ANTIVIRAL (2012) - body horror and celebrity culture

ANTIVIRAL

(2012, Canada)

All hail to the new Cronenberg!

The near future, a young man enters an expensive-looking salon. By appointment only, he meets a strange young salesperson who gives him a long careful pitch. They talk about media celebrities and what it means to get closer to them. The punter makes his choice, receives an injection and leaves.

Dedicated fans of intensely famous people have found a new mania - the chance to feel like their idols... when they're ill. Anyone can now experience exactly the same viruses they've suffered, but without the actual harmful effects. A bizarre, wonderful idea at the core of this intriguing sci-fi thriller.

In this world, the obsession with celebrity has reached the point where TV cameras go inside them during operations, and news constantly reports their state of health. There are big announcements of new mass-produced viruses, as if they were brands of perfume. But fanatics always want what others don't have, and not everyone can afford the exclusive prices. Hence, the murky world of virus bootlegging...

Admittedly, I started watched this out of curiosity, with no great hopes. How often is talent genetically passed down from a famous parent? But I soon found Antiviral, Brandon Cronenberg's first feature film, to be greatly rewarding and very different. While his father's 'body horror' stories were set in the near future, just far enough for science to have made a new breakthrough, they inevitably looked like 'now'. Antiviral looks sufficiently like the future.

David Cronenberg has also stopped making genre films. While Shivers, Rabid, Scanners, Videodrome and The Fly are monuments in sci-fi horror, for over ten years he's stuck with drama. Quality films, but not the genre that originally set him apart. Brandon Cronenberg has begun with a body horror all of his own, and it's a treat to have a similar approach to satirical prediction as, say, Videodrome. But its completely in his own style, and a very different target.

I guess the other trait Antiviral shares with the films of Cronenberg Senior is that the story keeps a steady pace, without needing to resort to action scenes. I guess Gattaca would be a reasonable comparison for its tone, but without anywhere near the flashy budget. This is a great example of how good low-budget can now look, with sparingly-used digital effects, an antiseptic production design and precise 'future-look' cinematography.

The story is anchored by the creepy, extreme, but not exaggerated performance of Caleb Landry Jones, as the salesman who takes his work far too seriously. His pale skin is perfect for making him look really ill. I was recently struck by his resemblance to another intense young actor...

Udo Kier in Blood For Dracula

Malcolm McDowell is one of the familiar faces, but Nicholas Campbell is a welcome link to David Cronenberg's films, having appeared in The Dead Zone, The Brood and even Fast Company.

Antiviral demonstrates that sci-fi can still be original, inventive, predictive, weird and intelligent. And not need spaceships.

(I watched Antiviral on DVD, hired from LoveFilm. As a result, I've bought the region A blu-ray, which includes a commentary track and a 'making of' documentary.)

THE RETURNED - now showing on Channel 4

Just a quick, late reminder that the superbly-made creepy French drama The Returned has started this week on Channel 4. Eight one-hour episodes charts the startling return of a group of dead inhabitants of a remote French village. Technically they're zombies, but they look human enough and walk and talk normally.

Each family deals with the sudden return of a dead relative in a different way, each of them causing their own problems, not to mention that a series of killings has resumed in the village...

Beautifully filmed, subtly judged performances, music from Mogwai and a fresh take on the undead. Adult, occasionally violent, often sexual, the quality of the series has obviously won over Channel 4 into showing a programme from overseas with English subtitles for the first time in twenty years.

In the UK, you can catch up with the first episode on 4OD.


The Returned is known as Les Revenants in France and is a reimagining of an earlier French film from 2004. Full details and a look at the failed American pilot are here in my guide to all things Revenants.

SAMSARA (2009) - worthy of BARAKA and KOYAANISQATSI

SAMSARA

(2012, USA)

Another astonishing 'non-narrative movie' from Ron Fricke

If you've seen Baraka (1992) or Koyaanisqatsi (1983), my job of describing Samsara to you would be much easier.

Most of what I know about these amazing films is from DVD extras and the issues of American Cinematographer that covered them. Officially, Ron Fricke was the cameraman on Koyaanisqatsi which was directed by Godfrey Reggio. In reality it was an experimental collaboration between them. Reggio wanting to communicate just through images and Fricke's eye for the amazing, combined with his innovative use and development of mobile time-lapse cinematography. Koyaanisqatsi shows us the incredible. Together with the hypnotic effects of Philip Glass's soundtrack (which also interacted with the editing and structure of the scenes), it also inspires a contemplation of, well, life on this planet.

Fricke hasn't collaborated with Reggio since, but both continues to direct similar 'non-narrative' movies and short films ever since. Reggio with two more 'Qatsis', Powaqqatsi looking more at the people around the world, Naqoyqatsi at our digital future. Fricke most notably made the epic Baraka - a glorious look at the natural world.

But neither man has since achieved the same hard look at the world as Koyaanisqatsi. Though Samsara comes close by including themes of industry, colossal scales of waste and even disposable people - androids. As well as the astonishing use of Fricke's trademark motion-control timelapse camerawork, but this time for night-time scenes, with stars revolving in the sky and statues lit only by moonlight.

The mix of natural wonder and the never-ending consumption of complex manufactured goods, not to mention animal products, makes for many memorable points without using sledgehammer tactics. The camera stands back, without pointed close-ups, allowing the viewer to pick out their own details. Fricke continues to include his slow-motion 'portraits' of people and couples from around the world. Most touchingly in the section on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Samsara prompts us to think about many different aspects of the world, I've not mentioned them all, and very different trains of thought to those triggered by advertising, random TV or a YouTube homepage.

It's like drifting around the world in a balloon with a telescope. A mystery tour of amazing places I never knew existed. Like Koyaanisqatsi, the point isn't to constantly pinpoint where and what you're seeing, but to watch what's happening. 

Afterwards, the making-of documentary can tell the story of the five years of collecting amazing footage on huge 65mm cameras, around 25 different countries, in some inaccessible locations and very privileged vantage points. Many directors spend extra effort on their establishing or opening scenes. Samsara feels like a feature compilation made up of those.

This amazing shot of a temple reveals dozens of others in a surreal, smooth, vertical reveal, presumably filmed from a balloon. The number of temples sitting so closely together in a lush green setting honestly looked too good to be true. We needed to double-check our eyes for CG trickery. But that's not how these films are made.

Samsara is further guided by its imagery by being edited without any reference to music. Where Koyaanisqatsi was partly cut to music, Samsara was 'silently edited', each shot allowed to run its course before giving way to the next. Only then, like standard movie-making, was a completed 'cut' given to the musicians to score.

The ethereal music for Samsara is by Michael Stearns (who composed for Fricke's Baraka and Chronos), Lisa Gerrard and Marcello De Francisci. Hearing them talk, I was touched by the fact that I'd first heard Gerrard's singing (wailing?, lamenting?) thirty years ago when she was with ambient gothic group Dead Can Dance. It was like reuniting with an old friend!

Samsara deserves seeing on as big a screen as possible, showing in most theatres on 4k digital. Blu-ray is obviously the next avenue you should explore. The blu-ray image is of course 1080 by 1920, the '8K' referenced on the cover is the resolution width that the film was originally scanned at. 

Also, don't be put off by this being exiled to the documentary section. There's no voice-over, no talking heads. It's in a genre all of its own.

A thorough interview with Ron Fricke and co-writer/producer Mark Magidson about their adventures making Samsara, here on Horror Cult Films.

My look at Koyaanisqatsi is here.

SUMMER WARS (2009) - an anime internet disaster movie!

SUMMER WARS

(2009, Japan)

Mind-expanding, family-friendly anime movie

I've been away from anime for too long, after taking a break when Satoshi Kon passed away suddenly, who I regarded as the most consistently interesting director of feature-length anime.

While Summer Wars isn't as completely sci-fi as Satoshi's Paprika (2006), it regularly hits similar heights, providing moments when it feels like your eyes are directly expanding your brain.

It opens with a brilliant, simplified, beautifully-designed, visual summation of the entire internet. In a parallel universe, if the whole world used a single unified browser. Anyone who logs on is represented by one identity, one icon, a little stylised animation of their online self. With this premise, it's easier to follow the story between the real world and the online world.

Summer Wars might have surpassed Paprika in my estimation if it had stayed in cyberspace for the whole movie - which I initially hoped it would. But this is still a hugely impressive.

It isn't a dark and addictive 'loss of identity on the web', as portrayed in the brilliant but downbeat Serial Experiments Lain (1998) (that's now out in the US on blu-ray), but an updated look at how dependent society has now become on the net in so many spheres and by all ages. The setting of an entire Japanese family having their annual get-together pitches the escalating story on TV news, with most family members also connecting online in some way. Importantly, this enables all ages to relate to it.

While this may seem to be a similar pitch for a family audience as a Studio Ghibli film, this is more technical and modern day than a Miyazaki fairy tale. The cyber fighting action (which doesn't dominate the film) might also appeal more directly to teenagers.

After introducing us to the vast, stylised, online world, three teenagers who are still at school kick off the story, as a young man is enticed by his favourite young woman to an important family meal in their countryside mansion. However, he's being deceived and lured into a social trap, also unaware that his online character is about face a mysterious global threat, as the entire internet starts to go wrong.

Director Mamoru Hosoda previously had a big hit with the animated version of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006), which I didn't enjoy nearly as much. Summer Wars is more complex and grander in scale, while at times proving just as fanciful. It's funny, occasionally violent, scary... everything. All while centring on a very traditional Japanese holiday, a view of modern life that we rarely see in the west.

Perfectly designed and directed, there's some beautiful but simple (virtual) camerawork, counterbalancing the dynamic, gravity-light cyberworld.

The story may have a few too many coincidences, but the representation of a whole country as a single extended family makes for a marvellous parable.

Summer Wars is out on DVD and blu-ray in the US and UK.

OCTANE (2003) - a caffeine-fuelled, nightmare road trip

OCTANE

U.S. title: PULSE

(2003, UK/Luxembourg)

 Norman Reedus doing horror ten years ago!

A rain-drenched motorway, an upturned car, an ambulance nearby. But when the paramedics check out the two crash victims, they gag the survivor and take him away before the police arrive...

Senga (Madeleine Stowe) drives past another similar crash. The same ambulance is there. She's taking her teenage daughter (Mischa Barton) home, though it's tough for them to even share a car. They disagree on music, piercings, life... When Mom nearly crashes, trying to avoid a baby in the road, they take a rest stop to argue in comfort.

Strangers in the diner, a young hitchhiker (Bijou Phillips) they pick up, everyone they meet... all are a little weird. And like the crash victim, some of them suddenly disappear into the night. Is Mom paranoid? Are her meds too strong? Is she seeing the same vehicles at every diner? Who will disappear next?

First saw this ten years ago and it's stayed with me. It's not a must-see but it's certainly got something. The premise is full of possibilities that make you work hard to work out what's going on. But your imagination might well trump what happens here. But full marks for a huge dose of intrigue and suspense generated by the an unwelcome, unfamiliar road trip, travelling through darkness.

The soundtrack by Orbital helps the film 100 percent. Good to hear them used for the Pusher remake. (I still haven't dared see that, having been so impressed with the original movie - Nicolas Winding Refn's debut). Here, Orbital perfectly complements Octane, and vice versa.

Madeleine Stowe (Twelve Monkeys) carries the film, balancing on the edge of being a fairly unlikeable character. 

Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (Shelter, The Tudors) is supposed to be strong and sexy, which he normally does very well, but here he looks pretty ordinary, and not as turned on as many of the minor characters, like the truck driver, the daughter, the hitcher, the punk, or even the car mechanic (Norman Reedus).

Norman? Is that you?

It's fun to see that Reedus hasn't changed over the past ten years, with the same facial hair and haircut as his cult character, Daryl, in The Walking Dead. Most of the rest of the cast of this European production succeed at sounding American, but Rhys-Meyers hasn't at this point. The diner chain (cheekily called Benny's) looks authentic, but the cars, police uniforms and road signs all scream of Europe. Which maybe helps further the feeling of disorientation.

The paranoia, the increasing nightmare, and Stowe's face are all a little scary. The story starts well, builds well, but then drops a gear by losing the gloriously dark, rain-drenched atmosphere. But there are enough sleazy, druggy, bloody moments to compensate.

Some of the DVD cover art online show this as a PG certificate, but it's definitely a 15.

In the USA, this was retitled Pulse, which sort of makes sense to the story, but confuses it with half a dozen other recent horror films.

GRABBERS (2012) - creepy, slimy fun from Ireland

GRABBERS

(2012, UK/Ireland)

A new monster movie... that's good!

We watched this completely cold and it's already a favourite.

I prefer monster movies played for real, which this does. But its balanced with a healthy amount of humour while remaining respectful of the genre. Tremors and Lake Placid are two that got it right and Grabbers holds up in comparison, despite a lower budget.

From the beautifully subtle opening shot, which confirms that the special effects were in good hands, as well as a gentle echo of John Carpenter's The Thing, that also meant that the director knows his stuff...

A fishing trawler runs into trouble in the middle of the night. Already, we know that something inhuman and deadly is at large.

                          
There's a slow build that gives time to establish the characters and the setting of a remote Irish island. Richard Coyle (Pusher, Franklyn) plays an alcoholic policeman, who's saddled with an overly keen sidekick from the city (Ruth Bradley, recently seen in Primeval). The local islanders are all a little eccentric, but no worse than a English marine biologist twit (Russell Tovey working very hard to breathe fresh life into a sci-fi cliche).

As clues start washing up onshore, in fishing baskets and on the beaches, the two police officers know trouble is brewing, but have no idea how big a problem they're facing...

What I really love is that there's a new kind of monster and it looks fantastic. Well-realised, well-designed and disgustingly biological. Like Jaws it's not overused, and saved up for special occasions. It always gave me the creeps and would look good in a Cthulhu movie. But it's just a good old alien thingy from inner/outer space. The only way to beat it is to go down the pub and figure out what makes it tick...

In the extras, director Jon Wright admits that his homages are to 1980s monsters, rather than the pub-siege genre of the 1960s (as in Night of the Big Heat) which I feel is a missed opportunity, but there's plenty of fun 'quotes' to watch out for.

Well thought out, with likeable characters that you care about, Grabbers is rich, funny and suitably monstrous. It's out on DVD in the UK, but the blu-ray shows off the scenery, cinematography and special effects even better.

Most of the poster art I've seen only plays on the comedy angle and would have steered me away if I'd seen them beforehand. Worse still, the DVD cover (at the top) looks like a cheap, generic Asylum or Sy-Fy offering. This is more of a monster/horror film with a comedy element, so don't let it all put you off.

LES REVENANTS - THEY CAME BACK again and again

LES REVENANTS

(2004 movie, France)

Low-key zombie movie rises again and again as several TV series...

(Updated June 10th, 2013)

Nine years ago, there was an unusual zombie movie made in France. More sci-fi than horror, more arthouse than mainstream, it didn't cause much of a stir. But Les Revenants (2004) won't stay dead.

The film portrays a quiet resurrection day, realistically portrayed except for the fact that the recent dead have inexplicably returned to life. They parade quietly out of the cemetery and want to return to their old lives. No flesh-eating, no scratching, no biting... they just want their old jobs back. Most of them are past retirement age and want to return home.

Local government move (extremely) quickly to the sudden crisis with emergency housing and rounding up the new citizens to be identified and reintegrated back into society. Their living relatives are treated carefully, to help them gradually overcome the shock. The reactions of the living characters are very touching, their mourning suddenly has to be reversed.

But all of the 'returned' start displaying similar behaviour. They have trouble sleeping and wander about, night and day. They're distracted, quiet, perhaps like Haitian zombies. But then it appears that some of them are gathering in secretive meetings...

While their body temperatures are slightly low (allowing the authorities to track them with thermal cameras), they display no signs of decay. Director Robin Campillo (in this his only film) uses a wide variety of subtle techniques to make them stand out. Lit and made-up slightly differently, keeping them still, they gently stand out in every scene. The actors had to feel their way into a new kind of undead behaviour.

A very different addition to the genre, it remains a welcome change from the Romero blueprint. Knowing these characters were dead remains constantly gently eerie. It's never played as horror, but as mystery, an exercise in pure 'what if', beautifully judged and photographed.

There's no scientific or religious explanation for the phenomenon, though it could possibly be read as commenting about mental health, with the returned being carefully herded, watched and even drugged to make them more manageable.

Besides the central mystery itself, there's no other strong storyline, just a set of relationships. The phenomenon and its implications are presented in a relaxed but fascinating way. I enjoyed it as a zombie chill-out movie and also welcome further diverse approaches to the undead. Zombie drama, zombie comedy (Fido), whatever next?

But I didn't expect to hear of Les Revenants again...

LES REVENANTS

(2012, French TV series)

Just before Christmas, I learnt from Belgium-based writer Anne Billson (on Twitter) that there was a new TV series called Les Revenants (2012), based on a similar premise to the movie, on French TV. Eight one-hour episodes set in a small French village in the mountains.

This time it's a remote location, the mountains and a huge dam make for impressive visuals. The phenomenon of the dead rising isn't shown, just accepted. The performances make it believable. A young girl wanders home, back from the place she died. She's been missing for four years. Her memory is hazy and she doesn't realise that she's been dead. Her family are very, very shocked - in a brilliant scene when they first meet her.

Here, 'the returned' are less easy to tell apart from the living, so the news takes longer to circulate. Along with the reappearance of the dead, there's a murderer back in town...

A more violent variation on the film, the first episode teases interlocking mysteries and a townful of characters. I can't wait to see it all. The series has proved to be Canal Plus 'most watched' ever, meaning that there'll be a second season in 2014. The soundtrack by Mogwai makes it even more interesting.

We'll get a chance to see this creepy series on TV in the UK in June, the first foreign-language drama for Channel 4 in twenty years. Also, like many non-English-language TV imports, such as The Killing and Wallander, a remake is also on the way.

The rights to produce Les Revenants as an English TV series are now in the hands of Paul Abbott, the creator of Shameless, now in its eleventh and final season in the UK, with a third season in its US incarnation. This news reported here in The Hollywood Reporter in January.

BABYLON FIELDS

(2007, USA, TV pilot)

But there's already been an attempt at a series with a similar concept to Les Revenants made for American TV. In 2007, an impressive pilot episode called Babylon Fields narrowly failed to be turned into a series. It's worth seeing as an hour of powerful, edgy television, re-imagining the premise for a gun-toting, zombie-literate society. That is, some people are quick to shoot them in the head. But the Romero rules don't apply here...

The accent is very cop-centric. There's even a dead cop character, which could easily stray into the previously explored realm of Dead Heat (1988). The scene where the crowds of dead start leaving the graveyard are impressively and widely staged, The slightly-rotted look of the dead uses extensive make-up and slightly opaque contact lenses.

From the opening point-of-view scene of someone clawing their way out of the ground, to the shock of the first family to meet a living corpse is horrifying, panicky and suitably realistic. But it's less successful when it later adds a little comedy, when zombie neighbours try to pick up where they left off. It's good as long as it takes itself seriously.

Interesting that this didn't become a series considering the success of The Walking Dead soon afterwards. Not sure where the story could have gone, but it's a powerful opening episode. Maybe it could have become The Talking Dead...

Les Revenants - the movie (2004) is available in North America as They Came Back on DVD with English subtitles. It includes an interesting 'making of' featurette. I felt that the trailer really undersold the film. Arrow Films are due to finally release the film on DVD in the UK in July.

Les Revenants - first season of the French TV series (2012, 8 x 50mins) is on DVD in France, but I doubt that the set has English subtitles. Channel 4 have announced that it will be aired in the UK in June, 2013 under the title The Returned. Amazon have ear-marked a page for a DVD release from Universal UK, but no firm details yet.

Babylon Fields - the US pilot episode (2007) is online to view here (42 mins).

They Came Back is the working title for Paul Abbott's new TV project to remake the French series...