Vampyr

Carl Theodore Dreyer's VAMPYR is a moody, creepy horror film that seeks to unsettle and disturb us. It succeeds, and it does so through a combination of compelling story and wonderfully creepy atmosphere.

The story is the stuff of great horror. An inquisitive young man takes a room in a creepy European village. Late at night, someone enters his room and leaves a box with a note that reads, "To be opened in the event of my death." That box gets opened pretty darn quickly, and we're off to a different kind of vampire story. Why different? Well, Dreyer's idea of a vampire is neither ratlike creature nor hunka hunka burnin love. Rather, he gives us something more mysterious, perhaps more creepy, than we're used to in a vampire film. And he does it while using all the cinematic tricks available to him to create a pervasive sense of unease. VAMPYR is the kind of movie that sneaks up on you, and it's a delicious feeling. I'd gladly see it again.

The Manitou

Some movies are simply bad, some are horribly bad, and some are delightfully bad. 1978's THE MANITOU, starring Tony Curtis as a sham psychic and Susan Strasberg as a topless, psychic, evil-immortal-medicine-man battler, is wonderfully, delightfully bad in nearly every way. It embraces its profound badness, has great fun with it, and invites us to join in. Depending on your mood at the time of viewing, you're bound either to enjoy the heck out of it or hit the "Stop" button about 15 minutes in. It's up to you.

Here's the setup: Curtis is a sham psychic, ripping off old ladies in San Francisco. He's living the good living, grooving to funk and drinking canned beer, when an old girlfriend (Strasberg) calls. She has a problem: there's a fetus growing in her back, and that can't be good.

Before he knows it, Curtis is interviewing Burgess Meredith (playing a guy who clearly study the script and is just ad-libbing his way through things) learning that said fetus is the reincarnation of the aforementioned evil, immortal medicine man. He's off to the reservation to find another medicine man to help him out, then it's back to the hospital, where Strasberg is giving back-birth to a midget in a rubber suit. From there, well, all I can say is that there are some movies that make me wish I did drugs. I have difficulty imagine how much better Topless Strasberg mentally battling Rubber Suit Midget in space (space!) could be, but I can't watch that scene and not think that it wasn't made for mushrooms.

So: THE MANITOU. Nowhere near good, but actually quite fun. You could do worse.

PS If you watch this, be sure to watch the trailers first. They'll really put you in the mood.

Vacancy

So this is how the career path goes: break out with an international success, accept an invitation to Hollywood, and make your bones as a commercial director in genre fare such as VACANCY.

At least, this is how it's going for Nimród Antal, the Hungarian director of 2003's remarkable KONTROLL. Where KONTROLL was haunting, dreamlike, and rather puzzling, VACANCY is a straightforward horror thriller whose every beat will seem familiar to anyone who has ever seen a picture that begins with someone saying, "Why didn't you stay on the interstate?" That said, VACANCY is a very professional "Don't Get Off The Interstate" horror thriller: a step up from MOTEL HELL, though not in the same league as PSYCHO (which it recalls through clever use of 60's-style opening and closing credits).

Here's the setup: Kate Beckinsale wakes up in the passenger seat of a car driving through the toolies in the middle of the night. She turns to her husband (Luke Wilson, who's been going heavy on the electrolytes) and says, "Why'd you get off the interstate?" Things go downhill from there.

And that's it, really. The rest is in the execution, and it's here that Antal proves himself an able craftsman. He finds novel ways to build and maintain suspense, though we all know what's coming next and who'll still be on two feet when the credits roll. He manages to create suitably creepy villains, alternates well between jump-scares and slow burns, and even manages to work in a bit of subtle comedy. In other words, the guy takes a familiar subgenre out of the garage, puts some gas in the tank, and takes it for a fun spin.

But this is Nimród Antal, the guy behind KONTROLL, we're talking about. Next time, I hope they let him get off the interstate.

The Innocents

THE INNOCENTS rises or falls on Deborah Kerr's performance. Her role requires earnestness, thoughtfulness, conviction, courage, and perhaps a touch of madness. If she can pull it off, the movie is a winner. Unfortunately, she can't.

Kerr harrumphs, goggles, and screams her way through the picture. She so distanced me from the action that my greatest fear was that she'd tire of chewing the scenery, chew her way through my screen, and go for my throat. The movie looks great; its children are perfect; it sounds wonderful; and it has a snappy script. If only they'd hired a better actress, they could've had a classic on their hands.

Cemetery Man

CEMETERY MAN had a stellar premise, but it doesn't deliver.

The movie takes an inherently fun story about a cemetery watchman who's duties including rekilling and reburying the reanimated dead and tries to infuse it with so much existential angst it winds up burying itself. How do you suck the life out of a movie featuring a troop of zombie boy scouts and a carnivorous flying head? You do it by saddling it with head-scratchingly repulsive supporting castmembers, brooding ponderings on the nature of life, and a degree of carnage that's so far from fun that you cease to care about the well-being of critical members of the cast.

If you're looking for a movie that knows how to have some fun with the zombie genre, see SHAUN OF THE DEAD again. That picture never forgets what it's about.