Fantastic Fest '06 Haze (with Oculus)

Oculus is an excellent example of the KISS principle. Keep It Simple, Stupid. One room, one man, one creepy-ass mirror. Clocking in at just over half an hour, it's long for a "short," but it really doesn't feel like it, as the plot unfolds at its own pace without feeling rushed. The director has paced the action/drama very well within the confines of this piece, and the actor does an excellent job of toe-ing the line between sanity and madness, right up until he crosses over it.

This piece is an excellent example of the never-ending struggle to rationalize the irrational or to prove the un-provable. It's a scientific study of a most unscientific event; and like all rational beings in the horror genre, the descent to madness comes when our protagonist's rational underpinnings are ripped out from underneath him and all he's left with is his fear. This is assuming our scientist isn't "mad" to begin with. After all, he's convinced the mirror killed his parents. But this is all theory, and let's move on...

The color palette (or in this case, complete lake thereof), works to create the clinical setting the protagonist desires for his experiment. It is clean, sterile, and away from outside influence. It is also cut-off, isolated, and completely without refuge. There are some technical sound issues, echoes and the like, but the usage of the clock alarms and phone rings add to the distortion of time and breakdown of the protagonist's awareness of anything but the mirror.

I have one major gripe with the short, and unfortunately it's somewhat linked to the ending. I'll try to keep this as general as possible, but it's still kinda spoilery. Throughout the piece the history of the mirror is relayed to the audience through a series of stories, people die, people disappear, people kill other people. Got that. Mirror bad. Check. The whole creepiness of the set-up is that no one really knows what the mirror does, and I think it should have stayed that way. Let me put it like this, the freakiest thing about The Blair Witch Project was that you never saw the witch. You saw things happen, you saw the campers freak out, but you never saw who/what was behind it. The scariest things are what we pull out of our own memories, and once you show the "monster," you're done. Glimpse it out of the corner of your eye, catch it's reflection, feel its breath on your neck, but in a piece like this, it's best left unseen. Once fear has a face and a name it's dimished. Which isn't to say that what we saw in the theatre wasn't creepy, believe me, it was, I just think it would have been much more effective in the abstract.

And speaking of abstract, let's move onto the main feature, Haze.

One part Saw, one part Cube, and Asian to boot. I should love this, but I don't. I was actually kinda disappointed. Don't get me wrong, it's creepy and claustrophobic as all hell. (I didn't immediately think, "It's the Habitrail(c) from Hell!" for nothing.) The monotone concrete walls with their blind turns, and a well-developed bleakness to the entire production design from costume to lighting adds to the paranoia and anxiety. The traps are vicious, but not entirely original. (Although I have to admit, there's one that set my teeth on edge and reminded me how long it's been since I went to the dentist.) But it seems to jump in continuity, and the ending leaves a great deal to be desired.

The concept is solid, a man wakes up with no memory, a nasty stomach wound, and only a series of trap-laden tunnels in front of him. But it's not very trap-laden, this movie is only about 50 minutes long, and that's not quite enough time to rachet up the tension to a point where the audience is squirming, anxious and desperate to know what's going to happen next. There's also a lack of exposition, which is normal for J-horror, but what we do get is mainly in a voice-over. That's not horrible, except for the fact that it is repeated almost verbatim 10-15 minutes later when the lead meets up with his fellow captive. Why have the V-O at all? And the ending...? I don't expect my horror movies to have rational endings, but I'd like to know that there is one. There's a mishmash of a montage that makes no sense of time, place, or even if it's relevant to the plot. Not cool.

Famous last words:
This may be the only time where I recommend a feature so you can see the short. Haze isn't entirely bad, but Oculus was better and worth the time.