This poster really sucks. Honestly it's not one of those Scary Kid movies. The kid doesn't even look like that and spends most of the movie in a coma. I don't know why they want to make it look like a CHILDREN OF THE CORN DTV sequel or yet another THE OMEN ripoff. It's more of a POLTERGEIST.

Rose Byrne (CIA lady from X-MEN FIRST CLASS) plays a mother of three, just moved, her husband is Patrick Wilson (owl guy from WATCHMEN), a high school teacher who seems kind of distant. There are vague indications of some sort of traumatic event or trouble in the marriage or something. The camera moves very slowly and deliberately, making an ordinary suburban house seem ominous without resorting to gothic shadows or nothing like that. A nice, confident, slow burn opening.

Then, since this is a ghost movie, weird shit starts happening, things they don’t necessarily give much thought to at first, things getting moved around in the house, etc. Then one of the kids is exploring the attic and falls off a ladder. We see that he sees something strange, but he doesn’t even tell anybody. The next day he goes into a coma.

Byrne is really good and sympathetic and the movie milks some sadness and creepiness out of the situation. You see the helplessness of a parent whose son won’t wake up and nobody knows what’s wrong with him, and also of the little brother not able to sleep at night, looking out his door and seeing his lifeless brother in his room down the hall, heart monitor beeping. Also you see the husband being sort of emasculated by not being able to protect his family from the weird shit. He’s got the macho protective thing, telling his wife “Stay here!” when he goes to investigate the loud knock on the door in the middle of the night. But when he can’t figure out who knocked or why the burglar alarm keeps going off or whether or not his wife really saw somebody upstairs for a second there’s nothing he can do to protect anybody. Puffing his chest out doesn’t intimidate travelers from other realms, apparently.

The movie is promoted as “from the makers of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY” because the guy that directed that is one of the 7 credited producers. If you’re reading this review when it’s recent there is a possibility that you still remember PARANORMAL ACTIVITY was a recently relevant no budget POV video movie about how a couple is videotaping themselves and a ghost opens a door at night and what the fuck man that’s terror right there. I will have you know that in this movie a door opens several times, therefore it’s way scarier.

I prefer the “real movie” approach to the “home video” one, so this is way more my speed than PARANORMAL. But I can see a similarity. Both movies give a squeeze to the ol’ primal heebie jeebie glands with brief, hard-to-see, impossible-to-explain apparitions invading and desecrating the safety of the home. Oh shit, what was that sound. Hey, how did this stuff get knocked over in this room, we were just here a second ago. What is that creepy talking I hear over the baby monitor? It’s real effective for a while unless and until you recognize the formula: it’s just gonna be a bunch of unexplained shit happening for a while until things escalate at the end.

Since it’s a real movie and not a home movie it has to actually go somewhere, and not just end with a camera tipped over on the ground when something spooooooky was about to happen. So they gotta call in the exorcist type character. First these “funny” goofballs come in and take a bunch of readings. One is the writer, Leigh Whannell, the other is one of these guys the young people have now with the beards. I wasn’t too happy with these characters but was pleasantly surprised when they turned out to be sort of the pre-interview guys working for the big shot psychic or ghost expert or whatever played by Lin Shaye.

You guys know who that is? I always remember her as the filthy landlady that Woody Harrelson is forced to bone in KINGPIN. (”What is it about good sex that makes me have to crap? You really jarred something loose, tiger.”) She’s a character actress who’s played a ridiculous number of bit parts, often as nurses. Her brother Bob Shaye was the head of New Line Cinema so she was in a ton of their movies, including the original A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.

Anyway it was refreshing to see her in this role where they don’t make her look ugly or act crazy. She’s very confident and professional but polite. When the husband kicks her out of the house for telling him that his son is haunted she’s very nice about it and says she understands completely. In fact she doesn’t really seem like a weirdo until the seance scene where she puts on a crazy gas mask contraption for communicating with astral travelers.

The movie picks up when you get to the explanation of what’s actually going on and what they gotta do to save the kid. It’s a pretty cool idea and makes one of the parents more active in saving the kid than just helping a priest do a bunch of chants or something. But I do wish there was some more surreal ideas in the place that must be traveled to to save the boy. There’s an opportunity for the movie to get into some weirdness but they mostly just have the regular world with extra shadows and smoke machines. One exception, and the highlight of the movie for me, is the weird lead beastie who’s seen in a room sharpening his Freddy claws on a sandwheel attached to an old sewing machine while listening to Tiny Tim’s “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” I’ve often complained about the horror movie cliche of the Oldie Used In Scary Context, but if you’re gonna do it I think that’s a pretty good song to use.

Also am I crazy or does this demon guy’s antique doll collection include some kind of a Michael Jackson mannequin:

(sorry, I don’t know how to do screengrabs so I had to take a photo of the screen. Actually it doesn’t look too bad but I don’t want the cinematographer to see this and start crying. You know how sensitive they are.)

There’s a couple little things I can mention that might seem like nitpicks but they’re examples of the kind of thing that I think held it back from being as good as it could be. For the most part it has a pretty realistic feel to the characters and the way they react to things, but then every once in a while there’ll be a big one where they don’t. The biggest is the night when they hear the knocking on the door and she says she saw a guy in the room. They know there was somebody outside at least in the middle of the night, and it kept setting off their alarm, it seemed like somebody was harassing them. At this point they’re not thinking it’s anything supernatural, and the husband must’ve stayed up all night watching the door to make sure it doesn’t get opened again. So why didn’t he call the cops? He’s not in the hood with a Stop Snitching ethos, he’s a teacher living in the suburbs, trying to protect a wife and a baby and two other kids. But he doesn’t try to get help with this.

Not as big a deal but there’s a part where the wife is talking to the nurse that helps with their home coma care, and moments after the nurse leaves the room she finds a bloody handprint on the kid’s sheets. Why doesn’t she say, “Hey, come back here for a second” and ask her if she knows what the deal is? I’m not sure. It’s a dumb detail, but it takes you out of the movie’s reality when you wonder those things.

And that reminds me of another unrelated matter. In that same scene she cries and confesses to the nurse that the way everything’s going to shit she feels like the universe is conspiring against her. The nurse says, “Well the universe picked a fight with the wrong chick.” I thought that was a good line but the thing is, the wrong chick does not end up saving the day. The husband sort of takes over as the protagonist and the chick does very little to push back against the universe’s aggression. So the badassness of the line is diminished when it sets up completely unfulfilled expectations. Actually the universe picked a pretty good chick to fight with, a sensitive singer-songwriter. What’s she gonna do, play piano? I told you, we’re dealing with bad guys who listen to Tiny Tim all the time. They can handle some corny music.

The cool way the title comes on screen seems inspired by DRAG ME TO HELL, which I thought was a much more fun and inventive take on the PG-13 ghosts-’n-possessions-’n-shit type of movie, but that got me thinking about spookablasts. See, when DRAG ME TO HELL came out Sam Raimi referred to it as a “spookablast,” and then I kept seeing reviews and articles that used that casually as if it was a word everybody was familiar with and understood. Actually it’s not a real word, they just got tricked, they got Raimi’d. If not, why didn’t I see anybody using it to describe INSIDIOUS? Is this not spookablasty enough for you? The tone is pretty different, it’s much more serious and there are way less fans and less shit being hurled toward said fans. But that part with the guy sharpening his claws is pretty weird, it seems pretty spookablasty for a minute there in my opinion. Oh well.

INSIDIOUS is not, in my opinion, a spookablast. But it’s a spookaokaytimeiguess.

I’m sure THE A-TEAM TV show probly made it all around the world, but if you never heard of it here’s the premise: an elite special forces team is framed for war crimes, they bust the fuck out of the joint and travel around in a van using their skills to help people who’re in trouble, all the while being chased by military assholes and repeatedly failing to clear their name until the last episode. Each one has a specialty: Hannibal (George Peppard) is a colonel so he’s real smart and masterminds everything, also smokes cigars. B.A. (First name Mister, middle name period, last name T) is just a Bad-Ass so he grabs people and/or punches them. Face (Dirk Benedict from “Battlestar Galactica”) is a charming ladies man so he uses his smooth talking and powers of disguise to sneak into places. And Mad Murdoch (Dwight Schultz) is crazy, so he does crazy stuff. Also flies helicopters. Together they usually do some welding to build some sort of jerry-rigged cannon or some shit and there’s a montage where they pull off their plan and they’re all happy. Come to think of it it’s almost exactly like SCOOBY-DOO but with way less snacking.

For the movie of course they went the origin story route, so in this one they’re trying to clear their name after some combination of mercenaries, CIA and/or army got them blamed for the theft of some counterfeiting plates as they’re about to leave Iraq. The story is kind of a more smart-assed version of a MISSION:IMPOSSIBLE movie. The complicated tricks they play are very A-TEAM, but I’m not sure we need the DTV Seagal-style convoluted series of double-crosses. I guess they heard “special forces” and thought “overly complicated spy movie.”

(And my buddy Mr. Armageddon pointed out that it’s simply not believable that the A-Team was in Iraq. If they were then why did it take so long to find Saddam, and to know there weren’t weapons, and to get the fuck out of there? Just as 9-11 wouldn’t have happened in a world with a Superman, Iraq wouldn’t have happened in a world with the A-Team.)

But the cast is real good at recapturing these characters. Liam Neeson as Hannibal gets a great introduction where he escapes from being tied up to a chair (something Wesley Snipes has failed to do in three different movies, so maybe it’s best he didn’t get to play B.A.). Bradley Cooper (MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN) actually seems genetically engineered and trained for his entire life to play Face. It’s ridiculous how exactly his smugness matches Benedict’s.

UFC fighter (and MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN scene stealer) Quinton “Rampage” Jackson has the most difficult job – how the fuck do you replace Mr. T? You can’t just imitate him and you sure as hell can’t not be anything like him. It’s a delicate job and they did it with surprising grace. They keep the fear of flying, ditch the gold chains and feather earrings, give the mohawk a meaning. Rampage’s B.A. smiles more than T’s. He has a little more humor and sense of fun, is slightly less stubborn (he can be easily won over by Murdoch’s cooking) but sort of has the same lovable big teddy bear personality as T. He gets an enjoyably corny supblot about renouncing violence and mohawks, and he gets to whine when people make him want to shoot them.

The only thing I really didn’t like about B.A. was when he did a Li’l Jon/CHAPPELLE’S SHOW seven god damn years ago “yay-eahhh.” Might as well have a reference to the Macarena. But apparently Carnahan thought it was funny because he replayed the damn thing on the end credits.

DISTRICT 9’s Sharlto Copley is fine as Murdoch, but does not transcend the role of Murdoch. Like Schultz he’s funny some of the time, but trying to be funny all the time. I kind of liked him but I wish we could’ve seen John Singleton’s idea of Woody Harrelson as Murdoch. That might’ve been something.

It’s a good team, good chemistry, but something’s weird about the rhythm. Some of the jokes seem timed a little wrong, emphasizing the wrong beat or stepping on the funny lines. It felt to me like a funnier movie was right there, it was just mixed up a little. And Carnahan throws in alot of unneeded non-linear editing, jumping back and forth between planning and execution when simple straightforwardness would work better. He’s like a guitarist who takes three or four too many solos. For example they have Face playing a shell game with some cups as he explains a plan, then he’s doing the same moves with a crane and three shipping containers. And just as I’m enjoying the absurdity it cuts back to him moving the cups, as if we’re too stupid to remember that this is what was shown to us about 45 seconds ago and to realize that there is a connection between the two activities. Even though Face even said out loud “This was much easier with cups.” We didn’t need that and you think we need more than that? Thanks for the confidence, Joe.

Most of the action is middle of the road too. There’s a couple high speed nail biters, but most of it’s a little shakier and choppier than it should be. Definitely not as bad as the modern standard, but also not as good as it would once have been expected to be. Rampage only fights a couple of times and his MMA skills are not really taken advantage of. You would assume he was a WWE guy because he pretty much just does one body slam and a wire-assisted power kick.

Jessica Biel is getting hotter and pulling off tough better than she used to, so I liked her as the officer on their trail (and ex-girlfriend of Face). And I really liked Patrick Wilson as the douchey CIA agent who enjoys himself as much as the A-Team do.

I gotta admit, my favorite parts are all of the stupidest shit. I love that when Hannibal and B.A. meet they can bond over Army Rangers tattoos moments after Hannibal shot B.A. And that, since the screenwriters remember that Hannibal used to say “I love it when a plan comes together,” they have him constantly talking about the act of planning and what constitutes a plan and etc., like that’s his only interest. Plans. And I gotta give points to an expensive studio movie where the heroes playing a trick using ketchup as fake blood, like little kids would do. I’m not as sure about Hannibal quoting Gandhi to convince B.A. to renounce his renouncing of violence, but at least it brings the mohawk back.

One thing I don’t like about these types of movie adaptations is that they tell the beginning of the story and never get to the good part. To me the cool thing about the A-Team is not that they cleared their name in the last episode (SPOILER), it’s that before that they travelled around on the lam and were these legendary underground heroes, risking exposure to help people by using their elite skills. This movie isn’t doing too well at the box office, so I’m not holding my breath for episode 2. But I hope if they do one it’s about B.A. trying to stop the children’s center from getting shut down. And they damn well better get into his love of milk.

[ratings]

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The trailer for the movie was really unsettling because it cleverly stuck to the first 20 minutes of the movie, when Thong-Girl seems to be an innocent 14 year old girl who thinks she’s more adult than she really is, getting in over her head by going to meet a much older guy she flirted with on the internet. The thing was creepy as hell because Ellen Page looks much younger than most horror movie victims, and the guy is a photographer who APPEARS to be a normal guy and therefore you figure must actually be a deranged pervert. You get the idea that the movie is sort of an I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE type scenario where the guy rapes her or tries to rape her, or she finds out he killed her friend, or something, and then she enacts a vicious revenge.

But that’s not quite the case. It turns out the whole thing is a trap from the beginning. The movie poster, which shows her standing in the middle of a bear trap, is a more accurate description of what’s gonna happen. They meet and there’s alot of innocent innuendo. It’s a believable portrayal of a kid like that because she has to name drop the bands and authors she likes as an attempt at adult sophistication. But soon after she gets to the house you realize that’s all an act. She doesn’t really care about impressing him. You realize that right around the time she’s drugged him and tied him up.

Part of what’s cool about it is that you don’t really know how guilty he is. I mean, you don’t have any respect for a dude who brings home a 14 year old and lets her drink screwdrivers in his kitchen. But he hasn’t done anything yet. Maybe he’s not as bad as she thinks? You want to side with her, because you’re against pedophiles, but she seems crazier than he does. And movie convention asks you to side with him, because he’s the victim here. He’s the one who seems normal, and is tied up and screaming because he, like most of us, doesn’t want to get his balls cut off.

You have to decide how much you agree with this style of justice. Should he really be tortured, maybe killed? Shouldn’t there be some kind of trial first? Why couldn’t she just have the Dateline NBC guy come out and interview this guy, then the cop dressed up as a bush tackles him and they arrest him? Or is she right, is he actually a murderer? If so maybe there should be a couple extra cops in the bush costumes.

It’s a clever movie because the setup is so simple. There are only five actors in the whole movie, and three of them are only in one scene. One of them is a guy who sells them candy in the beginning. Sandra Oh is in it, she sells them cookies. Most of the movie is just the guy tied up and the girl psychologically tormenting him, trying to get him to admit that he’s a pedophile. It could almost be a play. Even the setting is minimalistic, a really clean and uncluttered house that’s mostly white and solid red (this guy probaly liked DMX’s black and white apartment in BELLY). Sometimes during a horrible moment the camera will pan across and the lens will be filled with the red of the wall, like some kind of abstract representation of horror. (Or more specifically, an abstract representation of a guy getting his balls cut off.)

But the clever part is that the setup is simple but the ambiguity makes it more complicated. Is the victim the bad guy? Is the tormentor the hero? Should we be rooting for or sympathizing with anybody? (Maybe Sandra Oh?) How did this girl find out what she knows about this guy? What made her so crazy? Why does she take this so personally? Has she done this before? Will she do this again? What is she thinking at the end? And why is it called HARD CANDY? Is this somehow related to GINGER SNAPS?

This isn’t fun like a good slasher movie. And it’s a little too much of a gimmick to be truly horrifying. But it definitely made me uncomfortable. If you like being uncomfortable maybe you will enjoy it.

[ratings]