Beautiful Creatures (2013)

"Ethan longs to escape his small Southern town. He meets a mysterious new girl, Lena. Together, they uncover dark secrets about their respective families, their history and their town."

Based on the "acclaimed bestseller" that I've never heard of, "Beautiful Creatures" is yet another bland teen romance meant to fill the gap left by "Twilight". Apparently, it has bombed at the box office, but I decided to watch it anyway because I'm a masochist like that. It's not as if there's anything else related to the horror genre to see right now. We're still over a month away from the "Evil Dead" remake and whatever dubious joys it may bring to the table.

Although "Beautiful Creatures" is overlong, a bit slow, and contains too much exposition instead of action, with a $60,000,000 budget there's plenty to look at this film especially the hot actresses, Alice Englert and Emmy Rossum as Lena Duchannes and Ridley Duchannes respectively. If you're a lot older, even Emma Thompson looks nice with her shoulders bared. I still like her anyway.

Green screen effects were allegedly kept to a minimum with a lot of practical effects such as the changing colours of Macon's living room and the spinning dinner table being highlights. I'm no expert, but I'm certain that a lot more was enhanced afterwards. When it comes to the obligatory magic lightning bolts trickling out of fingertips though, "Beautiful Creatures" doesn't contain the worst examples.

Like theatrical releases should be, it's beautifully filmed, looks the part in nearly every way, and even the CGI is acceptable when it happens. Thus, "Beautiful Creatures" certainly lives up to its title. In other ways, not so much, but I'll come to them by and by.

Hot sexy witch. 'Nuff said.

The biggest problem is that "Beautiful Creatures" really is all about how it looks. The story is too messy, obviously conflated from a piece of literature which must be even more character driven, and is instantly forgettable. In fact, it's rather tedious even if you are into romance. Despite a promising start, it soon becomes "Southern American Cliché: The Movie" with bad accents and every available teen movie trope other than farting for comic effect lifted from something better. At one point, I thought it was going to turn into "Footloose"!

Given the lack of risk taking in Hollywood (or Summit/Lionsgate) at the moment, I almost want to let the lack of originality slide as something which we've all become far too used to, but I can't. Due to the nature of the movies I usually watch, I immediately noticed that the most important plot point about choosing between light and dark borrows heavily from "Night Watch" (2004). There are even moments when the protagonists step into "the gloom" to discuss things or do battle outside the world as perceived by mortals. If that isn't enough to create the stench of plagiarism, the cursed "coming of age" cliché has been done to death by nearly every trendy supernatural drama since the 1970s. Depending on your era, if you've seen "Alison's Birthday", "The Craft" or "The Covenant", there's nothing new here.

With its credible acting, witty moments of dialogue and genuine attempts at characterisation, "Beautiful Creatures" probably isn't a bad movie if you're twelve or younger and haven't seen anything else like it. It may be possible to actually care about the smart-talking characters, think they're kind of cool and hope that love will conquer all at the end, but anyone older isn't going to be so easily pleased or lenient even given the internal logic of the fantasy itself. Let's face it, witches and wizards aren't real, never have been, and never will be. The whole premise of the film is undoubtedly silly and, in my opinion, would have worked better as a more obvious '80s-style comedy. Please note that I say that as someone who detests comedies.

"I hope you kids are using protection."

The story is a horrible mixture of being contrived and timid at the same time albeit with a couple of scenes which push the boundaries regarding underage sex. The twenty-four year old Alden Ehrenreich (as Ethan) and nineteen year old Alice Englert (Lena) aren't that convincing at acting younger than their ages in spite of valiant efforts to do so. The whole relationship between Ethan and Lena suggests paedophilia (or statutory rape) in no uncertain terms. Not that any of us necessarily want to see them bumping uglies on screen, but cutting to a sign burning in the background at one point like something out of the 1950s is also likely to incite more groans from the audience in displeasure than anything else.

Unlike "Twilight", these "kids" can't wait to lose their cherries. But if you're going to show "teenagers" getting it on then show it! And if you're going to get us excited about Emmy Rossum walking around in a black négligée at least be nice enough to provide a money shot after she's been writhing on a blanket with a sickly looking youth! If there's one thing crucial to a story in this genre, it's a deflowering or two! Given the PG-13 rating, obviously that doesn't happen. I have no idea if it happens in the book either although I assume it does since normal teenagers rarely read books aimed at their age group unless there's something saucy in them. I'm sure they won't miss the insinuation of incest between Macon and Sarafine either. I don't want to digress too much so I'll get on my soapbox about the pointlessness of "YT" horror fiction another time.

"Stop! In the name of love... before you break my heart..."

I'm not sure how to fit this into my critique, but I really need to hop on my soapbox for a moment about something else in "Beautiful Creatures" which bugged the Hell out of me (no pun intended): the depiction of Christians. Since they are made out to be a bunch of small town puritans with hillbilly superstitions, could the writing really be any lazier? And could this feeble clichéd jibe be an indication of a much bigger problem behind the scenes of the media as we know it? I'm not going to push this any further, but it's something to think about. I'd say the agenda was more in the mind of the authors, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, than director Richard LaGravenese, but either way, it's lame. In a book or movie about witches though, you have to have something wrong with you to be attracted to this guff in the first place.

Suspending your disbelief about immortal witches (instead of vampires or werewolves) isn't the only hard part. If you're American, the plethora of fake Southern accents in "Beautiful Creatures" will definitely drive you insane. They are even harsher and less intelligible to British ears especially when delivered from the mouths of the very British Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson. Through no fault of his own, Jeremy Irons makes my flesh crawl at the best of times even when he isn't trying to sound like Foghorn Leghorn.

Other cast members are more in the background apart from the better looking of the stereotypical clique of "popular girls", Zoey Deutch, who deserves to go further. I can't wait to see her in "Vampire Academy: Blood Sisters" next year. I'm not sure who Viola Davis is because I've never knowingly seen her in anything else, but apparently it's kind of a big deal having her in this movie. Thomas Mann, who plays Link, was also in "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters" recently, but Pruitt Taylor Vince, Eileen Atkins and Kyle Gallner are almost completely wasted in their bit parts. It's not worth going through any more of the actors because you won't have heard of them and are unlikely to see them in anything else. Having said that, you barely get to see any of them here either. You do get to see massive CGI thunderstorms instead though.

I love excessive, big budget wastes of money like this because it almost justifies the price of the ticket. I'd rather pay $10 to see something with high production values than the same amount for some half-arsed camcorder crap no matter what the subject matter may be. Unfortunately, "Beautiful Creatures" isn't all explosions, bangs, and the kind of spectacle which makes for a true cinematic experience. It has its moments, but it's mostly a drawn-out romantic drama with a kind of "Harry Potter" aesthetic and dialogue which wouldn't be out of place in "Jennifer's Body", "Juno" or some other pop-culture reference filled piece of pseudo-hipsterishness for little girls.

My advice is to wait for this to come out on DVD and then rent it.

The Ninth Gate (1999)

"A rare book dealer, while seeking out the last two copies of a demon text, gets drawn into a conspiracy with supernatural overtones."

Nine days left until Hallowe'en so it's time for "The Ninth Gate". See what I did there? Don't worry, it probably won't happen again. I doubt that I'll ever rewatch "The Ninth Gate" anytime soon either.

I'm not a Johnny Depp fan and find it kind of disgusting to watch somebody with $200,000,000 and their own island playing a part which absolutely anyone could have done just as well. I know his fizzog sells plenty of movies, but I find him overrated. Johnny Depp sort of reminds me of somebody I used to work with who had the same stupid little beard and reeked of body odour so, unfairly, I imagine him to be much the same.

I'm not going to get all moral on you but seeing Johhny Depp romp around naked with Roman Polanski's younger wife also makes me feel nauseous. Given Roman Polanski's criminal history, it's no surprise that his wife is half his age, but it's still weird to see her used in this way. I suppose she wanted to do it, but it's not right.

As you probably know, Johnny Depp plays the part of a "book detective" who gets hired to track down the last copies of a Satanic tome. With a neo-noir feel to the story, he's reminiscent of Mickey Rourke in "Angel Heart" to some extent. His employer, Boris Balkan (Frank Langella), is hardly Lucifer in disguise, but there are superficial similarities.

I'm not sure if the intention was to rework the "Angel Heart" storyline because I only listened to a few parts of the director's commentary on the DVD. I do know that "The Ninth Gate" was based on a novel about something less Satanic with an ending which faded out in a way that made it almost impossible to conclude satisfactorily here either. Kudos for at least trying to wrap things up, but after nearly two hours of watching a mystery unfold, it was still weak.

The standout for me is Lena Olin who plays Liana Telfer as one of the more truly vicious femmes fatales that I've seen for ages. Not only is she extremely hot but sinister with it. Corso (Johnny Depp) describes her as "dishy", but scary and mad as a bag of cats would also apply. She's certainly got claws and she bites!

It's amusing that so many rich characters in "The Ninth Gate" are all into collecting old books about witchcraft. It's yet another thing for the conspiracy theorists who drag up even though though it's just a trope. Considering the elaborate measures many of the bibliophiles take to safely store their treasures, the rough treatment which the Satanic book that they are all chasing receives is also unintentionally comical. I can't think of any book dealers who would handle such a valuable item without gloves, and I highly doubt that they would smoke all over it or press it onto a photocopier.

Roman Polanski's wife, Emmanuelle Seigner, who plays "The Girl" or "Green Eyes" does a fine job as a demonic sidekick even though her role is never truly explained. Whether she is saving Corso from destruction or leading him to his destiny is flawed thoughout the story. Ultimately, she's there to encourage his bad side, but it's complicated and open to too much interpretation. She's nice to look at when nude even though she has a Maryam d'Abo thing going on with her eyebrows which is distracting.

As for the plot, well, it's a mystery in the same vein as "The DaVnci Code" or "Angels and Demons" but years before Dan Brown even thought about writing them and without any twists. It's a straightforward, "connect the dots" affair with a little bit of horror action along the way. It's actually rather difficult to classify "The Ninth Gate" as a horror movie except for the supernatural elements and the Satanism because it isn't all that scary.

"The Ninth Gate" is a beautiful looking film with a rather sleazy and grubby atmosphere which makes me homesick, but the ending is such a disappointment that it it spoils what could have been another Roman Polanski classic.

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

"A young couple move into a new apartment, only to be surrounded by peculiar neighbours and occurrences. When the wife becomes mysteriously pregnant, paranoia over the safety of her unborn child begins controlling her life."

Day 16 of my "Hallowe'en Countdown" brings us "Rosemary"s Baby". Why? Because the story begins in October, and it's full of witches, that's why. Hallowe'en is, after all, still one of the most important of the witches' sabbats whether a new name was slapped on top of the old pagan festival or not.

Although Rosemary is impregnated on the October 4th, 1965 according to her calendar and tells her husband the good news on the 29th, with a further blood test scheduled for November 1st, we can all assume that the witches had a little something extra to celebrate during their Hallowe'en weekend. Bizarrely, no Samhain festivities are shown.

At first, it's surprising that Roman Polanski didn't utilize the obvious cliché, but upon further reflection, maybe not. Even the most superficial searches of the internet reveal many conspiracy theories surrounding Roman Polanski, Satanism and the setting of the movie itself. For those of us who hadn't even been born when the events were going down in real life, it all makes fascinating reading which goes beyond mere coincidence. Did Roman Polanski sell his soul to the Devil in exchange for success or did he get involved with the "pseudo-Illuminati", who knows? If he did either, surely putting a warning message about secret societies into a movie wasn't the brightest idea.

But who even cares about any of that behind the scenes nonsense? We all know that movie people are strange and have pretty messed up lives anyway. If it adds to the appreciation of Polanksi's study of paranoia in "Rosemary's Baby" (which is based on Ira Levin's novel from the year before), so be it. I've always found "Rosemary's Baby" interesting for far less occult reasons.

Longer hair suits her more than a Vidal Sassoon bob.

As shallow as it may be, the main reason I like "Rosemary's Baby' is because Mia Farrow looks pretty in it, and she gets nude several times. I don't like her acting and could cheerfully strangle her character, but this is the only film I've ever seen her in where she looks attractive. Maybe not so much in the picture above, but for a very skinny and almost skeletal girl, Mia Farrow has several moments where the camera really loves her.

Rosemary Woodhouse is a very well written character and suits Mia Farrow perfectly. Having watched "The Haunting of Julia" (1977) only a couple of months ago and noted the lack of her development as an actress, it's clear that Mia Farrow really only played herself anyway. All that nervousness and neuroses are unlikely to be a product of simply being typecast.

As for supporting characters in "Rosemary's Baby", I loathe them all to different degrees which, obviously, is their raison d'être. From the controlling Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes) treating his wife like a child to the excessively irritating Minnie Castevet (Ruth Gordon) pushing the nosy neighbour stereotype to breaking point, they are all shown to be horrible people. If there's a warning in this film, it's never move to New York city.

It's pronounced "moose" not "mouse", you old bag!

Ruth Gordon does a fantastic (and Oscar winning) job as the ultimate "neighbour from Hell", but I could never tolerate much of her as an actress. Her voice, her face, and the way she delivers her lines just makes me think of the "kill it with fire" meme. Why Rosemary doesn't just deliver a deluge of the expletives which would fall so easily out of my own mouth to someone as pushy as that is one of the weakest parts of "Rosemary's Baby" for me. No matter how naive Rosemary is supposed to be, Americans are generally not so backward in coming forward when something annoys them. It's all part of the sinister plot though.

Since "Rosemary's Baby" is regarded as a classic movie by the majority of critics (not only by horror fans), I'm not going to make myself look foolish by picking any more holes in it. For one thing, I can't really find anything wrong other than how it never delivers the punchline of actually showing the baby. Bearing in mind that it was released during the Summer of 1968, and the effects for the brief appearance by the Devil himself were the best that could be done, it was a wise decision not to show an infant with glowing eyes, cloven hooves, horns, or a long, pointy tail.

If you've never seen "Rosemary's Baby" before, I've no doubt spoiled a lot of it for you. It's nearly 45 years old now though so you've had plenty of time to watch it. With the number of times it's been shown on television across the world, its almost impossible that anyone doesn't already know the story inside and out. The chances are that you haven't put in on for a while though so plonk it in your DVD player tonight and give it another whirl.

The City of the Dead (1960)

(AKA Horror Hotel)



"A young coed (Nan Barlow) uses her winter vacation to research a paper on witchcraft in New England. Her professor recommends that she spend her time in a small village called Whitewood."

Rather than write yet another review of "The City of the Dead" which nobody reads, I've just embedded the full movie from YouTube at the top of this post so you can watch it for yourself. It's ideal viewing for a gloomy Sunday afternoon.

As "City of the Dead" (AKA "Horror Hotel") is in the public domain, I used to keep a copy of it on my own YouTube channel (which I hope you've all subscribed to) until the amount of bogus copyright claims started to get annoying. When they tried to put adverts next to something which even I couldn't monetise, I took it down to stop the thieves from making any money.

I will just say that "The City of the Dead" has a great atmosphere, it's low-budget but looks good in black and white, and it's full of clichés. Maybe those clichés weren't quite so clichéd at the time though. Watch out for a reworking of the "phantom hitchhiker" story around 17 minutes in (and again around the 50 minute mark).

Standouts include Venetia Stevenson as Nan Barlow, Patricia Jessel in a dual role as Elizabeth Selwyn/Mrs. Newless, and, of course, Christopher Lee doing an American accent.

You can hear about the other details from the director, John Llewellyn Moxey, in the video below.



Here are the obligatory screencaps which most people only come to my blog to steal anyway. I don't care. I only took them from the Google image search myself.

I also found this interview with Christopher Lee about "The City of the Dead" (and a lot of his other films) which you might find interesting. Before you ask, no, I don't know what's wrong with the interviewer's mouth either.



Tonight, I'm going to see "Sinister" which I will write a review of tomorrow.

The Devil's Curse (2008)

(AKA "Credo")



"A modern supernatural horror film that explores the dark side of the human psyche, and the terror in facing up to one's darkest fears."

While hunting for something to half-way decent to watch, I remembered that I bought a copy of "The Devil's Curse" from my local pawn shop way back in June and still hadn't opened it. From the trailer, it looked as if it was going to be something shit-yer-pants scary and supernatural so I was really looking forward to it.

Unfortunately, it was another low-budget, Lionsgate distributed title which, in terms of disappointment, turned out to be just like "Spirit Trap" (2005) all over again but without Billie Piper.

MyAnna Buring, who you may know as Sam from "The Descent" (2005) and Lotte from "Lesbian Vampire Killers" (2009), was the big name in this although Colin Salmon had almost a minute on screen as a professor of psychiatry. Colin Salmon's role was so small that I'm surprised he was even credited, but his name was right at the top of the DVD artwork as if he was one of the stars.

Another blink and you'll miss it "star" was the late Stephen Gately, the famously gay member of the Irish boyband "Boyzone", who died in 2009. This was supposed to have been his acting debut, but he only had a couple of seconds sitting round a Ouija board at the beginning. If that was acting then every extra can now claim an IMDb credit. Actually, I think they already do.

I didn't and still don't know the names of anyone else involved in this, but I think the token obnoxious American character wasn't really played by an American. I'd hazard a guess that they were all bit-part actors from various TV shows which I've never seen because "The Devil's Curse" had that vibe to it.

While it was refreshing to hear British voices in a horror movie again, one girl (whose character's name was Timmy) committed the crime of saying "uz" (with a "z") instead of "us" at one point. That nearly made me pull the DVD out and snap it in half! I hated when that Northernism got popular in the South of England back in the mid-2000s almost as much as I now loathe how Americans are hellbent on replacing every instance of the word "very" with "super" in a way that makes them all sound like affected rejects from "The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin". There are now certain blogs and YouTube channels which I can no longer bear to visit because of it.

Anyway, "The Devil's Curse" started off okay, had some interesting if not very likeable characters, and seemed to be on track to be a pretty good "haunted house" kind of deal. I could tell by the sparseness of the sets that my initial feelings were going to be dashed to pieces, but I suffered through the boredom of the story in twenty minute stages during the day just so I could say that I'd seen it.

The funny thing is, I think I have seen "The Devil's Curse" before and probably on "Netflix" when I still had it. It all seemed very familiar and not just because the scenario was so unoriginal. If I had watched it before, I didn't make it all the way to the end. I barely made it all the way to the end this time either.

The main problem was that the script wasn't very good, the story was overambitious and tried to be a thinking man's "psychological horror" with a twist which didn't make a lot of sense, and the pace at which it unfolded was slower than a snail crawling through treacle.

The acting was okay with MyAnne Buring carrying most of the film, but there was hardly any depth to the characterisation. The camerawork was above average too with none of that shaky nonsense going on. It was just so boring without any jump scares, gore or nudity that I have no idea how it even got an R-rating. Maybe there was some swearing which, since I'm English, I didn't even notice.

If the story had been more shocking or, at the very least, scary then it could have been a pretty decent little film. As it was, I didn't get anything out of it.