The Eternal Daughter (2022) - A Quiet Gothic Chiller

 

I love movies. I spend much more time seeing films than I do reading books, but perhaps that is due to my hubby not being a reader. It is a little harder to find some quiet time to read rather than watching a movie. 

My favorite film of 2022 was The Eternal Daughter, which incidentally I only just saw on December 31st!  Written, produced and directed by Joanna Hogg, it is the intimate story of Julie Hart and her mother Rosalind. Both parts are played by the always exceptional Tilda Swinton—which may seem hard to imagine but works very effectively here.

We find the two women and their dog, Louis, traveling by taxi to a large estate house that has been remodeled into a hotel, of which the taxi driver speaks of with some trepidation, claiming he has been spooked by it in the past after seeing an apparition in one of the windows. The house itself has some history with the elder Hart, having stayed there when she was younger and it was owned by a family member.

Upon check-in, the young receptionist seems to have an attitude problem and is quite curt with Julie about the status of the reservation and the room they are to occupy.  After negotiating that situation they settle into their room. We learn that Julie is a filmmaker, and has the intention of writing a film about her mother, and bringing her to this place is part of her thought process in retrieving Rosalind’s fond memories of her time there. 

Soon though, odd things begin to present themselves. Dinners in the dining room are very quiet affairs in which it is just the two women seen eating, noises from the rooms upstairs above theirs keeps Julie awake much of the night, the dog seems very unsettled at times, and each evening the receptionist leaves the hotel when her boyfriend picks her up—making it appear that there may not be any other guests there (or anyone at all for that matter).  Rosalind recounts some painful memories of her past there, making Julie feel incredibly sad and regretful that she has brought her there, even when her mother counters that she has had many joyful memories too. 

Innkeeper Bill makes an appearance one evening as Julie is walking the dark, lonely hallways during a bout of insomnia. He offers some comfort and later, when Louis disappears he helps search for him.  Turns out Louis is back in the room on Rosalind’s bed when Julie returns to the room. Bill and Julie have a chat in the drawing room, discussing both Rosalind and Bill’s wife, with whom he worked many years with at the hotel. Bill is reluctant to move on because he feels close to his wife by staying there. This helps Julie with her feelings of gloom about bringing Rosalind there. 

Unfavorable cell reception takes Julie outside in the evenings to make calls to her husband to let him know how things are going. The almost ever-present fog at the estate, along with a small cemetery seen multiple times give a true gothic feel to the atmosphere. On more than one occasion, Julie sees what appears to be the ghost of a woman, albeit quite subtle and fleeting, in the same window of the house. This is not one of those films that shows you the ghosts in plain view—or even explains whether or not they are even there. In fact the ghosts of the past are in much more prominence but still don’t thoroughly reveal themselves. 

The denouement of the film—if we can assume that the ending is actually a resolution—is like the rest of the film, a quiet but affecting act in which Swinton really does prove her acting chops are no joke. Rosalind’s birthday celebration is a deeply affecting scene, but I won’t spoil anything here. 

It feels important to mention that the music in the film is also very sporadic and scarce. But the recurrent theme is rightfully haunting. Bela Bartok’s Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, BB 114 may sound somewhat familiar, and that would be because one of his other pieces was used in The Shining, which feels so appropriate for the mood they are trying to project here. 

Suffice it to say that if you’re looking for something akin The Conjuring you won’t find it here. The Eternal Daughter is a reserved and hushed piece of filmmaking, not alluding to much. The storyline is extremely sparse and Swinton carries the entire movie on her own, with just a few touches of outside influence to this tightly woven story. It has an art-house feel without being too standoffish or out of touch. I really recommend it to anyone who loves a slow-burn, impeccably acted gothic chiller. 

Mindless Movie Monday: The Apparition (And The Sad, Sad State Of Ghost Stories Today)

It has become increasingly apparent to me that there are no good ghost stories anymore.  I'm sick as hell of renting (and at times purchasing) horrific examples of supernatural films that are infinitely less scary than the DMV on a Monday morning.  Case in point:  The Apparition. 

Even though I knew it was going to be awful, I still rented this flaming sack of cow dung just to see how bad it really was. Well, it's a boring, utterly ghastly (and not in a good way) movie about a couple that are house sitting a property that belongs to the girl's parents. Said girl - Kelly - is played by the very pretty Ashley Greene of Twilight fame, with boyfriend Ben (Sebastian Stan) hanging the moon for her pleasure. 

At the very beginning of the movie we see Ben, doing his best ghost hunter impression with a few other like-minded folks...except they bring something back (from beyond....um, yeah - that's original) that is now following them, including our guy Ben. Which means Kelly is in trouble too, as it has emerged as a force to reckon with at their current living space.

"Stand back! I won't allow them to steal your teddy!"

When the neighbors loveable dog finds his way into the couple's home, lies down in their laundry room and promptly dies, I knew this film was not for me. (What makes filmmakers feel the need to off the family pet? Do they think that serves some purpose in the film - as if "Wow! They killed the cat/dog/horse/bunny/gerbil, etc! I'm REALLY afraid now!" - It's more like, I'm pissed and probably never going to watch your crappy excuse for a movie again, god dammit!)  And that only served as proof that The Apparition was bound to get worse.  The couple does so many stupid and ill-advised things, acts that are so clichéd it's nearly unwatchable. No originality and lack of plot plague many films these days, but I would be hard-pressed to find one so blatantly trite and unimaginative as this dud.  I really can't say much about it because though it's trying to be a ghost story, it's failing miserably and NOTHING IS HAPPENING!

The two leads are trying here, and it can be said that they did give it the old college try. But though they may be good in other films, they struggled to hit the mediocre mark here. It was almost laughable how many ridiculous facial expressions Ashley Greene delivered.  Funny thing is, they all ended up virtually the same. All looking somewhere in between constipated and bored to tears.  LIKE ME.
Thankfully for the male viewers of the film, she showed a bit of skin.

The Many (?) Faces Of Ashley Greene

Plainly said, this movie is so outright boring that I was actually writing this review as I suffered through it.  All we were subjected to were loud noises, lights flashing off & on, some carefully placed shrieking, doors opening by themselves, and strange molds growing on the floors, ceilings, and of course in the basement. (Why do spirits these days feel the need to manifest as MOLD?  Try something less icky next time!) Kelly finds out Ben was lying to her (which in all actuality he just 'didn't tell her' all about his past spook hunting and "scientific supernatural studies") and she swiftly kicks him out of the house - leaving her alone to face the ghost/demon/entity of the week all by her lonesome. Have we learned nothing from watching past horror films!?

"No! We can't watch this crap anymore, dammit!'

Friends, we can do so much better than this. We HAVE done better. See The Changeling, The Haunting, The Legend of Hell House... Christ I'll admit even The Grudge and Paranormal Activity were better.  I just don't get why studios keep green-lighting dumb-ass movies like these ones. I was so disinterested in this about ten minutes in that I nearly turned it off. Figured I'd keep  watching so I'd have something to write about! Shitty crap like this, Pulse, The Fog (2005), The Unborn, and the vast array of junk available that are trying to pass themselves off as scary are doing nothing but killing the sub-genre.

Now THIS is what I'm talking about....
(The Innocents, 1961)

Where are movies like The Woman in Black (1989)? The Innocents?  The Devil's Backbone? Though a rare gem breaks through occasionally, such as The Awakening, most ghost stories are just bullshit.  Why aren't studios trying to find someone who will adapt something truly chilling, like any number of works by Ambrose Bierce or M.R. James??  I read two awesome books by John Harwood last year - The Seance and The Ghost Writer (not the one adapted into the Ewan McGregor film)- both if which seem fairly adaptable to me, and would translate to film fantastically. The Seance would be a wonderful period ghost story that would float the boat of any fan of the supernatural.   But instead we are forced to watch this regurgitated dreck that wouldn't scare a two year old. Gah!!
So believe me when I tell you - don't watch this movie unless you are faced with making the decision to either watch this film or watch paint dry. 
I know what I would choose.

All I Want For Christmas Is A Good Ghost Story: Part 1

~ by Marie Robinson

Happy Holidays, everyone! Christmas is drawing ever near… There are some people who just love Christmas. Perhaps the most famous literary Christmas-lover was the great Charles Dickens.

Not only did he adore the holiday, he was a huge influence on it. I’m not kidding, this guy shaped Victorian Christmas. Tell me of a person who has never seen, read, or heard of A Christmas Carol and I will personally slap them. It was first published on December 17th, 1843 and sold over 5,000 copies by Christmas Eve. Over fifty film, theatre and television adaptations have been made. It is no wonder that Dickens considered A Christmas Carol to be his greatest achievement.

Before A Christmas Carol, Christmas in the mid-Victorian era was all about the Christ. And the mass. Come on, let’s be honest, no one wants to sit in church all fucking day. Of course, people were thrilled when Dickens came along and brought some secular fun to the season. He believed Christmas was all about being with family, dancing, laughing, giving to charity, and of course, telling stories.

If you don’t believe me that Dickens influenced Christmas, listen to Professor Hubert Lamb’s argument on the matter. He says that Dickens birthed the popular notion of a “white Christmas”. He went so far to prove his point and documented that a white Christmas occurred for the first eight straight years of Dickens’ life. Our bibliophile climatic researcher says that white Christmases are actually uncommon, but we have come to cherish them because of Dickens’ classic.

After the release of A Christmas Carol, the quintessential Christmas ghost story, Dickens decided to write a handful of others. He penned what were titled, “The Christmas Books” which included the short stories The Chimes (1844), The Cricket on the Hearth (1845), The Battle of Life (1846), and The Haunted Man (1848). Some are these are more supernatural than others, and most are hardly terrifying but he was determined and inspired to keep up the tradition. A few other Christmas ghost stories Dickens wrote are The Haunted House, Christmas Ghosts, The Trail for Murder and The Signal-Man which was adapted for the 1970 BBC mini-series A Ghost Story for Christmas. In reference to these tales author Peter Straub calls them, “A lively mixture of comedy, pathos, and the supernatural.”

A prototype of sorts to A Christmas Carol is The Story of the Goblins who Stole a Sexton. Released in December of 1836 it tells of a man named Grub, who is near identical to Scrooge, and chooses to go mope around in the graveyard on Christmas Eve. There he meets a ghostly figure who tells him how much his life is gonna suck if he doesn’t cheer up. If you wanted to take a simple moral from these stories it would be “Christmas is awesome!” But we know that Dickens was trying to say a little more than that. We get the Scrooge archetype yet again in A Haunted Man, where a grouchy old man is forced by a frightful apparition to reexamine his life. Dickens used this plot device to encourage a reassessment by his characters and his audience. He believes that the Christmas season is not only for nostalgia but also for change.

“…for we are telling Winter Stories—Ghost Stories, or more shame for us—round the Christmas fire; and we have never stirred, except to draw a little nearer to it.” –Charles Dickens, Christmas Ghosts