Countdown to Hallows' Eve #2: Amityville - High On Tension, Low On Horror

Good evening again, Hallowed Readers and Ticketholders! Another collection of new old reviews awaits you as we count closer to the day of the dead. They say flattery will get you nowhere, and I plan on going places, starting with this unflattering selection FROM October 18, 2005 (SW@ Ticket #44: Amittville - High On Tension, Low On Horror): What happened to all of the scary movies? All I've seen lately are "scary" movies, and folks, I really miss pissing my pants.

You know the kind of movies I'm talking about, right? The kind of movies that shock your senses into a dulled state with a bunch of blood and gore, forget to synchronize the pop-up scare with a crescendo, and make the psycho killer a psycho for all the wrong reasons? I thought you might know that kind of thing.
As you might have guessed from the title, I'm going to review High Tension (a dubbed French "horror" film about a lesbian serial killer with a male split personality) and The Amityville Horror (another, slightly more horrific "horror" film about a family man possessed and driven insane by the haunted house he lives in).


First, High Tension (which I should have recognized as a dubbed foreign film four months ago when the trailer had no dialogue) has good shock value, from the male killer giving himself (severed) head to the HLA (that's Hot Lesbian Action for the WWE laypersons among you) at the end, to every blood spurt in between.
The plot was a bit like Dean Koontz's Intensity: mysterious man kills girl's family and takes her hostage, girlfriend hides in the back of killer's van (which looks like it was borrowed from the Jeepers Creepers prop warehouse), girlfriend makes hamburger out of killer's face with a barbed-wire two-by-four and saves girl. Then the plot twist reveals that the girlfriend and male killer are the same person, more chase 'n' shred happens, and there's a somewhat happy ending. But none of it really scared me. Good gore, but everything was misplaced as far as suspenseful elements go. At least you can say this about the French: they aren't afraid to shock the audience, but they are most likely shocked when the audience asks to be scared.
D+

On to the Amityville Lack of Horror, starring Ryan Reynolds (Van Wilder). It's a remake of a classic horror film and based on actual events, vis a vis The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and has all the trimmings of your usual haunted house yarn (however short, frayed, and threadbare that yarn might be, but enough of the sewing crap. On to the plot): an evil man who lived on the land over a century ago tortured and killed a bunch of Indians (sorry, Native Americans) and buried them in a secret room in his basement; suckered families of the present day buy the house, are subject to various bloody apparitions, possessed patriarch tries to kill family with shotgun, family escapes with unconscious stepdad in tow, and the evil persists until the next suckered family buys the haunted house, end of story.
The pop-up scares are more synchronized than in High Tension, although the murderous character here is less scary than in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. We look at LeatherFace and ask "What's so scary about a masked man with a chainsaw who can't walk more than a half-mile per hour?" and he promptly shows us what's so scary about him by walking a little faster and cutting someone's head off. But when we look at Ryan Reynolds' character and ask "What's so scary about a possessed man with a shotgun who can run pretty damn fast if he wants to?", we realize that he's not naturally insane, a gun is a less menacing, less personal weapon than a chainsaw, and there's nothing really suspenseful about running from somebody who can outrun you.
Besides, when you listen to the things Reynolds' character says, it makes him sound pathetic, like a man who wants to kill his family for expecting something of him (a selfish, lazy bastard, so to speak).
Definitely not scary. Break one of his legs, give him a machete and incoherent speech, and then you assclowns might have something.
F

Thanks for putting up with my dated wrestling references and cynical criticisms this evening.
PS: I should have known back then that The Amityville Horror remake was a Michael Bay film. If I had taken the time to read that one line at the top of the jacket, I would never have rented the movie. But then again, you wouldn't have had the opportunity to see my work stand the test of time, either.
I will say this for Michael Bay, though: he puts together some impressive television. When not given free reign to spend the Gross Domestic Production value of a small country on giant robots and overweight mutant amphibians (both of which can burp and fart, apparently), he presents something like The Last Ship, one of the latest in TV's crop of apocalypse-in-the-making series, wherein a clandestine crew of naval officers fight to protect a genetic scientist who is in the process of manufacturing a cure for a hemorrhagic flu-like disease that has already killed the majority of Earth's population. Each one-hour episode pits the resourceless but resourceful crew against supply deficiencies, rival navies, privatized armies, political zealots, and ever-fluctuating morale. The down-time can be a little too down at times, but the action, patriotism, and star-studded cast (Eric Dane from Grey's Anatomy, Adam Baldwin from Chuck, Rhona Mitra from Doomsday, John Pyper Ferguson from Suits, Maximiliano Hernandez from Agents Of SHIELD, Titus Welliver from Lost, and the band plays on) add plenty of personality where it's needed and keep the acting from getting cheesy under circumstances where it could constantly and easily do so. The second season finale pissed me off, but I look forward to Season Three anyway because I. Love. This. Show.
A-

I think I was trying to say goodnight again, but it didn't work. So let's try this again, again. Stay tuned for the next Countdown collection, featuring an exorcism and a few more split personalities. Until then, I am...

The Ticketmaster
formerly known as SW@,
out.