HAPPY DEATH DAY

USA, 2017

 

The title is not as smart as the people who made the movie but the word happy is important.  Happy Death Day is feel good horror.   The movie borrows from the light but entertaining comedy Groundhog Day, which is referenced in the final scene inside the coffee shop.   It is not the only cinematic reference in the film. The reverse tracking shot up the staircase that first appeared in the Hitchcock masterpiece Vertigo is repeated in a cute almost sentimental suicide scene. There are also references to post-modern horror movies like Scream and Halloween. Films that paid homage to earlier movies are now themselves objects of deification. Talk about going round in circles.

Happy Death Day may depend on Groundhog Day for its basic theme and ideas but it is an okay film. It is not, though, much more than that. Utilising the idea of the self-recycling day so that the heroine is repeatedly slashed to death is bold and clever, a concept that any horror writer would envy. The execution of the idea is also accomplished.  Happy Death Day was made by Blumhouse Productions. So far the company has produced half a dozen films. None are weak although a couple are routine.  The Gift is not a bad idea for a thriller but the final result is a little flat. Sinister is well made and has strong performances but is unexceptional. Oscar winners Whiplash and Get Out are not to be missed movies. The films from Blumhouse Productions have made enough money to keep the Company in business for a lifetime.    Happy Death Day cost $4.6m to make and so far has earned $122m. The business model for the company is to produce independent films but then sell them to the big studios for distribution.   This can be called having your cake and eating it.  It is how smart people sometimes think, and the people at Blumhouse Productions are very smart.   If they are undone, and if Happy Death Day has weaknesses, it is not because of stupidity.

Jason Blum has his full name on the film as producer, and his surname features in the title of the production company.   Blum learnt how Hollywood operates working for Harvey Weinstein.   He would have needed pragmatism or something to survive. Pragmatism is not as self-effacing as the pragmatists suggest.  Often it nurtures wilful determination. If Happy Death Day had been pitched as an offbeat horror movie for art cinemas, it would have less ambition. The writer would have settled for exposing how lives are defined by predictability and routine. The changing but same scenes would have revealed the way we unwittingly shape what is around us and how our decisions and development influence other lives more than we imagine.  Those elements exist in Happy Death Day but, because the producers want maximum audience appeal, we also have a feminist message wrapped inside sentimental and conventional concerns that are anything but feminist.

Tree the heroine escapes death and learns how to be polite to her father and fall in love with a young man who is as cute and as dull as a young Tom Hanks. Tree has scope for moral progress, being slashed to death every night is bound to change a person, but her rapid moral transformation that covers all bases will make many wary and unsympathetic.   And yes the name Tree is intended to have significance.

After preview screenings left audiences feeling something other than satisfied the final scenes of Happy Death Day were changed and that had implications for the rest of the film. There are holes in the plot of Happy Death Day but the repetitive day and its variations make it feel as if the holes are being filled in after the event. They are not. It just feels that way.  Tree assumes that the days will repeat themselves without a conclusion. Later she asks the question that has already occurred to the audience, whether there might be a day when she really does die. In one scene the boyfriend of Tree suggests how she can use the repeating days to discover the identity of the person who has slashed her to death. This scene is way too premature in the plot but on subsequent days it is ignored by Tree and has no consequence, so its slipshod heavy handedness is subsequently distilled. There are also loose ends like the issue of what happens to the other victims when days are repeated. Jason Blum has a track record that proves he is smart. Maybe, though, he thinks the rest of us are stupid. The climax has two twists, and in a film that is obliged to vary and repeat a single event the denouement needs to be simple and neat and not add more chaos.

Happy Death Day was directed by Christopher Landon who is the son of the Little Joe who left the big house of Bonanza to live in a little one on the prairie.   Christopher Landon has talked about being gay and how it affected his family. There is a brief reference to coming out in Happy Death Day. As the reincarnated and reformed Tree conquers all, she persuades an ex-boyfriend to admit to his sexuality. The scene is glib but is not alone. The reconciliation with Dad not only provides healthy competition but also adds to an overburdened plot.   Happy Death Day may or may not have a gay context. The repetitive day that requires a false performance and ends in disappointment is an idea that suggests the experience of suppressed sexuality. Happy Death Day begins with the suspicion of what was probably unsatisfactory sex, not remembered and best forgotten. And in a sense Tree does eventually come out to reveal her authentic self. It helps the film that the character is female, and the absence of a male hero is evidence of the progress that has been made since The Graduate appeared in the late 60s. Both films, though, are lined with treacle.  Happy Death Day would have been improved and made more sense if Tree had been gay.   That, though, would have meant commercial underachievement, and Jason Blum is too smart for that.

Happy Death Day, like other ‘slasher’ horror movies, requires a resolute woman but any notion of female emancipation is undermined by the romantic ending and the contribution of the Tom Hanks lookalike.  Happy Death Day is smart but heartless. Instead, we are given slippery and calculating sentiment. The movie is weighed down by astute commercial ambition and a determination to embrace a wide audience. It lacks the clarity and the genuine grievance that informed Get Out.  In its favour there is the energetic performance of Jessica Rothe who is believable as both good and bad girl. Despite being almost thirty years old she looks like an adolescent student and it is encouraging that her boyfriend is played by an actor who is seven years younger.

Happy Death Day, for all its superior compromises, is worth an hour and thirty-six minutes of the time of anyone. The defiance too often becomes a fashionable pose but the film has the charm and energy of TV hits Buffy The Vampire Slayer and I-Zombie. The movie is on the right side of tolerance and a reminder that we are too inclined to make decisions about who and what other people should be. Not only does this long-standing and regrettable inclination have unfortunate consequences for those we oppress it does not help us to make the right decisions about who and what we should be ourselves. Many go to their graves without a clue as to how their identity has been constructed, what is authentic and what is artificial.   In Britain right now we have a political leader whose identity was shaped by a narrow world and excess ambition.   Who or what she may be is for Theresa May to ponder. We are neither obliged to like the woman nor vote for her. Theresa May, though, has lost something in the construction of her identity. Otherwise she would not be able to tell conscience free lies in such a measured and confident accent or have needed to make the unforgettable hurried retreat from the victims of Grenfell Tower.   Her latest untruth concerns the dates documents of British citizens were destroyed, when the identities of some British people were redefined by politicians and opportunistic bureaucrats.

When she was Home Secretary, Theresa May was keen to create what she called a ‘hostile environment for immigrants’. Few of us thought that would include those who had been welcomed to the UK over 50 years ago to ease the problems of an economy that had labour shortages. As Home Secretary, Theresa May was determined to not just define the numbers of the British population but to insist on who would qualify as pedigree stock.  Britons live in a country where the homes of people are invaded so those without identification papers can overnight be separated from their families and dumped into detention centres. For some time this has applied to people we would expect to be accepted as contributors to our society.  Now we know it was even happening to long-standing British citizens. Because of a rush to prejudice and persecution, the British Government has forced some British citizens to live in countries of which they have no knowledge.  It has even prepared advice on how these British citizens can adapt to the local population and pretend to be something other than, well, British.  Meanwhile the Government and the press celebrate the colour of what is an increasingly dubious British passport. Welcome to the 2017 version of what we call the United Kingdom.

Howard Jackson has had seven books published by Red Rattle Books including novels, short stories and collections of film criticism.   If you are interested in original horror and crime fiction and want information about the books of Howard Jackson and the other great titles at Red Rattle Books, click here.

 

 

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS

USA, 2010

 

The poster for the movie is smart and mysterious. The cabin is detached from the woods it is supposed to be inside.   It offers a clue to what will make the movie different. This horror movie will have an added dimension. The Cabin In The Woods earned twice the considerable amount of money it cost to make and received critical acclaim. An inevitable sequel followed. The movie demonstrates originality and intelligence. There are some witty lines of dialogue, and serious ideas about both horror movies and the limitations of the modern world exist behind the mayhem. The movie is misanthropic and, despite the humour and wit, informed by despair. Those who like the film are entitled to the distractions it offers. They laugh at smart in-the-know jokes and feel gratified because they have identified the serious themes. Some of us, though, are not so easily flattered, and the success of Joss Whedon depends on audiences that are susceptible to flattery.

Many years ago the film critic in Punch magazine asked, ‘how do you burlesque a burlesque?’ He was talking about the James Bond films of the sixties and the various send-ups that followed.   Most of these spy spoofs have been forgotten. The movies were limp and tedious. More important the humour in those films was irrelevant. The jokes were already in the original Bond films. Absurdity has existed in popular culture and entertainment for over three thousand years. What appear to be cheese and corn to one generation were previously recognised as audacity and irony by others. All we have to do to understand this is read Homer and Shakespeare. Not every attempt at audacity and irony succeeds. The level of success helps define quality but views regarding what is tolerable absurdity change. The impossible antics of superheroes of today would be laughed at by a mediaeval audience if we could find one.

Although completed in 2010 The Cabin In The Woods appeared in cinemas in 2012. Scream director Wes Craven had already exposed the routine formula behind horror movies fourteen years earlier in 1996.   The jokes or point had been made. One of the attempts at humour in The Cabin In The Woods is embarrassing and crude.   The typical bulky handsome hero suggests that the four college friends separate to cover more ground in what is a small cabin. The joke is that this always happens in horror movies. Instead of staying together the victims part and allow not only the monster to kill them one by one but also the proliferation of set pieces. The problem with the scene is that the joke is several decades too late. Hitchcock managed the trick of separating the victims in Psycho but he had a smart scriptwriter. When the overrated Alien arrived in 1979, we were already familiar with the cliché and the device.

The script of The Cabin In The Woods was written in three days. This is not necessarily bad. The audacity that genre entertainment needs is often inspired or facilitated by contempt. Take a potboiler too seriously and it will become leaden and stodgy.   But two people worked on the script of The Cabin In The Woods. The moment that calls for the group to separate, and a few others, should have set off alarm bells. Writing in three days the script of a film that has had blockbuster appeal requires talent but even the gifted writer benefits from having the time to become acquainted with his characters and plot. If the writers are not engaged with the story, it is no surprise if it fails to involve those who are interested in something more than sarcastic spectacle. There is also something distasteful about spending $30m on a film that satirises the efforts of filmmakers who had a fraction of that budget.

The Cabin In The Woods is a deliberate and textbook example of postmodern culture. The movie has an original concept and approach but avoids original moments. Instead, Joss Whedon creates a kaleidoscope jumble of clichés and familiar moments. This is not a criticism. Not just horror movies are targeted, and there is some reward in identifying the various references, elements and genres.   What The Cabin In The Woods lacks, though, is a cohesive whole. The movie feels like two films tacked together, the old spooky dark house in the first half and the dystopian technological nightmare in the second.   Each section has a different objective or target and neither is given enough attention.   The characters and the movie leave the old dark house too soon for it to be a satisfying examination of horror movies.   Compared to what other filmmakers have achieved with old dark houses the satire in The Cabin In The Woods is underdeveloped.   We are familiar with the caricatures and their predictable fates. This is okay but their premature demise is not.   As in Alien, the moments of slaughter appear as sudden shocks rather than the conclusion of scenes of suspense.   There is humour in The Cabin In The Woods but most of it is confined to the dialogue. The visual potential of horror is considerable, which is why it attracts young and ambitious directors ready to demonstrate cinematic style.   In The Cabin In The Woods the best visual effects exist near the end of the film.

The climax is a dystopian nightmare that precipitates an Armageddon. Compared to The Cabin In The Woods the ambition of Westworld is modest. Nothing can justify an apocalypse but before we are doomed there are brief pleasures. The insert from Japan is clever. Whedon takes a sly dig at Japanese horror movies and the need of those directors to feature innocent schoolgirls. The corridor shots inside the computer centre after the widespread slaughter confirm how the human imagination is degraded in a world designed to provide gratification and little else. The descent of the elevator down to the technological hub and nerve centre is also very fine. The violence is restrained because the monsters are trapped behind glass walls. The journey is haunting rather than violent and it is very sinister.

The Cabin In The Woods is not the only film to invite us to watch another audience and its creation. For the structure to succeed, though, there needs to be more than scattergun fun and jokes that most of us are primed to expect. Yet despite the second rate mockery The Cabin In The Woods does not feel like self-indulgence. If anything, the movie suggests atonement by Joss Whedon for some of the escapist nonsense that has brought him fame and wealth. The final scene, which is about as unhappy as could be imagined, reveals the hidden truth about the fascist fantasies that Hollywood and Whedon have called action movies. In a contest between superheroes and super villains decency and humanity will be found not amongst the supposed good guys waging battle but off screen amongst ordinary and undistinguished people. This is more than whimsy. Amidst his atonement Joss Whedon shares his misgivings about the modern world. The Cabin In The Woods is loaded with warnings. Imaginations programmed for sadistic thrills will not be alert to the consequences of their behaviour. The final murder in The Cabin In The Woods is ignored by the spectators inside the movie.   Technology also makes us remote from human feeling. The bureaucrats and technicians place bets on outcomes rather than worry about the fate of human beings.   Thanks to technology the corporate world can hide behind machines and secret algorithms.   The technicians in The Cabin In The Woods are the new unapproachable secular gods. Faced with their power, old-fashioned heroism, as the two survivors realise, is futile.

Horror movies are conceptual and have the virtue of teasing out the hidden neuroses of human beings. But the sadistic taste for mindless gore that exists amongst some horror fans cannot be denied.   Nothing exposes our double standards more than our attitude to physical pain in our neighbours.   We can be sympathetic but pragmatism about suffering and stoicism is for other people. Right now the utilitarian politicians that run the world have decided to escalate the conflict in Syria. A few of the powerful decided that bombs and casualties were needed to make a point to other powerful people. These decisions could mean a lot of innocent Syrians will experience additional physical pain and premature death. Those making the decisions may have to risk a disadvantage in future meetings with rivals but they will, of course, be immune to any of the physical pain. In their world of bulletproof limousines and obsequious lackeys any discomfort is minimal for these self-imagined good guys. The rest of us in the West may not share the luxury of our masters but, like the bureaucrats in The Cabin In The Woods, we have the benefit of watching the suffering of others on large TV screens.   Some of us object to the creation of violent conflict in remote lands but many of us fail to sustain our protest. Others, often middle-aged males, respond with enthusiasm to the prospect of a battle that will not involve them.   Nothing adds to the spectacle on our screens quite like violence.   Escalation of the Syrian conflict means more people will die in a country in which there has already been unnecessary death and carnage. Some TV viewers, though, will open cans of beer and cheer.

Howard Jackson has had seven books published by Red Rattle Books including novels, short stories and collections of film criticism.   If you are interested in original horror and crime fiction and want information about the books of Howard Jackson and the other great titles at Red Rattle Books, click here.