The Furniture: The Malevolent Secret Code of The Conjuring 2

"The Furniture" our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber

There are many ways to scare an audience. Music, special effects and editing are combined to surprise the audience with loud, unexpected images of malevolent demons or slashers or whatever. But what about production design? Can you be terrified by a stationary armchair?

The Conjuring 2 holds all the answers. James Wan is an excellent horror craftsman, a director who uses every trick in the book, including the sets and props. Production designer Julie Berghoff and art directors A. Todd Holland and Andrew Rothschild run amok, with the same ferocity as the film's music and editing.

Their first order of business is to exploit some of the genre’s stand-by images. There are a lot of crosses, in this case an entire roomful.

They stand at attention, ready to demonically invert themselves at a moment’s notice. There are smaller crucifixes sprinkled throughout the film, as well as the occasional window lit to resemble a cross... 

Click to read more ...

What the hell did I just watch? A festival quartet

Nathaniel R reporting from TIFF. The festival ends today (I expect La La Land to win the coveted People's Choice in this non-juried festival) so I'm about to hit the airport. I'll be scrambling to finish telling you about the cinematic adventures screened from all over the world in the next couple of days -- and yes update the Oscar charts with all this new information -- so we can wrap up. And then NYFF begins!

Here are three films that go completely off the rails and one film that stays perfectly on track though the protagonist goes off it. Each have as many cons as pros so they're mixed experiences, presented in preference order. So click on for Argentinian nudist comedies (NSFW), Anne Heche and Sandra Oh fist-fighting, Greek paraonia, and the latest from A Girl Walks Home At Night's director who has graduated to bigger budgets and famous actors.

Click to read more ...

Review: "Blair Witch"

by Chris Feil

Revamping The Blair Witch Project for a new generation comes with a lot of baggage. The 1999 horror benchmark delivered unforgettable chills for some, though it's still debated by others for just how scary it actual is. More importantly, the film was the original viral sensation, catching the zeitgeist just as the internet first exploded. Recalling Cannibal Holocaust's faux documentary aesthetic, it also all but invented the found footage genre the moment before documenting our every movement with a recording device became commonplace.

Simply, Project was orchestrated in the right way at the right time. Unfortunately, this Blair Witch is a shadow of the original's terror and cultural relevance...

Click to read more ...

Team Experience Remembers Blair Witch

This weekend sees the release of surprise sequel Blair Witch, a high(er) tech follow-up to 1999's The Blair Witch Project. You might recall the GOTCHA moment on social media when Adam Wingard's The Woods was revealed at Comic Con to be a surprise sequel to an unwitting audience, but the original was somewhat of a surprise in its unveiling as well. Launching at Sundance to an audience unclear of its authenticity (later revealed to be fictional), the building buzz of its shocks created a box office hype machine so large that it could only leave some viewers feeling dooped.

Still today, the film can inspire fierce debate among genre fans and cinephiles over whether or not the film is indeed scary...

Click to read more ...

Stream This: Two Mia Farrow Greats, Hannibal (S3), Terminator 5, Etc...

In the effort to stay au courant we'll alternate between Netflix and Amazon Prime for streaming news each week. And we'll freeze frame select titles at random places just for fun and see what image comes up. You know how we do. 

LAST CHANCE AMAZON PRIME

Amazon Prime has a far better movie selection than Netflix on a month to month basis but they are officially the worst streaming provider in terms of providing dates of expiration on their movies/tv shows. Sometimes the titles don't expire after they're marked for expiration and sometimes they vanish even if they haven't been marked. Sometimes without warning they suddenly cost money when they were once free. And they don't do press releases to announce expiring titles like the other services. So it's all rumors in a way. But supposedly they're losing these titles (among others) at the end of July and they're all worth checking out...

There's no reason why you shouldn't have complete confidence in your chances to come out of this alive and in one piece." 

Airplane (1980)
This smash comedy mocked the disaster epic genre and started the spoof craze. That spoof genre peaked early - maybe even here. It's kind of unreal how fast and quick the visual and verbal gags come. 

7 more freeze frames after the jump... 

Click to read more ...