THIS FRESH BLOOD: Happy Death Day (2017)

Original Post Date: 04.09.18

Last year at HHN I was introduced to the horror movie Happy Death Day (2017)and to be honest it did not get my attention enough to go the movies for it, and instead decided to wait for the dvd. Sure, the Blumhouse maze consisting of The Purge/Happy Death Day/Sinister combo was okay (I will soon be sharing the video I recorded inside… jeez, I’ve been saying that since last October! Crap!) Where was I? Oh yeah, the maze. The Happy Death Day section was 100% new to me, and by that I mean I had zero idea of what the movie was about or who the evil character was, and quite frankly the baby mask was super annoying, so yeah, I said to myself let’s wait for the dvd.

Fast forward six months and ta-da! The dvd is now in my hands!

I humbly would like to tell you that I was quick to judge the movie, it was really good and I will explain why, but first, take a look at this:

So now at least you know the story is about a sorority/mean-girl type woman (Tree Gelbman) who keeps waking up on her birthday only to find out she gets killed and ‘brought back’ again and again and again. As you would expect, she gets the handle of things really fast and one by one she keeps crossing off her list of potential killers until she finds who that person is. I am *not* going to spoil it for you as the whole adventure is super engaging and entertaining and, guess what? Just when you thought Tree had finally figured it out, boom! She wakes up on her birthday yet again! This was fantastic as a viewer because I myself was already getting ready to stop the dvd when no no no, the show ain’t over yet!

A few other things I enjoyed from the film: their ability to make you care little by little for the protagonist, their ability to trick you into believing one thing and then proving you wrong, their fresh way of basically doing the same thing (waking up, getting dressed, explaining what’s going, navigating life) over and over without being repetitive or boring, the subtle camera effects used to emphasize certain aspects of Tree’s journey, the good example of a woman who started by running away from her problems (by avoiding them) and then ended by facing them and succeeding after much struggle (by being resilient), and lastly, I obviously enjoyed all the creative ways in which Tree gets killed by our baby-masked friend.

So yeah, if you haven’t watched the movie already and are game go have a look and let me know what you think (shoot me a DM on my IG and let’s discuss all those juicy small details).

 “I can’t change what I’ve done, but I can start trying to be a better person today/ It’s been so much worse. All of this running and hiding has made me so miserable and i think i finally figured it out. For me, it took something, like, totally crazy, but… but I’m here and I love you and I’m so, so sorry that i hurt you.” -Tree

- Marath

DARK WATER (2002)

Original Post Date: 02.17.18

The Japanese horror movie Dark Water (2002) is another example of why I have been falling in love with the literary work from author Koji Susuki. In this film adaptation from his 1996 novel with the same title, the main character, Yoshimi Matsubara, gives us the best she has to give as a woman, a mother, and a protector. (And strangely enough, I saw glimpses of myself thru her and of course that made me happy, but ultimately it made me sad.)

The movie showed real vulnerability, anxiety for a life getting out of control (in Yoshimi’s case, divorce/custody battle, new apartment at run-down building with a leaking problem, new school for her kid with less than desirable teachers, a brand new job), worry for seeing this strange kid and her mysterious red bag when no one else did (was Yoshimi’s going mental again?). The movie was sad, scary yes, but mainly sad and that was a good thing as it made me feel the characters were authentic with real everyday life problems, characters just like you and me. Characters, however, that due to their unique circumstances were in the middle of experiencing supernatural events that were gradually getting worse and worse.

One might say that Yoshimi was a weak woman riddled with neurosis, and actually yes, she even verbalized it once or twice to her Lawyer when she shyly confessed “I get confused by myself,” but in the end that same alleged weakness, that same intensity for feeling things was what made her sacrifice herself to save her daughter, little Ikuko Matsubara. Yoshimi gave herself to the strange kid’s ghost, Mitsuko Kawai, so her little Ikuko would no longer be in any danger. Yoshimi chose to be the ghost’s mother so she could save her real daughter. Sad ending.

Now, let me talk real quickly about the beauty of the film. Visually, Dark Water was so intensely packed with nerve-racking images of decay, despair, isolation, frustration, and vulnerability, oh, and lots and lots of gloomy rain. (I LOVED IT SO FREAKING MUCH!)

These were the scenes I adored:

• Ceiling leaking and getting the whole bed wet (my own anxiety was triggered major time!)
  

• When the mom goes to the vacant 405 apartment upstairs looking for her daughter after getting lost/hearing footsteps and she opens the door and sees everything covered in water: floor, sinks, walls, its own ceiling, it almost looked as if it was raining inside, also, we see Mitsuko in the shadows just for a brief moment
  

• After the manager fixes the “water problem” from 405, and Ikuko’s health starts improving, and the custody battle starts looking better for Yoshimi, all their sense of normalcy gets shattered when Yoshimi has a vision of Mitsuko’s death and goes to the roof to investigate, leaving little Ikuko alone and vulnerable to an attack by Mitsuko… this is when we see for the first time the ghost’s gray/pruney-looking hands!
  

• When the mom finally comes downstairs and finds her daughter motionless on the floor and carries her to the elevator but the elevator doesn’t move and she sees from afar her daughter sleepwalking/coughing and… here’s when she realizes she carried the little ghost instead AND we see the little ghost girl in her yellow plastic attire with face, arms, and legs all gray/pruney-looking (this one scene was the one that made me scream in terror!)
  

• Then, so sad, the mom accepts that she has to let go of her own daughter to save her… so she leaves her alone and both mother and daughter know this is goodbye and start crying in pain (dude, my feelings!)
  

• The daughter goes after her mom, takes the stairs from the third to the seventh floor and while sitting on the floor, defeated, suddenly the elevator door opens and only dark water comes rushing out, sweeping the little girl, leaving her alone (for real this time), crying for her mom… cut to the water tank on the roof, fade to black*

Since I must insist on the great visual quality of the film, I feel obligated to share it with you in the following twenty-one screenshots. Enjoy:

In Love and Fear,

- Marath

[*] I would have loved the movie had ended here but it didn’t and instead gave us an extra eleven minutes of the 10 Years Later deal which kind of felt unnecessary to me, it felt like a failed attempt at trying to give the audience some sort of reassurance that things were going to be okay for the dead mother and the abandoned daughter. News flash! Horror movies do not need to have a happy ending, just FYI.

Two Movies One Book, THE RING

Original Post Date: 02.11.18

The year was 2002 and I was on vacation with high school friends, just a bunch of us kids very far away from home experiencing life for the first time. Total freedom. I am not going to bore Me with details I already know but let’s just say the events that took place stayed with me for a long time.

Back then, I had a strong relationship with horror but not like nowadays, oh no sir, nothing like nowadays *insert evil laugh here*, yet, I was not prepared for the fantastical experience we were about to have when we all decided to go to the local movie theater of the small town we were visiting to watch EL ARO (THE RING). My friends were as vanilla as they come (sorry guys) so the mere thought of them wanting to watch a weird horror movie was shocking to me and I welcomed it with open arms. I remember many things from that night but two things were particularly special: The big jump scare of the film and the whole theater reacting to it (so many screams, so many nervous laughs, so good!), and our sleeping arrangements for the evening where all seven of us spent it in one single room next to a washroom (I know, a damn washroom) which started making noises, water noises, as we were trying to fall asleep (so creepy, so perfectly timed, so good!).

By the way, this was the big jump scare scene I mentioned (wait for it):

Right, so that was 2002. Fast forward to most recent years and THE RING stills stands as one of my top-twenty favorite films from my horror collection. Fast forward to a month ago when I read for the first time the 1991 novel “Ring” by Koji Suzuki which inspired not only THE RING but its original Japanese predecessor, RINGU (1998). Did I mention that our American version was not the original but a remake?

The book was such a treat to read. The characters were so imperfect and human and I fell in love with them immediately, especially with Ryuji. Asakawa was cool and all but Ryuji was my main man! He was smart, perverted (allegedly, no one could prove it either way), fearless, funny, incredibly resourceful, and a true survivor until [spoiler alert] he died by the hand of Sadako. Sadako by the way was a young powerful woman when she ended her life (allegedly by forcing her rapist/killer with her super-charged ESP powers into pushing her into the water well located by the TB Sanatorium in the woods, which decades later became the infamous cabin in the woods where the VHS video was found, which OMG the video turned out to be Sadako’s projected memories [the screen going black was her eyelids, blinking!] along with disturbing random images), she ended her life due to loneliness and shame for not being able to be a mother (she was a hermaphrodite thus not being able to conceive), but little did she know that her “kids” one day would turn out to be the killer video tapes, video tapes which had to be copied to save the life of the unlucky one who happened to watch it; the seven-day curse was like a virus that could only be stopped by creating more, reproducing like a virus, stopping by not stopping, brilliant!

“Asakawa! Wasn’t your deadline 10:04? Rejoice! It’s 10:10! Asakawa, can you hear me? You’re still alive, right? The curse is broken. We’re saved. Hey, Asakawa! If you die down there you’ll end up just like her. If you die, just don’t put a curse on me, okay? If you’re going to die, die nice, would you? Hey Asakawa! If you’re alive, answer me, dammit!” – Ryuji (Excerpt from “Ring” by Koji Suzuki)

So yeah, the American remake movie as well as the book were both a hit for me, but what about the Japanese original movie? Well…

Sorry to say this but I fell asleep in the middle of it. Wait. What!? Why!? Easy answer: The movie felt too rushed and easy (the main characters did not struggle at all in putting together the pieces of the puzzle, unlike the book), and since I found out—sadly—from the first scene that this Japanese version was going to be an almost exact mirror from my beloved American version (or if we want to be a dick about it, that the American version was in the end an almost exact mirror from the Japanese original version), well, I pretty much knew what was going to happen play by play before it happened. Not to say that it was a bad movie, not at all, on the contrary, the Japanese movie did a great job at adapting the book and putting on screen ideas and concepts from the renowned horror author Koji Suzuki, I mean, come on, the movie was such a hit that we had to remake it.

Now, I would like to end this post by showing you screenshots of my favorite scenes from the Japanese movie, scenes that were both pivotal to the story and visually pleasant:

Final thought: if you have never read the book or watched either movie but want to, I would strongly suggest you first watch the Japanese version, followed by the American version, and until then start reading the book –by doing this you would increase the Wow Factor from the whole Ring experience, in my humble option that is.

Now, if someone could make a faithful play-by-word movie based 100% on the book, that’d be great.

- Marath