Audition-Takashi Miike

      I have only ever seen one other Japanese horror film,"Dark Water" by Hideo Nakata, and I remember being shaken up a bit after watching that. Well, "Audition" trumped that film. The beginning of the film was very slow moving, a convincingly "normal" movie about a widowed man who is looking for a new love. The transition from shot to shot were quite unexpected, so I constantly felt that something eerie would jump up on screen. This cinematography, and the lack of background music, except for the few parts of disturbing noises, added to the disquieting ambiance of the film.
The character, Asami, has a very unsettling aura about her with her small, delicate voice and her subtle movements. These qualities and the choice to dress her in white made it all the more surprising when we see what horrors she is capable of.
      This movie commented on our preconceived notions on gender roles.
     The storytelling was done quite well, with seemingly ordinary scenes contrasted with red tinted, angled shots of gruesome scenes. Overall I found this to be an interesting horror movie with a great deal of built up suspension. I was enjoying it up until the part Asami went to Aoyoma's apartment at the end. From that point forward all the scenes were too sickening and disturbing. Aoyoma should have listened to his friend, and the ghost of his wife from the dream, and stayed away from that woman.
 
My last thought after watching this movie: WHY?

Night of the Living Dead dir. George Romero

Oh joy, more zombies. I was consoled by the fact that this was a low budget movie, filmed in black and white with overly dramatic characters from the 60's. But I have to admit, I screamed a bit when the camera cut to the half-eaten face in the house. 

One thought bothered me in the beginning. Where were the guns? The house in which they were stuck in had a room fully devoted to animal heads, so the owner had to be a hunter or taxidermist. Thankfully the character, Ben, found it before I became too flustered over the fact that they didn't know how to search a house. But then again, they didn't even check the cellar, where four people were hiding.


Barbra was very irksome. Her role seemed pointless, she had nothing to contribute and just sat moping about. Even the people gave up on trying to talk to her, and just moved her about the house like an object in their way. She kept sputtering nonsense the entire film, only adding to everybody's paranoia. With all the fires they were starting, I thought for sure they'd accidentally set the house aflame. But instead just instead they just set the car on fire. Common sense seems to disappear when all of the characters start to panic. The first thing my roommate and I thought as the zombies began to eat the first two victims was; BBQ. The little girl becoming the zombie and devouring her parents was pretty creepy, but the stabbing scene wasn't well executed with the mother's echoing scream and the strange blood splatter on the wall. These were by far the quietest zombies I have ever seen in film, they didn't groan or yell much.

That was an expected, but depressing ending. The only person who could act was killed off. By the way all the townspeople were firing at anything that was moving, it was clear to see that Ben would be following the fate of all the others soon enough.

I felt that I was watching a long Twilight Zone episode, a conflict of interests amongst strangers in a trapped space in reminiscent of some of the episodes such as "The Old Man in the Cave" and "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" (and oddly enough both episodes end in the death of the characters.) There is something about confined spaces that adds to the tension and people begin turning on one another. It was just missing Rod Serling appearing on screen with his cigarette, giving the audience the moral of the story.

Monster Island- David Wellington

Of all the supernatural beings, zombies creep me out the most. I have tried to avoid zombie-related movies, books, and games but to no avail. There is something about their decomposing bodies that bothers me, not so much their hunger for living flesh. I have a very vivid imagination, and so it such descriptions concerning the dead make me imagine the worst possible images.

Wellington does a great job of fleshing out each individual character, from their personalities, histories and appearance. His use of imagery had me grimacing quite a few times though. Explanations of the deterioration of each of the zombies' bodies and the use of analogies makes me want to gag. There was a recurring theme of food. There was the food that Gary was desperate for, finally settling on stealing the essence of the living. And of course the food analogies. Wellington constantly compared food substances to the most vile and grotesque things. Least to say, I didn't have much of an appetite after reading these parts. 

I did enjoy the irony of the nature of the main characters, Dekalb and Gary. Prior to the Epidemic, Dekalb's career was primarily focused on weaponry and as it turns out he had no combat knowledge. Gary, who was once a doctor, had chose to become a zombie and later made his sole purpose to devour mankind. I liked the dark comedy that was sprinkled throughout each chapter, as well as the cynical attitude of some of the characters. Additions such as that kept it from being a taking itself too seriously, so I had an easier time accepting such ridiculous notions as controlling the dead with mind control. That dark humor coupled with all of the unexpected turns in each chapter engaged my attention. There wasn't one point where I was bored reading this story, which is very rare in the many books I have read. Most of the time I reach a point a novel where the pacing slows down and I lose interest.

I was a tad disappointed that the setting for the novel was New York City. It seems that every time there is an apocalypse story, whether it be novel or movie, New York City becomes it's stage. I have never been there myself, but I guess it seems like the perfect American city to survive. Personally, if I was caught up in a zombie apocalypse, I'd choose a rural environment. There would be less places for them to hide, and at least you would see them approaching across the wide open spaces.

The aspect of the entire book that I particularly enjoyed was the back and forth of the different perspectives. It was clear that the protagonist was Dekalb, since he was narrating his own story. But it was a little unclear as to who was telling Gary's story, which was told third-person. So it was a pleasant surprise to find out the reasoning behind these perspectives, that Dekalb had become just like Gary, retaining his mind in his undead state.

This book changed my outlook on the zombie genre... in novels at least.

Let the Right One In- Director: Tomas Alfredson

This was quite an interesting movie. The slow pacing became very tedious in the beginning but I hardly noticed it after Oskar met Eli. It was a nice change from other horror movies. But by the time the movie ended, I felt little had been accomplished.


The tone of the movie became progressively creepier, while at first I watched it without apprehension. By the end I found myself glancing away at the quiet, and deliberately at the slow scenes. The pool scene was gory and at the same time achieved in a subtle way, a head falling in the water and a disembodied arm following after. This was the only moment out of the entire film where I felt a twinge of fear.

The movie didn't really engage me. The two characters that we were supposed to be invested in didn't have much of a personality. Oskar has one of the most inattentive parents in the world, with the vampire coming and going from the apartment. His mother is completely oblivious to the fact that he had been bullied at school. But this the extent of my sympathy for his character.  While yes, I pitied Oskar for all of the bullying he put up with and his strained relationship with the divorced parents, there wasn't much else. Eli shares none of her backstory, so the audience doesn't have much reason to feel empathetic with her. By the end of the movie, I was dissatisfied by the fact that nothing was really explained. Oskar just hopped on a train with a chest (Eli inside) and escaped all of those murder scenes? No police appeared. No investigations into the various, out of the ordinary deaths.

I left this movie with one predominant thought; I do not want to visit Sweden.

Frankenstein- Mary Shelley

"It's alive! It's alive!"
Like many others, I believed that Frankenstein was about a raving, mad scientist who created a giant, hideous man (with bolts in his neck) who went around terrorizing the local villagers. So I was surprised that the book lacked an aging castle, a hunch-backed assistant, and lightning bolts capable of generating life.  Since I had seen so many film adaptations of Frankenstein, I had no inclination to pick up the novel when I passed by the Classics section at the bookstore. I was glad when I discovered that the book didn't meet any of my expectations. I really enjoyed reading it, although I found Victor Frankenstein's  reflections quite tedious at times. Then again I might only feel this way because I didn't sympathize with his character as much as the others.

I found it interesting to compare the creator to the creation. Victor Frankenstein consistently proclaims his grief and laments over the fate that has befallen him. But it was his own fault, his self-destruction began with by the abandonment of his creation. He is very distant, dismissing the company of family and friends to fulfill his scientific ambitions. Victor, fueled by a foolish motivation to prove himself, achieves his goal of granting life to the dead.  After he is done playing god, he abandons this creation. Victor spends the majority of the time incapacitated by his own anguish, all the meanwhile being cared for by those who love him. Instead of telling others about his creation, he hoards this secret, allowing it to plague his mind and put others in harm's way. Even when he had the opportunity to end  his and the monster's misery, he refused. He could have  created a companion for the monster or put an end to his original creation. It is the accumulation of all of Victor's errors and his unwillingness to face them that he comes across as a very selfish being.

On the other hand, the monster himself sought the company of people, but was unable to create any relationships because of his cursed appearance. Unlike Victor Frankenstein, he feels a strong desire to be amongst humanity and share their experiences.  Upon discovering that this will never happen, he directs his actions towards taking vengeance on his creator. In a way the monster is Victor's guilt incarnate. It never stops following him, and grows stronger throughout the story, destroying everyone Victor held dear and continually plaguing his mind up until his death.

It is refreshing to read a book with a conclusion that doesn't wrap up with a happy ending. It was ironic that the monster was easier to relate to, in terms of his desire to be integrated into society. Victor had everything under the sun and yet foolishly created his own demise. I am not accustomed to reading horror novels or tragic endings, so I found this to be a good introductory novel into this genre.

Conventions of Horror

1. Mad scientist
2. Crazy amount of lab supplies
3. Some type of undead (zombie, vampires, etc.)
4. Graveyards
5. Candles, just enough to keep a room dim
6. Secret passageways
7. Eerie music
8. Death brought on by the undead or creatures
9. Dark forests with creepy animal noises (crows cawing, wolves howling...)
10. Decrepit castle with lighting illuminating
11. Some weapon to ward of the evil (wooden stake, silver bullets, fire, etc.)
12. A lot of "biting" to transfer the effects of "evil"
13. Transformations
14. Full moon
15. Angry villagers with pitchforks
16. Massive amount of cobwebs (No one seems to have time to dust)
17. Haunting the living
18. Always night time
19. Screaming (usually by a woman)
20. Hunchback/deformed assistant
21. Creaking doors and floorboards