- Horror Movie - Horror Homeroom

Posted on October 16, 2016

Mattie Do’s Dearest Sister: Seeing Things

Dawn Keetley

Dearest Sister (Nong Hak) is the second feature film directed by Mattie Do, and it has some similarities to her first film, Chanthaly (2013)—not least its pervasive sense that hauntings happen most often in our closest relationships. Do, who was born in Los Angeles to parents who immigrated from Laos, is making a name for herself as the first female director of a Lao feature film and the first director of a horror film (Chanthaly) written and directed entirely in Laos. Dearest Sister was also produced in Laos, filmed on location in the capital city of Vientiane, where Do was living. As important, though, as Do’s films unquestionably are for Lao film-making, Dearest Sister is an exceptional horror film by the standards of any national cinema. Read more

Posted on October 14, 2016

Babak Anvari’s Brilliant Under the Shadow

Dawn Keetley

Under the Shadow marks the directorial and writing debut of Iranian-born Babak Anvari. Having screened at film festivals in mid-2016 (the film notably won best film prize at the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival), Under the Shadow opened in select theaters and on VOD on October 7. Netflix has acquired the rights to the film, so it will eventually be even more widely available. And that’s a very good thing because Under the Shadow is one of the best independent horror films released in the last few years—in the company of The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014), It Follows (David Robert Mitchell, 2014), and The Invitation (Karyn Kusama, 2015).

Posted on September 30, 2016

The Wailing’s Brilliant Ambiguity

Dawn Keetley

The third feature film of South Korean director Na Hong-jin, The Wailing (Goksung) is his first foray into the horror genre. His first two films, for which he also wrote the screenplay, are thriller / action films, The Chaser (2008) and The Yellow Sea (2010).

The Wailing is a beautiful, lush, and thoroughly provocative film, featuring great performances by its four stars: Kwak Do Won as local police officer, Jong-goo, besieged by sudden vicious murders in his peaceful mountain community; Kim Hwan-hee as his daughter, Hyo-jin; Chun Woo-hee as a mysterious (unnamed) woman who seems to have some knowledge of what is behind the violence; and Jun Kunimura as an (also unnamed) Japanese “stranger” to the village, who becomes the target of the villagers’ suspicions.

Posted on September 10, 2016

The Neighbor Isn’t What You Think It Is—It’s Much Better

Dawn Keetley

The Neighbor (2016) was one of those films that started out well and then got better. It started out appearing to be one kind of story, and then it became another—a much more human story. At every turn, writers Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton reveal that characters who appear unredeemable, the sadistic stock characters of exploitation horror, are just powerless individuals, caught in a web of hopelessness, trying to survive.

The Neighbor is Marcus Dunstan’s third film as director, following on the heels of The Collector (2009) and The Collection (2012), both also written by Dunstan and Melton. These two earlier films can’t help but shape expectations for The Neighbor, as does the trailer and all the brief synopses of the film. As the summary on IMDb tells us: “the film follows a man who discovers the dark truth about his neighbor and the secrets he may be keeping in the basement.” So you could be forgiven for thinking The Neighbor is another Collector, another entry in the by-now rather tired “torture-porn” subgenre. It isn’t. It’s much more interesting than that. Read more

Posted on September 8, 2016

Billionaire Ransom (2016): Watch it for the Scenery

Dawn Keetley

My primary motivation for watching the recently-released Billionaire Ransom (Take Down outside the US) was its filming location. I was punished, it seems, for my less-than-serious motivation in that the film’s location ended up being by far the best thing about it.

Billionaire Ransom is directed by Jim Gillespie, known for I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), and written by Alexander Ignon. It features a cast of young people (led by Jeremy Sumpter and Phoebe Tonkin), all of whom are rich and spoiled and sent to some kind of punitive boot camp for moral rehabilitation. As they are being taught the basics of survival on an isolated island, they are kidnapped by a group of criminals interested in a little wealth redistribution. The rich kids then get to practice their newly-honed survival skills with their very lives on the line. Read more