Funereal Plots

Horror Cinema Reviews

Matthew M. Bartlett

Weapons

Writer/Director: Zach Creggers

Don’t read this review. Seriously. Stop here. Save it if you must, until after you see the movie. Yes, this is one of those “try to avoid all information before seeing it” kind of movie, and not because there’s some terrible twist—instead, because the way it reveals its story is captivating and intricate.

Seventeen children disappear overnight, seen on Ring cameras moving swiftly and strangely into the night, arms extended. They all left their homes at 2:17 am. They were all from the same class. Only one student didn’t disappear. Justine Gandy (Julia Garner, allowed here to let her let loose her considerable acting chops), the class’s teacher, falls under the town’s angry suspicion. This is the deceptively simple setup for Weapons. I thought I’d cottoned to its secret early on, when in a dream a massive, spaceship-like assault rifle looms eerily over a house. But I was wrong.

Justine is placed on leave. She starts drinking, carrying on with a local cop. Intensely curious and empathetic, hurt by the negative attention, she begins, despite her principal’s wishes, following the young boy who didn’t disappear. The windows of his house are covered in newspaper. It appears that his parents are inside, silent and still. Justine is joined in her unofficial investigation by one of the fathers (Josh Brolin). The cop with whom she’s carrying on complicates matters, as does interference from a local miscreant and, separately, from the school principal.

The movie jumps back in the narrative several times, showing us the occurrences from different points of view. We meet the remaining student’s aunt, a garishly clad and made-up enigma, who uses strange witchcraft on the boy’s parents—and who may be the key to the entire mystery. The movie’s explosive, startling ending also manages to be hilarious without compromising the horrors.

Weapons is everything a horror movie should be. Mysterious. Startling. Eerie. Inventive. Violent. Sad. Hysterically funny. It isn’t the same old horror concept rehashed. The director’s previous feature, Barbarian, was similarly inventive, if different in tone and execution. I’m excited to see what Cregger has in store next.

 

1942 (2012)
Directed by Feng Xiaogang

Reviewed by Anthony Servante

I saw the horror movie sequel to The Collector, called The Collection, both of which I enjoyed. As I left the theater, I saw a long line of well-dressed Chinese cordoned by black velvet separators used at movie premieres. So, I went for it. I got in line, wearing a black hoodie. There were security and uniformed ushers, all Chinese. As more patrons lined up behind me, one of the ushers counted people in the line and then instructed the last fifty or so people in line to follow him. I understood his body language enough that I didn't need to understand his Mandarin. We were escorted to the theater showing Red Dawn. Cool. I haven't seen that yet. Then the usher left and returned with two more ushers and hundreds more patrons who immediately filled the cinema to capacity. We were told by the escort usher that they have found a copy of the movie at a sister theater nearby and that it is being readied for showing in about 15 minutes. He apologized that the other theater was oversold, but while we are waiting for the movie to start, he and the other ushers would hand out free movie passes for a complimentary visit to attend a different film. When the usher reached me, I told her that my partner was in the restroom. She handed me an extra ticket.  Xie xie, I said. As I listened afterward, I found that most of the audience had a friend or family member in the restroom as well. The ushers smiled and bowed a lot. They didn't care. The tickets were an apology. That is all that mattered. Minutes or so after the freebies, the movie started straight away. No turn-off your cell phones. No refreshments in the lobby. No don't talk during the movie. No trailers. The movie started, the lights went down. I heard the crowd gasp. I sensed something about the movie was going to be good.

It was not Red Dawn. It was a Chinese film called 1942. That's what the four Chinese characters read. A one, a nine, a four and a two. Yet the English subtitle read: Back to 1942. (Later I found it's based on the book Remembering 1942, because as the author Liu Zhenyun points out: Americans remember [bad times in history]; the Chinese forget). The cast titles were Chinese except for Tim Robbins and Adrien Brody (other Brody movies, The Thin Red Line & The Pianist, and now this movie all take place in 1942, as Zhenyun also points out). The movie begins with a confrontation between peasants carrying torches at night and the landlord and his hired help carrying rifles. It seems the starving "bandits" as the rich owner refers to them are starving to death and they intend to share in the plentiful food behind the wall the armed men are defending. A messenger sent to summon police returns with the news that the Japanese have invaded China. The peasants and the riflemen begin killing each other for whatever food they can carry. The next morning there is an exodus of ten million people from the Henen Province who will go west in search of food. Why west? It is a traditionally lucky path to take in dire times. Only on this trek over three million of them will die: from starvation, strafing and bombing from Japanese planes, murder, and cannibalism.

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The horror the movie captured all too well, but this pic is real 1942

The refugees were starving. A pet cat that would not be left behind becomes food, and even the young girl whom the father tries to console needlessly declares, "I'm going to eat it too." Two thieves lose the mule they stole and one of the thieves tries to find the beast in the pitch black of a Henen night; he heads to a camp fire in the distance where Chinese soldiers are bayoneting the mule into size-able chunks for the huge pot of boiling water. He demands a piece of the animal only to fall into the boiling pot head-first, which instantly kills him. From days to months these people without food find themselves doing what no civilized person would do to survive. It is more humane to strangle a new-born baby girl than to watch it die of starvation.

Meanwhile, the Japanese planes just won't go away. In movie time the attacks span about fifteen to twenty minutes apart. The mass of refugees have nowhere to run or hide. They are ripped apart by high-powered bullet-fire. A tottler crying for her mother is blown in two by a nearby bomb. The visceral assault is non-stop. Your emotions are not spared. And we're not one third through the movie yet. There is much more suffering to come. But the reasons must be explored by the film-maker.

The blame is placed by the camera on the corrupt Chinese government. And the honest politicians are impotent to help. The Japanese on the ground get about fifteen minutes of blame toward the end when the Chinese pass their Henen refugee problem to their military enemy. The reporter played by Adrien Brody has been taking pictures of atrocities on the road from Hennen and has reported his findings to the highest Chinese official, who upon learning of the cannibalism, and seeing pictures of dogs eating human carcasses, worries more about how China will appear in the Time magazine article than about addressing the problems with the Hennen refugees. When 100 million tons of grain arrive, it dwindles as local government officials skim so much that nothing reaches the refugees. From horror to the horrible and back and forth the audience sways emotionally.

I was grateful that I fell into this movie. It was a great lesson in history, and after having just posted my article on History and Horror in fiction, it was quite the coincidence to follow the same subject in nonfiction. I was the first to stand and applaud the movie as the final credits began to roll. The crowd joined me with whistles and shouts of the director's name. I think I walked into an event of some magnitude. It was not a perfect movie. It was a perfect experience. Nothing like real horror to remind one what fictional horror emulates, and nothing like a good book or film to kindle that memory. It made The Collection look like a G-rated film.

Go see 1942. Let's show the Chinese how to remember. They already know how to forget.

PAST PERFECT

The ice cream cone flew from Young Anthony’s small hand when the truck hit the car head on, killing his mother and father. No farewells. No goodbye speeches. Six year old Anthony only knew that his ice cream cone was gone. Only later when he was in the hospital and his aunt and uncle yelled at him and blamed him for killing his parents did he realize his mom and dad were dead. His stay in the hospital stretched over a week. An extra day was added when no one came to pick him up. That's when the young boy realized he wasn't wanted.

Anthony sat with the social worker outside the courtroom. Time seemed to stand still as his aunt and uncle walked away with his younger and older brother. The social worker explained to Anthony that they would find a good home for him. He wanted to ask why he couldn’t go with his aunt, but he knew the answer. He was to blame for killing her sister, his mom. He was a witch. What kind of home would take in a brujo? he wondered.

Old Man Anthony answered the knock at the door to his small house alone on the hillside of the San Gabriel Mountains. Not quite the hermit, not quite the social butterfly. He dreaded knocks at the door. Jehovah’s Witnesses? Lutherans? Wireless services? Sometimes he simply didn’t answer, but not today. He opened the door, ready for an argument.

A military man in front, behind him the Ex, her two grown up daughters, a woman he didn’t recognize, and two little girls in their Sunday dresses. This family looked out of place for this forlorn neighborhood of retirees and loners. Yes? asked Anthony, wondering who would speak first, his son, the marine, or his Ex, who avoided his eyes.

“I am Michael Rios. This is my wife, Martha, my older sisters, Karla and Perla, you know my mom, Juana, and these two little ones are Reina and Princessa, your granddaughters.”

And there it was, out in the open. My Ex, my son, his family and his sisters. He had to be around thirty-five-ish. Kids about five-ish. He must have married late twenties. That made me seventyish. What a feverish reminder of my mortality. Weren’t kids supposed to be our immortality? It turns out family is clicking clock that rubs out any semblance of time. What a strange thought. Better write it down. Maybe it'll turn into something later when I'm at the computer. Or in a dream.

“May we come in?” Michael asked. The question was polite but assertive. He wasn’t taking no for an answer. So like his mom.

I sat them on the sofa, after pushing off all of my paperback horror novels and anthologies. I didn’t turn off my laptop. I wanted them to know that I was getting back to work as soon as they were gone. My Ex glared at the open laptop as if to incinerate it with her eyes.

“Excuse me, sir, but you haven’t introduced yourself.” A command more than a suggestion.

“How did you find me?” I wanted to know.

Reina and Princessa fidgeted at my question. The older Reina whispered to her sister in tongue clucks and lip smacks, followed by a repetition of assorted syllables laced together like sentences. For they were sentences. To them. And to me. I recognized the nonlinear language. Child-speak. All kids do it. Talk so no one understands but them. “Ta-ta-ta” said one to the other. The other answered with a cluck and a shrug of her tiny shoulders.

“I’m your grandpa.”

They looked at each other and clucked in unison. “Ta-ta-ta,” I told them.

Their mother, Martha, spoke up. “They’re autistic. I’m a Pediatrician, specializing in the disorder.”

“They’re just kids being kids.” I looked at the two girls and jabbered away in the language they thought only they could speak. At first they were hesitant, a trap, perhaps, but the older Reina responded with some off-beat clicks and oohs and aahs. Nothing new. I told them in nonlinear speak that they weren’t the only ones who could speak the Clicky Language. Then I scolded them for allowing their mother to believe they were autistic. In clicks and clucks, I communicated to them, Apologize to their parents in English now or leave my house. No grandpa for you.

Without hesitation they complied. “Mom, we’re sorry. We’ll speak English with you from now on and Spanish to Grandma. Can we sit with Grandpa?”

“I didn’t say you could sit with me.”

“We apologized. You have to,” said Reina.

“You promised,” added Princessa.

“Only for a minute. Then you have to go.”

Martha had tears in her eyes. Michael wrapped his arm around his wife’s shoulders. The Ex smiled triumphantly.

“Now introduce yourselves proper,” I asked. “Martha’s a kid doctor. Got it. Who’s next? I'll go last.”

The Zimmerman family came to the State Social Home several months after my being placed there, after the promise to place me in a family turned into a lie. I was shuffled around from social worker to social worker, each one promising homes and big back yards and good schools. None of that came. It took a week of learning to fight off the bullies at the orphanage. Another week to take over the library, where I made up for the poor education the state provided by reading everything I could get my hands on. The librarian took a shine to me. She guided my education, provided me with the proper books, and gave me quizzes to ensure I was understanding the materials. When I showed progress, she found the right books to level me up. She often said that I was high school level now. By the time I was adopted, I'd be college level. I always thought she was exaggerating my progress as incentive. But when I heard her talking to the Zimmermans, I believed she was telling the truth.

The Zimmermans lived in Malibu, by the beach. Mr. Zimmerman was a judge, Mrs. Zimmerman a doctor, a hospital administrator, their two daughters, ten year old Sandra and twelve year old Kendra, were students. The family showed me around the house, the back-yard, which was basically the Pacific Ocean, and lastly, my room, which overlooked the setting sun. For dinner the dining table was laid out with tacos from some fast food joint. I refused to eat. They asked if I were hungry. I asked for permission to make myself a sandwich or a bowl of soup. The judge said. Of course. As I made my sandwich, I heard the girls tossing the tacos in the trash. Their parents seemed to be whispering about the mistake they made.

Now I'd met them. My son, Michael, the 20 year Marine, his wife, Martha, the Pediatrician who specialized in autism who couldn't distinguish nonlinear language from autism, my Ex, the real estate mogul, as I sarcastically referred to her, her eldest, Karla, FBI bureau chief in charge of psychological profiling (whatever that meant), and Perla, the younger daughter, neurosurgeon. And my two granddaughters. It was Karla who figured out where I lived. Naturally, with those FBI resources. But it was Perla who recognized my work as a writer. "You're Anthony Zee, the author of The Neurology of Irony, aren't you?" I didn't answer. "I read all your books. So has Karla. That's why she's a psychiatrist and I'm a doctor. Because of you." I didn't know how to respond. I always avoided these sort of situations with my readers. I didn't give autographs, though honestly, I've never been asked for one. 

"I have a question for you all," I said. "Why now?"

No one answered. Until Michael said, "Isn't it enough that we're here?"

This time I didn't answer. Was I in some soap opera? Was this real? If I didn't answer the door, would I be in this predicament? About this time, the anxiety attack happened. Perla gave me a Xanax that she had in her purse and told everyone that it's best if they left, that I was overwhelmed. I don't remember who said it, the Ex or the Marine, I don't remember if it was in English or Spanish or Clicky Language. But someone said, "We'll be back when you feel better." 

I woke up. The awful taste of Xanax on my dry tongue. I opened the curtains and stared at the ocean. Sandra called me down for breakfast. Kendra told me that we were having pancakes. "Did you sleep well, Grandpa?" Was that the Clicky Language? Why did the house have two floors? My granddaughters walked me down to breakfast. The pancakes were piled four high on my plate. Sorry bout the tacos, the doctor said. Next to my plate was my laptop, still open to the last document I was working on. Before I melted butter and poured syrup over my pancakes, I typed the title that just came to me: Past Perfect. 

The End. 

 

Views from a Troubled Mind

Waking from a dream within a dream...

Scene #11


Dream Loops & Fever Sleep


Eternal Dream Loop/Inhale


I hit the Trifecta of illness: The Flu, Food Poisoning, and Vertigo.


Late in the afternoon, I went in for my annual bloodwork, a basic line, tossing the hook into the pond to see if the doctor could catch something swimming in the red stream. I told the doctor that I was coming down with the flu and should I return for my bloodwork. He said, No. It's just a basic line. Catch and release, as they say in medical school.


He wrapped a rubber hose around my upper arm after I had rested my forearm on the mat with the elbow bent, so he could easily find a vein. He told me to make a fist. I did. He patted my arm till he found a plump stream to dive into. He told me to take a deep breath. Before I did, I asked him to tell me when he would insert the needle. He agreed. I took a deep breath, and he poke the hypo into my vein. Dammit. My breath locked between in and out. I tensed. The injection hurt like hell. I told the doctor that I needed to catch my breath and relax. He said, Loosen your fist. The blood didn't flow.


So he wiggled the needle to increase the flow of blood. An electric shock shot up my arm from the site of the injection to my shoulder. I need to relax, I told him. He wiggled the needle again. Pure agony, and all my nerves were in on it. I forced myself to relax, to make the blood flow. He filled one vial, and inserted the next. It's slow, he said.


I knew it as soon as he said it. He wiggled the needle again. I groaned, about to push him away and pull out the needle, but it was over. A ball of cotton on the bloody site and a big band-aid.


I knew that I should have postponed the bloodwork till after I had gotten over my flu. This was a first--that wiggling of the needle to speed things along. He thought he was doing me a favor, speeding things up.


And that's how the day started.


The evening was even worse.


I ate the bad mushrooms at 9 p.m. I went to bed about 2 a.m.


When I closed my eyes, I was driving. I wasn't asleep, but everything seemed normal. Then I opened my eyes and I was in bed. I assumed I was dreaming. I closed my eyes and I was back in the car driving. I decided to go to the beach. It was hot in the car. The heater was broken. The windows wouldn't roll down. I began to sweat profusely from head to toe. I opened my eyes. I checked the time. It was 3 a.m. I was still in the car. I was still in bed. I checked the cell phone clock. It was 3 a.m, same as the car clock. This was not the flu. It was the mushrooms. They were bad.


I was in a fever dream loop.


Dream loops and fever sleep combined. Otherwise known as Nightmare Eternity or Voodoo Slumber. Basically, a fever causes hallucinations while you're awake in bed. Add to that REM dream when you fall asleep. You have normal nightmares and waking hallucinations happening simultaneously. You are awake while you dream and asleep while you hallucinate. You're in a bubble of a new reality, with swatches of your five senses picking up your environment while your dreams try to work around these illusions.

If I wanted to break the loop, I needed to throw up the bad food.


I stood up awkwardly; it triggered the vertigo. The room spun. The real room. My bedroom. The car was gone. I rushed to the toilet. My body wanted the bad food out.


I stepped wrong and my back went out. Throwing up was more important than dealing with the agony in my lower back. Spinning room and painful back, I dragged myself to the toilet.


The vomit confirmed I was poisoned by the bad mushrooms. I expelled every bit of the badness. I cleaned up and returned to bed.


I rested on my right side, and the room spun out of control. I turned on my left side. The spinning stopped. The sweating was gone. The queasiness under control. I closed my eyes without anxiety.


I was back in the car. I was at the beach. It was very chilly. It was a starless night. There was a snack shack by the lifeguard station. It was covered with owls. No. Seagulls, I reasoned. Owls don't squawk. Wait. Seagulls caw. I should go home. It is cold. I am in bed. I grab the extra blanket from the foot of the bed and toss it over myself. I open my eyes. I am at the beach. But the sounds of parrots squawking filter into my dream from outside my bedroom window. I close my eyes and gauge where I am. I'm in bed. Two blankets now. I open my eyes. I am in the car. No. I close my eyes. It goes like this all night till noon when I wake up for real.


I was caught in a fever dream loop, half hallucination, half dream.

Sadly, I get up and grab a cup of coffee. I should sleep, but sleep now scares me. I should hydrate, I say to myself over and over with each cup of coffee.


The day passes slowly. I am sleepy and wired with caffeine. I dread the coming night, so early it comes in October. The feral parrots are squawking in the back yard again. Tonight, they'll be seagulls and owls again.


I pour another cup of coffee.

 

Funereal Plots

Horror Cinema Double-Feature

Reviews

Matthew M. Bartlett

The Wolf Man

Director: Leigh Wannell

Writers: Leigh Wannell, Corbett Tuck

The plot of the Wolf Man is simplicity itself. A boy’s dad warns him about a creature in the woods. The dad goes missing. The boy grows up, turns into the fretful Blake (Christopher Abbott), has a wife named Charlotte (Julia Garner, who can’t save this one) and daughter (Matilda Firth, 11 years old but her character talks like 7-year-old). They go back to Oregon from San Francisco when boy receives father’s death certificate in the mail.

Cue the creature in the woods. Mixed in there is the theme of a father must protect his child. Ho hum.

Lycanthropy in the 2025 werewolf movie doesn’t mean a man turns into a wolf, or into a man-wolf hybrid. Rather, the man turns ugly and sort of strong, like Jeff Goldblum a third of the way toward Brundlefly, his teeth get weird, he can’t talk (metaphor for the taciturn father!), he sees things through a SciFi filter, and he runs like a Cocaine Ape.

So, at the old homestead, a werewolf wastes no time and immediately attacks the family. Blake is bitten and immediately gets sweaty and wheezy. His transformation is as slow as the movie. Eventually claws push his fingernails off and his teeth fall out, replaced by…grosser teeth.

Mid-transformation, the werewolf attacks again, chasing the family on top of a greenhouse. Hilarity ensues. Eventually, maybe 2/3 through the transformation, the werewolf and the two-thirds-werewolf fight not like animals, but like strong, really ugly men. It’s basically a movie fistfight that looks like a bar fight with two really ugly guys with bad colds, and it’s unintentionally hilarious.

Oh, spoiler alert, I guess, but the werewolf is Blake’s missing father.

The only good moment in The Wolf Man comes when Charlotte stares down her werewolf husband and he briefly shows a moment of brute understanding. The rest is predictable, plodding, and disappointing. Ultimately, it’s a blessing that, like a lot of horror movies now, much of it is too dark to see.

********

The Monkey

Writer/ Director: Osgood Perkins

Mixing horror with humor is a delicate operation. Few movies seem to get the mix just right. Shawn of the Dead is one. Going back to the black & white days, Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein is another.

Osgood Perkins is not the writer/director you’d think could pull it off. His movies are mostly deliberately paced, atmospheric, and quiet—sometimes to a fault. So, he’s probably not anyone’s first choice to adapt one of Stephen King’s darker short story offerings. But here we are nonetheless.

The movie opens strongly, with a man in a military uniform trying to return a toy monkey to a pawn shop, only to have a Rube Goldberg chain of mishaps end in the grisly death of the owner, and the man taking a flamethrower to the toy monkey. This puts us firmly in the familiar territory claimed by the Final Destination.

We jump forward. Hal and Bill, the soldier’s twin sons, find the monkey. Turn its key, it bangs its little drum-sticks, and people die. Not so random—it’s usually people close to the key-turner. One is their mother, who has a spectacular aneurysm at a hibachi restaurant. “Close” in this case can even mean proximity, mind you. So, them’s the rules. We jump ahead a bunch of years. Hal (Theo James), now an adult, is traumatized by his past. Bill (also Theo James, naturally), his brother, blames him for his mother’s death, and lives in betterment with dark dreams of revenge. More people die from wasp attacks, falling shotguns, what have you.

The comically grotesque deaths are entertaining in their over-the-topness. And if it had stopped there as far as humor goes, it might have worked. But Perkins inexplicably throws in absurd characters—a young, tongue-tied judge, a whacky real-estate agent, Elijah Wood in an bizarre, what-was-anyone-thinking turn as the husband of Hal’s ex-wife and a bunch of non-sequiturs, which dampen the horror rather than enhance or effectively offset it.

There are redeeming qualities found throughout (A giant version of the monkey made me laugh out loud, pause, and rewind) and the ending is hilarious in its grand guignol silliness. What I was left with after watching The Monkey was regret—the good parts, and there are not nearly enough of them, show what a truly great horror movie this might have been.