The October horror train keeps on rolling, and it’s come to a stop in belated sequel city. I’m not sure there has been a sequel to any film that had a delay of thirty seven years between the first and second film releases, but I know Robin Hardy has just been way, way too busy to climb back in the director’s chair. After 1973’s The Wicker Man, a classic cult horror film that really delves into a different area of horror than most film, Robin waited thirteen years before directing his next feature The Fantasist. Then he… well, frankly I don’t know what Mr. Hardy has been puttering around doing for the last 23 years, but it had something to do with writing a spiritual sequel to The Wicker Man in the form of a novel, the 2006 release Cowboys for Christ. When I first hear rumor of today’s film, it was in production under the same name as the title, and the brief synopsis involving Texan evangelicals getting mixed up with Scottish pagans was enough to pique my interest. However, when the film arrived under the sequelish name The Wicker Tree, my interest waned. The title, perhaps foisted on him to secure financing (or perhaps of his own decision, I could never find a clear answer) took all the punch out of the film making it look like a wan grab for cash by reusing the ‘Wicker’ name, and after Nic Cage had gotten done with it, that hardly even seems like the best plan. Never the less, I decided to check back into the world previously dominated by Lord Summerisle, who does make an appearance here linking the two films, and see if The Wicker Tree made me want to scream “Oh, Jesus. Oh, God Noooooooo!” or if I’d just rather watch dudes in bear costumes beating up chicks
After only two installments of the Halloween franchise, they tried to leave Michael Myers by the wayside with the maligned entry in the series Halloween III: Season of the Witch. While I love III (and if you haven’t seen the new edition put out by Shout! Factory you’re missing out on the best version of the film out there), the masses in general demanded their Shape, and sure enough six years later the franchise was born again in Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers. However, the man in the Shatner mask was not the only slasher whose franchise tried to leave him behind. Such was also the case in today’s film, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. Eschewing a numerical mark on this entry in the series, A New Beginning tries to become a jumping off point to leave the mythos of Mrs. Voorhees, Baghead Jason, and the hockey mask in the dust thanks to the murderous hands of Corey Feldman in Friday the 13th IV: The Final Chapter. We all know how well that worked out. However, director Danny Steinmann, who also wrote the film, crafted a tale which is deeply flawed, but it also manages to draw from the well from which so many slashers spring, the Italian giallo. So join me for this trip to slasher country where A New Beginning slowly and surely gives way to a new life for Jason Voorhees.
Hello folks, and welcome to October. Let me tell you, I’m super excited for Halloween this year. It’s my favorite time of year, as I am sure it is for many of the LBL’s readers, and it just so happens that I have an incredible way to kick off the month. What I’m talking about is an early look at Grave Encounters 2. You may recall my review of Grave Encounters which I paired with the classic British spookshow Ghost Watch for an article I cleverly titled Grave Encounters on a Ghost Watch. The first Grave Encounters focused on Lance Preston (Sean Robertson) and his band of Ghost Adventuresque paranormal hunters who stumbled into an abandoned asylum which was filled with actual ghosts. Through the found footage film, we see the team gets picked off as time and space begin to have no meaning in the supernatural vortex in which they have stepped. In other words, it was one of my favorite movie conceits, ghost hunters find more than they were bargaining for.
First, he came home on Halloween. Then he continues his carnage late that night at the local hospital. Then he, well, he appeared on a TV in the background of a scene while the world was almost annihilated by druids with masks, and finally, despite being shot twice in the head and blown up during his last real appearance, he comes back again in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. So how did everyone’s favorite Shape come back from having his noggin blown off and being incinerated? He had the ultimate protection, poor box office receipts for the previous un-Myers edition of the franchise. So producer Moustapha Akkad wanted to go back to the well again, and Cannon films approached John Carpenter about penning a sequel, which he did, with Dennis Etchison who had penned novelizations of the series. Their script, detailing a Haddonfield reeling from the killings after banning Halloween, was rejected, and it soon lead to Carpenter, and longtime collaborator Debra Hill, exiting the series. Instead, what came next is a film that would shape the series’ arc for a number of installments and redefine Michael Myers as more supernatural force than man.
It’s time for another Frightening Friday, and I have something very special to talk about this week. Way back in December ‘08, I was invited to take part in The Vault of Horror’s project to determine the Top 10 Horror Films of the Modern Era. Sitting down to make the list, I immediately filled in my number one, Neil Marshall’s The Descent. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve sat down, popped in the DVD, and enjoyed every minute of the claustrophobic cavernous horror. The film leaves me breathless with its oppressive atmosphere, stylish camerawork, and a haunting emotional resonance that pervades the entire film. So when I first heard about a pending sequel, I was filled with trepidation.
It seemed that Marshall was not returning as the director, instead taking on producing duties, and the sequel had been turned over to first time director Jon Harris, who had worked as editor on the original film. Neither did the story spring from Marshall’s head. Instead, it was the brainchild of three writers, J Blakeson, James McCarthy, and James Watkins. Only Watkins has anything of note on his résumé with credits for 2005’s Eden Lake and 2002’s My Little Eye. So with an untested director, and a script by three virtually unknown writers, I saw little way that this film would have a chance. Then there was all the talk about several of the girls from the first film coming back, and I thought that would be somewhat wonky considering most of them were supposed to be dead. So when I got the opportunity to check out The Descent 2 a little early (it doesn’t hit American DVD shelves until April 27th), I thought I would be staring at a disaster for an hour and a half. What I got was a perfectly reasonable attempt to sequelize the first film though with a few problematic plot points.
Since basically no one else has seen this, I’ll keep my discussions of the film’s plot kind of brief, and there will not be any spoilers here so don’t be afraid to read on. If you’ve not seen TheDescent, then you might want to quit because it would be hard for me to discuss how this movie begins without discussing the ending of the first. So with that out of the way let me give you a brief idea of the story here. A massive rescue operation is underway to find the missing girls from the first film, but, as you might recall the cave they said they were going to is nowhere near where the events of the film took place. So the police and search and rescue teams are coming up empty handed. Miles away, Sara (Shauna MacDonald), who has made it out from the cavern alive, is found by a passing motorist and taken to a local hospital. When the police arrive and examine her, she is covered with blood that matches her friend Juno Kaplan. When a police dog traces Sara’s route to an old mineshaft, Chief of Police Vaines (Gavin O’Herlihy) orders the traumatized girl out of bed, and along with a rescue team and his deputy, they travel down into the caverns in hopes of finding the girls.
I think it’s best that I leave the story there. Though I will say there are quite a lot of twists an turns in this film that I did not expect. The appearance of one character in particular was quite shocking, and sort of goes back to the problematic plot points I was talking about earlier. Unlike the first Descent, this film is much more interested in providing a few jump scares and some creepy moments rather than being an emotionally symbolic journey. It does retain some of those elements and provides a very realized full character arc for Sara, but for the most part this movie is more about the monsters in the cave. Much more is seen on them than in the first film, and though they are interesting looking, after you’ve seen a good half dozen of them, you’ve seen all the variations on the theme. They are vicious, throat biting beasts, but since no more is learned about them and they have no character to themselves, the monsters become little more than a device to make the blood start gurgling. The most unfortunate moment of the film comes when we get a completely unnecessary look at the monster’s bathroom habits. I think it was placed in the film to be a light, funny moment, but it felt so out of place in the context of this film.
Former editor, now director, Joe Harris does an admirable job or recreating the look of the first film, and the two would flow together seamlessly if watched back to back. However, Marshall had a greater command of the claustrophobic feeling that was needed for the film. I would hesitate to impugn Harris for making a film in the style that Marshall had used, and he does a fine enough job with The Descent 2 that I would be very interested in seeing him strike out on his own with an original film. At present, he doesn’t have anything on the docket, but he has landed another high profile editing job with the much-anticipated KickAss. Harris did himself a great service by keeping on two other members of The Descent’s crew with him for this film. Both cinematographer Sam McCurdy and composer David Julyan help to add that seamless quality that serves to join the whole film.
Unfortunately, The Descent 2 is just not the same quality film as the original. While there are parts to the film that hit the right notes, some of them were messily discordant. The ending is especially troublesome, and it exposes the film’s most massive plot hole. This clumsy fumbling seems designed to leave the franchise open to the possibility of a third film, an idea that I just can’t see working. Going back to the well is a dangerous proposition, but it paid off once. Going back again could really mess up what was so great and original with Marshall‘s original vision. I’m very interested to see what kind of response this film gets when it makes its long awaited DVD debut (though it deserved to get the same theatrical release in the States that it got around the world). As a massive fan of The Descent, I still encourage folks to check this one out when they can, and enjoy the film for what it is, an interesting variation on the themes and setting of a classic film.
