I dont think Ive posted on GAF since last years marathon, and even then I had to duck out early due to real life becoming awful, but I am so ready to jump in this year.
October 1 Invaders from Mars (1986, Dir. Tobe Hooper)
One of my favorite parts of getting into horror as an adult has been going back and watching the movies that had VHS art or commercials that terrified me as a kid.
Invaders from Mars is one of the last on this list, and Im sad to say it was pretty disappointing. The story, while functional, has little impact or tension to set it apart from the other 50s remakes of the 80s, and the studio interference that followed Hoopers previous film
Lifeforce makes its way on the screen in the form of limp direction and flat looking cinematography. Louise Fletcher and Bud Cort add a bit of flavor, but I couldnt help thinking of
Night of the Creeps, and how much it needed a Tom Atkins to thrill me.
GRADE: C
October 2 The Nightmare (2015, Dir. Rodney Ascher)
I have some mixed feelings about this one. Aschers follow-up to 2012s
Room 237,
The Nightmare documents the experiences of eight people who have suffered night terrors. A mix of talking head interviews and re-enactments, the film feels very similar to
Room 237 as you, the viewer, find yourself interpreting the subjects as the subjects explain themselves. Even though I found some of the re-enactments to be kind of corny, especially those involving a pair of aliens with tv static for skin, most were quite frightening, especially the red-eyed shadow men. Furthermore, the documentary format increased the terror for me, as I had to watch real people explain the things that were happening to them. Although I wanted to dismiss many of them as crazy or traumatized, as I did the
Room 237 theorists, but the talking head pieces forced me to suspend my disbelief and, at the very least, empathize with them.
GRADE: B+
October 3 Spring (2014, Dirs. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead)
Spring has been on my radar for a while, but all I knew was that it was a horror/romance movie and that I should know as little as possible going into it. So I wont say much beyond that and that I really loved it. It was beautifully shot and well-acted. Not terribly scary, except for a few scenes, but definitely worth watching.
GRADE: A
October 4th Resolution (2012, Dirs. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorehead)
I liked
Spring so much that I decided to toss aside my list and check out Benson and Mooreheads first movie,
Resolution. The story of a settled family man who tries to force his crack addicted former best friend to get clean by chaining him to the wall of his unfinished one-room house. Its really hard to talk about this movie on its own terms, and not just because it gets metatextual about horror. It compares most obviously to
The Cabin in the Woods, but one might also think of
Sinister,
Man Bites Dog, or
Funny Games as well. But where those films use their postmodern freedom to indulge in their own cleverness,
Resolution grounds the story in the relationship between the two main characters and makes you care about them. You find yourself torn, as a viewer, between genuine empathy for them and your expectations as the viewer of a horror movie. The movie never does an obvious wink to the camera, nor is it anywhere as quippy as
Cabin (though it is, actually, quite funny in parts), but rather asks you to think about the enjoyment of horror stories in a more humane manner.
GRADE: A-
