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Queen of Spades: A Call to Parents

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We’ve probably all played the game as kids (or, at least, talked about it.)

Whether its at a slumber party or just hanging out with friends, the topic of unleashing the paranormal seems to be a common part of the teen experience. After all, how many of us sat down and tried to terrify one another with stories designed to make us scared to be alone in the next room? Furthermore, from ouija boards to enacting urban legends, how many of us have ever tried to step our toes into the paranormal ourselves?

Queen of Spades follows Anna (Ava Preston), a young pre-teen who’s been hanging out more with older youth since her mom is always at work. One night, the group discuss the legend of the Queen of Spades, an ominous entity that can be summoned by reciting her name while staring into a mirror. Although the experience begins as a joke, the teens become increasingly terrified when members of their group begin to die. Soon, they discover that they have unleashed a horrifying evil and must work together to stop her before she claims all of their souls for herself.

Directed by Patrick White, Queen of Spades is an absolutely fun (but predictable) ride into the world of paranormal activity. Although the tale is based on the well-known ‘Bloody Mary’ folklore, White tries to breathe new life into the idea by focusing on the story’s Russian equivalent. In doing so, he adds a unique spin on the material which helps it seem more original. However, what White is best at is his use of his set design. By emphasizing the numerous reflective surfaces within each room, he creates an ominous sense of dread that pervades the house. (It says something when one can make even the tea kettle seem like a potential threat.) 

In addition, despite some fairly good performances from its youth, the true highlights of the film come from its adults and, more specifically, veterans Kaelen Ohm and Daniel Kash. As Anna’s mother Mary, Ohm is fully believable as the burnt out mother. Despite the nature of the paranormal activity around her, Ohm never really over-indulges her work and even provides the youth with some grounding to their own performances. However, the real story of the film is Kash, who’s clearly having the most fun as the paranoid and broken Smirnov. Though he’s rarely onscreen throughout the first half of the film, Kash steals every scene that he’s in as the fumbling and fearful paranormal expert.

The biggest issue with Spades is simply that this is a story structure that we’ve seen many times before. Even though White does his best to keep things feeling fresh, the film checks off a number of narrative boxes which hold the film back from ever becoming something new. (For example, kids play game that contacts paranormal and start dying one by one as few (if any) adults believe them.) Through no real fault of its own, the premise of the film simply plays itself out as standard horror fare, even if the execution is quite good.

What does set Spades apart though is it emphasis on the relationship between parent and child. While one might expect that the stories of the teens might drive the narrative, it’s the bond between Mary and Anna that becomes the film’s central focus. Though she loves her daughter, single mother Mary is always away at work and her absence has left a hole in their relationship. Without her mother around, Anna is spending more time with kids who are much older than her who push her to act their age. (In fact, its teenage Katy who calls out Mary more than once for leaving her daughter alone and blaming her for the entire situation.) 

In many ways, the film uses its monster to symbolize the irresponsibility of parents who neglect or abuse children. For instance, though she was originally tasked with caring for kids, the Queen of Spades abused that power and become a serial killer. Although the Queen’s legend may be extreme, she serves as an example of the damage that can take place when adults misuse the responsibility of caring for children. (What’s more, in a complete coincidence, the Queen’s nightmarish behaviour also echoes the trauma of the bodies of the First Nations children that were discovered only a few weeks ago.) As a result, when it is held up against the relationship of Mary and Anna, the film serves as a call for parents to place greater value on their kids and help preserve their innocence.

Despite it’s predictable structure, there’s a lot of fun to be had in Queen of Spades. Whereas White may lean into the tropes that we’re all familiar with, his use of set design and special effects help give the film enough entertainment value to scare up some of your time.

Just be sure to cover up the mirrors after you do.

To see our interview with director Patrick White, click here.

Queen of Spades is available in theatres and on VOD on Tuesday, June 15th, 2021.

Possessor: Plagued by our Shifting Selves

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“Pull me out.”

Such is the plea of Tasya Vos (Andrea Riseborough), a corporate assassin who allows her consciousness downloaded into the minds of others so that can commit murders for the benefit of the company. As the focus of Brandon Cronenberg’s latest sci-fi horror Possessor, Vasya has a special gift for her craft. However, with each host that she inhabits, Vasya becomes increasingly broken by her experiences, leading to violent memories and urges that she must suppress in her ‘real’ life. When she accepts a mission to kill the head of a major corporation (Sean Bean), her host Colin (Christopher Abbott) begins to fight back against his unknown mental assailant, causing Tasya to lose control and potentially remain trapped in a prison of his consciousness.

Possessor is a visceral and unsettling sci-fi horror that explores what it means to suppress our darkest urges. While the cast does an excellent job encapsulating Cronenberg’s vision (Seriously, when has Andrea Riseborough ever left a role wanting?), the real story to Possessor is Cronenberg himself.  Featuring complex characters and stunning (and often disturbing) visuals, Cronenberg continues to show maturity behind the camera.  With each long take and slow pan, his slow-burning lens becomes a predator, carefully stalking its prey with an almost soothing intensity. Then, in times of violence, Cronenberg goes the opposite direction, forcing the viewer to watch the unflinching horror that sits in front of them. At the same time, his use of bleeding and blinding colour palette paints a primeval portrait of the inner tensions of Tasya’s victims that blurs the lines of reality. In doing so, Cronenberg’s use of colour and camera almost become visual narrators, not only providing a backdrop for the story but plunging the viewer within it.

With this in mind, Possessor provides Cronenberg the opportunity to explore the fragile nature of identity in a world where we can become anyone in a digital space. As Tasya moves in and out of her hosts, she must fully immerse herself in their world. Not unlike the digital identities that we inhabit on a daily basis, Tasya’s experiences allow her to explore the lives of her psychological victims. However, she also loses a piece of her soul in the process. As a result, though she is hardly in love with her work, neither can she fully separate herself from it either. With each mission, the damage that she has caused continues to take a toll on her. 

Plagued by violent memories, her experiences in the minds of others cause Tasya to struggles to understand what it means to be fully human (or fully herself) anymore. While her husband and son welcome her home, her family brings her little joy. Violence has become her vice and she uses it to feel alive. To Vasya, the ‘jobs’ have become opportunities to experience closer personal connections in the midst of a disconnect—and gruesome—life. (One particular example of this comes when, after a particularly brutal mission, Vasya is asked why she used a knife to kill her victim, as opposed to the recommended gun.) In this way, Cronenberg’s view of identity focuses less on how we mature and grow from experiences but rather the perils of losing ourselves in the process and the damage that we may leave in our wake.

Though terrifying in its brutality, Possessor is far more than another example of graphic body horror. Never one to shy away from complex issues, Cronenberg again is willing to explore the instability of the mind at a time when we consistently put on social masks. By following Vasya’s psychological descent, Possessor reveals what can happen when the foundations our identities are shaken by taking on the roles of others. 

Possessor is available on VOD and in theatres now.

The Lodge: Snowed in Psychologically

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The new psychological horror by directors Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz, The Lodge follows Aidan (Jaeden Martell) and Mia (Lia McHugh), two children who have been raised in the Christian faith. When their mom commits suicide, they are forced to stay with their dad, Richard (Richard Armitage) and his fiancé, Grace (Riley Keough), a young woman with severe psychological issues that require heavy medication that result from her dark past involving a Christian cult. During the cold Christmas break, Aidan, Mia, and Grace are forced by Richard to stay together at their family’s lodge for some quality family bonding. Secluded and isolated from the rest of civilization, strange things start to happen as the power goes out and supplies go missing. As a result, everyone in the lodge slowly begins to losing their minds waiting for Richards return so they can head back to town.

With that premise, one would initially think that The Lodge is a classic horror movie that’s set in a “bottle”, mimicking more recent horror movies like The Visit. As the film begins, the movie focuses on Aidan and Mia’s perspective but, once they’re at the lodge, it shifts to Grace’s point of view. As the mysteries begin to unravel, the film has enough twists and turns to keep you guessing along the way. Are the kids somehow doing these things? Is Grace being influenced by her past cult? Or is Aidan and Mia’s dead mother haunting them? 

The Lodge also carries an underlying theme of repentance. As a survivor of a Christian cult led by her father, Grace witnessed dozens of people who committed suicide or killed because they were labelled as sinners. Although she survived in order to spread the word of her father’s teachings, Grace has tried to move past her horrible past. However, after discovering her horrible past, the kids despise her, unable to accept her. Because of her past, the kids try to punish Grace by cutting the power, taking her medication and food, and trying to trick her into believing they’re all in purgatory and must repent for their sins. (It’s actually ironic that, by viewing Grace as the sinner that must repent, they become the sinners.)

To its credit, The Lodge is unpredictable in its storytelling, keeping the audience surprised along the way. Through its set design, it’s able to successfully create a claustrophobic purgatory in the cabin itself. While the family remains stuck in the cabin with no supplies, power, internet, or connection to anyone of the outside world, they soon find that trying to leave is impossible as they’re surrounded by think layers of snow on thin ice. By their use of bleak lighting and menacing shadows, Fiala and Franz leaves their family slowly drifting to an icy hell with no escape. For that reason, The Lodge was a horror movie that was great at keeping you surprised as the story unravels into an interesting take on a classic horror movie theme.

The Lodge scares moviegoers in theatres beginning Friday, February 21, 2020

LA 92 – 25 Years & The Wounds Are Still Fresh

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(Photo by David Butow/Corbis via Getty Images)

Once upon a time before I became your friendly neighborhood ScreenFish Film Analyst, I was a college student studying theater at Grambling State University.  At the close of my freshman year on campus, “the yard” – our pet name for the campus – was all abuzz with thoughts of SpringFest, our annual celebration marking the close of the semester full of concerts featuring top R&B & hip hop artists, parties on and off campus, and nonstop debauchery. Unfortunately for me, who like many other students hailed from Los Angeles, our plans for big fun took a sharp detour.

For on this day, April 29, 1992, a Simi Valley jury acquitted four police officers who were videotaped while beating unarmed motorist Rodney King. The tape told the story. The batons lashed at the man’s body with full force. As comedian Eddie Griffin stated on an episode of “Def Comedy Jam,” even “Stevie Wonder could see these [men] were guilty!” Yet they beat the rap.

And then a few angry citizens of South Central LA beat down buildings, police cars, store owners and truck drivers who happened to be at the absolute wrong place at the most unfortunate of times.

Twenty-five years later, the pain of that day was revived in my memories thanks to the National Geographic documentary LA 92. Premiering Sunday April 30 at 9/8c, the film, directed by Dan Lindsay & TJ Martin merges archival footage from the 1965 Watts riots with the events leading up to the 1992 riots.  Both incidents were sparked by police brutality. Both had LAPD brass defending the actions of their officers accused of their crimes. Both bore the fury of outraged citizens who were tired of the seemingly never-ending cycle of violence and suffering at the hands of those mandated to protect and serve.

The film doesn’t merely focus on the Rodney King beating.  It also depicts the killing of Latasha Harlins, who was killed by a Korean store owner for allegedly stealing orange juice. The store owner was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter – but served no jail time for shooting this unarmed teenager in the back of her head while leaving the store.  This incident, along with the acquittal of those four officers, made those early 90’s Black citizens of LA conclude that their lives did not matter.  So after the infamous NOT GUILTY verdict was announced – and despite the pleas for peace coming from LA’s First AME Church – the city burned.

And, to be clear, it was THE ENTIRE CITY that burned, not just South Central LA.  The riots touched down in Koreatown and the outskirts of Hollywood as well.  But, of course, South Central was the epicenter as witnessed by the horrific assaults that took place at the intersection of Florence & Normandie…which was five minutes away from my house.

(Photo by Steve Grayson/WireImage)

As stated earlier, the film features one hundred percent archival footage.  All images are captured from VHS/Beta/Videotape footage from back in the days.  The anger of the citizens was captured. The filmmakers, in my opinion, made a huge omission in telling this story.  If EVER there was a golden opportunity to merge in NWA’s controversial classic “F The Police,” this was it.   That song was the battle cry of those LA residents who were fed up by the boys in blue who felt that their badge gave them “the authority to kill a minority.”  LA hip hop artists did not hesitate to put on wax their tales of police brutality and harassment.  Ice Cube’s “Black Korea” even gave a bold prophecy of what would happen if other Asian store owners continued to harass their Black clientele and take matters into their own hands.  Those musical examples are missing from the film; with orchestral music in their place.  Those glaring oversights make the film ever so incomplete in telling this story.

Twenty-five years later, I’m out of college, raising a family in the LA suburbs, about to make a MAJOR relocation to Dallas, TX.  But watching this documentary was like ripping a Band-aid off of a wound that was not quite healed.  Because as I watched those events from yesteryear, I couldn’t stop thinking about Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Saundra Bland, Philando Castile, all the other victims of police brutality, and all the subsequent riots across the country because of the blind eye of justice – DESPITE the videographed evidence. The documentary closes out with Rodney King’s forlorn cry asking “Can’t we all just get along?”

Twenty-five years later, it doesn’t look that way.  The anger still burns in the nation. The wounds are still fresh. The pain has not gone away.

3.4 Learning THE CRAFT

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Hallowe’en is here! In a spooktacular episode, Steve invites Allen Forrest on the show to talk power and identity in 1996’s cult classic, THE CRAFT.

Want to continue to conversation at home?  Click the link below to download ‘Fishing for More’ — some small group questions for you to bring to those in your area.

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A special thanks to our Allen Forrest for joining us!

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Lights Out–Overcoming Darkness

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Call it the potato chip effect.

If one is delicious, fifty must be amazing.

Or maybe you could label it the exercise effect.  If running three miles is healthy, running fifty must be exponentially more invigorating.

And you could most certainly call it the horror movie effect.

If the first one was good, the five sequels will be even better.  If the original kills were gruesome, the subsequent deathblows will mind-warping-ly nauseating.

Whatever you call it (big surprise, we’ll be referring to the horror one), it’s the idea that bigger is better and that if some were sufficient, more must certainly be glorious.

Nobody seems to ascribe to this philosophy than the aforementioned horror screenwriters and producers.  But sometimes, it’s not even about compounding carnage or exponential eviscerations.

Sometimes, it’s just about taking a really great, really small, really simple idea and blowing it way out of palatable proportions.  The latest example is Lights Out, a pale one-and-a-half hour upsize of a stellar two-and-a-half-minute indie film.

The original short film premise was simple: a woman who appears to live alone is preparing to go to bed.  When she turns the lights off, she glimpses the silhouette of a shadowy figure at the end of the hall.  When she flips the lights back on, the figure is gone.  Another flip to darkness, and the shadow appears again.  Lights on, no shadow.  Lights off…you get the drift.  She finally makes it to the bed, and turns out the lights.  Then her door shuts on its own.  As she cowers beneath the covers, she timidly sneaks a hand out to click on her nightstand lamp.  Gradually, she peeks her head out to find the door open.  She breathes a sigh of relief, figuring she’d imagined the whole scenario.  Just then, she glances back to the nightstand to find a hairy, toothy goblin waiting for her.  He extinguishes the lamp and the credits roll. It’s a wonderful final-gotcha’-jump scare that works beautifully; so much so, that it’s garnered 3.5 million YouTube views.

So naturally, someone thought it would be worth capitalizing on.

Hopes were high as horror wunderkind James Wan (director of the highly successful The Conjuring films) was tapped to produce the big screen adaptation.  But not even he could save it from being a much more convoluted and unnecessary version of the source material.  The gimmick works great for a three-minute film, but wears thin after the big screen opening scene.  Though it wants to be part supernatural thriller, at its core, Lights Out is a fright film based solely around the jump scare (and there are plenty included in case you missed the first three or four).  The problem is, the jump scares cease being scary before we ever get to any of the supernatural explanation that seems rushed and incomplete.

It turns out that struggling single mom Sophie (Maria Bello) has been tormented by this lights on/off specter since she was a little girl in a mental institution and by the time the film begins, her fragile psyche is at a tipping point.

Martin decides it may be better to sleep with the lights on.

Husband Paul (Billy Burke) and daughter Rebecca (Theresa Palmer) left because they couldn’t handle her decline or the genuine manifestation of the very real, physically hostile shadow creature.  Sophie’s son, Martin (Gabriel Bateman), her last vestige of hope for a familial connection, goes to stay with his estranged sister the dark figure begins to accost him.

Sophie reveals her long and storied history with Diana.

It’s then up to the kids to try and save mom from Diana…who turns out to be little more than a disappointing comic-book-style villain (SPOILER ALERT!!!): as a girl she suffered from a severe skin condition that left her physically vulnerable to light; an unsuccessful light-therapy cure attempt killed her, but left her ghost with the ability to thrive in darkness only—once the lights are on, she disappears.

Bad news Rebecca: you're only holding a tube light, not a lightsaber.

It comes off as an interesting premise, but not a scary one (but man, the crazy disco parties they could’ve had if they’d installed a strobe light and The Clapper).

The shadowy Diana waits in the corner...where's a lava lamp when you need one?

There is an underlying sense of family dynamics and a subtle allusion to the return of the prodigal—though it’s not the kids who have journeyed into the far country even though they’re the ones who left.  The true wanderer of the film is Sophie, because she’s allowed her strange relationship with Diana to overshadow her relationship with her family.  And when that light bulb finally goes off, Sophie realizes she may have to make the ultimate sacrifice to keep her kids from being overcome by the darkness.  In our side of reality, it was Christ who made the sacrifice, giving his life to save us from the all-too real horror of sin and death.  John employs a stunning visual to illustrate this miraculous gift as he personifies Christ this way:

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:5). 

It is only through Christ’s work of salvation that we–or our world–can defeat the darkness.  And fortunately for us, it really is as simple as flipping a switch: believe, repent and follow.  Step toward the light.

And fortunately for the team behind Lights Out, it cleared $148 million worldwide and has been greenlit for a sequel.  So like it or love it, get ready: the sun’s not going down on the franchise anytime soon.

Crunch all you want, they’ll make more.

Salem’s Lot, Cat’s Eye & It: Three King Flicks About Losing Innocence

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screamfish iter 2Crisp evenings.  Bonfires.  Pumpkin spice euphoria.

And horror.

These are the caveats that perfect Autumns are made of.  And the good news for Stephen King fans is that they won’t have to wait until Halloween to get their fill of fall fright.  In fact, the season sees not one, not two, but a trifecta of terror from the master scribe as three of his cinematic adaptations finally come home to Blu-ray.  The 1979 television mini-series  Salem’s Lot and the 1985 big screen anthology Cat’s Eye both made their Blu-ray debut last week; King’s other epic 1990 TV mini-series, It, hits shelves on October 4.

Though now decades old, all three films benefit from their new Blu-ray cleanups.  The Salem’s Lot vampires look even more un-deadlier, the Troll King of Cat’s Eye is less herky but still just as jerky and It’s Pennywise, the living embodiment of fear wrapped in clownskin is still…well, Pennywise…but a whole lot sharper (and there’s not much more unsettling than an HD Pennywise).  Though none of the trio feature much more in the way of Blu-ray extras than audio commentaries, each respective film holds its own against bigger budget/bigger screen counterparts.

And like all things King, some hefty narrative is woven into the spooky fringes.  Much the same as in many of his other works (Carrie, Children of the Corn, and even the dog-centric Cujo, who makes a brilliant cameo in Cat’s Eye), the protagonists in these three Blu-ray beauties are all faced with the inevitable loss of innocence.

Young Ralphie and Danny Glick (Ronnie Scribner and Brad Savage) are forced to leave their childhoods behind when they become some off the earliest victims of vampirism in the cursed hamlet of Salem’s Lot.

The good news is the recently-turned-vampire Glick brothers of Salem's Lot won't have to spend money on dental bills.

In Cats’s Eye, although little Amanda (Drew Barrymore) is certain a belligerent imp is haunting her room, she can’t seem to convince her parents.  If she wants to survive, she will have do the grownups’ job and combat the pint-sized evil herself (with a little help from a protective tomcat).

The Toll King is worse than anything that may be living in Amanda's closet.

And Losers Inc., the ragamuffin protagonists of It, must confront their darkest fears long before anyone should have to, but later realize that adulthood can still be plagued by the demons of youth.

Looking for the creepiest big screen clown ever? Pennywise is It. Only he could lure a kid down a storm drain.

This loss of innocence is more than mere narrative vehicle for authors or producers.  It is, one could argue, the original heartbreak of God.  In the book of Genesis, just as Adam is stitched together from the dust, God grants him dominion over Eden…save one tree.  This sacred shrub, the Tree of Knowledge, is to be avoided at all cost, God warns.  Later, Adam’s female counterpart, Eve, succumbs to the Serpent’s temptation, eating of the Tree’s fruit before sharing a piece with Adam.   Immediately, she and Adam feel shame when they realize they are naked.  Man and woman, God’s perfect creations, are instantly made imperfect because of their disobedience to their creator.

The Serpent had convinced Eve that eating from the Tree would make her as knowledgeable as God and she felt for it, bringing Adam along for the ride.  It wasn’t that God was worried about having humans on par with him; he knew that was just another of the Serpent’s lies.  What broke His heart is that even though they had everything they needed—including His fatherly love—that wasn’t good enough.  They wanted to leave Him behind, to grow up on their own, and follow the harmful lie instead of His loving truth.  And as a result, they were unnecessarily exposed to the ugliness that lay outside of Eden.

It’s a hard road, this growing up.  As a parent, nothing scares me more than to watch my own kids turn into adults.  As Genesis (and Salem’s Lot and Cat’s Eye and It) prove, it can be downright horrifying.  But the great news is, whether we’re a parent or child, we’re not alone.  Maybe a vigilant cat or a vampire hunter isn’t watching over us, but God is.  He didn’t abandon Adam and Eve after they were cast out of the Garden; in fact, he spent the whole rest of the Bible taking care of his creation.  And He’s been on the job every day since, still looking out for us, his children.  So when you’re confronted by the big bad world, remember He’s got your back.

Don’t be such a baby.

But don’t grown up too fast.

The Conjuring 2: The Power of Faith, the Strength of Family

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Ed's painting of that demonic nun sure looks lifelike. I'd run if I were you, Lorraine.Perhaps the only thing more unstoppable than a horror movie villain is a horror movie sequel.  Since 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein, Hollywood has proven that you can’t contain evil in only ninety minutes of celluloid.  But out of the hundreds of sequels, only a handful rival their source material.  Still, every now and then, lighting strikes twice…and it makes for some hair-raising cinema.

Enter The Conjuring 2, a seriously tight, seriously scary sequel that outshines its stellar predecessor.  It’s smart, well-paced and tense.  And it has enough jump scares to keep even jaded horror aficionados squirming.

Screenwriters Chad and Carey Hayes and Director James Wan return to the helm, after shocking the world in 2013 with the original installment in the franchise that chronicled the exploits of real-life demonologists Ed and Ann Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga).  It would go on to become one of the most financially successful horror films ever, but was then surpassed…by its sequel.

The Conjuring 2 now ranks as the second-highest grossing horror movie of all time, trumped only by The Exorcist.  It instantly became horror royalty, but deservedly so.  It delivers nearly non-stop scares and solid, compelling performances.  And it all plays out on a muted palette that not only fits the timestamp, but pays homage to the horror classics of the 70’s.

The Conjuring 2 revisits the Warrens, this time, in 1976, as they trek to jolly old England to investigate one of the most documented haunted house cases in history.  The story picks up soon after the couple’s work on the infamous Amityville Horror case, which brought them into the public spotlight but made them a target for skeptics who accused them of exploitative charlatanry.

Not everyone was a fan of the Warrens. One of their detractors tries to shoot holes in their stories during a live talk show broadcast.

During a séance at the Amityville House, Lorraine experiences a vision of Ed’s death at the hands of a demonic nun (who Ed later dreams about) and worries that their bouts with the dark side may finally be catching up with them.

One year later, the Catholic Church recruits the Warrens to investigate a haunting in Enfield, England, where single mom Peggy Hodgson (Frances O’Conner) struggles to keep her family together amidst a series of terrifying, unexplained events.  A demonic entity who once lived and died in the house wants the family out and he’ll go to murderous lengths to evict them.  He begins by terrorizing Peggy’s daughter Janet (Madison Wolf), possessing her during bouts of sleepwalking.

Evil forces begin to take hold of Janet in the dining room. They probably didn't even ask to be excused first.

It isn’t long before he begins speaking through her, and then develops a penchant for tossing chairs and spinning crosses upside down.  Soon enough, the ghostly predator starts tormenting the rest of the Hodgsons.

The malevolant spirit finally appears to Janet, as every viewer in the theater or at home nearly comes out of their seat.

The Warrens join another group of parapsychologists in the investigation, and begin to weaken the entity.    The key to defeating the bullying demon, Ed tells the Hodgsons, is to stand together as a family.

The Warrens and their fellow demon hunters roll up their sleeves and go to work.

But when a skeptical member of the team videos Janet faking a poltergeist-like episode, the Warrens begin to lose faith in the validity of the Hodgsons’ claims.  Realizing the church will not support any further investigation in light of the deception, Ed and Lorraine abandon the case.

But the evil things are far from done with the Hodgsons and it will take a leap of faith for the Warrens to return…

Despite the pervasive demonic themes that dominates the film, The Conjuring 2 is a powerful allegory about the power of faith and the strength of family.   The Warrens rely on their belief in God to exorcise otherworldly demons that sent London Police running (according to official substantiated records) and had the Hodgsons questioning their own sanity.  Though the agents of the dark throw some seriously supernatural attacks at them, the Warrens overcome them by holding fast to the power of scripture and the promise of sufficient grace.  Their faith in God consistently saves them, but believing in their fellow man proves to be much more of a struggle.  The Hodgsons, meanwhile, are able to fall back on the love of family when all else seems to fail them.  It provides them the strength to fight back; the strength to become conquerors instead of victims, even amidst their internal squabbles.  Together, the Warrens and Hodgsons prove stronger than the sum of their parts, and find just enough sufficiency in their brokenness, living to fight another day.

Did someone say sequel?

The Conjuring 2 premiers on DVD/Blu-Ray on September 13 from New Line Cinema

Deadgirl–Hating What You Do

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‘You ever have that one movie that comes so highly recommended and you go into it with such high expectations and a half hour in, you wonder if you’d heard incorrectly and perhaps mistaken it for an entirely different film?
 
Yeah.  Deadgirl is kinda like that.
 
Proving that strokes truly are different amongst folks, Deadgirl had your humble narrator questioning future viewing advice from said source, the broader implications for their relationship as a whole, and the current mental well-being of any and everyone involved with the film.
 
But it did require him to wrestle with some seemingly innocuous plot and social commentary to mine an underlying faith narrative that should’ve jumped out at him from the get go.
 
So, well-played self-proclaimed horror aficionado; your impassioned recommendation proved worthwhile in the end (though in a totally different way than expected).  And hats off to you, Deadgirl cast and crew; your postmortem parable, though hard to swallow, still left some theological meat to chew on.
 
Now if I could just get the aftertaste outta my mouth…
If nothing else, high school outcasts J.T. (Noah Segan) and Rickie (Shiloh Fernandez) are ambitious.  J.T. is always trying to find the next party;Rickie is always trying to find his way back into the arms of his former sweetheart, Joann (Candice Accola).  The problem is no one much cares for J.T. and the only way Rickie has a hope of getting back with J.T. is by going through her meathead boyfriend, Johnny (Andrew DiPalma).
During a conspicuously long fire drill, the bosom buddies sneak off to the an abandoned mental hospital on the edge of town, letting off some angst-filled steam with a bit of breaking and entering and vandalism.
A classic case of why you should never fold to peer pressure. T.J. convinces Rickie that there's no better way to spend a day off from school than to explore an abandoned mental hospital.

Exploring the basement, they discover a nude mute female who’s been covered in plastic and strapped to an exam table.

Crazy what you'll find in a basement. Deadgirl slumbers in her plastic-covered final resting place.

Assuming her to be dead, the guys get the jump scare of their life when the would-be corpse begins moving.    Rickie suggests that they remove her and carry her to the police.  But J.T. warns against it, fearing he and Rickie will be arrested for trespassing.  Instead, he proposes that they keep the girl right where she is and keep her secret.  Rickie objects, fleeing the scene after J.T. gets violent and overpowers him.

Rickie returns with a gun, trying to force  J.T. into releasing the girl.  After a struggle, J.T. recovers the gun, revealing that he choked the girl to death twice during his absence, but she continued to revive.  He then unloads three rounds into the girl and, sure as shooting, she survives.  Horndog J.T. then recommends that they keep the pathetic creature as a zombie sex slave.  Rickie bails, still admonishing J.T. for his choice.
Rickie returns to the hospital the next afternoon to find classmate Wheeler (Eric Podnar) raping the Deadgirl as J.T. watches.  J.T. reveals that he invited Wheeler to the scene and Rickie decides that he must do something to stop them from continuing the depraved cycle.  He sneaks in when they are not there in an attempt to free the Deadgirl, but before he can finish cutting her bonds, the others return.  The Deadgirl attacks J.T. and Wheeler but they live to rape another day.
Back at school the next day, Johnny beats up Rickie when he sees him talking to Joann.
Sure, Joann may be worth taking a beat down for, but is even she hot enough to warrant murder AND reanimation? Well, maybe.
Wheeler tries to help out, but gets pounded before revealing that they have their own girl to have their way with.  Johnny and his pal Dwyer (Noland Gerard Funk) force Rickie and Wheeler to take them to see the Deadgirl, who they proceed to then have their way with.  After the Deadgirl bites Johnny in a particularly uncomfortable place, he contracts a horrible infection that kills him in a wickedly gruesome way (we’ll spare you).
It's hard to like Johnny, but NOBODY should die like this. It will seriously make you think twice about your next trip to a public toilet.
Dwyer decides Deadgirl needs to be taken to the hospital so the infection can be identified, as he has yet to learn that Johnny’s dead.  And (for the sake of brevity), he dies, J.T. and Wheeler end up dead and eventually Joann becomes another Deadgirl that Rickie can eventually have his sick, twisted version of love with for as long as he lives.
Deadgirl is a seriously disturbing movie on multiple levels with a bizarre, though admittedly unforeseen conclusion.  There’s plenty of gore and nauseating storyline and by the end of its 105 minutes, the only likeable character is reduced to an eternal victim.
But for all his fractured flaws, Rickie embodies Paul’s autobiographical commentary in Romans 7: 15-20 (a theme that has appeared more than once here at ScreamFish).
“I do not understand what I do,” Paul says. “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”
Rickie starts with the best of intentions, but it isn’t long before he begins acting just like his deplorable friends.  And in true Nietzsche-ian fashion, he becomes a bigger monster than the ones he’s trying to destroy (or the one he helps create).  Like Paul, hates what he is turning into, but he can’t seem to find a way back to his old self (which was admittedly, not very stellar).  Unfortunately, he never escapes his downward spiral.  He falls for the girl–and the lie–that there is no other option.  Thankfully for us, Christ’s grace is forged with truth and hardened with compassion.  It’s big enough to invade the darkest places, even the ones we try to keep buried in secret.   It can not only brng us out of the darkness, it can bring us back from the dead (and fortunately without all the nasty “undead” side effects).
Now if He could only deliver us from Deadgirl…

Hayes Twins Conjure Up a Whole New Set of Scares

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screamfish iter 2Finding faith-professing screenwriters in Hollywood is tantamount to discovering a four-leaf clover.  Locate a pair of the same God-fearing ilk who write horror and happen to be twin brothers, and you’ve wandered into unicorn territory.  But take our word for it, they do exist.  And chances are you’ve seen their work…and likely gotten your pants scared off in the process

Meet Chad and Carey Hayes, the writers for big-screen features like San Andreas and The Reaping.  They’re just two nice, clean cut Christian boys who’ve been in the motion picture business for years.  But they found their biggest success scripting a smart little piece of horror from New Line Cinema called The Conjuring that would go on to become one of the most successful fright films of all time.

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Released in 2013, The Conjuring quickly took the world by storm, shattering records and proving that intelligent, gore-less horror could still bring the goods.  It starred Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as real-life demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, the couple famous for the paranormal investigation of the dreaded Amityville Horror home.  The Conjuring chronicled the events of one of the Warrens’ most infamous cases and left audiences white knuckling their seats and begging for more.

Good news: the Hayes brothers are at it again, reuniting with director James Wan for The Conjuring 2, another peek inside the Warrens’ weird world and the most well-documented case of paranormal activity in history.  And if early reviews are any indication, the twins may have pulled off a feat as unique as themselves: they may have actually written a sequel every bit as scary as the original.

Chad and Carey recently sat down with ScreamFish to talk about the new film, the importance of pre-Vatican II Latin and the joys of swapping out scripting duties with a writer that you’ve known, literally, all your life.

You guys have a very diverse portfolio from both TV and movies; what attracted you to horror and to these stories about the Warrens in particular?

Carey: “It’s like riding a roller coaster.  It’s really fun to see somebody react when you want them to be scared or feel relieved when you want them to feel that way.  Horror provides that opportunity.”

Chad: “In any good film, it’s good versus evil.  What attracted us to Ed and Lorraine (Warren) was that we found it so interesting to go back to a period where there were no infrared cameras, there were no things to detect other movement; basically their only tool was their faith.  By going back to this period when paranormal wasn’t ‘normal,’ we got to explore the journey that these people go on and what happens when the Warrens step into act three of people’s lives when they’re so scared and terrified that they don’t know where else to turn.  We found that very compelling.  And another thing that drew us to them was that it offered up a franchise—which is obviously what we’re doing with the second film and hopefully there’s a third and a fourth.  But it gives us the opportunity to continually build on these characters.  And Patrick (Wilson) and Vera (Farmiga) are just such good actors that it’s fun to write challenging things for them because we know that they can absolutely pull it off.”

Carey: “We get offered a lot of different projects where a U-Haul backs up to a house and it’s haunted and you watch this family go through this ordeal, but it’s fun telling the story of what rocks Ed and Lorraine’s world.”

Chad: “And we try to do true stories that people can research after they’ve gone to our movies.  One of the fun things in doing The Conjuring 2, in doing our research, is that the two first professional people to witness the supernatural occurrences happening in that house were cops that were called to the scene.  You can read their police report online.  It’s amazing.  But as for the genre, scaring is really fun.  People come up to us and ask, ‘gee, you’re such nice Christian boys; how do you come up with this stuff?’  And I’m like, ‘I have no idea, but we downloaded it somehow.’”

Speaking of your faith, how does that interplay with your writing process?

Chad: “We attempt to stay as truthful to the Scripture as we can when we use it.  A lot of this is our own belief, that you have the power and the authority within yourself.  We really reference Ephesians a lot, for struggling against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6: 12-18, the oft-cited ‘full-armor of God’ passage).  Thematically, if you believe in that and you rise up and you use it and fight to conquer that evil, it parlays into what our own belief system is: we’re protected and we don’t have fear of this kind of stuff.”

Carey: “After Conjuring 1, a priest came up and said, ‘I just want to thank you; that was a very entertaining movie and man you guys got it right and the exorcist (portrayed in the film) was so right.  I just wanted to ask you, why did you use pre-Vatican II Latin?’ And we explained that Ed Warren was an altar boy and that’s what they spoke when he was there.  He said that was really cool that we did that.  So we try to keep it as truthful to the times of the person as we can and yes, that sometimes involves a lot of research.  But when you write, you want to get it right.”

What was your reaction to the way the first film was received?

Chad: “It was fantastic; to cross over from secular to non-secular and to have the world embracing it on so many different levels—it meant that we wrote something that people could relate to and because of that, either on an entertainment level or a spiritual level or even both, we were just giddy from it.  It was unbelievable to have that kind of opening weekend and then to just have it keep doing it and moving from country to country with the audiences continuing to grow—as writers, it made us incredibly thrilled.  I would hope everyone in their life on whatever level it is, whatever it is that you do, could feel that kind of euphoria from working really hard and getting rewarded for it.”

What do you hope people take away from the sequel?

Carey: “I hope that those that don’t resonate in the Faith have more; that those who are maybe having a rocky marriage will rise above it and get through it (referencing the conflict portrayed between Ed and Lorraine); that those who are having family issues will take a little more time trying to resolve those.”

Chad: “For non-Believers to realize that the Devil is out there and for Believers to realize that the more they do nothing about it, the stronger the Devil becomes.  I would hope that this would resonate in people to open up conversations.  From the first Conjuring, we were approached by a number of youth pastors and priests and particularly two pastors who started Conjuring Friday night movies where they would do open forum discussions and talk about specific scenes.  That was very powerful for us.  I would hope that sort of thing would come out of it if you’re a Believer.  And if perhaps that if you were on the fence, that you’d question it.”

Carey: “We had dinner with Rick Warren and he’s had so many weird things happen to him on his journey, so we had kind of a common denominator to talk about.  He was happy how the reflection of faith was portrayed in that movie and it wasn’t preached.”

Chad: “Yeah, it was a lifestyle; it wasn’t being spoken to.”

How does the fact that you’re twins play into your process as writers?

Chad: “We’ve been writing together since we were 16.  We wrote our first movie in high school just because we loved films.  It’s an odd partnership because you write with no ego involved.  You’re not worried so much about personalities.  One of us will write Act 1, the other will write Act 2 and then we’ll flip-flop them and we each re-write each other, so it’s kind of that kind of process.  People are actually very baffled at how it works so well for us.  We don’t know any other way, so it’s hard to compare other than what people have said to us.”

Carey: “Yeah, it’s not broken so we’re not going to try to fix anything.”

The Conjuring 2 stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga.  It opens nationwide on June 10.

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