It: Chapter 2 – before it begins

A few months ago I did an article about the upcoming IT: Chapter 2 movie. I did several of these kinds of articles for the first instalment as well so I figured it was time to get this one out before the closing chapter of the Losers-saga is truly upon us.

As usual this article is more for my own amusement than that it’ll help anybody. I’m just going to post some thoughts I had about the trailer(s) and what I remember from the book. Just to see, when the movie finally comes out, whether or not I was right.

Obviously there will be some spoilers here regarding the book, the first movie and the original mini-series.

What’s new?

The trailer of IT: Chapter 2 promises quite a few new things. For starters Bill is chasing some kid through a mirror/glass maze and actually calling the kid by name (so he knows him). This isn’t in the book.

I doubt that this child is one of the losers’ offspring. But some kind of relative is a possibility. Or maybe it’s just a kid Bill met at the carnival.

Pennywise backstory?

The carnival, then, also isn’t in the book. What is in the book though is a reference that Pennywise the dancing clown used to be part of a carnival troupe. And low and behold both trailers make a rather big deal out of the fact that the creature Pennywise was once a ‘normal’ man (or, at least: without make-up). Moreover, that he had a daughter.

The  little old lady-scene in the first trailer is just like in the book.

A bit more elaborate, perhaps, but in the end the basis remains:

Nan is quite effectively creepy. 

This makes this whole notion of Pennywise being this eternal inter-dimensional, soul-devouring monster a bit shaky. Especially since the first trailer poses yet another notion: that Pennywise had/has a daughter.

So what could this mean? A) Pennywise was, and always has been this inter-dimensional being, even when he was in (make-up-less) human form. The daughter is just an extension of him. Or, B) The man who became Pennywise ‘invited’ the monster in. The daughter paved the way for his transformation/possession (be it: The loss of the daughter, or evil acts by the father upon the daughter. All kinds of motivations are possible).

It’s her tie with the Pennywise-backstory that’s interesting here.

New scares?

The trailer of IT: Chapter 2 brings quite a few new scares to the table that weren’t in the book. One of them is Pennywise floating in the air by balloons. But –more interesting to me- is a quick shot of Bev destroying a mirror. In the reflection of the mirror you see Pennywise hovering over (I think) Mike and Eddie. Eddie has a big cut on his belly. Now he’s not going to die just yet since later on Eddie and the troupe are seen holding hands and he has a bandage on his face. Sufficient to say, the guy is going to have a very bad time in Derry, that’s for sure.

Like Stanley in Chapter 1 he’s the only one bandaged. Is this foreshadowing to his ultimate fate?

Another quick shot features Bev underwater being held by some kind of face-less zombie. Also not in the book. And then there’s the fact that the ‘little old lady’-scene is far longer than it was in the book.

Lin Shaye would’ve been great for this part. But I guess she’s too young.

So one can assume that the movie truly takes the visual approach and is just going to bombard a massive amount of unsettling visuals towards the audience. I think this is a good thing. Returning to Chapter 1, I doubt Mike’s massive bird-scene or Richie’s werewolf would’ve worked well on screen/in the whole of the story.

Callback scares?

So, this new chapter has a lot of new scares that weren’t in the original book. But, of course, on a character-development level you also need to include some ‘old scares’. So, yes, Georgie is back to taunt Bill(y) once more (“You lie and I die!”). And, yes, Bev is back in her school-bathroom cubicle (“Hate clown”).

Not to mention she gets a whole new bloodied shower.

Poor girl.

Whose hand is she trying to reach by the way?

This is needed to tie the second chapter to the first. And, maybe, those things we took for granted the first time around might have a deeper (scarier) meaning in this second chapter.

Fan-service?

Anybody who read the book, seen the original mini-series, or just IT: Chapter 1 knows that there is a deep love between Richie and Eddie. Whether this love is friendly, brotherly or more is never explored nor explained.

The people online, however, LOVE to fan fiction their behinds off. Yes tumblr can be a bit creepy. So Ritchie and Eddie are definitely a couple in the minds of online people.

So, knowing this I suddenly saw a shot in the trailer with Richie crying and hugging someone. Who? And, why? Is it the end and Eddie died? Or is it fan-service? Are we going to see them become a couple?

The same goes for the Bill-Bev-Ben triangle. In the book and mini-series Bev ends up with Ben. Will this happen in the second chapter as well? Or will Bill and Bev end up together? We haven’t seen Bill’s wife Audra Philips yet so how important is her character going to be for Bill’s story in this adaptation?

What is old?

In the trailer(s) every single shot in Derry is without Stanley. And then there’s a lovely bathtub blood finger shot. I think it’s pretty obvious that poor old Stanley’s story will follow the bookpages to the letter.

I doubt, however, that the movie will start with his demise (as the mini-series did). I’m rather convinced the movie will begin with (a cold open?) the gay couple being harassed by hoodlums just as it is in the original book.

Also, I believe the enormous amounts of red balloons coming from under the bridge are in this particular scene.

Moreover, I think that these balloons will somehow transform in the title of the movie (as I said: a cold open).

Bowers dangerous?

The trailer offers a small shot of Henry Bowers in the asylum. Pretty much the same as the original book/mini-series. I do hope, however, that Bowers becomes a bit more threatening this second outing.

In Chapter 1 he (felt to me) was rather more an annoyance along the way of the Losers’s main quest to destroy the ultimate evil. This, whist, in the book and mini-series, he felt more like Pennywise’s general. The first big boss you have to overcome before you meet the final boss –as it were. So not some kind of pest but rather an, already, impressive force to be reckoned with.

The ritual of Chud?

Then there’s the ritual of Chud. We don’t see anything about it in the trailer apart from Pennywise slamming a wooden door shut over a hole in the ground. In the book it’s in this hole that the ritual is performed.

So, a few things to take from this: since we only see the door we can assume that the movie isn’t too keen on letting the cat out of the bag just yet. Meaning: the scene is important. Probably dealing with the aforementioned questions about Pennywise’s past. Second; one could guess that the kids from the previous movie will be back for this scene since (if memory serves) both the adults and the kids perform this ritual.

What I want.

What I want, is batshoot craziness! The ending of the original IT novel is so immensely insane. I mean, we are talking about a guy tripping to high heavens and meeting an intergalactic space turtle who vomits out worlds. If one can translate this narrative insanity visually on the silver screen I’m a happy bunny.

The trailer (especially the second one) promises this. There are strange angled shots. Pennywise defying gravity by walking on walls. One of the characters falling through a tunnel into a bright light. All very Lovecraftian (without the tentacles). And with the movie set to have a three hour runningtime I’m convinced that IT: Chapter two will throw everything at the audience (including the kitchen sink). So I’m hyped and ready to go.

Annabelle: Comes Home - a review

Ed and Lorraine Warren bring the Annabelle doll home. There their daughter Judy, her  babysitter Mary and the babysitter’s friend Daniela are in for a night of terror as they are home alone and Annabelle escapes her glass cage. Annabelle has her mind set once again on playing her demonic games.

Annabelle is back. With more of the same spooks and scares as before. Some effective, some not. But, as a refreshment it does have, a lovely little love-story that I certainly didn’t want to end badly.

But yes, the synopsis I wrote above is the story; there’s not much more to it. The story is kept minimal just so the movie can indulge in the thrill ride it promises. Ed and Lorraine leave on business. The three girls have a quick ‘get to know them’ scene and then the show can get underway.

This is a big leap from the previous instalments (even) in the entirety of the Conjuring-franchise because, this time around there isn’t a mystery to be solved along the way. No; Annabelle is out, fight the demons and get the doll the hell back into her glass cage!

Another change is the Warren’s daughter Judy. She is now played by Mckenna Grace taking over the reins from (a job well done by) Sterling Jerins.

A lovely young actress who plays the ‘creepy kid’-part perfectly fine.

I still think the haunting of Hill House-series she was in was quite awful.

I don’t understand the hype, and I won’t let a chance pass to say it.

The Warrens’ house.

As I often said before, horror has a great deal to do with the usage of space and place. You need a haunted house or room for starters (place). What’s there lurking in the shadows just beyond your field of vision (space)? Why do both the Shining and Halloween keep on reducing safe and wide places to small unsafe spaces the minute tension rises?

Which also happens in this movie near the end.

It a simple technique to increase the terror. As the phrase goes: ’your back is against the wall’.

One, often overlooked, technique is informing the audience of a space. For example Danny and Wendy Torrance’s trek through the Overlook maze in the Shining. This very simple scene informs the audience that Danny now knows the path through the maze. Something the movie later effectively uses for the finale.

In Annabelle: Comes Home there is, however, a card up the sleeve. One shouldn’t look at Annabelle: Comes Home as a standalone movie; but as part of the whole of the Conjuring-franchise. If you do that, you (the viewer) by now knows your way through the Warrens’ house since you’ve been there so many times before.

On a narrative level the same goes for the explanation. The audience doesn’t need to know ‘what’s wrong with Annabelle’ anymore. If you want to know that? Watch part 2. All we need to be remembered of is that Annabelle is one vindictive dolly.

Familiar versus New

But; this is the duality of Annabelle: Comes Home. The movie both demands you to have seen the previous instalments but it also springs a whole bunch of well-known tropes upon you. Not only tropes of horror-movies of yesteryears, mind you,

In our current Tarantino decade(s) in which movies love to keep on referring to ‘the classics’.

But also the same kind of tricks pulled in the previous Conjuring-movies (e.g. rocking chairs, slamming doors, possessed children-playthings and disappearing people/dolls).

The question then becomes –much like the cake the three main leads bake early in the movie- when is it a proper mixture of well known ingredients combined with new ones and when are we talking about ‘that same old cake’?

Let’s just say that I am biased. I love ‘the Conjuring cake’ but even I sometimes prefer a different flavour. To stay with this metaphor of cake,  Annabelle: Comes Home only mixes a few ingredients around. It’s tasty, great, but not spectacularly new tasting in any way. But the movie does bring one massive cake to the table. Volume over taste as it were.  After the introductions Annabelle: Comes Home is a full hour of constant, never-ending, spooks and scares. Which is what I bought the ticket for.

Spooks and scares.

If you have a conduit doll to the darker side of the afterlife locked in a glass case with a big bleeding sign that says: ‘Do not open this case! DANGER!’  There’s quite a challenge for a filmmaker to ‘get that door open’.

The character Daniela (Katie Sarife) gets this ambiguous honour. And even though the movie tries (rather successfully) to explain her motivation; in the end she still remains that ‘one character who can’t read!’.

Still, that’s my only big critique on the movie. Once the door has been opened and Annabelle gets to play the limited story is immediately forgiven. As the movie then takes the well-trodden path of combining character-development with terror.

Because the movie takes so much time out to bombard the viewer with scare-scenes there will be some of the abovementioned ‘familiar’ versus ‘new’ dynamic. Some of these spooks and scares work (the piano scene, ‘can Annabelle come to play?’), some don’t (Annabelle popping up all over the place). Just as some are original (the television) and some you see coming for miles (white dress).

A smart move the movie makes is linking the various Warrens’ cases to specific characters.

You just know this-or-that will haunt that character later on.

But, as the movie goes on your investment in the characters increases. Daniela’s motivations gets deepened out a bit more. Mary (Madison Iseman) gets herself a love story that I (as a downright romantic) really wanted to see come to fruition. And the child Judy’s storyline is actually interesting in a ‘kid with famous parents’ kind of way.

But, then again, we are watching a horror-movie.
It could just as easily go the way of Alien versus Predator 2 or Ouija 2.

To quote a friend who I was sitting next to in the cinema watching Alien versus Predator 2:

“Ah, those two will probably end up together”

*Girl gets pinned to the wall by some Predator-knife-frisbee*

“Or, maybe not…”

So, after the introductions, you are rooting for the heroes all the way through.

Visuals

Visually there are quite some clever shots hidden in Annabelle: Comes Home. As is a giving in ghost-movies Annabelle: Comes Home is riddled with Dutch angles, low and high shots, unexpected camera positions and excellent use of framing and blurring the background.

I, for one, especially enjoyed the usage of light and colour in the final half of the movie. It pretty much starts with the ‘rotating seventies lamp’. Which brings a nice break from the dark shadows and streaks of light. Not to mention that it’s a good thing to, finally, have a horror movie it pitch black darkness again that doesn’t solely rely on things jumping out of the shadows.

The creature design, however, I’m a bit on two-minds about. But, luckily, there was enough shadow to hide the latex.

Annabelle is back in her cage.

Overall I rather enjoyed this third instalment of the Annabelle-franchise. It is solid as long as you don’t get too bogged down on the ‘seen that before’-road. If you accept that Annabelle: Comes Home is a perfect instalment in the ongoing franchise in which the Warrens fight the nether realm.

The limit of insanity: or why is it so difficult to get a Lovecraftian horror movie ‘out there’.

H. P. Lovecraft was a peculiar person. Apart from the short life he lived -which I won’t delve into- he created a mythos so delicate, yet, so utterly unworldly incomprehensible that the best word scholars found to describe it was: insanity!

It’s what happens when you ‘allow’ your mind to flow. When you allow yourself to think the ‘big thoughts’.

(Per example) What’s behind the universe? The expanding universe has to expand into something, doesn’t it? Then, if the universe is so immensely grand, where is God? And, more importantly, if God exists –and he is ruling over all those different galaxies- what would such a mighty being think about us: this silly group of mammals on this silly little planet of ours on the outskirts of the universe. Would he spare us a moment’s thought?

It’s when you start thinking big, horror comes to creep. (Taking the above examples as scripture) God doesn’t care about us. He’s got other things on his eternal mind. We are alone...and the ‘lesser’ Gods want us.

This is, pretty much, the mindset you have to get into when thinking about Lovecraftian horror. Basically the man created a mythos of Gods and eternal beings that surpass us humans in every single way (intelligence, bravery, valour). Whatsmore, these beings aren’t bothered by human traits like compassion, self-sacrifice or heroism.

In short: Lovecraft has created a world of nemesis that simply cannot be defeated. When ‘his’ monsters from the dungeon-dimension come to show the only chance humankind has is to roll over and give in.

And that’s the point I’m making!

Hollywood has tried to make Lovecraftian horror movies but most of these movies always fell short of the ending. One can’t win in Lovecraftian horror. The end is predestined, bleak and final. You can’t escape your doom.

Hollywood doesn’t like this. Even in the cruellest of horrors the ‘heroes’ need to have a fighting chance. That’s why each and every slasher ends with ‘the final girl’ surviving. That’s why the cruellest ‘torture porn’ movies (Hostel, Saw 3-7) end with a shimmer of hope that, at least, one ‘good’ soul survived.

There are only a handful of horror movies that end bleakly. And even the bleakness in (most of) those movies only relates to the main characters. Never the entire world.

Just some examples to prove my point:

• Pet Semetary: ends with the main character kissing his undead wife. Then –as the credits roll- you hear her slaughtering her husband.
• The decent: ends with the main character escaping the cave only to find out that she’s still inside and that she’d been hallucinating. The creepers are crawling towards her and the movie ends.
• Rosemary’s Baby: ends with Rosemary cradling her infant child. The destroyer of worlds. But then the movie ends.
• The blob (the remake): ends with a priest who still has a canister of ‘the blob’. This substance could destroy the world. But the movie ends before it is released.
• Rings: ends with Samara’s ‘home movie’ uploaded to the internet. But then the movie ends.

Two things to take from this: one, in the example of Pet Semetary and The Decent the havoc this evil will wreak upon the world is minimal. The creepers of The Decent will stay in their cave and the undead won’t wander too far from Pet Semetary. The evil is contained.

In the example of The blob, Rosemary’s baby and Rings, however, the evil is on the verge of omnipresence. This evil could strike the entire world.

But...what do Hollywood movies do? They roll the credits and call it a day (Phantoms).

I argue that Lovecraftian horror not only promises world annihilation but also delivers on its promise. And it is in this delivering that Hollywood is too afraid to (uhm) ‘deliver’.

This is a strange concept to realize as Hollywood gleefully destroys the world (or New York, at least) on a yearly-summer-blockbuster schedule. But then there is a difference between fighting against an opponent you can win from and fighting against the ‘ancient Gods’ who are unstoppable.

One of the reasons why The cabin in the woods was such a success (apart from the fantastic third act) was because the movie allowed itself to play the Lovecraftian card though out (even though it didn’t use the elements). The secondary storyline throughout the movie was to keep the ‘old Gods’ at bay. Once that failed inevitability came to play.

This makes In the mouth of madness such an unique Lovecraftian movie just because it uses all the elements of the writer and, above all, shows humanity’s end.

So, in the future, if Guillermo Del Tore decides to take on Lovecraft for his next project we can expect one thing: things won’t end happily. The question, however, remains, will the producers let him?

Just a gif - Happy Death Day to u2

I was amazed to find that NOBODY on the internet made this gif yet!

If there is one reaction gif I would love to use every now and then it is a skimpy clothed girl giving a big FU on the way of her terminal fall! YOLO-I guess.