Demoniacs (1974)

FEBRUARY 28, 2013

GENRE: RAPE-REVENGE, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

I might be wrong with my tagging - Demoniacs (aka Curse of the Living Dead; French: Les démoniaques) very well may be a ghost movie, but I couldn't tell if our two heroines (for lack of a better word) were ever actually killed and/or if they were really "back" or just a figment of a madman's imagination. If you think of the movie as a "Tell-Tale Heart" type of thing, it's barely even horror at all - however if you take everything at face value it doesn't make a lick of sense. So I have no idea.

I do know that I enjoyed watching it. I was certainly never bored - it's a bit more graphic than the other Rollin films I've seen (including non-explicit but still unpleasant rape scenes) and doesn't take long to get going. Indeed, it starts with some full-screen pictures of its villains as a voiceover gives their names and roles within their group of pirate "wreckers", presumably so we don't have to waste time on more traditional character development before getting things going (you can see it below, sans subtitles - I couldn't find a trailer). These guys lure ships to the rocks with the intent of crashing them, killing the folks on board, and taking their valuables, presumably to fund their life of drinking at a local bar, which is all we see them doing when they're not dealing with the heroines. They are a pair of lovely ladies who I assume were on the boat they just crashed (off-screen), and after they are spotted by the pirates it doesn't take long for them to rape and kill them, only for them to keep showing up and driving the Captain crazy. Around the halfway point or so the girls are taken by a clown (sure, why not) to see a Devil (THE Devil? Not sure) who offers them a chance to seek revenge but only a few hours to do so, at which point I just got confused since they were seemingly already doing that on their own. Ah, who knows.

What it lacks in total coherency it makes up for in a number of cool little moments, like when a player piano goes off for no reason, or when the movie's best character (Tina, the female wrecker who also happens to be one of the most alluring women I've ever seen) casually murders another lady after a minor disagreement. There's also a guy who is dressed like the most stereotypical French guy ever: striped shirt, neckerchief, constant bottle of wine... the whole nine yards. And while it doesn't top the sickle bit from Fascination, I assume the bit where religious statues are toppled in an attempt to kill one of the wreckers is the sort of thing that made Rollin such a cult figure back in the day and why folks today yell at me for not having seen enough of his movies.

It's also a pretty great looking film; in addition to the women (what, it seems to be the POINT of these movies), Rollin has some great shots of the beach (day and night) and the castle where the girls meet the devil guy. Almost every person in the movie is terrible and it's wall to wall with unpleasant occurrences, and yet I see the locations and wish I was there! Plus it's more colorful than the others - the clown alone is more vivid than anything in Fascination or Zombie Lake, but the greens around the castle, the bar locale, even the characters themselves "pop" more than I've seen in the others; almost every scene has something that would be worthy of a screenshot, and I'm actually kind of bummed I opted to watch on streaming instead of a Blu-ray, which I'm sure would be even more eye-catching.

And it's a good thing, because on a story level it's kind of weak. The girls are complete cyphers (I don't even think they are named), the guys are completely scummy and thus not really interesting, and I honestly don't even know where to begin with the clown. If their goal is to drive them mad for what they did, they seem to accomplish it in the first scene after their attack, which finds the Captain seeing them (or their ghosts) and screaming like a nut - there's no escalation to his "guilt" or whatever it is that's setting him off. I'd say it was aimless, but I understood where it was heading at least - I just couldn't get a firm grasp on the particulars, and never felt too drawn into it. Unlike say, The Crow (another "dead person returns to get back at the cartoonish villains who killed them), there's no real emotional weight to keep you fully engaged (or a "Sarah" to be caught in the middle); yeah it's sad that this happened but I still need a reason to care about their objective beyond just plain "they have it coming". And the rape elements make it hard to say "Just enjoy the sights", because ew.

In short, not his best (like I'm an expert now?), but worth a look for the scenery, Joëlle Coeur (Tina), and occasional gonzo death scenes (the giant wine bottle/neck slice in particular). Of the five I've seen it's probably the last one I'd want to revisit, but I never regretted watching it, either. Next week is the one I promised last time: Night of the Hunted! This time for real, I swear!

What say you?

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Call Back (2009)

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PLEASE, GO ON...

Blu-Ray Review: I Spit On Your Grave (1978/2010)

FEBRUARY 9, 2011

GENRE: RAPE-REVENGE
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I watched the original I Spit On Your Grave sometime last summer, but didn’t review it. Partly because I was busy at the time (forget why) and didn’t have time to go through the extras on the Millennium DVD I owned, and partly because I really didn’t care much for the movie and thus didn’t have the interest (I watched it on a day I had already watched something else for HMAD). But to celebrate their remake, Anchor Bay has picked up the rights to the original and released it on Blu-ray, and I got them both to review, so here we go!

Well, as I mentioned in my review for the remake (from Frightfest), I prefer it to the original. One of the reasons I didn’t care for the 1978 version is because the bad guys were so damn cartoonish and stupid, I just lost all connection to the movie. Few would argue that it was a poorly paced and oddly structured film (why does she kill Johnny before the other two guys?), but for a movie that so graphically depicted a rape, it sure as hell wasn’t interested in having anything else be realistic. While any rapist can be easily categorized as a moron, having a guy grab onto a boat’s motor is just inane, borderline ZAZ level silliness. Their plan also made zero sense, waiting around outside and trusting Matthew, a dimwit who couldn’t even bring himself to rape her, to kill her in cold blood instead of doing it themselves (hell Johnny actually STOPS one guy from attacking her – if he wanted her dead why not just let the guy continue beating her to a pulp?). I suppose there’s some sort of idea here that all men are scum AND stupid, but it doesn’t really come across that way – it just feels like bad writing.

And, yes, it’s simply uncomfortable to watch at times, and at other times just plain sloppy. They rape this poor woman over and over, and when we’re not watching that (or her revenge), we’re watching endless shots of people walking around or staring off into space. Even the “action” scenes go on forever – count how many times we see a motorboat circling around someone in this movie. In short - Meir Zarchi’s editing of his own direction leaves much to be desired. And again, it’s probably the intent, to sort of lull us into some sort of complacency at times and then juxtapose it with ugliness, but I’m just not into that sort of thing unless there’s some sort of stylistic creativity to the story as well. Irreversible, for example, is just as uncomfortable, but there’s a mystery to the film and a real sock to the gut at the end that sort of turns the whole affair on its end, making you rethink what you just saw. Hell, even a film like Red, White and Blue, which I wasn’t a big fan of, at least had some great performances and again, a knockout ending that almost made up for the film’s shortcomings.

By contrast, the remake manages to improve on a lot of these areas simply by being a better made film. While it’s possibly counterproductive to make this story look “slick”, there’s no denying that by adding suspense, some actual production value, and even a slightly more complex story, the film is much easier to enjoy as a piece of entertainment, but without really sacrificing the ugliness of what happens to Jennifer. The rape scene is still very brutal and upsetting, and male audience members will still cringe at the scenes of her revenge (if not more so) in the 3rd act.

They also made up for one of the ‘issues’ with the first film – its tagline promised five men, but the movie only had four. Here we get a fifth (Andrew Howard), who like Johnny in the original has a family but unlike that one they actually play a part in the proceedings. The revenge sequence is also improved, so that the end of the film focuses on her getting back at the two most vile of the bunch, and using her more creative “traps” (she’s sort of a Jigsaw-esque trap-builder in this one) instead of just waving an axe around like Jennifer in the original. I also loved the performance of Sarah Butler here – she feels much more natural as both a “babe in the woods” and as a revenge-driven femme fatale than the original’s Camille Keaton, who sort of had a dazed, slightly “out of it” demeanor even before she arrived at the house. Butler really shows the effect that these events had on her, and thus it makes her revenge easier to cheer on, in a way. She also gets back at her attackers without disrobing and letting them fool around with her again, another issue with the original film that never made any damn sense to me.

Both discs come with a nice array of extras. The most essential is Joe Bob Briggs’ commentary track on the original, in which he (rightfully) dismisses the idea that the film glorifies rape and/or sides with the men in any way, taking some of its harshest critics (Siskel and Ebert in particular) to task for their inaccurate depiction of the movie (and as I myself was misread and made to look somewhat stupid by Ebert in his Last House remake review, it was pretty easy to side with Briggs on this “argument” – Ebert’s a legend but for some reason he never seems to “get” these kind of movies, or their defenders). But he also makes it fun, pointing out a few of the rather silly moments and having a grand old time mocking the Matthew character. I will admit his commentary actually made me appreciate the film a little bit more, which is more than I can say for Meir Zarchi, whose track is as dry as they come. Not only does he read everything from prepared notes, but he also spends too much time telling the story (and I mean STORY – it sounds like it came from a book) of the real life incident that inspired the making of the film, and he even reads the script at one point. Plus he reads reviews and other stuff, leaving almost no time to offer any insight on the film’s production, casting, etc. He does tell a few such anecdotes, but keep your remote handy to find them amidst all of the endless yammer that sounds more like one of those Tim Lucas commentaries on a Mario Bava DVD than a commentary by the guy who wrote and directed the movie.

New to this Blu-ray (the commentaries are carried over from the previous release) is a “29 minute” interview with Zarchi. I put that in quotes because the thing sports what has to be a record FOUR minutes of ugly titles rattling off the (few) names that worked on the piece. I mean, it’s a static shot of a guy in his house, cut in with some clips – hardly the most creative interview setup. Do we really need four minutes dedicated to its crew? A single card with all of their names, taking 12 seconds of screentime, would have sufficed. Add in the fact that he’s a slow talker, and there’s really only like 15 minutes of material here. Most of it is just about the film’s distribution problems (the MPAA, shady producers, etc), which is kind of interesting but again, he offers precious little insight to the actual production. Perhaps having Keaton or one of the male actors join him to reminisce would have been a better idea. The trailers are also included, and its interesting to note the difference in marketing; the 1978 “Day of the Woman” trailer is much more abstract and “arty”, whereas the re-release (with the I Spit On Your Grave title) pretty much looks like every Grindhouse trailer ever made – lot of out of context shots of violence and nudity aided by an enthusiastic voiceover. It’s also a good way to gauge how much effort went into the film transfer – the trailers look like shit whereas the movie (barring some issues that are the result of the film’s low budget/small crew production) looks phenomenal.

Unfortunately, while the movie itself is better, the bonus features on the remake leave much to be desired. The commentary track with director Steven Monroe and producer Lisa Hansen is a typically dull affair where they tell brief on-set anecdotes about the generator losing power or actors really being hit in violent scenes, and nothing about, for example, why they wanted to remake the movie in the first place. I was also somewhat taken aback by the fact that it’s not until the end credits that they mention that the DP died about a month before the film’s release, and then as soon as they do, go back to giving shoutouts to crew members and themselves. Just feels very mercenary. The making of featurette is pretty generic and overly clip heavy, but it’s almost worth a look just to hear one of the actors claim he saw the 1978 original on Joe Bob Briggs’ TV show, since Briggs points out on HIS commentary that the film never aired on television at all, let alone on his own show (despite much begging on his part). There are also a few deleted scenes, most of which deal with the bad guys yelling at each other, but there is a good moment that should have been left in dealing with Jennifer’s first meeting with Matthew, as well as a small callback to the original’s religious references.

Ultimately, neither film will ever be something I want to watch over and over (or even ever again), but both deserve at least one look. I personally prefer the remake but only because it improved some of the things I didn’t like about the original, despite being beat for beat pretty much the exact same movie. Which film you prefer will probably depend on your sensibilities and how long you can stomach watching a woman be raped (while just as brutal, the remake’s version is thankfully shorter). However, Briggs’ commentary on the original is a must listen, so both discs are of equal value in my eyes.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

I Spit On Your Grave (2010)

AUGUST 28, 2010

GENRE: RAPE-REVENGE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (FRIGHTFEST)

I actually just watched the original I Spit On Your Grave for the first time a few days ago, as I knew I'd be seeing the remake at Frightfest and wanted to see them "in order". As you can probably tell by the frequency of reviews with the rape-revenge tag here at HMAD, I'm not exactly a big fan of the rather limited sub-genre, and I knew enough about it to know that I had seen pretty much everything the movie had to offer in its trailer. But I have been hearing good things about the remake, and I am happy to report that I agree: this is a superior film to the 1978 one in just about every way.

Much like the (also superior) Last House On The Left remake, it's essentially the same movie, just better (at least for the most part, more on the changes later). It looks nicer, it's shot better, the actors aren't lousy, and the villains aren't complete idiots. I mean, yes, they're still morons who think it's a good idea to rape someone, but when she gets to her revenge portion, they don't all just assume she's OK with them and willingly go along with her into bathtubs and such. We have to suspend our disbelief a bit (OK, kind of a lot) to buy that she can lift these dudes into suspended traps and drag them around, but at least it otherwise doesn't come across as a cartoon, as it did in the original (seriously, one guy actually grabbed onto the boat motor in the 1978 one!).

The film also has some genuine suspense throughout the film, on both sides of the equation. EVerything in the original was just so matter of factly presented; there was no buildup to either her attack or her revenge. But here, director Steven Monroe (yes, the one who directed Sasquatch Mountain. He's improved.) effectively builds suspense from her original isolation and her eventual attack (she even manages to escape from them before anything bad happens, only to make things worse for herself). And then when it comes time for her to get her payback, she fucks with them for a bit. One of the rapists has a family, and thus she sends them a tape of her attack, befriends the wife, and eventually "kidnaps" the daughter, driving the guy insane. It's a lot more interesting than watching her strip and get into a tub with one of them, anyway (not that I am opposed to Sarah Butler showing skin - this is one insanely beautiful woman).

That particular rapist is played by Andrew Howard, who makes his second Frightfest appearance (he's also the main villain in the non-horror Isle of Dogs), and his character is not in the original. Perhaps it was inspired by the oft-mistaken tagline from the original film that promised FIVE men instead of four, but it's probably the biggest change in terms of structure. Since he is the sheriff, she goes to him for help, unaware that he's the worst of the lot, and it's his paranoia that drives much of the group's actions once they realize she might still be alive. I just wish they hadn't cast Howard in the role - he's a good actor, but as soon as he appeared I knew he was bad, rendering the next 10 minutes weightless, as they are trying to make you think he's on her side. It's like, just get on with it, there's no way he's a good guy.

Another improvement is that she kills them in "movie satisfaction" order, saving Howard for last. In the original, she killed the worst of the lot 2nd, rendering the climax a bit unsatisfying, as she was taking on two borderline anonymous folks. It'd be like killing Hans Gruber in the first reel and having the final showdown be against Tony or Franco. And she gets ironic payback against all of them - the guy with the video camera (he likes to "watch") gets his eyes plucked out by crows, the one who sodomized her gets a shotgun up the ass, etc. How she became such a torture maven is a bit unclear (someone with these survival instincts should have been able to get away in the first place, no?); more than one person I spoke to after the screening said that she should have been a horror novelist or screenwriter, which would have been enough to justify this particular aspect of the plot (I countered that maybe she just liked to watch the Saw films).

Another minor blunder is that she is characterized as a complete klutz. She spills wine all over herself, gets lost trying to find the place, drops her phone in the toilet, etc. - how is it she can manage to set up a wired shotgun trap without blowing herself away in the process? But this is where Butler's casting pays off - she's so personable, you just go along with it. Or at least, I did.

And even though this was an edited (albeit only slightly) version, it's still pretty messy. They don't do as much damage to her face this time (woo!), but she does a number on the five guys - I don't think I've ever seen so many shots of drool/blood pouring out of people's mouths in a single movie, all the result of her taking bats, pliers, needles, and yes, acid to their faces. And while it's actually less disturbing than the geyser of blood coming from under the water in the original, the obligatory castration features a mangled prosthetic (and then some), which of course got a huge round of applause (as did just about all of her revenge actions).

So it's sort of a "crowd-pleasing rape movie", which is just odd. I myself don't really care - the fest has been a bit short on "stand up and cheer" movies. Plus I wasn't really expecting anything too upsetting; as soon as I saw the film's tagline ("It's date night"), I knew that they weren't going for the same sort of "serious" approach as the original, and the rape scene is much less painful to watch (it's shorter and partially off-screen). But I'm not sure if others will find it as acceptable. I guess we'll find out soon enough; Anchor Bay is releasing the film Stateside very soon. Perfect date film?

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Last House On The Left (1972)

FEBRUARY 27, 2009

GENRE: RAPE-REVENGE
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

As I was due to cover the junket for the remake this weekend, I thought I would take another look at the original The Last House On The Left, which I hadn’t seen since I was 14 or 15. And it’s worth noting that at least in terms of story and plot points, I remembered it better than I do half of the movies I watched just last month. Whether you love or hate the movie, it definitely leaves an imprint that doesn’t fade away with time.

Being that it was Wes Craven’s first film and done on a budget around the same as Texas Chain Saw, I can forgive the jarring edits, muddled sound, and other technical snafus. In fact to some extent it’s even sort of the point - they wanted to give the film a documentary presentation, and in several instances they succeed. But not so easily digestable is the cartoonish writing that sounds like it was WRITTEN by someone that was the same age I was when I last watched it. Like when the news is reporting on Krug and his gang, and it’s like ‘They killed two priests and a nun!” Right, because simply killing three people just isn’t EVIL! enough. The scene between the mother and Weasel is another example. She’s not a particularly good actress anyway, but even Meryl Streep probably would have struggled with the “brilliant” plan to get the guy’s arms tied up so she could bite his dick off.

Now, one thing about the remake that purists are likely to bitch and moan about is the rather toned down depravity. No dick eating, no forced urination, etc. But I find that is precisely what makes the newer version (which I can now definitely say I prefer, a true rarity) work so much better. By more or less limiting Mari’s torture to the rape, it makes the scene so much more powerful, and makes you hate Krug all the more. In this film, by the time they rape her she’s practically catatonic. And then she is killed moments later, so the parents never even know about that part of her attack (to the best I can tell). I doubt Gaylord St. James (fakest fake name ever, Richard Towers!) could have possibly sold the “Dad just realizes his baby girl has been brutalized” moment as well as Tony Goldwyn, but the setup doesn’t even allow him to try.

The parents here are also strangely matter of fact about the whole thing. She goes off with Weasel while the dad carries out the first of what would be at least four sequences in a Wes Craven film in which the hero sets a bunch of traps for the antagonist(s) (did he write Home Alone?). I mean, it’s great that he has such a handle on his anger that he’s able to carefully pour water over a rug that is concealing a live wire, and also take the time to determine the absolute best weapon to use against her killers, but it still dampens the impact of the moment (the fact that everything occurs offscreen doesn’t help much either, though I will put that in the “no money so I can’t fault them” category). And it all happens so briefly, it doesn’t really allow for suspense. It’s to Dennis Illiadis’ credit (and Wes’, who produced the new version) that even knowing exactly how it would play out, the 2009 version is still incredibly suspenseful.

The music is also rather questionable. David Hess composed the songs, and they are all of the folky singer-songwriter variety. Some of them work in an ironic juxtaposition kind of way, many do not. The score is the real problem though. When Phyllis is getting stabbed it sounds like someone is playing a game of Simon next to the camera. It’s funny though - everyone is bitching about the folky "Sweet Child O’Mine" cover on the trailer for the remake, as if this style of music has no business in this particularly story. Plus, where the hell have these people been? Do trailer songs EVER appear in the movie? Quick, go cue up the scene where Blur’s "Song #2" plays over Starship Troopers. Oh right, IT DOESN’T. It just proves once again - the remake whiners are among the stupidest people on the entire planet (I won’t even get into the notion of complaining about a remake of a film that itself was a modernized version of a Swedish film that was based on a Scottish ballad).

The DVD has a nice collection of extras. Craven and Sean Cunningham provide a commentary, very jokey and apologetic in tone. They also admit to not having seen the film in a while, so prepare for a lot of gaps. There’s also a great 30 minute retrospective with a surprising number of participants (Martin Kove!), considering how many of the actors and actresses wanted nothing to do with the film then or now (Sandra Cassel is, unsurprisingly, nowhere to be found). Roy Frumkes also put together a compliation of outtakes, though they are presented without sound and aren’t particularly interesting. Then there’s an odd piece called “Forbidden Footage”, which doesn’t concern any MPAA excised stuff, which is what the title would suggest. Instead, it’s Craven and co. discussing three of the film’s more notorious scenes in detail. The film itself is the most complete cut ever officially released (per Craven’s introduction), however it should be noted that some scenes, such as the “forced lesbian” stuff, are nowhere to be found on the disc, or even mentioned as far as I can tell. Since Craven removed those himself, I don’t consider it particularly bothersome (if he didn’t want it in there, I don’t care to see it), but pervs may be disappointed.

But for all its faults, the movie packs a punch few other films have ever managed (I would put Cannibal Holocaust in its company). Part of why I haven’t watched it again is that I simply haven’t wanted to. It’s tough to watch, and the attempts at levity (i.e. the cops and their chicken truck adventures), while appreciated, simply don’t work. The reason I prefer the remake is simple: it’s simply a better (and vastly more suspenseful) execution of the story. Just about every problem with the original has been corrected, and anyone who bitches about changes (Mari surviving being the biggest one) is completely missing the point of the film. Not that I would expect any less from someone who bitches about a movie before they saw it, but - wait, Wes wants to remake Shocker now? What the fuck?!?!? WHY?!?!?!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Wicked Lake (2008)

DECEMBER 25, 2008

GENRE: COMEDIC, CRAP, RAPE-REVENGE, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

I am a man, and a very enthusiastic fan of horror movies. More importantly, I love junky movies that you’re not supposed to take too seriously, if at all. So the idea of a tongue-in-cheek movie about four hot girls making out with each other and then killing some rednecks with their supernatural powers should be a shoe-in for, at the very least, “so bad its good” entertainment, right? Then why, oh why, is Wicked Lake so goddamn boring in just about every conceivable aspect of its existence?

I mean really, if Robin Sydney and another, even hotter girl making out for nearly five minutes near the film’s beginning can’t even interest me, then director Zach Passero has already failed miserably. And that’s 10 minutes into the film! This could have been a decent short film with maybe 2-3 people. Take the standard survival horror setup, with one or two rednecks attacking our “heroine”, only have it turn out that she’s a witch or werewolf or vampire or whatever and kill them. Bam! Done. But nope, they have to make a whole movie about this. And you would think with 95 minutes at their disposal, there would be more than enough time to at least explain what the girls are, right? Not a chance! They are sort of witch-y, they display vampire powers, but they are only activated by a full moon. They’re everything and nothing all at once.

And again, none of this is supposed to be taken seriously (yes, Passero and writers Chris Sivertson and Adam Rockoff have decided to use attempted rape as a catalyst for their attempts at humor), so I could care less about the bad acting and nonsensically thin story. It’s the sheer DULLNESS of this movie that kills it. The lesbian stuff is dull. The kills are dull. The gore is dull. The bad redneck actors are so bad that their attempts to be over the top are dull. And needless to say, the scenes with two cops investigating, abruptly shoehorned into the film’s 2nd half without any sort of introduction whatsoever, are even MORE dull, because by design they are there to presumably give the audience a breather from the high hilarity and awesomeness that the lesbo/redneck/gore scenes were allegedly providing.

One of the cops is Tim Thomerson, who thanks to HMAD I am actually seeing more of than I have in the past 10 years (since his Full Moon Dollman/Trancers heyday). He fares no better than anyone else in this POS, but at least with him I have some sympathy for appearing in such drivel. Like me, I’m sure he was enticed by the over-the-top plot, only to discover that no one involved seemingly knew how to actually be funny or interesting.

Most annoying is Marc Senter, playing a wispy emo kid who makes his character from The Lost look bearable by comparison. It’s essentially a character Andy Samberg might play for 20 seconds in one of those “gotta fill some time” SNL sketches, only he’s around for the entire movie. To be fair, the one laugh I got out of the entire thing was when his character was impaled on a door 35 minutes in, only to survive for the rest of the movie. So people open and shut the door with his body still hanging there; it’s a funny sight gag. But still, I would have been MORE appreciative if I didn’t have to endure his “funny” character at all anymore, and I really hope for Senter's sake that he gets a role as someone likable someday.

The DVD comes with a poorly recorded commentary track that is, unsurprisingly, “fun”! Everyone is in a living room, talking over each other and talking about how fun the movie is. I think it’s safe to say that if you didn’t like the movie, you won’t like the track. There are also a collection of outtakes and deleted scenes, but considering the quality of the film itself, I couldn’t bring myself to suffer through them.

This movie was so bad I had to re-edit my “worst of 2008” list for Bloody Disgusting. Since it was already encoded and formatted and ready to post, it would have been a pain in the ass to put it at number 2 (April Fool’s Day is still the worst) and move everything else down, so instead I took out my old number 9 (Trapped Ashes, which was also bad but so obscure I felt it wasn’t worth noting) and put this in instead. My apologies to the makers of films 2-8, all of whom actually managed to make terrible films that were slightly better than this steaming pile.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Last House On The Left (2009)

AUGUST 7, 2008

GENRE: RAPE-REVENGE, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (TEST SCREENING)

I love when strange coincidences change the way my day plays out. I had originally intended to see a double feature of David DeFalco’s Chaos and Nick Palumbo’s Murder Set Pieces tonight at the New Bev. While I consider MSP to be among one of the worst movies ever committed to celluloid, I have never seen Chaos. That film was originally a true remake of Last House On The Left, but then David Hess dropped out so the filmmakers pretended it WASN’T a remake, even though by all accounts it’s essentially the exact same movie. Kind of hilarious. But, as luck would have it, I got a pass to a test screening of a REAL remake of Last House On The Left on the same night, and opted for that instead.

(NOTE - I have since seen the final version and it is identical to the version I saw here, save for having the final score. Review remains intact.)

The invite gave no real information about the cast or crew. It claims that Wes Craven and Sean Cunningham were involved, but that’s about it for crew. And the only cast member listed was Sara Paxton, from Aquamarine. This triggered an alarm in my movie-fied brain – if the only cast member worth mentioning is a tween idol, then this movie will probably be pretty weak. Maybe not PG-13, but certainly not as vile and hard to watch as the original. And she would probably live.

(Note - SPOILERS FOLLOW in the next paragraph, but the entire review is based on the idea that you have seen/know the idea of the original, so if you've never seen it, just skip the review entirely.)

Well, she does. But it actually works. In the original, the daughter originally DID survive, but they decided to kill her off during production (I forget why – as if the movie was too light and they needed another kill?), so it’s not a total “Hollywood” decision. I liken it more to the two endings of The Descent – it’s simply the execution of a different idea the original filmmakers had. However, and this is what I found surprising: Paxton is the only one who is raped. Her friend (the cute Melanie Lynskey-ish chick from Superbad) gets off pretty easy, merely stabbed and that’s it. But that is how the movie as a whole is in comparison to the original: the truly sadistic and awful stuff has all been pretty much removed, and in a way it makes the rape seem more brutal (and thus the parents’ actions seem more justified). In the original, EVERYTHING was just so depraved, the rape barely stuck out as anything worse than the other things they endured. Not the case here, and so while some may cry foul that the movie is too toned down, I think it’s a good decision. Later on I was talking to other folks, including horror filmmakers, and they all said the same thing about the 1972 version: it’s not that it’s a bad movie, but it’s a movie you never want to watch a second time. There is little entertainment value (in the traditional sense) to be found in that film, and the ‘light’ moments (chicken truck!) just don’t work in context.

One problem I DID have with this version is the final minute of the film. The gang has been killed and the family, reunited, leaves the house in their boat. All well and good. But then they suddenly cut to a flashback, with the father torturing Krug, the gang leader. Not only is it completely unnecessary, it’s just a really stupid scene to boot. The dad paralyzes Krug, and then sticks his head in a microwave, turning it on. The result (an exploding head) is pretty “awesome”, but it just feels so tacked on and gratuitous, as if the studio felt the audience needed to cheer at the very end of the film. Plus, and I wrote this on the comment card: YOU CAN’T RUN A MICROWAVE WITH THE DOOR OPEN! Earlier in the film, they set up the microwave being broken, but what kind of microwave “breaks” by allowing it to run even if the door isn’t shut? And how would he have noticed this anyway? It’s like the scene exists just to pay off the goddamn broken microwave bit, as if anyone cared. Completely unnecessary, and I hope like hell it’s gone by the time the movie is released.

(END SPOILERS!)

Another, less minor issue is that the Krug and Sadie characters are pretty different than their 1972 counterparts, and thus should have been given different names. Like I’ve said numerous other times, the best thing a remake can do is not give the audience any reason to keep thinking about the original, and thus giving the killers the same name (in a movie that is, structurally speaking, an exact copy of the original) wasn’t the best decision, since they aren’t the same at all. Garret Dillahunt’s Krug is a much more calm and collected killer, a sort of icy criminal mastermind type, not a loose cannon like David Hess’ version. And Sadie is pretty mousy here for the most part; she takes her top off and bitches about rich folks, but that’s about it. The other 2 gang members have different names, so other than simple “iconic” reasons, I don’t see why they couldn’t just go all out and give everyone a new name.

Otherwise, it’s pretty goddamn solid. Tony Goldwyn is in top form as the dad, and it’s nice to see him again (he’s mainly been directing lately). And Monica Potter (the mom) is always welcome on a big movie screen. The toned down nature means we are not allowed to see her go down on a dude, which is a shame, but on the plus side, we are also spared the painful outcome of that scenario. They also feel like a real couple, and it’s great to see a modern horror movie that depicts a rather normal marriage. 9 times out of 10 the couple is on the brink of divorce, or the mother is in fact a stepmother, or whatever. Not here, they are just a normal family. And the film actually does a better job than the original in displaying the family bonds; when the “Weasel” type character is dispatched, director Dennis Iliadis goes out of his way to show the parents working as a team to kill him. It’s a nice little touch.

Iliadis seems to be trying to show off a bit too often though. Early on there is a shot of Paxton running around a boathouse, and for some goddamn reason he zooms all the way into the side of the building, and then tracks along the wall. The result is simply a pointless, shaky, and blurry shot. There are also far too many cutaways to the house’s exterior, as if we haven’t yet got the idea that this is a “perfect and normal” home. And he likes to cut back and forth in time, something that’s also a bit confusing. At the beginning, when they establish Paxton’s character is a champion swimmer, he keeps cutting between her swimming and her standing still, holding her breath underwater. Since we can’t really see their faces clearly in either “moment”, I actually though it was two different girls. And the stupid ending I mentioned; I actually can’t tell if it was a flashback or if the dad just went back to the house later on. He also keeps cutting to different angles of the same person (usually Krug), something that is supposed to make us feel on edge, but it’s mainly just annoying and calling attention to the fact that it’s only a movie (ß heh), not to mention breaking the tension.

But like I said, on the whole it works. They don’t really change much from the original, but most of the changes are for the better. It’s not necessarily a better film; while the original may not be fun to watch (this veers more toward “crowd-pleasing”, albeit in hard R rated form), the raw feel and up front attitude is a bit missed at times in the remake. The acting is certainly better (Dillahunt is great, in fact), and since we are conditioned to believe a studio film will pull its punches, it’s actually pretty suspenseful and unnerving at times. “He’ll just slap her or something” you think, and then WHAM! The girl’s head is slammed into a sink. And even though you don’t really fear for the parents’ lives at any point, they still manage to generate an ass-ton of suspense. There’s a bit where “Weasel” comes to the house and talks to Potter, who is trying to keep him from seeing a photo of their daughter lest he figure out what she already knows, and it’s a terrific, nail-biting sequence. And even though we know damn well that they’re doomed, the scene where the gang first encounters the two girls is another nerve-wracker. It’s also surprising how much abuse everyone suffers – I think every single character in the film takes a pretty sharp blow to the head at some point or another. And again – since we are spared the real depraved over-the-top stuff of the original (there are no intestines in this film, for starters), it actually makes the violent moments more effective, because they are used more sparingly.

If you’ve never seen the original, I would almost suggest seeing the remake first. Some folks walked out during the obvious moments, which means it’s still a tough film for some, but compared to the original it’s borderline “fun”. And since the two films are so similar, seeing one will “spoil” the surprises and development of the other. So go with the one that is an overall more enjoyable film viewing experience, and if you really dig it, go back and see if you can stomach Craven’s original.

Either way, score another one for Rogue, who also produced The Strangers. Now that Lionsgate has turned soft (and utterly reprehensible), they are probably our best hope for consistently solid studio-based horror.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Lipstick

DECEMBER 29, 2007

GENRE: RAPE-REVENGE (?)
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Female Cop: "Did he urinate on you?"
Rape Victim: "What?"
Female Cop: "Did he urinate on you, or defecate?"
Rape Victim: "They DO that?"
Female Cop: "....some do."

Now, not that I find rape funny, but exchanges like this should only be delivered by good actors. When it's two BAD actors saying them, as is the case in Lipstick, then it just becomes sort of silly, which is a problem that plagues the entire film. It takes itself deadly serious, but there are so many elements that make me chuckle that it doesn't work in any genre.

Chris Sarandon plays a music teacher who makes truly atrocious music (think Brian Eno, only worse). We have to endure this nonsense several times throughout the film, and even though it's acknowledged as terrible (albeit more or less in passing), it's still a major distraction. But since he's one of the few good actors in the film, he actually pulls off making you believe HE thinks the music is good, which of course, again, just makes it funnier.

There's also a line of dialogue straight out of the most exploitative revenge film: "He tried to kill me with his cock!" Now, if this was a Ruggero Deodato movie, that line would probably be in the trailer. But when it comes from a bad actress in the middle of an otherwise pedestrian, SERIOUS scene, it's just jarring.

The revenge segment is limited to the film's final moments. In fact, if anyone bothers to check this one out, I highly urge you not to read Netflix or Blockbuster's description of the film, as it details things that occur in the film's final 15 minutes. Which is unfortunate, because not only did it spoil what was a bit of a surprise at the end, but also made me think the film was indeed more of a typical rape-revenge thriller, instead of an occasionally ludicrous courtroom drama.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Slashed Dreams

NOVEMBER 1, 2007

GENRE: CRAP, HORROR? RAPE-REVENGE (?)
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK!!!)

At long last, October is over! I can go back to the standard, sane, simple, single movie a day. And I feel even better about that when my daily movie is as bad as Slashed Dreams (aka Sunburst), because I don’t want to run the risk of watching another film that might turn out as boring and pointless as this one for at least another 24 hrs or so.

This may be the most plodding movie I have ever seen in my life (certainly the worst offender for HMAD). LITERALLY nothing happens in the film. Except a rape. Nice, huh? We watch 2 folks sort of shuffle about the woods for nearly an hour (swimming, frolicking, eating...) before a couple of rednecks harass them (very tamely. One of them actually seems borderline nice). Later on, they come back and hit the guy a few times and rape the girl (at least, we are told as much. It’s sort of hard to tell if the guy is raping her or just hugging her. It’s certainly the least graphic rape scene ever committed to film, so it’s got that going for it at least). Then Robert Englund shows up, philosophizes about tea, the boyfriend tries to fight the rednecks, who both run away, and then the good guys go swimming. The end. I’m not exaggerating, that’s the movie. No one dies or gets jailed for their crimes. And the heroes barely seem perturbed afterwards. You could almost remove the scenes with the rednecks entirely and the film would just seem like the filmed version of a Bartledanian novel.

As you can probably tell from that image, the movie was very poorly retitled from Sunburst sometime after Nightmare on Elm St, in order to try to give the film some cash-in value. Usually, this is certainly fine by me, but there are two problems with it this time: 1. It’s the most obvious retitling I’ve ever seen (I wish I could convey how ridiculous the little zooming animation on the green box looks), and 2. Englund’s not even the fucking bad guy! He’s some hippie (heh, OK, so maybe he is). He doesn’t even show up until the final 10 minutes or so. Come on now. This is purely a scam.

His reaction to being told that his friend was raped is pretty astounding. The boyfriend tells him she was raped, and Englund doesn’t ask anything like “Who did it?” or “Where did they go?” He just asks if the girl has had some food yet. At first, I thought he was going to turn out to be an even worse villain, but no, he just makes her some tea and then more or less exits the film again.

This movie is also stuffed with folk music, most by a female singer. Terrifying, perhaps, but not in the intentional way. If not for my little safety that I can qualify (and judge, unfortunately for the filmmakers) a film as horror if it is presented as such (which being on the Chilling Classics set certainly does), I wouldn’t even consider it horror at all. It’s Rape-NonRevenge, a thankfully obscure genre that is hopefully comprised entirely of this one sorry film.

Oh there’s a bear scene too.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Bad Reputation

AUGUST 23, 2007

GENRE: RAPE REVENGE, SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

I think I might have to take time out of my life to learn about the process of making a movie anamorphic for the DVD release. It must be an extremely difficult and time-consuming process that adds significantly to the budget, because otherwise there is NO FUCKING EXCUSE for any DVD pressed in the past few years to be released non-anamorphically, such as Bad Reputation. There is no discernible reason for not making your DVD 16:9 ready. If you have a 4:3 TV, it will still appear at the correct ratio, so what is the fucking problem here?

Plus, it sends a message of “we don’t care” to the viewer. If you don’t want your film to at least LOOK good, what’s that say about how you feel about its content? I am sure DP Forrest Allison doesn’t want everyone who owns a 16:9 TV to watch his compositions zoomed in or stretched horizontally. Sorry, Forrest, that’s what Maverick left us with, because they were too lazy to check their compression settings when they pressed the master DVD.

Anyway the movie itself is OK. There are some nice little nods to slasher classics (the school’s name is Smith’s Grove) and combining the rape revenge story with a standard slasher climax is pretty interesting. Unfortunately the direction is unforgivably boring. The whole benefit of shooting a film on DV (and for the record, they do a nice job with the lighting quality of the darker scenes, usually a low point in any DV film) is the freedom to move the camera more, as well as shoot lots and lots of coverage due to the low cost of DV tape compared to film. But that’s a benefit Jim Hemphill and his crew did not take advantage of, as the camera is more stationery than your average Kevin Smith film. Not that they need to “Bay it up”, but watching entire scenes go by from one angle or two angles without any camera movement is amateurish, and severely lessens the impact of more than a couple events (such as when the main girl argues with her mother early on).

It’s saved by the script though. There are so many oddball and uncommon touches throughout the film that the directorial blandness can be almost forgiven. For example, early on a dude dry humps his girlfriend. After they ‘finish’, they stand up to talk, and while they do, the dude spends the whole scene wiping off the visible cumstain on his jeans. What the hell? Hahahaha. Amazing. There’s also some choice dialogue, like the girl's mother randomly berates the Pico Blvd hookers. Look, everyone knows that the really trashy whores in LA are all on Cahuenga. There's also the strangest response I've ever heard to a girl asking if a guy likes her dress. "Like I like breathing!" he replies. Either this guy has an odd oxygen fetish, or he is actually telling her that he considers her appearance akin to something he does without noticing he's doing it.

The film skimps a bit on the gore though. One character is killed via head bashing (on a toilet – bodily fluids are pretty common in this one), but we see no blood after the body is thrown to the floor. And in another head bashing scene, we are treated to purple paint thrown on the wall? OK. There’s a pretty good beheading though.

And I couldn't tell if it was a meta-reference to Jason or not, but there's a moment during the climax that made me laugh out loud due to its stupidity. The girl, in another slasher reference, wears a hockey mask for some of her final rampage. That's fine, I would have preferred something more obscure, but that's just me. Anyway, at one point she is seen downstairs with some of the other kids. We cut to a bedroom, where two of her bullies are fooling around, and suddenly... she's hiding in the closet! So she snuck into the bedroom without them seeing her, and then got into the closet, then peeked outside of it? What the hell? I know the real Jason teleported a lot, so like I said, maybe it was an intentional joke. If not, yikes.

All in all, a decent enough no-budgeter, but it’s a shame such a great concept was used on such a technically lazy film. But hey, it's still a rape-revenge film, so all... one of you who voted for it in my genre poll, consider yourself served!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Virgin Spring (aka Jungfrukällan)

JUNE 1, 2007

GENRE: RAPE-REVENGE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Look, it doesn’t matter what I watched today. I could have watched Psycho for the first time and I’d still have trouble finding anything to say. Because, just two short hours ago, I was shoulder to shoulder with one Mr. BRUCE WILLIS. Not only did I talk to him, I shook his hand. How many times in someone’s life do they get to shake the hand of their childhood (and current) idol? Five, six, tops. As a lifelong movie nerd (obviously) there is little that could possibly top something like that. Fuck yeah!

Anyway, it’s sort of putting the film down to classify it as rape-revenge, as those films are more exploitative and such. But The Virgin Spring, which is based on a ballad (I wish more films were based on ballads. I think a great film could be made out of "Hanging By A Moment".) is more or less the ORIGINAL rape-revenge film (Last House on the Left was an acknowledged modernized version of the story, and then of course Chaos was likewise an update of Last House), so it definitely has a place in horror history. Maybe I should make a new genre called “Roots”. Or, I dunno, “Stretching It”. But everything I watched this week was more or less garbage so I felt I had to watch something with any merit (other than “it’s good when you’re drunk!” type praise).

Little needs to be said about the movie, it’s a classic and there are plenty of other, likely better written, reviews on the web if you really need to be sold on watching it.

Instead I will ponder this: Why does every Criterion commentary suck? With a few exceptions (Chasing Amy sticks out, and obviously Armageddon) they all sound like they were recorded under duress. The speaker almost never has anything to do with the actual film, and they don’t even seem to be watching it. Just write all the shit down and let us read it!

I also wish the DVD had an extra of Bergman walking around a morgue, being EXTREME. The DVD is definitely lacking for it.

...Dude I just fucking talked to Bruce Willis! Not even on a computer this time! Who the hell cares about horror movies at a time like this? Like, I still remember watching Die Hard for the 1st time when I was 9. I was sitting on the couch waiting for my Dad to come home so we could head up to Maine for the weekend (I used to live in Mass, btw). Who the fuck thought that 18 years later I'd be sitting there chatting with the guy about part 4??? It's fucking surreal.

Also, I'm taller than him.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...