Rob Dean On Monday, July 11, 2011 at 12:30PM Every week, we list our recommendations of new music, books, comics, movies and TV to check out. This is Recs in Effect:
Tabloid
I know people are going to all go see Harry Potter this weekend. But personally, I hate most of those movies. I like the books (well, all but the first 2) and I like Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix as well as elements of some of the other movies, but mostly I just find them so boring and poorly made. So, in a bit of counterprogramming - I'm asking you to go see Errol Morris's latest film: Tabloid, which concerns former Miss Wyoming Joyce McKinney who may or may not have chained up a mormon missionary in the 70s. It appears to be Morris's meditation on fame and a similar look at how diverse the multiple chapters in our lives can be. Errol Morris is, to me, the best documentary filmmaker of all time (his attempts at subverting the truth are more apparent to me than Werner Herzog's, and so I appreciate Morris more) who has done much to not only shape the visual language of modern documentary filmmaking but also to fundamentally alter the way we think about documentary films. Read a review (and explore more about Errol Morris) here.
Rob Dean On Thursday, June 30, 2011 at 1:00PM 
Horror films are the basis for my love of movies.
Firstly, as verboten pieces of art that I was discouraged from viewing as a child because they would give me nightmares or because they were 'trash,' horror films transformed from merely objects of entertainment into forbidden slices of escapism that I needed to learn about, watch, experience and absorb. Horror movies were something secretive that held power over others (particularly authority figures) and yet were looked down on and derided as filth. This dichotomy spurred me to learn more about each of the films, watch more of them and, in turn, learn more about film in general. In an effort to claim some of that power or unravel that mystery, I exposed myself to hours and hours of film, I had no choice but to fall in love with the medium.
Secondly, within the broad genre of horror, films run a large gamut of subgenres and sub-classifications: comedies, science fiction, trash, action, social/political commentary, exploitative. There's no "one type of horror film" - there are schools of thought and approaches but no unifying element that makes something a horror film. Horror movies can be scary, or gross, or gory, or funny, or sexy or chilling or all of the above. Horror movies tend to hinge on tone, an intangible element that tends to be signature of the auteur/director behind the film. Even if films share the same general plot points, it's the injection of tone and realization of the filmmakers' vision that defines each movie. So while consuming all of these horror movies, growing to love film, I also began to understand the subtle (and not so subtle) differences between genres, tones and executions of material.
Thirdly, watching mass quantities of horror movies leads to appreciating good elements of movies, if only to preserve one's sanity. Maybe Hell Comes to Frogtown is a crap film (it is), but you can appreciate the humor of the Lady Frog trying to sex "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. Or maybe The Quest (a/k/a Frog Dreaming) is a terrible movie (it is), but it has haunting shots and scenes that have stayed with me for multiple decades. The gore effects of Nightmare on Elm Street IV: The Dream Master, the quips of Friday the 13th VI: Jason Lives, the badassery of Phantasm II, the creature design of Nightbreed - every film, no matter its overall merits, has at least one element or scene that is appealing and well done. Even if, during those awkward pubescent years, those elements tend to be boob-related. Horror movie fans can sift through hours of crap to find something that made those hours worthwhile. And if a film has more than 1 or 2 elements that are good? An interesting score AND amazing tits? Well then the road to understanding what makes a good film (outside of aforementioned tits) begins as disparate pieces come together to make a strong, unified whole that is then spread through proselytizing to other nerds. "You haven't seen Evil Dead II? Oh we are having a sleepover and watching that RIGHT NOW!"
There are other examples of how horror movies play such pivotal roles in the formation of film freaks, many of them covered in this piece by Devin Faraci, but the point is that for such an easily vilified, belittled and ghettoized genre - horror films can serve as introduction to a love of cinema due to its broad range and malleability. Which brings us to today's film, 2007's Murder Party, written and directed by Jeremy Saulnier, a dark comic Halloween film that is as steeped in film geekery as it is in obscurity.
