Kaidan (2007)

JUNE 30, 2009

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

I was kind of surprised to see a new film from Hideo Nakata going direct to DVD. Not that a foreign film would ever see a wide release in the states (unless it involved a lot of guys being kicked. Or Nazis.), but I figured his name would carry enough weight to get him a limited release here, especially when dealing with familiar territory (vengeful ghosts). But after an hour or so of Kaidan, it became pretty clear why Lionsgate (or any other studio) wouldn’t want to spend the dough to put this in a few cinemas: for the most part, it’s a giant bore.

And it’s a shame, because at its core is a pretty interesting story. It’s kind of long-winded, but the long and short of it is that an ex-lover haunts a guy forever, bringing harm to each subsequent lover he takes. Everyone’s had to deal with an ex at some point, and the best horror films are the ones that are ramped up metaphorical takes on real world problems, so this should be a winner.

But that’s not the case. For starters, it’s too goddamn long. All Asian horror films run a bit on the long side, but they rarely FEEL as long as this one does, which is literally seconds under a full two hours but feels more like three. The core story is fairly simple, so what makes it so long? Well, how about the fact that the same shit happens over and over? Our “hero” (more on him in a bit) keeps taking on new lovers, the ex keeps appearing in occasionally creepy moments, and then in a panic he kills the new lover thinking that it’s the ex come back to life. The circular nature not only makes the film feel longer due to the repetition, but it also keeps the stakes from being raised. When your climax comes down to a sequence of events that is identical to something that occurred at the end of the first act, there’s a problem with the storytelling.

Another major problem is that our hero is a fucking douche. The whole movie could have been avoided if he wasn’t such a damn flirt. Within days of beginning a relationship with one woman, he’s chatting up and giving flowers to another. Over and over. He’s like Michael Mancini from Melrose Place (who at one point began cheating on his mistress with his wife’s sister). Plus, and I don’t mean to be mean about this, but the actor is kind of strange looking (he looks like a female Tim Curry in drag), so that he can so quickly attract and bed so many women in such a short period of time is sort of hard to swallow. Plus, again, he’s kind of an ass, so what the hell is the appeal? He doesn’t even have a good job! (He sells tobacco - more douchiness).

The sad thing is, had the movie been 90 minutes (and thus cutting down on the repetition), I’d probably have come out of it liking it more. There are some decent creepy moments here and there, and the finale (completely spoiled on the DVD cover, for some reason) is pretty epic, as our hero begins taking on like 10 dudes at once (and doing a fairly good job to boot) before receiving his final comeuppance. There’s also a shocking death late in the film, presented in a somewhat subtle “wait is he HOLY SHIT he IS dead!” manner. The setting is also quite nice, it’s not set in modern times for once (no haunted techno-devices, yay!), and shows a side of Japan we don’t often see in these films.

Also there’s a part where a couple argues and the woman tries to slam the little flimsy sliding door as she leaves. It’s awesome.

Also, and I can’t stress this enough - I liked that it made sense. At no time during the film was I confused as to what was going on or who certain characters were. By now I almost expect to be baffled by the narrative, so to maintain a strong grasp on the material was a refreshing change of pace. Plus I stayed awake for the entire thing, which I think is a first for a J-horror. Woo!

The only extra on the disc is a trailer reel, which has some of the usual LG stuff mixed with a few J-horrors, such as Ju-On 2 (the one I haven’t seen yet) and one of the Ringus. Ironically enough, I hope LG’s acquisition of this film means that they are considering a remake. I may be sick of Asian remakes, but for the most part that is due to the fact that they don’t change anything. Here, I really think that a good movie could be made out of this with a tighter script and more appealing actor (and character) in the lead. What’s Bradley Cooper up to?

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Simon Says (2006)

JUNE 29, 2009

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

Depending on how you look at it, Simon Says is either the worst you can do in the realm of decent movies, or the best you can do among the bad ones. There is JUST enough entertainment value to keep it from being completely abysmal, but at the same time I couldn’t really bring myself to care about a goddamn thing occurring on the screen. The film could have ended mid-scene and I wouldn’t have minded.

Let’s start with the good. The film stars Margo Harshman, whom I was quite taken with after a brief turn in From Within. The script doesn’t really give her a hell of a lot to do, but there IS a scene where she pretends to seduce Crispin Glover’s character, who is understandably smitten with her. And Glover is having fun, playing dual roles. One’s a retarded man-child, the other is a sort of southern-fried backwoods hostile type. Anyone who doesn’t spot the “twist” about his character from a mile away hasn’t seen enough movies (indeed, it's "revealed" in such a half-assed manner I have to assume the writer knew we all would have figured it out by then anyway), but it’s still fun watching him dive right into two roles and chew up the scenery, as opposed to the more introverted performance he gave in Willard, which was the last time I can recall him having so much screen-time.

I also liked the batshit crazy kills. Simon/Stanley has set up a bunch of contraptions around the forest, most of which, when triggered, will send a pickaxe (or several pickaxes) directly into someone’s skull or chest. There’s a hilarious bit where the resident stoner character sets one off and then rolls out of the way, dodging dozens of the damn things while continuing to smoke his fatty. Unfortunately, just about all of them are done nearly completely with terrible CGI, which severely lessens their impact. I understand that the film had a low budget and thus ILM probably wasn’t returning their calls, but still - it’s a shame to see so many cool kills wasted due to poor effects. Even if they were done right by someone else, they would lose their novelty a 2nd time around.

Also, the movie is strangely a slasher version of Scooby-Doo. The stoner guy (who looks like a young Dana Carvey) is obviously Shaggy, and there’s a dumb blond guy and an even dumber blond girl to stand in for Fred and Daphne. Harshman, as the final girl, I guess can be Velma, since she’s smarter than the others. There’s even a dog! Except it gets kicked to death, a fate that Scrappy unfortunately never suffered.

Bringing the movie down a few notches is the interminable first half hour or so (until the first kill, and actually a bit beyond since the first kill makes no goddamn sense). All of the characters are introduced as dipshits, to the extent that I couldn’t even tell which one was the Final Girl until I recognized Harshman. I’m not sure why so many modern slasher films go back to the generic stoner stereotype (Why not a heroin addict? Mix it up a little), but it wore thin years ago, and by now it’s just excruciating. And this guy is the absolute worst; I actually begin to long for Jack Black’s character in I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. Worse, since modern slashers always kill the Final Girl’s boyfriend off early on, we are stuck with him until almost the end of the movie. And to be fair, he does have his moments (the aforementioned stoner acrobatics), but the annoying ones all but completely obliterate them.

There are also some appalling jump cuts in the narrative. In the middle of the woods, stoner dude says (apropos of nothing) “do you know how long I can hold my breath?”, and then BAM! We cut to everyone on the shore of a lake, really concerned at how long the stoner guy has been under the water. Also, Simon stumbles upon a group of paintball players and then other campers (in case your déjà vu alarm just went off, yes - there are a number of moments in the film ripped off from Fridays 4-7), none of whom were introduced properly. Instead they are just suddenly in the scene as if they were always there. And then they get killed. It gives the film a sort of slapped together, careless feel, and coupled with the shitty effects, overshadows the film’s stronger points.

Also the movie uses “Zoot Suit Riot” TWICE. Good god. Nothing should bring back memories of that one summer when everyone was into swing/ska before coming back to their senses in the fall thanks to, well, Creed. Not really a lot better, but at least I never had trouble getting through Faneuil Hall due to a bunch of folks bouncing around like jackasses to the tune of “What’s This Life For?”.

Now, as I watched this online, I have no access to the extra features, which I understand is limited to a still gallery (which I wouldn’t bother with anyway) and a director commentary. Since the director is none other than William Dear, who directed Harry and the Hendersons, I would actually like to listen to him explain why he is now directing mediocre direct to video slasher movies. I would also like to hear why the entire Lively acting clan (Robyn, Blake, etc; though Jason must still be on his European Tour, as he’s MIA) shows up for a random cameo at the end of the film. Blake Lively’s appearance is actually prominently touted on the box, so Gossip Girl fans and/or pervy middle-aged masturbators will probably be disappointed that she appears only in the film’s final minute (and doesn’t even die). So if anyone has the disc and listened the commentary, let me know if it’s worth a listen. If he is under the impression that his film is a masterpiece and spends the whole time praising everyone including himself, then I’m not interested. If he’s candid and honest and knows exactly the kind of movie he made, then I will rent the disc proper and give it a listen. Deal?

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Four Flies On Grey Velvet (1971)

JUNE 28, 2009

GENRE: GIALLO, ITALIAN
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Even though I watch them all out of order, I never really grow tired of seeing Argento’s Giallo films. They’re all pretty much the same movie (artist of some sort, a murder, a helpful cop/PI, an ending that usually comes out of nowhere and is based on information we were never given), and obviously Argento was fine-tuning his craft until Deep Red, was pretty perfect until the late 80s or so, and then began to decline, but I walk away from just about all of them with equal satisfaction. So even though Four Flies On Grey Velvet (Italian: 4 Mosche Di Velluto Grigio) was one of his first, when he was still a bit sloppy, it’s as equally interesting to watch as say, Tenebrae, which is damn near perfect and was one of the first I watched, before I began to notice all the similarities (though I did point out that it was “similar to Deep Red”, natch).

This one’s a bit... loose, I guess I would say, compared to the others. Maybe the script just jumped around a lot, or maybe Argento was experimenting with editing. Either way, there are a number of scenes that seem to serve no purpose. Like when they cut away from a scene to show a woman yelling about getting the wrong mail. Her and her mail ultimately serve no function in the narrative, so why he would so quickly cut to her is beyond me. Also, the whole movie revolves around our hero” accidentally killing a guy, but it turns out that the guy isn’t really dead. This would usually be revealed via a line of dialogue from another character (like “Nice job faking your death...” and then the camera would reveal the non-dead guy with a shit-eating grin on his face). Here, we watch the guy eat dinner, make a phone call, walk around, and then finally meet up with someone else and explain why he isn’t really dead. I actually rewound the entire section of the film thinking I had missed something, because it was so oddly “revealed”.

Another odd thing, but one I kind of liked, is that the hero is a fucking douchebag. Not only does he cheat on his wife (with her cousin!) moments after refusing to join her on a trip, but he also seems to think everyone in his life should deal with him being a murderer rather than complain that it may bring them harm. He even treats the killing as something of an inconvenience; he repeatedly says “I killed a man” with the same tone of voice one would use to admit to scratching a car door in the parking lot. He also considers the flimsiest “evidence” in history (even for a Giallo) rock solid enough to start slapping the killer (a woman) around. Our hero!

Now to be fair, there might be more evidence. Unlike most Italian films’ US releases, no one bothered to translate any of the notes or newspaper articles that the characters look at before looking alarmed. As I do not speak Italian (though I have level 1 for Rosetta Stone!), I don’t know what any of these things are even referring to, let alone specifics. And given the amount of time spent in the movie on things that don’t matter, for all I know the newspapers are merely informing folks of the latest stock reports.

The movie has a “kill the killer and instantly cut to credits” ending though, so all is forgiven. Also, the little creepy puppet thing that the killer uses to hide behind (James Wan and Leigh Whannell have clearly seen the film) is awesome, I wish they had used it more in the movie. I also hope that they didn't destroy the only one they had for the trailer (it's damn upsetting to see it smashed up so badly in the spot - it's not in the film as far as I can recall).

A new DVD of this film has been asked about for years (I even asked Argento myself, when I interviewed him for Mother of Tears’ DVD release - total nerd boast post), so everyone owes Mya Communication (who?) a big sloppy kiss for putting one out, completely remastered and restored with a few seconds’ of material that was mysteriously cut from the US release. All of it occurs during the killer’s big explanation scene at the end of the film, and it’s still in Italian (even if you pick the English dub), so it’s easy to spot. The only other extras are trailers and the US version of the opening/end credits. It would have been nice to have Argento’s thoughts on the film finally seeing a proper release and also an explanation for those cuts (the theatrical cut’s version would make the killer’s motive even more baffling), but oh well. The transfer is top notch, so it’s definitely worth upgrading whatever shitty bootleg you had before.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Who Can Kill A Child? (1976)

JUNE 28, 2009

GENRE: KILLER KID
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

The question in the title of Who Can Kill A Child? (Spanish: ¿Quién Puede Matar A Un Niño?) is merely a rhetorical one, but the answer is pretty obvious after a while: the hero of this movie. While his wife never really shines on the whole “they are trying to kill us so it’s only fair that we defend ourselves” idea, dude practically embraces it after a while, machine-gunning the little bastards and smacking them around with oars and such. If they were to remake this movie, they simply have to cast Tom Jane in the role, since he’s proven to be good at such activity (The Mist) and also he’s an awesome guy and could use a good role.

The great thing about this movie is how goddamn unnerving it is. They never really explain why all of the kids snapped and killed the adults (the answer seems to be supernaturally-based though; there’s a scene where an evil kid stares down one who seems to be normal, and then the normal one is crazy too), but that’s what makes it scary. Plus, the kids seem to be having a grand old time, which makes it even scarier. The turning point comes when a really small one crawls into a duct in order to shoot our heroes, who have trapped themselves in a room. The kid smiles a big shit-eating grin before cocking the hammer, only to be gunned down by the hero, much to his wife’s horror.

Speaking of the wife, it’s not often I yell at a character in a movie, but I had no choice to do so when the dumb broad grabbed the steering wheel away from her husband, who was about to run over a bunch of kids in order to escape the town. The car crashes and they have to proceed on foot. If I was the husband, I can guarantee that if we managed to escape, I would be calling a divorce lawyer by the time we got back to safety. Not only did she ensure their doom, she also kept the audience from the awesome sight of a bunch of murderous children being run over. Lose-lose.

A couple of technical blunders could help make the case for a remake (which as far as I know, will never happen due to the fact that horror filmmakers today are mostly pussies when it comes to this particular subject matter). For starters, the blood is pink. Even Dawn of the Dead’s is more realistic. And there’s not a lot of it, which actually makes it worse. In Dawn, after a while you just got used to it, but here, it’s used so sparingly, it distracts every time. Also, the sound design is a bit annoying. The “La la la” music, meant to be creepy, is just irritating after the first time it’s used. It also jumps around a lot (though this might be the fault of the DVD, Dark Sky certainly fucked up before with the sound on their releases), so be prepared to keep your finger on the volume button so you can turn up some dialogue scenes and then turn down loud and shrill action bits.

Speaking of the dialogue, another thing I loved was how the couple spoke English when they were alone, but Spanish when they were talking to others (well, the husband does anyway). I always hate movies that feature people traveling to another country, yet the dub has everyone speaking the same language all the time. It adds a layer of realism to the film that you don’t often see.

Having just watched Children Of The Corn, and also Vinyan a few weeks ago, it’s even more impressive how much I enjoyed the film, and I want to thank HMAD reader Chris for recommending it.. They’re all basically the same movie (the creators of both have admitted to this film’s influence), but this is easily the best of the lot. The grim ending alone puts it above Children, and unlike Vinyan, it dives right into the horror aspect of it all, instead of endless bickering between the parents. Also, the island setting reminds me a lot of the one in Antropophagus, so there’s another check in the “pro” column.

The DVD has a few bonus features, which is nice as so many of these obscure Spanish films don’t have a goddamn thing. One is an interview with director of photography José Luis Alcaine, and the other is with director Narciso Ibáñez Serrador (who also directed Blame, something I was not aware of until after I watched the film). Both interviews are quite good, and contain the usual candid attitude that I love about these 70s guys (Serrador admits he didn’t like lead actor Lewis Fiander). There’s also a still gallery but I didn’t bother with it. There is also another unadvertised bonus, and that is the MOST ANNOYING MENU LOOP EVER! Good god, I made the mistake of putting the DVD in and then going to the bathroom, and had to endure 10 seconds of overly loud children laughing and 3 or 4 notes of music repeating over and over and over. By the time I was able to run over and hit play I began to wish that I had wiped my ass with the DVD instead of TP. This sort of helps my theory that the film’s sound issues are the fault of Dark Sky and not the film, however, so that’s good.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

I Sell The Dead (2008)

JUNE 26, 2009

GENRE: COMEDIC, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (FILM FESTIVAL SCREENING)

Heading into Westwood again (ugh), I was a bit weary of I Sell The Dead. Not that it sounded bad or anything, but because I took a quick look at director Glenn McQuaid’s filmography on IMDb, and discovered that it was almost guaranteed to be scarier than anything in the film itself: The Off Season, Trigger Man, etc. But he just worked effects on those films; I Sell The Dead is his directorial debut, based on his own script. I tried to keep that in mind as I sat down to watch the film, and to my happy surprise, my fears were mostly unwarranted: this movie's quite fun.

For starters, the tone is definitely that of old EC Comics (I just picked up "The 10 Cent Plague", which details the efforts to censor/outlaw EC's and other comics in the 50s, can’t wait to read it), something we don’t get often enough. Maybe folks are just too afraid to be compared to Creepshow, but this tale of a pair of graverobbers is a perfect fit for the stylized and "funny/scary" feel of Romero's film. McQuaid tackles the inevitable comparisons head on, though, with some animated transitions and combined “overlay” style shots. But there’s nothing wrong with evoking the style of a terrific movie, and there’s no reason why the EC style should be limited to one film (one from over 25 years ago at that). Let’s bring it back!

I also dug the engaging performances by Dominic Monaghan and Larry Fessenden as Arthur and Willie, our heroes. Monaghan is in slightly familiar territory; some of his dialogue and character actions brings Charlie Pace to mind, but he’s having a lot of fun, and as long as he's starring in a film, he is not romancing my beloved Evangeline Lilly, so I am all for him starring in more films. Plus, his character explains sandwiches at one point, forever endearing the character to me. Fessenden is even better though. It’s rare to see him in such a large role (Habit I think is the only one he may have had more screen time, and that’s just because the movie’s longer), and he is a riot, owning most of the film’s best moments. His unconventional appearance limits the type of roles he can take, but it’s good to know that when the need arises, he can do more than pop up in minor roles.

It’s also impressive on a technical level. The budget surely wasn’t too high, but they really sell the “ye olden tymes” setting with the sets and exterior locations (graveyards, mostly). So I was amazed to discover that the entire film was shot in New York, including parts of Manhattan. It takes place in some unspecified time in the past (let’s say the late 1700s), so you’d suspect maybe some isolated European villa served as the primary shooting location, but nope. Everything’s within driving distance of the Empire State building. Excellent work. The opening credits are also incredible; it’s one of the best of its type I have seen in ages.

The only area that could have used some work is in the story’s structure. It feels too episodic at times, without any real driving force heading toward the film’s conclusion. For example, at one point they dig up the grave of what turns out to be an alien, and you think that the movie is suddenly going to kick it up a notch and open up this large conspiracy of grave robbing or something, but once the particular matter is dealt with, it’s never mentioned again. McQuaid admits that the film started off as an anthology (before he decided to focus on the Monaghan and Fessenden characters), but it often still feels that way. There are basically four stories in the film of about 20 minutes or so each, plus a wraparound with Monaghan telling the story (stories) to Ron Perlman. And each story works on its own, but when combined it feels a bit like watching four episodes of a TV show back to back, rather than a typical cinematic feature. And again, the film is still plenty entertaining, but I just wish that the story was as impressive as its cast and technical aspects.

Image Comics will be putting out a one-shot comic that tells the film’s story (with some changes; it was based on an earlier draft of the script, presumably one without budgetary limitations factored in) this August, and I can’t wait to get it. The art in the film (and on the film’s awesome poster) is quite good, and I suspect that the story may even be more enjoyable in graphic form. It would certainly make an excellent monthly series, with Arthur and Willie continually discovering different monsters (along with the alien, the movie also has vampires, zombies, and ghouls), grave-robbing rivals, etc. Fans of "The Goon" or Ben Templesmith’s "Wormwood" series would definitely dig it.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

ZMD: Zombies Of Mass Destruction (2009)

JUNE 25, 2009

GENRE: COMEDIC, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (FILM FESTIVAL SCREENING)

I am not a successful screenwriter, but my buddy Simon is, so I will steal his description of the LA Film Festival, because it’s better than mine: "Their programming is elitist, they show movies everyone's already seen, and the festival takes place in a part of town, Westwood, where I wouldn't take a sick dog to get murdered."

I totally agree with his sentiment, but for whatever reason, their horror selections tend to be on the “good” side of things. I saw Let The Right One In there, as well as X-Cross (when the hell is that movie going to come out?!?), Flight of the Living Dead, and also an encore of Embodiment of Evil. But on the flipside, I am a bit tired of zom-coms, so I wasn’t sure how I would feel about ZMD: Zombies Of Mass Destruction. Luckily, it was a winner, and continued LAFF’s above average ratio of hits to misses within their still-too-narrow horror selection.

(I also stayed awake for the entire movie, which is something I’ve never accomplished at the Majestic Crest. Score!)

What sets ZMD apart from say, Dance Of The Dead (still not sure why people love that one so much), is an increasingly rare focus on actual social commentary within the zombie shenanigans. Every zombie film in the past 40 years owes at least a little to Romero, but doing the whole “message!” thing seems to be going by the wayside. Not that it’s a completely terrible thing to just make a straight up zombie film, but it would be nice to see a bit more often. Here, we have a directly post 9-11, George W. Bush America version of the usual “small town is besieged” setup (as opposed to the more metaphorical approach in Romero’s Land of the Dead). Our heroine is an Iranian who everyone thinks is an Iraqi, and has to deal with the fact that a good chunk of the town (thanks to a very obvious Fox News parody broadcast) thinks that “Middle Eastern terrorists” are responsible for the zombie plague.

Our other heroes are a pair of homosexuals, one of whom is still closeted. They have returned to town in order for the closeted one to finally confess to his mother that he is gay, at the insistence (OK, demand) of his lover, who is proudly “out”. The film specifically takes place in 2003, so writer/director Kevin Hamedani lost a bit of humor potential, as the topic of gay marriage is a far more prominent issue nowadays than it was 5-6 years back. In fact, the only time the humor really didn’t work on me is when the local priest hooks one of them up to a machine that can “straighten him out”. The humor in the film all works from the realistic characters faced with the ridiculous notion of the living dead, and this machine almost seems more far-fetched than the idea of zombies.

But like all zom-coms, you have to expect a certain number of dud gags and jokes, so it’s hardly problematic, especially when so many work. I laughed out loud a dozen times, and was charmed throughout. There’s a gag involving someone trying to escape after being (briefly) tortured that had me laughing for at least a minute, and someone’s simple reaction (“What?!?!”) to a particularly strange event made me laugh even harder. There are also a number of unique zombie gags, which is pretty impressive as you would think that it would be hard to come up with even one at this point.

It also has a few decent scares (p.s. slow zombies for the win!). The first outright attack is played for laughs, but it’s also fairly shocking in its suddenness. An assumed “safe” character is also done in when you least expect it, and it allows for some genuine suspense as our heroes make their way to safety, as you have that “no one is safe” feeling. Well played. The ending comes a bit abruptly (plus two of the featured humans suddenly disappear), but it’s still one of the more satisfying conclusions to a zombie film in recent memory, without any needless sequel setup (or worse, a sudden downbeat turn, like Bio-Zombie).

None of the actors have extensive resumes, but they are all pretty engaging, particularly Janette Armand as Freda, the heroine. Not only is she hot as hell, but she is quite natural both in the character scenes as well as the zombie killing ones. A terrific find. I also loved Andrew Hyde as her neighbor, who harbors an understandable crush on her (if you don’t laugh at “She’s four feet away!” early on, you’re a damn robot). His name is Brian though, so part of that might stem from my forever unfulfilled desire to play myself in a zombie movie (or for zombies to be real and get to fight some. Either or).

Man, I even liked the HD cinematography. Some of the wider shots suffer, as if the camera can’t handle more than 20 feet or so in front of the lens, but most of it takes place indoors, and the lighting is quite good. The movie probably cost less than a million bucks, yet looks 10x better than Michael Mann’s mega budget Public Enemies (seriously Mann, you’re one of our greatest modern directors - go back to using film please. Or at least have Robert Rodriguez show you how to use digital film.).

Obviously, the film is making the festival rounds right now, but hopefully folks can get an opportunity to see it soon without the hassle of a festival keeping them at bay. It’s the best of its type since Shaun Of The Dead, and the fact that it blends the social commentary in to boot (and does so in a slightly more subtle manner than stuff like Zombie Strippers) is quite laudable. If you’re expecting a special effects demo reel in the form of a film, you will probably be disappointed (though there is a sufficient amount of gore, and some great effects along with it - faces being pulled off, eyes falling out, etc). This ain’t a “splatter” zombie film. But it is a good one.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Children Of The Corn (1984)

JUNE 24, 2009

GENRE: CULT, KILLER KID
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I dunno how, but I have managed to see many of the DTV sequels (and this was long before the HMAD days), yet never watched the original Children Of The Corn. I caught bits and pieces on local TV stations on lazy summer days (any New Hampshire readers? WNDS for the win!), and must have mentally figured that was good enough to dive into the increasingly ludicrous sequels (I gave up after the one with Naomi Watts).

Unsurprisingly, this one is the best, assuming my less than glowing memories of the others hold true today (though I recall thinking that the 3rd one, which took place in an urban city, wasn’t too bad). It’s obviously stretched from a short story, but in a way that sort of makes what works about the film even more impressive. In the original story, they hit the kid, drive to Gatlin, and pretty much die instantly. It’s fast paced and somewhat pulpy, with a downer ending and minimal time spent with the children.

The movie, on the other hand, pretty much throws everything out. The characters have the same names, and they go to Gatlin seeking help after hitting a kid, but that’s about it. For starters, the movie couple is fairly happy, whereas in the story they hate each other and are on the brink of divorce. They even change little things about the characteristics; for example, the guy (Burt) in the story has quit smoking, but in the movie he smokes, despite the fact that actor Peter Horton does NOT smoke in real life and looks rather silly trying to appear as if he’s a regular. Why bother making the change?

Also, the movie introduces two sympathetic children who help our heroes. I can go either way on them. I liked the idea of the whole town truly being against these two schmucks, but a 90 minute movie would suffer from the basic fact that neither of them would come into any real danger until the final 10 minutes or so. With the children, we at least have the suspense over whether or not the kids are really helping them, or leading them into a trap.

The movie also makes Vicky (Linda Hamilton) more integral to the proceedings. In the story she sits in the car while Burt looks around (for like, 2 pages) and then disappears, only to be found dead later on. Here, she goes along with Burt, bonds with the little girl, etc. Director Fritz Kiersch gets some mileage (OK, padding) by splitting them up and cutting back and forth between their respective “investigation”. And I love the bit of how they know something’s wrong because the "TV Guide" they find is three years old.

That bit and several others seem very Stephen King esque, so it may come as something of a surprise to learn (if you haven’t read the story) that all of these things were the invention of screenwriter George Goldsmith (King had no involvement with the film’s production). Specific rock n roll songs, a mechanic who treats his dog like a partner (and says the film’s best line: “We’re out of gas... and you can’t use the bathroom unless you buy some gas!”), etc... these things all reek of King’s pop-culture and oft-overlooked comic touch, but none of them are in the story (the mechanic character is the film’s design entirely). It’s kind of odd that they managed to completely change the structure and ending of his story but yet come off as feeling faithful to his style.

Speaking of the ending, it feels like a bit of a copout. I figured Hamilton would live, especially as she takes on a bit of a mother role for the two “good” kids, but why couldn’t Horton have bought it? Goddamn happy endings. Luckily this was 1984, so if you wanted to see Hamilton lose her love interest in a movie, you only had to wait a couple months, but still.

Anchor Bay’s Blu-Ray is pretty goddamn phenomenal, if I do say so myself. They’ve never really disappointed me with their transfers, but holy shit. The level of detail and vibrancy to the color is astonishing, particularly in the well-lit diner scene that opens the film. The credits sequence as well; you can actually see the texture of the cheap paper on which the little girl has colored all of her visions. I’m no expert on high def and all that stuff, but I know what I can see, and I can see that of all the “old” movies I’ve seen on Blu, this is by far the most impressive.

They have also put together a nice collection of extras, both new and old. Carried over from the 20th anniversary DVD is a 36 minute recollection from cast and crew. It’s a typical piece, and a lot of the stuff is covered on the other supplements, including the three new pieces. One is with the production designer and composer, two folks you don’t often hear from on these type of things. Then Hamilton (who does not appear on the original piece) talks about her experiences, and also seems to be unaware that John Franklin, who played Isaac, was not a young boy but a 23 year old man at the time of filming (Franklin suffers from a growth deficiency). Finally, producer Donald P. Borchers talks about his role in the production, though he seems like he is reading his memories from a report. The commentary is also held over, and it’s a fun track, with Kiersch, Franklin, Courtney Gains, and producer Terrence Kirby ribbing each other and occasionally pointing out some errors (and those god awful effects - apparently New World cut their budget halfway through filming). You can also put on a trivia track, but like Hellraiser’s, a lot of the stuff the track displays is identical to what is being said on the commentary. Though, it does offer up a few new gems, such as the fact that Hamilton and Horton (who doesn’t appear in any of the bonus features) were once married and divorced before they made the film. Given that the short story had the two of them fighting and bickering all the time, I have to wonder why they didn’t use this to their advantage and get what would be the most genuine “couple who hates each other” chemistry in film history.

If you have the old release, then you probably don’t need to upgrade unless you own a Blu-Ray player (which you damn well should). The new supplements are good, but nothing that will justify another 15-20 bucks. However, if you’re like me and equipped with BR, then by all means check this disc out when it hits stores in a few weeks. The transfer is immaculate and can be used as a reference for whenever an “old” movie (ahem, Ghostbusters) has a less-than-stellar BR transfer and people say “Well how good can it look when it’s x amount of years old?”. If a low-budget B movie can look this good in high def, everything should.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Bloodstained Shadow (1978)

JUNE 23, 2009

GENRE: GIALLO, ITALIAN
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

It’s rare I watch a Giallo that’s not from Argento or Bava, so if The Bloodstained Shadow (Italian: Solamente Nero) is not one of the better ones outside of their realm, please accept my apology for enjoying it, and then suggest some others. For all I know, it’s among the weakest, because I have so little to compare it to. It could use some tightening and a bit more gore, but otherwise it’s exactly what I want from a Giallo.

And what do I want, exactly? Well, some great murder scenes, obviously. Like I said, there’s not a lot of blood (the murderer mainly just strangles folks, though there is a nice bit where he/she tosses an old woman into a fire), but they are all well-staged and coherent, which is more than you can say about some others I’ve seen. By grounding the film in something that actually resembles reality, it allows the story and characters to shine through, with some impressive visuals to boot.

It also has its fair share of wonderfully strange moments, like when a woman tries to cheer up her retarded son by dismembering a doll that he hates (this part actually disturbed me a little, as she really fucking annihilates the damn thing). I also love all of the extras in the movie, as they are all colorfully blunt and seemingly carrying out their actual lives. There’s a pair of drunks outside of a restaurant rambling about whether or not one has time for another round, a few cops questioning the sex life of the film’s hero, and a guy who is really impatient about getting his food in another restaurant scene. It’s also the rare film to have a line of dialogue like this: “That man has tried to molest my little boy again. This is the fourth time!”

She says this to a priest, who then goes off to confront the would-be pedo. The idea of a priest giving someone shit for being a child molester is somewhat like me complaining about someone being too harsh on Lionsgate. Also, the plot point is rather unnecessary in the long run (the guy is one of the first to die, and his red herring man-servant is never seen again), but it’s still, if nothing else, unique.

I also liked how the mystery was structured. Some might consider the end a bit of a cheat, but I didn’t see it that way, and thanks to an exposition-heavy explanation from the hero as to how he figured out who the killer was (complete with flashback footage - it’s like an early version of the Saw montage), everything makes sense and fits together. There’s a brief moment early on that seems to be trying to make the hero a viable suspect (he appears wet when there was no reason for him to have been outside), but other than that, it’s unusually sound in that department. Plus I didn’t figure out the killer’s identity until pretty late into it, so that’s also good.

I am curious - does Venice only have that one street, or is that the only one that they allow film crews to work on? It’s the same one you see in Don’t Look Now, Last Crusade, and probably a dozen others. When our heroine (Suspiria’s Stefania Casini) begins walking around the area, I kept expecting that freaky little rain-coated woman to run out and stab a surprised Donald Sutherland.

The DVD’s only extra besides the trailer is an interview with director Antonio Bido, who comes across as far more sane and coherent than many of his peers. He explains why Goblin is not credited with the score, talks about working with the actors, and apologizes for not sticking with the Giallo genre, and mentions having a new script in that vein, which, 7 years later, has sadly not been filmed. Maybe if Argento’s aptly titled Giallo is a hit, it can help pave the way for a resurgence in the genre. It’ll help keep me in business, at any rate.

I was saddened to discover that this film is relatively unheralded. The trailer is not on Youtube (a scene is though), the IMDb page is below average in terms of having info (the message board is completely empty too), and there is no Wikipedia page for it. There's a lengthy page for the Saw theme song ("Hello Zepp"), but not for this movie? Come on now.

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...

From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter (2000)

JUNE 22, 2009

GENRE: VAMPIRE
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Dear PJ Pesce,

Stop making direct to video sequels to beloved vampire movies. While From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter has its moments (unlike Lost Boys 2: The Tribe, which had none), it’s still a pretty lame movie, and drags down the reputation of the awesome original. It’s clear that you’re a pretty lousy filmmaker, so if you could stick to making your own films outside of franchises, that would be great. Thanks!

Sincerely,
BC

And now on with the review!

I can’t remember much of the 2nd film anymore (Texas Blood Money), but I do recall that its connection to the original was rather flimsy. That is not the case with Hangman’s Daughter; not only does the ending take place in what will eventually be the Titty Twister, it also features the origin (sort of) of Santanico Pandemonium, albeit played by someone that isn’t quite as “Holy fucking shit!” hot as Salma Hayek was in the first film (if Edward Cullen is the alpha and omega for women who wish to be bitten by a vampire, than Santanico Pandemonium (pre-snake head version) is his female equal).

The problem is, they also try to match the original’s structure, in that you don’t know it’s a vampire movie until halfway through. Well, this is a sequel (or prequel, whatever), so I think anyone sitting down for it knows it’s a vampire movie. So keeping vampires out of it for a solid HOUR is just unforgivable. Hell, that’s even longer than it took for the first one to turn into a horror movie, which was also a longer film to boot. If the first one was like 60/40 in favor of vampires, this one is more like 70/30 in favor of criminals being bad but not so bad that you can’t justify rooting for them.

And that’s the other thing - why retain the same sort of “we all have a reason to hate each other but we have to band together against the vampires” thing and not even really follow through with it? The cool thing about the first one is that eventually, Clooney is a full on hero, protecting Juliette Lewis’ character. Here, they never really call a truce with one another; even when the vampires are attacking, the hangman is still trying to kick the hero guy’s ass. It makes the vampires feel like a non-threatening afterthought.

Also botching what little potential the film had is the abhorrent editing. So many moments fall completely flat because it seems like the revealing shot was taken away. At one point Michael Parks’ character says “Let’s get out of here!” and heads for the door, and then in the next shot everyone is surrounded by vampires. Huh? This is something that occurs almost every single time a horror or action element is introduced into a scene, to the point where I wondered if I was watching the airline version of the movie or something.

However, if you actually look at it as an action movie, it’s not TOO bad. The opening bit is like a lost sequence from one of Robert Rodriguez’s Desperado films (indeed, RR is credited with this film’s story), featuring some cool, physics-be-damned stunts and nice gunplay. There’s also a pretty rollicking wagon heist a bit later, marred only by the inclusion of Rebecca Gayheart, one of the most boring actresses of her generation (good thing she turned to crack...whatever keeps her out of movies). Luckily she’s one of the first to die, but that’s about 45 minutes later.

Also, the movie takes the bold step of trying to explain what happened to author Ambrose Bierce, who disappeared without a trace while traveling Mexico in 1914. Parks plays Bierce (and thus presumably NOT an ancestor of his character from the first film), and according to this movie, the reason he disappeared is because he fought a bunch of vampires and then rode off into the sunset with a thief and murderer. I’ll buy it. Of course, I find the notion of people that disappear and don’t leave a single trace behind to be very creepy, so I am a bit disappointed that they couldn’t have gone with something a bit more “horror” themed (like, I dunno, a goddamn vampire ate him). If you’re going to piss on someone’s legacy, go all out!

The DVD’s sole extra is a deleted scene (really an alternate ending), and they needn’t have bothered even with that much, though it does sort of tie into my “I wish a vampire ate him” idea. Dimension actually gave the film an anamorphic transfer (one of the very few in their late 90s/early 00s output), something the original film still hasn’t even gotten in Region 1. But like just about all of the Disney releases pre-high def mastering, anamorphic or not, the transfer is fucking shit. There’s no detail on anyone’s faces, backgrounds might as well be watercolors, and the sound is rather flat. Other older DVDs hold up well in the age of upscaling and Blu-ray, so I’m not sure why Disney (which includes Dimension, Miramax, Touchstone, and Hollywood, among others) always looked so lousy. It’s clear enough to see the strings on some of the bats though, so there’s something.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Wendigo (2001)

JUNE 21, 2009

GENRE: MONSTER, PSYCHOLOGICAL (?)
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

One of my many irrational fears is that of snipers. Maybe it’s because I saw The Deadly Tower as a young man. Maybe I am the reincarnation of someone who died from sniper fire in a war or something. Maybe I just suck at Team Snipers. Whatever the reason, it allowed me to feel genuine dread for the first hour or so of Larry Fessenden’s Wendigo, as it deals with a regular family seemingly being stalked by a hunter as they try to vacation in a remote cabin.

The hunter is pissed at them because the dad (Jake Weber! Love that guy) hit a deer with his car and broke the antlers, which I guess would make for a pretty shitty trophy. The most unnerving scenes in the film (besides their initial confrontation, which scared me a bit due to a recent incident of my own in a parking lot with some drunken ass who thought I was parked too close to his car) are those in which Weber (and later his wife) find a hole in the wall caused by a bullet. That is so goddamn freaky! The idea that you could just be sitting in your home and then WHAM! You are shot by a guy standing hundreds of feet away.

Slightly less scary is the moment when the sniper actually DOES shoot Weber, but that’s more my fault than Fessenden’s. See, I’m sort of a cynical ass, and I always suspect that trouble is about to strike whenever movie or TV characters are experiencing joy. This is likely caused by love of Prison Break, in which characters ARE suddenly shot or blown up or run over or whatever whenever they find themselves at ease for even a moment. So Weber and his kid are sledding, and having a grand old time, and I suddenly yell "BLAM!" (as a joke), which drowned out the actual gunshot that occurred literally half a second after I made my dumb joke. I knew eventually more than a wall would take a bullet, but I honestly didn’t think it would happen so suddenly.

Sadly, from that point on the film begins to flounder. We get a twig monster that gave me unfortunate flashbacks to the horrid Blair Witch game for the PC, a guy in a monster suit (I think this is supposed to be an actual monster though, perhaps the title character), some weird acting by Weber, and a somewhat vague finale that seems to suggest the entire film was either a dream or the unconscious doing of the little kid. The reason the fim was working as well as it was for the first hour was the subtle realism of the whole thing; scaring you with simple tension. You throw a twig monster into the mix and you’re off in a different direction entirely. Incidentally, his film Last Winter suffered from a similar 3rd act problem, though this film I think works longer than Winter did before it started to go off the rails. However, I would like to watch that film again, now that I am more familiar with his work.

He also keeps throwing in these “animations” (his words), which are little sequences of filmed stills of the house (or a deck of cards, or a picture book), presented in rapid fire montage. They don’t really fit, in my opinion, and even if I didn’t suspect that they were a product of the time (2000), he also tosses in a straight up “Matrix shot” (spinning 180 degrees around a frozen moment in time) to prove it. It’s an indulgence he didn’t repeat with Last Winter (at least, not as far as I can recall), so hopefully it’s out of his system for good.

Also, he doesn’t have a cameo in the movie, which surprised me. He’s appeared in all of his others, plus shows up in so many indie horror movies (including Trigger Man, which also dealt with the dangers of snipers), so I’m not sure why he didn’t show up here. Not that I mind much, I find cameos distracting. Also, on the extras, we get the impression that he was wearing the Wendigo costume for at least some of the time, so there you go.

The extras are pretty solid. Larry gives a commentary in which he points out some stuff that had gone over my head, such as the idea that violence is part of everything we do (focusing on the knives/swords brandished by the Kings and Queens in a deck of cards), so it’s worth a listen. There’s also a terrific “fly on the wall” type behind the scenes piece that runs a little over a half an hour and covers many areas of production, including all of the extensive work that went into making the monster suit. Fessenden also gives an interview in which he talks about filmmaking in general. All of it is worth a look (unless you hated the movie, in which case you should probably play some Xbox or maybe make yourself a nice sandwich). I just wish that the comic book that is often mentioned was presented in whole as DVD-rom feature or something; it looks really cool but it’s also the type of thing I’ll never remember to look for once I hit “post” at the bottom of this review. Someone remind me!

In closing, I just want to ask the IMDb to stop listing shorts alongside features, or to at least designate them as such on the person’s filmography (with an (S) or something, like the (V) they put next to direct to video films). Larry has done about a zillion shorts, and while I’m sure they are worth a look, I just want to see what other features he has done. But to do so, I have to keep clicking on each title to see whether or not “Short” is listed in the genre section. Stop wasting my time, you IMDbastards!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus (2009)

JUNE 20, 2009

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

The sad fate of Mega Shark Vs. Giant Octopus is that the trailer was seen by so many people who have never endured an Asylum film before. While it’s not directly ripping off any major blockbuster (as the trailers for upcoming Asylum films all are, including a Transmorphers sequel), the lack of action, horrible sets, and other blemishes are par for the course, so they will likely be disappointed that the film in no way lives up to its trailer.

And hell, it doesn’t even live up to their other crap-fests. At least Monster offered a reasonably decent pace (and camera-appropriate cinematography, which was actually an improvement over the too clean Cloverfield), but this is just a snoozefest, even during some of the shark/octopus scenes. I guess without a professional film to emulate, they are left to their own devices, forced to come up with their own character templates and plot points.

Some of those plot points include two scientists shacking up in a closet within minutes of their introduction to one another, and the fact that the shark and octopus were frozen in the middle of a fight, but upon being thawed, seemingly call it a truce and swim to opposite ends of the world, only to restart their battle thanks to a ruse involving pheremones. As for characters, we get Lorenzo Lamas playing the same generic “hard-ass” he always plays, and a guy that’s “getting married in two days” that is seemingly by himself on a plane (if you’ve seen the trailer, you know what plane I am referring to).

But this is a globe-trotting adventure! There are something like 30 countries represented in this movie, each with their own on-screen text explaining where they are. They go so overboard with this that even a goddamn helicopter flying around gets a setting card. However, while they do a decent job of matching the stock footage up with their stuff, all of the interiors look identical, so whether we are seeing the exterior of an oil rig in China or an army base on the California coast, it’s all the same goddamn control room in an abandoned warehouse somewhere in Chatsworth. It’s like watching a full length version of MacGruber.

The most puzzling aspect of the film, however, is director Ace Hannah’s (not a real name, thank Christ) insistence on removing the color for a second or two in the middle of a shot. Usually it’s to emphasize a lackluster action beat, like the Octopus wrapping its tentacle around a ship or whatever, but some of them come at random too. And it’s a terrible and annoying effect regardless of how properly he is using it. Knock it the fuck off.

But yeah, every awesome part is in the trailer, and when the film finally lives up to its title (10 minutes before it ends), all that happens is the octopus “hugs” the shark, who sort of writhes around for the most part (it does bite off part of a tentacle, an injury that disappears in subsequent shots). We see the same FX shot of this “struggle” three or four times, and then all of a sudden they just sort of sink down a bit and Lamas (or Debbie Gibson, I forget) announces that they are dead. I mean, Freddy Vs. Jason is just as bad until they get to the fight, but at least the fight delivered. This movie tops out twenty minutes in (the plane part) and never even gets close to "awesome" ever again (though it is kind of funny when a guy talks about “looking into the octopus’ eye” when the stock footage shows us a real, non giant octopus that appears to be sleeping).

To give the filmmakers credit though, this is seemingly the first DTV underwater monster movie in history where they chose quality over quantity when it comes to showing their monsters. The effects during the “above water” scenes suck, but when they are underwater “fighting” or just swimming around, they’re actually not too bad. So instead of a hundred bad shots, we have like ten OK ones (and they’re all reused two or three times).

Also, since the movie was just shot a few months ago (over the course of a week or so - I’m not lying), we have what I believe is the first released film to have that red/blue Obama “Hope” bumper sticker in it. So they got that going for them.

The DVD offers us a blooper reel which is mainly of one particular actor blowing his lines (and going all Ed Harris when he does so, so it has unintentional humor value). We also get to see the fairly impressive forced perspective technique they used for a shot of a dead whale on a beach. They are a little off with the scale (the whale seems to be about 200 feet long), but it’s a nice old-school approach that I respect. The Asylum also provides us with eight whole minutes of behind the scenes footage, like Lorenzo Lamas talking about his death scene, which is odd when you consider the fact that his character doesn’t die. The DP also offers his insight, which is the insight of a man who thinks he’s making high art, rambling about how the long takes allow the performances to come alive. Hilariously, he is more or less cut off by the end of the piece; a full frame graphic saying “THE MAKING OF MEGA SHARK VS GIANT OCTOPUS!!!”, as if to shame him into realizing what kind of movie he was talking about. The trailer is also included, but it’s buried in the “trailers” page instead of being showcased in the extras, and it’s not even the awesome one everyone watched on Youtube (neither Mega Shark nor Giant Octopus appear in the 30 second spot). Along with Transmorphers 2: Fall of Man, Asylum also promises us Dragonquest (an Eragon ripoff), Countdown: Jerusalem (appears to be a lift from 2012), and The Terminators (duh). There’s nothing for Star Trek, so I guess its success was just as much a surprise to them as the rest of us.

Oh, and keep the end credits rolling, as there’s a fake Evanescence song to enjoy. Asylum must be taking their unique brand of “how are they not getting sued?” entertainment into the music world!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Evilspeak (1981)

JUNE 19, 2009

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

When I watched Carrie 2 a few weeks ago (or last week, whenever the hell it was), I was trying to think if there were any male equivalent films. Sure, there’s something like Fade To Black, but that didn’t have any supernatural elements. As far as a guy getting actual powers and striking back against bullies and such, I couldn’t think of any. Not even Evilspeak, which I bought months ago and forgot about.

Unlike Carrie and her ilk, our hero Stanley (Clint Howard!) doesn’t have powers from the start. He’s just an incredibly clumsy and un-liked kid who finds a Satanic computer in the basement of his Catholic military school (sure, why not?). And even once he starts dabbling in its dark magickal powers, he doesn’t really do anything until the film’s final 10 minutes or so. The computer actually has a bunch of pigs do its bidding. And no, this movie doesn’t take place on a farm; so I have no idea why the school has a pigpen in the first place, but I guess it’s worth it for the scene where a hot secretary woman is taking a horror movie shower and is suddenly eaten by a bunch of pigs who have somehow gotten into her apartment building.

So whenever the pigs aren’t around, not much is happening. Stanley falls down, gets picked on, gets yelled at by his teachers, etc. And he gets a puppy, so you know what’s going to happen there. It’s probably the first (and last) time I’ve actually looked forward to the scene where the poor pup is killed, because after a while I figured it would be what finally set Stanley off and the movie could get going. Incidentally, I knew a dog died in the movie and that’s why I put off watching it for so long, as it’s one of the few things in a movie I can’t deal with watching. Ever see Dominick & Eugene? You’d have to be a goddamn robot not to cry when Dominick’s dog gets run over.

The slowness doesn’t really hurt too much though. The ending mostly makes up for it, as Stanley begins flying around with a sword and lopping off the heads of each bully, plus he immolates a whole bunch of folks who never really did him any wrong (a truly original idea for this type of film!). He even throws a guy into the ceiling and somehow impales him on a candelabra! The pigs return too, for good measure. Plus, the slack pace allows for more character development, even the bullies get a few humanizing moments. And come on, how often do you get to see a film that STARS Clint Howard, instead of just having him sort of hanging out in the background of his brother’s films or making brief appearances in lousy horror movies.

One thing that does kinda fall flat is the final minute. Not only does someone besides Stanley kill the head bully (Don Stark!), but then it just sort of fades out while Stanley is still flying around. Then we get some on-screen text saying that he was put into an institute, before the computer turns back on and promises Stanley’s return, which never actually occurred, as far as I know.

The score is straight up ripped off from The Omen (and Omen II, for that matter), but I liked it. It often sounds like they are chanting “Santa lost”, which is a wonderful image to have if you are a big fan of Jack Skellington.

Can’t deny it makes sense...

The DVD has about 20 seconds of previously excised footage cut back into the film. The quality isn’t as good (the added shot during the pig/woman kill looks like a bootleg of stock footage from a VHS tape), but it’s a nice touch. There are supposedly another 20 minutes of footage still missing, but it’s mostly character stuff that most modern audiences would probably hate anyway. Still, it would have been nice to have on the disc, especially since it’s available elsewhere. Clint also provides a commentary along with producer/director/co-writer Eric Weston and one of the film’s PAs (whose name escapes me). It’s not a particularly interesting track; Clint has some funny memories about long shooting days (and having to buy his own toupee - was the guy always bald?), but the other two don’t say much except to point out where things were shot. And Weston sounds like Norm McDonald impersonating a Speak n’ Spell. The highlights have been turned into the trivia on the film’s IMDb page, so unless you’re a die hard fan of the film, you can skip it without worry. The trailer’s also on there, which makes the film look a lot more schlocky (read: “awesome”) than it is. So basically, it’s an OK package for an OK movie.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Anacondas: Trail Of Blood (2009)

JUNE 18, 2009

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

Those who follow me on Twitter already know the tragedy that struck today when I opened my DVD of Argento’s Four Flies On Grey Velvet. Namely, the disc inside was some documentary about babies. So I reported the disc as “having a problem” and brought it to my nearest Blockbuster to trade in for an actual horror movie. Making matters worse, all I could find was Anacondas: Trail Of Blood, which is the first film in the series to actually have characters return, but offers absolutely nothing else. Settling for a goddamn Anaconda sequel when you wanted to be watching an Argento film is like Megan Fox canceling a date with you so you spend the night pleasuring yourself to a Sears catalog instead.

As it was shot back to back with the last film, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised how lame it was - it’s the same fate that every “back half” back to back film pair has ever suffered (others include Pirates 3, Puppet Master 5, and Matrix Revolutions). But even then, it’s below par. For starters, more people are killed by gunfire than snakes, and the “good guys vs bad guys” stuff takes up so much of the movie, you could conceivably remove the snakes from the film entirely and it wouldn’t make much of a difference. Even the finale is more concerned with two guys whaling on each other than a snake; after the two humans fight for about five minutes, the damn snake just shows up, eats the bad guy once he gets a chance to do so, and then Krystal Allen (the chick from the last one) blows it up with a grenade.

Speaking of Allen, she is still struggling with her one-liner delivery. Last time she said it too early, now she says it too late. The snake blows up, all of its bits fall to the ground, etc, and then finally, at LEAST 30 seconds later, she says something like “Regenerate from that!” (this time, the Blood Orchid stuff causes the snakes to regenerate; only destroying their major organs can kill them). Come on, woman, it only counts if he’s alive and you say it as you’re right about to kill him! Ask Dolph Lundgren for some pointers. She also has cinema’s most useless “If I’m not back in five minutes” line - she says it, merely goes into a shack to check on a bomb, and returns without incident about 60 seconds later.

Speaking of completely useless things, check out what I noticed: the even numbered films in this series are plural (Anacondas), but the odd numbered ones are not. Cool, huh? Nope, but it’s more interesting than this movie.

And, you know, all the usual complaints: the effects suck, the characters are wholly uninteresting (even Allen is boring this time around), etc. Plus, I’m getting pretty fucking sick of looking at the Romanian forest. Even the deaths are pretty dull, and it doesn’t help much that so many of them are completely pointless. At one point, Allen and a possible love interest/hero are running along, well out of the snake’s reach. But all the same, the guy stops running and tells Allen to “Run! Just go!”. She protests, he screams GOOOO!, she lingers a bit longer, and then finally leaves. Then he just stands there until the snake arrives and eats him. Allen then arrives at safety seconds later. Had he just kept running there would be no problem - safety was in close proximity and he had nothing slowing him down; his stopping simply made no sense at all.

Sony clearly doesn’t give a shit about the movie either. Whereas last time they at least put a trailer on there for fans to enjoy (a purely theoretical reason), they don’t even do that much this time around (note - when I looked for a trailer to put in the review, I discovered that they didn't really make one, just a teaser comprised of footage from Anaconda 2). Instead, they offer about a dozen trailers for some of their other, better movies, plus 12 whole chapter stops and a reminder that poor John Rhys-Davies is an Emmy nominated actor. I wonder if he thinks about that very often while he struggles to keep from nodding off while learning his lines on shitty things like this. I bet he does.

I should have just watched the baby documentary...

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Surveillance (2008)

JUNE 17, 2009

GENRE: SERIAL KILLER, THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

Here we go, another review where I can’t really say anything without “spoiling” the movie. The best way to see Surveillance is to know nothing about it, not even the basic plot, so if you are in that camp still, please stop reading, go see the movie, and then come back to read the review. If you already know the plot and have seen the trailer, then all I’m really going to spoil is something that is so obvious right from the start, I’m not even sure if its supposed to be a twist but rather part of the plot that wasn’t spelled out until absolutely necessary.

So you’ve been warned either way....

The thing is, I liked the movie. All of the actors are great (particularly the three “witnesses”, played by Pell James, Kent Harper (who also co-wrote), and Ryan Simpkins), and I always love these “putting the pieces together” setups, where a crime has already occurred and the movie is mainly about people saying what happened. Unfortunately, the movie seems built around a twist that is not only the least surprising “reveal” in film history, but also keeps the film sort of inert until it can get to that point, which kept me from loving it.

So if you’re reading still, you know the plot: FBI agents Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond are called to investigate a string of murders in a sleepy Southwestern town, and find out that not everything is what it seems... (the “...” is part of the plot description). But anyone who’s ever seen a film before will probably figure out within minutes that Pullman and Ormond ARE the killers, and they are there mainly to see if the witnesses know anything that could jeopardize their identities. And because it’s so easy to spot, you will probably be hoping that the director just wants you to THINK you’re so smart and figure it out, only to reverse our jaded film viewer expectations with a double twist (or, like Spiral, the “no twist” twist). That or Pullman/Ormond will reveal themselves soon and get some action up in this mofo.

Sadly, neither is the case. At around the 75 minute mark, Pullman finally snaps, but there’s no real suspense to what happens next, as they are all tied up while he has a gun in his hand. Plus our “heroes” include a junkie and a crooked cop, so it’s not like we’re really rooting for them either.

Another thing that irked me was that it was compared to Rashomon by the filmmakers and even some other members of the press. Uh, no. Rashomon is great because it manipulates the way a story is told, by literally showing us something from multiple (varying) points of view. Here, the witnesses never contradict the others’ stories - everything we see on screen really happened. The “manipulation” angle stems from the fact that the crooked cop (Harper) and the junkie (James) lie about what they are doing to their interviewers (i.e. the junkie says she was on a job interview, but she was really buying drugs), so it’s hardly a compelling device either from a technical or storytelling point of view. A junkie will lie? Well I never!

To be fair, her “alibi” allows for the film’s best dialogue exchange:

Junkie: Anyway, I didn’t get the job...
Asshole cop: Oh, they didn’t hire YOU on the spot?
Junkie: No, I wasn’t applying to be a cop.

Hahaha, love it. Plus Ms. James is hot as hell, so it’s even better. But still, it would have been greatly beneficial for some actual Rashomon-style storytelling, with the three witnesses telling different accounts of the crime, which would probably distract the audience away from the obvious fact that the killers were the ones asking the questions (and the witnesses were merely lying to cover their ass for the crimes they DID commit). Also, it would have allowed for them to be viable suspects, as there seems to be some attempt to make this a whodunit since the killers wear (pretty creepy) masks made from paper-mache, but doesn’t really give us any other options for their identity.

And this is minor, but the term “surveillance” refers to someone who doesn’t know they are being watched, but that doesn’t apply here. The witnesses are talking directly to the video cameras that are recording the questioning, and Pullman (“directing” from a separate room) often talks directly to the witnesses via intercom. Then again, the movie was apparently originally about witches, so who the fuck knows how the title originated.

However, it’s still a pretty entertaining thriller. It’s nice and short, and the first 30 minutes, when you don’t really know what’s going on, are terrific. The actual murders are Final Destination-y in their level of gore and execution, so that’s good. Also, it’s surprisingly funny. The two crooked cops (Harper and French Stewart - odd choice, kind of works) are a riot, and Pullman gets in some funny moments as well. I also loved the wiseass brother of Simpkins' character, who’s sort of like Rusty Griswold (his family is on a vacation) teleported into a thriller.

Also, I noticed something odd: no one in the movie wears a seatbelt. Even Jack Bauer buckles up most of the time, but none of these folks seem to find the time to drive safely (that nearly every event in the film is caused by Harper and Stewart shooting out traveler’s tires to pass the time makes this even more distracting). I was hoping it would pay off, with someone going through a windshield, but no dice.

I never saw Jennifer Lynch’s other film (Boxing Helena), and since it stars Julian Sands, I have no desire to. Going by this, I think I can safely say that she’s far more accessible than her father, but maybe too much so. There are some risqué moments in the film (Ormond and Pullman’s borderline three-way with a victim is pretty goddamn erotic/creepy), and the ending is rather dark, but it still feels like she’s pulling her punches a bit, and didn’t allow the film to get as twisty or taboo as it could have been... Look, what I’m saying is... they should have killed the little girl too.

However, her next movie (Hisss) is about a killer snake woman, so I’m there.

Nothing about this film wowed me, but I enjoyed it all the same. And I guess it’s better to aim average and succeed than to aim high and fail, so in that respect, Surveillance works. I’ll take it over her dad’s last movie (Inland Empire) any day of the week, that’s for sure.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

End Of The Line (2007)

JUNE 16, 2009

GENRE: CULT, PSYCHOLOGICAL (?)
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

I remember last fall, folks were ticked off about the poster for Quarantine “spoiling” the movie. But it was only a spoiler if you had seen [Rec], because it was the exact same movie and thus you would know where it fit into the narrative (in this case, the last shot of the film). For the millions of folks who hadn’t seen [Rec], it could have been the film’s first scene for all they knew. But the playing field is level for End Of The Line, which makes the cover art (and synopsis) not only a major spoiler, but rather misleading as well.

Going by the synopsis (and again, the cover art), it seems as if the film’s protagonists have two things to worry about - crazy cult members and some demon/ghoul things, not to mention the fact that they’re all stuck in the subway. I was actually hoping that the film was going to be a From Dusk Til Dawn style scenario, where you have the good people vs the cult nuts for the first half, and then all of a sudden these monsters show up and the humans have to team up to defeat them, which would have been pretty cool. But no! The monster things don’t show up until the final scene of the film (well, one appears for a split second earlier, but since a lot of the characters are seeing things/having nightmares you won’t think much of it), and their appearance is sort of a twist.

Then again, they could very well be just another hallucination. Director Maurice Devereaux (who also wrote, produced, and edited) is one of those “I want the audience to draw their own conclusion” guys, which I often find annoying. It’s one thing to have part of a film left up to interpretation, but he makes this point so many times on the DVD that he starts to come off as Richard Kelly-esque. My interpretation is that the monsters are not real, but if so, I like the movie a lot less, because the idea that the cult was actually RIGHT is far more interesting (because otherwise it’s just more “people who believe in religion are nuts, period” bashing - something I’m not really down with).

But at least it’s an entertaining horror movie. The kills and attacks are surprisingly gory (the hero guy seems to lose enough blood for two people throughout the film), and the characters are largely likeable, despite some woozy acting. The pacing is a little awkward - our characters hole up in a room for what seems like the entire middle of the movie - but it gets going fairly quickly. In fact the structure is similar to the original Night of the Living Dead (which also had some 2nd act sluggishness), which is fine by me.

I also liked the setting. Sure, there have been a dozen other subway-set horror movies, but it actually feels like a real subway system for once (unlike Creep), without any ridiculous underground lairs and such. Tunnels, subway cars, control rooms... it actually reminded me of the subway level from the underrated game The Condemned: Criminal Origins, and that’s a good thing. If I can buy into the reality of the setting, it’s a lot easier for me to buy into the concept.

For no reason I just want to show you something that I noticed about the typography:

The DVD is surprisingly loaded with extras. A lot of these DTV indies have at most a lameass making of, but we get the full on deluxe edition here. There’s a 35 minute making of, a Q&A from FantasticFest (anyone want to put me up for the week so my broke ass could attend this festival? You’ll get mentioned in a review AND I’ll eat your cereal!), a deleted scene, and a strange piece about how people keep asking about the budget. Unless it’s a big Hollywood movie where you can laugh at how much they spent to make some giant piece of crap like Terminator Salvation (200+ million), I never understood why people give a shit about how much the movie cost to make. The TV ad for the film’s cult is also shown in full, and you can also listen to the entire score, which is a feature that is sadly all too rare. Finally, Devereaux and his DP (I think?) provide a commentary. As I mentioned earlier, Devereaux can get a little frustrating with his constant “You figure it out” mantra, but it’s a good track nonetheless; there isn’t a single gap as Devereaux talks about every single facet of the film’s production. Then again, after listening to that windbag on the Suspect Zero commentary a few days ago, the fact that he actually discusses the film at all is a welcome breath of fresh air.

According to Devereaux in the FantasticFest piece, this is his fourth film. I look forward to checking out the others, as he seems to be an interesting (and genre-enthusiastic) filmmaker. The script could have used a little work, and (again, assuming my interpretation is “correct”) the “all purpose” religious bashing is a bit tired, but when my biggest problem with the film is a misleading cover/synopsis that was probably out of the filmmaker’s control (indeed, the Canadian poster does not have the monsters on the cover), I consider the film a success.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (1974)

JUNE 15, 2009

GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

It’s always great to see a zombie movie that actually works beyond my appreciation for the makeup, and goes with quality over quantity when it comes to the number of zombies/attack scenes. Let Sleeping Corpses Lie (Italian: Non Si Deve Profanare Il Sonno Dei Morti) is one such film. There are only a half dozen or so zombies in the movie, and about as many kill scenes, but they all count.

Instead of staging epic zombie horde scenes, director Jorge Grau instead relies on atmosphere, an impressively creepy tone (at least during the first half), and a fairly original story to make his film work. Of course, its 1974 and there aren’t a hell of a lot of zombie films (at least, the cannibalistic undead kind), but in a way it’s even more of a feat that the film still works 35 years later, and after I’ve seen probably over a hundred zombie films to boot.

It’s also cool that there is a (movie) logical explanation for the zombies that we actually see in action. I don’t mind the lack of explanation in the Romero films (or their remakes), and a lot of the films that DO explain it settle for radiation or some sort of chemical spill (zzzz). Here, it’s a mis-calculated formula that is intended to control the pest population. And it’s delivered by a traditional farm machine that we see all the time, which makes it a bit creepier. Next time you see that TruGreen truck at your neighbors, you might want to arm yourself.

And our hero is kind of a dick, which I love. Of course, nearly all Italian horror films feature a male with some serious issues towards women, but this guy is off in a category of his own. He is introduced at a gas station, and within seconds our heroine accidentally knocks over his motorcycle. An inconvenience to be sure, but he almost instantly demands that she drive him to his destination. Then he demands to drive her car! Later, he gives her shit for ‘being selfish”, because she wants to drop him off without going too far out of her way (she wants to visit her sick sister, he wants to help a friend move).

Eventually he turns pretty likeable though, so it’s OK. And being a slob myself, I sympathize with his character, who attracts the attention of the local constable due to his long hair and “faggot clothes”. And he stages a pretty goddamn impressive escape from a police station; first he throws a towel in a cop’s face (the guy actually falls over from this rather weak attack) before jumping out a window, deftly navigating a labyrinthine stairway/hallway area, and stealing what looks like Ecto-1 and heading back to help the heroine.

And like I said, the kills count when they come. There’s a terrific bit where a woman is literally torn apart while on the phone with her friend (this is pre-Day of the Dead, don’t forget), and the mad doctor guy meets the wrong end of an ax, which results in some nice spillage. The zombie makeup is limited to red contact lenses, but again, since there are so few of them, it allows them to be a bit more memorable. Quick, name a memorable “hero zombie” from Dawn 04 (not counting the rooftop “celebrity” hunting scene). Oh right, there weren’t any.

In a few ways it reminded me of Messiah Of Evil, which gets better every time I see it (it’s one of the few HMAD-specific films I’ve actually gone back and watched again). You got the atmosphere, the off-kilter feeling, and even the hippies. It doesn’t ever go as all out as that film (none of the scares here are as effective as the movie theater one in Messiah), but its in that same pre-“this movie is essentially an effects company demo reel” vein that I really miss, and wish someone like Neil Marshall would attempt to recreate. I’m trying to remember, and I honestly think that Prince of Darkness may have been the last of this type (where there are a finite number of zombies that can actually be contained, as opposed to a “hopeless” scenario like the Resident Evils or any movie that ends in “.... Of The Dead”).

The DVD isn’t exactly jam-packed, but what’s there is worth a look. There’s a 20 minute interview with Grau, and he is great to listen to; explaining filming locations, how certain effects were accomplished, how he got involved with the film, and why he chose a certain actor to play a zombie. He’s also wonderfully candid about actor Arthur Kennedy (“he was a drunk and his career was fading”), something I always love. The interview ends with him impersonating one of the zombies. AB has also dug up a TV spot for the American release, for which the film was puzzlingly re-titled Don’t Open The Window (“...whatever’s out there will wait!”). A still gallery and some radio spots are also included. I would have liked a compendium of all of the film’s titles; it rivals Bay of Blood in that department. I actually had to double check to make sure I hadn’t seen the film under a different title (turns out I was thinking of Tragic Ceremony, which actually DOES share some similarities). Highly recommended.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

P (2005)

JUNE 14, 2009

GENRE: ASIAN, POSSESSION
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Back in 1996, I got a cd from BMG from a band called P. The band consisted of Gibby Haynes (lead singer of Butthole Surfers), Johnny Depp, and some other guys (I think Flea was in there for at least a couple tracks too). It’s a great, odd little disc, and I keep hoping that they put out another album. But it’s damn near impossible to find any info about them (Wikipedia has helped) because the band was simply named P. How do you search for P? If MP3s were around back then, it would have been the least downloaded album of all time (it was self-titled too, natch). Anyway, I wonder if director Paul Spurrier will suffer the same fate for his film P (not related to the band, not a prequel to P2), information on which I found to be incredible scarce, even compared to other modern Asian horror films that haven’t been remade.

I doubt a remake of this one will be happening any time soon though. For starters, its too ingrained into Thai culture and Bangkok customs (i.e. young Thai women more or less being forced into prostitution, largely servicing American travelers), so a remake would likely have to pull a Shutter and have the Americans go there and awkwardly try to fit themselves into the story. Also, well, it’s about how young Thai women are forced into prostitution. How can they make a PG-13 movie out of that with Blake Lively or whoever the fuck?

And that’s a shame, because (sadly) a remake is the best way for an Asian horror film to reach a wider audience, which this film deserves. It’s got some pacing issues (my wife came in 10 minutes in, and didn’t even realize it was a horror movie until I shouted at the TV “Get to the cannibals, movie!” about forty minutes later), but at its core is a unique blend of borderline docudrama (there’s even a scene where the rules of being a Thai whore are spelled out for us, plus a pretty horrifying verbal account of our heroine’s first dealing with anal sex) and supernatural/possession horror. Our lead, the terrific Suangporn Jaturaphut, learns some magic from her grandmother, and after using it to get revenge on a particularly detestable john, becomes overcome with it after breaking the “rules” of magic, resulting her losing control over the monster that takes over her body and feeds on others, whether they deserve it or not.

Back to the rules though, LOL, this shit makes even less sense than the ones in Gremlins, and by their description, you’d think they would be even harder to break. One is to simply not eat raw meat (a steak should be cooked medium well, you fucking savages!), and another is to not pass under a clothesline (?). And you might think that one is easy to accidentally break, it’s a big city and someone could have a clothesline between two 10th story windows that she didn’t see, but the one she passes under is in her own apartment! And she knows the rules, so why she breaks them all is actually kind of a puzzler. However, as with all foreign language films, I assume any questionable plot point was answered in dialogue that I missed due to trying to watch the film itself.

There is also some surprising humor in the film. Obviously seeing a guy who took advantage of our heroine getting his dick bit off carries some cheer-worthy amusement, but I particularly liked the resident “magic man” who helps our non-demon-possessed heroine understand what is going on. There is a terrific gag where she goes to his apartment, and it’s a typically “mystic” type place, i.e. really dark and lit by candles. But suddenly, halfway through the scene, a bunch of traditional electric lights turn on, and he happily announces that the power has come back after being out for a while. Hahahaha, so good.

The Blu-Ray came with a whole bunch of extras, unfortunately I couldn’t access any of them besides the trailer. Whenever I selected the "Director's Scrapbook" on the extras page, which I assume is the documentary/deleted scenes/etc that is promised on the back cover, it just took me back to the main menu. There is also a commentary, I assume that works but I just don’t have time to listen to it right now (as it is a Blu-ray, I cannot just watch it at work like I usually do for commentaries; it’s hard enough for me to watch a 2 hour film at home with my soul mate, aka Xbox360, sitting right there and enticing me). Hopefully this is just an issue with the PS3 (or even better, my particular disc) and the extras will be accessible to everyone else. Of course, I looked to see if anyone else reported the problem, and I can’t find a single review of the DVD or Blu-Ray. Mine may be the first!

Anyway, it’s a pretty solid, interesting, and certainly non-generic genre film. The horror elements may be a bit slighter than some may like, but I didn’t mind it too much, especially considering how gory the kills are when they do come, and also considering the grim ending. And since I know it’ll be hard to find (I can't even figure out the name of the company who sent it to me for review!), just to recap: It’s called P (sometimes The Possessed), the director is Paul Spurrier, and it’s out on Blu-Ray. Seek it out.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Night Of The Demons 2 (1994)

JUNE 13, 2009

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

Since I wasn't exactly overwhelmed with the original Night of the Demons, I have hopes for the upcoming remake. The filmmakers behind it have had twenty years to know what worked (lipstick) and what didn't (the pace) and fashion a better film from the concept. And if it turns out well, I hope they do the same for Night Of The Demons 2, which I honestly feel exactly the same about as I did the original.

It literally suffers from the same problems while keeping my interest with the same highlights, to the extent where I'd have to flip a coin to decide which one was better. It's more or less the exact same movie - Halloween party, Angela, sluggish pace, great makeup... even the goddamn lipstick makes a return. Since it's an entirely different creative team (original director Kevin Tenney sat this one out, though he returned to write the third one), you'd think they would try to put their own stamp on things, but if there was any, I missed it.

One thing that did impress me was that it was hard to pinpoint who the survivors would be. You'd think it was Christine Taylor's character, and not just because she's the only one that has gone on to have some semblance of a career. She is slightly more sympathetic than her fellow sorority sisters, doesn't get naked, and doesn't allow her boyfriend to get past 2nd base. Typical Final Girl behavior, but alas she is demonized, seemingly cured, and written out of the movie without any sort of wrapup for her character. On the other hand, the hot redhead gets naked and at least has the intent of having sex (a scream disrupts her boyfriend putting the condom on), but she is our Final Girl. Likewise, the presumed male heroes are offed, leaving the rather bland one to take on Angela during the finale.

At least, in theory he would. This movie has one of the most baffling conclusions I can recall, and keep in mind I've seen all of the Phantasm films. An ass-kicking nun gets her head lopped off, but another one pops up in its place (she credits this to having faith). Angela tries to get her sister to cut off someone else's head so she can gain her power (going by Highlander rules, I guess), but a holy water super soaker saves the day and everyone is OK. Except the spirit/demon/whatever has somehow found its way back inside the goddamn lipstick tube again.

In a way, though, I actually found this kind of charming, because it's so damn "huh?" worthy. Sort of like the opening scene, where a bunch of nearly nude guys spy on the not really nude girls across the street with a pair of binoculars, or when a blond guy's head is cut off and a dummy head with black hair is seen hitting the floor. Not so charming, however, is the movie's insistence on having a (non demon-y) Angela seduce another female character only to cut away as soon as they begin to make out. Bad form, movie, bad form.

And this seemingly bothered/amused me too, but I haven't the slightest goddamn clue what it says. Tudor? Quiddar? 9 wd hr? You try and decipher it.

The others are "Cow Suit", "Black Hair" and "Huh?", for clarification.

Oh, and there's a guy with a cow suit at the party. Since it's Halloween, you can expect all manner of costumes, but either because they couldn't afford enough costumes, or all of the anonymous student characters were simply lazy, because I'd say only about a quarter of them are dressed up for the occasion, making the cow guy stick out. I don't know if this is common to all big cities, but back in Boston, there was a guy in a cow suit who would seemingly always be at every concert or sports event. Anyone from Boston know who I'm talking about? He still around?

So I dunno, if you loved the first one, you'll probably love this one too. It's more of the same, albeit slightly more comedic (and even slower paced, it takes 55 minutes to get going as opposed to 45 or so), but the last act is fast paced, the girls are hot, a guy is eaten by some boobs, and it features a nun getting her weaponry together a la Ash in the Evil Dead films. Entertaining, but forgettable.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Dead Next Door (1989)

JUNE 12, 2009

GENRE: INDEPENDENT, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Every budding filmmaker with a love of horror movies has attempted to make his or her own zombie film with resources primarily consisting of dedicated friends, local businesses owned by relatives, and more often than not, a pretty decent local makeup/effects guru. I myself tried it when I was 18 (we shot about 1/5 of it; none of the zombie action), and worked as the editor for one when I was 21, and let me tell you: it’s the hardest I’ve ever worked in my life. And that’s why a movie like The Dead Next Door, while far from perfect, will always get my seal of approval: merely pulling it off is an achievement on its own, and this one has some highlights to boot.

For starters, the sheer amount of zombie action is unparalleled. Even some of Romero’s films didn’t have as many shootings, dismemberments, and beheadings as this one does. And the effects are quite impressive, particularly the squib work. To see a zombie run over to a human, and then the human spins around and shoots the zombie, with a big ol’ exit wound spraying blood everywhere - ALL IN ONE SHOT - is pretty rare in these films. Usually it’s “zombie runs over” - CUT TO A DIFFERENT ANGLE - “blood sprays from a suddenly immobile zombie”. The zombie design is pretty good too; it’s the standard Romero look, but considering how many zombies are shown in certain scenes, it’s nice to see how many of them got fully made up.

And they go to the goddamn White House! Holy shit! Some other DC memorials are visited as well, but the White House! A+!

I also loved how quickly it got going. Few zombie films take more than 10-15 minutes for the outbreak, but when you’re dealing with a no budget entry (if you factor in inflation, this film cost less than Night of the Living Dead), you can forgive them if they want to take their time. But no dice here; the opening credits are set over a fairly convincing and widespread zombie invasion of Ohio.

In fact, that fast pace results in one of the few things about the film that I had trouble with: it’s way overplotted. Early on, our heroes are sent from DC to Akron, where the outbreak occurred, and I thought that would be the main plot of the movie. But they get there instantly, find the guy they are looking for, and head back and forth between there and DC throughout the film. Then a cult, evil scientists, serums, talking zombies, brainwashed teenage girls, and probably a half a dozen other subplots get tossed into the mix. It’s fine to try to stick out with a new story, but there’s no need to bog it down with so many characters and tangents. Plus, being an indie, it wouldn’t surprise me if certain scenes never got shot, as certain plot threads and character arcs are rushed to the point of minor confusion, particularly during the 3rd act.

Also, I can forgive the whole “Naming all of the characters after horror legends” thing that was so big in the 80s, but not how much writer J.R. Bookwalter beats it into our heads. A character named Savini will be referred to by name sometimes 3 or 4 times in a single scene (by the same character more often than not), and likewise for characters named Raimi, Romero, Carpenter, etc. Also, the source of the outbreak seems to be at the house belonging to a guy named Bow, which they repeatedly refer to as “Bow house” (not even THE “Bow house”. So I kept thinking of Bauhaus. The unnecessary dialogue padding isn’t restricted to names, there are a lot of puzzlingly redundant phrases throughout the film, such as “The human cannibals” (as opposed to the kitty cannibals?) and reference to someone “committing their own suicide”. Maybe it’s supposed to be a cheesy joke, but it doesn’t come off that way.

The DVD is jampacked with so much stuff I didn’t even have time to watch it all. We get a wonderfully fun commentary with Bookwalter and some of the crew, with no stone untouched and loads of information, plus a confirmation of my suspicion that the lead actor was redubbed by Bruce Campbell, who he resembles anyway (I wouldn’t be surprised if the role was meant for him from the start; an early scene has some folks watching The Evil Dead and telling the character that he could “learn some things” from the movie). Bookwalter also provides commentary for some deleted scenes/outtakes, as well as behind the scenes footage. Then there’s a boatload of other stuff, including a reunion from a horror con, a retrospective with new interviews from just about everyone involved with the film, storyboards, the original video test footage (video was the original designated format for the film, before it was changed to Super 8), auditions, a music video... if Anchor Bay plans to double dip this one, they haven’t left themselves a lot of room to add stuff.

It’s a not-very-secret “secret” that the film was financed by Sam Raimi, knowledge of which is a big part of why many folks (including myself) have checked it out. And like Intruder, sometimes Bookwalter is a bit too eager to try to live up to his hero with his camerawork and such, but it’s not detrimental, and there are just as many Romero homages as there are Raimi ones. And you got to keep things in perspective; there may be a million of these things around now, but back in 1985 (when the film first went into production, it was finished four years later), this was borderline revolutionary in terms of what a small, inexperienced (they were all just out of high school) crew with meager funds/resources could pull off. It’s a terrific example of how to make the best of what you got; and that plus the informative extras make this a must for anyone who plans to helm their own zombie epic in their own backyard.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Suspect Zero (2004)

JUNE 11, 2009

GENRE: SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: IREEL.COM/DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

What’s with all the serial killer movies lately? I try to spread the genres out a bit, and while some (Slashers and Supernatural) obviously come up more than others (Puppets), it’s still rare to have four films from a single genre over the span of less than 2 weeks. At any rate, Suspect Zero is probably the best of the lot, thanks to solid acting, a slightly unique version of the same old “law enforcement guy with troubled past becomes obsessed with finding a killer” plot, and, most importantly, a refreshing lack of dumb twists.

See, throughout the movie, we never actually see any of the killings occur. Ben Kingsley’s character is seemingly hunting other killers (keep in mind this pre-dates Dexter and keeps the dry humor out of it), but he does it all off-screen. He is now after another killer whose face we never see. So I put two and two together and figured that we weren’t seeing the killings because our FBI agent hero, Aaron Eckhart, was one of the killers (he even throws in a reference to split personalities early on, but that turns out to be a red herring). But that’s not the case, thankfully, and the killer turns out to be some random guy.

And that’s fine, because the movie is really about “remote viewing”, in which someone who is not at the scene of a crime (or whatever) trances out and starts “seeing” specific details about the area. So, for example they write down like “Needle” “Cloudy” and “panhandling musician” and from that one could assume that the crime was occurring in Seattle. It’s a cool process, and according to the extra features, anyone can do it with some training. Cool.

There are a lot of little details I really appreciated too. For starters, our hero is an FBI agent, but he works a desk job (not even his own office!). So many movies with FBI agents make it seem like they just get to shoot and chase people 24/7, but we watch Eckhart fill out paperwork, investigate evidence from his desk, and make his own coffee. Also, whenever there is a newspaper clipping, the article actually makes sense and is relevant to the photo. A lot of movie prop photos just put a picture in and the article is gibberish or about a town hall meeting or something, but if you pause the movie and read the article, you actually get some backstory.

I also loved the art that Kingsley does during his remote viewing experiences. It looks a lot like the art of Ben Templesmith ("30 Days of Night"), particularly the final one of Eckhart’s character, which could easily be mistaken for line art from one of Templesmith’s "Wormwood" series. I even checked the credits to see if it WAS him, but I guess not.

Also, again, the hero is Aaron Eckhart. How can you not like this guy? There’s a reason his name is tossed around for the lead in Captain America: he’s an old fashioned movie star type (unfortunately, his leading role films tend to sink at the box office, including this one). And unlike a lot of his roles, he’s not cynical or anything like that, so it’s nice to see him play full on sympathetic for a change. Plus, he’s one of those guys who can’t be a follower; there’s a great bit where he goes on his first investigation in New Mexico (he’s been re-assigned there after bungling a case in Texas) and keeps getting put in his place by his superior officer and even a tow truck operator, but somehow manages to look like he’s in charge of them all anyway. That’s exactly what we need for Captain America. Kingsley also has some nice moments, such as a scene where a cop pulls him over. He gets a little hammy at times, but nothing compared to his Bloodrayne “performance”.

The only real problem with the movie, which kept it from being great, is the lack of real stakes or suspense. It would be cliché to put a family member in danger or whatever, but the end hinges on the rescue of a little boy. Yeah, this big studio movie with A list cast members MIGHT end with the death of a small child at the hands of a serial killer. And this is the only sort of chase scene in the movie, so it’s a bit of a downer. Not that Seven has to be the template for all serial killer films, but a scene halfway through with the killer trying (and succeeding) to escape from our heroes would have been beneficial.

Of course, once you turn on the audio commentary, you discover that it’s a wonder the film has any suspense at all. The director, one E. Elias Merhige, is clearly a pretentious windbag who wanted to make a movie about the mind and the essence of being and all this other horseshit. Those of you who want to hear about how things were shot, working with actors, etc, better steer clear, since he never even mentions a single person from the film (cast or crew) during the entire commentary. Instead, Merhige offers us “Again from his dream, he hears the echoes, the voice. The voice that drives him forward. Pictures of ancient traditions, rituals, the modern age. It screams, comes out, from that distant blackness.” Is this an audio commentary or an open mic night at some New York art school?

The rest of the extras are equally un-movie like, though at least they are interesting. We get about a half hour about some real remote viewers and the history of it all (government experiments factor in, unsurprisingly), and then 10 minutes where Merhige tries it himself, and actually (or is that allegedly) correctly finds the location he saw in his mind, not to mention comes off far better than he does on his commentary (i.e. I didn’t want to smack him during it). Even the deleted ending revolves around remote viewing, which makes it even more fascinating when you discover that this whole aspect of the movie was added in during script rewrites. Per this script review at AICN, it was originally a straight up procedural about an FBI agent hunting a killer of killers, with none of the remote viewing stuff.* I wouldn’t mind reading the original script myself. Not that I found the RV stuff really bothersome, but it definitely distracted away from the FBI/serial killer plot(s).

I just wish the DVD had a bit more honesty; the script had been around for years, got rewritten by everyone under the sun (including Ben Affleck!), was shot in 2002 but didn’t come out until 2004... that’s a lot of fascinating behind the scenes stuff, don’t you think? But it’s never even hinted at. I think putting all that stuff on there would actually give people a higher impression of the film. If you know how troubled the production was, you’d be amazed that the film was even coherent, let alone pretty good.

Speaking of the DVD, you may have noticed that this movie has two sources. That's because my disc was scratched and about ten minutes' worth were unplayable. Luckily, there's a new site called iReel that lets you stream movies for a nominal fee per flick (or you can pay a flat monthly rate), with hundreds of movies already available (including Suspect Zero) and more being added. And while I can't vouch for every single title, every one that I checked was NOT available for instant viewing on Netflix, making it even more enticing. While the presumed death of physical media terrifies me, I can't deny the fact that being able to watch whatever the hell I want at a whim is a pretty great advancement for mankind. The quality was quite good and scanning ahead worked even faster than Netflix (which needs to buffer for quite a while). I also dig the option to let you choose your high speed, which would minimize rebuffer times should your connection slow. Very cool. Definitely check it out if you're a fan of instant viewing.

Back to the movie though, if you’re like me, and have just watched a bunch of bad serial killer films, then Suspect Zero should help restore your faith in the sub-genre. It’s far from a slam dunk, but there’s enough originality and some terrific performances to enjoy, and it’s pretty short to boot. Hardly the worst use of your time.

What say you?

*I kind of like the irony of Moriarty writing this article about how adding a fantastical element to a script “ruined it”, seeing as how he was the one that added Hell monsters to the otherwise “real world” script for Carpenter’s Pro-life episode of Masters of Horror.

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999)

JUNE 10, 2009

GENRE: HERO KILLER, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

If enough time has passed (and, more importantly, almost no one involved returns), it’s kind of OK to basically do a remake and call it a sequel. And that is the case with The Rage: Carrie 2, which once again takes a girl with telekinetic powers (and a psycho religious mother) and unleashes her at a party where the popular kids have humiliated her, resulting in her killing everyone (including an adult who is sympathetic to her) before dying herself.

And it’s a bummer that the screenwriters lacked any originality for the most part, because at its core there’s a different story here. Things kick off differently, with Rachel (the Carrie substitute; no one is actually named Carrie in this movie) losing her best friend to suicide. And while her psycho mom is off in the institute, she is being raised by white trash foster parents. Also, the idea of high school cliques is far more prevalent. Finally, she has a boyfriend (Jason, or Jeremy London) that as far as we know, isn’t being nice to her because he’s in on the plot to humiliate her.

But the beats are just identical, which keeps the film from having its own identity. For example, Rachel is seemingly aware of her powers, yet doesn’t bother to use them until the ending, when all hell breaks loose (including another fire). The clique thing is introduced, but they never really expand on it in any meaningful way. There’s a bit where she runs to a football game, presumably to save the day, but doesn’t do anything. Why not have her use her power to help the school win the game, and have a confidant know what she’s up to? Nope, instead, the popular kids once again trick her into thinking they are her friend, an act that makes Rachel seem almost mentally disabled in the process (she’s pretty smart for the bulk of the movie, only to completely believe that a bunch of jocks and class president types think she’s great and pretty over the course of a day).

Luckily the climax makes up for it by delivering some pretty shocking gore. I actually thought this was a PG-13 movie, but that changed when Rachel began beheading and impaling people left and right. One guy gets a harpoon to (and through) his balls, and then she immolates countless others. Christ, even Amy Irving takes a spear through the head (and is impaled to a door in the process, so her corpse swings around as people use the door to escape). Speaking of Irving, some internet sites take time to point out that she’s the only returning character from the first Carrie. Well, uh, who else COULD return? Carrie killed everyone else!

Plus the end is kind of a downer. Since the boyfriend isn’t a dick this time around, he survives, but the movie ends with him in college, clearly depressed (and taking care of Rachel’s dog, who also looks depressed). Uh, yay?

Oh, I have to mention this. During the prank scene, we hear someone say in an Adam Sandler voice “They’re all going to laugh at you!”. This is what I call a paradoxical in-joke, a la the characters in H20 watching Scream. See, Sandler’s comedy bit is merely a spoof of the first film, so it doesn’t make any sense for that bit to exist in the world of the films themselves. And yes, I’m reading into this shit too much.

The film is directed by Katt Shea, who took over for Robert Mandel (F/X!!) for reasons unknown (well, besides “creative differences”). Maybe she explains it in her commentary, but the tone of her voice drove me insane, plus she was dreadfully dull, so I started tuning out. She also apparently is unaware of who directed Starman, as she points out that the DP shot “Starman, as well as some John Carpenter movies”. She also introduces a few deleted scenes in way too close close-up (zoom out, camera guy!) and a deleted version of the ending that makes no goddamn sense. Another thing that makes no sense is her black and white usage in the film, which is introduced as Rachel’s POV (is she color blind?) but is used when we actually see Rachel doing things, so I dunno.

A note on those deleted scenes - none of them are really worth looking at, though there is a scene where Rachel visits her mother in the institute that should have been kept in. Not that it’s particularly good, but it robs the film of having any scenes of the two of them together, until the very end (in which her mother plays an important role). Until that moment, I wasn’t even aware that Rachel kept in contact with her mother. Also, speaking of the film being robbed of certain thematic necessities, her jerk foster parents are never dealt with. In fact, when Rachel goes to the party, she is sneaking out (she was grounded), so they set up a conflict and never resolve it. Of course, going after the parents after the party massacre would have been even MORE of a copy of the original, but still - why bother setting something up if you’re not going to follow through? Also, why the fuck does she have tree branches all over her face when she Carries out?

So I dunno. It’s not terrible by any means, and the massacre is gory fun, but it’s ten minutes overlong, and also feels like the movie is missing a beat somewhere in the middle. Plus, the budget was reportedly 20 million, and only half of that seems to be on the screen (Repo only cost half that). Mixed bag, your call (whoever posted the Youtube trailer seems to agree - the description says "Sort of a rubbish film but meh").

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Plague Town (2008)

JUNE 9, 2009

GENRE: KILLER KID, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: DVD (IN A THEATER)

I almost watched Plague Town a few weeks ago at the Fangoria convention, but the screening room was changed. It wasn’t great to begin with in the room where I watched Mum & Dad, but it looked even worse at the new location, so I said “I’ll wait to see it properly”, especially since I’m not a fan of projected DVDs to begin with. So it’s kind of ironic that I ended up seeing it that way anyway, albeit in a much more preferable locale (the New Bev), with a professional setup to boot. The picture was a notch or two above what I expect for a DVD projection (having suffered through many at various film festivals), though the audio was a bit blown out, albeit still better than Fangoria’s joke of a speaker setup.

Luckily, the film itself was solid enough to put my issues with the audio aside. Like Eden Lake, we once again have tourists being menaced by a mob of the town’s children, but in this case they are mutated freaks, with some truly freaky designs on a few of them (I love the main girl , Rosemary, who has a bandage and doll eyes covering where her real eyes would be). And instead of a couple, we have a dysfunctional family (father, two daughters, new stepmom, and one of the daughters’ boyfriend), which allows for more kills and more suspense.

One thing that really impressed me was the shooting locale. I never doubted for a second that they were in Ireland, but it was actually all shot in Connecticut (making this, I think, the first horror movie to be shot in the US despite taking place in another country - usually it’s the other way around). Christ, I’ve probably been through the shooting areas and still had no idea. Excellent work on director David Gregory and DP Brian Rigney Hubbard’s part.

I also loved the pace. Some of these movies (including Eden Lake) take a bit too long setting everything up, but that’s not the case here. They get stranded around the 15 minute mark (and some weird stuff has already happened) and the kids start popping up shortly thereafter. Our first death is probably around the 30 minute mark, which is damned impressive (especially considering who gets it first). And even without the scare/suspense stuff, the film still entertains due to the foul-mouthed bickering between the two sisters (who couldn’t look less alike, but whatever). There’s something about a girl calling another one a “fucking cunt” that will always bring a smile to my face (especially at the Bev, where such sentiment is rightfully applauded). It teeters on the brink of just getting annoying, but like I said, the bad shit starts going on earlier than usual/expected, so I forgave the film this trespass.

The only real blight is the abrupt ending, which leaves one character’s fate up to the imagination to boot. It seems like a movie where we would get an explanation for the mutated children or a real epic struggle/escape for the heroine, but it just sort of peters out. Gregory explained during the Q&A that he wasn’t interested in explaining everything, and that’s fine (he used the Night of the Living Dead example), but the ending could have packed a bit more of a punch, especially considering how solid and creepy the first hour or so was. On the flipside, the movie does not fall into the usual trap of these “a good family runs afoul of a group of whatevers that have been killing tourists for ages” movies. Without spoiling anything, I must say that I appreciated the overall outcome in terms of who lives/who dies.

I also loved the score, as well as the techno-y/dance song over the credits. Since the audio was a bit blown out, I may rent the DVD just to hear the music again. Also, the sound design was terrific; I actually commented during the film that it may be the most aggressive sound mix I’ve heard at the Bev. Usually I’m there watching older movies that existed before 5.1 surround sound, so it was strange to hear creepy laughing children behind me (and I kept turning around to see them; it’s the modern equivalent of the audience ducking when they saw the train coming toward them back in ye olden times).

Speaking of the DVD, it’s also on Blu-ray, and I may check it out just to see what a Super 16 movie looks like on the format. If Gregory hadn’t told us, I would have sworn that the film was shot in 35mm; even with the DVD projection it still looked great.

As Grindhouse guru Brian Quinn explained after the movie, eventually they will run out of 60s-80s movies to show and will have to start embracing more modern fare (in twenty years, movies like Plague Town will be “old”, after all). I do not disagree, but unlike many of the movies they show, this one doesn’t need a big audience to aid your enjoyment of it (such as The Sinful Dwarf, which they screened after Plague and even with a crowd was still kind of dull whenever the title character wasn’t onscreen). Check it out.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Razortooth (2007)

JUNE 8, 2009

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

There have been so many horror movies featuring a water-dwelling monster that Boxofficemojo actually has a chart for it so someone can find/compare them all. Looking over at it, few of them are particularly successful (the ones that are tend to be shark-based: Jaws, Deep Blue Sea, Open Water), so you gotta wonder why folks keep churning em out, especially as they are all so goddamn similar to boot. Even though I had never seen Razortooth before, it sure felt as I did, because screenwriters Jack Monroe and Matt Holly wholeheartedly refused to work outside of the inherently narrow formula.

So, do we have an easy-going, handsome law-enforcement type as the hero? Check. An old flame helping him out? Check. A “hunter” with an accent? Oh my, check. Will a random, innocuous object play a role in the monster’s demise? You better believe it. The closest thing that the movie comes to originality is that in addition to stealing from Jaws, Lake Placid, etc, it also steals from, of all movies, Evolution, right down to the two young slacker characters who provide the item that can weaken the monster (though, in the film’s best moment, the scientific explanation doesn’t actually work, so they merely blow the goddamn thing up. Fuck you, science!).

But it’s a minor notch above say, Lake Placid 2 or Loch Ness Terror as these things go. The effects are as terrible as ever, but the monster’s design is kind of goofy anyway, so it sort of fits. And it certainly doesn’t skimp on the body count; this has one of the highest death tolls I can recall in a water monster movie (maybe Deep Rising has more because the monster ate everyone on a cruise ship, but that doesn’t really count as it was mainly off-screen). Most of the attacks are the same (and inexplicably inside; there are two bathroom set kills for Christ’s sake), but there are a few great gore gags, and at least one sweet moment where the monster pulls a Michael Myers, fading in (and back out) in the darkness behind a character. Then he eats her.

It would be even better if the acting wasn’t so godawful, with a truly annoying lead to boot. Doug Swander clearly wants to be Nathan Fillion, but has none of Fillion’s inherent charm or acting skills. And he plays a fucking harmonica almost non-stop in the film’s first act (I actually suspected it would help weaken the monster, like it couldn’t stand the harmonica’s sound frequency or something). The writing is equally abysmal; particularly in the scenes surrounding the “love triangle” between three of the younger characters (fuck learning their names, there like 20 full blown characters in this movie in addition to all of the bit players). The girl likes books, the guys like football, she teases them and they go “aw shucks”, and no one questions why two jocks would be interested in a mousy girl in the first place. Also, back to the hero, they set up a sort of Abyss (or, more likely, Piranha II) thing where he has to work with his “tough” ex-wife, but instead of growing closer as the film progresses, they hop into bed together around the 20 minute mark, which makes me wonder why the divorce angle was even introduced in the first place.

However, one of the characters actually calls another a “Gaylord”, which I haven’t heard outside of a schoolyard in at least 20 years (editor’s note - does this mean you’ve been INSIDE of a schoolyard in the recent past?), so props to that. Also, the ending is kind of a downer, as several kids of about 14 are eaten (off-screen, sadly), as is the father who has been trying to rescue his son (one of the kids) for the whole movie. Monroe and/or Holly clearly have some issues.

Here’s what I don’t get about all of these movies though: they are all clearly influenced by Jaws, yet despite the uniformly terrible effects, no one ever uses Spielberg’s method of hiding the damn thing from the audience for the first half or so. Hell, Razortooth is seen in full before we even meet any of our main characters! You’d think at least one guy on the crew would be like “Hey... the monster kind of looks like shit. Maybe we shouldn’t show it so much?”

The DVD offers us a making of that has special effects on par with that of the monster (and terrible audio as well - did they record this goddamn thing in a bathroom?), plus a “music video” which mixes clips of the movie with the singers (actually the two lead actors - the harmonica strikes again!) recording their vocals in a booth. Riveting.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Terror At London Bridge (1985)

JUNE 7, 2009

GENRE: SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

Filmmakers/actors often take shots at their own films when they play at the New Beverly (be it a joke at the expense of their own performance, the box office, or in some cases, the work of others on the film), but Clu Gulager is a notable exception. Whenever he speaks about one of his films before it screens, he will praise the other actors, the director, and refer to the film as “wonderful” or something similar. But even he didn’t have much to say about Terror At London Bridge (aka Bridge Across Time); he praised his co-stars, but merely referred to the film itself as “interesting...” or something like that.

Well, it’s certainly an interesting concept for a movie. Jack the Ripper is somehow brought 100 years forward in time and begins stalking women on the harsh, cold streets of... Lake Havasu, Arizona. Well, OK, I’ll give them points for originality. Jack is often brought back in NY or LA or whatever, and that gets old. I’ll take a small lakeside town over the umpteenth metropolis.

Unfortunately, the details about it are all wrong, and worse, fairly stupid. If it’s the real Jack, why does he copy his own murders, right down to the date? Wouldn’t he be like “oh, now I can do something different!”. Nope, he even waits around for weeks doing nothing (besides hit on Adrienne Barbeau) until the next “original murder” date comes along. So Jack the Ripper has OCD, then. Also, he comes back to life via a magic rock. It seems London Bridge has been dismantled and rebuilt in Lake Havasu (I actually thought this was the most ridiculous part of the movie until I found out that its true), but they were missing one rock. When the rock is returned and put in place, Jack is reborn. Luckily for him, it happened at the same time of the year as his original murder spree (August/September). If the rock had been found/replaced in like, March, he’d have to get a parttime job or something just to keep busy until he could start killing.

This also means that the movie is painfully low on a body count. There are only three murders, with lead cop David Hasselhoff trying to prevent the fourth. But since the movie is 96 minutes long (TV movie standard length), instead of stalking/killing, we just get endless scenes of the Hoff romancing a boat shop owner, Hoff arguing with his chief (Clu) and some town official in the Murray “You can’t close the beaches” Hamilton role, or a lab tech rambling about how weird the evidence is (“This blood seems to be a hundred years old!”). And Jack himself is equally dull; he only has a few lines and is almost never seen outside of the kill scenes. Plus his face is hidden at first, as if the movie was going to be a whodunit. There is some novelty to seeing him in his 19th century garb (hat, cape, etc) as he walks around a sunny beach area, but not nearly enough to make the movie entertaining as a whole.

Oh, and Hoff has a “tragic past” - he shot an “armed” suspect that turned out to be a kid with a can opener (note - in lieu of a trailer, which I couldn't find, I put this scene at the bottom of the review). Strangely, this movie predates Die Hard, so perhaps Steven E. de Souza caught this dullfest on TV, heard the shooting story, and thought “I bet I can use this in a GOOD movie, one people might actually like!” And viola, Al Powell has something besides a Twinkie addiction to make him so memorable. That, OR, it’s just a generic story that doesn’t hurt an otherwise solid movie but can make a lousy one look all the more uninteresting.

The inherent problem with any Jack the Ripper movie is that they never caught (or even identified) him in real life, which means that the film either will have no real climax, will make shit up like in From Hell, or, as in this case, will use time travel and other nonsense to distract you away from that problematic issue. And with a good script, it can work. But seriously though, a magic fucking rock?

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...

Non Canon Review: A Nightmare On Elm St Part 2: Freddy's Revenge

JUNE 6, 2009

GENRE: SLASHER, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)
LAST SEEN: 2000 (DVD)

Even when I first saw it as a kid (I was about 9), I thought Nightmare On Elm St 2: Freddy’s Revenge was a bit weird. It wasn’t so much the whole “Freddy in the real world” thing that struck me as odd, but more the “Why is this high school kid going to a gay bar? And what IS a gay bar?” feeling. As I got older, and things like homoerotic subtext became a bit easier to spot, I realized that the movie was just one of what would ultimately be, uh, one horror franchise sequels that seemed more interested in presenting a metaphor for suppressing one’s homosexuality than killing, scares or even bothering to function in any meaningful way as a sequel (Freddy is only in like 10 minutes of the movie, and his role is essentially a metaphor for a man who is no longer able to suppress said urges).

Some folks (including the director) claim that they had no idea about the subtext when they were making the movie, but I find that hard to believe. I mean, for Christ’s sake, the only real kill setpiece in the whole movie finds a man stripped naked, tied to a wall, and then whipped for a while before being clawed. There is also the scene where Jesse rebels against his father (Clu Gulager) - who doesn’t understand him! - by singing and dancing around his room to a song sung by a woman. And who can forget this exchange, between Jesse and his best friend/enemy, Grady:

Jesse: Someone is trying to get inside of me!
Grady: Yeah, and she’s waiting for you in the cabana, but you want to sleep with me!

Confusing sexual positions aside (how does a girl get inside- oh never mind), this sums up everything you need to know about the movie. Their friendship is particularly odd; they meet during a baseball game, and almost instantly begin fighting, which results in Grady pulling off Jesse’s pants. Then they bond when the S&M loving coach makes them do pushups for hours. Later that week, Grady invites Jesse over for pizza, which I guess is still OK with his parents, who have grounded him for throwing his grandmother down a flight of stairs. I’ve been friends with some dudes for years and they still haven’t invited me over for dinner. And since Grady can’t be bothered to put a shirt or pants on when his male friend comes over, “Freddy” is once again unable to remain inside of Jesse’s body and kills him as well. So far this movie has had two deaths, both males without any clothing on.

But enough of all that. The real issue here is that screenwriter David Chaskin clearly didn’t have the slightest clue as to what made Freddy so interesting. Since Jesse is the only character that has nightmares (the opening one, on the bus, is easily the best scene in the film), Freddy’s not really much of a threat, because Jesse won’t die anytime soon. It’s the friends that need to be put in danger, but Chaskin’s script never gives any of them a scene to themselves. Patton is in all but two scenes in the film, making it seem like the other characters don’t even exist unless he’s around. And even when Freddy breaks into the real world, he’s not really concerned with racking up a body count; as countless victims run around him, he swipes at some flowers and overturns a table. Scary!

To be fair he does kill two or three people during this sequence, but with at least 20 of them all trapped inches away from him, it still feels like a giant missed opportunity (not to mention how he just leaves by walking past them all; he could have taken a few more out on the way). And the finale is incredibly weak; Jesse’s beard goes to the factory where Freddy took all of his victims (where the hell did this plot element come from?), and the gay metaphor comes full circle, as she is able to kill (suppress) “Freddy” once and for all by repeatedly assuring the man inside (which would be "Jesse", the straight part of him) that she loves him, and thus the tables are turned and now Jesse forces himself out of Freddy’s body. Yikes.

For all its faults though, I’ll still take it over the later entries (5 and 6 particularly), as at least Freddy isn’t just making wisecracks the whole time, and the film is at least trying to tell a story instead of showcasing the FX work of whatever artists/groups were working on it. In fact, the body count is rather low (5?) and the deaths aren’t particularly gory. Ironically, had Wes Craven been involved, it might actually be quite good, as he is well versed in psychology and philosophy, two areas any film about a guy struggling with his identity would have to explore by default. Hell, even the exact same script, stripped of any reference to an established franchise, could have made an interesting and unique film. I wouldn’t be surprised if was actually written as something else and turned into a Nightmare script, as there’s no way I can believe that a quickie sequel (this movie came out less than a year after the original) would keep its main draw offscreen for so much of it had it been designed as a sequel from the get-go, especially when he was the only returning character (unless you count the house itself, which Jesse resides in, a fact that is unceremoniously revealed to the audience).

When I got home I put on, for the first time ever, the “Bonus Disc” from the Nightmare DVD boxed set. I had heard that the thing is impossible to navigate, but I found the stuff on Nightmare 2 pretty easily. All that’s there is the trailer and four short interview pieces with Robert Englund, Bob Shaye, director Jack Sholder, and Rachel Talalay (who was a PA on this film and moved up to direct Freddy’s Dead). She’s pretty up front about the gay stuff, but Sholder is not, and it’s a shame that Haskin or any of the actors couldn’t be enticed to speak their mind on the matter. Still, there’s some interesting stuff in there, and I’m sure New Line will eventually re-release each disc with the relevant material included.

Of course, all of the anomalies and “uh...” moments made for a terrific viewing experience at the New Bev. Every weird line and double entendre was greeted with appreciative laughter, and Freddy’s signature line from the film (“You are all my children now!”) got a big applause as well. Plus, Clu and Robert Rusler (Grady) were there for a Q&A, always a nice addition to the viewing (especially considering the lack of insight on the disc itself). It just proves, once again, you don’t need a great movie to have a great time at the theatre.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

B.T.K. (2008)

JUNE 6, 2009

GENRE: SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

In my review for Bundy, I pointed out that the film did a good job of accurately depicting Bundy, but also failed to provide any of the context, and that as a result I felt that someone unfamiliar with Ted Bundy and his crimes would probably be left cold by the film, as it didn’t tell a story so much as present a few snippets in the life of a real person. And since the same filmmaker (Michael Feifer) was responsible for B.T.K., I thought I would try to prove this theory, since I know very little about the real BTK killer.

And it seems I was right. While Kane Hodder is pretty damn good in the role, I came away from the movie with almost zero understanding of the man, why he did what he did, how people were affected by it, etc. The victims’ families are never even mentioned, let alone shown, and the police investigation is completely ignored until the film’s final 10 minutes, and even that is rather vague.

Now to be fair, the film begins with a disclaimer that it is a “Fictional Story” about a “Real Person” (these words are capitalized, for some reason), so not sticking to the facts isn’t the issue, especially since I don’t even know what those facts are. But the movie’s “Fictional Story” is pretty goddamn loose; it’s little more than a series of scenes where BTK (real name is Dennis Rader) goes about his job as a compliance officer (does Wichita, KS really require you to keep your grass under 3 inches long?), kills some random person, or works on his letters to the police in his workshop. You can cut any half hour out of the movie and it wouldn’t matter, as there is no real sense of how much time has passed, if the cops are getting closer, etc.

If you’re going to spend the entire movie with the killer, you should be able to get into his head a bit and see what makes him tick. Well, the movie certainly does get into his head, as the ending seems to suggest that the entire film was a dream. It would have been interesting if the guy woke up and you discover that he wasn’t even the killer, just some random loser who WISHES he was the killer, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

It doesn’t help that the closest the movie gives us to a sympathetic protagonist are BTK’s wife and two daughters, and they are all played by some of the worst actresses I’ve ever seen. Given director Michael Feifer’s attitude toward casting (on another movie he proudly admitted to giving roles to friends and family members rather than actual actors), it’s not too surprising how bad they are, but since they provide the film’s only “outside world” point of view, it would have been nice if their scenes weren’t so laughably bad as a result of the “actresses” giving jaw droppingly terrible line readings or doing their best to appear hysterical (and instead merely coming off as possibly brain damaged).

Another problem is the dialogue. Everything the characters say is broad and unnatural. Why would a daughter randomly (and un-provoked) tell her mother that a friend’s little brother had broken his arm skateboarding, other than to introduce a plot element (the kid was supposedly on a boy scout trip with Dennis, so his wife knows he was lying about where he was). Instead, BTK goes to kill a hooker that had taken his money without fucking him, and when he gets to her house, he confronts her husband, who calmly asks “Are you cheating on me?” instead of something like “Hey, what are you doing in my house in the middle of the night, asshole!” (he also doesn’t wake up despite his wife screaming and yelling just outside the door).

Kane, however, is a minor revelation here. He’s been around for over twenty years, but I think this is his first lead role (not counting Jason or whatever), and he acquits himself nicely. Despite his massive size, he manages to make BTK feel small and pathetic, particularly in the scenes where he’s going about doing his job. If a big studio was doing the film, they’d probably cast someone like Paul Giamatti or another “everyman” type (since that’s what he was), instead of a known “movie killer” like Kane. But since Kane has done 99% of his popular work completely covered in makeup, you are literally seeing a different side of him. It was a damn good choice, and he is probably the only really strong point of the movie.

After watching the movie I went on Wikipedia and read the page. One thing the movie definitely doesn’t bother with is that the real guy got caught years after his last kill, which I actually find kind of interesting. His last recorded kill was in 1991 and he got arrested in 2005; I would rather watch a movie about what he was doing that whole time. In the movie, it’s not even known if he had killed anyone prior to the start of the film, and the story appears to take place over a couple of weeks at most. I understand fictionalizing the story for dramatic reasons, but why remove everything that made him interesting in the first place? Yeah, it’s still ironic to see him give a woman a ticket for parking her car incorrectly in her own driveway because “it’s the law” and then go kill someone for no reason, but it’s hardly as compelling as the context for it all that the movie ignores.

I also went ahead and watched the extra features. There’s a commentary with Kane and Feifer, but it’s pretty boring other than pointing out that some of it was shot in my town (Sherman Oaks) and some other shooting location stuff. I was hoping they would explain the ending, but they don’t even bring it up. Also, while the back of the DVD doesn’t bother to mention it (maybe because there’s a green vertical line running on the left side for some reason), there is a 20 minute making of that is surprisingly informative, focusing on the nitty gritty and issues with amateur actors (and Kane providing a not-very-good but still amusing Chris Farley impression) instead of “I enjoyed making this movie, it will scare you!” type comments mixed in with a bunch of film clips. It also showed me what Feifer looks like, so I know to avoid him should I find myself in his vicinity, as he probably doesn’t like me very much. I also want to point out that the piece is presented in 16:9 anamorphic, which is much appreciated, especially since LG can’t even bother to provide as much for the actual film itself half the time. Speaking of their shitty DVDs, they are getting worse. Now, in addition to the FBI warning and LG logo that can’t be skipped, they also force you to watch the “The commentary isn’t our point of view” disclaimer, as well as a logo for another studio (Barnholtz). WORSE, they don’t let you access the menu once the trailers start, you either have to watch them or skip them one by one. Assholes.

Here’s hoping David Fincher decides to make his own version. He’s good at this type of thing. Feifer... well, while he is clearly better at making serial killer films than anything else, he still hasn’t proven he can make one that someone new to the story can find as accessible as someone who knew the true story inside and out, even if he's telling his own version of it.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Fear (1995)

JUNE 5, 2009

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

When I was like 15 I had an idea for a horror villain called Fearkeeper, who needed fear to stay alive and would gain exponentially more power when someone inadvertently died from their fear (but not actually CAUSED by the Fearkeeper; it was just a coincidence). I forget what it was actually about, but I can guarantee that if I actually finished writing it, peoples' fears would actually play a part in their demise, something screenwriter Ron Ford didn't bother to do with his script for The Fear.

Really, how hard is it to fuck this up? A grad student does a fear study in a cabin in the woods with six folks, each of whom have a traditional fear (getting old, water, bugs, etc). And there's a franchise-ready villain in Morty, a wooden mannequin who may actually be alive. So you're probably thinking, cool - people go off alone, and Morty gets them with their fear. Sweet!

But no. To its credit, it tries to be a little more serious and delves into some psychological territory (the grad student guy discovers that he may have subconsciously had his mother killed by telling his dad that she was having an affair), instead of a standard slashfest. However, it's also damn near incomprehensible at times, and just gets more and more baffling as it goes. The climax revolves around, as best as I can tell, the hero being given a sphere by the ghost of his younger self, which, once broken and the pieces placed back together, will cause all of the supernatural elements to disappear. OK.

The movie even manages to make incest confusing. The lady that is afraid of getting old tells how when she was 17 "he came along", meaning the film's most annoying character, a typically mid 90s dreadlocked "urban" white guy. Anyone in their right mind would understand this to mean that she was his mother. But later on they start making out, with the guy saying its OK because they aren't really related, just adopted by the same woman (?). She then reveals that she is really... his mother. Huh? We already thought that! Also the main guy catches his mom with his uncle. Unless I missed it, it's never clear whether the uncle was on the mother's (hey-o!) or father's (meh) side of the family.

Now, as I understood later, the DVD (labeled as a collector's edition!) is actually edited. But the edits are quite obvious and exist to cut nudity/violence/swearing (!!) out of the film, not story-based elements. But even still, I will cut it SOME slack for the baffling narrative, even though other reviews (based on the VHS, which is uncut) point out that it's just as confusing.

However, edits or not, the film is blandly shot, contains nearly no likable characters (as well as too many; they have like 6 for the study but then two others show up), and doesn't do anything with what should be its central character. Morty should be front and center, but he actually seems like a MacGuffin in the grand scheme of things. The acting is OK for this type of thing, but the film gives none of them a chance to shine or even pay off their various character arcs. I can't even tell who was alive at the end.

The best actor, oddly enough, is Wes Craven. He plays the main guy's psychology professor in a pair of scenes, and is quite good. To be fair, Craven actually WAS a professor in college, and has a masters in psychology, so he's sort of playing himself. But he literally played himself in New Nightmare, and wasn't very good there, so we're back to "he's a good actor here". My mid 90s crush Heather Medway (the "non-laugher"'s roommate in the classic "The Switch" episode of Seinfeld) also pops up, but like everyone else, doesn't quite get anything to do in the end, as the movie spins so far out of control/coherency its impossible to even gauge what she was doing in the movie in the first place.

As I mentioned, the movie is dubbed a Collector's edition, but unless you count a full frame transfer (another one!) and that godawful menu that's just as confusing as the film itself, there are no extras of any sort. Unless, of course, you consider that this version is eight minutes shorter than the VHS version, which equals eight less minutes spent being bored/confused by it. Thanks! Apparently there is a sequel, but it won't be until HMAD reaches the end of film availability that I bother with it.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Intruder (1989)

JUNE 4, 2009

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

For it seems like twenty years, I’ve heard about Intruder (known in region 2 as The Night Crew) being this great slasher movie, but also one that was hacked by the MPAA, who removed 5 minutes’ worth of KNB glory for its VHS release. So when I spotted what was dubbed the “unrated director’s cut” for 3.99 at my Blockbuster, I figured the time had finally come (positive recommendations from readers BloodPepsi and Cam1020 didn't hurt). Of course, the transfer sucks (every DVD I have watched in the past week has been full frame, for some reason) and there are no extras, but I’ll take the terrific gore over a 5 minute EPK or a deleted scene of someone walking down a hallway.

As slashers go, it doesn’t do anything out of the ordinary really. The characters are a bit more likable than usual (particularly in the late 80s, when the slasher film was all but extinct beyond sequels to established franchises), and I’m pretty sure this is the only one that is set in a supermarket, but that’s about it. The closest they get to doing something surprising is sort of setting up two final girls (Elizabeth Cox and Renee Estevez), but Estevez is written out after like 25 minutes so she can be a red herring (pfft, yeah right), and we’re back to strict adherence to the formula.

What it lacks in storytelling originality though, it makes up for in interesting kills and a sense of humor. Killing implements include a butcher’s knife, a trash compactor, a buzz saw (this one is incredible - the saw cuts right through the guy’s teeth!), and whatever you call those spiky things where you place paperwork that you’re finished with. And director Scott Spiegel gives a little goofy touch to most of the kills, like cutting to a sign saying “Be careful with knives” after the butcher knife kill. There are also a couple of terrifically bad lines, such as “If you see him, keep your eyes peeled.” I also loved the bit where Raimi’s hanging body kept getting in the way as Cox and the killer did the whole “she’s pushing the door shut while he tries to break it down” thing.

And back to the setting, I like that the store is stocked with real products: Diet Pepsi, Froot Loops, TV Guide, etc. So many movies have a bunch of generic products when they go to a store, but either they didn’t care or spent all of their money obtaining the rights to show the products. Also, the locale is well used; you’d think that having everyone trapped in a supermarket would limit the slashing potential, but Spiegel does a good job of separating everyone but still allowing us to know where they are in relation to one another. And the idea of a supermarket closing is almost strange to me, as my store is 24 hrs (many a 2:30 am return home from the New Bev has ended with me at Ralph’s, buying milk and chocolate pudding pies to enjoy as the caffeine I drank to stay awake at the movie kicks in and keeps me awake til 5 am). I think it would be hilarious to have a sequel/remake in a 24 hr store, with the killer trying to clear the place out and yet more and more victims keep coming.

The cast is also pretty game. Cox is a great final girl; she’s nice but not a mousy introvert like Laurie Strode or her ilk. She also carries out what may be the longest “find the dead friends” sequence in slasher history, so points to her. Sam Raimi (2nd movie this week with an acting turn by Sam the Man) is a hoot as a butcher, even getting to work in some of his beloved Three Stooges humor when he fights with a ladder. And Ted Raimi’s there as well, as a produce guy who never takes his headphones off. The rest aren’t quite as memorable, but again, they’re all actually likeable for once. And we meet them all in one of the film’s best scenes, an epic fight in the supermarket where nearly every male character tries (and fails) to subdue the film’s most obvious red herring, an ex boyfriend of Cox’s character. The movie tries REALLY REALLY hard to make you think he’s the killer, but come on. Even if it hadn’t been spoiled by the trailer (which I didn’t watch before I watched the movie anyway), it’s pretty obvious.

One aspect of the film that is memorable, if not exactly in a good way, is Spiegel’s obsession with “cool” shots. Granted, having Raimi around probably didn’t help, but after a while I just wanted to smack him and tell him to put the camera down on a tripod and film the scene normally. Some of the shots are cool, like the one inside of the shopping cart as it rolls around the store (a shot like this would have been a far better backdrop for the opening credits, instead of a shot of a moon). Most are just annoying and pointless though: inside a rotary telephone, off the angled mirror at the top of the aisle, gliding back and forth on the meat slicer, etc. I remember the same thing annoying me in Spiegel’s From Dusk Til Dawn sequel, so I guess it’s his “thing”. Some folks like it, and yes, it certainly gives the film its own identity, but it just annoyed me after awhile, mainly because it served to remind me that I was watching a staged movie from the eye of a camera that someone placed in a specific way.

As I said, there are no extras of note on the DVD, unless you count the trailer. However, there IS a bonus movie being described, as the description on the back is totally wrong. The description mis-identifies Estevez as the lead character, features a shot of Bruce Campbell from a different movie entirely (he pops up in this for about 12 seconds as a policeman), and includes this puzzler: “An ex-cop is trying to find out who the killer is and what possessed him to start the bloody rampage” - no ex-cop appears in the film at all. The trailer also has a bit of schizophrenia - in addition to giving away the killer (and his motive!), it dubs itself as “a new dimension in terror!”, as if the movie was either in 3-D or took place in some other dimension. The overly dramatic trailer announcer also announces the cast, which highlights the Raimis and Campbell but skips Cox (the actual star). Kind of fascinating. It's below as usual, but I would urge you not to watch it until you've seen the movie (unless you already know who the killer is, then it doesn't matter).

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Witchtrap (1989)

JUNE 3, 2009

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

While Witchboard was the real draw for most people, I was actually more interested in Witchtrap (aka The Presence), as I had never seen it. And since it didn’t start til almost 11 pm, it also presented me with a challenge - if I slept through it all, I’d have no movie for the day since Witchboard didn’t count. Well, I am proud to say I met about 90% of that challenge (less proud to admit the part I dozed through involved a guy getting run over by his own car, Maximum Overdrive style).

Kevin Tenney certainly set the bar low for the film, repeatedly mocking it during his introduction before Witchboard and during the Q&A in between the films. But really, I don’t think it’s all that bad. Sure, it suffers from some bad acting and takes a while to get going, but that’s hardly unique to this particular genre. And it has a great lead performance by James W. Quinn (who also popped up in Witchboard), some pretty nifty/gory deaths, and a howlingly bad cameo performance from Tenney himself. Plus, as the saying goes, no movie featuring the line “Well scratch my balls!” can be altogether bad.

Back to Quinn though, this guy is terrific. He’s playing a wise-ass ex-cop who never opens his mouth without insulting someone, but can do the hero stuff too (albeit while getting a bit ass-kicked; think Fletch crossed with Ashley J Williams). His comebacks are comic gold, as are some of his more obscure comebacks (when someone mentions that they never found the bad guy’s heart, he quips “San Francisco is nearby, maybe he left it there.”). Also, as the entire movie was ADR (the source audio was destroyed, or something), he is one of the few actors in the film to still sound natural; I never would have guessed these great lines were recorded in a booth months later.

I can’t say the same for some of the other actors, particularly Judy Tatum as one of the mediums. It’s a shame (for the film) that her character is saddled with most of the exposition, because she isn’t quite up to the task for the ADR work. I don’t mean she can’t stay in sync with her mouth (everyone actually does quite good with that), I mean she just sounds flat, like someone who can’t speak English saying their lines phonetically. She’s clearly not much of an actress anyway, but this just sinks her. On the plus side, some of her more random lines come across as even funnier than they would be had they been delivered properly (her character frequently hypothesizes or jumps to conclusions on unknown matters, so when she sees a girl who was killed in the shower, she somehow assumes that the ghost “probably raped her as well”).

Speaking of the shower death, that belongs to Linnea Quigley (hence the nudity). She gets a shower head to the neck, which leaves a giant hole (sharp edges on that round thing, I guess). We also have an exploding head, a bullet to the head (the ghost “shoots” it at the guy), an axe to the head... come to think of it, every death in this movie is based on the head being inflicted somehow. That is, with the exception of guy in the opening scene, who suffers cinema’s longest railing kill (we see him go over like 6 different times - and in 6 completely different positions in relation to the railing) before crashing to the ground below, presumably shattering his bones and destroying his vital organs. It’s hard to tell, because while the gore in the rest of the movie is quite good, the blood guy totally botched this one - the blood appears to be pooling TOWARD the guy’s body as it leaks from an offscreen source. It’s a charmingly inept sight.

But that’s what the movie has: charm. I’ve seen a lot of bad horror movies*, and this is certainly a bad movie in the traditional sense. But what separates it from something like Wolfman is charm. Everyone seems to be having a good time, the story is silly but solidly told (i.e. it’s not incomprehensible), and it gives the viewer 6 or 7 great deaths to enjoy. No one is out to win any awards, and the light comedic tone, save for some occasional character beats (some of which, we later learned, were added in during post to give the film a contract-required 90 minute runtime), is consistent throughout the film.

Tenney came back for a rare 2nd Q&A after the movie, joined by Quinn and J.P. Luebsen (and a producer whose name I cannot recall, sorry!), where he explained about the audio and some of the other things I mentioned. He also mentioned that, sadly, it is not on DVD. Tenney said he would look into it after discovering that there is an appreciative audience for the film (it played just as well as Witchboard did, as far as I could tell). VHS copies exist, some of which apparently have a disclaimer that the film is NOT a sequel to Witchboard, despite throwing Luebsen in his Malfeitor makeup on the cover (not the worst case of false advertising; Luebsen at least appears in Witchtrap, albeit as another character), but I assume they aren’t easy to find. Hopefully the DVD will happen; if nothing else, fans of actors like Nathan Fillion and Bruce Campbell should enjoy Quinn's similarly “charming asshole” performance.

What say you?

*More than one person (two, in fact) has suggested I compile either the 365 best or 365 worst HMAD movies for a book, the type you read in the bathroom or get as a gift for a family member that “likes movies” and you can’t think of anything meaningful to buy him/her. While I would certainly do more than just copy/paste the original review, would you buy such a thing when you can get the gist of the content for free? And why am I asking this as a footnote to a review for one of the more obscure movies I’ve reviewed all year?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Non Canon Review: Witchboard (1986)

JUNE 3, 2009

GENRE: POSSESSION, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)
LAST SEEN: 2002 (VHS)

One of the first horror movies I ever saw was Witchboard, and it was also one of the few I can say legitimately scared me. Something about the POV shots really creeped me out, and for a while I was also wary of being in close proximity to a sundial. The last time I saw it, in 2002, I wasn’t scared of the movie so much as I was of my girlfriend’s unbalanced ex, who kept calling the house she shared with some other girls (who would answer the phone) asking if she had “come home yet”, while circling the house. Fun. Needless to say, the idea of seeing it at the New Beverly was quite enticing, as it would certainly be a more enjoyable experience.

And it was! While the movie doesn’t quite fully hold up to my memories (a sentiment shared by writer/director Kevin Tenney, who was in attendance), it’s still a highly entertaining, fairly original horror movie, with some great gory deaths to enjoy in between scenes of some of the most unintentionally (I think) homoerotic buddy scenes I’ve ever seen in a horror movie.

See, our two lead heroes used to be best friends, but that soured when one of them began seeing the other one’s ex girlfriend (Tawny Kitaen!). So of course they get up in each other’s face for the first half of the movie, only to re-bond as they go off to investigate the source of all the supernatural phenomena that plagues them. Any one of their scenes in which they talk about their past friendship could easily be mistaken for talk about a romantic relationship, which just adds to the enjoyment. There’s a scene where one of them mocks the other one’s lovemaking skills, which SHOULD annoy the guy but instead results in them tossing laundry at each other (in a motel room no less).

The movie also has its fair share of hilarious dialogue. Stephen Nichols' “proper” pronouncement of Ouija (“wee-jah”, not “wee-jee”) gets a laugh every time, as does his frequent explanation of “negative entrapment”. “Jesus, why are we laughing...” would take too long to put into context here, but suffice to say it’s the 2nd funniest line in the movie. The funniest would be, after delivering a long exposition speech about ghosts and the Ouija and such, Nichols caps it off by saying “And that is why I have to go to Big Bear”, a locale that had never even been mentioned in the film up until that point. The awkward line was sadly explained away by Tenney during the Q&A (a prologue, set in Big Bear and depicting the death of the kid who they believe is causing all their problems, was cut from the film), but it’s not going to stop me from using it in casual conversation whenever I think of it. You know, like, “My coworker was out today, so I had to work a double shift, which didn’t give me time to watch a horror movie until 11 pm. And that is why I have to go Big Bear.”

Tenney threatened a remake as well (if they want to cast similar looking people, my choices would be Bradley Cooper, Simon Baker, and Kate Mara), and I can’t say it’s the worst idea, provided they improve the pace a bit and retain the mystery as to who exactly the spirit is. I also wouldn’t mind seeing a bit more from Malfeitor, the actual villain who only appears in a pair of dream sequence shots and in a photo. Actor J.P. Luebsen manages to create a memorable LOOKING villain, but damned if I know much about him or how he gained this power over the Ouija (and what took him so long to resurface).

One thing they definitely need to keep (and again, maybe expand) is the magic-obsessed cop. Even though I’ve seen the movie a half dozen times, for some reason I didn’t recall a single thing about this character, which is even stranger when you consider what an oddball highlight he is. He’s only in like three scenes, which is a shame as there are several magic tricks and magic-related double entendres he never got to use. He is incredibly focused on the main guy’s missing hammer (which has a blade on the other side of it), and that leads to more wacky dialogue (something about how the cuts on the rope from one death matched the cuts on someone’s neck in another). And he gets one of those 80s deaths, where he shows up for the big battle only to be killed instantly without any sort of real comeuppance or realization of his errors in judgment. This can be fixed, I think, and the role can be given to someone like Dennis Farina.

The DVD apparently has commentary, but none of the deleted stuff Tenney mentioned. He doesn’t seem optimistic (or even really interested) in putting together a 2nd edition, but since A. it’s an Anchor Bay release and B. there’s a remake coming along, I can almost guarantee a double dip. Still, if you’ve never seen it, I highly recommend it for group viewing. T-T-F-N!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Wolfman (1979)

JUNE 2, 2009

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

Despite coming up on 1,000 movies in a row (!!!), it’s rare I watch a film that is so boring and pointless that I actually look upon my daily viewing as a chore. Sure, there are days where it’s hard to find time to get a movie in, or I have to get up earlier than necessary to watch one before whatever I have to do that day (Comic Con, for example), but in those cases the movies themselves are usually OK. But Wolfman is just a fucking bore from start to finish, without a single moment that made me think “OK, it was worth sitting through this shitpile just to see this or hear that line”. In short, fuck you, Wolfman, because that’s 100 minutes I could have spent playing Xbox or frustrating my cats with a laser pointer.

In terms of story, it’s the same old generic werewolf movie we’ve all seen a dozen times; a family curse, sympathetic hero, fade in/out montages showing the transformation, etc. Director/writer Worth Keeter adds absolutely nothing to the formula (even the title is generic, they merely took out the space between Wolf and Man and dropped the The. Way to make your mark). Even a completely abysmal piece of crap like Werewolf: The Devil's Hound came up with a few of its own ideas. They weren’t GOOD ideas, mind you, but at least they were trying.

Actually, the movie does add one ingredient: Southern-fried goodness! If the exact location is explained, I missed it, but it seems to be in Texas or Arkansas, with a bunch of southern gentleman making up our characters (at least two of them resemble Colonel Sanders). And if I didn’t know better, I would swear that Jack McBrayer and David Koechner got the inspirations for their Kenneth Parcell (30 Rock) and Champ (Anchorman) characters from this movie. But that would mean that they have seen it, and thus couldn’t possibly be as funny as they are today, as movies this dull can put your sense of humor into a coma.

Why can’t the movie follow the killer bee story?

And if you think I’m exaggerating about the dullness, here are some facts: first sign that you’re even watching a horror movie: 38 minute mark. First werewolf appearance: 55 minute mark. Number of werewolf attack scenes: three (including the finale, where the Wolfman plays hero against the film’s “real villain”). Number of lines of dialogue from lead actor Earl Owensby that are delivered without the slightest bit of emotion: All. No one in the movie seems concerned one way or the other with anything that is happening, mirroring the audience (which is probably just me - I’m probably the first one to rent the damn thing from Blockbuster).

Incidentally, the DVD itself is far more entertaining than the film, due to its charming pointlessness. It appears to be one of the first DVDs ever produced, and thus suffered from the same problem a lot of late 90s discs do: quantity over quality. The hideous main menu lists 6 items, only two of which really refer to the movie (play movie and scene access). The others are “DVD-Rom” (which is the exact same content, with the added bonus of links to dead websites); DVD Dictionary - which is actually kind of cool; explaining wacky terms like AC3 5.1; and “Short Subject: Spooky Hooky”, which is a Little Rascals short that has nothing to do with werewolves. We also get a trivia game, which asks 10 random questions that again, have nothing to do with the film (or even horror; hope you know Marilyn Monroe’s dress size, the star of the original Thin Red Line, and whether or not Mickey Rourke was in American Graffiti). In short, it looks feature packed, but it’s just a bunch of random nonsense that doesn’t mean anything. Any DVD can be a special edition if you throw some stuff on it that won’t cost you anything extra to put it there. On the plus side, well, like I said, none of it has anything to do with Wolfman.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Dead Clowns (2003)

JUNE 1, 2009

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

As someone who suffers from mild Coulrophobia (I blame seeing Poltergeist when I was like 5), the idea of a movie called Dead Clowns is pretty appealing (Yay, they’re dead!). I was actually hoping it was a documentary, or maybe some sort of feature length slide show, with 90 minutes’ worth of photos of actual dead clowns. Sadly, it’s yet another no-budget zombie movie, with a plot stolen liberally from The Fog, a gaggle of unappealing actors (Debbie Rochon, please go away), and a lousy transfer that resembles a 3rd generation VHS dupe. But it’s got some stuff going for it too, enough to give it a mild pass.

On the positive side of things, it has a pretty good score (by the writer/director, Steve Sessions) that clearly apes Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness (and a bit of Carpenter’s collaboration with Alan Howarth on Halloween III), and you’ll hear a lot of it, because the characters rarely speak. The movie will go 5-10 minutes at a time without anyone uttering a sound (they don’t even scream when being attacked), which is not only beneficial since most of the dialogue we DO hear is pretty terrible, but also gives the film a strange vibe that I dug.

And I also liked that it’s fairly minimal. It’s a low budget production, so depicting full scale zombie mobs isn’t possible, but that doesn’t stop other filmmakers from trying. Here, we have a set number of clown zombies (5 or 6), and about as many humans. The town is mostly deserted due to a hurricane (bonus points for that too, unusual setting for a horror movie), and while I would have liked a couple of outdoor scenes, or at least some interior BESIDES a suburban home (one guy is in a movie theater, but he’s also in it the least), it gave the film a strange sort of intimacy that, again, you don’t often see in these things.

Another thing I liked was how grim it was (spoilers ahead), as no one survives. There are two “Final Girl” types, plus a guy in a wheelchair, but they all get offed. The end of the movie kills all the still-living characters with one fell swoop, which is pretty ballsy and awesome.

I just wish that the filmmakers had put a little more effort into the script and the production value. I can buy bad dialogue, but it’s a bit odd to have the entire mystery explained away right in the first ten minutes of the movie (and re-explained later). And unless I missed it, there’s no explanation for why the clown zombies decided to get up today when they’ve been down there for decades. It’s Florida, so it’s not likely that it was the hurricane that stirred them up, as it was probably one of three major storms that week.

And the cheapness! The gore is OK, but other things are just pitiful. Like the guy who snorts “coke”. He has the rolled up dollar bill and the credit card, and he’s putting his line together.... and a closeup reveals that it’s quite obviously granulated sugar, sparkling in the light. I suspect that a PA was sent to buy sugar, and didn’t understand that CONFECTIONERY sugar is what can pass for cocaine, but they were too cheap or didn’t have the time to bother sending him back for the right thing. Plus, back to the script, the guy instantly hallucinates after snorting, despite the fact that cocaine is not a hallucinogen and even if it was probably would take longer than 3 seconds for the guy to start seeing things.

There’s also a bit where a guy (maybe the same one, I couldn’t tell two of them apart) is “pinned” under a “heavy” door. But it’s pretty obvious that the door is just some cheap plywood, plus it moves around with the guy’s struggles, suggesting it would take almost no effort to push aside. Again, the gore is fine, and considering how overlong the death scenes are (one guy gets munched on for a full two minutes), I wish they had put some of the effects budget into proper props.

The DVD has no features whatsoever, though the ‘Gate tries their damnedest to put me in a bad mood with their trailer reel, which featured Dark Ride and Drive Thru (two of my most hated movies) back to back, right off the bat. Also the cover is sort of misleading, as it shows a perfectly alive-looking clown standing in a carnival, whereas all the clowns in the movie are rotted (Fulci-style) and the carnival is never seen, only spoken of in one of the film’s fourteen lines of dialogue. I’d argue that a rotting, maggot-y clown is more enticing than a regular one, but oh well.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...