Ohm My God

Full disclosure here: the film that I am going to review today is by no means a great movie. . . it is one of those rare pictures that transcends its low budget faults, somehow equating to late-night, cheesy goodness. A cult classic out of 1984, Douglas Cheek’s C.H.U.D. is a sci-fi film parading as a horror film, or is it a horror film parading as a comedy? Opening with a spectacular wide angle shot of a grimy, New York street in the middle of the night, a lady walks her dog, the camera slowly moving in until we only see a sewer grate, the canine and her feet (her shadow covering most of the shot). Dropping something, she reaches to retrieve it. . . and, in an instant, a giant monster-ish hand pops out from the metal cover, pulling both of the nightwalkers into the underground abyss.

Ah, the mysteries of the Black Panther. . . not Wakanda, vibranium, or the ever growing Marvel franchise, but rather, the enigma that is those giant cats that have been rumoured to be part human. First explored in the 1942 classic B horror film Cat People, reviewed here on Filmizon last October, director Paul Schrader remade it in 1982 under the same title, finding his own unique spin on the tale. Starting a little earlier than normal this year, this will be the beginning of a number of horror reviews leading up to Halloween (if you are not a horror fan, fear not, there will still be several non horror related pictures reviewed).

Children: those cute, innocent little scamps that bring a smile to our faces get a frightening makeover in Colm McCarthy’s The Girl with All the Gifts – a 2016 zombie horror flick out of Britain that finds some interesting new ground within the sub-genre. Finding a place somewhere between Day of the Dead and 28 Days Later, a small group of people have kept some normalcy at a military base (much of which is underground – similar to the former film mentioned above). . . mostly armed soldiers, the men fall under the control of Sgt. Eddie Parks (Paddy Considine), who only answers to Dr. Caroline Caldwell (Glenn Close) – a military scientist who has been tasked with researching the fungal outbreak that has caused a worldwide zombie-like plague (only the creatures are excessively fast, much like the latter feature referenced above).

They first appeared late one night, which then led to the dawn of a new, more frightening day. . . now, they own said day – the third in George A. Romero’s anthology zombie franchise, 1985's Day of the Dead finds a small group of desolate individuals attempting to survive the ever growing and encroaching human eating hordes, a task that is easier said than done. Featuring a three pronged attack, Romero (who writes and directs) utilizes touches of German Expressionism, 60s psychological horror (think Roman Polanski’s Repulsion) and brutal gore to keep his audience on its toes. Our survivors are cloistered away in an underground military camp – a ragtag team pieced together in the final days of organized chaos to search for some sort of cure for the growing number of undead. They do, from time to time, head out in their helicopter, searching for survivors – the famed Edison theatre in Fort Myers, Florida, can be seen in the opening sequence.

The obituary – the last call, the final farewell, the closing shindig (likely the only remaining time you’ll be the centre of attention), basically a public invite looking for a person’s friends and family to come together for one last time to say goodbye, to tell stories, and to find some solace in closing the book on a man or woman’s story. . . but is it truly the end? Opening with an obituary, first time filmmaker Ari Aster’s Hereditary transports us into a reeling family dynamic, a group that have about as much promise in their lineage as the Usher’s (the Edgar Allan Poe characters, not the hip hop/pop artist). With mental illness coursing through their blood, Annie Graham (Toni Collette) did not exactly have a great relationship with her mother – often estranged, the elderly lady, who lived with dissociative identity disorder, ended her days dealing with dementia, further adding to the enigma that was her highly private life.

I love these types of stories. In 2008, Argentinian Andy Muschietti wrote and directed a two minute, thirty five second short film along with his producer sister Barbara, entitled Mamá. Catching the eye of horror maestro Guillermo del Toro, he helped develop an American full length feature (along with producer friend J. Miles Dale – both are now Oscar winners after this past year’s The Shape of Water), which was released in 2013 (a huge success, the flick raked in one hundred, forty six million on just a fifteen million dollar budget). And, just this past year, the siblings ushered in one of the most popular and lucrative horror pictures in some time – It. . . the brother and sister are now pre-producing the much anticipated sequel, slated for a 2019 release. But, it all started with the short. Following two young sisters, Lily (Victoria Harris) and Victoria (Berta Ros), the former wakes the latter from a deep sleep. . . from Lily’s stunned, hapless entrance (never taking her eyes off the open door), we knowing something foul is afoot.