June-July Wrap!

Ok, so we fell a little behind schedule this summer. But we got it done!  You can't rush quality like this (snicker).  So four more in the bag.  How did we rate this last batch?

Paul's Rankings (with links to his reviews):

1.  Fairlane Road
It did the most with the least.  It's like the Mr. Hustle award in Pee-Wee League.  And I should know,  being the proud recipient of not one, but TWO Mr. Hustle awards.  Some genuine creepy moments bracketed by awful, yet weirdly effective, acting.

2.  Little Dead Rotting Hood
Werewolves battle an undead becloaked teenager and the bumbling local sheriff's department.  Mostly silly, occasionally fun, AND you'll also learn about wolves' migratory patterns in North America during the inexplicable lecture sequence!  Educational! 


3.  Hush
A mostly disappointing stalker/slasher film which never quite makes the leap from an unfortunate series of events to actual story.  I am still proud (and secretly kind of convinced) of my cheeky reading of the whole affair as a psychological allegory about the horrors of a major cooking disaster when the special guest is already on her way.  She forgot to add the wine!  And it ruined EVERYTHING!
 
4.  The Exorcism of Molly Hartley
Not as bad as some of our other losers (side eye at you, The Hollow), but it definitely goes down as a  blazing wreck at the end.  Whereas the other movies at least tried, The Exorcism of Molly Hartley just panders, lifting the most finely crafted morsels of classic horror, shoving them down its snarling corn teeth face and then vomiting them all over you.

What'd you think, Joe?

Joe's Rankings (with links to his reviews):

1.  Little Dead Rotting Hood
The pick of the litter! Kind of. If you were evaluating by any objective "Four legs, two eyes, two ears" standard, this pup wouldn't pass. But like a one-eyed chihuahua that thinks it's a wolf, LDRH has moxie! It wants to be bad.

2.  Fairlane Road
Fairlane Road wants to be legitimate. Its goals are the noblest and its execution is the best. But it's a little boring, and the plot twist at the end reduces all of the initial creepiness into a PSA about drunk driving. I can't wait for the sequel, Fairlane Road 2: Speeding Is Dangerous and Irresponsible.

3.  Hush
Hush is like Home Alone if Kevin were a 30 year-old deaf woman who didn't set any traps and cried all the time.

4.  The Exorcism of Molly Hartley
The Exorcism of Molly Hartley is like Hush, if the writer had a nervous breakdown halfway through writing the script, but went ahead and finished it anyway, because the devil is bees, and the exorcism is what he wants, and he'll turn into a whale! It's all for you, Leviathan! *Throws himself off desk*

A Critic's Reply to Director Mike Flanagan

[What follows is a long-winded and semi-serious departure from our usually irreverent and jocular (what a word, right?) snark parade.  When I asked Joe whether he thought it was appropriate for Rock, Paper, Hatchet, he responded: "considering how everything we do is kind of silly and snarky, suddenly going fairly serious and academic is an interesting contrast. Like taking off a clown mask and having a very serious mask on underneath!"  But don't worry--the clown mask is going back on soon.  I mean, we're reviewing Little Dead Rotting Hood next, so...]

In my recent review of Hush, I faulted the film for having a seemingly motiveless killer and for unmasking that killer very early on.  As it turns out the director, Mike Flanagan, has been hearing these exact same complaints from others, and he wrote an brief essay to respond (thanks to culturecrypt.com for pointing this out to me!).  Flanagan's essay is a fun read.  You can find it here.

I kind of want to respond to Flanagan, however, since he's talking theory and aesthetic principles, and that kind of deep stuff gets me going!  First off I should say that I really appreciate his participation in the critical conversation and his generosity in sharing the thinking behind his decisions.  It’s rare to get a glimpse behind the creative curtain.  Yet although I found the essay illuminating (actually, because it was so illuminating), I felt that it didn't quite put to rest my qualms with the film.  So I thought I'd write a thought-piece response to further clarify what I still think are legitimate criticisms with the film.

HUSH (2016) [Joe's Review]

In Hush, a young, deaf novelist is terrorized in her cabin in the woods by a senseless killer. Will she live to tell the tale? Or suffer from a fatal case of writer's block? Tune in to find out if the pen is mightier than the crossbow!

HUSH (2016) [Paul's Review]

In Hush, a resourceful deaf woman must fight off a predatory home invader.  At first, you might think it a variation on Wait Until Dark, the brilliant blind-woman-fights-off-predators Audrey Hepburn film.  However, Hush is less like Wait Until Dark and more like one of those low-budget TV commercials for home security systems.  The ones where cartoonish bandits come creeping through the petunias of your well-groomed suburban lawn while ominous music signals that BAD GUYS ARE EVERYWHERE AND LOOK HOW EASY IT IS FOR THEM TO JUST COME IN YOUR HOUSE AND KILL YOU. 

Look, I get it, people liked Hush.  I mean, according to my Netflix star rating it’s the fourth-highest rated horror movie on Netflix!  That’s better than Hellraiser, The Babadook, Cujo, and The Faculty.  Holy shit, The Faculty is on Netflix?  Wow, do you guys know who starred in that movie?  Jon Stewart plays an evil science teacher named Edward Furlong.   And Selma Hayek?  Elijah Wood?  Josh Hartnett?  Piper Laurie?  Usher!? It’s the Ocean’s Eleven of 90s horror!