THE HUNTER

THE HUNTER (2011)
AU
Directed by Daniel Nettheim

CAST:
Willem Dafoe - Martin David
Sam Neill - Jack Mindy
Frances O'Connor - Lucy Armstrong

PLOT:
     Martin, a mercenary, is sent from Europe by a mysterious biotech company to the Tasmanian wilderness on a hunt for the last Tasmanian tiger.

REVIEW:
     Well here's a pairing of actors I just cannot pass on seeing together again, Willem Dafoe and Sam Neill. Perfect match up to me. Just like seeing Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in Heat and how well they played off of each other, I'm hoping to see Dafoe and Neill do the same, as they did in Daybreakers. Neill who was underwhelming in Under The Mountain (my review can be seen here), though he has been slowly redeeming himself in Alcatraz thankfully, now add a constant actor with him and I think he has the right push to not call it in and act again.

     It will come as no surprise that Willem Dafoe, as Martin David, is the star of the film. There just something that Dafoe brings to every role that makes each character he portrays different and interesting. And it's true in The Hunter also. Dafoe brings a quiet unease to his role thanks to his wavering morals that change over the course of the film. Sam Neill, who plays the small but very pivotal role Jack Mindy, has made up for his misstep from a previous film, as you can tell he cares about the role he has in this one. From his suspensions, to his regret from what he has caused there is a visible sadness at the end and his inability to change what he has happened, the emotions you know Neill can do is there after all these years of being hidden. And it should be said that Dafoe and Neill play very well off each other when the two are in the same scene due to each one of them is judging the other one throughout the film.  The cast is rounded out by Frances O'Connor as Lucy Armstrong a widower who slowly comes back to life through the movie and Morgana Davies and Finn Woodlock as sister and brother Sass and Bike Armstrong. Woodlock has the most important role in the film as the quiet brother who sees Dafoe's character as a surrogate father.

     I'll go ahead and warn you that there will be spoilers coming up, as to really talk a little bit about the film you have to talk about what happens. When the film starts Martin David's character is describe as needing no one and Martin saying he works best alone. We also learn that he likes his belongings to be immaculately clean and very tidy and in order. This really is best shown when he reaches his lodgings in Tasmania and turns right around to find another to no avail.  This is when he meets the children of the family that lives where he is staying. While the hunt for the Tasmanian tiger is the backdrop for the story, the main story slowly shows through the script. The more time Martin spends with the family the more his cold exterior is warmed and he slowly starts to understand what he has lost after all the years being on his own. Even though he still goes out to track his target, he spends less time out in the wilderness and more time becoming a surrogate husband and father. This is shown in the way he handles finding the body of the senor Armstrong in the Tasmanian  wilds, who is shown as being shot in the head as the cause of his death. Martin instead of just telling the family that he found their father and husband decides to hide the evidence and truth to keep the family from being in more pain that they already are, as they are just starting to get over their grief thanks to Martin's help.More than anything, the story is about Martin discovering who he really is and what he will do to get to where he wants to be.

     There is a couple of problems with The Hunter though. The biggest one is how mother Lucy Armstrong is just nonchalant when she comes home to find her kids taking a bath when Martin is in the bathroom with them even though she hasn't met Martin until that moment in time. Though this really was the kids fault as they just jumped right in the bath with him and wouldn't leave even though Martin tried to get them to due to how their father taught them. Another is how the Lucy didn't once question why Jack Mindy kept her doped up for almost a year after her husband disappeared.Yet the moments the film really shines is when it's just Dafoe  in the wilderness. There is no talking in these scenes though all lot is learned during these scenes about Dafoe's character. This also has to do with the use of atmosphere and weather when in the wilds. This is shown the best when Martin finally finds what he was looking for and the choice he makes at this point. This is the only time it snows in the whole film and it represents Martin's heart at that moment in time as well as what he was forced to do before finding the Tasmanian tiger. Director Daniel Nettheim almost makes the wilderness a whole other character in the film as it was shot so beautifully and is one of the reasons to watch. While the film is a slow burn, Dafoe makes it watchable even when there is nothing going on except him lying on a rock in wait for his prey, though this also slows down the film more than it should. While not a amazing film, The Hunter is not horrible either, it's just stuck somewhere in the middle as so much more could have been done with it.

BEST DEATH:
     This one is a double as the death ends two lives, yet brings to life something else.

BEST LINE:
     Dad says the fucking fucker is completely fucked.

FUN FACTS:
     The Tasmanian Tiger, also known as the Tasmanian Wolf, thylacine or Thylacinus cynocephalus, the latter which is Greek for "dog-headed pouched one", is an extinct species of carnivorous marsupial. It is so called a Tasmanian Tiger because of the stripes on its back.

     An end title card reads: "Traps and snares are illegal in Tasmania".

      The source novel by  Julia Leigh, who is also a director, won the French Prix de l'Astrolabe Ettonants Voyageurs as well as a British Betty Trask Award. The book was also a New York Times notable book of its year as well as being short-listed for a number of literary prizes. It has been translated into nine languages and published in all major territories. This film was made 12 years after the movie's source book was first published in 1999.

      Willem Dafoe had to deal with leeches during production filming in the Tasmanian wilderness in Australia. In a media interview, he joked how he didn't lose any blood, ironic because his previous Australian film Daybreakers had been a vampire movie.

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994)
US
Directed by John Carpenter

CAST:
Sam Neill - John Trent
Julie Carmen - Linda Styles
Jurgen Prochnow - Sutter Cane

PLOT:
     Insurance investigator John Trent is sent to investigate horror writer Sutter Cane's mysterious vanishing act and ends up in the sleepy little East Coast town of Hobb's End. The fact that this town is a fictional creation from one of Cane's novels is only the beginning of Trent's problems....

REVIEW:
     I remember the first time I watched In The Mouth Of Madness. It was 1996 and a Friday night. My friend, Kevin Smith (not the director), called and asked what was going on. "Nothing" I said. Then he suggested that he bring over a movie to watch and asked if I had seen In The Mouth Of Madness. "No" I responded. He then got really excited and said I have to watch it. After two hours the movie was over and my mind was blown by the how awesome it was. Since then the movie has staid in my 10 best horror movies I've seen. And as the namesake of this blog I decided to write a review for it for when the site gets 1,000 hits. Well, guess what. 1,000 has been hit so here's the review!

     I mentioned in a earlier review that I love the works of H. P. Lovecraft and try to see any film dealing with Mythos. The reason why is this movie. It starts out like most of Lovecraft's work with a lone survivor, usually insane from what they had just experience, going into what happened. This movie does just that as the story is told as a flashback. During this time we are introduced to Sam Neill's John Trent, who can actually be called the most sane person in the movie as his character is the one that questions every action and tries to explain the unexplainable. The first words he utters after he's dragged into an insane asylum, and kicking a orderly in the nuts, are "I'm sorry about the balls! It was a lucky shot, that's all!" after which he yells that he's not insane.I was hooked from that point on. His character looks like he's seen Hell and survived. A lot of actors can deliver lines that can be believed, but it's if the actors can show emotion with the eyes that separates the decent actors from the great ones. Even though Sam Neill is criminally overlooked as a actor, he truly is one of the great character actors. If it wasn't for him this movie wouldn't have succeeded.

      While it is a staple for most modern horror movies to show everything up front, and even in the trailer for movies, this one follows more of the classic style of not showing everything which in turn leaves a considerable amount of the true horrific details in the viewers mind, which is usually worse than what can ever be shown on screen. Carpenter knows this and uses it to great affect. That's not to say the movie doesn't have it's monsters, quite the opposite in fact.   It's just that when a monster is shown you never truly get a good view of it as it's either kept in the dark or is shown in close up. The deaths in the movie are handled in the same way as you actually see very few people die on screen while the other deaths are handled off screen and you hear about them through radio and TV broadcasts. A good example is Mrs. Pickman after her transformation in the basement. You never actually see the full creature, you only know she is far from human and is chopping up her husband with a axe.

     Carpenter has always known what he wants out of a movie. Even when he doesn't make the best movie, he still makes the movie he wants. Yet with In The Mouth Of Madness he goes beyond shock horror and makes a more psychological horror. He almost reaches the level he hit with The Thing in 1982 and to me gets close to going above what made that movie great. He twists what is considered sane and spins it on it's head while still playing with the idea of what is insanity. To this day In The Mouth Of Madness is truest in spirit to what Lovecraft was writing plus having the spirit of his work at it's heart, as well as being one of my favorite movies of all time.

BEST DEATH:
     Sutter Cane's rise above human confines by ripping his world apart.

BEST LINE:
     Every species can smell its own extinction. The last ones left won't have a pretty time with it. In ten years, maybe less, the human race will just be a bedtime story for their children. A myth, nothing more.

FUN FACTS:
     The small town is named "Hobb's End", an in-joke reference to the subway station where the alien ship is excavated in the movie Five Million Years To Earth/ Quatermass and The Pit (1967).

     After Sutter Cane says "Did I ever tell you my favorite color is blue?" It is realized that throughout the entire movie, whenever an actor has a close up, their eyes are blue, proving Sutter Cane's power.

      The dozens of monsters featured towards the end of the film were a combination of men in suits, animatronics and a full-sized "wall" of creatures. It took over thirty people to operate the monsters.

     This is the third film in what Carpenter calls his "Apocalypse Trilogy". In order they are:
     The Thing (1982)
     Prince Of Darkness (1987)
     In The Mouth Of Madness (1994)

UNDER THE MOUNTAIN

UNDER THE MOUNTAIN (2009)
NZ
Directed by Jonathan King

CAST:
Sophie McBride - Rachel
Tom Cameron - Theo
Sam Neill - Mr. Jones

PLOT:
     Teenage twins Rachel and Theo discover the Wilberforces, ancient shape-shifting aliens that live under a ring of extinct volcanoes in Auckland, New Zealand. Now the siblings must revive their special shared powers to destroy the evil creatures before something greater is unleashed.

REVIEW: 

     To start out I should say that I love Mythos stories. For those that don't know what that is, it's basically stories centered around superficial elements from H.P. Lovecraft's "Arkham cycle". Or to put it more simple, it's about creatures that can't be explained coming to take over the planet from outer dimensions, or as some writers put it, to reclaim Earth which was theirs to begin with. I have to be blunt, I've seen only a few true good "Mythos" type movies and most were from John Carpenter and the best being a silent film made be the Lovecraft Historical Society. Then there are the middle of the road type movies that are fun to watch, but you keep noticing small things throughout. Under The Mountain is one of those type movies. 

     As far as the story goes for the movie it does a decent job of doing what it does but it just doesn't get to a truly full movie. It just feels as if there is something missing. You feel sorry for the sister and you think that the brother is a douche throughout most of the movie which is what it sets out to do. My problem with this movie isn't that, it's how the siblings came to have this power and how it's supposed to be dangerous for the Wilberforces and why. The movie just doesn't explain it. Is it pasted down through genes or is it just a quirk. And why is it only redheads, and twins at that, that have the power. I like movies that leave things up to the viewer to discuss or think about, but this is just one bit too much. One thing I do like about the story though is that it doesn't explain where the Wilberforces,  Fireraiser, and the big nasties are from except from space and destroyed worlds.  I will say also that the movie moves at a decent pace as well and that I think is thanks to the script more than anything else but the movie does get a bit scene jumpy at the very start though for about the first quarter of the movie, but then it slows down after. This has more to do with that the movie is trying to establish it's places and faces more than anything else. I should note that the score of the movie is truly well done as during times I was paying more attention to the music than what was being said in the movie. More at the beginning of the movie than later on though.

     Sam Neill is probably one of my more favorite character actor in movies, especially horror movies, but in this one he just doesn't seem like he's giving his all in parts of it. He does a decent job, but it just seems like there was something missing that has been there in other performances. Now I will admit he does do good in some scenes, but in others it just isn't there. A good example of this is when he's trying to be all mystic master with the twins after the first Wilberforce attack. It just kinda falls flat and goes nowhere. Sorry Neill, better luck next time. As for the acting of the siblings, they actually do a good job considering that this was both McBride's and Cameron's first movie. While Cameron does a great job of acting like a pissed off douche at the world for most of the movie, it does get a bit tiring, but then again he is playing a teenager. Now McBride I have to say is the true star of film as she doesn't really oversell anything, but at the same time she doesn't try to phone it in either which is nice to see as most of the story truly centers around her more than her brother in the movie. One of the more fun scenes in the movie is when she's attacked for the first time and is being chased around a empty house. She doesn't go all scream queen, even though she does scream, but it just seems like she's in more control than most actresses would be. I'm actually curious to see what she'll do next cause I do believe she can go far.

  

     The movie wasn't bad per say, but it wasn't great either. I really had high hopes for the movie but I ended up being disappointed more than anything else. With Jonathan King of Black Sheep fame directing and  Weta doing the special effects you would think that this movie could do no wrong. I was wrong. It was one of those movies that you watch and just kinda lose track of over time. It's a good movie for kids that are getting into horror movies I can say with ease though, as it does have some scenes that would be tense for younger viewers. If one thing sticks out more than anything else in the movie it is the Weta Workshop designed Wilberforces. Now they were fun to watch, as well as the actors that played them. But even then, only when they were practical effects and not CG'd in as the effects, as they were, to me, below what Weta can do and has done for lesser movies. Maybe I'll try to find the book the movie was based on, as I'm sure I'll probably have a lot more fun with it.

BEST DEATH:
     Mr. Jones multi-punctured face. 



BEST LINE:
   To tell the truth, nothing really stuck out to me that much. Oh well.



FUN FACTS:
     The movie is based on the New Zealand novel Under The Mountain by Maurice Gee.



     The movie is a remake of the New Zealand 8 part mini-series of the same name from 1981.


     The original mini-series ran on Nickelodeon in the early 1980s when the network was starting out.