Of Being Unheard

Youth has become a commodity that is at the same time both highly desired and drastically devalued. On one hand, pop culture and the media fawns over young beautiful celebrities. They're attractive, they're sexy, they're better than the average person. But we also make out the young to be unenlightened, uninformed and foolish. They lie and make up stories for attention, and are painted as ignorant simply because of a lack of "life experience."

Young people lack credibility in the eyes of older adults-- young women even moreso. Men are still thought of as more worldly, even as teenagers. Femininity and youth both share a perceived lack of credibility and objectivity, the former mostly due to their biology and the latter because of inexperience.

Society warns us not to make up stories, not to overreact and cause panic among our communities. Cry wolf, and you will pay dearly for it later. But the cynicism that story encourages creates people who will assume a lie quickly and unapologetically. Combine an unlikely story with a young face or a female build and you'll have "liar" written all over you. You're exaggerating, you're lying, you're imagining things.

In horror no one believes you until it's too late. Demons, homicidal maniacs, ghosts, vampires, zombies; impossible, they couldn't be true. The NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET series is a perfect example of teenagers facing both evil and the terror of not being truly heard and believed. In every installment it's the children of Elm Street who are targets of Freddy's cruelty. Everytime they try to tell others what's happening to them, no one believes them-- particularly adults. The irony is that adults unintentionally created the monster, yet they don't believe it when he comes back for their children. And of course their unwillingness to believe that such a thing could exist eventually kills them and others.

Even adult women are not necessarily immune to this disease despite their years of experience. If you look at movies like THE EXORCIST, ROSEMARY'S BABY, THE HAUNTING and LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH you see adult women facing a supernatural foe as well as a struggle to find one soul who will believe them and help them. Instead the men they look to for help brand them as mentally ill, hysterical or otherwise not of clear mind.

THE EXORCIST points out a specific area where credibility is often questioned: in the doctor's office. In the movie Reagan's doctors keep finding no evidence to support their theories about her mysterious illness, yet they will not give up on them and refuse to listen to Reagan or her mother. In WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE, a similar situation is seen in Heather and her son. The doctors, stuck in their rigid paradigm with no will to leave it, cannot accept the possibility that the boy's problem is not physiological. They even go so far as to believe his mother is abusing them before they'll believe that something supernatural is happening. And this film is unique in that it mirrors the real world where the characters are aware of the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET movies and that nobody ever believes it's Freddy until it's too late. But still, when faced with a fantastical circumstance that could very well be out of one of those movies, they cling to a mindset where those things are not real, where it is just a movie and there is no explanation that is not scientific and tangible.

As you can see, this is a fairly common plot device in horror. There are many others which feature characters facing similar challenges in credibility and quite often it's young people or adult women who are disbelieved. I believe this reveals something about ourselves, that we and society are less likely to believe the claims of certain types of people simply because of a perceived lack of knowledge or experience. An incredible claim doesn't not necessarily mean it isn't true, but I suppose we would rather it not be true than face what it would mean for monsters, ghosts and ghouls to be such a real threat.

Hostel Part II

I really wasn't a big fan of the first HOSTEL. It was okay, but in my mind it just wasn't a great movie. The plot is original and intriguing, I'll admit that. And I do enjoy my gore as much as the next girl. It was the beginning of the movie that really turned me off, so by the time we got into the good stuff I was praying the main characters would die quickly. Imagine my surprise when I discovered myself sitting in the theatre ready to watch HOSTEL PART II.

In this sequel, the plot of the original is played through again with a group of American girls going to school in Rome. They plan to take a trip to Prague, but are persuaded into traveling to Slovakia instead. As you might suspect they end up staying in a hostel, and are picked off one by one by the now very organized and very business-like club from the original. In PART II though, we also get to see what things are like from the perspective of the sick people who pay to kill the young travelers.

I wish I could say otherwise, but frankly I remain unimpressed. Prior to seeing the film myself I did read other reviews, so I was looking forward to the character development. It was definitely interesting, but it felt too shallow for me. And I didn't enjoy Heather Matarazzo's character at all, it felt too silly to me. They could have done so much more with both the girls and the killers. Their stereotypes were so obvious, and there was no subtlety to the symbolism. Not to spoil part of the movie, but the surviving girl might as well have had "FINAL GIRL" stamped on her forehead, and worn a t-shirt with a complete citation to Carol Clover on the front of it. It was so blatant that it half-ruined the ending for me.

Despite my criticism, it isn't a horrible movie. It's okay, but not great. It does explore female stereotypes, the effect that horrors inflicted upon women can have, and why women might be targets for that sort of violence. I thought the direction of the character development was good, it just needed more follow through. Honestly, as soon as the film ended I thought to myself, "That's it?" I wasn't expecting it to end when it did.

Those who were fans of the original HOSTEL will most likely enjoy PART II as well, especially for the fresh crop of victims and the peek into the minds of the killers. There are some really great scenes and what it attempts to do is at least interesting. But overall, I felt they could have done much more with the characters and the plot in a sequel such as this, which is really what I was expecting.

Hard Candy

To say that HARD CANDY (2005) is a film that plays with gender roles would be too simplistic and obvious, though true. Furthermore, I feel that ultimately what power lies in the movie has less to do with the gender of the main characters and more to do with other facets of their relationship. This isn't about a girl taking revenge upon a man, and all the inferences made by that act. This isn't I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. To take a lesson from the 7th season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," it's about power.

You could say that typically men have had power in our society, and you'd be right. But this film isn't commenting on which gender has the power, who steals it from whom, etc. Jeff, the thirty-something photographer, doesn't really have any power. Any that he seems to have is an illusion created by Hayley, a 14 year old girl he meets on the internet.

Hayley on the other hand has all the power. She's intelligent, crafty and persuasive. What's amazing about that isn't the fact that she's female-- it's that she's only 14, but she talks as if she's at least twice that. While I'm on the topic, kudos to Ellen Page for her performance because I found it hypnotic. It's obvious from the beginning though that Hayley's calling the shots. She convinces Jeff to meet in real life, and then to bring her back to his apartment. The next thing he knows, he's been drugged and tied to a chair.

So who's the wolf in sheep's clothing here? It's "Little Red Riding Hood" for heterosexual male pedophiles. Beware the little girl skipping down the path.

The thing I most enjoyed about this film is how it played on my sympathies. As much as it sends a warning to bad sheep pretending to be wolves, it also grabs the viewer by the collar and asks them to take a side. It would be so easy to side with Hayley, commend her on justice well-served and be glad that the world of HARD CANDY is rid one more pedophile. But I honestly felt bad for the guy. I wanted Hayley to get caught, and I wanted her to be punished in a sense, for playing such a dangerous game. She was obviously crazy and didn't have the right to take Jeff's punishment into her own hands.

To have that opinion sounds horrible, given the situation. Let the pedophile win? That's not right! But the point the film tries to make is that while he may have unnatural desires, he's still a human being made up of human experiences. He's no monster, he barely has any personal power. The only thing I can glean from my reaction is that I didn't believe a child had a right to consume and wield all that power. It felt wrong, and I wanted her to fail because of it. It's so bizarre to think that, but that's kind of what I liked about the film.

HARD CANDY isn't a gory film at all. The entire effect is achieved through a battle of wills, complemented by the physical tension of a few chases around the house. But in the end, it's Hayley's mind and power which are scariest.