There are many puzzling choices made over the course of Monster Dog's 84 minutes, but none more than the decision to dub Alice Cooper's voice with some other guy. Alice is obviously speaking English, and to his credit, the dubber does a fantastic job of syncing up his words to Alice's mouth, but the guy SOUNDS nothing like Alice Cooper or any sort of rock star whatsoever (Alice plays a shock rocker). He actually kind of sounds like Mike Brady, so I could hardly focus on anything he said, because I kept picturing Robert Reed and then laughing.
But then you realize that writer/director Clyde Anderson is actually none other than Troll 2 legend Claudio Fragasso, and somehow it all makes sense. Logic and coherency are not welcome on this man's movie sets. That's why when a girl gets attacked, her friends all instantly leave her alone while they go investigate. Or when a man pops out from behind a bush and grabs one of them, someone shouts "Who are YOU?", because that is what anyone would say to a possible mugger, right? And who else but Claudio would end the film on the same (terrible) music video that it began with (copied below in lieu of a trailer), despite it having zero to do with the plot (and being one of Alice's worst songs ever, and I've heard Special Forces).
I also love that the dog pack is comprised of several different breeds. You'd think that they'd all be the same, and sort of wolf like, but no, there are German shepherds, labs, dobermans, boxers... I imagine they just rounded up all the dogs they could find and turned the camera on. There's an attack scene late in the film where one dog clearly has no interest in pretending to eat this poor sap, so it just stands there looking around.
There's also a moment that in any other movie I would think it was a sight gag, but with this crew it has to just be a dumbass/lazy decision. Alice pulls out a dusty old book about werewolf legends, and flips it open... to an illustration of Lon Cheney as the Wolf Man. It's a standard moment in these sort of movies, but usually they flip to woodcut images and the like. Not Claudio! Speaking of cheap props, what the hell kind of music video shoot is this? There's no crew, only what I assume is Alice's band, and they film it themselves with a dinky video camera that would barely be suitable for home movies? Isn't he a big star in this movie's world?
As for Alice's acting, well, it's kind of hard to tell with everything he says being dubbed. His wardrobe is also a bit suspect - why is ANY rocker, let alone one loosely based on Alice himself, wearing a white knit sweater at all times? But Alice just looks bored (and a bit like Gabriel Byrne) for most of the movie - he seemed to be having much more fun in Suckor even Freddy's Dead. Or maybe he was just tired from trying to understand the story; I sure as hell couldn't figure it out (were there TWO "Monster Dogs"?). And like I said, that opening/closing song is one of his worst ever, though the other isn't too bad for the period. It's certainly better than the other music in the movie, which sounds like The Buggles covering Goblin.
But as these things go, it's certainly an entertaining way to spend 84 minutes. There are a lot of kills (plus a lengthy dream sequence in which everyone dies), a random group of thugs who show up and shoot our heroine for no reason, some decent gore, a baffling conclusion where we barely see the monster's demise, and a fog machine overload that even James Wan circa Dead Silence would find excessive.
Speaking of the fog, this film was oddly given one of the best transfers I've seen on Netflix Instant, but it's got a long way to go before it can figure out how to process fog (or wateer/rain, snow, etc). All of the actors and the sets look really great, but the fog "skips" and suffers from compression. In the (few) non-fog scenes I could have been fooled into thinking I was watching a DVD, but the compression just couldn't keep up with something that was constantly moving like that. They're getting there, though! Keep reaching for your rainbow, Netflix!
I am proud to be one of the first to proclaim my love for the first Paranormal Activity, which I saw three years ago (two before its theatrical release) at the Screamfest film festival, where it had its first ever screening if memory serves. It was a brilliantly executed, out of nowhere surprise that truly scared me at times and made one of the most natural fits ever for a "found footage" type film. Paranormal Activity 2, obviously, does not have that lack of any sort of expectation, or novelty, going for it - but does it measure up regardless?
SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
Well, no, it doesn't. While it's a good followup and will more than likely earn Paramount back their investment in about 4 hours, there are some blunders that kept it from being another home run for me (let's call it a triple that the opposing coach would have challenged). The biggest is that it's a goddamn prequel. As I've said before, prequels are not something I usually look forward to, because more often than not, the fate of the protagonists is known. Any action scene with Obi-Wan in the three Star Wars prequels was just dull to me - I know he won't even be injured, let alone killed, because he grows old with genuine class. Here it's a bit different - we know our folks are safe because our protagonist is Katie's sister from the first movie.
See, throughout the film, Katie visits, so it's obvious that her and her sister are close. I would think any major harm that came to them would be something on Katie's mind (in the original film), and/or if they all just disappeared she would notice. Perhaps if things were occurring simultaneously with the events of the first film, it would work, because we could assume each sister was too preoccupied to keep up with the other one's drama, but no - just in case you forgot the dates that the first film occurred, we get a full screen graphic telling us that a particular scene is 60 days before Micah's death. Now I might be a bit off but I believe the first film took place over 3 weeks (21 days), so we have at least 30 or so days in this film before anything major will occur. Thus, some of the scares just don't have that same sort of impact that the first one did.
Another decision that, to me, hampered some of the dread, was that in this one we have six stationary surveillance cameras around the house, plus a regular hand-held video camera (way to go, Paramount, you've become the first studio to rip off The Asylum). I really missed that "Oh no...." feeling that would occur whenever they cut to that shot of Micah and Katie's bedroom, because they spread themselves too thin here (plus have too many "Night #_" title cards followed by absolutely nothing happening). Hell, two of the cameras never once show anything scary, and it's obvious that the film is focused on the baby, so while stuff occasionally does happen in those other angles, it's really only when they cut to the nursery that I could feel myself getting tensed up the way I did in the original.
And they might luck out here, but I recognized the main actress! Sprague Grayden was on two of my favorite genre shows of the past decade: John Doe and Jericho, in addition to appearances in other stuff (the President's daughter on the last season of 24, for example). Part of what made the original work so well is that I truly believed these were real people. Obviously not being menaced by ghosts, but I 100% thought that Micah and Katie (their real names, by the way) were a real couple. Not the case here - it's the girl from Jericho playing someone named Kristy. So that was a bummer - luckily neither show was exactly a Nielsen darling so it's possible many folks won't recognize her.
But I'm guessing all most folks care about is being scared, and I'm happy to report that in this department the film is a success. There are at least three moments that caused me to jump or yell, and the final scenes (you know, when you can finally get the feeling that something truly bad might happen) are just as unnerving and creepy as the ones in the original. The story here is paper-thin, and involves some ret-conning of the first film's narrative that is kind of cool but also sort of diminishes the film's power, but it doesn't make it any less of a BOO! moment when Kristy gets pulled away from her baby, or when her husband tries to find her and the kid in the basement.
I also loved trying to find the scares, hoping for the sort of "whoa... did I just see that?" subtle scares that the first one excelled at (shadow on the door). I swear, my eyes never stopped darting around, looking for things in the background or whatever. It's definitely a sequel that not only counts on you seeing the original, but sort of uses that familiarity to its advantage at times (it's funny how the entire theater goes "ohhhhh...." when the first night falls - the horror movie equivalent of Kramer making his first appearance in an episode of Seinfeld).
But more often than not nothing would happen, and day would come without incident. Thus, I felt myself relaxing too often in the film's first hour or so. It also takes a while to get to the first real scare, which sort of makes sense in the prequel side of things, but I mean, come on guys - we know the gimmick this time. That's going to make repeat viewings less enticing - now I know where the jumps are, and I'm not going to be creeped out to make up for it.
Judging from the reactions, I'm in the minority for not thinking it's just as good as the original. That's fine by me, and I hope the film is a huge success. Most of my issues are likely to not even be noticed by a huge chunk of the audience, and even if they do that doesn't necessarily mean they'll agree. It's a damn fine time at the movies and perfect Halloween fare (and not in 3D, yay!); but to me it was just a bit too similar and not as thoughtfully executed as its predecessor.
All I asked was that Lake Placid 3 was an improvement on the previous film, and I got my wish! The FX are still mind-blowingly bad (can’t they at least build a puppet head for close-ups?), but the script is much improved, the acting quality is higher, and they finally go outside of the lake/woods for a few extended set-pieces. I’ll probably never watch it again, but I was at least mildly entertained this time around, and it's a more worthy followup to the original.
As I said, the script is better. We still have a group of croc-bait teens running around, but there are also a handful of reasonably well-written adult characters, including the great Michael Ironside as the local sheriff (who is so low-respected that local boys actually play pranks on him), and Yancy Butler as a “cougar” (come on, way to make her AND me feel old! She’s barely 40!) who’s got a knack for small weapons. Plus the hero (Eureka’s Colin Ferguson) brings a low-key charm to the proceedings; he reminded me of Mike Denton from Undead or Alive. Also: no foul-mouthed old ladies this time. Ferguson plays the nephew of Betty White's character (or Cloris Leachman's, I’m not sure), who has died due to a mild case of can't-afford-the-actress-esia.
It’s also got a few good kills, not to mention a bit of a mean-streak. Our main teen girl is torn between two guys, both of whom seem like pretty decent fellas. But the crocs make her choose the unknown option C, because they both get eaten. And that sort of casual attitude toward killing folks makes it a bit more exciting – Ferguson and his family are obviously safe, but the large number of supporting characters are fair game, but also not “guaranteed” kills – I wasn’t sure if Ironside or Butler would survive their various attacks, making these scenes a bit more suspenseful than you usually get in this type of thing (plus, they’re the most famous actors in the movie, so they bring along some added goodwill – he’s more than a Sheriff, he’s the gung-ho awesome captain from Starship Troopers!). I also LOVED the opening bit, with a girl riding on a guy who has his feet in the water, with a croc pulling him back just to the right “spot” under the girl – I think I’ll make a compilation of all the great “A guy gets killed mid-coitus but his girlfriend doesn't notice” scenes in horror movies – Hatchet 2, Night of the Demons, Lake Placid 3...
And the crocs finally go a bit far from the lake! We get a pretty extended attack on the house that our heroes live in, which allows for some unique tools to fight them with (a chainsaw!). And the climax takes place in the small town, with the remaining crocs (there are like 4 or 5 in the movie) swarming on a grocery store and a gas station. The latter part has one of my favorite bits in a movie in a while too – the hero decides to immolate the croc, so he puts in his credit card to turn the pump on. Now, I’m already happy because usually in movies, pumps just work right off the bat, so I appreciated the small attention to detail. But then they throw a small wrench in the works – the guy forgets their zip code and has to ask his wife! It’s a small, natural moment – the sort of thing I have long given up expecting or hoping to see in low-budget Syfy originals.
But god, the CGI is just horrendous. I can forgive some blemishes or a bad shot here and there, but literally EVERY shot looks bad. Some of the kills aren’t even physically possible as depicted (the hunter being decapitated from behind, for example), and the sometimes amusing/creative designs are constantly being ruined by the execution. Part of what makes the opening kill work is that they use what they have (Bulgarian actresses willing to go full frontal; a sense of humor) to distract you from noticing that you never really see the crocs that pull the guy away. You’d think after what, 15 years of making CGI monsters for low budget productions that they could finally figure out how to get it right, or at least improve, but I swear this stuff is getting worse.
Speaking of the nudity, I feel sort of bad for the folks who watched this on Syfy, as it obviously wasn’t there, but they had to endure countless ads for Caprica or whatever and a bunch of local spots instead. Having such a surprise “display” early on in the movie kind of put me in a good (or at least, less discerning) mood, which is why I was probably able to find the movie kind of fun. It’s the rare case of the UNRATED thing actually providing a benefit to the movie (that said, it does run a bit long – they could have trimmed some of the fat in the first act).
Even though 2 had a bunch of extras (yeah, THANKS), Lake Placid 3 is as bare-bones as they come, without even a trailer to quench our thirst. I assume they had a “clean” version of the opening for TV, why not throw that on there so we could further appreciate the unrated-ness of the feature? Or maybe a “Fun With American Accents” (the kid is particularly bad) featurette? Give us something here!
While I enjoyed Fragileand The Haunting, Hunger is easily the most interesting and best of the Fangoria Frightfest series. Right off the bat, despite an opening that we’ve seen about a hundred times in the past 5 years (a bunch of people wake up in a room without knowing how they got there or who the others are), its refreshingly free of complicated plots or pointless gore – it’s a survival film in the truest sense, because the title sort of sums it up – these folks are trapped and they have no food. What do they do when their hunger gets to be too much?
I don’t think it’s spoiling too much to suggest that the survivor(s) could form a rugby team after their ordeal has ended. They have water, and a few insects, but after a while it becomes clear that the only way to survive is to eat something real, and thus it becomes a battle between the sick and healthy, as well as the hungry vs. the optimistic. I was pretty surprised at the outcome of their decisions, giving the film a large dose of suspense as well – you won’t be able to easily peg who will be next. And when the cannibalism begins, its not done in a gratuitous or (heh) tasteless way – it’s pretty much all off-screen or obscured via the low-res image that their captor is watching through his monitors.
I think the movie worked on me because I’m a fucking pig. I eat three meals a day and a lot of junk in between (and baby carrots! I love baby carrots). Christ, just while I watched the movie I ate two roast beef sandwiches, a snack pack of Cheez-its, the aforementioned carrots, and some Halloween candy, plus a cup of coffee. They go 23 days (of course they do) before succumbing to cannibalism – I’d probably last about 23 hours before looking at the hot blonde’s curves in a completely different way. So I could totally sympathize with ALL of the characters, which is rare for this sort of thing.
However, one thing struck me as kind of odd. You have three guys down there – why didn’t anyone ever consider the uh, “protein” based alternative some folks swallow even when not even particularly hungry? Even if just to dismiss it just as quickly? There’s an asshole in the group, why didn’t he make some off-color remark? You know, “I got something for you to swallow right here...” I guess this is just a classier breed of cannibal movie.
I also like how it plays with a few horror conventions, such as the two kids making out in a car in the woods only to hear something. Usually this means the killer, but in this case, it’s our protagonists, who are crying for help at the bottom of a well nearby. There’s also a wonderfully contrasting soundtrack choice for the scene – our bad guy ties the two would-be saviors up and pushes their car off the cliff, but instead of some loud metal song or a bombastic score, it just plays this sort of Lifehouse-y ballad. Very odd/cool choice.
Lastly, without spoiling much, I liked that it was largely twist-free. You find out something about the bad guy, but it’s pretty obvious from the start (at least, it was to me). But that’s it – the five trapped folks don’t have some unknown shared secret from their past like in Nine Dead, there’s no plant like Amanda in Saw II, etc. It’s straightforward and fully based on character. Thank you, screenwriter L.D. Goffigan, for taking a Saw-ish scenario and making it as far from Saw as possible. I had actually put the movie off (it’s the last of the FF films for me to watch) because I figured it was just another wannabe, and now I sort of regret it. Then again, my lowered expectations (thanks to the other Fango films) made me appreciate this one all the more.
The disc has a few standard extras, nothing to get your panties in a bunch but adds to the value all the same. A pair of deleted scenes (with director Steven Hentges introducing and explaining why they were cut) are not going to be missed, but the making of is pretty interesting, with revelations such as the fact that the bulk of the movie was shot at a place that sold RVs (!), and that they shot in sequence (a benefit of a single location with the same actors). Hentges also provides a commentary, which is surprisingly as much about story as technique, rare for a director who did not write the script. It’s a bit dry at times, but it’s definitely worth a listen, as he points out some of the low-budget work-arounds (the big 30 foot vertical tunnel was a CGI effect) and the pros of the Red camera, which looks terrific here – very rarely did it betray its digital limitations, which is even more impressive for such a dark movie. Caveat emptor – he does drop the dreaded “this is not a horror movie” defense (“it’s a HORRIFYING one”), which usually irks me but he makes a valid point, and it goes back to what I was saying about this not being a Saw/Hostel wannabe. It’s a very realistic approach, with zero “money shots” or anything gratuitous (though there is a hot sex scene with two of the folks, post-cannibalizing), but not a crowd-pleaser either (interestingly, I just realized that it’s the 2nd cannibal movie of the set, after the also horror-lite but dark Grimm Love). Horror or not, it's just a good movie is all.
The problem with seeing a movie in a sub-genre you’re not too familiar with is that you don’t know if the one you’re watching is good, bad, or par for the course. I can speak with some “authority” that Halloweenrepresents the best of the suspenseful slasher movie, that Poltergeistis a terrific example of a haunted house movie... but I have no idea how Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl measures up to the other films in its sub-genre, because I think this is the first one I’ve watched.
I’ve seen a few 80s/early 90s films at the New Bev that have a similar kitchen sink approach (I Love Maria, for example), but there seems to be a new breed of splatter action/comedy movies, including this, Tokyo Gore Police, The Machine Girl, etc. that I have completely ignored so far, beyond watching the trailers. Based on this one, it’s just not really my type of thing – it seems like “forced” weirdness as opposed to genuine batshit nonsense like Hausu. So you have science teachers dressing as kabukis, and a girl using her disembodied arm as a propeller to fly around, and a group of girls cutting their wrists for fun (they have a club!)... but it just seems like something they thought would be funny instead of anything significant to the story. Maybe there’s a cultural connection that I am missing, but I never felt like I was missing a joke with Hausu or some of those Grindhouse viewings (most of which I enjoyed).
I think the problem is that directors Yoshihiro Nishimura and Naoyuki Tomomatsu start the film already cranked to 11 and thus have nowhere to go. The end battle is pretty fun, but it’s also reminiscent of some of the other battles in the movie. It should be a big spectacle that pulls out all the stops, but it seems we’ve already seen that sort of thing several times. It’s exhausting, really – and this is coming from a guy who likes Armageddon and Con Air. Every now and then there would be a fun gore gag or inspired bit of madness (the droplets of blood becoming pointed weapons, for example), but more often than not I was just kind of indifferent to the movie. It didn’t offend or insult me, but it just wasn’t particularly engaging either.
The narration by Takumi Saitô, who is at the center of the film’s title-promised battle, doesn’t help either. Maybe it’s just the dubbing (for some reason, the Japanese mix was only in stereo, whereas the English was in full 5.1? I like my surround sound, dammit!) but it was very distracting and flat. Nothing should ever remind me of the movie Animals, but that’s exactly what Saitô's narration was doing. It sort of pays off for the moment he realizes his place (or lack thereof) in the grand scheme of things, however – perhaps they should have used a “less is more” approach to this aspect of the film. In fact, the film as a whole could use better editing; there are a lot of clunky transitions and shots that go on for too long. The slack editing makes some of the fights feel less frenetic than they should, not to mention allows time for the effects to be revealed as “not that great”. Cut away before we notice the lousy compositing!
But it’s certainly amusing at times, and worth a look if you’re in the mood for something different (especially if you, like most males I know, enjoy the sight of Japanese school girls doing crazy shit). It’s short enough to keep it from being any sort of inconvenience, and there’s almost always SOMETHING going on that can be considered “action”. It’s broad and garish, sure, but I have to applaud the enthusiasm. And there’s a couple of great laughs in the movie, particularly when a teacher begins talking to his class about the “Ju-On remake called The Grudge”.
And I also liked that, ultimately, neither of the girls are particularly heroic. Usually with this sort of thing we’re led to side with one over the other (such as Alien vs. Predator – the Predator was a “good” guy), but here we’re sort of on Vampire Girl’s side, only to discover she’s kind of a selfish bitch. So it’s sort of the Changing Lanes of Japanese splatter movies.
The disc comes with an hour or so of behind the scenes material, which is split into two pieces for some reason. The 2nd one is longer but better, as one of the actresses takes us through pretty much the entire shoot, narrating what is otherwise largely “fly on the wall” footage. It’s pretty interesting to see how much their sets differ from ours – everyone seems to be having fun and really appreciative of each other (and the camera crew). No surly union guys or actors hiding in their trailers! There’s also a press conference from the day the film opened in theaters, which could have been edited down a bit but again, is interesting to see how they handle these sort of things in Japan. Here, press conferences are very cold and dull. But this is pretty loose and candid – at one point everyone has a good laugh about the director insisting on shooting a certain romantic scene with a POV shot so he could pretend the actress (half his age) was saying those things to him. The trailer is also there, if you want most of the highlights.
So I leave it up to you guys – is this one of the better examples of the genre, or should I be watching something else? And furthermore, should I even listen to you? You’re the ones who kept telling me to watch Gozu, which a. didn’t exactly love and b. wasn’t a horror movie in any sense. I guess it evens out with me telling you to seeThe Hitcher or Black Xmas.
It can be pretty rough in spots, but I fully endorse the “outside the box” approach that Marc Price took with Colin, which depicts a standard zombie outbreak but tells it all the through the eyes of one of the zombies. It’s one of those “how has no one thought of this before” concepts that perhaps could have benefited from a bigger budget and/or a tighter script, but after a zillion interchangeable zombie movies, I’ll take an imperfect original over a polished bore.
One interesting aspect is that there is almost no real dialogue in the film until the final moments; I think we’re at the 25 minute mark before someone says something of note, and that is fairly brief. It makes sense – zombies don’t usually talk after all, and probably don’t understand what anyone is saying, so since we’re in Colin’s “world”, any dialogue would probably have to be filtered or played backwards or something to keep the perspective. And since the movie is basically Colin stumbling around the city, it takes on a sort of hypnotic feel. It's Gerry with zombies!
Alastair Kirton as Colin is also terrific, making a compelling character without speaking a word (and, you know, being a goddamn zombie). It’s not until the end of the film that we really understand where he’s coming from and how he got involved with the zombie invasion in the first place, so it’s kind of melancholy when everything comes full circle. How many zombie movies make you say “aww...” at the end? Zombie Honeymoon is probably the only other one I can think of.
It’s a shame that his performance is often obscured by the god awful shaki-cam, which is like Paul Greengrass to the nth power. On a roller coaster. While drunk. As I’ve said before, effective shaki-cam DOES require a skilled cameraman, and Mr. Price is not one of them. Making matters worse, the standard-def camera that they used was not suited for this sort of nonsense (nor was the film compressed properly – even the end credits are blurry, like a quarter resolution blown up to full screen), so you just have entire action scenes that are little more than a series of incomprehensible images and image artifacting. I get that they want things to be chaotic, but even a zombie can probably make out what he’s looking at and not see digital blocks all over the place.
It also could have used an editor that wasn’t also the guy who wrote and directed it. 97 minutes for a movie about a zombie wandering around is a bit much, and nearly every scene could be easily pared down, resulting in a film that’s more in the 75-80 minute range. Or, it could even be the same length, but use that time to make the occasional action scenes carry a little more weight – we rarely have any idea who is being attacked, which is fine until they make little suspense moments out of it. Who cares if someone you don’t know gets bitten? Our HERO is a zombie! I like that he’s just sort of a random observer in most of the film’s events, but that makes scenes without him (he often disappears in these scenes, at least, I THINK he does – again, it’s hard to tell what I’m looking at in a lot of the more chaotic moments) feel like they’ve been tossed in from another movie entirely. It’d be like if they kept cutting to Helen Hunt during Cast Away or something. Keep the camera on Colin!
One benefit to the movie’s borderline silent approach is that if you can’t endure the shaki-cam for two viewings, you can enjoy the commentary on your first viewing if you like. It’s a great track, with Price admitting some of his mistakes, pointing out several references (including one that was meant to be another George, not Romero), and explaining how they got away with certain sequences. They also spend a laudable amount of time thanking all of the friends and family who let them beg borrow and steal to get the movie done. Some deleted scenes are mentioned more than once, but the commentary is the only extra on the disc (and it’s broken – when you select the commentary from the menu it just stops the disc; I had to just play the movie normally and then switch the audio track). However there is a 2-disc edition available, so I would assume that (and more) is on the 2nd disc - it's a bummer they didn't send that one to me! I notice a lot of DVD sites don't even bother reviewing the extras anymore - I do it even for movies I bought/rented on my own! I'd certainly do it for something I was sent to review.
It’s good to know that after all this time and so many movies, folks are still finding unique ways to tell their own zombie stories. The film’s got a lot of technical issues (not all of which can be chalked up to their alleged 75 dollar budget), but it’s interesting and ambitious, which is more than I can say for most. Someone give Price a tripod and a bigger check and let him do it again!
One nice thing about being super-busy is that it allows for a few surprises. So when a publicist asked me for my mailing address, I fired it off without even looking into who she was or what I had covered for her in the past, something that I would have done instantly if I wasn’t swamped with a zillion other things. So it was a glorious surprise when it turned out to be the first two episodes of The Walking Dead (plus a book and a little metal gun replica), my anticipation for which was making the wait for Halloween all the more excruciating (the show premieres on Halloween on AMC).
Most of the comics I read are superhero based, but I was in the mood for something different back in 2003, and spied the first issue of "The Walking Dead" amidst all the other stuff. So I picked it up, loved it, and made it one of my monthly “pulls”. In fact, when my money problems forced me to cut back on spending, I cut most comics out, but Walking Dead (now approaching issue #80) remains on my pull-list. Thus, you can imagine how excited I was that it was becoming a TV show at all – friggin Brett Ratner could be directing it and I’d still be pumped. But then they went and hired Frank Darabont, director of two of my all time favorite movies? Jesus.
Well enough of that, is the show good? Hell yes it is. It’s great, in fact, and if subsequent episodes are even half as good then it could easily go down as one of the best horror-based shows in my lifetime. Darabont did an amazing job adapting the first issue while expanding things (the sequence with Morgan and Duane, for example, is much longer) and setting up the plotlines that will become integral to the show, such as Rick and Lori’s marriage troubles. And he did so without sacrificing the book’s most surprising but appealing factor – it’s not a wall to wall zombie gore fest. Some issues don’t have any zombies in them at all, and I wouldn’t be surprised to have episodes take a similar approach down the line once it’s an established hit (and it damn well better be!). It would have been easy to load the premiere up with big setpieces and TV spot-ready chaos, but it’s remarkably faithful to the book’s “character first” tone. Only at the very end of the episode do we really see more than a couple of zombies on-screen.
Don’t get me wrong though – it still delivers plenty of zombie action over the course of its 70 minutes. But it’s SCARY zombie stuff, not Zack Snyder-esque frenetic craziness. The opening scene (which is not in the comic, if I’m remembering correctly – it’s been a while and the issue is buried at the back of my closet with all my other comics from the 80s to 2006 or so) is a perfect example, as Rick makes his way around what looks like a makeshift camp, seeking gas, only to discover a little girl zombie (bunny slippers are a nice touch, Frank). It’s a creepy, suspense-driven scene, the type you rarely get in modern zombie fare, which is usually seemingly designed to impress Michael Bay (or make us laugh).
It’s also got a lot of heart, which is something Darabont excels at (and I hope future episodes are able to retain). Remember the scene in Shawshank Redemption where the prisoners enjoy a beer? There’s something like that here involving a working shower – it’s those little glimmers of hope that make the show so compelling. Without them, it would just be a grim, unpleasant experience. You need those bits of levity and optimism for everything else to work. And without spoiling, there’s a heartbreaking moment involving Morgan (the great Lennie James from Jericho) near the end of the episode, also added for the show per my memory, that packs a wallop never even attempted in the Resident Evils or even Romero Dead films of late.
(P.S. Morgan’s surname is Jones and his son is named Duane – a reference held over from the book that you better understand!)
The cast is pretty spot on, though most of them we don’t meet until the last act. Andrew Lincoln may not have been at the top of many fans’ dream list, but we can probably chalk that up to the fact that most Americans are unfamiliar with him (he’s a big TV star in the UK). It doesn’t take long for him to quickly prove he’s up to the task – he’s a terrific lead. Assuming that the show continues to follow the book, Rick won’t always be making the most “crowd-pleasing” decisions, and so you need an appealing actor in order to keep audiences from turning on him – I doubt this will be a problem for Lincoln. An inspired choice. And Jeffrey DeMunn is pretty much the spitting image of Dale; granted he’s a Darabont regular, but I they would have gone after him even if Darabont had no involvement. Sadly we don’t get to meet Laurie Holden as Andrea yet (though we DO meet her sister Amy, played by Frozen’s Emma Bell), but I appreciate that they didn’t end the pilot on a big moment with everyone coming together – Rick didn’t meet up with them until issue 3 or 4, and thus hopefully they will milk the separation on the show for another episode or two.
Speaking of how it compares to the book, one thing it seems to have a better handle on is dialogue. I love the series, but Robert Kirkman’s dialogue can get pretty bogged down in clunky exposition or pointless descriptions. Characters will literally say things like “This couch is more comfortable than the floor” or whatever. No shit! But I didn’t see any of that here; Lennie James has to explain how zombies work to a very shell-shocked Rick (as with 28 Days Later, Rick is in a coma when everything goes to hell), and even that is stripped down to its essentials – you get bit, you turn. The one scene between Rick and his partner Shane at the beginning of the episode is a bit long and occasionally clunky (Shane tells a long anecdote about his girlfriend leaving a light on), but that’s the only time the comic’s tendency to have their characters talk too long became an issue.
As expected, KNB’s FX work is outstanding, rivaling their feature film output. The legless zombie in particular is incredible, and the makeup is extensive even in the big “crowd” scenes near the end – they didn’t half-ass anything here. I wish they didn’t rely on digital blood so much, but if the time they would spend hooking up squibs is spent on the look of the zombies instead, I won’t complain. The production design is also mighty impressive for a TV show; the scenes of Rick wandering the empty city are appropriately eerie and surprisingly vast.
I really cannot wait for future installments. The DVD had episode two but I need to pace myself, because if I watch it now it will be almost a month until I get the 3rd episode (when it airs on AMC). Plus the screener quality wasn’t exactly demo material – non-anamorphic, low-res, and occasionally watermarked. As much as I want to see what happens next, I’d like to SEE what happens next, if you know what I mean. But if you’re a regular reader of the site, you can probably take that as further proof of the show’s quality – you know how much I hate poor presentation. Anything else I would have just shut off, but I was too engrossed by what was happening. And that’s with having read the comic! Folks who haven’t been introduced to Robert Kirkman’s series yet will be even more blown away.
You might have noticed fewer reviews for Screamfest this year. That’s because as I get older, I get tired-er, and thus need to sleep more instead of writing up full reviews for every single movie I see. But I figure folks might like to know what I thought of the other films I saw at the festival (plus sort of prove that I saw as many as I claim!), so here's a little mini-review collection, sort of like I did for Frightfest. Enjoy! And if you wrote one I didn’t like, don’t threaten to punch me in the face. I didn’t threaten to punch you for writing the movie, did I? Do on to others and all that.
BLACK DEATH I’m starting to wonder if Chris Smith is just a guy for hire, because his films are all so different, with no common themes or “signature” of any sort (at least, that I can recall). They’re all good (Creep being his weakest) though, so who cares really? Black Death is much slower than his other films, and it takes a while for it to even get to the part where you know you’re watching a horror movie, but it’s an interesting take on the plague film, and you can’t go wrong with a cast that includes Sean Bean, David Warner, and Andy Nyman (a rare tie to a previous Smith film! He was in Severance). Bean’s top billing is more ceremonial than factual; the real star is Eddie Redmayne, who is front and center for the entire film and does a damn fine job of carrying it and making his arc believable. Not a slam dunk, but worth a look.
MY SUPER PSYCHO SWEET SIXTEEN 2 I was really excited for this one, as I found the original to be surprisingly fun and even occasionally suspenseful, which is not what I was expecting from MTV. But something just felt “off” with this one right from the start, and I left disappointed. It’s a perfectly serviceable slasher (especially for a TV movie), but it lacks the fun of the original, opting for a darker, more mean-spirited story. The King barely wears his costume (which is a bad call since he looks like a homeless Viggo Mortensen without the mask), the film’s best character is killed halfway through, and the climax is just a bunch of standing around yammering. Plus, I in no way could buy that the characters were supposed to be 14 and 15 – Skye (who is about to turn 16) looks past college age by now and her younger sister is supposed to be a freshman? And kudos to her mom for waiting roughly an hour before getting pregnant again, I guess. Hopefully if they do a 3rd film they can bring back some of the fun spirit of the original. Great opening titles though - probably the most enjoyable part of the movie (summing up the first movie via Facebook status updates and tagged photos).
NIGHT OF THE DEMONS I actually saw this a while ago (full disclosure – am friends with the director/writer), but it was great to see on a big screen with a big crowd instead of in a little screening room with a bunch of suits. It’s oddly light on gore (though not on nudity!), but it’s an improvement on the original thanks to a more appealing cast, and a top notch punk soundtrack. It’s a shame it won’t be getting the theatrical release it deserved (and that was originally planned – thanks for letting all of the recent indie horror movies bomb, guys!), but at least it will be out on DVD in time for Halloween. Invite a bunch of friends over and enjoy!
STAG NIGHT You know how Creep was basically a ripoff of Raw Meat/Death Line? Well, Stag Night is a ripoff of Creep. Featuring the absolute dumbest goddamn characters in recent memory (they get off the subway train – forcing the door open no less – at a track change stop, thinking it’s the actual stop), the best thing I can say about it is that it’s thankfully short, and I appreciate the balls to kill off the “safe” characters (some of the kills are decent too). But Christ almighty, what a repugnant group of people. Been on the shelf for over two years, for the record.
THE KILLING STRAIN No more low budget single location zombie movies. Please. And if you absolutely must, then no more: a. characters who hide their impending zombie-ness, b. digital blood, c. asshole characters who have to say something negative about every single suggestion or occurrence. I’d also like no less than a 30 year moratorium on people pumping a shotgun when asked if they know how to use it by another character (a moment we actually get twice in this thing).
THE PSYCHO LEGACY Hey I’m friends with this guy too! Robert Galluzzo (aka Rob G)’s love letter to the Psycho series as a whole, this long-awaited doc is a must for Psycho fans. Knowing that the first film has been covered extensively, Galluzzo spends only a brief amount of time on Hitchcock’s original, and then moves on to cover each of its three sequels (the remake is thankfully ignored) in greater detail than their respective DVDs ever bothered to provide. You get lots of great anecdotes, priceless stills (one with Jeff Fahey’s unbuttoned shirt drew a round of applause), and lots of love for the great Anthony Perkins, who was the sole participant of all four films. It’s a shame that he and Psycho II director Richard Franklin have passed on, leaving Mick Garris as the only director to provide new insight, but Galluzzo has assembled pretty much everyone else that’s still alive (Meg Tilly is the only major omission, far as I’m concerned), plus some newer filmmakers like Adam Green and Dave Parker to offer their insight. Hopefully future series docs will take a cue from Legacy and give the sequels their due instead of spending half the time on the one that’s already been covered in detail. P.S. The DVD has three hours of bonus features!
UNDOCUMENTED This was a late addition to the lineup, after Hisss had to be pulled due to a subtitle issue. Not really a traditional horror movie, it IS a brutal and water-cooler worthy account of what happens to illegal immigrants who are caught by the “Patriots” who spend their time building their own border fences and such. And they’re led by Peter Stormare, so you know it ain’t going to be pretty for the immigrants. The structure is very much like all the other kidnap/torture movies, but in the process raises some interesting questions about who the real villains are, do the immigrants deserve to be here (in the film’s best moment, one of them is forced to answer the questions that are on the citizenship exam, only to be fed an incorrect answer by one of the “real” Americans), etc. Since I myself am conflicted about the issue at hand, I liked that the film didn’t really DEFEND the immigrants, though I did find it terrifying that someone could watch the film and think of Stormare as the good guy. It’s a ballsy film for director Chris Peckover to make, and I wish him luck finding a studio to release it (if it hasn’t found distribution yet, anyway).
And that’s it! Screamfest 2010 is over. I only missed three films: NEEDLE (which conflicted with the all-nighter at the New Bev), and then both MIRRORS 2 and PSYCH:9, which conflicted with the Reaper Awards, which is something I was invited to, as opposed to having to ask multiple times before getting a press pass. I also ran a bit late on Sunday and missed the first few shorts. Otherwise, I was there for everything. My apologies to my twitter followers who were sick of the RTs and other “pimping” for the festival, as I really enjoy it and wish it drew bigger crowds. Perhaps if the other outlets made more of an effort – I saw very few press guys in the audience (and even fewer more than once). Pretty damn sure no one was there was often as Bloody/HMAD. Didn’t stop one of the staff from basically yelling at me for not taking pictures of the “black carpet” before the short block on Saturday though – apparently even though I am and always have been there as a reviewer only, and had been in there all day watching stuff and thus wanted to eat before the movies started, I’m some sort of asshole. *Shrug*. Other than that, I had a good time, as always, and enjoyed seeing some friends that I don’t get to see too often throughout the year. And Mann’s stopped being so strict about outside food, so I didn’t have to drink their awful soda or eat their stale popcorn once! Thanks to Starbucks and their delicious cocoa/banana choco chip bread, I was never dreading what was happening to my stomach. And that is the greatest gift of all.
What say you?
P.S. I also saw ALTITUDE but I also got the blu-ray to review so a writeup of that will be up as its own thing sometime this week. Preview: not very good!
As with years’ past, I thought I’d take time to talk briefly about a few of the shorts I saw at Screamfest. There were more than usual this year (many playing with features, something I’ve suggested in the past – hurrah!) and most of the ones I saw were pretty damn good or great. Congrats to all of the filmmakers who had their film shown! Onwards with the mini-reviews, presented in glorious alphabetical order!
CABINE OF THE DEAD Vincent Templement’s amusing zombie short was one of the better zombie entries of the festival (there were many), due to expert execution of a simple premise: you’re trapped in a phone booth and everyone you call is worthless. The climax gets a bit drawn out, but it’s a charmer, and features one of the best sight gags in a zom-com ever (one that, if nothing else, proves once and for all that slow zombies pave the way to more creativity).
DEVIL’S CREEK Usually, it’s hard to discuss a short in any detail without spoiling anything, but Devil’s Creek (written/directed by Mohit Ramchandani, who also appears in the film) is the rare short that is far more complex and interesting than its plot (which, at its core, is seemingly another “hero gets taken in by tormentor in the middle of nowhere” story). You have to give it your full attention to make sense out of everything, but it all pays off in an oddly moving way (the A+ score doesn’t hurt). Bonus points for some inspired production design, which again is one of those things that won’t quite make sense at first. Be patient! One of the most original shorts in the festival.
IT COULD BE YOU The buildup is a bit too long compared to the execution (director Andrew Morse must be a Ti West fan), but it’s a funny “what if?” scenario, and one of the few actual SHORTS in the festival – what’s with all the 10+ minute entries? I like all lengths! More fivers, please.
LE MIROIR This one reminded me a bit of Clive Barker’s “Coldheart Canyon” at first, but instead of diving into the world of rapist monsters and children with very adult size genitalia, it sticks with the sad tale of someone who is getting “old” and losing the looks that made them famous. It’s got some clever touches (one of the best introductions to a flashback in recent memory, for one example) and gorgeous production value. Not really horror, but a winner all the same.
THE LEGEND OF BEAVER DAM HOLY SHIT! One of the best shorts ever made, period. Don’t even try to argue with me. I wouldn’t dream of spoiling its surprises, but I will say that Weird Al’s "Nature Trail To Hell" may have been an influence on the basic plot. Writer/director Jerome Sable was sadly not in attendance, but if he was I probably would have kissed him. Inspired genius + crowd-pleaser attitude = perfect short. Can’t wait to see it again.
...OR TREAT A very brief animated short with a grim/funny punchline; if it hits Youtube or whatever, it would make a fine “preview” before popping in your Trick R’ Treat DVD or Blu-ray this year. Bonus points for the old school animation approach.
PHOEBE OK, perhaps I was smitten with actress Briana Feehan, but the team of Matt Blundell and Nati Braunstein have still delivered a good spin on the vampire tale, and like a lot of the shorts, was surprisingly moving as well – Phoebe is a “good” vampire (orders animal blood through the mail) and longs to simply go outside. The dark/light setting makes for some great moments too, such as when she needs to make her way across a room with tiny beams of light shining through holes in the wall, or when her would-be killer has to use his muzzle flare to find his way around. I also love the lighting – she has a bunch of those battery operated stick-on closet lights everywhere. And now I want to subscribe to her video blog, which doesn’t really exist (yet?).
RECOLLECTION I enjoyed it, but the twist was a bit obvious to me. If it’s not for you, you’ll probably enjoy Federico D’Alessandro’s grim tale even more. Something that might be worthy of a feature with more of a dramatic approach.
ST. CHRISTOPHORUS: ROAD KILL I never quite got why the main character was pulled over in the first place, but this is a surprisingly fun black comic romp, with our hero going through a borderline Ashley J Williams-level of abuse over the course of an evening, and it’s kind of charming how much carnage is caused in one small area of backroads countryside. Also: one of the best “character takes his eyes off the road and OH SHIT” scenes in recent memory (short or feature). Fun stuff.
UNITED MONSTER TALENT AGENCY It’s sort of an SNL skit concept (monsters like Dracula and The Wolfman are real, hired for movies like any other actor), but since it’s directed by Greg Nicotero, we get top notch recreations of the monsters, tons of great cameos (Frank Darabont dressed as Indiana Jones being my personal favorite), and most importantly, tons of respect and deep-rooted love for the source material. Nicotero says he’s making a feature version; not sure how that would work (even the short started to wear thin), but if he can rope in all of the resources he did here (and then some), it should be a fanboy’s wet dream. P.S. Best Jaws joke ever?
The others I either missed or don't have much to say about. However, all of the films were technically proficient and the Mann's continues to get better at handling the varying (mostly digital) formats - everything looked perfect. Grats again to everyone who had a film there!
I have Shocker, but some other folks have Madman. I think there’s a certain type of horror film that requires one to see it at the exact right (read: young) age and not a day later, or else you will see it for how dull and/or bad it is. But for most of these types of movies, I can see what people like about them (i.e. for Shocker – the soundtrack, or the awful/awesome one-liners), though for Madman I’m kind of at a loss – what the hell do people see in this movie?
Because it’s actually worse than bad – it’s BORING. Bad is fine, especially for a slasher movie being watched at midnight almost 30 years after it was originally released. Something like Silent Night Deadly Night 2would be breathtaking with that crowd. Madman just doesn’t have anything to bring to the table though; it’s just a series of increasingly dull scenes of people wandering around looking for the last person who went off wandering around. And you think I’m exaggerating? This is an actual line from the movie: “Richie’s been missing, so TP went to find him, and then Dave went to find HIM!” The person who says this, of course, goes out looking for Dave and gets killed, and then the people she was saying it to go looking for her.
And the stalking scenes are no help, since Marz only appears when he has to (i.e. right before he kills someone), and they pretty much all take place in the same patch of woods (the gore payoffs are minimal – nice bloody neck sans its head, and the decapped heads look good... but that’s about it). Director Joe Giannone also botches his best chance to make Marz look badass – there’s some nonsense about an ax that no one can pull out of a stump, and we see a few of our eventual corpses giving it a shot. So you know Marz is going to pull it out, but I bet you will be surprised to discover Marz himself has trouble with it. He should have pulled the thing out effortlessly, without even stopping, but instead he has to put a little elbow grease into it. Making the stump the bigger badass, basically.
The final showdown with Marz and the final girl is decent, because A. it’s in a house this time and B. Giannone finally got around to ripping off Halloween instead of Friday the 13th – there’s a great shot of Final Girl (Dawn of the Dead’s Gaylen Ross) walking in one room with Marz walking in pace with her in the background. And there’s a pretty great “find the dead bodies” scene as well, but it’s all too little too late. I’m actually amazed I managed to stay awake that long (yes, despite my pretty constant track record of falling asleep for the midnight movie, I stayed awake the whole time for once. For THIS!).
It’s also not exactly a technical marvel, with a lot of awful music edits, clunky blocking, and way too much padding. Granted it was one of the more delightful moments with a crowd, but if I was at home watching the interminable hot tub scene, I probably would have been sitting there wondering why anyone had recommended the movie to me. Then again, it DOES have a theme song, so it’s reasonable to think I’d enjoy it. However, it’s one of the lesser of the sub-genre, and the fact that we first hear it sung in a rhythm-less manner by one of the more annoying characters doesn’t help.
Madman himself, Paul Ehlers, and producer Gary Sales provided a Q&A both before AND after the film, which was cool, and more entertaining than the movie. Ehlers told the story of having to rush to the hospital for the birth of his son while still wearing the makeup, and both men told an account of going back to where it was shot and discovering the rope that Marz was hung from in a flashback scene was still hanging. Sales also tried to claim that they shot the film before Friday the 13th, which is just plain silly to do in front of a crowd of horror nerds who know damn well he was wrong (he even went out of his way to tell us that this week marked the 30th anniversary of the first day of shooting, which would be October 20th-ish, 1980 – Friday the 13th was released in May of that year). He also threatened a 3D remake, another odd thing to do in front of us purists. Plus a remake just sort of puzzles me outright – there’s nothing to this movie. Marz is not particularly memorable, his back-story is generic, and there’s no gimmick of any sort. It’s the most run of the mill slasher ever, clearly made to cash in on a trend THEN, why do it again now? Let it go.
I will point out that if you are a big fan of the movie, there’s a new DVD out this Tuesday, with a 90 minute retrospective documentary about the film, featuring several cast and crew. I wouldn’t mind watching it, but I doubt I’d ever want to revisit the movie itself. And if you haven’t seen it since you were a kid, I’d recommend holding on to your memories.
Do people just not put that little organ donor sticker on their license anymore? Seems like the only way people get organs anymore is through a third party group of mercenaries who kidnap horror movie protagonists and take what they need. Such is the case in Caged (French: Captifs, which I thought would translate to Captives, but what do I know), though for once our heroes are adults instead of partying teens (Train, Turistas). And also, ironically, doctors.
In fact my only real complaint about the film is that they don't really explore the idea that these folks are already risking their health to save others (sleep deprivation, increased risk of infection, etc), and yet when forced into doing it, they fight back. Nor do the guys taking the organs (as usual, a fairly benevolent doctor and a few merc types) ever seem to realize the irony. Not that beating us over the head with it would have been any more preferable, but still, it would have added an interesting layer to the film if they at least brought it up.
And one other one, but it's minor - can we all agree to stop with the "our hero is temporarily deaf so let's drop out all the sound except for a high pitched tone" sequences? I'm sure Saving Private Ryan wasn't the first, but ever since it's never been used as effectively anyway, and I fail to understand why you'd want to intentionally annoy an audience with that "sound". I get wanting us to be in their heads, but what's next? Putting people in the theater to cut us or smack us around? Actually, the Mann's 6 is showing Jackass with "D-Box" technology, so the latter is already a reality, I guess.
Otherwise it's a solid thriller, with several nail-biter scenes (they get a lot of mileage out of the lead character's fear of dogs - justified in an opening sequence that parents may not enjoy much) and some genuinely creepy looking villains. When they kidnap our heroes, they are wearing these sort of scarecrow masks, and they come out of nowhere at a moment of the film where you're not yet expecting the bad stuff to happen (I figured we had another 5 minutes). And they hide their motive for a while, which amused me because part of their MO is to strip the victims' vehicles - for a while I thought they were just the world's most aggressive chop shop employees.
I also liked the fact that it was French, because that meant it could end grimly for our heroine, if she even made it to the end at all. The first death in the group was a big surprise, and made for a nice "all bets are off" feeling (well, not a NICE one, but you know what I mean). And there was a great punchline to the obligatory would-be escape scene. This sequence also involved one of the more tension-packed moments of the film, as the doctor is checking his prisoners' heart rate, and the would-be escapee is trying to keep his pulse normal while hoping that the signs of his escape attempt won't be noticed by his captors. It's a terrific sequence.
I'm sick of writing the same thing at the end of all these reviews this week concerning their US release so allow me to just make something up: Caged will be released on 3000 screens next week in its original French language without subtitles. It will be followed by a 75 million dollar remake starring Amber Heard, Jimmy Fallon, and the old guy from Babe. The villains will all be played by CGI scarecrows, and the score will be composed by the guitarist from Creed (who will also perform the theme song "My Heart Is Caged (Captifs)". My friend Ken is in final negotiations to direct.
I am pretty sure it was at Screamfest in 2007 (might have been 2008) that the trailer for Hysteria played before pretty much every single movie that showed, and ever since I had wondered what happened to it. Hell, last Friday I even made a comment about it (as detailed in my review for The Shrine, I don't really pay much attention to what is playing and/or what it's about, or else I would have had my answer already). So I'm happy it finally saw the light of day. I'm also happy to report it's actually pretty good, which is not something you can say about movies that have been on the shelf for three years.
The most impressive thing about the movie is how batshit crazy it is, with things going bad around the 20 minute mark and never really slowing down until it's over less than an hour later (it's also one of the shortest movies in recent memory, more on that in a bit), despite the fact that there's basically only 6 people in the movie. A couple of cops show up to mix things up a bit, but otherwise it's just a series of nearly non-stop scenes of high school friends killing each other in surprisingly graphic ways.
The basic gist of the story is, one of them is host to an ancient evil of some sort, and if that person is killed, it will transfer to the person who killed them. So when the host is accidentally killed during an impromptu massage session, it jumps from one to another until they're pretty much all dead. Unlike something like The Thing, there's never any doubt or question who is the one with the evil inside them, because they pretty much start babbling nonsense (and their eyes turn color) almost instantly. This sort of scenario could have helped pad it out a bit and add some suspense to the proceedings, but in a way it sort of fits the movie's breakneck (heh) pace - why slow things down to start pointing fingers? There are other friends to kill!
And strangely, even though they spend a good chunk of the movie just yelling at (or killing) each other, I actually liked the characters. Not enough to really feel bad when any of them died, but more importantly, I didn't WANT any of them to die, either. Take Vince Vieluf (who also co-wrote), for example, as a Marilyn Manson-lite rocker who is living the high life but still has a soft spot for his high school love, played by Emmanuelle Vaugier. This could have been an insufferable character, but like Leigh Whannell in Saw, he gives himself a number of great lines, and is unexpectedly one of the angriest when certain characters get dispatched. The movie doesn't spend a lot of time on developing these folks before shit goes down, but you get enough to understand each of their roles and how their relationships with one another have changed since high school (and what they were then, in some cases), and Vieluf conveys with minimal exposition that he feels guilty about how he's ignored the J.D. Walsh character over the past few years. And I'm just singling him out, all of them manage to bring these folks to life (with the exception of Laura Allen, who dies too fast to get much of a grasp on her).
It's possible that these elements were once in the film and just excised, however. It wouldn't surprise me, because the movie is hurt (if not left borderline paralyzed) by the atrocious editing. It's only about 75 minutes long, but it would be closer to 60 if not for a bunch of pointless quick flashbacks (sometimes re-showing us things from a few moments before that hadn't taken on any new meaning anyway), or an excess of slow-motion shots that serve no apparent purpose. Whether this was always the design or a recent decision made in attempt to "save" the movie (again, it's been on the shelf almost as long as HMAD has existed), I don't know, but either way they would be wise to use every bit of plot/dialogue they had in the movie and excise all of this flashy bullshit. Like I've said before, the pace doesn't lag until the first thing happens. Take 10, 20, 30 minutes... however long you want to set up the movie, as long as you keep the energy up from that point on. It's a far better approach then to hit the ground running and then have to pad a bunch of stuff when you realize that there won't be any other way to hit the minimal runtime for a feature film.
I'd also remove the awkward, "too late" opening credit sequence, which arrives at least 15 minutes into the movie. I tend to hate the things, but this is a movie that could have just used freeze-frame shots identifying each character and their basic role as they were introduced, instead of basically stopping the movie cold to let us know who is in it long after we've already met them all. It's really odd. There's also a scene after the end credits that is too long (and somewhat important) to be placed there - it should be before the end titles start to roll. Christ, just let me edit the movie! I liked it, but I could have REALLY liked it if not for the editor's refusal to let me.
Back to the actors, I want to give some of them props (Allen and Todd Grinnell particularly) for basically playing corpses for most of the movie. It's not a zombie movie; once they are dead they're dead, but the actors are still laying on the floor in usually uncomfortable positions for the remainder of the film. Equally if not more impressive, star Cheyenne Jackson was in attendance for the screening, despite the fact that he had performed not one but two live shows in New York the night before as part of the cast of 30 Rock (they did the show live a 2nd time for the west coast). It could have been very easy for him to decline to fly to the other side of the country for a movie he shot years ago, but there he was, walking the "black" carpet and sticking around for post movie Q&A, which included the film's producer, basketball star Rick Fox. Whoever that is (basketball is pretty much the least interesting sport in the world to me; I'd rather watch fly fishing).
Hopefully the movie gets picked up and put on DVD with some bonus features about its long process getting this far, or why Natassha Lyonne is in it for 18 seconds at the beginning. Like The Last Resort, it's got enough inspired lunacy to merit a look and its short enough for most folks to forgive, or at least deal with, its problems. And it doesn't have that annoying song from the trailer in the film itself, so that's another bonus.
HMAD-ing is actually somewhat expensive! If you can, help BC pay for his various movie-getting services (Netflix, Amazon, buying used DVDs, etc.)! Thank you!!!
