‘Found’ (2012): uncovering an underground gem and its bloody spin-off
Disturbing, gritty, and at times gross, it’s a new take on the serial killer. Based on the novel by Todd Rigney, who also penned the screenplay, and directed by Scott Schirmer on a budget of just $8,000, Found is a film that takes the story of a serial killer and shows it from a different perspective. A child’s perspective to be exact. Marty is a shy kid that keeps to himself, his life seems pretty normal until he discovers a severed head in his brother’s room. That’s right, a severed head just sitting in a bowling bag in his brother’s room. The shocking part is, he’s not too concerned about it. The opening line, words that grip you from the start in their cold, dead hands, says it all; “my brother keeps a human head in his closet.” Tells you everything you need to know. There are two brothers, one keeps heads in his closet and the other is…kind of okay with it.
It’s not just one head though. His brother Steve has actually killed many people. He just switches the head out every few days. Usually, it’s black women and he often rips their hair out. Wearing his mother’s best kitchen gloves (she washes the dishes with those things man!), Marty studies these heads with morbid curiosity as if they’re just yet another shocking treasure a kid might find in his older brother’s bedroom. No different than porn, pot, or wannabe Satanic paraphernalia purchased from Hot Topic.
Marty may be willing to keep brother’s murderous secrets, but he’s not entirely accepting of it, or I guess I should say, comfortable with it. That changes, however, once he realizes the power it gives him. A power he struggles with. He starts looking at everything differently. A victim of relentless bullying, Marty lives like a mouse in a world of wolves. The brothers have a strange relationship that seems distant at times and codependent at others. As their relationship strengthens, the darker Marty becomes, and the more resilient he becomes toward his tormentors, viewing violence as the ultimate weapon against his own personal institutes of oppression.
It’s more than just a story about a kid who finds out his brother is a serial killer though. As I said before, it shows the mind of a serial killer from a different perspective, removing us completely from their viewpoint. There comes a point in the film where Steve reveals why he kills but the reason that he gives is clearly a lie. It may be what he tells himself, an explanation he’s made his personalized excuse, but in reality, Steve doesn’t have an answer, even he seems mystified when questioned. He’s aroused at the notion of inflicting pain but is either unaware of this or incapable of grasping the concept as fact.
Found shows the total lack of self-awareness that resides in the psychopath. Even they don’t always know why they do what they do, they just do it.
I’m going to be frank here and say that I believe the film to be slightly incestuous. The taboo theme appears twice, one in a more obvious context but it lingers very faintly throughout the film. It can be interpreted in any way one wishes but I feel that Steve’s borderline infatuation with his brother, especially near the end, crosses a certain line. However, it’s impossible to know what’s really going on in Steve’s head because everything is seen from Marty’s perspective. It’s both a strength and weakness of the film. Steve remains a huge question mark in the end. He seems to be a living contradiction when it comes to emotion; an angry teen who draws pleasure from pain but falls apart at the mere sight of his brother’s tears.
Found is layers on top of layers and like Rachel Green’s abominable English Trifle, there’s a meaty surprise inside. There is both a cultural and a psychological frame of mind presented with a large chunk dedicated to toxic masculinity. It is surprisingly well-rounded. Don’t look at the cover and write it off as another exploitive horror movie, it’s more psychological than anything else.
At its core, Found is a disturbing coming of age film that doubles as a study of the psychopath. It details the struggles of a boy coming into manhood, and the dangers of seeing his psychotic older brother, a stand-in for hypermasculinity, as someone to revere. My only real issue with the film has nothing to do with the plot but just the camera work that makes it feel like a home movie. Near the end, the quality adds to the realism portrayed in the story but it takes a while to get used to.
(3.5 / 5)
‘Headless’
Headless isn’t really a spin-off of Found. It’s actually a movie within a movie that was popular enough to become its own feature. Headless appears as part of the plot in Found as a film Steve steals from the video store that serves as his inspirational “how-to” murder guide. A part of the fake feature is played in Found in a sequence that is definitely one of the more disturbing, and over the top, moments of the film. It goes past gooey, torture porn, and just dives headfirst into House of a 1000 Corpses territory.
The DVD and blu ray of Found features the full uncut version of Headless that appeared in the film, running at about 24 minutes. Fans, however, wanted more and in 2015, a full-length feature film based on the short was released and produced through a Kickstarter campaign. It’s a little hard to find now. It can be watched on YouTube and you can buy the DVD on Scott Schirmer’s website but aside from that, I don’t think it can be found anywhere else.
It isn’t the exact movie that Steve and Marty watched but it features the same character of the Masked Skeletal, once again played by Shane Beasley, doing what he does best. Going around decapitating young women. Headless is definitely for a select audience. The Terrifier crowd might get a real kick out of it. I personally disliked it because it was a nonstop gorefest that didn’t have much of a story aside from copying and pasting Ed Kemper’s biography into the screenplay.
There isn’t much of a plot. I actually found it quite boring, but that’s my own personal opinion, I’m sure there are many who would disagree. It tries to find a common ground between slasher and arthouse, revolving around the unnamed killer I refer to as the Masked Skeletal as he carries out his many grisly murders. Through flashbacks, we learn of the abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother and sister, who made him sleep in a dog cage that he continues to sleep in even as an adult. The abuse resulted in a hatred of women and a damaged psychosis that causes him to hallucinate a young boy with a skeleton head. The child, a possible representation for his stolen youth, directs him in his day to day life, including his many kills.
Headless is not something the average person would enjoy, not because it’s bloody but because it has almost no dialogue or character development and doesn’t follow the typical cinematic format. Imagine if Richard Rameriz or Kemper had a video camera. That’s what this is.
My favorite thing about Headless is the fake trailer that appears before the movie starts for a film called Wolf Baby, something that looks way more interesting than this.
(1.5 / 5)
Photos are property of Forbidden Films.
We’ve reached the final episode of American Horror Stories, season three. After the ups and downs of the season, I didn’t know what to expect. I felt that we were due a big finish, Killer Queens. But I feared we were in for a big letdown.
As it turns out, The Thing Under The Bed was neither.
The story
We begin our story with a little girl named Mary, who is scared of something under her bed. She sneaks out of her room, only to be caught by her father and sent back to sleep. And of course, there is something horrible waiting for her under her bed.
This scene cuts away to a woman named Jillian. She has strange dreams, including one about Mary. But her husband, Mark, doesn’t want to hear about it. He’s only interested in a little lovemaking because he wants a baby. Jillian doesn’t, which makes total sense because she’s already married to one. But her irritation with her childish husband goes away when he goes away. And by goes away, I mean he’s sloppily devoured by something vicious under their bed.
What worked
In short, this episode just worked. The acting was professional and believable. The cinematography and lighting work were wonderful, adding spooky effects and startling moments without impairing visibility.
Best of all, the story was solid. There were no plotholes to be found. Our main character, Jillian, was relatable and sympathetic.
This was maybe my favorite part of the story. I thought Jillian was a remarkably sympathetic character. She was dealt a hand she never asked for, having her husband slaughtered in their bedroom. I don’t think she missed him, so much as she was afraid of the legal ramifications of being caught with literal blood on her hands.
Then, when it would have been safest for her to just lay low and save up for a good defense attorney, she instead goes into unlikely hero mode. She does her best to save people, putting herself in legal and physical danger. It’s hard not to root for her.
It’s also a little hard not to root for the antagonist, too. I don’t want to ruin the twist for you, so I’m going to tread lightly here. But it’s great when you have an antagonist who might be off their rocker, but also maybe has a point.
What didn’t work
I can only really think of one complaint with this episode. And that is how frequently one character says the word Chickadee. And if you’ve seen the episode, you know what I am talking about.
I get it, he has a pet name for his daughter. It’s adorable. It’s meant to convey that the two of them have a healthy loving relationship and I get it. We all get it. Blind monks get it. But the fact remains that no parent on Earth calls their kid by their pet name every single time they speak an individual sentence to them. It was just too damn much.
All in all, this was a good episode. It was a classic story, turned on its head, told by professionals from start to finish. And I hope that if there is another season, we see more stories like this one. But after the efforts put into this season at large, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the last we see of American Horror Stories.
(4 / 5)
If you’ve watched enough short-form horror anthology shows, you’ll notice that some stories are mainstays. Each show seems to put on the same sort of episodes, with the occasional surprising storyline that we’ve never (or at least rarely) seen before.
Leprechaun was an example of a repeated story—the story of a greedy thief whose punishment far outweighs the crime.
The story
We begin our story in 1841, with a drunk man leaving the bar one late night. He’s distracted by something glowing at the end of the well. When he reaches down for the glowing thing, he falls in. Moments later, he screams.
We then cut to the modern day. The well is still there, and now it’s surrounded by a dying town. In this town lives a young man named Colin. He’s married, his wife is pregnant, and he’s out of work. Like many of his friends.
Desperate for cash, Colin and his friends decide to rob a bank. They put together an Equate version of Ocean’s Eleven, and break in one night. But, of course, they find that the gold is nothing more than bait. And the creature waiting for them is something they never expected.
What worked
The first thing I want to point out is how real this episode felt. At least to anyone currently living in the same small town they grew up in. These characters felt like guys I went to school with. Guys I would see at the bar.
I appreciated the real anger and frustration these characters are feeling. Especially Colin. He’s bitter, and maybe he has a right to be. He did exactly what he was supposed to do to succeed. He went to school and invested in his career, and yet now he’s out of work and struggling to support his family. I probably don’t need to tell you how that feels. Because of this, we can all kind of understand why he was tempted to rob a bank.
I also want to talk about the fact that this was, as I said, an often-explored story. That can be a bad thing, but it can also be a good thing. This story is told over and over because it’s a good story. A relatable story. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
What didn’t work
That being said, this version didn’t try to do much to break out of the mold.
Because we have seen this story so many times, most of us could tell the story themselves. I would have expected something new, or some twist. But, in the end, the story didn’t bring anything new to the discussion.
Maybe because of this, the ending left a lot to be desired. Trapped in the basement of the bank, everyone just sort of stares at everyone else, until the thieves give up. And that’s it. The ending wasn’t scary, shocking, or funny. It was just sad, on multiple levels.
Overall, this was an okay story. It was entertaining, if not surprising. I would compare this episode to homemade macaroni and cheese. Everyone’s got their own version, they’re all pretty good, and none of them are exciting.
There’s just one episode left in this season of American Horror Stories. Let’s hope they’ve saved the best for last.
(3.5 / 5)
It happened. It finally happened. We got another good episode of American Horror Stories.
The story
We begin our story late at night, with a hospital security guard named Malcolm. He is frightened one night when he sees a woman with a distorted face in the hospital parking lot.
We then joined an RN named Claire. She’s doing her best to explain to a struggling mother that the hospital will not be able to treat her son with cancer because she can’t afford the treatment.
Not like she’s happy about it.
Fortunately, Dr. Nostrum, played by the legend Henry Winkler, swoops in at the last moment to tell the mother that her son qualifies for a special place in his cancer treatment clinic.
Claire is lamenting the fact that she became an RN to help people, but it feels like she isn’t doing anything good. Then, she and her friend Lilly stumble upon the same woman who menaced Malcom the night before.
While Claire is trying to figure out what’s wrong with this woman, she brutally slaughters an orderly and vanishes into the hospital. But not before struggling to say two words to Claire. Ward X.
What worked
I want to start by praising the effects of this episode. Because they were fantastic. Aided by the black and white filming, the bloody and distorted faces of Alice and her fellow victims are nightmarish. They look like a horrific version of Lockjaw taken to a terrifying extreme.
I also want to discuss the fantastic work of Henry Winkler. He is an absolute legend and never has a bad project.
Winkler’s character in this episode was exactly what we’d expect from him. He seems genuinely warm and kind, concerned about others’ well-being. Even when he’s planning to kill Claire, he comes off as such a caring guy.
Finally, I want to talk about the historical significance of this story. Because, like I always say, the scariest stories are the ones based on truth. And I’m sorry to say, this story has a basis in truth.
Mankind has a dark and twisted history when it comes to medical advances. Most doctors and scientists are good, moral people who abide by the first line of the Hippocratic oath, to first do no harm. Some, historically, are little more than monsters in white coats. Consider the Tuskegee Experiment, Unit 731, and the horrific acts of Josef Mengele. If you’re going to look up that middle one, be warned that it is NSFL.
While this episode of American Horror Stories was a work of fiction, it wasn’t that far off. I don’t think many of us want to admit how close to real life it was. This is the gift of good horror, to force us to come face to face with the worst aspects of humanity. To acknowledge them, accept them, and change them.
All in all, this was a perfect episode. The acting, the effects and the story were all top-shelf. And it’s certainly a story that will stick with you.
There are just two episodes left in this season of American Horror Stories. Let’s hope that they reach closer to the quality of X, and away from the dull and dismal episodes that began the second half of this season.
(5 / 5)
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