5 — Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

‘Boy Next Door’ 
successful camp

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

I have many leather-bound books (and first editions of The Iliad).

Self-aware film 
brings laughs as 
well as thrills

 

By CHLOE GILKE

Managing Arts Editor

“The Boy Next Door” has all the 

ingredients of cinematic garbage. 
The January release date, the $4 
million budget 
that was appar-
ently 
spent 

solely on per-
fect salon blow-
outs 
for 
J.Lo 

and bad digital 
rain 
effects, 

the dialogue so 
heavy-handed 
and 
ridiculous 

that the screen-
writer obviously hasn’t even seen a 
movie, let alone written one — you 
don’t even need to know that “The 
Boy Next Door” has an 11 percent 
rating on Rotten Tomatoes to 
know that this movie isn’t going to 
win any awards.

But “The Boy Next Door” is 

aware of exactly what kind of 
movie it is. It takes its trashiness in 
stride, embracing all the elements 
that should make it objectively bad 
and spinning crap into pure enter-
tainment.

Jennifer Lopez (“Monster-in-

Law”) plays Claire Peterson, a 
high-school English teacher with a 
needy teenage son and a husband 
who cheats but is really sorry about 
it. J.Lo is actually a very talented 
actress, and it’s a shame that this 
role doesn’t give her much to work 
with. But Lopez is naturally like-
able, and the fact that she carries 

her historically rom-com oeurve 
wherever she goes adds another 
dimension to the plot. For the first 
twenty minutes of the film, the 
audience is just waiting for her 
Channing Tatum type to show up 
and sweep her off her feet.

That Channing Tatum type 

stand-in is handsome new neigh-
bor Noah (Ryan Guzman, “Step 
Up: All In”), who, immediately 
upon moving in with his sick 
uncle, shows up to Claire’s house 
to fix her car and make her blush. 
Their chemistry is irresistible, 
despite the fact that Claire’s awk-
ward son is still hanging around 
and that titular “boy next door” 
is only 19 years old. Noah is drop-
dead gorgeous with emphasis on 
the “drop dead,” youthful and for-
bidden and a little dangerous, but 
all the more appealing because of 
it.

... Until he becomes just plain 

terrifying. Guzman plays the 
switch from sweetheart neigh-
bor to lethal stalker surprisingly 
well; he literally becomes a roar-
ing, bloodied, vengeful monster 
in front of our eyes. His irrational 
actions are never really explained 
(beyond the fact that he has a “bad 
temper” and a history of violence), 
but that makes some scenes all 
the more terrifying, since the 
audience sees events unfold from 
Claire’s point of view. When she 
slept with Noah, Claire had no 
idea that he was a master hacker, 
fighter and all-around criminal 
mastermind. With each new rev-
elation at how far Noah will go to 
enact his vengeance, we’re still 
completely in the dark as to his 
motivations or what he’ll do next. 
Whether or not this effect was 
intentional, it’s genuine suspense.

But though “The Boy Next 

Door” adds up to an entertain-
ing, somehow coherent whole, its 
parts are still hilariously trashy. 
The writing is just horrendous, 
alternating between awkward, 
out-of-place dialogue (J.Lo telling 
her son to wipe the “schmutz” off 
his face during dinner, because 
apparently her lexicon features a 
fair amount of Yiddish) and word-
less fight scenes. Most of the sub-
plots just don’t make any sense, 
like why Claire’s son is bullied for 
having allergies and why he has 
an allergy attack while boxing. 
Actually, very little in this movie 
makes sense logically. How did 
Noah get a first edition copy of 
The Iliad? Why does it look like a 
book of fairytales? Why did Noah 
get expelled from school, and 
why does the movie make such a 
big deal out of that without even 
attempting to provide an answer? 
What’s the purpose of all those 
Greek epic allusions unless it was 
all leading to the moment when a 
metaphorical cyclops got stabbed 
in the eye with an EpiPen?

“The Boy Next Door” doesn’t 

want to be thought provoking. 
It assumes that every viewer is 
going into this theater to see a 
dollar-store remake of “Fatal 
Attraction.” It assumes you’re 
there to laugh and stare at Ryan 
Guzman’s chest and pay $10 to 
watch it, because the movie only 
needs to sell a couple tickets to 
make a profit off its microscopic 
budget. But through all its absur-
dity and thoughtlessness, the 
movie remains wildly fun and 
fast-paced, even bringing a few 
nuggets of real thrills and sus-
pense. “The Boy Next Door” is 
a beautiful, trashy, hot mess of a 
movie, and it’s pretty damn proud 
of itself.

Timeless ‘Evil’ shines

By MATT BARNAUSKAS

Daily Arts Writer

Note: This review contains 

major spoilers for the Finale of 
“American Horror Story: Freak 
Show.”

Well, 
that 

went downhill. 

The 
pre-

miere 
of 

“Freak Show” 
had 
promise: 

a 
potentially 

terrifying con-
cept, 
which 

called back to 
the cult classic 
“Freaks,” filled 
with opportu-
nities for social 
reflection. But 
then the train really went off the 
rails with never-ending preoccu-
pation with unnecessary charac-
ters and subplots. One week it was 
a weird mash-up of ’50s horror 
and “Glee”-style musical num-
bers, the next, Neil Patrick Har-
ris (“How I Met Your Mother”) 
showed up. 

Salvaging a broken product 

was all that the finale “Curtain 
Call” could do. It opens with psy-
chopathic Dandy (Finn Wittrock, 
“Unbroken”) in charge of the titu-
lar freak show after Elsa Mars 
(Jessica Lange, “Big Fish”) aban-
doned it to pursue her dreams of 
Hollywood stardom. How will the 
freaks respond and survive with a 
character that can be turned into 
a killer at a drop of a hat?

“Not very long” is the answer, 

as it takes all but 15 minutes into 
the finale before Dandy goes off 
on a shooting spree in the camp, 
and there’s not a bit of surprise to 
it. Dandy snapping on the freaks 
was inevitable, but having it hap-
pen so soon killed any illusion of 
dread or suspense along with the 
majority of the freak show. 

The well-shot massacre should 

have been terrifying, but it was 
too clear who was going to live 
and who was going to die. If the 
cast member was part of the 

repertoire of “American Horror 
Story” regulars, they were just 
fine. The side characters, like 
Paul (Mat Fraser, “Cast Offs”), 
were just there for the body count 
and were doomed from the start. 
According to “AHS,” Angela Bas-
sett (“ER”) ’s three breasts are just 
sexier than real-life disabilities.

But even with its failings, “Cur-

tain Call” was still able to wrap up 
several important threads. Dan-
dy’s death was fitting, even with 
the ham-fisted “You are the big-
gest freak of all time!” line thrown 
in to remind viewers that you 
shouldn’t judge a book by its cover 
– if that wasn’t already painfully 
obvious.

But there was more than a half 

hour left in an already bloated 
runtime. And with a flash for-
ward, “American Horror Story” 
became 
“The 
Jessica 
Lange 

Show,” and a passable finale to 
a disappointing season became 
insulting.

In 1960, Elsa has become the 

“Queen of Friday Night” with a 
variety show and everything else 
she wanted, despite the fact that 
the show has, on multiple occa-
sions, pointed out that Elsa isn’t 
that talented. Despite her suc-
cess, Elsa is lonely. “I’m bored,” 
she says at one point, echoing my 
exact sentiments.

With her career facing ruin as 

her past catches up with her, Elsa 
decides to perform on Hallow-

een. This is an obvious excuse for 
Edward Mordrake (Wes Bentley, 
“The Hunger Games”) and his 
ghostly crew to show up again 
and kill her on stage. This sea-
son, Elsa has sold a character into 
slavery, killed her best friend and 
sold her freak show to not one, but 
two madmen leading to most of 
the freaks’ deaths. So what pun-
ishment awaits her? Nothing. All 
is forgiven as Ethel (Kathy Bates, 
“Misery”) greets Elsa in freak 
show heaven. The explanation? 
“It’s like you always said, sweet-
heart: ‘Stars never pay.’” 

Bullshit! An ending where the 

bad guys win is fine, but this was 
something else — this was a despi-
cable character who got every-
thing she wanted, still wasn’t 
happy and was rewarded with 
undeserved salvation. At no point 
did Elsa do anything redemptive 
or possess the necessary self-
awareness to earn the ending she 
got. The audience is served up an 
ill-advised love letter to star Jes-
sica Lange from series’ creators 
Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk. 
This odd adoration spits in the 
face of the show’s own logic, 
which has condemned similar 
characters (in the same episode) 
for many of the sins Elsa has com-
mitted. 

The ending basically says, 

“Yeah this is a mess, but isn’t Jes-
sica Lange just the greatest?” 

No. Just no.

B-

The Boy 
Next Door

Universal 
Pictures
Rave & 
Quality 16

D+

American 
Horror 
Story: 
Freak Show

Season 4 
finale

FX
Wednesdays 
at 10 p.m.

By JACOB RICH

Daily Film Editor

Like it or not, re-releasing old 

titles has become an institution in 
the video game industry. As games 
become increas-
ingly complex, 
they’re 
also 

increasingly 
expensive 
to 

make. 
Sales 

numbers 
for 

re-releases 
of 

games are sur-
prisingly solid, 
even when com-
pared to their 
original release sales numbers. 
Re-releases just make financial 
sense for developers and publish-
ers — they can cash in on past 
popular titles for minimal rede-
velopment time and cost.

In 2014 alone, we saw upgraded 

re-releases of “Pokémon,” “Grand 
Theft Auto,” “Halo” and “Tomb 
Raider” games hit the market. 
Now, for the first video game re-
release of 2015, it’s the seminal 
survival horror game “Resident 
Evil.”

Wait … doesn’t this sound 

familiar?

It should, because “Resident 

Evil” already had its turn. Six 
times. “Resident Evil (2015)” 
marks the seventh time the 1996 
classic has been re-released in 
some form. So how is this week’s 
“Resident Evil” ’s release at all rel-
evant?

To put it simply, it’s because the 

game is still fantastic; “Resident 
Evil” is a game that each genera-
tion of gamers should play. It’s still 
scary. It’s more beautiful than 
ever. It’s meatier and much more 
memorable than the vast majority 
of video games released today.

For the uninitiated, “Resident 

Evil” is an extremely influential 
survival horror game, pioneering 
gameplay mechanics that would 
be genre staples for years to come.

“Resident Evil” ’s genius is its 

revolutionary use of restriction to 
instill fear in players. It was among 
the first games to limit the player’s 
ammo and the number of times 
they could save, and was certainly 
the first to use these restrictions 
fairly and effectively. This com-
bination of limiting factors forced 
frantic resource management and 
a pervading feeling that at any 
given moment, you might not have 
enough stuff to survive.

Another restriction in “Resi-

dent Evil” is its camera, which 
aims in fixed angles depending 
on the location of the player in 
the room. This allows the game to 
hide scares extremely effectively 
and makes for some interesting 
visual puzzles. The game is full of 
puzzles — actual interesting, com-
plex puzzles — which mainstream 
video games seem to avoid at all 
costs lately.

Perhaps the only thing wrong 

with the original “Resident Evil” 
was the time and place it came 
out. The 1996 Playstation version 

looks, well, terrible compared to 
today’s popular hits. Its simple 
polygonal characters move stati-
cally and the game relies too heav-
ily on FMV (real video of real 
actors — yeah, it was real bad). It’s 
aged worse than almost any other 
classic game with similar levels of 
acclaim.

In 
2002, 
“Resident 
Evil” 

received a remake (note that 
remakes are more effortful ven-
tures than re-releases that alter 
the way an old game looks or plays) 
on Gamecube. This remake was so 
good that it made the original look 
completely unplayable by compar-
ison. It completely overhauled the 
graphics, sound and cutscenes of 
the original, giving the cutscenes 
in particular a slick CGI treatment 
instead of FMV.

“Resident Evil (2015)” is an HD 

upgrade of that game. Now, it’s 
playable in widescreen HD, with a 
new, optional control scheme that 
upgrades the archaic tank-like 
controls that plagued the 2002 
treatment.

The only knock on this game 

is that the CG cutscenes weren’t 
upgraded to HD like everything 
else, so they feel very out of place. 
Otherwise, this is the very best 
version of a seminal video game. 
If “Resident Evil” doesn’t already 
occupy a spot in your collection, 
there has never been a better time 
to change that.

“Resident Evil” was reviewed 

using an advance digital copy pro-
vided by the publisher.

A

Resident 
Evil (2015)

Capcom

PS4 (reviewed), 
PS3, Xbox One, 
Xbox 360, PC

‘American Horror’ 
finale freakishly bad

FX

This is the last “American Horror Story” article for a while, we promise.

TV REVIEW

‘The Fall’ enthralls

By KIM BATCHELOR

Daily Arts Writer

Finally, 
the 
long-awaited 

sophomore season of the Irish 
crime drama “The Fall” has hit 
Netflix. 
The 

series focuses 
on the cat-and-
mouse 
chase 

of serial killer 
Paul 
Spector 

(Jamie 
Dor-

nan, 
“Fifty 

Shades 
of 

Grey”) by the 
Belfast police, led by Detec-
tive Superintendent Stella Gib-
son (Gillian Anderson, “The 
X-Files”). This season brings the 
pair much closer until they are 
practically on top of each other 
– literally.

The premiere picks up almost 

exactly where the season one 
finale left off. The episode’s dark 
themes are beautifully echoed 
in the low lighting and muted 
tones, and characters are often 
only silhouetted by single-point 
light. The music and dialogue 
are similarly hushed, with large 
swaths of silence where nothing 
can be heard but the sounds of 
breathing. This sets the mood for 
the whole season to come — dark 
and dangerous — but not like a 
fast explosion. Rather, it is slow 
and creeping, silent and deadly, 
like a concealed dagger. And, in 
case we’d forgotten over the hia-
tus, we are quickly reminded of 
the eerie feeling that no one is 
ever safe. Finally, the dramatic 
turn from slow burn to sudden 
attack at the end pushes the 
show forward.

The real high points of the 

episode are the character inter-
actions. Paul’s love for his daugh-
ter, Olivia (newcomer Sarah 
Beattie) is soured by the use of 
his skills as a murderer to com-
fort her. His kind smile toward 

Rose Stagg’s daughter (Valene 
Kane, “Jump”) before his kidnap 
is purposefully jarring. Never-
theless, it is the women of the 
episode who steal the show. Ais-
ling Franciosi’s (“Quirke”) char-
acter, Katie Benedetto, gains 
complexity as a character and 
develops from innocent bystand-
er to fully immersed in the thrill. 
In Stella’s interview, Karen Has-
san (“Hollyoaks”) ’s poignant 
performance in her role as a 
survivor of one of Paul’s attacks, 
paints a believable picture of not 
only a murder survivor, but a 
sexual violence survivor.

This season, even more so 

than the previous one, employs 
the practice of surveillance and 
the feeling of being watched. 
This theme carries out with the 
installation of cameras in the 
Spectors’ home, the videotap-
ing of victims and Paul’s secret 
observation of Stella. This makes 
many intimate moments pub-
lic, and it forces viewers to face 
their own positions as voyeurs in 
these people’s lives. At one point, 
we are even called out as specta-
tors, when Spector asks “Why 
are you watching this? You sick 
fuck!”

“The Fall” also relies on some 

strong 
cinematography. 
This 

season continues the trend of 
visual doubling — the use of mir-
ror images and juxtaposition of 
everyday actions with those of 
sinister intent. The visuals are 
written into the plot at the very 
level of the character’s personal-
ities. Where Stella is clinical and 
Paul is sensual, both are sexual 
beings who strive for complete 
control in their lives. It is these 
similarities that allow them to 
get in the other’s head, constant-
ly outdoing the other, and driv-
ing the show.

Dornan’s soft-spoken serial 

killer, Paul, is slowly losing his 
humanity with his separation 

from his family, which he plays 
with subtle and cold dead eyes. 
Meanwhile, Stella is warming 
up, with Anderson opening up 
cracks in her armor and bringing 
out real emotional depth. Addi-
tionally, Stella is the Queen of 
the inversion of the Male Gaze, 
using the men around her to her 
advantage. The supporting char-
acters are further fleshed out in 
this season as well. John Lynch’s 
(“Black Death”) character, Assis-
tant Chief Constable Jim Burns, 
provides a wonderful example 
of a man who is tired of a job he 
has been in for too long, while 
Niamh Mcgrady (“Holby City”) 
and provides his counter as an 
ingénue who still sees the best in 
people with her character, Police 
Constable Danielle Ferrington.

A new addition to the team 

is the young and upstart Detec-
tive Sergeant Tom Anderson 
(Colin Morgan, “Merlin”) who is 
described as both promising and 
attractive – both things true of 
the character and the actor who 
plays him. It will be interesting 
to see where his character goes 
in the next season, especially 
with the parallel lines drawn 
between him and Spector.

The season wasn’t without 

its shortcomings. Unlike its 
predecessor, season two felt 
the need to spell out the visual 
comparisons it made verbally. 
This aspect has not only weak-
ened one of the show’s greatest 
strengths, but underestimated 
the audience’s ability to figure 
it out on their own. “The Fall” is 
the kind of show meant to make 
you think, and to dumb it down 
is to patronize those who enjoy 
the challenge of a good puzzle.

Overall, season two does not 

lose momentum and honors its 
strongest points: the complex 
characters who are portrayed 
with depth and respect by the 
talented cast.

A

The Fall

Season 2

Available to 
stream on 
Netflix

FILM REVIEW

VIDEO GAME REVIEW

TV REVIEW