Film Review: TWIXT (2011)

Between The Rainmaker (1997) and Youth Without Youth (2007) director Francis Ford Coppola has mostly stayed to producing films.  Since Youth Without Youth he has been directing a new film every two years including Tetro (2009) and Twixt (2011).  Each new film that he does is Coppola finding new ways to tell different types of stories that are not typical.  Twixt is Coppola’s way of trying to tell an old story in new way. 

Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer) is an aging writer of supernatural novels who is on a book store.  He finds his way into a small town that’s a stop on his tour that also happens to be the location of a notorious murder.  Just as Baltimore is leaving town Sheriff Bobby LaGrange (Bruce Dern) comes up to him wanting to know if he would like to collaborate with him on a new novel that involves the town’s latest murder victim.  It seems that the body of an unknown girl has been found with a wooden stake in her chest.  Needing something new to write about Baltimore agrees to the collaboration but soon discovers that the only way to find the “real” story is to go into a deep dreamlike state where he meets odd characters of the town including a goth-like young girl by the name of V (Elle Fanning) and Edgar Allen Poe (Ben Chaplin) who will help him find his new novel that will put him back on the map.

Twixt is Coppola trying to channel his inner David Lynch by way of Twin Peaks but the film is not filled with any interesting characters nor does Kilmer’s Baltimore make for as interesting a main focus as Kyle MacLauchlan’s Special Agent Dale Cooper.  The overuse of CGI in the dream sequences leaves a lot to be desired.  This is a lesser film from the director whose glory days such as The Godfather (1972) and Apocalypse Now (1979) seem far in the distant past.

Film Review: BAG OF BONES (2011)

Writers are a common trope in Stephen King’s work and sometimes they work such as in Misery or 1408 while at other times it seems like a crutch such as the story for Bag of Bones.   I’ve read many of King’s novels but unfortunately, Bag of Bones is not one of them and therefore I came to the adaptation of the book as a TV mini-series with a little trepidation.  In the right hands King’s novels can be made into classic films such as Sand By Me (1986), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), or The Shining (1980), while other times they can become a travesty of cinema such as The Graveyard Shift (1990), the various Children of the Corn films, or Trucks (1997).  His made for TV movies are always a mixed bag such the infamous ending to It (1990), Desperation (2006), Rose Red (2002), and countless others.  

 

Bag of Bones stars Pierce Brosnan as novelist Mike Noonan whose wife Jo (Annabeth Gish) has just recently died and he decides to visit their vacation home of which she spent a lot of time at.  He has suspicions of his wife having had an affair but as he investigates this he becomes drawn into a child custody battle involving a local widow Mattie (Melissa George) and her child’s wealthy and influential grandfather.  Mike also learns that there is more than meets the eye with the residents of the town which may have a profound effect on his own family history that may have dire consequences for himself.

Bag of Bones is one of the less effective King adaptations and offers very little new to the haunted and ghost genre that hasn’t been better explored in previous King stories or films.  Part of the reason why the film does not stand out is because there are no new ideas despite the better than expected cast.  Like many TV mini-series based on King’s novels this one feels too long and that an hour should have been cut from the final film (as the film was a 2-part 4-hour mini-series with commercials).  Where many of King’s novels excel at the long length and leisure pace, the film needs to be trimmed down and fine-tuned in order to showcase a stronger story.  This being said, Bag of Bones will not offer anything new that the general audience hasn’t already seen better done in other films.  This is a film for the die-hard King fans.

Film Review: YELLOWBRICKROAD (2010)

In 1940 the entire population of Friar, New Hampshire - over 550 people, walked into the wilderness together and vanished without a trace.  It is the present day and a writer and his crew of dedicated individuals have decided to walk the same path as those people in the hopes of discovering what truly happened to those people in 1940 whether it kills them or not.  This is the premise of YellowBrickRoad (2010).  

 

The film is part survival film and part road trip (only in the woods) and part paranoid psychological thriller.  As the writer and his group travel deeper into the woods following the so-called “yellow brick road” to a destination none of them are aware of their minds start to unwind and cripple under the stress until they start to turn on each other.  Now they must decide whether to continue to the end of their journey at which point the truth may kill them or turn back and never know the truth and let it haunt them forever.

As a psychological thriller it works really well as the first half of the film does a great job in setting up the premise of the film as well as establishing the characters and their relationships and their faults which may lead to their downfall.  Ultimately, those looking for a run-of-the-mill horror film will be in for a surprise as this is a slow burning film as friendships and alliances slowly break down until only paranoia is left.  There are a few gory moments but these add punch to the progression of the film without taking over or becoming a distraction.

Written and directed by Jesse Holland and Andy Milton the film is actually better than expected with solid performances by a very good ensemble cast.  This is one of those rare indie horror films that is worth the price of admission.

Steve Niles & Horror

I’ve read a lot of the horror comics from iconic horror writer Steve Niles from his most influential creation 30 Days of Night (which is finally going to an ongoing series) to his sinister Savage and The Nail to the more somber Freaks of the Heartland and comedic exploits of The Cryptics and the noire stories of Cal McDonald in Criminal Macabre.  Niles gets around.  Not all of his stories are masterpieces (i.e. I didn’t generally enjoy Giant Monster or The Ghoul) but there is no denying that he strives to tell stories different from everyone else in the field.

One of my personal favorites of his is his epic adaptation of Richard Matheson’s classic I Am Legend.  Despite the fact that I was first introduced to his work with the original 30 Days of Night series it wasn’t until I read his version of I Am Legend that I truly became a fan.  He’s the only one to truly get to the meat and potatoes of Matheson’s story and present it in a faithful way; not one of the three film versions have been able to do this yet.  Its amazing detail in story structure and execution is hands down spotless and brings out the nuances of Matheson’s story like few others have ever been able to do with the author’s material. 

Niles has done other adaptations of other authors work including Clive Barker and Bram Stoker (Dracula) and H.G. Wells (The War of the Worlds) and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein, Or the Modern day Prometheus), to name a few and he has taken some liberties with the material (not always for the best). 

Most horror writers find a niche and stick with it but Niles weaves in and out of all types of genre stories refusing to be pigeonholed into any one sub-group.  It would have been easy for Niles to have continued doing hardcore violent horror stories after the success of 30 Days of Night but instead he’s done dramatic horror with Freaks of the Heartland and comedy The Cryptics and even a giant monster story inspired by Godzilla in the form of Giant Monster and he’s even tackled Bigfoot in his series Bigfoot.  

Niles is a professional at crafting entertaining stories whether they be horror or not.  I just recently read The Cryptics (I got to it late since it was one of his series that didn’t look all that appealing to me at first because of its comic overtones).  It’s an inspired collection of short stories based around the offspring of the classic movie monsters (Dracula, the Wolf Man, and Frankenstein’s monster, Dr.Jeckle & Mr. Hyde, and the Creature) as they go about their daily lives living in the suburbs.  Not all the stories hit their mark but there are a couple that are quite funny but the thing that struck me the most is that as standalone stories they can be just moderately entertaining but by the time I got to the last couple stories I had really gotten into the lives of these characters and found the stories more entertaining because of how much “character” Niles incorporated into the series as a whole.  If you can get past the fact that this is meant to be a coming of age comedy and not a monster free for all then you’ll enjoy the series as much as I did (I enjoyed it more the second time I read it).   Despite the types of stories he does (the horror genre), Niles’ stories are always about the characters within which is why he is so able to maneuver from one type to the next.  As long as he writes good characters then every story (no matter how strange or unusual it may be) will always be entertaining and good.

If you’ve never read a Niles story before than any of the ones I’ve mentioned above are a good start but there are plenty of others to get your hands on such as City of Others, Epilogue, Doc Macabre, The Lurkers, and many, many more.  All have their own unique take on both classic and modern horror stories and all are worth taking a look at.