Darken

Darken provides. More to the point, Mother Darken provides me with Canadian scifi. If you're not overly familiar with Canadian scifi, it has a certain look and feel. There's something distinctly...Canadian about it. A kind of mild claustrophobic atmosphere.

Anyway, Darken is a new film from Audrey Cummings, and very different from her previous outing, Berkshire County. Eve, a nurse who's struggling with having lost a patient, suddenly finds herself trapped inside Darken, a world of seemingly infinite, interconnected rooms. Presently, Darken is ruled by Clarity who is slowly consolidating her power. Claiming to act on Mother Darken's behalf, Clarity won't tolerate any talk of a world beyond Darken and is swift to persecute dissenters. Eve's presence in Darken threatens Clarity's hold over her people and, well, we can't have that.

What follows is your standard dystopian plot, with plenty of action and drama. As Eve stumbles her way through the world, she learns about its dangers and secrets. Not all is revealed to her, and that's one of the film's strengths--there's still a good amount of mystery left in the world. For instance, although we learn the fate of Mother Darken, the world's absentee creator, we don't know where she came from. And when the film ends, Eve and her friends find themselves staring down a new beginning.

Darken reminded me of The Odyssey, a TV show from the early 90s which I really liked. It, too, is about a stranger in a strange land trying to find their way home, and guess that's something we can all understand on some level--the desire for the familiar comforts of home. In Darken, each room belonged to someone, but the rooms themselves aren't inviting, making the world that much more alienating and foreign.

Weirder still, no one in Darken can remember their life before they arrived. All they know is they were lost, and Mother Darken gave them sanctuary. If this sounds vaguely like a metaphor for suicide, know that I thought the same thing. The idea is further reinforced by the fact that one of the characters did try to kill himself at some point in the past. Thankfully, the movie stops short of becoming allegorical, as the focus is--and should be--on the shifting power dynamics within Darken. Whatever this world is, it's in turmoil. And whoever these people are, they've got some hard choices ahead.

Darken was conceived by RJ Lackie, who's vision was so big that Darken has been developed in a series. Watching the film feels a bit like watching a really good pilot, only better. Sure, there's the standard introduction of characters and a brief orientation to the world of the film, but it's satisfying in a way pilots seldom are. Probably because Lackie knows where he wants his story to go, and Darken's plot is self-contained.

Darken closed out the 2017 Blood in the Snow Film Festival, and was (clearly) one of this reviewer's favourites. And that's not just because I have a soft spot for Canadian scifi. Darken is a testament to what can be accomplished with a great idea and a fairly limited budget.

Darken was preceded by the short film Banshee, another festival highlight. In it, a young girl struggles to fall asleep, haunted by bad memories of that time she got lost in the woods. Her big sister has run out of patience, and the two strike a bargain: big sis won't tell mom and dad about little sister's drawings of monsters in the woods if she promises to go to sleep. Easier said than done because lil sis is sure something followed her home.

Incredibly atmospheric, Banshee does a great job balancing kid fears and teenaged frustration with same. The hateful older sister is so thoroughly unsympathetic you wind up hoping there is a monster in the house, so she can get what's coming to her. Childhood trauma be damned!

The OA

So I'm watching The OA and it occurs to me (more than once) that I've seen something kind of like it before. After I watched the last episode I googled "movies about cults" and I wasn't at all surprised to learn the same two people who created The OA also made The Sound of My Voice in 2011.

The Sound of My Voice--the film that I kept thinking about while watching The OA--is about a woman who claims to be a time traveler, but is really just a con artist. Or is she? In it, Brit Marling plays Maggie, a cult leader who says she's from the future. Two documentarians manage infiltrate Maggie's cult but as they spend more time listening to Maggie, one of them becomes increasingly convinced she's the real deal.

In The OA, Marling is Praire, aka OA, a woman who disappeared seven years ago. Now back with her family, Prairie steals away at night to meet in secret with a small group people to whom she tells the fantastical tale of her captivity. Prairie spins a yarn about medical experimentation with near death experiences and angels, and convinces her listeners that she holds the key to transcending death.

From what I gather, people liked The OA, except for the end and in truth, the series doesn't end well. But I think that's more a factor of the series not being well paced to begin with. The OA's a bit of a slog; it starts slowly, the story isn't developed evenly over all eight episodes and when the end comes, it brings with it more questions than answers. The Sound of My Voice has similar problems, specifically with how it ends. Toward the end of the film, a question is posed to one of the documentarians but we never get to hear the answer. I believe it's because the filmmakers themselves don't know what Maggie does with the kid. Similarly, I'm not sure if Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij know exactly what happened to Prairie when she was held captive.

I'm inclined to believe her whole story was bullshit but maybe that's because I'm familiar with The Sound of My Voice, which her whole story really is bullshit. That doesn't mean the story itself isn't any less compelling, but it does mean the story requires some kind of context or backdrop to make it meaningful for the audience. Were The OA better developed, if Prairie was able to change or enrich the lives of all her acolytes, and not just one or two, despite her having told them lies, then maybe the series finale wouldn't have been such a let down.

Rooted in scifi but bordering on fantasy, The OA leans too heavily on ambiguity in its final moments, undercutting its own premise. Also, I think it kind of forgets about or looses track of some of its story elements. But then again, because Prairie never gets to finish telling her story, the series can get away with loose ends. Personally, I find this kind of sloppy, a lazy writing trick to deal with an unresolved plot. Sure, I could think up my own reasons as to why everyone had to leave their doors wide open, but that's not what I signed on for.

If asked, I'll tell people I liked half the show. Prairie's story, even if it's all made up, is really interesting. It's a good story about one man's obsession with the hereafter. But it's unfinished and that lack of closure is dissatisfying.

Horror Core: Great Genre Film Themes

I've written about music before. Not that I'm at all qualified to do so, but still. And now here's more on the subject. Specifically about theme songs for genre films. Which I've also posted about in the past. Sort of. But this time I'm talking song songs, like with lyrics and stuff.

It's not so unusual for a movie to have a theme song--in fact, it's often expected. More so if a singer is cast in the film. Witness Men in Black or Battleship. Or Dark Floors, the Lordi movie. Heck, Bobby Brown laid down a track for Ghostbusters 2 and he was hardly in it. And then there are the genre films that have no good reason for a theme song, but still one exists. For reasons that escape most of us, someone decided these movies needed a theme tune, something to sum up, in verse, the films' themes and/or plot. I've scoured my memory, my friends' memories, and the Internet to bring you a few choice selections.

Shocker as heard in Shocker



Shocker is not a great film, by any standard. But it's still kinda fun to watch, even if Wes Craven was just plagiarizing himself for most of it. A lot of work went into the soundtrack, and a super-group of sorts was assembled to produce and sing the theme song. The Dudes of Wrath include members from KISS, Whitesnake, Motley Crue, and Van Halen.

Green Slime as heard in The Green Slime



I haven't actually seen this stinker from 1968, but I'm told that those who have remember it for its theme song. Or from the first ever MST3K. Anyway, The Green Slime boasts a rocking theme that includes both a sitar and a theremin. Written by award-winning composer Charles Fox, and sung by Richard Dalvey, who pioneered surf music. (Special thanks to Andrew Barr)

Zombeavers as heard in Zombeavers



If you haven't seen Zombeavers, you should. Also, the song is full of spoilers. Sung by crooner Nick Amado, and written by Jon and Al Kaplan, the Zombeavers theme is exactly what you'd expect from the guys who brought us The Thing musical. Incidentally, the guys who wrote the movie's theme also wrote the movie.

Looker as heard in Looker



Looker isn't a bad movie, even though critics didn't like it very much back in 1981. Written and directed by Michael Crichton, the movie touches on themes of beauty and perfection and the plot could totally be remade today. Complementing the film is its theme song sung by Sue Sadd and the Next, which was later covered by Kim Carnes. Looker has an entire soundtrack album that recorded but never released. (Special Thanks to Don Guarisco)

Dream Warriors as heard in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors



The Nightmare on Elm Street franchise is a fascinating study. No less interesting is the third movie's theme song by Dokken. This rock power anthem probably wasn't the band's crowning achievement, but it was remixed and released on what became their best-selling album. Rumor has it the band's internal conflict helped fuel their sound. Whatever the case, Dream Warriors is so awesome that it defeats Freddy himself.

Burn as heard in The Crow



The Crow is legendary for a lot of reasons, its soundtrack being one of them. The movie is full of '90s rock and metal, and the soundtrack sold over four million copies. Initially, no label would produce it until Trent Reznor got on board. The soundtrack is crammed full of new songs and covers, but Burn by The Cure became the movie's theme. It's haunting and gothy, capturing the essence of the film.

Low-Budget Film Fest: Science Fiction Edition

Obviously.

I recently read this article on Buzzfeed about how some of the best sci-fi movies are the low-budget ones that, due to financial/logistical constraints, force a small group of characters to deal with larger sci-fi-y problems. It was a good article, but I was a little disappointed that it didn't include a list of movies to watch and enjoy. Which is all the more perplexing given we're talking about Buzzfeed.

Anyway, I've seen a bunch of sci-fi and I think I can make a few suggestions. Note, I define small budget as $3M or less--the estimated cost of Prince of Darkness.

The Machine

Two scientists create a self-aware AI that forces us to consider what it means to be human. Not nearly as preachy as one might expect, given the premise. Actually, the film is delightfully understated and questions the ethical limits of artificial intelligence and robotics.

Tetsuo The Iron Man

A distinctly Japanese take on Cronenbergian body horror. It's weird, it's sexual, it kind of defies explanation.

Beyond the Black Rainbow

To be honest, I didn't like this movie but it does perfectly recreate the wtf atmosphere of trippy 70s and early 80s sci-fi. Largely an experiment in style, BBtR, fails and succeeds for the same reason: it's friggin weird. It makes very little sense but if odd, drug-fueled thought experiments are your bag, this film's for you.

Banshee Chapter

Speaking of drugs, Banshee Chapter uses mind-altering narcotics as its gateway to weirdness and horror. Think MKUltra meets From Beyond. This film genuinely creeped me out on more than one occasion and made me jump with one of the best startle effects in recent memory.

Antiviral

Okay, so this one is just over my arbitrary limit but it's my list and I can do what I want with it, so there. In the near future a man gets caught up in the dangerous and lucrative business of black market celebrity viruses--selling viral infections that afflict celebrities to their fans. If this also seems like a Cronenberg-type film that's because it was made by his son, Brandon.

Prince of Darkness

More of a horror movie, really. But it does contain a fair amount of speculation and metaphysics. A group of grad students study an ancient artifact stored in a church basement. Best. Ending. Ever. Fact is, I love this movie and want everyone to see it, so I included it here.

Honourable mentions (because they cost more than a little but are still comparatively "small"): 

Triangle

Before there was Edge of Tomorrow (the movie version, at any rate) there was Triangle, Chris Smith's movie about a woman stuck in a time-loop in which she dies again and again.

Altered

An alien siege movie that's long on suspense. Hard to believe it began life as a comedy inspired by the works of Sam Raimi because the end result is a well-paced thriller.

For other lists that I may or may not agree with check out Den of Geek and i09. For a good read on the subject check out, wait for it, The Wall Street Journal.

Surrogates

I don't read a lot of science fiction.  Unless you count all those Star Wars books in high school, which clearly I don't.  And, likely because I don't read it, I don't watch a whole lot of sci-fi either.  Thus I am unable to call to mind the myriad sci-fi stories Surrogates invokes.

I do recall one film in which some dude is living as a robot and gets blasted.  Or maybe a robot kills him?  I know someone dies.  And there was this other time all these robots went mental.  And Ghost in the Shell.  That was a good one.

My point is this: Surrogates brings nothing new to the table.  We've been battling our fear of our own mortality since Metropolis at the very least, and we've yet to find the balance between technology and humanity.  Of the few utopic/distopic sci-fi movies I have seen, I've noticed a disturbing trend: the humans/lotecks/dreads live in squalor, refugees from eden barely eking out an existence in a demilitarized zone.  But it's real, dammit; humanity survives, set against the backdrop of its failures.  Don't you get it?  It's subversive.

The only thing Surrogates manages to really subvert, however, is its potential.  James Cromwell invents human-like robots that could be directed with the mind.  A judgement handed down by the supreme court allows people to live as their robots, which gives rise to a generation of shut-ins whose only human interaction is mediated through technology.  The introduction of surrogates results in no more crime, racism, or STDs.  Wars are still fought, of course, but with robots.  The world is a better place.  And then someone gets murdered for the first time in forever.  Like for-real murdered--a robot was shot with a weapon that was able to kill its operator.  Bruce Willis tracks down the murderer and uncovers two different plots.  The first is an assassination attempt on James Cromwell, the second is James Cromwell's own murderous plot to rid the world of human robots.

Jake Noseworthy's not a robot, but sadly he dies, too.

Let's forget for a minute that the film grossly misrepresents how legislative policy works, and fails to understand basic socio-economics.  Let's pretend like the industrialized nations wouldn't experience sharp changes in demographics due to declining birth rates and a sickly, inactive, adult population.  All of that aside, Surrogates still has a big problem which, unfortunately, is an integral part of its world: the robots can be remotely overridden.  Someone, somewhere, with enough know-how can either shut down your surrogate or take it joyriding when you're out of the house; you're at the mercy of society's ethics and you don't even know.

Think about it.  You live through your robot and are pretty much invincible.  But you are not your robot, and, pushing aside all the psychological ramifications of a techno-humanity, your robot is just a machine that can be hacked like any other piece of remotely operated or networked technology.  What's to stop someone from hacking the system?  What happens when machine-you is taken over by someone else?  And what does it mean if you have multiple surrogates?

The answers are, nothing, nothing, and nothing much.  In a truly amazing bit of storytelling, Surrogates manages to touch upon themes of morality, identity, and humanity without actually exploring any of them.  It is true that Bruce Willis is trying very hard to reconnect emotionally with his wife, urging her to spend less time as a robot, but the subplot is more love story than allegory.  The movie harps on the pros and cons of surrogacy yet refuses to comment on the freedom of anonymity or the potential for exploitation.

I don't know if all sci-fi is supposed to reflect current society's ideals and shortcomings--maybe I've seen Trekkies one too many times.  But I do know that Surrogates sort of goes halfway to making a point about...something.  The film looks good and is fun to watch, for the most part.  The effects don't always hold up but the robots are satisfyingly creepy, with their waxen faces and dead dead eyes.  Truly, it's an action movie first, with the sci-fi bringing up the rear. 

Event Horizon

But only a finite number of ways that terror can manifest.

An event horizon is the edge of a black hole, where everything disappears into the dark; it is the point of no return.

Forty years after its disappearance, the spaceship Event Horizon has returned and is in high orbit around Neptune. Laurence Fishburne and his crew are dispatched to rescue the survivors. But there are no survivors. The ship is derelict, a ghost ship floating in space. With the rescue team is Sam Neil, the man who designed the ship's special engine. The Event Horizon can open a black hole and travel beyond the limits of known space. Unfortunately for the everyone, the ship traveled well beyond the limits of reality. As the team explores the ghost spaceship, they begin to hallucinate, seeing things that aren't there.

The first time I saw this movie I was more confused than anything else. Though I understood the plot, I didn't really get it. I thought it was stupid the way everyone just accepted their hallucinations as truth. And the revelation at the end, that the ship went to hell, was too much. I was a bit more forgiving the second time round. The hallucinations, I now understand, are brought on by the ship's ability to get inside people's heads and exploit their guilt and fears. And the very reason the ship can do that is because the Event Horizon is, in fact, alive. Possessed with a life force of it own, the ship uses the people on board to carry out its will. And its will is to inflict pain and suffering.

Space has no religion.

When the original crew of the Event Horizon fired up the singularity drive, they traveled to an alternate dimension where they tortured themselves and each other death. When the ship returned from the "hell dimension" it brought that anima back. I either wasn't paying attention or didn't care to register this information when I first saw the movie. Now that I have a better handle on the actual story, I can say that it really isn't as stupid as I first thought.

What is stupid is that no one does anything about it until it's way too late. As the film progresses, as the rescue team slowly tries to piece together what happened to the Event Horizon, Sam Neil grows ever more unstable, but no one takes any action. They just continue to let him wander around. Additionally, other crew members are unforthcoming about their own tenuous grip on reality, which only furthers the danger they pose to themselves and everyone else. So though I find the heart of the story compelling in itself, the execution is just irritating. I won't go so far to say these people deserve to die, but they certainly don't help themselves any to survive.

Don't go toward the light!

What's more is that the mystery of the hell dimension is wholly underexploited. It's only toward the end of the movie that it's made clear to the audience what happened forty years ago, and this is done through the briefest of montages. The hell dimension is good stuff, but we're only treated to a few seconds of torment. If the film were to evenly distribute the mystery and the torture throughout, rather than pile it all on at the end, then we would have a more thorough blend of horror and sci-fi. The creeping atmosphere of the haunted ghost ship is good stuff, but it fails to carry the film.

Additionally, those few moments of torture show Laurence Fishburne's crew. This fleeting detail raises a question about the very nature of the reality of events on screen. Are people really wandering about the ship, or do they just think they are when in fact they're being tortured? What are people really seeing and doing when they hallucinate? Frustratingly, the film provides no answers, just explosions.

Be that as it may, I didn't hate Event Horizon the second time. It's certainly a lot creepier than I remembered, and the gore effects were pretty good. Also, the engine room that houses the singularity drive has this dark steampunk quality to it that appeals to me, and which is offset by the white-tiled liquid sleep camber and the stainless steel sick bay. Overall, the film's look and feel are effective, combining utilitarianism and art to create a place that is at once threatening and sterile. The CGI has aged poorly, but that's not really anyone's fault.

Given the opportunity, I'd probably watch this film again.

I'm not saying I like this kind of thing, but I could have seen more of it.