Lydia Peever's Blog, page 54

typicalfilm – I Melt With You

I Melt With You (2011)

When I was first told about this, the first thing it brought to mind was a story I wrote in high school. It was called ‘Swam’ and had a lot to do with 4 guys reuniting and all of the horrible things they had done in life while aging, or all the horrible things aging had done to their lives. By the end, there was death, for sure, not unlike I Melt With You. There is a message from the director in the special features regarding the music. He speaks about the music choice and how it is more than backdrop, but part of the landscape. I love the intention, though the application… perhaps I’d wanted more. Also, I found the volume fluctuations–while realistic, yes–jarring. For the casual viewer this may prove more hard hitting, especially to those who haven’t properly contemplated their future vis a vis their past then hit middle-age like a face-first brick wall. An interesting entry to the drug-culture take on bleak mid-life crises. This was something that was certainly on my mind in high-school, and it would have fit really well back then, as would the soundtrack. It also serves to make me very glad I have not aged like this. NOTE: Not horror.

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typicalfilm – Awaiting

Awaiting (2015)

The poster caught my eye with promises of cannibalism and a minimalist aesthetic. There were rumblings from the past Fantasia film festival that sparked hunger pangs and I’d been patient for this one since the buzz died, and I wasn’t exactly champing at the bit, so it fell off my radar. Through the first half I was certainly ‘awaiting’ something substantial to happen. Something more visually interesting than the characters themselves. That said, it did a good job of creating a snapshot of the dysfunctional daddy daughter duo, similar to that in The Loved Ones, just way less fun. The second half delivers, and while the endgame has enough originality to overtake the taste of predictability there is some unpalatable CG. Yeah, if there is an aftertaste you just can’t kill, it’s After Effects. With a lovely set-piece that you just wanted to spend more than a few poorly rendered seconds with, or relentless motion capture CG… Now, it’s not without some very very lovely practical effects related to one of the main characters escape attempts, and the tension between him and the daddy daughter duo is delicious, so I did have fun with it–but I am glad I waited.

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Dead Air Ep 60 – Cabin Fever

Gather under the sluice grate, for the latest Dead Air podcast episode has been mucked off the slab ~ http://ift.tt/25Pxs0r

WARNING WARNING: We have some bad audio in this episode. Not sure what happened but we figured it was better to give you a shitty sounding episode over no episode. Forgive us! We make up for it by talking all about the 2002 infection splatterfest Cabin Fever. A group of recent college grads head up to a cabin to enjoy a week of sex, drinking and fun but an encounter with a very sick local wondering in the woods exposes them to an aggressive infection that eats them from the inside out. Can any of them escape back to civilization before time runs out? Also we talk extensively about Lydia’s upcoming projects. For more episodes check out splatterpictures.net

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Deep Dark

Deep Dark (2015)

For a story so minimal, this kept me enraptured as I’d have been discovering a hole in the wall like this. One that talked, one that truly communicated. Deep Dark is an interesting title for this film, since it is only as deep and dark as you let it be. As is the lead character, and I don’t mean Hermann. It serves as a comment on distance relationships though the people in them here are deeply dysfunctional, the comment itself is as deep and dark as you choose to make it. Some of the visual themes and small patterns are so very subtle, that I’m glad it’s a fairly uncluttered film; strands, cords, tethers, symmetry, balance… even some mirrored dialogue, it’s all very organic to the plot and this is the worst run on sentence I think I’ve ever written.

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They Look Like People

They Look Like People (2015)

All I’d heard going in to this is that people seemed quite pleased when it hit Netflix. Considering the offerings there are getting worse for horror film fans, I was fine with a quality psycho-thriller. For the tinfoil hat wearing types, or those that have lived closely with those exhibiting untreated paranoid schizophrenia, this is a good watch. I love how the illness is portrayed and how the lead experiences the world around him. I’ve grumbled about mental illness in film before and They Look Like People is the dead opposite. It is what it is here, and they do look like people.

It also has that kind of ending I consider perfect, though I’m sure some viewers may disagree due to lack of riding off into some sort of sunset with handfuls of clonazepam and a nice shot of haldol.

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Dead Air Ep 58 – Oculus

Gather under the sluice grate, for the latest Dead Air podcast episode has been mucked off the slab ~ http://ift.tt/1XWXg4X

A house divided against itself cannot stand! This week Wes and Lydia are certainly divided on the Blumhouse spookfest; Oculus. Oh boy is the snark strong with this one! An antique mirror possessed by an unknown entity drives a normal family to the edge of madness that ends in bloody murder. Years later the two surviving children are reunited with one of them intent on keeping the vow they made as children; to destroy the mirror once and for all.

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Dead Air Ep 57 – Creepshow

Gather under the sluice grate, for the latest Dead Air podcast episode has been mucked off the slab ~ http://ift.tt/1Tm9iVF

A long weekend deserves a long episode! This time we tackle our first horror anthology and I can’t think of a better one to start with than the 1982 film; Creepshow. Also, Wes and Lydia get their geek on and talk all about horror’s relationship with comic books Also, Wes talks about his own creepshow involving a lot of maggots. For more episodes check out splatterpictures.net

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typicalfilm – Don’t Look in the Basement 2

Don’t Look in the Basement 2 (2016)

When Sonsey was cutting the Nightface book trailer (for which I am forever grateful) we wanted some grue and were short on time. Luckily, the long forgotten gem Don’t Look in the Basement was up for grabs being in the public domain. Some of the reveals in it are perfectly atmospheric and reminiscent of the dead hookers scene in the book. Since then, I developed a soft spot for the film and was dying to see it remade. One better, someone finally took it to task and made a sequel. A MUCH better idea than joining the remake centipede!

It’s a middling and interesting horror film that ties neatly into the first and when compared, is an improvement in all areas where it counts. Maybe a little too comedic for me, but that’s me. Much better than a lot of stuff out there than can rely on score, provenance, name actors and a snazzy promo launch ~ it’s a relatively small release related to an even smaller release from way back when. All in all, it’s kind of perfect that way.

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Dead Air Ep 56 – From Beyond

Gather under the sluice grate, for the latest Dead Air podcast episode has been mucked off the slab ~ http://ift.tt/1R17k5l

It ate him! Who do you ask? Find out on today’s episode of Dead Air! The team from Re-Animator reunites for the 1986 body horror classic; From Beyond.

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typicalfilm – Holidays

Holidays (2016)

I can’t say I disliked Holidays. It was a fun watch with gems hidden in a few of the shorts. There were some disappointments here and there but by the end, I had a distinct take-away that left me uncomfortable.

The filmmaking was good, the dialogue was good. The acting is good. The title sequences were fun and I liked having the ‘reveal’ of the makers names at the end of each. If you’d like a blow by blow account of each segment that I basically agree with, listen to the recent BindTortureKast episode. The one point that I maybe got even more exacerbated with was the overall message I felt I’d been fed once I sat back to watch the credits roll.

The films were actually telling me awful things. Not fun horror film style awful things either. Social and political style awful things. It said to me that women are all basically fucking crazy. Lone women are utterly helpless or prone to bad decisions and are also crazy. Women are better able to think and cope in groups and may be less helpless but are way fucking crazier. Men are largely absent or abusive and don’t seem to notice all the crazy women until they get killed by one. Honestly, at this rate, I’d rather the much maligned airhead cum dumpster style women seen too often in horror because with them, the audience doesn’t run the risk of being tricked into thinking that she’s anything like most women or that she represents any kind of feminist or egalitarian statement whatsoever.

The only reason I give this stuff much thought is due to the surge in projects like Women in Horror Month and feminist critique of horror films and books, Especially ones written longer than 20 years ago, as they are exactly like shooting fish in a barrel when it comes to finding sexist content. I find that trying to forcefully inject femme-centric stories and leads into the genre has been backfiring in all kinds of really dangerous and mealymouthed ways and this film is a neat example. Now, I’m no social scientist nor any sort of academic of the topic but most of these shorts had me wondering who a lot of these were written for. I’ve been trained now — through being treated like a second-rate citizen for half of my life in a sexist world and shouted down by fundamentalist feminists for the other half since I prefer my own opinion on such matters — to look at films and ask where I fit into this as a human and a woman. It’s never my number one intention when watching a film but with this one it all just sort of gets dragged into the forefront. Kind of unfair when I thought I was going to watch a gnarly nice little horror anthology packed with writer and director names that had me very interested.

With luck, a second installment will happen and have a little more realism and originality to the characters with the same amount of creativity given to the stories which, if you dodge a few snakepits, dead ends, and the Halloween one entirely, were really quite good.

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