Sketchcard 1 - Terry Bogard

This year I had the pleasure of creating a small set of 4 sketchcards for Comics for Cures, to benefit the American Cancer Society. Artists donate sketchcards for the show. The sketchcards will then be part of a gallery show, and after that they're put on eBay, and all proceeds from the auction go to the American Cancer Society. It is pretty awesome, and whenever I have the chance of helping out with my scribbles, I'm glad to jump at the opportunity. The auction was supposed to go live on April 3rd, but I was just told that the date was moved to May 22nd, so it'll still be a while before you can bid on those cards.
Anyway, I've posted the cards over at deviantart, but I promised I'd post some progress shots over here. So, in an effort to put this blog to better use, here go some shots of the first card I did, Terry Bogard:

First, here are the penciled lines. Why did I go with Terry Bogard? Well, I love the game series King of Fighters, and Fatal Fury too, where this character is from. He's not one of my favorites from either game, but I had never drawn him before so I figured I'd give it a shot. Also, I think he's a popular character and so his card will probably sell well in the auction (I hope).

Here I've moved on to inks. I kept it pretty clean and simple. The cards are relatively small (about 6x9 cm.) and I'm not really used to drawing small, so the pose isn't very original or fresh, but I tried to make up for it.

Started laying down the colors with my mighty colored pencils. Well, I say mighty but in reality I hardly ever color with colored pencils. The scanner destroys the coloring and that made me almost quit coloring pencils a long time ago. But I enjoyed the practice, and I think I might have to keep going at it. I love the organic feeling of coloring traditionally as oposed to digitally.

Ta-da, the card is done here! Just added a simple background that makes Terry pop out a little more. As you can see it's a fairly simple process, and a lot of fun. I hope this card raises a lot of money for the good cause. Stay tuned, I may do similar posts of my other cards!

Hope you enjoyed this!

Release party of Zona Fantástica at Central Comics

Last Saturday, March 6th, the release party for Zona Fantástica took place at one of the local comic shops, Central Comics. We weren't the only book being released, there was also "As Incríveis Aventuras de Dog Mendonça e Pizzaboy", a widely anticipated comic made by the collaboration between portuguese writer/producer Filipe Melo and 3 artists from Argentina, so we were in great company. The afternoon flew by, once again drawing and signing books, chatting with my fellow artists and with Filipe Melo (which was very cool, because I really admire him - he produced the first (and only, so far) portuguese zombie movie, which makes him pretty much the awesomest person around). This time the paparazzi was my lovely Cosmic-rocket-man, who took loads of cool photos, some of which I'll share on this post.

Can you spot Zona Fantástica there? This is the store front of Central Comics. I felt pretty excited to see a book with my cover there, I can't deny that. It was a good feeling.

The announcement of the two release parties taking place that afternoon. Hey, Green Lantern, stop stealing my thunder!

Here's the book for sale. Me and the rest of the gang signed all of these and plenty more.

This is me drawing on Central Comic's honor board. Whenever they host a special book release, they have the authors draw something on this board, and then they hang it in the store. It's pretty cool, especially since before I used to always look at the honor boards and admired the work on them, and now I have my very own drawing there too.

This is me, Fil and Rui Alex drawing. I wasn't signing a book at the time, I was drawing on that kid's moleskine per request. It was cool!

Still drawing for the kid. I drew a zombie, which I hope didn't scare him or anything. It was a nice zombie, it wouldn't bite anyone.

Still drawing, and joined at the table by Diogo Campos. Hey look, it's the Walking Dead!

Chatting with Filipe Melo, who we had the pleasure to meet! I got to draw him a nifty zombie. Wish I had had more time to really draw something kick ass, but Filipe still had to go to his book's release at Fnac, and so was short on time. He was a super cool guy.

Still drawing and chatting with Filipe. Ignore my stupid face, I don't know what was going on.

Moved tables, got joined by Pedro Nascimento, and continued drawing. It was an amazing afternoon. Drawing for hours, signing books and chatting with the people in a comic shop... could there be something cooler to do? I don't think so!
If you'd like to have a book, you can always go to the official blog for the project and order one via e-mail. Hope you enjoyed the photos!

Release of Zona Fantástica

As you know - because I've posted about it earlier - yesterday was the release of the comics/illustration project Zona Fantástica, as part of Fantasporto - Oporto's International Movie Festival. It went very well and it was fantastic to hang out with all the artists and the people that went to the release! I drew a lot of zombies in a lot of books, predictably. I have to find something more fun to draw than zombies, quickly. Since I had my friend Mário take some photos, I'll take this chance to post a few of them.

This was the selling stand. You can see the book that was released, Zona Fantástica - as well as official t-shirts - and also the previous volumes, Zona Zero and Zona Negra.

This is me on the table. Next to me are Joana Afonso and André Oliveira, and we can see the back of Diogo Campos :)

Another shot of some artists at the table, this time with our "srs business" face. Left to right, you've got me, Joana, André, the Fantasporto presenter that made the opening speech, and Fil (who unfortunatelly got half-cut from the pic).

The lighting was not the best for photos, but here André and Fil were talking about the Hammer Killer, which was my comic. Look, there's my name on the wall!

This was at the end, when we were autographing and drawing on books. Clockwork from me are Hugo Teixeira, Diogo Campos, Fil, Pedro Nascimento and Raz.

And this photo was snapped by Joana, it's my very own Cosmic-Rocket-Man and André!

All in all, it was a great end of a day. Not only were we all happy with the book, it sold well, we drew a lot, and people also seemed to enjoy it. Another plus was hanging out with each other, since we all live pretty much scattered all over the country and don't get many chances to hang out.

I hope you enjoy the photos, and in some time I'll post the Hammer Killer I drew for this.
Keep rocking!

PS - Quem não pôde aparecer ontem, pode aparecer amanhã, dia 6, na Central Comics, depois das 17h, pois vamos ter uma festa de lançamento da Zona com alguns dos autores presentes (entre os quais eu) para sessão de autógrafos. E se quiserem apareçam ainda mais cedo e apanham o Filipe Melo e a festa do Dog Mendonça e Pizzaboy!

Brian the Artist

So my boyfriend is awesome and gave me the 3 disc collectors' edition of Spaced, and we've been having a great time re-watching the series. I tell you, it is brilliant. Of course all this Spaced watching we've been doing had to end in me doodling something from the show, so here is Brian the Artist, Tim and Daisy's cheerful neighbor. The speech balloons are actually his reply in the first episodes, whenever someone asks him what he paints. I was informed that I misspelled "aggression", so I'm sorry about that mistake.
This is little more than a glorified sketch, but I wanted to update the blog with something. I really need to update this more, especially with art instead of movie reviews of craptastic flicks. Well, I hope you guys like it! And if you don't know Spaced, hunt it down and give it a watch. I promise it's awesome.

Zona Fantástica

Yes, it has been a while without news, but now I'm here with some cool ones. I was lucky enough to participate on the most recent installment of the Zone! comic and illustrations project, called Zone Fantastic. I was responsible for the cover and I did a 3-page comic. Well, I can't show you the comic just yet, but I want to promote the project, so here's the cover:

The characters in the cover (one of them is mine) are characters you'll also find on the inside of the book, on comics or illustrations. I tried to give it an old, almost grindhouse poster style - since the book will be released in a movie festival mainly dedicated to horror and the fantastic, it seemed fitting. Here's a little introduction to the project:

"Zona Fantástica (Zone Fantastic) is an alternative magazine dedicated to the world of comics and illustration, the third of a project that has generated also Zona Zero (Zona Zero) and the Zona Negra (Zone Dark) (www.zonabd.blogspot.com), both released in 2009. This issue, devoted to "fantastic fiction" will be released in the Fantasporto 2010. It is the largest and most ambitious fo far: 80 color pages with the participation of 34 authors.
The aim of this project, almost fully developed through collaborations over the Internet, is to feature the work of new authors, as well as to promote the development of arts in Portugal. Thus, Zona Fantástica emerges as an important step that represents an increasing willingness for change in this context. "

You can visit Fantasporto's website on www.fantasporto.com

I will update you with news about the release. I know many of you are from far away, but if by any chance any of you guys are in Oporto on March 4th, at 18h30, you can drop by Rivoli, check out the book and talk with some of the authors! Good times will be had, I promise. But I'll keep pestering you about that.

Hope you like the pic!

The Room (2003)

Oh hi, internet.

Last weekend I saw a movie. It wasn't a regular movie, you see. This film has been called everything, from "The Citizen Kane of bad movies", to "the best worst movie ever made", and let me tell you, the people who called it that are probably right. Never before has a movie so awful got etched so deep into my mind that I can't stop quoting it, I can't stop thinking about it, and I need to exorcize that, so I'm writing this review. I need to get it out of my system.

That movie, my friends, was Tommy Wiseau's magnum opus The Room.

Tommy Wiseau, a man with hopes and dreams of breaking through in the movie business, managed to somehow gather 7 million dollars and actually direct a movie from a script he wrote himself. He not only wrote and directed this movie, no, Tommy, as a true jack of all trades, also starred, produced and executive produced. Where he spent the 7 million dollars filming this turd is what I'd like to know, because this movie looks worse than most of the low budget horror movies I watch, and those are made with a few thousand dollars at best. This one was made with 7 million. It baffles me.
Another interesting thing about Tommy Wiseau is that no one seems to know exactly where he's from. He claims to be American, but his accent is as thick as they come (someone described the way he sounds as " like Borat trying to do an impression of Christopher Walken playing a mental patient" and that pretty much hits the nail in the head). Some people speculate he's actually from somewhere in Eastern Europe, but no one knows. The man is a mistery!

Now, on to the movie itself. The Room is a filme about a saintly man called Johnny (played by Tommy Wiseau) and his beautiful "future wife" Lisa (they never use the word fiancée, it's always "future wife" or "future husband"). Johnny is beloved by everyone, he is the kindest of men, has a successful career (something about the bank business... it's never really clear what exactly is it that he does) and showers his future wife with gifts and attention (saintly as he is though, I bet you'll be creeped out by him. His strange accent, hulking figure, and face that is a mix between Fabio and the melting Nazis from Indiana Jones, all blend together to form an avatar of creepiness that you'll start seeing in your nightmares). Lisa, for some incomprehensible reason, decides she's had it with Johnny and procedes to seduce his best friend Mark (don't worry if you don't get he's "Johnny's best friend" right away, they'll remind you of that fact every 5 minutes). This treacherous back-stabbing sends them, and everyone they know, into a spiral of drama, nonsense and hilarity so incredibly poorly acted, scripted and directed that you'll wonder just what the hell you are seeing.

Johnny and one of his many gifts for Lisa.

Don't worry, that's perfectly normal. At first you might think "Oh my god, I am definitely going mad, no movie can possibly be this bad", but no. I reassure you, your sanity is untouched. The movie really is astoundingly bad. Let's break down some of the things that are deeply wrong with The Room:

- Tommy Wiseau is easily the worst actor I've ever seen in a movie (and keep in mind I did see that abomination with Britney Spears). It's not just because of his accent and his haunting face - his delivery is unbelievable! He chuckles at the end of almost every sentence. He even laughs after his himbo best friend tells him the story of a girl who got beat up so bad she ended up in the hospital (something that shouldn't be funny at all). Also, he (and everyone else) seem to greet everyone as if they were LOLcats. When someone comes in the room, it's "Oh hi Lisa!", "Oh hi Mark", "Oh hi Denny", and so on and so forth (there's even a bit where he greets a dog by saying "Oh hi doggie!"). He has the most hilarious line in this film, the line that everyone knows, which is "YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, LISA!!". In this scene we see how badly this man wants to show emotion, and how much he fails.

Art by Fernando Lucas

- Lisa, the female lead, is always being called "beautiful", "sexy" and generally being worshipped as some kind of beauty goddess, but she's average at best. I mean, I'm not one to talk, but it's so exxagerated that it becomes hilarious. She has her hair colored in this unnatural shade of blonde, yet her eyebrows remain dark brown, and her neck seems to have this weird bulge sometimes when she talks. She's definitely a strange character. When engaging in conversations, Lisa commonly brings up subjects that, when asked more about, she claims to not want to discuss. It's always "I don't want to talk about it", or "It'll be fine". Lisa's mother drops by every god damn morning to have annoying quick conversations that never lead anywhere. The most famous part is when she does what would normally be a shocking and life-altering revelation, when she tells her daughter: "Well, the test results came back - I definitely have breast cancer". Lisa doesn't even bat an eyelid, says "It'll be fine", and the subject is never adress AGAIN.

- Denny, Denny, Denny. Denny is a huge enigma in this movie. He's sort of Johnny and Lisa's man-child neighbor. We know he's an orphan and that Johnny, angel on earth that he is, got him an apartment right next door and is paying for his college tuition. What a kind heart! Despite the fact we are told that Denny's in college, it's open for discussion if he has some kind of mental problem or not. He certainly looks and sounds as if he has one - he acts like a 5 year, despite being 18 or over - but we're never told anything that leads us to believe that. One of the creepiest moments of the movie is right at the beginning, after Johnny comes home from work with a new red dress for Lisa. She tries it on, and who should drop by but jolly boy Denny, who claims she looks very sexy. Johnny and Lisa then try to kick him out so they can go practice the horizontal tango, but Denny apparently can't take a hint. He sticks around, picks up an apple, and then sneaks into Johnny and Lisa's room, jumps in the bed with them and then, when try to kick him out again, he drops this bomb: "I like to watch you guys!". Way to go, sleazy perv Denny. Instead of being disgusted and horrified, Johnny and Lisa just laugh and push him out the door. And then... oh god, then...

- The soft-core sex scenes. Yes, there are 4 unnecessarily long, incredibly cheesy, horrifiyingly shot sex scenes in this movie. They are the worst thing I've ever seen. Afterwards I felt like washing my eyes with soap. Naked Tommy Wiseau is quite a vision. He's strangely muscular, but he just looks frightening, like Frankenstein's monster. I don't know if it seems that his muscles are in all the wrong places or what, he's weird. And then there are prolonged shots of his naked ass when he's humping what's, apparently, Lisa's belly button (all I know is he's not doing it in the right place). Terrifying. As if this wasn't enough, all the sex scenes have this horrendous R&B soundtrack. These are the cheesiest damn songs you'll ever hear and they'll make you want to vomit, be warned. The sight of Tommy Wiseau's ass combined with the gut-churning R&B songs is a spirit crushing experience, but hopefully you'll be at least laughing hard enough to muffle the sugary disgust of the R&B tunes. There's also a highly amusing sex scene between Lisa and Mark on a spiral staircase. Comfortable! I can't help wondering how she felt with the edges of the stairs lodged between her ribs.

Tommy Wiseau learned how to frame his shots in the best soap operas.

- The dropping of subjects. This movie is constantly bringing up problems and issues that never see any kind of resolution and instead are immediately dropped. I understand that Tommy Wiseau probably wanted to adress a lot of society's bigger problems now a days, - like cheating, drugs, cancer, job issues - but he just didn't know where to go with any of it. I already mentioned the cancer bit, but another famous instance is when Denny is bullied by a drug dealer of sorts (who I think was the best actor in the movie). This guy, Chris-R, points a gun at Denny and demands some money, but of course he's quickly subdued by our hero Tommy and his sleazy backstabber "best friend" Mark, leaving Denny to face the wrath and circular dialogue of Lisa's mother. Really, I swear, it's 5 minutes of the same dialogue just going back and forth. She asks what "that horrible man" wanted, Denny says he bought some drugs off him, she asks "WHAT KIND OF DRUGS?", Denny says it doesn't matter, she asks again, Denny says it doesn't matter again, and it goes on ad nauseum until Denny screams "You're not my fucking mother!!", which is a great line in this movie. After this, they all just go to dinner or something, and Denny and his drug problem are never heard from again.

I forgot to mention that there's some rooftop scenes which were very clearly shot with a green screen.

- The downright "WTF" moments, like the tuxedo football - in this one scene, Johnny and all his friends are shown dressed in tuxedos. You'd think it's Johnny wedding day - after all, why would they all be dressed like that in the same day - but it turns out it's not. Apparently the whole gang just likes to tux up once in a while and go out to play football. Yeah, they go to a dirty back alley to throw a football back and forth while dressed in tuxedos. Not to mention this one guy trips, falls and never appears on the movie again (so it's not only subjects being dropped, entire characters disappear suddendly). Also, why are there framed pictures of spoons on the Wiseau household? Why is the tv behind the couch? Why does Lisa's neck bulge? All these are questions left unanswered, and as such will haunt you for a long time.

It's "Tuxedo Thursday" in San Francisco.

Well, this is already a pretty long sum up of what goes on in The Room. The movie is incredibly bad, but what's truly astonishing about it is how Tommy Wiseau managed to create not just a mind-bendingly awful movie... but a hilariously entertaining one. You'll be laughing from beginning to end. Tommy is now marketing this movie as a "Black Comedy", but there's no doubt in my mind that he only chose to do so after attending many screenings where he watched people crying with laughter - it's clear when you see the movie that any comedy that's happening is unintentional. Poor Wiseau, he set out to do a deep study of human nature and interactions and ended up with a laugh riot. Well, it's better than nothing, since the movie now has a widely recognized cult status and enjoys several screenings all throughout the USA every month, always with an emphasis on audience participation (it's common to see people throwing plastic spoons at the screen, throwing footballs around, and screaming "YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, LISA!!"). Its popularity just keeps growing, and amongst its fans are people like David Cross, Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill.

I recommend, no, I urge you to see this movie if you have a good sense of humor. If not, you should stear clear, but if you're the kind of person who enjoys the "so bad it's good" kind of movies, you'll have a blast with this one. Trust me.

Zombie Painting

In my quest of experimenting with acrylics, I made a painting of a zombie today. Yes, I broked the mold of my pixel paintings, I just felt like doing something different! And here's the little guy:

The photos are a little blurry, and I apologize. If any of you guys would like to have it, it's for sale! Just drop me a comment or an e-mail and give this poor zombie a nice home (and a nice set of brains for him to munch on).

The Amazing Joy Buzzards

I'm back to being lazy in what concerns writing for this blog, and since it's been a while since I updated anything art-related, here is a finished piece I did the other day, a pinup of The Amazing Joy Buzzards - an extremely fun comic created by Hipp and Smith.


Enjoy, and give AJB a try!

Top 20 Favorite Horror Movies of the Decade

The end of the year is fast approaching, and that means it's time to make some tops. I've pondered about what kind of top to make for a while, and finally decided to make a Top 20 favorite horror movies of the decade, with the help of my brother, since it's by far our favorite movie genre and we watch a ton of horror movies. Notice this is not a list of the best movies, merely our favorites.

Making a top is kind of a tricky business, and so there are a lot of movies we ended up leaving out, for a variety of reasons: we decided not to include horror-comedies that relied more on humor than on horror (and so we were forced to leave the likes of Shaun of the Dead - which I love dearly - and Zombieland out), to only include movies we had both seen (so a lot of movies that are potentially great, like Ils, The Orphanage, Á L'interieur or Martyrs don't fit the list, simply because we didn't get to see them yet), (and to try to stick to a more specific definition of horror, leaving out movies like Cloverfield, Battle Royale or Pan's Labyrinth, that despite having horror imagery or moments, are not straight up horror). Still, we did this just for fun, so check out the top, and let us know with what you agree or disagree.

20. The Eye - Gin gwai (2002)

The original, of course. It probably suffered from being another one in a wave of ghost movies that were popular in the early 00s, but it's an intensely atmospheric and creepy tale that definitely deserves to be watched.

19. The Last House on the Left (2009)

One of those remakes that are actually good. Tense, dark and violent, the movie is well-acted and crafted, and deserving of a place on this list.

18. Wrong Turn (2003)

Yes, we've all seen the "canibalistic inbred mountain family" movie made more than once. But a solid cast, tense atmosphere, and grisly deaths make this one a little better than most. It's not groundbreaking, but it's almost guaranteed it'll deliver horror entertainment. We can forgive it for having spawned sequels, the last of which is downright unwatchable.

17. May (2002)

Definitely one of those gems that deserve to be discovered by a bigger audience. Good story, great performances, especially by the lead, Angela Bettis, who manages to keep her character sympathetic even at the craziest parts of the movie. It's really best not to reveal too much about it, because it'll enrich the experience of watching it. Rent it, buy it, just make sure you give May a chance.

16. The Others (2001)

This is an extremely atmospheric movie, beautifully shot, and very creepy. It's also very subtle, and it will unsettle you without ever showing much.

15. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

A remake of the 1974 classic. A bit torture porn-ish at times, it does have some strong performances, especially by R. Lee Ermey, who plays the deranged sheriff, and all in all managed to be entertaining all throughout.

14. The House of the Devil (2009)

To me, this was one of the surprises of 2009. A highly atmospheric movie that is a throwback to 70's/early 80's horror. It's a slow burning movie that suffers from a rushed ending, but that didn't detract from the experience, and I highly recommend it (besides, I love all the posters for it). Maybe it should be a little higher on the list, but it does get tougher and tougher to pick favorites.

13. The Mist (2007)

A big-budget adaptation of a Stephen King story, The Mist had a strong cast and a very compelling script. I was totally immersed in this story and I was quite fascinated by the behavior of the group of people stuck in the supermarket.

12. Saw (2004)

I don't care what anyone says, the original Saw is a solid horror movie, which managed to both scare me and surprise me. Forget about all the sequels (most of which are horrendous), the first Saw definitely deserves a place on this list.

11. Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)

A very entertaining dissection of the nooks and crannies of the slasher genre, anyone who is a horror fan should enjoy this. It does have some comedic elements to it, but it doesn't fully rely on comedy, so it was still able to make its way onto the list.

10. Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Even with the fast zombies (that I know a lot of people don't like at all), this was a solid zombie movie that, despite being a little more focused on action than on scares, pleased a lot of horror fans worldwide. It was energetic and fast-paced. It was also a good remake, that never wanted to outshine the original material, but instead gave it a different spin. The opening scene remains one of my favorite openings of any horror movie.

9. Splinter (2008)

Some may disagree with this movie being in such a high position, or even in the list at all, but we greatly enjoyed it, and it serves as a testament how sometimes straight-to-DVD movies are better than big-budget, theatrical release horror (as was the case this year with movies like The Haunting of Molly Hartley and The Unborn, which were beyond bad and still got significant theatrical runs).

8. Trick 'r Treat (2008)

Another movie that I honestly don't understand why was kept under wraps for so long, never seeing a theatrical release. It's been a while since the last horror anthology film came along, and Trick 'r Treat is a very solid revival of that sub-genre, in which all tales intertwine and play along with the various traditions of Halloween. Bound to become an Halloween classic.

7. The Ring (2003)

One of the rare cases when we prefer the remake over the original. It was tense, it was unsettling, creepy and scary. And on top of that, it was elegant and mature. It may have spawned a landslide of J-Horror remakes, but to this day it remains the best re-telling of the original story, and a modern horror classic.

6. Dead End (2003)

A family on their way to Christmas dinner decide to take a short cut. That's the premise of this movie, and that might get you thinking you've seen it done a hundred times before, but this is actually a pretty original take on the "wrong way" movies, with a hint of Twilight Zone, a solid cast, and gripping plot. The ending and the way it relies on twists was a bit disappoint, but the ride there was great.

5. 28 Days Later (2002)

While technically speaking this is not a zombie movie (it's more an "infected" movie), this compelling flick marked the return of the zombie sub-genre, and, not only that, still remains one of the best entries on it. Unrelenting, vicious and a fantastic horror movie.

4. Drag me to Hell (2009)

Hands down my favorite horror movie of 2009, Drag me to Hell marks the return of Sam Raimi to the horror genre. His directing style is almost like a character in the movie. Raimi combines horror and gross-out humor like almost no other (I wish Peter Jackson would also return to his roots!), and the result is an amazingly fun movie that makes us laugh and gag in turns.

3. Paranormal Activity (2007)

I already discussed this movie at length so I won't do it again. All I will say is: this movie scared the bejeezus out of me, and so it definitely deserves to be on this list.

2. The Descent (2005)

One of the most claustrophobic movies I ever saw. This movie manages to be tense and scary at almost every turn, it literally keeps you in the edge of your seat. Filled with dread and very unforgiving, this is horror at its best, from this, or any, decade.

1. [REC] (2007)

If the hand-held camera style was ever used to its full potential, this movie was the one that did it. It throws you right into the middle of an apartment building where a zombie outbreak is taking place, and the acting is so good that it's easy to forget you're watching a movie. From then on, it doesn't stop. It may not be the most thought-provoking movie, but it's incredibly visceral and, most of all, it is scary and it'll stay with you long after it's over.

And so we conclude this list. Like I said in the beginning, there are some movies that didn't make the cut for one or other reason, but there are plenty other horror movies that were good this decade. Let's hope the next brings us more of the good, and less of the bad!

Happy New Year to everyone!

Paranormal Activity

As you know, I don't really like reviewing most current movies I see in my blog. I think there are far better writers and reviewers out there that undertake the task of tackling the newest box office hits, and so I don't really need to do it. I prefer to write my occasional review on old or poorly known movies that people may enjoy knowing about.

Anyway, sometimes I feel like breaking the cycle and this is one of those cases. What caused it? The much hyped and talked about Paranormal Activity.

Like I already mentioned, this movie was super hyped. It reminded a lot of people of the Blair Witch Project, a comparison pushed even further by the hand-held camera style that most of the movie was shot on (although, in my opinion, the publicity for Blair Witch was a little more complex - the directors even created a documentary totally separated from the movie, created all these websites and basically bet a lot of resources into tricking people to believing the events they would eventually see on camera were real). But, to be honest, I disconnected from a lot of the hype. I'm not one to jump in bandwagons, and when I start hearing about a movie left and right I get really turned off to it most of the times. Especially when the movie gets branded with labels such as "scariest movie of all time", like this one was. It pretty much just makes me want to dismiss it as a bag of bullshit. I didn't even see the full trailer. Still, when the movie opened in theaters in Portugal and opinions started rolling in on twitter, I got curious again. A couple of people there mentioned how they thought the movie could be more effective if watched at home... and that, coupled with me being a little sick, led to me watching this movie at home, in the dark. I was pretty torn about it, because I knew the version I had featured a different ending from the current version, but curiosity just spoke louder, so I settled in with my boyfriend in the bedroom and we popped in Paranormal Activity.
I think most of you are probably familiar with the setup: Micah and Katie are a young couple who started living together a little while ago. They start experiencing an array of weird events in their house and, since Katie reveals that she has suffered paranormal experiences on and off since she was a kid , Micah decides to go out and get himself a camera to document whatever is happening in their house. He gets a full set up together in the bedroom, not just the camera but devices to capture EVP and all sorts of gadgets like that. What we see is what they got on camera over the course of about 3 weeks.

You guys know I love horror movies, and I watch all sorts, from every subgenre out there, old, new, doesn't matter: I watch them all, I watch a LOT of horror movies. Not that much scares me anymore. But Paranormal Activity managed to scare me. Maybe it's because I'm a little bit of a scaredy cat in real life, when it comes to weird noises around the house and stuff like that. That door creeking, those faint footsteps you can't really place, that bump you think you hear... all of that freaks me out. I mean, I'm not really a believer in paranormal things, but it freaks me out and I actually love to read books about it, or watch documentaries, whatever I can get. I guess I like being scared. Well, along with me, I think a lot of people share the same deep-rooted feelings of being alone, freaked out in their house by unidentified noises, and that's where I think Paranormal Activity comes in as effective. The things you will see will make you wonder , deep down, if it has ever happened to you but you just don't know about it because you didn't set up a camera in your bedroom to record it. That, and the unseen, are the biggest things playing in favor for this movie. It was effective for me, it might not be for other people but to me it was.
The movie develops pretty slowly. In the beginning you kind of think "Well, that's not really that scary", but things definitely take a turn for the worse and it becomes increasingly terrifying, in a very effective way. Katie becomes desperate and Micah becomes borderline idiotic, making bad decision after another. I almost wish his character wasn't as full-blown alpha-male as he was, but well. They were believable to me, they may not have been the best actors ever, but they mostly came across as a believable couple. Katie's friend, for example, didn't work well for me at all, and whenever she was on screen she kind of took me off the movie - fortunatelly she was only there for a short time.
The filming style worked very well for me. I know a lot of people have problems with the hand-held camera, but I honestly believe if this movie was made any other way it wouldn't have been as effective. There's not a lot of shaky cam because plenty of times the camera is set on a tripod, so you get a stable shot. And, when the characters are carrying the camera around the house, you're actually scared again by what could appear when the camera is swiping left to right, to the dark corners of the house. The camera didn't detract from the movie at all, in fact it contributed a lot to the feeling of reality of the movie. I can tell you that watching it with my boyfriend, in a set up pretty similar to that of the movie, in the dark, it almost felt voyeuristic, almost like we were really watching a lost home movie from a real couple. It made it all feel very palpable, very real. And very creepy.


You know those internet games that were pretty popular a few years back, where you were asked to focus on a photograph, or look for something, or listen to a song very attentively, just to stand there like a jackass for 30 seconds and then have something jump at you? That scared the shit out of you, didn't it. Yeah, it scared the shit out of me too. A lot of parts in this movie reminded me of that - especially the parts at night, in the bedroom. The director managed to create such tension, you're just there thinking "oh my god, something's going to happen right NOW", but then it's never a cheap jumpscare, like you'd expect. It's just continuing tension, and anxiety. You're bracing yourself for that scare, but then it's never what you think. It really gets on your nerves and you only imagine how those people can even sleep in that fucking room, I know I wouldn't be able to sleep. There is some fantastic, I mean fantastic creepy imagery here. Things so simple that you think for sure someone must have used this before - but no one did, and it works perfectly. I won't say what it is because I don't want to spoil it, you'll have to see it and try to guess what I mean.
There were a few things that I didn't like all that much. To everyone who's seen it, the "Diane" plot point and the way it's shown in the movie was overkill for me. That took me right out of the movie - up to that point everything felt pretty real to me, but that didn't look real to me and it made me think of another movie, which is not good, when you're reminded of a movie that is superior to the one you're watching. But that's probably all I can think of, off the top of my head. I've heard people mention pacing issues, which I can understand, but to me it worked perfectly, I wasn't bored for a second.
The movie ending I saw was the original one, not the Paramount/Spielberg cut, though I have now seen both endings. Both are good - but I don't know if it's because I saw it first or if it's geniunely better, but I lean towards prefering the original ending. They're both good, shocking and very bleak.
All in all, I really, really liked this movie. I don't know if it lives up to the hype, but it comes damn close and it sure deserves the recognition that it's getting. It's pretty remarkable that a movie made with only 11.000 dollars is getting a worldwide distribution, and I hope it continues succeeding at the box office, because it's probably one of the best horror films to have come out this year, or in the last 10 years for that matter. It IS scary. Watch it in the dark, try watching it alone, in your house, and see if it doesn't stick with you. You'll be wanting to sleep with the door closed. 4 out of 5 stars from me.