Joe's Movie Reviews

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Two Creepy Movies

Now, I happen to like creepy movies, so keep in mind that that is meant in the nicest way possible.

1. "The Orphanage". Guillermo Del Toro, as either director or producer (and sometimes both), has been responsible for some of the most creepy, shivery ghost and supernatural stories of the past decade or more... at least when he makes them in his native Spain and isn't influenced by the "requirements" of Hollywood schlock. Acting this time as producer, in (thankfully) another Spanish production, he has given us a movie that fans of the "Saw" and "Hostel" franchises will probably loath, but that those who savor a little elegance in suspense along with the scares ought to cherish.

It's the story of a young mother who moves, along with her husband and their adopted son, back into the building that, long ago, used to house the orphanage she grew up in as a young girl. She hopes to turn it into an orphanage once more and run it herself, but it seems that the ghosts of some of its former inhabitants are still hanging around. Furthermore, due to her adopted son's illness, he is able to communicate with those children (he apparently has Haley Joel Osment's disease, too... he sees dead people)).

There is precisely one and only one scene in the entire film with any amount of blood or gore, and it's over almost before you know it. What we have instead is a film packed to the brim with the kind of subtle, eerie atmosphere that hardly any American mainstream movies know how to do any more. Sure, you've probably seen horror movies where the entire audience mutters things like "gross!" and "ick!"... even sometimes laughing where they weren't meant to... but when was the last time you saw a supernatural drama where an entire theatre full of people were gasping in simultaneous shock and surprise every ten minutes or so? Or, for that matter, actually applauded at the end? That's exactly what happened when I saw a sneak preview of this film (scheduled to open at the Uptown Theater at the very end of December)at the Oak Street Cinema last week.

If you're a fan of horror movies but have grown weary of the same old tired Hollywood cliches, you couldn't do much better than "The Orphanage". Guillermo Del Toro has had a perfect batting average (yeah, I know that's a sports metaphor, but it's baseball, so that's okay), and with this new film he hits it out of the park again.

2. "Sweeney Todd". What a perfectly appropriate, sweet subject for a musical. A wrongly imprisoned man returns to his old life after 15 years to find his wife dead and his daughter become the ward of the same evil judge who put him away years ago. He restarts his old barber shop with the aid of new friend Mrs. Lovett (baker of "The worst pies in London") and with the aid of his razors, begins his quest for revenge (as the song puts it, "He shaved the faces of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard of again"). Sounds just like something you'd expect to see in a Disney cartoon, doesn't it?

Well, maybe not. But it does sound exactly like something you'd expect to see starring Johnny Depp and directed by Tim Burton (their sixth collaboration). Stephen Sondheim's very, VERY dark hit musical needs a director... and star... who are perfectly attuned to its sinister sensibilities in order for a film version to work. In the wrong hands, this material could be dreadful and campy. Fortunately, the combination of Burton and Depp are perfect, and they are ably aided by a cast featuring Helena Bonnom Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall ("Secrets And Lies") and Sacha Baron Cohen, A.K.A. Borat (doing an ITALIAN accent this time).

It should be noted that aside from being quite dark (which I don't think anyone familiar with or interested in "Sweeney Todd" would have any trouble with), it is also very explicitly bloody. On stage (as in the local production I saw over twenty years ago), you obviously don't see a lot of graphic blood and guts when Todd starts working the old razors, but Burton takes full advantage of this being a film and features blood spurting longer and further than is probably possible. He even goes a little further in that department than I personally think is really necessary, but by no means enough to ruin his otherwise impressive achievement.

None of the cast is exactly a veteran musical performer, but while they don't exactly give Pavarotti (or even the Beatles) a run for for their money, they do quite a respectable job vocally. Depp, in particular, manages to avoid the frequent musical trap in which the actor stops ACTING the role while they're singing a tune and just "performs"... he's acting in every scene. And maybe it's just me, but knowing his habit of often basing his ACTING performances on various actual people (like Keith Richards as the basis for Jack Sparrow), I couldn't help wondering whether it was a coincidence or not that at frequent moments in various songs he tends to sound a bit like David Bowie.

This is clearly not a musical meant for fans of "The Sound Of Music". But as gruesome as it can sometimes get (though what else could it be and remain true to the source material?), "Sweeney Todd" is a fascinating glimpse of a very different kind into the world of some fascinating characters and their dark world and lives (and the cast does indeed make each character very real). Burton "opens up" the stage play just enough (in some very creative ways), without going hog wild about it. If you have a taste for the dark and sinister... not to mention for some impressive film making and acting... "Sweeney Todd" could be just what you're looking for. It opens at Christmas.

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