Disconnected (1983)

APRIL 30, 2009

GENRE: SERIAL KILLER, WEIRD
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

At some point during Disconnected, my friend Mike wondered how in the hell I could manage to write a review for such a thing. And I could certainly see his point - a traditional review would first give a brief synopsis of the plot, and then discuss the film’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as an overall assessment of whether or not the film delivered. But this is that rarest of films: one that a traditional review, or even the usual sort of ramble I deliver on these things, cannot possibly do it justice. It’s simply a film that has to be seen. No, EXPERIENCED; much like The Room, Raw Force, or Dangerous Men.

Unfortunately, like those movies, this one is wholly obscure (though at least Room and Raw Force can be seen on DVD, though a theatrical experience is far more appropriate), and I can’t imagine any one of HMAD regular readers have seen it. It’s been released on VHS, from what I can understand, but not available on Ebay, and the lone copy on Half.com runs 99.99 (we’re in a recession, people!). A DVD is scheduled for June 30th, surprisingly enough, but it’s packaged with two other films. Hopefully I am wrong, but I suspect that means it will be a shitty transfer with no extras or insight from the filmmaker.

And insight is certainly desired, because I honestly don’t have a clue what was going on throughout 80-90% of this movie. If you wanted to simplify things, you could say that the movie was about a girl named Alicia (Frances Raines) who is being tormented with strange phone calls, and the caller may very well be the same serial killer that has been terrorizing the town. But that would almost be doing a disservice to this wonderfully odd film, because it makes it sound so generic, which is the last thing you could accuse this movie of being. No, it’s all about HOW the story is told, or, more correctly, how the story ISN’T told.

It’s all in the little moments. The endless montages set to an admittedly catchy soundtrack, the “should have been cut, if shot at all” scenes like when Alicia sets her clock, our heroine demanding to know how her twin sister “got the number” for her apartment, the guy who ends every conversation with “See ya bye!” (he practically melds it into one syllable), the Hawaiian-shirt wearing cop with an affinity for grinders (the film’s best line: his partner’s sad observation that “those four girls will never enjoy another grinder again”) and who occasionally speaks directly at the camera to... someone (us?), or the old man who bookends the film, resulting in a finale that was so baffling and incomplete, I had no choice but to stand up and applaud.

Speaking of the old man, he is sort of the poster child for the film’s habit of piling on go nowhere subplots and red herrings. The guy shows up in the beginning of the movie, asking to use Alicia’s phone. She then goes into the kitchen for a drink, and when she comes back, he is gone. Then, through the entire movie he is never mentioned again, but she DOES keep receiving unexplained phone calls, in which all she hears is some strange electronic sound. Then at the end of the movie, he suddenly re-emerges, walking out of the house and folding his hands as if to say “I’m done here.” Was he the killer? Was he a ghost? The phone’s human incarnate? Did he kill her? Damned if I know.

Even better is the fact that the movie actually ends twice. Right around the 60 minute mark, the killer has been caught, the twin sister is dead, and Alicia is in mourning. Everything is more or less wrapped up, albeit abruptly (the final showdown between the cops, the killer, and Alicia is off-screen entirely). But then, the movie just keeps going. More phone calls, more sitting around drinking, and more phone calls on top of that. This “epilogue” even contains a still frame sequence of phone calls/drinking, as well as a flashback montage with good and bad memories mixed together haphazardly, as well as a brief shot that suggests the showdown with the killer was actually filmed. The idea of the cop being a 2nd killer is introduced, but never followed through on, and then the old man appears to finish ending #2. Amazing.

Also, Alicia works in a video store. I had a lot of fun trying to spot titles in the store, most of which seemed to be horror. Mother’s Day, My Bloody Valentine, Halloween I-III, The Shining, Jaws... it’s a pretty good selection, if you ask me. They’re all out of order, but that’s fine, they all face front. If I ever get this movie on DVD (and I will, believe you me), I will certainly freeze frame these scenes and try to match every single title.

According to the evening’s host (the movie showed at the Echo Park Film Center), the film was actually the student film of director Gorman Bechard. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the “epilogue” was filmed later in an attempt to pad the running time out to feature length, but otherwise it’s actually much more professional than most student films I’ve seen, especially one this long. The boom mic never appears, continuity is reasonable, and the acting is largely sufficient. Also, there’s a surprising amount of nudity - I’m pretty sure nothing in my film school ever had that going for it. And while it’s eventually overused and even laughable, the phone calls do have a certain eerie quality to them at first, and the film’s lone full blown murder scene is brutally violent and bloody. Of course, even that’s a bit odd (the guy windexes a framed photo above the bed afterwards). Ignoring the haphazard storytelling, the film’s only technical weakness is abysmally lax editing, but I chalk that up more to “let’s stretch this into a feature!” than an actual creative choice. I can’t imagine Bechard sitting there and saying “OK, she’s gonna walk out of her house and down the stairs, but let’s look at the house for a full 45 seconds before she does so.” There’s also a shot with the sun blinding the camera lens, but I found that sort of charming, and it’s just another scene of the girl answering her phone and then screaming, so it’s not like anything is lost.

I really want this movie to gain a cult audience; much like The Room has in Los Angeles (and spreading). It’s of equal entertainment value, and demands a crowd of baffled moviegoers embracing it as one. My friend plans to get a print and show it in his backyard (source of previous HMAD entries such as Cujo and Jaws); I plan to get everyone I ever met back there to see it for themselves. For the rest of you - consider June 30th your new Christmas.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Shiver (2008)

APRIL 29, 2009

GENRE: MONSTER (?)
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

It’s not often you see a movie that introduces the main character as a familiar horror movie monster and then forgets to actually work that into the rest of the movie, but that’s what Shiver (Spanish: Eskalofrío) does. Our lead has photophobia, which means he can’t go into the sun. But he also has sharp fangs, which as far as I know, is not a common side effect of his ailment. So I’m guessing he’s actually a vampire.

But that doesn’t matter, because neither his photophobia, his teeth, or (eventually) the character at all really have any bearing on the story. The disease is mainly an excuse for them to live in such a dreary locale, and partially explain why he's quiet and moody (besides for the fact that he's a teenager in a horror movie). The end of the film finds him lying on the floor doing nothing while the film's real villains battle. It’s sort of like when you watch five seasons of a TV show and notice how they gradually phase a character out of importance, albeit in a single 90 minute film. Granted, there’s nothing particularly interesting about the guy besides his ailment, but still, let him DO something in the finale, even as a reward for sticking around so long.

I also wonder if the folks who made The Haunting In Connecticut saw this before scripting their movie. It’s not the same genre, but it’s interesting how both films start off with an overworked mother and her sick son, fed up with dealing with medical issues, moving to a new town that will allow him to have a slightly easier time with it (in this case, the village get almost no sunlight). It stuck out because very few horror films feature a dynamic between a still attractive mother and a son in his late teens to begin with, let alone with all this medical nonsense. Hell, the two actors even resemble the ones in CT. Weird.

Anyway, it’s not that bad of a movie. I dug the subtle approach for the most part, and director Isidro Ortiz stages some effective sequences (particularly a “hunt” with the “hero” and his two friends early in the film). And the idea of blending genres is kind of cool, I actually had no idea how to label this one (a vampire investigates what he thinks is a monster, that turns out to be a feral child kept hidden by evil humans. What would YOU call it?). I just wish it all came together in a more cohesive way. Paying off even ONE of the horror angles would have been sufficient.

Back to the evil humans thing (spoilers ahead), it’s pretty weird how at the exact moment I wrote down “landlord” in my notes, he suddenly revealed himself as the villain. I had written it down because I liked how, for once, the kind landlord character didn’t disappear from the story once the family had settled into their house (like, I dunno, Haunting in Connecticut!). And this landlord was particularly kind, so I guess I should have seen it coming. Then again, we already had a vampire and a feral child, so I wasn’t really looking for any other plot elements.

Another issue is that far too much time is spent on a cop investigating the “hero” kid for the murders. We know perfectly well that he’s not the killer, because we saw a blurry shape thing kill the guy while the “hero” watched. We also have seen a few “monster POV” shots. So why waste screentime on something that we know isn’t the case? It’s just like Wolfen taking up 10-15 minutes with some nonsense about terrorists. If anything, the characters in a horror film should know more than the audience, not the other way around. Maybe if it was legitimately played as a mystery, it would be fine, but we know he’s innocent before he’s even officially accused by the cops. It’s like a red herring in reverse.

But I dunno, story issues aside, there was something about the movie I dug. It’s nice to see a Spanish horror flick that isn’t about ghosts for once (though given the kitchen sink attitude, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some at one point), plus it’s well acted and features an interesting locale. A few more drafts of the script and this would be an outright gem, but as is it’s merely an acceptable way to kill 90 minutes and maybe learn some Spanish while you’re at it (Speaking of which - this is my 3rd foreign language film in a row. Tomorrow's better be in Ingles!).

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Voices (2007)

APRIL 28, 2009

GENRE: ASIAN, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Having had enough of my increasingly frequent falling asleep during movies (I even dozed during Repo the other night for the first time ever, despite the lights and extra sound from the “Shadowcasters” adding to the insanity), I have decided to try something: the instant I feel myself getting heavier eyelids, I pause the film and get up, check my email, splash some water in my face, play a turn on Scrabble (on Facebook, where games can last weeks), whatever. Then I sit back down and resume viewing, presumably wide awake. So as a result, the 85 minute Voices (Korean: Du Saram-yida) took me over two hours to watch, but I saw every minute of it without having to go back and re-watch sections of the film. Hurrah!

(Of course, irony strikes - I ended up watching the entire thing over again anyway, because I couldn’t make sense of the ending, but more on that later.)

Anyway, Voices helps to solidify my feeling that this year’s After Dark Fest was the best yet. I didn’t outright love anything, but it’s more important that I didn’t hate or even dislike anything either (though I have yet to see Butterfly Effect 3, mainly because I haven’t seen 2). Everything was OK to good, which is fine by me. So where does Voices fit in? Well, for the first 45-50 minutes, I would say it was the best of the lot. However, director Ki-hwan Oh cannot sustain the first two acts’ pace or appeal, and the 3rd act, while far from bad, is a bit disappointing, and leaves a couple of things unresolved.

But the first 45 or so... oh man. Not only do we get a heaping of violence (the body count here is much higher than average for a Korean horror film), but it’s bloody as hell to boot. I’m talking full blown geysers of the red stuff, a la Nightmare on Elm St (mixed with the “full body red” look, think The Descent). Also, vicious stabbings, a fall from high that leaves an ever-growing pool of crimson... this may be the BLOODIEST Asian horror film of its kind that I’ve ever seen. Plus, the attacks pack a visceral punch; there's a scene where a would-be killer repeatedly smashes a car trying to get to our heroine, and I admit to jumping at the sound/strength of a window being smashed.

I also liked that it was a unique take on the curse/weird things happening type of Eastern horror film that we've seen so many times. It’s similar to Ju-On/The Grudge in a few ways, namely a curse that is seemingly born from intense anger and how it seems to focus on a few school girls (like Ju-On 2). But to its credit, that’s more or less where the similarities end. There are no ghostly children making noises, nor do any ghosts with long hair covering their faces make any appearance. Hell, I don’t even think water factors in to any of the scare scenes, which may be a first.

The problem is that after a rollercoaster first act and most of the second, it not only slows down (as expected), but it does so to answer questions, and doesn’t bother to answer them all. For example, all of the stories we hear about previous victims of the curse seem to involve family: mothers killing sons, brothers killing sisters, etc. But our heroine is attacked by pretty much everyone BUT her family. Her mother eventually takes a stab at it (pun possibly intended, I can’t remember what she used to attack her), but before then, a fellow classmate, a teacher, and her little nerdy buddy all try (and fail) to kill her. Her sister and father never even raise their voice. Obviously this setup has its perks - you’re never sure when she’s safe or when the person she’s with is going to suddenly lunge at her - but it leaves a fairly large plot hole.

Another issue is the twist ending, which also leaves some things unanswered (but at least puts the “family vs family” aspect back in place, sort of). I won’t spoil it (partially because I’m not entirely sure what happened), but it seems like the type of twist that could use a Saw-style montage that re-explains everything we saw before, something Ki-hwan Oh doesn’t offer (hence why I watched it again on my own, but it didn’t help beyond minor character details). The movie is based on a graphic novel, which I assume makes more sense. And if not, it probably has some tentacle rape or something. At any rate, it’s not the worst twist ever, but it definitely could have used a bit more audience hand-holding in its presentation. And I say this, for once, on the authority of someone who saw the entire thing!

There’s a scene that made me laugh out loud though. This guy is doing his Asian horror movie duty by living in an isolated house and giving our heroine a lot of exposition, which includes the story of when he killed his wife by throwing her in front of a goddamn bus. He then says “After serving time in prison...”, but he doesn’t appear to be much older, maybe 5 years. Is wife-icide not really a big deal in Korea? Potheads get more than that in America.

The DVD had no extras at all, so I finally selected the “Miss Horrorfest Webisodes” to see what the girls looked like and why they found these things so important that they had to stick them on every disc. One girl was pretty cute, but Suicide Girls rejects are not my type, so I had little interest in them or the god-awful editing on display (I’ve seen better work in high school public access films). Also, all together the episodes ran just under an hour, which means that’s an hour’s worth of video content eating up the bit budget for the DVD; space that should have been used for making ofs, audio commentaries, or even deleted scenes - things that were all but completely absent from this year’s batch. Pretty much bullshit, if you ask me. Not as bad as Paramount forcing those fucking worthless “Lost Tales from Camp Blood” things on the new Friday the 13th discs instead of cut footage or retrospectives that are worth a damn, but still pretty lousy.

So in a strictly visual sense, this is a winner. It’s gory, it’s visually exciting (I didn’t even mention the occasional monster that shows up), and unlike most Asian horror films, it’s on the short side of things. It’s also shot in the 2.35:1 aspect, a rarity for these things. However, it’s also needlessly confusing and seemingly incomplete (maybe it WAS supposed to be longer - again, having actual filmmaker input on the DVD instead of a bunch of attention whores work out their daddy issues via cheesy After Effects projects would be helpful). Your call.

One final note - the original title was Someone Behind You, which makes a lot more sense than Voices. No one hears any “voices” in the film (well, not ones of interest to horror movie fans), so why they changed it from something that DID make sense to something that didn’t is beyond me. Again - did someone Weinstein the shit out of this movie?

What say you?

And now, Horror Movie A Day and Happy Hour Comics would like to present the newest in an ongoing series of HMAD-inspired comic strips. I hope you enjoy!! (Click to enlarge)

PLEASE, GO ON...

Gozu (2003)

APRIL 27, 2009

GENRE: ASIAN, HORROR?, WEIRD
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Via Twitter, I have twice promised Gozu (Japan: Gokudô kyôfu dai-gekijô) as my daily entry, only to be thwarted by its runtime one time and my own impulsiveness the other (making today’s promise the charmed third attempt). Also, it was recommended by at least two readers (including sansanesthesia and Zach) in the recommendation thread, plus more than a couple “in person” recommendations from friends. And yet, not a single Twitter reader, or any of the recommend-ers ever pointed out that it’s not actually a horror movie.

Yes, there is a scene where a man with a giant cow head suddenly begins licking our protagonist. And yes, the film’s climax is loaded with bodily fluids as a grown man is birthed out of a vagina. Both are surreal images that wouldn’t be out of place in some really weird horror movie. But those are pretty much the ONLY images/scenes of the type in the 2+ hr film, which otherwise plays out like a gangster film as imagined by David Lynch. To me, it’s no more a horror movie than Cabin Boy, which also features some occasional surreal images in an otherwise unrelated film (in that case, a comedy).

Luckily it still qualifies as a horror movie per my criteria (IMDb lists it as horror, along with about five other genres), so my streak is alive. Also luckily, I was at least entertained by the damn thing, though not fully until the 2nd hour. Not only is that where the surreal stuff occurs, but it’s also much funnier. After a gonzo opening (with a “trained Yakuza dog”, followed by a “trained Yakuza car”), the plot gets in the way of the weirdness and laughs for a while. It’s still got some elements of those things, but it’s nothing compared to the 2nd half, which has some truly inspired bits.

I mentioned Lynch before. I am not a big fan of his (I like Elephant Man and Twin Peaks the TV show, but the TP movie, and also his film Inland Empire, made me physically angry), so I haven’t seen all of his work, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the “American wife” scene in Gozu was an homage to something he had done. In the scene, our hero is listening to a girl who obviously doesn’t speak Japanese as her native language, and it’s all broken (words like “go-ed” pop up, instead of “went”). Then our hero (Hideki Sone) notices that she appears to be looking at the wall above his head. He follows her gaze and discovers that she is reading cue cards! Awesome! Then there is a terrific sight gag; a mob “laundry room” in which the skin of guys that have been whacked are hanging on a rack like newly pressed suits.

Also, like Lynch’s Lost Highway, we have a character who suddenly and inexplicably becomes a different person. But here, someone who was a man is suddenly a woman, yet retains all of the memories of the male incarnation. Takeshi Miike doesn’t bother to explain any of this, and that’s not too big of a problem - if he did, then the other unexplained things would require an explanation too, and the movie would lose most of its charm as it morphed into a flurry of exposition. The only problem is that it doesn’t feel organic at all. With Lost Highway, baffling as it may have been, you could at least see how it was part of the structure, but here it feels more like an impulsive decision Miike made in between setups. I didn’t care about the lack of explanation, but fully threading the body switch into the narrative would have been appreciated.

The DVD I requested is the unrated 129 minute version that was advertised, but the one I was sent is an R rated cut running 5 minutes shorter. I would like to blame Blockbuster for this, but the disc itself has the initials "J.P." written on it with Sharpie, so I am guessing some dickhead named John Palmer or James Peters accidentally bought the R rated one, so he then rented the unrated one and sent back his R rated disc (after initialing it like a total fucking idiot). Anyway, I wasn’t aware of the difference until after the movie was done (when it ended 5 minutes sooner than I expected), so afterward I spent a good hour looking around for any sort of information as to what the edits are, and turned up nothing. If anyone knows for sure, please let me know. For all I know, there was supposed to be 5 minutes’ worth of zombie slasher action sprinkled through the film to solidify it as a horror movie.

At any rate, this means I am also robbed of the audio commentary by Andy Klein and Wade Major (film critics, presumably speaking English), and other extra features that I understand are available on the unrated version. This one’s only extra of note is an essay about the film by Tom Mes, who literally wrote the book on Miike. In the essay, he confirms my Lynch suspicions and also helps fill in some background about the Japanese “Yakuza Film” that I have zero familiarity with, which resulted in less appreciation for Gozu’s attempts at deconstructing the subgenre (I guess it would be sort of like a Japanese guy seeing Scream as his first slasher). I reported the “wrong disc” to Blockbuster and they promise to be sending a replacement, so if it comes in due time I will watch the extras and update the review accordingly.

So while I didn’t dislike the film by any means (though it could easily be 10-15 minutes shorter), the fact that it barely even visits the horror neighborhood makes it a tough sell to recommend to readers of this site. In fact, had I seen it years ago, I probably would have used it for one of my October Extras #2 last year (the 31 non-horror but for the most part sort of horror related movies I watched/reviewed). And even once I figured out it wasn’t horror (about halfway through), I still don’t see why everyone shits themselves for Miike. So readers, in the future, when recommending a film of his, add a little note explaining why I should watch it. I’ve heard Ichi the Killer is “definitely” horror - assuming that’s true, will I be “blown away” by it as well? What is the ultimate Miike film? I keep feeling like I’m missing something here. Like if you told someone about how great Argento is and then they watched Phantom of the Opera and The Card Player and subsequently thought you were nuts.

What say you?

NOTE - The trailer has stuff that is not in the movie, unrated or not. It purposely makes the movie look more nutty than it is.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Puppet Master Vs. Demonic Toys (2004)

APRIL 26, 2009

GENRE: CRAP, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEWING)

What is worse? A bad horror movie, or a bad horror movie that SHOULD be "so bad it's good" but is just plain bad? After watching Puppet Master Vs. Demonic Toys, I have to say the latter. I'd rather just be bored or disappointed with a failed sequel or remake than with a movie that is, at its core, about a bunch of little toys whaling on each other.

Even as a kid I never cared much for the Puppet Master movies that I saw (which would be 1, most of 2, and 4 - which at least had Teresa Hill, an actress I was smitten with in the mid 90s). The concept was interesting, but the traditionally crappy Full Moon approach left little to really enjoy beyond the impressive toy effects. Also, the decision to make them "good guys" somewhere around part III (where they fought off Nazis), and also increasingly pit them against like-sized foes instead of dumb humans, made me lose all interest. It wasn't until I looked up this one on the IMDb that I realized that it was in fact the NINTH film in the series.

I DID, however, enjoy Demonic Toys (in that "so bad it's good" way). There was a guy driving a chicken truck, a foul mouthed baby toy, and a demonic kid saying "I've been imprisoned in that corpse for 66 years...". In fact I would like to watch it again, now that I think about it. I can't remember much about Dollman vs. Demonic Toys, other than that it was only 61 minutes long, half of which was footage from the two title films (as well as Bad Channels), but I am fairly certain that the end of the film saw them more or less destroyed.

So how they ended up in some insane woman's toy company is beyond me. Even though I hadn't seen half of the films in the PM franchise, I at least understood that Corey Feldman's character here is a descendant of the Andre Toulon character from the earlier films. But let's just go with the theory that no one involved in this thing gave a shit about continuity one way or the other.

I'm actually really surprised I didn't like this movie. The plot is more or less ripped from Halloween III, albeit set on Christmas, and again, it SHOULD be about a bunch of toys killing each other, as the title suggests. Unfortunately, the promised battle lasts about two minutes of the movie, and the toys don't really do much else for the rest of the movie. Fighting each other or other foes, I would estimate that less than 15 minutes of the 90 minute movie have the toys even moving, let alone doing anything interesting.

The rest is an over-written, plodding, and simply pathetic tale of "industrial espionage" (a term that gets thrown around more here than, I dunno, the term "killer toy" does). The evil Demonic Toy owner woman wants Toulon's blood to help make her toys kill kids, and she uses ladybug cameras to spy on him. And she has to sacrifice a virgin, and Toulon is going through a divorce, and his daughter used to listen to cheesy death metal, and I dunno, 400 other plot threads that seemingly exist only to keep the movie from being exciting. It's like the filmmakers watched Freddy vs. Jason and figured that it was the plot that people dug, and decided to load their "Vs" movie with as much plot as possible, instead of (expensive) fighting puppets.

And of course, this means we get far more Corey Feldman than any film past 1988 should include. His casting is completely wrong on every level. He's supposed to be old enough to have a 15-17-ish daughter, but I'd have trouble buying him as the father to even a 10 year old. His blessing and curse as an actor is that he looks much younger than he actually is, so to cast him as someone that is presumably OLDER than he really is is just fucking stupid. I can imagine the same girl playing his sister in another movie. Plus, he's using his idiotic scratchy "old" voice again, which grates after about 5 minutes (and again, he's pretty much front and center for the 85 minutes that follow). I won't even begin to address his "hilarious" attempts at physical comedy.

You would think with such limited toy action, that the effects budget would suffice and everything would look really good when it actually appeared, but no. I can't recall how good/bad the Puppet Master effects are with any certainty, but I REMEMBER them being pretty decent. And the Demonic Toys effects were above average for Full Moon as well. But they completely suck here. I don't know why they can't at least look AS GOOD as they did 12 or so years before, if not better, but there it is. Oopsy Daisy in particular is awful; they move the mouth around but the eyes remain stone still. And the Puppets are stop motion animated instead of CGI, so that's good, but the animation is usually poor, and the shots also run at a speed that seems far too fast.

Let's see, what else? There's a devil-demon thing that the sound editor gives a "WHOOOSH" sound every time he moves, even when merely taking a step to the right; a cute female cop that is seemingly charmed by Feldman's batshit puppet-maker; the death of one of the Puppets that is played completely straight... it's a mess through and through. My favorite bit has to be when Feldman uses a laptop. He is typing away furiously on the keyboard, but on-screen, the only thing that happens is the page scrolls down a bit. And yes, it's all supposed to be rather silly (it's not even R rated), but the problem is it's not, it's merely sad.

I wouldn't mind going back and watching the first few Puppet Master films again, but only for HMAD purposes. Otherwise, this movie, which should be a celebration of the two franchises, could conceivably kill interest in them for good, as it couldn't even meet my low expectations. Then again, the movie prominently displays the fact that it's a joint effort between Full Moon and the Sci-Fi Channel, so that's sort of like expecting good things from a poison that mixes cancer and AIDS.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

American Zombie (2007)

APRIL 25, 2009

GENRE: MOCKUMENTARY, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

It figures. Netflix instant view finally delivers an acceptable transfer, and the movie itself disappoints. To say nothing of the film's content, if everything looked as good as American Zombie did when streamed to my Xbox, I could see the service as being a valid option of watching films. I mean, it's still not as good as an actual DVD, but I don't expect it to be. I just want it to retain some detail, not skip around, and be in widescreen; all qualities this transfer possessed.

Unfortunately, the movie itself failed to deliver. I loved the idea of doing the umpteenth "zombies are an accepted part of the world" movie (I have worked on one myself, albeit a short film and not a feature) and playing it completely straight for once. To the filmmakers' credit, they don't go for any of the easy gags you would expect from all of the other movies (Fido, for example) that have approached the same subject. And beyond one of the documentary team members being a bit of a "racist" (he constantly asks the zombies about their eating of human flesh), there are no "evil humans" for once (a rarity in ANY zombie narrative, pseudo-real or not), which was also appreciated.

The problem is that the movie ultimately has no point. Throughout the whole thing, the zombies are pretty benign. There are about four that are followed in depth, and they're all sort of bland, which is the point. One works at 7-11, one is a typically batshit young Asian girl with cat statues all over her apartment, another is a middle aged weirdo (read: pretentious artist), and another is a zombie activist. They're all well drawn and all, but almost all of them eventually go "bad" and attack our documentary team and/or others. Yeah, and? They're fucking zombies! Who didn't see that coming? It's one thing for a film like Behind The Mask to turn into a regular slasher movie for the 3rd act, because it continued to act as a deconstruction, while still offering the things fans would expect from such a film. But the "zombie action" only amounts to about 2 minutes of the runtime here, not enough to carry weight, but more than enough to make you wonder what the point Gracie Lee and John Solomon were trying to make was. "Zombies might act normal, but in the end they will still kill you"? No shit! Next up, a revealing portrait of Vampires - they enjoy blood!

Another issue is that the film bounces between being a documentary, and being about a documentary. It breaks the "realism" (such as it is) whenever we see the filmmakers watching their footage, arguing about what they should be shooting, etc. Again, it just makes me wonder what the point is. It's not played for laughs, and the only way we can truly buy into it as "real" is to keep any filmmaking aspects out of it.

And it's a shame that it doesn't all come together, because there's some great stuff in here. I loved the idea of a zombie sweatshop, and also that there are three types of zombies (rotting flesh kind, basic human function kind (think Bub), and fully functional kind). Also, and this is I think the film's most interesting concept - the zombies have no recollection of their former lives or how they died. The 7-11 guy even illustrates various scenarios as to how he got the massive headwound that obviously ended his human life. Had the movie been entirely like this, trying to help a few zombies learn more about their human life, Lee and Solomon could have had something truly special. As it is, the new stuff it brings to the table doesn't justify the occasionally bland and ultimately schizo approach they took to the material.

Ultimately, it's not the worst movie of its type, but its certainly the most frustrating. There are glimpses of brilliance, and for the first half hour or so I was pretty excited about the areas that the film seemed to be heading toward. But as a wise man once said, the last five minutes of a film are what the audience will remember the most, and here, those final five minutes are pretty goddamn lousy. A shame, really.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

DVD Review: Hellraiser (1987)

APRIL 25, 2008

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Anchor Bay owns the right to a great number of revered horror films, so it's no surprise that Blu-Ray support has been demanded from them ever since the format was introduced. And while some may wish they would be a bit less sporadic with their releases (where the hell is Hatchet?), you can't deny that they have done a superb job with the transfers, besting even some of the major studios' big ticket titles. At any rate, Hellraiser joins the growing club, and I am again satisfied with the quality of the picture/sound.

(I am not going to re-review the movie - you can read my thoughts on the film HERE. This review focuses on the new transfer as well as the extra features).

I've always thought Hellraiser looked better than the budget would have you believe, so to see it in HD was a treat. As always, I enjoy seeing the increased level of detail in smaller objects. Andy Robinson's sweater, the rat that Frank skins next to the bed, the wood on the floor where Frank is reborn... all of these things pop out to me now. I never even noticed, say, the pattern on Larry's sweater, but now I can see the actual fibers. Sure, this has zero to do with the movie, but it just gives you an example of how much added texture and detail you get with a Blu-ray transfer.

Now, to be honest, it does look a little softer than some of AB's other BR releases, such as Halloween. Perhaps the elements weren't as well preserved, or it was just that way to begin with, but a number of scenes, particularly daylit set ones, don't have that sort of nearly 3D vividness. Other scenes, however, like the first real appearance of Pinhead around the hour mark, look gorgeous. Again the detail is striking (the patterns on Pinhead's suit, for example), but also it has that sort of rich color and contrast that inspires people to switch to HD in the first place. It may not be a demo quality transfer, but it's a damn good one nonetheless.

I never got the 20th anniversary edition of the film, so most of the extras were new to me (there are no BR-specific features). Things start off with a trio of interviews that were created for the 20th anniversary release. The first is with Andy Robinson, and this is pretty interesting as you don't often hear from him on the film (as opposed to Doug Bradley, Ashley Laurence, and of course, Clive Barker). He explains his reasons for not doing the sequel (didn't like the script, but was willing to do it anyway until he learned he'd be getting less money to boot), and talks about the origin of the "Jesus wept" line. Next up is Laurence, who is a bit batshit at times, and seemingly bitter about her lack of an A-list career ("I found myself in strange European countries, talking to puppets" - not sure if this was for a movie or not). The 3rd and best is Christopher Young, who not only still has all of his marbles, but like Robinson, gets to tell a side of the film's creation we haven't heard ad nauseum from previous DVDs, Fangoria, etc.

The other extras are all quite old. There's the "Resurrection" retrospective from the previous release, an interview with Bradley from around 2004 (nothing you haven't heard), and the commentary with Barker, Laurence, and Peter Atkins. It's a decent enough track, but just about everything of note is covered in the other extras. There is also a "text trivia track", which just sums up the stuff in the commentary in quick little notes. So like, Barker will be talking about a scene that had to be reshot for technical problems, and will go in some detail about those problems, and the onscreen note just says "This scene was reshot for technical reasons". My advice? If you've seen the movie a bunch, just put it on for your first viewing of the Blu-ray. It's not very obtrusive, and it will save you the time of watching it again with the commentary.

Anchor Bay has also included the Blu-ray disc in a collection that comes in a large model of the Lament Configuration. You get 3 discs with the release: the Hellraiser 20th anniversary DVD, Hellraiser II 20th anniversary, and this Blu-Ray. Why anyone would want two copies of the film with identical extras, I don't know, but there you go. It's also a bit large (so the discs can fit), but the construction is nice, and the two parts fit together far better than their previous collector box (the Masters of Horror Season 2 skull). Region 2 gets cool shit like this all the time, so it's nice to see AB catering to the Region 1 fans (how bout getting that Phantasm Sphere set for us Americans?).

All in all, while it's not the type of release that would finally convince someone to upgrade to the new format, it's a solid package all the same. And if you only have the previous release (from 2001?) it's definitely worth the upgrade. Also, don't forget - sales of title A makes an HD release of title B all the more enticing to the powers that be, so get cracking!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

While She Was Out (2008)

APRIL 24, 2009

GENRE: HERO KILLER, THRILLER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

A glance at the cover art, back of the box synopsis, or even trailer for While She Was Out would probably have you believe that it was a modern spin on I Spit On Your Grave or whatever. You assume Kim Basinger’s mousy character is brutally attacked and/or raped, and then she finds her inner strength and gets revenge on her attackers. In theory, hardly a bad idea for a film, and it’s not like we often get an Oscar winner in this sort of thing. The problem is, they forgot the “attacked and/or raped” part.

Now, before I begin my rant, I want to make it clear that the idea of a strong woman in a thriller or horror movie is actually appealing to me. Look at The Descent for a great example - the main character not only stands up for herself against the monsters, but also the bitch who was sleeping with her husband. I cheered her on just as I would Bruce Willis or someone I could more readily identify with. And my favorite genre is the slasher film, 99% of which (and all of the best ones) leave it up to a lone female to take down the killer (often a male). But the difference between those movies and THIS movie is, the actions those women take are completely justified.

Here, however, the “bad guys” in the movie don’t actually DO anything to Basinger. After SHE instigates them by writing a nasty note about their parking habits, they pull up behind her and merely harass her a bit (even when she smacks one and shoves another, they never lay a hand on her in return). Then a security guard shows up and the leader of the gang (Lukas Haas) shoots him, practically on accident. So she drives away, and they chase her to a construction site, where they proceed to... yell at her some more. At this point, she turns a table that has not yet been introduced, and begins killing them all.

And she REALLY FUCKING KILLS them too. It’s not like she smacks them with a 2x4 and they fall down and hit their head or whatever. No, she stabs the shit out of one of them, partially immolates one with a road flare before shooting him point blank, and even drives a goddamn tire iron through one of their heads. All in retaliation for... calling her a bitch? And then it gets worse: she goes home, and as her children sleep peacefully waiting for Santa to come (it’s Christmas Eve), she presumably shoots her jerk husband in the face.

No, I’m sorry. I can’t condone her behavior in the movie (hence the Hero Killer tag - it’s a film where we’re supposed to root for the villain). The punks are just that, punks. Hell, even if the guy they killed (again, seemingly accidentally, but hell for the sake of argument lets say they did it on purpose) was a friend of hers I could see her actions being somewhat justified, but it’s just some mall rent-a-cop, one she was a complete bitch to in their one interaction. And the husband (Craig Sheffer!): OK, he was an asshole, but since the movie doesn’t have the balls to actually have him be physically abusive to her, it’s - again - hard to really cheer her actions on. And hell, he yells at her for leaving the house a mess... but she’s a housewife! That’s pretty much all she has to do! Is shooting him in the face on Christmas really the best way to get back at him for expecting to be able to walk around his home without tripping on like 17 toys? Have fun explaining to your children why their father is lying in a pool of blood next to their presents.

Also, the movie goes overboard with trying to paint Basinger as a loser. I already mentioned the messy house (and it’s REALLY messy, like borderline hazardous), but she also has a canceled credit card for some reason, and the girl at the coffee shop doesn’t spell her name right, and her only friends are the people in her various classes (yoga, mechanics, Spanish, I dunno, they rattle off like a dozen in a single conversation). So I guess it’s supposed to make us feel good when she stands up for herself? But no, it doesn’t - because a. it’s not justified, and b. she’s SUCH a loser that the movie practically has no choice but to give her a moment to shine. Wouldn’t it be a lot more interesting if she was a strong, independent woman who was REDUCED to her basic animal instinct to survive? At least then the movie might appeal to both genders; instead of (I presume) divorced secretaries with three cats and a mail order subscription to Ben & Jerry’s, and no one else.

Moral issues aside, there’s a lot of problems with the script in general. The gang of punks is hilariously generic: there’s one white, one black, one Asian, and one Latino, complete with references to one another’s race (the white guy is admonished for using the N word by the black guy - “You can’t call me that, you ain’t earned it yet!”). In fact, pretty much all the dialogue is terrible, with everyone speaking in broad generalities rather than sound like a human being (when Basinger runs into an old college friend, she says “I haven’t seen you since college! You ran off and got married to that dreamboat husband!”). And where the hell are they? They seem to live in a very populated area, yet as soon as something bad happens, everyone else in the world seems to disappear.

And it’s a shame, because everything that’s wrong with the movie is script-based. Otherwise, there’s actually a lot of promise here. Basinger is in fine form (and has lost almost none of her attractiveness - hard to believe Batman was 20 years ago), as is Haas as the “villainous” Chucky. Susan Montford (forever in my good graces for producing Shoot Em Up) is also an impressive first time director; even with the banal generic-ness of the script (which she also wrote), she manages to wring some suspense out of the proceedings, and keeps the pacing up despite the film taking place more or less in real time. I also dug the eerie opening credit sequence, which features some crude children’s drawings over a simple but effective main theme. And the gory deaths are a nice surprise, though again this is mainly a result of the fact that they are not justified. Had there been an actual attack on her person (Christ, even a punch in the face), I’d feel more comfortable rooting her on and cheering when she delivered a killing blow. Hell, this movie makes me afraid to give a woman the finger when she cuts me off in traffic; if she has seen this movie she might think it’s OK to turn around and chop my goddamn head off.

The DVD comes with some standard extras, including a making of in which everyone fawns over how great everyone else is, with the exception of Basinger, who comes across as completely batshit insane as she says things like “There’s one scene that I found quite ‘Wow!’ as it went along because it took its own form and made up its own self...”. Montford and producer Don Murphy also provide a commentary, in which neither of them seems to notice that their rape-revenge film is missing a key ingredient. Murphy at least mocks a few of the more ridiculous moments, and also echoes my sentiments about the film’s inordinate number of executive producers (“I’ve never even heard of these two”), one of whom is Guillermo Del Toro, for some reason. The disc also opens with a trailer for something called Lower Learning, which isn’t horror but promises Eva Longoria knocking back vodka and Monica Potter telling a little kid to go fuck himself, so I’m already declaring it a great film.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Pigs (1972)

APRIL 23, 2009

GENRE: HERO KILLER, WEIRD
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEWING)

I had never heard of Pigs (original title: Daddy's Deadly Darling) until a few weeks ago, when Devin from CHUD told me about it. His synopsis made it sound right up my alley, roughly: "A girl kills her dad after he rapes her, and then she feeds people to pigs". As it turns out, that wasn't exactly accurate, but it's close enough, and would pique my interest even without HMAD.

Also - back to the original title... what the hell is with all these "Darling" movies of late? Devin told me about "Pigs" when we were on our way to see Julie Darling, and while there I won a copy of Daddy Darling. They all focus on inappropriate relationships between a father and daughter as well. However, this is the only one with pigs, so it gets the edge.

And for those who may be turned off by the father stuff, don't worry - it literally only lasts 12 seconds of the film. A delightful old woman hears a scream and says "someone should do something about him!", and within a second or two we see a girl stabbing someone. The next shot uses the most blunt newspaper headline of all time ("Father rapes daughter, dies of stab wounds") to fill in the gaps. So by the 30 second mark or so, the father is dead and the actual movie can begin. So to dismiss the film for it would be like dismissing a Friday the 13th movie due to the Paramount logo.

Once I discovered that the title was changed (I checked IMDb about halfway through my viewing), I felt better about the film. Of course, seeing rampaging pigs would be ideal, but it's not the filmmakers' intent to make a killer pig movie - the (re-)title is just the result of someone trying to sensationalize their little horror movie. And that's fine, because at least the pigs are a major part of the movie and it isn't spoiling anything by promising them. It's not like we're in Jason Goes To Hell territory here.

One thing that should strike a chord with any viewer is the soundtrack. In addition to some wonderful folky songs at the beginning, there's also a very creepy main theme that plays throughout the movie. Sometimes it is "la la la"ed by a female (or young boy), other times it's just instrumental, but it's always slightly unnerving. I was dismayed to discover the complete lack of a soundtrack listing on the IMDb, but I CAN tell you that the score was composed by Charles Bernstein, probably better known for his Nightmare On Elm St theme (which it slightly resembles, now that I think about it). I know soundtrack collectors pay exuberant prices for these type of things, but this is the rare occasion where I could see the value, if one even existed.

I was often reminded of Haunts when I watched this movie, for a couple reasons. One, it focuses on the possible mental breakdown of the lead female character. Two, it has a lot of male characters that end up dead, whether they are scummy or not. Three, the whole creepy incest angle (in Haunts, her uncle had some strange familial behavior). Hell, the shitty print even resembled one of the Chilling Classics offerings (and I want to note that this was definitely a poor print and NOT a bad Netflix/Xbox connection matter - the Troma logo at the top of the film looked fine). And like Haunts, its the type of movie that works better if you approach it as a psychological drama with some light exploitation traits, instead of an outright horror movie (the titles in both cases don't help much in that regard).

Back to the quality - the print has the strangest glitch I've ever seen in a film. On several occasions, you will see a second or so of the film sort of repeat itself. However, the soundtrack does not follow suit - if there's music or something over the "loop", you can easily tell that it has not been affected. Not sure what the hell could have caused it, but it was awfully strange. It may just have been a glitch in the stream itself, where the audio was playing properly and the picture occasionally had to skip to get itself back in sync, but again, I've never seen such a thing (and again, for once the Xbox/Netflix stream seemed to be of respectable quality).

Also, the movie features Marc Lawrence (who also wrote and directed) as the sort of bad guy. He's got one of the best voices on the planet; it was actually how I recognized him (from Foul Play), so whenever he talked I was happy. This was his final film as a director/writer, despite the fact that he continued to work as an actor for another 30 years until his death in 2005. It's a shame he didn't at least write more films - he's clearly got a unique voice. It's not every day you see a movie with man-eating pigs AND mental institutions.

So if you go in expecting killer pig action, you probably won't enjoy it. If you go in expecting a strange little movie about a woman with some pretty severe issues towards men, then I think you will enjoy it. It's not the best film of its type, but its a minor gem all the same.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Mutant Chronicles (2008)

APRIL 22, 2009

GENRE: POST-APOCALYPTIC
SOURCE: CABLE (HDNET MOVIES)

I have long been a vocal supporter of seeing films theatrically whenever possible (I've seen both of the direct-to-DVD Rest Stop films in theaters, for example), but I opted to take in Mutant Chronicles at home for free rather than shell out 10-14 bucks to see it in theaters this weekend (I also skipped the film's premiere last night, but that was mainly due to general exhaustion and the insane heat we were experiencing). There are two reasons for this: one - I'm kind of broke as of late, and need to save money wherever I can. And two - It looked like shit.

Now to be fair, the film was made for about 1/3 the money it should have cost, and had gone through so many false starts and on/off directors (including John Carpenter at one point), it's almost impressive that the film was completed at all. But that's also part of the problem - it doesn't actually FEEL completed. It's obvious that a Sin City/Sky Captain look was aimed for, but Simon Hunter is no Robert Rodriguez/whoever directed Sky Captain. It's not enough to "look cool", you have to direct the film with as much panache as you would had everything been practical, and Hunter has failed to do that.

For a movie with mutants, vast wastelands, steam powered airships, and a whole lot of violence, it is inexcusably short on memorable sequences or even shots. In fact, I can only think of two memorable scenes: one in an escape pod that is hurtling toward the ground, and another is a sword fight set in an elevator that is also hurtling toward the ground. These scenes (ironically confined to tight spaces and thus pretty short on visual effects/greenscreen wizardry) are exciting and fairly unique, but they only make up about 3 minutes of the 100 minute film (note - the IMDb claims a 111 min running time, not sure if that's inaccurate or if the US release has been shortened). The rest is given to generic war/action movie cliches, poorly shot/edited fights, and lots and lots of blood that looks like someone just drew on the negative with a red crayon. It's unclear if this is Hunter's fault or simply an unfortunate side effect of the compromised budget, but either way it's a massively disappointing execution of what should have been a kick-ass movie.

Especially when you consider the cast. Tom Jane and Ron Perlman are ringers for any number of genre films, so to team them up should produce gold. You also have John Malkovich on hand for a few minutes, and uber-cute/proven ass-kicker Anna Walton as the female lead. Unfortunately, they are saddled with screen vacuum Devon Aoki, an actress who really should be locked inside a vault at the Sci-Fi channel, lest she sink another promising production. We also have Benno Fürmann, an actor I actually like who is sadly relegated to some of the worst movies I have seen (The Order, Princess and the Warrior, Speed Racer...). This isn't as bad as those piles, but it's yet another movie he should leave off his résumé all the same.

The problem with all of these actors, good or bad, is that they never get anything interesting to do, and thus often seem bored themselves. Jane in particular delivers his least effective performance ever; he's a guy I will watch in anything, because he has this old-school sort of charm, plus he's obviously nuts (ever see him on a panel during a convention? Oh my!). But he seems bored out of his mind here, and this was shot nearly 3 years ago, prior to the publicized problems in his personal life (i.e. getting divorced, and pulled over for DUI), so you can't blame that. Then again, how much excitement can you expect any actor to muster when asked to carry out the 9 millionth "rogue soldier declines to join a team on a secret mission, only to change his mind and stroll in halfway through the meeting in which the mission is discussed" scene?

Speaking of cliché, almost every single character in this movie dies more or less by their own hand, in order to save the lives of their friends. At least three of them blow themselves up, so by the time the 3rd guy does it, it hardly packs any sort of emotional punch. Also, it's worth noting the film's (likely) unintentional racist approach to killing folks off: the first three guys to die are the black guys on the team. The next to die are a pair of Asians, followed by a Mexican. Most of our Caucasian characters are eventually killed too, but it's funny how they are carefully spared until all of our minorities are dispatched.

So is there anything to recommend? Well, the production design and such is pretty impressive; the establishing shots and such look pretty awesome as long as there aren't any badly composited bored actors in the shots with them. And the mutants are pretty fearsome; they're not in the movie as much as I was hoping for (i.e. pretty much every shot as opposed to the reality of a half dozen attack scenes) but they are effectively vicious and numerous. And Tom Jane's character has a keyring made of fallen squadmates' dog tags, which is a nice little touch. And while unintentional, I liked the fact that a group called Bauhaus is in control of about a quarter of the world. I picture a few goths sending out armies of shitty goth kids to invade smaller countries and it's an awesome visual. Certainly better than anything on display here.

If you absolutely loved the visual style of Sin City or Sky Captain (or The Spirit I guess), then you will probably want to check this one out, if for nothing else than to see how this type of film should NOT be done. Those expecting a kick ass post-apoc film should stick with Doomsday or even I Am Legend, both of which deliver far more thrills while not wasting their respected stars.

What say you?

P.S. If anyone is questioning the film's "horror" status - it's gory as hell, has MUTANTS (aka monsters), and has been covered extensively on horror sites such as Bloody-D and Fangoria. It counts.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Curse Of The Devil (1973)

APRIL 21, 2009

GENRE: WEREWOLF
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Though I hear the name a lot, my only exposure to Paul Naschy was from his role as the titular role in School Killer, a middling slasher movie from a few years ago (i.e. a long time AFTER his heyday). So I chose Curse Of The Devil (Spanish: El Retorno de Walpurgis) for my real introduction to the man, as he also co-wrote the film, which is often cited as one of his more memorable efforts.

I assume those folks are correct, for this is a pretty good werewolf movie. It follows the Wolf Man formula pretty closely (though he is directly cursed due to his family name, not given the curse by another werewolf), so I was rarely surprised by any of the plot developments (the final shot has a wonderfully silly/awesome setup for a sequel though). However, it IS an early 70s horror movie, which means it tells the tale in a wonderfully gory and occasionally sexy manner.

The gore is of the red paint variety, but there's plenty of it. And the werewolf is pretty non-discriminating with who he kills: other dudes, younger women, old folks... everyone gets mauled to death here. Thus, this movie has a much higher body count than I was expecting, which is a definite plus. I've seen this story so many times, but often in older films (read: ones that lack gore or even onscreen kills), so it was nice to get an updated version, albeit one before the CGI era that, as far as I'm concerned, killed the werewolf movie for good.

See, moreso than any other horror subgenre, the werewolf movie needs a good transformation. For a vampire movie, as long as the fangs look good, you're covered. And zombies just sort of turn green for the most part - not a lot to work with there. But with werewolves, you need to really sell the transformation, which is a huge part of why American Werewolf In London has endured - the transformation scene is amazing. Nowadays they just use morphing programs in a computer to do it, and it always sucks. So personally, while nothing pre-AWIL can measure up, I'd rather the usual sort of "fade from one stage of transformation to another" sequence that this film employs than any bullshit CGI monstrosity. Yeah, it's not going to win any technical awards, but its got a certain charm that CGI can never muster.

The other nice thing about the movie is the unabashed nudity. I'm not a big skin guy, but there is something inherently awesome about a woman disrobing and approaching a man (her sister's fiance, in fact), practically demanding sex. And his attempts at refusal are pretty hilarious - he at first rejects her, only to walk a few feet away and sit down in his bed. Really putting up a fight pal. And then he transforms into the wolf and kills her once the act is done, which is even more awesome. Fuck your sister-in-law, and dispose of her before she pulls the "I'm telling my sister about us" card that has ruined so many such affairs. I'm guessing if guys in the real world could turn into werewolves, there would be a huge increase in the number of deaths among younger sister-in-laws. And because he's the film's hero, he is of course instantly forgiven by everyone, including the sister (he's also killed her dad, another thing she readily chalks up to "it's the curse, not you" - she is seriously the most understanding woman in the world).

The movie also contains one of my favorite inadvertently hilarious lines in recent memory. After a number of murders, Naschy tells his fiance that she should leave "this awful place", and suggests she go to Budapest instead. Given that Budapest served as a primary shooting locale for Underworld, I found this pretty amusing. "Go get killed by a different werewolf!"

The only issue I had with the film is that it's fairly inept in the technical areas. The sound is atrocious at times; crackles and pops are heard more often than not, sometimes practically drowning out the dialogue. Director Carlos Aured's attempts at day for night are pretty laughable, which also render some scenes confusing (he's worried about turning due to the full moon, but it seems to be about three in the afternoon). And the editing is haphazard at best, particularly in the first reel or so. After a prologue that takes place hundreds of years ago, we get a brief "modern day" scene before flashing back about 6 or 7 years - none of this is explained via a title card or anything*. Scenes often end or begin with characters in the middle of a conversation, and things like establishing shots are in short supply as well. I don't expect some sort of Oscar-caliber filmmaking from these movies, but even with that in mind, the work here is substandard, marring an otherwise fun and somewhat unique take on the story.

The only extra on my DVD is a pair of trailers, which as always with these older films, give pretty much everything away. The DVD also contains both the original Spanish as well as an English dub, which is nice as many of these "cult" DVD releases only offer one or the other. Obviously I prefer the original language, but if I'm starting to get sleepy, it's nice to switch to English and "rest my eyes".

What say you?

*I later discovered that this is like the 4th movie in a loose series featuring Naschy as the character of Waldemar Daninsky, so maybe this would have been more clear had I seen the others. At least, I think they are related. Maybe "Waldemar Daninsky" is just Spanish for "Walter Paisley".

PLEASE, GO ON...

Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996)

APRIL 20, 2009

GENRE: COMEDIC, MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Back when I re-watched the original Tremors in December of 2007, I picked up the "Franchise Collection" on DVD, which contained all four films in the series (the TV show was not included). I had only seen Tremors 2: Aftershocks, when it first came out on VHS, and I didn't remember a goddamn thing about it then, So I certainly don't remember anything now, a year and a half later, when I finally got around to opening the damn DVD package.

Tremors 2 was, if memory serves, one of the first DTV sequels to a theatrical movie from a big studio (the DTV Darkman sequels may have came first, I can't quite remember), which is the only reason that I bothered to watch it back in 1996. Back then, it was a novelty, and possibly even a sign of quality. Surely, Universal wouldn't farm out one of their properties for some cheap cashin! Nor would two main cast members return (this would also be the first of many DTV sequels to Kevin Bacon films in which he did not appear, see also Hollow Man 2 and Stir Of Echoes 2)! So was my reasoning back then. Nowadays, fuck, not only do these type of things get cranked out every month, it's more of a coincidence than anything else if they have any real connection to the original films of their respective franchises.

So needless to say, it's a step above what an audience today might expect from a DTV sequel. Sure, it doesn't even come close to the original, but the production value is decent, the laughs more or less work as intended, and even though Fred Ward and Michael Gross are the only returning characters, it still feels like a traditional sequel - there have been theatrically released sequels that didn't retain the original's spirit as well as this one does, and that is worth lauding.

But there are two problems that are tough to ignore. One is that the film was clearly designed with Jurassic Park (and its CGI marvels) in mind. The giant graboids that caused so much trouble in the first film are dealt with far too easily and quickly, so the film can get on with its real "stars" - the above ground, walking, raptor-esque mini graboids. Not only are they less interesting, but the limited effects capabilities keep them from really doing much. Late in the film, they presumably stage an all out attack on Burt's truck, but we only see the aftermath.

On that note, the other problem is the noticeable lack of monster fodder. There's only I think two or three kills in the entire movie. And that would be fine if there were a lot of folks to put into danger, but other than those deceased (one of whom is simply the opening scene victim, a monster movie staple), the only other folks are our heroes: Ward, Gross, the love interest for Ward, and the comic relief/Bacon replacement. In short, four people who you know will survive. One of the things I love about the original is that there was a low body count, but a high number of possible victims. It made all of those scenes more suspenseful, because there was a chance that those people could die. Here, not so much; the film definitely could have benefited from more human characters - whether their characters would have died or not would be up to the director and writers, but at least it would have given the movie some options.

Here's what I would have done, if I was the writer or director and absolutely had to have the mini-graboids I'd have Earl and the new guy chasing just one or MAYBE two of the old-school graboids for the first 45 minutes, running into problems and such. This would lull the audience into a false sense of "This is just a remake of the original". Then, just before they are about to kill the graboid around the halfway mark, BAM! The little ones are born, surprising the audience in the process. As it is, you know that something "different" is coming, because they are killing the giant ones with such ease, barely ten minutes into the film.

Luckily, as I mentioned, the humor is retained. There are a number of great sight gags (love Burt's mounted graboid head), and the love interest is a nice touch for Earl, since he didn't get to indulge in such things in the original (I admit to going "awww" at the cute little moment where they sneak a glance at each other's asses). And Christopher Gartin is a reasonable enough replacement for Kevin Bacon; some of his slapstick-y moments I can do without, but it's nice to see that he isn't playing a clone of Bacon's character - it gives him and Ward a different repertoire than the one between Ward and Bacon, which would have been disastrous.

The effects are also good. Maybe all of the Sci-Fi originals I've endured has lowered the bar for what I expect, but both the big graboids (mostly practical) and the smaller ones (mostly CGI) look pretty good, save for the occasional poor compositing work. We never see one of the big ones in whole this time (most of them are represented solely by their exploding guts spewing from a newly-made hole in the ground (i.e. from dynamite).

The DVD, not really surprisingly, has nothing beyond the trailer. It's also a severely dry looking transfer - the colors are muted and thus rather bland. Maybe it's a stylistic decision made by the director and/or DP, but I don't think that is the case here. But for approximately two dollars, you can own it and see for yourself.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! (1989)

APRIL 19, 2009

GENRE: HOLIDAY, SLASHER
SOURCE: VHS (OWN COLLECTION)

A week or so ago I picked up a copy of Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out! at a used VHS store near my home, for no other reason than that I found myself in an honest to god used VHS store. They had a few DVDs and a pitiful collection of used console games as well (nothing current gen), but the store was by and large a VHS reseller, which is admirable in today's market. And since SNDN 3 has never been released on DVD (in fact, 2 is the only sequel that was, and that is long out of print), I figured it was 3 dollars well spent.

I just wish the movie was as nostalgically charming. It's an OK enough slasher for the period (late 80s), but it's missing the mean-spirited feel (read: appeal) of the first two films. A grandmother is killed, but it's not played for wiseass laughs. Given director Monte Hellman's exploitation/grindhouse background, you would expect him to be an ideal choice to take on the 3rd entry in this notoriously insane franchise, but he had to go and try to make it all serious and shit.

Well, as serious as a movie in which the killer's brain is exposed and thus protected by some sort of glass bowl with an electronic gizmo on it can be, anyway. Bill Moseley himself plays Ricky this time around, and he's obviously a much better actor than Eric Freeman, the movie doesn't give him much to do beyond lumber around like Karloff's Monster and occasionally kill someone. His only real line of dialogue in the movie comes at the very end, when a ghostly apparition of Ricky appears and wishes us a happy new year, for some reason.

Also, speaking of Ricky, the movie flashes back to the first film's initial murder sequence, where Ricky's parents are killed. But for whatever reason, they make us try to think that it is a young Ricky in these scenes. At the time of the murders, Ricky was just a baby, and the clips edit his character out entirely, so an ignorant audience would probably think that the shots of young Billy are supposed to be Ricky. This allows part 2 footage to be skipped entirely as well.

Odd aside - Ricky hops on the 101 freeway to get to the house where most of the action takes place. The last time I saw the 101 depicted in a movie was another holiday slasher: Home Sweet Home (which also had a family getting offed instead of the usual group of friends). Weird.

One thing I did like a lot was the fate of the killer. Rather than definitively kill him off, or have him come back to life as a way of promising another sequel, we just have an EMT take the body away on a gurney while saying "If we hurry we can save his life" or something to that effect. More slashers should take this route, it horror-movie-logically leaves it open for a sequel without actively promising one. Of course, we all know that the next film had the Ricky character popping up but otherwise it had nothing to do with the first 3 films, so I guess they split the difference.

Another enjoyable quirk of the movie is the Robert Culp character. He seems added into the movie via reshoots (he doesn't even appear until a half hour or so into the movie, and only meets the heroine in the film's final shot), but his scenes are wonderfully offbeat. Many of them are shared with a pretentious psychiatrist, who doesn't appreciate Culp's sense of humor. Culp also spends 2-3 minutes of screentime professing his love for his new "cellular telephone" (which can store 100 contacts!) and trying to save money on his bill by getting the shrink to sign up on his referral. Given the film's surprising lack of violence (the body count is like, four), at least the bulk of the non-horror scenes aren't without entertainment value.

I also loved the opening nightmare sequence, which seemed taken from an Italian film. It's a rare nightmare scene in a horror movie that actually realistically depicts a dream, with illogically laid out locations, shifting tones and "plots", etc. It's also the only real setpiece of note in the film, as the kill/attack scenes are rather lazy. One in particular was pretty damn laughable - Ricky smashes through the door and grabs Laura Harring (!), and neither the heroine or Harring's boyfriend (the heroine's brother) really react. The heroine just mutters "he can't be stopped", and the brother/boyfriend makes a feeble attempt to pull the arm off, before briskly walking to the kitchen to grab a knife. There's no music or anything either, making it possibly the most casual attack scene in horror movie history. I've seen off-screen kills with more gravitas.

Back to the brother/boyfriend - those lines are made awfully thin by the fact that Harring looks a lot like the girl playing the sister (someone named Samantha Scully). Not only does it make some shots momentarily confusing, it also adds a likely unintentional layer to the film. We have this girl who keeps saying how her brother is the only thing she has in the world, and the dude has a girlfriend that looks just like her.

So I dunno, it's a disappointing SNDN entry, but still more or less a serviceable slasher. You get to see two future stars in early roles and shameless use of clips from The Terror (a film on which Hellman served as one of the many uncredited directors), and a guy stumble around with a mixing bowl on his head. You can do a lot worse.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Bats: Human Harvest (2008)

APRIL 18, 2009

GENRE: CRAP, PREDATOR
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

My knack for falling asleep during a movie (also concerts, lectures, and as of this week, trials) is well known amongst my friends, and probably a good bulk of my regular readers. But even those folks will probably be pretty amazed at how quickly I nodded off during Bats: Human Harvest. Thirty minutes in? Nope. First couple of scenes? I wish. Opening credits? Not a chance. Nope, I was out BEFORE THE MOVIE EVEN STARTED. I believe I got to the French version of the "The views on the commentary and extra features* are that of the participants and not the parent company... (etc)" screen before passing out, waking up near the film's finale.

Of course, I knew I would fall asleep. It was after midnight, so I thought I would get a head start on the day's movie by starting it before I actually went to bed from the day before (HMAD rule #4 - the movie has to start between 12:01 AM and 11:59 PM of that day); hoping to catch at least the first act. But trial, the first day of Fangoria, and a number of other factors kept me from even coming close to that mark. I woke up and actually laughed at myself. Then I passed back out.

Anyway, once I finally watched the movie (before heading to Fango for the day), I discovered what a colossal pile of shit it was. Even for a Sci-Fi (or is that Syfy?) movie, it doesn't deliver on any single level. I can't even imagine that the (clearly non-discerning) usual Sci-Fi audiences will find anything to enjoy about this one. They'd be better off with Lake Placid 2.

For starters, even by DTV standards, it's fucking sinful to call this a sequel. Yes, there are bats, but they don't look or act anything like the ones in the first movie, nor do they exist in the same locale. Fuck, it's not even the same goddamn COUNTRY this time; instead of southwestern US desert, we're in dreary Russian woods. Did they migrate? I mean, I can see wanting to latch a film on to a big hit - White Noise 2 may have been unrelated to the first one, but you can't fault the studio for wanting to latch it onto a 50 million grossing film from two years before. Is there really any benefit to latching this completely unrelated movie to a decade-old film that no one really remembers? Hell, it might even be DETRIMENTAL, as it's highly likely that someone, being a wiseass or not, opted not to watch the film because he/she hadn't seen the original, like most other people in the world.

And you might think I am splitting hairs when I say that the bats don't look the same, but it's true. The bats in the first film seemed to be of typical size, but these are clearly mutated (though this might just be poor scaling of CGI effects and not an actual storytelling decision). They have also seemingly gained Screamers-esque powers - when they swoop at someone, a limb usually gets sliced off in the process, somehow. Still not quite sure how that works.

But the real problem is that the movie is a giant fucking bore. Not only do our heroes have to contend with bats, they are also up against some Russian rebels (or soldiers, I forget/don't care). So in between dull bat attacks, we get some even duller firefights. In fact, pretty much the only nice thing I can say about this movie is that I was happy to see that the two groups didn't team up against the bats, as I am getting fairly sick of the "the enemy of my enemy is my temporary friend who will obviously sell me out near the end of the movie" plot (note - if one of the human groups teamed up with the bats to take on the OTHER human group, I might be changing my tune on this matter).

It's also just incredibly lazy on every level. None of the actors are recognizable to me (the main guy was apparently on Baywatch - because, yeah, it was the dudes that people remember from that show and thus would be excited to see them in a movie), and they all perform with the conviction of a voice-over actor in the cut-scenes of some Halo ripoff. On more than one occasion I pondered whether hitting B on one of my Xbox controllers would skip the chitchat and resume the shooting action. Of course, the action is no better, due to the fact that no one seems particularly engaged on anything that's going on. At one point our heroes rescue a guy, and he just casually says "Oh, thank you", as if someone had just held a door for him or something.

The most hilarious after effect of this global laziness is a scene with some Russian bad guys talking. No one else is around, but for some reason they speak (broken) English with one another. However, near the end of the movie, when our hero is at gunpoint, the Russian colonel (captain, major... again: whatever) talks to him in Russian (the first time the language had been used in the entire movie, by my recollection), despite the fact that he's saying things that one would expect someone to respond to (like "Why are you here?"). Jesus fucking Christ.

In short, don't bother. And if you must, and you also fall asleep before the "Play" display has disappeared from your TV screen, take my advice: don't bother rewinding it when you wake up.

(p.s. Attn: New reader CB - THIS is a negative review! :) )

What say you?

*The irony, of course, is that the DVD HAS no commentary or behind the scenes type footage, only a pair of brief deleted scenes without any context. So if the unnecessary warning wasn't there, I may have seen, I dunno, the Destination Films logo or something before passing out.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Mum & Dad (2008)

APRIL 17, 2009

GENRE: SURVIVAL
SOURCE: "THEATRICAL" (DVD PROJECTED ON A SCREEN)

Given how fucking awful the screening room was last year at the Fangoria convention, I was really hoping to not have to use it this year for any HMAD entries. But I ran out of time before I had to leave for the con, and had no choice but to check out Mum & Dad there, as I knew after the con I'd likely be carrying on the festivities elsewhere, perhaps with beer and Rock Band. Luckily, the screening room location changed, and at least in a visual sense, it is much improved. For starters, the screen is elevated, so if you're in the back you can still see it. There are also a lot more seats, so the 10 people max that bother to watch a movie there can spread out instead of getting their heads in each others' way.

Unfortunately, the sound was a total bust. If things were completely quiet, it would be acceptable (still very compressed sounding, as it was a mono sound source being played on two speakers), but that is not the case during a convention. Music from the auction room (to the right of the theater) and booming audio from the main panel hall (room behind the screen) was a constant distraction, and given that the film has a rather subdued sound design (i.e. lots of quiet scenes or people just talking), it became difficult to hear dialogue, and worse, impossible to really focus on the movie.

So it is with some hesitation that I say that it's not exactly the best of the survival horror genre. Maybe under a proper screening circumstance, I would be more enveloped into the film and feel more strongly about it. Because it's certainly better than say, Broken, which had similar subject manner (a man making a "family" out of unwilling kidnap victims). For starters, it has some actual character development, and not just from our protagonist. Her abductors are fleshed out as well. Even the mute "son", who is the closest any of them come to sympathetic, manages to get his state of mind across as the film progresses.

I also dug the occasional humor. It's the typically droll British stuff for the most part, and it's well-placed as well. Too much and you become a farce, too little and you prevent the audience from "getting" a rare joke in an otherwise bleak and dark film. And the humor (or, I guess, humour, as this is a British film) always comes from the family doing typical family things amidst all of the bloodshed around them, a la Texas Chainsaw (any of them in the original series).

It's also fairly suspenseful at times, but unfortunately that is a byproduct of the script's lack of surprise. Anyone who has seen this type of film knows how it goes - the girl gets kidnapped, tries to fight, eventually comes around and acts as the captors expect, then her plan goes awry, leading to escalated violence before her eventual escape. And given the fact that we HAVE seen films like this before, I kept expecting the script to turn the tables on our expectations, which made such standard stock scenes (like the inevitable "Girl gets free and sort of investigates the house rather than leave" sequence) feel a lot more suspenseful, because I kept expecting something different to happen than usual (i.e. she goes back to her room and chains herself back up before getting caught).

And that's the only real problem with the movie - it just doesn't add anything to the genre. It's not like I Know My First Name Is Stephen, where the victim eventually just succumbs to their new life, only to "snap out of it" when a new victim is introduced to the mix - she NEVER really accepts her fate, which would have been interesting from a character point of view. Even when she briefly acts like the dutiful daughter the titular characters expect her to, it's always clear that she's merely trying to catch them off guard. Plus this section of the film lasts less than ten minutes, so it doesn't really make an impact anyway.

Also, director Steven Sheil continuously cuts to shots of planes flying overhead. They serve their purpose - reminding us that there is a lot of noise that would drown out any screams, as well as the irony of someone being trapped with the entire world literally at their reach, but they are overused. At times, they will appear at top and tail of a single scene. I don't think they ever go more than 10 minutes without showing them (always in a succession of 3 shots, as well), and as a result they come off more as padding than as any sort of narrative/thematic device.

Finally, you see a fat man's ass. It's probably the most horrifying thing in the movie.

Still, it's worth a look (the movie, not the fat man's ass), especially if you haven't been exposed to a dozen of these things in the past couple years. There's nothing wrong with exploring familiar territory in a horror film, but when it's territory that is supposed to shock, it doesn't quite work when you follow the template so closely.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Julie Darling (1983)

APRIL 16, 2009

GENRE: KILLER KID, WEIRD
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

Whenever I need to explain what the New Bev is to someone who has sadly never heard of it, I usually say "It's our version of the Alamo Drafthouse" (if they don't know what the Alamo is, they probably won't care about the New Bev and thus I wouldn't be bothering to explain it to them). So it's quite fitting that they chose the Bev as the Los Angeles stop for their "Alamo Roadshow", which finds the famed Texan duo that runs the Drafthouse taking their unique programming to independent theaters on the West Coast. And they kicked things off with Julie Darling, a wonderfully sleaze-lite thriller with Sybil Danning (who was in attendance).

To describe the movie briefly, one would probably say "It's about a girl who kills anyone who comes between her and her father, whom she wants to fuck." But that would be doing a disservice to the film, which has a far above average number of cheer-inducing moments (like when a man tries to resuscitate a suffocated child by pinching his nose shut), a beautifully executed ending, a 15 year old girl with a gun rack, and lots and lots of "product placement".

I'm sure none of the companies paid to have their products in the film (given the taboo subject matter, it would probably be the opposite), but it's striking how often a well known product figures into a scene. Julie has a borderline addiction to Nestle Quik, her mother rambles about the virtues of Diet Coke, and at one point, a guy walks out of a Burger King and then past a McDonalds! And for whatever reason, Julie has a Pan Am poster in her bedroom. Teenage girls love defunct air travel, I guess.

Back to the BK/McD's guy, he is truly an inspired creation. As the Alamo guys correctly pointed out, he clearly just wandered in from a 70s porno movie. It's not that he merely LOOKS like a 70s porno actor (sans mustache), but in a span of about 90 seconds he manages to run through every bad porn cliche known to man: asking the housewife if he can assist her with anything, commenting about her being alone in the house, etc. And writer/director Paul Nicholas knew he had a good thing going, because after a tragedy, the movie follows him for a while. I momentarily thought the movie was pulling a Psycho and that the rest of the movie would be about him, but it's just to help set up his importance later in the film.

Some might be reading all of this and wondering if this is even a horror movie. Well, had I known nothing about it beforehand, I wouldn't have considered it one. It does have some elements of a Killer Kid movie, obviously, but it's not played for scares or even thrills, really. It's just a weird little movie. But, it played the festival under the "Psychosexual Maniacs" banner, and IMDb lists it as horror, so it qualifies for my purposes. I wouldn't have minded a bit more bloodshed (they set up Julie killing her little stepbrother, but they pussy out and save the kid before writing him out of the movie all together), but the lack of violence pays off with the surprising and somewhat mean-spirited ending.

Oh, in case anyone was wondering about the whole "daddy-daughter" thing, it never gets into Taboo 2 territory, but Julie does fantasize about being in Danning's place while she watches them make love (Hey-O!!!), and the dad is way too touchy-feely with her at times. Not a movie to watch with your family, at any rate. Oddly (or confusingly), I won a movie called Daddy Darling during the traditional pre-show raffle, which sounds like a softcore version of the same movie, except with lots of lesbian sex. Whether I will actually watch it anytime soon is a question mark, but considering that the only other thing I ever won in the raffle was a wrestling T-shirt, I consider it a damn good win all the same. Thanks, Brian and Eric!

Anyway, if you live in any of the big West Coast cities (San Fran, Seattle, and Portland), check out the Alamo roadshow if you can. Full schedule is at their website HERE. San Fransiscans should note that Raw Force is on the bill there - do NOT miss an opportunity to see this film with a crowd!!!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Wolfen (1981)

APRIL 15, 2009

GENRE: WEREWOLF
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

This is the sort of thing that makes people wonder if I may be brain damaged. I was going to watch Gozu today, but the length (123 minutes) turned me off from such an endeavor. Instead, I put on Wolfen, which has a running time of 115 minutes. Would 8 minutes really make a goddamn difference at all? Plus, my Wolfen DVD was still shrink-wrapped, so I probably spent 2-3 of those 8 minutes fiddling with the adhesive crap on the sides. Whatever.

Anyway, given my general disinterest in werewolf films, this one ain't too bad. Its biggest blunder (besides the overused "Wolf POV" color effect - it seems nearly half the movie is shot in this headache inducing mode) is spending time on red herrings that anyone watching the movie KNOWS is a red herring. After the initial murders, there's a bunch of hooey about a terrorist group (the guy was a land developer) being responsible. And while I don't doubt that in real life, a cop would suspect a terrorist before a killer wolf (for pretty much any crime), we know perfectly goddamn well that it's a wolf, and since the movie runs long as it is, they really should just get to the goddamn point.

Have you ever watched Battlestar Galactica and thought "I wish I could see Bill Adama naked"? Well, Wolfen will satisfy your disturbing wishes. As a Native American who may or may not be a wolf in human form, Edward James Olmos spends a good three minutes in his birthday suit, baring all as he runs around a beach. The movie also offers us Albert Finney's bare ass. Yet, Diane Venora remains clothed. Thanks, movie.

One thing that stuck out about the movie was the humor. The wolf stuff is played straight and serious, but there is levity in the form of Finney and Gregory Hines' characters. They have a lot of little throwaway lines and character beats that amused me, to the point where I didn't mind hanging out with their characters despite the occasional long stretches of zero wolf action. Tom Noonan also pops up in a rare non-villain role, so there's something.

I probably would have liked the movie more if it had a more powerful finale. The wolves have enclosed our heroes, killing the stock "greedy businessman" character in the process. Finney and Venora take an elevator to the top of a building, and the wolves follow. Finney then settles things by smashing a model of the building that was going to be built in the wolves' stomping grounds in the Bronx (which appears to be half demolished in the film). The wolves are satisfied (buildings can't go up if their model has been broken, I guess) and disappear. Would it have hurt to have Finney actually kill one of the damn things? Granted, the movie's point is that they are just protecting their home and that its businessmen and developers that are the real enemy, but come on. They took out a homeless guy too, what the hell could he have been doing to hurt them?

This is based on a book by Whitley Strieber, the batshit author who also wrote The Hunger. Apparently, his forte is taking classic monsters and putting them into really slow stories in which they are sort of the heroes. Wonder what he'd do with a slasher movie. Like everyone else involved with the movie, he offers no insight on the DVD; an extra feature called "Howl-ywood", which I assumed was a featurette of some sort, was just a text based rundown of some other (and more popular) werewolf movies from 1930 to the late 1990s, which thankfully means we didn't have to endure some sort of diplomatic description of Cursed. The flashy, misleading trailer is also included, and is not recommended for anyone suffering from epilepsy.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Hell High (1989)

APRIL 14, 2009

GENRE: SLASHER (?)
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Not counting sequels and the occasional guilty pleasure like Dr. Giggles, were there ANY good slasher films to come along between Wes Craven’s exemplary takes on the style (84’s Nightmare on Elm St, and 96’s Scream)? I really can’t think of one that sticks out. But I heard good things about Hell High, from 1989 (though produced in 1986), so I was hoping that would be the one to break the mold. And to some extent it does, in that it’s a pretty good movie. The problem is, it’s not really a slasher, by my criteria.

Now, to be fair, no one involved wanted to make a traditional slasher (the director doesn’t even seem to want to make a horror movie at all, judging from his interview on the extra features), but you can break traditions while still fitting a general mold. But Hell High (which is a horribly misleading title; it was originally "What Are We Doing Tonight?" or something to that effect) doesn’t even do that. It’s actually the reverse: there are slasher traditions (opening flashback, a guy in a mask, an isolated house), but the mold itself isn’t there. For starters, the guy in the mask isn’t the killer, nor are the other three people wearing masks in the scene. They are the “group”, wearing the masks to scare their teacher. So if anything, it’s a twist on the “prank goes wrong” template, but it still never quite FEELS like a slasher movie, even when folks are killed.

Speaking of the kills - they’re all lumped together! One of the group dies around the 45 min mark, but the other two are killed in the same scene. And it’s not like Halloween, where the killer is just sort of stalking everyone and taking his time - the “killer” doesn’t even EXIST until more than halfway through the movie, when the prank makes them snap and take revenge. So it’s really more of a hero killer/revenge type movie, at least to me.

All that said, it’s definitely a pretty good horror movie in general. For starters, there’s an AMAZING 80’s pop soundtrack, coupled with a truly memorable and creepy main theme and some Carpenter-esque cues during the horror scenes. Someone needs to get me this soundtrack ASAP. Also, it’s almost a shame that the mask wearing folks aren’t the killers, because two of the masks they wear are pretty awesome:

I also love, love, LOVE the opening sequence. A doll’s head is ripped off, a guy tries to nail his girlfriend in a dirty shack in the middle of a swamp, and then a little girl inadvertently kills them by throwing mud into the guy’s face as he is driving his motorcycle. And they are impaled by a bunch of sharp metal poles sticking out of the ground for no discernible reason.

The film’s only real problem is that after that glorious opening, a bit too much time is spent on setting everything up. The four main kids seem to take hours hanging out and chatting before finally going to pull their little prank. That, coupled with the fact that all of the violence occurs in a very brief section of the runtime, gives the film a jarring pace that could have easily been fixed by moving some sections of the narrative around. For example, before the four kids go to the house to scare the teacher, two of them go and watch her shower. Yes, we need the traditional nude shot, but couldn’t this have been combined into the scene with all four of them? Also, the central mystery doesn’t quite work in any form - we’re supposed to think that the girl in the film’s opening is one of two females (the only two in the film of any significance), but as it is eighteen years later, the girl would be about 23-25, unlike the two women, one of whom is 18 at most and the other is 35 at least. It’s like they were trying to average it out, but weren’t even close to successfully misleading us in either direction.

Unlike most largely unknown horror films from the era, the DVD has a surprising wealth of extra features. Joe Bob Briggs provides both an introduction and a commentary, as he is one of the film’s biggest champions. His commentary is quite good, it mixes MST3k like observations with actual film production information, which is what Simon and I hope to do with our public domain series (provided we can actually FIND any information with our limited resources). Director Douglas Grossman also provides an audio commentary, which is typical (very proud of the crew, apologizes for using horror movie clichés, etc.). Oddly, he didn’t bother to use headphones, so we can hear the movie’s audio from his viewing room, and it’s not in sync with what we are seeing. He also has people with him that obviously aren’t part of the commentary, so we just hear their muffled voices from time to time. Weird. The disc also includes a pair of interviews, one with Grossman, and the other with screenwriter Leo Evans. Both are fairly upfront with the film’s flaws, but are proud of it nonetheless. Some trailers and TV spots round things out. And since the movie is rather short (79 minutes, with opening credits over black), it’s not too much of a bother to sit through both commentaries (as opposed to say, one of the LOTR movies’ extended cuts; it would literally take an entire day to watch Return of the King and then all FOUR tracks), so I would recommend both, especially since they are so different.

I hope some folks check this movie out. It’s delightfully off-kilter, and it’s a shame that the slasher label will set up people to expect a different kind of film. I watched some of it again (this review was written two weeks after my viewing - thanks jury duty!) and found that now that I knew what NOT to expect, I liked it even more.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Other Hell (1981)

APRIL 13, 2009

GENRE: ITALIAN, SUPERNATURAL (?)
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

It must have been in 2000 or maybe 2001 when my good friend Joe Canistro told me about a sub-genre I had no idea existed: Nunsploitation. It was at a Fangoria convention, and he had just purchased one such film (the title escapes me) and gave me a brief summary of what constituted a Nunsploitation film (in short, nuns either killing or being killed). Being a product of Catholic school (grades 1-8 anyway), I very much liked the idea of combining nuns and murder. So interested, in fact, that it took me 8 or 9 years to finally watch one: The Other Hell (Italian: L'altro Inferno).

Bruno Mattei is one of those filmmakers who I often read about in places like Rue Morgue, and this is also my introduction to him. When I am seeing a filmmaker or type of film for the first time, I actually want to think its OK. I don't want to see the absolute best the genre or filmmaker has to offer (i.e. - if I had never seen a John Carpenter film, I wouldn't want to start with Halloween, as it would raise my expectations too high for his other output. The Fog or Christine would be good though.), nor do I want the worst, as I wouldn't be inspired to bother with it/them again. Thus, I would be pretty happy if The Other Hell fit the bill. I didn't love it, but I was more or less entertained by the nonsense unfolding before my eyes.

Now, I've seen enough Italian films to know that they simply don't care about logical sense, which means that when a scene that takes place in a convent features a dozen or so mannequins hanging from the ceiling for no discernible reason, I don't think much of it. It looks cool, and it's one of the creepier moments in the film, so who cares if it doesn't make a lick of sense that a convent would have a room like that.

But even I had to laugh/pause at a line about 2/3s of the way through the movie. By this point, I'd say at least a half dozen folks have been killed, and the murders are being investigated by a priest (Carlo De Mejo, who literally just walked in from Gates Of Hell). And it didn't even cross my mind until someone mentions that if there's another murder that the police might have to be brought in - why is a priest investigating this stuff? Obviously he has a connection to the players in the tale, but what exactly qualifies him to identify a murderer without the aid of police? Also, what are they doing with the bodies that is keeping the police from finding out about it in the first place? Had they never even mentioned the cops, I probably never would have even given it any thought.

However, beyond the complete disregard for real world logic, it's a fun movie. Nuns are eviscerated, dogs eat a guy's hand, the devil is represented as a blinking red light, the bad nun has a full blown mad scientist's laboratory (complete with beakers filled with bright green and red fluid), and a priest is immolated. Someone's got issues, and I enjoy seeing them try to work them out. And the ending seems to suggest that 95% of the way through the first draft, writer Claudio Fragasso took in a viewing of Zombi and decided to work some undead elements into his script without bothering to rewrite the previous 80 pages. Again, none of this is necessarily a bad thing. The Goblin score is also terrific, though it doesn't quite fit with the film at times (I wasn't surprised to learn it was recycled from another film).

The DVD comes with a pair of interviews, one in Italian with Mattei (seemingly shot in his garage) and the other in English with De Mejo. Mattei's is kind of dull, but De Mejo's is pretty interesting, because he seemingly goes out of his way to talk about anything but the movie. The interviewer will ask him about a certain co-star, and he'll spend the next minute or so discussing their other movies and whether or not he still talks to them. The longest he stays on subject is when he discusses his death scene, mainly because he seems to be discovering for the first time that his character is presumed to be dead. There are also a handful of trailers for this and other Italian horrors. As always, the film's trailer spoils most of the scares/deaths while not even making an attempt to explain the film's plot.

In closing, please recommend more from both the nunsploitation genre, as well as Mattei. Good or bad is of no concern, as long as they are interesting. Or have some backroom nun on priest action, of which this particular film offers none.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Nightmare (2000)

APRIL 12, 2009

GENRE: ASIAN, GHOST (?)
SOURCE: CABLE (SUNDANCE CHANNEL)

Most of the Asian horror films I see fall into one or both of the following categories: Ones I’ve been told are great (Audition) or ones that have been remade for dumber audiences (The Eye). It’s rare I see a film like Nightmare (Korean: Gawi), which has no remake (that I know of), nor had I even heard of it until about 17 seconds before I began to watch it. In fact, had it not been for Time Warner dropping Fearnet (thanks a lot, assholes!), I might still not have heard of it, as the lack of Fearnet in my “Free Movies” section inspired me to look - for once - at the other channels in there. Nightmare, as it turns out, was the only horror movie I could find.

Here’s one thing about the movie - it’s a fucking mess. The basic story isn’t totally terrible (it’s the umpteenth version of the “Friends keep a secret that eventually destroys them” tale), and there are some great visuals and isolated sequences sprinkled throughout the film. There are also numerous homages to the films of Dario Argento (a killer reflected in the eyes of a victim, for example) and an impressively varied soundtrack. In other words, I’ve seen worse. But the problem is, the good things are overshadowed by a needlessly confusing presentation.

For starters, director Byeong-ki Ahn frequently goes back and forth in time, something that would be a lot easier to follow had the timeframes been further apart, instead of 2 years. And most of the characters don’t really look any different (only one drastically changes his hairstyle), so you’re always spending the first minute or so of any time switch not really knowing that time has indeed shifted again. I don’t want frequent “2 years later” style onscreen text, but using a sound effect like Lost, or changing the color scheme or something, would have been very helpful and appreciated.

Second, the incident that kicks off the story is presented as a video. In theory, it’s a great idea - there’s a guy who keeps filming everything they do as a group anyway, so might as well tie it into the plot. Unfortunately, Ahn can’t be bothered to stay consistent with this POV, and the “video” often features angles that cannot be accomplished by a guy running around with a camera, not to mention the character himself, camera in hand (who the fuck is filming?!?!). It’s the clumsiest implementation of the device I have ever seen in a feature film; it could almost be used in a lame spoof of vérité films (paging Friedberg and Seltzer!).

Finally - the damn plot is hardly resolved! There is a seeming twist in which one of the characters reveals that he/she is the one that has been killing off the other group members one by one, and NOT the ghost, which we have been led to believe. But after he/she is dispatched, the goddamn ghost appears again and kills off one of the survivors. So did the ghost do everything, and the other person was just making shit up? Were they working together? Or, given the title, was the final sequence just a dream? Who the fuck knows.

There are other, less problematic issues as well, such as a sequence with a bloody woman in a shower that I couldn’t identify as one of the film’s characters, and a character talking about the “1979” murders committed by David Berkowitz (did he temporarily escape?). Also, the subtitles were incredibly terrible at times (and occasionally even cropped!), which just added to the general sloppy feel of the movie.

In short, I can see why no one has remade it (remaking promising but flawed films, of course, never actually happening even thought that’s actually the BEST reason to remake a film) or recommended it to me. Like I said, I’ve seen worse, but I, and presumably all of you, have also seen much better - from both sides of the world.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

It's Alive 3: Island Of The Alive (1987)

APRIL 11, 2009

GENRE: KILLER KID (BABY!), MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

I normally don’t watch two films from a franchise in the same week (unless it’s to prep for a new entry, i.e. re-watching the Saw films whenever a new one is churned out), but I was too excited for It’s Alive 3: Island Of The Alive to put it off much longer. Knowing that it starred Michael Moriarty, I was pretty sure it would be the best of the series, as the leads of the other two movies were kind of bland, something that Moriarty certainly wouldn’t be accused of (at least, in a Larry Cohen movie - I doubt he was this amusing on Law & Order).

Unfortunately, while Moriarty IS great, but the movie itself is kind of lackluster. The island setting is a great concept (the babies are “quarantined” there), but it hardly factors into the movie. After a brief scene with some hunters early on (complete with a hilariously inadequate model of a helicopter which inexplicably explodes in midair after the pilot is slashed), more time is spent getting Moriarty and assorted others TO the island than is spent actually ON the island. The final third of the film takes place in Florida, and while the setting is still slightly different than the California locales of the first two, it still feels a bit repetitive.

And while the baby effects are improved, once again we don’t really get a lot of action with them. There’s a great opening bit with a new one being born, but nearly all of their subsequent carnage occurs off-screen. Once they become larger (i.e. can be performed by folks in rubber suits) they do a little bit more, but I stress “a little”. I know Cohen makes these films independently, but I also know that he shot it back to back with Return to Salem’s Lot, a film I’m pretty sure no one was asking for. He should have combined the funds to make one kick ass, Moriarty-starring It’s Alive movie.

Moriarty, it doesn’t even need to be said, is great. My wife came in halfway through and after 5 minutes was like “You love this guy, don’t you?” (she hadn’t been privy to The Stuff or Q). Not even a minute later, she got her answer when Moriarty found himself adrift at sea on a raft. A shark swam by, at which point he yelled “Of course! It’s not a shipwreck unless there’s a SHARK!” and I laughed my ass off for a good ten minutes. As always, his odd, clearly improvised moments help make the slower parts of the film seem to go by faster (such as the “going to the island” sequence, which, again, lasts longer than the “on island” segment it’s leading to). Unfortunately, he is saddled with the always annoying Karen Black for the final 10 minutes of the movie, which just further diminishes the impact of the already underwhelming finale.

Black does have a good scene with the film’s best creation (Moriarty is just playing the same guy he always does, can’t really call him a “creation” at this point), which is a sleazy mob-looking dude named Tony. He is attempting to bed Black (good God, WHY?) by blackmailing her by threatening to show her friends and employers a nationally published book (not the best blackmail plan I’ve ever heard), and repeatedly calls Black a “son of a bitch” after she pukes in his car (though he keeps wiping a spot that is clearly puke-free, so either he’s overreacting or Cohen couldn’t shell out 89 cents for some fake vomit). His increasing anger is simply hilarious to watch, and again, helps you overlook the fact that the now giant killer babies aren’t doing much.

Like in Q, the finale DOES feature dozens of cops being flung to their death, so there’s something. Nothing against the police, but there’s something kind of cathartic about seeing a bunch of them get wiped out, especially if you assume every one of them has written a parking ticket for a 30 seconds' overtime parking meter.

Oh, I almost forgot - there’s a brief joke at the expense of the first film’s plotting. It’s rare for any sequel to mock an earlier entry’s plot holes, so this was a nice little touch. Also, James Dixon returns as Perkins, the only character to appear in all three films (as far as I can recall). So in those and a few other respects, it’s a worthy entry to the franchise. None of them are particularly great, but they are admirably consistent and entertaining. I wish the upcoming remake of the original was done by a more interesting filmmaker with a more interesting cast; I’m not saying they can’t turn out a good movie, but this concept really deserves an A list treatment. Somehow I can’t see a movie starring Bijou Phillips and from the director of Art of War II as qualifying.

The DVD has a commentary, but after hearing a half dozen other Cohen tracks, I feel pretty confident that I don’t want to spend 90 minutes listening to it (once again - I’ve been assigned to jury duty, plus I am still going to work at nights - my day is kind of jam-packed). But I’m sure Cohen has a lot of great things to say about his other pictures and everyone who worked on the crew, and that he’s proud of his opening titles.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

A Haunting In Connecticut (2002)

APRIL 10, 2009

GENRE: DOCUMENTARY, HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Since I first saw The Haunting In Connecticut last fall, I have been wanting to know more about the "true" story that inspired it. I would have preferred the book, but it's out of print (way to tie in your existing property to a new and quite successful film, whoever published it!), so I had to go with A Haunting In Connecticut, a half doc/half movie (think the 're-enactments' you see on Unsolved Mysteries, albeit in full length feature form) that aired on the Discovery Channel back in 2002.

I wasn't too surprised to see that the 2009 movie was more enjoyable and simply better made, but I WAS surprised to see that the film version actually makes more sense. For example, in the movie, the kid with cancer sees the blood on the floor, and isn't sure if it's real or a hallucination brought on by his experimental cancer treatment. The mother, of course, doesn't see it at all. But in the docudrama (which I assume is telling the story more or less exactly how it happened, or at least, how the family claims it did), it's the mother who sees the blood. Cancer kid isn't even around (in fact, he's sort of a supporting player in the 2002 version as a whole - the focus is more on the mother). This is ridiculous - why would a rational woman more or less ignore a giant puddle of blood on the floor?

Another botched scene made far more effective in the new movie (thanks for using 99% the same title, Lionsgate! Or should I just refer to them as "A" and "THE"?) is the part where the kid puts the plates out, only to discover them right back in the cupboard a few seconds later. Once again, this part was originally just with the mother, but worse, the time from when she puts the plates down to when she notices that they are gone is like 30 seconds. An ADD-addled viewer might not even remember what is supposed to be scaring him by the time the sequence reaches its punchline.

There were other pretty big changes as well, but more often than not, I honestly believe that the "based on" version from the Hollywood machine is more plausible and far more interesting than the Discovery Channel one. Even smaller things that had nothing to do with the haunting didn't work as well. For example, in real life (again - assuming the DC one is sticking to the facts) the father apparently had a say in whether or not they bought the house. In the movie, Virginia Madsen just takes it and tells her husband later- it not only adds some character development, but also gives the family as a whole a different dynamic. And the movie version dropped one of the brothers, another wise choice as it allowed more focus on the one with cancer.

Really, the only thing I think the Discovery Channel version has over the Lionsgate one is a much hotter nanny/aunt character. Well played! Also, I loved how the real family members appear in silhouette. To avoid being recognized by the ghost mafia, I assume? Why not use a voicebox too?

There is one thing I have to consider shenanigans on though - the final act of the movie seems like it's just taken from Poltergeist. After an hour or so, the family calls in a team of experts, including an elderly woman. They live in the house and observe while the family all huddles together in the living room. Their tech guy even gets so spooked that he has to quit! The Catholic element is still present, but the priest character (embodied by Elias Koteas in the feature version) has no role in the tale until the very end. It all gets very silly, and I have to assume that Discovery embellished this stuff, if it even happened at all. The movie version got a bit over the top near the end too, but it was at least consistent with the rest of the film in terms of character and plot, instead of suddenly bringing in a bunch of random folks and putting the family on the sidelines.

I know it sounds like I'm just pimping for big budget movies, but hear me out. Since I don't really believe in this type of stuff, I have to judge such stories on plausibility and entertainment value. And in that regard, "THE" is far more effective than "A" (except for the title - if I were to accept that haunted houses DO exist, then I would hardly believe that this was "The" only one ever). It's kind of telling that I can more easily believe what's happening to recognizable actors than I do for regular people talking directly to the camera about the same events while re-enactors helped flesh it out a bit.

Now, someone find me the goddamn book!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Broken (2008)

APRIL 9, 2009

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

How tired was I after a day at the courthouse (for those of you just tuning in - I’m on jury duty)? I fell asleep during the opening credits of The Broken. Has to be a record for me. Longtime readers know that I’m borderline narcoleptic, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never nodded off before the opening credits were through. I’m still waiting for the day where I fall asleep before the start menu appears.*

So I rewound it, and once again - I dug the movie. It could have been a lot better, but it lucks out from the existence of Mirrors, a mostly lousy movie that also featured murderous reflections. Unlike that movie, this one actually has some decent creepy/suspenseful moments, a lead performance with some effort (unlike Kiefer Sutherland in that film, Lena Headey is NOT simply playing her FOX television character here), and - this may be a problem for some - a lack of nonsensical backstories.

Of course, there isn’t ANY backstory at all. Why the mirror people appear and begin killing their doppelgangers is never explained, and keeping with After Dark 3 traditions, there isn’t a commentary to add some insight into the matter (this one doesn’t even have the standard 15 minute making of!). But I actually didn’t mind it - I’m pretty sure no one can ever give a decent explanation for why/how our mirrors are trying to kill us, so I guess it’s not even worth wasting time to try.

Instead, writer/director Sean Ellis keeps the film relatively grounded, not to mention quiet. It’s hardly an action packed movie anyway, but I can’t recall the last time I saw a movie that was so willing to shut the fuck up. There isn’t a lot of long dialogue passages, and score/sound effects are kept to a minimum as well. Even when an evil reflection appears behind a character, it doesn’t mean we get a loud musical sting to alert the folks who had stopped paying attention (or, in my case, nodded off).

One blemish though - Ellis’ insistence on flashing back to a key automobile accident that occurs relatively early in the movie. OK, we get it: Headey can’t stop thinking about it. We don’t need to see it over and over (it doesn’t help that the Headey dummy is pretty bad, so to go out of your way to show it so many times, often in slow motion, is just stupid).

There’s a scene where Headey gets locked in the London subway, despite having just taken the tube there. Since this also happened in Creep, I have to wonder - does the London subway system routinely trap its riders inside the stations? I mean, I understand that the trains stop running at a certain time, but these movies make it seem like they lock the exits up even BEFORE that point. So many characters dead because the night watchman wanted to duck out early...

Richard Jenkins is also in this movie. You don’t see him popping up in many genre films (you gotta go back to Wolf for such a thing), and he lends the film a touch of class. Unfortunately, his role (like many of the others) is underwritten, and the movie doesn’t really give him much to do. Since the plot is left rather unexplained, the least Ellis could do is bulk up the character development, but he kind of drops the ball there too.

But again - it’s all about the impressively quiet scares, and the fact that the mirror people are actually kind of creepy. I also dug how Ellis avoided the usual clichés as much as possible. Of course there’s a scene where a reflection suddenly diverges from its owner and does something scary, but it turns out to be a nightmare. Otherwise, reflections are surprisingly AVOIDED at times. There’s a part where Headey is trapped in the bathroom, and there’s not a single shot of the mirror reflecting her or anything else of importance. That’s unprecedented!

I now have two films left on the After Dark 3. Unless they are total shit, I think I can confidently say that this is the best year yet. The films are more interesting and less generic, and the filmmakers seem to be a more capable lot. I may not have loved any of them as much as Gravedancers (year 1) or Mulberry St (year 2), but I’d rather eight films in the B, B+ range than one or two As amidst a sea of Ds and Fs.

What say you?

*Anyone notice something awesome about this batch of Lionsgate DVDs? You can finally skip over their logo! For years, you’ve had to endure the “opening gates with all the chains and gears around” logo everytime you put in and/or start watching one of their discs. But you can get right to the main menu on these discs, as long as you hit menu or chapter forward.

PLEASE, GO ON...

Perkins' 14 (2009)

APRIL 8, 2009

GENRE: SERIAL KILLER, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

If there was one film out of this year’s After Dark Festival that I was sure I would hate, it was Perkins’ 14, from the director of Dark Ride (which should sufficiently explain my prejudice). But damned if I not only liked it, but it’s actually probably my 2nd favorite of the lineup so far (after Autopsy). And I say this after being annoyed all day at jury duty (where I was eventually picked to serve on a 4 week trial - see announcement).

The funny thing about Perkins’ is that the thing that originally made me think I would dislike the movie is the very same thing that made me dig it. See, it starts off as the umpteenth Silence of the Lambs retread, with an intelligent, well-mannered serial killer facing off against a law enforcement type. I could very easily live the rest of my life without ever having to watch one of those movies again, and by the time the movie hit its 2nd “Cop and killer talk through the bars of his jail cell” scene, I was already Twittering my disdain.

But then BAM! It’s a goddamn zombie movie (and the "serial killer" hadn't killed anyone)! OK technically they are just humans that are crazed from experimental drugs, but you take any one attack scene out of context and you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference from a 28 Days Later or Dawn 04. So for all intents and purposes, around the halfway mark, it’s a zombie movie. It’s like From Dusk Til Dawn, except instead of suddenly becoming a horror movie, it just becomes a different subgenre of horror movie. Well played.

And as a “zombie” film, it delivers. The lack of an entire mob of zombies (there’s only, well, 14) actually works to its benefit; it allows for some actual suspense. The problem with a lot of zombie films (fast or slow) is that the sheer NUMBER of them keeps the characters on constant alert. But here the good guys occasionally let their guards down, and often pay for it. It’s a refreshing angle on well-worn story concepts.

So really, the only problem is the unfortunate production value. We’re in Romania, but it’s supposed to be Maine. Some actors (particularly the guy playing Perkins) manage a decent Maine accent, but the rest just sound like Romanians. It’s very distracting, and it makes me wonder why they couldn’t just say they were in Romania in the first place (it would add to the originality). And the town is supposedly going completely to hell, but we never see any of it (even before bad things occur, the town seems strangely under-populated). There are also some dubious acting choices, such as a cross-eyed guy playing a cop (it’s not played for laughs - this movie’s especially downbeat and grim, which is another thing I liked).

Craig Singer has also improved as a director since Dark Ride. He still has some problems with letting the audience understand where people are in relation to one another (there’s a part where the hero finds his daughter, who is about to be harmed by an approaching zombie, and yet for the life of me I can’t understand how he even sees her or where the hell she is), but he has weaned off of his gonzo time stretch/squeeze fascination, and has improved in structure/pace as well. Sure, it starts slow, but that is a full blown creative decision, not just lame padding (i.e. the “prank” sequence in DR).

The DVD’s only extra (besides the Miss Horrorfest videos that accompany all After Dark releases) are a collection of webisodes about the film’s production. They’re a bit long when combined, and focus far too much on the actors as opposed to the more technical aspects of things, but they’re still worth a look (apart from learning spoilers, they would probably be a lot more exciting to watch as they were originally presented, likely one episode a week over a couple of months, as opposed to all jumbled together). I would have liked to have learned more about the initial internet contest that birthed the film (actors, the story, and even the poster were all chosen via the internet, not entirely unlike Project Greenlight), but yet again, there is no commentary track, which would be a damn good vehicle for such discussion. The first year, Christ, the AD DVDs pretty much all had tracks (Gravedancers even had commentary tracks for the extras!). Now none of them have them at all. It’s weird. Then again, since jury duty will be eating up nearly half my day, I guess it’s a blessing in disguise, as it keeps me from feeling overwhelmed with HMAD “responsibilities.”

Anyway, I hate that I had to spoil the 2nd half of the movie, as it does come as something of a surprise, but I assume that knowing it won’t really affect your enjoyment. Hell, if you’re like me, and are sick of "genius serial killer" movies, it might even HELP, knowing that you only have to deal with that plot for the first 40 minutes.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Count Dracula (1970)

APRIL 7, 2009

GENRE: VAMPIRE
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

For almost as long as I have been reading Fangoria on a regular basis (something I no longer do, due to a steep decline in quality over the past couple of years - though I still buy every issue), I have been hearing about the films of Jess Franco (aka Jesus Franco, and also - according to the IMDB - pretty much every combination of any first/last names you can think of). Most of his films sounded right up my alley: horror mixed with lesbian softcore! Can’t go wrong with that. Yet I’ve never actually seen any of his work, so I figured his take on Count Dracula (German: Nachts, Wenn Dracula Erwacht) would be a good place to start. Dracula does have those three brides after all...

Sadly, not only is there no sex of any kind in the film (even Dracula biting Lucy/Mina is fairly asexual), but it’s not even a particularly interesting adaptation of the Dracula story. See, if you are adapting Harry Potter or LOTR, you gotta get it right and stick to the source material. But with Dracula, even at the time this film was made (1970), you really should do your own thing, because there have been so many goddamn film versions of it. While they may be terrible, at this point I’d rather watch Dracula 2000 or 3000 than another straight up adaptation of the Stoker novel, which is precisely what this is.

I mean, sure, there are some slight deviations from the novel: Van Helsing is now running the asylum where Renfield (Klaus Kinski!) is committed, but that and the other minor changes seem more like cost-cutting measures than any sort of creative decision. Beyond Kinski’s traditional craziness, I failed to find a single thing in the film that felt like it was brought to the table by the talent or creativity from any of the principles. Even Christopher Lee seemed bored, though in his defense he had already played Dracula in the Hammer version (is he the first actor to portray the same role in two otherwise unrelated films?).

Also, despite Lee and Kinski having top billing, their combined screentime does not equal that of Herbert Lom (Helsing) or Fred Williams (Harker), nor do they ever really share a scene. I mean, you have these two - why even bother with anything else? The movie could simply be Kinski and Lee having dinner and a conversation and it would probably turn out more engaging.

Jim Henson’s Dracula

It’s not a complete loss though. Franco occasionally stages some nice shots or the odd setpiece (loved the bit with all the stuffed/mounted animals “attacking” our heroes), and the women are beautiful to look at. Lom also makes a good Helsing, and gets to enjoy a scene in which his character supposedly suffers a stroke (to me it looked more like he was suffering heroin withdrawals). And Lee’s “crazed” makeup is pretty frightening, what with his red eyes and such. Plus, I mean, it IS still the Dracula story - had I never seen a single other version of it before, I’m sure I’d be far more entertained.

One thing struck me as odd - while all the usual conventions are followed (crosses, no reflection, etc), it seems that Dracula is able to enter Van Helsing’s home (which looks a LOT like that one hotel room in Fear and Loathing) without any problem. I somehow doubt he was invited. This may possibly just be an error however, there’s a few other goofs as well (Dracula is holding a candelabra during the ‘no reflection’ scene - but it has no reflection either).

The DVD doesn’t appear to have much, but it’s actually kind of packed, “time it takes to watch it all” wise. The interview with Jess Franco runs nearly a half hour, and he talks about all of his actors, as well as some production info (apparently, once the notoriously perfectionist Lee had finished his role, the producers pulled some of the money and did the rest of the movie half-assed). He even talks a bit about the Browning and Coppola versions. Then there’s an essay about Soledad Miranda, the actress who played Lucy and was sadly killed in a car crash a few years later, on the eve of signing a new contract that would have ensured her place as a major star. And then there’s the biggie: “Christopher Lee reads Dracula”, which is exactly that. Over a slideshow of stills and posters from this and other Dracula productions, Lee reads the entire novel. It’s about 90 minutes long, and while I hate to skip any extras when compiling my review, I simply don’t have the time to have a book read to me. It’s certainly a unique idea for an extra, and I wouldn’t mind seeing it on other classic horror adaptations (where the books tend to be shorter) to enjoy when I have time (or when I haven’t already read the book). I just hope Lee never stars in an adaptation of "War and Peace" or any “cokehead era” Stephen King novel.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

It's Alive 2: It Lives Again (1978)

APRIL 6, 2009

GENRE: KILLER KID (BABY!), MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

If nothing else, Horror Movie A Day will have given me a new perspective of Larry Cohen. Before HMAD began, I only knew him as the screenwriter of a few suspense films like Phone Booth and Cellular, as well as the director/writer of The Ambulance. I had somehow never seen any of his horror pictures. But It’s Alive II: It Lives Again is like the 6th or 7th movie of his I’ve watched for HMAD - enough to warrant giving him his own tag, especially if I include films he just wrote.

Cohen takes the best approach to a sequel I can imagine. He brings back the hero of the first film (the Frank Davis character) while introducing a new couple on the verge of having their own monster baby. So if you liked Davis, you get to see him do something new (he now works for a company that aims to help - or so they claim - those who are about to have a mutant child), and if you just liked the idea of a couple having a monster baby, you get that too. It’s familiar and yet different in nearly perfectly equal helpings (Davis kind of disappears for most of the 2nd act). It may not be a perfect movie, but in terms of successfully “following” the first film, it’s definitely one of the better examples I can think of in the horror genre.

The only real flaw in the movie is that they keep the monster baby action mostly confined to the final half hour. Sure, there’s a lot of plot to explain what with the various groups with an interest in the new baby, but still. You can’t promise monster babies and give us a bunch of middle aged doughy guys in labcoats rambling about creation and the future of evolution and such. Once the babies escape though, oh man. Awesome.

The highlight of their all-too-brief rampage has to be a kid’s birthday party. Not only are the kids all terrible actors with awkward dialogue (“Open mine first!” one kid shouts, after another gift has been opened), but they just come and go out of nowhere. And the babies don’t really attack anyone, but they do destroy a cake. It’s just such a random little scene that could have so easily been cut, I couldn’t help but love it a little.

I also love how easily the parents accept that their kid is a monster. Davis crashes their baby shower (!!) and is like “You remember seeing the news about how I had a monster baby? You’re going to have one too.” And they accept this without even double-checking the news article to see if it was the same guy. Even better, the mother starts calling the fetus “It” before Davis has even cleared the driveway. So many of these killer kid movies have parents that are on the “I don’t care what it’s done, it’s MY child!” train, it’s refreshing to see some folks that are like “oh it’s a monster, fuck it”.

Rick Baker did the effects for the babies. They are obviously better than the original’s, but still used sparingly to hide their limits. I am excited to watch the 3rd film - not only does it have Michael Moriarty, but I assume that the late 80s effects will be pretty awesome to watch. I also assume the remake, which has seemingly been cast into the ether (it was shot in 2007), will have lame ass CGI babies.

As always, Cohen provides a dull commentary that is only occasionally referring to what’s on screen, even in general terms. If you take a shot of whiskey every time he mentions one of his other “pictures” (the words “film” and “movie” are apparently not in his vocabulary), you will likely die of cirrhosis before the first reel is up. However, if you don’t die and merely become violently ill from the alcohol intake, you can take a few trips to the bathroom and probably not miss much, as he is also prone to long silences. The “trailer” is also included, but it’s really a teaser, featuring no footage whatsoever. It DOES, however, include a tagline that out-sillies the one for Q - “The It’s Alive baby is back again, only now there’s three of them.” Confusing grammar + awkward syntax = voiceover nirvana.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Slaughter (2009)

APRIL 5, 2009

GENRE: THRILLER
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Now that I’m halfway through the After Dark offerings for this year, I feel confident in saying that it’s the best of the three. The remaining four films would all have to be the worst movies I’ve ever seen for me to think otherwise. Because so far, Slaughter is the “worst” of the ones I’ve seen, and it’s not even all that bad. Then again, last time around, Lake Dead (the worst of the lot) was one of the last ones I watched too, so maybe I just have good luck picking the order. We shall see...

Anyway, the biggest problem with Slaughter is that it takes far too long to get to its point. I found myself muttering “is this even a horror movie?” more than once in the first two acts, which is kind of a problem when the story isn’t particularly interesting to make up for the lack of genre elements. There’s a girl coming out of a shitty relationship, and another girl who has an abusive father and is more or less a slampig, and they meet-cute and ride horses and hang out around their farm and talk about fireflies... You know a movie is in trouble when the most engaged I get with what is happening onscreen is when a character produces a rather odd-looking bottle of root beer (I collect glass root beer bottles - I don’t have one like theirs!).

And then BAM! Shit starts to go down. I won’t spoil what it is, but suffice to say it’s certainly different, and not quite what I was expecting. The ending is also impressively grim, always a plus with me. Not that I’m a dark and depressing person, but so many horror movies these days take the safe routes with their endings, it’s so damn refreshing to see one that takes the “Sorry, audience! Go home feeling miserable!” route. And there's some decent suspense, plus some truly disturbing acts of violence (dished out, and inflicted upon oneself) which are almost enough to make up for some its faults in the first hour.

One of those faults is repetition. It seems the two girls go out to a club every 16 seconds in this movie. At one point one of them suggests going there (again), using the excuse that “It’s Saturday!” Either there’s some Groundhog Day shit going on, or the excuse was as flimsy as “We’re both alive.” Also, they live on an isolated farm, but a large city (Atlanta, I think?) seems to be a ten minute drive away.

Also, the movie opens with the “Inspired by True Events” claim, which is worth absolutely nothing. Every movie ever made was inspired by something. I bet Graham Yost was on a bus once that was stuck in traffic and began wondering what would happen if it was forced to move. And viola! He was “inspired” to write Speed, the most preposterous film ever made. Needless to say, I cannot find any news articles or whatever that could have served as the inspiration for this movie.

Nor is it mentioned on the 30 minute making of, but to be fair I kind of zoned out for parts of it. Writer/director Stewart Hopewell is much younger than I expected, and it’s clear that he is a capable and thoughtful director (I can only assume that the film’s ugly transfer is a result of poor mastering and not his preference). It’s also interesting to see a man write/direct a film in which the only likable characters are women (fairly well-written ones at that). This may not be my favorite movie of the year, but I’d definitely watch his next film, horror or not. There are also a few deleted scenes, nothing you’ll miss. No commentary again, which is odd. Dying Breed has one on the overseas release, and you almost NEVER see an independent film with one writer/director that doesn’t have a track. Maybe AD/LG assumes no one besides me is listening to the damn things anymore?

Forgive the vagueness of this review - I figure most of you haven't seen it yet, and to talk about what I liked would be spoiling it. I think if you go in knowing that it's a slow burn, you might enjoy it. If not, well, it's still better than Lake Dead. At least give it that much!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Bats (1999)

APRIL 4, 2009

GENRE: PREDATOR
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Roughly every monster or “Predator” type horror movie (basically any movie where a number of natural creatures attack humans) ends with a shot of an undiscovered egg or whatever, setting up a sequel. In many cases, this sequel never actually comes (which is usually a good thing - that Godzilla II that was threatened is never going to happen), but in the case of Bats, it actually DID get a sequel almost a decade later (Bats: Human Harvest), for whoever the fuck was asking for one. And given my “job” here at HMAD, I would have rented it by now, had I seen the original. But alas, I apparently had better things to do in October of 1999 than go see a killer bat movie*.

Given that it was a theatrical release, you expect it to be better than Sci-Fi original fare, and for the most part it is (thanks to a script by John Logan - who would be nominated for an Oscar the following year for Gladiator). The effects are decent (though there seems to be about four different bat species in this roost), and there’s a lot more action and production value in any given scene than your Ice Spiders or Anaconda 3s have in their entirety. The actors are also more engaging than usual. Ironically, the folks here (Lou Diamond Phillips, Leon, Dina Meyer) would probably jump at the chance to take the lead role in a Sci-Fi movie nowadays, but back then they were still fairly relevant. And you can never go wrong with Bob Gunton.

There are two big problems that keep it from being an overall success though. One is the strange pace - the movie is seemingly on overdrive for the first 45 minutes (there are more bat attack scenes in the first 20 minutes of Bats than there are in the entirety of Nightwing), but the pace cannot be sustained, resulting in a rather dull 2nd half. At first I was pretty impressed by how fast moving it was (hell, the requisite “YOU were the one that created these!” scene takes place mere moments after the guy is introduced!), and was wondering how they could top it for a finale. But they don’t. The finale is actually a lot like Nightwing’s - our heroes go into a cave to set up some gizmo and then hightail it out of there before the entrance is sealed. And only Lou and Dina enter, so you know the bats aren’t going to get one final kill in, resulting in a finale in which they might as well just have presented with onscreen text for all of the excitement it creates.

The other problem is Louis Morneau’s directing. As the director of Hitcher II and Joy Ride: Dead Ahead, I wasn’t expecting much, but he actually makes those duds look good in comparison with his work here (which may explain why he never again helmed a theatrical release, despite the film’s modest success). For whatever reason, he films half of the movie using di-opter lenses, even for scenes where the characters are relatively close together anyway. He also has a strange affinity for smearing and/or skewing the image. It’s ok for “Bat POV” shots, but he uses it EVERYWHERE, even in scenes where the bats aren’t even present. It certainly doesn’t look good, and it eventually becomes a distraction, particularly in wide shots in which our heroes resemble Mike Teevee once he’s been stretched back out.

He also seemingly went out of his way to find the least compatible stock footage for some army jets heading toward the town to blow it all to hell. You’re all into the movie and all of a sudden you’re seeing dailies from Iron Eagle.

One thing I will praise is the sound mix. It’s awesome! The bats can be heard swarming in from all around you, and the directional effects are above average as well. I would consider it a perfect soundtrack if they had only thought to mute Meyer when she delivers a line about how she can “hear the bats’ sonar”. How do you “hear” an abstract concept? Yeah, and I can smell hunger.

The DVD has a menu created by a Photoshop template, an EPK behind the scenes that nearly put me into a coma (except when Gunton creepily compliments Meyer’s good looks), and a commentary by Morneau and Phillips in which they go on and on about how hot/tiring it was in the heat and what not. Riveting.

As these things go, it’s slightly above average. It won’t make you forget Tremors or The Birds, but I’ll take it over Frogs, that’s for damn sure. And bonus points for putting Carlos Jacott in a non-villain role for once.

What say you?

*Yet I went to see Random fucking Hearts.

And now, Horror Movie A Day and Happy Hour Comics would like to present the newest in an ongoing series of HMAD-inspired comic strips. I hope you enjoy!! (Click to enlarge)

PLEASE, GO ON...

Dying Breed (2008)

APRIL 3, 2009

GENRE: CANNIBAL, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

I, like at least 99% of the world, did not see all of the After Dark Horrorfest films in theaters during their all but completely unadvertised run this past January (it was so off the radar that even Lionsgate - who handled the distribution - employees didn't even know that they were out until word of mouth hit them). Ironically, the two I saw were above average for the festival, and the trend continues with Dying Breed, a straight up "don't go traveling" movie with some inspired and welcome doses of cannibalism.

The most surprising thing about the movie is that, despite starring actors from Saw (Leigh Whannell) and Wolf Creek (Nathan Phillips) - the poster children for "torture porn" horror movies - it's refreshingly light on prolonged violence. A cannibal mountain man eating a girl's lip is about as brutal as it gets, and it's hardly excessive or pointless (he's hungry!). And the other guy more or less kills himself when he trips on a bear trap and gets his head in another. The other two (there are four protagonists) are captured more or less off-screen and led to a more disturbing, but entirely off-screen fate (for a hint - see the 2nd part of the title).

I also like that, for once, it takes place in the forest-y part of Australia. So many of these movies take place in the outback, you almost forget that Australia does in fact have trees and grass. The irony, of course, is that the setting, coupled with the seemingly permanent overcast/drizzling weather, I kept forgetting it WAS Australia, and not the usual Vancouver backdrop.

It was also nice to see Whannell's improved acting. His performance in Saw (particularly in the 3rd act) is enough to completely overshadow the film's strong points, so I was initially worried about him more or less carrying this film. Luckily, he's actually pretty good, playing a more sympathetic and calmed role. By the time he's in hysterics mode (his weak spot), the movie's almost over anyway, so no harm done. I wouldn't say he should quit his day job (speaking of, when's the dude gonna write another movie?), but at least I feel confident that he can deliver a good performance, albeit in limited range.

The film's only real sore spot is that of familiarity. The couples arrive in unknown territories, they piss off a local, notice some strange stuff... etc, etc. The introduction of cannibals (even a cannibal child!) helps obscure some of the cliche, but it still nags at times. There is also a backstory involving the main girl's sister that gets forgotten for long stretches, to the point that when they bring it up again you momentarily forgot that it was indeed part of this movie and not some other survival horror movie.

Apparently the Australian DVD has a 40 min making of and a commentary (according to Wikipedia, so it must be true). We only get a "Producer's trailer" (seems like a perfectly normal trailer to me) and a 18 minute EPK-style featurette. It goes through the motions, hardly addressing the true story (of Alexander Pearce, aka "The Pieman" - see here) that served as the inspiration for the movie, which was all I was really interested in anyway. It's good to know that the actors enjoyed working with each other and that the locations were extraordinary though. I was worried.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Night Creatures (1962)

APRIL 2, 2009

GENRE: GHOST (?), HAMMER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

You could probably fill up an entire book with alternate (and often misleading) titles for horror movies. Such is the case with Night Creatures, which was originally the far less foreboding Captain Clegg. Apparently, Night Creatures was going to be Hammer’s title for an adaptation of I Am Legend, but that fell apart. However, they still needed to provide a picture called "Night Creatures" to America, so they slapped it on Clegg, despite the fact that there are no creatures and almost none of the movie takes place at night.

Strangely, Captain Clegg only appears once you know the twist ending, so I guess they never had a good title for this thing. Sure, the man is referenced and all, but the movie is more or less about some soldiers (led by who I believe is Cap’n Crunch) trying to uncover the mystery behind his death. As it turns out, he’s not dead, he’s just living under an assumed alias.

Of course, this isn’t too difficult to figure out once you meet the town’s parson (that’s priest, for those who were always confused by the lyrics of "Frosty the Snowman"), who is played by Peter Cushing. You know Cushing’s not gonna be some lame ass priest, so it’s great once his identity starts to become clear and he can start fighting and swinging on chandeliers and such. Luckily, even in priest mode he’s pretty entertaining, cracking wise and being wonderfully passive aggressive with the soldiers.

Also on hand is Oliver Reed. He’s actually the romantic lead, and shockingly non-drunk (at least, his character isn’t). There’s even a scene where a guy begins to rough him up and the soldiers take the other guy away to “sober him up” - I am quite certain it’s the first (and last) time Reed has ever been on the other side of that situation. The movie as a whole is kind of an ensemble; Cushing gets top-billing but I think Cap’n Crunch has the most screen time. At any rate, it’s unusual to see a hammer film like this, most of them focus on one or two folks, but here everyone gets a meaty role.

Unfortunately it’s just kind of slow. Things get off to a good start, with some ghostly horse-riders in the middle of the night, but they don’t appear again until it’s almost over. The rest is more or less people being British with one another and occasionally shooting at “scarecrows”. It’s entertaining to a degree, and had I known about the title shenanigans BEFORE I watched the movie I’d probably be more receptive to its horror-lite story. I like pirates.

One thing I don’t like, however, is the blatant cheat when it comes to the ghost riders. In wide shots, they are clearly ghosts - you can see through them and their horses have no legs (it looks like they are riding Jack Skellington’s dog). But then you find out that they are all mortal guys wearing costumes (who wants to bet M. Night Shymalan saw this movie?) and riding regular horses, which means that they shouldn’t be see-through - there’s nothing supernatural about the movie at all. But then, after this has already been made clear, director Peter Graham Scott cuts to another wide shot of them riding through a meadow, and they’re opaque again! What the hell, man?

This finishes up my Hammer Franchise Collection set. I need another! Anyone know of other Hammer collections (at least four films)? I have a few other single disc movies (including one or two on VHS that I still haven’t watched), but boxed sets are so much more enticing. And also cheaper - I got these 8 movies for 20 bucks, which is like getting six free.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday The 13th (2000)

APRIL 1, 2009

GENRE: COMEDIC, SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

In honor of April Fool’s Day (still pretty overwhelmed by the number of folks who were genuinely upset at the thought of losing HMAD - thanks all!), I figured I’d watch something comedic. And what better than a movie I got for free dog knows how long ago? So I dug Shriek If You Know What I Did Last Friday The 13th out of the bottom of my DVD rack and popped it in, expecting the absolute worst. Surprisingly, I actually laughed out loud a number of times and was more or less entertained by the damn thing.

Let’s not get crazy though - the movie mostly sucks. Few of the actors have any sort of comic timing (though that may be the fault of the director/editor as well), so a large number of jokes or sight gags that might have elicited a giggle just fail miserably. And the film “tries too hard” at times, as if it was some sort of sin to go more than 5 seconds without another attempt at a joke. By overloading it, you’re still groaning/annoyed at a bad joke when a good one comes along, so you don’t want to laugh. It’s like when you’re singing along in the car and some guy cuts you off and you’re like "FUCK YOU MOTHERFUCKER!" and then you feel weird for resuming singing.

Also, the tone is off. Parodies always work better when the characters aren’t actually AWARE they are in a parody. So instead of the “rules” of scary movies, we get the rules of parodies. Some of them are actually kind of funny, but the tone just doesn’t fit with the sight gags/horror injokes of the rest of the movie. However, this does lead to one of the film’s funnier lines - instead of watching scary movies they are watching parodies, with one guy awkwardly claiming that if you pause Airplane! at the right moment you can see Leslie Nielsen’s penis.

At any rate, it’s certainly better than Scary Movie, in that there were actually more than 2 or 3 good jokes in the film, and a reliance on actual humor instead of pop culture gags that were dated by the time the movie was released. Tiffani Amber-Thiessen shows off a rare comedic side, which was nice (she's among the few performers that seem comfortable with the spoof material, even fart jokes). I also loved the opening bit where the killer chases the Drew Barrymore clone around her table for a full minute (its one of those gags that’s funny, then not funny, and then funny again). And the batshit random parts often worked on me, like when Chucky appears out of nowhere, or the janitor that’s sweeping up dead bodies in the hallway. And I don’t care, a high school “German Club” where they just shout “Sig heil!” over and over is funny.

This brings me to a rather odd running gag in the movie. The killer is often seen killing people in the background (or foreground) without anyone paying him any mind, yet when it comes to our leads, he can never manage to actually kill any of them. Even at the end, when they start dying, it’s of their own stupidity instead of by his hand (Simon Rex’s character, for example, does so many steroids his head explodes). Not quite sure why they thought this would be funny, but it’s not. And granted, no one cares who the killer really is, but it’s still sort of a cheat, parody or not, to have him turn out to be someone who wasn’t even in the movie. Unless it’s a random celebrity (“Adam West?!” would be acceptable), it’s just pointless, and needless to say, not funny.

I also dug that they were parodying even the smaller bits of Scream, instead of just the most obvious scenes. One of my favorite little moments in Scream is when the sheriff is talking to Dewey, who has an ice cream cone. Each time the sheriff takes a drag of his cigarette, Dewey takes a bite of his cone. Anyway, they even parody that in this, except now Dewey’s caricature (Tom Arnold!) tosses it on the ground and “puts it out” with his foot. Heh. There’s also a bit that I swear is Tourist Trap inspired, so I’m sold. Hell, they even toss in a Teaching (Killing!) Mrs. Tingle reference, which has to be a first. And last.

I also want to make a note about the production company - it’s called “The Funny One, LLC”. Whether this is a sly dig at Scary Movie is unknown, but I like to think so. It’s hardly up there with Airplane! or Hot Shots, but it certainly proves how much a spoof film can still provide some entertainment with the long-overused formula as long as Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer aren’t involved with it.

The DVD - which I will be trading in for the princely sum of 1 dollar - has only the trailer (featuring gags not in the movie), and also a hilariously outdated spot for the Trimark (!!!) website, in which they claim you can “chat with big stars” over a shot of Robert Downey Jr., who presumably WOULD be doing such things in 2001 but not so much nowadays. Also, since Trimark has long since been absorbed by Lionsgate, I assume the URL is no longer valid.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...