The Maus (2017) 1h 30m

War is a horror unto itself.  The entire concept seems so foreign to a lot of us because we never served in the military and the last real war or battle fought on U.S. soil was the Civil War (with the exception of maybe Pearl Harbor).  Yet there are countries that are at war or face some form of occupation currently and their daily lives are horror, or have been horror.  PTSD, a lack of people able to trust individuals, or just the existence of misanthropy and entropy when it comes to life... it's a horror that we hope to never see.

The Maus takes us to post-war Bosnia (although this film is from Spain).  A woman and her German boyfriend returned to the country because the bodies of her parents were finally found in a mass grave and she wanted to give them a proper burial.  While en route to their flight the SUV ends up in a mine crater and unable to continue.  Two Serbs come up behind our couple while they walk on the path to get help.  Ignoring the warning the Serbs are yelling about danger ahead, the couple's dog sets off a land mine and the woman is caught in the blast.  This is where we get our first dream sequence which may be more of a premonition of dangers to come.

There's a supernatural horror element in The Maus that becomes the focus for a short time.  It's mostly used as a deus ex machina but I wish it didn't exist at all.  There is a much more visceral horror present here with the constant questioning of trust and safety, prejudice existing from growing up in a war torn area, and the dream sequences which create these incredibly uncomfortable feelings within the viewer. I think that this film makes those moments much more frightening than a supernatural being ever could.

I do have to nitpick a few things, just because they bugged me and killed my immersion in the film.  First, when the couple is walking they come across a jeep and the boyfriend finds a walkie talkie in the bag, all the while completely ignoring the gigantic CB antenna on the top of the jeep!  Use that to call for help you dolt!  Second, when we finally see the demon it looks like Gray Fox from Metal Gear Solid, just in earth tones.  It's not a bad design, but it made me more hyped for Metal Gear at that moment than this film.

All in all The Maus isn't bad, but I don't feel like it falls under horror.  Yes, I've spent most of this talking about real life physical and personal psychological horror but if I had to classify it in horror I'd say it's a dramatic horror film.  That feels awkward to say though as drama and horror don't tend to overlap but this isn't a thriller.  The real villain here is just humanity being opportunistic and shitty.

I give The Maus 3 MGS Gray Foxes out of 5:

Under the Shadow (2016) 1h 24m

War is hell.  Ghosts might be from hell.  Therefore, Ghosts might come from War?  Oh shit!  Things got too real in this intro...

Under the Shadow is an Iranian film set during the Iran-Iraq war of the 80's.  A family is split up when the husband is sent to be a medic on the front lines and the wife stays behind with their child.  After a series of unexplained incidents and strange behavior from the daughter, the mother begins to believe that the building may have a spirit haunting them.

I have the reoccurring complaint that a lot of horror films have poor pacing.  While this film is guilty of crawling to the supernatural elements I feel like it's a conscious decision by the writer/director.  The supernatural horror is such a small piece of the greater horror that surrounds the mother and daughter.  Cultural misogyny, the fear that comes with living in a war zone (a missile actually crashes into the building at one point but doesn't detonate), parenthood, losing direction as a person, all of these are the anxieties that people can face and I think the ghost or whatever here is just a physical manifestation of these.  We get a brief description where it says these spirits come on "the winds" where there exists a lot of fear, anxiety, and trauma so why would that not exist in corporeal form?

I think that if you want just a surface spooky movie then this probably isn't going to be the film for you.  It took me a bit to recognize the deeper thread running through it and I was ready to just let this one fall off.  I'm glad I didn't but Under the Shadow is kind of a one-and-done.

I give Under the Shadow 2 clip art bombs out of 5:

The Rezort (2015) 1h 33m

When working with a fuse one should give themselves enough time to get to a safe spot after lighting it.  Sometimes someone fucks up and it blows up in their face.  Sometimes it takes too long and becomes more trouble than it's worth.   Then there are times where it takes just a moment too long and lures you into that sense of security...

If The Rezort were a mixed drink, you would take one part Jurassic Park, one part The Most Dangerous Game, and blend it all with a large amount of the Dead Island video game series.  After an almost apocalyptic viral outbreak caused the living to fight the dead, an island exists with the last remaining infected on it.  Vacationers can come to The Rezort to have a controlled zombie hunting experience and work out whatever fantasy or internal anguish they might carry.  You probably have a good idea what happens in this film.

I mentioned that false sense of security previously because this film has that slow burn that takes you to the point where one can assume exactly how the rest of this movie is going to play out.  Instead though, when it blows up, there's a pause and you find out that there were some fireworks mixed in with that explosion.  It leads to some serious "oooo's" and "ahhh's".

The character development is done really well.  They don't waste time trying to hide anything about the "surface" people and the characters we want to know more about get teased right until we are given that informational relief.  I personally loved that one of the women came to the island to deal with her PTSD from the previous "war."  The end of this film delivers some fantastic reveals and creates a couple more questions that I would love to have answered.  Just not in a sequel form.  Maybe in short film format.  I could live with that.

I give The Rezort 2 copies of Dead Island out of 5:

Day 12: The Seasoning House (2012) 1h 30m

The Seasoning House isn't really a horror movie, unless it is meant to show us the horrors of how terrible humanity can be.  The movie revolves around kidnapped girls in a military run area that are then drugged and sex trafficked.  The main character is a deaf girl that "takes care" of the girls.

That's all I'm writing.  I'm not going to attempt to make any jokes about something this real.  It was uncomfortable to watch, so I feel that this movie probably accomplished what it really set out to do.

I give The Seasoning House 2 stars out of 5 for brutal honesty: