Alien: Romulus (2024)

AUGUST 13, 2024

GENRE: ALIEN
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (ADVANCED SCREENING)

I started collecting vinyl about two years ago, and for the most part I basically just buy up the discography from my favorite bands/artists (obviously this all began with Meat Loaf, of course) and scores I enjoy. But I skip over greatest hits type albums for the collection, because I know I won't ever actually sit and listen to it. Why would I? If I love the artist, I don't need their radio hits all in one place, since those are the ones I probably need to hear less of in the first place. Greatest Hits packages are for people who just want familiarity and a series of dopamine hits.

Alien: Romulus is a Greatest Hits package in the form of a movie, right down to the one token new song (idea) to get you interested.

Which is to say, there's not a lot that's technically BAD about the movie (though one thing is very bad, and I'll get to it later with a spoiler warning), it's just bland and familiar more often than not, and that seems to be counterproductive for this particular series. Prior to Ridley Scott returning with Prometheus and Covenant (and producing this one; REAL producing, not a token "Executive Producer" credit), the first six movies—and yes, for this particular point I'm including the two Predator fights— were each directed by a different person who brought their sensibilities to the table, and that was a good thing. Do I love AVP? Hell no, but I like that we got to see what a Paul WS Anderson Alien movie would look like. The filmmakers were never lost to the IP machine the way they can be with other big franchises, which made each new entry something to look forward to, even if they rarely rose above the level of pretty good.

But unfortunately, Fede Alvarez, who directed and co-wrote this one, ended up taking the safest route possible, which in modern terms means "It's loaded with a bunch of callbacks for people who love the other movies." I truly don't understand why this seems to be a popular way of making sequels lately; like, we all love Aliens as much as (in many cases, more than) the original film, but does that have a bunch of repeated lines and scenarios? No! It's entirely its own thing outside of Ripley and the monster itself. But here, after a fairly original (if not particularly interesting) first hour, Alvarez feels content to start loading the film up with references to the other movies, reaching its nadir with someone actually saying "Get away from her you bitch!" (Salt in the wound, as a friend noted after: given that this film chronologically takes place before Aliens, that means if you're watching the whole series in narrative order, Ripley's version is now the repeat.)

To be fair, I was actually pleasantly surprised that a plot point actually ties into Prometheus and Covenant. Since the latter ended on a cliffhanger we're likely never going to see fully resolved with another Michael Fassbender-centric entry, at least this gives a little hope that its storylines can at least be acknowledged should there be another sequel. I'm all for that sort of thing, but when you have star Cailee Spaeny riding up an elevator with an air blast hitting her as she wields a space gun before going into battle (Aliens), or turning her head to the side and screaming as a Xeno gets right up in her face (3), or—I can't believe this is real—literally going through the same kind of climax as Resurrection, I kind of lost patience with the "we have no ideas of our own so let's just restage the other guys' big moments" approach.

But maybe it'd go down easier if I cared enough about the characters going through these all too familiar motions? I would guess that the script and maybe even a first edit of the movie had a longer first act, as we are introduced to our characters in a manner that suggests we should have either met these people before or gotten to know them a little more before they blasted off into space. We meet Spaeny's Rain and her droid "brother" Andy (why not Eddie or Eli? They messed up the alphabetical naming structure of the droids!) on a mining facility, where she believes that she has come to the end of her mandatory work period (5-6 years) and can go home. However, the Company decides she needs another 10,000 hours of service there before being allowed to return to her own system, crushing her spirits. But then, moments later, she gets on a ship with a bunch of people she has a history with, and they rope her and Andy into joining them for a heist of some ship parts at a decommissioned Company space station, needing Andy's droid skills to access them.

This transition is very weird, seeming only minutes have passed between Rain getting the bad news and then getting this incredible opportunity to make it not matter. And it seems pretty easy for her to just leave after hearing that she was going to have to work another half decade there, making me wonder why they even bothered with this setup in the first place. Surely they could have just been bored with their life there and taken the opportunity for a little adventure or something? Or they could have shown Company personnel tracking her down before she "escaped"? It just really felt like they lopped a chunk of backstory out for the sake of getting into space earlier, and I get that sentiment, but it just makes the first ten minutes seem completely pointless (i.e. we could have gotten there even SOONER). Similarly, it's hard to get much of a grasp on the four space pirates they join up with; one seems to be a former love interest (but as we know from Twisters, god forbid anyone kiss in a movie anymore) and another is pregnant, but that's about all I could tell you about their group. Andy is far and away the most interesting character, a glitching droid that comes off as autistic with his endless bad pun jokes (one of which made me laugh, and I was ashamed) and inability to read the room. Once they arrive at the space station they realize that they need to upgrade him in order to access certain things, and from then on you see his struggle with his more human big brother identity and his "Company man" version that came with his upgrade, and it's the closest the movie gets to being fully engaging on a character level. Everyone else, including Rain, is just stock fodder.

There is a 7th character in the movie, however. Their name is Rook. If you don't want to know any more about Rook, who is absent from marketing thus far and the movie's big halfway point reveal, I'll just note that I don't care for Rook's presence in the movie and ask you to skip the next paragraph.

OK, for those who are still here, I'm going to bury Rook's identity a little further just so the people skipping past don't see it right in their peripheral. But without that detail, I can say their appearance involves some kind of body double/CGI/probably some AI voice nonsense hybrid to recreate an actor who would be much older now than they were in 1979 if they weren't also deceased. If you were horrified by the CGI Moff Tarkin in Rogue One, then be prepared for what I feel is an even worse resurrection here. Their first appearance is fine; with the face confined to shadow and long shots making it hard to tell for sure but any die hard fan (or anyone who just watched the original, more on that soon) could tell it was another Ash model. But after a few minutes of that, they put this ghoulish recreation front and center, and each time we were treated to Ian Holm's PS3-ass looking face, I checked even further out of the movie. And he plays an important part; in fact given the Covenant plot thread Rook goes with, I wouldn't be surprised if they wanted to get Fassbender back for this role and couldn't for whatever reason, so settled for this instead. Whatever the thinking was, it did not work AT ALL for me, and considering the movie wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders for me at that point to begin with, it basically cemented that this movie wasn't going to recover with a better second half.

OK it's safe again!

On the plus side, there are some pretty good sequences, like a fun bit (if video game-y af) where Spaeny triggers some anti-gravity thing in order to shoot a bunch of Xenomorphs without their acid blood causing a hull breach, as they're on the bottom floor of the station so any blood that spills would run out of juice long before it floated all the way up to the structure's roof. And as always, we get facehuggers before Xenos, but this time there are like a dozen of the things, which scamper after our heroes and produce the film's one legitimate scare moment. Also, as a sucker for real time, I'm pretty sure that a 40ish minute countdown actually plays out in that exact amount of screen time, so that was fun.

Fans of Alvarez' other films should be happy with the handful of gore moments, too. The curiously small cast (including Rook, there's just the seven - one less than the Nostromo since there's no Jonesy to mix it up) means they don't happen all that often, but when they do he makes them count. It's also got its fair share of squeamish moments, which I can appreciate; for anyone who wished they could just pull the thing off of Kane's face all those years ago, you'll get your wish here. And on that note, there's a real attempt at going into more body horror territory with the chestburster stuff, and... well, as I noted earlier, one character is pregnant. It's not just a throwaway detail. Use your imagination.

But it just never really comes to life as a whole. Showing it right after the first movie didn't really do it any favors; that one's not exactly a roller coaster ride itself, so to instantly watch another movie without any real threat for close to an hour felt a bit taxing on the patience of a lot of people in the crowd (you could almost feel the energy throughout the first 45 minutes). And then when things finally get going, it's mostly just a lot of stuff we've seen before (for better or worse, Alvarez pays tribute to every entry in one way or another) but to characters we had more reason to be invested in. At times (and someone else said this later) it felt to me like it was a pitch reel for an Alien themed maze at Universal Horror Nights as opposed to a movie we were supposed to get really pumped for or tensed up by. And with so few genuine IDEAS at play (not to mention building toward one of two endings: an open ended one that leaves some room for our survivors to explore before Aliens, or, well, going right into Aliens), there's just simply not much here to latch on to unless you are easily swayed by seeing actors do and say things you've seen other actors do across 45 years/eight other movies.

So I dunno. Apart from "Rook" I can't say I DISLIKED any of it really, but in some ways I'd almost rather there were more bad ideas and terrible things like him just so it would be more memorable. I can't remember any of the other character's names outside of Rain and Andy, I wouldn't be able to pick their ship out of a lineup, and I certainly couldn't tell you how this particular version of the Xeno differed from the ones in other movies (that said: save Rook, the FX were all solid, at least). Two good sequences (facehugger chase and zero grav shootout) and another interesting droid character to join David, Ash, and Bishop (sorry, Call) does not make up enough for the lame callbacks and perfunctory characters and storyline. They raced through all the "let's meet our heroes and see what they are about" time in order to get to the alien stuff quicker, and then didn't really do anything all that interesting when it got there. Say what you will about the last few entries (not counting the AVPs in this case), at least they were trying to invoke the "sci-fi" part of the sci-fi/horror blend. Going back to a more purely action/horror blend like the first three isn't a bad idea on its own, but it's gotta deliver the excitement and scares in that case. And Romulus, alas, does not.

What say you?

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Critters 3 (1991)/Critters 4 (1992)

MARCH 22, 2024

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

I normally don't combine reviews, but they more or less combined the productions of Critters 3 and Critters 4, so I feel it's fitting. And really I just don't have a lot to say about them, so they would be very short reviews on top of it. Least this way you guys are getting something that'll last your whole trip to the bathroom or waiting for your microwave meal to finish. A review that's too short will have you wandering over to Twitter or something. Can't have that.

Anyway, as fans know, these entries went direct to video after the 2nd film flopped in theaters but did OK on VHS, enough to show New Line that there was interest in more Krite adventures just not enough to warrant a big screen release. And at this time they were doing quite well for themselves with the Ninja Turtles movies and branching out into comedies with the House Party franchise, so (in keeping with the first half of the '90s Hollywood-wide declining interest in horror) it made sense to explore the direct to video market with a known but not particularly lucrative brand. Did it work? I dunno. Apparently not since there was never a proper Critters 5.

It didn't help that the first of the two releases was pretty bad even by franchise standards (sorry folks, I know they have their fans but even the first two are just OK to my eyes). The concept seemed like a winner; taking things out of the farm/small town locales of the first two and sending a new batch of Krites into a major city. Unfortunately with the budget they had, that major city (Los Angeles or New York; the people who made the damn thing can't seem to agree on the bonus features) is represented by a handful of generic establishing shots of some kind of urban environment before setting the entire movie in a single apartment building. Not a high rise, mind you, just a three story dwelling with a handful of apartments. Demons 2 it is not.

It's also incredibly slow paced, a problem that plagued the first two movies but is even worse here. Once again the body count is ridiculously low, as the furballs only kill a mere two people out of the eight or so running around the building (not to mention the possibilities since they're supposedly in a major metropolitan area). And that'd be fine if they were spaced out, but nope, they die almost back to back around the middle of the movie, leaving the rest of it to repetitive scenes of the people scurrying around the building trying to find a way out. At one point someone tries to get out by climbing down a cable outside, and they get their foot caught in the wire and spend the rest of the movie dangling back and forth trying to reach a phone booth. Not is this a weird thing to spread out for what seems like a full half hour, but it also just reminds us that they're not in any actual major city, because someone would have walked by and helped (or robbed them).

Besides a handful of decent FX from the reliable Chiodo brothers, the only thing about the movie that anyone will or should remember is that it features a young Leonardo DiCaprio in his first film. There isn't much on display to tell us that he'll go on to be one of the most in demand actors of his generation, but he's certainly got more presence than most of his co-stars and just the sheer novelty helps keep it somewhat watchable (at least, NOW it does. Not sure about in 1992 when few knew who he was). Sadly he barely appears in the climax, adding to the movie's inability to generate any excitement.

Despite being a back to back production, Critters 4 doesn't bring Leo or anyone else along for the ride outside of Terrence Mann (Ug) and Don Keith Opper (Charlie), who appear in all four films in various capacities. Mann technically doesn't really appear in C3 at all, since his lone scene is just a post credits thing that bridges this film's events with C4, which repeats the scene anyway. As for Opper, he basically has an extended cameo in 3 (showing up for one scene at the beginning and a chunk of the end) but has more to do in 4, though after the opening he disappears again for a half hour or so. The film also doesn't even take place in the same spot, setting its events in space instead of Earth.

Of all the horror franchises that went to space it's the only one that has a natural reason to do so (being that the Krites are aliens and Ug and his pals are intergalactic bounty hunters), so it's a shame they waited until they only had a nickel and some plywood to sell the concept, but honestly it's not that bad (at least, compared to 3). It's got a solid cast: Brad Dourif, Eric DaRe from Twin Peaks, Anders "Radu" Hove, and even Angela Bassett (a year before What's Love Got To Do With It) populate the spaceship that picks up Charlie's floating pod in deep space and brings him - and the Krite eggs he's got with him - on board while out hunting for salvage.

It's also got some much needed humor, another thing in short supply in the third one. Dourif as always brings some kooky readings and mannerisms that are worth a smile, but the real godsend is the idea that the obligatory all knowing/all controlling ship computer (voiced by Martine Beswick!) only responds to reverse psychology, so they have to keep saying things like "Don't open the door to Pod B" in order to get her to do it. It's silly but damned if it didn't make me chuckle every time. I also enjoyed that instead of a nonstop countdown during the (also obligatory) self destruct sequence, she played a song that lasted the three minutes. It was like a low key Douglas Adams kind of gag that I appreciated.

Also, while the Critters don't appear as often as they usually do, they at least make it count when they do, with two gnarly deaths of main characters and a handful of brief attacks on some generic stormtrooper types who accompany Ug when he finally shows up in the last 20 minutes. There's also an F bomb and some gunshot deaths (also with some blood) making me wonder if this one actually got an R rating, but it apparently still managed a PG-13 like the much tamer earlier entries. So yeah, no giant ball of Critters or even much in the way of Gremlins-esque chaos, but at least they upped the body count to make up for it.

Both films have 20ish minute retrospectives with Opper, Mann, writer David J. Schow, the Chiodos, the DP, and some others, along with a commentary track. 3's track, with Opper and his brother Barry who produced them all is just as boring as the film, as neither man seems particularly excited about doing it (they also did tracks for the first two movies on this boxed set, so maybe it was one long session and they were worn out?). They skip part 4 but instead we get one with the director, Rupert Harvey, who also produced the first and third films (he missed out on Critters 2 because he was producing The Blob - good call!). Unfortunately, he's moderated by Michael Felsher, who (as is nearly always the case) doesn't seem to care much about doing a track for the film itself as much as he is covering the person's entire filmography. Which is probably fine if you happen to be a big fan of theirs, but if I sit down to watch a commentary on Critters 4 I don't particularly care about hearing about the MPAA's issues with the Nightmare on Elm St 5 poster. It's one thing when he's with a supporting actor who isn't in every scene anyway, but it's insane to me to have the director of a film for a commentary that doesn't even specifically mention that film for over an hour into its runtime. Somehow you learn more about its production from a 20 minute piece with some assorted cast and crew than you do with a 95 minute track spotlighting the one person who was involved in every aspect of its making.

Anyway, I don't think I'll be keeping this set, which has been sitting there unopened for over five years waiting for reappraisals on the first three and my first time viewing of the fourth (I rented 3 on VHS back in the day and remember disliking it then. I was only 12! You like everything at that age!). Except for 3, none of them are particularly bad, but they're too uneventful to warrant repeat viewings, and I can have those itches scratched with other, better movies (tiny creatures? Gremlins! The wizardry of the Chiodo brothers? Killer Klowns! Intergalactic bounty hunters coming down to earth? I Come In Peace! etc.). My boxed set shelf is overflowing and most of them (F13, Halloween, Universal Monsters) get pulled off repeatedly or at least contain movies I genuinely love. This series just never really won me over, despite my efforts, and I know it'll just sit there untouched for decades now that I've gone through it all. Though I also have the 2019 reboot Critters Attack somewhere, so I guess I"m not COMPLETELY done with the franchise.

What say you?

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Nope (2022)

JULY 21, 2022

GENRE: ALIEN
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (IMAX SCREENING)

There's an argument to be made that Nope is the weakest of Jordan Peele's three films, but the key takeaway is that it's still very good and worth seeing, which is pretty good for a "low point." And over time it might even change; the relative messiness of Us' third act reveals will continue to nag at me and weigh that experience down on rewatches, but I feel that with this movie, future viewings will merely highlight things I missed the first time around. If I'm right, it'll slowly improve its (already high) standing and, fifty years from now, might still rank high on what I hope is a lengthy (and competitive) list of genre must-sees.

See, the thing with Peele's work here is that almost nothing is a throwaway. His background as a comedian has a fun little twist here; sometimes there's a line that just seems like something he's throwing in as a pop culture gag, such as a reference to The Scorpion King, but then it actually has a payoff later. Keke Palmer's character accidentally photo bombs some kids who are taking a novelty picture at a theme park, and it's a cute little moment that shows her carefree attitude (and also a weird reference to Holes of all things), but it's also establishing a device she will use on purpose nearly two hours later. Tracking every instance of such things would be impossible on a first time viewing, so I would bet money on finding more when I find the time to see it again (given the 130 minute length, I'm guessing that'll be on Blu-ray).

And they're not always joke based, either. That part in the trailer (speaking of which - this review is fairly spoiler free, but only to those who have seen the trailers, so if that's not you I'd read further with caution!), where Palmer's Emerald tells the story of their family ranch, with Daniel Kaluuya (as her brother OJ) noting she missed a "great" before "great great grandfather" is a fine little detail that tells you he's more on top of the history than her, but later on we hear their father's version of the story on a commercial, and you realize she's just reciting his lines (hence missing a "great") from an ad that's forever burned into her memory. We don't get too much in the way of dialogue about their family history (I'd guess 90% of Kaluuya's lines consist of two or three words at most, in fact), but these subtle moments fill in quite a bit on their own.

There's also some traditional humor; in fact it might actually be the funniest of his three films. Kaluuya's understated manner paves the way for not one but two invocations of the film's title, both hilarious (he also turns the simple act of locking a door into a kneeslapper). Palmer's energy can always be counted on to lighten the mood when necessary, and most of the supporting cast (Brandon Perea in particular) gets more than one moment to shine. The darker comedy is also spot on; without spoiling the particulars, a moment where Steven Yeun's character gives a shoutout to an old friend has one of the bleakest sight gags in recent memory. I keep wondering if Peele will continue to make genre films or if he'll branch out into dramas or action (Keanu doesn't count; he didn't direct that one!), but for now I'm just thrilled we have someone taking the "it can't be scary AND funny" myth and dispelling it so easily time and time again.

But yes, aliens. The actual nature of the otherworldly menace is a surprise I won't spoil here (I wouldn't even say as much as I have if the new trailer didn't spell it out after being fairly cryptic with the first one; for the record, it's that older one I've embedded below), but I will say that it yields a higher body count than I expected. And there's another "villain" in the film that is even more horrific (Peele himself has been spilling the beans on this one, so it's fair game); a chimp actor who freaked out on the set of a crappy '90s sitcom and beat his co-stars to a pulp during a taping. This seemingly pointless backstory actually has two reasons for being: one to establish the backstory of Yeun's character, who runs the Old West themed park that is located near the heroes' horse ranch (he was a young actor on the show who witnessed the entire thing), and the other to show how animals have long been a disposable element in Hollywood, as if they were more like props than living creatures.

And that ties into one of the film's major themes, of how chasing the high of Hollywood can leave you a truly broken individual. When one of the horses is briefly spooked, it's enough for the production (already showing zero respect to the animal or its handlers) to fire them on the spot and replace it with a CGI version. Perea's Angel is dumped instantly by his girlfriend the second she lands a CW pilot, and nearly every character of note sees the alien presence not as something to fear or escape from, but a potential avenue to riches and fame. This idea is hammered home fairly early, though you might not realize it at the time, when Yeun delivers a monologue about his childhood trauma, proudly noting that it was spoofed on SNL (where he, an Asian child, was played by that week's host: Scott Wolf - an incredibly on point bit of racial commentary), seemingly oblivious to the tragedy that inspired it. It's not a movie that glamorizes show business, is what I'm saying, and among this film's relatively small group of characters, it's clear that the closer you are (or desire to be) part of that world, the more messed up you are. As nearly anyone can tell you, it's not only a hard business to break into at all, but an even harder one to stay relevant in, and it is subtly but no less depressing that these characters are clinging to their last hopes of "making it" in their way, ultimately risking their lives just to try to get a picture of the alien ship on the hopes they can get back in the spotlight.

It's a note that hit hard for me in an unexpected way; there's a scene shot on Runnymede St in LA, a street I myself once lived on (not in the spot shown to be clear) but was forced to leave when the owners decided to sell. Financial restraints kept us from buying it ourselves, and now we're on our third home here, each subsequent one further away from the area I more or less moved out here to be a part of (Hollywood/Burbank) only for the jobs I get to never allow me to actually live there. The people I work for? They live there, while I have to move further away when rent goes up. I hope this isn't coming off wrong; to be clear I'm very grateful for what I have, but I also never truly forget that I left my family and friends behind all those years ago only to end up doing the sort of work I probably could have done in Massachusetts, still basically living paycheck to paycheck. And I know for a fact I'm not alone in that situation, so seeing that street sign was a sobering reminder that I'm not exactly far removed from the heroes in the film. I COULD move back home, but who knows? "Maybe things will turn around...?"

(Speaking of dying dreams and local connections; the Fry's electronic store in Burbank makes an appearance, with its clerk being one of the film's major characters. The chain went out of business last year, so while folks elsewhere won't think anything of it, us here in Los Angeles might feel a little sad seeing it again. That said, as my friend Nick noted, the clerk being helpful may be the most out there sci-fi concept in the entire film.)

But it's also a tribute to Hollywood and moviemaking, with a low-key "the show must go on" kind of element to the proceedings. The alien presence emits a sort of EMP when it draws near, which makes their plans to get video of it all but impossible but also prevents them from driving away when it gives chase. But then they use it to their advantage when the ship is in its stealth mode - they track its movements by setting up Skydancers (aka "inflatable tube men") all around the area, connected to portable batteries. So when a tube man deflates, they know it's there, and when it deflates another, they know which direction it's headed. "Macguyvering" something is an every day occurrence on a shoot, as things always go wrong and yet a million reasons make waiting impossible, forcing the crew to come up with a solution that might seem silly but will get the job done. Incidentally I was an extra on a friend's music video just the day before, and (as I have in the past) marveled at how many unsung heroes it takes to pull off just a quick shot of something simple, so seeing crew types and their quick thinking get their due made me happy.

All that stuff is all well and good, but I couldn't help but think the film could have been a little tighter. Michael Wincott plays a cinematographer who is roped into their plans to film the ship (he's a film guy; their digital cameras are of course useless with the power drain) and it takes forever for him to make his return after being introduced early, and there are other moments that, in retrospect, seem like they could have been saved for the Blu-ray, with Peele telling us they were cut for pacing. With most of the alien carnage left to our imagination (there's a real Jaws vibe to the third act, by the way) it occasionally feels like there's more buildup than payoff, at least in the traditional visual sense. The surprisingly sad backdrop to the film kept me engaged, but that won't be the case for everyone (particularly those who believe anyone with even the loosest connection to Hollywood is "an elite"). Also, if you were excited about Keith David's appearance: don't get your hopes up, as if you've seen the trailer you've also seen most of his screentime. Not really a knock on the film; more on the marketing for giving away what was obviously supposed to be a surprise for genre fans instead of a selling point.

Basically it's a "chewer" kind of film, the one that you'll keep thinking about for a while after, which makes it a bit odd that this is Peele's first summer release (the other two came out in the later months of winter) and is about an alien invasion. That, along with its reported $70m budget, will have folks primed to see more action/spectacle than is offered, even if it wasn't abundantly clear from his earlier films that he's interested in ideas, not 'splosions. So I hope people go in with the right frame of mind to fully appreciate what it offers instead of dismissing it for what it doesn't.

What say you?

P.S. The freakiest thing about the experience wasn't even in the movie. Right before I left to drive to the theater, Gowan's "Strange Animal" came up on shuffle. I hadn't heard it for a while and considered letting it finish before I got in the car, but didn't want to risk a long concession line or something making me miss the beginning. So I sighed and shut the song off only a few seconds in... and then it showed up in the film! It's the theme song for the sitcom! I couldn't believe it. If IMDB is accurate/complete, the only other movie it's ever been in is Another Wolfcop, which is the only reason I know it in the first place. And I was right, the line WAS long so I missed most of the trailers. Got to see Nicole Kidman tell me how great AMC is though, on a screen that had a shadow over it from some fixture on the ceiling.

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Blu-Ray Review: Planet of the Vampires (1965)

JULY 26, 2022

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

When most horror fans think of Mario Bava, their mental image is likely something from Black Sunday or Black Sabbath, maybe Shock if the big scare (the one they ripped off in Annabelle) is burned into their mind. But for me, who has never really taken a shine to the senior Bava’s work (Lamberto is more my speed), I just picture Planet of the Vampires; specifically, the astronauts in their goofy/awesome suits standing in their rather sparse spaceship, yammering on about this or that. And I know that sounds like my feelings are negative on the film, but on the contrary, it’s perhaps my favorite of his (or at least tied with The Girl Who Knew Too Much), and thus I was delighted to hear that Kino Lorber Classics would be reissuing it on Blu-ray with a new transfer and some more bonus features.

Because my mental image of the film is also blurry, as my only viewing was on Netflix back when a. it was called “Netflix Instant” (to differentiate from the DVD service that I’m not even sure if they still have) and b. Netflix would include 1960s Italian sci-fi among their offerings. Back then, the quality control wasn’t as tight nor was the service itself, so a lot of movies kind of looked like crap. But I had to laugh, because one of my issues with the film was that it was hard to tell some of the men apart, but watching now in proper high def it wasn’t really a concern. Ironically, even a 16K mega-remaster in immersive 3D wouldn’t completely solve that problem, because it’s partially baked into the film anyway! Per the commentary by Tim Lucas (who, when it comes to Bava, I tend to trust without question) one character is given two names, and another is seemingly recast halfway through the film. I assume that these are just mistakes stemming from the film’s dubbing (the actors spoke at least four languages among them, so almost nothing we are hearing is what they were actually saying), but still: nice to know that my “wait, who’s he?” kind of feelings aren’t just from a mushy transfer or my own mental shortcomings.

Also, it was my first time watching it since seeing Prometheus, which seemed to take influence from it and has had me wondering for a while now whether Ridley Scott and co. did it on purpose to be cute. Vampires’ influence on Alien has been noted but also debated over the years; Scott denied ever having seen it (as did Dan O’Bannon, though he apparently later recanted), so it's hard to levy any "intentional!" sort of claims at it. It’s also unknown if Bava ever saw it himself, though he definitely read the novelization (Lucas notes someone witnessing it firsthand), and he passed away in April of 1980, long before the rise of horror mags and blogs that would probably still be bugging him about it today if he was around. But back to Prometheus; I remember seeing it on opening night and chuckling that they were borrowing from Bava’s film again – the spacesuits alone seem to be proof that this time around the homage couldn’t be chalked up as coincidental. And it didn’t stop there; that film’s plot not only had the characters going back and forth to the other ship from their own quite a bit (as opposed to the single trip in Alien), but it also had a possession angle of sorts, with the crazed Fifield’s attack on the others feeling very much like the “vampires” in this film possessing the heroes and attacking their crewmates. Long story short; maybe it was a coincidence for Alien, but this time around, there was no denying that they were looking at Bava's film for inspiration.

Of course, Prometheus was also a polarizing film with regards to its answers to the mystery of the “space jockey”, so it was nice to go back and be reminded that there is no such explanation offered here when our heroes find a giant skeleton. One theorizes that it was another race of beings that was answering the same distress call that they were, but that’s all it is: a theory. Given the multi-national cast, I couldn’t help but wonder if there were more explanations for this or that in the script only for them to get wiped out due to the complications of dubbing everything, especially when so much of the dialogue is technical jargon as it is, with even simple things like “minutes” given different names. It’s ultimately all explained in a way (spoiler for 60 year old movie ahead: the astronauts aren’t from Earth as you might just assume), but I can still easily believe that they wanted to cut back on such stuff whenever possible in order to make it easier for everyone.

Kino’s Blu looks terrific and is loaded with extras, though most are trailers for other Bava movies as well as not one but two Trailers from Hell segments (one with Joe Dante, the other with Josh Olson). The two meaty supplements are the commentaries; the aforementioned one by Lucas (which appeared on their previous release in 2014), and a brand new track with Kim Newman and Barry Forshaw. Lucas’ unsurprisingly sticks to Bava and the actors, with some of the background history of AIP and their relation to Bava, while the other two have a little more fun and talk about its placement in the sci-fi genre as a whole, occasionally poking fun at some of its production design (the “meteor rejector” being in the middle of the room, for example). Both tracks note the Alien connections (as well as The Thing, albeit to a lesser extent) but don’t dwell on it, though I was surprised to hear how little Prometheus was mentioned, since as I noted, the influence is in my opinion even more direct there.

(Unfortunately “One Night of 21 Hours” - the original story the film was based on, which was included in their previous Blu - is not carried over here. Not a dealbreaker, but worth noting.)

It’s a shame Bava didn’t do more full on sci-fi; his use of color is a great match for the otherworldly landscapes the genre offers, and he clearly has a great deal of affinity for the “science” part of the equation (Newman notes that after Star Wars, sci-fi usually meant something else with very little “science fiction” involved). And he did a pretty good job of depicting an alien planet and a spaceship on a very low budget, all with in camera effects to boot! So imagine what he could have done in the 1970s when the budgets started getting bigger and the technicians learned even more tricks to pull off the impossible. Oh well. At least we got this one.

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Sputnik (2020)

FEBRUARY 1, 2021

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

One of the things that really devastated me about 2020's (and, so far, 2021's) endless stream of cancellations is that I didn't get to go to any festivals of note. Screamfest and Beyond Fest had scaled down drive-in versions, but given my aversion to seeing genre fare for the first time on a murky drive-in screen, I didn't attend them as often as I would had they taken place in their usual venues. So I ended up only really going to the films that were already on my radar; as much as I love going in blind and discovering things at a fest, I couldn't muster up the energy to drive an hour and sit uncomfortably to see a subpar presentation of a film I wasn't already interested in seeing. But had these fests (or others, like Fantastic Fest) gone on as normal, I have no doubt that I would have seen Sputnik at one of them and been even more impressed than I was with the Blu-ray at home.

And that's because I wouldn't have been told beforehand how good it was. I rememberered hearing a few raves out of whatever virtual means it premiered on over the summer, and even if I hadn't, this very Blu-ray slaps a Rotten Tomatoes' FRESH! logo right there on the box art (studios: PLEASE stop doing this! Use a sticker on the cellophane if it means so much to you to tout an arbitrary accomplishment), informing me that those who saw it found it to be very blurb-worthy. Normally I bristle at these shenanigans, but luckily I still knew almost nothing about the film's plot, so beyond feeling ready to have a "what's the big deal?" kind of reaction (wouldn't be the first time with these particular circumstances) I was still able to have that same kind of blank slate that I would get at a festival, where I often just see whatever I can fit into my schedule without bothering to look into what it's about or anything like that.

Ironically, if I knew the basic premise I might have liked it even more, as my expectations would be happily subverted. The opening of the film shows two astronauts returning from a space mission (in 1983; it's a period piece though it rarely matters much beyond dated tech like a TV that needs an antenna) and discovering that they brought something back with them, which is, you know, the setup for 800 movies that air on Syfy. One astronaut is seemingly killed and the other is being kept in a military lab of some sort, where he is questioned about the mission and what he remembers about their return. Feeling they need more than they're getting from him, the government jerks bring in Tatyana Yuryevna, a doctor who has recently gotten into hot water for ignoring protocol in order to save her patient - i.e. just the sort of person that might be able to help the poor astronaut.

Why does he need help, you ask? Well, as it turns out (and as the film reveals in a wonderfully casual way), the poor sod is now infected with an alien parasite, one that exits through his mouth every night and leaves him unconscious as it does the sort of thing movie alien monsters tend to do. Then it returns, with the astronaut waking up and seemingly having no memory of the nightly ordeal or that he is carrying another being inside his body. The science behind it serves two purposes; not only does it explain how something so big can be inside of him (the oxygen in the air enlarges it, and it shrinks again as it returns) but also offers a sort of ticking clock scenario, as the two form a symbiotic relationship, so one can't live without the other.

Based on that you will probably assume eventually the thing doesn't WANT to go back inside the guy's body and it becomes a chase kind of movie, with the creature killing various military goons while our hero tries to find a way to save the man she is starting to get close to, but I will only say that that isn't true, and the story takes more surprising turns than the initial premise would have you believe. The runtime (just under two hours) should be enough to inform you that this isn't going to be a schlocky Asylum kind of movie, but what's great about it is that it DOES deliver those same kind of cheap thrills all the same. There are some splatter effects in this that rival the deaths you see in the likes of the Wrong Turn or Hatchet series, which I was certainly not expecting after the first act, which suggested something akin to Arrival, where science and logic were the order of the day.

And even without those elements, the film would still be a winner due to its two-hander setup, where you're rooting for both Tatyana and Konstantin the astronaut, who ultimately learns more about his situation and has a whole new set of problems to worry about. He is a flawed man, but not a bad one - this isn't like Species II where the guy turns into a villain as the alien parasite gets stronger, so you're always on his side even if he occasionally does morally unsound things. Ultimately, alien or not, he just wants to reunite with his family, which I think anyone can appreciate and might even take on more weight with certain viewers in the current climate. Obviously the movie was made pre-lockdown era (it was actually a victim of one of the first major cancellations, as it was set to premiere at Tribeca in April of 2020), but it's going to be much easier to sympathize with Konstantin - confined to a few rooms and devoid of much interaction with other humans - than it might have been a year or so ago.

It's even more impressive that this is the first feature from director Egor Abramenko. His previous effort was a short named The Passenger that this film is seemingly an expanded version of (same plot, per IMDb, and also the same composer - Oleg Karpachev, whose work here is incredible), though that short's writer isn't listed as a writer here, so I'm not sure what the deal is there. But whatever its origins, it never FEELS like an expanded short film like many such things do; the film may be long but it's paced well, doling out reveals at a steady clip while never losing sight of the characters. Even the villain gets shades of grey; you can tell just by looking at him that he's going to be an antagonist eventually (you might expect to see him in a police lineup with guys like Stephen Lang, Neil McDonough, and Gary Oldman), but he's got a strange honesty about him that made him more endearing than the average "we want the alien for weapons!" baddie. His underling, another doctor that gets somewhat sidelined by Tatyana's presence, also keeps things engaging as you're never sure if he will side with her or not. In other words, the gore visuals are great and appreciated, but they're the cherry on top, not the lone bright spot they sometimes are in these kind of things.

As for the creature itself, it's an all CGI creation, which is a bummer, but at least it's a largely well done effect. And more importantly, the design itself is good! It's not one of those JJ Abrams-y monsters that have no discernible thought behind them; you get the idea that Abramenko or one of the writers could actually tell you things about its bodily functions that are never important to the onscreen actions. I might even be able to recognize it from a still image five years from now, unlike say, the Cloverfield monsters (any of them) which left my head the second I walked out of the theater (or shut off Netflix in the last one's case). That's really all I ask of these beasties, yet so many modern filmmakers can't seem to manage, as they prefer to just go nuts with their CGI designs until it's just a giant blob of stuff with a vaguely human or animal form.

The disc is coming next week from Scream Factory, but as is sadly often the case with their IFC Midnight releases, there are no bonus features to speak of - just the trailer. Seems including the Passenger short would be a no-brainer, so I wish that had been included at the very least, though not as much as I wish it defaulted to the original Russian language track. It's there, as are English subtitles of course (there's also a descriptive audio track, which is nice), but it defaults to an English dub, and - at least on the PS4 - there's no way to just toggle the audio or subtitle track with its respective button. Instead you have to bring up the pop up menu and enable them there, which is just frustrating and takes much longer. Scream Factory's discs are among the least user friendly on the planet anyway (no resume play, no return cycling of the menu options, etc. Most of their initial releases didn't even have subtitles!) but this is a new one that is hopefully just some strange error in the mastering and not yet another simple accessibility option that they won't be offering for whatever reason. Get it together, SF!

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Crawlers (2020)

SEPTEMBER 24, 2020

GENRE: ALIEN
SOURCE: STREAMING (HULU)

I wasn't planning on watching two "pod people" movies in a row, but one thing about HMAD that I tried to do as much as possible is not search too long, if at all, for something to watch. The only rule is that I couldn't have seen it (or, on occasion, couldn't remember anything about it from a childhood viewing), so when I loaded up Hulu's horror section and saw Crawlers on the front page, I just clicked it without any further thought. In fact, I thought it was a zombie movie about some drunks being the only line of defense, and that's not what it is at all, so either I am thinking of another movie or I made up a better one in my head based on what little I learned about the film since it premiered back in March.

The title refers to drinking though, specifically pub "crawlers", as it's St Patrick's Day in a college town and thus all the idiots are getting very very drunk. Our heroine, Misty, isn't a non-drinker but clearly isn't excited about getting blackout drunk either, and has only shown up at one of the pubs to support her best friend, Chloe, who is very much the type to get blackout drunk. Upon arrival she is quickly put off by two things: the presence of some frat guys, one of whom may have assaulted her (she woke up in the frat house unsure of what happened to her, no one will spill details), and Chloe's OTHER best friend, a somewhat snobby girl named Yuejin. Chloe and Yuejin go off to play drinking games, leaving her at the pub without much of a reason to be there, occasionally making awkward small talk with Shauna, a local weed/molly dealer who spouts conspiracy theories and has little affection for any of these people beyond selling to them to make a living.

All of this information is conveyed on-screen in a normal manner, but it takes about twenty minutes to get through it all, because the film is actually a flashback being told by Shauna in the present day, complete with freeze frame interruptions and record scratches. Sometimes the movie only resumes for a few seconds before she interrupts again, a device that almost had me shutting the film off and finding something else to watch, an emergency action I say with some pride I've only had to employ ONCE in thirteen years of doing this. Starting off this kind of movie by telling you that someone survives is already kind of a silly move in my opinion, but to constantly break into it instead of letting the audience get caught up in its narrative is just plain stupid.

Thankfully, as the film goes on Shauna's interruptions become more infrequent. However, the writers neglect to take advantage of the solid foundation they set up in that pub scene, which is that both Misty and Shauna can't get anyone to believe them: the former about her assault, the latter about aliens coming to destroy the world (something she grew up with due to her mother, witness to a local meteor crash forty years prior). The parallels could have been fascinating, especially since Shauna's got the proof that Misty lacks (which could pave the way to the ultimate kind of "believe women" scenario) once the pod people begin taking over more and more people, but almost nothing is done with this concept. Misty eventually confronts one of the other frat guys (the obligatory nice one who is in the frat but does not go along with their grosser attributes) and gets to (spoiler) attack the guy who assaulted her without even having to check first if he's an alien, but that's about it for that storyline. They don't even utilize their title; the protagonists are all basically sober, the pub crawl all but completely forgotten after the first twenty minutes or so.

Instead, it focuses more on the fact that Chloe kind of sucks, which allows for a somewhat heartbreaking moment where Misty confronts both her friend and one that's an alien and has to figure out which one is human, with the alien screwing up because it says something nice whereas the real Chloe would only care about herself. What a way to finally realize your "best friend" is a toxic drain on your own sense of self, huh? Unfortunately, it's already crystal clear to us that Chloe sucks almost as soon as we meet her, so while it is indeed a nice bit of writing, it also means we wait the entire movie for one of our protagonists to catch up to us.

I also couldn't help but think they should have confined more of the movie to the pub and/or frat house, since the budget is clearly too small for them to sell the idea of a town-wide invasion. Even the climax, where they go to a "nest" to blow it up has a distracting minimum of antagonists; at one point the nice frat guy does something that supposedly lets the aliens all know they're about to get toasted, prompting a "we got to get out of here FAST!" kind of race for the exit, but our heroes are met with almost no resistance along the way. I think we see less than a dozen of the things in the entire movie, as if they were simply wiping out the town instead of replacing its inhabitants. Every time they go somewhere and we see absolutely nothing along the way to suggest the chaos that is supposedly happening, it makes it harder to buy.

Oh well. I liked seeing Giorgia Whigham (Shauna) again, as she was a bright spot in the somewhat underrated third season of Scream and was all gothed out there so it was fun to see her looking more normal, though in the present day scenes she has her hair blond instead of dark and more "pretty" makeup, a weird choice for a pod person movie unless they plan to make it a point, which of course they do not. And even if it's almost never utilized I enjoy the idea behind the "podding" here, which is that they are more like shapeshifters and just need to bite someone to get their DNA and change instantly - not sure if I've seen that kind of thing before. However, while I can appreciate that they were attempting to marry some legit societal issues with their pod person movie (a tradition that was mostly skipped in yesterday's Assimilate), it was frustrating to see them mostly shrugged off as the film continued, in favor of a wholly obnoxious framing device. And stop with the goddamned name on screen gimmick! It wasn't even cool in The Faculty, 22 years ago! And that movie did these things better anyway!

What say you?

P.S. This was actually the first "Into the Dark" movie I've watched - feel free to recommend some others! I optimistically assume this is not a high bar for the series.

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Assimilate (2019)

SEPTEMBER 23, 2020

GENRE: ALIEN
SOURCE: STREAMING (NETFLIX)

There are only four official versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, released in 1956, 1978, 1993, and 2007 (the less said about that last one, the better), but there are countless "homages" that take its basic "pod person" plot and do their best to not get sued. Assimilate is one such film, and while it is hardly a classic and nothing you absolutely need to track down, it hits all the beats and gets the job done, which is all you can really ask for when the story has been done so many times and - if you're smart enough to consider it beforehand - realize that an independent film such as this isn't going to be able to go all out with "end of the world" scenarios like the big budgeted studio efforts.

But again, not being sued is a priority regardless of the budget, so your mileage will vary depending on how much you connect to what they're specifically bringing to the table. Here, it's the usual small midwestern town stuff, but the focus is on a trio of teenagers, making it come off like the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew trying to figure out what's going on and then survive. Granted, some of that element was already covered in The Faculty, but their parents were largely MIA (Elijah Wood's were the only ones we met, right?) and the town seemingly lacked a police force. Here, not only do we meet all sorts of folks in their town (their parents, the priest, the cops, the neighbors, other students, etc) but the aliens are incredibly efficient and turning them all. By the halfway point there are only four humans left, it seems, which actually ramps up the tension quite a bit because our three heroes are pretty equal, no obvious survivor (or obvious goner) among them.

The fourth human is my man Cam Gigandet from Pandorum and Priest, who I haven't seen in much since. He is the town's deputy, and has a resigned kind of bond with the heroes (who have a Youtube channel where they goof off, so you get the idea he is occasionally required to tell them to get off someone's property or whatever, but knows they're good/harmless kids). As their lone adult ally, you're of course waiting for the moment where he too is turned, so that they can lose all hope (spoiler ahead) but... he doesn't! I mean, he doesn't make it, either, but he goes out protecting them, and has no problem believing their story. Even before he has his own proof (an alien tries to clone him), he allows "Nancy Drew" (actually Andi Matichak from the Halloween revival) to leave her home despite her "parents" (pod folk) demanding that she stay, as if he knows something is up and that she'd be safer elsewhere. So he's set up as a generic kind of character, but they zig where most zag, and I liked that.

The priest, on the other hand, might as well have been an alien as soon as we met him. Creepy weirdo.

I also liked that it kept the "found footage"-y element to a minimum. As our boys are Youtubers, they are filming a lot and one of them even has a little button cam that would provide an easy way for the filmmakers to get around the "why are they still filming?" aspect and even free up the character for more action, but it's largely backgrounded once everything goes to hell, used only for the odd moment here and there (and no full sequences, at least not that I can recall). I mean I know it's 2020 and no one's demanding the POV style anymore, but you can never be too sure - after all, the most blatant Halloween knockoff was Offerings, and that came out over a decade later. And, for what it's ironically worth, has there been a pod person found footage movie? I can't recall one. Untapped territory!

Plus, all the kids were likable, unlike real Youtubers. Matichak is always a charming presence, and the two guys feel like genuine small town kids trying to stave off their boring existence with their show. One of them clearly has a dud home life (no dad, mom has a revolving bedroom door), and we can easily infer he spends most of his time with the other one thanks to that one's mom assuming he will be staying there for dinner (i.e. "as usual"). It's almost a shame that one of them is offed with like a half hour to go, as their brotherly bond was welcoming for a modern horror movie where most teens spend their screentime bickering. Also, they're not both pining after Matichak - there's no love triangle! Wooo!

Weirdly, it has the same pro-social media ending as #Alive, with (spoiler) people using comments sections and the like to let rescuers - and each other - know that not all hope was lost and that there were survivors scattered around. In retrospect, it's kind of a blessing that Don Siegel was forced to add a happy ending to the 1956 version, because it was rather silly to think it could be contained so quickly and most versions since go with the more realistic "it spreads to the rest of the world" idea (The Faculty is a curious one since it leaves it up to interpretation; it's TOO happy and thus suspicious). Here we get a sort of mix - yeah, it's everywhere, but they haven't figured out how to shut down the internet yet, so the survivors can stay in touch. Thanks to the internet, we can pour one out for scenes where someone on a CB radio keeps asking "is anyone out there?" from now on, bless.

Dodgy CGI for the alien parasites and some dragginess here and there aside, this was a pretty enjoyable entry in this sub-genre. It's suspenseful, occasionally gross (the pod people are formed nude and look like corpses, so if you're a necrophile you'll find lots to love), and thankfully wastes almost no time getting to the poddin'. And it's got what may be one of the best "they're a pod person now!" reveals ever, the details of which I won't spoil here but I'll say it involves a person who is seemingly better off as an alien. Also I was glad to see a "small town America" setting that was ACTUALLY a small American town (in Mississippi, to be specific) as opposed to Canada or Bulgaria like most movies of this type. Best of all: nothing as stupid as this scene happens. Good work all around, folks.

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FTP: Imitiation Girl (2017)

JULY 10, 2019

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

Some folks complained that Imitation Girl was a knockoff of Under the Skin, but I didn't see the latter so I can't support/refute those claims - I only bring it up so that you, internet commenter, don't bother to make the same comparison. Even if it was intentional... so what? Friday the 13th was an admitted attempt to cash in on Halloween, and both of those are loved by horror fans, so I think we can accept two movies about aliens taking the form of a human woman. And from what little I know of the other film, I can tell they have different plots entirely - while that one had a rising body count and a sole performance for its lead, Imitation Girl has no violence and is more of a drama about the alien woman and the regular human whose form she clones.

Both roles are played by Lauren Ashley Carter, who was so good in Jug Face and is even more impressive here playing the two roles. As the alien one, she spends the movie adapting to a human life, seemingly not possessing any traditional movie alien traits (i.e. she doesn't want to kill everyone) and making her way around the southwestern US - Starman may come to mind, and that's probably fine with writer/director Natasha Kermani, since it's similarly about what it means to be human and also reaffirming that maybe not every alien that comes to earth wants to kill us. The other character is Julianna, an model/adult film actress whose magazine spread gives "Imitation" her inspiration for human form (the alien is seemingly made of black goo otherwise). Her life, as we quickly learn, kind of sucks - she's doing films that are bad even by porn standards, selling drugs to make ends meet, and basically having trouble making one meaningful connection with another person.

It only takes about a half hour (if that) of the film cutting back and forth between their day to day life to see where it's going - they're going to meet up and fill in the missing pieces for the other. So it's unfortunate that (SPOILER!) the movie is practically over by the time this actually happens, as I could have happily watched another movie of them palling around or doing... well, anything really. The film ends so abruptly after their first encounter that it's not even clear what either of them might have done with the other had they any time to do so. Carter's dual performances are so good that I never minded when it would cut from one to the other, as I was equally compelled by both of their single storylines, but part of it was my excitement for what would happen when they finally met, and the payoff for that wasn't as fulfilling.

Until then, good stuff. Kermani's got a great eye, and her music elevates many of these scenes to boot. There's one around the halfway point (if that) where Imitation is learning to cook and learn Farsi (an Iranian man finds her in the desert and lets her stay at the home he shares with his sister) that I found quite moving, completely forgetting that I actually started watching this thinking it was about an alien woman presumably doing movie alien things (i.e. TENTACLE MURDERS!), and by the end I actually forgot the character started off as a puddle of black goo. The filmmaker also does a fine job balancing the two narratives; the risk of tonal shifts is quite high since Imitation's scenes are generally uplifting while Julianna's life continually gets worse, but it never feels that way at all. If one character's path wasn't interesting, the movie as a whole wouldn't work - thankfully it's not an issue.

I should be clear that this isn't even remotely a horror movie - no one is trying to harm anyone, nothing is particularly scary, etc. It's a straight up character drama with an unusual premise involving an alien. But it's part of Dread Central's label, and while the movies have been hit or miss, I do like what they're doing and wanted to make sure horror fans are aware of the steadily increasing line of titles (most of which are indeed full blown horror). The discs all have extensive bonus features and there's a healthy variety of sub-genres being represented (including documentaries - they put out the one about Kane Hodder that I quite liked), plus reversible art for those who like to have options. I assume it's Carter's experience with the genre and the keyword "alien" that got it on their radar, but I'm glad they branched out of their comfort zone to present it as I might not have seen it otherwise - which is really the main draw of these specialty lines, far as I'm concerned. If this came out from IFC or A24 or whatever I probably wouldn't have seen it, but being part of a budding line that I'm naturally inclined to take an interest in meant it got to my eyeballs. And hopefully yours too, if it sounds up your "not in the mood for traditional horror" alley.

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Brightburn (2019)

MAY 26, 2019

GENRE: ALIEN, SLASHER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

As movie concepts go, "What if Kal-El became Michael Myers instead of Clark Kent?" is kind of a great one - it allows the filmmakers to use a story everyone knows and then pivot into something different. It's basically the same as Marvel's "What If?" series (as I'm not a big DC reader, I don't know if they had something similar - forgive me if they do), where you'd get something like "What if Spider-Man saved Uncle Ben?" or "What if the Fantastic Four all got the same powers?", and get a quick glimpse of what that'd be like, per the imagination of that issue's writer anyway. It's such an interesting idea that I almost wish Brightburn had made tens of millions of dollars this past weekend, because maybe it'd launch an anthology series of films that had the same core idea, and then one creative team would do something more exciting beyond the one line concept.

Because sadly, if you've seen the trailer for the film, you've basically seen every idea it has - there's really nothing to it beyond which I've already described. It takes the core origin of Superman that you've seen in any number of movies (including/perhaps especially Man of Steel, more on that soon) and gives you a Cliff's Notes version so that they can get to the R-rated switcheroom but then never gets any more ambitious after that. For those who have somehow never seen a Superman origin story, the setup is this: the childless owners of a farm (played by Elizabeth Banks and David Denman) find a crashed spaceship in the woods behind their house one night, and it has what looks like a human baby. They raise it as their own, and as he grows up he discovers he has powers: super strength, heat vision, flight, etc., but to them he's still their son and they want to protect him. In the DC comics and movies, he of course becomes Superman/Clark Kent, a man of justice and principal who uses his powers for good.

In Brightburn, he uses his powers to melt a guy's head, or fly someone up hundreds of feet into the air only to drop them. As to WHY he does these things, the movie never bothers to explain that, but unlike Michael Myers I feel this time we kind of should know what exactly turned him into a murderer. Since the origin is so clearly taken from Superman's, it's puzzling why this film's primary character (named Brandon Breyer) turns out so different from Clark Kent. If it's a nature vs nurture thing, fine, but as we don't ever see the home planet or even learn anything about it, we have to just assume it's an... evil planet? I guess? Banks and Denman are seen to be great and loving parents, even after he starts doing terrible things, so I guess we have to just assume that it's simply in his nature to be an alien killer, and the planet is playing a long con by dropping him to Earth and waiting 12 years for him to do anything murder-y.

It's one of the many things that the film could have taken the time to explore, or even hint at. Instead it just lets Brandon discover a power, use it to kill someone, lie about his whereabouts to his only somewhat suspicious parents, and then repeat the cycle again. Worse, there's no real connective tissue from one sequence to the next, as if everyone just kind of hit a mental reset button in between scenes. At one point early on, Brandon lashes out as his father for not letting him have a birthday gift (a rifle), ruining his birthday party and rightfully pissing the man off - but in the next scene everyone's hunky dory again. And it extends to the other characters too; Brandon visits a classmate who is already afraid of him, and when she mentions her mother not wanting him anywhere near her, he says he'll take care of it and disappears. You'd think the girl would warn her mother, or at least mention it to the cops when the woman turned up missing (it's the lady in the diner you've seen in the trailer), but nope! She's barely even mentioned again.

And that is very frustrating, because each scene on its own is fine, sometimes even quite good, especially when it concerns a character whose fate WASN'T spoiled in the damn trailer. But they don't really add up to much, so as the film went on I found myself less and less interested and basically just mentally checking off when each thing from the trailer happened and in turn what would be left ("Where's that bit where Banks runs to the door to see a cop just as Brandon flies by and whooshes him off? Oh, there it is."). Even the film's closing scene was given away in the spots, so it almost felt like I was watching an extended cut of a film I already saw instead of being engaged by a new story. Such a flimsy narrative can be saved by strong/memorable characters, but that's a miss too; characterization is so thin that at an hour into the movie, Banks' character comes home with a name tag on and it was the first time I was aware she even had a job (what exactly it is is still a mystery).

Also, while the gore gags are great (there's one involving a jaw that KNB, Savini, etc. must be jealous they didn't do first), the stalking parts aren't particularly scary or suspenseful, killing much of the "It's a superhero slasher" appeal for me. If you're a fan of the later Jason movies where you rooted for him and they doubled the body counts, you might be into it, but as I prefer the older ones where the filmmakers were still trying to have some real tension in there, I found it lacking in that department. There are some nice shots here and there, like one of Brandon standing (flying?) at a window as the drapes blow him in and out of visibility, but the stalking is pretty much always the same - he is standing in a spot, then he's gone, then he's right next to the target and kills them. The gimmick gets old after two kills, and the script never bothers to introduce any real wrinkles or surprises. Banks discovers a weakness, but it's a non-starter, and there are no equally powered heroes for him to fight or anything like that - he just does his thing over and over until the movie hits a 90 minute mark, at which point it ends.

So really, the only thing that really kept me engaged was my amusement that producer James Gunn (his brother and cousin wrote the script) convinced Sony to give him a few million bucks to make fun of Zack Snyder, his "partner" from Dawn of the Dead (Gunn's script was rewritten by others once Snyder came on board; I'm not sure if the two ever actually collaborated in a traditional way). Snyder's version of Superman has been (rightfully) criticized for being kind of an asshole, without much regard for the human beings around him, so it seemed to me like Gunn and his crew had the idea of taking it to the next level and turning him into an actual serial killer. Which is very funny, yes, but probably would have worked better as a Funny or Die short film or the one-shot comic book I described. For a feature film, as good as that joke may be, it ultimately wore too thin for me. It's a fine enough one-time watch I guess, but this concept deserved a lot more meat on the bone.

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Alien: Covenant (2017)

MAY 21, 2017

GENRE: ALIEN
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

I don't know what it is about Prometheus that gets people so worked up on both sides of the argument, but I hope we don't have to listen to the same online shouting matches for another five years about Alien: Covenant, because despite the title it's really just "Prometheus 2", following up that film's themes and, once he's reintroduced, main character. Additionally, it suffers from a number of the exact same problems (dumb characters! Too much ret-conning about where the aliens came from!), so it's possible some of these folks can just copy paste their old critiques into new Facebook posts. My only hope is that Ridley Scott makes the next film quicker, and then it finally connects up to the first Alien, so people can stop theorizing and go on with their damn lives. Until then, please stop arguing - both films have strong points and weak points, like most movies ever made (including Alien and Aliens, sorry to burst your bubble), and like EVERY movie ever made, there will be people who saw it differently than you, and their minds won't be changed by your tweetstorm.

As for me, if I was ranking the series, I'd put this one about in the middle, same as Prometheus, in that both are not up to the original "Ripley Trilogy" but better than Resurrection and the two AVPs, though I guess those films no longer count (if they ever did?) thanks to the reveals in this new branch of the series, which makes AVP's plot seemingly impossible. I'll let you discover the specifics yourself, but I don't think I'm spoiling too much when I say David (from Prometheus) is back and has seemingly doubled down on his "villainous by curiosity" nature, as he is once again doing things just to kind of see what happens even though he seemingly knows it will spell doom for his human colleagues. But this time there is another android, Walter (also played by Michael Fassbender, with a different accent) who is a later model than David, designed to be less human i.e. potentially evil. It's this dynamic that Scott was clearly interested in (the film opens with a lengthy conversation between David and his creator, Guy Pearce - this time without old man makeup), and thus it's no surprise that it's also where the film really shines - the two androids conversing about whether saving someone's life is programming or a "soul" is fascinating, and I could have easily watched another half hour or so of their debate.

But alas, people who bought tickets for Prometheus wanted more alien action than they got, so this time they get it, even if Scott's heart doesn't seem into it. People will argue about the gestation periods and all that because they have nothing better to do with their lives, but everyone else can enjoy the fact that we get not one but two aliens bursting out of bodies in the film's first half, along with the accompanying body count. The plot, such as it is, concerns the titular Covenant, a pioneer ship with fifteen active crew and a couple thousand frozen colonists ready to build a new world on a distant planet that was found inhabitable. But as this is an Alien film, a mysterious transmission from none other than Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace's character from Prometheus) has them detouring to another planet (no, not LV-426, but not the one from Prometheus either) and looking for the person who sent it, and that's where the trouble begins as two people get infected (with a new method - inhaling xeno-spores!) while they hunt for Shaw on this strange planet.

One interesting thing I noticed is that the movie has very few "nighttime" scenes - most of the alien action occurs outside during daytime (albeit overcast, it's not a "sunny" entry), which allows us a better look at the various creatures. The full sized ones are practical and used sparingly but well, so all of that stuff is fine - the problem is that the action/horror beats themselves are rather uninspired. Again, these people are rather dumb, or at least overly prone to panic, as one blows up themselves AND their transport by firing wildly in a room filled with gas tanks, and later one shoots his squadmate in the same circumstances. Two of them even go off for some shower sex at one point; to be fair they thought the alien was dead at that point, but were you REALLY in the mood after ten of your friends were killed? If Scott and his writers (four are credited) put as much effort into these sequences as they did the more thought-provoking, big idea ones, this could be a minor classic instead of just a pretty good entry in a very erratic series. Hell, even Life offered more inspired "killer monster on a spaceship" action, even though on a base level it was just Alien - why can't an actual Alien movie measure up to the damn knockoffs?

As far as the humans go, they're the usual mixed bag of recognizable character actors (Demian Bichir, Amy Seimetz, Billy Crudup) and borderline anonymous grunts, giving a mix between the first Alien's blue collar paycheck collectors and Aliens' tight squad of buddies. Character development is fleeting to the point that I didn't realize two characters were married until one cradled the other (dead one) in his arms, and probably will have better material on the Blu-ray (as did Prometheus, for the record). The nicest surprise was Danny McBride, playing the ship's pilot who only makes I think two jokes throughout the movie, shedding most if not all of his usual persona for a change (I find him to be one of those guys that always plays variations of the same character). I was also happy to see Callie Hernandez from Blair Witch as the co-pilot; she doesn't get to do much beyond challenge McBride's decisions (they're all on the ship above the storm-ravaged planet; he wants to go help the others, she wants to keep the ship safe) but it's still fun to see her go from low-budget found footage to a megabudget flick like this.

But they're led by Katherine Waterston, who the script lets down more than anyone else. Her husband is killed early on (not alien related) so she's sad, fine, but that's pretty much her one note throughout the film. And they give her Ripley-esque hair, which does her no favors as you're constantly reminded of what a better character Sigourney Weaver got to play. She barely even gets to do anything badass; Walter saves her in one action scene, McBride's character is backing her up throughout another... for a series that is iconic for its female protagonist (an Oscar nominee for Aliens, in fact - incredibly rare for genre movies at all let alone sequels) they really should have delivered more on this front. I had to double check her character name, for Christ's sake (Daniels), and I actually like Waterston from her other movies, so I can't imagine how blank she'll be to viewers who have no prior connection to her.

That said, it's really Fassbender's show, and he is terrific (as he always is). They don't interact too much, but when he's playing David and Walter in the same scene, it's electric, and it also provides the film with its most suspenseful moment as David does the fingering on a flute as he tries to teach Walter to play. I spent the entire scene sure that David was going to ram the thing through Walter's skull (or chip, I guess) to kill him, and tensed up more than I did for any of the uninspired alien scenes. But even when David is talking to other characters, he is riveting - I love how casual he is about how evil he is, and the glee he seemingly takes at taking advantage of how stupid some of these people are. There's a minor "faith vs. science" thing going on between him and Billy Crudup's character (a man of religion) that also shines, but it also seems like it got whittled to the bone, either by rewrites or a nervous studio, unsure if they were willing to allow more of these heady conversations in a summer movie about aliens. God forbid anything be interesting nowadays.

Long story short, if you want more alien action than Prometheus offered, you'll get it - but it's still very much a Prometheus movie, far more concerned with ideas about creation and man's place in the world than xenomorphs scurrying around and melting faces with its acid blood. You get those things, but even a child can probably sense the filmmaker was in a rush to get them over with so he could get back to what actually interested him. Like Prometheus, the film would probably be a lot better if it was completely disconnected from a long-running franchise; Ridley may have started it, but it became another thing, and now he's forced to serve two masters (in a time when impatient audiences won't allow him to really dig deep with the things he wants to explore). I actually liked how the Alien series always offered another filmmaker's unique approach to the material (even Paul WS Anderson), but now it's seemingly a Ridley Scott series - it's a tough thing to shake off when you're watching the movie for the first time, especially when they're seemingly promising more Alien than Prometheus by changing the title. I luck out a bit in that I've never held the original series up to as much scrutiny or obsession as say, the Halloween movies, so I can't get angry at these things like some die-hards do (AVP:R is the only one I flat out dislike, but Alien - my favorite - isn't in my top 25 movies or anything). Again, they have their weak points and their strong points, and this is no exception - it's just weird that the weaker things are the parts we ostensibly bought tickets to see.

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