V/H/S 2 [2013] (English): A tab bit better than its predecessor

After watching V/H/S, the first Horror Anthology in this series, I was a bit apprehensive about watching this one. Not only because such serial movies tend to become repetitive, losing the novelty of the first one. But also due to the fact that the first movie did not impress me so much. Yet, I decided to give this one a try. And I can't say I was disappointed. Not that this movie was very impressive or ground-breaking or anything. For it suffers from the same handicaps that the first movie did. But it also scores as good as the first one for exploring some original ideas.

Just like the first movie, this too is an anthology of horror short films, each one directed by a different director, and each one exploring an individual unrelated story. Each short film uses the now well-worn found-footage format. And one of the shorts is used as a frame narrative, which also acts as an individual story on its own.

The movie starts off with "Tape 49" directed by Simon Barrett. This one acts as a frame narrative, within which the other stories take place. It tells the story of a P.I. who has been commissioned by a college student's mother to investigate her son's disappearance. While searching through the abandoned and dark home of the college student, they stumble upon a series of VHS tapes. While the P.I. search the house, his colleague plays the tapes to get a clue as to the missing student's whereabouts. This frame narrative story is even more drab and mediocre than the frame narrative story of the first movie. It tries to explain how viewing the tapes can lead to disastrous circumstances (duh!). There are hardly any surprises and shocks. The story is uninspired. The direction appears awkward. On the whole, I personally did not like it very much.

The next story is "Phase I Clinical Trials" directed by Adam Wingard. There is one thing I really liked about the first movie. That is the use of various types of hidden cams, including a spy cam on eye-glasses. This movie takes a giant leap further in that regard. For example, in this story, the hidden camera is located within the eye-implant of the protagonist. Neat, huh!? A guy, who has nearly lost his vision of one of his eyes in an accident, is fitted with an artificial implant that will help him see again from his impaired eye. It is an experimental device and hence the company will be capturing the footage of whatever the man views through his eye and saving it for a few days, for testing purpose only. But guess what? The guy starts seeing people that aren't supposed to be there... The premise of the story is pretty interesting. Its jolts and shocks are effective enough. So is some of the explanation that comes forward in the form of a girl who comes to the protagonist's help. On the whole, this story was quite better as compared to the other stories in the lot...

The next one is "A Ride in the Park" directed by Eduardo Sánchez and Gregg Hale. It is a short story about horror that takes place inside some sort of national park. Its a zombie story (which is not surprising considering that the Z-word is the new magic buzz-word in Horror movies nowadays, isn't it?). There is one area in which this movie pushes the boundaries of the shaky camera genre even further - that area being, the placement of the camera. In this short story, the camera is located on the helmet of a cyclist who has turned into a zombie. Apart from this very novel idea and an excessive amount of blood, gore and disemboweled zombies, this short film doesn't have anything interesting.

The next one is "Safe Haven" directed by Timo Tjahjanto and Gareth Huw Evans. This one is Indonasian. It is also the longest story in the batch. And personally, I think it is the best one in the anthology. A news crew approaches the "father" of a reclusive religious cult. They are invited to interview him and visit the cult's abode. What they discover there makes a pretty interesting good old-fashioned traditional horror tale.

The last story is named "Slumber Party" directed by Jason Eisener. It is about a slumber party held by a bunch of kids at their home - an open property complete with a barn - near a big lake. There is sibling rivalry and fun and frolic. All is going well until they spot unusual lights on the lake. This one is the most uninteresting story of the lot. Except for one novel innovation. The hidden camera that captures most of the footage of the episode is mounted by one kid on the head of their pet dog!

This movie certainly scores points for pushing the frontiers of the shaky camera sub-genre beyond what its predecessor did. And it loses some points for a few script as well as directorial failures similar to ones evident in some of the stories from the first movie. It has a lot of unnecessary blood and gore and a couple of unnecessary sexually explicit scenes. But some of its stories are so good that they make it a worthwhile watch, at least once, if not more.

My Ratings: 2

V/H/S [2012] (English): a horror anthology with unutilized potential

This is an anthology of six unrelated horror short films, each one directed by a different director. Each story is depicted in found-footage format using the shaky camera-work technique.

The movie starts off with "Tape 56" directed by Adam Wingard. This one is used as a frame narrative, where the other 5 stories are shown within this as the central story. It shows the exploits of a group of criminals who record their exploits and post the videos on the net. Someone has hired them to break into a house and retrieve a VHS tape. The house belongs to some old guy. When they break in, they find him dead in a room with multiple TVs and VCRs. While the others search the house for any more VHS tapes, one guy has to sit in the room with the old mans dead body and go through the tapes available there. As the guy plays each tape, we are taken into the narrative of each of the other 5 stories. Needless to say, this story ends with a nice but predictable twist ending. Except for the short sequence in the basement, the story lacked much of a punch and on the whole, turned out to be just a simple filler between the other stories.

The first video the criminal guy from the frame narrative watches is "Amateur Night" directed by David Bruckner. A trio of young guys have recently bought a spectacles with a camera in it (Google Glass???). They ask the most nerdy guy among them to wear it. Then they go have some fun in the bar. There they pick up a couple of girls and return to their apartment to spend a night of obvious debauchery. But they are in for a nasty surprise. This story had potential. But they ruined it for me by putting in way too much gore. Not to mention it was sexually explicit. And the camerawork was at times too shaky. But I give points for the interesting twist at the end.

The next story is called "Second Honeymoon" directed by Ti West. I have watched his famous movies The Innkeepers and The House of the Devil, and I enjoyed them both. So I had great expectations from this one. But I was quite disappointed. Apart from a bit of suspense and a very unexpected and original ending, the short lacked entertainment for me.

"Tuesday the 17th" (sounds like Friday the 13th? You bet it does) directed by Glenn McQuaid is about a bunch of two guys and two gals who visit a lake deep in the woods. This one is a pure no-brainer that lacks originality, but certainly adds the thrills (if you prefer slasher movies, albeit with a possible supernatural twist)

"The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger" directed by Joe Swanberg has a pretty original but utterly preposterous story. It does have some good thrills. But overall, I would rate it as average.

The last one is "10/31/98" by a group of directors who call themselves Radio Silence. It is about a bunch of guys who visit a friend's house for the Halloween party. But it seems that there is no one in the house... Or is there? Personally, I think this is the best one among them all. Its your good old-fashioned horror tale. Where it lacks in originality, it makes up for in suspense, thrills, scares and the supernatural.

The beauty of any short film is that it does not beat round the bush. It delivers the goods quickly without the overhead of character or story building. And that is its drawback too. It is too short for explanations. One is left to assume certain things, concentrating more on delivering the gist of the story and the action involved. The same is true for these short films. They deliver the punch pretty effectively. But please don't go around looking for explanations or background stories.

These short films do aim to push the boundaries of the found footage horror genre. And to some extent they do succeed. For there is a certain uniqueness in each of the story, that deserves appreciation. But somewhere, I think, it failed to deliver the stories to their full potential. May be the direction could have been a bit better. Same can be said for some of the scripts. Overall, it is a case of hit-and-miss, where some stories are good, while others are disappointing.

Some of the stories have sexually explicit scenes, which is a bit of a turn off. Also some of them show way too much blood and gore. Call me a prude if you will, but according to me, a good horror story need not take help of unnecessary sexual scenes or excessive blood and gore in order to entertain.

On the whole, this one is worth watching once, but not more than that.

My Ratings: 2

Europa Report [2013] (English): The thrill of discovery

Some Sci-Fi movies are about ideas and the science of the future. Some, or rather most of them are about high-tech action based in the future. This movie is about the the pursuit of discovery, and how far can a team of humans go, in order to make that discovery...

I am a sucker for Sci-Fi movies. The ideas and the science in them appeal to me. While trawling through the net for prospective Sci-Fi movies of this year, the name "Europa Report" caught my attention. The title itself sounded so appealing. I have always been fascinated by Europa. With its shiny white surface covered with red patches and what looks like scratch marks, I find it most intriguing among the four famous "Galilean Moons" of Jupiter (so named because they were first discovered by Galileo). So I dived in without even looking up its trailer...

When the movie started, I was a bit disappointed to know that it used the Found Footage format, making use of footage from various stationary and hand-held cameras to tell the story. I have seen one found footage Sci-Fi movie before - Apollo 18, and I was a bit disappointed by it. No doubt it had its share of thrills and suspense, which are a hallmark of any good Found Footage movie. But the basic premise, the idea behind the story did not appeal to me at all. Plus, Sci-Fi movies are a lot about eye-candy - VFX, beautiful outer-space locales, a spanning panorama of stars, fancy space-ships, the works... And one can't expect good VFX in the found footage format because of the stationary camera and its comparatively mediocre ability to capture good visuals.

But by the time the movie ended, it left me feeling mildly enthralled. The movie's story had managed to invoke in me the awe and wonder I had felt as a youngster, every time I would let my imagination soar at the prospect of travelling through space, wondered what we would find out there...

The movie does not weigh itself down with an over-ambitious scientific idea. Its premise is quite simple. A team of six astronauts embark on a voyage through interplanetary space to Europa - one of the moons of Jupiter. Their mission: to search for signs of life under Europa's crust of ice.

The mission is being sponsored and executed by Europa Ventures, a private firm. For a welcome change, NASA is nowhere involved - its a privately funded mission. The footage from the various cameras on board the spaceship are being broadcast back to earth.

The first half depicts their journey through the vast chasm of space that lies between the planets. The movie captures well the enthusiasm of the crew. And its infectious. After all, they are going farther than any Man has ever gone before. But like any ground-breaking voyages, this one is full of perils. The first disaster strikes, when halfway through, they loose all communications. While trying to repair the comm modules, one of the crew members is lost. All the exhilaration of the unique voyage suddenly dies out. The harsh reality of the perilous nature of the voyage suddenly dawns upon them all. But this will not be the last disaster they face... The stakes are high, for, if successful, they believe that their discovery could prove to be a most profound one in Human history. So they press on. How the crew members face one difficulty after another, and how they press on against all odds, and the sacrifices they make in pursuit of their discovery, is what fuels the rest of the story.

The found footage format does put a damper on what could have been a very good movie experience. But there are moments in the movie which not only justify the found footage format, but actually take advantage of it to give an entertaining movie experience. For example, this is one of the very few rare Sci-Fi movies which explains and portrays the use of centrifugal force to generate artificial gravity in zero-G. Its a nice little scene where a guy is shooting a personal tour of the ship for his kid. The guy hands the camera to his colleague, and then climbs the stairs from the ground (which is the inner surface of the rotating ship) towards its center of the ship, and as he ascends, he begins to float. And while he floats, we can see beyond (or above?) him, another astronaut descending (going upwards in reverse) at the opposite end of the ship.

There are moments when the found footage format does get on the nerves though. And it doesn't help that during the first half, the story keeps toggling to and fro between flash-back and flash-forward, giving us a sneak-peek of impending disaster. It gets a bit confusing at times. One has to concentrate on the timeline displayed in months : days : hours format every time the story switches back or forward in time.

If you have seen the movie Mission to Mars, then you will recognize the similarity of the plots. To be frank, Mission to Mars scores over Europa Report, because it was shot in normal format. So it was able to render some really awesome sequences (the space walk rescue attempt is one of my most favourite sequences in that movie). But it loses to Europa Report in one aspect. Its climax was too over-done for my taste. But Europa Report has managed to maintain rationality in its somewhat action-wise subdued but utterly realistic and believable climax. And in the end, it does manage to answer a question raised within the movie itself: "Compared to the breadth of knowledge yet to be known, what does your life actually matter?"

On the whole a really nice Sci-Fi flick. Worth watching at least once...

My Rating: 3.5

The Last Exorcism I [2010] & II [2013] (English): Surprisingly more than mediocre

Right from the time shaky camera / found footage genre captured my imagination after watching Paranormal Activity and Rec, I have searched for and viewed quite a lot of similar movies. Some were mediocre. Many were disappointing. After a while, it just  becomes s.o.s (same old story). Boring and repetitive.

But sometimes, a movie comes along, that does something different with a worn out formula, and leaves a mark on your memory. One such movie was The Last Exorcism... When I read that the movie used shaky camera technique, my first impression was: "Paranormal Activity meets The Exorcist"... Which proved wrong.

To be frank, the movie does not have anything new to add to the well worn shaky camera technique. The acting is strictly ok. So is the direction. But the real winner was the story. I will not disclose exactly why, except for stating that its a pretty rational take on the ritual of exorcism. The only thing that one might not like is the twist ending that might leave a bitter aftertaste for the rational viewer. Personally, I enjoyed the end as well.

My rating (for "The Last Exorcism"): 3.5

And then I stumbled across a sequel to this nice flick. I was surprised, because as far as I could tell, there was nothing left in the climax of the first movie to warrant a sequel. Maybe it won't be the continuation of the same story. But a different story with different characters but same central theme? I was wrong...

If you enjoyed the first movie, and expect something similar, you will be disappointed. First of all, the sequel veers away from the shaky camera technique used in the first movie. It has your traditional movie camera work. Secondly, it continues the story from the first part, which by all means should have ended right there in the first part itself. And thirdly, the theme of the story is entirely different from the brilliant theme of the first part. So by all counts, the sequel is a disappointing flick.

But why do I mention it here? Because there are two things that make the movie stand out.

First is the brilliant direction and camera-work. Its pretty neat for a horror flick. They have made good use of the light and the settings instead of excessive and unnecessary use of CG. The direction is nice too. Throughout the movie, they have managed to maintain the pace. Instead of using blood-and-gore or horror, the movie creates an unsettling atmosphere, which manages to satisfy the hunger of the horror movie fan.

Second thing worth mentioning in this movie is the acting of Ashley Bell who enacts the lead protagonist. Sometimes a bit overdone, her acting still manages to seem very convincing and professional. She certainly has good acting potential and I hope she does not get stereotyped for these kind of roles only.
But both of these good attributes cannot hide the disappointing fact that the story of the sequel is really below average. Yet these two points make it worth watching once, if not more.

The movie ends with an opening for yet another sequel. But I seriously hope they don't go for it. As it is, the current sequel was stretching it a bit too far. Stretch it more, and the rubber-band will break...

My ratings (for the sequel "The Last Exorcism II"): 2.5