Albert Einstein spent the last years of his life working on a unified field theory. So obsessed with it was the man that even on his deathbed he requested his notes so that he could continue working on them. Some say he wasted his time. Others say, without Einstein’s brilliant if misunderstood theories, modern physics would not exist in the form we study.

It was Einstein who warned the U.S. that Germany could possibly be working on an atomic bomb. It was Einstein who suggested that the U.S. take action. For whatever involvement Einstein had in the creation of the atomic bomb, what we do know is that, without his theories, perhaps America would never have succeeded in the creation of the first atom bomb.

What happened to Einstein once he saw the results of his theories? Outpost writers tell us, with grim melodrama, that he destroyed those notes and research. Whatever the case may be here, it makes for wonderful tension. When you combine field theory, which could (in theory, of course) bend space and time with WWII, specifically the Nazis, sprinkle in a dash of the paranormal and mix it all together with mercenaries picked from the elite soldiers of their country, you get a tense, interesting and very creepy result.

You get Outpost.

DC, played by Ray Stevenson, is a soldier of fortune. We meet DC in the back of a military wagon being transported with six other mercenaries to the target destination. Through a series of well placed flashbacks, we find out that DC has been contracted by a man named Hunt, played by Julian Wadham (who did a fine job as Major Granville, a man who went quickly out of his mind in Exorcist: The Beginning).

DC has been contracted to make certain that Hunt gets to the destination, an underground bunker in a “mineral rich area” in eastern Europe, which Hunt’s backing company is interested in. Upon safe arrival and securing the area, DC asks Hunt if this bunker is the place. After Hunt nods that it is, DC replies, “Minerals, huh? Right.”

As soon as the doors to the bunker are flung open, we are given a view of them from within the bunker itself. And right away, we know something is wrong. Because something passes by the camera in the dark.

Outpost is a quick starter. As noted, we are immediately introduced to the protagonist (arguably DC, though Hunt’s role is major), given our destination and set up for the element of suspense. Within twenty five minutes, we are introduced to the atrocities that have been enacted in this bunker. It seems that the Nazis had used this bunker for human experiments (are there any other kind with this genre? Hell no. And that’s how we like it, thank you very much), and our mercenaries come upon them piled into a corner of one of the rooms. Surprisingly untouched by the ravages of time, the victims bodies are white as snow, shaved clean and looking as if they might have only been killed days before the mercenaries arrive.

As the situation is being surveyed, a hand flies up from the pale bodies, as a drowning man might thrust his hand out of the water and into the sky. The mercenaries roll the bodies off the man, only to find a very thin, very catatonic fellow who looks a little more worse for wear. Through various unsuccessful attempts to get the survivor to speak, DC determines that they will keep him under protection for the moment. They have a job to do. What that job is, DC, along with the rest of the men, are no longer certain.

The various personalities of the men are explored enough to give them depth. The viewer has enough information to know whether to sympathize with a character or perhaps silently hope for comeuppance. Hunt, on the surface, seems an aloof and driven man with little concern other than to make his financial backers happy. As the film carries on, however, we come to understand there is more to Hunt that he lets on. Here is a highly intelligent man with a willingness to at least entertain the highly suspect in order to look for truth.

DC is gruff and determined. But almost immediately a protagonist the viewer finds no difficulty in liking. He takes both his job and his men’s lives seriously, and yet is able to laugh. His sense of humor, though war torn and damaged, is still in tact. When asked by Hunt what he does when not being a soldier of fortune, he replies, rather easily, “Drink.”

Wondering why we laid out the information on the outset about Einstein’s quest for a unified theory? Because this is the heart of the film. Outpost is nothing terribly original. This is yet another in a long line of stories centered around the atrocities of the Nazi regime during WWII. Here we have a paranormal theme built around a scientific assumption. The unified field theory, to be precise. While the basis for the paranormal occurrences may be unique, the idea of the Nazis dabbling in occult practices is certainly not. Yet whatever this film loses in originality points, it makes up for with heart and genuine, story-driven scripting.

Low on effects, Outpost fills the spaces normally occupied by slick CGI with atmosphere and tension. Steve Barker helms the director’s chair deftly, using both timing and camera work to keep the veiwer at a state of unease. Barker also managed to massage the best performance out of every actor in the film. Ray Stevenson is, as mentioned before, likable and believable. Gruff yet still approachable and he plays the calm-in-the-storm character very well. Julian Wadham plays the brooding role without taking himself too seriously. Richard Brake almost reprises his role as Corporal Dean Portman from Doom, yet adds enough nuance here and there to separate the roles acceptably.

All in all, Outpost is a film for fans of story-driven horror. There are plenty of things that go bump in the night and well placed gore that drives the story and does not stoop to gratuitous. Does it have its occasional flub? Yes. Does the premise require suspension of disbelief? Absolutely. And yet Barker seems to understand what we keep saying around here: one can’t avoid cliché with genre pieces. Ultimately, in order to serve the film properly, a director must understand that something done again, if done thoughtfully and with heart, can still make us, the viewers, shift a little in our seats wondering what might happen next. Outpost is very decent horror, indeed.

Hollywood has seemingly lost its collective mind these days with horror films. As a horror fan, one might think it’s a wonderful thing. After all, the Hollywood machine is churning out one fright flick after another. There is not shortage of the genre at theaters. Everything from bloody, torture-oriented films like Saw to supernatural films exploring all manner of concepts of the afterlife. But, in truth, this trend holds little for the fan of horror who also happens to be a fan of good story telling. And The Eye is yet another in a line of tired, mediocre, supernatural horror films.

A Hollywood original, however, it is not. Adapted from Gin gwai (2002), a Chinese film by the Pang Bros. (see this film for another example of the Pang Bros. work), The Eye does its best to both update and sharpen this story. And it manages to do neither.

What this film does is use overdone film tricks, a poor storyline and dull acting to churn out yet another Asian horror remake for the masses. And one has to think that the masses simply must be getting weary of this sort of mediocrity.

The storyline, at first, seems rather simple. Sydney Wells, portrayed by Jessica Alba, has been blind since she was five years old. It seems that Sydney and her sister, played by Parker Posey, had been playing with fireworks as kids and an accident had damaged Sydney’s corneas, causing her blindness. Sid’s sister, Helen, bore the guilt for this and, as such, had managed to keep up with all of the latest in cornea transplant treatments. It was she, rather than Sydney, who wanted her sister to see the most.

Sydney has a full life. A celebrated concert violinist, she has a life that any of us could long for. Successful, beautiful, with a beautiful apartment and family and friends. For all intents and purposes, her blindness has not gotten in the way. She has adapted and persevered. But, for Helen, this simply is not enough. To assuage her guilt, she’s going to see to it that her sister’s vision is restored.

To her credit, Alba manages to communicate her character’s blindness fairly well. And of course, Alba is almost patently cute, looking at times like a little girl lost. As adorable as she is, however, Alba is not adept at communicating the complicated emotions that would stem from not only being able to see after being blind for so many years, but also the new supernatural repercussions of her new eyes. As soon as Sydney Wells’s eyes are opened, she begins to see Death. It’s a sixth sense apparently brought on by the restoration of one of her five senses.

From the moment the supernatural events started, I had issue with the fact that our protagonist, Sydney Wells, could not only see the dead with her new cornea transplants, but could also hear them and be affected by them. Seeing them? All right, this is I can live with. Makes for an interesting idea. But also hearing them? The idea seemed to make an already stretched concept to be pulled completely out of proportion.

Sydney’s doctor feels it’s imperative that she get as much help as possible adjusting to her eyes. He assigns her to a specialist, Dr. Paul Faulkner, played by Alessandro Nivola. Faulkner’s job will be to help Sydney adjust to the assault of her vision “now working together with all her senses.”

However, very little attempt was made to define the terms of her new supernatural sense. As a viewer, I can suspend disbelief in terms of Sydney being able to see Death. Using the concept of cellular memory, the film attempts to tell us that Sydney’s new corneas are remembering their owner. As the film progresses, we find that not only are her new corneas remembering their owner, they are beginning to take control of Sydney’s eyes. How is she seeing Death? Well, this ties in to a larger plot piece that muddies up the film. Were I to lay that out now, it would lead to spoilers about the film’s ending. And we don’t do spoilers here at Speak of the Dead. The explanation for Sydney seeing Death is, at best, acceptable, at worst, just another overused clam done over and again by the horror genre.

Though the film is rife with issues, the biggest problem is that, though it is a horror piece, not one moment is frightening. The PG-13 craze for horror movies has so watered down the genre that, in order to frighten, directors have taken to using nearly stock footage of fright tricks. Every blurred image, every stuttered movement of some supernatural being, and every CGI-generated supposedly frightening creature looked like every one you’d seen at least three to four times before. Hollywood seems to not care that fear is fairly quickly conditioned away. The mind adapts. The imagination adapts. No matter the slickness of the CGI or the ambiance of the sound effects, the overabundance of these effects in these films have rendered them for the most part moot.

Character development was sorely lacking. For horror to work, for it to truly frighten, the viewer has to connect to the character. To like the character. Sydney was disconnected to the average movie goer almost immediately. Clearly well above middle class, the subtext was that she had worked intently to get where she was in life. However, not enough time was given toward setting this up. We’re simply shown Sydney as a concert violinist living in her upscale apartment, complete with a door man with whom she is obviously friends. The idea is that Sydney is not a judger of persons. Every one is human to Sydney, and social standing is neither here nor there. Sydney is a good person. But the subtext is too small. We get quick clips of Sydney’s personality. No involvement in her life other than to see her in front of an orchestra playing her violin wonderfully, and a party post transplant surgery attended by all of Sydney’s friends. Rather than using the party to engage us in Sydney’s life, however, the director uses it as an opportunity to show us how overwhelming newly acquired vision can be. It doesn’t work. One can’t help but think of the party scenes at the beginning of Cloverfield, which work brilliantly to connect us to the core characters, engage us in there lives and inevitably leads us to relate to them and, more importantly, to like them.

Helen, Sydney’s sister, is portrayed at first as a caring woman who will do anything for her sister. Yet her involvement in the story is piecemeal, and as such, to the viewer she quickly becomes a shrill, overprotective sibling who seems downright annoyed at the troubles her sister is having with the supernatural things she is now seeing. And Sydney’s new specialist, Dr. Paul Faulkner, vacillates between being an asshole and being caring so often that the viewer can’t get their footing as to who this man really is. We try to like Paul. We want to like Paul. Hell, both he and Sydney are attractive people, so we wouldn’t be averse to them maybe getting together. But we’re never given a chance for any of those things to happen. One moment, Paul is berating Sydney for her visions and the next he is embracing her. Mostly aloof, but sometimes genuine, Paul is as enigmatic as Sydney’s visions. As such, it is difficult to understand or even relate to Paul’s passion for wanting to help his new patient. Maybe he’s just doing another job for the money. Maybe he likes Sydney. We’ll never know.

All in all, The Eye is a mediocre film with a mediocre script and mediocre acting. There is some very decent cinematography here and there, and one or two moments in the film that truly engaged the viewer. Yet nothing about the film makes an attempt to raise it above every other supernatural horror film permeating the genre.

Su-jeong Lim plays Su-Mi, a young girl with a troubled past and a troubled mind. When the film opens, we are immediately thrown into familiar territory. Opening in the psych ward of a hospital, a psychiatrist washes his hands in a sink as Su-Mi is led in by a nurse. Su-Mi is nearly catatonic, having to be led into the room, as well as being directed to sit in the chair. As the doctor begins to ask questions, Su-Mi merely sits there unresponsive.

Familiar territory, yes. Still, the moment sets up the tone of the film nicely. And the tone of this film, if nothing else, is isolation. Su-Mi is now cut off from the world of responsive people, and soon she will be cut off from the world in a much more literal sense.

Inspired by a famous Korean folk tale Janghwa Heungryeonjeon, the girl’s names have been changed from Janghwa and Hongryeon (Red Flower and Red Lotus) to Su-Mi and Su-Yeon (Flower and Lotus) ^[1]. Ji-woon Kim did an excellent job adapting the folk tale into some very decent, and at times very creepy horror.

We note in the first scene after that psych ward, through excellent cinematography, that the girls are coming home. And home is very isolated. As Su-Mi and Su-Yeon first exit the car, everything appears to be wonderful, if not lonely. The sisters seem close and Su-Mi seems to be finally herself again.

That is until they meet their new stepmother, Eun-joo.

Immediately, we realize Eun-joo is not going to be a stepmother of the pleasant variety. She casually belittles the sisters, all the while communicating her obsession with perfection. Su-Mi is hostile toward her from moment one. And, from our perspective, who can blame her? Eun-joo desires order and perfection; qualities hardly applicable to teenage sisters.

Ji-woon Kim does an excellent job of setting up a tone of wrongness. Everything on the outset seems to be fine. The idea of an evil stepmother is nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly this is par for the course with a family recovering. And surely they are recovering. As we find out quickly, Su-Mi and Su-Yeon’s mother has passed away. How, we do not know. Clues are delivered in small doses, but nothing so overt as to clue us in as to where the horror is going to come from. But we know something is wrong. In this regard, Kim begins to create tension that will build throughout the film.

There are several standout moments in Janghwa, Hongryeon. Moments that made me extremely uncomfortable and one or two that had me reluctant to look at the screen. Which is pretty rare for me. I think I’ve seen just about every sort of horror that exists on film, and to find one that actually gives me the genuine creeps is a treat.

Without giving away spoilers, we learn that Su-Mi is a very disturbed young woman. Events in her past have disturbed her, it seems, almost beyond repair. Bae Moo-hyeon, Su-Mi’s father, at first seems to be a detached man; barely interested in his daughters’s, or his new wife’s activities. During one argument with Su-Mi, he apologizes for being a bad father. Su-Mi replies by stating, rather unapologetically, “You’re not even a bad father.” Having finished the film, one feels a different respect for Bae Moo-hyeon. Here is a father willing to do just about anything to care for his disturbed daughter.

Janghwa, Hongryeon may require a second viewing. The plot, while having one or two moments where belief is difficult to sustain, is intricate and thoughtful. The elements are all familiar, some overdone, but the treatment is humane and interesting. Given this, the intricacy of the plot is difficult to communicate in one film. Kim’s direction is quite good, giving the viewer all the clues needed to put the pieces together, but the tension mounts to such a degree that it can become difficult to remember precisely what happened previously.

The music for the film is excellent. The score is muted, and shows up precisely when needed, to create tension or alleviate it. There are particular themes that play for applicable moments, and the score does precisely what it should. Indeed, at the end of the film one find themselves hard pressed to remember definite movements. It all works together with the cinematography and direction to mesh into the mood.

All in all, Janghwa, Hongryeon is very decent horror, drawing the viewer in, making them part of the sister’s world. You don’t so much like Su-Mi as simply sympathize and empathize with her. Eun-joo, the stepmother, is easy to dislike. Aloof and wound entirely too tightly, she makes a wonderful villain to focus our attention on. And Su-Yeon, as the younger sister, is wonderfully vulnerable. We watch Su-Mi’s protection of her and want it to continue. We root for her against Eun-Joo’s harsh and sometimes cruel treatment.

And, in the end, we are far more disturbed by how thoroughly delusion and sickness can envelope the human mind.

^[1] IMDB trivia

For the most part, my reticence proved not to be unfounded, a good measure of the eight films proving to be mediocre at best, some just plain awful. One or two of the more low-budget and independent films reached for the mark, and though they may have missed it, I couldn’t help but cheer them on and enjoy myself if for nothing more than the heart put into the work. (One of the standouts in the low-budget area being Penny Dreadful, an excellent, taut little film that, while having holes here and there, made me keep my eye on the screen out of wonder as to what might happen next.)

When The Abandoned was released on DVD, I again approached it with a certain reticence, wondering if I was taking home a gem or a lump of coal.

Thankfully, my fears here proved completely unfounded.

Adapted (almost more so based on) a Russian script that director Nacho Cerda took a liking to, The Abandoned tells the tale of a brother and sister looking to find their long-lost parents in their home country of Russia.

Marie (Milla) Jones, played very well here by Anastasia Hille, is a movie producer with her own family who now, after years of searching and trudging through red tape (no pun intended) has found the home that she was sped from as a child. Not a lot can be said about the film’s plot without giving a spoiler, so we’ll have to leave it pretty much alone there. She has, in short, found home and intends to seek out this old house of memory and find a way to reconstruct her past. And it seems, though it may be cliche, that forces are conspiring to help her along her way.

Though the movie doesn’t get very high ratings on several movie sites, I believe the film to be a sleeper, one that can be dismissed on the first viewing, but should the viewer trouble themselves by watching it again, the subtle nuances of the film stand out and make for a rare, albeit more sophisticated, horror movie experience.

First (and in this reviewer’s opinion) and foremost: cinematography. The film’s landscape begins in Russia and remains in Russia. And yet, like Marie’s character, takes on an almost instantaneous evolution from well-kempt and put together into a more destitute, isolated and harried vision of solitude and emptiness. Starting at the airport and migrating to a sanitized hotel room, the camera work lulls the viewer, bringing them into Marie’s world as she knew it before, and hinting very little and what she will know at the end.

Soon, however, Marie will begin a journey into a lush yet isolated area where the house of her parents waits for her return.

As each shot increases in scope, the viewer might notice the stark contrast of the isolation with the beauty of the land. Nearly every shot in the first few minutes of the film could be snapped and made into a wonderful photograph. It’s extremely satisfying to see cinematography this well executed in a horror film.

Second, the house.

Again, without spoilers, it is difficult to go into depth. But this house is almost breathtakingly haunting. One wonders how the actors managed to walk onto this set day in and out and manage to go home and sleep at night. Cerda gets it right, treating the house as a character as much as Marie or her brother. Every spiderweb in the proper place, every dark room the door pushed only slightly open, every stair step creaking at the right moment. Old and forgotten, the house itself looks as though it feels its own abandonment and longs for some kind—any kind—of company. And one gets the impression it will have this company, one way or another.

The third nuance of this film is the sound. If you’ve ever wondered what things that go bump in the night sound like, then surely this movie gives you the textbook definition of what those sounds should be. Making use of surround sound to the fullest extent, Cerda relentlessly gives you the creeps by dropping something in this corner, having a door creak in that corner, and using something as simple as drops into standing water make you hope that it might be just the wind, and that nothing is actually around the corner.

Alas, it is, however.

Finally, the actor’s performances. Sure, the obligatory elements are there. Hell, it wouldn’t be horror if those weird, eccentric folk didn’t meander into the landscape at some point, right? But Anastasia Hille, along with Karel Roden (you might remember him as Rasputin from Hellboy) deliver fine performances that manage to sometimes border on being overboard while mostly managing not to cross that line. The brotherly-sisterly love is not manifest instantly, as is often the case with horror films, where complete strangers manage to trust each other within the first few minutes of the film. The bond is worked for, the trust only earned after time together. As the tension mounts, some trust is dissolved, and both actors do a good job of pulling back without distancing themselves too far from one another.

Above all, The Abandoned is just plain creepy. That’s something to be said for a modern horror movie. American audiences (including myself the chief of sinners here) are so jaded that we crave more and more in order to be stimulated into fear. When a movie like this comes along and manages to have you occasionally checking over your shoulder to make certain your hallway is empty (as I did—more than once, I’m happy to admit) and stimulate you with less, instead of more, it’s an enjoyable experience. And welcomed.

Less is not always more, contrary to the saying. But when it is more, like it is with The Abandoned, it’s a helluva good time.

Roy (Dylan McDermott) is a man wanting change. Big change. Daughter Jess (Kristen Stewart), has gotten herself in a little trouble and Roy and the Missus (Penelope Ann Miller) decide the best thing for Jess is getting out of town. Roy always wanted to raise sunflowers anyway, so pack the bags, load the UHaul and head out to a farm in the middle of nowhere. The premise is decidedly overused, but that doesn’t have to spell a poor movie. Doesn’t have to, but with this film, it does.

The house is a dilapidated, Hitchcockian dump (complete with crows hanging on the eaves, imagery sliced ever-so-neatly from The Birds), and the abode sets the tone for the film from here on out. It’s a mildly promising sight; one hopes, given the creepiness of the old mansion, that the goods will be delivered and scares will be, if not in abundance, at least peppered within the story.

The Pang Bros., fresh to the US for their first feature, do their damndest to scare us. The problem is, from the beginning, we get the feeling we’ve seen this before. A lot. A stain on the wall in the master bedroom reminds one instantly of Pulse. In fact, as the movie progresses, you’ll find that it not only reminds one of Pulse, it’s the same damned effect from Pulse. Later (or before, I lost track quickly), Daughter Jess gets manhandled at the top of the flight of stairs leading to the basement. A group of pale arms reaches up and grabs Jess and pulls her through the door. While this may not have been pulled right from the hard drive of the effects team of Pulse, it is not difficult, even for an instant, to recall much the same happening to Kristen Bell‘s Mattie, again from Pulse.

Sometime during the film, strange looking ghosts meander through the house, filmed at a low frame rate and pasted into the scene at the usual framerate, to give the sort of creepy effect. It’s an interesting bit of macabre, but see any film by Takashi Shimizu and you’ll see that effect. And I do mean just about any film by him. He didn’t start the effect. And he doesn’t make as much use of the framerate manipulation, relying on the actors to be just plain naturally creepy, but the movements, well, they’re all over his films. And we see that thanks to selective borrowing and poor judgement calls by studio execs, he sure as hell didn’t end the effect, either. But I’d credit him for the overall look and feel in my own little world.

It also shows up quite effectively in Darkness, a movie that manages, with a smaller budget and less effects, to actually be frightening at moments, unlike The Messengers.

Now, you may call me crazy, but I tend to like John Corbett. Something about his smooth, easy-going demeanor is usually a pleasure to watch. Except when his part is written poorly; as is the case with this film. Showing up unnanounced, Corbett’s Burwell saves face for Roy (quite literally) by scattering a murder of crows gathering inside Roy’s SUV. How does he do so? By firing a shotgun into the sky. According to Burwell, it’s the only thing that works effectively on the crows. I guess, of course, other than actually shooting at the damned things.

Burwell is a drifter, and apparently in that town, drifters are fine and dandy wandering aimlessly around town carrying a shotgun. Normally, that’s a textbook definition of a vagrant, but that can slide. This is Hollywood, after all.

As Burwell appeared on the scene, appearing to be just a nice guy drifting, I hoped for something different. That is to say, I hoped that Burwell would be nothing more than a polite, hardworking drifter who just happened to end up at the right place at the right time. Had that been the case, I perhaps might have forgiven the film some of its faults. Not to put a spoiler in here, but I did not forgive the film.

As Burwell becomes more involved in the day to day workings of the Solomon family, Roy becomes ever trusting of Burwell. Which is fine, to a point. Yet when Roy gets hurt badly enough to require his wife, Denise, to take him to the hospital, he leaves Burwell in charge of Jess and their young son, Ben (played by both Evan and Theodore Turner). I could only shake my head thinking, “yes, you have a beautiful young daughter, a young son and a drifter in charge. This is the only actual horror in the entire film.” Granted, much time had passed between Burwell’s appearance and this moment, but given the direction of the film, this was not brought home sufficiently to be able to accept Burwell’s position within the Solomon family. It just felt wrong and smacked of an extremely poor judgment call by Roy.

As the film rolls on, the story gets no better. The effects continue to be borrowed from other films (including and almost especially from Hitchcock’s The Birds), the acting is no more involved and nothing, basically, improves. If you bother to watch the DVD special features (something I happen to be just exactly geeky enough to do even with a film as poor as this one), you’ll note how much each actor/producer/production assistant and on down the line applaud the film: the script, the direction and the (believe it or not) original effects sequences. What we see as the public as a post-production film is not what these good folks are seeing as they create it. They see dailies, storyboards, production art; the tools of the trade. Still, one has to wonder if these days part of the negotiations for the salaries of the various actors and workers does not include being paid to portray a film in a particularly good light on the featurettes. It is truly difficult if you have any empathy at all to dismiss a film completely once you’ve seen the hard work that goes into even the worst. It’s a great strategy to include this aspect of filmaking into these featurettes. It softens the blow; hell, sometimes I’ve gone back and watched a film a second time after watching the featurettes and I forgave it many flaws.

It is, however, difficult to forgive The Messengers. The film stands as an example of much of what’s wrong with Hollywood at the moment, and especially concerning the area of horror filmmaking. Originality has become akin to sampling in the music business. Find a part from something already completed that you like, cut and paste in (oversimplified here, of course) and roll with it. If the story lacks cohesivness or emotional delivery, apply the effect brush throughout and hope for the best.

It’s not a great place to be these days for the movie goer.