Movie Review: The Purge (2013)

Came back from watching The Purge Saturday afternoon (meant to have this up much sooner, but of course I suck), and I'm still a little pissed off because it turned out to be yet another movie that left me confused and not knowing what to think about it. I hate having to keep saying that a movie was not what I was expecting it to be... but The Purge was not what I was expecting it to be. It does good things and it does bad things. It does unexpected things and it does terribly predictable things. So do I like the movie or not?

The Purge takes place in the not-too-distant future (2022) where the whole world is full of shiny happy people because there's no unemployment and crime is way down. For one night every year though, the government sanctions a night of "purging" for all citizens, wherein any crime is legal for 12 hours and no emergency services are available. The film follows one affluent family on this dangerous night.

So The Purge is a bit of a hybrid - we'll call it home-invasion-horror-thriller-social-commentary. And I can tell that it's trying really hard to be all of these things at one time. At actually accomplishing being all of these things to the audience, the movie is a bit of a letdown. There are a lot of interesting questions raised, just not explored in the way I wanted them to be. I also need to point out somewhere (why not here?) about how happy I was to see Lena Headey in a starring role, as I have never seen Game of Thrones. Love this woman. Ethan Hawke is alright, but his character feels like every other character he's ever played so I was a little less impressed.

I wasn't all that happy with the masked killers. Nothing original about them. They wear their creepy masks and white dresses, and stand in front of the security camera and do creepy things to taunt the family - but these were all things that would have been a lot creepier if I didn't feel like I had seen all of this before. Insert the name of another home invasion movie here (do I have to say it, really?). The leader of the group? He's the dudes from Funny Games, straight up. Hated him, not only because he wasn't scary but also because he wasn't original, like the whole first half of this movie. It gets a little better toward the end when the story gets twisted around a little but not enough to give me a really satisfying conclusion.

Now let's talk about the concept of the Purge itself. When I first heard this concept for the movie, I was picturing total chaos, like people just hacking everybody up with axes or something. But then you have to really stop to think about how many people would actually participate in the Purge, if the main punishment-free crime we're talking about being exploited is murder. I'd venture to say that a good majority of the population would not be able to bring themselves to do it, and would be more worried about everyone else, like our little family in the movie. Everybody in the movie actually seems to be somewhat in favor of the Purge and I was surprised that Lena and Ethan (yup, forgot their movie names already) were trying to convince their children that this was actually a good thing. Either that or everyone is too afraid to speak out against the Purge. The argument is that it lets people get out all the aggression and rage that is built up inside them. I'm calling bullshit on that right now, but I'd probably need backup from psychiatrists or something so I'll let it slide.

Also on the concept of the Purge, the movie never takes the Purge past the initial idea. So okay... you can totally murder someone and get away with it. You can "purge" your world of all the people you don't like. Again, cool idea but they never went anywhere with it. The situation presented in the film really did nothing to help them explore that concept fully - it played out like just another home invasion movie. That subgenre, in turn, is played out exactly the way you would expect it to in a horror-thriller. The victims walk slowly down dark hallways. The killers pop up (un)expectedly. And there are more Deus ex Machinas than I could count, which got really freaking annoying after a while.

And I seriously have to mention this: How is the "no emergency services available" thing ANY different from ANY other horror movie out there? When do the cops and ambulances always show up in horror movies? At the end. So this had no effect on me or the story at all.

This is as good a time as any for me to rant about houses in movies. I fucking hate it when filmmakers try to show us a "typical American family" and then show us this family - who is supposed to be just like us - living in a 3-story house with a two-car garage and where the youngest child has a bedroom bigger than any living room I've ever had. Can somebody PLEASE make a movie where the main characters live in a cute little ranch-style house or something? A lot of the problems in The Purge could have been avoided if the family didn't live in such a huge house - everybody kept getting lost from one another in their own house. Would never have been a problem in my childhood home.

Was this really a review or did I just rant for a long time? Sorry, but this is all stuff that I've been thinking about since watching the movie and I had to put it down somewhere. I can't fully recommend The Purge because it was completely missing that "wow" factor that I have been desperately seeking in a movie lately, but it's also not a completely horrible movie. Others seem to have been more impressed with it than I was, so I guess it's up to you!

Movie Review: Kidnapped (2010)

Home invasions are probably some of the worst crimes committed against a person. Your home is your safe place, where you put your guard down and think nothing bad can touch you. So when evil invades this sanctuary, it is all the more horrific and terrifying - and it can also make for a damn fine horror film.

Kidnapped is about a family who, on the very day that they move into a new house, are held prisoner by three masked men. Unexpected guests often hinder the intruders' plan, along with the family's determination to fight back and protect each other.

Though variations of this scenario have been done a dozen times in other movies and TV shows, I realized fairly early on that Kidnapped was trying to do something different. That horrific opening scene scared the ever-loving shit out of me - as did several other well crafted moments throughout the movie - but it was the next scene that showed the film's use of a unique technique. The whole movie consists of only 12 long, unedited takes, something I have not seen since Alfred Hitchcock's Rope from 1948. When I realized that this is what they were doing, I thought it would make the movie too gimmicky, or too artsy-fartsy, but it was beautifully executed.

So why then did the filmmakers choose to shoot the movie this way? It must have been incredibly difficult to achieve, not to mention time-consuming. I think it was for the simple reason of making the movie more realistic and believable, and for that old stand-by of putting the viewer right there in the situation with the characters, making it impossible to turn away for even a second. In fact, the lack of real character development, save for the first part of the film before the intruders appear, almost doesn't matter that much because this more of a situational film. It strives to show the horror and atrocities that can have been committed in these types of crimes and I think it does a wonderful job at that.

For the first part of Kidnapped, the violence against the three victims is relatively tame, but it slowly escalates over the short period of time the film runs. When Isa's boyfriend and a security guard show up, the intruders are forced to do extreme things to keep the plan going, and the family in turn is forced to fight back even harder. The filmmakers get down and dirty with the characters' emotional turmoil, but they also keep the gorehounds happy with an insane head-bashing, an in-your-face throat slashing, and shootings and stabbings, not to mention a quite graphic sexual assault.

Many will probably be put off by the very brutal and surprising ending, but I loved it. No, it's not what the audience wants to happen and maybe the filmmakers chose to do it simply for the shock value. It works, though, and those last few minutes turn out to be the the most brutal and so much more engrossing than the whole rest of the movie. You realize at the end that the opening scene was there to set you up with a false sense of security and you hate it and love it at the same time.

Usually I try to be an equal opportunity reviewer and find faults even with the movies I love, but there wasn't anything here that really bothered me. Kidnapped was thrilling and engaging from start to finish and an excellent entry to the new "home invasion horror" subgenre.

Sidenote: Okay, I take back the previous about not liking anything in Kidnapped. There was one thing I hated and it wasn't the movie's fault at all. Netflix only had the dubbed version! Gah! How annoying! I don't see how anyone can find reading subtitles more irritating than a person's mouth not matching up with what they're saying. So distracting.

Movie Review: Them (2006)

It's a buyer's market out there right now, and while I don't know diddly about real estate, I do have one piece of advice for everyone: Take your name out of the running for that huge and beautiful secluded country home. Yes, I know it's quiet and there's all that extra space you really need but TRUST ME. I've seen enough horror movies with a kick-ass gorgeous house in the middle of nowhere where nothing but bad things happen. The events from this French horror film, Them, is no exception.

Lucas and Clementine are a French couple living in an isolated mansion house in the Romanian countryside. In the middle of the night, they are awakened to the sounds of their car being stolen. But when the power goes out and unseen foes stalk them from inside and outside the house, they realize that their situation has just become much more dire.

So before I look up a single thing about this movie, I know one thing that pretty much everybody is going to say: They're going to compare Them to The Strangers. Closer to the conclusion of the film, I would said that comparisons can also be drawn from Eden Lake as well. Make no mistake, Them has a highly unoriginal plot. The plot is also very simplistic and really, not a lot happens. But it's still a good movie for the most part, albeit mediocre at times with a subdued climax that may put some people off.

Where this film succeeds is at technique. The film quality provided by Netflix Instant was somewhat grainy and oddly to me, the picture looked like it was squished from the sides (hate that) but the this has no bearing on the most important element used in the movie to establish atmosphere: sound. The cinematography is nothing special and at times it is way too dark, but the use of elevated natural sound heightens the tension and establishes the tone.

From the beginning of the movie, all those little, unimportant background noises seem to be turned up just a tad, such as the rain, cell phone beeps, and the turn signal in Clementine's car. This technique makes the both the character and the audience very aware of and attuned to their surroundings which can be quite frightening. The next sound could be that weird clacking noise heard throughout the movie - and it could be coming from anywhere.

Much like in the beginning of The Strangers, the bad guys in Them are mostly unseen until near the end of the film, and the revelation of who has committed these acts is supposed to be a big shock. To me, that shock has played its part and as horrible as it sounds, I'm not so surprised by the commission of violent acts by juveniles anymore. Sadly, that is a part of our world now. What gets me is that there is absolutely no information given about these kids. Do they live in the sewer tunnels where they eventually corner Clementine? They seem to know their way through the labyrinth under the streets. They have no names and no real motive for their actions, which is always much scarier and more unsettling.

So in the end we know nothing about our killers and we don't get a great deal of character development for Lucas and Clementine, either. We are given a tiny peek into their lives and are told just enough about them to make us like them. They are a happy and playful couple who seem to be in love. And really, what more do you expect from a movie like this?

The writers always seem to think, "All we have to do is show you that these people are nice and that they don't deserve to have these horrible things happen to them and you'll totally feel sorry for them!" To some extent, yes, that's true. But if we can't gain sympathy for these people from their normal lives, then we have to see them go through something so absolutely horrible that if we don't have sympathy for them after that then we can be classified as sociopaths. But the bulk of Them is a chase movie. A few minor jump moments and little bit of torture (Clementine is made to breathe through a plastic bag, probably with something nasty in it) and that's it. But we learn at the end that both Lucas and Clementine died, and they certainly didn't deserve that. But the ending is where I gained the most sympathy for our victims.

I said before that the climax of the film is subdued and that not a lot of people liked it. It is so subdued that it's hard to really define what the "climax" is. There is no escalation of the violence and the movie just kind of ends. But in a way, I liked what happened. It's a real downer, depressing ending when you're led to believe that Clementine might get away. She's running down the concrete tunnel toward the bright sunlight, but when she gets there, the exit is blocked by steel bars. She's screaming for help, a car passes by and she's gone. We really don't need to know what happens after, because it's probably not good. It's one of those "Oh fuck, she's screwed" endings, where that last little sliver of hope disappears and the bad guys win. It sucks, but it's perhaps closer to the truth than we want to believe.

A little overshadowed by its predecessors and similar films, I would still say that Them still deserves a look.