I am pretty confident in assuming that we all have at least one memory of playing Hide and Seek as a kid. Your mind going a mile a minute as you consider all the hiding place options you could choose from, the surge of adrenaline as you hear the seeker approach your chosen place, the laughs and strange sense of dread combined with relief as you are discovered. A child’s game that activates one’s creativity, speed and problem-solving skills. But what happens when the stakes are raised? What happens if instead of just being discovered, having a laugh and taking another turn, you are met with he barrel of a gun or the sharp edge of an archaic medieval axe? Enter Ready Or Not? (2019).

This film takes a game so innocuous, so innocent, so joyful and transforms it into an adult’s game of serious risk and consequence. Hide and Seek is a game most people (at least in the Western world, where I grew up) are familiar with and can, therefore, relate to intimately. There’s something effectively creepy about taking something from youth and completely transcending its innocence by exposing the disturbingly sinister undertones and themes inherent in a child’s game. Think about it: we loved playing a game where we would hunt down people, whether they were “ready or not”. Lack of consent, hunting for helpless prey, desperation of that prey. These are things that are normalised throughout our childhood. It speaks to our innate animal-drive (whether that be to survive or to kill) because we are all just mammals after all. So Ready Or Not may seem silly and simple on the surface, but on a more profound level it reveals our ‘Id’, our inherent drive to hunt prey (even if just symbolically, unlike in this film where it is very literal), our base-instincts.

As a film whose theme revolves around a kids’ game, the tone of the entire piece is fittingly light-hearted and witty. Verging on outright satirical at times, Ready Or Not is a self-reflexive film that knows its place within the realm of dark horror comedy. Moments of extreme suspense as the blushing bride is hunted down through her new in-law’s grandiose estate are effectively cut with instances of ridiculous comedy, lending some levity to a film that could have gotten really dark, really fast. When one of the characters had to search for a tutorial on how to use an old-school cross-bow in the midst of the cursed family’s ‘bad-assery’ as they prepared to chase down Grace (Samara Weaving) cracked me right up. The comedic timing of this whole movie was impeccable, indicating clearly to the viewer that this is not meant to be a film that puts you on the edge of your seat for its entirety or one that keeps you up at night. You will laugh and you will scoff at its ludicrousness. But you will also find yourself biting your nails to their edge during near-escapes. You have to love a horror that doesn’t take itself too seriously, invoking a Scream vibe but with modernised cinematography and perhaps a little more nuance on the horror theme (as opposed to an outright parody of the genre itself which is the route Scream chose to take).

Grace appears on-screen as an angelic angel in white during its exposition, only to emerge from the huge mansion absolutely covered in blood (so much so that it almost looks black, like she’d been rolling around in tar) at the end. Her progression is abundantly clear – she has been through a hell of a lot and her innocence and naivety is well and truly erased. She is a woman now (do I dare read some period/menstrual maturity symbolism here… I’ll leave that to you, do with it what you will). She has seen some shit. I mean come on, she literally watched her in-laws explode into a geyser of blood and guts thanks to the fulfilment of a familial curse – that has got to do something to you. Despite its lofty humour, this film still plays with the concept of what the premise of children’s games really inculcates us with. It challenges our perception of what is just a ‘bit of fun’ and what is literally a matter of life and death. These are the kind of blurred lines that I can get on-board with.

Fede Álvarez lets you know from the word go – or the title, rather – how you’re going to be reacting to this film. Don’t Breathe (2016) does away with all the bells and whistles, instead relying on simplicity, minimalism and realistic risks to invoke true terror from within. So often I would find myself so absorbed in the world of the film that it would take me a couple moments to become aware of my tangible self again, only to realise that I was not breathing. Don’t Breathe lives up to its name by literally taking your breath away.

Beyond its relatively fruitful plot devices, the production value of this film reeks of cleverness. The entire story more or less unfolds within the confines of one house. And that house is situated in a deserted suburban area. All of this means no need for extras, minimal need for continuity checks and next to no location scouting. They managed to make the same limited, monotonous, seemingly innocuous domestic space incredibly threatening to the point where you literally feel like you are being suffocated by the very walls surrounding the characters. Watching three young blossoming criminals caged in like helpless animals, often seeing the action progress through subjective point-of-view shots, creates the almost visceral sensation that we too are trespassing on private property and about to face some serious consequences. Don’t Breathe definitely acts as a crafty deterrent for any potential burglars out there… Lesson learned: just because someone is less-abled than you doesn’t mean they won’t beat the shit out of you, shoot you in the head, stab you with gardening shears and attempt to impregnate you with his sperm via a turkey-baster (yes, all of these things actually happen in this movie). So really this film is actually quite the social commentary – a call for less prejudice and discrimination against disabled people. Ok ok, I know that is probably expecting too much of this movie, but I still think there is at least some value in that judgement. Check your privilege, people.

If I had to pick a gripe with this piece, it would probably have to be its tendency to perpetuate negative stereotypes regarding war veterans, particularly in the United States. It is a well-known fact that conditions like PTSD plague many soldiers that have returned home from devastating war zones. These psychological conditions are so incredibly serious and can afflict veterans in terrible ways, sometimes for the rest of their lives. So to represent the antagonist of this film as a war vet who is severely unstable, unpredictable and ridiculously violent could definitely be seen as problematic. There are ways to manage and cope with PTSD (and other psychological afflictions triggered by war) for people with different forms of access, so to reduce them to the stereotype of ‘unhinged soldier’ is slightly upsetting. He also remains unnamed throughout the entire movie. He is essentially identity-less, perceived as a human lethal weapon, a pawn used by the government to fight its battles. Only this time he isn’t using his strength and skills to save his country, he’s using them to kill some kids… But if you manage to push aside this issue then you’re more or less free to thoroughly enjoy each nail-biting scene.

A suspenseful sound-score interwoven with unbearably tense silences accompanies you as you follow our blind assassin’s calculated steps around each room in pursuit of the trespassers. The colours remain muted throughout the entire piece, further reiterating the bleakness of the burglars’ situation. The camera jumps between slow, panic-inducing tracking shots to frenetic hand-held camera shots that mimic the absolute mayhem of shots being fired and characters running for their lives in all directions. Every component of this film is geared towards making you feel trapped alongside the unfortunate burglars, and boy do you sweat as a result of it. An impressive body-count too considering the limited number of people that appear in the whole story. I also love how you are sometimes made to question who the ‘good guy’ actually is in this situation – they’re all technically criminals (considering the war vet kidnapped and forcefully impregnated the woman that accidentally killed his daughter… Both definitely crimes) so the good/evil binary is royally complicated. And I love a good slice of moral dilemma in my horror flicks!

So if you’re looking for a short, simple yet tortuously tense horror then look no further than Don’t Breathe.

Fancy a brief sojourn into the deep, dark recesses of a broken and tormented psyche? In the mood for an intricate examination of the inner-workings of repression and the demons it forces one to harbour? Or are you just looking for a cinematographic representation of the damage sexual violence, abuse and misogyny can do? You’re in luck then because Mike Flanagan’s Gerald’s Game (2017) has all that and more.

Subverting every expectation I have before pressing play is not always an easy feat, especially when it’s concerning a horror film. The handcuff motif that saturates the marketing and publicity of this film and the title itself (his game) automatically prepared me for an uncomfortably eerie depiction of a rape fantasy gone wrong. Although the handcuffs still play a significant metaphorical role (how Jess is bound and forcefully manacled to her traumatic past of sexual abuse which she has refused to confront) and although it technically is all about a rape fantasy gone wrong, it stopped following any of my mental predictions after about ten minutes. Considering the film’s namesake, as soon as Gerald dropped dead of a heart-attack, leaving Jess helplessly handcuffed to the bed, I thought “ok, ok. We’re playing that game now. Let’s see where you take me.”

Horror films that aren’t quintessentially ‘scary’ (aka. jump scares, bucket-loads of blood, things that go bump in the night, etc.) but that manipulate and play with your concept of stability, sanity and reality by just making you second-guess every little thing that presents itself onscreen – these are the films that really catch my attention and get my skin crawling. Gerald’s Game forces you to inhabit the disintegrating mind of the protagonist, Jess, as she faces the duel struggle of escaping her shackles whilst re-living all of her worst memories. Other than a slightly strange, out-of-place subplot concerning a supposedly paranormal ‘Moonlight Man’ of death (quick sidenote: this was the only part of the film that I couldn’t quite get behind. Why did the Crypt Man have to be a real guy who robs graves and eats people? I understand and appreciate the additional twist but there were enough subversions of expectations to last you until the end of the film without this and leaving him as the enduring memory of that horrific incident for Jess to use as a reminder of sorts to never return to that dark pool of repression would have been far more effective. Phew ok, that’s my little rant done), nearly everything in this film occurs within Jess’ mind as she progressively loses sanity and descends into madness. And what is more unsettling than the knowledge that our minds are that powerful and that convincing. When we’re pushed to such extreme limits, where will our minds go? Which hidden memories will return as we begin the tango with death? These are questions that I’m sure many people would struggle to even venture to answer. We’re told that at during our lowest moments, the good will persevere and shine through. But what if it’s the opposite, just as it is for Jess? What if everything we try to forget, everything we hate about ourselves, everything we regret comes hurtling back to reveal how we’ve been living our entire lives handcuffed and weighed down by a repressed past? This is why this film is so ominous.

Not only does Gerald’s Game expose how deep repression can conceal itself within the human soul, but it simultaneously shows us how resilient we are. The drive for survival, as a base instinct – the very reason why the stray dog feasts on the dead flesh of Gerald’s corpse – pushes Jess to her extreme limits, making failure seem worse than the very evil committed against her all those years before. The framing of the shots tighten around Jess as her demons claw their way towards the surface. But she tackles them head-on for the first time, pushing against both the physical frame imposed on her by the camera and the symbolic jaws of death. By confronting and overcoming her repressed past, she escapes her current trap. More than just an allegory for the impact of repression, Gerald’s Game shows us a way out. It shows us that there is a way to survive, but (just as Jess had to banish her visions and do it completely by herself) the effort and fight must come from within. Our psyche can ultimately be our largest competition and our biggest threat. But just as we seem to have an unlimited potential for pain and suffering, we also have an unlimited potential for perseverance. We can reverse the total eclipse of the sun (whether you want the sun to represent youth, innocence, joy – they all work in the film’s case) and bring light back into our world and our souls.

Gerald’s Game works on so many different levels that I didn’t expect. A psychological journey that represents how sexual abuse and violence can manifest itself within and outside of the self is no easy feat. But I think it was done rather tastefully, leaving us with a note of hope that no demon is too large to conquer and that the sun will always return from out behind the darkness.

Flanagan needed more Kubrick… Or perhaps he needed less? Doctor Sleep (2019), although a well-executed film filled with ample nostalgia and some sturdy acting, suffered at the hands of its indecision. This is a film caught in the crosshairs between wishing to pay homage to a behemoth 1980s horror classic directed by a world-renowned director and embarking on its own contemporary, renewed horror trajectory in order to fulfil modern-day cinematographic and narrative possibilities. It became stuck between a rock and a hard place, neither investing fully in its respect for a tradition-past nor maturing into an advanced, innovative 21st century creation.

Now please don’t misunderstand me – I actually enjoyed this film. I just think it buckled under the insane pressure imposed upon it (as is so often the case with contemporary revivals of cult classics – take the most recent Halloween or Pet Cemetary as examples). Not only was Mike Flanagan tasked with adapting a Stephen King novel, but he was the one who had to follow Stanley Kubrick… That’s like if The Rock just did 10,000 pull-ups in the colosseum and you were up next to read out your new material in slam poetry. It just wouldn’t hold up. So suffice it to say, he was probably really feeling the pressure. Keeping that in mind, he actually did a moderately stellar job. From the beginning I was absorbed into the world of the film by the accurate ‘face-match’ re-castings for young Danny and mama Wendy, the classic 70s artificial film-grain (which filmmakers nowadays seem to not be able to get enough of), and the suspenseful soundscore which effectively harkened back to the original Shining (I’d probably argue that this was the best homage paid throughout the entire film, in fact). The characters, especially Danny Torrence (played by Ewan McGregor, who just seems like a really cool, nice guy to me…) and his growing friendship with Billy (played by Cliff Curtis – I was VERY happy to see some New Zealand rep in a large-scale Hollywood movie) seem genuine and are given time to develop authentically and with meaning throughout the piece.

If this weren’t the sequel to The Shining, it probably would have passed with flying colours. But I regret to say that this very much still ended up being the forgotten, slightly annoying younger sibling of the celebrity, child-prodigy eldest child. The whole horror plot revolved around the strange cult-like group, the True Knot, trying to track down little kids with ‘shining’ abilities to capture their screams and terror (small rip-off of It as well, if you ask me – King, recycling material a bit here?) in silver canisters that, I’m sorry, just look like what farmers store cryopreservation bull semen in. And to top it off, they then all gather around the bull-semen-canister-thing and suck out the ‘steam’ like they’re smoking some really, really potent pot. Just instead of bloodshot-eyes, they get glowing, piercing blue/white eyes and the ability to turn back the ageing process (which would be amazing if pot could actually do this). This whole evil cult never really clicked with me. They just didn’t scare me, no matter how nonchalant and reckless with their sins Flanagan tried to make them seem. After the absolute mind-altering suspense of the The Shining – where you honestly didn’t really even have to see anything, you just had to relate to young Danny standing in this cavernous, sinister, isolated hotel and feel as if they walls were literally going to consume you – Doctor Sleep went down too literal a ‘horror path’. Instead of letting the viewer be their own worse enemy by imagining just what could be around this next corner, Flanagan actually shows you in this film. And that just isn’t fun sometimes. Our imaginations are far more insidious and dark than most scenes depicted on-screen, trust me. Don’t show, don’t tell – sometimes it’s ok for a film to let us do the work to reap the greatest benefits as we tailor it to our own individual scare-tastes.

Reduced more or less to a game of cat and mouse by the third act of the movie, I felt it ran on for too long. By the point in which Danny and Abra (his new young shining ingenue) arrived at the Overlook Hotel to set the traps for the True Knot, I was able to predict every turn and jump – and a horror should never be predictable if it wants to be frightening. I was able to map out all the painful, drawn-out callbacks from the return of (questionably CGI’d) Jack Torrence, the hallway blood flood and the constant return to Room 237. As much as I love a bit of old-school nostalgia and as much as I adored The Shining, you can’t allow a contemporary film to rest on the laurels of a classic. I will never condone recycling unless it is the kind that will help save the environment. Also, as cool as the concept of Danny going full-circle and being possessed by his father at the end of the film, I just couldn’t help but feel like Flanagan was too afraid to put more of his own unique stamp on a film that would have ultimately benefited far more from standing on its own, instead of in the overwhelming shadow of its predecessor.

Flatliners (2017) seems a strange film to start off with on a horror blog, but it just so happens that I watched it the other night and was surprised by what I was confronted with. Although I would probably classify this as closer to the realm of psychological thriller, there are subtle horror tropes and techniques that could leave people on the edge of their seats. I personally was not one of them, but I’m sure they’re out there somewhere.

I went into this movie blind. I didn’t know what it was about or which genre conventions it would abide by – all I knew was that Ellen Page was in it and her performance in Juno rendered me speechless so I thought, “yeah ok, it looks sort of gritty, I’ll give it a go.” I think the opening scenes of a horror film is of such vital importance that it cannot ever be overlooked. It completely sets the tone of the film to come, tells the viewer exactly how on their guard they’ll need to be, and gives us a tantalising taste of just how messed up the inner-workings of the creator’s mind or psyche is (obviously the more messed up, the better when it comes to horror – we love a subtle psychopath). So, more than any other genre, I have really high expectations for the expository scene in a ‘scary’ movie. Flatliners didn’t really disappoint. Niels Arden Oplev (why is it that so many psychologically-warped films are directed by Scandinavian creators? Regardless of the reason, I love it and I never want them to stop) doesn’t miss a beat as in the first couple minutes a little girl dies in a brutal car crash. So you know immediately that Oplev isn’t here to play nice and that he holds no qualms about killing off children. Always good to know about a film. Not to mention, the death of the child is technically at the hands of the older sister – played by the talented Ellen Page – who becomes distracted and drives the car off the road into a river. So we’re already dealing with death, guilt, and shame and the film has literally only been playing for about three minutes. I was pleasantly surprised (not that I enjoy seeing horrific car crashes, but this is fiction so we embrace it) and I was ready for more.

Unfortunately, Flatliners ended up taking its name a bit too seriously. After a promising beginning, the movie struggled uphill before stagnating and eventually the dull, monotonous drone of a flatline could be heard all around me. The film’s heart stopped beating, its conceptual framework and execution flatlined. I do think that the afterlife is a fascinating topic, particularly because everyone seems to perceive it differently. Some fear it, some revere it, some refuse to believe in anything past our current existence. So a quasi-horror that aims to grapple with a concept so complex and divisive has a lot on its plate, but also a hell of a lot (pun intended) to experiment with. I appreciate Oplev’s and the entire creative team’s attempt to mix up what horror so often defaults to nowadays (haunted houses, paranormal possessions, mothers gone rogue), but I just wish they had taken more advantage of how strange the concept of the afterlife could really be. The characters in Flatliners are playing with death. They are trying to control and test the boundaries of human life. Similar to films like Final Destination, you can’t knock on the door of death only to change your mind and race back to a calm, secure existence. So as each character, one by one, begins to ‘go to the other side’ for the sake of ‘scientific research’ they are essentially sealing their own fate. I’ve seen enough zombie-flicks to know that if you die once, you should just stay dead because nothing good becomes of it otherwise. I tried my best to shrug off how ridiculous the fact that training medical students would literally kill themselves just to get into a good residency, which definitely was tough at times. But I tried to be as on-board as I could and I was digging the idea behind it all. What does happen to us after we die? Where do we go? How does it feel? Do we live on? All very big questions.

But these questions were too ambitious for this film. I was really hoping for more of a personal, mental disintegration within each character – as if a part of their brain or soul remained intrinsically bound to the afterlife and the pull towards death became stronger and stronger as the film progressed, reducing them to mere husks of human beings with no real emotional or cognitive ability. But instead it just sort of fizzled out into a quintessential haunting-flick. Something deep, dark, and repressed from each of their pasts was brought back up to the surface and tried to kill them, proving once again that, try as we might, we can’t cheat death. But this just made the horror feel so detached and impersonal. The moral of the story basically just became ‘repent and ye shall be saved’… Which is so overdone and just lame. It would have been way creepier if these were your average medical students who tried hard at school, were selfless, loving, and kind – not people that faked autopsy reports and ditched women they got pregnant. Where are all the horror films about good people facing an unexplainably horrible evil instead of yet another horror about the good/bad binary and moral relativism? We’re grown adults, we don’t always have to be told that characters did bad things and that’s why they’re being psychologically tortured. We love the unexplained and the unexplainable! That’s what is the most terrifying.

I have to give kudos to Oplev and the whole Flatliners team for their effort to bring something unique and different to the quasi-horror universe (despite the fact that there is a 1990 original…). I dig the thought of tracking something so abstract and unknown technologically. But you guys needed to take it about 15 steps further – more people needed to suffer/die and the ending needed to be a bit more ambiguous – how are we supposed to believe that we as humans truly are smart enough and strong enough to genuinely cheat death? That’s a sticky moral to leave the theatre with…