watching a movie at home circa like, 2001 was like
put your TV on channel 2 so the VCR will work
open up the clamp shell case that held the VHS that has that satisfying crrlikkkkkk
put in the movie
gdi it has to be rewound
press STOP and then rewind because its so much faster that way
start the movie and it takes a few seconds for the movie to actually start cause you rewound to the VERY beginning
FBI will get you if you illegally distribute or exhibit this movie
and then. because you forgot that movies are always so much louder than TV
COMING SOON TO OWN ON VIDEO AND DVD
QUICK LOWER THE VOLUME LOWER THE VOLUME LOWER THE VOLUME OH FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Okay crisis averted.
although. these ads are kind of quiet. a little hard to hear.....
better turn up the volume...
THX
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Youâre in a Blockbuster. Itâs summer, youâve got no responsibilities and your parents threw you some extra cash so you could rent a movie and buy some popcorn. Youâre gonna go home, open that plastic shell case (remember the way the cheap ones would crinkle?) and plug the tape into your VCR for 120 minutes of fun. Or, better yetâ youâre not in a Blockbuster. Youâre at home, digging through your movie shelf for the one tape you want to watch. Your mom recorded it off the TV, so youâll have to fast-forward through commercial breaks (and little do you know, itâs probably edited) but you love it all the same. Itâs not as high a quality as what you could get from the local rental shop, but thereâs something magical about it. The four and a half minutes of the end of whatever TV show was on before your movie started. Ads, captured from a specific time period in a specific regionâ ads you probably wonât ever see again. VHS artifactsâ fuzz, lines. The colors are a little off, the images a little hazy. Youâve got popcorn in your lap and a remote in hand so you can always get to the good stuff fast when the commercials do start. You donât realize it, but that tape, with the hand-written label already starting to wear away, is a time capsule of your youth.
Youth youâll never get back. Youth you may not even miss, but which so many people will play up as the best time of our lives. Was it really, though? Teenagers are assholes. Times were different. People are hateful now, yeah, but people were hateful back then too. I miss grunge and Y2K fashion and idogs and inflatable furniture and the freedom of being able to go outside as a kid but I wouldnât exactly want to live in the fucking 90s or early 2000s. I wouldnât go back, even if I am nostalgic. And I think thereâs some very potent horror in that nostalgia.
Iâve been hyping this up for a while and itâs finally time I tackle WNUF Halloween Special, V/H/S 94, and V/H/S 99 all togetherâ splatterfests, sure, but all poignant time capsules of a specific genre of media: the home recording. Not family movies, though a variety of those certainly plays a major role in both of the V/H/S titles Iâve selected. No, instead I mean tapes copied from local TV channels, ads and all. Thereâs something very unique about the experience of watching a film on TV. I think few of us would actively choose that route these days, when films are available seamlessly at our fingertips (unedited and uninterrupted). Yet, there is something so universally nostalgic about both local TV channels and VHS tapes for a certain generation of us that all three of these movies capture perfectly (albeit some aspects are captured better than others in each of the films).
The first film chronologically for both release and setting is WNUF Halloween Special. A gem of a film set in 1987, it pretends to be a home recording of a local news channelâs Halloween broadcast. Segments about dentists buying back candy, about Christians protesting the holiday, and the grand finale: a longer special about a news reporter and a team of paranormal investigators exploring a supposedly-haunted house. Things go, unsurprisingly, haywire. The plot of the film is paper-thin and predictable, the acting is sublimely cheesy (exactly what you want and expect from smalltown news personalities), and the effects are alright. A little blood here and there, a dead catâ nothing beyond that.
Where the film shines is its dedication to capturing the experience. The sound of the tape being pushed into the VCR, the blue screenâ local commercials, and fast-forwarding through ones youâve already seen or segments you find boring. âKids, ask your parents permission before calling!â âPlaying with drugs... is playing with DEATH.â âAll the rock you could want, on the QUARRY!â â Itâs truly a masterpiece. I feel like a little kid sitting too close to the TV screen with my bucket of Halloween candy next to me every time I watch this movie. It has its flaws, sure, but there is something so tangibly charming about a window into my childhood now preserved only on old Between The Lions tapes, captured here in a film released in 2013. I remember that broadcast on my TV. I remember my old Halloween costume, and my orange plastic pumpkin. I was that kid, watching in awe and horror was my local TV anchor hosts a call-in seance live. We all have, I think, if you grew up in that wonderful window from the late 80s to the early 2000s. Itâs delightful, and WNUF Halloween Special has cemented itself as one of my favorite holiday films of all time.
V/H/S 94 is second, again for both release and setting (and isnât that perfect?). Overall, this film takes itself the most seriously. While WNUF is not an anthology film, both of the V/H/S entries are. Our frame story here, Holy Hell, follows a SWAT unit on a drug bust that turns into a snuff film ring bust that quickly goes sour. As the film progresses, so to does our little unitâ deeper and deeper into the facility, uncovering more and more eyeless bodies and strange TVs, until itâs finally revealed that the two female officers were the leads of the snuff film cult all along. The take a camera to the head of the final SWAT officer; lenses shatter and brain chunks splatter.
 Overall, the shorts in this film are delightful, and all in various ways. Storm Drain is most similar to WNUF, as it also parodies a news broadcast. Being a direct broadcast from the mid-90s, the camera quality has improved distinctlyâ only to drop again for the next short, The Empty Wake. After all, a funeral home certainly wouldnât have the same quality cameras as a news station. You could (and people certainly have) argued that The Empty Wake is middling at best; a simple and obvious story that excels mostly with its use of effects and occasionally with its building of tension. Yet the use of three fixed cameras calls back to early survival horror in a delightful way. It feels almost Poe-esque, a sort of 90s Gothic Iâve never really seen before. Overly-haunting funeral music, a raging storm and a sea of brown. Brown chairs, brown carpet, ugly light fixtures that constantly threaten to go out. Its delightfully evocative of the sort of empty beige wasteland of many Midwest baptist churches. The only things unique here are the girl and the casketâ and whatever monster lurks inside.
The third short, The Subject, is my second favorite. The effects are stunning and CGI is used sparingly, and Iâm a sucker for mad scientist/Frankensteinâs Monster stories. Though it makes the least effort to maintain an âauthenticâ appearance, the creature and set design elevate it. Thereâs also a delightful emotional core; the girl becomes a monster of the soldiersâ own creation, and it is Jonoâs kindness that helps re-ground her. I can only say itâs unfortunate Jono died, considering they each save the other (and heâd only ever been kind to her, trying to protect her from the start and even lying to his commander about seeing her crawling away before they run into each other again in the midst of her killing spree). Iâm not sure whether I wouldâve preferred that they both died together, or both escaped together, but having only the girl survived feels... odd. Especially considering the world she is escaping into is likely to hold little kindness for her.
Interestingly, the fourth short (and by far my favorite) has a similar sort of âmonster of your own creationâ through-line, though with a distinctly more serious twist. A white supremacist extremist group is preparing for a domestic terrorist attack, using vampire blood as a bomb. Itâs got the grittiest, most low-quality footage of any of the shorts (which, again, makes sense â theyâre using cheap, handheld cameras) and feels the most real to me. Itâs set near Detroit, but the snowy wilderness is familiar as someone who grew up in the northern midwest. Each day, at a certain time, the militia members shoot the vampire in the head. One such scene opens the filmâ the vampire pleads for his life. Each subsequent time, the vampire pleads less and less, until he simply kneels in silence and accepts a bullet through the skull. At the end of the film, through a series of drunken mishaps, the vampire is released and all of the militia members are killed. The vampire uses the militiaâs fail-safe to open a large window and expose himself to sunlight, killing himself and destroying the compound. It feels less tragic than The Subject, but remains very understandable. When youâve spent most of your life being demonized, sometimes you do just want to let yourself become the demon.
The third and final film, V/H/S 99, is more consistent aesthetically than V/H/S 94, as it leans almost entirely into handheld, home movie style film-making. It is also mostly focused on teens suffering the consequences of their actions. There was certainly a specific brand of mean-spirited, Jackass-style âprankâ content prevalent in this era alongside the blossoming newgrounds community of shock animations and flash games. All that to say, teenagers of this era fucking sucked.
Shredding, the first short, features a group of irreverent douchebag punks who break into an abandoned music club only to mock the deaths of Bitch Cat, the last band who played there before a fire broke out inside the building. Only one of them shows any concern for their actions, but all of them die gruesomelyâ and in a delightfully gory bit of effects work, their dismembered corpses are reassembled and puppeteered by the zombified ghosts of Bitch Cat to perform one last song.
This is followed by Suicide Bid, pivoting from punks to bitchy sorority girls who decide a great hazing prank would be burying a desperate girl alive for a night. Of course, as shitty as that would be on its own, there also has to be a ghost involved. The ghost of Giltine attacks Lily as the coffin slowly fills with rainwater after a storm starts, and the sorority sisters come back to a mysteriously empty coffin the next day. Lily gets the last laugh by trapping all the other girls in their own coffins, having made a deal with Giltine to offer the sorority girls in exchange for her own soul.
Ozzyâs Dungeon pivots from revenge against shitty teens to revenge against shitty adultsâ all while parodying Nickelodeon game shows. Itâs gross, itâs sleazy, and itâs wonderfully demented in a SAW-esque way. Itâs also an interesting look at failed child stardom. Donna was supposed to be the one who got out, the one who made it big, but now her leg is mangled. Her own mother says it looks like dog meat, goes on this revenge crusade that Donna barely takes part in. When she does, her mother takes over for her. Her father makes token protests but ultimately lets the mother take the leadâ and the game show host was always more worried about appearances than anything else. At the end of their little vengeance plot, the host helps Donna and her family sneak back onto the set of the show to meet the titular Ozzy and get a wish granted (the promised prize of the show which no one ever won). Donnaâs mother prompts her to wish for for a new car, for 15 million dollarsâ Donna wishes for everyone who used her to die.
The frame story of this film, stop-motion animated segments of a teenâs home movie made with toy soldiers, feeds directly into the fourth short, The Gawkers. Weâve returned again to the world of shitty teensâ this time, to popular teen boys. They think theyâre hot shit and treat women as objects, trying to sneak panty shots of girls in a park before being chased off, and later spying on Brady and Dylanâs neighbor. Itâs hardly the most enjoyable watch, but it is quite gratifying. The teens who treated women as nothing more than sexual objects are themselves turned into literal objects. It turns out the neighbor is a gorgon, and she caught the boys spying on her through her webcam thanks to Bradyâs programming skills. She attacks them all and turns them to stone for invading her privacy, betraying her trust and sexualizing her without her consent. This is the short that relies most heavily on CGI (to create the Gorgon) and it does feel extremely weak. The gorgon doesnât seem to have any weight to her and the snakes on her head do not move naturally in the slightestâ budget constraints are understandable, but this is why I much prefer The Subjectâs merging of practical and digital to elevate the practical and execute what couldnât be physically built.
Last, but certainly not least, is To Hell and Back, a short following to videographers recording a Y2K party hosted by a coven of witches as they attempt to summon a demon into the body of a willing host. A lower demon crashes the party, and as the witches banish it back to hell it grabs onto the two cameramen and drags them to hell with it. The only short that has nothing to do with vengeance (or teens), the two men must instead venture through the pits of hell in an attempt to find the demon being summoned and catch a ride back to earth. They succeed, but ruin the covenâs summoning and are killed for it (one of them using his blood to write the name of another lower demon who had helped them escape in the witchesâ book before dying). The film closes as the videographersâ camera runs out of battery.
Each of these films captures a very specific era in the lifetime of VHS as a medium, and captures it extremely well. From the image and color distortion of WNUFâs faux home recording to the differences in camera quality to match the shortsâ settings in V/H/S 94 as we transition from newscasts to funeral homes, to amateur documentaries. V/H/S 99 is more consistent than 94, as stated, but this is inherent to all of their shorts being filmed by amateursâ the most polished segment is the beginning of Ozzyâs Dungeon while the actual show is being filmed. Itâs an excellent depiction of the astounding jump in technological quality in such a brief time. At least in what was available to professionals. Perhaps the most charming part of this era of VHS is that while technology got smaller and cheaper for consumers, it did not necessarily get better. A cheap, handheld video camera is still a cheap handheld video camera.
In their commitment to this horror time capsule project, WNUF Halloween Special and most of the shorts from the two V/H/S films rely heavily on practical effects. It is, at times, bad-looking. You know itâs a guy in a rubber suit. The leech-like vampire isnât really chewing a guyâs face off. Giltine is... well, an unarticulated latex mask with equally unarticulated hands. These monsters are fake and you know it, and that is part of the charm. It is a low-budget 90s film you picked up from the bargain bin, a home-burned DVD your friend gifted you of their high-school slasher created during summer vacation. Itâs a guy in a mask, and it might be a guy you know, but youâve got to suspend your disbelief. Youâve come home from Blockbuster with every intention of seeing that guy in a mask and believing he is a monster out to torment assholes, and itâs golden.
Iâve said it before, seen it said by others, and will absolutely say it again: bad practical effects will always be better than bad CGI. I donât care how cheap it looksâ if thereâs a real, tangible thing in front of the actors Iâll buy it so much more than PS1 graphics slapped against the background. Something with weight, something the actors can really react to. A good performance can make bad practical effects passable and passable effects amazing. You forget you can see the wire in certain shots until some dude on IMDb points it out in the trivia section. The actors sell it. The film scares you. Youâre 14, 15, 16 and you snuck a horror movie out of the rental place your parents would never let you watch normally. Youâre tuning into the late-night broadcast of Ghoulies or Reanimator or Killer Klowns from Outer Space. It scares you because itâs not something youâre supposed to see. None of these tapes were something we were ever supposed to see, but here they are.
Hereâs death, hereâs gore, hereâs horror. Hereâs a man in a mask. Hereâs a cheap video camera and hereâs the nostalgic sound of your tape thunking into place in your VCR, whirring to life as a commercial flickers across the screen as that home recording of your favorite movie comes on. The one you were only supposed to see once, that Halloween night, preserved carefully now on your shelf lined with hand-labelled tapes. Maybe itâs not as scary as it used to be, but itâs joyful! Itâs a trip down memory lane, an experience not many of us will get back (at least not the way we all individually remember it), but we can still plug in any of these masterfully crafted movies and get a dose of nostalgia whenever we want. Theyâll always be thereâ and you can always be a friend.
Just remember to rewind when you reach the end.
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ok its fucking 1:30am so im gonna finish this review tomorrow but
its 2000 words already so thats fucking something!!!!!
I think the next big installment of this blog is gonna be a write-up of the two most recent V/H/S films and WNUF Halloween Special. They capture such a specific experience and was so intrinsic to my childhood that I really want to explore them together.
Iâve definitely already written about WNUF but itâd be nice to revisit it and compare it with its more popular contenporaries.
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IVE BEEN HYPING THIS UP FOR SO LONG AND IM SORRY!!!!! I just knocked Hell House LLC off my watchlist though and it really got me itching to revisit WNUF, V/H/S 94, and V/H/S 99. Iâve got tomorrow off work and nothing better to do tonight so EXPECT SOME ACTUAL FUCKING WRITING FOR ONCE!!!!
and to everyone who has stuck around despite my radio silence while dealing with Real Life Shit, you genuinely have my gratitude. Iâve got an hour left of work and I think Iâll be diving into WNUF as soon as I get off
I think the next big installment of this blog is gonna be a write-up of the two most recent V/H/S films and WNUF Halloween Special. They capture such a specific experience and was so intrinsic to my childhood that I really want to explore them together.
Iâve definitely already written about WNUF but itâd be nice to revisit it and compare it with its more popular contenporaries.
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the last drive-in is on hiatus and Iâve been itching for good horror content after the disappointment of Evil Dead Rise so i might finally tackle this on Friday, folks
I think the next big installment of this blog is gonna be a write-up of the two most recent V/H/S films and WNUF Halloween Special. They capture such a specific experience and was so intrinsic to my childhood that I really want to explore them together.
Iâve definitely already written about WNUF but itâd be nice to revisit it and compare it with its more popular contenporaries.
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Evil Dead Rise was a major disappointment :/
look the more I think I abt that movie the more annoyed I get it was just gross like it wasnât even a good evil dead movie. I wouldnât even care this much if it wasnât riding off a franchise that is VERY dear to me. and FULLY please take my opinions with a grain of salt if u want to see it go see it!!! maybe youâll like it and thatâs good! but if it was standing on its own two feet it would be really visually cool if narratively forgettable. and itâs like. look the Scream 6 location change works because itâs a fucking SLASHER itâs not?? narratively location-bound the way evil dead movies are. the show is a horse of a different color but whatever. the movies are possession movies yes but most importantly they are crusty run-down cabin possession movies. and yea yea Rise does a good job of establishing isolation which is the main point of the cabin setting but itâs just. boring? itâs boring. at the end of the day. and I think thatâs the real crime. nobody has fun? NOBODY has fun in this movie. relationships are hinted at but never explored, Bethâs pregnancy is a cheap plot device that ultimately goes nowhere really?? itâs just demon-insult fodder and by the 27th time a demon calls her a groupie slut itâs just like. ok weâve heard it. weâve done this already. you said that. can we be done?? can we be done. AND THATS SO FRUSTRATING!!!!!!!!! it felt so fucking rushed. we care about Ash and Scotty and Cheryl and Shelly and Linda because we spend time establishing them having fun!! being kids!! and then theyâre violated and Ash loses everything. and that movie was partially built on the Sam Raimiâs thought that he wanted to make a man scream like women normally do in horror movies! and itâs fucked and cool and pioneering!!! and Fede Alvarezâs remake turned it up to fucking 11 and sure the characters arenât as memorable but Iâve seen that movie maybe twice (once in the fucking theater) and I can STILL picture much of it clearly BECAUSE ITS WELL MADE!!!!!!! itâs not just âoh spiderweb wound. huh. did that in the original.â âoh theyâre using the elevator cables instead of vines, ok.â âoh theyâre chanting dead by dawnâ and it really was just one big oh. Oh, okay, I could be watching a better fucking movie!!!!!!!
like sorry if the original evil dead is too tame for you then Fede Alvarezâs remake is right fucking there and itâs leagues above Rise + much more deserving of your time in my opinion
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unironically, we need more "bad" horror in the world. (and that doesn't mean low effort.)
completely unironically i love bad horror. like my gut reaction is just to go âoh thats bad. thats an hour and a half ill never get backâ but like, and? itâs still art. someone poured their heart into making really fucking sick corpses. someone wrote that and filmed it and tried to do really cool camera movements PROBABLY by hand. a full on James Wan-esque spiral and it was jerky and hard to watch but goddamn there was effort. and yea the 2nd half is weird and disjointed but the interstitial edits were sick for the first half and the opening was legitimately INSANELY GOOD. i would highly recommend just watching the opening credits. like this was a piece of art and itâs art that wasnât meant for me and thats fine! somebody made it and somebody loves it! i think we need to encourage that. i think its cool that this movie exists. its a 3/10 from me but whatever form your own fucking opinion.
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I think the next big installment of this blog is gonna be a write-up of the two most recent V/H/S films and WNUF Halloween Special. They capture such a specific experience and was so intrinsic to my childhood that I really want to explore them together.
Iâve definitely already written about WNUF but itâd be nice to revisit it and compare it with its more popular contenporaries.
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đȘ the slasher talks đȘ
You can call me Stu, Iâm in my 20s and Iâm a long-time horror fan.
This is my humble corner of the internet where I post long-form reviews of movies nobody cares about, but hey, itâs fun!
Every once in a while, Iâll host a promo event where anyone who sends an ask within a certain timeframe gets a short review of the movie(s) they suggested. Fun, right? If you donât want to wait for the event or want a longer review, though, I do have a k0-fi set up. Just DM me a screenshot of your tip and the movie title, and youâre guaranteed a longer review within about a week (I do work full time, so please be gracious about the turnaround. Please also understand that youâre paying for an honest review; I canât guarantee Iâll share your opinion, I can only guarantee the review will be thoughtful)
Iâve got no limits as long as itâs horror of some variety, and I welcome a challenge. Donât feel like you need to hold back any suggestionsâ Iâm not going to seek out anything illegal, obviously, but Iâm not a stranger to effedupmovies and the weird shit within.
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AYO keep your eyes peeled for an actual pinned post finally. also made a kofi for this place so if you wanna see a specific movie reviewed? thatâs the way to do it đ€đ»đ€đ»
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A Defense of The Lost Boys: The Tribe
Distant horror sequels are rarely goodâ this is a simple fact. With a gap of over twenty years between two films, the second is bound to suffer. For what it is, however, I think The Lost Boys: The Tribe has a lot of charm.
A disgraced former surfer moves with his sister to a small beach town where they wind up clashing with the local group of vampires, led by another former surfer. What you quickly learn is that the siblings are the children of Michael and Star, and they are quickly taken in by Edgar Frog, who has hermited himself away in this town shaping surfboards when not hunting vampires.
The girl, Nicole, is quickly swept up in the world of the vampires. After the death of their parents, her brother snapped and got kicked out of the surfing circuitâ Nicole, on the other hand, has taken on a more philosophical view of death. Itâs her perspective that attracts Shaneâs attention. Shane, the head vampire, shares his blood with her moments after meeting her. Chris, her brother, reluctantly follows her into the darkness.
While the film absolutely revels in the âcollege anticsâ side of The Lost Boysâ version of vampirism, showing the vampires pranking each other by stabbing each other and throwing their intestines in retaliation, it also revels in connection. Nicole and Shane share a tender moment immediately after her turn, riding Shaneâs motorcycle through the night streets, Nicole in Shaneâs jacket. When she later expresses her concerns about losing her brother if she embraces the turn, he promises her she wonât.
Nicole and Chris have a positive, if somewhat dysfunctional relationship, and though they clash itâs made painfully obvious that Chris would do anything for Nicoleâ even if he is, at times, an idiot.
The film does suffer from a lack of budget, and the CG in particular is lackluster; when they do choose to go practical, itâs well-utilized. The vamp faces in particular are excellent, as well as some of the deaths (others are... laughable). It also struggles to balance its humor and horror as well as the original, but when the jokes land theyâre really funny. The location they chose for the vampiresâ lair is also stunningâ itâs someplace Iâd kill to explore, much like Iâd kill to hang out in the original Boysâ hotel.
Sometimes, the acting falls incredibly flat. Itâs rarely stellar, but often believable. Nicole has little to work with, mostly looking pretty in the background when sheâs not fawning over Shane, and Chrisâ actor can come off as flat at times. The vampires, however, are all uniquely engaging, and Angus Sutherland is captivating when heâs on screen. Corey Feldman, of course, steals the show.
The vampires are seductive, unsettling, funny, exciting; everything you want from the next group of Lost Boys. It also introduces a lot of unique lore, though it does play fast and loose with their powers. It seems to establish that Shane has some form of telekinesis, though its rarely utilized, and the other vampires donât seem to have any abilities. The most unique aspect of their lore comes not from the movie itself, sadly, but from a companion comic book: Reign of Frogs. While that story is, for the most part, a standalone showing part of Edgarâs journey between the first and second films, it ends with Shaneâs origin. He was one of the surfers attacked on the beach in the original movie, and the first thing he fed on was a shark.
See, in this universe the first thing a vampire feeds on affects their âvamp face.â Feed on a human, get a standard Lost Boys face a la David. Feed on a shark, however, and you and your childer will bear a striking resemblance to that first meal: pure black eyes, flat noses, greyed skin and at least four fangs (Shane himself has a mouth full of fangs, suggesting the severity of the... sharkness, for lack of a better word, dilutes with each generation). Unfortunately, the third film does nothing to explore this further; it would be interesting to see how this mythology would play out with other animals.
While the film is far from perfectâ in fact, itâs not even my favorite 2000s vampire film (that honor goes to The Forsaken) âThe Lost Boys: The Tribe is enjoyable. And really, what more can you ask from a film that will live eternally in the shadow of its far superior sibling? It takes guts to tackle a sequel for one of the most beloved vampire films of all time after ten years have passed, let alone twenty. The fact that The Tribe is such a genuinely enjoyable film is stunning. The soundtrack is good, the story and lore are interesting, it nods its head to the original while still doing its best to be unique and, for the most part, succeeding.
It is, however, a victim of circumstance. Not enough faith for a large budget, and therefore not near enough to the original to attract a dedicated following. It is not outstanding, and I doubt it will ever be considered a classic, but it is good. And that, quite honestly, is a miracle. Donât expect The Lost Boys Two, though that may sound contradictory; instead, lower the bar. Itâs not David, itâs not Michael, but it is their legacy and it shines through in the high points of the film. Much like the house Chris and Nicole move into this movie is a diamond in the rough. Set your expectations accordingly, and Iâm sure youâll enjoy the experience.
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Weâll see how my day goes (aka no promises) BUT tomorrow is friday the 13th and I think itâd be blasphemy to not post a review. Besides, the Forsaken left me motivated to finally tackle the lost boys sequel â if the stars align or whatever, expect that passionate defense (finally)
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time to talk about the only vampire movie where I sympathize more with the humans than the vampires.
Jeez, itâs been a while. I have to admit, Iâve been struggling with motivation to write since starting a full time job. All my creative projects have suffered, but especially this one. I think itâs fitting that I make my return to these reviews with a vampire movie.
Iâve discussed Daybreakers, a sore disappointment, and used it to broadly cover many films in a discussion of the relation between gayness and vampirismâ beyond that, this blog has been sorely lacking in vampire films. The problem is, I donât feel like I have a lot to add to the discussion of my favorites: The Lost Boys and Near Dark (theyâre both great, go watch them). Someday I really will write that defense of the second Lost Boys movie, but today is not that day. No, today Iâm writing about The Forsaken.
The Forsaken is a 2001 vampire flick starring two actors from Final Destination (Carter and Todâs brother respectively), and it is one of my favorite pieces of vampire media of all time. It follows Sean and Nick as they travel through Texas, being chased by an ancient vampire hell bent on killing a girl theyâd picked up on the way. Thatâs as much detail as I can give you without getting into spoiler territory, but if you feel like watching an early 2000s vampire film that shares similarities with both Near Dark and Ginger Snaps 2, I highly recommend checking it out. If you donât care or have already seen it, Iâm about to break down why this movie does what no other vampire film has: made me care about the humans.
Now, some are better at this than others: I like Michael and Sam both in The Lost Boys, but I like the vampires more. Some are worse; I wouldâve payed good money for Severen to kill Caleb in the beginning of Near Dark and just had the rest of the movie follow the vampsâ travels. I use these two films specifically because they share a few core similarities with The Forsaken: the vampires are a family, and vampirism can be cured. What sets the Forsaken apart specifically in terms of its human leads is that, for one, theyâre never directly taken in by the vampires. Nick was bitten by a completely different vampire before the film even began, and Sean was bitten accidentally by Megan (the half-turned girl they pick up while on the road).
Interestingly, however, we still have a similar dynamic through Sean and Nick. Instead of the clueless young man being swept up into the seductive, wild world of a gang of vampires, itâs a man getting unwillingly pulled into the fucked up world of a hunter trying desperately to stave off his own turn. Thatâs another thing The Forsaken does extremely well (and uniquely): the lore for its vamps.
Vampirism is a blood disease, full stop. While working on treatments for HIV, a doctor whoâd been bitten discovered some of the medication they were developing slowed down the process of turning (which takes about a week without the drugs). Vampirism is also âtelegenetic;â once youâre bitten, you and your sire have a psychic bondâ until you start taking the drugs, since Nick has no link to his sire and Meganâs link is severed when the drugs kick in. Vampires themselves are even more powerful: while they can be killed by the sun, beyond that they can only be killed by beheading. Even then, it can only be on hallow ground (though the sun can kill them anywhere)â so even if you get lucky enough and have an opening to saw that vampâs head off, you better hope youâre standing in a church or a graveyard.
There are other little details I like, which seem to be natural extensions of the vampire lore established in Near Dark. For example, snake venom is like a drug for these vampires. It also gets creative with what it counts as a decapitationâ like a point-blank shotgun blast to the face. Point being, the vampires in this movie are cool, dark and sexy and stylish with just the right touch of humor at times, that sick, twisted sense of humor that shines when theyâre in the middle of slaughtering people. Theyâre got everything I want to see in vampires! So what is it about them?
As I touched on above, weâre never swept up into the fold of these vampiresâ we get brief glimpses of their dynamic, but itâs not the intimate invitation that The Lost Boys and Near Dark provide. It works in the movieâs favor (and the Lost Boys sequel portrays its vampires similarly), allowing the vampires to remain mysterious and intimidating through the entire runtime. Nick fills the role that Near Dark and The Lost Boysâ vampires play instead. Sean picks him up at the mechanicâs after having his car repaired, this hitchhiker about his age that he quickly bonds withâ only for them to stumble across a terrified, feverish Megan. Suddenly, Sean is bitten and heâs caught up in Nickâs world of blood diseases and drugs, violence and monsters.
And the even more unique thing? Sean chooses to stay in that world. Where Michael stays with Star and helps kill the Boys, where Caleb kills the others and cures Mae with a blood transfusion, Sean says his goodbyes to Megan, goes to his sisterâs wedding, and then spends three months tracking Nick down just so he can help him hunt down the vampire who bit him and hopefully turn him back human.
When Sean finds Nick, Nick tells him he doesnât have to do this, his disease having clearly gotten worseâ Sean responds that yeah, yeah he does. Itâs as much an acknowledgement that what Nickâs doing is dangerous as it is that he may very well not last much longer. At least, not as a human.
So much of the joy I get from these films is the idea of family. Family that will love you to the bloody, bitter end. Family bound by more than blood, family that will never abandon you because you chose each other, both the beautiful and the monstrous. As an LGBT person, thatâs an extremely attractive idea. To never have to worry about being rejected for who I am, or about losing my loved ones to sickness or time, or the violence of others. To be a vampire is to be truly safe, to be surrounded by those just like me, to fear nothing.
Similarly to Ginger Snaps 2, where lycanthropy is portrayed as a disease which can be staved off but not totally cured (and lycanthropy in relation to the trans experience is an essay for another time), the sort of vampirism presented by The Forsaken is mostly undesirable. Itâs an interesting dichotomy. Without its rude intrusion, Sean and Nick wouldâve gone their separate ways in Houston and Sean wouldâve lived his life blissfully unaware (of vampires, and of any potential feelings for Nick). However, heâs now facing the cruel reality that Nick is getting sicker as the drugs lose their effectivenessâ they may end the movie close to the vampire responsible for Nickâs sickness, but thereâs no telling whether theyâll actually succeed in killing him before the turn takes hold.
In Ginger Snaps, lycanthropy is an undeniably negative ailment. Vampirism, even in The Forsaken? not so much. Unfortunately, thereâs no sequel exploring Sean and Nickâs stories further. We can only speculate on what happens. Do they succeed? Hunting down and killing the vampire and curing Nick (and after, do they continue hunting, helping others who have been bitten along the way or simply settle down somewhere isolated?). Or, instead, do their best efforts fail? The vampire eludes them, just that much faster, and Nick finally turns as the drugs stop working completely. (and what significance does Seanâs âyeah, I doâ take on then? Will he kill Nick now that he canât turn back, or does he ask Nick to bite him too? How far would he be willing to go?)
For once, I canât say which ending I prefer for them.
Now, is The Forsaken an instant classic? No. It has its weak moments and certainly isnât very high budget (which shows, at times), but it is a mostly-stylish, enjoyable, dark film about two men helping each other through their lowest pointsâ nearly becoming bloodthirsty, unlovable monsters. Though, whoâs to say Sean couldnât love the monster Nick becomes?
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Clearly, I had thoughts about The Collector.
ok interesting 2 me that the collector came out the same year as SAW VI.
i think its a very strong film on its own but as the product of a team whoâd, at that point, worked heavily on 3 SAW films + presumably wrote this/SAW VI at the same time, you can obviously see the influences. tho i must say im very impressed w/ the cinematography + sound design. funnily enough for sm1 w a SAW hyperfixation i didnât actually like the ending (wasnât unexpected, but stillâ that whole trend of nihilistic horror is just not my thing). I like how they characterized the killer thru the score and i am absolutely enchanted by the reflective eyes
the mask reminds me of Dr. Decker from Nightbreed which is a refreshing sightâ i think more of those formed, leathery masks shld be utilized; theyâre so uniquely expressive with so little detail, and warp the face in such an interesting way. the use of the knives as a thrown weapon was a nice touch too
i really donât have much critical to say beyond my own personal preferences? just a very solid enjoyable piece of home invasion horror, even if it does fall into that nihilistic trend i tend to avoid. will definitely b purchasing it on dvd lol
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I should do a write-up on the scream franchise. To do list time
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A long time ago someone suggested doing youtube based off the reviews Iâve posted here, and I might try something with vtuber software? things to think about.
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Someday I will write a passionate defense of the second Lost Boys movie. Someday.
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