Why The New RINGS Trailer Is All Wrong

When I first saw the new official trailer for Rings, the upcoming addition to The Ring franchise, my immediate reaction was ‘meh’. This is never a good reaction to any trailer, let alone one that is supposed to terrify you and pull you back into an older franchise’s world.

The Ring (2002), which was an adaptation of the Japanese classic Ringu, was a hit with the audiences and introduced the iconic image of the ghostly Samara crawling out of the television set to the masses. The second movie though… was not as good. Let’s just leave it at that.

So falling in line with the grand tradition of ‘enough time has passed and so let us sell this again’, Paramount Pictures seems to have come out with this latest one.

Rings.

Now, there have been great trailers before, especially in the horror genre, which only led to predictable, trashy movies. And there have been great movies whose trailers never did them justice.

So I am not willing to sit here and self-assuredly predict with conviction how good or bad this movie is going to be. But I am going to make a few educated guesses based on what the trailer itself revealed and the tone it set.

What struck me first of all was that the almost haunting grey and gloomy ambiance of the original movie, which was cinematically beautiful, was completely gone in this one. In fact, the scenes and shots they chose for this trailer made it look more like a television series with a moderate budget. Or maybe a cheaper independent movie. Although saying that, come to think of it, would be a disservice to some of the great horror movies the indie scene has produced in recent years.

Anyway, the visual choices including cinematography and editing style, along with the effectively deliberate pacing of the first movie served in telling a great horror story. The audiences felt the melancholic isolation of the main characters caught up in this saga, and moved with them from the urban settings to the dreary locales the plot took them to, without missing a beat.

Rings (2016) Trailer

The Rings trailer though seemed chaotic, and too full of hastily jammed in plot points. As a matter of fact, it looks like they gave a fair amount of the plot away. It also felt like it was aiming for something beyond its reach in terms of what the story could be.

Samara terrifies her victims by creating an ever narrowing tunnel of fear and despair that they are forced to walk. With each day and each passing second, the terror approaches them, and they are caught in a lonely struggle to fight this inevitable chilling end – often with no one to believe them or help them.

It is scary on an individual level.

This is what connected with the audiences. In other words, it worked.

This movie is different at first glance, and it seems to be a formula for failure as far as a horror experience is concerned.

They seem to have made Samara into a movie monster like Freddy Krueger or Jason Vorhees that can be unleashed on a large population for ‘maximum number of thrills and scares’.

Instead of building tension and suspense in the limited trailer time they had, they have focused more on physically disturbing sequences and effects.

They even clearly showed Samara’s face in one shot. Something the original kept secret for the better part of the film.

Somehow, all of this makes her less scary and more generic and bland.

The original film, which started the whole craze with the character of Samara, is the one they are still trying to milk in pitching this movie to today’s audiences. Then why be so drastically different from it? Is it a brave venture by the makers of the film, or is it an unintentional screw up? An attempt gone wrong, to be more than the original by simply doing more things than it?

In any case, I guess we will find out when the movie hits the big screens, though I have to say my hopes have been considerably diminished in the wake of this trailer.

How We Killed DRACULA

Bram Stoker’s Dracula terrified me as a child. I mean the masterfully written novel, not the star studded film adaptation by Francis Ford Coppola.

Don’t get me wrong, that movie was actually a decent attempt at a retelling of the original story, but it was burdened with a wooden Keanu Reeves unsuccessfully trying to be a Victorian era Englishman suffering from severe psychological trauma. This tragic casting choice was made even more painful by the fact that he was sharing screen space with acting legends like Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins. The stark contrast of talent manifested on film proved to be more disturbing than the story.
Coming back to my initial point, the novel really succeeded in scaring my young mind, which was not yet desensitized to the horror genre.

Looking back at that literary experience now, it occurs to me that none of the Dracula movies I have seen match up to the book when it comes to the dread and fear. It also dawns on me that an actually scary movie or television depiction of the good Count looks highly unlikely now.

The once terrifying character has in the past century saturated popular culture with a million different gimmicks and appearances. So much so that his very name is now little more than a punchline to an old, humourless joke.

Somehow looking at the situation, I can’t help but feel that the Count was handled all wrong by all parties involved.

We killed Dracula. Or at the very least we stripped him of his macabre dignity.

What went wrong?

Bela Lugosi as Dracula (1931)

Well, the image of Dracula that you might have now – the sleek combed back hair, sharp canines and the ridiculous cape – all of that began with the 1931 film starring Bela Lugosi. It has little to do with how Stoker intended his character to look.

Nevertheless, this became the iconic visage of Dracula in pop culture for all times.

The Christopher Lee movies, which were essentially poorly made B- Grade films, further damned the evil Count to an eternity of running away from crosses and dying over and over again at the hands of pointless heroes. I liked those movies when I saw them and they are entertaining for what they are, but the truth is they did irreversible damage to how Dracula is perceived by the audiences worldwide.

Christopher Lee as Dracula

In the 90s and 2000s, there was an attempt to modernize and innovate with the character’s back story. You know, give him an upgrade of sorts to make him appeal to the millennials. That, quite emphatically, did not work either.

The short lived BBC series a few years back attempted to make Dracula in to a hybrid Victorian Twilight-ish vampire lord. They can’t be blamed entirely for riding on the coat tails of the Twilight epidemic, but they got it wrong too. If you can’t make him scary anymore, better make him a badass heart throb, I guess, was the thinking. Sigh. At least they didn't make him sparkle, so there’s that.

I’m assuming from how it got canceled after a short first season that the production budget couldn't be justified by the niche fan base it managed to gather.

There have been countless other depictions on film and television scattered throughout these many decades but they all made the same fundamental mistakes.

Their error was in not giving due consideration to what made the original novel by Stoker, which birthed this whole thing, a chilling tale. The novel is told for the most part, if not all of it, from the perspectives of the other characters in it – not from Dracula’s point of view. The events, right from the start, all create a nightmarish ambiance of fear and despair because it is told by the people experiencing the terror caused by this monstrous evil from ancient lore.

The mood is set step by step, layer by layer, through vivid narration by characters who are thrown without warning into the midst of this darkness before Dracula is even introduced as a true monster. And even once he is revealed to be what he is, he steps very rarely in to the spotlight to accommodate jump scares or give chase to a victim.

The best comparison I can make cinematically is maybe to the original Jaws movie by Spielberg. Back when it was released, it terrified the audiences not because the shark was in itself a monster of indescribable horror, but by building up the dread and tension in meticulous fashion. This makes the eventual and abrupt appearance of the shark something that scared the hell out of the average viewer back then.

I could also compare the elements of the novel to a movie like Alien. The point being the fear factor was constructed by observing the plot move through the eyes of the vulnerable and scared humans.

Dracula is not a visually terrifying monster who needs to be on screen for most of the movie or show. But that’s how the entertainment industry always handled him. They lost track of what made him a nightmare inducing villain and as a result we now have the unflattering caricature of what originally was a dreaded being.

Count Dracula of Transylvania is an undead being with tremendous powers. While his ability to control the ‘creatures of the night’ or maybe transform in to one, and his gift of summoning the harsher elements of nature to aid him are impressive, the original novel laid great importance on the fact that what was most crippling to his foes was his mind itself.

This is a being, who was in life a leader of men and a warrior of great strength and intelligence. He won countless wars and developed a taste for brutality. In undead existence, he had all of that still in him, along with the ability to learn and grow smarter with time. He has lived for centuries and witnessed humankind through all their victories and follies, while also preying on them from the shadows of the night.

Think about it. Knowing him in this light, does the fanged man in a silly cape jumping in front of his enemies only to be shown a wooden cross which makes him run away, make any sense whatsoever?

The Count is a mastermind of diabolical schemes, manipulating and seducing the minds of his human enemies and victims. A creature of unspeakable horror emerging from the pitch black of the night to feed on their life source, and if he so chooses, to transform them into something unholy and subservient to him.

In the novel, we see a man, pitiable and broken, committed in an asylum, having lost all will to be himself and existing just to serve this unseen monster. The plight of this character, Renfield, alone shows the true evil of Dracula.

If anything, I think Dracula should be portrayed more along the lines of something like a super villain, pulling the strings of his living puppets to unleash pain and suffering in our realm from behind the curtain of all things known. Ideally he must emerge onto the screen only when it is absolutely called for. Reveal his vile self in all its glory, inspiring awe and fear in us, when the stage has been perfectly set with preceding events that build him up.

Well… I can dream can’t I?

The truth is we may already have destroyed him, drained him of his life force by innumerable depictions that border on the silly and laughable. I will have to face the fact that in my lifetime, I may never see a cool adaptation of Dracula or his story on screen.

But then again, the Count has been known to resurrect when least expected. Fingers crossed that someone in the right position understands him for who he is.

Why PHENOMENON Is Still Awesome

Phenomenon, directed by Jon Turteltaub, starring John Travolta, Kyra Sedgwick, Robert Duvall and Forest Whitaker was released in 1996 to mixed reviews from critics, though it went on to be a moderately successful film at the box office.

Sorry to sound like a Wikipedia excerpt but I thought I would just get the formal introduction to the movie out of the way. It works best, I thought, because this movie is and always will be a personal favorite of mine, for all informal reasons.

I saw this movie as a young teen, right around the time cable television was made available in my home. I was swept away by that vast sea of novel and exciting things. I remember the first few days or even weeks being something of a feverish dream of thrilling discoveries. All kinds of fascinating new channels, shows and avenues to explore.

I would wake up ready to immerse myself in this new found abundance of stimulus before I was forced to go to school, and when evening came I would rush home from school eager to do it all again.

Movies I had never heard or dreamed of, and television shows that tickled my fancy were all suddenly right there – just a few button pushes away.

And it was on one night of this curious period in my life, while enthusiastically browsing the channels that I chanced upon this movie.

Phenomenon.

The name caught my attention. It wasn't a movie I had heard of being mentioned anywhere in my youngish friend circles. To be fair, in those days that simply meant it didn't star Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan, Jet Li or a giant skyline altering monster of some kind.

The name Phenomenon itself seemed strange to me. It was a ‘science term’ from school. What could the movie be about, I wondered, and thus decided to halt my frantic channel surfing and give it some time to impress me.

And impress me it did, beyond my wildest hopes.

I had never watched a Hollywood movie like that. All my previous Hollywood experiences had been of grand productions with huge Michael Bay-ish explosions, monstrous awe-inspiring curiosities or just heart thumping over the top action.

This was… not that. I knew very little of Travolta and the rest of the cast were strangers to me as well.

This movie took my imagination and emotions for a ride that was maybe the very first time I experienced what could be called true movie magic. You know… that curious sensation of being flooded with a blend of sweet, powerful emotions as a result of letting your mind dive deep in to a film.

Phenomenon thus rooted itself in my memories and carved its space in my pantheon of favorite films. I have, of course, seen it many more times since and it still continues to bring me joy.

A little about the story and setting now.

George Malley (Travolta) is a small town mechanic. He lives an enviably simple and happy life with few worries. He is a single guy who lives by himself, but his community itself is a close knit one and most people in the small town are friends or acquaintances. A picturesque setting of semi-rural America, in other words, is what we’re offered as a backdrop to this tale.

George’s best friend is Nate Pope (Whitaker) and maybe the much older Doc Brunder (Duvall) to an extent. He is in love with a woman named Lace Pennamin (Sedgwick), though he has not yet fully confessed it to her. She keeps brushing him off due to her own issues with trust, stemming from a broken past. Lace is a mother of two children, and lives outside the town. As the plot unravels, we cannot help but wonder if this chosen isolation of hers from the people of the town, is also symbolic in certain ways. Her character while being a part of the community, is also decidedly different from them all.

This is where the real story begins.

On his 37th birthday, George has a good time partying with his friends at a local pub and as he walks out alone late at night, he sees something strange in the skies. A mysterious bright light that grows closer and closer, until in a brilliant flash it knocks him out. He wakes up the next day to slowly discover that things are… different.

George is now smarter. I mean, way smarter. From suddenly beating Doc Brunder easily in games of chess, his abilities just bloom at an astounding rate. His mind starts buzzing with a million ideas and breakthroughs the world hadn't thought of in a lot of areas. He starts reading more and more books to keep up with his insatiable thirst for knowing and figuring things out.

And then just like that, he finds out that he can now move things with his mind. Yes folks, we are talking telekinesis.

George shows Brunder what he can do, and the old country doctor is amazed and enthralled by all of this, almost like a kid who just found out that magic is real. He suggests though that George undergo further medical check-ups to make sure nothing is wrong with him.

George Malley struggles to contain his new found genius and his relationship with the world around him and the people in it, is put at odds. He tries to hold on to his reality as it was before all of this and even grows closer to Lace and her kids over some time.

A series of exciting and dramatically strange events unfold as the town and the U.S. Government become aware of Malley’s gifts. He however just wants to share with the world these ideas he has, which he is convinced will drastically improve everyone’s lives.

However, things don’t go as George hopes they will, and through all of this a deeper, moving love story evolves between him and Lace.

I will stop the synopsis here. I am not one for spoiling a great movie, and if I continue along these lines I fear I might.

Phenomenon does not appeal to me because of any particularly clever or obviously spectacular technical gimmickry employed in its making, now that I think about it. I mean no offense to the director or the cinematographer because both those aspects are solid in this film, but it is by and large the story itself and the great performances that make this movie a great one for me.

This is a story of pure wonder and imagination, no doubt, but it also showcases some of our baser instincts as social animals and it draws out in to the light that deep rooted fear of the unknown which sometimes over rides our humanity.

George Malley is the best of what we have to offer as human beings. He is the quintessential everyman and also an underdog, who rises above the depressing trenches of mediocrity that plagues most of us. Yet somehow he holds on to what is important in the larger scheme of things, with a passion and determination that is beyond many.

This could easily have been the fairytale of a man living out all our primal dreams and ambitions, standing tall as something more than a mortal. It would still certainly have been an interesting film, but this story transcends that lure of petty gratification and cheap thrills. Instead it shows us the disparity between the heights of our true potential and how we actually are.

It focuses on the diverse traits of human nature through the lenses of bonds like friendship and love.

In a way, one could say that this is a love story more than anything else. While the relationship of George and Lace invites you to witness the strength in the unconditional love between two people, you could also say that this story is about George’s love for humanity as a whole.

In conclusion, Phenomenon, despite whatever the official critical and popular verdict on it is, remains till date one of my most beloved movies. I am grateful that I got to enjoy this movie before adulthood jaded my perspective in myriad ways.

If you haven’t seen this simple, beautiful and elegantly crafted movie I highly recommend it to you. If it does not give your imagination flight with the topics it touches upon, it might at the very least ignite a sweet warmth in your heart that you will be glad for.

Why You Should Watch STRANGER THINGS

Stranger Things

Stranger Things took me back to a simpler time that I had almost forgotten existed. It’s a fading memory brought back to life by this show in a way. Maybe I’m romanticizing the time itself. It wasn't that it was simpler. Life was still life and art was still, for the most part, art. It just wasn't as competitively pretentious back then.

Story telling nowadays has the soul crushing burden of having to set itself apart in jarringly bold ways from the obscene amount of narrative noise permeating our culture. So many stories are being told through so many media each and every second, that for a single story to be heard or appreciated it has to be different somehow.  More often than not, this means too many bells and whistles added to the material or format, in misguided and invariably futile attempts to earn the classifications of ‘radically novel’ or ‘gritty and edgy’.

These are the phrases and terms that seem to pop up for every top rated, fan favorite show’s critical tag lines today. This is what the audience craves, this what the audience gets.

Stranger Things though did something refreshing and courageous. It did set itself apart, but by stripping away the embellishments and pretension.

This charming little show created by the Duffer Brothers, with a first season of just 8 episodes was so elegantly conceived and executed that it leaves no room for boredom or idle analysis which inevitably results in nit picking for its own sake.

It is tightly packed and swift in its pace as far as the plot and narration goes, and its very talented cast and efficient direction handled by veterans pack a solid punch of jaw dropping and gut wrenching entertainment not seen in some time on mainstream television.

This show, which came out of nowhere, brings the ‘feels’ and the kind of wonder and excitement that we seem to have abandoned years ago in favor of whatever it is that passes for good story telling these days.

From the very first shot of the series it knows what it is, and it never loses sight of its core vision, which one assumes must have been Holy Scripture to its creators.

One thing that stands out to me when thinking about Stranger Things is the intended and unintended use of contrast.

This is a sci-fi horror adventure (and that seems like crude cataloging) set in 1983, but brought to you on perhaps the most modern phenomenon in the television industry – Netflix.

The story is set in a quaint little town in near rural America, but its premise and plot has galactic implications. This macro scale story is told, however, through the touching emotional tales of a few individuals, all of them connected to one another through sincere and well-crafted bonds of family, friendship and love. A science fiction saga which hits its mark by organically enveloping itself in universal human themes like betrayal, loss, grief, faith and attachment.

You can’t help but be immersed in this rich tapestry of characters, setting and plot woven by the Duffer Brothers right from the first few minutes of the first episode.

Now to cast a little light on the story itself. Don’t worry, there will not be any spoilers. I will not commit that sacrilege. Not for this show.

Hawkins, Indiana is a sleepy semi urban town with its close knit community, muddling along through the 1980s. On the outskirts of this town is a shady Government facility, unknown to most, with unknown motivations.

The show begins with something and someone escaping from here, completely disrupting the pleasant ambiance of the unsuspecting Hawkins which lives in ignorant bliss. A group of young children are caught in the middle of what turns out to be a spectacular series of events, when one of their friends vanishes in to what seems like thin air.

Horror, adventure and excitement ensues when a grieving parent, determined teenagers, a reluctant police chief and a band of kids set upon dismantling the nature of this mystery on their own separate trajectories – with the help of a very surprising certain someone who is at the heart of all of it.

This is a very simplistic synopsis of the show to say the least, because it doesn't do it nearly enough justice. Stranger Things is so much more and in all the right ways.

There are a few familiar faces in the cast, none more so than Winona Ryder, who plays the mother of the boy who disappears. It has been a while since we've seen her in anything so powerful as this role and it has to be said that she does an admirable job.

The acting chops of the whole cast though is just marvelous. They essentially make sure that you’re invested in their lives and struggles from episode one, and one by one you will find yourself falling in love with many of their characters.

The central figures, however, are the children in the story. Their charisma, personalities and charm bring the magic here, no doubt.

Also going back to the fact that the show is set in 1983, it has to be said that this show serves almost as a time capsule of what life was like back then. Everything, and I mean just everything, is authentic in design and depiction. That includes an amazing soundtrack of perfectly chosen music from the 80s scene.

It is funny to think that in a way this story could only have been set in that time period. It can’t be any later than that because it becomes much harder to envision the group dynamics and the relationships between the children especially being functional in today’s uber-digital, selfie obsessed, social networking oriented world.

The Duffer Brothers are apparently not even eighties kids, but more a product of the nineties. In an interview they mentioned that growing up they had access to a large collection of VHS tapes of movies and television shows from the seventies and eighties. That, they say, was their point of reference.

And what a fantastic job they did with that. Kudos to them, and shame on the many networks who rejected this show before Netflix finally grabbed it to their credit.

In a world obsessed with bells and whistles and dragons and thrones, it seems no network executive could see the wisdom in making a show starring mainly children but aimed at an adult audience.

Thankfully, the world has made their folly known to them by now. Stranger Things is a runaway hit on Netflix.

And it is truly your loss if you still haven’t sat down and given this magnificent piece of television a chance yet. Seriously folks… get on it already.

You won’t regret it.