Weekly Cinemeh

This week's theme was humans as the monsters in horror movies. Sometimes you don't need to make up some sort of supernatural creature to do evil. Sometimes people are fucked up.

1: Eyes Without A Face aka "Les yeux sans visage"
A French move from the 60s, it is about a surgeon trying to fix his daughters deformed face by murdering people and taking their faces. Its an odd horror movie because there isn't any of the traditional tropes. There are no jump scares in this movie (thank god) and it has a villain who isn't straight up evil, just a little off kilter. It was well acted and had some truly gory bits. You see kids, this movie was from the time where practical effects where still in vogue so all the face removal is done without any CGI and it looks great (at least as great as ripping a face off can look). I appreciate the things you can do with CGI, but practical effects in horror are important because stuff like blood looks very, very fake in CGI, which breaks the immersion so critical in a good horror movie. Anyway, its a good movie that deserves a watch.

Eshi: Eyes Without a Face was a hard act to follow. It has enough of its own thing going on that finding a theme to fit it was... troublesome. As the other entries on this list demonstrate. The acting was about what I expected from a black and white french movie, which isn't by any means bad, but as Brian said the practical effects on this were really fucking good for their time. I found myself most enthralled by the film at the end when the opportunity arose to insert my own narrative. I wont go into it too far because it breaks theme pretty bad and completely derails the established plot, but this would have been even more amazing if the ingenue had been the antichrist.

2: Lost
This movie had a great concept and was paced very well, the reveal about the main plot was actually a little surprising, though I knew something was up. I have a feeling that I would have liked this movie a little more if the description hadn't led me to believe that the bad guy was going to be more prevalent. Dean Cain, who plays the main character in a way that made be want to hit him in the face repeatedly, plays a douche who is pursued by Danny Trejo, the world's best bad man, in a chase around the back roads of Nevada. There are some great tense moments, but ultimately I felt let down. I don't want to go into the ending, but it wasn't quite what I was expecting (not in a good way). I think my preconception of what this movie was about shaded it for me, but I can see why some people would like it. This is definitely a movie I will need to watch again to see if I like it. My first impressions: not bad, but not great. Also, I wish Danny Trejo was in it more.

Eshi: Danny Trejo got robbed in this movie. The man is epic, and positioning him opposite Dean Cain, whom I could punch forever, was a great choice; up until you realize that you aren't really going to see any of it. This movie wasn't terrible, just disappointing.

3: Seven
This is a good movie about a serial killer who bases his killing on the seven deadly sins and the detectives who pursue him. Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, and Kevin Spacey all give great performances (birds fly, fish swim, and all that.) and the story is good, if a little heavy handed at times. This movie has a very bleak view of humanity, though not completley unjustified, and is ultimately about how the fight against evil has no winner, but needs to happen none the less. The end is good, and the ride to it is enjoyable and has some interesting and fucked up twists. If you haven't seen it, watch it.

Eshi: I love Seven, in ways that do not bear public discussion. Its a delight to see some of my favorite actors doing what they do best and largely being in good form, not the strongest roles of their careers but all solid. Brian and I always clash a bit over the end but that just shows the movie is good enough to actually think about. The storyline bludgeons the point a bit, but given the tone and nature of the film its supposed to. If, for some unspeakable reason, you haven't seen this film, do. Even if you aren't into this kind of thing its worth the watch.