Movie Review Happy Death Day

Happy Death Day (2017) 

Directed by Christopher Landon

Written by Scott Lobdell 

Starring Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard 

Release Date October 13th, 2017 

Happy Death Day is one of the best surprises of 2017. This seemingly throwaway teen slasher flick turns out to be a sneaky black comedy version of Groundhog Day if Bill Murray were being murdered every day. The film was directed by Christopher Lambert whose résumé is riddled with mediocre screenplays for the Paranormal Activity franchise and whose first feature was the idiotic Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, which leaves me to wonder where he’s been hiding this version of his work?

Happy Death Day stars budding superstar Jessica Rothe as Tree Gelbman, a perky blonde college girl raised on the aesthetics of Mean Girls and Legally Blonde. Her life is lived one party to the next and one partner to the next, until one day she wakes up and finds that the nightmare she had the night before about being murdered by a psycho in a baby mask, was actually real and that she is, for no discernible reason, reliving the day of her death over and over again.

Like Groundhog Day, Happy Death Day doesn’t have much interest in why Tree is stuck in a loop, rather the filmmakers are obsessed with what she does with her repeated days. These break down into several scenarios familiar from Groundhog Day but each with a fun little twist. Tree’s predicament seems like it might be framed for typical slasher fare but instead, the film is infused with a darkly comic, almost slapstick, take on Tree’s predicament in which she constantly tries to anticipate her killer and fails only to wake up comically frustrated by her latest death.

Director Landon crafts a quite clever story that does well to establish a number of potential murderers, among them Tree’s roommate, her sorority rival, a dopey frat guy, a weirdo stalker, Tree’s dad, her love interest Carter (Israel Broussard), and an escaped serial killer. Watching Tree spend some of her days investigating her own death proves to be a good deal of fun, especially her failures in which she is murdered in increasingly unlikely ways.

Find my full length review in the Horror Community on Vocal 

Movie Review Paranormal Activity 3

Paranormal Activity 3 (2011) 

Directed by Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman  

Written by Christopher Landon 

Starring Katie Featherston, Lauren Bittner, Chris Smith 

Release Date October 21st, 2011 

Published October 21st, 2011 

If you have seen one Paranormal Activity movie, you've seen all three Paranormal Activity movies. Yes, the characters are different in each movie but the style and the general set up and execution are pretty much the same.

Paranormal Activity 3 is dressed up as a prequel intended to shed light on how the sister characters from 1 & 2, played by Sprague Graydon and Katie Featherston, ended up as targets of evil spirits but the prequel aspect doesn't really matter much; if you can really tell which sister was in which movie you care much more than I did.

The bottom line is that the set up and execution is the same for each of the movies. Cameras are trained on a home where strange things keep happening. Cameras are pointed at the beds of family members, as well as in the living room and kitchen.

Long stretches of film pass with nothing happening until something seems to move. More time passes and the movements become more noticeable. Finally, a crash is heard and something potentially deathly happens as the audience leaps in their seats.

The set up worked in the first '"Paranormal Activity" movie because of the novelty of director Oren Peli's no budget approach. "Paranormal Activity 2" however, exposed the holes in this premise and added the hoary concept of a child in danger.

"Paranormal Activity 3" wears out the welcome of this once novel approach to horror filmmaking in the first 30 minutes of the movie. Irksome characters standing in for the mother (Lauren Bittner) of the two sisters, Katie and Kristi, from the first two films, played as children by Jessica Tyler Brown and Chloe Csengery, and the mother's boyfriend (Christopher N. Smith), are no different from the characters troubled in the first two films.

The boyfriend carries his camera everywhere he goes for no other reason than the plot requires it. He sets up cameras throughout the house and with no surprise whatsoever causes friction with his girlfriend, even as the cameras clearly capture the ghostly presence that is wreaking havoc throughout the house.

If there is one modest innovation in "Paranormal Activity 3" it is a rotating camera jerry-rigged onto a rotating fan base. As the camera pans between the kitchen and living room we know that it will reveal something terrifying eventually and the slow turn of the camera is an effective piece of suspense until it too wears out its welcome.

"Paranormal Activity 3" is yet another in a long line of cynical cash grabs that don't even have the decency to hide their commercial intentions behind even low rent entertainment. The modest scares of "Paranormal Activity 3" rarely rise to the level of those in the first film, mostly because they're basically reruns.

Movie Review Paranormal Activity 2

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) 

Directed by Tod Williams 

Written by Michael R. Perry, Christopher Landon

Starring Micah Sloat, Katie Featherston

Release Date October 22nd, 2010

Published October 21st, 2010 

You can never go home again. It's a quote I live by as a way of looking forward instead of looking back. Sometimes, it seems that all Hollywood can do is look back. Sequel after sequel attempts to recreate the brilliance of an original and 99.9% of these sequels fail. Why? Because, you can't go home again. You can't recreate greatness. Failing to look forward inevitably leads to falling down. The makers of “Paranormal Activity 2” are at the moment tumbling into the abyss.

I won't spend much time on a plot description as many of you are going to see this film and may actually find a way to enjoy it; I understand a good buzz might help. Essentially, a California family finds themselves plagued by unseen forces. The actions of these unseen forces, possibly linked to the past of mom, Kristie, are caught on the family's new in-home security system; cameras conveniently placed everywhere from the patio to the bedroom of the new baby, Hunter.

Doors slam from unseen forces acting on them. Drawers and cabinets spill their contents for no earthly reason. And, noises and voices can be heard late in the night and their source is nowhere to be found. For nights on end these creepy things keep happening, all captured on camera and pored over the following morning by the dazed and confused family.

The key to the first “Paranormal Activity,” released just a year ago, was the surprise and the seeming newness of director Oren Peli's approach. Sure, we'd seen something of it's like in “The Blair Witch Project” and “Open Water,” each film features first person filmmaking that claims to be found footage cut together by those hoping to piece together a horror story as if from an investigators perspective.

The main difference with “Paranormal Activity” was the supreme payoff that director Peli delivered like a gut punch to his prone audience well captivated by his talent for creepy images and clever sound play. Fair to say much of “Paranormal Activity” played on the stock horror cliché of the misplaced noise but the low budget spirit, the film cost under 15 grand to make, gave the film a clever underdog spirit that made the cliché charming.

”Paranormal Activity 2” has no such underdog spirit; it is indeed the well renowned favorite heading into the Halloween horror movie box office sweepstakes. Audiences enter the sequel knowing what to expect and getting exactly that, over and over and over again. Scene after scene of set up, noise, jump and back to daylight for a brief post mortem before the lowlight cameras pop on again and await the next jumpy noise or thing that moves that shouldn't.

By the sixth night this reviewer couldn't wait for the Demon to finally arrive and finish either the family or him off. “Paranormal Activity 2” is a tedious attempt to recreate the scares of the first film but lacking the clever visuals and anchored to a lame back story to connect it with the first film that I'm sure is meant to be surprising but is merely perfunctory.

Original director Oren Peli stepped aside for the sequel, offering only a pass at the script. The sequel is directed by Tod Williams a talented storyteller who’s “Door in the Floor” was a pompous but effective character piece. Sadly, Williams is on auto-pilot in “Paranormal Activity 2” which frankly is the rare film that might have benefited from a little pomposity. At least then the characters would exist beyond their ability to play scared.

You can't go home again but you can go to the bank whenever you want and that is impetus behind “Paranormal Activity 2”. Paramount Pictures is going to the bank and we will bankroll them because we want to believe that you can go home again, that the things we loved before can be recreated for us. Sequels play on a modern nostalgia in which something is lamented just days or months after it came into existence.

”Paranormal Activity” was a phenomenon just a year ago but it may as well have been a decade ago in our disposable culture and pop junkies began lamenting the past mere months after the film was available on DVD. Now, that lament is being channeled to the big screen in a cash grab attempt to tap our memories to get to our wallet. It's the height of cynicism and topped with the tedium of the actual film, it makes “Paranormal Activity 2” an unbearable experience.

Movie Review: Disturbia

Disturbia (2007) 

Directed by D.J Caruso 

Written by Christopher Landon, Carl Ellsworth 

Starring Shia LeBeouf, Aaron Yoo, Sarah Roemer, Carrie Ann Moss, David Morse

Release Date April 13th, 2007

Published April 13th, 2007

We all have movies we love that no one else even vaguely remembers. For me, one of those movies was director D.J Caruso's independent debut feature The Salton Sea. A dour but very clever modern nor starring Val Kilmer, The Salton Sea is a triumph of smart scripting and clever direction. Caruso's work since that debut, Taking Lives, Two For The Money, have been slipshod big star vehicles that are as slick as they are forgettable.

For his latest film, Disturbia, however; Caruso looks to be back in form. A modern, teenage take on Hitchcock's Rear Window, Disturbia uses the tools and techniques of classic cinema to craft a tricky, if somewhat predictable, little thriller; much more entertaining than you might expect.

Kale (Shia LeBeouf) lost his dad in a horrific car accident. Since then he has become a problem child whose troubles come to a head one day when he punched out his Spanish teacher. A sympathetic judge keeps Kale out of juvenile hall. The compromise however is no picnic. Kale will spend his summer trapped in his house under the ever watchful electronic watchdog, an ankle bracelet.

At first it's all videogames and cable TV but when mom (Carrie Ann Moss) cuts off both of his sources of entertainment, Kale finds his attention drawn to his neighbors windows. Using his high powered video camera and his dad's old binoculars, Kale begins capturing his neighbors routines. On one side he finds the new girl next door Ashley (Sarah Roemer). On the other side is Robert Turner, a creepy loner who fits the profile of a serial killer that Kale and his pal Ronny (Aaron Yoo) have been following on the news.

Soon the girl next door has joined the boys in their stakeout of the creepy neighbor who may or may not be a serial killer.

Disturbia takes the classic conceit of Hitchcock's Rear Window and updates it for the Ipod generation. Using plenty of modern gadgetry, director D.J Caruso uses technique to create tension and strong characters to create rooting interest and Disturbia becomes surprisingly involving. When it's quiet and watching Kale unfold his relationship with Ashley it has a John Hughes feel. When the tension is ratcheted up, Disturbia becomes old school Hitchcock by way of radio shack.

Shia Le Beouf is a young actor whose appeal is difficult to isolate. He isn't handsome, he doesn't cut a tough guy figure by any stretch. What he does have though is that classically Tom Hanks kind of goofy everyman thing. It is that quality that allows him to play the unique duality of Kale in Disturbia. On the one hand, he is an unlikely romantic interest for the beautiful girl next door. On the other hand he is the unlikely action hero running to the rescue.

David Morse is so effortlessly creepy he could be Giovonni Ribisi. With his imposing height and disquieting calm, Morse plays the creepy part of a serial with the zeal of a great method actor taking on Shakespeare's Hamlet. The script undercuts Morse's character by giving away too much too soon but that doesn't stop Morse from projecting menace well enough to keep you glued to the screen.

If there is one thing that irritates me about Disturbia it is that faux hip title. Disturbia as a title is too clever by half. It's just so market tested, as if an ad executive were trying to invent some hip teenage slang. Of course, if the one issue I can find with a movie is its title, that must be a pretty good movie. And, Disturbia is a pretty good movie, not great but really good.

Disturbia is a quick on its feet modern thriller, slightly predictable but endlessly watchable. Director D.J Caruso is old school in his approach to crafting and creating tension. He's also quite modern in the way he sews together two different genre aspects, the thriller and the coming of age romance. It helps to have a talented young cast to deliver on your vision and Caruso is blessed.

Shia Le Beouf may be a star in the making, watch for him in Transformers this summer, see him in Disturbia soon.