My Favorite Movies of 2015

It’s been over a month since I wrote something about films, and it quite honestly feels so good to write something again.

When I created Fandom’s Final Girl I dreamed of it becoming a self sustaining personal blog, where I would write about movies I love, from horror to all the fandoms I belong to. I created it when I was writing for free at GotchaMovies.com, but then as time passed and I became the head of the site and this blog went to the wayside. When I got home I didn’t want to write – I wanted to relax. I probably had to watch a movie for work. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I went out with friends. But I never blogged.

Well now that I have no site to run, I can get back to Fandom’s Final Girl. I published my favorite horror movies in 2013 to this blog, and to be honest while that sounds like a good idea again, horror in 2015 has been a monumental disappointment. In fact, where a horror movie usually lands in my top 10 of the year, this year there wasn’t a single horror movie I found worthy (of course, I had Spring in my top 10 last year, so that sort of disqualifies it for this year). I also saw It Follows last year, and upon re-watching it, I find myself in the minority who finds the movie to be very good, but not quite the best. There were so many lackluster horror movies of this year: The Visit, Insidious Ch. 3, the Poltergeist reboot, Sinister 2, Crimson Peak, The Lazarus Effect, and The Final Girls. Krampus was fun, but not quite Trick ‘r Treat standards. The Gift, We Are Still Here, and What We Do in the Shadows were probably the biggest highlights of the year, but I refuse to make a “Best of” list where I’d have to add movies I don’t feel strongly about.

So horror top ten – out.

That being said, this year I have a lot of strong feelings about my general top 10. It’s beautiful and refined, and while there are still movies I would have loved to have seen before making this list (Creed, Macbeth, Breathe, Slow West, Tom at the Farm, and Chi-Raq to name a few), I still want to acknowledge the films that are on my current top 10. The others (if I love them enough) will have to just deal with a mention on a Letterboxd list.

10. Ex Machina

One of Domnhall Gleeson’s step towards taking the year by storm (he was also in Brooklyn, The Revenant, and Star Wars) began with Alex Garland’s Ex Machina, a high concept sci-fi film about a man who wins a week at a rich internet entrepreneur’s home in the middle of the wilderness of Europe. While Gleeson is certainly great in the film, the real winners were Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander, both who were able to play characters that were so well rounded and thought out. Isaac played the foil to Gleeson’s Caleb, using Caleb’s vulnerabilities against him to manipulate him into falling in love with a sexy-looking robot disguised as a female. It’s dark, smart, and one heck of a directorial debut. The film personally danced around my top 10 all year, trading places with a number of films before it landed at 10, which I feel is the perfect spot for it.

9. Girlhood

I had a sneaking suspicion since January that Girlhood would show up on my “Best of” list, and after watching it recently I found out I was not wrong. Not to be confused with Boyhood (which is still magical), Girlhood is a French film about a teenager nicknamed Vic who joins a gang after she discovers she has once again failed to meet the grade requirements to move onto high school. The movie follows her as she gains self confidence in her youth, but then when her job leads her to unsavory things she begins to regret. Girlhood is an astonishingly powerful movie about what it is to be a young woman, one without remarkable prospects. The moment the movie won me over was the scene where the group of four girls belt Rihanna’s “Diamonds” in a hotel room, dancing only with each other in glamorous clubbing garments. Je t’aime Girlhood.

8. 45 Years

It’s hard to imagine being with one person for a long term relationship when you’re young, let alone one that lasts 45 years. Andrew Haigh’s succinct drama follows a woman, Kate, played by the amazing Charlotte Rampling, who discovers on the brink of her 45th wedding anniversary that her husband had previously been engaged to a girl from his past who died during a hiking accident in Switzerland. The film explores jealousy, the thoughts that go through Kate’s mind of what might have been had Geoff Mercer’s ex-fiancee Katya lived. After spending a great deal of time with someone, it’s difficult to come to terms with thinking you might have been second best, and 45 Years explores that in such a cold, delicate way.

7. Sicario

Sicario was a film I had no idea I would love so much. Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners left me so cold that I wound up skipping Enemy last year, but because I have an undying adoration for Emily Blunt I decided to give him another go. Sicario is so brilliant that I might have to give Enemy the shot it deserves. The film is dripping with commentary about females in the workforce, and as Britt Hayes so wonderfully put in her article on Birth.Movies.Death, it’s a striking metaphor for rape. Blunt’s character is never physically raped in the film, but Villeneuve’s drama is about the brutal violation of Blunt’s character, Kate Macer, in a male-driven environment. In the end she’s used not for her brains or ambitions, but for her position. It’s kinetic, and at times rough to watch, but it’s wonderful that a film of the stature was a wide release.

6. Room

Lenny Abrahamson’s Room is one of the best adapted films ever (in my humble opinion). Hitting every important note Emma Donoghue’s book caressed, Room is a tragic tale about how the bond between a mother and her son saved her life. Brie Larson is quite wonderful as Ma, but the real takeaway from this film is Jacob Tremblay, who is the pure and tragic lead in the film (regardless of what awards season would like you to believe). What could have been a dark tale of tragedy turns into one of hope and warmth through Abrahamson and Donoghue’s unique vision, and is certainly has cemented the director as one to keep up with. He’s brave, and his film has a subtle beauty that’s impossible to deny.

5. When Marnie Was There

Studio Ghibli’s last film (as of right now) was a beautiful note to leave on. Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s mature follow-up to the lackluster Secret World of Arrietty has a refined beauty to it that lets it easily fall into the Ghibli canon. A movie about a young girl trying to discover her past and what life holds for her in the future, When Marnie Was There is not only the best animated film of the year, but also probably the most under-seen (sadly). Perhaps my undying love for it comes from the fact that this very well might be Studio Ghibli’s final work of art, but there’s something so casually charming and elegant about Yonebayashi’s film that’s truly captivating. There’s a simple elegance to it that’s hard to come by.

4. Carol

Carol is a film that I walked out loving, and then as the weeks went by I was smitten. Sure, Todd Haynes’ 50s set lesbian drama is as cold as they come, but there’s a magnetic pulse throughout Carol that lingers long after the credits roll. The film is also perfectly cast, with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara both exquisitely charming on screen together. However, the highlight of Carol is its subject matter. It’s a movie about the interests and desires of women, where men become secondary characters that only serve as appendages to the overarching story. It’s brilliant. I never expected to fall in love with Carol the way I did, but I have to say I’m thoroughly not disappointed.

3. Son of Saul

Here was a surprise – going into Son of Saul at Fantastic Fest, I only knew it had some good word of mouth coming out of Cannes. At the time, that didn’t mean a whole lot (but apparently this year things changes with my alliance to the prestigious film festival, seeing at 3 movie in my top 5 debuted there). Holocaust movies are one in a million – it feels like there are thousands of these films running around and a lot of them more or less feel the same. Son of Saul is brilliantly different. The film follows a man who is forced to burn to corpses of his people, and one day upon finding the corpse of a young boy he loses it. Taking in the boy as his son, he desperately tries to find a rabbi who can give the child a proper burial. Shot in a range of medium to close ups, Laszlo Nemes brilliantly creates a debut film only others could ever dream of. One of the most intimate and heart-shattering holocaust dramas I’ve ever seen, after crying through this movie I knew it was one of this year’s best.

2. Phoenix

I was genuinely surprised to love Son of Saul as much as I did, especially since the post-Holocaust drama Phoenix had already claimed my heart not two months before. Nina Hoss plays Nelly Lenz, a former concentration camp prisoner who has to undergo facial reconstruction surgery after her stint in the camps. With her face not looking quite the same as it did before, she goes hunting for her husband, who works at an Americanized bar in Berlin. Coming in at a very lean 98 minutes, Phoenix is yet another heart-wrenching film set in Germany’s darkest hour. Petzold has a firm grasp on postwar themes, but what makes Phoenix so rich, so divine is its understanding of womanhood. There’s a beautiful part in the film where Lenz’s husband laments about how his wife was always trying to look like a certain starlet, but at the very beginning of the film we see Lenz lament over the loss of her original face, and while her new one looks strikingly like herself, there’s still something not quite right about it. It’s a smart, additional layer to the movie that very much captivated my attention, and easily made it a close second to my favorite film at the end of the year.

1. The Assassin

I watched Hsiao-Hsien Hou’s The Assassin in the morning at 8am, and even exhausted I still found his most recent feature to be a masterpiece. The film’s mise-en-scene alone is captivating enough, with every frame delicately and thoroughly thought out as if every take is a painting in Hou’s square frame. But the story is also brilliant, a slow and methodical martial arts tale about a woman who was abducted and trained to kill corrupt officials in periodic China. Qi Shu is remarkable as the subtle Nie Yinniang, whose personal conflicts interfere with her designated work. What makes The Assassin one of my favorite films of the year it how it bends storytelling by utilizing breathtaking visuals to progress its plot. This is what film is all about – not fancy dialogue or quick, stylish cuts, but carefully thought out pictures that tell a story. It’s a movie that reminded me why I love film to begin with, and it’s one that’s struck me hard since I walked out of that theater at 10am totally enamored.

Room | Movie Review

As a reader, it’s always hard to fall into a movie when you’ve read the book. A great example this year is The Martian, and those who’ve read the book can understand the pain felt when watching the film on the big screen. Ridley Scott’s vision, while keeping Andy Weir’s optimism, waters down the most important key element of the book: the survival. Emma Donoghue’s book Room is also one about survival, but it’s also one about a very young boy coming-of-age and discovering the world. It’s a movie about rebirth and discovery, and it’s all told from the perspective of a five-year-old boy who has lived in a box all of his young life. Lenny Abrahamson understood that, and his passion for the literature helped him create a not only faithful adaptation a reader can completely dive into, but one they can relive again like it’s the first time.

Room is about Jack (Jacob Tremblay), a young boy who has grown up in “Room,” a shed in the mysterious Old Nick’s (Sean Bridgers) backyard. Except Jack doesn’t know that. To Jack, Room is all he knows. That’s of course until Ma (Brie Larson) decides they need to escape, and Jack’s the only one who can manage to save them from their living hell. It’s an uphill battle for Jack though, because believing in a world beyond Room is already difficult enough to comprehend, let alone executing a plan to escape once he leaves his solitude.

Abrahamson structures the movie in two parts, exactly like Donoghue’s book: before and after Room. In the first part we really feel Room’s claustrophobia, and Abrahamson makes it believable for an audience to think like Jack, that there’s is no world outside Room. How could there be? The story, without overuse of voice over, is essentially from Jack’s point of view, and not the mother’s. Room is entirely carried by Jacob Tremblay, who is truly a remarkable discovery. He never overacts as children tend to do, and his relationship with Brie’s character of Ma is truly astounding, as they both genuinely feel like one when they’re together, and it’s even worse when they’re apart.

Which brings us to the escape. Normally, this kind of climactic moment would occur at the very end of the film during the third act, but it happens exactly in the middle of the second act after Ma decides it’s time to leave Room after Old Nick shuts down the power for a few days. The escape is heart palpitating, an allusion to one of the stories Jack’s Ma tells him to go to sleep some nights, The Count of Monte Cristo. As Old Nick carries Jack, presumably dead from his point of view, out to the truck the tension is at an all-time high. Except that’s not the only thing – the space is suddenly there. The film is no longer tight and intimate; it’s vast, bright, and beautiful in its dullness. Because you see, Jack escapes in the dead of the winter, at a time where it’s cold, grey, and damp, but it’s still not the confined space of Room. It’s open and Jack and his Ma are free.

Except perhaps the uninviting atmosphere of the frigid winter was purposeful. Jack’s hesitant to fall in love with what his Ma calls “The World.” There are so many new people, food from TV, and something called germs that force him to wear a surgical mask until he can adapt. Everything’s cold. Even Ma feels more distant, and it’s hard to understand why for a boy so young. But the audience understands, and through Jack’s eyes we’re watching a victim of rape recoil and give in to her suffering after seven years of wretched abuse.

What makes Room such a phenomenal, such an exquisitely tragic film is that it’s brave. Abrahamson doesn’t shy away from telling the story through Jack’s point of view, just as he doesn’t shy away from telling a story about a woman full of regret and shame. The movie also never doubts Ma’s love for Jack, which is possibly the most beautiful sentiment of the story. For Ma, Jack was her savior. He was her beacon of light in the darkness of the patriarchal and demeaning space of Room. Room’s about loving the world in all its simplicity, and by the end of the film you will be itching to go out and appreciate its unyielding and subtle beauty.

Writer Emma Donoghue Talks Adapting Room into a Movie

It’s a hard thing, watching something you create being taken over by someone else. It’s even harder when you’re not able to sit through the process with them, waiting for the inevitable crash and burn you’re so sure will happen. Luckily for writer Emma Donoghue, she never felt that with Room. Passionate about who she was working with from the beginning, her and director Lenny Abrahamson brought her acclaimed book to screen beautifully, creating a separate work of art that calls back to the book faithfully without adapting every single moment.

To recap a little bit before you dive into the interview, Room is about a mother and her son who are trapped in a shed that’s owned by a man called “Old Nick.” The boy, Jack (played by Jacob Tremblay), isn’t aware there’s an outside world until his Ma (Brie Larson) tries to convince him of it on his fifth birthday. Ultimately stubborn, Jack refuses to believe his mother’s fables and instead tries to find solace in the comfort of “Room.” However, when things start getting more dangerous for Ma and Jack, Ma has to convince her son to risk his own life to save both of theirs.

Room is expanding nationwide this weekend, November 6. It’s hot on the awards season trail, so make sure you catch it for it’s easily one of the best buzziest films of the year.

How daunting was it seeing your book turned into a film? 

Emma Donoghue: You know by the time I saw it on screen I was just so happy, it was like the birth of a child, but that’s because I had been fully involved. I think for writers who just sell the rights and walk away, it must be very, very weird for them to not be in touch with it through all those evolutions and to suddenly see it different. For me it’s been a great, great pleasure. Doing the adaptation in itself I found really interesting because fiction has certain things it does well, like psychology, you know the moment by moment of what a five-year-old might be thinking, and film does other things well. There’s a lot that’s unspoken in film, so there are lots of scene in the movie where we’re looking at Jacob Tremblay’s face really close up, and you don’t quite know what he’s thinking, but you bring your own stuff to it. You fill in with your own thoughts of what you remember about childhood, whereas in a book things are more spelled out, so I think film has enormous advantages.

Having read the book, it’s all from Jack’s perspective, but in the movie you don’t get to read his mind.

Donoghue: He’s in every scene, but we didn’t want a GoPro Camera on his head or something. We didn’t want it to feel gimmicky.

So how difficult was it adapting your book then, from going inside his head to outside of it?

Donoghue: It would have been very hard if it was about a child in a room alone, but in fact the book is full of dialogue. Everything about Jack spills over in conversation and play with his mother, so I thought we could show a lot of his comfortable inhabiting of Room. I thought we could show that a lot through him washing up, him playing with things, him making crafts, him talking to his Ma…I could imply a lot of that. In the first draft I didn’t use any voice over, because I really wanted to tell the story through the camera, through cinema. I think voice over can be a bit of a crutch; so we only added voice over I think in the last draft when the director said he wanted some voice overs to kind of punctuate it, but we didn’t want to rely on them for giving the child’s thoughts or for explaining things.

How did you choose the moments you wanted voice overs for?

Donoghue: Oh good point. Often it would be moments when Jack would be on his own. You know like there’s one scene where Ma’s depressed for the day and puts her head under the pillow or when she is carted off to a hospital by the paramedics, so often it’s a moment when Jack’s left alone. But it wasn’t just that he was on his own so we needed to say what he was thinking, it was more like those were the kind of breaks between sequences as well. I think we used the voice over kinds of structurally.

One of the most distinct things that popped out to me while reading your book was that Jack was nearsighted, since he never had to use muscles to see far. I love how you still get that fact from the film through the camera, through visual storytelling, rather than exposition.

Donoghue: Yeah, yeah his eyes take a while to develop those muscles.

Did you write that into the script? 

Donoghue: You know I can’t remember, because it’s been such a constant back and forth of creativity. You see Lenny, the director, he was always going back to the book as well. It’s not like I just turned in a script and he worked from there, it was more like the two of us were always trying to find a way to make the same kind of magic happen in film as in the book. He had this tattered copy of the book and he’s always go back to that. Some things I changed first thing, like in my first draft of my screenplay I gave the child short hair, because I thought a mainstream cinema audience is going to be so distracted by the boy with long hair. I thought, “Oh, never mind, I’ll go for short hair,” and Lenny was like, “No, let’s go back to long hair, because that’s a great way to sort of mark the child as a bit different.”

I loved that Jacob and Brie had the same hair, it connected them. 

Donoghue: He thinks he’s in a world of two people, so he sees himself as of Ma, he’s her species. He hasn’t really entered the gendered world, where you line up as boys versus girls, you know. So when he wants to cut his hair it’s sort of like the moment he accepts the terms of our society. “Boys have short hair, I’ll work with this and transfer my power to Ma.”

You obviously worked very close with Lenny. How was it like sharing a story that was originally only your own?

Donoghue: I loved it. I didn’t have the typical experience where’s there’s lots of executives. I didn’t get alienated from my own work like the film process can so often do to writers. It was very hands on. Lenny would fly over to Canada where I live and we’d sit around the kitchen table, you know. He’d give me lots of notes and I’d do another draft. I’ve always enjoyed the rewriting process, even with my editors, say I’d do at least three drafts for all my novels. So I really love it when people ask the questions and I come up with more writing and we go back and forth like that. I think I was sort of uniquely lucky in how much of a one-to-one working relationship with the director I was allowed. There was no endpoint to that too, because I’d come and visit set and I’d whisper things in his ear during lunchtime, or he’d email me to say, “We need a few more lines.” There’s no finished point with the script, you just keep on going until the film’s made.

I can imagine once the book was released you had a lot of people vying for the rights. You also mentioned last night at the Q&A that you had emailed Lenny back-and-forth for a while before agreeing to it.

Donoghue: Yeah, he wrote me this ten-page letter – it was amazing. In the film world people are usually cautious, and you hear indirectly through somebody’s agent that maybe they’re a little bit interested. It’s all a bit of a game. People are very careful not to put their cards on the table. They don’t want to expose themselves and say, “I want this.” Whereas Lenny being a less well-known director at the time, he’d only done two films, he wrote me this really honest ten-page letter saying exactly what he felt was going on in the book and I agreed with every word he wrote, and then saying how he’d like to make it into a film and exactly what he would do. He wasn’t talking about casting or money or any of that stuff – he was talking about how he’d use the camera. He basically said, “I want to do it pretty much like the book. I don’t want to make any radical changes to turn it into a more typical Hollywood shaped film.” He was very happy with the two-part structure and the escaping in the middle. He was just not scared of any odd aspects. We had a first meeting and I said, “Is anybody going to die at the end of the film? Because in your first two films somebody dies at the end,” and he said, “No death – I swear!” I asked if he’d keep in the breast-feeding and he said, “I promise!”

Was there a part that you cut out that you wished could have made it into the film, but you knew it wouldn’t work deep down? 

Donoghue: Yeah, there are a few. One part of Ma’s backstory in the book is that stillbirth. I kept that in the script until a very late stage, but at a certain point lots of people felt like it was harking back to an additional tragedy and at that point in the movie we want the journey to be upward, you know? In a book there’s just so much time for little things. In the book when you hear about the stillbirth for a page or two it’s a sad loop, and then you move onto something else, but in a movie you always have to be thinking of the overall story. It could have been a real downer if we brought in more additional sorrow.

Which is kind of what I feel a lot of adaptations just miss. Movies are about the endgame in the story and the linear path to it, versus in a book where you can have so many other things going on, so many extra characters. 

Donoghue: The first thing I did, for instance, was to decide Ma wouldn’t have a brother and his family anymore, because we didn’t need him. It’s enough to be meeting three different grandparent figures.

Versus meeting a brother and his wife and his kids.

Donoghue: Exactly.

So it sounds like you were on set a lot. What’s one of your fondest memories from set?

Donoghue: Well it’s funny, when people are really well known actors you sort of assume they’ll be off in their trailer alone saying, “Don’t talk to me,” you know? So my first day on set I was in the craft services wagon or trailer and I was failed to use the coffee machine. No milk was coming out of the tube. Suddenly there’s Brie Larson beside me saying, “Oh, I know how to fix that,” and she’s getting milk out of the fridge and she’s fixing the coffee machine for me and I thought, “Wow, you’re not putting on any princess airs, are you?” She was just incredibly down to earth and likable and kind. I think when you have a child in every scene everyone has to behave well. You can’t afford for any adults to be childish.

I’ve also noticed outside the film Brie and Jacob have a very close relationship and I think that’s really sweet. Do you feel like this experience created a close relationship with someone, Lenny by any chance?

Donoghue: My closest working relationship was with Lenny, yeah. We had about two years of back-and-forth on the script before anyone else was involved. Also Ed, Ed Guiney, Lenny’s producing partner. They’d been friends since college. Ed is just the opposite of what you’d imagine a producer to be. You kind of imagine producers to be “big ego, big cigar.” Ed is so low key, unobtrusive, and helpful. He’ll run off and get you a cup of coffee. He’ll act like he’s the coffee boy, but he’s running the show. He’s actually an extremely powerful producer now, but he just doesn’t show off at all. He’s always trying to help, facilitate, and get people together in good working relationships. He was a real treat as well.

My Favorite Horror Movie: A Tale of Two Sisters

NOTE: This blog post was written when I was at GotchaMovies (which no longer exists).

For all of the readers who don’t know me: Hi, how are you? My name’s Jenny Nulf and I am the Managing Editor of GotchaMovies. I am also a complete horror film fanatic and gorehound, so when asked what my favorite horror movie is, it’s really hard for me to answer. I automatically think of The Orphanage, because it’s the first of the genre that I really had a relationship with, but since I already wrote about it this month (check out my Final Girls article), I decided to write about another horror movie that I would consider a favorite, A Tale of Two Sisters.

I first saw Kim Jee-woon’s 2003 film in college when I was going through one of the biggest changes of my life: the moment I fell in love with Asian cinema, specifically horror. After checking out The Host and Suicide Club, I found A Tale of Two Sisters at the University of North Texas’ media library. Two viewings and a $40 late fee later (that’s not a joke), the movie instantly became one of my favorites and it was my first Christmas present from my boyfriend (I knew then that he knew my soul – Korean horror movies are the way to my heart, guys).

Let’s catch you up on what exactly this movie is all about. A Tale of Two Sisters is about a girl, Bae Su-mi (played by the lovely Lim Su-jeong), who comes home from the hospital to her father and sister. She’s trying to maneuver her young life, now without her mother, who passed away and is seemingly forgotten by her father. It doesn’t help that he’s is seeing a new woman, who is just as much of an evil stepmother as any fairy tale (Cate Blanchett might have been channeling Yum Jung-ah in Cinderella – no joke). There’s not much else you can say about the movie without giving away its twists and turns, and oh boy are there a lot of those (and if you don’t want them to be spoiled for you, read no further).

This isn’t the first time the classic fairy tale The Story of Rose and Lotus was adapted on screen. Kim’s film is the sixth Korean adaptation (and the remake, The Uninvited, the seventh), but his is easily the most memorable and significant. The story is about a man named Bae whose wife gives birth to two beautiful baby girls. However, when the mother dies the father marries a new stepmother, who is ugly and cruel (does this remind you of Cinderella yet?). The stepmother hates her stepdaughters and plays cruel tricks on them to manipulate their father and turn him against them, like placing a dead rat in a daughter’s bed and claiming it as a stillbirth out of wedlock. Sooner or later (after the deaths of the daughters and many other townspeople), the stepmother is finally found out and she’s sentenced to death. Years after the father finds a new wife (a real player, isn’t he?) and she has twin baby girls, which he names after his long deceased daughters.

The literal Korean title for A Tale of Two Sisters is a direct reference to the fairy tale, Rose Flower, Red Lotus, but of course that wouldn’t grab the attention of an international audience. The adaptation is also not as literal, and creates a more horrific atmosphere than a true gothic fairy tale would, but it manages to still keep its roots. The film’s abundant use of floral patterns keeps it magical while the events surrounding the film dive heavily into the other. There are also distinct references to the fairy tale – the bird dying being a direct parallel to the skinned rat. And if I’m being totally honest here, horror films tied to classic literature and children’s stories have always been very magnetic, whether it’s Peter Pan in The Orphanage or Tim Burton’s adaptation of Sleepy Hollow.

But there’s more to A Tale of Two Sisters beyond its classic roots. Kim pays very close attention to the mise-en-scene of the film. The outside of the house is shot strikingly and bright, with the green lake and clear blue sky contrasting the sister’s bright red clothes, versus the inside of the house where dark wood panels line stuffy hallways and create a dank space that, although spacious with the same color palette as the exterior, feels claustrophobic. The house holds the memories that triggered Su-mi’s psychosis, and the film is cut in such a way that deliberately disorients the viewer, pulling you into Su-mi’s schizophrenia; because yes – the great twist of the film is that not only is her sister a ghost in her own mind, but the stepmother is as well.

And this, my friends, is why A Tale of Two Sisters is a beat above the rest. If we learned anything from Jack Black as R.L. Stine in the new Goosebumps movie, it’s that a story is made up of three components: the beginning, the middle, and the twist, and Kim’s film has all three of them (SO many twists). He doesn’t reveal all his tricks at first, though. We discover Su-yeon (played by Moon Geun-young) has been deceased in the middle of the film. It should have come as no surprise, then, when the stepmother was a ghost (of sorts) as well, since Su-yeon and Heo Eun-joo’s periods both came at the same time. Menstrual blood is a classic element utilized in female horror, with the abject fluids representing both female empowerment and the fears of male castration (gruesome, huh? I love it).

However, Kim’s reveal of the stepmother also being a figment of Su-mi’s imagination is more horrific than the reveal of Su-yeon being dead. After we watch Eun-joo brutally murder Su-mi, she walks in with her father, creating a head-spin of a scene and then the entire movie then is revealed through flashbacks, with Su-mi in place of Eun-joo. It’s jagged and hectic, and you feel the headache Su-mi must be feeling (and jeez – how has her father been dealing with her sensual behavior?). So then you think, “Oh – the ghosts we’ve been seeing periodically throughout the film can’t be real, right?” Well, it wouldn’t be an Asian horror movie if they weren’t real.

The final scene with Eun-joo is utterly horrifying. As the movie dies down in the denouement, an inky, murky ghost crawls out from the cabinet she let Su-yeon die under after the girls’ mother hung herself. Eun-joo’s crimes are tremendously horrific, and she’s justly punished for them as the ghost of their mother (or could it be Su-yeon?) cracks her bones out through the sheets and the evil stepmother’s shrill scream echoes into the night.

I strongly believe that A Tale of Two Sisters will be revered as one of the greatest modern horror masterpieces of the 2000’s, someday. It’s a striking film about the deterioration of the nuclear family and of a witness who blames herself for a great tragedy. Kim Jee-woon’s film combines all the classic Western elements of a horror films and bends them to fit the cinematic style of South Korean culture. It’s a wickedly brilliant and delicate film that’s so complex, so layered. So when asked the question, “What’s your favorite horror movie?” A Tale of Two Sisters is one of the few films I can firmly say is a favorite, because it’s a movie that’s meant to be experienced, to be felt, and to be watched. It’s perfect.

Suicide Club | 13 Instant Nights of Halloween

It’s been established for a while now: Sion Sono movies are weird. Suicide Club is probably Sono’s most iconic film, and one with layers upon layers of subtext, so much it could make your head spin if you aren’t the least bit familiar with Japanese culture.

Suicide Club begins with one of the most visceral and shocking scenes in cinema: a group of Japanese schoolgirls fling themselves in front of a train in Tokyo. The mass suicide of 54 teens creates headlines, and a domino effect of suicides start to spring up throughout the city: two nurses jump out a window, a housewife chops off her own fingers, another group of girls fall off a high school roof. Three detectives attempt to make sense of the situation, and try to make something of their lead: a bag with rolls of flesh that was discovered at two of the suicide sites. There is also a website connected to the suicides, discovered by a hacker known at The Bat, a girl named Mitsuko whose boyfriend dies in front of her, and a weird singer named Genesis who hides out in a vacant bowling alley à la Rocky Horror.

So yeah, there are a lot of things going on in Suicide Club, which isn’t uncommon for a Sono vehicle, and it takes multiple viewings to try and make sense of it. It’s a satire about many things: consumerism, fads, and cram school to name a few. The movie constantly asks if you are connected to yourself, which is hard to answer in a world that’s so rampant with a culture that begs you to think how others want you to think; a culture where we hide in our phones behind bubblegum pop (or indie, whatever floats your boat) and become increasingly selfish. “Why couldn’t you feel the pain of others as you would your own? You are the criminal.” Sono’s film was made at the brink of us relying on our mobiles, and as time progresses it’s hard not recognize his commentary was far ahead of its time (he references MySpace – “My Death Space” – in the film – this was a time before Facebook and phone apps).

Of course, one still can’t brush the film aside as strictly a commentary on the youth of Japan, because it also puts a lot of the blame on the adults who raised them. They’re mostly absent, and like the detectives they make the problem worse rather than trying to find a solution to it. There’s a generational gap as Japan becomes increasingly global and less of an isolated island. Of course these themes are a little more spelled out in the film’s sequel, Noriko’s Dinner Table (available on Fandor). While the adults stand on the outside trying to contemplate their children, it’s the latter that are actually attempting to fix things, to find that connection with themselves and those around them.

Suicide Club doesn’t necessarily look sleek and polished, and the structure is a little hard to follow, but this is a time where substance excels over craft (and to be fair, the craft is interesting in its own right). Horror movies aren’t doing their job if they aren’t making you think, making you feel, and with Sono’s 2001 feature there’s a lot to contemplate.

Every day we’re pressing the keys
That executes a million commands.
If only you would say exactly
What is on your mind,
And tell me how you really feel.
Maybe I can lend a helping hand.

Available on: Hulu

"The Final Girl" Roll Call: Laura from The Orphanage

Hello all and welcome to “The Final Girl” Roll Call: a series at GotchaMovies.com where writers Jenny Nulf and Marjorie Vesper dive into their favorite ladies of horror cinema. Horror is a genre that over the years has been stacked with killer female characters, from the ones who survive to the ones who (sadly) don’t. This dark, dastardly, and often times bloody genre has been an outlet for those who have been marginalized and has been used by creatives to explore gender and sexuality since its beginnings.  

So come dive into the vat of blood, guts, and ooze with us and prepare to be screaming along with our queens.

October 2015 Theme: Hauntings (in honor of Crimson Peak)

*WARNING: This article contains spoilers*

The Movie: The Orphanage

J.A. Bayona’s The Orphanage is more of a drama than a horror movie. A film about a mother who searches for her lost child, Bayona and his writing partner Sergio G. Sanchez never ask you to believe that ghosts are real, rather they ask you to take a journey with a woman who is desperate to find her missing son.

It’s interesting that this month Guillermo del Toro hits theaters with his version of the “story with ghosts in it,” because he produced a far superior version of that in 2007 with The Orphanage. Unlike Crimson Peak, Bayona’s film has exquisite depth to it. Laura’s journey searching for her HIV-positive son leads her to discover disturbing things about her past. The Orphanage unfolds beautifully, and while it’s not necessarily a horror movie if you get down to specifics, it’s mingles horror, drama, and suspense with such phenomenal maestro. But the film also tells a story that is classic to the horror genre, about the bond between a mother and her child, and how that bond can transcend reality.

The Girl: Laura

Laura didn’t need to have a child from her womb to embody motherhood so profoundly in The Orphanage. In fact, perhaps since her son isn’t biologically hers it’s what makes their bond so much more powerful as the film progresses. Since Laura herself grew up in an orphanage and didn’t know her parents, she has a kindness to her and an untainted love that’s gripping. Her love is what makes this movie so rich. When Simón disappears and she goes to find him at the cave by the beach, she lurches herself through the water crying, yearning for her son to come back to her. It’s a painful scene to endure, and it certainly sets the tone for her desperate search throughout the second and third acts.

Laura is a well-rounded woman who controls her fate, which is exactly what “the final girl” is in any horror movie. While she doesn’t live, she moves on to a place where she feels happiest (for her, it’s death, so she can be with her childhood friends and child). What’s beautiful about The Orphanage is that the film never judges her choice, but rather embraces it. Like Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, death for Laura is another great fantastical adventure. It’s her happy ending.

When you boil it down, The Orphanage isn’t a ghost story then, but rather a film about loss, which is really what all ghost stories should be about. Laura loses her child, she loses her friends, and in the end her husband loses her. But what makes Bayona’s film so profound is that he never once punishes his characters for their decisions and actions. He embraces them treats them with a fragility that’s truly lovely.

Best Moment: The Ending

As Laura drifts into her eternal Neverland, she is able to meet all her old friends and her son. It’s a wonderful moment, paired with a lovely score by Fernando Velazques that’s delicately sweeping. It also leaves hope in death and for those living who have to deal with those who have moved on.

Crimson Peak | Movie Review

From the beginning, Crimson Peak doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not. It’s like a sweeping gothic novel, somewhere in the overlapping center of a Edgar Allen Poe and Charlotte Brontë Venn diagram. Sure, there are ghosts in the film, but the ghosts only serve to help Mia Wasikowska’s character, Edith Cushing, solve the mystery of her father’s untimely death, which is where Guillermo Del Toro’s dark fable begins.

Edith is a writer, and she’s trying to sell a story that has ghosts in it, but it’s not necessarily a ghost story (hint hint, nudge nudge). When a mysterious stranger (Tom Hiddleston) and his sister (Jessica Chastain) enter her life though she’s swept off her feet (seriously though, who wouldn’t be captivated by Hiddleston?). The only thing in her way is her father (Jim Beaver), who is suspicious of Thomas Sharpe’s motive with his daughter, and who would much rather have Edith end up with their family friend Dr. Alan McMichael (Charlie Hunnam). However his final say is never heard, as he’s mysteriously killed one day at a bathhouse, which leaves Edith falling into the arms of Thomas.

Guillermo del Toro’s gothic feature is very straight forward, and he doesn’t attempt to twist and turn his story. The film was made for atmosphere, and it oozes blood, romance, and a dark, foreboding sense of dread. This is where the movie succeeds most, rather than in its familiar trappings. Del Toro understands spectacle and his lush sets are reminiscent of Josef von Sternberg, if he were to take a walk down Hammer Lane. There’s a beautiful, classic appeal to Crimson Peak that is quite magnetic to watch unfold.

But then there’s the story, and while you’re experiencing the film it feels spectacular, but as the weeks go by the love begins to wane. Character motivations start to become uninteresting and the actual “twist” (if you want to call it that) is very been-there-done-that. As far as plotting goes, there’s nothing terribly original or striking about Del Toro’s latest feature, which isn’t uncommon when it comes to his Hollywood endeavors (Hellboy, Pacific Rim, Mimic, should we go on…?). The essence of originality that Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone are riddled with is disappointingly absent.

While Hiddleston and Wasikowska are certainly perfect for their roles, Jessica Chastain glamorously steals the show, from scraping spoons on porridge bowls to lurking around the broken mansion like a ghost herself. She’s a monstrous presence that creates a sumptuous amount of tension between her and Wasikowska, but Del Toro and writing partner Matthew Robbins really let her down in the final act, when her character’s true intentions and motives are monologued. Chastain sells it, but she could sell a paper bag and make it look exquisite.

Crimson Peak is a love letter to a certain type of genre film that isn’t made anymore – the romantic gothic horror film fans dearly long to see return into fashion. But it’s not perfect. In fact, at times it’s a mess, and at the end of the day that’s what makes this movie forgettable. Gigantic set pieces and powerful performances can disguise Crimson Peak’s flaws when you’re sucked into its presentation, but upon further dissection there’s nothing really spectacular past its spectacle.

The Assassin | Fantastic Fest Review

We rarely see films that surprise us anymore, but The Assassin does just that. Sold as a sweeping historical martial arts epic, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s latest film is a mark of true craftsmanship, creating a film that is less straightforward than anticipated, but certainly more rewarding to watch.

Set during the decline of the Tang Dynasty, the film follows Nie Yinniang (Qi Shu), a woman who was abducted from her family at the young age of 10 to study under a nun, Jiaxin (Sheu Fang-yi), who trained her to become a lethal assassin to kill corrupt officials. Yinniang is masterful, able to swiftly execute her targets without remorse. However, things start turning around when she receives her next target, Lord Tian Ji’an (Chen Chang), the governor of Weibo who also happens to be her cousin and the man she was betrothed to when she was young. She’s given plenty of opportunities to do her duty, but each time she hesitates and fails, gliding away from the scene leaving her presence known.

There are very few directors in the modern age that can really grasp mise-en-scéne, but Hou firmly does and with The Assassin he is able to beautifully show off. He captures every detail in the frame like Stanley Kubrick would, creating vivid and striking portraits within the square frame. Cinematographer Ping Bin Lee shot the film on 35mm and his attention to detail combined with Hou’s is unparalleled. They’ve created a martial arts film that is more art house and sublime, reinventing the genre and bending it to their will. Shu floats over rooftops and from atop bannisters, a staple of the Chinese martial arts film, but it’s done so with more elegance than the artists in, say, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. There’s a lightness to her feet that makes Yinniang’s movements look more natural, more fluid.

The costuming also serves as another layer of decadence for the film. Jewel colored traditional garments work as the film’s place setting, giving it an authentic period piece feel without going overboard. It’s clear from the hairpieces alone that these characters are of royalty, with gold pins and clasps dangling from their sleek black hair. The attention to detail is flawless, and it’s what makes The Assassin not just great, but grand.

The film closely follows the constructs of the Taiwanese New Wave, for which director Hou was a pioneer. With very minimal exposition, Hou expects his audience to keep up with his characters’ motivations. He relies on telling his story with visuals rather than exposition, and when he does invite his characters to talk it flows like natural conversation. Things are repeated, but with each repetition something new is uncovered. His words are poetic, and it feels like classic art; smart and majestic.

The Assassin uniquely bends storytelling and utilizes striking visual imagery to progress its plot. This is how films should be watched, felt rather than spoon-fed. With every frame a story is being told and Hou knows that, and he captivates. It’s a film that’s meant to be viewed multiple times so one can grasp its clever intricacies. The Assassin is a masterpiece of the modern era.

The Keeping Room | Movie Review

What if you were the last woman on Earth? That’s certainly been a theme as of late with movies coming out of film festivals this year. In Z for Zachariah, Margot Robbie is the designated last woman standing after a nuclear holocaust, and in The Keeping Room we have three women, Augusta (Brit Marling), Louise (Hailee Steinfeld), and their slave girl Mad (Muna Otaru), who are all wondering if they are the last women alive after the American Civil War.

The three ladies spend their days working on the farm, mostly in brooding silence. Except one day that silence is turned sour when the younger sister Louise finds herself hurt. Falling ill, Augusta goes to town to find medicine for her sister, but instead she only finds death, decay, and two Union soldiers who have been ransacking the countryside, raping and killing women. Augusta manages to escape the men, but winds up leading them to her home, where her sister lay sick.

The Keeping Room is a twist on the western; a period-piece home invasion film that’s littered with historical relevance. The film takes place during Sherman’s March, also known as the “March of the Sea,” where 60,000 soldiers walked a 285-mile stretch from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia where they stole food, livestock, and burned down the homes of the civilians who fought back. Daniel Barber’s film is told from the perspective of the women who were left at home during the war, and in this case the kinds of women who fought back.

And in The Keeping Room do they ever fight back. Julia Hart writes incredibly powerful females who have the world taken from them, but they still carry on. Augusta’s lost her home, Louise loses her virtue, and Mad loses the man she loves. Yet these women throughout the night never stop giving it their all. There’s a powerful message here for women, that even when the horizon is ablaze there’s still time to move on, still a new place to go.

What really works here is that Hart’s screenplay slowly burns until the aforementioned home invasion. Sometimes this hinders the pacing of the film, but overall it works to its benefit. You start to feel these ladies’ routine. Augusta plays the leader, always looking out for Louise even though her stubborn racism sometimes becomes overbearing. Mad is less tolerant, but she still innately cares about Louise, so she does her best to ignore the girl’s silent tantrums when she dines with her.

The two men, played by Sam Worthington and Kyle Soller, don’t really have any depth to them. They’re just butchers roaming from one place to the next, raping and pillaging their way through the South. There’s some interesting subtext to that; but it also fits in line with your typical horror film terrorist: the monster is invading the home just because, and no other reason but. The only difference here is that they’re monsters dressed up in Union soldiers’ clothing.

Women rarely have a place in westerns. The iconic genre is a man’s genre, but Hart, Barber, and the film’s three leading ladies prove that it’s not just that. We want to see more films like Z for Zachariah and The Keeping Room; films about strong women who fight men and the end of the world (whether that world is dystopia or the tail end of a major war is just a minor detail). The Keeping Room doesn’t lose itself in rape-revenge, but rather rejuvenates the genre and creates a distinct tale about survival. When the bullish patriarchy comes along and the subjected are discriminated and attacked, they will stand tall and keep on fighting.

The Green Inferno | Movie Review

Eli Roth’s comeback behind the camera was severely delayed due to production company difficulties, but now we’ll be living in the Fall of Roth where you’ll not only be able to see one, but two films directed by the man. However, if you’re looking for the Roth film to pour your money into, The Green Inferno is not the one you should be holding out for.

The movie begins with Justine (Lorenza Izzo), a young college freshman who is in the midst of discovering where she belongs, but things start to become a little clear when she notices an activist group outside her dorm window. Even though her roommate has some choice words about the far-too-skinny food protestors, Justine is drawn to them though, especially the cute boy activist Alejandro (Ariel Levy). So Justine packs her bags and plans on a philanthropic adventure to Peru, where she plans on saving a section of the rain forest that’s inhabited by an ancient, local tribe. This all would have been a very sweet idea if those natives also didn’t happen to be cannibals.

Roth was inspired by the exploitive cannibal films of his youth, and he makes it clear throughout the film from specific nods to Cannibal Holocaust to the list of all the cannibal smut films he rented from the local video store in his youth. It’s oddly sweet that Roth attempted an ode to his favorite genre, but unfortunately it falls flat because Roth’s vision is just a repurposed version of Hostel. A college student gallivants off to a third-ish world country and then the country bites back. Trade the psychotic rich men for cannibals, and you have your classic Roth torture porn.

Roth longs to create exciting movies in the style of the B-horror movies he grew up on, but his lack one important element those thrive on: fun. Roth takes his filmmaking seriously, and he creates selfish, dumb, and brutally mean spirited characters just so he can axe them. There’s no camp to counteract his schlock, so what you’re stuck with is a horror movie that’s genuinely mean to both its characters and, in the case of The Green Inferno, other cultures. He succeeds at telling stories that are ripe with the fear of the unknown, and anticipates that his audience will be smart enough to catch on to his nods to horror history. Except, his nods aren’t that smart and they don’t elevate the genre. With The Green Inferno Roth shows us that he’s a better producer than he is a filmmaker. He can sell a film, but he can’t procure an idea and develop it for the screen.

So when Justine is screaming for help as the cannibals try to mutilate her genitals, it’s hard to watch. She’s the protagonist we like enough, yet Roth does his best to tear her down and never let her back up. While maybe someone could find a little bit of enjoyment when the jerk kids meet their impending doom, there’s absolutely none when Justine is tortured. She’s punished for trying to be a better person, and perhaps what Roth is trying to say here is that American white females shouldn’t try to make a difference in other countries. Sure, there are plenty of cases where white elitism has wrecked other countries, but not many can say that attempting to protect the home of an ancient culture is harmful. The Green Inferno chastises a woman for trying to prevent deforestation, for believing in a cause outside what’s put in her Starbucks latte. Furthermore, it affirms the fear of the other, a Roth-ism that’s so old and trite it’s tiresome. The Green Inferno is a culturally insensitive piece of work that doesn’t manage to be effective. Limbs are lobbed off and tongues are cut out, but throughout this ramped up gory display one thought keeps coming to mind: why do we still root for Roth when he’s only rooting for himself?