Monster Brawl (2011)

JUNE 17, 2012

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

It’s rare to see a movie and think “I wish this was a TV show instead”, but that’s something that continually ran through my head while watching Monster Brawl. The movie has no real plot beyond a series of fights (five total) between eight monsters more or less inspired by the classic Universal lineup – a mummy, a vampire, a werewolf, etc., and while it entertains at times, as a movie it’s a bit of a tough sell. Without any narrative thrust or variety to the intensity of the fights, it coasts on novelty alone, which unsurprisingly doesn’t sustain its 90 minute runtime.

However, as a TV show it might work. Each week they could introduce the monsters, give their backstory, explain their rivalry (the film is heavily inspired by WWE wrestling and such), and then let them kick each other’s asses for the rest of the episode. Popular monsters could be brought back week to week, audience voting could play a part… it’d definitely be a fun guilty pleasure. It would also allow for new monsters, and any new horror movie that came along could sponsor an episode and have their Jason or Freddy type villain fight one of the Monster Brawl regulars... Dammit, someone make this!

Anyway, it’s that lack of variety that kills Monster Brawl as a movie. The first fight is just as “exciting” as the final one, and it’s always a one on one in the same ring. Plus they’re not particularly interesting battles – the monsters just execute a few standard wrestling moves before whipping out their special powers (like Swamp Gut – a Black Lagoon style swamp monster – puking acid on his opponent) to finish the fight. Then we get a couple of comments from the two announcers (Dave Foley and Art Hindle) and host Jimmy Hart, and then it’s off to introduce the next two monsters so the cycle can begin anew.

These bits are a godsend, since they’re the only break we get from the small sets that make up the ring/announcer areas. In fact the little origin stories are the highlights of the film – seeing how the werewolf was turned from a human or how the mummy busted out of his crate is vastly more entertaining than their often dull fights, and again, the scenery is finally changing. The movie works in some exposition to explain why there’s no crowd watching the fight, and the one thing that could have provided some variety to the battles is removed instantly – the ref who is on hand to make sure they don’t cheat is killed in the first fight and never replaced.

Even when things seem like they will be mixed up a bit, the filmmakers hold back. At one point a half dozen or so zombies rise from their graves (the ring is in a dusty old cemetery), which I thought would result in a big fight with the current monster (Frankenstein), but instead he just wanders away and the zombies are quickly dispatched. One bites Hindle, who deteriorates into a zombie over the next 15 minutes or so, but otherwise their appearance has no function or value at all – it’s just padding. And there’s not even really a climax – the winners of two fights face off for the title, but they don’t do much to elevate it visually or creatively to give us any more reason to care (they also pick the “wrong” winner, if you ask me). I was hoping things would culminate in an actual, er, BRAWL (a brawl has more than two fighters, by the way), with tag teams and just pure chaos, but nah. The final fight concludes, a thought dead opponent rises as a zombie, and as they begin to fight we cut to Foley looking a bit shocked, and then the movie ends.

Now, to be fair, it doesn’t seem that writer/director Jesse Cook is even interested in making an actual movie here. He seems to be inspired far more by staged wrestling events like Wrestlemania than the actual monster movies the characters were inspired from, hence the lack of a strong narrative thrust. But come on, even pornos build to something. And besides, the fights aren’t exciting enough to make up for the lack of any reason to care about what’s happening throughout the film. If they were dynamic, high octane fight scenes like the big battle in Freddy Vs Jason, sure – this would be awesome. But they’re pretty bland, either because of the budgetary limitations or the heavy makeup preventing anything too crazy. It’s like, Airplane has a pretty stupid story, but the movie is so damn funny no one cares. Same thing here – if your focus is simply the mindless fights, fine – but make them the best fights ever.

I was impressed on the technical level, however, especially after going through the extras, which unsurprisingly focus on putting the movie together, the makeup, etc., without the word “script” mentioned once other than in passing. The small crew and severely low budget meant everyone had to pull double duty - some of the actors play 2-3 of the monsters, in fact. The production’s schedule is sometimes a bit too evident in the film itself – such as the fact that Foley and Hindle shot all their scenes separately, which keeps them from ever interacting with any of the monsters or Hart (I couldn’t even really figure out where they were supposed to be in relation to the ring), but all things considered, it came out alright in that department. And I love that Lance Henriksen played the voice of “God”, interjecting things like “Outstanding!” after particular moves during the fights and also narrating the tournament’s backstory.

If you really dug the film, or enjoy hearing about DIY filmmaking, by all means check out the commentary by Cook and two others who wore many hats on the production. They give everyone their due and talk at length about their production limitations without ever getting whiny or defensive, so that’s a plus. Same goes for the making of, which has some overly serious voiceover but otherwise is an enjoyable and impressive look at the set building, monster makeup design, etc. Some outtakes with Hart and the trailer round things out – it’s a respectable bonus feature set, but all it did was reinforce my theory that they should be thinking about a TV show. The sets are built, they have a good lineup of monsters… and they wouldn’t have to worry about keeping things entertaining for 90 minutes. Just 40 or so! Commercials do part of your job!

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Darkness (2002)

JUNE 16, 2012

GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

I actually rented Darkness back when it came out on DVD in early 2005, but slept through most of it and never bothered to take another look. From what I had seen, I had determined it "boring" and confusing even before I had nodded off, and figured it wasn't for me (that it was a Spanish horror film in the vein of The Others, which I wasn't a fan of*, didn't help). But now that it's on Blu-ray, and my tastes have refined a bit - not to mention having since become a fan of director Jaume Balagueró, I figured it was time to watch it properly and hopefully come away a bigger fan.

Well, I accomplished that much, but I still don't think it's a particularly great movie. The story is quite interesting, and the acting talent is better than you'd usually see in a modern horror film (Anna Paquin and Lena Olin, plus the great Giancarlo Giannini), but Balagueró's script is muddled. It makes sense when you read a synopsis, but in the film itself it can be needlessly baffling at times, as if every other scene was missing or something. The father (Iain Glen), for example, keeps having these near-psychotic breakdowns, but then he'll appear fine again in the next scene, making it difficult to gauge his character. In some movies this might not be an issue, but in order for the ending to make any sense at all, you have to believe that he's a good guy and loved by his daughter, which the movie never gives us the chance to do. It's like Jack Torrance in the Kubrick version of The Shining - he's pretty much nuts from the day he sets foot in the Overlook, so it's hard to understand why Wendy loved him in the first place.

Before I continue - as I'm discussing "missing scenes" I should stress that this new Blu-ray from Echo Bridge is indeed the full 102 minute cut of the film, not the edited 88 minute version that Dimension released in theaters. There's no "unrated" tag or any indication of being an extended version, so it's worth pointing out, especially if you recall how the film was distributed on DVD originally - the PG-13 cut had blue colored artwork, the unrated had red. This is the unrated version, but it has the blue art. In short, hopefully no one remembers that a cut version even existed, because this just makes it even more confusing.

It's also a slow-burn in the guise of a haunted house movie, which requires a lot of audience faith to work. It starts off like every other haunted house flick, with the family moving into the isolated, giant house, and then things start happening and certain family members begin acting strangely, but nothing really happens until the film's final 20 minutes. Until then, it's just a loosely connected series of scenes of Glen freaking out, Paquin and her new boyfriend trying to find out more about the house, or Paquin's little brother doodling in his room. Every now and then Giannini shows up, channeling Udo Kier, but otherwise there isn't much to latch onto, especially as (again) Glen's character is hard to sympathize with.

There is one knockout sequence around the halfway point, however. The kid is doodling, Paquin is in the bathroom blow-drying her hair, and Glen is chopping potatoes while Olin nags him about his medication. Balagueró cuts back and forth between these three events with wonderful precision, heightening the tension by cutting from one to the next just as it seems something bad is about to happen, letting us wonder which will be the first to produce the expected scare. It's easily the most suspenseful sequence in the film; another one or two like it would have elevated this into "flawed gem" territory.

There's also a scene I realized is pretty much dead in newer horror films: a darkroom/photo developing sequence! We've all seen the type a million times: a character is developing photos in his red-lit darkroom, and as the photo develops he sees a clue or even identifies the murderer, and just as he turns to reveal his find to the other protagonists, he is either killed or falls into a false scare. But we never see these anymore, because no one uses actual film to take photos, so instead we get scenes of people digitally zooming into photos on their laptop (or on the camera itself), which aren't as interesting from a story perspective OR a technical one. The red light look is unnatural enough to put a viewer on edge, and I like when movies need experts to help out. Now everyone's a "photographer", so it's just not the same.

The Blu-ray has a pair of extras: a trailer hawking the original DVD release ("Starring X-Men's Anna Paquin!") and a fluffy making of that is of no use to anyone, unless they want to hear Olin explain that she probably won't watch the movie because she'll be too scared (I wonder if she said the same about Queen of the Damned). It also has a French and Spanish language track, but I should note it defaults to 2.0 DTS instead of 5.1 Dolby Digital, which is peculiar - make sure you switch it manually. There are also no subtitle options, which is a bit of a sore spot since some of the dialogue is quite soft-spoken, so it'd be nice to just flip on the subs during lengthy exposition speeches (like Giannini's 3rd act explanations) instead of fiddling with the volume. The transfer is quite nice though; Echo Bridge is doing much better with their Blu-rays compared to the ones that they put out last year.

This was Balagueró's second narrative feature after the similarly uneven The Nameless; had I seen them before his later work I might have been wary about those (the [Rec] films, Sleep Tight), so I'm glad I saw them later, just to see where he started. He's obviously improved quite a bit as a filmmaker, and both films are worth seeing for that and for their other highlights (if you can actually follow the story, the ending here is terrifically grim). But sadly that's the only real reason to recommend this one unless you're starved for Spanish horror (or a True Blood fan wanting to see what Paquin was like in a role that didn't require her to disrobe all the time).

What say you?

*Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm going to give it another shot later this year. It's in that weird place between being forgotten enough to qualify as a new HMAD entry and being remembered enough to have to be a "Non Canon" review. So I'm waiting until it's more forgotten.

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The Curse Of February 29th (2006)

JUNE 15, 2012

GENRE: GHOST, SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

What's this? A Korean horror movie that can be described as "simple"? It's true, The Curse Of February 29th (Korean: 2 wol 29 il) is remarkably straight forward and never confusing in the slightest. The ending is ambiguous, which can FEEL a bit puzzling as they "explain" it, but once you realize that they are simply offering up another explanation, it all works.

Of course, the flipside of that is that it's a bit of a lackluster experience. Without a complicated story or even a lot of characters to keep track of (there are only like 5 of note in the entire movie), it does drag a bit at times. If there was a Korean Masters Of Horror type show, this would be one of the best episodes, but there really isn't enough there for a full 90 minute feature. I mean, most of it takes place at a lonely tollbooth, so there isn't a lot of room for potential victims, lengthy chase scenes, etc. There's a short montage showing our heroine dealing with her daily routine, but that's pretty much it for customers - the road might as well be closed at night, it seems.

Hell even the plot is basically designed to keep "things happening" at bay. Our ghost (OR IS IT?) is that of a female serial killer that died in a prison bus crash that happened on February 29th twelve years earlier. Now, every four years on that date, someone "dies for no reason" (the movie's explanation, as if people didn't die for no reason every day of the year), and this year our heroine thinks it's coming after her. That's pretty much it; they don't even really flesh out the story of the female serial killer or what happened on the other leap years.

Instead, the story is expanded (slightly) with present day scenes of a reporter listening to her story from her current residence: a cell in an institute. At first he doesn't find it very interesting (there's a great sight gag of him doodling a shark as he "listens") but gets more involved as the story continues, and it just so happens that today is February 29th (her story being four years old), so now he's worried it'll come after him. It's a nice way to break up the monotony of the tollbooth scenes, and I enjoyed the reporter's chemistry with the doctor who snuck him in to listen, but like the main part of the story, it feels a bit underwritten.

However, it's an enjoyable enough time-killer, and well directed by first (and last?) time director Jong-hun Jung. The scare scenes are well handed (and aided by some surprise splatter - there's a great throat slashing), and he even manages to avoid the usual crippling flaw of flashback stories in horror: I found myself getting worried for the girl even though I knew she'd survive. At some point she realizes that the ghost needs things to be dark to appear, so she buys a bunch of lamps and runs around turning them all on to prevent even the slightest bit of darkness in her apartment - it's a fun, exciting little sequence.

I also liked the two cops who are investigating her/the killings. Like the guys in the hospital, they have some fun back and forth, and I always like how Asian people are pretty blase about ghosts. Someone says ghost in an American movie, and they are mocked and not believed; but here the cop is just like "OK, maybe we'll see the ghost". They're just commonplace there, or their residents are simply more awesome than us - either way it's a great way to keep things moving. In an American film, they always have to waste a few seconds of screentime with some asshole saying "There's no such thing as ghosts!" and offering up other theories that we the viewer probably already know are not true, so it's nice that they can skip past that sort of crap and just get on with it.

Also, the limited cast allows for something I don't usually see in these things: it's kind of sad. Our heroine's best friend is this year's February 29th victim, and there's a scene shortly later where she finds the birthday card she bought for the girl and now obviously won't get a chance to give her. Bummer. And the thing as a whole is pretty grim, because whether she killed everyone or not she's locked up in an institution and being treated like a freakshow by one of the doctors in her care.

So basically it's a nice gateway Korean horror film for "region 1" fans, in that it has a lot of American sensibilities, but still focuses on the principles of the K-horror I've seen (ghosts, curses, etc). Those who have already seen a bunch will likely find it a bit too slight for their tastes, but it's a solid way to introduce a younger fan to the style before they dive into the real meaty entries.

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Rift (2011)

JUNE 14, 2012

GENRE: CRAP, GHOST, SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

I was on the fence for whether or not to dub Rift as Crap, as I’ve mostly retired that scarlet letter out of shame (I overused it in my first year, I now realize). So I have to be really selective to give it its power, and spend time thinking about those other awful movies while wondering “is it AS bad as these?”. I honestly wasn’t sure, but then I went on its IMDb page and saw that all but ONE user review was a fake (all posted the same day), so that sealed the deal. Not that the IMDb is some pristine site that doesn’t deserve to be desecrated with false reviews, but they clearly knew that they made a terrible movie or else they wouldn’t have to go overboard with lies. So I’m basically just agreeing with them.

Featuring one of the most needlessly convoluted structures I’ve seen in some time, the movie ostensibly tells the story of a would-be journalist investigating the deaths of a bunch of young folks a decade earlier. So we have present day scenes of her in procedural/crime thriller mode, and flashbacks to what’s basically a slasher movie as these kids wander around their dorm and get picked off one by one. Fine, but then they add in some cops, full-screen footage of the movies the kids are watching, flashbacks to a hooker engaging in a rape scenario, the ghost (?) of a morgue attendant/necrophiliac… the movie is so padded out with nonsense, I actually had trouble discerning what was the real movie and what was the shit they threw in to make a 90 minute run time. At one point or another it seems I could have added every single sub-genre I have to the list: zombies, possession, psychological…

Hell, I even rewatched a chunk of the film, assuming I had missed the cypher that would tie all of this together. And maybe on the page it DID all make sense, but the movie is so poorly edited and directed (by the same guy who wrote it, Lazrael Lison) that it’s impossible to follow along without taking notes. There are so many go nowhere scenes, such as when the journalist is bothered by her little sister to come along, only to never be seen again. And for the life of me I can’t figure out what is taking the journalist so long – she’s seemingly in this dorm (and a makeshift photo lab) for a MONTH as she pieces together the story of what happened over the course of two nights? Does she go home in between? Why is it taking so long?

It doesn’t help that the acting is uniformly atrocious, with the main blond girl in the 2001 scenes (character’s name is Haili) being particularly terrible. As my wife pointed out, her acting (and indeed, most of the scare scenes) seemed like something you’d see on one of the early episodes of VH-1’s Scream Queens, before they had narrowed it down to the 2-3 people who were decent enough to net bit parts in a Saw sequel. This girl would have been one of the first to go if not for the fact that she was attractive, which would net her a couple episodes’ worth of leeway. The Eric Stoltz-y looking nerd character also drove me up a wall; I couldn’t tell if the character was supposed to be mentally disabled or if the “actor” was just that awkward with his line readings.

Unsurprisingly, the few actors you’ve heard of barely appear. Richmond Arquette and Tom Wright (the hitcher from Creepshow 2!) play the cops, who have a heart to heart about Wright’s lacking sex life before deciding how to get the rest of their donuts to the police station – since the entire movie is in flashback I’d like to know why our fearless journalist thought to include this in her story. And Leslie Easterbrook pops up in the final 10 minutes as the woman with all the “answers”, though her odd dialect (and the disc’s lack of subtitles) made much of her exposition a bit part to follow, so that’s another bone-headed move on their part. But at least these folks have screen presence and know how to deliver a line, so there’s maybe 8 or 9 total minutes of the movie where you can look at the screen and say “Hey all right, someone who knows what the hell they’re doing.”

Hilariously, it even has annoyances and mistakes where they’re not expected. The production companies include “Gjenius” productions, which I HOPE is just an attempt at a joke, and inexplicably has a production logo from the film’s composer, who is the first to be credited (despite a full roster of the crew at the top, the cast isn’t listed until the end). And the ending on-screen text (because, of course, this is “based on true events”) misspells the main character’s name as “Jennifier”. I’m not surprised that this appears to be the first full (and real) review for this thing online – if not for the HMAD “requirement” there’s no way in hell I’d be able to get through it to write one myself.

The disc (which has a grating Our Lady Peace-ian rock song blaring on the menu at a full 20 volume settings louder than the movie) has one extra feature – some context-free deleted scenes that will in no way improve your thoughts on the movie, and thus might have well been put back in the feature to save the DVD designer some time making a sub-menu. So they put more effort into thinking up false claims about the movie (like “This movie will change your life” and “It will be one of the best horror movies of all time”, as well as “This movie has just mad a quantum leap in horror films” – BOLD!) than they did on the DVD that will be the primary source of most of its viewing. Yet another amazing decision from the “Gjeniuses” behind this thing.

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Jersey Shore Shark Attack (2012)

JUNE 13, 2012

GENRE: COMEDIC, PREDATOR
SOURCE: CABLE (SYFY)

When I first heard about Jersey Shore Shark Attack, I assumed it was a sketch from Funny Or Die or something, only to be told that it was indeed a full length film. I even asked a second party to confirm it, because I was so incredulous that Syfy (sans The Asylum to boot!) would make such nonsense – this seemed inane even by their standards. So imagine my surprise to discover that it wasn’t as terrible as I assumed, but it was actually better/less idiotic than Sharks In Venice, which was airing immediately after.

As with any of these movies, by no means am I telling you to seek it out. But if you’re the type that routinely watches Syfy Original Movies, or “so bad it’s good” type entertainment, you can certainly do worse. Some of the (intentional!) humor actually worked on me, and I’ve never seen more than 12 seconds of the film’s namesake TV show. I’m sure there were jokes specifically targeting episodes or characters on that show, but apart from a passing familiarity with what Snooki and “The Situation” look like, I do not and will not subject myself to enough of the show to even understand what the other character’s names were parodying (Nooki and “The Complication” were easy enough to figure out; the rest went right over my head – there’s a guy named Balzac here – is that a parody of someone’s actual name?).

The odd thing is, the movie is actually kind of a straight up Syfy killer shark movie, complete with random victims that they cut to, give a line or two of dialogue to in order to justify their screen credit, and quickly kill without anyone ever mentioning them again. I actually had to look at a few message board posts to make sure that the film wasn’t just a 90 minute spoof with a couple of shark scenes thrown in to justify the title, but if anything it was more like the other way around. I wouldn’t be surprised if a generic shark movie was written first and then they decided to Jersey Shore-ize it in order to give it some flavor.

Because after their introductions and the occasional line or joke, it plays out exactly like their other movies, with “The Complication” in the role that one might give to Eric Balfour or someone from Battlestar Galactica. A friend dies, a rival is accused of murder, he investigates and discovers shark evidence, no one believes him, he goes out on his own to find them… total clockwork. Except he has two omnipresent pals who high five him every time he says something, and his girlfriend is painted orange, and every now and then someone calls him a Guido. Oh and obscure Italian dishes are mentioned with alarming frequency. The point is, it’s a Shark Attack movie with Jersey Shore shit tossed in, not the other way around, and that is to its credit.

In fact I could almost see them turning this into a mini-franchise of sorts. SPOILER – none of the idiots die, so they could conceivably turn them loose in a haunted house, or a found footage thing, or whatever. It seems like the writers got more comfortable with the concept as it went on; the 3rd act is genuinely entertaining as their rivalry with the local douchebag preppy types and quest to destroy the sharks come together (Nooki, pissed at TC, has gone on the preppy’s yacht, which is besieged by sharks), so TC has to save the day and the girl while complaining that a shark fucked up his new sneakers.

There’s also an evil human plot, because of course there is. Paul Sorvino (top billed for 3 brief scenes, one of which has him noticeably reading his lines off camera) and William Atherton are greedy land developers that have been drilling near the pier and disrupting the sharks, which they knew would happen but didn’t care, or something. It’s as by the numbers as everything else, but it gives the finale a bit more oomph; the JS kids are fighting sharks at the yacht, while a few other sharks attempt to destroy the pier. It ends as you’d expect, with the giant ferris wheel rolling off its base and crushing the two to death.

Speaking of the carnage, the FX are actually pretty solid. The sharks occasionally roar and bob their heads up next to a boat like they were giraffes or something (and look like Wadzilla from Chillerama more than sharks in closeup), but otherwise they’re much better than average, and there’s even a big practical head for some of the random “off-plot” kill scenes. And real blood! One random girl gets completely drenched in the stuff; that one scene has more Karo syrup than some of their full movies do as their filmmakers opt for awful digital splatter that always looks atrocious. And they make no sense at all, but the obligatory “Shark jumps out of nowhere and eats a guy whole” bits are quite well done – there’s one moment that I actually didn't see coming (only to discover later that it was spoiled in the trailer; bummer).

And any shark movie that ends with everyone cheering “Guidos!” over and over in celebration of having just machine gunned their enemies is automatically better than most shark movies. So all of the other stuff I wrote in (surprising) defense of this thing doesn’t even matter, really.

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The Possession (2012)

JUNE 12, 2012

GENRE: POSSESSION
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

One of my colleagues recently claimed that there is no reason to do exorcism movies anymore, because they’ll never top Exorcist. I vehemently disagreed, but he later clarified that he meant it was a limited genre, unlike say a slasher where even though Halloween will never be topped, there’s enough room to work with for others to do their own thing. Ironically, he was with me at this advance screening of The Possession, and he liked it more than most others, so go figure.

But he’s not being a hypocrite, he was actually just proven wrong, as the Exorcist similarities are pretty slim (basically, a possessed girl and, yes, an exorcism scene near the end). Most of the focus is on the girl’s father (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who is separated from the mom (Kyra Sedgwick) and only gets the kids on the weekend. So he sees the gradual changes in the girl more easily than the mom, who’s with her every day. Unlike Regan, she doesn’t just start ramming crucifixes inside her and swearing; she just slowly gets more withdrawn from the rest of the world. Actress Natasha Calis is quite good, doing a lot of the work with just her eyes until the 3rd act, when FX start to take over – I trust we will be seeing more of her.

The source of the possession is a Dibbuk Box (which served as the film’s original title), which contains teeth and hair and other odd things, and has housed a vengeful spirit until Calis opened it. The box stems from Jewish folklore, and thus like the inferior The Unborn, rabbis are consulted instead of collar-wearing priests. Here the movie stumbles a bit; when Morgan is told who he needs to talk to, he drives to a Jewish community in Brooklyn and begins wandering around looking for his contact. After a few seconds, an alarm of some sort goes off and everyone instantly clears the street, except for the guy he was looking for. Not only does he not explain why the guy didn’t join the others, the (I’m assuming religious) act itself is never clarified. It’s not like it’s important to the plot, but it draws attention to the fact that the movie occasionally feels like it was reworked some.

And that’s not the only example. A major character’s fate is left unresolved, and there’s an early bit involving an “intruder” that they never follow up on – he assumes it’s a raccoon but we don’t see anything, just a doggy door flapping, as if it might have actually been the ghost. There’s even a followup of Morgan nailing the door shut, but it, the raccoon, or anything else related to this scene is never mentioned again. Ditto the moths that have infested a room – he calls in an exterminator, but we never get those results, like “I couldn’t find any moths…” DUN DUN DUN! These scenes all work fine in and of themselves, but there’s not a lot to connect them together. And if anyone can explain the logistics behind the “I’m getting your email” stuff, I’d love to hear it. Morgan sits at his wife’s computer, opens up an old email at random, deletes the attachment, and then says “OK, you shouldn’t get my emails anymore”. Huh? Granted, it doesn't work, but what is the point of this? To make our hero look incompetent?

But it works as a nice blend of possession and “broken family comes together” tale, fully embracing its PG-13 rating with low-key (but trailer-ready) scares and trading gory FX for a stronger emphasis on character and family dynamics. Morgan is an easy to root for everyman, and his ex’s new boyfriend is so overly cheesy, so his little moments of victory over the guy (like wearing his shoes inside the house, which the new guy protests) work like gangbusters. And it helps that the couple broke up for the usual “we just drifted apart” reasons, instead of an affair or something that would instantly have us siding with one over the other. Likewise, they still get along quite well; they make little remarks here and there, but it’s cordial, and you never doubt that they still have affection for each other.

It’s also well directed by Ole Bornedal, who previously impressed with The Substitute (which presumably led to this job, as that was a foreign film acquired by Ghost House/Sam Raimi, who produced this one). I wasn’t crazy about his penchant for ending scare scenes with a sudden cut to black (always with the same low note of the score accompanying it), but otherwise he squeezes lots of blood from the stone that is the rather ho-hum locales. I particularly liked the off-kilter establishing shots of the house, not centered like you’d expect, but off to the right in the middle of a new housing development where the houses all look the same. He also knows when to hold back; there’s a great scene where Sedgwick discovers her daughter devouring meat (she’s a vegetarian), and when she confronts her the girl hides, various kitchen items blocking our view of her face and letting our imagination run wild.

So like my pal was getting at, it’s hard to forget about William Friedkin’s masterpiece when watching these sort of movies, so kudos to Bornedal and co. for mostly pulling it off. Sure, there are better possession films, but there are many more that aren’t as good, and the script’s problems can be explained without resorting to a defense of “Blatty did it better”. Like Emily Rose, it’s an adult-centric possession movie that intelligent teens can enjoy, and any movie that has John Winchester battling ghosts is automatically worth a look.

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Playback (2012)

JUNE 11, 2012

GENRE: SLASHER, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

Miraculously, Playback actually had a minimalist theatrical release in the spring, but not in LA as far as I know, so I had to wait until DVD to say “Why did this get a theatrical release?” It’s not even a terrible movie, but it’s crushingly bland, tossing together plot points cribbed from The Ring and any random teen slasher without any sense of style or purpose, and generally just going through the motions from start to finish. It’s the cinematic equivalent of your morning commute; you just go on autopilot and suddenly you’re at work without any real memory of getting there.

Perhaps there’s a big star in the movie that netted it more attention? Well, sort of – Christian Slater is certainly a bigger draw than his fresh-faced co-stars, but a lot of his films go direct to video these days, even decent ones that he stars in. So that can’t be it, and even if it was, it’s not a very flattering role for the guy: a perv cop who pays a kid from the AV club to install cameras in the girls’ locker room for him to jerk off to. He only has about 10 minutes of screen time, and his role is entirely inconsequential – Slater deserves much better than this sort of junk. Hopefully Bullet in the Head will be a big hit when it comes out (it stars Slater and Stallone and is directed by Walter Hill – lot of folks to root for there).

Anyway, again, the movie is sort of a Ring ripoff; early on someone watches a tape of a police investigation of a murder scene, and he becomes this zombie looking thing that starts picking off a group of friends who are making a horror movie about that murder. But he keeps filming stuff, so there’s some found footage-ish feel to the movie as well, presumably as part of its unsuccessful attempt to be awesome by trying a little bit of everything. If they had the money I bet a vampire or crab monster would have shown up as well.

There’s even a rather inconsequential mystery revolving around a baby at the center of the tragic murder. It doesn’t take any effort at all to determine that the baby has grown up to be one of the kids in the group, and you might burn 3 or 4 brain cells figuring out who specifically it is. However it’s not even worth that minimal effort, as the answer comes with no fanfare or any real effect on the plot at all. It’s basically an “Oh, OK” moment; like if Die Hard played out exactly as it does now but somewhere after jumping off the roof McClane found out that Argyle lied to his boss about going to Vegas. If it doesn’t have any effect on the way the rest of the movie plays out, don’t wait so long to reveal it. It should have been an act 2 reveal at the latest, giving us some worry that the character might turn evil or something. But by the time the person discovers the secret about their upbringing, the movie’s practically over, and the villain is clearly established.

One thing that DID work about the movie was that it took place in the real world. When asked about scary movies, the answers are Exorcist and Scream (natch), not made up nonsense like “Axe Killer 7”. Likewise, the bands that they talk about are real; one kid mentions 30 Seconds To Mars as being his first concert (must suck when your first concert features a singer who leaves most of the vocals up to the audience), and there’s an honest to god subplot about tickets for a Shiny Toy Guns show. Being a low budget production, you’d expect the usual generic names for this sort of stuff, so it was a nice surprise, even if it ultimately didn’t mean much. Speaking of music, the score was another sore point; it was all this bad industrial-ish sounding garbage that didn’t fit the movie.

But it got a theatrical release, and Trick R’ Treat didn’t, so they must be on to something.

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Nightbreed: The Cabal Cut (1990/2012)

JUNE 10, 2012

GENRE: SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (DVD SCREENING)

I remember it like it was yesterday… sneaking downstairs to watch Clive Barker’s Nightbreed on HBO (or Cinemax) during its premiere showing. The thing was, I was grounded at the time, and thus watched it on mute so I wouldn’t get caught. I assumed it would be easy enough to follow without sound, being a horror movie and all – only to discover that it barely made sense WITH sound, thanks to studio interference and re-editing/reshooting that mangled the film. And thus for years I and millions of other horror fans have been hoping to see the longer cut of the film, with seemingly no happy ending in sight.

But that finally changed thanks to the discovery of VHS workprints of the pre-fucked versions, and tonight the “Cabal Cut” of the film was screened to a sold out crowd at the New Beverly, courtesy of Days Of The Dead. And in a “Holy shit I wish I could talk to my younger self” moment (I’ve had a bunch of those thanks to all this horror stuff I do, I must say), I not only got to be in the first audience to see this version, but I introduced Clive to the crowd before the screening, and moderated the Q&A with the guys responsible for putting it together, as well as lead actor Craig Sheffer. Two points for BC.

Of course, it started late thanks to the special guests and sold out crowd, which was starting to make me wish I hadn’t made it my movie for the day. It was 8:30 by the time it started, and I had gotten up early (for a second viewing of Prometheus, which I quite liked) plus had done similar “hosting” duties for They Live earlier in the afternoon – I was pretty damn tired. If I fell asleep, there wouldn’t be any way for me to go home and watch the DVD to see what I missed!

Because let me tell you, this was one mangled flick. I don’t think a full five minutes ever goes by without the addition of a new scene (or part of one); it seems Morgan Creek had second thoughts regarding just about every moment of the film. It’s amazing to see how much later in the runtime things occur; in the theatrical cut, Boone (Sheffer) goes to Midian at the 15 minute mark – now it’s somewhere near 40. And the police siege on Midian (aka Act III, basically) now starts around the time where the theatrical cut ended! This isn’t like Aliens where there’s a few scenes added back in and an extra line of dialogue here and there, it’s a completely new beast from start to finish. If the theatrical cut was the greatest hits, this is the full discography.

And to extend that metaphor, it even has all those demos and b-sides that you’ll listen to once out of curiosity. While it’s great to have the film re-edited back to its original form (per Clive’s script and the original novel), some of this stuff just drags the movie out, and you will really start to feel its 155 minute length, particularly in the Midian attack. Not since the climax of Transformers 2 has such a sequence felt so endless, where I was actually growing numb to the sight of presumably awesome things like monsters killing asshole cops while destruction rained down around them. I also started losing track of the characters - at one point I assumed Anne Bobby’s character had been killed off in this version and I just didn’t notice, because it had been so long since they had gotten back to her attempts to escape the place before it collapsed around her.

But otherwise, there’s no denying that this is the version of the film you want to see. It’s better to be a bit bored than confused, and it even improves the things that worked fine the first time. I always enjoyed the strange friendship between Boone and Narcisse, and now there’s even more of it – their first encounter is longer, Narcisse giving him a tour of Midian is extended… it all just plays so much better. There’s also a lot more of Anne Bobby, who I previously just enjoyed as the “cute girlfriend” but actually becomes a real character here, and is given a much stronger relationship with Boone. She also sings about cavemen at one point – always a plus.

Oh, and it’s still a good movie. Even with the obvious tinkering (the first reel of the theatrical cut is one of the most rushed, nearly incoherent things I’ve ever seen), the tale of a secret city of monsters who just want to be left alone always fascinated me, particularly when it’s revealed that they’re the good guys and it’s the humans we really need to look out for (particularly Decker and that one asshole sheriff). And as a fan of makeup FX, it’s a treasure trove – no two monsters look alike, and there isn’t any goddamn CGI. I don’t know how long some of these poor actors had to sit in makeup chairs to only be seen for a few seconds in the abridged cut, but they should be happy to get more of a showcase here. There’s even a stop motion (?) beast that we see briefly; hard to judge its quality since the image (sourced from duped VHS tapes) was so poor in the new scenes, but it’s a lot better than anything you’d see in a Stephen Sommers movie, that’s for sure.

However it still suffers from a problem I always had with the other cut, which is that the Decker story never fully gels with the Midian stuff. Decker is interesting, and having David Cronenberg play him is just pure awesome, but the narrative often just has him hanging around for no reason. At one point he seemingly just hangs out in the sheriff’s office for like an hour while he and the other cop go off and do stuff, and even in this version no one ever seems to question why he’s always around accusing Boone of stuff (or why he's so shady). And I still can’t tell if we’re supposed to realize he’s the killer in the button mask earlier than the moment it’s actually revealed on-screen, because there’s no other option and it’s pretty obvious that the killer is NOT our hero Boone. Perhaps if it was a rogue Midian resident committing the killings, this serial killer plot would work better; as it is, it seems like two stories grafted together. Indeed, the “shrink frames his patient for his own crimes” story was clearly interesting enough for Sheffer – he played a similar role in the far less complicated Hellraiser: Inferno.

But I actually kind of liked that, in a way – this long cut doesn’t necessarily solve every problem that was present in the theatrical version (which, again, is still quite enjoyable). It’d be easy to say “Morgan Creek destroyed a perfect film!” but the reality is that they just exacerbated some of its issues while adding others. So if those original elements cannot be found and this is the best we can get, then perhaps the solution is to (don’t kill me) remake the film, rethinking certain plot elements and making it with a studio that understands challenging horror (or just making it independently and hoping for a decent release). Maybe then we can get the “Star Wars Of Horror” we were promised.

Until then, keep signing those petitions and checking with Occupy Midian website for screenings, as even in its clunky state, it’s a true gift to the fans to be able to see this version, and kudos to Russell Cherrington and Mark Miller for doing the heavy lifting to getting it out there. This "Frankenstein-ed" version will continue to play at horror cons and places like the New Bev, and I encourage you to see it if it comes near you. Every sell-out crowd will send a message to Morgan Creek that it’s worth revisiting this movie properly, and that is the ultimate goal. I’d love to have a definitive, cleaned up version of the movie to watch on Blu-ray, and with so few horror films that even attempt to be “epic”, I think it deserves the lavish treatment on ambition alone.

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The Black Cat (1981)

JUNE 9, 2012

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

When I made my daily “HMAD Today is…” tweet for The Black Cat (Italian: Gatto Nero), I described it as a “golden era Fulci” film, being that it was from the same period that produced The Beyond and City Of The Living Dead. Being that it isn’t as popular as those films, I wasn’t expecting it to be as great, but I certainly wanted more than what it delivered, which was a somewhat dull, uninvolving tale of a cat who may or may not be doing the bidding of a creepy asshole as it decimates the supporting cast.

The main issue is that it lacks any real Fulci touches. There’s no real atmosphere; a few shots of the cat wandering around aside, there’s a distinct lack of style to the film, and even his usual eyeball closeups just seem relatively forced and unnecessary. It’s also not very gory at all; there’s a funny head through a car windshield bit early on (I say funny because the chain of events is ridiculous, and the dummy obvious), and an immolation around the halfway point (funny for same reasons), but otherwise they’re pretty tame – the IMDb points out that Anchor Bay’s DVD is uncut, but I can’t imagine what even the most out of touch MPAA member would deem “X-rated” about any of this. Hell, if not for some nudity, I bet this movie could net a PG-13 today if released by a major studio.

It even lets a guy live when by any reasonable measure he would be killed! Dude is wandering in the middle of the road after being attacked by the cat, and he is hit by a car with violent impact. Yet later he’s basically fine; a broken wrist and bandages around his upper chest being the only evidence of his injuries. Come on, this is a Fulci movie! He should have been cut in half by the impact of the car, with his legs being run over as his torso and head flew through the air and landed on some sort of spike or into the gears of heavy machinery. THAT would be a gore sequence!

Plus, the cat just isn’t that exciting to watch. When you have to write in an overlong bat attack scene in your climax, that’s probably a sign that your “villain” isn’t doing enough to keep the movie afloat. Sure, it’s funny to see the chain of events that he causes during these scenes, as well as his preternatural intellect (the cat manages to unlock a door that’s barred with a giant lever), but they still have to fill the other 90 minutes. The climax is also pretty dull; not only is the cat mostly MIA but it’s a carbon copy of the ending of Fulci’s own The Psychic, without that film’s reasonably entertaining thriller story to back it up.

All that said, it’s still better than his later stuff like Door Into Silence. It’s coherent, for starters, and the “is the cat good or bad” question is marginally entertaining. It also boasts some fun chemistry between David Warbeck and Mimsy Farmer, who gets roped into the movie’s plot because she’s apparently the only photographer in town, only for her photography skills to barely be utilized at any point after. And Patrick Magee is a hoot as the bad guy, though I was disappointed to learn later that the role was intended for Donald Pleasence. Note to anyone making a not very good movie up until 1995, when the actor died – whoever you end up getting, he’ll never add as much value to your film as Pleasence will. Please utilize time travel and ensure Pleasence’s involvement so that your future HMAD review will be more positive.

Anchor Bay’s disc contains two extras: a trailer that gives away every single death, and a Fulci bio that I’ve read before but whatever. Even though his later films are junk, he had a wonderful tribute/reception at a Fangoria convention (his first) just months before he died, which was apparently the first time he realized how beloved he was over here, and thus his story ends on a high note despite the career disappointments. I wish they’d put together a boxed set of his movies like they did for Bava, though I’m not sure which titles they still have the rights to anymore (my House By The Cemetery/The Beyond double disc is long out of print and quite valuable). It would be the best solution for movies like this – I can’t see too many wanting to buy it on its own, but if grouped with some others, it’d be a nice thing to have for your collection.

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Abraham Lincoln Vs. Zombies (2012)

JUNE 8, 2012

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

The first time I saw a trailer for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter I was confused, but not about the fact that he was fighting vampires - I was fine with that. No, I just didn’t get why Abe was some dude that looked younger than me, and sans a beard to boot. I mean, obviously at some point Abraham Lincoln was a young man, but that’s not the image that anyone brings up when they think of him. We think beard, stovepipe hat, bad theater seat selector… THAT’S the guy we want to see fighting the undead. So kudos to the Asylum for getting that much right with Abraham Lincoln Vs. Zombies, which depicts a traditional Abe, wielding a scythe and saying things like “Emancipate THIS!” as he decapitates some poorly made up zombie extra.

Being an Asylum production, you can’t really ask too much of it. Most of the period setting is depicted by what I assume is stock footage of Civil War battles and such, while the actors have hilariously glued on beards and try their best to look like they’re from the 19th century. Likewise, it’s not surprising to discover most of the movie takes place in a single fort (thankfully shot in Savannah instead of Los Angeles, like most Asylum productions), with the plot mostly serving as an excuse to move the actors from room to room every now and then – this movie must hold the record for most action sequences revolving around someone opening/closing a door in time.

It’s also kind of boring, despite the promise of the scenario. I can only assume that the zombie extras weren’t being paid enough to move, because more often than not they’re all just literally standing motionless as our heroes run around them (“they’re sleeping,” someone says, to cover their asses). Even the hilarious sight of Abraham Lincoln decapitating a zombie gets old after a while, and when he’s not on-screen it’s nothing but an amateurish, repetitive zombie movie without any real personality of its own. Even the Civil War backdrop isn’t exploited for maximum effect – since the whole thing is in a single fort and there are Confederate AND Union hero characters, I was hoping for some Assault on Precinct 13 style uneasy alliance stuff, but after a few lines of lip service regarding their opposition, there’s no tension whatsoever between the blues and the grays.

However, it still ranks as one of their better films. First off, Bill Oberst Jr is terrific as Abe, taking it totally serious and getting the voice and mannerisms down pat; when he’s not fighting zombies you can buy him as playing the man in a legitimate drama. I don’t know if he’s ever played the role before, but he’s in some good company (Lance Henriksen, and Daniel Day Lewis in Spielberg’s upcoming film), and does a damn respectful job. I don’t know how many Asylum films I’ve seen, but I certainly know that this is the first one that had a real performance at its center, so well done.

I also liked how they made some admirable attempts to fit it into the real history of Gettysburg, bookending the film with Abe’s difficulty in coming up with something to say only for the events of the film to serve as his muse. And Abe was sick for real during his address, so it’s kind of funny that they chalk it up to him being exhausted after a few days of fighting zombies. There are other little touches as well; he even has a young Teddy Roosevelt aiding him during the battle. But the best is kind of a twist; John Wilkes Booth is another character in the film, and how they tie in his importance to the ridiculous plot of the movie is kind of genius, even somewhat touching.

And that’s the thing that is either a major problem or a good sign about the movie – they almost seem to be trying to make a real movie here. Overall I think the Asylum has improved over the past couple of years, churning out more consistently enjoyable films and living up to (muted) expectations, but I’m not sure if this particular title was the one where they should be trying out legitimately interesting story ideas or laudable lead performances. Try as they may, at the end of the day it’s still a movie about the President of the United States fighting zombies, and thus it’s impossible to take seriously. I couldn’t help but wonder if they shouldn’t have just had Oberst as a legit Abe on the sidelines as his secret service guys (and his ex-girlfriend, who they run into) did all the zombie fighting. It might have been easier to swallow. At any rate, I laud the Asylum for inching closer to making movies that feel like they have real scripts, and hope they continue putting in this level of effort with the storytelling and acting. As long as they know that if they present what seems like a real movie, I have to give it real criticism, instead of just grading them on how bored I get like usual.

The disc has two extras of note; a gag reel that doesn’t seem to have any actual mistakes, and a brief making of that curiously focuses on key grips and gaffers instead of any of the principles. A full minute of it is devoted to a crew member’s (quite understandable) attraction to actress Hannah Bryan, which is kind of weird but probably the only interesting thing about it. Sadly (for real!) there is no commentary – given the authentic location and what I assume are Civil War re-enactors filling out the cast, there was probably something interesting to talk about for a change. Oh well.

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Vampira & Me (2012)

JUNE 7, 2012

GENRE: DOCUMENTARY
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

My introduction to Vampira was probably the same as many from my generation – as a character played by Lisa Marie in the 1994 film Ed Wood (Tim Burton’s last film not based on pre-existing property! Just a guy’s life), as she was a co-star in his infamous Plan 9 From Outer Space. Over the years I had picked up little bits and pieces about her life, such as her failed attempt to sue Elvira and the sad fact that she lived in poverty for most of her post-Vampira life, but it wasn’t until today, when I sat down to watch the documentary Vampira & Me, that I ever learned anything of real note about her – including her real name (Maili Nurmi).

Written, directed, edited, produced, etc by R H Greene, the doc is mostly centered around an interview with Nurmi that Greene shot for an unrelated project. Apparently he didn’t get to use much of that footage for the other piece, so he used it as the skeleton for a full length look at her strange and sad life. Nurmi’s is the only on-screen interview in the film; other folks (including comedian Dana Gould) are heard but not seen giving their thoughts on the woman. It can make things a bit awkward, especially when Greene has to clarify who someone is in between breaks in their audio (“Close personal friend”), but I appreciate that he never broke his rule.

However, I can’t be as forgiving for the excess of random stock footage that permeates the film throughout; even the end credits are padded with puzzling footage from 1950s television that doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Vampira. As we learn in the film, there is precious little footage of her in character – her show was broadcast live before the invention of videotape, so nothing was archived. OK, but why do we need to see some unknown variety show over the end credits? Why does Imogene Coca appear so many times? I understand the need to show how she was so different than the other women on TV, but that point is made clear quickly, but the footage keeps showing up. Thus, at times it feels like Greene forgot that he was making a movie about Vampira, not the advent of television in the 1950s.

He can also be maddeningly vague or unfocused about certain topics, particularly her relationship with James Dean. Once good friends, there was apparently an article in some tabloid that suggested her and her “black magic” were the cause of his death, something that understandably upset her a great deal. Greene mentions the existence of this article what seems like a full half hour before explaining what it was about – by that point I had forgotten the context it was originally brought up in the first place. The details of her show’s cancellation are also glossed over, and he neglects to mention two of her three marriages or her post 60s film work (she had a bit part in the “lost” Ed Wood film I Woke Up Early The Day I Died); even her death is treated as an afterthought.

Thus, I couldn’t help but wonder if using the interview as the film’s backbone was the best idea. Since every topic springs from that discussion, it leaves obvious holes in the narrative, so I would suggest reading up a bit on her before sitting down to see the movie. That way you can further appreciate its strengths, such as Nurmi’s obvious comfort and familiarity with Greene, which allows for some wonderful bits of candid reflection. She tells stories of dealing with crazed fans and how she feels about people like Elvira with a refreshing honesty but lack of bitterness that is quite rare to see in these sort of things. And Greene obviously had access to things that a regular interviewer may not, such as recordings of her never completed memoirs, home movies with first husband Dean Reisener, and even a few contracts with ABC from her show.

I also liked that it didn’t turn into too much of a downer, despite the fact that it seems impossible based on the facts. After the appeal of Vampira dwindled (something that’s never really explained – it almost seems like people lost interest overnight), Nurmi worked blue collar jobs like installing linoleum, lived in a 10x20 garage, and became a bit of a recluse, but Greene doesn’t dwell on these things. Instead he focuses on the positive aspects of the last 45 years of her life, such as her iconic stature within the punk rock genre (she even offered guest vocals on a few tracks from Satan’s Cheerleaders) and fan appreciation at conventions and the like. I wouldn’t call it a “happy ending”, exactly, but Greene manages to keep it far from depressing.

Greene’s obvious affection and connection to Ms. Nurmi can make it feel like we’re butting in on someone’s private conversation at times, but it’s an off-kilter approach to a celebrity documentary that I mostly enjoyed. It’s hard to tell if its issues were the result of sticking too closely to the idea of using a single interview as its center, or Greene failing to realize that we as audience members aren’t as close to her as he was and thus are in the dark about certain areas that are common knowledge to him, but the movie still works in spite of them. It’s playing at the LA Film Fest on June 23rd if you’re in the area and would like to see it for yourself; I assume more festival runs are in its future.

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Fear Island (2009)

JUNE 6, 2012

GENRE: SLASHER, TEEN
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX INSTANT)

Sometimes I do those jigsaw puzzles where they don’t show you the actual picture on the box, and you just have to figure it out based on your awesome jigsaw puzzle skills. And every time I do, I reach a point where I’ve gotten the majority of it completed and know what the “answer” is, but there’s still like 100 pieces of filler to put in before it’s actually done, which is boring even by puzzle standards (I do them to relax, leave me alone). Anyway, I got that same feeling while watching Fear Island, an attempt at taking a Usual Suspects type approach to a generic teen slasher.

See, the whole movie is flashback, with survivor Haylie Duff telling the cops the story of how all of her friends ended up dead during their impossibly generic island vacation (“one last get together before we all went off”). There is no reason to do this unless it’s trying to keep us from figuring out a key twist too early, so right off the bat any sane viewer would be expecting Duff as the killer, just as the cop does. Side note, the cop is played by Martin Cummings, aka the nerdy Wayne from Jason Takes Manhattan! Great to see that dude.

But of course, that’d be too easy, so the movie is presented in a way in which it’s impossible for Duff to be the killer, because she’s elsewhere during a kill scene or two, which makes the other twist easy to figure out as well. Indeed, the movie even barely tries to hide who Duff claims the killer is (at the very end; she has “amnesia” so she can’t just come out and tell the cops who the killer is), with the person randomly pointing out an item she wouldn’t have actually noticed unless she put it there. It’s bad enough to figure out a twist, but to figure out that it’s a fake twist AND figure out the real one? Come on, I’m not THAT good at these things. You’re all just lousy writers, and now I have it all figured out with another 25 minutes or so to go, which is just torture.

Then again, the movie is clearly aimed at teens, most of whom are probably too dim or not paying enough attention to figure these things out (indeed, the IMDb board has several “I don’t get it!” posts from people who couldn’t follow it), so maybe they knew they couldn’t make it too hard to figure out or their target audience’s heads would explode. Likewise, they might have assumed no one would be putting too much thought into it and thus wouldn’t question that the real killer’s plan makes no sense at all and requires a “body double” to get away with it. The cops would also have to conveniently neglect to pull up the photo ID of someone they suspect of being a killer (there’s an assumed identity element), but this is Canada so maybe they do things differently.

And I could forgive all that if it was at least a decent slasher, but it fails there too. Nearly all of the kills are off-screen, and there’s no gore of note when the bodies are discovered (the movie was apparently produced for television, but it was released theatrically – you’re supposed to go back and make it worthy of its R rating when that happens! See: Mulholland Drive). The killer doesn’t have any sort of costume, and there aren’t even any real stalk scenes; they come out of nowhere (if they’re on-screen at all). No, most of the movie is simply the characters running around by themselves until they find one of the others, at which point they inquire as to where the still off-screen characters are. There’s a subplot about a stolen dog and the usual relationship drama, but otherwise the entire thing is an extended “____ is missing we have to find them!” “No we need to get the hell out of here!” type argument that never ends. Oh, and the back-story reveals that just about all of our characters are even bigger assholes than already expected, so there’s another red mark.

Oh, and it has cinema’s quickest solving of a riddle ever. The killer keeps leaving these words around, like "Innocent", "Evil", "Guilty", etc. Out of nowhere, one of them realizes that it’s a code and writes them all down, at which point they see that the first letter in each word spells out REGINA, the name of the girl who died in the obligatory tragic back-story. I was actually hoping it was referring to Regina, the Canadian town where they shot Grace and some other horror films, and the characters would have to go there to figure out more of the mystery, but alas. I also like that they guess words that don’t have six letters (“Angie?”) as if the killer was trying to throw them off of his weird puzzle by adding extra letters.

But that just strengthens my point: it’s such a stupid goddamn movie, and if you’re a smart teen you should be insulted by the fact that this is the stuff producers are trying to sell to you. Stick with the ones your older siblings (or even your parents, now) tell you about, you’ll be a better person.

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Dark Mirror (2007)

JUNE 5, 2012

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

My good friend Film Crit Hulk (birth name!) just saw Poltergeist for the first time, and I joked about how he *had* to see Poltergeist III immediately, making a crack about that movie’s silly obsession with mirrors. Fitting, then, that I’d watch Dark Mirror, another haunted mirror film that, unlike Poltergeist, no one would ever be incredulous about a big movie guy having never seen it. I’d actually be curious who saw the thing outside of DVD reviewers and people like me who just queue up everything in the horror section and hope for the best.

It’s not really that bad of a movie, it’s just so bland and inconsequential that I had a hard time remembering what it was about even as I watched it. It’s reasonably well made, the FX are decent, and lead actress Lisa Vidal is an engaging and quite lovely presence, but it all serves a snoozer of a tale about a bored, frustrated housewife who begins to suspect that the mirrors in her new house are haunted. Also, whoever she takes a picture of is killed or disappears, so you get two plots you’ve seen before in one! Three if you count the fact that she might just be crazy, a la Polanski's Repulsion.

It’s also frustrating at times, because the director has a tendency not to show you what’s really going on during certain scenes. For example, there’s a bit where Vidal gets into her car after being spooked, and there’s a closeup of her car door brushing against that of the car next to her – a move that might annoy the other car’s owner if they noticed, but in no way could have even caused a scuff let alone any real damage. However, the owner DOES get angry – almost violently so in fact, screaming and banging on Vidal’s car and making threats. Is she just a pain in the ass, or did Vidal actually bang the thing hard and only THINK that she just tapped it? Being that this is a “is she crazy or not?” movie, it’s a bit weird to basically show us that OTHER characters are acting insane in broad daylight without a second look at the car to show the damage, if any exists.

There’s also a weird bit where she proves that something fishy is up to her husband, by showing him that the bathroom mirror is reflecting a door in the hallway that isn’t actually there. He sees it, or at least, the way the scene is directed it SEEMS like he sees it, yet he just acts like she’s being a weirdo and is too tired to deal with nonsense like this. Without it clearly established that he couldn’t see anything, it just comes across like him being an asshole. Then again, it’s better than exposition, which is the only thing Vidal’s mother is there to do. Played by Lupe Ontiveros (who only plays one of two roles: maids, or the main character’s meddling mother – obviously it’s the latter here), she helps Vidal in that rarest of movie scenes: a dueling exposition conversation! Lupe starts explaining how mirrors were believed to protect the soul or some shit, and then Vidal is like “I have a book on that!” and begins explaining the other secret powers of mirrors. And here I thought they were just something to help me make sure I don’t have any crumbs in my beard.

At least the twist works OK enough. Turns out that one character has been dead the entire movie, which I didn’t see coming, and the identity of the killer isn’t too surprising, but it plays out well and ends on a downer, so points for that. But honestly, by that point I just wanted the movie to be over, and apart from admiring Ms. Vidal (and her chemistry with the guy playing her husband, which was quite good compared to most productions of this sort), there wasn’t really anything holding my interest beyond “I need to finish this so I can write my review”. And there my dusty copy of Skyrim sat, wondering why I had neglected it for so long...

The DVD has a few extras: the trailer, the least essential deleted scene of all time (it’s so pointless I was amazed it was even shot and edited), and a brief making of that seems assembled to amuse the crew, not home viewers. Then there’s a commentary by the husband/wife team that made the movie, as well as Vidal, and it’s much like the film itself: serviceable but wholly unnecessary. Apart from telling us on several occasions that they ripped 30 pages out of the script right before shooting began due to budgetary issues, there’s nothing of interest, and even though they never fall silent they never get around to explaining why they wanted to make the movie in the first place. Was it for my benefit, since I’m probably the only person who has rented it all year and only did so for a daily entry? If so, don’t do me any favors!

What say you?

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