The Devil in the Details: The Exorcist and the Uncanny

The Exorcist is roundly seen as the scariest movie ever made, and while I disagree on that point I can totally see why it’s engendered that opinion in audiences and critics alike. The film focuses on a young girl possessed by a demon, which twists and contorts her every which way and turns her into a snarling, hate-filled wretch, excellently voiced by the late Mercedes McCambridge. The mere idea of something invading our body, bending our limbs at impossible angles and forcing us to do and say things we never would is naturally disturbing. It’s also a notoriously grotesque film, making it controversial even today, albeit to a lesser degree than in 1973.

But The Exorcist, for all of its head-spinning and vomit-spewing and improper-use-of-a-crucifix-ing, is actually at its scariest, or at least its most unsettling, when it opts for the subtle approach. Though the possessed, Gollum-esque Regan McNeil obviously draws the audience’s attention, director William Friedkin made a point of littering the film with numerous, uncanny little details.

None for All, All for Naught: The Dissolution of Morale in YellowBrickRoad

The more expansive selection of American Netflix has allowed me to catch up on some smaller horror movies that I never got around to, and almost all of them were good. At some point in the near future I hope to discuss Nicholas McCarthy’s The Pact, Nick Murphy’s The Awakening and Ti West’s The Innkeepers, all three of which range from good to excellent. For now, though, I want to talk about another movie I watched, one which had an effect on me like no other. It’s called YellowBrickRoad, written and directed by Jesse Holland and Andy Mitton, and it might be the first horror movie to have ever traumatized me.

Prince of Darkness Ascends Its Throne

I often tell my friends that my opinion of a book, film or album should never be trusted until I’ve either read/seen/listened to it again or waited 48 hours. Entertainment is a largely emotional experience for me, and so I’m liable to have a high opinion of any work that gets my adrenaline pumping in spite of whatever flaws it might possess—at least until the rush wears off. I really, really liked Transformers when I first saw it and, Hell, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was one of my favourite films for years. So when I say I enjoy something, feel free to treat me like a little kid who has just ingested a pound of sugar. The stomach ache will come, just you wait.

The same applies to the inverse. Some things will leave me feeling sour after I’ve first experienced them, but whether because of the mood I was in at the time or simply due to changing tastes I’m liable to come around to liking or even loving them some months or years in the future. I initially disliked Rebellion’s 2010 Aliens vs. Predator game and it took me three years to realize that my shitty living conditions in third year of university had actually contributed to my feelings of ill will rather than the game itself. It’s actually pretty rad.

John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness is another such case. Made for a fairly low budget of $3 million and released in 1987, Prince is the second entry of what Carpenter calls his “Apocalypse Trilogy,” preceded by The Thing (which I liveblogged while drunk on New Year’s) and followed by In the Mouth of Madness. It didn’t exactly thrill me on my first full viewing a couple years ago, but after watching again it during my most recent horror binge in October I’ve come around to it in a huge way. Not only is it Carpenter’s best film after The Thing, it really is a little gem that deserves critical re-evaluation.

Subverting Suspense with Lovely Molly

I first watched The Blair Witch Project six years ago, viewed in several parts on YouTube while I killed some time in the study lounge of my university residence. I’ve made a point of watching it at least once a year ever since, and the impression it left on me has only grown. It was then, and remains to this day, the single scariest film I’ve ever seen, one I will recommend to any up-and-coming horror buff at the drop of a hat, and actually one of my top five all-time favourite movies.

In spite of the overwhelming critical acclaim it received and the huge dent it made in the box office, Blair Witch never really launched any careers—at least not any big name ones. Heather Donahue went on to feature in the Steven Spielberg-produced sci fi miniseries Taken, as well as guest star on an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia; Joshua Leonard has made a name for himself in mumblecore films, chief among them Humpday; Michael C. Williams has mostly made appearances in indie and low-budget horror flicks. As for one of the film’s directors and co-writers, Daniel Myrick has continued to take his stabs at the horror genre, none of which I’ve seen.

However, his partner-in-crime Eduardo Sánchez has made at least one significant contribution to horror cinema since. As with everyone else involved with Blair Witch, he hasn’t yet made it to the A-list, but back in 2011 he directed and co-wrote Lovely Molly, starring Gretchen Lodge as the eponymous character, the late Johnny Lewis as her new husband Tim, and Alexandra Holden as her sister Hannah. It is, on the surface, a fairly basic tale of a woman on her own in her haunted childhood home (Editor Daniel: Really, Dan? Is that really basic?), but Sanchez and company manage to craft a subtle little film that relies on implication and extrapolation as much as Blair Witch does and plays around with and even subverts suspense in a really interesting way.

Analysis - On Cycles

Adam Dietrich

In my living room stand three largish bookcases, all of which are positioned around yours truly in the picture above. Each contains one or more forms of media: one holds books, another one comic collections, and a third a mixture of movies, video games and CDs. While I’m attempting to introduce new hobbies into my routine, my first and foremost pastime will remain the collection and cataloguing of media. I really do love it, whether it involves organizing, maintaining or, of course, enjoying my collected works.

Analysis - Constructive Therapy

I want to buy a Lego set.

No joke. A Lego set. Or Meccano, or K’Nex, provided they still make those. And not some highly specialized Star Wars ship or Lord of the Rings set piece kit, but one of those huge buckets most of you reading had as a kid, with God knows how many pieces, all of which presented choking hazards.

Analysis - Cracked Pipes

I like okay singers a lot. This is not to say I dislike great singers--David Bowie, Peter Gabriel and Maynard James Keenan are at the top of my list for male vocalists--nor that I like straight up bad singers--Ian Curtis' voice will never win me over no matter how many times I hear "Love Will Tear Us Apart." However I do greatly appreciate frontmen who may not be the best on a technical level and yet manage to rise above their limitations in a holistic fashion.

Analysis - It's a Nice Day for a Red Wedding

Last night, HBO aired "The Rains of Castamere," the ninth and penultimate episode of Game of Thrones' third season. I haven't seen any of the third season as of yet, preferring to watch it all in one big lump after next week's finale, but having read A Storm of Swords, the bulk of which serves as the basis for this season, I knew the Red Wedding was coming. Without spoiling too much, the Red Wedding is one of the major turning points in ASoS and involves a shitload of characters, many of them important and almost all of them decent human beings, being mercilessly slaughtered by turncoats. So an emotionally and arguably awful part of me eagerly awaited to see how that portion of Game of Thrones viewers who hadn't read the books would react. The Internet did not let me down.

Analysis - Aliens, Predators and Inverse Nostalgia

2008: What could have been.

In early 2008, I came across screenshots for a then upcoming game called Aliens: Colonial Marines. In development by Gearbox, creators of Opposing Force and Blue Shift expansion packs for the original Half-Life as well as the Borderlands series, Colonial Marines was to be a  squad-based tactical shooter that promised an authentic recreation of the atmosphere and aesthetic of the sci fi action classic Aliens. To say I was enthused would have been the largest of understatements. In fact, it along with BioShock inspired my Xbox 360 purchase later that year.

But then… things started happening. Delays are common in the video game industry, especially among high budget, high profile titles (Grand Theft Auto V, which was to be released this spring, will not see the light of day until September). One of the key factors contributing to Colonial Marines’ belated release was the announcement of British developer Rebellion’s long-awaited return to the Aliens versus Predator series. So while I was irked by having to wait a little longer for A:CM, I knew I would have another game of a slightly different flavour, and by a developer familiar with the franchise, to tide me over for the time being.

Analysis - What a Wonderful Exploding World

Following a recent—and still ongoing—gaming binge I’ve realized that open world action games, best exemplified by the Grand Theft Auto series, constitute my favourite genre in the video gaming medium. Following the fairly on-rails single player experiences of the Call of Duty and Gears of War games I’ve come to really appreciate interactivity or at the very least well-executed mechanics: games like Half-Life 2, the Halo series and BioShock give you a variety of tools but don’t hold your hand, preferring to let the player work their way through a scenario as they see fit.

In the case of open world games, where missions are accessed in a continuous environment and non-player characters abound, the beauty is how you can make other entities react, like dropping a pebble into a pond just to see the subsequent ripples. Or, in the context of GTAIV, dropping a live grenade in the middle of a traffic jam smack dab in the centre of Star Junction.

Analysis - "The rhythm has my soul."

everyone goes through two periods of knowing me

when they mock me for listening to peter gabriel

and when they start to believe—Riley Byrne

Three years ago, I knew exactly three things about Peter Gabriel: that he was the original frontman of Genesis, that he wrote some great songs for Pixar’s Wall-E, and that he sounded like a slightly raspy Phil Collins. Most of my knowledge of the guy came through my dad or the slightly Pete Gabe-obsessed man quoted above. But something happened after picking up the 25th anniversary rerelease of So for the former this Christmas. Maybe it was the sound quality—most of Gabriel’s songs sound like they could have been recorded last year—or the variety of the music or those funky world beats, but Peter Gabriel has become one of my favourite artists in the last month.

Analysis - "It was the trees themselves!"

With the exception of a mild fear of heights, I don’t really have any phobias to speak of, be they of bats or snakes or even spiders. I’m not afraid of the dark, enclosed spaces or open spaces either, unless I’ve read House of Leaves sometime in the last 48 hours. But I do have a thing about forests; as much as I love camping, they can really freak me the Hell out sometimes. And of course, I’m absolutely drawn to them both in real life and in a fictional context. Some of the most effective works of horror in the history of the genre are set in the forest, and I’m starting to think this isn’t a coincidence.

Analysis - "You are still a good person."

For maybe the first time in my life, a video game has truly affected me.

Sure, video games have had an effect on me before. Portal 2, which I wrote about last week, briefly left me considering non-Euclidian paths through any room I entered. But I don’t think a game has ever truly shaken me like House of Leaves or Incendies or Essex County have. While many games have engaging stories and characters—BioShock and the Mass Effect games chief among them—the video game medium makes it difficult for those elements to transcend the far more immediate mechanical aspects of the game: sure, your favourite teammate might heroically sacrifice himself, but only after you’ve somewhat tediously cut your way through dozens of nameless, identical enemies. The impact is lessened a little, is what I’m saying.

But one game, which I first heard about less than a month ago and played over the course of two days last week, has managed to break the mould. Spec Ops: The Line is a gruelling, unsentimental military shooter that not only forces you to experience the horrors of war, but makes you culpable for them as well. It’s a damning deconstruction of the modern war game genre that’s become incredibly popular in the last half decade and possibly the only video game I would consider a genuine work of art. And I can’t get it out of my head.

Analysis - "Here are the test results: You are a horrible person."

I know I'm, oh, a year and a half behind everyone else, but I finally got around to playing Portal 2. I loved the first, having beaten it five or six times, and with the same creative team overseeing the sequel I had little doubt it would be of the same quality, if not better. But during my initial exhilarating (and occasionally frustrating) playthrough, it became my single favourite game of all time. I could talk about the new mechanics, or Mike Morasky's awesome glitchy score (available as a free download), or how well Valve's Source engine has held up nearly a decade after its release, but  nearly everything this game has to offer pales in comparison to its quite frankly surprising level of character development.

The depth and nuance of Portal 2's characters isn't just the best in the video gaming medium, but some of the best I've ever encountered. The writers of the single player campaign, Erik Wolpaw and Jay Pinkerton, have crafted a small ensemble of idiosyncratic characters, each of whom has well-defined and believable motivations. This week's analysis will look at the game's four major characters.

Analysis - Why Grand Theft Auto IV is the Best Shooter Ever Made

I’m destined to be eternally behind the curve, which is why I didn’t first listen to Arcade Fire’s Funeral until five years after its release and why I’m only now getting into Rockstar North’s Grand Theft Auto IV. I had played about an hour of the game back in my second year of university but with the sheer number of games I was playing that year it kind of got lost in the shuffle.

Come January of this year and I was finally getting around to playing Batman: Arkham City and realizing how much I love sandbox video games, so I picked up the Game of the Year edition of GTAIV from a grocery store electronics section for pretty cheap. While it took a few months for me to truly warm up to it, I can say without hesitation it’s up there with Arkham City and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask as one of the best games I’ve ever played, and for the most unexpected reason: not the open world (though I love that) or the characters and dialogue (love them even more), but because of its shooting mechanics. GTAIV beats out Mass Effect 3 and even Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 in that department, managing this not in spite of its flaws but because of them.

Analysis - The Dark Knight Rises: Annotations

It’s been over two weeks since the final chapter in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy hit theatres. I put up a spoiler-free review the Monday after it came out, but now that the movie’s been out for a little while—and now that I’ve seen it three times—I feel okay with putting up some MAJOR SPOILER WARNINGS and doing something a little more in-depth regarding the movie. My method will be rather inelegant, but make no mistakes, this will be alarmingly thorough.

Analysis - Here Comes the Spider-Man

So I’m likely seeing The Amazing Spider-Man this week and I’m actually really pumped for it, much more than I was a few months ago when that really “meh,” vaguely Twilight-ish first trailer hit the Net. By all rights, I should be irked by the film’s very existence—the final part in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy came out only five years ago—but I can’t find it in me to generate even a modicum of outrage. And that’s because, as unpopular an opinion as it might be, I didn’t really dig Raimi’s trilogy. Specifically, I don’t think the movies did the character and his universe justice, even the critically-lauded Spider-Man 2.

But glancing over the smorgasbord—some might say plethora—of trailers and clips released over the last couple months, I’m seeing glimpses of a movie that is as true to the character of Spider-Man as Batman Begins was to its eponymous hero.

Analysis - 2x3: The Fall(s) of Harvey Dent

One of my favourite things about the Batman universe is its malleability. As has been demonstrated by the Silver Age comics, the 1960s Adam West TV series and the recent Christopher Nolan movies, Gotham City and its denizens can be modified to suit any particular tone and theme, all the while maintaining the core traits of the setting and characters. Bob Haney’s excitable 1970s globetrotter is as true to the character as Frank Miller’s hardened libertarian crime fighter. Likewise, the Joker maintains his glee and twisted sense of humour whether he is harmless (Cesar Romero) or malicious (Heath Ledger).

But there’s no better example of this thematic pliability than Harvey “Two-Face” Dent, Gotham’s physically—and psychologically—scarred former district attorney and one of Batman’s most iconic villains. Two-Face has been depicted in nearly every media adaptation of Batman, most recently Nolan’s The Dark Knight, and in each one of those instances the character’s origin and personality has been changed to fit the themes at play. The following are three of the best, in chronological order:

Analysis - On Childish Things

I’m going to be 23 in less than two weeks. I’ve been out of school a year, have undertaken a variety of adult responsibilities including paying rent and student loans, and in the near future will hopefully be starting a career that will define most of the rest of my life. I am, for all intents and purposes, one of those fabled “grownups.”

And yet my favourite television series at the moment is, for all intents and purposes, a kids’ show. Adventure Time, created by Pendleton Ward, has been broadcast on Cartoon Network since 2010 and is now in its fourth season. It follows the escapades of teenaged warrior/adventurer Finn and his intelligent, stretchy dog Jake in a fantastical land populated by a species of candy people, moderately intelligent penguins and a vast array of extraordinary creatures. It’s also surprisingly sophisticated for a show aimed at 7-11 year olds.

Analysis - "The feeling begins..."

I want to talk about Jesus.

Chances are that first sentence alarmed a few of you. On my behalf, whoa, now. Whoa. Those close to me know I’m the last person to go on some rambling faith-based diatribe, and likewise know I’m not inclined to go on an anti-religious rant either. So for the next thousand words or so, let’s lower ourselves back onto our collective haunches and chill. There’s no better time: today’s Easter Monday and a holiday. And, given the season, it’s fitting to kick back and examine Martin Scorsese’s controversial 1988 film, The Last Temptation of Christ.