The Bad Seed (1956)

FEBRUARY 18, 2011

GENRE: KILLER KID
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

Why are movies based on plays always so damn lazy with regards to actually transferring it to the big screen? Even if The Bad Seed's opening credits didn't point out that it was adapted from a play (which was adapted from a book), it would have been pretty obvious, since 90% of the movie takes place in a parlor at the house where the titular character lives. I think A Few Good Men is one of the only movies based on a play that doesn't FEEL like that; even though there's a lot of courtroom, the characters travel around DC quite frequently (and even go to Cuba at one point). Everyone follow their lead, please!

Anyway, the movie is a bit too long, but it's a fun killer kid movie. I knew that the Hayes Code would keep it from being too explicit, so the fact that everything happens off-screen (quite awkwardly so in the case of the gardener) didn't bother me, and I liked that it didn't waste much time getting to the point where the mother begins to suspect her child is a murderer. Also, since I had Orphan on the brain (I watched the movie in honor of Orphan director Jaume Collet-Serra's new film Unknown hitting theaters today - which I'll be seeing as soon as I have a car!), I was happy to see how twist-free it was. It's not a misunderstanding, she's not just a jerk like Mac in The Good Son (total body count: 0), and she's not actually a midget - little Rhoda is legitimately a murderous eight year old child. Hurrah!

Back to the Code, it's a wonderful reminder of how ridiculous their guidelines were (spoilers for 55 year old movie ahead!). Since one of the things was "Crime cannot pay", the movie couldn't retain the book's ending, where Rhoda lived and her mother died of suicide. No, the Code thought it would be better if a little girl was zapped and fried by a bolt of lightning at the end of the film. Why couldn't they just send her to juvie or something? How is quite violently killing a child somehow more acceptable than her getting away with it? And since it's the only bit of "violence" that we see in the entire movie, it makes it even sillier.

Well, there's one other bit of violence, also against the child. Instead of the usual cast card at the end of the film, a voiceover announces each actor, who comes out and takes a bow (likely inspired from the play - most of the actors in the film were reprising their stage roles). And then when it comes to announcing Nancy Kelly, who played the mother, she suddenly looks off to the side after her bow and goes "And as for you!", then walks over to the couch, where young Patty McCormack is sitting, and proceeds to playfully spank her bottom. It's almost like they wanted to make sure no one was too offended by the on-screen crisping of a little girl and threw this in so that everyone could be reminded it was just a movie. The silliness continues immediately after that, with a card asking folks not to "divulge" the ending. Was it commonplace for endings to be spoiled back in the day? Did people just walk out of the theater and go "So Rosebud was the name of his sled!" or "A shame Rick and Ilsa didn't end up together..."?

At least it's intentionally funny, however. Kelly was nominated for an Oscar for her role, which I guess is just another example of how much things have changed over the years, because she borders on "Faye Dunaway as Mommie Dearest" level hysterics at times. The scene where her father visits and reveals to her that she was adopted (her birth mother was a serial killer, a plot point that is largely glossed over) is supposed to be upsetting and dramatic, but I was chuckling at her over-the-top theatrics for most of the scene's duration. It doesn't help that the guy playing her dad is a straight up no bullshit "I'm going to just frown and say my lines in an authoritative tone" type of actor, making her outbursts look all the more melodramatic.

Also, not for nothing, but for a 2 hour movie, was it necessary to awkwardly foreshadow the existence of a revolver in the house in the first 10 minutes? As soon as it was mentioned I knew it would come into play later, but you have to wait 100 minutes or so for it to come back. And then of course you don't even SEE the damn thing. Again: this isn't a play anymore! You're not limited to one set, props that can be hidden until needed, etc! Apparently there was a 1980s TV movie remake that wasn't well received, but I am curious if it was at least more visually creative. Eli Roth was supposedly going to do a remake at one point as well, but I think it would cut into the time he spends talking about how he's friends with Tarantino, so I wouldn't expect it any time soon. Plus, why bother when Orphan just came along? Not like anything's going to top that.

But even with some concerns, I still dug the movie, and respected it even more. I looked, but couldn't find an older killer kid movie, so even if it wasn't perfect, it still spawned a sub-genre that I very much love. Plus, I'm always amused by movies that were affected by the Code, and this is definitely a pretty hilarious example. If you got the time, recommended!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Baghead (2008)

FEBRUARY 17, 2011

GENRE: COMEDIC, SLASHER (?)
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

It took some convincing for me to see Baghead, which folks have been recommending for over two years now. For starters, I took a look at the rating, and it didn't say anything about violence or "scary images" or any of the other things one would expect to see in the reasons for a particular rating on a horror film (just nudity and language). But even more than that, I was concerned that it would be the type of indie with a lot of improv and annoying camerawork that I tend to dislike.

And, well, it was. I didn't hate the film, but if there was ever a perfect example of "not my thing", this would be it. I mean, really, the only thing holding my interest was finding out if Baghead was a legit killer or if it was all a prank (guess which it was? Note the question mark after the "Slasher" tag for a hint), but luckily the film was so short I didn't have to wait long to find out.

The biggest problem is, oddly, the horror angle. When it's just the four characters sitting around, talking over each other while the cameraman zooms and pans around like mad, hoping to catch it all and retain some semblance of focus, I was merely disinterested. If the whole movie was like that, it would just be a harmless indie rom-com that I'd probably never watch but wouldn't hate if I did. But whenever they do a legit horror scene, they more or less drop the comedy and relationship drama that fuels the rest of the film. If you took the 3-4 "scare" scenes out of the film and strung them together, you'd be convinced it was a collection of scenes from any slasher movie - there's a creepy "killer watching through the window" bit, a tense search for a friend, even a chase or two. Had they found a way to retain the humor in these scenes (even the "bag over the head" idea isn't particularly funny; the footage is often so dark it can easily be mistaken for The Town That Dreaded Sundown's killer, or Jason from F13 Part 2), it might have been more successful.

See, I know damn well that the scare scenes aren't going to amount to much, so they don't quite work as horror scenes, any more than Frank Drebin or Topper Harley making their way through a parody of an action scene from Terminator or Rambo works as a legitimate action scene. And they're so generic (intentionally so, I assume), these scenes hardly even resonate. It's far more entertaining when the characters are playing tricks on each other; there's a bit where two of them dress as Baghead and move in to scare a guy who they think is sleeping, but it turns out he was masturbating. That scene's hilarious, and fit the "slasher spoof" concept to a T. But the legit, humorless slasher scenes just stick out like sore thumbs; it's actually the rare time where the "it was all fake" solution was preferable - if this was supposed to be legitimate, Baghead would be the lamest slasher of all time.

Luckily, I found some of the humor quite on target. I loved the opening scene at the film festival, where a guy shows some pretentious garbage and gets lauded for it (and they capture the festival Q&A process perfectly - the first question is ALWAYS "What was the budget?"), and I chuckled at the guy using his wallet to simulate a cell phone when trying to sneak into an after party. And even though I couldn't stand Greta Gerwig's character for the most part (on the commentary, they reveal at least one reviewer thought her character might be suffering a mental handicap of some sort, and believe me, it's not a stretch), she gets one of the better lines in the film, when her disbelieving friends ask why she was so upset and she replies that "a" Baghead didn't attack them (like the Bagheads are a race of some sort).

But again, the camerawork just is not my thing. Folks mock Michael Bay and the like for cutting every second, but I find that far more enjoyable than constantly zooming and whipping the camera around. And the more characters that are in a scene, the worse it gets; the early scene where they start tossing around ideas for "Baghead" (the four characters in the woods to write a script about Baghead - though the meta-ness is kept to a minimum) was nearly unbearable for me to watch. I kept wanting to smack the cameraman, or at least make sure he hadn't forgotten his seizure medication. Sorry, I just can't get into a movie when I'm constantly being distracted by what the camera is doing. It's one thing if it's a documentary (or a found footage thing), but if it's a narrative it just drives me up a wall and prevents me from concentrating.

However, while I may not care much for their shooting style, I did find myself quite charmed by the Duplass brothers, both on their commentary and the only bonus feature of note, in which the brothers sit on their couch (with a static shot, go figure) and answer the most common questions they get about the film (including, yes, what the budget was). It's a good mix of both self-deprecating humor and (justified) self-congratulatory remarks, and the fact that they are both cradling their children (one a newborn, the other seems about 12-18 months) makes it all the more charming. Their commentary follows a similar pattern, and while it may frustrate some to listen to since a good chunk of it is about alternate or deleted material that doesn't appear on the disc, just hearing about "what could have been" was enough for me. I was also surprised to hear that they tested the film several times - I always figured these sort of things were just released as is.

The only other extra is an odd collection of videos of Bagheads popping out and scaring friends. I assume they are staged and were shot for a contest on the website or something, but the fact that they are presented without any context makes them kind of useless to me. And since it's a Sony DVD, it starts with a commercial for Blu-ray, boasting about how much clearer it is than DVD despite being on a standard def disc that can't back those claims up in any way. It's like putting a picture of a perfect steak and telling you how much better it is than a Big Mac on the door of a McDonald's.

If you really dig these "mumblecore" movies, you'll probably enjoy Baghead, as the horror angle is present enough for it to stick out from all the others, but not enough to offend or frighten. But as a horror film (or even a horror comedy), the elements are too lacking to really satisfy. Stick with Severance if you want a funny "alt" take on the woods-based slasher, or Shaun of the Dead if you want a good rom-com with a side of blood.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Peeping Tom (1960)

FEBRUARY 16, 2011

GENRE: HERO KILLER
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT VIEW)

Today marked the 4 year anniversary since the first and only time I ever missed a day since I began doing Horror Movie A Day, so it’s kind of fitting that I chose to watch Peeping Tom, which questions our role as a viewer for horror films (not entirely unlike Funny Games, but in a far less condescending/far more enjoyable way). But also, it’s one of the classic films I hadn’t yet seen, which was part of the reason I started HMAD in the first place – if not for daily viewing, I probably never would have found the time to check the film out. Indeed, back in 2006 (pre-HMAD), I read a book called “The Rough Guide To Horror Movies”, and Peeping Tom was one of the few I hadn’t seen but it was the ONLY one I hadn’t even heard of, so I was like “I must see this!”. Five years later...

The ironic thing about the film is that at the time it was released, it was not only hated and barely released, but it was also considered shocking due to its subject matter. Folks were outraged at the material in the film, such as.... uh, a pair of breasts and a killer who we’re meant to sympathize and identify with. There’s actually precious little on-screen violence in the film; I can’t imagine what would have happened if they showed a graphic murder scene or two. Director Michael Powell probably would have been executed, instead of merely run out of town as he was.

The DVD was released via Criterion, but since I watched the Netflix streaming version I didn’t have access to the bonus material. However, I did read the obligatory essay on the Criterion site, which points out that “it stands in opposition to British realism and merges with the European fantastic, such as ETA Hoffmann and Hans Christian Andersen, and also hovers on the edge between popular and high cultural traditions, marking the uneasiness of English culture”. Yeah, whatever. I just thought it was a really good thriller. If you want that sort of analysis, look elsewhere (I don’t even know who ETA Hoffmann is, for starters). But I guess it’s another feather in the movie’s cap – I didn’t have to read between the lines or place it in its cultural context to enjoy it.

And I certainly don’t need to brush up on my 1950s British politics to enjoy the performance of Carl Boehm as the “Tom” of the title (his name is Mark, for the record). He was inexplicably German, but it sort of fit the idea of him being a guy that didn’t quite fit in with the world around him, and the “mistake” didn’t bother me in the slightest. Boehm is indeed quite sympathetic; the scene where he spots the necking couple and instantly reaches for the camera that his date forced him to leave behind is actually kind of sad (maybe I just sympathize with someone not fully being used to not having something they’ve always had at their reach for the past 14 years – I MISS HAVING A CAR, DAMMIT). I was also tickled by his demeanor, which reminded me of Misha Collins’ performance on Supernatural as Castiel. If you’re a fan of that show, imagine Castiel impersonating Udo Kier or maybe Tim Curry and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what Boehm brings to the film.

I had to wonder though – what is up with people in movies always being drawn to weirdoes who clearly possess some disturbing baggage? As with Roman, Spiral, etc, our female protagonist is inexplicably drawn to a guy who most pretty girls would cross the street to avoid. Our guy barely says a word, creepily carries a camera around with him at all times, and was raised by a guy who filmed everything he said and did for years. Yeah, what a catch. It didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the film, mind you, but I’m always kind of confused by this sort of behavior – I’d prefer some sort of inciting moment that kicked off their relationship (i.e. she was using him to make someone else jealous, or whatever).

Another thing I enjoyed was the occasional humorous tone, such as an early scene where a gentlemen tries to discreetly buy some pornography at the photo shop that Mark works for (love that he forgets to take the non-porn items he paid for). There’s also a shrink character who is introduced in the 3rd act who was a total delight; he seems more interested in watching how movies get made (Mark is a camera operator for a studio) than helping a recent trauma victim (an actress who found one of Mark’s victims stuffed into a prop chest) or offering any sort of expertise or analysis to the police. The heroine’s mother also has a wonderful sharp tongue; if they were doing a remake they’d get Jessica “Mrs. Bluth” Walter for sure.

The way Powell works in a sort of “history of film” motif is great too; whenever Mark watches footage from his ‘documentary’ (which has no source sound), the soundtrack turns to a jaunty piano score that you’d expect to hear over a silent film. And the climax is essentially that of any Universal horror monster movie, with Mark (in a Frankenstein type role) literally dragging a female around his lab, throwing switches in a crazed panic as the police close in from outside. All that’s missing is a fire and some pitchforks.

And now that I’ve talked about the end of the movie, I must mention the brilliant opening, in which we see Mark kill a hooker, largely through the POV of his camera. In the following scene, we watch Mark watch what he shot – cementing the central concept of the film in an instant (and with remarkable economy!). Again, this is why I found the film far more successful than Funny Games; both films make us question what we want to see in these movies, but the violent killer in this film was sympathetic – I don’t know if we necessarily want to see him kill anyone, but we DO want him to “succeed” as we would any protagonist. It’s just that his goal seems to be killing folks. Far more effective “makes you think” tactic than having a couple of snobby assholes killing other snobby assholes, at any rate.

If I had one genuine issue with the film, it would be its rather abrupt ending. I would have liked more police involvement (they question him briefly and don’t really seem to think he’s the culprit), or perhaps more of his panic leading up to the finale. It’s also abrupt in the more technical way – there’s no end credits or even a “The End” title card. It just fades to black and then Netflix tells you what you just watched (Peeping Tom, in this case). Apparently, some footage excised by the censors back in the day was never fully restored and is considered lost forever, so perhaps that played a part in the 3rd act’s somewhat uneven pace, but it wasn’t really damaging.

Not sure how long the stream will be available on Netflix; I guess Criterion is pulling all its titles from the service as part of their new deal with Hulu Plus. However, Criterion already lost the rights to this particular film (the physical disc is now out of print), so maybe it’s exempt. I dunno. All I know is, if you haven’t seen it yet, you’re missing a terrific thriller, one that would make a fine pair with Psycho (for the obvious reasons) as well as Inception (both films tackle the role of a filmmaker in a unique way, though obviously in Inception it’s more of a metaphorical theory). Or just watch it on its own. Your call!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Trespassers (2006)

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

GENRE: CANNIBAL
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT)

It’s kind of a bummer that horror movies *have* to take place at night, and also that the heart of the genre lies within independent films, which are now all shot with digital cameras that produce less than flattering images in the dark. At its core, Trespassers (aka Blood Waves) is actually a pretty cool movie, but the lo-res and underexposed images just turn the entire 3rd act into an incoherent blur of pixels and artifacting errors. In fact, even the daylight stuff looks pretty bad at times, which makes me wonder just who the hell chose this camera and/or who was in charge of transferring it.

Ironically, this problem is made worse by the film’s biggest asset – it’s inspired by 70s horror fare like Hills Have Eyes, in that it doesn’t really kick into high gear until that third act. So the first hour, which is largely visible, is mostly just folks walking around looking for the other folks who wandered off earlier, or talking to locals, and generally not getting killed. And that's fine - I like slow builds and I dug the throwback approach. Problem is, once they get to the goods, the film's already questionable presentation just gets worse.

But there's a lot of sexual frustration to enjoy! One dude legitimately runs away from the others so he can jerk off. Also, the two female characters, played by uber-hot Michelle Borth and Hatchet’s Joleigh Fioravanti (though she uses the name Pulsonetti here, for whatever reason) are fighting over one guy who seemingly doesn't seem to care which one he ends up banging. There's also a gay dude, who was my favorite character because he stayed out of their shenanigans and was also the most intelligent of the group. Joleigh hits on him too, but then returns her attention to the hero guy, at one point even offering to “suck your cock all the way back to LA”, which sounds exhausting for both parties.

And thus, of course, Borth’s character is a prude, not even letting him put lotion on her backside (but getting angry when Joleigh encourages him to do the same for her), and then getting angry at the two of them and taking off with the other guy to go look for help. But she makes up for it in the most random way possible; igniting a sex scene after they’ve been chased into a little cave by the cannibal zombie things. Of course, it’s so dark you can’t see a goddamn thing, but it’s the thought that counts I guess (also, they are interrupted before he can finish, so the poor sod has to fend off zombies and run around and such with blue balls).

The back-story is also a bit more novel than I am used to/was expecting) Rather than the usual “look if you go to a foreign country you’re just going to end up being killed” xenophobic approach, the cannibals are actually former or recruited members of a cult that was in love with the land and thus decided to live off of it. But when food ran scarce (possibly because they set up their HQ on a friggin’ beach – try a farm, assholes), the leader decided to start feeding them little kids without telling them what the “meat” was. Things got ugly, folks died, and now they attack anyone who comes around that is disrespectful of the land (i.e. by dirt biking around on it, or littering, etc). Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but I like that it was almost sort of noble – they kill only to eat and to keep douchey surfers from trashing the place. Can’t really go fault them on that one.

Also, I liked that it took place on the beach, which is surprisingly rare for horror movies. I racked my brain while watching, and honestly couldn’t think of another horror film set entirely on the coast and in various sand dunes and such near the water. Most of the time, it’s stuff like Jaws or Piranha, where there will be a few scenes on the beach and then they get out on the water or lake, but here they stayed on dry land for pretty much the whole movie.

I just wish I could have SEEN it! I mean, I can cut it some slack because I’m sure Netflix’s stream didn’t help, but I can tell the difference between a poor transfer and a poorly made movie. The cameraman’s shadow makes so many appearances it should have been given its own cast credit, and the lighting (when they have it) is obviously a bright spotlight being moved around, getting as much of the actors and background in its beam as possible. It starts to resemble a documentary or episode of Ghost Hunters or something, because there’s a constant light source that has no place in the scene but never lets you stop being aware of it. And then, again, for the 3rd act they didn’t even bother turning it on anymore – you never really get a good look at the monsters, and I could never tell who was winning during most of the fight scenes until someone walked away (thankfully, or perhaps intentionally, the hero wears a light sweatshirt, so he’s easy to spot). The camera itself seemed kind of low-rent too – you know how any movie with a character who has a video camera will switch to his/its point of view, and it’s noticeably different than the footage being used for the actual movie? Yeah, that doesn’t happen here. We switch to his POV and back and I couldn’t even tell the difference.

And I find that odd, because the director had several other (non-horror) films under his belt, plus Borth and Fioravanti were already established actors... why did they have to shoot this thing on what appears to be a Youtube brand camera? Or did someone just fuck up royally in post? Either way, most dark rooms are better lit than this movie, so it wouldn’t have helped the “hey what am I looking at here?” aspect of many of the action scenes. A pity – the script was worthy of a better presentation.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Ninjas vs. Zombies (2008)

FEBRUARY 14, 2011

GENRE: COMEDIC, INDEPENDENT, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (SCREENER)

Note to all indie filmmakers – stop referencing, ripping off, paying homage to, or in any way acknowledging the existence of Kevin Smith, in particular Clerks. All it does is make any sane viewer sad, reminded of a time when he was an entertaining voice and appealing writer, instead of a blowhard crybaby. Luckily, for lack of a better word, Clerks is just one of the several movies that are referenced in Ninjas vs. Zombies, so it doesn’t really stick out as any more annoying than the rest.

I’m all for referencing stuff, but this movie takes it to new extremes: Ghostbusters, Jurassic Park, Star Wars (and related sequels), Pulp Fiction, Evil Dead, Clerks, Indiana Jones... you name a geek property, it’s probably referenced here. Sometimes the characters actually just say what movie they are talking about, but others are a bit more subtle; the Jurassic Park reference is simply two folks eating ice cream (“It’s good.” “Spared no expense.”). Those I don’t mind; if you haven’t memorized Jurassic Park you probably wouldn’t even realize it was being given a shoutout. The Clerks one, on the other hand, involves a guy saying whole lines of dialogue and then having to explain what movie he’s referencing to his confused/annoyed friend. I guess if you like Family Guy, that sort of “humor” will be right up your alley, but I just found it rather irritating, especially when it reaches Friedberg/Seltzer levels of pointlessness.

Luckily, some of the humor was right up my alley, which means I was never too far from another laugh. I particularly liked when the bad guy allowed his victim to have his breakfast before killing him, so they just sit there in silence while the guy eats his cereal. Some of the references even made me laugh; I mentally noted that one actor looked a bit like Widmore from Lost, and then a few seconds later the guy he was talking to muttered “4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42”. There was also a gag I myself had in my own no-budget zombie movie (never completed; barely even started actually), where a guy gets all geared up for battle a la Evil Dead (though I didn’t have the character say “Groovy” at the end of the sequence), only to be killed as soon as he walked out the door. They say that great minds think alike, but apparently so do ours.

And more importantly, the movie is surprisingly action packed, which keeps the reference overload to a minimum, particularly in the 3rd act which is comprised of nearly non-stop fighting. Some individual battles go on for too long (the main villain and hero fight in a tiny movie theater for what seems like 10 minutes), but I admired the ambition and effort on display; even big budget movies don’t always offer as much carnage. The FX and stunts are a bit clunky, but that is to be expected and I don’t fault it for that (again, I’ve seen studio films with FX that were just as amateurish; what was THEIR excuse?).

I do wish they had a less annoying actor as the villain though. Imagine Randal from Clerks only 2x as smug (and only about half as good of an actor – and that’s not a compliment to Jeff Anderson), and you’ll get an idea of the guy here. He delivers every single line with a cocky laid-back smile that drove me insane; I couldn’t wait for him to die. In fact, pretty much ALL of the characters were laid-back, which got kind of exhausting; it’s not until near the end of the film that any of them seemed to care about anything that was going on.

The screener surprisingly had a commentary track by the director and two others (blanking on who). Usual stuff for a backyard indie; they poke fun at some of their less than successful shortcuts, mockingly suggest that the film is award-worthy, and bust each others’ balls while divulging set anecdotes and how they were able to secure this location or who that particular extra was related to. They mention another commentary; not sure if that just never happened or if the screener wasn’t “complete”, but honestly most screeners don’t even have proper menus let alone any of the supplements, so it was a nice little surprise.

And, as I’ve said before, I have all the respect in the world for anyone who manages to pull together their friends and make a movie for pennies (especially a zombie comedy, given my unsuccessful attempt). Besides, my main issue with the movie was the humor, but I’m also pretty picky with what makes me laugh, especially compared to the majority (the top two sitcoms on TV: Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men, I’ve tried to watch a few times and sat in silence until giving up and/or falling asleep on the plane). And even with that “handicap”, I was still more or less entertained and impressed, so once you get past the low-budget-ness of the movie, I’m sure most folks who enjoy these sort of things will find that it’s one of the more successful.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Dahmer (2002)

FEBRUARY 13, 2011

GENRE: SERIAL KILLER
SOURCE: CABLE (SHOWTIME)

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a full film on Jeffrey Dahmer, so I was a bit disappointed that Dahmer wasn’t a more typical serial killer film (i.e. one that depicted his “rise and fall”, for lack of a better phrase), because I wasn’t too familiar with the specifics of his case. Hell, I couldn’t even remember how he got caught, and the movie doesn’t even show THAT. However, it features a knockout performance by Jeremy Renner, and thus fans of his work in Hurt Locker and The Town should check it out ASAP.

Renner is in pretty much every frame of the film, and actually bears a strong resemblance to the real guy (particularly when he has those ugly ass glasses on), making it the rare occasion of an actor being perfect for the role. Sometimes the actor gives a great performance but doesn’t look a damn thing like the real guy (Corin Nemec as Bundy would be a good example), or the actor looks good but isn’t particularly suited for the material, but Renner brings the best of both worlds. And he’s fearless when it comes to the more lurid aspects of the case – at one point he rapes a guy that he’s drugged, and he frequently poses (sans most clothing) and “cuddles” with his victims.

And that’s a good thing, because otherwise this would be like a G rated account of one of the more twisted killers (only Gacy and Henry Lee Lucas were more vile, of the 20th century guys anyway). There’s only a single on-screen murder in the film, despite Dahmer’s 17 (at least) killings, and absolutely no mention of cannibalism or necrophilia. If you were to use this movie as your reference, Dahmer was a rapist who once killed a dude when he was in high school. Not that I need wall to wall violence or lurid subject matter, but Renner is so good it’s almost sort of a shame that they don’t explore these areas, if only to see how well Renner handles them.

His performance also helps the movie’s not-always-successful fractured timeline, which tells his current story in order while offering his flashbacks in reverse; something I didn’t quite pick up on until about halfway through the movie. Renner actually manages to look appropriately younger in these scenes, so if you were to watch the first and last flashbacks, you could see the difference in his depicted age (both of which are different than his modern day look). I honestly couldn’t figure out while watching the movie how old he was, and was astonished to learn that he was 30 years old during filming. But I’m not sure what purpose the reverse chronology served; I guess it allowed them to “build back” to his first murder, however that’s sort of an anticlimactic moment for a movie about a serial killer (especially when we’ve already seen that he kept the guy’s head in a box).

The scope could also have used some broadening as well. There’s a montage of sorts depicting why Dahmer was no longer allowed at a certain gay bar (because of all of the guys he drugged and raped), but all they do is smack him around and toss him out on the street. But when he is caught the bartender yells “That’s the guy!” so obviously what he’s been doing is known – wouldn’t they call the cops on him? In fact the police in the film are depicted as rather incompetent; one pulls him over for swerving around, smells alcohol on his breath, and simply lets him go (and accepts that the trash bags in his car were indeed lawn clippings). Others buy his story that his obviously drugged victim (who had managed to temporarily escape) was his boyfriend and that he simply had too much to drink. Now, apparently this one is true, but later he was arrested under similar circumstances – seems they could have shown that as well just to keep the Milwaukee police from looking completely inept.

Other elements are left rather vague, such as his parents’ divorce. It apparently played a big part in his demeanor, but the two characters don’t even share a scene together. His grandmother also just sort of disappears from the movie, and it wasn’t until I read his Wikipedia entry that I realized that the dog skull on a stick that he knocks to the ground at one point was something that he himself placed there. Again, it’s not that it’s a bad movie, but it’s not a great introduction to this guy. On that note, it DOES seemingly stick remarkably close to the facts – save for the names of victims and things of that nature, nothing seems made up. Many of the “slice of life” scenes are based in reality – his job at the chocolate factory, his theft of a mannequin, etc. And despite changing the name, they kept in some of the details about the guy who escaped, such as the fact that he still had handcuffs attached to one hand.

Had the Dahmer story already been made into several films (like Manson or Bundy), this would be an excellent “alternative” version of the story, focusing more on the man and putting a lot of detail into one particular chapter of his story instead of sticking to the serial killer bio template. However this is only the second, and the first is rather obscure (and was released only a year after his arrest, which suggests it was a quickie TV movie or something). So if you know nothing about him, I’d recommend reading the Wiki or True Crime Library entry first, and then watching this vague “gist” of his actions, savoring Renner’s terrific performance and admirable attention to detail without being somewhat left in the dark as to what certain things meant.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Virus X (2010)

FEBRUARY 12, 2011

GENRE: MAD SCIENTIST, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Wasn’t one of the Bond movies about a plan to make a fortune by designing a virus and then selling the antidote that they had the patent to? Sounds like something one of those dudes would do anyway. Well, it’s also the plot of Virus X, but since it’s a horror movie (of sorts), instead of a handsome, ageless Brit skiing and boning his way around the world in order to stop it from happening, we get five 20-30ish moderately attractive folks trapped in what appears to be an oil rig, looking for a way to cure themselves before time runs out, and if they happen to save the world at the same time, well, bonus!

Joking aside, the script actually isn’t all that bad; I liked the idea of tying it into the H1N1 virus, as well as the fact that the mega-villain wasn’t some Euro-trash dude but Sybil Danning herself, in a rare screen appearance (she’s only appeared in four films since 1990, one of them is just a trailer in Grindhouse). Always nice to see her, and she runs the gamut over the course of the film: she’s a standard "megalomaniacal but cool-keeping" super-rich villain at first, but by the end of the film (spoiler) she’s been literally given a taste of her own “medicine”, looking like shit and begging for her life. I’m so used to stars of her stature (i.e. from a bunch of older horror movies) appearing in a single scene or two (much like she herself did in Halloween) that I was actually surprised every time she showed up again in the film; I figured she’d be on-screen for maybe 2 minutes tops.

She’s also not the only villain. In addition to the virus itself, there’s also some henchman type creepy guy who looks like Fred Armisen playing Ozzy Osbourne with a blond wig. He isn’t as threatening as he should be, and spends more time talking to Danning on the phone than he does getting into altercations with our heroes, but he’s a wonderfully odd addition to the mix. You also got the standard “God forgive me!” scientist who is evil at first but eventually realizes he was doing a bad thing. Plus, our five folks are trapped together, so they yell at each other and occasionally scuffle – there are a lot of ways you can get killed or injured in this movie is what I’m saying.

It’s a shame the script nearly cripples itself with not one but two inane “romantic” scenes, practically back to back. I get the whole “well we’re going to die, might as well have one last roll in the hay” concept, but both scenes come more or less out of nowhere (and again, within minutes of each other), which just makes it silly. Worse, the participants are covered in blood and other bodily fluids, as it occurs at a point when the virus is starting to really take home, so it’s just completely ill-advised.

The direction, however, DOES really hurt the film. In the hands of someone more capable and/or less show-offy, this might have been a really solid survival thriller, but it gets downgraded to just “OK” thanks to the efforts of director/DP/editor Ryan Harris, who rarely lets a scene go by without some sort of annoyance, be it a bunch of zooms, excessive use of shaki-cam during non-action scenes, or cutting in bursts of static during fight scenes, rendering it nearly impossible to tell what is going on. He also inexplicably bathed 90% of the film in over saturated blue filters with bits of bright orange here and there, which not only makes the film look ugly, but also gave me unpleasant flashbacks of certain Albert Pyun movies like Mean Guns or Adrenalin: Fear The Rush. And really, with those particular credits belonging to him, there’s no one else to blame for the movie’s look.

At least it looks better than the disc’s sole extra, a few interviews with Harris, Danning, one other actor and a producer, which were taken from something called "Eye On Entertainment". The videos look like basic cable nonsense that you’d see at like 3 am after waking up on the couch, and then the next morning you’d wonder “Did I really see that, or was I just having some sort of waking dream?” Hosted by a somewhat ditzy but sweet blonde and complete with its own theme song, this program must be seen to be believed, and I’m baffled that THIS was the best Lionsgate could find for bonus material. Harris’ interview in particular is a delight – the host seems genuinely shocked that he could pull off both directing AND writing, and he seemingly chose his attire from a bunch of shit he found on the ground: fingerless gloves, red socks under Velcro sneakers, and the world’s ugliest tie. Nice shirt and pants though. Danning’s is fun because she seems particularly unimpressed (and rightfully so) and barely blinks when the host (her name escapes me, sorry) applauds her recent win as “One of the 10 sexiest werewolves of all time according to LatinoReview”. A delightful train wreck.

The trailer’s also on there, but I think we’ve long since passed the point where that can be considered a bona fide bonus feature, unless it’s for an older film.

Hey I just realized – this movie’s sort of like The Alpha Incident (bickering folks quarantined due to virus, race against the clock to find a cure, lot of monitors...), which I reviewed almost four years ago. But I wish it was one of the many reviews where I said “Someone should remake this!” because then I’d feel like I made a difference in that time. Oh well.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Backwoods (2008)

FEBRUARY 11, 2011

GENRE: CULT, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT)

Like a good stew, Backwoods is comprised of bits and pieces from a bunch of movies you’ve already seen, but sort of hits the spot anyway. Plus, a better than usual cast and admirably fast pace make up for its creative shortcomings, AND it’s shot on film, which automatically signals that the folks behind the movie had our best interests at heart. And really, that’s all I ask for anymore.

If you’ve seen the following films, you’ve pretty much already seen Backwoods: Severance (company retreat goes wrong), Wrong Turn (ranger comes to help, gets killed instantly next to his own car), Timber Falls (religious weirdoes kidnapping women and forcing them to breed), and pretty much any movie where our heroes stop for gas at a place run by hick looking folks that are quite obviously not upstanding citizens. But it’s sort of fun to see them all put together like this – I figured it would be a straight up “hicks vs. city folk” affair; the religious cult was not expected. I was also sort of impressed by the fact that the movie opened with a couple being picked off (again like Wrong Turn), but the female pops up a couple of times throughout the movie, and plays into the obligatory “they’re not all dead” final scene as well. It’s like when a band plays one of their signature hits at a concert but they expand the intro or outro to keep you from being totally bored; you’ve heard the jist of it a million times but there’s just enough extra zing to make it its own thing.

And again, the cast is pretty good. Ryan Merriman was pretty much the only good thing about Final Destination 3 (I know folks hate the last one, but it was an improvement over 3 for sure, IMO), so I liked seeing him again, playing the obvious hero because he doesn’t share his co-workers gung-ho mentality, but isn’t a complete spazz like the character played by Jonathan Slavin (Byron from Andy Richter Controls The Universe!). Also, the film sports major stars from two big Oscar-type movies: Mark Rolston from Shawshank Redemption (and also Aliens, respect) and Danny Nucci from Titanic. Then there’s some guy who looks like Bradley Cooper and Haylie Duff, who I guess is like the Billy Baldwin of the Duff family. I recognized some of the other actors as well; in short, it’s not the usual gaggle of generic young folks and then maybe a Bill Moseley or Sid Haig to add “marquee value” – it’s one star away from boasting a theatrical ready cast.

I’m also glad I watched the movie now, as opposed to maybe 2 months ago or more. See, I recently played paintball for the first time, and before then I was always under the impression that the things don’t really hurt unless you’ve been shot point blank. Not at all – even from a distance using low caliber guns (which are harder to aim but hurt less), they can give you a pretty big welt, or even break skin if they connect with a non-protected area. My buddy got a pretty good cut on his neck from when the ball “shattered”, in fact. So when our heroes arm themselves with paintguns, you might be tempted to laugh, but it’s actually a pretty smart idea – a good hit to the face could blind an enemy, and you’d have to be superhuman to keep advancing on someone who was pelting you repeatedly in the chest with the damn things. Keep in mind, these guys are computer programmers on a company retreat, not survivalists.

I just wish the directing/editing was better, and by better I mean less insanely obnoxious. Whoever made the call to cut every 15 frames or so during the scene where Merriman and Duff jump into a lake should be banned from ever working on a feature film again. It’s like they shot the scene from 3 angles and figured they had to use all of them, so they just cut back and forth between them all in rapid succession, which is even more annoying than it sounds (especially since one angle is merely a bit wider and about 10 degrees to the left from the other). Ditto for the reaction shots of the bad guys. There’s seriously something like 40 cuts in 10-15 seconds. There are also a lot of those annoying establishing shots where the camera zooms in and shakes a bit (accompanied by a WHOOOSH or something on the soundtrack), though thankfully they become less frequent as the film goes.

The script has some pretty dumb moments as well. Most preposterous is when Duff is about to be ceremoniously raped by a big brute, and she convinces him to untie her by pretending to be into it. Look, granted these guys are dumb brutes, but the fact that he falls for it so easily (and repeatedly, she makes him undo both hands and one foot and he STILL doesn’t catch on) just makes him a rather weak villain. Nucci’s character also has the most extreme case of denial I’ve ever seen in a film – not only does he refuse to believe that the guy they were shooting at wasn’t one of their coworkers, but later when they find their camp destroyed and gas siphoned, he thinks that it’s the other paintball team messing with them (he also assumed they were the ones to set a pretty advanced trap in the woods – despite the fact that they are, again, computer programmers who didn’t even really want to go). He almost makes up for it with his death scene though – he gets caught in a trap, with several spikes impaling him through the chest and what not, but he’s not dead yet – so he grabs his gun and begins firing at the advancing cult folk while the others get away! BADASS.

Well, whatever. If you’re in the mood for one of these things, you can do better, but you can do a lot worse as well. I wouldn’t go so far as to defend it against a naysayer, but it held my attention for the most part and was refreshingly light on the type of annoyances I’ve come to expect from this genre. I’ll forget everything in a week or so, but thanks for providing 84 minutes of inoffensive entertainment today, Backwoods crew!

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Beyond Dream's Door (1989)

FEBRUARY 10, 2011

GENRE: INDEPENDENT, PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

The biggest problem I had with the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels is that the nightmare sequences never came across like actual nightmares that people had, but fully formed ideas that made total (movie) sense and could be followed. In contrast, while it may not have much narrative cohesion, Beyond Dream’s Door has some of the best dream/nightmare imagery I’ve ever seen in a film, made more impressive by the fact that it’s the product of an 80’s Ohio State film class.

Ever try to describe a dream you had and realize when you’re telling it that it doesn’t make a single word of sense? That’s sort of what describing this movie would be like. It wasn’t until I watched the movie again with the commentary that I fully grasped certain scenes or plot points, and I’m still a bit wonky on others. But that’s the way it should be – the entire movie is about dreams, and thus making simple sense out of everything would be counter to the point, I think. But whereas that would normally annoy me, here I found it kind of refreshing, because they didn’t tone down the inherent nonsense of dreams in order to tell a more straightforward story. So when characters chase balloons for no reason, or paper airplanes fly out of nowhere, or locations shift as a character walks from point A to point B, sure it’s a bit disorienting, but it’s also very much identifiable as a common dream. Writer/director Jay Woelfel never tries to trick you into thinking something is really happening, and so he is free from the limitations the Nightmare movies and other films with dream motifs impose by trying to make the audience think whagt is happening is real (we’re also spared a lot of the usual “Hey this is happening now for real just as it was in my dream!” crap).

And while comparisons to the Nightmare series are unavoidable, the film does not feel like a cheap cash-in or wannabe. The plot here (best I can figure) is about a guy who hasn’t been able to dream for 15 years, since his parents died when he was a kid (sort of backwards, but I’ll go with it), and thus the dreams are sort of repressed and kind of pissed off about it. And so the action stems from these dreams (including a naked chick – a repressed wet dream? Gotta be a first) trying to kill him for some sort of revenge. That’s a pretty nifty concept, I think, and it lends itself to a number of different dream motifs as opposed to just one Freddy Krueger-esque villain. There’s the naked chick, a goofy rubber monster, random creepy folks, even some zombies at one point.

Where it gets kind of muddled involves the other people in the movie who get involved, in particular two TAs from his psychology class, as well as the professor who the dream monsters get early on so we can understand (relatively) the stakes – they can somehow make you non-existent. After they get him, there’s no record of his existence anymore; his phone line is gone, no listing in the directory, etc. Not sure how dream demons have this sort of power, and I’m not entirely sure I understand WHY they do this (something about covering up their existence, I think), but either way they definitely could have spent a little more time clarifying this aspect of the story, because the more involved the TAs got, the less I was able to sort-of follow the narrative.

Also, when I was crystal clear on what was happening, and when I was completely off in “this makes Inland Empire look easy to follow” land, one thing was universally certain – the acting in this movie is awful. I expect some amateur performances in a student film, and if it was confined to the supporting characters and/or one major character who was also a producer or whatever, I wouldn’t mind. But literally EVERYONE, even the lead, is pretty bad here. Luckily the worst is the professor who dies about 25 minutes in or so, but there’s still plenty of awkward line readings, non-reaction shots, and performances that could best be described as “stiff”. It doesn’t help that Woelfel’s film instructor apparently never taught him that it’s OK to hold on the non-speaking actor while the off-screen actor says a line during a conversation, so every bad delivery is made even more glaring (not to mention impossible to fix with an overdub) when they’re not on-screen.

Oddly this makes the 2nd Thursday in a row that I’ve watched a movie that reminded me of Alan Wake, which obviously this movie cannot be accused of copying (Vanishing on 7th Street, on the other hand... I mean, the game had been discussed and previewed for FIVE YEARS before it finally came out). Here, the monsters are after the pages of our hero’s term paper, much like some of the bad guys were after scattered pieces of Wake’s novel in that game. Since Wake took influence from a whole bunch of existing stuff (Twin Peaks, Stephen King, etc), I momentarily wondered if they had seen the movie too, but I doubt it. Just a cool idea I guess.

The DVD is jam-packed with stuff, though much of it caters more to those who consider the movie one of their top 10 of all time, as a lot of it is rather worthless to a casual fan (nor would it help you appreciate the movie more if you didn’t care for it). Outtakes without source audio, scenes deleted due to light leaks, makeup tests, and “alternate and unused takes” are of no interest to casual viewers, and then there’s the recorded acceptance speech for some award that they don’t even reveal. Hey, who needs context? I did enjoy the short pieces from local news broadcasts that covered the film’s production; I would love to see this become a more common extra, as everyone’s local news covers these movies from time to time when news is slow. The retrospective piece is also pretty good, with most of the participants returning, 15 years after the film was made.

The ones you should check out are the two commentary tracks (one with Woelfel solo, one with him and some of the cast/crew), as they help explain some of the muddier plot points, and provide a lot of still useful information for folks shooting their own ambitious student films. I also liked the short film that inspired the feature, which is interesting as the two main actors were originally in the other’s role (be even more interesting if they were better actors, but I digress). There’s also a shorter short that inspired the main short (!), and both have Woelfel commentaries as well. I mean, if you downright hated the movie, you probably shouldn’t bother (especially since I got a slight sense that these guys have glorified their efforts a bit, as if it was as big as Eraserhead or something), but otherwise it’s pretty enjoyable stuff.

Mainly though, I was just sort of charmed by seeing an indie horror film that was unique and creative. Nowadays, most of the “indies” I see are just cheap rehashes of the same sort of stuff the studios are making (i.e. crappy slashers and/or Saw ripoffs), and it’s rare I sense any true ambition. Beyond Dream’s Door may not be a slam dunk, but it was a step in the right direction – unlike these modern efforts, the film’s faults lie largely with a dearth of resources, not creativity.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Curse Of The Crimson Altar (1968)

FEBRUARY 9, 2011

GENRE: CULT
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT)

Early on in Curse Of The Crimson Altar (called The Crimson Cult in the US, though the Netflix print has the Altar title), our hero goes to a party filled with mod chicks, lots of drugs, awful dancing... in other words, it looked like something out of an Austin Powers movie. And I sighed, because I was afraid the whole movie was going to be like that, and I really wasn’t in the mood. Luckily, the “groovy” elements were kept to a minimum after that, and I was able to enjoy this slightly slow but charming and offbeat “guy stumbles upon a cult” movie.

The coolest thing is (spoiler for 43 year old movie ahead!) that more characters are heroic than you’d expect. I’m used to these sort of movies ending with pretty much everyone being in on the cult and turning on the hero, so I was pleasantly surprised when Christopher Lee (obviously a villain – no surprise there) attacked our hero’s love interest, as I assumed there would be a “twist” where she turned out to be part of (or even the leader of) the cult. Especially because she was so open to his rather forward advances, not once but twice he more or less ignores her protests and macks on her (and on the second time, they go all the way). Seemed to me she was just playing the part, or maybe WAS starting to fall for him and then would have to choose at the end.... nope, she’s just a nice girl who believes in “No means Oh might as well”.

Well she’s not in on it, but surely Boris Karloff must be, right? Nope! He turns out to be the movie’s real hero – he realizes what Lee is up to and thus springs into action, saving our protagonist (Mark Eden) and the girl with the help of his mute bodyguard. What kind of non-villain has a mute bodyguard? This movie’s all about circumventing the clichés I have come to expect in these things. That or maybe the screenwriter just felt bad for his earlier, awful joke where Eden first walks around the big mansion where the cult has their HQ (in a secret room of course) and remarks that it looks like “something out of a horror movie” and also that he expects “Boris Karloff to walk out any minute”. Was that the first terrible meta joke in film history? Anyway, it was another groaner moment early on that momentarily convinced me that this movie would suck.

(Oh, and someone SHOULD feel bad – it was on this film, during a cold and rainy exterior shoot, that Karloff got pneumonia – he would only complete 2-3 more pictures before dying a year later.)

I do wish there was a little more, er, “horror” in the movie. Most of the action is confined to dream sequences (or ARE they?!?!) that the hero experiences, where he sees the cult doing their thing, led by Barbara Steele, who is painted up and dressed like a space alien you might see Captain Kirk trying (and succeeding) to nail. And Lee does most of his stuff off-screen; at one point he begins a scuffle with the hero and then there’s a fade to where he already has him tied to a chair. The rest of the movie is pretty much just Eden wandering around the house, finding clues that prove his brother WAS there despite Lee’s insistence that he wasn’t, and hitting on the girl. I was entertained, but even if I was a kid I wouldn’t find much to be scared about.

They also leave a few things unexplained, like: what the hell is with the fake cobwebs? Eden grabs at them, points out that they are fake, and then the matter is never mentioned again. Given the “Karloff” joke earlier in the movie, I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be another meta-gag or what. It’s also unclear what Lee was actually trying to accomplish by kidnapping Eden (or the girl for that matter) – I assume it was some sort of sacrifice, but Eden was unconscious for a while, so why didn’t he just do it?

So I dunno, it’s nothing great, but kind of charming all the same. It’s nice to see a movie about a cult that apparently hasn’t been able to recruit the entire town, and Karloff, Lee, and Steele (not to mention a small turn by Michael Gough) are always welcome in my house. Final note - like every other 60s horror movie, it was loosely based on a Lovecraft tale (“Dreams In The Witch House”), but you’d never know it from watching it, as the similarities are incredibly thin (it’s one of the few HPL stories I’ve read!). Basically they both involve a guy in a house having dreams.

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

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

FEBRUARY 9, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What say you?

PLEASE, GO ON...

Open House (1987)

FEBRUARY 8, 2011

GENRE: CRAP, SLASHER
SOURCE: NETFLIX (INSTANT)

Congrats, Open House! You’re the 100th movie I deem “Crap”! Though looking at the first year, I was a bit harsh on some of the films; movies like Nightmares, Dracula II, They, etc are bad, but I was so naïve then to think those were the lowest of the low. I can only pray that 3-4 years from now, I’m not looking back at Open House and expressing that sort of sentiment – I would really hate to see so many bad movies in the future that this would actually start to look marginally decent.

The main problem with this film is that director Jag Mundhra seemingly didn’t know what the hell he was doing and/or didn’t bother sitting with his editor at any point. Not only is the movie sinfully boring, but there are at least three shots during separate kill scenes that go on for so long, I began to wonder if the Netflix stream had frozen. At one point a woman is hung, and we don’t really see her murder, but we watch a 36 second shot of her just hanging there. Now, 36 seconds may not sound like a long time, but when you’re watching it, it feels like an eternity. There’s also a bit at the beginning where a woman finds a corpse and screams for a minute or so. Does this alert the killer to her presence? Nope, she just keeps screaming and shaking her head, and then finally, the scene ends.

And that’s the other problem – Mundhra apparently couldn’t decide what kind of movie he was making. This scene (which occurs in the first few minutes) is borderline campy fun, but it’s pretty much the only moment in the film that can be described as such until the very end, which is on a whole new level of ridiculousness as the killer falls over a railing after being shot in the forehead, then gets back up (brain matter all over the ground), only to be felled by a cop kicking him in the balls, which sends him flying over ANOTHER railing, and finally dying despite the 2nd fall not being as far.

But in between these are scenes that border on Skinemax erotic thriller (indeed, Mundhra has helmed a number of such films, including the Andrew Stevens “classic” Night Eyes), and then sometimes we’re in pure slasher movie territory, and then the rest of the time it’s just a plain dull movie about real estate. Longtime readers know my “affinity” for real estate horror (this is actually the 2nd Open House!), but this one doesn’t use it as a backdrop – it’s practically a drama about the cutthroat real estate world; Glengarry Glen Ross by way of crappy cable thrillers. I couldn’t even understand what exactly was causing tension between some of the realtors, because I couldn’t follow their jargon. Their stuff is also awkwardly mixed with scenes of a radio call in host (main realtor Adrienne Barbeau’s boyfriend), who takes phone calls from the killer after he strikes. So if real estate intrigue isn’t your thing, don’t worry – Open House has got you covered via long scenes of people screening listener calls, typing on the request computer, and installing phone taps.

This film also features the flat out ugliest goddamn man I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t want to be mean, but Jesus Christ is he unpleasant to look at. Luckily he’s supposed to be an unpleasant man, a rival realtor (yes, this movie has RIVAL REALTORS) named Barney Resnick who slobbers about, says terrible things like “Your ass is negotiable” to pretty young realtors, and dies taking a piss. And he has more screen time than the killer, who is almost as hideous, but that makes sense because he’s a homeless man, not a guy that’s supposed to be charming as he suckers you into buying a split level in Valley Village that’s located under a flight path.

Oh, yeah, the homeless killer. A few years ago I wrote a list for B-D about the stupidest killer motives ever, and had I seen Open House then it would have made the list. Our guy is killing because the realtors priced the houses too high, but also because they sold the house he was squatting in and thus made him homeless again. I fail to see how killing a few realtors would really resolve his issue – it’s not like they would start lowering prices because the competition was dead. Also not sure why he calls the radio show, but I had long since stopped caring about anything that happened in the movie by the time he was revealed anyway.

There was one bit I liked, but only due to what I watched the other day. At one point a little cuddly kitten begins meowing and circling around the killer. Having just suffered through The Roommate (the worst movie I had seen this month until this piece of shit came along), I feared that I’d be witness to another caticide. But the killer tickles the little furball for a bit and then lets him go. Good call, movie – you prevented me from inventing a whole new category for movies I abhor.

I should also probably talk about Barbeau a bit, because someone will bitch if I don’t. She has a brief nude scene, so that’s good, but she’s not in the movie enough to warrant the viewing – you can see her nude in other, better movies, and she doesn’t really get any good lines or do anything badass. Hell she doesn’t even figure much into the finale – spending most of it tied up (in the damsel in distress way, not the S&M way). Her role stinks of “We have her for 5 days of this 30 day shoot!”, in fact – her scenes are sort of disconnected from the rest of the film, and disappears for large chunks at a time (she only appears once in the first 25 minutes or so). Sort of like Neve in Scream 3, and even THAT movie is something I wished I was watching instead.

Odd trivia – the screenwriter went on to write/direct/narrate The Sandlot, which I remember as being a pretty charming movie. What the hell, man? Where was that talent on THIS goddamn thing?

What say you?

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