Mention Fallen to anyone, and they will have two responses: they will sing “Time... is on my side...” or they will say “That Shockerripoff?” (variant responses include The First Power or House III/Horror Show). I guess a third option (“What?”) is possible, but screw those ignoramuses. But what no one will mention is how goddamn long and needlessly talky that Fallen is. For a movie about a serial killer, you’d think the body count would be at least 10 or so, but it’s much less (and one is so off-screen it’s almost distracting, since it’s a major character).
Again, I don’t think "high body count" necessarily equals "exciting movie", but when you’re dealing with something as silly as an executed killer’s soul possessing anyone he comes into contact with, why not have a little fun with it? Denzel can bring the hammy when he wants (Virtuosity, Deja Vu, hell, even John Q), so it’s not completely out of the question. Plus the supporting cast is like a who’s who of scenery chewing legends – Donald Sutherland, John Goodman, James Gandolfini, Elias Koteas... but no one is allowed to cut loose. Koteas gets a little bit, but his role should have been unbilled for its brevity (he is executed 5 minutes in and never appears again – at least Pileggi found a way to stick around in Shocker).
The soul possession thing is also way overused. There are a couple of scenes when he translates over like 20 times, sometimes only “taking over” someone for literally five seconds before moving on to the next person. It’s like the evil version of that feather in Forrest Gump. After a while it’s not really exciting a concept; it’s not that anyone COULD be the killer, it’s that everyone IS. Just about everyone in the movie is taken over at some point or another, and since the person is not affected in any negative fashion as a result, there’s little suspense about the whole thing. No one’s hurt or dying, and the killer doesn’t even seem to be interested in killing Denzel most of the time.
Like yesterday’s movie, it features someone having to solve a code that leads them to a particular Bible passage. If you’re going to provide a code, you obviously want your nemesis to know what it is, so why not save them some time? He doesn’t even make it much of a challenge – he writes APO, CAL, Y, and PSE, in order, on the chests of four victims. Come on, at least mix ‘em up a bit so he has to use his noggin.
This movie features an inordinate number of cast members from the movie Black Dog. Two, in fact; Gabriel Casseus and Graham Beckel, who is uncredited as one of the random street folks who are momentarily possessed. You might think two is hardly inordinate, but I ask you: Have you SEEN Black Dog? If so, would you want to ever be reminded of it twice in one otherwise unrelated movie? I think not.
Despite all that, it’s at least watchable. Denzel and Goodman have a great chemistry, and some of their dialogues together are the film’s best scenes. I also like how Denzel took care of his brother (Casseus) and tried to keep his nephew from thinking he was more awesome than his own father. And throughout the whole movie, Denzel is giving some really annoying narration, but at the end it’s actually kind of a twist, and it’s a pretty sweet one at that. I just wish it didn’t take so long to get to it.
Ironically, someone asked me today if I plan my movies ahead, and I told him that I didn’t. Then I watched The Seventh Sign, the first of the three HD cable movies I recorded and planned ahead to watch over the long weekend to make sure my DVR had a lot of free space for the upcoming fall season (which kicks off on Monday with the return of the increasingly bad but still awesome Prison Break, wooo!). Sorry I sort of lied, guy who asked me. Otherwise though, no, I never plan ahead. Takes a lot of the fun out of it, if you ask me (no one has).
Anyway, Sign was OK. It’s very light on the horror elements, even compared to something like Rosemary’s Baby (which has a similar plot) which is known for the quality rather than the quantity of its scare scenes. It’s sort of like a biblical Terminator 2 (first 45 minutes), you get two guys who are obviously after Demi Moore’s baby, but you’re not sure at first which one means to save it and which one wants to go all wire hanger on its unborn ass. And some good casting here – Jurgen Prochnow is actually the GOOD guy (if I am understanding the ending correctly, he’s actually a reborn version of THE Good guy).
Also I really wish I watched this movie when I was like 11 and thought Demi Moore was the most beautiful woman in the whole wide world. Because she bares her breasts, something I wouldn’t see until I was 14 when Striptease came along. And this movie is nowhere near as awful. Nude scenes are always a bit more exciting when they are contained in a movie that’s watchable even when everyone is clothed.
The movie also has a completely unintentional (I think) laugh when Moore is channel surfing. All she is coming across is news about people dying, war, etc, and nestled in the middle of all this is a quick clip of a Wheel of Fortune style game show. To me, that suggests that brain-dead entertainment is just as horrible as genocide or whatever. Had she STOPPED on the show it would be different, but no, it gets lumped in with everything else. Awesome.
It’s also got a scene I don’t think I’ve ever seen before in any of these religious prophecy horror thrillers. A priest goes to investigate something, and when he is reporting his findings to the Jedi council of high priests, they’re like “are you SURE it’s not a miracle?” and he’s like “yep, it’s all B.S.” (not actual quotes, sadly). Usually, unless the movie is about a skeptical priest who regains his faith, this scene is ALWAYS played out the opposite way; the priest is all “Miracle!” and the elders will shoot him down. Way to play with uninteresting convention, Schultz.
Oh the director’s name is Carl Schultz.
The only thing about the movie that really annoyed me is when Moore asks Prochnow if that was him that she saw “the other day”, when it was like 2 months later. Where I live, “the other day” is a period of time stretching back no further than a week. Plus, the fucking guy lives with you, you never got around to asking him about it sooner?
Also the movie contains what I believe is the first movie murderer with downs syndrome. Certainly the first one in which said murderer is shot in the neck.
Since Decrepit Crypt movies are not suitable for work (due to the seeming insistence on gratuitous nudity in every movie) and the Horror Classics set has been more or less exhausted, I picked up the Creek’s Tales Of Terror set, which is like a blend of the Horror and Chilling sets, with movies spanning from the 30s up to the 80s. There are a few duplicate titles, but that’s OK. At 40-50 cents a piece, I can’t really complain about what I get. Hopefully though, The Long Hair Of Death (Italian: I Lunghi Capelli Della Morte) is not representative of the set in terms of transfer or film quality.
However, one thing about this transfer is admirable: it’s widescreen! I believe that is the first for a Mill Creek movie. I’m all for a non-cropped image (indeed, I was going to watch a different movie on the disc called The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave, until learning that it was a 2.35 scope film, and was a US edit that ran 20 minutes shorter to boot; I’ll be getting the stand-alone release for that one), so that was a nice bonus. Unfortunately, the transfer was otherwise terrible: washed out image, blurry to the point of incoherency (there’s some sort of object that keeps passing hands, and is apparently important, but I have no idea what the fuck it is. It looks like a mushroom with a lugnut attached to the side.), and with muffled audio to boot. Since the movie is pretty talky, having good audio would be kind of nice. Also, the Creek now apparently puts their logo on the film every 20 minutes or so, like they were Turner Classic or something. Not only is it annoying, it also gives a nice reference to just how poor the image of the film itself is, as the sharp, colorful logo overlays something that could be a person or a coat rack.
Sorry, Mr (Mrs?) Rafferty, your first name isn’t important.
Plus the movie itself isn’t all that great. I like some of these old Italian witch movies, most of which seemingly star Barbara Steele in two roles, but this one is just way too long. Nothing much happens, and if you’ve seen any of these movies before, you know it’ll all come down to a fire, a ghost who isn’t really a ghost, etc, so they really should get a move on and get us there by the 75 minute mark or so. This one goes damn near 100 minutes, which means you get a lot of interminable waiting for the good stuff. At one point we see what seems like 15 straight minutes of folks sneaking around a castle watching other people sneak around the castle. Come on, throw in a dead butler or something for us!
Other than that it’s not too bad. With some editing, this could be a pretty good movie. The revenge/ghost/witch plot is always watchable, and there’s some plague subplotting (it takes place in the 15th century) that is always appreciated. Plus the movie is more or less about a guy who wants to kill his wife so he can be with her sister, so that’s hot. And the weird “Wicker Man” style thing that the bad guy is burned alive in at the end of the film is pretty awesome:
Hahahaha I want that thing in my room. If not available, I will accept Barbara Steele (I bet she’s still hot). Also, this movie offered a “corpse becoming re-fleshed” scene, something I hadn’t seen in almost 48 hours (Return of the Living Dead offered a similar, and far superior, sequence). The two are so similar I wonder if the ROTLD guys used it as a guide of some sort. “How can we do this better, now that it’s 20 years later and people know how to use latex for something besides condoms?”
Anyway, I look forward to going through my new budget pack. Horror Classics was pretty disappointing overall; for every gem there were like 10 movies that were seemingly written on the same template. I’m hoping this one is more like the Chilling set, which had at least one great movie on every disc.
What say you?
Note - The "trailer" is actually a sort of Cliff's notes of the entire movie. Also it's in Italian.
I was pretty bummed to hear that Tartan US would be more or less shutting down; they have been a great source of Eastern horror films such as The Victim (aka Phii Khon Pen in its native Thailand); not only are they more widely available, but the transfers and extras are above average compared to imported glorified VCDs that some folks recommend. Luckily, they have a lot of films already released, and the discs aren’t going anywhere, so it’ll probably be a while before I have trouble finding something new to watch from the other side of the world.
The Victim is a curious entry in the never-ending series of Asian horror films revolving around vengeful spirits. To explain why will require spoilers, so if you don’t want the twist that occurs at the film’s halfway point to be spoiled, I urge you to stop reading now.
(Stop reading this review I mean. Not reading in general. That’s something you should always try to do, especially on the internet.)
The first half of the film revolves around a girl who portrays the victim in crime scene re-enactments for the police/press investigations. I can’t quite figure out the purpose of such a tradition, but apparently it’s something that is really done over there. After a few of these “jobs”, she gets a “breakthrough” role, portraying a murdered beauty queen. But as is often the case in horror movies, she gets “too close” and begins trying to solve the murder herself, and pretty much does. But then, BAM! Someone yells “Cut!” and we realize that everything we have watched so far has been a movie... about an actress working for the police.
And this is where it gets needlessly convoluted, as you realize that our heroine is a girl named May, who is playing a girl named Ting, an actress who is playing Meen (the beauty queen) in a movie. We are watching a movie about the making of a movie that is about an actress. What the fuck? I kept hearing Robert Downey yell “I’m the dude playing the dude disguised as another dude!” as my head struggled to wrap itself around just exactly who the “real” character was. Not since Bewitched has a movie become so needlessly overwrapped in realities.
The rest of the movie involves the actual murdered beauty queen killing off everyone involved with the filming of a particular scene. Why this scene pissed her off so much I’m not entirely sure. Like the crime scene re-enactments, a lot of this movie is seemingly based on the idea that the audience knows a lot about Thailand customs. Which is fine; I’m not of the opinion that every movie made has to consider its idiot American audience. But still, even Thai audiences were probably a bit confused by the ramifications of the mid-way twist (in terms of who are the actors, who are the real people, etc), so you can imagine how doubly confusing it is for me. I was baffled from the start because of the crime scene stuff, and by the time the twist came around my head damn near exploded. But the motive stuff – no idea. It’s got something to do with a dance.
That said, it’s still pretty entertaining. Some of the early scares are effectively creepy (ghosts appear to us, but not to her, so their appearances are subtle), and the cast is great, especially Pitchanart Sakakorn, who is essentially playing three roles. I also really love the score, the piece that plays over the flashback that sort of explains that we have been watching a movie so far is fantastic. Also, I love that the editing system they use in the traditional “look, I have footage of a ghost” scene is a legit program (Final Cut, in fact) instead of some made up movie shit that usually gets used.
Also I think this is the first movie produced by a radio station.
The only extra on the disc is a 20 minute look at the real ghosts that haunted the production. At this point I was getting pretty sick of the multiple levels of reality. So real ghosts haunted the set of the movie that was about the ghosts haunting the set of a movie about an actress making movies? What? For once, I would actually prefer an EPK with all the actors talking about how much they love working together.
However, while it may be too confusing for its own good, its still preferable to the umpteenth “Ghost haunts a piece of technology” movie from the East. Good to see they are thinking outside the box.
I recall starting to watch Return Of The Living Dead when I was about 15. I fell asleep, and for whatever reason I didn’t watch the rest the next day. Then in 2002 I bought the DVD, hoping to watch it that night or the next, and didn’t get around to it (I just took the shrinkwrap off today to watch the extras for this review). So now, 13 years after my first attempt, I finally sat down and watched the damn thing. And I have Clu Gulager to thank.
Clu stars in the film as Bert (not Burt, Rotten!) Wilson, owner of the Uneeda Medical Supply (say it out loud). But Clu is also a staple at my beloved New Beverly Cinema, and thus the owners are giving him his due with a Clu Gulager Festival, where they would show a handful of films in which he appears, and since he would be in the crowd anyway, the legend would give introductions to the film and have his co-stars and crew come on down to talk as well. Indeed, the panel for ROTLD is the largest I have ever seen at the Bev – 12 cast and crew members, plus director Jeff Burr as a moderator.
The crowd was also pretty packed (yay!) which meant that the movie itself was even more of a blast. Even if some of the humor is dated, you still can’t help but laugh and cheer all the same. Not for nothing, but it’s a bit of a slow film at times (the zombies don’t really begin their siege on Culager and co. until the one hour mark), yet it’s impossible to be bored when everyone is having such a great time.
And when it’s going, it goes great. The zombie makeup is some of the best seen; the decomposed bodies move and look incredible, putting recent CGI efforts to shame despite being over 20 years old at this point. Ironically, my two favorite parts of the movie don’t even have zombies. One is of an Army asshole coming home and being a complete dick to his wife (it’s a lot like that scene in The Ape that I loved so much) before retreating to his real love: booze (his other scene is a gem too, as he nonchalantly takes down details from Clu, then essentially kills him). The other is just an odd bit where Don Calfa (Scarface from Foul Play!) stops a scene cold in order to cut a torn part of his pants off, something he takes his time with while the rest of the cast patiently waits for the scene to resume.
Plus, it’s got one of the most likable casts in a zombie movie ever. By wisely avoiding the usual sort of “the real enemy is each other” scenarios, you get a bunch of folks you want to see survive, and working together to keep the zombies at bay (the sight of Clu boarding up a window with two “punk” kids is just bliss) rather than yell at each other the whole time like in the same year's Day of the Dead.
Speaking of the cast, there’s an assload of genre notables here. Besides Clu, we get James Karen from Poltergeist, B-movie staple Linnea Quigley, Raw Force’s Jewel Shepard (my biggest disappointment of the night was not getting a chance to talk to her), and two Friday the 13th vets, part V’s Miguel Nunez (“Goddamn these enchiladas!”) and Tommy Jarvis the 3rd, Thom Matthews.
The music is also great. There’s a lot of punk and 80s rock, but the score is also amazing; whoever sat behind me probably got sick of me bobbing and swaying my head around to the beat. Apparently, the DVD has different music in a lot of the scenes due to some right issues, but I couldn’t tell because I had the commentary on, so Dan O’Bannon and William Stout drowned it out.
The commentary is pretty good, both men have good memories and lots of good anecdotes. O’Bannon discusses things he would have done differently, which is always interesting. The only other extra on the disc is a 13 minute retrospective with the same two guys, which is mostly filler and covers some of the stuff on the commentary anyway. Another, more special edition was released last year, with another commentary and some other making of stuff; if you don’t own it yet, you’d probably want that one (this commentary and making of are ported over, rendering this one pretty much obsolete).
Like I said, it’s a bit slow at times, and also the ending is pretty abrupt, but it’s definitely on better end of the zombie movie spectrum. And if anyone else wants to bitch about Snyder/Gunn using fast zombies, take a look back at this one, co-written by John Russo, who invented zombie movies as we know them with George Romero. I think he’s earned the right to change the rules (for the record, I prefer slow myself, but fast ones are fine).
Some folks might balk at the idea of giving Rob Schmidt a slot among the “Masters of Horror”, since he only has one film (the original Wrong Turn), but either way, he’s certainly made one of the better episodes with Right To Die. Essentially a gory version of the Terry Schiavo case (and some Scott Peterson for good measure), it’s not perfect, but it’s the rare modern horror story that actually has social commentary blended in with the bloody stuff, something that used to be the norm and is now all but completely abandoned.
It’s also got one of the better casts. Martin Donovan is always fun to watch, and it’s great to see Corbin Bernsen back in full on Arnie Becker mode. Plus, uber-hot Robin Sydney spends almost every minute of her screentime in some stage of undress; hardly a bad idea. However, there actually might be a bit too much nudity; in addition to Sydney, Donovan’s equally hot wife (Julia Anderson) has a nude scene herself. I’m not against excessive nudity, but since the story is actually pretty interesting, it could have done without, as it becomes a bit distracting.
I also loved the ending, silly as it may be. The moral of the story is, when you think about it, when you get married you’re pretty much doomed. Even after she dies, Donovan is under the control of his wife, destined for a life of groveling and endless requests for forgiveness (he was fucking Sydney’s character). The final shot is just perfect; Donovan wipes his feet on the mat and sulks inside as his wife (ghost or not, not sure) shuts the door behind him, giving him the evil eye the entire time. Let it be a lesson to all you unhappily married folks who are considering letting their spouse die so that they can rake in some dough and fuck their assistant without consequences.
Also I am almost positive this is the first horror movie in which our hero drives one of those ugly ass “Smart Cars”. I’m all for saving the environment, using alternatives to oil, all that stuff, but CHRIST those fucking things are ugly. I swear that Big Oil pays off the makers of these things to ensure that they will never be fully embraced by the public, because the average person wouldn’t be able to stop laughing at the sight of the thing long enough to sign the paperwork.
The only thing about the episode that really bothered me was how Schmidt staged an early scene that is missing crucial information. It’s sort of a cheat – it’s not like doing a flashback that takes on new meaning with new information that the film has given you, that’s OK. What Schmidt does is actually edit things out throughout the scene, and then play the “whole” thing later. As a result, both scenes are pretty awkward, and I wish they had spent some time reworking the scene(s) so that it would feel less forced. There’s also a ridiculous bit where Donovan walks around a hospital with a leaking cooler. Uh... where would the leak be coming from? It’s a goddamn cooler! Plus, no one seems to mind much that this citizen is carrying a bloody object around and leaving a trail of blood wherever he goes. The whole movie is kind of silly, but you got to ground it in reality for it to work properly.
The makeup effect for the burned up wife is amazing. Apparently, they simply hired a smaller actress than Anderson so the makeup could be applied and yet still give the idea that the woman is smaller as a result of her injuries (think about it – if you got no skin, you’re like 20 lbs lighter, yet in most movies, the actor will look BIGGER because of the prosthetics applied to his/her normal body). Say what you will about MoH, but KNB’s effects are just as good as their feature film work, something even more impressive when you consider the compressed time and budget they had to work with.
As usual, there’s a pair of featurettes (good stuff) and a commentary. Schmidt is OK to listen to; like on Wrong Turn, he’s kind of awkward, but provides some good trivia and discusses technical and creative things in equal measures, which is appreciated. He also discusses the “cheat” I mentioned earlier, and seems to think that the first time we saw the scene, it felt complete, something that’s not the case. Still, worth a listen (if you liked the movie anyway).
So far, of the 5-6 episodes of Season 2 I’ve watched, it’s a vast improvement over the first. With the exception of Carpenter, everyone that came back did a better episode, and the newcomers (Schmidt, Brad Anderson) contributed worthy movies as well. I don’t know why the show gets a bum rap among fans; sure none of the episodes are exactly classics (except for Joe Dante’s Homecoming from Season 1; I haven’t seen his 2nd season film yet), but they are rarely downright terrible, and since a lot of the directors never do horror anymore (John Landis), or films at all (Carpenter), I kind of like that the series gave them an opportunity to do something different and relatively unrestrained.
If you read my Doctor Butcher review, you’d know I was a bit on the un-sober side of things for Grindhouse night at the New Bev, but even if I had nothing stronger than ginger ale in my system, I don’t think I’d be able to make heads or tails of what the fuck was going on at any point of Raw Force (aka Kung Fu Cannibals). My buddy Larry told me before the screening that it was “the most "Grindhouse" movie ever”, and by God he was right. After we watched this masterpiece of incoherency, another buddy said that the film seemed like it was shot specifically for the peculiar breed of audience who attends these things 20 years later.
There are three words that pretty much sum up how awesome this movie is: “Burbank Karate Club”. Now, it’s a funny thing anyway, but it endeared to me SPECIFICALLY because of my odd and completely unmotivated disdain of this Los Angeles suburb. Home to my employer (NBC), Warner Brothers, and one of the most poorly staffed Best Buys on the planet, there’s just something about the place I find fascinating and hilarious. It gets mentioned about 4 times in the movie, and the audience provided 10x as many of its own references, and it made me laugh like DeNiro in Cape Fear every single time. Plus it got me to start rattling off other LA town-based martial arts clubs: The Sherman Oaks Judo Range, the Studio City Tae Kwon Do-Jo...
Plus the movie just doesn’t make a lick of sense. I mean, there’s a plot of some sort, but damned if I could tell you who was on who’s side or what their actual objective was. It’s got something to do with drugs and something called Jasper Jade, and an island where one (or maybe both) can be found. But no one seems to care about the story; the film’s real focus is mainly on people doing odd things for no reason. A perfect example is a scene about midway through the film, after the boat with all of our characters is sunk. Like in Friday the 13th VIII, our heroes get on the lifeboat, and all the other people on the ship are left for dead. So they are floating around in the ocean, and then a plane appears. So Cameron Mitchell (who else?) does the only logical thing: he shoots at it. But it turns out to have our bad guys! Did Mitchell know that? The plane appears to be about 2 miles away so I doubt he could see who was flying it. But does it matter?
The horror angle comes in from some zombie type things that show up near the end. They appear to be under the influence of a cult of some sort (the guys in the cult look like giant Jawas), but again, couldn’t tell you what they were actually trying to accomplish. And like the rest of the movie, they are a peculiarly non-violent group; I think the total body count in this movie is four. There’s like 10 people in the “good guy” group and I’m pretty sure all but one of them is alive at the end. Then again, a sequel was planned; it ends with “To Be Continued”, which prompted the crowd (already delirious from the 90 minutes of nonstop “Whaaaa?” they had just experienced) to cheer and provide a standing ovation. Maybe they were saving the kills for part 2.
It’s funny too; since I couldn’t tell what was happening most of the time, I had no real way to gauge how much time had passed or how much of the movie was left. Like, if you’re watching Friday the 13th part whatever, and everyone but the girl and maybe her boyfriend is dead, there’s only 15 minutes of the movie left, tops. But with Raw Force, I had no idea. The point where it ended could have just as easily been the halfway point.
Somehow this one is so obscure that it doesn’t even have a trailer on Youtube. The only DVD release is in a multipack, with a transfer taken from a VHS, so that’s hardly enticing. Still, if you love this type of movie, you really owe it to yourself to check it out at your earliest convenience.
There’s a sort of caveat to seeing a movie at the New Beverly, particularly on Grindhouse night, and using it for my daily Horror Movie A Day entry: I’m usually buzzed if not slightly drunk by the time it starts, and then I spend most of the movie laughing and cheering at the ridiculousness on screen. As a result, when it comes time to write a review for a movie like Doctor Butcher M.D. (aka Zombie Holocaust), I’m hard-pressed to remember any details. Maybe HMAD reader and fellow Grindhouse loyalist Joe can help me out if I skip anything important.
Like a lot of cannibal movies, this one starts in New York. It’s not as inexplicable as the NY intro of Cannibal Ferox, however, and it actually contains some cannibalism right from the start. But otherwise it’s essentially a remake of Fulci’s Zombi: we meet our guys and gals, and then its off to the island, where some folks are killed, weird shit goes down, and a church (the same one, I think) is burned down. Except this one also has cannibals. It was like there were too many cannibal movies, and too many zombie movies, so the only chance director Marino Girolami and writer/producer Fabrizio De Angelis had to make a name for themselves was to combine the two.
As a result, it’s neither as graphic nor violent as the landmark zombie/cannibal films that were released around the same time (Cannibal Holocaust, Zombi, etc), but it’s still an ass-ton of fun. Five minutes into the movie, a guy dives out a 10th story window, and as he hits the ground, his arm flies off. This is because it’s obviously a mannequin, and then when they cut to a closeup of the (real) guy on the ground, his arm has been restored. If you see something like that, and you don’t cheer... you might as well just get the fuck out of the cinema.
Zombi’s Ian McCulloch also appears in this one, and he’s a riot. Constantly dressed in a large tan trenchoat, he doesn’t really do much in the movie except bark orders at people (“Bury him!”) and devise ineffectual plans, such as bringing a stick to a machete fight (in a sequence that looks like it was shot in the Pine Barrens, not the island of Kito like the rest of the movie). Later in the film he is captured, and his escape is extraordinary. Using a helpfully close-by scalpel, he cuts his binds and then waits for the right moment. His captors never seem to notice the fact that his hand and neck are no longer restrained (the neck straps are just laying there across his chest). But he manages to bungle the whole thing anyway, almost instantly being re-subdued after making his move.
One interesting tidbit is that Roy Frumkes, best known for Document of the Dead, was brought in to shoot a new title sequence for the US version (which I guess is what we had, though the print seemed to be assembled from a couple of sources). He also did himself a solid; the film’s director is buried in the middle of the credits, while Frumkes’ name is given the last slot typically reserve for said director. A douche move, but an awesome one all the same.
Unusual for a Grindhouse night, there were no special guests, BUT I did “win” the raffle for once; Grindhouse guru Brian Quinn gave me his signed poster of Bobbie Bresee from the time she was there for a screening of Mausoleum (which was one of the first GH nights I attended!). Since the poster was made out to “Brian”, he asked if anyone in the crowd had that name, and I was the first to respond. What’s in a name, indeed. The poster is now proudly displayed in the backseat of my car next to some napkins, the AC charger for my cell, and an issue of Fangoria. Thanks BQ!
My memory must be worse than I thought. I could have SWORN I saw Phantasm OblIVion in high school, circa 1996 or 1997, but by all accounts, the film hit VHS in the fall of 1998, when I was already in college. What the hell? I even recall talking about it with a buddy who I am pretty sure I haven’t spoken to since high school. Whatever.
And while I couldn’t remember a damn thing about the movie itself either, I did remember correctly that it was a rather underwhelming “finale”, with more confusion than necessary and a way too obvious low budget. It’s still a good movie, but I think I’d feel better about it if I knew that Phantasm V, with a big budget and all the resources Coscarelli needed, was in the can or at least in serious pre-production. The next to last "Dark Tower" book is also kind of weak on its own, but when you read the next one right after, it’s hardly an issue.
One thing that bummed me out is that, for the first time, the film doesn’t really attempt to pick up right where the last one ended. The character of Tim (the kid) was taken out the window at the end of III, a la Mike in the original, but Reggie doesn’t even utter his name here. Reggie is also completely out of character at first; he’s more concerned about his car than his best friend. He acts like a character might if it were ten years after, not ten minutes. Instead, it starts with Mike wordlessly “narrating” the events of the previous films, then The Tall Man inexplicably lets Reggie live a few minutes later. Later, the always horny Reggie sees a beautiful girl on the side of the road and doesn’t even wave hello (to be fair, she returns later and then he hits on her). Despite the fact that the time between production of the two films was shorter than ever, and they didn’t have to work around a different actor in the role of Mike, this one just doesn’t have that sort of connective tissue that has always been appreciated (and truly rare in horror franchises).
Coscarelli also relies way too much on old, unused footage from the first film. Granted, it’s a really unique idea (and a great way to save some dough on film), but for every really good use of the old stuff (the final scene), there are twice as many baffling ones. For example, Mike begins reminiscing about his “last perfect day”, before The Tall Man entered his world. This leads to 2-3 minutes of young Mike stealing an ice cream from Reggie’s truck. It doesn’t say much about our hero that his idea of a perfect memory is stealing from his best friend. Later, he tries to hang himself, and he remembers when he and Jody hung The Tall Man from a tree, then Mike cut him down after his arch-nemesis promised not to bother him anymore. Isn’t that something he might have mentioned (or at least though about) before? It’s kind of useful information, don’t you think? Once a scene is deleted, it becomes non-canon, and while using it again later isn’t “against movie law”, something that important being brought into the fold is just jarring.
Now, one thing about the lower budget that works in its favor is the limited cast. Really, only our four guys are in the movie. The only other two cast members are the traditional Reggie Girl (Heidi Marnhout, also the hottest RG in the series) and a glorified stunt guy playing a demon cop for about 3-4 minutes. Marnhout doesn’t last long either, which means the focus is on the people who are important (as opposed to the previous two films, in which characters that never appeared in another Phantasm film took up large chunks of screen time). I like that; it’s sort of like coming full circle. Reggie even puts his ice cream man suit on for the film’s final act, for some reason.
This one attempts to reveal more about The Tall Man, and while it’s still not crystal clear, I like that he has a less annoying name to type (Jebediah Morningside). We also learn a bit more about that photo from the first movie, so that was a nice touch. I also loved the bit where Mike turns a car engine into a weapon to use against ol’ Jeb (I just wish it was the Hemicuda’s engine instead, since it’s sort of like the 5th character in the series). And the ending, while a bit low key for a finale, has a nice sort of cyclical (or spherical!) nature to it that again reminded me of "The Dark Tower".
This one also has a bit more of the dream logic that has mostly eluded the series since the original, which was nice. It would be easy to have a film with just answers and action (especially considering it may be the last one) but thankfully, Coscarelli retained some of the oddball nature of the 1979 original. It’s not always as successful, but that may be due to the fact that after the last two films, I am sort of used to the sequels sticking to coherency.
And it’s not important, but I also love that all four movies have the same length (just shy of 90 minutes). I swear to God, part of why I disliked Scream 3 was that it was 20 minutes shorter than the other two films. Yeah I’m a weirdo.
Like III, for extras we get behind the scenes stuff (it seems to be a pretty tense set; everyone seems pissed off) and a commentary. Coscarelli and Bannister return, and Scrimm is there, but Baldwin is absent (another tradition; someone is always missing). It’s mostly a nuts and bolts track – shooting locations, names of crew members, etc. By now you should be used to it. I don’t know why, but Coscarelli never really delves into the storytelling aspect of the films. He wrote all of the scripts, yet he never has much, if anything, to say about plot elements, character motivations, etc. But hey, you’ll know the name of the key grips and where they shot the mausoleum stuff, so it evens out.
Supposedly, a script for a 5th film has been written, and the cast read it and everyone seemed to enjoy it. But as usual, money is an issue. Now that Anchor Bay owns the rights to the entire series (save for part 2, which Universal still owns, at least in the US), and have been distributing original films for the past couple years, I hope they can pony up maybe 2-3 million (about the budget of III) for the guys to make their film before the series’ villain is too old to make it (Scrimm is hardly a spring chicken). If it never comes to be, maybe they can make it into a graphic novel or something. I know there is still another story to tell, and while the sequels may not live up to the original, the tight bond between films (as opposed to the continuity be damned approach of most horror franchises) means that one film could give the others new meaning.
Also I like seeing folks get their goddamn heads taken off by flying silver balls.
Since The Gate was one of those movies that I never quite saw in its entirety when I was a kid, I was determined not to miss any of it at the midnight screening at the New Beverly. Thus I drank an iced coffee, a large coke at the movies beforehand (Tropic Thunder), a regular coffee on the way to the Bev, and then another coke for the movie itself. And still dozed off. I guess caffeine is simply no match for my rampant narcolepsy.
But I saw enough to know that this movie is actually a lot better than you might expect of a PG-13 horror movie aimed at kids. It’s fun, it’s scary, it’s well made and acted, and it features a young Stephen Dorff calling his sister’s would-be boyfriend a “fag” for no real reason. What’s not to love?
It’s essentially a melding of Evil Dead and The Goonies, what with the three kids fighting demons and such that they were pretty much responsible for unleashing in the first place. And even though no one actually dies in the movie, it still has quite a bit of action (more than I expected at any rate); the last half hour or so is pretty much nonstop makeup and running and yelling and effects.
It also has the most brutal dog death in movie history. Not his actual death (he just dies, or is hugged to death by Dorff’s pal, I’m not quite sure), but they just milk it for the entire movie. After he dies Dorff looks at the dog’s dish, filled with food never to be eaten (aww!). Then he looks at photos of the dog (AWWW!) and finally the dog’s corpse is mutilated by the monsters, resulting in an already distraught Dorff seeing the dog’s head thrown about (oh COME ON!). Not since What Dreams May Come have I seen a film so determined to make its audience cry over the death of a pooch. Luckily the dog is resurrected (inexplicably, but welcomely so!) so that’s good.
Speaking of Dorff’s pal, he’s fantastic. He’s like an 80s version of McLovin’, and the highlight of the film has to be when he starts rocking out in his bedroom to the Maiden-esque spoken word intro to a metal song. Then, amazingly, the album has clues to the source of the monsters in Dorff’s backyard! How awesome is that? If I ever come home and some little pint sized monsters are running around, I am totally digging out my copy of "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" and getting some goddamn answers.
Another pretty awesome thing about the movie is that even though the dog and his friends miraculously come back to life unharmed, his house is still totally destroyed (and no, “Frisbee!” won’t explain it). The parents are gone for the weekend, and when they come home, they will find their unscathed children inside a house with no roof and a pit to hell in the middle of the living room. Luckily, it’s the goddamn ugliest house I’ve ever seen in my life, so they can use it as an excuse to move. I hear Cuesta Verde has some open houses.
Director Tibor Takács and screenwriter Michael Nankin showed up for a Q&A, which was pretty interesting. The best bit was when they discussed how the studio was afraid that a PG-13 horror movie wouldn’t be marketable! Indeed, I remember even when I was a kid, part of why I never really went out of my way to see it (I saw the end like five times) was that I figured since it wasn’t R, it would be lame. Such is life when you’re 8 years old and have already gotten to see Texas Chain Saw Massacre and most of the Friday the 13ths.
Horror fans would be sort of happy to know that the boring woman from Candyman 2, Kelly Rowan, plays one of Dorff’s sister’s friends in this. Since the demon needs the oddly small number of two sacrifices, I thought she (and the other friend) would be a goner for sure, but they just sort of leave the house at the end of the second act. Bummer.
The DVD is out of print, and it sucked to begin with (full frame transfer), and I'm pretty sure the sequel, which focuses on Dorff’s nerdy pal, doesn't even have that much. And that is a damn shame, but hopefully unlike me you were smart enough to watch it back in the day. I will never doubt a PG-13 horror movie again!!
Most fans consider it the worst sequel, but I actually think Phantasm III is the best followup to the (unmatched) original. After watching all four back to back, it seems that III, while not without its problems, is the one that Coscarelli had the best of both worlds: the resources of II and the freedom to do what he wanted in IV.
For starters, A. Michael Baldwin is back as Mike. Not that there was anything wrong with Le Gros (he’s certainly a better actor), but it just puts III on the right track almost from the start. Bill Thornbury also returns as Jody, another highlight (his character was entirely absent in II). But in fact, neither of them have much screentime; this movie is almost 100% Reggie Bannister. There are only 2-3 scenes in the entire film in which he doesn’t appear, and he really comes into his own here. The script even helpfully returns his four barrel shotgun to him, despite the fact that he left it in the mausoleum basement at the end of II.
Another highlight is the fact that the spheres actually commit some badass murders in this. Instead of the usual drilling/yellow goo stuff, we get a great bit where the sphere begins rotating around, twisting the victim’s head right off. And later, a sphere merely forces itself through someone’s head, leaving a Looney Tunes style hole in the broad’s noggin. We also get to learn a bit more about what the spheres are, and there are more of them to boot. It’s probably the most iconic image of the entire series, and yet in the first two films they barely appear. III finally gives them their due.
LOL
Then there are a lot of little moments I like. One is when the kid goes into a walk-in freezer, and the door shuts behind him. For the first time in horror movie history, I think, this doesn’t mean he is trapped inside. When the time comes for him to leave, he opens the door easy peasy. Speaking of the kid, he’s not annoying at all. He helps Reggie on a few occasions, and since Mike is MIA for most of the movie, it’s nice to have that sort of father/son bond again. The traditional “seamless” continuation from the previous film is also improved over the original’s; Reggie hasn’t noticeably aged this time, and even though Le Gros’ footage needed to be obfuscated or reshot entirely, it’s definitely a quality attempt to keep continuity.
Some other stuff is not as successful. The humor isn’t as bad as others seem to think (all four movies have their share of unfunny comic bits), but it’s still a bit much at times. And the inconsistency is a bit jarring here; since when do dead folks become full sized zombies instead of little jawa goblins? Some of the smaller budget limitations are a bit too obvious as well; a major villain is blown away and we don’t even see the corpse hitting on the floor.
And people may want to know why the Tall Man does what he does or whatever, but I only have one question: where the hell does Reggie get all his money? He dropped like a grand in the last movie, and he pulls out another wad of cash in this one when he tries to ditch the kid at an orphanage (Tall Man was kind enough to leave a bunch of kids alive in the last couple towns he wiped out I guess). Not to mention the costs of constantly repairing his Hemicuda. The guy’s an unemployed ice cream man for Christ’s sake, yet he seems to be operating on a bigger budget than the film itself.
Like usual, there is a commentary track, although neither Don Coscarelli or Reggie Bannister are involved. It’s just Baldwin and Angus Scrimm, even though they are offscreen for about 75% of the film. Most of the track is just the two of them singing the praises of every single crew member, and occasional technical details. Scrimm in particular seemingly has a photographic memory; in addition to remembering every single person’s name, he also recalls their other roles/jobs. He’s also possibly the most positive and gentleman-ly actor in Hollywood; he never has a single negative thing to say. Even when Baldwin mocks his own performance, Scrimm will reply how wonderful it is.
The other extras are a bit slim; in addition to a wordless behind the scenes piece (just a bunch of random footage), there is a deleted scene that takes longer to load than to watch. It’s nine seconds of The Tall Man walking down a corridor of some sort, and even though I had only finished the film a few minutes before, I couldn’t even tell where it would take place in the film. Plus there is no explanation of why it was cut or any other sort of information, which means it’s pretty much entirely worthless.
Luckily the film is fun and has a sizable amount of action, and again, seeing Reggie go into full blown Ash mode is great. Coscarelli’s absence is a bit puzzling (and lamented; this is an uncut version, which means he obviously would have something to say about the changes), but oh well. Still worth a purchase.
I'm sure it's legal crap, but I have no idea why Phantasm II has never hit DVD in region 1 (as of this Tuesday, all of the other Phantasmmovies will be on DVD courtesy of Anchor Bay). As a result, I had to borrow the region 2 disc from a pal and hook up my all region player, which was replaced with an HD DVD player (go ahead and laugh - the discs still work and look just as good as Blu-Ray, except now I get them for a fraction of the cost). My only other option was to find the VHS copy I made when I was like 14, so F that noise.
Like the first one, I didn't recall much about the movie other than that Mike was played by a different actor and at some point Reggie made a four barrel shotgun. Watching it now, I can see why so little was retained in my head - the movie is kind of half-assed all the way through. Apparently, Universal put up some good money for the movie (more than any other Phantasm movie anyway) but only under the condition that it, well, make sense. No dream sequences, no loopy narratives, and certainly no "Let's play a song so we can introduce tuning fork foreshadowing" scenes. As a result, it's just a sort of generic chase movie, with Reggie and James Le Gros-Mike hunting the Tall Man around the country.
In one of the sequel's best ideas, we see that the Tall Man and his army of midgets and guys who resemble Boy from Little Monsters are now pretty much wiping out entire towns. The film's best scene shows Reggie and Mike driving through a small town that has been totally wiped out; complete with overturned cars and tumbleweeds. It's an eerie visual, and I would like to think that even if he got a huge budget, Don Coscarelli wouldn't have shown the actual carnage, only the aftermath.
Unfortunately, right after that the movie takes an odd detour. Reggie and Mike disappear for close to a half hour as the movie focuses on some blond girl with a psychic link to Mike, and a priest. Not that the scene(s) are bad, but after 9 years (though the movie keeps saying 7), we want our guys front and center! The Tall Man also barely appears in large chunks of the film. And since the priest is killed and never referenced again, this portion of the film seems like the result of a film clocking in way too short to be considered a feature, so a new character/sequence was produced to pad the running time.
It's also strangely short on action. Even with the bigger budget, the movie has just about as much action/gore as the original. The oddness was a big part of why the original worked; if they are going to remove it, they could at least add more action to help us forget it. Granted, there are three explosions in the movie (has to be a record for a horror movie) and the sphere scenes are more frenetic (love the smashing doors bit), but it still feels more like a retread at times than the "bigger and better" sort of approach most sequels attempt. Indeed, the car chase is shot exactly like the one in the original, same angles and everything (only this time it's Reggie chasing the Tall Man, a nice little twist); this is an area where they really should have gone all out.
That said, it's still very much Phantasm, and thus very fun. This film begins the tradition of Reggie's cock getting him into trouble, and the scene where they raid the hardware store is a blast (and inspired the "Butch picks a weapon" scene in Pulp Fiction, according to the commentary). The improved sphere work translates into messier kills, and the new "Sphere Vision" is an improvement as well. And while I hate re-casting a role, Le Gros does a damn good job here, and it's funny to see him in a studio horror movie, since he's the king of indie drama/comedies.
The commentary is pretty much the only real extra on the disc. It's interesting enough, but I wish Coscarelli had discussed the studio limitations more. It's not even a Universal release (Anchor Bay UK handled the region 2 release) so he'd have no one to stop him if he wanted to piss and moan for our pleasure. There's a lot of great technical info and some clever editing is pointed out (there are really only two explosions, not three; one of them was merely shot from two angles), so it's definitely worth a listen. The only other extra besides a trailer and TV spots is the same Fangoria Convention footage that was on the first movie's disc.
With a meatier storyline and maybe a little more freedom from the studio, this could have been the series' best entry. As it stands, it's entertaining, and it's good to see everyone again, but the movie as a whole just seems to be treading water more often than not.
I don’t know why, but someone at Mill Creek must really hate The Ape. For starters, the plot description on the sleeve describes not The Ape, but in fact Nightmare Castle, which appeared on the Chilling Classics set. I spent about 2/3 of the movie wondering when Boris Karloff was going to start torturing his wife (or when his character would even be married, for that matter) until I finally realized the error. But making matters worse, this is hands down the absolute worst transfer they’ve ever given a film; a full SIX minutes are lost to bad film splices and jump cuts, to the point where I couldn’t even tell what the hell was going on at times.
Not that it’s a particularly good movie anyway. Karloff is a scientist trying to cure polio, and when the actual killer ape destroys his samples for the cure, he does the only logical thing: cuts off the ape’s head and skin, dresses up like him, and kills townsfolk to obtain more samples. It’s kind of awesome in theory (remake this, stat!) but the movie itself is just a dreadful bore. Karl-Ape barely even gets going when he is put down, and the actual Ape didn’t really do much either. There are more scenes of Karloff trying to get his patient to walk than there are of the Ape (real one or not) killing folks, and in an hour long movie, that’s just not proper.
There is some occasional fun to be had though. Karloff resembles Christopher Lloyd, which is pretty funny, and I loved how much of a downer the Polio woman was in the early parts of the film. Her boyfriend takes her to the circus, and she says things like “look at those acrobats... must be nice to be able to control your whole body.” Way to bring the room down, Debbie.
The best scene is also the most extraneous in the entire film. There’s a character named Mason who is rather inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but the movie stops cold(er) to have him go home and talk to his wife for a few minutes before walking back out again. This guy has to be the biggest dickhead in all of motion picture history. His wife cooks him a nice meal, he tells her he doesn’t like it. She asks if he’s going out, he basically tells her to go fuck herself. Even when she tells him she doesn’t mind that he’s having an affair, he’s a condescending bastard in response. Finally, he tells her to just leave him, and she asks (rather politely) where she could go. “There’s always the river!” he snarls as he walks out the door. Holy shit! I think the fact that the scene is so unnecessary makes it all the more amazing; it’s like they had a test screening and decided that the movie needed a scene where a guy psychologically abuses his wife, so they shot one without ever really having it fit into the movie.
The script is by Curt Siodmak (I know this because it’s one of the few opening credits to survive the butcher job by Mill Creek; the director, producer, etc are all left to the IMDbagination), which is surprising since he wrote some really good stuff like The Wolf Man and at least one sequel in each of the big Universal Monster franchises. I guess everyone’s allowed a stinker.
If you want to watch the film, I advise you do so HERE at the Archive.org site, and not the Horror Classics version. It’s a much cleaner print, and a complete version as well. Plus it has the correct plot synopsis.
A friend of mine recently pointed out that I’ve been particularly vicious towards Lionsgate recently (and for good reason! Fuckers!), but I got nothing but good things to say about them concerning the DVD of Side Sho. In addition to being a rare anamorphic release for one of their pickups, it’s also possibly the first of their indie releases in which the cover of the DVD accurately reflects the film itself. The name of the movie was chosen by the filmmakers and actually appears in the film, the guy on the cover is actually in the movie, and the stuff behind him is more or less accurate as well (there’s a Ferris Wheel in there for some reason, but whatever). Way to go, LG!
(I should note the standard collection of trailers is disappointing; two for movies released quite some time ago, and a pair of action flicks. No new horror trailers!).
The movie itself ain’t too bad either. Nothing particularly original happens, but some of the kill scenes are pretty ridiculous/unique, such as a guy who gets a glass casing (with a snake inside) smashed over his head, which lets the snake bite him to death. Also a turtle is used. Plus, a small kid is shotgunned to hell, something always appreciated.
Also, instead of the usual collection of jobless backwoods inbreds, they are all ex-carnies. Our hero family is doing a book on remote tourist trap attractions (they will have the market cornered since Bill Hudley’s book obviously never got published), so we have a barker, a strongman, etc. It’s a bit refreshing. Also, even more refreshing for one of these no-name indies, it’s pretty fast paced. There are like 10 carnies, so you’re never more than a couple minutes away from another action bit once it gets going (about a half hour in).
Plus it’s pretty brutal. The family has inexplicably brought the daughter’s friend along on their vacation, so you know she’s a goner, but the parents actually get wasted too, leaving only a 16 year old girl and a kid of about 10 behind to fend for themselves (but not for long, the ending suggests they’re goners too). Awesome. Also, worth noting that the friend, the only “sure thing” victim, more or less kills herself due to horror movie stupidity. I’d kind of like to see a breakdown movie where everyone dies on their own accord, as the nearby inbred mutant cannibals are all otherwise engaged.
Some stuff pissed me off or at least irritated me, however. For starters, the score. It’s fucking terrible. There’s no real theme or anything, and it’s almost never appropriate to the scene. It’s rare I even notice a score as being bad, but this one is particularly terrible. Also, I really could have done without the moment where the dad, who already resembles Bruce Campbell anyway once he’s covered in blood, yells “Groovy!” after grabbing a weapon from a tool shed. Weak.
With his glasses on, however, he looks like Stephen Colbert.
There’s also an odd scene where our hero kid has a nice chat with the resident “non evil” mutant kid. The mutie likes comics, and the kids discuss a couple of made up characters. Then the kid offers him some, and right on the top is "Sleepwalker", Marvel’s comic from the 90s. It may be the issue where a guy named Rick dives off a ship to get a ring, I’m not sure, but it bugs me when they combine made up shit with real stuff. One way or the other, guys.
The DVD has some decent extras, including a making of that is about 15 minutes long, 5 of which are devoted to footage of the crew (and cast) trying to get the damn boat started for one sequence (oddly, the piece includes some music that is far superior to anything in the film). There’s also a blooper reel (zzz) and a commentary, which is pretty lively as they discuss problems shooting (apparently their original FX guy was a complete dipshit, but they won’t name names, dammit), stuff they had to change, and point out some goofs. Not exactly essential, but definitely enjoyable. All in all, a nice little package for an above average LG indie release.
Why is it every high concept “re-invention” horror movie eventually just becomes the same type of movie it tried to circumvent? Behind The Mask eventually became a slasher, but that was at least part of the joke. And now, on the heels of Fido, we have Zombies Anonymous (aka Last Rites Of The Dead), which has a unique first hour, and then turns into another zombie bloodbath, complete with evil zombies (instead of the evil humans that usually turn up at the end of regular zombie movies, since in this one, zombies are the ‘good guys’).
However, unlike Fido, it’s actually funny and consistently interesting in that first hour. Instead of the obvious gags like the ones in that film, ZA deals with more random and minute issues. The parallels to both racial segregation and homophobia are pretty obvious; some humans care about and help zombies, others fear and oppress them. And since in this world, zombies are allowed to live and hold jobs and all that, we have things like the titular meeting group, where the zombies bemoan how they lost their parking privileges and discuss the best way to hide their zombie wounds/skin (a mixture that looks suspiciously like peanut butter seems to be the answer). Clever use of mundane life details is far more interesting than obvious satire, at least to me.
I also like that this is the “real world”, in that our beloved Romero zombie movies (and all that followed) exist. One guy announces his desire to be like Ben in the original NOTLD, and a woman who tries to hide her zombie nature is scoffed at for being bland. “I hate a zombie with no personality!” her tormenter announces. “So Fulci!”. The opening theme is also quite good, as is the sequence under it: a series of news reports explaining the zombie plague and how its being dealt with (mostly ignored), cross cut with the events that lead to our heroine becoming a zombie in the first place.
But then it all falls apart. Our hero zombies are captured by some evil humans, then some zombies come rescue them, only to bring them to a compound run by a religious zealot type zombie. The last 10 minutes is just an endless and dull series of gore gags and low budget fighting, to the point where I was just yelling “End!” at the screen. I’m not opposed to some action, but the satire and “zombies are people too” angle is entirely absent from this section of the film, leaving you only with a regular zombie, albeit a cheap one.
Yes, this one is VERY indie. It seems to have been shot on consumer video at times (much better than the Decrepit Crypt stuff, but certainly not the quality HD that is used in a lot of recent stuff, such as Wizard Of Gore, which was finally released on DVD this past week*), and the actors are pretty bland (though the lead chick is cute, like a young Holly Hunter). Some of the zombie makeups are impressive, but the gore gags are usually pretty lame, and the blood looks like paint. I should note, however, that none of this bothered me until the movie became just another zombie movie. Once again – keep me engaged in the story and all other flaws are forgivable, if noticed at all. Turn generic, and you need technical savvy and high production value to maintain my interest.
The DVD only has a single extra, a collection of deleted scenes. I would have liked a commentary or some making of, but alas. I am curious if the ending was a decision to make the film more marketable or simply misguided intent, because it honestly seems grafted in from a different movie at times. Bummer. I should note that the deleted scenes, none of which are necessary viewing, do include a text explanation of why they were cut, so there’s something. Also, I later learned on IMDb that 17 minutes were cut from this DVD, so maybe that's why they aren't really involved with it. Bummer squared.
What say you?
*Someone posted a comment on my review for that film last week, accusing me of bootlegging a DVD, even though it clearly states that the film was seen at a film festival. It even includes an anecdote about how I had to go see it again (same festival) because I slept through it the first time. Folks - when accusing me of things I abhor (such as bootlegging movies), please make sure to pay the fuck attention first and make sure your claims could at least hold SOME water.
I was recently sent the DVD of Phantasm IV for review, and I was like “Hey, maybe I should rewatch the whole series for some non-canon reviews first.” Then I looked at the date of release for part IV and realized that, since I had done the same thing for the film when it first came on VHS, that it had been well over 10 years since I had seen any of them! I also realized that my memories of the films were rather fragmented, so non canon my ass, you’re getting a full blown legit HMAD review for each of the films over the next couple weeks, starting with the original Phantasm.
Phantasm was released right in the middle of the golden era for modern horror. Over a 2 year period (78-80), we got Halloween, Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th, Tourist Trap, The Shining, and Death Ship, and Phantasm fits comfortably among all of those. Like Halloween, it was shot independently for about 300k in the Los Angeles area, had a relatively low body count, an amazing score, and is now a perennial double/triple/quadruple dip title for Anchor Bay.
The key difference is that the film’s creator, Don Coscarelli, stuck around for all of the sequels (as did the cast, with the exception of part 2, the four principals have all appeared in each sequel), giving the series more legitimacy as a result. The first one may be the best, but it’s probably the only major franchise other than Sawto have such a strong tie from one film to the next*.
To me, the best thing about the movie is its quirkiness. Some of it may just be the result of the small budget, but I like to think not. For example, Reggie drives not a traditional ice cream TRUCK, but a jeep of some sort:
There’s also a bit where Reggie and Jody play a song on the guitar. You’d think it’s a completely pointless scene, but then Reggie pulls out a tuning fork, and the tone segues into the next scene, which takes place at the constantly humming mausoleum. The whole scene exists to provide a nice edit to the next one (OK, to be fair, it’s also a bit of foreshadowing, but it’s still pretty goofy). Also, Jody is possibly the worst guardian/older brother in movie history. He gets his 13 year old brother drunk (and on a deleted scene, then takes him for ice cream! That’s the WORST thing to have when you’re loaded!), and later in the film, hands him a shotgun and tells him that “Warning shots are bullshit, shoot only to kill!”, and also instructs him NOT to stay close to him. Nice.
Speaking of drinking – what the hell is with all of the Dos Equis in this movie? Is the Tall Man in fact the world’s most interesting man?
(Yes.)
There are a couple things I don’t like. One is that the manlier brother is named Jody. The younger kid looks way more like a “Jody”. Also, Mike looks in the other dimension for about 12 seconds. All he sees is a line of Jawas walking through the desert, but yet he instantly figures out that they are slaves, why they need to be shrunk, etc. There’s also a bizarre part where Mike announces that the hearse chasing them has no driver, then after the car hits them, he says it again as if he just realized it.
It doesn’t help that you can see someone driving.
Also I have no idea what’s going on at the end, but maybe the sequels will (re)explain it to me.
My DVD is the 1999 one from MGM. Anchor Bay has since reissued it a couple times, with some extras carried over, others replaced with different extras. However, the biggest draw is that theirs has an anamorphic transfer; MGM’s does not. Still, you can’t argue that the collection of extras is impressive for a single sided disc. The commentary aside (haven’t listened to the whole thing yet, but it’s mainly nuts and bolts stuff like locations and “Do you remember this day?” conversation so far), there are a handful of deleted scenes, a 1979 talk show, Angus Scrimm hawking Fangoria, and a nice 20 minute collection of behind the scenes footage, narrated by Coscarelli and Reggie Bannister (who is strangely absent from the commentary track). I plan to get the nice “Sphere” box set from Region 2 someday, which has additional extras on the DVD for the first film.
One of the more ambitious films of the period, Phantasm holds up remarkably well. The sequels got a bit too goofy, if memory serves, but this one is creepy and fast paced, though not without humor. Like Evil Dead, it’s a great testament to how much a filmmaker can pull off with meager means and make big budget films look like crap in the process.
What say you?
*Sure, Raimi did all three Evil Dead movies, but they are so wildly different in tone from one another that it hardly even feels like a franchise.
It sounds a bit strange to say, but I think Valerie On The Stairs may be the first MoH that would have worked better as a feature. Mick Garris (directing, and writing based on Clive Barker’s original idea) does a decent enough job getting the important ideas across quickly, but it seems like a story that would benefit from the sort of slow burn structure of other Barker films (such as Hellraiseror even the recent Midnight Meat Train).
Within the film’s first 4 minutes, we meet our hero, discover that he is a failed writer, watch him move into the location we will spend the rest of the movie inside of, and see him react to creepy noises. All of this stuff could easily have been stretched out to 10-15 minutes, and thus later developments would work better. The demon (Tony Todd) appears about 20 minutes in, making the reasons for his appearance have less of an impact than they would had we only caught a glimpse of him here and there until the end of the 2nd act (about an hour into a regular length film). Everything is just too rushed to really resonate. Even though it’s the longest MoH ever (literally only seconds shy of an hour, most of them are about 55-57 minutes tops), it seems that 85-90 minutes would be more ideal for this particular story, to allow characters to breathe and develop, and allow the twists to come along “later”.
That said it’s still one of the better episodes. The demon makeup/design is fantastic, and the twist at the end, goofily presented as it may be, is a pretty interesting one. Richard Band’s score is incredible; I really hope some sort of MoH compilation CD is released with all the themes; the main title piece is amazing. I also liked the oddball cast (including Christopher Lloyd), and again, wish the film had more time to spend with them. Lloyd’s character suddenly becomes the most important one besides our hero, and I felt like I barely knew him at that point. And if it was some no name actor in the role, I probably wouldn’t have paid any attention to him at all in his first few scenes.
But really, how can you dislike a film where a demon Tony Todd fucks a girl (who is clearly enjoying it) after literally tearing a man’s spine out?
I was also amused by the similarities to another MoH: Stuart Gordon’s Dreams In the Witch House, which also featured an guy moving into a strange place in order to get some work done and ends up dealing with its occupants (past and present). I think Garris even saw the coincidence; there is a scene where our hero asks what is behind a particular wall. “The door to another dimension!” the landlord snaps, something that was actually the case in Witch House (I think; I was pretty baffled by that episode).
The DVD has a Garris commentary and a making of that are pretty standard (worth noting - Garris reveals that Clive’s story would indeed have been a feature had it been filmed as he envisioned). But there is also a piece on the film’s editing, which I really appreciated and enjoyed. As I am technically an editor (incidentally, I am currently working on a documentary that Barker himself executive-produced, though as of yet I have had no contact with him. Bummer), I enjoy hearing editors talk about how they put together certain scenes, how they removed a few frames to make a scare more effective, etc. I wish more editors would offer their insights on DVDs, though I can see how it’s hardly a big draw for a regular audience. The script is also included; I didn’t finish it yet but it seems to be exactly the same as the finished product, so there’s little use for it (Barker's treatment would have been a more interesting inclusion - though it is published HERE on his website) unless you enjoy seeing things in Courier New.
I wonder if Pendulum had a certain set of criteria when putting together their Decrepit Crypt set. They are all indie productions that Pendulum bought later, but the 4 films I have watched share so much in common, and now the 5th, Burning Dead, is no exception. The films are all shot on consumer video, feature nudity from women of at least 30 years of age (as opposed to the younger girls you usually see nude in crappy horror movies), lots of the same names in the credits, etc.
However, Burning Dead has something going for it that the others didn’t: Hilariously cold/mean spirited dialogue! There are some lines in the movie that are just so strangely matter of fact, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud and love the movie a little bit as a result. Example:
Guy: I was married for about five years, and then everything went bad about a year and a half ago. Hero: What happened? Guy: She died.
He says “She died” in the same way one might say “She’s at work,” when asked by a friend where your wife/girlfriend was. Now, for all I know it might just be incredibly bad acting, but I like to think it was intentionally delivered in this strange manner. There are some other lines/conversations in the film that have the same “style”.
It’s also a pretty insane plot. This guy (who looks like Jeff Daniels dressed up as the Nickelback guy) is returning to his hometown, which he left years ago when he apparently burnt the ENTIRE TOWN to the ground, including his parents (another hilarious line – someone asks if his parents lost anything in the fire, and he says “Their lives,” with all the sadness and remorse one might have if revealing that they lost their china or maybe some particularly nice boots). But he didn’t do it to kill everyone; he did it to stop a power hungry wizard. For real. So now he sees these zombie type things all the time, which are supposed to be the ghosts of the burn victims.
I know I usually don’t give any sort of synopsis, but I feel I must for this film, because it has no IMDb entry. I can locate some of the cast and crew, but this one is left off their resumes for whatever reason. In all my years of watching indie horror movies, I’ve never ran into a case where it didn’t even have its own IMDb page; even unreleased films that the director personally sent me a copy of have that much. Google turns up a single other review as well as some merchant links for the set(s) that the film is included on, but nothing else.
The movie also has some incredibly forgiving characters. At one point, the hero is possessed or something, and he tries to cave in the head of his little nephew. The parents stop him in time, and then try to throw him out of the house. Suddenly, a few of the zombie “apparitions” that have been haunting him appear, and the parents see them too. “I’m not crazy!” our hero announces, and they instantly forgive him for the attempted murder of their child. The notion that whether the zombies are real or imaginary doesn’t change the fact that he is apparently prone to mind controlled kiddy-cide is ignored; I guess they don’t really care about semantics at this point.
It’s still pretty bad though. The “actors” aren’t, blocking is confusing, and the plot is far too complicated to pull off in a visual sense with the budget they had. For example, when the wizard guy is supposedly pulled down into hell, we see some guys in bad makeup literally wipe paint on the wizard’s face and sort of knock him over. When you have no money, it’s best to keep your ideas grounded in reality, befriend the subtle scare, and milk the premise for every penny, like Blair Witch, Halloween, and Paranormal Activity. This script, goofy as it may be, would probably make for a pretty fun movie if it had about 10 million or so to pull it off. I mean, the whole thing is built around a fire that somehow destroyed the entire town, you’d think you’d see a pile of rubble or something every now and then.
Still, it’s miles better than the first few DC movies I endured (not as "good" as Dead 7 though), so kudos to director George A. Demick for that much.
I was pretty much sold on this one right from the start. In addition to a hilariously cheesy rock performance by Bauhaus and a pair of gory kills, the credits were minimal, something much appreciated. I am all for giving credit where its due, but really, do you need to know who the costume designer or casting people were right from the start? No. All you need to know is the stars, the director, the writer, the makeup artist or artists (if it’s a genre film), and the producer(s). Everything else can wait until the end. Whoever did the credits on this obviously felt the same way, so that is pretty much all they offer. We want to see a movie, and not have shots obscured by telling us information that is going to be repeated at the end anyway.
I also like how the credit for Dick Smith and Carl Fullerton’s makeup work is referred to as “Illusions”. Because that’s essentially what it is – an incredible illusion. Smith is synonymous with old age makeup, much like Rick Baker is with apes, and his work here is among his all time best. In the film’s best scene, we watch David Bowie, patiently and sadly waiting for Susan Sarandon’s character to come talk to him. As he waits, he ages rapidly, to the point where there’s no way anyone would even be able to know it was David Bowie. Yet, the makeup is incredibly believable.
Speaking of the cast, there are a lot of younger faces here. Dan Hedaya is like 4th billed for his 3 minutes of screen time, playing a detective, and Willem Dafoe pops up as a street punk. But the most perversely entertaining bit of casting is Cliff De Young as Sarandon’s lover. DeYoung is probably best known as playing Brad Majors in the Rocky Horror sequel, so to see fake Brad with real Janet is kind of funny. Bowie sadly checks out about halfway through the film, but it's one of his best performances, and the rare occasion where he plays a more subtle character.
Unfortunately, his exit gives the movie a rather odd structure. He’s pretty much front and center for the first half, and then suddenly its all about Sarandon. It’s like the inverse of Psycho or whatever, but not as effective. His character was more interesting than Catherine Deneuve’s, so I wish he was in it more. Of course, had her character died halfway through instead, we would be spared the lesbian sex scene, so I guess it evens out (not that it’s the all time best scene of its type, but it’s just entertaining to see a classy lady like Sarandon making out with a chick and biting her arm and what not).
There’s also a scene where a monkey freaks out and kills another monkey, so there’s something. And Deneuve’s death sequence is among the longest I have ever seen in a film; it makes Paul Reubens’ death in the Buffy movie look restrained.
The only extra on the disc is a rather dull commentary by Scott and Sarandon. They are recorded separately, and neither of them really comment on what we are seeing, instead focusing on more general things. There are also frequent gaps (Sarandon disappears for like a half hour straight), and Scott occasionally just narrates. Entirely skippable.
Like Cronosor the recent Let The Right One In, The Hunger is one of those vampire movies that eschews most of the typical lore (these vampires have a reflection, which pays off quite nicely in a quick little jump scare early on) and isn’t about big fangs and setpieces. It’s a mood piece, very heavy on character and dialogue, and hardly the spectacle one would expect from Tony Scott if they were familiar with his recent work (though it DOES have some of his trademarks – lots of blue tinted shots, smoke and/or sunglasses in just about every shot, etc).
I like how Kiefer Sutherland’s career has worked out. By 2001, his movies were going direct to video, and so he took a TV job as Jack Bauer on 24. And that show was so popular that he was able to return to wide release starring roles in movies like Mirrors, which puts his name above the title and everything. Unfortunately, it’s movies like this that led to his box office clout eroding in the first place. Circle of life...
It’s not a terrible movie by any stretch, but the fact that it’s merely underwhelming and dull is somehow more disappointing. At least with terrible garbage (like what Kiefer’s half brother is starring in) you can have fun mocking it and such. But this movie takes itself too seriously to allow the audience to have any fun, intended or not. Every now and then we are given a taste of insanity (mostly in the film’s final 15-20 minutes, which includes Kiefer holding a gun on a nun, an old woman exploding, and a wonderfully downbeat ending), but for the most part it’s surprisingly dull, which is something you can’t often say about Alexandre Aja.
Maybe it’s some sort of meta-“mirror”-commentary, but this movie is the opposite of his previous two films. Those started out strong and ended weak, due to a badly implemented twist (High Tension) or completely misguided “social commentary” (Hills Have Eyes remake). In Mirrors, we are almost numbed into boredom by the time the movie finally gets going. After a major character is killed (well, major in that she’s famous, but she only has about 7 minutes of screentime), Kiefer pretty much turns into Jack Bauer, shooting stuff for no reason, flipping bitches on the expressway, yelling “Dammit!” every 5 minutes, etc. And again: NUNS AT GUNPOINT.
But until you get there, you gotta watch a lot of half-baked family drama (Kiefer is, naturally, burnt out, and estranged from his family), two lengthy sequences of Kiefer walking around the burned down department store where he works, looking at mirrors and “seeing things”, lots and lots of shots that keep the whole duality/mirror image thing going (just about every shot in the film has some sort of reflective surface), etc. And maybe it is yet another sort of “mirror” type motif, but it seems we get two versions of every scene in the film. Besides the two “store walkthroughs”, there are two scenes of Kiefer going through medical documents and such, two scenes of him driving to talk to some “answers” person in the middle of nowhere, two scenes where his sister tries to give him advice and he brushes it off, etc.
The movie is also strangely lacking in other characters to put in danger. Kiefer’s job is to watch a condemned department building (it suffered a major fire), but he never actually has to do anything. Why not throw in a homeless person or maybe a looter for the mirrors to kill? Kiefer also has a buddy on the force who helps him unravel the mystery via providing him with medical documents and such, but he is kept entirely out of the action. So basically, Kiefer and his family are the only ones ever in any danger, which is to say that there is no danger. If Kiefer dies it won’t be until the end, and since this is an American film, there’s no way Aja will be allowed to kill off the two young kids (ages 6 and 8) or their mother, as that would mean the kids would be placed in foster care or with their burn-out dad, which is a major bummer either way. In the end, more CTU agents are killed in a single episode of 24 than are killed in the entirety of this 2 hour, R rated movie. Not that a body count is essential to an effective horror movie, but if you can’t really believe any of your characters are in any danger, you lose a lot of the potential for suspense, something more problematic when your movie is about a half an hour too long as it is.
On Jim Steinman’s album "Pandora’s Box", there is a spoken word bit about how the main character in the song has to feed people to the hungry mirrors. They show him a reflection and he has to find the person in it, and then let the mirror eat them (this was also sort of the plot for one of the stories in From Beyond The Grave). That song not only has a way more interesting story, but it’s also much creepier than anything in this movie. The first time you see a reflection start to “stray” from its owner, it’s a cool effect; by the 10th time, you just want to get on with it.
I really wanted to like this movie, and there’s definitely a good version of it in there somewhere (it’s partially based on a Korean film; maybe that one delivers). Like M Night Shyamalan, I think Aja is a very gifted filmmaker, but should really allow someone else to write the scripts. It’s kind of ironic that his least disappointing script (if not a particularly great one) was the one he let someone else direct (Franck Khalfoun for P2); maybe it’s time he tried it the other way.
I fucking hated the first Rest Stop, for a number of reasons. One was its almost unparalleled amount of padding to make it a feature length film. Another was its incredibly unlikable “heroine”, played by Jamie Alexander. A third was the incoherent nature of the film’s villains. Were the inbred religious nuts in the motorhome working with the guy in the truck, or against him? Did they even know each other? Did it fucking matter?
Well apparently, which is why we now have Rest Stop: Don’t Look Back, which features a Return of the King style opening flashback that explains the origin of one of the villains, before heading into sequel mode, as Tom (the brother of the dude in the first movie), and his girlfriend go looking for them. As I sat down, I was prepared to submit “Better Than The Original!” as a quote for the eventual DVD cover, but as the movie unfolded, I realized that simply wasn’t going to be true.
Unlike the first movie, which had some decent scenes (the ones where Alexander wasn’t talking) and a somewhat admirable 70s feel, this one just has absolutely nothing going for it. When a horror movie’s best scene involves a guy driving along talking to (actually, AS) the toy dinosaurs that litter his dashboard, there’s something rotten in DTVmark.
The guy I refer to is Tom’s friend, played by Graham Norris. This may be the most useless character in horror movie history. The movie is about a road trip, more or less, and when he makes it clear that he is coming along, Tom’s girlfriend Marilyn protests. “It’s a long drive, we’ll need all the help we can get,” Tom explains. Fine, but the guy takes his own fucking car! If anything, he even slows the process down because every time he needs to stop to piss or fix his shitty car, the heroes (you know - the ones who actually have a stake in the quest) have to stop too. Real helpful, douchebag.
Then again, their journey doesn’t really make sense in any area. Even if we buy that the guy really thinks he can find his brother after a year of other people looking (he was in Iraq until now, so I guess he was off on another fruitless search), why bring two others along when all signs point to foul play? And their starting point is a bit unclear, but he hopes to make it to El Paso, TX on the first night, so... let’s just say Alabama, for argument’s sake. But on the first night we see them cross into California before stopping for the night. The next day, they drive for what seems like hours and are still in the desert, even though if you’re traveling from Texas to California, you’re probably on route 15 and thus you got about 3 hrs’ driving tops from the border to well populated civilization.
They also draw the ire of the trucker before they even stop at the titular locale. We are told that he only goes after sinners, but I guess that would be a pretty demanding job given the relative proximity of Las Vegas. And even though their sins are incredibly weak (the girlfriend drank and fooled around with a guy while Tom was overseas, big whoop), he manages to single them out before they even get to his hunting ground? What an asshole.
They also fail to get more use out of the most interesting characters: the family in the RV. Whenever the creepy little midget or the even creepier Ian Somerhalder clone twins are on screen, the movie is kinda interesting, because you’re never quite sure what they’re up to. Maybe they plan a 3rd film that focuses entirely on them, but it’s still a wasted opportunity for this one. Especially when the people we DO spend most of the movie with are as generic and uninteresting as horror movie characters get.
The only time (other than Dino-talk) that I enjoyed the movie was near the very end. Apparently, Tom’s army unit allows him to take home heavy artillery from the war, as he pulls a couple of handguns and a gen-yoo-ine assault rifle out of his trunk and begins blasting at the yellow truck. It’s so goddamn stupid that I had to laugh.
The movie’s biggest blunder, however, is introducing a supernatural angle to the proceedings. In this movie just about everyone is a goddamn ghost (the kind that can be seen and interacted with until the plot just has them vanish into thin air), and there’s some supernatural nonsense about having to burn the eyes so that the ghost’s soul can rest (and by rest they mean stop running people over in his truck, which is also a ghost, apparently). This culminates in a scene where Marilyn KNOWS that the eyes are inside an RV (it might be the same RV, I couldn’t tell and didn’t care), so she and Norris look around for it. They eventually just blow the whole thing up, which is what they should have done in the first goddamn place, but then how would the movie live up to the original in terms of needless padding? Besides, maybe I’m just too dumb to understand how 2-3 minutes of looking in hilariously stupid places (kitchen drawers, the glove compartment) for a pair of eyes that were cut out 35 years ago is actually vital to the film’s plot.
And it doesn’t work, apparently, because at the end the ghosts are still driving around the deserted “Old Highway”, and while no one is ever actually killed on screen in this fucking movie, we find out that pretty much all of our heroes are now ghosts too. Whatever. This is one of the most pointless movies I’ve ever seen; its only reason to exist is to get people to say “Hey, maybe Rest Stop 1 wasn’t THAT bad.”
Oh, and even Alexander, who starred in Hallowed Ground, had enough good sense not to return for this one, so her role (another fucking ghost) is played by someone else, with all the footage from the first movie edited in a way that we never see her face. So an actress decides not to return, and rather than just write her character out, they have someone else play it, even though any sane person would realize the role is fucking stupid anyway and should be removed entirely.
I want to close by pointing out that I have seen both Rest Stop films, which pretty much exemplify why DTV gets a bum rap, in theaters. And I’m such a moron I’ll probably go see the third one (god help us all) if the opportunity arises.
I guess it’s just an odd coincidence that Blockbuster shipped Alligator the same day I rented Rogue. I never look at my queue; with an occasional exception, most of the movies I get were queued up ages ago. Part of the fun is not knowing what I’m gonna get! But even stranger, Alligator had a scene in which a snake is forced to shoot its venom in order for someone to study it, a scene that also occurred in yesterday’s Stanley. Take that, Quint!
Alligator is a shitload of fun, too. It’s great to see Robert Forster in a lead role. I know he was pretty big in the 70s (hence why Tarantino gave him a good role in Jackie Brown) but most of the time I see him he's just in small roles in garbage like Dragon Wars and Rise: Blood Hunter. He’s kind of a big ol’ softy in the film; he buys a puppy, yells at a dude for exploiting animals, and gets butthurt whenever someone points out that he’s going bald. Even when he gets the standard “You’re off the force!” scene, he puts up very little resistance. He doesn’t even pound his fist into his locker or whatever; he just takes his stuff out quietly and even removes his name off the door, which I’m sure his replacement will appreciate. Since John Sayles wrote the movie, you get some better character development and dialogue than you’d usually find in a monster movie like this, and Forster gets the best stuff.
There’s actually a lot of stuff you don’t often get in a movie, if ever. The ‘gator kills a kid quite bloodily; it makes Alex Kinter’s death look downright bloodless. The animal also carries out a Jaws: The Revenge style vendetta against the evil lab who inadvertently created him, as it skips across half the city to take out the scientists at a wedding. Also, a nosy reporter, who you expect to dog our hero throughout the film, gets it early on, and his camera not only gets photos of the creature, but it’s pretty much believed by everyone who sees them. Usually you get a skeptical asshole who will say the photos are faked or whatever, but not here.
Also, an early scene where a mad bomber threatens the police station contains what HAS to be a first. In any countdown/bomb sequence, those of you counting along will notice that the clock runs pretty goddamn slow. The one in Armageddon when they disable the nuke is my all time favorite – they have like 45 seconds left, and Willis sits down and delivers a teary speech, THEN they disarm the bomb, and each closeup of the clock reveals it’s only down a second at most from the shot before (at one point they cut in two shots of a fraction of one second!), despite several seconds, and clock BEEPS, in between. Anyway, in Alligator, we can tell from the dialogue that there aren’t any jump cuts in time, but the clock goes down like 20 seconds in about 5. I guess it’s sort of making up for all the other movies.
Like Rogue, this movie is not for dog lovers. Forster’s pooch is thankfully spared, but the evil lab makes it a point to test only on puppies (“How about a stray cat?” the animal supplier asks. “No. PUPPIES,” Doctor Evil Jerkass replies). Nothing onscreen, but we get a horrible shot of the supplier putting garbage bags with dead pups in a pile. Then we see the supplier dump them into the sewer. Terrible. The supplier is played by that one nebbish-y guy from Cuckoo’s Nest (“Piss on your fucking rules!”), so it’s good to see his ass get chomped. I looked him up on IMDb, and he’s dead now, so that’s sad. He’s a fun presence.
I also love the captain in the movie, played by Godfather II's (and several other mob movies') Michael Gazzo. I never caught his name, so I just called him Captain Growl Face. This is because he delivers all his lines in a hoarse shout, like Uncle Paulie in one of his more drunken moments. He never actually DOES anything in the movie, but I like that he backs up Forster for most of the film, even if he despises Forster’s lack of shaving skills and such. He’s dead now too.
Blockbuster’s DVD kept freezing and skipping, so don’t rent it from their online service if you live in LA (I can’t imagine they have more than one copy). But the DVD is from Lionsgate for some reason, so I cannot condone purchasing it either (don’t give those fucking bastards a single cent!). So if you find it used, or trust your rental service, definitely check it out!
Along with Stanley, director William Grefe was also on hand to discuss the 2nd film of tonight’s double feature: Impulse, which stars the inimitable William Shatner. Apparently, much effort was made to get Shat down for the screening, but he was stuck on the set of Boston Public. Fine, do your Emmy-winning work instead of coming to talk to drunks at 1 in the morning about a gloriously awful movie you made 35 years ago, jerk!
I actually liked Impulse more than Stanley. Not only is Shatner simply more entertaining than the former’s Chris Robinson, but it’s also a more “action-packed” movie. Shatner goes apeshit and attacks someone every 15 minutes or so, and the whole movie is pretty much about whether or not he will murder a little girl who saw him kill someone else. At one point, he even says “She deserves to die!” because she lied about something. Harsh dude.
There are so many hilarious bits in this movie, and I was so half drunk, that I couldn’t possibly remember them all. But some include Shatner kicking Harold “Oddjob” Sakata in the face (Sakata seems sort of confused by the whole thing), a drunken man trying to teach a young boy how to make love to a woman (the kid’s mother being the intended target), Shatner picking up a little girl without any real concern that such behavior is an arrestable offense, a character simply named Moy, etc. I don’t think I went more than 2 minutes without laughing out loud at SOMETHING.
Like Tim/Stanley, he’s also a pretty ineffective killer. At the end he stabs a woman, then chases the little girl until she falls down the stairs and seemingly breaks her neck, and then he attempts to drown another. But while he’s drowning her, the stabbed woman suddenly grabs his leg, impeding his process. And then the little girl comes back and stabs him! 3 women, and Shat couldn’t kill a single one of them properly. However, this results in a truly amazing moment; the little girl and the mother are walking out of the house, crying hysterically. Then the girl sees Shatner, dead, and points as she cries even louder, as if she just noticed that he was dead. It’s fucking bliss.
One bummer about both movies for tonight was that the film prints were devoid of all color for the most part. I am used to the pink/red tint for older films, but I can’t recall any this bad. They seriously had no color left in them for a lot of the time (both prints seemed to be assembled from a few different prints, so every now and then a reel would actually look pretty good). But you sort of get used to it after a while.
I’ve never even heard of Grefe before tonight, but now I am a fan. I plan to check out some of his other movies (if I can find them) and certainly buy this one on DVD when it’s out (they said a special edition is in the works). Like Scream Bloody Murder, Impulse is the type of wretchedly hilarious 70s “hero killer” movie that I could never get enough of, and wish would have a permanent place on the bi-weekly Grindhouse roster. Please, if you know of any other movies in which the star is sort of the hero but he freaks out and kills people for no real reason, list them in the suggestion thread.
I’ve never seen the original Willard, but I quite enjoyed the remake. And after seeing Stanley, which was admittedly inspired by the original film, I really should get on that. But that’s a review for a whole other day. Maybe a Thursday.
Stanley is about Tim, a weirdo with a deep affection for his pet snakes, particularly two named Hazel and, you guessed it, Stanley. Early on they have little snake babies, and it is very precious. But there are some redneck locals, and assorted other undesirables, so you should pretty much know how the movie plays out.
But, like a lot of 70s movies, it’s just really “off”, which makes it lovable. The last 15 minutes are particularly batshit, as Tim kidnaps a girl who doesn’t seem to mind much, and even when he threatens to rape her, she’s pretty much OK with the situation (they then make consensual love and she seems more interested in him than he is in her!). This is preceded by an endless montage of the two of them traveling down the river, set to a song that reminded me of Julian Lennon’s “Valotte”. Also, Alex Rocco, as the film’s primary villain, is just gonzo. He wears a very effeminate robe, constantly lifts 1 lb weights, checks out his non-sculpted physique, etc. His death scene is also hysterical – it includes a nonsensical freeze frame that I actually thought was the end of the film.
Plus it’s just funny how ineffective both Tim and the snakes are, as most of the deaths are sort of the folks’ own fault. The big bad’s two henchman, for example, just drown in quicksand trying to escape a snake-waving Tim. He just wanted them to leave for all we know. Later, a 3rd henchman kills Hazel and the snake babies, and it takes Tim like half an hour to kill him.
I also want to point out the depressing/hilarious outcome of this series of events – we see Tim burying Hazel with a little makeshift cross above the ‘grave’, and then the camera pans to reveal three SMALLER crosses and dirt piles for the baby snakes. The only way the scene would be more amazing would be if Tim (or Stanley, even better) looked to the sky and let out a good "Nooooooooooooooooo!"
There’s also a great bit where Tim randomly walks into a strip club and sees a woman eat a snake’s head. So he stalks her and the club owner, who sleep together on the couch (but don’t get it on), and then breaks in and throws an endless number of snakes on them (or it’s just one snake shown being thrown 20 times). It’s a completely extraneous scene, obviously meant to pad the film and add some more bloodshed, but it’s still a delight.
Director William Grefe, Chris Robinson (not Black Crowes’ guy, the guy who played Tim), and writer Gary Crutcher were on hand for the screening, a rare trifecta for these Grindhouse night movies, as the guys are often dead or no one knows where the hell they are (one night they had the film’s sound recordist and no one else). Their Q&A was enjoyable, if a bit long (Grefe likes to ramble), and they also signed posters. All that, combined with the other movie (Impulse), resulted in this being one of the longest Grindhouse nights ever – we didn’t leave the theater until 1 am (we sat down at 7:30). But it was, as usual, a blast, and I urge you to check out the film when it hits DVD later this year.
A few nights ago, I got a test invite for a movie in which they wouldn’t tell me the title, the actors, the director, anything. The only time they don’t tell you the name of the movie is when it is high profile and they want to keep it from getting overcrowded with fans of that particular film (due to the actor, the franchise, whatever). All the guy would tell me was that it was for a PG-13 horror movie aimed at females. So I’m racking my brain trying to think of what it could be, and then I see a poster for Twilight. HOLY SHIT, I thought (actually I might have said that aloud). While I have no interest in that movie, I do know that the fanbase for it is completely insane, and having possibly the first review of the movie version would be very good for my little site (well, presuming that those crazy Twilight fans bought shit from Amazon). So I go to the screening, and I had to sign an NDA. The NDA said something about “Crystal Lake Productions”, which got me even MORE excited. We all know what Crystal Lake is. But then I saw David Goyer drive up, and I knew it was The Unborn. Goddammit.
Not that I was completely disappointed. I like Goyer, and I knew the film starred two key draws. One is Gary Oldman, a guy who doesn’t sign on to just any movie, which signified that this one might be at least interesting, possibly actually good. The other is Odette Yustman, from Cloverfield. She could star in one of those movies about a girl who joins a prestigious dance studio and becomes the big star and I would see it, because she is almost nonsensically hot. So while I was still disappointed (why all the secrecy? It’s not like it’s a high profile movie that they would need to control a rabid audience for), I was still eager to see it.
And for the first 40 minutes or so, it’s a pretty solid film. It’s a bit like a J-Horror film, in that weird shit is happening (including a creepy kid) and we don’t really understand why. Information is delivered in small chunks, not large expositionary speeches that stop the movie cold. Some of the scares are cheap (thousands of bugs!) but others are quite effective (rare for a PG-13 film; I actually jumped at one part). And I really liked how the backstory involved Jewish religious beliefs, an area that is not often explored in horror films, even ones aimed at older audiences.
Unfortunately, the 3rd act blunders, and badly so. Gary Oldman is introduced far too late, and no explanation is given for why Odette seeks him out. But worse, Oldman turns out to be not very important, because he pretty much hands the exorcism over to Idris Elba (in a scene that makes even less sense – he gives the “I don’t believe you, but I believe you believe” speech, right after he sees an upside down headed dog. Does he see that type of thing so often that he can’t be bothered to believe it is a sign of the supernatural?). Elba is another actor who elevates his material (see: The Reaping) but his character and Oldman’s really should have been combined. Worse, almost as soon as Elba is introduced, the movie essentially switches to its final scene, which is the exorcism. Before you know it, the exorcism is botched, Elba is turned into a monster, some folks are killed, and the movie is over (with a predictable epilogue to boot). Elba actually spends more time in possessed/zombie makeup than he does without, and I actually got the impression that Oldman didn’t want to do heavy makeup again, so Elba’s character was added to the script just to have some sort of demonic priest “highlight”.
Because of this insanely rushed and underdeveloped third act, the cut of the movie I saw was only 78 minutes long without end credits, which is ridiculous for a movie with a fairly detailed backstory, several surviving characters (one of Odette’s friends, and her dad, disappear from the movie entirely after a half hour or so), etc. And Carla Cugino plays Odette’s mother, seen for a total of 8 seconds in a home video. Why bother hiring someone of Cugino’s stature to appear in what can’t even be considered a cameo? Cameos should be used for A-list talent who show up as a surprise. Like, Sean Connery in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves – THAT’S a cameo. This is just a case of a well known actress playing a glorified extra.
Granted, I’m not the target audience for the film. I have a penis and can legally rent a car, and legally buy beer to get drunk and subsequently crash that car (12 dollar a day full insurance, wooo!). But I’d rather a film just sucked all the way through rather than start off strong and suddenly veer so much off the rails. Given the fact that they are obviously a long way off to release (I have to laugh at the guy who thought my “secret” movie was Mirrors, which is 3 days away as of this writing), hopefully there is still time to beef up the 3rd act, utilize its supporting cast more properly (Odette appears in all but two scenes of the film – give the girl a break!), and yet keep the most important scene of the film: the one where Odette appears in her underwear.
Because it was actually the scene I jumped at! It’s a scary mirror sequence! My enjoyment had nothing to do with the underwear.
What say you?
(NOTE – This review was based on the test screening version. I checked out the final version on opening weekend and nothing really changed. There was a classroom scene that I don’t really remember, and I think another flashback scene with Carla, but otherwise all of the things I liked/disliked remained exactly the same, right down to the nonsensically rushed third act.)
The signs are looming... I think Dimension Extreme is turning into Lionsgate (I guess it’s only polite, since Lionsgate has apparently stolen Dimension’s business model of fucking over filmmakers at every turn). I rented Steel Trap, a movie that features a dirty/bloody blond girl on the cover, trying to make her way through what looks like an air conditioning vent that is overflowing with saw blades and things of that nature. All well and good, except the girl isn’t in the film, the saw blades are not in the film, and even the tagline (“Surviving each floor is the name of the game”) isn’t in the film, which all takes place on two floors, one of which they weren’t intended to visit anyway.
Plus it’s a shitty movie. I’m gonna have to spoil the identity of the bad guy, so heads up for those who may actually be surprised by it when it comes.
So like all these "Ten Little Indians" knockoffs, the killer is someone in the group. In this case, a woman named Kathy who hosts a cooking show. But while most of those movies have a pretty interesting backstory that is ultimately revealed, this one is just the same ol’ shit – the girl was fat and the other people were mean to her. Of course, in order for this idiotic plot to work, none of the other characters can remember that they met her sometime ago, everyone would had to have shown up to the same party, specific people will have to go off on their own when required, etc.
Also, Kathy is based on and even somewhat resembles Rachel Ray. Now, I can’t stand that woman either, but writing an entire movie about what a loathsome woman she probably is isn’t the best concept for a movie... especially a shitty slasher/Saw hybrid with some of the worst dialogue ever spoken in a horror film.
Yes, apparently at some point, writer director Luis Camara decided the movie should be “funny” and thus just about every character speaks in puns, “witty” quips, etc. The problem is, not only is none of this shit actually funny, but it’s also clunky. Not a single line sounds natural or even human. One woman in particular, played by Julia Ballard, should be given an award for having the most unfunny and awkward lines in a single movie. And of course, she dies almost last. Thanks, Camara.
The killer’s mask sucks too.
It’s also badly paced. There are only seven people, and you know it will come down to two of them, giving us a total of five kills. Well three of them occur in the film’s first 45 minutes, so the final 50 is primarily a series of boring arguments between the four survivors, one of which you’ve probably already figured out is the killer and one of which is the obvious last man standing. Occasionally they do things like look in computer monitors and see the “killer” (Ray-lite has hired a guy to stalk them around, presumably to make her reveal more of a “shock”) or run down a hallway or whatever, but it’s hardly exciting. And since all of our characters are introduced via their bad personalities (being two-faced, being a whore, etc) and not really developed in any other manner, you honestly won’t give a rat’s ass about any of them.
The 40 minute making-of reveals part of why the movie is so worthless. Apparently they were just about to start production when they discovered another movie that was very similar (maybe the one advertised on the cover?), forcing them to re-write the script to be more original. And to be fair, I don’t know of any other movie that makes a point of hating on a TV cooking personality, so I guess they succeeded to a degree. They also admit they didn’t have much time for casting and were constantly changing the script during pre-production. With all these problems, one must wonder why they didn’t just skip making the movie entirely, but what do I know? There’s also a commentary but I couldn’t be bothered to listen to it.
My buddy Mike had been pushing his screening of Dead & Buried a bit more than usual, and I didn’t understand why. I had never seen it, and neither Bruce Willis OR Chevy Chase had nothing to do with it, so how good could it possibly be? Well, shit Earl, it’s fucking great. It’s becoming an increasingly rare event when I see a movie so enjoyable that it makes doing this Horror Movie A Day stuff worthwhile, but when I do, it’s all the more sweet.
It kind of reminds me of Messiah of Evil at times, what with the creepy atmosphere, the non-zombie zombie town, the doomed hero, etc. It’s just the type of movie you don’t see quite enough – where they take a fairly silly concept and not only milk it for all its worth, but play it mostly straight (apparently it was actually intended to BE a comedy, but they pulled a Sudden Death* and shot it the scary way). The result is something pretty original, always entertaining, and just plain delightful.
One high point of the film is seeing all the future “stars”. Robert Englund is the most prominent in terms of cast and future career (this was before Freddy though – his role was an actual actor’s role and not a gimmick-y cameo like some of his later stuff), but Barry Corbin also pops up as a local. Corbin is best known for Northern Exposure (and now No Country For Old Men), but to me he’s the head of the family in Who’s Harry Crumb, John Candy’s Fletch ripoff that featured Shawnee Smith at the peak of her hotness (a peak that she has actually maintained for almost 20 years now, if you ask me). But the big one for me was Glenn Morshower, aka loyal agent Pierce from 24. He’s like, I dunno, 25 here, but I recognized him instantly. He’s only in a few shots, but it’s still funny to see him so young. And Prince of Darkness’ Lisa Blount plays another of the town “zombies”, who shows some skin and has a blond ‘do that will satisfy those who disliked her strawberry locks in Darkness (I am not in that category). Someone named Lisa Marie is also in it, but it’s not the Lisa Marie anyone cares about, so that doesn’t count.
The score is also fantastic. Some of it sounds a bit ripped from Friday the 13th (which came the year before) but it’s very haunting and surprisingly soothing as well. I bet it’s on one of those CDs that cost 50 bucks at Fango cons, but if not I will be picking it up someday. Stan Winston’s effects are also impressive, no real surprise there. There is one gag that stuck out though – the hero rips a piece of a zombie woman’s cheek off for no real reason. You wouldn’t think much of it, until you realize that the director of Dead & Buried is none other than Gary Sherman, who also directed Poltergeist III, a film with it own inexplicable buccae-based removal.
One bit baffled me though, due to a flaw in the film print. Our hero discovers what’s going on when talking to the “bad guy”, and then runs outside and confronts a few of the zombie people before running off. Then the film skipped and suddenly he was back with the bad guy, where he received even MORE twist-y info (I don’t want to spoil anything, because it’s not as well known as the movies I usually spoil). The way that the film was cut made it seem like this was a flashback, not the next scene. But either way, I have no idea why he went back there. Mike let me borrow his DVD but I haven’t had time to go through the commentaries (there are 3!) yet to check it out.
I did watch the 2nd disc, which was interesting but not really worthy of its own disc. Stan Winston, Robert Englund, and Dan O’Bannon (2nd O’Bannon film this week!) each get their own 15 minute interview/recollection, mixed with film clips and some behind the scenes photos. All great stuff, but it could have been put on the 1st disc. Scam! It's sad to see Stan too, the interview is only a couple years old and he shows zero signs of ill health or anything. His interview is done in front of a bunch of his designs, and you only have to look at a single frame of it to be reminded of how much he has contributed to genre movies over the past 25 years. *Bows*
If you haven’t seen this one yet, I highly recommend it. It’s from 1981, but it feels right at home with some of the more classic but lesser-known 70s gems.
What say you?
*Sudden Death was written as a parody of Die Hard type movies, but Van Damme and Peter Hyams didn't quite get that, I guess. Which is why there's a scene of Van Damme fighting a guy in a big mascot costume. And why the movie doesn't make a goddamn lick of sense.
I wasn’t on the Wolf Creek bandwagon; I didn’t like any of the three people we were following, and thus spending 75 minutes with them before anything “happens” was a bit too much of a chore. I liked how uncompromising it was, however (in that only the dude lived, almost completely unheard of) and how matter-of-fact John Jarratt’s killer was, but it was too little too late. However, I could see promise in Greg McLean, and so I was really looking forward to seeing Rogue when it arrived. Sadly, Dimension never gave it a wide release, and so I had to experience it for the first time at home on a relatively small screen (compared to a theater screen) on DVD. Lame.
Luckily, it’s a bit of a small film compared to Jaws or Lake Placid. For starters, the body count is pretty low – I count four deaths, all but one completely off screen. There are also a couple of animal deaths, and someone inexplicably survives an attack, but still, it seems rather low-key. Like Wolf Creek, it’s more about atmosphere and suspense, but better in two ways. One is our characters are more likeable (ironically enough, John Jarratt, nearly unrecognizable, is the most endearing), and two: it “gets going” around the half hour mark.
The only real blunder in the film is that we are presented with a large roster of characters (about ten) and more than half of them survive. But unlike other “lots of folks get away” monster movies like Tremors, most of them just disappear for the film’s final act. They are told to run, leaving our two main heroes behind, and.... they do. We never see them again until the final moment when everything’s all happy. I kept expecting Michael Vartan, our “hero”, to find their bodies or something, but nope, they’re OK. But since they are just completely written out of the movie, McLean missed a giant opportunity to milk some suspense out of their fate. We KNOW Vartan will be fine, he’s the goddamn star of the film. But Jarratt’s character has 50/50 movie odds, so putting HIM in danger would be a lot more exciting.
Speaking of Vartan, he apparently went to the Tom Welling in The Fog school of heroics. The editor is responsible for making him the hero, because they keep cutting to him even though he doesn’t actually DO anything until the final 20 minutes. So they’ll have like 20 seconds of 4-5 people putting together a rope bridge or finding supplies or whatever, and then a full 10 of Vartan simply looking at them doing that. I think it’s an hour into the movie before he even has a line of dialogue that is comprised of more than a half dozen words. It’s actually kind of remarkable.
Another odd thing about the movie is that McLean was apparently afraid to kill any of the female cast members, possibly the result of the “misogynist” type critical jabs he received on Creek (in which only the women died). This makes one death particularly shocking, because it’s a character you kind of expect to be around until the very end and THEN die, but it also makes Radha Mitchell’s survival seem really ridiculous. The croc pretty much bites her in half, but she survives and Vartan has little trouble getting her to rescue (the damn thing even helpfully leaves her in his cave while he sleeps). But also, some standard “group movie” horror victims (a hysterical whiny woman, a fat broad, an older woman who is suffering from some disease) are inexplicably allowed to survive. Come on now!
One thing I liked is how subtle a lot of the character moments are. One of the guys on the boat steals a camera from a tourist family, but not only do they not notice, it’s never even mentioned. Jarratt’s character is on the boat to spread his wife’s ashes on the river, and again, they don’t really spell this out for you by having him explain it away to someone. I was also happy to see that the croc was merely an angry croc, a bit bigger than average but not gigantic (on the extras they say that their croc is actually half a meter smaller than the largest ever recorded). He wasn’t a science experiment gone wrong or the result of toxic spilling, he’s just a pissed off animal. This is not only good because it’s not so generic, but also it keeps the focus on what really matters – whether he’s a mutant hybrid or just a regular animal, the audience is here only to see it eat someone.
Nicely rebounding after the featureless Triloquist, Dimension Extreme has provided Rogue with an ass-ton of extras. We get a 45 min documentary (good stuff) plus some making of featurettes (the one on the fantastic score is a nice touch but the others are generic) that last another 45 minutes combined, a look at the “real” Rogue (very short and covers stuff we’ve seen in the other features, so it’s kind of worthless) and a fairly interesting commentary by McLean. He points out what was added for this UNRATED! Version (shocking surprise, none of it is even PG-13 material) and some other interesting tidbits. But he also reveals that he is either daft or Dimension fucked him over, because he starts the commentary by asking you to listen to him blather on for “two and a half hours”, for a 95 minute film. There are some occasional gaps too, so who knows, maybe he actually has a 150 min cut which he watched for the commentary, and then the Weinsteins went back later and recut it again. OR, he’s just daft. But the wealth of extras (all presented anamorphic too – thank you!) makes the film’s transfer all the more amazing – I swear I thought I was watching a Blu-Ray at times. Bang up job, all the more important since it’s an amazingly well shot movie (when it’s light out, and thus no croc attacks are occurring, it comes off as a travelogue from HD Travel channel) and deserves the best transfer possible. Of course, a 35 mm film print would look even better, but oh well. Dimension can’t do two things right at once.
One thing on the extras I found funny – the actors keep bitching about how hot it is in the behind the scenes stuff. “It was 52 degrees” they will moan, but on the long doc, they never actually specify that they mean Celsius (on the shorter featurettes this is not an issue, so don’t watch it if you don’t want to chuckle like I did). So for us Fahrenheit loving Americans, it sounds like they are incredibly lame people. Man up!
Final note to dog lovers – don’t watch this movie.
I love when strange coincidences change the way my day plays out. I had originally intended to see a double feature of David DeFalco’s Chaos and Nick Palumbo’s Murder Set Pieces tonight at the New Bev. While I consider MSP to be among one of the worst movies ever committed to celluloid, I have never seen Chaos. That film was originally a true remake of Last House On The Left, but then David Hess dropped out so the filmmakers pretended it WASN’T a remake, even though by all accounts it’s essentially the exact same movie. Kind of hilarious. But, as luck would have it, I got a pass to a test screening of a REAL remake of Last House On The Left on the same night, and opted for that instead.
(NOTE - I have since seen the final version and it is identical to the version I saw here, save for having the final score. Review remains intact.)
The invite gave no real information about the cast or crew. It claims that Wes Craven and Sean Cunningham were involved, but that’s about it for crew. And the only cast member listed was Sara Paxton, from Aquamarine. This triggered an alarm in my movie-fied brain – if the only cast member worth mentioning is a tween idol, then this movie will probably be pretty weak. Maybe not PG-13, but certainly not as vile and hard to watch as the original. And she would probably live.
(Note - SPOILERS FOLLOW in the next paragraph, but the entire review is based on the idea that you have seen/know the idea of the original, so if you've never seen it, just skip the review entirely.)
Well, she does. But it actually works. In the original, the daughter originally DID survive, but they decided to kill her off during production (I forget why – as if the movie was too light and they needed another kill?), so it’s not a total “Hollywood” decision. I liken it more to the two endings of The Descent – it’s simply the execution of a different idea the original filmmakers had. However, and this is what I found surprising: Paxton is the only one who is raped. Her friend (the cute Melanie Lynskey-ish chick from Superbad) gets off pretty easy, merely stabbed and that’s it. But that is how the movie as a whole is in comparison to the original: the truly sadistic and awful stuff has all been pretty much removed, and in a way it makes the rape seem more brutal (and thus the parents’ actions seem more justified). In the original, EVERYTHING was just so depraved, the rape barely stuck out as anything worse than the other things they endured. Not the case here, and so while some may cry foul that the movie is too toned down, I think it’s a good decision. Later on I was talking to other folks, including horror filmmakers, and they all said the same thing about the 1972 version: it’s not that it’s a bad movie, but it’s a movie you never want to watch a second time. There is little entertainment value (in the traditional sense) to be found in that film, and the ‘light’ moments (chicken truck!) just don’t work in context.
One problem I DID have with this version is the final minute of the film. The gang has been killed and the family, reunited, leaves the house in their boat. All well and good. But then they suddenly cut to a flashback, with the father torturing Krug, the gang leader. Not only is it completely unnecessary, it’s just a really stupid scene to boot. The dad paralyzes Krug, and then sticks his head in a microwave, turning it on. The result (an exploding head) is pretty “awesome”, but it just feels so tacked on and gratuitous, as if the studio felt the audience needed to cheer at the very end of the film. Plus, and I wrote this on the comment card: YOU CAN’T RUN A MICROWAVE WITH THE DOOR OPEN! Earlier in the film, they set up the microwave being broken, but what kind of microwave “breaks” by allowing it to run even if the door isn’t shut? And how would he have noticed this anyway? It’s like the scene exists just to pay off the goddamn broken microwave bit, as if anyone cared. Completely unnecessary, and I hope like hell it’s gone by the time the movie is released.
(END SPOILERS!)
Another, less minor issue is that the Krug and Sadie characters are pretty different than their 1972 counterparts, and thus should have been given different names. Like I’ve said numerous other times, the best thing a remake can do is not give the audience any reason to keep thinking about the original, and thus giving the killers the same name (in a movie that is, structurally speaking, an exact copy of the original) wasn’t the best decision, since they aren’t the same at all. Garret Dillahunt’s Krug is a much more calm and collected killer, a sort of icy criminal mastermind type, not a loose cannon like David Hess’ version. And Sadie is pretty mousy here for the most part; she takes her top off and bitches about rich folks, but that’s about it. The other 2 gang members have different names, so other than simple “iconic” reasons, I don’t see why they couldn’t just go all out and give everyone a new name.
Otherwise, it’s pretty goddamn solid. Tony Goldwyn is in top form as the dad, and it’s nice to see him again (he’s mainly been directing lately). And Monica Potter (the mom) is always welcome on a big movie screen. The toned down nature means we are not allowed to see her go down on a dude, which is a shame, but on the plus side, we are also spared the painful outcome of that scenario. They also feel like a real couple, and it’s great to see a modern horror movie that depicts a rather normal marriage. 9 times out of 10 the couple is on the brink of divorce, or the mother is in fact a stepmother, or whatever. Not here, they are just a normal family. And the film actually does a better job than the original in displaying the family bonds; when the “Weasel” type character is dispatched, director Dennis Iliadis goes out of his way to show the parents working as a team to kill him. It’s a nice little touch.
Iliadis seems to be trying to show off a bit too often though. Early on there is a shot of Paxton running around a boathouse, and for some goddamn reason he zooms all the way into the side of the building, and then tracks along the wall. The result is simply a pointless, shaky, and blurry shot. There are also far too many cutaways to the house’s exterior, as if we haven’t yet got the idea that this is a “perfect and normal” home. And he likes to cut back and forth in time, something that’s also a bit confusing. At the beginning, when they establish Paxton’s character is a champion swimmer, he keeps cutting between her swimming and her standing still, holding her breath underwater. Since we can’t really see their faces clearly in either “moment”, I actually though it was two different girls. And the stupid ending I mentioned; I actually can’t tell if it was a flashback or if the dad just went back to the house later on. He also keeps cutting to different angles of the same person (usually Krug), something that is supposed to make us feel on edge, but it’s mainly just annoying and calling attention to the fact that it’s only a movie (ß heh), not to mention breaking the tension.
But like I said, on the whole it works. They don’t really change much from the original, but most of the changes are for the better. It’s not necessarily a better film; while the original may not be fun to watch (this veers more toward “crowd-pleasing”, albeit in hard R rated form), the raw feel and up front attitude is a bit missed at times in the remake. The acting is certainly better (Dillahunt is great, in fact), and since we are conditioned to believe a studio film will pull its punches, it’s actually pretty suspenseful and unnerving at times. “He’ll just slap her or something” you think, and then WHAM! The girl’s head is slammed into a sink. And even though you don’t really fear for the parents’ lives at any point, they still manage to generate an ass-ton of suspense. There’s a bit where “Weasel” comes to the house and talks to Potter, who is trying to keep him from seeing a photo of their daughter lest he figure out what she already knows, and it’s a terrific, nail-biting sequence. And even though we know damn well that they’re doomed, the scene where the gang first encounters the two girls is another nerve-wracker. It’s also surprising how much abuse everyone suffers – I think every single character in the film takes a pretty sharp blow to the head at some point or another. And again – since we are spared the real depraved over-the-top stuff of the original (there are no intestines in this film, for starters), it actually makes the violent moments more effective, because they are used more sparingly.
If you’ve never seen the original, I would almost suggest seeing the remake first. Some folks walked out during the obvious moments, which means it’s still a tough film for some, but compared to the original it’s borderline “fun”. And since the two films are so similar, seeing one will “spoil” the surprises and development of the other. So go with the one that is an overall more enjoyable film viewing experience, and if you really dig it, go back and see if you can stomach Craven’s original.
Either way, score another one for Rogue, who also produced The Strangers. Now that Lionsgate has turned soft (and utterly reprehensible), they are probably our best hope for consistently solid studio-based horror.
Sometimes I mention the odd coincidences that a movie shares with the movie from the day before, but not as often as it actually occurs (which is a couple times a week). But I would be silly not to point out how many things Bleeders has in common with yesterday’s Silver Bullet. Both movies feature a wheelchair bound character, main characters driving station wagons, a character being called a “booger”, a cast member from Anne of Green Gables (and Surviving the Game!), poor stand-ins for Maine (NC in Silver Bullet, Canada here), and lots and lots of incest.
Actually only Bleeders has that. Silver Bullet could have (the brother and sister in that movie end the film in each other’s arms), but I guess they just didn’t have the balls.
Bleeders is a movie that clearly got filmed without a lot of the necessary resources (i.e. money). It’s a pretty good script, but everything feels so cheap. The makeups are barely seen, the actors are all pretty forgettable (casting budget spent entirely on Rutger Hauer I guess, even though he’s only in like 5 scenes), sets are boring, cinematography is lazy, etc. It actually kind of feels like a TV movie, except TV movies rarely feature super hot sex scenes in a bathroom.
The script also contains some truly awesome moments that even director Peter Svatek can’t ruin. Like when our hero (a guy who morbidly looks like a cross between Heath Ledger and Brandon Lee) is offered a sandwich and he shoves the entire thing in his mouth. As a sandwich addict, I can relate. Hauer also gets a great bit where he discovers that one of the monsters is a functioning hermaphrodite, and then announces his need for a drink. Also, the monsters are named Van Damme, which means every time the name is mentioned, I just picture poor Jean Claude, dressed as a monster, running around Canadian Maine. Also, the aforementioned sex scene is not only hot (lots of nudity, up against the wall, etc), but it comes right after the woman pukes and the guy eats a dead baby. Keep in mind that earlier in the film, she fought off his rather normal sexual advances, which just makes her sudden desire for him all the more hilarious.
Also, how can you not at least kind of like a movie that concludes with this line of narration: “And so it came to pass that John was reunited with his family, and found that he too had a twin. And although his sister could make love to herself, she welcomed her long lost brother, and loved him too.” The narrator doesn’t even mention that as the sister is “welcoming” her brother, a bunch of the little monsters are milling about, seemingly on break from eating corpses or whatever.
Something that isn’t in the credits, but all over the IMDb, is that this film is based on the Lovecraft story "The Lurking Fear". It certainly feels like Lovecraft, what with the slow pace, weird monsters, and New England setting, but it in no way resembles the movie Lurking Fear, which I saw a long time ago. If memory serves, that movie took place in one night, all in a crypt, and had a great joke about Communion wine. This movie has a guy fucking his sister in the first scene, a guy with different colored eyes, and something about eating babies. Both perfectly concepts in their own right, and both feature a cemetery and some monsters in it, but not really alike enough for me to really buy it, especially since it’s not credited. You’d think a direct to video cheapie (which is what Lurking Fear was) would try to capitalize on the author’s name. If any of you fine folks have read the story, can you tell me which version is more faithful, if any?
Speaking of the author, adaptation or not, the script is by Dan O’Bannon and Ron Shusette, who you may recognize as writing movies with lots and lots of resources/money, such as Total Recall and Alien. I get the impression that this was one of those deals where they wrote a movie, shopped it out to studios, and this particular company outbid everyone but in the process used all of the money they needed to make the movie properly. And that’s a shame, because almost no one involved seems to be even trying to do their script any justice.
For the most part, there isn’t a lot of Stephen King material I am completely unfamiliar with. With a few exceptions, I have either read the book, and/or saw the movie, and/or read the "Dark Tower" book in which characters from that otherwise unfamiliar book showed up and pissed off a lot of folks (I, for the record, thought that this concept, introduced in the later DT novels, was fucking awesome). One such “blank” was "Cycle of the Werewolf", filmed as Silver Bullet. I knew it was about werewolves, and little else. Not really a surprise, considering my general dislike of werewolf movies/stories, so I was surprised to find I actually pretty much dug the movie.
The only other thing I knew about it was that it had Gary Busey and Corey Haim. And I knew this from, of all people, Quentin Tarantino. In a Fango interview (probably back for Dusk Til Dawn) he explained how in the movie he didn’t get scared for Corey Haim, because you knew he’d be safe; however, he DID fear for the life of Gary Busey’s character, because there was a chance he would die (I assume he means strictly based on the character himself, because as we all know, Gary Busey pretty much ALWAYS dies in his movies). It’s a belief I have always held myself, which is why I don’t often get scared at horror movies; I’ve seen so many that it’s almost impossible to be surprised when someone dies.
But this is Stephen King, and if there’s one thing he can always be counted on, it’s killing off people you don’t expect to die. And he does it twice in the first 20 minutes here! First a pregnant woman who is trying to kill herself (the wolf beats her to the chase), and then a little kid (Haim’s best friend). Nice! It’s also nice to see that the movie retained these elements from the novel (according to what I’ve read online) rather than change it for happy Hollywood audiences, a la Cujo.
Their inclusion also helps drive forward the movie’s idea that everyone in this town is a degenerate scumbag. Seriously, just about every character we meet is a selfish prick, or a drunk, or an uptight broad, etc. Even Haim is kind of an asshole; at one point he is bemoaning how bad his life is recently, and his wording suggests that the cancellation of the town fair is more of a burden than the death of his best pal. Oddly enough, Busey, despite being a drunk, is pretty much the only positive role model in the film. He may be a bit of a loser, but encourages his nephew to have a good life, builds him a motorcycle/wheelchair, makes up an idiotic story to get the kids’ parents out of town so he can help them fight the werewolf, etc. Nice work, Busey.
One strange element of the script (adapted by King himself) is that both Busey and the kid’s mother act like his dad isn’t around and she has to take care of Haim herself, with Busey not being much of a help. But the dad IS there, he’s just like a glorified extra. We see him at the dinner table and driving the car, but damned if I can recall the guy ever actually doing or even saying anything. It’s almost like King didn’t have him in the script but director Daniel Attias threw a “dad” actor in these scenes anyway. “There should be a dad in there... you! You’re the dad!”
I also like how many people in the cast are now known for their cult television series work. Terry O’Quinn (X-Files, Millenium, Lost) plays the sheriff, Twin Peaks’ Everett McGill plays the town priest, Bill Smitrovich (Corky’s dad!) is one of the many drunks, and Busey played a caricature of himself in the fakest reality series of all time, I’m With Busey (well, fakest until Haim’s The Two Coreys came along, oddly enough). Attias himself has gone on to direct lots of genre television, including Lost.
I must talk about McGill a bit. The movie is kind of presented as a mystery, as in “Who is the werewolf in human form?”, but honestly, if you think it’s anyone BUT McGill, you’re kind of dumb. Not only is he Everett McGill, but he also plays a priest who wants to weed out the wrongdoers (again, everyone we meet is a scumbag, though I can’t really figure out what Haim’s friend did wrong). His sermon during one of the deceased’s funerals is nothing short of amazing, as he offers “words of comfort” that are mainly warnings about beasts and such coming to kill you.
Carlo Rambaldi, who also did ET and King Kong 76, did the werewolf effects, and they aren’t too bad. I don’t think we ever quite get a full look at it, but what we do see is pretty good, and the brief portions of transformation are also decent, if pretty much ripped off from Baker’sAmerican Werewolf work. Since nowadays we only get CG abominations, I’ll take a fairly generic design over something rendered in 3DSmax any day of the week and twice on Sunday. The only real blemishes are the fake heads, which are god awful (and little is done to even hide this fact; it’s like the DP didn’t realize they looked like mannequin heads with paint on them). The best fake head bit is right at the beginning, when the police claim that the drunk who was decapitated by the wolf was actually hit by the train. Pretty precise train, to sever a guy’s head clean off and not crush the head or the body in the process.
Apparently the Region 2 DVD has a commentary track. Our version doesn’t have a goddamn thing. We may have won the World War, but Europe is clearly the victor in DVD editions.
I don’t have enough German movies in the Horror Movie A Day canon. Let’s fix that. When recommending films, please consider our friends in Hamburg.
Anyway, a friend let me borrow Vampyr, which I had never even heard of until he handed it to me. It starts off similar to Dracula, what with a young man arriving at a spooky house in the middle of nowhere, but then it goes off on a completely different direction. And that direction is utter batshit confusion. But it’s also quite good, which is nice.
Despite being filmed in 1930, it has a surprisingly high number of complex shots and special effects. There is an amazing tracking shot about halfway through the film, which starts by looking out a window, and then tracking back out of the room, turning, going down the hall, and finally ending on a pair of characters who then speak some dialogue. It’s the type of complex shot you don’t often see in older films, since back then the very idea of making a film at all seemed to be enough for most filmmakers. And the effects are pretty impressive as well; one character is essentially a ghost for the entire final act, so we see through him as he travels about the house and sharing shots with fully massed characters.
There is also a truly unnerving sequence of a guy dreaming about his own funeral. His coffin has a little window right above his head, and we watch his point of view as the casket is taken toward the grave. It’s creepy as hell.
Bits like that are enough to make up for the lack of a coherent story. I really couldn’t tell you what the hell was going on half the time, but the atmosphere and creepy feel the film had made the story lapses easier to deal with. It’s not like a Lynch film where the incoherency eventually leads to just plain ol’ lack of interest (Inland Empire, anyone?), but it’s a very loose narrative, with little traditional structural qualities (three acts, character arcs, etc). Lynch may have even seen the film himself; there are characters who seemingly split into two, oddball dream sequences, etc. On the commentary by film scholar Tony Rayns (hey, how do you get to be considered a film scholar? I think I’m one, at least for slasher movies), he even points out a similarity to Twin Peaks, but I forget what it was (maybe if I had seen more than 2 episodes I could be a bit more privy on the matter). I’m sure he’s right though, he’s a scholar.
He IS off on a Buffy reference though. During a scene where a vampire is staked, he points out that this is 7/10ths of a century before Joss Whedon and Buffy. Actually, since the film is from 1932, it would be exactly 6/10ths (or 3/5ths, if you want to simplify the fraction) of a century, as the Buffy film was released in 1992. Some scholar. He also has no idea why the movie is spelled the way it is (made all the more odd when there is frequent text screens which spell it the “correct” wrong way: Vampyre.
The Criterion release is a combination/restoration from battered existing prints. I don’t envy whoever had to assemble a complete print from God knows how many different sources, but it looks like a good job. The only real issue is that whenever the movie cuts to an exterior, the film is overly grainy and also blurry, resulting in “What the hell am I looking at here?” levels of quality. I don’t know if that was always the case, or if all exteriors just happened to come from a lousy print, but either way it’s kind of annoying, because the rest of it looks shockingly good for a 75+ year old movie.
Criterion has also supplied the film with an unusually high number of extras. In addition to the commentary (as usual, not by anyone involved with the film), there are two 30 minute extras, one about director Carl Theodor Dreyer’s career, and the other about the development/creation of the film itself. There is also a radio broadcast, but I didn’t listen to that. But that’s just the stuff on the DVDs. There is also a 60 page booklet with some essays and such, plus a pretty interesting account of the restoration process. On top of that, there is ANOTHER book that includes the screenplay and the short story Carmilla that Vampyr is sort of based on. I didn’t read the short story, but the screenplay is a good read; not only does it make some story details a bit more clear, but it’s also just amusing to read a “screenplay” that is essentially a short story itself. Since the film is rather short on dialogue, there will be pages of just “action”, which includes the character’s thoughts and things like that, stuff not usually found in a screenplay. Score another for German efficiency!
It’s rare I watch anything from Criterion, and that is a shame. Some might scoff at the idea of a horror movie being given the Criterion treatment, but that is because there is a common misconception of what the company does. They aren’t out to simply release the greatest movies of all time (though in my opinion, they have done just that – for Halloweenand Armageddon), but simply to present great examples of each genre (and subgenre). Theoretically, once the Psychlos come to our planet for resources and try to learn more about us, they could use the entire output of Criterion and get a pretty close to complete history of cinema, albeit in generalized terms. So yes, Armageddon deserves a Criterion release, because like it or not, it’s a great way to demonstrate the idea of excessive MTV style popcorn movies. But yet, for horror they are pretty picky, despite all of the subgenres, there are probably less than a dozen horror films in the company’s history, with some long out of print (the DVD of Halloween is from Anchor Bay, not Criterion). Long story short: it’s nice to see them putting this much effort into a horror movie. Quality over quantity!
What say you?
P.S. - Below is the entire movie, not the trailer. I don't know if its the same print/subtitle that I watched, or how someone got a 73 minute clip onto Youtube, but there you go. PLEASE, GO ON...
A few weeks ago, a guy broke into my house at 5 in the morning and demanded I show him to my basement. Since I don’t have a basement, I told him to leave and called him a fucking jerk for waking me up so damn early. I thought the whole incident rather strange, but then today I saw the same situation play out in House of Dracula, so I guess there is a precedent. I should have been nicer.
I also wish I knew that this was a sequel to House of Frankenstein, which I haven’t seen yet. Maybe then I wouldn’t have spent the whole movie wondering why Dracula was now John Carradine, why none of the characters were dead, etc. I’m sure Frankenstein clears that up.
I also wonder if that film actually had a scene of all three monsters together, interacting. Much has been made about this film having Dracula, Wolf Man, and Frankenstein’s Monster, but they never actually share a scene, in any combination. Larry Talbot finds the Monster unconscious in a cave, but he’s not in Wolf Man form at the time. And Dracula checks out of the movie before the Monster even wakes up at all (it's YOUR movie asshole, at least stick around until the finale). Even Van Helsing offered that much (and on that note, why didn’t this movie have a Van Helsing descendent or whatever while they were at it?). The movie DOES offer a really cute hunchback woman, so there’s something.
I also love the ending of this one. Like all the Universal movies (except the original Frankenstein), it’s over as soon as the Monster is dead. As usual, he is killed by a fire that sends a bunch of wooden beams crashing down upon him (the scene has been staged so many times that they save some money by simply using footage of it happening in the last “solo” Frankensteinmovie). Usually after this there is a shot of the heroes looking at the fire, and then maybe a long shot of the fire for a few seconds before “The End” fades onto the screen. But not here. The Monster is seen howling as he is immolated, and then “The End” instantly comes up. It’s actually kind of morbid, since poor Frankie didn’t actually do anything wrong in this one.
The movie also finds a way to use Beethoven’s "Moonlight Sonata". Not a single hidden door opens as a result of it being played, which I found odd, but I always like hearing it nonetheless. It would be nice if it was given some sort of credit in the film, but I guess it’s just sort of assumed knowledge, just like you don’t have to site a source if you write a paper saying that George Washington was the first President.1
This finishes up the Dracula set, and I think I have one more Frankenstein movie. Then hopefully I will find the Mummy, Creature, and Invisible Man sets for cheap so I can start in on those. Unless someone wants to buy me a Labor Day present?
GENRE: SHORT SOURCE: THEATRICAL (FUNDRAISER SCREENING)
Last night I checked out a trio of short films, two of which I had seen before, and another called The Angel. The star of the film, Eddie McGee, held the fundraiser to well, raise funds for his next project, a feature titled Remember My Name, which I think is being directed by Paul Hough, who directed one of the shorts. Not sure, there was another guy named Paul there who was also hosting, and I couldn't really hear them talk. Anyway, that movie will have 10 more dollars thanks to me, and I expect to see it on the screen (maybe someone can have a copy of The Simpsons Movie on DVD laying around for no reason – for some reason it’s already a $10 title).
One of the short films I had already seen is Mike Williamson’s In The Wall, which I reviewed back when I first saw it at last year’s Screamfest. It’s just as good a second time, and since I had forgotten about a particular gag, it was like seeing it for the first time all over again. The only problem was a couple of audience members who wouldn’t shut the fuck up during the entire thing. Now I’m not going to pretend I never “play MST3k” and make snarky comments about a movie in the theater, though I tend to whisper such comments to my companion. But that wasn’t the case here, these broads were just chatting like normal, as if there WASN’T a film on right in front of them (with the film’s creator in the audience no less). If beer wasn’t so expensive, I would have poured one on their chatty annoying heads without a moments’ hesitation.
Another one I had seen before was Richard Gale’s Criticized, aka the most terrifying movie ever made. It’s about a critic who is tortured by a filmmaker whose horror movie failed to get distribution because of the critic’s festival review. As someone who probably would never want to meet a select number of horror directors in a dark alley, I find this movie to be truly scary. For my sake, I hope none of those guys ever see the film and get any ideas, but the rest of you should definitely check it out. I love the way that a wiseass comment in the review gets turned against the reviewer during the torture segment (you’ll never look at a paperclip the same way again), and the little joke in the epilogue had me cheering.
Finally, Paul Hough's The Angel, which was also the shortest of the three. It’s a fast moving little Angel vs. Death movie, with a funny twist. McGee, who you may know as the winner of Big Brother, is great as the ass-kicking "Angel", and the movie has some top notch stunt work not often seen in independent short films. Also, I should point out that I was quite enjoying the look of the film, only to be informed by my friend that it was shot by the same guy who shot Repo, another film with a very stylish and unique look to the cinematography. His name is Joseph White, and hopefully we’ll be seeing more of his work.
I know I don’t review shorts often, but that’s mainly because I rarely see any. But in this day of excessively padded movies due to incredibly weak/thin plots, I love guys like Williamson, Gale, and Hough for just getting to the goddamn point. Check out the official sites for each film (linked on their respective director's names) to see when they might be playing in your area next.
Since the dawn of the Internet, there have been movie sites. And among those movie sites were sites devoted solely to horror movies. And on those sites, there has been endless speculation about a sequel to The Lost Boys. So many different ideas and iterations of a sequel have been tossed around, it was almost something of a downer when The Lost Boys: The Tribe officially went into production, with a cast and a synopsis and everything. Part of the fun was wondering “what if?”. And, just like the last “should have been left up to our imaginations” movie (Freddy Vs Jason), the result is, unsurprisingly, pretty disappointing.
With the wealth of good ideas (and hell, even TITLES - what ever happened to The Lost Girls?) that were superior to what we see on screen, you gotta wonder why they went this particular route. The entire film just reeks of missed opportunity. Corey Feldman is obviously the big draw, yet he probably has less screen time than he did in the original. Our vampires are all extreme sports junkies, yet they do almost nothing “extreme” beyond harass some cops (much has been made of the “surfing vampires” idea – but we see them surf for about 12 seconds in the opening scene, and never again), and the cops disappear from the movie after this to boot. Early on, the vampires kill another vampire, sort of setting up a Blade II style war that never actually occurs. They also make a point of talking about how the sun never comes out in this gloomy town, but again, nothing is done with this idea. Christ, even the alternate endings (which involve the other Frog brother being a master vampire coming to fight his brother, with Corey Haim’s Sam caught in the middle) show more promise.
Another problem is the complete lack of consistency between the first film and this. The vampires are completely different; instead of being able to fly, they can just run really fast (this notion gave me flashbacks to that great SNL sketch of Superman’s funeral, where Flash bemoaned how Superman had “super strength, the ability to fly.... and all I can do is run fast.”). Their makeups also look nothing like Greg Cannon’s original designs. And the film never makes character relationships clear; supposedly, our two leads, Chris and Nicole, are the children of Michael and Star, but they never actually say that in the movie. They share the same last name, but that’s about all the evidence we get. Well, the orangely named Autumn Reeser’s character is told she looks just like her mother, but since Reeser couldn’t possibly look LESS like Jami Gertz, maybe this was just a rumor after all. Kiefer Sutherland’s brother Angus plays the main vampire, but if he’s supposed to be David’s brother, again, we aren’t ever told that. And when you consider that most of Feldman’s scenes are pretty removed from the main plot (he only kills one vampire, never even meets Angus’ character, and spends most of his scenes in his trailer talking to Chris) it’s almost like the idea to make it a sequel came to mind about 75% of the way through production.
They also commit a cardinal sin – setting a movie in California and having someone with a Dunkin Donuts coffee. FUCK YOU! THERE ARE NO GODDAMN DUNKINS IN CA! And every time a movie betrays its filming location (as usual, we are in Canada, not California) by displaying my beloved and sorely missed Dunkies, the movie is automatically docked a letter grade, which on this movie wasn’t very high to begin with.
So is it a complete loss? Well, no. Edgar’s scenes with Chris are pretty fun, and Feldman is, unsurprisingly, the best thing the movie has going for it. His tough guy voice may sound a bit ridiculous now that he’s like 35 years old, but at least it’s consistent with the first film. The kills are also fairly gory, if ridiculously inconsistent with one another (one vamp turns to stone, one turns into a husk, one just dies, and one bursts into flame). Also, the film’s best idea, one sadly not used enough, is that the vampires like to screw around with the idea of immortality; they often just stab and gut each other for laughs.
I also took perverse pleasure in the film’s borderline incestuous theme. Chris and Nicole are a bit too close at times; at one point he puts his head in her lap as he announces his desire for them to simply stay in for the night. He also gets completely enraged whenever a guy talks to her. Yet, he has no problem giving her a beer (she’s 17). Weird, and thus awesome (also gives the movie’s theme song – re-recorded by terrible alt rock band Aiden – a whole new meaning). Had they gone all out and just had them make out, I’d probably forgive the movie's other faults.
Also, Reeser may be playing the most annoying character in the film, as she is prone to start shrieking and crying at the drop of a hat, but at least she appears "nude":
Yes, we are supposed to believe that she is nude there. The shot comes right after fake Kiefer removes her (red) bra.
The DVD comes with a few features besides the aforementioned alternate endings, but they are all pretty worthless. Most depressing is a 5 minute piece with Feldman, in character, talking about all the different ways to kill a vampire, interspersed with clips of Chris killing vampires, since there’s not actually enough footage of Edgar Frog in action to make up a whole extra feature. Unsurprisingly, the writer is nowhere to be seen; even though only Hans Rodionoff is credited with the script, there is simply no way what is onscreen could be one person’s vision, since it’s so all over the place.
Back when I saw the original film a few weeks ago, they showed a scene from this film afterwards, and I came away with two thoughts: 1. It seemed like director PJ Pesce was a bit of a douche, and 2. The scene sucked. But I was willing to give it the benefit of the doubt since it was out of context, so I tried going into this with a clean slate. But no, it just sucked. Worse, Pesce claimed that the original film’s vampires were boring and interchangeable (except for Kiefer, obviously), and that in his film they all had strong personalities and were unique. Well, apart from the one black vampire who sounds like Little Jacob from GTAIV, they're, if anything, MORE interchangeable here. I literally could not tell the other 2 vampire lackeys apart, to the point where I got confused after one of them was killed and I thought he was suddenly resurrected. And Angus is a dreadful bore, coming off more like a pretentious lead singer (he reminds me a lot of Russell Brand's character in Forgetting Sarah Marshall) than a vampire OR an extreme surfer. At least now we know why Kiefer is so badass and awesome – he apparently stole his brother’s charisma when the lad was born, leaving poor Angus completely without personality.
So there you have it folks, the first movie in history where you can say “I wish Joel Schumacher had directed it.”
My good friends over at Scooter and Jinx forced me to “borrow” Prison of the Psychotic Damned some time ago, saying that it was awful. Hardly an enticing prospect; I see enough awful movies on my own without people forcing others onto me. However, a delayed shipping on Blockbuster’s part forced me to dip into my own collection today, and I stumbled across this one, having actually forgotten about it (they sent it like a year ago).
Well they were right, it’s awful. I got annoyed right from the start, as the director calls his film a David Kann projekt. Hey, fuck you. This is during a 4+ minute opening credit sequence which is basically just a music video for a band that sounds like Flyleaf. After that, we get, I dunno, 10 minutes of some heroin chick gyrating around her room, cutting herself, reading bad goth poetry, etc. Finally, the movie proper begins, as our group (including the heroin chick) drive to the titular Prison (which is a bus station, but whatever).
This traveling scene may be one of the most inept in cinematic history. Since nothing they are saying is interesting (typical catfight bickering, pretentious opening narration (they are making a documentary), self-promoting their previous films, etc), I found myself looking at the background out the car windows. None of them match. During a conversation, we’ll see trees/forest on one side of the car, and typical suburban homes on the other angle. Then Kann will edit in a shot out the windshield, which looks like an urban commercial district. Also, we keep getting video footage (complete with the little REC/battery signs and a title safe marker), which has a timecode that keeps going all over the place. That’s something that actually continues throughout the movie; at one point we see the thing hit the 1:00:00:00 mark 3 times in a row.
The scene ALSO contains my least favorite movie reference ever – someone saying “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” I fucking loathe this reference, and I really don’t see why it’s still used so much. Is there no other movie with a line of dialogue that signifies a change in locale that someone can use for their shitty movie to save them the trouble of writing an original line? But this one is especially annoying, because there’s a fucking character named Kansas sitting next to him! And he’s never been inside of her either. Christ.
But the biggest problem with the movie is the complete lack of flow. There’s almost no plot, so judging where you are in the “narrative” is largely impossible. You get the idea that it could end at any point and it wouldn’t really matter either way. Kann continually tosses in grainy cutaways, adding yet another format to the film (there’s 16mm, what looks like 8mm, DV, Hi 8...) and also making it feel even more disjointed. There are a couple of scene snippets here and there that are impressive on their own (like a creepy room full of dolls), but so much of the movie is just padding that these accidental moments of quality are almost not even worth mentioning. The film’s highlight comes at the hour mark (not one of the three we see on the video camera shots), when someone says “We’ve seen nothing for over an hour!”. Right with ya, buddy.
Another hilariously inept moment comes later in the film, when one of the women runs down a seemingly endless corridor. A well known trick to filming such scenes is to simply have the actor run up the same stretch over and over, using different angles and such to “extend” the length of your corridor (and thus, scene). All well and good, except this particular corridor has exposed brick on one side, so when the actress turns and runs around the other way, the brick is now on the other side of her. As a result, it actually LOOKS like what is really happening (that she is running back and forth over the same 20 feet of space) instead of what it should resemble. Maybe you should have spent a little more time on your projeKt, Kann.
Kann also provides a commentary in which he never once seems to acknowledge that his film is an inept bore. I understand that they didn’t have all the money in the world, but that is no excuse for a lot of the movie’s problems. The poor acting and lack of special effects aren’t an issue (actually, the makeup effects are pretty good, when they’re actually onscreen), but the story is just worthless, and you don’t need a big budget for that. According to the IMDb, this movie cost a little over 300,000 dollars. Gee, is there any other independent horror movie that cost that much, but turned out really great?
Sometimes, I wish I never saw Paranormal Activity. Not only did it scare the bejesus out of me and make me afraid of San Diego, but it also sort of ruined all similar movies for me. Haunting type movies are different than slashers, at least to me. I may never see a slasher as great as Halloween (hell at this rate I’m not sure if anything new will even top Friday the 13th Part 2), but I’ll always enjoy watching them, because they don’t frighten me in the least anymore, there will always be new kills, new villain disguises, new settings, etc. But with haunted house movies such as Death Of a Ghost Hunter, they are pretty limited, and actually SCARING the audience is goal number 1. Yet, they all do the same shtick: moving furniture, weird sounds, and now video footage. Zzzzzz.
There are two reasons why Paranormal worked as well as it did. One was the award-worthy acting of the two leads, Micah and Katie. Not only did I totally buy them as their characters, but I also never doubted for a second that they were truly a couple. Even watching the film again after learning that they had actually met for the first time right before shooting began, I still 100% believe them as real people. The other reason was the rather subtle approach to the proceedings, expertly paced by director Oren Peli. The low-key “occurrences” paved the way for truly unsettling things later on. No CGI, no monsters or visible ghosts, none of that crap. All real, all believable, and thus, all scary.
But Sean Tretta, who wrote, produced, edited, photographed, and directed Ghost Hunter, isn’t quite as skilled as Peli. Maybe the actors just suck, or maybe he’s like Lucas and incapable of getting good performances from talented actors, but either way, I never once believed any of the primary characters (one isn’t too bad, but more on her later) were anything but actors. Their delivery is wooden, none of them really look like what they are playing (how is the lead broad a legendary ghost hunter already? She looks my age!*), and they have zero chemistry with one another. This isn’t as damaging as it would have been for Paranormal, since they are playing people who have just met, but still, normal conversations about coffee or whatever still feel forced.
Another problem is the ridiculous breakneck narration/editing in the film’s first act. Our lead, a woman named Carter for some reason, narrates a lot of the early part of the film, and Tretta’s editing never gives her a chance to pause. I almost wanted to put the movie on a slower speed so I could digest the things she was saying. Not that any of it is particularly interesting (in a span of about 20 seconds she explains her travel route, where she is going and why, and who contacted her about it in the first place), but still, a pause of 2 or 3 seconds in between her lines would have been nice. On the film’s deleted scenes collection (the only extra), Tretta tells us that he wanted to move the film along because there was a lot of dialogue at the beginning; apparently his solution was to simply remove any portion of the film, however brief, in which there was no dialogue. The result is like listening to someone read the last episode of Joyce’s "Ulysses".
But then the biggest blunder occurs at the end of the film. Everyone dies (not a spoiler, they tell us as much in the film’s first minute – way to maintain suspense!), and then the movie pulls a Return of the King, as we are treated to a lengthy flashback, an epilogue, and finally a coda. For real, there is like another 20 minutes of the movie after the point where it should have logically ended. Ending it there would have left some unanswered questions, but with another swipe at the script, this material could have been introduced earlier in the narrative, so it’s a moot point. As it stands, it’s kind of like in Wild Things, when after the movie is over you watch a few scenes that explain possible plot holes. Just not as amusing.
Another problem is the instantaneously obvious “plot twist” in the form of a character who isn’t who she says she is. OK, let’s see if you can figure this out. The film opens with an Amityville style murder/suicide of a whole family. The killer’s final act before shooting herself is to place a baby in the tub (next to a crucifix) and turn the water on, but we never actually see the baby drown. Then 20 years later, when the investigators come to the house, they are suddenly joined by a 20 year old woman (they even make a point to tell us her age) with crazy religious beliefs. Hmm... who could she be? Now, not that I have any real problem with an obvious plot twist (and she’s the one I mentioned who can actually kind of act), but it’s not only presented as a shocking revelation, but it’s also part of the already annoying never-ending finale! So the filmmakers are keeping you around longer than necessary in order to explain something any viewer who was smart enough to hit play on the DVD player would have already known. Christ, it was so obvious I actually thought it was part of the assumed narrative. It’s like, if you show the Statue of Liberty at the beginning of a movie, everyone knows that it’s in New York, you don’t need a title saying so.
To be fair, there are a few creepy moments (subtle ghost images) and until the finale it never really drags. Also, there’s a bit that made me laugh out loud. I had to get up to grab my microwaved lunch, and as I came back I caught the tail end of a scene that looked like someone peeing on a suitcase. I didn’t think much of it; I assumed I was imagining things. But then like 20 minutes later, one of the girls brings her suitcase to Carter and she’s like “Someone peed on my suitcase!” This is a far more awesome ghostly act than simply throwing their clothes around like in Blair Witch (a movie that is incorrectly quoted, but I chuckled nonetheless at the reference), so well played.
Not appreciated as much are the obvious Amityville swipes (in addition to the backstory, check out the windows) and for some reason, theft of the Halloween 4/5 score (that very simple piano bit that plays in scenes like the one where Michael appears at the end of the hallway the deputy is guarding in 4, or before Rachel is killed in 5). When you reference other horror movies (Exorcistis also tossed in), I know you’re not a newbie to the genre, so you should know better than to rip from the ‘Ween!!!
For all my ranting, it’s not the worst movie. It’s merely lacking in the important areas. Its’ not particularly scary or original, and when you’re dealing with this sort of found footage/paranormal investigation type thing, you need to do something that makes it stick out from the others (well, besides having lousy acting and atrocious editing). I hate to bash an independent film, especially one where a guy tackled so many jobs on it, but none of the problems are the result of not having a lot of money, and in the end, it’s more impressive to see 5 guys make 1 good movie than 1 guy doing 5 jobs on a mediocre one.
What say you?
*I went to look up her age, and her Myspace page (IMDb didn’t have it) says that she is 68 years old. If so, I take it back, and also would like to commend her on her incredible aging.
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