FOR DYING OUT LOUD 666

'M' IS FOR THE MILLION THINGS SHE GAVE ME



INSIDE (2007)
Alysson Paradis, Béatrice Dalle, François-Régis Marchasson, Nathalie Roussel, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Ludovic Berthillot, Emmanuel Lanzi
Directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury
4 months ago, pregnant Sarah (Alysson Paradis, aka Johnny Depp's sister-in-law) was involved in a tragic car accident that killed her husband, Matthieu, in a head-on collision. She as the driver, and her unborn child miraculously survived. Still mourning in her suburban home, she nears birth on what is now Christmas Eve. The holiday theme is not on display however and Sarah has zero fucks to give about yuletide. Having turned down her Mother's offer to stay at her place for dinner, Sarah awaits her photo editor boss to drive her to the hospital in the morning for an induced labor. And then with blessed event impending, a strange woman loudly bangs on her door the day before delivery. She wants to use the phone, knows of Sarah's condition, and demands to be let in but is refused. Wary & alarmed by this woman on her doorstep, the police are called. They arrive to find no suspect but say they'll keep an eye on the place. As night falls, the intruder has forced her way in and wants the baby. Picture a female, gothy Michael Myers on uppers, but with the twist of intentionally keeping the protagonist alive. With a pair of scissors, she plans on cutting it out of her womb. Sarah will not be keeping her due date appointment. In the terrifying home invasion (yes, not exactly an original concept these days but let's not nitpick), the vulnerable mother-to-be faces a gruesome, nerve-racking nightmare from the mysterious villainess.

This dangerous kook will stop at nothing in her attempt to caesarian carve the bun out of the oven, and will kill everyone who attempts to help the victim. In the fight for her and the baby's life, Sarah at first locks herself in the bathroom, and with the threat heightening from the cat n' mouse conflict, a smorgasbord of household weapons such as knitting needles, a lamp, a toaster, and an aerosol container turned into a blowtorch, are used to stab/smash/burn. In the unfolded wretchedness, featuring an impromptu tracheotomy and crudely-made spear, Sarah must turn the tables on the relentless, gap-toothed, she-beast-from-hell -- credited as unnamed 'La Femme' -- in order to survive. As for the crazy invader herself? She wants that baby by any means necessary. In a flashback, we see what brought the assailant to her homicidal motive, where not a bond but a metaphorical umbilical cord of maternalism strangely attaches the 2 women to each other. And most unusual: through her entirety, not once does Sarah ever scream for help. This picture was one of a slew of movies that helped put the new wave of French horror on the map; all with fresh takes on bloody gore, shocking brutality, cruelty, and extreme painful violence. They provocatively pushed envelopes of tolerance, asking "how much is too much?" to challenge a viewer's capacity to withstand what they could watch physically inflicted on the body.

French horror is a blunt instrument that does not shy away from hardline presentations of trauma (or accusations of good taste disappearing into the horizon). And it certainly positions that nothing is too sacred or taboo to be explored by way of having to endure the mental strain of psychologically being affected by witnessing such bold, unsettling, graphic terror. The slow start of INSIDE's beginning helps to soak in expectant Sarah's loneliness and depressed state, but once the psychotic siege is underway, safe haven is completely ripped asunder, and outsiders dropping by for a house visit, end up dropping like flies -- Sarah's boss, her poor Mom (by accident), 3 cops (one of whom provides one of the most WTF moments I never saw coming), and a dragged-in teen are all goners. And periodically as both women brawl, we get glimpses of the baby sloshing & pinballing in utero. This poor kid is really put through the ringer. [Apparently INSIDE's producers added the fetus-cam shots, first against the directors' original rejection, and later without their knowledge. Bustillo and Maury were said to be furious upon discovering their inclusion as they did not have the final cut. Yikes]. While there are some photographer homages to REAR WINDOW and BLOW-UP (with well-crafted cinematography to match), the contrast between the 2 women is immediate: Sarah 'the good' in white evening gown vs. La Femme 'the evil' in long black dress.

The movie will no doubt have many dismissing it as being in the vein of exploitive, excessive torture porn. For whatever claims of sickening offensiveness, I think the criticism lies much more for some implausibility. While not impossible, La Femme's reason for murdery revenge, at the least, may seem unconvincing (even though Béatrice Dalle's portrayal is very menacing as a vicious, feral predator). And the believability of her being such a culprit to actually carry out the slaughter, at the most, may be unrealistic (even though the role emanates that of a very deranged, shadowy stalker). This interpretive questioning makes for some odd paradox. INSIDE is repulsive yet suspensefully engrossing and over the top. And while it's intensely disturbing, emotionally draining, and cringe-inducingly difficult to absorb, what begins as intriguing does give way to ending up formulaic/contrived/messy once intelligence starts going out the window and logic starts jumping the tracks. For real, a lot of the behaviour is quite dumb, and one major question about La Femme cannot be avoided: why not just wait until the baby is born? I guess planning isn't simple when you're insane. And lastly, if you happen to catch the street address, well that just introduces a whole different subtext altogether (vague even) involving some type of (hint?) otherworldy resolve needed to make it through such visceral suffering.




THE BABADOOK (2014)
Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Tim Purcell, Hayley McElhinney, Benjamin Winspear, Daniel Henshall, Barbara West
Directed by Jennifer Kent
This critically acclaimed, directorial debut from Jennifer Kent took Utah's Sundance Film Festival by storm and is based on her own 10-minute, 2005 short, MONSTER. While it took nearly a decade to bring to the big screen, both versions are about a single mother, Amelia, and her young son, 6yr old Sam, who confront a monster that is first dismissed as Sam's overactive imagination. In the short, the creature manifests from a stuffed doll and a presence lurking in a closet, while the feature film makes the transition to a creepy, pale-faced, top-hatted, goblin-esque figure (inspired by Lon Chaney's look in 1927's famous lost film, LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT) in an obscure pop-up storybook that bleeds from the pages into a vaporous essence. From its early origins to the movie, the theme & tone expand, and the psychological surface gets much more heavy-handed as the growing threat against Sam, and Amelia's realization is not just in the terror of the monster alone that begins to surround the both of them, but very much in Amelia's fragile mental state which keeps enduring cracks. She is dealing with loss & grief over the death of her husband, Oskar, from a car crash (while on the way to the hospital with her in labor). In raising Sam alone (an erratic, and physically draining, hyperactive child), what we get is an unsettling metaphor for her exhaustion, confusion, clear depression, and natural verge towards nervous breakdown.

Sam is unable to sleep which interrupts her getting any rest. Strange noises are heard and glass shards are found in her food. Sam is blamed who in turn blames the book -- which to begin with just inexplicably appeared. Amelia tears up the book and throws it in the trash but she finds it intact on their doorstep the next morning. Its newer depictions are more violent and come with a warning that denying the creature's existence will only make it stronger. An upset Amelia burns the book and convinced she is being stalked, goes to the police who can do nothing. When she is at her rope's end, with Sam appearing to be too much of a handful to even hear or set eyes upon, we see an emotionally spent parent who pulls a 180 from protectiveness to outbursts of straight-up verbal abuse. In wanting nothing more than some much-needed peace & quiet, her desperation becomes disassociation. The dark and claustrophobic nature of their gloomy house only heightens the stress & tension overwhelming Amelia, while Sam's confrontation with the creature appears to be a literal transfer of having to deal with a display of uncertainty and a type of neurosis bred from trauma, which has materialized into a living & breathing, sinister monster. While Sam's manic behavioral problems stem from some neglect, it is in his unsupervised moments that we see more than just a brat but a troubled kid in a subtle cycle of real, deepening downslope.

Already socially maladjusted, Sam desperately craves attention but when he doesn't get it, his undisciplined inability to deal with frustration results in temper tantrums louder than the last, and physically lashing out. He worried his school because of home-made weapons he brought, and at a backyard birthday party of his cousin, Ruby, he pushes her out of a treehouse when she makes fun of him for being fatherless. Sam being so young (with impulse-control issues to boot and quite possibly suffering from mental illness) doesn't have the comprehension to understand that by alienating those around him, this leads to his exclusion which in turn fosters further loneliness. With only his mother to turn to, Amelia's love seems like rejection in her present failure to cope with him. Withdrawn and irritable, she scolds Sam for disobedience. And still reeling & struggling, she too may also be on the circumference of mental illness, and one wonders if maybe harboring suicidal thoughts as well; unable to decipher the presence of the lurking creature, what is & isn't real, and what she can & cannot control. During an earlier car ride, Sam's glimpse of the creature causes him to have a hollering seizure with Amelia pleading to a Doctor for him to be prescribed sedatives. It is in this worsening state that left weak, vulnerable, baffled and helpless, Sam is naturally ripe & prime for a supernatural entity to target him.

[At present, he has all the makings of a not-so-distant future as a teen and young man possibly destined for a dysfunctional life, filled with therapy, medication & substance abuse in continuing stages]. One night after a vision of Oskar, Amelia is possessed and tries to kill Sam (after she breaks the neck of their pet dog, Bugsy), but he manages to knock her out in the basement and tie her up. Can mother and son outmanoeuvre the evil, save each other in the process, and rid themselves of the creature? Whether it's the layering of a child's bad behaviour or a mother's complicated bereavement process, THE BABADOOK has some good scares, and the atmosphere is suspenseful and disturbing. I'm sure many viewers will find Sam so ear-piercingly grating, that they might not finish the movie. Yes, the character definitely tests one's patience to keep from wearing ultra-thin but for this reason, rather than consider bailing on the movie as a lost cause, I say it warrants a revisit. And to stick with it after a second chance, is to get a full & proper context of just how both Mother and son are so badly affected by the sequence of events, as if to physically feel that worse than the sinking of hope, is its non-existence. Overall, the movie impressively & cleverly positions fear itself in the aftermath of death by pondering the shattering of family, the undoing of child safety, and ultimately losing one's self to going mad.