We Are Still Here (2015)

Time for another As-It Happens film review, because I can't think of a single original idea for a Halloween article. Too tired. Been working a lot of long shifts, and while it makes my bank account look markedly improved, it does nothing for my creativity. So here we are, watching We Are Still Here, a ghost movie starring Barbara Crampton. How can I possibly NOT watch a movie starring Barbara Crampton?

Crampton is playing a mom named Annie (yay! another Annie for my collection!) whose only son has recently died in a car crash, apparently. At least that's what the synopsis says. She's still as beautiful as she was in Re-Animator, although her eyes are red and deeply sunken, either from genuine method-acting weeping or a lot of vigorous rubbing of vinegar into her ocular orbits just prior to each take. Anyway, she and her husband Paul (Annie & Paul? How very Halloween)move to a new home in remote upstate New York during the heart of a particularly sullen winter (so probably last year) and the soundtrack thus far is the epitome of sorrow and bottomless grief.

"Honey, there's too much chlorine in the pool."

Hey, why isn't Jeffrey Combs playing her husband? Too Castle Freaky?

First plot point: the basement is broiling hot in the middle of December and it smells like smoke. Obvious conclusion: the house rests upon a crevasse in the sphincter of Satan.

Helpful neighbors drop by to say "Howdy" and to mention in passing that the house where Annie and husband Paul now reside was a funeral home 100 years earlier. And not just a funeral home, a body snatching funeral home whose owner - a dude named Dagmar - sold cadavers to chop suey restaurants and buried empty, weighted coffins. And then his family done disappured and ol' Daggie killed hisself! Oh goody. Just what the recently bereaved needed to hear. Sleep tight, guys!

Welp, Monte Markham is definitely in on it, whatever "it" is.

And Token Black Minor Character playing an electrician/plumber gets burned by a tarry, screamy cadaver whilst poking around in the aforementioned spooky basement. Hey wait, wasn't this the plot of Lucio Fulci's The Beyond?

Oh Christ, it's Larry Fessenden.

Oh wow, it's Lisa Marie!

Larry and Lisa are playing the Friends of the Family Who Come To Visit the Grief Stricken Parents. Two more body bags, stat please.

Oh good, Larry and Lisa's teenage son (former roomie of the deceased) is also heading up to spend the weekend at the spooky new house. With his girlfriend! I got five bucks says they smoke pot and engage in vigorous bouts of premarital sex.

Ex-roomie has a stupid, lopsided face.

Ex-roomie's girlfriend looks like she wears black on Wednesdays.

Parents have gone to dinner at a local dive named Buffalo Bills. Am now sitting here playing "Six Degrees" trying to link any and all of the cast members to Ted Levine.

Kids arrive and make themselves at home. And immediately hit the liquor cabinet. And are about to fuck on the couch. Brilliant.

Oh thank god for scary knocky noises - I really didn't want to see Lopsy McWeirdFace all naked and white-boy jiggy.

Wow, like dude. There's a basement down those dark stairs! Far out! Imma go investigate! And I won't turn the lights on first! So I have no reason to look shocked when a cajun-blackened corpse snaps my spinal column like celery right in front of my stupid girlfriend, who stares for a minute, then drives off with a few minor expletives and seems more annoyed than horrified, even when the  crispy zombie in the backseat punches her heart right out of her chest.

Parents of dead kids come home and surmise that the living kids (who are now dead - maybe they can get a groupon for grief therapy sessions?) have not arrived yet.

Okay so, according to Monte - who has just blown a waitress away with a shotgun - the house "wakes up" once every thirty years and must consume a family. If it doesn't, it spreads like a plague across the entire town. Thanks for the backstory, can we see more dead people now?

Barb and Lisa make a beer run.

Lisa: "NO SEANCES IN THE HOUSE WHILE WE'RE GONE!"
*leaves

Larry: "Hey Paul ! Let's have a seance in the house while they're gone!"

So, if the plot of Dead & Buried were written into a Brady Bunch episode, this would pretty much be the end result. Hey, Lisa Marie was in Dead & Buried! Just thought I'd mention it.

Great idea, Larry. Now you're possessed. Happy?

Great idea, Larry. Now you're dead too. Happier?

Larry skewers himself to death with a fireplace poker through the eye, determined to relive his role in Session 9 just one more time.

Whoa, Monte just blew Lisa Marie's head off with a shotgun and it exploded like an overripe watermelon under Gallagher's sledge hammer!

Dagmar is back, and he's pissed. He also looks a hell of a lot like Blake, as played by Rob Bottin in The Fog.

The Fog

We Are Still Here.

Okay so, to sum up, Dagmar is sick and tired of doing the townsfolk's bidding because, after all, they murdered him and his family all those years ago - the Dark Truth comes to Light at long last! Cue the Heavenly Choir and the crash of horns and cymbals, yo! - so he lets his smoking hot wife (no, really - she's still smoking hot and leaving ashes all over the floor - hope Annie and Paul have an industrial shop vac) and his Kentucky Fried kids kill all of them in majestic geysers of blood and guts and gutsy blood and bloody guts strewn hither and yon, all chunky and glistening like Christmas pudding. Then he sneaks up behind Monte whilst Monte is delivering his self righteous climactic speech and does the ReAnimator skull squish, popping his head off like a big, meaty zit right in front of Barbara, who has already seen this shit before and doesn't even appear to be fazed. I was personally wondering - since it is revealed that Annie and Paul have been spared - if they're going to stay in their new house and, if so, how many coats of Killz will it take to cover up that fucking arterial spray? Because ain't no amount of Lava brand soap gonna clean up that shit no how, no way.

I was in Sleepy Hollow, wtf happened?

The film abruptly ends with an offscreen appearance of Dead Son reuniting with Annie and Paul in the cellar.

Ain't nothing new happening here. The writing is fucking terrible. The story is toilet paper thin - I mean, like, eco toilet paper thin, like those cheap dollar rolls that you have to yank off 30 yards and still end up with shit on your fingers? Not very scary, easy to predict, made me feel very sorry for the cast, who all looked kind of sheepish about the whole thing.

Just nod politely and keep going.