Posts Tagged ‘family’

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0464141/

Dir. Juan Antonio Bayona

A problem I find when watching a lot of horror is that more focus is placed on jumps and gore than on atmosphere and psychology. Fear is a complex emotion, what scares one person may not scare another, and so more time is spent just making cheap jumps rather than putting the effort to create something effective and resonating. This isn’t a new problem, genre film is always filled with hack work, but there has been a recent boom with the popularity of ‘torture-porn’ movies like Hostel.

The Orphanage is entirely removed from these issues. It’s a slow-burning, well crafted ghost story that allows the horror to be formed through the atmosphere rather than with cheap jumps or graphic gore. It tells the story of a woman, Laura, who spent her childhood in an orphanage and has returned, as an adult, with her husband and son to reopen it as a home for handicapped children. Shortly before opening her son begins to act strangely, talking to his new imaginary friend, and things don’t seem quite right.

Often when visiting old genres or styles of horror a film can lack effectiveness or impact, the fear stolen away by cliché or predictability and while The Orphanage is a traditional ghost story it doesn’t fall into this trap thanks to its impeccable production. The visuals are crisp and beautifully designed with the Orphanage itself an imposing location both inside and out. It has great turn of the century architecture and keeps a sense of decay and age, even when the family have moved in and done some renovations. The lighting complements the production design using shadow and highlight to enhance the atmosphere of each scene, which ranges from the lighter, happier scenes, to the creeping horror that builds.

The two things that I found the most impressive and effective in creating a fearful atmosphere were the sound and the editing. The sound design is stunning, the Orphanage itself feels like it has a voice, one of escalating malevolence throughout the film; each creak, each footfall, each crack of metal feels portentous. This works so well because it plays on sounds we are used to in our own homes and lives. Everyone’s house has its own personality of noises, a blend of building stresses, boilers and appliances that you get used to over time, yet in a strange building these sounds become amplified in our minds and have a strong mysterious power to scare.

Editing is, without a doubt, one of the most important things in horror cinema. Timing is what creates horror (and comedy) and if it is out by even a split second, the fear is lost. The Orphanage has absolutely perfect timing; building the atmosphere and tension of its scenes without ever letting shots linger or lose their impact.

I was impressed with the performances throughout. Belen Rueda as Laura is absolutely perfect, the film is carried on her shoulders and she does it with incredible intensity. Roger Princep as the son, Simon, is surprisingly good, it’s not often a child of his age can act as well as he does, and from watching the special features on the DVD it’s clear a lot of this came from the careful and passionate direction. I think seeing how he worked with Princep from the rehearsals to the filming is something that all aspiring directors should watch.

Finally I’d like to talk about one of the events within the film. I won’t say what part of the film it is, but it will be clear to anybody who has seen it and will stay vague enough for those who still want to watch it. There is a moment, a reveal, which is stunningly harsh and emotional that it took me aback. I was absolutely amazed by it, it felt so raw and yet so appropriate but I had not expected it to be done in the film. It is these kind of elements that raise The Orphanage to lofty heights in modern horror cinema, and it’s probably the best Spanish-language film I’ve seen yet.

I’m saddened that there is an American remake on the way, solely because people are unwilling to read subtitles, because the film is an obvious labour of love. It needs no alteration, no “Hollywood touch” and I cannot imagine any way that the remake could come out anything other than as a bastardisation of the original.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317705/

Dir. Brad Bird

As with most Pixar films The Incredibles set a new standard for CGI animation on its release. They are masters of character and, in my opinion, the single most successful studio in existence as they have yet to make a bad film.

Every Pixar movie has phenomenal production quality and The Incredibles is no exception. The characters are amazingly performed by the voice actors and animators, the visuals are crisp and beautifully designed and the fact that is made with cutting edge computer technology rightfully takes a back seat to the story that is being told.

On watching it for a fourth time this is not what struck me the most. What was the most impressive thing to me is the use of newly created superheroes, ones without a background in popular culture, in a way that can draw anyone into the story. While it does examine the clichés and the comedy potential of the established conventions of Superhero comics, it does so without alienating those who aren’t already fans of the medium. It is, at heart, a story about family and the desire to live up to your potential, which is something people can identify with. It doesn’t require prior knowledge of the world of superheroes, everything the audience needs to know is present in the film without being obtrusive.

Every time I watch a Pixar film I learn more about storytelling, they teach me to strip things down to their essential components and to identify what each part of the film is telling the audience. I think that studying them is something that will help me as a director.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1129428/

Dir. Steven Sheil

Since the start of this year I have been reading much of Stephen King’s library of novels, he has always been one of my favourite authors but there were many books I had overlooked. In going back to his work I reawakened my love of horror, of the supernatural or just plain disturbing. To his end I was drawn back to an old love of mine, horror films, and this happened to be the first one I have watched in a while.

Mum & Dad is a microbudget horror which tells the story of a young polish woman, Lena, who is kidnapped and ‘adopted’ into a horrific Texas-chainsaw style family with a penchant for torture and murder.

It’s a claustrophobic horror that rarely leaves the house in which Lena has been confined. This works well, both for the story and the £100,000 budget that the film was produced on, as it keeps you trapped inside the experience that Lena is going through. It’s disturbing and uncomfortable without ever using cheap “jump scares” or resorting to the Saw “torture-porn” style of staring at gore, it creates it’s horror in atmosphere, in confusion and in the mounting insanity of the situation Lena is experiencing. It is the kind of horror that never uses fantastical elements and keeps the sense that the events are possible, that there are people in this world who are that sick (Fred and Rosemary West being the prime example for this film) and that plays upon your mind when watching it.

It’s an exceptionally strong film given its low budget and mostly unknown actors, who all perform exceedingly well, and I never once felt that it suffered from a lack of funds. The direction was solid and confident, and I’m not just saying that because I’m getting taught by the director at the moment, it really does work well. The actors inhabit their characters perfectly, especially Perry Benson as Dad, and it has well thought out, impressive visuals throughout the whole movie.

The one element that I felt did not work was the visuals of the planes. They were supposed to evoke the setting of Heathrow Airport but they felt oddly unimportant as the film went on and acted more like screen wipes than settings.

This film, combined with my earlier horror reading, has planted the seed of what I want to do with my MA. I want to examine horror; I want to see how it works and what new kinds of presentation can be explored in a genre that has, in a very short time, acquired a very strict set of rules and clichés.