I KILL GIANTS (2017)
Label: Umbrella Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Duration: 106 Minutes
Rating: PG
Audio: English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1 with Optional english Subtitles
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen (2.40:1)
Director: Anders Walter
Cast: Imogen Poots, Madison Wolfe, Noel Clarke, Zoe Saldana
In the dark coming-of-age fantasy I kill Giants (2017), based on Joe Kelly and Ken Niimura's Man of Action/Image Comics graphic novel, we have young troubled-girl Thorson (Madison Wolfe, The Conjuring 2) who believes she's the sworn protector of her small coastal community, protecting everyone from various malevolent giants she believes inhabit the area, and to that end she has devised various serums, traps and warning systems to aid her on her quest to rid the world of giants. She sets up elaborate baited traps in the forest and beaches, and she has created a detailed mythos for the myriad of giants, keeping a journal with her secret recipes and plans inside. She also carves mystic protective runes into the walls and doors at school, and carries with her a pink heart-shaped purse, within which is her sacred weapon, a mythical ax she's named Coveleski, after a famous baseball player nicknamed the "giant killer".
This belief in giants is public knowledge unfortunately, she's not afraid to talk about it to anyone, which at school makes her an easy target, not helping are the bunny ears she wears, it likes an neon-arrow pointing down to the weirdo. School bully Taylor (Rory Jackson) mercilessly targets the young girl both verbally and physically, it seems her mission is to destroy the troubled girl, regardless of her obvious problems. At home things aren't much better, her gamer-teen brother seems like an angry douche, while her older and well-meaning sister Karen (Imogen Poots, Centurion) runs the household, burning the candle at both ends trying to keep her siblings on-track and her little sister out of the asylum. The reason for the lack of parental figure in the family is not readily apparent, but it comes around in a meaningful way later on.
The new girl at school Sophia (Sydney Wade) attempts to befriend the giant-killing strangeling but she doesn't make it easy, though she does eventually let her inside her bubble, inviting her to her secret lair and explaining how it is her duty to protect the world from giants, describing in detail the various kinds of giants, and showing her the elaborate baits and traps she has set up around the community. The friendship is difficult to maintain, and later on when the new girl is tricked into betraying her by the bully she turns on her with a quickness.
Also in the picture is sympathetic school psychologist Mrs. Mollé (Zoe Saldana, Guardians of the Galaxy) who is having a real hard time getting Barbara to face the real-life cause of her delusional fantasies, and when all is revealed it's a heart breaker for sure, I teared up more than one watching this one.
Audio/Video: I Kill Giants (2017) arrives on region-free DVD framed in anamorphic widescreen, the image looks solid with some b=very nice lensing capturing the gorgeous coastal scenery. The English DTS-HD MA surround audio is nicely immersive, and gets some nice booming depth when the giants show-up throughout, no subtitles are provided. This is a bare bones disc with no start-up menu or extras.
I love that we have a kid-friendly fantasy film rooted in the sorrows of reality, a coming of age story for young girls that doesn't talk down, that deals with deep anguish and the hardship of coming of age, and it's painted with a whimsical lensing that is gorgeous, including fantastical images of trolls and fairytale forests, it's a good mix of adolescent trauma and fairytale imagery. If you're looking for some dark fantasy to watch with the kids that falls somewhere in between The Neverending Story and Pan's Labyrinth look no further, I consider this is a new kid classic in my household.
I Kill Giants
THE ENDLESS (2017)
Label: Umbrella Entertainment
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: M
Duration: 111 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital Surround 5.1
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen (2.35:1)
Cast: Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson
Director: Callie Hernandez, Emily Montague, James Jordan, Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson
Lovecraftian cosmic terror has been a theme for me this week, having reviewed Dagon (2001), In the Mouth of Madness (1995) and now the latest from Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson, the duo that brought us Spring (2014), I feel as if maybe the old gods are trying to tell me something. In the cosmic horror The Endless (2017) we have a pair of siblings, Justin (Justin Benson) and Aaron (Aaron Moorhead), eking out a rather shitty life of poverty somewhere in California, performing menial jobs and eating lots of Ramen. We learn that ten years prior the older brother Justin and his sibling were part of what they call a "UFO death-cult", with Justin pulling himself and his younger brother Aaron out of it for fear of cult-y stuff like ritual castration and deadly kool-aid drinking. Now years later they receive a video cassette in the mail from cult member Annie (Callie Hernandez, Blair Witch) that triggers a return to the Southern Californian desert were the cult have a compound, the surface level premise for the re-visit is closure, but you get the feeling that the brothers sort of miss the communal lifestyle despite recognizing that it wasn't healthy for them, though the younger sibling has fonder memories of the place.
They return not knowing how they'll be received, but they are greeted warmly by Hal (Tate Ellington, Sinister 2) and welcomed by everyone else with open arms, but the friendliness has an underlying strangeness to it, it is a cult after all. As we see more of life within the cult it seems more hipster communal than straight-up cult, but that's not to say there isn't lots of weirdness afoot.
The communal life is very artisan, everyone has a skill, big red beardo Tim (Lew Temple, Waiting) makes an addictive home brew, Anna makes clothing, they practice archery, art and magic, and then there's a strange game of tug-o-war they call "the struggle", which entails yanking on a rope that ascends into the night sky, and something unknown and unseen is tugging on the other end, and while the older brother offers an Earthbound explanation it's dismissive and not at all disarming. While all this is happening the cult members give each other in strange looks in knowing ways implying even more an air of mystery.
The mountainous area is covered with strange nail-shaped rock formations which are never truly explained, it's sort of tossed off that they're ancient lava-rock formations, there's a circular pattern motif throughout, and a localized optical illusion that gives the appearance of two moons in the sky at night, and the discovery that there are recurring time loops in certain areas, and that a the higher power regularly drops communications into their lives by way of Polaroids and vintage media like video cassettes and hard drives. The strangeness isn't isolated to the commune, others in the vicinity who have nothing to do with the cult seem to be stuck in their own personal time-loop Hells, one looking to have originated back to the 18th century, and it's interesting to note the duration of the time loops seem to vary in length wildly. There's also talk of three moons appearing in the sky, signaling something called "the ascension", which surely does sound cult-y and ominous, but what we witness and what's semi-explained hints at anything from a Lovecraftian elder god to an alien influence, or maybe even interdimensional beings, and I love that this movie doesn't reveal too much, it has a mystery that it keeps to itself. I found multiple viewing of the film rewarding, I don't think one is enough, now having watched it four time now I think I have a good understanding of the internal logic, but it still has enough ideas floating around that I think I could watch this with fresh eyes again and walk away with something new to ponder.
In a way the myriad of genuinely interesting ideas the movie floats is a bit of drawback, it's a micro-budgeted film and the budget ceiling does seem to hamper the effectiveness of the exploration of these ideas, but even so the promise shines through with enough cleverness and indie-ingenuity that it worked well enough, it's not wholly satisfying, but I love a movie that reaches for the moon, even if it only lands in the neighbors yard, there's still a lot to celebrate. The main cast here is quite good, including the directors who appear in the main roles, really driving home the main theme of brothers coming together and making important realizations about themselves, but there was one thing that irked me, whenever they were presented with something so fantastically strange or terror-riffic they were so calm and non-plussed about it, a scene of a brother wandering through the desert when confronted by the sun being blotted out for a second, magically appearing Polaroids and an unseen force would have sent me running in fright, he just sort of shrugs it off. The older brother doesn't really show any concern until the dark unknown literally brushes up against him!
Something I think that is missing here is a consistent tone and carry-through, directing and starring in a movie is fraught with problems I assume, and I think a lack of perspective and through line might be one of the casualties here, but not to a ruinous degree. Sometimes the tone just shifted in a strange way, there's a lot of sibling humor in the dialogue that interrupted a moment or two of weirdness or seriousness that felt off to me. Back to the pluses, the eerie synth score from Jimmy LaValle (The Album Leaf) really amps up the strange tonal quality of the film, interestingly recycling the public domain song "House of the Rising Sun" (made famous by The Animals) over and over in both song and score interpretation, it has a strange quality about it that fits the film perfectly.
The look of the film is a mixed bag for me, shot anamorphically it has a kind of ugly desaturated, low-contrast look about it, but I like the way the semi-flat image distorts giving this reality-bender an otherworldly feel at times, other times I didn't care for it. Movies are like comics for me, if I don't like the artwork I find it hard to get into the story, but I did come around to it eventually. At times the film brought to mind influential interdimensional lo-fi film Equinox (1967), I really feel that movie had an influence on this one, the directors have a love for Lovecraftian terror, as evidenced by their previous film Spring (2014), and I would not be surprised if Equinox was on their mind while making this one, but I guess I could just be reading that into it based on my own love for it.
Audio/Video: The Endless (2017) arrives on region-free DVD from Umbrella Entertainment, the image is anamorphic 2.40:1 widescreen with an English Dolby digital surround mix, there are no subtitles. The disc looks and sounds good, no issues with the A/V, but unfortunately the disc is barebones without a start-up menu or trailer. This is definitely a film along the lines of Donnie Darko where I could have found myself pouring through the extras looking for insights, so a few more extras would have been appreciated.
The Endless (2017) is a thought-provoking slice of Lovecraftian cosmic terror that's overstuffed with big ideas and themes, while the budget doesn't always make it easy to explore those ideas I like the that not everything is revealed and over-explained. If you were a fan of the directors previous film Spring (2014) I think you're primed for this one, or if you're just into weird Lovecraftian horror, there's a lot here to digest, I recommend watching it more than once, it's one of those movies.
IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1995)
Label: Scream Factory
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 95 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: John Carpenter
Cast: Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Prochnow, John Glover, Charlton Heston, David Warner, Bernie Casey, Peter Jason, Frances Bay, Wilhelm von Homburg
John Carpenter's In The Mouth of Madness (1995) is probably one of the most Lovecraftian non-Lovecraft movies you will ever watch, a reality-bending slice of 90's horror that for a long time was over-looked as the near masterpiece that I think it is, but I think it's standing in Carpenter catalog has risen considerably these past few years. It opens with insurance investigator John Trent (Sam Neil, Possession) being forcibly incarcerated at an asylum for reasons unknown, he's received by Dr. Saperstein (John Glover, Gremlins 2) and placed in a padded room, but not before kicking one of the orderlies right in the balls, which he jokes about later. He's later visited by Dr. Wrenn (David Warner, Waxworks) who while interviewing him makes references to something awful happening outside the walls of asylum, and we learn of Trent's back story, narrated by Trent in true Lovecraftian fashion, working us back through the mind-bending tale that brought him to insanity.
The tale begins to unfold with a scene of Trent interrogating a Mr. Paul (Peter Jason, Assault of Precinct 13) whom his insurer suspects of fraud, it sets Trent up as a crafty private eye and also a bit of an asshole, from here it moves on to dinner with the head of the insurance company, played by Bernie Casey (Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde) who asks Trent to take on a case for a large policy holder, Arcane Publishing. While having lunch a man with an axe and a peculiar set of eyes attacks Trent, smashing through a window and asking him "Do you read Sutter Cane?", before he's shot dead by the police.
Trent meets with the head of Arcane Publishing (Charlton Heston, The Planet of the Apes) and Cane's editor Linda Styles (Julie Carmen, Fright Night 2) who tell him of how their star horror writer Sutter Cane has gone missing along with his new manuscript, oh, and the guy with the ax who attacked him earlier was Cane's manager who read his latest book and went crazy, killing his entire family prior to going after Trent. The publisher want him to find the writer and bring back his new novel, and while Trent feels the whole thing is a PR stunt, he reluctantly agrees to take on the case. The first clue comes when Trent somehow figures out that the various covers to the author's book can be cut-up to form a map of New Hampshire, leading to a road trip with editor Styles that leads them to a small village straight out the author's books, Hobb's End, a town that shouldn't exist but somehow does.
They check into a creepy bed and breakfast run by an old lady named Mrs. Pickman (Frances Bay, Wild At Heart) and almost immediately encounter Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow, Dune) who is holed up at a strange black church located in town, and things gets really strange from the get-go, with reality and fiction beginning to breakdown and meld, leaving the investigator and the editor doubting their own sanity. As the film plays out the reality game is both horrific and psychologically mind-bending, with our once doubtful investigator questioning his own existence by the very end, in a story peppered with grotesque Lovecraftian terrors and John Carpenter's wonderful directorial flourishes. Carpenter's use of the scope framing combines wonderfully with the visually cool-looking locations, the asylum and the black church are framed to perfection, using the full scope of the frame to capture all the madness.
The special effects done by KNB are awesome, there's lots of tendril sand gooey tentacled Lovecraftian creatures, hideously deformed locals, and more subtle touches like the strange-looking dual-pupils seen throughout. The monster stuff is kept to a minimum, they didn't get a lot of screen time, but what we do get is mighty sweet, I wanted more but we get enough without over doing it.
This has such a great cast as well, highlighted by Sam Neill who is perfectly cast as the cynical private investigator, he's wry and sarcastic ,and he plays demented well, the scenes of him losing his grip at the cinema at the end always makes me smile, he's got such a peculiar way about him, I love it. Julie Carmen feels a bit stiff to me, she's a cold fish by design, in the extras she says Carpenter had her watch Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday (1940) as inspiration for the character, which I've never seen, but I didn't love her performance, but I did like it when she begins loses her mind, telling Trent that she's "Losing myself!", that scene worked for me. The rest of the cast is a weird combo of notables, we have Bernie Casey from Revenge of the Nerds, Charlton Heston, Carpenter's good luck charm Peter Jason, plus Wilhelm von Homburg (Vigo the Carpathian from Ghostbusters 2!), Carpenter really cast this one with some odd but satisfying choices.
Audio/Video: In The Mouth of Madness (1995) arrives on Blu-ray from Scream Factory, sourced from a brand new 4K scan of the original camera negative, presented in 1080p HD and framed in Carpenter-vision widescreen (2.35:1). The previous Warner Bros. Blu-ray from 2016 looked fine to my eyes, but this new transfer looks fantastic, grain is uniformly finely managed, colors are rich and nicely saturated, black levels are deep and inky and fine detail is abundant throughout with really nice shadow detail. Scream did really good work with this new transfer.
The lone audio option is an English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1 with optional English subtitles, everything is well-balanced and clean, the Carpenter score and creepy sound design seep into the surrounds giving this a nice immersive presentation. This is one of those underrated Carpenter scores, if you ever get the chance to listen to the soundtrack away from the film give it a listen, like the movie it's only gotten better with age.
Onto he extras we get the vintage EPK and original John Carpenter commentary with cinematographer Gary B. Kibbe from the previous U.S. releases, it's a very technical track and not one of the best Carpenter commentaries you will ever listen to, but Scream Factory come through with a brand new commentary from Carpenter and his wife/producer Sandy King Carpenter, it's a much looser and more enjoyable listen as the two wax nostalgic on making the film, covering the production, the cast and reception of the film. Sandy King several times takes jabs at New Line's Bob Shay, she definitely was not a fan of the man, also saying that Charlton Heston hated her, he even kicked her out of her office so he could take a nap!
More extras come by way of an episode of Horror’s Hallowed Grounds with Sean Clark exploring some of the locations used in the film, I love these things, I wish there were more of them on Scream's releases, it's been a while since I saw one. There's also new interviews with actress Julie Carmen and special effects artist Greg Nicotero, both are good interviews, with Carmen speaking about her notable genre roles in film, a cool deleted ending to the film, and what it was like working with everyone on set. Nicotero speaks about the notable special effects with some cool behind-the-scenes video that gives us a much better look at some of the creatures designed for the film that are only really glimpsed in the final film, plus scenes of the special effects from the deleted scene referenced by Carmen in her interview. The disc s buttoned-up with some Nicotero home movies, a trailer and a whopping nine-minute of TV spots.
The single-disc release is a Collector's Edition, it comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork, the a-side is a new illustration from frequent Scream collaborator Joel Robinson (Black Christmas), the reverse side being the original one-sheet which was used on previous home video versions. This release comes with a limited edition slipcover also featuring the Joel Robinson artwork, the disc also features the same Robinson artwork.
Special Features:
- NEW 4K scan of the original film elements
- NEW Audio Commentary with director John Carpenter and producer Sandy King Carpenter
- NEW Horror’s Hallowed Grounds – a look at the film’s locations today (12 min)
- NEW The Whisperer of the Dark - an interview with actress Julie Carman (10 min) HD
- NEW Greg Nicotero’s Things in the Basement – a new interview with special effects artist Greg Nicotero including behind-the-scenes footage (17 min) HD
- NEW Home Movies from Hobb’s End – Behind the Scenes footage from Greg Nicotero (12 min)
- Audio Commentary with director John Carpenter and cinematographer Gary B. Kibbe
- Vintage Featurette – The Making of In the Mouth of Madness (5 min)
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min) HD
- TV Spots (9 min)
If you're in a Lovecraft frame of mind and looking for something to watch I say check out In The Mouth of Madness, one of the best of the Lovecraft influenced movies out there that isn't a direct adaptation. Carpenter explored Lovecraftian themes in both of the preceding Apocalypse Trilogy entries with both The Thing (1982) and Prince of Darkness (1987), but never more overtly than with this one, it's littered with Lovecraft references and Easter eggs, plus oodles of atmosphere. The new 4K transfer by Scream Factory looks gorgeous, and the new extras are all pretty great, well-worth the upgrade! Scream usually do good work for their John Carpenter titles, here's hoping they get their hands on more of 'em, I'd even be down for some of the later not-so-great stuff like Ghosts of Mars (2001) Escape from L.A. (1996) and Vampires (1998), and his sci-fi film Starman (1984) is already on tap for a Collector's edition in 2019.
