E-Demon (2016)

directed by Jeremy Wechter
USA
85 minutes
4 stars out of 5
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I honestly watched this because I was curious about just how awful it would be based on the title. I mean, no movie can be called "E-Demon" and be decent, right? Wrong.

It's a found-footage movie in the form of recorded video chats between four friends who slowly get picked off by an ancient and vicious demon after one of them opens up an old haunted trunk in his attic that his grandma warned him was cursed. It's established that the four friends have a history of pranks on each other, which provides some context as to why they don't immediately call the police and freak out when one of them appears to get killed on camera. Whether or not the "haha it's a prank right????" trope is overused and boring or not is up to you, but in this instance I actually didn't mind it, possibly because it was in the past, and the characters are all a little older than the mischievous college kids who usually populate films like this.

I also genuinely liked the idea of the demon. It's hard to explain why it appealed to me, maybe because it was taken so seriously and cast as this thing that has existed since forever and has simply adapted to the internet as its new method of getting victims. Good acting has a lot to do with why this was a good film, too. The group's only girl, Kendra, was a really strong character and probably my favorite, because she was so capable and was the only one who actually did anything that had an impact on the situation as a whole. Tied into that is another thing I appreciated about this- that it doesn't give any quarter to sexual assault, doesn't exploit it but states clearly that it's a line that isn't to be crossed. 

My opinion on this might change later but I've seen so many bad movies in the "screen sharing" format that a good one like this takes me by surprise. It doesn't wear out its welcome, it doesn't pull punches, it reveals what has to be revealed at the precise best moment for maximum effect. I'm surprised this is a first-time director, but I also think a first-time director is the only person who could have the courage to try their hand at a format so widely derided.

2012: Curse of the Xtabai (2012)

directed by Matthiew Klinck
Belize
80 minutes
3.5 stars out of 5
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I watched this because it's the first feature-length film made entirely in Belize, and it's kind of a horror movie, which obviously made it appeal to me even more. It's in creole, but you can probably understand it if you speak a bare minimum of English. "Xtabai" (also Xtabay) is a figure from Yucatec Maya folklore who is basically a woman with hair down to her feet who wears a long white dress, lives in a cave, and kills people. This film at least got the "lives in a cave" part down, but it takes some artistic liberty with all other aspects of Xtabay's appearance. No matter, though, as the rest of this was so good it got me hyped up.

I want to go to Belize now. This movie is just so radically different from typical action/horror movies in all the ways that matter. When the main character and her group go out into the jungle to search for the Xtabai and bring an end to the apocalyptic plague sweeping through their town, they do it in as smart and cautious a way as possible: A. They bring somebody along who is experienced in bushcraft, B. They go in a large enough group that they have safety in numbers, and C. For a while there's no unnecessary antagonism in their party. Just with those three simple things they've proved themselves smarter than 99.999% of slasher movie victims who bumble into forests and jungles alone, never having camped more than a single night by themselves.

It's also incredibly refreshing that the main character in this is a young woman who doesn't compact herself into an ideal of submissive femininity but instead charges forward with what she knows to be true, and is supported and respected by all those around her, men and women alike. I don't remember the last time a film has featured a woman having prophetic dreams where everybody around her acknowledges that she must be seeing these things for a reason, and that she isn't crazy. I love that women don't take a backseat in this. I mean, the main character's mother is shot while walking unarmed towards military officers demanding to be let outside the cordon to find a doctor for her son. Girls don't do anything halfway in this.

As for the actual quality of the film, I personally felt that it was pretty top-notch, but I know that to most people it would look cheap and unfinished. The acting is great, but if you're used to watching movies produced in big Hollywood studios this will definitely look amateurish. But you have to look past that- what matters is the idea; it doesn't matter that the CGI on the monster is worse than awful and she wears a goofy Halloween mask, it matters that this is a well-written, well-acted movie made by people who clearly knew what they were doing. I really loved this. Sorry.

Space Invasion of Lapland (1959)

directed by Virgil W. Vogel
Sweden/USA
73 minutes
2.5 stars out of 5
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First off, "Lapp" is now considered a derogatory term for Saami people- I'm not sure exactly where it falls on a scale from "horribly offensive slur" to "term that has fallen out of use", but either way, it's not used anymore, so I wanted to make sure to mention that because they sure do use it liberally in this film.

Anyway. This is kind of a strange one because it has all the trappings of a typical American sci-fi film from the 50s: A super corny monster, a damsel in distress, self-assured men doing Science™, etc. But it was also made in collaboration with Sweden and the majority of it takes place in Sweden. The country isn't really portrayed with the same exoticism that most American films of that era treated other countries with, and although it's implied that the domain of serious, modernized scientists is to investigate strange things and the domain of the Saami is to run in fright from them, Saami people aren't treated as a curiosity. 

This is a movie that I can't recommend in confidence unless you love skiing. It's not even particularly impressive or showy skiing, just... shots of characters skiing down hills for about 75% of the film's runtime. The low rating I've given this isn't necessarily for quality, it's for how incredibly boring it is. A glowing meteor lands in rural Sweden, some people go "perhaps we should investigate the meteor" for 50 minutes and then go skiing. End film. Well, not technically, because as I said there is a corny monster, whose lumbering, silent presence accounts for most of the "action" in the film, which, believe me, is not saying much. However, this monster is still just about the most interesting thing about the whole deal. It's essentially Bigfoot as an alien, but a really really really big Bigfoot. Its size is what makes it so fun- it dwarfs cabins, rips them apart like toys. The miniatures used to convey the alien's size are genuinely not that bad and make for neat practical effects. 

This movie is fun as a novelty, and fun if, like me, you have some Swedish ancestry in ya, but it's as boring and dated as all the other sci-fi films of the 50s are now. It leans more towards the U.S. and English speakers, and even has some people speaking a fake gibberish language instead of Swedish or Saami, which is always disheartening. It's not good but it's not unwatchable.

UFO (2018)

directed by Ryan Eslinger
USA
88 minutes
3 stars out of 5
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I watched this mainly for Gillian Anderson, who wears the worst wig I've ever seen in my life, and assumed that everything about it that wasn't her would be terrible. The other reason why it appealed to me is because it has an earnestness that I love, and because it deals with a subject that's close to my heart: the discovery of solid evidence that aliens are communicating with us. I don't immediately love every film about this concept, because some are badawful, but UFO does it in the way that appeals to me most: with open-minded curiosity and a good amount of scientific rigor (some of which might have been bunk, but it uses theories that are legit, at least). Movies like this touch a part of my childhood, the part that hung out in the closet under the stairs pretending I was in a spaceship talking to aliens.

One common complaint I'm seeing in reviews is that it's too "talky", but that was the best part about it for me. This isn't the kind of film where a bunch of inept teens see a UFO, chase after it with substandard camera equipment, and get themselves abducted. The main character of this film goes about pursuing what he's fairly certain is aliens with caution and occasional outside assistance, and even though he's, like, unrealistically in-the-know about every single subject on Earth, he's likable. Generally a lot of movies where the crux of the plot depends on one singular guy who just ~Knows~ are annoying, but something about this particular Guy Who ~Knows~ wasn't getting on my nerves. It's nice that most of the people around him are at least somewhat willing to play along, too. Friends in denial are another irritatingly common trope of sci-fi movies.

I think I was expecting this to be a horror movie, and that fact played into why I was so pleasantly surprised by it. There's as much motivation behind the aliens in this film as there was behind the WOW! Signal- precisely none, simply (if you want to believe the WOW! Signal was aliens) a reach-out in the form of a bunch of code that it takes a lot of people with Smarts™ to decode.

The final line of this- "We're not alone"- is everything I want out of an alien movie. I don't want guns and lasers, I don't want beautiful women getting bodysnatched, at the end of the day I just want a realistic exchange; the aliens sending us math to say "hey you guys smart enough to get this?" Leave motive to the other films, leave intent for later. The simple fact that we're not alone in the universe is the point of this film, and the details of what the aliens look like or what they want is left aside in favor of spotlighting the massive implications of that one fact.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)

directed by John Newland
USA
74 minutes
2.5 stars out of 5
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This movie is so boring, I can't believe anybody wanted to remake it. And that's saying something considering how widely hated (and I mean hated) the remake is.

The worst thing about this movie is its downright alarming conservative gender roles. I first noticed it when the main character's husband asks her to make a meal that's "not too simple" because he's having company over and he has to make a good impression on one of his Man Friends. It sounds like straight up caveman behavior* to try and impress your fellow men by showing them that your woman cooks good, but that's not even the first or the biggest red flag in this. All throughout the film are instances where women are basically chained to their men and treated like children- at one point the protagonist's husband calls a guy up and yells at him for putting scary thoughts into his poor wife's head as if she's a literal child who must be kept sheltered.

Also the main character just looks... suspiciously young. I was curious so I looked up the actress and she was around 25 when this came out, but something about her face makes her look like a 15-year-old playing at being an adult. It's just creepy the way she's treated, even if she is an adult. Especially if she is an adult.

But anyway, the actual horror stuff is kind of fun. The film is essentially about a woman discovering weird little imp things in her new home that try to spirit her away, cut her with shaving razors, tug on her clothing, et cetera. They look like tiny versions of the gremlin on the plane wing from that Twilight Zone episode with walnuts on their heads. If you want to get into symbolism, you could definitely see these guys as representations of all the fears the main character represses to create a pleasant, socially acceptable facade. But I don't think this film is that deep. The little creatures are probably nothing more complex than little creatures.

I wish I had more positives to say about this because it's a nicely autumnal little film with original creature design and an occasionally eerie atmosphere, but honestly the politics of it took me by surprise and something about it is just unsettling, in a way that isn't fun and spooky-ooky. Worth a watch if you like goblins, but it isn't even the best movie out there about goblins.

*sidenote- i don't endorse the view that cavemen were all violent misogynists

The Borrower (1991)

directed by John McNaughton
USA
90 minutes
4 stars out of 5
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I watched this because the plot couldn't be ignored. An alien criminal, forced to assume the shape of a human, is exiled to the savage planet Earth, and he goes around ripping people's heads off and attaching them to himself after his own head explodes.

While I was watching this, I realized that I watch so many "bad" movies that I can't tell when a movie is actually bad anymore. I have a vague idea that certain movies are worse than others, but I no longer know where to draw the line between things I enjoy and things that are actually good. Bearing this in mind, it's my personal opinion that this movie owns. It's wonderful. It didn't sneak up on me unexpectedly, either; I could tell from minute one how good it was going to be- that opening scene with the buggy alien speaking to the human-shaped alien set me up for greatness. I was going to rate this a full five stars, to be honest, but some random transmisogyny turned me off.

I don't even know why this rules so much. I could have just been in a certain mood last night. But while watching The Borrower I was totally disregarding the commonly-accepted terms of "good" filmmaking and I was enjoying the gross practical effects, laughing at the sometimes-cheesy humor, and not putting too much stock into anything, because the film itself takes itself blessedly un-seriously. Besides the head-snatching alien adventures, there actually isn't an abundance of plot to this. The alien doesn't really have a goal on Earth, seeing as he was sent here involuntarily, so he just wanders from place to place picking heads like pumpkins. We don't even know what he did to get sent here or anything else about his species, and that's fine: this film knows when to explain and when to hold back.

It's hard to believe this was directed by the same guy who made Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, of all things. But when you think about it, this movie is as irreverent and passionate about being a goofy alien flick as Henry is about being a transgressive and uncomfortable movie about a serial killer. Though they are two vastly different subjects, they have similarities in how committed they are to the subject matter. I would call this a guilty pleasure, but what does that even mean anymore? Why should I feel guilty about how much I liked this? I thought it was good and so that means it was good. Art is subjective. We should all chill out.

Adventurados (2015)

directed by Berton Pierce
Germany
86 minutes
3 stars out of 5
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I was drawn to this by its description as "an Irish road movie in space", but honestly, it doesn't feel like there's enough traveling done in this to make it a road movie. I mean, due to the nature of space travel, the craft the characters were in was likely traveling at mind-boggling speeds, but I feel like an important element of road movies is, like, seeing a vehicle move. Which we did not. 

But anyway. This was good! The thing about it is that it's very lo-fi, but the sets are also very well-made. The actual effects are really nice as well, like shots of rockets blasting off, which were almost definitely made with hidden strings and water vapor, but certainly didn't look like it. The spaceships are quite believable, they have a high level of detail, as do the interior sets, even though when you look at it as a whole there isn't much variety in how many different locations are actually shown. Basically the film does well at making do with a limited amount of space and a limited budget. All of the actors are well above average too which contributes a ton to making this feel like a well-rounded experience and not just some people LARPing in cardboard boxes (which can be fun too, to be fair).

The running theme in Adventurados seems to be average people reacting to situations which are far-fetched or entirely impossible, which lends to its believability as a science fiction movie. Instead of being dramatic about futuristic technology such as cloning and routine transport missions from the moon to Earth, it puts slightly downtrodden blue-collar workers in positions that would otherwise be filled by Professional Astronauts™. Discovering you're a clone instead of a human, or a human instead of a clone, is obviously a big change in how you perceive yourself, but we're shown that through the eyes of people who don't have a lot of extra time or resources to spend angsting around after they discover their true origins. It's like if somebody made a movie about a low-wage factory worker discovering the secrets of life, but in space.

All in all this film is kind of meandering, and even though it ostensibly does have a plot, it's very chill. The atmosphere is overwhelmingly one where you can tell the characters have a lot of time on their hands. There's a real sense of dereliction, the spaceship looks genuinely rusty and feels vacant and half-forgotten. I like films like this where the future isn't shiny. I like things set in times where technology has advanced far enough that we've managed to get tired of spaceships and lunar transport missions. I wouldn't call this kind of thing pessimistic, just a different take on themes that can get overused in sci-fi.

Flying Phantom Ship (1969)

directed by Hiroshi Ikeda
Japan
60 minutes
3 stars out of 5
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For a while this is an upbeat, intensely Scooby Doo-like romp following a young boy and his dog (seriously, it's Scooby Doo) through nicely-painted backgrounds of locales as diverse as ghost ships, mysterious underwater palaces, and rich dudes' houses, but what's surprising about it is how quickly it all goes sideways.

I know this is Japan, undisputed rulers of the "giant robot smashing cities" game and all, but it still managed to surprise me when out of seemingly nowhere a gigantic robot named Golem appears and plows through the city skyline while the main character was enjoying his time away from the titular flying ghost ship he'd just had a fairly traumatic encounter with. Not only does the robot wreck his day, it also kills his parents, sending him on a journey of revenge that lasts the entire rest of the movie. Had I read the synopsis, this all wouldn't have been as unexpected, but I had no idea what this was about, and the switch from "ahhh nice vacation days w/ the parents" to "MY PARENTS ARE DEAD AT THE HANDS OF A GIANT ROBOT" is so sudden I was taken off guard.

Later there's a similarly jarring moment where a giant crab shows up out of nowhere, but by then I had learned to expect this anime to throw random gigantic things at me with no warning.

This also features early animation from Hayao Miyazaki, but honestly the style wasn't really doing anything for me. I always feel bad about critiquing animated films for style, because it's entirely subjective, and it feels wrong to say I disliked something that people spent a long time on, but in this case I wasn't fond of the way the characters looked. I guess it's mostly just the fact that this seemed to be geared mainly towards children, but the proportions of the human characters were too exaggerated for my taste. Also it does that thing where all the men look vastly different but every single woman has the exact same face.

I'm also not sure the whole "dead parents" thing worked for me, but it could just be the difference between anime of this era and the animation I grew up with. Nothing I ever watched as a kid would go even remotely close to showing a little boy crying and beating at the sheets of the bed his mother lays on, dead, with a cloth over her face, while his father acknowledges his own impending death in the bed next to him. You're bound to get mood whiplash from how quickly this cycles between people dying and being displaced and woohoo let's go stop some giant robots with help from a friendly skeleton. There is virtually no ground this anime doesn't cover.