Daglicht (2013)

"Some family secrets cannot bear the daylight."

Based on the bestselling novel by Marion Pauw, "Daglicht" is a Dutch movie which is bound to get the same Hollywood remake treatment as "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" once the "powers-that-be" get wind of it. Unlike "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" though, this movie is very formulaic and will appeal to the lowest common denominator rather than the more cerebral.

"Daglicht" (meaning "Daylight") is a polished but predictable European thriller which seems cleverer than it needs to be until you start picking away at the details. Much debated theories about genetics which pave the way for far-fetched discovery contrivances are more likely to be met with a shrug by today's "look it up" generation and laughter from those who know better, and once you realise that the mystery aspect is so easy to solve, it's only worth watching to see your hunches played out.

Maybe that's the point of the thriller genre anyway, but as entertaining as such predictability may be, we're so many years on from "Columbo" and "Murder She Wrote" that I'm surprised how something this simple could still work. Apart from one problem solving spectacle, I'm certain that everything in "Daglicht" has been done to death in soap operas too.

Don't worry, I'm not going to spoil "Daglicht" by deconstructing the entire plot because it's definitely worth watching with no prior knowledge of what it's about, but a visit to TVTropes.com afterwards will make you feel quite foolish for liking any of it. Mind you, I could say the same thing about 99% of the movies made in the last 40 years because that's just the way things are. Change the character names and locations, and we're always being resold the same half-dozen stories.

If you don't want even minor spoilers, stop reading now!

Great production values and a fine cast of Dutch actors including Derek de Lint, Fedja van Huêt, and Monique van de Ven barely cover the superficial dialogue, unrealistic relationships, and rushed situations. Everything may look good, especially Angela Schijf as Iris (and Matteo van der Grijn as Bo for the ladies), but "Daglicht" often feels like a glorified TV movie with abrupt scene changes which would normally be hidden by commercial breaks.

It's not that things jump haphazardly from one scene to the next as there is a logical progression, albeit with a few flashbacks, but many clues are revealed without reason or compulsion. Hardly any work is put into investigating other than a few interviews, and infuriatingly, the dead ends or red herrings which crop up are simply abandoned. For example, how Iris goes from one internet search to another with such precision is never explained, and the crucial cover-ups are probably the worst kept secrets in the entire history of cover-ups. When every major character is so willing to talk, it makes the minor characters who refuse to reveal information look ridiculous. Worse than that, some characters don't seem to serve any purpose at all, especially Thijs Römer's initially interesting but entirely superfluous role.

To give credit where it's due, the make-up on Fedja van Huêt (who plays both the younger and older Ray) is as outstanding as his acting, but he's not a million miles away from being a less sympathetic clone of "Rain Man". Thus, for every point in its favour, "Daglicht" has several more against it. The deal breaker for me is that the kid who plays Iris's son is annoying to the point of making you want to see something very bad and extremely painful happen to him, but sadly, nothing does.

Angela Schijf and Derek De Lint. Cool.

"Daglicht" was released theatrically in the Netherlands on April 11th this year, but has been leaked to the internet before getting even an official UK DVD release. I may be cynical, but the very high quality of the streams which I've seen suggest that rather than being uploaded by pirates, it was done by the producers themselves to avoid an international distribution deal for a movie which they realise isn't that good and use that loss to make it easier to pitch the idea of a remake directly to Hollywood. Stranger things have happened.

In its still pre-Hollywood remake favour though, "Daglicht" does attempt to show the negative repercussions of mental retardation. Despite going out of its way to reinforce the bullshit myth of idiot savants, the fact that Ray's own mother can't cope with him after his emotionless animal cruelty is only one example of the darker side.

Bearing in mind that nothing in "Daglicht" is as controversial as any of the statements I made above, there are a couple of gratuitously shocking moments, but the ickiness factor is very underplayed. Its superficial portrayal of mental health problems mean that "Daglicht" is hardly another "Loving Walter" (1982), nor could it ever be. Gritty realism would have made "Daglicht" something that everybody would want to talk about rather than another example of pulp.

Nice poster!

Frankenstein's Army (2013)

"Toward the end of World War II, Russian soldiers pushing into eastern Germany stumble across a secret Nazi lab, one that has unearthed and begun experimenting with the journal of one Dr. Victor Frankenstein."

As a rule, I loathe faux "found footage" movies, but sometimes there can be an exception. I may moan about the subgenre being oversaturated with crap, but I'll still watch yet another one of these "Blair Witch Project" clones if there's nothing else available. In this case, it's a Dutch horror movie filmed in the Czech Republic with heavily-accented English dialogue. Call me naive, but that sounds intriguing enough on its own. The fact that it's called "Frankenstein's Army" and contains lots of "Soviets versus Nazis" wartime action is just icing on the cake.

Having watched it three times in a row, I'm pleased to report that "Frankenstein's Army" does not disappoint. That's the first time I've ever written that overused, archaic and cringeworthy phrase in one of my reviews, so now you know this movie is even more special.

"Frankenstein's Army" really kind of rocks somewhat, but I'm not going to get too carried away with the overpraise because I still hate the handheld shakycam gimmick. I'm not sure why director Richard Raaphorst took that route for his debut feature, but maybe he wasn't confident enough in his cameraman's ability to use a tripod. The good news is that it isn't even remotely as nauseating to watch as any other found footage movie—well, not in the motion-sickness way—but the bad news is that it doesn't look like real found footage due to the subject matter. The Russians would be speaking Russian rather than English for one thing! It would still look fake if there were subtitles everywhere though because the attention to detail in other areas doesn't try to disguise that it's a modern film. Subtitles would simply alienate the dumber horror fans who don't like to read, so I can accept why it was done this way.

It's probably wise that the "found footage" wasn't made to look too real anyway because I'd hate for any the far-fetched cyborgs to exist in real life. The extreme horrors shown are more than enough for most people without adding another level of cruelty. The monsters are such artfully created nightmares of dead flesh and machinery that I think whoever came up with their designs must have something very wrong with them in all the sick and twisted ways I like, but anyone squeamish who watches this will not be happy. This is certainly not a "date night" movie unless you want to end up sleeping alone. "Frankenstein's Army" is a gorehound's delight, full of truly horrific and gruesome stuff, which makes a refreshing change from the wimpy PG-13s and R-rated punch-pullers lately.

"A man of vision is always misunderstood."

The biggest problem with finding a horror movie which I actually like is writing about why I like it without spoiling it for everybody else. I've also been so negative for so long that having a decent movie in my clutches is a surprise which almost renders me speechless. I want to pull out all the bog-standard descriptive words and phrases such as "awesome", "amazing, "fantastic", "I was blown away", and "the best horror movie that I've seen this year" except that none of them would be applicable in this particular case. "Frankenstein's Army" is very entertaining, practical effects-laden film, and on a purely subjective level, I loved it for its blood and guts, but as usual, there are flaws.

I've already mentioned how the found footage camerawork isn't something which I'm keen on, and the contrivances about who is carrying the camera and why are blatant in every scene. Occasional "Stop filming!" or "Film this!" orders draw more attention to the fakery than is necessary. Once the action kicks in, "Frankenstein's Army" sometimes feels more like playing a "first person shooter" computer game with no ammunition left rather than watching a movie, but that's my only other gripe. Although there's an obligatory "I'm so sorry, Mum and Dad!" homage to "The Blair Witch Project", I can also let that pass because it's quite important to the speaker's motivation.

Apart from the accents and linguistic skills, there's not much to the acting although everyone gets a chance to do something impressive. In particular, Joshua Sasse (a British actor) is very charismatic as the Polish Sergei, and Alexander Mercury is perfectly cast as Dimitri. Andrei Zayats, who seems destined to be typecast as a Russian soldier for the rest of his career, is very realistic as Vassili. Despite having yet more stereotypical character names (Sacha, Ivan, Alexei, etc.), the other cast members are equally strong only in much smaller roles.

The most famous face is Karel Roden as Viktor Frankenstein. Horror fans will probably only remember him as Dr. Varava from "Orphan" (2009), which is a bit of shame since he's been in exactly 100 roles to date. At first, I thought he was Srdjan Todorovic, the star of "A Serbian Film" (2010), because there's definitely a similarity. If there's a weak link in the chain, it's that his performance isn't manic or obsessive enough to appease hardcore "Frankenstein" fans, but this movie is a long way from Mary Shelley's novel in any case.

"Frankenstein's Army" is a nicely paced fusion of classic horror and wartime fantasy which I highly recommend. It's not available on DVD until September 10th, and its very limited theatrical release may not be in your area, but you can watch it now on Amazon's Instant Video service. I suggest that you do so immediately.