The Mood Isn't Right For Ghosts

Dark Tower (not the Stephen King book or adaption) is by no means a good movie, however as a flick that you’d probably catch late at night when you’re half asleep is a different story. Aside from the stale acting and hollow plot the film, from what I noticed, tries to use Kubrickian style suspense and atmosphere to make the audience feel uncomfortable and on edge. To achieve a good mood or atmosphere most, if not all, film elements needs to be present including the actor’s performance and unfortunately this film hardly accomplished any. I am aware that it is very hard to achieve Kubrickian style suspense because you’d need to really know the material that you’re handling and you’d need a keen eye to detail. Not many people have that and it seems that Kubrickian style suspense/horror is the best “type” of horror when you’re on a budget, since it requires very little special effects. Additionally, it seems like Dark Tower was trying to go for a Carnival of Souls homage as well, which it did well only in terms of how they revealed the ghoul that’s haunting the tower.

Taking specific scenes from The Shining we can see that Kubrickian horror/suspense relies heavily on music, lighting and performances because without any of these, there would be no mood. Scenes that involve Jack being seduced by the hotel’s wickedness feel hypnotic and uncomfortable mainly because of Nicholson’s frightening performance as he descends into madness. Dark Tower, doesn’t have good performances; the performances are quite stale and cardboard so the viewer doesn’t feel like they should be caring or even watching any of the characters. By creating captivating heroes or antiheroes, a director can sway the audience’s emotions, thus putting them directly into the movie. Since Dark Tower’s characters are hollow, I found myself organizing my iTunes playlist rather than watching the movie.

Lighting and the “color” of the film also create the mood and atmosphere. Most of the interiors of the Overlook have this faded yellow or mustard yellow color to them, giving it a vintage ominous atmosphere. Most of the times, specifically the ballroom scenes, are dimly lit and have a sense of cautiousness about them. Reds come into picture when talking about brutal massacres and we can see this through the bathroom scenes and those scenes that aren’t “yellow” are blue. Scenes that take place outdoors or scenes that have the sun peeking in are cold and blue. They feel barren of any type of emotion in accordance with the main character’s changing personality. If we examine the colors and the lighting of Dark Tower’s setting, it’s fair to say that it’s average and unappealing. The coloring/lighting doesn’t seem to reflect any type of character emotion and the lighting seems stale and fluorescent.

The music doesn’t add any type of tension or dark, frightening undertones whereas Carlos’ score for The Shining is deep, haunting and foreshadowing. It plunges the audience into the realm of spirits, mystery and terror even though it’s completely synthesized. Using cues from famous operatic compositions and Indian chants, it effectively puts the viewer into the mindset of the hotel itself and makes them feel unease. Dark Tower, however, is the direct opposite since it does not put me into the mood but I will say that I still like the score. It brings an innocent 80’s, B-movie feel to the picture that sort of provokes its inner “midnight movie” personality. Like Carlos’ score, it’s also synthesized and shrill at times.

Setting aside the formula for creating good Kubrickian horror, there is one scene that really pays tribute to Kubrick’s Shining is the ending where our heroine is being chased around the construction zone of the building by her dead lover. She runs, in absolute fear of her life, from whatever ghost or monster is chasing her as the camera follows closely behind her. I think the director wanted to take a jab at trying to stage his own version of the anti-climactic ending The Shining had but I think it falls flat for one primary reason. It’s obvious that Danny and Jack are running through a massive maze and Kubrick accomplishes a sense of confusion and disorientation because we don’t know if Jack is close to Danny or if Danny has evaded him. Kubrick pulls this off by never showing an overhead perspective or any clear shot of the relationship between Danny and Jack as they run through the maze. He focuses only on them as a whole and jumps back and forth between the shots. With Dark Tower, the director effectively shows that the construction zone is a maze but since we never actually see what’s chasing her, we assume that it’s always behind her. The audience then assumes that the camera following behind her is in fact the ghost so we loose that sense of disorientation. Still, it does do an okay job of leaving the ghouls to the imagination… for the most part.

I might be a little harsh on the film because it seems very independent. The way that I see it, the director sought out to try and replicate Kubrickian horror/suspense but it fell flat and I can’t blame him. I probably wouldn’t have done better either. What the director did achieve is a mood and atmosphere that fits right into place when it comes to “midnight movies.” All the elements are there: the lighting, the acting and the on-location setting. Dark Tower ceases in becoming a horror movie and instead becomes an artifact that faded into 80’s obscurity. I think the movie has potential and I would like to see a remake of it, sees as how the original set the groundwork.

Note: I realize that Dark Tower has two directors, not one.

Mocking Halloween: The Shining

The Shining is probably one of the more surreal and horrifying films that the general public acknowledges. Kubrick’s 1980 masterpiece is definitely surreal but is it horrifying? Is it scary? Is it a slasher as some would consider it? The answer to these questions is no. The Shining is a very dated horror movie and much like The Exorcist it is a very slow moving film that has hardly any type of scare whatsoever. In fact, the film may bore you and put you to sleep faster than it would scare you. It’s a case in which the time period in which this was made is definitely shown since it was made during an year were people had their imaginations.

One of the film’s biggest problems comes from the fact that it cons you out of a scare. The score builds up the tension and you are on the edge of your seat waiting for something to happen but when the score reaches its climax… the biggest thing that happens is ‘Tuesday’ appears on screen. Hardly anything happens until that final 10 or 15 minutes. Unfortunately, that’s not the only thing that this film does to make the viewing experience that much more boring.

Some of the scenes just drag on and on and on and after a while you just want them to stop. The scene were Danny is riding around the hotel won’t stop. The scene where Wendy and Danny are walking through the maze seems endless, much like the maze itself. When Jack checks out the forbidden room, it seems like Kubrick is taking his sweet dandy time to get to the bathroom. Also, there is surprisingly a lot of talking scenes and these also carry on and on. When Doc is talking to Danny about the Shining, when Jack is talking to Grady or the bartender, when Wendy is talking to the sheriff… they all seem to last forever.

If this film came out today, it would have failed miserably because the audience would be lost and completely bored. There are too many slow moving scenes, there are too many exposition scenes and the reasoning for a lot of the actions are too convoluted. It may have been feasible for the early 80s but in this day and age… it would probably be categorized as a drama. Only one person dies and for today’s standards that’s not enough. The bare minimum should be at 5.

The Not So Shining Children

I wasn’t a huge fan of The Children when I first saw the movie although I thought it was a pretty solid and original horror film in light of all the remakes and all sequels. However, after I saw it again and I found myself not liking it as much as I initially did and I also noticed that there are a lot of “Kubrickian” techniques that Shankland uses to make the audience scared or uneasy. I thought for a while what these elements were and why they didn’t work in The Children but worked in The Shining and I think I have found out why. Before I even get into why they didn’t work, or should I say why some of them didn’t work, I want to talk a little about what those elements were in the film.

In The Children, there are a couple of shots, accompanied by the score that were very reminiscent of The Shining. There were several shots of the children standing in one position as the camera slowly zooms in on them, while the score gets progressively tenser and tenser… but then it abruptly stops with no scares whatsoever. Much like in The Shining when the camera slowly gets closer and closer to Jack staring out of the window, loosing his mind, then cuts to a title card of ‘Tuesday’ with no jump-scare whatsoever. The technique was used several times within The Children to show that the kids are evil as opposed to going insane or possessed by evil spirits.

I also think that The Children is trying to create a sense of isolation as did The Shining and both stories take place during the winter time so the fact that everything is cold and barren plays into the way the film should feel. The Children had two different tones that I recognized: the cold and bitter tone of the outside and the stale worn out tone of the inside of the house.

The problem with using the technique of zooming in on somebody while the music intensifies is this movie is that it doesn’t fit with the rest of the film. The rest of the film is loud, abrupt and the action sequences are edited and shot quickly… so these slow tracking shots just seem weird and out of place. Whereas in The Shining, the whole movie is a slow-burn movie that progresses to a climax, much like the soundtrack and the way Jack descends into insanity. But, this technique doesn’t always fail; in fact it succeeds at the end of the film when we realize that Casey is infected. It’s the fact that the shots don’t fit well with the rest of the movie and to me; all they amounted to was more noise. Sometimes they even seemed as though they were visual non-sequiturs.

The tone and the ‘color’ of the film also didn’t quite fit with the rest of the film, if that makes any sense. Every color is so dry and stale, which is fine but because the rest of the movie is all over the place and so loud… it seems as though the tone doesn’t fit with how the movie is loudly progressing forward. I think it’s hard for me to explain this specific problem because it’s how I literally felt towards the film. Movies like The Shining or even The Thing are slow burn movies that have a very rich atmosphere to them because it starts up very slow and progresses to a huge climax.

The Children is not a bad film at all. Compared to most horror movies, it’s pretty original and it had its freaky moments but there are certain elements that fail at delivering a certain emotion because they don’t fit with other film elements. I’m not sure if The Shining was an inspiration to this film or not but it’s an element that I noticed right away. If The Shining wasn’t an inspiration or if the director wasn’t trying to homage Kubrick, then these shots and atmospheres would still seem weird in the rest of the movie.