on the genre the cover picture is probably from this film. So that should give you a clue as to why the film is famous: It is perhaps the movie most heavily packed with classic Film Noir imagery and tropes. But since it came quite late in the era it’s not like it can claim to have invented any of that imagery. It just really indulged in it. It’s sort of a greatest hits.

The Men Behind The Movie

The movie is directed by Joseph H. Lewis, a director renowned for making the most of a minimal budget (We’ll get back to that) and the writing credit went to Philip Yordan, who possibly didn’t actually write it since he often had his work ghost-written by blacklisted writers at the time (Ben Maddow in particular). John Alton provided the cinematography and since this is a very visual film he deserves recognition for his part.

Cornel Wilde (“High Sierra”) stars, along with his wife Jean Wallace (“Jigsaw”) and Richard Conte (“The Godfather”), who stepped in at the last minute in the villain role to replace Jack Palance (Who quit because they wouldn’t give a role to his wife). Notable support includes Brian Donlevy (“The Glass Key”), Robert Middleton (“The Desperate Hours”) and Lee Van Cleef (“The Good, The Bad & The Ugly”).

The Set Up

The story follows Police Lt. Leonard Diamond (Wilde) on his personal crusade to bring down the sadistic gangster Mr. Brown (Conte). Diamond is also somewhat obsessed with Brown’s girlfriend Susan (Wallace). He claims he thinks she is the key to bringing him down but Police Capt. Peterson (Middleton) thinks he is secretly in love with her. After Susan attempts suicide she inadvertently gives Diamond a lead in the form of the name “Alicia”, which leads Diamond to pursue Browns biggest secret: What happened to his missing wife and to the crime boss he took over from?

So the first thing to note about this movie is that it was clearly made on a very tight budget, but as is often the case this just brings out the creativity in the truly talent director and this is Joe Lewis’ specialty. Indeed the movie was originally meant to be a higher budget job but after funding dried up they sought out Lewis to make it work. The vast majority of scenes are done in a single take, with a single lighting source.

The Aesthetics

On occasion though it is all too obvious they are on a sound stage, but those moments don’t last long enough to take you out of the movie. The best example of the film at it’s best and worst is in the opening scene where a brilliant chase through a series of creatively lit hallways and alleys is capped off by a static shot that is clearly on a sound stage. On the whole the film looks great.

There is a very strong focus on lighting and I have no doubt that when I talked about Film Noir influences on Blade Runner in my deep dive this was one of the movies that had a direct influence. It is a masterclass. The composition of each shoot is excellent too, with a great use of objects in the foreground such as brewing coffee in one scene and a lamp (which was also the light source of course) in another. He even throws old wagon into the background of a shot in the airport, perhaps as an in joke on the directors use of Wagon wheels in his 40’s Westerns, whenever he thought the shots looked too boring.

The Characters

As far as the characters go Conte’s Mr. Brown is the clear stand out. He gets the best lines of the movie and is the more interesting of his yin and yang pair with Cornel Wilde’s Lt. Diamond. Brown is evil for sure, ambitious and cold hearted, but he’s also charming and knows how to please a woman. Diamond however, despite being the virtuous hero, severely lacks in charm and is often somewhat callous towards the women in the movie. While it is suggested he is in love with Brown’s girl, Susan he is clearly more motivated with nail brown than protecting her. Wilde shared producer credits on the movie so had a degree of creative control and yet it is Conte’s performance that stands out. Some people just make great villains and he would play memorable ones several times in his career.

Amongst the rest of the characters, the most interesting is the fallen criminal Joe McClure, humiliated by Mr. Brown and forced to work for him, pretty much has his own story arc (Which naturally ends badly) and while Brian Donlevy plays the role well I suspect the reason for elevating the character was so they could make use of his deafness and use of a hearing aid. When we are introduced to him, we see Joe talk loudly into it to humiliate him, but later when they kidnap Diamond it is used as a full on torture device on the lieutenant, complete with a jazz drum solo on a nearby radio. Then finally when McClure is betrayed and faces death, we get to experience that in complete silence.

The Plot

The plot is a bit of a mixed bag. The scenes are strong but there tends to be a lot of conveniences to move the plot on (Such as Mr. Brown responding to the word “Spaghetti” in a lie detector word association test by blurting out the name of a retired gangster that was key to the case). Most of it works though and some of those scenes are very good. Such as the torture scene with the hearing aid, which was one they clearly spent a lot of time over (Definitely not a single take on that one).

The slow unravelling of the mystery works well and proceeds at a constant pace giving plenty of time for character moments and of course visuals. The mystery itself isn’t especially clever but it does it’s job. This is a movie of visuals first, characters second and last of all plot. But it’s coherent and well paced so I’m not complaining. There is a certain edginess to a lot of this movie though and it’s clear they were pushing just how much they could get past the censors. Remember this was a good 10 years before the Hays code was scrapped, so that torture scene was controversial.

Tropes And Controversy

Perhaps more controversial though was a scene earlier between Conte and Wallace which may be first on screen suggestion of cunnilingus, very skilfully implied without actually giving the censors anything to censor. I wonder if perhaps directors doing things like that made such a mockery of the code they decided it was time to just scrap it anyway. Certainly the film has many things they wouldn’t have gotten away with in a 1940’s Noir. Another example that seems to have slipped past most people in the day was the fact that Mr. Browns two henchmen (Played by Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman) were blatantly a gay couple.

While presenting an A to Z of Noir tropes and visuals in 1955 wasn’t exactly the most original or inspired piece of work it can’t be argued that it has in many ways become a near perfect example of the genre. If I was to recommend a movie to someone as a genre primer, this would be it and the closing shot of the film with the male and female lead silhouetted on their walk from the airport in the fog is perhaps the most famous visual in the whole genre due it’s overuse in pretty much every article about the genre. If you go and do a google image search right now for “Film Noir” it’ll probably be the first picture you get.

Conclusion.

Is it the best Film Noir? No, not by a long way. But it is probably top 20. There is a suggestion that the producers may have meddled with the film after most of it was film, most specifically Wilde may have felt outperformed by Conte, since much of the apparently added footage involves closeups of Wilde. Many of these worked against the feel of the film and it’s visual style so it’s a shame if true. Outside the great visuals Conte’s performance is the most notable thing about the film and it is probably why he was the original front runner to play Don Corleone in The Godfather. Obviously that changed when Marlon Brando came on board, so he ended up playing Corleone’s rival instead.

Ultimately, this is a great Noir. One of the best looking and Conte is one of the best villains of the genre. The movie’s occasional slip both visually (badly covered up sound stages and awkwardly inserted closeups) and plot wise (Those conveniences) count against it a bit as does the fact the protagonist is far less compelling than the antagonist and so much of it could have been taken directly from earlier movies. However, this still get’s high marks from me. This is a strong 7.5/10.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10.

Clash By Night (1952)

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When looking to choose a Film Noir to review there is always a good chance that I’ll be drawn to a Fritz Lang movie (Since he directed one of my favourite Noirs “The Big Heat”). When you throw in the Queen of Noir herself, Barbra Stanwyck as the lead it’s pretty much a sure thing and so “Clash by Night” largely picked itself. The supporting cast is pretty strong too featuring Noir regulars Robert Ryan (The Set Up, Odds Against Tomorrow) and Marilyn Monroe (Asphalt Jungle, Niagra). The main cast is capped off with Paul Douglas and Keith Andes. The movie is written by Alfred Hayes based on a 1941 stage play by Clifford Odets.

More Fish In The Sea.

The story is set around the fishing town of Monterey, California and the follows Mae Doyle (Stanwyck) who has just returned to town after the man she was involved with died. The man was already married and his wife and family made sure she didn’t get the money that he had willed to her. Someone bitter and cynical now she returns to her family home to meet her brother Joe (Andes). Joe works on a fishing boat owned by Jerry (Douglas) and is in love with a cannery worker called Peggy (Monroe). Joe is worried about mae’s bad attitude rubbing off on Peggy and so tries to set her up with good natured Jerry.

Mae enjoys her time with Jerry but is at first resistant to going further, feeling like she is not destined for love. She also meets his friend Earl (Ryan). Earl is in an unhappy marriage and is just as bitter and cynical as Mae. For Mae she immediately dislikes him perhaps seeing stuff she dislikes in herself in him, but Earl just sees a kindred spirit and makes at pass at her. Somewhat disturbed by this Mae decides she needs to change and make a go at a safe loving relationship and agrees to marry Jerry. years later she has a child with Jerry, but she finds herself unhappy and restless and drawn to Earl (Who is now divorced).

Dramatic Tension.

As you can see from the synopsis this is very much a drama based Noir. Not unheard of in the genre or outside my experience as I’ve seen the likes of “The Lost Weekend” and “Mildred Pierce”, but it is unusual. It is a character study more than anything else and unlike most noirs has no body count. This isn’t what I expected from Fritz Lang who is generally known for making more edgy noirs. Many of the characters though are very much Lang characters. Moody, aggressive and feeling like they may snap at any moment. This puts an edge onto what is basically a romantic drama. Though really it’s more of an anti-romantic drama. A story about relationships with a gritty realism to it that tells the viewer, sometimes you have to just be grateful for what you have.

The movie if formatted into two main parts with a time jump in between. Though the story of both is somewhat similar. Effectively starting with Mae worn down, having a moment of doubt and then deciding to opt for stability, the difference between the two is the second half plays out in a far more heated fashion since that doubt manifests into an affair and then the fallout of it being discovered. On the surface it’s not a great plot, but between Stanwyck’s performance and Lang’s directing it still works.

Queen Of Noir.

Stanwyck’s portrayal of the flawed Mae Doyle gives the character a vital likeability. Her cynicism and tendency towards self destruction ultimately comes from a place of self loathing. It’s a complex emotional situation that could be lost with a less capable actress but with Stanwyck you can see her fighting with herself internally and that struggles has you sympathise with her even though she’s stringing along a good man, sleeping with his friend and threatening to take his child. Deep inside Mae wanted to be loved, she just didn’t feel she deserved it. Along with her inner conflict Stanwyck brings fierce independence and a sharp wit to the role that gives her character charm even at her most cynical. By the end of the story though she realises Jerry was what she was looking for all along.

Masculine Aggression.

This isn’t just down to Stanwyck though a lot of this is Fritz Lang’s speciality too. Many of his characters are deeply flawed but have redeemable traits. Obviously Mae fits that description, but so too does her brother Joe. Who is really portrayed as both the best and worst of the hyper-masculine male. On one hand he is sometimes rough with Peggy, even teasing hitting her and makes light of her story about another worker at the cannery that was hit by her boyfriend. On the other hand though he is fiercely loyal and dependable, tells Peggy to leave him unless she can commit for the long term. He also does his best to support Mae even though he clearly doesn’t approve of her actions.

Joe would likely not go down well with modern audiences. But there are also elements of Mae’s personality that may not go down to well. It is a little ambiguous at the end whether it is Jerry’s forgiveness that leads to her wanting to give it another go or the fact that he tried to strangle Earl. Up until that point Jerry had been the “safe” man, perhaps seeming weak. But while he was disgusted with the fact he committed an act of violence, perhaps him finding a touch of inner darkness allowed Mae to find her inner light. There’s certainly a lot of criticism that could be put to these flawed characters, but it does make them seem more genuine.

The Saint and Sinner.

Jerry and Earl on the other hand are perhaps a little bit too simplified, though this is likely deliberate as they effectively represent the two conflicting parts of Mae’s personality. Jerry represents safety and security and is generally optimistic if lacking confidence, while Earl represents aggression, selfishness and pessimism. Really it doesn’t make any sense the two are friends, except that Jerry pretty much refuses to see bad in people.

These archetypes are pushed to the extreme with Jerry being disgusted with himself for even laying his hands on Earl out of anger and making a point to kick out his drunk lodger from his house for use of pornographic photos in his bedroom. Earl meanwhile largely forces himself on Mae, makes racist impressions, regularly gets pass out drunk and rarely has anything nice to say about anyone. He is truly the opposite of Jerry.

Light and Shadows.

Given the movie is based on a drama play you’d probably not be expecting too much in the way of interesting visuals in this one, however Fritz Lang is not one to disappoint and as a result pretty much every scene is framed in visually interesting ways, with good use of shadows and in several scenes water. In addition the opening scene introducing us to a day in the life of this fishing village and the workings of it’s factory remind me a little bit of the opening to “Sweet Smell of Success” and the more modern movie “Lord of War”, though it’s true fish is a lot less interesting than newspapers or bullets, but it’s still a great visual opener.

Conclusion

Overall, while the plot is simple, repetitive and not especially exciting in itself, Stanwyk’s portrayal of Mae raised the story up enough to keep my interest and the aggressive style of Lang’s directing provides far more tension to the events than is probably warranted. It has an air of authenticity to it that made it easy to ignore the weaker elements. The movie has not aged especially well though and I can see modern audiences not liking it at all. Not a huge problem for me though, so I’m giving it a 6.5/10.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10.

The Red House (1947)

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So, we’re a week into November. I’ve had my post-October break, but my fingers are itchy to get to a new review done, so it’s time to start the Noirvember season! I’ve decided that moving forward I’m going to only give a brief synopsis instead of full plot. This way it’s easier to avoid spoilers, should keep my reviews under 1000 words and you can find the full plot on Wikipedia anyway, so you can always check their if interested.

For my first movie found the perfect transition from Horror to Noir by finding a film that shares aspects of both. This is “The Red House” from 1947. The horror aspects aren’t strong enough to justify it as a horror, but it’s pretty close to that line and by being there it moves to the fringes of what counts as Noir too. Interestingly Wikipedia has declared it a horror, but IMDB lists it as Drama/Film-Noir/Mystery with no mention of horror. Having seen it now I’m going to say IMDB was closer there but it shows how it’s not clear cut.

There’s A Red House Over Yonder.

The movie is written and directed by Delmer Daves, who also directed the Bogart/Bacall classic “Dark Passage” that same year (1947) along with the classic western “3:10 to Yuma” (Which is marginally better than the surprisingly good remake). He also wrote the screenplay for “The Petrified Forest” way back in 1936, which is one of my favourite movies of that decade. The movie is based on the novel by George Agnew Chamberlain and stars Lon McCallister in a very typical role for him (Good natured country boy) along with Allene Roberts and the legend and Film Noir regular Edward G. Robinson.

The story revolves around Nath (McCallister) who is helping out at a local farm thanks to his friend Meg (Roberts). The farm is owned by Meg’s adopted father Pete Morgan (Robinson). Pete warns Nath not to go near a certain area of the forest on his land, but he and Meg become curious about it and so keep looking for this mysterious “Red House” that is meant to be there. As they get closer, Pete becomes more unstable and the petty criminal he hired to keep people off his land becomes more aggressive to those trespassers. Ultimately the secret of the red house will be revealed and the lives of all involved will not be the same.

The Tell-Tale Heart.

Performance wise Robinson unsurprisingly steals the show. While he is more famous for his roles in Gangster movies, the Noir era gave him a chance to explore more complex characters with a bit more vulnerability. His role here is pivotal and it is his character and his internal that makes the movie a Film Noir. Like many of the genre the story is really about how dark secrets of your past eventually catch up to and sometimes destroy you. It’s one of those elements that instead of fighting against the Hays code, embraces it. Crime does not pay, but Noir is often based around a characters attempts to delay their inevitable fate.

Pete Morgan has carried his secret with him since Meg was a child, but not just in his tainted soul but in a very physical form. He could have destroyed The Red House and with it all evidence of his crimes, but instead he left it there as a constant reminder and he must have known one day his secret would come to the surface. The truth is there is a definite Streisand effect here. Should someone stumble upon the house it wouldn’t mean anything to them, but his determination to keep people away from it naturally made them curious. Pete’s mental stability weakening every step along the way, with him slipping and calling Meg “Genie” (Her mothers name) several times. When Meg finally stumbles upon the place she found it strangely familiar. Ultimately Pete ends up confessing his crime.

Bad Prints and Good Natures.

The problem is that Pete is not the movies lead. Really it is a joint lead of Nath and Meg, but they are fairly straight forward good natured country girl/boy archetypes. Not characters that really lend themselves to film noir. Though Nath initially being in a relationship with Tibby does give his story a mild Noir twist since she is very much the type of woman that would lead a man onto the wrong path, though ultimately that doesn’t happen and instead she gets herself get in to more trouble than she bargained for with her infatuation with outlaw Teller. Nath and Meg are basically the outsiders in this dark world, which is really where the film starts to bend towards Horror, but only a little as there is no intentional malice with all this.

Another thing to note with this movie is the poor quality of the physical film print. Although most of the 1940’s Film Noirs I’ve seen have been well preserved and and pretty high quality every now and then you come across a movie that has obvious seen significant degradation. Sometimes it doesn’t impact the movie experience, but this movie has a lot of scenes that you can barely see anything in between the lighting and the film degradation. The trouble is I have to judge it on the film as it is now, because it’s not like you can hop in a time machine and go and watch this back in the day.

Conclusion

This would have been a much better movie had it focused more on Robinson’s Pete Morgan and less on Nath and Meg. This is basically a tell tale heart story and for that kind of thing you really want to focus on the person hearing the knocking (or in this case screaming). Not to mention, this is Edward G Robinson we’re talking about and he had top billing anyway, so it seems a missed opportunity. The story is interesting though so between that and Robinson’s performance it just about hits a 6/10.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Halloween And What Comes Next!

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I hope those of you that came by over October for my review challenge enjoyed my reviews and maybe found some films to check out (or avoid). As the month went on I found myself writing more and more and while I really needed a break by the end it’s been a strange few days not writing anything. Fun fact, I did the review challenge last year too, I just didn’t have the blog then so it was straight to Facebook and Minds. But I got such a positive reaction and enjoyed it so much it is the reason I started the blog. A few of those reviews have been retrospectively added to the site, but not all as the Facebook reviews were far shorter and only had the one picture.

My Halloween Viewing.

Much like I did last year, the movie I reviewed on Halloween I actually watched the day before and on Halloween itself I treated myself to a triple bill. Last year it was Nightmare on Elm Street 3, Friday the 13th part 6 and Halloween II. Three of the best Slasher sequels you will come across. This year though I went in a different direction. Not sure there really is a theme outside of just being great horror movies (and short enough to make a good triple bill). While I’m not doing reviews I am going to say a little about each one.

Return Of The Living Dead (1985)

The Return of the Living Dead, is the ground breaking “Zomedy” written and directed by the great Dan O’Bannon (Writer of Alien, Dark Star and the comic book that greatly inspired Blade Runner, see part 2 of my Blade Runner Deep Dive on that one). At some point I may have to do a deep dive just on Dan, simply because he just doesn’t get enough credit for his creative input to a number of classics.

Return was one of only three movies he directed, with the rest of his credits being writing, but he did a good job here. The movie was the first to my knowledge that had zombies that that you couldn’t kill by destroying the brain or removing the head. Every part of their body was animated and they didn’t lose their intelligence either. A few months later Re-Animator also used this kind of Zombie (and was also great). It may also have been the first zombie horror comedy.

Prince of Darkness (1987)

Prince of Darkness is part of the great run of films John Carpenter put together in the 80’s and forms part of what is known as his Apocalypse trilogy (Which spans until the 90’s), which includes “The Thing” and “In The Mouth of Madness”. Amongst Carpenter’s output (and especially amongst the 80’s movies) this isn’t likely many peoples favourite, but it’s still a quality movie and 100% classic John Carpenter.

The cast includes several actors from other Carpenter films such as Victor Wong and Dennis Dun (from the previous years “Big Trouble in Little China”) and Carpenter regulars Donald Pleasence and Peter Jason (Who would go on to appear in five more Carpenter movies). It also has a kick ass soundtrack, a random celebrity known for something other than acting (In this case Alice Cooper) and melancholy, claustrophobic theme involving dark secret truths and has a great ending. You know, this may be 110% classic Carpenter.

Event Horizon (1997)

The final movie of my triple bill was Event Horizon. This was panned by critics on release but turned out to be a cult classic and it is in my opinion is a top five horror movie for the 1990’s (or is at least in the conversation). The movie takes the feel of Aliens and slaps on a heavy shade of Hellraiser.

But the funny thing is it could also be in the same universe as the Doom video game seeing as they somewhat share a premise. In the game experiments in teleportation accidentally connect our realm to hell, in Event Horizon an experimental faster than light drive effectively teleports the ship to hell and back, bringing with it an influence of evil.

It fits quite well with the premise of Prince of Darkness, which suggested the evil we know as the devil is actually alien in origin. The other John Carpenter link here is Sam Neil who also featured in “In The Mouth of Madness” (Another one if the conversation for that top 5 spot) and Neil was really on form in the 90’s. Here he proved how good he can be as the antagonist.

Noirvember

When I first started my blog and right after my run of October reviews in 2021, I did something I called “Noirvember”. Since one of my movie passions is Film Noir and there aren’t a lot of websites out there that review both horrors and Film Noir I decided to take some of my momentum from October and channel it into doing a few thematic reviews through November.

I am absolutely going to do that again. Unlike October this isn’t a review a day job. My aim is to do at least four over November (one per week), but after taking a little break out at the start to recover from the Horror season I may well up that. I think I did about six last year, so expect something similar.

If you aren’t a fan of Noir or don’t really know what it is, perhaps this may encourage you to give these old movies a chance. In many ways they have a lot in common with horror between the lighting techniques and the fatalism of the characters. It’s one of the reasons why I find it a good transition back into general movie watching.

Further Down The Road

After November, I may introduce a few more non-review items on the site. I’m unlikely to do another deep dive of the size of the three part Blade Runner one, but not many films are as complicated a thing to get into as that movie. I do want to do more articles on some of my favourites though. Probably the next one will be on The Terminator, but we’ll see. I may do that Dan O’Bannon article too.

I’m also toying with an idea I’m calling “Movie Pitch” where I look at how I would have done something that didn’t work out so well in real life. For example, how I would revive the Terminator franchise (and yes it can be a franchise), how I would have done Universal’s Dark Universe, how I would reboot the Highlander franchise, what I would do to fix Halloween, that kind of thing. These days there are so many franchise down the toilet that I’ll never run out of things to “fix”. But the idea actually came from a Terminator story idea I had. Maybe it’s good, maybe it’s bad. That’s for you to decide.

On top of that, as the new year comes around I will do a year in review again (Maybe not a three part one this time) and of course I may watch and review some new releases.

Pulse (2001)

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So for my final review of the Halloween season (and Happy Halloween to anyone reading this on it’s publishing date) I decided to watch the Japanese ghost story “Pulse” from 2001. I have already seen the Americanised version from 2006, which despite a screenplay from Wes Craven, wasn’t especially good. It did however present interesting ideas and after seeing the original I realise where the film went wrong, but I’ll get to that. My hope was my final review would be an easy one, but I was never going to be let off so easily by a Japanese ghost story. Anyway this one was written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Who even did his own novelisation). The film features two protagonists with parallel stories, who finally meet in the final act. Michi Kudo (played by Kumiko Asō) and Ryosuke Kawashima (played by Haruhiko Katô).

October Review Challenge – Day 31

Michi works in a plant shop. One of her co-workers has been missing for several days while he works on a computer disk to track the shops sales. Michi goes to the man’s apartment to check on him only for him to be aloof during the conversation and casually walk into another room and hang himself. Michi and her friends inspect the disk he left behind and discover it contains an image of Taguchi staring into his own computer monitor, which has an image of him staring into his monitor in an infinite loop. On the other monitor on his desk however they discover another ghostly image staring out.

Meanwhile Ryosuke, a university economics student has just signed up to an internet service provider and is getting on line for the first time. His computer accesses a website by itself showing him disturbing images of people alone in dark rooms. The next day he goes to the university computer lab looking for answers and meets Harue (played by Koyuki Kato). She suggests saving the bookmark or taking a screenshot so she can examine it. That night he attempts to but the computer won’t cooperate and instead shows a video of a man with his head in a plastic bag and the words “Help Me” written all over his walls.

Vanishing People

Over time (I’m skipping a lot of details here) Ryosuke learns a theory that the dead are invading the physical world as their world is over crowded, and they are coming through as a signal that can be picked up by computer equipment. Harue confides in her feelings of isolation to Ryosuke and begins acting strangely. She has concluded that ghosts wouldn’t want to create more ghosts by killing people and would rather trap the living in their own isolation.

Meanwhile Michi has begun to learn about a trend for people to seal off rooms with red tape and that inside those rooms is a ghost and that seeing the ghosts face causes the victim to eventually disappear. All her friends at the plant shop eventually go this way. More and more people begin to disappear around them with a list of apparently endless names being broadcast on an abandoned television set.

Eventually Michi and Ryosuke meet and may be the only two people remaining (In the city at least). They decide to leave the city. Can they make it out and what will it cost them? You’ll have to watch to find out as I’m not spoiling the ending.

Pacing and Atmosphere

Before I get onto the heavy theme of the film I want to touch on the main negative and that is the pacing and length. As a two hour movie it’s moments of tension are spaced out and a lot of events are effectively repeated to help drive home the themes. I can’t help but feel the choice to follow two characters mixed with the need to drive the theme meant the film would always end up dragging in places. A more minor issue is that there is also a degree of character stupidity in how often they go into forbidden rooms, but that at least could be explained by them already being affected by the ghosts. The only one that was truly grating was the last character to do such a thing.

The film has a very minimal soundtrack, but this is for good reason. The silence between discordant noises and ghostly strings give a feeling of melancholy and emptiness to the events on screen. It is a technique that fits the theme perfectly. The soundtrack itself when it plays doesn’t stand out as especially good but it is how it is used that makes it work. Time to talk about that theme though.

You Feel So Lonely You Could Die

Loneliness is the theme here and in a very strong way and watching this now rather than when it first came out the first thing that came to mind is “Hikikomori”. This is a term first coined in 1998 by Japanese psychiatrist Professor Tamaki Saito. Saito chose the term to describe the many young people he saw who didn’t fit criteria for mental health diagnosis, but were nonetheless in a state of extreme, distressing withdrawal. Over the years since this has been found to apply to older generations too and become a recognised terms for the many Japanese people (Mostly, but not exclusively young males) that now live their lives almost entirely in their own bedroom.

When the film came out, though the phenomenon had been noted in Japan it was largely unknown outside and so reviewers at the time likely wouldn’t have seen the link but to me it is pretty clear. The question is, was this referring to something Kurosawa knew about or was he predicting the future based on what he had noted from the loneliness in his own society. Maybe he never intended it to be a social commentary and was just speaking on his own feelings, but now with the Hikikomori estimated to be 1.2% of the Japanese population (around a million people) it certainly feels like social commentary.

Logging On….

In the early 2000’s a lot of people went online seeking to find a connection with other human being via the internet. In doing so that left many of them chasing a connection with people that don’t even know are real at the expense of those around them that are. As a character in the story is manipulated by the ghosts they withdrawal more from their real life friends, their family and their occupation. Harue Karasawa speaks somewhat directly about this, saying all the people in their isolated rooms on their computers are no different to ghosts. It’s worth noting the ghosts even make modem noises as they approach people.

Most of the characters in the film do not start off physically isolated though most are isolated internally. Aloof from society to some degree and as the ghosts start to mess with them they feel more isolated. One of the minor characters makes a remark to Michi Kudo wondering if friendship is really worth it since you both end up hurting each other eventually, Many interactions between characters have this kind of tone to it. People deciding they are alone even when they are not. Harue takes this negativity a stage further by suggesting that even death may be eternal isolation.

Finding The Will To Go On.

Harue also suggests that if the ghosts are here because their realm is overflowing they wouldn’t kill people, they would seek to trap them in their own loneliness. There is an odd mismatch here though, if the ghosts are lonely, wouldn’t they want more ghosts even if their domain was overflowing? Also half the victims of the ghosts kill themselves and then leave a black smudge while the other half that doesn’t kill themself just fade into a black smudge anyway. Their fate appears the same either way. Perhaps that is a deliberate point, isolation is the same as death.

The two protagonists seem to have the most resistance to the curse of Loneliness. Ryosuke is himself a loner, but it doesn’t seem to bother him that much. He mentions that he wants to live forever at some point, so despite his isolation he has a resolve to keep going. Michi by comparison is very social and seems to care deeply about all her friends. Her desire to keep going seems at it’s lowest at the start of the final act but once she meets Ryosuke her resolve for survival returns. It is interesting then to consider the pairs final fate. Worse for one that the other but sad for both of them.

Conclusion

Before I give my score for this, I want to talk briefly about the American version. The reason that version fell flat was because it switched the focus from loneliness to the internet/signal side of things and with that switch tried to turn it into a fairly generic horror film. The idea of ghosts coming through the internet isn’t a bad one to explore (Indeed for a more fun version of that check out “Nekrotronic” from 2018), but it missed the point of this particular story. That the US wasn’t at the time having the same issues as Japan did with it’s Hikikomori and that the phenomenon wasn’t really known outside Japan at that time likely factored into missing the point. But enough about the remake.

Overall, while the film drags a little the way it digs deep into everyone’s fear of loneliness makes for a great psychological horror and the ghosts themselves present in forms that manage to to be disturbing while not requiring them to really do much. The talking black smudges and the people on the computer screens also manage to be very creepy. Basically the horror aspects are strong here despite a near complete lack of gore or violence (Suicides aside). Of all the films I’ve seen over this October this one actually came closest to disturbing me. This is a strong 7/10 and I think the front runner of the season. That is what you call finishing strong.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

I’m going to have at least a week off reviews now after doing 31 in a row. But November is “Noirvember” so expect at a few Film Noir reviews out later in the month. Till then, Happy Halloween!