Halloween: Unrated Director's Cut (2007)

JANUARY 15, 2008

GENRE: REMAKE, SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (Sigh... OWN COLLECTION)

While HMAD sort of got ‘famous’ for posting a list of all the differences between the “workprint” and theatrical versions of Rob Zombie’s Halloween, I never actually reviewed that version. And I kind of feel bad about that, because in all honesty, it was a much better film in that form. It still suffered from major problems, but many of the things I disliked in the theatrical version were corrected, or at least improved, in the original version. With that in mind, I was actually looking forward to Rob’s official “Director’s Cut”, which was issued on DVD alongside the theatrical. But as it turns out, this version is, astonishingly enough, the WORST of the three.

Luckily, some of the “workprint” stuff has been re-inserted in the film, such as Michael following Laurie home after school (the only sort of “stalking” scene of merit in the entire film) and another scene with Udo Kier, rendering his cameo slightly less jarring. So folks who never saw the workprint version sort of luck out in these regard, as these scenes help the film. Unfortunately, Rob chose to go back to the original, awful version of Michael’s escape, which involves raping a female inmate and more general redneckery. The theatrical version (Michael kills a bunch of cameos, er, guards during a transfer) isn’t all that much better, but it’s at least consistent with the film’s ideas. This version sort of sets up Michael as a sympathetic antihero, who escaped because it was convenient at the time. But making the whole thing even STUPIDER, this version also has the Danny Trejo death scene (not in the workprint), which means Michael just sort of hung around the hospital long after he could have escaped so he could kill the film’s only sympathetic character. Fine, whatever.

Some stuff in this version wasn’t in either of the previous cuts (see the updated list for a fullish rundown of changes), but most of it is sort of superfluous, like an extra asylum “interview” in which no one speaks. One thing of note is some grainy super 16 footage, presumably shot by Loomis, of young Michael in a mask. During these quick inserts (there’s like 3 or 4 sprinkled into the asylum sequence), Loomis explains a bit about all of the masks Michael made, and these bits also help clarify how much time has passed. The only other “new” addition of note is a quick bit during the finale that proves that Loomis HAS in fact survived his injuries. This struck me as odd – when I interviewed Rob for the DVD release I asked if Loomis survived or not and he said that’s up to the producers. But now it’s pretty obvious he lives – a few minutes after Michael squishes his head, Loomis grabs at Michael from the floor, and then Michael just sort of brushes him off. While it’s sort of an OK addition, it also makes the brutally bad continuity error of Loomis’ head injuries all the more apparent, so if it’s NOT there to help explain that Loomis is indeed alive, why bother putting it in at all? Again, whatever.

Speaking of the ending, this version has the theatrical ending (though I never noticed before, you can see an out of focus cop, possibly Brackett, in the background while Loomis talks; a remnant of the previous, and superior ending). This ending is not only insanely overlong (Michael smashes the ceiling for what seems like a full 5 minutes), but it also once again puts the focus on Laurie, who is a non-character in the remake. She doesn’t appear until an hour into the film, and even then she’s not exactly front and center for the most part. If not for the fact that the NAME “Laurie Strode” is important to the Halloween legacy, the film gives absolutely no reason for us to really care about her any more than her annoying friends (or anyone else in the movie who is actually allowed more than one scene). In the workprint version, the film is more clearly about Michael and Loomis, but in the theatrical (and now, this “definitive”) cuts, the movie is about Michael and Loomis for one half, and Michael and Laurie for another.

A couple of the editing decisions that were made for the theatrical release remain correct. The truly stupid scene from the workprint where Lynda pours a drink all over a female classmate is nowhere to be seen, and Rob was wise to keep in the “color spectrum” scene that was absent from the workprint. Not that it’s a particular highlight of the film, but it lengthens the asylum stuff, which is not only the best segment of the film but also delays the point in time where Michael escapes, at which point all three versions of the film fall apart (to differing degrees).

Rob’s commentary isn’t particularly enlightening; he mentions the reshoots on occasion but doesn’t quite go into detail about them, nor does he pull a Michael Bay and start going off on the public reception (listen to the commentary for The Island – all of a sudden Bay begins ranting and raving about the box office gross, it’s fucking amazing). Instead, he just sort of discusses where each scene was shot and tells some humorous anecdotes about a few of the actors (apparently Danny Trejo didn’t like that he looked “like a bitch” as he was drowned). So I was a bit disappointed; I would have liked to have heard him be a bit defensive and talk about the genesis of his ideas. But still, I like listening to Rob speak, even if I disagree with some of his choices, and frankly I’d much rather listen to him talk about Pasadena shooting locations than Laurie talk about being molested by the hardware store owner.

So oh well. The last chance the movie had at working, but it ends up being the least effective. Like I’ve said all along, I wasn’t on the “hate” train with this movie; I like a lot of remakes and I like Rob’s other films. And there are a few scenes that I really enjoy, plus there are two good jump scares. But overall it just doesn’t work for me. Can’t say I haven’t tried – this makes the 6th time I have watched the film in some form (7 if you count the commentary viewing), which is more of a chance than I have given any other movie in history that I’ve disliked (and 7 more chances than most of the film’s hardcore detractors ever gave it). I even bought the damn thing; this wasn't a studio freebie (gee, wonder why they didn't want to give me one for free?). Let’s move on, shall we?

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Leopard Man

JANUARY 15, 2008

GENRE: PREDATOR, SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: CABLE (TCM)

Just yesterday I was praising Turner Classic Movies (see?), and now I shall again. Although I heard about it a bit too late for the whole thing, last night they showed pretty much all of Val Lewton’s horror movies, along with a documentary about him, and I DVRed the hell out of the remainder of the marathon. The first I got was The Leopard Man, a film that sort of gives away its own ending in the title.

Yes, whenever someone dies in the movie, an escaped leopard is blamed. But the movie is called Leopard MAN after all, so you know it’s not that simple. Amusingly, the characters go at great lengths to blame only the poor leopard for the killings; both the guy who owned the thing and the graveyard keeper who locked one victim inside the graveyard (preventing her escape) are told they shouldn’t feel guilty. Yes they fucking should! Especially in the latter case, whether it’s a leopard or a man or a sandwich, the dude locked the poor broad inside, knowing that she was still in there! Asshole!

These scenes are quite good (especially the first one, where the girl is pleading for help and her bitch of a mother refuses to unlock the door, thinking she is faking her terror). Unfortunately, the in between scenes that focus on the rather melodramatic lives of rival cigarette girls (there’s a rare term) aren’t as interesting, because, well, I could care less about the romantic lives of rival cigarette girls. Presenting them in soap opera fashion certainly doesn’t help matters. However, since the movie is only 66 minutes long, there isn’t a lot of room for these type of scenes; not enough to kill the movie at any rate.

What IS almost enough to kill the movie is the sound of one of the girls’ rattles that she uses in her dancing routine. It’s annoying enough to listen to during the routine, but she pretty much plays with it in all of her scenes. Put the damn thing away!

According to delightfully dull TCM host Robert Osborne, this was the final collaboration between Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur (the actual director; Lewton was just the producer), the other two being Cat People and I Walked With A Zombie (which are the two movies I missed). I’ve never heard much about the others I got, so it’s kind of a bummer that I missed out on the most famous of the bunch. Still, there were like eight movies in all (I think they basically just ran the DVD box set listed below), of which I got five (I also skipped the Cat People sequel, per my “go in order” rule) so expect to see more Lewton-centric reviews in the coming week or so. Hurrah for TCM! This helps me slow down how many discs I rent from Blockbuster Online... I think I am singlehandedly to blame for them jacking up the cost of their ‘Total Access’ program, which I have abused the hell out of since its inception. Sorry bout that.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Pit And The Pendulum (1961)

JANUARY 14, 2008

GENRE: REVENGE
SOURCE: CABLE (TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES)

Man, good thing I caught Pit And The Pendulum on Turner Classic Movies (best non-premium movie channel ever!), where it was presented in letterbox format, and not on a Mill Creek budget pack, like many other Roger Corman movies I watch. Corman filled the frame in almost every shot, and I would hate to see it cropped. He might be known as a cheapskate, hack, etc, but damned if this movie doesn’t look great throughout.

Like a lot of Poe movies, the part that actually follows the short story is pretty much the finale, so the writers have come up with an hour or so of “prequel” in order to make a film (though I am guessing someone like Ti West, the master of padding, could take a 2-3 page Poe story and make an 80 minute film out of it without adding a goddamn thing). And the one they came up with is... strangely similar to the plot of the same team's House Of Usher, which came out the year before. Like that film, a guy arrives at a castle to question Vincent Price about the status of a shared loved one (this time it’s HIS sister/Price’s wife, whereas in Usher it was the other way around), leading to a lot of heated arguments and finally, an ending in which someone gets punched in a dungeon.

But it’s a lot of fun. Price gets to go all over the place in this one, from his usual smarmy creep, to a scared and disturbed grieving widow, and finally a madman who tries to kill everyone and manages to fail on all accounts (of his 3 intended victims, one falls to his own death, one escapes and the other is left forgotten inside a cage). The other lead, the guy who plays his brother-in-law, looks constipated throughout the film, and he’s pretty much a bore, but really, when you have Price around, why bother casting someone with any screen presence? It will all be vacuumed up by Price anyway. And Barbara Steele is also on hand, though not as much as I hoped given her billing prominence. She’s seen mainly in oddly colored, mute flashbacks throughout the film. In the finale she comes back and plays her usual whorish bitch of a woman, but it’s not enough. More Steele!

Speaking of the credits, Pendulum is a rare film that has the cast listed at the top of the film but none of the crew. I can see why you might not want to let an audience know right off the bat that they are about to watch a Roger Corman movie, but it’s still pretty odd, especially for the time period (in which, most of the time, they would list EVERYONE in the cast and crew at the beginning, and then just have THE END at the end, with maybe a single card for the cast). Corman probably just forgot to pay the credit titles guy.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Silk

JANUARY 13, 2008

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

Now that I’ve seen more than just a couple clunkers, I am starting to appreciate Asian horror a bit more. I don’t find them as particularly terrifying as I am told they are, but the past few I have watched have been engaging and, more importantly, made fucking sense. Silk (aka Guisi) is another that uses storytelling logic, and it is appreciated. In fact, this may be one of the most accessible Asian horror films I have seen yet, especially of the ones dealing with, once again, vengeful ghosts.

This one sort of plays out like a Michael Crichton movie for a while. We have a team of scientists trying to solve some science-y problem, in this case anti-gravity, only all hell breaks loose. The horror elements are actually fairly light until the final 20 minutes or so, as most of the movie is devoted to explaining what they are trying to do and one of them following the little ghost kid around trying to solve his mystery (which, unsurprisingly, involves the usual untraditional burial). I liked this approach; since I don’t find the notion of a little Asian kid making weird sounds to be very scary, a film that uses this device every 5 minutes ends up annoying me. By sticking to the story and saving the scares for when they logically made sense, I ended up being more unsettled by the developments.

For the most part, the movie makes conventional sense, but some things were left a bit confusing. For example, the lead of the film is a cop who the scientists bring in because he can see “faster” than most people. But they all see the ghost, and the damn thing isn’t exactly running around (most of the time he’s just sitting there, in fact), so why do they need his super speedy eyes? Also, they are of the belief that understanding how this kid died will let them solve the mystery of anti-gravity? Sure, why not. I should note that, as always, since the film is subtitled and I like to actually look at the imagery, these things might have been explained in a quick line that I missed, so I dunno.

This film also contains the best use of beef noodles in a movie ever. One of the team says “I want beef noodles.” Later he repeats this desire, and leaves to get them. Then, a few minutes later, an unrelated scene is interrupted by him walking up to a clerk and ordering beef noodles, and once again a few scenes later they cut to him receiving his beef noodles (the waiter refers to them by name). At this point, we have heard the term BEEF NOODLES four times in about 10 minutes. So it comes as no surprise that the ghost climbs out of his bowl of beef noodles and chokes him to death. This results in the cook seeing the guy die (not the ghost), and then yelling “Who ever heard of dying from beef noodles!” It’s fucking delightful, and makes me want to eat beef noodles.

The DVD comes with a few deleted scenes and an alternate ending that provides a sort of Twilight Zone coda for one of the characters. Like The Descent, both endings work fine; one will leave you saying “you did that for nothing” and the other “you shouldn’t have done that!” I think the one you prefer will depend on how much you enjoy the concept of Schadenfreude. These scenes are presented in a variety of aspect ratios, waging war on my HDTV, but at least they’re worth watching. I should note that the subtitles on all the extra features are pretty clumsy, with numerous spelling (bizarre ones like “devivery”) and grammar errors, plus they are way out of sync on the making of featurette (the subs on the film itself are done well).

Strangely, this one has no remake in development, as far as I know. Maybe Hollywood, for once, exercised good judgment, knowing that the film is perfectly accessible as is (hell, the first scene is in English!) and doesn’t need one, but come on. They probably just don’t know what could substitute for beef noodles.

What say you?

(p.s. I thought this one was recommended by a reader, but I couldn’t find it on the recommendation thread. So if you recommended it, thanks!)

PLEASE, GO ON...

Non Canon Review: Demons (1985)

JANUARY 13, 2008

GENRE: ITALIAN, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

I like that I have now gone to see revival screenings of Demons twice at the same theater, and both times I have slept through more or less the exact same parts. In fact, along with falling asleep watching it at home about two years ago, it's been so long since I've seen the whole thing that I can no longer remember how the 4 cokehead characters die. I miss it every single time.

That is not a blight on the film though. Midnight = BC goes to sleep. I actually saw more of it than I expected this time, since I was pretty close to nodding off before the damn thing even started. Being the New Beverly, the film was almost an hour late starting. In fact, they are currently remodeling the theater, and my friend commented "Maybe they will buy a new clock." Since I was half asleep and a tad buzzed, this was the funniest thing I've ever heard.

Anyway, like I was saying, it's not that I don't like the movie. Quite the contrary, it is one of my favorite Italian horror movies. Seeing it in a theater only adds to the fun. The character of Tony (aka the black pimp dude) is one of the most delightful assholes ever put into a film. There's a scene where he's just yelling at everyone to stop being lazy, and it looks like he's about to have a heart attack. The fact that he's not really doing anything makes it breathtaking. And then he gets eaten (though this doesn't stop him from being in Demons 2 as a guy with a different name but who is otherwise the exact same guy). My other favorite character is the middle aged guy who's such a cheapskate that he takes his wife to a free movie screening for their anniversary. I'm sure I'll eventually do the same goddamn thing, but I doubt I'll randomly yell out "WHORES! You can tell them a mile away!" during the evening.

Of course, one of the most baffling moments in cinematic history occurs in this film, when a helicopter suddenly falls through the ceiling of the theater, allowing our heroes to escape. There's Deus Ex Machinas, and then there's this helicopter, somewhere above it. On the commentary track, someone asks Lamberto Bava what is going on, and he's like "I don't know". Hahahaha, oh man. Love.

I also like that the movie features the first (and, as far as you know, last) villainous free movie pass guy in a film. Anyone familiar with these folks (in LA you see them more often than you see your own friends) can appreciate the notion that any one of them are one "no thanks!" away from going apeshit and trying to kill you on a roof while wearing a Phantom of the Opera mask.

You may have noticed that I have labeled this movie a zombie film. What else would you call it? The "demons" become that way when they are bitten by another demon, and they gather in groups and attack folks in a gory fashion. That's a zombie movie, as far as Horror Movie A Day genre labeling is concerned.

The fact that I don't own this (or the sequel, which I like almost as much) on DVD sort of upsets me. I need to fix that. But if you have never seen it, I strongly urge you to do so as soon as possible, and if you ever get the chance to see it in a theater, then there should be no reason for you not to attend. It's not often you find yourself in a theater watching a movie about people going to see a movie, and even less often you see that movie with some terrible dubbing and a strangely American soundtrack.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Boogeyman 2

JANUARY 12, 2008

GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

I knock it every now and then, but honestly I don’t really remember much about the original Boogeyman, other than that Xena was in it for like 2 seconds and that the alleged “hero” of the film was really the source of all the deaths, and had he just not been a fucking baby, no one would have died. Yet he was like the only survivor. Jerk.

But I remembered that I didn’t like it all that much, so I was surprised to discover how relatively un-bad the direct to video Boogeyman 2 was. It ties into the original in a very thin way (Barry Watson’s character is mentioned, and apparently now dead) but otherwise it’s not even the same subgenre. Whereas the original was your standard ghost/revenge type movie, this one’s a straight up slasher movie. Our characters are all mental patients with different phobias, and the killer kills them accordingly (i.e. stuffs the anorexic girl full of fat until she explodes). This concept gets stretched at times (the guy who is agoraphobic is suddenly simply “afraid of opening up”, apparently only so the killer can peel his skin away and grab his heart right out of his rib cage), but at least they stick with it, unlike the somewhat similar Bad Dreams, which began on this concept but did away with it after like 2 kills.

(Some spoilers follow... I know I originally said that spoilers wouldn’t be marked but I’ve decided to change this policy for newer films such as this, which has only been out a week and thus doesn’t have many other reviews yet. Plus I doubt many people rushed out to rent it the day it came out, like I inadvertently did.)

However, the Boogeyman (supernatural) one is still around, which leaves the ending of the film a bit muddled. The killer is a regular guy, but he’s nuts because he saw the supernatural boogeyman (presumably, the one from the first movie) kill his parents. So where is the supernatural one? On break? Or did he really kill his parents himself? If it’s spelled out (which is something I expect from this type of movie!!!), I missed it. Either way, I was disappointed that the supernatural Boogeyman and the guy in a mask Boogeyman never fought it out.

(end spoilers!)

Apparently the budget was lower than that of the original, which is really only evident in the casting. It’s all no names here, with some minor exceptions (including small roles by cast members from Xena and 7th Heaven, giving the film an odd connection to the original). Tobin Bell is given lots of attention on the DVD case, but he’s only in like 3-4 scenes. Still, he fares much better here than in Buried Alive, so he’s got that going for him.

I laughed when I saw the DVD listed as an “Unrated Director’s Cut”, since it’s a direct to DVD movie and thus no other version of the film exists. But, unlike many other Sony/Ghost House “unrated” versions, this one would NOT ever pass for PG-13. In addition to occasional nudity, there is a great deal of gore here, which was a pleasant surprise. And it looks good on top of that, so kudos.

One thing that DIDN’T look all that good was the nonstop handheld camerawork. In a film like United 93, it works because it’s adding to the realism. But when you’re dealing with a movie about a fucking boogeyman, realism is sort of the least of our concerns, and the fact that seemingly the entire film is shot this way, it’s a bit annoying. Get a tripod.

There are two commentary tracks, for some reason. I listened to (most of) the one with the director and writer. It’s not too bad of a track, and they are thankfully not under any idea that they have made some sort of masterpiece (nor do they knock it), but I admit I sort of zoned out after awhile. Still, it’s far more worth your time than most DTV commentary tracks (I’m looking at you, Solstice!), and I like that they name drop some more obscure slasher movies as inspiration (including April Fool’s Day; they also admit a love for Amy Steel which endeared them to me). There’s also a baffling “storyboard to screen” comparison which is mainly just a bunch of random images and film clips moving around an After Effects composition set to creepy music. I didn’t listen to the other commentary with Tobin Bell and the producers, nor will I. Despite the movie being fairly decent, there’s just something about spending 5+ hrs with Boogeyman 2 that I am not mentally comfortable with at this point in time.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Giant Gila Monster

JANUARY 11, 2008

GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

Huh. It’s not often you get to see a giant monster movie that features maybe 4 total minutes of “giant” monster action and about 60 about car repair. But hey, that’s what The Giant Gila Monster offers us, and more! And by more I mean less.

A big part of the problem with this movie is how lazy they were in demonstrating the monster’s size. On maybe three occasions they use models and a regular lizard to make him look big, but for the most part, they just have closeup shots of an obviously regular sized lizard crawling (if that) near obviously regular sized things like twigs and leaves. No rear projection or forced perspective that I can recall. This renders several early scenes utterly baffling, because I thought the monster had yet to become giant, assuming some nuclear explosion at the end of the first act would result in him becoming a monster. For example, there’s a scene where a guy is driving along in a truck, then the lizard (which is somewhere else entirely) sticks his tongue out, and suddenly the truck flips over and explodes. Huh? OH, he’s giant. Right.

The first 60 seconds are comprised of five shots, the first of which makes up about 50 of those seconds. We see an empty forest/swamp thing as a guy narrates, then suddenly, Michael Bay apparently takes over. BAM! A car. BAM! Two kids in the car getting startled. BAM! The car falls down a cliff. BAM! A monster makes what appears to be the “No cameras!” hand motion. “What the hell just happened?” you may ask, and you’d be absolutely right.

Wait, what?

Anyway, like I said before, the movie is mainly about car repair. We see our hero banging away on a driver’s side door, discussing how he towed a car, explaining why his tires are on a different car... Even when they know perfectly well that there are more pressing matters, some guy begins threatening to have him jailed for using a victim’s car for spare parts. There are occasional folk songs to break up all of the car repair scenes, but not nearly enough (at one point I sort of gave up hoping for any monster action, only something besides auto repair “intrigue”).

OK, there’s the broken cigarette, but where is the penny?

Speaking of the music, once again we have inappropriately implemented library music in a horror film. The scene I described with the kids we don’t know suddenly falling down a cliff, possibly the result of a paparazzi hating creature, has some sort of Benny Hill type thing under it. Then later, one of the interminable car repair scenes (“I thought I told you to fix that headlight.” “I thought it was a suggestion.” “How much does it cost to fix one of those?”... and so on), they play what sounds like “our hero is about to tell his tragic backstory” music. My choice would be, of course, to cut away from two boring people talking about the cost of headlight repair and maybe show a GIANT GILA MONSTER doing something.

The movie also stops cold in order to show a little girl with leg braces try to walk. After she fails, twice, the movie begins again, in that the hero begins singing a folk song. I asked my mechanic about the scene, and he said he didn’t understand how it fit into the rest of the film, which he otherwise loved.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Untraceable (2008)

JANUARY 10, 2008

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

For a while I thought I was a fan of Gregory Hoblit. I really enjoyed Frequency, and consider Hart’s War to be one of the most underrated films in Bruce Willis’ career (I am proud to say I am one of the 14 people who saw Hart’s in theaters). And Primal Fear is one of the few Ed Norton movies I can stand. But now, after the double whammy of Fracture and Untraceable, I realize that the guy doesn't really have any sort of style or recurring themes in his films, and just sort of directs whatever comes his way, much like your Roger Donaldsons or Stephen Hopkinses.

(I haven’t seen Fallen).

The problem with Untraceable is that it tries to cater to two audiences: those who like Hostel or Saw, and those who enjoy Diane Lane movies and “adult thrillers” (read: movies in which putting a child in momentary danger is considered “edgy”). And it ends up satisfying neither. The traps are incredibly weak, and the whole hook of the movie (that the more people who log into the website, the faster the victim will be killed) is never really explained. We see the numbers going up, and the music and look in the victim’s eyes tell us that THIS IS BAD, but it’s never clear what exactly the increments mean. For example, one trap involves the victim in a big vat of water. The computer tracker thingie is connected to a tank of sulfuric acid. The more people that watch, the more acid is pumped in. But it seems sort of arbitrary – the gas gets released at random hit levels (as opposed to something like “for each million viewers, 1 ounce of gas will be released”). Also, they don’t bother coming up with any sort of explanation for what would happen if people began logging off of the site.

But on the flipside, the 40ish women who flock to see Lane in things like Over The Tucson Moon or whatever the fuck will be grossed out by the “horrible” things on screen, like, well, a guy dissolving in a tub of acid. There’s also a guy who is burnt to death, another is bled to death, and a kitty is starved to death. Come on, only gorehounds will like that stuff, and they will be bored shitless by the rest of the movie. The soccer moms will be disgusted and walk out. So who wins?

Well, assholes like me do! The one saving grace of the film is reading the stuff people post as they watch the videos. Unlike pretty much anything else in the movie, the stuff the kids say in response to the video feels authentic, with “ROFL he’s ded” (sic) and “OMG WTF?!?!?!?” type things flashing by. Most of them are only funny if you’ve seen the respective video, or otherwise I would post more (my favorite is one guy’s anger at “watching a house”). Had the entire movie just been a nonstop scroll of these comments, it would probably be my favorite movie of the year.

Another thing they totally skip over is how an FBI agent manages to get captured by a guy smaller than him (I’m not giving anything away, the killer’s identity is not a secret and he is 'revealed' in the first half hour). Like the notion of people logging off the site, it seems whatever they couldn’t come up with a plausible explanation for, they just skipped it entirely. They set up that he’s the killer’s target, and then viola! He’s tied to a torture device.

I wish they kept this practice for a truly idiotic plot device involving Morse code. The aforementioned FBI agent begins blinking strangely, and Lane figures out that it’s Morse code. This is sort of dumb, but I probably would have went with it. Unfortunately, it’s foreshadowed by the clunkiest line of dialogue ever recorded in a film. Earlier in the film, the same agent comments “Too bad he wasn’t a boy scout, he could bleed in Morse code and tell us his location.” That doesn’t make any fucking sense whatsoever, and no human being would ever say such a thing, UNLESS he was setting up the usage of Morse later in the film. Fucking Christ.

However, I will admit that I liked how, for once, when the one guy who knows Morse begins transcribing the message, he doesn’t find himself magically at the beginning of the phrase. I always hate that in movies, the person translating the code somehow knows everything the guy said prior to the revelation. It’s like, “It’s Morse Code! (grabs pen and paper) ‘Beep BEEEEP Beep Beep BEEEEEP’.... OK he says he is being held at the St James Hotel in room 405 and that there are 12 guys on him with assault rifles and also...”

Well, whatever. It’s a Screen Gems movie, so who is expecting anything but the hope they won’t want their money back? I saw it for free (though I had to pay 3 bucks for parking AND fight an hour’s worth of traffic to get there) so I don’t qualify, but had I paid for it, I guess I’d be OK with the loss of 10 bucks. I like Lane OK enough, and the dude playing her partner was kind of funny, since he swore all the time. Generic time-killer, nothing more, nothing less. *shrug*

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Girl Next Door

JANUARY 9, 2008

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Knowing how terrible Blockbuster is when two movies share a title (try to rent the 2003 Scream Bloody Murder from them), I wonder how many folks will queue the well-meaning and occasionally funny The Girl Next Door (2004), starring Elisha Cuthbert and Timothy Olyphant, and end up getting The Girl Next Door (2007), the decidedly UNFUNNY movie about a crazy woman instructing her teenage children and their friends to abuse her niece in the basement.

Luckily the latter film is the one I intended to see, so all is well. The film is quite good, an adaptation of a novel considered unfilmable (you know, like Ballard’s Crash, and in that case they were apparently right). And I was happy to see the ‘torture’ scenes filmed as un-exploitative as possible, which helped sell the realism, not to mention make it far more effective than trash like Driller Killer or whatever.

This movie isn’t for the faint of heart. The structure is solid in that it gradually builds the level of abuse that this poor girl has to endure, slowly drawing you into the terrible things that are inflicted on her (as opposed to something like the Saw films, which more or less begin with horrible abuse and go from there). No, here it starts with subtle verbal putdowns, escalates to harsher words and slight physical abuse, and ends up... well, let’s just say any female viewers will likely never want to see a blowtorch ever again.

There are two problems I had with the film, however. One is that it’s too short. As well paced as the girl’s downfall is, we don’t get to really know her abusers beforehand. I think an extra 10-15 minutes devoted to these kids’ regular lives prior to the “main event” of the film, as well as their relationship with the aunt, would have helped. The other problem is that the girl playing the lead is clearly around 18, whereas all of the other kids are about 10-14 (her age is never specified, but we are led to believe they are around the same age). Since the whole idea is built around the notion that kids will do whatever adults tell them to do, it seems like they should listen to HER as well, since she’s at least old enough to be in a position to tell them what to do as well. It also makes her character look slightly retarded in her early scenes, because she is ACTING like she’s much younger. Kind of odd.

Still, I can appreciate this sort of “spin on the suburban dream” type movie, and the young actors are pretty good. And, like so few horror movies are anymore, it’s genuinely upsetting (knowing that it’s based on a true story (Google it) certainly helps in that department – if anything the movie is fairly tame compared to what really happened to the poor girl). Plus, there are TWO Die Hard veterans in the cast (über-asshole William Atherton, and the lovable bomb technician guy from Die Hard With A Vengeance), so it comes highly recommended.

One thing I do NOT recommend is the audio commentary by the writers. I haven’t listened to the director/producer one, but the screenwriters drone on about symbolism and whine about script changes. They also frequently disagree with one another about “who cares?” type things. At one point, Jack Ketchum (the author of the book) makes fun of the two screenwriters for pointing out the symbolism of a “phallic tree with a vaginal gash”. I should note one of the writers is Daniel Farrands, who wrote the gist of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (a film heavily re-written/edited by Dimension and director Joe Chapelle). It’s difficult to discern his screenwriting talent from one film that was heavily reworked by outside sources and another that’s based on a novel, but regardless, on a basic (read: ignorant) level, this is a much better film than you might expect from the writer of the 2nd worst Halloween movie. And there’s even a Haddonfield reference!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Furnace

JANUARY 8, 2008

GENRE: GHOST
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Every now and then I see a movie that leaves absolutely no impression on me (something you can probably tell from the accompanying review). Furnace is one of those movies. Hell I even rewatched parts of it just to see if I could get anything out of it, but no. My note page is blank, and there are no extras on the DVD I can use to help me.

I should note that the director is one William Butler. Butler was a familiar face in late 80s horror movies, getting killed in Leatherface, Friday the 13th VII, and the Night of the Living Dead remake. He has shifted to directing/writing in recent years, and this is his 2nd film as a director (he also wrote Return of the Living Dead 4 and 5). He is a source of amusement to me, because one year at a Fangoria convention he sat in front of me and my friends and was obnoxious as hell. Seems like a nice enough guy though.

Anyway, the film is sort of a Ring wannabe (the chick that played Samara in Ring Two is in it, as a normal character, and I should note she is fucking cute as hell), just not as interesting. Nothing about the film is bad on a technical level (the HD looks pretty good, in fact), though the editing is pretty bad in spots (there’s a scene of a character holding a gun on another and I can’t even tell if they are facing one another or the gun wielder is behind the other guy). The acting is sufficient, with a couple of rappers (Ja Rule and Paul Wall) mixed in with B-movie kingpins like Danny Trejo and Michael Paré. And poor Tom Sizemore is also on hand, doing nothing to help us remember that at one point he was one of the most interesting character actors in Hollywood. This makes him 0-4 in Horror Movie A Day land, though this film, bland and forgettable as it may be, is certainly better than Bottom Feeder or Ring Around The Rosie (the other one is The Relic, which is slightly better than this, mainly because I could remember it the next day.

I really wish I could write a more interesting review. But seriously, the movie is like a fucking vacuum. I actually have it on in the background right now as I write this, and I’m still at a loss to come up with anything worth mentioning, good or bad. The movie is just... there. I can’t even think of anything to screenshot.

Oh wait, there is one thing. The fucking climax is during the end credits. The movie ends, the credits roll, and then suddenly, the final scene, which involves the death of a major character, begins to play alongside the credits, as if it were a blooper reel in a Jackie Chan movie. So yeah, if you check the film out, make sure you keep watching for a bit during the credits, or else you’ll miss out on some primo Sizemore screen-time.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

The Terror

JANUARY 7, 2008

GENRE: GHOST, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

I used to refer to The Terror as my "Bedtime Movie". I bought it on VHS for like 39 cents when I was 16, thinking it was some lost gem. “How can it be bad, with Karloff AND Nicholson?” I said to myself. “Stop talking to yourself!” replied the clerk at Suncoast. Anyway, a few attempts to watch the film over the next week all resulted in me falling asleep within minutes. From then on, whenever I had trouble falling asleep, I would put it in and let nature take its course (this is back when I used to be allowed to have a TV in the bedroom. Never get married, kids!). Until today, I had never seen the whole thing (I even re-bought the film on its own DVD and still never made it through, making this budget copy version the 3rd copy I have owned!).

I don’t know how the hell I used to fall asleep during the first 10 minutes though. In the first SIX SECONDS we are given a spooky castle, waves crashing violently on the shore, and Karloff walking down some stairs. OK that’s not very exciting, but the way the 3 shots are edited together is so rough and violent, it seems like it is. Over the next few minutes we’re also treated to Jack Nicholson throwing his compass away because it’s not working in the spot he’s in (which is like when a guy in an action movie throws away a gun when it runs out of ammo. They’re not disposable!!!); a near drowning or two, Nicholson yelling at a woman, a bird attack, Nicholson trying to punch said bird, and what I am pretty sure is Dustin Hoffman in drag:

There’s also a nifty opening credit sequence that features some animation, giving the film a bit of extra production value (this is a Roger Corman movie, so PV is welcome wherever it can be found). This credit sequence also features several future names, including Monte Hellman and Francis Ford Coppola (both of whom were among the many uncredited directors of this movie), and the odd listing of RICHARD Miller instead of the usual Dick. Miller is at his most serious in this movie (never cracks a smile or does anything amusing.... hell, his character isn’t even named Walter Paisley), which is perhaps why he used his full name. Also an animated dove, for some reason.

I hope I still have that old DVD, because the compression on this is the worst I have ever seen on these budget packs. There’s a lot of water in the film (always a tough thing for compression, even on otherwise respectable DVDs), which doesn’t help, but even in non-water scenes, it’s very pixely. The whole climax of the film (it’s actually considered trivia that this Corman film has a water finale instead of a fire) looks less like a film and more like a very unattractive mosaic:

As for the movie itself, I haven’t a clue. There’s a woman who may be a ghost, a Baron who may not be the Baron, Nicholson supposedly being in the French army, a witch with a bird she can control, a mute... it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the film was made up as they went along, with several directors shooting stuff more or less at random. At one point, Miller explains that Karloff’s character killed the real Baron and took his place, and now believes he really is the Baron. Didn’t anyone notice? Is his Baron title just sort of honorary?

Corman apparently spent some time just shooting all of the actors walking up and down stairs, figuring he could work it all into the film somehow (and he does! That first shot of Karloff makes sense now!). As was often the case with Corman, the film was shot over a few days, using sets that were about to be torn down. The result is as slipshod as you might expect from such a shooting design, but yet it’s still strangely appealing, with the nonsensical story always moving along, plus some occasional gore. The end of the film, featuring a melting woman (no idea) was on my Doorways to Horror game that I mentioned in another review. So you know it’s good.

There are lots of errors in the movie (including “stones” that float), but my favorite was the giant metal door. Karloff raises the thing using a chain. He ducks under it, and it immediately falls back down (since no one is holding the chain). Then Miller and Nicholson open it, but this time it stays open, for no reason other than the fact Nicholson has to run back outside a few moments later. As he does, the door dutifully drops back down as soon as he gets through. It’s like the world’s first automatic door (the movie it set in 1806). Amazing.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Don't Look Now (1973)

JANUARY 6, 2008

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Yet another example of why you gotta watch movies in order... there weren’t a lot of “horror” scenes in Don’t Look Now to begin with, but they were rendered a bit boring to me due to the fact that most of them were “homaged” in Alice, Sweet Alice, which I watched a few months ago. Goddammit. If you’ll excuse me, I am going to put my entire queue in chronological order, to prevent this sort of thing from happening ever again (of course, had I watched the film at the time HMAD reader Damian recommended it, I could have avoided this issue).

Needless to say I wasn’t as freaked out by the film’s climax as many others were. In fact, the only time I was truly terrified in the film was early on, when we are continually given the sight of Sutherland’s ass and pubic region. There’s an unspoken agreement that this film breaks – that a film should never show more of a man’s bush than his female co-star’s. This film offers far more Sutherland nudity than Julie Christie, and that is just not acceptable (this law is broken to an even more upsetting degree in the upcoming Forgetting Sarah Marshall, in which we see Jason Segel’s manhood 3 times in the film and yet neither Mila Kunis or Kristen Bell offer so much as an ass shot). I guess the female audience probably appreciates such things though, so oh well.

Speaking of that scene, I had more fun reading the trivia about the film afterwards than I did watching it. For starters, that sex scene was filmed shortly after the two met for the first time, and was also the first thing to be shot. Must have been fun. Also, I was relieved to discover a sort of answer to a long puzzling problem I suffer from: an unnatural fear of Dusty Springfield’s "You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me". I don’t know why, but the song sort of creeps me out. I suspect it may have been used in a horror or thriller movie I saw as a kid that I can otherwise no longer recall. But in the wiki entry for this film, it was noted that Pino Donaggio, the film’s composer, actually composed that song as well. Since Donaggio’s music is easily the highlight of the film (assuming you've also seen Alice, Sweet Alice already), it provides a bit of closure to know that the guy who makes creepy horror movie music also wrote a normal song that creeps me out for no other reason.

Sutherland's job in the film (church restoration... guy) is the least interesting I've ever seen for a main character in a film. Even Peter in Office Space was more interesting to watch as he did his work. There's a scene of Sutherland putting a statue back, and the fact that it's off-center provides the tension for the scene. For real.

The sound on the DVD is terrible as well, leaving several lines of dialogue to my imagination. Thus, I imagine all of those lines were about the serial killer, since otherwise, the whole subplot of the killer is pretty much the most half-assed subplot in cinematic history. Seriously, they just sort of off-hand mention the killer once or twice, and then the film’s final 5 minutes rely entirely on the killer’s “significance.” It’s like a Macguffin in reverse.

Nice Venice scenery though.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

One Missed Call (2008)

JANUARY 5, 2008

GENRE: GHOST, SUPERNATURAL, TECHNOLOGY
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

Somewhere in the world, possibly even reading this review (Hi there!), there exists a human being who thought One Missed Call might actually be pretty good. This person ignored all of the tell-tale signs (the PG-13 rating (meant to be R during filming); the early January release; the fact that it's the umpteenth remake of a J-horror film; the lead actress who can't actually act paired with the lead actor who simply chooses NOT to....) and said to themselves: "Yes, I want to be in the One Missed Call business."

Well that person's a dope. Everyone else in the world, even some of the teenagers who the damn thing was made for, knew this wouldn't be any damn good (my screening was like 90% empty, and the 15 year old girl in front of me was shaking her head as she left). And guess what? It isn't. It's not HORRIBLE, like Ring Two or Pulse were, but it's just so painfully by-the-numbers that you can almost see the script template on the screen.

Yes, once again, we have a vengeful ghost using technology to get back on people who had nothing to do with her (it's always a girl) unfortunate demise, with a ticking clock on our hero and/or heroine's life to maintain the suspense. There's a corpse who needs a proper burial, a lot of "you're going to think I'm crazy BUT...." conversations, a strange calling card that lets the heroes know the deaths are related (here, not only is it the phone call, but also a piece of hard candy in the victim's mouth). If FearDotCom and The Ring gang-raped The Grudge and got it pregnant, the result would be this movie.

But at least those three films offered SOMETHING to make it worth your while (Fear had gore and Udo Kier, Ring is actually good, and Grudge had... well, Sarah Michelle Gellar looked pretty good in it). What does this offer? Well I guess if you're one of those folks who think Shannyn Sossamon is the hottest woman in the world, you might get some enjoyment out of watching her do the bare minimum amount of acting in order to collect her heroin check. Ed Burns, the poor sod, doesn't even do that much; in several scenes he looks like he's one blink away from nodding off entirely (it's ironic, for once I actually stayed awake through one of these damn movies while everyone on screen looked like they'd rather be napping). Ray Wise is kind of amusing in his 35 seconds of screen time, and Margaret Cho (of all people) gets in a good line that sort of makes fun of the hard candy subplot. But all of these people have done better work in better films (though it's better than Sossamon's The Order, I'll give it that much).

There's also a nice little mean-spirited "p.s." in the first kill scene that made me laugh out loud. And Sossamon's friend gets hilariously nailed by a train. More stuff like this and the movie could have been a minor gem, but sadly after these none of the death scenes have any levity or black humor. Which is a major problem for the film - it takes itself too seriously. The concept is ridiculous (even moreso when we learn the back-story), and had the characters followed suit and just had some fun, again, this could have been something. But no, apart from a brief scene where Burns and Sossamon try to break into an apartment, there's absolutely nothing even remotely amusing (intentionally so anyway) in the film.

Although, Massachusetts residents might get a kick out of the area code in the film. Even though they never say where they are (that I can recall anyway), at one point the number being dialed has area code 508, which is a Mass code (or at least, it WAS - it was my area code for a while growing up, but a few years ago it was changed to 978, so maybe 508 got retired).

So there you have it: a film in which the highlights are an area code and a cameo by Leland Palmer. Enticing, no? No. I have yet to see the original (attempts to see it beforehand were thwarted by the "Long Wait" kiss of death on my queue) but from what I understand it was nothing special in the first place.

(I was going to make a joke about how the film wasn't screened for critics and screening phone calls, but why put more effort into wrapping up my review than they did writing their movie?)

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Revolt Of The Zombies

JANUARY 4, 2008

GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (BUDGET PACK 2!!!)

I can remember the running time of every Halloween sequel, the number of kills in each Friday the 13th movie, and the phone number of my friend from grade school who I haven’t called since, well, grade school. And yet for the life of me, I can never remember that any “zombie” movie made prior to Night of the Living Dead will have absolutely nothing to do with flesh eaters. This is why I get so easily bored with a film like Revolt Of The Zombies, though by any account (that I have found on the IMDb anyway) this one’s a dud with or without expectations of cannibalism.

In 61 minutes, I was only occasionally amused, usually by odd lines delivered by bad actors, such as “Gentlemen, the Priest was murdered. Murdered by someone who did not want the Allies to benefit by his power to create robot soldiers.” There’s also a hilarious scene where someone checks an injured person’s pulse. This is standard movie behavior; checking the pulse to see if the guy is unconscious or dead. All well and good, except the injured party is TALKING throughout the scene, rendering the pulse checking a bit pointless. Besides that, the only highlight is Bela Lugosi, or at least his eyes, which are super-imposed over about 40% of the film (it’s an image taken from the superior White Zombie, which this film is a sort-of sequel to, but has no actual connection except for the damn eyes):

In fact, the “Revolt” doesn’t even occur until the film’s final two minutes, and making matters stupider, they aren’t even in their zombie state at the time! Talk about a misleading title.

No, seriously, go talk about misleading titles. Beats watching this movie.

So what DOES happen in the film? Well, most of it is comprised of boring, talky scenes where the characters constantly “mock” one another. I use mock in quotes because their jokes seem quite funny to the other characters, but don’t seem particularly funny to me, the viewer, who doesn’t know and thus far doesn’t care about any of these assholes. They all sound like the jokes your girlfriend’s lame but well-meaning uncle might make at dinner the first time you meet him, and you’re just sort of “what the FUCK does that mean?” while smiling politely and eating your stuffing.

Oh well, it’s good to know that even in the golden age of horror cinema, there was still a few turkeys to balance things out and forever ensure that the horror genre would be more miss than hit. Thanks, guys.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Solstice (2007)

JANUARY 3, 2008

GENRE: GHOST, SUPERNATURAL, TEEN
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

I sort of felt lame during Solstice when, early on, a character mocks another character’s Ipod, which has (presumably) been the source of the pop rock stuff we have been hearing. He claimed it was terrible music, whereas I sort of enjoyed it. Clearly, me and “Christian” aren’t on the same wavelength (also, I should not that the song during the end credits is top notch, if you like that sort of thing... think The Fray, Keane, etc., but not QUITE as weepy).

But the music was about the only thing I ended up really enjoying in this dull movie. In 91 minutes, there are maybe 7 of anything resembling action, mostly in the film’s finale. The rest of the time, it’s just some kids hanging out in a cabin in the woods, yakking away about whatever and spending far too much time dwelling on the death of one of them the previous year. Way to have a “weekend of fun” guys.

Of course, I never would have even considered such a film (it’s PG-13 too. Bonus!) if not for its director, Dan Myrick, who was one-half of the team that made Blair Witch Project; one of my all time favorite movies. It’s a damn shame that it’s taken him (and Eduardo Sanchez, who made last year’s interesting but far from great Altered) this long to make a film, even if it lived up to his first effort, but it’s downright depressing that after almost a decade, this is the best he could come up with (I assume The Believers, which he must have made back to back with this film, is better, if only for the presence of Johnny Messner).

To be fair, Solstice is a remake of a Swedish film called Midsommer (which I read somewhere has a scene of kids in the woods with a video camera; if that's true, the scene has not carried over to this version, for obvious reasons), so the thin story, overused locale, etc. cannot be attributed to Myrick or the other new writers. But it remains unclear why they chose not to make the concept more interesting, or at least add an element of danger to the film (at no point, even during the ‘suspense’ scenes, do you get the impression anyone will be killed or even harmed).

The cast is decent enough, acting-wise, but they are all bred from the same bland WB stock you have come to expect from these sort of movies (indeed, many of them are known primarily for One Tree Hill, 7th Heaven, etc). And whoever cast it should have been laughed out of the room for suggesting that these two could pass for the same age:

The guy playing the main girl’s (who looks like the offspring of Michelle Trachtenberg and Rachel Nichols. Mmm.) boyfriend is either Jimmy Olson from Smallville or Iceman from the X-men movies, not sure. Don’t care either. The only actor of real note is R. Lee Ermey, who looks almost angry to be there in his 5 minutes of screentime (at least they were honest enough not to make a big deal about his appearance on the cover).

The main problem with the film is that there are scarcely any horror elements in it. It’s one thing to build character and flesh out the back-story, but it’s another for the film to go so long without any sort of suspense or scares that you forget what kind of movie you were watching. I swear to God, at one point I thought to myself “I hope I have time to watch a horror movie today” during my viewing of this film. The only reason I remembered that I WASN’T just watching a teen soap was because the film was, for some reason, shot in scope widescreen.

The commentary is slightly more entertaining, mainly because Myrick is an intelligent adult, so I felt less dumb listening to him than the characters in the film (one of whom claims to have once wiped his ass with a potato chip, which doesn’t even seem possible). But there’s a lot of silence, and Myrick frequently simply narrates the on-screen action, leaving little worth to the track as a whole. And sadly, Blair isn’t even mentioned, nor does he provide any information why the director of one of the most successful horror movies of all time took like 8 years off and is now directing this sort of teen crap. He also seems to be confused as to how long his film is, claiming it’s over 100 minutes when it is only 91.

The swamp locale and half-assed voodoo elements reminded me of Venom at times. Sad to say, since that movie was hardly good, but you’d be much better off watching that instead. Come on Myrick, get back with Sanchez and give us the followup we deserve.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Spontaneous Combustion

JANUARY 2, 2008

GENRE: HERO KILLER, MAD SCIENTIST
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

Leave it to Tobe Hooper to make a movie about people suddenly bursting into flames boring, but that’s exactly what he did with Spontaneous Combustion, a film which STARS Brad Dourif (there’s a very VERY small number of films that can bear that claim) and yet doesn’t give him anything fun to do until the film’s finale, during which he’s covered in makeup anyway.

I think this movie features the longest prologue in cinema history. It’s a full 22 minutes long, for a 95 minute movie. It also features Brian Bremer, who has to be the worst actor I have ever seen in a theatrically released film. No wonder the only other thing I remember him being in was Silent Night Deadly Night 5, where he played the Pinocchio thing. A block of wood is about the best this guy can hope for. The chick playing his Jackie O-ish wife is a bit better, and a quick check of IMDb confirmed that she was indeed Evan’s mom in Superbad. That thankless role, which largely revolved around her glorious rack, is still probably more appealing to her ego than this goddamn thing.

Jackie's Strength, indeed.

But back to the main problem with the film: it’s fucking boring as hell. Dourif gets mad at someone and he goes “NRRRRR!” and badly animated flames fly out of whatever’s nearby and the person dies. OR he has a mild disagreement with someone and they die later on. For a “hero”, he kills a lot of people who doesn’t deserve to die, including a couple of cops. At one point he kills John Landis (what the hell is HE doing in this?) simply for not connecting his phone call. So we don’t root for him, should we root for his girlfriend? She seems nice. Oh wait, she’s involved in the conspiracy too. As is his ex-wife (doesn’t this guy date outside the whole nuclear government program circle?). So a bunch of not very interesting people are also all evil. Great.

It's also bafflingly written, and not in an amusing way. At one point, Dourif calls a psychic, and becomes amazed when he himself reveals his mother's name (rendering the psychic rather inconsequential). "How would I know that?" Dourif exclaims. Maybe because it's your mother, asshole, and at some point in the 35 years prior, you took the time to learn it??? There's also another scene where we can clearly hear a heated argument in the background, much more interesting than the main scene, but the film never elaborates on it. Also, the finale features THREE people shooting flames at each other, before one of them dies, one of them loses her powers, and another falls into a blue circle that appears in the ground. Whatever, movie.

The thing is, reading all that you might think that the movie was awesome. But it’s not, at all. It’s repetitive, needlessly overplotted, and ultimately pointless. Even Hooper’s The Mangler offered some ridiculous thrills and decent gore... this has nothing other than Dourif impersonating Bill Paxton at the end of Near Dark:

Now I know why this movie (one of NINE films released in 1990 in which Dourif appeared) was only released in 50 theaters. In fact I’m amazed it didn’t just go direct to video; Hooper’s Toolbox Murders remake was far superior in every way and that didn’t play theatrically. I can’t imagine watching this in a theater, since it’s of the same quality (in both technical and creative terms) as a Sci-Fi original. Even Firestarter 2, which WAS a Sci-Fi original (or at least, premiered as one) was more worthy of a theatrical run.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Kill House (2006)

JANUARY 1, 2008

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

Happy New Year... nothing has changed at all. You need a new desk calendar (assuming you keep up with it; mine is currently on November 18th) and you’ll probably write the wrong year on your rent check today. That’s about all that’s different, yet most of you probably went out last night and drank; spending your hard earned money in order to honor a clock.

Anyway, since I didn’t party, I am not hungover and thus in a happy mood, which has to be why I found The Kill House so engaging. As I consult my notes and actually THINK about the movie, there is absolutely nothing good about any of it (almost every one of my notes ends in a question mark, in other words, my reaction to the scene/event in question was simply “huh?”), but I was thoroughly entertained and even sort of charmed by this bizarre little movie.

For starters, the film’s opening credits spend at least two straight minutes establishing that they are in San Francisco. Which is fine, but only that and the following scene take place there. The rest of the film is, I assume, set in Los Angeles. It’s quite obviously LA just from the scenery (West Hollywood hills, best as I can tell), and while they never actually reveal the intended setting, the main character goes to Beverly Hills seemingly every other day, and the hospital that incoherently factors into the film quite a few times is clearly labeled “Hollywood Medical Center”. San Fran is never seen again. Whatever.

As for the hospital, you got me. At one point the Final Girl’s brother suddenly complains of chest pains (he also suffers from Lupus for some reason) and goes to the hospital, then just gets up and leaves while still wearing his gown. At another point, the lead detective goes there to kiss someone goodnight (who this person is is none of our business). And the film’s nonsensical epilogue features the killer wearing a wig and breaking into a patient’s room to steal his money (he’s also limbless, for the hell of it).

Speaking of wigs, in one of the film’s stranger plot developments (which speaks volumes, if you’ve read the above paragraph), our wannabe Janet Leigh character who gets killed a half an hour in is clearly wearing a red wig. This is sort of explained when she gets a phone call from her doctor, and she says “the results are in? Is it cancer?” And the doctor says that she can’t tell her that over the phone. So the wig is to cover her bald head from chemo, right? Wrong. A. We still see her real hair under it, and B. if she didn’t even definitely HAVE cancer yet, why would she already be taking chemotherapy? Doesn’t matter, she gets killed moments later, and thus we never know if she has cancer or not.

The film is also significant for having what may be a record amount of full frontal female nudity in a film that has not one sex scene. Our lead (another oddity – how often do you see the Final Girl in a slasher movie even go topless, let alone completely nude) is constantly baring all in an attempt to entice the family’s groundskeeper, a man who was convicted of murder and now has to pee in a cup as part of his probation (....? Hey at this point, anything goes in this movie). And at one point I thought she was flirting with her brother (hey-o!), but at any rate there is no bedroom action whatsoever in the film.

As for the killer (who also appears briefly nude, who is also like 50 years old and not very attractive, and is also the film’s director), I can’t even begin to understand her motive behind most of her kills. Killing the rival real estate agent makes sense, as does the owner of a property she wants to sell, and to a lesser extent, the Lupus brother, who sort of stumbles on her devious plans. But why does she kill a couple who plans on buying one of the houses? And even dumber, why does she kill the guy she had just, two scenes earlier, set up to take the blame for the killings???

The questions don’t end there. Why does the groundskeeper guy have a black eye in some scenes but not others? Where did he get it to begin with? Why did they cast an overweight (but cute) girl to play a character whose biggest character trait is that she rides horses? Why the extended scene of the killer kidnapping some schoolgirls to pass them off as her own (a scene that involves terrorism and several threats to cut off the girls’ parents heads) to someone she is about to kill anyway? Why name a character Mark Harmon? Why all the transsexual jokes and references in the film’s first half hour? Why the lesbian cop partnered with the effeminate male cop? Why ANYTHING in this movie?

The deleted scenes are no help. Not only is it impossible to tell where any of them would occur in the film (they’re not even in order, since the final two in the collection feature a character who was killed a half an hour in), but few last more than a couple seconds. And I can’t tell why they were considered any less relevant or worthy than the ones left in the film, such as the one titled “The Secret Life of Lettie” (the detective), which consists of nothing but the woman happily buying an ice cream from a truck.

But, I swear, it’s awesome. As you can tell, there’s nothing good I can say about it (though the DV looks pretty good). Even the back of the DVD is confusing (there’s an asterisk next to “special features”, but it doesn’t have any sort of connecting footnote; the ratio is listed as a “4x3 1.77:1 letterbox presentation”, which doesn’t even make any goddamn sense). But yet, I wholeheartedly recommend it. It’s just so goddamn weird in a very lazy way.

Also, I should note that the only reason I watched this movie in the first place is because the cover, which makes it look like a Saw film (same font and color scheme), has the tagline “Escrow Just Closed”. Not only is that the least foreboding tagline in horror movie history, but it also led me to believe that the film might possibly be the pinnacle of real estate horror, something faithful HMAD readers know is a “favorite” of mine. And in a non-sort of way, it truly is.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...