Savages

‘Just because I'm telling you this story... doesn't mean I'm alive at the end of it’, the film’s narrator ‘O’ (Blake Lively) begins, in a face-palming American Beauty imitation. O (short for Ophelia, ‘the bipolar bitch in Hamlet’) is a 20-year-old beach bunny living in sunny California with her two lovers, Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and Ben (Aaron Johnson), who both happen to be incredibly wealthy marijuana growers. ‘Chon fucks and Ben makes love’ – is how O differentiates between them; Chon is an ex-soldier (he smuggled the marijuana seeds back from Afghanistan) and Ben is a Buddhist who travels all over the world using his money to help those in need. Life seems pretty great until they get contacted by Lado (Benicio del Toro) and the Mexican cartel, who offer to merge their two business (a ‘joint’ venture, as Ben puts it). After refusing the offer, the duo are informed via Skype by Elena, the head of the cartel, that O has been captured and will be tortured until the offer is accepted, and of course, Ben and Chon decide to fight back.

 

 Savages is Oliver Stone’s latest effort, a story based on Don Winslow’s novel of the same name, and it’s a little uncertain on its feet to say the least. It definitely looks great (I refuse to use the phrase ‘visually stunning’) – very exotic, as though Stone turned up the contrast setting, maximised the colour or shot the whole film using the Instagram app, giving it a very City of God atmosphere. The eye-achingly blue sea and the white Laguna beaches contrasted with the darkness of the cartel ‘dungeons’ don’t, however, cover up just how mediocre the rest of the film is.

 It’s more than likely that Stone was inspired by the success of AMC’s Breaking Bad and decided to shape his own contribution, somehow forgetting to include any form of tension or interesting plot structure. Both stories concern the production of drugs, the DEA are involved (Savages has John Travolta in his first role for several years as police agent Dennis) and are even set in similar locations, with the shadow of the Mexican cartel hanging over them, but sadly that’s where the similarities end, particularly because it doesn’t know what kind of film it’s trying to be.

 At times it seems to play more like a horror – not a slasher necessarily, but definitely an exploitation film, elements of movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Hills Have Eyes are unnervingly clear (the film actually begins with a beheading involving a chainsaw), and some of the torture sequences are simply brutal. It almost felt like Oliver Stone was restraining himself from making a full-blown exploitation film that focused more on the Mexican cartel’s side of the story rather than Aaron Johnson and Taylor Kitsch’s problems, which would certainly have made Savages a lot more interesting to watch. Instead we get an awkward and mostly unconvincing balance of the two, and this, coupled with O’s ridiculous narration (‘I have orgasms, Chon has wargasms’…) doesn’t really give the film the thrill it could potentially have had.

 This review probably makes Savages sound worse than it actually it is – it’s not that bad. Aaron Johnson gives a very good performance, similar to his character in Kick Ass: passionate yet reserved, as does Taylor Kitsch – a step up from his role as John Carter – and Benicio del Toro doesn’t do a bad job either. So a very average piece of cinema; not terrible, but certainly not an Oliver Stone classic.

Paranorman and stop motion animation

 Stop motion animation is by far the greatest method of filmmaking. Not only is it the oldest (first used in something like 1897), but it just looks brilliant and requires extraordinary levels of artistic talent. It was marginally popular in the earlier half of the 20^th century, helping to create the likes of The Lost World, King Kong and Jason and the Argonauts, but as time went on it seemed to get better and better. You must remember sitting at home as a tiny child and watching Postman Pat – the way his red van jerked along the country roads and how they used bits of cellophane to animate the streams and rivers? Stop motion had a massive impact on children’s television in general – everyone loves Wallace & Gromit (created by Nick Parks’ Aardman Animation, who would also go on to make Chicken Run, Creature Comforts etc.) – if you looked hard enough you could actually see the thumbprints left by the animators on the clay models. And who could forget Pingu? (Although I never worked out how a penguin could build an igloo). 

 Before some of the more advanced CG effects came along, stop motion was also used in a lot of live-action films like Star Wars (the AT-AT walkers), Terminator and Raimi’s The Evil Dead series (the flying eyeball!). Then of course, Henry Selick and Tim Burton arrive on the scene and create The Nightmare Before Christmas, an incredibly well made film – it was as though Burton’s characters were designed specifically to move in stop motion. Burton then went on to make Corpse Bride and, now, Frankenweenie, using the same sort of character designs. Other directors of note include Wes Anderson, for the underwater scenes in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou and the whole of Fantastic Mr Fox. However, the most important film (and greatest ever made, IMO) is Henry Selick’s Coraline, from the newly formed animation studio Laika. It’s a beautiful, magical, loveable piece of work that uses stop motion to the highest level of quality – the amount of work that went in to making it is unbelievable. It took three or four years to make, using the efforts of around 30 animators and over 250 technicians, each with a specific job. Every figure (and there are a lot of them), had its own flexible, metal skeleton, onto which was moulded their clay bodies, and then their clothes were put on (someone was hired to hand stitch every tiny item of clothing). One woman (according to the DVD extras) spent 66 days filming a 10 second dream sequence that in the end was cut from the finished film. How sad.

 Anyway, Laika (without Henry Selick this time) have returned to the big screen this year with Paranorman, their second feature film, and it is, as expected, very good. Basic plot – small, socially awkward, spiky haired Norman has no friends, loves to watch zombie movies and can see the dead. He enjoys talking to his deceased grandmother who haunts the living room. Unfortunately his family don’t believe him and neither do the kids at school, especially Alvin, who teases him and writes ‘see yu tomorow, freak’ on Norman’s locker every day. As if all this wasn’t enough, the town in which he lives has a history of witch-hunting, and now zombies are rising out of the ground. Guess who’s the only person who can stop them.

 I think its main selling point, aside from the consistent brilliance of the animation, is the subject matter. Children don’t usually get to see zombie movies (well they would if I were the parent), so it’s a welcome break from the army of brain-numbing fairytale adaptations they’re made to enjoy. And Paranorman doesn’t hold back on the decapitations or the flesh hanging off the zombies or the severed hand running around the street etc, which I assume is what children really want to see, yes?  However the subject matter must not be confused with the plot, which is sadly lacking in surprises. Maybe it’s due to the fact that Paranorman, unlike Coraline, is not based on a book – it was written by one of the directors, Chris Butler, and so has a lot more ‘creative freedom’, which isn’t necessarily a good thing. I can’t say that Neil Gaiman has the best style of writing, but his storylines are fantastic, so having his book to fall back on when making Coraline was what made the film seem so well scripted and tightly-plotted. Paranorman’s problem is that the plot’s too generic and uninvolving – the last half of the film is just an extended Scooby Doo chase scene…

 

 But if the plot becomes uninteresting, just focus on picking out the hundreds of tiny details that the animators have added in. Because this is a genre film, there are so many references to horror films, and I’m guessing there are three times as many as the ones I managed to find. Evil Dead references are rife (which makes sense – stop motion, remember), Scooby Doo of course, The Sixth Sense, The Addams Family, most Romero movies, Pet Semetary… Not only that, but because of the town’s witch-hunting history, most of the shops each have their own witch name and sign – I like that. Also, the cast have done a great job - Kodi Smit-McPhee especially - you don't realise just how many notable actors are in it until the credits roll. So Paranorman’s not brilliant – it barely touches the pinnacle upon which Coraline sits, but it’s still very, very good, and a perfect film to introduce children to zombies. To be honest, stop motion animation is my weakness, so if I watch any film that uses it, it automatically has a large advantage in its attempt to entertain me. Laika are the future! Apparently they’re trying to get to the stage of one-film-a-year, but they haven’t yet decided what their next film is going to be. I reckon they should stay on the modern fairy tale road they’re on at the moment, maybe adapt a Brothers Grimm story, or even an Angela Carter?

The Possession

There are so many reasons to be excited about The Possession, the first being that Sam Raimi produced it. Sure, there’s no way of knowing just how much creative control he had in the film’s production, but if the director of The Evil Dead was involved in some way (even if he just sat there doodling all day), enjoyment is practically guaranteed. Secondly, the film was cut from an 18 rating to a 15, which isn’t always a good sign, but with horror films, it just means they’re meant to be so terrifying that the press office feels the need to soften the scares a bit. Also (and this is where it gets good), the film set was haunted. ‘Unexplained winds’ and ‘lights exploding’ were a few of the ghostly occurrences that plagued the crew, the director revealed in a recent interview, and when the props were put into storage, a fire destroyed them all; a fire that started ‘from the inside’. Now how cool does that sound? However, once you actually start watching The Possession, you start to realise that the hype might have all been for nothing.

 It’s an exorcism film – they’re being churned out as fast as Step Up sequels at the moment (the last two years alone: Insidious, The Last Exorcism, Exorcismus, The Rite, The Devil Inside etc.) and this one is sadly as average as they come. Just look at how cliché the plot is: two sisters, Emily and Hannah, are shared between their divorced parents. On the way to their father’s new house they stop off at an ancient-looking garage sale and Emily’s heart is set on buying a heavy wooden box inscribed with strange Hebrew symbols, so of course she buys it. Back at dad’s house, she manages to pry the box open and the curse begins to take effect – she starts to talk to herself in the mirror and swarms of moths inhabit her bedroom. And to make matters worse, the father forgets to go to Hannah’s dance recital (I’m pretty sure that happens in every film ever made). In the end the parents are forced to unite in order to save their daughter, and they enlist the help of a Jewish exorcist, who discovers the demon is named Abizo, ‘the killer of children’. It’s so formulaic, you start to wonder why they even bothered.

 Having said that, there are definitely some interesting things about it. I’m guessing everyone has seen the trailer, in which Emily shines a torch into her mouth and sees a couple of fingers emerging from the top of her larynx, the idea being that the demon is physically living inside her, and admittedly this is pulled off relatively well (this is probably Raimi’s contribution – he likes hands surfacing from unnatural places), but that’s as far as it goes in trying to be unique. Also, while The Possession might not be scary, you have to congratulate it for not resorting to the Paranormal Activity technique of slamming doors to make the audience jump in their seats – the film actually tries hard to be terrifying.

 But to be honest, I’m becoming very tired of the recent batch of 15 rated horror films. Yes, film companies want to make as much money as possible and most 18 rated films these days aren’t very successful financially, but that’s no excuse for audiences having to endure this substandard quality in horror films that we’ve all come to accept as normal. The Possession couldn’t hold a candle to any of its predecessors such as The Exorcist, The Omen or The Amityville Horror because of this infuriating constraint of having to appeal solely to a teenage audience. If this constraint were removed (or if it were the 1970s), this would have been a much better film. Try harder.