I really liked Cure (Japan: Kyua). I didn’t understand all of it (the much lauded final shot is seemingly left entirely up to your own conclusion), and it wasn’t quite what I thought it would be, but I liked it. I didn’t doze off once (a rarity for a movie I have to “read”), I didn’t shout at the screen for something to “happen!” despite the fact that it’s often very slow, and when it was done I pondered watching it again to see if it would help fill in some of answers to questions I had, unlike recent puzzlers such as Antichristor Wendigo.
I think what I dug was the detached style of the film. Almost every scene unfolds in a wide shot, with minimal edits. I was struck by how many scenes involved a character walking from one side of the frame to the other - conventional filmmaking would employ a cut (and a closer shot), which would distract, even if only on a subconscious level. By shooting the film this way, you feel like you’re on the outside looking in, as opposed to most serial killer movies, in which the director tries to get you as close as possible to the goings on.
I also liked the abruptness of the murder scenes. After a while you can kind of spot them coming, but they all unfold sort of like the nurse scene from The Exorcist III, where you’re watching someone do mundane things in a single shot for minutes and then BAM! someone comes out of nowhere and does them in. Again - for all the talk of their ghost films, to me, our Eastern horror filmmakers are far more effective when dealing with horror of the non-supernatural type.
And the killer is terrifically entertaining. He can hypnotize people through repetition, so he pretends (I think) to have the shortest short term memory since Sammy Jankis. So he’ll ask if you’re married, and you tell him you have a wife, and he’ll ask what she does, and when you say “She’s a doctor” or whatever, his reponse is “Who’s a doctor?”, as he has “forgotten” the initial question. You’d think it would be annoying, but it’s actually kind of charmingly quirky, and then when you realize the sinister motivation for it, it’s pretty damn creepy (another reason I’d like to go back and watch it again).
And he is matched with the lead cop, played by Kôji Yakusho. He’s an interesting character: he’s got a crazy wife and he’s obviously been around the block a few times. And he’s not without humor either; when interrogating a murder suspect, he first asks if he saw this type of killing on a movie. Heh. Some of the movie seems to exist in his own head, and that gets kind of confusing, but either way it’s the rare J-horror film with a hero as compelling as its villain, and when the two finally meet it’s like seeing Deniro and Pacino finally face off (in the film and in all of movie-dom) in Heat.
The only extra on the DVD is a lengthy interview with director Kiyoshi Kurosawa (who also helmed the equally slow but yet compelling Kairo), but he doesn’t talk about the film so much as he does his own beliefs and philosophies. It’s an interesting chat, but I’d be lying if I said I wish he (or some other feature on the DVD) helped answer a few questions I had. Being that it’s a foreign film that was released prior to the Asian boom in the States, it’s not widely discussed over here, and I hate to trust in the IMDb messageboards for answers. But it was recommended by HMAD readers Zed and Becca, so I hope they and whoever else has seen it weighs in with their thoughts.
(Personally, I think the detective has taken on the role of the killer - but I have no idea what the hell that shot of his wife all cut up and being rolled vertically down the hall was all about. Another figment of his imagination?)
As an avid fan of Project Greenlight, nothing makes me happier than the continued success of Season 3’s screenwriting team of Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton. While the folks from the other seasons have gone on to do... nothing, as far as I know, these guys are everywhere in horror. From writing the Feast trilogy (with PGL winner John Gulager at the helm - another success. Why did they cancel the show when they finally got it right?), to taking over writing duties on Saws 4-7, and constantly being attached to in development movies such as the Hellraiser remake, they have certainly shed their “contest winner” stigma and carved out successful screenwriting careers (quick - name another writer or writers with six produced films in the past two years to their name). And now they’ve taken it up a notch, with Marcus directing their script for The Collector, a film they have been wanting to make before they even wrote the first Feast.
While it was at one time considered to be molded into a Saw prequel, and the use of “traps” certainly bringing some familiarity to the piece, this is NOT a Saw-type film. If I had to compare it to a pair of films in the time-honored Hollywood tradition (“It’s ____ meets ____ !”), I would say it was a cross between The Strangers and the final 20 minutes of Home Alone. The traps here are not like the ones in Saw, they are fairly basic (some are even identical to those from Home Alone, such as nails on the stairs) and avoidable. What they lack in complication, though, they make up for in sheer quantity - the goddamn things are everywhere. How the Collector had time to set them all up, I don’t know, but suffice to say they lead to a constant sense of dread. A Jigsaw kidnapee is usually free to run around the dungeons and warehouses without having to worry about literally falling into a trap - they either wake up inside of one or have to put themselves willingly into one in order to get a key or whatever. Here, our hero, Arkin (Josh Stewart) has to constantly watch his step, lest he set off a trip wire or run face-first into razor wire stretched across the room at face level. There is something incredibly nerve-wracking about a guy who constantly has to be escaping a pursuer but unable to really haul ass.
And in a bold move that pays off, Dunstan doesn’t leave too many of the traps to surprise - a sweeping shot throughout the entire house pretty much shows every single one of them. At first I was a bit disappointed that I knew where they all were and more or less what they would do, but as the film progresses, I realized this was actually to the film’s benefit. If we HADN’T seen them all, it would become kind of laughable when they appear; “Oh, yeah there’s a room with bear traps too”. But knowing that they are all there allows Dunstan to get them out of the way and focus on people screwing up and activating them. We KNOW those bear traps are there, it’s just a matter of knowing who will set them off and when.
More on Dunstan’s directing - working with Bousman and Gulager has not been an influence on his editing/shooting style. There is no hyper-editing or super-close-up “what the hell am I looking at?” type camerawork here, which works fine for those films but would have been annoying here. He uses a lot of long takes, and stays far back enough to allow you to see the characters and their surrounding dangers. He also avoids the first time director habit of being flashy - there are a couple of off-kilter POV shots, and close-ups of how the booby traps work, but otherwise it’s directed like an old school horror film. The opening shot, for example, is a slow tracking shot of a house (not the main house) from across the street as a couple arrives home, perfectly setting up the creepy/suspenseful tone of the film. Hopefully this won't be a one-off directorial gig.
Another thing that works quite well is that our hero is essentially a criminal. He’s there to rob the family, only to more or less get forced into being their savior (mainly because he is unable to escape the house anyway). This sort of setup always appeals to me, and the guy’s intentions (to pay off a loan shark that is after his wife) are honorable. He is never really confronted by a family member as to why he’s there in the first place (they ask, but he never answers), which could have been a nicely uncomfortable touch, but on the flipside, such things would allow you a breather that the film never offers.
You might think a movie that takes place entirely in a house, with only 3 or 4 possible victims, would be kind of slow paced, but that is not the case here. Arkin is constantly on the move, attempting to dodge the Collector and rescue family members (this would make an excellent XBL marketplace game). I don’t think it’s spoiling much to say that he’s not always successful in his rescue attempts, and even though the victims are nice innocent people (as opposed to our thief hero), the death scenes are insanely over the top and applause worthy. They aren’t played for laughs (nothing about the movie is, actually), but knowing the team’s sick sense of humor from the Feast films, you can almost sense the morbid glee they must have felt when staging some of the deaths (again: ROOM FULL OF BEAR TRAPS!). And there’s always a little darkly humorous touch in the deaths, such as when a guy is electrocuted thanks to a toppled TV and fish tank combination. As the guy wriggles and fries, we see a hapless fish trying to swim its way to safety. I love shit like that - not only is it a funny sight gag, but it also answers a question some audience members are bound to have (“Are the fish OK?”).
I should note part of my enjoyment may have stemmed by seeing so many actors from my favorite shows in it. Supporting actors from Lost, Prison Break (RIP) and Friday Night Lights all turn in small roles, and that is fine by me. Also, the patriarch of the family is played by Michael Reilly Burke, aka the Bundy that got his ass kicked by Tiffany Shepis in Ted Bundy. But the real draw is Josh Stewart, who carries the film easily. I’ve never seen the guy before, but I am sure that will change after this - I can’t recall the last time I saw a relative unknown take the lead (he’s pretty much in every frame of the movie) in a wide theatrical release, especially without a big star in a smaller role to anchor it, but it’s a gamble that paid off. Character development can be a bit slim (we never know why his wife had to deal with a loan shark to begin with) but you still care about this guy, thanks to Stewart’s appealing performance.
My only issue with the film is the score by Nine Inch Nails drummer Jerome Dillon. Some of it works fine, such as during the battle between Arkin and the Collector, but often times it just sounds like leftover NIN music (of which I’m not a fan), and gives the film a Saw feel that it otherwise doesn’t have. It’s also incredibly loud at times, though that might have been the fault of the theater’s surround system. A minimalist score, something like Carpenter’s for Halloween, would have been a better choice, in my opinion.
The fact that this movie has gotten a wide summer release from an independent studio should be enough to tell you that it’s worth a look. It’s up against heavy competition (I still wish people were seeing Orphan, actually), but this could be a major boon for independent horror productions if the film were to open well. So please guys - if the Saw films (which also have no major stars) can make 60-80 million a piece, there is no reason why this film can’t make at least half that. I’m tired of repeating myself: if you don’t want an endless stream of remakes and PG-13 teen horror films, then for the love of Christ, go see an original R rated film when you get one. Thanks to Haunting In CT and the MBV/F13 remakes, horror’s been doing OK this year (compared to last year), but you all dropped the ball with the best ones: Drag Me To Hell (PG-13, yes, but not designed as one) and Orphan. You have to take a chance on unproven commodities so that the money men continue to do the same. And unlike Hatchetor Midnight Meat Train, this is a WIDE release: 1400 screens. There’s no way you can claim “it’s not playing near me” on this one, so get your ass in the theater.
After Redneck Zombies, I wasn’t really in the mood for another “backyard” zombie film this week, but being the colossal moron I am, I told my fellow Horror People, Dear Reader commentator and all around fonzanoon Simon Barrett that he could pick my movie today, as it is his 40th birthday. The only requisite I gave him was that it had to be something from Netflix instant view, because I don’t like him enough to go out of my way to get something. And because I apparently stepped on his foot or maybe slept with his wife in a previous life, the bastard got back at me by making me watch Shatter Dead.
It certainly starts off promising, with a lesbian sex scene (one of them is an angel), followed by a strange zombie scene where a woman walks past a bunch that are homeless, and then blows one up for stealing her gas. I liked the idea of a “Zombies are just part of life” motif, such as in Zombies Anonymous, so I was intrigued. Unfortunately, after this, there is almost zero zombie action in the film, which just becomes one of those art-school dramas where people sit around in poorly lit apartments discussing what it means to be alive and all that crap. I can barely tolerate these things in 10 minute student films, but when stretched to an interminable 80 minutes, the filmmakers might as well be smashing my scrotum with a block of wood, Antichrist style.
Every now and then there is some action, such as when a zombie who apparently stepped out of a poorly planned frat costume party begins spouting some religious babble while he and other zombies kill everyone for about 5 straight minutes. There is a lot of splatter here, plus the time-honored indie zombie scene where a fetus is torn from a woman’s body (how do these guys always find a way to work that in?), but then its back to more pontificating into the in-camera mic; “What is it to be alive?” type shit. The last half hour is just the heroine (or is that heroin? Hey-o!!! ...she looks like a junkie is what I’m saying) and her zombie boyfriend in an apartment, with him rambling nonstop about how beautiful it is to be dead while she threatens to shoot herself in the head. If you love everything you hear at a poetry slam, you’ll probably like these interminable scenes. The only reason I was able to sit through them is because the douchebag boyfriend looked like a hair metal version of Joe Lynch.
There is also a surprising amount of nudity in the film. Not that I mind nudity much, but a lot of it seemed gratuitous (the afore-mentioned lesbian angel scene is never explained, nor does she appear again, best as I can tell), not to mention was seemingly just there to pad the film out to feature length. Also, none of the women are particularly attractive, so if it’s meant to titillate, it pretty much fails. Even when the coke whore (sorry, lead actress) blows a gun (for real), I was just sort of bored and somewhat grossed out. If that was the intent, fine - but why would anyone want you to find the lead character unappealing? What incentive do you have to finish the movie?
Like Antichrist, I’m going to just chalk this one up to “Not my thing”. I like zombies, obviously, but writer/director Scooter McCrae apparently doesn’t, or he would have used them in his movie more. I may not have liked Redneck Zombies much, but at least director Pericles Lewnes (who pops up in this movie, strangely enough) definitely wanted to make an actual zombie movie. Scooter seems more interested in recycling what he sort of remembered from a Philosophy 101 class that he spent watching fetish porn. Maybe there’s a niche audience for zombie movies without zombies and a lot of ugly nudity and pretentious babble in their place, and if so, I wholeheartedly recommend this thing. Me, the most entertained I got was when I consulted the Wikipedia page to see if it had any explanation for the angel scene. It didn’t, but the synopsis seems to have been written by someone who was as bored as I was with the movie. The DVD apparently includes lots of extras, but even if I had rented the disc proper I can’t be sure I’d want to spend any more time on Shatter Dead (p.s. 2nd movie in a row with a title in which I am unable to find the relevance).
In conclusion, the moral of the story is: Never listen to Simon, unless he’s talking (with me) over a public domain horror movie. Then listen to each and every word with baited breath.
What say you?
P.S. I couldn't find the trailer so I put in a clip of the only real action scene in the entire movie. Enjoy, I guess.
Have you seen Breakdown, with Kurt Russell? If not, you should. If you have, just imagine you’re watching it while bouncing around in the back of a pickup truck, and viola! You’ve seen Hush. Because, a few decent scenes and a nice twist aside, it’s the exact same movie - a guy spends the night chasing after the truck that he believes has taken his woman - except writer/director Mark Tonderai films the entire thing in shaki-cam, an effect that runs the gamut from reasonable to downright annoying, sometimes in the same scene.
I’m not really an opponent of shaki-cam. People supposedly puked while watching Blair Witch, but I never had a problem with it there. And in the hands of a master like Paul Greengrass, it can be a truly effective device. But Tonderai is not such a master. For every nice use, like when he makes it look like a POV of the bad guy in order to mis-direct us, there’s a dozen times when it’s just distracting and without any benefit to the story or tone of a scene. Do we really need to have the camera jerking around when our hero is merely feeding a dog? Get a goddamn tripod, mate.
Oh yeah, this one is from the UK, so I guess it’s OK that there isn’t a single original idea within its barely feature length running time (91 minutes - but 10 of them are credits). Like 28 Days Later, every single story bit can be found in an earlier, better film, but as long as everyone’s driving on the left and saying “Oy!” it’s apparently acceptable. Hence why the cover has quotes comparing the film to the best of Hitchcock. To my eyes, all I saw was a hodgepodge of Breakdown, Duel, Joy Ride, and The Vanishing, with little to add to the template. The closest the film gets to an original idea is the hero’s job - he is in charge of changing the advertisements in gas station restrooms. I have seen a lot of movies in my day, and I am 100% positive that Hush is the first one with a character under this particular employment. Well done.
Besides the lack of originality, the movie really blunders by not giving any sort of motive or backstory to the villains. We find out that there are three of them; one is introduced as such and then never appears in the proper film again (there’s a quick bit with him during the end credits), and another is killed within moments of THEIR reveal. That leaves the main bad guy, whose face we never see and who never utters a word. This isn’t always a problem (Duel, and of course Halloween), but those films were bare basic narratives, so it was OK for the villain to follow suit. Here, the guy has this giant compound with laser sensors, and has folks in his employ, plus a few other victims chained up in his lair - you can’t have all this stuff and not give even the slightest explanation for why its there! It’s the same issue I had with Laid to Rest; if you’re going to give your villain all these “toys”, you need to explain what they are for.
Another thing that irked me was the repetition. There are at least four scenes where the hero has to flatten himself against a wall or on a car seat while the bad guy snoops around, only to be distracted away at the last second and allow our hero to get away. And some of them are painfully contrived, like when he is hiding in the bathroom and the killer comes in. Rather than act like a normal person in this situation and stand on the toilet, he instead grabs onto the little coathook on the door and suspends himself. What? Luckily, this leads to one of those few good scenes (two cops walk in, and then the four men all wash hands next to one another), but it’s not worth the eye-rolling that precedes it.
Another thing I liked was the sound editing. Throughout the film, we continually hear things that don’t match up to the image, such as a phone conversation over a shot of the person still sitting down before they get up to make the call. Because it’s been set up, it allows Tonderai to pull a fast one during one particular scene (think the “FBI raid” scene from Silence of the Lambs) without it really being a cheat. Nice work.
The DVD comes with a whopping 22 featurettes, which run anywhere from 1-3 minutes, focusing on a different scene, actor, or crew member. Much is made about the film’s rear projection (which is often good but in one case, completely botched as the projected footage is scaled too low in comparison to the car) and other low-budget techniques, but not a single one addresses the script in any meaningful way, which, as is usually the case, is the root of the film’s problems and thus not related to any budgetary limitations. Shaki-cam aside, the director does a good job and I never suspected the low budget until it was mentioned, so it’s a shame that the script was so generic and under-developed. Hopefully next time around, Tonderai will have a better story to work with, or at least one with some personality.
Oh one last thing - if you're going to give your movie such a generic and terrible title, shouldn't it at least have something to do with the plot? Yeah, the guy has to keep quiet every now and then, but how is that different than any other thriller? Alternate title suggestions: Make Phone Call, Run, Hide, Yell "No!", or Drive Frantically.
I can’t quite recall where I heard about Apartment 1303, or even if the review was positive or not (I thought it was in Rue Morgue but a quick check against the last 5-6 issues proved fruitless). Since there is no remake, it’s relatively obscure here in the States (its Wikipedia page is laughably slim - it basically asserts that the film exists and nothing else), which is a shame as I think it’s one of the better ones of the “Angry ghost” genre.
For starters, it makes sense. The ending gets a tad puzzling (was everyone besides our heroine a goddamn ghost for the entire movie?) but I’d rather be confused at the end rather than throughout the entire movie, only to have it all explained in a flurry of exposition, the way the Ju-On films tend to operate (and even then I’m still a bit baffled). And even though we’re still dealing with vengeful ghosts, the actual story is a bit unique. Seems this pair is of a mother and daughter who had the least healthy relationship this side of Joan Crawford, which draws a parallel to our heroine, who has her own mother issues (exacerbated by the seeming suicide of her sister) to deal with. Unlike many of its peers, Apartment 1303 actually takes time to develop its characters, which made it easier to forgive the familiarity of the horror scenes. And Noriko Nakagoshi is terrific in the lead; there’s a scene where she watches a home movie of her sister and begins wailing (good score here too) that’s really sad to watch - both in a “oh that’s sad that she misses her sister” way as well as a “Wow, I think this is the first time I’ve seen a character show an emotion besides fear in one of these movies” way.
Also she smokes. I hate smoking and will gladly berate a complete stranger who makes the inane request for a light, but since the habit has been phased out of movies (except for the RAVs, of course) it’s sort of charming in a way when a filmmaker doesn’t conform to the style. People do and always will smoke - seeing someone in a film do it actually grounds it in reality (as opposed to not smoking and causing a distraction, such as John McClane’s lack of a butt break in Die Hard Faux).
Another thing I dug about the movie was how short it was. Finally, a 90 minute (and some change) Asian horror film! Then again, I don’t see how it could be any longer; it’s sort of a thin premise (all the action is limited to the title “character”) and since only people that live in it end up dead, there’s only so many times a character can move in and instantly kill themselves before even the most skeptic movie character would order the place to be permanently sealed off. Indeed, late in the movie a new set of girls moves in, and while it’s nice to see 3 kills for the price of 1, I still got a sense of “Really? Again?”
But the end goes all out like a Poltergeist movie. Director Ataru Oikawa (he did all those Tomie films people keep telling me to watch) cranks the fog machines to 11, a ghost with crazy tendril like hair begins dragging people around, lots of yelling, lots of ghosts... as I said, I wasn’t quite sure what the hell was going on, but after the rather slow first 80 minutes, it’s a welcome spectacle. And another downer ending, which you all know I always love.
My only real complaint is that the heroine never rents the place herself. I was kind of hoping for a 1408style setup, where she finally decides to “see for herself” and we spend the last part of the movie with her in the apartment, fighting off the supernaturally charged desire to jump out the window, with the ghost hitting her with everything she had. A more typical haunted house scenario would not only be less repetitive, but it would also help the film gain its own identity outside of all the Ju-Ons and Shutterand One Missed Call(more bad mothers!) type films that everyone’s probably already seen.
The disc has no extras (phew!), but I did discover from the Blockbuster envelope that the film is based on a book. If it has been translated, I wouldn’t mind reading it, provided it’s as “to the point” as the film. I don’t need another 700 page epic to add to my collection.
Last night I attended a roast for Lloyd Kaufman at Comic Con, and it was probably the most fun I had the entire time I was there. People lovingly mocking their peers for 2 hrs is far more interesting than interviewing bored starlets about their slasher remakes or waiting in line to see a panel. Also, it got me in the mood for some Troma, but unfortunately all I had at my disposal by the time I got home from San Diego was Redneck Zombies, which is probably the most prolific Troma release that they had nothing to do with.
As I have said before, I like the actual Troma productions (i.e. the ones Lloyd directs or at least produces himself), but the indies that they merely distribute tend to grate. They have the gross out gags, the potty humor, and the terrible acting, but they are often missing the charm that a Poultrygeistor Terror Firmer has. And while Redneck is certainly better than Slaughter Party or whatever, it’s still a bit of a chore to get through at times.
And by “at times” I mean most of the first hour. I can forgive the lack of action due to the budgetary restraints and all, but good Christ is it boring whenever the zombies aren’t on screen. The redneck “humor” grows stale after about 15 minutes (never been a big fan of this type of humor anyway), and the attempts at more traditional humor pretty much all fall flat. Even the zombie scenes themselves drag; there’s an endless sequence of rednecks drinking the infected liquid that turns them into zombies, packed with every cheesy video filter director Pericles Lewnes had at his disposal. At one point I got up to pee, came back, and the sequence was still on (and far from over). There’s also some nonsense with a “Tobacco Man”, who looks like Bubba from Dark Night of the Scarecrow and speaks in gibberish. What these scenes have to do with anything, I have no idea.
Once the zombies begin attacking in full force it picks up considerably. The effects are actually pretty decent, and the nuttiness of it all is endearing. I particularly liked the bit where a zombie that looks like Herk Harvey is attacking a girl. She reaches for a weapon, but all she can reach is a mousetrap, which snaps on her hand, at which point she uses it to club him. Heh. I also liked the honesty in the opening credits; it lists a Director of “Videography” instead of Photography.
And, you know, kudos to everyone. Yeah it didn’t turn out so great, but the spirit and enthusiasm to make a film (the first film to be shot on video that got a national distribution) is evident in every frame, and in that respect the film is a resounding success. It’s clear Lewnes just got a bunch of friends together and made a movie, and speaking as someone who has tried and largely failed at doing that (I need more job and girlfriend-less friends), the fact that they even assembled a 90 minute movie at all is enough to mostly forgive its leaden pace and uneven structure. With a better editor, this could be more than something I only appreciate and instead actually enjoy, a laThe Dead Next Door.
The DVD comes packed with extras, which isn’t much of a surprise. There are about 45 minutes’ worth of interviews with pretty much everyone involved in the film; some of them are only a minute or two, and they are all annoyingly over-edited (it’s OK to let the actor pause for a moment!), but there are a lot of great anecdotes to enjoy. There’s about 15 minutes of deleted/extended scenes, nothing you’ll miss. An eight minute trailer reel is interesting, mainly because there’s one with Don LaFontaine doing the narration, lending the film a bit of authenticity that I wasn’t aware it had. Some outtakes are mildly amusing, and then there’s the usual batch of Troma promotional material. Finally, there’s a commentary, but as I am so far behind on reviews I had to skip it for now. Maybe someday.
Lewnes never directed another horror movie; instead he’s worked in small roles (DP, 2nd unit, special effects) on a few true Troma productions and made a few documentaries. Considering what he pulled off with nothing, I would be very interested to see what he could do with a real crew and some money (the budget was less than that of Blair Witch Project!). I know the film has its fans, such as HMAD reader Miss Kolleen, but in my case I admire it more for its effort than its execution, and would probably never want to watch it again. The abundance of shot-on-video horror films over the past 10-15 years has sort of diminished Redneck’s novelty value, but it’s still enjoyable enough at times to warrant a look, especially if you’re a budding filmmaker yourself.
In a way, it’s sort of admirable that the Tremors series has always involved the writing/producing and, with the exception of the first film, directing of S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock. Few horror series get that far with the original creators on board; even Whannell and Wan left the Sawseries after the 3rd film. But as I watched Tremors 4: The Legend Begins, I couldn’t help but wonder if that was precisely the series’ problem.
While technically better than the 3rd film, the 4th is structured so familiarly that I got bored before the graboids even showed up (though, it’s worth noting, it takes longer for them to appear than usual, which didn’t help). As always, they can take care of one fairly easily, only to have to constantly think of different ways to stop the “learning” monsters. People stand on secure ground, the market is attacked, an elder character is killed... all the same things that happened in all of the other movies happens again here, beat for beat, scene for scene. I was hoping that by setting it in the Old West that it would inject some fresh blood to the proceedings, but since the town of Perfection has always been a bit out of date by design, it hardly even feels different when the steam engines and horses aren’t on screen.
See, the problem is, they kept changing up the monsters, when it’s the locale itself that had gotten old. Why not send them to suburbia, or a metropolis, or even a lake somewhere? Who the hell cares if they can make smaller ones that fart? This one, being a hundred years ago, more or less keeps the giant ones from the first movie, except they have some tongue type things. And, I am guessing due to the lower budget, they don’t really appear much. There’s an opening scene in which you see nothing, and then two minor attack scenes in the middle before the somewhat abrupt climax.
Instead, we spend most of our time with the characters, who are easily the least interesting group yet. Michael Gross plays Burt’s great grandfather, but he’s sort of an asshole, and the movie is designed to explain why the Gummer family is so interested in guns, as if we really needed to know that. Billy Drago is a hoot as a gunslinger, but he is only in the film for a 25 minute stretch. The only other bright spot is August Schellenberg, who plays a laconic Indian who claims that he was the inspiration for the familiar cigar store Indian statue. This and other moments provide the bulk of the humor, and I should note that it’s easily the least humorous of the series, which is another sore spot. The nice thing about the first and most of the 2nd films was that even when the monsters weren’t around, it was still fun. Not the case here, since the characters aren’t interesting or fun enough to distract you from the lack of graboid action.
I also didn’t buy the end, where the surviving characters agree never to tell anyone about the graboids, thus providing the thinnest possible explanation for how all of this happened without them being discovered (my idea? Just kill all of the humans at the end of this one.). Not only is it generic, but it also doesn’t make much sense - I can see why they wouldn’t tell people from out of town, but why wouldn’t Gummer tell his children, especially when his whole thing is about being prepared? Kind of silly. Killing Gummer at the end, after knocking a woman up to ensure his bloodline, would have made more sense. Of course, that would be a total downer ending for an easy-going, fun series like this, but so what? Mix it up a little!
It’s not a total loss, at least. The score is terrific, not something you can often say about the 3rd DTV sequel to a horror movie. And a few of the little callbacks to the series are worth a grin (I particularly liked seeing how the market came to be). The effects are also the best of the DTV films, utilizing miniatures and puppets while keeping the CGI to a minimum. And even though the monster action itself is largely repetitive, Wilson comes up with a few nice shots to make up for it, like when a wagon goes over a bridge as a graboid smashes its way under it. There’s also a terrific, if a bit preposterous, kill with a giant saw blade stuck into the ground.
But moments do not make a movie. Maybe if this was the only sequel, it would be more of a success, but after 3 movies of this stuff, changing the time period is simply not enough to keep it from feeling like you’ve seen it all before. In fact, the biggest surprise is a commentary track (by Wilson), as I believe it’s the first of the series to have one. It’s not a particularly interesting track; he points out a few bits that have been planned for earlier films (such as a guy on the top of a telephone pole that is being swallowed by a graboid) and interesting shooting locations (under the Hollywood sign!), but he’s also quiet and mellow, so good luck staying awake through the whole thing. The only other extra is a typical and clip-heavy EPK making-of, which is entirely skippable unless you wholeheartedly love the film.
I grabbed The Caretaker to take to Comic Con mainly because it had no extras whatsoever, unlike the other films that I was watching (many of them rentals that I wanted to get out of the way). So it’s kind of funny that I learned the next day that it was at Comic Con LAST year that I got the damn thing; according to my friend Ryan, we got them in a gift bag or something. Good to know. Movie’s a complete waste of time, but at least I know how I acquired it in the first place.
The script isn’t the worst thing ever. There are some truly horrid lines and “jokes”, like a girl who for some reason doesn’t understand the term “female charms” in a double entendre setting, and repeated references to Myspace that make the film already feel dated, but the backstory is fine and the pacing harkens back to the older ones, where it’s half setup and half execution (as opposed to a “Kill every 10 minutes” structure that you get in most modern slashers). It’s a formulaic script, hitting every beat that you expect and doing very little new (it’s actually quite reminiscent of Prom Night IV, of all things), but there’s a certain comfort in that. Unfortunately, that comfort can only be obtained if the performances and direction follow suit, and in this movie, they most certainly do not.
Let’s start with the “actors”. Our only two names are Jennifer Tilly and Judd Nelson, and it’s pretty obvious that their casting blew the entire budget since the other actors are all amateur and terrible (not to mention that the film as a whole resembles a short film a real director might put on a DVD and say “Hey this is what I did when I was twelve.”). Tilly’s role is entirely worthless in the grand scheme of things, and if not for the fact that her cleavage is always on full display her scenes would be the absolute worst in the film. You could edit her character out entirely and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference, plus they carry an absurdist tone that the rest of the film lacks, making them stick out even more. As for Judd Nelson, well, he only has two scenes. And since one is early on, you could be watching the film on mute (not the worst idea) and know what his other one is going to be about (hint: he’s the killer).
Oh wait, the guy that played the Creeper in Jeepers Creepers also pops up as a limo driver who acts creepy for no reason other than to try to make you think that maybe Judd Nelson isn’t the killer. It doesn’t work.
Worse than the actors, however, is the film’s horribly cheap feel. A slasher movie should have iconic shots of its killer, if nothing else, but director Bryce Olson and DP Vern Nobles can’t even be bothered to give him a decent reveal. More often than not he just sort of lumbers into the frame without fanfare, and the terrible lighting means you never even get a good look at him. His weapon (a sharpened fruit picker) is pretty cool, but you never see it make an impact; the five or six drops of blood in this movie are on wounds that were already made. The non-killer stuff is just as bland; two-shot, two-shot, wide-shot, close-up... there is simply zero flair to anything on the screen. Plus it all takes place in a standard house that wouldn’t even make a good location for a porno, let alone a slasher film.
Again, the disc has no extras, so who knows what these guys were trying to accomplish. Other than possibly giving one pause the next time they go picking grapefruits, there is nothing in this movie that clearly demonstrates why it was even made in the first place.
Of all the “legendary” serial killers, Charles Manson is probably the most widely known, but I’ve never really had any interest in his case. Someone like Bundy or even Charles Whitman is much more interesting to me, as there is a normal life and then a snap. Manson was seemingly crazy his entire life, and his claim to fame is that one day he told some of his moron followers to go kill some folks. But I recently took more of an interest due to taking part in a “ghost hunt” at a house next door to the infamous murders, where the ghosts of Sharon Tate and the others are supposedly haunting. I didn’t see anything while I was there, but it still got me to finally get around to watching The Manson Family, which I’ve heard about a couple of times and was sort of curious about even beforehand.
On paper it sounds like a great idea: It’s the whole-ish story told in a documentary style through the eyes of the followers. Manson is usually the focus, but since he’s not the one who actually committed the murders, other films have a strange disconnect where you’re following this one guy around and then the climax revolves around other people while he smokes weed at home or whatever he was doing. Indeed, Manson (Marcelo Games) all but completely disappears after the first 30 minutes or so, popping up only briefly in a handful of scenes.
And for a while, it works. The crazy cutting, insane sound design, and shockingly brave performances (particularly the Wil Forte-looking Marc Pitman) were quite compelling and unique; even succeeding in presenting an acid-induced state of mind. It’s sort of like a cross between the more psychedelic scenes in Natural Born Killers and the dinner scene from Texas Chain Saw Massacre, except for an entire film. But that’s also the problem. It’s not exhausting, it’s just tiresome. The rapid edits and super-imposed images and other assorted nonsense starts to feel less exciting and instead more juvenile, like a high school kid trying to be “edgy”. And Games' performance as Charlie (no one says the name Manson, for some reason) pales in comparison to Jeremy Davies’ from the TV movie Helter Skelter, which aired around the same time this film was finished.
Not helping matters is a ridiculous framing story about some punk kids planning to off the reporter making the documentary. Every now and then we have to watch them do their thing, and it completely throws the tone/pace off. Finally, the ending is just complete horseshit, they kill the reporter, and then each other after one of them explains what “Charlie Don’t Surf” means. I assume the point is to show Manson’s continuing influence on the scumbags of today, but it’s just such a poorly shot and acted scene that it fails to accomplish anything besides making an already overlong movie longer. Plus, it’s pure fiction, awkwardly edited into what seems like a fairly faithful recreation of what actually happened.
And when you consider the film’s production (at times more interesting than the film itself), it’s a wonder such things were even bothered with, as the money used to shoot/edit these scenes could have been allocated to improve the sections of the film that actually work. The film was shot without an actual budget; writer/director Jim Van Bebber would film when he could, over a period of ten to fifteen years (shooting and editing times are a bit muddled). He would show rough cuts at festivals to get money to shoot more footage that would be edited in for its next showing. I would have liked to have known why he even stopped shooting and finally said “it’s done”. There is no real narrative to the film itself, it is only dictated by what happened in real life, so it’s conceivable that he could have kept on filming to include well-known events that the film skips, such as Manson’s dealings with Brian Wilson.
So I dunno. I would certainly recommend seeing at least some of it, just for the sheer brashness of it all, but it’s sort of one of those things where you can watch it for 20 minutes or 4 hrs (it’s 95 minutes long, for the record) and come away with the same reaction. The film offers zero insight into the man, so Manson-philes won’t learn anything new, and the film is too “in its own head” for someone with zero knowledge of Manson to understand what the hell is happening.
What say you?
P.S. I understand there is a boxed set with a documentary about the film’s production, but this was a Netflix rental, so all I got was the film. The only extra on the disc is the trailer. If anyone has seen the doc and thinks I should check it out, by all means let me know!
Much like Martin Barnewitz’s last film (Room 205), Messengers 2: The Scarecrow has a few really good moments, but you have to wade through tedium to find them. Nothing about it particularly angered me, and I was never completely bored, but it failed to really resonate either; most of the movie left my head by the time I sat down to watch the commentary a few days later. One thing stands as a definite plus though - you don’t have to watch the original to understand it.
As PG-13 horror movies go, The Messengers was pretty much middle of the line. The central concept was fairly interesting (well, OK, the concept that the trailer discussed was - the whole “they only speak through children” thing wasn’t really prominent in the actual film), it introduced Kristen Stewart to horror fans, and gave a rare villainous role to the preternaturally charming John Corbett. Oh and the Cigarette Smoking Man was in it, so there’s something. But it was bogged down by some obvious tinkering, generic ghost gags, and an overall sense that no one involved was really giving a shit. So while it was watchable, it’s certainly not worth going out of your way to see just to ensure you are well-versed in the Messengers universe so you can enjoy a killer scarecrow movie.
In fact, I have yet to discover anyone that can definitively place where the film falls in relation to the first. By all accounts, this one is a prequel, but it’s not about the family that was discussed in the first film. No year is given - no one has cell phones or modern cars, but then again it’s about poor farmers so they wouldn’t have those things anyway. So really, other than “name recognition”, I’m not really sure why they bothered putting it in the series anyway - it’s not like the original was really loved, and the rating is now an R, so it won’t even attract the same fanbase. At least Boogeyman 2 (which I liked) had some ties to the original to ensure that the fans would be less disappointed by the fact that it was otherwise a completely different type of movie.
Because whereas the first film was more of a typical haunted house movie with some Eastern flare (courtesy of original directors the Pang Brothers, who were replaced in post), this is more a straight up “Careful what you wish for” supernatural tale, with a scarecrow seemingly killing people in the name of our hero, played by Norman Reedus. So like, a banker threatens to take the property away because Reedus hasn’t been paying his bills, and then he gets run over by a truck (this scene is AWESOME). In the morning, Reedus finds the guy’s wallet and gold watch underneath the scarecrow. A romantic rival is also dispatched, and also his crops have begun flourishing. There are no Messengers to speak of.
One flaw is that we’re supposed to suspect that Reedus may be going crazy and doing all the killings himself, but this never seems like a viable outcome. Given how the scenes are depicted, it would be a major cheat for this to be the case as it would mean that what we were seeing wasn’t really happening (shades of High Tension), so I never really entertained this notion. Instead, I just kept wondering when the damn scarecrow would come to life, which is probably why I found the film to be dull on more than a couple occasions. There are only so many times I can see Reedus find or see something peculiar, get a puzzled look on his face, and then get distracted by his wife or one of his kids to end the tension and his train of thought (the dude never follows through on a single unexplained event).
And I can’t really call this a flaw, because it’s simply not the intention, but I was surprised how humorless the film was. There’s a snarky line here and there, but otherwise it’s all taken very seriously, which is a surprise when you consider that the film was written by Todd Farmer, who wrote Jason X and My Bloody Valentine 3-D. Those films were imbued with a winking tone and a general sense of “Hey we’re here to have a good time, have a beer”, but that’s not the case here. I was sort of hoping for a more fun, 70s/80s throwback approach to the killer scarecrow storyline, but it was not the case. On the plus side, it’s good to know that Farmer is (unlike myself) capable of working outside of his comfort zone.
I certainly enjoyed the R rating-ness of it all though. There aren’t a lot of kills, but they are sufficiently gory, and there’s some wonderfully colorful language to enjoy as well. But the real surprise was the unabashed nudity. Reedus sees a woman bathing herself in the nude in the middle of his cornfield, and then later she borderline rapes him. Reedus and his wife also engage in a couple of sex scenes; one romantic and one rough. Outside of slashers, where it’s sort of a rule, sex scenes are becoming more and more infrequent in horror films, so when they pop up (heh) it’s a nice little bonus.
The only extra, besides Sony’s increasingly unwieldy trailer reel (this movie just came out this week - do we really need a trailer for Boogeyman 3, which came out over half a year ago?), is a surprisingly enjoyable commentary by Barnewitz and Farmer. Two incredibly interesting things are revealed right from the start - one being that it was the first time that the two men met in person (production communication was kept to Skype, Gmail chat, etc), and the other being that the film was actually just a slightly re-worked version of Farmer’s script for the first film! Apparently, his original script was heavily rewritten by others for the first film, so much that he was able to make a sequel using his pre-rewrite script, which has to be a first. He also discusses the film’s original (superior) ending, in which you would find out that Reedus had actually killed his entire family and had been talking to ghosts the whole time. Not only would this have been more interesting from a storytelling standpoint, it would also at least be more in line with the backstory that was given in the first film, and we’d only have to accept that Reedus became John Corbett. But back on point, it’s an engaging track throughout, and Farmer is one of the few writers I’ve listened to who is well-spoken and respectful when it comes to the subject of being rewritten. He also helps the Danish Barnewitz with some unfamiliar American phrases, and also explains what a gourd is.
The cover has two quotes, neither of which are particularly helpful or even really praise. One is just “The Shining Goes Country”, which is probably what the pitch was, and the other is “Bloodier Than The First Film”, which is a no brainer considering the difference in rating. I only wish they had come to me, as I would have said “I’m fairly sure that it’s marginally better than the original.” And then they could have taken the last four words and had a good one to use. Next time, Gadget....
You know, I probably won't write a full review for Lars Von Trier's Antichrist. It's just not my thing, it's pure art house melodrama with some weird freaky horror shit thrown in (the end credits list a "Specialist in Horror Films" or something like that - not something you see in a true horror movie, right?). No sense rambling on and on about it; just like I wouldn't bother to read an art house lover's review of Shocker, I can't imagine a full review from me would be of any use to anyone. In short: Not for the squeamish, very slow paced, and impressively simplistic (only three people appear in the film, one only for a single scene). That's about all I'll probably say on it.
Lots of folks like to blame Zack Snyder for “fast” zombies, despite the fact that Danny Boyle had them two years before in 28 Days Later. And Boyle may have gotten the idea from as far back as 1985, when Dan O'Bannon used them in Return Of The Living Dead. And given that film’s toxic/military explanation, it’s fairly reasonable to bet that he got the idea from Umberto Lenzi’s Nightmare City (Italian: Incubo Sulla Città Contaminata), which was released in 1980. In short, anyone who complains about fast zombies being some product of a post Michael Bay world really needs to shut the Christing fuck up and pay attention.
Of course, some, including Lenzi himself, would argue that these things aren’t zombies, and for once I can sort of see their argument. They sort of look like crazed burn victims more than anything else, and their penchant for using weapons, issuing “come on!” type orders to their brethren when they see victims getting away, and focus on the neck when it comes to eating (more like drinking) is outside the zombie norm. BUT, on the other hand, they only die when shot in the head, those they bite become infected, and a lot of the things they do seem ripped off from Dawn of the Dead, so I’m going to have to call this one a zombie movie. Sorry, Lenzi.
It’s certainly one of the faster paced zombie movies; no more than 5-10 minutes ever goes by without some sort of attack, often one on a very large scale. Hospitals, runways, hangars, etc. are the setting for scenes in which dozens of zombies wipe out dozens of random extras. And since they use guns and axes and knives and pokers and whatever the hell else they can find, it never feels very repetitious, because you’re always like “Huh, I’ve never seen a zombie slice a woman’s face off in one of these things.” The gore isn’t always the best, but the quantity over quality approach has a certain charm to it.
There are also a few Fulci Zombi-inspired scenes, including one where the wife of a major character is besieged in her own home. These smaller scenes are also pretty good; not only do we still get the unusual weapon-heavy kills, but they contain a bit of suspense as well. Since the movie’s pace is so breakneck, I was never quite sure who the main characters were, allowing me to suspect that anyone could die. And they often do, so win-win. Some aren’t totally successful though; there is one where our heroes (once I figured out that they were indeed our heroes) approach a priest and it’s supposed to be a surprise that he’s a zombie. Not only is it obvious from the way he’s just standing there, but it’s also botched from a technical standpoint - the way the actors are standing in relation to each other, there is no way in hell that she didn’t see the burns all over his face. Then he awkwardly spins almost 360 degrees toward her to “reveal” his face. Think things through, people!
Speaking of our heroes, I love these two, because during the occasional slow scenes they debate whether we are to blame for this mess (due to mankind’s insistence on having more power) and other existential and philosophical matters. It’s rare to see any sort of reflection or insight from a character in one of these things, so even though it’s a bit clumsy, it adds to the unique flavor this one provides.
Part of the clumsiness may be due to the half-assed dub job. The lip matching isn’t as bad as some others, but several lines have a strange vagueness to them that I found pretty distracting. For example, when an airport is attacked, the newscaster says “An attack at the major airport”, instead of “At JFK” or “At LAX” or whatever (Nightmare City does not appear to have a real world name). Some common phrases are also bungled, such as when a guy urges a panicked person to “Hold your socks on”.
One thing that wasn’t mis-translated was the name of the news studio - BWC! Those are my initials! Every now and then you’d see a guy reporting with a big graphic next to him that said “BWC NEWS” (instead of WBWC or KBWC). And it got me thinking - how awesome would it be to have a news station devoted to you-centric news and topical discussion? “Today, on BWC - BC’s chosen brand of ginger ale: does it give him gas? Then, join us for an exclusive one on one interview with the guy who sat next to him on opening night of Rob Zombie’s Halloween!”
The only extras on the disc are the overlong and quite redband trailer (boobs!), and a 12 minute interview with Lenzi where he talks about how the film seemingly predicted the AIDS outbreak. He also dismisses his lead actor (Hugo Stiglitz), which I noticed is quite common with these Italian maestros. I wish American directors were as frank; nothing would be more hilarious than seeing McG give an interview and be like “Oh, Christ, that fucking Bale guy...”. Italy: the REAL "No Spin Zone".
Last night, some friends and I were discussing Project Greenlight, and how only the 3rd season guys (John Gulager, Marcus Dunstan, and Patrick Melton) managed to make a career for themselves, while the winners from the other two seasons were never heard from again (Pete Jones made another film, which played a festival in 2004 and was released on DVD in 2007 - I haven’t seen it). So imagine my surprise when the opening credits for Vengeance Of The Dead revealed that the film’s DP was none other than Peter Biagi, the douche-y DP for Pete Jones’ Stolen Summer!
Now to be fair, the reality show editing process can make anyone look like a douche, so maybe the guy is all right. But the fact that I remembered his name from a show I watched 7 years ago should be a good indicator that he left an impression with his antics. Anyway, this was shot after Stolen Summer (or at least, it was COMPLETED after Summer, Vengeance seems to have been shot over two time periods), and on a technical level, it’s certainly a step down. It often resembles a student film, one shot in 1986 at that. More than once I thought I was watching The Dark Power, and wondering when Lash LaRue would step in and whip the shit out of something.
But it’s not too bad. At 72 minutes (8 of which are credits), it’s not long enough to really annoy or bore you, and there’s just enough weird stuff going on to warrant a look. For starters, the plot revolves around a ghost getting revenge on the 3 men who killed her in a fire. They are all old guys, and since she believes in equal revenge, this means that our setpieces all involve old men being immolated. So if you’re an MST3k fan, think of the climax to The Puma Man (“Burn, an old man, singe all his skin off!”) and times it by three!
The 2nd old man has the best one though, because of the damn near ten minute icky shower scene before it. His granddaughter tells him like five times that she’s about to take a shower, and then strips down and does just that. He goes into the room below it and looks at her undressing through a spyhole, while he planes some wood (that’s what the kids are calling it these days...). He then begins to fantasize about her doing some sort of aerobic routine while coming on to him (“you like this Grampa?”). I understand it’s Morgan Freeman’s favorite movie.
That’s just one of the many wonderfully batshit scenes/lines in the film. A radio report comes out of nowhere to tell us that someone shotgunned three kids, a kid who looks like he’s 19 talks about high school as if it were decades ago (he even describes it as “back when I had my whole life ahead of me”) before building a model rocket with his grandfather, and good ol grampa describes a guy as “a fella that surprised a lot of folks round here some years back when he killed himself”. It’s charming.
Less charming is the music, often ripped directly from 80’s era John Carpenter scores (The Fog and Prince of Darkness, mainly), as well as the really annoying “echo” that all of the (many) flashbacks have. The dialogue is kind of generic anyway, and this dumbass design ensures you have to hear it all twice. This of course, just helps pad the film out; despite its short length it has plenty of stuff that could have been tightened or removed entirely. Christ, even the shower/fantasy scene goes on too long. If a film has a scene where an attractive woman is seducing her grandfather, and I’M the one saying it’s too long, then you KNOW it’s too long.
The ending is particularly harsh. Not only do we find out the identity of the 3rd bad guy (which isn’t too surprising because there are only like 4 people in the entire movie), but our hero is immolated as well. His ghost gets to make out with the ghost of the woman that put him up to all of this though, so I guess it works out OK enough. Besides, he already graduated high school, so his life was pretty much over anyway.
As I watched this on Netflix instant, I don’t have access to the extras. Apparently the disc is jam-packed and includes a commentary. I wouldn’t mind listening to it, but time is, as always, a factor (even worse this week due to Comic Con) so that’ll probably never happen. So I’ll just assume its low points are the result of a troubled production and give a final vote of not too bad. More entertaining than Stolen Summer anyway.
GENRE: BLANK FROM HELL, TEEN SOURCE: “THEATRICAL” (DVD PROJECTED ON A SCREEN)
Define irony: A film is made for teens and the youngest person in the crowd is a 29 year old guy with gray hair. Such is the sad fate of Homecoming, an independent “horror” film (teen thriller) that was released on two screens this weekend; its only press stemming from the fact that Mischa Barton apparently would rather kill herself than attend the film’s premiere. After sitting through it, I can’t say I blame her.
OK, to be fair, I’m sure the poor lass has other problems than appearing in a really lousy horror movie, but it certainly can’t help any. This is the worst kind of bad movie - the type that rolls along on rails, neither good enough to enjoy or bad enough to entertain. If credited screenwriter Katie L. Fetting was actually some acronym for a script producing robot, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least. From the awkwardly structured scene near the beginning where our hero, driving a car, stops to let his girlfriend talk to her ex, to the final shot where our villain opens her eyes to assure us that she’ll be back for more (and that the film retains its strict policy on nothing interesting happening), nothing in this movie could be accused of being interesting or exciting. Christ, newborn infants can probably put the entire film together from its underwhelming trailer.
There are precisely three good moments in the entire film. In the first, director Morgan J. Freeman (the young independent one, not the older, granddaughter-fucking one) takes a shot from Halloween, as the film’s only likable character (played by Final Destination 2's Michael Landes) pulls a Sam Loomis and turns his head at the exact wrong time and misses seeing the very car he’s looking for driving past in the background. In the second, a crazed Barton swings an axe at a phone to prevent Jessica Stroup from making a 911 call, and then cuts her own leg when she pulls the axe out and dangles it by her side. It doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense, but it’s an odd little moment nonetheless.
The third is the best though. Throughout the repetitive film, Stroup tries to escape (the film as a whole is sort of Misery meets Fatal Attraction, complete with broken feet) and Barton catches her. During the 3rd or 4th such sequence, Stroup manages to get out to her car, which is locked. In a panic, she sets off the car alarm, which just tells Barton where she is. Barton approaches her, and then digs into the pocket that Stroup is wearing, which has the car keys that Stroup neglected to look for. It’s nice to see such a generic scene have a new punchline. I also like to think that Stroup had seen all of the movies that this film was stealing from, and figured there was no way in hell the keys would be accessible.
I’d like to talk about Stroup for a minute. She’s fucking hot and a fun presence, but she keeps making bad movies (or TV shows). Can someone please get her a decent movie please? I may have been kinder than most to Hills 2 and Prom Night, but like Tiffany Shepis, I’m sick of saying “she is the only reason this movie isn’t Crap”. Hell, put em in a movie together. What hasn’t been remade yet...
Besides the generic-ness of it all, the real reason the movie fails is that it refuses to take any chances. It’s going out “unrated”, but the MPAA could probably be convinced to give this a PG if the filmmakers thought the rightful PG-13 would be too harsh. Mischa drops an F bomb and shoots (largely off camera) the guy you know is dead right from the start, because he’s the hero’s best buddy who has a thing for her. That’s it. She doesn’t die (again, her eyes OPEN! at the end), and despite having no reason to keep Stroup alive, she barely inflicts any harm on her (the foot injury was caused by the initial car accident, Barton merely makes it worse). Even after she kills the other guy in plain view of Stroup, Barton doesn’t bother to kill her. Why? She also keeps all of the incriminating evidence about the death of her mother (Barton poisoned her with some sort of plant mixture) in the house, complete with photographs depicting her slow demise that were taken for no reason other than for Stroup to find them I guess.
The fact that this thing is an independent film is the real shocker. You hear “indie horror” and you assume it’s got something that was too harsh for a big studio to ever dare to release. But Christ, even the theatrical cut (PG-13, in case you forgot) of Prom Night itself was more vicious, not to mention more mean-spirited (the death of her boyfriend was pretty harsh, as was the stabbing of her mother). I guess it’s nice to know that even the little guys are capable of making generic crap that panders to the CW crowd, but it doesn’t make me any less annoyed at spending 7 bucks (matinee, thank Christ) to find out.
Speaking of money, the most appalling thing that occurred during my time at the cinema was not on screen, but in the crowd. A few minutes into the film, a homeless woman entered the theater and took a seat. A guy who looked like an insufferable prick anyway instantly stood up and went out into the lobby, yelling “There’s a homeless woman in there!”. Now, this particular theater only has one entrance, manned by the ticket ripper. For someone to get into an actual screening room, you have to pass the box office, the ticket taker, and at least two concession stand employees. Not to mention, this woman wasn’t exactly svelte, and had her giant luggage roller thingie with her. In short - there’s no way in hell she “snuck in” - she clearly bought a ticket same as everyone else. And had Doucheface McFucknuts considered this before standing up and causing more of a disturbance than the woman did, he could have saved himself a walk and me a paragraph. Not that I can blame him for using any excuse to skip a few minutes of the film, but come on man. She’s a human being too, and if she wants to spend her panhandling money on a shitty movie, let her.
You’d really have to go out of your way to see this thing in theaters, so I won’t bother trying to dissuade you from that. Just make sure you aren’t fooled when it comes on DVD with a new cover, glamour shots of the attractive stars, and a big ol’ UNRATED! tag that will attempt to make you think you’re getting anything BUT a ball-less bore.
Omen remake aside, there haven’t been any big studio “killer kid” movies in ages, and the few that there were have been pretty weak. The Good Son, for example - it was rated R, but for what? He kills a pet and says “fuck”. Ooooh. So I wasn’t expecting much from Warner Bros.’ Orphan; maybe she’d cause a car accident or something, but I didn’t think she’d actually kill anyone.
So imagine my surprise when, not even an hour into the (2 hour) movie, she takes a hammer to a woman and kills the ever-loving shit out of her. Yes! A “killer” kid movie with actual kills! And while the body count doesn’t get much higher (one more kill, though a fairly surprising one), Esther is a vicious little bitch. She attempts to kill both of her siblings on several occasions, threatens to castrate the brother (“I’ll cut your hairless little dick off before you even know what it’s for”), brains a bird, stabs a guy to death... it’s pretty goddamn brutal. There’s also a taut scene where a girl who bullied Esther at school is inside of a giant playground castle/house thing. Because it has corridors and doorways and such, it actually feels like a typical stalking scene that would occur in a real house, only now with children. It’s an interesting visual, and ends with the little girl getting tossed down the slide and breaking her leg. Again - Esther’s not all talk and no action like some of her killer kid brethren.
But even without Esther the film packs a punch. The opening nightmare scene is more horrifying and disturbing than anything in the Nightmare on Elm St. films ever presented for a nightmare (the fact that it actually RESEMBLES a dream, with unexplained character/location changes and such, doesn’t hurt). And then later there is a terrific bit that plays on our understanding of cinema. Vera Farmiga pulls up to a red light and begins daydreaming as she spies a pregnant woman walking across the street. She keeps watching for a while, and then we hear a car honk. We all know this means that she’s daydreamed past the light turning to green again, so she starts driving toward. And then BAM! she narrowly misses getting side-swiped. It is then that we see the light, which is still red - the honking was unrelated. Great misdirection.
Speaking of instant identification, there’s a scene later on when Esther first comes to live with them, and they are all giving her gifts. As the scene begins, you can hear Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” in the background, and despite the lack of a visual clue, I instantly knew it was Guitar Hero II. Sure enough, they finally cut to the other side of the house where the brother is playing the game instead of joining in the festivities. He then tries to get his dad’s attention because he’s doing really well, but the dad (Peter Sarsgaard) is focusing on his new daughter and couldn’t be less interested. In the dad’s defense, “Surrender” is the easiest song in the game and the kid is only playing on Medium. Thus, the scene is somewhat botched for GH fans, because why would anyone be impressed with doing good on that? The kid should have been running through “Through The Fire And Flames” - THAT would sell the notion that the dad wasn’t interested in the kid’s achievements because he was too busy paying extra attention to another kid.
The dad is the one who blindly accepts Esther’s excuses for strange occurrences, while the mom gets suspicious. This is fine by me, as it allows Fermiga to have more screen time. She is one of the most beautiful actresses I can recall, and a terrific one to boot, so I was happy to see her carry the film. It’s familiar territory for her (Joshua), but in that one she was kind of crazy herself and spent most of the movie in hysterics and moping around. Not the case her - she’s the pro-active one, and by the third act she’s completely untrusting of Esther, which leads to some great physical moments. She frantically drives through a snowstorm, gets to smack Esther in the face, swears a whole bunch... it’s a kickass performance, and it certainly didn’t hurt my crush on her any. And if you enjoyed her “washing machine” scene in Running Scared (one of the most underrated films of the decade), you should enjoy a similar scene her, in the kitchen. The lady likes her household appliances.
Unsurprisingly, Vera’s character is also the one that finds out Esther’s secret. Much has been made of the twist, and no I won’t spoil it here. I just want to say that it was a bit goofy and somewhat deflating, but the film as a whole was solid enough to that point to allow me to give it a pass. There is another critique I can level at it, but to do would be heading too far into spoiler territory. Maybe when the film comes out on DVD I’ll edit the review. At any rate, when Vera sees what Esther had in mind, her reaction is one of the best hilarious reaction shots in horror movie history; on par with Joel Moore’s classic “Oh you gotta be fucking KIDDING ME?” when a sudden rainstorm douses the fire he just set on Victor in Hatchet.
Besides that, the only complaint I really have about the film is that it’s a bit long. There are a few too many scenes of Sarsgaard being presented with overwhelmingly damning evidence of Esther’s guilt, only to ignore it. Not only does it stretch out the film, it also makes his character seem kind of stupid at times, which I don’t think was the intent. Taken out of context, his rationales are often believable for the incident in question; but 3 or 4 in a row? Open your eyes man. And yet at the same time, things often seem to move too fast; there’s a line about Esther being a “perfect angel” when she’s with the father, but at that point we had never seen the two of them alone together. This makes it a bit harder to gauge how much time has gone by as well.
But otherwise, it’s an unexpectedly solid film. The child actors are all terrific (something that could easily kill a film of this type), the violence is as shocking as it’s supposed to be, and the tone is right on the line between creepy-sinister and trashy fun, which is fine by me. As a great man once said, “Recommended!”
I often wonder if the other customers at Blockbuster think I am insane or mentally disabled when I pick up a film like Hydra off the shelf, look at the cover, and cackle to myself as I walk up to the front of the store without even bothering to look at the back. Or if I’m feeling cocky that day, I wonder if they realize I’m the Horror Movie A Day guy and are like “Oh nice, I know what today’s movie will be!”
(Yeah that never has or will happen. Let me dream, damn you.)
Anyway, I laugh because I assume it will be awful, but I gotta say, Hydra ain’t all that bad. Unlike the usual group of commandos or scientists who can turn into commandos when necessary, the humans in this one are hunters or hunted, as the non-monster part of the story is essentially a "Most Dangerous Game" retread. Have you ever watched Surviving The Game or Hard Target and thought “Yes, fine, but you know what would really make this movie great? Mythological creatures!”? The makers behind Hydra clearly did.
Now, nothing about this movie will win any awards. The acting is actually fairly sub-par across the board (even Texas Battle, who was fine in Wrong Turn 2, seems a bit stiff), the music is atrocious (it reminded me of what the score for a crappy late 70s or early 80s James Bond ripoff TV show would sound like), and it gets a bit repetitive at times. But my usual enjoyment of the MDG story allowed me to forgive it its trespasses and more or less have a good time with it.
And to give it some genuine praise, the effects are above average for these things. The compositing is, as always, a problem, but the thing seems to be the same size regardless of the scene/shot, the design on it is quite good (lot of detail on its body, it moves around fairly naturally, etc), and the death scenes are so damn bloody you won’t even notice that it’s not interacting properly with the actor. Man, EVERYONE gets it good in this movie. No off camera shit, no scream into the camera and cut away, nope - folks get torn asunder, devoured in chunks (one Hydra head will eat the guy’s head, then another will eat its torso, then another will eat his legs), gored... hell yeah. Director Andrew Prendergast thankfully understands what so many other DTV directors do not - we don’t rent these things for long-winded exposition about how the monster came to be, or lengthy backstories for the characters, or any of that crap. We want a monster, and we want that monster to kill as many people in the cast as it can. Hydra boasts a healthy body count of around 14, and while a couple are killed by other humans and merely shot, most of the deaths are via the titular monster. Thank you.
One thing about the backstories, what little they give us is needlessly awkward. In order to keep anyone from being too black and white BAD, we find out that the hunters have all had some sort of tragedy in their lives; one’s wife was killed by a drunk driver, another’s daughter was raped and killed, etc. So the entrepreneur guy who brings them all to the island (the hunters pay him to find “sport” and an island to hunt them on) finds people that were convicted of similar crimes, giving the hunters a motive to kill them. Seems like a lot of work, and I’m not sure how killing a guy who did something similar that some other guy did to you would help. Sort of like Bush going after Saddam for 9/11 instead of going after Osama, I guess. And one of the guys was merely brought to the island because the captain of the boat hated him and wanted to see him suffer, so I guess one of the hunters wouldn’t get his proxy vengeance even if the Hydra hadn’t shown up to kill the living fuck out of all of them regardless of what they did in the past.
Speaking of the captain, he’s actually the biggest human villain. You expect this character to develop a conscience and refuse to aid the hunters or whatever, but instead it’s the other way around. The entrepreneur guy decides to pull everyone off the island and give them a refund, but the captain won’t let him. Again, everyone’s kind of in a gray area in this movie, which I liked.
One thing I didn’t like is the volcano aspect. There’s a big volcano on the island and it’s about to blow for the whole movie, so you think it will blow and the lava will kill the Hydra, or blow as the humans try to make their escape and maybe kill one of the remaining bad guys, but nope. It never goes off. And the shots of it probably cost a few bucks of the FX budget, and that could have gone into fixing the snake a bit, so I cry foul on this subplot.
On the flipside, the snake dies by the hand of our hero, instead of some damn lava. And the kill is AMAZING. Dudebro reaches into a model of a volcano (I dunno), pulls out a giant sword (just go with it) and begins hacking Hydra heads off left and right. And if you can’t get enough, don’t worry - it happens again in a 2nd ending. The Hydra is seemingly dead, and our heroes get back to the boat, but one of the heads grows a new body, gets onboard, and begins killing everyone there as well. A deckhand then throws the sword to the hero guy, who once again hacks away, killing it for good. And the icing on the cake - as it explodes into CGI dust and ash, the sword magically floats away with the particles. Yes! Even the shitty music here makes it kind of awesome, as it’s so cheesy and bombastic.
No extras on the DVD, but I kind of like that. Let Hydra speak for itself.
I’ve often wondered how many fictional authors and/or their families would be alive today if they could just learn how to write in the house that they already lived in. It seems to never really work out for them, because not only do they never finish their book, they are always besieged by ghosts, possession, psychotic mailmen... (I still want to read a novel about four poker buddies that knock over a casino). So I am happy to report (spoil) that the nice folks in 7 Days To Live not only survive, but they publish a book that goes on to sell into a third edition in under a year!
Unfortunately that’s about the only original thing about the movie. The rest cribs heavily from The Shining, with some Poltergeistthrown in for good measure. Like Kubrick’s version of King’s book, our protagonist goes crazy pretty much the instant he sets foot in the house, rendering him wholly unlikable. In Shining it kind of worked because we all love Jack Nicholson, so even though he was never really “nice” in the movie, you’re not completely turned off, because... it’s Jack! And then, folks often complain about “replacing” Jack with Steven Weber for the TV version of Shining, but at least the guy was actually sympathetic based on his onscreen role. Sean Pertwee doesn’t benefit from either scenario - he’s instantly crazy, but he’s not quite as lovable as Jack Nicholson. A badass yes, but not likable.
Sort of luckily, the wife isn’t much better. Since she’s played by Amanda Plummer, you can guarantee that she’s already a bit kooky - the haunted house doesn’t even seem to really change her demeanor. But it also makes her character hard to sympathize with, because she never really stands up for herself, even when Pertwee goes completely apeshit in the film’s final act (tied to a bed after being knocked out and dragged around the house, she still hopes they can work things out). They never really feel like a real husband and wife either; at first I thought they might be brother and sister, as their “happy mode” bickering has no romantic chemistry to it. And they are pretty much the only two people in the movie most of the time (they have a couple of pals, and the requisite kindly older “guy who knows the story”, but they are never placed in any danger), so not a hell of a lot happens; Plummer sees something weird, tells an annoyed Pertwee who usually yells at her or throws something, then the next day she sees something else weird, and apparently forgets that he doesn’t care because she tries to tell him again, starting the cycle over again.
Pet Sematary is also borrowed from, so it’s good that just watched it the other day. Not only do we have a young kid dying (complete with a NOOOOOOOO!), but a character dreams about something evil in their backyard, only to wake up with muddy feet.
But it’s not too bad. Plummer and Pertwee are always interesting to watch, and it’s rare to see them carry a film. It goes through the motions, but in a way that’s more or less enjoyable. Since they are both crazy, the finale is pretty amusing, as they just start whaling on each other, War of the Roses style. And I liked the ridiculous manner in which Plummer got her titular warnings: the first one is on a street sign (do all the people driving by have seven days to live?), another is delivered by a radio weatherman. My favorite has to be her three days warning, when her Scrabble tiles tell her as much. Not only am I a big Scrabble fan, but I am tickled that of all the days to use, they would use the one with the most letters. This results in her drawing NINE letters (twice) instead of the standard seven. If it was “Six Days” or “Two Days”, or even “For (sic) Days”, they could get their Scrabble scare and maintain accepted rules. Plus, if she has just drawn seven (or nine, fine) letters, that means she just played a bingo, so good for her!
On the disc’s only extra feature (5 minutes’ worth of interviews), the director proudly states that this is “the first German haunted house movie”, so there’s something. I’ve wanted to see more foreign films from countries not often associated with horror (i.e. Italian and Asian), and Germany is certainly a country I haven’t seen too much from (I think Antibodies is the only other one I’ve watched). Hopefully they have some more original stuff to discover. But at least this one stole from the best; I don’t need to see a German-fied version of The Haunting remake or whatever.
What say you?
P.S. The trailer is in German. Only one I could find. I like it; Sean Pertwee's dubber is amazing.
Well it’s taken ten years, but one of the Blair Witch Project guys (in this case, Dan Myrick) has finally made a film that comes close to living up to their promise. The Objective is hardly a perfect film, but it’s a good one; compelling for most of its running time and interesting in the ways that count, which is more than I can say for many of their other post Blair films.
So it’s kind of a bummer that it’s more or less the same movie as Blair, albeit shot by someone who knew how to hold a camera. Some folks go out in search of something, get lost almost instantly, see weird stuff, some of them disappear without a trace, supplies run low and tensions mount, and then everyone else dies. It’s in the desert instead of the woods, and it’s a group of soldiers instead of documentary filmmakers (though Mike Williams pops up in this group as well, albeit far too briefly for my tastes. Love that guy), but that won’t stop you from getting some serious déjà vu at times.
It also reminds me a bit of the recent film Red Sands, which also detailed a group of soldiers encountering strange phenomena while being stranded in the desert. Both were shot around the same time so I don’t think one was cribbing from the other, but whichever film you see first is likely to kill some of the novelty factor of the other; it’s a unique setting/situation for a horror film, and now we have two within months of each other.
Luckily for Objective, the film doesn’t need to rely on any extensive special effects to depict its monster. It’s just a triangular thing usually seen through a night vision camera, so even if it looked bad it’s seen through a poor image anyway. Folks just sort of vaporize in thin air, so there’s no gore or anything either (except for when a corpse is found halfway or so through the film - it looks like it was put in a meat grinder). Like with Blair, it keeps everything to your imagination, and allows the limited budget to be applied to things that matter a lot more than special effects.
What Red Sands certainly has over this movie, however, is lack of narration. The main character in Objective, played by newcomer Jonas Ball (if Myrick is going to hire no-names to topline his film, why not cast me? I still wear a Blair Witch shirt with pride!), never shuts the fuck up, and his droning is as annoying as I can recall. I’d rather listen to Kiefer Sutherland’s opening narration in the theatrical version of Dark City than this drivel. The ending gives us a sort of reason for the narration, but it doesn’t make it any less annoying or intrusive. It’s not a particularly complicated story; we don’t need someone breaking up otherwise eerily quiet scenes to tell us things like “Water is running low.” No shit.
The ending is also a bit of a sore spot for me. It leaves questions unanswered, but not in a creepy way like Blair's (Did Heather get knocked out, did she die, or did she simply vanish into thin air?). Then there is a news report with one of the characters' wives, who holds up a notebook that he sent her shortly before he disappeared. Knowing Myrick's habit of creating full universes in which his film is just a part of it, I wouldn't be surprised if this book was actually fleshed out, but as far as I know it's not available anywhere, so the scene just makes you feel like you're being setup for a sequel, not being invited to look beyond the movie (the website is pretty standard, some behind the scenes stuff but nothing "meta").
Before the end though, there IS a certain (and surprising) level of creepiness to some of the scenes. I don’t find the desert particularly scary (at least, not as much as the woods), but there are still a handful of eerie bits. I particularly liked when they go to drink from their canteens and find them all filled with sand. Not only does it bring to mind a classic scene from Three Amigos, but it also provides a tangible and real scare, which are a bit scarce in this movie. Sure, I’m afraid of the unknown, but since it can appear anywhere, I know there’s nothing I can do about it. On the other hand, water turning into sand is something upsetting that can seemingly be prevented or fixed. I’m also always a sucker for a scene where people look at a map and realize that they have been going in circles or are off the map entirely. Helplessness is a state that is usually reserved for the final moments of someone’s life in a horror movie; building a good chunk of the movie around it is still fairly unique.
The DVD has a few extras worth watching; all together they only run 30 minutes, and since the film is 6 minutes shorter than the DVD promises, you’ll likely have time to check them out. There is a 20 minute making of that details the issues that may arise when fiming with A. a low budget and B. in a foreign country. Then there is an interview with Myrick, and another one with DP Stephanie Martin. It’s rare to see a female DP, and even rarer to see a DP get their own piece on a DVD, so this is a welcome addition, especially when the film is well shot (love the look of the early morning dawn-lit scenes). And kudos to Martin - it’s cliché to mock the camerawork in BWP, so to come out of a film from the same director noting how well it was shot is more a compliment to her than Myrick. The trailer is also there, but watching it means suffering through more of Ball’s narration.
After Solsticeand Believers, I had lost a lot of hope for Myrick (Sanchez has only released one film, the decent but uneven Altered; something called Seventh Moon is completed but still unreleased). But Alien Raiders, which he produced, turned out pretty damn good. And now with this, I have a feeling maybe he’s still got some juice in him after all. I still hope he and Sanchez work together someday, but at least his solo work is improving.
How The Covenant ended up in my collection is a bit of a mystery. I can only assume I got it from Mr. Disgusting to review (I have owned it since before I began doing HMAD) or as a gift bag prize or something. And every couple of months, when I look to make a few bucks by selling a few unwanted DVDs, I look at it and say “No, this will make a funny HMAD review, I’m sure” and keep it. So now I have finally given it a look, and yes, I can guarantee that it will be going in the “sell it back” pile.
On a technical level it’s fine. The CGI is pretty good, the direction and production value is top notch (it only cost 20 million, but it’s all on the screen), and despite a few laughable transgressions, they do a good job faking Eastern Massachusetts in Canada (we don’t have giant fucking cliffs for thrill-seeking warlocks to drive off of, and our rainstorms aren’t usually typhoons). And it features a good performance by Taylor Kitsch, who along with Chace Crawford is the only one of the guys in the movie that I’ve seen in anything since.
But holy Christ is it dull. Nothing fucking happens in this movie! It’s like they forgot that you can still kill people even if you have a PG-13 rating. There are four good guys and one bad guy... you would THINK at least one of the good guys would get killed in this supposedly massive battle, but no. The bad guy puts one in the hospital with some sort of vague injury. Two of the others never even face any danger at all. It just comes down to the main good guy fighting the bad guy. Christ, the bad guy isn’t even dangerous; at one point he has the hero’s girlfriend under some sort of spell, and the hero’s like “Leave her alone!” and... the bad guy does. Oooh, scary. When your film’s only villain can’t bring himself to actually do anything evil, where is the danger or suspense going to come from?
Christ, the movie can’t even be bothered to kill him either! He is tossed into a fire, but the epilogue makes sure we know that he survived. So these Warlocks are all powerful, but all they can manage to do is knock each other around for a few minutes. Speaking of their powers, it seems they can do whatever the hell they want: fix cars, blow up skirts, make cars fly, make dudes puke, and even survive certain death when they drive head on into a giant fucking truck (the car just puts itself back together, the driver completely unharmed). But they seemingly forget how powerful they are at times, as they merely hide when almost caught by a security guard instead of just flying the fuck away or making themselves invisible or whatever. Likewise, Kitsch is felled by a motorcycle accident, without even trying to use his powers (and in the wake of the “car accident” earlier in the film, it doesn’t really make any sense that he could be injured at all by such a thing).
There might be an explanation for this though: the film was edited by Nicolas De Toth. Nothing against his actual skill as an editor, but this is the same guy who turned Hitman into the most flaccid R rated action movie of all time, and Die Hard Faux into the neutered mess that it is. His skill seems to be sucking the life and viscerality (not a word) out of theoretically exciting films, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn if he did the same thing here. The few actual acts of violence in the film are entirely off-screen; the one death occurs to a guy we never even met. There is a scene in a bar where two guys are suddenly fighting, and everything is edited around showing any actual impact. There’s a hot-headed (non-powered) bully character, but he disappears from the film around the halfway mark. And again, it’s entirely unclear as to what Kitsch’s injury is, he’s just in the hospital. Not only does it keep the film from being exciting, but it also betrays the actual concept of the story - they are supposedly all powerful and all that, but we never get even a glimpse of what they can actually do or why people should have any reason to fear them.
In fact, their biggest power seems to be the ability to shoot balls of CGI at each other. There’s no other way to describe it - they thrust their arms forward and a swirly ball of graphic comes out and hits the other guy. The overlong climax literally revolves around the two guys shooting CGI balls at each other over and over for like 15 minutes. No injuries result from these things, nor is there any indication that they can run out of energy or whatever, so I spent the entire climax wondering why they didn’t just use some other superpower and if they would ever run out of MP and be forced to use melee attacks (or use the escape command and run back to town for an ether).
The end also feels like yet another competition, which is pretty much all the previous 80 minutes were about. These guys never stop engaging in friendly contests: swimming, foosball, pool, girl chasing... and CGI magic ball throwing. Since they aren’t hurting each other in any meaningful way, it feels like the supernatural version of a high school fencing match. All it’s missing is the other three guys cheering them on, which is pretty much what their roles are reduced to for the bulk of the film.
And yet we see male ass. I think that’s a first for a PG-13 horror movie, and I’d hate to think that was the tradeoff. Like Renny Harlin was like “I need this ass shot!” and the MPAA was like “Fine, but you have to cut out any sort of violence and the kids can never get as much as a bruise on their arm!” But the ass-shots don’t help the fact that the movie often feels a bit like a big budget David DeCoteau film, what with all these handsome dudes spending so much time brooding in dark rooms together (and ignoring their girlfriends on more than one occasion in order to continue their totally hetero competitions).
Like anything else related to the story or characters, Harlin’s commentary doesn’t provide any insight on the matter. If you are hoping to become a key grip or matte choker or maybe even a 2nd unit assistant director though; this track is essential. Harlin never stops talking for more than a second, but it’s all technical - how this was shot, where the CG elements are, how it was lit, etc. It’s like a Carpenter solo track but without the occasional humor. The only time he speaks about anything else is during the end credits, when he explains how he first heard of the project on a Tuesday, got drunk with the producer on a Wednesday, and signed up to directed it on Thursday afternoon, blowing off another film in the process. Good story. The only other extra is a making of, which is worth a look if only to hear Wendy Crewson (The Good Son!) talk about how amazingly handsome the actor playing her teenage son is. Good to know if the whole acting gig doesn’t pan out, she’s got terrific potential for a career in Cougaring.
One final odd note - I started this one late, so it was a bit past midnight on the 14th when it finished. And strangely enough, July 14th is the bad guy's birthday, they even make a big deal out of it. I wouldn't have thought much of it, but in Con Air the little girl's birthday is July 14th, which is also the day Nic Cage is released from prison. Good day for fictional people. Also it's Bastille Day.
I saw Pet Sematary once or twice as a kid, but once the 2nd film came out I saw little use in the original anymore, as the sequel had more of what I cared about: gore, kills, humor (“I’m just fucking with you!”), and actor Clancy Brown. But in the 18 or so years since I last saw it, I’ve not only become a little more grown up when it comes to how I judge a film (I still give any film with Clancy Brown an automatic pass though), but I’ve also experienced the death of both pets and close family members, so I figured it would resonate more than it possibly could have as a child.
And indeed, the very things that would have appealed to me as a kid are the things that annoy me now. I’d rather watch Dale Midkiff (whatever happened to that dude?) grieve over his son than watch his wife running around airports while Headwound Harry helps her along. One of King’s late 90’s novels focuses on a grieving husband ("Bag of Bones") and what works best about the book is his isolation for large chunks of it. I’ve never read "Pet Sematary", but since King tends to copy himself a lot, I can assume that these type of scenes would have been quite good in the source material. However, Midkiff is entirely absent for what seems like a half hour after Gage is resurrected; we only focus on the wife and good ol’ Jed Crandall (Fred Gwynne, whose Maine accent borders on xenophobia).
The most common complaint about King’s writing, and it’s certainly a justified one, is that his dialogue tends to suck. He is a genius at inner monologue, but when it comes to having people talk... yikes. So while theoretically having an author adapt his own book for a film is a great idea, in King’s case it’s NOT, because a movie, of course, has no inner monologue. This results in people talking to themselves unnaturally to get certain points across, and this is where King’s weakness hampers the film.
More damaging is the rushed feel of certain key events. The little girl’s reaction to the resurrected (and clearly not right) cat is addressed once (“He smells!”) and never again - in fact I don’t think the two even share a scene together after that point. It could have provided a great parallel to the film to see the girl dealing with her zombie cat and then later with the dad and his zombie son, but no dice. Also, the son’s funeral - which should be the most horrifying part of the entire film - is far too rushed a scene. The father-in-law, who hasn’t even been introduced in the film before then, instantly starts throwing accusations at Midkiff as soon as the scene begins, instead of letting things simmer and escalate until that point is reached. And Midkiff accepts the idea of a magic burial ground a bit too easily for my tastes. In short, there are lots of missed opportunities to make what should be a depressing/interesting horror morality tale really resonate. The opening credits, where we see the titular locale as we hear little kids say goodbye to their pets, is actually more upsetting than the death of the kid.
(And since The Ramones' theme song only appears in the film's END credits, this may be the first film in history where the best stuff is the "once upon a time" and the "happily ever after" instead of the actual story.)
I must say though - Midkiff’s NOOOOOOOOOO! is easily one of the top five all time best NOOOOOOOOO!s in motion picture history. Possibly as a result of the failure of Maximum Overdrive (steamroll the little leaguer!), we don’t actually see the kid being hit, so we get the standard “focus on the now-ownerless toy rolling/flying away” shot instead. But that’s fine; the NOOOOOOOOO! totally sells it anyway.
Now, it’s not a bad film. It works as a long-form Tales From The Crypt style horror movie, with the lessons learned and the downer ending and what not. And the gore effects are quite memorable; Pascow’s head wound is still disturbing, 20 years later. Ditto the scenes with the wife’s sister (actually played by a man), which are on par with the bathtub woman scene in The Shining. Again though; since the husband is the main focus, these scenes, while fine on their own, should have been excised or trimmed down in favor of staying with him more.
You missed some, Doc.
One effect that’s not as successful is the killer Gage puppet. Miko Hughes is terrific as the crazy, scalpel-wielding terror, and I am amazed how much shit they put this poor kid through (at one point he legit whacks his head on a wall). But the puppet that they throw at Midkiff is laughably stiff and fake, ruining the tension after the film’s best scare (when Miko is laughing before he “jumps” through the trapdoor onto Midkiff).
The DVD has a few standard extras, none of them long enough to really resonate but they are certainly well made and include some nice tidbits. But like any “retrospective” documentary on a DVD for a film that came out long after DVDs were invented, I’m more interested as to why certain people are absent than anything the ones that are there are saying. King rarely appears in these sort of things anymore, but where the child actors, or Denise Crosby? Midkiff and Brad Greenquist (Pascow) are the only actors to appear in new footage, the rest are taken from the film’s production in 1988. Lambert also pops up, and also provides a commentary. But since the track was recorded in 2006 it is of no use to me, as the only thing I want to hear from her is an apology and explanation for The Attic, which she shot a year later.
A remake has been threatened (Clu Gulager for Jed and Battlestar’s Aaron Douglas as Dr. Creed, please!); hopefully someone else takes a crack at it and makes it as strong as I am quite sure it can be. As it stands, it’s a decent enough yarn, and like always, makes me want to finally read the book.
The nice thing about Dorm (Thai: Dek Hor) is that it’s not really a horror movie. I mean, yeah, it’s about ghosts and an accidental death and all that good stuff, but very little of the film is concerned with scares or even suspense; it merely uses a familiar horror movie staple to tell a nice story about a kid who learns to stop being such a fucking asshole.
See, our hero is, for the bulk of the film, largely unlikable. He whines, he’s selfish, and he has no respect for his dad. The look on the poor man’s face as he makes his third or fourth attempt to call the brat (who has been sent to boarding school) only for the kid to hang up on him is one of the most heartbreaking parental moments I’ve seen in a film since poor Chick Chapel was introduced as a salesman. Few are the films where you spend the entire movie thinking “I would really like to smack this hero in the fucking mouth.”
But that is, of course, the point. The movie is about him growing up and learning to accept his role in life, and thus if he was pleasant throughout the film there would be little concern as to whether or not he succeeded. It would be like watching a movie about the greatest pro sports player in history hoping to win the lottery or something. In a few ways, it reminded me of Tim Sullivan’s underrated (also horror-lite) Driftwood, which also concerned a kid at a boarding school and a ghost.
Also, I liked that it didn’t take the entire movie for us to be told that the hero’s best friend, who takes an instant liking to him and never speaks to anyone else, is (spoiler) a ghost. You will probably figure it out pretty quickly, but unlike The Uninvited or whatever, the movie gives us that information by the end of the first act or so, sparing you having to feel like an idiot in case you somehow DIDN’T figure it out. It also allows us a few scenes we don’t usually get in such scenarios, like the hero asking the ghost how he became a ghost in the first place (such a conversation probably would have ruined The Sixth Sense). The movie also has a bit of a Stand By Me feel, so the scene has the unusual stigma of a horror movie scene being both quirky (he literally says “How did you become a ghost?”) and touching, and plays out like any number of the scenes between Wil Wheaton and River Phoenix in that film.
The only issue I had (besides, as always, the length - would it kill these Thai guys to make something that clocks in under 100 minutes?) is that they give us all of the information in one giant stretch of the film during the 3rd act and then Return Of The King the narrative with three or four scenes in a row that could easily be the film’s ending. There are two parts to the mystery - one revolving around the ghost kid, the other around a weird teacher, and it would have been nice to have the information on one, then some scares or even more character scenes, and THEN get the rest of it. Instead, we get it all in one giant blob of exposition, as if the director realized he had been dicking around for too long and needed to catch up on answers. Sort of like the 4th (strike affected) season finale of Lost.
Also, though this is presumably no fault of the filmmakers, the DVD looks like ass. I can’t recall the last time I saw so many halo/rainbow effects on an image. It’s also not very detailed, it often looked like a DVD might when you use the zoom feature on your player. This may be a result of the above average number of extras on the disc coupled with the nearly two hour film. There is nearly a half hour’s worth of deleted scenes, many of them worth a look as they fill in more of the story of the kid’s home life before he went to the boarding school (one in particular would have helped make his attitude toward his dad easier to sympathize with). Then there are a number of short behind the scenes pieces (some of them seem to have been created for a website or something) that focus on the characters and story, and also one focusing on the green-screen effects during the climax. Nothing groundbreaking, but worth a look if you dug the movie. There is also a commentary, which is in Thai with English subs (thank you!) but I don’t have time to listen to it. I am sure it’s fine.
And I know they are out of business now and that is a damn shame, but Tartan needs to be smacked around for opening the disc with a company promo that cannot be skipped, bypassed (via the menu button), or even fast-forwarded. Christ, the old “hit stop and then hit the menu button” trick doesn’t even work, because it won’t even let you stop the damn thing! You literally HAVE to watch it. It makes Lionsgate’s “you WILL watch our awesome logo!” behavior seem reasonable. The disc came at the tail end of their release output, so maybe it was a last ditch effort to ensure people were aware of their slate, but egads man. Take out an ad on a website where we are used to being annoyed by promotional malfeasance.
If you’re looking for Ju-On or whatever albeit set in an all boys’ junior high school, then you will probably be bored to tears and should stick to one of the umpteen remakes/sequels to that film. But if you were a fan of Driftwood, or merely enjoy a “quieter” horror film with an emphasis on character (and coherency!) over scares, this would be one of the better recent examples, of the few that exist. Worth a look.
I don't usually read any reviews of a film until after I have seen it, but perhaps I should have made an exception for The Cell 2. Not reviews from fellow critics, mind you, but rather the "user reviews" on the IMDb. Because I would have noticed that there were two kinds: outright slams from regular IMDb commenters, or praise from people who seemingly loved the movie so much that they apparently felt compelled to make an IMDb account just to be able to share their thoughts on this masterpiece.
I am, of course, being sarcastic: the comments are clearly the work of New Line's marketing team, who are trying to balance all of the negative reviews by writing their own raves, all of which sound identical to one another. And since it only takes a click on the "writer's" name to see that they have no other reviews to their credit, I have to wonder who is actually being fooled by this nonsense. The type of people dumb enough to fall for it are probably dumb enough to enjoy this piece of shit anyway, so they are just preaching the choir.
Nothing about this movie works. The porn-star-esque lead is the least convincing psychic in movie history (even fake psychics like Whoopi Goldberg at the beginning of Ghost are more believable), backed up by the fakest police force this side of Suburban Sasquatch. And the killer! If you don't instantly (and I mean INSTANTLY, as in, the second he appears on screen) identify Frank Whaley as the killer, you're just brain dead. Not only is the only semi-famous actor in the film, but everyone in the world is smart enough to know that the producers would make sure to secure a "name" for the killer since they obviously couldn't get one for any of the heroes. Thankfully, they "reveal" Whaley as the killer around the halfway mark, thus preventing future embarrassment on their part had they tried to save it for the end.
Plus none of the movie makes sense. Why does the killer hide his identity from his victims if he plans to kill them? Just in case they escape? So he's the world's first killer with a built-in plan to make up for his ineffectiveness. He also disguises his voice for good measure (with a voice box that is seemingly inside of his mouth, as he uses this unseen device without any sort of assistance from his hands). And the cops might as well be security guards at a Toys R' Us for all the intelligence they display; at one point the hero is framed for the killings, and when they bring him in for interrogation, he basically says "No, it's Frank Whaley!" and they instantly believe him. Their lab folks aren't any much help either; for some reason no one ever thought much of a guy named "David Berkowitz" buying needles by the metric ton. I'm sorry, but the name "David Berkowitz" is sort of a major red flag, wouldn't you think? That's the type of name that, if you somehow had it for real, you'd change it. They might as well have gone all out and had the guy use the alias "Hitler".
It also fails across the board on a technical level. For starters, it's also SHOT like a porno, which doesn't help the lead actress any. Everything is overlit to the point of not having any detail; even the supposedly dark scenes in the killer's lair are quite bright. Chase scenes seemingly go on forever, as it will be snowing and then not (and then snowing again) during the dull affair. Speaking of the chases, there's a couple of "rules" for a good car chase. Like, they should have destruction of some sort, there should be obstacles in the form of cars and pedestrians, and the cars should at least make contact with one another. None of these things are present here; the chase centers around what seems like a completely closed off mall parking lot, the cars never hit anything or each other (come on, knock a fucking side mirror off at least!) and most of it consists of shots of the cars spinning out and then righting their direction to try to escape/gain on their suspect. Of course, the IMDb fake reviews all make sure to point out how "awesome" the chase is, despite the fact that there have been better ones on the news.
And the EFFECTS! My god. The first film wasn't really great, but at least it had some truly amazing visuals. Not so much here, every single CG effect is terrible, and the screenwriter/producers (Lawrence Silverstein and Alex Barder, upon whom I place the entire blame for this bullshit) made the idiotic call to have a lot of them. In the film's only somewhat decent idea (even though it's largely cribbed from Dreamcatcher), memories are presented in a sort of warehouse, as a series of slides. Whaley "erases" memories by picking these memories up and then smashing them on the floor. It looks awful, so you'd think they'd show it once and then use sound effects or something for the rest. But nope! We see him smash slide after slide of sub-PSone level graphics on the floor. And at one point, I swear to God I'm not joking here, the heroine is menaced by the Windows "Pipe Maze" screensaver. Except it doesn't look as good as the one on your 1997 Pentium II processor with 13 inch CRT screen. The compositing and other CG effects are also abysmal; more than once I thought I was watching the cut scenes from The 7th Guest or maybe Phantasmagoria.
(Huh, Phantasmagoria is a real word, according to this spellchecker. Compositing is not, however.)
Speaking of Dreamcatcher, Cell 2 rips off all manner of films. Sawis pretty evident; Whaley puts this giant box contraption on their heads that looks like something David Hackl might have made as a joke and then thrown away. The room he keeps them in even looks a bit like the room in Saw IV where Matthews is being held. At one point, Whaley puts them in a machine that seems stolen from The Princess Bride ("Not to fifty!"), and a later scenario with the hero is taken directly from Hard Rain. I'm sure that last one wasn't intentional, but that was an hour and ten minutes into the movie and the movie still hadn't done anything to earn a benefit of the doubt. In fact, the ONLY good thing I can say about the movie is that it's ten minutes shorter than advertised, since the end credits is over 10 minutes long (largely in part due to two behind the scenes clips inexplicably inserted into it).
Thankfully, the disc's only extra is a half hour (!!!) making of that covers all the usual bases. Silverstein and Barder frequently point out the short shooting schedule and limited budget, as if there was a demand for a sequel to a nine year old movie no one remembers. But even this is botched, because they hired Tim Iacofano to direct. See, he has directed a number of episodes of 24 and Supernatural, both of which have smaller budgets and shorter schedules and yet look 10x better than anything in this steaming pile, so there's REALLY no good excuse for the film's shortcomings. There is also a look at the stunts, and at this point I began to feel bad in advance for my review, because you see the stunt coordinator doing her thing, and I realized that for all of the "below the line" folks on the movie, the movie's failure is not their fault. They are just doing their job, and for the most part, doing it well (though would it have killed someone on the stunt team or camera crew to make sure the brunette hero's stunt double didn't have blond hair?). So I apologize to them. It's not their fault that this movie is so fucking bad, and unlike Silverstein and Barder, your names won't be an automatic red mark on future films (oh, yeah, I looked them up on the IMDb too; they were responsible for the equally abysmal Ring Around The Rosie).
The piece ends with actor Bart Johnson apologizing for wasting everyone's time, but he is only referring to the making of. Take him out of context though, and apply his sentiment to the entire DVD (which begins with a lengthy spot about the virtues of Blu-ray, despite the fact that it's in standard def and not even anamorphic), and you'll have an apology New Line will never offer, since they are too busy writing fake reviews that try to make this movie sound like anything but what it actually is: total shit.
It’s rare I get to see any Asian horror films in theaters; I usually have to settle for a DVD or a cable viewing, months or even years after they’ve been fawned over (or remade). So I was elated to get a chance to see Chan-Wook Park’s newest film, Thirst (Korean: Bakjwi) , a full two weeks before it came out in theaters and certainly a long time before I’d get to see it on DVD. I hadn’t even watched a trailer - all I knew was that it was about vampires and had a very good chance of being quite good.
And it was, so that’s good. In fact, it just misses being “great” due to the fact that Park was seemingly afraid to tighten his film. It’s not that it’s simply “too long” - when the pacing was 100% right, I felt like I could watch the movie all day. But some scenes go on a bit longer than necessary, and what should be the midpoint event of the film (when a certain character is turned into a vampire) actually occurs around 2/3 of the way, perhaps even further along (I’m not good with the fractions). The climax, which is terrific with regards to character and story development, also goes on a bit too long, resulting in a somewhat diminished impact. Some movies suffer from extraneous scenes and the like, this one merely suffers a bit from letting great scenes wear out their welcome.
Some of those great scenes include a terrific sight gag early on, right after our hero (Kang-ho Song from The Host) becomes a vampire (for all intents and purposes). He is visiting his honorary family, and the mom tries to get him to eat some of her cooking, which causes him to gag. He explains that it wasn’t the food, but that he caught a whiff of blood. Suddenly, the young woman of the family looks embarrassed and quickly walks to the bathroom. Not only is this a funny gag, but it was also one of the moments that made me glad I was watching it in the theater, as I love when a subtle gag takes a bit longer to register with some of the folks in the audience (there were like 3 or 4 different reaction times for this particular one).
I also loved the overall concept. There have certainly been a number of horror films that revolve around priests that used to be cops (or vice versa), or priests that turn into ass-kickers, or whatever, but I think this is the first that turned the hero priest into the monster itself. Not only is he a good guy anyway, but as a priest he is doubly against things like murder, so watching him find ways to feed his addiction and also justify his behavior later in the film when the thirst becomes stronger was quite unique and entertaining. There is nothing like the hallway fight scene in Oldboy that will really grab your attention on a technical level, but the story itself more than makes up for it.
There are also a number of wonderful touches that turn standard vampire movie scenes into truly memorable ones. When he has to confess that he is a vampire to his girlfriend, and defend himself (“I didn’t ask for this!”) type stuff, Park purposely tracks back a bit and shifts the camera a bit to the left, in order to allow us to see Kang-ho Song’s reflection in the mirror as he gets to the “I’m still human!” part of his speech. Clearly, these are not vampires in the traditional sense - he has a thirst for blood, superhuman strength and can’t handle sunlight, but garlic, crosses, mirrors... those things do not apply here. For lack of a better term, it’s a “real” version of vampirism.
And in the wake of Twilight, I couldn’t help but occasionally compare the two, as this film is primarily a romance (albeit a twisted and unconventional one). Like Twilight, there is a scene where the man takes his human lover on a “ride” of sorts, using his superhuman strength to give her a thrill she would never be able to experience without him. In Twilight, he sort of tosses her on his back and flies around the woods. Here, Kang-ho Song holds her in his arms and begins making giant leaps from rooftop to rooftop. It’s an exhilarating sequence, and unlike Twilight’s, you can actually FEEL the excitement and thrill as it occurs. As I said in my review of that film, I felt that Catherine Hardwicke’s “indie” style direction hampered the film, and now I more or less have proof, as the scenes are thematically/dramatically identical and yet Park’s version is 10x as powerful.
One minor thing tickled/kind of bothered me - the subtitler’s insistence on using “Cuz” instead of “Because” or even “ ‘cause ” whenever it came up in the dialogue. The characters are intelligent, grown people - I am sure they aren’t using street slang. It just made these lines of dialogue feel kind of childish.
Pacing issues aside, it’s a terrific addition to Chan-Wook Park’s filmography, and I am glad that Focus is giving it a respectable (and well marketed) theatrical release. Hopefully it will catch on with jaded vampire movie fans who have long grown tired of guys with Euro-trash accents and plastic fangs stalking Romanian sets. Like Larry Fessenden’s Habit, it’s an “alt-vampire” tale that you almost wish was actually the norm.
At this point, I have to believe that the Tales Of Terror box is not going to have as many gems like the Chilling Classics one did. Some have been pretty sweet (like The Vampires' Night Orgy), but for the most part, they are all dull and forgettable, like Sound Of Horror (Spanish: El Sonido De La Muerte). The movie only ended a few hours ago but I’ve already forgotten pretty much everything about it. And this was one of the (not many) films in the set that actually sounded (pun just realized) pretty fun, so I can’t imagine how lousy the ones I skipped over are going to be.
I mean, I’m sure I have seen worse monster movies, but like I’ve said before, sometimes outright bad is better than bland. At least stuff like Monster From A Prehistoric Planet has the cheesy effects and ridiculous dialogue to enjoy, but this is simply one of the most inert monster movies I can recall. All of our characters are the least pro-active in horror movie history; most of the film finds them simply hanging out in the house waiting for the monster to go away (or die of old age, perhaps). Christ, the 3rd act begins with all of them dozing in the living room. The only time they spring to action is when a character is in danger, as the others rush to help get their friend back safely doing nothing.
And the monster is invisible, so you don’t get a goofy costume to enjoy. Sure, this leads to some occasional funny effects (like when they throw weapons at it and they all “stick” haphazardly in mid-air), but it also makes some of the attacks confusing. At one point it starts whaling on a guy in a cave... or at least that’s what I THINK is happening. He’s just sort of flailing around like a jackass, and every now and then they cut to a closeup of a wound on his torso. But is it the monster causing the gashes, or all of the jagged rocks that he keeps brushing against as he spazzes out?
As for the titular “sound”, apparently, the sound of horror is that of a bird making the car alarm “whooooooooOOOOOOOOOOP” noise. Though to be fair, the sound design is pretty much all the movie has going for it. There’s a cool scene where the monster is trying to get in, and the camera pans 360 (well, a little over 180) degrees around the place as we hear it scratching and clawing on the outside, trying to find a weak spot. Good stuff.
But the PADDING! It’s among the worst I can recall. Early on there is a full 30 second establishing shot that doesn’t even seem to be where the next scene takes place. Whenever something happens (not often), we get a solo reaction shot of each character, accompanied by a musical sting. It also has history’s longest “car won’t start” scene; the guy tries it (no exaggeration) 15 times, as the other characters just sort of sit there. Then finally, one of the guys in the back of the car says “Try it again.” Yeah, good plan.
Now that I think of it, there ARE some choice lines of nonsensical dialogue to enjoy. The first line of the movie is “I’m scared of explosions”, followed by “You’ll get used to them.”. And the heroine has a touching moment of reflection where she announces that life shouldn’t be about treasure hunting (the film’s macguffin is a treasure), but instead about dancing. Yeah, why get rich when you can swing your arms around and pivot?
I’d say more, but I can’t. I’ve already forgotten it all. I’m sure I’ve seen worse monster movies, but none of their titles come to mind right now. But if you are in the mood for a Spanish horror film featuring an invisible monster, maybe three kills (two of them “for the team!” suicides), and a central location that may remind you of the one from The Killer Shrews (“But these walls are ADOBE!”) I hope you can do better than Sound Of Horror (and why doesn't this movie have a "The" in the title?).
I suppose that most people who would go out of their way to see Mimic 2 are big fans of the original, and not merely watching whatever horror title they come across during their browsing, even sequels to movies they didn't remember much about. Therefore, those folks wouldn’t have spent the entire movie thinking that Dimension couldn’t get any of the original actors to return, as I did. Actually, if not for the fact that I thought lead actress Alix Koromzay was cute and wanted to see what else she had been in, I probably wouldn’t have ever known that her character (Remy) was actually in the first Mimic. Who the hell was she, though? I only remember the people who went into the sewer and mostly died.
Anyway, it’s actually not too bad of a movie. This is back when the Neo Art And Logic team would actually shoot their films on sets and locations instead of greenscreens, so it’s certainly more professional looking than a Pulsesequel. Also, the effects aren’t too bad, and they are kept to a minimum anyway. If the movie has one real issue, it’s that all the kills occur in the first 10 minutes or so, only to spend the next hour with three people that you know won’t die (2 kids and Remy). Oh, and a heroic cop who you know won’t die until the end. The key to any good monster movie is to give you a nice stable of characters who you can actually feel concerned about. Think of say, Jurassic Park. Did you automatically “know” that Malcolm or Hammond would live? You shouldn’t, especially since they died in the book.
Another nice touch is that there’s actually some character development. Remy has no luck in love, and is obsessed with her bugs. So the idea of a giant human-ish bug that wants to mate with her is one that almost seems plausible. Also, there’s a nice bit of how after she gets her heart broken, she takes a Polaroid of herself and pins it on the wall with the name of the heartbreaker written on the bottom. Sort of cheesy, but a hell of a lot more than you get in these things. And of course, the hero sees the photo (after accusing her of being the killer) that she made after dealing with him, which gives him enough motive to risk himself to help her. Awww. It’s certainly better than what I thought would be the payoff for the Polaroids (a picture of the two of them together at the end of the film, all happy and such).
Some of the horror bits are above average as well. My hatred of insects allowed me to feel a bit queasy during a scene where a hundred baby Judas breeds scramble over our three heroes, who stomp on them mercilessly (what this movie lacks in blood, it makes up for in insect goo). Paul Schulze’s death scene is also pretty nifty; a full grown Judas sort of flies by and slashes him over and over, confusing the hell out of him until it drags him off and pulls him through a narrow pipe. And if a movie has to have a goddamn “Heroine steps over the body of the maybe-not-yet-dead villain” scene, it might as well have one where instead of an arm she is stepping over a raised tentacle claw thingie pointed right at her lady parts.
Oh and kind of like Deep Blue Sea, the movie finds a ridiculously awesome (I mean awesomely ridiculous) way to get her to strip down to her underwear. Thank you movie.
Also a surprise for a Dimension DTV of the era, there are a decent number of extras. Nothing particularly essential, but there’s about 20 minutes of behind the scenes stuff, which focus on both the usual nonsense as well as the job details of lesser known crew members. There’s also a nice piece on sound mixing (is Gary Rizzo the first re-recording mixer to ever get his own extra on a DVD?), and a handful of deleted scenes which are actually finished and mostly enjoyable. I would have liked a commentary by Joel Soisson and Mike Leahy, as they are always fun to listen to, but oh well. Besides, unlike most of their tracks (the Draculasequels, for example), this is actually a decent movie, so their track might not be as mocking. Or if it was I might be annoyed.
So now it’s full circle. After seeing a rather poorly translated screener (“Keep filming for your fucking mother!”), and then the remake (Quarantine), I now finally have a nice, pristine DVD of [Rec] (originally reviewed HERE) to enjoy. And not only does it obviously look the best anyone has probably seen it on a digital format, it also has actually improved in the wake of Quarantine, because it continues to be effective despite a shot for shot remake that could have lessened its impact.
As I said in my review for Quarantine, that version worked fine as a zombie movie, but failed monumentally as a “found footage” thing because every single actor in the movie, even those in small roles, was a recognizable actor. It became impossible to buy into the “realism” of the situation, something that is not an issue for [Rec]. And no, I’m not gullible enough to believe that these events really happened, but if you’re going to try to pass something off as a documentary, it seems sort of counter-productive to make it as superficially as possible.
And so now, having seen [Rec] before, and the remake, it’s remarkable how effective it is. I got scared all over again at the fireman’s body hitting the floor, and still find the situation impressively tense throughout, something that most found footage films never truly achieve (even Cloverfieldhad its lapses in this department). And while the performances in Quarantine were all fine, [Rec]’s cast is uniformly natural and believable, something I appreciate even more now. Usually these things have a weak link (for example, the FBI agent in Poughkeepsie Tapes, ironically directed by the guys who helmed Quarantine), but I can’t find one here. Ángela Vidal (the lead) sometimes annoys me, but that’s a character thing; actress Manuela Velasco herself is great.
The DVD transfer is quite good too. It actually looks like HD footage shot by a frightened man (Quarantine was a bit too cleaned up), and the occasional camera “glitches” look legit. Some of these movies go way overboard with such things (again, Poughkeepsie Tapes is a good example; the glitches were all clearly made in post production), but having used HD cameras myself, I can vouch for the authenticity of the pixel shifting and such that occurs during the more frenetic scenes.
Sony, however, has pulled a Magnolia with the subtitles, offering up “summed up/dumbed down” text instead of what is actually being said. All you need to do is turn on the dub track (not the worst, but none of the voices seem like they belong to the actors; the old lady sounds like a 30 year old) to see the difference. For example, when the SWAT team is sealing off the building, the head cop says “All officers in position?”, whereas the subs merely offer “Ready?”. It’s not a dialogue heavy movie, and the exposition type scenes are pretty accurate, but still, I don’t understand why the studios keep doing this on their subtitle tracks. Are the subtitle people paid by the letter or something? Or is the subtitle places themselves that are half-assing their job? Either way, it’s kind of a shame, you either have to deal with a distracting dub or a dummy’s subtitle track.
The DVD also has a 20 min making of, and it’s actually nice to see in the wake of Quarantine. That film’s featurette was pointless, because they’re all talking about the film as if they weren’t flat out copying another existing one ([Rec] was only mentioned once on the entire DVD, in passing on the commentary track). So it’s nice to see Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza (the actual creators) talk about their work for once. I only wish it was longer and/or less clip-heavy.
[Rec] 2 is on the way, and while I am not sure how it can live up to the original, I am excited about it. I hear Sony is planning a sequel to Quarantine as well, not sure if they are following the story of the [Rec] sequel or going off on their own (much like The Ring Two). Either way, it’s a franchise I enjoy; it’s just a shame that it took this long for the better version to reach the US (unlike The Ring or The Grudge, most people who saw Quarantine weren’t even aware of an “original version”) in a legitimate fashion.
One final note - my DVD from Sony came in a new form of the traditional Amaray DVD case. It uses up less plastic by cutting the traditional “recycle” logo on the left side (under where the insert would be if the DVD had one) and also cutting out behind where the DVD itself is stored. I’m no math wizard, but I would say it takes up 20-25% less plastic per case, which is pretty sweet. It kind of bums me out how trash seems to be encouraged in Los Angeles (almost no apartment buildings have recycling beyond bottles and cans), so to see a big studio take this measure is worth lauding, I think. And I appreciate that they are doing it in a way that cuts down on plastic without actually changing the shape of the package, which is annoying. You know those new water bottles? They fucking suck, because there is a lot less plastic along the bottom, so now they don’t stand up right. Anyway,let's hope more studios adapt this new case style.
There’s a pile of DVDs in my room, the origin of many have been completely forgotten. Some are freebies from conventions, others were given to me by Mr. Disgusting, and a few were sent by smaller distribution houses that forgot to follow up with me (i.e. make me say “Oh shit I gotta watch that”)... who knows. All I know is, when I am between Blockbuster/Netflix deliveries, they come in handy. One such film is Beneath The Surface, which sounded like a decent enough indie zombie comedy.
And that’s exactly what it was: decent. There’s just as many pros as there are cons, resulting in a film that’s just plain ol’ OK. And it could have edged into the “pro” column had the synopsis not made the film sound a lot more complex and interesting than it really is. For example, the synopsis claims that the hero and the heroine are kept apart by “Shane and his gang of corrupt goons”, which suggested a sort of Crow style scenario. However, in the actual movie, Shane is the only real antagonist. He has a few friends, sure, but they don’t really factor into the action (in fact they pretty much disappear after the incident that sets off the horror angle).
Another thing the synopsis promises is that “Ethan makes a discovery that leads him beyond the realm of living and into a forgotten past. Now he must walk a fine line to prevent all hell from breaking loose.” Sounds awesome, right? Well, again, that’s not really what’s going on. Ethan resurrects the girl, and then keeps her in his room for the entire movie. The “forgotten past” comes in the form of an awkward, late in the game delivery of some exposition about some Haitians or whatever, providing a “sure, why not?” explanation for why her resurrection isn’t working as planned . And Hell doesn’t even seem to be concerned with what is going on at all, let alone about to break loose. In fact, synopsis aside, the film’s most crippling flaw is that there doesn’t seem to be anything at stake. They resurrect the girl in order to get her to identify her murderer, but we know who the killer is, she’s not a violent zombie by any means, and she doesn’t seem to be decomposing or anything. The laid back approach is kind of refreshing in a way, but after a while you just kind of want something to be concerned about.
One thing it definitely has going for it is a slightly off-kilter tone, especially in the first act. Odd background gags, insane realtors, a club dude who keeps dancing around like that one guy in Hot Rod, and a hero who keeps reading comics from 1991 (the movie was shot in 2005) all tickled me. And at one point, after the hero and the girl have been studying for hours, he gets blood on her shirt due to an injury that he suffered earlier in the day. So he’s just sitting there with an actively bleeding wound on his wrist? But the crème of the crop is definitely the villain’s dad, who is pretty much the best dad ever. He lets his son raid the liquor cabinet while he goes off to Vegas to fuck hookers (the son knows this), lets him swear, they mock each other... the dude rocks. And he looks kind of like Roger Corman, so he’s doubly awesome. I also dug the hero’s friend, but that’s mainly because he makes fun of jam bands and resembles my friend Phil.
But again, even the minor good things have equally minor bad counterparts. The acting is a bit all over the place, and I don’t mean some actors suck and some are great - I mean the individual performances from certain actors. The hero guy is fine in some scenes, others he seems like he wasn’t even aware he was due on set, saying his lines so fast that they have no resonance. The woman who tells him about the resurrection spell either overacts like a senile old bird, or like a caring grandmother. The weak acting also ruins some of the humorous dialogue; there are attempts at casual “Oh by the way we’re about to die” type humor near the end, and they all fall flat because of the “reading it off a card” delivery. And the laid back approach is fine to an extent, but stopping the movie cold halfway through the third act to show a band perform an ENTIRE SONG at a club is pretty unforgivable.
And why doesn’t this comic shop stock Dark Horse’s Star Wars comics?
Still though, it’s certainly well made, which is more important than a perfect script or actors when it comes to these types of films (which can be shopped around in order to show what the filmmaker can do with limited means). The film is enthusiastically directed by Blake Reigle (his first film), and he doesn’t try to create a storyline beyond his means like many other indie zombie films do (you know, where they are like “It’s the end of the world! Just take our word for it.”). And at its center is a fairly sweet story about a guy losing his true love to violence and how he tries to cope with it. At times it reminded me a bit of Zombie Honeymoon, which sounds schlocky but is actually a really sad “single zombie” tale. Not bad company to be with. And while it could use some tightening, the editing on the whole is above average.
Unadvertised on the DVD, the disc has a few deleted scenes (skip em), a blooper reel (eh), a photo gallery, and some music videos. The only thing of any real worth is Reigle’s commentary. He’s a young guy, but unlike a lot of others in his age group, he’s not afraid to admit his mistakes on occasion, and also knows his shit about horror, name-checking old-school zombie films like I Walked With A Zombie instead of 28 Days Later or whatever. He also points out a lot of cast/location info (the hero’s best friend was in an Avril video!) and provides technical shooting details, always a plus since these types of tracks are more likely to be listened to by fellow budding filmmakers than anyone else. I just wish he had mixed the track along with the film better; there are a lot of rock songs in the film, and when they pop up in the film they sort of drown his commentary out.
Without even realizing that I owned it, I have actually considered renting this a few times from Blockbuster, so it has obviously been picked up for wide-spread distribution (some of the films in my freebie pile are unreleased). If you can appreciate a truly indie comedy/drama with a zombie, by all means check it out. Here’s hoping Reigle’s efforts pay off for him.
There are two reasons why I always put the source at the top of my reviews. First, it helps add weight to the “yes I am really watching one every day” thing. But more importantly, I honestly think the setting is important to the film’s success or lack thereof. Because I was baffled why so many of my friends disliked Dead Snow (Norwegian: Død Snø), when I (and clearly everyone else in the theater) had a lot of fun watching it. And then later it made sense, when I discovered that every single one of them saw it at home on bootleg DVDs, instead of in a theater.
Now, I’m not saying that it’s impossible to enjoy the movie unless you’re seeing it on the big screen. But if someone is watching it with a watermark, and talking with whoever’s with them, and probably dividing their attention between the film and their laptop, then sorry, I can’t really give their opinion much weight. Yes, the film starts off a bit slow and the characters are kind of generic. That’s part of the point, and I think it’s easily missed if you’re already bitching about the film’s merit. Because the way I see it, the movie is actually a hybrid of slasher and zombie film, and writer/director Tommy Wirkola is simply doing the same thing that Neil Marshall did with Doomsday- paying tribute to his favorite movies by tossing elements of them together into one goofy fun ride.
So yeah, maybe it’s “slow” for a zombie film, many of which have full blown attacks in their opening reel, but it’s structured EXACTLY like a slasher. We have an opening kill, then our teens are introduced, they get to their destination, a crazy local gives them (us) the backstory before getting killed, the next morning arrives, things get weird, and eventually our heroes are offed one by one. The villains may be Nazi zombies, but everything about the film screams slasher. Christ, the resident movie nerd guy even name-checks Friday the 13th (as opposed to Night of the Living Dead or whatever), just to help make it a bit more clear.
Note - the hot girl who inexplicably likes the movie nerd then mentions April Fool’s Day, but says it’s from 1984. I thought this was a setup, and he’d prove his nerdiness by correcting her and saying “1986”, but he doesn’t. So the only one that proved their nerdiness was me, I guess. Also she refers to it as “well-regarded”, which means she must read Horror Movie A Day and also my friend Matt’s BloodandSleaze.com, because I’m pretty sure we are the only two who like it.
I’ve also read reviews that complained about the lack of Nazi-ism to the Nazi zombies. So I guess they would prefer a zombie film where only Jews were eaten? Or conducting nonsensical experiments in between feeding on human flesh? What the fuck can they do? Like all zombies, they are merely re-animated corpses. Besides, they have more of a purpose than usual, as they seek their lost gold (shades of The Foghere) that was stolen from innocent people during WWII, and they’re also still in full uniform and even have a commander of sorts, so compared to generic zombies, they are far more three-dimensional than we are used to. Hell, even compared to other Nazi zombies they leave a lasting imprint; I’ll take these over the ones in Shock Waves any day of the week.
Now, one thing I can agree with is that the story-telling is a bit too loose at times. One guy has a machine gun all of a sudden - you would think that it’s too big of a plot point to come out of nowhere, but it does. Also, there is no real explanation for why the Nazis A. have come back to life and B. why they are doing so now. Our hero’s girlfriend lives in the cabin, so it’s not like they are the only people to have ever set foot there or something. And this is more minor, but Wirkola blows what could have been an even better scene by giving it to the wrong character. One of our heroes is repulsed by blood and actually gets sick at the sight of it. Later on, a different character suffers a massive neck injury and has to sew it up himself. It would have been way more queasy/awesome to have the blood-fearing guy do this, especially since the fear never really has any payoff for him.
Speaking of the injury, not one but two characters survive certain death only to come back and get killed for real later. It’s not the worst plot point, but it is an annoying one, as it gives a film the feeling that they aren’t in any real danger. Knock em off a cliff, nearly decapitate them, whatever... they’ll be fine. So to do it twice in one movie is a bit of a dumb call. Sure, both of their “real” deaths are great, but it’s not worth the groaning of seeing them alive again in the first place. And the very first one is at night, and it’s so dark that it’s hard to tell what is going on. I know that they were probably trying to hide the design of the Nazi zombies until later, but it’s hard to tell which one is the zombie and which one is the victim.
Back to those deaths though - oh man. The gore/effects in this movie are pretty awesome. A skull ripped in half (vertically), a guy that’s pulled apart in every direction, an axe through the head, self-cauterized arm stump, and (my favorite) a guy gets a piece of his intestine caught on a tree, keeps running another few yards, and then turns to see why he is “stuck”. Fuck yeah. The limited number of characters keeps the body count rather low for a zombie film (more like... wait for it... a slasher!), so at least they all have pretty great payoffs. They also kill out of the order you would expect - my pick for the first to die was one of the last, and the movie nerd guy is killed before he even gets to make any more movie nerd jokes beyond the ones that introduced him as the movie nerd guy!
The zombie rules aren’t well-established, but I didn’t have a problem with that. Every vampire movie that comes along has it’s own version of the “rules” (i.e. Twilightand their goofy sparkling vampires), so I don’t see why every zombie film has to follow the “only a shot to the head can kill it, you get bit you die” standard. Actually, another “this is more of a slasher” thing - none of the hero characters come back as zombies (of course, most of them are so dismembered that they CAN’T, but still), which is pretty rare.
It’s only playing in two theaters, so I can understand if you don’t get to see it until DVD. But Christ, give the movie (and all movies, for that matter) the benefit of a proper viewing, and let your patience and respect get rewarded. Even some of its biggest detractors admit the finale is a lot of fun; it’s just a shame they didn’t realize that most of what led up to it was just as enjoyable.
What say you?
P.S. The trailer’s use of "Ode To Joy" is not only awesome, but warranted! It’s in the movie too, however not used quite as epically.
I believe The Birds will be the last “Holy shit you’ve never seen that?” type review, but just in case - I know, it’s shameful that I have seen all three Dark Harvest movies and not revered Hitchcock classics. Shit happens. But keep in mind: part of HMAD’s original intent was to ensure that all gaps such as this were filled, so in a way, I should actually be keeping movies like this out of arm’s reach. Once I know I’ve seen all the classics, there won’t be as much drive to keep going!
(Sadly, I HAVE seen The Birds II: Land’s End.)
Plus it’s not like I had completely missed the film; in fact, it seems like I have seen every major setpiece already, via “10 Scariest Movies” type specials on TV, the game SceneIt, and even in some cases, on the TV of a character in a different movie, which was the case in The Hitcher, back when Platinum Dunes was planning a remake. That train wreck seems to have been averted though; Fuller and Form have been sort of dismissive of it in recent interviews, and now that I have seen the entire movie I am actually kind of glad. Not that I dislike the Dunes films; on the contrary I probably give them a higher batting average than anyone else would. But everything that makes The Birds so good are the type of things that their films always fall short on, and so even if I enjoyed it, it wouldn’t be worth my breath or keystrokes to try to defend it on deaf ears (a lesson I learned on The Hitcher, incidentally). Best everyone just walk away.
For starters, the film is strong on character. Having seen most of the action already, I was surprised to find out how much more exciting it was when I actually knew who the people swatting the birds away were. I especially loved the hero, Mitch (played by Rod Taylor - whose appearance in Kawwas an in-joke that was lost on me). He’s a charming wiseass, the best type of hero in my opinion, and I liked that he managed to pull off the romantic stuff as well as the action. Oddly, he kind of reminded me of Liev Schreiber, the real-life husband of Naomi Watts, who has been long rumored to be taking the Tippi Hedren role should the remake come to pass. But if I had to pick someone to fill Taylor's shoes, I’d go with Nathan Fillion in a heartbeat. Sure, he’s done the town under siege hero role before (Slither), but the role seems tailor-made for someone of his stature.
Tippi’s character is pretty interesting too, but mainly because she’s essentially psychotic. She has a meet-cute with Taylor (one of my favorites ever, actually, because it’s the rare one where the guy has the upper hand the entire time and makes the girl look like a fool for once), and then proceeds to go to extreme measures to see him again. First she has her dad’s friend track down his address via his license plate, and then goes to his house only to discover that he went on vacation. Does she go home? Hell no! She drives up the coast, grills a post office clerk for his address (and a schoolteacher for his sister’s name - the ruse has a sub-ruse!), rents a boat so he won’t see her car, breaks into his home, leaves the gift behind, and then goes back outside and hides so she can see his reaction. Whatever happened to just touching a guy on his forearm so he’d know you liked him? Especially when you look like Tippi Hedren - it’s not like it would take much effort to gain his attraction. It all reminded me of the classic Onion article: “Romantic Comedy Behavior Lands Real Life Man In Jail”.
Another thing that the Dunes would almost surely eschew is the terrific restaurant scene, where pretty much everyone in the town has seemingly gathered to weigh in with their opinions of what is happening and why. It’s a lively, rapid-fire scene, effortlessly blending humor (love the woman who keeps trying to shield her children from hearing about killer birds, only to fail; it’s capped off with a terrific punchline as well) and story/character development. Instead, the Dunes would likely replace it with a scene where the reason for the bird attacks was definitively explained (this film has no such thing, thankfully), and it would likely be a stupid reason revolving around marijuana.
And finally, suspense. This film thrives on it; their films seemingly never even attempt it. I was amazed to discover later on that it was a full two hours long, as it never feels that way due to the light fluffiness of the first act followed by the unnerving tone of the rest. BECAUSE we have no idea why the birds are attacking, the scenes in which they are present (which is nearly all of them) are real nail-biters, because they’re always there and you never know when they’re going to resume their attack. And Hitch knows this, because he constantly has the birds “calm down” and then sends a human to walk by/around them. These scenes are actually more terrifying than the attack ones in a way, because it becomes not an “If” but a “When” they will strike. Adding to this uneasiness is the fact that the film doesn’t have any sort of score. The chirping and kawing of the birds is all you hear during certain scenes (even the actor’s natural sounds - footsteps and such - are sometimes obliterated), which was a great choice on Hitch’s part.
Oh, and they would probably use shitty CGI instead of throwing birds at actors or rear-projecting them in a fairly decent fashion (the projection of a road behind Hedren as she “drives” actually looks worse than the shots of birds swarming around a group of children).
The only sort of complaint I have regards the film’s ending. Specifically, it doesn’t really have one. It just sort of ends. There was originally a sequence of them driving through the town, fending off one last attack, and getting out of Bodega Bay, but it was never shot for budget/logistic reasons. So instead the movie ends with them leaving their house, which isn’t quite as compelling or dramatically satisfying. There was also supposed to be a cool ending where the birds would be seen covering the Golden Gate Bridge, but this was also eschewed once it became clear that there was no way to do it right. And that is probably the single concept behind the entire idea of remaking this movie in the first place - it couldn’t possibly be the track record of Hitchcock remakes (Psycho, A Perfect Murder, etc).
When I got home I put on my DVD, which I own as part of a nice Hitchcock set that Universal put out a few years ago. I noticed that it was the only one of his films to be upgraded in its MPAA rating (to a PG-13!), though I can’t say I am surprised due to the surprising number of attacks on children and the ghastly sight of an eyeless dude (it’s a low body count film, but when people die Hitch isn’t afraid to show their corpse). There were a nice smattering of extras, though nothing seemed newly produced. There is a trio of never filmed/lost scenes (including the ending I mentioned before), presented via stills, storyboards, and the script pages, which roll by too fast to fully read. Then we get a couple of charmingly cheesy newsreels, a lengthy storyboard/screen comparison of the attic scene that you can’t fast-forward (you can advance the stills though), and Hitch’s awesome five minute teaser where he displays his usual deadpan humor. I would love to see a modern audience sit through a five minute teaser that doesn’t even contain footage from the movie. Come back, Hitch!
The final extra is Hedren’s screentest. While I would never argue with the idea of putting more Hedren footage on the disc, it’s a bit of an odd piece. They don’t do any dialogue from the movie (they address each other by their real names), plus I spent the entire time wondering A. Why she was testing with Marty Balsam, and B. Why he was being such a complete ass. At one point he began bitching at her for coloring her hair blond, because since he pays for her hairstyling it should be the color he wanted. I was actually getting kind of uncomfortable with the idea of her being treated like this. Maybe they were improvising, but I can find nothing that says that Balsam was ever even up for the role, so I don’t know. It’s a wonderful little slice of a time gone by, that’s for sure. And she looks as beautiful as ever, so win-win.
In closing, please don’t remake this movie. It’s great as is, and you’re just setting yourself up to be lambasted. It’s hard enough defending you guys. Focus on a remake of, I dunno, The Dorm That Dripped Blood. No one will give you any shit for that.
Pretty much since I began doing HMAD, my buddy Chris has been asking me to review Count Yorga, Vampire. Not sure why it took so long to get around to it; I don’t see enough non-Dracula vampire movies anyway, plus I always enjoy a good comma in my movie titles. So I finally watch it, and then he tells me that the sequel is better. I can’t win.
It’s not that bad of a movie. I think I’ll put it in the pile of “I should have seen this when I was younger” vampire movies, like Salem’s Lot. There’s nothing particularly bad about the movie, but my enjoyment of it is dampened by having seen 200 others that do nearly the same thing. Indeed, it actually follows the Dracula template fairly closely, right down to awkwardly transferring the hero title from the young guy to the doctor halfway through the story.
Plus it’s actually kind of perfect for kids, as it features no direct violence (and the requisite 60s/70s vampire lesbian action is kept off-screen entirely), nor is the plot very complicated. The heroes meet Drac-, er, Yorga, and the women fall under his spell while the men sit around discussing how they need to kill him. Then they do. The end.
There is a certain level of late 60s/early 70s quirk that I enjoyed though. First off, everyone smokes, the doctor moreso than the others. Even when he’s treating people! There are also a few choice lines that made me laugh heartily; in what is probably my favorite part of the entire movie, two of the guys are making crucifixes out of household stuff, resulting in this exchange:
“What is that, a broom handle? “Yes.” ”Well, why not. Let’s go.”
Hahaha, awesome. There’s also a strange bit where the doctor tries to explain why he is leaving in the middle of the night to his seemingly brain-dead mistress, using examples that seem to make the matter even more confusing. I also liked the performance of Michael Murphy, who spends most of the film baffled before he is unceremoniously killed off halfway through. There’s one lengthy sequence where he and the doctor walk around what seems to be the entirety of the San Fernando Valley, with Murphy telling the story so far, despite the fact that we’ve already seen it all. It kind of reminded me of the part from Naked Gun where Drebin walks around as he puzzles over the case, only to end up in the middle of the woods somewhere (“And where the hell was I?”).
I also enjoyed the performance of Robert Quarry as Yorga (comma Vampire). The script doesn’t give him a lot to do, but he manages to take a generic Dracula wannabe role and still make it interesting; there’s a terrific bit late in the film where he has a battle of wits with the doctor, and he’s so good you actually start rooting for him a bit. And the few “scare” type scenes are definitely the type that can leave a lasting imprint on a young child, as he widens his eyes and gnashes his teeth (not too bad of a job on the fangs by the way) in a threatening manner a couple of times near the end. It’s a pose that would make a terrific model.
I will check out the sequel someday; I guess MGM has put them together in a double feature. Assuming my friend is correct and the sequel is better, then it’s probably a decent enough purchase for under 10 bucks, especially if you haven’t seen umpteen Dracula movies already.
I hate it when someone gets to coast forever based on their involvement with one great movie. John Russo is one such person. Because he co-wrote Night Of The Living Dead (respect), you can’t just flat out dismiss him as worthless like you would any other hack. But let’s put it this way: Without Russo, Romero made Dawn of the Dead, Creepshow, Day of the Dead, and Martin. Without Romero, Russo made NOTLD 30th Anniversary, which is legendarily awful, and Midnight (based on his own novel - anyone read it?), which is less a film than a series of loosely connected scenes that ends when a 90 minute mark is reached as opposed to when all plotlines are wrapped up.
There is nothing in this movie that would lead me to believe that the filmmaker had any grasp on things such as pace, storytelling, character development, dialogue, or scares. For a movie about a cult, there sure is a lot of scenes where our heroine and two would-be heroes are driving around Pennsylvania (they are allegedly going to Florida, but after what seems like at least a full day’s drive they appear to be in the same backwoods PA town). The cult is in the first scene, and they don’t show up again until about an hour into the film, by which time you’ve probably forgotten all about them. Also, top-billed Lawrence Tierney appears to be a different character in every scene. In his first, he’s a drunken lecherous man who tries to rape his stepdaughter, only to be subdued when she lightly taps a conveniently placed alarm clock (on the bed?) against his temple. Then later he’s a conniver, convincing his wife that she came on to him and then ran away. By the end of the movie he’s a full blown hero, going to great lengths to try to save her. Of course, if he was the actual star of the film, this could be construed as an arc as we would see him naturally progress toward this point, but the scenes in which those three things occur are pretty much the entirety of his role.
And the dialogue! Everyone says exactly what is going on. Like early on, when the girl is talking to her friend on the phone. Tierney for some reason rings the doorbell to his own home, so she puts the phone down to open the (unlocked) door for him. When he tries to kiss her, she says “I need to get back to the phone; I put it down to come get the door for you”. Like he fucking cares! Most of the dialogue is of a similar nature, or just completely inane, like when the cult members go out of their way to say the names of the girls that they are holding captive, just so Tierney (hero mode scene) knows he has the right place. Cause, you know, evil cults are just helpful like that.
Oh, and another guy is described as “being real mean when he gets stoned”. Who the hell gets angry when they smoke a joint? It’s the complete opposite reaction one would have! Maybe he should snort some coke, his dick might get bigger.
Also it just looks like crap. The budget (according to Russo in his self-congratulating book “Making Movies”) was under 80,000 dollars, so I can forgive some blemishes, but not the fact that even daytime scenes are often murky. The one saving grace of the film is that Tom Savini did the effects, and this was when he was in his prime (1981), so every attempt should have been made to ensure that the gore shots were filmed properly, but even that’s a wash. Apart from a throat slitting, none of them are memorable and most are so dark you can’t really see them anyway.
The ending has some entertainment value. Not from the storytelling or technical qualities, but from the fact that the rather man-ish looking female lead is dressed in a white shirt, dark pants, and black vest, a la one Han Solo. So when it’s dark, you can understandably think you’re suddenly watching some really shitty deleted scene from New Hope.
Now to be fair, maybe even Russo doesn’t care much for this one. He barely discusses it in his book (The Majorettes gets its fair share though), and when he does it’s mostly to provide examples (i.e. the budget) for something else he’s talking about as he tries to teach you how to be a hack just like him. But it was a completely independent production, made at a time when he already had made a name for himself, so he is not allowed to use the low budget as an excuse for the film’s failure. Besides, the film’s biggest failing is Russo’s muddled script, and, as I’ve said a million times, a good, coherent script is free to write.
One last note on his book, for those of you who may be interested. I can save you the time it takes to read it and sum it up: it’s best to get your name on one good movie, and then use it as a calling card for the next forty years to try to hide the fact that you used up all of your creativity on it. Russo finds a way to mention Night every other page, boasting about how he co-wrote it and played the zombie that gets lit on fire, all the while going into detail of how to cut corners by, for one example, hiring friends and family instead of actual actors or trained crew people. And the book was published in the 80s, so unfortunately it doesn’t contain a chapter on how to bastardize your one good creation by re-editing it with new footage that you shot without the real director’s involvement (or permission, for that matter) 30 years later and rightfully earn the permanent scorn of every horror fan that ever existed. It also won’t tell you how to publish a series of awful comics bearing that film’s name. Maybe he should update it for the hacks of today; I’m sure Mike Feifer would get some use out of it.
What say you?
P.S. Funny sidenote - I saw the box art on Netflix and somehow knew it was a Lionsgate (re)release.
Finally, a serial killer movie I like without any reservations! There aren’t many, so I get a bit excited when I see something like The Crimson Rivers (French: Les Rivières Pourpres), which doesn’t re-invent the wheel, but merely does what it should and does it well. You get the good acting (Jean Reno!), the red herrings, the standard mid-way foot chase, and unlike even the classics of the genre (Se7en, which I’ve honestly never really been in love with), an intriguing mystery.
See, the thing with Seven (it’s too annoying to type out it’s “real” name) is that it didn’t take long for them to figure out the hook behind the killings (the seven deadly sins). Here, a good hour or so is spent on uncovering clues, talking to potential suspects, etc. We don’t know why the guy is killing people, but that’s nothing. Why is he filling their eye sockets with rain water? Or placing them in the fetal position? That’s the stuff I love. There’s something about a guy sifting through old records and typing names into a computer that I find incredibly intriguing. So to have more than half the movie devoted to that is like a godsend.
There are also a great number of little touches that I loved. Vincent Cassell’s character (a good guy for once!) is shown a horrific crime scene photo of a girl who was run over by a truck, and instead of showing us the photo in all its gory detail (ew) or hiding it entirely (weak), director Matthieu Kassovitz (best known here as the guy who told us all not to see his film Babylon AD because FOX butchered it - and we all listened) places the camera near the ground pointing up at Cassell’s reaction, and allows us to faintly make out the image through the light streaming through the backside of the photograph. There are even a few touches of humor, like when Cassell fights a few skinheads set to the music/sound effects of a previously established Tekken-type game someone is playing in the background.
Plus, I like that it’s a buddy cop movie, but only in the 2nd half. Reno and Cassell don’t even meet until they’ve already gotten pretty much every piece of the puzzle, so when they finally meet it starts coming together for them (and us), resulting in a fast paced third act that features a terrific (if too short) car chase, the aforementioned foot chase (way better than Seven’s, if you ask me), and a finale built around an avalanche. And the killer isn’t just pissed that his/her dad never went into their room.
Actually the killer’s motive ties into Nazis. Sort of like The Unborn, they just spring it on you late in the film, but it’s a nice touch. Beats the umpteenth biblically-motivated serial killer. In fact, the whole thing is kind of convoluted, but if you pay enough attention you should be able to understand it all with little trouble. In fact, the only issue I had with the film is a relative lack of viable suspects; it’s certainly presented as a whodunit but you really can only believe two people and one of them is killed halfway through or so. The motive is the real mystery, but it would have been nice to have another character to mislead us.
Then again, maybe the people who are confused were using the dubbed version of the film, instead of going by the dumbed down subtitles. Much like Let The Right One In, it seems that Sony didn’t want us reading too much, so they sort of “summed up” a lot of the dialogue. For example, this is what the dubbed track (presumably created by the filmmakers, seeing as Reno and Cassell do their own voices) offers for a line of dialogue early on between a coroner and Reno:
“I figured you’d want to see him as the killer wanted us to find him. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The subtitles, on the other hand, merely offer:
“I figured you’d want to see him intact. It’s incredible.”
Yeah, it means the same thing, but it’s still the Cliff’s Notes version of the dialogue. I don’t have time to go through the entire film and spot all the differences, but for the 5 minutes that I was watching the dubbed audio with the subtitles activated, not a single written line matched what was being said, and the subs were always shorter. Even minor character details were just left out entirely, the coroner tells Reno that he attended one of his classes “in Nice”, but the location is left out of the subtitles. Does it really matter where the guy attended school? No, but it just shows that the subs are half-assed. Had I known this from the start (I discovered it after I watched the film, when switching around to see if the commentary was in English) I would have just watched it dubbed, especially since Reno and Cassell (and possibly others) were doing their own voices anyway.
At least they provided enough extra features to make up for it. There’s a 50+ minute documentary on the film’s production, which contains some fairly candid revelations from cast and crew alike (Cassell in particular seems frustrated with the production’s tendency to rewrite the script on the spot), and a peek at some scenes that were deleted (or never even filmed - Kassovitz himself was supposed to play a role but budget cuts resulted in his character being written out entirely). Then there are a trilogy of pieces in the vein of Sundance’s “Anatomy of a Scene” series, where every aspect of putting a scene together (editing, sound, makeup effects, the actors, etc) is detailed. The one for the autopsy scene runs a full half hour, the others are only about 10 minutes each. Still, all that plus a commentary (which is in French, but has its own subtitles) gives you around three and a half hours of material, which is far more than I was expecting. And the video quality doesn’t seem to suffer either, which is even more impressive as it’s all on one side of the disc.
I didn’t listen to the commentary (wasn’t in the mood to read for another 100 minutes), but unlike a lot of these blind buys, I will be keeping this one, so I will hopefully find time to check out the commentary in the future. There’s a sequel, but neither Kassovitz or Cassell returned, so my interest is a bit muted. Anyone see it? Any good? I hear Christopher Lee speaks French, that might be enough to warrant a view either way.
PLEASE, GO ON...
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