Paranormal Activity 3

Let's be honest about it, Paranormal Activity 2  - or Paranormal Inactivity as I prefer to call it - was poor. As any horror movie that focuses on spooky goings on involving a pool cleaner for much of the first third of its run time would inevitably be. It felt like a tired, overlong re-run of the far more effective first outing for what is now a film franchise. Therefore, the idea of Paranormal Activity 3 did not sound desperately appealing to me. Fortunately, the makers of that film - who also made the impressive mockumentary Catfish - worked out what they needed to do to get the franchise back on track. And they do it in two ways.

Firstly, they don't slavishly follow the original, but instead play with the audience's expectations. So rather than this all happening concurrently with the original film (as the first sequel sort of tried to do), PA3 is a genuine prequel. And that helps to create some fun with the format. Aside from the (at times OTT) eighties references, the film has to cope with the fact that technology was not as advanced in the eighties, so documenting a demonic haunting would not have been as easy as it is in that day and age. This leads to a lot of improvisation - including using a fan-mounted video camera, which in turn leads to some of the movie's most effective moments.

It also introduces ideas such as the demonic force not being the sole evil force with this movie - something perhaps forced on it by the "revelation" in the previous film about the cause of the demonic haunting, but also a hand it plays well. And it also bucks the trend of having the leading male character being a dick by having a genuinely likable protagonist in Dennis. It becomes far easier to watch a film - and care about the character's eventual brutal fate - if he is basically likable rather than a bit of a dick.

But above all it remembers to be scary. It does this simultaneously by offering cheap scares based on the characters' awareness of the cameras (the babysitter disappearing and then jumping out at the camera) but also by offering some genuine chills and some truly stressful scenes - in particular, the "bloody Mary" sequences followed by the child's chair been kicked across the bedroom or the moment when the ghost/demon cleans the kitchen, only to bring it all crashing down again. The film knows it needs to up the ante in terms of the scares and the same time as confound expectations; it manages to do both.

As with everything, it isn't flawless. Indeed, there are a couple of moments when I positively winced - such as when the camera recorded the dust falling on the demon in the aftermath of an earthquake. And the ever-present problems of the found footage genre were there (why are you still filming this? Why the hell do you have the foresight to record this stuff but not to turn on the fucking lights when something goes bang in the night?) However, overall, this was exactly what it should be - a clever, occasionally scary and witty horror film that can make you jump. If you want more than that, then look elsewhere. But if you want more than that, seeking out the third installment of a horror franchise is the wrong place to start.

Jamie Oliver - The Smoking Gun?

Regular readers will know that I am not a fan of Jamie Oliver. In fact, I think that fat-tongued prick is an utter arsehole who shouldn't be allowed near a TV camera - let alone being given blanket coverage by the media when he chooses to say something.

Yet many disagree. Because, for a celebrity chef, Oliver seems to have a genuinely philanthropic streak. Not for Oliver the Gordon Ramsay approach to career management - traveling the world slagging off failing restaurant owners is not for the often tearful and misunderstood Oliver. No, he wants to change things and, unlike so many others in our society, actually does something about it other than flap his (fat) lips a bit.

So we come to the latest Oliver project - his Dream School. Aside from sounding a little bit like an unmade sequel to A Nightmare On Elm Street, the concept of a Dream School sounds like a lot like the chance for various celebrities to play at being teachers. Then again, the education system is in the need of urgent, radical reform. So why not let Jamie and his posse undertake it?

The answer is in this paragraph - see if you can spot what it is:

He assembled an impressive staff room: the drama teacher was Simon Callow, politics was taught by Alastair Campbell, art by Rolf Harris, history by David Starkey, maths by Alvin Hall and sport by Daley Thompson; other figures such as Cherie Blair, Tinchy Stryder, Andrew Motion and Rankin also pitched in with lessons. The teachers were advised by award-winning secondary headmaster John D'Abbro.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I cheated. I highlighted the relevant section. But I'm sorry - the concept of Alastair Campbell teaching politics is surely the death knell for any school. Alastair Campbell is what many would rightly call a terrible cunt: he is the Machiavellian administrator who allowed Tony Blair to achieve power, go into a damaging nonsensical war and then propped up Blair in power just as most people realised how ghastly Blair was/is. He's a crucial henchman to an abhorrent PM. He did so much to destroy political discourse in this country. In fact, I can't talk anymore about Campbell without resorting to very creative swearing, so I'll hand you over to Michael Howard:

And that man - Alastair Cunting Campbell - is the politics teacher at Jamie's Dream School. It's a bit like making Sarah Palin your teacher for evolution - a dumb fucking idea.

Of course, Oliver needs to find some celebrities in order to attract attention to his project. Choosing Mr Smith at Tooting Bec Comp wouldn't have quite the same impact as choosing the man who facilitated the British involvement in Iraq. But then again, there are other political figures - far less tainted political figures - who could have done just as well. Why not use one of those? Why not use someone less compromised than Campbell? After all, that covers off pretty much political figure barring Tony Blair.

Because that's too difficult. And that's the problem with Oliver - the Smoking Gun or final proof of his idiocy, if you will. He wants to do the right thing, but he is so naive and so unthinking that he will pretty much say anything and engage with anyone in order to achieve whatever philanthropic intentions he might have. To misquote a famous saying, the road to Alastair Campbell is paved with good intentions...

5 films to watch on Halloween

Let's be clear about this - the following five horror movies are not the best horror movies of all time. You could find better horror movies to watch on Halloween (if you are so inclined). But these films - as disparate as they might at first appear - are thematically linked. And I find the theme linking them fascinating and they all contain something that makes a horror film at least unsettling, if not properly chilling.

And it is fair to say that there are spoilers ahead.

First up, with have The Omen. A film notorious for its increasingly inventive death scenes (something that would come to dominate the franchise), the film includes the impaling of a former Doctor Who and the decapitation of a key character. It is also a masterwork in faux pomposity, even down to inventing a poem from the Bible to add credence to its really rather ludicrous story. Yet the reason why this film remains credible in my eyes has nothing to do with the fancy deaths or the admirable efforts by all concerned to play their roles with a straight face despite some of the outlandish scenarios and the wince-inducing dialogue. At the heart of this film there is a force so powerful, and so unstoppable, that as soon as you come into conflict with its malign intentions it kills you. You can't run; it will find you and despatch you. The Exorcist may have had the spinal tap sequence, the vomiting, the weird nightmares and the aggressive demon, but in the end the Church saves the day and the little girl is Ok. Contrast this with the ending to The Omen - the heroes are all dead and the demon child is now with the President of the United States of America. All the efforts of those on the side of the good were for naught - evil wins.

Which is also true in Paranormal Activity. Of course, this film doesn't have spectacular death scenes. It didn't have the money to film such things. Instead, what it does have is an unstoppable force that, despite the best efforts of the couple at the centre of the film (which are a lot more credible than those in The Omen but just as ineffective), is always going to win. And in a sense, the demon in Paranormal Activity is than the satanic forces at play in The Omen. See, in The Omen people die when they try to interfere with the progress of the antichrist. In Paranormal Activity the main characters have done nothing to warrant the haunting and the eventual death/possession. The demon is just fucking with them because it can. It is a chilling concept - something far more malign and powerful than you decides to terrify, stalk, attack and then possess you and kill your lover. In fact, that force - given it is invisible - might even be in the room with you now... but that's enough of that.

You could argue that the students in The Blair Witch Project have done something to invoke the witch's wrath - although the witch's revenge does seem a little excessive for the "crime" of simply shooting a documentary on her manor. Nonetheless, The Blair Witch Project fits in with our theme, as the trio of would-be documentary makers end up at the mercy of an unseen, malevolent force determined to stalk, terrify, and then remove them from the face of the earth. True, some people don't rate The Blair Witch Project but for me it works because it makes its main characters so helpless. To a large extent it is a claustrophobic film despite being filmed in the open air, because the power of the witch is such that she manages to make the forest into a prison that the protagonists just cannot escape from. The fact that the witch - like the demon in Paranormal Activity - is unseen merely adds to the feeling that the power of the supernatural element in the film is massive.

You can see who the source of evil is in The Medusa Touch - he's played by Richard Burton and everything. But this underrated, clever little film slowly chips away at the methodical, orderly approach taken by the police investigating an attempted murder and shows the awesome power in the mind of the antagonist. This is a man who makes Carrie White look tame - he has the power to destroy space missions, to make planes crash into buildings and - in the climax of the film - "bring the whole edifice down on their unworthy heads" as he destroys a Westminster Abbey filled with the ruling elite. The fact that the police managed to save some from the disaster is a pyrrhic victory; the final scene shows that the human monster has another - potentially must more devastating - target in mind. And he is still able to attack despite having been beaten into a bloody pulp and having been ripped off a life support machine. Such is the level of his misanthropy that effectively being killed will not stop the carnage.

You can also see the menace in the remake of Dawn of the Dead - although in this case it is not one man, but a whole world suddenly filled with cannibalistic zombie maniacs. The premise is not a million miles away from most zombie films - if you go outside, someone's going to bite off your face. But where this version of Dawn of the Dead succeeds is in making the situation in which the characters find themselves so utterly hopeless. The female lead only survives the initial outbreak through blind luck, and the mall that provides a brief respite is also located mainly through luck. When the group do try to do something to better their situation, it tends to go badly wrong. Trying to make things better in this film comes with a hefty body count. And this film does what surprisingly few zombie films are prepared to do - it ends with a clear indication (if you watch through the credits) that there is no option of sailing off happily into the sunset - in fact, the end of humanity is here, crushed under the weight of a world of zombies, and there is no hope.

Which is what makes all five films so striking - the evil/malign forces at play in each film are so powerful that the humans in the films are rendered helpless in the face of those forces. It doesn't matter whether it is satanic forces, or a demon/witch or a world full of zombies, whatever you do against them, you will fail and they will ultimately destroy you. Films like this strike at one of the fundamental (yet often false) assumptions many people have - that you are in control of what happens to you. These films depict far more powerful forces rendering individuals helpless even over questions of their own survival. And on so many levels, that is true horror for a good many people.

Enjoy your Halloween!

Home Movie...

...Or the dangers of making a "found footage" movie.

First up, Home Movie. It's about a couple and their young children. The couple decide to film all special occasions - starting with Hallowe'en. What they don't really seem to clock is that their children - a boy and a girl with instantly forgettable names - are weird. In fact, they are fucking weird. They throw rocks at their parents, put frogs in a vice, and then crucify the cat (on Christmas Day, natch). It is about then that the parents realise there might be something pretty wrong with their kids. Of course, they then turn on each other, and then do things that can only warp their children further (including an exorcism - filmed, of course. Family occasion, isn't it?) The movie ends, predicably enough, with the kids properly turning on their parents. By then you don't care - about the dumb as fuck parents or the children, who make Midwich Cuckoos look like well-rounded characters.

The film is presented as "found footage" - in other words, the film-makers pretend that this is actual footage recovered from an untoward event that somehow ended up being recorded. And it is here that the really negative reviews miss the point - of course the acting is bad; it's a collection of home videos. Of course the camerawork is bad; it's not meant to be good. But simultaneously, there comes a point where those who who praise this movie to high heaven are also wrong as well. And, in this film, you can pinpoint the exact second when that happens.

Put it this way. You've got two kids. They abduct another child, torture and nearly kill him. What do you do? Are you traumatised? Do you question everything about yourself and your children? And if you do, do you so in front of a camera in a near-perfectly composed shot near a roaring fire-place? No, didn't think so. And that is the point where Home Movie jumps the shark. But it isn't alone in that. There comes a point in nearly all found footage movies where the film itself ceases to be credible by filming what would no longer be filmed.

It is true of some of the "best" movies in this genre. Think about the recent Paranormal Activity. It is clever enough to make a lot of the filming passive - it is about a motion detecting camera filming supernatural happenings at night. But there comes a point - when the man is filming the woman during a row - when any right-minded viewer thinks "this scene would not have been filmed". The same happens in the brutal but compelling Cannibal Holocaust (the grandpa of this genre). Yeah, you might film atrocities in the depths of the Amazonian rainforest, but are you really going to film yourself committing those atrocities? Thought not - such scenes only exist for the purposes of plot exposition. And in The Blair Witch Project there comes a point where they just wouldn't film anymore. Probably around the time they find the tongue in the parcel. Or maybe that's just me. Whatever. There comes a point in that film - and many films of its ilk - where you would put down the camera, and just run like fuck.

So this sort of movie has to provide a reason why the film-makers go on filming even when everything is turning to shit. And to my knowledge, only two films (well, one film and one TV programme) manage this. The first is REC. It is about TV journalists filming the lives of fire-fighters. So of course they film when there's a call to attend an apartment block. Of course they film when things start to go badly wrong - it's a great story. And of course they film when it appears that there is government collusion keeping them imprisoned in what looks like a plague zone. And finally - when the movie kicks up yet another gear and ends up in the hysteria of the top apartment - there's another reason why they're still filming - the camera allows them to see in the dark, while they are being stalked by a hideous creature apparently possessed by a demon. See, in this film, I don't stop to think why they keep on filming, because there is a reason at every juncture why they keep on doing so.

The same with BBC TV's Ghostwatch*. Of course they keep on filming when things get weird, and then when things are apparently explained, and then when things get totally freaky. They have to. The genius of Ghostwatch is that it is a (fake) live broadcast. Those involved (real celebs of the time, lest we forget) have to keep the cameras filming, because they are paid to do so and the entire performance is happening in real time. This is the wonderful genius of Stephen Volk - he told a ghost story to the nation on Hallowe'en that appeared, for all the world, to be real. And he managed to make it so compelling because he constantly kept an eye on its internal logic.

This genre of films - "found footage" - has become far too popular recently, and I can kind of understand why. These are cheap films to make - you need a few actors and, at most, a couple of cameras. They can - as The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity show - reap financial rewards that are near beyond imagination. But they are also deceptively simple. It is about more than just formulating a scenario and letting improvising actors film it. In fact, these are - narratively speaking - among the most difficult films to make credible. You always have to ask yourself "why are these people still filming?" And if you cannot come up with a good answer, you lose all credibility. And since these films are often horror movies, a certain level of credibility is essential to making the whole thing work.

*Ok, technically not "found footage" as it is an ersatz live broadcast. But it still does fit in well with the genre.

Paranormal Entity

Before we start, let me make myself clear - I'm talking about the film Paranormal Entity, rather than the film Paranormal Activity. If you want my thoughts on the latter, then head here. But make no mistake about it, there are similarities between the two films. In fact, Paranormal Entity is a mockbuster of its much more rewarding and successful predecessor. In other words, it is pretty much the same as its predecessor, but 78% more shitty.

It is a bit like going to the local market and picking up a cheap "designer" watch - a Bolex rather than a Rolex. At first, the two things look very similar and sound very similar. Then your Bolex starts running slow. Really slow. You go by your Bolex, so you're a half hour late for work, yet an hour late going home. Furthermore, the second hand to your Bolex has fallen off and is rattling around within the watch, further hindering an already torturously crap piece of mechanics. Then, to really make things worse, the silver of your Bolex is already started to rub off, leaving an murky iron color underneath. And worse, the silver paint is giving you an odd rash on your wrist. Plus, all of your work colleagues have realised that you are wearing a Bolex, rather than a Rolex, and are all taking the piss as a result.

Paranormal Entity (PE from now on) is like that, only much, much more boring. Plus, they pretty much tell you exactly what is going to happen in this film with the opening caption. It is one thing to imply that something bad is going to happen over the course of your film. It is another to spell out the ultimate fate of your characters just seconds after your viewers have met them for the first time.

PE's premise is exactly the same as Paranormal Activity - people try to catch a spooky presence on camera. Which leads to lots of torturous explanations of why often deeply traumatic events are being filmed. The difference here is that there is stuff that just wouldn't be committed to camera in the first place, let alone added into a film by the family to prove a relative's innocence. For example, no-one would film their mother mournfully cradling the tie of their dead husband/the cameraman's father in an attempt to film a ghost. No mourning family member would then add it to their film.

Of course, in all horror movies, people are dumb, but in this film they appear to be a special kind of dumb. The mother and sister leave their brother alone in the house. Also, they don't seem to think to review the footage the brother has been filming until halfway through the film - even though the footage would help to explain what the hell is going on. And I ended up like that character in Blink who Sally Sparrow overhears - the one shouting at the screen "just call the police! Why doesn't anyone in these films just call the police?"

Plus, the family behave in really odd, unrealistic ways. We're led to believe that the sister sleeps in her bra - just so the camera can get a couple of underwear shots of her. The son lays traps for the paranormal entity by setting up trip wires with bells on them at floor level - even though the entity was, on the previous evening, walking on the ceiling. And the family just doesn't communicate with each other. No-one stops to say "let's compare notes" or "what do you think is going on here?" or even "why don't we sell some of these numerous video cameras that we're filming everything with and piss off on a holiday somewhere?"

But, as I say, people in horror movies are dumb, just as people in comedies tend to be arseholes in need of redemption/a shag/both. That alone is not enough to sink a film. What does sink a horror, though, is when the shocks just aren't scary. This film is a rip-off of Paranormal Activity - so we expect the sort of things that happened in that film to happen in this one. However, you need to add a twist to the events - if they are simply the sodding same, they it becomes a bit tedious. If your shock moment is the mother character standing behind the door after 75 minutes of the film, you've got a problem. That is only scary if you are the person it is happening to. Rather than if you've watched a tedious prick running all over the house before finding her behind a door.

And what is the death knell for any movie is if the pace is all over the place. And in this film, it really is. It manages to make 90 minutes seem roughly three times that amount of time. It spends an inordinate amount of time showing us the brother setting up ghost traps in his home (in Paranormal Activity, that was a brief set-up for a great later scare). However, the climax of the film is over in about a minute. After an utterly spurious explanation of what the entity is (a rapey ghost, in case you're interested) we then get to see the prof dead and the sister dead - with her tits out. That's something that I guess the filmmaker meant to be titillating, but is rather undermined by the fact that it is the naked corpse of a woman who has been raped and killed by a ghost. Sure, you can argue that the makers of PE had no money to spend on the climax of the film. But nor did the makers of Paranormal Activity. The difference is that the makers of the latter film provoked the viewer's imagination, before hinting at what had happened. The makers of PE simply ripped off The Blair Witch Project, and ended the whole film in such a way that leads to believe that they ran out of time, money, and the ability to care about the ending.

The truth is that Paranormal Activity is a very derivative film - but one that is done well. PE is a crude copy of a derivative film, and it is done really, really badly. Of course, you can argue that this is what mockbuster filmmakers do. It is simply about making money, not about creating anything of any artistic worth whatsoever. The problem is that if you make a good mockbuster, then you can create a franchise that makes millions. If you make PE, you simply make a film that insults your viewers.

When Horror Films Go Wrong: "Orphan" and "Paradise Lost"

Horror movies are always going to be popular with filmmakers. After all, classic movies like Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween, were made for relatively little money but have gone on to become cash cows and legends in their own right. Many a filmmaker must have thought “I can make a quick buck and a reputation with a decent horror movie.” The problem is that making a shit horror movie is far easier than making a decent one. Let’s look at two examples.

First up, let’s look at the film Orphan. It has a twist in it – and, by the way, I’ll be revealing that so spoilers ahead. Of course, horror has always had twists and the moment when it was revealed Norman and his mother were one and the same has rightly become a classic moment in cinematic history. Done right, and a twist in the film can be awesome. Done wrong, and it is… well, Orphan.

The film starts in a mediocre way. It is obvious there is a child (from Estonia, natch) who is up for adoption and is clearly more than a little odd. As things go on, it becomes clear that she is a cuckoo – and a murderous one at that. She tries to split up the family, she kills a nun, and drives the mother to the point of insanity before almost setting fire to the eldest son. Then – in a scene that is compellingly uncomfortable and awkward – a 12-year-old girl attempts to seduce her middle-aged father. Thus far, the film has had some scary moments, some good performances and some examples of exceedingly clunky dialogue. There were some minor lapses in logic*, and the parents do appear to be shockingly inept both in their relationship with each other and their dealings with their children. Nonetheless, it sort of works, if for no other reason than this girl appears to be an evil human, as opposed to the Anti-Christ or the spawn of an unseen alien race.

And it is just after that seduction scene when the film jumps the shark.

About halfway through the film I had a thought that maybe Esther the Evil Orphan could be an adult in disguise. But I dismissed the thought. It just seemed silly. Yet, actually I was bang on. See, Esther has hypopituitarism – she actually is an adult! It is supposed to be an awesome twist; one that is deliberately mimicking the twist in Psycho. Instead, it completely undermines the whole film. It was set up as a film about an evil child – a lot of the horror came from the apparent inhumanity of the child. Once we learn that she’s actually a lusty adult looking for a quick fuck, the film loses much of its potency. In the final chase scene, Esther becomes nothing more than a pint-sized Jason Voorhees. Orphan was never going to be a classic film, but its twist just makes it deeply disappointing.

However, it is far better and far more intelligent that Paradise Lost. Paradise Lost is a dumb movie, that is aspiring to put the “horror” into “horror movie.” The problem it finds is that there is a distinction between a movie being a horror and just being horrible. Paradise Lost is very much the latter.

It isn’t just the violence in it, although Lord knows that there is no shortage of machete slashing, eye-gouging, foot slicing and unnecessary surgery in this film. No, it is how the characters are presented. There is not one sympathetic character in the whole thing. Which is a massive problem in a horror movie. Put simply, why should I give a fuck about your characters getting their kidneys removed if there is nothing whatsoever to like about them? Paradise Lost became a little like Our Daily Bread, with witless backpackers taking the place of the cattle. But whilst Our Daily Bread is a interesting documentary, Paradise Lost is a haven’t-I-seen-this-all-before sort of a movie, trying to distinguish itself through the use of graphic violence.

But what is most repugnant about Paradise Lost is the racism within it. Of course, horror films are never going to be that aware of racial (or gender) politics. But Paradise Lost makes a whole country into a nation of thieves, whores, and serial killers. Even the justification by the lead villain for his actions (America exploits us, see?) is shown to be utterly spurious – he had no compunction about killing anyone, including one of his associates in front of a boy. The story seems to say that if you’re going to go to Brazil, then expect to be involved in a bus crash, drugged, chased, tortured and then killed. Your best bet is to get into a plane and fly away. Horror always has thrived on the fear of the unknown; unfortunately, Paradise Lost thrives on the fear of the foreign. It is as racist as it is stupid.

So the message here is two fold. If you are going to make a horror movie with a twist, make sure that your twist doesn’t destroy your whole film. And if you are going to have a monster, then make sure that the monster is defined by its actions. Not by its nationality.

*Such as neither one of the parents picking up on the nun’s comment that Esther socialises well with the other kids when she has to. Which should be a massive alarm bell, followed by "run away from the freaky kid!"

Paranormal Activity

So, saw Paranormal Activity last night. And it is good. It would be better if it wasn't just a version of The Blair Witch Project with less attractive scenery and even more irritating characters, but it does work hard at creating a level of fear that didn't rely mainly on special effects. It has atmosphere; if only because it lacked the budget to go for scares through gore. Still, I do have some advice for anyone who wants to make a similar film based on the flaws of this particular motion picture:

1. Don't make the leading male into an amazing tool who not only disregards every piece of advice he is given but also has a go at his girlfriend for bringing a demon into the house. Look, Micah, Katie didn't choose to have a demon molesting her, and it isn't helping to throw that in her face as her life turns into a terrifying quagmire of unsettling shit. The problem with making a character like Micah is that no-one really gives a fuck what happens to them because they are such a grade-A, prime dickhead.

2. It's all very well setting up that they can't leave the house because the supernatural entity will follow them, but if you keep on going on about it, then it simply highlights the fact that there isn't any slack in the budget to film anywhere else.

3. All the talk about demons made the film at times feel like a low-rent version of Drag Me To Hell. You don't need demons to make something scary, and you end up over-egging the pudding. The concept of a unseen, extremely powerful ghost fixated on a woman in an increasingly terrifying way is unsettling enough. All the talk about house-fires in the past and the heavy-handed insinuations about demonic possession simply bring to mind other famous horror movies that had more money to throw around. Furthermore, with horror movies, the less you explain, the better. The unknown is almost by definition unsettling, so don't be afraid to use that.

And some advice to any potential viewers going to see this film: don't go to a cinema in central Nottingham as it will be filled with chavtastic teenagers screeching at just about everything except the shots of the woman in a low-cut top and shorts. At which point the feral, lusty lads will start wolf-whistling...