Hey folks, a couple people have asked for my review of The Conjuring - I wrote it up for Badass Digest when I saw it at the LA Film Festival a month before it opened. So you can read it HERE! I meant to link it at the time but forgot. In short: it's real good! But since it's already made like 80 million dollars I'm guessing you know that by now. My bad.
PLEASE, GO ON...
The Demented (2013)
JULY 25, 2013
GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)
Don't let the 5-6 reviews a month fool you - I've been watching probably 4-5 movies a week since "retiring" (mostly for my Netflix gig), but haven't had the energy to review most of them because they were so bad and I honestly couldn't think of anything to say about them. But I'm making an exception for The Demented, a zombie movie from Anchor Bay hitting stores next week, because I really want to know - what, exactly, was the impetus to make this movie? Sometimes when I write a negative review I purposely leave out the filmmakers' names so that they don't come leaving anonymous nasty comments (knowing that they will after seeing it happen to a friend for that particular film or filmmaker), but I'm going to mention them all specifically in hopes that they DO find this and inform me.
The film's script and direction is attributed to Christopher Roosevelt, but not only is it his first credit for either, there are fourteen (FOURTEEN!) credited producers, so I am wary to put much of the film's blame on him - something about many cooks and broth comes to mind. There are only six people in the movie not counting the random zombies and maybe a couple of background extras, which means there are 2.3 producers for each character with a name - that is not a formula I would expect to produce a particularly great movie. So I'm just as curious (if not more so) to hear from them - I'll skip the execs and associates, and stick with the straight up "producer" credits for this purpose: Shirley Craig, Christine Holder, Mark Holder, Damiano Tucci, and Steven R. Monroe, who directed the not-bad I Spit On Your Grave remake and brought along that film's lovely star, Sarah Butler, to play one of our six here.
So if any of them are reading this, please, enlighten me - why exactly was this movie made? It's rare that I've seen a movie THIS painfully generic - at first I thought the laughably stock characters (six friends off on a weekend of fun, of course) was lulling us into a false sense of security, like maybe there was a Cabin in the Woods style twist coming that REQUIRED us to instantly know (or think we know) exactly how all of this would play out. But no! After 20 minutes or so there's a missile attack that turns its victims into zombies, and we are treated to mindless, completely uninspired and almost laughably recycled zombie attack scenes, with a cast member dutifully being offed every 15 minutes. One cast member exits a bit earlier than I expected, and the ending is surprisingly grim (though it doesn't seem to fit, and it's clear that they shot two endings and opted to use both, treating one as an out of nowhere hallucination or something), but otherwise there isn't a single moment in the movie where I had even the slightest understanding of why this movie was made.
I mean, don't movies start with an idea? Don't they want to set it apart from the 5962 other zombie movies that have come along in the past 5-6 years? Even the worst of the lot tend to have a relatively new hook behind them - take the godawful Doomed, for example. It's inept, terrible, and every other bad word you can throw at it, but at least I understood how it came together - someone had the idea to combine zombies with a reality show featuring a video game type scoring system. A concept! The concept here is six friends (one of whom of course has been cheating on her boyfriend with one of the other one's boyfriends, because the movie is dedicated to doing things we've seen in too many other movies) run away from zombies. The zombies have some weird thing where they stand still when they can't see a victim, but not enough is done with this wrinkle, and otherwise they're the same fast, "infected" style undead that in my opinion keep the scenario from ever being really scary - slow ones that you THINK you can easily avoid getting you is much scarier, to me.
Hell I'd even forgive the threadbare story and non-existent angle if they were at least showing off a ton of new ways to kill zombies and/or show zombies killing people, but the movie fails miserably there, too. A number of deaths are basically off-screen, and while the digital blood is thankfully kept to a minimum, unfortunately so are zombies themselves - there's only a couple dozen (being generous) and it seems most of them are dispatched by a car hitting them (sans splatter). A few nice stunts, sure, but so what? WHY AM I WATCHING THIS??? I seriously began just trying to imagine the pitch meeting for this movie and honestly couldn't think of a single thing that anyone might have said that would have perked up the ears of someone about to put his or her money on the line to make it. "What's that, you say? The guy who gives his girlfriend a promise ring at the beginning dies? No one will see that coming! I want to be in The Demented business!"
Sometimes people like to compare low-brow movies to McDonald's, the "not every movie needs to be a steak, sometimes you want junk food" defense. Hell, I'm sure I've used it myself more than once. But this isn't a McDonald's hamburger - this is a HOLOGRAM of a McDonald's hamburger. It looks like a real movie, but if you inspect it closely, you'll realize there's absolutely nothing there. I sincerely hope someone involved can explain what I'm missing here; I'm truly at a loss, and unless I hear otherwise I'll just assume this is one of the most cynical cash-in productions I've seen in years, and that includes sequels. I'd rather watch an incompetent movie with an idea than a (mostly) competent one that I struggle to even remember a specific detail about the second I shut it off.
Oh and it was shot in Louisiana, so you can't even enjoy the scenery all that much as you've probably seen it in 15 other movies.
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...Blu-Ray Review: The Fog
JULY 17, 2013
GENRE: GHOST, REVENGE
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)
I would kill to see the original cut of The Fog, which was assembled, deemed unworthy by John Carpenter, and reshaped into the minor classic we have today. The commentary tracks and interviews explain some of the key differences (many to the opening reel), but he also redid his score, which I'd really really like to hear. I'm sure he wasn't wrong - the resulting soundtrack is one of his all time best, in my opinion - but even the worst John Carpenter score is pretty good. If nothing else, seeing this cut would probably be beneficial to those who dismiss the finished film as a lesser JC entry - maybe they could appreciate how much it had improved.
For us folks that already know better, the new Blu from Scream Factory is a godsend. Dean Cundey's photography never looked so good, and it's the rare film of his with Carpenter that wasn't so cramped (Halloween and Escape From New York had to hide their true shooting locations; Big Trouble In Little China was primarily indoors, etc). The shots of DJ Stevie Wayne (Adrienne Barbeau) are reference quality good - not bad for a 33 year old, low budget horror movie. And the improved sound lets every note of Carpenter's impossibly underrated score hit your ears gracefully, plus the low dialogue issue that plagued a few other Scream Factory releases (including the team's Halloween II) has seemingly been fixed for good.
Oh, and you get the movie itself. I get why it might not work on some; the pacing is a bit odd - especially with regards to its (story dictated) six kills, as three are wiped out in the first 20 minutes and one of the others technically occurs during the film's end credits. As Carpenter explains on the commentary, the movie has three acts (not evenly spaced): the first night that the fog and its murderous ghosts appear, the day after (where the ghosts/fog are MIA), and the second night when they come back. This means a lot of stuff has to happen fast in act 1 as they can only appear from 12-1am - we always laugh about Tom Atkins' quickness in Halloween III where he hooks up with Stacey Nelkin a day after they meet (and after a lengthy road trip), but he's even quicker here, as he picks up Jamie Lee Curtis sometime after midnight and is already in post-coitus cuddle before 1am. Dude should teach a class or something.
But some pacing/structure clunkiness aside, I really dig this one. I almost wish it wasn't coming out until October; it's such a perfect "chilly weather" movie (even though it takes place in the spring). I even turned off my lights to watch it, which I never do - it just seemed appropriate for the low-key campfire story it was emulating (spelled out in the opening scene!). And even though the ghosts are out of commission during the day, Carpenter still packs the film with decent jump scares - that one in the boat, where there's a fake jump instantly followed by real one, still works great. Speaking of which, listen carefully when Jamie Lee screams after the body falls on her - anyone else convinced that's her scream from Halloween (when she goes over the railing) dubbed into the movie? I was hoping Carpenter would mention it on the commentary (which he shares with Debra Hill) but since neither of them even seemed to remember that Charles Cyphers was in Halloween I doubt they'd remember a quick audio switcheroo.
Plus it's a treasure trove for Carpenter fans; only Escape From New York has more of his regulars appearing (all of them besides Nancy Loomis really, if you count Jamie Lee's voice as the narrator). Cyphers, Atkins, Curtis, Loomis, Barbeau, and Buck Flower are all here, plus two timers like Darwin Joston and John Strobel (the guy in Escape who gives Kurt his injection). And the rest of the cast is rounded out by greats like Hal Holbrook and Janet Leigh, so you can't really complain that their roles coulda gone to Donald Pleasence or... well, JC didn't really have any "regular" middle aged women, I guess. And it's got his all-stars behind the camera too; Cundey, editor/production designer Tommy Wallace, Ray Stella on camera, Hill producing... this and Escape are like the Rosetta Stones of his work (I've always found it kind of funny that The Thing is considered by many to be his best movie when it's remarkably low on regulars - hell he didn't even do the score himself!).
As always, Scream has ported over all of the bonus features from the previous special edition (from MGM): the Hill/Carpenter commentary (recorded around 1995) is fun, though as always with JC he tends to get obsessed with pointing out different locations within a single scene and occasionally just narrates the movie. But their memory (save for Cyphers) is pretty sharp, and he discusses the changes to the film and points out which scenes were added mere weeks before the film opened. There's a promotional behind the scenes piece created in 1980 that is amusing to watch, as well as a solid retrospective that has (then) new interviews with most of the cast and crew. Plus the outtakes and other little bits - I went over with a fine tooth comb and promise you that everything is here except for the liner notes inside the MGM DVD case.
And then there's new stuff! Jamie Lee was one of the few omissions on that older retrospective, but they make up for it here with a 20 minute interview that was shot in 2013 - and it's a must-see. Not only do they thankfully shoot her with a real background (her own house, maybe?) instead of those ugly greenscreen backdrops they use on all their other interviews, but she is wonderfully candid and tells a ton of great stories, and ends with a heartfelt message to Carpenter. It's one of the best interview pieces I've seen in a while, and certainly the best on these Scream Factory releases - do more like this! Maybe it's the more comfortable setting that got her to open up as well as she did where so many others just feel like they're telling the same stories they've told before (regardless of whether you've heard them)? Sadly, they didn't do the same for the other new interview, with Cundey - he's got the goofy backdrop, and doesn't seem to be having much fun. He doesn't focus on Fog exclusively (neither did JLC, for the record), but goes over his entire career with Carpenter, which for reasons I still don't know seem to have ended with Big Trouble in Little China (though he says he'll work with him anytime).
The other new video segment is a lengthy episode of Horror's Hallowed Grounds, where host Sean Clark takes folks around on the shooting locations as they exist today, explaining where they were used in the film and where certain things should be prior to their remodeling ("this wall wasn't here before, it was the door that they came through..."). Some of his shtick is eye-rolling, but it's certainly a fun approach to bonus features that I welcome the inclusion of, particularly in this case as it turns out that the convenience store I drive by on Laurel Canyon every time I head over the hill is the one that was seen at the beginning of the movie! Had no idea. Now I'll have to stop and steal some orange juice. Clark also moderates the new commentary track featuring Barbeau, Atkins, and Wallace, which falls silent a few times but is very charming otherwise; they're all good friends then and now, giving it a warmth that you rarely hear on these things (at one point one of them even recognizes one of the others' homes before they do - it's endearing!).
So, unsurprisingly, another winner for the Scream Factory line. Sure, they're working off of a bit of a template at this point, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? And as an OCD sufferer, if another new bonus feature meant having to leave out some of the stuff from the previous release, I'd rather not have it. I can get rid of my old DVD knowing that this has everything it gave me (and more!), unlike other special editions which always take a "start from scratch" approach. It PAINED me to get rid of my "From Crystal Lake to Manhattan" F13 DVD set when my newer editions lacked some of its supplements, but I just couldn't justify the extra shelf space. This makes "letting go" a cinch, and since Blus are thinner, gives me room for more of their releases! Everyone wins.
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...Beneath (2013)
JULY 14, 2013
GENRE: MONSTER
SOURCE: ONLINE (SCREENER)
I've discussed my fear of fish a couple times before on this site, so it's probably not too surprising that I found Beneath to be scarier than the average Jaws ripoff. Not that I would laugh in the face of a shark, but with them I know where I stand, and since I can barely swim I probably wouldn't be going out into the ocean far enough for one to get me like that idiot Kintner boy. But a regular lake, like the one I went in hundreds of times growing up? Sure, I'd go in there, and according to this movie, I'd promptly be eaten by a giant (but not TOO giant) man-eating catfish. So my fear has only been restored, and will stick to well lit, very tiny swimming pools.
In fact, there's something in the movie that unsettled me more than any of the actual kill scenes - a long overhead shot of our heroes in their boat as the fish makes its way over to them, bumps the boat, and just sort of hangs out nearby for a bit before going under and swimming away again. It's a scene that was probably dictated partially by the limitations of the practical (YES, practical!) monster - it can't do much and was probably being operated by guys in the water swimming around and going as fast as they can, but that's what makes it work. It's so casual about its "attack" that it unnerved me more than any scene of it rapidly approaching on someone in the water - it's close, and it's posing a real threat at all times.
Indeed, the movie more or less takes place in real time, which is crucial to point out as the kids don't seem to be that far from the shore. They have no oars (and eventually the fish pops a hole in the side, forcing them to bale water as they cautiously paddle with their hands), which accounts for their slow progress, but a viewer not paying close attention will probably just get annoyed, thinking that they are going too slow only to make the movie work. I mean, I'm sure there is some license taken with the timeframe (not unlike a 30 second sequence in a movie about a bomb going down from 10), but it's something director Larry Fessenden and his writers clearly tried to explain away by only rarely skipping over a chunk of time. So the situation becomes more nerve-wracking, especially once the boat begins to sink and the fish keeps coming back for fresh blood.
See, of course they can't just be a group of close friends who would die to help the others - it's a modern horror film, so if anything they barely like each other. But it's the rare case where this actually pays off, unlike a slasher type where it's just something to add (fake) drama. Here, their tenuous friendships and inadvertently revealed secrets (yes, as always, a character's infidelity is an issue) are enough reason - when ALL of their lives are on the line - to "vote off" someone on the boat every now and then to distract the fish enough for them to risk dipping their hands into the water to paddle. It can be a bit silly - they definitely could have done without everyone defending why they shouldn't be killed, as two of them basically have the same excuse ("I'm going to be famous someday!"), and the movie has already done enough for us to not really like any of them that much - but it's a fun little wrinkle all the same, and adds some tension even when the fish isn't nearby. I actually had no idea who'd ever be next to go (the movie curiously kills off one of its two females first), so even though I wasn't particularly rooting for any of them, I still found myself caught up in the "who will be next" scenes since it was never an obvious choice.
Of course, if you're not afraid of fish, then there probably isn't enough here to make you forget that you're essentially watching a feature length version of "The Raft" segment from Creepshow 2. Even with the voting and real time element, it still feels padded and repetitive at times, so if you find the monster silly instead of THE MOST TERRIFYING THING EVER, I can see this being a bit of a chore for you. There's a hint at a baffling mythology (the fish isn't some new discovery - locals know about it?) that probably should have been saved as a reveal instead of something we learn right off the bat, as it automatically clues us in not only to the danger, but to one character's rather confusing plot arc - why did he bring the girl he loved out there when he knew there was a giant killer fish in the area? It's worth noting that this is the first feature Fessenden has directed that he didn't write himself; it's a shame he didn't bring a bit more of his style into the plotting. He can be hit or miss, but his movies at least never feel like traditional horror flicks, nor do they offer up cliches (there's even an idiotic "guy pretends to be taken by something in the water to scare his friends" scene - have these been amusing in the slightest in the past 30 years?). It's a full 90 minutes, so unless they had some sort of contractual minimum runtime (very possible since this is a Chiller production and will thus be airing on their channel someday, I'm sure), they could have trimmed some of this silly fat and had an even better film.
But it works as an old school, "late night" or "regional" monster movie, not unlike Glass Eye's recent Hypothermia (and superior to that one - better monster!). The lack of CGI is so refreshing that I'm willing to overlook some of its scripting issues, and I'm glad to see Fessenden directing again as it's been over 6 years since Last Winter (which I should revisit; my primary complaint seems to be that it was too slow, something that usually is less of an issue on a 2nd view). Maybe he was just getting into shape for something that fits more in his filmography - if so, as a "stretch" it's a pretty entertaining one, and given all the attention this weekend on Sharknado, I was mostly just happy to watch a monster movie that was taken seriously.
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...The Last Will And Testament Of Rosalind Leigh
JULY 11, 2013
GENRE: HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)
Sometimes a movie is worth seeing not because it's full on great, but (and this goes for horror in particular) because it's doing something ambitious and unique, so as long as it's WATCHABLE and professionally done, it deserves to be seen by fans of its genre. Such is the case with The Last Will And Testament Of Rosalind Leigh - it's not the best movie of the year or anything, but it's definitely one of the most interesting and unusual horror films I've seen in quite a while (and that's still a lot - I've only reviewed about a third of what I've watched since "quitting"), and thus comes highly recommend to more mature fans.
And I don't mean to insult younger horror fans by saying that; while I DO feel that they might be bored (the movie is almost completely free of "action"), the real problem is that I think you need to be a bit older to appreciate the point of the movie, which deals more with regret and loneliness than typical horror elements. Our hero is an estranged son who comes back to his mother's house after she died in order to collect the objects he wants to sell as antiques (he's a dealer) before selling off the property, only to discover that his mom - who he hadn't spoken to in years - had bought all of his wares herself, hoping that it would reconnect them. Kind of a bummer premise, right? Granted, there are some haunted house style elements and a mystery involving her death and the angel cult (!) she was part of, but the focus remains on her despair and his growing realization that she was right.
See, as we learn over time, the reason he left is because he didn't buy into her afterlife beliefs - no such thing as angels or heaven. "You're there, and then you're not," he says, and so of course part of the movie concerns whether or not he was right. Being a genre film you can probably guess which side the movie takes, but there's more to it than that, which I'll let you discover for yourself as the movie has a final twist that hammers home the dramatic part of writer/director Rodrigo Gudino's film. It's a bit subtle - I actually missed it the first time around (I watched it twice, as this was one of my Netflix assignments and as usual I got caught up watching the movie and forgot to note if anyone smoked or swore - two things I need to mark down for my assigned titles), and it turned what was already kind of a sad movie into a full blown gutpunch. If you're feeling the least bit guilty about not spending enough time with your own mom (and I am, but that's what happens when you move to the other side of the country), this movie will drive you over the edge. Make the phone call or Sunday afternoon visit BEFORE watching!
But, admittedly, as much as I appreciated the movie's unusual pacing and storyline (someone needs to make a full blown horror movie about a cult that worships angels instead of Satan!), it DOES get a bit too slow for its own good. Vanessa Redgrave is 2nd billed as the mother, but she only appears in a shot or two (she was primarily cast for her voice, as the mother narrates chunks of the movie from what appears to be a letter to her son) - and that is indeed the 2nd most prominent character in the movie. We never see a single other person in the film proper until the very end, just a few voices on the phone or people in a film that he watches about the cult. Actor Aaron Poole (who looks like the similarly named Aaron Paul from the side, oddly enough) has the entire film to himself, and while he's a good enough actor to handle the task, the script doesn't have him doing all that much for most of the runtime. For example, with 20 minutes to go including (the very slow) credits, we see him call tech support for the house's security system so that he can access the surveillance footage after seeing "something" outside - the entire call (including being on hold) is shown, which is just padding it a bit to get it up to its bare minimum feature length of 80 minutes. With trimming (the girlfriend, for example) and tightening, Gudino could have made a 30 minute "short" film that would get the prime slot at genre festivals' short blocks, and everyone would be blown away - as a feature, it takes maybe a bit too much patience at times.
Needless to say, there are no deleted scenes on the disc, as I suspect they used every frame that was shot to get the movie to its runtime. However, there are some fine bonus features, including a short film from Gudino (so he DOES know how to make one! I kid, I kid) that I couldn't quite follow but had a very interesting approach to "live action" (and also featured Julian Richings, Canadian genre actor icon who also appears briefly in the feature). Of most interest is the refreshingly straight forward commentary by Gudino (moderated by someone whose name escapes me, but he's got a delightfully thick Scottish accent), where he doesn't play the obnoxious "I leave it up to you to decide!" card with regards to the movie's mysteries - he actually explains the ending almost right off the bat, and points out a few other little things I had missed. He even says that people who listen to commentaries probably want answers, so maybe he can teach a class on such things as he's clearly more tuned into his audience than many of his peers. It seems that the track was recorded as a podcast of sorts, so he's not too screen specific as it appears you can listen to it on its own and get what he's saying, so there's not a lot of technical info about the production (though I was surprised to discover that the house was made up of several different locations - it's pretty seamless onscreen!). The making of is also worth a look, as its production team clearly wanted to ape the offbeat style of the movie rather than deliver typical EPK bullshit, though I didn't find much use for the interview with the composer, mainly because I am a complete idiot when it comes to music and thus didn't fully understand what he was saying. If you're a composer or music buff, however - it's one of the longer composer special features I've seen in a while, so there's that. Some photo galleries round things out.
At first I didn't know what to make of the movie, but as it went on (and then on my second viewing) I found a lot to admire. I can't deny I was a bit bored at times, but I was also drawn in and even kind of lulled by its melancholy tone and admirable "no generic horror bullshit" approach. Give it a chance; I honestly can't think of another "horror" movie that is anything like it - the closest I could think of was Premonition, the underrated Sandra Bullock thriller, as it also focused on how letting a relationship crumble can have depressing (and slightly scary!) consequences, but that would be selling it short as that movie was mainly more interested in being a thriller. This is the real deal - I've asked for more dramatic horror and got my wish!
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...Public Service Announcement: STOKER Blu-Ray
JULY 4, 2013
GENRE: THRILLER
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)
I originally planned to re-review Stoker when it came out on Blu-ray, but after re-reading my original review from February, I realized it wasn't necessary - my feelings on the film haven't changed one iota. Sometimes at home a movie no longer grabs me as much as it did before (Shark Night is one unfortunate example - so fun in theaters, so dull at home), other times I find I like it a lot more on a second go around (such as Wind Chill). But Stoker - nope! I still love it, and it's still a must-see movie. The only difference is now I can add "Why the hell didn't you go see it?"
Seriously, I highly doubt there will be a movie unseating it from its current perch at the top of my favorites of the year (You're Next might have, but I saw it in 2011!), and I've talked to several others who feel just as strongly about it, such as Sam Zimmerman from Fangoria in THIS (must-read) piece. But we couldn't convince anyone to SEE the damn thing when it came out in theaters this past March; it had a solid opening weekend on a mere 7 screens, but when it expanded it played to nearly empty houses, ultimately grossing less than the Oscar nominated short films collection (!). Between this, Sunshine, and Joshua, I have to wonder - do folks just have some sort of opposition to Fox Searchlight horror films that I'm not privy to?
So now that it's on Blu, I'm here again to ask, hell, BEG you to check it out. It's an incredible film that might even play better at home (at least, on a good home theater so you can appreciate Director Park's compositions and the terrific sound design), since so much of it is subtle and personal, not to mention taking place largely within the home of its main character. And the transfer is terrific; you'll be able to appreciate every strand of Nicole Kidman's hair during that incredible dissolve I mentioned in my review, not to mention soak in the outstanding production design in all its glory. I was also impressed with how many languages they offered - Spanish and French are kind of standard for region 1 releases, but this has Thai, Turkish, Polish, and other dubs, plus as many (and more!) for subtitles. I wouldn't swear on a Bible or anything, but I'm pretty damn sure this is the first time I've been able to listen to the movie in Czech while reading Icelandic subtitles.
The bonus features are enjoyable, but nothing really qualifies as a must-see. The making of "A Filmmaker's Journey" is the best of the lot; running just under a half hour it covers the usual ground with a refreshing lack of too much generic EPK feeling, and the deleted scenes are worth a look, particularly the extended staircase scene between India and Charlie. The shorter featurettes are fine and cover different aspects in "detail", but they're a touch fluffy and promotional, plus sometimes recycle material that you should have already seen on the proper making of piece. Then there's an inordinate amount of material on the film's South Korean and London premieres; I guess it's interesting to see how they approach such things over there compared to here in the States, but it made me feel like I was watching E! news instead of anything about filmmaking. And if you love the song on the end credits (I did not), you're in luck - there's a music video and other stuff about it (inc. one of the featurettes), and musician Emily Wells is alongside Park for most of his premiere appearances.
But even if it was a barebones disc, it would be worth whatever they're charging to own it. I know the "slow" pacing and peculiar story will be a turn off for some, but if you're a fan of Park's CRAFT (meaning, "Oldboy RULZ" isn't the extent of your appreciation of his work) and/or of offbeat, more dramatic horror/thriller fare, I can't possibly see how you wouldn't want this in your collection.
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...The Mutilator (1985)
JULY 3, 2013
GENRE: SLASHER
SOURCE: DVD (BORROWED)
Ah, youth! My brother in law gave me a copy of The Mutilator that he had bought (or was given? I forget) at a convention, which means it's just an unofficial dupe taken from an unrated VHS source. Since the self-justifying thieving scum will come out of the woodwork to call me a hypocrite for watching it while slamming them for stealing new movies that are playing in theaters, let's just remind everyone that this has never been officially released on DVD (Amazon sells an all-region PAL copy that's just as shady as this one) and the VHS is, obviously, long out of print, leaving no other way to see the movie without buying a very expensive used copy of the latter (which, hate to tell you, isn't much different - you're still sending 100% of your money to a 3rd party and 0% to the filmmakers). If you honestly see no difference between this and downloading White House Down to watch on your iPad, you're an idiot.
Anyway, it's a pretty glorious late-to-the-party slasher, on par with Honeymoon Horror (one of the last HMADs from the daily era), in that it's a bad movie that is endlessly entertaining all the same, made by folks who were clearly jumping into the slasher game to make a quick buck before the well completely ran dry. And like the Honeymoon creative team, writer/director/producer Buddy Cooper has never been heard from again - we can assume that the same-named boom operator on one of Darren Aronofsky's short films (the only other thing on Cooper's IMDb page) was NOT the same guy who ten years prior made one of the goofiest slasher movies ever seen. Code Red was apparently working on a DVD version only to abandon it when they could not locate a 35mm version of the film to master it from, so it's possible we will never get a complete backstory on this one (though someone on Youtube did track Cooper down for a brief Q&A, if you're so inclined).
If I were to interview Cooper, at the top of my list would be to ask what possessed him to write (and perform!) such a ridiculously upbeat, ill-fitting theme song for the film, titled "Fall Break" (which was the film's original name). It does indeed discuss the INTENDED plot of the film - grabbing friends, going to the beach for some fun, etc - but it's really jarring even at the top of the film when nothing much bad has happened yet (just the obligatory tragic prologue set ten years prior), making it borderline insane when played at the end, once everyone is dead and we're being treated to outtakes - some of them gory - over the cast credits. I mean, listen to this thing:
As for the slasher plot itself, eh. It's pretty standard for the most part - six pals go off to an isolated house, two of them go off to bang fairly early on and get killed for their trouble, the others wonder what happened to them and thus keep going off by themselves to find them. The death scenes are a decent mix, some are off-screen but the on-screen ones make up for it, including a pretty fun decapitation of a would-be red herring and the infamous gaff hook scene (which includes another decapitation). I also loved the insane final kill, where the killer, bisected but still alive, slices off the leg of a cop who was trying to help, while laughing as if he had won despite the fact that his legs were a few feet away.
It's also bizarrely a whodunit to the characters but not to us. In the aforementioned tragic prologue, we see a kid accidentally kill his mom with his dad's rifle, and now that it's ten years later the dad decides to get revenge by killing off everyone his son cares about (except for his girlfriend, making it the rare slasher where the killer has a motive to kill the friends instead of the target, and yet still manages to blow it). But the son doesn't realize who the killer is until they've pretty much dispatched him, leading to a ridiculous "reveal" ("Oh my god, it's my DAD!") which will hopefully make you laugh hard enough to overlook the fact that they had wrestled a few minutes earlier - why didn't he recognize him then? To his credit, Cooper occasionally tries to make it seem more complicated; in addition to that random cop (he shows up all overly friendly, like many a surprise killer), there's a story about someone who got run over by a ski boat a few years back - there's even a framed picture of the victim for some goddamn reason - but it's never mentioned again.
Another thing I loved was the character of Ralph, as the standard "goofy" guy of the group. He's not pathetic or nerdy, but he's endlessly cracking jokes and making goofy faces, even when he's by himself. Early on he "cons" the guy at the convenience store into letting him use the senior citizen discount (a mere 10%) if he buys a 2nd six pack of beer (we then learn that the clerk seemingly anticipated this!), and it's one of the weirder diversions I can recall, establishing him as a budding lawyer which will of course have no bearing on anything. And why do characters going off for a weekend always only buy one or two 6-packs? How is that possibly going to be enough?
Really, the only thing that disappointed me (I wasn't exactly expecting a masterpiece) was that Frances Raines' character was the first of the group to be dispatched. As the only one I recognized thanks to Disconnected (and the only one besides the hero* to appear in anything else before or since), I figured she was going to be the Final Girl, so I guess it kind of works as a surprise that she's the first to go, but it still bummed me out as she was a pretty awkward character and thus every line she said made me laugh (like when she says she wants to "get high score on the video machine"). That said, it's kind of hard to tell who will be the final girl out of the other two until one says she won't have sex right before a scene where the other says she can't wait to do it when her fella gets back from his door-locking mission. Dead giveaway!
But it's got that je ne sais quoi that's missing from pretty much every post 1980s slasher, making it worth hunting down if you're like me and worship at the altar of these things, or if your mom ALSO refused to rent it for you as a kid due to the lurid box cover (which has two versions, neither of which feature the characters that are actually in the movie). Given the fish hook kill, I guess she made the right call (I was only like 7 or 8 when I asked; along with Bloody Birthday I think it's the only one she ever vetoed). That's good parenting! Plus if I saw it before I had the internet I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the half-assed attention to detail when the cop says he is investigating a "10-38" when referring to a possible break in - a quick search revealed that a 10-38 refers to a traffic stop.
What say you?
*He voices one of the Pokemon. Seriously.
PLEASE, GO ON...6 Souls (aka Shelter) (2010)
JULY 1, 2013
GENRE: POSSESSION, PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)
Whoever decided to change the title to 6 Souls from its original Shelter should be slapped, mocked, and fired (in any order), as it not only makes the movie sound like a generic thriller, but it also spoils the damn movie! I'll explain in detail in a bit, but it would be like calling The Usual Suspects "The Interrogation of Keyser Soze" or something, not to mention generally gives away something that's supposed to be a twist in the narrative itself (in addition to giving us the exact count, I mean). I'd bet my left nut that the decision was to get the movie higher up in alphabetically listed VOD queues (as a "6" would be near the top, whereas "Shelter" would be way far down), but it's a huge slap in the face to the filmmakers.
And they've been through enough, frankly. The movie was actually shot in 2008 (!) and is just now being released here in the States (it opened in some markets in 2010 under its original title). Needless to say, it's from the Weinsteins, whose vaults probably have movies that were produced in the 90s. Having watched it, I can almost see why they'd have trouble marketing the movie to a mass audience - the midway genre shift alone would be a tough nut to crack in a 2 minute trailer (which thankfully doesn't fully spoil much - they're showing late movie events but without context it's not exactly the same as, say, Cast Away's trailer having Hanks back on land talking about the island), but then they also had to get around the fact that its star (Julianne Moore) had appeared in three genre misfires in a row (Blindness, Next, and the terrific but box office failure Children of Men). But still, it didn't deserve to be all but dumped direct to DVD (it played a couple theaters to save face, but its gross went unreported) or shelved for so long - give it a chance!
Not that it's some abandoned masterpiece or anything, but it's a perfectly enjoyable little thriller, and one that dares to go into some rather nutty territory in its second half - which I can always appreciate. It starts off like any old psychological thriller: Moore plays a shrink who doubts the existence of multiple personality disorder, and has just successfully gotten a murderer executed by lethal injection by proving that the "other" he was blaming for the crimes (which would net him a guilty by insanity verdict instead of death) was just an act. But then her dad (Jeffrey DeMunn), who is also a shrink, has her meet with his new patient (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), a man who claims to be both David and Adam, with some pretty convincing differences between them that seemingly can't be faked (such as the fact that one of them is color blind). As she begins to doubt her stance on MPD, she realizes he CAN'T be faking... but also that it's not a mere case of a split personality.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Now, this is where the new title hurts the movie. When the man suddenly has a third personality that seems to be that of a rock star who killed himself 15 years prior, it's clear that he's not suffering a mental disorder, but that he seems to be absorbing certain souls for whatever reason. The title doesn't give that much away so neither will I, but the movie's called 6 Souls, not "3 Souls", making the turn of events in the 3rd less and less exciting as it goes on - unless you don't know how to count, there's little surprise what it's building toward and when it'll end. And again, the idea of it being "souls" instead of completely fabricated personalities is itself set up as a surprise in the movie, but with the title telling us right off the bat what's going on, it renders a lot of the early psychiatry based scenes much less interesting than they should be. Longtime readers of the site know that I try to avoid knowing anything about a movie before I sit down to watch it, and this was no exception - but yet I was able to piece most of it together long before the halfway point.
But again, it's not that bad. Moore is always great to watch, even if she seems to be a bit old for the role she's playing (she's only 13 years younger than DeMunn, playing her father, but a whopping 17 years OLDER than the actor playing her brother). Not that she LOOKS that old, but come on, she's been prominent in movies since the early 90s - we know she can't be any less than 45, though the movie is clearly setting her up as 35 at most, which can be distracting. On the other hand, she's got great chemistry with all of her co-stars - pretty much every scene is her and ____ in a one on one conversation (DeMunn and Nate Corddry as her brother/his son only have a brief scene together), and in some movies set up like that you might dread a certain pairing due to poor chemistry. But everyone has their strengths; DeMunn is a delight, playfully balancing his role as an opposing colleague but also an obviously proud father, and her loving bickering with Corddry is charming as well. And the age difference actually HELPS with Rhys Meyers - there's little chance of a romantic pairing, and when he's in David (the nicest/most sympathetic personality) mode she can be almost motherly toward him, which is more interesting than the umpteenth "shrink falls for his/her patient" scenario.
And that second half - man. Even with the title nonsense I was never expecting it go to into territory that reminded me more of a certain 1988 horror film (one with a somewhat frustratingly MISLEADING title, now that I think about it) than Identity or whatever other MPD-based horror/thriller movie, not to mention something that squarely put it in horror territory. It can be a bit hokey, particularly when Moore watches a film from 1918 that is clearly modern-made and just doctored to look old (that sort of phoniness always takes me out of a movie), and the final moment seems to be equal parts cop-out (it's a pretty grim finale) and setup for a sequel. The editing can also be a bit of an issue; at 112 minutes you're already asking a lot of an audience, but there's no need to twist the knife by lingering on say, Moore pouring out some dog food for a hungry pup in someone's otherwise abandoned home. Some tightening could have gotten this down to 1:40 or so, without any real loss of information. Interestingly, the directors, Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein, went on to direct the 4th Underworld movie, which was pretty much cut to the bone (it was nearly a half hour shorter than the first film) - can whoever edited that one take a crack at this? What's another delay, anyway?
Oh well. It doesn't always work, but I can't help but love the nutty idea, and the cast keeps it afloat by being so damn likable (and bonus for Rhys Meyers getting show off some of his chops by playing multiple characters). And it's a case of my complete ignorance kind of helping - I didn't know anything about it, so I was as surprised as Moore was when she learned what she was really up against. Hopefully you can go in pretty blind (and with expectations in check) and find something to more or less enjoy as well.
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...World War Z (2013)
JUNE 22, 2013
GENRE: ZOMBIE
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)
I normally don't read a book that's due to be a movie until I've seen the latter (I've explained why dozens of times; to sum up - I know the book will be better, so why ruin the enjoyment of a new movie by noticing what's "missing"?), but as it turns out, the only thing World War Z takes from Max Brooks' (terrific) novel is the title and the basic premise of a realistic, global account of a zombie epidemic. 99% of all zombie films focus on a small area and leave a few radio/TV broadcasts to fill in the details of how it's spreading (via "Just heard... New York is gone!" type dialogue), but WWZ takes place in the US, Israel, South Korea, and Canada (replacing the original Russian location; more on that soon), and features more airborne sequences than movies about pilots. It is truly an epic adventure that shares just as much DNA with a James Bond movie as a typical zombie flick.
So it's kind of ironic that it's best moments are the ones that are straight out of any Romero wannabe. I particularly enjoyed a bit where hero Brad Pitt and his family stop at a grocery store to find inhalers for one of the daughters (if there was no such thing as asthma or diabetes, a lot of movies would have trouble creating an easy obstacle for their heroes). It's a scene filled with little surprises; when Pitt goes to find the inhalers and a man steps from the shadows with a gun, he doesn't rob/loot Pitt, but helps him find what he's looking for, and when a cop arrives after a scary situation, we see that he's there not as an officer of the law, but as a man desperate to find baby food and supplies for his own family. The best parts of the book were the smaller, personal stories set against the larger backdrop, so while the movie fails to adapt anything specific from it, they at least got the general tone mostly right.
Same goes for the (rare) focused zombie scenes. Those swarms of anonymous (and 99% digital) zombies scaling walls or whatever may look impressive and provide the trailer with its needed money shots, but in the film itself they're nothing more than empty spectacle. I much preferred the scaled down bits, like when Pitt and co. are racing up some stairs to get to a rooftop rescue with a few undead in pursuit, or when he and the other passengers on a plane work together to quietly block their section of the plane off from the tail section, where the zombies have begun biting their way through the other passengers. The larger scenes, such as the siege on Israel (as massive as it gets, really) are fine on their own, but with Pitt being the only character around that we know or care about (and the movie not close to ending), they lack any sense of terror. The PG-13 rating keeps things from getting too violent or gory, and that's fine - but there's not much excuse for being just plain ol' unscary.
Unfortunately, the "Pitt and a bunch of randoms" is a problem that continues throughout the movie. His family is safely kept on a battleship by the end of the first act, and from then on he's always on the go, meeting folks (many of whom don't even have names; David Morse is merely "Ex-CIA Agent") who either die or stay behind as he moves on yet again. The entire third act involves an attempt to locate an important sample from a lab at an overrun CDC type place called the World Health Organization, and the four people on staff who are there are collectively billed as "WHO Doctors" - they are the main focus for a 30-35 minute chunk of the movie and don't even get identifying traits to credit them properly! And poor Matthew Fox ("Parajumper" - a funny name anyway, even funnier when you consider we never see him do that) saw nearly all of his role left on the cutting room floor when the movie was reshot - he was originally a sort of human antagonist but is now only briefly glimpsed in a few shots.
Ah yes, the 3rd act. You can look around for details on what it originally was, but suffice to say (with minor spoilers ahead, but keep in mind this IS a PG-13 summer blockbuster released by a major studio) it's now much different, and less sequel oriented. Not that everything is tied up by the end, but the other "ending" stopped short of ANYTHING that could be considered a proper climax; Pitt was basically still out there looking for his family AND the cure, where at least the new ending resolves one of those things. I can't say which is BETTER since I haven't seen it (it SOUNDS pretty interesting, at least), but I will say that we lost even MORE of the film's already loose ties to the novel as a result, and that the new ending, while enjoyable as its own mini-movie, definitely doesn't jive with the rest of the narrative. For over an hour we're watching this global, epic-scale adventure, and then suddenly we spend the final two reels focused on a few rooms and a basic fetch mission (it's also easy to see that they didn't want to blow much MORE money on their new ending; replace Pitt with some guy from the Syfy channel and you have any Saturday night movie with regards to how expensive it looks).
So it's not a perfect film by any means, and bears more than a couple telltale signs of a reworked production, but it's nowhere near the disaster some folks had feared. Despite the involvement of Damon Lindelof, the plot is refreshingly straightforward - no "vague for the sake of vague" plotting or twist shenanigans. I would have liked them to do a better job explaining why Pitt's character is roped back into the UN (he has retired to be a stay at home dad) when he doesn't seem to possess any special skills beyond the ability to listen while people explain their situation to him, but I guess it's just shorthand - he's Brad Pitt, so naturally we want him to save us all (George Clooney was presumably quickly located and brought to safety). And again, we've never really seen anything quite like this for a zombie movie, so we can forgive a few missteps; if the whole movie was set in an isolated farmhouse or underground bunker, then its low points would be much harder to swallow. Not sure if Paramount wants to pursue it as a franchise as they originally intended after all the problems they had getting this one together (reports say there are, but I can show you a few articles about when Brandon Routh will be suiting up for a Superman Returns sequel too), but at least it paid off - the movie secured a HUGE opening weekend gross (Pitt's highest ever, in fact) and will be the all time highest grossing zombie film by the end of the week. Not too shabby for a movie everyone wrote off as a disaster a couple months ago. And as a bonus, it's a pretty enjoyable blend of typical summer action movie and zombie flick.
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...You're Next (2011)
JUNE 19, 2013
GENRE: SLASHER, SURVIVAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (FESTIVAL SCREENING)
I thought I had written at least a capsule review of You're Next when I saw at Fantastic Fest back in 2011, but apart from an article I wrote for BadassDigest bemoaning the fact that Lionsgate was sitting on it for too long (as it turns out, I was being optimistic!), I guess I never did. I assume it's for the same reason I'm about to put in words here as a full disclosure - I am friendly with a couple folks from the cast and crew, including the writer and director - but now that I've seen the trailer and marketing for the film, I thought I'd at least offer up my two cents as well as "spoil" a certain thing about the movie (not about its plot, don't worry!) that the advertising ignores. Also keep in mind this is the same team that made my least favorite segment of V/H/S/2, so if you want to claim I'm biased, there's some precedent to the contrary.
Anyway, I quite like the movie, and was happy to see it held up to my initial reaction from that long ago screening. Yes, it's unfortunate that LG sat on it for too long and now idiots will claim it's a ripoff of The Purge since both films deal with a family being terrorized in their own giant home by people with creepy masks, but trust me when I say that this is the superior film. Unlike the other film, it's always clear where the characters are in relation to another, and while the exterior of the house suggests potential for more chase/hide n' seek style scenes than we actually get, the location is utilized wonderfully. It's big enough to understand how something can happen (i.e. a murder) without the others hearing, but not so big that you feel "lost" and disoriented - because it's THEIR home and thus they should know every nook and cranny even if the lights are out (an ability the heroes in The Purge didn't seem to have). And speaking of locations, even though it's an isolated home in a remote area, there's an in-movie reason that the cell phones don't work (a jammer) instead of the usual "there's no service out here!" crap, which I appreciate.
Also, it's scary. Granted it's been a while, but I jumped TWICE, which is pretty rare anyway let alone for one I have already seen. And the crowd (men and women alike) were getting jolted much more often, of course (also if you're not familiar with the site, please don't take this as "I'm too tough to be scared" - it's just something that rarely happens that I chalk up to desensitization due to watching horror at a very young age). I've mentioned this before, but there's something that's more depressing/upsetting about seeing a family wiped out as opposed to the usual gang of teenagers, and even though they're dysfunctional and obviously don't get together too often, the movie is still able to take advantage of that inherent "Oh the boyfriend and the bitchy wife will die, sure, but the family unit will be safe" feeling we have sort of built into our subconscious after seeing so many other horror films that DON'T have the balls to say, let a daughter die right in front of her parents.
But while it works on that typical survival level, it's not without crowd-pleasing moments. A few of the kills are frustratingly off-screen or edited around (so we see a weapon swing in closeup and cut to said weapon already embedded into a person's head), but they often have a Friday the 13th sensibility - I particularly enjoyed the upside down blender attack. Even a couple of the good guy deaths carry that perverse sense of humor you see in the Final Destinations or whatever, like when someone makes a run for it in a big hero moment only to be killed almost instantly. The body count is pretty high by the end, and the movie effectively balances our need to care about the people being killed and our desire to see some splatter and cheer for it - it's a tough act to pull off, and kudos to director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett for getting it pretty close to exactly right.
And that leads me to what I mentioned earlier - the movie is a lot funnier than the ads would have you believe. Yes, it's scary and dark and thus not a "horror comedy", but there's definitely a sense of humor to the proceedings. The dinner scene is damned hilarious, with the brothers (AJ Bowen and Joe Swanberg) sniping at each other, the daughter's filmmaker new boyfriend (Ti West) trying to explain what an "underground" film festival is, etc. And their fights continue even when the killers start attacking; Swanberg can't help but say Bowen's character is too fat (he's not fat) to be of any use to run for help, leading to another fight that you can barely hear because the crowd is laughing so hard. And without spoiling the particulars, the main bad guy's final dialogue moment had this audience laughing just as hard as they were in Austin, where I could hear the reaction from the bathroom because I couldn't hold my bladder any longer and (stupidly) assumed I wasn't going to miss much for the next 60 seconds. I guess in a way it's a smart approach, as it can be a surprise bonus to intelligent viewers, but sadly any horror film will attract some folks that simply aren't that bright, and thus they'll mistakenly assume the movie is just being "retarded" (as the idiot behind me described a moment that was, yes, SUPPOSED to be funny). So I figure if I can just let a few people know that the humor is intentional so that they can appreciate it all the more when they see the movie in August, it's worth the "spoiler".
Really, there are only two things about it I'm not completely on board with, and the first is minor though SOMEWHAT spoiler-y (I'll be as vague as possible) - at the end we discover a certain character was not meant to be harmed, but someone was very definitely trying to kill her/him at one point only to be thwarted at the last second by an outside element. It's one of those things that no one will notice on a first view, but on a second it stuck out as a bit of a cheat, making a scene out of something that logically made no sense (its akin to all those bits on 24 where someone will save Jack Bauer from certain death by anonymous goons in an isolated firefight, only to be revealed as one of the terrorists 3 episodes later). The other, more problematic one is Wingard's obsession with shaki-cam, which is thankfully much improved since A Horrible Way To Die, but in a way just makes it more jarring when he does it. It's particularly obnoxious during the dining room attack, with the camera bobbing and swishing around at random to give a sense of the chaos, but they go way overboard with it. Thankfully most of the big scenes keep it in check, but it's almost like he was saving his strength to jerk it around even more during those other moments.
But those are both dwarfed by what the movie gets right, and again, I'm happy to say it holds up on a second view, something I worry about when I like a movie as much as I did this the first time (where I was also a bit inebriated, hence the bladder problem). Not sure if that's quote-worthy ("I enjoyed it even when I was sober!" - Brian Collins, Horror Movie A Day would look nice on a poster, no?), but it's worth noting all the same. August 23rd, folks - don't let the long delay trick you into thinking this was something they were trying to hide. I truly believe they wanted to make sure that they had time to market this one properly and build up a buzz (no one could have predicted The Purge; hell it wasn't even SHOT until after You're Next showed at those festivals that got it picked up by the Gate in the first place), so let's reward them by packing those theaters in two months.
What say you?
P.S. The film was preceded by the short "The Apocalypse", which I had seen before but only online - was great to see with a crowd. It was also great to see post-This Is The End, as Martin Starr (who stars in the short) was reduced to a background extra in that film, so this sort of makes up for it. "I made a puddle!". Highly recommended, I believe it's online as well.
PLEASE, GO ON...Delivery (2013)
JUNE 18, 2013
GENRE: MOCKUMENTARY, SUPERNATURAL
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (FESTIVAL SCREENING)
I may be burned out on the "found footage" concept in general, but that's only because so many movies have done it wrong, and thus giving me a slight knee-jerk reaction to any such title that I stumble upon as of late. But IF they're done right, I can be won over, and thankfully Delivery (which premiered tonight at the LA Film Festival) mostly nails the approach, allowing me to forgive some of its missteps. Hell even if they got it totally wrong, the fact that it's not about a team of paranormal investigators automatically makes me like it more than the last 5-6 that I've suffered through.
To be clear, it's not a traditional found footage movie - our heroes Kyle and Rachel are actually starring in a reality show that depicts the ups and downs of their first pregnancy. To sell this idea, after a prologue that tells us that the mother is now dead and that this is something that happened in 2009, we are treated the the pilot episode of "Delivery", and director Brian Netto totally nails the tone/editing/style of a terrible TLC reality show. The constant establishing shots, the fly on the wall "personal moments" that are bookended by talking head interviews, cheesy music... it's all there, and you could easily strip out the occasional interruption of the horror angle and put it on one of those channels without anyone being aware that it was staged (well, more staged than an actual reality show, I mean).
Towards the end of the "pilot", Rachel suffers what seems like a miscarriage; she's bleeding and the doctors are unable to find a heartbeat. Faced with the choice of letting the miscarriage "run its course" or undergoing a procedure to remove it, they opt for the former - only for the fetus to suddenly come back to life the following morning. Everything points to it being a miracle, but then strange things begin to occur - the dog begins growling in Rachel's presence, and the cameras that are capturing their every move suddenly experience glitches whenever she is in their view. These audio/video glitches get mighty annoying as the film goes on and they occur more frequently - toward the end of her pregnancy I swear we hear the ZZZT! of a distorted audio track between every cut. Netta would have been wise to restrain himself with these things - at first they're actually good for a cheap scare, but they just get obnoxious and mildly headache inducing as the movie goes on, which is a big problem.
See, after the "pilot" ends, there's a lot of filler as we get to the night of the baby's birth (the obvious conclusion), and the attempts to mix things up a bit (like when a priest is brought in to bless the house) will mostly just remind viewers of Paranormal Activity. As it is, the couple is very similar to Katie and Micah, so anything else that might trigger some deja vu is unfortunate, and thus adding in a recurring irritant hurts the movie some - you might start wanting the movie to just get on with it. Some might also balk (spoiler!) that the supernatural element is never really explained - I personally didn't mind (better no explanation that a potentially stupid one that the movie can't recover from), but it's strange that they almost seem to be trying to suggest Rachel is just experiencing something psychological the whole time, but with the glitches and a few other "demonic" moments there's no question that it's something actually wrong with her pregnancy.
Otherwise, it works pretty damn well, and I'm super relieved that I didn't bring my wife along. I'm more excited about having kids than she is as it is (can you blame her? Look at me. She'll have to carry around another one that'll look like me for the better part of a year), and this probably would have scared her right off for good. The miscarriage stuff (which is gut-wrenching; it's the rare reality/mockumentary horror where I actually cared about the characters) is brutal by itself, but then you add in the "oh and your baby might be a demon or something and it'll make you break mirrors and stab the family dog and such" element? The movie should have a warning label for pregnant women - the physical harm of a roller coaster wouldn't match the psychological harm of seeing this stuff play out when you got your own bun in the oven. Even a movie like Rosemary's Baby (a superior film, don't get me wrong) doesn't get into the nitty-gritty of a pregnancy (Mia had too many other things to worry about, really) like this does, and playing on those fears and worries helps the movie clear the hurdle of all horror movies of this type: the "nothing is happening" factor. Kyle gets increasingly frustrated with the camera crew and they start to bicker a lot, but apart from the occasional freak out moment, we know that the movie will be action-lite until the very end. So toss in some real world problems (and avoid too many Rosemary flashbacks by glossing over whatever devilish element might be in play) and viola! The rare found footage horror that rarely bores.
Being that this was the movie's premiere at a festival, I doubt anyone will be able to see it for a while (though if you're in LA - it's playing again on Friday!), but since I've slowed down maybe this review will still be on the front page by the time we hear about distribution. But if not I'll remind you when it does - it's not a perfect film, but it's a step in the right direction for the found footage sub-genre, and I want to champion the films that apply that aesthetic to something besides Paranormal Activity sequels or a bunch of assholes poking around an abandoned building.
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...Blu-Ray Review: The Howling
JUNE 18, 2013
GENRE: WEREWOLF
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)
Power of 35mm! I was mixed on The Howling the first (and until now, only) time I saw it in the early days of HMAD, but watching again on a beat up film print with a (surprisingly large) crowd of people at the HMAD screening last weekend, I recognized its power. I still think the 2nd act has some pacing issues (in fact the movie as a whole could benefit from tighter editing), but once Belinda Balaski's character really gets into her investigation, it works like gangbusters all the way until the glorious finale. And yes, this was a screening I myself was hosting, so you might ask why I'd host a movie I wasn't the biggest fan of, but in a way it's a perfect choice: doing HMAD as a whole was a way to reevaluate how I felt about the genre, so if I can't spread the gospel of Alone In The Dark or Of Unknown Origin (prints don't exist for either), why not pick movies that I myself could look at with a fresh(er) pair of eyes?
I also realized what may have been part of the trouble my first time around - it's not as funny as other Dante's other films. Gremlins (and its sequel), Innerspace, The Burbs... these are all pretty damn funny films, yet work in their respective other genres as well. But The Howling doesn't have as much comedy as those (or even its friendly rival, American Werewolf in London); there are a few funny lines here and there, plus some great in-jokes (the Corman cameo still cracks me up), but it's not a "horror comedy" by any stretch. So now that I know better, not only can I enjoy the horror (and drama) more, but those rare comedic bits land perfectly. Hell I didn't even REMEMBER the "Mazda" joke from my first viewing, and that's one of the funniest things to ever appear in one of Dante's pictures.
But as I mentioned, the editing can work against the movie at times; it's just over 90 minutes but 85 or so probably would have been the sweet spot. Even the transformation, as glorious as Rob Bottin's work is (and holds up under the microscope of a high-def transfer), could be trimmed some - it actually starts to lose some of its effect by going on so long (why doesn't she just leave?). It's almost hilarious; I'm sure part of the thinking was "This looks great, show everything we got!" and nowadays part of the reason you get these super quick-cut edits during FX scenes it's because they don't want anyone getting too good of a look at the sub-par CGI. No surprise that Jurassic Park remains the benchmark for monster movies of this generation - produced at a time when CGI was primitive enough that it couldn't be relied on entirely, but exciting enough for everyone to bust their ass and make it look amazing alongside its practical brethren. A shame to think that we'll probably never again be sitting there wondering "how did they DO that?", but its a testament to Bottin's genius that 30+ years later I'm still not sure how he was able to pull some of those FX off.
Thus it's a shame he doesn't appear on any of the new bonus features on Scream Factory's otherwise perfect special edition, only in the older ones you may have already seen. As is (I believe) always the case, they have ported over all the bonus features from the previous special edition, and they're all worth a look if you missed them on laserdisc or the 2003 DVD special edition from MGM. The commentary with Dante and three of the actors can be obnoxiously choppy (clear edits when other companies are discussed; MGM must not have had any balls back in the day), and Dee Wallace's constant cackling like a drunk aunt can be grating, but it's a fun track all the same. Dante's motormouth offers anecdotes and jokes in equal measure (has he ever had a lengthy talk with Martin Scorsese? That would be more entertaining than all of their movies put together, I think), and since the track was recorded for the laserdisc quite some time ago (I peg it around 1989 based on a few of their movie references, but it HAS to be before 1995, as that's when Christopher Stone sadly passed away), the memories are still fresh. The lengthy retrospective documentary "Unleashing The Beast" from 2003 is also highly recommended; nearly everyone of note that's still alive is on hand to discuss the cast, the makeup, the script, and the film's legacy - Dante's rundown of the various sequels alone is almost worth the price of admission ("That one had were-kangaroos, or something..."), and thankfully Shout! has edited all of the segments (originally broken up into 5 parts with a "Play All" function) into one piece, sparing us multiple views of its end credits sequence.
Then there's a shorter piece called "Making A Monster Movie" (directed by Mick Garris!) that was made back when the film was released, which is fun but not essential. All of the interviews are promotional, not reflective, and it's got that cheesy "news special" feel to it - plus some of the info (and footage) was used in the full doc, though Dante's haircut alone makes it worth a look (also, check out Bottin - anyone else think his look inspired Kurt Russell's in The Thing?). A collection of deleted scenes is also carried over, with optional Dante commentary on why they were cut (distributor wanted it shorter, pacing, etc - though he can't remember why he cut one scene that explains Stone's absence for a while). Plus some outtakes and other promotional material - this stuff is for the completists only, and while I personally have no use for anything beyond a trailer (which spoils the film's ending!), again, I love that Shout/Scream makes sure every little bit is carried over, making it easy to ditch your old copy to reclaim some shelf space. Anchor Bay almost never bothers to do this, which is why I have multiple copies of all their Halloween titles - they refuse to do "ultimate" editions that render the others worthless. They even brought back the awesome Easter Egg featuring Dick Miller! THAT'S fan service.
As for new stuff, Scream has recruited Red Shirt to provide their usual interviews with a few of the folks that weren't featured on the previous doc, making it well rounded without too much repeated info. Editor Mark Goldblatt and executive producer Steven A. Lane both offer their thoughts on the film, though in the latter's case he also gives some info on each of the sequels (he was around for all of them except New Moon Rising, which coincidentally is the only one I didn't catch during the "real" era of HMAD), which is pretty fun. He is basically OK with all of them except part 4; obviously I (and no other sane person, I assume) would agree with him but if you DO like one of those other entries you at least don't have to have your heart broken hearing the producer slam it. Goldblatt's interview is a bit overlong (irony!) but he's fun to listen to and pretty candid at times, so it's all good. They also tracked down Terence H. Winkless (the other screenwriter; John Sayles appears in the older doc) to get his thoughts on how he got involved and how they changed the original novel by Gary Brandner ("We threw out everything but the title!"). Brandner himself offers a new solo commentary, moderated by Mike Felsher, though those looking for much talk about The Howling (movie OR his novel) might be disappointed; they only directly refer to the screen ONCE in the entire thing, and only occasionally talk about the changes from the novel to the film. Instead, Felsher takes Brandner pretty much through his entire career, so if you're a fan of the author's work you'll find much to enjoy, but if you don't really care about his process behind the novel The Brain Eaters, you can probably skip it.
The transfer, unsurprisingly, is terrific, and I am happy to report that the audio problem that plagued a few earlier Scream releases (where the dialogue was hard to hear on the new 5.1 mixes) has been corrected - it sounded great, as did the 2.0 HD mix. As usual, they don't list their new features on the back for whatever reason, so I hope other reviewers follow my lead in stressing which are new, as if you're just looking at the back of the package you'd probably think it was just a straight port of the ten year old special edition. I'm sure they have their reasons since they do it almost every single time, but with more and more people opting for streaming versions, it baffles me that they wouldn't tout the things that can make these editions attractive not only to new buyers, but to those that already own a previous version. That said, this one does NOT have the additional DVD copy like many of their others; you can buy the DVD or the Blu, but there's no package with both.
So, in short - I'm glad I gave it a second chance. Even with quitting the daily version of HMAD, I still find myself with very limited free time, so I certainly have to be selective for which movies I revisit in the hopes of liking more than I did on my first viewing. The Howling, it seems, made for a fine choice.
What say you?
PLEASE, GO ON...
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