The Dahlke corner

Fuck expectations, im gonna do a slight update. So im a big horror fan. I really got into horror two years ago, I dont really know why, I guess it was because I remember hearing about these legendary film icons, Jason, Michael Myers and Freddy, tales of macabre violence and fun. My genre up until then had been Godzilla movies, I still feed on the big G, but my primary domain is horror. The first legitimate horror movie I watched was Frank Darabont’s The Mist, the adaptation of Stephen King’s novella. I suppose my biggest fear was the blood shed, I guess I just felt it would be gross, so I checked out IMDB (Internet Movie Database for those uninformed readers) for the paternal warnings, made a approximate guess where all the gore would take place, and slowly inched my way through the gory scenes, looking up screen captures as well to prepare myself. It worked. I sat through the film with no issue, and found it enjoyable. After that, I decided it was time to pick a personal favorite horror franchise, something to hold onto. I decided to pick the Halloween films. I had heard legends of the original Halloween, a movie that didnt rely on gore to push a story, a film where the terror was in the music and suburbia, and the way it was shot. Upon my first viewing of the original Halloween, expecting myself to be disintrested and move on to Freddy or Jason, I wound up sticking with the Halloween series, Michael Myers became a very intresting character to me, and today remains my favorite slasher villain. After watching all the films in the Halloween series, I moved into Freddy Krueger territory, cementing him as my second personal favorite slasher, leaving Jason at the number three spot (Leatherface is a recent addition to my horror plethora, and falls way behind on the list behind Candy Man or Tim Curry’s genitals on my slasher list) since watching the three big names in horror, I moved into asain horror territory, only finding the Host to be overly enjoyable as compared to other asian horror films, and their american remakes. My final personal horror history class was completed by the Universal classics, Dracula is number two to Godzilla in my favorite movie monster place. Since then, i’ve absorbed horror as its come to me, The Thing, Cujo, Saw, Cannibal Haulocaust (Fuck that movie, seriously, fuck it to fucking god damned hell) and the Hannibal movies, and various unmentionables. In the end, my horror education continues, and as I explore it im sure I shall share my journey with you. FYI my Halloween season treat review was mentioned in here, take a look and speculate if you wish.

When attempting to pick a name for this blog, I had considered “The Daily Dahlke” but then that would be a lie. There is no way I can maintain a daily blog. Be it im lazy, or prior obligations. And so the title of this entry is a refrence to my lateness in posting something new. The lesson is dont expect anything. Or to word that better, if *I* say something will happen, that is a 60 % guarantee. the movie review I promised is being pushed closer to the day this Hallow’s eve falls upon. That is a 80 % guarantee, I promise it, or do I? How can you be sure, you cant, have faith though, have faith.

I’m sure logically introducing myself after my first post seems somewhat redundant. Consider that a taste of my style. Grammar, paragraphing, spacing, it has no place in my world, if you dont enjoy that concept, I apologize, but dont point it out to me, I acknowledge it. Who am I? A artist, a comic fan, a writer, and a movie lover. All these I will speak to you, my loyal viewer(s) almost daily if it can be helped. I hope to build a healthy relationship with you, and I hope I can get reccomendations on movies/comics/whatever from you all. My next movie review will be up tomorrow, if all goes as planned. For those intrested, my favorite comic series is actually nothing. I dont go and hunt down back issues (unless its like a first apparance or difficult to find story) I go trade paperback hunting, Batman is a personal favorite hero, followed by Spiderman, I respect Superman, but I dont find him very intresting. Horror is my personal favorite film genre, the original Halloween is my number one film in that genre, I do not have a favorite movie, I cant pick. Musically I enjoy Rob Zombie and various other artists and film scores, I love the work of Ifukube. Dracula is the greatest piece of literature in my opinion, and I believe Bela Lugosi to be the best Dracula hands down. I hope this brief, unorganized orgasm of me has titilated your intrests.

Many weeks ago, I entered the heat of the small, cramped used entertainment centre I visit at least twice a week, in a search for something new to satiate my horror palette, which had been starved for many more weeks prior. While eyeing a copy of the direct to video 1989 film based on the Punisher comics, the cashier, my good friend Doug inquired to me knowledge of a film that had just entered his shop. Strolling over, I was curious to find a copy of a film entitled “Let The Right One In” a film I had vaguely recalled hearing of earlier that month. Curious by the image of a bloody female, bleeding from every pore on the back of the cover, I decided to lay the seven dollars down for this curious film, and spent the afternoon enraptured in this dark weary tale. The story, originally conceived in a hit Swedish novel by John Ajvide Lindqvst, is a amazingly well written story, it’s a tale of friendship, love, and over coming one’s barriers. Oskar is a lonely, bullied twelve year old, living in Sweden, unloved by anyone aside from his disgustingly over protective mother, Oskar is obsessed with macabre imagery and serial killers, threatening trees to make up for his self doubt in facing down his tormentors at school. One night, Oskar observes new tenants in the apartment he lives in, living right beside his home, a older man known only as Hakaan, and a small girl, who as we learn soon is named Eli. From here on in, were treated to a tale of pure beauty, watching the genesis of Oskar and Eli’s relationship, discovering Eli’s dark secret on the way, and drawing them closer together than ever before. As far as vampire films go, ignoring my Dracula obsession, this is the best vampire movie ever. Seriously. Forget Twilight, or Interview with a vampire, Let The Right One In truly is the greatest vampire movie ever. Imagine my reaction when I learned of a American remake of this film, directed by Cloverfield helmed Matt Reeves. The film, titled “Let Me In” due to the novel originally being released in North America under that title was released on October first, no doubt in order to capitalize on those looking for early Halloween thrills. Weeks upon weeks culminated in a opening night show between myself and my good friend, to whom I had sucked into both book and original Swedish film. Now, after all that build up, what are my thoughts on this cinematic experience? Well, It through me for a loop. It gave me the same story (roughly) as the original Swedish film (which this movie is clearly more based on than the book) and presented it in a fashion I didn’t expect. Certain story elements are rearranged at appropriate times for new transitions and keeping things interesting. Now, there is so much I could get into at the moment, so lets start off with who’d behind it. Hammer pictures, famous for their gothic, violent, and often times burlesque depictions of Dracula and Frankenstein have taken the reigns of this project, their first theatrical release in about thirty years I believe, and the thing is, it shows. Hammer Studios was famous for their grotesque makeup and violent imagery, which is used sparsely in this film, but certain scenes just scream “Hammer Horror” such as a scene in which a female character is lying in a hospital bed, now a newly transformed vampire, and we witness a overdone makeup effect of her digging into her arm, ripping out tendons and sinews to get to the arterial goodness flowing through her veins. The effect is spectacular mind you, but over done as the scene is overblown, where it could have been subtle and eerie rather than my reaction “F*cking gross”. Now, another big beef I have with this film are the odd cuts. The transitions just seem…rushed. We will be watching one scene, and it seems to cut away in the middle of a shot to a scene completely unrelated. We’ll be with the Oskar character (renamed Owen) before randomly swapping out to a scene involving a officer character (replacing at least two character arcs from both film and book) in what appears to be a still ongoing scene. Other minor issues include “Americanization” and loss of subtle horror. Americanization is my kind way of saying “for stupid people”. And oddly enough, there is very little of that present. The biggest Americanization here is the change of the Vampire girl Abbey (originally Eli) and her origins ( never explicitly revealed) and gender (I’m here to spoil a movie, not the book, look it up yourself if your curious) And even then, its such a minor thing, and I feel instead of adding the weight of a controversial matter, it steps over that issue and allows viewers of the original movie a comfort zone if it was needed. And as for the final con, as mentioned, it’s the lack of the “A little goes a long way” horror rule. The movie flat out kills any emotion it had at any moment when the horror aspect of the film comes up. Every time Abbey turns into a monstrous white eyed vampire beast, the computer generated image replacing her looks overly silly AND the violence is gratuitous and almost takes one out of the scene (one of the makeup jobs I alluded to earlier is one of these examples).

Now, while I have said multiple negative things towards this movie, I have more reason to love it. For one thing, the acting is phenomenal, absolutely fantastic. Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road, Romulus my father, The King) is a powerful actor, portraying Owen as a vulnerable kid who is just searching for a friend, every word that comes from his mouth is full of childish wonder and interest, and when called for it, he plays “emotionally hurt” beautifully, and is overall a very sympathetic character. Opposite Kodi, we get Chloe Moretz as Abbey, playing a sad, and inner conflicted vampire very well. She has seen much in her life, and is only looking for acceptance and true love, she’s looking to survive, and Owen is her next protector, but as time goes on, one cant help but feel she changes from seeing him as a tool of survival as something to be cherished and loved. Other actors, such as Richard Jenkins and Elias Koteas give strong, believable performances, and actually, the reduction of several minor (and useless) characters from the original film and book improves pace and allows us to focus more on the central plot of the movie, revolving around Owen and Abbey. Another strong element of the film is the musical score. God Damn, Michael Giacchino is proving himself to be one of the greatest film composers of our time, I’ve personally enjoyed his scores for Cloverfield, Star Trek (2009), and this film of course. The musical accompaniment is chilling, and mirrors the original score in many ways, going for a more romantic than threatening angle (mind you the theme accompanying the bullies is quite threatening) and to be honest, I’m still trying to hunt it down online to download it. Another vast improvement over the original was actually the violence. In contrast with what I said about the makeup effects, when the gore works, it works alright. The original film used gore to accentuate the scenes it was required, here, the gore was the star of each scene it was in. Delicious scenes of crimson oozing and spraying (usually more oozing than spraying) are just shocking, not gross or disturbing, but just handled in a way I didn’t expect. The blood almost seemed like a character to me, a odd thing to say I know, but the way the blood is handled whenever it comes up is just different than how most horror movies handle their violence. Now earlier I mentioned several subplots were subject of removal in this film, in the book, these amounted to a bunch of bar flies ending with the main character from this group dying, and a street smart kid going nuts when he encounters a vampiric character (excised in both film adaptations, but the character’s name is alluded to in this version) now, I admit, while reading the book, I was tempted to skip over these scenes, they bored me to no end. The Bar fly subplot remaining in the original film was dull, and was only brought up maybe five times, each time lasting three to five minutes each, making it a chore. Thankfully the point of these scenes is replaced with a single character, a Police Officer trying to uncover the truth behind the murders occurring in this town (murders…vampire…do the math) before ending up as you would assume he would. The bullies are explicitly here as cannon fodder, he hate them from the movie’s start, they only get worse, and in the end, we want them to be Abbey chow, sadly, when this occurs, its not as poetically powerful as it was in the original film, mind you its still nice to see these awful characters getting their due in the most delicious fashion I could imagine. In the end, I loved the original Swedish film, even my minor nitpicks don’t detract from it, it’s a complete and utter 10/10 for me, and always will be. Let Me In is a beautiful film to, hitting all the same points its predecessor did, to the point of feeling unnecessary, even so, looking at it on its own merits, I give this film a 8.5/10, and as a horror remake, a 10/10, as it handled the material perfectly, and adapted it to the audience it wanted to reach. Highly Recommended.