Horror Movie Mini-Reviews: She Dies Tomorrow (2020) and Exhibit A (2007)

She Dies Tomorrow (2020)

Amy is sure she's going to die tomorrow. Her friend Jane checks on her, only to also be consumed with the thought of dying tomorrow. After struggling to create some art and injuring herself, Jane goes to her sister-in-law's birthday party in her pajamas and passes along the thought to everyone. As it spreads, things spin out of control.

She Dies Tomorrow is a wonderful exercise in existential dread. How would you act if you knew with complete certainty that you would die tomorrow? Amy drowns her sorrows in booze and listens to dramatic music (Mozart's Requiem, the most dramatic music ever). Her boyfriend rages and destroys a room. Jane stumbles into her mean sister in law's birthday party in her pajamas. Others become brutally honest about their relationships or go to the doctor for help. People's behavior before and after the realization is completely different. Before, they seem relaxed and normal, but afterwards, becomes awkward and unnatural. The conversations afterwards are surreal and brutally honest.

 

This film is bound to be divisive and of course prompt the tiresome "is it horror" debate. I found it viscerally uncomfortable and full of nihilistic dread. The performances are top notch and the visuals range from mundane to vibrant and abstract. She Dies Tomorrow is a memorable experience that doesn't follow established tropes.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins 

Exhibit A

* major spoilers * 

The King family seems like any other. Judith is interested in photography and doesn't get along with her brother Joe, who's a bit of a jerk. The patriarch Andy is under pressure to get a promotion to alleviate their financial problems and move the family into their dream house. The promotion seems always on the horizon and their money problems worsen, especially after Andy decides to build a pool in the backyard. His behavior gets more and more erratic as time goes on, leading him to come home covered in blood one day. It's only the beginning of his spiral out of control.

Exhibit A is a found footage movie marked right away as evidence. Most of the footage is taken by Judith documenting her family and her next door crush (which is actually invasive and creepy). Her father seems like a good-natured, sweet guy who care about his family. The truth comes out in small doses as Andy has mood swings, starts smoking, gambles compulsively, . The scene where Judith finds trash bags full of used scratchers is absolutely chilling. He tries to repeatedly assure the family everything is fine, but everything points to the opposite. The ending sequence is horrific to watch as Andy attempts suicide and Judith saves him tearfully. Instead of thanking her, he smothers her to unconsciousness and dispatches the rest of the family. 

This film moves pretty slowly, but shows a complete picture of the family before the tragic end. Each of the family members is nuanced and harboring a secret of some kind. This is a fascinating fictionalized look at a family annihilator, a man who kills his entire family usually tied to their own failure, their desire to to start a new life, or perceived betrayals from their family members. I hadn't heard of Exhibit A before it got on Amazon Prime, but it's one of the most effective found footage movies without supernatural elements. 

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

Host (2020)

 

A group of friends meets on Zoom during the COVID pandemic to have a seance led by an experienced medium, Seylan. Everything is going as planned until Jemma claims to contact a friend who killed himself that she completely made up. Seylan informs them that not respecting the experience in this way opened up the group to forces beyond their control.

Host is the perfect immersive experience. I personally have been in countless Zoom meetings for work and for fun because of the pandemic, so viewing this movie on my computer made me feel right in the middle of the action. Haley hired the medium and urges the others to take it seriously while the others make a drinking game and mock the proceedings. I don't really blame them because I probably wouldn't take it very seriously either as someone who doesn't believe in spirits or ghosts. Things get deadly serious after Jemma's prank and each friend is confronted with a supernatural presence. 

The film clocks in at just under an hour and moves quickly. The set up is just enough to get a general picture of each friend before the action moves forward. No scene is wasted. The mood goes from joking and silly to suspenseful instantly. While there are jumpscares which usually replace creating mood and feel cheap, these ones are earned and enhance the whole experience. It's everything I wanted from Unfriended, which introduced presenting a horror film entirely from a computer screen. Host has creepy, unpredictable kills and hapless, sympathetic characters where Unfriended prioritized teen drama over everything else. The performances are convincing, especially Haley's raw panic during the closing sequence. 

Host is such a fun, spooky, unpredictable movie. Even though the formula feels familiar, the manner of haunting left me guessing what would happen. Frankly, even if you end up hating it, there are worse ways to spend an hour of your time. 

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins

Unfriended: Dark Web (2018)

Matias O'Brien claims he bought a used laptop on Craigslist and prepares for a game night with his friends. He tries to talk to his girlfiend and programs crash left and right. When he signs in as the remembered user, half a dozen women start messaging him about getting them plane tickets. Snooping further into the computer and showing it to his friends on Skype, the memory appears full with no files until her uncovers hidden videos of people doing everyday things. Then he gets to the bottom of the list and finds much more horrific videos of women held captive and abducted from their beds. The computer's owner gets into contact with Matias and threatens all of his friends and his girlfriend if he doesn't get the computer back.

Unfriended: Dark Web takes the form of the first film and replaces the supernatural enemey with dark web denizens. As with the first movie, the entire film is a computer screen so we watch as Matias Skypes with his friends, Facebook messages, searches on Youtube and Google, and snoops around his stolen computer. I like that the programs and websites are ones people actually use instead of weird made up ones that end up feeling cheesy. The Dark Web of course figures largely with its reputation for urban legend level stories, specifically paying people to be kidnapped, tortured, and killed for the buyers' amusement. This particular syndicate is populated by mysterious, faceless people with the ability to hack into computers and cameras. They also seem to know what each character will do before they do it, which was the only real flaw of the film for me. The world goes outside of their homes so video chat on phones and surveillance footage of main characters trying to escape, fighting, and of course dying.

Besides abandoning the supernatural angle, the characters are so much better than the first movie. This group of friends are all at least college age and easy friends. They play Cards Against Humanity over Skype while they catch up on major events in their lives. Matias is the worst character because he basically refuses to learn sign language to better communicate with his deaf girlfriend Amaya, who rightfully thinks he's being immature and selfish. My favorite characters are Nari and Serena, a newly engaged couple going through a troubling time. Not only are they adorable together, but they also had the most sensible reaction to the whole situation and tried to do something to stop it. Their other friends are Damon (an English computer tech) and AJ (a conspiracy theorist and Youtuber). Their conversations and decision making were pretty well founded and logical. The friends were the worst thing about the first Unfriended and the best thing about this new one.

Unfriended: Dark Web has only one real flaw and it's a pretty well constructed horror film. The ending was more intense than I expected. It also has two endings in theaters and I loved the ending I saw. I'll probably see the second one when it comes out on DVD. I honestly didn't have high expectations coming in, but Dark Web had a lot of tension, surprising death scenes, and decent characters to actually care about. I would highly recommend it to people who liked The Den.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)

During a police raid, a huge cache of videotapes is discovered, documenting a prolific serial killer and his methods. This includes everything from abductions, to torture over long periods of time, to post-mortem mutilations, and the murder itself. Some of the tapes are missing, showing that the killer meant for them to have the tapes and that he chose to keep some for himself. How many people has he killed? Will he ever be caught?

The Poughkeepsie Tapes is a film that I have heard of over and over again over the years, but it never seemed to be available to buy legally. It was never released theatrically, briefly released on DirecTV on demand in 2014, and finally released on DVD and Bluray in 2017. It's been pirated, posted on Youtube, and made into GIFs (only the most disturbing scenes of course). It has been talked about for years and widely known as an infamous horror film even though few have gotten the chance to see it. The film lives up to all of this hype and more.

The story is told in a documentary style, similar to Unsolved Mysteries or America's Most Wanted or Forensic files with interviews from investigators, family members of victims, witnesses, and one survivor. Instead of cheesy re-enactments, the harrowing video footage is shown. The interviews and narration take up the majority of the film, telling their stories about the investigation, finding the bodies, and the fate of various victims. Many of the police officers and detectives spoke about the harrowing effect of watching the killer's videos, compounded by the fact that there is very little evidence to help find him. There is a subdued attitude to these interview subjects because of the horrific nature of these murders and the struggle to catch the killer. The killer manipulates them deftly and keeps them distracted. They also get caught up in an orchestrated red herring that devastates many. This part is just as interesting as the tapes themselves because we see the effects of these murders on the public and provide context.

The killer is never shown in the films unless he is in some sort of disguise, giving him a theatrical and creepy air. His favorite seems to be commedia dell'arte bird mask. He carries a camcorder with him to kidnap women, torture his victims, mutilate their dead bodies, and disposing of the bodies. These tapes can be incredibly creepy. He is shown kidnapping a little girl right in front of her house, chloroforming a couple when he asks them for a ride, hiding in a woman's house for hours before abducting her, various scenes of torture (mostly physical but mental and emotional as well). He started out as a disorganized killer, led by impulse, and then became measured and well planned as he went on. Then he purposefully targeted sex workers to keep the police from connecting his previous crimes. The most chilling scene was how he kidnapped a college student named Cheryl Dempsey and kept her for years, brainwashing her with abuse and torture until her mind essentially breaks. These tapes aren't extreme compared to many modern horror films, but they remain chilling, nightmarish, and memorable.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes is a hidden gem that not enough people have seen. It's an early found footage film melded with documentary-like interviews to piece together this prolific killer's journey and the effort to catch him. It seems like an homage to 90's crime TV that I grew up with. The only flaws of this film is one plot point being a little too unbelievable and the awful quality of the tape footage. It looks grainy and the tracking is off, which is expected. It's the wavy effect that is the most annoying and distorts too much of the picture. Other than that, I'm so happy that Scream Factory came out with the Bluray. I will be watching this film probably once a year or so from now on. 

My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins