Brooklyn Horror ’18: Wolfman’s Got Nards

The Monster Squad was the perfect cross between The Lost Boys and The Goonies, but unfortunately it opened in theaters two weeks after the former and was lost in the shuffle—or so the cast and crew assumed. Much to their surprise, the [mostly] kid-friendly monster movie developed a large and intensely loyal following over the years. Original cast-member André Gower tells the untold story of the film and its fandom in Wolfman’s Got Nards (trailer here), which had its New York premiere at the 2018 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

Monster Squad director Fred Dekker already had a reputation among horror fans for Night of the Creeps, while co-screenwriter Shane Black was about to become the toast of Hollywood for penning Lethal Weapon and Predator. Monster Squad was a passion project for them both, conceived as a homage to childhood and the classic Universal monsters, but the box office results were not what they hoped.

As everyone would hope and expect, the best segments of the film chronicle its production and pre-production. It might be fun to watch, but it wasn’t always a ball for its young cast, especially Ashley Bank, as the little sister who is scared witless by Dracula. The film is also quite poignant when the Monster Squad alumni pay tribute to Brent Chalem, the cast-member who did not live to see its overdue ovation.

However, the film would be much stronger if it cut at least twenty minutes. Frankly, most of the final third plays like an extended infomercial for Alamo Drafthouse. Apparently, Monster Squad plays on at least half their screens 24-hours a day—and they still sell out every screening. That is certainly nice for Tim League, but most fans would probably rather hear more behind-the-scenes stuff instead.

It is easy to get the appeal of Monster Squad. You have Dracula, the Mummy, Frankenstein’s Monster, Gill Man (a.k.a. the Creature from the Black Lagoon), the Wolfman, and his nards. Yet, somehow, we never connected with it. For us it was The Lost Boys. Maybe there was a process of natural division. You either identified with Monster Squad, Lost Boys, or The Goonies. It is hard to see how you can beat Bernard Hughes final line: “One thing about living in Santa Carla I could never stomach—all the damn vampires.” Nevertheless, you can totally respect Team Monster Squad, but The Goonies is something else entirely. Despite its promotional shout outs, Gower’s doc is still worth seeing, because you can never get enough 80s nostalgia. Recommended for those fans who must already know all about it, Wolfman’s Got Nards screened during the 2018 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

Brooklyn Horror ’18: Empathy Inc

Apparently, money really can buy anything, even including empathy. That begs the obvious question: if you don’t have it already, why would you want to purchase it? The notion that experiencing how the other half lives may ring hollow, but a disgraced venture capitalist like Joel Leesman Green doesn’t ask a lot of question when the chance for a quick rebound presents itself. Alas, there is no substitute for due diligence in Yedidya Gorsetman’s Empathy Inc (trailer here), which screened during the 2018 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

When the latest tech bubble burst, Green’s former company became the poster child. It turns out the founder was cooking the books and the tech. Even though Green was not directly culpable, his reputation and net worth took a pounding. Awkwardly, he and his wife are forced to move back in with her parents. However, opportunity seems to be knocking when he bumps into an old colleague, Nicolaus Vesey (a.k.a. “Sleazy Vesey”). Yes, Green should probably know better, but he is sufficiently intrigued by Vesey’s VR start-up to give it a look-see.

The experience developed by squirrely, anti-social inventor Lester Cooper really seems to transport customers into the mean world of the less fortunate. According to Vesey’s pitch, the experience makes customers better appreciate their own privileged lives. Seeing is believing, so Green manipulates his father-in-law into investing. Then he discovers the Extreme VR experience is really something altogether different.

Empathy Inc is first of the few grungy, low-fi science fiction films in quite a while that actually works. There has been plenty of terrific low budget sf, but they have mostly transcended rather than wallowed in their micro-budgets. In this case, Darin Quan’s strikingly stark black-and-white cinematography looks like it could have been shot on left-over odd-lot film stock from the production of Eraserhead. The film really is that Spartan and moody.

There are also some neat twists to this tale, beyond the revelation of XVR’s true business model. Screenwriter Mark Leidner fully explores the Macguffin’s potential for causing complications and havoc. The ensemble also does great work selling the premise and its sinister implications. Both Zack Robidas and Jay Klaitz show tremendous range as Green and Cooper, respectively, but it would be spoilery to explain how. Eric Berryman is also spectacularly slick and slimy as Sleazy Vesey.

Gorsetman and Leidner offer up a decidedly dark rendering of human nature, but they still allow for the possibility of redemption. This is an ironic film, but there is a constructive point to it all. It also presents some smart, borderline-analog science fiction. Recommended for fans of ultra-indie sf, in the tradition of Aronofsky’s Pi, Empathy Inc had its East Coast premiere as part of this year’s Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

Brooklyn Horror ’18: Tower. A Bright Day

There have been plenty of sisters in horror movies, such as The Shining, Twins of Evil, and A Tale of Two Sisters. Usually, it is immediately clear what we should make of them and their relationship (assuming that word still applies), but Mula and Kaja are something else entirely. There is no question their sibling ties have frayed, but just who we should sympathize with, if anyone at all, is hard to judge. Regardless, family is the ultimate horror show in Jagoda Szelc’s Tower. A Bright Day (trailer here), which screens tonight as a selection of the 2018 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

Kaja is a little off, but there are good reasons for her aloofness. After a long absence (obviously implied to be a term of institutionalization), Mula has allowed her to attend a family celebration. It will be the first communion of Nina, Kaja’s daughter, whom Mula and her husband have raised as their own. As part of the ground rules, Kaja must strictly preserve this secret. Nevertheless, her quick rapport with her biological daughter inevitably unnerves Mula.

Soon the responsible sister’s neuroses are bubbling over, but her family hardly notices. They are too distracted by the sudden miracle-like recovery of her formerly dementia-addled mother, Ada. For her happy-go-lucky brother Andrzej and his wife, it is another reason to celebrate, but Mula and the audience will pick up on ominous signs and a general vibe of foreboding.

Isabella Eklöf’s Holiday is bound to be the most divisive film at Brooklyn Horror for content reasons (we saw it at Sundance and still don’t feel like revisiting it), but Tower is bound to inspire equally divided reactions, solely for its aesthetic. Just calling it a horror movie is controversial (but defensible). Szelc truly instills the film with an utterly eerie vibe (it is almost Hanging Rock-esque), but she is maddeningly committed to its ambiguous indeterminacy. What ultimately happens? It gets big-picture apocalyptic, yet it is still hard to say with any certainty.

Regardless of all that, great credit is due to the ensemble (a few of whom are actually related), which truly convinces us they are a messy, unruly, angst-ridden family. Malgorzata Szczerbowska sets off all sorts of alarm bells as Kaja, yet we sometimes feel instinctively inclined to take her side against her overbearing sister. Anna Krotoska is forceful yet nakedly exposed (sometimes literally) as the martyr-complex-suffering Mula. Yet, Artur Krajewski is probably more unsettling than anyone playing the unnamed priest, who is undeniably losing his faith and might even be the subject of some sort of insidious supernatural attack.

Frankly, this film has A24 (the distributor of The Witch, Woodshock, and It Comes at Night) written all over it. The atmosphere is haunting, but the narrative so excessively murky, it becomes impossible to take any real meaning from it. The vibe is strong and there are a number of interesting bits, but it might behoove Szelc to work with a co-screenwriter on her next project. Only recommended for hipster cineastes who prefer genre films on the obscure side of the spectrum, Tower. A Bright Day had its East Coast premiere at this year’s Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

Brooklyn Horror ’18: Ghost Mask Scar

Plastic surgery has done a lot of good for people, but you wouldn’t get that impression from films that prominently feature plastic surgeons, like Eyes Without a Face and The Skin I Live In. Hana is one of the top plastic surgeons in Seoul. She is smart and pretty, but she harbors a dark secret. She could open a practice with Antonio Banderas’s Dr. Ledgard from Almodovar’s film and share office space with Jeremy Irons’ twin gynecologists from Dead Ringers. Yet, the slow-building horror comes not from her, but someone close too her in Takeshi Sone’s Ghost Mask: Scar (trailer here), which screens tonight as a selection of the 2018 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

Miyu has come from Japan to find her sister, but it is unclear whether she wants to be found. The older sibling was always overshadowed by Miyu and Sae, the youngest, but a terrible misunderstanding brought her resentments to a boil. It is indeed significant she is never given a proper name. Miyu only refers to her as “my sister” and “sis.”

Initially, Miyu finds Seoul to be an expensive and inhospitable place, but she seemingly catches a break when she meets Hana, the plastic surgeon. Forging a fast friendship, Hana invites Miyu to stay with her and her lover Hyoshin, whose instant jealousy is awkwardly conspicuous.

Something is profoundly wrong here, but Sone takes his time revealing his characters’ secrets. Be careful reading about GMS online, because many synopses (including imdb) giveaway way too much. Even though viewers can sense something sinister in the air, the first hour of the film is entirely gore-free. Yet, the tension rises steadily, culminating in a spectacularly bloody climax.

Whether you call it a horror movie or a mystery, GMS is unnervingly effective thanks to the terrific cast. Lee Yu-ha gives a remarkably complex performance as Hana, never skimping on her insecurities or her excesses. Yurika Akane is even more nakedly vulnerable and yet still a little off (in a hard to define way) as Miyu. Miya Sakimoto just makes viewers ache in her flashback scenes as the unnamed sister, while Sou Hirosawa’s Hyoshin viscerally and chillingly schools Othello in the corrosive power of jealousy.

Etsuo Hiratani’s screenplay gives the deceptive impressive of being rather Spartan, but it really delves quite deeply into the characters’ damaged psyches and makes provocative connections that become clear with hindsight. Sone’s own austere cinematography nicely suits the film’s coldly creepy vibe. Very highly recommended for fans of Miike and Cronenberg, Ghost Mask: Scar screens tonight (10/12) at the Wythe Hotel, as part of this year’s Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.

Brooklyn Horror Film Festival 2018: Curtain Raiser

Those of us living in the City are often scared to go into Brooklyn. From October 11^th through October 18^th there will actually be good reason for that fear. This year’s Brooklyn Horror Film Festival will be on—and this year they are screening one of the most bizarrely deadly films ever.

If you looked at the slate a week ago, look again, because some changes have been made. Worry not, they are still screening Antrum, considered to be a truly cursed film. Whenever attempts have been made to screen it, bad things seem to happen, but this time is sure to be different.

There will also be two world premieres: Boo! And Welcome to Mercy, as well the world premiere of the freshly restored Tiny Tim slasher, Blood Harvest.

North American premieres include: Cannibal Club, Family, Inner Ghosts, Party Hard Die Young, and The Rusalka, directed by Perry Blackshear, who made quite an impression with They Look Like People.

Screening as a New York debut, Tilman Singer’s Luz proves a film can be ambitious and experimental while still getting its scares in. For nostalgia, there will also be the New York premiere of Wolfman’s Got Nards, the Monster Squad documentary and the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies will present a program on made-for-TV horror films. Plus, there will be several retro-retrospective slasher screenings, including My Bloody Valentine and Sleepaway Camp.

We are looking forward to The Night Shifter, Tumbbad, Field Guide to Evil, and Ghost Mask: Scar. So, basically there will be something for the entire family. Further coverage to come, when the Brooklyn Horror Film Fest runs 10/11-10/18. Website here.