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Many things come to mind when I think of Joko Anwar‘s Impetigore. Sick, demented, twisted, and creepy as hell are just some of them. All compliments, of course, compliments of the highest degree. Anwar is a fan of horror movies and Impetigore shows it. A combination of just about everything a horror film can ask for and more because unlike most, Impetigore is not predictable. Even the bits that can be predicted by a watchful eye don’t play out the way you’d expect.

For me, the crown jewel is the opening scene. A scene with enough tension to rival the anxiety-driven horror of the first 13 minutes of Wes Craven’s Scream. Quiet and slow, a lone woman working at a toll booth late at night is approached by a man who says almost nothing except question her identity. He then silently walks over to his car and pulls out a machete. The camera focuses on the woman, Maya (Tara Basro), struggling to get out of her booth as the mystery man calmly approaches her, and it just about made my heart stop. As someone who has been watching horror films since they were seven, there isn’t much that can still make me grip my chair in fright. But Impetigore did and just in the first few minutes.

The rest of the film isn’t nearly as frightening (for me anyway because it’s not as tense) but it goes big in other ways. Composed brutality in a quiet setting, Impetigore is about a young woman named Maya, who with her best friend, Dini (Marissa Anita), heads to her ancestral home in hopes of finding an inheritance. She’s also there looking for answers because the machete man mentioned it right before trying to hack her head off.

Maya finds some inheritance alright, just not the kind anyone would ever want. Waiting for her is a small village shadowed by a curse that’s been active for 20 years. When Maya gets there, she finds out that the villagers are trying to kill her in hopes of stopping the curse.

Heading home

At its core, Impetigore is an emotive ghost story. A dark history has plagued the village and those who live in it. Like all ghost stories, the spirts are fragments of the past that memory refuses to let go. Pain will stain a person as violence will stain a location. As Maya learns about her family’s history she finds herself at the heart of a tale almost too dark to comprehend. The very atmosphere around them is stifling. The moment the two friends arrive it seems like the air is trying to snuff them out.

The only flaw with Impetigore is the incredibly detailed backstory that’s thrown at the viewer all at once in broken fragments. Every haunting needs a juicy backstory and Impetigore has one of the best. The backstory here could have filled up two whole movies all their own but it’s not properly revealed until the end and when it is revealed, it’s in one motion as if it was crammed in at the last minute.

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Verdict

Overall, this is a fantastic film! When it’s not gripping your heart with slow tension, it’s just creeping you out. The end of the film is something special because it keeps a promise made earlier in the film that teaches a lesson about the past, and curses. Impetigore might also make you reconsider the thought of ever wearing leather again. 4.5 out of 5 stars (4.5 / 5)

All photos of Impetigore by Joko Anwar, an official selection of the Midnight program at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival are courtesy of Sundance Institute | by Ical Tanjung, I.C.S. All photos are copyrighted and may be used by press only for the purpose of news or editorial coverage of Sundance Institute programs.

Rachel Roth is a writer who lives in South Florida. She has a degree in Writing Studies and a Certificate in Creative Writing, her work has appeared in several literary journals and anthologies. @WinterGreenRoth

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Movies n TV

Low point or a daring experiment? Halloween VI (1995) Review

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To a lot of fans, this is the film that killed the franchise. It says a lot that the next installment is yet another retcon. Halloween VI: The Curse of Michael Myers attempts to explain Michael’s unrelenting evil, which lead to mixed opinions from longtime fans. There are two cuts of the film, theatrical vs producer’s. For a lot of people, the latter is the only one worth mentioning. Aiming to be as accurate as possible, I will be talking about the producer’s cut. Let’s begin! 

Plot

We start Halloween VI with a six-year time jump from part five. Jamie is now barefoot and recently pregnant, running away from Michael as he wants her baby. While she manages to hide the little one away, Michael finally gets his hunger satiated by killing her. The moment is one of the most brutal ways in the franchise up until that point. Rest in peace, Jamie, you held your ground for as long as you could, the sequels were just too relentless. 

The movie then cuts to a whole different scene going on. We have a new family living in the Myers house and their youngest child is hearing voices telling him to kill his loved ones. Tommy Lloyd is watching the family, played by none other than Paul Rudd in his first-ever theatrical role. Tommy still carries trauma from the events all those years ago when Laurie Strode was babysitting him. So when he finds Jamie’s baby, his part in the story becomes even more essential. 

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Dr Loomis also stars in what was Donald Pleasance’s final role before his passing. He and Tommy try to stop Michael once and for all before the cycle can repeat itself. As it turns out, Michael is a victim of a druid cult which makes him want to kill his family members every Halloween. Thorn, the cult in question, thinks they can control Michael and make him do their bidding. This results in catastrophe and Michael goes berzerk and kills all the cult members. Once again, it’s one of the most gruesome montages for the franchise up until that point.  

Tommy and Kara are left to face Michael on their own which they manage to do with some corrosive liquid and good luck. However, nothing stays dead in this franchise as it’s soon revealed Michael somehow escaped and this time Dr Loomis might not be so lucky… 

Overall thoughts

I would say for me personally Halloween VI definitely ranks somewhere near the bottom. The whole point of Michael is that there is no rhyme or reason to his killings and this film tries to go against that. I am glad the mistake was rectified by the upcoming installment. There were still some good things about it, such as Paul Rudd’s acting that reveals some raw talent as far as I’m concerned, as well as some direction choices and musical score. However, I also think it absolutely deserves all the criticism that it gets. 

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2.5 out of 5 stars (2.5 / 5)

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American Horror Stories, The Thing Under The Bed

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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.

Debby Ryan in American Horror Stories.

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.

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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.

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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 out of 5 stars (4 / 5)

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American Horror Stories, Leprechaun

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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.

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Hudson Oz in American Horror Stories Leprechaun.

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.

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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 out of 5 stars (3.5 / 5)

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